Teacher here. I have some words to say so buckle up buckaroos.

Can’t sleep and feeling grateful so story time!

Currently I am bedridden for a back injury.

My last year at the middle school I had to leave work for a similar problem- a bruised rib, that I had been avoiding to go to the doctor to for 9 days even though I was in a huge amount of pain and could barely sleep not even in my own bed. The event that lead me up to deciding to straight up just book it to the doctor was a student acting like a monster and throwing a tennis ball around the room gleefully as I was trying to get her to not do that and just sit down to not harm the clay projects kids were working on.

What did she do? Looked at me, laughed and threw the ball anyways giggling with her friends who were also refusing to be decent humans that day. It hit a bunch of projects and broke them, which then broke me. I was done. It was over, I was never coming back to this place for another school year, and the room fell silent as the kids began to realize their day was not going to continue to be so fun. I raged into this girl. She was smiling. I told her to get out in the hallway and sit down in a very LOUD deep voice. I walked out behind her, to make sure she did what I said and continued to lay into her right as an AP happened around the corner, so she saw the entire thing. I didn’t cuss at her, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t a fact about what happened, and straight up told her that it was her fault her class never gets to do fun projects because she can’t even follow one simple direction EVER AND IM DONE.

I looked at the AP said, “My Bad.” And she said “Sometimes you gotta do it.” And I and stormed into the counselors office and sat down in a chair and said very calmly while anger and rib pain crying, asked her to change the schedule of a student immediately. I then got up and went to the doctor to finally address my pain….

Yesterday at the high school I was wheeled out of a classroom full of worried and kind students and people while waving goodbye like a beauty queen.

The kids are the same group of kids- I didn’t leave the neighborhood. This is the difference between teaching middle school and high school, and I will never go back. I choose joy, and am so grateful my job has taken a 180 degree turn for the better and I now feel like middle school in this country needs a big overhaul in how things are set up, funded, and required of teachers. It is insane how much work I had because of all of the work we had to do because we were cramming 35 unregulated minors with various disabilities at all times, all in the same room, with not nearly enough people helping with these tasks. It was almost impossible but we all did it so well, and for so long, and it’s destroying teachers every step of the way. Mentally, physically, financially, emotionally, and COMPLETE PERSONALITY WITH THE STUDENTS.

I was becoming the kind of teacher I hated having to basically be a baby sitter and not get to actually do my job. So glad that’s over, but middle school teachers work too hard and no one understands that. They always just respond with “I could never! You’re so brave! Yeah? Well maybe HELP THEN BECAUSE ITS CRUMBLING TO THE GROUND PEOPLE AND YOUR KIDS, OUR FUTURE, are being hurt in the process.

I am so tired of the government trying to control everything and pay for nothing, it is RUINING ALL OF OUR LIVES, NOT JUST THE TEACHERS. WAKE. UP.

OUR PEOPLE MAKE MORE MONEY AS FREAKING MCDONALDS EMPLOYEES THATS WHY THERE IS A SHORTAGE! WE DON’T NEED MORE STUDIES ABOUT IT! WE NEED A REVOLUTION BECAUSE THE SOLUTION IS OBVIOUS AND FOLLOWS YOU INTO YOUR WHOLE LIFE NOT JUST OURS.

Now I’m just angry. And mentally done with the way the world is going. Back to my insomniac memes now. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Please share this and shout it from the mountain tops!