Most people have a mental image of what happens when a teacher is absent and a substitute teacher needs to cover the class. The typical mental image includes the substitute trying desperately to implement the teacher’s simple, iron-clad lesson plan over the protests of the students, who are trying desperately to avoid having to do any work. This, however, is not one of those situations.
I am taking a class required by the Mass. DESE in working with Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) students. The class is the equivalent of a 3-credit graduate course, and four of the meetings are all-day during school days. This means four days of substitute lesson plans, approximately one every two weeks. The first of these was last Tuesday.
I decided that I would add a new topic to my curriculum: special relativity. I wrote a unit plan, class notes, and worksheets. The night before the first class, I made a 20-minute video of myself explaining the class notes, similar to what I do every time I present new content. I placed the video in the public Videos folder on my computer’s desktop and I edited the settings so that the folder would be shown on the desktop for all users. My instructions for the substitute were:
- Take attendance.
- Hand out the class notes and worksheets.
- Turn on the SMART board and speakers.
- Open the Videos folder on the computer’s desktop.
- There is one video in the folder. Double-click on it to play it.
I left these notes written on the white board and printed on a piece of paper along with the notes and worksheets.
As it turned out, I had four different teachers covering my classes. Two played the video, with the help of students in each of the classes who knew how to set it up. One teacher refused. When a student asked this teacher to play the video (as described by the note on the board) and offered to help, the teacher said, “That’s not my job. You do your work. I’ll do mine.” Another teacher took 20 minutes to take attendance and then declared, “There isn’t time for the video.” This teacher spent the rest of the class period browsing ESPN on the computer that should have been showing the video.
I can deal with teachers being unable to implement my lesson plans; sometimes things just don’t work out. But I was unprepared for just how angry I got when a teacher could easily have carried out the instructions but flatly refused.
Next time I have to be absent for this class, I will show my students how to access the video. My note to the substitute will say simply, “The students will implement my lesson plan, using my computer and the SMART board. Please allow them to do so.”
Wow, thats… something. My mental image of a substitute teacher has always been “a babysitter whose main purpose is to count bodies and sit there doing nothing” Never in any of my high school days did any temporary (== no more than a couple of days) substitute teacher ever attempt to teach anything. None of the regular instructors ever attempted to give the substitute anything to work with, beyond “take this period and work on problems N through M on page X of your text”. even that was rare.
But *actively obstructing* a lesson plan that requires no actual subject knowledge other than how to turn on the computer and double click? That’s *got* to be actionable, somehow. Or is
it? Just what *is* the job of a substitute teacher in your school system? Is it even defined?
I believe the requirements for a substitute in Lynn and most other communities in Massachusetts are two years of college and a clean CORI. Their classroom responsibilities of a substitute are, in order of importance:
1. Keep the students safe.
2. Maintain order in the classroom.
3. Take attendance.
4. Give the students any work left by their regular teacher.
Substitute teachers (including teachers covering classes, either in lieu of their administrative duty periods or during their prep period for extra pay) are specifically not required to teach. However, as I understand it, it’s reasonable to expect a substitute to hand out papers and show a movie.
The two teachers I described are actually regular teachers from the school who had volunteered to cover classes during their prep period for extra pay, which is part of why it frustrated me so much. These are colleagues who went into teaching for some of the same reasons that I did–to make a difference in the lives of the teenagers in our classrooms. If these two teachers were typical of the profession (and there are a lot of people in the world who believe that they are), I could brush it off as just another frustration. However, the reason it irked me so much is that these teachers are very much atypical, both of the profession and of the teachers at Lynn English. The overwhelming majority of teachers at LEHS love our students and unselfishly give what we are able, in terms of time, effort, and often our own money. I would never find fault with a colleague who says, “I want to but I just can’t,” but I have little tolerance for someone who says, “I can, but I won’t.”
I did raise a fuss about this, unfortunately in a manner that was not as professional as I should have. However, the administrator who assigns substitutes to cover classes was also infuriated by the situation, and will remember it when deciding which teachers she chooses to ask to cover classes for pay in the future.
Wow. I’m speechless. That’s incredibly infuriating.
Clearly you had words with the two belligerent subs afterwards. Did they have any rational excuses for, essentially, ditching class that day?
I did not actually talk with the teachers who covered my classes. If I had, I don’t think I would have been capable of being civil.
I suppose you’re not in a position to make sure two of those substitute teachers are finding other part-time work.