Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
The Harshest Words Heard in a Substitute Teacher Classroom
Can the words we use in the classroom echo louder than our intentions? Join me as I unravel the complex and sometimes uncomfortable topic of harsh words in teaching environments.
We are into November. Substitute Teachers Lounge. This is Greg Collins. It is November 5th, election Day 2024. I'm recording this early so I don't know who the president is, but I'm sure we all will soon after we listen to this.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to talk about the harshest words I've ever heard in the classroom. Some of them were said by students. Some of them were said by teachers and administrators. Some of them were said by me. Substitute teachers loud. Listen to Teachers Loud. All right, all right.
Speaker 1:What this is not going to be is a podcast completely concerning words, vulgar words that shouldn't be used in the classroom. I'll talk about that a little bit. We'll call that the elephant in the room, so I want to get that out of the way early. But, to be honest, the reason I'm recording this is because of other harsh words I've had and I've used, and I've heard others use in the classroom. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you guys that you shouldn't do it. You're grown up enough to know whether that's the case or not. Before I do all that, let me just say that Instagram I'm still doing Instagram reels in the off week and I tell you what I am having so much fun doing that Every class I go to. Now the students know that I'm the Instagram substitute teacher, some of whom I haven't even taught before, but for some reason they know that my biggest one so far is still the one called I'm the best sub, and that one's had 62,000 downloads or listens. I guess I should say views that's the word views, listens or views and you know there's some Billie Eilish music playing in the background. So, billie Eilish, if you picked it up and I got all those views because some of your listeners listen to it, I surely appreciate you for that. Most of them usually get about 1,000 views in the first week and they level out at about 2,000. But I'm having fun with that and it seems like the students enjoy it and they even want to aggravate me by playing it in front of me while we're in the classroom.
Speaker 1:But that's all I'll say about that. There are a couple of reasons in my area. Let me go back a little bit and I'm jumping all over the place, but I'd say that's what I usually do on most podcasts. But I guess I remember a coach back when I was in I guess it would have been about seventh or eighth grade a basketball coach that would cuss at the players in the locker room. I hate to say I considered that the norm back then. But he used words like I'm not going to use the words because then I have to reclassify this podcast but he was saying stuff like it's time you all get the ball out of your A. Okay, you all can fill in the A. It's time you know. He was just using all kinds of words like that. I don't think he ever used the hardcore like F words and stuff like that, but it you know, here I am 66 years old. I would have been what? 13 then and as much as I forget, I remember that. Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 1:In our area right now, a coach has decided to resign. We live in a different world. Guys decided to resign we live in a different world, guys because he was caught by a player cussing at them intensely I'll say it that way In the locker room. That video went viral and I don't think they fired him. I think he chose to step down after it surfaced. Coaches didn't have to worry about that in the past and it opens up the whole argument.
Speaker 1:Can coaches use words that teachers shouldn't use in the classroom? I remember this too. I was in a high school class and the teacher this was a full-time teacher finally got perturbed at one student to the point that he just finally said I don't give a D what you do. So he was at his wit's end and he obviously used that word to get the attention of the class. Everybody sets up straight after that and I've always said that. Vulgar words and all that subject to interpretation. I'm going to say one more thing about it. It affects different people in different ways. I have seen on the Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group all the time the subject of bad language in class comes up and some of them would say, oh, our school has a policy about that. And I said, well, the policy really doesn't mean anything unless they choose to put specific words that can't be said in the policy because you're going to interpret it differently than me.
Speaker 1:For instance, I was once at a school where I said listen, I've got a student that says this word a lot in class. I know it's just part of his language. I said it kind of offends me a little bit. What should I do? I sent it to the principal and the vice principal. Neither one of them responded to me I guess they were just hoping it would go away responded to me I guess they were just hoping it would go away. And this is a group of administrators that would respond to me about everything. So we've got all that rolled up into a package.
Speaker 1:So usually what I do when I hear words like that and again, that wasn't really the reason for this podcast but if I hear words like that, I will tell them. Listen, I can't tell you how to talk when you're outside of school or just in general, but I'd really rather you just keep it at the table out of my earshot, because I don't really like language like that. And then I'll go on to tell them. Usually, from my experience, people that use those kinds of words are doing it to try to strengthen an otherwise weak argument. Try to strengthen an otherwise weak argument. My position really isn't that strong. Maybe if I throw in some bad words then it will be strengthened.
Speaker 1:Saw a comedian on the last cruise we took. He was a shock comedian and the other comedian was so good it was. Obviously he'd worked on his material. Obviously he'd worked on his material. The other one got half of his laughs just by using words that were so bad and directed at people that it made you so uncomfortable. A lot of people laughed about it. Oh yeah, this guy is cool, he can talk like this, all right, so enough of that. You can deal with that the way you want to.
Speaker 1:Harsh words come in all forms. I don't like hurtful things. I don't like when maybe one student says to the other what has happened to make you so fat? That's a hurtful phrase. And then they'll just say I was joking. No, you weren't. You said that to draw attention to yourself and to make that person feel bad. Those are harsh words. Anytime I see one student giving another student a hard time about something related to that, related to physical appearance, related to maybe they're just envious of that student and are trying to make them look worse. Well, I will call the student out. I normally don't call them out in front of people, but I'll call them up to my desk and say listen, that was hurtful. I think you should apologize. I can get middle schoolers to apologize. I won't do that to high schoolers because they're going to just be setting their ways and maybe turn even more negative. If I try to get them to do that, I'll try to get the student to apologize and we'll move on from there. Those are hurtful To me. You can say words. In fact we had this conversation in class this week. I told the guys I was going to talk about them, so they're listening.
Speaker 1:I remember having a conversation in one class. One of them said Mr Collins, have you ever been in a fight? You know the way I answered. I said well, I'll tell you what. I don't think I have, but if I have, my memory has blocked it from my mind and I went ahead and told them. I thought at that point in my in my school life that I was clever enough that I could defend myself with my words better than I could my fist. Now maybe I said something so bad to somebody that they wanted to punch me. I might have had to live with that, but I was clever enough that if they did something to me I could come up with some kind of phrase to put them in their place. Not something I'm proud of, but that was my response to them and of course they laughed a little bit. They probably knew that I'd never been in a fight.
Speaker 1:They could just tell by talking to me, because I don't get upset Probably the worst I ever say and I'm going to guess I've substitute taught for seven years I'm going to say I have said the phrase shut maybe six times in seven years. Every time. Every time, I will eventually apologize to that class and say listen, that was too harsh. Let me tell you, though, while we got to this point, you all take advantage of me because I'm nice, because I won't be too loud at you. I won't write you up, I won't do this, I won't do that. When it comes to the point where I have to say shut up, it really grabs their attention. So I tell them do not put me in that situation again, because I hate it and feel bad about it instantly. Those are two harsh words that, when you put them together, it just changes the complexity of your class. The last time I did it, I remember a student telling me later how often do you get mad? I've never seen you mad before, and I said well, to be honest, I wouldn't even classify that as being mad. I just needed to get that student's attention and it did. Okay, there are.
Speaker 1:This past week, guys, I wrote some things down about some students and then I said I'll give you a chance to change my mind and they did so. Unfortunately, I had written it down on the teacher's notes for the class, so I actually took a pair of scissors and cut that part out. Now she's going to wonder why I cut that out and I'm going to let the students tell them if they want to. I don't care, but that's something that was harsh that I did. I have heard conversations in hallways that were really bad. Obviously a student was very upset with a teacher and I heard them using F-words and all kinds of things in the hallway. And I heard them using F words and all kinds of things in the hallway close to the end of school one day, to the point that every exit to the school had a teacher in that watching for any type of I guess reciprocal type arrangement. But they did get the student calmed down. I don't never heard what happened, but you're going to hear harsh words of either of several different types.
Speaker 1:Let's word it that way you got to decide now. Don't decide then what you're going to do, because you'll probably do the wrong thing. When I decide in the spur of the moment how to react to a negative situation, a lot of times I react more negatively than I want it to. If I make up my mind today, all right, if this ever happens in my classroom, here's what I'm going to do about it. Well then, that gives you kind of a head start. All right, I'll do this. If there's vulgar language, I'll do this.
Speaker 1:If somebody is being disrespectful to another student, I'll do this. If somebody's been disrespectful to me, and I'm not even sure I will stop saying this, but I have told stories. I haven't told this. I haven't done this in probably two years, but I have told a student before. I have told a student before. If you act this way your whole life, you're going to struggle making friends. You're going to struggle making sales perhaps in your life. If you can't be better than this, be more respectful than this to other people, I'll tell them stories about classmates that I've had at one time that were very popular but because they later treated people rudely, their later life didn't turn out the way they hoped to. You know, I've heard it said this was actually at a youth meeting and, to be honest, actually at a youth meeting and, to be honest, I can't remember if this youth meeting was religious related or school related, but the thought holds true, the people our students are trying so hard to impress and be popular with while they're in high school. Most of them won't even know those people after they get out of high school. So all this time, this four years in high school, you try to impress as many people by acting tough, by acting cool. They're gone after high school.
Speaker 1:You might I'll say it like this you might be working for somebody who you used to make fun of. How's that going to do for you? Well, you know, the person you used to make fun of has probably forgotten about it or wants to get over it anyway, and you can go that way. So there's all kinds of harsh things that can happen. I've talked about my profession, my accounting profession. I didn't like it. I ran into a lot of people that were more harsh with their words than I ever chose to be. I was actually told at one time that they thought I would be a more effective manager if I used harsher words and vulgar words and things like that. So, if you want to know, that never affected me and even while I say this, everybody's different. I've said some things, I guarantee you, that are harsher than what you've said. You've said some things or maybe used some words that I would never use. We've got to decide as individuals, when harsh things happen in the classroom, what are we going to do about it. It's our job as teachers to make our decision now as to how we're going to handle it.
Speaker 1:I will tell you I am doing another. By the time you're listening to this it's over. I'm doing another day of elementary school. I'm kind of looking forward to that. I don't want to use the phrase burnt out, but I can tell I like high school much better than middle school. Now it used to be just the opposite. I enjoyed my first day of elementary school so much I had two days. The second day was a special situation, not normal, not normal, so I won't even include that in my analysis. But I am looking so forward to teaching this fourth grade class and if it goes as well as the third grade class, man, I might have a new favorite school level to teach at. I mean, it's so funny.
Speaker 1:I've been asked. I don't know how they even got my name. We have in our county what's called a kindergarten academy. Most of the kindergarten students all go to the same school, regardless of what area they live in. It's a couple. There's a couple exceptions to that, but I just said you know I'm really not ready to substitute teenage and kindergarten. I don't think I'm ready for that. So you know you've got to make all these decisions yourself. When you hear something harsh in the classroom, what are you going to do about it? Decide today.
