Substitutes

The past two days I've worked alongside two different substitutes. Mrs. C was out on Monday, and so I worked with a sub for her class. We were watching a film, and I had one student who just wouldn't behave. He's the one with the poor attitude I mentioned previously, and he would roll his eyes when I asked him to stop making noise or distracting his classmates. I finally told him "I'm not going to do anything right now, but I'm keeping track of how many times I need to talk to you for Mrs. C when she gets back."

The sub noticed nothing - I worked with her earlier in the year and it was the same then as well. She didn't notice when students misbehaved and she just pressed on with a lesson regardless of the success (or lack thereof) she was meeting with. When she said they were well-behaved, I personally felt a bit embarrassed and apologized for my one trouble-making student who wouldn't stop distracting people.

After that she began chiding me over giving up on him, and her immediately question was "Does he have an IEP?" (For those not in the field, it's an Individualized Education Plan, sort-of a guide for how this student needs to learn) "No," I said and I began trying to explain that this was a matter of attitude. However she kept talking over me and telling me her own experiences with teachers who say it's attitude and who "throw away" students. She began insisting that he should be tested to determine if he needs special services rather than just saying "He's got a bad attitude."

At the time I was livid -- you tell me I'm throwing a student away and that I should get him tested? Getting a student tested is a lengthy and expensive process -- it could require months of work getting the case file together, preparing the necessary forms and having all the needed meetings. But you advocate getting him tested for a Learning Difficulty (the current PC term) as if it were nothing. She would hear nothing of his lack of paperwork, his success in other classes, his intelligence and willingness to do some work yet his constant protestations that he's 'bored!'

By the by, a piece of advice for students: Never, ever, say you're bored within hearing distance of the teacher. Say the lesson isn't engaging, say you just aren't connecting with things, say you just aren't feelin' it, but don't just say you're bored. It's like telling someone the work they do is worthless, and is rather like a slap in the face.

I will spare the gory details, but this encounter with the substitute spoiled my night. External life drama and a sick cast and crew for "Spinning into Butter" left me feeling down in the dumps and wanting to do nothing but sleep and prep for classes.

Then today I had a sub for Mrs. N. The sub was a very quiet woman, she seemed out of place. She couldn't find the lesson plans (located in an enormous red folder in Mrs. N's mailbox), said that Italians are known for talking with their hands, mispronounced "Ghana" and was unable to locate it on a map. Also while going over a rubric, she was puzzled by the word "elocution," so much that she returned to it twice and read the elements of proper elocution twice. I didn't immediately know what proper elocution was, but upon looking at the rubric it becomes clear it is proper speaking and presentation. Then during Block 2, when I am teaching, she read a newspaper for half the class and then left. She never returned. Maybe she was bored.

This is in large part why I felt dissatisfied with substitute work. Between having no real management of the classroom at the time, I felt more like a glorified babysitter than a teacher. I am not trying to make a judgment on substitutes on the whole, but this experience has been very surreal thus far and I just don't know what to make of it all. I am, however, glad I didn't post anything immediately yesterday, as I likely would have had more... choice, words to say.