Teacher Pet Peeves

This new year, I'm all about positivity. To get myself to that positive mental place, I need to purge the negativity...

I want to take this end-of-the-week opportunity to get out all the little pet peeves and annoyances that I let get me down and start fresh on Monday as a ray of sunshine!

So here's my list of the pet peeves that just irk me.

• “You never told us that was due”… except the 5 times that I did, the assignment I passed out and writing it on the board.
• When I spend hours and hours grading papers and giving all this feedback, then I get the next assignment and they make all the same mistakes.
• The perpetually late turner-inners. I have a few students who are physically incapable of turning papers in on time. Everything is always one week late... no extension request, no mention of it, just late. I have an extension policy that basically says you can get extra time as long as you ask me ahead of time... you don't care enough to turn it in on time, I guess I can understand that... you don't care enough to ask for extra time, I DON'T GET IT!!
• That every lit discussion starts with a student saying whether the story was good or bad based entirely on how long it was.
• The cheating... I once had a student submit a paper via email that still had the Wikipedia links active. Nice.
• Excuses, excuses, excuses.

But everytime I let myself get wrapped up in my annoyances and my negativity, my students surprise me with these gems of insight on what we're reading. They come up with ideas I never would have thought of and make me remember why I love teaching.

On TeachHUB.com, we're going to let teachers vent about the little things that drive them crazy. Share you Teacher Pet Peeves in the comments section! Once you air them, you'll be on your way to a more positive you.