Teaching isn't an easy gig. Yes, we know we're putting that mildly. But if the students don't get you, the behind the scenes drama will!
And trust us: There's a lot of it.
"Teachers who ended up working at schools that you attended as a student, what behind the scenes secrets, dirt, or teachers lounge gossip did you learn that you were clueless of as a student?" –– This was today's burning question from Redditor karnerblu, who managed to appeal to all of our inner gossips.
"The biggest surprise..."
The biggest surprise for me was that the teacher I adored as a kid is actually a douche. I loved him as a teacher when I was 14-years-old, but I can't stand him as a colleague.
"I interned..."
I interned at my old elementary school and subbed at the high school. Honestly wasn't as wild and dabaucherous as some folks wish it to be. Biggest revelations:
- My old music teacher would fall asleep during after-school meetings and professional development with regularity.
- Sweet fourth grade teacher actually took no crap during after-school meetings if someone was trying to push policy or curriculum that made no sense.
- High school teachers would gossip in teachers lounge about students, though generally only occasionally in passing. And not always scandalous gossip. Just generally more aware of each student's social life than I'd have ever imagined they'd be. An example would be something like:
"How's Steve been today?"
"Turned in his homework but it was incomplete. Didn't really participate today. Heard he and Kristin weren't really talking anymore."
"Yeah, seems to be going through a rough time now but I think he's going to be better off in the long run."
In hindsight it was weird to consider that these folks were likely talking about me and my personal life in various regards a few years prior. Always assumed my life in school was relatively insular, but teachers see a lot more than we think.
"We recently discovered..."
We recently discovered that my girlfriend's teacher, who would occasionally break down crying during class when the kids were being particularly childlike, was dealing with cancer during that time.
"She hated..."
Mrs X, who was always the jerk AP English teacher.
She hated the more "inappropriate" parts of our AP English books.
Turns her husband cheated on her and she was in the middle of an unpleasant divorce. No wonder she couldn't stand any sex in famous literature.
I'm not sorry for feeling she was a jerk, but, boy, did it make a lot more sense.
"I worked in the same department..."
I worked in the same department as my old teacher (one of the people who made me want to be a teacher, it was pretty cool). One day we're at a bar and he's telling me his biggest horror stories and mentions a girl that I knew from high school.
Turns out she was selling intimacy during class under the stairs! We only found out because she confessed it to my co-teacher! Apparently some kids had not paid her and she was really upset about the whole ordeal and she thought my colleague would be the only one who would listen.
He was quite shocked to say the least.
She was right, and he worked with the right counselors in the school to get her back on track and deal with some trauma. It never really spread around the school and I walked with her when I graduated. It was another checkmark on the list of why I looked up to him as a teacher though, and I try to be as open about listening to my students now.
"I realized..."
Oooh... This is a good one. I realized that my first grade teacher (who I adored) was the butt of all the other teacher's jokes, and that our principal (who I also adored) was actively trying to get her fired.
You see the other end of the environment. Burn-out, negativity, factions and cliques... Idk. you kind of assume as an elementary school student that your teachers that preach kindness, cooperation, etc. also do that with the people around them - but I've learned that sometimes, teachers are worse than the kids.
"I was a private school teacher..."
I was a private school teacher at a school I attended as a student. The school had no infrastructure for special education or iep students. They basically told parents they could send students there but they're not getting any additional accommodations. I never connected or understood this as a kid but every time we'd get a "different" student, they rarely lasted more than a year.
"Most of the teachers..."
After college (UK) I spent a year as a teacher assistant in the primary school I used to go to when I was little.
Most of the teachers were still there from when I was at school and all of the dinner ladies still worked there too.
The dinner ladies were still as sweet and kind as I remember and made me feel so welcome as a member of staff.
The teacher I hated when I was at school was actually incredibly competent and encouraged me to use my IT skills to improve her classroom activities and got me to start up a lunch time club where we did basic typing and computing skills.
The flip side is that they all drank heavily outside of school, staff evenings out we're a hilarious mixture of drunken adventures, pub crawls and oversharing. One night (which I didn't attend due to a prior engagement) they all went skinny dipping... I'm quite glad I didn't see that!
"I learned that teachers..."
I learned that teachers are human and fallible and cliquish and fall on the spectrum of good and evil just like the rest of us.
The humanities teachers (e.g., languages, history) all ate lunch in this pretty nice lounge. The STEM teachers all ate in a sort of dank room off the cafeteria. No exceptions.
There was a teacher who was a little weird, seemed a little creepy to his students. Found out he was routinely harassed by the other teachers, saying weird and inappropriate things to him to embarrass him (e.g. "Your problem is that you just don't make enough anal mucus.")
One day there was a scuffle between the chem teacher and the physics teacher over the shared storage area between lab rooms. The chem teacher poured about a cup of ranch dressing on the physics teacher - on the sleeve of his shirt, but still.
The civics teacher used to enjoy reading the obituaries to find former "problem" students that had died young. Liked reading the police blotters for the same reason.
"I stepped in..."
GiphyI stepped in and did a maternity fill in for a science teacher at the high school I graduated at. My room was connected to my former high school chemistry teacher Mr. P. All I had to do was walk through my back classroom door and then there was a storage room for both my class and his class. Dude was always hilarious when I had him as a teacher. I walked in to his room and he was asking me how I was and everything. He told me he knew I'd do a great job.
So I'm standing in front of my class teaching and I notice my chemistry teacher is peeking through the glass window looking at me (all the students had their backs to this door while I'm facing it).
He dramatically waves at me, stops, flips me off with both hands and then acts like he's playing a guitar passionately.
I pause, start laughing, and lose where I am in the lesson. Students turn around but Mr. P ducked out of the window just in time. So now my students are looking at me smiling going "what?" and I couldn't tell them why I paused mid lecture and just started laughing. It was a fun time. I found out the "mean teachers" were actually pretty cool also. It just felt like being in an alternate reality working with my former teachers. You find out what they really think and see their more personal side.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.