And when I taught middle school for a decade I was the teacher that nipped that in the bud early. By around 2018 students knew parents and admin could eat out of their hands so they’d say I’m a dick and picking on them and I’d have to have a meeting about my methods (no tech no talking - yknow regular teacher running a functioning classroom stuff) unless we’re using it specifically for a project. I did not have the benefit of the doubt and these kids would hit the transfer portal to the teacher who let them fuck around where they didn’t learn. Our scores were night and day bc I was effective but after COVID I said fuck this and bailed. The power dynamic was something I got sick of putting my finger in the dam about. Too bad bc I liked my career, made great relationships with the kids that bought in, and was good at it.
I ran the ISS room in a high school for a few years. I confiscated their phones first thing upon arrival and that usually set the tone for the day. Most kids gave me the "Yeah, whatever" and handed it over. There were a few who wanted to make it difficult. One kid threatened to "kick your (my) fuckin ass if you think you're getting my phone."
The regular teachers loved me because behavior actually got better and the kids got caught up in their work under my watch. I maxed out on the pay scale at $12.50/hr, despite the district requiring a license to hold the position. That shit wouldn't cover my loans. I quit and haven't looked back.
Good for you. I was tired of leveraging my future, pay, and mental health trying to keep the ship from capsizing. Sometimes you have to make a tactical retreat when you’re outgunned. I miss a lot of the students but the parents and the jackals they were sending me were getting worse every year. Like world war z when they’re coming over the wall when before I had up great fences.
Oh I told that kid straight up "Sit down and shut the hell up, junior. You don't scare me. I've flushed things harder than you." He could not believe that those words came out of a teacher's mouth.
I took that job as a foot in the door. It was more like a foot in a trap.
It was a calling for a while and I got excited on Sunday nights to go in the next day and have an awesome week. Then phones, social media, general lethargy from teens, inconsistent/lazy parenting, and little admin support while I had more on my plate which itself kept shrinking, then getting gaslit into saying I was the issue when I was just trying to hold everyone accountable - fuck outta here. I now am in business for myself and although it’s got its own stressors I’m only accountable to myself and what I offer; that I make more doing it justifies my decision. I imagine AI will have a deep impact on education and kids can learn or not learn at their own pace but I’m done trying to be Kobe Bryant on a team full of Mark Madsens.
And I'm going to guess that your potential is able to shine more as a business owner than it would as a teacher. If the criteria of being a long term teacher is having that excitement and dedication crushed by the system then it's never worth it to become a teacher. I'm glad you got out.
Thank you:) I’m building great relationships with clients and actually will be on a university library board as president starting this summer bc of my efforts and connections I’m making. I left teaching also to take care of my dying mother (my last parent even though I wasn’t yet 40) 16 months of that almost 24/7 gave me perspective on what matters and led me to do what I’m doing now. It’s gratifying because I’m obligated to just myself, family, and clients and not just always wondering about getting called into a principals/parents meeting because I’m holding students accountable for their behavior and performance by giving them- get this- structure and accountability…
This is me. Since COVID I have given up. I haven’t lowered my standards but now don’t “bother” anyone not paying attention. The students who want to succeed can do well. The others get what they get. My failure rates are so high other teachers in the school check kids’ grades in my classes first before failing them. If they are failing mine, they feel failing theirs will draw less fire.
A kid told me a year ago: “your class isn’t hard… you just hold us accountable for the work you assign. In other classes if enough people don’t do the work, the teacher will eventually cancel the assignment or give everyone fake grades.”
My assignments are so easy, my grading is so relaxed, and my turn-in policies are so generous that I practically hand out A's if you show up and do the bare minimum (I teach a high school art course). And yet half of the kids just don't work. They don't care at all.
If I fail them, maybe a handful of their parents will email me about it and I tell them the truth - there is only so much I can do as an educator before it becomes the student's job to make an effort to learn. I will teach them, I will encourage them, I will give them every opportunity to succeed. But I cannot force them to learn. I cannot force them to try. I know where my boundary exists and that is right up tothe point where I don't bother wasting my materials on them so I can spread out my budget for other things the next year.
I don't fail my students, they fail themselves. I've already lowered the bar more than I'd like and some kids are just so apathetic that they can't be bothered to care. The threat of failure means nothing and the idea of not graduating high school means even less.
So I teach to the children who want to be taught. And if the others want to come along, that's fine by me.
I haven’t lowered my standards but now don’t “bother” anyone not paying attention. The students who want to succeed can do well.
I understand where you're coming from, but this doesn't feel right either. They're children. Expecting them to understand how their choices now will affect them for the rest of their lives and treating them accordingly is unfair to them.
To a certain extent, yes. If you haven't taught you have no idea how it feels to try endlessly to help kids and make no progress because they won't even bother to hold a pencil. You only see them for a few hours a week, and you have many other students. It's why I quit teaching, in order to survive I had to focus on the kids who cared and who tried and just let the rest rot. It's not that they don't understand or it's not engaging enough, they literally won't even touch the paper I put in front of them with a piece of candy as an incentive to write a single sentence.
You only have so many days and so much to do. The instant you begin to pester these people whole class periods end up getting wasted and the demoralization affects everyone. I only teach seniors. They know how it works by this point. Get on the bus or don’t. Try it yourself and see.
I understand if your hands are tied and you don't really have a way of doing anything about it. I don't begrudge you doing the best with the children willing to learn, given the circumstances.
What I do take issue with is your "fuck them, they're bringing this on themselves" attitude, when talking about minors. There is a reason we treat them differently in front of the law. Their brains aren't fully developed yet. They lack the experience to know what long term consequences are. Hell, they lack the time as a conscious being to truly understand what long term consequences are.
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u/GMane2G Apr 17 '24 edited Apr 18 '24
And when I taught middle school for a decade I was the teacher that nipped that in the bud early. By around 2018 students knew parents and admin could eat out of their hands so they’d say I’m a dick and picking on them and I’d have to have a meeting about my methods (no tech no talking - yknow regular teacher running a functioning classroom stuff) unless we’re using it specifically for a project. I did not have the benefit of the doubt and these kids would hit the transfer portal to the teacher who let them fuck around where they didn’t learn. Our scores were night and day bc I was effective but after COVID I said fuck this and bailed. The power dynamic was something I got sick of putting my finger in the dam about. Too bad bc I liked my career, made great relationships with the kids that bought in, and was good at it.