My First Experience Substitute Teaching

After I retired from full time software development at age 70, I was looking for something relatively constructive to do. I didn’t want to sit at home and rot. What I didn’t want was to be on a fixed schedule. An acquaintance recommended that I investigate being a substitute teacher. “They always need people, especially STEM folks”. I looked into it for the school district I live in, and sure enough they need people.

I mentioned it to my daughter and unbeknownst to me she had been a sub while she was in college (20 years ago) and liked it. She told me that she had the most fun with middle schoolers, while high school kids mostly ignored her. She never had any problems. Her take was the sub should do their best to facilitate whatever work the teacher left, but not get wrapped up in enforcing discipline beyond keeping thing safe. “Be more than a babysitter, but not a tyrant”.

For reference, I live in a medium size city, 300,000 or so. There is a range of demographics but there aren’t any completely poverty-stricken areas. There are neighborhoods that need more help than others. All the high schools are similar and the facilities at each are pretty much the same. No neglected spots.

My Preconceptions

I was concerned that it would be a fiasco. One of my other kids said, “they’ll bully you until you cry”. Yeah, he’s kind of cruel, in a funny way. I have heard so much about how bad schools are these days I was a bit concerned. I decided to go ahead because I could always quit if it was really bad.

Signing Up

It took about a month to get fully onboarded. That included getting a sub license from the state, which required fingerprints and submitting college transcripts. The state did an FBI background check and that tool about 3 weeks. I got my license from the state.

Next was applying to the local school district. There were several steps to go through to qualify. The most time consuming one was they required four work references, who would be contacted by email. The only hitch was they wanted at least one direct supervisor, and I added two to the contact list, but they were the only ones who didn’t respond to the emails. So, I had to bug them. And there was another round of fingerprints. The fingerprinting was taken and submitted electronically. No paper cards. Finally, I had to fill out several forms with various agreements.

I got an email from the district that I was accepted and that I just needed to come into the HR office to get onboard. That onboarding was all about the paperwork, not much about what they actually do on the job. The HR folks were super nice, and they said, just show up 30 minutes early and you’ll get instructions from the school.

Picking The First Job

I was given a login to an app that listed all the upcoming classes that needed a sub. I fired up the app and there were about a hundred spread over the next two months. Some of the jobs were a full day, 6 1/2 hours, and a few were half days. I found a half day math job at a nearby high school, so I accepted that one. The app didn’t give any info beside the teachers name and ‘math’. Overall, pretty painless and there seemed to be lots of high school jobs available.

Prepping For The Job

There was little prep from the district, so I started watching youtubes about subbing. Most of them were about elementary school, but a few covered high schools. I focused on those. As you might guess, those videos talked a lot about managing the classroom, so it doesn’t go up in flames. Some recommended using an iron fist (not something I could do even if I wanted to), and others were more reasonable. Some of them stressed trying to engage with the kids beyond just giving them the assignments. More on that later.

The videos gave practical advice too, such as what to bring and what to expect.

I was surprised that most of the videos had a positive vibe. There was some that added some anxiety about discipline, but not overboard. I was still left wondering what would happen at my first job.

Arriving At The School

The school was about 15 minutes away, and I needed to get there 30 minutes before class started. No problem. I didn’t wear a suit, because I only have a black one for funerals. I did try to dress business casual.

I showed up at the right time, went to the office and they were super helpful. I was given a binder with keys to the classroom and staff restroom, along with some basic instructions. I had 3 periods to cover, the first two were freshman algebra and third was ‘formal geometry’.

Since it was my very first day, I got some banana bread from the best bakery in town and took it to the teacher’s lounge. So, they wouldn’t hate me right off.

Algebra Period 1 and 2

I got to the classroom and unlocked the door. No students in sight yet. A few minutes later a young man showed up and told me he would be helping me out. Call him Tom. Turns out he was a teacher assigned as an assistant to the senior teacher (Bob) for the first two periods of freshman algebra. This class always had two teachers. It wasn’t that big a class, probably 25 kids. I wondered why they would need two.

Pretty soon the bells started ringing and kids were swarming the hallway. I asked Tom what the process was and told me they liked the teachers to stand in the hall by the door when the kids start coming in. Ok. I had a ‘Substitute’ badge. When the kids came in Tom greeted them. I did too and I got the usual ‘hey we got a sub today’ look.

Another bell went off, which I found was the two-minute warning. Then the ‘your late’ bell was next. Tom said we leave the door open which was fine.

I took role on an attendance sheet. The only problem there was the kids didn’t speak up and some just raised a hand, so I had to repeat a few. I mispronounced two or three names, but I wasn’t going to be able to remember anyone anyway.

First period and second period were both the same subject, just different kids, so I won’t repeat myself.

Bob had left some worksheets (solving some simple equations). Tom and I passed them out. The kids were at tables of 4. At that point Tom took over and told them what to do with the worksheets. I sat down at Bob’s desk and started working out the problems myself, to see if I could remember. Yeah, I could do them.

It was clear that maybe 1/2 the class was not even trying to solve the problems. There was a low murmur from pretty much all the students in the class but nothing out of hand. Several of the kids were on their phones (texting, not talking because talking on a phone is so 90’s), which apparently is OK at this school. I was relieved because I didn’t want to have to enforce a ‘no phones’ rule.

Eventually I got the nerve to jump in and try to help a couple of the tables get through the first two easiest problems. I think it kind of weirded them out a bit that I has engaging. I gave them a worked solution for the first problem and said they could just copy it to get something on the paper. A couple of them did. One who wasn’t following along showed me his worksheet and he had solved most of them already. I apologized for thinking he didn’t know what to do. My guess is that he was a smart kid who is stuck in the beginner class.

Very few of the students seemed engaged with the work, but some completed it. My main impression was that the students had a sullen vibe. Not any kind of overt push back, just “I don’t want to be here”. For whatever reason, the second period class seemed slightly more interested and less negative.

Since Tom was there, I didn’t really have to do anything besides take roll. There were no behavior problems that require Tom or (gasp) me to intervene.

Formal Geometry Period 3

For period three I was on my own. There was a student tutor there to help with the work. Once the kids started filing in, it was like night and day. They were very polite, most answered me when I greeted them at the door. They took their seats and waited for some instructions. I took roll, mispronounced some names again. I handed out some worksheets that were review for a quiz the next day. They pretty much immediately got to work. Again, they were in teams of 4 at a table where they across from each other, not like a linear lab table.

The class was much louder than the algebra classes. But they were working together to get things done. Some of them circulated around to help others. I was amazed at the difference. They seemed a bit older than the previous group, so I assumed they were sophomores and juniors and were just a bit more mature. I was wrong LOL.

One thing that was apparent was that my daughter’s warning that they would ignore me was true. I had nothing to do. I could understand the worksheets and probably have eked something out, but I had forgot most of that stuff. So, I just sat and watched. I tried to engage a couple of times but got funny looks. Yes, I was ignored, but in a good way. One young lady had a USMC sweatshirt on, so I talked to here for a minute or two about how the Marine Corps is the way to go. She said she was in ROTC and had family members that were in the Corps. Besides that, they pretty much wouldn’t talk to me, but in a polite way. Kind of like, ‘yo the Boomer is so cute, he wants to talk’.

This class was really boring because I just sat there for an hour watching. I became a clock-watching student hoping for the bell to come soon.

Geometry Epilog: the class ended, and the students left. I walked over to the classroom next door to ask the teacher there what I should do with the assignment sheets. I mentioned that the class was so different, and the teacher said, “yea, that’s the honors class, and they are mostly freshmen”. I was “oh yea, or course. that solves the mystery”.

Epilog

At this point I was done for the day. I chose a half-day for my first time.

Bob had left me a sheet to give any feedback. I told there were no problems, and I really liked the 3rd period class (who wouldn’t). I gathered up the paperwork to take to the office, I got my things, locked the door and went to turn things in. On the way to my car, I realized I violated a cardinal sin for a sub. In my confusion I left a half-empty water bottle on the teacher’s desk, and I left some writing on the whiteboard. And I didn’t check the classroom for any trash on the floor or whatever. I did organize the papers though. When I got home, I emailed Bob to apologize for the poor cleanup and told him I could sub for him or Tom anytime. As of this writing I haven’t heard back.

Anyway, the whole thing was way better than I expected. Everyone knows one sample indicates a trend. I’ve signed up for a couple more jobs, so we’ll see how things go.