If you want to understand how frenetic, shallow, boring and incoherent American public education is, look no further than “Substitute,” a new account by the novelist Nicholson Baker of his 28 days filling in for teachers at elementary, middle and high schools in Maine.
It’s not entirely clear what possessed Baker to undertake this project. He begins without much explanation by describing the $34, four-evening class required to be officially certified as a substitute teacher. Baker learns the logistics of the local schools, what time he might be called in the morning, the dress codes, etc. But aside from a criminal background check, it seems that not much is required to become a substitute teacher. Which may not be surprising to anyone who has ever had one.
What follows is a minute-by-minute account — funny, sad and often tedious — of what life is really like in these classrooms. And if these schools are at all representative, American education really is as bad as everyone says. When the students complain about how early they have to get up for school and how many hours they have to spend there, Baker is quick to explain that school is glorified “day care.” And over the course of more than 700 pages, we find out just how much of the kids’ days are wasted. After reading “Substitute,” it’s easier to understand how 10 percent of college graduates could think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.
Students go to homeroom first, which is good for little more than taking attendance. Each time students switch classes, it takes them several minutes to settle down again. Baker can’t help but note how much time teachers spend simply telling students to be quiet over and over. And what is being accomplished in all this? Baker talks to students who are 10 or 20 assignments behind. Teachers regularly threaten to contact their parents but rarely seem to follow through.
It’s hard to judge the actual content of the curriculum based on the experience of a substitute teacher. Frequently, though, Baker is brought in as an “ed tech,” something like a teacher’s aide, and so he witnessed regular teachers delivering lessons. Some of the classes seem to be covering the things you might expect. The kids are still reading Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”; they are still working on Punnett squares and trying to figure out the order of operations in math. They are studying World War II and the periodic table. But each subject seems to get only the briefest attention before it’s time to move on to the next thing. Any time a teacher is actually getting to the meat of a subject, there is some trivial announcement from the PA system interrupting them. And then there is the constant inane banter from students: In response to a teacher’s reasonable explanation of North Korean oppression, a student yells “Gangham Style!”
Perhaps the most significant difference between the classrooms that Baker describes and the ones that most adults remember is the presence of technology. And it’s clear that this has only made things worse.
At Baker’s schools, each child is given an iPad, which they have with them throughout the day. When Baker is substituting, his instructions usually involve having the kids complete some assignment on their devices. Inevitably there is a chorus of announcements from students: The Internet connection is not working. They can’t understand how to make a program operate. Their access has been restricted.
The entire system seems designed to drive teachers insane and prevent students from learning. Kids are on their iPads doing things unrelated to their schoolwork — playing games, listening to music, using iPad cases to beat each other over the heads. Some are even looking at “inappropriate material” in the back of the classroom. And unless a teacher is standing over them, they won’t be able to tell who is actually doing the work and who is playing games. Teachers ask for the definition of words and students just look them up online and repeat them verbatim.
‘The entire system seems designed to drive teachers insane and prevent students from learning.’
Baker is not long on prescriptions for fixing American education. Getting rid of the technology is a no-brainer. He believes the day is too long. And he seems to think that a lot of the knowledge we impart to kids is irrelevant and useless.
American education, as Baker transcribes it, is a kind of absurdist play. Students drift from lectures about suicide prevention to Hitler’s rise to the definition of archaebacteria, taking only the smallest bits from any of them. “Substitute” is more than an argument for shortening the school day or chucking out iPads. It’s an argument for a traditional core curriculum — the kind of education in which students are taught how each subject relates to the others and why all are important to them as citizens and human beings. Without this, American education is doomed to mediocrity.