I haven't been a substitute for very long, but from my short time I have learned a lot about what it means to be a student in a district that is known as "rough" and how to take what I learn into my goal as a future educator.

According to Niche.com, a website dedicated to analyzing public school data to help others find which school is the best around them, Fresno Unified is the 4th largest district in California, right up there with Los Angeles, San Diego, and Long Beach. Absorb that information for a moment. Fresno Unified is right up there with some of the districts from the largest cities in California. This is one of the reasons there is such a high demand for substitutes in Fresno right now. However, Fresno Unified not only needs substitutes but actual teachers in the classroom. It was reported back in March by ABC30 that Fresno Unified was hiring for more than 300 open positions in its district.

The need for teachers was made very clear to me during my first subbing job at a middle school where the class did not have a teacher. Every week the students were given a new substitute, and it was obvious that the students' behaviors were affected by this. The students acted like they owned the classroom and did everything in the book to get under my skin as their substitute. It wasn't until later in the week did I find out that the previous substitutes only lasted a couple of days.

It broke my heart when I realized how these students were losing out on their education due to the lack of available teachers, but also how they were treated by their school because of their continuous disruptive behavior. The teachers spoke of them as the troublemakers, incapable of using the same learning tools as the other classes because of their rowdiness.

They did not empathize with the students for the situation they were given, but rather tried to shut them off as a separate class alltogether. I stayed the entire week with them, and I told them that I would try to come back again. It most likely won't happen though due to my schedule and the hundreds of other subbing jobs that will bury the class to the bottom of the list.

After this incident, I took another look in to my future career goals. I want to teach writing to college students, but seeing the many classes in need of teachers in Fresno Unified, it has me thinking of changing my plans in order to prevent another class from being labeled as the "troublemakers."

This is something that future substitutes need to think about as well when going into a district that is called challenging by those who work there. Fresno Unified is large and diverse. Students come from all sort of cultural and economic backgrounds and are given a break from their home lives only at school. They'll act out because of what's going on at home, and their education will suffer because of it especially when educators go in thinking that it's just a student's behavior and there is no way to help.

I signed up to help in Fresno Unified, though, because I wanted to be a part of a diverse education system. I wanted that experience with students from different backgrounds so I could be someone who understands better than others. I go into each substitute job knowing that I won't make a huge impact in their lives, but for just a day I could be someone that doesn't simply shut them up or put them down.

I'm not saying that every teacher acts this way, but when the majority of the school looks at its students as needing to be strictly regulated in order to behave, then there's already that tension in the air. I do my best at each job to not let that tension get to me, which is something I would recommend to anyone thinking about getting involved with substituting in a large district.