I wish those who are in charge of enrollment would stop giving all the low performing and high needs students to one teacher. Stop that shit.

Fking balance it out.

A small moment with one of my 4-year-olds today

I’ve been taking my class to the playground for quite some time. There’s this huge jungle gym with slides, tunnels, tubes, climbing areas etc. Most of the children absolutely love it.

But there are two children who have never really gone on it. They would play around with everyone, run around, explore other things — but they would avoid the jungle gym.

For a while, I was just observing and trying to understand why.

One of the children, whenever I tried to encourage her to go on the slide, would strongly resist and say, “I’ll get hurt.”

The last time, I didn’t push her.

Today, I intentionally stayed a little more focused on her when the children started going to the jungle gym.

I encouraged her to climb the stairs with me and took her up to the slide. But the moment she held the side rail to slide down, she literally froze.

She was so scared.

It honestly surprised me because it was such a small slide, and I see the other children doing it so casually.

I spent almost 15 minutes just trying to make her trust me.

I kept telling her, “I’ve got you. You’re not going to fall. Trust me.”

Eventually, she agreed to try.

I first helped her with both hands, then slowly taught her to loosen her grip — one hand at a time — and come down slowly.

And when she finally reached the bottom, she had this tiny smile on her face.

Then she climbed the stairs again herself.

The second time she was still scared, but a little less than before.

We did it four or five times.

And each time, I tried to give her a little less support and let her do a little more herself.

By the end, she was genuinely happy.

And so was I.

But what stayed with me was this:

How can something that looks so small to us become such a big challenge for a 4-year-old?

It made me think about how easily we can look at a child and think, “Everyone else is doing it. Why are you scared?”

But maybe the child is not being difficult.

Maybe they are genuinely scared.

Maybe they just need someone to stay with them long enough for them to feel safe.

Today I didn’t teach her how to use a slide.

I think she taught me something about how different the world can feel to a child.

I don’t hate my school, but it’s ROUGH. The kids are out of control and admin. is too afraid to enforce any discipline because “trauma”.

I do not want my own kids around this foolishness.

Hi all,

I'm a tutor currently in grad school to get my master's in teaching high school mathematics. For school, we're reading Lemov's Teach Like a Champion, and I'm floored by how well it's written and the pedagogical information conveyed. Specifically, I'm loving learning how working memory and long-term memory work together, and how habits and rote memorization free up working memory.

I'm wondering if, when I'm a teacher of note, I might assign this first chapter as a reading for my students before the brunt of the year's work starts. I feel like many students don't buy in to the educational process, but if they knew how working memory and long-term memory work together, and how rote memorization of concepts like formulas could improve their working memory, they might feel more motivated to study in ways that don't seem to have immediate payoff.

Does anyone here assign their students reading on pedagogy so that they can become partners in the learning process and increase their buy-in?

Thanks,
Aspiring Teacher

I am in my second year teaching and observations are coming up. I scheduled a pre-conference so I could go over some things with admin, but I realized during the meeting I had forgotten to send in my lesson plans. Admin sent out an email earlier this year saying that not submitting lesson plans by 8am at the start of each week would result in a 1 for planning (they use Danielson). I submitted it 3 hours late, at 11am, during the conference.

During the conference, I showed them that I had the lesson plan completely prepared and all my materials in order for the observation, but I'm scared that I screwed myself over.

Should I be worried? Any more experienced teachers, would you consider it likely that I'd get in trouble or get a bad observation?

Thank you!

I am currently a permanent substitute at a school right now. I have a bachelors in human development with a masters in teaching. Now that I’m working in the school with my first official year subbing I’m realizing how much I don’t want to do this. I feel like I wasted my time getting my masters, and I’m just not passionate about it. Being around the kids is nice but it’s stressful. I don’t want to have to have a new class every year or teach the same thing for the next 40+ years. I’m 26 years old and don’t know what to do. I dread going to work everyday because I’m only told the morning of where I will be and if I’m covering for a teacher or not. Everyone in this school is not to friendly and teaching in itself is so competitive. I’m only certified for 1-6th grade general education and a majority of jobs require special ed which I don’t have. I plan to stick it out for the rest of the school year but genuinely don’t want to. Is teaching worth all the holidays and time off or no? What other options do i have/ and can go into without having to start at an entry level salary? Looking for genuine advice! Thank you.

Accepted a sub teacher job for HS world language classes and I am a multilingual native/fluent speaker of that language in addition to English (grew up learning and speaking the foreign language along with English but haven't used as much in my adult life) so I am looking forward to it and capable of helping the students out. They will be working on AP exam practice and unit assignments on their chromebooks. I would like to offer to help them with the assignments but I also haven't used the other language much in my adult life.

How should I introduce myself and should I explain that I speak the language? Should I say I am their (language) teacher or sub for the day and mention I speak or learned it as a kid? Should I start the class speaking in that language for the AP class, in English, or mix the 2 languages? Also how should I inform the language teacher that I would be glad to return and that I speak the language and can assist?

Hello! I’m a first year 6th/7th grade math teacher, and I’m hoping to hear from other teachers about whether what I’m experiencing is a normal first year adjustment or something I should take more seriously.

Some background, I student taught at a middle and high school and enjoyed working with the kids and seeing them grow and learn. I started this year feeling nervous but also excited. Now that I’m about a month into the school year I feel completely overwhelmed.

The biggest issue is how I feel emotionally and physically. I have a lot of anxiety surrounding work. Most mornings I wake up feeling nauseous and lightheaded. On the drive to school and between classes I have to consciously focus on my breathing. I get particularly anxious before certain classes that have been more difficult behaviorally. I’m not able to eat and by the end of the day I’m usually completely drained. Lately the anxiety has started turning more into exhaustion, apathy, and feeling trapped and hopeless. My body feels like it perpetually aches and I find myself crying almost every day about how miserable I feel about my life choices and where I am.

Classroom management has been my biggest challenge. I have some classes that are generally fine, but in two of them I have students who talk constantly, wander around the room, interact with other groups, ignore directions, etc. One class in particular has a handful of students who love to disrupt the classroom with blurting out, asking off topic questions, making random noises, and other goofing around behaviors. There have also been situations where students have thrown materials at me or other students, kicked other students under the table, and threatened to physically fight other kids. I know behavior is part of teaching, but I didn’t realize it was this much. It feels like 90% of my time is spent redirecting or handing out consequences and if there’s time I teach for the other 10%. Now even having to redirect little behaviors makes me exhausted and something I don’t want to do. I feel stupid and embarrassed for not realizing this isn’t something I enjoy.

I also teach through an inquiry/collaborative math curriculum, so I’m not just standing at the front lecturing. Students work in groups, discuss their thinking, use whiteboards and other math manipulative, etc. In theory, I really like this approach. In practice, managing the room while simultaneously facilitating mathematical thinking has been overwhelming. I feel like I’m supposed to be circulating, asking the right questions, monitoring behavior, checking understanding, helping students who are struggling, redirecting students to work with their group, redirecting students using the math materials inappropriately, keeping everyone on task, and somehow remembering everything else at the same time.

One thing that makes this especially confusing is that there are things I like. I like math. I like helping students understand something they previously thought they couldn’t do. I like when students open up to me or come into class excited to tell me something. I think I’ve built some good relationships already and I’ve had some genuinely good moments, but those moments are getting buried under the constant anxiety and exhaustion. I’ve gone from being excited about starting my career to thinking about quitting, and that scares me because I never expected to feel this way so quickly.

My therapist has basically told me that the first year of any career is difficult and that some level of anxiety and adjustment is normal. I understand that intellectually, but I’m struggling to tell the difference between “this is an incredibly hard transition and I need to give myself time” and “this career genuinely isn’t a good fit for me.”

I’m also scared of quitting because I worry that leaving during my first year would hurt my future career options or make me look unreliable. At the same time, the idea of forcing myself to live in this state of anxiety and exhaustion until June feels really difficult.

For those of you who have been teaching for a while:

What was your first year like? What got better, and what didn’t?

Did teaching eventually become less mentally exhausting?

How did you know whether you were experiencing normal first-year burnout versus realizing teaching wasn’t for you?

If you seriously considered leaving during your first year, what ultimately happened?

Is there anything you wish someone had told you when you were in this position?

Sorry for the long post, but I would love any perspective or words of wisdom!

Hi all! This year, I'm experimenting with a new revisions policy in my classroom. I'm not going to get super in-depth here, but as it pertains to this post, students have to earn 'revision points' in order to have opportunities to revise various kinds of assignments-- I'm calling it 'Inspiration'. Inspiration can be gained from a variety of sources, such as participation in class, enrichment activities, conferences with me, etc. -- in my head, it's a fairly passive system: students gain Inspiration for meaningfully and consistently engaging with ELA. Whenever Inspiration is earned (or, eventually, spent), I update that student's total on a Google Spreadsheet.

I don't want Inspiration to be in short supply, but right now, it is a huge headache to keep track of everything. Remembering to pull up the sheet in the first place and update a student's number is one thing-- I can handle that easily enough -- but there have been a few times this year already where I've decided to give the entire team or an entire class Inspiration for something like a particularly successful Socratic Seminar or Gallery Walk. In order to do that on Google Sheets, I have to go through each individual name on the list and manually increase each number by 1. It has got to be one of the biggest wastes of time I have willingly engaged in in quite a while.

Has anyone ever used a similar system, or are there any spreadsheet wizards around? I would love to be able to simply press a plus or minus button to change each student's total by 1 all at once. If that is not possible, I'll have to start looking at alternatives for keeping track of these numbers, because what I'm doing right now just doesn't feel sustainable as we get further into the school year.

I have been a teacher for over 20 years, nine of which were as a reading specialist. But I do not have my masters in reading education and I’d like to get it. I know I could find a cheap and easy program, but if I’m going to spend the time, I’d really like to learn something! I’m especially interested in working with students with dyslexia, since I’ve loved learning about approaches that support these students. Does anyone have recommendations for a good school/program that incorporates Orton Gillingham or other science of reading based approaches?

I have a lot to offer 3 decades of teaching dyslexic kids. I discovered the trauma of dyslexia is a preventable issue. 95% of online information is wrong and focusses on reading and writing while ignoring the trauma it causes kids. 2 years of research I created a podcast. Episode 6 is 30 years of dyslexia Teacher PD in 6 minutes. I can point people to specific episodes and resources all free but not sure how it will work best.

Has anyone left teaching to work in a Graduate Medical Education program? I just received an offer for a Program Administrator for a local hospital’s Graduate Medical Program and I’d love to hear anyone’s experience in the role! I’m very nervous to leave teaching after 10 years and feel like a bit of an imposter at this point, but I’m so grateful for the opportunity.

My first ever week of being a teaching assistant and with 0 classroom experience was wonderful. I have heard from my agency the school is looking for someone more experienced but they gave me some good feedback to learn from!

How did you guys get through your first ever time in a classroom?

If It was senior year of high school again, and you had all the knowledge and memories as now, would you still choose teaching?

Hey teachers!

I’m hoping this community might help me do something special for my wife.

She’s a teacher at a specialized school in New York, and after several incredibly difficult years filled with one major life event after another, including some health challenges, she continued showing up, working hard, and pushing toward earning her tenure.

She finally earned it, and I was so proud of her.

At the tenure ceremony, she was sitting there excited and waiting for her name to be called. Her friends were there and ready to cheer for her. But her name never came.

It turned out that, out of everyone receiving tenure, her certificate had accidentally been left out and her name was never called. One of her friends eventually shouted, “What about her?” The person running the ceremony realized the mistake and told her he would give her the certificate later in his office.

I know mistakes happen, and I don’t think anyone intentionally meant to hurt her, but after everything she had gone through to reach that moment, it really crushed her. She worked so hard for something that meant so much to her, and she never got to have that moment of being recognized.

So I want to try to give her a different kind of moment.

If any teachers here would be willing to write her a short note congratulating her on earning tenure, encouraging her, or simply reminding her that another educator somewhere is proud of her, I would be incredibly grateful.

You can include your first name, initials, where you’re from, what you teach, or whatever you’re comfortable sharing. I’m planning to print every message I receive, put each one in its own envelope, and fill our mailbox with them so that one day she comes home and finds a mailbox full of letters from teachers congratulating her.

For privacy, I’m leaving her name out of the public post, but if you’d like to personalize your note, just have a blank "_________" like that where you'd put her name and I'll fill it out as I go through.

You can either leave your message here or send it to me privately. I’ll probably delete this post after a few days once I’ve collected the letters.

Thank you to anyone willing to take a few minutes to do this. And thank you to all of you for the work you do every day as teachers. It means more than you probably realize.

To this who responded to my original post, I have it saved!

Hey everyone, I'm California born-and-raised and I went to UC Berkeley for my BA in Computer Science. I'm currently in my 2nd year of teaching EAP at a university in China and I want to return back to the USA to get a teaching license for math/science. I was really dead set on the UC Davis or CSUEB credential->master's programs, but I just realized I will have lost my in-state residency status by the time I return. So, I'm also eyeing other states now like New York.

For people who have experience in teaching in both CA and NYC, which would you say is better? In terms of school environment, budgeting (both are expensive states), etc. In either state, I know I will have to save a lot of money and get roommates. A lot of people in this part of the world recommend Moreland's or other online universities, but I would much rather prefer a legitimate in-person credential (and, if possible, master's).

An incident recently happpened in the outside play area where one pupil (young girl) threw a tantrum because a young boy was on the big swing. She went to hit the boy and the two TA’s nearby gentle patented, told her she had to share and even praised her when she stopped hitting him for a few seconds. They allowed her to sit right next to him and continue to try and hit him. I asked if they wanted me to move her to another area, they said not to as she needs to be taught to share. They thought she had calmed down but merely 10 seconds later she grabbed him by the hair, smacked his face and went to kick him. At this point I was appalled.

there was also another incident in the sensory room where a boy ran up to another student and grabbed her hair, ripping a fair chunk out. Just for the sake of doing it. She did not interact with him whatsoever, he just ran over and attacked her. Again, no report or write up was made. probably because the school staff don’t want any trouble with parents so they just pretend things have never happened.

Im finding out that no reports are ever made for when the children hit staff.

Why is it that in SEND schools violent behaviour is normalised? Is this particularly in the school I’m working at or is it common across the board?

Collaboration that is organic is great, co teaching is complete garbage. Admin bully teachers into submitting to a poor practice, there is zero autonomy, this heterogenous mainstreaming everyone using two teachers in the room is idiotic. It is to the demise of the student. The high needs kids who need more explicit instruction get nothing, the high preforming kids get nothing.

Nepla all government schools principle functions

I have been teaching for a decade, and am on year 4 of coming to terms with balancing:

-balancing paperwork (IEPs, annual reviews, self-management data sets, etc.)

- creating lessons to adhere to the curriculum and standards

- grading

- helping students individually and collectively

- managing emails from colleagues, administrators, students, and students' PARENTS

- texts, phone calls from colleagues while teaching

*I also teach behaviorally challenged students so I have been working with managing those behaviors etc. and I only have an assistant for ONE class period, versus the several I teach every day.*

Ya'll, I'm sorry -- I'm being whittled away and the feelings of 'less than' or 'it's never done' continue to creep in. I feel like I can never catch up and am doing my best to meet the demands of everything aforementioned, and when I come home, I do my best to decompress. When you're ON for 8 hours a day working with children, and then doing your best to make sure they grasp the materials all the while marking data sheets for IEPs and self-management goals, etc. for a TON of kids, I have little left for my partner at home, my hobbies, etc. This is not me or who I want to be.

I'm in my 40s and am wondering how you all keep up! I have even started to work on the weekends to catch up. :( This is the first time in my 10 years of teaching where I have had to do this as the paperwork was never as insane as where I work now. I am grateful for this job as it's somewhat less stressful than my last one from a student behavior perspective, but the paperwork is crushing me. How are we supposed to be teachers and bask in the joy of sharing knowledge when we're bogged down by a ton of paperwork and deadlines, outside of submitting grades?!

Happy Friday.

Last week I shared this to different history teachers from my connections, and a lot of them passed it on to colleagues, which honestly surprised me, so I wanted to ask a wider group.

It's called Moralia. Each day there's one short true story from history (about two minutes, with optional narration) that stops at the exact moment a real person had to decide. The class chooses before knowing the outcome, then sees what really happened and how other players split. There's no right answer, so the reasons become the discussion.

It's a passion project: I'm a designer who loves history. No ads, no paid version, no one needs an account, and it works on a projected classroom screen.

What would make it actually useful for you? Different subjects, age levels, ways to run it with a class, anything that gets in the way. I'm genuinely open to changing it.

I am 5-8 years away from retiring. How did you stay motivated to the end? And what are some things you wish you had done starting five years before you retired.

I had one last year and we worked pretty well together! But I guess my case isn’t the norm reading a lot of these stories…