Charlene Lynch picked up some strategies to help handle the daily onslaught of stress and nonsense in teaching. She also has some excellent advice for teachers looking to leave the profession.
Jane Morris, Queen of Commiseration
Jane Morris is the pen name of an ex-teacher who would really like to tell you more about herself but is worried awful administrators will come after her for spilling their dirty little secrets. Jane has taught English for over 15 years in a major American city. She received her B.A. in English and Secondary Education from a well-known university and her M.A. in Writing and Literature from an even fancier (and more expensive) university. As a professional queen of commiseration turned published author, Jane’s foremost passion in life is to make people laugh through the tears.
She has written several highly acclaimed books unpacking the reality of teaching and life inside the school system. You can view her full library of works here.
I recently received a message from a bullied teacher that stuck with me. It said, “When we came back to the classroom after the pandemic, I was really struggling with suicidal ideation. I finally talked to my principal about it, and she warned me that they would post my teaching job as a vacancy before …
Students throw out all kinds of excuses for not getting their homework done! From believable excuses to the tried and true classic “my dog ate it”, teachers hear a lot of excuses every damn day. It doesn’t help that by now, the behavioral expectations for students have become so loose that students can pretty much …
Why did the teacher wear sunglasses when she came to class? Because her students were bright. Heyyyooo!!! I’ll show myself the door. Actually, no I won’t! Because today, the topic is funny teacher jokes, and I got stacks on stacks. However, I’ve mixed it up in this post. We’re not just covering jokes about school …
Ahhh, exam season. The pinnacles of crunch, stress, and an inane amount of marking! However, there is one bright spot to the standardized season: reading all the funny exam answers by students. Truly, students write some funny test answers. And a lot of whacked-out workings too! And though we can’t give any marks for the …
Welcome! I suspect that if you’ve arrived here looking for reasons to quit teaching, you already found a few of your own. Making the call on when it’s time to quit teaching is no easy feat. There’s a lot of fear that hangs over our heads about what we’ll do after quitting and to where …
Ahh, the art of writing report card comments. None of us love, but we all got to do it! When teachers are asked to write report card comments, we know we must oftentimes sugarcoat the reality of a child’s performance as much as possible. There must be a nice, productive way of saying even the …
A new teacher’s first day in the classroom can be incredibly overwhelming. So much can go wrong! What if the kids play up? What if they bully me out of the classroom?? What if I lose my cool and throw an eraser at their heads??? Stahp! Your first day of teaching a new class doesn’t …
At Teacher Misery, I like to rant about bad students, bad administration, bad work culture…. But what about bad teachers? Today, we’re talking about the worst teachers in the world. Not everybody who gets into the teaching profession has a heart of gold and a deep passion for education. Some of them just have a …
Kids just say the funniest things. Maybe it’s their sincere curiosity or maybe it’s their lack of contact with the world of logic. Either way, they say the most wholesomely hilarious things all the time. All kids do is talk smack and they don’t even realize it! So imagine the smack you must hear as …
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I am always trying to find new ways to make fun of educational jargon. I really dislike words like “differentiate,” “scaffold,” and “unpack” because they take a fairly simple concept that most teachers do anyway and turn them into complicated, irritating non-sense. Even worse are condescending phrases like “Remember your why!” This is meant to …