Hey everyone,

How are you? Teacher of 20 years here - all in middle school Science. I still like my job, but am getting a bit tired. I am wondering for those teachers who have taught over a decade, what can you say has "changed". (I use 10 years as it encompasses pre and post covid).

Part of me says that middle schoolers have always been middle schoolers. Wacky, forgetful, funny, random, etc. However, I would say that:

• Behavior management has become almost 60% of my job. And not because students are necessarily poorly behaved or mean, but because of the lack of self management/lack of situational awareness. Constant touching, making noises, getting up, etc.
• The touching, especially between middle school boys. And it's not playfighting, it's like...this constant touching of heads, grabbing books, pushing against one another.
• Lack of realizing routines and remembering them. Every day we start the same way in class. Every day they ask what to do.
• Parents. Definitely taking a student's side of the story before the teachers.
• Kids are SO anxious and need constant reassurance.

With all that said, again, I still enjoy my job. It has just gotten so much more difficult in the past 10 years (in my view). What about you all?

Why do I need to sit in a room for 3 hours listening to admin talk about their summer and other random things, while then also listening to the same hoorah speech that is given every years, just to then go and have team meetings led by the same people.

Let me go home and sleep.

This is my first year teaching all honors students, and the difference in behaviors is noticeable. In the past, most of my students were several grade levels below. While my classroom management improved each year, even at my best, I'd feel like I needed to constantly monitor the class or else chaos would erupt. I'd avoid assigning group projects except on rare occasions because many kids would end up wandering around, arguing, or just avoiding the work.

Today, I assigned a group project, and except for a handful of kids, everyone was on task and contributing. I even had one group decide to split into two groups to avoid any arguments, and I was like, "They problem-solved without me needing to step in."

Obviously, kids will be kids, and there are still times when I need to step in or redirect students, but it's so much less than what I was doing before. I've been wondering why each day feels so much quicker, and I think it's because I rarely have to deal with the behaviors I was dealing with before.

It feels like what school was like when I was growing up: most kids are on task and listening to the teacher. A few kids might get off task, but they're easily redirected. Sometimes a bigger issue comes up, but not often.

It's still early in the year, so I'm hesitant to consider this the norm for the year, but it feels nice not having to be hyper vigilant. I genuinely love teaching, and I tried to be a supportive teacher even for my toughest kids in previous years, but I could always feel how anxious my body would get on certain days. Now, there's still stress, but its not the same kind of stress nor to the same degree.

I feel like this is what teaching should be, and possibly what it used to be like. Like no class or teacher is perfect, but our nervous system should not be constantly on edge because of behavior issues.

"You're blowing my *mind*, Miss Teacher!"

2nd grade lol. Raised his hand to say it and everything 😂

If blowing kids' minds with knowledge ain't my job, then I don't know what is!

I am so sick of having to read and mark essays that have clearly been written using AI. I'm at the point where I have to take a break between every essay because I get so livid. Kids are turning in essays that 1) don't sound like them AT ALL and 2) look pretty but say very little. The AI use is even more obvious because the essay topic used a resource that will have very little research material out there, so all of these essays are coming up with the same (wrong, so very wrong) points. And then when it comes time to practice analysis in class or write a poetry test these kids can't answer anything because they've become used to simply being given the answers, and what's more frustrating is that I know they can do it, they've just learned to lose faith in themselves! My department is getting to the point where we aren't going to allow the use of devices for assessments because of this, yet this still likely isn't going to be enough to curb AI use.

I was subbing at a new school today. Despite not having a uniform and having a very loose dress code, nearly every single female student was wearing the same thing.

Light-to-medium wash baggy/wide leg jeans, plain black tee shirt, and neutral colored sneakers.

It was a little bewildering seeing the hundreds of students exiting and having near-complete color coordination. (It’s a choir teacher’s dream, ngl)

I don’t recall this level of conformity back when I was in school. Elementary doesn’t have this same colorless pattern to fashion; kids are still just as vibrant and unique in their choices as ever. I haven’t been paying attention to Gen Alpha fashion whatsoever, so seeing the outfit uniformity replicated in each class was surprising.

I saw zero skirts or dresses. No graphic tees. Colorful ensembles? Zilch. Even the male students were mostly in black tees and jeans, minus the few wearing white. Accessories were limited to maybe a hoop nose ring or a single necklace. Hair also seemed either very low maintenance or not styled at all. It was a well-off area, so it’s not for lack of funds nor a strict dress code.

Do middle and high schoolers just not vibe with bright colors and accessories anymore? With this era of fast fashion and posturing on social media, the fashions seem remarkably bland. Choosing fashionable outfits and doing ultra-trendy makeup was all the vibe during my middle and high school years, so it’s interesting to perceive such a switch-up.

Also, any theories as to why this change happened?

Less than a week after back to school night, syllabus distribution, and three explanatory emails home, i woke up this morning to an email where the parent wants to know why the kid is failing. Ughhh he hasn’t turned a single thing in. Arghhhhh

It's my second year and I'm definitely "way to nice" and I'm clearly noticing that it negatively impacts the work and ambiance in my class. I've heard a lot that you have to "scare them" and "show them who's boss" but this is so far remote from my personality that i'm first looking for things that would "fit me" iykwim.
I'm mainly teaching IT to 14-15 yo kids but I have other ages also.

So yeah if you have any advice, experience or maybe a good book that talks about it I would be very grateful lol

Showed up for the first day today. First slide that admin has was labelled “ice breakers”. They hyped it up how important this was for the first day, and then started passing out “supplies”.

After a minute, everyone realized they were passing out ice breakers mints, and that there were no silly games coming. Finished their hour long session in 30 mins and gave us 30 more mins in our classrooms than they are contractually required to.

A small teacher committee at my high school has decided that, for community building, each department will take turns feeding the staff once a month. We were told to plan to feed 75 people. Our district is in dire financial straits and has forced a 5 day pay decrease to cut costs this year. Am I alone and overly cynical in thinking this is a tone-deaf ask of teachers?

It seems like our punishment for not improving state testing scores is to force teachers to do more paperwork because we need to 'unpack' the standards, or write about 'process'. Last wee we had a meeting about the future meetings we will have.

I wish we could be more honest about the causes like the bell curve that intelligence sits on. At some point, we have reached the point of diminishing returns. There is no scenario in which we get to 100% grade level. People seem to think that consistent improvements will happen forever. While I can understand this, there comes a point at which our goal of 2% is not met, and might not ever really improve.

Even if our teaching practices became perfect, I'm not sure we could maintain 2% growth forever. Why do people think this way?

Talking to the school coach yesterday I tried explaining that I can have procedures in place and they won't matter unless I can enforce them. She accused me of dodging responsibility and told me to name one and I pointed out I'm teaching the damn class. At which point she accused me of being unreasonable and walked out. Also I spoke to a second teacher and he answered me in five seconds. This is the Toxic Positivity Tango. Just pretend everything is fine.

I view misbehaving as a problem to be solved. Here are my systems and here are the actual consequences for violating them. I need something with teeth to enforce them. And again given that another teacher knew the answer right away says a lot. Schools need to accept that asking a question means someone has a question and not an attitude.

Whether explicitly or not, a bunch of my students this year know that admin values that thicc, juicy data.

They have figured out if they intentionally bomb the beginning of the year test, they can look like they're crushing it and growing by giving half a shit on the MOY.

The well is poisoned. This i-ready lawsuit can't go fast enough.

EDIT: Yeah yeah, I got it. When a measure becomes a metric it ceases to be a good measure. Goodhart's law.

That's it. That's the post. 🫠

Each year, I meet with admin and other teachers to discuss students, their accommodations, etc. It helps because the kids enter with me already having a plan for them, I can make sure they’re seated appropriately, and everything else that comes with appropriate modifications and accommodations for students who are mandated to get them (and even some who don’t have such a mandate, but probably should).

However, every year, the conversations about kids are more and more about things that aren’t related to education (see: disruptive behavior, defiance, aggression, etc.). When discussing mods/accommodations, it’s pretty standard with many kids needing the same things with the occasional outlier, which is all good. But, those conversations seem to happen in a matter of minutes now whereas every year, prior to the first day, I get more and more emails or verbal warnings about kids who will break stuff, will show aggression toward staff, can’t sit near each other, can’t be in the same class (even though they are), make it their job to be disruptive, etc. There’s far less about how to address educational needs and far more about managing behaviors.

Has it always been like this and I just didn’t realize? I just can’t remember a year when pre-first day conversations focused more on education than poor behaviors.

If your commute is on the longer side, how long is it?

I’m going from 15 minutes to an hour in order to save money and my mental & physical health. I am a fourth year teacher who recently moved states to be closer to family with the intentions of looking for a different path. One thing led to another and l lined up a teaching job away from my family in a HCOL area, which defeated the purpose of moving closer to my them in the first place. My apartment is also making me physically and mentally sick, so it’s not worth staying.

I’m going to tough out the commute and job for as along as possible, but it would be nice to hear that I’m not the only one who is this position. Thank you!!

As of today...

• Thou shall not use any entrance that you have used before, you must only now use the entrance that is still being constructed and unsafe for people.
• Thou shall not have a parking space, unless you arrive for work up to 90 minutes before your official time of starting... But we will not open the building at that time, that's only an hour before and you must spend 30 minutes or more in your car.
• Thou shall not have coffee, tea or any drink other than water in your classrooom.
• Thou shall not walk out of the temporary entrance/exit accross the gravel foot path, instead along the corridor, down the ramp, out of the firedoor, up the disabled ramp and in to the building.
• Thou shall not ride your bicycle on the designated road, thou must instead push it 600 or so hundred meters to the designated spot.Then return the same 600 meters on foot to enter the building.
• Thou shall not leave a cup or food in any space other than the staff canteen, and if found it will be binned, regardless of state (clean or in use).
• Thou shall have exactly 15 minutes for break, but the cafeteria to obtain said drink is 8 minutes walk from your classroom, and 8 back.
• Thou shall not enter reception, without an appointment. You wont know this until you enter reception, where you will be told to leave. To make an appointment you must phone ahead first.
• Posters, decorations, class work, student work etc., is not permitted to be put up on the walls. You will of course be told that it should be, and it is up to you to find a way of displaying it to adhere to requirements, but so long as it not tacked, taped, blutacked, or stuck in any way.

I'd like to say this is a joke, sadly these are not, and these are expectations of the admin and management, as of today.

That is all. No idea what to do about it and no one at my school cares. I don't even have materials or training and probably won't be provided with any. But it's for the kids, right? This is why they don't succeed. (Union, Blue State before anyone starts in on move somewhere where there's more support. There's none to be had in 2026 and they wonder why we quit.)

I hate Curriculum Night. I teach HS. I had maybe 15 kids come to open house. Now we’re going to be 7 weeks in and I have to stay till 8 for Curriculum night. Where I say the same things that are in my syllabus and have some work samples on display. For maybe 10 kids/parents. I have a pretty rigid curriculum I have to follow. Our gradebook categories and even the number of assignments in each are set by the district. Late policies are set by the district. Every ELA teacher in the county will be saying the same things.

So, last week one of out science teachers gave notice because her husband got offered a great paying position on the other side of the country. Today, an ELA teacher gave her resignation because she says that she can't handle teaching anymore.

I offered to help the ELA teacher anyway I can, but she says that she just can't take it anymore after 3 years teaching. She thought she could handle another year, but realized that teaching is damaging her mental state. She wants to go back to school to become a pharmacist.

So, I wished them both luck in their future endeavors. I will be helping interview replacements this week.

Hi I'm is Eric (51M) and I’m an 11th grade maths teacher. I wanted to share something I have been noticing with my students a lot in the past month that has been making me somewhat uneasy and I am curious whether other teachers have experienced the same thing.

Since coming back to school i notcied studients using the adding ending pilled to everything like it has suddenly become part of their vocabulary. I’ve already heard things like ITS BASED AND CHRISTPILLED also terms such as "iqpilled" "autismpilled" "mathspilled" etc . At first, though, I assumed I was overreacting and that it was just another bit of dumb gen z/ gen alpha brainrot slang.

The thing is, I’m fairly familiar with gen z internet cultures and know that its influenced a lot by 4chan and andrew tate, including things like looksmaxxing and the broader “manosphere.” About a year ago, this same group of students were talking constantly about a looksmaxxing influencer "Calvivular" who had gone viral online. What caught my attention at the time was that the influencer had reportedly associated with Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist figure.

What makes this harder to interpret is that our class is diverse. It includes Black, Hispanic, Indian, and Asian students even though these groups make up a minority of the class, and students from these backgrounds also take part in the same humor. I have heard girls using the same language as well, so this doesn’t simply seem like a case of white teenage boys trying to be edgy. It appears to be broader internet slang that has spread across different groups, which makes me even less certain about how seriously to take it.

Should I sit down with the students, speak to their parents, or raise the issue with the principal? Would it be appropriate to teach a broader lesson about the dangers of fascism, Hitler, Christian nationalism, and incel ideology, or would that be too much of a leap based on slang alone? I want to warn them about how online communities can normalize misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and authoritarian ideas, but I also don’t want to accuse them unfairly or turn a classroom concern into a political confrontation.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I’d genuinely like to hear from other teachers: have you noticed students adopting this kind of terminology, and how do you approach it without turning every piece of internet slang into a political warning sign?

Hey everyone,

Ex-teacher here who has been thinking about heading back to the classroom. Taught for 4 years but when COVID hit, shifted to the corporate world. I feel like I never wanted to leave but had to because of the pandemic. Talked to wife, who is also an ex-teacher, and she is supportive. Am I crazy?

Also, thank you all for what you do. You probably don’t get the accolades you deserve but know that there are parents who appreciate you.

Advice on classroom purchases

So. I’m in a weird spot.

I was invited to speak at a conference over the summer and was gifted a $150 voucher for classroom purchases. The problem is I’m currently working as a paraprofessional (despite my teaching license) and therefore don’t have a “classroom” nor do I have need for materials. I’d still like to use this voucher though because I earned it. I was thinking of getting something for my future class, but I have no idea what I would want.

Which comes to this post. What are some recommendations you have for this voucher?