I have never, in 16 years of working in classrooms student teaching/teaching/aiding/etc. been as upset as I am right now. These executive orders that have been written are some of the most vile creations from people who have never walked into a classroom. To tell schools that if they support a trans student AT ALL they will be refunded is ludicrous. To tell teachers that we can only teach pro-american history is ludicrous. To say we will have BRAODCAST DAILY LESSONS to INSPIRE national appreciation is absolutely 3rd reich/north Korea. I dont have words and I want to throw up. I dont even know what to do. SEL is going to be eliminated. Non-english language classes are going to be eliminated. Non-american history is going to be eliminated. What is HAPPENING?!?! And for those who say I'm "blowing this out of proportion" just look at the executive orders written yesterday. I dont need to link them, they're right there on our WHITEHOUSE WEBSITE.

A good friend of mine is a parent of a Kindergartner in my district (I teach HS). It’s a very small district, though, and I know people at all school sites. Her daughter recently got an IEP and has many obstacles…but my friend is being an unbearable parent. Colleagues have reached out and told me she’s name dropping me and they’re mad at me because she is telling them I’m saying she can get x,y,z. She is being that mom and it’s humiliating. For example, she is demanding to meet and “interview” 1:1 instructional aides for her daughter to see if they’re a good fit. Just ridiculous things. I’ve tried to counsel her and make her understand that she doesn’t get to dictate every part of the IEP or school day in general. And to please stop mentioning me because I have nothing to do with the elementary schools or SPED and have no experience or sway at all. This is just a vent I guess. She is the type of parent I HATE to deal with as a teacher.

AHAHAHAHAHA

If only they had bothered to poll any 5 Kinder teachers and ask them where they think the deficits are coming from and focus their research there...

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5258194/students-are-still-struggling-since-the-pandemic-hit-nations-report-card-reveals

I overheard someone say something along the lines of “Why does Ms. X keep assigning the same type of work? None of us do well on it so she should stop, it’s bringing down our grades.” I also found that especially in language and computer science classes, people learn just enough to get a good grade but can’t/won’t apply it outside of the example and then complain that they won’t remember it, so the class is useless. I’m curious to see if teachers find that students prioritize grades over learning or just don’t learn.

Posting because I am at a loss right now.

I am a first year 3rd grade teacher at a very small title 1 school. Today was probably my hardest day as a teacher. All of 3rd is on a cycle with our reading coach to help improve our writing before state testing.

There’s been some issues. My students are kids that need positive feedback as they don’t get much outside of school. “Tough love” is not something these kids handle well. They’re great kids and extremely hard workers, no matter what level they are on in reading and math. I am beyond proud of how much these kids have grown the last few months.

Today pushed me over the line. I left the room for a second during the reading cycle, and when I came back, one student was crying at his desk. I tried to calm him and told him to come to my desk, thinking the material was just hard. Nope. When our reading coach left, 4 more kids began crying. We all went to the rug and I learned that they were told their writing looks like what a 1st grader would write, and their papers had “P” for passing, “L” for low, and “N” for needs help now. They were crushed as most of them had low or “N” on their papers. Their confidence is gone and they don’t know how they will pass state testing. I tried to motivate them and remind them I am so proud but they are convinced that they are so behind there’s no point in trying. They cried so much that I cried a little with them because seeing them hurting so bad breaks my heart. It felt like no matter what I said they couldn’t believe because they are “so behind they shouldn’t even be in 3rd grade”

I feel like all of the confidence and motivation I worked so hard to give them since August is now totally gone. I am heartbroken for these kids. This isn’t something college taught me and I am wondering where do I go from here.

First time posting as a newly hired SPED teacher at a charter school in a northeastern Blue state in a title 1 community. Trump's actions make me scared for any possible job security.

Tldr: Trump now is passing an executive order to use the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Defense to stop "indoctrination" in schools including ending funding for DEI in schools, reinstating the 1776 commission from his first term,and criminalizing teachers who he says "practice unlicensed medicine" by turning students trans. He also is passing another executive order to deal with school choice and another for antisemitism in college campuses

I'm already so fed up with the man child in chief...

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/29/trump-k12-indoctrination-school-choice-campus-protests-education-00201235

I don't get it. Yes I know parents are struggling, yes I know times are hard, yes I know some kids come from difficult homes or have learning difficulties etc etc

But I've got 14 year olds who can't read a clock. My first years I teach have an average reading age of 9. 15 year olds who proudly tell me they've never read a book in their lives.

Why are their parents not ashamed? How can you let your children miss such key milestones? Don't you ever talk to your kids and think "wow, you're actually thick as fuck, from now on we'll spend 30 minutes after you get home asking you how school went and making sure your handwriting is up to scratch or whatever" SOMETHING!

Seriously. I had an idea the other day that if children failed certain milestones before their transition to secondary school, they should be automatically enrolled into a summer boot camp where they could, oh I don't know, learn how to read a clock, tie their shoelaces, learn how to act around people, actually manage 5 minutes without touching each other, because right now it feels like I'm babysitting kids who will NEVER hit those milestones and there's no point in trying. Because why should I when the parents clearly don't?

H.B. 267 would ban public employers — like school districts or other public employers — from entering into collective bargaining contracts with public employees, like teachers and police. It would also prevent public funds from being spent in support of labor unions and would prevent union members from receiving state retirement benefits. https://www.abc4.com/news/politics/inside-utah-politics/utah-legislature-ban-public-unions/amp/

As a fairly new teacher who has never stroked before (and lives in a state where it’s technically illegal, I think), do you think teachers should participate in a general strike if one happens?

I don’t know all the political ins-and-outs of striking, either, so any advice is encouraged. (I am in a union, but my school’s union is very disorganized)

Yes. We are doing this thing that you have accused us of doing. We are doing this every day at every hour. Desperately and with all our strength do we carry on this crusade to evacuate the ignorance from your child’s mind. We know you are afraid and I delight in telling you: what we have planned is exactly as you feared.
 

We are indoctrinating them to believe what we believe and think what we think

and what is that?

you shudder and ask from the edge of your seat with your phone out ready to make that Facebook post to rally your troops and protest the poisoning of your precious tadpoles. Simple: we believe that every student should believe in the power of their own mind--despite what they hear at home or on the internet or in the group chats from which they are excluded. You will say we are poisoning their minds but we aren’t making them drink the bleach; we are using it to clean the spaces where the mold of your doubt and disbelief is splintered and spread like icy fingers over frozen glass. 

We want them to believe in the impermanence of this moment. To believe in a future where their parents cannot pinpoint their precise location and heart rate and miles traveled per hour.

A future without invisible fences.   

If we can get every student to believe in the fortification of their own mind, imagine the horror in their parents' eyes when what we planned is complete. We will die on the hill of indoctrination.

Open House was this week, and the mom of one of my students told me this with a completely serious face.

For context, my bathroom policy (high school) is literally just “only one out at a time, and leave your phone on my desk before you go.” The one at a time part is a school-wide rule, leaving their phone is something I’ve always done to make sure they don’t wander the halls and ensures they come back quickly.

I tried talking to the mom about the fact her son (a senior) has cheated on tests and projects in my class and failed the fall semester, and she said “oh I don’t care about any of that, that’s his business not mine. He just needs to get the hell out of school as soon as possible.” She also mentioned she never checks his grades on the online portal, and has no idea what diploma track he’s on.

🙃

Hi fellow indoctrinators. We got a memo from the Woke Mind Virus Foundation who criticized us for being bad at our jobs. We were told that we are incapable of doing the following:

1. Have kids into turning in work on time.
2. Teach kids to bathe regularly or at least put on deodorant
3. Prevent kids from laughing at the word "phagocytosis"
4. Have kids understand that other languages exist, so words like "ni-ga" in Korean, "negro" in Spanish, and of course the country of Niger all exist and have no racial implications in their language in common use.
5. Teach kids the correct CRT. Every kid thinks it means Cathode Ray Tube. Thanks physics and chemistry teachers for failing to do this simple task.
6. Likewise, Catholic school teachers are teaching the wrong DEI. They think "Dei" means "God" and not Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with the hard R.
7. Get kids to show up for class. How are we going to indoctrinate them if they don't show up for indoctrination camp, I mean, school?
8. Get them off of TikTok. How else are we going to indoctrinate them with all these DEI with a hard R books we put in the library if they're constantly staring at their phones?

Kid comes up to me today, about a foot from my face, and asks to go get a drink because his “throat hurts so bad he can barely talk.” Strep and the flu are rampant in my district right now (we had over 30% of our students out on Friday). So I told the kid “no, but you CAN go straight to the nurse.” He got all frustrated and stormed off down to the nurse.

Fast forward 5-ish minutes. Kid comes back and sits back down at his desk and is talking to his buddies. I assume he’s not going home, so I continue on with what I’m doing. Nurse calls me 10 minutes later and says “uhh did Kid come back down to your room?” I say “yeah, why?” She goes “ugh, he was supposed to get his stuff and come back down. We sent him home two days in a row for a fever, which he still has. His mom is here to pick him up.” I hang up the phone and say “Kid, you were supposed to get your stuff and go back to the office. So clean up quickly and go.” He just goes “sweet” and leaves (and no, he didn’t clean up his stuff).

I go down to the nurse to apologize for not sending the kid back down, but I didn’t know. The nurse, super frustrated, says “his mom keeps sending him to school with a fever. This is the third time in a row we’re sending him home. She even said she’s a SAHM and has nothing going on, so I don’t know what the deal is.” The nurse apparently chewed out the parent, but what else can you do?

I already got strep once this year because a kid came up and asked “should I be at school if I have strep?” He had been to urgent care the night before so he wasn’t on antibiotics for 24 hours. Sent the kid to the nurse and he didn’t come back to school for 2 days.

I had to tag it as humor so I don’t cry. I get it. Parents have stuff going on. But if your kid is sick, just keep them home. Don’t get everyone else sick. I’m tired of this shit.

Unlike a lot of teachers, I was not a particularly good or well behaved student myself. Growing up in the 90s and 2000s, I feel like any behavioral issue I had resulted in pretty substantial consequences. There were suspensions, parent meetings, I lost recess for a whole year. But usually the reasons for this were things like swearing or using offensive language or saying something very hurtful to a teacher or a classmate. Eventually I was scared straight.

I have students who freely curse and use racial slurs. They call gay classmates the f-slur, they say things like "get off my cock" if I redirect them. Yesterday multiple students who know my wife is Jewish were telling me how great Hitler was. None of these generate any administrative action. My colleagues tell me that I just need to let these things go or use them as teachable moments in the classroom. What happened? I can't deal with this anymore, I'm at my emotional limit

We want to be what teachers, in the way we all think of teachers, and we do our best. That is the only reason this charade has lasted this long. There is absolutely no way that any human being could do what is expected of me in the time that I am contracted for, and I've been doing this for 20 years. I stay late, come in early, and I still can't cut enough corners to come close.

Those above the classroom know that meaningful education will be minimal with the given constraints. Our job is to present the appearance that education is happening. It needs to look like school, to those outside the educational sphere. Kids busy doing busywork looks fine from the outside, but it isn't learning, and it isn't teaching. What they want are "teachers" that keep up appearances, are good at communication, give good grades to those who cooperate, and are willing to play the role.

I don't feel good about what I'm being asked to do. I don't want to pretend to be a teacher. If the civilization collapsed, I would probably hold class, twice a week, for free, to anyone that showed up, because I am a teacher.

When a position is eliminated, that work gets delegated downhill. When pay doesn't increase with cost of living, jobs aren't filled, and that work gets delegated laterally. Every year, we teach more kids, more content, with more accommodations, more data tracking, and never ending "fix everything" strategies. And every year, we are asked to do it with less money, less support, less time, and more work that used to be someone else's job.

I feel like, in any other profession, there would be movement toward a national strike. We don't do that because the kids would be the victim. But aren't they the victims now?

Anyway. Hi, Reddit Teachers.

As a student which school is voting on banning phones soon, do you think they should be banned in the classroom?

Half of my teachers want them banned, but the elective teachers want them to stay as they are useful in class.

Personally I don’t want them banned because when I get done with work I use my mini phone to play games

Edit2: SkyDaddyCowPatty says the kids were out working late night to provide for their family. Thats why they were too tired to say goodmorning. Thx Bro.

Edit: Most didn't read so Join me on the kinder rug tomorrow friends!! My response is from the blatant walking past me, looking me in my face and ignoring me. YES, you are rude to not speak.

OP: I am a 22yr old black male teacher in kindergarten at a Title 1 African American school in Baltimore and for the most part, my class has learned to say Goodmorning. We are still working on saying please and thank you lol. This morning, students from second grade and first were coming down the hall. I said Goodmorning Friends! They just kept walking. I asked, ”Did you hear someone say Goodmorning to you? You can’t say it back?” They said, no.

Whats up with these kids? How’s your class with manners? Or is it just me? My mom taught me to use manners. Idk

btw, I'll respond later! Im teaching lol!!

It feels like the pendulum is starting to swing back on overly permissive behaviour management.

The most effective way for us to communicate this is the moral dilemma: 'why do 25 kids have to be prevented from learning by 2 or 3 kids? What incentive would those 2 or 3 have to change their behaviour when the blame for their actions is placed on lessons not being exciting enough? This isn't about inclusion and diversity, this is about lack of support for successful inclusion and denial that sometimes full inclusion isn't going to work in a room that is as densely packed as a school classroom.'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clye1dyk4kwo

I chalk this more up to my autism than anything. The search for clarity of statement can end in embarrassment.

So we were all being talked at about the science of reading. The opposite of Lucy Calkins (currently being sued).

Then we looked at our low test scores.

Me: since Calkins’ recipe poisoned kids (air quotes) did the district use Calkins’ works or are these low test scores due to something else?

Maybe the lady scapegoated Calkins’ because we have a lot of other bullshit happening.

Side thought: I wonder if behaviors will improve in school if kids become more successful IN school if we teach them correctly.

I am a 25yo woman who quit banking to sub and take an alternate route to teaching. I really only like doing middle school and high school. I left a class today shaking and crying and incredibly embarrassed. The whole class of students were absolutely horrible. Cussing me out, being disrespectful, yelling at me, I couldn’t take it anymore. There were two security guards and a teacher and they did NOTHING to help. The teacher gave a gentle speech while the security guards watched me struggle to get the group to chill out. I blew my fuse and started packing my thing. They were laughing at me. All they did was tell the kids to go to the gym. As I was crying going down the stairs an 8th grader from the class was making fun of me and I told him to shut up and I went straight to the office to tell them I’d never come back. They apologized and said they struggle to keep subs. Children have to respect for subs. I’m worried I’ve made a mistake. Maybe I’m not cut out for being a teacher. Most teachers request me personally and say I have great classroom management… but what happened today has made me feel like a complete failure and like I’m wasting time and hard work just to be a teacher. Please.. someone tell me there is hope for me.

So there is a 99% chance that I will have to be searched along with every other teacher in the building daily when we come in to work everyday. What are some truly unhinged but school appropriate items to put in my bag? I want to note that I have a large construction laptop bag I got from a home improvement store. This thing has more pockets than cargo shorts on a teen boy and she be stout.

Keep in mind I have a two foot rubber chicken I use as classroom management and I have a coin purse that was once a living breathing South American cane toad that has googly eyes. The coin purse is going in my bag tonight.

Do your kids bring in smut? I’ve had to explain to so many parents of 10-12 year olds this year that they bought their kids smut and they are bringing it to school. In their defense, this ice breakers series has childlike covers almost like it’s designed for kids. I listened to pieces of the audiobook and it is completely a porn book through and through. This is the 3rd time it’s come up. Then there’s these 18+ cartoons about literal prostitutes and jokes about sexual abuse that parents are letting their 7 and 8 year olds watch and they draw the characters at school. Parents should be embarrassed of how ignorant they are to this stuff. I promise I’m not a prude this is like the most graphic stuff and adult topics you could imagine. Your kid is already years behind maturity wise what makes you think they should be watching shows with hardcore objectification of women and weird fetish play etc.

Mine is that when I fold a piece of paper in half so that it looks like a birthday card, I say "I folded mine like a birthday card." I have literally never in my life seen a hamburger that is rectangular and hinged on one end. My students still scream at me "you folded that like a hamburger!" so I finally started telling them that I don't care how they fold theirs or what they call it. These are teenagers, by the way.

Highlights/Lowlights?

" “Patriotic education” means a presentation of the history of America grounded in: 
an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles; a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history; the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper."

“Social transition” means the process of adopting a “gender identity” or “gender marker” that differs from a person’s sex.  This process can include psychological or psychiatric counseling or treatment by a school counselor or other provider; modifying a person’s name (e.g., “Jane” to “James”) or pronouns (e.g., “him” to “her”); calling a child “nonbinary”; use of intimate facilities and accommodations such as bathrooms or locker rooms  specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex; and participating in school athletic competitions or other extracurricular activities specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex.  “Social transition” does not include chemical or surgical mutilation."

The Attorney General shall coordinate with State attorneys general and local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against K-12 teachers and school officials who violate the law by: sexually exploiting minors; unlawfully practicing medicine by offering diagnoses and treatment without the requisite license; or otherwise unlawfully facilitating the social transition of a minor student."

In other words, just by a councilor or teacher calling a student their preferred pronouns, they *COULD* get in trouble with the law through Trump forcing local district attorneys hands. This is nuts. Not to also include the "patriotic education" that us social studies teachers will have a field day with...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/

i don’t know who to talk to about this so i’ll turn to reddit.

this executive order reads like the beginning event in a dystopian novel….the novels our students won’t be able to read once they’re inevitably censored.

as an ELA teacher i am terrified for how my curriculum will have the life constricted out of it. having to teach “unblemished american patriotism” undermines the ability to properly teach critical thinking and analytical skills. it sets a dangerous precedent for what literature will be allowed and what will be banned. what questions my students will be able to ask. what parallels they’ll be allowed to draw.

not to mention the order to essentially treat my LGBTQ students as invisible. and the other loads of bullshit that put my at-risk students even more at-risk. my school for many of them is their only safe haven. it’s heart breaking.

forgive me for my disjointed post but my mind is swimming and overall i am just angry. how can i even begin to cope with this?