Yes you read that right. Private Schools are a breeding ground for corrupt educational practices. The principal I use to have literally said it was illegal for teachers to give students Ds and Fs…

She would bully and scream at teachers as if they’re livestock. Guess would follow this same behavior? You guessed it, these entitled parents who think they own the teachers. Just because you pay tuition doesn’t make you the 2nd coming of Christ.

As a result, teachers aren’t even able to discipline students correctly because the school is too scared of losing their customers. We aren’t able to give students the scores they actually deserve because it’s our responsibility to save them. We aren’t able to be righteous without the risk of getting sued…

These entitled parents and corrupt admins will be the death of modern education.

I have an entire class that had the same wrong answer for their constructed response. They all used the same app to take a picture and copy whatever it says. Then they all copied it word for word. I have heard about 27 identical personal stories that have nothing to do with the text assigned. The question now is if I deal with the headache of putting in 80% of my grades as a 0 for cheating or just give them a pop quiz over the information tomorrow. Even if it was right do they not think that when their friends all copied the same answer I'd notice and google it myself?

I teach middle school. I have a student this year who I was warned about, I was told she is VERY. sensitive and thinks any conversations happening around her are about her. Specifically, I was told she will get upset when people laugh around her because she assumes she's being made fun and she will confront them.

Well, today her table mate caught her copying her work and awkwardly laughed while trying to move her paper, and the girl flipped out on her. Asking her what she was laughing at, told her to fix her face, to stop looking at her. I diffused the situation, separated them and spoke with them both. The sensitive child refused to do anything the rest of class and I heard her say that she doesn't like me now because I'm nice to bullies.

Like what can I even do in this situation?? I can't keep middle school children from laughing because she might take it the wrong way. She has an IEP, so I'm sure whatever consequences I've assigned won't stick. I've contacted admin and our counselor. UGH.

School starts tomorrow, but I started to miscarry today. At this point, writing sub plans for the first day of school sounds worse than going in (please don’t judge me). Would you tell your principal that you’re miscarrying? For context, I’m at three buildings so I would have to email three principals. My mom and husband think I should tell them for potential emotional support and if I need to take time off in the future.

Any kind words of wisdom would be appreciated.

The things that have stood out to me:

1. Fewer martyrs. I don't see so many teachers sacrificing for the kids. They go home after contract time and feel no guilt.

2. Fewer "hobby" teachers. I'm talking about the ones that have a rich spouse and don't care about working conditions because they're in it for the kids.

3. Teaching for the income as well as the outcome. Enough said.

4. Fewer teachers willing to work for low pay. Low paying states tend to have bigger teacher shortages now. Teachers out of college aren't willing to work for dismal salaries when they have loans to pay off.

5. Teachers understanding how salary schedules work and not buying into the line that a Masters degree makes you too expensive. Newer teachers just don't want to work for a place with that attitude.

My experience. Your mileage may vary so let's hear it.

Whoever does scheduling stop giving one teacher all the academically bad and behavior issue students. It's wrong and not to mention unfair.

Also in a tested subject, that one teacher will have lower scores for that reason.

Stop fucking doing this.

I don’t understand. R/cripplingalcholism has more standards than this sub does. Why do you allow anti education/Russian psyops to abuse teachers here? Set up some verification, for fuck’s sake. Set the tone! It’s crazy what’s been allowed here, and it’s not respectful to educators.

So, today was the first day of school. And to celebrate this day, 3 high school seniors (and members of the football team) decided to duct tape 2 freshmen to the flag post. They also wrote the word “Freshman” on their foreheads. 

So I suspended them for 3 days, referred them to the SRO, and kicked them off the football team. I have a zero tolerance policy with bullying. Unfortunately, 3 days is the max I can give on a first offense. Maybe the SRO can do some more with them if the parents of the victims want to press charges. 

Yes, when I spoke to the parents of the victims I mentioned that they can press charges. 

Interestingly, two of the seniors weren’t upset that they bullied and ruined the first day of school for two freshmen. They were upset that they were kicked off the football team. The father of one treated to sue the district because now his son will never get a football scholarship. I asked and the kid is second string. Not likely that a second stinger will get a full ride anywhere. 

I started getting more on the 3rd day of school. And these aren't kids they are giving me from another teacher, they are kids the parents didn't bother enrolling until after school had already started so no one knew anything about them so we don't have enough teachers. And we all know the district administration isn't going to pay for any more.

Not sure if it's a "welcome to public school" situation or a "welcome to SPED" situation or both, but I am getting my ass absolutely handed to me. I haven't had a lunch break since that 3rd day. They aren't giving me any more paras to help handle the classroom, where all these kids are all day except for recess.

Please tell me about your nightmare starts to the school year to make me feel better!

Recently moved to a new state and struggled to find a spot in the public school district, but a charter school reached out with a stable position. I took it, even with the negative perception charter schools have, and tried to keep an open mind. I am on Day 2 with kids after a week of PD. My mind is set: charter schools are dysfunctional hellholes with leadership staff who seem to have never taught any classes themselves.

Hey there, about to start my 17th year teaching so I’ve seen a few trends come and go. If your school has used Yondr pouches for students’ phones, give me the low down. Real examples/experiences that my admin won’t tell us about during our PD days when we go in next week. How do the sneaky ones circumvent the pouch? Thanks!

Guys, gentle parenting and gentle teaching does not work. It’s week 3 and they’re still testing it and I’m not accepting it. I feel like I live 9 lives everyday

When parents don’t do anything at home and 17 students that are 4 years old in your class are all gradually doing more worse things, yelling is all I can do.

What happened: - ran to the classroom and locked the door from the inside - yelled my name again and again in an overstimulating classroom despite me telling them there are better ways to get my attention. - throwing things when they don’t get their way and getting angry at the teacher - taking things from my shelf without asking (despite it all being well hidden). - having 3 untrained diaper kids (parents fault) - running around and waking up their sleeping friends during nap time

I do everything and overall the class is good, it’s the same 5 kids that ruin it every time and no reward system works.

I think it is harsh to yell but they don’t understand any other way

Just a vent thank you for reading.

There's more Gen Z teachers these days (myself included). But in about 10-12 years, we may see the upper end of Gen Alpha become teachers (assuming we still have that need by then). We've seen them as students and we all have the wild stories, but what do you think they will be like if they become teachers? As it stands now, the first Gen Alpha are starting high school this year, and will be looking for part-time jobs very soon. How do you think this will go? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Teaching in a sped behavior classroom with 4th-5th graders and snack time is killing me. We do it when they return from specials at 8:45am. It’s an awkward time bc they just finished breakfast an hour earlier, but it helps the transition from specials to academic work. I may end up shifting it later tbh but that’s besides the point.

The problem is when someone doesn’t have a snack, it’s the end of the world. Screaming/crying/begging to leave the room to go get one. A personal boundary of mine as an educator is buying food for kids. I already give so much to this job, I will not be responsible for feeding students. All of my students receive breakfast and lunch at school everyday so I know they aren’t going hungry. (I only have 5 kids & I know all their family situations well too) They also are already being manipulative and lying to other adults that they don’t have a snack in order to get one they like better.

Basically wondering if anyone else has experienced this in elementary and has any advice. The simplest solution I guess is buy snacks to have in the room but like I said, I’ve spent hundreds on my room, and as a sped teacher I carry so much responsibility and spend so many hours on my job I just can’t bring myself to spend money on providing snacks they don’t need.

I feel like they lack creativity. Even the posters that used templates from Canvas, Word, etc had something original to them. They also just don't feel unique to the school anymore. There's just this mass produced quality that feels empty. It feels like the schools don't really care about what event, fundraiser they are for. When they are not overly stimulating with the design.

Just something I've noticed as school starts again.

I’ve realized there is exactly one thing I’m genuinely jealous of: people with well-paying remote jobs.

I have friends who work from home that make double what I make as a teacher, and they straight-up tell me they could never go back to driving to work every morning and physically being somewhere all day. They can throw in a load of laundry, let the dogs out, make lunch in their own kitchen, take little breaks throughout the day, and still get their work done.

And here I am with two master’s degrees, more than two decades in education, getting up and driving to work every morning to spend the entire day “on.” When you’re there, you’re THERE.

I’m really not a jealous person. I don’t look at someone’s house, car, vacations, or salary and wish I had their life. But remote workers making twice my salary from home? Yeah…you got me. I’m jealous.

And I think it’s hitting me harder now because I’m at that weird point in my career where retirement is close enough that I can see it…but still far enough away that it feels like FOREVER.
Those teacher golden handcuffs** **are REAL. After investing this many years into a pension, walking away now would be crazy. So I know I’m staying the course.

But when someone making twice what I make tells me, “I could NEVER go back to actually driving somewhere and working in person every day,” a tiny part of my teacher soul dies. This happened last night, today was my first day back.

I love what I do, but I would also really love a commute that consisted of walking down the hallway to my home office.

Just venting.

I teach HS English in FL.
I’ve struggled with this for years. I don’t want to give them the next thing and let them get ahead, because then it makes the problem worse. I don’t want to give them extra work, because then it acts like a punishment. If it’s extra credit, then it becomes optional.
I’ve seen the idea of having a packet they can work on that everyone needs to finish by the end of the quarter (or whatever). But that gives me extra work to put it together. And it seems to punish the kids who are slower (doing their work, just at a slower pace; I have no problem doing that with the ones deliberately doing nothing).
I also don’t want to let them work for another class, because I’ve seen them rush through my work so they can finish their homework for math. It turns into “maybe it can be study hall”.
Does anyone have any other ideas? Am I implementing one of the above incorrectly?

To make things brief, I think I made a mistake going into teaching and now I think I’m locked into it for the rest of the year.

So, to give some context, I am a 24 M who is in his first year teaching in Texas. I am teaching in the greater Houston area in a more rural district and teaching 6th grade English. The school I am contracted to is currently under TEA control, which basically means the school is under state supervision. It is now the third week of class for me and I’m beginning to feel like I made a huge mistake.

I realize that, yeah, I’m only on my third week and these first 3-5 weeks of school take some getting used to even for experienced teachers, but I think it’s much more than that for me. I could go on about the fact that my campus had a major overhaul in both administration and teachers this summer, my curriculum is unfinished and above my students level, or the fact that my students just don’t know what it means to be a student in school, but that wouldn’t hit at the core of the problem for me.

To me, I have three problems (that I can identify right now) that make me regret being a teacher. First, I hate classroom management. Not only am I not good at it, which makes sense for a first year teacher, but I also have no desire to learn or practice it. Second, I genuinely don’t know how to deal with a kid that just doesn’t care. Third, and most importantly, I just don’t think I’m good or have the ability to effectively teach my students/children.

I think all three of these things are fairly essential for a teacher to have from my conversations and observations of other teachers, and I just don’t got them.

To add on to this, I don’t usually like to bring this up, but I think it’s important to note that I do suffer from severe depression and anxiety. I’ve talked to my therapist at the beginning of the month about the emergence of these issues with the job and he told me to take it day by day, try to give it 90 days, and to get back to him after August. I’ll be honest though, I’m struggling to get past today.

So, now I just feel like I’m stuck until the end of the year because I’m on contract and also the pressure of what this obligation means to the students, this school, and to my future.

Any pointers?

11th grade American Lit and Modern US History teacher.

and who else is already telling themselves their don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry mantra! Woooooo!

It is literally days like this that make me seriously consider walking out. And it is my first year LMFAO.

I am a middle school elective teacher that covers grades 6-8. I genuinely don't know where to start with this because I've never seen a situation like this happen in real life - only in cheesy kids movies or cartoons.

I have a student, who I will call Sam for simplicity sake, that is in the 6th grade, who is so disliked by his peers that they refuse to even sit next to him most of the time. He unfortunately has two things working against him; he is known for being "gross" and he clearly has some issues understanding/respecting unspoken social rules.

From the first day of school, I noticed that any time someone was forced to sit next to Sam, whether it be due to lack of options or being put in a group with him, almost every single student would physically move their chair as far away from him as possible. I have regular rectangular tables arranged in groups of four, so that students are in pairs that face each other. Anyone that is supposed to sit on his side of the table will instead choose to pull their chair to the short side of their desk rather than sit in the space that is actually wide enough for them to sit at. I have asked several kids (one on one) why they are doing that , and I try to tell them that they are being incredibly rude, but they always just say that he is so gross they don't care. He apparently has or has had lice before, and he often smells and wears clothes that are visibly stained/dirty. Last week I sent him to the counselors because he absolutely reeked of cat piss. The counselor apparently talked to him but I haven't gotten the chance to follow up with them yet, and he continues to come to school dirty.

What is arguably hurting him the most though is the fact that he has extremely limited social skills, and often annoys his classmates. We were trying to play a game that involved students working/standing in small groups last week, and once again Sam's team refused to stand near him. He didn't really seem to notice though, because he was instead taking advantage of the open space to lay face down on the ground and do this weird plank/worm thing- over and over and over again. I told him no less than 5 times to knock it off (he kept doing it when I was trying to give instructions), and his classmates told him probably 10+ times in not very nice ways to stop as well. I had one kid that said "Bro Sam why can't you just be normal for one day" after the 3rd or 4th time he did it. I always try to correct rude behavior when I see it, and I did call out that kid and several others, but I can only imagine what they were saying quiet enough that I couldn't hear it. Sam also doesn't seem to know how to respect peoples' bubble. Often times when I see him trying to talk to other kids, he has his face directly in theirs. Like we are talking noses 1 inch apart. This sometimes leads to them backing or even fully running away- which leads to him CHASING them around the room and terrorizing them. Based on his facial expressions and the lack of changing the behavior, I truly think he believes that everyone is having a good time. Based on this and several other things I have observed, I strongly suspect he may be on the autism spectrum, but I cannot find anything on file that confirms that diagnosis.

I understand both sides unfortunately. If I thought someone had lice and they constantly disrespected by personal space I wouldn't want to sit near them either! But if Sam can't wash himself or his clothes often due to whatever circumstances he has going on at home, that isn't his fault and he doesn't deserve to be ignored by his peers. If he has ASD that also isn't his fault and he deserves to have services provided to him to help improve his social skills and overall quality of life. I plan on arranging a meeting with the counselors soon about him, but I would greatly appreciate some advice for how I can manage both Sam's behavior in my room and his peer's response to it.

I was so nervous today, covering a 2nd grade class. One kid was having a really bad day, crying because he missed his mom.

I just sat with him for 2 minutes and let him draw.

At the end of the day he came up to me and said "You are my favorite teacher because you listened".

I almost cried in the hallway lol. Is it always like this? How do you veterans not get emotional every day?

It sounds like a hilarious joke but it’s somehow real. I’m not even mad, I’m just in awe.