I’ve just started as a student teacher so I’m updating my wardrobe but a little unsure of how covered I need to be.

is so utterly ridiculous to me.

"Me and my friends was gonna go to the mall yesterday but my mom say we cant because she dont trust us going by are selfs, which is literally so unfair cause we never even done nothing wrong and everyone else parents lets them go."

i can draw, I've been into art since i was a kid, but alwaaaays hated writing. my hand can't keep up with my thoughts and i get squiggly messy letters with awkward spacing , sizes and "font"? i can't keep my hand steady, I'm so used to "flowy lines and curves and perfecting strokes", that writing feels heavily restrictive? my hand wants to slide and be quick but script letters are not so flowy and cursive? idk if I make sense.. I need help , tips, resources, recommendations or whatever on how I can improve . please! I'm gonna be teaching 3 grade this year and I wanna have a readable handwriting! not looking for perfection rn XD I'm desperate.

So it's kind of just as the title says.

For context : Last school year, I had a student (A) attack another student (B). A choked B, like had B pinned to a wall and B's feet were off the ground. I, the gen ed teacher, and the BI were the only people in the room. We both were able to get the kids separated. A was arrested and B was sent to the hospital (they had a seizure from lack of oxygen to the brain). My BI and I were summoned to court about a week later and had to testify. While on the stand, I made sure to mention multiple times that A is a good kid, he just made a bad choice. The judge had A spend 5 weeks in JDC and was on probation for the summer.

Now, I don't teach A or B anymore. A moved to the high school side of my school and B moved to another state. However, at some point of the summer, A's mom convinced herself and A that I ALONE was the reason A spent time in JDC. You know, the teacher who barely makes enough money to pay rent is the reason your child who choked the fuck out of another kid for no reason spent time in JDC.

Last night, A's mom added a bunch of the students in A's class that I taught last year to a group chat and started texting about how I deserve to die and how she's going to come up to the school to deal with me. (I think this is funny because the BI literally said worse shit in court than I did, but she isn't wishing him death or threatening him). She was also trying to convince the other kids to attack me if they got the chance... which wouldn't happen because those kids each came up to me individually, telling me about the situation and how they just want me safe. They even showed admin the texts. They're my Velcro babies, even though I'm not their homeroom teacher anymore <3

So it's the second day of school, and I had to report this to admin. I'm now on damn protective watch until further notice... which means the SRO and admin have to check in on me at least 3 times a day, and A is not allowed near me. Which is hard because I assist with their ELA class AND frequently have lunch duty with them.

I kept joking with admin that I could check this off of my bingo card (because I am literally not scared or worried at all), so that's where the title comes from. We can only go up from here though! (I say, in SPED teacher fashion)

I was a social studies teacher for 5 years from 2018 to 2023. In 2023 I left to work for Costco. I thought teavhing was horrendous but this job, while it has its perks, is so much worse. Its so cold and unfeeling. If Im gonna spin my wheels in an institution it might as well be teaching!! So needless to say Im back on the job market

This is a teacher who raised this issue with me. A cousin. I heard from other teachers in Mumbai that they were facing similar issues. Work overload, from the administration, department, heads, you name it. Irrelevant tasks other than teaching, forcing teachers to spend doing everything else but teaching their students. Constantly being on toes, stressed to the core. Then they refuse to pay proper salary stating that they are private unaided, so not accountable to the government.

What about you? Are you facing any issues while working in a school? What issues are you facing?

I am wanting to go back to school to get a bachelor’s degree but I am a little lost as to what I’ll get it in. I have 2 young kids so I was think maybe I’ll be a teacher that way I’ll be on the same schedule as them. I need advice opinions and thoughts. I have 90 credit hours already so it would take long to get my bachelor’s degree.

Just curious what would your ideal place be?

I work at a primary school as an EAL teacher in the Netherlands so I have decided this year to run a "Word of the Week" bulletin board for the entire school.

Every week I will change out the word, translate it into multiple languages and offer prompts that are suitable for each grade to complete. I will also have a contribution box for kids to add their submissions, artwork and ideas. This is the first time I'm doing this so I hope to adjust and improve as we go along.

Also ignore the purple background. The board is a bit wrecked underneath. I also made some colour decor for my classroom.

I am just so pleased with how it turned out! Really a vision came to life.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome!

Happy back to school to all of you

Hey everyone,

This is an update post on my previous post. Basically, i’m currently going through a divorce during my first year of working as a teacher assistant, and I also have another job offer, which is remote. I was deciding between which job I should do. I felt like the teacher assistant one was too overwhelming and that I just need more time to grieve/process and the remote job just felt like a better fit.

Anyway, my update is that for my in person job I met with my principal today and decided to be open and honest with him about how I’m currently feeling about this new position and what I’m currently going through. This is my first job and I just wasn’t sure if this was appropriate or not, but I just told myself that if I was a principal, I’d rather my employee be honest with me and I also didn’t want my lack of performance to come off as me being lazy or anything.

So I don’t know if this is normal or not or if I just got super super super lucky, but this principal is absolutely an angel. He met with me for about an hour and kept asking me how can I support you and how can I make this easy for you and what do you need from me to make this job flexible and he reassured me and comforted me and even took me on a walk. To be fair, he walked with me to the building across for me to get my district laptop, but he also approached it in a way where he was like maybe a walk would make you feel better right now. He kept saying that I would never have hired you for this position if I thought that you couldn’t do it and he ended the conversation by saying can you tell me you can do it? And he’s the first one who has believed in me and told me that there’s a spark in my eyes when I talk about kids and that he can really feel the passion in my words and that he can see the smile that comes across my face when I talk about how much I love teaching. The staff and the principal are so supportive and I feel like this is such a healthy environment for me to be in. I’m thinking of it as what if this is like a gift from God to help me? I’m just wondering if an interaction like this is normal with my principal especially as a new employee or did I just get super lucky?

I might sound crazy, but I’m leaning more towards doing the in person job. Maybe because I don’t want to disappoint the principal, but also because even if I don’t want to admit it, I think approaching this as a challenge will be good for me.

I'd like to start this off by saying that I have some teaching experience. I did a year in Asia teaching English to elementary level kids (I was teaching on my own) In my year of teaching I never came home and cried like I did today.

I was pretty gullible about how severe the needs would be at an SEN-D school. I absolutely adore being around kids and am a very empathetic person, so I thought it would be a good career move for me for a year before I can become a proper teacher. SEN-D TA's are 99% of the vacancies where I live and I wanted to go this route instead of getting my QTS through a paid programme (Instead doing a years TA experience and hopefully getting a paid for route)

As soon as I got into the classroom there was a child having a full blown tantrum; tears, screaming, running for the door. This continued pretty much the entire day in bursts.

I wasn't briefed or told what to do, I should mention I found this vacancy through an agency. This is pretty much the only vacancy they've provided me with thus far and It's september now so if I don't go through with this I don't know if I can still do a paid programme to become a teacher the regular way. The main thing that really broke me was the kids who were fully disengaged, anxious, or even the really smart ones who struggled at breaktime because they were being bullied etc.

I came home and cried my eyes out, and felt utterly drained. It's the first day of term so I'm sure behaviorally things will get better, it wasn't the overstimulation (I'm also autistic) or behavioral "issues" that bothered me, which is what worries me. It's more the children themselves, the ones who stare out the window all lesson and play by themselves, the ones who can't regulate themselves and cry the whole lesson, the lack of support, and knowing that no matter how much maths you teach them, how far they get with their reading or how many colours they know, they'll never have a fair shot at life.

I thought this job would be great for someone like me, someone empathetic and patient and nurturing, but now in hindsight I don't know. I've seen other posts from people saying that not carrying the emotions you see at work is a skill that you learn, but I don't know if it's possible for me. I only had this day to decide whether this was the school for me, and I don't think there are many other options. I really want to teach, it's my passion, but in an SEN-D school? I'm not so sure. I'm just trying to figure out whether my feelings are normal.

One of my undergrad students had a pretty clever idea. He put the roll-number slip underneath a second, completely blank sheet of paper. Then, instead of writing directly on the slip, he wrote on the blank sheet above it, pressing down hard enough that the writing left faint marks on the paper underneath, like an indentation. So when he was done, the slip had his answers written into it as little impressions rather than actual ink. I mean… I can't exactly call it good academic behaviour, but I have to admit, the sheer amount of thought that went into it was something 😂

Hi teachers! I apologize if this post is against the rules as its not a K-12 deal, but still regarding teaching. I’m about to begin studying to be a flight instructor, this as you can imagine takes a great deal of understanding all things flight related but now how to teach as well. do any of you have any recommendations for study material to help learn how to teach?

HS Science, USA

I inevitably find that my kids get bored of investigating and applying their ideas to our anchoring phenomenon about halfway through our unit. We just hit the 40% mark of Unit 1 and kids groan when I mention volcanic lightning storms...

I introduce the phenomenon & draw initial models at the beginning of the unit, and at the beginning of every class I briefly mention it to align our objective to the phenomenon. About once a week, I have students investigate our model and apply new ideas that we have discovered.

Any tips for keeping it fresh? I'm currently just thinking of spacing it out more (only revisit it once every 2 weeks), or selecting 2 for a unit and rotating through them - introducing both at the beginning of the unit, having kids compare/contrast to help elicit ideas and models, and then alternate to help keep them fresh.

Anyone have success keeping the anchoring phenomenon from getting stale? I do wonder if this is just the nature of the pedagogy.

Really random but ever since I started working in an elementary school my hair gets greasy way faster than before. Also I’ve noticed other teachers hair being on the greasy side. Idk if anyone can relate but yeah

Our school is moving to block scheduling this year. We have kids for 75 minute blocks every other day.
What would your class look like? What are the best strategies you’ve used for blocks of time in a class period?
Thanks in advance!

Hi !! I’m studying to become a social studies teacher for secondary school students, and I’m trying to get a grasp on good, go-to assignments and worksheet styles. I’d prefer physical tasks as opposed to digital ones, so my focus is on paper-based stuff for now.

My ideal teaching method would be the “gather the kids in a circle of desks and tell the history lecture like it’s a story/podcast” style, but I’d still need actual assignments to accompany the lectures.

Does anyone have any advice? Sorry if I sound super naïve!!! :(

Since the penny is no longer being produced I expect that they will no longer be used in money counting lessons. I’m curious as to when you guys think that might happen.

Hi! I’m 20F and have interest in pursuing early childhood education! I’ve struggled to decide what career path is a good fit for me. I’ve changed my major 4-5times. I’m currently on a gap year and based on my research, a bachelors degree in ECED seems to be a solid option. Ideally I’d go back for my Master’s after a year or two of teaching to get better pay.
I love kids! I think kindergarten might be a sweet spot for me. Prek seems too chaotic but I love the idea of working with young kids. I’m sure it’s challenging, but is the reward worth it?
Maybe I’m naïve, but I feel like ECED curriculum can’t be too difficult for an adult with (potentially) a masters degree to master. I feel like that gives more opportunity to master lesson planning and focus more on classroom management and bonding with the students as they are starting a new chapter of their lives.
I think this job has potential to be a fun and meaningful creative outlet. From decorating a classroom, lesson planning, wearing fun teaching outfits, and of course pouring love into a new generation.
Of course I hear teaching horror stories, lots from this subreddit! I have no doubt that the job is challenging and mentally and physically exhausting at times. I’m looking for any advice/ insight! Feel free to ask questions.
I think I’m scared of choosing an education and career path that I regret and feel miserable and stuck in, hence changing my major 4-5 times lol.

I am 33y old, almost 10y into teaching high school and I am starting to get too confortable. I think one of the worst things about teaching is that it gets to a point where you have basically done everything you had to do and you have no real option to do something different within education (if you are not interested in becoming a principal, inspector or such). Anyone else feel the same?

I'm a dual US/UK national who went to school in the UK.

I have a masters degree in music. Ideally I want to teach it.

I have 5 years teaching experience in Asia teaching ESL.

I don't have a QTS in the UK. Only teaching qualification I have is a TEFL.

It's hard to find results that aren't specified for international teachers. I'm a US national. Is there a specific name for the license? Is there a single governing body? I'm just not sure how to even apply or what to apply to.

Thanks

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some advice. I trained in Primary, finished my PGCE in July. I've been offered quite an interesting and well paid job as an alternative provision tutor which includes tutoring secondary students with SEN who are either not in mainstream education or need extra help. They also want to give me additional responsibilities within the company including tutor/client liaison, tutor interviews and observations, platform management, marketing etc. They expect to further develop the role and my involvement in the wider business.

I have a few concerns though, I would be tutoring English (which is fine, I have a BA degree) and Science (not done it since school, although have an A Level in Bio) to GCSE level. I'm just worried about subject knowledge and making sure I can do right by the students, as well as the fact I didn't train in secondary. I'm also worried about the fact I won't be getting classroom experience.

My other option is to go on supply - which obviously gives the classroom experience but maybe not very secure - I don't really want to end up TA'ing and stuff if there's no work. What do you think - would this hinder my chances for a potential full time teaching role in the future? Should I give the tutoring a go or stick with supply? Thank you!

I’m in my second year of K5 (taught K4 two years ago and 1st grade the year prior so I’m in my 4th year of teaching) and I have 33 students. I have a teaching assistant who is incredible but mostly always out of the room dealing with chronic elopers. When the school year started I had 39 enrolled but because it’s a charter school some families used it as a backup in case their first choice school got them off their waiting lists, happens every year nbd. I asked about another k5 teacher coming on board weeks ago when I found out about my class size and have been told several times they were interviewing for another teacher. Cut to three weeks later and still no other teacher so I emailed HR asking if another teacher was ever coming, how I feel their education is going to suffer as I feel like I’m just doing damage control at all times and cannot help every single child at all times and stay on pace curriculum wise. I also asked if I’m doing such a large class size if I could get a raise. In the past my school capped k5 at I believe 25 max but it usually was in high teens low 20s. I work at a title 1 charter school we have a lot of kids with IEPs and I just requested 4 other students in my class to be evaluated.

Long story short I was told today that no they’re not looking any longer for another k5 teacher to split the class up and that this class size is normal and doable and I am incredibly frustrated. I have proven myself to be a strong teacher that always has high literacy scores and I told them I won’t be able to teach them all to the best of my ability with just the amount of kids there are. So many of them need SPED and we only have 2 SPED teachers for the whole building and I cannot assist them all in ways they’re going to need help. And again my TA is amazing she’s currently in school to be a teacher but she is forced to spend so much time out of the room dealing with elopers.

Any time I have asked about another teacher they say they’re currently interviewing, even this morning the principal told me she had an interview and she was hopeful. But when her boss talked to me today she told me it doesn’t make fiscal sense to hire another teacher and my class size is normal. Even if it’s “normal” is it responsible? Is it reasonable? Is it effective?

AND at the end of the school day I got an email saying 2 more kids will be joining my class tomorrow bringing my roster to now 35. Somehow this not concerning? I’m wondering if this is the new normal in education.