The Pros And Cons Of Substitute Teachers

American author A.W. Tozer once wrote “When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.” (Tozer.) While Tozer was almost certainly referring to daily life, this principle can also be applied to the horrific amount of time wasted in schools today. In such a competitive global environment, American schools cannot afford to throw away precious instruction time. However, overcoming obstacles such as frequently unqualified substitute teachers, aggressive amounts of “busy work,” and understaffed schools lead to a substantial deficit in classroom instruction. In theory, substitute teachers are a practical solution to a common issue: Responsible adults leading the class when a teacher is called away by a meeting, an appointment, or illness.

Unfortunately, these substitute teachers are under-trained, disrespected, and are generally instructed to pass out some asinine busy work. In the state of Ohio, substitute teachers are required to have a clean background check and a bachelor’s degree. (“Substitute License.”) The issue with this requirement is that the area of the degree held is not specified. A graduate could have literally no experience or qualifications to be around children and still be hired as a substitute teacher. This leads to poorly managed, chaotic classrooms. Repeatedly lenient substitute teachers would eventually become embroiled in a seldom escapable environment of disrespect, leading to even more wasted class time. Students have a knack for pinpointing effective ways to divert subs from their lesson plans. For example, a student might bring up a topic of interest to the teacher, or claim that the class had already finished the assignment mandated for

Students in the state of Ohio who are expected to graduate high school in 2018 have become a metaphorical “guinea pig” of sorts in terms of the state’s testing standards. Over the decade they have been in school, these students have been subject of a multitude of tests: the IOWA, COGAT, OAA (formerly known as the OAT), PARC and AIR. All of these examinations were designed to test the effectiveness of the student’s intellectual growth over the course of a given school year, but, realistically speaking, do more harm than good. These examinations occupy between three days and two weeks of crucial learning from the students’ year. Many teachers are fearful of the consequences of poor test scores, and so they find themselves “teaching to the test.” “Teaching to the test” is a practice in which educators focus heavily on material that may appear on the state assessment, rather than reinforcing information that might be more relevant to a student’s actual development.