Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
FINAL EPISODE - Substitute Teachers Lounge podcast (and why)
All good things must come to an end. After six remarkable years and 301 episodes, I'm closing the door on the Substitute Teachers Lounge podcast. When I started this journey in November 2019, I was simply looking for a podcast that served substitute teachers—and finding none, decided to create one myself. Nearly 100,000 listens later, I'm humbled by how this resource has connected with the substitute teaching community.
Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. Your support turned what statistics said would be a seven-episode experiment into a six-year adventure. Wishing you all the best in your substitute teaching careers!
This is Greg Collins, and this is the final episode of the Substitute Teachers Lounge podcast. I'm going to tell you the two reasons, the first one being the most important, and I also have one bit of information I do want to share at the end of the podcast that I just can't help to share with you, because I found out something about Frontline that will affect in a good way, I guess a good way I'll let you decide about 25% of you, I'm going to guess. But anyway, here's the deal You've heard me talk off and on about, probably since episode 250, and this is 301, that I'm not sure how long I will continue to do this. I can't believe. I recorded almost a year's worth of episodes since then, since I first started talking about it. It's funny, my publisher, which is Buzzsprout, when they are sending you your initial education I started this, by the way, in November of 2019, when they send you that information, they tell you that if you can publish seven episodes of a podcast, that you're probably going to stick with it, and I can't believe it was only seven, but sure enough. As I look at other new podcasts, as I look at other new podcasts some of them that are no longer around, and I see them. They're right about that seven episode category, where they gave up on it after a while.
Greg:Here's the reason. The main reason is I'm just a little tired of it. I don't want to say burnout, that's too strong a word, but it's tough trying to get topics together for 300 episodes in a row, so that's the main reason. I have greatly enjoyed it. I started this, like I said, back in 2019 because I was looking for Substitute Teacher Lounge podcasts. I don't mean episodes, I mean podcast and there were none to be found at that time, so we got almost close to 100,000 downloads or listens is probably a better way to say it when you're talking about a podcast, because there's not. Sometimes you listen to podcasts I do too, though, and I don't actually download it, I just I just stream it, so to speak. So that's the main reason. I'm going to stop doing it for a while, and I hope you've enjoyed it and I won't be doing Substitute Teachers Lounge podcast anymore. I'll tell you one here in just a moment. I am going to continue podcasting. I'll tell you what that's about. It has nothing to do with substitute teachers or schools or education. It's more of a travel type thing. So the other reason is our state and rightfully so has become very concerned about interactions between adults and students, and while I have never directly communicated with a student through the podcast or through anything else for that matter, I just would be more comfortable if they didn't have to guess as to what I'm doing on this podcast. I'm doing nothing. I'm giving substitute teachers ideas. I've always done that, but I want to step out for that reason too. That's not the main reason. The main reason is I'm tired of it, but this kind of pushed me over the edge as well. So that's it. I don't want this to be very long. I will tell you one final substitute teacher idea that I'll give you.
Greg:For some reason, I was looking at Frontline the other day and found out that in some areas it depends on whether your school systems turn it on or not. Turn on the option, and I'm guessing most of them don't. We don't have it in my option, but I had a job that I tried to accept within five seconds and it was already gone. And I'm thinking man, does Frontline have some kind of automatic acceptance that I don't know about, because how could they possibly beat me in five seconds. Well, they do have an automatic acceptance feature that's only in use if your school turns it on. Now it almost feels like cheating, because basically the way I understand it is, if you flip that on for a school, then immediately when a substitute teacher or when a teacher is posting an absence and you've got that feature turned on, it automatically goes to you. That doesn't seem fair, does it? But that's what it's for. Now, don't ask me because I don't know. Maybe there's Google answers out there, but I don't know. If there's two teachers in the same area that had the switch flipped on for the same school, well, who does it go to? I mean, does the algorithm keep track of how many it's given you and how many it's given somebody else? I don't know, but that is a feature that is out there.
Greg:I will close by saying I am a member of a Disney vacation club. It's sort of a timeshare, and there are lots of shows out there. I love them all. Dvc Fan is my favorite there. I love them all. Dvc fan is my favorite. But one little niche that I think doesn't get enough emphasis is how adults should use this Me and my wife when I say we, our families, are all gone out of the house.
Greg:We had them all together yesterday. They all live close enough that they can bring the families together. I have seven grandkids through them. I have three kids of my own two boys, one girl and they are all in their 30s. And I bought this Disney Vacation Club. It's a point-based system that you can use for any of the Disney World resorts. They have a resort in Hilton Head, vero Beach, out in Disneyland area, California, and also in Hawaii that one's called Alani and I bought it mainly to let the kids use it. But me and my wife use it all the time, even like a day before a cruise. Why spend extra money renting a hotel room when we can just use these points that we've already purchased and not have to have any additional expenditure?
Greg:So I decided there was a niche opportunity. I called it's actually going to be probably more of a YouTube channel than anything. I called it DVC for Adults because there are little DVC nuances that are out there. I did put out one initial episode, didn't market it, didn't expect there to be much out there, because I want to do two or three episodes first. The first one is just generalities. The second one is financial stuff. So if you go to the Orlando area a lot, we don't really go to the theme parks anymore, we just like the resorts. That's what my new podcast will be based on. So that's it, guys. I hope you've enjoyed the last. What is that? Six, seven years? I'm rusty in my head right now the last 300 episodes, and I hope you have a great substitute teacher career.
