survey says...

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survey says...
By Shawn

1. Zero training. They told me: "Don't touch the kids."

2. No. The regular teacher and the substitute teacher are two different jobs. I would however be very curious to see how *other substitutes* handle various situtations.

3. I would start a training program - even if the future subs have to pay for it. I would give subs detention forms, not just referral forms. I would make a list of lead teachers to whom the subs could turn for help and put that in the sub folder. And I'd do random checks for emergency lesson plans.
4. Middle school. Putting a kid out in the hall usually works well for

me - especially if there is a mean ogre of a teacher on hall duty.

5. Lack of respect. Consequeces are vague and not uniformly applied.

6. I think it has a lot to do with waiting for a phone call early in the morning. You don't know if you are going to work on any given day. Working 5 days a week, you won't make much money - and chances are you won't even get called that often. No benefits is a biggie, I'm sure. Plus it can be an unrewarding job if the kids beat you up every day. I think most subs should have a base school where they report every day and they only get a call if they are needed at a different school. That is what I wound up doing and that works a LOT better.

7. My best days were in 6th grade English. Every day, students spend some time reading from self-selected novels. So when I come in, I just say "Open up your self-selected novels and read for 20 minutes." Because the students picked the books out themselves, they tend to enjoy them. Nothing better than having a whole class of middle school kids silently reading to themselves.