High School Substitute Teacher's Guide

Book excerpt: "You're a high school substitute? Are you crazy? We were so mean to them!" This is a common reaction when I tell people what I do, but I love substitute teaching at the high school level. I started substitute teaching in 1989, fresh out of college. I was looking for a way to support myself while I was in graduate school. A friend told me, "You have a bachelor's degree, so you can be a substitute teacher." In writing this book, I hope to be as good a friend for you as he was for me. This book explains not only how to get a high school substitute teaching job, but also how to do the job so well that it will be rewarding in and of itself. If you know any college graduates who are unemployed, tell them about this book. It might help them support themselves in the meantime, while they seek employment in their fields. Being an excellent substitute can also open the door to a regular full-time teaching position. Up until the advent of the Internet, most books for substitute teachers consisted largely of worksheets the substitute could photocopy and hand out to students, in the event the regular teacher hadn't left enough work to fill the whole class period. Today, you can instantly find and project one of a million free Internet worksheets. Heck, 99% of today's high school students have phones capable of finding these worksheets. You won't find worksheets in this book. High school students are too smart to do a substitute's ungraded busy work anyway. Today's high school students crave human interaction. I've seen them get more excited about a classroom discussion than about watching a movie. Times have changed, and I have remained a successful high school substitute teacher by embracing the changing times. Give my book a read and let me show you how to be a good high school substitute teacher who enjoys the job.