The Substitute Teacher

Once a substitute teacher enters the classroom, teaching can be very stressful. Students can either makes a sub's life hell or easy going especially in those first few days of teaching. For a beginning substitute teacher, as well as a new teacher, it is all about using classroom management tips effectively to reach the kids. Eventually, they WILL respect you, and you will be able to teach them. Here are some quick classroom management tips that apply to all teachers but particularly applies to substitute and new teachers whose image is already full of negative expectations.

The First Secret - Once you get to Know the Students, Grab their Attention

Look at your group of students. What kinds of learning energies as a class group do they send out? Are they passive and uninterested? Perhaps you need to do something challenging and interesting to try and wake them up. Are they rowdy? Perhaps you need to develop the more individual and patient approach. Regain class control and then, when they least expected it, get their attention either through asking them a question, using a visual aid, or writing on the board.

Use your teaching persona to reach the kids. Think drama. Think charisma. Kids want to be challenged, want to think. You need to snap them into another world. Do something out of the ordinary but age appropriate. For elementary kids, this could be starting the lesson off with a jazz chant. For older children, this could be writing a quote on the board or a provocative idiomatic phrase or word. Use your external and internal qualities: your voice, your facial expressions, intonations as well as humor and theatrical antics.

Don't be afraid to share a bit of yourself. It doesn't have to be personal but something that shows the human side. As an ice breaker, you can give the students ten true or false sentences about you and they need to decide which ones are true and false. This can (and should) be done however, when you feel you know the class.

Document, Don't Let Students Take Charge

It is a fact of life that children like to test the limits of seeing how far they can go in terms of putting the classroom behavior. A substitute is a regular teacher by all means. Get to know school policies, what is available in terms of discipline and classroom management, and document. If you can, have an individual talk with the student after the class. The child who performed the negative behavior, should always know that his or her behavior will have negative consequences.

Use the Individual Approach

While discipline problems are somewhat inevitable, there is cetainly one main thing you can do as a new teacher to minimize the negative behavioral outbursts. Use the individual approach to get to know your students. Eventually, this will help you learn how to motivate your students and you will notice a fairly quick change in the response of your students. This means greeting them at the door, having class discussions and reflection sessions, conducting a class survey, conducting individual tutorials, collecting individual feedback and reflection forms on anything from what they want to learn, to how they felt they did on a given assignment. Any classroom activity or approach can be made to meet the individual student's needs.

Remember, You're Not Alone

Don't ever feel alone in the classroom. There are tons of informative research articles on classroom management and online teacher support groups to help.