Teacher Appreciation Week Gone Wrong [Episode 73]

0:00
You’re listening to episode number 73 of the secondary science simplified podcast. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week, my friends, I hope this week you feel so celebrated and appreciated by every student, parent and admin in your school. But I know that unfortunately, that isn’t always quite the case. And so today I am sharing with you some stories that you all have submitted, have your worst teacher appreciation weeks, y’all. I cannot even with some of these stories, it is truly unbelievable what some of you experience, I legitimately spit out my coffee when I was reading some of your submissions. And I was laughing too. I mean, just at the audacity of whoever decided that these things were a good idea is just out of control. So I’m hoping that when you listen to this episode, this will not make you feel depressed. But instead will make you laugh at just the absurdity of what some people have experienced, and or in might help you to appreciate whatever you do get this week because hopefully it is much, much better than these stories. And then to make sure we end on a high note and of course is something practical because this is going to be a fun episode. But I always want it to be practical and helpful for you. Regardless of how your week is going this week, I just want you to feel appreciated. So I have two special things that I am sharing just with you listeners of this episode. I’m not sharing these anywhere else, as of now. So this is just for you. And so stick around for that at the end of the episode. So are you ready to hear some of these incredibly cringe worthy stories? If so, let’s get to it. This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca joiner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their job, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place teacher friend, let’s get to today’s episode.

2:32
Y’all, it’s hard to even know where to begin with these stories because they are truly so bad. So what I ended up kind of doing with categorizing them based on maybe what they’re about. So we can kind of have some flow to this. Now. Every single person, of course, wanted me to share these anonymously. So I’m not going to share any names or anything like that. But these are all unique stories from unique individuals. And so here’s the first one I just thought was like, This is so classic, and I’m going to kick off with this one. Okay, this teacher said, at my current school, they’re really good about celebrating and appreciating the different roles of the staff. We have para Appreciation Day custodian appreciation, cook, secretaries, etc. And they’re all recognized, which is awesome. However, when Teacher Appreciation rolls around, everyone else is included in our festivities. So every other job gets their individual day, except for teachers who share it with everyone else who has already been celebrated. And she said, we get a single flare pen and a bottle of water. It’s a blast, y’all. I mean, I love that other roles are being celebrated. I love to hear it, you know, they deserve to be celebrated. But like, so classic, that teachers then have to share their day and then just like the single flare pan, the bottle of water, like the bottle of water, just why? Okay, here’s another one. And this one honestly, kind of hurts. I kind of had to get this one out of the way because this was the one that hurt me the most to hear, okay, this teacher said, at one district, a group, not teachers, okay, a group in the school decided let’s collect notes from kids and create a booklet to share with staff to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. Unfortunately, they didn’t proofread before printing and check that all the notes are appropriate. So as anyone who works in education can imagine there were some pretty awful ones with specific teachers names and hurt feelings. And these were printed and distributed to all teachers in the building. Like what, who came up with this idea and was like, let’s just trust the students to all be kind and submit these to all the teachers like I just cannot imagine who had the brain cells or the lack of brain cells to think let’s just do this and not take five minutes to read through them. Like absolutely absurd. Okay, that one is so painful. I had to get out the way the rest of these are painful, but at least more funny. That one was just hurtful. Okay, so these next ones are a little bit lunch related. And I wanted to kick This off with a voice message that was submitted with her story.

5:04
At my first school superintendent would regularly send out his weekly updates Friday at around five o’clock and have some sort of slideshow. And buried in there was added only the information for the Teacher Appreciation lunch. And a link to respond is also evidently posted on our staff, school building calendar. So when I was nothing more awkward than walking by all of your co workers eating lunch or teacher appreciation when you didn’t really know about and weren’t invited to because you didn’t find the hidden gem in the superintendents message. And that’s the only place it was advertised.

5:54
I mean, y’all come on. First, why are we sending emails out at 5pm? On Friday, like that’s just who like what you’re expecting teachers to be in their classroom at 5pm on Friday, and sending essential information in that email. And then second, why is the lunch sign up like an email scavenger hunt, I can totally picture this email, I had an admin that we got ours every Monday mornings, at least it was a better, more appropriate time. But it was literally like, if you had probably copied and pasted into Word, it’d be like a 10 page email every single time. And a lot of the news was recurring. It was almost like our principals newsletter, and he would just like add a couple of new things. But keep a lot of the same reminders, like make sure you’re checking in when you get here and taking attendance. And I can like totally see this being like one of his little blurbs at the bottom and then just expecting you to see it. And then the fact that teacher just had to miss out because they didn’t see it in the email is insane to me. Oh my goodness. Okay, here’s another story that had me cackling. Okay, so it’s. So one year teachers were getting a free lunch, but it was spread out over a couple of different days. So some departments got their free lunch one day while other departments got their lunch a different day. On the first day, the departments that were fed that day had the option to choose from some items at Honey Baked Ham, a couple of days later, the rest of the departments including mine were fed. The only thing is we didn’t get Honey Baked Ham. We were given leftovers from an event the previous evening at school, and they weren’t even very good at all. I could have made a much better sandwich using meat and bread from the grocery store or just eating the school lunch in the cafeteria, like white. That’s just what I don’t understand, like who was in charge of this and thought this is a good idea. All right, here’s another one. This is from a teacher who says I’m now a full time teacher. But I sent spent several years as a sub in my district. And for a couple of years, our sub appreciation gift was a coupon for a free school lunch in the cafeteria. But here’s the kicker, y’all. It was good for one week only, which meant that if you didn’t happen to sub that week, or if the lunch offerings that week, were not something that you like to eat, you just didn’t get to use it. I feel like a coupon for a free school lunch is already stingy. But they did put an expiration date on it. Like come on. That is so bad. All right. Now here are some that were all kind of like COVID or a pandemic thing that had me laughing Okay. This teacher said, years 2020 Other schools and districts sent gifts to teachers or had signs made for their yards. I don’t know if y’all did that. Or you live. We had a lot of that happening where I live the yard signs. Well, this teacher said we got a postcard saying they wanted to wait until they could show us their appreciation in a better way. Apparently, they are still waiting. That is right, three years later, and we still have not gotten our gift from COVID that they were waiting to give us at a better time. Like why take the time to even say it if you’re not going to follow through? That’s just terrible. All right. Here’s another one. She says during the pandemic, they sent our gift in the mail for Teacher Appreciation Week. Okay, so at least they sent something. Well, here’s the problem. For my gift. They did not fully pay the postage, so I had to go out of my way to pick up the package at the post office and pay around $2 to receive it. I opened up the package. And it was a bag of Skittles that I could have paid $1 For at the grocery store. How are you going to send a gift and not even pay the postage for it? And I’m just thinking like in COVID when it was like hard to leave your house. Like that was an endeavor for her to have to leave her house and go pay the postage like so absurd. All right, here’s another one. That I mean, honestly, oh my gosh, this one’s hard.

9:40
The principal gave every teacher and every staff member a bag of rocks and the rocks were packed into a small plain white paper sack like the ones that hold apples at the store. And there were four rocks about the size of my palm in my bag along with a box of acrylic paint pens, no note no context, but I heard from Another teacher later that the idea was for us to have a mind full moment and decorate the rocks with meaningful words or pictures. And then afterwards, we were supposed to put one in the office for this display that was showcasing our rocks. But of course, most of us declined to participate. Like, I just don’t understand. He was like, thinking, You know what, you know, these teachers need, they need some rocks. I appreciate the paint pens. I appreciate they at least gave you the materials to do this. But like, why is there no instructions? And like, who thought that giving teachers more work was the solution here for Teacher Appreciation? I just don’t get it. All right, this next set is just terrible gifts, those Rockstar is going to take us into more gifts that were just so terrible. Okay. Here’s one. This teacher said. I need to start by first saying I never even worried about Teacher Appreciation gifts because the first school district that I worked in, never gave us gifts. So I didn’t even know I was missing out my first five years of teaching like they just did nothing. The next district I worked for, though, gave us a photocopied packet of coloring pages that were focused around inspirational things. Mind you, it wasn’t a whole coloring book and a set of colors. No, it was literally just a packet of copies. So no coloring utensils, nothing, just a packet of copies, for you to color with your own utensils you’re purchasing out of pocket for yourself. Like what? Maybe that teacher should get together with this next teacher who said they got one solitary pencil that was their teacher for a show a gift with just a pencil. So maybe y’all should get together and you can share your pencil and color and those inspirational sayings like, I’m sorry, like, I just can’t imagine whoever was sitting in the office like taking a pack of pencils, and they spent $2 on and dividing them among each person’s mailbox, just set in a pencil in there. I just I cannot believe that. Alright, here’s another one. She says, for Teacher Appreciation Week, there were gifts in all of the teacher mailboxes. When you walked into the mailroom. It was like, Oh, I wonder what that is. But upon closer examination, it was a literal lemon in the mailbox with a note that said, when life hands you lemons make lemonade. So just a gift that you have to do more work with. So confused how this is a Teacher Appreciation gift. And not just like a straight up insult like this, to me is something where someone was on Pinterest one day, and they saw this and they thought, Oh, this is cute. Let’s do this. But like, it’s not even like it’s a lemonade kit. Like let’s let’s actually make this a good gift. Let’s give them like a cute picture. And let’s put a bunch of lemons in it and like enough sugar that’s already pre measured. And maybe like a really nice note. Explain it. Maybe a cute dish towel. And then it would be like, oh, like just dump it all in here. Stir now you’ve all made like just one solitary lemon is just like, I just can’t imagine like walking into the worker and just seeing like a random lemon. Like what? That is so crazy. And she this teacher told me that like this went viral on like, I think it’s like the teacher misery page. So if you’ve ever seen that on that page, this came from a teacher directly impacted from that school. All right, oh my gosh, this one really hurt me to read. Okay, this is from another teacher. And he said one year, we were given a gift card to a rare bookstore in the next town over and we were pretty excited. Rare Books are pretty expensive and we were all a bunch of bookworms. So it was a little bit of a drive and so a few of us teachers decided to carpool together. After we peruse the store and picked out our treasures we took them to the counter. It is there that we are told that we were what we were given was not a gift card, but merely an invitation to the store. So our appreciation gift was an invitation to drive 40 minutes in order to visit this particular store come to find out the store was owned by one of our school board members and he was trying to drum up more business needless to say we did not purchase anything that day. What I literally cannot imagine if I got something like I can totally picture this because we live in a small town. I can picture getting a gift card somewhere 45 minutes away I can totally see myself texting my coworkers being like let’s all go together like let’s make this activity and then to get there and it not actually be a gift card. I just cannot believe the audacity and like the self promotion of it is so insane to me. Alright, now here’s maybe a step up from this but maybe not okay, this is someone who this is like live and in person. This teacher got this this week. Okay, they got an email that said they were told they would get a sonic drink of choice and then they were sent a survey. The choices were Coke, Diet Coke, sweet tea and sweet tea. Y’all. Have you ever been to Sonic? Sonic is like known for drinks. Like get you a cherry limeade get you a slushie get your milkshake like I cannot believe that you’re told that this is your tree and then you’re narrowed to these options that are like 25 cent options for each teacher. It just is like, it’s hard to be like okay, like why even try? Like I mean, I guess it’s better than the lemon or an invitation to shop at a store an hour away but Still, it’s like, oh my gosh, if you just put in like 5% more effort, this could have been actually a treat for us. Okay, so speaking of kind of like bad drinks and just like in the food realm, this one’s hard to read y’all. Okay, so a few years ago, she says my admin thought it was a good idea to put a bag of treats for teachers to open each day of the week. And it was given us an a big bag with five smaller bags inside and each had a day of the week written on it. The thing is, the treats were just leftover snacks from the stadium concession stand at the end of the spring sports season. So needless to say some of the treats were not as fresh as they should have been show appreciation for teachers hard work. The date on some items are expired. My chocolate chip Otis Spunkmeyer, muffin had visible mold through the clear wrapper, y’all like, this is just where am I like, I’m trying to visualize the people who sat in the boardroom and we’re making the decision and someone was like, let’s kill two birds with one stone. Let’s use these concession stands, gifts and like didn’t even think to check the expiration. Like, come on y’all. This is so bad. Oh my goodness. Okay, these next two, I like to think of as like make it make sense. Like, I just don’t even understand. Okay, so this first one is from Alyssa. So I want you to hear this voice memo that she sent me.

16:20
Okay, this is kind of cheating, because it’s not for Teacher Appreciation Week. But it was for Christmas. Got this really fancy looking box from a kid who normally likes to goof off in class, make jokes, pull pranks, you know, very chummy with the teachers, whatever. And I was intrigued. So I opened the gift. And it’s the annual White House ornament commemorating JFK. And I’m a biology teacher. So I was a little confused. We didn’t ever talk about presidents. And so I didn’t know why that was my gift. Trying to decode it, you know, sitting there going, what, what could this mean? Why did he choose this until the math teacher next door came in and said, What in the world is this gift? And she’d got the same one. So apparently, every year, I asked him next time he came to class, every year, he gives the commemorative White House ornament of the Year to all his teachers. And he’s not patriotic or anything in any other way. So I have no idea where that idea came from. And it got given away immediately.

17:26
Okay, like, I guess it’s the thought that counts, but like, it just doesn’t make sense. Like maybe that student’s parent like, works for Congress, like I don’t know, it’s just like one of those that’s just like, so random. I mean, definitely not the worst of what we’ve heard, but like still just make it make sense. Okay, here’s another one. That’s pretty wild. I had a student who went to the Middle East for his brother’s wedding, and the trip was more than a month. And so the student had to do work and stuff via zoom. When they came back, he said that they had bought gifts for the teachers and I could choose between some large purses or small handbags, I didn’t have much of a preference. So I said, I would just let the others choose first, and he was so sweet and kind of this gesture. When he brought it in, it was wrapped up in a typical gift bag, and the item was lovely. Until I opened the purse. Inside the purse, the family had packed items to help save room in their luggage. So inside my gift, I was given some shirts, a swim top and a pair of men’s underwear that may or may not have been my students. I was mortified when I found it. I assumed it was an accident. But it was a bit odd to find to the student came with the gift on the last day of school. And so they’d already returned their Chromebook. And I was unable to call home and figure out how to return these items. Y’all. What I cannot imagine like that feeling like what would you do if you saw that? Like they can make sense. I have a teacher friend want to got like a hand made gift from someone and it was some sort of like scarf or something. But I guess it had been washed before given to them. And there are some underwear that was like static, clean, or static clung to the scarf that was given to them. And so they like literally got one of their students or their parents, students, parents underwear attached the gift. And this made me think of that, like, oh, Lord, honestly, I’m kind of glad for you that it was at the end of the year, like you just toss those items and you move on but yeah, I guess it’s the thought that counts. I don’t know. All right. Here’s one more last one for you. And this is

19:28
I don’t even know where to begin. I’m just gonna have to read this. Okay. So, around the weeks of 911 this is a long time ago, a veteran teacher said this in my class and I fought for normal normalcy as much as possible. I had a young lady in class whose family had lived off the grid and off the land. She was an unusual student raised in an unusual environment. I’d only had pleasant encounters with the mom. The dad would often come in to school high and frequently offered staff members selections from his cash crop of organic or bowl remedies. Shortly after 911 The mom brought in a Teacher Appreciation gift for me, it was a beautiful blueberry pie, and three jars of gorgeous canned green beans. But the office called me up to get them. And I think the mom with genuine appreciation. But after she left, the social worker and principal pulled me into my office, and I was told that under no circumstances was I to ingest anything that came from that home, I had to destroy all that mom’s hard work, because we did not know what was in it. And I felt so bad not being able to accept the gift. But I was glad to know that not all Teacher Appreciation gifts can be trusted. Oh my goodness. I don’t know if this is you. But I have definitely been gifted brownies or some other things from students that I thought was questionable. And the look in their eyes and they handed it to me. And those gifts had to go straight to the Trash Can I hate to do it, but you just you never know. I love that they were marketed as organic herbal remedies. Oh, my goodness. Okay, well, to round this out, I have two good stories from y’all. And then I have two good things to tell you. And these are so that I hope you guys this is much more what your teacher appreciation week looks like this year. One teacher said. Last year, I received a jetski tour package, it was worth about $400 I went with my husband, I thought it was so fun. I’d never been on a jetski by myself. And we took a ride around the 10,000 Islands off Cape Marco, near where I live. And I want a drawing for it. So it was nice to have that experience. So I love that I love that you want to drawing. I hate that not every teacher gets to experience that I always love it when a parent can gift you something maybe from their workplace. Like if that person owns that. I had a parent once who had a spa. And so they would give me like, you know, a gift card so I could get a pedicure or something of that spot. I always really appreciated that because it’s kind of no skin off their back, you know, but it was a major gift. So I’m glad you got to experience that. And then here’s what I really hope that everyone experiences. And it says this, a parent left envelopes in the office for each of her children’s or her child’s teachers. And each envelope was a really thoughtful note of appreciation for specifically what that person has done in meant to them and their students, and a crisp $100 bill, that was a nice surprise and totally unexpected. I absolutely love that. And I hope that at a minimum, you do get some really high notes from students, parents and admin, I think the personal notes where it’s clearly just to you and not something copied and pasted, is really, really special. And again, like I get not everyone has money to you know, buy a fancy gift or whatever. But a note goes a long way. And I really hope you all get those because you deserve them. And if not, I want you to at least hear it from me, y’all, you’re doing a great job. If you are already willing to take the time each week to listen to a podcast or secondary science teachers, then that alone tells me you care enough about your work. And you’re a wonderful teacher. And I personally appreciate each and every one of you so much. That’s just a part of my corner of the internet. And so to show you how much I appreciate you, I have two things just for you. Okay, so here’s the first one. First, I want to give you a 10% off coupon code for the isn’t rocket science research shop. Okay, and this is only going to be shared here, I’m not advertising this on my email list or my Instagram, because I just want to thank you for being a listener. And so you can use that at shop dot, it’s not rocket science classroom.com. And the code is may pod 10. May pod 10. And I will link that in the show notes as well. It’s going to be good for the month of May it’ll expire come June. But the reason that I’m excited about this code for you all is it’s going to be stackable. So when there’s a Teacher Appreciation Week sale, I won’t know the exact dates until TBT announces those and I record these podcasts in advance, but this will be stackable with that. So on top of those codes, you can use this as well. And so I hope that’s a nice addition for some of y’all to use. And then lastly, I’m telling you something brand new that I’m doing. And that is free podcast PD all summer long. So here’s the deal. If you’ve been around here, while the last two summers, I have had a secondary science simplified professional development course, it’s been a virtual thing, actually started it before I started this podcast. And it’s been so fun. I’m like obsessed with the course I love the content. And I’ve loved connecting with teachers. But as I was kind of thinking through the summer, most of y’all know I’m really, really focused right now on this chemistry curriculum on writing. And I’m trying to get it all done by back to school season, if not the majority of it just so you have it, especially you teachers who are on Semester block because like, you’re going to need stuff sooner than someone on a traditional schedule that teaches the subject all year long. So chemistry is my number one focus. And one of the main features of the secondary science simplified course, is we have a Facebook group that is very active that I’m in every day and then I do live weekly coaching calls. And you know, that’s like an hour or so every week. And so it just it takes a lot of time. And so when I was kind of looking over the summer, I was like I don’t think I can do that and focus on chemistry this summer. So when I’m thinking for that is I’m thinking about running a group when I finished chemistry, so hopefully later this fall, or maybe like even in December or January if there is interest for it. So If that is something you would be interested in, like, this deep dive course, where I’m going to be coaching you through how to simplify your life as a secondary science teacher, like think this podcast, but much more hands on and you get a lot of access to me, then you can join the waitlist for that at it’s not rocket science classroom.com/sss waitlist, and I’ll link that in the show notes too. But, again, I don’t want to leave you hanging because I know a lot of you look forward to that opportunity in the summer. So instead of offering that this summer, we’re going to do free podcast PD all summer long on this podcast. So I want you to treat this podcast like it’s your own PD. And here’s what you can expect each week. We’re going to start next week. And we’re going to run through the end of September, okay, each week is going to be like 20 to 25 minute episodes with bite sized PD. And the PD is going to be very practical, it’s going to be very specific to secondary science major. So PD made just for you, and it’s going to be actionable. At the end of every episode, we’re going to have an action step one thing that you can take and do to walk away and really put what you hear into action, and take little bites this summer of practical things you can do to prepare for next school year, in a way that’s not overwhelming at all. And you’ll I’m so excited about this content I have planned for you again, I have so much that we’re going to start next week. And we’re going to run this through the end of September. Okay, so I know you’re some of you, you wrap up the school year, at Memorial Day, others of you are running through the end of June, and then you don’t start back until mid September. So I kind of when I was looking at this and trying to define like, what does summer mean, I was like, I gotta kind of encompass everyone. So it’s going to basically be like 16 weeks of content, maybe 15 weeks, but it’s going to run this whole length of time. And here’s what’s going to happen next Monday. If you’re already on my email list, I’m going to send out a calendar of all the topics so you can know what to expect. So every Monday, you can know what to look forward to, it’s gonna be just like always at the Monday episodes, but I’m gonna go ahead and tell you what the content will be. So you can know how to plan for that. And then in July, we’re going to do double episodes. So we’ll have an episode every Monday and Thursday, the month of July. Because July, I’m going to talk about my entire curriculum design process and walk you all through it. A lot of you have asked for this, because you know you use it’s not rocket science, biology or anatomy, or you’re going to use chemistry when it comes out. But you also teach earth science or environmental or astronomy, and I don’t have curriculum for that. And so you kind of asked like, how do I do what you do for these other subjects. And so that’s going to be kind of our deep dive in July, and it’s going to require a little bit more support. So we’re gonna do double episodes that month. The other thing I’m going to send out, besides the calendar is like a podcast reflection sheet that you can grab. And then you can use it as a department or with a group of teacher friends. So you can all get together and say, Hey, let’s listen to these every week, the next couple of months together, we can write down our thoughts, while we’re listening, there’s gonna be a printable version, and then a digital version that you could just type into if you’d prefer that. And then you can maybe like have lunch and get together and talk about it and use it together. The other reason I’m providing this too, is if you do want to kind of submit this, at the end of the summer, to potentially get some PD hours with your district or with you know, your state or your school, however they do that you have something written down that you can take and show them. And you know, kind of say, Look, I’ve done these, it’s gonna be 20 hours worth of content spread out over these next several months. So you could see if you get those to count for them. And if you’re not on my email list, you can grab it at it’s not rocket science, classroom.com/podcast ki D, and you can grab that calendar and stuff like that. But that’s gonna go out to my list next week, if you are already on it. And y’all I know that you may be bummed that you can’t do SSS with me this summer. But I think this will be a fun alternative that you’ll still get a lot of benefit from. And for those of you listening who have taken SSS before, and you’re like, Wait, what the heck, like, are you just gonna give away the course for free? No, the answer is no, this is all fresh content I’m writing this summer. So this is all stuff I have not shared before. And you know, if you’ve taken secondary science simplified, you get 50 plus support documents, you get the Facebook group community, you get access to me there and then the live weekly coaching calls and a lot of support there. And that’s not going to be the case this summer is just going to basically be through the podcasts and the weekly emails. But there’s still going to be a lot of goodness that you can take and use. So whether you’ve taken secondary science simplified yet or not, this will be helpful for you because it’s all going to be fresh stuff. So I hope that you all laugh at this episode. And I also just hope you have the best teacher appreciation week ever, and that it’s much better than some of the stories you heard today. And then I also hope that you’re excited for free summer podcasts PD. We’re going to start next week. And I hope this kind of gets you energized to finish the year strong. And then also hopeful to just have a better school year next year by doing some small things throughout the summer to kind of prepare for that and a really manageable and actionable way. And as always, you can find all the links mentioned today in the show notes at it’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode 73 Make sure you don’t miss these episodes coming out each week. Be sure to follow the secondary science simplified podcast where ever you listen to podcast that way each Monday the episode will just automatically pop up in your player and you’ll be ready to go because next week is week one in our summer podcast PD series of we’re gonna be talking all about labs, so stay tuned. Alright teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be really free teacher friend.