I straight up told a parent I would not be calling them back in three weeks to talk to them about their child’s grade. I already did that. This is your child and I have 100+ to worry about. You have my contact information if you have any concerns :).

I’m lucky enough to work in a public school that’s generally considered to be one of the best in the state. Despite this, it feels like every single day I’m shocked at how unprepared these students are for the future. It’s gotten to the point I can’t use basic words because students have no idea what I’m talking about. A student yesterday asked me what “aggressive” meant. Oh, by the way, the student is 17 and in two AP classes.

I think the thing that shocks me the most is that students have zero agency within their own lives. If their parents or AI can’t handle something for them, it’s not getting done. Sometimes students will have the entire class period to do a worksheet with 5 questions on it, then spend the entire class staring at it. If you ask them if they’re gonna do it, they always say something along the lines of “yeah I’ll do it at home” then the time to turn it in comes up and guess what, not a single person has done it. So you might be thinking that getting a little more direct with them will get them to do it. Haha. Hahahhaha. Ha. Nope. Instead they go to see a social worker and complain that all their teachers are being mean to them so they get out of doing ANY work for the week. Rinse and repeat.

And again, this is one of the highest rated public schools in my state and students are still running the show, forcing administration to dumb everything down so they don’t have to work.

The average score on a recent test for a class was 58% but since students aren’t allowed to fail tests anymore, they have to be allowed to do “test corrections” to bring their grade up to a C. So why even study? If you can get a 70% on a test despite technically getting an F, why bother? The best part is, not every student that fails actually does the test corrections. So what happens then? Well they’re given a 1 question worksheet as a last resort to bring their grade up to a 70%, and half the time they still don’t even do it. You can get a C on an exam by failing, not doing the test corrections, then answering one question that’s so simple it’s next to impossible to get it wrong.

I’m worried about these kids, and they’re the ones the administration hypes up as being college bound.

Is this unprofessional for a middle school teacher?

I teach 7th and 8th grade Spanish. I wore this outfit to school today. I have another that is similar. I think it’s cute. These little dresses are great for summer, but I like adding a cardigan and some tights with a cute shoe. I’m also tall, so several dresses I find are cute but maybe a little too immodest for school. It’s also a bit pricey and time consuming to always find work pants and have them altered to be the right length and fit. I’m definitely comfortable in this because if I need to break up a fight, bend over, crouch down, etc., nothing is showing.
But I happened to run into my mom and my sister after work. I just got a blank stare. They think I’m not dressed professionally enough. I get compliments on how cute I look at work, but I’m apprehensive because I don’t know if they’re just being nice or being a mean girl behind my back ( though I really don’t think so).

8 years in education. I'm currently subbing as I try to land a full time job back in my district.

I can not tell you how terribly difficult most days are as a sub. I have enough classroom experience to know how to handle situations and build relationships even for short snipit's but it's just getting harder and harder for me.

Today in a 7th grade class I tried to get the whole classes attention with a clap call and response and not a single person out of 31 students in class clapped. I couldn't get the class to be quiet enough to take attendance, I couldn't get them to keep quiet long enough to give instruction. I feel like this is all becuse of me but I know that things are really hard across the board. It feels impossible to keep a classroom in controle as a sub in ways it never has felt before.

This district is a mess, they laid off 34 teachers mid school year last January and are 4 million in dept... a lot of us were let go or moved around and now we are stuck subbing.
My throat hurts so badly from trying to talk and nothing I did, clap, count down, class class, NOTHING got the whole classes attention long enough to instruct. I don't know what to do and I'm so scared that if I keep subbing I will loose all the love I have for their career. I want my own classroom again but I'm scared it's not going to happen because my state and district are struggling so much.

I'm k-12 with an endorsement in biology / life science

Every single class except for my first period had something go wrong.

2nd period - 7th grade girl with major attitude every day comes in late. I ask her why, she scoffs and gives a snarky response. I tell her that’s her first tardy of this grading period. She says “I don’t g.a.f.” And two other friends of hers start talking bad about me, cussing me out. I write all of them up and kick them out. 10 minutes later ADMIN SENDS THEM BACK.

Next class, my absolute worst class this year. 6th grade group. These 5 boys were all over the place even before coming into my room. This class is right after lunch, and I heard there was a fight in the cafeteria, so that didn’t help the craziness. I got through half of what I wanted to do with the class because of having to reset and redirect every 2 minutes when these boys and a girl would start arguing with each other. I kicked a couple of them out and messaged admin to get them. Class went much better but that was still with only the last 15 minutes of class left.

The next period is with a co-teacher. This wasn’t as bad, but the class clown decided to cuss out my co-teacher and call her every name in the book you could think of. I walked him down to the office, all the while he was laughing, messing around in the hall, etc.

Needless to say, at the end of the day I spent 20 minutes in my classroom in silence with my eyes closed taking deep breaths. It was a ROUGH day back after a 5 day weekend without these kids. Today felt like a full 3 days all in one.

I have gone through different grades from pre-k to elementary and eventually high school. Elementary life skills almost made me give up for good due to stress and abuse. I took a position as the ISS teacher at an alternative high school, and expected the worst. To my surprise, I learned that I absolutely love working with this demographic of students, and the students mostly respond to me very well since I have a sarcastic personality. Never a dull moment, but I found my home with the kids that need a little extra support and attention. There are ups and downs like any school, but I cry at every graduation!

Yeah, I don’t give a damn if your child has an IEP/504. They are still expected to put in effort. And you should still be working with your child to and not expecting the school to do everything. If you are? Your child isn’t going to make it in college…

I got my graduate degree, but I want to get some more credit hours to make more $$. Are there any inexpensive non-degree programs to do that?

Hahahahahhahahaha….ha

Maybe if:

1) Our subs knew English and could actually walk our kids through these assignments while we were gone

2) more than half our kid weren’t 2+ levels below grade level

Then we could have this conversation

If you were tasked with getting someone a binder to do a task you asked them to do (“I need that binder to do the benchmark testing” “oh sure no problem, I’ll get you one”) would you put all the papers and tabs inside the binder WITHOUT HOLE PUNCHING (or fastening them together in any way) and then place said binder in mailbox?! (with no indication that the papers and tabs inside where all loose) no, I bet you wouldn’t. Maybe when people start getting paid the big bucks and have their own office they lose all common sense and forget what’s it’s like to have a very limited amount of prep time?!

Yes, the papers went all over the ground all willy nilly.

If they close your program, can you draw unemployment? I have tried to unsuccessfully to find another job for the last 3 years. I am close to retirement but not close enough. I was told today they were going to close my program either this year or the next. I really don’t know what to do. The good thing is if another position opens up mid year, I think they would let me out of my contract. I teach an elective and I don’t want to say which one but it will be difficult to find a job.

Hi everyone! I’ve just been hired for my first Teaching Assistant role, fresh out of university! I do not have enough smart clothes for this!!! Where does everyone find best to get professional clothes from? TIA x

Hi, I graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor's (& after passing the PRAXIS) to earn my teaching certificate. I let it expire & am now looking to renew. I have the choice to take PRAXIS exams or 6 hours of college courses. The courses would be $2,500+ & PRAXIS would total around $500.

I did really well on the PRAXIS in 2011 & I'd rather save the time & especially the $ by taking the PRAXIS exams this time around. But, I know if I don't pass all of them the cost would be more & I'm wondering if there would be so much to re-familiarize myself with that the courses would be less stressful.

What's your experience/recommendation?

Thanks!

I have a game I play once every other week so it doesn’t get stale and my students are locked in. If you have any other simple ways to transform basic activities into something fun let me know in the comments.

It’s called Gamble Multiple Choice. Each team starts with $100. I’ll put a question on the board and a 2 minute timer. The team must write down the correct answer and their wager before the answer is revealed. I’ll usually say they have to keep 10% in the bank so they don’t zero out right away or I’ll just tell them I’m giving a bonus $20 to a team that loses everything if they do something. Team with the most money at the end wins.

Then I’ll switch up and tell them they have to make a blind wager without seeing the question but I give them 2 to 1 odds. I usually do this with harder questions like fill in the blank or short answer.

My students (high school) are totally engaged when we play this. The collaboration is strong (I tell each team that every individual must write down answers) and it’s just generally a good time and takes zero preparation.

Any other games like this you’ve come up with that elevate an otherwise boring activity? I’ve got a few more but would love to hear from others.

Second year teacher here. This year, I decided I would try to post a daily agenda slide in Google Classroom for my 9th and 10th grade ELA students.

Making these slides for 6 classes takes up soooo much time, and students will still say they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing when I walk around the room to check in with them. I am spending so long trying to figure out the best way to tell students what they should be doing that I don’t have enough time to actually plan quality lessons or leave quality feedback. How do I spend the least amount of time possible on an agenda while still making sure absent students know what they need to make up?

I have also been struggling with establishing routines and setting expectations more this year than I did last year, and I am already feeling incredibly burnt out. I am definitely working far beyond my contract hours and can’t figure out how to self-correct. I am far behind on grading and am struggling to get through the lessons I made last year because I’m so tired that I’m easily frazzled when things don’t go exactly as planned.

I know these questions have been asked a lot, but can anyone share time-saving tips and/or tips for balancing grading, lesson planning, and communicating with students and parents?

I teach sewing classes for adult beginners. My previous classes were at private venues. They ran smoothly and I felt I was able to provide fairly equal attention to all participants. This is my second class teaching at a recreation centre. Both classes had 8 students. This should be no problem but each time I have had 2 students (different people each time) that monopolize my attention either because of problems with their machines or just were having problems sewing . So much so that I barely helped the other students. I have 1 more class with this group. How do I provide value to both types of students?

Hi all,

I have my first interview in a SEND school tomorrow after 12 years working in a primary school. I just wondered how you would approach planning differently to a mainstream school interview. The only information I have about the interview is the following...

"As part of the interview: 

You will be required to teach either a Maths or English lesson to a primary class that are working to the current ability of Year 1."

I visited the school yesterday and wanted to ask a couple of questions about the class and the lesson observation but the deputy head had to rush off and gave me his email to contact him, which I did last night. I am yet to have a response.

Any help will be appreciated!

Thanks!

Hi there!
I’m in the works and just about finishing up my presentation to present to my board to create an official school club (grades 6-8) that will be “Next Generation Good Neighbors” and I want to make sure I have all of my thousands of ideas put together so I don’t word vomit random things in my presentation.

The club is simple really:
All kids in the grade group are welcome— only requirement is to want to help our community, learn to find resources, attend events, and help EACHOTHER!
Mental health? Financial issues? Parents divorcing? Need help finding friends? Stress, anxiety, or just shy? Or even none of the above and want to do good.. I want to include it all!!!

Anyone who has made this type of club before, or want to now.. how did it look? Did you have trouble with the kids being able to attend events (walks for cures, clean up days, etc etc)? Also, I’d love to put up flyers with a made email that community members can reach out to for resources and the kids can learn to research them, find the proper resources, and reply! Is that.. silly?

I’d love to hear anything and everything as a general discussion so I can prep the best I can!

I was reading through some posts earlier this morning and saw a commenter mention how their child is currently attending a school following the year-round calendar system, and until that moment I had genuinely kinda forgotten that my elementary school followed that system too 🤣

but then, when I started reminiscing about my elementary school experience, I realized that it was genuinely such a GREAT system (at least in my opinion), and I feel like I don't see or hear about it too often nowadays :O my old elementary school doesn't even use it anymore either actually haha

I know for a fact little me enjoyed those consistent 3 week breaks, and as someone who still gets burnt out pretty easily today, I think having that time to reset and re-energize as a kid was probably waaay more helpful than I realized back then!! while I DID feel a lil jealous of my friends who attended traditional schools and got those LOOOONG summers, it never stung too much //: lol. Summer break was almost kinda like a myth to me until middle school, like a Phineas & Ferb bit 😭

Now that I teach elementary students myself, I've started looking at school schedules a bit differently compared to how I did when I was a kid lol

There are honestly a lot of reasons I can think of (at least in retrospect) for why I really enjoyed the year-round schedule!! I kinda wish school had continued on that track (haha funny pun ba dum tss) all the way through the end of it. maybe I never really needed a multi-month summer break

What are y'all's thoughts on year-round schooling vs. the traditional school calendar with the long summer break?? I can see the appeal of both, but I think having those regular breaks throughout the year is something I appreciated WAY more than I realized at the time

Personally I'm a fan of a 4 day week (I've worked 4-on-3-off in a previous field and loved it) but the draw of an extra month of summer (for those that get summer pay, seems like it also could be better)

Like everyone, it seems, I have a love-hate relationship with this profession. There are incredible highs and devastating lows, and that’s just how it is.

I love talking about work and the trials and successes with my coworkers, or other friends of mine that are teachers. But I DESPISE talking about it with other people in my life who are not teachers.

It just feels like taking about my job opens this door where people give unsolicited advice about things that they know NOTHING about. They often don’t react as expected because they simply don’t understand what the day-to-day is like. It’s becoming such a nuisance that don’t even want to talk about work with people I’m close with because they’re not teachers and they just don’t “get” it.

Maybe this is damaging my relationships in some way, I’m not sure. But I needed to get this out because it’s something I’ve noticed happening more and more and quickly as I progress through my first year in this career.

Anyone else ever feel like this?

i’m in my early 20s student teaching high school right now. just started. my classes are not that terrible and know i will be fine, but i am just incredibly uncomfortable right now. i’m not teaching right now so i haven’t been interacting with the students that much, just sitting and observing, working on my laptop, occasionally walking around and chatting with them when i feel brave.

in elementary, the kids have less self control but there is so much more you can do to get their attention. call and response, clapping, praising, etc.

in the high school classrooms the kids are not in check and i don’t know what i’ll do to check them when i do start teaching. the kids are loud, cussing and talking about inappropriate topics openly. it’s super awkward for me because i haven’t really been introduced properly so i don’t feel comfortable correcting their behavior or even speaking to them, really.

in most classes, but especially the ones i know are rougher behavior wise, i can get pretty anxious because i’m just mentally afraid of the students already and i worry about what they might say or do when i eventually start teaching. and i know i’m not doing what i need to be doing to get them more comfortable around me, but my CT isn’t much help so i’m kind of left on my own.

and on the “looking young” note, i know all the obvious things, like dressing extra formal and wearing a lanyard. mentally is where i am really struggling. i have a hard time with self confidence already, i know kids can be absolutely vile and i am just so afraid of possible harassment or objectification as a young woman. any advice or kind words are welcomed, ty <3