r/CanadianTeachers

I'm interested to hear what experienced educators think about this "crisis" and what can be done to improve student outcomes. I began my career in education this year teaching middle school woodshop class. By far, the biggest difficulty is the short attention span and hyper-active behaviours of the boys. It's difficult to give any meaningful instruction because in each class several of the boys are loosing their marbles if they have to sit down for 20 minutes. To a certain degree this is to be expected in middle school, but I struggle with the ethics of simply insisting they comply with expectations, or being more tolerant of disruptive behaviour.

Seems kids can throw heavy objects, hit and swear at others, go to the office, have a snack and be sent back without any talk of suspension any more.

Do your schools still suspend kids? In school? Out of school? Or is violence now just acceptable behaviour in schools? What is the criteria for a school suspension?

Hi everyone, question is what I wrote above. I’m currently elementary thinking of switching to high school but am worried since I have limited experience in high school. I was wondering if the grass isn’t always greener.

Which is it?

Hi all,

I left Canada in 2022 and will be returning for (possibly?) good in August since my visa is expiring. For the past two years I’ve been teaching secondary sciences in East London which has certainly been something. Prior to that I was an in house supply teacher at a school in Australia for a year mostly doing maths and sciences pat and mat leaves. For about a year I was in New Zealand working as an admin tech for an online school. My original teacher life was teaching maths and sciences in northern Quebec and for a while I was a ped consultant in the adult ed world helping teachers figure out how to move into competency based learning.

I have just gotten my license to teach in BC and I am curious to what the climate is like out there? I haven’t taught in Canada since before Covid shutdowns and I am well aware that kids seem to be on one these days but am wondering how classes are in general? Last year I was trying to teach groups of 35 students and this year I’ve got smaller groups but 80% have a learning needs. I know behaviour is also linked to SES and geography but I would like to hear some boots on the ground thoughts.

Also curious about hiring practises. I’m not really looking for full time teaching work (it’s been 12 years and I Am Exhausted) but agencies don’t seem to be a big thing in Canada. I am applying around for TOC positions but also need to factor in being able to find somewhere to live. I have done my time in rural areas (both Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik) and would like to be somewhere with public transit as I’ve avoided needed a car since being overseas.

Do you think districts would hire a fully licensed and qualified teacher while still overseas since my contract ends mid July? I wouldn’t mind moving to BC without employment as I’ve done it before but I have no concept of BC hiring practice.

Cheers :)

This will come off as a rant and some here will probably take offense to this

I just finished my teaching degree in the French immersion stream and I am greatly disappointed with the way French immersion is treated.

A lot of my classmates were former immersion kids themselves and so are able to handle basic conversations. However, their overall language skills were a hot mess. lack of distinction between the use of tu and vous, nonexistent subjunctive, spelling mistakes and gender mistakes were some of the things I saw within my own cohort

Despite all this, they were accepted into the faculty due to the lack of applicants and are on track to become immersion teachers themselves. Will their French get any better?

Definitely not. How do I know? Because the very teachers I worked with and observed in the field were also making mistakes left and right.

We would never accept a teacher in the English stream who made the same spelling mistakes and other errors in our English language schools, so why do we accept this mediocre quality for our French language education? Some say it's better than nothing, but I don't agree. I think French should be the major that one studies in order to teach French immersion.

Just taking a temperature check.

I am in the firm anti-AI stance. I refuse to use it, and I forbid my students from using it.

I know some teachers are heavy users and some hate it like me (also I know the use of AI and acceptance differs depending on what you teach).

Has anyone gone from loving AI to taking a 180 and hating it? Anyone in my camp that now loves it?

I am just wondering how opinions are changing and evolving. IF you feel comfortable your subject and grade would help. An Art teacher would have a very different stance on AI in class vs a teacher working in computer sciences (for example) and I understand that.

It's the end of Teacher Appreciation week and we just found out that in addition to having our charter rights stripped away, our division is projecting a $3.2 million deficit in government funding. At our school, this means that we have to cut 4 fte.

I have held a teaching certificate for 14 years and the majority of it has been covering leaves or taking other jobs outside of teaching when there were no positions available. I've had probationary contracts that led nowhere (one was a location problem and the other had to cut my position after budget cuts). I've had so many students, colleagues, parents, and admin praise my teaching, but somehow I'm good enough to use in an emergency, but not good enough to have a permanent position.

It's weighing on me more so this year after everything. I don't know if I can do this anymore.

And once again, I was temporary at my school and they may be trying to absorb my position internally so there won't be a job to apply to. I may not have a position next year and I have a family of 5 to support.

So much for hiring 3000 teachers.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week.

Oh and I forgot to add that my class size is overwhelming with over 30% of them needing additional learning, behaviour, and at times medical supports, all of which I'm expected to manage with limited help.

I'm having so much trouble sleeping and I feel like my mental health is in crisis.

I was reading the BC teacher disciplinary outcomes (yes, I do that some times). I like how the incidents range from "wow, disciplined for this? This could have been any of us" to "how the heck this teacher gets to keep their license?"

The case I wanted to discuss is this:

https://teacherregulation.gov.bc.ca/documents/FormsandPublications/ProfConduct/DisciplineOutcomes/RONNE_CRA_20260409.pdf

I summary, this is what happened:

- A student used the word "pussy" in the hallways. The student was apparently using the word to mean "coward".

- The teacher considered this use to be misogynistic, and confronted the student about it.

- During the confrontation, the teacher "forcefully disputed the validity of religion", and said "that is philosophy, I am a scientist".

And that's pretty much it. Then is the usual paragraph about multiple students feeling offended by what the teacher said. The teacher got a letter of discipline, a four days suspension to the teacher certificate, and had to take two courses about creating a positive learning environment and cultural sensitivity.

I wanted to get other teacher opinions on this, because to me I don't think this should be a disciplinary offence. At most a talk with the principal asking to be more careful with your words. But even then... is criticizing religion considered emotional abuse against religious kids now? I am from Mexico, which is mostly Catholic. I was an atheist since high school. My teachers ranged from super religious to hard-core atheists, and they were not afraid to share their beliefs. I had a teacher who would tell us before Christmas break "and remember that the real meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Don't let all the bells and whistles hide it's true meaning". And then another teacher who would shit on the Catholic Church, or ranting about why the whole idea of God was stupid. And I as a high school student I liked having that range of teachers. It does not mean I had to agree with either of them, but I liked been exposed to these very different types of people.

But now it looks like religion is almost a taboo topic for teachers. Anything you say can have a student feel offended. I teach math and science, and, as someone who is quite interested in the philosophy of science, I wish I could talk and have discussions about the interplay between science and religion more freely. But in the current climate, I avoid the topic altogether.

Hi everyone, I have been teaching junior high for 5 years and I’m super bored of it. I don’t enjoy the negative attitude of middle schoolers and their raging hormones. Did anyone make the switch to grades 4-6 from junior high ? Did you like it better ? Or was it more draining due to the planning aspect ?

UBC BeD program (11month), in long practicum, week7 of teaching grade 6, currently teaching full time.

Anxious and worrying for a few reasons (and I want to preface this by saying that I'm fully aware that I've only been teaching 7 weeks!! I have TONS of learning and growing to do and I'm always very receptive to feedback. yes... even from reddit i guess haha)

- I'm on my second interim report (an interim basically means "fix these things within 2 weeks for we kick you out of teacher school. when i passed my first interim i was immediately placed into a second one. currently my interim is about classroom management and content accuracy. I've rectified content accuracy by relying on old textbooks to fact-check myself, so far no more slip-ups! with classroom management... it's a work in progress. i was told by my sponsor teacher that this group is "one of the most difficult to management in his 12 years of teaching" so im trying not to fully blame myself. but it's been very uphill and upsetting.) I was told today over email that because of my 2 interim reports that "im no longer in good standing". deeply worrying.

- at my midpoint meeting (week 5, we do 10 weeks practicum total. this is basically a meeting where I was approved to take on the full teaching load. i was approved!) I was told I was behind other teacher candidates (theres a checklist where i need to meet all the expectations, I didn't "fail" any items but i had a lot of "approaching expectation" instead of "meeting expectation") and that I needed to "work harder than i ever have in my entire life"

- I took 2 days off sick due to the flu (i came in sick to teach the few days leading up to it because theres a "no days off" type culture around practicum) and was basically intimidated the whole time i was away (mostly via text by my sponsor teacher. even tho i prepared TOC style folders for all my days away, AND i had a doctors note justifying my brief time away, AND everybody knew I was sick due to my visible illness)

alright guys... let me know what you think. I'm truly so paranoid about failing practicum and i appreciate any and all honest answers. I'm really worn thin and looking for guidance.

Say, if your last name is “Smith Jones”, would kids call you Mr. smith, Mr. jones or Mr. Smith Jones? What do teachers with double last names go by and why?

Help me understand. This plan is from the 90s. The new plan looks better in every way. The slightly higher copay is cancelled out when you account for all the new things that will be covered no?

This is my 5th year teaching, and I keep getting sick every 1-2 months. I teach grade 1/2.

I’ve already taken a lot of sick days this year due to colds, the flu, and medical appointments. I’ve taking almost 2-3 days per month

I currently have a cold and already took a day off this week. I’m still unwell.

I’m debating taking another day off tomorrow but I don’t know if I should. I’ve never taken this many sick days before. I’m a bit stressed out as well due to assessments I need to get done this month.

I’m in Manitoba

Hi,

Just started a kindergarten LTO and it’s a pretty busy class. There is a student who on some days will act out A LOT and will be constantly hitting and bothering other students. It’s very difficult for me and the ECE to control him at times as they are other students in the class who also need redirection and help.

What are my options when this student refuses to listen and continues to hit other students. Can I call his parents and tell them to pick him up?

Thank you

45% of new teachers in Ontario is a lot of teachers to miss the new teacher induction program (NTIP). Why? And for other provinces, would this be similar?

https://preview.redd.it/ijlkur0155zg1.png?width=956&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7bf8fee44b51f6aef9a249c3f258eb7bc4cf11c

I have a tendency to call everyone their pronoun and their last name. Some people find it odd.

Another tendency I have is to call the principal by their first name, but all the teachers by their title.

ON teacher here.

I’m a permanent 1.0 teacher and have been teaching for 13 years. I have taught grade 1-5 throughout my career and currently have grade 3. I am thinking about taking the jump and applying for an intermediate posting.

Has anyone gone from the “littles” to the “bigs” as we call them? What are the pros/cons of intermediate in your opinion?

Quite frankly, this last school year and new admin has been atrocious. I’ve been at my current school for ten years so think a change of scenery and maybe division change may be the kick I need to fall in love with teaching again. I’m just not sure if I should work my way back up to junior and go into intermediate or just take the plunge.

Hello everyone, I'm fairly new to the profession working in elementary in BC and it seems that split grades are basically ubiqutious now. When I was growing up it was normal to be in a straight grade class, with occasional splits if necessary. Now though it feels like every class is a split class on purpose. Even kindergarten is often split into 2 k/1 classes instead of a K and a 1. This is crazy to me, how do you teach kids who already know how school works at the same time as those learning everything for the very first time?

What is the advantage of this? It feels to me like it's a big headache teaching two grade levels at once, and the range of ability within your class would be way wider as well. Like if you're teaching a 5/6 you will have kids on the low end of 5, in the same class as kids on the high end of six, which is a huge amount of variance that the teacher has to plan for, for every lesson. Is there a big advantage to split grades I'm missing or is it just "the way it is" and teachers have to go along with it now?

I teach grade 8 ELA (among other things) and looking for some advice on students using AI to plagiarize.

I'm not totally against AI use. I use it myself for many things. But my students are using it to avoid learning altogether. I am also working on making my assignments more difficult to cheat with AI going forward, but this is about work that has already been completed.

At the beginning of the year, I caught 2 or 3 kids using AI on writing assignments. Now it's jumped to about half the class. I have switched to having them do major writing assignments in class.

However, we just finished reading a novel in class. It's impossible to keep them from doing this work at home.

I read and they listen. I give simple comprehension questions for each section (I do three chapters at a time, as the chapters are very short). These are not difficult questions at all, but some of them will not do anything that resembles work. I have modeled for them how to answer the questions. I have told them if they use AI, I will know and they will get a zero for that section. They still keep doing it.

I finally resorted to devoting a full class period on how to answer the comprehension questions, the purpose of the questions, and why using AI defeats that purpose. I plugged some sample questions into chatgpt and compared them side by side with questions that are answered by a human. I pointed out that beyond the ethics of it, they will lose marks because chatgpt is sometimes giving them wrong answers (things that didn't even happen in the book), or giving answers that are so vague that it's obvious they were not answered by someone who is using the text as a source. They are also sometimes using vocabulary that doesn't sound like an 8th grader.

One of my students who was way behind on his questions proudly slapped a whole stack of them on my desk. "Miss, I got all my work done." When I went to correct his work yesterday... It was painfully obvious that he had used AI to answer all of them. He had been present the day I taught an entire class on AI use. He had even given a couple of the exact same answers that I'd put in my slideshow as blatant AI use that resulted in inaccurate answers. The slideshow is still up on my Google classroom.

When I questioned him about some of his answers, he got hedgey and said something about his mom helping him. Initially I just gave him zero for the questions that were flat out wrong, and partial marks for the ones that were technically right but too vague. I gave him full marks on the ones that were technically right and specific enough, although I know he used AI for all of them. This resulted in him getting between 35% and 85% on each section, depending on how accurate the answers were. But then I thought it over and I feel like I did my due diligence in warning them about using AI to answer these questions. I also think it's unfair to the other students who are doing the work. So I gave him a zero on each plagiarized section. The questions are not worth a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. He still has a good average in ELA. But I don't want to set a precedent of rewarding academic dishonesty. I'm just wondering how I should approach this if he or his parent questions the change in grade.