Helen Schmidt

Schools are now structured so that the overwhelming number of student misbehaviors essentially have ZERO consequences. This is horrible for teachers…but it’s even worse for the students who want to learn!

The thing people often don’t talk about in teaching is how much of it is a performance. No matter what’s going on in your life you stand up in front of those kids and perform and if you’re ill or something challenging is going on in your personal life, that’s exhausting.

Childhood trauma doesn’t just come from what you experience, it’s also about what you don’t experience. Here’s some examples:

When people tell me that they want to get back into reading but can’t seem to find THAT BOOK, I have some go-to recs based on what made them love reading in the first place — here are 56 of them 🧵

I keep hearing from GOP lawmakers that they "just want to return to a Judeo-Christian idea of men being men and women being women." So let's talk about that "Judeo" part for a moment (because it's a lot queerer and less binary than y'all seem to think). 🧵🏳️‍⚧️ #aRainbowThread 1/

An unexpected pro to having a conservative caucus in a state with a GOP supermajority? They fight each other. They can’t manage to pass awful and insane bills because they can’t manage to stop fighting. The con? Well, we don’t have a functioning governing body. #BlueIn22

100% of trans kids were created in the image of God.

teachers have been saying for 3 years now how overworked & disrespected they feel AND have been offering plenty of thoughtful, reasonable solutions that no one cares to listen to spare me the “why are teachers leaving the profession in droves” thinkpieces at this time

Retweeting to use some of these articles in class

Don't treat teachers as disposable and then being confused as to why they're miserable and leaving.

It appears MO will be without a director of the Dept of Health and Senior Services during a pandemic because the Senate refused to confirm the nominee on the grounds that he *checks notes* encouraged vaccination. This episode of Parks and Rec has jumped the shark.

oh no, you say your child read a book with the word “damn” in it during the break between active shooter drills? is he ok

36 lawsuits against public schools in the last 24 hours. How many against charters and private schools? Zero. Doesn’t take much to see what the leadership in this state thinks about our public schools and the kids who learn there.

Should all our public schools put “Charter” in their name so the Attorney General will stop these harmful lawsuits? Charters and private schools have mask mandates they also receive taxpayer dollars and are apparently immune to the AG’s bullying tactics.#CuttheSchmitt

The police just left my house. My sons best friend has been bullied for being gay. Today he was beat up so badly he was taken to the hospital by ambulance. My heart is broken 💔. People need to stop TEACHING their children to hate. #loveislove #EmbraceDiversity #KindnessMatters

It’s so hard to exist in a state when our own lawmakers are determined to harm us. There are bills to defund schools, erase history, roll back Medicaid expansion, and create armed militias. They want us preoccupied to keep us from paying attention to corruption. It’s exhausting.

It's emotionally taxing to have my book(s) banned. But not because they're my books, but because all I can think about is the message it sends to the Black kids who see themselves in my books. They deserve to have their stories told whether it makes you comfortable or not.

What health care providers have been shouting from the rooftops for years: we have a *massive* lack of mental health access in Missouri, and now we have the data (from Kaiser Family Foundation) to prove it. MO is #51 after every state and Puerto Rico for MH access. #moleg