By Mark
I have a short list of people who I feel comfortable turning my classroom over to. Yes, I'm a bit of a control freak. People close to me would say that it is a manifestation of a form of professional arrogance, as if only a select few people have the capacity to fill these size 13s. Maybe there's a touch of that, but I like to think that it has more to do with the fact that I believe every minute of time I can offer my students is critical; so sacred that I lament any potentially lost minutes of instruction or practice.
So when I do have to be out of the classroom–which with three small kids at home (germ-factories) and a handful of teacher-leader obligations, tends to be more often than I'd like–there is no greater relief than seeing the names of a certain few substitute teachers appear next to my room key on the sub table in the main office.
The job of a substitute teacher is harder, I think, than the job of a regular contract teacher.
Each day the sub steps into a potential unknown. Sometimes it's the students who present the surprises (how they have the patience for the constant boundary-testing students do when the lead teacher is out, I do not know). On more than a few occasions, the life of a sub is spiced up by some vague or incomplete lesson plans left by the absent teacher–an offense I've committed but once and have felt guilty for ever since.
I wish I could say that every substitute was a star, but that'd be as delusional as the belief that every teacher is effective. Some are better than others, and I want only the best for my students both from myself and from the teachers who teach in my absence.
That's why I feel very lucky that I have a handful of teachers who I feel comfortable turning over the reins to when sick kids or district trainings pull me from walking the aisles of my classroom. I'm lucky, also, that I actually get to work with many of my substitute teaching partners–since I team teach, when my teammates are absent, I get to collaborate and cooperate with their substitute teacher, and watching them in action has (1) helped me realize who I prefer to have in my classroom, (2) appreciate immensely the distinct challenges and trials of being a substitute in a high school, and (3) given me the chance to say thank you.
Too often, due to obvious logistics, we rarely get the chance to have a face-to-face with the important people who assume our jobs in our absence. The notes we leave for each other are not much upon which to build a good relationship. Take the time to seek out and thank those important teachers who mind your kiddos in your absence–they are a critical part of our system that too often goes unappreciated.
I too subbed before teaching, and it’s where I learned ALL of my management confidence and tricks. It’s also where I learned that kids are really better than they’re given credit for, since the best management trick I learned was to simply expect them to work hard and be respectful.
In Seattle, I will say we have one of the shallowest pools of sub talent I’ve ever seen. My god. Some of them are superb teachers – better than me – but a whole lot of them are CRAZY PEOPLE.
I loved subbing. You don’t have to grade. You don’t have to plan. You don’t have to attend meetings. I think subbing is a critical piece of the educational realm. So, why aren’t we letting the bad subs go and, instead, hiring really excellent candidates who are pouring out of TEP programs every year? Seattle has a hiring freeze that extends to the sub pool, which is just ludicrous. We all need to do a better job of advocating to remove incompetent substitute teachers from the classrooms, too.
Hear-hear. Coincidentally, I just got home from an evening run to my classroom, writing sub plans for tomorrow so that I can go to an inservice on ELL instruction. I hope things go well, but I know full well that I’ll spend half of Thursday “taking back the fort.”
But as a former substitute, I couldn’t agree more that it was harder than my current job.