Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Top Five Disciplinary Issues of the Substitute Teacher Year
As the school bells chime for the final time this academic year, I'm pausing to reflect on a rollercoaster ride of triumphs and trials from the substitute teacher's perspective. Wrapping up before our well-earned summer hiatus, I'm bringing you a candid ranking of the five most testing disciplinary issues in the classroom—from the mildly frustrating to the downright exhausting. Expect heart-to-heart insights as we unpack why a physical scuffle ranked surprisingly low and unveil the origins of the term 'discipline' itself—hint, it's all about learning!
Greg Collins. Substitute Teacher's Lounge. It is May 14, 2024. This is episode 260. The last one before my yep. I'm going to take a partial summer hiatus. I'll talk about that here in just a moment. I thought maybe it would be appropriate at this time, since discipline always seems to be the more popular episode. So I'm going to tell you in my mind and I know this is going to be totally different than in your mind my top five disciplinary issues of the year, and when I'm finished, I might even tell you what the best thing was about my year this year. You be thinking about yours and I will tell you mine. Substitute Teacher's Loud. All right, guys, so here's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:You know I have been doing this podcast since summer of 2019. And back then I had all kinds of ideas. Even now, I still have ideas, but they're always based on what's happened to me In the previous week. Almost always, there's something that comes up that I can talk about. Well, school's out now, so I can't do that as much and, let's face it, you're not going to be listening as much. So here's what I've decided to do. This will be the last episode for May 2024. I will then do an episode. One episode for June that releases on the first Tuesday of June, one episode for July, one episode for August and then shoot, I'm even trying trimming it down some in September We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll make it situational I haven't decided yet If in fact maybe I'll do it this way and I don't know but maybe I'll do one episode per month from now on, unless things when school starts in September just makes me realize I need to do this a bit more often. So that's where we're going with that. I have ranked for this episode episode 260. I can't believe that. Why am I still doing this, guys? I guess because you're still listening. I've got more and more students that are listening. I've got students, you know, and now that I think about it, I might already have my June episode planned, because two of the students went out of their way to get permission from their parents to be interviewed. So I'd like to do that some way. I'll figure it out and we'll have that as a future episode, hopefully.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to talk about and I know, I know this is going to be different for you Think about the top five disciplinary issues you've had of the year. And as I'm glancing down through my list, it's not that much different than previous years, but I'm going to count them down from five to one and the way I define them. Number one is the one that aggravates me the most. Number five still aggravates me most. Number five still aggravates me. But you know a few notches down from number one and you might be surprised what my number five is you know.
Speaker 1:Just to already take a sidetrack, it's kind of funny to me that the root word of both discipline and disciple and you know disciple isn't necessarily a religious word, it is a word that can be used in any situation Disciple comes from Latin for I think I'm pronouncing this correct discipulus, which means student, and then the Latin word disciplina means instruction and training, and all that makes sense for what we're talking about. Disciple is a student, a student of whoever. A disciple of I don't know disciple of baseball, is a student of baseball. Disciplina, instruction and training, that's what discipline is. So I guess I'm just fascinated by word origin sometimes. I guess I'm just fascinated by word origin sometimes.
Speaker 1:My number five, okay, is fighting, fighting's number five. In other words, there are four other things that aggravate me more than fighting. You know I hate to say it like this, but fighting, as far as a substitute teacher goes, is relatively at least my experience so far easy for me because it's a no-doubter. You really don't have to be subjective. If there was fighting, well, there's a disciplinary issue. You fill out a piece of paper. You have administration. Fill out a piece of paper. You know something along that line. It's concrete. There's no paper. You know something along that lines. It's concrete. There's no exceptions. You never let fighting go. There was fighting in a school I was in this week. I've seen fighting earlier this year. They all result in the same thing. If you've listened to the podcast all along, you know that I've seen some fights this year that weren't really fights but yet because it was captured on a security camera in the school system, they disciplined and suspended both students. That was the one that I jokingly say. I'm not even sure either one of them ever landed a punch before their friend got in the way and separated them and they went their separate ways. And again, I didn't have any fights I had to separate this past year. I have in the past. It's relatively straightforward. That's got to go to administration. I hope that I don't ever have to get in a situation where I have to separate two people in a fight.
Speaker 1:To be honest, maybe the first, only thing that I've ever come close to is actually on the baseball field. In fact, this was the softball field, I guess it was. It was handshakes after a game and I was there. I was no longer the. I used to be the president of that organization that scheduled the referees and I was on their board. I just came to watch the game this time and, lo and behold, if, when they were walking through their lines at the end of the game and shaking hands, well, one girl was upset with another for something, for a word. She called her. That word's going to come up later in the podcast, believe it or not. She called her. A word starts with a, b, and then her dad was the coach. He got mad at the other dad who was the coach of the other team, which, coincidentally, that dad was the president of the league.
Speaker 1:And there we are Separates fights, the guy that was in charge of the league, I guess that game in charge of the referees. He had to separate the fight. He called me later on and we had to fill out paperwork and all that kind of stuff I've never really had to. I've almost forgot about that story. Never really had to separate a fight and all that kind of stuff I've never really had to. I've almost forgot about that story. Never really had to separate a fight per se in the classroom.
Speaker 1:But that is my number five. Number four is the immaturity. Immaturity is starting to get on my nerves so much. I'll let you in on a little secret. You know from past podcasts within the last month I've told you that I'm not going back to middle school because of the immaturity, and I'm partially blaming it on the COVID break, but I guess the challenge was out there. And of all the middle schools that I have gone to in the past, the one I've enjoyed going to most I'm going to go back into tomorrow. There's only a week left of school and I want to leave it well with that school. They've got some volleyball players that are going to high school next week. That's one of the reasons I want to go back. I want to. This is actually going to be a sixth grade class. I've taught before and I remember them as a really good sixth grade class. So, guys, if you're listening to this, let's make this a good day. Now I've already looked at their calendar. Some of them won't even be there that day because, as is true with most schools, they're doing a few celebration days here at the end and I know they've got some field trips planned and all that good stuff. So that is my number four. Immaturity Now I will say this I have said to high schoolers here within the last couple of weeks guys, you're still stuck in middle school, get that out of your system.
Speaker 1:And for the most part some of them think that's funny, but for the most part they realize. You know, that was kind of childish. I don't want him to call me a middle schooler again, so maybe I won't do that again. All right, immaturity was number four. Number three, and I won't preach on this one too long, because I say the same thing every time we talk about language in the classroom.
Speaker 1:We had a post on Substitute Teacher's Lounge and I'll say the first letter of a word. I'm not allowed to say it. I don't mind saying it in the nature of this podcast, but because of the way my podcast is coded as family-friendly, I'm not allowed to say it. So, basically, somebody posted on our Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group that substitute teaching is the only job where you can be called the best substitute teacher in the world and a bee in the same day, and that's probably not that far from the truth. It's everybody's perspective.
Speaker 1:What language do you let go? I'll just remind you one of my favorite stories that I'll bet this is at least the fourth time that I mentioned, but I think it's worth mentioning. If your school has a policy about language, it will be near impossible to enforce unless they have specific words in the policy, which sounds ridiculous. But let's face it. Something that offends you, a word that offends you, might not offend me and I'll let it go in the classroom. Something that doesn't offend me, would I just said. That's the same thing. And something that offends me may not offend you. You would let that go in the classroom. I have been known to say to the students listen when I hear that language, listen. There's some words that I let go now that I didn't let go before, because they just seem I hate to say this they just seem low key. No, it wasn't aimed in anger, it was just an H of a mess, if you get my drift. So some words I let go, and that's a tough one. Look at your school's policy. See what it says. I'd be curious. Post it on Substitute Teacher's Lounge and we'll go from there. So that is number three. Language.
Speaker 1:Number two this has caused me. You can tell, you can hear the frustration in my voice when I talk about these last two. This has caused me so much grief this year. It has caused me to drop classes this year to say I'm not coming back to that class. I remember a story it's probably three years ago now where I was going to have a nice easy day in the library and I was called in the middle of or actually I guess, the end of the first period to go up to a different room for the second period and the rest of the day because those kids had aggravated that sub up there so much that she left after the first period, didn't tell anybody. So they sent me after cover. It closed the library. I guess they thought I could handle it. Lucky me.
Speaker 1:And it comes from too many friends in the same class. That's number two. That's what has caused me to say I won't come back to classes. More so than not, it seems schools will put.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to call them troublemakers, but they're students of like kind and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I don't mean that in an educational way. I don't mean that in a learningogatory way. I don't mean that in an educational way. I don't mean that in a learning disability way, don't mean that at all. It's just students that when they get together it's just constant misbehavior, whereas if you had them spread apart in a lot of different classes, it's not as bad. But it seems like, more often than not, all of those students that just get under your skin more and more. There's so many of them in the same class and I don't know if they think that the teacher Once all them in one period to just get them out of the way rather than have them sprinkled throughout the day. Maybe that's it, but I don't know. That's my number two Too many friends in the same class.
Speaker 1:And what happens? The class that I left the class I said I wouldn't come back to. One kid used a word and then I won't repeat it because I don't remember which one it was looked around, he was so proud of himself. He looked around to see if the others were watching, listening. Some of them were smiling, so he giggled. He was so proud and he didn't care what I thought about it. Okay, those were the kinds of students in that room so he was doing that just to show off. I really feel like if he had been the only student of that genre in that room, he probably wouldn't have said those words. So there we go. The number two was too many friends in the same class.
Speaker 1:Number one this is it. It's almost every week, even in high school. You know, this is when you get right down to it. This is a grandkid thing. This is the type of thing that you tell your grandkids to discipline them and it still happens in the high school. Usually it's the more immature high school students, to be honest. But here's my number one Doing things one more time right after I told you not to, and in fact you do it again because I told you not to, just as a challenge.
Speaker 1:You feel like, oh, if you said one more time and you think it will get a nice laughing class if you didn't, then do it again one more time. Another, for instance this was from a couple of years ago. This was in a high school class and some guys were making sounds with their armpits and all that kind of stuff. And I said, all right, guys, one more time and we're going to have to move people around, we're going to have to take smartphones just as punishment, all that kind of stuff those guys quit. They quit doing it.
Speaker 1:But right after I said that another guy who hadn't even been doing it makes a sound just because I told him not to, and I said, man, there's nothing. And he felt bad about it because he could tell I was serious and he's actually a student that I don't have much trouble with Usually, I said there is another, there is nothing. I should say that makes me more aggravated than if a student or if anybody in my life does something right after I tell them they can't do that anymore. That will get on my nerves more than anything, and I did discipline the child. Also told him you know, once it's over, it's over, so let's just go back being having a good teacher-student relationship after this time. So there's my top five guys Closing out my favorite thing of the year. There's so many of them, to be honest, because I had a pretty good year.
Speaker 1:Anything that makes me feel special, that's my favorite thing, one of my favorite things, and it's just a silly little thing. I showed up to substitute teach and it was in the middle of the day and the students cheered when they saw me walk in. That's not going to happen in every classroom, but it happened in this one and, I have to be honest, it made me feel so good. That was kind of cool, and when I run into volleyball players they will go out of their way to talk to me. I think that is so cool. I hope that I can make a difference in their lives. They are certainly making a difference in mine, because any type of that feel good stuff really makes me well feel good, even from the standpoint of when administration says all right, we have to have five substitutes. Today, mr Collins, we're giving you first choice.
Speaker 1:Let me close with this story because it just happened today. A young man who goes to my church is dating a girl that is also in the high school and her father is a substitute teacher. So we saw them walking down the hallway before classes started this morning holding hands. They're a great couple. I love both of them.
Speaker 1:I had the girl in classes too and he jokingly said the guy jokingly said when he saw us hey, there's our two favorite substitutes, pointing to me and we were talking, I was talking to her dad pointing to me and her and his girlfriend's father, and I said all right, you're going to have to tell me which one is which one of us is first, which one's your favorite substitute? And I put him on the spot. So I kind of bailed him out a little bit and said you got to say her dad man. You got to say that, and I thought that was so funny. He was sincere from the standpoint of he does enjoy me there as a substitute teacher.
Speaker 1:I enjoy both of them as students. I enjoy talking to her father because he's a really nice guy, and that was it to her father because he's a really nice guy, and that was it. So that's it for me. Until the first Tuesday of June 2024. We'll go to a once per month format for about three months. See how it goes from there. So sayonara and have a good summer and we'll catch you on the backside.
