Teachers, how is your mental health?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all you do, teachers.

— a very appreciative mom.

[Anonymous]

I'm having a very hard time. But I need to work. And I'm lucky to have good colleagues and a great principal. Central office folks either make my life worse or much worse, depending on the day. I go to therapy, take meds and now exercise profusely to maintain my sanity.

[Anonymous]

Wow. This thread is very eye-opening.

[Anonymous]

I read this thread yesterday thinking it was a rough year but it was a new week and I was okay. Today didn’t go well. It’s so much and I often feel like I want to cry. This is my 22nd year teaching and I don’t know if I can come back to my school next year. So do I leave entirely or try to find a new job? I’m thinking about this now and it’s only October.

It’s not the parents or the students. You have been supportive through these past two years and are the reason I returned this year. I can’t take much more from administration and central office. They are making my job too hard for me to continue working there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not going great. We have sub shortages which is making everything difficult.

MY biggest complaint is that the higher ups in Central Office don't seem to get that this year is different from past years. They are still bringing out the same pointless trainings and beginning new initiatives and demanding the same data data data paperwork as always. Aren't cutting us any slack despite the fact that we are teaching in person, virtually and sometimes concurrent as well, plus now the effect of the rolling quarantines.

We were JUST told the plan for quarantined kids:

1) parents are supposed to tell us if their child is quarantined and asked for makeup work
2) a quarantined day counts as a day for absences
3) kids are supposed to do assigned work on quarantine but they didn't say whether it needed to be graded or not.
4) I'm happy to grade the work but what if they kids blows it off? I have to give him an F for all the days he is quarantined? PARENTS WILL NOT LIKE THAT.
5) So now it will be my job to hunt those kids down and make them do a better job on their work while quarantined. I'll have to do this virtually while I am teaching my classes in person. That was what I hated about virtual last year. I love teaching kids. If the kids show up I'll teach them. But I hate having to track them down.


All us teachers are grumpy at each other and not very forgiving.

At least I got my booster.

I’m with you. I’m OK and can handle demands within my
Building but everything coming from central office is confusing and overwhelming. They keep piling
more on teachers. I have a supportive administration but they are so busy they can’t give us the help we need. It’s business as usual for central office. So disconnected!

[Anonymous]

Two of my adult kids are teachers. Both are struggling this year. One called me crying again yesterday. They are exhausted, overworked, stressed, and overwhelmed this year. One is a 7th year teacher. The other a 5th year teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two of my adult kids are teachers. Both are struggling this year. One called me crying again yesterday. They are exhausted, overworked, stressed, and overwhelmed this year. One is a 7th year teacher. The other a 5th year teacher.

I am a principal. Very worried about the mental well-being of my staff. I wish some parents would stop attacking teachers and blaming them for outcomes beyond their control. It was difficult to fill vacancies and it will get worse. This is only the beginning of the teacher shortage yet every decision made at the state and district level works against incentivizing and retaining teachers.

[Anonymous]

I opted to stay home with my kids and stop trying to help everyone else's. My husband makes good money so there is no need for me to work. I feel like I am alive again and I believe I will never go back to teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not going great. We have sub shortages which is making everything difficult.

MY biggest complaint is that the higher ups in Central Office don't seem to get that this year is different from past years. They are still bringing out the same pointless trainings and beginning new initiatives and demanding the same data data data paperwork as always. Aren't cutting us any slack despite the fact that we are teaching in person, virtually and sometimes concurrent as well, plus now the effect of the rolling quarantines.

We were JUST told the plan for quarantined kids:

1) parents are supposed to tell us if their child is quarantined and asked for makeup work
2) a quarantined day counts as a day for absences
3) kids are supposed to do assigned work on quarantine but they didn't say whether it needed to be graded or not.
4) I'm happy to grade the work but what if they kids blows it off? I have to give him an F for all the days he is quarantined? PARENTS WILL NOT LIKE THAT.
5) So now it will be my job to hunt those kids down and make them do a better job on their work while quarantined. I'll have to do this virtually while I am teaching my classes in person. That was what I hated about virtual last year. I love teaching kids. If the kids show up I'll teach them. But I hate having to track them down.


All us teachers are grumpy at each other and not very forgiving.

At least I got my booster.

I’m with you. I’m OK and can handle demands within my
Building but everything coming from central office is confusing and overwhelming. They keep piling
more on teachers. I have a supportive administration but they are so busy they can’t give us the help we need. It’s business as usual for central office. So disconnected!

💯!! The rollout of new initiatives that absolutely zero teachers have time to tackle is outrageously out of touch. And some of them are for no other purpose than giving central office more data to slice and dice while taking AWAY from what children actually NEED right now. It’s insane and adding to the stress. I’m seeing that students with fairly stable homes seem okay mental health wise. But those without stability are really really struggling with behavior, exhaustion and even hunger. It’s heartbreaking. But overall I’m seeing a lot of immaturity and lack of skills. Obviously that is no one’s fault, but the result of missing out on a year and a half of normal experience and social and academic development (in some aspects). I have second graders who cannot hold a pencil correctly or use scissors. Many struggle to write a sentence.

[Anonymous]

PP again - as for MY mental health, I’m okay overall but am finding myself crying/frequently distressed over my students who lack stable or healthy homes. Of course this bothers me in normal years, but it all seems more acute now and the horrible UNFAIRNESS of it all is so painful. There is only so much teachers can do and I always worry about where these kids will end up. How do we, as a society, begin to right these injustices. It’s hitting me hard this year.

[Anonymous]

I teach an ES grade. My two biggest stressors are student behaviors and the inability to meet all of what is expected to do our job.

I have about 5 students (out of 26) who constantly disrupt the class or stop instruction with their side conversations and blurting. Everything is funny and they try to make others laugh. They won’t stop giggling, grabbing, wrestling. They’re loud in the halls, won’t stop with the “Your mom” jokes, and generally just do whatever they want to whenever they feel like it.

We are expected to plan for whole group lessons, reading groups, math stations, math groups, and spelling groups. We haven’t started any of the groups. They take a lot of time to plan and implement. We are still assessing and it’s week 7 of school. It would be a huge help if I could have planning time available to do some of what I need to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach an ES grade. My two biggest stressors are student behaviors and the inability to meet all of what is expected to do our job.

I have about 5 students (out of 26) who constantly disrupt the class or stop instruction with their side conversations and blurting. Everything is funny and they try to make others laugh. They won’t stop giggling, grabbing, wrestling. They’re loud in the halls, won’t stop with the “Your mom” jokes, and generally just do whatever they want to whenever they feel like it.

We are expected to plan for whole group lessons, reading groups, math stations, math groups, and spelling groups. We haven’t started any of the groups. They take a lot of time to plan and implement. We are still assessing and it’s week 7 of school. It would be a huge help if I could have planning time available to do some of what I need to do.

No offense, but this is the nature of the beast. How is this different this year than other years?

One year, I had a class that was 2/3 boys. It was like the Lord of the Flies at 2 pm on a Friday. Bonus: 13 out of 30 students had an IEP. Guidance said I should be flattered that so many parents requested me based on my reputation. My coteacher quit in October. Her job went unfilled. I thought ai would lose my mind. But it was a cakewalk compared to teaching hybrid last spring.

[Anonymous]

Thank you teachers for all you are doing.

The youngest kids in particular should have been in school all last year and so many places figured out how to do that and we did not. Such a failure of the system.

[Anonymous]

The behavior. OMG the behavior. Older kids have been running their own show while parents have had to work. Now that they’re back in school, they don’t want to be told when to eat (unmasking issues), to stay by their desks (social distancing), to interact with students they don’t like, or to complete the work they don’t like doing. I’m also seeing a lot of anxiety in kids. I’m empathetic to the transition back to school feeling hard. I’d love to be at home wearing yoga pants, muting students, and taking food and bathroom breaks more easily. But that wasn’t best for most of my students. We all have to re-learn how to work well with others without letting anxiety, dislike, or opposition sour those interactions.

The younger kids (up to grade 3) have never had a full year of elementary school. They can’t sustain attention, and their academic skills are lacking. We know how to close skill gaps and how to modify assignments to make them accessible to students who need more support. And, it’s still true that this is an overwhelming amount of work to do when so many students are this far behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The behavior. OMG the behavior. Older kids have been running their own show while parents have had to work. Now that they’re back in school, they don’t want to be told when to eat (unmasking issues), to stay by their desks (social distancing), to interact with students they don’t like, or to complete the work they don’t like doing. I’m also seeing a lot of anxiety in kids. I’m empathetic to the transition back to school feeling hard. I’d love to be at home wearing yoga pants, muting students, and taking food and bathroom breaks more easily. But that wasn’t best for most of my students. We all have to re-learn how to work well with others without letting anxiety, dislike, or opposition sour those interactions.

The younger kids (up to grade 3) have never had a full year of elementary school. They can’t sustain attention, and their academic skills are lacking. We know how to close skill gaps and how to modify assignments to make them accessible to students who need more support. And, it’s still true that this is an overwhelming amount of work to do when so many students are this far behind.

Last year (20-21), they were 2nd graders. The year before (19-20), they were 1st graders. Did they ALL skip K?