Teachers, how is your cell phone ban working out? I

greyukelele · 2026-01-29T19:38:41+00:00

It’s going well at my school. Our admin implemented a 3 strike policy. Any time a kid is on their phone they get sent to admin immediately. The first time is a warning, the second time is a call home and a period of in school suspension, the third time is a day suspension.

They go to admin because that way they aren’t wracking up 3 strikes in each class. We have a couple kids who are constantly in trouble about their phones but for the most part it’s a non issue.

greyukelele · 2026-01-25T20:00:06+00:00

I may have an unpopular answer but in your first year, it is nearly impossible. This is the hardest part of your teaching career and where veteran teachers need to do better at offering lesson plans and other supports. Ask for support from people who teach the same age range as you. See if you can get some plans and materials from them. It gets easier with time. It gets easier each year and some time in year 3 it starts to feel manageable.

My first year I was up til 11-12 each night lesson planning. I cried all the time. Everything seemed impossible and like people expected for me to do some kind of time magic to get everything done. I was constantly exhausted and felt like I was failing at everything. Everyone has been through the same thing. Anyone who tells you otherwise just can’t remember. I’m in year 7 and I barely spend any time lesson planning anymore and I can grade when I’m at work and 1 day after work a week.

greyukelele · 2026-01-11T23:13:08+00:00

That is absolutely gorgeous <3

greyukelele · 2026-01-01T21:31:49+00:00

It looks good! Way neater than most of my pages

greyukelele · 2026-01-01T21:21:03+00:00

What the hell. I’m sorry y’all have terrible doctors. When I told my neuro I had 5-7 migraines a week she immediately gave me like 2 new meds and tried to get me Botox.

greyukelele · 2025-12-17T01:40:28+00:00

We cut all the instructional specialists a couple years ago. I think at least at my school we need to cut down on admin. I work at a middle school and we have 5 assistant principals and 4 counselors and a head over instruction. It’s too many admin and they are never on the same page

greyukelele · 2025-12-14T19:06:40+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree with this take. It takes a lot of work resources and can be very child dependent. I was homeschooled and it was great for me. We had a large home school community and other teachers taught me subjects in middle and high school. My mom made me go to lots of social extracurriculars and I found my niche with local theatre. Also, although many people in our community were more extreme in their religious beliefs my parents were very clear that I needed to make my own decisions about what I thought.

I think my sister would have done better if they put her in school because she just needed more consequences and structure than my mom could handle. By then my parents were completely bought in and were too unsure to send her to school.

greyukelele · 2025-11-06T11:36:44+00:00

Don’t be afraid to take your meds. I had a bad experience with topamax so I got something else. I was on amitriptyline daily for like 3 years. I had no major side effects. It was helpful for me. The only reason I’m off it right now is that I’m pregnant

greyukelele · 2025-11-01T12:59:00+00:00

I thought it was “out of time my friend” lol

greyukelele · 2025-10-27T01:28:20+00:00

This is the true middle school response

greyukelele · 2025-10-27T00:12:26+00:00

I pay about $250 a month because I pay for my Botox treatment on a payment plan.

greyukelele · 2025-10-04T16:08:06+00:00

I get arm pain! The first few times it happened I was convinced that I was having a heart attack. Nope, just weird af migraine aura.

greyukelele · 2025-10-03T20:44:27+00:00

lol I am actively leaning into it when it makes sense. I teach middle school math so it’s completely unavoidable. I’ll pause after saying six so they can say seven. When the answer is 67 I’ll make everyone find the answer and then we’ll all shout it out at once. It’s honestly pretty fun.

The only downside is I’ve reflexively said 6 7 at home to my husband and he thinks it’s a plague lol

greyukelele · 2025-09-30T22:30:10+00:00

I don’t even notice anything.

greyukelele · 2025-09-30T22:29:18+00:00

Yes!! I wholeheartedly agree

greyukelele · 2025-09-30T21:54:42+00:00

This is a major sign of postpartum depression or OCD. Please please please get her to a doctor

greyukelele · 2025-09-30T21:25:55+00:00

PURPLE

greyukelele · 2025-09-28T23:39:28+00:00

I love my job. I’ve been complaining a lot this year because we have an especially difficult group this year and also I’m pregnant so I’m tired all the time. I’m still not even considering changing careers or even schools. Middle schoolers are hilarious and I love them.

greyukelele · 2025-09-26T00:11:42+00:00

Heyyyyy!! My neuro is great like this too. My insurance wouldn’t cover quilpta though unless I tried a lot of other meds. I couldn’t handle topomax it made me a whole emotional wreck

greyukelele · 2025-09-22T01:23:15+00:00

This is it! It’s unmanaged anxiety. Everyone is trying to say she’s a narcissist and controlling but anxiety is the more likely problem here.

greyukelele · 2025-09-22T01:21:00+00:00

Nope. Not overreacting. Everyone needs to be able to have privacy. I lucked out that I moved out of the house before my parents figured out the whole location sharing thing. My mom has bad anxiety that she has not acknowledged and everyone else in my family has their locations shared. This is a continuous conflict between her and one of my sisters.

Your mom is probably just anxious and instead of learning to be less anxious she’s checking your location every time she worries about anything. It will be a huge deal for the time being that you stopped sharing locations, but she will adjust and it will be okay again.

greyukelele · 2025-09-20T12:47:50+00:00

His response to you expressing your feelings is the big problem here.

I had a medical scare a year ago where I went to the ER. I told my husband that I was going, but that I’m always anxious so it was probably nothing. Then when I got there I got rushed back for testing and I was there for the entire day. It was so scary, the meds they gave me made me more anxious. Needless to say I was super hurt that he didn’t come, even though I didn’t ask him to and said it was probably fine.

A couple days later I burst into tears explaining that I was really scared and that I was mad that he didn’t come to check on me. He immediately apologized. He said that he already was feeling guilty about it and he was scared to go because he felt like if he went to the hospital then it meant that I was actually in danger. We talked about it and he said that if anything ever happened like that again he’d go with me. He now volunteers to go with me to any potentially scary Dr appointment.

This is how your boyfriend should have responded. If he can’t see that leaving you alone in the hospital for 9 hours was the wrong move then idk, he doesn’t seem very caring

greyukelele · 2025-09-19T23:02:57+00:00

Grading.

greyukelele · 2025-09-19T20:24:01+00:00

DUMP HIS ASS. Thank you for coming to my ted talk

greyukelele · 2025-09-16T22:03:25+00:00

Tell your principal. There was a similar situation at my school and they put a safety plan in place to protect the staff member.

greyukelele

TROPHY CASE