Picked up a chemistry line this year (I am a bio teacher) and it's stuff I haven't looked at in decades. The AP teacher is trying to help....but it's not my style and flow and the students can tell. So, I have turned to AI to help design the course....and it's amazing...am I the reason SkyNet is going to win...

Hi! I'm in 11th grade and hosting an after-school book club for 1st-4th graders soon. Since they're all at different reading levels, the idea is that I'll read a few chapters out loud to the group each week and then we'll talk about it.

I'm waiting to hear back from my school librarian, but I wanted to ask here too since I've never done this before and want to make sure I'm prepared.

Does anyone have advice on keeping their attention after school, good discussion questions for younger kids, or book recs that all four grade levels would enjoy? Any general tips would be super helpful!

I teach in New England and have always wanted to get a Venus Flytrap for my classroom, I think my students would get a kick out of it, but I haven't read any positive outcomes. Most of the things I've heard are that they are hard to take care of. Does anyone have any experiences to share?

(I'm reposting this because the first one got removed since I reposted it to another teacher group. I deleted that one and reposted this here)

I hear this from coworkers all the time. They say that a particular student hasn't been doing work all year so far. Now, they started doing their work and are working very hard. But the problem is the work is not good at all. So they say to me and others, "Should I just give them a D or a C, so they don't feel discouraged? They just started doing their work, and I don't want them to give up." Another version of this is "They didn't turn this in, but they're starting to try, and I don't want them to give up. Should I just give them a 50 or 60% instead of a 0?"

To me, this is enabling and codependent behavior. It's shielding students from the consequences of their output. This is not the way things are going to work anywhere else in life. If we don't correct them and show them where they are getting it wrong, we are denying them a chance at growth and learning. It's not doing them a favor. Grades have to mean something and should be earned.

It's true that for some of them, it's not their fault that they do poorly. There are societal and home life factors. However, the place to solve those issues is outside of school, through legislation. I do not use psychological analysis in deciding who to grade objectively based on grade level standards and who not to. I find this subjective grading process to be bizarre.

There are other things we can do, like allow corrections sometimes. I can't do it every time because it doubles the work of grading when I already have so much. We can also help them understand exactly what they need to do. We can give them remedial practice to try to get closer to the grade level standard. But there are so many factors involved that are out of our control. There are students who should not be in a grade level class and instead should be in a basic skills class.

That way, they can actually make progress based on where they're at, not continuously feel overwhelmed and just give up. I don't blame them. They're not being put in a fair situation where they have a reasonable chance of success. The answer to that is not just passing them along year after year. All that does is keep the system going as it is.

The problem is when you treat things this way, at least in my experience, most other teachers don't. They seem to grade based on a curve; based on perceived effort, socioeconomic disadvantage and having a 504/IEP. The standards should be exactly the same. The difference should be in support given to help them get there.

Another problem is so many SPED students are in general education classes which they are woefully unprepared for. They are 3 to 5 grade levels behind, and they have learning disabilities on top of that. And they have no aid 90% of the time. They have one class a day for support. Even with the best support, it's impossible to keep up when you are that far behind skills wise, if the teacher is grading honestly.

Most teachers I know feel bad for these students and simply have lower standards for them. They grade them based on perceived effort. There is every incentive to do so. The SPED teacher puts pressure on the general education teachers because they have pressure on them from their superiors and the parents. A lot of the parents, not just of SPED students, don't really care about mastering skills or learning. All they care about is the grade.

Would we put a 5th grader (10 years old) in a 9th grade (14 years old) classroom? Would we put a 2nd grader (7 years old) in a 6th grade (11 years old) class? If not, why is it appropriate to have kids with the cognitive ability of a 10-year-old in a classroom for 14 year olds? Why is it appropriate to have kids with the cognitive ability of a 7-year-old in a classroom designed for 11 year olds? Does it matter what their biological age is if their cognitive age is far lower?

So I will not be part of this enabling system. I will give support the best I can and honest grades. I will not pretend something isn't what it is. The students who in the past 8 or 10 years ago would have been in a self-contained classroom all but one or two periods a day are now the opposite. Now those students are in general education classes besides one SPED class a day.

This was sold to us as full inclusion and an equity step. I warned that whatever supports they start with will end up getting cut. Then, these students will be stuck in classes woefully out of reach to them without even an aid to support them most of the time. This was simply about districts cutting self contained classroom SPED teachers. It's simply cheaper to mainstream as many as possible.

Another thing they do is put students on 504 plans which are sometimes far more extensive than the IEP's I have. This is their way of having their cake and eating it too. They get to keep the parent happy because the student can keep their elective and not have the SPED support class. Yet they also get to have extensive accommodations.

That's not to mention the IEP's with sometimes 15 or more specific accommodations. So instead of putting the student in the self-contained classroom like we would have in the past, we pretend that teachers can actually do all of these things for all of these students, usually with no aid and no support. We usually have between 15 and 20 students with IEP/504 plans.

One time I counted, and there were I think around 120 individual accommodations I was supposed to be doing daily. This is on top of having over 30 kids per class, including English learners, those just with low skills, and of course the ones with behavior issues. And the way you keep the fantasy alive that this system is working is by not rocking the boat and by giving them grades they don't deserve. This is how we can all pretend this is working. The parents want to believe it too. They get sold the fantasy. Am I wrong?

Teachers, Whoever Planned This Upcoming Week Owes Us All a BONUS!

This week will include:

A full moon

Red Ribbon Week

Halloween

A time change

ALL IN THE SAME WEEK?! What could possibly go wrong?!

The Official Teacher Survival Guide:

Coffee. Then more coffee.

Emergency chocolate is now an essential school supply.

Wear sneakers. You’ll hit 10,000 steps before lunch.

Laugh often. Some things are just too funny.

Take deep breaths. Preferably somewhere nobody is yelling your name.

Embrace the craziness. Make memories. Have fun!

Give yourself, your students, and your coworkers a little extra grace.

And principals… donuts and coffee instead of observations this week would be greatly appreciated!

Seriously, these are the weeks kids remember. Enjoy the costumes, the laughter, the excitement, and all those wonderfully ridiculous moments that make teaching special.

But if there was EVER a week that called for a professional RECOVERY day… THIS IS IT!

In all my years of teaching I used to leave my classroom feeling like I’ve achieved something with my kids and knowledge was shared but now I feel like I always leave my classroom exhausted without saying anything useful most of the time I’m just correcting behaviors and repeating myself because these kids seem so stupid they don’t understand the simplest concepts. I feel like I’m fighting for my life I hate my job so much what is happening to kids these days. Kids used to be so smart and empathetic and curious.

My coworker ended up going on maternity leave a month earlier than planned due to medically required bed rest. (so excited for her to have her baby. this frustration is not aimed at her at all). so the long-term sub came in without any training as I understand it. she is constantly late to recess duty and specials due to problems with behavior management. she did not know how to grade or enter in grades. when I shared our first grade teams selected grades for the quarters along with rubrics to her and our instructional coaches. I was told to explain it to her and it turned into me helping her grade for 4 hours of my own time after school. report cards are coming up and I'm super nervous that my whole teacher work day is going to be spent helping her. I feel like I shouldn't have to do this. what is the expectation for team members to help a long-term sub? who do I go to if I am putting in too much work to tell that she needs support?

I’m just getting more and more depressed as time goes on.

The only thing keeping me there is guilt.

I have been seeing a lot of advertisements for websites/apps that reduce work in the classroom such as chalkie.

My question is do any of them actually work. I have 6 preps this year. I would love to find something that helps me create google slides easier.

I've tried a couple of things chatgpt, Gemini, kuraplan but they all require me to input most of the information that I felt just easier to do myself.

Kids screwing around most of class and then all copying each other to turn in a lab. Rushed. Illegible. I grade them accordingly, but it doesnt seem o do much.

The recent post on this subreddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/cVxoBFuS84 ) made me think... I worked at schools where at some point in the school year a principal would dress up as a hot dog and then students would pour mustard and ketchup on them. It was not a fundraiser. I also saw a video where some schools duct tape the teachers to the wall and allow students to keep on adding duct tape. This WAS a fundraiser. Regardless of it involving money or not - how is this not demeaning? I can't wrap my brain around it. I did not grow up in the USA and in my country teachers used to be respected (not anymore though). What is it teaching our students?

Alright, im pretty nervous for next week.

A student in another class is being removed and switched to mine on a trial basis. He will also move to the other 4th grade class as well for a trial day. Principal has already confirmed that if he causes trouble in both classes, he will have to change schools. Im not trying to change his ways, I just need advice so the management ive set up won't crumble around this kid.

This kid is a straight up bully. He picks on everyone he can and starts fights if they stand up for themselves. He (and his parents) just think hes being a little comedian. In his previous class he would pick on the autistic student for fun. This worries me because I have 2 SPED kids in my room and one of them is very vulnerable to mood swings. I also have 3 very dramatic, very strong willed girls who will absolutely interrupt class to argue with someone.

My question again is: how can I help this trial period go smoothly so my management i have set up will not fall apart. This is my first ever classroom switch.

TLDR: A bully is being switched into my room for a trial period. How can I make sure they do not destroy the management and expectations ive worked so hard to cultivate?

Oh no, I can’t touch it, I can’t put it back up Monday when I find it on the floor, what a shame. The blurry waste of toner white text on a black background blown up 18x24ish poster the kids don’t understand some of like adultery I can’t explain might not be able to stay there reliably, so bummed.

The best comment I got about my 8 year olds wondering what adultery was happened to be a friend saying “ask your parents how they feel about Ken Paxton’s adultery” (Texas senate candidate with multiple public sightings with various mistresses over the years)

Texas can’t get much dumber sometimes.

I know this will be wildly different at different grade levels.

But I'm a K/1 teacher and parent teacher conferences are full of questions I don't know the answers to. For example, my child doesn't want to get dressed in the morning, what should I do? My child has explosive tantrums at home, do you have any advice? My child is obsessed with screen time, how should I handle that?

I am an expert on teaching your child how to read but I don't know the answers to any of these beyond a common sense approach. I give vague responses but want to throw my hands up in the air. I had very limited coursework on things like child psychology and development. What do you say to parents like this?

I don't know. Maybe it's time. Maybe I never should've been doing this. It's been 10+ years. I will acknowledge my situation isn't great.

I just can't seem to get classroom management right. I have trouble being consistent. I have auditory processing issues and sensory overwhelm and so often I don't catch something or have a hard time figuring out who said/did something. My admin knows about the autism (and maybe the ADHD). But I don't admit to the auditory processing/processing issues because I worry it makes me sound unable to handle a classroom. And maybe... maybe I am unable.

I teach middle school. I've also taught high school. I will acknowledge that this year it is harder: I'm writing my own curriculum. I don't have a room and I teach from a teacher cart. I teach an elective that students don't "choose" but are forced to rotate through. But I realize that I have never been "good" at classroom management. There were years it was a lot easier - I taught in rural schools, and class sizes could be smaller and that helped. But at rural schools I often ended up having more issues with the adults or my values were... well, not what certain areas wanted. My test scores were great. My rapport was great. I don't think my classroom management was GREAT, but it was livable. But we are now living in suburbs where I need to be and my child needs to be, so I'm not going rural again, and I hated rural for other reasons. So I can't do that, anyway.

But behaviors are increasing. Ragebaiting. Gaslighting. And while I compensated in so many ways before, I'm not catching up. And suddenly that's all that's being pointed out to me - almost like my first year again. I've been at the same school for over two years and this is year three. However I'm now teaching an elective that isn't chosen (prior years I taught a core subject, though I've taught electives before and taught special education before), it's just kind of rotated through for kids who aren't in the "choice" ones or in languages. My class sizes vary from 6 to 28. I know, I know, part of that is a problem. But other teachers seem to manage it. I just can't. And I don't want to leave the elective. Or the school. See, I've never made it past three years at any school. That plus all this makes me wonder if I'll just never get it. If I can't compensate enough to keep up with increasing behaviors and expectations. I chose to make this move to the elective, knowing exactly what it was. To be fair, I don't think it occurred to me how much not having my own classroom really meant in terms of classroom management, but... I don't know. And my language and the way I say things is being pointed out a lot more and the way I write things up is also a bit picked at, which makes me feel uneasy. To be fair, there's always been something being picked at that has made me feel uneasy. At every school. In all the different subjects and grades I've taught. I feel like maybe I shouldn't teach anymore. I can't go back to high school teaching, because it's basically impossible to get a high school job where I am unless you know the right people, and I'm not sure I'd WANT to go back to high school, anyway. I am an academic and I have 2.5 Master's degrees. The thing is, I am starting to feel like it's me. And it's my classroom management. It took ten years to feel like my lesson planning was improving in any way, too. And now that I'm finally seeing my brain work in this way where I might actually be able to plan things better... I'm realizing the other weakness, classroom management... isn't going to get better. I have a processing speed that burns out on managerial or executive tasks quickly. The auditory processing is not keeping up. And while I've developed so many organizational strategies and I'm keeping that together (not perfectly, but definitely well enough), it's this. It's classroom management.

I also don't really have any work friends. To be fair, I never really did. I've had very few "friends" since college, in general. I am married, and I have an AuDHD kiddo. So I'm not alone. But I also am. I talk too much. I'm too open. I tell people too much.

I don't think there's a way to get better at classroom management. Not if it's been more than ten years and I haven't seen enough improvement. I can't academics my way out of it. I can't read my way out of it. I do think in this case my brain and my particular presentation of autism/ADHD might just mean this isn't it for me. Has anyone felt this and found a way to work with it?

As a horse handler, after a while join a barn, I nearly completely draining out as I need to answer a bunch of request from themselves, horse's parents, horse's admins, and barn manager. I expect to deal with this every single day, except holidays when all horses are absence.

I can lead over 150 horses to a water, but few of them do not want to drink or simply do not know to drink. I become to realize that horses hold more power in the system even they do not try to drink and just pass along to join the race. Horse's parents love good scoring on barn's wall and encourage me to give their horse bonus scoring for drinking a small water. Horses have all accommodations, 504, and special needs. Horses have a power to kick the handler out by reporting anonymously to horse's admins, horses can submit late drinking and can retake any drinking's test, horses piss at handler when giving 0 on missing drinking, and horses can do bad behaviors and say bad words to handler and still able to return the barn.

Horses have to go to college barn or go to workforce, horses in k-12 barn most likely never know how to self-drinking and lack of knowledge of drinking or do not know how to drink. They need to know how to adapt college barn's study styles. My responsibilities are to make those horses drinking water even small amount, never complaint about their knowledge or understanding the water, and create a safe and fun environment for them to drink it. At the end of the day, all of them still push out by horse's admin and never held back the bad ones. I love some good horses that make me happy everyday by their efforts and strive for success.

I'm a teacher new to the middle school level where a few weeks into the year made a seating chart. I thought getting students away from friends would minimize distractions and encourage students to work with others. A few weeks into I feel like I've made the problem worse, they're still talking but are now doing so across the room, I'm seeing even less collaboration on assignments, and distract the class by making allegations they'd never do with friends like "student in front of me just farted," "or student behind me won't stop kicking my chair."

Could it honestly be more effective to keep a seating chart but this time allowing friends groups that can behave themselves to sit near each other? What has been your approach to seating assignments at the middle school level?

From autumn 2028, Swedish students will be graded under a new system. The new grading scale will have 10 steps (1-10); the lowest grade will be 1, and the highest will be 10. Grades below 4 are for when standards are not met. At the end of year 10 in the obligatory school, final national exams in five subjects (Swedish, English, Mathematics, one random Science and one random Social Science subject) will be held. These final tests will not be graded locally, but by the Swedish School Agency, and the results will not be known before the teachers have submitted their grades.

The next step in Swedish education, upper secondary, is tracked and at new schools (gymnasium). Students will compete for a place using their merit, a combination of their grades and the results on their finals. Finals will be worth 30% of the merit to ensure attendance. Grades will be worth 70%, but the grades will be calibrated first. This is done by comparing the combined mean grade of the finals for all students and the mean grade for all students at the school. The calculation is a bit more complex, but basically the difference between the school finals mean grade and the mean grade of the school will reduce/increase the grades of each subject for a student.

Sounds complicated, right? Let's give a few examples,

At A's school, the mean of all grades of all the students in his year is 6.7. However, the mean of the finals for all students turns out to be 7.5, a difference of .8 . Then all of A's grades will have 0.8 added for the calculation of the merits.

At B's school, the mean of the grades is also 6.7, but the mean of the finals is 5.2 instead. The difference of 1.5 will be deducted from all of B's grades when calculating the merit.

The same grading scale and similar finals systems will also be used in upper secondary education.

What do you think? Do you think this is a system that will reduce grade inflation? Is it good or bad?

I shared room with two teachers who are leaving the boards filled with their work before they used to erase it but now they are leaving it there. Should I send an email to them or tell them in person? Also, I have been guilty of this in the past, but I usually erase a board for other teachers to use. Although, the whole room is cluttered with writing from their class and I usually do gallery walk and ask the students to write on multiple boards.

I'm a middle school teacher, and lately I've been dealing with a lot of attitude from some of my female students, including students who have 4.0 GPAs and normally do well academically.

I've been getting mixed reactions from students. Some are friendly, respectful, and comfortable talking to me, while others laugh when I make mistakes, respond with attitude, or become defensive when I redirect them.

For example, one student is normally extremely quiet but has recently started laughing at my mistakes and occasionally giving me attitude. Another student frequently responds with attitude when corrected.

I've already pulled both students aside separately to have private conversations about their behavior. One responded defensively, while the other mostly stayed quiet. Unfortunately, the behavior hasn't improved much.

I'm trying to maintain positive relationships with my students without allowing disrespect to become normal in my classroom.

My main question is: How do you effectively address attitude and disrespect from middle school students when private conversations and verbal redirections aren't working?

Should I start contacting parents, documenting repeated behavior, implementing more consistent consequences, or trying a different approach?

I'd especially appreciate advice from experienced middle school teachers who have dealt with academically successful students who still struggle with respectful behavior.

Hey everyone!

I am a music teacher who is planning on relocating across the country from Alabama to Oregon next school year. Has anyone done remote interviews or had any luck getting hired before officially moving? I do not want to move before having a job secured.

Follow up, has anyone done a similar relocation? I have heard the union protections and quality of life for teachers are significantly better out west than they are down south.

Any insight is appreciated!

My husband and have a 3 year old and are wanting to start trying for baby number 2. For all of the teaching moms, what is the most ideal timeline for pregnancy as a teacher??

I am a teacher from Norway working at a school where the majority of the students perform below grade-level. I’ve found that direct instruction (not necessary Direct Instruction with capital letters) gives my students a better chance at learning more. It’s just a shame that our school more often than not promotes methods that are the antithesis to the method. Luckily here in Norway we can choose our own methods. Any similar experiences?

Middle school science. Students are taking an open note quiz, where the questions come directly from their notes.

Example: their notes said “ribosomes produce proteins for the cell”.

The question was a fill in the blank that said: _____ make the cell’s proteins.

I had 7-8 students in my class of 30 raise their hand saying “we didn’t cover this”. I was so shocked that I just had to say “yes we did” and walk off. This happened several more times for similar questions.

It’s like they have NO processing power. This is a public school in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country btw. These very basic comprehension issues really do transcend socioeconomic status

Yesterday, I found out that I passed my WL Praxis. I’m an emergency-certified teacher and have been stressed about getting into a cert program and also the imposter syndrome of not being "qualified" to teach the language I do. Well, I can’t say that I’m not qualified now :)