What I Learned as a Long Term Substitute Teacher

As the new school year approaches, it really has me missing my kids. I ran into one of them last week at the gas station. He was getting ready to leave for college. He was so excited to see me. He ran up to the car and gave me a big hug and told me how happy he was to see me again before he left for college. It warmed my heart.

It's funny how attached you can get to your students, even when they give you grief and attitude daily. As teachers, I think we all fail them unknowingly in big and small ways daily. But it's when we succeed that we are thankful.

I remember going in and feeling like they were trying to run me off. In fact, the principal told me that was probably their goal because they had already done so to three other substitutes in three months. They didn't want to listen to anything I had to say, told me I was just their substitute and not their teacher, and they didn't have to listen to me. They were burnt out and burnt up over people coming and going, and they didn't want to get used to someone being there and then have them leave again.

I struggled with their discipline problems because of never being in a high school classroom before. My only experience had been tutoring one-on-one in college, teaching CPR classes to an adult population, and teaching online composition courses. So, although I had some teaching experience, I wasn’t quite prepared for how that would translate to a high school, but I tried to do the best I could with the tools I had. I think we all do.

I remember I had asked for advice from a friend 

and former teacher, and she told me this: 

Sometimes, it's not about the curriculum; 

it's about meeting the students where they're at.

When I got to that point of wanting to give up, I tried a different approach. I wrote them a spoken word poem, telling them goodbye. I got finger snaps the whole way through, and then they sat silent for a while at the end. Some of them balked at what I said, but then, one by one, voices in the background said, “she's right.”

I told them that in my heart I didn't really want to leave, but I was getting migraines daily from having to raise my voice to quieten them down so that we could have discussions. I just couldn't keep on that way. So we had a mature talk about things. We talked about how our behaviors affect other people as a whole, how the constant talking was preventing other people from learning the material.

And then I told them the Old Testament story of Sodom and Gomorrah, of how the story popped in my head on the drive home the day before. As I drove down the road, I didn’t necessarily think of the story in the sense of what happened; I thought of it in the sense of how Job tried to save the cities if he could find 50 righteous men. Each time, he kept reducing the number, and each time, God agreed to save the city if Job could find men worthy of salvation.

So we decided on an optional essay to help me make my decision of whether I should stay or go. The first question was whether they wanted me to stay or not and why. I told them they could say whatever they wanted to, and there would be no retribution. It wouldn't have been right to ask them to be honest and then punish them for doing so. The second part of the question dealt with worthiness. This is where the idea of God saving the city if Job could find 50 righteous men came in. This story, for me, spawned the opposite thought. What if just one student thought he or she wasn’t “worthy” of having someone care, of having someone want the best for him or her? So I wanted to know if they felt worthy of teachers or people caring about them and loving them. I felt as if even one kid said no, then I'd stay for him or her. I wasn't surprised to see more than one kid say they didn't. As a teacher and as a person, if even one child feels that way, then we have failed that child as teachers and as a society. I let them know that no matter what their situation, they were all worthy of being cared about, and they were all worthy of reaching their highest potential. I think we often get caught up in the cycle of life, and when bad luck runs amok, our human nature is to think we have somehow become unworthy of good things. The last part of the question dealt with what they could do to be better students. Many of them wrote that they could pay attention more and quit being disruptive. Others said they could use their leadership skills to apply peer pressure and let the disruptive students know they were hampering their ability to learn.

I read through paper after paper, poem after poem. Kids putting their heart on the page saying they understood if I left, but they needed me to stay because I was someone who finally cared about them. It was an emotional night, the most honesty I had seen from my kids thus far.

Until that week, I felt the kids would be glad to see me go. One of the administrators and the guidance counselor pulled me aside and said they heard a rumor about me leaving from the students. My kids had expressed to them that they were upset I was leaving. I told the administrator that I hadn’t made a determination yet. I told her about the revelations I had on the ride home the night before, showed her the poem I wrote them, and told her my plans for the optional essay. She thought it would make a difference, that I might finally be able to reach the kids on a different level.

The next morning, after a night of crying while reading those essays, 

I walked in and everything was erased off my board except one thing my students wrote: 

(Insert Name of School) ❤'s You!

My heart melted. I had already made the decision to stay, but that note solidified it for me. We had discussions, and, for the most part, my kids did a turn around. I was finally able to make a difference for some at least. I think they changed my heart more than I changed theirs. I realized my methods were wrong, that we needed to find common ground and respect for one another. In the future, when kids got loud and were talking over me, I just stood there and stared at them. Then a student would say, “Hey, she's trying to talk,” and the room would go quiet. It made me smile inside to know that the student finally felt strong enough to stand up to her peers. That was progress.

And then, my students would show up four and five times a day. I'd have to kick them out of my class. One week I couldn’t get them to show up, and the next week I couldn’t get them to leave. When I asked why they kept coming so much, the reply was, "You didn't leave us Miss Williams. We love you."

My friend was right. 

It's not always about the curriculum. 

It's about meeting the students in the middle so you can find 

a way to teach them and them be receptive. 

It's about letting them know we are all human 

and all make mistakes, 

but it's how we learn from those mistakes that defines us.

It makes me sad to know that I won't be there day one, taking all the things I've finally learned, and being able to use those things to challenge them to be better students and better people. Because see, as someone in a humanities field, that's what it's all about. It's not only about teaching literature, grammar, and how to write essays; but also it's about teaching them how to use those tools to be better members of society, to learn how to become empathetic individuals, to learn how to finally find their voice.

#shoutouttoallthoseteachersfindingtheirway