A Treatise on Substitute Teaching

“Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they make substitute teachers.”

I've heard that quote paraphrase tossed around faculty rooms many, many times, but really? I don't agree with it. If you regularly think that while subbing, then you're not doing it right.

For the new substitute teacher, I admit, it can be very hard. It's a school you're not familiar with, the teachers don't know you, and the kids see one thing: fresh meat. In the days before school security got very tight-most subs have to wear neon badges proclaiming their status to all and sundry nowadays-your credentials got challenged all the time, by staff and student alike. Especially if you look younger than your age.

Which happened to me.

My first day subbing with my district. I am lost. I'm standing in the hall looking at a map-during class change, mind-when one of the senior boys stops, offers to help me find my room…and starts hitting on me. I think he was convinced I was a new student and he wanted to get a foot in the door first (why, I don't know, since I really don't consider myself an attractive person). It turned out that I was going to the same room he was.

Imagine his shock when we got there, he went to his seat…and I went to the teacher's desk, took the sub folder out of my bag, and introduced myself as the substitute. The look on his face was priceless. If I was a bit meaner of a person, I'd have wished for a camera.

Later that same day, I was in the halls between classes-it was my lunch-searching out the bathroom. I got challenged by one of the hall duty teachers, wanting to know where my pass was. Out comes the sub folder again.

It was a year before I went anywhere without the sub folder in my hand at all times.

Substituting can be rough, there's no doubt, especially in the higher grades. The elementary kids…they're still eager to please, for the most part. They are also insecure about their ability to please. Make one comment about having to leave a bad note for their teacher, and those kids are yours for life. The older ones-and for the purposes of this, I am defining “older” as grades eight and up-are more aloof. Harder to impress. You see, they've been around the block a few times by now, and have figured out two things that the little ones haven't. One: subs-and especially the new ones-do not know your name. Two: teachers rarely leave “real” work for a sub. It's usually worksheets and the odd video. Busy work.

So now you have the combination where the kids know that the work probably won't count for anything, and you really have no way of fingering the wrongdoers. This is an equation for chaos. Not total chaos, because then it would be too easy for the beleaguered substitute to write up the entire class. No, there are always six or seven holdouts; just enough so that when the regular teacher comes back and demands answers, they can truthfully insist that, no, the whole class wasn't involved in everything.

Of course, no one will give up the names of the troublemakers. Not unless they're craving a beating after school, that is.

This, you see, leaves the classroom teacher in a quandary. If they are the “fair” type, they'll realize that they can't punish everyone for the actions of some. Mainly because, if they do, the entire class will cry foul and proceed to do nothing for the teacher for the rest of the year. So nothing happens, and the cycle continues.

In districts that have a high substitute turnover, this is the constant of substitute teaching, and why the whole subbing racket has such a bad rap. It changes, though, if the sub lasts a year-or six months in some cases-and becomes a “regular.” I'm sure many of you can relate this to your own experiences. Think back to your school days-or to last week, if you're still in school. Think of your subs. Who did you behave better for, the sub you saw maybe once or twice before they disappeared, or the sub that you saw almost daily in one form or another?

For the generally well-behaved people, it was probably the second. If you were/are the type to give your regular teachers grief, then it really doesn't matter.

I have been with my district for four years, in one form or another. I've been a daily sub, and a “leave replacement”-a term designed purely to remind you of you second class classroom status. You have all the duties and responsibilities of a “real” teacher-lesson planning, grading, chaperone duties, etc.-but not the respect of the actual title of teacher. By now, the kids know me. And I know them, at least by sight. That means that I can attach a name from a roster to a face pretty damn quickly if I didn't know it already.