Classroom Management and Substitute Teaching

This is something they never teach you when you’re getting your license. When I went in for my first classroom observation and I saw the horrors of a poorly managed classroom, I wondered why it wasn’t a topic of serious conversation prior to getting my license. Why don’t we get taught this? How does such an important element of education get left out? When do you push and when do you pull back?

I think the best thing I ever did for my teaching chops was substitute for a full year. If you want to see what you’re made of (teaching and personality wise), go to a poor school and substitute teach for a day. Here’s a small list of what I experienced during that year when I was baptized by fire:

1. I had a first grader tell me on a one on one session that he has a demon in his head.
2. I met a student named Munney (pronounced money).
3. I filled in for a teacher who had to have surgery because a 4th grader threw a metal water bottle at her knee. When I came into class, it had been over five weeks since they had a teacher for more than two days. The student who acted violently was still in the classroom acting violently.
4. I saw a gay female student’s last day at school because her parents were transferring her to a new high school to move her away from her girlfriend.
5. A second grader looked at me directly and said, “I don’t believe in God.”
6. I witnessed so many fights there is really no reason to go into all of them. The one that stands out, though, was in a 6th grade class when two kids fought each other. They were both sent to the office and with no repercussions were sent back to my class within five minutes.
7. When I politely asked a 6th grader to sit down he said, “Fuck you, fa**ot.”
8. I taught for a day in a computers class that the teacher just walked out on after the first week because of how insane the students were. In that day a kid threw an orange at me when my back was turned, students made racist comments toward me, and when I would regularly call the front office for assistance nobody would come.
9. A student engaged the eye washing station in the science classroom, spraying water everywhere for no reason.
10. A student was watching pornography on his school issued iPad, and when I took it away and called the front office he got in my face and tried to start a fight with me.
11. A student left class and told me he had to call his parole officer because he doesn’t believe he is coming to school anymore. In that same class, a girl told me her dream after high school is to own and operate a strip club.

Let’s be honest, substitute teaching is a joke. It’s babysitting. It sucks. I will never, ever substitute teach again especially now that we have tried to make subbing a “meaningful day” of learning and not just movies; the kids act out worse. The reason we used to watch movies when a substitute would come in was because with no meaningful relationship with the students you will not be able to manage anything. The reason they don’t teach you this when you’re in college is because there is no way to teach it.

If you want the truth, I think it’s best to never react. Don’t yell, don’t scream, don’t fight, because most their behavior doesn’t matter. Just calmly ask the student to leave, write them a referral, or call the front office and hope an administrator shows up. Once you lose your cool, that’s it. They smell blood in the water and they will come at you. Just stay calm. Ultimately, when that bell rings you will probably never see that trouble student again. And unfortunately, that student will most likely go home to a living situation that is less than ideal.