How should substitute teachers react when they're moved to a different class that they didn't sign up for?
How should substitute teachers react when they're moved to a different class that they didn't sign up for?
Greg Colin substitute teachers lounge, I signed up for a job this week. It was the most unique class that I ever thought I would be teaching. I walked in excited the teacher even sent me some notes the night before. And I hear, Mr. Collins, I think we're going to move you. So what happened? Did I say something? Should I say something? Let's talk about it Alright, guys, I think I got a good one for you today. It's kind of unique. And new the moment all this stuff happened, but man, this is gonna be the podcast this week. And it's ironic because I know some of them are going to be listening to it, because we talked about a little bit. First of all, though, my goodness, What got into you guys last week, you must have told all your friends. I apologize for last week's episode because of the quality of the mic. I had to use my laptop mic. I figured the show might be down because maybe you tune out and they get more credit, of course, if you listen to the whole thing, but I'm here to tell you that last week's episode, by the way, this is the episode for February 20 2023. Last week's episode, which I guess would be the 13th. Now that I think about I guess that was the 12th. Anyway, last week's episode, it was the best of subs it was. So our sysops that is now the most listened to downloaded podcast episode in the history of this show. And it's first seven days and again, that's that's what I normally compare the first seven days. So you guys really liked that one. For some reason. I don't know if you've ever taken pity on me because the sound was bad. And you're saying All right, let's move to make Greg feel better about it. I don't know if it was just a catchy phrase that I pulled from Charles Dickens. I don't know what it was. But obviously, you guys liked that one that is now our number one episode all time and it's first seven days now do I think that down the road, it will be the most popular episode ever. Now? Probably not. Because I think our very first episode in the history of the show gotten maybe 20 downloads in its first week. But it is by far now in the history of the show the most downloaded episode overall, because people still download that one and it's four years old. But anyway, let me tell you what happened to me this week. Earlier in the week, I had some classes I got moved to a class period happens all the time. That class period ended up being the worst class of the day, as far as students, I still am of the opinion, no student is a bad student. They're just doing bad things. I've tried to treat everyone with respect. And even if it's ironic, even the students that give me a hard time in class, especially when they see me one on one, they are jovial, they are friendly with me, they talk all the time. It's just part of their personality, I guess. But let me tell you, our area has something so unique, that I love. I hadn't been there in a while. But it's kind of a school that set up to give high school students additional options in the Related Arts category, more specific things like maybe welding or designing buildings or business with with the thought that it's a type of business class that you'll use in your career, medical classes. There's a school here in town that was built recently for high school students to further their education in those more specific areas. And I love it. So one night last week, I saw the opening pop up and all of a sudden I'm thinking Man, that sounds like a fun class. I need a fun class. This sounds like it's going to be great. I want to go there. I want to do it. It was a guitar class. I'm going to describe it here in just a moment. But think about that. I had never subbed for a guitar class. Obviously, that's a specialty version of perhaps a band class, but for the students themselves. Maybe they want to take the class it's obviously they want to take it and we know this every time you're subbing in class where the stew have chosen the class rather than having the class thrust upon them. They're always more excited. Well, here's what happened. I accepted it. The teacher went out of his way and found my email address sent me an email. It's the one I use in frontline. So it's not like he hacked into Baghdad, he actually, but he went to the trouble to go to frontline, send me an email and say, Mr. Collins, thank you so much for teaching my class today. Here's what they're doing. They all know what to do. I went over his notes. Believe it or not, it did involve Chromebooks involved getting on there and watching videos that he had created on how to do certain chords and notes, whatever the lingo is these days. So I was so excited. I walked in. And they said, Mr. Collins, we need to move you to a business class. Well, I didn't want to say anything. Business class, if anything that is in my wheelhouse. I was an accountant for 38 years a finance manager. But I really didn't enjoy it that much. I could teach it. But I know the lady saw my disappointment immediately. And I said, that's fine. But and I didn't get snotty, I promise you. But it's obvious when I said this, that she could see the disappointment, or maybe even hear the disappointment of my voice. I said, well, that will be okay. But the teacher actually sent me notes last night that I actually went over so that I would be prepared for today. And she looked at me and she said, Okay, wait just a moment, she went and talked to either the principal or the assistant principal. They moved me back to the guitar class. Now. I would never say no, I mean, here for the guitar class. And if you can't give me that class, I'm going home. But I did say something. Everything was true that I said, because I had really wanted to teach that guitar class. So they moved me back. Now we'll talk a little bit about how you're going to go. If you're a good sub, you know, the good workers at work, the bosses tend to give them more work, because they know they're the ones that are going to get it done and get it done. Well talk about that in just a moment, too. So here I am. I'm back in the guitar class. It just so happened it was next to the business class that they tried to move me to, even before the class started. I had several of the administration people came down. They remembered me I had been there before. I'm afraid to say that I didn't remember all of them. I remembered some of them. They called me Mr. Collins the instant they saw my face. They brought down materials for me. They had conversations with me about the future that I'll get into just a moment, but they could target class. So it's okay be be diplomatic about it. But if you're in a similar situation, don't refuse to move, but let them know how you feel about it in a positive way. I hope I did that with them because they're great people. Again, I had the business class being right next to me. And when I saw what they were doing, it was okay, I could definitely teach it. It was in my area of knowledge. But the guitar class was so much fun. In fact, there was three classes during the day they they have to time bus arrival. So there's three classes of about an hour and a half. They're longer classes, and all of them are learning guitar. And you would think that maybe 20 students playing their parts on a guitar. At the same time, everybody playing something different would drive you nuts. It didn't. I enjoyed it. It probably went by faster than any class I've ever substitute taught in my life. I'm actually good. I recorded 15 seconds of it of what I enjoyed so much. I told the kids I was going to do it. No names, obviously. It's just all them playing their guitars. At the same time. I think this was maybe one of the smaller classes. I'll play that 15 seconds at the end of the show. Just to give you a feel for what I was going to but it was so much fun, good, hard class. I went in there. I didn't have to say a lot. I walked around while they were learning. It was so cool to see them watching the screen, placing their fingers. I did run into a couple of students that said I've been playing guitar since I was in the fifth grade. And oh maybe they even said picked up a guitar when I was five years old, I can't remember which way it went now. And they were really good. But they were saying they took the class because they thought it would be an easy class and then maybe not so much. But they were all in their learning. as the day progressed, again, I was diplomatic about the way I presented. By the way, if you want to hear a discussion about now, I would call it more of a non diplomatic way of discussing things, well go to the substitute teachers lounge, Facebook group, and page down, you'll see a discussion about a substitute teacher that got on there and recommend that never doing extra work, never going to a extra period, that's supposed to be your planning period, never do that. And you'll see what kind of discussion they had. That's not what I'm talking about. I won't say that I'm not disappointed when they asked me to. But I know like, if I have the last period of the day as planning on this, a lot of schools will let you leave. But I will ask them if there's anything I can do for them before I leave. And sometimes there is most of the time, they call me now I will say that probably it's guy. I won't say favorite, because that's not fair to the other schools. But one of my very favorite one of my favorite schools. I've taught submarine subbed that more than any, I don't think they've ever moved me even for one period, unless it's some kind of coverage thing for a special event that they've actually got me moving from room to room all day long. That's a little bit different. But anyway, it was a guitar class. I loved it. I can't wait to go back. So that morning, before I went to the classroom, a couple of the administrators came by and talk to me just in passing, they didn't go out of their way to come to me to talk but they saw me in the hallway, we talked for a while, they told me that somebody had crossed my name off their list, because evidently, they knew I wasn't subbing as much and maybe the word got to them. And they thought maybe I wasn't subbing at all. So I'm glad I'm back on their call list, I hope to do any of those classes in there. It's, it's not that I won't do that business class. It's just that that day, I kind of prepared got my mindset for that guitar class. And I was looking forward to it. So don't ever complain. I mean, you're getting paid, they can't take advantage of you. But they can certainly put you where they need to. And they will tell me at times, they don't necessarily say this about me, but I kind of get the gist. And they said it again to me the other day, they said, we'd love to have you back, come back and teach at some of the classes sometimes they said Now, sometimes some of our lesser experienced subs, we may not trust them. Or maybe a better way of saying is that we may think they have a problem being in this class just because of maybe the students the subject or whatever. So sometimes we just have to move people because we know those of you that have that extra experience would better handle that class. And we'd rather have you in there. And I'm glad we got that out on the floor. I wasn't ever saying to them, Listen, I took this class, I'm going to teach this class. That wasn't my point. I was just disappointed that at first they weren't going to put me in the class that I was looking forward to because it was just so unique. And that I had the teacher probably didn't think I'd study his notes. But I did. I'm thinking all right now, if they're learning this, here's some of the things I can say I love music. It's funny, some of the music they were practicing was from my era. So I recognize some of the things they were playing. So if I recognized a riff that they were playing, I said, Hey, man, that's from my generation, how much of that you can play? Then I would sometimes I would suggest, can you play this riff to popular riff from a guitar song back in the 60s, maybe the 70s, maybe the 80s. And not all of them could but there's a student, you know, students in each class that could just pick up the guitar and play that. Now that wasn't really what that class was for. It was learning how to do different things on the guitar. So my point is this Don't get upset. If they want to move you even if they want to move you all day. Think of everything they have to put up with and teachers calling in and they know maybe you can teach us subclass better than somebody else that's in the building somebody that maybe it's a sub that they have to use and for Fortunately, but they would rather them be in the class that you had signed up for. So don't be upset about it. Give the school a break, give the students a break, the students are going to enjoy seeing you in there. But don't be disappointed when you're moved. I said that wrong. Feel free to be disappointed when you move when they move you or when you get moved to another period. But tell them if you prepared some things be diplomatic. Tell them that you prepared and you would rather teach that class and you will get called back though once you back. I enjoyed that class. I hope to go back to it again. I bet he doesn't have to be out of there too often, but I hope to be able to teach guitar again. So that's the episode today hope you enjoyed it. Make sure that you work on you know we can all work on our personalities a little bit to be helpful. And in closing, I will play you 15 seconds of a mishmash of everybody playing their guitar at the same time and I thought it was beautiful. See you next week. You