Over the course of my life I have been blessed with many a great teacher. And I've seen several give up and walk away because they were stressed, overworked and underpaid. And that is an enormous loss to the children. Shout out to Ms. Allspaw...
Parents Suck
amy poehler pictures GIFGiphy"The actual teaching and working with young adults is very cool. The parents ruin everything. This year I have been forced to send screenshots of blank assignments from Google Classroom to parents because they believe their child over me."
"I had a lady insist that Google Classroom deleted her son's assignments. A global corporation had something against her 14 year old. She could not believe that maybe he did not do his work. Summer cannot start soon enough."
Lockdown
"Probably the active shooter training when we were told we would need to equip our classrooms with a "toilet bucket" in case we had to put our classrooms under an extended lockdown. We were also told that our district would not purchase the toilet buckets, so we would have to supply our own."
50 Minutes Late
"A student punched out another student. I called the Dean for assistance (as is protocol). No one showed up. The period ended. The injured party and the puncher were kept apart, but no one showed up from security, the Dean's office, administration or the nurse... and we had campus police too... no one showed up. 50 minutes."
- unhip1
She couldn't do 8 minutes...
"Being stabbed with scissors by a 4 year old. We had told the head teacher for a long time that this kid had issues and needed serious psych help (he had a horrific background which should have put him on the radar anyway). Head teacher said he simply needed breathing exercises and mindful techniques (I kid you not).We ended up having to photograph each other's injuries everyday. Blame was put on us - we weren't dealing with him appropriately etc etc."
"Eventually, during one of his moments (which happened daily), we called the head teacher. When she got there, we emptied all the other kids outside and left her to it (she insisted she could deal by herself). That afternoon, the child psychologists were called by the head! We took 8 months worth of daily assaults. She couldn't do 8 minutes."
The Take Home
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"I had a father yell at me because his daughter failed a take-home test and his stance was that it was perfect because he even had the mother double check the answers he wrote. It was a 3rd grade math test."
Oh see, no. I can't with kids today. Or even, young adults, or just students in general; so entitled and messy. And don't get me started on parents.
Nut Jobs
Season 2 Queen GIF by ShowtimeGiphy"Lol, the wife is a teacher. She got told by one mom not to congratulate other kids on a job well done in the presence of her kid, as it made her kid feel bad not to be the best student. My wife put in notice because nut job mothers are ruining her mental health."
Just Stand
"I got paid 11$ an hour to teach piano (This was in 2007. This is unbearably low for the random hours you're given, impossibility of full-time, and having to do tons of lesson prep outside of teaching). I had a mother who would put her ear up against the door of the room, for the whole lesson."
"The SECOND I would show an example (if I say "try positioning your hand like this" and I'd play the line from the piece) the mom would open the door and say "This is my daughter's lesson, I want to hear less of you playing, thanks." And she would just freaking stand there!!! There was a secretary in the waiting room who I mentioned this to, and she says "she's paying for the lesson" and sided with the mom."
"Also... this daughter was on the 3rd book from a beginner/primer series. The mom signed her up for the Grade 3 conservatory exam, and only told me after the refund period was up. She says "well, my daughter IS taking this exam" and I tried to make the comparison... like a kid doing "beginner class 3 " of swimming taking a 3rd year diving exam or something. It just made ZERO SENSE and I don't know where she even found the information!!! Damn that was stressful!! And the pay!!! Not worth it."
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Nasty
"Pregnant teacher kicked on the belly. Kid I went to school with had serious issues and the teacher had the audacity to break up a fight with the teacher's aid and the kid. Kid said "don't telling me what to freaking do witch" and Sparta kicked her on her full term pregnant belly."
"The teacher and the baby were ok and healthy and was told that the kid was sent to a military school. When the teacher came back the whole school gave her so much love. We had a diaper drive for her and gave her probably a childhoods worth of diapers in various sizes, and Tons of cloths and gifts for mom and baby."
4th Period
"I teach high school math and, as many teachers do, had cafeteria duty periodically. Had a kid failing pretty bad in my 4th period (right after lunch) that hadn't come to class in 2 weeks. It wasn't too surprising, low SES school, student had home issues and really didn't care much for school as a whole. I had called home multiple times before and got no response so I stopped about midway through Q3 when I realized, and informed the parents via voicemail, that he had no shot of earning credit for the year with how badly he failed the first semester (21%)."
"In the last week of school, I saw him come into the cafeteria for the first time that quarter, hang out with his friends, play basketball, then leave towards the classrooms with everyone else. He took what I thought was the long route to my class and after 10 minutes of him not being in class I realized he wasn't going to make it."
"Marked him absent and went on with my day. His mom finally returned my calls later that day to assert that her child went to school today and therefore should be passing. Had to take a deep breath before telling her that there are students who come to class every day and still aren't passing, one day is just not enough, and further, he came into the building for lunch, played basketball, and left before 4th period started. She didn't like that very much and called the principal."
"Principal ended up backing me up but it went on all Summer as the superintendent had to get involved. All the while that she was fighting my grade, said student hadn't attended a single day of the Summer school class. I taught the Summer school class and he failed that too."
Scary Minutes
"I teach at an inner-city school for at-risk youth. We are basically the final stop before the student goes to prison. I love my job, I love teaching high school, and a lot of the kids are so unique and interesting. But some crap, I do not get paid enough to deal with. Myself and 3 others had to restrain a kid for 20 minutes while waiting for the police to arrive. In those 20 minutes, all of us were bitten at least twice, and that was really freaking scary."
"Most teens know that biting is a really crap move to pull, especially the street kids. I actually called him out on it at a later date when he tried to tell other kids that we were "forcing it" on him (Basically saying we were too rough) and that he was a total bada**. I mentioned to the class that he resorted to biting people and that shut him right up."
"I've had entire desks thrown at my head. I've had to restrain kids who have 100lbs on me while also being punched by the other kid involved in a fight. Again, I love my job and the people I work with, but some days just feel like the perfect storm of bull that get me wanting to just walk out the front doors and drive away."
- panda388
I Heard You
"I heard a parent on the phone literally talking crap about me as I am in a google meet teaching her kid and her kids class virtually. Her kid hadn't shown up to my class for 3 weeks, and I asked where she had been, nicely, was, which apparently the worst thing I could have done. I had to re-teach her the project we had been working on for 3 weeks, while simultaneously teaching the rest of the class, meanwhile her mom is trash talking me in the background. This was 3rd graders."
Over It!
Over It Reaction GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"I'm a Music Teacher that got forced into being the classroom teacher for Primary French Immersion because I have a French qualification, but haven't used it in years."
"Also, I was forced into teaching Distance Learning when the rest of my school was in-person. I still had to be at my school though, so they put me in an unheated, windowless office and shifted my schedule to not line up with the breaks at my school. I didn't even get students from my own school."
"This has resulted in me teaching all subjects by myself (half of which are supposed to be delivered on French) to a bunch of black boxes on a screen on an unheated office, and couldn't even interact with my colleagues at break times. I have never taught most of these subjects before (because I specialised in 2 subjects with the intention of being a rotary teacher for those subjects) so planning takes my entire evening every evening to make sure I'm ready for the next day. I have not been very successful at delivering the subjects that are meant to be taught in French, in French. I feel like I have let everyone down. I'm exhausted all the time. There are 3 weeks left, and I'm just so over it."
He's Evil Dear
"Not necessarily a teacher, but I did some tutoring work last year and went to a family friends house because the parents asked me to tutor their 16 year old son ( I was 17 ). Now I've never met this guy before but he's really big into video games, so obviously as soon as I come in he's in his computer playing league of legends. He was clearly in a ranked game because when his mom came to tell him to turn it off he started screaming at her and telling her he'd be finished soon."
"The mom apologises to me and goes and turns off the computer. He, and I kid you not, PUSHES her away and starts screaming at her. She's quite shocked so I'm guessing he's never done that before but he kept screaming at her, until I stupidly decided to butt in (bad idea) and tell him not to treat his mother like that. It was none of my business but I couldn't help it."
"Next thing you know his fist is coming right for my face, I fall and hit my head on the bed frame so now my head was bleeding. He stormed off to the bathroom after which his mother ran up to me and started apologizing and offering me money (which I gladly took because I needed money). Needless to say I never tutored that boy."
- DrCow69
Hey Eduardo!
"They wanted me to walk a 6'6" 18 year old gang member to and from his car every day so that he wouldn't get into fights with the other gang members at the school. I'm a 5'7" scrawny white girl. I told them I would ask Eduardo to pretty please not start fights on the school grounds. That was the best I could offer."
Life Basics
"Used to be a middle school teacher (male) only made it 3 years. I had a female student who was a bit socially awkward, but overall I nice kid. One day after class I was pushing in chairs and noticed a bunch of red on a chair. I thought nothing of it and wiped it all up with some Chlorox wipes. It happened again a few days later I put the pieces together. I scheduled a parent teacher conference with the mom, and the nurse."
"Mom said she didn't like wearing pads and isn't going to force her daughter to do so. Needless to say it happened a few more times and one of the male students caught on. He was cool about it, and kept it under wraps, but I was done with that crap. The other female teachers got involved and and worked with the student to make her understand the importance of feminine hygiene and it seemed to stick."
- LeKy411
No Wipers Here!
"I'm an elementary teacher and this didn't happen to me, but a colleague. There was a third grade boy who had severe emotional issues and would crap himself constantly to avoid work. The staff for the behavior unit he was in would often take him to the clinic bathroom and clean him up and dress him in new clothes. This kid did not have any intellectual or physical impairments that would make it appropriate to receive this kind of help."
"It took a new person being hired in one of the leadership roles within the unit to put the hammer down and call his mom every time he crapped himself. He told everyone to let the kid stay in his own filth until his mom came to handle it. It's unreal how anyone felt like wiping a freaking nine year old was within their pay range."
So Many Things
"After the Santa Fe school shooting we had a kid bring a gun on campus, thankfully he was caught before anything happened, one of his friends snitched on him. We still ended up on lock down. The solution to the incident was 'randomly' select teachers from each campus, district only had three, and put them through a Marshal program with Houston PD. Spent the summer doing that."
"They told the insurance which ones were Marshalled so we had to pay more due to being high risk. No bump in pay. & no clear answers on WTF I had to do if the situation happened again. Can't leave my kids alone in the room, but have to respond to an active shooter. Guns had to be in lock boxes while in the classroom with students, so if a shooter did come in I guess I was supposed to ask them to wait and let me get my piece? That and crappy parents."
HELP!!
Jennifer Lopez Smh GIF by American IdolGiphy"Fights in back to back periods. All involving girls. First one I got taken to the ground breaking it up, second one my co-teacher was thrown over a table. Both times, there was no help for quite a while and no one to help maintain order afterwards."
Thanks Boss!
"When I got yelled at by the principal 15 minutes before school started. Parents were upset (even though I was being sure to do everything that had been addressed in the last meeting), and the principal decided to scream at me for them threatening to contact the district. These parents could not be pleased, and the principal has acknowledged that before, but suddenly it was all my fault for not doing what was agreed upon. That's when I knew I wouldn't be working for that principal ever again."
Bless y'all educators. I can't do it and I don't know how you do. I hope therapy is covered in your health plans. Or at least some discount coverage at the liquor stores. That's where I'd be living.
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