10 Tips For Substitutes

10 Tips For Substitutes
I would like to share with you some tips that I've learned over the past 387 days. These are the unspoken rules you should follow in order to have an uneventful day.

Tip #1 - Don't Smile
Don't you dare smile. If they're smiling, even worse. Make sure you do all you can so that the children stop smiling. I personally try to exhume a facial expression resembling that of someone who just got guilt tripped by a recent ex girlfriend via text message. The look that you have on your face where you're trying to come up with the ultimate comeback to whatever they said, so they'll be soooooooo thrown off balance they'll forget who you are and leave you alone.

So you don't want to smile, until they already have the first impression of you. This takes about 1 hour. If you smiled already and things got out of hand, so you went to google and found this note, don't worry. All you need to do is give a really loud sigh and stand up with a stressed look on your face.

Tip #2 - Follow Through
Those kids will love to push the envelope. They'll say "It's a substitute teacher, I can do whatever I want. This is ironically similar to what I tell them, "I'm a substitute teacher, I can do whatever I want."

Follow through on threats or they'll quickly label you as a pushover. If you say they're going to lose recess time for a behavior, you better make sure they do.

It only takes a couple of times before a threat goes from threatening to them thinking..."ehhhhh listen to the wind blow up there, I wish I had a wind chime." Children are master con artists, simply because modern parents are pushovers. They give in when kids push back. If you can't even push over your own kids, then that's sad.

Tip #3 - Be Fake
Children are hypersensitive and you have to go above and beyond the call of duty 4. Timed praises of certain students make other students jealous. So when everyone is being loud, you compliment the shy girl that is actually doing her work.

For example, "I loooooooooooooooooooooooooooove how Sarah Beth Marie is doing her work quietly." Sometimes I get bored and turn it into a love fest. "Thank you Sarah for staying on task, you're obviously better and smarter than everyone in the class, so I'm going to talk to the principal to see if she can boost you to second grade."

The effect of this praise usually lasts for the child's whole life, so when they reflect back on their life on who their favorite teacher was, they can say "It was that substitute that one day."

Don't be afraid to use jealously to your advantage. Students behave well when they think it's possible to just skip their whole grade. Which brings me to the next tip.

Tip #4 - Motivate Them
I have contests everyday in the classroom, usually boy verse girl. Please note that this breaks state laws, since having boys and girls separated is "segregation". I usually just ask them how they want the teams. 9 times out of 10 it'll be "BOYS VERSE GIRLSS YAAAAAAA." What immediately follows the decision to have boy vs. girl is that the girls will pretend to be adults.

"It's so typical of the boys to misbehave and rough house around. Us women never talk out of line and are always obedient whenever something is asked of us"

The boys will flex and go "raaaaaaaaaa, we're gonna win!" Even though the contest never involves using strength, even in P.E. There aren't really any outdoor activities that involve weightlifting. They're basically speed and listening games, where following the rules are the most important part of the game, not winning.

So the men try to show that they're physically mature, while the girls try to prove they're emotionally mature. Neat huh? Do you remember doing that?
What!? You still do!?

Tip #5 - Pencil Problem
There will always be about 5 students in the classroom who have pencils that were given to them by their best friend who sacrificed themselves to save their life and their dying wish was for them to only use a pencil that was passed down from their royal lineage.

So basically what that means is that they buy some cool pencil and they want to avoid using a normal pencil, so they'll get out of their seat and sharpen it. They'll usually use the abnormally loud electric sharpener when you're trying to explain something to the class.

Sometimes they'll use the broken manual one for 20 minutes and grind down their whole pencil. Just have them use the pencil exchange box, they know their supposed to.

If they don't, you'll soon have 4 or 5 future professors over there brainstorming a book on the ultimate pencil sharpening tactic.

Tip #6 - Stop The Hero
There is always the hero of the classroom, who is also the villan. He wants to do everything. "Ooooo, I'll get the phone, ooooo I'll open the door, oooooo I'll pass out the papers, oooo I'll pick up the piece of trash on the other side of the room instead of doing my work, ooo oo ooooooo"

He's the kid that wants to do any and every thing that doesn't relate to school work. He'd rather take an errand to the office or run 10 laps, than write one paragraph about his life.

I try to utilize this student. Usually when my throat gets tired from talking loudly all day (which is normal volume for you), I tell him to take over the shush wars. He can usually be louder than me too. The hero also loves to keep track of discipline tasks.

Be careful though when allowing him to judge right and wrong. Every slight misbehavior is a warrant to call home. I remember one time I had a girl student add misbehavior points every time someone in a group talked.

She had no mercy and leniency, she even had a frustrated posture. She would tap her foot and cross her arms while staring down whoever talked.

If they dared and tried to debate with her, they'd get more points.

Tip #7 - Stop reading this and get back to work.