A young teacher in an old vocation.

Me, wearing a Capulet shirt: Do you quarrel sir

🙌🙌🙌

We were on break! https://ift.tt/2q5qXWR

Please try to get it right.

That doesn’t mean I want to carry one at work or shoot a living being.

I’m sorry but until you’re in my shoes, like physically in the position I am, and many teachers are in every day, do not say the above and expect us to say… “YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU’RE RIGHT. I WON’T MARK THOSE BOOKS, I WON’T PLAN ANY LESSONS, I WON’T EMAIL THAT PARENT BACK. I’LL. JUST. CHILL.” Stop.

No, it’s not a compliment, and no I don’t care if “I’ll love it when I’m 40.” It’s insulting and you need to stop.

Cherish the moments, they don’t come around often. http://ift.tt/2myJFo9

Don’t fuck with me, asshole, I’m a scientist.

I had been writing a longer post in my drafts on the TCC (or Teacher Crush Community), and I suppose this ask gives me a place to summarize some of my thoughts. I am incredibly conflicted by the TCC posts I read about on tumblr.On one hand, girls having crushes isn’t inherently that bad. Girls (or young women, if you’d prefer) have been crushing since the dawn of time. Girls crushed on the Beatles, then Rob Lowe in the 80’s (and probably Rob Lowe now.) There’s nothing wrong with a crush. These crushes used to be written in diaries with locks on them, I bet there’s teacher crush stuff etched into the stone of Ancient Rome. I would venture a guess that this behavior isn’t new, tumblr is just a vehicle for it. Where my main conflict lies is when the posts go a little too far and are a little too suggestive. Text posts like “don’t imagine having sex with your TC in their classroom, or kissing his chest…you won’t be able to focus on the lesson.” This sexual component is what is so concerning to me. The differences in age, the position of power the teacher holds, and the lack of student’s emotional maturity are all major problems within the TCC. From a legal standpoint, it’s wrong, from an ethical standpoint, it’s wrong. Male teachers are in a position of power and to desire someone to abuse that relationship sends up a red flag. Let me set the record straight. No K-12 male teacher is interested in their students, and if they are, they aren’t a teacher; they’re a predator. Full stop. Crushing on a boy band is fine because there are no legal ramifications and people don’t see the boy band in person every day. A secondary conflict I have is the idea of digitally stalking a teacher crush. Numerous blog posts talk about how digitally stalking a crush on social media or other websites is crucial. Teachers, unlike boy bands and Rob Lowe, are real people who exist out in the world. The idea that a “crush” allows a person to blatantly violate someone’s privacy is terrifying. Leave teachers alone on social media. Honestly, my gut tells me I want to say to these young women “you’re young and confused and need to redirect that energy.” But I also don’t want a bunch of hate-mail telling me I’m a misogynist who thinks I know what’s better for girls than they do. It’s bad news no matter how you slice it.  Someone not being able to pick up on social niceness or misread cues to the point where “leaving extra comments on a paper” is considered flirting is dangerous to me. It puts male teachers in a dangerous place where, yet again, we have to be completely cognizant at all times what we are saying, or doing so as not to make our students uncomfortable or project anything taken as flirtation. Long story short, stop sexualizing teachers. They are there to teach you, and that’s all we’re thinking about at any given moment of the day. A teacher’s mind is like a browser with 900 tabs open at any given moment, and not ONE of them is ever devoted to inappropriate relationships with our students. 

Your teachers are not interested in you, your teachers have careers and lives to focus on. THINK about what you’re doing to these people, these humans, you have 'crushes’ on.

#teachinglife