As a substitute teacher who's navigated the turbulent waters of the classroom since the onset of COVID-19, I've witnessed firsthand the seismic shifts in student behavior and engagement. This podcast episode is an intimate reflection on these changes, spiced with personal anecdotes and input from fellow educators. We're peering into the heart of the classroom where the lingering effects of the pandemic are as palpable as the chalk dust in the air, exploring how the mental health of our students has been rattled and the new hurdles we, as educators, must clear.
As a substitute teacher who's navigated the turbulent waters of the classroom since the onset of COVID-19, I've witnessed firsthand the seismic shifts in student behavior and engagement. This podcast episode is an intimate reflection on these changes, spiced with personal anecdotes and input from fellow educators. We're peering into the heart of the classroom where the lingering effects of the pandemic are as palpable as the chalk dust in the air, exploring how the mental health of our students has been rattled and the new hurdles we, as educators, must clear.
Greg Collins substitute teacher's lounge. It is February 13, 2024, one day before Valentine's Day. Make sure you've taken care of whoever you're buying Valentine's for I don't even know how to describe today. I have noticed a change in students over the years and I'm thinking maybe I'm starting to blame COVID and how. Covid didn't affect students just medically. It affected them for lack of a better word mentally. My opinion I'm gonna talk about it today and then see if we can come up with something we can do about it. All right now, full disclosure anything I say about COVID, I'm just giving you my opinion. I'm just telling you. The only thing that's gonna be based on facts is when I started noticing this and this is gonna be kind of a follow-up to last week's episode. This week is episode 247. Last week was 246.
Speaker 1:I think it was titled my Worst Substitute Teacher Day Ever, and anytime I put out a title like that, a topic like that, it is always one of the most listened to, definitely the most listened to so far this year. And we're human. We tend to gravitate towards more negative things to read than we do positive. I remember the old Ted Turner channel. I don't remember what it was called, but it was supposed to be Good News, a show just about Good News, and the show failed. It failed because no one I shouldn't say no one, because not very many people watched it, so they didn't have enough interest to keep it on the air.
Speaker 1:After recording last week's episode, things happened this week that confirmed what I was talking about, and they didn't necessarily happen to me. I had maybe one class that was a little bit noisy, but so was I when I was their age. They weren't defiant in any way, they were relatively nice. And what has happened, though, since last week, since I recorded the last week's episode, is I have noticed. I noticed the first thing that happened this week is a friend of mine who substitute teachers said they had their worst day ever. They said they'll never, never go back, and they hadn't even listened to the podcast from last week. They said they'd never go back to this class. As I go to our substitute teachers lounge Facebook group, I'm seeing more and more Post like that that. I'm just starting to see how it is increasing now Versus four years ago, when the Facebook group was started, along with the podcast. So I'm thinking what in the world has happened? I'm going to remind you. I won't take more than a couple minutes, I promise. Remind you of my background, how I got into substitute teaching, so that I can then blame COVID a little bit about how things have changed since then.
Speaker 1:Okay, 2018, six years ago, I retired from 38 years in accounting. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I actually always enjoyed working with you than even mentioned getting out of accounting, maybe someday in teaching. I just never did it. That summer, no school in session, of course.
Speaker 1:So I tried ubering for a little while again, because I'm the kind of person that likes to meet people. There's not any huge airports close to me. I had to drive about 25 minutes away and park at an airport and wait for planes to come in. Of course, when you're ubering, you have a plane schedule and I like to watch for the ones coming from Florida, because I was hoping maybe it was people and families coming back to back from vacation. It would be a fun group to talk to and you know you see some drivers that like to talk, some don't. So I did that for a while, even to the point that I almost bought a different car that I thought would be more conducive to driving uber. But then I Saw the notification that the county was looking for substitute teachers. My wife encouraged me as well because she knew I always wanted to do it. I did it, had my first substitute teacher day in November of that year, 2018 and enjoyed it so much. I'm still doing it here in 2024. I Loved it.
Speaker 1:The kids back then were great. They're still great. Don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna cut in them to them too badly. But back then the classes that teachers would tell me are Are there bad classes? I Didn't really think they were that bad. I Get along good with kids, always have.
Speaker 1:My wife and I used to organize camps, youth camps Four weeks a summer of youth camps, sometimes more, and we always enjoyed that. I'm a strong type a in organization. The Volleyball coach I work for that was telling her story about somebody I ran through that was highly organized I guess it was a teacher and she said you mean more organized than you. So even she made would make fun of how organized I was and I liked being that way. In fact, I have up. The unfortunate part is it ends up making you have a low tolerance of others who aren't as organized. So but getting back to students, student temporary, pleasant back then, middle school, high school that's all I did. I did one day of elementary school, never went back, but it wasn't because of the students or the experience. It was fifth grade, so that's close enough to middle school that it's really the same thing. And then, of course, we get to 2020.
Speaker 1:By that point in time, I had long termed subbed several classes. One had just concluded, right before the COVID scare hit in. I always say it was on my birthday, march 11th 2020. I remember it because we were in a theater and I was starting to see beeps on my phone, a thing shutting down, and I had one day of substitute teaching to do after that and one softball game to umpire after that, and it was the last softball game I actually ever did and, of course, the last substitute teaching day for anybody in the world, I guess until August of 2020, when the new school year started and we had to do all the virtual learning stuff.
Speaker 1:But I say all that to say this the students missed out, the teachers missed out through all that, and what I noticed after that is a change. It wasn't that the COVID virus affected it, but the fact that we couldn't get out and socialize. Let's face it, you need socialization. Even the students that are homeschooled. Well, their parent teachers still get them out and let them socialize. A lot of cities have sports programs I shouldn't say sports programs, school sports programs that will let the homeschooled participate, since that's the only way they could participate in life.
Speaker 1:But COVID messed up all that. We had to shut ourselves down for a while. We had to go to virtual learning. Even when we came back and I noticed it most in the sixth graders when they came back they just seemed so immature and I'm blaming that time off. I'm not blaming the virus, I'm blaming the fact that we had to shut ourselves away from everybody else.
Speaker 1:You know that I just watched an Andy Griffith episode of All Things and they were talking about a man who was living a perfectly happy life by himself, always happy all the time. And then Andy said yeah, and he talks to himself too. So you know we do weird things when we're confronted with being alone, cast away. As painful it makes me when I watch that movie, whenever it's on, I watch it. Sometimes I'll just pull it up on my own and watch it, because just the feelings that Tom Hanks character had to go through when he was alone creating a volleyball called Wilson, to talk to not creating it, unwrapping it and calling it Wilson. But what I noticed in students and I'm gonna hit it hard now until the end of the episode is that it wasn't just those sixth graders that came back after a year of not being able to socialize. For some reason.
Speaker 1:Today the students I run into in class aren't just less mature, they are more out of control. I guess that's the way I would like to word it. I told you about the class in last week's episode, the person I ran into this week. They hit a class this week that they're never going back to. I read on the Facebook page again several instances of problems with students and I say all that to say this I don't I never. I'll say it this way.
Speaker 1:When I started substitute teaching through the first two years, I said I will do this until I am physically no longer capable of doing this because I enjoyed it so much. As I mentioned last week, I do it for the fun more so than the money. So why would I go back to a class that I'm not having fun in? And I'm gonna blame some of that on the fact that we were off that year for COVID. It messed up our lives. Students now, as a general rule, are much more defiant as too strong a word. They are much more out of control than they were when I first started substitute teaching.
Speaker 1:Now there are exceptions. In fact it's an interesting opposite. This week I had a high school class and everyone is saying, oh, fourth period's a worse, fourth period's a worse. The teacher didn't tell me that, but even you know, when the students know which class is typically the worst, well, they're the ones that know They've even heard the teacher say something about them or they just know they know the student's in there. And so I got to fourth period and you know it was probably. They probably talked more than the others, but and they had strong personalities, but they actually did real well. I put them down as at least one of my favorite classes of the day. I told them they were gonna do it. One girl even said yeah, we get in trouble a lot because she said something to the effect of we have strong opinions and the teacher is really a person who has her morals and her ways of doing things and we are admitting that sometimes we get on her nerves and they didn't bother me at all that day. So that's the flip side of that. They did okay, but as a general rule the pre-COVID kids acted better than the post-COVID kids.
Speaker 1:Now I will attempt in these last few minutes of giving us some ideas of maybe some things we can try. I'm not gonna be wishy-washy. I still am not going back to that class that I had last week. In fact I'll give you sort of a sad story. I don't make it over sentimental, but it was at volleyball. We are in the middle of middle school Volleyball tournaments right now. Tournament is almost over. In fact by the time you hear this it is over.
Speaker 1:And one of the little sixth graders bless her heart, I love having her in class. She's on the volleyball team and she came up to me at one of the games I was referring between games and she said Mr Collins, when are you gonna come back and substitute our class again? And I said I'll be back there someday. And she said well, we all heard what happened in seventh grade and we didn't want you to hold it against us. And I'm thinking, man, did the whole school find out that? I told them that I wasn't gonna come back to their class for a while, and I told you last week I might not even go back to the school for a while because I don't want to render those kids in the hallway and have to even deal with them that way. But thank goodness there are still students like that. I talked to her father. I saw her standing next to her father as they were getting ready to leave and I said do you know this young lady? And he said yes, she's mine. And she said she better not ever give you any trouble. And I truthfully said one of the nicest students I ever had in class. So, solution wise, I don't know what to do. I'm gonna try some things.
Speaker 1:I never challenge students when they're challenging me. Sometimes I will accuse them of still the freshmen especially. I will still accuse them of being in middle school mode. I will accuse them of having their pouty voice, using their pouty voice when they don't get their way. I will tell them truthfully that, even though it's not my style, the teacher has informed me to write names down and I'll tell them. I said I'm not even gonna tell you if I write your name down. They'll ask me and I purposely won't tell them. I said, if I write your name down, it's just to give to your teacher tomorrow. And I'm glad because I don't like punishing people, I like rewarding people or at least telling them you did a good job. But I will give it to your teacher.
Speaker 1:Maybe this hasn't even happened to you, but I can't imagine that you're not in the same mode that pre-COVID students acted better than post-COVID. I'm struggling with it a little bit, so much. So we're at episode 247. I actually have considered 250 being the last. Now. Right now that's not gonna be the case. But I've got what is that? Three episodes. I've got three weeks to go. If this continues being a trend and takes all the fun out of it, then I don't know what I'll do, man, but do your best to deal with the situation. Feel free to make comments to this episode. It was more of an op-ed piece, so feel free to make comments on the Facebook group page and maybe we can all learn something together and maybe even the kids will change, because even if they didn't have that year of interacting and maturing well, it's eventually gonna catch up and maybe we'll have better students in the classroom. So best of luck to you and hopefully you don't have to deal with these kind of students too often.