A rolling thread where we are teachers

important article about professional burnout, passion for one's work and my favorite scale for measuring burnout, the MBI. recommended reading!!!!

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/09/10692458/burnout-work-millennials-ambition-scam

I am not a teacher but we got a message from kid's high schools saying "we know there's a Tik Tok "slap your teacher" challenge, please be advised that if you slap a teacher you're getting expelled" -- jesus, teachers, is this a real thing, are kids slapping you for Tik Tok clout, or is this a bizarre moral panic about something that doesn't exist?

i heard someone else mention it too -- i think it is a thing (i do not teach k-12 so i did not get slapped)

Thanks for that, LL. Needed it today, which is my last day freelancing for a company I've been working for on and off since the year began. At first I was really worried about not having a job, and then I realized: oh shit, I get to have my birthday (on Monday) to do what I want, for the first time in YEARS. I'm going to do things I want to do! It's going to be great.

In other words, I have often preached the sort of lessons that this article is offering, namely that work can be joyous and fun, but that no matter what, it is still *work*, and it cannot be the center of one's existence.

make it the center of your existence at your peril

this part from the beginning resonated w me having been laid off and subsequently devastated

Being jobless, then, isn't only difficult because of the financial instability — it's also a kind of social death. As such, the fate of the jobless — the attendant derision or pity is often used as a cautionary tale. And the warning works: Most of us are terrified of losing our livelihoods.

who is a teacher who is not teaching? ;_;

The Tik Tok challenge is sort of a thing, but it remains to be seen how much of one. September's challenge was to vandalize school bathrooms and steal from the school, and a bunch of our bathrooms did get vandalized and my key card got stolen. I guess the Tik Tok stars behind this have rolled out another set of challenges and October's is "slap a teacher," but my guess is that kids who are willing to anonymously trash a bathroom are going to be much less inclined to hit their teachers and hopefully the whole thing will fizzle out.

The 50-day supply limit is back in place for retired teachers where I am. It was lifted last year, and I ended up doing ~80+ days, mostly remote. I was hoping they'd lift it again. I'd supply virtually every day if I could.

This perplexes teacher friends of mine: "Why would you want to keep doing this if you retired?" The first answer is simple, and they get this part: I still like being in the classroom, I just couldn't take any more staff meetings, reports, parent interviews, or never-ending curriculum revisions and preposterous new gimmicks (Growth Mindset! Transformation Practices! Etc.!).

The other answer, though--underscored by a class where I've supplied three times this year--is that I can take a day or a couple of days of certain kinds of students, but that's my limit now; the idea of having to go back every single day knowing X and Y will be sitting there wore me out after a while. There are two guys in particular in this one class (a 5/6). The first is the guy who just does and says one silly thing after another; he can't help himself. The other is the guy who has to blurt out every thought that crosses his mind. Sometimes they trade places: during a slide show I was presenting today, the guy who blurts out fell out of his chair not once but twice. Their teacher has asked if I can fill in for the rest of the week: I committed to tomorrow and Thursday, but I'm looking for a excuse to pass on Friday. Two days of such students is pretty much my limit now.

xp

After ten years in grad school limbo (oh the places I go!), I started working as a special ed aide in a high school's autism program a couple of weeks ago. One of the kids got triggered by water last week and ended up socking me in the head and shoulder, but I think it was a psychotic episode rather than the result of a TikTok challenge.

We also had a destroyed toilet, reportedly.

I get a surprise four day weekend this week! We were supposed to have just Thursday off, but so many teachers requested leave for Friday that with our sub shortage there weren't enough subs to cover it all, so they're just closing school for the day. I've worked through every weekend since school started, so this is unheard-of luxury.

This is pretty corny, I know, but it's also pretty great.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/12/24/third-grade-teacher-makes-full-court-shot-smerconish-intv-ctn-vpx.cnn

The thing that makes me laugh is that this teacher is going to have zero problems with this class for the rest of the year; she's god and Superwoman and the most famous Tik Tok/Instagram/YouTube superstar all rolled into one. She'll be pretty much walking on water from now till June (and probably beyond).

my partner does admin work for a brooklyn charter school and is telling me that 65% of her parents have moved into full on "let me speak to your manager" mode

I am getting increasingly nervous about going back to work tomorrow - not fear of covid, but just the sense of not knowing what's coming next and whether I'll have full classes or half the class out or a sudden switch to remote teaching or what. I'm figuring I should make two slideshows & lesson sequences for each class - one with the actual lesson, the other with a game of Mafia in case half the class is gone.

Premier of Ontario is speaking right now; looks like he's moving from a two-day delay (a ridiculous half-measure) to two weeks. He's giving everyone less than 48 hours notice--parents need to arrange for daycare, teachers need to revamp whatever plans they had for online. I also got an e-mail this morning saying the 50-day supply limit for retired teachers has again been bumped to 95 days; they're obviously expecting a ton of absences, even with the move online.

We got today off for voluntary rapid testing for everyone. I wonder if this is just so they can catch as many cases as possible and have a ton of absences, or if they will switch to remote/ delay the start if they get a certain number of positive results.

I always forget where you are...

I'm in Seattle. This fall went fine, apart from a sub shortage, but the sub shortage is such that I really don't know how we're going to deal with staff absences during this surge. Who would want to sub right now?

I'd be fine going in if I hadn't had to cancel my booster. In Ontario, they were taking people out of various teachers colleges to supply last winter--I don't think they've yet reached that stage again, but it may follow.

That's a point, I suppose we'll get a few subs who are boosted, but they've already been drafting teachers to sub during their prep time, and even with that they had to close school on the Friday after Veterans' Day because there wasn't enough coverage. So it's hard to be full steam ahead with planning when I don't really know what to plan for.

It looks like the school closure here (Ontario) is on a collision course in the next week or so, before the scheduled return on Jan. 17.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/group-of-ontario-parents-boycott-remote-learning-in-the-face-of-new-public-health-restrictions-1.5732260

https://www.cp24.com/news/pediatrician-groups-call-for-ontario-schools-to-reopen-no-later-than-jan-17-1.5732019

https://globalnews.ca/video/8497509/ontario-faces-pressure-to-reopen-schools-as-virtual-learning-takes-toll-on-kids-parents

My assumption at first was that we'd be out for a month, maybe longer, but I'm not sure now. Based on my three days of remote supply last week, I can attest to the fact that the schools are a mess. There was no dayplan for any of the three days. The first day was for a teacher who'd been off for a month, without an LTO ever being hired; two of the four Google Meet codes I was given in the morning didn't work and had to be resent, and the period 7 Google Meet was empty. (And no one ever returned my e-mail with an explanation.) The the second day I got the call at 9:10, half an hour into the day; I'm not even sure what that means. I was back with the same class the next day, and it actually went well--great group of kids (grade 2), improbably still really keen. But they were the exception--I spent a month teaching zombie-kids last spring, and I'm sure I'll encounter that again very soon. All in all, my sense is one of all parties--parents, students, teachers--starting to give up.

It's really starting to get to me. I needed to spend all weekend working to try to catch up and plan for the next week, and today I was just crushed by exhaustion and couldn't do anything. It's a bad sign when you know you're going to be behind for the week because you couldn't spend your Saturday working. And there's still that uncertainty of not knowing if we might suddenly go remote, or how many students will be out if we're in person. And knowing that unless I get Covid I can't take a day off because there's no one to cover for me.

this is not a real school year

im not trying to be glib bc this year is so fucked up (and last year too), i think we should all just recognize that this is not real, planning is not real, grading is not real, you just do your best and get some rest and charge the rest to the game. i love doing this too much to let how terrible this all is to deprive me of future joys, so im just not working hard at all out of self preservation.

Thank you and I didn't think you were being glib at all. I think I'm just so new to secondary teaching that I'm losing all sense of what a real school year even is. I had one year of full-time teaching, accompanied by burnout, followed by a year of subbing that turned into the start of the pandemic, followed by a year of remote teaching and now this. I don't really know how to measure this against previous years.

yeah this is all weird and fucked up, i mean "normal" years have their own weirdness and fuckedupness but you learn year to year how to anticipate and contingency plan for that and in the meantime you can still do extracurricular stuff and not have people's sloppy mask-wearing habits (including coworkers for fucks sake) as a constant strain. this is my 12th year of teaching all at the same campus fwiw.

(xpost) I agree with all of that (which is, admittedly, easier for me to say since retiring from full-time). I'd aim to keep the kids engaged as much as possible, get as much curriculum as you can in there without worrying in the least about keeping up, clear time every day for the students to do whatever it is they like best, and remind them every so often that this will end eventually. I felt good Friday in that I'd taught this grade 2 class to use Google Draw and how to format an acrostic poem on a Google Doc; with younger kids, you can try to show them all kinds of apps and programs they've never used. Much harder with older kids, obviously.

m bise otm

any rhetoric your admin may be giving you, Lily, about the need to give even more of yourself is bullshit cover for keeping the economy churning. Normal learning is not possible under these conditions. You’re a teacher, not a martyr. Take care of yourself!

hi horseshoeeeeeee!!!!

<3 hope you and your fam are weathering this nonsense okay, m bise

likewise friend!!

That's a really important message to hear again and again m. bison and I have to keep telling myself that. I'm pretty close to burnout myself. I have only been doing it for five years and have lost sight of 'normal' if indeed I have ever really had it.

Someone unthinkingly offered me a job over Christmas. The job is irrelevant (marketing!) but my readiness to say yes to him (actually, cuddle him, chew his arm off) made me realise just how close to the edge I was. I honestly think I'd jump now, given the chance.

Lily, you're in a shitty organisation there, and not getting the right messages or support. I'd say hang in there and keep looking for ways out. And as m.bison says, although it doesn't feel like it now, the job is worth fighting for.

Thanks everyone. Honestly I think a lot of it is coming from me. There are some weeks where I feel like I know how to do a good job for my students, and then weeks like this one where I feel like I don't have it in me to give them the level of teaching they deserve. I don't feel like I'm getting extraordinary pressure from admin - as a part-time teacher in an elective subject, early in my career, I think I actually get a lot of slack. But I have expectations for myself and I haven't figured out how to deal with the times when I don't meet them.

Anyway, lots of sympathy and solidarity to everyone who's teaching right now. It's good to hear from all of you.

weeks like this one where I feel like I don't have it in me to give them the level of teaching they deserve

The absolute worst feeling, the one time--when I switched grades and our school moved into another building temporarily--where I sought outside help/medication. Either it or just time worked; after a couple months, that feeling went away.

Looks like we're headed back to in-person on Monday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-students-in-person-learning-monday-january-17-1.6310451

"We need staff in order to continue providing live teacher-led remote learning and safely operate our schools when students return to in-person learning," Lecce's statement read. "That is why we have now secured an agreement with the Ontario Teachers' Federation that will deliver access to thousands of teacher-qualified educators that will help keep schools open and safe."

Part of that is that they lifted the 50-day supply limit on retired teachers like me and pushed it back up to 95 days, like last year. My head is room-sized right now; I feel like I single-handedly saved the whole school year.

Next week is the start of the new semester. Usually we get a day off between semesters (today), but since they had to cancel school the Friday after Veterans' Day, they made it a makeup day, so it's a regular week of school and we don't have any work time for grading.

Despite that, I was planning on going to Chicago this weekend to see the Vulgar Boatmen - leaving Saturday, getting back Sunday. I was worried about whether I could manage that because I've been exhausted lately, but was planning on doing it anyway because I haven't gone on a trip or heard live music since the start of the pandemic.

But two days ago the directive came down from admin that next week is Black Lives Matter Week and we have to create content-specific BLM-related lessons for every day of the week. It's a fine idea in itself but there is NO TIME. They sent out some material and pre-designed lessons for a range of content areas; I don't know how useful those are, but it's moot because none of them are for my content area.

I don't think I can go to Chicago now. I want to and I haven't completely given up hope, but - how??? I'm exhausted and I don't even know what I'm doing for class tomorrow, so the idea that I'm going to come up with five days of culturally sensitive material on issues of race in the Francophone world without working through the weekend seems nuts.

And these are the admin who will lecture us about the importance of self-care and not letting yourself burn out.

I used to love it when we'd devote a staff meeting to self-care and avoiding burn out. "If you want to help me, let me go home right after school--being here an extra hour-plus is not helping my mental outlook."

Meanwhile, I was in a K class the other day where there was a kid who screamed, full throttle, for 30% of the day, which they told me was normal. The rest of the time he played fine. There were two EAs in the room, and they spend most of their day, every day, with him. I'm guessing it costs the province an additional ~$75,000 to attend to this one student. What else can you do?

this week has really sucked.

One of my French 1 classes has discipline and morale issues, and while I do my best to keep redirecting kids and addressing issues as they come up, I haven't been good about calling parents and emailing counselors and actually making sure there are hard consequences for being disruptive in class. As a result, students are dispirited and negative about the class and their own progress, and about me as a teacher. It's a big class - 32 kids - in a tiny room, and a lot of them would really enjoy the class given a smaller class size, a different group of kids, or even a bigger room, but they don't know that.

It's the week that students sign up for classes for next year, and so I'm in the shitty position of trying to convince them to sign up for French 2, and I've got a bunch of them telling me they don't want to, with the implication that I suck at my job and I've made them not like French.

And I know it's really just that class that's negative and I'll probably have quite a few signing up from my first period. So I'll probably have enough for one French 2 class, which is what we had this year, which is pretty much to be expected. But it's depressing and makes me feel like shit about my abilities.

I mean this in the best possible way, not glibly: "Take it easy, Jake--it's COVID." These last two years are complete write-offs. They say nothing about what kind of teacher you are, or what kind of teacher you'll be when things return to some semblance of normal. You have to get through it day-to-day, I know, but don't draw any conclusions about what they think about you as a teacher.

(I should follow my own advice--I got down last spring when it was like former students didn't even know me.)

Had a grade 6/7 class today. The day plan alerted me anger issues this one guy had, and not to engage if he went off.

He had a good morning, and he was fine in gym too, even playing dodgeball, which can be highly competitive. (Not my choice by the way--dodgeball from a supply teacher is a long-standing cliche. I wanted to do basketball, they wanted dodgeball.) Right at the end, though, this guy got hit with a (nerf) ball that someone was tossing into mesh bag. And he indeed went off. The transformation is hard to describe, but if he'd had access to a knife, I think he would have cut me up right there. Thankfully, he just stood there in the middle of the guy, shaking, while another student retrieved the VP. He was back in class 20 minutes later, settled down.

I don't really get this, from either a medical or psychological standpoint. Is it an overload of neurons firing off? It was scary, and it was over nothing.

Um…

That doesn't really tell me anything.

You don't have any framework with which to understand anger issues or you don't understand this particular kid's behavior?

I don't understand what causes a 12-year-old kid to experience murderous rage over getting nicked by a nerf ball. I sincerely don't, else I wouldn't be asking. (Is my memory of my own classmates at that age selective enough that I don't remember going to school with such kids? Because I don't.)

I mean I understand anger issues up to a point, obviously, I have them myself. This is something different.

Anything in the file about that kid's home life?

There's a good chance that it's neurological. Frontal lobe damage can cause this.

I'm a supply these days--I'm sure there is, but nothing I would have access to.

When I taught full-time, I had any number of kids who had difficult home lives for all sorts of reasons. In 20 years, I don't think I ever encountered in my own classes what I saw yesterday--maybe I just got lucky.

(CGLDI: thanks, that makes sense.)

I know someone who occasionally explodes over very minor issues, like screaming violent threats over a minor slight. Its quite scary in the moment. The next day they will be remorseful. No idea what causes it.