During my first year of pedagogy, I had to be out for quite a lot of professional person-development days during the school year. I was not an effective classroom director my kickoff year, and I taught several classes of students with behavioral disorders. The combination of these factors means that during much of my offset twelvemonth, I was plagued by DABOBLYSWAB, which stands for that feeling of Diarrhea-ish Awfulness Brought On By Leaving Your Students With a Sub.

One 24-hour interval when I was out, my students used my duct tape to record one another to chairs and uploaded a video of it to Facebook.

I don't desire to talk about information technology.

The practiced news, though, is that over the past several years, I've learned several things well-nigh preparing to be out when y'all've got a tough crowd of students. I'thousand proud to say that my DABOBLYSWAB has been about entirely cured. In fact, I was out for a twenty-four hours this past week and received a near-perfect report from the sub, which virtually made me weep, then fabricated me skeptical for simply a 2d, but then almost fabricated me weep again.

If you have found yourself suffering from major DABOBLYSWAB, here are 9 ways to ready for a substitute for your tough class:

1. First, empathize that having a positive classroom civilisation tin can eliminate a LOT of the issues with students misbehaving for substitutes. If your students respect you lot (on a deep level, not one that is fright-based), there is a much greater chance they will behave for the substitute. If you and your students hate one another, don't be at all surprised that when you leave your classroom, the substitute is terrorized. Retrieve near it this fashion: Are you more than likely to practise a favor for a boss that yous detest or one y'all deeply respect?

If your grade-teacher relationship is still a piddling shaky, don't worry. There are still things you lot can do to aid minimize DABOBLYSWAB!

ii. Review policies and procedures with your students the twenty-four hour period before you are out. Remind them of all your procedures, including bathroom policy, visiting the nurse, etc., and that yous are leaving details of these procedures with the substitute, so there should exist no reason for them to claim they have of a sudden forgotten them.

Some teachers take balked when I say I tell students in advance that I will be out, but I've plant that if everyone knows the plan before I leave (instead of only me), I get a much amend sub report.

3. Permit students preview the assignments for when you lot'll be gone.This has been huge in reducing student misbehavior during my absences.

If you know you lot're going to be out, hand out assignments to your students the day before you leave and then that they can see the assignment, practice (without writing on it) and inquire questions ahead of time. This eliminates the "I didn't know how to practise the assignment, and then instead I decided to bound from desk-bound to desk like a savage" excuse.

Make sure y'all go the assignments dorsum from the students after they preview them then your sub will have them for the adjacent day. This eliminates the "I lost the assignment you gave us, so I decided to create a formalism burn in the center of your classroom and sacrifice all your function supplies" excuse.

iv. Have a Pinkish Sheet. The Pinkish Sheet is my all-time friend for combatting DABOBLYSWAB. I created it the twenty-four hours after the duct record incident and have never had a miserable sub feel since. Basically, the Pink Canvass is an organized, detailed way of getting feedback on educatee beliefs while y'all're out, AND information technology's an incentive for students if they know they'll receive a advantage for a loftier Pink Sail score.

(I just print it out on pinkish paper because I like it.)

The great matter about the Pink Sail is that my students will oftentimes ask the sub to update them on their score, specially if they see him/her writing on information technology. A friend of mine subbed for me last twelvemonth and said my classes were constantly asking what score they were getting. If they were being a piffling too chatty, all she had to say was, "Oh, I think I might suit your Pinkish Sheet score," and they would straighten up.

You can download an editable version of my Pink Sheet here!

v. Take a reward system in place. I tell students if they go a Pink Sheet score of 23 or higher, everyone in that class getsa random sticker from this book. (Think your students are too former/cool/tough to be thrilled almost getting a sticker featuring a sweet potato or a mounted law officer? You'd be surprised.) I besides give an Oreo to the students with the highest scores. If more than one form has a perfect Pink Sheet Score, I complain loudly about having to purchase so many Oreos, which is, for some reason, even more of an incentive for them because my students are surprisingly schadenfreude-y little humans.

If stickers and Oreos are personally or morally offensive to you, experience free to supercede them with your own incentives, even if it's a simple thank-you for adept behavior.

6. Go out a detailed, clear set of instructions for the substitute. I've seen the letters some teachers leave for substitutes and am baffled that the teacher thought some other human being would exist able to understand them. Your instructions should exist as clear-cut as possible. "Class X does assignment Ten which is in location Ten and should be turned in at X time. Class Y does consignment Y which is in location Y and should exist turned in at Y fourth dimension," and then on. In improver to classwork, make sure your instructions include:

  • Emergency data.
  • Important phone numbers/extensions (likewise as how to dial extensions).
  • Relevant policies and procedures.
  • Special student instructions (students who can be relied on to run errands, students who may need special help, etc.).

A template of my sub letter can be downloaded here! Hooray!

7. If you've got a particularly tough crowd, arrange for a fellow teacher to cheque in on your students/substitute halfway through form. I would effort to limit this, as it puts more work/responsibleness on your didactics buddies. Simply if you've got a really tough grade that you're worried near, it tin can be effective.

8. Don't get out new or difficult work for a substitute. The assignment doesn't take to exist like shooting fish in a barrel per se, only the directions demand to be clear, understandable and familiar. A day when you're out is not the fourth dimension to be introducing their senior thesis research project or doing a scientific discipline experiment involving corrosive acids.

9. Understand that substituting is a difficult job. It'due south asking a lot of a person, especially at a school like mine, to regularly walk into a course and teach students without knowing:

  • any of the rules or procedures.
  • whatever of the students or their behavioral idiosyncrasies.
  • where materials are located.
  • what to do if you lot have questions.

Knowing these things volition assistance yous gear up and volition allow you to be more sensitive to things going less than perfectly.

Other tips:

  • When in uncertainty, assign more, not less. If all your students end the assignment in the first 15 minutes of class, it will make them a lot more difficult for a substitute to control.
  • Have articulate, realistic ideas in mind of what students should be doing when they are finished. Expecting a tough class to ALL be reading silently for 45 minutes later they've finished may non be realistic. I've discovered that allowing students the pick of using personal technology simply requiring them to stay seated is skilful for crowd control later on they accept completed their work.
  • If you lot wish, leave your jail cell number and encourage the substitute to use calling/texting as a threat. When students know that they could be immediately accountable for their behavior, they tend to straighten up pretty quickly. (If you're out for a mental wellness day, perchance don't get out your number 🙂
  • If you wish, tell your students ahead of time that one of the assignments or pages will be counted as a quiz grade. They will notice out which assignment it is after yous return.I don't do this, since I don't like being tricked every bit an developed and probably wouldn't as a student, either, just maybe you could make it work for you.

What are YOUR tricks to combat DOBOBLYSWAB?

Love, Teach teaches English at a Title I eye school and writes nearly it athttp://www.loveteachblog.com. In addition to teaching, she enjoys thinking nigh kittens and horrifying her mother by using the discussion "diarrhea" on public web log posts. You lot tin follow Dear, Teach on Facebook or Twitter (but she'southward really bad at Twitter).

How to Prepare Your Class for a Sub