Substitute Teaching: A Foot in the Door

For first time teachers, it can be exceptionally difficult to find that critical first job that gives experience and a steady paycheck to start paying down those loans acquired in college. While math and science positions usually have no problem finding a district in need of their employment, social studies degrees are a dime-a-dozen. I am one of those people.

My story of going through college involved several hard looks into what I wanted to do with my career and it all started with being a freshman in the advisor’s office. Sitting down in the office while still trying to absorb all the new things going on in a college setting was nearly impossible. I was thinking about timetables, work schedules, and getting my textbooks for the start of the term…what was this guy going to talk to me about? He told me about the social studies program and about how I had to make a choice between getting in-depth with my field or branching out to make myself more employable. Considering I had all of about 5 minutes to think about, I went with taking a minor in history instead of something like chemistry or industrial technology. I knew there was going to be a price for it in the long run, but that was far away right?

Four years later and I find myself as a graduate from college coming back to my hometown looking for that first teaching position and then the other shoe drops – there is nothing available! “How could the possibly be?” I asked myself, “there are thousands upon thousands of students in my area of the country, how could there be a lack of jobs?” Well, I would have said that to myself if mentally I had not just slammed the shifter into reverse at 60 miles an hour… What followed were several months of depression and working side-jobs while continually applying for anything and everything that I could find in my county.

Eventually, something opened up for me…substitute teaching. However, substitute teaching? Isn’t that something that border-line retirees and spouses without absolute need for a second income do? Isn’t that being stuck to an endless cycle of classrooms where you don’t know the names of any of the students and being berated for being ‘the sub’? It can be, but it depends on how you look at it.

Going into substitute teaching, I wasn’t very thrilled at the prospect of uneven work with short notice and no benefits, but as time progresses I find that being a substitute isn’t as bad as some make it out to be; furthermore there is two great advantages to being a sub:

1. You are exposed to a variety of classrooms. You could be teaching health one day and then get a call to go teach drafting later in the week. At least the subject matter cannot get stale, because you will only be there for a short time and then on to something else. This variety also lets you get away with not being the bad guy, leave the report to the classroom teacher…after all isn’t that why they are getting paid the bucks? =)

2. Substitute teaching gets your foot in the door of the district. If a district happens to have an opening for a position you are capable of filling, your going to be one of the first people that know about it and it’s much more likely that your going to be called for a position when the district already knows of you instead of the hundreds of applicants that have submitted their resumes.

Accordingly, I guess substitute teaching isn’t all that bad…but I wouldn’t want to make it a career!