Long week

I’m not sure how this entry will turn out, because my brain is fried. I picked up a stomach bug early in the week, had training on Thursday for something that I had been volunteered for, and Friday was spent just trying to recover from the sub who stood in for me while I was downtown. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give this last week a 5 (probably too generous).

Speaking of substitutes, I have to say that I was spoiled last year. There was a guy I was introduced to who was new to subbing. He was available to sub for me most of the times I was absent for duty leave. He was fantastic. He kept the kids in line without being overbearing, and he left copious notes and fantastic feedback no matter what I had left him for lesson plans. I would come back after my absence and have a very good idea what had transpired in my classes while I was gone.

Unfortunately for me (and everyone else he substituted for), he found a permanent teaching position and is no longer available, so I’ve had to dip into the pool. I’ve had a number of different people substitute for me this year, but the result is always the same. I leave personal notes for the sub requesting feedback (having a pretty good idea that certain behavior will occur while I’m gone) but receive almost nothing. At the most I get comments like “everyone was good,” or “I had a good day.” My favorite was one from a couple of weeks ago. There was one “sentence” written across my substitute teacher feedback form that said, “your kids were awesome!” From that I should have been able to conclude that things couldn’t have gone better.

The day I come back I usually query some of my students about how things went. It turned out that in this particular case, the kids weren't what I would have called "aswsome." Some students were sleeping; some had food, and there were a couple of other things. But no mention of any of these things by the sub. It’s very frustrating. I’ve asked around to get names of subs who leave good feedback, but I’m finding out that the sub I had last year who was so good is the exception rather than the norm.

I know that substitutes don’t have the easiest job, but by not telling the whole truth to the absent teacher I wonder who they’re trying to score points with (me or the students). I’ve never been a substitute teacher, so I can’t really answer that question.