Am I wrong to feel that what this woman did was intrusive?

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So, I am student teaching in elementary school. It's been very stressful and difficult for me, but it was at least going a little better once I moved to my second placement - my first was in kindergarten but now I'm in 4th grade. 4th has been a bit easier for me so far, since the kids are still young enough to where they want to please you and they don't typically misbehave horribly, but they're also way more independent and have longer attention spans than the little kids. I just couldn't manage the kindergarteners or keep them focused. I also was awful at managing the time, with so many little lessons and activities I had to get through, and I had to just move so quickly from one thing to the next all throughout the day. I'm not having that issue now, because in 4th grade they're departmentalized, meaning that each teacher just teaches 1 or 2 subjects (well, one just does math, one does language arts, and the other does science and social studies...I'm with the language arts teacher). So I just have three different groups of kids throughout the day since they rotate from class to class, and I have about an hour and 40 minutes with each of them, and I just do the exact same thing each time. I am liking having that routine and just rinsing and repeating the same lesson/activity.

So yeah, even though I still am really unsure about whether teaching is for me, I was at least feeling better about my new placement. I hadn't started full time teaching (where I actually completely take over the class instead of just helping the teacher out or just teaching a little lesson here and there), but so far, things were going okay. But fast forward to this past Wednesday...my cooperating teacher was there first thing in the morning, and then suddenly she had to leave the room because she was feeling really sick. She had to leave and a sub had to be called in at the last minute. She also ended up being absent both Thursday and Friday. So, I pretty much got thrown into fully leading/teaching the class before I was expecting it. Even though they can't leave a student teacher alone with the class all day and they always have to get a sub if the cooperating teacher is out, the subs usually figure we can mostly handle everything, and the cooperating teachers tend to think it's good practice for us.

Luckily, even though I was flustered at first, I managed to not have a nervous breakdown, and for the most part, those three days went pretty well. The teacher left fairly simple stuff for me to do with them. We ended up having a different sub each day. The first two were good - they did let me pretty much do everything, but they'd help when it was needed. The one on Friday was a fairly older woman. She seemed nice enough when she came in, and said that she was going to just let me do it. Well, she just sat and played games on a tablet the whole time. Except for when she fell asleep! The kids noticed she was asleep too and were asking me why!

She also left a note for the teacher, which I guess all subs have to do. But then I realized she didn't just report how the students behaved...she was writing comments about me on there. Some if it was good (i.e. she said I interacted well with the students). But at the end, she wrote "P.S." and described an incident that that happened at the very end of the day. The kids had "Fun Friday" which is usually outside, but they stayed in and watched a movie. My class stayed in the room, and two other classes also came to join us. So, it was a lot (about 60) of kids. They did fine just sitting and watching the movie, but they were getting way too loud as they were lining up to leave the classroom and go home. There was a kid with an aide in there, and the aide stepped in to tell the kids to calm down and pick up their trash, because some of them had left it. I admit that I still get overwhelmed with the crowd control when there's that many kids and I was kind of glad someone else stepped in, but it wasn't like I was just sitting there not doing anything. Right at the time that the aide stepped in, I was getting onto an individual kid because he was way too wild and wasn't keeping his hands to himself. Well, the sub wrote that "during Fun Friday, the students were disrespectful and playful. Ms. (My name) did not instruct them to be quiet during this time."

Wtf? She's acting like she's my supervisor, and she's not. She didn't even help with anything, and was even asleep some of the time. And the way she worded that makes it sound like they were talking and playing all throughout Fun Friday (not just for a moment at the end when they were lined up and about to leave) and I just sat there and did nothing about it. Am I wrong to feel offended about this and think that what she did was intrusive? I just don't think that's her job to critique me and my teaching. Unless I did something really serious (something that's just totally unprofessional or could put the kids in danger), I don't see how it was necessary and how that's her job to leave that kind of note about me for the teacher. I'm also concerned with the fact that she fell asleep. I was in there so it wasn't a big deal, but would she possibly do that in another classroom when she's the only adult in there? My mom thinks I should report her for that or at least mention it to my cooperating teacher. I also feel like I have to defend myself about that note she left, but I don't know how. I don't want my cooperating teacher to think I just let them get out of control all throughout Fun Friday. But I don't know what to say to her.

I would say nothing.

Do your subs have to hold an actual teachers license to sub? In my district they do. So in a sense, yes where I live that sub would be considered your superior.

What I've seen/heard, if the class was really out of control, the other teachers give the absent teacher a run down of how bad it is.

I'm also sure this sub is a known quantity. People know she sleeps, but if your district has to scramble for subs, a warm body is better than nothing.

Worse case scenario. Your cooperative teacher comments on the Fun Friday report. Give her your version of what happen. Acknowledge crowd control is what you are working on, and tell her how you would handle differently next time.

I would not drag the sub into the mix. Unless the teachers commented on your lack of control, I wouldn't bring it up.

Also, I have worked with that many kids in a room. I used hand signals, and never screamed over the kids. So that b*tech sub would have never heard me "give instructions" either.

Good luck.

Just don't bring it up unless your boss does...."how would the sub know what I was doing since she was sleeping?" .say that nonchalantly and move on to something else. Never show vulnerability or weakness. You've injected humor and turned it around.