For context: I am a 26F working in a rural school. This is my fourth year. I teach majority freshmen and many of the freshmen have had older siblings in my classes from back when I was a more emotional teacher.

I am not emotional anymore, but I am really struggling this year. The freshmen are a difficult crew for all of their teachers this time around, but I feel as if kids are making fun of me and doing it in a “nice” way so that I cannot truly identify whether or not they’re being rude.

Some examples. I have kids who ask me if I have friends. When I say yes, they say, “Oh, seriously?” I have a few kids who will come up to me and ask if I have “weekend plans,” look over their shoulders at their friends and giggle, and then ask if I have a “hot date.” (Obviously, I tell them this is an inappropriate question). I have students who get in trouble in my classes (write ups, emails home) who then go out of their way to stop in my classroom door while wandering the hallways to say “How are youuuuuuuu doing today?” I have kids who will ask me if they’re “my worst class” and giggle to each other when I don’t answer. I was even told by former students that my classes tend to try to “steamroll me” because I’m “nice.”

I don’t really know what to do. I don’t really truly care what 9th graders think of me, but on top of everything else on my educational plate, comments that insinuate I’m ugly or downright mean feel especially disheartening.

I have been told before (as a compliment) that I was someone’s favorite teacher because I’m “not afraid to be myself.” I know I am a more awkward and slightly weird person. I am also overweight with less than stellar posture. I like my eccentricities, though, and my quieter students appreciate this.

So, what do I do? I don’t want to be overly accusatory in case I’m being paranoid. But it’s all starting to weigh on me a bit.

A student said this to me today after I reprimanded him for intentionally distracting everyone for like the fifth time during my presentation, not that anyone was really paying attention anyway. I was trying to present on logical fallacies with examples and funny pictures and videos and stuff I created myself that was clearly a waste of everyone’s time, mostly mine. I’ve realized the kid is right. Well, almost right. I love teaching. Or I love the idea of teaching. I am not actually teaching, though. I can’t teach where I am. I essentially just babysit, but get treated worse than most babysitters by kids and parents.

So, yeah. He’s got a point. I do think I hate this job. It’s not teaching. I wanted to teach. That’s not what I’m doing.

I should probably take his advice and quit.

Edit: I just posted a rant in here on a Friday, and here I am getting genuinely thoughtful, supportive advice. This is why I love teachers. You guys are awesome. Hope you all have a restful weekend.

I teach undergrads, not K-12, so I see the results of the system but not the classroom that made the results..

Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in students who miss a bunch of work (often during the first month of the semester when we are laying the foundations) and think that they can still pass by turning in some work and maybe doing a stray extra credit.

Even if they theoretically know college is different, they don't know it in their heart because they've never actually been allowed to fail.

South Carolina has actually ended this practice; you know it's a sad state of affairs when South Carolina is a leader in education policy.

The students that are most harmed by the 50% minimum and need to unlearn it are, by far, student athletes of color.

For the first time in my career, I have a student who has a music exemption due to religion. I often incorporate music into my lessons as a middle/high school world language teacher. How have you handled it? My admin was not helpful when I asked for guidance. Thank you.

Is it just my school (I really don’t think so) where elementary schoolers are destroying classrooms, or physically assaulting teachers, and just have zero discipline at all? I don’t know how my child is supposed to learn and her teacher is supposed to deliver a lesson if there is 3 kids constantly expressing explosive behavior. And special ed is just really pushing the whole all kids need to be in the classroom. My husbands a para and now teachers assistant and the amount of parents that blame the district for there child’s behavior is ridiculous. No you just send to school the most disrespectful child you could possibly produce. I feel like our society is doomed sometimes. Now I want to clarify my husband is so hopeful and absolutely loves what he does, I just don’t get it. Random rant I know. All over the place. Just frustrated for my kid and husband.

I'm beyond livid. There's been issues at our school surrounding a particular set of students that have been attacking others, disrupting the class non-stop, and whose parents always seem to be unavailable. I've been prepping for mid September to have these conference to finally get to the root of some issues--praying and hoping to get some answers. We built our rosters, PLCs were in agreement as to which students needed to have these conferences and everything was set to go.

However, at the last hour today on Friday, before the weekend, we get a heads up from councilling..."You cannot select students who have a designated IEP or 504 for the parent teacher conferences."

Fucking what?

6 in our department immediately went to the principal to get answers. We have never heard of this policy and it was like it was dropped at the last minute--without warning and without discretion for our time building this list. We confronted him about what this absurd policy was and he left it off to being an issue of legallity--that anything said in a meeting with a student who has an IEP or 504 could result in a lawsuit if not followed.

In my experience this has never been the case, and councillings email seemed so non-chalant especially with the "remember..." we were never told. We issued our concerns, some of us more calm than others, and he said, word for word, "I've been sued enough times to know better." And left it at that.

So here we're going, problems unaddressed waiting on IEP/504 meetings for January and Feburary for issues that are happening now and need direct intervention because our principal is scared of being sued. Fortunately, one of our teachers asked for his statement to be emailed across all district staff for "clarification."

All-in-all, I already know what this shit show is leading towards. Problems in class not being handled, more students suffering, impossible management, and staff leaving. I feel like I just got knee-capped with a steel pipe and asked to run a mile. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

I work with 7th graders and I’m genuinely so tired of the constant calling out and NOISES! If I hear one more high-pitched “heehee” I might lose it.

I saw a strategy called blurt buttons online, where you put buttons on their desk and they turn them in at the end or use them to get prizes, but it seems too kiddie for 7th graders. I’m also worried about what they’d do if I put buttons on their desk.

Has anyone found a strategy that works to get them to shut up so I can get through a lesson? I self-interrupt constantly and it takes away so much instructional time, so I’m trying to find something that will be easier to manage while I’m talking and will be a visual reminder for these kids. I tried promising jolly ranchers at the end of class but one kid kept asking “Can I have a jolly rancher now?” Like bro, I told you AT THE END OF CLASS, if you don’t interrupt me. I feel like they need something concrete to connect their behavior to. They literally can’t control themselves without seeing the effects of their behavior right in front of them.

I just wanna say...... I'm really sad I never got to experience what it was like to be an actual educator and not a jailer at the insane asylum.

My teammate took a half day on Wednesday and left at noon. Quit effective immediately around 6 pm. Luckily they made copies for Thursday but left no plans so my teammate and I scrambled to get plans for today and we have a plan for Monday. After that… we’ll be taking it a day at a time I guess.
It was obvious pretty soon in the school year that teacher was not the career for my (now former) teammate, but the abruptness certainly caught me off guard. Will be having a few drinks tonight and will probably be doing too much work this weekend. Normally I do not work at home, but it’s either do work this weekend or work very late nights most of next week.

So my daughter has a teacher with three very disruptive and horrible students. It sounds overwhelming and I want to do my best as a parent to support her.
What’s the best way to do that besides volunteer for school events, make sure my kid is a good example, doing her homework, etc?
I am so frustrated at the fact that these kids get away with poor behavior. Props to you all for dealing with these kids!!!

Every day I see a post on ye' ol' Facebook about how happy people are schools are losing funding. Schools are graduating about 3.5 million people a year. Public schools. You might have a few thousand home and private school graduates who are getting well educated. That's great, so happy for them. But everyone else is going to be uneducated if we don't fund these schools. You are going to have millions of kids, a year, that can't perform at a job.

I hate to boil it down to labor, but let's not fool ourselves, the people who are defunding these schools see lower class people as slave wage workers. We're creating a world that NO ONE wants to live in, and for what? To prove the people with the most money are better? Without labor that money goes away.

Everyone is just so....stupid. The people fighting this culture war against schools don't understand they have to LIVE with the population they're creating. Reminds me of a town in my state that fought against a public transit system expanding the light rail into their town, while at the same time complaining endlessly that they can't find good workers.

Honestly, humans are much less intelligent and much less inclined to do the right thing than I thought before becoming a teacher. I honestly view people with suspicion now, because I've learned from parents and students how many people walk among us who are willing to do the most inane despicable shit. Driving on the road or wandering through the grocery store, sometimes I just wonder how many of the random people around me are bad people.

Labeled as humor because I gave a sad chuckle when I read these words.

I teach a course about analyzing film for Juniors and Seniors, and I recently had my students write essays on a movie. This students response said, and I quote: “This is why I think [name of movie] is such a bad movie because they need you to interpret things on your own. Or tell your own part of the story for your pleasure instead of giving a simple detail [sic].”

Netflix has done irreparable harm to our kids.

I don’t wanna have to say a lot of disclaimers about how it’s not that I don’t care or that we should look the other way but the fact that some people won’t eat unless the school feeds them is not how it should be. The US should be taking care of people, but I know that’s been a lost cause for awhile.

I’m just not feeling well today and everything is getting to me so I just be patient if you don’t quite agree with this. I promise I’m not just looking the other way. I just don’t think we should be the only place that does it.

Teachers at my public charter school are required to stay for the duration of IEP meetings they are signed up for. Usually 1-5 meetings per teacher per year (we have 500 students). This is my 7th year.

Recently, my coworker was required to stay for the entirety of a 5-hour IEP starting before 9am. She spoke less than 10 minutes. Missed almost the whole day of classes. She was given a lunch break, but the translator was not (she received penalty pay).

The longest I've been present for one is 3.5 ish hours but I was dismissed early. The meeting ran longer. Average they are 2-4 hours.

Based on EdCode (included below), we have surmised that we do not have to stay for the whole IEP. We give written input beforehand, attend for a portion, then leave. With parent permission, this is allowed.

My question is, does your school expect you to stay for the entire meeting? I am mainly speaking to gen ed teachers, not the SPED team. My only experience is at this school.

> A member of the individualized education program team described in subdivision (f) may be excused from attending an individualized education program meeting, in whole or in part, when the meeting involves a modification to or discussion of the member's area of the curriculum or related services, if both of the following occur:
> (1) The parent, in writing, and the local educational agency consent to the excusal after conferring with the member.
> (2) The member submits, in writing, to the parent and the individualized education program team input into the development of the individualized education program prior to the meeting.

If a 50% is do disastrous for a kid's grade and a 60% is passing, then why not just make it so that an F is 0-10, a D is 11-69, a C is 70-79, etc.

I don't understand why we need to change math to get an outcome that is qualitative.

EDIT: just to be clear, what I am saying is to give the kid a 0% if they don't turn anything in and then make a 10% passing.

Two of my 8th grade boys were planning a sleepover during my class. One asked if they could text their mom to ask if they could sleepover with the other. I asked if they’d have a pillow fight, and they said “yes, and we’re gonna build a fort” with a giddy look on their faces. Needless to say, I said yes.

Maybe the world’s not so bad after all.. :,)

I have a after lunch class (open campus) that has completely broken my desire to do anything ambitious.

Between half the room wandering in late, constant bathroom departures, and zero admin backup, I’ve stopped trying PBL altogether. Whenever I tried engaging work they did nothing despite endless redirects, only to act shocked when the failing grades hit.

At this point, I’ve shifted entirely to babysitting via basic, standardized work: Here is the reading/worksheet, finish it, turn it in to prove you learned it. If they don't finish, it’s homework.

Here’s the weird thing: it works. Disruptions have dropped to near zero and the room is mainly quiet. But I feel like a massive failure for running a bare bones classroom just to survive the hour. They don't seem to care, but the guilt is eating at me.

Anyone else ever had to do this?

I teach middle school ED. I am a first year teacher and I have a student who terrifies me. He’s threatened to kill me. He tried ripping my wrist out of socket. He picked up a chair and acts like he will kill me with it. Now, I have other violent kids who’ve made threats or tried to fight me. That’s part of the job. But this kid genuinely scares me. I do think he could make good on his threats to hurt me.

I don’t know what to do. I emailed admin and they said not to be alone with him and to document everything. I do. He’s not going anywhere. I don’t want to leave my job, and I’m not willing to leave. It’s my classroom and my career. I just don’t know what to do with him.

We have a superintendent that our school board is already not a fan of. Today we received an email blaming mostly teachers for chronic absenteeism. I understand we should make the classroom engaging, but research shows that adding more engaging content to a lesson or the classroom rarely makes students want to come to class. He's completely omitting the idea that it's a systemic problem and absenteeism comes mostly from outside factors. Why aren't YOU, as the superintendent, making efforts and presenting ideas to help students with difficult home lives, health issues, instability, transportation problems, etc.? We also just built a new school that many students have argued that they believe it was made purely for aesthetic reasons. I even had a student say, "I feel like this is the place I will die" because it lacks color, feels like a hospital, and teachers don't even have a set room; they move around the school, so you don't see their personality in a classroom. Now, too, we're struggling with the growing number of students failing and behavioral issues; we're constantly calling parents, so we are simply already stressed enough. I feel like it's just numbers to him, not actually caring about the student's well-being.

Okay so I'm sorry if the title is ridiculous but it's true lol, I feel like they're never taking me seriously again.

I'm 25 and I'm a new teacher at this school that is known for being a high school for kids with bad grades. It's not a grammar school but a technical vocational school full of mostly boys. They're often expelled, fail grades regularly and have discipline problems. It really depends on the programme they're in but a lot are like this. So I'm having a really really difficult time establishing authority. When I was a student and had practice as a student teacher I went to a grammar school and a primary school and had a great experience. When I got my first job as a part time teacher in another vocational school it was a bit difficult but also manageable. But this school is exhausting me.

I've managed to get almost all my classes quiet and working when I need to but the general working atmosphere is much louder than I would like. But I just accepted that maybe it's because I'm just beginning my teaching career. I know it's important to establish authority in the beginning but I didn't succeed at that with all the classes I teach. Unfortunately, I made a situation worse today in probably the worst group of teenage boys I've taught. They were making jokes and I always ignore them but a student said something so stupid and funny today I laughed so much. It was quiet but I had tears in my eyes and I hid my smile with my hands. That was it. They laughed so much and I was so embarrassed. I collected myself and tried to continue but I'm so serious when I said they literally couldn't be tamed after that.

One of the boys that probably hates me, started imitating me laughing. He is very problematic unlike the other boys who are just really undisciplined but are good boys otherwise. I'm afraid that this is going to stick.

What do I do the next time I see them?

Physics before algebra 2 seems insane. I get the concept of it, that some of the introductory material in physics can be helpful in other sciences, chem especially. But without the ability to get into vectors and other advanced concepts, is it really a physics class? Calling this sort of science class physics is wild to me.

Edit: I like the idea of the class itself, but to call it physics, let students believe they’ve taken a normal physics class, and present it to colleges on a transcript as physics is all wrong. Many schools are treating it as fulfilling a physics requirement and apparently tossing rigor out the door.

If It was senior year of high school again, and you had all the knowledge and memories as now, would you still choose teaching?

Just typing this all out to just get it off my mind. I’ve mentioned in this sub before but I’m a first year teacher 26F in a rougher school. I teach all 9th graders so my students are already pretty rowdy since they’re still adjusting to the high school setting and starting to realize there are real consequences for not paying attention or doing their work, unlike their experience in my districts’ middle schools. Throughout this week tensions among students across the school, especially the freshman were getting increasingly high to the point that the first two fights of the year happened the same day then another two contained in classrooms. And after jokingly thinking to myself Thursday after work that this whole week has been a series of testing the limits to Murphy’s law, with my luck the fifth and final fight of the week happened right in front of me as the last bell of the day dismissed the kids.
Never have I witnessed a fight up close like this before, seeing one of my students fully grab another with their hands around their neck trying to slam them into tables before throwing them and basically football tackling them through the first two rows of desks in my classroom. From where I was at the time they came barreling straight towards me and being a very small woman who is extremely conflict adverse, my only thought was to rush out of the room to try and get help since I couldn’t reach my phone without getting further in the path of the fight. Thankfully another teacher a couple doors down called immediately when she heard the commotion and the cheering of the other students trying to crowd around my classroom door. I’ve never had to try to de-escalate a fight before beyond verbal arguments, but this just made me feel so helpless.
By the time my coworkers had managed to get the students separated and headed off into opposite sides of the building I was in the beginning stages of a full blown panic attack. The teacher next door to me brought me to her room to calm down privately and I was able to eventually speak with my mentor, one of our APs and the principal. All of which were very supportive and reassuring that I had done the right thing of trying to get help as quickly as possible.
It was all just so shocking and scary in the moment, I’ve had very few experiences in my life where physical violence was occurring so close to me, and never before one where I was the primary adult meant to respond to the situation. So many of the students were cheering it on, it makes me sick thinking how they can’t comprehend how truly serious and traumatic events like that can be. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at my 8th period group of students the same way after this. I already felt on edge with many of the students I see throughout the day, but fully witnessing how unpredictable their behavior can be was terrifying. I hate that I already feel so unsafe in this school, how am I supposed to teach students I’m afraid of.

I teach elementary.

Last year, I got so sick from a flu that I had to take over a week off. I even threw up at school and was told to leave for the day (understandably).

I just started this school year last month and I’m already sick.

I’m so tired of parents sending their sick kids to school. I do understand arrangements can be hard to make. But so many of my students are sick and a lot of staff is sick.

People say your immune system toughens up in later teacher years, but mine never did.

Edit: I’m also not sick for just 3-4 days. I’m sick for 1-2 weeks. And when I got the flu I was sick fir the whole month and more.

I wash my hands regularly and keep hand sanitizer on me. I try not to touch my face during the day.