5 things I Learned as a Long-Term Sub

By Nicki Thompson – Different districts have different titles for the same position. You might be a “guest teacher,” you might be a “replacement teacher,” you might be a “long-term sub.” They generally mean the same thing.

You’re taking over at some point in the year for another teacher. As a December 2011 graduate of the College of Education, I was fortunate enough to find not one, but two (yes, two!) long-term substitute positions for the second half of the school year. Here’s a list of five things I learned during my journey.

1. Every school culture is different. I student taught in MPS and was hired in Muskego for my first long-term sub position. It was a maternity leave for a Spanish 1 and 2 teacher. My second position was in St. Francis, to replace a teacher who replaced a teacher who was diagnosed with leukemia. Every single school culture is different. Where are the teacher bathrooms? Where do teachers eat lunch? Do I make copies? Does someone else make copies? When is it okay to send a kid to the office for misbehaving? What constitutes a suspension? It’s important to try and figure out how all this works right away.

2. Become friends with the teachers next door right away. My colleagues saved me at both schools. My department chair in Muskego was phenomenal – she helped me with everything. In St. Francis, the teachers near me invited me to lunch during our In-Service Day and made me feel like a true part of the team. In both schools, being able to walk in and ask questions and complain about cranky students and nasty parent phone calls was the key to my success.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I remember asking a secretary at Muskego where the bathroom was. I asked a Spanish teacher how to find the teacher’s lounge. I asked if I could come in on weekends. I asked if I could hang things on the wall with those 3M poster strips, or if I had to use painter’s tape. I asked a LOT of questions. You have to do that as a long-term sub, because there is zero orientation. They tell you a starting date, and you start that morning.

4. Do your very best to make the transition easiest for your students. I found out as much as I possibly could about the previous teacher’s rules. Do they get bathroom passes? Is late homework accepted? How often does she assign homework? How often are the quizzes given? Does she do a Warm-Up? How often does she collect in-class work? These little things are what make a classroom run smoothly, and learning about the last teacher’s routine makes it so much easier for the students.

5. Learn student’s names. Quickly.

Muskego: 5 sections of Spanish; 20-25 students each.
St. Francis: 6 sections of Spanish; 20-25 students each.

That’s a lot of names. Oh, and because I teach Spanish, my students also have two names, their “regular” name and their “Spanish” name. How do you learn them all? Asking “¿Cómo te llamas?” anytime a student answers a question can get annoying. One piece of advice? I had my students make name cards and handed them out and collected them every day. This made the name process a little easier.

I am so, so fortunate to have found two jobs during second semester. I literally haven’t gone a day without teaching this entire year! Everything lined up perfectly, and I finish this year feeling so very fortunate. On top of walking away with five big things that I learned, I have a lot of pride. I’ve taught three different levels of Spanish from three different textbooks, worked with approximately 450 students, and worked in three completely different schools. I didn’t collapse from exhaustion, and that’s enough success for me as a first-year teacher.

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Nicki Thompson is a December 2011 Marquette University College of Education graduate (BS in Middle/Secondary Education and Spanish) and she is currently teaching Spanish at St. Francis High School. She is working as a counselor for Concordia Language Villages Lago del Bosque, a Spanish language immersion camp in Minnesota this summer. In January she is moving to Bolivia with a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to pursue a Master’s in Bilingual Education.

Why I Chose Marquette: Actually, I Didn’t.

By Nicki Thompson — When I was little I wanted to be a ballerina or a princess … or something like that. Middle School came around and I wanted to become a lawyer. I loved to argue so I thought it would be a perfect fit. Once I started taking Spanish, being an immigration attorney or a bilingual family attorney entered into the picture. Then as I became more involved in my high school paper and realized that I was gifted at writing, I decided to be a journalist and applied to UW-Madison, Northwestern, and Marquette. When I didn’t get into Northwestern, my dreams were effectively crushed – that was my dream school.

Madison was just too big, so I settled for Marquette.

Don’t tell admissions, or my mom, but I didn’t even want to go to Marquette. It was a last resort kind of situation. I began working for the Marquette Tribune my freshman year and enjoyed getting to know all of my co-workers and becoming involved in the College of Communication. However, my journalism classes left me less-than-fulfilled. As my discontent with my journalism courses grew, Service Learning was presented as an option in my Spanish class.

Service… learning?
I didn’t know what it was, but getting to use my Spanish in the community sounded like it would be a beneficial option. I signed up for Lincoln Avenue School, a bilingual elementary school on Milwaukee’s south side. I remember the first day driving to the school to get an orientation. I crossed the bridge and suddenly the signage and store fronts turned to español. Where was I?

I had grown up in a suburb of Milwaukee my entire life and had absolutely no idea that a vibrant Hispanic community even existed. Eye-opening experience number one.

I found the school, parked, walked up to the door, and after a little confusion about how to get inside (you need to press the buzzer), I entered the school office. A few minutes later the principal took me back into her office so I could turn in my volunteer application and talk to her about what I was looking for from my experience. She told me that in the school, 96% of the students were receiving free or reduced price lunch. 91% of the students were Black and Hispanic.

For the first time in my life I was a minority. Eye-opening experience number two.

I look back now and it sounds absolutely ridiculous that I was amazed by these statistics. But at the time I was naïve. I began working in a 2^nd grade bilingual classroom that received funding from SAGE, or Student Achievement Guarantee in Education. This means that there were two teachers and approximately 30 students (making the student-teacher ratio 15:1). I worked individually with the students who had most recently immigrated to the United States and/or who were struggling with reading or mathematics. A lot of these second graders could not read in Spanish or English… and I thought back to myself in second grade.

I remember reading small chapter books! Eye-opening experience number three.

Each time I went to the school I became more aware of the injustices and inequalities in our education system. I was privileged. I dislike using that word, but when it comes to my education it is the truth. My parents and grandparents read to me every night when I was a small child. I played with alphabet magnets on the refrigerator in the kitchen. My parents never doubted my teacher’s credentials, worried for my safety during the school day, and trusted that I was doing my homework and working hard. I never came to school hungry.

That isn’t the reality for a lot of our nation’s children. Although the classroom teacher can’t fix everything, he or she can make a large impact on a child and a family. I saw that the classroom teachers at Lincoln Avenue were doing their absolute best and I wanted to do the same. I became inspired and realized that I could make a difference as a teacher. The somewhat cheesy “Be the Difference” Marquette slogan began to ring true with my own personal college experience and I transferred to the College of Education.

I haven’t looked back.
Although I am now studying Middle/Secondary Education and not Elementary Education, I still am drawn to schools with high numbers of emerging bilingual students. In my field placement experiences I have seen the impact that a good classroom teacher can have on a student. I not only love teaching Spanish, but I love connecting with my students. I love making their days a little better, encouraging them to work hard, and pushing them to excel not only academically, but personally.

It is rewarding.  And that is why I want to teach.

Nicole Thompson is majoring  in Middle/Secondary Education and Spanish.  She also has minors in Sociology and Bilingual/Bicultural Education.  Originally from New Berlin, she will be spending this summer in Quito, Ecuador on a scholarship from the Spanish Honor Society (Sigma Delta Pi).