Teachers anticipate their substitutes are subject
matter illiterate so they leave lessons that require no understanding of topic content.
Assignments most often consist of a video, worksheet, or computer search exercise.
For any of these, the prospects are high that the kids will be bored and at
best will rush through the minimal work and then talk, talk, talk, The substitute
becomes frustrated and is demeaned by the low expectations for their
performance. A vicious cycle ensues, for when the sub becomes frustrated the
students get noisier, do even less work, and the sub gets more frazzled.
When teachers arrange for being gone ahead of the
day of their absence they are still likely to leave a bogus assignment for the
substitutes for fear a sub will either screw-up a “real” lesson that the
teacher will have to reteach, or “As the students won’t listen to a sub anyway,
why waste a good lesson.” The sub is left with junk; the kids know it and
behave accordingly.
Even worse is when a sub is awakened in the early
morning following a decision by a teacher to stay home sick themselves or to
care for an ill child. The teacher rushes to school in spite of their illness
in order to leave an easy assignment for the sub to follow, like a work sheet or
they have in place an “emergency sub file” that consists of some canned work such
as a word search puzzle or the reading of an ancient issue of ”Weekly Reader.”
Students recognize and hate busy work more than a real lesson so the class
spirals down even further.
The students sense the lameness of most assignments demanded
that substitutes assign and like a circling shark or lion on the hunt, hope for
a weak substitute they can intimidate; to tears if lucky.
Students operate as though every substitute has
"STUPID” tattooed on
their forehead. They reason substitute teachers are dopes who know nothing and
are probably school dropouts, or they would have real jobs. Within the first
few minutes of each class several students are expleting, “Can I go to the
bathroom,” “Me and her are supposed to work in the art room today,” or “Can I
go to math class and finish a test.” It is as if they think since a substitute
is present they should be allowed to go anywhere except their assigned seat.
The substitutes are most likely actual teachers and
often with a college degree in the curriculum specialty of the absent teacher.
In those cases the substitute may actually have more teaching experience in the
discipline than the teacher for whom they are subbing. Even if not the same
field of study, as former teachers, substitutes have a passel of pedagogy
tricks that when given a chance could make a pleasant day for the sub and
students alike.
Students generally pull the same silly excuses for
not working as I did in the late 50s and early 60s. The only original pretext
I’ve heard recently is, “I’m ADHD” implying the little bugger to wander the
room, pester classmates, and perform no actual assigned work. I used “Can” in the above paragraph because students
today appear to have never heard the word “May” or been told the difference
between permission and capability. They also are predisposed to end sentences
with prepositions and rarely use nominative and objective pronouns correctly,
thus, “Can me and him go to the office.” Actors, talk show hosts and
newscasters abuse these same rules; consequently the kids hear them and mimic
their “elders,” in these cases anyway.
Every teacher should occasionally work as a
substitute just to see that what is described here is true. With such experience
they might be more respectful of the substitutes’ role and leave work worthy of
them and the students.
I enjoy the substitute assignments I accept by not
taking myself too seriously around the students, with self-deprecating humor, by
allowing the students more latitude in performance and behavior than I ever
would have as a regular teacher and finally by cognizance that I’m going home
at 3:30 p.m. I have no papers to grade, parents to call, after school faculty
meetings, lesson plans to prepare, bus loading to watch, grades to prepare, ticket
gate to cover, sport to coach or parent conferences to prepare.
Following discharge from the US Army in 1971 I began
teaching junior and senior high sciences. I went into school administration years ago
and retired in 2011. I missed the kids,
and am enjoying teaching again. Being a substitute resumes my respect for
teaching and pleases me how little has changed since I was a student more than a
half century ago. Students still want to visit with their friends, waste time,
hassle the subs and get by with as little actual work as possible. They are a
little coarser and swear some, but in all other aspects appear to this old fat-guy
that they just want to get along, fly under the radar, and have a good time.
Just like I did!
