All teachers have at least a Bachelor’s degree. Most have advanced college degrees, as many states require their teachers to have at least a Master’s degree in education. Yet we sometimes wonder how we were able to achieve this feat with what we are tasked to endure in the field of education. 

The 12 below situations leave us shaking our heads and talking to ourselves.

1. Scrub hand-drawn detailed pictures of male appendages off basically everything. 

Yes, schools have more di#@ pics than a Chippendales calendar; we find them everywhere. I am not going to lie, they are pretty darn good representations.

2. Try to replace the copier toner and emerge covered in a cloud of black ink dust.

I have seriously been asked if I just left a fire. I thought you needed to shake the toner to get it to work again. Listen to my advice: Don’t ever do that!

3. Try to retain my composure and continue my read-aloud after a child just let out an earth-shattering fart, and the rest of the class has their shirts over their noses.

Some teachers may be immune to farting, but not this teacher. Maybe it was my childhood surrounded by brothers and an immature father, but I still have a hard time suppressing laughter when it happens in my kindergarten classroom.

4. Receive a full frontal hug from a student who burrows their nose, dripping with snot, into my chest.

No, I am not a human Kleenex. If you do not know where the tissues are, please use your sleeve instead. This is why a professional teacher dress code is ludicrous.

5. Try to teach with the distraction of five full-grown adults in my classroom to observe my instruction.

Why do we need teams of people in our rooms now to observe instruction under the guise of instructional rounds? It is distracting enough for students when one adult enters the room and starts feverishly pounding on their laptop. Now we have an administration entourage.

6. Clear the room of students as a child proceeds to have a tantrum and throw every one of my books off the shelves.

This actually does happen more than people think and illustrates the need for extra funding for behavior interventionists and mental health experts.  

7. Step out of my car to get gas and realize I have my Hello Kitty footed jammies on for Dress-Up Day.

Yes, I have felt a bit foolish a time or two when I have had to run an errand on one of the days of the many Spirit Weeks.

8. Get called a bit@# after telling a student to put their cell phone away.

Yes, students get a little touchy when you ask them to take away a device that they view as more important than any piece of information you have to disseminate. I did not get a Master’s degree just to be treated with this level of disrespect.

9. Write an entire novel of standards on the whiteboard each day that no one will ever read.

I know I don’t speak for myself when I say that this is one of the most annoying practices in education.

Tell us again why we have to do this. Does our advanced degree not entrust us to know what we are teaching and communicate it orally to our students? Yet we must have our precious time wasted by this nonsense.

10. Get called to the principal’s office.

Remember when you were in high school and the principal called down to your classroom and asked if they could see Linda, and a collective, “OOHH, you’re in trouble!” rang out?

This is exactly how we feel when we get the “Come see me” email. Please Mr. or Mrs. Administrator, tell us what you would like to discuss so you don’t trigger old traumatic memories.

11. Read the numbers on my paycheck.

Yes, they should be more; and yes, I knew I wouldn’t become rich when I went into this field. That doesn’t make it right.

12. Get reprimanded by a parent because their child received a low grade.

Look, we give our students so many chances to succeed, but we have a professional responsibility to grade fairly. If you want your child to get an “A” for putting in zero effort, then homeschooling is a better option.

Honestly, many of these situations provide comedy relief for us and create fun stories to tell our teacher besties at duty. But some of these situations make us rethink our careers on the daily. We are professionals with at least a Bachelor’s if not a Master’s degree. We deserve more.

In the meantime, finding humor where there isn’t any helps us to deal with the uncertainty of every school day.