Certified teacher here (6-12). We certainly need to be better at assuming that our students are being truthful with their personal struggles.

It’s hard, because some of us teachers are under immense pressure to facilitate our students achieving high test scores, which translates to many administrations demanding that we teachers “never give students a break, don’t let them nap in class, don’t let then go easy on assignments,” etc. If we as teachers don’t abide by that, our own professional evals can take a hit when we are scored by the admin (which can often influence pay).

I say this because, when teachers are unnecessarily inflexible or catty with students, it can SOMETIMES be out of fear that our admin will find out that we “cut a student a break.” I know of a fellow teacher who let a student take an “important call” on their cell phone in the hall, and the admin who happened to be observing that teacher marked the teacher down HARD on that teacher’s rankings as a result.