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.

Hey all,

I am a preservice teacher. I saw a really cute video of a kindergarten having a guest DJ come through, and she taught the kids about PLUR.

PLUR stands for: Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect.

It comes from rave culture, which I just so happened to be a part of in my pre-20's.

I am studying to be a secondary school HPE teacher, and I wonder whether this would be something appropriate to explicitly teach as an introduction and behavioural expectation?

My only hold-up is the mention of rave culture could be seen as an endorsement of going to raves to a teenage audience (grades 7-12).

Quite honestly, raves are high risk environments, especially when it comes to drugs.

The intention of how I could use the PLUR principles is to get students to think about what PLUR might look, sound, feel, or even smell like. For example, wearing sun protection out of respect for the sun being potentially harmful, or having good personal hygiene out of respect for others and themselves, or even being unified in doing "daggy" "uncool" things we tell them to do.

I'm wondering whether this would be a bad idea?

I’m kind of in a bad space right now and really just need to rant. I have had a year. This is my second year at this school. Last year was lovely and I felt like I was making a difference. The violent kids I had last year were really manageable besides one but he kind of just stopped showing up when his “girlfriend” dumped him (they’re like 11 mind you). Now to preface our school does serve a lot of behaviourally challenged children as we literally have behavioural specialists and a classroom just for specifically violent students to try an integrate them back into a normal classroom while also teaching them the proper skills to succeed around others and still learn… I don’t feel it’s that beneficial personally. I had multiple students last year that were part of the program and I don’t feel they were any better humans from it, they just lied their way into making them believe they could return to the gen ed classroom.

This year I was given quite a few students who clearly are very aggressive and need more support than I can provide. Including one that never had aggressive tendencies until his year suddenly. Clearly something has happened outside of school we don’t know about but he’s become extremely violent towards his peers. It’s basically been an everyday thing, if it’s not him it’s “Jeff” or “Steven” or “Mark” or so on. It never ends. Literally Tuesday a parent just didn’t pick up her fucking child because she didn’t want to. Her kid sat outside/inside the school for FIVE HOURS before she showed up only because the police called her and made her pick up her son. wtf is wrong with people!!!

Then today we were having what is say was a pretty tame period playing a computer game as a class. Gimkit. I’ve used this before as a reward and study tool. They have a math test Monday, we were reviewing while also playing, and then tomorrow they’ll complete the actual review. But suddenly “Mark” gets upset that “Steven” is “taunting him” in the game and he gets up and starts choking Steven out. So the EA goes to get help. I get Mark to stop. Before I can even handle anything else, Steven just starts destroying the entire room. Like grabbing chairs and textbooks and laptops and smashing everything as hard as possible, swinging it around, screaming at the top of his lungs (which, sort of impressive after you were literally just chocked out gasping for breath). I can’t even try to stop him as I have to evacuate the other students for their safety. Admin arrives and I guess must eventually get him to stop but even when I returned he was punching tables and pillows and breathing like a maniac. And what’s the solution to this? Let’s take him outside and get him some fresh air.

Are you fucking serious?

My room is destroyed. An entire cart of Chromebooks is probably destroyed. While nothing of mine that I bought from my own money is destroyed the room needs to be put back together. Nope, you’re still expected to be at staff meeting. Absolutely fucking not. I made my students clean it best they could including the glass like I’m not staying until midnight I did not deserve this! So I left the second our staff meeting was done even though I knew admin wanted to speak to me about what happened but I said fuck that and went home and immediately once I got home texted I think I have a head cold and will be booking a sub for tomorrow. Their response? “You still need to reach out to parents about what occurred today.” Like are you serious? No apology, no “this won’t happen again” bullshit line or anything! The kids were terrified! Not like their parents will care, they’ll blame me too!

Necessary context, I am an English teacher in Spain. My admin expects me to speak English with my students at all times. This means that my class is especially difficult for students, but now in my second year I thought I came into the routine. I teach secondary so some students are sometimes a bit silly.

Anyway, yesterday one student was having a nosebleed, the fifth all week. For some reason everyone in the class wanted to see it, I don’t know why, but that meant that three of my wildest students jumped up and ran to her before I even had time to say stop. One tripped and fell because of course running in a classroom and trying to jump over your classmates’ desk is not safe.

In that moment, I felt like I had no choice but to give up the English only rule and tell my students off in a way that I knew they would understand. I told them that the rules exist to keep them safe, that they know they can’t do that, that I don’t want them to fall and break their heads open and go to the hospital. Most students seemed to understand and didn’t create more problems.

The student who fell responded to me and said that she knows that I don’t care if they’re safe (I obviously do care about that so there’s nothing to know), because when she had an accident with her bike I never cared. I remember this accident well because she came to school with half of her face covered in bandages and I asked her what happened, I was worried until the bandages came off again, I checked in with her daily before class about how it felt, I thought it was clear that I cared because I did.

But clearly, she didn’t see any concern from me. She seems genuinely convinced that I hate my students, that I don’t care if they’re in the hospital, meaning that I actually don’t have my rules to keep them safe but just to be mean and unfair to them.

I was already not feeling great before, I had an elevated temperature but couldn’t stay home because it wasn’t a fever fully, but I had all of the symptoms. I also had already had to make a mandatory report shortly before that class so that didn’t make me feel better either, I do care about students and it was a difficult day.

So, this student’s comments were the breaking point for me and I did actually start crying. I’m obviously not proud of it, I don’t know how my next lesson will go with them, I don’t know if I should talk to my admin about it in case the parents complain about me (private schools are terrible for this lol) and I don’t know how to show my students that I do care and I definitely don’t want them to be hurt. I thought I was okay this year but now I’m questioning everything, and not just with this particular student. Do all of my students think I just hate them?

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?

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…

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.

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

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, 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?

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

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’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

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)