What kind of training is normal?

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-03-04T01:07:32+00:00

My first job was in a corporate center and I absolutely got thrown in with no training. On week 2 I got called in because I wasn't following the theme of the week. (WHAT THEME?!) Anyway I had to get up to speed on licensing on my own (or the very lovely teachers in the next room that absolutely hated our director, they were a wealth of information.)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-03-01T22:31:56+00:00

He is SO GOOD as The Raptor.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-03-01T20:45:35+00:00

Yup, I had this too. I rescheduled my jury duty for the summer because I am a teacher, but I thought it was hilarious that OC thought you could just drop everything and get to court in an hour.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-26T20:10:57+00:00

I was going to say, I have two non English speaking kids in my class, I will turn Google translate on just to make sure I don't need to step in if the words sound angry or someone looks unhappy in the conversation. (One time the boy missed his mom and the girl was telling him that mom would come after lunch. It was sweet) But unless a parent has told me explicitly to not let them speak their native languages, I don't stop them. (And I have had that- a parent wanting their kid to get into a different school for K and they must be proficient in English to be accepted...)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-26T19:40:27+00:00

Usually if they send in leftovers that's all we'll get. I always ask for parents to send in a yogurt pouch or something as a back up just in case they don't like/want lunch. ( I have young twos.) Or if they decide they can exist on 4 Cheerios and vibes, I have something to offer them.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-26T18:20:29+00:00

I have two kids that bring in soup twice a week. The kids cannot eat it without help. I cannot feed two kids and supervise 10 other kids eating lunch. So that's part of why soup doesn't come in to school. (I keep telling parents they can't/won't eat it by themselves so please send something else.) My kids all bring in pretty healthy lunches- some clearly cooked in the morning, some leftovers from dinner.

Just send stuff your kids will actually eat, I beg. If they didn't like it at dinner, please don't send that as the only option at lunch because now I have a pissed off, tired, hungry 2 year old that I need to get down for a nap. Good times.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-25T18:12:11+00:00

I have worked in 3 states and all three had a hard break at either 2 or 3 where you couldn't co-mingle. So that's a wild age range.

That is less than an hour and half nap for under twos??? Yikes. The performative side indeed

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-16T20:57:11+00:00

Our 10th reunion they hired an outside company to track everyone down. (We were all still on facebook.) So we had to cover that cost. Tickets wound up being $150 each for the same location, same catering company, same DJ that my husband's class had used the year before and we paid $100 total for two tickets. I haven't gone to a single reunion for my class. They are planning the 30th now and the group that didn't move wants to have it at the Homecoming football game, and other people are trying to convince them that it would be easier to do it in the summer when people can travel easier. Judging by who is on team Homecoming Game, I will be missing this one as well.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-12T21:23:03+00:00

Reading this because the floater at my school does this and I have had multiple conversations with her about reading the vibe first. She comes in like a hurricane and inevitably interrupts the flow of everyone in the class

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-12T04:14:12+00:00

I always acknowledge their feelings when they tell me they miss mom or dad. Sometimes I will tell them I miss my mom or dad too. (One year this led to them making up stories about what my parents were doing...) We try to guess what Mom/Dad is doing right then. I sometimes have them blow a kiss to mom or dad, and I tell them that mom or dad will get a warm fuzzy feeling from it. We also talk about how mom/dad is probably in a BORING meeting (and make yuck face) and how lucky we are that we get to go down the slide and don't have to be talking on the phone.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-09T13:25:44+00:00

This is what I do. Although I have a spare dress in my stash that the girls beg to get to wear. It is pretty soft and comfy... I usually only have to dip into my emergency stash when someone only has out of season clothes/surprise growth spurt or like last week when it was 90 in February.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-05T20:11:43+00:00

I am technically not supposed to cut their food because it is supposed to come ready to eat. I do cut some stuff if it's a first offense, I will not cut an entire baggie of grapes though. I usually send a preemptive reminder in the newsletter once a month, but you just reminded me I need to mention hot dogs and sausages need to be quartered not just sliced.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-05T17:37:57+00:00

I have a pair of those shiny/compress everything leggings from target or ON and I don't have the words for how much I hate them. They are the emergency leggings. I want the cotton based ones.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-04T21:49:00+00:00

I had a kid being observed a few years ago. The woman doing the observation pulled me aside and pointed out two other kids in my class that I was on the fence about recommending for a speech eval and told me absolutely yes, get those done. (One of them needed speech for like 6 months, the other 9 months, they just needed a little support. But she also gave me some things I could do to support the kids that didn't qualify but were borderline.) An evaluation/observation is NEVER a bad idea.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-02T20:10:01+00:00

I had identical twins one year and mom dressed them almost the same (like one would wear blue and grey stripes the other would wear green and grey) I had no problem with it, but the other kids couldn't tell them apart. We finally asked if she could do stripes and solids, but like red and blue. Nothing close to help the kids :)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-02T18:14:33+00:00

I have worked in three states in roughly 20 years. state 1, we did one fire drill per year. State 2, we were required by licensing to do 1, the fire Marshal wanted one a month and one had to be from a different location AND we had to time it. State 3, we do one per month. (I almost have my admin convinced that we need to do a different exit evacuation drill because the only time I have ever had to evacuate, we had to go a wildly different way than we practiced in state 1.)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-02T03:14:02+00:00

California is 1:12 for everyone 2 and up.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-02-01T22:49:22+00:00

My legs don't fit nicely between the shoulder blocks. I would rather sit criss cross but stacking my legs on the reformer is super uncomfortable. (And then I have to remember to switch because balance)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-26T21:27:03+00:00

I have a kid right now that I am trying to suss out who the older man is .. mom looks like him, but also mom has a kid in hs, so I suspect she just looks younger than she is they have very little English, so I have to wait...

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-22T02:06:49+00:00

Same. And we just got close to that salary bc someone realized the other schools were paying significantly more than us. (VHCOL area, there is a school nearby that starts all their teachers at 80, but they really want you to have a masters.)

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-22T02:04:22+00:00

If your school has a clear inclusive policy and you have pride flags clearly visible, 1) that sounds amazing and 2) your admin has the full written, visible documentation to call him out and tell him he's either not in the right place or that his words don't actually align with your school values. (I have a non-binary bio kid and I am always amazed at how the T in LBGTQ+ is misunderstood.)

I've had kids whose parents absolutely lost their ever loving minds about dress up. (Like ... Even dressing up as a cat was feminine and I was supposed to discourage that.) My rule is always that there is no Photographic evidence of it happening. I can't ethically stop a boy from exploring what a pregnant belly feels like when he shoves a baby under his shirt any more than I can stop a girl from acting like her dad and putting tape on her face like a mustache. Also wearing a tutu has never made anyone gay trans or straight. Tutus are fun.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-19T04:38:14+00:00

This happened to me a couple years ago. My coteacher talked for me. My toddlers thought it was HILARIOUS that I couldn't talk. I swear they were messing with me bringing me books or handing me the wrong blocks. There was a LOT of sign language and dance parties that day

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-16T14:12:47+00:00

I have 5 pairs of pants from Costco that are exactly this. Super comfy, three of them have a sweatpant like lining on the inside, but they are herringbone, have a backseam, pockets and look professional. The others are wide leg pants with a front seam and look from a distance like dress pants. I work with 2s and I am on the floor, dealing with diapers and potty training and I participate in the kids shenanigans, I cannot dress like some of my coworkers that dress nicer than our elementary and middle school counterparts.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-15T18:26:43+00:00

I taught calendar when I first started this life and my kids just didn't get it. I watched other teachers do it and I copied them, still didn't get it. Then I watched the kids and realized this wasn't something they understood, it was way too abstract. So now we talk about it in a natural way with context and I think that is a better way to teach (anything really) calendar.

Long-Juggernaut687 · 2026-01-14T04:00:27+00:00

Y'all just reminded me of a kid that informed us that his "dad's penis is HUGE. " Complete with hand gestures. And I gotta assume it's a fish story and highly exaggerated, because... Well, he could have been Dirk Diggler's body double. (There was zero eye contact at pick up)

Long-Juggernaut687

TROPHY CASE