I hate this sub and I’m probably getting downvoted to oblivion. Please read if you have a moment.

I’ve been a teacher for 11 years and have used Reddit for 9 of those years. In the last few years, I have noticed a decline in posts that are actually helpful in terms of advice and an increase in posts that are just complaining, often about things we cannot control. I frequently see people advocating that teachers should band together and strike, which sounds nice but is not realistic. Without widespread support from the community, a long term strike would be doomed to fail, and if it did succeed, it would most likely only lead to more privatization of schools. I’m not saying there is no such thing as a useful Reddit post. I have definitely come away from this sub with valuable advice or new ideas. It is frustrating, however, to see so many repetitive posts about how sucks and how students are all horrible now and how we’re all underpaid. Yes, we all know. We don’t need reminding of that daily. Furthermore, I think that this sub does a disservice to the students and to the career as a whole by perpetuating a negative narrative. I believe that this sub does something called “doomscrolling” where people repetitively scroll through horrors to get a dopamine hit off of misery. I started teaching during a time of relative peace (no pandemic, no common core, no standardized testing on Chromebooks) and my classes were full of very kind and hardworking students. It sounds crazy, but I actually enjoyed high school and enjoyed my high school teachers. I believe that teaching is a very rewarding and enjoyable profession. Yes, there are difficulties, but there are difficulties with any job. I’m sure this post will be downvoted to oblivion, which is fine. I just needed to get this off of my chest and I do hope it reaches someone. If you’re a student seeing this, you are loved and appreciated. Thank you for being here and allowing me to do this amazing job.