Surviving the teachers as a Substitute
The subject title doesn't fit perfectly, but I had a hard time creating a title in a few words. I'm so glad that I found this community!
Okay so a little background before my question...
I'm in my first year as a substitute teacher after completing a credential program in the previous school year. I'm doing a lot of subbing at one of the schools that I student taught at. I absolutely love this school and have been learning a lot to prepare me for having my own classroom one day.
Today, when I was leaving I stopped to say bye to my mentor/master teacher. She said that she needed to warn me about something. I'm not sure if it was bought to her attention by another teacher or just something she wanted to tell me about, so that I could avoid it happening.
Basically, it came down to teachers are super protective of their students and don't want to hear anything bad about their class. Which I completely get that they are very protective of their students. But I have a hard time understanding why a teacher wouldn't want to know that their students were misbehaving with the sub. I leave a standard sub note where I make notes throughout the day and if the class as a whole is chatty to the point of being disrespectful and stopping the learning, I'm going to make note of that. I have to take care of any behavior issues in the classroom on my own because sending them to the office is pointless(I sent a kid to the office with a referral for throwing an eraser at me and he came right back to class since i was his first offense and it was just an eraser), so I handle the situations to the best of my judgement and if it needs further action, then the teacher has enough info to further discipline the student.
She also mentioned that if someone(including the teacher you are subbing for) asks about your day that I need to lie and say great, but I'm an honest person and I really have trouble lying about it. We all have rough days and I try my hardest not to vent, but I'm going to answer that it was rough or the kids were chatty. Its almost feels as there is no right answer to that question... lie and say its great when I'm obviously frazzled or be honest and have some teacher's feelings being stepped on.
And honestly if I made a mistake... I now know better, but I'm honestly feeling confused since I hear so many positive remarks about how the teachers love me and how they think my sub note is amazing. And all the teachers have been so welcoming and I'm always open for suggestions/corrections and I've asked for help from a lot of the teachers, so i'm confused why a teacher didn't come to me directly if there was a issue. So now I'm feeling like I can't do anything right....
I feel like there's a secret rule book for substitutes and I'm learning the hard way since I never got a copy! And I feel like i'm always at a disadvantage because I'm still unfamilar with where I fit in as a sub...
So I'm not exactly sure what my question is, but I'm feeling really discouraged because I thought I was doing really well. I guess my question would be, do you have any suggestions for a sub to be able to be successful outside of the classroom environment, but still on campus?
*sorry for any grammar or spelling errors... I'm having keyboard issues and I don't think I caught all the mistakes.
Okay so a little background before my question...
I'm in my first year as a substitute teacher after completing a credential program in the previous school year. I'm doing a lot of subbing at one of the schools that I student taught at. I absolutely love this school and have been learning a lot to prepare me for having my own classroom one day.
Today, when I was leaving I stopped to say bye to my mentor/master teacher. She said that she needed to warn me about something. I'm not sure if it was bought to her attention by another teacher or just something she wanted to tell me about, so that I could avoid it happening.
Basically, it came down to teachers are super protective of their students and don't want to hear anything bad about their class. Which I completely get that they are very protective of their students. But I have a hard time understanding why a teacher wouldn't want to know that their students were misbehaving with the sub. I leave a standard sub note where I make notes throughout the day and if the class as a whole is chatty to the point of being disrespectful and stopping the learning, I'm going to make note of that. I have to take care of any behavior issues in the classroom on my own because sending them to the office is pointless(I sent a kid to the office with a referral for throwing an eraser at me and he came right back to class since i was his first offense and it was just an eraser), so I handle the situations to the best of my judgement and if it needs further action, then the teacher has enough info to further discipline the student.
She also mentioned that if someone(including the teacher you are subbing for) asks about your day that I need to lie and say great, but I'm an honest person and I really have trouble lying about it. We all have rough days and I try my hardest not to vent, but I'm going to answer that it was rough or the kids were chatty. Its almost feels as there is no right answer to that question... lie and say its great when I'm obviously frazzled or be honest and have some teacher's feelings being stepped on.
And honestly if I made a mistake... I now know better, but I'm honestly feeling confused since I hear so many positive remarks about how the teachers love me and how they think my sub note is amazing. And all the teachers have been so welcoming and I'm always open for suggestions/corrections and I've asked for help from a lot of the teachers, so i'm confused why a teacher didn't come to me directly if there was a issue. So now I'm feeling like I can't do anything right....
I feel like there's a secret rule book for substitutes and I'm learning the hard way since I never got a copy! And I feel like i'm always at a disadvantage because I'm still unfamilar with where I fit in as a sub...
So I'm not exactly sure what my question is, but I'm feeling really discouraged because I thought I was doing really well. I guess my question would be, do you have any suggestions for a sub to be able to be successful outside of the classroom environment, but still on campus?
*sorry for any grammar or spelling errors... I'm having keyboard issues and I don't think I caught all the mistakes.