I got a chance to cover someone else’s class today when this person was off at a workshop. The sub plan was pretty standard: do some reading, do some writing, hand it in. The kids worked diligently and did what they were supposed to. No questions were asked which was okay since it was an English class and I don’t know much about English.
However, it did leave me wondering. Why is it that when we, as teachers, are away, we tend to leave fairly dry lessons for the sub to work through? (I’m as guilty of this as anybody, so I’m asking the question to help myself improve). Partly we do this, I suppose, because we don’t know who our sub will be. Will he be knowledgeable in our content area or will he be a glorified baby sitter? We prepare our plans for the lowest common denominator.
Would it be possible to set up a plan that could explore new content in some sort of discovery manner? Could a sub without the knowledge background help students analyze characters in a novel by drawing links as they read material? In a history class could you research important dates and then draw links between them?
I know these are bad ideas as I’m laying them out, but I guess I’m wondering if a day with a sub can be a really productive day rather than a day where the kids are often left in a holding pattern until the regular teacher returns. Can a sub be brought in and explore and learn things with the kids in an area that’s not his specialty?
I understand the difficulty here that the class might become too disorganized or unruly with a sub if the activity wasn’t structured enough. But with our present way of doing things (and I include myself in that present way) I’m not sure how much learning occurs when we bring in a sub. If learning stops in a school, that kind of defeats the purpose of having kids there, doesn’t it?