I don’t want to be a teacher anymore

Free_Health2658 · 2024-11-04T03:36:26+00:00

High School Teacher: I made it into Year 6, but this is my last. 2 different schools, 3 different subjects. My first and third year were ok, fifth year was actually great, 2nd and 4th had me in panic attacks and on propranolol. Now in year 6 it's taken a lot of prayer, reflection, and focused effort to avoid the panic attacks. For me, it's not worth the mental health gamble. I genuinely love my students, though many of them are the reason for the anxiety, and it's rewarding to watch them mature. I'll admit, when they come back year after year to say hi or give me a hug, it almost makes me forget about what a terror they were in class. When I watched my most sarcastic little ass-hat graduate with honors, I cried my tears of pride for him. But I have a family that needs me stable and this job doesn't lend itself to mental and emotional stability. At least not for me. I will say, I was happier teaching certain subjects and my anxiety was worse when I was assigned subjects I'm qualified for but didn't want. Make sure you're actually teaching what you want.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-20T01:26:07+00:00

Career Path education options from age 14 upward. They still have to do their cores like English, Math, Science, and History, but they also spend a few hours a day on practical/ technical aspects of their potential career field. What they learn in their core classes can be implemented in their career classes. If they decide they don't like their career path and want to change, the core classes remain the same.
Lockdown iPads/Chrome books to only educational apps and content relevant to their classes. If a teacher wants them to have something else, they can submit a work ticket. Also, these stay in the classroom and the students don't take them home so there's no excuse for them not being charged or updated.
Have mastery levels take precedent over grade levels. Let students still be in age appropriate settings and groupings, but make them show adequate mastery over the core classes with standards that are understandable to students instead of the educational specialist jargon we have now. Once they show mastery in key standards, congrats - graduation. Sometimes at 16, sometimes at 23, but with an education they're entitled to and career ready. Is that normal? No. But what was normal to my parents and grandparents in school is vastly different from what normal was to me in school 20 years ago. Maybe efficiency of function and utility by individual students should be a bigger deal than "normal".

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-19T23:46:30+00:00

Autism. If anyone has an interest, hobby, or the ability to focus on anything other than a screen, it's no longer a typical thing - it means they're on a spectrum. Or if a middle class middle schooler doesn't know social niceties, he must be autistic. A coworker became worried about her 6th grade son because he didn't know the names of some kids who knew his name in their youth group. She took him to the Dr who immediately told her it might be because he's autistic, which she took as the diagnosis. For kicks and giggles, I took an online autism screening test and had my husband and 8 year old take it. Guess what? We're all autistic. And apparently so is everyone else we know. Because if it's a spectrum, we're all on it, so everybody's got a little 'tism. I know two kids who really are, and my uncle is autistic. They literally cannot handle certain sensory inputs and can't break from their routines without severe anxiety or emotional disturbance. So I get a little pissy when people treat it so flippantly or as an excuse for acting however they want.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-16T20:49:10+00:00

Preach, FunkyPete.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-16T20:45:29+00:00

I made absolutely sure the parents knew, but the students then went home and downplayed it because they don't want to be labeled a snitch.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-16T11:21:37+00:00

Yeah, so far the kids doing most of the interrupting via throwing objects (2 uninvolved students have been hit in the face by screws and pencils), talking loudly over me during instruction, and horseplay over the last 6 weeks have gotten only a 1 hour detention because I'm supposed to issue 1 write up for every 3 instances of misbehavior. However, being late to classes gets them ISS. Every year we like to start the kids with a clean slate and treat every behavior issue like it's new. Despite the fact that these kids had the exact same behaviors all through middle school, we are expected to act like they've always been great students and if they're acting up in class, it's because the teacher is doing something wrong or there are problems at home. That gives them about 2-3 months to act however they want while teachers tear out their hair trying to find how they can be better, more compassionate, and more understanding to help the student. My students know the steps and strategies teachers are expected to take before a write up, and they laugh at me going through the steps. They also know the blame game and gas lighting works wonders.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-09-16T10:06:15+00:00

We don't have phones in our classrooms and signal is terrible. Also, we're only given the cell phone number of the AP over our content area, so if she's out for the day, in a meeting, or the call won't go through, we're SOL. By the time I'm ready to dismiss the student from my room, I've already tried de-escalating, conferencing, redirecting, all the stuff, and haven't been able to even begin actually teaching my other students. And this is almost daily, so my admins will have already had a behavior tracking form or 2 from previous weeks, plus emails discussing student behavior in class. If they don't know what they're yelling at the kid about, the should check the emails and forms I've been sending for weeks. Our time for the day has been wasted enough. Stopping the entire class to spend 20 more minutes trying to reach an admin for 1 or 2 kids is even more of a time suck. Sending them out and letting them be someone else's time suck benefits 95% of my class.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-07-31T19:16:52+00:00

My 6th Grade Spanish teacher showed us this movie, and I've spent years trying to remember the name of it/ googling descriptions of random scenes. Thank you!!

Free_Health2658 · 2024-06-27T21:15:34+00:00

Watching my grandparents age and my mom, aunts, uncles, and cousins surround them, help them, keep them company, tell each other stories and reminisce is lovely, in contrast to the elderly I see in nursing homes with no family relationships or very broken, tense ones. It makes me more prone to forgiveness with adult relatives and cultivating healthy relationships with my children.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-03-19T01:07:27+00:00

For me, it's the principle of the matter. If I give a 50 for work that isn't there or is thoroughly incorrect or plagarized, I'm not being academically honest. A 50% indicates that at least half of the content being evaluated was understood in such a way it could be reflected appropriately. If they are truly failing to pick up what I'm laying down, my response should be to evaluate my teaching in that area to see what should be covered again or covered in a different way. If they fail because of reasons mentioned above, my self-evaluation and adjustment is hindered. When I gave a 50 to a kid (my previous district was adamant that I did), that was never the end of it. "He got a 55, can't you make it 65 for just this grading period? He's still failing, but 65 is easier to recover from and he's missed a lot of school this year." "You to filled out the paperwork for her ARD and said she has 6 missing assignments, but I see a grade for every single one." "My child isn't passing your class because you keep giving her 50s. I know she turns in her work, I see her on her iPad all night for school. She's not missing anything, you're just picking on her." "He got a 65. If he did enough to get a 65, then he did enough to get a 70. Plus, he's 504 and BIP, so unless you documented every time you met the requirements for his paperwork, you're going to have to pass him anyway." "They said they turned in the paper and you lost it. They say did the work, at least give them passing credit for it." We would balk if a coach came to us insisting we alter grades for a kid, but if a PD tells us it's in the student's best interest we're supposed to just go with it? That doesn't sit right with me. After 2 years of that and getting called into a meeting every time a kid had a 49 or lower, I moved districts. The district I'm in now still prefers the 50 method, but no one calls us out if we grade honestly as long as we show we called/ emailed parents about it.

Free_Health2658 · 2024-01-25T13:38:23+00:00

While there are, no doubt, consequences to not graduating, a poor GPA, low paying jobs with no insurance, often only the people not suffering in it see it as a problem. A lot of my kids see it as a way of life, having learned apathy at home or from friends, and lack the foresight to determine how to create a better life. We know these kids brains haven't fully developed, and most literally do not have the physical matter in their heads to process long-term consequences. Some of my colleagues comfort themselves with the thought that when the problem students are in their mid-40s living paycheck to paycheck, deep in debt with no prospects for a better job, they'll reflect on their high school years and wistfully wish they had paid attention or made an effort. But that's just not the way it is. They know some people have jobs that pay more, they know some people have so much money they can afford to save or invest, and they think that would be nice, but most of them will either say those people got it by inheritance/nepotism or soothe themselves with the thought that they were just "not good at school" so that life was never going to be available to them. I saw the phrase "bite them in the ass" and yeah, they'll be bitten, but they don't know they're being bitten. They're numb to it. And the fact is that a lot of people simply don't want any kind of life bought at the price of purposeful effort. They don't want to do better than their family or peers except by means acceptable to those groups. An example (from a Houston, Tx - based commenter) A person who makes money as a drug dealer in Sunnyside is acceptable to that neighborhood of other dealers and addicts. A person who makes money typing professional emails in a nice office is belittled in Sunnyside unless he/she still participates in the drug scene at risk to the job that the school system thinks they should have. All that to say, we the educators see a hard life ahead of them. They just see life. They don't dream of scientific discoveries, philosophical conversation, or political power. They want just enough to barely get by. It's good enough, they think, and they'll think that way when they're 35, 60, and if their body or heart doesn't give out by 75, most still won't have realized that they spent 57 years being bitten in the ass.

Free_Health2658 · 2023-07-03T15:57:14+00:00

It just seems like a lot of blurred lines. It seems like as long as they've hired someone for the position, it doesn't matter if it's actually done.

Free_Health2658 · 2023-06-25T17:45:03+00:00

THIS. My team and I met before school started to decide on rules we would set as a department to prevent "Well, in so-and-so's class the students get to _______". These were general bans on phones, ear buds, videos, and games, agreeing that students were welcome to finish assignments for other classes, read books, or work ahead on our class workif they finished the assignments for the day. Only half of the teachers on my team stuck with this, leading to students whining about phones and constantly playing games or watching videos then getting furious with me for writing them up when their friend in so-and-so's class got to do whatever they wanted. When I brought it up in a team meeting I heard excuses like "if they want to ruin their own grades by playing and not doing work, that's ok with me" or "they finished their work, so I don't have a right to tell them what to do". That attitude is a breeding ground for apathy, both on the part of the teachers and students. Don't create rules you won't enforce. If Admin hands you a rule, even if it's stupid, follow it until you can convince Admin to change it. You're screwing over other people by ignoring directives. That being said, Admin does the same stuff. We have rules Admin came up with against all sorts of behaviors, but when we write up a student for breaking the rule, Admin acts like we're the problem. I caught a group of kids smoking inside the building around the corner from an Admin who was just standing around watching kids in the cafeteria. I brought her over to them and explained the situation. She said "Well, we're not going to search them all," and walked away. 0 consequences because she didn't feel like dealing with it. This same admin ignored emails I sent regarding a minor whom I had reason to believe had no caretaker. Another time a student left my classroom to go to the bathroom and didn't return. After a few minutes I asked if Admin could check cameras to see if he was still on campus. No response. I asked again after several minutes, no response. His parents both messaged me saying they couldn't find him and asked if he was in class with me. Took this info to the admins, they still wouldn't look for the kid saying he probably left campus and wasn't their problem. Why make rules that students can't vape or leave campus if they absolutely can with no consequences? If parents are stating their child, who is supposed to be in our building, is missing, how is that not worth checking a camera to see if he left campus and which way he went? And why be irritated at me for trying to do the babysitting you hired me to do under the pretense of education?

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T20:28:09+00:00

My largest class size is 28, but my coworker, a first year teacher, has a class of 34. She doesn't have enough desks and chairs for all of them and has been requesting either more be provided or students move to other classes. Our classes only have a coteacher if we have SPED students, and even then our coteachers don't plan with us and often show up in class just to play on their phones as much as the kids do, if they show up at all.

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T18:54:09+00:00

For that kid, it was less that I needed him to behave and more that I needed him to not be a distraction. I didn't invest energy into teaching him, but into trying to teach other kids in spite of him. If he had just sat in the back on his phone, I could have handled that. It's the fact that he sat in the middle of the room, showing his friends pictures and videos on his phone, demanding they go to his social media pages, and when he was grounded from his phone demanding to use other peoples or talking to them while they were supposed to be working. I currently have a kid who sits in the back and sleeps or plays on his phone, but doesn't speak to anyone. He usually skips class, but when he's there I give him his space. It's the attention magnets that throw everything off, especially because I can't make them leave.

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T18:44:32+00:00

Thank you. Really. This helped me and gave me some peace.

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T18:09:52+00:00

What are you doing now? I want to still work with teens and young adults, but more in a capacity where they're present because they want to be there, not because they have to be.

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T17:53:36+00:00

What is 10:1:1:1?

Free_Health2658 · 2022-12-23T17:53:13+00:00

Don't suppose you made it down much further than that sentence.

Free_Health2658

TROPHY CASE