When students walk into class and see that they have a sub, some get a rush of joy, some don’t care and others absolutely despise having one.
In a recent Common Sense poll that was conducted, 48 percent of Millard South students look forward to having a substitute teacher and 25 percent do not. The remaining 27 percent said things such as “it depends on the class and which sub I end up getting” and “doesn’t matter, just don’t irritate me.” The next question that was asked on the poll was, What are typical sub plans like for when your teacher is absent? 49/59 students stated that they usually have time to work on an existing project and 43/59 students stated that they end up doing a google classroom assignment that their teacher posted. Depending on the type of work that your teacher wants done it can be difficult for substitute teachers to follow that especially if there’s a certain way that your class usually does things.
“My best experience was when all the work to be done for the day was all up on Google Classroom,” freshman Alexyss Porter said. “It was a very work at your own pace kind of day. The sub was very chill yet still made sure work was being done and just let us work on our own.”
Another student, junior Hayden Hendrickson states, “I typically have the best experience in a classroom when I am productive.” “This could mean being taught relevant, challenging content, or it being worth my time in general. Having a substitute teacher usually does not affect the content of the class, so I have no relevant preferences in this way.”
When asked in the poll what students’ worst experience with a sub was, freshman Savana Cirian stated, “Probably for my enrichment class the teacher was just really mean and bossy and yelled at kids when they didn’t really do anything.”
Dustin John Elliot states, “I have had quite a lot of bad experiences with subs. “The first bad experience was when I had a sub who showed up very late and was in a very bad mood and was yelling and screaming at everyone for no reason. Another experience was when I had a sub for my German class and the sub got mad at a student because he had gotten his work done early in another class.”
Across the United States, school systems are struggling to find substitute teachers. What makes this task so difficult is having to find people that meet the requirements of some schools. Lower income areas will struggle because they may not be able to provide proper wages. What can help with schools getting substitute teachers is when teachers at the school are able to help out and fill in for a teacher that is gone. Experiences with substitute teachers differ for everyone. Some of the time students enjoy having a substitute in one or many of their classes and some dislike having a sub at all.
