I am thrilled to see them on the road. I cannot imagine this is going to go smoothly.

Kate explains that after their first hour aired (I assume she is discussing the discovery channel special) that a church in Fresno California reached out and offered to fly out the family to have them come speak.

First of all, this is why large churches should pay taxes!! wtf??

Second of all, it feels like society is trying to duggar-fy the Gosselin family. Jon and Kate are not perfect by any means, but I do not think they are Christian Fundamentalist.

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Also I think I type wrong so I am trying to fix that bc I think it is injuring my hand??? This is what pushing 30 is I guess. Stephen and Lou pointed out that when I typeI use my entire left hand but I only use my thumb and pointer finger on the right… Am I a child that was left behind? I am attempting to force the rest of my right hand to lock in.

I cannot believe my ancestors survived famine and I can barely use a macbook air.

ANYWAY!

Today’s episode is titled “Housekeeper Hunt” the same intro as usual follows, again i feel like we are breezing past the “when we decided to have one more we got a little more than we bargained for, we got six more”

On my first watch I missed the clip of a toddler putting a shirt over her head and running directly into a door frame. I love toddlers, they’re like if the minions were real.

The first shot of the episode is Kate telling her children to get out of the kitchen because she is trying to sweep. In confessional she says “I have come to the realization I can no longer keep up with my house” btw her house looks cleaner than mine… and her house has 8 children.. Mine just has two adult losers.

Kate says “on a daily basis there are certain things I clean, I mop and do the floors 3 times a day, wipe the table 3 times a day, I wipe the high chairs and the chairs 3 times a day, I clean the sink the countertops the stove everyday without fail”

Okay so that seems like hell! It’s a little overkill but not really tbh, when I taught pre school and would serve 8 small children a meal we would have to clean after every meal. It appears Kate is doing a MUCH more thorough job than we ever did, but like I said her house is cleaner than mine.

Kate explains that Mady and Cara have recently developed an interest in helping so they wipe the counters.

“The vacuuming and dusting usually gets done by my lovely husband” and he does seem like he has that shit on lock. I am confident Kate’s dusting standards are HIGH (subtle foreshadowing)

The bomb drops that Kate has decided to interview house cleaners. She says she needs to do this for herself.

She is doing the interviews in her house while Jon is at work, 4 of the 6 babies are sick, 2 kids are potty training, and Kate is home alone. The house is still spotless. She sits down with Virgina, the cleaning company owner, and Luceni, the cleaner.

She wrote out the certain way she wants things done and immediately admits that she is a complete over the top germaphobe “I don’t think you could find anyone worse in the world and I admit it so hm yeah” omg I would be RUNNING for the hills if I was this lady. Luceni!! RUN!

I didn’t even know you could interview cleaning people??? I usually just give them my address and hope for the best… but that probably explains why I have never found someone good…

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Obviously we are starting at the beginning.

They get into it QUICK, no hi, how are you just GOING FOR IT (I guess because they were already famous from being in magazines and I think discovery channel did a special about them?)

Within the first 20 seconds: “Jon and I always knew we wanted to have kids, but we never imagined we’d have this many. We weren’t able to get pregnant on our own, so we turned to fertility treatments. And we were thrilled when we had our twin girls, Cara and Maddy”

Side note: love the name Cara, always have

“Then when we decided to have just one more, we got a little more than we bargained for, we got six more”

Okay not to be morbid but if that was me?? That doctor appointment would be BOOKED! IYKYK.

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Let’s talk about increased testing: Students in the U.S. spend an average of around 16 school days annually on state and district standardized tests, but this varies widely, with some districts seeing 9-10 days for state tests alone. This fact disgusts me, I also think it’s on the lower side of reality. That statistic doesn’t include unit tests, practice tests, district benchmark tests, diagnostic testing, and many other forms of assessments. From my observation, I think about ⅓ of their time in school testing. That doesn’t leave a ton of space for creative expression and experimentation. Testing companies are deeply embedded into education and they are profiting off of the misery of children. I think most parents would be genuinely shocked to find out how much time their child is spending on testing. It is inherently evil to make children live this way and I think history will look down on us for this. I know that might sound like I am being too dramatic, but I don’t think anyone else is being dramatic enough.

Grind culture and hustle mindset: What we are seeing in schools doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it is indicative of our values as a society. America does not value rest, America values MONEY. We live in a grind culture. Look around, there’s evidence everywhere. The girl boss epidemic? Hobbies being turned into side hustles? 9-5 turning into 8-5 or even 8-6? The expectation to check your work email on your phone constantly? No maternity leave? Only 10-15 days of PTO per year? No extended breaks for holidays or summer? All of these things show us that our culture does not care about rest or rejuvenation and we are instilling those values into our children. I personally believe ALL children should have 60-90 minutes of unstructured play every single day. Yes, including high schoolers. When I tell people this, one of the most common responses from adults is “I don’t get 90 minutes a day of free time!” well you should! Just because we are suffering we think children should suffer too?? Fuck that! We all deserve better! We cannot explore imagination when we are constantly working…

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When I first entered the classroom, ai didn’t exist (at least to the public). My students would use the internet to cheat, but it was relatively easy to catch them because it was usually plagiarism. Kids would copy off the internet, the resources I provided, or each other. As long as they put it into their own words, I was fine with it. This was the situation until I left the classroom in 2022. When I re-entered the classroom in 2023, the ai use was already extreme, mainly in the form of chatgpt. Somehow, within less than two years, cheating had been completely transformed.

I am going to sound like a boomer here, but back in my day we had to WORK to cheat! We actually learned through the cheating! We used wiki, quizlet, and other genuinely educational resources to figure out the answers to our work (and often our tests). I lived in the golden age of cheating. I was in high school around 2011-2016. We had iphones, the internet, group chats, and more. Our teachers had not caught on to the tech wave as much; the vast majority of our tests and assignments were on paper, and not changed from year to year. I would usually screw around all day at school, take my work home, and do it without supervision. I could almost ALWAYS find the answers, or at least some of them online. Like most of my peers, I would take the answers I found, add in my own opinions, and write everything in my own words. Yes I was cheating, yes it was wrong, yes I got in trouble a few times, but yes I was LEARNING during this process.

Two of my favorite cheating stories:

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A side note to talk about the environmental impact of ai: ai is horrible for the planet, the data centers are bad for communities, and I am not an expert in these things. I think this issue is bigger than ai, ai brings this issue to the forefront because it uses SOOO much energy. If anyone here is a scientist, maybe you can jump in. Wouldn’t the environmental impact be a non issue if we used sustainable renewable energy as a society? If we stopped using fossil fuels and moved to wind and solar power, would the ai be okay? I know the ai uses a lot of water but could we use gray water for that? I am sure this is a complicated answer that I am far too ignorant to explain to other people. The environment is not the focus of this piece, I am not an expert, but it is important. It pisses me off to see people make usless ai images for fun, in the same way it pisses me off when people just drive around for fun with no destination. HELLO!!!! ITS NON RENEWABLE?????? This is also why I feel guilt on using ai for documentation that no one was reading. A lot of the work being done with ai is inherently wasteful. Okay, back to talking about ai in EDUCATION.

Fall of 2023, I came back to the classroom. I had two new curriculums and bigger class sizes than I had ever experienced. I had a huge workload, and to manage it, I started HEAVILY using ai. I had mixed feelings about this at the time and today. More and more ai tools for schools were being created, my admin was thrilled with me using ai, my district even had me host a training about how to us ai for teachers, and I even did trainings on twitch and youtube about how to use ai.

Here are some examples of what I was using ai for:

• All district paperwork and lesson plans

• All BS documentation to defend my instructions (PLC docs, KUD charts, data analysis reflections, etc.)

• Adjusting the lexile level of various passages

• Creating text dependent questions based on passages and articles

• Pulling vocab words out of practice questions

• Creating questions for games

• All bullshit objective essential question board decorations

• Creating explanations and examples on the AP rubric for essays

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We’re in a ton of random cities I’ve never been to, talking to tons of teachers. My favorite part of touring is right after the show when I get to meet you guys. Without fail, people always come up to me and tell me how my videos make you feel so seen and so understood. You tell me how what happened with my principal also happened to you. You tell me how the phone addiction issues in my classroom also happen in your classroom. You tell me how ineffective instructional initiatives are also happening in your district. You tell me how funding is being misused in your district too. How your leaders are also creating harm, and not being held accountable.

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My school was VERY strict with us about phones, I served a few detentions for being on my phone. I got caught cheating a few times, but I always talked my way out of it. My little hack was to open my text convo with my boss of whatever job I currently had, so if my teacher caught me cheating, I could quickly close out the quizlet app, and then the text would be there, and I would say “i’m sorry i was texting my boss I need a ride to work today” and it ALWAYS worked (it only works once per teacher). I rarely remember being able to “scroll” in class, and our phones were never used as a part of instruction. I remember when I was 16 my AP environmental science teacher had us use our phones to play a new cutting edge game, kahoot. We thought it was SO cool to use our phones in class, and not get in trouble.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though.

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I have noticed a pattern over the last 3 years. I call it the Behavior Management Cycle of Doom. Here is what that looks like from my perspective.

This cycle is traumatic for the students, the staff, and the community. I think the CORE issue here is a lack of sustainable structure, support, and routine. We know that children thrive when they feel loved, have the resources they need, have a strong trustworthy adult in charge, and they are being appropriately challenged.

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Disclaimer: Gender is deeply personal, complicated, and nuanced. One of my favorite quotes is “Gender isn’t real, but the consequences are.” This essentially means that even though gender is a social construct, it has very real consequences in our world. Non-binary people have existed forever, transgender people have existed forever, queer people have existed forever and all of these groups deserve inclusion and respect.

I am a cisgender straight woman and this piece is MY perspective on gender roles so it is very binary in nature. One of the key things I will discuss here is the biological sex differences between males and females, specifically around reproduction, and how those differences influence gender roles. Biological sex often and historically correlates to gender, and that is the reality I will be writing about. If my experience and my views do not resonate with you and your experiences with gender, feel free to skip this.

I have so many thoughts and feelings about men, when men are good they’re great, but that only happens like 4% of the time.

I specifically want to discuss the idea of “50/50,” the idea that men and women should “equally” split finances and workloads. I think it is complete bullshit.

A lot of men are very disturbed by my gender views. A sexist 1950s husband looks like a beacon of equality compared to me. I used to talk about gender more online, but I kept getting reported for hate speech. I used to consider myself a feminist, I no longer do. Feminist want equality, I want matriarchy. I truly believe men will be better off, happier, and healthier when women take their natural role as the leaders of society. I think this is more equitable for everyone involved.

You know how the Duggar family religion IBLP says that women need to be obedient to their husbands for their own protection? The umbrella of authority? If you have never heard of this, this is a patriarchal power structure created by Christian Fundamentalists.

Despite this graphic only being popular in fundamentalist spaces, I think it is actually really representative of how most people see gender roles in families. By default, men are considered the “leaders” of their household. I have a lot of evidence on my side to prove that men’s leadership in families fails women:

Married men experience earnings advantages (”marriage premium”), being seen as more reliable and committed by employers, and benefit from a supportive spouse managing home life—freeing them for career advancement.​

Married women, in contrast, may face wage penalties, career interruptions from motherhood or caregiving, and are often expected to take on more unpaid labor, limiting career growth and financial independence.​

In case of divorce, women’s incomes on average drop by over 20%, while men’s incomes tend to remain stable or rise, further deepening long-term financial disparities.

Married men live longer, have better physical health, and benefit from healthier lifestyles, often due to their wives encouraging positive health behaviors

The emotional and health toll of a poor-quality marriage falls more heavily on women, often due to greater exposure to marital conflict and higher rates of abuse

My views are essentially the polar opposite of that first umbrella . Here is my version of the umbrella of authority.

Doesn’t that sound nice???

I think my model really focuses on men’s strengths. I think they will be happier this way. They can focus on their main talents. I think burdening men with the challenges of leadership and decision making is a bad idea; it harms ALL of us.

I do not think men and women are capable of being the same or functioning in the same ways. We are different. We are both needed. I read a book by Regena Thomashauer where she compares men and women to knives and forks. They have different strengths and different purposes.

She says: “You cannot be partners with someone you are subservient to. You can’t be partners with someone you are obligated to. Partnership is a game of equals, each playing their different part. A knife and a fork are equals, but different. Men and women are equals, but different. When we know our part and play it to the maximum effect, and guys know and play their part to the maximum effect, it is a fantastic combination. A union of differences!” I would not have used the word equal here, but you get the picture.

Men have been trying to act as the knife, fork, spoon, ladle, spatula, and cutting board. They have been in the drivers seat of the world, and have not included women in partnership. I don’t even think most men are AWARE of this dynamic. I think most husbands would consider their wife an “equal partner” but when I talk to most wives, that is not their experience. How did we get here? How are men and women having such different experiences in the same marriage?

I see the concept of male leadership the same way I see a toddler who yells “I can do it all by myself!!” and then proceeds to spill the entire gallon of milk on the floor. I am tired of seeing milk get spilt. I am tired of us making the same mistakes again and again and again.

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The key piece of my growth with health was exposure to different foods, exercises, attitudes, and cultures.

Most families eat the same few things in a rotation, just the way mine did. These choices are usually based on the tastes preferences of the adults in the household. In many households, parents make multiple dinners each night to accommodate everyone’s preferences. The idea of a parent making a completely separate meal because their child doesn’t like what’s being served is VERY foreign to me. No judgement, but that seems like a lot of work lmao. Regardless of what family you are in, we can only get a limited amount of food exposure in our own homes, to experience the foods of other cultures or preferences, we need to be OUT, LEARNING, and INTERACTING.

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I’ve had this itching idea to teach health. Everyone in my life was shocked by this. Everyone seemed really taken aback at the idea of me teaching anything but history, and they were explicitly shocked that teaching health might mean I could also be teaching PE as well. My friends and family don’t really know me as a “health and workout” person. I rarely talk about diet and exercise, I have hated this topics for the majority of my life. I don’t view my historic disdain for health as a bad quality in a health and PE teacher. I think someone who has struggled with health and fitness is the PERFECT person to teach these subjects. The worst students often make the best teachers.

So why health? How did I get this idea? I want to tell you my health story. Like many people, I love junk food, I love scrolling on my phone in bed, I think kale is gross, I hated exercising for the majority of my life, and I have a passionate addiction to baja blast.

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I love planning. NOW. It is one of my favorite parts of teaching. I genuinely enjoy thinking of engaging ways to make my students learn, and I enjoy creating those materials. I didn’t always feel this way; I really struggled with planning my first year teaching. This was my introduction to planning. A few days before the first day of school, I sat down with someone from the district who was in charge of US history and a coworker of mine who taught 1 section of US history. We “planned” the first unit, it took about an hour. I sat quietly while they discussed the topics we needed to cover, said they wanted to use graphic organizers, do a practice test, and then use an assessment. They filled out the district created lesson plan document and said we were done. I felt confused, I didn’t have any powerpoints or worksheets or anything. Where was the graphic organizer??? What was I actually supposed to do with the kids each day??? All I had was a document that explained what we were going to do. But I didn’t have that stuff?? I didn’t even know what questions to ask during the meeting???? So I just kind of ignored that one meeting and moved on. The first day was pretty easy, I felt really good about my classroom procedures, getting to know the kids, and setting my expectations for them. As the days went on, things got harder, a lot harder. The further we got into the curriculum, the more I was struggling.

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It was a group of boys, freshmen and sophomores and when they realized I was looking at them, they shuffled around and put something away.

I walked up and said “what’s that?” and the student who shoved the small objects into his pocket said “candy” and flashed it to me very quickly. It was definitely not candy. I said “then let me see” and he said “no it’s mine, you can’t take my stuff” and then he literally turned and faced the wall so he wasn’t making eye contact with me.

I always find it funny when teenagers act like toddlers. I spent about a year as a toddler teacher before I started teaching high school and this is classic toddler behavior. The blatant lying, hiding things, turning around due to being emotionally overwhelmed. This happens all the time, it’s like a two year old wakes up in a 15 year old’s body. These behaviors are not developmentally appropriate, but they are very common. I have noticed these behaviors in a lot more boys than girls. I wish I had some expert psychological insight to explain this behavior regression, but I don’t. This is my assumption: I think it’s the same thing that I experience when I feel angry or overwhelmed, I regress to a 16 year old version of myself that curses and screams when I don’t get what I want. For students, I think when they don’t know how to navigate being caught or dealing with consequences of their actions, they regress to their young child self.

I’ve been teaching high school for a few years, I’m no stranger to vapes, this was hardly a rattling experience for me. I figured out the students name (as a sub, I do not know their names, which is difficult) and texted our AP letting her know what happened.

Again, I’ve been teaching for a while, this was not a noteworthy incident to me at first, I assumed they would get one day of ISS or something and we would all move on. A few minutes went by, and our AP and ISS teacher knocked on the door, they took the entire group of boys. This kind of surprised me since I only sent one name, but apparently this group has a reputation for smoking together so whatever. After a few seconds, two of the boys came back into the room. I assumed these kids didn’t have anything so I didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Then about 10 minutes later, the rest of the group came back.

HUH?????

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• 21% of U.S. adults are classified as functionally illiterate, unable to complete basic reading tasks.

• The average American reads at a 7th- to 8th-grade level.

• Adults scoring in the lowest literacy levels (Level 1 or below) increased by 9 percentage points between 2017 and 2023.

• About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates.

This is a big problem, and it’s not new, and it’s not getting better, it is getting rapidly worse. I started teaching in 2019 and I was SHOCKED how truly illiterate my students were. I was not expecting this at all. I went to one of the top public high schools in my state, I was in advanced classes, and then I went to a top 50 public school college. I had not encountered illiteracy before. I am sure there were people I have met that struggle with literacy, I just never noticed it or struggled myself.

Obviously, I cannot show you student work because that would be illegal. BUT! I could show you work from 11th graders and you would think a 2nd grader wrote it. I don’t say that to be insulting, I say that to be realistic.

Many of my students had habits and made mistakes that I did not understand. The biggest thing I noticed was that they were guessing the words they did not know. If I had them read a sentence that said “Manifest Destiny was the name given to the idea that the United States would naturally occupy the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.” they would say something like “Manifest Diary was the name…”

Manifest diary??? Where tf did you get the word diary from???

If I gave them the sentence “Roosevelt recruited a diverse group of cowboys, miners, law enforcement officials, and Native Americans to join the Rough Riders.” they would say something like “Roosevelt required a divided group of cowboys…”

required??? divided??? They were completely changing the meaning of the sentences they were reading! The worst part is, they didn’t even notice they were doing that. They just kept “reading” along (it was more guessing than reading).

I found it so odd that instead of sounding a word out, they would just guess or input a similar word that they had seen before. I noticed a lot of strange habits like this when I first started teaching, but I wasn’t educated or aware enough to ask my students questions about why they did this or where they learned this. I just continued teaching US history as best I could.

I have watched many 12th graders who cannot write a complete paragraph or read a chapter book walk across the graduation stage. This is abhorrent to me, and it’s not the kid’s fault, it’s the adults. It’s not the fault of any one parent, teacher, administrator, school, county, or even state school system. This is a nationwide problem.

I do not have much formal training in literacy instruction. I am not here to give professional development on how to teach kids to read. I really don’t know how to teach someone to read if we are being honest. I am here to offer my opinion and my outlook on this issue. A little about my background: I majored in sociology in undergrad so we talked about the impacts of illiteracy, but sociology course work is not aimed at teaching students how people learn to read. I was not equipped to become a teacher after I graduated, but I passed my multiple choice tests for temporary certification, got a teaching contract a few days before school started, and then boom! I was in charge of children’s education! Woohoo!

I did take some literacy classes online when I was working on my certification in Florida. This was somewhat informative, but it really focused on young students and was very academic-y. It was a lot of theory about reading, we learned the main components of reading fluency, and other high level information.

There was no section titled “so your 11th graders can’t read? Here’s what to do!”

I really wanted clear and specific examples of what to do, how to help these students, and how to build literacy skills within my classroom.

I was desperately craving specific and targeted training. I wanted to know how I, as an 11th grade US history teacher, teach students who cannot read. I literally wanted to know what do I do?? How do I do it???? Is there a worksheet?? An activity?? Literally what do I do with them????

All I ever got in that certification program was theory. I am not saying learning about theory is bad or a waste of time. I just don’t see how me learning theory was going to help my illiterate students. I worked as a teacher in Florida from 2019-2022. I did have a reading coach at that school, and she showed me some strategies to help struggling readers. She taught me how to provide vocab sheets, visual aids, summaries, and other scaffolding techniques to help my struggling readers. This definitely helped them learn US history, which is good. It was my job to teach them US history and I genuinely feel like most of the kids in my class made a ton of progress in their historical awareness and knowledge.

But I still had this nagging thought, they can’t read!!! They’re walking across the graduation stage and going off into the world, and they do not know HOW TO READ!

It didn’t seem like anyone else was stressing about this. It seemed like the educational leaders I talked to had kind of accepted this crisis. I often heard them blame parents, saying things like “well you know these parents don’t read to their kids anymore” which always rubbed me the wrong way.

Obviously it is important for parents to read to their kids daily, but I know MANY fully literate adults whose parents never did that. I also saw many of my students who had very engaged and educated parents, but they still struggled with literacy.

It felt like blaming the parents was grasping at straws. Parents play a critical role, but when we are seeing illiteracy on such a HUGE scale??? It wasn’t adding up for me. It didn’t seem possible that all the millions of Americans who struggle to read had “lazy” or “bad” parents.

I left that school in 2022, not because of literacy, mainly because I was broke and my principal was low key insane.

Shortly after leaving that school, Mrs. Frazzled and I started the teacher quit talk podcast. I have learned more from this podcast than I have in ANY PD or grad school class. We had a guest who truly changed my life: Naomi O’Brien, the genius behind Read Like A Rockstar. Naomi taught me so much during this episode. She explained all the things I had been noticing and why they happened.

She is the one who explained that my generation of students had missed out on phonics instruction, she taught me (and our listeners) about the science of reading.

The Science of Reading is an extensive, interdisciplinary body of scientific research on how humans learn to read and what instructional practices are most effective. It’s not a single method but a comprehensive framework for skilled reading that integrates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, emphasizing explicit and systematic instruction to build the essential skills needed for reading

Here is a guide on the basics.

All the dots were connecting for me, I knew my students were smart and capable, and I knew they were struggling to read, but I didn’t know what the disconnect was? Why can’t they read? Because of Naomi, I realized many of my former students did not have phonological awareness. They do not see a relationship between letters to create words. They just see words. They either know the word, or they don’t. They didn’t have strategies to handle words they did not know. They were literally the Nick Miller joke from New Girl.

My students had been taught to read using sight words (being given a list of words to memorize). This is not a completely ineffective way to teach children how to read, they can actually learn to “read” very quickly this way. The problem is, they are not actually reading, they are just memorizing a bunch of words. Some students can develop phonological awareness on their own by recognizing patterns, but for the majority of students, they need explicit instruction in phonics and reading. Think of learning to read via sight words as a “shortcut” and when kids take this shortcut, the vast majority of them miss out on foundational reading skills.

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However, when it comes to safety, I expect my colleagues/leaders to be professionals and take it seriously.

I DO NOT PLAY about in loco parentis (In loco parentis is a Latin term meaning "in [the] place of a parent" or "instead of a parent." The term refers to a common law doctrine.) To me, this means when I have students in my classroom, I have a legal duty to keep them safe, as if they were my own children.

I am not a parent, but my friends who have children have told me that it feels like a piece of your soul is walking about the world without you. I imagine it is extremely scary to send your child to a government building everyday where random strangers are in charge of them. I take that responsibility VERY seriously. These are OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN. As school staff, we have a legal and moral responsibility to keep them safe at all times.

Aside from morals and laws, safety is a very necessary aspect of education. My view is that safety and communication are the foundation of a classroom, without safety and communication, learning cannot happen. Students cannot focus on a task at hand if they do not feel safe. To create safety, you need open lines of communication with your students. Communication creates emotional safety as well as literal physical safety. Teaching and learning cannot exist without this strong foundation.

I really prioritize safety in my classroom, every year I make my rules clear and hold firm on safety issues. I make my own more detailed plan for a hard lock down/active shooter. I even purposely got GLASS vases for my pencils so we can throw them at an assailant, I have tapestries over my blinds because the blinds are broken and don’t close well, I discuss with my students which pieces of furniture would work best to barricade our door. I even bought a baby alarm for my door so that it loudly beeps when opened. I am not sure if any of these things would help or work, but the way I see it, I want to make my classroom difficult and uattracitive to an assailant. I try to do as much as I can within my own classroom but ultimately, most aspects of our safety are not within my control.

Let’s back track to an incident that happened in October 2024. If you listened to Teacher Quit Talk, you know a little about this already.

My new principal had been on the job about two weeks. I happened to have a ROUGH 4th period this semester. My class was (roughly) 23 boys and 2 girls, a LOT of those boys were seniors repeating the class. I had already spent August and September struggling with them talking, skipping, cheating, and other general nonsense.

Then on a Wednesday October, it happened, the hard lock down light turned red, and we got an announcement saying we are on lockdown this is not a drill.

I did exactly what I am supposed to do, put all the kids in the corner, closed the windows with my tapestries, turned off the lights. I listened for shots but didn’t hear any, I listened for police, but didn’t hear any, I listened for movement outside my door, but I didn’t hear any.

A friend of mine texted me and asked if I was barricading my door. It was in this moment that I realized no one told me if/when I should do that. I had never been trained on that at this school (my previous school had a more clear plan in place) I told her I guess no? And then she asked the same question in our department group chat, no one replied to her.

Then after about 10-15 minutes, the boys in my class got restless, bored. I tried to remind them that we don’t know what’s going on and they need to be quiet. Things got worse and worse over the next 30 minutes.

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I genuinely felt like my admin did not give a single fuck about me, how hard I work, or if I came back this year. I am not saying that's the truth, I am saying that's what I FELT; and I am not crazy for thinking that. A few things happened

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1-I want to make a bigger impact in education

2- I felt stagnant

3- Everyone was really pissing me off

Let’s get into number one first: I want to make a bigger impact in education

Maybe I am delusional for thinking this, but I really do believe I am going to create big changes in education. I had never really thought this way, but a few months ago I posted a video where I was very obviously burned out and stressed; I got a comment that really stuck with me, it was something along the lines of “why are you still in the classroom? You could be having a much bigger impact if you left the classroom?”

At first I was pissed. This really upset me, I love working with my students, I have made such an impact on hundreds of kids' lives, and I felt like this comment really invalidated that.

I am usually not the type to take comments to heart, I usually don’t care about what other people have to say, so if I do get upset at a comment, it’s usually because of an internal reason; not about the commenter.

I realized it pissed me off so bad because they had a phenomenal point. I could be doing more, I could be making a bigger difference, I could be bringing more attention to the problems that educators and students face everyday.

I want to be a voice for teachers, because I know how scary it is to speak up. Thankfully none of my administrators have ever found my content (that I am aware of) but I always get nervous. I wonder, am I going to be evaluated harder because of my videos? Are they going to retaliate against me for using my voice?

On many occasions, my fear superseded my desire to use my voice and bring attention to these issues.

Being a sub creates a level of freedom, I don’t have administrators, I don’t get evaluated, I don’t get observed. I just clock in and clock out. I’ve never met my manager in person, she oversees 300+ subs, she doesn’t even know my name. I feel much more comfortable to use my voice and be transparent about my opinions without the fear of retaliation.

Subbing is also attractive to me because it is so flexible. I am not locked into a specific contract, schedule, subject, or even a specific school. If I have an opportunity to speak on the news or meet with a congresswoman, I can just do it.

If I want to speak out about education, I need a broader view of the issues in education. I cannot effectively advocate for teachers when I only understand the struggles of an 11th grade US history teacher.

I want to be a voice for teachers that cannot speak up, I want to bring national attention to the issues in education, and there’s a LOT of issues beyond 11th grade US history.

I want to see what it’s like to try to teach kids geometry when they don’t understand multiplication and division.

I want to see what it’s like to try to run a writers workshop with kids who never mastered writing in full sentences.

These are real tangible issues that I am aware of, but I don’t have a deep first hand understanding. I want that.

I don’t know what I want to do next in my career, I truly have no idea if I will return to the classroom, try to go for an admin position, become an education lobbyist, run for office, or move under a bridge to give people riddles.

What I do know: having a deep understanding of the education system and the problems that plague teachers will enable me to create change.

I want to get national media attention to the crises happening in our schools. The fact that most high schoolers are reading on an elementary level should be talked about. Rampant drug use on school campus should be talked about. Administrators breaking laws and intimidating teachers should be talked about.

I’m going to talk about it.

Number Two: I felt stagnant

Teaching can be extremely isolating, you are the only adult in a room, all day, everyday. I have been teaching 11th grade US history for five years, and that is a very specific experience. I have never experienced what it feels like to teach math, to run a small reading group, or teach whatever they learn in the classrooms that have giant fish tanks. I truly felt like education was an entire world and I had spent my whole life in my small town.

I want to grow and I want to be challenged. My job is definitely stressful and overwhelming, but I hadn’t felt challenged in a healthy way in a long time. I wanted to be new at something, I wanted to give a lesson that was bad and think “how can I make that better?” After teaching the causes of the civil war for the 10th+ time, I felt like I had that on lock.

I tried to figure out what my next step was but I felt so much stress about my current role that I couldn’t think clearly (more on that in my next post), every option available to me seemed stressful and wrong. I knew leaving education wasn’t right, I also knew staying where I am wasn’t right. On a whim, I applied to teach social studies in a mixed grade setting at a youth detention center, and they offered me the job. I loved the idea of this job and I think I could’ve made a great impact here; however learning multiple new curriculums and teaching year round with an even longer school day definitely didn’t feel right.

I genuinely love my school, our students, and the staff here, so I decided I wanted to stay here. Should I teach a new subject?? But that sounded stressful too! The thought of taking exams to add new subjects to my certification was overwhelming (keep in mind at this point I am teaching full time, being Miss Redacted after hours, finishing up my masters degree, and I was in a bad place with my admin)

Every option seemed stressful and wrong. I was against subbing at first because I love having my own room, but the two people I trust the most (Mr. Redacted and my therapist) kept bringing it up. They kept mentioning how it would be flexible and less stressful, I just kept saying no no no no. Eventually through some difficult circumstances (more on this in my next post) I opened up to the idea, I started thinking about subbing in a different way. I realized it would essentially be all my favorite parts of teaching (being with kids and teaching them things) without the parts I hated (admin existing, paperwork, and meetings)

Subbing took away the big scary questions about a new role like “What if I hate it? And I’m just stuck there?”

As a sub I could “try before I buy” with other subject areas and even other schools.

In regards to my own development, I have never learned anything from professional development. That might be a little dramatic but I really do feel that way. Occasionally I would learn HOW to use a new website or something, but I have never received any pedagogy training that I felt improved my instruction; and I literally got a fucking masters degree.

When I was thinking about how I could grow and learn, I asked myself “where have I learned the most about teaching?” and the answer was obvious, when I observed other teachers. When I first started teaching US history I truly had no idea what I was doing. I had been teaching for two months, and I was already on an improvement plan and getting observed twice a week. My feedback was always negative. It hurt so much to know I was failing, but when my admin tried to give me advice, none of it made sense to me. The activities my admin suggested didn’t work. I was being told to stop lecturing, I was told to give kids vocab matching instead. How are they supposed to learn about westward expansion from guessing on which definitions go with which words?? All of my administrators had taught ELA or math. When they were telling me to do a ton of random history games and projects that weren’t connected or related, I knew this was wrong. Deep in my soul, I knew kids need a STORY to learn history, there needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end that all made sense together. I was right about that; I wish I knew how to articulate it better.

Then, a lovely woman who worked for my old district held a PD for US History teachers ONLY. She got sub coverage for all first year US History teachers so that once a month we could go to her session. She bought us donuts and then modeled actual US History lessons she used in her US History classroom the previous year. This showed me the subject area PD is by far the most effective form of PD. To this day, I have no idea how she got funding for this.

When I got to see someone with the EXACT same job as me do their thing. I loved it. She had well thought out lessons that included a short whole group lecture, engaging hands on activities, independent work based on primary sources, and ALL OF THOSE ASPECTS CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER! It was the first time I saw an example of US history lessons that didn’t feel like clunky unrelated tasks. The lessons had a flow, they showed a story. This is when teaching clicked for me, I immediately improved, very dramatically. She even created all the materials so we could take that lesson to our own rooms the following week. Kelly, if somehow you are reading this, sorry for being an insane bitch! You rocked!!

How could I possibly recreate this type of PD? When would I ever get another opportunity like this? Then it hit me. One day last spring my co-teacher had a family emergency so she got a sub for the day. If you don’t know what co-teaching is, basically there’s two teachers in the room, the subject area teacher (me) and a special education teacher. The sub I had was lovely, she had been a stay at home mom for 10 plus years and she said she was thinking about becoming a teacher and working on getting certified. She had a ton of questions about my class, the way I teach, and what I liked/didn’t like about my school

What a fucking incredible opportunity! To be in the classroom with another teacher, get to see them teach, work with students directly and get PAID for it???? Not paid well, but technically paid. This lovely woman found a full time teaching position within two months (not surprised, she was great) but this situation got me thinking. This looked fun, low pressure, and had unlimited learning opportunities. My hesitations about subbing and losing my classroom started to fall away. I fell in love with the idea of bopping around my school everyday and getting to see incredible veteran teachers in their classrooms (and obviously working with children to provide them the educational services they deserve)

Three: everyone was really pissing me off

This one deserves its own post, as many of you know, the 24-25 school year was very rough for me. My school had a ton of admin turnover and started a lot of new initiatives. There were many unethical and upsetting things that happened to me this year. These factors were the main driving force behind my decision to sub.

Writing it out was very cathartic, it is 14 pages and includes many horrifying emails I received. I hope you decide to join my substack community, if you don’t, I still appreciate you. I appreciate any time you spent watching my videos, the dedication to read this post, and all the support you all have given me over the years.

I will be posting weekly on substack about my observations and views on education. At first I was concerned I wouldn’t know what to write about since I don‘t have my own classroom anymore. But as I write this, I am in my second week of subbing and there is NOOOOOO shortage of educational atrocities to discuss. If you want weekly updates about the crises and wins in public high school, join my community here on substack.

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