I imagine that, if you’ve been a teacher for any amount of time at all, you’ve got a story or two about a moment where you stopped and realized that, in order to deal with some of the stuff, your paycheck should be a ton bigger.
These teachers definitely have a few good/bad ones to share, so prepare yourself – this isn’t going to tempt anyone into teaching, unless you’ve got a heck of a sense of humor!
13. I would not be doing that.
After the Santa Fe school shooting we had a kid bring a gun on campus, thankfully he was caught before anything happened, one of his friends snitched on him. We still ended up on lock down.
The solution to the incident was ‘randomly’ select teachers from each campus, district only had three, and put them through a Marshal program with Houston PD. Spent the summer doing that.
They told the insurance which ones were Marshaled so we had to pay more due to being high risk. No bump in pay. & no clear answers on WTF I had to do if the situation happened again. Can’t leave my kids alone in the room, but have to respond to an active shooter.
Guns had to be in lock boxes while in the classroom with students, so if a shooter did come in I guess I was supposed to ask them to wait and let me get my piece?
12. It’s gotta be hard to keep mum.
Sister is an elementary school special ed teacher, she had one special needs student who was a biter and had other well known behavioral issues, kicker was he had TWO moms who were like that! Their little psycho was precious and NOTHING he did (no matter how violent/unacceptable) was EVER his fault. lol
They were also the type to shove their lifestyle in everyone’s face if not use it as a BS excuse/reason for why their son was being “unfairly” treated/targeted if he acted out too much (which was nearly every day).
To be honest, she’s told me so many horror stories about psycho/entitled parents that I seriously don’t know how teachers manage to not snap and tell parents like that to step the F off or teach the kid/class themselves!
11. I guess all jobs have frustrations.
Used to teach primary school, now teach university and private language courses.
From my primary school days: any time I had to deal with some parents. Entitled parents are the worst.
From university: I have had some students who never come to lessons, don’t listen to my advice, and are still surprised that they get bad grades. Not only that, the student tried to argue with me about plagiarism, when I had proof that he plagiarized his paper (99% plagiarized on TurnItIn).
And then for his final research report, he got a very low grade because it was completely incomprehensible. He claimed that it was because he had COVID (he used this excuse during 3 separate well-distanced moments during the year).
From private students: I was teaching a company course with some business men. Most of them were fine, but one of them literally spent half of the class arguing with me that he “stands up” in the morning, when he meant to say “get up”. I had to explain the difference, all the while he argued with me.
He then blatantly refused to speak English (it was an English lesson), saying nasty things about me in German (which I speak fluently, but he didn’t know that).
Most of the time my job is great, but sometimes it can be really frustrating
10. This is quite a story.
This was the last day before winter break and any teacher will tell you, the last day of school before a break is always terrible. Students are extra rowdy and angsty and refuse to listen to any directions, etc etc. Our school obviously adjusts for this so the day before break was mostly just a holiday party day. Kids got chill, eat some food, watch movies, etc. My co-teacher and I had our kids watching Home Alone when one of my students wanted to talk privately. (background here…these are all high school kids)
Turns out, my student has been having unprotected sex with one of my co-teacher’s students. She’s underage. He’s not. He’s been pressuring her and she doesn’t know how to say no, tell him to slow down, demand they use protection, etc because, you know, she’s a child. So I’m dealing with all of this with her, calling Planned Parenthood on her behalf so that she can get tested for STDs and pregnancy without parents finding out.
As she discloses all of this, she adds that she was also sexually assaulted by a family friend last summer and no one took it seriously afterwards. I’m trying my best to be the adult/stable one for her in this moment, but it was super hard for me because I myself am a rape survivor and hearing all of this was really triggering. But I’m holding it together, calling PP, comforting my student, etc.
As this is happening, my co-teacher goes to track down her student because obviously this is all going to have to get escalated and officially documented. So while both of us are out of the room, I ask another teacher in our department to just sit in the classroom where the kids are watching a movie (kids have to have teacher with them at all times).
He says sure, no problem because they’re just watching a movie. While he’s in there though, one really vicious, unwell girl gives another girl a weed gummy without telling that girl that it’s a weed gummy. Girl 2 takes it, gets high as fuck, starts freaking out because she doesn’t understand what’s happening. Girl 1 is also high, tries to jump off a desk, slams her head into the floor. Both have to go to the ER.
This was just the longest day of my career in education and I put up with all this shit to make the worst fucking salary? No more man…I accepted an offer outside of education that I’ll be starting this summer making 20k more than I do now and being treated like an actual human being and not a firefighter for human dumpster fire events.
9. Let them tear each other apart.
Fights in back to back periods. All involving girls. First one I got taken to the ground breaking it up, second one my coteacher was thrown over a table. Both times, there was no help for quite a while and no one to help maintain order afterwards.
8. Not the best first day.
Not necessarily a teacher, but I did some tutoring work last year and went to a family friends house because the parents asked me to tutor their 16 year old son ( I was 17 ). Now I’ve never met this guy before but ik hes really big into video games, so obviously as soon as I come in hes in his computer playing league of legends. He was clearly in a ranked game because when his mom came to tell him to turn it off he started screaming at her and telling her hed be finished soon.
The mom apologises to me and goes and turns off the computer. He, and I kid you not, PUSHES her away and starts screaming at her. Shes quite shocked so I’m guessing hes never done that before but he kept screaming at her, until I stupidly decided to butt in (bad idea) and tell him not to treat his mother like that. It was non of my business but I couldnt help it.
Next thing you know his fist is coming right for my face, I fall and hit my head on the bed frame so now my head was bleeding. He stormed off to the bathroom after which his mother ran up to me and started apolagizing and offering me money (which I gladly took because I needed money).
Needless to say i never tutored that boy.
7. Definitely nasty.
Preschool teacher. We have an afterschool program that some of my students attended. After class, we got a frantic call on the walkie from one of their teachers frantically asking for help in one of the bathrooms.
I responded and found one of my students standing in the middle of the bathroom, pants around his ankles and poop all over his stall and himself as he had kinda spread it around. I ended up cleaning him up while his teacher cleaned the bathroom.
It was quite a mess and he kept trying to run out of the bathroom half-naked. Kid was dealing with a fair bit of trauma so I was glad that I was there to help him out as he knew me and felt more comfortable, but it was intense.
There’s usually at least one or two major poop incidents every year where someone completely shits their pull-up or gets sick and has diarrhea everywhere, but that was the first time I had a kid smear poop on the wall.
6. Her best offer.
They wanted me to walk a 6’6″ 18 year old gang member to and from his car every day so that he wouldn’t get into fights with the other gang members at the school.
I’m a 5’7″ scrawny a$$ white girl.
I told them I would ask Eduardo to pretty please not start fights on the school grounds. That was the best I could offer.
5. How is this legal?
Sped para turned teacher here. I have experienced it all, bites kicks, punches. Been told by a 4th grader that he would “f**k me in the asshole”. Three trips to urgent care in one year with work related injuries.
One time a kid had pulled me to the ground by my hair and started kicking me. The only reason I got away is because he pulled the chunk of hair out. I had no walkie to call for help and all the other staff and students were in the cafeteria. I’ve had coworkers who have gotten it even worse-broken bones, concussions, needing surgeries to fix work injuries.
I got my teaching license and switched to a less intense group of kids this year only to be bullied constantly by my new coworkers. Honestly I love the kids so much, but it’s hard somedays
4. That’s…something.
Used to be a middle school teacher (male) only made it 3 years. I had a female student who was a bit socially awkward, but overall I nice kid. One day after class I was pushing in chairs an noticed a bunch of red on a chair. I thought nothing of it and wiped it all up with some Chlorox wipes. It happened again a few days later I put the pieces together.
I scheduled a parent teacher conference with the mom, and the nurse. Mom said she didn’t like wearing pads and isn’t going to force her daughter to do so. Needless to say it happened a few more times and one of the male students caught on. He was cool about it, and kept it under wraps, but I was done with that shit.
The other female teachers got involved and and worked with the student to make her understand the importance of feminine hygiene and it seemed to stick.
3. Culture shock, for sure.
Probably when the kids snuck up behind me and tried to stick a broom handle up my a$$. In Japan (where I work), that’s not as beyond-the-pale as it is in America, but it’s still a culture shock.
I’ve also had kids try to trick me into saying inappropriate things in Japanese, and one girl even asked me (in English, she looked it up) to expose myself to her and have s^x with her.
2. Definitely not in the job description.
I’m an elementary teacher and this didn’t happen to me, but a colleague. There was a third grade boy who had severe emotional issues and would shit himself constantly to avoid work.
The staff for the behavior unit he was in would often take him to the clinic bathroom and clean him up and dress him in new clothes. This kid did not have any intellectual or physical impairments that would make it appropriate to receive this kind of help.
It took a new person being hired in one of the leadership roles within the unit to put the hammer down and call his mom every time he shit himself. He told everyone to let the kid stay in his own filth until his mom came to handle it.
It’s unreal how anyone felt like wiping a nine year old was within their pay range.
1. So much red tape.
Mine was a culmination of events. Being asked by admin” what can we do to help him pass ( this was not a question it was how are you going to pass him?)”.
Creating a course from scratch only to be told after teaching it for 3 years that it was being discontinued so I could teach something else they needed.
After making sure everyone knew my wife was pregnant and I mean everyone. I was told I must have a doctors note to not face reprimand.
The constant expectation that my test scores must improve. See this is a double edged sword. Your first year teaching is your baseline,so if those kids score well then they expect next years kids to score even better. Meaning after you actually know what to teach and how to teach it ; the ability to improve gets harder and harder.
Being asked by parents/volunteer coaches to give student Z a passing grade so they can play this weekend.
We had a lot of nepotism, where if you belonged in a certain group you got privileges
Thankfully I’m an awesome school now that has a principal that just got out of the classroom 2 years ago so she’s really easy to approach. .
Honestly it was not that bad at the school I was talking about but this new school is just so much better.
I know I couldn’t handle it, y’all.
Teachers, please share your own horror stories with us in the comments!