Oklahoma Substitute Teachers

I tried a new venture -- my sister recommended I try substitute teaching at the local Ponca City School district. Ponca City Schools employ about 800, 400 are classroom teachers and assistants. The district and schools claim to value those willing to fill in for teachers taking training, ill, or with personal or family emergencies.

Call 580-767-8000 for more information about teaching at the Ponca City, OK public schools.

What I found was pretty much what I suspected. Given an individual child, I can usually weather the day. Give me 8 to 28, though, and there are some techniques that I haven't learned that keep the student focused on the assigned material, and my day a lot easier. My biggest *first* challenge is classroom management.

There are many aspects of classroom management -- discipline, organization of material, time, student placement, and presentation. A substitute teacher does not walk onto an empty stage -- the classroom, students, lesson plan, materials, and texts all belong to the (now absent) teacher. So while the sub may question whether the teacher has made the best choices in how student seats are arranged or assigned, the material assigned, or time allotted, there should be no changes, for the most part.

I found an article on education-world.com Classroom Management: Principals Help Teachers Develop Essential Skills that recommended several books on classroom management. This will be my immediate reading list. Relevant chapters in the first two books were most often recommended.

The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong. You can read an Education World interview with Harry Wong: Speaking of Classroom Management.
Fred Jones Tools for Teaching by Fredric H. Jones Ph.D., Brian Jones (Illustrator) (Paperback: 352 pages, Fredric H Jones & Assocs, 1st edition, October 1, 2000)
In Tools for Teaching, Dr. Jones describes the skills by which exceptional teachers make the classroom a place of success and enjoyment for both themselves and their students. Tools for Teaching integrates the management of discipline, instruction and motivation into a system that allows you to reduce the stress of teaching by preventing most management headaches. Dr. Jones helps you reduce student disruptions, backtalk, helpless handraising and dawdling while helping you increase responsible behavior, motivation and independent learning. These skills are made accessable by practical, down-to-earth language and many examples and illustrations that provide the next best thing to attending one of Dr. Jones' workshops.
Read an Education World e-interview with Fred Jones: The King of Classroom Management.
What Do I Do When...? How to Achieve Discipline With Dignity in the Classroom by Allen N. Mendler (Paperback: 187 pages, Natl Educational Service, April 1992)
This book is a practical, hands-on guide that shows educators how to apply the central principles of Discipline with Dignity in a wide variety of realistic classroom situations.
Reluctant Disciplinarian: Advice on Classroom Management From a Softy who Became (Eventually) a Successful Teacher by Gary Rubinstein, Larry Nolte (Illustrator) (Paperback: 143 pages, Cottonwood Pr, July 1999)
Based on the author's middle school and high school experience. In this funny and insightful book, Gary Rubinstein relives his own truly disastrous first year of teaching. He begins his teaching career armed only with idealism and romantic visions of teaching - and absolutely no classroom management skills. By his fourth year, however, he is named his school's "Teacher of the Year." As Rubinstein details his transformation from incompetent to successful teacher, he shows what works and what doesn't work when managing a classroom.

A "Substitute Teacher's Home On The Web" From Utah State University. Free resources and purchased CD and Online training.

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Updated: 2003-09-11 - bk