Teacher Answers Teacher Questions

I'm sitting in front of a room full of people,

and I'm gonna ask them to give me their cell phones.

So if you would please, come up.

Trick or treat, gimme your cell phones.

This is gonna be hard for them.

Paul, I think I don't have your cell phone.

[phone thudding]

Hi everybody.

I'm Leslie Fox, I'm a math teacher.

I'm here to answer your questions.

This is teacher support.

[upbeat music]

First question.

This is from JacobAn0808.

Do teachers secretly have favorites?

Am I allowed to answer that?

The answer is yes.

Here's the thing,

our favorites are the ones that come to us.

It's not like I'm gonna look around the room

and say, Oh my God, you're my favorite.

It's the ones that come in and ask the questions

and then they start sharing stuff with you.

Yes, those are my favorites okay?

I have favorites.

Are people gonna watch this?

Okay, because I don't know that I want my students to know.

From hopperlover40.

Should we ban phones from schools?

Obviously, yes we should ban phones from schools.

Where I work,

they banned phones for the first time this year.

You cannot have a cell phone on your body.

For the first four to six weeks, kids were hiding it.

We had to remove them.

So if we saw a kid hiding in the bathroom,

I'm not kidding you, behind a door,

scrolling through their phone, I had to take it.

If they were in their back pocket, I had to confiscate it.

If it was on their desk, I had to take it.

And they would get it back at the end of the year.

At the end of the day,

to them, it felt like the end of the year.

Let me tell you what happened.

Kids started doing crossword puzzles.

Kids started asking for board games.

Kids started talking to each other.

They even forgot that they had cell phones

and it was like going to school in the eighties.

The next question is from oldwoolensweater.

Why can't teachers just not assign homework?

I agree with that.

You know, I do think there are some teachers

that like to assign homework,

just kind of for the sake of assigning it for busy work.

I'm not really sure why.

I don't know that it actually helps 'em

because then they get into the mind frame

of let's just get it done, let's just get it done.

Especially if you're a teacher that's grading homework,

the kid is not really learning it,

like as we nerds like to say, like really internalizing it.

I think assign classwork,

and then before the kid leaves class, you are checking that.

That is what is gonna get a kid to do their work.

When they go home, they can just use AI.

I'm a no homework teacher,

but you're gonna be working in my class, don't worry.

Totally agree with you, oldwoodensweater.

From Reddit, Teachers.

Are most teachers nerds?

Yes, we are all nerds.

We like talking about math all day, every day.

So nerdy, even our tattoos show what we do.

So here's my pi tattoo and my dog's name is pi.

Everything in my life has to do with math,

and things that don't have to do with math

aren't really that important in my life.

Yes, we are nerds.

This one comes from Herpderbydoo, okay.

Teachers of Reddit,

what really goes on in the teacher's lounge?

Oh, I wish I could say it's all sexy and fun.

But what goes on in the teacher's lounge,

is we are prepping for our classes.

It's a little bit boring if I'm being honest.

We're doing Xeroxes.

We are stuffing our faces with food,

but every once in a while we will talk about

our own high school experiences

and all the things that we don't want you to do.

We talk about the stuff that we do

that we don't want our students to know.

The truth is, teachers are just big kids

dressed up like adults.

Adults stuck in high school.

Sometimes we gossip about students.

Sometimes we gossip about other teachers.

Sometimes we gossip about administrators,

and then we gossip about our families.

Yes, we gossip.

Are you kidding me?

Of course we gossip.

We do all the things that you guys do.

Okay, next question, is from AlyksTheSage.

Teachers and principals of Reddit,

Why do schools not teach things like how to cook, clean,

or do taxes?

Yes! [Leslie claps]

Yes AlyksTheSage, I totally agree.

We do not teach our kids life skills.

Why?

I have no idea.

You need to learn how to do taxes.

You need to learn, this is a really kind of a morbid one,

but when one of your parents dies,

you need to learn how to deal with all that stuff.

You do need to learn how to cook,

you do need to learn how to clean,

how to keep a house, how to pay your bills.

I mean, there are all these things we don't teach you.

But instead, let me teach you the calculus.

I don't know why we don't,

but yes, we should have a class like that.

I'm really sorry, we have failed you.

Okay, the next question is from sweatshirt_cigarette.

If I can pass your class with AI,

the problem isn't AI, it's your class.

I totally agree, yes.

If you can pass my class with AI exclusively,

then I haven't made the assignments AI appropriate.

I use AI in my classroom

and I recommend all teachers use AI.

So just let me give you an example.

So if I make a bunch of questions up for my kids

and I say, okay, answer these questions,

and then they answer them and they're like,

oh, can we have some more questions?

And I say, I want you to write them, have AI answer them,

and find the mistakes that AI makes.

Ask AI for questions, see if you can answer it and check it.

So yes, AI is a helpful tool.

It's gonna be everywhere.

And as teachers, we expect that you know how to use it

and that you do use it.

So, I hope you can pass my class with AI.

To check to see if kids use AI to cheat.

First of all,

kids don't have computers in the class anymore.

There's not really a way to cheat with AI in class,

because you are doing your work

with a piece of paper and a pencil from the olden days.

So if a kid is using AI at home,

like to complete their homework, that's fine.

That's on you.

I don't even grade your homework.

So, if you're gonna have AI

complete all your homework, that's fine.

When it comes time for the test,

you might not be able to answer the questions.

I don't even collect homework.

It's obsolete.

The next question is from TheCouchPotato.

How much do high school grades really matter?

Oh my god, okay.

High school grades, depends on what you wanna do.

If you wanna go to college,

and you wanna get into competitive college,

that's what they look at.

They look at your grades.

I'm curious though,

how much do you learn if you get good grades?

I think that high school grades

are a reflection of how much someone wanted to do well,

rather than how intellectual you are,

and how much you're learning.

I think that kids that get good grades

are all about looking at their future,

of like, where am I gonna go to college?

And then what?

You go to graduate school,

I mean, the real thing is

what do you wanna do with your life?

In the end,

high school grades don't actually matter all that much,

but what might matter is doing something you love,

finding a hobby that you love

because that's gonna be what your life is.

I'm sitting in a room with probably eight people here,

that are all doing what they love.

And if I ask them a question, what was your GPA?

They probably wouldn't even remember.

I don't even care what college they go to,

but look at what they're doing now.

That's what I want kids to do in high school.

Find what your passion is.

It actually has nothing to do with your grades.

From JJ5thehuman.

What's the most creative way you've seen someone cheat

in an exam or test?

Okay, this is actually a really good one, it's funny.

So, a kid had a cup, like one of these cups,

imagine it empty,

and it was a styrofoam cup.

They had it filled with all these formulas

and so the kid is pretending to drink,

taking their test like this.

And I looked over and I said,

What's happening over there? [Leslie laughs]

So I had to take his cup away.

This is from MurphysMom08.

Teaching is the best or worst job ever,

and either way, you're not wrong.

100% agree, it is the best job.

Because you get June, July, and August off.

No, it is the best job because you get to be with kids.

It is the worst job

because you're paid peanuts for your work.

And there are 100 things in between,

but it really is a lovely career.

This is from Reddit, Sat.

Would you say the SAT is an intelligence test?

SAT is supposed to test

how well you're going to achieve in the future in a college.

Completely disagree with that.

But if you have the funds, you can study for that test,

spend a lot of money and figure out what kind of questions

and do really well on it.

If you have a calculator, these are over a hundred dollars

and you can buy this,

that will help you immensely on the test.

However, it is not an intelligence test.

Let's remember

that there are all different types of intelligence.

There's creative intelligence,

there's emotional intelligence, there's artistic,

it just tests how well you can learn to take a test.

And depending on the content that's on it,

I can write an SAT test

that has nothing to do with math and English

and then somebody will pass it with flying colors.

But the person who studied for the standardized SAT test

will do horribly.

So is it a test for intelligence?

No, no.

Not even a little.

I think something that would be better than an SAT test

would be,

how can you have a conversation with someone in real life?

How can you do what you love

in a way that makes you feel happy?

That's the real intelligence test.

EdwardBliss says,

Do teachers still roll out that TV on wheels

if they don't feel like teaching for an hour?

So for those of you that don't remember,

if teachers didn't feel like teaching,

they would literally roll out a TV set

and put it in front of the class,

and say, okay, class, we're gonna watch a movie today,

and all the kids would fall asleep.

No, we don't even have TVs in the classrooms anymore.

But we do have calculators that project

and the answer's yes.

When we don't feel like teaching, we will show a movie.

Yes, there are times when we don't get to do our homework

or prepare a class.

So yes, we do roll out the TV so to speak.

However, it's a little bit different now.

We often take a vote by the class of,

what show do you wanna watch? [Leslie laughs]

Let's see, what did I do last?

I think we did Love on the Spectrum.

Yes, my kids watched Love on the Spectrum.

One day we all didn't wanna do work,

and we watched it, and then we discussed it.

So it was actually a fun day, yeah.

So the next question is from,

ball-swinging-maniac.

How much of an expert are you really

within the subject you teach?

That's the only thing I'm an expert in.

Only in high school math.

If you ask me to do history,

I will look at you and say, Hmm, I have no clue.

If you wanna ask me about elementary school math,

I won't even be able to help you.

If you wanna ask me even about college math,

won't even be able to help you.

High school math, I'm your gal.

And I do have kids challenge me, and I love when they do,

because you have kids that will ask you questions beyond it.

And so I have to look at them and say,

I don't know the answer to that,

but I will get back to you.

And then I have to go to my gurus, and ask them,

I had this kid ask me this great question,

and I don't know the answer.

So I am always learning, that is a true thing.

You are always learning.

Because the kids will challenge you and ask you stuff

outside of my little slight field of knowledge that I know.

This is from blobbytheblobfish2.

Teachers of Reddit,

what is the funniest excuse for being late,

not doing homework, etc,

you've ever heard from a student?

Okay, by the way, this does happen.

And the stories that the kids make up,

the ones that are so good I think are actually true.

I'm not kidding you.

I have had kids say, my dog has eaten my homework,

and I actually believe them because I have a dog.

The dogs do eat your homework.

Particularly the kids who have two homes,

some of them from divorce,

some of them because of they have two homes

that's left in one home, and then their car broke down,

and then they couldn't get to the home to get the homework,

but then they're gonna have someone deliver it for them.

I don't even care about the homework.

I [laughs] I don't even grade the homework.

You don't even have to turn the homework in.

But then I'll have kids that are constantly late,

and it becomes a class joke.

It's no longer like, oh my gosh, Susie's late again.

It's like, wait, Susie, you're on time.

What are you doing here, you're supposed to be late.

There's often no reason.

And they're like, Oh yeah, I was at my locker.

And then I'll often see Susie in the hallway,

like kind of staring into space.

I'm like, Susie, don't you have class?

Oh yeah, I think I do have class.

Like they just forget.

Some of them that are late are always gonna be late,

but it doesn't matter in the end,

'cause they're these people

that are doing wonderful things in life.

So if you're late, you're late.

Like it's okay.

It's not gonna-

It's not gonna, whatever.

Okay, this is from the homeschooling subreddit.

How do you create a curriculum?

Oh, it's a good question.

Okay, I think what the question means,

'cause you don't create curriculum.

You are mandated by the state to cover certain curriculum.

Algebra is algebra.

You have to get through, you know,

quadratic equations and factoring,

and line with slope and y intercept.

I think maybe what the question is asking is,

how do you create pedagogy or how you teach the curriculum.

So this is the fun part about teaching.

So I take professional development classes

and you learn all different modalities

because everybody learns in a different way.

Some kids are visual, and they're like wanna learn

and see the graph on their calculator.

Some kids are auditory,

and so you have to talk it out with them.

Some kids are kinesthetic so they have to actually do it.

You just keep practicing,

and you go and visit other teachers,

and you take professional development,

and you try something and you fail,

and you try something again and it works.

And something that works with one kid

will fail with another kid.

So it's continually trying, and trying,

and doing different iterations.

Okay, this one is from jellyfish5729.

The question is, Where is all the money going?

It is not going in the teacher's pockets.

The money is going to the administrators,

who are earning, and earning, and earning,

while we are in the trenches trying to do all the hard work.

The money is not going to the supplies

because we the teachers are buying the kids the supplies.

I don't know where the money is going,

but it is not going in our pockets.

Azizarimsakov18 asks,

How long does it take you all to grade assignments?

I have been teaching for many, many years.

In the beginning, it took me so long,

because I had to learn to assign points to each thing,

and then I would get nervous that I graded it wrong.

You know now what I do is,

I grade all of page one, and all of page two,

and all of page three so that I'm grading everybody evenly.

So it took me a long time in the beginning,

but now I have it down,

so it doesn't take me a long time.

I think it will always take English

and history teachers a long time,

'cause they are reading lots of papers.

I'm just looking through and finding what I need.

Kindly_Sir_6050 asks, Armed security thoughts?

Can you believe we have to think about that

and actually it's so real.

Yes, armed security thoughts.

I have a lot of thoughts on it.

The fact that we're having drills for active shooters,

for somebody on campus with a weapon.

We actually have armed security on campus.

Yes, we have that.

Kids do not have to walk through

a metal detector coming on campus.

I think it's coming though at the school where I work.

As much as I hate to say this,

and I'm not somebody who's all about weapons,

but I think armed security

makes me as a teacher feel better.

I didn't know as a teacher

I was gonna have to become a policeman.

So yeah, armed security, if it's not there, it's coming.

The next question is from WiscOrangy.

Oh, I love this question.

If you could give one piece of advice

to a high school student, what would it be?

I guess what I would like to say is, be your free self.

Just be yourself, have confidence.

I'd like to give you confidence to be free, be you,

and do what you love,

and try to block out the noise

of what you worry that other people are gonna think of you.

Just be your beautiful self.

All those societal norms of, oh, go and be a professor.

Go and be a doctor, go and be a lawyer.

No, go and be what you love.

If you wanna be a photographer, work hard at it.

Go and be a photographer.

If you wanna be an aesthetician,

go and be an aesthetician and work hard at it.

And all that societal noise that comes from your teachers,

that comes from your parents, that comes from your siblings,

block that out and be your true self,

and have confidence being your own self.

That's what I would say.

If I could give that advice to every single student,

that's what I would say.

Go be you.

@aMoral_Mistake.

How would you react

when a student corrects you in class on something?

Oh, I love when a kid corrects me.

First of all, they're paying attention.

Thank you, thank you all for paying attention.

Second of all, they're engaged,

and they wanna challenge you.

Yes, correct me because I am not the be all end all, please.

You know that idea of the more you learn, the less you know,

that's what we teachers are.

So yes, please correct us, we love it.

Most of mine are like clerical errors.

So for example, if I forget to carry the negative down,

you know, a kid will say,

Oh, Miss Fox forgot the negative.

Or if I'm graphing and I look at the slope,

and I'm doing a positive slope versus a negative slope,

and they're like, Wait, shouldn't that go the other way?

And they're often so cute.

The kids are like,

they don't wanna step all over your toes,

but I tell them, step all over my toes.

Yes, come in and tell me what I did wrong.

Sometimes we have a Goodwill Hunting situation.

All I can do is guide that kid where to go

because that kid knows way more than I'll ever know.

And so you just have to show them where to go.

Go to the next step to, you know, try this, try that.

'Cause they are, they know all their stuff,

and those are fun kids to have and intimidating.

This one is from Abelmageto.

What's the hardest part of teaching

that no one warns you about?

Oh my gosh, how much time do we have here?

The hardest part about teaching is,

you actually wear 400 hats.

Not only are you trying to convey information,

oftentimes the people that don't really wanna learn it.

And it's oftentimes a really difficult topic.

That's the part you signed up for.

The part you didn't sign up for,

is all the emotions of adolescence

that a kid comes in, so-and-so's mad at them,

because they looked at them the wrong way,

or they talked to so-and-so's boyfriend's sister

and you have to kind of breeze this over.

Or somebody vomits in your class

and you're like, okay, let me get you out of the classroom.

Or somebody is in the middle of trying to finish a paper

and they're flying off the hand.

I mean, there's so many things,

or they don't have their supplies,

or they having a fight with their mom

and so they were unable to complete their work.

You're making, seriously, 30 decisions in one minute.

My God, there are all these little things

that by the time you leave as a teacher

and you get in your car,

you're comatose and you can't even talk.

I get home and I say,

Nobody please, nobody talk to me, nobody look at me.

You just have to decompress.

Oh my gosh, you don't get to go to the bathroom,

that's the other thing.

Or the prep way into the night or the grading.

I guess that's to be expected.

But yeah, I love the job and it's a hard job.

This is from Calla.

High Schools should offer 'a career explorations' class.

Oh my gosh, wouldn't that be fabulous?

I think it's a great idea

to offer a career explorations class.

And I think a way to do it is,

to have the parents come in, and talk about their careers,

and even set it up almost like a festival,

so that kids can just walk around

from anybody who wants to talk about their career

and talk about it in a sense of,

like the everyday, you know, not just the fun part,

but the parts that get hard,

and so that the kids can see exactly what it is

and even go so far as to maybe intern over the summer

for a couple weeks in each different career

so you can get an idea.

Even if it turns out

that you thought you wanted to do something

and now you don't wanna do it,

that's also just as powerful.

So yes, we should definitely have

a career explorations class, or day, or couple of weeks.

Okay, the next question is from Kathtb.

Is this the worst time to become a teacher?

God, it is a really hard time to become a teacher, yes.

I think the hardest time to be a first year teacher

was 2020.

That would've been a really hard time.

Imagine starting out your career on a camera.

When you're tutoring with your students,

you cannot sit next to them anymore.

And if you're alone with a kid in the classroom,

the door has to be open.

It is a very hard time to be a teacher.

Last year we had a bomb threat.

For real, I'm not kidding you.

We had to evacuate the building

and get as far away from where we thought the threat was.

And then we had the bomb squad coming on campus

and searching the entire campus.

And then there was an active shooter,

or somebody with a gun at a school down the street.

So again, we had to evacuate.

This happened three times last year.

And I'm just talking about it like it's normal,

like we have drills for this.

In that sense, it is a very hard time.

Yes, AI has infiltrated, cell phones have infiltrated.

So if I were to become a teacher today,

I wouldn't have lasted 30 years.

When I started teaching, we didn't have these,

we did not have graphing calculators.

So if I wanted to teach my kids about a graph,

we had to draw it, we had to do everything by hand.

I used the computer to project something on the board

that everybody can see.

Before, I'd have to write that all out.

That is a lot of work for a teacher.

I know that I'm saying I want the computers out.

It is hard to find that balance.

There are a lot of things we've acquired,

but we, in my opinion, have gone over.

We've gone overboard,

and we need to go back,

back a little bit.

I don't think it's the worst time.

I think it's a hard time to become a teacher.

From Unknown-Nerd6207.

If schools and colleges have zero tolerance,

why is bullying so common?

By the way, it is.

It is common, it happens.

It's because the teachers, the administrators,

we don't see it.

It occurs online, it occurs through their text messages.

If it were occurring person to person, we would see it.

That's not how it's occurring now, it's so underneath.

Yet another reason, get rid of those cell phones.

Don't be on social media.

I mean, really, if I could give any advice to students,

I would say get rid of your cell phones, smash it,

and get off of social media.

And I'm not kidding,

like I actually would say that.

The only way you can see it,

you can see it in a kid's body language.

And when you see a kid

who's behaving a little bit differently,

you cannot say to them,

Hey Jimmy, I noticed you're really down.

That is the worst thing you can do to a kid.

Adolescents do not want the light shown, shined on them,

whatever the proper grammar is.

Because it is very hard for a kid to be bullied

and they feel like it's their fault.

That's one of the issues.

What you can do, is you can take a little note,

write a note saying,

Hey, is everything okay?

Do you wanna talk?

Fold it up.

Just walking along around the classroom,

talking to kids, and then, you know,

you just kind of put the note on their desk and walk away.

And then Jimmy looks at it and is like,

oh, I can go and talk about it with her.

It's not usually that same day.

They'll slowly come in and talk to you

and be like, Hey, so can I talk to you?

Of course, come and sit down, talk to me.

And so that's the only way that we can find out about it,

is by directly asking them.

They will not come to you and tell it.

So, that's,

the sad truth.

I had a student that was-

So awful,

that was bullied in a very uncomfortable way

through a group text message.

The kid was on a group text,

and was being bullied and targeted on the group text.

And so,

I had to report that,

and then it gets a little messy

and the kid never wants to be involved in that.

So, it was reported to the grade-level dean.

The grade-level dean just,

does an initial to the entire class.

Like if it's 10th grade and says,

You know, it's come to our attention

that there's some bullying going on,

and we wanna remind you this is not how we like to present.

And,

if this continues

then we have ways of knowing that it's gonna continue.

There are gonna be consequences put into place.

And if it continues,

then we do have to call in the perpetrator

and they they have to be suspended.

It is really ugly, it's not pretty.

And so, that happens.

And that's the only way to find it though.

It's really hard to deal with.

So, yeah, that's a hard question.

So this is from brownpikachu.

Why do we associate apples with teachers?

Lemme just tell you, the apples with the teachers.

Part of it is history.

Part of it is because apples are available everywhere

and part of it is a form of payment.

So, kids get apples to teachers as a form of thanks,

as a form of payment.

It has a historic component.

I'm not entirely sure,

but I can tell you, during the school year,

I eat an apple every single day during nutrition,

and I just eat it like this.

I just, I don't even cut it.

I eat the whole thing down to the core,

and I don't know why I am a teacher and I do love an apple.

This is from the Teachers subreddit,

Private or public - pros and cons?

Okay, from the teacher's perspective.

Private schools,

small size classes, kids who are excited to learn.

Anytime you need something,

all you do is go to your administration,

they'll buy it for you.

Beautiful teaching environment.

Public schools,

you get paid when you retire,

you get great benefits.

You have bigger classes,

you are paying for all your supplies.

Private school, parents are all over you.

You are meeting with them constantly.

Public school, I don't even know if the kids have parents.

So, that's it from the teacher's side.

So this is from reuniteottomanempire.

And the question reads,

Why did No Child Left Behind fail?

So the act, No Child Left Behind,

was put into place in 2002 by President Bush.

And then in 2015 it was replaced by Every Student Succeeds.

Yeah, that's a tricky one,

because if every child succeeds,

or no child is left behind,

that means we are actually pulling along kids

that aren't really ready to go ahead.

Our society expects every kid of the same age

to be at the same place.

Really?

That's ridiculous.

Every kid is at the place where they are supposed to be,

what is right for them.

If it takes one kid two years to learn rather than one year,

let them take the two years.

If it takes one kid half a year to learn, let them learn.

Because every kid's brain is made differently,

this is why it has failed.

I know there were good intentions behind it,

but it doesn't really work.

This is from Valuable_Programmer6.

Why are kids so misbehaved in school?

Oh my gosh, there's so many facets to this.

Okay, number one, they could be bored,

so they need to be active.

And our education system is a very antiquated system,

where kids are rewarded for sitting still

and just taking notes.

So that's one issue.

I also think that there are issues

with kids that have

just different chemistries in their body,

different brain chemistry,

and they are misbehaved

because that's not what their body is meant to do.

They are meant to move around

and they need activities to keep them busy.

They need teachers to be educated in how to help them.

I don't even wanna call them misbehaved.

The kids are just being them,

and the teachers might not like that,

because it's not what they were trained to do.

The scrolling on the phone is just,

that does make me a little crazy.

I do think that the cell phone has contributed

because kids are so used to the constant entertainment,

entertainment of switching so rapidly,

I do think that overall kids' brains have changed.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing,

I'm just saying kids' brains have changed,

and they like to see things quickly, quickly, quickly.

I think we just have to, as teachers,

if we change around what they're doing quickly,

they're not as misbehaved.

I would love to see kids

be able to focus on something for longer.

I do think that with time they will,

because they'll get more accustomed to it.

So if we keep the cell phones out of the kids' hands,

then we will have

a little bit better of an outcome with that,

as far as behavior.

The next question is from spankyourkopita.

As a teacher, do you really have less off hours,

and downtime compared to other jobs?

You don't, eight o'clock in the morning,

you're in front of a classroom full of kids

and you are trying to impart knowledge,

until 2:30 or 3 o'clock.

When am I preparing my classes?

When am I grading my lessons?

When am I learning more?

All of that is during your off hours,

when you're not working.

If you have a doctor's appointment, too bad.

You cannot really leave easily,

you can't be sick, because if you're sick,

it's twice as much work to prepare a lesson

for a substitute, so that you can go and be sick.

We get summers off, we get Christmas breaks off,

spring breaks.

So we have those.

I think of the summers as recovery time,

but my battery is so depleted

that I feel like I need the summers to get back on track.

Next question.

Dishsoapbox asks,

How is dismantling the department of education

going to affect teachers?

Oh my gosh, I have no idea.

All I can guess is, we'll get paid even less.

Obviously you all know,

we are not in it for the outcome of money.

We're in it for the outcome of the students.

So, dismantling the Department of Education,

I'm not sure how it's gonna actually affect the teachers.

I can't imagine it would be anything positive.

What I'm fearing, teachers are gonna lose their jobs,

classes are gonna be become larger.

There are gonna be less resources for teachers.

Nothing good will come of that, let me be very clear.

And it's actually kind of sad,

because I do think teachers do a lot of work

and there's so much behind the scenes work that we're doing

that it's just gonna become greater and greater.

The volume is going to increase,

and I think that it's not just gonna affect the teachers,

I think it's gonna affect the teaching

and then the student's ability to absorb, it's not good.

This is not a good outcome.

UniversityNo6511.

Chaperone for Prom What to wear?

Okay, so chaperone for prom,

I would wear like a gown, yeah.

Chaperoning for prom for teachers was really fun.

Gentlemen wear tux, women wear dresses,

non-binary, something appropriate,

but you're dressed up, it is a black tie affair.

You get to walk around and look at the kids all dressed up.

So that is a, it's a fun activity.

I'll even get makeup done, or hair, nails, the full nine.

Do the whole thing, it's very fun activity.

And we go for free.

So this one is from Afalstein.

Great Curves: Yea or Nay?

Let just explain what a curve is.

Okay, so just think of a curve,

where most of the kids lie in that very middle,

that's your average.

That would be considered a C.

And then standard deviations are, I think 34% above.

So that is where your A's and B's will lie.

And then in the opposite direction,

that's where your D's and F's will lie.

So if you wanna know how do you lie with your peers,

then yes, curve, there should be curves.

If you just want to make everybody feel good,

and give them a good grade, then we don't need curves.

There is so much grade inflation,

it doesn't matter whether we are curving,

but in my personal thought,

yes, you should put curves in.

It just helps to distinguish which kids know

what percentage of it, that's all it is.

So I'm kind of behind it, yeah, I am.

Do I use it?

No, we're not allowed to.

From Square-Dragonfruit76.

Do you think that the timing and scheduling of school days

needs to be restructured?

Yes, I do.

Studies have shown

that adolescents have a much later circadian rhythm than,

say, young children or older adults.

Their natural wake up time,

left to their own devices, is much later.

So if we have them wake up early, nine o'clock,

and have classes start 9:30, 10, and go until later,

that would be much better for students.

The kids that I see,

first thing in the morning, are still sleeping.

It is the equivalent of, me being up at four in the morning.

They're not awake yet.

Their brains aren't working yet.

And so, yes, we do need to restructure that.

I don't know why we haven't.

I think lately we just made it to,

at least in California,

the new start time can't be anything earlier than 8:30.

That's still too early for kids.

It needs to be at least 9:30 or 10 start time,

and I think kids would actually be awake at that time.

Okay, next question from, MrNoName_ishere.

What should schools do

to improve the mental health of their students?

Thank you, MrNoName_ishere, for asking that,

because this is a serious question, and I do believe that,

that is the responsibility of the entire school,

the faculty, the staff,

the anybody you come into contact with,

the mental health is really, really, really important.

How can we improve it?

I think if we can focus

a little bit less on the academics,

a little bit more on the social and emotional learning,

specifically, checking in every morning with your students,

checking in with each other,

the kids, checking in with each other,

faculty, checking in with each other,

and being honest about it.

If you're having a bad day, name it, I'm having a bad day.

Say why.

It becomes normalized where people are not saying,

I'm doing terribly, and it becomes this whole thing.

Oh, tell me more.

Instead of, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

You know, just normalize it,

so that you can at least talk about it.

And someone knows, oh yeah, he's having a bad day,

she's having a bad day, they're having a bad day.

Put it out there, make it normal, is how I recommend it.

I still think there's shame associated

with making an appointment, going to a therapist,

something's wrong with me.

And particularly for adolescents,

I think it needs to be woven into the fabric of the school.

So, more like, you know, when you have homeroom,

you call it homeroom,

but it is like a real check-in of like,

how'd you sleep last night?

How do you feel?

You know, what are you looking forward to in the day?

What's gonna be your hard part of the day?

Let's open the class with an icebreaker question,

just so that the kids can get talking to each other.

So that becomes a normal part.

And this used to be normal.

This wasn't-

And I do think a lot of it has to do with the cell phones.

People are not socializing as much

because they're on their phones,

and it's harder for them to just strike up a conversation.

So, we need to get back to that.

Next question, cactus319_1804.

I'm in high school,

how much of life am I supposed to have figured out?

None of it.

You're not supposed to have any of it figured out.

So if you don't know anything, you're doing it right.

You're not supposed to have it figured out.

And it's not linear.

It's all messy and all over the place.

You're gonna try something and love it,

and then three months down the line you're gonna hate it.

And then you're gonna be embarrassed

about your three-month old self from there.

That is just how it goes, it takes a while.

I'm 57 and still figuring it out.

You're gonna always be figuring it out.

Do what you like and keep going with it,

until you don't like it and try something new.

Just try to have the confidence to try the new things,

but you should have none of it figured out.

And if you have it figured out, that is a little egregious.

This is from beaucepower.

We are still trapped in a K-12 public education system,

which is preparing our youth for jobs that no longer exist.

Critical thinking, how to prepare students

for a rapidly changing world?

So, so true.

Traditional education, where the kids sit in a desk,

and learn from a textbook is no longer useful.

That is, we can't do that anymore.

Critical thinking is everything.

You have to expose kids to things they've never seen before,

have them struggle.

Yes, it's a struggle, life is struggling.

You're gonna have superfluous information in your questions

and you're gonna be like, oh, I don't need to know this.

No you don't.

Okay, so throw it out.

You have to figure out what you're gonna need,

what you're not gonna need, and kind of go from there,

and work with your friends, work with your peers.

Hey, I can't really figure this out.

What do you think about this?

And collaborating, talking to each other,

that's where you're gonna get your information.

Yes, you're right.

The traditional classroom setup is completely antiquated

and it's not helping kids learn what they need to know

for the jobs that we don't even know exist yet.

So this is from the AskReddit sub-Reddit.

Teachers and professors of Reddit,

when you assign 7-10 page papers,

do you actually read the whole thing?

I can't answer that as a math teacher.

I can answer it as a college student, when I was in college.

I took a chemistry lab class

and we were doing this lab on tadpole eggs

that turned into tadpoles and then we watched them grow

and we were doing these experiments,

and I was writing this like 7 to 10 page paper.

And I was wondering, does my teacher actually read it?

And so then I said, while I was doing the lab,

I got really hungry.

I took some of the eggs, scrambled them up,

and put some ketchup on 'em and ate 'em,

and they were delicious.

It was like two sentences in the whole paper.

She took her pen, circled it,

and put question mark, question mark by it.

So I guess maybe they do read it, so.

From the ArtificialIntelligence subreddit.

What should a high schooler study now?

Oh my gosh, that is such a good question.

Ms. Fox, when are we ever gonna use this?

Is a question that every single kid has asked.

And if you haven't asked, you should.

Everything you're learning guys,

you're never gonna use again.

I know, it's a horrible thing to say,

however, it's actually true.

The reason why I think school is good,

like the one thing you do get out of school,

is learning how to learn, learning how to be social,

learning how to interact with others,

learning how to collaborate.

Those are the most important things

that you're gonna be learning.

Learning how to ask questions.

If your kids aren't talking in class,

you need to change that.

The kids aren't gonna change that.

And what you can do to change it

is have them sitting together,

give them questions on cards,

that say, icebreaker questions.

If you're on a stranded island, and you only get one food,

what are you going to eat?

Get them talking about something

that's easy for them to answer.

What's their favorite movie?

Any kind of questions so that they can start to collaborate,

talk to each other, get to know each other,

and then they can do the math, and have them disagree on it,

and argue it and come up with different ways

of solving a problem,

and giving 'em problem solving skills

and collaborative work.

They need to be able to work with each other

and question authority.

Those are the things that they're learning in school.

It's not so much about the actual curriculum of the topics.

What you should be studying now

is whatever brings you passion,

and that's gonna be different for each person.

If what you love has to do with technology,

study technology.

If what you love has to do with art, study art.

And when I say study it,

study it, get in there, be the nerd that you're gonna be,

and it's very unlikely that you're gonna have a class

that is gonna be what you're gonna be.

So, you find what you love and go deep in it.

This is from ThrowAwayUseOnly.

As a public high school teacher,

it shouldn't be my responsibility

to care for my students' social and emotional wellbeing.

Oh my gosh, I disagree, okay?

I'm gonna say ForThrowAwayUseOnly,

I have to disagree with you.

It is totally my responsibility.

I'm spending all the time with the kids.

Whose responsibility is it gonna be?

I love knowing what's going on with my kids.

I wanna hear what's going on.

I am most honored when a kid comes in during lunchtime

or after school and says,

I have this thing on my mind

and I wanna share it with you.

And has nothing to do with math.

I want them to say, you know, I'm trans.

And that is a piece of information I'm honored to hear.

And I'm confused about it

and I just wanna talk to someone who will listen.

It is absolutely our responsibility,

and it is a gift and an honor

to have someone share their stuff with you.

So, I disagree with you ForThrowAwayUseOnly.

So we can agree to disagree on that one.

Okay, can we talk, is this okay?

Can we chitchat, the whole group?

I wanna know where are you guys at,

what did you think of not having your phones?

And be honest, was it hell not having your phone?

Just be, I just wanna know. I'm fine.

[participant laughs]

Who struggled?

Thank you for playing the game.

Thank you teacher. You're welcome.

Do you want an apple?

Those are all the questions for today.

Thanks for watching Teacher Support.

Okay, class, you can have your phones back now.

Here you go.

Thank you for playing along.

That was really fun.

Thank you for letting me do this, I really enjoyed it.

[bright music]