Teacher disrespect is a reoccurring issue. Students that aren’t listening to the teacher, don’t do the work, openly call out the teacher and talk to other students while the teacher is in the front teaching. Whole groups or even the entire class will cause consistent issues for the teacher in the classroom.

Teachers that must deal with students who do not listen or rebel causes them to pause teaching, or call administration to remove the students from the classroom. Doing this causes the other students to talk about what happened and what the teacher did in the classroom, commonly giving the teacher a bad reputation.

Senior Alex Vlamakis (real name withheld) states “In 9th grade there was a student who kept interrupting the teacher and being rude, so she called administration down to remove the student from the class.”

A common issue in schools is bullying, be it confrontations in the hall, negative comments or even messages to the student on social media, but what is overlooked is how teachers are affected. Students who cause issues in the classroom are typically not afraid to call out the teacher while they are teaching, talk back to the teacher when they confront the student, and give the teacher a hard time.

Vlamakis states “In one of my classes this year our teacher took all his art off the wall and others said that he wanted to quit his job because some students were being very rude to him.”

Students are not the only ones giving teachers a bad time. Teachers commonly gain a bad reputation from the media, and a bad image in society. Strikes over teacher wages, school funding, respect and teaching conditions often lead to criticism from others. Seattle teachers that have gone on strike about increasing wages due to the increasing cost of living and the larger educational budget granted by the legislation have received negative feedback from the media stating that the teachers are demanding too much and are stiff-arming the students and their families.

Teachers must deal with a consistent amount of stress be it from media, or in the classroom from students. Situations in which these issues get under teacher’s skin can cause teachers to become irritated or angry, fearful of their job, or afraid of going out in public. THS Junior Kaitlyn (real name withheld) says “Before I moved, in Ohio we had a teacher that walked out of the classroom and went home because of harassment online and in class. We had a substitute for almost a week before she came back.” Fake social media account are even created in order to pester the teacher, harass them, and push the teacher mentally, socially, and physically to the limits to see how far they can go.