Substitute Teacher Tales

[Rho offline]

Well, starting this thread to rant about my experience and see other tales


I walk into US History. I see the campus supervisor or whoever he is standing where the teacher usually is by the door, don't think much of it, then I'm told the teacher apparently suddenly had to leave and they were trying to get a sub. We wait about half an hour and pretty much do nothing, he tries to put on a movie about Ellis Island and nobody in the room gives a crap about it, then finally someone comes in. All seems well.
Boy, was I wrong.
The sub had a little bit of an accent. Nothing wrong with that per se. Couldn't tell what accent it was, but her English was very poor.
For most of the rest of the period she continues trying to get us to watch the movie which proves to be a failure since everyone is just messing around and talking. She eventually gives up later on in the class and writes some assignment from the book up on the board without even informing us of anything.

Meanwhile, she is looking RIGHT AT kids freakin' hitting each other and screaming out vulgarities. Right in front of her. She doesn't bat an eye.

Yet, since a girl that had to go to the bathroom took "more than two minutes", which the sub claimed was the maximum time (it takes more than that to even GET there.) and that the girl took 20 minutes there. She didn't. Everyone was explaining to the sub that it wasn't 20 minutes. Even I was, and I HATE the girl involved.

So taking more than two minutes in the bathroom is a problem, but roughhousing and yelling out vulgarities is a-ok.

Part of me honestly thinks they dragged some random woman off the street, said "hey, we're from the school, we need someone to sub a history class, we'll give you some money" and put her in.

She kept ranting at one point about how she knows how 5th graders act and she kept rambling about something to do with "ten years from now". Dunno what she even meant. I doubt anybody cared to listen to her.
She also kept ranting at people to "sit nicely". As opposed to sitting meanly?


Not directly related to a sub story, but in 8th Grade my math teacher would always lecture us for about 10 minutes the day before we'd be having a sub about how he demanded we call them a "guest teacher" since he thought "substitute teacher" was disrespectful.
Then again this is the same teacher who would tell me I didn't do my homework if I didn't do it on a VERY SPECIFIC piece of paper

[TheLQ offline]

Rant Forum maybe? *pokes Mod

Anyway the substitute system isn't the best, at least in my school district. So many substitutes are called into subjects they've never taught or know anything about (Had a history teacher sub for Advanced Chemistry). It just leads to more confusion.

You have to understand though that being a sub is hard. Your asking some random person to walk in and take control of 30 students when they've been with the previous teacher for a few months, when you have no respect but the old teacher does? Yea, it doesn't work out all the time. Subs also have a sterotype following them, and its hard to break it. Most subs are pushovers, give boring busy work, or bitch and yell. Its not something thats easy to do.

[. offline]

Rant Forum maybe? *pokes Mod

Anyway the substitute system isn't the best, at least in my school district. So many substitutes are called into subjects they've never taught or know anything about (Had a history teacher sub for Advanced Chemistry). It just leads to more confusion.

You have to understand though that being a sub is hard. Your asking some random person to walk in and take control of 30 students when they've been with the previous teacher for a few months, when you have no respect but the old teacher does? Yea, it doesn't work out all the time. Subs also have a sterotype following them, and its hard to break it. Most subs are pushovers, give boring busy work, or bitch and yell. Its not something thats easy to do.

If your a sub then... why bother trying to teach?

Just sit in the room, read a magazine and make sure the kids stay in class/dont kill each other.

[JesusFreak offline]

Rant Forum maybe? *pokes Mod

Anyway the substitute system isn't the best, at least in my school district. So many substitutes are called into subjects they've never taught or know anything about (Had a history teacher sub for Advanced Chemistry). It just leads to more confusion.

You have to understand though that being a sub is hard. Your asking some random person to walk in and take control of 30 students when they've been with the previous teacher for a few months, when you have no respect but the old teacher does? Yea, it doesn't work out all the time. Subs also have a sterotype following them, and its hard to break it. Most subs are pushovers, give boring busy work, or bitch and yell. Its not something thats easy to do.

If your a sub then... why bother trying to teach?

Just sit in the room, read a magazine and make sure the kids stay in class/dont kill each other.

Then they fire you. :|

I've had....roughly two good substitute teachers throughout my experiences in education. Maybe three. Most just either talk or know absolutely nothing.


Let's not get into the sub that made it known that she was a proud graduate of Michigan University. The State fans gave her no quarter....poor woman.

[jym1 offline]

I've had some pretty bad sub experiences. In third grade, the teacher went on maternity leave so we had a rotation of subs until the school finally selected the worst one...yeah, I didn't like 3rd grade that much.

once when I was in 9th grade (I think), the school principal asked me to "watch" a second grade class....I went in there thinking "ok, I know this stuff...I won't be a sucker" boy, those kids ran circles around me

[Taelia offline]

One of the reasons why I HATE the public schol system, other than my own experiences.

[Jazzy Josh offline]

Random Necropost, Taelia?

I won't say that there aren't things wrong with the public school system, but I personally can't comment to may bad experiences. I was fortunate enough to be in a good school system with good teachers.

Then again, what is sad is that I went to a city school for an off-campus class, and things were a bit ridiculous. They were happy about some fairly poor passing rates for tests.