My third tutoring experience at Meadow Valley Middle School* was very interesting, and involved switching classrooms with my student and two substitute teachers. I started out with Lynn* in her regular math classroom, where there was the first substitute teacher of the day, Mr. N.* A conflict erupted almost immediately when Mr. N. told the students they were all going to a different room together. The students practically exploded, and everyone was yelling at the substitute teacher because they knew that their usual routine was different than the instructions he had been given. The efforts of Mr. N. to explain to them that he had been given different instructions only resulted in louder protests. Later, I saw the same thing happen with a different group of students when I followed Lynn to the classroom where she participates in group activities led by eighth grade students. The substitute teacher in that room could not figure out how to work the video that was supposed to be shown, and the sixth grade students proceeded to ignore the older students and yell instructions at the substitute.
After observing this, I would like to focus on why the presence of substitute teachers seemed to create such chaos. The first answer may have been because of the change in routine for the students. I’ll use Lynn as an example- she seems very set on her routine in school, and often tells me which classes she is going to for the day and even what she is having for lunch. If the school routine really means something, such as a sense of stability for some students, it could be upsetting when the routine is disrupted.
The second reason could have been because of the mutual frustration of both students and teachers. When a substitute is visibly frustrated because of poor instructions or planning, their already precarious hold on control of a classroom can be quickly destroyed, especially if the students are already frustrated with what they perceive as a lack of competence on the part of the teacher. Sitting in the middle of the group of sixth graders, this seemed to be the source of their frustration, along with the fact that they did not want to miss any of the video being shown. When the teacher lets this attitude affect them and gets frustrated with the students, it makes the situation worse as they feed off of each other.
A third answer could be the general attitude of the students that the presence of the substitute equals a chance to goof around. During the time in the second classroom, I was actually invited by the students to participate in one of their activities about bullying. I had forgotten what it was like to stand up in front of the whole class and participate in a small skit, and the general feeling I got from standing there was one of complete apathy as to the presence of the substitute. The opportunity costs of socializing and losing focus seemed so diminished that most of the students were not even paying attention to the skits. Of course, a combination of these reasons is probable for the behavior of the students, the frustration of the substitute teachers, and the ensuing chaos.
