In-school suspension is always available. Let's talk about when the substitute teacher should use it.
In-school suspension is always available. Let's talk about when the substitute teacher should use it.
It is January 15 2023. This Greg Colin substitute teachers lounge, is there ever a time when you finally just give up on a student and send them to ISS or for those of you who are uneducated about those initials, it's in school suspension. Oh, I expect this week's episodes to be popular every time we do one on discipline, it ends up being like a top 20 episode that we've ever had. And by the way, we're up, this is Episode 191, we're almost we've almost hit that 200 margin, I can't believe I've been doing this that long, it's started summer of 2018. That's not right. I started subbing in fall of 2018, and started the podcast the next summer. So that would be 2019. So I thank all of you all for listening, thank all of you all for joining the substitute teachers Facebook group. I know I S S or some version of it exist in every school. It's inter school suspension, or I said inter or intra. Either way, you know what I mean, it suspension because of something a student does, that they get sent to ISS ISS. You know, typically, they are a room all by themselves, the ones I have seen actually have teachers that that's their job, they are the I S S person, the student goes in there with a work to do educational work to do not just busy work, work to catch up on, I have seen all kinds of configurations. Hopefully you don't want that room to be too full. So you can get by with a lot fewer chairs than you would in a normal classroom. I've seen them in any various different configurations from circles. A lot of times they're facing away from other students, they're some of them even have like, posters up on the wall, like you would see maybe in the dentist office that so supposed to be soothing, but at the minimum, not anything to distract the student a lot of times, and I didn't really think about it until I started putting down notes for this episode. A lot of times I've seen them and they don't have any windows. So they tend to minimize the distractions, make sure those kids know that they're in there for a disciplinary reason, and make sure they work while they're in there. And the least little bit of discipline that's required in that room. Seems like they take it much more seriously, because you're already in there for a disciplinary reason. If you do something else, it becomes more serious. It's a you know, graduated level of discipline. Now how does that apply to teachers and substitute teachers? Let's go from one extreme to another. Now, I'll be honest with you again, you know, I'm a volleyball referee, and you know that we have yellow and red cards. And in six years, I've only done a yellow card twice. And once was because the player got upset with herself and slammed the ball on the floor so high that it went up into the air. And that's one you almost have to do every time. But even that one, I felt so guilty about it, I could see the look on the next time that I had her game, I brought her some candy. And I said, I can't apologize. But I did feel bad about giving you that yellow card. And I just wanted to kind of, you know, pick things up a little bit and make you feel better. And she smiled. And that was the end of it. I see her all the time now and we still joke about it. So you got to remember, I'm that kind of person. Now. Let's talk about the extreme the the extreme where I'm going to say 90% of you substitute teachers would never get to this happened to a substitute teacher. The day before I substitute taught that same classroom. I went in there, and there were notes galore all over the place. I didn't really read them. I'm not saying I haven't read those in the past. I'm not saying I should but I'm not going to say that I'd ever feel guilty about doing it because to me it's a way to compare yourself to other subs and maybe improve it There's another story there that doesn't apply quite as much to this episode, so I'll save it for another time. But in this case, this teacher was I don't want to say so bad, but so easy to make, man how's that? All these pages and notes were about disciplinary action. And again, I didn't read them didn't really want to read them that day. One of the counselors came in and was talking to talking to me during lunch, socially. And he ended up saying, Did you hear about the sub yesterday? And I said, What do you mean, he said, she called up to the office 11 times 11 times throughout the day, some in each classroom. And there was some in the classroom, that is everybody's favorite. And she apparently yelled at them for every reason. So she tried to discipline them for getting up and sharpening their pencil without asking first getting it, you know, maybe that's her rule. But maybe they didn't know the rules. Maybe that was different than the teacher rules about, I don't know, I can't remember what it was. But they didn't ask that teacher back. Now. There was one student that she recommended it to the office that they went to ISS and the office didn't do it. There are, you know, I guess you would describe that as too much discipline, that was a teacher who wanted it, she either wanted to look like the big bad boss, and didn't really have that much interest in teaching the kids anything, she just wanted to discipline the kids and be scary to them. Or maybe she was just that much of a nervous wreck that anytime that anything at the least minimally challenged her authority, she got upset about it and wanted to discipline those kids. That's the one extreme, the other extreme, you're going to be faced with a situations where you have no option, but to sin, the student to ISS, or I guess, if truth be known, you would contact the office first. And then that would be their decision, there's three things that I can think of. The first two are very similar, you either get they either get aggressive with another student or with the teacher. That's an automatic. Okay, the third one that I can think of, and maybe you can think of more, I think these I guess, because I've been witness to all them happening. If a student purposely destroys school property, I've seen them tear up chairs on purpose. Oh, that's that's a trip to ISS you are going to in school suspension. It's all the stuff between the over disciplinary teacher I described. And these actions where it's automatic ISS, we've got a large gap between there. Now, how do we as teachers determine when it's serious enough to call the office, you know, for my yellow card example, that I think maybe in six years, I've sent three students to the office. And all of them actually came back and apologized. And that being I don't want to say friends, because maybe that's an improper word when you're talking about a teacher or a student, but they trusted me I trusted them later on. Did they ever need this? But again, yes. Were others teachers putting them in ISS? Yes. In fact, it is I recall. Now most of these have been while I have been in a long term position, Charlotte, I would have a little bit more authority in making a decision on whether they went and needed to go to ISS or not. But I would challenge you, as you learn to discipline. Don't use things like that as a crutch. You never know when you could have a better result with a student. There is one student I would still the student has moved out of the area. They still could be listening to this podcast, I guess. But I don't know if I would tell you this story if I still had a possibility to teach in the student but the to the student did very disruptive things flicking that student on the head or when they would come back from lunch, the little wood piece that was holding the door open to the classroom. They would kick it to see how far they could kick it just aggravating things over and over. I was just told them and I do this quite often. To me this is a disciplinary tool if it's just a mild form of discipline, but never less, something that needs to be done, have them come up and set for you for a little while. I did that one time and the student started answering questions not only started answering questions, but got aggravated others of the students that didn't know the answer. So I was kind of surprised at that. I've had students tell me, they're not going to come back there. And then I just talk to them after class, some teachers probably would have sent them to the office right away, this student was probably testing me because I think he was pretty sure I wasn't going to discipline him too severely. At the same time, I helped him with his work, and you never know what's going on in a student's head. It just so happened, this was around Thanksgiving. And as I was coming back from lunch, he was already in my classroom wasn't even his class, in my classroom setting in a chair, he had left me a note. And he said, Would you mind reading this and it said something to the effect. Keep in mind all the students this was around Thanksgiving, so they were all writing notes of thanks to various teachers, he wrote one to me, and it said something to the effect of, I know, we didn't get off on the right foot. But I really do thank you for being taller than me and helping me with my classes, he did want me to help him with some other things. Once that longterm row was over, and I would see him in the hallway, he would always come up out of his way to talk to me, you know, for some reason, being destructive and causing trouble was part of him. I never sent him to ISS, but he was in there quite often. But I just want to make the point. And I'm not even sure if I would do it the same way. Again, I kind of gave him a second chance. And hopefully I at least planted a seed that he could be nice to me in certain situations. He even told me a story about what his girlfriend did to him when she was mad or something like that. I didn't want to hear that story. But he confided in me and told me that story. So when you discipline other students, here's the guidelines that I would shoot for, to make sure it's appropriate. First of all, is the title of the podcast said don't use ISS as a crutch, don't always know whether I can always send them there. I can tell them, they've given me trouble send them to ISS. Don't do that. I mean, leave that to the teachers. Unless it's one of those three things that we talked about at the beginning of the episode, and you just have to, but try to be reasonably tolerant. Don't let them be disrespectful. I've had disrespectful students. And I've gotten pretty good, I'm clever enough that I can turn around and make a joke out of it. Not a joke that would embarrass the student. But just a joke. I mean, when I'm talking said something he was, he wasn't really intending to be mean, he was more just wanting to get attention talked about God, I'm starting to get a small bald spot on the back of my head can see it most of my hairs in the front. And it looks okay to me. But, and I turned it into a joke. I'll be honest, I don't even remember what I say about the kids laughed, even he laughed, that keeps the students loose. Try to think of some things that if you need to discipline, keep your composure, say things like you know that that's something that I shouldn't be sending you to the office for. So I'm also someone that I give second chances. But that's your first and only warning, the next trip is to the office. Try that that doesn't always work. And by all means, if you say that you got to do it. So don't make that. I hate to call it a threat. But that's what it is don't make that threat and then not follow through on the threat. I'll sometimes catch students lying to me, just because they know what kind of trouble it is. And if I know for sure they did it. I'll make I did this a couple of weeks ago, I'll say, all right. I know who did this. So you can either admit it now, or the consequences later will be much more severe. You can see their eyes, you could kind of see them looking around. And then if they didn't come up at the end, I would announce their name. I would just say I want to see Johnny and Betsy at the end of class and then they knew they were in trouble. So when it was over and they came up, they apologized at first and I said listen, you're gonna get in less trouble with me than if you just admit to something the first time instead of lying about it. I'm a pretty easygoing guy, unless it's something really serious. I'm gonna give you a second chance, I'm just going to tell you don't do it again, and we'll go from there. But don't challenge me in that respect or don't lie to me, the consequences will be much more serious. And they appreciate it that again, those students talk to me all the time. So you've got to establish your disciplinary procedure, it's going to be somewhere between, send everybody to ISS and send nobody to ISS, even if they're destroying things, you got to come up with a plan in the middle. Now, when you do that, don't emphasize the discipline, emphasize the student. Here's what that means. Remember that, that you're going to see that student again, that students there to learn, don't do something to them that might be so traumatic, that it's going to take a few days for them to pick themselves back back up. Maybe you just want to have a good talk. And if you can tell they're not listening, then you do something else. But the only goal of this, don't use discipline as a crutch. Use it when necessary. But otherwise, whatever you do, based on what that student is done, let's always remember, we're there for the students and to keep that student in mind