One Tired Teacher
One Tired Teacher
OTT 265: We Do Not Care Club Teacher Chapter: Humor, Burnout, and the Power of Saying ‘Nope’
The birth of "The We Do Not Care Club: Teacher Chapter" might be the most honest conversation about educator burnout you'll hear this year. After discovering a hilarious TikTok creator who gave women permission to stop caring about societal expectations during menopause, I realized teachers desperately needed the same liberation.
What started as a few casual videos quickly erupted into a movement. Teachers everywhere began contributing their own "we do not care" statements—powerful declarations of boundaries that challenge the normalized absurdities of our profession. "We do not care if someone calls in sick. You did not hire us to teach two classes at once." "We do not care about every single data point. We're teaching children, not numbers."
This isn't about abandoning our dedication to students or education—quite the opposite. It's about reclaiming our humanity in a system that too often treats teachers as endless resources to be depleted rather than professionals to be respected. When we say "we do not care" about unpaid summer work, pointless meetings, or using our own money for classroom supplies, we're creating space to deeply care about what truly matters: our students, our teaching practice, and yes, our own wellbeing.
The laughter and validation flowing through this community reveals something powerful—we're not alone in our frustrations. For too long, toxic positivity has forced teachers to smile through impossible demands while questioning our own right to feel overwhelmed. The We Do Not Care Club offers a different path: one where humor becomes survival, community becomes resistance, and saying "nope" becomes an act of professional self-preservation.
Ready to join the teacher chapter? Download free sub plans from the link in the show notes, then share what you no longer care about. Together, we're building a more sustainable vision of teaching—one where educators can thrive, not just survive. Because you're doing enough, you are enough, and you absolutely belong in the We Do Not Care Club.
We Do Not Care Club Teacher Chapter on TikTok
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Welcome to One Tired Teacher. Episode 265, the we Do Not Care Club. Teacher chapter humor, burnout and the power of saying nope. This week we're tossing toxic positivity out the window, we're shaking off the endless expectations and we're talking about what it really means to be an exhausted, overextended, deeply passionate educator who's learning to say nope with love and a little bit of sarcasm. And listen, I'm not here to tell you to take a bubble bath and magically feel better. This episode is about humor as survival, community as resistance and giving yourself permission to let go of the stuff that doesn't serve you anymore. I hope you stick around.
Speaker 2:Welcome to One Tired Teacher. And even though she may need a nap, this teacher is ready to wake up and speak her truth about the trials and treasures of teaching here. She is wide awake. Wait, she's not asleep right now, is she? She is awake right. Okay, From Trina Devery, Teaching and Learning your host, Trina Devery.
Speaker 1:Hey, so today I'm taking you on a little journey because I have I started something on TikTok and it's really taken off and I'm very excited about it and I want to share it with my favorite listeners of One Tired Teacher. So let me take you back. Not long ago I stumbled across a hilarious and painfully relatable TikTok creator named Jess Melanie. She made videos for women in perimenopause and menopause that had me laughing and nodding like yep, that's me. She called it the we Do Not Care Club and it gave me life. So naturally I thought you know what teachers need? Their own chapter, because if anyone deserves a little collective venting and validation, it's teachers, it's us, I mean, come on. So I started making a few we Do Not Care Club teacher chapter videos just for fun, just to laugh. But the response has been wild and it has been like an eye opener of like all the things that used to really piss me off and I'm going to say piss, sorry, really make me mad in education. That still make me mad in education, the things that I'm tired of, the things that basically pushed me out of the classroom and out of a profession that I'm tired of, the things that basically pushed me out of the classroom and out of a profession that I loved more than anything are still happening, if not worse, and it's just mind boggling to me. And so it's been refreshing to be like in the trenches with people and feel like I don't know. It's almost been empowering to talk about it and to allow other people to talk about it in a safe place and then share. Other teacher we do not care things so that people can like kind of stand up together. So here's just a few of the original we Do Not Care Club entries Like this is what I started off with, like I could have. I was like on a roll when I first started writing some and it's we do not care if someone cold and sick. You did not hire us to teach two classes at once. We do not care if you want a snake peek night in July. You didn't hire us to work in July. We do not care if a teacher comes in late. We don't need a passive, aggressive email blasted to everyone on the staff. We do not care if the new curriculum hasn't arrived. You did not pay us to write our own. We do not care about fun work bonding. We just want to get in our classes and then go home. We do not care about the school-wide theme. Unless you gave us money for decorating, we will be sticking to our own theme. And my very personal favorite we do not care. If you don't want us to use TPT, I will buy the emergency subplans I need. I'll vet the materials myself because I have a brain. Thank you very much. So these were just a few of the original. We do not care.
Speaker 1:And then I got a lot of responses of things that other teachers do not care about and I want to be clear before I share some of these. It's because I did have. I've had one person and all the hundreds of comments. One person say you know, we care about teaching and education and I'm like that You've missed the whole point. We do care about teaching, we do care about education, we do care about the children. It's just that we don't care about education, we do care about the children. It's just that we don't care about the crap and we don't care about people using the children against us, to manipulate us, to make things harder for us. So here are some comments that teachers responded with, and this is how the club grew faster Teachers have flooded my messages with their own.
Speaker 1:We do not care entries, and honestly they were gold. Here's a sampling from the teacher chapter. We do not care if materials relate Poor planning on your part is not an emergency on mine. We do not care about summer emails. Tell me when I'm going to get paid to return. Fill me in then. We do not care if class size lists change 20 times. Give me the final version and I'll make a plan from there. We do not care about your paperwork emergency. I'll get it done when it gets done. We do not care about Mary's sorority animal. We do not need icebreakers. We are not children, and one of the most painful truths teachers have said again and again is we don't care about every single data point. We're teaching children, not numbers, children not numbers, and we know which students need help without needing 14 color-coded graphs pinned to our walls.
Speaker 1:These were just some of the responses I have gotten. So many more than that. You can see them all on TikTok, on Trina, underscore Debra E, and I would love to hear what you have to say. But let's talk about why it matters, because this isn't laziness, this is survival. Let me say this loud for the teachers in the back this isn't about being lazy. This isn't about refusing to pour from an empty cup. It is about refusing to pour from an empty cup. It is refusing to completely gut ourselves, lose our friends and family, end up in divorce, feel like we didn't raise our own kids. That's what it's about. It's about naming the absurdity we're asked to normalize.
Speaker 1:So many of us have been made to feel like we're not allowed to feel tired, to feel resentful, to question the expectations. To be honest with you, when I first created One Tired Teacher, it was because I felt this way and I felt like I finally had a voice and I was going to speak up and I wanted to do this podcast with a friend and we were supposed to be two tired teachers and I was really excited about it, but she felt like it was too negative and I thought I don't mean it to be negative. I mean it to be supportive of teachers, but I need it to be honest, like I want it to be honest about what's happening. I don't want to sugarcoat it, because that's what they're training us to do to normalize the absurdity, and that's that's not okay. We're told to smile, to be grateful, to keep going, but when you're running on fumes and you're still expected to give more. It's exhausting, and that's when humor becomes a lifeline. Community becomes a rebellion, and saying no is the most powerful act of self-preservation.
Speaker 1:So here's your permission slip, and if you're feeling the weight today, let me hand you this permission slip. You do not have to earn rest. You do not have to show up to every meeting smiling. You do not have to prove you care by suffering quietly. In fact, if you need to take a day, do it? Have a free day of sub plans. You can download it right now.
Speaker 1:Trina Devery, teachingandlearningcom forward slash sub plans day one. All one word sub plans day one, and I'll drop it in the show notes. Or maybe you just need to not over plan a lesson this week. You can still grab that free day and use it for yourself. Just use the plans for yourself for that day, so you don't even have to think about it, because your wellbeing matters not just for your students, but for you. So here's what I want to leave you with. If you've got something that you no longer care about, drop it in the comments or message me on Instagram or on TikTok. I'll add it to the list for next time. Let's keep building this teacher chapter together, because laughter is powerful and so is saying nope, until next time. You're doing enough, you are enough and you absolutely belong in the we Do Not Care Club teacher chapter. Talk to you soon. Remember to sleep tight sweet dreams and sleep tight.