Teachers Are DONE & Speak Out — Something Is Very Wrong With America’s Youth

There are so many teachers quitting right now. Teaching in the year 2025 is not the same career as it was teaching before the pandemic.

I don't know what's happened to education. It breaks my heart. I feel like we are reaching a point where like something's got to give. And I don't know that we can keep going like this.

Puts two hands up like this this close to my face and goes, "You're these kids are horrible. Horrible."

Why do I need to know any of this if a computer or AI can do it for me?

But what's happening now is on a whole other level.

I have 2 hours left of my school day and I'm leaving because I'm so stressed out.

This is going to be one of those videos that I'm going to lose my in.

So, the moral decline of this country is obvious, but I really haven't stopped to consider what teachers are really going through nowadays. I mean, you see on the news all the time what's going on in schools and you can only imagine what's going on in the classrooms.

I'm asking for a friend. How am I supposed to teach for 30 more years?

How teachers are quitting midyear again at record numbers? Is one of the reasons why a student who wasn't assigned to me or my classroom was let into my room by another adult, a teacher's aid, and repeatedly ignored my direction and instructions to leave. Eventually, she repeatedly called me a and threatened me with physical violence, which sent me into a panic attack. I called the office for support and as soon as the dean of students showed up to my classroom, I left and I went to the stairwell to go cry and have a panic attack. Once I calmed down, which took my entire lunch, I was expected to go back and teach my classes because we had a sub shortage and nobody could cover my classes for the rest of the day. By the end of the day, the videos that the student took of me circulated amongst the student body, and I ended that day sitting at my desk, feeling the most powerless and defeated that I've ever felt in my entire life. The student was not given a consequence that was fitting. She was sent home for the day. That was it. I received no apology, no restorative circle from the student or the adult who let them into my classroom. And the paraprofessional received no disciplinary actions. He stood in my classroom and allowed his student to speak to me in a degrading, violent, and disrespectful manner. After that class period was over, I had several students come up to me and say that they wanted to jump to my defense, but they were also afraid of that student and afraid of their for their own safety. That's when I knew the profession I once loved was no longer the profession I needed or wanted. And I left a month later. And that story is not unique. Teachers aren't leaving because they don't care about the kids. They're leaving because the system no longer lets them teach kids. They're not allowed to teach self-management. They're not allowed to teach respect or accountability anymore. We are told to keep the peace, keep the bodies in the room. Some are even told to pass at 20%. Just get the kid the diploma. Pass them along so that the data looks good. But when we do that, we're not protecting the students. We're doing them a disservice because they are walking into a world that will hold them accountable. We could have taught them how to handle that with grace, empathy, and reflection. But instead, we're told to look the other way. Teachers quitting midyear every single year is not an exodus. It's self-preservation. And deep down, it's heartbreak because they want to stay. The system is just making it so that staying is at the expense of yourself and your own family.

I subbed for 8th grade today and it was awful and I don't even really want to talk about it. It was just It was bad. I They're unhinged and they're chaotic and it's frustrating because I can't I can't do my job. I can't I can't help them be successful cuz they won't let me. It's just It was such a bad day. It's such a bad day. I'm in such a bad mood.

I start second quarter of high school with my sophomores asking them to go big in their heads. Like, dream your biggest dream. Is your dream to be signed with the NFL? Win America's Got Talent? get a full ride scholarship for a university, become the first brain surgeon at the age of 18, win NASCAR. And I do this for a specific project, but whatever. Over the years, these answers have given me a lot of insight as to what's going on with a generation. 10 years ago, everybody talked about wanting to go to college or wanting to get into an internship, and that was really a focus. 5 years ago, it felt like so many people wanted to be doctors and nurses. I think that might be had something to do with the pandemic, but the last 5 years have been awfully rough on our young people. They are growing up now during a time where the youngest of Gen Z who are just getting in through high school are the ones who are really seeing a world that does not have a lot of hope in it and it's showing in their answers. Instead of dreaming of accomplishing things, instead they have things like, I won $2 billion. I won the lottery. I just won a new truck. I won the lottery. I won the lottery for $2.5 billion. I got $100 million. I won a million dollars on Family Feud. There's a handful of kids in there who said things like, "I wanted to cure cancer or I got drafted into a certain team." But the majority of them were all about getting money, getting money quickly. We've lost the ability for our young people to dream of doing something and being successful at something in this world. And instead what they see is exactly what the adults of the world has have offered them which is the only way you can survive is to have a lot of money. Forget hope, forget dreams, just get cash. And I am so disappointed not in these kids but in us as an older society who have built a world that that's all kids can dream about. So one adults, this is my call to you to do better. Offer hopes and dreams. and Gen Z, I need you to know there is still hope in the world and that chasing what you really love is worthwhile.

Okay, this is becoming a genuinely concerning issue. Um, as a substitute teacher, I am encountering a really concerning number of students who truly do not see any value in learning because as one of the fourth and fifth graders that I was teaching the other day asked me, "Why do I need to know any of this if a computer or AI can do it for me?" A little girl didn't want to learn how to read because why would she need to when she could have the computer read it to her? Why would she need to know how to count when a calculator could do it or when she could just take a picture of her math problem and have the AI do it for her? This is a legitimate issue because if for whatever reason we lose the ability to have access to these things, we have an entire generation of kids who's going to be entirely helpless without the internet and that is not okay. If you as a parent are encouraging this behavior and allowing your child to use AI for everything, you have a problem and you need to be teaching them otherwise.

A message to anyone out there who thinks that teachers have it easy just because we have time off. I have 2 hours left of my school day and I'm leaving because I'm so stressed out between all the requirements that a district offers and the students behavior, their lack of trying, their apathy for school, parents that don't give a they don't care, they don't answer phones, they don't discipline their kids, and kids who feel like they're going to commit suicide because they're getting bullied. You have no idea what it's like being a teacher. You have no idea. I don't want to hear a person ever ever in the history of ever say that this job we're lucky we have it easy. We get so much time off. You have zero clue what all it takes to be a teacher. Sometimes these kids I don't understand how they ended up to this point. You know what I mean? Like I uh I teach 8th grade history and um I have 110ish students. two of them are reading on grade level right now. Um 18 of them are at a kindergarten level. 55 of those students are between a second and fourth grade level. That's a lot of them. And that's typical of what I've seen lately from students. Uh but it's not just literacy. It's not just literacy and it's not just like lack of content knowledge. It's not just critical thinking skills. It's basic thinking skills. My students can decode almost nothing. They cannot apply inference. They cannot process questions that are longer than a sentence. They cannot connect cause and effect. They can't track multi-step ideas like in a political cartoon. And it's it's scaring me a little. Like I see it every single day. I had a kid yesterday, four kids actually. This happened in every class. We were doing guided notes. Supposed to be a real easy day. It was review. Um they wrote down Maryland was founded as a safe haven for Catholics. It was on the board. They wrote it down. And before we moved on, I call in a student and I ask, "Hey, where were the Catholics one more time?" And these students, what they do is they look at me and then they look at their notes and then they look at the board. They look back at their notes. And some of them never answered me. They never figured out the answer. It was wild. And I kept giving them hints like rephrasing the question and saying like, "It's in your notes. We just wrote it down. We just wrote it down. Where are the Catholics? Uh, it's on the board." And they never got it. They can't read their own notes. Not, and I don't mean their handwriting. I mean like they can't they can't make heads or tails of it on the page. Uh I had a kid today. I have these extra credit assignments, three of them. They're on the wall. They could turn it in at any time. Um and I think they're pretty easy. Like this one, and it replaces your lowest daily grade. So like end of the quarter, lots of these start to roll in. This one says, "On a separate sheet of paper, choose four principles of the Constitution, and for each one, write what it means in your own words, an example of how it works in the US government today, and an a personal example, how that principle might show up in your own life, school, or community." I wrote them an example, and I labeled it, do not use the example, and I even gave them a checklist at the bottom. Make sure you have these four things. so you can get full credit before you turn it in. Make sure you have the four principles and the meaning and the examples. Make sure it's one full page. Um, and this student just turned it in and I read it. First of all, they don't write it on a separate sheet of paper. I've only had one kid this year do that. They just write like in the spaces of the instruction, like in the margins and stuff. very bizarre, but like they just don't do the assignment. It's like they don't understand because it's not written in like a multiple choice format. This is exactly what this student wrote. They wrote the principal's definition in the students own words. They rewrote the instructions, the whole thing. Even the example where it says do not use this example, they just copied the instructions and wrote them again and then checked off the checklist even though like you didn't do it. And this student, just like the students yesterday, I don't think they're fooling with me. This is a student who's doing extra credit on their time off. They genuinely want to bring their grade up. I know them. But like, is that what you think that the extra credit assignment was? You sat there and thought like, "Yeah, she wants me to copy down the directions and then turn it in." But no, they didn't think that because they didn't think anything. These kids have a frightening ability for information to go from their eyes to their hands and not pass through the brain at all. Like, what do we do, y'all? That ship is sailing across the ocean and there is no one at the wheel.

I don't know what's happened to education. It breaks my heart. I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in the fourth grade. Now I'm a teacher and I'm miserable a lot. I love the act of teaching. I love changing students minds and helping them develop into smart individuals. But I don't do that. I don't get to teach. I spend my day managing behaviors and teaching students how to regulate their emotions. I'm not a counselor. I'm not a behavior specialist. I'm a teacher and most of my job is managing behaviors. Most of my job is reaching out to admin and parents. That's not what I signed up for. And that's why so many teachers are leaving the profession. I always thought public education would be here. I always thought it would be a good option. I didn't think you had to have money in order to get a good education. But anymore, I'm beginning to think it's done for. just had a comment and somebody said, "Education is failing because students are running the classroom and teachers have no authority." And that's true. I just watched a video of a teacher getting pepper sprayed by their student in the school because they took their phone because it was being used to cheat on a test and there were people defending it. That's crazy. That's really crazy. Happy World Kindness Day. Don't forget that everyone is a human being, even your teachers, and even if they assign you work that you don't want to do, and they spent time making it fun for you. Hi. Um, every video that I have seen on my for you page lately has been talking about um the children of today and what it is like to be a teacher and the state of education and blah blah blah. Um, and so this is my formal submission. This is my submission on um what behaviors I am seeing in my classroom and how I'm handling it. Um, because this year has been different than any other year before. And we say that every year, but genuinely I feel like we are reaching a point where like something's got to give and I don't know that we can keep going like this. So this summer um when I was out spending all of my personal dollars from my personal paycheck on things for the upcoming school year, I went to the teacher store that was going out of business down the road from me and I purchased this p uh pack of plastic magic wands, right? They came in a myriad of colors. I bought them. I came to work. I put the in this cup and I've kept them. We have not used them all year. Um, today finally I was like, we're gonna get the wands out because if you are not in education, you maybe you don't know this, but right now in order for students to want to do anything, it has to be fun and it has to be exciting. Um, and if they don't think it's fun or exciting, they're not going to do it. And they're going to complain the whole time. They're going to complain anyways, but like they're going to complain the whole time they're not going to do it. So in we were doing an activity where every group needed a leader and we were going to pass who was the leader around as we went through the rounds of the thing and um I said pick out your leader raise your hand who's your leader and I went up to each table with one of every color and I decided like oh you I think that you are this purple wand and I like gave every leader at the their table this plastic wand. I made a whole big to-do about it and um these were not expensive. I'm not going to act like they were super expensive, right? I'm not the teacher with the Hello Kitty Funko Pop on on her desk, right? That's not what's happening here. They were pretty cheap. I bought them on sale as that store was going out of town, but or out of out of town, out of business. But I did spend my own money on these. And today, um, no sooner than I had passed them out. I watched a child look at me and then break it. Just broke it right in half. Um, something that we didn't even need these for, right? We could have done this whole activity without the magic wand, but I was trying to make it exciting and fun. Um, I'm, you know, I try to make class enticing, I they just broke it. And then when I was upset that they just broke the wand that we have never even used before, um, that I spent my own money on this summer when I was spending my personal vacation uh, and time off school looking for things to make their lives better. Um, they just snapped it in half and they don't care and they're not sorry. And when I was upset about it, um, he laughed at me. So, it's not like it's ever going to get better, you know? Like, he's not going to care and this isn't fixable. Um, and I'm just going to throw it away, right? Like, that's that it's a plastic wand. I'll I can order more on Amazon, but it's not even the point. They just they just actually really don't care. Um, and to the point that I don't like I don't know what we're going to do about it, but like something's going to have to change. So, talk to your kids about kindness because even though this is just a crappy plastic wand, it's not just this. It's like all the things that they've broken from me um that I've given them. It's things that they're destroying on purpose. I don't know that I'm even going to post this, but this is how my day went. And this is my formal submission as to why your teachers are tired of quitting.

10 things kids no longer know how to do. And I don't know why. Number one, read a clock with confidence. They're always asking, "What time is it? What time is it?" I'm like, "Look at the clock." They're like, "I don't know how to read that." And they say that to you with confidence. What's happening? Number two, write in script. Whatever happened to writing in script? I love writing in script. I wish more of them knew how to do this. This is like a lost art. I'm sorry. I love writing in script. I prefer it over print, but they don't teach it in schools anymore. We need to bring that back. Bring it back. Number three, memorize phone numbers. They don't know their parents' numbers. They don't even know what apartment they live in. They don't know what street they live on. Which brings me into number four. They don't know their address. You ask them, "Where do you live?" "I live down the block." "Well, what's your address?" I don't know. I'm talking about third graders, y'all. Third grade. And it happened last year when I taught second grade. Also, number five, they don't know how to count money. They don't know how to count money. And it's partially not their fault, right? because we're always using cards, Apple Pay, things like that. But if you give them a few coins, they don't even know the names of the coins. They don't know the value of the coins. They can't add it all together. Like, what is happening? We got to bring it back. We got to bring it back. Know how to count coins. And you go over it in second and first grade. So, I'm I'm kind of lost as to why we don't know how to count money, but okay. Number six, they don't know how to tie their shoes. They have these fancy shoes and they don't know how to tie their shoelaces. Some of them have velcro and hey, if it works, it works. But I mean, come on. We should know how to tie our shoes at 8 and nine. Like, what's happening? What number did I get to? I don't know, six or seven. Anyway, the next one, they don't know their parents' names. I'll ask them, "What is your mom's name?" They'll be like, "I don't know. You don't know your parents' name?" They don't know where their parents are from. Like, do you speak to your parents at all? Y'all, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening next. They don't know what year they were born. Some of them can tell you their birth date, but what year they were born, they don't know. Nor are they interested. I don't know. Next, they don't know how to use a dictionary. Now, yes, everything is on the phones now. They use iPads and things like that, but still being able to put things in alphabetical order. They don't know what something means, but they're also not interested in figuring out what it means. Yeah. Now, they have dictionaries on their phone where they're able to look things up, but to actually look it up when you know that you don't know about it, like there's no effort being put into that at all. So, of course, they're not going to use a dictionary. They don't even use their phone. All they have to do is copy down what the word is and read what it means. But they're not even going to do that. So, and last but not least, I think this is number 10. If it's not, y'all fill some down below. The last one is how to follow multi-step directions. If I tell them, "Go over there, get me that book, and then when you're done, wipe that desk off, and then bring me the paper out of the book." They go, "Okay." They go to the book, and then they be like, "What did you say to do again?" Yeah, you're not listening. You're not listening at all. And it's a problem. I don't know. Parents, if y'all can help us out, we need to go back to basics. Can you please help these kids out because they're coming to the classroom lacking the basics and it's a problem. We're going to do our part as teachers, but we just need a little help. We need a little extra help at home. Please, please, please. We're a community. we work together. So, let's set our kids up for success. Let let's set our students up for success and let's work together and try to just bridge some of these basic gaps, please. Thank you. If you're a teacher, definitely leave some that you've noticed that kids don't know how to do anymore. Over the years, you're finding that they they don't know how to do it and they should. Drop it down in the comments. I'm interested to see what challenges you guys are up against. All right, peace.

I was not exaggerating when I said that I'm truly concerned about this younger generation that's coming up. And for reference, the generation I'm referring to is alpha. So, it's my children's age group and their ages are 10, 8, 6, and four. So, let's group it together and say 13 and under. I made a video about this a few weeks ago, and I explained some things that I'm witnessing, the inappropriate behavior that's happening in front of me and completely ignored by the adults around them. So, the response was pretty similar. A lot of people are feeling the same way as me, the same concerns. And I said, "Wow, I have a lot of stories I can tell if you want to hear them." And everybody wants to hear them. So, that's what I'm going to do. And lucky for you, something happens every few days, but I'm going to go ahead and go with the most recent. So, over the weekend, my son had a soccer game. My son is 6 years old, so he's playing with other children that are also 6 years old. So, I'm sitting on the sideline with my daughter and my son, and my husband is behind me playing catch the ball with my littlest. So, both teams get on the field. The other team starts going like, "Oh, you're going down, boo." Like, whatever, whatever. So, I think to myself, "Oh, they're a little rowdy." Okay. Game starts. Well, there's one kid on the other team that notices that we are all actively cheering for my son. Okay. So, this child on the other team Midame walks over to me, a grown woman, puts two hands up like this, this close to my face, and goes, "You're your except it. I have to mouth it because of Tik Tok." He said the words you're Mhm. 6 years old. There's no other way to describe how I felt. I was in disbelief. My daughter and son are sitting with me. They're in shock. The ref is looking at me completely in shock. I go to turn to my husband to tell him like this is what happened. But he had already seen it. He was making his way over to the coach. Okay. I stand up. I go, "Where is this child's parents? Where is his parents? Who's his parents?" Well, guess what? No one claimed him. So that coach ends up pulling that kid out of the game. And I was like, "All right, this is it. We're going to find out who his parents are cuz surely they're going to see him be pulled from the game." Well, guess what? His parents were actually sitting on the end of the field, kneedeep in their phones, completely unaware of anything going on. They had no idea that their son had just done this. This video is already getting really long, so to avoid me going into another minute of talking, I'm just going to end with this, and I'll go into details maybe another time of how I know this. The most disappointing thing is those parents left without even knowing that this took place. Yep. Can you imagine? At this point, y'all, I just need to start a documentary. There is no way that it's 11:15 and I'm on the brink of tears because I want to go home so bad. These kids are horrible. Horrible. They don't care about learning. The parents don't hold them accountable. They don't make their kids hold theirelves accountable. The admin does not hold the parents of the children accountable. They say they hold the kids accountable, but they go to the office and they come back and they do the same thing. It's awful. I have a parrot in there with me for some of the kids that have um disability like different things like she's in there to support me. She watched me teach a whole lesson. I explicitly taught this lesson. I used all of my resources. The students had studies weeklies out in front of them. I had the article up on the board. We went article by paragraph by paragraph. We broke it down. I asked them questions about it. We dissected the pictures. The whole nine. I did my job. I'm pausing asking them questions. If you're a teacher, you know, and you use Studies Weekly, like you know that at the end, like they do like a there's a little quiz just to check for comprehension, right? So, we get to that point, y'all, and only five, my same five students could answer the questions, and it was simple things like, who was Benjamin Franklin? Was he a doctor or inventor? They're saying a doctor. We had to learn, mind you, I teach first grade, but we had to learn the word perseverance because that is one of his character traits. It means don't give up, keep trying. That's how I explained it to them. I asked them, "Does perseverance mean kindness?" All of them but five said yes. I don't know what else to do. I don't know how else I can I tell them the sky is blue. What color is the sky? They say red. This is deeper than education. This is deep. Like, baby, don't get me to diagnose them. And then on our way out the door to lunch, cuz y'all know I I have to leave to lunch or I'm going to spaz. But on our way out the door, one of the kids spit in another kid's face. Spit. Just spit. And before that, the same little girl that I made the video on, two other of my videos on with the parent, y'all, she's been hitting people all morning. I talked to her at 7:40 about hitting my nonverbal putting her hands on. She didn't hit him. She grabbed my nonverbal um autistic little boy's arm. Why are you touching him? He does not mess with nobody. Why are you touching him? Spoke to her about that. Then on the way to specials at what time they go? 7 7:46 cuz I was running late because of that incident, she grabs another one of my autistic students face. Why are you touching her? Mind you, this little girl has already had a swarm report and been referred to the counselor for a bullying incident on the bus. She hits, she steals, she cusses, and all her mama want to say is she still believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and she not going to change overnight. She a kid. I'm fed up, y'all. I just sent a long email citing citing the code of conduct in the student handbook, student and parent handbook, letting my admin know I have exhausted all of my resources. I can't take recess from the little girl cuz her mama say it's illegal. So, what else do you want me to do? And at what point is a suspension going to be given? I've asked for the removal out of my classroom. They won't grant it. So, okay. Now, I'm gonna cite what y'all have in black and white. In black and white. So, now what? Now what? They put so much weight and emphasis on the teacher. The teacher. The teacher. What about the kids? What about the parents? Like, I can't make a six-year-old do nothing they don't want to do. cuz Lord forbid I put the pencil in their hand and make them write it. Oh, now it's abuse or something. Like, we can't win. We cannot win. Like, I I'm about to get my Chick-fil-A and I'm about to go and I'm about to sit at my desk for the rest of the day because I can't teach. I I don't know what else you want me to do. I've tried. Halfway through the project, I had five kids come up and say, "Can we do something else now?" And that was the moment I realized our kids don't know how to stick with something anymore. I've been teaching since 1993, and yes, we have always had kids who struggle to focus, but what's happening now is on a whole other level. If you're just meeting me, I'm Melissa, and I have been teaching forever. About 7 to 10 years ago, I started to see a shift. Suddenly, every child had a phone or tablet. And parents, understandably, we're using them to keep their kids quiet. Of course, I did it with my own kids sometimes, too. But now, it's different. Kids aren't playing outside. They're not learning how to be bored. They're not learning conflict resolution skills, and they don't know how to listen or sit still anymore. I used to show a movie that connected to our lesson, and the kids were so excited. Now, I've got kids asking to skip it. They literally can't just sit and watch. Do you remember how it used to feel when the teacher would pull out the cart with the big TV and the VCR attached? Yeah. Not anymore. Now, kids need constant stimulation. So, yes, focus issues have always been around, but nothing like what I've seen in the past decade. There are so many teachers quitting right now in America. And I can guarantee you it's related to these three things. Student behavior and how there are no consequences for horrible student behavior. Number two, no support from admin at all with the horrible behavior. And then number three, the amount of work that teachers put in does not equal our take-home pay. And I know what you're going to say. But you get paid for summer and for your breaks. Honey, our salary is broken up into 12 months, but we only get paid for the time that we work. They just do teachers a favor and divide that by 12. So, we get paid through the summer. But the amount of work that we do outside of the classroom, insane. Some of y'all wouldn't last a day in our shoes. teaching in the year 2025 is not the same career as it was teaching before the pandemic. And I think a lot of people just aren't talking about it because the people who were in it before the pandemic are the only ones who have seen how drastic of a change this is. And if you are somebody who's thinking about becoming a teacher, you are basing that sentiment and that feeling and that draw toward the profession based on your experience as a student. Your childhood memories even up to high school is not the same environment. If you were in high school when the pandemic started, you still knew what it felt like to be in a real elementary school class, a real middle school class where there was projects and there was creativity and the curriculum wasn't scripted. And the change isn't entirely because of the pandemic. But the pandemic is a great marketing place that divided this. It's the continental rift, right? It's because before the pandemic, teachers were the curriculum. There was a curriculum to follow, but it was more of a pacing guide. And now we have what's called a scripted curriculum. And you would be shocked by how many teachers have a scripted curriculum. And this means that teachers are not the autonomous professionals. Teachers are not the ones who earned their degree and they have the depth of subject knowledge and they are the ones who are deciding what happens every day. The script is they're going by a script. And the idea behind the script is that any administrator can walk into any classroom on any day of the year and everyone will be on the same page literally. And this plus all of the additional duties, responsibilities, and things to cry over in teachers lives is the reason why so many teachers really have to stick to that script is because they literally do not have the bandwidth emotionally, intellectually, physically to do the things that they want to do. Even if they have been teachers since the '9s, since the 2000s, teaching is not the same. And it has gone so deeply into this hole that it cannot be the same again. And this is why the shift has happened where behaviors have escalated crazy. It's not because of just parents. It's not just because of students. Like it's all of these conditions together. Behaviors are not going to go back to the way they were before. The environment of a classroom is not ever going to go back to what you thought it was before. Everything has changed so drastically, so quickly, and in the wrong direction that it is irretrievable. I know this in my heart as somebody who was a teacher from 2014 to 2022. And I know this in my heart as a parent who is observing these changes going on. And I know this in my heart as somebody who has very close friendships with teachers who are creators on this app. People often ask me, would you go back? I cannot go back. There is not something to go back to. It's not about the money. It never was about the money. That's not why I left education. It's about the conditions and what's going on and how this is impacting teachers and students. It's no longer an environment that I can see myself ever being in and not wanting to scream every moment of the day. I needed the freedom and the autonomy that I was trusted as a professional. And if I go back into a school, I do not have that freedom. I do not have that autonomy. I do not have that trust. I am not considered the knowledgeable person in the room even though I have the responsibility ultimately at the end of the day for every learner in that room. So you get all of the responsibility but with none of the autonomy. Schools are the narcissistic controller and the one who's profiting from the teacher's efforts and teachers are the victim in the abusive relationship. and the students are the ones who are just catching the strays.

Here's my quick check-in for the day. First period drove me nuts. That is my only 10th grade class. And what I'm learning is that they think everything is funny. Everything is hilarious. They don't take the work seriously. Let me show y'all. So I read through a poem with them, right? And I asked them to read this on their own. This is the passage. One, two, three paragraphs. This is too much, miss. Three paragraphs is too much. And he says it with a smirk and a smile. And it made me mad because what do you mean reading a three paragraph passage is too much? That's too hard. How many words is this? 10th graders. Mind you, I remember reading Beaowolf in 10th grade. Is that not what I was reading in 10th grade? Like reading it and trying to comprehend. and they want to complain to me about three paragraphs. Three paragraphs. I started contacting parents. Cuz if I'm stressed, you're about to be stressed with me. I'm not going to be the only one stressed in this situation. No way in hell. Please talk to them about taking school more seriously. Cuz what are we here for? What is your expectation when you walk into this building? This is an English class. We're shocked and appalled and disappointed that we need to read and write. And I am asking them for the bare minimum. And they still complain. I'm over it. I'm done. I'm tired. It's exhausting. I have to repeat myself a thousand times a day. And I just don't understand the confusion. Like I don't I don't get it because I wasn't this type of student. So I'm having a very hard time being what's the word? Understanding. And I I look at myself as a very understanding person, like very understanding, very lenient. Um, but I'm having a really hard time being sympathetic to their situation because this is nothing and yet we're complaining. We're going into fifth period and it's an early release Monday and I'm This is how I'm feeling. So, like we're all talking about how public schools are not sustainable, right? But seriously, what is the conversation? Because I am a speech language pathologist. I work full-time in the school. So, I'm on a sped team and we have a school psychologist, a case manager, applied skills classroom, emotional disability classrooms, step uh classrooms, which is an autism classroom. We have every program that you can think of here in our district. And still, it feels like we are constantly on fire in this bed world. Our evaluation list and re-evaluation list is through the roof. I've never seen our list so long and it doesn't seem to be stopping or shrinking anytime soon. I feel like it's so common that we have pretty extreme behaviors even from students that are in just gened and parents have concerns, teachers have concerns. So naturally, they come to the sped team. And I guess I'm just like what what do they want us to do? We do we just continue to label everything as OI, other health impairment, meaning that's ADHD, ADD, ODD, whatever the case may be, because they're inattentive, they're hyperactive, oppositional, and but but but it's not like parents are taking their students outside and getting formal diagnoses from their pediatricians, from their psychologists, from their psychiatrists. Where is the line is what my question is. where do we say no this is something more and just giving them a label of ohi or language impairment is going to help them. It definitely frustrates me as an SLP because what used to be a true language impairment is now getting confused and the lines are getting blurred with it being more in my opinion a language delay because the exposure and things that should have been happening before students are entering school aren't happening anymore. There's no formal teaching at home, it seems like. So then they're coming to school with skills that are not aligning with the curriculum as they should be. They don't have that school readiness. I'm getting the referral. I'm completing the evaluations. Their scores are showing that they're falling below. And yes, I know that scores aren't everything, but it's like they're falling below. So I just say, "No, they don't have a language impairment. It's just lack of exposure. Stay in the classroom." But then they're still not going to catch up. So what is the solution? I feel like as an SLP, my job is to always have solutions. My job is to problem solve truly. And I feel like I'm pretty good at that. I I I pat myself on the back when it comes to coming up with ideas. I feel very creative and innovative. And I I had a hard time taking no for an answer, which I think is a strength of mine. So, I don't know. I guess it's just what are what are we supposed to do in schools when the lists are so high? We don't have a case load cap. My numbers are higher and higher every single year. Even though I'm doing my best to get students off, dismiss them appropriately. It seems like I'm never going to be able to catch up. This rant can go on and on and on because this is the dilemma that's been facing public schools probably since the beginning of time. But it seems like it's only getting worse as the climate of our e economy is changing. The expectations of parents and families are changing. the way that technology plays such a huge role in a lot of these families and children's lives. It just seems like they're coming to school, all of our professional expertise are coming to the table to problem solve, to come up with solutions, but then that stops once they leave the building. So, what's the point? It makes what we're doing sometimes just feel pointless. that I know what we're doing is not pointless, but if there's no carryover and no generalization,

This is going to be one of those videos that I'm going to lose my in. Okay, I am so sick and tired of setting through IEP meetings because they're bull in in my state anyway. They're excuses. These people writing these IEPs for these kids spend maybe a half hour every evaluation which is what every six to eight weeks maybe even more than that and then they write it on a piece of paper that it's complete. They're not spending every day in the classroom where these kids are terrors. Okay, these kids are spitting, they're hitting, they're kicking, they're hurting their friends consistently, but because the IEP meeting went well, mom's all happy about it and your kid's still ashole. You changed the diagnosis to autism. Well, big deal. The mom said he's pooping his pants and they literally looked at her and said, "Oh, welcome to have an autistic kid." That's what they do. Bull. Your kid doesn't just his pants at 5 years old because he's autistic after he's been potty trained for three years. We've got to stop making exceptions for these kids. They're going to get nowhere in life if we continue to walk on eggshells and reward them for their bading behavior. There, I said it. I'm done. Rant over. Hi, it's Monday and I'm coming to y'all a little early um because I am just absolutely drained. I'm drained. And uh I I did see a few Tik Toks last week um that got me thinking and I I wanted to reiterate uh a few things. Um and that is that about 90% of my job uh in teaching is managing behavior. Um it it I know that I could teach anything, but if if they're hanging from the ceiling, uh it's like coring cats every day, and I mean feral cats. Uh but it's about managing behavior. And I I would like to reiterate that I do feel like it has everything to do with the fact that uh kids used to be more social. They used to be over at friends house. They would play outside all day with their with their the neighbors kids. They would be in and out of their homes. Um, and I don't know about you all, but when I was brought up, um, the village disciplined the kids, right? Uh, my my parents' friends disciplined us. Um, they held same standards, you know, um, they they would tell us uh, what we could and could not do. And and I I say that uh because the things that adults deem to be socially normal for kids are no longer there. Like meaning we we hold that expectation but but the kids can't adhere to it because um it's not been uh ingrained in their souls. right? It's not been ingrained in their souls. I had to

I had to argue with a child today. Um, who went to get tissues and when he picked up the box, there were no tissues in the box. And do you know what he did? He set the box back down and did dispose of the box. And when I said, "Do you think that you could throw that away?" He said, "I didn't do it. I didn't empty that box of Kleenex." So therefore, I'm not going to dispose of it. Uh, Miss Walker, I'm going to go throw this away right now, even though you're up in the middle of lecture. Even though that's not sit down. I'm doing something. And I the what's happening is is that I'm now spending my waking days parenting over and over and over social norms. Hey, when this kid says, "Hey, can I have your orange?" Because you're not going to eat it. And you allow him to, that doesn't mean to chuck it as hard as you can and hit him in the head with it.

And I just want you all to think about the last time you had a 14-year-old that you occupied without a phone all day learning something. And I want you to take that 14-year-old and I want you to multiply it by 32 at at 8:30 in the morning or at 2:30, whatever. Some of my smartest students are going to fail my class this semester. These are students who are incredibly engaged. They they listen. They engage in conversation. They ask questions. However, they're not doing the work. Now, I've had direct conversations with these students saying, "What's going on? What can I help you with?" And what I keep hearing often is that they don't feel motivated to do work outside of the classroom. Now, we kind of dug deeper and dissected that a little bit more. And really what is going on is they can't self-motivate themselves to do anything that they don't want to do in an independent setting where an adult or superior figure is telling them to do something. And I don't honestly know how to feel about it. I feel mixed emotions. Like I'm sad to to think that some of the students that if I wasn't looking at my grade book and I was just looking in the classroom, I'd be like those are the best students over there, >> but I know they're not going to pass my class and is it they're not doing the work.

I'm a former teacher and now parent and I can see a splitting that's happening in society and it has nothing to do with politics. I did another video regarding this having to do with a splitting regarding technology and moderation versus not. This is something entirely different but connected. The splitting is parents who teach their kids versus those that don't. Why are teachers leaving in droves and many of them are homeschooling their kids? If you were just leaving, it's one thing, but leaving and pulling your kids is a whole another part. Generally speaking, here's what I saw. First of all, it is not cool to learn at all. It's not cool to be respectful to teachers or people in general. Being a victim is viewed as a good thing. And from a general sense, we have dumbed down schools. We are eliminating gifted classes and just the class structure itself has changed. So what an honor student looks like today is not what it looked like 20 years ago. And the bottom which used to be a baseline of had some semblance of knowledge and intellect is now unable to read, unable to write, unable to think. And the school systems are passing these kids along regardless of that.

Now, what teachers see is the dumbing down of society, the bringing everyone down. And so, you might be the parent who's saying like, "But I teach my kid, so they're going to be okay." Are they? Because if the school is now moving everything downward towards the bottom and having to deal with these bottom, is your kid being challenged, being pushed? Because what I've seen is that it now no longer is good to push through hard. If a kid complains and they're like, "No, this is too hard." We are very quick to be like, "All right, well, here's a way of making it easier." That's not how we grow. And it should be teachers who know this, but it doesn't help that they're not getting the support to push the upper level kids up higher. And because they're so busy with dealing with the bottom that they can't deal with the top. So then there's this split and the top ones are not being challenged or pushed as much as they should be and the bottoms are the ones being catered to, but it's so hard to move them anywhere with absolutely zero support from home. And that's why that's what it all comes down to. The parents that spend time at home teaching their kid, pushing their kid, make challenging their kid so that they excel and keep moving upward and learning how to deal with failure are going to do so much more in life just in general than the ones who are continued to be like, "It's okay. It's okay to be offended. It's okay that you can't read. It's okay that you can't do that. We're just going to push you along. We're just going to push you along. It's fine."

And along with this, it's a total lack of emotional intelligence, which is why a kid tries something, fails, and then it's I'm stupid. I'm I'm dumb. I'll never know this. Fixed mindset, closed mindset, and not having the mental capacity to understand that it's okay to fail. It's okay to make mistakes, and challenging things make you grow. That's why the thing is whether the teacher leaves or doesn't leave, their kids are going to have a leg up because teachers realize that this is what's happening in schools and know that they have to challenge their kid more at home because it's not really going to be happening at at school. And we're honestly seeing the beginning stages of the movie Idiocracy where people get into society, they're kids that are going to become adults where they can't read, they can't write, and they're so easily manipulated because they're always just flowing with the cool thing and they're like, "Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do." Okay, I guess everyone else is doing this, so I'll just do There's absolutely no critical thinking. And that's how you end up with, wait, Gatorade is better because it has electrolytes. Come on, bro. You should know that. And the thing is that's moving towards the majority. So yeah, what are the things that are splitting us? It's the use of technology. It's the use of AI. And it is just plain and simple, parents. And yes, the kids who only have one parent or divorced parents definitely are going to have an even tougher time with this because that's a really hard thing to overcome given the school systems. So, we are moving towards a halves and has nots, but it's you have good parents or you don't. And because all this is going on, being a good parent is actually becoming easier, not harder. But that is if that parent has emotional intelligence and knows what's going on with schools to be able to realize that they're going to be the ones that have to challenge their kids. And that's just my thoughts of the day.

>> This is my 13th year teaching high school and my 10th year teaching AP Lit, my second year teaching AP seminar. And I've noticed a troubling trend with my students over that period that has progressively gotten worse with a huge spike right after CO that I just I can't I can't not talk about it anymore. The trend is that teenagers kids in general are significantly less able to critically think or solve problems on their own without help. I've got examples. For example, they will type in I've noticed this a lot in AP seminar. They will type in one long complicated search phrase and when they don't immediately on the first page of results see exactly what they're looking for, they give up and they come to me and they instead of saying, "How can I search better?" or "What am I doing wrong?" they go immediately to, "Well, there's no articles on my topic, so I need to pick a new topic." like immediately giving up after one try of a typing a question into a research database that is so complicated and conditional and convoluted that there's no way anybody would come up with results for it.

Another example is I this happens daily, literally daily in all of my classes, asking a question that is clearly and blatantly addressed in the step-by-step instructions for whatever it is they're doing. And then when I point out, oh, that's in the instructions, they still follow that up with, yeah, but you could just tell me, right? Related to that last example. If I give them an assignment with said step-by-step instructions, like my writing revision assignment that is eight very simple steps every single time we do it over 50% of my AP students miss one or more of the steps. This problem has gotten so severe that I have stopped regrading written revisions if all eight of the steps are not followed. And these are not big steps. I'm talking like step one is copy and paste the essay from AP classroom onto a Google doc. That's step one by itself. Step two is color code the essay and I give them the key. Like these are very simple steps. These are not convoluted steps. I've started returning them and I won't regrade them until they complete all eight of the steps. This one seems minor and silly, but I think it's related and I think it's important. I have noticed a significant increase over the last few years of dumb, lazy grammatical errors even when the students have spellch check turned on which I blows my mind.

Another big one, students asking for help on a writing assignment. And when I go to help them, it turns out they haven't even looked at the very detailed and extensive feedback that I've already provided them before asking the question. For example, student turns in a piece of writing. I give lots of feedback on that writing along with the AP score associated with the AP rubric for that piece of writing. They go in to rewrite and revise that assignment in order to get more points. And in the process of their rewrite, they come to me to ask for help. And it becomes very clear once I start asking them questions that they have not even seen the feedback I've given. And when I ask them if they've read it, they say, "Oh, I didn't know that was there." Even though it's very clearly on the page. And finally, just a general and blatant refusal to even attempt any kind of problem solving on their own. They will come ask me the most basic questions about functionality in Google Docs. How do I switch to suggesting mode? Even though that's clearly outlined with pictures in step-by-step instructions that I've given them, it's also a really simple Google question. Like pulling up Google and quickly saying how to switch to suggesting mode in Google Docs or how to highlight text in Google Docs. Like something so banal is impossible for them to figure out on their own.

I get asked 85,000 questions a day and people talk about with moms and teachers like decision fatigue. I don't know if I'd call it decision fatigue because most of these questions are so simple and basic that there's not really a decision that I have to make, but question fatigue for sure. having to answer questions that that any self-respecting person should be able to figure out on their own with zero to no effort, but I'm answering them for 15 people in a row at any given point in the day. I think that's that's where some of the teacher burnout comes from. So, drop a line in the comments and let me know what evidence, what examples do you see in your students of a loss of just basic problem solving, critical thinking skills. I am working on trying to adjust and account for that and kind of like force these kids to start thinking for themselves. I've stopped answering these questions with actual answers and started responding with questions in return to kind of force them their brains to like kick in. Um, and I've started like like I mentioned before, returning assignments that don't follow the instructions and saying, "Hey, I'm not going to grade this until you've followed all the instructions that are clearly laid out for you." Like I don't other than that, I'm I'm not sure what else to do, but what other examples of this have you noticed? So, what do you think? What are you seeing in your areas? Are you hearing about teachers quitting? What do you think about the current moral status of students and of our country? Let me know down below. Also, I am on Instagram and Rumble. So, if you want to follow me on some other platforms, you can find the links down in the description box below. Let me know again, like I said, what your thoughts are, and I hope to catch you in the next video. Take care.