I spent today working with a substitute teacher in my placement. I knew in advance I would be having a substitute so it wasn’t as if anything came as a shock to me. What I found amusing though is the complete shift in a student’s attitude toward class as soon as they learn that the regular teacher is not going to be present for the day’s lesson. Depending on the student it can mean a lot of things. Many take it as an opportunity to be as defiant as possible with the assumption that since the sub and teacher are not the same person, they will not be reprimanded but lightly by the sub and nothing will come of it later. Others seem to think that all sub-assigned work is not “real” work or does not need to be turned in on time. These two modes of thinking in particular are too often supported by the teachers themselves who do not put repercussions in place for student behavior during sub days. It has always been my experience that students are at least always a little more unruly when there is a substitute.
The particular behaviors that I spotted today were more along the lines of “this isn’t real work” as many students were very lax in completing the assignments left for them to do. One pair actually told me directly that they will just turn it in tomorrow instead despite it being due at the end of class. I wasn’t able to work directly with the substitute in all of the classes as I had to work separately with several students on a make-up test in half of the classes today, but reports of the student behavior seem to indicate that the trend of not completing their work continued throughout this period as well.
This isn’t to say this is the worst sub behavior I have ever seen (it is not by far), but it begs the question if there is anything to be done that can stop the downward spiral of students being unruly to substitutes. I’ve noticed that when the sub is there for several days in classes, things tend to get worse and worse as time goes on. I’ve been told that repeated procedural work should keep the students in line of their own accord even without direct teacher intervention (I’ve yet to actually see any empirical evidence to support this, but that is beside the point), however, it seems despite a sturdy set of procedures, students would often rather see how far away from the standard norms they can get. There weren’t any major issues, but in all honesty, there shouldn’t be -any- issues at all.
