Who Protects the Teacher?

When something lands the right way in a classroom, it doesn’t just teach—it transforms. But in today’s climate, that transformation can come at a cost.

In this episode, Jake shares a personal story he's never fully told publicly—about the time a group of parents tried to get him fired for teaching a novel. Not because it was inappropriate. But because it made students think, ask questions, and feel something real. 

Read the full story on Substack: 

Teaching What They’re Afraid Of: To ban a book is to fear what students might understand

📰 Hall Pass Headlines tackles a hard truth: Two in five teachers in the UK report being physically assaulted by students. It’s not just about behavior—it’s about a system that’s stopped protecting the people inside it.

Read the article: The Times – “Two in five teachers assaulted as classroom violence surges”

Mic Check features a voice message from educator Dr. Scott Petrie on the literacy wars—and what’s actually working in classrooms.
 

Want more on behavior? Check out this episode: All About That Baseline with Josh Kuersten: 3 Behavior Strategies Every Teacher Should Know

Links & Resources

• Subscribe & review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
• Join the conversation on Substack

Got a question? We'd love to answer it! Leave us a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/whatteachershavetosay

Want more EduProtocols from Jake? Check out his book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more.

Transcript

Jake Carr (00:00)
You ever feel like the loudest voices in the room are the ones that know the least about what's actually happening inside a classroom? Well, here's what I've been thinking about lately. When something really lands with students, really lands, it doesn't leave a mark. It leaves a ripple. And some folks are afraid of just that not because of the thing itself.

but because of what happens next.

Welcome back to another episode of What Teachers Have to Say. I'm Jake, and today I've got something a little different for you. I hope you'll enjoy it. We're going to try out a new format for the next few weeks, and I'd love to hear how it feels. I'm always playing around trying to make this even better. I'm going to start with a segment I call Field Notes. That's the part that you're used to.

then I'm adding in a few short segments that I think you're going to like. We'll have hall pass headlines where I share something happening in the news. Then mic check where we get to hear from a listener. And finally, a one minute challenge to tie it all together.

So I bring you now our very first field notes.

There's a fear growing more vocal in education right now. It's always been there. It dresses itself up like protection, book bands, curriculum edits, accusations that have less to do with the content itself, and more with control. But here's the thing that no one tells you.

doesn't stop meaning. It just tries to erase memory.

And memory, the kind that shapes when students understand something true and can't stop thinking about it, that doesn't go quietly. I want to tell you about a time where they tried to get me fired and my credential revoked for teaching a novel. I haven't talked about it that much. I was embarrassed at first. Not really on the podcast. I've talked a little bit about it. I've alluded to it. Not even with some of my colleagues.

Part of me was just so tired, tired of defending something that should have never needed defending, tired of watching people shout over misinformation, But the truth is, I taught a novel, a beautiful one, and some folks decided that that was a threat, not because it was graphic, not because it was inappropriate.

but because it asked students to sit with something tender, something real, something human, something that made them feel and think and ask questions.

And that was enough, apparently, for a small group of parents to push for the removal of me from the school and to pull my credential. To say that I was unfit. To say that I was trying to turn kids against their faith. And worse, that I was dangerous. They said these things out loud. They said these things in public. And they said these things on record.

And I didn't tell this story right away because I don't want to become that teacher, right? The one who's always fighting, the one who's always under attack. But the silence has started to feel like agreement. And it was the furthest from that. So now I'm telling it, not for sympathy, not for spectacle, not to get people in trouble, but

because someone out there might be holding back on a story that they know will open something beautiful in their students. And I need them to know, I need you to know that you're not alone. Because when we create space, especially in high school and beyond, right, I'm not talking about the littles. There's definitely an appropriate material at different ages. I'm talking about things that are beautiful.

and true, even if sometimes they're a little uncomfortable. Because when those things are allowed to breathe in education, the room holds still. Backpacks stay zipped. It's not the climax of a novel that usually does it.

It's the moment something that they didn't know sneaks up on them. It's a glimpse of tenderness. It's a whisper of justice. And sometimes those moments don't just change the reader in the classroom. It changes the dinner conversation at home. It changes the memory of what classrooms can be. It becomes something that they carry into adulthood.

That's what folks are afraid of, not profanity, not scandal, but the possibility that a young adult might walk away from a novel more human, more empathetic to things that they haven't understood previously. So what do we do when fear says don't risk it? When it tries to scare us out of teaching what actually matters. There's three things that have helped me along the way. Number one.

Teach for the long echo, right? Don't just aim for comprehension. I jokingly say it all the time, but like I could care less if the students know what color the red badge of courage is. Aim for transformation, understanding the world a little bit better. Build units that prioritize process and personal connection, because that ripple matters more than the rest.

It's one reason I focus so hard on skills over content itself. Number two, make space for stillness. When the room goes quiet, don't rush it. That stillness is like a sacred space and education. Trust it. Let it breathe. That's where understanding begins. And number three, don't hide your humanity. You get to be a human as a teacher.

I'm not saying to push envelopes and be political and all of those things, but I'm saying that the best defense against dehumanization is to just be a human out loud. To keep showing up with clarity, with compassion, with courage, even when it's hard, frankly especially then.

If this story resonates with you, if you want the full story including when they nicknamed me the suicide guy publicly, I wrote a pretty vulnerable article called Teaching What They're Afraid Of. To ban a book is to fear what students might understand. It's up on Substack

And it goes deeper into this moment from my own high school classroom that still lingers with me and my students today. And also, I want to hear from you. Head on over to the speak pipe. Tell me, has a book or something you've taught ever cracked open something in your classroom? Or have you held back out of fear? Let's talk about it honestly, rationally, together. Because when something real arrives in the room, that silence...

It's kind of like a sav and a rebellion all at the same time. And the ones who experience it, they remember it, even if that story gets banned.

With that, let's try out our second segment, which we're now going to call Hallpass Headlines. Each week, I'm going to bring you a story that's making waves in education, in tech, in culture, something that I found interesting and I thought that you might too. And we'll talk about what it really means when that lands in the classroom. So I read something this week that frankly didn't shock me, right? But it still landed hard.

It's from an article by Nicola Wolcock, and it was published on the 18th of April, 2025 in the Times UK. I'll link it in the show notes. So it tells a story that so many of us are all too familiar with. Verbal attack, physical attack, character attack. It reports that 40 % of teachers in the UK say that they've been physically assaulted by students in the past year.

It recounts that during one expulsion meeting, the parent was the one laughing. That's what stuck with me. Because it's not just about behavior, right? We could talk all day about behavior. In fact, if you're interested in how to help with challenging behaviors, go back and listen to a whole episode we did on it with Josh Keurston It's one of our top five. But this is more about who teachers are being asked to protect.

and who's protecting us. It's about dehumanizing the adult in the room to serve a culture war and a passing whim. And while sometimes that's intentional, I do believe that more often it's just fallout from a culture that's lost its center. It's pulled apart by really loud voices chasing their own aims with no thought to the people left behind holding the pieces, which frankly, it's usually the students.

We're told to hold grace for every student. But who holds grace for the teacher who just got cursed out and now they're teaching algebra? Or stabbed with scissors? Or Abigail Zwerner, a first grade teacher in Virginia who was shot by her student? What does it even mean when her own school board argued that being shot at school was a known workplace hazard and therefore

should only be covered by workman's compensation. This isn't just burnout. This is structural abandonment. Because when accountability gets framed as attendance at all costs and student rights gets weaponized against basic safety, what you're really doing is shifting all that responsibility back onto the teachers and calling it equity. We're not burned out from teaching. We're burned out.

from being the last ones holding those pieces together and whispering somewhere in the dark, I don't get paid enough for this garbage.

All right, next up is a new segment called Mic Check. This is where your voices show up. Voicemails, questions, comments, things that keep the conversation going. We'd love to hear your voice. Make sure to drop us a voicemail on our speak pipe. And today's voice comes from a good friend and a really sharp educator named Dr. Scott Petrie. Let's hear what he has to say.

Scott, my friend, thank you for that. you're not sure who or what to trust when it comes to the world of literacy. And honestly, that makes sense. Like, that tracks, man. It has been a battlefield

for most of our careers. Because when every camp says that their method is research-backed and science-backed, when every publisher is selling their own framework, it's easy to feel like trusting anybody is naive. But I will say this. I do follow the science of reading. And I wish I had known more about it when I was teaching younger ages. Back then in my public Waldorf school, they mostly supported a whole language approach, and that didn't sit right with me.

So I went rogue, mean, surprise to no one. I used a book called The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I liked it. It was really well laid out. It was daily explicit phonics instruction. It was simple, it was strategic, and it worked. And it dovetailed really nicely with what we were already doing in class, right? With copy work, with recitation, with read alouds. And my students were really happy.

And when we benchmarked them, they were ahead. So when I hear folks say that phonics kills joy, I push back on that. Kids who don't have the mechanics of reading don't enjoy reading for very long. Because if you teach it with heart, it gives kids access to the meaning, not just decoding. And you mentioned Natalie Wexler. Yeah, she's a yes. Also check out Tim Shanahan. That's another yes. And I'm going to add one more.

If you haven't listened to a podcast series called Sold a Story, do it. It doesn't really give you all the answers, but it definitely makes the environment feel clearer to you. And right now...

I think that's what teachers really need. Not louder answers, not sharper questions. And I'm no expert in this. If somebody out there has great information on that topic, I would love to hear. Drop a line. Tell us about it on SpeakPipe.

All right, friends, let's land this episode with a final note, the one minute

Each week, it's one small thing to reflect on and try. It's low stakes, it's high meaning, and it is totally yours. This week, I want you to take note of a moment when the system asked you to rush and you chose to stay human instead. Let that student linger just a few more seconds at your desk telling you about the Minecraft movie. Say the thing that's not in the lesson plan.

Hold the line with kindness, even when it's easier to just fold. Then, pay attention, not to how efficient it feels, but to what it opens up. And if something happens, if it sticks, tell me. Reply to the sub stack, drop a message on SpeakPipe, or frankly, just whisper it to the teacher who needs to hear it. Because stories when they land create ripples, and ripples change the shape of things.

until then, consider leaving us up to a five star review wherever you find your podcasts and join us on the conversation on Substack. This is Jake. Bye.