EDUCATION
Noted author discusses insights gained as a substitute teacher
S
cripps College kicked off its Scripps
Presents series last month by wel-
coming novelist and essayist
Nicholson Baker, whose latest book, Sub-
stitute: Going to School With a Thou-
sand Kids, sheds light on education in
America today.
Mr. Baker illumines readers not by quoting figures
or delving into academic philosophy but instead by
serving as a faithful observer of all the moments that
make up the day for a student, and for a substitute
teacher. The result, according to Publishers Weekly, is
a gripping and indispensable time-capsule of teach-
ing and learning in the 21st century.
After taking the stage of Balch Auditorium, Mr.
Baker was introduced and interviewed by Jonathan
Lethem, a renowned author who teaches creative
writing and English at Pomona College.
Mr. Lethem is a longtime fan, with his admiration
dating back to when he was a fledgling writer admir-
ing Mr. Bakers stories in the New Yorker. His status
shifted from fan to friend through some serendipitous
events.
Both writers were living in Berkeley when Mr.
Lethem, then working as a bookseller, ran into his
idol at a caf. He got up his nerve to ask the older
writer to coffee and figured his brush with literary
greatness was a one-off.
Some time later Mr. Baker moved to a Maine town,
just a few miles from the home of Mr. Lethems fa-
ther, the painter Richard Brown Lethem. There,
Jonathan Lethemwho spends time in Maine every
summerwas reunited with Mr. Baker, thanks to an
interesting piece of synchronicity: Quakerism runs in
both writers families.
Mr. Baker, a self-described atheist Quaker, began
attending the same Quaker meeting as the elder Mr.
Lethem. The younger Mr. Lethem found it surreal to
have his hero recur in this magical way in my
world and to encounter him in a very informal and
sweet circumstance.
Mr. Lethems first question was whether Mr. Baker,
primarily a novelist, ever imagined he would find
himself writing non-fiction.
I always had in the back of my mind that its pos-
sible to write factual things. The problem with factual
writing is that it actually has to be true, he said, elic-
iting laughter from the crowd.
And fictional writing can be true but you can kind
of reorder things a little bit, make it easier to under-
stand, he continued. Somewhere along the way,
though. . .I thought, I want to write something thats
factual, where Im not a lonely person writing a
novel.
I get to call people up on the phone and say, Im
writing for the New Yorker about X and Id love to
talk to you about what you know, he continued.
Because its friendlier. Nonfiction allows you to con-
nect to the world.
Mr. Lethem next praised Mr. Bakers first book,
The Mezzanine, which is set entirely during the pro-
tagonists journey up to the mezzanine floor of his of-
fice building.
The book is famously a kind of super-exploded
rendition of a very, very brief amount of time, Mr.
Lethem marveled. The character in the real-time of
the story only manages to ride the escalator. Is that
right?
Its a travel book, Mr. Baker quipped.
Its a book that begged the term miniaturist, Mr.
Lethem continued. What you did was take tiny
things and unpack them into extraordinary levels of
close observation, and to slow time down. Youd no-
tice shoelaces and the eyelets on shoelaces and write
about that for a few pages, and it was like the world
Pomona College professor and author Jonathan Lethem, right, interviews fellow author Nicholson Baker at
Scripps College. In the hour-long conversation, Mr. Baker spoke about a range of subjects relating to his ex-
periences as a substitute teacher.
was being lovingly, precisely catalogued.
Substitute also demonstrates this archival qual-
ityoffering insight into the macrocosmic world of
education by looking at microcosmic moments.
Whats astonishing about what Nick did in his she had worked a nightshift at her job. Another boy
writing about being a substitute teacher is that he did-
nt generalize about the experience. Its a kind of a
giant catalog of moment. Every day he walked into a
classroom as a substitute teacher is accounted for.
And in a sense, Mr. Lethem continued, turning to
Mr. Baker, it feels as though every minute of every
day that you spent as a substitute teacher is accounted
for.
Regarding his time as the titular narrator of Substi-
tute, Mr. Baker is careful to establish that he is not a
teacher. He emphasizes that he can only guess at what
its like to spend an entire school year trying to shape
sometimes-unwilling minds and, as he says in his
book, keep a lid on the lunacy day after day.
He did, however, spend 28 nonconsecutive days in
2014 as a substitute teacher in a Maine public school
district. His book meticulously describes the happen-
ings of each class, highlighting the kind of minutiae
usually absent from educational treatises.
A substitute, Mr. Baker feels, is someone whose
job is to fill the holes that sometimes spring up in the
school system. As such, he or she can only manage so
much meaningful teaching. Students tend to act up
when a sub is in class, too, and so he found himself
spending an inordinate amount of time policing be-
havior.
Typically, his lessons plans involved a series of
worksheets. At one point, he overheard a teacher in
the break room, sharing good-naturedly that they
dont even check the worksheets left for subs.
Still, Mr. Baker managed to find value in the little
victories, as when he helped a boy learn to spell the
word through.
What are the conclusions to be drawn from Substi-
tute?
One is that students deserve a bit of empathy. They
wake up, yawning, and head for a place that is in
some ways similar to a prison. Kids spend their day in
an institution, every action prescribed and with their
Claremont COURIER/Friday, October 21, 2016 5
COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
movements signaled by the clanging of a bell. And
sometimes they face tremendous obstacles while try-
ing to learn.
One high school student fell asleep in class because
had trouble keeping his eyes open because a newly-
upped dose of the anti-anxiety drug Paxil was giving
him insomnia.
In the course of Substitute, kids act up and calm
down, take their work seriously or shake it off. They
contend with the vagaries of the new Common Core
standards and with the distractions of iPads and smart
phones.
Mr. Baker sometimes congratulates himself for a
day successfully negotiated and, at other times, exco-
riates himself for being a terrible teacher. Thats life
as a sub.
While Mr. Baker leaves most conclusions to his
readers, he has some opinions that seep through. He
sees schools as prematurely forcing kindergarten
kids to writewhen he, as a 5-year-old, was finger-
painting. He believes the school day is too long, and
that most students are exhausted and done learning
after lunchtime.
Some of his unconventional attitudes stem from the
fact that, as a teen, he attended an alternative high
school, School Without Walls. Despite being left
pretty much to his own devices, Mr. Baker managed
to emerge ready for college and the real world.
One question hovers, ever-present: Is meaningful
learning going on, or is the school year packed with
soul-destroying busywork? Its left up to the reader to
decide.
You can view Mr. Bakers full talk on the Scripps
College YouTube channel. The Scripps Presents se-
ries continues on Saturday, October 29 at 8 p.m. with
a free performance at Garrison Theater by Ensemble
Dal Niente, a 13-member Chicago-based contempo-
rary music collective. Ticket reservations are required
and can be obtained in the events section of the
Scripps website, scrippscollege.edu.
Sarah Torribio
storribio@claremont-courier.com