As a kid, I can remember the ends of summer—how Labor Day marked one of the last remaining moments of freedom before the commencement of another school year. And even after those recent years since graduating from high school, this day and weekend have always felt like a beginning of sorts or a reset, if you will.
In April of 2021, I, like I’m sure hundreds of millions of others, searched for meaning. We were about one year into COVID and in the thick of a constant questioning. Of existence. Of threat. Of ways to move forward. A compass with a faulty arrow. I was an actor, having just finished an attempt to house-sit in L.A., while simultaneously trying to determine what it might be like to live there. I had never seen that city like that before. From January through March there were, dare I say, freeways without traffic. A suddenly not so glamorous city that felt devoid of its usual glitz. For the eight months before that house-sit trial I had moved back home to Seattle—the latest edition in a constant exodus of back-and-forth between there and New York, a city I had lived in for four years leading up to the inception of COVID in March of 2020. Even then, it always felt like I had been returning home, unsure of where I belonged, what I should do, and where I should go. This tipping of the scales continued as I drove cross country with a friend from Seattle to New York, only to return back to Seattle later in August of 2021. I was fresh off of what felt like a panic attack and even thinking and breathing, let alone doing both at the same time, felt like a psychological mountain that I was struggling to climb.
However, when I arrived in April of 2021 I began to look for a new job. In no way did I want to have anything to do with the restaurant industry, which seemed to be the default job of the actor in pursuit, and something I had already dealt with in the past. This time, I looked into a position that I had always been intrigued with, but was nonetheless intimidated by; teaching—potentially as a substitute teacher. In the middle of that month I began to substitute at a middle school, DLMS 247, in the Upper West Side of Manhattan as an emergency sub. At this point, in-person teaching was still in flux, with half of the kids in the classroom and the other half at home, the majority present behind a default avatar, yet basically invisible on the screen. I was so unbelievably nervous that first day for so many reasons. I had never taught before outside of a camp counselor setting. I had tutored long ago, but usually one or two kids at a time. In retrospect, it’s possibly a very good thing that it was only at half-capacity because it served as an opportunity to baby step into the new environment.
The first day, I’m not even sure I said more than a few words. To a degree—I was still going through an identity crisis. Do I belong here? What should I have them call me? On top of that—95% of the kids were native Spanish speakers. They spoke English too, but the idea was that I was supposed to mainly speak in Spanish. After all, it was called “Dual Language Middle School” 247. Despite having a degree in Spanish, I felt like an imposter, through and through. Additionally, I was following in the footsteps of my father, who had been a teacher for 30+ years. He was admired and beloved by many. I was stubborn. I think I had sworn to myself that I was not going to be Mr. Yudin—I wanted to do my own thing. That first week—I think I tried to use Mr. Chessin-Yudin. Then Mr. Chessin. Then Mr. CY. I tried so many things that I don’t even remember what I ended up with. What did change, however, was my comfort level being a teacher. It didn’t feel like a source of embarrassment that I was their Spanish teacher, at times, despite being a full-on gringo and güero, and I didn’t feel so out of place anymore. Over the next two and a half months I was there every day—filling in for any teacher that needed a break, sixth to eighth grade, and, surprisingly, spending a good deal of the time subbing for dance class. These were steps that, up until this point, I had never really known, but after a couple of times viewing the example videos, I felt confident enough to show the kids how they were done.
That school became I something I looked forward to—taking the C train in the morning, heading into class, subbing every subject from Science, ELA, History, Dance, and Gym, a class in which I always used to take the games way too seriously because the whole class’ energy levels would spike after I volunteered to participate in their games. I used to always work up a sweat and end up wishing I hadn’t. Wishing I could shower, when there was no shower in sight. I felt legitimately sad when the school year came to a close. I’ve always struggled a bit with endings, mainly because I have always feared the next day, when the structure and consistency and excitement disappears and all those questions of direction rear their ugly heads and come back to haunt you.
During those weeks following the last day of school, those unavoidable questions felt unsolvable. Day turned to night turned to day and everything looked the same and felt the same and I felt like a man without purpose, without substance or anything to offer the world or myself. I was wholly unsatisfied, wholly unfulfilled. I felt worthless. And this led to that sinking, sinking feeling that only someone who has experienced a severe bout with depression could understand, when it feels like there’s nothing out there that could help you in here. Clockless mornings. Shortened days. There was no way out. So, I went home again. I ran away home…again. I tried to figure it out again and again—still struggling. And when it seemed like a New York return wasn’t imminent I looked into substitute teaching opportunities again, this time in Seattle with SPS (Seattle Public Schools). A lot of the same questions and doubts surfaced like: What am I doing? Is this the right thing to do? There was also the new reality; that I was entering the school district with which my Dad had spent the vast majority of his teaching career. A lot of his good friends and former colleagues were still teaching. Suddenly, that veil of anonymity wasn’t available to me as it was in New York.
So, in October of 2021, I started my teaching as an Emergency Certified Substitute teacher in the Seattle Public School District. Save for a few months at the top of 2022 working on an understudy gig in New York, I taught the entirety of the 2021-2022 school year. There was a whole bunch of good stuff in those nine months, but now is not the time to share those stories. I was even blessed with the opportunity to revisit those kids at DLMS for several days once I started to get free mornings/afternoons during the understudy job. Seeing those kids that had been 6th and 7th graders the year before, now as 7th and 8th graders, was a beautiful moment for me.
At the end of the summer of 2022 I told myself that I might be in Seattle for a while. With that new mentality I went into the school year with more more focus and determination. In the last month of the previous school year I began to sub a decent amount at Lincoln High School. Lincoln was an exciting spot to me for several reasons. Firstly, it was my neighborhood high school, though it hadn’t always been. Having grown up in Fremont it wasn’t more than a 20 minute walk and was right around the corner from Hamilton Middle School, which, if you know me at all, provided the stomping grounds for three of the best and most formative years of my life and laid a significant foundation for a vital piece of my identity to this day. In the late 00’s, Lincoln was still an interim school, essentially the placeholder building you’d transfer to when your school would undergo renovations. That period for me around 05-08, it just finished serving as Roosevelt High School’s interim site and was transitioning to serving as Garfield High School’s site for, what would be, my first two years of high school. I was very prepared to go to Garfield, since it was the neighborhood school for me at that time. Had Lincoln been its own school at that point I probably would have just gone there. I was prepared to go to Garfield until I wasn’t and ended up going to Ingraham High School, where I continued to deepen the friendships I had established at Hamilton and had the blessing of being taught by many, many truly awesome teachers. That is another story. Anyway, back to Lincoln—I felt connected to it in more ways than one and by teaching there it felt like getting several birds with one stone. It was close and convenient, it was a brand new school (having been recently remodeled and reintroduced) and it gave me an opportunity to live out the retroactive 15-18 year old fantasy of going to a school without doubt or trepidation. Sometimes, for me, too many choices is not a good thing. This is the school I would have been zoned to had I been going to high school today (which is also another story).
During one of those sub days in the spring of 2022, I was asked by a Spanish teacher if I might be available to sub in the coming school year. She was planning to take a trip abroad. I told her that I would probably be available to do it. A month or so later I was told that the trip had been cancelled and that, unfortunately, she was dealing with some health problems and would need additional help beyond the time she had initially asked. This would now be an assignment for the first three weeks of the year. Honestly, this scared me. Not just because there were some AP classes in her curriculum (many of which would go on to take the AP test at the end of the year), but I felt anxious about being the teacher introduced to the kids at the top of a school year. I worried that I might not be the one for the job and that mentally that might be difficult for them. Would it be hard to build trust? Is that something I would seek, knowing they’d be transferred to their regular teacher after a month? Would they fall too far behind? Was my Spanish good enough? Would it be too confusing or complicated? Ultimately, I agreed to the assignment, and it turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. Lincoln welcomed me with open arms. I started by attending the TRI days the week before school began, fulfilled the three weeks, then agreed to help the teacher by coming in just about every Wednesday the rest of the school year.
My already strong affinity for Spanish grew. My appreciation and respect for teaching (and teaching Spanish) grew. I felt like I had discovered a beautiful home and I was so grateful for it. Grateful to know that on Wednesdays I’d be able to come into that building and see some awesome kids with great energy and do my service to help them, however I could, learn a little bit more Spanish, keep their appreciation for Spanish alive and keep the regular teacher’s ship headed in the right direction. It didn’t take me long to learn the kids’ names. It didn’t take long to appreciate the wonderful things they brought to the table. I did whatever I could to keep their spirits high, to invest in their interests, follow their life trajectories, and reciprocate and/or elevate whatever they had brought that specific day and then string it along when I would return the following week. What music were they listening to? What sports were they playing? What were their plans for the weekend? Every period had everything, whether that was the laidback AP classes at the top of the day or the barrage of energetic Spanish 3s after lunch. It was an exercise and crash course in behavior and attitude, psychology and astrology. 30 planets in each class orbiting the Spanish language, sometimes colliding, but usually, almost always, a beautiful thing to witness.
At the beginning of the year, I was Mr. Chessin-Yudin. That quickly became Mr. C and Profe C, or when they were trying to crack jokes, Profe Chessin-Yudin, said in a rapid fire way and with some extra oomph and style to keep up with the Spanish rhythm. I had always worried, when going over the names to present myself as, that I would upset my Dad if I decided to avoid using Yudin. That’s who he was—Mr. Yudin. That had been stamped. I think he even asked me one day what they called me and I tried to avoid the question. Then, one evening, I had been eating tacos with my Dad and one of the kids I taught came in and said, “Mr. C!” and my Dad glowed, while I returned the hello and tried to go swiftly back to eating. My Dad laughed and that smile sort of quivered with excitement like it usually does and I slowly, slowly felt that sedated pulse of relief. As my Dad and I walked out of the taco spot to head to the car he looked at me and joyfully said, “Mr. C!” I felt as if, in some way, I had received his blessing to follow my own path and yet, I like to think I honored his teaching legacy by investing as much time and energy as I could to make their experience as students memorable and educational.
All in all, I subbed 150 days with SPS during that school year and more than 50 of those days were spent at Lincoln. When not at Lincoln I was busy at other middle schools and high schools. To me I was fulfilling an interest that I had long desired, which was to get to know Seattle Public Schools in more depth. I think at the end of the day I was able to teach at every middle school, just about every high school, and two elementary schools (John Stanford and B.F. Day, where I had gone). After every day of teaching I recorded three pages of observations and reactions to what I had experienced. I was fascinated by every moment, during all the highs and all the lows. I had very specific intentions for why I did all of that, but that--that is another story and one which I hope and pray I have the strength to share as soon as I can. The story of Seattle. The story of Seattle Public Schools.
When the end of the 2022-2023 came to a close, so did my emergency substitute certificate. It was good for two school years and had been issued to me during a time when there was a more dire need for substitutes. Jay Inslee, who is currently finishing his final term as the Governor of Washington, elected not to re-issue these emergency certs anymore, citing budget cuts. I have opinions on this, but at the end of the day, I am grateful that I was able to obtain this certification and teach for the time I was allowed. The perspective and memories and relationships formed have been and will continue to be invaluable.
I am indebted to this opportunity and want to pay special gratitude to DLMS 247 for providing my first sub teaching opportunity and to Lincoln High School for welcoming me with open arms and trusting in my ability to do the job. I want to show appreciation to all of the schools that also provided a consistent working space like Hamilton, Meany, Whitman, and Washington Middle School and Ingraham, Garfield, and Ballard High School. I won’t forget the week teaching seniors at Roosevelt where the energy in the room was so wildly palpable that I thought I was gonna be blasted through the classroom wall. 32-35 seniors, grinning, mischievous, wild, ready to blow the lid off and move on with their lives—staring at me, eagerly waiting, with faces that asked: “What the fuck have you got for us?” and “Who the fuck are you, Mr. C?”
Or the several week assignments at Washington Middle School teaching ELA and then Spanish later on, down the road. Witnessing brilliance, witnessing angst. Resistance and craze. Indifference and calm. Style and grace.
There are too many memories to share. When it came to be my last couple of days subbing at Lincoln I was definitely a bit sad. You get that way when you’ve built relationships and it’s time to go. I think that’s always been the toughest part of teaching, especially when you get really solid with the classes. Somehow you’ve got to move on. Well, easier said than done. I told them that I’d be moving on to do a stage play and ultimately was gonna dive deeper and focus more on acting, which would not likely be happening in Seattle. A few of them were disappointed, but overall they were so supportive. It was a bit unbelievable to me. I don’t know what I expected, but that got to me. Little did they know that what they had provided during the course of the school year had brought me closer than I ever had been to going back to school to get a masters in teaching with the hope of teaching kids like them again in a fuller capacity. Not now though…and maybe not ever. Not full-time, at least. And I think they understood that.
I owe so much to the Spanish Department at Lincoln, full of teachers that guided me every day and provided a great blueprint for how to get things done at that institution. The support was unreal. And, like the kids, provided quite the temptation and incentive to come back and teach due to the amazing community created by such wonderful colleagues. It felt like a family. Shout out to Profe Ruggles, who asked me to help her teach throughout the year and who is the soon (if not already) mother of a new baby. And Profe Arias too, also a soon-to-be father who I found out was my brethren from UW, who also studied in Cádiz, and who also stayed with the same host mom. Shout out to the new department head Ms. Hathaway for being the rock that held it all together, keeping the energy up every day, and making sure we were all taken care of. And Congrats to Mr. Weathers on his new path at a different school, creating new journeys in Spanish and Art.
Lastly, shoutout to all the awesome kids in SPS that I was able to teach these past couple of years. I know having a substitute isn’t always easy (I certainly had my moments with them when I was in school), but you uplifted me in a way that I could never have expected. And to the 150 kids from Profe Ruggles class last year, who brought it every day, who floored me with cards full of personal messages, who provided a lifetime of great memories in 50 days, days full of laughter and fun, of patience, cooperation, and the unexpected—ya’ll were quite simply, awesome. (No I won’t pick a favorite class. I got love for all of you).
Here’s to more sports chronicles during prep periods, half-moon waves in the hallway, high fives to you friendly giants, two arms to the sky to praise the above, individual and team Quizlets, fly swatter vocabulary competitions, backpack-free examenes and pruebitas, finger wagging at cell phone use, cell phone use confiscations, AP classroom entering, AP classroom exiting, not-so indiscrete chess playing, slippery class room exiting, words like melocotón and Titicaca (one of you somewhere definitely just laughed at this), and to Wednesdays, which always came and always went, never too long and never too quick.
Here’s a verb and a phrase: extrañar and los echaré de menos.
That’s all for now. There will always be more to tell.
But that’s for another story.
Ms. Vazquez - 8th Grade Dance - DLMS 247 - 2020-2021
