SUBS: One Day at a Time: Experiencing Substitute Teaching

“This week I spent four days with a group of eighth graders in an urban school, substitute teaching for various members of their teaching team.  To say the experience was grueling is an understatement.  To say it was extremely satisfying is also an understatement.”


The substitute teaching profession is often described using extremes such as grueling and extremely satisfying, as in the USC Rossier School of Education Blog quoted above. When the positive experiences outweigh the negative experiences, substitute teaching can cement a lifelong career in education. Rewarding relationships with the children bring many substitute teachers back to the classroom again and again.


Substitute teachers are in demand. Even before COVID-19 there were shortages around the country. When the Omicron variant spread among teachers and their families, absenteeism increased, requiring more substitute teachers whose numbers were reduced for the same reason!
 
Growth opportunities for substitute teachers--and a former MOTAL Intern. With proven need and creative efforts to attract and develop necessary skills, this is a good time to become a substitute teacher. Under a temporary executive order, California has an emergency substitute teaching license to allow anyone with a bachelor’s degree, basic skills, and a background check to substitute for up to 30 days. Normally applicants must go through a full credentialing process.


Katherine (Katie) Rutz-Robbins, a former MOTAL intern, has been a substitute teacher in elementary and middle school classes since January under these emergency California requirements. She is passionate about public education and credits many of the educators in her family for her interests and skills. She is in her second year at Claremont Graduate University, where she is working on her MA in Cultural Studies with a concentration in Museum Studies.

For Katie, the positive experiences far outweigh the negative experiences and relationships are central to her work. Here are some of her key observations as a substitute teacher:


“Relationships with other teachers and communication with the classroom teacher are really helpful.”


Katie makes a point of introducing herself to the teachers next to her classroom and she provides them with her contact information. She really appreciates the information provided by the classroom’s full-time teacher—students' names, special projects, the schedule and studies for the day, and other key information. In turn, Katie provides detailed notes at the end of the day, including academic work that was not accomplished.  She tries to leave the classroom cleaner than when she arrived.


Katie appreciates the information that is recommended for teachers in the NAEYC magazine Teaching Young Children titled “Miss Nelson is Missing! Preparing for a Substitute Teacher.”
 
“Relationships with the students begin at the start of each day—I greet them at the door and I introduce myself.”
Katie starts every day outside the classroom door to welcome all the students to her classroom. She also begins the day by giving the students several names they can use to address her. With a difficult last name like Rutz-Robbins, that’s essential! She lays out her expectations early in the day: how she will work with them, how they will work through the schedule and tasks, and that she will walk around the room to check in with everyone.


Research shows that teachers’ smiling, affectionate words, warmth, listening when children talked to them, making eye contact, and treating children fairly are among the behaviors that build positive relationships with children.

“My goal every day is to make sure they are making progress at something every day.”
There are technical challenges unique to the current classroom. Remember that substitute teachers did not do their own schoolwork 10-20+ years ago with iPads, write papers or take tests on a device, or communicate through a school notification system. They didn’t become substitute teachers to fix electronic devices. Katie reports that new vocabulary comes with new technology, and sometimes the children can help each other with problems!


“My ‘classroom brain’ is growing so that classroom management is getting better.”
With advice from the many educators in her family, Katie has a number of tools in her toolkit for classroom management. A seating chart with names is really valuable, and following the routine helps, especially in younger grades. To keep track of the 
struggling students who need one-on-one help while simultaneously meeting the needs of other students requires multiple approaches. She has found that humor and entertainment are important, not to mention eyes in the back of her head!


“The children are funny, super sweet, wonderful helpers, kind—making it all worthwhile.”
Katie and so many other substitute teachers have commented on the ways in which they have learned from the children. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) asked a few 2021 Early Children Education graduates about their experiences working to obtain their degree, and Murphy Hicks responded, “I remember becoming a substitute teacher in my first year of college. . . . I love what these young children have to offer. Day in and day out they teach me so much about myself and themselves. I would not imagine my life in any other profession.”


Katie is doing the right things! She has successfully navigated, on short notice, an ecosystem that includes district policies, school demographics and character, classroom culture and routines, full-time teachers, and students. At the same time, she works to meet the high expectations set by the absent teacher and the program planned for the day. It helps too that she wore a heart dress and funny earrings on Valentine’s Day!




Submitted by Mary Deming, MOTAL Board Member, with the assistance of Katie Rutz-Robbins.


Katie was the recipient of the second Loren Doll Intern Scholarship at the Museum of Teaching and Learning (MOTAL) in 2021. She was responsible for the archival organization and preservation of the MOTAL artifact collection. In addition, she did research and writing to provide background stories for many of the pieces.
See her work in other MOTAL articles….
Little Red With A Twist
May Artifact of the Month - Alphabet Blocks
Artifact of the Month -1940 University of California Yearbook  
July Artifact of the Month  - Pedagogy of the Oppressed
MOTAL's August Artifact - Bubie's 1960s Schoolbag
September Artifacts of the Month - A Look Back at School Corporal Punishment
Thank YOU from MOTAL!


References:

• USC Rossier School of Education Blog, “Four Days in the Life of a Substitute Teacher, https://rossieronline.usc.edu/blog/four-days-in-the-life-of-a-substitute-teacher/
• Donna Glassman-Sommer and Marvin Lopez, California Center on Teaching Careers, CalMatters guest commentators, Decline in Substitute Teachers Challenges School Districts,” https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/09/decline-in-substitute-teachers-challenges-school-districts/
• Darius Phelps, 5/2/2018, “Fingerprints Upon My Heart,” Blog of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, https://www.naeyc.org/resources/blog/fingerprints-upon-my-heart and 2017 TEDx Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9De8J2bfYoU
  
• Amanda von Moos and Jessie Weiser, February 7, 2022, “3 Ways to Strengthen the Substitute Teacher Workforce,” The Education Policy Blog of the Education Commission of the States, https://ednote.ecs.org/3-ways-to-strengthen-the-substitute-teacher-workforce/
  
• Sarah D. Sparks, January 31, 2022, “High-Quality Substitute Teaching: What We Know Now,” https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/high-quality-substitute-teaching-what-we-know-now/2022/01
  
• Any Kephart Yastishock, August/September 2016, “Miss Nelson is Missing! Preparing for a Substitute Teacher,” https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/aug2016/miss-nelson-missing-preparing-substitute
  
• M. M. Ostrosky and E. Y. Jung, “Building Positive Teacher-Child Relationships,” Center on the Social and National Foundations for Early Learning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/briefs/wwb12.html
  
• Murphy Hicks, Keene State College, Keene, NH, “Congrats, Grad! A Q&A with Class of 2021 ECE Students,” https://www.naeyc.org/resources/blog/congrats-grad-2021

 
Resources for Substitute Teachers and/or School Administrators:

• STEDI.org provides research-based training materials and services designed to improve student achievement when students are taught by a substitute teacher and to assist those who manage substitute teachers. The organization was founded as the Substitute Teaching Institute at Utah State University in 1995.
  
• Swingeducation.com finds, screens, and supports thousands of substitute teachers across the country. Swing Education connects schools with the right substitutes via an easy-to-use, web-based platform. The program was founded in 2015 by a former K-12 administrator.
  
• https://substantialclassrooms.org/ is a fiscally sponsored project of Playworks Education Energized, a California-based nonprofit public benefit corporation. The organization focuses on proactively recruiting, training and supporting substitute teachers.