Everyone points fingers, especially at teachers. Meanwhile, kids (and now adults) learn that nothing is ever their fault.
Education is drowning in blame. When grades drop, teachers are blamed. When behaviour spirals, it’s pinned on staff. If there’s a mental-health crisis, guess who takes the hit. Kids watch this circus unfold and learn the one skill that seems to matter: deflect, deny, repeat.
Reclaiming the Classroom
This is the final part of my series on student behaviour. In Part 1, I tackled the breakdown of basic civility: the rudeness, the refusal, the fucking cheek. In Part 2, I broke down the dopamine nightmare—the tech-fuelled, attention-sapping, overstimulated disaster we’re now expected to teach through.
Now it’s time to fight back. This post is about what we can do—because while we’re not responsible for fixing everything, we sure as shit don’t have to lie down and take it. Reclaiming the classroom isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being intentional. Strategic. Defiant.
Breaking the Bullshit Cycle of Overwhelming Workloads
It’s the bullshit that every teacher faces: the overwhelming burden of marking papers, a thankless task that consumes time, energy, and sanity. However, the intolerable excess of this workload exacts a not-so-subtle toll on teachers’ well-being and most worryingly, is perpetuated by those tasked with leading by example.
