Don't get me wrong - I'm grateful to be in the schools with students and I love the opportunities I have for growth and development. Subbing is a fantastic job. At the same time, however, it is also very difficult and frustrating for me. I finally realized that this is because subbing lacks the three things that I love most about teaching.
First, I love building enduring and meaningful relationships with the students. Sure some subs are frequently found in the same classrooms with the same students, but right now I see new students and am in a different school almost every day. Sometimes a student or two recognizes me (and it makes my day when they tell their friends I'm an awesome sub!), but I really only get those students for a few hours at most. While I enjoy getting to know the many students throughout our district as well as the many wonderful stories and personalities they have to share, I miss getting to know the kids in my classroom on a deeper level and really being the teacher/counselor/role model/etc. that I get to be when I see them daily.
Second, I love to do what I know how to do best. I'm very confident and passionate about what I do when I conduct a class. I get to plan lessons that I feel will be of benefit to my students, practice strategies that I know are research-based and effective, adjust those lesson plans during the class, and then reflect and improve upon each of these in preparation for the coming classes. Moreover, I know who I am as a teacher and what works best for me and my students, loving every minute of it. As a sub, not only am I not able to do each of these things, but I am more or less required to be a specialized babysitter as teachers often leave basic lesson plans with the objective of simply keeping their students managed in their absence. I am usually out of my element with a subject that I do not specialize in teaching, but I'm also following someone else's plan. Early on in my student teaching, I learned that I am my very best when I do me rather than trying to do anyone else's style and method of teaching, but I'm not afforded that luxury as a substitute.
Third, I love the opportunity to see these students learn and grow. This is possibly the most difficult thing for me not to have as it is the core of why I became a teacher. The ability to achieve this depends on the first to reasons I love teaching. Since I have limited time and ability to build relationships with students and am not able to teach the way I know how to, I usually don't get to experience the joy of seeing my students learn and grow. As a sub, I get a brief glimpse of where these students are, and, on occasion, get to revisit them later and receive updates on how they've progressed since the last time I subbed. On very special occasions, I have the opportunity to explain a concept that they didn't understand at the beginning of the period and the pleasure to see things click and they experience success, even excitement, over their newfound knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, even this joy is only half-fulfilled since I won't have the opportunity to re-assess tomorrow and make sure they truly learned the material and then build upon that knowledge.
There are many valuable things I have learned from substituting in many classrooms with a variety of subjects and countless students of all ages and backgrounds. The experience and insights I've gained are priceless and will make me a better teacher than I could have been without having subbed. And, each morning when I get up, I still look forward to the lovely faces I'll meet as well as what I will learn. But more than anything....
I want my own classroom full of my very own students!
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