Yesterday, I left some suggestions for classroom teachers in what substitutes need. I’m sure there is more to the list, as each classroom and school differs from another.
As I mentioned, Substitutes also have a responsibility, and I’ve heard from teachers and students alike on things that need to be done:
Substitute Teachers
Be on time.
This means, to me, being at least fifteen minutes early to where you are supposed to report (usually the main office).
Dress appropriately.
Ask for a security badge if not given one automatically.
Ask for the Substitute Folder if it is kept in the main office.
Make sure you have CURRENT attendance sheets.
Come prepared with at least one pen: don’t assume any will be left for you.
Get to the room you need to report to and read the lesson plans from start to finish.
Hopefully, the teacher will have left you all material you need with the lesson plan.
If not, round it up/locate it before the students come in.
If the teacher assigns a Study Hall or Individual Reading for that time period:
Do not:
Read the newspaper; text; be on the computer; discuss your personal life; comment on other classes/schools; listen to your own music with ear plugs; etc.
Do:
State you are in charge
They have work to do: do it
Take names if they are disrespectful to you
Keep your calm
Leave the classroom, especially the teacher’s desk/work area, as you found it.
Leave the teacher notes on how the day was: good and not so good behavior.
Don’t leave a novel: just highlights/bullets
Some schools use some sort of feedback system, whether online or paper: follow through on it.
If you are working with any classroom aides or paras: thank them for their help at the end of the class/day.
When students say “..the teacher always lets us…” well, that is up to you and the feel of the kids, but more times than not the teacher does not let them do whatever they’ve just told you.
Apologize, tell them you have no notes to that effect, and they’ll have to do it your way for today. Tell them you’ll leave a note for the teacher that you said no. They’ll usually stop at that.
I am sure there are many jokes that can be made out of the title/subject line of this post. That is not this posting.
Today, this is for the normal classroom teacher.
The next post will be for the subs! Teachers, do not fret. Not picking on you, but there are things that are forgotten in the rush with all you have to do.
TEACHERS
Do not assume that the sub knows ANY of your procedures, unless you know them/they’ve been in your room before.
From A to Z: lay it out. No confusion for the kids, no confusion for the sub.
If you write up daily procedures ONE TIME, you have that ready to go.
This is true with Picking Up Students in the am (where they are; what row; etc) and especially Dismissal: these procedures vary from school to school, and if a sub works more than one district, it can be confusing, and the safety of your students should not be left up to chance.
If you have “special” names for something, please explain it (i.e. “Switch-a-Roo”: I had NO idea what that was, and it was only between two teachers who used it in the same grade).
Don’t treat a sub like they are stupid, though.
All they want are detailed lesson plans, things lined up for them to use (they don’t’ know your room, know where the copy room is, break room, etc.), and what your signals are for classroom management.
Do NOT say “Just make it a Study Hall” or “Have them do independent reading” unless that IS what YOU would do during that time period.
Study Hall or Independent Reading instead of actual work is futility for a substitute, and the kids normally take advantage of that fact.
Have the sub collect the work you assign so the students DO SOMETHING and are held accountable for it.
Telling them to do work and then allowing them the choice to finish for homework? Another disaster for the sub.
Homework is homework. Classwork should not be interchangeable.
Lay out your plans carefully, step by step, so that when you return, your classroom was run the way it would be if you were there.
Do not expect the sub to be proficient in all core subject matter.
If there is an answer sheet, please provide it for them.
Please provide times for all subjects (when the change is, bell is supposed to ring, etc.). Simple, yes, but not everyone does it.
If the students need to be brought to another room, please provide that room number, not just Art or Music, or that teacher’s name.
If your school allows you to give a heads up on who has an IEP, please provide that. I know this is a tricky one, as things should not be left out that a student could read. There should be a way to let the sub know, not for judgment sake but for a heads up, to be aware who needs modifications for, who might do something that appears disrespectful to the sub but is normal for that child, etc.
If you have an Aide/One-on-One in the room normally, please give them a copy of your plans as well to help the sub out (as well as make it easy on themselves}.
Please make sure your Sub Folder is current with students attendance sheets, allergies, dismissals, etc.
When you have a change in the classroom, please update your Sub Folder.
Please find out, if not automatically given by the office, which usually does NOT have the info, a Substitute log-in so they can use your Smart Board, etc. This will save time and frustration all the way around.
Please indicate who can help the sub out if needed by teachers you are surrounded by/work with on a regular basis.
If you encounter a substitute in the school, at lunch, etc, please be welcoming. It goes a long way to be made to feel welcome as opposed to being dismissed as “just a sub”
Some of your students will do that already; don’t do the same, please.
Again, I will write out something for Subs, as I’ve heard enough stories about what subs shouldn’t do in classrooms, but do anyway.
Thanks.
The above links will lead you to sites on both sides of the debate over Zero Tolerance in schools. I leave it to you to read them, make your own conclusions.
I won’t summarize them, but give you some observations:
A school with a strongly worded rules on dress code and school behavior online, with the consequences for infractions clearly stated. Syllabi/Lesson Plans, posted online as well, readdressing the same concerns. The conduct rules are posted in the main office as well.
What was seen: two students being taken out of the school in hand cuffs by police officers; not one student dressed in the very well laid out dress code (hoodies and hats were worn; scarves as head wear; tee shirts with graphics; etc); students walking around the hallways by the front door guard, near the main office, sitting on the floor; a school official hugging a student (one “rule” was “no contact between students of any type, hugging mentioned); a student walking into the office, talking to a secretary, her trying to send him on his way to class but he cut his class, as he came back in less than fifteen minutes later to “hang out”; and during the classroom change, uncountable number of cell phones and electronics being used in a school they are supposedly banned.
This was one school, but I’ve seen variations played out in many.
I made a mention of this, at times. to various teachers or staff, and the answer is almost always the same: a shrug of the shoulders, or the complaint that no one enforces it, or they can’t enforce them. They don’t get support from any number of sources (parents, the principal, whoever).
I’ve also seen schools where the parents are very involved and supportive, where the rules of conduct and dress are enforced. Are there still problems? Of course. You are dealing with a wide variable of situations. Yet, when rules don’t matter, consequences are basically non-existent…
I haven’t written here in quite awhile. Observing what I have in the last half a year (really, last four years) has sometimes left me dumbstruck. This experience just left me shaking my head.
“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” A. A. Milne
“I don’t see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”
― Mark Twain
“God, don’t they teach you how to spell these days?”
“No,” I answer. “They teach us to use spell-check.”
― Jodi Picoult
It goes like this: I’m at a school and giving the class a handout. I’m reading it along with them so I can answer (hopefully) any question that arises. The first page is a list of vocabulary words (the day’s “Do Now” is: “Why do you need to increase your vocabulary?”); the following pages (parts A & B) are fill-in-the-blanks based solely on those words. The kids are struggling already. The answers are on the first page given: they just have to read, go back to the list, circle the correct letter or fill in the blank.
Part C is different: it’s a journal entry that asks them to think. All well and good, but then it says (and I’m only slightly paraphrasing here):
“Don’t Worry About Spelling.”
That in itself boggles my mind, but it’s not the first time I have been mentally gobsmacked (hmmm..is that possible, since a gob is a mouth? Don’t care: I’ll follow Mark Twain from his above quote. So yes, I am dumbfounded).
I wrote about a previous experience with third graders before: in assisting a student with a written assignment, in my trying to help them correct all their spelling errors, which were many, I was informed that the school administration did not want that. If the word read like it sounded, then that was good enough. I informed the teacher that I’d rather be fired for trying to help the student spell correctly then to dumb down. Nothing more was ever said to me on that subject.
In the case of the above hand out, this was High School. Six and seven grades higher, and “don’t worry about spelling” is emblazoned on the paper. Scary. Just plain old scary.
On a recent interview, I was told by the interviewer that they had to discard so many resumes and cover letters due to the amount of grammatical and spelling (many homonym) errors that a normal spell check system does not catch. I’ve heard this before, and I’ve kicked myself in the head the few times I did not proof read a cover letter as well as possible, catching that stupid mistake that makes me sound like a dolt.
So…the schools say “don’t worry about spelling.” The job force, which is getting stricter and harder to break through, IS looking at these things.
Scary…just plain old scary; and very, very sad.
Public schools need to raise their standards and return to a more traditional, classical educational learning method.
While I have been slumbering, figuring out what to say/do with this blog, someone “liked it’ this morning: rereading it, it gave me a renewed sense of purpose. I am job hunting, and that has taken over most of my concentration. Today I have two interviews, both for Director/Manager of Education position in arts administration. This post already has helped clear some of the cobwebs I’ve laid in my own way. Thanks for the like, Isurrett2.
One of the most disturbing things that I have heard from a student was:
“Why should I try? I’ll only be working at McDonald’s.”
I was an Artist-in-Residence for a year for a large school district in Westchester County, NY. Still early in my profession, that statement was both a shock and a revelation of a point of view I had never considered before: low expectations given, and projected; leading this student to live that that is all they can do. The young lady who said that to me was in a ninth grade repeat class. Most of them, I was told much later, were on their THIRD repeat of ninth grade.
Yes: she was a third timer.
It was not that working at McDonald’s is such a negative job, but the expectation of that is all she could expect in life is. There are jobs that many would never…
A 68 year young bus monitor, in upstate New York, was verbally assaulted by a group of Middle School (MS) students. The abuse was caught on video and broadcast on YouTube and all over Facebook and Twitter. According to the article/CNN report, the students will be facing disciplinary actions, and the police are involved in this action.
I’m sure, by now, you’ve seen or heard about the video. The CNN link above only has a fraction of it, and I would not post the entirety of it here. The students who did this need consequences for their actions, not further hits on the video. I do send out my thoughts to the woman who was attacked. My hope is she can find some strength in the fact that she held her own, did not sink to their level and attack back, and that the majority of those sounding off on this are on her side.
We have our share of bullies in all age groups, in all parts of our society. Yet, the majority of our focus is on the school bullies. When I went looking for bully images to use with this post, there were few images that dealt with adults: one adult yelling at a group of kids; one woman berating another. The rest were signage, the red line through the word BULLY and the like.
Alongside issues of bullying in schools, which is desperately needed, I feel all adults (Parents, the workforce, police, politicians, teachers, principals, etc etc etc) need the same sort of awareness programs, if not more so. Not only do they need to learn how to properly deal with this behavior from students, the adults need to see what THEY do that constitutes bullying.
I saw it in action, recently, in working with an older population group. I have seen it in action in schools and business. It seems to be not only a common practice from management to workers at times, but along the peer level. Bullying tactics are not relegated to just children.
Adult bullies, to other adults &/or children, is a seen behavior that is picked up by the young. If an adult does it with little to no consequence, then why can’t a kid? They may not go through that exact thought process, but it’s there: we teach our children outright what we want them to learn, but we are not careful about the rest of our actions, what they observe and take in.
I think we need to label bullying, if we have to label at all, for what it truly is: a hate crime.
Bullying wasn’t okay in elementary school and it isn’t okay now, especially when it comes in the form of a U.S. Supreme Court decision. John Doolittle
Some people won’t be happy until they’ve pushed you to the ground. What you have to do is have the courage to stand your ground and not give them the time of day. Hold on to your power and never give it away.
― Donna Schoenrock
Here are two student video reactions to the bullying of the bus monitor.
I’m completely blown away. Schools are probably the last place we should be cutting budgets, since the future of our world depends on the children. We propagate the species to continue, and I would hope we’d like to leave a better world, and give our kids the chance to advance.
Doesn’t seem like it.
These types of cuts will not happen in private schools. These schools have the means to make sure all the educational hurdles we are facing does not happen to their academics. They’ll continue to have Kindergarten, Art programs, Sports programs, and have a more well rounded student in the long run. They’ll take working models and stick with them, instead of futzing around like the public sector does.
As part of the public, we should allow all children the best education possible, no matter the social/economic happenstance of the family/community.
I was just on an interview for a job I would love to have. One of the questions I was asked was about the working hours: would I mind working the longer hours this new school would schedule. What struck me is that it needed to be asked at all: there are many, many reasons why extended school time is needed today.
Before I continue, these are MY opinions from what I’ve observed in the field (I have taught as a Teacher, Teaching Artist and as a Substitute Teacher); I’ve left you five links above for others on the subject. Object if you must, but do so with justifications and always keep it civil.
I have heard from too many educators that there is just not enough time in the school day to accomplish all that must be done. I’ve experienced it myself: you just get things going, and they have to rush to another class instead of investing the time needed t o really explore. I’m not talking about busy work, which I have seen in an abundance. Actual student engaging moments get cut short many times.
We have a shrinking teacher base, due to budget cuts in places there should not be budget cuts. Classrooms are overcrowded. Tests and evaluations and rote “learning” practices shove aside a real chance for connections and actual learning.
Yes, we should have more teachers, more classrooms, and less students per class.
With the changing economic realities, parents are not always home until later in the day. The idea of Mom always being home after school is antiquated in many parts of the US; that has changed, but the schools have not changed with the times. There are after school clubs and such already in place; but again, the idea for a longer day is not just social activities (which they do need to foster as well, since much of home life gets truncated that way).
Double blocks of teaching (80 to 90 mins) during the day gives the teacher and the class to work on projects. The time constraints we have now means that there are only three classes per day that way. A longer day would allow more constructive work.
Advisory meetings, portfolio work, special projects that have a true impact and are not busy work (again, seen too much of that), planning sessions; individualized work (NOT study halls: I saw, in one location, 12 students on computers playing Halo in study hall; not making that up, and it was not my place to stop them)…there is so much that can be accomplished with proper time use.
The long summer breaks were originally set up by agricultural needs: farmer kids needed to work on the farm. School came second.
Education should not come second in anything we do.
You’ve reached a certain level of achievements in your life, professionally and personally. Awards, schooling, life work, great reviews…and you still find yourself out of a job, for a variety of reasons: many of them not your fault.
Now add to all that some great, if not excellent, recommendation letters. Resume is up to date, all the relevant material is there. You know you have to adjust your resume to job requirements, and writing that cover letter that has all the right buzz words and terms from the job posting…
…and still no job. Many times, not even an interview, let alone even an acknowledgment they received your material. Follow ups are often met with the same silence.
I have heard too many times that I am over qualified for jobs I have applied for, the few times I am able to actually communicate with someone. We see things differently: obviously, I am looking to work, and my I feel my experience will only enable me to be great at the job, not just having to learn things but can bring my talents and skills for the benefit of all concerned; their viewpoint is (verbally told this) that I’ll be bored doing this work, or the ultimate fear of my just biding my time until I find the “right” job.I was told by one person that the job was so far “beneath someone of my caliber.”
I’d rather work in my field, in a “lesser” position, then not work at all. THAT is something they (human resources people) don’t seem to get.
I have two MAs and a ton of experience. Dumbing down my resume, to even just get that foot in the door, has come up a lot lately. I’m off to an interview for a job I am overqualified later this afternoon. It’s slightly to the side of what I’ve done for so many years. It’s definitely in the realm of “beneath my caliber.”
After this, I’m going to try the resume editing gambit: I’ll remove both Masters for a start. Then, we’ll pare it down even more, if that doesn’t work. I could take it all the way back to my first job: Chinese Restaurant buffet staff (I filled the smorgasbord dinner table after school and on weekends in High School).