Last week, I did something unorthodox. I asked teachers to message me directly via X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their frustrations. Within hours, I received almost 200 messages expressing not only frustration, but also hope, humor, fatalism, and quite a bit of hesitancy to converse with a complete stranger on the internet. Without a doubt, these messages represent a very thin slice of the teaching workforce, but a thin slice supplies at least a taste of the whole pie.
Responses ranged from expected complaints about low pay to idiosyncratic observations about processed school breakfasts. Teachers have a lot on their minds. That few mentioned politics surprised me. Considering I aimed my invitation to conservative teachers specifically, I expected laments over liberal dogma and progressive pieties to abound. And certainly, some teachers mentioned such things, but these were a minority.
Instead, one theme surfaced over and again, illustrated by these two examples:
- “Our school isn’t safe. The energy in the hallways feels like something is going to happen at any moment. Fights are constant with little consequence.”
- “We allow behavior that would not be acceptable in any public square. Teachers are cussed out, threatened, disrespected with no consequences. The general public doesn’t understand the crisis we are in. It’s embarrassing. It’s tragic.”
After hours spent reading through these lamentations and conversing with some of the teachers who sent them, it seems there’s a deeper issue here than a mere lack of consequences. Students lack accountability of any kind. Teachers face an ever-mounting list of responsibilities and pressures, while students face ever fewer.