Last year, I worked as a substitute teacher across various districts.  This year, as a student teacher, I’ve benefited from the opportunity to observe experienced teachers in action and realized I picked up a few misconceptions about teaching from my time substituting:

1. Teachers assign a lot of computer time to students.  As a substitute, I would follow sub plans that often had long blocks of time for computer time, whether it was for Epic Reading, Prodigy Math or Typing Club.  I came away from the experience thinking that teachers relied too heavily on keeping students occupied with their computers and not engaging with the rest of the class.  However, through my student teaching experience, I’ve realized that teachers will often put in blocks of computer time because it is an easy activity to assign a sub.  There isn’t much instruction involved and students are pretty content working on their computers.
2. Teachers have their favorites.  Sub plans will usually contain notes about certain students who could be helpers to the substitute.  This is useful because every classroom has its quirks and students will sometimes try to trip up a new substitute and act in ways the classroom teacher would not allow.  I realize now that teachers recognize different strengths in all students so the ones teachers list in the sub plans are simply the more vocal and mature students.  Also, sometimes a teacher will ask a student to be a helper because that is one way to give a distracting student something to focus on.  So, a student named as a helper in a sub plan is not necessarily a teacher’s pet.
3. Calm down corners = a reward?  I substituted one class where the calm down corner was in high demand and students kept asking for their turn.  I thought calm down corners were a spot where an upset student can go to cool off, but in this classroom, a lot of students were drawn to it, perhaps due to the comfy cushions, little toys and fidgets in that space.  It would be great if sub plans included some parameters around how these spaces should be used, like time limits or situations it should be used.
4. Teaching doesn’t take that much time.  As a substitute, your day ends when you hand in the keys after all students have been dismissed.  Although there are some teachers who only work “contract hours”, it is not uncommon for teachers to work evenings and weekends to plan lessons, grade work, and do other administrative items.

I think the reason why some of these misconceptions arise between substitutes and the teachers they help is because there is lopsided communication between the two.  Oftentimes as a substitute, I would never meet the teachers I substituted for.  At the end of the day, teachers ask substitutes for notes about what went well in the classroom, what got accomplished and didn’t, etc.  However, I never received any feedback from teachers about my substitute experience.  So, here are a few things teachers should know from substitutes:

5. Sometimes teachers write really long sub plans.  Teachers should be aware that even if a substitute arrives at the school site very early, they can only get checked in and given keys to the classroom when the front office opens.  There’s nothing more intimidating than reading very long lesson plans before the morning bell rings.  Some substitutes might not have a lot of experience in the classroom, so it helps to break down lesson procedures into steps, and being explicit about simple things like handing out papers.  I learned through trial and error that you don’t want to hand out materials until giving students instructions about what to do with them.  I’ve made the mistake where I’ve tried to multitask in the classroom and pass out worksheets to save time, but this backfired when students got confused about what they were supposed to do.
6. Sometimes, teachers don’t plan enough activities.  This is the one thing that makes substitutes nervous, the prospect of having to tap dance through extra time left in the school block when students have completed their work.  That is why most of the advice for substitutes revolves around having a game or two, or a favorite read-aloud in their bag, just in case.  However, if substitutes need ways to stretch out time in the classroom, they can try these techniques:
   1. Ask students to double-check their work or take time to review the correct answers.  Some students like to rush through their work, sometimes skipping questions or not reading the assignment closely.  Students will learn not only from the practice, but also from the reflection and self-correction of their own work.
   2. If it is a writing assignment, ask them how many sentences their teacher expects them to write in a paragraph (for reference, at the 4th grade level, students are expected to write 5-7 sentences per paragraph).  Oftentimes, students have not written to that expectation, so review their turned-in work and hand it back if the writing is not long enough.
   3. Try a filler activity.  This recommendation has been a bit of a mixed bag for me.  For example, one time, I didn’t know if a 3rd grade class had covered multiplication yet, so a multiplication coloring activity wasn’t a good choice for the class.

I still think that substitute teaching is a great place to get some experience in the classroom, but there’s a lot more to teaching you won’t experience unless you have some consistency with the same class of students.  Substitute teaching is hard when you bounce around schools and grades, but it’s also a great way to preview a school and see what happens on the school site.  As I prepare to find my first teaching assignment, I wish I had an opportunity to be a substitute at more school sites but my student teaching experience has been invaluable for preparing me for the job of being a teacher.