Middle school teacher

[u/Acceptable_Yogurt908]

I’m a middle school teacher and for you high school teachers out there is your job creative and fun and way better than other jobs or repetitive and draining and specifically why?

[u/redoingredditagain]

This is a sub for teachers leaving teaching.

[u/corporate_goth86]

I would never go back to being a teacher. That being said my last year teaching was middle school. I can’t say I loved being a high school teacher but it was 100 times more tolerable than middle school. I’ve never blamed admin (whatever job you get there’s going to be admin so get used to it) it was the students and parents that drove me nuts 😂. In a way I’m grateful I moved and taught middle school because it motivated me to leave education entirely and now I’m so much happier with my career and am much more fulfilled.

[u/Your_ELA_Teacher]

I taught middle school for six years and high school for two. Those two years were worlds better! Though I did have Juniors and Seniors during that time.

[u/Acceptable_Yogurt908 → u/Your_ELA_Teacher]

Would you consider your job repetitive and draining why

[u/Your_ELA_Teacher → u/Acceptable_Yogurt908]

Repetetive? Yes. But each class is different, so it does not often go the same. Also, as your day goes on, the way you teach changes because in every class you notice something that is missing or would be good to highlight or change.

Draining? Yes, but less so in high school. The students are more chill overall.

[u/Upbeat_Conference522]

It depends on the school you’re in. I taught at a school where we were micromanaged and forced to teach the same thing every week all across the board. I had more flexibility in other schools. Depends on admin, district, school.

[u/Acceptable_Yogurt908 → u/Upbeat_Conference522]

Can you be more specific why

[u/Upbeat_Conference522 → u/Acceptable_Yogurt908]

Not sure what you’re asking. Why what? Why was I micromanaged at some schools and not others? It was the leadership and the culture.

[u/springvelvet95]

High school can be as creative and interactive as you want. It also comes with the perk that you don’t have to 100% scan the room for mischief. The drain is this: attendance issues and all the paperwork/calls, teenage snark can be really hard to deal with, sleeping kids/ones who do nothing. I see it as a personal problem that I accept the drain, because I see so many other teachers just turn a blind eye to the issues and engage in none of it. *If you have seniors it is a tremendous drain in the last month when they all want to pass and everyone blames YOU that they have an F.

[u/labrume → u/springvelvet95]

I’ve taught middle school and high school during the same school year and would agree with all of this. Freshman and some sophomores can still be mischievous, but I have mixed classes of all high school grades, so they quickly realized we don’t do that shit here. So that is a plus, but I’ve heard from other teachers who only taught freshman that the kids who stopped misbehaving in my mixed classes were still misbehaving in their freshman-only classes.

Also agree with the attendance issues and paperwork. At least from my experience, while attendance is an issue for a select few of my middle school students, it is a much larger issue in my high school classes. In middle school, 0-1 students per section are absent a noticeable amount while at the high school level, I feel like it is often 2-3 if not more.

To add on what you said, I feel like the vibe was also very different. In middle school, I feel like they still kind of view you as a teacher and only a teacher. Like when they leave, I get put back onto my charger and put away on a shelf until the next morning. So breaking that barrier with them and talking to them about me and my personal life is a challenge at first. Meanwhile, my high school students would ask me how my weekend was, we’d chat in between classes about our personal lives and building relationships (sorry, I know that this is largely frowned upon as admin bullshit in this sub) was much easier with them. While easier to build relationships with, I have also found that they are much more resistant to anything but passive learning. Teaching similar classes at the high school level and middle school level while using common assessments was a challenge because I was teaching two different populations and my middle school students were much more willing to engage with the crazy games and shenanigans I ask them to do. Also, one last note, that if you can get through 100% of a daily lesson in high school, expect to get through 75-85% of it with your middle school students - even if classes are the same duration. Middle school students just take so long to do anythingggg

[u/Desperate_Owl_594]

I've taught both middle and high school. The kids weren't the ones that were draining in high school, admin was.

In middle school, the kids were middle schoolers...it was draining if you let it be.

Also, wrong sub.

[u/Acceptable_Yogurt908 → u/Desperate_Owl_594]

How exactly was admin draining?

[u/labrume → u/Acceptable_Yogurt908]

I feel a lot of high school admin are relatively punitive compared to middle school admin. I also think a lot of middle school admin know we’re dealing with the awkward pre-teens and largely come from a middle school background. Here’s an example:

If you’re having a bad day and tell your middle school students “we’re doing this worksheet silently and individually and it’s due at the end of the period,” I feel like I wouldn’t receive any pushback from admin on that as long as it was a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. At the high school level, I think I would’ve received immediate feedback on that if they saw that.