Substituting

I've mentioned I'm a substitute teacher before. I've been doing it for 6 1/2 years. Many interesting things are going on around the country for substitutes at the moment.

In New Mexico, bus drivers have been getting pulled into the schools and asked to substitute in between driving. In Texas, the National Guard has been recruited. Many states (such as Wisconsin) have had or are considering having law enforcement step in. In Utah, the governor said state employees can take 30 hours PTO to go help in schools. It's an interesting time for sure. I read the comments to some of these articles and felt myself getting a little worked up. Teachers are on there complaining about substitutes and how unqualified and uncompetent they are. Some of them say their job as a teacher is so much harder. Parents are complaining about both substitutes (and saying they're just a warm body/babysitter) and having state employees help. "They aren't qualified to help my kids." People are complaining about teacher pay being too low or many complain teachers get paid too much. People are just overall complaining.

These are some of my thoughts and experiences. First of all, in the case of the national guard or law enforcement coming in, I'm all for it!!! The biggest issue in school right now is student behavior at all age levels. If a police officer has his gun dangling as he tells students to put their phones away or stop talking, I have a feeling behavior would change pretty quickly. If law enforcement just stopped into each class during the last 5 minutes and had us report kids who couldn't get their behavior on track and the kids had to have a chat with an armed officer, I think we would see change. Of course I hesitate to just intimidate and cause fear with guns. What's lost is respect. I've seen enough students have no incentive to use respect in their lives that at times I think something like having armed officers around might be enough to bring a little respect back to school. There are many liaison officers that are a friendly face in schools but the fact still remains that they are armed.

Next, why are so many people hell-bent on proving a teacher's job is harder and they don't get paid enough or a substitute's job is harder and they don't get paid enough? (As a sidenote, I see this thing going on that "life has been so hard on teachers since the pandemic" and then responses of "That's nothing. You should be glad you're not a nurse during the pandemic" and "I'd rather be a nurse than work for the state health department during the pandemic" and so on and so forth. It's not a competition. Every job, every human has felt the struggle in some way. We don't have to have had the most acknowledged struggles to just admit we have all struggled in different ways. We don't have to prove to anybody that our job was harder. It doesn't matter. There's not gold star to display for your troubles. Let's connect more along the lines of humanity.) Couldn't we just respect that both professions are difficult and don't pay that well? For teachers they have to grade assignments, communicate with parents, and attend extra training. For substitutes, they are disrespected right out of the gate, they come into an unknown environment and just have to lead somewhat on the fly constantly, and they are publically told they are nothing more than a warm body or babysitter for students. People assume we don't have the skills or qualifications to be there.

Once in a while I sub for a teacher that respects and helps a substitute. I know this when they've done things such as: *told the class ahead of time there will be a substitute and they expect best behavior (which they can't always do if they're absent unexpectedly). *told the class there will be some kind of incentive if they get a good report from the sub *made rules about the bathroom or hall pass. My district says we can never tell a student they can't use the bathroom because we don't know if the student has a medical condition. However, if a teacher tells me no students are allowed to use the bathroom, then I know there are no medical conditions and I'm allowed to say no to the excessive use of "bathroom time" when there's a sub. In one school, the rule is they can't go. If the student says it's an emergency, we call the office to get the student an escort for the bathroom and they can use it then. With this rule, it turned out that not one student had an actual bathroom emergency. *allowed me to run a class discussion-I automatically get better behavior when a teacher trusts me enough to allow me to engage with students. My best subbing experiences are the few classes where the lesson plans allowed for a good discussion. One teacher suggested I tell the students that they have to participate in a meaningful discussion but if they run out of comments, it's okay. The teacher left worksheets as a back up. Wow-those kids had lots of ideas under those circumstances and I enjoyed the experience, too. *allowed me some wiggle room in the schedule. I appreciate when a teacher leaves plenty of work to do. However, I appreciate when there is time that I'm allowed to use to adapt. I always bring trivia which makes class fun if we have time to do it. Sometimes extra time allows for discussions or other ways to engage the students. Sometimes assignments take longer than the teacher thinks they might. When a teacher leaves some wiggle room with the planning, I find I can run a much more successful class.

There are comments made all the time that sustitutes aren't even qualified for the task at hand. I understand there are a lot of bad substitutes. I hear about them often. However, I work incredibly hard to be and stay qualified. I do some district trainings every year and I do extra training on my own as well. I subscribe to a newsletter that's always giving me ideas of how to be a better sub. I have never NOT followed a teacher's lesson plans, no matter how much I dislike some of the plans. I don't yet have my bachelor's degree, which is sometimes why comments are made about not being qualified. I don't know how taking another English class, another science class, an art class and a few other random electives would make me any more qualified. Those are completely irrelevant to what goes on in public schools. I have 3 years of college and two associates degrees, one in pre-teacher education. However, even the classes I took for that didn't greatly enhance any of my teaching skills. I have 12 years experience teaching Jr. Achievement classes, which is a program that provides business, financial, and community lessons to elementary students. That is just coming into a class for an hour or so once a week for 6 weeks. I've taught the Great Artist Program, which goes on a similar schedule. I've been a room mom lots of times. Every one of those experiences better prepared me to substitute than any college class I took. Even then, it's what goes on in regular life and with my own kids that has best prepared me for being a sub. What do you do when a kid doesn't fit in the normal boxes? How do you handle disruptions? What are kind ways you can address problems? These are all things I've picked up more from mothering than anywhere else.

There is some training we're never given: What to do when you hear at least 30 times in a day, "oh no! we have a sub", how to handle a student that won't quit telling you about his mom's sex toys, or appropriate ways to respond to students that talk openly about their drug use. They've never instructed me on the ins and outs of when a fight breaks out unexpectedly during class or how to handle a student opening a condom instead of the book the class is reading or how to show a student you care about them when they struggle with a parent's incarceration. They don't tell us how to not feel dead inside after pouring all the love we can muster into students that won't recognize or respond to us caring and we come home with nothing left to give our family members that day. They don't give you pep talks to shake it off when garbage is thrown at you or students comment that it's sad you couldn't find a real job. These are all things I've dealt with that there is no stardard in which to follow to navigate the circumstances. Parents want to talk about who's qualified to be with their kids. Is that your kid that refuses to put their cell phone away because no other adult in their life teaches them technological boundaries? Is that your kid that thinks it's okay to make sexual comments repeatedly as long as others in the class laugh? Is that your kid that hits on me without any way for me to squash the behavior other than asking them to stop? Is that your kid that throws their garbage on the floor because "somebody else gets paid to pick it up?" Is that your kid that absolutely refuses to do any work in class? Is that your kid that turns on a game for the whole class and then complains they didn't have enough time to do the assignment? Is that your kid who won't work but also won't stop distracting other students? When was the last time you talked to your kid about their behavior at school? When was the last time you told them you expect certain things from them while they're at school? When did you last talk to them about how they treat other students? When was the last time you went through your students assignments with them to see if what they're being taught is meaningful? When was the last time you talked to them about all of their education options or even considered an alternative yourself if the traditional route is not working? When was the last time you thought about what it would be like to be in charge of 30-40 kids at a time for different subjects on a regular basis who were so distracted by technology and social media that they can't even commit a reasonable portion of their time or energy to learning new things?

When was the last time you considered these tech-addicted kids go home to tech-addicted parents and siblings who are so distracted they forget to connect with one another? I'm saying this because of what I see in the classroom and I'm saying this because of what I see in my own home. I'm not immune to these pitfalls. We struggle as a family to connect and balance our time using electronics, too. I forget at times to talk to my kids about their behavior at school. Sometimes when they struggle with classes and grades I forget to dive in deeper and see if there are things we could do differently to get them more engaged. Sometimes the answer isn't blaming the teachers or the substitutes for "not being qualified" as teachers. It usually takes a qualified parent to end up with a well-taught student. I write this, not because I think anybody will ever read it. C'mon-who even blogs still? I write this because of years of struggling in certain ways but not having anybody to talk to about it. There are not substitute conventions (that I know of) where you get to swap these stories with others. Substituting is actually a very isolating job. You don't have many opportunities to connect with other teachers and you endure many hardships without having a way to unload them. When you log in to an article on a Friday night, as a random example, and it's after a long, difficult day of substituting and you see how many people are saying subs are nothing more than overpaid babysitters, it doesn't feel good. Today was the day I wanted to put my experiences into words. I substitute for two reasons. The first is because of the flexible schedule-I really love the flexibility. The second is that I love the chance to try to help and teach students. I'm passionate about education and I'm passionate about every student holding untold potential. The passion dulls a little every time I'm hit with garbage or insulted or manipulated. When I see other jobs I could do that pay nearly the same but it wouldn't involve trying to keep 40 students on task or stopping fights or competing for attention against cell phones, it's very tempting to throw in the towel with this. When I know I could do a more simple job and come home with plenty of energy left to spoil my family with, I wonder how much longer I will keep this job.