I once had three students in one class who were all named José. For the purpose of avoiding confusion, I asked if it would be alright if I called them Hose-A, Hose-B, and Hose-C and they all loved the idea.

This is a true story. The day they were all absent and I got to ask the class “Where my Hoses at?” was a red letter day in my life.

Awesome. Not having an issue with Lifelock or the fact that they let me know this. The issue is with a pharmacy needing to verify my identity so that I can get my acid reflux meds.

Sorry, my human, but naw…this has never been necessary in the history of humanity. Kroger doesn’t need to make sure I’m me. The doctor says fill the scrip, you fill it.

Do you do that? I don’t do that.

Vs.

You do that? I don’t that.

Number 1 wins.

I quit doing Christmas a dozen years ago, and I’ve never been happier. I’m an anti-capitalistic athiest…I don’t give a Fuck One about keeping Jeebus in Crimmis, and I am just not real big on spending hundreds of dollars buying things for people that I think they might like (but probably won’t) just because it happens to be the fourth week of December again. That shit’s bonkers and is for the fucking birds.

Hell naw. You keep your $40 and buy yourself something you want or need, I’ll do the same, and you and I will just moosh calendars and share time and a meal together without propping up capitalism.

Or…and hear me out…maybe instead we blast AI data centers with these Jewish space lasers I keep hearing about and leave the land to return to nature? Just spitballin’.

Are these the kids got hit hardest by the pandemic lockdowns?

The prevalent theory among my colleagues is that it was something about the age these students were during virtual learning (ages 9-11) that may have been the deciding factor in why they are comparably so much worse behaved that any class of students before or after them, but I couldn’t say.

I enjoy teaching, or at least, transferring knowledge and experience, I’ll do it to pretty much anyone who sits still long enough,

Samesies. I love teaching, but sometimes I really dislike “being a teacher” because of the lack of support or any attempt at understanding what actually goes on inside the classroom day-to-day by admins, parents, or community members. I am good with mentoring a couple students each year and going them overcome their issues. But I don’t have the capacity to do it for all 50+ kids who are making it impossible for the other 120 to learn.

Good luck, and I hope things get better for the kids and teachers everywhere.

Thanks, preesh.

[x] doubt

Sorry, where did you get your two education degrees from again, and how many years have you been teaching?

You mentioned class sizes of 30+ this year, were they that large in the past? That size class is way too large and lends itself to chaos as it is hard to keep them all engaged.

I am new to this school, but the teachers at the school who had 8th graders last year have confirmed their class sizes last year were the same, but the student’s were not nearly as unruly. The 7th grade teachers who had my students last year have some classes in the 30s this year and last year, and they have confirmed that this group of 8th graders were also hell on wheels last year, but that their 7th graders this year are much more well-behaved.

Hate to break it to you, but this is my 6th year teaching 8th graders and my 18th overall, everything from elementary school through college, and I know more than you…namely, how these 8th graders this year are very, very different from any other group of students any of the 8th grade teachers this year have ever experienced.

I am autistic as well. I am not joking. More details.

I’ve been teaching for 18 years. Every year before this one, things have gone relatively well. They talk a little, I quiet them down, we have a lesson, time is embedded in it for group work, and I tell them I’d like 85% of their conversation to be about the assignment. Most kids are decent. A few are superb. Some do jack shit and I struggle all year to get them to do anything. And about 5% of the students cause problems and make it harder for their classmates to learn, but they get dealt with.

Not this year. Four classes of 30+, and in all six classes a full third of the 8th grade students can’t see beyond two seconds from now. My shit is getting stolen, students leave their binder in their locker when they’re supposed to bring it to every single class in the building, and their entire purpose in any given moment is to say/do/destroy whatever they can to create laughs/anger/shock in someone else, who could as easily be right in front of them as they could be on the opposite end of the room. A third. Of each class. And it is relentless. The teacher next door to me had her interactive TV display destroyed by a kid yesterday…the screen is completely shattered.

Every teacher that shares these kids is having the exact same issues across the board. So we are presenting a united front and shutting it the fuck down.

The one thing that requires zero effort is shutting the motherfucking hell UP during a lesson, but my 8th grade students can’t seem to make it happen, so I separated their desks yesterday afternoon and pointed all of them forward, and they’ll no longer be engaging in group work.

Edit: Because we have a bunch of Dunning-Krugers in this comment thread, I will clarify.

I’ve been teaching for 18 years. This is my 6th year teaching 8th grade. I have four classes with more than 30 students, and a full third of the students in all six classes won’t stop talking. This is not an incompetent first-year teacher saying this. This is not a jaded, about-to-retire teacher saying this. This is not just a paycheck for me. It is my vocation and I take it seriously. I earned a Bachelor’s in education and a Master’s in math education; my K12 students generally love my classes because I am knowledgeable and make math fun to learn, and I always get the highest evaluation scores for the undergraduate classes with students regularly saying “I always used to struggle with/be afraid of/hate math, but [teacher] helped me get my first A/B ever in a math class.”

The entire school…from the teachers to the administrators…knows what I know about this group of 8th graders, that the behavior of one-third of them is beyond the pale. None of us has had a set of students like these before, and none of us has a great solution. So we are just going to take away all privileges and give them back slowly over time once they’ve shown that they have earned them.

It’s not just that they talk to much. It is that it is a third of every class, that they make it impossible to teach the two-thirds who are capable of being decent students on any given day, that they take pride and literal pleasure in being disruptions, that they have little shame or humility and thus no impetus to allow their teachers to teach, that phone calls home are fruitless, that we have little recourse as far as the administration is concerned and have to keep them in class, that I am autistic with auditory processing disorder and can’t understand what a kid right in front of me is saying even with me putting my ear right next to their mouth and them repeating their question three times…

So please save armchair teachering because you really, really don’t know what you’re talking about.

invariably someone

a robotic voice

I smoke absolutely nothing, take no drugs at all (apart from caffeine), and forget to take my meds every other day…just basically raw-doggin’ reality. But I need to dig into why I do the things I do that lead to my relationships not lasting, because human connection is the one drug I am feening for the most.

Yeah, I get that. Single guy who likes to have conversations with kids: Creepy. Married guy who likes to have conversations with kids: Aww! I hate that that is the mentality people have, that single men are creeps. (That being said, it would help if so damned many of them wouldn’t send unsolicited dick pics to women on social media.)

And thanks!

Yeah, I know. When I had to get a marketplace plan in Texas during the pandemic, I had to search through page after page on Psychology Today…nearly 300 providers in, I found an acceptable one. But I’m in Portland now with insurance starting in nine days, and I’m told I’ll have a much easier go of things here.

I’m glad you got the help you needed, that’s awesome.

I have the added fun of being queer (non-binary, grey ace) and polyamorous, so finding care from sex-positive, LGBT-friendly providers who are also well-suited to treat autistic patients with gender dysphoria…

I lived in Texas until recently. For the past ten years since my journey of self-discovery began, finding therapists has been awful. But I just moved to Portland, Oregon this summer, and I was told by the genderqueer, neurodivergent benefits specialist at the school district I started teaching for that I’ll have a much easier time finding care here because (gestures broadly) it’s Portland. 😊

Tai Chea

From r/sbubby way back when. “A funcking beesechurger for monch.”

5/7. Which is a perfect score.