“I was thinking—Every person's been a student before, so every person thinks they can be a teacher. So when you talk to a parent who thinks that they could have done your job, and that it's easy, that is something that is hard (….) ‘I know you wanted to be an astronaut. It didn't work out for you, so you became a teacher.’ (…) Everyone just thinks that you picked this as a secondary.”
“During Covid, it was ‘Teachers are amazing! Look what they're doing on the fly!’ (…) And then Covid's over, and it's ‘You are lazy!’ It's just hard to flip-flop and be like, ‘Well, we redid our entire curriculum for virtual and now we have to redo it again, because now the kids aren't even at the level that we had to begin with.’ And every year it's different. And it's changing. And it's a different challenge. So I think that makes it hard.”
“I always love a good parent meeting with a student because then we realize I'm here to help you—We're in this together, but you have your kid the majority of the time. I have them for three hours a week, or whatever the case is, so help me help them and let’s make it as a team.”
“A parent in email is different than a parent in person. And I think that that's what we're finding just in general—you've got all these keyboard warriors that are going to make any comment they want behind the scenes. But when you actually have a conversation, it changes the tune a little bit.”