A little backstory.

In my state you can substitute teach if you have a 4 year degree in ANY subject, and in the poor areas, that can be waived to increase the pool of full time or part-time teachers. --Who says the black communities are underserved? Uneducated and unqualified people, c 'mon in!

To pick up some cash while applying for jobs in my degree, I did a LOT of substituting in many classrooms in multiple districts within driving distance. Big city and rural. I liked it so much a teacher and I got pretty friendly and she let me volunteer in her classroom so that when I decided to go back and get my degree in education, I could be waived through some of the requirements. Wow! I'm on my way, I love kids! I got to teach whole lessons by myself, kids liked me, I like them, hooray, I found my calling in life!

HELL NO! This profession S*U*C*K*S!

As the rose-colored glasses wore off, I realized this fairly low-paying profession is a horrible choice for multiple different reasons. To go back and actually complete the requirements, rack up more debt, and face paying it all off for MAYBE $36k/yr job (starting) is pure stupidity. Oh sure, work in the city at the WORST minority schools and start around $48/k, quit or get fired and spend it all on therapy, no thanks.

Substitute teaching is for life:

As I talked to other licensed sub teachers, they NEVER get selected to be full-time teachers. Nope, it turns out they are the Island of Misfit Toys. Districts NEED those handy and desperate souls to be on-call forever. Without them, there could be a crisis and even schools shut down. One sub had been doing it for 8 years and constantly sent in applications, no no avail. HERE'S THE TRICK! When you are a student, you MUST sign up and pay dues to the local teacher's union. When you apply for jobs, written or online, the "send" button is the same as the "delete" button.  The district goes directly to the union for a list of names of applicants (read: loyal dues-paying members) and of those with a history of paying and nods of political approval from the local university, get interviewed. Yeah, it's rigged. 

Political litmus test to be a teacher:

Not teachers, educational activists, Social Justice Warriors are what universities crank out. All those term papers with politically charged themes from the professors are ways to sift out like-minded radicals and weed out heretics. The radicals get A's so they can move on with a high G.P.A. and get jobs, plus they are, wink-wink, put in a database of purists for future employment opportunities. The heretics are given low grades and can never seem to find a job. The textbooks are almost entirely grievance-based for minorities, white self-hate manuals, and essentially teaches how to be a social worker and surrogate parent to "under-served communities." --who do you suppose that is? Only union, ideologically appropriate people are given party jobs, just like communism. "All for the party, none for everyone else!" 

The dumbest students on campus:

What does it take to be a teacher? Not much! Anyone with skill goes into another profession, or teaches a subject with skill: art, music, gym class--ha! Ok, not gym, but you get the point. The know-nothing / do-nothing dummies go into teaching and basically read from math book page 7, then 8, then 9 etc. Then the spelling book, then the science book and on and on. It doesn't take any skill at all. The college students are bar-none the stupidest people you will ever run into. Their professors taught for a few years, HATED IT, escaped, got their PhD, then decided they knew it all and taught teachers. Don't be fooled, the nose-in-the-air classroom teachers are dumber than a box of Rosie O'donnells. They all are.

WRETCHED humans inhabit our public schools:      (Listen closely, shit you never knew!)

The MOSTLY WOMEN teachers, especially in the K-8 grades, are putrid awful bitter human beings who should ALL be summarily fired and replaced. Ugh, where to begin?

First: all your family's dirty laundry: who's divorced, who's in jail, who's an alchoholic. You're kids health: who's on medication, who's in therapy, who is a little brat, who is slightly autisic etc, ALL OF THAT is knee-slapping tabloid gossip for ALL of the teaching staff! What the fuck? Yes, the teacher's lounge, the whispering to each other in the hallway between classes and after school is all your PRIVATE stories they yuck it up about every chance a little tidbit falls into their lap. Send a note, email, telephone call,  to the teacher requesting something or complaining about something, all of it is for public consumption. "Sally, next year you get Timmy! He's a brat, but that should be expected b/c his mother is a floozie and his father is a drunk." "Oh, did you see her FAKE rings at parent/teacher conference? Ha! Who does she think she is? How much alimony can she possibly get from that unemployed ex-husband of hers anyway?" (Betty Rubble giggles) --fucking horrible people. The pain of children means nothing to them. The tales of family suffering is lunchroom material. There is no student/teacher confidentiality, none, zero, there is no moral component with these people. The women sit together and talk about their periods, labor and afterbirth, menopause, the whole female gambit. Meanwhile I'm throwing-up my spaghetti. Tee hee women talking dirty around men, so liberating for them to do so! Good job feminists, I really learned my lesson! 

Second: these bitter women hate everything on the planet. Christian holidays, they make excuses to eliminate it b/c "someone was offended" Noooooo, YOU were that someone who was offended! They can't STAND the principal telling them what to do. If it's a man it's patriarchy if it's a woman principal she is the top hen in the henhouse and is a bitch strutting around waving her authority in their face. "I don't know why the principal reorganized the fire drill, we've been doing it the same for the past 10 years, who does he/she think he/she is!" "The specials classes were moved to the afternoon this year!" "Why do I have 4 troubled students and Ms. Jones only has 3?" "Why do I get the new student that started in October?" --yeeech, these harpies do this from the time you walk in the door, until the time you leave. Just fucking complainers who find an excuse to fill their day by dumping shit on anyone but themselves. A lot of them are divorced. You can tell which one are the worst: 40 something butch-haired self-important goblin, watch out for these! Every grade, every school, every district I taught in, same people, same complainers, same bitter, shitty attitudes. 

Third: black students are special "Get out of Jail Free" cards. Need more gov't money? Get some more black students! If you have a certain precentage, you are labeled a "Title 1" school! You can have them bussed in, or taxied in from across down, doesn't matter, you need them. Free school breakfast and lunch, provided by the union food service industry with jobs and the people who sell the basic food products. The horrible food is thrown into barrels, the union staff hauls it out to the curb, and union workers pick it up and dump it in the landfill. A $2 lunch cost $10 to process. But that's Ok concerned taxpayer, it's all "for the kids!"

Black student's state scores are NOT COUNTED! Huzzah! The school's G.P.A. doesn't drop b/c of failing black students! Why? B/c they are all usually L.D. students, Learning Disabled. They take the test, but their scores are not included. Pretty good huh? As an L.D. student, they get special ed teachers ($$$) and go to E.S.L. classes even though English is their 1st and only language, and the E.S.L. teacher keeps her job because of all the sudden need. They are 2 grade levels below their peers, and when they go to 3rd grade they are still 2 grade levels behind, and on and on. Not taught, not tested, no system to evaluate their progress is used. -no one cares, teachers babysit, not teach. In fact, them being so far behind makes claims of "racism" and more public funding to fix it. $$$ -Cha-Ching! $$$

P.T.O. money goes to black students' school supplies. Yep. The Parent/Teacher Organization raises money primarily so those precious black students get free school supplies. While everyone else's parents go to Wal*Mart and pick up a school supply list, the black kids get theirs from the huge supply closet at school. Otherwise, the black kids STEAL supplies from the other kids and that causes problems. Those kids qualify for after school programs too, and that money is funneled to them as well. "It's for the kids!"

Teachers WASH OUT of the profession inside of 5 years.

Teachers don't run their own classroom! This job is so poorly run, that teachers get burned out within 5 years and hurry to go find something else to do while they still have time. The students are manipulative brats who tell lies to their parents, the parents demand and nag to the teacher and principal, the principal is spineless and sides with the parents no matter how ridiculous the complaint is. The school board can recommend firings for virtually any reason: bathing suit photo found on facebook, an "offensive" comment made on Twitter, a past minor violation unknown to the school is automatic disqualification such as an underage drinking citation, misdemeanor marijuana charge, you yelled at a board member's kid one time,  NO ONE is qualified to teacher your kids! Add in state officials, then federal officials and their stupid new fandangled programs: "No Child Left Behind" and "Common Core" and you find out you are not in a classroom, but trapped in a psych-ward that you can't escape!

Lesson plans? What lesson plans? You have a math book don't you? No worksheets, no videos, no internet programs, nothing is set up for your success. You start with a classroom, books, a chalkboard and you're on your own. How do you fill in that 30 minutes between subjects? I don't know, you figure it out! The school has only existed for the past 80 years, we don't have a library of lesson plans for you!

Go teach the farm kids!

That's a good point, and I did that.....a lot. Rural kids are actually fun and their parents are far less bitchy than the snooty liberal crybully city parents. Wanna work and live in a town of 2000 people making $31,000/year for the rest of your life? Do you like driving 3 hours just to go to a movie theater or a well-stocked supermarket? Then sneak back to your apartment cubicle with internet dial-up with no possible dating material in Anytown, USA? Not really, this is the kind of place kids dream of escaping from, and now you are a permanent resident just like your grandparents? Nope. 

Ok, then teach the city kids!

Without question, the minority dominated city public schools have pupils that are beyond Anarchists and the KKK combined. Never have I witnessed such blantant and public racism as with these students. Walk right up and scream in your face, "Fuck you white mothafucka! Watchu gonna do 'bout it bitch? Nothin' that's what, I'll have your job and your balls on my desk by lunch time, --tell me what to do!"  What does the principal do? Nothing, -welll shrug shoulders then nothing. The binary choice for these kids is: 1) Is there a physical threat to me if I DON'T do what you're saying? 2) Then there is no need for me to do what you are saying.  THIS is why black parents are always beating the shit out of their kids, b/c that's the only way they will actuall listen to anyone. Teachers don't have that option and the students know it and do what they want. You should calmly explain to the pscychopathic racist that he is distrubing the other children's ability to concentrate and study and that scumbag is going to "I-don't-give-a-fuck" you to death until you force him out of the classroom and possibly lose your job, then his mother comes in screaming, or you should just quit because every damn day is like this. Whatever they are paying you, it isn't enough. And if it IS enough, do you want to put up with this shit every day until you retire? Really? A 4th grader spitting in your face calling you a honky every time you correct him? How about 3 students in the same class like this? How about 25? Haven't you seen video on youtube of kids fighting, standing on desks, singing rap songs while the teacher says, "Sit down please....."

Summer School: My last job:

At the end of the school year, I signed up for summer school for 4 weeks. One of the gentle snowflakes was upset because I told her even more gentle snowflake daughter to sit down, mulitple times! Oh the tyranny! The country kids get a slap on the back of the head if I report them to the parents, the liberal parents freak the fuck out. That's just what she did. In college I got swept up in a protest turned mini-riot and my group got cable ties on us and charged. I wasn't even protesting, I was WATCHING. Charges dropped, no crime free to go, thanks dumbass cops, that's what I was trying to tell you in the first place. GUESS WHAT? Snowflake mom saw I had "charges" on my record and demanded I be removed. Principal made me explain and I thought I cleared it up. "Yeah, but you have charges..." (sigh) Got out the sock puppets and explained very slowly once again, charged but dropped = innocent. That means the gov't didn't have sufficient cause to find me guilty, because I wasn't, and the prosecutor didn't bring it to trial b/c they know they would LOSE, I had witnesses with solid evidence as well. "Yeah, but you were still charged." I was told to finish my summer school and I wouldn't be allowed back to the school to sub anymore. Principal translation: "I am a coward and cannot defend myself or staff from hostile parents, so I need to find a way to get you out of here so I can make it to retirement."

Conclusion:

If you or anyone you know is thinking about this horrible babysitting job, don't. If you're already in college studying, change your major. If you are in teaching, study something else and get another job.

It is a profession of ridiculously stupid people who are poorly trained at the college level, activists are screened INTO your schools, the teachers are not provided proper on-the-job training, given poor to zero materials to work with. Everyone but you runs your classroom from POTUS on down. The students are just racist brats biding their time until old enough to apply for welfare. Whatever you saw on Little House on the Prairie, life isn't like that.

Get out while you can. I was defeated and runned down by the corrupt system after only 1 calendar year of substitute teaching. It grinds down those rose-colored glasses very quickly. It's like seeing how hotdogs are made from the slaughtering plant to the meat grinder, to packaging, you just don't want to know how it's done, especially if it's done poorly. Glad I did the job, learned a lot, but glad I learned the most important lesson before it was too late: don't bother.