Substitute Teacher

Substitute Teacher Experience

So, I’m in high school, and I have to say, this substitute teacher we’ve had is honestly one of the least competent I’ve encountered. I genuinely don’t understand how she ever managed to become a substitute teacher. She might even rival our regular teacher in terms of ridiculousness—who, by the way, is also not exactly the best.

Let me explain what happened. My school has a policy about cell phone use—no phones during class (which some students still manage to bypass). This policy was introduced at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, and just a week prior, we were issued Chromebooks.

Recently, my Chemistry class had a substitute, and she was nothing like the ones we had before. We had an assignment to complete on our Chromebooks, which seemed straightforward. The assignment was connected to a website we’ve used several times called “Gizmos.” The instructions from our regular teacher simply mentioned that we should go to Gizmos, but they didn’t clarify that Gizmos is a website. Instead, the instructions suggested that Gizmos was a PDF file linked in a module on “Canvas”—the platform we use for our coursework. However, when we checked, there was no Gizmos activity assigned for our class.

The substitute didn’t believe us; she seemed completely lost on what Gizmos was, only thinking it was that PDF file, due to the faulty instructions. Despite our attempts to explain that Gizmos is indeed a website and not a downloadable PDF file, she dismissed us over and over again. She kept reading the stipulations from the teacher’s instructions, which clearly led us astray. When it became evident that none of us would be able to complete the assignment as requested, I even lost my cool and told her outright that the instructions were incorrect.

For clarification, the directions were essentially, “Go to Canvas, navigate to our course, click on Modules, find the Gizmos Lab, and download the Gizmos.” But here’s the kicker: you can’t download Gizmos; it’s an interactive website!

After my outburst, I thought for sure I’d get written up because the substitute insisted she would report anyone who misbehaved. Meanwhile, we were just trying to explain that the Gizmos assignment had not been assigned to us yet. It wasn’t just a PDF for us to open; it was about accessing the actual Gizmos site. It took nearly 40 minutes for someone to finally mention that we had to search directly for the activity on the Gizmos site. That crucial piece of information was never included in the instructions, leaving us with only 10 minutes left to do any work. And despite everything, the substitute continued asking, “Are you in Gizmos?” “Is Gizmos working?”—which only added to my frustration.

The following day, our regular teacher returned and reprimanded us for how we handled things with the substitute. She insisted that the instructions were “very clear,” when in fact they were anything but. She claimed that our class was the only one experiencing issues and suggested all the other classes were fine. Honestly, it made no sense. She even voiced her disdain for our class, saying she regretted having us because we “never listen.” Let’s be real: it’s hard to listen when instructions are so confusing!

So yeah, this was my frustrating experience with both a less-than-helpful substitute teacher and an equally challenging regular teacher. You can criticize me if you want, but this was such a stressful situation that I felt I needed to share it. We need to do better when it comes to finding substitutes because this was just beyond ridiculous.