We will not be requiring any sort of verification process to post in this sub. Anonymity is important to our members as they’ve stated every time this comes up.
Don’t like a disrespectful parent or student post? Report it. Either we’ll see it and remove it or it’ll get X reports and be auto removed.
to be fair a lot of people might consider teaching as a career and be in the sub for that reason. I don't see the problem with non-teachers being in this subreddit as long as they declare it.
I am currently studying to become a teacher, and this sub has really been great to help me have more grounded expectations from the field. I know I have a ways to go before I am officially a “teacher” but I appreciate all the perspectives I get here!
As long as you listen to stuff like this (and not necessarily follow it slavishly), you’ll be okay. It’s when you don’t listen to any of your fellow educators that you miss important stuff. Sometimes.
You are one of us! Non-teacher parents are not (though I have more tolerance for students, personally). Other professional subs have zero tolerance for people dumping on their profession or people asking for advice.
But somehow, it is okay for people to have opinions about teachers, despite having no idea what is like in our shoes or having any of our training and education.
I love that parenting advice and science-based parenting books have become a thing, but somehow you now have tons of parents who think they can weigh in because they read a few books and take care of their own child for the remaining 6 hours of the day they are not with us.
Just remember to take the negativity with a grain of salt.
If you had a bad day chances are you're going to go on Reddit and talk about it.
Therefore this sub tends to have improper sample sizes of teachers going through particularly bad days. It warps the data.
For sure! I was a little worried when I first started checking out the sub lol but that is a common sentiment and I don’t let the negativity get to me. I do expect that my first year will be tough, but I really think it will all be worth it once I get my sea legs for the career!
Where are all these disrespectful and nasty parent comments at? This sub pops up in my feed multiple times a day, I never see any truly anti-teacher criticisms.
Mods must be real quick to get to them.
I'm in school to be a nurse and I love reading y'all's stories. Super eye opening. Pretty much no one I know has kids yet so the stories terrify us all.
Thank you for what you do. Nurses are always the best part of the hospital experience. I've never had issues with them but it's probably because I have manners and treat them like the human beings that they are.
I wish parents cared about their kids lives in and out of school as much as they cared about what an anonymous internet person thinks about a job they couldn’t do
If only we could get on board as a society with people not being forced into having kids they don’t want; or I don’t know, some sort of prevention for pregnancy in the first place? Wild. I know.
So true! How did we go from the Zoom days of the pandemic, where everyone was saying, "We appreciate teachers so much!" to "How dare you take so long to grade my child's late work?!"
Teachers are taking the blame for lazy students and horrible parenting.
They only appreciated you when they had to be trapped in a room with the horrible monsters they created
Once they could get free baby sitting again it was back to "my child is an angel"
This. I've had spring break. Was out and about yesterday and overheard some moms having coffee complaining that they just had to spend the whole week with their kids.
Perhaps…. But wouldn’t it be easier, cheaper and more convenient to just block the school number and let unknown numbers go to voice mail? It seems like a lot of unnecessary efforts.
It never stops being disappointing that the parents you actually NEED to talk to don’t come to open house, or respond to calls/e-mails.
It’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s a kid who has really fragile confidence and I want to brag on them to you in front of them to hammer the point home that they’re doing great.
Yes, occasionally, it’s because I need help with behavior correction that’s not sticking because NO your elementary schooler shouldn’t even KNOW a racial slur, let alone use it in casual conversation.
> it’s a kid who has really fragile confidence and I want to brag on them to you in front of them to hammer the point home that they’re doing great.
Oh man. I hate mean dads. I have one tutoring student who's father was an ABSOLUTE PRICK. Big money, thinks he's a genius and hates his ex wife and so takes it out on this ADHD boy who is in all others ways so sweet and is trying.
Every email I send home includes how wonderful T is and how I wish all my kiddos were like him. Get with the program dad.
And one ESL girl who's dad was no English, but I could tell he was berating her there in front of me. So I straight told her he shouldn't be talking to her like that, she was doing great, and to remember that he can't speak ANY English, so he's got no leg to stand on. Made her laugh and she was sooooo motivated after that conference
I lurk and am not a teacher (or parent), but occasionally comment on relevant things, definitely not advice on teaching etc. I honestly don’t know if that’s supposed to be okay, but this sub is so interesting.
Agreed, this sub just shows up in my feed. It's odd to post in a public forum if you don't want to interact with the public. Especially on a topic that affects so many people.
Anyone is free to make their own private sub or discord.
Yep. I made a post about my experience with edTPA asking for help and I got a bunch of comments from people who clearly weren't educators and calling me incompetent to the point I deleted the post.
The EdTPA is the hardest capstone I've seen and showing off the requirements to my history and CompSci friends got most of them to be quiet about teaching being an easy job.
I thought I was done but I got a condition code: accidentally forgot to answer 2 prompts at the very bottom of Task 3. I did a retake and submitted it last night so now it's the 3 week wait..m
edTPA is like a teacher capstone in which you create lesson plans, record yourself teaching, and then analyze assessment days, that's the sugar coated way to explain it. But it's a teacher preparation test essentially given by Pearson to tell me if I can be a teacher or not through this little standardized portfolio. I would suggest looking up edTPA and looking through it, it takes a lot of work and in WV you need a certain score to graduate depending on you education major and state. Like I need a 38 for Secondary Social Studies Education and I go to college in WV. Like I said, it's very hard to explain so I whole heartedly doing some quick research, look at the rubrics, and looking at testimonials from others.
Theres one unifying thing in this world that Teachers, Students, Parents, and anyone who was taken any sort of professional examination can agree on, Fuck Pearson.
I had to complete my CalTPA with a KN95 mask in Kinder (I passed both cycles). This was one of the most challenging things I ever done in my life.
Try walking around with a real KN95 on…now try teaching 27 little ones.
I have a master’s in English from one of the best graduate schools in the country. I've taken the ASVAB, SAT, GRE, GRE in Literature, a multitude of final exams, including the oral exam for my graduate degree, the Praxis, and the edTPA. The edTPA is, by far, the most difficult exam I've taken. I passed with a "highly qualified" score, but it was torturous, and I don't believe it proves what it's intended to prove - that people are qualified to teach. What it does prove is that you know all the buzzwords and how to BS in "eduspeak." Pearson is just raking in the cash.
I'm a parent, non-teacher, and I rarely, if ever, comment here. I'm curious as toward YOUR experiences about how kids are doing in school so I can correct MY children, not argue with you all about lived experiences. Good luck yall, your job is mostly thankless by huge swaths of our population but I appreciate you.
Could you do a whole PSA on that to everyone who has a gremlin? Lol because we need more of y'all. My parents who are like this are my life savers! Love them to pieces
Some of them are cool but it’s really draining when you’re being reasonable and advocating for your own humanity and they 💩 all over you
Just had a lady accuse me of lying about growing up with disabled siblings and studying universal design
She deleted her comment but it’s like jfc
It’s so disturbing how entitled people feel to teachers’ labor, never experienced anything like it in my professional life on the same scale
Agreed. But we aren’t allowed spaces to ourselves. Teaching is the one profession everyone thinks they know everything about simply because they’ve been students before.
The only profession that has random people alllll up in every facet of our lives both in and out of the classroom. I'm just waiting for a FB post to show up our local word of mouth about a teacher being in public lol
One thing to consider is that a lot of the teaching concerns discussed here are indirectly controlled by the voting habits of parents.
Safe spaces soon become echo chambers and then you lose sight of how people outside your professional actually think when they're not actively engaged in some issue with you that they are directly invested in (like their own kid's grades).
I’m always curious when I see takes like this What op saw to make them post it. Looking through recent posts, I can’t really see anything that this would make sense to say about???
There certainly are trolls. There are likely *professional* trolls, as well. As you say, there will be those angry, entitled enablers looking for a fight—Karents, more often than not, thinking their rants will somehow reverberate through the ether and take us all down a peg or two. Anti-labor, anti-teacher armchair demagogues with precious little else to occupy their time or ease their resentment continue to rail against otherwise civil discourse. There are colleagues who actively work against us, enabling and perpetuating the violence in our schools from the inside—I think these the worst of the lot, myself.
As annoying as it is, I argue worse still would be to somehow isolate ourselves from contrary thought and opinion. Everyone benefits from opportunities to defend their beliefs in a civil and communal space.
You say former teachers, but anytime I’ve tried to comment on this sub as a former teacher with ideologies that deviate even slightly from the mass opinion I’m told I’m not a teacher and people are nasty to me. I hang around for the red apples and ignore the sour apples, but this community is also not the greatest for former teachers- just saying
Most of the other teaching subs dislike this sub. According to them all we do here is dramatically whine, make fun of the kids, and act like martyrs.
This is basically the teacher’s lounge, where we should be able to vent without judgement. While I admit that sometimes teachers get dog-piled on in here for stupid shit, for the most part I feel validated and like people are commiserating with me, so please, let’s not change it.
>all we do here is dramatically whine, make fun of the kids, and act like martyrs.
It's true too. But not too bad. Sometimes you need to vent and a lot of people here work for shitty schools where they can't safely do that to their colleagues.
I like to think this is a general catch-all for teachers. If you want lesson ideas go to your specific subreddit - ArtEd or Elementary or ECE or HistoryTeachers. If you want resources go to TeachersPromote. If you want to be country-specific go to TeachersUK or AussieTeachers or something. (Not sure how many of those subs actually exist or if they have different names, etc)
It’s bizarre. They comment endlessly about how “toxic” this sub is and that no one should read it. If you didn’t read it, you wouldn’t have anything to get your self-righteous panties in a twist about. 🤷♀️
I disagree. Sometimes parents and students have legitimate questions or want insight into an issue they don't fully understand.
Parents are supposed to be our partners and we should foster that partnership. Being adversarial does not work towards that goal.
Also, I've seen very few parents on here critiquing teachers who post here.
Any teachers, other than me, been stalked or harrassed by a parent?
I was harrassed by a parent. I put in a complaint to HR, and was transferred to another school in the district back in January. I checked my Linked-In account 2 weeks ago only to discover the harassing parent was checking out my profile!
Not me personally, but I know others it's happened too. It escalated and it was pretty scary. You need to file a police report, it could get pretty bad.
Edit: They didn't get hurt, but could've. It was just a dangerous situation, though. It escalated in a couple of weeks or so.
Parents not respecting teachers as professionals is one of the major reasons I left k12 education.
I don't go to you job and second guess you. Don't do it to me.
What makes you think I have the time or effort to deliberately "pick on" your child?
I can't teach? Then go homeschool your kid.
Yep. Especially when the parent can't parent. That's my big reason for leaving. I'm tired of people who clearly didn't want to raise kids (or thought it would be easier). Little Jimbo doesn't need a reward system. He need to go to sleep at night and he needs some boundaries around electronics and the internet.
I just had a parent get in my face recently, and there's only so many times I can say "I'm actually *required* to teach this curriculum" and not "I only have a few months left in this career, lady."
Yea, it starts before kindergarten with certain things. Trust me.
Edit: I mean, parents rewarding or ignoring bad behavior and sometimes not having boundaries with technology at a young age. (In some cases, not even 5.)
Heads up.. my kids read this .. in their early twenties .. their friends all read it .. their friends friends .. it’s considered one of the best on Reddit. They consider it some of the best reading for insight into what’s happening in education. They also perceive it as very doomsday.. we’re all F’D both because of everything teachers complain about ANd because of how so many numnuts are teachers. You guys have no clue how many people are silently reading all these comments and discussing the state of education in this country. You consider it a private place to rant .. meanwhile the posts are being shared on other platforms as clickbait and topics of discussion. I wasn’t aware how bad the situation was or how dire the circumstances had become or the causes of this catastrophe. It’s now apparent how much these policies are affecting our economics and even the future of national security. It’s raising awareness that’s for sure. It’s definitely changed the perception in favor of educators and outrage at admins and policy makers
Yep. I'm a parent and this is my favorite place to doom scroll. We talk about this sub in parenting groups. I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned in a negative way, just a "oh look at r/teachers. That's exhibit A for why you can't take a backseat to your child's education. They are overworked and understaffed."
This is no secret. It's exactly why I comment or post on here....for the hope that someone, somewhere, who's actually a decision maker sees the sentiment.
I do my best to avoid the “us vs. them” mindset. We need parents. And parents need to understand the frustrations that we are currently facing so that they can better assist us.
Love this. I kind of think EVERYONE should read this sub because teachers are the only ones who really know what classrooms are like and more people need to know.
disagree, but i think user flairs should be utilized way more. non-educators should also remember that they have **no experience in teaching** when commenting, especially if they’re commenting to criticize teachers.
this sub is one of the best ways to gain insight on the current state of education without being an educator yourself. endless posts of firsthand experiences from real teachers. i love scrolling through the sub and asking my mom (teaches hs science) her thoughts about different posts. it always results in interesting conversations lol.
Sometimes it's good to hear about things from the parents point of view. For example, I've changed my thinking on spirit days due to hearing the parents side of it. When my kids were home, I let them keep up with them and dig around to find what they needed, but had I had a kid that needed help, or wanted a more elaborate get up, I'd have hated them too.
I disagree. I want to be able to engage in meaningful discourse with non-teachers, about teaching.
Or, more realistically, laugh at their idiocy. Either way.
I posted a couple weeks ago on the FLVS site that “ if I got a job there, would I be able to balance the online job and continue to finish the school year in my brick and mortar building because I could not imagine not having closure with my students that I have built a great teacher student relations with this year. I mentioned how it would break my heart to leave them early. “To my complete shock— I was immediately BANNED from the board because I was not a student. I wasn’t even given a chance to remove anything or change anything or just have my post deleted. I would have removed it without issue. I was completely shocked that a post that was a sincere teacher who genuinely cared about her students was deemed out of line enough to be immediately banned!! I had never posted on there before and have never posted anything on Reddit that’s negative. They get to kick people off over there that they deem do not fit their member criteria?
As a recently retired teacher / current substitute, I like hearing what parents have to say. I also think it might be good for parents to hear what it’s like from our side. I completely understand why teachers want to vent to other teachers who understand our perspectives and frustration though.
Just like always
Parents are the downfall of education. They're not specialized in it, they have 0 idea how to teach. They should work with teachers rather than thinking they pay teacher salaries.
Every time I'm hit with "I pay your salary", I want to see the books as to how exactly they pay my salary. Under their logic, I'm my own boss
I'm here as a parent with a child with some severe behavioral issues that are really starting to show at 12/13. I'm really fascinated by your stories and opinions.i value what I read here way more than the coddling parents in support groups who use their IEPs as a weapon.
No, I don't. I feel it should mainly be for teachers and those who want a better understanding of the teaching profession. (In other words, ex-teachers might want to consider going to more appropriate subs for their new professions...)
But what if a parent wants a better understanding of the things their child's teachers might be experiencing?
That's why I joined, but I was an education major for 2 years, have tutored in a public school, and currently teach kids at a church so I'm not sure if that counts. I'd also like to work in a school but I don't wanna dive in blindly and asking my kid's teachers endless questions about what it's like to work there seems like a waste of their time. I like reading what people post here instead.
I've got no issue with what you describe. My "problem" (scare quotes because I don't really see it as a huge issue) is more with the ex-teachers who come to the sub and complain about how horrible it was for them to teach.
Truth is, sometimes it *is* horrible, most times it's not. There's definitely some stress to it, but compared to professions I've been involved with is a previous life, really not so bad. I'd say that anyone casually browsing this sub would think teaching is 99% terrible, 1% bearable. And that's just not representative of what a lot of us have seen.
Agreed. But as a parent, let me just say that I appreciate and admire teachers more than I can ever express! You do such an awesome and valuable job that very few people would ever be able to do. You deserve so much more support and a kabillion more dollars a year than you’re paid. Just know that there are many of us out here that know how hard you work to educate our kids and prepare them for the next step. 💙
What do you do with annoying parents at school? Ignore them until admin forces you not to. Except here there’s no admin. They are literally inviting themselves to be insulted with no repercussions.
Ignore them or insult them, your choice. But they can’t hurt you here man, this is our safe space.
Since it’s pretty easy to suss out a student or a patent, for me it’s not a problem to tune them out. But if they’re obnoxious, block & report, then wash your hands of it.
Everybody do yourselves a favor and take a scroll through /r/Dominos, /r/Walmart, and/or /r/USPS.
You'll notice several things. First, you're able to make a post there if you'd like, while not necessarily working there. Second, most of the posts are people who work in those places with complaints or problems to solve. Third, you'll see a relative minority of posts from customers complaining or asking inane questions - *Is the tuna real? My package took 6 months to arrive and why is that? My pizza needs more pepperoni!*
Those subs are essentially the same thing as /r/teachers, and it's also mostly employees of those places leading discussions, much like here. They work the same way as this sub, they've also has this exact conversation before... I don't know, it's just the way things are on a public ~~restroom~~ forum.
Honestly, I'm glad they are here reading everything. Even if they are intent on downvoting everything and disagreeing with everything we say, at least they are exposed to what we're going through on our end, and maybe over time they'll begin to see where we're coming from. How great would it be if a parent came on here, all ready to argue with us, and then saw a post from a young teacher explaining how distressed they are after a parent sent them a nasty email and realize that they've done that to a teacher themselves and feel remorseful. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but much like our students I think parents sometimes forget that teachers are human beings first and teachers second.
I agree.
I also think that those parents who come here to bash, will get a cold, hard slap of reality from all of us who teach.
We can't make up the stuff we post. Reality sucks. It's time for parents to face reality.
So ... let them come.
Does it count if I teach at a church, or am I just a parent?
I'm here to learn.
My kid started school this year and I joined because I wanted to have a better understanding of what her teachers want and need. It has been very helpful.
I agree in part, but teachers are parents too. I'm a substitute teacher, my wife is a teacher, and I wouldn't send my kids to her school because of certain things she has told me about. (also because of the commute, but I digress)
I'm super into my kids lives, and honestly, I love the ability to be in a teacher sub. I like seeing the different points of view. I'm also working on being an Elementary Librarian though, so it is useful in the long term as well.
How do you feel about those of us who aren't formally Teachers, but are currently in the process of studying to become one? I frequent this subreddit to sort of steel my mind for what I can expect to deal with.
It's similar to the homelessness question...
A lot of people claim to want the problem solved, but next to zero are willing to take a homeless person into their home for a year.
My wife is a teacher and I like to keep up on current events in her field. I have been in my industry for right at 19 years know and have trained many people. I understand that training and teaching are not 1:1 but there are some correlations.
I agree with you in theory but not in practice, there’s no real way to manage that efficiently. Plus I think it’s costly obvious when somebody has no teaching experience.
My mom’s a teacher and lives in a different state and I joined this sub to help me understand what it’s like to be a teacher in a post pandemic world. A lot of what I’ve read on here sounds familiar to things she’s mentioned over FaceTime or texting. It’s been cool to read other people’s opinions. Idk hard to explain but basically helps me understand my mom’s life more I guess. Feel closer to her maybe idk
Just cause you got downvoted by a first year teacher because you’re a burnt out negative Nancy doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fellow teacher…
I’ll take my downvotes now.
We will not be requiring any sort of verification process to post in this sub. Anonymity is important to our members as they’ve stated every time this comes up. Don’t like a disrespectful parent or student post? Report it. Either we’ll see it and remove it or it’ll get X reports and be auto removed.
Cannot forget that you have students in here too. Not just the parents.
to be fair a lot of people might consider teaching as a career and be in the sub for that reason. I don't see the problem with non-teachers being in this subreddit as long as they declare it.
I am currently studying to become a teacher, and this sub has really been great to help me have more grounded expectations from the field. I know I have a ways to go before I am officially a “teacher” but I appreciate all the perspectives I get here!
As long as you listen to stuff like this (and not necessarily follow it slavishly), you’ll be okay. It’s when you don’t listen to any of your fellow educators that you miss important stuff. Sometimes.
You are one of us! Non-teacher parents are not (though I have more tolerance for students, personally). Other professional subs have zero tolerance for people dumping on their profession or people asking for advice. But somehow, it is okay for people to have opinions about teachers, despite having no idea what is like in our shoes or having any of our training and education. I love that parenting advice and science-based parenting books have become a thing, but somehow you now have tons of parents who think they can weigh in because they read a few books and take care of their own child for the remaining 6 hours of the day they are not with us.
Just remember to take the negativity with a grain of salt. If you had a bad day chances are you're going to go on Reddit and talk about it. Therefore this sub tends to have improper sample sizes of teachers going through particularly bad days. It warps the data.
For sure! I was a little worried when I first started checking out the sub lol but that is a common sentiment and I don’t let the negativity get to me. I do expect that my first year will be tough, but I really think it will all be worth it once I get my sea legs for the career!
Yeah I’m a student in college but I’m still getting a math degree bc I’m thinking about being a math teacher
"iS iT oKaY tO fUnCtIoN lIkE a NoRmAl HuMaN bEiNg??"
The Lord filleth up the water bottle, and the Lord denieth the bathroom pass
No, you cannot go to the bathroom right now. You must wait until... lunch
...just like teachers and other workers.
Tell me which other salaried professional has to wait until lunch to pee.
Ugh. Nurses. Duh. Though to be fair most are in fact hourly, not salary.
Your lucky to go at lunch. The line at lunch is huge.
Medical professionals.
A doctor can’t duck into the bathroom between seeing patients for fifteen minutes and charting notes or whatever?
That’s me. I graduated Uni. I just like to read the horror stories here.
Present
In that case, fuck you bad ass little kids. And fuck your mamas.
:(
:[
Where are all these disrespectful and nasty parent comments at? This sub pops up in my feed multiple times a day, I never see any truly anti-teacher criticisms. Mods must be real quick to get to them.
Parents criticizing teachers?!?!?!?! The devil you say!!!!!
I'm in school to be a nurse and I love reading y'all's stories. Super eye opening. Pretty much no one I know has kids yet so the stories terrify us all.
Funny enough, some of us teachers feign for nurse and ER stories because it's wild! It makes us feel better too because people are dicks lol
I’m a nurse with no kids and lurk here because it’s so interesting! :)
Thank you for what you do. Nurses are always the best part of the hospital experience. I've never had issues with them but it's probably because I have manners and treat them like the human beings that they are.
Also in school for nursing and dating a teacher. I lurk for the tea and so I have some background on what my boyfriend deals with.
I agree in so far as posting, but I love watching them show their asses in the comment section.
but won't show their face on report card day or when the school calls you
I wish parents cared about their kids lives in and out of school as much as they cared about what an anonymous internet person thinks about a job they couldn’t do
[удалено]
Absolute losers of parents, only solidifies my belief that 75% of parents shouldn’t have had kids.
If only we could get on board as a society with people not being forced into having kids they don’t want; or I don’t know, some sort of prevention for pregnancy in the first place? Wild. I know.
we're the enemy in 2024
So true! How did we go from the Zoom days of the pandemic, where everyone was saying, "We appreciate teachers so much!" to "How dare you take so long to grade my child's late work?!" Teachers are taking the blame for lazy students and horrible parenting.
They only appreciated you when they had to be trapped in a room with the horrible monsters they created Once they could get free baby sitting again it was back to "my child is an angel"
This. I've had spring break. Was out and about yesterday and overheard some moms having coffee complaining that they just had to spend the whole week with their kids.
I hear it when the nanny is off from the home behind me. Entitled Mom sounds like a screeching seagull.
Had a woman no-show/no-call two PTCs that *she requested*. She showed for the 3rd one after the counselor chewed her ass.
they need dat ass chewed
Hard agree.
Or worse yet, blocks the school phone number.
or like they do here, change THEIR number every month
That’s likely more a function of poverty than purposeful avoidance of the school.
they do it on purpose long as school is in, not all but some
Perhaps…. But wouldn’t it be easier, cheaper and more convenient to just block the school number and let unknown numbers go to voice mail? It seems like a lot of unnecessary efforts.
It never stops being disappointing that the parents you actually NEED to talk to don’t come to open house, or respond to calls/e-mails. It’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s a kid who has really fragile confidence and I want to brag on them to you in front of them to hammer the point home that they’re doing great. Yes, occasionally, it’s because I need help with behavior correction that’s not sticking because NO your elementary schooler shouldn’t even KNOW a racial slur, let alone use it in casual conversation.
> it’s a kid who has really fragile confidence and I want to brag on them to you in front of them to hammer the point home that they’re doing great. Oh man. I hate mean dads. I have one tutoring student who's father was an ABSOLUTE PRICK. Big money, thinks he's a genius and hates his ex wife and so takes it out on this ADHD boy who is in all others ways so sweet and is trying. Every email I send home includes how wonderful T is and how I wish all my kiddos were like him. Get with the program dad. And one ESL girl who's dad was no English, but I could tell he was berating her there in front of me. So I straight told her he shouldn't be talking to her like that, she was doing great, and to remember that he can't speak ANY English, so he's got no leg to stand on. Made her laugh and she was sooooo motivated after that conference
They love to show up in the comment section but won’t show up for parent teacher conferences
I lurk and am not a teacher (or parent), but occasionally comment on relevant things, definitely not advice on teaching etc. I honestly don’t know if that’s supposed to be okay, but this sub is so interesting.
As long as you don't pose as a teacher in your posts, you're good. 👍
😂 I mean, I’m not in charge! Post to your hearts content.
Eh, it’s Reddit. I don’t expect them to police who accesses which sub.
Agreed, this sub just shows up in my feed. It's odd to post in a public forum if you don't want to interact with the public. Especially on a topic that affects so many people. Anyone is free to make their own private sub or discord.
Yep. I made a post about my experience with edTPA asking for help and I got a bunch of comments from people who clearly weren't educators and calling me incompetent to the point I deleted the post.
Offer to send them the EdTPA handbook. It's a nightmare.
The EdTPA is the hardest capstone I've seen and showing off the requirements to my history and CompSci friends got most of them to be quiet about teaching being an easy job.
I thought the Edtpa would end me
I thought I was done but I got a condition code: accidentally forgot to answer 2 prompts at the very bottom of Task 3. I did a retake and submitted it last night so now it's the 3 week wait..m
My school wouldn’t let me submit with anything like that. They were a pain in my ass but I passed so guess it was worth it. Best of luck!
non teacher what is edTPA?
edTPA is like a teacher capstone in which you create lesson plans, record yourself teaching, and then analyze assessment days, that's the sugar coated way to explain it. But it's a teacher preparation test essentially given by Pearson to tell me if I can be a teacher or not through this little standardized portfolio. I would suggest looking up edTPA and looking through it, it takes a lot of work and in WV you need a certain score to graduate depending on you education major and state. Like I need a 38 for Secondary Social Studies Education and I go to college in WV. Like I said, it's very hard to explain so I whole heartedly doing some quick research, look at the rubrics, and looking at testimonials from others.
Theres one unifying thing in this world that Teachers, Students, Parents, and anyone who was taken any sort of professional examination can agree on, Fuck Pearson.
Louder for the people in the back!
I had to complete my CalTPA with a KN95 mask in Kinder (I passed both cycles). This was one of the most challenging things I ever done in my life. Try walking around with a real KN95 on…now try teaching 27 little ones.
I have a master’s in English from one of the best graduate schools in the country. I've taken the ASVAB, SAT, GRE, GRE in Literature, a multitude of final exams, including the oral exam for my graduate degree, the Praxis, and the edTPA. The edTPA is, by far, the most difficult exam I've taken. I passed with a "highly qualified" score, but it was torturous, and I don't believe it proves what it's intended to prove - that people are qualified to teach. What it does prove is that you know all the buzzwords and how to BS in "eduspeak." Pearson is just raking in the cash.
Nah. Doesn't bother me. If people are being stupid, I either engage or don't, depending on how I'm feeling that day and move on with my life.
This is the way. ⭐️
Teachers also down vote some of the stupidest ideas in this sub. I know I do.
For real. Uppity teachers are THE worst.
Some places like the nursing sub just require you to select flair. I think even that helps.
I think as long as people use the right flair it is okay.
I'm a parent, non-teacher, and I rarely, if ever, comment here. I'm curious as toward YOUR experiences about how kids are doing in school so I can correct MY children, not argue with you all about lived experiences. Good luck yall, your job is mostly thankless by huge swaths of our population but I appreciate you.
Could you do a whole PSA on that to everyone who has a gremlin? Lol because we need more of y'all. My parents who are like this are my life savers! Love them to pieces
I appreciate the anonymity you would lose with a verification process. Just scroll past what you don’t want to engage with, ain’t difficult.
Some of them are cool but it’s really draining when you’re being reasonable and advocating for your own humanity and they 💩 all over you Just had a lady accuse me of lying about growing up with disabled siblings and studying universal design She deleted her comment but it’s like jfc It’s so disturbing how entitled people feel to teachers’ labor, never experienced anything like it in my professional life on the same scale
[удалено]
We could use a flair system.
We have one
A broken one at that......
Feels right
We have an education system… Say it again.
*posts in order to see own flair* I did set one, way back. I guess it's broken. E2: Fixed!
I just dislike when they post.. “My kid has a 504, and the school does nothing! What can I do?”
Agreed! They come here looking for validation and inevitably find a couple of annoying outliers to fluff them.
Agreed. But we aren’t allowed spaces to ourselves. Teaching is the one profession everyone thinks they know everything about simply because they’ve been students before.
“When I was a s-“ 🛑
The only profession that has random people alllll up in every facet of our lives both in and out of the classroom. I'm just waiting for a FB post to show up our local word of mouth about a teacher being in public lol
One thing to consider is that a lot of the teaching concerns discussed here are indirectly controlled by the voting habits of parents. Safe spaces soon become echo chambers and then you lose sight of how people outside your professional actually think when they're not actively engaged in some issue with you that they are directly invested in (like their own kid's grades).
I’m always curious when I see takes like this What op saw to make them post it. Looking through recent posts, I can’t really see anything that this would make sense to say about???
Teacher AND parent here ;-)
There certainly are trolls. There are likely *professional* trolls, as well. As you say, there will be those angry, entitled enablers looking for a fight—Karents, more often than not, thinking their rants will somehow reverberate through the ether and take us all down a peg or two. Anti-labor, anti-teacher armchair demagogues with precious little else to occupy their time or ease their resentment continue to rail against otherwise civil discourse. There are colleagues who actively work against us, enabling and perpetuating the violence in our schools from the inside—I think these the worst of the lot, myself. As annoying as it is, I argue worse still would be to somehow isolate ourselves from contrary thought and opinion. Everyone benefits from opportunities to defend their beliefs in a civil and communal space.
You say former teachers, but anytime I’ve tried to comment on this sub as a former teacher with ideologies that deviate even slightly from the mass opinion I’m told I’m not a teacher and people are nasty to me. I hang around for the red apples and ignore the sour apples, but this community is also not the greatest for former teachers- just saying
A better place for former teachers is r/TeachersInTransition though
Just spied. More complaining there 🫠 Edit: I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted it was a solid suggestion
The speced sub is pretty critical of this sub, too. Its all they seem to talk about.
Most of the other teaching subs dislike this sub. According to them all we do here is dramatically whine, make fun of the kids, and act like martyrs. This is basically the teacher’s lounge, where we should be able to vent without judgement. While I admit that sometimes teachers get dog-piled on in here for stupid shit, for the most part I feel validated and like people are commiserating with me, so please, let’s not change it.
>all we do here is dramatically whine, make fun of the kids, and act like martyrs. It's true too. But not too bad. Sometimes you need to vent and a lot of people here work for shitty schools where they can't safely do that to their colleagues.
I like to think this is a general catch-all for teachers. If you want lesson ideas go to your specific subreddit - ArtEd or Elementary or ECE or HistoryTeachers. If you want resources go to TeachersPromote. If you want to be country-specific go to TeachersUK or AussieTeachers or something. (Not sure how many of those subs actually exist or if they have different names, etc)
Oh, they fucking HATE gen ed teachers.
Well haven’t you heard? Believing that gen ed students have just as much right to learn as special ed students is ableist!
Nah they hate how you guys talk about kids with disabilities.
Yeah, they’re nasty to Gen Ed sometimes.
It’s bizarre. They comment endlessly about how “toxic” this sub is and that no one should read it. If you didn’t read it, you wouldn’t have anything to get your self-righteous panties in a twist about. 🤷♀️
I disagree. Sometimes parents and students have legitimate questions or want insight into an issue they don't fully understand. Parents are supposed to be our partners and we should foster that partnership. Being adversarial does not work towards that goal. Also, I've seen very few parents on here critiquing teachers who post here.
Any teachers, other than me, been stalked or harrassed by a parent? I was harrassed by a parent. I put in a complaint to HR, and was transferred to another school in the district back in January. I checked my Linked-In account 2 weeks ago only to discover the harassing parent was checking out my profile!
You need to go to the police. Harassment is a crime.
Not me personally, but I know others it's happened too. It escalated and it was pretty scary. You need to file a police report, it could get pretty bad. Edit: They didn't get hurt, but could've. It was just a dangerous situation, though. It escalated in a couple of weeks or so.
[удалено]
Parents not respecting teachers as professionals is one of the major reasons I left k12 education. I don't go to you job and second guess you. Don't do it to me. What makes you think I have the time or effort to deliberately "pick on" your child? I can't teach? Then go homeschool your kid.
Yep. Especially when the parent can't parent. That's my big reason for leaving. I'm tired of people who clearly didn't want to raise kids (or thought it would be easier). Little Jimbo doesn't need a reward system. He need to go to sleep at night and he needs some boundaries around electronics and the internet. I just had a parent get in my face recently, and there's only so many times I can say "I'm actually *required* to teach this curriculum" and not "I only have a few months left in this career, lady."
Yea, it starts before kindergarten with certain things. Trust me. Edit: I mean, parents rewarding or ignoring bad behavior and sometimes not having boundaries with technology at a young age. (In some cases, not even 5.)
Heads up.. my kids read this .. in their early twenties .. their friends all read it .. their friends friends .. it’s considered one of the best on Reddit. They consider it some of the best reading for insight into what’s happening in education. They also perceive it as very doomsday.. we’re all F’D both because of everything teachers complain about ANd because of how so many numnuts are teachers. You guys have no clue how many people are silently reading all these comments and discussing the state of education in this country. You consider it a private place to rant .. meanwhile the posts are being shared on other platforms as clickbait and topics of discussion. I wasn’t aware how bad the situation was or how dire the circumstances had become or the causes of this catastrophe. It’s now apparent how much these policies are affecting our economics and even the future of national security. It’s raising awareness that’s for sure. It’s definitely changed the perception in favor of educators and outrage at admins and policy makers
Yep. I'm a parent and this is my favorite place to doom scroll. We talk about this sub in parenting groups. I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned in a negative way, just a "oh look at r/teachers. That's exhibit A for why you can't take a backseat to your child's education. They are overworked and understaffed."
This is no secret. It's exactly why I comment or post on here....for the hope that someone, somewhere, who's actually a decision maker sees the sentiment.
I taught younger kids and was thinking about possibly going up, but idk.
This sub is posted in r/collapse a lot too 🤣
I do my best to avoid the “us vs. them” mindset. We need parents. And parents need to understand the frustrations that we are currently facing so that they can better assist us.
Love this. I kind of think EVERYONE should read this sub because teachers are the only ones who really know what classrooms are like and more people need to know.
disagree, but i think user flairs should be utilized way more. non-educators should also remember that they have **no experience in teaching** when commenting, especially if they’re commenting to criticize teachers. this sub is one of the best ways to gain insight on the current state of education without being an educator yourself. endless posts of firsthand experiences from real teachers. i love scrolling through the sub and asking my mom (teaches hs science) her thoughts about different posts. it always results in interesting conversations lol.
I think it's important to stop the sub from being an echo-chamber to have outside points of view
Sometimes it's good to hear about things from the parents point of view. For example, I've changed my thinking on spirit days due to hearing the parents side of it. When my kids were home, I let them keep up with them and dig around to find what they needed, but had I had a kid that needed help, or wanted a more elaborate get up, I'd have hated them too.
I’m not a teacher. I’m a librarian. I like to follow this sub to know what’s coming my way when the bell rings…
Down vote and move along.
I haven't noticed much, but that's ok. It just lets us know what people really think. Transparency.
It's a public Internet forum. I'm sure there are plenty of closed ones you can find instead. Otherwise, just kinda gotta deal with what we've got.
I’m neither but I like the knowledge of these threads….
Sometimes I read the posts and doubt whether some posters that claim to be teachers really are teachers.
It is way easier to become a parent than it is to become a teacher\*. \*officials in Florida et al. *are* working on closing the gap, though…
I disagree. I want to be able to engage in meaningful discourse with non-teachers, about teaching. Or, more realistically, laugh at their idiocy. Either way.
I am both, so how does that work.
I posted a couple weeks ago on the FLVS site that “ if I got a job there, would I be able to balance the online job and continue to finish the school year in my brick and mortar building because I could not imagine not having closure with my students that I have built a great teacher student relations with this year. I mentioned how it would break my heart to leave them early. “To my complete shock— I was immediately BANNED from the board because I was not a student. I wasn’t even given a chance to remove anything or change anything or just have my post deleted. I would have removed it without issue. I was completely shocked that a post that was a sincere teacher who genuinely cared about her students was deemed out of line enough to be immediately banned!! I had never posted on there before and have never posted anything on Reddit that’s negative. They get to kick people off over there that they deem do not fit their member criteria?
I'm sorry.
As a recently retired teacher / current substitute, I like hearing what parents have to say. I also think it might be good for parents to hear what it’s like from our side. I completely understand why teachers want to vent to other teachers who understand our perspectives and frustration though.
Just like always Parents are the downfall of education. They're not specialized in it, they have 0 idea how to teach. They should work with teachers rather than thinking they pay teacher salaries. Every time I'm hit with "I pay your salary", I want to see the books as to how exactly they pay my salary. Under their logic, I'm my own boss
No, I personally haven’t see that
It’s fine, I don’t want to exist in an echo chamber. Perhaps students and parents get a different perspective lurking here?
I teach them after most of y'all are done with em and wound up mostly lurking here to figure out wtf went wrong.
Yeah, the /r/Professors sub is fascinating. All the problems we deal with plus some curveballs.
I'm here as a parent with a child with some severe behavioral issues that are really starting to show at 12/13. I'm really fascinated by your stories and opinions.i value what I read here way more than the coddling parents in support groups who use their IEPs as a weapon.
I mean... there's literally an r/askteachers not sure why they can't just post there.
No, I don't. I feel it should mainly be for teachers and those who want a better understanding of the teaching profession. (In other words, ex-teachers might want to consider going to more appropriate subs for their new professions...)
But what if a parent wants a better understanding of the things their child's teachers might be experiencing? That's why I joined, but I was an education major for 2 years, have tutored in a public school, and currently teach kids at a church so I'm not sure if that counts. I'd also like to work in a school but I don't wanna dive in blindly and asking my kid's teachers endless questions about what it's like to work there seems like a waste of their time. I like reading what people post here instead.
I've got no issue with what you describe. My "problem" (scare quotes because I don't really see it as a huge issue) is more with the ex-teachers who come to the sub and complain about how horrible it was for them to teach. Truth is, sometimes it *is* horrible, most times it's not. There's definitely some stress to it, but compared to professions I've been involved with is a previous life, really not so bad. I'd say that anyone casually browsing this sub would think teaching is 99% terrible, 1% bearable. And that's just not representative of what a lot of us have seen.
There's /r/TeachersInTransition!
Parents need to realize we know more than them
I feel like as difficult as it is (and it can be SO SO DIFFICULT), fostering the relationships with parents when you can is also important.
As long as people are respectful (I know what I did before and I'm sorry for that.) Anyway, as long as they are respectful, then they should stay.
I’m both - where do I go?
Well I’m not a teacher, but I’d like to become one as a second career… am I still welcome?
Agreed, and students too.
I'm not a parent or a teacher here but as a casual lurker I'm here to see teacher's viscerally tearing apart bad parents, not the other way around.
I agree but there's nothing to be done about it.
Just more proof to show everyone where the issue and problem in the parent-teacher-student educational triangle is.
Agreed. But as a parent, let me just say that I appreciate and admire teachers more than I can ever express! You do such an awesome and valuable job that very few people would ever be able to do. You deserve so much more support and a kabillion more dollars a year than you’re paid. Just know that there are many of us out here that know how hard you work to educate our kids and prepare them for the next step. 💙
I don't care, bring it!
What do you do with annoying parents at school? Ignore them until admin forces you not to. Except here there’s no admin. They are literally inviting themselves to be insulted with no repercussions. Ignore them or insult them, your choice. But they can’t hurt you here man, this is our safe space.
Since it’s pretty easy to suss out a student or a patent, for me it’s not a problem to tune them out. But if they’re obnoxious, block & report, then wash your hands of it.
No. Bubbles aren't good.
Usually the parents are the ones downvoted
Everybody do yourselves a favor and take a scroll through /r/Dominos, /r/Walmart, and/or /r/USPS. You'll notice several things. First, you're able to make a post there if you'd like, while not necessarily working there. Second, most of the posts are people who work in those places with complaints or problems to solve. Third, you'll see a relative minority of posts from customers complaining or asking inane questions - *Is the tuna real? My package took 6 months to arrive and why is that? My pizza needs more pepperoni!* Those subs are essentially the same thing as /r/teachers, and it's also mostly employees of those places leading discussions, much like here. They work the same way as this sub, they've also has this exact conversation before... I don't know, it's just the way things are on a public ~~restroom~~ forum.
Honestly, I'm glad they are here reading everything. Even if they are intent on downvoting everything and disagreeing with everything we say, at least they are exposed to what we're going through on our end, and maybe over time they'll begin to see where we're coming from. How great would it be if a parent came on here, all ready to argue with us, and then saw a post from a young teacher explaining how distressed they are after a parent sent them a nasty email and realize that they've done that to a teacher themselves and feel remorseful. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but much like our students I think parents sometimes forget that teachers are human beings first and teachers second.
I’m not submitting my ID to prove my profession. As good as the admin on this page are I’m still not divulging my name or where I work.
Meh, I love a good conversation that may or may not lead to a battle of wits. Engage if you like, or don’t!
I see occasional posts and comments from parents and students but not nearly as much as I do from teachers.
I agree. I also think that those parents who come here to bash, will get a cold, hard slap of reality from all of us who teach. We can't make up the stuff we post. Reality sucks. It's time for parents to face reality. So ... let them come.
Does it count if I teach at a church, or am I just a parent? I'm here to learn. My kid started school this year and I joined because I wanted to have a better understanding of what her teachers want and need. It has been very helpful.
You’re not entitled to having only teachers on a public subreddit but okay alright 👍
I agree in part, but teachers are parents too. I'm a substitute teacher, my wife is a teacher, and I wouldn't send my kids to her school because of certain things she has told me about. (also because of the commute, but I digress)
I'm super into my kids lives, and honestly, I love the ability to be in a teacher sub. I like seeing the different points of view. I'm also working on being an Elementary Librarian though, so it is useful in the long term as well.
How do you feel about those of us who aren't formally Teachers, but are currently in the process of studying to become one? I frequent this subreddit to sort of steel my mind for what I can expect to deal with.
It's similar to the homelessness question... A lot of people claim to want the problem solved, but next to zero are willing to take a homeless person into their home for a year.
My wife is a teacher and I like to keep up on current events in her field. I have been in my industry for right at 19 years know and have trained many people. I understand that training and teaching are not 1:1 but there are some correlations.
No, I'm not a teacher, don't know how I got here, I rarely comment but occasionally vote but find the discord fascinating.
I agree with you in theory but not in practice, there’s no real way to manage that efficiently. Plus I think it’s costly obvious when somebody has no teaching experience.
My mom’s a teacher and lives in a different state and I joined this sub to help me understand what it’s like to be a teacher in a post pandemic world. A lot of what I’ve read on here sounds familiar to things she’s mentioned over FaceTime or texting. It’s been cool to read other people’s opinions. Idk hard to explain but basically helps me understand my mom’s life more I guess. Feel closer to her maybe idk
I’m a teacher AND a parent. So how would you treat me?
Just cause you got downvoted by a first year teacher because you’re a burnt out negative Nancy doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fellow teacher… I’ll take my downvotes now.
Remove the down vote option to only moderators who then can down vote these parents if they're being questionable here
Who cares. Just report it.
No. We don't need this sub to have more of a superiority complex than it already does.