The special education advocate Heather Knickerbocker occasionally crosses my feed. I think a lot of advocates are bottom-feeding scammers, but I don't hate this one. She has an education background and seems to know what she's talking about.

But today she brought up that teachers should not share with parents events that happen in the classroom, events being behavior blowups and the like. Obviously this is about protecting the privacy of the kid: don't name the kid, don't post picture of the classroom, etc. As a teacher, just advocate to administration or your union. Or something.

This leaves me with the question of what that something is. Oh, there's great administration out there, but there's also too many bad administration where the words of the teachers aren't going to do squat.

Yes, the students deserve privacy. But admin only listens to parents and a vague, pithy message home about "there was an incident in class today" is, frankly, insulting to parents who deserve classroom transparency.

I see it often advised here: inform the parents! Let their cries grease the wheel of change!

But if anything more than a cryptic note of "a student has big feelings today" exposes student privacy and administration doesn't listen to teachers, what else is there?

It just feels like "teachers should just advocate for themselves" is a lip service of a suggestion.

Our district has a strict policy against parents working at the same school their children attend.
I started working as a lunch aide at my daughter’s school when she was in 1st grade. At the time, the district made an exception to the policy because they really needed to fill the position. I ended up loving the experience so much that it inspired me to pursue a teaching degree!
Now that I’m preparing for student teaching, I was really hoping to be placed at that same school for several reasons, but the biggest is logistics. I’m the only parent available to get my daughter to her bus stop in the morning (8:35 a.m.), and if she misses the bus, I’m also the only one who can drive her to school. Being placed at her school would make managing those responsibilities so much easier.
I know I’ll have to figure something out because policy is policy, but I’m genuinely curious about the reasoning behind it. None of the surrounding districts seem to have this restriction, and what makes it even more frustrating is that my best friend, who teaches in the next town over, actually has her own daughter in her classroom this year!
I’m not necessarily arguing that the policy should be eliminated, but I would love to understand why our district feels it’s necessary when neighboring districts seem to manage just fine without it.
Does anyone else’s district have a similar policy? If so, do you know the reasoning behind it?

With all the usual doomer-posting that happens here I thought it would be a good opportunity to post some positivity. I'm on my 3rd year teaching elementary music and band. I absolutely love it and I'm having a great time. The school is small, I have good relationships with my students and my band program is growing. I do have days where I feel exhausted and stressed but I genuinely feel like I wouldn't rather be doing anything else. Anyone else have some positivity to spread?

I’m a second year hs teacher. Please tell me why parents hate is so much? The county Facebook group is going nuts! I give my all (meaning picking up extra roles and working way behind my contract hours) to this job and they think we need to give more??!! wtf!!

Has it always been like this? How do you guys separate your feelings from this shit?

I'm a first year teacher English teacher in 6th grade. Our school has an extra period for kids to get support in subjects they struggle with. It isn't an awful system, but it does mean I have an extra prep with kids who have a host of behavioral issues because they are struggling.

The class hasn't been bad, but every time I have handed them something to read they complain. Whatever, you're going to read it kiddo. These have been stories like "An Entire Summer in a Day," or Tupac's "The Rose That Grew From Concrete," high interest and different from what we get to read in our normal class.

For October we've been reading spooky stuff, and today I had them read along while I read "The Telltale Heart" aloud. These kids were LOCKED in. Applying their reading strategies, picking apart unknown words. I stopped to ask a question and they were ready to riot! They even wanted to read poetry afterwards and did independent analysis of "Annabelle Lee."

If this feeling came in a pill, y'all, I'd be popping them all day!

I have been working as a teacher at this school for three years, and I have several different roles and responsibilities. During my first two years, I noticed that one of my colleagues was putting a lot of pressure on me. She expected me to take on many tasks, but then took credit for my work.
I used to stay quiet, but this year I finally spoke up. I explained that I could not keep up with all the demands, especially because I had been given another role at the school and I am also a university student.
After that, she started criticising the quality of my lessons, even though she had never observed them. She also tried to scare me by saying that the school management would notice that I was not doing anything or was not working enough. This felt deeply unfair because I do so much for the school and have evidence of my work. She also began mocking me and saying that I was acting like a victim.
I would like to speak to the school administration, but I am afraid it could make things worse. This colleague and my manager get along very well, which makes it difficult for me to feel safe raising my concerns.
The pressure has been going on for a long time. When I finally tried to stand up for myself, I was met with ridicule and intimidation. I feel helpless and want to leave my job, but I am afraid of losing my income.

I have been in the classroom for 29 years, and I’ve noticed in recent years that some parents do not support any kind of reprimand of their child out of a private one. I do understand that there is most definitely a time and place for this, but if their child constantly disrupts or disrespects others in the room, I’m going to call them out in front of the class. I recently had a parent get hostile towards me for this very thing. Her child said something personally cruel to another student for the second time in a week. The first time , I told him that what he said was especially hurtful and he said he would never do it again. A week later, he said the same thing, to the delight of peers who were chuckling, and I called him out. His mom was very hostile towards me for ‘correcting him like that in front of the class’. I never had this issue when I first began teaching. It baffles me that parents think that their kid should never be addressed in class for behavior when their inappropriate behavior is on display for everyone.

EDIT: This is Middle School Aged.

I work as a co-instructor at an educational science camp for kids, and I’m not sure how to handle something I’ve noticed about one of my coworkers.
She constantly sucks on and chews her hair, repeatedly puts it in her mouth, and touches it throughout our teaching sessions. Her hair is often visibly wet from this, and she also touches shared surfaces, including the computer, afterward. I understand that this might be a stress response or just a habit, and I don’t want to make assumptions about her or embarrass her.

What concerns me is that she handles teaching materials and passes them to kids after touching her hair and mouth. Since we work with children and run hands-on activities, I’m concerned about hygiene.
There’s also a professional aspect to it. We represent an educational organization, and I feel like these habits could give students and parents a poor impression of the instructors. I know this might sound judgmental, and I don’t want to make a big deal out of someone’s personal habits, but it happens so frequently that I’ve started wondering whether I should do something about it.

I’ve already tried bringing it up gently with my coworkers, but I’m still unsure what to do next. We’re co-instructors, so I’m not her supervisor. I also don’t want to hurt her feelings or create tension between us.

Would it be unreasonable to bring this up privately with our manager? Should I leave it alone, or is it fair to raise it as a hygiene concern given that we work with kids?

I’d appreciate some outside perspectives, especially from people who’ve worked in education, summer camps, or similar environments.

Edit: I have decided not to bring this up to manager! Also, I did bring it up to her slightly, but she brushed it off right away!I It is my first time in an educational space so I though asking for advice would be the right thing to do! Thanks everyone!

Super new Computer teacher, grade one and two. Plz help i cant find any good reward system to help my class management skills at all. There’s nothing online thats for me, everything is for homeroom teachers. Kids open roblox and youtube mid class.

I’m studying for the ILTS 208 exam and it’s kicking my butt. I’ve already taken it once and I need to get it passed by Feb. 1 so I can do my student teaching and finally graduate with my masters. Can anyone give me some help?

I teach elementary and used to use the apps years ago before meeting my partner. I’ve always wondered though, for those who teach HS seniors (and maybe high schoolers in general?), how do you navigate using online dating apps? Do students use them? And if so do you just completely not use them? Are there policies in place regarding this at your school?

I’m 30F in TX and teaching is my second career after about 7 years in municipal government. I actually really enjoyed the community service side of local government and knew that whatever I did next, I still wanted to do something that made a difference in my community. Teaching felt like the answer.

And now I’m wondering what the heck I was thinking.

This is my first year in ANY kind of school role. I’m teaching on an emergency certificate while working through my ACP, so obviously I knew there would be a learning curve. I expected it to be hard, but I don’t think I was prepared for just how miserable these first 9 weeks would be.

I teach at a 2nd grade math at Title I school, and the behaviors are A LOT. Four of the six first grade teachers completely left the district after my current group of kids, which probably tells you something.

About half my class is girls who have now been pulled as a group by the counselor (for what can only be described as mean girl training) multiple times. All they do is bicker, call each other names, go home and tell their moms they’re being bullied, and then come back the next day as best friends. I had FIVE parents reach out directly to admin about bullying in one week. These kids will literally cry because someone looked at them funny from across the room, but then refuse to stay away from the same person they’re accusing of bullying them. I genuinely don’t even know what to do with some of it anymore because whatever the trained counselor has done has clearly not worked. The boys tend to be nice to each other but are extremely rowdy and the ones that do have behavior issues have MAJOR issues (throwing furniture, fist fights, saying they wished I was dead).

We use Bluebonnet, which splits English and math between two teachers and has us switching homerooms for the second half of the day. I have a background in finance and am comfortable with math, but this curriculum is ridiculous.

I spend pretty much ALL of my planning time and after school hours prepping for lessons because this curriculum has approximately 1,000 different manipulatives. And they’re a pain to manage with this age group. Like having to pass out 300 paper clips, (the kids started making shanks out of them). And apparently 40 minutes of “planning time” isn’t enough, because I spend a MINIMUM of 4 hours at school every weekend prepping for the following week. At least 4 hours of my weekend, at school, trying to get everything ready so I don’t completely drown the next week. This doesn’t include the multiple hours worked from home on grading and preparing slides on weeknights. The whole reason I left my previous career was because I wanted more time with my family, and now I’m spending my weekends at school instead of with my own child. That part really gets to me.

Then there are the observations from our TEA regional reps and principal. They’re CONSTANT, and it feels like all I get is a list of things I’m doing wrong without anyone actually showing me how to fix them.
I get told to work on my pacing so the lesson fits into the one-hour window the state has allotted. I’m having to stop what I’m teaching every 10 minutes to deal with some kind of behavior, and yes, some of them need extra help working through a multistep word problems when they can barely read the problem in the first place (over 40% of my kids legitimately can’t read so no they are not having the insanely complex AI conversations the state seems to think they should be having in order to finish they’re problem sets in the allotted 10 minutes..).

Now I have my first parent-teacher conferences coming up, and I’m honestly incredibly nervous about those. I’ll admit that parent communication has not been my strong suit these first 9 weeks. Out of my 22 students, I’ve probably only had meaningful communication with the parents of about a quarter of them. I wish I had done better, but between planning, behaviors, trying to keep up with the curriculum, and feeling like I’m constantly behind, it’s fallen to the bottom of the list. I know I need to work on it.

I guess I’m just trying to figure out if this is normal first-year teacher misery or if I’m in a school environment that is making an already hard job borderline impossible.

I went into teaching because I wanted to make a difference and have more time for my family. Instead, I’m miserable, constantly feel like I’m failing at my job, and spend my weekends at school preparing for the next week. I know teaching is never going to be a 9-5 job, but I genuinely don’t know how people sustain this long-term without completely burning out.

So, teachers who have been doing this for a while, does it actually get better? Is the first year just this awful, a or is it possible that I’m just in a really bad situations? I’m trying to decide if I need to give myself some grace and stick it out or if I need to seriously reconsider this career before I spend another year feeling like this.

I've spent years teaching overseas. I'm now preparing to return to the US, where I hope to teach in public schools. I plan to teach SPED. (I also have an endorsement in ESOL.)

Two things trouble me. The first is whether I'll find employment at all. I have years of experience, but none in an American public school, and I don't know what value employers will place on that experience. The second concern is I wonder whether I'll be any good at the job once I get it. The American school system is unfamiliar to me, and I know the demands can be considerable. I am a reflective and empathetic teacher and care about doing a good job.

Has anyone here made a similar transition? I'd be interested to hear how it went, what difficulties you encountered, and whether the adjustment was as difficult as you expected.

This is going to be a big change for me, but I am committed to make it work.

This is my third year teaching, but first year in a new district. This school is very different from the school I taught at the last three years. This is a title 1 school with a lot more behavior concerns school wide than I am used to. There are fights or near fights in the school on the daily, which is completely new to me.

Anyway, I am really struggling with this class. They talk a lot, talk over me and others, use mean words toward each other. I feel like I don't have much control over them and it's frustrating. There are some kids that will just get up in the middle of a lesson and start shouting at each other.

I am not sure what I am looking for, but any kind of advice, tips or suggestions to manage a class like this would be appreciated.

I moved to a new school and it’s a co teacher class. I am finding one of them so controlling and tense, constantly correcting and undermining me. She discusses important things with the other co teacher and completely ignores me. The problem is she is very well liked and no one would ever suspect her of bullying.

The way she is with the children is also very controlling and it just seems to be her personality. I am very sensitive and gentle so her approach is opposite to mine. I feel on edge and uncomfortable around her and there’s been times I’ve gone home & just cried. Teaching is exhausting in itself but having someone constantly pick on you makes it unbearable & I don’t know what to do. Admin all love her along with the rest of the staff so I don’t feel like I can say anything especially being new,

Any help appreciated!

A girl fight broke right out in front of me today in the hall (high school). I walked right past it and went around the corner into the ROTC room and told the male teachers, “There’s a fight.” They, being ex-military, went straight into action. I decided about 2-3 years ago that I was done putting myself at risk with fights. It’s not part of my contract, and I could get seriously injured. While I’m in good shape, I’m only 5’2” and also 56 years old. Felt proud of myself for not engaging. Back in the day, I was always willing to pull kids off each other.

First year teacher here. I never ever usually get sick, literally ever. The last time I was sick before this school year was probably about 4 years ago with Covid. I made it though student teaching with no illnesses too. I have already been sick TWICE this school year. This time around has lasted since about Tuesday and progressively got worse. I woke up with no voice, a sore throat, but relatively fine overall. Progressively, I lost even more of my voice and my throat got worse with now horrible congestion and an eye infection. I’m in a first grade classroom, so you can imagine how the last few weeks have been with sickness. Besides the obvious, what do you do to keep from getting sick? I lysol my room and wipe down desks, and trying to enforce coughing in our ELBOWS and not all over the room (it’s been a strugggggle). Do you take supplements? Does your immune system just build overtime? Please help over here!

to preface, ive worked with kids for about 10 years now and haven’t ever felt so.. i dont know, defeated? tired? and before i start, i really dont want the advice to just be “quit/find a new place”. when things are good, they’re VERY good. i love my students a lot and think they have a lot going for them, but to spare details a few kids have a really horrible family life. they obviously need therapy, intervention, and people way more equipped than me to help them get to where they need to be, but their parents are failing them by not seeking these resources we’ve given them. i just need as much advice as possible from anyone who may have been in similar situations

kid 1: he has FAS, so he has big emotions and big behaviours. we try our best to help him, i will really go the extra mile to try to support him in these moments. however, he hits/kicks/bites/scratches. i think its been every single day in the past 2 weeks. i have bruises on my arms and chest from him (tbh never would’ve guessed a 7 year old can hit so hard). i feel hopeless when he starts to hit me in front of the other kids as im not always in a position i can take him somewhere private because i can’t leave the kids alone. i don’t want them to be scared because it’s supposed to be a safe place for them but today i had another kid ask me if i was okay because he said it looked really painful :( redirecting doesn’t work, and honestly, im not trained to handle this. i’m an underpaid daycare teacher and have never really dealt with such violent kids. he’s very sweet most of the time and his parents are failing him quickly. i just really need advice from people who are equipped to deal with it. he has no where left to go and has been suspended dozens and dozens of times and i don’t want him to get expelled since i just don’t think his parents would get him into anywhere else. maybe the answer has been so simple the whole time and im too stressed to see it. really any tips and tricks.
kid 2: adhd but parents do not care about big behaviours. will be more physical with other kids, ripping and breaking their stuff and mine. will run around nonstop screaming as loud as he can, throwing furniture and whining. i’ve noticed he seems the most calm with me out of the other teachers, so he spends most days with me entirely. he still doesn’t listen at all and is basically bouncing off the walls, purposely terrorising other kids, ripping our stuff, and when he gets tired, he’ll baby talk and call me mommy and cry until i let him sit in my lap. this is all very concerning to me and i’m brushed off everytime i try to talk with the parents and bring up some of this
kid 3: one of the older ones, will hit/attack the younger kids and steal from them. he won’t stop lying. i know him well enough that i can tell when he does something and lies about it, but it’s still very concerning that he won’t stop hurting the younger kids and trying to manipulate me quite frequently. i don’t even know how to explain it, but it’s very obvious his intentions are manipulation and deception a lot of the time. he’s very well articulated and will quickly stress out a younger kid when the younger kid comes to us with an issue. recently, ive had better luck with him when we have our talks and he’s started to admit to some lies and will also say he doesn’t know why he hits the other kids and has started helping them up and apologising. so there’s progress! but i still just want more and as much advice as possible as i really don’t want to just give up or burn out. again, these children are amazing and just have had some really unfortunate things happen so early in their lives and their parents are failing them. i really want to be determined and get some advice. not only on how i can support the kids better, bur also how tf do i get a parent to listen who doesn’t really care?! has anyone else dealt with similar things and know what helps? what more i can do? specific things i can say or do to help these children take some breaths and regulate themselves better ?? thanks in advance to anyone who may be able to help:).

I was always taught this is a big no, to post pictures of students in a personal page. I know a lot of educators don’t even have social media. This new admin has been posting since they started. I’m guessing it’s not against the law unless they post a kid that has no pictures in their profile. I’m in an area that schools are pretty small so we could get behind on the times. I just don’t see how this is ok.

I'm starting my creative writing unit with my sophomores. I've had complaints before about students not really having dreams (they talk about how much money they want to have, not who they want to be, in the future) but they also lack imagination and it really bums me out.

The first assignment I gave them for this unit was to write a scene that ends with a secret being revealed. That's it. The goal is to have them build on it over a few classes "Okay, now that that secret's out, what happens next? What's the fallout?" So many kids literally cannot conceptualize making up a story from their imagination. If it didn't literally happen to them, they can't make it up.

And that makes me really sad y'all. It's one thing to have kids who suck at reading comprehension, it's another to have the imagination beat out of them by social media and standardized tests.

I'm a writer first and a teacher second, in my mind, and it's sad to see the next generation not want to try new things in the creative space. I was writing shitty fanfiction on wattpad when I was their age, on my own!

it basically goes like this.

1. parent reaches out with concerns about their kid.

2. you give them genuine advice/steps for improvement/observations of their kid.

3. all of a sudden, they’re not so interested in being supportive…

ughhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

This is my first year teaching. I loved my student teaching, and I love my job right now too. Unfortunately, I was dealt a particularly bad hand of 6th graders. It’s not just me, they’ve come in absolutely insane and every teacher is just about losing it. I go home exhausted every day. I slept 18 hours straight last weekend. I get frustrated and overstimulated really easily because these kids don’t know basic manners or respect. I have one 8th grade class and they are angels, they truly keep me going. But I have to get through 4 hours of 6th graders first (and it’s a 2 hour block, so 2 hours with the same kids…). Yesterday and the day before were conferences, and I was so incredibly drained. The morning was going okay, until one kid slapped another, and I just got so overwhelmed. I tried teaching for the next few hours, but I couldn’t get my enthusiasm up, and my words were coming out so slow I thought I was having a stroke. I ended up going home early. I’m feeling so guilty about it. I don’t think I should be this overwhelmed this early. But I love this job so much. I’m so scared I’m going to burn out and have no purpose in life. I’m hoping this is just a rocky start, but my anxiety is overruling my rational thoughts. I know this job is it for me. But I have to survive it and I’m afraid I can’t. This is a rant but advice would be nice too. Honest advice as well. Am I screwed? Should I quit while I’m ahead?

Hey all.
Started my year 2 now, I feel like I’m not allowed to be sick.
My throat hurt like hell yesterday, principal told me to come if I don’t have a fever.
Today I woke up with a fever and the principal said: “feel good let the parents know”.

I also have a 2.7 years old baby boy who is sometimes well … sick.
Two weeks ago he had a stomach bug and my principal told me I had to come.
I have sick days for what?
Is this how it’s going to be from now on?

Today I felt like I was having a psychotic break while listening to my admin justify why ChatGPT is not blocked on students devices (7-12 school)… What ARE WE DOING?!

Whenever a kid gives me a Christmas gift or a teachers day gift or something, I mail them a thank you card. I teach eighth grade so I don’t get many, but I always take the time to write a thank you card, even if it’s something small like a chocolate bar or homemade Christmas card. We have all the student addresses in our system.

I put the school address for the return address. I get thank you cards in bulk and they last years. Stamps are cheap.

Over the years, I’ve ran into former students who are now young adults or in college and they have mentioned how cool it was to get a thank you card. Kids love mail. It’s so easy and has a big impact.