Recovering from a Bad Substitute Experience by Diane Trim

Thanks to Shawn Robertson fro bringing this piece to our attention.

 

Recovering from a Bad Substitute Experience

April 13th, 2011 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Teaching Strategies

The cold and flu season can’t be finished soon enough for me. My family and I have caught every passing virus this season; I feel as if I live in the House of Plague. Hand sanitizer, tissues, and hot tea have been at an arm’s length for three months and I’m waiting impatiently for sun screen, beach towels, and iced tea to replace them.

As a teacher, you know that even if your fever is 101.3 degrees, the first bell still rings at 7:50. It’s not enough to call the school district’s substitute caller at dawn to request a teaching substitute. You have to have a lesson plan ready to go, too. When I taught, I’d craft my lesson plan the minute I left a message with our sub caller. I’d email everything to our high school secretary and, if I could, send any photocopies right to our English department’s printer for the sub to pick up on the way to my class.

My sub folder, or Guest Teacher folder, was in good order, with routines, seating charts, emergency lesson plans, maps, phone numbers, and 50¢ for the soda machine. I tried very hard to make my guest teachers happy in my classroom because I wanted to come back to happy students and little work to take home at night. Despite my best plans, though, this didn’t always happen.

Let me share with you my nightmare experience. When I was a new teacher, I took maternity leave. I prepped my students, met with my sub, and wrote out detailed lesson plans. I picked up papers once a week for correcting, recorded grades, changed diapers, and napped when I could.

One Friday, I drove up to the school to retrieve the week’s worth of grading. The principal’s daughter chatted and walked with me to my room. I’m glad she did: I wouldn’t have recognized the place if she hadn’t. It was a disaster. Papers had been stuffed in all the storage spaces under all the student desks. The floor around the wastepaper can was littered with paper wads. Student graffiti covered the chalkboard. The worst: some of my dictionaries had chewed gum in them.

I sat down and cried. Sure, I was hormonal, but the disaster was overwhelming. Gracie ran to fetch her dad and I told my boss I was done with maternity leave and that I’d be at work on Monday.

I’ve had a few bad experiences with guest teachers in my room since, but none so bad as that first time. My students have claimed that the substitute never gave them an assignment, never collected their quizzes, and was the cruelest adult next to Hannibal Lecter.

Sometimes I knew that things didn’t go well in the classroom, but I never let the students begin a howling, wailing chorus about how unfair, unprepared, unfriendly, or unlovable the guest teacher was. I backed the substitute 100 percent, even when her decisions seemed bizarre to me, because the worst thing to do is to play good cop/bad cop with the students. That road leads to chaos for every subsequent substitute, no matter how fair, prepared, friendly, or lovable that person is.

But, what do you do when you’ve had a poor experience with a substitute?

  • Document the problem. Be sure to write down problems you’ve observed in an objective tone. Do not write down hearsay from students; document only problems that you can observe yourself or that other adults tell you.
  • Keep it in perspective. Was the problem that the substitute didn’t finish all of the learning activities in your class or are you getting reports from your teaching neighbors that your students were running up and down the hallways? Did any learning occur or was it just a study hall?
  • Call the district’s sub caller. Ask her to make a note that you would like a different sub sent to your classroom next time you’re away. Remind her of your preferences when you call in for a sub next time, too.
  • Let your building administration know. If you’re concerned about the safety and wellbeing of your students or the condition of your classroom, it’s time to share your documentation with an administrator.
  • Encourage the good ones. When you do have a positive experience with a guest teacher, make sure you let him or her know. Invite them to sit with you at lunch in the teacher’s lounge next time you see that person and make them feel welcome in your building. It’s sometimes tough for districts to secure substitutes, so keeping the good ones around helps ensure you’ll have a good one when you’re away.
  • Have a difficult, but professional conversation. If you see the substitute you’ve had a problem with in the past, pull her aside and have a conversation with her. Treat her how you’d like to be treated in an awkward situation like this. Ask her what happened when you were away. Explain what you observed. Ask what you both could do to improve and listen to her with your mind on how to prevent disasters in the future.
  • Examine your own work. Are you setting up substitutes for success or failure in your class? Have you given your guest teacher enough meaningful learning activities to engage your students for more than a class period? Have you given her all the materials she’ll need? Are your seating charts up-to-date? Does your substitute file contain information about special needs students, emergency drills, bell schedules, and your duty assignments? Are your lesson plans complete, legible, and explicit? Have you selected a student from each class to guide a substitute if the substitute has questions? Do you have class routines that are so automatic to your students that they follow them without teacher direction?

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list of what you can do to fix a situation with a sub-par substitute, but it’s a good start. When you do find a substitute who is outstanding, be sure to let your building administrator and sub caller know. We want to hold on to those people with both hands and never let them go.

How do you recover from a bad substitute teacher experience? If you’ve ever subbed, what’s the worst kind of classroom to walk into? What makes an ideal substitute teaching situation? Please share your experiences in the comments.

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