An Ohio substitute teacher took to TikTok to spill the tea on a recent sub job wherein she claimed an unprofessional work environment drove her to opt out of finishing the three-day stint.
“What would you have done?? Fr fr I am asking because I definitely cried after being chewed out,” TikTok user Thought Daughter wrote on her TikTok video. She then explains that she “reported” the school she was substituting for, only to then get “yelled at” by school faculty. “So I am not coming back tomorrow.”
According to Thought Daughter, schools generally give substitute teachers materials to work with, such as sub plans to follow. “Nobody told me that the teacher had quit, I had to find that out from a student,” Thought Daughter wrote on TikTok. And she wasn’t given anything else other than a laptop—not even an attendance sheet.
This led her to seek guidance from a neighboring teacher, who she suspects was “held responsible” for making sub plans for the class for weeks. “I could tell he was so over it,” Thought Daughter says. She was given worksheets, which the students finished in “just five minutes.” That still left seven hours of school.
As a result of the work environment, Thought Daughter reached out to her sub agency. “Because not only is it unacceptable for me, as the sub coming in for being put in this position but also for the other teachers in this grade that are having to come up with sub plans because no one else will.”
Thought Daughter then claims she was “chewed out” over the lack of a roster and an attendance sheet. However, she isn’t bothered and hopes she “caught [the school] in something” so that the environment will improve for the current staff.
North Carolina Woman finds support online
Hundreds of commenters flocked to Thought Daughter’s TikTok video, some of whom were teachers and substitutes themselves sharing similar experiences. “As a teacher …. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!! 👏 👏 👏” wrote TikTok user MePaS.
TikTok user Indoubtpinkyout wrote of her experience as a substitute. It was a long-term job taking up a semester. “No sub plans. No help. Nothing,” she wrote. Though an English teacher was able to help her, she was still called “lazy” by the superintendent.
Others offered advice, such as putting on a movie, using YouTube, keeping a binder of emergency worksheets, or having a “bag of learning activities.” In the comments, Thought Daughter shared that she had resorted to episodes of The Magic School Bus, but even then her students—8-year-olds—were still “talking, hitting each other, etc.”
Many understood from Thought Daughter’s TikTok video that, once again, teachers are rarely given the right tools to succeed. And that no job is worth doing if you aren’t being treated fairly.
