Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
When Substitute Teachers Should (and Shouldn't) Break the Teacher's Rules
Finding the sweet spot between following a regular teacher's lesson plans and bringing your authentic self to the classroom—that's the balance every substitute teacher must strike. Drawing from seven years of substitute teaching experience across elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, I explore when to stick to the script and when to trust your teaching instincts.
Greg Collins. Substitute Teacher's Lounge. It is April Fool's Day, 2025, april 1st Today. Why don't we talk about? You know, I feel like I've gotten pretty smart as a substitute teacher. I've been doing it. This is my seventh year now.
Speaker 1:Maybe there might be times when I look at what the teacher has told me to do, or listen to what she has told me to do, and say you know, I think I know better. I don't think I want to do it that way. I'm going to do it the way I want to do it. I don't know. Am I just saying all this in sarcasm, or are there times when you shouldn't listen to the regular teacher? Substitute Teacher's Loud. All right, all right.
Speaker 1:I am in the midst of a week of substitute teaching. That's probably the most unusual blend I've ever had as far as beginning to end. We're getting. This is our last week of substitute teaching before our spring break in this area, and it just so happens this week I do two elementary school days, I do a middle school day, then I do two high school days. Now that's stretching it right there, and you know it is hard to adjust. So help me get through all this and I guess I'll be a stronger person because of it.
Speaker 1:I want to mention last week the hugs episode was a popular one, but the one I want to, the thing I want to mention about it is the elementary school kids that I've had since I recorded that episode just for giggles. I told them they know I have a podcast and I said one of my recent episodes was about whether or not teachers should hug students and it's funny, their perspective. All of them I'll say all of them immediately said yes, they should be able to hug the students, and I'm thinking, man, how things change as you get older. I'm going to talk about things that have happened to me. This is actually over the last several months, triggered by something that happened recently, and then I'm actually going to start by telling you a story that, ironically, was recently posted on our Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group, and I'll paraphrase a bit. Not that I want to mess up this poster story, but I wanted to say it in such a way that I don't plagiarize and maybe it will encourage you to go ahead and look. If you go there right now, it's probably the third or fourth most recent story, because it's getting some decent replies and I was curious, even if it was posted, what the main reply would be.
Speaker 1:But here's what one of the teachers said. He basically said that he had been a teacher a long time before he started substitute teaching and, with his experience, decided to kind of go off track from what the substitute teacher had left him to do. I think it was something to the effect of that the teacher had left to have a or meet their grandchild and they were taking a day off to do that. So even though that teacher left him a writing assignment to have the kids do, he went off script and had them write a script paper about the teacher's grandchild and in effect he thought it would be a nice touch if they all wrote a paper about how great it is to have grandkids and have a new member of the family. So he went off of. Now that might've meant that this was a writing assignment that the teacher thought was important for the class and instead he did whatever he wanted to do.
Speaker 1:So let's start by offering the question would you ever do that? I'm not sure I would do that. The general consensus I'm getting from the Facebook group page is that they were proud of him for doing that, and I normally don't go too much off what the teacher says, unless there is a situation where I met the teacher. In fact I did this yesterday. I'm actually subbing at the same elementary school two days in a row, but for different teachers, and I dropped by the second teacher's room on the first day to see what she had going on and she basically told me the general idea. But she said if you want to, it's an art class. But she said if you want to go off track a little bit, just go ahead and try some things as you would want to. That's a little bit different than doing things on your own. But let me tell you what has triggered this recently. It's more a verbal request and then we'll talk about things that we should stick to. When a teacher leaves us notes things, we can kind of step outside of the notes a little bit. Now we never want to have the attitude I'm going to go in, size these kids up and do whatever I want to. Well, I don't think that's very smart.
Speaker 1:There are a significant number of teachers that do in fact leave busy work that maybe has been sitting in a folder for months until they take a day off. I know for sure it was about four years ago, when I was long-term subbing, that the head of the department told me. She said why don't you take these sheets, put them in a folder somewhere and one day, when you have to be absent, just let the substitute teacher know that they can do those sheets? Well, that's busy work, that's just work for the kids to have something to do. Most of the time, though, teachers leave you assignments that they don't want you to get behind on. You know, not too long ago, I've told you that I was subbing four days for a class right after they had had five days off for snow, and so I knew that most likely the teacher didn't want me to just teach anything. They in fact had a plan for me, because otherwise they would be nine days behind and it would really take some catching up to do Plus in elementary school.
Speaker 1:For the most part, all the different classes I think that was a third grade class they're all doing something similar, so you got to stay up with the other classes. The other day I did a half-day substitute teaching job, and I like those on occasion. Especially, I like third grade. I think that's my favorite elementary school grade right now. I was in. I actually signed up for a first grade, even though I co-taught with that teacher some today, and first graders are okay, they're just seven.
Speaker 1:You know, anytime you get 37 year olds in the in the same room. Well, you got to expect a little out of controlness. You know my computer doesn't work, it's clocking, I can't get in. Can you tell me what you said again, teacher? I want to build things with these blocks instead of do doing what you told me to do with them. You know, you just got seven-year-old kids in there and, believe me, I am one of those that I don't try to get them quiet, overly quiet in the hallway because they're seven years old. Man, they're kids. This isn't the military.
Speaker 1:Now I want to tell you this I have noticed differences between elementary school versus middle slash high school in that they're so young that you have to be a little bit stricter. You have to get them into the mode where they pay attention to you and for the most part they do. You have to Not discipline, that's too strong a word, but you have to be strong. I notice teachers in elementary school. They're really sharp and focused on what they tell those kids and if you don't fall in line like you're supposed to, well, then maybe you lose your recess or you get a demerit or whatever they're calling it these days. Or I know I go to one school where they do something good. They call it a punch and they almost respond better to that than a negative reinforcement. You know, I'm kind of a positive reinforcement guy. You do this, you get a Jolly Rancher, rather than if you don't do this, you're going to lose out on that. You're not going to be able to go to that assembly where you get to watch a ball game at one o'clock this afternoon. So that's kind of my thing.
Speaker 1:So the other day I got into this half day and it was almost a little not creepy is the wrong word, that's too strange but a little took me back a little bit. It's almost like the teacher knew of my reputation, which I thought was good. But she said some things to me as we were leaving and she was very sharp with her kids. They weren't doing that much. They were lined up to go to lunch or recess. I can't remember what it was. When I first got there it was recess. I do remember that now and I said well, I'll go out with them. And she. She immediately said listen. And she started talking to those kids and said if we have the same situation we did a few weeks ago, where the substitute teacher left me three pages about how bad you kids were, you better not treat that substitute teacher this way. And then she went on to say some things to me about how you can't be. She didn't say the word friendly, but this is the impression I had. Didn't say the word friendly, but this is the impression I had. You can't be friendly with these kids because they won't get their work done or something to the effect of we go by our last names here. We want them to stay focused.
Speaker 1:Now I think I've told you this. I let the middle schoolers, and especially the high schoolers, call me by my first name. That came really from the volleyball court, because players got to know me in volleyball and would call me Mr Greg, so I let them call me Greg in the classroom. I don't really let the students in an elementary school do that. I don't even tell them my first name, because I do think that's a little bit too loose to have elementary schoolers call me by my first name, but I thought it was so unusual that she in effect was giving me a couple of. She said it in a friendly way, but she was giving me a couple warnings Be serious, so that they get their work done and don't let them call you by your first name so we can be respectful. So you know me well enough from this podcast. That almost made me feel like shoot, I'm going to tell these guys my first name.
Speaker 1:Just go opposite of what this teacher said, because it kind of took me back a little bit. It was almost as if you not only have to carry out my lessons plans, you have to do it with this personality type. To me that's crossing the line a little bit. I told them after she left again. I joked, as I've told you before. I said now I'm the meanest substitute teacher you've ever met and they could tell from my personality that I wasn't. And we did tell some friendly stories. I made sure they got their work done. So I did it my way. I got the teacher's work done and, in my opinion, as long as I do what's on that teacher's lesson plan, I can carry it out in the method and the personality that I want to and I'm not going to change from that and the personality that I want to and I'm not going to change from that. And a teacher shouldn't expect a substitute teacher to do it with a specific attitude, a specific personality that's taken away from who they are. So that really caught me by surprise and we had a good afternoon that day. It just so happened that I did catch them when they actually did a lot that afternoon.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you never know with third grade and younger, if you do a half day, you might have the half of the day when they're really not doing that much. They might have one hour class and the rest is involved with maybe a recess and lunch and their activities such as gym or music or whatever library the rest of the day. But in this case we did quite a bit that day. And finally I was so curious around 2.30, I asked them. I said listen, guys, did a substitute teacher really write three pages about you guys? And they started nodding their head yes, and I said I can't imagine, as well as you've behaved for me today, that you guys ever got in that much trouble. And they told me some of the things that they did, like you know, standing on chairs, being too loud, all that kind of thing and they had been so well behaved. And I'll just say this for what it's worth in my opinion, the better you treat those kids, the less mean you treat those kids, the better they're going to behave for you. If I'm mean to them, they're going to be mean to me. That's the way I go about it and I'm not going to change just because some teacher wanted me to do it with a specific personality style. It's up to you what you want to do.
Speaker 1:One last little incident that I'll mention. That happened. It's actually funny because it happened after I decided to record this episode and then I said well, this is a perfect example. I was supposed to be a substitute teacher for a librarian. The librarian in me had actually gotten reasonably close in that she contacts me ahead of time when she's going to be gone because she knows I know her system. She knows I know how to use the library gun. She knows how to check in books and check out books and put books back on shelves in their proper places. So she specifically asked for me. So when I got in there, I'd only been there like 15 minutes maybe, at about 745. And the principal comes in, who's a really good dude, I consider him a friend and he said well, mr Collins and I knew I was going to ask because they they were really shorthanded on substitutes and he said would you rather be seventh grade math or band today? And I said, well, of the two I'd pick seventh grade math. I said, but I should tell you that the librarian chose me specifically and wanted me to be here and he said yeah, I know, he said, but she doesn't have any students, so they actually closed the library.
Speaker 1:I went to math class and probably the students that needed the most help in math were all in the first period. So there was a helper in the first period and it was one of those helpers that liked to yell almost to the point of yelling at the kids to sit up straight, and I don't really like working with those kind of co-teachers. I'll tell you this I remember back when I was subbing in the sixth, seventh grade for the kids that are now seniors and they had a co-teacher that went around their classes and since I subbed with them so long, they would have me come in and eat lunch with them and this co-teacher never ate lunch with them and they would be very honest to me about. They didn't even like it when she was in here because she had such a negative attitude and would often take over the class and take it in a direction the teacher didn't want to go and they didn't appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of how it felt with this teacher that was co-teacher, that was in my room. She made so many suggestions and I finally just told her you know, I said no, I'm pretty good at math too, so I'll handle it. She's. She would tell me several times you could do it this way, and I said no, I've got some ideas and I did not let her take over the class. Now she was very friendly and allowed me to do my thing too.
Speaker 1:So there are times when you'll run into teachers, co-teachers, whatever that want you to do it a certain, do a certain thing and there's a difference between doing a certain thing and doing it a certain way. And once you gain the respect of those teachers, they're going to give you some leeway. They're going to allow you to do some things on your own. I don't think I would ever change a teacher's lesson plan, especially the first time I had met her, but I would stick with my guns as far as this is my personality, I'm going to teach it that way. I don't want to compromise it, and I think those kids will have a good day and follow the lesson plan all the better.
