I also call for Back-up!

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Home : 2005 : May : 11

I also call for Back-up!
By Carol

Dan and Annon,

Lately, I have called the office for back-up. You can't always do this at all schools though. Some will support you and some will try to pacify the kids and it makes you look stupid. So choose wisely
which ones to call. I know one sub who called twice in one day and they told her to go home!
I called twice last week for two different classrooms at a middle school I've subbed at for six years. The V.P. came the first time and the Dean of Students the second time. They immediately ripped into the students with no questions asked.
The Dean of Students told one 7th grader

to "shut your mouth." She also told me to make a list of the bad kids and they would get Saturday school. I gave her nine names that day. Yes, they hated me but they didn't care about me to begin with so no love lost and I did get to administer the test that they were trying to avoid.

The V.P. made everyone write an essay about proper classroom behavior for the other class. She outlined what needed to be in it and how their paper was to be set-up. To leave the classroom, each student had to present the instructions, which she had given them, for her signature to exit the classromm at the end of the period.

When the student's complained, she/I were being unfair and that they had actually been behaving appropriately, she told them she didn't believe them. Turned out they had stolen something from the classroom the last time that they had had a sub.

Usually, if your having severe problems, other subs have had them too. Again, interestingly enough, these kids were trying to avoid taking a test by being as nasty to me as possible in hopes that I would give up or slip up. If they made a bad grade it wasn't because they didn't study it was because I was incompetent or mean or both.

When you call for back-up and actually get it, then it takes the pressure off you. The kids can't shift the blame onto you quite so easily once an administrator backs you up; although some will still try. But let them try because if an administrator busts them they have little recourse other than to whine. You are protected. No teacher is going to go against their boss. Would you?

You must protect yourself at all costs because some kids unfortunately have no conscience or soul. I too have had lesson plans stolen, keys hidden, money stolen from my bag, etc. You are right Dan, you do have to hide things or keep them in your hand at all times. You also have to keep the kids away from the teacher's desk. The sweetest kid can sometimes be the most deadly. That also holds true for student aides.

Carol