When a student walks into class and sees that their normal teacher has been replaced by a substitute, their reaction is usually one of relief. For many students, a substitute represents a break from the regular academic grind, an opportunity to catch up on old work or chat with friends. It’s an almost universal experience for high school students around the country; but what is this experience like on the other side of the desk?
Substitute teaching is more complicated than most students think. The people who take up the role come from many different backgrounds, have a wide variety of approaches to the job and face their own unique challenges in the process. For the good of both the subs and their students, these challenges need to be addressed.
Kenneth Ong is a college admissions counselor, former MCPS student and part-time MCPS substitute teacher of six years. He’s most recognized by students for his personally branded slideshows, which encourage students to refer to him as Mr. King Kong or Mr. Ping Pong among other rhyming titles, and occasional college application advice on top of the day’s agenda.
These slides might seem like overkill in terms of an introduction, but they’re actually a unique method of dealing with one of the most frequent difficulties encountered by substitutes: lack of teacher preparation. This lack of preparation often results in a lack of productive activity on sub days.
“Most substitute teachers don’t know the lesson plan until they walk into the classroom. I learned early on that if a teacher’s not going to provide me with slides, and most of the time they don’t, I have to create my own,” Ong said. “Because I have that branded presentation, [students] know that you have a substitute teacher, it’s ‘Mr. Ping Pong’ and he’s going to [carry out] the expectations of the teacher who’s not there.”
Unless they email teachers days in advance or create their own class preparations like Ong, substitutes can be left without much to work with. Compounding this, substitute teachers are often underprepared in their training as well; many have little experience in the subjects they’re asked to sub for, and some have limited experience with teaching in general.
Substitutes can also have a difficult time gaining respect from the students they look after, which makes conducting class harder for subs and prevents students from receiving necessary instruction. Kevin Kauffman, a WJ graduate who has been substituting at WJ for close to a year, has encountered that obstacle several times.
“For a long term sub it’s going to take a few days, a few weeks for students to get used to you as a teacher,” Kauffman said. “Students don’t respect substitutes as much in general, so they’ll say things along the lines of ‘Mr. Johnson didn’t make us do that,’ or ‘Mr. Johnson did this,’ because they have an expectation from a prior teacher.”
Although they often have difficulties reaching the same level of respect, substitutes can still have just as strong ties to teaching and to WJ as regular teachers. Many have decades of teaching experience, including Irene Kimelblatt, a part-time sub and former English teacher at WJ.
“I planted a tree in [WJ’s] courtyard 37 years ago in memory of my husband who died,” Kimelblatt said. “I just love coming back to Walter Johnson all the time because I feel like I’m part of it.”
So if subs are such a vital part of the high school community, how can we make sure they’re actually able to do their jobs? The best way to accomplish this is through administrative policy changes.
One change that would result in immediate improvements would be standardizing how teachers leave lesson plans for subs. As of right now, the MCPS faculty handbook only says that lesson plans should “keep students engaged and working,” which is a broad statement to say the least. If this was changed to specify that teachers should make emergency slides in case of a sick day, be provided with them by their department or WJ’s administration, or just declare a wellness day, it would be a step in the right direction.
Because substitutes generally don’t receive much instruction, providing extra training opportunities could also be helpful, enabling them to use educational skills or familiarize themselves with class curriculums. This would especially benefit substitutes without prior teaching experience by giving them more grounding and expertise, and possibly help them overcome or minimize student disrespect.
No matter the method, substitute teachers should be empowered as educators instead of being seen as placeholders, for the benefit of themselves as well as students.
