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One of the hardest things for a substitute teacher is gaining credibility and authority over the students. That’s a no-brainer that most people will agree with, especially once they think back to their younger years of terrorizing their teacher’s replacements whenever they were fortunate to have one. But the next hardest obstacle to overcome, one that is almost just as hard as the first in my opinion, is figuring out and cutting through all the red tape.

My experience in teaching is much different compared to a full time teacher. They have to deal with the same kids, problems, requirements, parents, and God knows what else for 180 days with only a short three month break before the cycle starts all over again. I’m sure it can be hard setting up a well oiled machine that both works smoothly and handles all the demands placed upon the teacher. But for me, my job is much different and at first glance, can seem almost comically easy.

I don’t have to worry about “teaching”. Making sure the students know everything that they need to know by the end of the year is nowhere near my job description. I don’t have to worry about bad parents, failing students, or office politics. In fact, for the most part, I’m a glorified babysitter. Watch over the kids, make sure they don’t get hurt, and try to keep a little order to the whole process.

That doesn’t mean it’s incredibly easy though. From the moment the kids walk in the door, I have about 5 minutes to set the tone. It doesn’t matter what age group you’re watching over, they all generally act the same in the first few minutes. Most of the students hang back, eyeing you suspiciously, while a small handful of the bolder students test the waters. It’s so painfully obvious, it’s almost funny. Yet each and every time, if you show any signs of weakness, the kids will pounce like ferocious hyenas. Don’t even let them smell blood and you’re fine. But God help you if you have a poor poker face.

But like I said, this is normal anywhere and for me it’s actually not that bad. Having used with my siblings and their friends such parental tactics as screaming outside a Baskin Robbins, “Anybody who isn’t touching my arms by the count of ten gets kicked in the balls,” I’m not one to being afraid of quickly dropping the Punishment Hammer.

No, for me, the hard part is getting through all the bullshit that most teachers have in place. I call it the Teaching Gristle. Weird punishment and reward systems, homework folders, lunch counts, planning period duties, and countless more. It’s the kind of crap that basically turns each classroom into a mini-bureaucracy of confusion and frustration for anybody who doesn’t know the system. And I hate every bit of it. For me, it slows things down to a crawl. One of the first things I do when whenever I get into a classroom is scan the lesson plans left for me and underline any unique (ie, absurd) requirements by the teacher. I understand these might be helpful tools over the course of a year, but expecting an outsider to pick them all up and execute them to perfection is downright naive and foolish.

This past week I had the pleasure of teaching the same 4th grade class for three days straight in a school where I’ve taught the majority of my time over the past year. When I ran into some of the fellow teachers I knew and told him who I subbing for, they all reacted as if they’d just smelled a violent fart and offered words of condolences. Simply put, there were a few kids in the class who were well known hellions.

The first day was certainly “fun” and typical of other days. I spent most of it listening to the kids tell me how I was doing things “wrong” and wasting time trying to figure out which basket to put which stack of papers in and which order to teach what lesson in and which kid had what weekly duty. By the end of the first day, I was ragged and the thought of doing it twice again was as appealing as a root canal. The next morning, I decided to switch things up a little and implement Goob’s Method O’ Teaching.

Out were all the little things that clutter up my day. The old method of punishment was to have some sort of weird sound level scale and then drop a marble into a can every time they were too loud, which deducted one minute off recess for the entire class per marble. The Goob Punishment Method was to simply discipline the blatant wrongdoers and to discipline them hard. The first time I shouted, “Mark, that’s five minutes off recess for making everybody over there laugh. Do it again and I’ll take off another five,” the entire class hushed up in awe and stayed that way much longer than they ever did when I dropped a marble. Likewise, the old method of rewards was to give them a monopoly dollar, which they could exchange for prizes at the end of the week. While this method wasn’t too bad in my mind, it was far too hard keeping up with what task earned what amount of dollars and thus I nixed it in addition to the antiquated “weekly helpers” method and thus the Goob Reward Method was born. Little Sarah, who always sat quietly and did her work on time, got to be the line leader. I didn’t give a care in the world that she had been it last week and that it was now Joey’s turn. When Joey’s losing 10 minutes off recess every day, I don’t see why he should get to take a turn in the weekly rotation of “fun” jobs. What’s that I hear? The students protesting loudly at the new changes? A quick threat that if the shouting doesn’t stop within 10 seconds, everybody loses a chunk of recess hushed them up quickly.

I’ll be the first to admit I run a tight ship, no matter what environment I’m in. When it comes to rules, I expect them to be followed and only once you’ve proven that you can do so will I start to give some leeway. Until then, I find it almost stupid to give away rewards for no other reason than “you haven’t had a turn yet.” Show me you deserve the turn and you’ll get one. Until then, Sarah or Billy or Drew can be the line leaders over and over and over again.

It wasn’t just the discipline and reward areas though. I shaved off the excess fat from anywhere I could. Instead of hunting for the correct basket under a mound of papers and books, I paper clipped whatever the kids turned in and left a post it note identifying the stack. Instead of going around individually checking the contents of each homework folder, I made them pull out their assignments and turn them in so that I could check them during a planning period. Those all might not seem like much, but when you’re forced to divert your attention for two or three minutes to try and figure out what the little things in a lesson plan are instructing you to do, much less do them, the kids can go from well behaved angels to blood thirsty savages.

Like I said, these are all good and well for somebody who has to lord over these kids for an entire year. But please, I implore any full time teachers out there, if you want to make sure things go smoothly while you’re gone, give your sub some leeway and slice off as much Teaching Gristle as possible.

As Friday came to a close, I realized how quickly the past two days had gone compared to the first. The fact that almost every kid in the class, even the ones I’d had to discipline over and over, were telling me that if their teacher was ever absent again, they wanted me to come back only proved that what I’d done hadn’t been a mistake. As a sub, whenever you can cut that extra crap, you’ve got extra time. If you in turn invest that time back into the students in the form of direct attention and teaching, it pays off handsomely and you’ll enjoy “teaching” much more.