Here's Part 1 if you missed it...
Part 2 - The Teacher Look
8/15/25 La Cerna HS
Ms. Leher is in the office early, sipping the first of many Diet Cokes from a stash behind her desk, and she looks up with a big smile when I greet her. “Well hey there!”
A week in, the new school year is climbing uncertain terrain toward a routine. I mostly follow the schedule I was given the first day, a teacher’s aide to those Special Ed Math, Science, and English classes I met last week. It’s awkward being the second adult in a small room, but between generous teachers, distracted students, and in-class assignments we’re getting by. My hope is to build rapport with students whom I see on a regular basis, by being in this one school.
As usual, I check in early - 45 minutes before my “shift” - before Ms. Shenk the sub coordinator arrives. The clock in the admin office next to the sign-in station has been stuck at 3:45 for a week now, the second hand ticking up hopefully towards the 9 then falling back down.
“You’re here before the teachers!” Ms. Leher gushes, a compliment to my punctuality that hits like a gut punch.
Yep, me and the janitors. “Just habit,” I respond with a forced smile.
The real teachers dress business casual and wear their photo credentials around their necks on dark blue lanyards emblazoned with the school logo. Subs like me on the other hand wear jeans and sneakers - flexible clothing that’s ready for a science lab or a gymnasium - with a paper badge pinned to our shirts that says “Guest Teacher,” like a party-goer wearing a “Hello My Name Is…” sticker. It’s hard to look the part or feel like a team member.
“Thanks for being here,” she tells me optimistically, dispatching me for the day armed with a sticky note listing class periods and room numbers as reminders.
Classes otherwise progress. Ms. Gregos and Ms. Baker are introducing their freshmen to topics like writing, grammar, and self-advocacy. Ms. Vaca who’s smooth delivery and solid classroom management belie her first-year status, has begun a conversation with her juniors about the college application process and the personal narrative. The other day her 4th period was all about the growth mindset and learning from failure. Hopefully her kids took away more from her lecture than the valid point that “colleges are caring less about grades and more about grit.” They still care about grades, a lot.
Hull manages Physics like a strict disciplinarian, friendly with little to hide but tough and no-nonsense. So far he’s making it work, somehow turning what others would call a disability (the wheelchair, crutches and support animal) into a strength. Forced to shed the vanity of beauty, his vulnerability is completely disarming, and any comments or smirks about his physical appearance have already been done and dealt with. His cohort of juniors is mostly the same group as in Ms. Vaca’s room, and where they can chat and wander off-topic in their English class, with Mr. Hull they’re learning that they need to pay attention.
The biggest obstacle to the Physics class is Physics, the material threatening in its newness. Wavelengths, time and space, plate tectonics, the Big Bang Theory. In Geometry, I know enough to be dangerous. I don’t know what I don’t know about Physics.
Ms. Kim struggles in Chemistry class, timid and unwilling to take real steps toward discipline as the classroom of sophomores, dominated by several trouble-makers, chats loudly and moves about the room as she lectures or administers an in-class worksheet.
Over in Geometry, Mr. Lee is dealing with the same batch of kids and having an equally difficult time of it. Though he talks the talk, Mr. Lee never follows through. Yesterday Cooper was a constant distraction, in both rooms. Both teachers responded to every interruption, be it small or large. Kim is apologetic, as though saying, “yeah, this stuff really is boring, isn’t it.” And Lee, with his full-on, strict attempts to redirect Cooper’s bad behavior (“Be quiet!”), sounded appropriate in the moment, but without any disciplinary action ended up like the main character in Groundhog Day, where the same situation keeps repeating itself.
Cooper was back at it this afternoon. Looks like 6 more weeks of winter.
8/25/25 La Cerna HS
I love my yoga teachers, but I love some more than others. Last night’s class with Catherine just didn’t work out for me. Normally laid back and informal, something about her class was off, and somewhere between the first vinyasa and the last shavasana she lost me. She stormed through the poses, with what felt like impossibly fast instructions to inhale and exhale that would’ve had me hyperventilating if I’d tried to keep up. Near the end, she instructed us to sit in full-lotus, with an option to try a half-lotus, but as usual I was unable to execute any lotus, which was frustrating.
Similarly a recent class with Reba was uncomfortable. Reba is an excellent yoga practitioner and an engaging, dynamic teacher. Athletic and regal, I have to say she’s also a little loud for my tastes. The other night she had us howling like wolves during class, then mooing like cows, and even dancing like monkeys. Honestly can you picture me dancing like a monkey? At the end of class, she sang to us during shavasana.
At one point she called out my name when I faced the wrong direction during Warrior Two. “Wake up, Tom!”
It was good-natured - she thinks out loud and is constantly chatting, so if she imagines it she says it. But I couldn’t help feeling put out, like sitting in the front row at a comedy show, where the comic calls you out and makes you part of the gag. “Stay with us!”
As we lay in corpse pose at the end of our practice last night, Catherine moved among us spraying eucalyptus oil. The meditative scent was supposed to take us deeper into our intention, but it only made me cough.
Not every teacher can be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s one of those life lessons we learn as we grow up. It doesn’t make them bad teachers. Sometimes adults simply communicate in different ways. My Special Ed students aren’t getting this. Good teachers to them are either magic or otherwise just those adults who stay out of their way and let them get away with mischief. Bad teachers are everyone else.
In Ms. Kim’s Chemistry class, the usual suspects are creating a sideshow that is growing in distraction and becoming more and more the main attraction. Rami and Camden, Corbin and Josiah, all carrying on while she placates and accommodates.
Mr Hull has introduced me to a book about classroom management called Reluctant Disciplinarian. It’s written in the first person by Gary Rubinstein, a self-acknowledged “softy” who fell into teaching and learned how to manage his room the hard way after a couple of years’ trial and error. One of his principle rules regarding strong classroom management is that a teacher develop a “teacher look,” an alter-ego used in the classroom, a no-nonsense stare that tells students you mean serious business. He went on to become a Teacher of the Year in New York once he’d mastered the “teacher look.”
Ms. Kim has no “teacher look” and it’s clear to me she ought to read this book. She wears her warm personality on her sleeve and badly wishes everyone would behave and just get along. The guys love Ms. Kim. Soft and friendly, reacting to every comment. Pliable and easy to manipulate.
Mr. Lee has a “teacher look,” but it never lasts long enough to serve a useful purpose. Like Ms. Kim, he can’t believe the students don’t like him for being a math teacher and a nice guy, and he’s exasperated by their insolence and distractive behavior. He vents to me after class, approaching tears. 20 years a teacher, and he’s being done in by his 6th period Geometry class, just like the rookie Ms. Kim.
Cooper, seated in the middle of the room and literally the center of attention, makes comments and gestures and strolls about the class, all in an effort to distract learning. Camden and Josiah howl and throw things at one another from their separated seats. Abby and Megan take advantage of the distractions and talk incessantly, regardless of the lecture or any other expectation. Grace laughs loudly in response to all the antics. Mostly the same kids as in Kim’s room, they’re collectively out of control.
On the other end of the spectrum, Eve and Robert wait patiently for some instruction. London browses fashion from her Chromebook, bored and obviously ready to move onto the next chapter. Evan struggles with concepts and hopes for extra help, help that won’t come as long as the room is being run by Cooper and his pals.
Eventually Mr. Spenser shows up, the Dean of Discipline - what a title. He’s young and cool-looking, and he’s known for hallway fist bumps with the worst of the worst. Yesterday it was another administrator, Ms. Garza, who’d shown up at the request of a student who’d felt “frightened” when Mr. Liong had lost his temper in response to similar bad behavior.
“Frightened…” he moaned with exasperation to me after class. “Of me!”
Mr. Lee is gentle and kind, with a straightforward but stilted approach to discipline. He’s afraid of it and treats it as a separate tool you pull out only when necessary, like a wrench for a broken pipe, not a compass on a long hike. Not part of the teacher’s personality, in other words, a natural element in classroom conversation. He’s strict in the moment, then stows his harsh language in favor of kindness. His 6th period kids are burying him as a result.
In class, Spenser quiets the wrongdoers, oddly from the back of the room near the door. The kids all face forward, away from him towards the whiteboard, silent as church mice. He threatens detention or worse, cool and nice and confident. He reminds everyone to calm down and pay attention, and tells them he’ll be back in a month, when he hopes to see big improvement. After the strange pep talk, he leaves the room without another word. Lee remains at his desk, mute with anger over the pre-Saxon chaos. The effect is that everyone thinks the Dean of Discipline is still there, silently observing, and it creates a brief and fleeting moment of peace and quiet.
It takes a few more minutes for Lee to regain his composure and address the room, breaking the silence. He restarts his lecture, not before he inexplicably gives up an unrequested peace offering. “I’ll give you a 5-minute break if you just pay attention.” Honestly this guy.
A couple of days later I’ll meet a PE teacher called Mr. Garcia while subbing a weightlifting class. An important aside: PE is my kryptonite and I avoid this class whenever possible. Rowdy students, too many escape routes, injury opportunities abounding. Give me a room with four walls and one door every time…But a sub can’t choose his room, or at least I can’t now that I’m on the full-time roster here at La Cerna. Before as a freelancer I was selective, and when I showed up for an assignment the office staff welcomed me with warm smiles, happy that a responsible adult had shown up to cover an open room. Here in this new gig, with the honeymoon ending, I’m mostly just acknowledged by Ms. Shenk with a nod of her bobbed head and a waggle of her fingers that makes the bracelets on her wrists tinkle like wind chimes.
It was thus that I wound up subbing the PE class where I met Mr. Garcia, who ran the weightlifting room we shared with a nonchalant brilliance I could only admire. He’s short and stocky, built like a fireplug, with a ball cap pulled low over his brow. He called out students around the room for inactivity and enforced the no-phone policy from his desk through the power of his glare and raspy voice.
Lately I’ve been watching reruns of one of my favorite shows, Reacher, about a gigantic army vet-drifter who travels the country discovering innocent people in trouble. I’m not a violent person, but with all the uncertainty in the world today, it feels good to watch someone who just gets things done, even if he has to dole out a few knuckle sandwiches in the process. Reacher solves problems with physical decisiveness, helping the innocent and exposing injustices, mostly by beating bad guys to a pulp. He punishes corruption and rights wrongs on the spot. If only it were that easy.
In one episode, he comforts a dog who’s being mistreated by it’s owner, who shows up and tries to pick a fight with Reacher, which is a bad idea. By the time Reacher’s finished with the deadbeat dog owner, he’s been trussed up in a dog collar and chained to a fence next to his house, bleeding from a broken nose. The dog eventually finds a loving home. Problem solved.
Mr. Garcia commands authority and I wish in the moment that I could be him. He’s the Reacher of the public school system, at least here in his weight room - and without the physical beatings it should be added. At one point a boy who’s been misbehaving asks to use the rest room and is brusquely rejected. The boy actually apologizes for asking.
Talk about a “teacher look.”
Back in Mr. Lee’s room, after the Dean has left, the kids begins to murmur again, not as noisy as before but growing in volume, mania bubbling beneath the surface. Mr. Lee stands ready to combat the bad behavior once more - head-on, calling out things like “Stop!” and “Shh!” and “Why?” - but in the moment only, never solving for tomorrow, when it will start all over again.
Groundhog Day.
Stay tuned for Part 3….
References:
“No Apologies.” Reacher, Season 1, Episode 5, Amazon Studios, 2022. Amazon Prime Video.
“5 Students facing charges after multiple guns found at Albuquerque high schools.” KOAT 7 Evening News, KOAT, Albuquerque, NM, August 21, 2025.
Rubinstein, Gary. Reluctant Disciplinarian: Advice on Classroom Management from a Softy Who Became (Eventually) a Successful Teacher. Cottonwood Press, 1999.
Groundhog Day. Directed by Harold Ramis, performances by Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and Chris Elliott, Columbia Pictures, 1993.
"Knuckles" is your new nickname. You work at Discipline Deli dispensing sandwiches!