Hello. I appreciate any and all perspectives regarding this topic. I am a first year teacher.
Hello. I appreciate any and all perspectives regarding this topic. I am a first year teacher. Due to my status as a new teacher, I do not have my own classroom. I go into other teachers’ classrooms while they have their plan period and teach in there. This means that I usually plop down in the teachers’ lounge during my planning hours and lesson plan in there. Recently, another teacher confided in me that another teacher ranted to them about me for a good 15 minutes. According to them, the teacher in question thinks that I “focus too much on talking with other teachers instead of doing my actual job.” since “I’m always in the lounge just talking”. I was taken aback since the teacher who said that is always pleasant towards me and approaches *me* for conversations in the lounge. This made me realize just how much I overhear in the lounge and how sometimes when I converse with teachers, they make off-hand comments about other teachers. My evaluator says I’m doing well in terms of teaching and I’m being kept on for next school year, so I’m not really worried about the validity of what was said about me. However it’s interesting that they also said they were going to “confront me” about my work ethic yet I’ve seen them since being told about what was said about me and they instead talked to me about their day. I try my best to show up, do my job, and not cause problems so it sucks that I’m being talked about when I try my best to keep my head low. I’ve had my fair share of toxic workplaces (mostly through working in the restaurant industry through my college years) and it bums me out that my current school/department has a semi-toxic culture that’s reminiscent of former workplaces. It makes me want to keep to myself. Is gossip a problem at your school? submitted by /u/North_Selection681 [link] [comments]