Dear Mr./Ms. Almost Everyteacher,

I realize that you likely had the misfortune of beginning your teaching career without ever having been a substitute, and I’m terribly sorry you were denied the opportunity to learn what information is most helpful for me.  Of course, no one knows better than I do that you need the occasional day off, so I have put together some guidelines for how you can best help me run your class smoothly while you’ re away.

First of all, please do NOT leave me instructions to “write down the names of any students who cause trouble” so that you can deal with them tomorrow. First of all, you dealing with them tomorrow will not improve their behavior today. They will usually either continue their behavior as if I don’t exist or switch to asking me “Did you write my name dooowwwn?” and “Will you please take my name oooofffff?,” and the disruption continues.  

Of course, that’s assuming I can figure out their names at all. If I have to ask, they take the opportunity to lie and each of the other students will simultaneously do one of  three things:

1)      yell out the troublesome student’s real name,

2)      yell out  even more ridiculous lies, or

3)       laugh.

Either way, the disruption continues.

That leads me to my next point.  Please make sure you have a seating chart for each class that is at least up-to-date, legible and enforced throughout the year. You wouldn’t believe how much leverage “magically” knowing a student’s name can give you in a difficult situation.  It’s especially helpful if such a seating chart includes students’ pictures and the phonetic spellings of difficult-to-pronounce names.

Information about lunch and restroom breaks should also be clear and up-to-date, especially if you teach any grade in which I actually have to accompany your students to the cafeteria or to the restroom. I need to know when to leave the classroom, how students are expected to behave, where to sit in the cafeteria, which restrooms to visit, the route I should take in the hall, and when to return to the classroom. If any of these have changed since the last time you wrote it down, please make sure to change it accordingly.  If I try to do something the students know you no longer do, or never actually did, I lose any authority I had.

The same goes for the rules while you’re away. Please don’t expect me to make students live up to different expectations than you have for them every day. In other words, if you don’t make them sit/work/walk/eat in absolute silence, I’m not going to either. I apologize in advance.

Also, I’m a college graduate, and I can usually handle academic work in any subject up to eighth grade or so, higher grades for subjects other than math or science, but if you don’t feel comfortable with me reading your answer key, I understand. It’s good to get in the habit of making alternative plans in case you need to call me at 6:30 in the morning. It'll save you the discomfort of giving up control for the day and me from picking bird seed out of your carpet or monitoring the use of 30,000-dollar engineering equipment.

However, although I’m fine with alternative lesson plans, if you give your students any reason to think I am somehow less capable because of my job title, everyone will suffer, you included.  I will leave many more negative notes and students will get less out of the lesson, both problems you will have to deal with when you return. To avoid such problems, please replace comments like, “I don’t think the sub will be able to do this” with “The sub shouldn’t have to do this” and comments like “The sub is stupid” with silence.

Finally, Mr./Ms. Almost Everyteacher, I’m sorry  if I’ve mixed you up with Mr./Ms. Every  Otherteacher; you look so much alike. 

Sincerely,

Kelli