Almost every parent remembers when they take their five-year-old to their first Meet The Teacher event before Kindergarten begins. And usually, it’s an exciting event for everyone, including parents, kids, and teachers.
But this week, one mom on TikTok was not thrilled at all. In fact, she came home crying.
“This is your sign that if you are just home from your kid’s Meet The Teacher, and you are underwhelmed and not excited like you were a few days ago, you are not alone,” she says while crying in her now-deleted video. “All I wanted was like a fun rug, a cool rug, on the ground for him. Nothing. I’m just praying that by Tuesday there’s a little bit more fun in the room, because right now it just looks like a room with a few Legos and empty bins and a board with nothing written on it. It’s boring. Like you couldn’t put the name on the board or anything?”
One teacher, Diane (@misspmatters), wanted to shed some light on what might have been going on.
“It’s giving entitled,” she said simply. “I highly, highly doubt that this person, this teacher, was okay with not having anything in the classroom.”
Then she gave three different reasons that the room was so bare.
“Number one: We don’t get any money to decorate our classrooms,” she began. “The money we get to decorate our classroom comes from our paycheck or from donations. We do not have a stipend. The district does not give us money. It’s out of our pocket. So if you want a Pinterest classroom for your child, you could set up an Amazon wishlist for your child’s teacher. You could volunteer your time or money to help your child’s teacher.”
The next reason has to do with how busy teachers are leading up to the new school year.
“Number two: We’ve been back at work since July 31. Our first day of school is on Monday,” she continues. “I can count on one hand how many hours I’ve spent in my classroom decorating because we’ve got meetings. We’ve got training. We’ve got to plan. We have to get things ready. We don’t have the time to sit there and do these Pinterest classrooms. The reason that our classrooms like like they’re from Pinterest is because we’ve gone to school off of contract hours, so we’re not getting paid.”
Finally — she makes the point that the teacher might be brand new.
“The third thing, and this is probably my most passionate point to make, is that this teacher could have just gotten hired,” she explained. “Let me remind everybody: we have a teacher shortage. There are positions that haven’t been filled. There are people doing multiple jobs because we have such a shortage. So there’s a very good possibility that this person just got hired. There’s a very good possibility that this person just got hired that day and needed to be there for Meet The Teacher. The most important thing is meeting the person, not the classroom. That will come later.”
After explaining all of this in a calm way, she got a little emotional at the end of the video.
“My whole point of this video is give us some grace,” she finished. “I’m tired. It’s giving entitlement — getting on social media and crying about there not being a rug on the floor.”
Down in the comments, people were rallying around teachers and all of the challenges they face in today’s classrooms.
“The only proper response is to give that teacher an Amazon gift card,” one person wrote.
“They’re mad if you make an Amazon wishlist and mad if your room isn’t cute,” another said. “Teachers are tired of spending thousands of their own dollars.”
“I think all teachers should just stop the decorating,” another said. “Let all the parents see the reality.”
Several teachers sounded off, too. And many were not as even-tempered as the poster.
“Yet she doesn’t see me, a teacher, crying at home, with $36 to my name panicking about how I’m going to make my kiddos feel loved and welcomed,” one wrote.
“They just got done throwing a hissy over basic supplies, and they want US to buy a $400 rug,” another wrote. “I mean, I have, but this makes me regret it.”
“Last year it was eat or buy stuff for the kids,” a third added.
Listen: teachers have it incredibly hard as it is. Many are underpaid. Many are working under intense stress. All have to learn how to protect their kids from literal murderers. Let’s give them a break (and a gift card, for goodness’ sake).
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