Substitute Teachers Lounge

There’s No Way I'm Going to Substitute Teach There!!

February 26, 2023 Greg Collins Episode 197
Substitute Teachers Lounge
There’s No Way I'm Going to Substitute Teach There!!
Show Notes Transcript

Sometimes you have reasons not to substitute teach at certain schools.  Are they justified?

Unknown:

I'm Greg Collins, Substitute Teachers Lounge, I again this week got to teach a class that I never taught before. One of the students in their high school described it as theater. But I think it's really supposed to be the-a-ta. And they were working through a play that they're putting together, I had the best time and it reminded me of a situation that came up that made me think, what do I use as my reasons not to go to a specific school and substitute teach? As we go through some of them, let's decide whether they're legitimate reasons, or whether we need to rethink our process Alright, guys, I told you some while back that I've kind of cut back on substitute teaching maybe two or three days a week, but I have to be honest, I think the reason in my mind that I did that is because I no longer really wanted to do both substitute teaching and evening volleyball refereeing. Now that the evening part is over, all of my volleyball refereeing now will be on the weekends, through probably the end of April. And I could just feel it inside of me that I wanted to get back to substitute teaching. So I'm back to just about every day of the week now, and it's really exciting for me, I'm getting to go back to schools I hadn't been to in a little while. I've got students coming up to me and asking me, Where have you been? All this kind of stuff. So it's really kind of a class reunion type atmosphere. So I want to talk to you about that. There are here's what I want to do. I'm gonna want to mention a, I don't know if I want to do this mention a student. I won't mention her by name. But I think she listens to this every week. And I think I'm pretty sure it was her that left me a nice apple review. A few months back by the way, the word gets out quicker, more quickly, in the correct my English about this podcast, through Apple reviews, believe it or not, every episode that we've recorded, except for the one that I recorded for, for with Jen Stevens. Every episode there is like 90% Apple listeners, interestingly enough, when we talk to Jen Stevens about the the effect that intermittent fasting can have with you and how it could affect students as well. The listens on that particular episode, we're almost off Spotify, it's the strangest thing. So anyway, that means nothing to nobody. But I want to encourage you to go on Apple, when you're listening to the podcast, you'll have to click it, it'll say something like, go to show. And then you'll see ratings and you have to pan down and where you'll eventually see the stars. But even more important than the five stars ratings. And the reviews, if you keep paging down, you'll see where you can leave a review that has more effect of getting listeners in than any other thing you could do. So please do that this week. First of all, I'm going to apologize to this student and I know I don't really need to and maybe I'm taking away the effect of the joke, but she is part of this play that they were putting on. And she did a great job. I didn't get a chance to tell her but I thought her her inflection and her voice and her enunciation of the words and the emotions that she put into it. I'll be honest, I really thought she was the best one on the stage because she wasn't just reading the lines. She was putting the emotions into the play as well. And I have she's a sophomore and I had known her taught her since the sixth grade. So while she was up there, the director who was a senior in high school, she mentioned All right, now, for this scene, you want to be a little bit whiny and I just you know how smart aleck I am. I find just said, Oh, I've seen her whiny before. I know she could do it. And everybody laughed. And she looked at me and her mouth dropped open. I think it I think it dropped open in fun. But if you're listening, I'll apologize to you for that. But I'll remind you of one thing that I've always said to you guys, the more I get to know you and the more that I like you. I will joke around with you and I expect you to joke back with me. So I hope you take that as a compliment. There are some students that I would not have said that to because I don't know them well enough. My best friends in this world, we joke around with each other sarcastically all the time. But anyway, that was kind of cool in that class. Basically, the way it was divided up is it was divided up in scene so that each group that was in a certain scene, went to their corner of the auditorium and was working. And then you had some that were in the ensemble. And while they talked about the play, they already always talked about other things, too, of course, because they're high school students, in a big debate came up about which school I preferred to go to, because basically, this particular high school, two schools feed into it. So I told them, and I'm honest with them, and the person that was in the school that I did not choose, he said, let's wait a minute, though. He said, haven't you gone to the other school much more often? And I said, Yes, probably 10 to one, and I know where you're going with this. I said, and I will even say that every time I went to your middle school, I really enjoyed it. So you're probably right, had I gone to your school? As much as I did the other school? You know, maybe I'd have you guys at the top of the list. I want you to do this. For me right now, there are reasons, I'm not talking to you guys who are listening now, not the student. There are reasons that you choose not to go to certain schools. And not all of them are student related, although we will talk about student related reasons, too. But there's some reason I'm going to share some of my more superficial reasons that I don't go to some schools as often. Maybe now, if it's the only school available for a certain day, and I don't have a job, maybe I'll go now. And the first one, let's go, let's start with maybe the most ridiculous one to start with. In our area. There are so many schools, remember, I seven, eight different schools, all middle school and high school. So that doesn't even count the elementary schools that are in the area, I serve at eight different schools. And some of them have outstanding parking situations. I always know not only that, I'll have a parking space. But I'll probably be able to park in the same space that I did the last time. There are so many schools like that. The schools that aren't like that are the minimum. So reason number one. And I know this affects you guys. Because those of you that are serving in a big city, I bet you might have to park a half a dozen blocks away and walk to the school. I don't know, in this case, I'll tell you are this is superficial, but there are certain schools that I believe until last, because of the parking situation. Sometimes you get hemmed in by the buses. Sometimes, if you're just delayed five minutes, you have to wait longer to get out. It's hard to even find a parking space, the most convenient parking space at one school. If you park there, you definitely have to wait on the buses at the end of the day because they park in front of the entrance to that parking lot. So there's nowhere to go. So superficial reason maybe the most petty reason of all is parking. There are certain situations that add don't like to go to the school because of their parking situation. Now, here's why it's superficial and absolutely ridiculous. Even if I can't get out because of the buses. I mean, they're gone in 15 minutes, do I really mean volleyball season? But even then do I really have to be somewhere immediately that it won't kill me if I just wait 15 minutes more. But that is one of my reasons. I'll be honest with you, I use parking as a reason. And it's probably a ridiculous reason. And maybe I should make a go of getting over that and go into that school more often. And working out the parking in a way and stick around a little while plug teachers Chromebooks in 15 minutes later, the parkings clear anyway. So maybe that's a reason for you. That's a reason for me. And that's the first one we've talked about. Reason number two, and this is really age of the school related. So it's another little petty reason, superficial reason, but I like going to the schools most where you know, everything you need, is there. There are schools that just because of the age of the school, I don't think it's the budget of the school. I think it's more the age of the school, maybe the computers you have in your room as a teacher or substitute teacher aren't very current, maybe, you know, there's some rooms that I some schools I go to that I feel like there's enough Chromebooks. For every student they are now, a couple of the schools got smart, and they keep their Chromebook carts out in the hallway, and they're numbered. And the students have a number, Chromebook, every student, they get it in the morning, and they bring it back in the afternoon. So then you don't have to have enough Chromebooks for every student, every class, you just have to have enough Chromebooks for every student in that grade. Because they're going to be carrying it with them everywhere they go, that's a great system. And that's a way to save money too. But I'll be honest, I get a little frustrated when we have to look for Chromebooks when we have to look for supplies when it's hard to get to the copier, and do anything. And just because maybe the facilities are a little bit older, or that there's just not enough, the school has chosen to not keep as much things like that, that they really need. But that's probably my second superficial reason. I much more prefer the schools where when I go there, I know the Chromebook situation is covered. I know, I've got people to help me if all of a sudden copies need to be made. I know they've got all that taken care of. And I know they're on top of things. So I thought it was reason number two, why I might choose one school over another. Let's talk a little bit about not about I should say, bad students. But schools where there are less friendly students. Because I just like I said last week, there's no bad students, there's just students that do bad things are probably doing them just to show up in front of their friends. They don't do that kind of thing when it's just you and them one on one. But I'm not talking about students who do bad things. I'm just talking about classes that are less friendly. Now. I've got referees that I work with that are out standing, but not very friendly. And I'm just the opposite. I'm so friendly that my family makes fun of me sometimes, because we'll go on like vacation, I'll talk to strangers. I'll give strangers the same jokes that I bought my family with for years. And of course, they laugh and my family just rolls their eyes and shakes their head. I love friendliness. There is one school in particular that for five years now, I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they're getting something special to drink when they walk in. But as an overall group of people, teachers and students both, that is the friendliest school that I ever teach. Now, guess what? If it's a super friendly school, man, I like to go back there. Now. I'll admit some of you right now that are listening or thinking. I'm a good substitute teacher, but I don't want to really talk to any more people than I have to would that's okay, that's just a personality thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Think about what your reasons are. In this way. Maybe you like on the flip side, maybe you like to go to schools that you just can go in and do your job and go home. I'm just the opposite. I want to interact with as many students as possible, teachers as possible, friendly people as possible. So I will seek out there's probably two schools I can think of I will seek out and go there because of their friendliness, because both the students and the teachers, for the most part go out of their way to speak to me they will never let me walk down the hallway, even if they're in the middle of a conversation with somebody without saying good morning, Mr. Collins. We're glad you're here today are Mr. Collins, where have you been? We've missed you can you set my class more often? I love that kind of stuff. So the friendliness factor, of course, keeps me coming back to the schools to now let's kind of close with the reason that's probably on the top of everybody's list. There are some schools that you don't go to because you're concerned that you may get some of the problem students that you've had before and especially I don't blame you for that at all. Especially if you're like me, and you got eight different schools you can go to well cross that one off your list why you're not comfortable there and go to the others. You can block the school on frontline if you want to. You don't even have to look at it what's open, but I don't like dealing with those students. You either for the first time, this year a school that I like to go to a lot steel like to go to a lot, I've kind of crossed them off my list temporarily. Because you know, I'll say I'll so many other students are great people, there's just two or three in one particular grade at this school that I might not go back there because I don't want to incur I don't want to have to put up with it, I'm strong enough as a substitute teacher to put up with it. I just don't want to have to put up with it when I got a choice of seven different schools to go to. And that's unusual for me. I won't go to that school probably the rest of the year, because I know I've got better situations. I've even had some personnel at that school say this particular grade is the first time they've had this many problem kids at the school since the school opened? Well, my goodness, that is some kind of statement in it. But that is probably our number one reason and let's call that all the other reasons I gave you today, were probably especially the first two were, were kind of petty, the last one, the friendliness isn't as petty, but that's a personal thing. This one is specific, and it's probably our number one reason so it's okay, if you don't go to a school because you're worried about running into students. Okay, that's okay. If you like to go to those Friendly Schools, I mean, I said about the friendly students, you may not like to talk a lot, but you like it when you've got good, friendly kids in your room. So that's what we want to learn today. There are reasons some of them petty, some of them legit, that keep me from going to a specific school, I would encourage you to write down your reasons why you don't like going to a school and evaluating is this really legitimate? Does it really bother me much to have to wait in traffic now? I said I had to wait 15 minutes, I'm gonna guess some of you in bigger cities have to wait 30 minutes to an hour? I don't know. But anyway, there are reasons we don't like to go to specific schools. Let's evaluate them. If you want to just keep them as they are. That is fine. But maybe you're missing out on effecting positively affecting some of those kids live. So just because you can't find a parking spot. Probably shouldn't be a reason as to why you don't substitute those kids. So have a good week. I'll see you again next week. And let's try to get out and do our best with all of these students.