Substitute Teacher Typical Day…

The StatCounter feature listed on this blog shows individual search strings that different search engines used to land here. Some of the search strings used to find this blog have been interesting to say the least.

A few days ago a search for “What is a typical day for a substitute teacher?” didn’t find the answers for one nervous guest teacher, so she emailed me with some basic questions. I now realize they might be useful for other prospective newbie substitute teachers. I only sub for elementary grades K-6^th but I assume the basics are the same for Middle and H.S.

The major differences being you teach only one lesson to 5-6 H.S. classes instead of all the subjects to one elementary class. You also have to take attendance for each period.

This following information may or may not be in the “substitute handbook” you received when you applied for the job. It wasn’t in mine.

My Typical Day:

1) Getting the assignment:

The first year, almost all of my assignments were automated calls in the early morning. About 2-3 hrs (4:30-6:30AM) before the assignment, the phone will ring and request consent to take a class. As you get experience, teachers will pre-arrange assignments days and even weeks in advance. (I hate the early morning phone calls…)

2) Getting Ready:

Shower, shave, dress business causal and make a sack lunch. I take a sack lunch because the typical school “lunch hour” is exactly 40mins and there usually isn’t any time to go off campus to eat. Don’t even ask about buying the school cafeteria lunch. It’s too expensive and crappy quality.

3) Getting There:

Make sure you know how to get to the school before you leave home. I have a binder of MapQuest maps for all the elementary schools in the district. Your assigned arrival time is 30mins before the kids are due to enter your room. If you are a few minutes late, it’s no biggie. If you decide to get there too early you might find yourself waiting in the parking lot until the school secretary arrives.

4) After Getting There:

Check in with the school secretary. Some schools make you sign in before class; others insist you sign on the way out. Get your classroom key and room number. If this is the first time at this school, ask for a map with the location of the office and “your” room marked. Ask for directions to the restrooms, teachers lounge and teachers mail boxes. Use the restroom. You won’t have another opportunity until the first recess.

5) Get Data:

After stowing your lunch in the fridge, find “your teacher’s” mail box and check for an attendance list and/or lesson plans. If they aren’t here then they may already be in the classroom.

6) Locate Classroom:

Unlock door, turn on the lights and, if necessary, the A/C or heating system. I suggest leaving the door locked until you get settled. You don’t want kids running in/out dumping back packs or hanging around while you’re getting settled.

7) Locate Materials

Locate the lesson plans and attendance sheet if you haven’t already brought them over from the office. If you are lucky you might even have a seating chart. If not, this might be a great time to make a rough one using the table arrangements and name tags on the student desks if available.

8) Arrange Materials

Look over the lesson plan, locate all the books and handouts referenced. Might be a good idea to arrange them in the order used and open all books to pages referenced.

9) Board work

Write your name (or alias) with today’s date on the white board. If there is additional time, you might write the day’s agenda on the board from the lesson plan.

10) Go Get’em

When ready, go find where your class lines up. Sometimes it’s right outside the door most times it’s out in the playground. Once the bell rings take them to class and let them get unpacked and settled.

11) Attendance

Introduce yourself and wait until any morning announcements from the office are complete. Take the attendance and lunch count. If you don’t accomplish anything else for the day, you must have the attendance turned in. Most elementary schools here also want to know how many are buying lunch and include it on the daily attendance sheet. Ask the kids who gets to run the attendance over to the office. Different schools, classes have different procedures but the kids “know what to do…”

12) Teach

If you’re lucky, all you have to do is follow the lesson plan, take breaks during recess and lunch and have a great day.

If it isn’t a great day, vent online with your own blog…

13) Cleanup and Leave Report

When the final bell rings and kids are gone, leave a written report for the teacher to let her know how your day went. List anything on the plan that didn’t get done or that you didn’t think went well. Let her know about how her class was with you today. If you have notorious names, list them. If you had any exceptionally helpful kids, list them also. I’ve been told teachers don’t trust subs that write “everything was great” when they find out later it wasn’t.

If you feel up to it, clean the room. The teacher appreciates coming back to a clean room. I usually make the kids clean it up before I let them go home.

14) Exit the Building

Return the classroom key to the office, sign out and go home to relax.

…Until the next day!

(P.S. See attached comments for helpful tips for those in the upper grades that I don't do...)

Second Favorite…

This must be Bizzaro week.

While the anticipated disaster with yesterdays 6^th graders turned out pretty good, today’s 4^th grade class, from which I expected good behavior, got just the opposite.

I intercepted one note passed from a girl to the guy sitting in front of her asking the question/statement: "Do you now you is sexy?"

I looked at my little 4^th grade “Lolita” wannabe and with a straight face said: “You spelled ‘know’ wrong” and watched her turn a couple different shades of red as I stapled the note to my daily report.

No more notes were passed today.

All they accomplished today was one practice spelling test, a lot of goofing off and getting the floor clean before I let them out the door to go home.

On the way out, one kid blurted:
“You’re our 2^nd most favorite sub!”

Me: “Oh? Who’s #1?”
Kid: “Mr. A-------! He sings songs and let’s us play games!”

No additional comment needed.

Surprising Talent…

I’ve had only three assignments these last two weeks in grades 3, 4 and 5. All at the same school.

The following note (front & back) was done on a folded index card with fine line pens and a lot of talent. Even with the spelling goof, I think it is better than excellent work…for a 5^th grader.

Whattya think?

(Click on the image for larger view)

Student Issues…

I seem to be stuck in the same school lately. Last week was all 5^th grades. This week it’s all 4^th grades and starting Monday it’s 6^th grade. I’m not really complaining. It’s a pretty good school with mostly reasonably, happy kids.

Yesterday’s 4^th grade lesson plan was appended with a note from the teacher about three particular student issues:

R. has ADHD and has behavior issues.

D. does not follow directions well and needs to be constantly reminded to “get back on task”

A. Likes to wander out of her seat and get into other peoples business.

I lucked out in that “D.” was absent and all I had to do with “R.” was call out his name a few times to bring him back to a tolerable level of disruptive behavior.

Then we come to Miss “A”.

How should I describe her? The teacher “issue report” on her is dead on accurate. I predict that she’ll be a future clone of “Miss Issipi” in just two short years from now.

If for any reason the classroom door was open, she had an uncanny ability to dematerialize from her seat and reappear standing just outside the classroom trying to get attention from anyone out on the black top.

If I turned my back or had to help another student for more than a few seconds, I’d turn back around and, more often than not, see the empty desk where Miss “A” was last seen.

The only school related activity she actually seemed to engage in was: “writing”.

During “journal writing” time, I observed a note being passed back and forth between Miss “A” and the girl next to her. My previous experience with classroom notes sometimes reveals more than I should know about the maturity levels of today’s youth.

Evidentially, Miss “A” was attempting to double team the boy of her interest by getting her friend to convince him to “Get with Miss A or…”, when I interrupted the note composition before her friend could complete the “or else” plea.

As I was walking back to the teacher’s desk with the note in hand, Miss “A” asks: “Can I have it back at the end of class?”

With a “no-ing” look, I let her know that she wasn’t getting it back and stapled the original to my “end of day” teacher’s report…

Kill List…

After subbing the first two full weeks of the new school year, this week came down to just this one assignment on the last day of the week. It started as just another typical 5^th grade class of thirty kids.

The teacher had left one actual spelling test and a pile of typical “time killer” worksheets to fill the academic day. The kids were restless but not really out of hand. It was a little more talkative than I care for, but the threat of “extra homework” had its usual temporary calming affect.

If it weren’t for that single incident, this day would have passed unnoticed, unremembered and forgotten as soon as I drove from the parking lot at day end.

The “incident” was a worksheet that one boy brought to me about 30mins before the dismissal bell.

On the back of the worksheet was a hand written list containing the names of three boys and three girls in the class with the title:

“KILL LIST”

I quietly called the worksheet owner (his name was on the front) over to the teacher’s desk and out of hearing range of the other kids.

I quietly asked if this worksheet was his. It was.

I asked him if he had written the list on the back. He had.

I asked him what this list was. He said it was a list of kids in class he didn’t like.

I was stunned. This boy is one of the smallest, skinniest and probably one of the smarter kids in this class…AND HE’S ONLY 10!!

I’m almost positive he didn’t actually mean anything by his use of the word “kill” but since he did use it, I can’t ignore it. With all the post-Columbine incidents involving kids and violence in schools I couldn’t take the chance even if it’s a small one.

I quietly said: “You know I have to show this to your teacher, don’t you?”

He just nodded and started tearing up. I quietly told him to return to his desk and he spent the rest of the time, head down, quietly crying until the final bell.

After everyone left, I took “the list” to the principal and told her that this is something she needs to know about. After making a copy, she thanked me for bringing it to her attention and said she’d be contacting the parents that same afternoon.

I’m at a loss for words as how stunned I feel right now. I hope the list was just as he described: “kids in class he didn’t like” and nothing more.

Stop Asking…

A time honored tradition since the opening day of the first one room school house has probably been the business of secretly passing notes in class. Hopefully unobserved, sometimes unsuccessfully, the message content probably hasn’t changed very much at the elementary level.

The hand-to-hand pass is easily detected unless the teachers back is turned. Even then it’s risky because you never know when he’ll turn around and catch you mid-pass.

Modern times might have changed the delivery method but even a substitute teacher can read the telltale body language of cell phone text message thumbing.

It might be that head down posture and two handed “fidgeting” below table level (at least that’s what I hope it is) that might be the giveaway. The proof is the surprised look on the kids face when the message recipient’s phone goes off in her backpack across the room.

This class seems to have perfected a version of the “dead drop” method used by the CIA and international spy rings to pass secret messages in a safe and undetectable manner.

The method perfected by these 5^th graders is to agree on a book title in the classroom library. The sender inserts the note in the book as it’s being returned during “silent reading” time and returns to her seat. The recipient then asks for permission to get a new book for reading time and retrieves the book and note.

Since this is the first time, I’ve seen this method, I guess it works pretty well and it would have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for the eagle-eyed classroom librarians (their job is to put the books back in the shelves) that brought the following notes to my attention: