Saw a post earlier that mentioned subbing. It made me think about how stressful these days are when you have to sub at another school. My dispatch company sometimes calls me in the morning at around 7:30/8:00 am and sends me to subs that are 2 hours away and it always seems to be elementary schools for some reason. Even when I worked at eikiawa I felt that subbing was stressful, too.
What is your experience subbing at other schools?
12 comments
If you are not being paid extra, yeah it’s the absolute worst. More rage inducing than stressful.
If you are getting paid extra because it’s outside of your normal work hours/days, it’s the best.
My regular BOE had a super unique curriculum, so any time they tried to make me sub somewhere else I’d just call in sick because I had zero experience with regular ALT stuff.
They eventually caught on and just stopped trying to have me sub.
If I was responsibility free (no kids) and had not sworn off ever being an ALT, I would love to apply for one of those roving alt jobs and subbing full time for a stint. I love subbing at places I’ll probably never go again. Or only visiting once a year. You have to have a good stock of schtick you can pull from and be a good communicator to slip into classes that may be woefully behind and deal with staff who balk at unknown gaijin.
Like anything it’s not for everyone. Sudden schedule changes when you haven’t signed up for it are never fun. Travelling can be tiring for sure.
Perhaps I was that person, but if that is the case I was talking about subbing at an international school. Like, an actual international school. I think that is different from what you are describing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teachinginjapan/comments/zcfls7/comment/iz91c55/?context=3
In my case it is not stressful because I’m not mandated by contract to show up. They are welcome to ask me to come for whatever hours they need, I’m welcome to say no or yes to any or all.
The work is sporadic, but if you don’t need a steady income or hours it can be pretty enjoyable.
Usually wasn’t stressful as the kids didn’t know me and behaved or acted better than normal
What I didn’t like and you seem to not like as well, is the stupid long commute you end up having to sub. It’s unpaid and honestly unfair to have a one way two hour commute.
Extremely exhausting and the commute is bad. Have to wake up really early just to be able to reach the school on time. Last sub-assignment I had was in Yokohama. 💀
“It depends”. While I didn’t really much enjoy substitute assignments, I could understand why they were necessary – the ‘system’ allowed me to call out when I was unwell, or use my PTO without much (any?) drama.
I was generally ok with substitute assignments that were assigned “in advance” (a day, or even a week or more in ahead of time), where the regular ALT would provide information of the classes for the day. I could ask some questions, and even get photos of the relevant textbook pages if they used a different textbook from my schools. It also allowed me to plan for my commute and minimize the odds of getting lost.
What I didn’t enjoy was “standby” / same morning substitute assignments. They usually don’t come with adequate information, the regular ALT isn’t available to answer questions, and I need to navigate the commute in real-time. On more than one occasion, I boarded the wrong train, entered the wrong line, or couldn’t find the bus stop… and it’s never fun to start a day highly stressed. At some point, I just stopped accepting these assignments.
If schools ran their classes properly, with the HRT/JTE as T1, and the ALT as a supporting role, it would be fine. But in a number of schools, the roles are reversed – and it makes it really hard to substitute.
Some ALTs are still good in such situations, and have a good handle on the curriculum; while others would just would just leave it up to the HRT/JTE deal with it. “I’m just a substitute, and your BOE requires you to T1…”, and watch the class burn to the ground.
Not surprisingly, for some dispatch companies, how you approach being a substitute seems to play into how often you get called out to do so. If you’re really good at it, it would make sense that they would deploy you more often, or if you’re really bad at it, then they’ll probably only pick you if they have no other options, and possibly only give you “regular assignments” with little or no substitute/standby days; and for other dispatch companies, they don’t care – you’re just a number – a warm body to drop into any open slot that they need filled.
On the whole, I think substitute assignments significantly broadened my horizons. There are many different schools all around Japan, and some of them are pretty unique in their own ways. The children, as well as the teaching methods used by their teachers. I’ve learned things from good JTE/HRTs and was sometimes able to “bring back” some interesting ideas, methods, and/or worksheets to my regular school/classes.
Not really. The most stressful part is typically the commute. Once you’re at the school 49 times out of 50 it’s a cake walk.
I HATE IT, especially when I get there and the teacher asks me what I’ve planned for the day (which happened a lot of times) they expect me to have a lesson plan for their lesson and be teacher 1 when I’m just the sub.. I hate it and I hate my company more for sending us to far location with no extra payment..
Only when the kids are dicks or the school is far away. Past that, it tends to be easy for me.
Try domming.
Very relatable! I absolutely loathe subbing. The uncertainly, then if you’re called, being shipped off to some school to basically just do introduction lessons on myself and go home. yeah no thanks, I’d rather not.
If there was financial incentive for sub assignments + paid for my time in transit, it would be a lot more appealing. otherwise f off.