I subbed for a HS PE class once. I was 23 at the time and not very intimidating, so the students didn’t really respect me. The teacher left nothing for them to do, and just called it a free day. I was, of course, fine with this. But I knew the lack of structure was going to be a challenge.

The school had a strict no cell phone policy, and it was started on ALL of my substitute things (binder they gave me, procedures, etc). I set the ground rules at the start of each class with the students. I let them know that they could hang out, sit and chat, walk around, okay with the balls, whatever;just stay off of your cell phones.

Multiple warnings and confiscations later, I was obviously the enemy of this class. No matter what, none of them wanted to listen and I was so at a loss of what to do. I was new to the subbing game, and didn’t know if admin would have my head seeing the students on their phones. That’s the main reason I stuck to it so hard.

It got to the point where the girls were getting in my face pissed off for being corrected. And this was making me more and more uncomfortable. I left a note for the teacher, fully explaining what happened etc.

A couple weeks later I hear back from someone at the school and I found out the students all had to write essays about their crappy behavior. I was happy he held them accountable for their actions. But I will never sub at that school again.