Teaching in the 90s vs Today: How the Times Have Changed!
Teachers Off Duty
Bored Teachers
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
PLUS book your hosts for a speaking event at your school: https://teacherspeakers.com/
This week on Teachers Off Duty, Bri, Anna, and our newest co-host Jessica dive into a hilarious, chaotic, and shockingly relatable conversation about Teaching THEN vs. Teaching NOW — and let's just say… things have changed A LOT.
From victory parades, doghouse punishments, and Catholic school trauma to scripted curriculum, red-pen drama, tech overload, middle school chaos, and why today's grading systems make ZERO sense… this episode is nonstop stories, teacher truths, and belly laughs.
Plus, we're talking about everything from classroom management hacks and the power of productive struggle (instead of helicopter teaching) to how and when sarcasm actually works with kids, why admin support can completely make or break your school year, and how today's grading systems have changed the game. We also get into tech overload in the classroom, what it's really like teaching middle school chaos, the pressure on ELA teachers to be "perfect" spellers, and why kids today have zero fear of calling you by your first name.
Follow your hosts:
Briana Richardson @HonestTeacherVibes
Anna Kowal @ReadAwayWithMissK
Jessica Hawk @MyTeacherFace
Follow us on all platforms @TeachersOffDutyPodcast
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Teachers Off Duty - A Bored Teachers©️ Podcast
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | He just sat there like, and I could see his face. |
| 0:04.0 | And I said, oh my God, I apologize immediately in front of the class. |
| 0:09.0 | I said, that was wrong. |
| 0:11.0 | I took it too far. |
| 0:12.0 | I see your face. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm so sorry. |
| 0:15.0 | It's my nature, but I'm going to rain it in. |
| 0:17.0 | And I said, we are colleagues, not clones. |
| 0:19.0 | Thank you. Standard-based grading is either going to a one, a two, a three or four, and you grade them on the standard. Yes for the benchmark. Four means you nailed it. You're above and beyond. Three means you got the standard. Two means you're approaching the standard. One means you ain't there. Okay? You ain't got to... Just know if you get a 60 in my class, your grade was probably way lower than that. Way low. That's my issue with education. |
| 0:40.6 | It's give us Okay? Yeah. Just know if you get a 60 in my class, your grade was probably way lower than that. |
| 0:38.3 | Way low. That's my issue with education. It's give us something new. Let us go through a cycle of students to collect the data to see if it's working. But telling us we had to put a 50 in if they even wrote that name on the paper, make it show orthopedic shoes at my face. They held a whole meeting in the gym, |
| 0:54.3 | pull all the sixth graders, |
| 0:55.9 | and then told us, |
| 0:57.3 | you cannot put lower than a 50 in the grade book. |
| 1:00.2 | In any marking period. |
| 1:01.2 | No. |
| 1:01.7 | And we were like, Hey, best friends. Welcome to this week's episode of Teachers Off Duty. If you do not know me, I am honest teacher by BZ. I don't know why I just felt like. I didn't. I didn't like it. I wanted to do something that would make you feel ick. And I knew they would make you feel a little ick. Oh, but it was cute too. I'd make you feel a little ick. I'm honest teacher vibes, aka, Bree breezy, I don't know. And I have two lovely co-host with me today, one of whom I have irritated already. |
| 1:45.9 | But we love it. |
| 1:46.6 | It's for the plot. |
| 1:47.6 | I'm Anna Gowal, aka Readaway with Miss Kay. |
| 1:51.6 | And I was going to, I was going to be like, I'm Anna Bananors. |
| 1:55.9 | Oh, you should have did. |
... |
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