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Classful

As the new school year approaches (or continues if you’re in a year-round district), it’s time to prepare for your new batch of students.

And for another round of a set of problems that every teacher seems to encounter at least once, if not every year. Or every month. These aren’t severe problems that make it impossible to teach, but when you’ve encountered them repeatedly, they make you roll your eyes as a reflex. Check out these 15 teacher problems and know that you’re not alone.

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1. Inch-long pencil stubs

Give the kids credit for being thrifty, but how on Earth are they able to write with a stub of pencil less than an inch long, including the eraser?

2. The amazing self-replenishing stack of papers

When you’re a teacher, the paper will never go away. You’ll file, you’ll grade, you’ll toss it in the waste paper bin, and more will always appear all over your desk.

3. New and improved versions of every cold strain on the planet

Kids, this is one time when you shouldn’t share.

4. A close-up look at how quickly erasers can wear down

For teachers, class plans, seating charts, and more are usually done on paper, especially if they’re displayed in class. And that means catching and erasing any mistakes.

5. Battling child logic

From wrong answers that still make a point to creative uses of language that have completely different interpretations for adults, students can come up with some real doozies that test their ability to keep everyone focused on an assignment.

6. Facilities problems

Schools try to keep their buildings in good shape, but many schools are underfunded and have older infrastructure that doesn’t work quite the way it should, like that window that always sticks or the thermostat that never seems to work.

7. Break? What break?

Teachers seem to have very little break time, from rushed lunch breaks to summer breaks filled with activities preparing for the school year.

8. Not knowing where a test will be held until right before testing day

First, it’s in your classroom, then another classroom, then the auditorium, and so on; the locations for special or standardized tests always seem to change at the last minute.

9. Biological issues you weren’t expecting

No one prepares you for the loss of baby teeth in class. This means you get to soothe a crying child, clean off a bloody tooth, and teach the rest of the class simultaneously.

10. Well, I guess that wasn’t childproof

Your favorite coffee mug, those cute sandals, the shirt you thought would survive the day without a spill — teaching can be a rough business!

11. Watch where you sit

Students can leave little “gifts” in the form of jokes on their seats. Or they can try to move your seat as you sit. Either way, it makes sitting down an adventure.

12. Maybe you’re a little too happy about new supplies…

Yes, those classroom supplies are very cute. No, you don’t need them in every color of the rainbow!

13. Your cat or dog becomes an arm accessory right before you start grading papers

Sometimes the problems don’t end when you get home.

14. You had what in your pocket?

Sometimes you don’t want to know what kids can cram into pockets and backpacks, but you find out anyway when whatever it begins to smell or leak.

15. Developing a repertoire of teacher in-jokes

You’re not strange; you’re just signaling to others like you.