Subbing the last 2 years has had a profound impact on my views & politics. Has this happened to you?

Substituting at a super “woke” and progressive school district in California over the last 2 years has shifted my views in the opposite direction - quite dramatically so. I could go on and on with the mother of all rants, but I just want to keep this brief. I’m mid-GenX and often feel I’ve woken up an alternate reality where students are suddenly roughly 20 IQ points lower, can’t help not cussing and saying “bro”, constant out of control antisocial behavior, and complete inability to stay on any task for more than a minute. Sometimes when I see their parents, it starts to make some sense. In addition to the students and their parents being mostly terrible, the school administrators are just as complicit as there are no more consequences for anything other than towards the substitute (or regular teacher) being fired or sent home when things get really bad. When people ask me what I teach I tell them that my job is more like daycare with a focus on behavioral management and crisis de-escalation. There is very little real education that happens.

Anyway… this gig has had a profound impact on my political and social views moving towards the right. One of many examples would be that I no longer believe in free public education beyond elementary school, no more free school lunch or breakfast (the amount of food wasted by 90% of students is horrifying and disgusting). Then there’s all the constant and never-ending in your face propaganda all over every school regarding “diversity”, being “kind”, and “staying safe” which drives me up the wall, and I’m neither white nor straight. I don’t want to debate the merits or feasibility of such ideas and policies, but more interested in whether other people’s views and politics have been deeply transformed by this difficult and undervalued line of work at this time - especially in light of dealing with an antisocial younger population full of brain rot and mental illness during America’s imperial and social collapse.

EDIT: I didn’t grow up privileged. I grew up quite poor never getting birthday or Christmas gifts. We came to this country as immigrants. My parents with their five kids were dramatically below the poverty line working minimum wage jobs despite being highly educated back in our home country. I started working summer jobs at age 14 and regularly worked after-school jobs starting at age 16.

EDIT 2: I’ve learned over the years that being downvoted on Reddit is often a sign of being on the correct side of an issue. ;-]