Or in my case, don't let one of your children get sick. On Thursday night - well, extremely early Friday morning - my daughter threw up several times in her bed. My wife and I would get her cleaned up and back to sleep, and then 30 minutes later, we would both be running toward my daughter's room in response to that frantic crying that accompanies the gurgling retching sounds of a vomiting two year-old. Ah, parenthood!
It was my turn to stay home from work, so I put in for a substitute teacher for that Friday. I pulled together a simple lesson plan and then emailed it to the school secretary so she could give it to the sub.
This morning, I entered my classroom and began reading the note left by the sub. The first thing that struck me was that some classes that are usually very well-behaved were uncontrolled chaos, according to the sub. She also gave me lists - that's plural - of students that she kicked out of class. Some students' inclusion on these lists didn't surprise me, but the lists also included students who are absolute mice.
Then, it all started to make sense. I checked my email and saw one from my vice principal telling me to disregard anything the sub told me in her notes, and that the sub will not be invited back to our campus. It turns out she is an absolute loon. Campus supervisors visited the class several times, and they all confirmed that the sub had no control of the classroom, and she was being totally inconsistent with her attempts at discipline, treating a whisper as harshly as a scream. As I sat there, shaking my head at the VP's email, the teacher next door, who teaches Yearbook, told me that he had sent a Yearbook student of his to borrow a stapler from my classroom. When the student asked this sub for my stapler, the sub began yelling at him and sent him to the office! So she was even removing other teachers' assistants for crying out loud!
A student with a Hispanic surname in my 1st period class (this is an honors class) told me that the sub couldn't remember how to say some word in Spanish, so the sub asked this student to call her mother to find out the translation (the student doesn't speak Spanish). The other students in the class confirmed this.
So today was a do-over. I had the students complete an almost identical assignment to the one that was supposed to be done on Friday. Many of the Friday assignments were not done because half of my classes were in the frickin' office. What pains me is that I am quite sure that there truly were some horribly misbehaving students. The problem is that since the sub poisoned the well, I can't take her word on who truly misbehaved.
So what is the lesson to be learned here? When you call for a sub, don't just let your sub be randomly picked by the district's system. Find out who the quality subs are, keep their ID numbers on file, and choose them when you call in (or go online) for your sub.
What's funny is that this sub was apparently so bad, that I got the feeling that my students were almost relieved that I was back in control of the classroom. Even my consistently worst behaving class (6th period) was quiet as could be as they completed today's assignment.
No worries; my two-week Easter Break begins this Saturday!
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
16 comments:
How about a blackboard covered with spitwads, which my substitute somehow overlooked? Or the jerk who told the kids that the district-required book we had just started to read, "The Yearling," was boring. I was overjoyed when that second one, after he got a full time job, was found guilty of and imprisoned for sexually abusing students. I hope he's still incarcerated.
I was a sub for a year, and I was highly requested by teachers. I don't regard myself to be some great teacher, but this gave me some idea of some of the clunkers out there who sub.
What a crap shoot huh?
Sadly our children today are largely driven by a cult of personality. My students will do what I say because, well, I'm Mr. Mimmen. However, if another adult comes to teach them . . . another story. Why? Because they don't look at that person as an authority figure. Instead they look at them as a personality. If they don't like their personality, they won't do what they say, even though your authority is behind the sub. Students don't understand authority anymore. Neither does our society.
Obama was largely elected by personality, Bush was largely disrespected because of it. The recents problems between police and certain groups is also the result of a misunderstanding of authority.
So what is authority about? Authority gives the beholder the right to perform certain moral functions (ie. educate a child or police a neighborhood). Their authority ought to be obeyed because their is a moral purpose to it. However, once the moral purpose is betrayed, we no longer have to obey the authority.
Sadly, our society has decided that almost any authority, unless it is given to someone we feel like we can trust because of their personality, should be disobeyed. This is different than someone being given authority despite their personality. Ironically, when we feel like someone should be trusted, they are most often the ones who are willing to betray us, using their authority for their own gain.
I got lucky this year and found a FANTASTIC sub that everyone on my team uses. She's in for us so often that she knows all the kids, and the kids know her and despite the fact that she takes absolutely no guff from any of them and doesn't let them step one toe out of line - they love her. She's familiar and she's awesome and I'll keep using her as long as she's subbing. She's gold. There are others that I won't let step foot in my room.
Mrs. Bluebird confirmed my point. Thank you Mrs. Bluebird. I am not trying to be adverserial.
What does it mean to "teach Yearbook"?
A Yearbook is also known as an "Annual" which is the book that you can buy at the end of the year that has photos of all the classes, sports teams, clubs, and assorted happenings that went on during the school year.
The Yearbook is put together by students under the advisement of a teacher, and they do it in a class that is classified as an elective, which is a class that the student chooses to take, rather than being a class you have to take like math or science.
Wow.. that counts as a lesson?
It's an elective - just like if you were taking art, or band, or pottery. Yearbook teaches one about publishing, photography, and other useful pursuits.
When I was in high school, some of the electives I took included band and mechanical drawing/drafting. Otherwise, I was in English/History/Science/Math learning the required stuff.
anonymous- that is an interesting response you made on personality and authority!
Imagine how hard it is to find a sub to teach high school math!
Almost everyone who applies can obtain a "substitute certificate" and be randomly assigned to your room.
Unfortunately, there is no pre-screening or requests for references by school districts before that first random assignment.
Screening by trial and error...
I have never personally experienced the subs of whom you speak, but one of my co-workers had a terrible sub. She was going out on maternity leave so she prepared months ahead of time. She had complete lessons written out, materials labeled by month/week/day, and basically had everything the sub could have possibly needed. When she came back after her maternity leave, all of her stuff was gone. Books that she had bought with her own money had all disappeared. When she called the sub, she claimed to have no idea whay she was talking about. A couple of months later our didtrict startedm the budget crunch where we couldn't call subs. We had to just get a list of our favorite subs, just on case they decided to let us call. She call this teacher and asks to be on the list. Lots of teachers have had different problems with her, so needless to say, she's not on our list!!
Finding great sub teachers is a tricky one. It is even tougher in an International School as you need to rely on local hire or assistants - who really want to stick and glue rather than take on a class and deliver. I had to be out for 2 weeks while I did whole school assessments - it took me a lot longer to get them back on task than this!
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