#Teaching woes

[lordfrezon]

Teachers need to be honored more for all the sacrifices they make.

For example, today I had to watch Denethor, Steward of Gondor, eat a tomato, not just one time, but twice.

[femme-foucault]

I am not angry at that student in the last post btw, but he does actually have the honor of being the one student who did get under my skin for a few seconds....and then actually now it's pretty funny because of what happened next.

I preface I would not go into teaching if I did not genuinely like and respect myself. Even the girl who I probably should have started marking absent because she was being too cruel to other students and I should have just not tried to Make Everyone Get On Well I don't hate or even dislike, just kick myself for not handling it better because I was less authoritative. I don't even dislike this kid it's just maybe one of the weirdest and not-funny-but-kinda funny student evals I have ever had. There is a lottttt of context leading up to it but in the sake of anonymity, I am omitting it all. I'll just say no I don't think he was neurodirvergent, definitely had energy to have an internship in another which was fine it was a remote class and I don't blame him for being psyched about it even if he went without a mask in a public airport but this was a bit of a doozy.

First of all, I think this is the only student I have ever met who passed a class in a subject that, by the way, is MANDATORY for ALL students in this university to pass. You can test out of the lower level one but not this one. Not this subject in particular, but one with an extensive writing component. It's a writing intensive class. That is why it is called a writing intensive class. Hey look, I hated algebra but I didn't take it out on my algebra teacher. I'm kinda used to some students just not seeing why they need to take the course and don't take it personally though actually contrary to what you'd think, the pre-med kids, the engineers, computer science people...yeah I may be a tech person but I don't go too much into that in an intro class and we had all majors. So I get not wanting to take a core class but I don't....think he actually ever truly understood what an argument was vs an opinion. That was day 1. And no, he was not stupid. I think it had to be deliberate.

He accused me falsely of showing up to class drunk. I was sober at the time bc I was on some new meds that I didn't mix with alcohol and I would never do that anyway. He also admitted "I have no proof."Now, I definitely showed up to class TIRED and drinking a lot of coffee and not wearing make up. But sure, someone who looks like a woman doesn't wear make up

HOWEVER I found out from three other instructors all of THEM were also falsely accused for the same thing so I guess that's just the thing they think they can say? Finding out students falsely accuse professors of being under the influence to Report to the Manager is sad...was that the thing they did on Reddit?

....but the punchline is, someone I know this happened to....is a devout Mormon. Lol.

He said that I was discriminating against him for trying to use Joe Rogan as a peer-reviewed source. I know you skipped half the classes because you were in LA or something (not depression or anything). But we literally went over this. I actually meet with my students in office hours one on one several times a semester to talk with them about the project of that semester's unit and talk about revising it for the larger essay, which is longer and is graded more strictly. And if you didn't turn in the smaller essay, well you might lose some points off your overall grade, but I encourage them to come in anyway even if it's a rough draft so we can brainstorm together and come up with an outline and I can give suggestions and most of them take me up on it. It is so labor-intensive, and I did it four times this class, not three. Again -- it was NOT a depressive issue and he was pretty clear about that.

The one thing this kid said that I admit got on my nerves is he felt I was not giving him a good grade because I politically disagreed with him. Actually aside from liking Joe Rogan I don't even remember him talking about politics, I think he just jumped to assumptions bc queer trans and assigned Ta-Nehisi Coates and Trish Roberts-Miller and Umberto Eco. But the reason that annoyed me is actually I have gotten along very well with conservative students. I am not kidding. It's different than with adults because 1) you are in a position of power over them as an instructor you should not abuse unless they threaten you in some way 2) many students who come to college conservatives begin to ask questions about the world around them in new and interesting ways. You cannot make anyone change, but shutting them down when you are in a unique position of authority is not productive either. Besides, I would never abuse my position as a teacher to arbitrarily down grade someone who met all the assignment parameters. I guess if you don't see how I give feedback and a lot of feedback for revision behind closed doors you wouldn't know that but that did actually get on my nerves. Not because I care about what a guy who I think genuinely does not understand the concept of an argument (in a rhetorical sense) despite ostensibly taking a course about them for reasons that I really don't think are related to intelligence (he was having some internship or something and that's fine, I had part time jobs, a lot of my students' do, so it wasn't that or stress). It annoys me when people won't take responsibility for their own actions and assume if they aren't succeeding at something that it HAS to be someone else Out to Get Him.

So yes, a student did actually get under my skin for a minute but not because I care what he thinks about me or thought anyone would take that seriously, but even though no one would believe that for a number of reasons (there was a LOT of other awful shit in that eval....and I haven't gotten to the punchline yet)....it was more about just not really having much patience for that kinda thin-skinnedness and paranoia. There is a bigotry level I suspect too, but who knows? Then I realized that's a teaching lesson that you just can't care about That One Student when you got tons of emails thanking you for the class.

The punchline, however, and the reason I knew that I was okay when he complained that it was "impossible" to pass this class and I was "making it hard on purpose" (Yes, because I have a chance to share the subject I love and find important to a young audience and therefore I am going to....not do that? Look I know some teachers don't care about teaching but I do. I want you to get something useful...). That "no one likes it and is doing well in it" which I assume he said bc he knew I knew they had a GroupChat. It was very deliberately "ooooh I am bringing up we all hate the professor in the group chat?"

Which didn't work because....

I know that is not true bc while I don't read their GroupChat I did have a good relationship with most of the students in that class. I do feel like it was a depressing course to teach online but it's COVID so we were limited but I always find more balanced feedback from students who fall in between the extremes to be most useful and they don't fill evals out :(

"No one likes it because no one is doing well and it's too hard" doesn't hold up even on paper because....

....I gave out more A's in that class than I ever have before or since. I have a few theories why. It was NOT because I did a curve. I don't believe in curves UNLESS I think I made a mistake or something too hard and that's only happened twice (and once I guess was more COVID's fault than mine but still). I didn't need to. They all knocked it out of the park. It was a AWFUL semester bc of COVID. So much suffering and pain and yeah I know it wasn't fun to learn an interactive thing online so I actually understand the mixed reviews. But yeah, if you are going to accuse someone of making it hard on purpose and then high school "the group chat hates you because it's too hard" and I KNOW that is not the case than Reddit needs to come up with a different thing to say to a teacher you don't like.

Now how do I explain that without sounding...like this

[tenthdoctxr]

lmao sometimes dealing with the parents of my students is way worse in comparison to dealing with the students themselves 🙂

[nixiegenesis]

It’s honestly such a shame I got into Elden Ring now instead of earlier in the summer. My mind is thirsting to dive deep into the lore and do the kind of note taking I did when I was into The Silmarillion. Unfortunately my days are currently occupied with curriculum planning for Texas history. Yay.

[orphee-aux-enfers]

@ my students PLEASE

[saltpepperbeard]

shh, don't cry. when they're not in the inn, ed and stede are spending their days lounging about on the sand, luxuriating in the sun, and getting lost in each other's eyes just like this, ok?

[picture source]

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[mwezina]

I am alive...

Just in a depressive slump after changing jobs. It is a better job and the pay will get much better. It's the next logical step in my career.

I just didn't expect the work culture to be so crushing.

[squeakadeeks]

moodboard for this past week ❤️

[naranjapetrificada]

I have really, really loved seeing everyone talking about their favorite fics they've written but I wasn't expecting to be tagged tbh because I've posted so few. Thanks so much @scribophile for tagging me so I can play too!

I only have 3 one-shots and a stagnating WIP to my name but I do have favorites, so.

Cornerstone means a lot to me because it was the first time I'd felt moved to write fiction (fan or original) in over a decade. I have years (and two post-secondary degrees worth) of baggage around writing in the way that only 90s "gifted kids" who were actually just neurodivergent can, and being able to write fiction again after so much time and angst has been such a joy.

My favorite of the one-shots though is probably Ways of Wanting, which was literally just inspired by Ed's beautiful, beautiful neck and written in a flurry of thoughts and feelings about the sublimation of queer desire. What I love about it is that if Cornerstone was the roots a seemingly-dead tree defiantly bursting through concrete, then Ways is like the first green shoots of new growth to sprout from the tree's branches. It was fun to write but more than anything else it felt necessary, because I needed to see myself stretching beyond my limits and doing something new.

(I also really love the Birth of Venus image that popped into my head at the last second, and if that had been the only thing to come from having written the whole thing it would still feel worth it.)

Last of course is my historical-ish fantasy-ish WIP, From the Firmament, which I am going to finish, because there's nothing I hate more than breaking promises I've made to myself. Getting the chance to write something this self-indulgent has been so rewarding, especially because of how much it's reminded me that writing can be fun.

Now obviously, drafting chapter 3 has taken significantly more time than anticipated. Part of the problem is that Izzy, in typical fashion, elbowed his way into having a POV section that has been as unpleasant to write as the man himself is to be around (although I have to admit that some of the discomfort is creative growing pains).

But beyond Izzy, there are things about the storytelling process itself at this point that are dredging up a lot of my writing baggage in a way that writing the first two chapters didn't. For a few reasons Ed's POV always takes me the longest, and he's got the lion's share of this chapter's narration. And I definitely spent too long deciding which historical blurb should start the chapter, which kept me floundering for too long trying to build the chapter's basic skeleton. I'm also having to work through poet-brain perfectionism with some of the prose.

But I'm determined to finally learn these and other craft lessons I've been putting off for decades though, just as I'm determined to see this story through to the end.

(also I got laid off in June and sometimes feel guilty if I'm not spending every waking moment on job sites, which is a mistake but it makes writing fic harder than it needs to be. I'm working on it.)

I feel like this game has been going around long enough that almost everyone I would tag has already been tagged, but last time I checked I didn't see a post from @veeagainsttheday nor @tresdem? Both are incredibly skilled (and maybe more importantly, dedicated) writers who have made me cry repeatedly in the best ways possible, so even if they don't want to make their own posts you should still go read their gentlebeard work immediately.

[harborss]

homecoming

[isawthismeme]

[jokerislandgirl32]

This Meme Probably Only Applies To Me…

But I’m making it because I’m frustrated and it’s so true…

[gardenofearthlydelightss]

[orphee-aux-enfers]

I should be allowed to custom order my app list because it does not matter that these are different colors, I DO open the wrong one

[saltpepperbeard]

...no so i've been seeing this particular picture around on my dash, right. where it's more zoomed out and subsequently harder to clock what's going on (and also the contrast on my computer isn't the greatest sometimes but y'know).

and this entire time i thought it was just stede facing the water with his arms outstretched.

...i dID NOT REALIZE UNTIL RECENTLY THAT IT IS, IN FACT, ED HOLDING STEDE FULLY OFF THE GROUND, AND COULD BE STEDE LEAPING INTO HIS ARMS OR ED TWIRLING HIM AROUND SHDJKSDHSKL LIKE????????