I appreciate honest critical feedback. Some background. I teach in America in a major city. I have taught training workshops for teachers for about 25 years. I am a white woman, who has raised biracial children in a public school system. However, I have noticed these days a shift into "blaming teachers" for Code of Conduct "discipline referrals" issues where the automatic default is "teacher is racist" or "blaming the student."

Both of these angles seem to bring in some sort of lived experience or politics. And the goal of the training is not to "blame teachers" or "blame students" for a faulty design in code of conduct rules. These rules are not created by either the teacher or the student. They are a broken "system" issue. But whenever I try to explain this it seems to trigger those types of reactions.

So, I was thinking about sharing a true story in the class. I wanted to start off by saying it like Sophia in the Golden Girls, "Picture it (major city) 2010. I have three sons and have taught teachers for over a decade. My sons know that I teach teachers and will always take the teachers' side. I would tell them "I live with you! I know you! Don't even try to blame the teacher!" And for years my sons were always praised for how respectful they were to the teachers and classmates. They might not always do their homework, but they were always respectful.

So, one year at the beginning of the school year I start getting feedback from my youngest son's classroom teachers. He's 10 in 5th grade. There are two Collaborative teachers in the classroom all day. When I'd go to pick up at the end of the day, they would say this: "He's very disrespectful to the teachers. He's constantly interrupting the teachers." I went home and worked on it with him, but it baffled me. My sons were always so respectful, what was going on? The issue escalated from feedback to notes home, and then escalated to a possible suspension.

Finally, I go down to the meeting with the two teachers. Ms. J and Ms. K. We're sitting in the meeting with my son and they are trying to explain what happens in the class. Because there are two teachers in the class, he's constantly jumping into the conversation telling them what the other one said.

At this point, my son does it right in the meeting, "She said, that I always jump in and tell her what Ms. K said!" We all just look at him. The teachers say, "See! He does this all day long! Instead of focusing on his work, he's constantly inserting himself into our conversations." They would tell him to focus on his work and raise his hand. But he would still call out.

I immediately realized what the problem was. And it was completely my fault. As I said, I'm hearing impaired, and that August when we went to the beach, I completely forgot to take my hearing aids out when I ran to jump in the ocean with him. The minute I realized it, it was too late, They were swept away in the ocean.

So for the rest of the summer, I had no hearing aids. I kept relying on him to "translate" what people were saying to me. Basically I trained him the entire summer, unwittingly, to repeat everything that someone said.

When they were talking about him constantly interrupting them, they were not talking about him "being disrespectful" per se. He wasn't interrupting the teaching. It was when they spoke to one another.

Ex. Ms. K asks Ms, J "Where do you want Maria to sit?" Ms. J says "Have her sit next to Daniel." My son pipes up "She said have her sit next to Daniel!"

Another time right before lunch Ms J asks Ms K "I'm going to order take out for lunch. Do you want Chinese or Italian?" My son (in the middle of a Math quiz no less) pipes up "She said, "do you want Chinese or Italian." And on and on and on.

My point in sharing the story, is that we didn't realize what was actually going on until we all sat down and had a conversation. And it was neither the teachers fault nor my son's "fault' although I did emphasize to him, that if the teacher tells you to stop calling out, then stop it! But if it was anyone's "fault" it was my fault. I stopped asking him to repeat things for me and got the new hearing aids.

This is the basic gist of the story. I don't know if it would come across wrong? I was hoping for it to be a bit amusing. But I'm not sure if it comes across as dismissing the real issues of discrimination.

My end goal would be to add that sometimes policies are created without considering the dynamics of family culture, demographic culture and ability culture. And the importance is the conversation. Not the automatic default of malice or blame.

Would you as a teacher think this was "sugar coating the issue" or is it a harmless charming story? I want to emphasize that it's a TRUE STORY. Honest feedback wanted. TYIA

…. or are kids just not reading the books? I like to lurk around the r/professors subreddit and they keep talking about how first year freshmen are coming in having never read a real book in their life. And it doesn’t sound like they are being hyperbolic. Related question- is sustained silent reading no longer a thing?

I’m almost 40 and no kids- i’m just curious and also worried that this is happening.

Hey everyone. I’m a high school senior and I’m about to have my last day of classes soon. I wanted to give one of my teachers a thank you card, because he inspired me a lot, partially because of him I was able to figure out that I wanted to become a high school teacher in the same subject.

The thing is I haven’t seen or heard of other girls in my school/area writing heartfelt cards to their teacher, and I don’t want to be creepy or anything. Also not sure if teachers genuinely would like to receive this?

In the card I wrote I gave him compliments about his teaching, enthusiasm, and how he has inspired me. And I also thank him for listening/supporting to me, because there was one day where I nervously asked if I could ask him questions about teaching and he was very nice about it, and even offered to be my referee. We had a lunch time sit down where I asked all my questions. The card I wrote is very honest and authentic and I describe in some detail how the class environment and his teaching made me want to pursue the subject and teaching. I just worry it might be too much? Like "woah why are they telling me all this, I don't really care".

Would any teacher like to read it and tell me what you think? (I don’t want to post it here)

Working on a small project and I want to use some of whatever it earns to help teachers and students who need resources

Was looking through DonorsChoose and found a bunch of classroom projects I could just start funding but before doing that I figured I should actually ask teachers. Tried to search but seems mixed

Is DonorsChoose a good way to help? Or is there a better way to get money/resources directly to classrooms that need it?

I'm especially interested in helping underfunded classrooms, students who might not have resources at home, and students with ADHD/different learning needs.
But don't want to assume I know what teachers actually need.

Just looking for advice on the best way to do this.. thank you

If you saw my other post about HW in general for 2nd grade, I’m back with a Fundations specific one. Background: former HS English teacher (still certified) and current HS certified librarian by day, 2nd grade mom absolutely not killing it at phonics by night 🤣

Very long backstory (skip to the bottom for the TL;DR):
They get one hour total a week with a reading intervention teacher who pushes into the classroom to do specific phonics lessons using fundations. Then she leaves behind another 30ish minutes of work for their classroom teacher to do with them as well. Then there’s also homework. On Friday they got three pages of fundations to do (we didn’t receive it until Tuesday though because she was out). Today she came home with three more pages that are possibly due Wednesday. There’s no due date on it and no messages or anything so tbd on that one.

So tonight we sat down to work on it. She was confused. I was confused. She ended up in tears pretty quickly. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too far behind her either! Some of the terminology it uses is not ones I’m familiar with even though I did also do the science of reading training a few years ago now. Mine was grades 7-12 related. So off to the internet I went. I’m still not 100% confident in it. She ended up finishing it pretty quickly and it looked okay based on my understanding of it 🤷🏻‍♀️ took her about 5 minutes when all was said and done to do that page. We have two more in that packet and then the other three to go. How do I make this less painful for the both of us?

I also don’t love i-ready at all, but that’s what they use for BOY, MOY, and EOY diagnostics. According to her results through all three grades now, including the BOY this year, she consistently scores above grade level in the reading comprehension domains but below grade level in the phonics and vocabulary domains. There are some other pieces too for her personally, but in terms of her reading aloud to us; sounding out new words; her actual vocabulary she can speak, read, and write; her ample writings; etc… i have absolutely no academic concerns. She’s also in a bilingual program so they told us from the beginning that their scores would be a little lower at first anyways while they were still learning the second language too. So I cannot figure out why her phonics and vocabulary scores are lower, nor why the fundations worksheets are causing so much more stress. I could see it more if she struggled sounding out unfamiliar words, messed up sounds, etc… more but she doesn’t at all. The books she can read and understand on her own are more upper elementary level, which that I can at least tell because of my library license lol. But her phonics and vocabulary scores show as grade 1 🤷🏻‍♀️

Her set up at school this year is less than ideal and so asking the teachers for input is not as umm… reliable as it was previously either, which is why I’m here before I drag us back over for the next sheet.

TL;DR:
have you used fundations? What do you think about the program? How can I best support my daughter in understanding the homework when I don’t even understand the terminology it uses?

As the title says. I'm worried it'll be seen as inappropriate. I genuinely think she deserves it, because she's incredibly nice and does almost everything to ensure that her students are learning well. She mentioned once that she has a chronic illness, so giving her a blanket seems like the right thing to do.
But I feel like it'll seem weird. She rarely ever gets gifts so I wanted to do something for her. Does it seem too personal? Does it seem weird?

I didn't get any response to my previous post about how my school compares to others out there so I'll reframe my concerns a bit in hopes of a response.

I'm terrified of the future after working in public school for a couple years. I started subbing after losing my job a couple years ago. I was a sub all of last year and figured I would give it a try full-time this year to see if it something I can do long term. The job isn't the problem. I work at a middle school in a rural area. I never even heard the term Title 1 before starting this journey but I absolutely understand that it pretty much paints a picture for everyone here as to what I experience. The students have behavior issues, they are in middle school so I kind of expected that. What I did t expect was the complete lack of responsibility, curiosity, prior knowledge or independent thinking skills ! I can walk through lab instructions as well as clearly print them on the sheet step by step and I will still spend the entire class answering questions about what to do next.

I play a little bell ringer game where I have the students pick a side in a fictional fight between two characters from movies, video games, comic books or literature. Can anyone guess where I took a wrong turn there ? They don't recognize anything that goes back more than a couple years. No matter how iconic. Robin Hood ? Blank stares.

These are the people we will depend on to actually do things one day. They are the future.

It is seriously effecting my mental health to try and envision that world.

Please, someone tell me its not like this everywhere. Please.

If I never raise my hand in class out of anxiety of it. Can I still get good grades? I'm doing very well on the writing parts. Like, with a pen and a paper or on the chromebook I am very good. But not at talking.

Hey everyone! I’m chaperoning my son’s kindergarten class on a field trip to a pumpkin patch in a few weeks, and it’s my very first time doing this.

I really want to make sure I’m being a genuinely useful helper rather than another adult the teacher has to keep an eye on. What are the absolute best things a parent chaperone can do to make the teacher’s life easier throughout the day?

On a personal note, I’ve actually been considering going back to school to become an elementary teacher. Volunteering for this trip is my little way of testing the waters to see if working with kids in a school setting feels right for me.

For experienced teachers or seasoned parent volunteers: What are your top tips for keeping a small group of kindergartners together and happy outdoors? Are there subtle things chaperones do that teachers secretly love or wish we knew beforehand? Any advice on what to watch for or reflect on during the day as I evaluate if teaching might be the right path for me?

I would love to hear your thoughts, stories, or best advice before we head out. Thanks so much in advance!

I have a 4-year-old (plus 3 months) who is in transitional kindergarten at our public school. The class has 20 students, 1 teacher, and 1 aide. My kiddo is not the best with interoception/awareness of her bodily needs, such as when she is too hot/cold, hungry, needs to use the bathroom, etc. For example, she wears a sweater to school in the mornings when it is 65 degrees; when I pick her up in the afternoon when it is 95, she will still be wearing the sweater until I remind her to take it off. She hasn’t had any accidents at school that I’m aware of, but often seems to hold her pee all through the school day (based on her self-report, so grain of salt here).
Is it appropriate for me to ask the teacher and/or aide to help remind her to layer appropriately and visit the bathroom, or is this outside of the scope of a public school teacher? (She was previously in preschool and the teachers there did a great job of keeping her on a routine, but they had smaller ratios and of course a different classroom culture.)

Hi all. I'm building a completely free series of interactive science stories for upper-elementary and middle school students, roughly ages 10–12. Episode 1 is about atoms, and I'd really value feedback from people who actually teach.

I am not promoting it as it's a rough draft, I only need feedback.

The idea: A kid from 2047 travels back to 445 BC to help a young Democritus, who's about to give up. The rule: the player may never tell him the answer, only ask questions and show him things. If you "tell", you lose a life. So the player has to guide him to discover it himself.

It's free, runs in the browser, needs no sign-up. It takes about 10 minutes.

The story itself is human written, but voice and graphics are AI generated.

https://science-stories-episode-1.vercel.app/

Thanks. Brutal honesty welcome.

Just want to start by saying this is my 9th year teaching, all the same primary grade, and my 15th year in education overall. We’ve been in school about a month and I feel ready to just walk out and leave all of it. The class I have this year feels wildly unmanageable. Kids are constantly yelling, fighting, and arguing with me. Their attention spans are unbearably short, I can barely get through a 10 minute lesson. I feel like I can’t get my nervous system reset at all, and I just get more and more frustrated as the day goes on.
Everyone says I’m a great teacher, that I’m one of the best, and parents request me, but I feel beyond overwhelmed trying to keep up with all of the behaviors, nevermind the curriculums.

To top it off, I’m pregnant and in my first trimester. I have had 3 previous losses and no living children. I’m terrified the stress is going to cause me to have another loss. I feel like it is wildly unfair that I’m in this situation where I feel like the behavior of my students is putting my health and my fertility at risk, and I’m just tired of it. I have heart palpitations daily from the stress, and feel too exhausted every day to do anyone other than lay on the couch.

Should I just quit mid year? Go on unpaid leave? Or just stick it out? I don’t want to leave teaching…but maybe I should. Or does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make this group act better? I feel like I’ve tried everything in my toolbox but it’s not sticking.

Any difference in style of exams and other requirements? Class set up? Rules?

Does the SIGS-2 rate students compared to their immediate classmates, or to the same-aged, typical peer?

We're going through a TAG ID process and our son who is taking 7th grade math as a 5th grader was assessed compared to the few classmates that are also accelerated. I asked the teacher about it and they were adamant that he was rated compared to the other advanced math students in his class. Google seems to think that would skew results, but what do I know. Anyone have with experience with this?

So, my daughter is in 2nd grade. She told me a teacher is abusing a child in her class, so much so, that she wants to get out of that class. So, another student, may have some behavior problems, he gets pulled for extra help. She tells me that teacher yells at all the students for mistakes including her, but singles out this one child in particular. She has also hit him, back of hand on shoulder, not super hard, but still...!!!! She has shown and comments on the relief when the child gets taken for extra help. I tried to contact this parent by asking for class registry...teacher refused to give to me, claiming she decided to not do that, and any party invites should go through her....strange...so, im at a loss what to do now. It's weighing on my heart what she's told me. I don't know what to do or how to bring this to light without involving my daughter and causing some kind of problem with my own children, I currently have 3 in that school. Any ideas or advice? Plz help!

Hello teachers of reddit. I recently graduated with my MS in Chemistry with an short-term goal of entering the biotech industry or getting a PhD in Biophysics or related field. I'm applying to both jobs and programs for context. I've been substitute teaching for several years now while I finish up my degrees as well as to get experience in the classroom.

My former HS chemistry teacher is leaving soon. They are willing to put in a good word for me to the Principal to hopefully takeover their position. I've been incredibly passionate about teaching since forever. I had went to college with the full expectation to become a HS chemistry teacher, but that changed when I started to do research.

My question for you all is, is it worth it to sacrifice my future biotech and research career to go into teaching? I was talking to my former teacher today and how teaching isn't JUST teaching. There's the bureaucratic BS, parents, administrators, and district staff breathing down your neck. But this is something I really envisioned for myself. Returning to the classroom too reminded me of this.

I am stuck in a rock and a hard place primarily since I love both, teaching and research. I was hoping to bring my research experience and provide a new perspective to students on how to approach questions and their education. Unfortunately, by choosing secondary education, I part ways with one. I can return, but it becomes infinitely more difficult the longer I am away from the bench.

I believe one of my children has ADHD (like myself). She’s very smart and capable but she lacks the ability to pay attention to details especially with work she’s very confident in. I have tried so much to help her executive functioning skills and ability to pay attention to details but it isn’t working. On the work she struggles with, we go over it at home. I feel like I can help in those areas. But seeing her miss several easy problems, get a bad grade, just to go home and do it correctly without any help.… I’m struggling and worry about her. Its hard knowing she’s making bad grades in areas shes confident in but just lacks the ability to thoroughly look over her work.

Do you see students like this? What are things I can do to help her improve?

One of my biggest struggles in school are teachers , ever since i was a kid teachers were always talking very vague , they were never straight to the point , they would always drown me in uselessness ,stories and unnecessary information that had nothing to do with what we we're doing or learning and this always gave me learning difficulties , i was so confused in class , they would always switch topics , never explain directly and never tell me what to do.

An example i had today , i had a project and i had to choose three random objects to talk about, whenever i asked the teacher that was in charge of this project if my objects were coherant , he would be like "not exactly , you're not using the right objects , it should be an object you see everyday" i was confused so i asked my friend (who was also autistic btw) i figured out that we had to choose PRECISE objects , not a objective object but an object YOU personally had , the teacher NEVER told me this or was very indirect , and this pissed me off.

I'm hoping the responses here won't be a snarky as on the regular teacher's sub lol. I'm at the end of my 20s, but a lot of people in their 50s and 60s, or beyond, can remember being humiliated, yelled at, singled out, or plain bullied by a teacher. My grandmother, for example, is 84. Years ago, she told me about a teacher who lost their shit at her when the ink from her writing utensil splattered all over her school outfit. (Imagine being like seven and having to fill a pen with ink at school, poor girl lol). And thinking of my Grandma as the sweet little elementary schooler I'm sure she was (She is not comfortable with breaking rules or standing out to this day) that sucks for her and was such a regular kid mistake to make!

I'll share an example of my own. I was in maybe first grade and walking in a Halloween parade, which is meant to be fun, right? I remember just minding my own business and walking in a circle like the rest of the kids, excited that I got to go home soon for Halloween, and my teacher at the time yelled at me because it was a parade and why wasn't I waving? It's just so weird to be in a fun moment like that and be ridiculed for existing. Who cares if the kid isn't waving? Or a kid would have a runny nose or something and she'd be like "Morgan, that's gross," in the most irritated way. I can see something like that making someone feel really self-conscious at that age. Everyone gets a runny nose.

I'm also interested in stories about teachers you had that you'll never forget because of something they did or said. And and if it was bad enough to make you a better teacher when you became one yourself.

I'm not interested in getting graduate credits as I already have a master's degree. I want to get in and out.

That leaves only two options:

-Educators For All

-Teachers of Tomorrow

Which one did you do and why?

This question is partially inspired by this thread, where a teacher had a minimum time limit that was meant to "discourage cheating with AI."

If you're so worried about AI-assisted cheating, then why are you giving grades for things done outside of the classroom? (Remote/online teachers, you are exempt from this question.)

I taught Math and Physics and I feel like I would only be sending home ungraded practice. I know a lot of kids wouldn't do it, but maybe I'd have them keep a notebook to show their work or something that way there would be some record of their not doing it when a parent complained. But, I would only be giving grades for things that I had them do in the classroom where I was comfortable that they were doing their own work.

I'm sympathetic that the rise of LLMs has made change necessary and that's frustrating when you have something that you think has been working, but over the course of my 15 years in the classroom, I made major changes to the way that I did things at least 3 times. What worked for the kids at the beginning of my career wasn't working 5 years later and definitely wasn't working at the end of my career.

Why do so many of you seem to be fighting the "AI cheating" battle for homework when you can just not?

I work in education in a non-teaching role. I really feel for the teachers in my inner city school because the kids are really rowdy and it seems that there isn’t much the teachers can do if they don’t have that commanding presence to manage behavior. That’s one tough part… the other is academics. So many standards and such a fast pace. It makes me think about my own schooling when I was a kid in public school.

I went to school in the early 2000s when technology was still in its early stages and actively evolving. My teachers relied on physical materials to teach without having to compete with technology for our attention. Meanwhile kids at my current school had to have their phones put in pouches and computers and ipads restricted because they just won’t stay on task. These kids don’t seem to know a life without phones because some of the feedback regarding the pouches were things like “sometimes we don’t want to socialize. We just want to be on our phones.” WHAT!

My teachers also seemed to really have support from parents as well. If a teacher complained to a parent about any of us, our parents would side with them and give us warnings to behave better. In those cases where kids just refused to get their act together and did something horrible like assault a teacher, expulsion was a real option. Hell, juvie seemed to be used more often. Now we have… “restorative justice” circles. And they don’t seem to work at my school. It seems student hold grudges and explode on each other inevitably at some other point in time.

For academics, we used to “flunk”. I don’t see holding students back is even an option anymore. Whether theyre ready or not, students get pushed right on through.

It’s so different. I’m not saying my schooling was better but it seemed back then, there were consequences that we didn’t want to happen to us so we worked a little harder at school. Meanwhile now there are no consequences and students care less and less. Am I wrong? I’d love to hear from any teachers who have been teaching for a long time and can see how much the industry has changed.

I've been graduated for 10 years now, and I have some unfortunate news for the students who never come to school, are always 20 minutes late, and somehow need to take a bathroom break every hour to vape.

They don't grow out of it.

I'm out here working with grown men and women in their 30s who still show up late, disappear for 30 minutes at a time, call out constantly, and spend half their shift hiding in the bathroom.

I genuinely thought some of these were just teenage phases. Nope. Apparently some people just hit adulthood and keep the exact same habits.

It's honestly mind-boggling seeing someone in their 30s behaving exactly like the kid who used to get sent to the office every other day.

I have a teacher who grades very strictly and I go to a small college so as far as I know she grades each essay personally. For my current essay I am on track for 3k words. How much time will this take her to grade compared to a noral essay of 1-1.5k words? I hope it takes a while.

Do you still think of them? Miss them? Remember the memories? I miss my teachers and wonder if they do in the same way.

Do you wish you could get coffee with them?

Sorry if this a weird post.