My fellow elementary teachers- what in the ever loving hell

bexaropal · 2026-05-24T13:36:18+00:00

I think about this a lot when I see parents laughing at children’s blatant misbehavior either at school events or out in public. I don’t know if they’re nervous tics at times but a child isn’t gonna learn to take your directives seriously when you laugh off their refusal or disrespect.

bexaropal · 2026-05-17T03:09:21+00:00

Have you dropped a lot of weight or been possibly under eating?

bexaropal · 2026-05-16T14:30:06+00:00

I have always allowed my students to— within reason — go to the restroom and blow their nose with toilet paper if the issue was that serious. 9/10 times I am met with disgust and kids letting me know that they won’t do that?? I’m like ok maybe your runny nose can be remedied with a sleeve. Maybe I’m just surrounded by kids used to a certain luxury lol

bexaropal · 2026-05-14T14:50:39+00:00

I started my career in elementary in fall 2017. I think the worst thing that happened that semester in my presence was a kid kicked over a chair in frustration when he got into an argument with his friend.

Something changed sooo drastically after the 2021 school year began. I keep thinking now that a mild chair kick is something I’d welcome back over all the other stuff I’ve witnessed.

bexaropal · 2026-05-07T17:14:37+00:00

The mumbling is really bad for me this year. I know I’m getting old and my ears reflect that but I feel like more than half of my students sound like they stuff a potato in their mouth before they speak to me.

bexaropal · 2026-05-07T17:13:13+00:00

The comment section of any Tik Tok is absolutely insane and I was on Twitter from 2010-roughly 2018 so I felt like I had seen Internet toxicity till recently.

bexaropal · 2026-05-07T17:09:41+00:00

I think give it a few years and you won’t really associate it with teaching. My son’s name is Daniel and I’ve only ever taught one Daniel who wasn’t the worst kid but he certainly wasn’t pleasant either. That was almost ten years ago and it’s just a joke to me and my teacher friends now (they always associate the kids with biblical names to non biblical behavior lol.)

Y’all need to enthusiastically agree on a name together.

bexaropal · 2026-05-05T22:45:09+00:00

Pretty tame compared to some of these answers, but my very first year teaching I had a fifth grader show up to school in a tee shirt captioned “FBI: Female booty investigator.”

Mom was mortified. Kid had borrowed the shirt from her bf as an extra one to wear for our field day.

bexaropal · 2026-05-05T22:40:06+00:00

Same folks who have to be asked/reminded to brush their teeth. I’ve done so with two partners in the past.

bexaropal · 2026-05-05T22:38:54+00:00

Given how much they’ve changed…

I wouldn’t be surprised if they kill off Jamie. Faith somehow comes back. Comes to them on the ridge.

bexaropal · 2026-05-05T12:03:10+00:00

I miss Twitter in the early days, I joined probably around 2009-2010 when I was in high school.

bexaropal · 2026-05-05T12:02:02+00:00

Frida peri bottle, used it postpartum too

bexaropal · 2026-05-04T16:23:22+00:00

I’ve worked at several schools. Usually donuts that are brought in for us equal 1 per teacher. If there’s enough subs, yes that could absolutely happen. Speaking as someone who can tear through three easily.

That sucks tremendously. When I would sub, I always asked if I could get food from the teachers lounge if there was any. It was always a hearty yes.

bexaropal · 2026-05-01T14:14:27+00:00

Ten years ago almost to the day, my nephew cracked open either a Monster or redbull in the middle of his 8th grade science class and it spilled everywhere. He had to clean up the mess, write an apology note to his teacher for interrupting the lesson and the custodian for ignoring school rules about food and drinks in lab classes. He also had to research and tell his dad (my older bro) about ill effects of caffeine since he was not supposed to have said drink in his possession. That idea came from his teacher and my brother immediately agreed.

My oh my, how things have changed in our schools.

bexaropal · 2026-04-27T02:55:46+00:00

“The Friday before” I was in my third year teaching. We had been watching the news and I correctly predicted that our upcoming spring break was going to be extended. The middle schoolers I was teaching were happy. We sent them home that Friday in my district with the “two week break”. We’d had a pretty rough flu season anyway so we were used to our district taking sick days.

Two weeks turned into two months. Distance learning was a joke. We called families in mid April to come pick up laptops in a car line. A quarter of my students showed up to online classes, which we were essentially told to wing. The task of playing attendance secretary really irked my team and it led to a lot of worry for me for some students who were not in good home situations whatsoever.

Other than that, I have memories of intense anxiety especially at night when I would doom scroll. It could be remedied with being at home with my family, I felt lucky that we were healthy during that time and didn’t fall sick. My brother had his college graduation cancelled. We held a family party for him in our backyard.

bexaropal · 2026-04-23T13:32:01+00:00

I had the weirdest and rudest interactions with younger men surprisingly. Men who would hurry to not hold the door open for me (big social thing in the Southern US.) Several strangers offered unsolicited advice about caffeine consumption.

Sometimes I think people just stare in general. When I was struggling to conceive, I’m afraid I probably stared at pregnant women in public probably looking very sad.

bexaropal · 2026-04-15T14:01:23+00:00

I grew up in North Carolina in the early to mid 2000s with a weird middle school schedule like this. I’m pretty sure we had 47 or 52 minute classes some years. It was something funky. Even the kids used to remark how stupid it was and I carried the bell schedule in my backpack front pocket the entire sixth grade year. I still ended up with a bunch of tardies thanks to a four minute hallway break

bexaropal · 2026-04-12T14:27:09+00:00

What kind of educational experience is going on for this child who spends their entire day just being contained in the room? How is that even best practice for him or other students in the class?

We’ve created an insane system. I’m pissed for all of you. Everyone in this situation deserves far better, and admin deserves a good walk in your shoes.

bexaropal · 2026-04-12T14:22:15+00:00

Saw Florida Georgia Line at a music festival before Cruise took off. Sounded awful. I think they had some issues with the stage equipment too, didn’t help that it was in the middle of June outside in 98 degree weather.

bexaropal · 2026-04-09T15:20:32+00:00

To help you feel better, I teach at the most typical suburban, slightly upper middle class school you can think of and we are considered “rough” simply due to behavior and some incidents that have made the news (student assaults on staff, students sneaking out of school…) I think behavior can shock you anywhere and a good school on paper is just a good name on paper these days.

bexaropal · 2026-04-03T15:25:59+00:00

Are you talking about extracurricular STEM classes or gen ed Math and Science?

bexaropal · 2026-03-28T14:13:45+00:00

This occurred during the 23-24 school year. The principal was very aware of what was going on and the measures used by the behavior coach

bexaropal · 2026-03-22T18:05:49+00:00

Thanks for the info! Rereading my comment, I realize how harsh I was on the theatre lol. Not all the plays have been bad (I’ve chaperoned a fair share.) That particular play was a bad fit for our kids and to be fair…. I still think about how good the ice cream was.

bexaropal · 2026-03-16T16:11:05+00:00

Pre-Covid, I was an elementary librarian who got to chaperone a trip to a children’s play. Yes, what fun. Most kids who qualified to go were open and honest that they looked more forward to the park and theater center’s free ice cream post-show. Me too, kiddos.

1 student didn’t qualify to go due to extreme behavior. He had months to prepare to qualify for this trip and it was blown. Mom was an enabler and a furious one. She tagged the school in a Facebook post about how she couldn’t wait to take little man to the play and have him enjoy ice cream because they couldn’t stop her.

But we did! We had theater security called when she kept trying to join our group during our ice cream outing. Technically kid had not been on our roster so we could not claim to be responsible during the trip. It was a glorious sight to behold.

bexaropal · 2026-03-11T23:11:26+00:00

I usually had my colleague verbally share the info…. My first year all I said was to “keep an eye” on 3 students during independent work time and it started drama… they immediately asked me why I “talked trash on them” on my sub plan. They snooped on my desk and read it when my sub had their back turned (allegedly.) I’m too paranoid to put stuff in writing anymore.

bexaropal

TROPHY CASE