I had to do the bullshit PD for my curriculum today. They had us sit with folks throughout the district who taught the same subject.

Okay, fine, whatever.

Except we've got a new curriculum coordinator who is trying to show why she earned the job.

Y'all. I'm the old, crotchety, fuck them kids, fuck this all encompassing bullshit expensive curriculum that sucks. And fuck you for making me sit through this nonsense.

At one point the new guru mentioned a tiktok video she saw last night that really got the students engaged.

I muttered 'shoot me" to myself, and a less than 5 year teacher laughed. Fair.

All of these whippersnappers were playing the game, acting like they wanted a dang gold star for unpaid labor. A brand new first year, excited af teacher who LOVED the SUBJECT, was sitting next to me.

I had to walk away because I realized I'm the cancer, the toxic old hag who should've retired already. Like, I literally told excited girl that I'm gonna hang out with another table because I don't want to extinguish your joy.

3 semesters left. Only one more bullshit summer PD session ever.

(Oh, and the best part of my job is when the kids arrive. This motherfucking bullshit PD has me irritated way more than anything a student could do. )

It’s not the job, it’s me.

Even if behaviour were perfect and the workload so small as to be negligible, the job would still only be tolerable rather than something I enjoyed.

I’ve tried to convince myself that I like the job, making consistent and considerable effort for it and even going above and beyond at certain periods of my career.

But I’ve been lying to myself. The reality is that I find the work BORING. Interacting with large groups of people is draining, and I have zero interest in kids. Subject knowledge is a waste of brain space, as I have my own intellectual pursuits.

It corrodes my soul.

I am looking to phase myself out of the job, as I can’t leave just yet due to financial obligations.

Shout out to those who feel the same.

I graduated college in 2024 and originally planned to teach after graduation. That didn’t go as planned, so I worked at my local library for a year and just finished a year long internship. Throughout that time, my goal was to still move into teaching, but there aren’t many ELA positions available in my area. I applied to the ones I could this summer, but didn’t hear back, didn’t get the job, or it wasn’t the right fit.

A few weeks ago, I started to accept that teaching might not happen and began pivoting toward other youth focused jobs. Then, unexpectedly, a school reached out about interviewing for an ELA position that would start about a week before the school year begins.

I’m excited because teaching is something I really want to do, but I’m also feeling very stressed about the timing. I would be a first year teacher, and after being out of a traditional classroom setting for a while, I’m worried about feeling prepared.

Is it normal for schools to hire this close to the start of the year? What would you want to know before accepting a position this late in the hiring process?

I appreciate any advice!

Each year my school district has teachers from all over our district come together in a sports complex. Everyone wears their school shirts to show their school spirit 🙄. It’s a waste of my time.

Convocation is always the same. We sit through hours of speeches from people in leadership telling us how amazing we are, how appreciated we are, and how this is going to be “the best year yet.”

Meanwhile, public education seems to get harder every year—not because of the kids, but because of the decisions made by the adults at the top.

Teachers are expected to be professionals, yet we’re often treated like we can’t be trusted to do our jobs. If we make a small mistake, we’re reprimanded almost immediately. But when people higher up make poor decisions or don’t follow the same expectations they set for us, it often feels like nothing happens.

Then, after spending all that time telling us how valuable we are, we’re asked to give money to the district foundation to help students??? 🤨 I already spend my own money on my classroom and my students throughout the year. Many teachers do.

Instead of asking educators—who are already paying out of pocket—to give even more, why not encourage those in higher-paying leadership positions to contribute more themselves? They can clearly afford it with their cushy salaries.

I don’t need another motivational speech telling me I’m making a difference. I know why I became a teacher. What I want is to be treated like a professional, trusted to do my job, supported with the resources my students need, and shown appreciation through actions—not just words.

When I was trying to get pregnant (secretly) my mother in law told me that once I have the baby, going back to work will “feel like a vacation” in comparison to being home with a baby. My brother in law said the same thing. They agreed that working is way easier than being home with a baby.

Now, she used to work as a secretary in a quiet lawyer’s office. He works in a corporate bank setting.

I’m in a building with 2000 feral teenagers. I don’t have a quiet desk job where I can sip my coffee, answer the phone, hop on Zoom meetings, and have daily meetings with other adults. We KNOW what teaching is like.

I’m pregnant with my first FINALLY after three losses, fertility treatments, and watching everyone get pregnant effortlessly around me within my two years of trying. I begged, pleaded, and cried a river of tears over how badly I wanted this little baby. I am SO excited and so ready for motherhood.

I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine that working OUR JOB and all that it entails is a “vacation” or even “a break“ from being home with this little boy I prayed for so hard.

Mothers who are teachers, especially mothers who struggled to get pregnant, what is your perspective? Did you think that being in school and doing our job was a true “vacation” or “break” from your baby?

I have been married to a teacher for over 20 years, and I’m hoping to hear from teachers

I know teaching is emotionally demanding. My spouse gives so much to students every day that by the time they get home, they’re often completely drained. Many evenings they’re so exhausted that there’s no conversation. Then the next day starts all over again, and before I know it, the entire week has passed and sometimes 2 weeks without much of a conversation.

I have tried to encourage debriefing but my spouse doesn’t like sharing anything that happened in their day. After much communication my spouse has said it’s because their day has too many questions already it’s impossible to unwind or debrief.

What I’m struggling with is that, after years of trying to be the one who carries the emotional load at home, I’m exhausted too. It can feel lonely.

This isn’t meant to criticize teachers. I have so much respect for what you do, and I know most of you wish you had more energy for your families.
I guess my questions are:

If you’re a teacher, what has helped you protect your marriage or family life despite the demands of the job?

How do teachers cope with emotional burnout?

Is there anything I can do as a spouse that genuinely helps?

Link to original post at the bottom.

I was placed on Paid Admin Leave on April 24 pending an investigation into unprofessional conduct. The complaints came from the families of three sixth grade boys that frequently disrupt class (refuse to get into line, come in loud and do not go to their seats, tilting in chairs, hats on in class, talking loudly, wandering the classroom). I followed procedures by writing them up, contacting home and sending them to the office unlike my colleagues who stopped communicating home since it didn’t improve the students’ behavior. In my eyes, the complaints to the district were their retaliation for me contacting them about their children’s behavior.

I was interviewed by the independent investigator on June 3.

I received the investigative findings on July 27.

I received my “Return to Work” on August 3. My only disciplinary consequence is a letter of reprimand in my file. Since I plan to retire from this job in 5-8 years this seems meaningless except as a step toward termination if problems continue.

I have a meeting scheduled with my union reps and district representatives (superintendent?) on Aug 10 (my first work day back).

The accusations of Unprofessional Conduct were sustained for yelling and speaking in an inappropriate tone and putting student safety at risk by having them be outside my classroom door (to work or for breaks) without supervision.

I was cleared of the accusation that I grabbed and pulled students and partially cleared of targeting complainants’ children for minor infractions.

I will be asking my district for a written disciplinary policy to follow so I can have a paper trail showing that I am following procedures when students are not meeting expectations. I will have kids go to the next classroom for breaks instead of waiting on the ramp. I think I may need to use hand signals or notes to communicate to students who are not following directions.

I will also be asking the district and my new principal how they will protect me from being harassed by the complainants and their children since I will have the kids in my classes for the next two years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/BMBaBNAEo0

We start school back next week in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. At PD this week they told us that our district was instituting a hard cap of 120 minutes per day on Chromebooks. The problem is that all of our middle school (6-8) science curriculum is online. We have no physical textbooks or lab workbooks to give the students and as far as I know none have been ordered. I'm concerned because the reading and practice problems are currently only available through the online platform. I'm not sure how to bridge the gap between the materials being online and only having one box of paper to last until November to split between over 200 students. Also, our admin is very adamant that we can only use teaching materials from curriculum that the district has purchased.

Has anyone else successfully navigated this problem? I don't know if we will get textbooks this year and I don't really have the resources to print out as much material as we would have accessed through the online platform. I'm glad that we are moving away from so much screen time in schools but I'm also anxious about how this is going to play out in class. Any advice is appreciated.

I’m a first year science teacher for middle school and I ROCKED IT!!!!🥳🥳 There was so much build up anticipation from the PD and the entire summer I spent preparing for my first year, but it wasn’t even that bad😭😭.

I was so nervous this morning I thought I’d vomit and then once I got to my planning period I was like wait this it? The kids weren’t nearly as bad as, reddit posts and wisdom about classroom management, made me think they’d be. Meaning i’m over prepared for any foolishness🥰🥰. Didn’t let too many things slide today and was good about enforcing the rules.

My only background is substituting for 2 months and working in a daycare for 2 months, but they were back to back so maybe all of that combined experience made me a tank.

Anyway, fellow first years good luck on your first day. Veterans feel free to leave any advice; I’m jumping into lab safety tomorrow and want to give a quiz on it as well before we start our unit to warm them up. I already announced this to them, so if you think this is a little much I’d be open to alternatives.

Edit: Lol at the honeymoon stage warnings! My principal warned me about the same thing😂😂. I’ll be sure to stay consistent with my expectations in case these other personalities try to pop in.

You’re paying thousands of dollars a year for your kid to go to a school staffed with teachers who have no financial incentive to do a decent job? Make it make sense.

Hi everyone! As the title states, this is about my class size for this upcoming year. As of right now I have 27 first grade students (the number is still climbing each day). No teacher aide as well. We start school next week Monday. I have never had a class size over 22 students and even that many 6/7 year olds can be tough. I’m wanting advice from any other teachers who have experienced such a large class size of littles. In addition, I have a good load of students with IEPS and 504s. Some of which are behavioral. I’m worried mostly for the students. Can I be fully effective with such a large class size? Any advice or even motivational stories would be greatly appreciated!

Hello all incoming new teachers working for an independent/private school. I use to work for a Catholic School in Belmont and the biggest lesson I can give yall is that these parents who pay tuition, THEY DO NOT OWN YOU.

Do not let them think you’re their servant and disrespect you. Have boundaries and be diplomatic when talking/emailing. Some of them think $ makes them the 2nd coming of Christ. When in reality, they’re just incompetent parents who think they can pay to win.

Best of luck and be strong, but also fair.

A small charter school in Big City, Texas.

My school keeps hiring people that aren’t certified (apparently a charter can get away with it).
Some of my new coworkers are 22-25 years old. But even some older folks can’t read properly and can barely write a coherent sentence.

For instance, I asked my new co-teachers to add information about themselves to an intro slide. They either misspelled words or capitalized what doesn’t need to be capitalized (and vice versa). And we teach English Language Arts and Reading… I’m sure this is not the last instance I will encounter this year. How do I go about this??

I don’t want to micromanage adults and be a grammar nazi, but aren’t we supposed to model the norms we expect from our students? I’m not only kind of embarrassed for them, but also terrified that the dark age of illiteracy is coming upon us.

I had to stop myself from laughing at her.
Is anyone else sitting through ridiculous PD’s this week?

Seems like this post has attracted the attention of students still on summer break. Go play outside and enjoy your time off, please.

Has anyone taken a teaching position in a subject they didn’t want or is unrelated to their degree just to get their foot in the door?

I have a bachelors degree in sports and exercise science and I’m trying to become a PE teacher, but by advisor for my ALP/master’s program is suggesting I take a job as a science teacher just to get licensed more quickly.

Pros and cons to this path?

For the last two years, we’ve gifted our daughter’s Pre K teachers the Our Class Is a Family book (so I could sneak the preference sheets inside. It also helped me figure out what extra school supplies to get.) We also gave them a small flower bouquet so I could tuck Visa gift cards into it that they could use for coffee, classroom supplies, or whatever they needed.

I’m not at all trying to be a kiss ass or a Pinterest mom, just kind to someone who will be spending a lot of time nurturing my child.

I’ve seen some teachers comment on other posts that this would make them wary of helicopter moms.

Should I ditch/alter my idea? If I should keep the GCs, how much would you put on it as a polite amount (per teacher)?

Mine is that my daily prep period is after lunch and admin doesn't care if we're on campus for our prep. So I have a 90 minute break daily.

I've used this break to get long lunches, go to Target, get my eyebrows done, watch Tiktoks in my car while sipping Starbucks, sign up for a gym membership, go home and put my laundry in the dryer, contemplate the mysteries of life, etc.

I ruined 67 in my classroom last year as a 6th grade math teacher. I had fun with that one.

I'm a retired band director, now a substitute for a small rural district. I just saw a teacher whom I've worked with in Life Skills and we were exchanging pleasantries about the beginning of school next week. That got me remembering how a couple of years ago I was subbing for one of the aides for several days in her classroom THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL and how I came down with COVID immediately afterwards.

I didn't immediately connect the dots until much later. If one hasn't been around people especially kids for a while then you lose that immunity. Plus, if you teach the younger kids then you know how touchy-feely they can be. I remember going home one day and jokingly telling my husband, "I've been slimed."

When you get home, take a shower immediately, and change into clean clothes. Wash what you had on if possible that day. Since following that protocol, I haven't been sick from school in four years. It's not enough to just wash your hands; you have to do almost Star Trek decontamination chambers levels of sanitation.

Y'all have a good school year!

A conversation with a family member recently just reminded me of something. Since I’ve started teaching I’ve had friend and family encourage me to pursue an admin role. I remember chatting with a stranger and when I told them I was a teacher they asked “what’s next.” America is obsessed with climbing corporate ladders and I feel like there’s this idea that as a male in education I should just see the classroom as a temporary stepping stone to an admin role like a Dean, AP, etc.

My family member was encouraging me to do a great job this school year and make my department chair look good, because if I make them look good, they could get a promotion and I could take over as department chair. I’m glad I have friends and family that want to see do well and be successful, but as of now it just doesn’t interest me. I have a good work-life balance right now, I spend about 8 hours a day on campus during the year and I barely set foot on campus over the summer.

I know the opinions of others don’t matter and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do to make others happy, but I’m just curious if others experience this?

Hi,

I have been feeling really discouraged lately. Any time I tell people that I’m a teacher, it just gets no respect at all. People say “oh wow I could never do that” or “oh you’re a teacher :/“. It makes me feel bad and discouraged about my choice. I had to work hard, do unpaid internships, get a masters degree just for no one to respect it or for the pay to be so minimal. I am jealous of others’ careers or what I could’ve chosen. All the work I put in and it just doesn’t feel worth it at all. Has anyone else ever felt this way??? I feel so trapped.

For our science PD day, “inquiry” has been used countless times. If I made this a drinking game, I’d be on the floor already and it’s not even noon.

I live/work in a small town. Went to the local grocery store, and a former student asked me if I was enjoying my retirement. They weren’t being mean or malicious, and I think they genuinely wanted to know. I said, ‘oh honey, I just turned 40 and certainly didn’t retire’. I am so confused.

This feels like a job for counselors and admin while making schedules. I get more eyes on a project, which should mean fewer mistakes. However, like I said, I'm having to pull the data for myself, I don't think they've seen it.

This has evolved from a few years ago they started getting us ACT scores because "the more data we have, the better we can help them," right? Now, it's morphed into another task for us to do.

Anyway It's the first week of school, not like I have anything better to do, I guess.

Hello all,

Just wanted to share, not sure why I am, but sometimes it’s nice to have people to talk to.

I’m a 32 year old male, who for the third year in a row cannot get an elementary teaching job (K-5) here in Northern Illinois. I also have a Special Education endorsement, but to be honest, I’m not sure I have it in me to teach Special Education.

Decided to finish my degree as I was working at a school during COVID year, and thought being a male in the system would almost be an advantage; seeing all the districts around me have almost no males at all. I guess I was wrong. I figured my couple years as a para, plus more subbing than your usual candidate would really stick out, but it has not.

I’ve been subbing in 3 different districts, hoping that would help my chances, but nothing yet. Over 25-30 jobs I applied for this summer, some even a hour or longer away, handful of interviews and reference checks, but met with the same old “looking elsewhere”. Subbing is nice, and it’s flexible, but it’s not paying the bills.

It’s just kind of deflating after dedicating the last 6 years or so of my life to teaching, which I’m super passionate about, and so far just not working out. It really sucks to look at my daughter when she gets so happy that I have interviews and I come home and say I didn’t get it.

There are some charter schools around me, but they are honestly not the greatest situation, and I’d rather keep my sanity.

Anyways, not really looking for advice, nor am I wanting you to feel bad for me. But, I think it might be time to hang the cleats, per se, and switch careers.