LAUGH
Substitute teaching is one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. It’s like teaching but without the annual salary, benefits, and normalcy of a daily routine. Every day you venture into a different classroom wondering what awaits you on the other side of that classroom door.
Before your next adventure, here are just a few survival tips to keep you going.
1. Focus on surviving and making it to the end of the day by any means necessary.
The key to substitute teaching is making it to the end of the day by any means necessary. If you’re lucky enough to sub for a grade level that rotates through classrooms, you know that every challenge comes with a countdown clock. Survive one class and advance to the next, one at a time. If you have one group of students all day… our prayers are with you. Kidding! Even those grade levels have lunch breaks and planning periods. Know where they are and plan accordingly.
2. Plan to go rogue!
Yes, every teacher is told to leave very detailed plans for our substitutes. Administration reminds us of this every year, and every year we nod in approval and say to ourselves, “This year I’m going to make sure I am prepared before I take any time off.” We mean well, but hey, sometimes life happens and you will walk into a classroom with no notes, no plans… nada. And yes, most schools do require teachers to keep an emergency set of lesson plans for just such an occasion, but let me spill a little secret: those emergency plans were written 10 years ago, are completely outdated, and likely apply to a completely different set of students, and no one knows where they actually are.
3. “Sinking the sub” is still a very real thing.
Yes, students today are different than we were at their age, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still revert to a few of the old classics. There are still classes out there who may take pleasure in tormenting their special guest star for the day. The good news is they are children, and you are older and wiser. The bad news is there are many more of them than there are of you. Getting out ahead of a coordinated plan to “sink the sub” and snuffing it out early is the key.
4. Classes smell weakness like sharks smell blood in the water
Kids on all levels are far more intuitive than you might think. Even a cute and controlled group of kindergarteners (if such a thing exists) can tell when the adult in charge doesn’t know what they’re doing. So regardless of what is going on inside your brain, make sure you at least look like you’re in control. Take charge, lay down the law, and keep reminding yourself that you are, in fact, the adult in the room.
5. Candy only makes things worse
Of all the mistakes we teachers see substitutes make, throwing candy at a group of rowdy children has to be at the top of the list. Many subs wander into an unknown classroom with a big bag of candy and hope they can lure some of the rowdiest munchkins into compliance with promises of sweet, sweet sugar. In our experience, this works for about 10 minutes, or approximately the amount of time it takes for said sugar to enter a child’s bloodstream. Now you’re substitute teaching in a classroom full of hyper-sugar-fueled humans running amok, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
6. They don’t care about your uplifting, personal journey
Please don’t take this the wrong way because we know you mean well, but the fastest way to lose a class is to start your day off by launching into your autobiography. To students, we’re barely considered humans. They are perplexed and bamboozled when they see us at the grocery store, so trying to ingratiate yourself into their good graces by telling them about your humble upbringing is going to be about as effective as a screen door on a submarine.
7. YouTube can be your friend….
It’s the 21st-century version of rolling in the TV cart and playing a movie… but so much better. Need to keep your class entertained until the bell rings? Call YouTube and find literally anything that could be considered educational. Fun science facts, cool ways to multiply large numbers, dramatic retellings of famous short stories; it all works! Word of warning though: attention spans are at an all-time low. We’re living in a TikTok, microwave world, so keep the videos short and keep them coming.
8. Next-door neighbors are a vital lifeline
One key fact to keep in mind as you slog through a day of substitute teaching is that even though it feels like you’re all alone once those classroom doors close, you’re not. And there’s a pretty good chance that your next-door teacher neighbor knows the secret to unlocking the zen in your classroom. At the very least you can always ask them to stop in and unleash their Teacher Face on your class, which is usually effective for at least a few minutes.
9. There’s always one student that follows the rules. Find them.
Like a lighthouse beacon on a foggy night, or a blessing from the educational guardians above, there is a student out there who knows what’s actually going on in your temporary classroom. You must find this golden child as quickly as possible, because they will be your lifeline. They know when it’s time to go to lunch, what the real rules of the room are, and if you’re lucky they’ll also spill the tea on the rest of the class.
10. There’s always one student that pretends to know the rules. Find, and ignore them.
The problem with finding the teacher’s pet buried somewhere in the classroom is that there are many false idols out there that will demand your attention. For every student that knows what to do, there are five others who will tell you they know what to do but are in fact full of it. Now the good news here is that children tend to have terrible poker faces, so it’s usually not to hard to root out the charlatans, but occasionally you’ll get stuck with a Loki-like class clown who can fool just about anybody.
11. Any sentence that starts with “But our teacher always lets us…” is a lie
While you’re trying to parse the truth-tellers from the fibbers you will likely get asked a hundred questions that are some variation of, “Can I [fill in questionable activity here]?” Of course, your knee-jerk reaction will be to say no, as it should! That will likely cause a few classmates to play the “But our teacher always lets us [fill in questionable activity here]!” card. Don’t give in – stick to your guns. If it walks like a bad idea and talks like a bad idea, odds are it’s a very bad idea indeed.
12. You will not change the lives of students in 45 minutes, and that’s OK
Everyone dreams of busting into a classroom full of troubled youths, laying down a few pearls of wisdom and forever altering the course of all of their lives. The classroom you’ll be in today, however, is not the set of Dangerous Minds and you are not, sadly, Michelle Pfeiffer (wasn’t she great in that movie though?). But hey, there’s no shame in simply getting to the end of the substitute teaching day without needing to call in reinforcements.
13. Leaving a note for the teacher is a powerful weapon
It may sound like an empty threat and something that wouldn’t actually work, but believe it or not, saying that you’re going to leave a note for the teacher is a weirdly effective tool to regain control of a class that may have gone a bit wonky. It’s the educational equivalent of, “Just wait until your father gets home!” and we all remember how effective that was when we were kids! Bonus hint here as well: please do actually leave us notes, but not just the bad stuff. Tell us the good stuff too. Who helped you out? Who was your knight in shining armor?
Believe me, teachers already know who the troublemakers are and who is going to test your limits all day long. They’ve been testing our limits since long before you came to the rescue. It’s always nice to hear the other side of the coin, however, because we may not always know who will rise to the occasion when the time comes.
