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Suggestions for Substitutes
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August 2009
"You're happiest while you're making the greatest
contribution.
Robert F. Kennedy
Professional Development: The Importance of Happiness
and Giving
Substitute teachers
are trusted with a very important responsibility of influencing
the students they come in contact with. Being a teacher is a
form of leadership. Because teachers and substitute teachers
alike are charged with molding the opinions and thoughts of the
subsequent generation it is vital that both teachers and
substitute teachers are good examples to those students.
Substitute teachers
can be an example to the students they teach by doing three
things (there are several more, but just three are going to be
suggested in this article):
• Being law abiding citizens
• Being an example of giving
• Being a happy person
It isn't necessary to spend much time discussing why it is
important for a substitute teacher be a law abiding citizen,
hopefully that is fairly clear. Being a giver and being happy
however may not be so obvious.
"Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege."
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Giving has a renewing effect on people. This is important for
substitute teachers to know because teaching is such an
exhausting profession. Substitute teachers spend the whole day
putting out fires and meeting the needs of the students so it is
easy to have burn out very quickly.
In Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People, the Seventh Habit is titled Sharpening the Saw. It
is focused on preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you
have, and that's you. One of the ways he suggests to enhance
that asset is to serve. Serving doesn't have to be a huge
thought out program or event; people can just serve in our
normal everyday life.
Mother Teresa stated this principle when she said:
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one."
Giving in small ways is quite easy, we can give directions to a
stranger, or smile and say hello to people we see, or any other
countless kind deeds. What Winston Churchill said
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we
give"
can best sum up the importance of giving.
Defining happiness
Defining happiness is a difficult thing, but people who
generally say they are happy people will weigh the good and bad
things going on in their life and then say they are a happy
person.
Now lets relate that to the classroom. Studies have proven that
in positive environments students are best able to thrive and
more likely to stay on task. Teachers have the responsibility of
creating those environments and it takes a happy person to do
so. It is important for substitute teachers to be happy people.
Research indicates some characteristics of happy people. Here
are just a few facts from that data:
• People who give money to
charity are 43% more likely to say they are happy people.
• People who give blood are
two to three times more likely to say they are happy people.
• Being charitable is known to
lower stress hormones.
Studies have shown that human brains, minds, and bodies
experience an equilibrium and pleasure when we give. By becoming
happy people, substitute teachers can have a positive influence
on students by being able to better create positive teaching
environments and being an example of a model citizen.
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