#English teacher core

[grntaire]

david tennant wearing jordans and a cardigan is so funny to me

[ladyfoxglove]

Me when my English teacher won’t let us take our handwritten research paper rough drafts home because it’s “cheating”:

[razzafrazzle]

human marzi!! almost got the whole main cast designed now :o]

[image description: a page of drawings for a human design of marzipan from homestar runner, where she is depicted as a chubby woman with two prosthetic legs that is wearing a long corduroy purple skirt, a matching cardigan, and sandals. next to a fullbody drawing of her is a drawing of her original design, a drawing of her in a long purple dress, and a drawing of her in her sultry buttons costume, where she has black hair and sunglasses. end id]

[ginny-danburry-is-a-lesbian]

My school is lterally Welton i can't take this anymore guys i wanna be an actress

[jils-things]

this feels too soon to say because its still not well over a month that i started uni but like...

im quite happy by how things are going now- it doesn't feel all too restrained unlike my past school years. and apart from that, i feel a lot more independent being able to travel miles away from my home which has been my biggest anxiety as i got older. just the fear of getting lost spooks me a whole lot! even if i'm travelling through a planned route, going all by myself is probably the bravest thing i did this year and i say this as an introvert who doesn't go out all too often

[ur-friendly-neighborhood-simp]

Story time!

So a few years ago, I was washing a cup in the sink under running water so I could get a drink. There were also some other dishes in it so I couldn't see the bottom of the sink.

Long story short I reached under those dishes (don't remember why) there was a spider under them and it.

IT CRAWLED ONTO MY HAND 😭😭😭😭😭

IT CRAWLED ONTO MY DAMN HANDDDDDDD WAIHFBJGRSISFDHGBRSHFUBGHRF

I WAS SO SHOCKED I COULDN'T EVEN SCREAM

THE FEAR THAT THING PUT INTO MY HEART!!!! WHEN I TELL YOU I COULD NOT BREATH!!!!

I NEVER shook my hand so vigorously in my LIFE

By the time I was done shaking my hand it was THROBBING

I swear I still got ptsd from that. And people will have the AUDACITY to say that spiders are more afraid of me than I am of it.

HELL NAW bro was having the time of his life

i am terrified just thinking about this bro how are you still alive ??? id chop my entire arm off 😭

[ribboncvt]

Got a 66 on my english final but it's fine I still have an A so why.do I feel like shit

[icharchivist]

Your playtime of and love for FFVII transcends time, you heard it here first folks

Obviously 😎

though you jest but i still think a lot about the fact i replayed Crisis Core so many times on different PSP, knowing i usually take ~80 hours per playthrough, but unable to tell you how many times i played this game, so in fact my hours poured into ff7 are in fact transcending time completely because god knows how many hours i played that game. not me!!!! for sure!!!

[kirexa]

I could probably get away with pulling an all nighter,, i don't rly wanna sleep :(

[griddlezeeninth]

Is it gauche to post a go fund me here?

Anyway, I really need your help tumblr friends!!

I am an AP Literature teacher and I am trying to get to the Annual AP Conference in Seattle in two weeks!! My district isn’t pay for travel of any kind 🥲.

This professional development would be invaluable! Especially with everything going on in our country right now, I need to learn some tips and tools to help my students be successful and get a high score on the exam so they get college credit and save money in the long run.

Also you know like, learning empathy, analysis, writing skills, and understanding emotional intelligence and appreciation of great art through literature is key too!!

I now have enough to cover the cost of the conference registration, I just need about $880 more to cover the flights and hotel booking since prices have gone up since it’s past the deadline for the discounted hotel reservations 😎. (I’ve been trying it’s hard out here).

The reason I need donations is unless I get this trip funded, I will not be able to go. I took the summer off for mental health reasons and so I have a little less income than normal and due to the writer’s strike, my wife is also making less money than she normally would. So finances are tight for us but I would really love to be able to attend this conference and learn!

[aurorasleepsin]

This reminds me of those memes with the difference between Kindergarten teachers and high school teachers. This is the difference between my AP English class and my high school science classes.

[roombagreyjoy]

I was also alternatively called “ma’am” and “sir?” by those very same kids. On account of me wearing a skirt. Which I won’t lie it was kinda fun watching them struggle their way through it like “oh but… skirt? But? Wuh? Oh, okay…” and then just shrug it off like “well then, that’s just what English teachers are like ig”

[tommyssupercoolblog]

knowing that we spelled colour with a u as a kid not knowing that other countries did that and just. stubbornly refusing to spell it color even when we got points off, because it didn't look right is so funny to me. like it was like this before me n Seán even got here, before the core stopped hosting and it got all switchy. having non-american alters didn't even change how we spelled things at all, local 5th grader just thinks color is a dumb spelling and the thing is she's right.

[vividdreamsrock]

So my core subject teachers are kind of a flop this year but my arts teachers!?!? Absolute W bros!

First off my fav arts teacher from last year is teacher drawing 2 and painting 1 which are two of my only bi-weekly classes this year and my poetry and fiction class is run by this teacher everyone loves and whom has already made an incredible impression on me (she brought cookies and listen to all of us talk abt my immortal and just generally was really relatable and nice) AND I don’t know about the publishing teacher but it’s an online teacher so who cares it’s a double block where I can stay in my room!

[haru-dipthong]

Gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun 僕 (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I haven’t seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does one’s choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what one’s preferred pronouns would be in English?

There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

Japanese pronouns are used to refer to yourself (first-person), while English pronouns are used to refer to others (third-person)

The Japanese pronoun you use will differ based on context

Japanese pronouns signify more than just gender

Let’s look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between one’s Japanese pronoun choice and one’s English pronoun choice (such as the 僕 (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).

Part 1: First-person vs third-person

While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns （彼、彼女） they are used infrequently¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English “pronouns in bio”, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.

Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun they’re using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that “Pronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting down” (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of one’s gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referent’s gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment — purely subjective.

Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use

Japanese speakers often don’t use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using 俺 (ore) among friends might use 私 (watashi) or 自分 (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using 私 (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using 私 (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.

Part 3: Signifying more than gender

English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing one’s own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesn’t reflect an “internal truth” of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.

For example, 僕 (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of 俺 (ore) by tops. 僕 (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use 僕 (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as “I’m not the kind of guy who’s into sports.” 俺 (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. 私 (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.

I believe this is what’s happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of 僕 (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying “girls don’t use boku, so I’m not a girl”, her pronoun choice is saying “your conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku too”.

Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and don’t correspond directly to one’s gender, just as they don’t correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they don’t speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! It’s simply not a viable option². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.

If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. It’s an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.

Notes and References

¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the person’s name directly to address someone in second or third person

² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - “You need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!”

Bey, Marquis— 2021 Re: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender

Rose divider taken from this post

[gowns]

Why Kids Aren't Falling in Love With Reading - It's Not Just Screens

A shrinking number of kids are reading widely and voraciously for fun.

The ubiquity and allure of screens surely play a large part in this—most American children have smartphones by the age of 11—as does learning loss during the pandemic. But this isn’t the whole story. A survey just before the pandemic by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds who said they read daily for fun had dropped by double digits since 1984. I recently spoke with educators and librarians about this trend, and they gave many explanations, but one of the most compelling—and depressing—is rooted in how our education system teaches kids to relate to books.

What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.

This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.

For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room.

But as several educators explained to me, the advent of accountability laws and policies, starting with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and accompanying high-stakes assessments based on standards, be they Common Core or similar state alternatives, has put enormous pressure on instructors to teach to these tests at the expense of best practices. Jennifer LaGarde, who has more than 20 years of experience as a public-school teacher and librarian, described how one such practice—the class read-aloud—invariably resulted in kids asking her for comparable titles. But read-alouds are now imperiled by the need to make sure that kids have mastered all the standards that await them in evaluation, an even more daunting task since the start of the pandemic. “There’s a whole generation of kids who associate reading with assessment now,” LaGarde said.

By middle school, not only is there even less time for activities such as class read-alouds, but instruction also continues to center heavily on passage analysis, said LaGarde, who taught that age group. A friend recently told me that her child’s middle-school teacher had introduced To Kill a Mockingbird to the class, explaining that they would read it over a number of months—and might not have time to finish it. “How can they not get to the end of To Kill a Mockingbird?” she wondered. I’m right there with her. You can’t teach kids to love reading if you don’t even prioritize making it to a book’s end. The reward comes from the emotional payoff of the story’s climax; kids miss out on this essential feeling if they don’t reach Atticus Finch’s powerful defense of Tom Robinson in the courtroom or never get to solve the mystery of Boo Radley.

... Young people should experience the intrinsic pleasure of taking a narrative journey, making an emotional connection with a character (including ones different from themselves), and wondering what will happen next—then finding out. This is the spell that reading casts. And, like with any magician’s trick, picking a story apart and learning how it’s done before you have experienced its wonder risks destroying the magic.

-- article by katherine marsh, the atlantic (12 foot link, no paywall)