What I look for

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Home : 2004 : August : 9

What I look for
By Kelly

As a teacher I have a reputation for being hard to please. I am not sure it is completely diserved. Our district does not require that substitute teachers have a teaching liscence. They need only have a university degree.
So without any training you can imagine some of the people who walked thru my door. I have never taken a sick day but have had to take many a day off for meetings scheduled thru the district. Many times I am in the building when my kids had a sub. Some of the things I witnessed horrified me. Here is a list of what I expect:
1) I don;t sit during the day and if I don;t have time

to sit neither should a sub
2) room should be neat when you leave
3) leave a detailed note: be polite and positive but truthful -- if someone made your life miserable let me know
4) If you weren't able to do all that I left for you that's ok just let me know and give a brief reason. (All teachers should be aware of the flexibility that is necessary when teaching - behaviours, fire drills, sick students can all interrupt a well planned day.
5) If the teacher indicates that they are strict there is probably a reason. Being strict does not mean being unpleasant.
6) Be there early and do not be the first one out the door. - I was always at work early enough to get familiar with the lesson and the room. Made sure I had all I needed. Read all info left for me. I used the 1/2 hour after the bell rang to clean up the room, write my note and grade anything I was confident in grading - spelling tests.

I was one of the most called supplies in my district for the one year I supplied before getting a full time job. I went above and beyond but I wanted a job and I got one.

I did things like give up all preps (that I didn't feel I needed) to help a teacher with a difficult class. I also stayed quite late at the end of each day and helped other teachers mark things like math pages and spelling tests.

I don;t expect my supply teacher's to do all that but I am furious when I return to a room that looks like a bomb hit it with no visable signs of work having been completed at all. I always talk to my kids the next day and I they are honest. "We got free time all afternoon!" AHHHH!!!

Bag of tricks:
- I dont know if its normal where you are but I walked into many a class with no lesson plan. I was always prepared with generic plans in case I was without when I arrived. I took story books that I could make into an activity. I took a lot of brain teaser books. I always took a few trinkets or candy that I could use to reward students who were great. I would not do this as a regular classroom teacher butg lets face it a lot of times at a sub it is just enough to survive and if a sucker makes it easier then take a sucker. I started each day telling them what I expected and giving them a goal. In the older grades I took 5 minutes to do a "brain warm up" something like write down as many Palendroms as you can in 5 minutes. I would then collect them and give a sucker to the person with the most. It made me seem more personable and human. They tended to behave better.

Anyway I digress, good luck!