6th graders

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Home : 2002 : April : 6

6th graders
By Carolyn

I have gone as high as teaching 8th graders. This age group, from grade 6-8, is the worst, both for a regular teacher (in my opinion) and the sub. Some high schoolers, I am told, can also be quite challenging to work with.
Kids of this age group seem to think that it's their JOB to challenge you. They are like dogs which are candidates for obedience school. If you don't train them, they run wild. They do expect you to be hard with them, so don't be afraid to do this.
I subbed for several years in middle school before I decided to call it quits and concentrate on my own area--elementary. I was called

a lot for middle school, because most elementary subs dared not go to the "middle ground." I decided, like you, that I was at least willing to give it a chance.

In one middle school I worked in, it was more like crowd control than anything else. Class size was enormous, with as many as 35 students in the classroom. Desks were piled together, and there was very little room to move around. With that many kids, it's easy for the kids to take over and difficult for the teacher to maintain control. I believe that I got the situation under control very early, though, by letting the kids know right away that I tolerated no nonsense. I was "mean." If kids weren't sitting in their assigned seats by the teachers' seating charts, I made them return to their own seat. The moment a kid began to misbehave, I jumped on it. Fortunately, the administration in the school was very good and tough, so I was able to hand out "point slips," even as a sub, to kids who were offenders. The point slips translated into detention and an appearance before the discipline committee once they received three of them.

Kids will always try to see what they can get away with with the sub. Once you have subbed in a school for awhile and established your reputation, they will come to respect you and not do the types of things that you describe.

Confidence comes with experience. The more confident you appear to be, the smoother your day will go, because the kids' behavior will better. Make sure that you carefully review the teachers' lesson plans before you start your day to understand exactly what is expected of you and the class. That way, your day will go smoother. If you give the appearance of knowing what you are doing, then the kids will respect you more.

Once you get to know the kids better, you can be friendlier.