Substitute Me For Him

There are a lot of reasons that I cringe in the anticipation of having a substitute take over my class for a day. Even though it has been some time since I have taken a personal day - okay, make that never - but I have always imagined that I would rather be there on my worst day than having a stranger come in on their best. That's a little paranoid, and just a trifle conceited, but it's the thing that has made me the "Iron Man" of Horace Mann. I schedule my medical appointments for Christmas and Summer breaks, and I still find the startling frequency of school holidays adequate to rest my worn psyche. Up until now, it has taken something like a kidney stone or jury duty to pry me out of my room, both of which turned out to be much less satisfying experiences than spending a day with my students.
That said, there is one other reason not to send a substitute in to take my place: I know the kind of torment that children are capable of piling on a fresh new face. It is essentially a no-win scenario for the short-term substitute. If they push too hard, the kids will mount a counter-insurgency. If they play it too light, they will be overrun before the first recess bell. I know this because I, myself, was a serial abuser of substitute teachers when I was a kid.
Not when I was a little kid, mind you. When I was in elementary school, I maintained a steady state of fear and respect for all of my teachers, even my sixth grade teacher who insisted we call her "Kitty". It wasn't until I reached junior high that I began to see the vicarious thrills that were available to those willing to make the slightest effort to pull pranks on our teacher's stand-in. Junior and senior high are especially geared for this, since your average substitute will see the average student for about fifty minutes and won't have enough time to create any lasting animosity or, more importantly, any kind of personal recognition of his or her tormentors. On those rare occasions that our band director was out sick, pity the poor schlub they sent in to keep an eye on the concert band that day. We sneaked out to the cafeteria and then came back and ate our Hostess cupcakes behind our music stands. We traded instruments for the day. "Hey, have you ever tried the French horn? No? Well I've been dying to be a percussionist."
I know the daily torment that a classroom teacher must endure, but for me it's part of a continuum. If you're only going to be in the room for six hours, you get a much shallower sense of time. You count down to recess, to lunch, and maybe you take the kids out for a little extra PE at the end of the day. It's not that they're desperate, they're just short-timers. I know this because back when I was the computer teacher, I was frequently pressed into service to fill in for a variety of different grade levels. I know what it's like to be the "fresh meat". At least they never asked me to fill in for the music teacher.