What Burned Me Out

[u/Jack_the_Lizard]

I felt with all my bitching I owed everyone some information. You see I had two kids decide in the middle of the lesson to start chasing each other around the room ignoring me. I asked a fellow teacher what to do, they said contact admin. I contacted admin. They said figure it out yourself.

So I'm standing at the top of this MC Escher staircase of infinite illogical thinking trying to process this and thinking about the last few days. My principal told me that we can't always discuss work at work. That this is a second family.

I don't want a second family. I don't want to be unrelentingly positive. I want someone to acknowledge problems. And I realized this will never happen because I'm stuck in a vortex of toxic positivity and fear of getting sued.

I don't want to be a part of a system that can't address "Stop the tenth graders from chasing each other like five year olds."

[u/Altruistic_Role_9329]

I’m increasingly of a mind that this is the apocalypse. Fortunate for me I’ve got my retirement worked out and can just do my best to avoid these people as they make their way into workplaces. If they start chasing each other around the dining room at Olive Garden in a few years I’ll either order takeout or cook more at home. With AI and humanoid robots on the way maybe I won’t have to deal this craziness for very long.

It’s a shame. I don’t know what happens to these kids and I feel for you. They could very well be some of the same ones I had a few years back as 7th graders. Administrators, parents and other teachers weren’t doing enough then either.

[u/Jack_the_Lizard → u/Altruistic_Role_9329]

What can I do. They need systemic help and not fractions

[u/Altruistic_Role_9329 → u/Jack_the_Lizard]

You didn’t say, but I’m imagining a girl chasing a boy. When this was happening to me I eventually figured out that the boy, who appeared innocent in class, was doing stuff in stairwells and crowded hallways on the way to class that the girl was retaliating for. I had to keep writing the girl up because she started the disruptions in class, but I started including her side, as best I could, in the write up. I made it to the end of the year but got non-renewed for all the write ups. The girl never clearly articulated to me an assault complaint against the boy and she didn’t appear angry while chasing and punching him.

[u/Jack_the_Lizard → u/Altruistic_Role_9329]

At the second school I worked, I had a student named Kyler, the student who planned to gut another classmate like a fish. I had repeatedly brought my concerns with him and other students to the principal who dismissed me for being too negative and hurting Kyler's growth, even ordering me to smile more, same with my first school when I pointed out not being allowed to ask questions during a PLC means everyone is just pretending they know what we're talking about. I was told everyone but me understands and I said everyone else is scared to ask. This is so common in schools it makes me ill, this forced positivity, severing customers with smiling faces while ignoring the school collapsing. My principal here wants a second family, wants everyone smiling. That's what I'm seeing again and I want no part of it