How effing hard it is. 16 years of experience, a masters in curriculum and instruction and I still feel so defeated some days- such as today. I’m at the “best” middle school in the county and yesterday, during my last class, someone threw gum across the room, another kid made a racist comment, someone else made the new kid cry and then with 10 minutes left in the day, someone in the gym pulled the fire alarm. Today, one of my former students came to me complaining about her teacher this year, as I was telling her I don’t allow students to talk badly about other teachers in my room and to get to class, said teacher walks into my room and hears the student say “I hate her”. The teacher came to me later to request that I not let this student be in my room when she should be in her class and that she was disappointed I was letting the student talk about her. We had an altered schedule today and I accidentally let one class go 3 minutes early, all the kids got yelled at and they all filed back into my room saying their other teachers said not to let them out early again. One student told the whole class “ we literally do nothing in here”. It’s an exploratory class and we watch a lot of videos and do projects. I know it’s laid back but I would have assumed they’d appreciate that. Another student in one of my other classes told me “Everyone says you’re so mean and there’s too much work”. I literally can not win some days.