Lately, the air in education feels thick. Teachers are carrying more than lesson plans and test prep; we’re carrying a culture that often feels like it’s under attack, and kids who are navigating pressures they can’t always name but deeply feel.

Students today are not the same students we taught even five years ago. They are heavy with the noise of social media, the loneliness that comes with constant comparison and impersonal online connections, the ever-present awareness of violence in our world, and the mental health struggles that rise quietly beneath the surface.

They need more breaks, more support, more gentleness.

And as teachers, we’re left trying to keep up with shifting needs while wondering what actually matters most.

What actually matters in this chapter of history? Grades? Test scores? College admissions? Or is it resilience, critical thinking, and effective communication? What tools will actually help them live not just successful lives, but whole ones? At this point, it feels like we’re all trying to figure it out.

Teaching right now isn’t just uphill, it’s way fucking harder than that.

We’re asked to create safe spaces amidst lockdowns and intruder drills.

We have to be mindful to use validating but neutral language in a time when rhetorical discourse is actively on fire.

We’re expected to stay away from triggering topics while standing chest-deep in a culture where everyone seems to be triggered by something different, often from opposing sides.

And we’re doing all of this while still giving kids the tools to think, speak, and live meaningfully in a noisy world.

We’re balancing honesty with care, rigor with rest, structure with compassion. And many of us are absolutely exhausted.

Bone-deep, soul-deep exhausted.

But exhaustion doesn’t mean emptiness.

We are steadiness in the storm.
We are a pause in the noise.
We are a reminder to our students, through our presence probably more than our content lessons, that they are worthy and resilient and capable of navigating this complicated world.

If you’re reading this and have a teacher nearby, just give ’em a hug…text ’em some love…share a glass of Trader Joe’s wine (most of us aren’t fancy or picky).

We need our village right now, we need human connection.

We are all islands in our classrooms each day.

Teaching is quite possibly one of the loneliest professions. We’re surrounded by students every day, but always in, like, a single-parent, supervisory role.

We rarely make time to connect with each other.

We open our rooms at lunch, we plan before school, we answer emails after school.

Some days I don’t speak to another adult from first bell to last. Then I sit alone in my car on the way there, alone on the way home, and somewhere in between sometimes I catch myself wondering: Is any of what I’m saying or doing even landing on these students? Do they even know my name? Some are so clocked out I don’t think they even know what subject I teach. Some draw on my desks. Some need attention. Some can’t sit still. Some show up every single day and won’t write a single word. And still there are others who come open and hopeful, ready to learn and share.

And here’s the paradox: all of it is in the room with us—and somehow, we make room for all of it.

That reality shapes us. It stretches us. And it takes its toll. It makes this work really hard.

Sometimes I don’t even know what my actual job description is anymore. I don’t know how I’d describe it to oblivious space aliens if I were abducted (fingers kinda crossed since that so-called “rapture” on Tuesday was completely disappointing).

And for any teachers reading this who feel discouraged in these times: You are not failing. You are adapting in a moment that requires more than any of us ever signed up for. And the world needs good teachers now perhaps more than ever before. You are essential for the building of every single thing that comes after this hard part.

The very fact that you are showing up, day after day, class after class, is a quiet act of courage.

So take heart: you don’t need to fix every broken system or heal every wound your students bring into the classroom. That was never the job. Your role is to plant seeds: of critical thinking, of compassion, of grit. Seeds don’t look like much in the moment, but they grow quietly, beneath the surface, often in ways you may never get to see.

Breathe. Pause. Ground yourself in the truth that your presence matters more than your perfection. The world is noisy, yes, but sometimes the simple act of listening, of making space, of refusing to give up, is the most radical form of teaching there is. <3