Substitute Teachers Lounge

Substitute Teaching Outside of Your Comfort Zone

September 25, 2021 Greg Collins Episode 123
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teaching Outside of Your Comfort Zone
Show Notes Transcript

You're not always going to be comfortable with topics, students, and situations with which you may encounter.  What to do?

If you've ever been uncomfortable about teaching a certain subject, teaching a certain student, or maybe teaching in a certain situation, you've come to the right place. Alright folks had another great working episode last week, the one about Google quiz forms. That episode and the episode from, I guess, three weeks ago now when we did Kahoot is not just a game anymore, both of those destined to be two of our most popular ever. And the one sandwich between those about being the cool substitute teacher that was very popular too, if it hasn't hadn't been for the Kahoot episode and the Google Form episode, that would be the most popular things are looking good. In fact, as we get into talking about comfort zones, I am going to share a topic with you that I began on our Substitute Teachers Lounge group Facebook page this week, that sort of took off and it kind of made me not depressed, but kind of sympathetic, empathetic, whatever the word is, for some of you teaching in certain areas where things are much more strict about how you can interact with a student, just even sharing test results and that type of thing. So we'll get into that, because that is going to become a comfort zone issue to comfort zones. Everybody, if they had their choice, would want to teach in their comfort zone with me. That would probably be teaching math. And either this is going to sound like a weird combination, either sixth grade math, or freshman math, I don't even know how to explain that. But those are the topics I like most, maybe science is is behind that. I like English in history, my wife was a history teacher at the fifth grade level, I'm just not very good at it. Now this biomedical class I've been teaching, my time has almost come to an end, by the time you're listening to this, I'm only going to have two more days in that class. I'll still be at that school for another month. But I'm going to miss those guys. And I'm gonna miss that topic. Because I've learned quite a bit about that. It was outside my comfort zone at first, but I'll share with you how it became a big part of my comfort zone. But the time was finished and how I got it to there. So let's start with the pieces about the topics. Okay. Now, if you're teaching a topic you like, if you're teaching a topic that you don't necessarily know that much about, that can put you in a comfort zone situation, you know, especially in high school, because all of a sudden, you've got the realization that if you're teaching a strong history class, and you're like me, when it comes to history, man, some of those students might know more than you do. So that's a little bit intimidating, you're outside your comfort zone. So here's what I would recommend doing. First of all, first and foremost, try your best when you sign up for that substitute spot, whether you're doing it the night before the morning have to do a little research on that teacher, if that teacher has not shared any notes with you. The great thing about frontline is that teachers can actually load their assignments or contact you in some way so that you can see some materials that are going to happen, the classes that you're teaching. That way you don't go into it kind of blind, but I'll be honest with you, that's the minority of the teachers that do that. Most of them, they just schedule an absent you take it and you might not know what you're teaching until you go in there the next day. So here's what to do first. This will work well if you're teaching for a teacher that may have a more unique name. Probably won't work if you're teaching for Jane Smith, but go to Facebook, search that name. The way Facebook works, it will find the names in your area first, or that's probably second it will find the names of areas where you are either friends or mutual friends with somebody then it'll find the names in the area first, and hopefully, the teacher has shared Enough publicly available information that you can kind of do a little research on the teacher. And a lot of teachers, most of the teachers will in their about part of their page will have posted what they teach what school they're at, that will give you a good head start. If you are the type that likes to contact your teacher, some people don't do that. I usually do. And to be honest, I'm to the point now that most of the teachers I've heard their name before, and I know they've at least heard of me. So I have no problem, send them an email night before and say, Hey, just give me an idea of what topics you're teaching. You don't have to give me details, we just give me the general topics and the grade levels that you're teaching. And they usually appreciate that because they know that you've gone out of your way so that you'll be comfortable when you come in their class and start teaching that will remove some of that comfort zone anxiety from you. And you will at least be partially prepared when you go into that class the next day. The next thing, similar situation if you're outside your comfort zone. Now this probably works better. If you're getting ready go into a multi day assignment. But it will work single days to once you find out that topic. If you really don't feel like you know that much about it. Buy some books, man, or look for some books on your bookshelf on that topic, or Google some of the things that you're going to be studying. If you nail down the topic, the subject matter, maybe you're teaching the Revolutionary War, maybe you're teaching some things in math that even though you're good at math, you might be rusty on. In my case, I'll go back to this biomed class and anatomy I've been teaching. I actually knew that a month ahead of time. So I went out. And again, you've heard me say this before, I've been in anatomy for dummies book that helped me immensely. And a lot of the notes when the teacher later shared them with me, I was already familiar with them. And just jokingly tell the teacher that you've done that, they will appreciate it, you've gone out of your way to do that. Now, if you're in a situation where you're like a Kindle reader or some kind of ereader, you can buy the book and have it instantaneously and start brushing up on things. Most of the dummy books like anatomy for dummies, I think only spent seven or $8 on it. And I would never consider that a waste of money. Because I've got that book as a reference material. Again, if I have that subject ever comes back up. Again, I'm back in business. And I'll be honest, I hope the teacher thinks as much of me, as I think she thinks of me, because I want to teach her class again, I've gotten close to those students, I've gotten close to that subject. And I want to teach it again. So hopefully I've established a rapport with her. In your case with whatever teacher you're teaching, whatever subject you're teaching for, make sure that that teacher knows what you've done, and you haven't just walked into the class blindly. I'll be honest with you this week, I had to get a sub for myself for one day, my wife had a little hip surgery, and it was routine outpatient, she's home, she's doing fine. And what I did was had to get a sub and, man, I've gotten so close to those students that one of them actually sent me an email and said, Mr. Collins, please tell me this is just a one day thing, because apparently the substitute was yelling at them. So I'm not going to say anything about how you should behave as a sub, you know how you should behave. But I'm guessing that that substitute teacher, even though he had my regular teacher's name, and could have done some research on the topic, probably didn't. He was actually yelling at this student and they were in the middle of a group project where they were supposed to talk to each other and it's okay to laugh every now and then I'm going to guess I might be wrong. I'm going to guess that that substitute made no preparation whatsoever and just showed up in that class, looked at the notes and insistent although students Be quiet, even though being quiet, would not help with actually hurt on the project they're working on. Okay, so those are the things you need to get yourself prepared for when you're going into a class the next day. Now let's talk about a topic maybe you know, the class I don't know if I want to call it subject I guess would be the right thing to call it. Maybe the unit but Then the topic. Now, you're probably especially well, probably only in high school, you're gonna be faced with a situation one day that I was faced with. Two years ago. In fact, I made a special episode about that. It was a situation it was actually for a friend of mine. It was a family class. And it just so happened the two days that I was teaching in there. It was about woman, man relationships at all levels. So you can just imagine, without me getting too graphic, what were some of the things I had to teach that day, there were basically High School freshmen and sophomores in there. There were both male and female students in there, female was probably 85% of the group. And here I was with a topic, had a student teacher, and the regular teacher was actually a friend of mine. And she mentioned the student teacher, and she said, You can be as active as you want to be. Or you can just let the student teacher teach it all because she's very good. And, and she taught it. So some of the things that we had to cover in the material were very graphic. And I kind of listened at first. And it's interesting, a lot of those students I knew. So I'm trying to think, are they going to be embarrassed about talking and discussing those topics with me in the room, since they already know me, I didn't know where it would go. All I knew was I'm remembering back to my own high school days back in the 70s, early 70s. When we would talk about these topics back then, you always separate it, the boys and the girls. And it didn't matter how much the boys thought they were high schoolers and they were mature. They still giggled every time certain subjects came up. Well, here I was now being a part of having that those subjects taught. So for some people, that can be an uncomfortable topic, okay? Well, guess what, not only were those students not embarrassed, they were eager to learn. And it amazed me how many students, at least half of the class as the student teacher would assign some things would raise their hand and wave me over and want me to help them understand some things. And they felt totally comfortable in me explaining what was being talked about, probably maybe a little bit more comfortable than I was. And by the time those classes was was over, I remember talking to a young lady who was a sophomore. And I said, You know, I didn't know where this subject would go. And I'll be honest, I'm glad this is being taught to you guys now, because it's something that you need to know, she actually began the conversation fires, that was my answer to her. And it was a very good class, they learned so much, they got away from so many myths that they had heard over the years. And that's what this class was for. And it was informative. For me. It was informative for the students. But you may in fact, especially if you go into high school and start teaching some subjects that you might be a little bit uncomfortable with. And that's how you adjust Just don't be embarrassed, know that you're there for a reason. And those kids will shock you at how much they value your opinion. Let's talk about situations. Now. You might be placed in a situation where you have to deal with something, this again might be something that might the particular story I'm going to share is the one I shared on my Facebook page this week. In my case, this was a long term role. So it probably wouldn't happen as much in a short term role. But I had a student contact me the student. I've known for three years. They're a freshman. Now, they were concerned that during a group project, certain members of their group weren't really participating that well. So she emailed me and mentioned it to me. And I had to come up with a way to handle it. I actually mentioned it on the Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group. And as an aside, all of a sudden, I'm getting all those reactions Oh, never act with read, never interact with a student on email and they We're posting pictures about student that teachers that got in trouble with students or got sued. And now in most cases this, the teacher went too far, maybe they went to a home of a student, or they did something inappropriate with a student. In our case, we're only talking about students using their school, given email, and teachers using their school sanctioned email, only to interact about questions and classroom situations. So that's fine in my area, it happens all the time. But it was interesting to see that conversation on the Facebook group go there if you if you feel the need to review that, in this case, I was faced with how to handle that situation, I had to go back into the classroom and figure out a way to, you know, this student is a very intelligent student always has been, would never say anything about anyone. I think deep down, she would have been fine with letting this student get credit for her work. But then the thing that pushed her over the edge is he started bragging about it. That's when she felt motivated to email me, she just felt so bad about it that she just fade it built that not only was she treated unfairly by her fellow student, but then kind of made fun of by her fellow students. So I took care of it, I won't tell you exactly what I did. But it resulted in the guilty party correcting the situation, me giving that guilty party a second chance. And I think both me and the original student, and the student that tried to cheat, so to speak, we all grew from that situation. So you're going to be faced with situations in which you have to deal with a story, a classroom situation that a student shares with you, you're going to have to come up with a way to deal with that. Now before you ask me the question, because I never mentioned that, yes, I shared that with the teacher, now I'm in it, I probably should have shared it with her from the beginning. And I didn't, because I'd been in there five weeks, I wanted to try to handle it by myself. After I did. Then I told her what I did, I was reluctant to do that. Because I felt like I handled it, it was over. And I was a little bit concerned because I said well, if I tell her now, then that'll put thoughts in the back of her head that maybe this student is not good for her class. And I hesitated but it was the right thing for me to tell her and she understood the way I handled it approved the way I handled it. And we went on from there. So if you're faced with a situation in a substitute teacher environment, do your best keep your head on straight. Whatever you do, don't judge the second students until you get that side of the student story to In my case, the student in effect, pled guilty. So I gave him that second chance, the situation that you might face might not be that easy. But you will face a situation where you're going to be put into an uncomfortable environment in which to deal with something, you've got to be ready for it. You know, there's an old saying, and I'm just paraphrasing here, because I don't know who said it and where it originally came from. But the best time to think about what you're going to do when you're faced with a certain situation is now if you wait until you're faced with a situation to think about what you're going to do, well, then it's probably too late, you're going to make an emotional decision that could very well be the wrong decision. So think ahead are some situations that maybe you'll be faced with someday and how you'll deal with that. When it happens. Okay. Then, of course, the difficult student, you're going to have some that's another situation you need to be thinking about what you're going to do, probably outside of the working episodes that we've done recently, some of the episodes that I know we're always going to be listened to well, is when I talk about having a problem student in the past week, and here's how I dealt with it. Those are always the most popular episodes. One of the most popular one of my top five episodes ever was, oh no, there's a troublemaker in my class today. That was one of the very first 10 episodes I recorded and it continues to be in the top five. Everybody wants to know ideas about how to handle an unruly student. Okay, here's how I do it. Again, I will give them the benefit of the doubt to, I will throw out phrases like, I'm not real crazy about being you being disrespectful of me, I don't want you to be disrespectful, the students here You're wasting your time, their time, you're being so noisy, if it's noise, you're being so noisy that they can't do their work. And that's not fair to them. And I won't let that happen. Sometimes I've moved students back closer to me. And when I do that, and they're removed, but students, the rest of the students in that environment, they actually usually start participating more. I did, I was faced with a student one time at a high school level, this has been years ago. And I want to make you think it's the students that I've had recently because I haven't had any trouble with them at all in this regard. So they were using some language, it was obvious they were doing it just to get attention in the class. And I could even hear some of the students who probably hear this language on a daily basis where they're the ones that are using it or somebody else. But they reacted, they reacted strongly. They knew it wasn't something that student was supposed to say, I kind of said, Are you ready to take a walk to administration with me? When they looked at me to see if I was going to be real. And I said, I'll give you a choice, we'll go to administration now. Or everybody's allowed to mistake. Let's call this your only mistake. And let's correct it. And that student actually appreciated that. So no, I am not this type of substitute teacher that will immediately start yelling and making threats. Without giving a student a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance, there are some things that you can't let go, of course. But on the non severe things, everyone deserves a second chance. And sure enough, by the end of that class, that student, you're the last 60 seconds or so everybody kind of lines up the door. This is pre COVID. We don't do it as much. Now this is the basically the September 26 2021 episode. And we don't do it as much lately, but they line up at the door, they're ready to go. I could tell this student kind of hustled up to the front of the line. So he could stand with me, or apparently so he could stand with me because he immediately started a conversation. He didn't apologize. He didn't say anything about what happened. He just started talking about another subject. To me that was telling me that regardless of what he said to me, regardless of what we were talking about, that was kind of his way of saying Mr. Collins, I'm glad you gave me a second chance. I want you to know that I'm a regular person. He couldn't bring himself to say it was sorry. But to carry on after that situation to come up to me and have a conversation with me, told me that he was sorry, selling later, I never really taught his class again. But he always said hello to me. I've had probably half a dozen students, and only maybe one of them didn't react positively even though I gave them a second chance all the others did they continue to come up to me in the hallway all the time and speak. Do they continue to kind of lean towards the troublemaker side? Yes, they do. Ironically, I haven't had most of them a second time. I think that's the way to go. If you yell at them, immediately you've lost them. You have no way of regaining that student's composure. Maybe if you kind of talk them through a second chance environment, things will be better. So guys, you are often going to have to teach and deal with sayings outside your comfort zone. be thinking now about what you're going to do not later what you're going to do be thinking about it now. Have your cards all lined up, know exactly what you want to do. And then teaching outside your comfort zone will automatically become more comfortable.