Hey, parents, teacher here.

When I was student teaching in my early 20s, some piece of shit shot up a school about an hour away from mine and I, just a kid myself, realized that I would, without hesitation, take a bullet for your kids. Even the annoying ones. (Thread)

Since then, I have had probably hundreds of chances to reaffirm that reality. I’ve had chances to disarm students and disrupt more plans for suicide and homicide than I care to think about.

Like, I literally do shit to not have to think about the close calls I’ve dealt with.

I’m not unique: every teacher in America has been exposed to the trauma of raising kids for parents who couldn’t be bothered to raise the kids they created. And the vast majority of us would take a bullet for your kids.

I’m not being dramatic. I’m being honest.

But I’m not going to willingly expose myself to COVID because it’s easier for you to work from home or have White Russian lunches with the girls if I’m watching you kids for you.

If it’s not safe to eat in a restaurant, it’s not safe for teachers to supervise lunch. Obviously.

Teachers are not expendable humans. We aren’t selfless martyrs you can sacrifice to the economy or your need to escape the kids you chose to bring into this world. We have lives, families and value outside of what we do for you.

We have busted tail for the last 9 months to figure out how to make school work from a distance and if you can’t be bothered to help your kid engage so that my friends & I can stay alive and well, that’s unfortunate for your kid, but I have no interest in orphaning mine over it.