Happy back to school everyone!
I thought I’d start the school year off a bit differently this year by telling you some of my unpopular opinions about teaching.
I’m going to call this my Teacher Karen post because absolutely nobody has asked for my opinion on these topics, and I’m bound to make myself even more unpopular in this process, but here goes nothing.
- Teachers don’t have to spend their own money for their classroom.
- Teacher Amazon Wish Lists are well-intentioned but often cringey. (I said it. Don’t hate me.)
- Candy shouldn’t be given as incentives/rewards. (This goes hand in hand with number one.)
- Teachers don’t have to come to work when they’re sick.
- Teachers need to stop judging other teachers who don’t come to work when they’re sick.
- If teachers have a sub and have to take a sick day, teachers don’t have to teach from home while taking that sick day.
- Teachers don’t have to be available to their students after the school day ends.
- The Remind app is overkill.
- Teachers don’t have to hold their bladders all day.
- Teacher-made assignments don’t have to look fancy.
- Teachers can get their union involved.
- Teachers should be grading everything based on performance bands not based on outdated percentage grading scales.
- Teachers can make mistakes and still be PHENOMENAL teachers.
Why start the school year off with this kind of post? Because maybe you needed to be reminded about just one of them. Because maybe we need to rethink why we’re doing things the way we’ve been doing them.
I’ve done the exact opposite of most of the things on my list, and that doesn’t make me a hypocrite but a human who is questioning how capitalism and teacher tropes and toxic groupthink have infiltrated education.
I also understand why my fellow teachers spend their own money for their classrooms. If it brings you joy to decorate your classroom with self-purchased decor, go for it! If you’re buying pre-sharpened Ticonderogas for kids who don’t have pencils, I totally get it. If you’re bringing food from home to give to students who need it, I totally get it.
I understand why teachers come to school when they’re sick.
I understand why teachers make their assignments and their rooms fancy. But I also understand that makes more work and might be taking time away from more meaningful work. I also understand that often it is us, ourselves, who make our already complicated job even more complicated.
And if you do any of those things on this list, I am not judging you. At all. I’m just out here, thinking differently and exposing my inner Teacher Karen sans judgement.
Okay, I might be judging you for number 5 and seriously be questioning how often you get a UTI if you frequently do number 9, but other than that, you do you teacher friends.
(I’d love to hear which one on the list you’d like to see as a full-blown post. I have lots of feelings about number 2 and number 3. Also teacher friends, I’d love to hear your unpopular opinions about teaching too!)
Bring on the 2021-2022 school year!
Mrs. Ram's Jams 
7 thoughts on “A Teacher’s Unpopular Opinions About Teaching”
Bridgette Ford
Girl, NUMBER 12!!!!!👏🏼
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Mrs. Ram Jam
Primary schools need to get on board with number 12, too!
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Invisibly Me
Very well said! I’m not a teacher but I agree with what you’ve said here, and I can also see the sort of pressure we have in our society for showing up no matter what, to go the extra mile no matter what, to be better than others while being constantly busy and productive, no matter what. I think some of these things stem from deeper social pressures and expectations. Others perhaps not so much. Number 13 is great – no teacher (or doctor, or anyone in any speciality really) can know everything or get things right all the time, that level of exceptionalism and perfection doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be incredible at what you do, inspire your pupils and help shape their lives for the better.
What’s the Reminder app? I can ascertain from the name it’s about reminders, but what do teachers use it for? xx
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Mrs. Ram Jam
It’s an app that teachers use to remind kids about due dates and other general whatnot. It sends them text messages with those reminders to their phones.
All of my due dates are on Google Classroom. And while the app has great intentions, it takes the responsibility off kids to write down themselves when things are due or to look up the information themselves. It also makes more work for teachers since that same information is already more likely posted somewhere else.
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Invisibly Me
It does sound like a very roundabout way of doing things. I don’t understand why everything has to go through an app these days. So the teachers have to get all that information on the app to send those reminders, when all they need to do is tell the class right in front of them to write it down and not forget. In the real world, you don’t get reminders on an app for everything, whether it’s remembering to turn the hair straighteners off after you’ve used them, to empty the tumble dryer before the sheets start to smell, or paying bills on time. You won’t get someone else reminding you when you have assignments due at work after you’ve left school, either. School is a good lesson for knowing what things you need to get done and making sure you actually do them on time.
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Mrs. Ram Jam
Absolutely! All of this!
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