Category: teachers

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Teachers Share Which Former Students Surprised Them the Most Later in Life

You never really know where people are headed in life…

Which, when I think about it, is probably part of the fun for teachers because it’s all kind of a crapshoot.

Teachers, which former students surprised you the most later in life?

Here’s how people responded on AskReddit.

1. The big time!

“I ran a program for kids grades 4-7 for a local newspaper. I would reach them the fundamentals of journalism, and they would write stories for a weekly kids page.

One of my students got a degree in journalism and was a television broadcaster for a little while. Another went into public relations and works for a university, last I heard. Another runs a really cool vlog and has been getting some notice as an influencer.

And another got a degree in journalism, earned an Emmy just a few years out of college, and now hosts a national television show and interviews famous people on the red carpet.”

2. Drove you crazy.

“I had a class of 8th graders one year that I SWORE we’d someday see one of their pictures on the front page of the paper because they were arrested for something (small town). That class drove me crazy.

The one that drove me the craziest was hyper, wouldn’t do his work, copied on tests so openly that I had to pass out 3 different tests every time…the list was endless. He ended up on the front page of our paper, though.

He was a top adviser in the Bush administration!”

3. Big turnaround.

“I retired from teaching after 36 years of working with special education students of varying exceptionalities. There was one female student that I worked with for several years that displayed a keen aptitude in math but also initially had a phobia for math.

Interesting. I would always approach her with math by using the words, “Okay, we’re going to play with some math.” The shift in her approach to math along with the elimination of anxiety associated with the subject was truly amazing to witness.

Within a half a year I mainstreamed her into a regular education math class and she was out performing other students. She went onto the University of WA and was awarded scholarships for her work in math.”

4. On to better things.

“Product Design teacher here.

Can’t tell you how immensely proud I am of an ex student who got out of the small time town, emigrated to Denmark, came out and has become a designer for Lego.”

5. Elite athletes.

“Two former students ended up playing in the NFL.

I reached out to both and let them know I was proud of them for their dedication and following through on their dreams. Both took time to respond and thank me for making a difference in their lives.

I have so many former students who keep in touch, and I love getting to see how they are doing!”

6. Cool!

“One of my kids would only play with Legos and h**ed school because he figured things out far more quickly than anyone else.

He was one of the founders of MakerBot.”

7. From a veteran teacher.

“I teach, and have always taught, in a Title I school. Lots of bad situations, very poor families, lots of things we can not fix or even help.

One of my third-grade boys, many, many years ago, was ANGRY. I mean, not the “pick fights” kind, but the “I h**e everyone, you all suck, there’s no point” kind of angry and far too weary of the world for a 9-year old. He was BRILLIANT. Such a smart kid, and he would work for me, but his fourth and fifth grade teachers could get him to do almost nothing, he did just enough to pass.

They thought I was crazy when I talked about how smart he was. On the standardized test for fifth grade, he basically maxed out the math portion, and won some kind of national award. I wept. Ugly cried. I was so proud for him! He had a rough time in middle school, but by high school, he was doing a bit better. Still angry, still unmotivated, but managing, I guess.

Three years ago, I was in my classroom in the afternoon, and got a call from the office. I had a visitor. I went down, and there he was. With his wife, and the fattest, sweetest baby on the planet. He is in the army, and y’all, he was SO HAPPY, and had a job he loved, and a woman he loved, and a baby. He is still best friends with another boy that was in our class that year. He just radiated happiness and well-being. My heart!

Things could have turned out so much differently for him. Given his circumstances, they should have. I am so thankful he beat the odds.”

8. A real shock.

“The former student of mine who d**d by s**cide this year.

It was a complete shock to all of us who’d taught her in elementary school. She had really been one of those kids with a constant ear-to-ear smile – not just full of joy, but radiating joy; not only was she well-liked by all, but she really seemed to genuinely like everybody.

When my students leave at the end of each year, they go off to middle school, so every year’s end (though always desperately needed) has that bittersweet, vaguely funereal bite to it. This’ll sound strange, but to me it feels sort of like when a parent’s first child gets married – there’s happiness and excitement aplenty, but there’s also a sense of something ending that naturally brings back a flood of childhood memories, and with them usually some tears.

All of that is to say that I was already familiar with the devastation memory can precipitate when I heard the news. But death really does hit different.

The best I can do to describe it is this: there’s no hierarchy in the memories that come after a person d**s. None of them are insignificant. The first thing I remembered when I heard was that her line number was 11 (that is, that when our class lined up, her spot was 11th from the front – in the days before digital assessment or camera-scanning, there was a real time-saving advantage to having students always hand in assignments in alphabetical order as they walked out the door).

Over the next couple of weeks, other such memories were constantly percolating, to the point where at one point one of my current students asked me why I kept randomly pausing in the middle of my sentences.

I wasn’t collected enough at the time to tell them the truth, so I just brushed it off, but if I could have another go at it, I think this is what I’d say:

You have no idea how much we remember of you. You have no idea how much of yourself you give to a classroom, because you would never think of things like the way you write your name, the way you sit, the way you laugh, the way you smile, the sound of your voice, your accent, the way(s) you wear your hair (or maybe the fact that I had to ask you to take your hood off three times a day).

The way you keep using the same pencil until it’s only about 2 micrometers long, the way your backpack looks like it’s eating you when you carry it, the way you find cool leaves at recess and show them to me, the way you tell me every single day about what your pet bird did the night before, the way you said “Yes!” with genuine excitement when you saw the newest Aru Shah book on your desk…simply put, the way you are – as gifts.

But they are, and I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to receive them.”

9. Not a happy ending.

“I was his sixth grade English teacher. He joined the class a bit late but he was a sweet kid, and eager to please. Along with a cousin, he was now being raised by his grandparents since the state had recently deemed his mother unfit.

The boy craaaaved positive attention, and at school, he found it. He worked hard, was funny as hell, and he was a freaky good athlete. But academically, he struggled. He was very open about his life and talked openly about how few resources he had at home or about times he endured with his mom. I think the other kids felt bad for him, because they’d ask if they could stay after to help him with his assignments. They’d volunteer. He was a charmer.

I was also a coach then, so I’d see him often. He started confiding in me, coming to me for advice, etc. As he was being recruited, I talked him up, “marketed him” , wrote a ton of letters on his behalf, and helped him and his grandparents complete forms, and forms and forms . His grades were a problem, so it happened later than anyone expected, but he accepted a scholarship to a college out of state.

I hadn’t seen him over the summer, but a few days before he left for college, we had lunch together. He arrived disheveled and barefooted. He didn’t eat, and frankly, he “talked crazy.” I was concerned, but wished him luck and he left for college. He was asked to leave the school less than three months later.

From what I’ve learned since, being away was less than ideal. He was a homeboy and being away scared him. He grew anxious, befuddled…couldn’t sleep. Worse, he stopped taking the antipsychotic meds he’d been on since early his senior yr of h.s. Back home, his grandparents insisted on him taking his medication, and he insisted that he wouldn’t.

He was huge and strong and these altercations grew violent and frequent before long Police would come and arrest him, but that was just a stop gap. He’d return home from a night or two in jail and nothing would change. Jail wasn’t a deterrent, because he had become schizophrenic and jail couldn’t do a thing for him or for his family.

I didn’t know a thing about his mental health issues, or that he was even home. So yes, I was surprised by that boy of promise who grew into a man, who through no fault of his own, deemed it necessary to spend several hours beating his grandparents and cousin to d**th using a pool cue and a set of forty pound dumbbells.”

10. Former gang member.

“My wife is a secondary school teacher. The school she teaches at is rough. One of the students she remembers was a gang member and was acting out in the classroom in front of his friends.

He couldn’t go home after school for family reasons so he would come to my wife after school and ask for maths tuition / time on the computer. He came daily and with the support of my wife he founded his passion and it was to work on cars.

Fast forward 5 years, he is now a mechanic (apprentice learner) for Mercedes AMG in Dubai.”

11. Great work!

“Am a college professor in India, and well, having fair skin is a pretty big issue here, with fairness equated with beauty and class. One of our first year female students was caught ingesting pills and passing out in class.

Some of the disciplinary committee was for suspension of the student, but me and my colleagues from our Department asked that she be let off with a warning, and we would personally see to her, since she always seemed like a pretty good sort to us. We had a talk with her, and she said that coming from the village to a city college, she felt ashamed of her dark skin and round figure, and she had taken those pills because some friends of hers told her that they were slimming pills and fairness pills.

We told her that she was beautiful as is, that those pills actually did her more harm than good (they were laxatives, diuretics and stomach meds). We gave her some extra attention, and besides, her classmates were also pretty nice kids, and she eventually thrived, getting into fitness and dancing, as well as academics. Fast forward a few years, she graduated with honours both from college and university, and was also the Varsity Beauty queen.

She is also the first from her village to receive a NET (National Eligibility Test for lectureship eligibility), as well as the first to be admitted to a PhD programme.”

12. Going places!

“My mom had a student in 3rd grade who was a bit of a troublemaker. She would have pretend trials sometimes in her classroom and made this kid a judge once.

Many years later he nominated her for a big teaching award just because she gave him that opportunity in the classroom, he said it made him want to grow up to be a judge.

Last I heard he was elected as a district attorney.”

Okay teachers, now we want to hear your stories!

In the comments, tell us about your former students who really surprised you later in life.

Don’t hold back now!

The post Teachers Share Which Former Students Surprised Them the Most Later in Life appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Talk About When They Automatically Gained Respect for Their Teachers

For some reason, I really can’t recall many teachers that really made an impression on me during my school days.

That might be my fault…maybe I didn’t take school as seriously as I should have.

But I know a lot of people out there had teachers that they loved and respected.

What did a teacher do that made you immediately respect them?

Here’s what people on AskReddit had to say about this.

1. Doing it the right way.

“Treated kids with autism + aspergers like actual human beings.

In my school I was in a special needs unit for kids with aspergers and autism called the CDU (communication disorder unit). The kids in there ranged from having mild aspergers to full on severe autism, and as such most teachers treated everyone from there like they had severe mental health problems just because they were labelled as having autism or aspergers even if it was very mild.

But there was one support teacher in the CDU who was genuinely just a nice dude, whether he was talking to kids who had severe autism or just some mild social anxiety he wouldn’t talk extra slowly or call you “bud” or “pal” at the end of a sentence, he would talk to everyone like they were real human beings.

It might seem like a small thing but when that’s how pretty much all teachers talked to you and treated you in every class it was very refreshing to talk to someone who would talk to you based on who you were as a person rather than treating someone differently for being labelled as autistic.”

2. You gotta figure it out.

“Math class, we’re looking at the programming function of a graphing calculator.

I tell him that finding the surface area of a regular polygon is incredibly tedious.

So, we spend the next fifteen minutes writing out a program on the calculator to do the math for me.

The only math teacher I knew that genuinely understood that you cannot write a program to solve a math problem if you don’t know how to solve it yourself.”

3. Like a real person.

“It was small but he told us he was going to be in a bad mood that day because someone stole his bike.

Just treating us like people was something that was rare in that school.”

4. That’s nice.

“A math teacher went to the hospital several times to visit a student who had been seriously injured in an accident.

The teacher offered companionship, free tutoring, and genuine encouragement.”

5. A great guy.

“Told us a joke about his name (before we could) and allowed us to eat during his classes “because kids your age can’t help being hungry all the time”, as long as we did it quietly.

Great guy. His whole attitude made all of us actually pay attention and do our best.”

6. Just don’t make a mess.

“As long as we didn’t make a mess, he let us eat in class and we were all so appreciative. I didn’t realize the reason, but it’s true, at that age you are just hungry all the time and we had cafeteria lunches that were pretty much just junk food that went right through you.

It’s really a small thing, but it raised him in our estimation quite a bit. It demonstrated that he understood his audience and wanted what was best for us. That brings respect.

He was also an excellent storyteller and had legendary tales of the characters he had grown up with in his working-class neighborhood.

These stories were hilarious and such a welcome break from the tedium of high school, he would even do it by request from time to time. Once, I wrote him a personal note asking him to tell one of such stories and he began the next class recounting it.

He could not have pulled this off, however, if he did not come across as an excellent teacher who had a sophisticated grasp of his topic. Otherwise, I think we would have just seen him as a fun slacker we could take advantage of.”

7. A good lesson.

“Math teacher : “I don’t care if you have good grades or bad grades, if you work hard, I will work harder to make you pass”.

He worked hard for me; I passed.”

8. Be yourself.

“He would let us be who we were, listen to our ipod in class, and encouraged us to think outside “the class”.

I gained respect for him when he saw some kids going to skip and he called them into his class.

Told them “if you’re gonna skip class than come to my class and do whatever you want in the back. Rather have you inside the school than outside”

Everyone loved that teacher while the other teachers couldn’t stand him. He had everyone’s respect.”

9. A safe space.

“I had a business studies teacher who used to be a mental health professional.

So she knew the signs when my depression was particularly bad (for example submitting work at 3am) and would always make sure I had eaten and offered me coffee and generally made her classroom a safe space for anyone.

If you’re reading this you’re amazing!!”

10. No excuses.

“English teacher in high school asked where my homework was.

Responded “I forgot to do it” and he said to the rest of the class “Why can’t you guys be like him?

He doesn’t come up with some excuse he just tells me he didn’t do it.””

11. Zany, but good.

“Had an extremely zany teacher who taught Psychology, and had the last name Ward.

Psycho personality (in the best way possible) to fit her name and job. Never met someone who fit their name and job description so well. (Worse, she taught driver’s ed too, on the side.)

She was the type whose zany personality was a big plus; most of her kids loved her, but if you screwed around in her class, she’d eject you from it, with extreme prejudice.

She still teaches, and she teaches very well.

As an aside, there was also this middle-aged woman who was basically a hall monitor and filled in any other position she could think of, as well as handing out detentions or suspensions if she caught you screwing around instead of being where you were supposed to be. Small lady, absolutely no-nonsense and tough as nails. She wouldn’t take sh*t from you, but also incredibly fair overall.

I realized she knew when to bend. My older two siblings hated her because she always caught them skipping class, smoking, or worse. I got along with her very well and never caused her any trouble.

I asked her once about my little brother, and she said he was a good kid and while she’d had to give him detention a few times, she was also proud of him because when he got into a fight, he did it for the right reasons.

My little bro’s a very tall, hulking guy and never hesitated to defend someone from a bully. It got him a few detentions for fighting but apparently she made it clear she was proud of him for standing up for others nonetheless.

I repeated this later to my brother, and he said she was a very good woman, very fair, and that he’d liked her for that fairness, and her sheer guts.”

12. Finish the story!

“Instead of shouting at my loud class for not shutting up before the lesson began, my history teacher decided to quietly tell the story of a pink elephant that wanted to be an astronaut.

After a few seconds, people started to shut up and listen about the pink elephant. When everyone was quiet and listening, he stopped mid-story.

As much as it made me respect him.. WHY DIDN’T YOU FINISH THE STORY FFS! THAT CLIFFHANGER!”

Now we want to hear from you.

In the comments, tell us about some teachers that gained your respect when you were in school.

Thanks in advance!

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A Teacher’s Balloon Experiment Backfires and Earns a Big FAIL

Teachers learn a lot from their students.

But day in and day out might get a little dull.

Sometimes they might liven things up by playing a prank on their students.

I remember once in Catholic school, the priest came on the intercom to tell my 4th grade teacher that he was God, and she owed him 10%, because she had gone to a casino over the weekend and apparently hit it big.

Or maybe a teacher will try to keep things interesting by performing their own experiments through social observation.

But when one sophomore English teacher tried trick her students into proving a lesson, it backfired hilariously.

First reported on Tumblr by user @solarmorrigan, the story goes like this:

Image credit: Cheezburger

Nice setup by the teacher.

Very “nothing to see here folks, I’m just going to leave this mouse trap right here and casually walk away whistling.”

Image credit: Cheezburger

Clearly, she underestimated her advanced class. This is not their first day.

Image credit: Cheezburger

Aww, see, they just needed permission to let loose a little.

Image credit: Cheezburger

Maybe the problem is that taking the teacher out of the classroom didn’t remove the omnipresent authority of the school.

After all, teachers next door might hear the commotion. And she would be back and would find the balloons popped.

Or maybe the advanced students had more self-discipline than the teacher expected.

Either way, the Stanford Prison Experiment this was NOT.

What do you think–given more time would someone have broken down and popped a balloon? What would you have done? Tell us in the comments.

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Teachers Discuss Which Generation They Enjoyed Teaching the Most

My sister has been a high school teacher for over 20 years and she likes to tell me stories about how the kids have changed throughout the years.

Because you know what they say…kids today! And that saying exists because it’s true.

Teachers who have been around for a while talked about which generation they’ve enjoyed teaching the most on AskReddit. Let’s see what they had to say.

1. Do what you want.

“I taught in the late 70s, early 80s in northern Alberta.

The nice part about being that early in my career, plus in northern Alberta, was that you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. My kids found an injured duck on the playground and we brought it into the classroom and spent weeks nursing that duck back to health.

As the duck grew stronger, he would do these practice flights in our classroom to the point where he would do a couple of laps around the room and my kids wouldn’t even get excited about it. Later in that same year we grew hydroponic tomato plants that went from floor to ceiling and were able to harvest tomatoes in the middle of winter.

Man, that was a great year! Pretty sure you couldn’t do most of that in a grade one classroom these days.”

2. Comparing themselves.

“In my mind kids have always been good at heart, but society and their upbringing is what ultimately shapes or corrupts them.

Unfortunately, I think more kids nowadays have mental health issues since they unconsciously compare themselves to their peers. The difference is 20+ years ago kids only compared themselves to the few hundred kids in their school.

Nowadays, they are comparing themselves to the millions of kids they see online.”

3. Breaking down the years.

“97 – sarcastic, grungy, smoking more cigarettes, more clique-y and edgy

07 – petty, attention starved, overwhelmed, but much nicer

17 – under so many layers of irony and memes they dont even know who they are anymore or care. there’s no point in being creative or devolving a personality, anything you could think of has already been done.”

4. Here’s the deal.

“Honestly it is not so much the generation but the age group and the relative interest and if you connect with the students or not (and they connect with you as a teacher and respect you as an educator who has their best interests at heart)

I like the younger students for their curiosity and eagerness and excitement when new ideas are being introduced or there is some challenge/learning-related contest going on in the class. This gets more difficult to cultivate as a group-energy level in the puberty years, and easier afterwards.

But I’ve had some kids in the 12-14 age group come in during lunch to continue their activity just because they were so engaged in what we were doing, and I was cool with it as I ate my lunch in the classroom and therefore my classroom (I taught computers, so other labs were often locked after classes) was always open.

It is very obvious when you see the interest and level of engagement from a class that is ready to learn, it is almost like when an engine is reving up and all cylinders are firing in sequence; you can really feel the energy. But you notice the differences as some classes just ‘click’ with their teacher more than others, even in the same year.

For those who may be wondering why that is, I like to think of each class as a sort of team, as in sports. I suspect that if there is a certain threshold of active, curious and interested students in each class then that interest level and energy just is infectious and becomes the overall mood of the class. A few leaders in the class can raise the energy of the whole ‘team’.

Of course, it’s the same story if there are enough disinterested students in a class who honestly don’t want to be there and have no interest in learning.

Sprinkle in a few more who prefer to disrupt a class for laughs and that just drains the interest and excitement right out of the room unless the teacher or occasionally some students can reassert the need for respect so learning can continue uninterrupted.

It can really be apparent when you are teaching the same exact lesson to different classes on the same day as you will see which ones are into it and which ones just aren’t.”

5. Out of touch.

“I enjoyed the 1990s because there was still not a ton of technology.

One of the things I’ve noticed now is that my cultural references have absolutely tanked now.

I was teaching a course and literally NO ONE got my reference to The Matrix or Pulp Fiction or well … anything.”

It was the first time I felt that internal twinge of being “out of date” and realizing I was teaching 17-18 year olds who were being BORN when that movie came out.

I still love the job though. :)”

6. All downhill.

“When I started teaching in the early  2000s, students still got my most obscure Simpsons and 80’s film references. By the late 2000s, I had nothing left to reference.

By the early 2010’s my kid had reached adolescence, so I had new material, but it really wasn’t mine, and the culture had splintered so much that my Rick and Morty references only hit about 30% of the class.

Lately I just stopped trying, and became that old, out-of-touch Prof; I lived long enough to become the villain.”

7. Used to love it.

“Started teaching first grade in 1999. I loved teaching till about 2006.

Students were so eager to learn kept me on my toes. They were respectful and the parents were supportive. Little by little things started changing. Complaining about colors of napkins, words like angels, witch, . It kept getting worse. The amount of paperwork and meetings no time to teach.

The testing got in the way took time away from teaching and what was important which is the children. Little by little it took most of my energy. Stopped teaching after only 13 years.”

8. Mom’s thoughts.

“My mom was a teacher from the mid ’70s up until covid hit and she retired for good.

I think she liked ’80s and early ’90s kids best. Parents still had respect for the teacher, as did most kids, and our government had not yet ran education into the ground with cuts and overcrowded classrooms. Plus ’80s and ’90s kids had silly fads and were kind of quirky and fun.

She said the biggest difference now is resilience. Kids today have bigger difficulties with overcoming things, more anxiety issues, many refuse to even try something for fear they’re not good. It’s not an issue with the kids per say, generally most things can be traced back to parents, who are putting more pressure on kids.

Also, the biggest difference is parents. It used to be parents and teacher were more a united front. Now parents are angry at the teacher if their kid doesn’t do their homework or work in class, or accuse the teacher of lying if the teacher says their kid did something bad.

I’m a teacher too, but have been teaching less than 10 years, so I have little comparison. But I can say that as a kid in the 90s, I can’t remember other kids saying “no” to teachers. We may have groaned or whined, but we didn’t refuse.

Today I’ll have an activity or game and kids will flat out say “no. I’m not doing that”. Kids refuse to participate to my face. I hear “no” all the godd*mn time, and it’s frustrating when I know my lesson slaps. They just say no to everything.

Also kids complain when you put on a movie. It used to be, when your teacher wheeled in the big TV cart, the class cheered. We didn’t care what it was. Now all you get is “ugh no I don’t like this movie/ I’ve already seen it/I don’t want to watch/ this is boring” and I’m like HOW DO YOU CHILDREN NOT LIKE MOVIE DAY.”

9. A big difference.

“Started teaching at university in the 2000s.

Kids were really cliquey (into what sub-culture or tribe they were in and didn’t mix) and intolerant of difference (of any kind). Was 10 years older than them, most had no idea how to save a file on the computer into different formats. Had to tell kids not to describe things they didn’t like a ‘gay’ ALL THE TIME.

In the 2010s they started being better at technology, but worse at fixing it when it went wrong, getting more tolerant, more likely to mix. 2020s kids are really tolerant, kinder, but much, much sadder.”

10. We need better parenting.

“Started teaching in 1985, retired in 2015.

I enjoyed teaching in all of those years and enjoyed knowing almost all of my students. I feel that any observations I might make would be so prejudiced by my own reactions to the era and my own aging that it’s a bit of a ridiculous question.

I do think that more people need to commit to better parenting, as I was appalled by how scarred many students were by sheer parental neglect and abuse, regardless of the era. I don’t think abuse has become any more prolific, but I recognized it more and more as I became a veteran teacher.

Other than that, talking about people by generations is just another way to divide us and keep us quarreling; otherwise we might notice that we’ve all become the property of corporations. And they don’t want that.”

11. No accountability.

“Kids don’t change, but accountability is gone in my district.

First half of my career (90s, 00’s) students and parents were far more accountable. Today, if a student does not thrive, it is blame the teacher all day, every day. Teachers now compete with Tik Tok, Snap Chat, video games etc…and there is such a sense of entitlement, at least in my district.

The students are still great, but the adults have messed this up so bad. We have eliminated all deadlines in my district, and students can re-do an assignment over and over until they get the grade they want.

Consequences can be great learning experiences, but we are no longer able to apply them.”

Have you been teaching for a while?

If so, which generation of kids has been your favorite?

Tell us what you think in the comments!

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Teachers Talk About What Generation of Kids They Liked Teaching the Most

Oh, boy…

The times, they are a changin’…

Well, I guess the times are always changing, right?

And that’s especially true when it comes to kids. Every generation is unique and learns from the triumphs and mistakes of the ones before them…and teachers who stick around long enough see kids change a lot throughout the years.

Teachers of AskReddit talked about which generation of kids they’ve enjoyed teaching the most. Let’s take a look.

1. Mid-1990s.

“I have taught emotionally disturbed children for much of my career.

The kids I had 25 years ago would constantly fight with each other. The kids I had most recently made a habit of going after me and the parents always wanted to know what I did to provoke them.

Give me my mid-1990s kids any day! They loved me as their teacher and didn’t tolerate any disrespect towards me from their peers.”

2. Changes…

“Started teaching in 2002. All of that has been middle school. Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-14)

Biggest changes have been prevalence and reliance on screens and devices, but ultimately what kids want is acceptance. And most of them will seek it wherever it can be found easily, which is on a screen.

All I can really say is that I am incredibly grateful that Facebook and social media did not exist when I was a kid/teenager.”

3. Bad writers.

“I’m a philosophy professor and the only thing I’ve noticed is that the latest generation of students (zoomers?) are like, really really bad at writing. Like, obscenely.

Every other generation I’ve taught has been roughly the same, with different philosophical predilections, but for some reason everyone’s just really bad at writing now (let alone philosophy).”

4. It was a simpler time.

“I recently passed my 10 year mark, so I’ve taught 2000s and 2010s.

Biggest difference is the coursework. Man do schools (and parents) love to cram so much work into such little time. They like having something to “show” for their kids schooling. Gone are the days when we could explore and learn. Where we could discuss topics, or I could even read them non-curriculum books, or do fun experiments.

Oh, little Timmy is 4 years old? Better start learning to write upper and lowercase alphabet letters perfectly. But don’t give the kids pressure. And don’t take away play time if they can’t finish in the allotted 10 minutes. But make sure they finish on time and there aren’t mistakes or you (the teacher) will get reprimanded for it.

Also the parents. They used to think being a teacher was a noble and respected job. Now many tell me that they know more than me despite my education and experience.

And god forbid I tell them their child made a mistake or had a behavioural incident. Then I’m either lying, or the kid didn’t mean it so how could I dare ask them to receive any consequence for their actions.

Parents are constantly undermining teachers, and the schools will throw teachers under the bus to keep a child’s tuition any day.

I also work in a private school. So the more money a family has, usually the worser the parents/children.

I miss the 2000s. A simpler time.”

5. Good kids.

“I like the kids I teach now.

They are, for the most part, really peaceful. We have so few fights on campus.

They are really accepting. LGBTQ folks would have been beaten when I was a kid, now it’s no factor. General apathy and major boredom rule the campus, but my kids still get up to fun.”

6. Gen Z’ers.

“I love my Gen-Zs.

They know us Elder Millennials saw some sh*t, and they are happy to lean right into the complete Iliza Schlesinger bit that we’ll do about basically everything pre-2005.

They’ll call out stuff like “Tell us about floppy disks!” and “Tell us about dial-up!” and “What about Surge, ma’am?” and I just do my best Madam Razz impression (reboot, not original She-Ra, these are Gen-Zs,) tell them about these things, and then reveal -to amazed gasps- an actual can of post-revival Surge, for whatever student can write me the best 250 words about a controversy of 1980 through 1985 before I get back from the john.

I handed out seven cans of Surge this week just on this topic. My students are glorious. I also saw one of my colleagues, who coaches a sport, happily sitting down to a wonderful lunch she had packed herself, took out a can of Surge, opened it, smelled it, savored it, saw me noticing and “I know, I know, it’s so bad for you. But I haven’t had this since I was a kid!” and I said “Not judgin’ here, love!”

And she described how one of her kids gave it to her after first period as a present and how she’d been looking forward to it all day and I remembered that one of my best writers, one of our best student athletes, is both Type I diabetic and just the sweetest person.

So I stopped by the good grocery store and got a bit of sugar-free Ramune, the fanciest and most delicious kind, which shall be theirs.”

7. Big shifts.

“I’ve been teaching in the humanities at a pair of universities for 11 years.

My main observation is that students don’t want a “think” piece anymore, they want a “doing” piece.

This shift happened about 5 years in to my tenure. It was a real break in what the students expected, and I felt compelled to adapt to it.

So a syllabus is now less “let’s learn about and reflect on a framework” and more “I want to do this myself first, then maybe we’ll see if there’s a framework there worth talking about.”

This can actually be a really good thing. I’m kind of a phenomenologist myself so I’m more or less theoretically oriented to the idea of learning equally from the experience of one’s self and from the experience of others. And then critiquing, reflecting, and acting on those experiences as a perfectly legitimate basis for a lot of good things that can come next.

But on the other hand, no one wants to read any more. It’s all bullet points and takeaways, slide decks and checklists, “gotta juggle my five classes but also my three side hustles”.

It encourages a kind of faddish approach, and frankly almost psychopathic and disconnected. It’s not about learning, it’s about extracting. On the cynical side of things, one might conclude that the students want to be given the cheat sheet so they can perform to others that “they know.” Everyone wants to be “a leader.”

This can cut both ways. For the students to be primed to apply what they’ve learned as and whenever it arises has arguably more practical impact in practice, so that’s good. But on the other hand, I feel that something deeper here with the academic process is being lost and very deeply devalued.

And I’m not so confident about what higher education will look like in 15 years as a result, particularly in context of the corporatized profit model that is already pressuring the academy in general.

It’s like every subject has become an MBA. And we used to poke fun of those guys for being problem-solving droids happily operating in narrow little boxes of their own making.

So that’s one big shift.

The other big shift I feel I am living through as a teacher is the total diminution of the classical era. The 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s had their fair share of prophets of radical socio-technological change. But it’s only really now in the post-truth social media bot and AI-content-warped world of literal augmented reality that it has finally come to be.

Our globalized world is so radically different now that Greeks, Romans, Renaissance and even early modernists are all just looking like a quaint bunch of vaguely charming and very embarrassing (“cringe”) Neanderthals. A restatement of origins like “Hamilton” is about as far back as anyone feels they’d ever need to bother looking.

I frequently imagine the great contrarian Nietzsche himself feeling sidelined as the aging and irrelevant hippy amidst a world that has rendered his protest against the human condition itself as anachronistic.

There’s a radical un-mooring from history taking place and, combined with the new approach to learning I describe above, it’s really hard to feel any confidence in where the eff it’s going to take us.

The trend feels very technocratic in direction. And while that can be an admirably evidence-driven form of politics (“trust the science” as Biden feels compelled to repeat, for instance), it can also very easily subordinate a lot of values, rights, and principles that don’t look any more compelling as a bunch of bullet points than anything else on the to-do list.”

8. 1990s kids.

“I’ve been teaching for 28 years. From elementary to high school.

I’ll take the children if the 90’s because cell phones didn’t distract the students and most parents didn’t try to blame the teachers on the failures of their child.”

9. Much easier these days.

“I like teaching NOW because we have a lot of technology that makes things easier.

No more grading tests by hand, or standing in line to run scan-trons.

Pretty sweet!”

10. More respectful now.

“I like them all.

But my favourite thing about this generation is that they are in general more respectful, polite and empathic.”

11. Mom’s POV.

“My mother taught 6 year olds in the 60s, 80s and 90s.

The kids didn’t change much but the paperwork, administration and social work got too much for her at the end. Kids coming to school not being fed, reeking of smoke and pot.

And parents went from being allies to some becoming outright hostile for their kids being given the slightest reprimand – like “Jheydenn, you didn’t help tidy up so you’ll need to wait for the other children to go play before you can go”. Oh and names.

Not cultural, but badly spelled and weird names like “Hastalavista” and “Fordescort”. She still loves running into her old kids, many of whom had children she taught, and some are now grandparents.”

12. Reflections of society.

“It’s difficult to compare generations, but I can tell you something students are a reflection of the society around them, and if I compare students I have a had to what I was like there is a dramatic difference which I put down to social change.

The two most dramatic differences that I notice are that students now are far more emotional sensitive, which can be a good, or bad thing, and far less independent of thought. Social media, more standardized testing, less real life difficulties, and more imagined ones all contribute to this.

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s I never worried about my future, and I didn’t feel any pressure socially to conform. I was always encouraged by friends and society to think, act, and learn independently. There were no universal right answers, and very little outside expectations.

Now, I find students feel constantly under pressure to outcompete each other, attain artificial goals, and not offend anyone. For a long time I taught graduates basic academic skills because schools either ignored, or refused to teach basic rhetorical, discussion or argumentative skills.

It is my default setting to assume the current generation of students, cannot automatically play devils advocate, or challenge accepted viewpoints. They are constantly being forced to accept whichever sides argument is dominant, and seem conditioned to follow whoever they have told to follow. It is a frightening situation.

Also, artificial competition has hollowed out people’s lives. Growing up me and everyone I knew had interests and hobbies. I rarely find that now with young people. And the interest and hobbies people do have have changed.

When I ask people what they do in their free time, the number one answers are always, browse social media, shop, and meet up with friends to take photos for social media.

Actually, that is being generous, the most common answer I get is actually ‘nothing.’ Students at high school and university don’t even seem to be able to manage the old cliched ‘s*x, drugs, and rock’n’roll.’ Bravado that dominated my generation, and the generations for that. People don’t seem to have the time, or energy to even enjoy themselves now.

It must suck being young now, or at least that is what I was told.”

Now we want to hear from more teachers!

Tell us about the favorite generation that you’ve enjoyed teaching in the comments.

Please and thank you!

The post Teachers Talk About What Generation of Kids They Liked Teaching the Most appeared first on UberFacts.

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Teachers Discuss the Worst Things Substitutes Did While They Were Gone

It’s gotta be kind of weird to be a teacher and just hand your classroom over to a stranger when you take a day off.

But that’s what the substitute teaching game is all about, folks! And it’s also a total crapshoot about what kind of individual will be teaching your beloved students for the day…and anything can happen.

Teachers shared their stories of substitutes gone wild on AskReddit.

1. So many…

“I’ve had so many bad subs.

One sub made an elementary student cry insisting her own name was misspelled and made her stand up in front of the class and admit her name was spelled wrong. I asked that she not return but I still saw her around as other teachers had her sub.

Another one worth mentioning was supposed to be my sub for the last 2 weeks of school because I went on maternity leave, this time teaching at a 7th-12th grade school. Ignored all my sub plans, played on his cell phone the whole time, and then like 3 days in got upset at the students and told them off.

And then they watched as he walked out to the parking lot and drove away. Thank goodness some kids went and told the office. When I came back it was like my room had been ransacked!

It was awful.”

2. Sleeping on the job.

“Went to sleep for 1.5 hours.

My class was freaking amazing—the sweetest, most thoughtful group I’ve ever had. When I got back the next day, I asked how the sub was.

Me: How was the sub?

Them: uhhh… he was fine. He kinda took a nap for a while.

Me: WHAT?! What did you guys do?

Them: Worked quietly so that we wouldn’t wake him up. Eventually we ran out of work, so we just had silent reading.

Me: For how long?

Them: From when we started working until it was time to go outside.

Me: That’s a really long time! Look, I am glad that you guys were so thoughtful, but if something like that ever happens again, please wake the sub up. It’s not safe for the sub to sleep. He needed to be awake in case something happened.

Them: We would have woken him up if we really needed to. But we also figured he probably really needed the sleep.

Seriously. The SWEETEST class ever!”

3. Pretty rude.

“Re-arranged my room.

Not in a “Moved Student A away from Student B and put her by Student C” way.

In a “Move the giant rug over to the opposite corner of the room, and completely change the layout of student desks, and rearrange a bookshelf” way.”

4. Not cool!

“Left my perfectly prepped and neat desk an absolute disaster.

Did not follow the lesson plan and… took my gel pens!”

5. Sorry…

“There was a harpsichord in the front of the classroom used both for demonstration and performance.

Not knowing what he was doing, the sub tried to tune 3 notes that had gone mildly out of tune while I was away.

He managed to break the strings on all 3 notes and left a message inside reading: “Sorry about that . . .””

6. What?!?!

“I had a sub give out my cell phone number to my high school students so they could call me and give me excuses as to why they weren’t taking their test while I was gone.

I was LIVID.

I complained to the sub office, and that teacher never subbed for my building again.”

7. Was he drunk?

“He peed in my desk chair. Swear. To. God.

He apparently peed in my chair and the students noticed it and mentioned it to him. He ignored them and just sat there anyway with a huge puddle of urine on the floor.

The kids called security on him.

I came in the next day and sat in the chair. It was wet and about that time a security guard stuck her head in the door and said “Don’t sit there, that guy peed in your chair…””

8. What am I doing here?

“I taught middle school Math and English in the 90s and the sub didn’t know how to convert a decimal into a fraction and kept insisting that the students who did know how to do it were wrong.

She also apparently didn’t know how to pronounce five of our twenty vocabulary words and didn’t know what half of them meant.”

9. Runnin’ wild.

“She let the kids run wild and do whatever they wanted (first graders). I was out because my dad died.

Thank God my team realized what happened and all pulled together and cleaned the room/put it back together before I returned to work.”

10. That’s…weird…

“I had a substitute decide that my plans weren’t good enough for her and she went rogue.

She decided to show my students videos of animals giving birth on YouTube.

I taught English…”

11. Wow…

“I came back after being gone ONE DAY and my students told me the substitute teacher flipped over tables in a rage and was escorted from the building by a cop.

What actually happened is that the sub left the room to take a 20 min phone call and the kids thought it would be funny to flip the tables over. The substitute then had to flip the tables right side up while yelling at the kids.

Then, during lunch, my Special Ed. Co-teacher came into my room to set up and caught the sub MAKING OUT WITH A STUDENT. Turns out she was 18 to his 25 and the 20 min phone call was to set up the lunch meeting.

The principal then had him escorted from the building by the resource officer. This is why I say having a sub is more work than just coming into school myself.”

12. Ignored the instructions.

“I caught the flu the week my students had a district benchmark test. I could feel that I was coming down with something, so I stayed late to put together really in depth review packets and slideshows.

I wrote pages of directions for the substitute, and separated the reviews out by class numbers. I even included my personal number and told them to call me any time if a student had a question they couldn’t answer. I spent about 5 hours putting everything together after school, while battling around a 103 temp.

The substitute completely ignored my instructions. She instead took every single piece of construction paper and cardstock in my classroom from my personal locker that I had left open for her in case she needed something, and had the students make flip books about their feelings. They used thousands of pieces of paper and craft supplies, probably around $100 of my own personal supplies.

This was for freshmen in high school. I’m still bitter.”

Okay, all you educators out there!

Tell us the worst thing a substitute teacher ever did when you were gone.

We can’t wait to hear from you!

The post Teachers Discuss the Worst Things Substitutes Did While They Were Gone appeared first on UberFacts.

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Hilarious Questions Teachers Heard Over Zoom

Everyone agrees that teaching kids over Zoom isn’t ideal, but everyone – teachers, students, parents, administrators – has done their best to adapt.

Teachers, especially, have worked to give kids grace as everyone adapts to this new way of being or doing, which is good, since no one probably thought we’d be doing it quite so long.

There are plenty of downsides, but if there’s an upside, it’s that kids are hilarious, and they keep us on our toes – a fact these 12 comments totally prove!

12. Sometimes you’ve just gotta know.

But I mean, come on. Everyone likes grilled cheese.

11. Kid was really dealing with some stuff that day.

The first hangnail is quite the learning experience.

10. Teachers can learn things, too.

Especially the important stuff, like superheroes.

9. No, even though he could ha–

You know what? That’s a whole other discussion.

8. You have to know when they need a break.

Now more than ever.

7. You can teach them life lessons, too.

Unless you don’t know how to cook.

6. That’s what she’s been thinking about all this time.

We all get distracted, right?

5. It’s all over now.

Just go get the dog.

4. She did say they were done with their work.

What was she expecting?

3. I don’t know how the kinder teachers do it.

Those are just babies. They don’t know!

2. What a time to unmute yourself, kid.

Now we all get to find out together.

1. Just try to follow the train of thought.

You can’t. It’s a trick question.

Image Credit: Twitter

The kids are the things that are driving us crazy, but also keeping us sane at the same time, don’t you think?

If you’re a teacher, please add your story in the comments!

The post Hilarious Questions Teachers Heard Over Zoom appeared first on UberFacts.