Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
My Worst Student Ever as a Substitute Teacher
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Ever had a day so rough it became memorable for all the wrong reasons? Join me, Greg Collins, as I break my summer hiatus to revisit the chaos of my worst day as a substitute teacher, inspired by the response to my February 6th episode.
Substitute Teacher's Lounge Schedule Update
Speaker 1This is Greg Collins Substitute Teacher's Lounge . It is July 16th 2024 . You know , I wasn't even sure I was going to record an episode this week , but I am going to tell you why I'm doing it , because it's a part two of the most popular episode so far this year , which was from February 6th , and it was entitled my Worst Substitute Teacher Day Ever . What could I possibly have to add to that ? Well , let's see .
Speaker 2Substitute Teacher's Loud .
Speaker 1All right , guys , here's my plans for the future . I had told you back at the beginning I guess instead of saying beginning of summer , I shouldn't say the end of the school year to say in beginning of summer , I shouldn't say the end of the school year that I was only going to record one episode per month June , july and August because I was going to be busier with travel you guys probably don't listen as much during the summer and since I get ideas for shows out of the classroom and things just kind of dry up a little bit . So that was my plans . But I'll be honest with you here . In the last week I have jotted down enough ideas , things that are popping to my head , things that I have encountered that I said , okay , here's what I'm going to do . I'm going to record an episode for the 16th of July . Here's what I'm going to do . I'm going to record an episode for the 16th of July and then I'm going to get in a pattern where I'm going to record a new episode every two weeks , maybe from this point forward , because then on the off week I'm going to be recording a new Instagram video to make public , because the Instagram is going really well , I had another one that has crossed 500 views and I appreciate all the new members that I've gotten from that . So this Tuesday , the 16th , is this episode . So then next Tuesday which would be what the 23rd then I'm going to publish a new Instagram video and we'll do that back and forth at least until the beginning of the school year , but maybe from now on , because I really enjoy that and I got kind of a side benefit this last time , I will play the audio portion , although I would encourage you again to go to instagram my instagram account or the facebook page it's on both and substitute teachers lounge and look for this video .
Speaker 1The last one was called it's a gen z thing which I may actually do an episode about too before the summer's over , but I'll play that , the audio portion , at the end . But it was another one where I kind of you know , put on a flower shirt , try to draw attention to myself , and I had an interesting thing happen . I actually had more views on a different social network platform than I did Instagram , because what I'll do on a different social network platform than I did Instagram , because what I'll do , it's interesting . This podcast , you can now set it up to publish directly to YouTube . Now obviously there's no video in that case . It just publishes to YouTube with my Substitute Teachers Lounge logo and they can watch it like that . Then when I do an Instagram video I publish it you know , recorded just most of the time on my iPhone and I will publish it to Instagram , maybe putting some comments or some text on there . But then I'll also publish that raw video to my YouTube Subst substitute teachers account too . And it's interesting , I got three digits in views on the YouTube version , which I surely wasn't expecting . I think Gen Z is kind of a hot topic right now , so that probably explains part of it . But I'm excited to go forward and I've had that .
Speaker 1To be honest , the Instagram part , even though it's only like 30 to 40 second video , really requires more work , more time to put that together than it does the podcast . You know , you know me by now . I'm one of those that if you , you could throw a random topic down in front of me and I could probably ad lib and talk about it or make something up about it for 15 , 20 minutes , and that's usually what I do with my podcast . I'll just jot down three or four bullets , I'll talk to them . I can talk , you know , five , 10 minutes on each bullet and we go from there . So , but that's the schedule from now on .
Speaker 1For the moment , I'll do a podcast one Tuesday , I'll do an Instagram the next Tuesday and then podcast Instagram back and forth , that way throughout the week . I admire we're planning a trip slash cruise here soon and I follow travel videos and I tell you what . There's some good travel videos out there that I've subscribed to , some of which record every single day and I'm thinking , man , how on earth do they do that ? Now , they do live like 10 minutes away from the theme park area of Florida , so that helps a little bit . And the cruise podcast videos that I've been listening to , they're actually on the ship , so it is kind of cool to do that . I'm
Worst Student Behavior
Speaker 1not quite that industrious . So I'll give you a podcast one week , instagram the next week , and we'll go from there .
Speaker 1All right , I didn't just pick this topic to talk about because you know I said this is the second part of that topic my worst substitute teacher day ever . This is going to be , I'm going to describe , the worst student ever . It's going to be different for me than it is for you . But if I asked you , if I had all of you all in a room right now , you could tell me . Even if you're not a teacher , if you're just a student , you can look back and remember the worst teacher , substitute teacher encounter you can remember . You can probably picture that in your head right this moment . So I'm going to tell you about the student that led to my worst substitute teacher day ever , from a couple of different standpoints . I'm going to call this part two and maybe even call the next podcast part three , because what I'm going to do , the next podcast , is describe to you some of the changes I plan to make for myself , some of the things that I've described to you that I'm going to start doing this or I'm no longer going to do this .
Speaker 1Well , I've changed my mind . Part of it has to do with that little short . I told you I took a solo trip . I had time to walk around and just look at people and think Some of it was very touching Families going on vacations from age six up to maybe age 86 . And you know it was so inspiring that it got me thinking about my parents . My last parent passed away . It's been over three years ago now . But just seeing those family made me feel like I wanted to . When I got home I wanted to drive over it's about a 40 minute drive and look at their stone and just kind of reminisce in that regard , and I did that . I hadn't been over there in a couple of years , thinking about everything , including as upset as I was perhaps in some of my substitute teaching experiences last year . Am I really so upset that I couldn't make some changes and try some new things ? That's more next week .
Speaker 1This week we'll talk about the worst student . Now , remember week this week we'll talk about the worst student . Now , remember , I'm calling that student worst student , not aimed at the student himself , but at the behavior of the student . I'm sure this kid has great potential in other areas that I didn't see . I only saw this student's bad side . That I didn't see . I only saw this student's bad side .
Speaker 1And part of the reason that it bothered me is because I grew up . Now I say this , it's kind of ironic here . I grew up in the yes sir , no sir , timeframe . I went to school . I graduated from high school in 76 . So I graduated from middle school , which was called junior high . Back then that would have been 72 . So the six years leading up to that .
Speaker 1So now we're back in the late 60s , when I was in school . So I grew up in an era where everybody was still saying yes or no , sir , you respected your teachers . At the same time , perhaps it was one of the more radical times as well , because there was a lot of protests going on . The Vietnam War had a lot of students upset and protesting and I won't go into all the details of that If you're interested in it . There is plenty of history to look at Unfortunate events that happened on college campus by both students and overzealous National Guard type people . So the 60s was a very volatile time frame . Yet it was still a time frame back when we typically said yes sir , no sir , to each other At the same time . You all know me , I don't really go by Mr Collins , I go by Greg , even with my students , and I might change that a little bit , and I'll tell you why next week , because I'm going to tell you that as part of some of the changes I'm going to have going on .
Speaker 1All right , the student , the student , the reason I said all that about the 60s and how , the respect we at least the way I was raised , we showed to other adults there was no respect of that type from this student in that classroom that day . I will say , even though there was a conglomeration , as I mentioned back on February 6th , there was a conglomeration of similar student attitudes in that class throughout the class , and I blamed a big part of it on them trying to show off for other students , and if those students that they'd like to show up for had not been in there , that perhaps it wouldn't have even been a troubled class , but they were , and the students trying to show off and doing disrespectful things . That that's why that made that the worst substitute teacher day of my life . Perhaps , though , this student , had they not been in this class , I may not have come out feeling as bad as I did . To this day . I am involved with a 10 to 12 year old volleyball camp right now I guess maybe it goes through 14 year old , because I had some of these students in middle school , and there are some of the students there that say , oh , mr Collins , please come back to our class . We know why you left . I mean , apparently it's public , everybody knows why I left and or said I wouldn't come back to that school . They want me to come back and you know I get to thinking it's not fair of me and I'm getting more into next week's episode . But it's not fair of me to that student if , if they request me to come , to not come just because a hand of you know , because of a handful of students , but this student , they were what I called super disrespectful , to the point that I really felt like there is nothing more that I can say to this student . I don't think they are capable of changing . I think they will always be that way .
Speaker 1I unfortunately had heard about this student from other teachers as well , so that ended up being part of the problem . But he was the one that would say certain words that he knows he shouldn't say in a class and then look around to other students smiling and laughing like he was so proud of himself . I have been known to call out students on this before . I knew it was too far down the road on this student . But I will tell students when they say something like that , just to get attention . I'll say why are you looking around at everybody else ? You're talking to me . Are you looking around everybody else ? Because you're looking to see if they're proud of you for saying things like that . Well , if you look at their expressions , they're not . So why did you say it ? This student was disrespectful . They would say anything to get on the substitute teacher's nerves . As I said , back on February 6th , the substitute teacher the day before me had also left a note about this student misbehaving .
Speaker 1Back after that my wife was in a classroom situation like this about a year ago and she encountered some students like that and she has a middle or I shouldn't say a middle school , an elementary school background . So she was kind of excited to try middle school and it didn't work out for her and I'm sad for that . But anytime , today I'm 66 years old . I don't want to say it's a Gen Z thing , surely not . Disrespect is not a Gen Z thing and I'm not sure it's different than , you know , my baby boomer era . But a lot of people say that they between Gen Z , millennials , Baby Boomer , generation X and whatever else I left out , and you can just see , not in their attitudes but in the food , what a difference it is between those age groups . So I'll suffice it to say this my worst student ever I can picture . There are others , in fact . I thought about making this like an amalgam of several different students , but I didn't want to do that .
Speaker 1I will share with you some other students that I would put in my top five . Although they've had their good moments . This number one student , the worst student . I've never seen a good moment from this student . I've never seen a Mr Collins or Greg . Could you help me with this ? They have no desire to be helped , they just come to school . I sit in the hallway too . This student just comes to school to try to do bad things in front of other people . I don't think he does solo bad things . I think he gets his jollies by doing these types of things in front of other students .
Speaker 1Now , I told you this is part two of an episode that was on February 6th . This is part two of an episode that was on February 6th . Next week , I am going to talk about some changes that I thought maybe I wouldn't make , but that I'm going to make . It's going to be based on this student . It's going to be based on other students . I will describe to you . It's going to be based on making changes that I didn't think I would make . I would encourage you to listen to that in a couple of weeks and we'll talk about what I'm going to change for the year 2024 to 2025 .
Speaker 2They said I was the Lulu . What does that mean ? But then I realized it's just a Gen Z thing . So I studied Gen Z words and I got all the deets . You may think I'm cray cray , but now I can eat . Now don't be jelly , because if you know , you know I won't dish you because you're slow to the show . So I'm just dropping bars with the words I sang . I know it's a sus , but it's a gen z thing . Man , oh man . I slayed that song and this baby boomer thing sits far out and groovy . Can you dig it ?
