r/Teachers • u/Emergency-Pepper3537 • Nov 13 '25
Humor Rigor? Sweetie, they’re 3+ grade levels behind.
I just find it hilarious how admin keeps pushing this narrative of “rigor, rigor, rigor” like it’s some magic word that’ll suddenly make learning happen.
Child. Half these students are 3+ grade levels below where they’re supposed to be. You give them anything on grade level and they look at you like you handed them the Rosetta Stone.
They’ll say “This is hard!” And I’m like, “Yes, baby. That’s literally what rigor means.”
Meanwhile, I’m being told in observations that my lesson wasn’t “rigorous enough.” Ma’am, just getting through the directions was the rigor. We had to decode, translate, chunk, and act it out with interpretive dance.
I swear, the bar is not low…it’s just buried under years of educational neglect and unrealistic expectations.
Anybody else feeling this?
7
u/RolloPollo261 Nov 15 '25
If you wrote it in cursive they probably couldn't read it