In 2014, after a brief orientation course and a few fingerprinting sessions, Nic
holson Baker became an on-call substitute teacher in a Maine public school distr
ict. He awoke to the dispatcher's five-forty a.m. phone call and headed to one o
f several nearby schools; when he got there, he did his best to follow lesson pl
ans and help his students get something done. What emerges from Baker's experien
ce is a complex, often touching deconstruction of public schooling in America: c
hildren swamped with overdue assignments, overwhelmed by the marvels and distrac
tions of social media and educational technology, and staff who weary themselves
trying to teach in step with an often outmoded or overly ambitious standard cur
riculum. In Baker's hands, the inner life of the classroom is examined anew-mund
ane worksheets, recess time-outs, surprise nosebleeds, rebellions, griefs, jealo
usies, minor triumphs, daily lessons on everything from geology to metal tech to
the Holocaust to kindergarten show-and-tell-as the author and his pupils strugg
le to find ways to get through the day. Baker is one of the most inventive and r
emarkable writers of our time, and Substitute, filled with humor, honesty, and e
mpathy, may be his most impressive work of nonfiction yet.
