This is my first year as a teacher and I had never ever considered doing anything like this, but I realized it is too late for me to get out.

I am seriously considering dropping out of teaching and becoming a school counselor. I am in my 29th year of teaching, 31 if you want to count my two years as a student teacher. <br><br>I have been roundly defeated by TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Discord, and who knows what other social media is out there that I have never heard of. If I try to create assignments, then students won't do them because "it is too hard." It seems like 90% of my relationships with my students is getting them to do any work at all. I have been told that I should be glad that my students are doing better than last year's class and that I should learn to be happy with baby steps. Last year's students could not complete the 8th grade curriculum so this year's students are only slightly less awful. I have spent hours trying tobdd to parents and guardians only to be ghosted by half of them and being told I am a bad teacher by the other half. I have tried to teach by having students create their own videos where they teach some curriculum to their peers and they produce videos that are the most lazy pos I have ever seen. I have tried to gamify the curriculum and they are not interested. I have done show and tell and they are not interested. <br><br>I am told I am a bad teacher by these kids with no idea how to teach, and roundly ignored when I try to explain my teaching philosophy. The kids are never wrong. <br><br>I am done with this career.<br><br>Maybe I will be better served as a counselor. I can listen to their problems and try to help them. I went into teaching so that I can help my students. Well, now I can listen to them instead.