Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Straight A Students and Substitute Teachers Get Anxiety Too
Ever wondered what goes through the minds of both students and substitute teachers when anxiety strikes? Join me as I share candid stories and reflections that may sound all too familiar. From the unpredictable dynamics of the classroom to the unexpected challenges that arise, we explore the lighter side of these shared anxious moments with a nod to a quirky Disney podcast featuring the retired Epcot attraction, Cranium Command. For a dash of Hollywood intrigue, we also venture into the world of child actors with insights from Mary McDonough of "The Waltons." It's a humorous yet insightful ride that promises to resonate with anyone who's faced the jitters in an academic setting.
As we continue, we'll dive into ways to support students grappling with anxiety in their studies. Through heartfelt accounts, we underscore the importance of being approachable and guiding students towards professional help when needed, sharing stories like that of a sixth grader whose math test woes were alleviated with a flexible teaching approach. With the new year on the horizon, we'll highlight effective strategies for managing anxiety and nurturing a positive outlook. Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or a student, our episode offers a comforting blend of empathy, humor, and practical advice to navigate the stressors of academic life.
Greg Collins. Substitute Teachers Lounge. You know, am I supposed to be somber today because we're talking about anxiety? I can't do that, I'll be upbeat. We're going to talk about things that have happened to me recently. We're going to talk about things that happen to students that sometimes we may have to deal with. We're going to talk about things that happen to substitute teachers that just make us a little bit uncomfortable and maybe, by the time it's all over, maybe the time that I share my stories with you. First of all, this will not be a podcast where I'm going to solve anything, because everybody's different and I am not licensed or smart enough to do that anyway. So we're going to talk a little bit about anxiety today. I will share a couple of funny stories. One of them happened to me yesterday. One of them is about a unique podcast, disney-related that I'll tell you about. One's about a rather cool book that I just bought for $1.99 for my Kindle that I like because I love reading about child actors and how their lives were affected by that. So let's get into it, ready, ready. Substitute Teachers Lounge.
Greg:All right, you know what my plans are as far as a title for this episode, to draw attention to it. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do with your title. I'm going to name it. I think You'll know by now, but I think I'm going to name it Straight A. Students and Substitute Teachers Get Anxiety Too, and unless the AI function of my publisher comes up with something better, that I liked even better, that's the title. That's why I went with the title. We're episode 274. That means 275 by the end of the year. I don't know, that's kind of a round number.
Greg:I've talked about stopping the podcast in the past, but I'm enjoying it so much. Just call me the Bill Belichick of Substitute Teachers Podcast. I don't know when to quit, so I will keep on going and we'll see how it works out. It's funny. Two things, and I'll go through these. This is homework, if you want it to be, because I enjoyed it.
Greg:A lot of you are coming up on maybe several days break and you, if you've got time to read or got time to listen to about an hour long podcast, let's start with the podcast first. I am a Disney fan, but I'm more of a classic Disney fan. You get past about 1995 when Toy Story and the Lion King came out and I would not do good in a Disney trivia contest when I go to the Disney resorts now and they do trivia games by the pool. I really don't know them because most of them are some of the newer movies and all that kind of stuff.
Greg:There is a podcast called Retro Disney World. It's all about old stuff this past week and two things the book and this happened to me this week when and I thought it was kind of ironic since I was talking about anxiety retro wdw, retro disney world podcast this week is talking about cranium command. That is an old attraction that used to be at epcot in the think. It think it was the Wonders of Life Pavilion. I know my kids are listening to this and they've heard of it.
Greg:Cranium Command it's about a boy in school, I think probably middle school age, and they do it in what's called POV point of view. So the camera actually behaves as the student. So they're rolling around the camera as if it's the student and he's looking down the hallway at different things. And there's three things you know in this attraction at what used to be at Epcot Center. It was bullies, it was attraction. You know, overall high school students are affected anxiety-wise by boyfriends and girlfriends all the time. And the third thing was I even thought of this before I listened to this and they just confirmed it for me. They mentioned it specifically. The third thing is when teachers are upset with them. Those are the three main things that give students anxiety, so we'll talk about here in a minute.
Greg:It's really a good podcast. It won't solve your anxiety, but two things that you will learn. It's very good for behind the scenes, for instance, it was a point of view podcast or I should say attraction. So when they got to the point where the bully was supposed to pick up the student, well, what he really did in actuality is he picked up the camera and pointed it directly towards him so you could see his face and then threw it into a trash can, just as if he was throwing a student into a trash can. Okay, so very interesting behind the scenes stuff like that. There was special effects, all that kind of stuff, but maybe the most interesting thing, that's where the thought was planted that later became Inside Out. Of course, you know by now that this year's Inside Out 2 is brought in more revenue than any other animated film, so I liked it. I took my grandson to it just to have something to do and I'm thinking, my goodness, I really like that. I mean, basically, somebody opened a psychology book and made a movie, an animated movie, about each emotion that was in there. I liked it so much I even came home that day and we put on the first Inside Out because I'd never seen it again. I'm a classic Disney guy, so it's a very good behind the scenes podcast if you want to listen to that.
Greg:The other thing is I gave you a reference to the Waltons last week. I will say that the middle daughter in that was played. The character's name was Erin. The middle daughter's name was Mary McDonough. Character's name was Erin, the middle daughter's name was Mary McDonough, and I found out that she wrote an autobiography about her life and it's very interesting because she was the only one of those seven kids in the family who didn't have acting experience and, ironically, her real-life family. They weren't Depression age, of course, they were much more current than that, but they went through some of the same money issues and all that kind of stuff. So there's really some good stories in there about what she learned. She had to be told not to look at the camera and to just go through the motions she was supposed to go through and I won't give you any more than that because it only cost a dollar 99. I hope some of you go out and read it and I don't want to make give you any more spoilers.
Greg:So let me talk about what's happened to me and I'm going to say maybe the last couple of years I've got more. I'll put it in the category of anxiety, but it's really rather mild. I would call it. It wasn't serious, but it was significant. It's not something that I say, oh, I've got to run to a doctor for or a therapist would be a more correct way of saying that but it is some things that has significantly changed what's been important to me in recent years. Let me give you a funny story to kind of change it.
Greg:Me and my one of my sons and my son-in-law went to a football game in Nashville I live in central Kentucky, so it was about a three hour drive or so Went down to see the Bengals play the Titans. The night before the game we'd stay in the hotel and I came back earlier than the boys did and after a couple hours I started having thoughts in my head, just like a good old, nervous parent thinking, oh, has something to happen to them? Has somebody robbed them? Or has they happened to be standing in with the wrong crowd and carted off to jail? And why would my mind think things like that? It never thought those things before.
Greg:But I've changed over the years. I remember when I was still refereeing and, yes, I'm not refereeing anymore, I'm going to get to that here in a moment I would watch the players that also had as students when I substitute teach, players that I also had as students when I substitute teach and when I saw the emotion drain from their face, I knew what they were experiencing and I tried to comfort them as much as possible and tell them as well that you know if you keep reacting that way, you're not going to do yourself or anybody else any good. You got to forget about it and move on. That embarrassment sets in sometimes With me. Here's what I've been going through the last couple years and why I've quit doing volleyball and refereeing volleyball, I should say and I've tried to roll it all into a package. I did get to assistant coach some last year and I enjoyed it. That's part of why I don't enjoy refereeing as much.
Greg:Some of the referees I didn't particularly like to referee with. That gave me some anxiety, but it had gotten to the point that I realized when I was out there I really don't want to be here and I would walk to the stand. And it's not, it wasn't blacking out by any means, but it was like something would come over me and it would take me a while to climb that stand, just because I had thoughts going through my head. Sometime when I was on the stand and supposed to make a call, I would hesitate because it was like I was having concentration issues. I told the boss that it's best for me to step away from volleyball, and the reason I used is basically what I've told you. But as the more I've thought about it too, I was getting to the point now that when I refereed almost anywhere anymore, I had had enough students in my class as a substitute teacher that ended up being on the volleyball court as well that I didn't want to call anything against them. They were important to me. I did not want them to feel bad because of something I did. So that's why I quit refereeing.
Greg:So you've heard me for six, seven years now describe how much I loved it. I don't really miss it because I'm enjoying more going to the games than I am refereeing. I see some of the things referees go through now and it makes me think man, yeah, and the coaches yelling is part of it too. It makes me think I'm glad I got out of it. Know, that's just one thing that's happened to me as a substitute teacher because of this mild anxiety, or just it's not nervousness, I don't even know how else to describe it. Anxiety just sounds like a dirty word anymore. I don't want to use that word anymore than I have to. I will never admit I have an issue in that area. But concentration may be an issue that I would use now with students.
Greg:I don't want to do long-term anymore. I've come to that realization after thinking about it for years. I want to do a day at a time, don't mind working all week, but I generally want to have a different set of students on Tuesday than I had Monday all the way through the week, because that helps me with my concentration, that helps me with my ability as a substitute teacher. I talked about it with a regular teacher last week in high school. He asked me if I did long-term anymore and I said you know, I really don't like to. I think it's different after the students get used to you. And he totally agreed. He knew what I was talking about. Because if you come back and see these students, maybe once every couple of weeks, they're kind of happy to be there, happy that you're there, I should say. When you see them every day, well, that happiness just naturally kind of falls off. One of the reasons I like elementary school so well because those students are used to being bubbly, they're used to being excited when they see you again and I like that feeling to be perfectly honest. Now here's what we'll do as substitute teachers. We have to remember that things are going to happen and we have to learn how to deal with it.
Greg:I've tried to be as diplomatic as possible. In every school situation I've come across. I've always said that I wouldn't act the way some of the older people I've seen act, how they're rude to people sometimes, and then I've been more rude here lately. I'm going to try to work on that. I was with my son different son the other day at actually it was at a college volleyball game and I just knew I was sitting in the right seats. So when somebody came down and, just off the cuff, said you're sitting in our seats. I was a little smart aleck about it and I was the one that was wrong. I was sitting on the wrong end of the row. I thought I was in one two when I was really in nine and 10. Well, I don't want to be that smart-alecky person man. I want to be somebody that is pleasant all the time as you're dealing with your students. It's going to help both you and them if you're pleasant in every situation. Even if it's negative, turn it around. If it's positive, make it even more positive.
Greg:Get to a point where your students like to see you coming back. Or maybe, more importantly, for your own function, maybe it's important to get to a point where you love going back to substitute teach. You're thinking, oh, I get to see these students today. There are classes that I am extremely disappointed. If I see an absence pop up in this class and I don't get it before somebody else does, I'm really disappointed about that. There are some classes that I really love and I want to be the first to get in there. I want to see them again. I feel like they want to see me again and that's the way it goes.
Greg:So we all get some form of anxiety issues. There are you out there. Some of you have some worse than me, some of you I'm going to guess as many listeners that we have that some of you have therapists for that kind of thing. Some of you have less a degree In fact. Some of you have therapists for that kind of thing. Some of you have less a degree, in fact. Somebody said why did you even bring this up? I don't have any issue with that and thank goodness you don't. It's kind of part of it's sad. I don't get sad too often, but it's a little bit sad to me because I can see as I'm getting older that things affect me now that they didn't used to. So keep all that in mind. This, historically, is a time of year when people have these kind of issues more often than others. Maybe they're a little lonely, whatever it is, but let's at least make our substitute teacher situation as good as it can be. Create environments. Don't go into a class asking for a problem, because if you're asking for one you'll find one and it's not really proper for you to try to solve a problem a kid's having, but be sympathetic that they're having the problem.
Greg:I've said before to a student that I've seen in the hallway that that's not the happy face I'm used to seeing with you. Is there anything you want to talk to me about? And the student actually talked to me and I said well, obviously I can't give you an advice, but find things that will cheer you up. Let me know if you ever need to talk to me about anything. I would be very uncomfortable if any student started talking to me about their home situation. I am certainly not qualified or authorized to give an answer to them or suggest it to them. I would probably, even before I even talk to a counselor, I might say listen. I really think that this, should your guidance counselor knows how to treat or deal with these kinds of situations, why don't you talk to that person?
Greg:My last student story and the reason I brought straight A students into this is one time I was teaching and it was when I was doing long-term. So I had just given them a test, saw one of the students crying and I just walked over to them this was probably a sixth grader and said what's wrong? And they said this test is going to mess up my grade. I don't know why I'm just having a mental block. I can't take it right now. That kid had a lot of anxiety. Now it just so happened the way the class was set up, we would let all students take tests multiple times because it was a math class and we figured, well, you're going to learn more each time you take it. So I was able to give that student another chance.
Greg:So there's all kinds of reasons for all of us to get into that anxiety issue. Sometimes Anxiety is going to affect us all in different ways. All we can do is try our best to get to it and I hate to just say, put on a happy face, but why not? It's Christmas. Let's see if I've done some things. I've changed some things that have taken. I don't know if I dealt with it, I just kind of removed it, and we have issues all the time. Let's just try our best to. You know, as we get into the new year, let's just do things that will make our anxiety go away.
