Teacher Misery

Lauren welcomes Jaclyn Kirby, author of Teachers Are Human Too. They discuss why she decided to leave the classroom after only two years, how there need to be a lot more opportunities for natural SEL to occur in the class, how teachers cannot have any reaction to trauma, how they destroy the things we spend money on, the time a fart made Lauren cry; there's no right way to handle a student fight, how sometimes you have to laugh during horrible situations, the weight of not being able to help kids with terrible home lives, and how hard it can be to be the young, new teacher.

If you like what we're doing, you can support us by rating us 5 stars, subscribing, and telling a friend! Also visit teachermisery.com and I just opened a gift shop at teachermiseryshop.com!

Lauren and DeAndre discuss the most useless and humiliating professional development sessions they had to endure, such as a 4-hour-long training on Microsoft, including how to send an email, country line dancing, and reading from a kindergarten book while in a parrot costume. They also discuss batshit crazy teachers who are completely ineffective yet can't be fired and students who look up their teachers on the internet and how damn creepy it can get!

In episode 19, Lauren and DeAndre review various slang terms provided by middle and high school teachers and try to identify them. Then, we discuss some of the dumbest and weirdest sex education questions that students had the audacity to ask their teachers. This is a very inappropriate and hilarious episode!

If you like what we're doing, you can support us by rating us 5 stars, subscribing, and telling a friend! Also visit teachermisery.com and I just opened a gift shop… teachermiseryshop.com!

We talk with Dr. Julia, a former school counselor and psychologist, who runs the @sarcasticschoolpsychologist Instagram. We discuss teacher stress and anxiety before and after COVID, how bad admins keep their jobs in a state with no tenure, the lack of options for teachers outside of the teaching field, how much SPED teachers are expected to do and keep track of, the lack of creativity in teaching, how there's no support after a serious tragedy (trigger warning: suicide), teaching brings out your deepest psychological issues, teachers don't get any grace as far as mental health, teachers are held to impossible standards in society, the abuse that Special Ed. teachers have to take, teachers need more resources and compassion for the heavy load they carry!

If you like what we're doing, you can support us by rating us 5 stars, subscribing, and telling a friend! Also visit teachermisery.com and I just opened a gift shop… teachermiseryshop.com!

Nightmares about school, what DeAndre learned in his educational leadership classes and, more importantly, what he didn't learn, kids in mainstream classrooms who have violent outbursts and how there is no protocol or solution other than evacuating the class, the 1st grader in Virginia who shot his teacher and how that situation unfolded, a creepy kid who gave Lauren's kid a bloody nose and how to handle that, kids should be required to take pre-k, too many kids are given melatonin to sleep, and we react to outrageously inappropriate comments on observation reports.

You can support us by rating us 5 stars, subscribing, and telling a friend! Also visit teachermisery.com and TM just opened a gift shop… teachermiseryshop.com!

We recorded our first podcast in February of 2020, and didn't record again until the middle of 2023. Here we talk about teachers in elementary school who had a positive impact on us, the lack of options for handling badass kids, how kids get expelled and reenroll in other schools, why teachers aren't allowed to know a student's mental health history, how frustrating negative observations are, and lots of other teacher misery-related topics that haven't changed at all!

Dont forget to follow @Teachermisery on Instagram and Facebook and check out teachermisery.com. Also, TM has a gift shop! Teachermiseryshop.com!

On this episode, Lauren and DeAndre discuss ridiculous grading policies they have had to implement and other rules that Teacher Misery followers have shared. These policies include the very popular no student gets a zero rule, low scoring assignments (or non-existent ones) getting rounded up to 50% , a 20% passing rate, 50% equaling an A (yes, you read that correctly), incentives other than grades we've tried to get kids to do their work and whether or not they worked, and a few parent requests that are so crazy we had to discuss about them! (Warm the toilet seat for your kid? Absolutely not!)

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Charlene Lynch, part-time teacher, and career coach, joins us to discuss the ten different districts she worked for, gossipy coworkers and how to avoid them, ways to save your sanity at school, the problem of tenure, ways to protect your energy at school, and how to navigate the world outside of teaching.

Support us by rating us 5 stars, subscribing, and telling a friend! Also check out teachermisery.com and teachermiseryshop.com, Lauren's new gift shop!

Lauren tells one of her worst teaching stories where admin. moderated a debate between students about whether or not she is a bitch (spoiler alert: she's not!); DeAndre tells of his first teaching gig, which was a bait and switch of the worst kind; odd places kids put their poop; teachers buy the supplies and the kids destroy them; kids who put a teacher's head on a porn star's body and don't get in trouble; why don't teachers ever press charges when kids do violent things?; and we discuss hilariously disrespectful insults that students have launched at teachers.

Mike Beyer, the co-author of Pencils Down: Career Journeys of Educators Who Left the Profession and What We Can Learn from the Crisis in Education, joins us as we discuss why teachers are leaving droves, what motivated him to write the book, his journey from teacher to principal who was then fired, to non-profit work to the corporate world; the history of teaching in our country and how it's been feminized; the time Lauren got in trouble for calling 911 when a student was overdosing; how ridiculous the "self-care" attempts of admin. are; the issues that are blamed on COVID; how we don't trust our children like we used to; why we're so obsessed with data, why Mike got fired, and we play the "Who Gave These Shitty Gifts?" Game: admin. or a student?

Don't forget to subscribe, like, rate 5 stars, and tell a friend about our podcast. The best thing for us is word of mouth- so if you like what we're doing- tell someone! Follow teacher misery on Instagram and Facebook and check out teachermisery.com.

Also, there's a Teacher Misery Gift Shop!