We are BACK, teacher besties, and I have SO much to catch you up on. It's the season three premiere of How to Survive the Classroom, and Gerry has arrived with a NEW nose ring, a PASSED edTPA, and a very concerning number of years since his last dentist appointment. Buckle up.

We recap Gerry's full edTPA journey and then get into a real conversation kicked off by my 100-year-old grandpa, who was a teacher for seven years before he quit, largely because he was frustrated that pay was tied to years of service instead of actual skill. Fifty years later, that same debate is still going, and we dig into merit-based pay, the limits of standardized testing, and why electives teachers get left out of the conversation entirely.

Then we jump into back-to-school fan questions: what NOT to do your first year, the worst icebreakers ever, and how new teachers can actually protect their time. Plus, an unhinged Two Truths and a Lie round where Gerry casually mentions being present for an Easter Sunday prison riot and I have some follow-up questions.

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Takeaways:
Do NOT coach your first year of teaching. Even if you love the sport, the workload will bury you. Wait until year two if you can.

Please do not become a teacher just because you want to coach. Coaching is its own career path, teaching kids just to earn a whistle isn't fair to the students in your classroom.

Watch your icebreakers. Two Truths and a Lie in a class of 30 will take the entire period AND leave you exposed to whatever wild thing a student wants to reveal. Choose carefully.

Do the work at school. Grading, prep, and lesson planning inside the building beats opening your laptop at 9 PM every night. Protect your home time.

The teacher pay debate has been the same conversation for 50+ years. Both skill and years of service matter, but standardized test scores mostly measure the poverty level of an area, so any "merit-based" system needs a smarter way to measure real impact.
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A Human Content Production

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:03 - Gerry's Nose Piercing Drama
2:29 - Gerry edTPA Update
9:27 - Teacher Pay: Merit vs. Seniority
18:27 - Teacher Talk Summit Chaos
31:04 - Worst First-Day Icebreakers
37:04 - Biggest Mistakes First-Year Teachers Make