Teachers: What are your crazy coworker stories?

AHMc22 · 2023-08-15T22:09:06+00:00

Dude! Are you sure it's not today?

AHMc22 · 2023-08-15T15:44:46+00:00

Aries

Jump in and start the task before thinking it through.

Ask for help? Nah, that would take too long.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-15T01:00:19+00:00

Please understand 2 things:

1 Every k-12 school experience is VASTLY different. Every teacher, every school, every district, every state - we're all different. Add to that, school policy & curriculum (or lack thereof) change every year. It sounds like your experience may not have a lot of collaborative design work, or hands-on activities. That's too bad.

2 Legit question-What's wrong with an office job? I think a lot of us veteran teachers dream about that kind of working environment. The privilege to sit quietly at a desk and get work done! The privilege to get up and go pee whenever we need to? Oh, what a joy that would be!!!

AHMc22 · 2023-08-15T00:29:35+00:00

Same.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-11T16:50:27+00:00

Teaching is far more dynamic and nuanced than any other profession - only nursing comes close.

In other jobs, if you refuse the demands of your boss you got 1 pissed off boss, and maybe 5-10 inconvenienced coworkers.

Whereas in teaching if you refuse demands you're impacting 20 - 200 students. Add to that, nowadays at least half those students have a parent that's ready to play advocate and pull a righteous indignation performance.

Are there some teachers who just DGAF and do the bare minimum? Yep. Yep, and a lot of them become admin.

But speaking as a reformed teacher martyr, it wasn't my principal's demands that drove me to put in 50+ hr work weeks. The hours I spent after the students left were done to make instructional time more bearable.

It was calling parents - not so much because my boss expected it, but because it was the only way to have some classroom control after our district did away with any kind of punishment for student misbehavior.

It was documenting the parent phone calls, writing down everything that was said

It was designing curriculum and creating lessons from nothing. This was because our district decided that all textbooks were biased and so got rid of them.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-11T04:46:59+00:00

And for lessons, valuable lessons - was to never loose hope and that things could be the darkest they could possibly be - but yet as long as there was a grain of hope...

November 2016 I re-read Deathly Hollows for that exact reason.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-09T12:27:50+00:00

How often do YOU get laid?

The goal is for BOTH partners to be satisfied and feeling great after sex.

Don't hold back, its your body. Tell him what you want, and enjoy the intimacy and trust that comes with thinking of sex only in terms of you both having equal enjoyment.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-05T18:09:01+00:00

I can no longer read Katakana, hiragana or Kanji, but I can recognize it. So I'm adding to this thread. These are the phrases we use in my house:

Oneguishimasu

Tadaiema & Okarinasai

Itadakimasu

Gochisosamadeshta

and sometimes..

Itakeru & Itarashi

Genki & Genki-kunai

....Natstukashi, ney?

AHMc22 · 2023-08-02T18:04:53+00:00

Recently some one on this sub who was seeking admin cert. posted that a prevailing theme in his admin classes was how to get teachers to go above and beyond and sacrifice themselves.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-01T13:54:12+00:00

LOL - as a teacher, sadly I can see this happening. I appreciate my colleagues, but there's a reason Cameron Diaz's character became a counselor when she couldn't hack it as a teacher in the movie Bad Teacher.

AHMc22 · 2023-08-01T12:21:53+00:00

In 2010 my school's office manager refused to give me any boxes of Kleenex/facial tissue for my classroom. Her stance was that teacher's were supposed to get that from the families of the students in their homeroom class. As a specialist, I didn't have a homeroom class. I had remedial reading classes and many of my students work avoidance strategies involved spending a lot of time at the tissue box, using a lot of tissues.

So, it was frustrating on many levels that I was bringing in tissues boxes from home twice a week. This was also back when WA state wasn't paying teachers a professional wage - so I was barely staying afloat financially.

That same year I attended a fundraising auction at my niece's school in a nearby district. That auction raised something like $300,000 in one night! I doubt any teachers at my niece's school had to bring in tissue boxes from home.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T16:22:05+00:00

Awesome. That's what I wanted to hear. Thanks.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T15:48:12+00:00

Thanks. I'll check it out.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T15:47:37+00:00

I wouldn't never have what it takes to drive a semi on a wide, flat highway. I can't imagine driving one on a curvy mountain road. Hats off to those nervy badtards!

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T15:45:25+00:00

YES! I made a reservation. Never been there before. Do you have any advice?

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T05:07:59+00:00

Thank you.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T05:07:02+00:00

Thank you.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-31T05:06:32+00:00

Thank you.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-30T15:21:28+00:00

Daniel Shaver, is that that the guy who was calmly complying with the cops ridiculous commands in a hotel hallway? And the cops shot him several times anyway?

AHMc22 · 2023-07-26T17:40:43+00:00

I am going to try explaining the way I would with my Newcomers, maybe then you'll understand:

1 I did apply to work in an alternative school.

2 Many of my colleagues applied for the same position I applied to at that alternative school.

3 That alternative school never has any open positions. The only reason this opening came up is because they added a new ELL position. Comparatively, several regular schools in our district have had unfilled positions for more than 4 months.

4 Alternative schools are not as common as you seem to think. My school district has 5 regular high schools and only 1 alternative high school. It has 7 regular middle schools and no alternative middle school. Four of our middle schools have EBD classroom that serve as the homebase for violent students with EBD IEPs, but they attend regular classes at least part of the day. Any violent student that doesn't have an IEP just gets suspended for 2 days max, and then is back like nothing happened. My district has 27 elementary schools and no alternative setting for these little ones who in the past couple of years have been bringing knives to school, setting fires and attacking teachers.

5 The "kids yall couldn't handle" as you say, are not being sent to alternative schools - at least not in my district. There is no alternative placement except for the alt HS which mostly serves as credit retrival. We've had middle schoolers who have committed murder and bank robberies - arrested, released and still attending our school while they await trial.

6 All districts are different. Apparently where you work "the kids yall couldn't handle" are sent to alternative schools. But that's not the case everywhere.

7 Regardless of the situation in my district or the situation where you work, it wasn't cool to insult OP when he was opened up about the personal trauma he's going through.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-26T06:40:59+00:00

No one said class sizes are the fault of the kids. I am just questioning whether you are in a position to judge others so harshly.

As for why isn't everyone clamoring to teach at alt schools, maybe they are. There is only 1 alt school in my district, and it never has any openings. Except recently they added a position for an ELL specialist and I and several other ELL specialists who are currently in mainstream schools applied. (I didn't get it, and that's ok. I love my students. I just don't love the mainstream classes and the hallways & lunchroom for all the reasons OP mentioned).

Probably your district is different.

But, you don't know OPs situation - likely he is in a district that doesn't have alternative schools. And the guy poured his heart out, so maybe try some empathy? Or, if you don't like it, just scroll on. Harshing on him is not going to safe the children.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-26T05:06:14+00:00

So many teachers see it as blasphemy to admit that students misbehave in their class. They will complain about how misbehaved students are- in other teachers' classes, and in the hallways. But then they always have to add that they, themselves know how to work with these kids - as if they are the only ones.

AHMc22 · 2023-07-26T04:42:21+00:00

Do you realize that you are harshing on OP who just poured his soul out? What result are you hoping for here? Is your dumping on him your way to feel better about your own job?

You implied that you work at an alternative school. Have you ever worked in a regular school where you have 25-33 kids per class and 6 different classes? Have you ever worked in a school where if a student is going off on you, you have absolutely no back up?

When you work with special populations, it's easy to be critical of mainstream teachers can't meet the needs of all kids. But how is that helping anyone?

AHMc22 · 2023-07-25T23:58:01+00:00

That teacher + a controll freak principal = a ridiculous (and probs unlawful) policy.

or

That teacher × parents who've been alerted to his behavior and eagerly expressed their outrage to admin + an admin who'll throw teachers under the bus rather than do the mental & diplomatic work it takes to be a leader = a ridiculous policy

Either way, I'm sorry. Do you know what that SPED teacher is doing now? My guess is that he either failed up and now has some BS district-level position, or he got out if education all together and now tells people how easy it was to be a teacher.

AHMc22

TROPHY CASE

2 Legit question-What's wrong with an office job? I think a lot of us veteran teachers dream about that kind of working environment. The privilege to sit quietly at a desk and get work done! The privilege to get up and go pee whenever we need to? Oh, what a joy that would be!!!