Walker Braves the Sub Life with a Smile

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Some of the world’s hardest jobs include firefighting, being an astronaut, a crab fisherman, or working on an oil rig. But should substitute teacher be added to this list? According to Alexander Walker, a ubiquitous substitute teacher at North Atlanta, substitute teaching should be added to the list of the world’s most hazardous professions. “Teaching is like parenting. You have to care to be successful,” says Walker.

Walker, who most often make his subbing home at NAHS, also substitutes Mays High School, Douglass High School and Sutton Middle School. He says that subbing can be fun but also at the same time it can be challenging. The job mostly gets challenging, he said, when students treat him differently than their teachers. But in most cases, the substitute teaching experience is completely positive, he said. “I sometimes sense I receive better treatment than the regular teacher and that I might even have a better relationship with the students,” Walker notes.

Students, he figured, might feel more at ease around him because they think a substitute teacher moves the class at a more relaxed pace. As a sub, his goal is to ensure that a teacher’s curricular goals are advanced in their absence. “I try to make sure that it’s not a play day,” he said.

Walker says a benefit of subbing is building relationships with students and getting to teach only part time, instead of having to contend with the rigors of everyday classroom teaching. Perhaps surprising to hear is his assertion that there’s nothing about subbing he doesn’t like. After all, he said, the students he interacts with always keep him entertained.

Up until recent years, Walker was a full-time teacher with his own classrooms. He taught for 13 years at Sutton Middle School. But as his own children got older and he wanted to be more available for them, he pursued the subbing route. He started substitute teaching in the 2006-2007.

“No, I don’t think I would go back to full time teaching right now I still have two children in high school and I need all the time I can get with them as I can,” Walker remarks.

Subbing can come with a lot of wild experiences. One of his craziest experiences was his staying overnight at school during the snow storm in February. That fateful day he was marooned along with 50 faculty and staff and 450 students because he subbed on the infamous day that came to be known as “Snowpocaplyse.”

Commenting on the Snowpocaplyse fiasco, Walker says, “Just another interesting day to add to the many interesting days I’ve had doing this. Every day is an adventure.”