No Tired, Like Teacher Tired (Hard Truths)

Do you have any teacher friends? Anyone you know an educator? Well, if you are reading this you do. I’m a teacher. I currently teach 4th grade at a Title 1 school. What is that exactly? It’s an inner-city school with high poverty and behavior issue school. It a struggle every day for me and other educators. Not even with just inner city, but any school right now. Why is that? It’s the end of the school year, where suddenly all these kids (even the ones who have been well behaved all year), start acting a fool and misbehaving like there is no tomorrow. “Put them in time out”, “take their recess”, “call their guardian”. I laugh out loud at these comments. Teachers are no longer allowed to give “time out” because it’s “offensive” to the child and embarrasses them. We are no longer allowed to “take recess” because children need to “play”, even if they have spent the entire day playing in my room. And, I’m sorry, but “guardians” and yes, I call them guardians because not all of my kids have parents, and some of these “parents” are not really parents, no longer want me to call them. Why? because they also know their kid is being a little shit. They don’t care. I have guardians that tell me, “they’re at school, so they’re your problem”, or “I don’t even know how to control them at home”. I’m about to give you a HUGE news flash if you are a guardian that says this to your child’s teacher.

TAKE THEIR DAMN PHONES AND ELECTRONICS AWAY! STOP LETTING THE CHILD BE THE ADULT AT HOME!

Kids today are ADDICTED, yes ADDICTED to electronics. As in, they might as well be shooting up heroine, or drinking alcohol consistently. What can a guardian do? Help them detox by taking their electronics. They don’t need them!

I get it. You get home from work and you’re tired, and you don’t want to deal with your kids annoying attitude, and it’s just easier to put them in front of a screen and ignore them. Unfortunately, that is the biggest problem. Sorry, but you signed up to be annoyed when you had kids. Actually, not sorry. It’s your job as a guardian/parent to be the adult at home. That means being annoyed and not giving in, even when you’re tired. Teachers have to do this daily. We have to deal with not only your annoying child, but up to 25+ other annoying children that are going through the same, if not worse at home too. Teachers aren’t just having to call you because your child is being a shit, but others as well. I promise you that you getting a phone call, even daily, are not the only one. I have guardians I have to call multiple times a day! Then, come home and have to deal with my own family.

You want to help out your childs’ teacher? Be present! Be the adult at home. I know you’re tired, but the teacher is more tired. You want to argue with me and say that you have your kids all the time, maybe more than one at home. I get it. Honestly. Teachers have yours and 20-29 other kids for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Then go home to our own families. We go through so many emotions with yours and the other children every day that we are tired. We are leaving the profession. It’s not just about the money, though that is a whole other issue for another day. Its about parents not stepping up to be the adult. Thinking that your child is some sweet angel that can do no wrong. NO TEACHER WILL CALL YOU ABOUT BEHAVIOR IF THEY DON’T HAVE TO! If a teacher is calling you, then it’s because your child did something. If it sounds outlandish to you, get over it. The teacher would not make any of this shit up. We have better things to do than to stop our instruction to call you about behavior. In fact, your student’s behavior is most likely the original cause of us having to stop instruction to even call you.

You think teachers are making this up, and that we can’t possibly have it rough? Go volunteer as a substitute. Go volunteer just for a day in your child’s classroom. Teacher’s are leaving because of money (though again, that is part of it). We are leaving because we can go somewhere and no have to deal with the bull shit from asshole parents, a district that treats us like robots, and for the opportunity to be treated like human beings and not have to worry about 25-30 other small human beings and their emotions. I can go work for 8 hours at ANY OTHER JOB (except doctor/nurse, ya’ll are awesome) and get treated 50x better than being a teacher. It’s a hard pill to swallow isn’t it?

Test scores are going down because those higher up idiots that run education don’t seem to understand that these kids went through a pandemic and missed 1-2 years of school. They think that those kids just need to skip that information and can pick up 2 years later. NO. These kids are so far behind “where they should be” that teachers are being blamed for not catching them back up in a month. You want 1 person to catch up 25-30 people on 2 years of information in a month, and then teacher the current year?! FUCK NO! The standards need to change. You know what those state tests do? Nothing. Not one college will ever look at your child’s state testing. The only ones that care are your school and “government”. Why? that’s how they get money to fund the school. And the system is fucking backwards. Your kids school has the lowest test score, most likely due to lack of funds and materials? What does the government do? Send more money to the schools with higher scores and who already have the materials.

So now your child’s teacher has to stress about test score that no one of worth cares about, as well as making sure your child is NOT stressing about the same test, make sure your child feels safe and loved, make sure they are following rules, discipline them without being able to discipline them when they act out, get bitched out by guardians that are either in denial about their child or are not caring, create fun lesson plans so your child isn’t “bored”, have to get bitched out by admin because you called about your child being a little shit and you don’t want to believe it, wrangle 25-30 small humans and “catch them up” on missed years, teach new years worth of stuff, deal with injuries, deal with knowing the 8,000 different protocols for safety, then go home and deal with our own families.

I’m not even touching the tip of that ice burg. You also have to understand that not 1 of these kids learns the same way as another, and we are expected to teach individually, but also whole group at the same time. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT! We aren’t treated even an iota good enough to keep dealing with this shit, and I haven’t even touched on our pay….

These are some hard truths. They’re difficult to believe or swallow. I understand. All teachers do. We know this is a lot for you all to comprehend. That’s why we leave. Then you go “well, who will teach out kids?!” Good question. I don’t know. Class sizes will get bigger because no one wants to deal with all the bull shit that comes with teaching. Your kids will suffer. Each year, kids will be more and more uneducated. It won’t get better. It will only get worse until we have a society of idiots. What can you do now to try and fix it? BE KIND DO YOUR CHILD’S TEACHER! Seriously. If they call you because of something, start off by believing them. Help with your child’s behavior. If they act good at home, AWESOME! Also make sure they do that at school too. Take the damn electronics away. They get computer time at school. Allow them the opportunity to use their imagination. And if you have a child you know gives their teacher extra stress, maybe get them a gift. We love gifts.

Ok, rant over….I’m going to go nap before I need to start planning the last days of school. Because YES, I still have to teach content and we don’t get to have any fun except recess for 20 minutes.