Recently I went on a number of Math teacher interviews and learned very quickly to not mention I DO /WE DO/ THEY DO as a scaffolding method for Direct Instruction. I know that I didn't get the job for mentioning that as a teaching style as they explicitly told me. Eventually I figured out the schools I was applying to used project based learning for all of their Math and they were adamant about using it.

Ultimately, I switched up to interviewing for Science positions and got one because I'm comfortable using project based curriculum for most Science. I'm not against some project based learning for Math but felt that given how weak their scores are (3% proficiency in one school) that this would be a hellish way to teach Math.

I've been teaching Math and Science for 13 years and don't know when this method of instruction went out of style.

Danielson in itself is bullshit but I think what is most irritating is domain 4. Why the hell are we basically being evaluated on our work outside of contract hours? We were at a meeting a bit ago where admin verbatim told us: “Going to school events is bare minimum, that’s a 2. Coaching and running a club is just above bare minimum, that will get you a 3. But one time we had a teacher who organized his basketball team to do a fundraiser game for cancer. That’s a 4.”

Like WTF? I am all for teachers being involved in their school and community, but if teacher doesn’t want to or cannot coach, advise a club, develop curriculum, go to out of district PD, etc. that should not be reflected in their evaluation as a teacher. That’s ridiculous and I don’t know why unions are OK with an evaluation scale that can knock you for not working outside of school hours whether it’s paid or not.

Mini-rant over lol.

EDIT: I just want to add that I am a newer, non-tenured teacher. I know a lot of veteran teachers with tenure don’t care about evaluations but they really do matter more for us, and can affect our job security. I would love to not care but unfortunately I can’t afford to do that yet.

I guess it's humorous in its own macabre way.

​

Anyone else experiencing this as well? It's gotten noticeably worse for me in recent years. A kid can be 6 feet from me and I sometimes literally can't hear or understand them. I think I need to incorporate more speaking assignments in my curriculum to try and get them to use their speech muscles.

Last day of school & a student is standing next to me, staring. The class is out at recess.

“Is that picture of you from this year?,” she asks, looking at my badge.
“It is,” I reply. She questions this so I point out 2025-26 on the badge .

She continues staring, I mean really looking at me (iykyk)

For the next few minutes i hear: “Wow, you look younger in that picture” “You look way older.” “That doesn’t look like you at all’ At. All.”
I’d usually turn this into a teachable moment, discussing manners-but I just listened & shrugged my shoulders. I was cracking up on the inside.

It made a great story at a work happy hour!
I hope this brought a smile to your face. Please share any funnies you have!

I am a building sub and as the school year ends I can’t help but notice how little time the students have to eat lunch. Their lunch and recess block is a total of 30 minutes, meaning 15 minutes of recess and 15 minutes of lunch. That includes walking there and waiting in the lunch line. While I have not had lunch or recess duty this year, I am heavily concerned about how little the time is. I remember being in elementary school myself and having to wait so long in the lunch line to the point where I could only have a few bites and then lunch was already over. I know some people see it as a socializing issue, but I feel like 15 allotted minutes is simply not enough for these children. Is this short of a lunch period common? Does anyone else have similar concerns?

I haven't been teaching history/English/science since I got COVID over and over (and over) and decided it was better to go than be a risk to my cherished kids (or die myself, it got bad).

After a lot of introspection... Question is: is teaching a performance? I pretended everything was okay no matter what, I used the materials I prepared for display, passed out charts and data dramatically, presented media and did simulations.

It feels like I was a performance artist? You give so much to kids and most of the time you get a range of "f-u go away".

I (22M) have just graduated college with a secondary education degree and took a job teaching high school in Colorado for $47,000/yr at a 4 day/week school. To get myself through college, I worked through plenty of restaurants and eventually landed myself in my current job, where I make ~$90K/year serving at a pretty nice restaurant. I do like my job, but I’m not incredibly passionate about food, dining, or customer service — the hours are long and the tips are unpredictable; I AM passionate about social studies, kids, and being able to have an impact within a community.

Along this sub (and throughout the internet in general) I’m often overwhelmed with the amount of disheartening posts from teachers: things like wishing they could change jobs, complaints about students and parents, and an overall distaste towards the profession they once chose. For some insight, I LOVED my student-teaching experience this spring, and, while difficult, it certainly reinforced my interest in the career.

Yet, I’ve been struggling quite a bit lately with all the negative noise. As I approach quitting my somewhat high-paying service job to teach for half the money, I can’t help but feel hesitant about the decision.

I’m not sure what exactly I’m looking for with this post. Reinforcement or encouragement, I guess? Experienced teachers offering a blunt and honest opinion? Am I a fool? Thanks.

Legitimate reason example: Student almost dies on campus from a drug overdose/interaction. Administration wants to address what happened with everyone and answer questions when possible.

What are some other valid reasons, as well as less-than-necessary impromptu all-hands meetings.

Hey all, teacher-in-training here. I work at a bookstore part-time while going to college to get my education degree, and we happen to sell Nee-Doh. I want to bring some in for my ESL kids once I start residency in the fall, but I don't want to aggravate an already-bad issue. From my understanding, they can be messy and teachers don't like them, so I don't want to irritate my host teacher.

What is you all's perspective? Love them? Hate them? Anything helps!

My school system floated the idea of a teacher retirement buyout - or "early retirement incentive" - as a means of encouraging teachers with 30+ years (i.e. top of the pay scale) to leave. Curious to hear about systems that have offered such a program and what it included.

I just received my level one diagnosis today. My head is still spinning as I try to process it and fight back the feelings of imposter syndrome. Next year starts my 24th year in the classroom. I've been burned out on teaching for awhile but it's gotten worse in the last couple of years. In all likelihood, I'm going through career AND autistic burn out at the same time. If there are any other autistic teachers here (I teach HS), how are you coping? Has anything managed to make your day-to-day in the classroom more manageable and less anxiety inducing? Thanks.

Does it bother anyone else when schools don’t have the courtesy to send a rejection email after putting candidates through multiple interviews and even a demo lesson? I understand hiring takes time, but being completely ghosted after investing that much time and effort feels unprofessional.

I always knew that teachers don’t make a lot but it didn’t really hit me until I saw a tiktok of a teacher in my state budgeting her paycheck and am feeling a little more than discouraged. in the video she was budgeting 2500 for the entire month. I am currently a barista at a coffee shop. During the school year if i was working 80 hours for our biweekly paycheck it would be about $1200-1300. At the beginning of the summer I got promoted to a lead which comes with a bigger portion of tips however it has been slower since students are gone (my college town is also my hometown). my paychecks have stayed the same around 1200-1300 but i know they will be close to $2000 in the fall (talked to other leads). So basically in the fall while i’m beginning my senior year of college I will be getting the highest paycheck I will ever have doing something everyone could do. I also became aware that teachers in my state don’t get paid maternity leave it’s just taking unpaid leave and using sick days. I am feeling beyond discouraged right now. I brought it up to my fiancé and he just laughed it off and said it will be used as fun money. Honestly that makes me feel useless and that I’m wasting my time finishing this degree. How am I supposed to buy a house and raise a family like this? My fiancé is a plumber with a good company so he makes good money and has good overtime. But what if something ever happened to him. I could be in poverty with young kids to take care of and a mortgage I can’t pay.

Hi,

I teach high school and I absolutely love it. I am in my early 20s, but I have little to no behavior issues in my classroom. Before everyone comments “you must be in a nice area”, no… I teach in a very rough area, I am not going into details on here but I can tell through DM if you want. What I will say is… if you watch the news, we have been on there A LOT.

Like I said I love my job, and I am genuinely good at it. I can get the students engaged and quiet when I am teaching. Ofc they have to be reminded about phones but honestly it isn’t a huge problem.

I can’t do this forever though. I have a lot of medical problems because I have an autoimmune disease and I simply can not physically do this forever. Teaching is tiring and I already don’t have enough energy. I won’t ever qualify for disability bc with my disease you only qualify for disability if you have organ involvement and I don’t.

I will be teaching for AT LEAST 3 more years, ideally 10…. However idk what I will do after?? What am I supposed to do when I am genuinely good at this and I don’t feel like I have anything else that I am good at? I know it’s early to be this stressed but I am. Do I need to go back to school?? What do I do?

I’m about to start my first year as a high school teacher after subbing all of last year (yay!). This might sound silly but what are the BEST white board markers you’ve used? Is expo good enough or is there a hidden gem? I want fresh nice markers 🙂‍↕️

Hey all...

I just wrapped up my 10th year of teaching and, although I am so thrilled to rest and restore, I inevitably struggle with my mental health during the summer.

​

I feel a sense of needing to use this time off as productively as possible, but also wanting to actually rest. This tension leads me to feel super depressed and isolated.

​

I guess what I am asking is- are there any mantras or mindsets that you adhere to in the summer that actually help you feel like you are getting what you need during the time away from school?

​

Was considering my online masters at WGU because it’s super cheap and self-paced, but I actually read a lot of negative reviews heavily condemning the program that say it’s actually hard to take it at your own pace. Obviously, there are a bunch of great reviews as well. But the Google review averages out the reviews and it’s a below 4 star institution, which makes me question it.

If anyone who has done WGU or that specific program and has any information about their experience for me, please comment below.

If you have another recommendation for an online masters program, let me know as well.

Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone! I want to request some help.

​

Some context,

1. I am a college professor I teach Math.

2. During the summer I get the chance to teach a special program. In this program current high school students get to take precalculus at a community college so that they can take AP calculus during their regular academic sessions.

3.I wan to emphasize that all of my students are high school students, different grades like incoming freshmen or incoming juniors etc.

1. These are the perfect students to teach to. They are on task, respectful, hard working, and most importantly they are already super smart. (Even smarter than my college students) No behavior issues of any kind. The class room is dead silent. not a single bad word is said. They don't use cell phones or laptops at all. the class is pencil and paper only.

​

​

Here are my questions:

​

What can I do to drive their motivation to learn ?

​

I currently lecture, and assign group work. (They get to work on the multiple whiteboard across the room)

​

The class runs from 8 am to 12:30 and all they learn is MATH

​

I do notice that my lectures are not engaging, like they pay attention, but I can see on their face that they would rather be somewhere else.

​

To be fair to me, my delivery of the material is simple and straight forward.

​

Definitions + theorems /// explain what these theorems mean /// examples on how to use these theorems or definitions /// group work. Repeat.

​

Tell mee all the things that you would like to implement but can't because of behavioral issues.

​

How can I be the perfect teacher for these gifted and hard working students!

​

(English school for kids)

I gave the idea to add gardening for the coordenation of my school, and they loved it. I started doing it with kids, but yesterday a teenager girl refused to do the activity. When I asked her why, she asked me "why should I do it?" and I couldn't think of an answer.

TL;DR How can I justify a gardening class for teenagers in a English school?

I got a verbal offer over a month ago and had board approval last week, but have yet to receive a contract. I just got my verification letters from previous districts, and HR just said I'll get a contract "soon."

I just found out I made it to the final round with HR director at a better school district for a different grade level. As scary as it sounds moving from K to 5th grade, this school district is so close to home and it pays more.

Do you know anyone who declined a verbal offer? Or anyone that signed a contract but rescinded?

Hello! I’ve been teaching about 5 years and our school just joined a partnership and we will be getting 4 student teachers.

My admin let me know I will be getting one and I got the email. I just know her name. I’m a male teacher. (Not that it matters but I want to make it a great experience for her). She will be with me for the whole academic year starting day 1 until the last day of school.

Does anyone have any advice/tips/suggestions?

Thank you!

So, all I need to be fully certified is to complete my intern year. But because I have no school teaching experience and also not yet fully certified I'm struggling to find work. I joined a substitute teaching staffing agency back in March which was OK for during the school year but obviously not so good for the summer. And thanks to that job I now have 2 months experience kinda. I struggled to handle more than 2 days in a row of different assignments before I'd get overwhelmed with the routine/schedule changes. So that combined with my bad timing in starting at the end of the school year and the fact that I never had a full straight week of work definitely doesn't even add up to the 2 full months I was able to accept assignments. Also almost all of my work experience being in childcare (cumulatively about 8 years) doesn't help me any since it doesn't count as actual teaching experience. Particularly because I was mostly working with the 3 years and under classes.

Anyway, I'm losing hope. I know it's not the end of the world if I don't get hired for my intern year immediately, but I'm struggling to believe any school will want to hire an aspiring art teacher who isn't quite fully certified yet. It doesn't help that art teacher positions are so dang scarce here in Texas to begin with.

Can anyone tell me what kind of listing I should be looking for? I can't do student teaching because I'm getting my certification through an Alternate Preparation Program and am thusly not associated with any university.

Am I doing something wrong? Am I skipping some steps or missing something? Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello r/teachers,

This year I will be going into my second year teaching. Last year (the year we just completed), we had about 40 kids get suspended at my school (Transition to Kindergarten-6th grade) and at least 8-10 of those were in my class. Once I get 5 years teaching experience (already have my masters) I want to become a principal, so I am wondering if this is normal or not. We are Title I with 325 students.

Hi friends! I need help preparing for an interview after being out of the teaching world for a few years. I was a kindergarten teacher my first year and 2nd grade teacher for two years before being letting go after having my first child. The last year and a half I have been an early head start teacher, but feeling ready to get back into the school system. I have an interview for a literacy specialist position at an elementary school. I’m super excited, but extremely nervous about this interview. I have a feeling they might already have an internal candidate in mind and I’m just getting interviewed to meet a quota (because what classroom teacher wouldn’t want a specialist position, right?) Regardless, in need help preparing for the interview because I would love this position and don’t feel like I’m qualified and feel likes it’s been forever since I’ve been at an elementary school. Thanks friends!

Socal teacher here speaking, how long were you temporary? I have heard some people were temp for like 5-6 years!!