Of course, parenting isn’t exactly like teaching. Teachers don’t have to take their screaming students on airplanes. (See also: diaper rash cream, “poop geyser,” never getting out of the house.) And moms don’t have thirty other babies watching how they handle the first baby who tries to grab the dog’s eyeball. (See also: looming stacks of ungraded papers, test prep, week before Thanksgiving break.) Luckily, there are enough similarities that some of the hardest lessons I learned as a new teacher were things I didn’t have to learn as a new parent.

If you’re in the market for a new teaching job, you might be considering a no excuses school. The option can be tempting, especially if you are coming from a school that might be better described as a “pick your battles” school.

Who among us hasn’t sighed as we imagined students sitting in S.L.A.N.T. position, tracking their teacher’s movements like a line of seagulls eyeing a sandwich, and hurrying to class instead of banging lockers and yelling in the hallway after the bell rings?

It’s important to remember, however, that the no excuses model doesn’t just require buy-in from students. It also requires teachers to drink the Kool-Aid that flavors the school’s culture. This often means strictly complying with someone else’s definition of good teaching.

Among the many demands of teaching is a tremendous pressure on educators to “stay positive!” Sometimes, though, after a demoralizing faculty meeting, or shouting directions on three hours of sleep while fifth graders open and close their binders as loudly as they possibly can, a little commiseration can be just what teachers need. Some complaints even lead to productive discussions about how to make things better. On the other hand, complaining can leave you feeling worse. It can also make you look bad if you do it in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or in the wrong company.

In other words, complaining about work is a little like drinking. It is best done with certain words of caution in mind.

A plot structure is often described as a roller coaster that has five parts: Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Does that mean each part has to be the same length? And, if not, how do we decide how long each part should be? Good question.

To answer this, it can be more helpful to further divide your plot “roller coaster” into seven parts by separating the Rising Action into three different sections, each of which increases the pressure on the main character. After all, even on a real roller coaster, we spend most of our time on the slow climb to the top.