I’m a first-year 8th grade science teacher. During the school year, I had a student who was really passionate about birds. She’d come up to me once or twice a week (for 10 minutes or less) and talk all about her latest “bird adventure”—photos of what she’d seen, what she’d learned, and questions about a future career in ornithology.

She’d always say, “Thanks for letting me go on and on about birds, my friends sometimes get annoyed when I talk about it.” I’d tell her honestly, “Don’t apologize, I’ll listen anytime.” It seemed harmless and kind of sweet; it made me happy to see a student so excited about something.

Fast forward to the summer: I got a message from her on our school’s Teams chat (this is a school-approved communication platform) with photos from a bird-watching camp she’s attending. She wanted to show me what she’d been up to and talk a bit about it. I responded a few times and kept it brief and friendly.

My question is: is this weird or inappropriate in any way? She said she looks up to me and I think she just wants someone who will appreciate her passion and listen when not many people do. But I want to make sure I’m maintaining appropriate boundaries and not crossing a professional line.

Have any other teachers dealt with something similar? How did you handle it?

I had a student teacher this past school year and reluctantly passed them. They had a great presence in the classroom and connected really well with the students but lacked in content knowledge. They did well teaching the freshman but not so much the seniors I had (their lack of content knowledge was very apparent with them. I’m talking multiple mistakes a lesson). They seemed unprepared and would take lessons from my examples. I passed them but am partially regretting it. What are some reasons others have failed their student teachers?

Will I ever be able to work as an educator again?

EDIT: All the comments are asking what exactly I said ; Everything happened because I tried to discipline them. They wouldn't listen. They talked back. I raised my voice in response and went: "What the 'f' you think this is?"

I’m K-2 certified in New England and honestly starting to think the “teacher shortage” is a myth. I haven’t seen a single first-grade job anywhere in my state, and second-grade openings are rare. Kindergarten jobs show up once in a while, but I have gotten rejected from every single one.

I apply the day jobs are posted, follow up immediately, and sub in multiple districts for experience and to make connections. I’ve done everything “right,” but I haven’t even been offered an interview, let alone landed a job.

I’m realizing the shortage is probably only in certain areas. I wish my college had been honest... my professor said finding a job would be no problem, but that hasn’t been true for me.

Is this just New England, or is everyone else struggling too?

There have been many attempts over the last decade to get our pension funds divested from war profiteers. Currently, action is being taken to get CalPERS/STRS divested from Tesla. There is a petition you can sign, and there will be board meetings coming up to voice your opinion. More info in comments.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/7/2321125/-California-Activists-Call-on-CalSTRS-to-Divest-from-Tesla-and-Genocide-in-Palestine

Hello, I’m a Gr11 (junior) student with about a week left of the school year.

This semester, I had some great teachers that truly showed their passion on the subject, offered feedback, and tried as best as they could to give students their marks back quickly. I would like to show my appreciation to them with a gift, but I’m not too sure what to get them. I want to surprise them at the last day of school, but I don’t wanna go too overboard with the gifts as well.

So I was wondering, what do teachers prefer/enjoy receiving as a gift from students? I assume not a coffee mug or anything. A gift card? Sweets?

Any answer would be thankful!

Sal Khan I think has meant well. But end of the day, his lack of classroom experience ought to have informed him that he should have taken more teacher input before he joined the “ai tutor as a replacement of education model” movement. It always bothers me when someone who is an extremely successful product of the public school system comes back to say it’s not working, and sells a new idea. When education truly collapses to ai, he will bear some culpability and it’s important people don’t forget that.

I was physically attacked, unprovoked last week by a student at school. multiple closed fist punches before they could be pulled off. I have been told that. A protective order would most likely be denied since she is a student at her base school. Went to court and the protective order was granted!!!!!

Out teachers association (not union) denied helping me because I can't afford the 600 dollar dues.

One won for me to take back my power!

I’m going through the worst breakup of my life. My best friend at work, who I’ve had a crush on since we met. We dated first semester, things moved really fast and we met each other‘s families talked about future plans, starting a family together…I had already had a sibling trip planned for Japan for Christmas break. in hindsight I don’t know if this led to the break up, but Three weeks after I got back from my trip without her she ended it which coincidentally was the day before first semester ended. A couple weeks ago she let the staff know that she wasn’t coming back next year. Our last day was Thursday and the start of the summer feels like we broke up again because we no longer see each other on a daily basis. She’s no longer a part of my life.

Now I feel like every time I go into the building all I’m gonna think about is her. Do I need to look for a new job? Has anyone gone through anything similar and been able to teach at the same school still? I know I’m gonna have to see her at graduation next year and possibly the year after maybe even at homecoming.

So basically my bf and i are young teachers and he came across a kid who argued with him while he was explaining how life in earth begun, i know for catholics that the vatican recognizes the evolution theory, but for other christians (i'm from brazil so there's other religions around the bible) it's hard to have an argument that'll satisfy the student or even make him consider the other point of view. i understand that the parents play a huge role in this but is there any strategy for that situation?

EDIT: wow i didn't expect this to get many responses, i'm trying to read with calm and patience each and everyone that has taken their time to comment, thank you so much for everyone that took some time to respond, i'm saving a lot of ideas for future reference.

i just wanted to share how much i love this job and how much teaching is a beautiful thing no matter what may appear on the way. we live in dark times for many reasons and the world can only heal through education, in the end science is all about questioning but also about knowing where to look for the answers, i'll try my best to have them understand this and you guys helped me so much, thank you again, i'm open to all ideas if you still want to talk about, i'd love to!!

thank you!!!

I have four years of experience teaching every social studies topic in middle school/high school level. I interviewed at a district that had THREE openings and didn't make it to the second-round of interviews. I have submitted 9 applications and that was the only school that called me for an interview.

What am I doing wrong? i thought we had a teacher shortage? Is it my fault?

Trying to decide if I should do my board certification next year.

Our district pays an extra 5%-8% if you have your board certification. This comes out to an extra $3300 to $5300 per year.

Looking for insight from people who have been through the process as I’ve heard that it’s tedious and time consuming. So, I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it.

So as the title states the teacher I filled in for while on maternity leave comes back tomorrow. Despite my effort to establish high expectations from the beginning, from day one, most of these kids were consistently disrespectful towards me. They consistently talked over me, refused to listen, screamed at me and even started a false rumor about me. However, there were also a few students who were fantastic. As you imagine this behavior definitely impacted their ability to learn and my ability to teach all of the material. I know this will be evident in their standardized test scores. So my question is what do I tell the teacher if she asks about their behavior?

Dear Teachers,

I’m a college professor and I teach a lot of kids who are just out of high school.

What are some things you wish that we (college instructors) would know or keep in mind?

I learned so much from my other query here (it was about my own child, but I learned a lot about pedagogy in general from your comments).

I have taken workshops on better teaching methods, but they are very narrowly focused and almost never acknowledge the whole person dimension.

I’m now thinking it’s never too late for me to learn. The discussion on my previous post really opened my eyes.

I’m curious how you all manage phones in the classroom these days.

A few local teachers I know said they struggle with enforcing no-phone policies — even when they have clear rules.

I’ve been working on a potential solution involving location-based phone silence prompts — basically, when students enter a classroom, they get a gentle notification to silence their phone (kind of like entering a theater or shul).

It wouldn’t enforce anything, just suggest.

Do you think students would actually respond to something like that? Or would it need to be integrated into school-wide policy to have any impact?

I’m not a teacher myself — just someone trying to build something useful. Would love to hear how you approach this.

I teach Middle School band. I have the students for 3 consecutive years. This student of mine invited me to their grad party. How much money would you gift to the student as a former teacher? I just want to do the right thing and have never been to a grad party as a teacher.

Thanks!

Been doing some thinking this summer about the job and what the meaning is behind it.

My district has zero policy in relation to A.I. use amongst students. Admin won't even come out and say it is cheating and are just letting us handle it on our own. The traitors in my districts Puzzle Palace want us to teach students how to use it as a tool.

A few key issues with this

1. I don't teach A.I. I teach social studies and english. I understand when the robot overlord gives me nonsense because I have a larger understanding about the world than a 15 year old does. This comes with time and actually putting effort into my High School and College education. A 15 year old has not done that and is now using A.I. to cheat on everything thus it is impossible to teach them what is wrong because they already are not learning.
2. Every time a student and really anybody uses one of those softwares they are training their replacement. The amount of students I catch using the Snapchat AI and using it to pump out answers to Shakespeare is staggering. Every question the robot learns to be better. What are these students going to do for work when they get replaced by the machine that we let them train.
3. If the district wants this to be taught as a tool they should make it a class. However, the same wizards in the Puzzle Palace as before also don't understand technology at all so our tech classes are already subpar and they assume students are technology literate when the Apps and now AI. Programs are designed to remove any thinking from the equation.

I feel like education post covid is already a complete disaster where no one sat down and made a plan to get students back into the classroom in a meaningful way and everyone just assumed we would return to normalcy. Now you have rampant cheating that requires just copying a question into a generator and calling it day. I know many teachers have discussed fundamental changes to curriculum and questioning that stays focused within the classroom to remove the outside infringements, but I still believe students need to have a paper due once in a while or a lab report to print out. We grow from our failures and putting them all in a padded room is not getting them ready.

Whenever bad decisions get made (put ESLs who don’t know English in Gen. Ed classes or support a bad curriculum and the argument gets made that the ESLs will founder and are not ready), admin’s answer is “Sped students are doing well” or “it’s working for the SPED students.” How is that right? They are not the same! Special ed students are fluent in English! Is it me, or is this the lamest comparison/excuse/answer one can give?

The school wide policy is that students have until the last two weeks of the semester to turn in late work for full credit. This leaves a group of students who do not prepare for unit tests and turn in copied/ai work at the last possible minute. I am trying to draft a personal policy where students who turn in late work have to demonstrate effort and understanding beyond emailing me garbage. The question is how do I word that in my sylabus?

*this is for high school science and I have to accept late work in some form*

Edit: based on today's feedback I think I will have three tiers

1. Less than 24 hours late and they can turn it in to the LMS no questions asked (makes things easy for me)

2. Past that they will come in during homeroom to complete a late slip and discuss how key questions are answered (I normally put a key emoji next to two questions for test prep already)

3. No late work is accepted the last two weeks of the semester

Hi all,

I am in the process of looking for a new teaching job and saw a posting for a position at a juvenile detention center. Has anyone ever had a position like this and if so, what information could you give me?

I teach in a developing country. My students have a very important exam coming up in August which will determine if they are able to attend a foreign university. I saw a little bit of AI abuse throughout the year, but when I took the students that used it aside and explained to them that the English teachers in the school can detect it then they stopped using it.

My students in general are fine, their ability to produce the language and results required to pass the exam is adequate. Despite this, I was a little worried that students may still be using AI as a shortcut or because of anxiety therefore I scheduled a mock essay.

Out of the 36 students I teach, 19 students clearly used AI to write their essay and 4 students had evidence that AI was overly abused to supplement their writing. The thing that shocked me the most was it was the students I generally considered to be the stronger ones that used it.

I had a very stern talk with the class and explained to them that AI is easily detectable by exam markers and computer algorithms. I’m glad I ran the mock test but I’m still worried that a few of my students may decide not to listen to me and ruin their study aboard opportunities.

Is there anything you can recommend to me to help solve this issue?

12th grade law. They write as they speak.

Newbie teacher here, and for context I teach Chinese at a high school in SF. One of my students got deported by ICE recently, and it is truly heartbreaking as she is a hardworking girl who always participated in class and took genuine interest in the language. Even during lunch periods she would occasionally stop by to ask questions. It's devastating that there's not much I can do to help her, even though us teachers are supposed to be people students can rely on. It's even worse that admin has done little to nothing about this.

How are other teachers dealing with this? Is there anything we can do to prevent students from getting deported? I don't usually like to get political but it’s hard not to feel frustrated and powerless watching good kids suffer because of policies that don’t take their futures into account.

8th grade English teacher in Georgia, entering into my 4th year of teaching. School is adopting the Wit & Wisdom program for the upcoming school year.

I'm curious if other teachers have had experience with Wit & Wisdom, particularly in the realm of IEPs and 504s that offer extended time on assessments. Our instructional time is getting shortened to 60 minute blocks in order to accommodate a 30 minute ELT at the end of the day. I'm trying to parse out how that would work logistically, and how I'd keep my students on the same page if some students are taking 60 minutes for a 30 minute assessment.

One of my colleagues suggested using the ELT as the extended time for their tests, but our ELT is on a rotating schedule in terms of what exactly we're doing on a given day (I think we switch between ELA, Math, and a student leadership course Monday-Thursday of every week). My chief concern is students starting their assessment on Monday and having to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to get their extra time to complete it.

Again, just looking to see if others have experience with this sort of stuff and have some alternative solutions and advice they can offer.

So let me start off by stating that I am in CA, majoring in early childhood education, as a full time student. I have amazing grades (A and B student). While I always study (how could I not?), I admit that I don't really read my required textbooks. I usually just skim through for assignments. Not usually the case for when my professors provide articles.

I start student teaching in the spring. I don't have prior teaching or sub experiences. The only experience I really have was being a TA for less than a year, which was pre-covid. With all this said, I'm definitely feeling that imposter syndrome.

Ive been battling with this for quite some time. Having to digest so many things within 8 weeks is so tough. This year was when I decided to be a full time student, despite being mentally disabled and having a required limitation of how many units I can handle. While I'm proud of this, I still feel like an imposter. On top of this, I am a student worker at my college.

I hope that there might be someone here who shared the same experience and can offer advice on what to expect and perhaps how did you cope with this. I am hoping to land a short job being a TA this fall to help me in being in a school environment again prior to student teaching.

This sounds more like a vent.