Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Easing Up on Your Substitute Teacher Principles
Today, you'll walk away with practical tips and creative strategies to make your classroom more inclusive and engaging from the get-go. And it may require changing your principles.
It is Substitute Teacher's Lounge for September 10th 2024. We've all been substitute teaching several days. I want to go through. I don't really like the potpourri type episodes, but I think I've got them all focused into one general idea. We're going to follow up a little bit on SubAlert. Won't spend much time on it just a few minutes. But when it comes right down to it, the things we're going to talk about today is maybe it's time for substitute teachers to ease up on their principles, and I don't mean the person in charge of the building, substitute Teacher's Loud. All right, all right, greg Collins. So far I have had 12 days of substitute teaching, which is almost every day, because I had a week in the middle of that where we were on a cruise a full week. So I hope you guys are staying busy. I'm going to quickly bring up SubAlert one more time. By the way, last episode on SubAlert is now the new top episode of the last six months, so thank you for that. We're hitting that milestone often now, so I really appreciate you all listening. We're up to 82,000 downloads now and I'm really excited about it.
Greg:The students listen to it. They commented about it every day I substitute teach, so that's where that's going. So I really love the Instagram. It's funny. If you are following my Instagram account, you will see the types of things I'm doing. The students seem to like it, and the one that got over 2000 views was one that I wasn't real crazy about because I did it. I liked the content, but I did it in a classroom one day during planning period and I felt like it made me hold back a little bit because I have a loud voice and I didn't want it to carry and the other teachers hear it, because the other teachers around me were also on planning and there wasn't any students making noise. They were in the related arts classes. But it turns out they kind of liked that one. I think they liked it because there was some Billie Eilish music playing in the background. But thanks for that as well, guys.
Greg:Here's what I want to say about subalert. Just a quick follow-up. I told you I did a study. If you go to the Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group, you will have seen some postings there. I don't censor that. I don't let members which we're getting close to 4,000 now I don't let members directly attack each other, but I don't mind if they speak up strongly about what they believe in A lot of the discussions on there I would never do a podcast about because I think it would come over a little bit too strong, but I like that they're discussing that there.
Greg:Subalert came up again on that page and someone just finally said I refuse to pay for something that I can get free. Well, you know from the last episode I told you you can make that back in less than a half a day. So if that's your attitude and you're in my area, I have checked it more recently and in my area the sub alert alerts are coming through, sometimes as much as two minutes before the frontline app sends you an alert. So I'll just go ahead and take these jobs from you and you'll never see them. You'll never know that they even existed, because I grabbed them from you, because I knew they were out there before you did and by the time it would have notified you I've already accepted the job. So you don't see it. You never know because you didn't see it in the first place.
Greg:I say that and I intentionally came on a little bit strong because there's other aspects. I made the comment that you can pay for it in less than half a day. Why wouldn't you do that? But yet let me give you a comparison. I do silly decisions financially like that too. We went on a cruise, spent a few thousand on the cruise, but yet the night before we stayed at a place that was about an hour from the cruise ship and there was different routes in Florida to drive to get there. I chose to drive 30 minutes out of my way, or 30 minutes longer than the shorter route, just to save $6 on a toll, even though I had paid a substantial amount for the cruise itself. So who am I to tell somebody else that that is a silly financial decision? We're all different. You know, sometimes we'll drive a half an hour away just to fill up with gas, even though it's probably just saves us two to three dollars a tank, but it just happens to be a few cents cheaper. We make decisions like that because that's our principles.
Greg:I'm going to talk a little bit about the principles we use when we're coming in contact with students. You don't have to agree with this. In fact, I hope some of you don't, because I want to hear from you more. You can always email me at gregcollinssubstitute at gmailcom. You've got that link you can click that says text me. It's right there in the episode. If you're looking at the episode, what you can click is right there in front of you right now. So do that. I want to hear from more of you. I'm glad that we're growing and growing and growing, but I still want it to be more active as far as our interactions among each other. So that's all I will say on SubAlert. I am happy with it, I will continue to use it.
Greg:Picked up another job this week within oh, 10 seconds of when the teacher posted it, and they thought that was amazing. So, but let's move on to a different type of principle now. There are some of you that I don't care what anybody says to you, you ain't getting on social media. I poke fun at our preacher sometimes because he refuses to get on Facebook. He knows he's got a lot of people around him that can do that for him. And I said, mike, you know your Facebook presence could, in fact, increase the evangelism in our area, but it's just a principle he set up for himself and that's okay. Some of you probably most of you are my age, but yet here I am promoting it. You need to reevaluate your principle about social media. If your attitude is I'm not getting on that, I don't want to get on that.
Greg:I've done fine teaching over the years. There's no reason to Well. Here's why I like it. I've gotten to the point now. You know my pattern Every other week I do a podcast episode and then the off weeks between those I'm doing an Instagram reel, and it's intended to be comical and, in most cases, make fun of myself.
Greg:And I never go to a class anymore where I don't run into students that say hey, mr Collins, how come you keep popping up on my Instagram account and I've gotten more and more followers. I told you about the one that I had over 2,000 views in no time and that's exciting to me. If nothing else, it's sort of like an icebreaker because I don't have to say all right, when I call your name for the roster, answer with your favorite food. I don't have to say that because we're already interacting in a jovial way. They think it's cool that they've got a substitute teacher. Most of them don't know I'm 66, but some of them do. They think it's cool that they've got a substitute teacher. They call it Raps. I don't know, it's not really a hardcore Raps, but that puts raps on Instagram and they get to see them, and some, when they find that out, I see them look it up and I see them start laughing, and that's special to me because I do silly stuff.
Greg:Not all of you have the personality to do that, and I understand. But if your principal is hardcore, that I am not going to get on social media, okay, I don't get on it to contact students, obviously that would be, in my opinion, a no-no. I would never seek out a student and contact them to be a friend of mine. Now, generally speaking, if they contact me and they're either 18 or older or I see that other teachers have become their Facebook friend, or maybe it's something to do if I'm involved with the volleyball program, it's something to do to keep each other informed. But if your principle is to not get on social media, at least make some thoughts. Look at it. Do an informational Instagram if you don't want to do something silly, like me. I would encourage you, though, to look at mine. See the kind of things I'm doing, and that's what I'm getting comments about, so re-evaluate the principle you have established for yourself as far as social media goes.
Greg:This next one hits to the heart a little bit, because let's be careful, and it's not really a principle, it's just something that's stuck in our head we get keep in mind. Again, when I went to school in the 70s, my hair was almost down to my shoulders because at that time all of the boys students wanted to look like the Beatles. And that was when, in the 70s, they had broken up, but the look was still there. The guys wanted the long hair. The hippie movement was then.
Greg:You may think today that you're so repulsed if you're old enough, you're so repulsed by that time that any guy who walks in with long hair or, let me say it this way, any student who walks in whose appearance is not quite what your principal says they should look like, they sound like I meant the person running the school, the principal that you've established for yourself. It's not what you think they should look like. Please be careful. Do not teach them in a different way. Do not presuppose that because they look different than what your principal says they should look like, don't teach them differently. Be as friendly to them, joke around with them. Now, that's not to say that if you've got students in your room that are just crystal students who will do anything you say and always help out, usually from a volunteer basis. They don't even have to ask. It's natural for you to consider them your quote, since we're not allowed to say this favorite unquote students, then that's okay. But remember, don't judge students by the way they come in, just because your principle of how they should look is not. They just don't appear the way you want them to appear.
Greg:I had a substitute job a while back that I asked a student because I was in a co-teacher role and I followed some students around pretty much all day long, and I asked one of them at the in a co-teacher role and I followed some students around pretty much all day long and I asked one of them at the end of the day how come you think the students in this class behaves differently than when they were maybe let's just use this as an example fifth period, than they did when they were in first period? And he told me something that really caught me by surprise. And he told me something that really caught me by surprise. He said I think we just have more dumb students in that class. And I said what? And he said well, at least that's what I heard one of the teachers say so be careful. That teacher didn't really mean it like that. He meant it maybe because he was referring to students that maybe didn't concentrate or try hard enough or always wanted to get the attention of the other students in the room. Be careful.
Greg:I would almost call this a subconscious principle, where you got it stuck in your head Again students should look a certain way and if they don't, you don't give them as much time as you would the other. I hope you're not like that. But if you are, re-evaluate that principle that says, because of a student's appearance or their behavior in the room, I'm going to treat them differently than everybody else. I think you'll do yourself a favor, you'll do the student a favor. Who knows the fact that you just give them maybe extra time than they're used to getting from other teachers? Maybe that's enough to turn them into a student that's going to participate and be active through the whole class. So take a look at your principal in that regard too. All right, I am going to close with a rather silly idea. You have your principal on how you like to do icebreakers, kids, typically speaking.
Greg:Now, if you're teaching young kids, which I'm, you know elementary school kids, which I'm going to do for the first time on the 19th. I'm kind of looking forward to it, kind of a little bit anxious about it too. But I've noticed when I'm in middle especially middle school, but in high school too the weirder ways you can do an icebreaker to get to know each other. They hate to say you know what's your favorite farm, animal, things like that. Well, I don't need an icebreaker, really, with specific name-by-name reminders, I've recently bought some reading glasses.
Greg:They're called Highlight hard case folding reading glasses, and the kids are always amazed when I use them because the case is about as long as two sections of your finger and is about maybe about as wide as two fingers, if you can picture that in your head. But yet when I make sure I open it in front of them so they see it and everybody is staring at it, I flip the lid, I pull out the glasses. They are folded to a very compact size. I unfold them. The part that goes above my ears are telescopic. I pull those out, put it on my head and some of them will say well, that was just so cool, where'd you get those? I kind of use that as an icebreaker. It opens up a jovial conversation that they would not have otherwise had. It is a way for them to socialize with me. For no apparent reason, and all of a sudden we've opened up the corresponding communication channel so that we can talk to each other. Now I know that sounds silly, but my point is not to go out and buy those reading glasses unless you need reading glasses, I like them.
Greg:But make your icebreakers or make your ways to meet the class as unique as possible. Don't let your principal just say all right, I'm going to type in school icebreakers. Okay, have them answer as a farm animal. Have them answer with their favorite musical instrument. They don't really like those. Try to come up with some unique ideas of your own. So that's it for today. Re-evaluate all of the principles you use when you substitute teaching and just see if there's ways that you may be able to tweak them to make you even more effective and get the students to pay even more attention to you.
