Giving Away Control - Really!

As a sub, there's nothing more frustrating than feeling like the kids are in control of the room. You should be, right? Rule that room with an iron fist. No! You can't go to the bathroom. What do you think you're doing with your headphones in? Texting? Not on my watch! RAWR!

Seriously... you're going to give yourself a migraine and you're not winning kid hearts. Granted, you don't *have* to win kid hearts, but it really helps when you do.

The good news is that you don't have to be a complete pushover to win kid hearts - and you don't have win all their hearts, just the ones that really want to work with you and will if you are reasonable. Then you can deal with your troublemakers without creating more.

There are two policies I enforce religiously in classes. The first is the electronics policy: They're not allowed unless and until the regular classroom teacher leaves me a note that they are. End of story. You challenge that, and consequences happen. It's that fast and that easy. Administrators are grateful when I call to get a cell phone removed from my room. It's one more teacher who is standing by the school policy. It's also an entire room of students who see, firsthand, that I mean what I say and I will back it up all the way to removal from my room if it becomes a greater issue.

The other policy I enforce is for safety of all students, and it deals with food. In the vast majority of classes, food is not allowed. In science labs, it's completely verboten. In other classrooms, it all depends on school rules, teacher rules and class allergies. If I have a student with a fatal allergy to foods at any point in my day, nobody eats in any of my classes and I will call an administrator to remove a child who refuses to abide. Straight up, that kid who is eating could kill a kid next period, and I'd be responsible. That's not okay, and it's a battle I will justify picking to anyone who needs justification. It's not just food. It's a potential attack on another student if it's peanut butter.

But that brings me to the title of this post: Giving away control. Outside those two fairly unyielding policies, I have very few rules that cannot be modified to fit the situation. Bathroom passes are granted one at a time with a sign-out sheet for the students, and they largely self-monitor. They control it.

Movement about the room, I'm not so picky on if they're working and productive. Even when I've asked them to stay in their seats, I'm willing to overlook the ones who move (they know that I'm granting amnesty) if they're productive and not disrupting. This is especially true if the class is nice and I have a photo seating chart.

I seldom know what a teacher's absolute rules are, or how passes are granted or anything else. My information is limited. By giving some control away in bathroom passes and movement, I'm better able to enforce those rules I do care about and show that I'm not entirely evil, just trying to maintain some semblance of order and an atmosphere of productivity.