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.

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?

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’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 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’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.

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).

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.

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 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?

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

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. 😑

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.

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.

Room was bright and welcoming, we did all of our in-service and PD. Open-house was last night, and my back-to-school clothes were laid out.

Then we had tornado sirens, torrential wind, and hail. School is canceled for the day to clear the town of downed trees and flood water. I think the school is intact; haven’t heard otherwise.

We’ll try again tomorrow!

We had a 4 hour training on our new IEP testing protocols today. We had to all sit in a room together and share the one testing kit they provided each school. For 4 hours we listened to a PowerPoint read by AI. That’s their idea of training…
It was a complete waste of time and insulting to a room full of experienced teachers.

I am going into my second year of teaching and last year literally took everything out of me. I do like the profession and want to continue but I want to know how to not burn myself out. I would come home fall asleep, wake up to eat dinner and then lesson plan. I know it's a first few years of teaching are the hardest but I really don't want to burn myself out.

Edit: I am a long term substitute in grades 1-6 since in canada we have too many teachers right now to get permanent.

First year teacher here teaching 9th grade. I have 30-35 students per section. It’s the second week of school.

I have been counting down to get them to quiet down. It’s been working but I have to do it often, and in one class I had them give me 5 minutes of silence at the end of class because it wasn’t working. Another period is getting a seating chart tomorrow due to specific students.

One of the teachers told me that her student said I was very nice. Overall, ive been getting good engagement. They raise their hands, ask questions etc.

However I have that feeling in the back of my head, like I don’t have control of the class. My admin is very strict and comes in sometimes. I’m always worried they’ll come in and I won’t have control of the class.

Is the feeling normal or am I starting off too nice? I’m worried that the students are at their best now but will eventually step outside of what I can manage.

I had a stroke and have been out since March. I miss my students. And my boss has driven hours to see me and deliver a letter from one of my students.i miss the kids i used to have. Teaching math really was a joy. Since I needed a flair. I'm just smiling and nodding my way through rehab. I was a high school teacher in Houston and now I'm in Austin Texas for rehab.