This year, admin made it very clear that all material and curriculum outside the official accepted curriculum is forbidden. Teachers-Pay-Teachers was expressly forbidden.
However, I'm new to the district's language arts curriculum and there are some problems with it.
For example, our pacing guide says I should teach about point of view, but then requires the students to study folktales from the anthology. At the same time, our spelling words come from a completely different unit entirely, so the spelling pattern comes from a different story and isn't supported in the current weekly text. Neither does the grammar, which comes from yet another unit. The writing topic is about opinions. To follow the framework and pacing guide, I'd have to have four teacher editions out at one time.

The other teachers in my grade level all have years of experience with this curriculum, and have augmented it with lots of TPT materials. They use these outside materials to cover gaps in the assigned curriculum. They know the standards so well they can just "wing it" if needed.

Meanwhile I'm spending three to four hours a week cross-referencing the pacing guide with the standards guide and the framework just trying to figure out *what* I'm supposed to teach the next week while frantically work out what to teach *this* week. As a result, I start each week completely unprepared.

The new admin has noticed my difficulty and has attempted to "help". I'm often asked what the other teachers are doing. I can't answer that question without tattling on my colleagues. I've brought this problem to my grade level teachers, who say they don't care if they get caught, because the curriculum is ineffective and what they've been using for years is helping students be successful. They've also offered to help by sharing their materials.

If I accept their help and use TPT or their other forbidden materials, it's a big risk. If students are not successful, that's what admin will point to as the reason. Admin is watching me closely. I can't explain why the other teachers are doing well without exposing them, and I value their friendship and support more than the admin.

Meanwhile, my students not successful because I'm doing what admin requires. What should I do?

Can we PLEASE normalize crows, direct instruction, and independent work again? Not everything needs to be a damn social event.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned but I miss when desks were in rows, kids faced the front, and it was harder for them to sit there and talk to each other all class. I’m so tired of everything having to be collaborative. Turn and talks, group work, partner discussions, you name it. Why does EVERYTHING have to involve students talking to each other? What’s wrong with sitting down and listening to the teacher, and doing some independent work…?

My school is supposedly an “IB school,” which is honestly hilarious considering roughly half our students have been failing the state assessments for at least five years, and our behavior problems are through the roof. But sure, let’s take a bunch of kids who already can’t stop talking, put them in groups, and encourage them to talk even more. I’m sure they’re all discussing the lesson and not what happened at lunch.

And God forbid an administrator walks in and sees kids sitting quietly, actually doing their work. Suddenly, we’re not engaging students enough.

I’m not against collaboration entirely. It has its place. But not every damn lesson needs a turn and talk or group activity. Some of these kids can barely handle sitting next to their friends without getting off task.

FYI, not a wheel of names style spinner.

I love to use a random name generator in the classroom. It needs to be seamless, displayable over a PPT and ideally controllable using a clicker.

I have been using the program "No Hands" for years now, however my school network and laptop has started blocking it. The reason is because it is not installed locally and simply launches from a .exe program. The network treats this like a virus.

I am trying to find a program that works the same but can be truly installed locally, as this would be able to be given permission from our IT department. It is actually surprisingly hard to find one, and the AI recommendations I have had are not great.

I know this exists cos my school in the UK used a program like this.

Please teaching hive-mind, let me know if you have any suggestions 🙏

My oldest is starting elementary school next year and I need to start touring the local elementary schools to decide where to send her. I live in southwest United States. I have been doing the hooked on phonics program, piano lessons, and reading for 45 minutes to an hour every night to my child for the past three years, preparing her for school. We have no television in the house (other than mine in my bedroom) and no iPads either. I will continue to supplement her education at home through reading, but I also wants her to have a good school. I am curious what would a teacher look for in a school if it were their own child? What questions would you ask on the tours?

Just a little something to entertain your brain and sense of humor!

Without going into too much detail, I’ve been doing a stipend-paid extra-duty role for a few years now, and I’m considering hanging it up.

It’s a support role that sort of fell into my lap. It’s a position where there are times where I don’t feel like I’m really making much of a difference, but at the same time people would notice if I WASN’T there doing things behind the scenes.

When the previous person in this position retired, I was called up and asked if I would want it. The head honcho knew I had experience and know-how from a similar role that I had previously stepped away from. This new one was for a much bigger time commitment than my previous role, but it also came with a good paycheck, averaging out hourly to about what I make in my actual teaching role (if not a little bit more).

There are SOME parts of the extra-duty role I enjoy: mainly a social aspect of it. There are other parts where it is draining.

Spouse tries to encourage me to stick with it whenever I bring it up, citing that I seem to enjoy it and that the money is nice. But the nights I am gone are really hard on them and the kids.

I’m just torn. On the one hand, a little extra money from the stipend is nice. But on the other hand, I don’t think we would be hurting without it. In the somewhat similar position a few years ago that I stepped away from, the time WAS the major issue.

Hello everyone, i’m graduating this year with a degree in liberal studies with a minor in social studies and secondary education. I’ll be moving to california in the summer of next year and i’m very lost on what’s the process getting accredited/certified for teaching out there. In my state the process is so easy it’s a bit concerning and from what I can see, it’s not the same. Please give me everything you know!!! When I asked my university for the process they became hostile so i’m not sure of the process and unsure of who to contact. Thank you for taking the time to read this ☺️

As a teacher who is also a parent, I hate the blame both sides put on both sides. Being a parent is the most difficult role I will ever serve. Being a teacher is so much more challenging and more complex than members of other professions can understand. IMO teachers should pretty much always refrain from giving parenting advice. And parents should be more open to dialogue that helps their kids succeed scholastically. It takes a village, but we all have different roles. Why are both sides so disrespectful to each other?

I’m the special ed resource teacher and was pushing into a 6th grade classroom. The regular ed teacher stepped out for a few minutes to make copies, so I was watching the class.

A brand-new 6th grader reached into his backpack, pulled out a pocketknife, and started showing another kid.

When I saw it, I immediately told him to put it down, got the other students away from him, and called administration.

My principal somehow turned that into ME being the problem.

She subsequently called me to her office and began screaming about how I was “responsible for that classroom” and how a student should never have been able to pull out a knife while I was supervising.

I said, “What exactly do you mean ‘able to’? He reached into his own backpack and pulled it out. Am I supposed to have X-ray vision?”

She then accused me of sarcasm and making excuses.

I tried to explain again.

She interrupted me AGAIN like she always does.

So I raised my voice right back at her, and rightly so.

I said, “NO. You are going to let me finish this time. I was covering that class for a few minutes while the teacher made copies. That child reached into his backpack and pulled something out with absolutely no warning. I saw it, I stopped it, and I called administration. Unless you expected me to search every backpack before she walked out of the room, tell me what the hell you expected me to do.”

She screamed, “DO NOT RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME.”

I yelled back, “THEN STOP RAISING YOURS AT ME.”

Then I told her exactly what I’ve wanted to tell her for months.

“You talk to everybody in this building like we’re stupid. You interrupt people, embarrass people in meetings, and the second anybody pushes back, suddenly they’re ‘disrespectful.’ You were a teacher once. You have completely forgotten where you came from. And if this is how you think leadership works, you should not be a principal.”

She completely lost it.

She told me was "insubordinate" and said, “I don’t give a damn about the SPED shortage. I will write you the fuck up and make sure you never get another teaching job.”

I said, “There it is. You’re threatening somebody’s entire career because they finally stood up to you. And you wonder why people don’t respect you?”

I think that REALLY set her off.

I finally stood up and told her, “I’m done. You will not scream at me, threaten me, and then call me disrespectful because I defend myself. I’m not meeting with you alone again.”

This is the SAME principal from my last post who lost her mind because another staff member said, “Can I finish speaking?”

Now I understand completely.

She doesn’t want people to respect her. She wants people to be afraid to challenge her.

I’m filing a grievance because I am completely done with this woman.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teaching/s/7q84uAjEDR

This is going to be a bit of a heavy post, but I’m at my breaking point and need support from people who will understand.

I’m in my 3rd year of teaching high school science. I am 25 years old and I feel like I have no life beyond teaching. My workload and to do list NEVER ends. I have four different preps and am the only teacher of two of the subjects and was not given a curriculum for either of them. I am writing both of these curriculums myself on top of my 2 classes. 2 of my classes have 30 kids in them and I have over 40 total IEPS this year. I was asked to advise a club last year and stupidly said yes because I felt pressured to, and now I never have free time. I feel like my list of tasks is never ending and I’m so angry that I’m getting paid such a small salary considering the work that I’m being required to do. Some of the students are so disrespectful and genuinely mean that it makes me question if I can do this forever. I throw up almost every single morning due to stress and I am having suicidal thoughts and panic attacks often. I feel like I’m drowning and my body is genuinely in fight or flight mode 24/7.

I used to love this job so much and I still have so many amazing moments. I LOVE science, I love working with teenagers, and the actual act of teaching is incredible. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else, and I worked SO hard to get to this point. But my body physically cannot handle the extra tasks anymore. I feel like my day is 10% teaching and 90% behavior management and random assignments from admin and my workload seriously NEVER ever ends. It’s one thing after another after another after another and it’s making me lose interest in life. By the time I get off of work I don’t have energy to do ANYTHING so my entire life is just consumed by working. I have never been so depressed in my entire life.

Has anyone dealt with this feeling before and overcome it? I am so passionate about what I do and used to love my job so much, but I’m genuinely scared that it’s going to kill me. Please help.

Hello fellow teachers,

I am an ESL teacher in Quebec City, looking for someone that would be willing to start a writing exchange with my grade 10 students. I am looking for a FSL class that would want their students to practice their French writing skills while my students practice theirs in English.

They are a very culturally diverse group of 31 students, and they enjoy sports, video games and board games. They are 15 and 16 years old.

Have a good one !

I work at a school in Egypt, and we have been looking into different platforms to manage everything in one place.

Right now, one of our biggest frustrations is how disconnected everything feels. Lesson planning, attendance, assessments, tracking children's progress, parent communication, and all the administrative work end up spread across different systems.

We are trying to find something that actually makes teachers' lives easier instead of giving them another platform to update.

For those of you whose schools use an LMS or school management system:

• What platform are you using?
• What do you genuinely like about it?
• What drives you crazy about it?
• If your school could switch tomorrow, what would you recommend?

I am particularly interested in hearing from teachers rather than just administrators, because something that looks great from a management perspective does not always work well in the classroom.

Would love to hear what has actually worked for you.

Hey all,

I am a preservice teacher. I saw a really cute video of a kindergarten having a guest DJ come through, and she taught the kids about PLUR.

PLUR stands for: Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect.

It comes from rave culture, which I just so happened to be a part of in my pre-20's.

I am studying to be a secondary school HPE teacher, and I wonder whether this would be something appropriate to explicitly teach as an introduction and behavioural expectation?

My only hold-up is the mention of rave culture could be seen as an endorsement of going to raves to a teenage audience (grades 7-12).

Quite honestly, raves are high risk environments, especially when it comes to drugs.

The intention of how I could use the PLUR principles is to get students to think about what PLUR might look, sound, feel, or even smell like. For example, wearing sun protection out of respect for the sun being potentially harmful, or having good personal hygiene out of respect for others and themselves, or even being unified in doing "daggy" "uncool" things we tell them to do.

I'm wondering whether this would be a bad idea?

Necessary context, I am an English teacher in Spain. My admin expects me to speak English with my students at all times. This means that my class is especially difficult for students, but now in my second year I thought I came into the routine. I teach secondary so some students are sometimes a bit silly.

Anyway, yesterday one student was having a nosebleed, the fifth all week. For some reason everyone in the class wanted to see it, I don’t know why, but that meant that three of my wildest students jumped up and ran to her before I even had time to say stop. One tripped and fell because of course running in a classroom and trying to jump over your classmates’ desk is not safe.

In that moment, I felt like I had no choice but to give up the English only rule and tell my students off in a way that I knew they would understand. I told them that the rules exist to keep them safe, that they know they can’t do that, that I don’t want them to fall and break their heads open and go to the hospital. Most students seemed to understand and didn’t create more problems.

The student who fell responded to me and said that she knows that I don’t care if they’re safe (I obviously do care about that so there’s nothing to know), because when she had an accident with her bike I never cared. I remember this accident well because she came to school with half of her face covered in bandages and I asked her what happened, I was worried until the bandages came off again, I checked in with her daily before class about how it felt, I thought it was clear that I cared because I did.

But clearly, she didn’t see any concern from me. She seems genuinely convinced that I hate my students, that I don’t care if they’re in the hospital, meaning that I actually don’t have my rules to keep them safe but just to be mean and unfair to them.

I was already not feeling great before, I had an elevated temperature but couldn’t stay home because it wasn’t a fever fully, but I had all of the symptoms. I also had already had to make a mandatory report shortly before that class so that didn’t make me feel better either, I do care about students and it was a difficult day.

So, this student’s comments were the breaking point for me and I did actually start crying. I’m obviously not proud of it, I don’t know how my next lesson will go with them, I don’t know if I should talk to my admin about it in case the parents complain about me (private schools are terrible for this lol) and I don’t know how to show my students that I do care and I definitely don’t want them to be hurt. I thought I was okay this year but now I’m questioning everything, and not just with this particular student. Do all of my students think I just hate them?

I have gone through different grades from pre-k to elementary and eventually high school. Elementary life skills almost made me give up for good due to stress and abuse. I took a position as the ISS teacher at an alternative high school, and expected the worst. To my surprise, I learned that I absolutely love working with this demographic of students, and the students mostly respond to me very well since I have a sarcastic personality. Never a dull moment, but I found my home with the kids that need a little extra support and attention. There are ups and downs like any school, but I cry at every graduation!

I got my graduate degree, but I want to get some more credit hours to make more $$. Are there any inexpensive non-degree programs to do that?

If you were tasked with getting someone a binder to do a task you asked them to do (“I need that binder to do the benchmark testing” “oh sure no problem, I’ll get you one”) would you put all the papers and tabs inside the binder WITHOUT HOLE PUNCHING (or fastening them together in any way) and then place said binder in mailbox?! (with no indication that the papers and tabs inside where all loose) no, I bet you wouldn’t. Maybe when people start getting paid the big bucks and have their own office they lose all common sense and forget what’s it’s like to have a very limited amount of prep time?!

Yes, the papers went all over the ground all willy nilly.

If they close your program, can you draw unemployment? I have tried to unsuccessfully to find another job for the last 3 years. I am close to retirement but not close enough. I was told today they were going to close my program either this year or the next. I really don’t know what to do. The good thing is if another position opens up mid year, I think they would let me out of my contract. I teach an elective and I don’t want to say which one but it will be difficult to find a job.

8 years in education. I'm currently subbing as I try to land a full time job back in my district.

I can not tell you how terribly difficult most days are as a sub. I have enough classroom experience to know how to handle situations and build relationships even for short snipit's but it's just getting harder and harder for me.

Today in a 7th grade class I tried to get the whole classes attention with a clap call and response and not a single person out of 31 students in class clapped. I couldn't get the class to be quiet enough to take attendance, I couldn't get them to keep quiet long enough to give instruction. I feel like this is all becuse of me but I know that things are really hard across the board. It feels impossible to keep a classroom in controle as a sub in ways it never has felt before.

This district is a mess, they laid off 34 teachers mid school year last January and are 4 million in dept... a lot of us were let go or moved around and now we are stuck subbing.
My throat hurts so badly from trying to talk and nothing I did, clap, count down, class class, NOTHING got the whole classes attention long enough to instruct. I don't know what to do and I'm so scared that if I keep subbing I will loose all the love I have for their career. I want my own classroom again but I'm scared it's not going to happen because my state and district are struggling so much.

I'm k-12 with an endorsement in biology / life science

Hi everyone! I’ve just been hired for my first Teaching Assistant role, fresh out of university! I do not have enough smart clothes for this!!! Where does everyone find best to get professional clothes from? TIA x

I have a game I play once every other week so it doesn’t get stale and my students are locked in. If you have any other simple ways to transform basic activities into something fun let me know in the comments.

It’s called Gamble Multiple Choice. Each team starts with $100. I’ll put a question on the board and a 2 minute timer. The team must write down the correct answer and their wager before the answer is revealed. I’ll usually say they have to keep 10% in the bank so they don’t zero out right away or I’ll just tell them I’m giving a bonus $20 to a team that loses everything if they do something. Team with the most money at the end wins.

Then I’ll switch up and tell them they have to make a blind wager without seeing the question but I give them 2 to 1 odds. I usually do this with harder questions like fill in the blank or short answer.

My students (high school) are totally engaged when we play this. The collaboration is strong (I tell each team that every individual must write down answers) and it’s just generally a good time and takes zero preparation.

Any other games like this you’ve come up with that elevate an otherwise boring activity? I’ve got a few more but would love to hear from others.

I straight up told a parent I would not be calling them back in three weeks to talk to them about their child’s grade. I already did that. This is your child and I have 100+ to worry about. You have my contact information if you have any concerns :).

Hi, I graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor's (& after passing the PRAXIS) to earn my teaching certificate. I let it expire & am now looking to renew. I have the choice to take PRAXIS exams or 6 hours of college courses. The courses would be $2,500+ & PRAXIS would total around $500.

I did really well on the PRAXIS in 2011 & I'd rather save the time & especially the $ by taking the PRAXIS exams this time around. But, I know if I don't pass all of them the cost would be more & I'm wondering if there would be so much to re-familiarize myself with that the courses would be less stressful.

What's your experience/recommendation?

Thanks!

I’m lucky enough to work in a public school that’s generally considered to be one of the best in the state. Despite this, it feels like every single day I’m shocked at how unprepared these students are for the future. It’s gotten to the point I can’t use basic words because students have no idea what I’m talking about. A student yesterday asked me what “aggressive” meant. Oh, by the way, the student is 17 and in two AP classes.

I think the thing that shocks me the most is that students have zero agency within their own lives. If their parents or AI can’t handle something for them, it’s not getting done. Sometimes students will have the entire class period to do a worksheet with 5 questions on it, then spend the entire class staring at it. If you ask them if they’re gonna do it, they always say something along the lines of “yeah I’ll do it at home” then the time to turn it in comes up and guess what, not a single person has done it. So you might be thinking that getting a little more direct with them will get them to do it. Haha. Hahahhaha. Ha. Nope. Instead they go to see a social worker and complain that all their teachers are being mean to them so they get out of doing ANY work for the week. Rinse and repeat.

And again, this is one of the highest rated public schools in my state and students are still running the show, forcing administration to dumb everything down so they don’t have to work.

The average score on a recent test for a class was 58% but since students aren’t allowed to fail tests anymore, they have to be allowed to do “test corrections” to bring their grade up to a C. So why even study? If you can get a 70% on a test despite technically getting an F, why bother? The best part is, not every student that fails actually does the test corrections. So what happens then? Well they’re given a 1 question worksheet as a last resort to bring their grade up to a 70%, and half the time they still don’t even do it. You can get a C on an exam by failing, not doing the test corrections, then answering one question that’s so simple it’s next to impossible to get it wrong.

I’m worried about these kids, and they’re the ones the administration hypes up as being college bound.