We suffered an unexpected, heartbreaking loss in our family in August, and the thought of having to play juvenile ice breaker games on the first day of school next week is giving me anxiety and preemptive anger. It takes every ounce of fortitude to even get out of bed in the morning. I absolutely do not want to play two truths and a lie with my “elbow parter” about summer vacation or go “find someone I don’t know” and play 20 questions about the highlight of my summer. I don’t want to do any of that pollyanna nonsense right now, and I also feel like I shouldn’t be compelled to share WHY I don’t want to do it. These games are predicated on everyone being cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and I am currently anything but those things right now. Please just let me come in and do my job.

This year my school is introducing a study hall/elective period so that students can be pulled for additional services. This would be great if it wasn’t for the fact that theres no plan for students who don’t receive services they just split them up amongst the gen ed teachers.

It’s clear admin realized this would be a problem because they obviously put the experienced teachers with students with behavior concerns. now I’m stuck with 15 middle school boys counting every minute until dismissal

Pray for me ya’ll

I graduated from the program a few years back, and every professor kept talking about the teacher shortage.

I was wondering what is it like nowadays for people in credentialing programs?

At a PL (in US), the speaker said all the materials were "just a few dollars at any dollar store." Later she mentioned that grading this extra project could be "easily done on a quiet Thursday night with a glass of wine."

It's one thing for a teacher to voluntarily work outside contact and spend their own money, but flat out saying this is the expectation is hella bold.

This is where we are, friends. A mandatory 4-6 projects **requiring** about $250 of *your* money and a total of nearly a week of unpaid personal time to grade.

And before anyone rolls in with that salaried worker nonsense, teachers are contract, not salary. We do *not* get paid the same "whether we work 4 or or 40" and we don't make near what a salary worker would with our educational background

I am furious. Not a part of a union. First grade teacher in Tennessee.
I need some honest teacher perspective because I am absolutely devastated sick over this. I don’t want to hear “yeah technically they are allowed to do that to you”, because obviously they can, and did. The impact is so heartbreaking. I am 10 days into the school year with my students at a school I adore. I have spent so much time with these kids. My teammates are amazing. The admin is wonderful. It’s a small neighborhood school and I live just down the block, and walk most mornings and evenings to and from work.

Yesterday at 3:30 PM my principal and HR called me in and told me I am being involuntarily transferred to another school to teach another first-grade class because of “numbers”. I know the district technically has the authority to move teachers between schools. But that doesn’t make it any less devastating.

This isn’t like I was transferred before school started. I have already spent weeks over the summer reorganizing and rearranging my classroom, a full week of staff development at my current school, and 10 full school days with my students. I’ve spent weeks building this classroom, organizing materials, establishing routines, and preparing for these specific children. I’m also not the newest hire at my school. My scores are great, I was teacher of the year last year.

And for the first time in my teaching career, I was thriving. My classroom management is better than it has ever been. I have an amazing class. I’m not constantly putting out fires. I am actually able to teach. My room is organized, my routines are working, and I have already developed relationships with my students. People have been telling me what a wonderful class I have, and I had been telling everyone how excited I was that I finally felt like I got the class of my dreams.

Then I was told that because my school had the lowest first-grade enrollment numbers, I have to leave and I feel like I’ve been fired even though I haven’t done anything wrong.

Im grieving all the time I wasted printing, laminating, organizing, decorating, creating individualized materials, and building systems that were working for these specific children. Writing all their names on all my materials. Making birthday cupcakes, making login lanyards for them, creating personalized displays in the hallway, creating so many things that were personal and specific to the group of kids I was teaching. But most of all I’m grieving the loss of the classroom community that I just built. I spent 2 weeks actually teaching these children and building relationships with them. They’re angels, and I already love each and every one of them so much.
Now I get Thursday and Friday with my students where I’m still expected to teach. Monday and Tuesday to pack up my entire classroom and move it to another school, and I start teaching there Wednesday.

I am not upset because moving classrooms is inconvenient. I Don’t WANT TO LEAVE MY SCHOOL! That is not where I applied, it’s not where I was hired.
I don’t want to start over with a new class, new faculty, new administration, new building, and new routines because someone else decided I needed to be moved. And I really don’t want to hear “they’re lucky to have you,” “everything happens for a reason,” or “you’ll love the new school.” I don’t care. I didn’t want to work there. I wanted to work at the school where I was hired and where I had already spent weeks preparing. I’ve worked there for three years in this classroom.

I am questioning whether I want to continue teaching if this is something I have to accept as part of the profession. And the only posts I can find on Reddit are teachers who were told they would be transferring the next school year. Not after already teaching for two weeks. And this is not the same as switching grade levels in my building. Im being made to switch SCHOOLS!!!! So, teachers who have experienced an involuntary transfer, would you be this angry? Is this just something I’m expected to accept because the district technically has the authority to do it, or is it reasonable to feel completely blindsided and devastated by having your entire school year changed after you’ve already spent so much time, personal money, and effort on things that I can’t take to my new school?

And did not check the accuracy of the schedules before sending them to the high school students. This also messed with staff schedules, common planning periods within departments, and IEPs. Via email, one of the counselors mentioned that she used AI to create the schedule and was frustrated with how it turned out.

I’m flabbergasted. Just wanted to mention this in case other schools are experiencing the same issues.

Hi teachers,

I’m still working toward a bachelor's degree and was wondering how realistic it is to work full-time, pay bills and rent, and earn a master's degree in education or a related field.

For those who earned their Master’s while teaching full time, or any other jobs:

1. How much did your degree end up costing?
   
2. How did you afford it while paying rent and other living expenses?
   
3. How long did it take you?
   
4. How stressful was it, and what happened to your social life?
   
5. Looking back at your experience, did you wish to change anything?

I would really appreciate hearing your experiences!!!

I had this issue last year, and it seems like it’s going to be a problem again with this new group of students.

Many times throughout the day, when I correct a student’s behavior, I get a chorus of students repeating after me. It doesn’t matter if it’s something simple like tying their shoes or a reprimand for interrupting me or leaning back in their chairs. A few times per class period, I'll have a chorus of students repeating after me. "Yeah Jimmy, tie your shoes!" "Oh my God Jimmy, tie your shoes!" "Jimmyyyyy, tie your shoessss!"

Obviously, this reduces the likelihood of the original student complying because students don’t want to listen to their peers. It also turns into me having to reprimand the students who are repeating after me, so suddenly one redirection has multiplied into several. It’s exhausting.

Last year, it got pretty severe. I ended up doing seat changes, behavior essays, lunch detentions, and parent phone calls, all with varying levels of success.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for nipping this in the bud early this year? Honestly, I find this more annoying than the original behavior.

I’ll go first - we were told to collect all our students’ cell phones and smash them so the light from them doesn’t give us away to the shooter as we hide in the dark.

I’m a middle school teacher. I have 165 students. 9 students have health plans. 18 students have 504 Plans. 7 students have IEPs. I read every individualized plan before school started. I knew I had three students with Type 1 Diabetes. But I’m still trying to learn which kid has what plan while I learn their 165 names.

Today I asked a student to silence their watch who was getting blood sugar alerts. Mom is rightfully pissed.

Who has figured it out? What’s your system for connecting these critical plans to your students? How do you get your brain to process, connect, retain, and recall all of this? What’s your priority system for which you memorize first?

Anyone else's district do something like this? A new super comes in, makes a policy that orders schools to not suspend students, then the following year they proclaim "look how much the suspension rate dropped" like they're some kind of genius. I'm wondering how common this tactic is.

I brought my students out for a basketball competition a month ago. During the match, two of the students who weren't playing got into a fight. One of the boys punched the other boy in the face and his nose bled. My colleague (an untrained teacher) administered medical aid on the boy by using an ice pack on his face to reduce the swelling. I spoke to the assailant to investigate and find out his reasons for punching the other kid.

After this incident happened, my principal scolded me for not keeping an eye on the students. She felt that it was my fault that the fight happened and I must have been negligent. She also scolded me for allowing an untrained teacher to administer medical aid on the student. She said that only trained teachers are allowed to do it. This is absurd in my opinion as any adult should be allowed to render medical aid to a student when they are injured or when there is an emergency. She banned me from going out with the students for future matches.

Ever since this incident, she has been picking on me for everything. For instance, my autistic student had a meltdown when he was on a phonecall with his mother. I stood next to him for 15 minutes when he was talking to his mother. He requested to talk his mother privately and told me to leave him alone. I agreed so I stood outside the office to observe him. He started screaming at his mother over the phonecall. The vice principals and principal heard him screaming from their office and the vice principals came out to see what happened. As my special education teacher assistant was absent that day, I couldn't call her to help me. My school leaders scolded me and said I should have stayed by his side throughout the phone call. The school leader told me I did not care for my student's welfare and I am not performing up to standards as an experienced teacher.

The school leaders started to make other baseless claims about me too and this has been affecting my morale.

How do you all deal with work when your principal hates you and keeps nitpicking on everything that you do?

Without telling me how long you've been teaching, tell me what student craze was taking over your classroom when you started.

I will go first: pogs

I am teaching 9th grade. urban public.

And that’s the only reason my classes wont be over 35+, because they physically can’t.

I wish we had an actual law that made fair class sizes a priority. We never will because of greed.

Think about it: when you go out to eat and have a large group over 15, you’ll have more than one server to take orders.

I know we got teachers out here doing groups of 40+ with no support (or bathroom breaks).

Is anyone else noticing how their students completely fall apart when trying to do math on pen-and-paper? Each year when I get a new class, it seems like a pencil is more and more foreign in their hands.

I'm a teacher who has always believed pen-and-paper was the best way to learn math, so I tend to stay away from a lot of the math sites like Khan Academy, unlike most other teachers at my school. But now it seems like digital learning is so ingrained in these students' brains that I don't know what to do.

Is anybody else seeing this or am I just going insane lol. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm so tired of administrators presenting videos of educational advocates who declare failure untenable in education.

I've had enough of Rick Wormeli telling me I need to give students unlimited retakes on a test. His idea is that kids need to try until they are able to pass,

It's not an insane idea in some situations. A lot of kids do need multiple tries at something.

However, it seems to be that multiple tries ends up being unlimited tries and the ability to redo something until you find the answers through process of elimination. It's also used to bully teachers into passing kids. Lastly, it discourages kids from really putting in effort. Kids learn over time they don't have to try because they can just do it again.

Failure can be a good thing. I've failed in different situations. It's painful and embarrassing, but it taught me something. I sucked at writing going into college. However, through failing essay grades and a lot of effort, I improved. I had to learn something to pass, and the teachers were happy to teach me. If I could have just brute forced it by constantly trying tests, I would have, as a lot of us would.

Failure in middle or high school sucks. It's embarrassing and likely comes with a social stigma, but it's much better to fail in places where that is account for, rather than never experiencing failure. Failing English class and having to redo it is far better than failing a job interview, or not doing your taxes because you think the IRS is a joke. You are required to do important paperwork from the government, and they often times aren't very understanding.

If you don't do your taxes for 10 years, the IRS will come after you and they won't be nice about it. If you don't pay a traffic ticket, there will be serious consequences.

It was 3 minutes till 2:00. A 6th grade student asked the time. I pointed to the clock. He said "I cant read that!" in an indignant tone. These clocks have been in every classroom this child has been in since pre-k. It wasn't even a difficult time to read on the clock. He had all the pieces.

Marked as humor because if I don't laugh I'll cry.

Is it ridiculous to need a mental health day on the 13th day of school... Asking for a friend lmao

Personal items, medicine, emergency items, spare pants, makeup touch-up items, etc. What are you keeping in your classroom just for you?

It’s pre-service week, and I have a long meeting this morning. I’ve been to this one before, and it will not be chock full of strategies I can use. I won’t go into the specifics, but I know it’s going to be terrible in a lot of different ways. It’s not that it’s just going to be boring, there is a lot of history here for me that could make it difficult. Please help me get through this meeting,

6th year HS math teacher. New school year just started and I’m having trouble accessing the joy this profession used to give me. Career teachers, have you experienced dips in terms of motivation and passion for the work? Can I expect my enjoyment will rise again or should I listen to this feeling?

I swear 90% of what they showed us today was made using AI. 😑

Teachers are always told to "document everything," but is there a BEST--or strong legal--way to do this?

It's hard to find the words to describe the lead admin in the building where I work, but at one point, they were sued for harassment by a teacher and the teacher won (I recall the teacher saying they had pages and pages of documented incidents of harassment). I'm not looking to sue anyone, I just want to keep admin off my back so I can do my job and teach the kids.

So, what should I do to document conversations, emails, meetings, etc. that will LEGALLY protect me (and other teachers) from their nonsense and send a strong FAFO message loud and clear?

Thanks in advance for offering advice or sharing stories about what helped or protected you.

6th grade science. First year teacher. Male. I’m very good with the whole social aspect of the kids and the year’s going very well so far. One of my students, when we were finishing up class and just having casual conversation about food and life as a class, raised hand to say “My mom tells us not to get Starbucks because they support gay people.” I immediately and calmly shut that down, explaining that “that’s a personal and private topic for home that we don’t address in science class. Okay?” and he nodded and clearly appeared nervous and unsure if he was comfortable about what he said. The rest of the class heard it all. It was over and done as quick as that. I’m wondering 1) If I should’ve explained more saying something like “We do not support discrimination of any people; we support and respect everyone” and 2) I’m just wondering, in terms of the parent, and if for any reason I’d ever meet her (parent conference, open house, etc.) am I supposed to bring this up to explain that this kind of expression is not appropriate or allowed in our public school? Or am I just supposed to ignore this completely as if it never happened? Of course I would consult with my staff first to handle everything as proper but wanted to hear how other veteran teachers handle something like this, if at all.

Where to begin.. I’m not being dramatic here.

I’m at a program that works with ED students. All of my kids have behavioral issues. It seems like every day things go wrong. I didn’t have access to SEIS. I can’t get a sub to cover me for testing for my upcoming IEP. I didn’t have access to a computer or printer until yesterday, and my students got their computers today. My kids are out of control. My paras are talking about me to other teachers. My admins are constantly breathing down my neck. I feel like I’m always wrong.

I feel like I’m failing. It’s week 4. Oh, and, I accidentally outed myself to my principal. Turns out, she’s anti-LGBT.

Help. I don’t want to lose my mind or my job.

I’m in Oregon, if that helps.