Are subs allowed to do this?

Why are you asking us? Ask your principal what substitute teachers are allowed to do in your school, or read your school district’s handbook.

Because I’m looking for other people’s perspective? No one is forcing you to answer this question

Obviously we have no idea what’s allowed or not allowed in your particular school by your particular principal. That’s the point I’m trying to get across, here.

Oh, you’re in high school. That explains so much.

Nobody’s forcing you to do anything. You don’t like what the teacher’s telling you to do? Don’t do it. Sit there like a jackass, take a stand. Get sent to the principal’s office, and make your case there.

And while you’re sitting there, spend some time thinking about how foolish you look and sound complaining about idiotic high school stuff to a website of mostly adults.

Though it’s your teacher’s right and responsibility to set an overall curriculum, a substitute teacher is a fully licensed teacher who is put in a position of trust by the school hiring the person and is generally expected to support the overall goals of the actual teacher, but they should, and I believe DO have the right to teach whatever lesson plan they want while they are substituting as long as it’s on track with the subject matter.

I do have to admit, the impression that I get is that on this board, most people are out of high school, and I suspect very few are going to be all that sympathetic…I won’t say it, but expect to hear “grow up” about 15 different ways. Bottom line is, if a person is in a position of authority over you, you are expected to do what they say, but being a free country, no one can force you to commit a particular action.

@dalepetrie That was the answer I wanted to hear….
Also thanks for not getting nasty

@dalepetrie “being a fee country” may be the best typo I’ve ever seen

I always thought substitutes tried to follow the plan the regular teacher leaves just in case he or she isn’t there.

@teh_kvlt_liberal My mother in law is a sub…Maybe your sub is just as clueless about real life issues as she is?!

Hmmm…as for the project she’s making you do: Probably, your actual teacher left the sub some “busy work” to give you in case she was incompetent to help you prepare for the SATs

A sub teacher grabbed me by the throat , i smacked him in his fat nose . Was many years ago , and he blamed me for something i didnt do

@teh_kvlt_liberal – you’re welcome…and no problem, nasty is not my style (unless it relates to crude and tasteless in which case some times it is)

@MrItty – thanks for pointing that out…I had a hard time deciding whether to fix it or let it stand, but I fixed it, I’m just a bit psycho about spelling errors.

My sub is very obedient. Kneeling in the corner waiting for her Master to come home.
Or cleaning and cooking. But always ready to please me.

It seems stupid. Every sub I had in high school was really laid back and kind of understood that they didn’t know what was going on in the class and let us catch up on homework. Seems like a waste of time making you do something totally unrelated, but you should probably do it anyhow. It probably won’t count for anything so I wouldn’t worry much about it.

My Subs let us watch slide shows.

Has anyone ever seen Troll 2? Worlds worst/best movie by far. One time my English teacher let us watch it.

Unrelated, but I had to brag about this somewhere.

My high school subs don’t care what we do, they usually just give us a worksheet the teacher left for us, pop in a video, and let us listen to our iPods and talk. They really couldn’t care less about what we do.

Teachers often don’t know who their subs will be or what training they have had, and so what you’re “supposed to be doing” can’t always happen. A written response sounds like a perfectly reasonable alternative in an English class, and may even have been the assignment your teacher intended. The sub can absolutely expect you to participate, and you can absolutely choose not to and deal with the consequences.

Why are some of you guys so nasty. Like he said… you don’t need to answer the question. @teh_kvlt_liberal is over 3000 points so regardless of being in high school, he’s been around on fluther for a while.

Where has his profile gone?

Ha. I had a really dumb substitute teacher in 6th grade. He was just some ancient guy who told us that he was not going to follow my teacher’s lesson plan. I remember he had us write some thing about if we were going to die the next day…lol…of course we were all pretty much 11 years old, so we just did what he said.

When my teacher came back and we told her what happened, she was like “what an idiot!”

Good times.

Yes subs are allowed to do that, and creative writing is related to your class too. It may not be the SAT prep lesson that was planned by your real teacher, but I bet that lesson was even more boring than what the sub made you do.

Looks like he was either banned or deleted his account… O:

It depends if your teacher left a lesson plan or not. Most subs are too smart to let the students lead the class. If the teacher wanted you to do something particular, s/he should have left instructions. If no instructions were left then the sub does a lesson that keeps the class occupied. In any case it is not up to you to make the call. If a sub doesn’t do what s/he is supposed to do the teacher will take care of it. MYOB!

@mangeons HA! you’re right! Well, until this Q, I had no idea he was in HS, so that explains a lot of the trolling he was doing

The sub should follow the lesson plan set out by the teacher unless it is entirely unfeasible. He or she has no idea what the class is doing; just because the teacher is out sick does not mean the class should fall behind if it doesn’t have to.

@dalepetrie Substitutes are not necessarily certified teachers, depending on the school system. Plus, a sub may be certified in PE but subbing in Spanish class.

I have a feeling he’ll be back as teh something else.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/55973/are-subs-allowed-to-do-this/#quip801340 I don’t see how this is idiotic. It’s not much different than asking for opinions about your boss asking you to pick up his dry cleaning or some other task unrelated to your job.

@dalepetrie , at least where I live, subs are not “fully licensed teachers.” Maybe in other places they are? In any case, when I have subbed in the local public schools, the teachers have always left assignments for me to give to the kids and (depending upon their ages) give them guidance. I suppose that if a teacher did not leave any work, then I could do whatever I wanted with them.

If you don’t want to do the work, don’t do it. It’s pretty simple.

the substitute teacher is required to follow the lesson plans of the day. as long as he/she accomplishes that, going off on another tangent is okay as long as it relates to subject matter.

You’re not the boss. The Subsitute is. You do what they say.

Sub or not the teacher makes the rules. Do the work… don’t do the work.. doesn’t matter. Just be prepared to deal with the consequences.

@casheroo you my lady are quick on the draw…. best comment on the thread by far. I know a lot of people were thinking the exact same thing

What!? You didn’t get a babysitter? The sub gave you a writing assignment and expected you practice your writing skills? Whatever is the world coming to?

@PandoraBoxx

I don’t think that’s the issue raised by this question. Notwithstanding the 90% of people here who gave smart-ass responses, the issue was that the sub deliberately ignored the teacher’s instructions. Many subs I have come across are pretty incompetent, some of them just sat at the teacher’s desk, took roll, and did nothing for the rest of the period. And then of course I’ve met some really cool ones. But as far as I know, substitute teachers are supposed to follow the teacher’s instructions.

@DominicX Often, a teacher is out unexpectedly, and hasn’t left a lesson plan for the sub to find easily.

@filmfann

Yes, but I don’t think that was the case in this example, but I guess we’ll never know for sure now. In the example I provided, the teacher was out unexpectedly, so she had the teacher next door tell the sub what to do, but he ignored it.

Wow, you “adults” sure can be nasty.

@DominicX the OP said “we’re supposed to be working on X”. To me, that means “We were originally scheduled to be working on X”, not “The regular teacher specifically left a note for the sub to have us do X”. Neither you nor I have any idea what the regular teacher left, if anything, for the sub. You’re making as great an assumption as anyone else is.

A friend of mine is a sub in a local school district. She is not required to be a licensed teacher, but she must have successfully taken the training class that the district offers.

Then, in an ideal situation, the teacher will have left a lesson plan for the sub to follow, which she does when such is available. However, sometimes a teacher’s absence is unplanned and so the teacher hasn’t left any guidance. In that case, the sub’s job is to keep the class quiet and busy, so they do not interfere with work going on in other classrooms.

My friend does this by talking about her history as a military policeman, or her experiences as a motorcycle rider, or her work as a paleontologist, or her experiences with ministering to prisoners, depending on the subject of the class and the interest of the students. While the students might not be following the curriculum for that one day, they do invariably learn something new.

The principals love her because the class and thus the school day go as smoothly or even more so than usual.

While I was in the credential program I thought I would do some sub work. I was signed up for English and Social Studies for HS. At 5:30 am the 1st day I got a call for middle school science. When I arrived at the school I was handed the keys, the class schedule and a map of the school. It was 2 sections of 8th grade science and 3 sections of PE There were no lesson plans, no seating charts, no attendance strips. I asked the most honest looking girl in science where they had left off the day before and picked up from there. Of course half the kids said they had already done the work so I said the teacher wanted them to do a review

I asked another PE teacher what to do (I was middle aged and doing a sedentary job) and he said they were reviewing for the standardized tests. Of course there were no materials so I took 45 kids/class out into an enclosed yard and kept them in motion while preventing escapes.

Since I have been teaching, I have made sure to always leave a lesson that will take longer to complete than the class, that way if the students stray, the sub can tell them s/he must collect it at the end of class to make them focus. I never leave a lesson that requires teaching, just crowd control.

Even when I have become ill overnight, I will get online and send an email to the sub secretary. One Saturday night I went into the hospital for emergency surgery but when I woke up Sunday afternoon I called a colleague and told him which video in my emergency stash to give the sub.

If a sub goes off track and does not keep classroom order s/he doesn’t get called in future. Those who do a good job, even if they do their own thing gets called a lot. If @teh kvit liberal was in my class, Iwouldn’t accept his attitude.

Breaking news – I just saw my friend at lunch, and the district she works for has just let the sub contract to Kelly Office Temporaries. Now the subs have to have 1) completed high school and 2) be able to use the computer to sign up for assignments. My friend doesn’t use the computer so her career is over, and the district is obviously opting for babysitting rather than teaching. The other big local district now requires subs to have teacher certification, so they seem to be going for teaching rather than babysitting. Interesting dichotomy, wouldn’t you say?

OMG @Darwin what dark side of the universe do you live on? We just heard that LAUSD is using Kelly for Special Ed classroom aides to save money. Of course they are just asking for a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Anybody who interacts with children in schools should have to go through the same FBI criminal check as teachers. Do parents want the guy who barely made it out of hs taking charge of a room full of kids? And in the case of the special ed aides what happens when there is an accident with a severely disabled child or the temp isn’t attentive enough and a kid falls or chokes?

@answerjill – I do think the standards, at least in my area, are as such that you do need a certain degree and teaching certification to be a substitute. Now, you don’t have to meet the same educational standards…I know many schools in my area that won’t look at you unless you have a Masters or above, but who might consider a Bachelor’s WITH a teaching certification to substitute. But I suppose that may have more to do with the standards in my area and the schools’ preferences than it has to do with legality. I had just never heard of what you or @Darwin are saying, but I don’t doubt it’s true.

Quit being so grumpy, damn!