Teachers are some of the most harshly criticized groups of professionals out there. Everyone has their own idea about how teachers should do their job, but so few of them could do even half of what teachers do every day. So many parents expect teachers to be able to fix everything that's wrong with their bad kids and try to place the blame anywhere but on themselves. All of this criticism can get exhausting. At most jobs, employees only have a couple of supervisors, but teachers have administra…

It's finally time for teachers to take a load off. It seems like this semester has been rough for everyone, and every teacher who taught this fall needs a well-deserved break to catch up on their sleep. So many people give teachers crap about having a summer and a winter break . They think that because their office job is all year long, they must work harder than anyone who gets a considerable period of time off. What those people don't know is that teachers have to spend a lot of their breaks…

Teachers deserve so much more respect than they get, and I am partly to blame for this. When I was in high school , I wasn't blatantly rude to my teachers, but I did not give the educators in my life the respect they probably deserved. For instance, I called every single one of my teachers Senior year by their first names, either behind their backs or to their faces, depending on how close we were. Out of Barb, Cathy, John, Paul, Linda, and Kelly, I could only call Barb by her first name to her…

"It's a little OK"

Rightfully stumped.

There is nothing more humiliating in school than being dress coded. I remember being dress-coded by a teacher I once thought was my friend: the middle school theatre teacher. I soon learned that he was nothing of the sort. He made me change from simple black leggings into sweatpants from the 90s, and I was horrified. I don't know what changed in him, but one day he snapped and started ranting about the importance of the dress code and how we need to “dress our age.”

One of the hardest parts of being a teacher is that the work keeps coming and never stops coming . At a normal job, you clock in at 9 and leave at 5 without having to do extensive planning for days to come during the time you're not in the office. When you're a teacher, it's a completely different story. There's never time for not working. You have to grade papers, answer emails, create new assignments, work on lesson plans, meet with higher-ups, and that's not to mention having to teach classe…

It's like it was just yesterday

Well… back to school season is officially over. The novelty of new classes and the burgeoning fall semester has more than wore off, and teachers and students are finally back at the old grind. If you are a teacher, you've probably got an idea of how the rest of the school year is going to go down. Or do you? You might think you've got a pretty solid read on your new classes, but who knows! There's a lot of days in between now and June. This school year hold so many possibilities. But then again…

We're not equipped

Why do they have to smile so hard?

The teacher shortage in the United States has caused significant problems in public schools. Many states are lowering the requirements for teaching to ridiculous levels just to ensure they have enough educators to go around. During the pandemic, the school system and parents put an astronomical amount of pressure on teachers to do impossible tasks. For the 2020-2021 school year and since then, more and more teachers have taken a stand and left the profession for good. While this has benefitted…

Procrastination 101

Who says that your favorite memes need to be current? Memes come and go so quickly these days. New memes are loved one minute and despised the next. Keeping up with the latest online trends can be exhausting and unsustainable. I have a lot of nostalgia for the 2014-2016 era of Twitter memes. Back then, there was about one huge viral meme per month that we could all really sit with. We would spend weeks developing different variations of Arthur Fist, Left Shark, and Kermit Sipping Tea memes to o…

Spoiler: none of them have ever hidden a body.

Teaching is one of the most misunderstood professions. Teachers sacrifice their time and energy for their students and are rarely compensated for what they deserve. Unlike many pointless email jobs, teachers actually create tangible good in society through their work. It's essential for kids to not only have great educators but great role models in their corner and teachers wear both hats. If you're a teacher, you already know all of that. What you also likely know is that there is a special hu…