The term “learning curve” is often misued to mean the amount of time it takes to learn something. In reality, it is a graph showing a measure of something learned against the number of trials. These graphs usually start off steep and then level out, implying that the more an activity is performed, the better you get at it. I understand why the term is often misused, becuase it does seem that the graph is showing how long it takes to learn something, and therefore how difficult this task must be to learn in the first place.
Regardless of how you define it, I am currently living it. Learning to teach is no simple task, and you must do it and do it and do it before you even begin to become proficient at it. Mastering the job only comes after years of trials (and tribulations), and even then – if you are a conscientious person – you never feel that you’ve “mastered” anything. Perfecting the job is not part of reality. Like all the forms of artistic expression, teaching can always be improved, always be refined, always be made better somehow.
I have made the colossal mistake these past few weeks of presuming that I am a teacher. I am not. I am a substitute. I rank barely above the students who are left in my care. I received several harsh reminders this week of my status of “non-teacher”. I would do well not to forget them.
I subbed in the same class all week. Instead of a four-teacher pod, this one only had two teachers. I was one of them, so to speak, and forgot my place. (Yes, I know that sounds archaic and harkens back to slavery, but it is entirely true in this situation.) The other teacher, my “co-teacher”, was a very controlling person. From what I’ve heard and have been told this past week, it doesn’t surprise me. She’s had to be a bit of a control-freak because the teachers she’s worked with this year have been ineffective classroom managers – forcing her to manage both classes at once. On my first day in the class, she complimented me on how I handled discipline in the class. She’s had several subs this year, and has sent many of them back to the office – choosing to handle both classes by herself – because they were too lax in how they managed the class. I was flattered. She spent some time with me after school that first day, discussing career options and how I could approach the principal of the school so that she would consider me for a full-time position for next year. This made me realize how important my decision to sub this year has been. I made the right choice, and that made me glad. This teacher even went so far as to let the school secretary know to call me first whenever this pod needed a sub. And she did. I was called back to the same classroom for the next two days. It would have been three days, except by the time Thursday afternoon arrived, I had had enough.
Wednesday was challenging. I had the same class all day. The teacher I was subbing for hadn’t planned on being out so many days, so it was a real scramble to find work for the students to do. After quite a bit of digging, I finally found the worksheets that had been on the lesson plan for that day. The co-teacher sent over more work for them to do. Many of the students hadn’t finished the previous day’s assignment, so we had that to work on as well. There was lots to do, and the kids stayed busy. I got a lot of completed work out of them, and they were generally well-behaved. I had to keep a tight rein on them to get good behavior out of them, but that’s okay. There were a couple of stinkers that I had to deal with, and eventually had to send one out of my class and to the co-teacher’s, but that’s okay too. This was the day that I learned that every pod has a lead teacher. My co-teacher was the lead (of course) in this pod. I am not to send students to the office for any kind of misbehavior. Instead, I write a report on the situation, and send the student to the lead teacher’s room. Okay. Didn’t know that. But now that I do, I know to talk to the other teachers in future pods I work in, to find out if they do things the same way, and to find out who the lead teacher is.
Thursday. Well, I can only call Thursday a disaster. I had become comfortable, you see, and made the dire mistake of assuming a teacher’s role in the classroom. I had forgotten that I am just the sub. The day was made more complicated than normal becuase of testing going on in the co-teacher’s room, and because of end-of-grading-period testing that had begun the day before and was finishing that day. I didn’t have an attendance sheet (for the third day in a row), and was informed by the co-teacher that I was supposed to pick it up in the attendance office where I signed in every day. No one had EVER told me this. I’ve asked the secretary so many times if there was anything I needed to do in the office each day besides sign in and get a visitor’s pass. She’s NEVER told me that there might be an attendance sheet or other instructions from my teacher in that office! So, I looked like an idiot for not picking this up, because apparently I was supposed to know this already.
My next painful lesson came at lunchtime. In my attempts to head bathroom requests off at the pass, I decided to gather my brood five minutes early for lunch, and stop to let them go to the restroom before lunch. Normally, they only stop long enough to wash hands. Thinking I was doing a good thing, I took them to the restroom, then on to lunch. I was informed by a none-too happy assistant principal that we were at least five minutes early and that I had better be at least that early picking them back up. No problem! There’s no sense in letting the kids have a longer-than-normal lunch period, and I wasn’t gunning for a longer lunch, either. When I got back to the classroom, the co-teacher was in a panic over where my class had gone. When I informed her that I had JUST dropped them off at the cafeteria, she lost her mind. We are NEVER supposed to split up a pod! All the students in a pod go to lunch at the same time! Bringing them early skipped over an entire pod (no, it didn’t), and that’s not fair!
Okay. I get it. Keep the pods together so they can line the kids up properly after lunch. As a sub, I’m usually running late, so it’s never been an issue before. I will not forget this ever again. The pod lunches together. Yes. Close to the end of the lunch period, I stepped into the co-teacher’s classroom to let her know of the APs direction for me to pick the students up early. She objected, held a discussion with me, and because I was not there to pick the kids up, the AP sent them to me unsupervised. Just his way of letting me know that he hadn’t forgotten that I was trying to get a longer lunch than I deserved. The co-teacher lost her mind yet again and, after making it clear that this cluster-f**k was all my fault, went running down the hall to rescue the rest of her students.
When we got back from lunch, the students immediately lined up to go to their afternoon elective. So they went and I sat in the classroom very shaken and very angry at myself, and at the staff of the school for reacting the way they did. For goodness sakes, I’m a SUBSTITUTE! At what point did a member of the faculty or staff take the time to explain the school procedures to me? Never!
Well, when the classes returned from elective, I suddenly had a new student. I called her to the desk to try to get an explanation out of her. Why was she in here? Apparently she had been sent to me because her class was in testing and she was through. Okay, fine. I had other students from my co-teacher’s class in with me because they had also finished their test early. But this girl was not from the co-teacher’s class. She was from some other teacher’s class. What are you supposed to be working on? She had no idea and went back to her regular teacher to find out. She came back with a workbook and a list of pages to work on, so this told me that, yes, she was supposed to be in my classroom, and another teacher has legitimately sent her to me. I was confused that she didn’t have a note, or that her regular teacher didn’t say anything, but okay. I can deal.
About an hour later, three students stood up (one of them was this young lady) and told me that it was time for them to go to Ms. So-and-So’s room. This is a very common occurrence in this school. They have mainstreamed all students into regular classrooms that can possibly be placed there. Kids that normally would have spent the majority of their day in a special ed class are now in regular classes. There are pros and cons to this practice, but I’m in no mood to get into them right now. Those students who, in the past, would have been in a special ed room, are now part of pull-out programs, where they go to a math or reading specialist, or a speech therapist during the time that the rest of the class is doing math, reading, or language arts. The first couple of classes I subbed in at this school, I stopped the kids who were leaving and questioned them about where they were going and why. Then I asked a teacher either next door or across the hall for confirmation. Both times, I was very harshly informed that the students know where they are supposed to be and when, and it’s not for me to question them and make them late. I just need to let them go. So, this time I did. And I got bit in the ass for it.
Two of those three students were supposed to go to another teacher. One was going to a specialist of some sort, and the young lady was returning to the special ed class that she came from. She only comes to my class for “socialization purposes”. Now, keep in mind that, despite the detailed instructions I’ve had left for me by a teacher I’ve subbed for, none of those teachers has thought to leave me a list of students who are in pull-out programs and when they leave or return. None of those teachers have thought to inform me of extra “socialization purposes” students I should have arriving, or when, or when they leave again. Instead, I was told to not question because the students know what they’re doing. One of the three that stood to leave had no business leaving and was not a part of any pull-out program.
When the co-teacher came into my room some time later, she asked where Blah-de-blah was. My first thought was, who the hell is Blah-de-blah? I don’t know these kids’ names! I’ve only been in this class for two days, and I’ve only seen this group of students today! One of the other students mentioned that Blah-de-blah had left when the other kids left. The co-teacher went ballistic. WHAT OTHER KIDS?!? she wanted to know. Then I realized what that student was talking about. Oh, she means the kids that go to pull-out programs. Apparently, NO students were going to pull-out programs that day because of the testing. Oookay, but what about that one girl who wasn’t even in my class or the co-teacher’s class. Oh, well she was supposed to leave because she’s just there for “socialization purposes”. Okay, well then that’s one student who was supposed to leave, wasn’t it? And what about the kid who looks like such-and such? Oh, well he’s supposed to go and do this that and the other. Okay, well then that’s two kids who were supposed to leave, and had legitimate reasons for doing so. This third kid? He said he was going to the same place as the other two. How was I supposed to know the difference?! Apparently, I was. Even though NONE of the kids were supposed to be leaving, and even though TWO of them WERE supposed to leave, I was still supposed to know, magically, that this ONE was not. Even though NONE of them were and TWO of them were – all at the same time.
Figure your shit out, lady. Which is it? None or two?
That third kid that I lost? Found less than five minutes later in a fifth grade teacher’s room. Now, I ask you, why didn’t that fifth grade teacher question what this child was doing in her classroom? I don’t know. All I know is that we could have had “a situation” and that this child who escaped my classroom has a mother who is a teacher (of course…right along with all the other kids you claim have teachers for parents), and she WILL make an issue out of a teacher who was not aware of a child missing from her class.
Umm. Excuse me. I did NOT have a child “missing”. I was following the instructions of other teachers on that campus, and allowed students to leave who said they were going to a specialist’s room! That kid is a liar. If you want to hold your substitute teachers accountable for this kind of thing, you have two options. Leave better information for us on who is supposed to go, when they are supposed to leave, and when they should return (if at all), or have procedures set up for how substitutes should deal with this. I MUST defer to the full-time teachers on any campus I teach at! So, I was deferring!
And when you give me a student’s name and ask me about him/her, don’t expect me to instantaneously recognize that name. I am a substitute teacher. I will have 6-7 hours with these students. I probably have never met any of them before today and I might not ever see them again. Why in the world would you expect me to know their names?
Needless to say, after Thursday, I had had enough. Not only was the regular schedule fubar because the co-teacher was changing it as she spoke, but she was in my classroom every hour or so, screaming at the kids to not make any noise. They weren’t allowed to speak in her class, and apparently they weren’t allowed to speak in mine, either. I had to administer a timed test – she came in and interrupted it. Not a single assignment was done without her interruption. She was constantly wanting to ask a student a question or calling them over to tell them something. Or, even worse, sending students from HER class to MINE, and then expecting me to know what to do with them and to keep up with suddenly having a class half again as large as it should have been.
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I have complete respect for this woman and her control over the kids in both of these classes. I have complete respect for the fact that this lady has been teaching since I was in junior high and she really does know what she’s doing. She handles those kids very well, keeps them under control and gets real learning to happen in her class. I envy her skills and I think she, honestly, would make a great mentor teacher. But I don’t believe she is happy working in a pod environment. I also don’t believe she is happy with the chaos at this school. They are so over-crowded that classrooms are being used for 2-3 different things during the day. In the morning, it’ll be a band room, after that, the regular students will be there, during lunch it becomes the ISS room, etc. This makes every pod’s scheduling completely ridiculous.
Just for example, the class I was in this week…school begins at 8:30. From 8:30 to 9:15, the students go to morning elective. Instead of everyone going to the same place (there’s not room for all of them in one place), there are FOUR different locations they have to be dropped off at. However, some of the students stay in my classroom. They are to read silently during this 45 minute period. When the other kids come back, they are ALL supposed to read until morning announcements at 9:40. After announcements, I have less than 90 minutes of instructional time. At 11:05 the kids go to lunch. They come back at 11:35, when they drop off their lunch stuff and immediately line up for afternoon electives. This time they all go, and once again, they’re going to four different places. At 12:30, they come back and we have another instructional period. But only for 45 minutes, because at 1:15, they switch classes. So, from 8:30 until 1:15, these children have a little over two hours of actual instruction time. And, of course, some of that time is taken up with transition, settling, and administrative tasks. I would say that in four hours and forty-five minutes of school, the kids are getting one and a half hours of teaching. From 1:15 to 3pm, they are generally in one place (minus bathroom breaks), but at 3, they swtich back to their homerooms. At 3:15, they have to start packing up and cleaning the classroom, as well as picking up all the chairs and putting them on the desks. At 3:30, they begin dismissal. That last half-hour of school is completely wasted because, for some strange reason, these two teachers want to dismiss their own homerooms. I would have thought that this was a school procedure, but I know it’s not because I’ve been in so many other pods that don’t do this. And it doesn’t make sense to, either. The afternoon class gets one hour and forty-five minutes of instruction, and the teacher has to fit in two different subjects during this time. This is slightly more reasonable than the morning schedule, but that means that whichever class the kids are in during the morning, they’re learning nothing. Their schedule is just too fractured for learning to happen.
The ridiculous scheduling is mostly due to the overcrowding. All the band students should be in the same pod(s), and should go to band elective at the same time. This way, the whole pod is going to the same place at the same time and it leaves their afternoon elective free to rotate between library, PE, computer lab, and art. Or whatever. Instead, some students in morning elective go to band, while others are in the library, some are at PE, and others stay in the class. In the afternoon, other students go to band (why didn’t they go in the morning?!?), and the ones who were in morning band go to PE or library, etc. I can see where an experienced teacher who has taught in several different school districts that actually have the space and facilities for the number of students they have, would be very frustrated with this school. There simply isn’t enough room for all of the band students to go to band at one time. There’s not even enough room for all of one instrument to go to band at one time, which is the very least that should be happening.
Well, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this past week, and have taken some steps to fix the issues I was having with traffic in and out of the room. I’ve created a log sheet that will allow me to track who has left the room, when they left and where they said they were going to. I also created a more realistic daily report sheet than was given to me in the substitute training class I had to take. Each class gets their own daily report, and the teacher is getting details about what happened while they were gone. I had been writing reports on notebook paper for every teacher I subbed for, but this is more organized and looks more professional. I had actually been using a journal with a hard cardboard back, so that I can write in it when I’m on the move (in the hall, at the restroom, etc.). I had stayed away from the forms because there was no convenient way for me to take them along when I’m moving through the school. What I needed was a clipboard, and I’ll be getting one this weekend. I refuse to look the fool when a student said they were leaving to go somewhere and I can’t remember their name two hours later when I’m questioned about it. I will not look like a bumbling idiot when the office has called for a student and I can’t remember their name 20 minutes later when the other teacher wants to know their whereabouts. I will have a log of what happened and when, with the student’s name clearly written, and it will be kept on a clipboard that I can have in my hands at all times.
Above all, I will remember that I am a substitute, not a teacher, and that all classroom activities are foreign to me and should have some kind of documentation made about them. I will become the documentation goddess, if that’s what it takes to do this job well and to stay above reproach. They will not get away from me scot-free next time.
