Even though they have one of the most important jobs, teachers don't get the appreciation they deserve. Luckily, there's a week just for that: Teacher Appreciation Week . It's the time when students and their parents are supposed to be extra kind to them. And many administrations will give their teachers presents to show them exactly what they think of them. Some of the gifts given by the administrators are just sad. You can tell they had a shoestring budget to gift the teachers with, so they g…

Some teachers have your back

People love giving unsolicited advice to high school students, even if that advice is unfounded, misguided, and totally unproductive. For instance, the concept that these four years will determine how you end up spending the rest of your life is not only incredibly false but also potentially damaging to a teenager. Most of these nuggets of so-called “advice” likely stem from adults who have complex relationships with their own high school experiences. Perhaps they regret their approach to their…

When I was in middle school our school had an unfortunate naming convention for our school usernames that consisted of the first five letters of your last name followed by the first four letters of your first name. Naturally, my username was thus “DicksBra” and you can imagine how much fun we, being a group of 11-year-old boys had with that. Any time my username was required it was gleefully announced or entered to the tune of stifled laughter

Kids these days… That's a sentence I hear often. 'They're always on their phones, they're not paying attention, they're not putting in the work'. Not all kids. But a lot. And I understand how frustrating it is for teachers and parents to discipline them. There are so many factors involved. One teacher was fed up with the current status and turned to Reddit to complain about what was happening in their school, and most likely in many more. They said that teachers were making things 'too easy' fo…

Taking responsibility for your own actions is important and one of the first major lessons that a young kid should learn from their parents. Unfortunately, a bunch of kids were never taught this lesson—or if the seeds were planted… they never took root. When these kids grow up and have kids of their own, predictably the new parents are not the most reliable at teaching their own children a lesson that they themselves never learned, leading to a new generation of entitled people in a vicious sel…

Seems like every high school has that one teacher who is a self-proclaimed “stickler for the rules.” It's the teacher who loves to tell students that the bell doesn't dismiss class, the teacher does. Or the educator who insists that there will be no phones in class, not even to listen to music, and no food, and no talking to your friends. The teacher in this person's story was a veteran educator with forty years of experience under her belt. She was really stuck in her ways, too.

When the school principal is the first person to deny funding for any extra projects but also the first in line to reap the benefits, teachers can get a little fiery in the teacher's lounge.

These teachers were baffled by the papers they received from their students. A lot of kids really don't want to go to school. They don't want to wake up at the crack of dawn, don't want to sit still in class all day, and they certainly aren't keen to work on homework. Luckily, there are plenty of brilliant teachers who can motivate their students to want to be there. Some teachers try to make their lessons modern by implementing movies, while others can make any lesson interesting with their ex…

These group projects are teaching students some skills, just not the ones they expected to learn. Why do teachers assign group projects ? It's a question that countless students of all ages find themselves asking year after year. Teachers were once students themselves. Did they all just have a great time with their own group projects ? Or did they think the hardships (ie. trying to schedule a time for 5 people to meet up; realizing the night it's due that no one has worked on the project) were…

Is this a compliment?

The shenanigans our classmates orchestrated under the supervision of unfortunately unaware substitute teachers are something that we're likely to remember many years afterward. It's one of those things that are such a universal experience that long ago worked its way from real life over into becoming a trope in popular culture. The greatest example I had of this was in 8th grade when my Advanced Geometry teacher had a few weeks off work, and we, of course, were to be taught instead by a substit…

This is the newest version of “My dog ate my homework.” Apparently for one student, their excuse is that their project got eaten by their family! At some point while you were in high school, you probably had to do this assignment for your health class. Students often have to care for a fake baby as if it's a real baby. The fake baby can be an egg, a bag of flour, or, if you live in a wealthy school district, an electronic baby that cries throughout the day at random intervals. The project often…

To kids, snow days are magical. You've woken up to a white blanket of frozen fun covering your neighborhood, then all of your dreams come true when your mom gets that fateful call from your teacher. School is canceled! Without the worries of driving on icy roads or working to put food on the table, all you're left with is the insatiable desire to have the best day ever with whichever parent is forced to stay home with you.

Working in a school when you look younger than the average student can be hard, both because you don't easily gain respect from students, or from teachers. But you shouldn't be yelled at or overlooked, which is what happened to OP, who was working as a para-educator, helping out at the school. Things were going well until one campus aide showed up and began going off on OP for a variety of things, mistaking them for a student. First of all, I look 15, so I understand the struggle of looking you…

These teachers couldn't stay mad at their students for long. They know all too well that sometimes you have to stifle a laugh when a kid does something out of bounds. It might be super funny, but if the teacher laughs, the kids will get rowdy . Teachers are always confiscating things from students . Some teachers take away phones if they see you texting inside your desk during class. Others have to confiscate paper airplanes, rubber bands, gum, and sometimes even food. All of these things can p…