#i remember back in middle school a science teacher introduced me to this one online visualizer

[ladyherenya]

Books read in October

I read a paperback book for the first time in over three months months and was sharply aware that I couldn’t change anything about the way the text was displayed to make it more comfortable to read. I wondered, sadly, if I no longer like reading physical books.

Then I became engrossed in the story, and there were long stretches of time when I didn’t think about how I was reading a brick of printed paper. I turned pages as automatically and effortlessly as breathing. I think I was just out of practice.

This month’s Unintentional Colour Scheme: pink, purple and light blue.

Favourite covers: The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball and The Other Side of the Sky. 

Also read: “Good Neighbors” by Stephanie Burgis and Tiny House, Big Love by Olivia Dade. (And half a romance novel which I disliked and have no interest in remembering or reviewing.) 

Reread: The last section of The Beckoning Hills by Ruth Elwin Harris. The middle section of Hunting by Andrea K. Höst.

Still reading: Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks, and Angel Mage by Garth Nix.

Next up: The Switch  by Beth O’Leary, and Hamster Princess: Little Red Rodent Hood by Ursula Vernon.

*

The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball by Aster Glenn Gray: A magical story of time-travel and of friendship between eleven year old Piper, who has just moved into a new house, and Rosie, who lived in the same house fifty years earlier. It’s totally charming, and exactly the sort of story I adored growing up. Sometimes that makes me wish I could send a book back in time to my younger self, but I appreciated this book’s references to things that my younger self didn’t know about. I also appreciated how, even though I’ve read similar stories, I couldn’t predict how this one would end. That was very satisfying.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett: In 1547, Francis Crawford, the Master of Lymond, wanted by the Scottish government for treason, is back in Edinburgh. The audiobook was the perfect way to experience this! The voices the narrator uses highlights clues in the text, about who’s speaking or the subtext and emotional tones of a conversation, which helped me to follow the story even when I felt confused about exactly what was going on. I enjoyed the Scottish accents, the clever wit, the ambiguity about Lymond’s plans and motives, and the way many characters are very intelligent, perceptive people. I was interested in the historical political intrigue. I loved the twists and revelations, which are brilliant -- incredibly clever and satisfying.

“Good Neighbors” by Stephanie Burgis:  The first “fantasy rom-com” about a grumpy inventor who, along with her father, moves into a cottage nextdoor to a notorious necromancer in his big black castle. I wasn’t expecting to read about Mia stitching up undead minions, but appreciate that Burgis doesn’t take this opportunity to give glory details. This short story was fun and satisfying, and I am looking forward to when the rest of this series becomes (easily) available.

Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart: After Haunted Ground, Dr Nora Gavin heads to the midlands west of Dublin to oversee the evacuation of another body discovered in a peat bog. The setting is fascinating and I like the atmosphere -- this has a strong sense of both place and mystery. However the multiple murders meant there’s more unpleasantness than I’d prefer. But it’s probably not enough to deter me from reading the next book.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams: Engrossing -- a poignant story of childhood during the late 19th century and womanhood in the early 20th century, and an absolutely fascinating insight into the decades-long process behind the first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s father is one of the lexicographers collecting and defining words for the Dictionary. Esme grows up with a fascination for words and begins to collect words that the Dictionary leaves out. I liked that Esme has people in her life who love and support her, but the ending is intensely sad. I’m not sure why that disappointed me. As an ending, it fits this story.

Taking Down Evelyn Tait by Poppy Nwosu: Australian YA. Lottie is furious that no one else seems to realise what Evelyn Tait, her nemesis (and stepsister) is like. Her best friend Grace is in love with Evelyn. Her teachers and her father tell Lottie she should emulate Evelyn. So Lottie decides that she’s going to do just that -- she’s going to be better than Miss Perfect. I thought this was a very realistic portrayal of a teenager’s relationships -- with family, with friends, with school and with herself. It’s amusing and, ultimately, believably positive. It captures Lottie’s perspective and her experiences in-the-moment so effectively and intensely.

Wired Love: a romance of dots and dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer (1888): Nattie, a telegraph operator who chats whenever she can “over the wire” with C., another telegraph operator miles down the line. I love stories where characters fall in love through exchanged messages. And the experiences of telegraph operators is absolutely fascinating -- simultaneously a product of the past and yet incredibly relatable from a contemporary perspective, because the internet and mobile phones mean we communicate so much through text. After Nattie and Clem meet, the focus shifts away from the telegraph office to antics at their boardinghouse, but the story continues to be fun and delightful. 

Once Upon a Con series by Ashley Poston:

Geekerella: When Elle discovers her late parents’ cosplay costumes in a box in the attic, she hatches a plan to enter a cosplay competition and use the prize to escape her step-family. This contemporary Cinderella retelling about two teenage fans of a SF series Starfield is a romance-through-messages story. Elle uses her father’s old phone, so sometimes she gets messages from people about ExcelsiCon, the convention her father founded. One message sparks a conversation -- but neither she nor Darien realise just who they’re texting. As expected, this is fun and fandom-y, and it makes the coincidences and Cinderella moments feel believable.

The Princess and the Fangirl: At ExcelsiCon, Starfield actress Jessica Stone swaps places with a fan, Imogen. Jess needs to find a mislaid script before she’s accused of leaking it, and Imogen hopes for an opportunity to promote the #Save Amara initiative. I enjoyed how they both experience a different side of fandom. Imogen discovers the pressures of being a star, when con appearances are your job, and, away from the spotlight, Jess discovers how cons allow people to come together and celebrate things they love.  My only disappointment was the way they both deceive Imogen’s fandom friend, Harper. I wish that had been handled differently.

The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove by Kellie Hailes: Unlike other books I’ve borrowed because they had “bookshop” in the title, this didn’t focus very much on books, nor did it describe its bookshop vividly. Sophie could have easily owned a different sort of shop without changing the plot, the setting or the atmosphere. This is a light-hearted romance about nice people in a generic seaside town -- not what I was looking for. I wanted more about books and a stronger sense of place.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Kathleen Gati and Kathrin Kana): This begins with three different women at the start of WWII -- a teenager in Poland, a newly-graduated doctor in Germany and a wealthy consulate worker in New York -- and  becomes about the Ravensbruck Rabbits, Polish political prisoners subjected to medical experimentation. Not what I expected or wanted to be reading (which is not its fault. I switched to the ebook, because I'm irrationally squeamish about some medical things and cope better when reading to myself). This story is compelling and does a good job of showing how the pain and trauma didn’t just end with the war. And it’s incredibly important to keep telling stories about distressing parts of history. 

The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner: More or less the sort of story I expected from these two. Nimh is the Divine One in a world of magic and prophecy. North is a prince in a floating city of science and engineering. Nimh believes the gods fled into the sky thousands of years ago, and North believes no one still lives down on the surface… until he crashes his glider. I enjoyed this but don’t feel any emotional investment -- yet. I will read the sequel.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade: April and Marcus keep fandom separate from their professional lives -- April to avoid negative comments, Marcus (an actor) to avoid violating his contract. So when Marcus sees a cosplay photo of April online, he doesn’t recognise his friend, he just sees a gorgeous woman getting nasty comments and invites her to dinner. I was hooked. As a romance, this didn’t always focus on the things I most wanted it to, but I understood why it made those narrative choices and liked how the characters resolved their mistakes. And I really liked it as a story about fanfiction and the way we tell stories in response to other stories.

Big Love, Tiny House by Olivia Dade: Lucy goes on a Tiny House Hunting show and drags along her best friend Sebastian. I’ve watched countless tiny house videos on Youtube, so it was fun to see tiny houses depicted in fiction -- although I was disappointed that all the houses are so disastrously bad. Beyond that, I have no strong feelings one way or another about this romance novella.

Memento: an Illuminae Files novella by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (narrated by a full cast): A bonus prequel, set aboard the Alexander prior to the events of Illuminae. The audiobook is so well done! Even though this is a short story/novella, I cared about the new characters it introduces -- I really like the epistolary format and how it requires the reader to fill in some of the gaps for themselves. (I think that’s part of why I love The Illuminae Files but so far have no strong feelings about Kaufman and Kristoff’s latest series.) And it’s always interesting to see more of AIDAN.

[lizord-lord]

The Invisible Language

(This is a vent fic. I was struggling with having to dump a friend yesterday and it got me dwelling on my social struggles..and so I tried my hand at actually writing a fic to project all my problems through! XD)

(For anyone who doesn’t know, I have autism-Aspergers specifically, and I totally 100% headcanon Logan as an aspie. I have this post detailing why. So..for those of you who also stan autistuc Logan (and maybe a bit of ADHD Roman) here is this, me basically throwing my entire life story on our poor nerd and I am so sorry but also not XD. Also, the book I mentioned is very real, and I actually own it. It’s really useful, if a bit dated and heteronormative)

Warnings: Descriptions of sensory overload (similar to a panic attack) social struggles, very brief mention of selfharm, mentions of fistfights and minor physical violence.

Ships: none, but you can probably see my logicality heart in there lmao

The Invisible Language.

It was all just so complicated now.

Or rather, now he knew how complicated it was.

Before, Logan had always just thought he was bad with people. That was fine. It fit, with his habit of staying inside with his nose in a book. The socially awkward, introverted nerd who wasn’t good with kids.

It was simple.

But that’s the thing. Life isn’t simple. And neither was Logan. Even as a six year old.

The socially awkward, introverted nerd, from what he’d seen on tv, would have cried or just silently tried to make due when another kid ‘accidentally’ spilled tomato juice all over his copy of Alice in Wonderland. Logan Sanders leapt from his desk, grabbed the kid’s wrist, and yanked him down so his head smashed into the wood.

The socially awkward one was laughed at. Logan was sent to the office.

Time and time again this would happen. Until he turned eight, and his parents pulled him out of school. He was homeschooled after that, and it was simultaneously like a breath of fresh air and entering a stifling hot room. He was free of the children, free to discover on his own, but he found himself itching for more, to ask questions about things his parents could answer, to do projects he’d heard about online but often ended up screaming in his attempts to recreate them because it wasn’t explained, why this, why that, how do I do that, it doesn’t make sense!!

Homeschooling was a blessing and a curse. He made due. He did well in fact, almost all of his online courses were marked complete with a neat 100 for the score. It was enough for them, but not for him.  Eight year old Logan hated it. Ten year old Logan was used to it.

Eleven year old Logan dug his heels into it.

Middle school. His parents wanted to send him back. He understood their reasoning, the rational half of his brain did. Middle school was a big change, adolescence, and the middle ground before high school, which he always knew he would be going to-you can’t get college credit from online courses and library books after all, not the ones he was using. It would give him time to prepare. And yet he was a creature of habit, so used to his solitary life..

Logan has no choice however.

On the first day he stepped inside, armed with only the knowledge of American Girl books he’d skimmed through (who cared if they were meant for girls, they didn’t write helpful guides for boys!) and distant memories of elementary school. The first weeks went by as a blur, and Logan ate it up. The assignments, the grades, the smirk he always found himself wearing when he placed his assignments in the bin. That triumph didn’t even compare to the rush of pride and satisfaction he felt when the teacher told the class that he test they’d been given was apparently too hard, many kids failed and only one student actually got a perfect score, and his paper was handed back with a 100 written on the top.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t hold the paper up a bit and catch the eyes of the numerous people who stared at him with no surprise in their eyes.

Logan even found friends in those first few weeks. A darkly dressed kid who, much like him, never really knew where to go during paired projects and ended up working with him. He found that Virgil was actually very bright, a relief when he looked around the room to see people talking and not doing anything useful. The pale boy was quiet, but listened as Logan chattered away about his  plans for the assignment.

Patton was next, a round-faced boy who seemed to share at least a few words with everyone he saw. Logan didn’t mind that. He wasn’t a lazy student, maybe a bit easily distracted, but when he was sat next to Logan in science his work quality was always at least a solid B, as long as he was shushed every now and again. He seemed better with people too, and Logan found himself enjoying his company.

Then there was Roman. He was introduced to their little trio by Patton, who apparently shared a drama class with the tanned boy. He was..a handful. And yet Logan found himself challenged by him. Their friendship was an unusual one, full of debates that more often than not ended in yelling, but at least they started off with intelligent points and interesting ideas-and if often Patton had to break off their passion so neither of them landed with lunch detention, well that was the price to pay.

He was enjoying himself here.

Then the second month. Logan remembered where he was when a redheaded girl told him he was wrong in that ‘you’re a moron’ tone when he told her that actually, the word for the study of space was astronomy, not astrology. When a boy in a green sweater had blatantly ignored him when he asked him to stop scooting his chair across the hard floors. When an entire group of people had continued to call him Logie even though he’d told them over and over he hated it. Many of them seemed to do it just because it annoyed him. This went on. Every day another simpleton would disrespect him. Every day he’d tell him to stop. Often he’d snap at them, or swear. That always got him snickers in return. And Logan found himself clenching his fists as his whole body burned red hot.

It happened again a week after this started. A boy with a Minecraft t-shirt cut him off in the lunch line, and when Logan told him to go to the end, the boy only scoffed and responded with “Are you in kindergarten?” in a tone that made his blood boil with how fucking snotty it was.

Logan’s hand was fisted in the back of that obnoxious t-shirt and pulling back with all its might before he could think.

The boy ended up on the floor crying, and Logan ended up suspended.

There were more incidents that year. Mostly yelling or swearing, but minor physical violence was not unheard of. It was common even.

Logan didn’t want that. He wanted to be cool, to drop the bullies and idiots with bullets of intelligence from his tongue, but everything he tried a witty comeback they’d give him either confused looks, no acknowledgement as all, or retort with ‘Your mom’ jokes, a sort of ‘insult’ that required barely a single brain cell to perform.

They never listened. They were stupid, childish, disrespectful. Logan stuck only to his three friends and the many teachers he’d grown quite friendly with, They liked him after all, he was precocious and that was something teachers always found fun. with adults, he also found he could make himself actually heard, his theories, ideas, suggestions, it was a glorious freedom he had previously only had with Patton, Roman, and Virgil.

But things didn’t get that much better.

In fact, in seventh grade Logan found his outbursts getting worse. They were farther and fewer between, but the eventual rage that would explode was far worse than before. It was like the dam that held back his rage had grown stronger, but that meant it took more water to barrel it over, and that sent far more devastating floods down the peaceful valley of his mind.

In eighth grade, he got into a fistfight with a boy who had called Roman gay as an insult, not knowing that it was true or that the word should not be used in such a manner. When the boy refused to listen to Logan’s explanation of what the word meant and instead switched tracks to scoffing every time he said it was a normal and perfectly acceptable, beautiful thing. And by the time the midget of a bigot tossed in the dreaded f-slur Logan’s mind was so crimson he only felt a rush of relief when his fist connected with the boy’s head.

It was two weeks of suspension for that. And it was during that time that Logan’s mother revealed something to him that he had never expected.

Tales of his childhood-or babyhood rather, where he had exhibited strange behaviors no other parent seemed to have seems.

“I think you might have Aspergers,” she had said.

And now, here he was. He couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to tell him of her suspicions. But now Logan was sitting on his bed, the blanket covered with constellations, staring at the cover of a book.

It was a familiar scene.

But this wasn’t a book chosen by Logan’s own hand, or by the school, or even a recommendation from his parents or a loan from his younger sister Abby.

It had been gifted to him by the man at the Autism Center.

The Asperkid’s Secret Guide to Social Rules.

He’d read the whole thing.

Before, he’d thought he was just awkward.

But no. Of course it couldn’t be that simple. It wasn’t that he just didn’t know that w to say. He was. missing an entire way of communicating that people his mind now knew as ‘neurotypicals’ spoke in without realizing it.

The secret language. Body language, facial expressions, tone, he knew that all existed yes..but he’d never seen it. At least not in the subtleties the book described. And all these double meanings of phrases? So the dark-skinned girl who had asked him what he was reading during math class didn’t want to just read the back and learn Sherlock Holmes’ latest mystery? She’ wanted to get to know him?

Why didn’t she just say so!

It was so much more complicated now. The vague, yet simple term of ‘weird’ was replaced by the vast, yet specific, confusing, and multifaceted word that was autistic. A word he’d never have expected to apply to him. Mental health went really a subject he’d looked into, feelings were too wound into it.. and feelings had always been his greatest vice.

So now, with that book in his hand, he thought.

There was a whole other world he couldn’t see..that’s what he had been missing all this time? was the specific shifts in tone in posture people made-what he’d always thought to be absently-something his parents expected him to understand and that was why he always seemed to have to be elbowed when running his mouth?

It was like….like telepathy. Yes, to Logan, the cues he now found himself putting extra effort into finding; his sister’s slightly hunched shoulders at the dinner table, his dad’s slightly turned up nose when he mentioned his history teacher, were a sort of telepathy that the ‘normal’ population all shared. But it wasn’t as if it was that simple. Of course, it was tauntingly, agonizingly complicated. You see, these people were all telepaths, sharing cues in an invisible tongue-and yet, none of them knew they were telepathic. And yet still, they all expected everyone else to be.

So that was why he was strange. Logan had looked up how much of communication was non-verbal - he felt his eyes go wide when he saw the percentage dedicated to ‘body language’.

Fifty-eight percent.

Fifty-eight percent.

What else could he have missed?

Logan was both happy and uncomfortable with the diagnosis. He now knew terms, words, blessed reasons for his little ticks, why he felt like something was terribly wrong for at least an hour just because he’d had to take an alternate route to school (routine disruption), why was such a picky eater (finickiness caused by sensitivity to textures and certain flavors/smells), why people always responded with confusion whenever they saw him pepper the science teacher with question after question, challenge after challenge like he was trying to understand how the universe wove itself in the span of five minutes, and looked surprised when Roman asked him if he knew why Patton was being quiet. Logan had responded with a simple no, informing the other that Patton hadn’t told him-and when the slightly taller boy had suggested that he ask, Logan realized the thought had never occurred to him.

Most importantly, it explained what Roman had dubbed ‘The Fitness Fiasco’. To sum it up, Logan had thought of a new game for their groups to play in gym class—something besides basketball for once in their lives, and yet as he tried to explain, the girl who seemed to have taken charge of the group he was trying to explain the idea to kept talking over him, ignoring him, challenging what he said—and the noise. The noise, how all the chattering and the sound of balls bouncing on the floor, the rage he felt at being slighted in this way, how it had attacked him. How he’d suddenly found himself tensing, wanting to run or to yell, unsure which, how the sound turned solid and pressed in-his muscles going taut, his hands twitching with every word from the students mouths,  how his arm violently jerked away as Patton tried to comfort him- And then the scream. He’d screamed at the top of his lungs for quiet, falling to the ground and sobbing in the fetal position—eyes screwed shut behind his glasses and hands clamped tight to his ears, unsure of what was even falling from his mouth aside from the fact that he was begging, begging for silence. It had only quieted a bit as people turned to stare, and then he’d felt hands on his shoulders, ones he jerked away from—but no one knew what to do. Virgil’s low whispers for him to breathe, to use the 4-7-8 method that the emo always used to calm his own panic attacks, was only met with more incoherent begging for silence. It had been Patton who rescued him, who brought the teacher over and ended up guiding the sobbing Logan to an empty classroom. There he had been met with silence. There he felt his terrified bawling turn to weeping with relief. In the silence, he’d recovered, his muscles lost the tension, and he allowed the freckled boy to wrap him in a hug.

He’d only been able to call it a panic attack before. But now he knew the term. Sensory overload, brought on my the noise and the stress.

It had been a relief just to know that. To know that in moments when he stood among too many people, feeling his muscles clench as their shoulders brushed his, that his hands should not go out to push them away, but to his ears, to block out the trigger.

It became a cue, when debates with Roman got heated—they were friends after all, if rivals as well, and it was understood that if Logan’s jaw suddenly clenched and his hands went up to cover his ears, they had to pause for at least a minute.

But of course, knowing where the holes in his social skills were led to Logan compensating, and it didn’t..always feel natural. He found himself staring at people, trying to read their faces, for a little too long on many an occasion, or overreacting to something because he’d overanalyzed the tone. He found himself having to bite his tongue on many an occasion to keep himself from simply explaining why he did what he did to his parents, who would only take it as making excuses.

It was a balance of the good, the bad, and the ugly. He understood now that his all-or-nothing attitude was why he found himself simply not doing projects if he couldn’t grasp the material—and this led to him having to more often than not, swallow his pride and ask for help when he was getting frustrated. Yet the same black-and-white philosophy got him gasps of shock from Roman when he explained that, in the story Roman had been iterating to him, the whole second half of the plot could have been avoided if Leealli had simply decapitated Sorcerer Kai while they were trapped in her dungeon. Roman had protested, saying it would make her just as terrible as they, but Logan had frowned, explaining that yes, the act was cruel, but if a single act of evil by her direct hand was all it took to stop countless others by her indirect hand, wasn’t it worth it?

But he had also been the one to convince Patton not to remain friends with Oliver, when one day, sitting on the cotton candy clouds that patterned Patton’s quilt, the smaller boy had confided in him that Oliver had vented about his habits of self-harm to the kind soul for three hours the night previous, yet refused any help Patton gave, shot down any attempt at saying he was worth more than he thought.

It was Logan who had took Patton’s hand and told him that people like that could only be helped by themselves and a therapist, that he should not take it upon himself to bear others’ problems in that way. Who had given him a hesitant hug and told him that his mental health was just as important as theirs.

His friends were his lifeline. Maybe they tripped him up—well, they definitely did, yet as much as he found himself apologizing to Virgil for seeming angry when he was simply tired and being a bit blunter and more insensitive with his words than usual (not that he usually was tactful or sensitive when it came to criticism, even constructive criticism) he found himself sighing in relief as the anxious boy shared with him his own experiences in worrying about the negative undertones in the words of others too much to be considered healthy. They would sit and talk about it, the same experience for two different reasons, one of them due to the irrational fear of people disliking him or being angry, and the other due to worrying he was doing something incorrectly that he was not aware of, failing to pick up on a crucial piece of information.

As much as Logan found himself and Roman butting heads, even shouting at each other during friendly debates gone sour, name-calling and snapping fault after fault, he reflected fondly on the time he had been ecstatic to discover that Roman’s own ADHD-riddled brain hyperfixated on Disney just as his own did on Sherlock, and they would both go on for hours about their obsessions while sadly recalling how old interests had faded.

As much as he often found himself hurting Patton unintentionally, and even worse, learning that Patton had been hiding that fact from him for weeks as to spare his feelings, as difficult as it was to convince (well, more plead with) Patton to tell him these things, as he wouldn’t be offended much and he had no other way of knowing what he was doing wrong, he found himself sitting by his side, all attention completely fixated on what to him were mindblowing truths about people and yet seemed common, boring knowledge to Patton, as the freckled boy explained cues and rules, that invisible language Logan did not speak.

Those friends stuck by him, even though others did not. With all the walls Logan had built up around his emotions, to protect himself and others, few could breach the fortifications—except for those who had already been on the inside as he built them. And he was fine with that.

Going to a therapist was...awkward at first, but it helped. Mr. Picani understood his aversion to talking of his feelings, and instead cleverly tricked him every time, asking questions about events until Logan was off on an angry rant. With that expelled, they’d talk through possible solutions.

He kept the book. And most of the other books he was given on the topic, eager to learn and understand more things about himself, knowing the reasons behind behaviors, quirks in things had always been one of his favorite things, and now he found it was possible in people.

As Logan worked through his discovery during the last semester of eighth grade and through that summer, with his Virgil, Patton, Roman, his parents, Mr. Picani, and occasionally even his rainbow-haired little sister, he found his mind shifting. He was truly calm now more often than not, able to express his rationale...well, rationally, rather than through insults. His debates grew calmer, and while he certainly had his slip-ups..he was improving. Slowly. Steadily.

His viewpoint of the world was unusual, like an outsider, and while that could be isolating, if he explained it well, people were often interested to hear it. It was different, his own; the metaphor Logan found himself using was that everyone else was a Macintosh computer, and he and his fellow spectrumites were PCs, capable of all the same things, though in ways the world was not wired to accommodate. Also, clearly superior in many a way.

His core programming was different, even if his exterior seemed the same, and Logan was okay with that. He’d never know the invisible language, not as a native would, but he could learn it—the same way he learned slang, through help, a lot of online research, his friends, and some study notes here and there.

It was complicated, they way he figured things out, the systems he’d devised. But complicated problems would never be solved with simple solutions.

And he still had plenty of time left to learn.

(Thanks to @poisonedapples for betaing this and basically screaming RELATABLE every two second, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear!)

(...I don’t really have a general fic taglist so imma just- y e a here)

Tags: @royallyanxious @whatwashernameagain @sandersmarvel @the-incedible-sulk @supremestoverlord @hanramz-the-fander @childhood-wishes-and-dreams @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @madly-handsome @galaxy-warping @extremist-water-agenda @ierindoodles @princeanxious

[is6621]

The Evolution of Ed Tech by Romil Parikh

Listening to the recent presentations and discussions on educational technology peaked my interested in the field. I found the different facets of the market quite interesting. The rapid development and change is also astounding. Looking back at my life I remember my first interaction with educational tech was through the Leap Frog handheld games and toys. As I child I was so taken with the refreshing nature of the tech product and how much fun I had playing the games. This soon progressed to SMART Boards that were used in my middle school and high school classrooms. SMART Boards were these new “cool” interactive projector boards that allowed teachers to treat the board like a projector and as a white board. They were able to draw on it with the SMART Board pens and also tap on the board to simulate other interactions.

One of the most interesting examples of Ed Tech is TED Talks. These are world famous educational talks given by individuals on a specific subject. TED Talks are different from most Ed Tech because they do not necessary focus on a topic like chemistry or math, but instead they focus on topics that affect people today. Many of these topics involve a lot of self reflection for the viewers because they are challenged to think about new unique ideas and whether to implement these ideas in their lives. These talks have become so popular that Boston College actually does it own version of a TED talk every year by having students speak to their peers on topics that seriously matter to them. 

Khan Academy is another very important form of educational technology. This is an online educational organization that was started by Salman “Sal” Khan in 2005. Sal started Khan Academy with the hopes to spread free education to people everywhere. His website allows anyone with an internet connection to learn entire courses on classroom topics. The online tutorials start off with a black screen and as Sal begins to teach her writes on the black board as though he were teaching you in real life. The website is incredibly user friendly and very interactive because users can sign up for free accounts that will allow them to track their progress within a certain subject, practice through practice problems, and leave comments in the user comments section. The team at Khan Academy is extremely proactive in responding to genuine questions and comments left within the comments section in order to help boost the learning of many of its current users. 

As the popularity of Khan Academy has grown, many institutions, such as NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, Stanford School of Medicine, The California Academy of Sciences, and Massachusetts Institution of Technology, have wanted to partner with the organization to create featured specialized content. NASA has worked with Khan Academy to produce two different series “Measuring the Universe” and “Exploring the Universe”. A 2012 Forbes article discussed that when Khan Academy had only 37 hardworking employees in 2012, the organization taught over 10 million students. Being a private NGO, it is quite difficult to determine valuation and current statistics on the company, but one thing is for certain: as the company has swelled to over 150 employees, the user base has exponentially grown.

The newest and most interesting new form of educational technology appears to be hologram lectures. A Financial Times article introduced the concept and discussed how it plans to be used by The Future of Management Education Alliance, a group of six highly ranked business schools, which include the Imperial College Business School in London, England. The concept of holographic lectures is very interesting and an extremely important development because it will actually be used as a tool to combat the growing popularity of online courses and degrees. This truly surprised me because I thought it couple be used to supplement online courses by adding an additional “Wow factor”. As the price of online education decreases and the price of in-class courses increases business schools must alter their current strategy in order to stay competitive, both price-wise and education-wise.

Insendi is an educational technology venture program offered by Imperial to help digitize the existing degree programs currently offered by Imperial’s partners from the Management Education Alliance. Insendi will be heavily developed in house and carried forward by the engineering team at Imperial. The basic holographic system was acquired from Arht Media, a Toronto-based firm. Arht’s technology is considered as the cheapest and best on the market right now because it allows holograms to be developed using a standard broadband internet connection and conventional cameras and projection equipment. Some of the most interesting pros of holographic lectures are that they will now be able to connect students from different universities around the world, have experts illustrate a process “live”, connect geographically remote classrooms either on different campuses of the same university or on different universities, and the abilities to rewatch lectures and have the same experience as seeing them live.

While I am very excited by the prospect of holographic lectures and this new technological feat there are a few things that trouble me. Will this even be appealing to students? How can students ask questions in the classroom? Using this new form of tech, will many students be willing to attend a classroom if they can project a hologram in their own living room? Will it really beat out online courses because it seems like a more expensive format? How many schools can even afford to create this type of a lecture? 

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/01749584-dcf9-11e8-8f50-cbae5495d92b

https://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/11/7-ways-holographic-technology-will-make-learning-more-fun/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/11/02/one-man-one-computer-10-million-students-how-khan-academy-is-reinventing-education/#67ff82f544e0

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content

https://www.khanacademy.org/about

https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all

https://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/11/7-ways-holographic-technology-will-make-learning-more-fun/

https://www.leapfrog.com/en-us/about-us/index

[smokeybrand]

The Fallacy of Education

I think elementary school is necessary to an extent but everything I've ever learned after probably the third grade, was during summer break at the library and then all of the time when my family got a computer. I never really learned anything “new” in a classroom setting, from probably the fourth grade and forward. Sure, it's dope to have someone bounce ideas off but you can do that with anyone. You can do that online. Hell, I DO that online now. SO what the f*ck is the merit of going through the tribulations of “school?” Capitalism. Capitalism is the “merit.” School is designed to break your spirit as a youth and train you to be a drone in the workforce. The structure of how education here in the US has been built, is designed to acclimate you to a forty hour work week early on. It's built to make you yearn for holidays and the weekends. It grooms you to raise your hands to ask questions and punishes those who deviate from the assigned tasks. Free thinkers are shunned and the arts are almost always removed in one form or another. Creativity is killed in service to conformity because capitalism needs that in order to function. The second it's removed, the second people questions the status quo, is the second they understand the terrible conditions in which they've been forced to exist. But, if you're not smart enough to ask the right questions, then there is no threat to the current class system.

When i got to fifth grade, i went to a substantially sh*ttier school than before. We move into a worse ghetto than the one I grew up in for he majority of my life and that was reflected in this school's curriculum. These kids were morons. That wasn't there fault, the system had failed them because it was assumed they weren't worth the investment. We'd all end up being thugs and criminals because that was what our zip code dictated. When I got there, I kind of f*cked all of that up. These kids were reading well under their grade, the “smart” one rad at a high school level if I remember but i could read at a college level. Indeed, I was well into checking out Shakespeare and Dante by this point. That was too much for my teacher. He graded on a curve because the kids were so stupid and, after that fist test where everyone failed but me because I got such a high mark, told me flat out that there was nothing he could teach me. I became kind of a TA in that class and never turned in another assignment for the entire year. He just gave me As on everything and apologized profusely for not being able to adequately challenge me. It was difficult to see because I would tell this dude loved teaching and he had an opportunity to rally flex his passion with me but the system in which he had to work wouldn't allow him to do any of that. Because the system, itself, isn't built to educate. Imagine being an educator trapped in that cage? Now imagine being a student trapped in there, too, oblivious to the handicap you've just been saddled with.

When i got to the seventh grade, i was put into remedial courses against my ill. We moved back to my old neighborhood ahead of my sixth grade year so I was able to return to my previous school where it was understood that myself and a handful of others were WAY too smart for our own good. They got us more advanced materials from the surrounding high schools and basically told us to teach ourselves. My then principal drove us over to a separate middle school because it was supposed to have better materials and more advanced courses than the neighborhood one. Our principal and the one in the middle school spoke, we all demonstrated our intelligence, and it was agreed we'd be placed in advanced courses in the coming year. When the new year started, I was not placed in those agreed upon courses. My zip code reflected the ghetto and not the bourgeois neighborhood this new school was in. They assumed i was an idiot, even though i was enrolled specifically for the more challenging curriculum, and dismissed my previous academic accomplishments without a word. My elementary school principal literally drove me over there and introduced me to that school's principal because she wanted to make sure the staff understood that i was wildly intelligent "for my age." Didn't matter. They saw a Meadowview zip and i was put into classes with a bunch of idiots. When i protested, they refused to change my schedule. It didn't take long for most of my teachers to realize I wouldn't be in such pedestrian classes but the administration refused to budge. I was ghetto trash and they didn't want to hear anything else, even if it was coming directly from the teachers in charge of me education. My science teacher literally had us coloring f*cking pictures as work assignments. I refused to do such ridiculous busy work, demanded that he teach me some sh*t and, instead, he suspended me from his class and threatened to fail me.

When i got to high school, i was wildly disillusioned by education and basically coasted my way through. I understood that i could learn more on my own and pushed to be home schooled. The way the that system works is you show up for in-class check-in on Monday and pick up a packet of schoolwork. You complete the school work through the week and turn it the following Monday. No classroom. No teachers. No fuss. All of my credits, and then some, and none of the the everyday baggage. I could excel at my own pace, which we have established far outstripped whatever the f*ck the curriculum is at any given time. Plus, I could return to proper coursework at any time. My plan was to knock out about three years worth of credits that first year and try to get into the off-campus internship with the State. It was called the Regional Occupation Program. I'd be paid to work for the State part time while accumulating proper work experience, and still have time to take some college courses at the local Community College. I'd still be able to come back and participate in all of the social sh*t like dances and games plus, I'd be able to walk the stage with my proper class. I'd be able to challenge myself, build toward my future, and still have that high school experience. But my mom refused. Everything i said here, I said to her, and she still refused. She's a slave to tradition and tradition dictated that i HAD to go to class everyday. The system HAD to be maintained. So i did and, as the years progressed, i went less and less. By senior year, i went just enough to keep the cops of her back and still graduated with a 3.8. I never one applied myself in high school and literally just showed up because cops, gym, and girls. Most days, i left early because f*cking why not? I wasn't learning anything. I wasn't being enriched in anyway. By my senior year, I had two Teacher's Assistant classes, two gym classes, Government and a creative writing course. I never went to that one because it was the last class of the day and Transformers came on halfway through it so I skipped it everyday. In order to pass, I just printed out a novel I wrote when I was in the eighth grade. He gave me an A, even though I was only there in person around thirty percent of the school year. I was writing high school level sh*t when I was thirteen. That's the story of my whole life and it didn't get any better when I got to college.

I thought it was going to get better when i got to college. It did not. I had toured a few campuses around my neighborhood and even sat in on a course or two. I went to a few College Fairs and even got accepted into a couple of HBCs. After a I graduated high school I opted to go to a community college that was near by. I' m poor so I couldn't afford a proper school and the scholarships available to me were all partial. I didn't want to have to split time between working and college so I figured if I got the core courses out of the way early, I could lighten the load and have an Associates to take into a part time gig or something later. I had actually gotten into Stanford and wanted to go but the cost of living was WAY too staunchy so this Community college plan was the best option. I lasted a semester. That sh*t was like going back to high school but i had to pay for it out of pocket. I had dreams of debate and lecture, of challenging a professor who could challenge me in return What I got was more of the uniform apathy that has dogged me my entire education career, only now it was driving me into f*cking debt. I love learning. I love reading. I love thinking. None of that I was even conducive to school here in the states. Often times, it was objectively frowned upon. From kindergarten to literally college, I was always under the gun in that sense. To this day, my curiosity is insatiable and I research everything. I want to know all of the things and the big sh*t like theoretical physics or the math necessary to infer the universe before the big bang, is absolutely tantalizing to me. I was frustrated with the stifling rigidity of school f*cking twenty years ago. I can't even imagine what it's like for kids nowadays.

The education system in the US is f*cking ridiculous. It's not meant to build intelligence or free thinking, it's an assembly line method designed to acclimate you to a forty hour work week. It's supposed to get you used to sacrificing the majority of your life in service to capitalism, busting ass just to get to the weekend or next holiday off, because that's how you'll live the rest of your adult life. They're not in the business of education or teaching life skills, they're in the business of manufacturing more cogs for the great machine that is the “economy.” Why the f*ck do I need to know Algebra 2 when I can't do my own taxes? Why the f*ck do we have to spend three weeks studying the Crucible when I don't know how compound interests works? Parents should play a part in this, for sure, but how difficult is that for them to do? They are victims of the same system and have to sacrifice their liberty in order to pay bills, after being bludgeoned with that same aggressive system necessary for them to abandon their hopes. A smart person is a difficult person to manipulate. When people understand, or even have the ability to comprehend, the scales fall from their eyes. We're seeing that now with the “Employment crisis” and how no one wants to go back to being underpaid and overworked after a the Pandemic showed the world for what it was. It's in capitalism's best interests to make sure the masses are smart enough to produce but dumb enough to never understand that they control the means of production. Why do you think everyone wants the kids to "get back into the classroom" when it's obviously easier to "teach" kids over zoom? When it's obvious that they learn more and understand better at home? When entire grade averages have increased considerably, over the entire country, since kids have been studying at home? Because that structure is more important than the learning. Every kid has a phone, computer, or tablet at this point. Internet is everywhere. There's no reason to have in-class learning, especially considering how many f*cking classrooms get shot up around these parts. Especially considering that there are more kids like me thanks to the ready-to-consume inf oration at our fingertips. This one got away from me but i really, really, hate the "education system" here. It's so boorish and archaic, f*cking obsolete, especially in the age of the information, so why go back to that broken system? Because capitalism needs drones not dreamers. It needs conformists, not thinkers. It needs ignorance not education.

[riddleblack246]

Elizabeth “Ginger Ale” Hopkins

For @sassafrasx and @kingsmansecretsanta

Prompt: Tell me more about Ginger: What’s her background/life story?

I wasn’t entirely sure about what was meant by this, since it was in the “other prompts” category, so I figured I would make a mini-aesthetic set and talk about my thoughts on Ginger’s back story. Head canons below:

She is from Bloomington, Indiana

She is a Cancer

Her family consists of her mother, her father, and her older brother

Her family calls her “Lizzie” and the nickname stuck with her until college

She had a twin sister (Abigail), but she passed away when they were in middle school due to an accident

They were both proficient at the violin, but Ginger always believed Abigail to be a lot better. When she died, Ginger stopped playing and stuck to scholarly interests

She wasn’t unpopular in school or inherently closed-off. She just was never great at making and maintaining friendships. Her sister had really been her only friend during her childhood and when she died, Ginger grieved and didn’t feel capable of finding friends to have as a support system. People comforted her, but she didn’t really have anyone to talk to about the loss. She didn’t want to talk to her family because the pain was still fresh to them too. She wasn’t comfortable talking to teachers or other adults because they always took her words too seriously and would call a counselor or her parents, which was something she didn’t want. So, she ultimately decided to deal with it on her own and grieve by herself. Eventually, she was able to find interests outside of school. She joined science clubs, built robots for fun, went to movies by herself on the weekend. She learned to be her own friend. And she didn’t see anything wrong with that. She had a couple of people she became close to in high school, but once they graduated, they all drifted apart

She initially just wanted to study biology in college, but her love of tech stayed with her. She fought tooth and nail to keep science electives where she could, even though she was already taking such a heavy load. She loved college. To her, it was perfect. No parents asking her why she didn’t go out more. No counselors asking about her social life. No one that remembered the sad girl that wandered around looking lost. No more “Lizzie”, just “Elizabeth”.

She was halfway through medical school when she created a skin graft that could heal tissue damage in half the time. She submitted the studies she’d done when they were intercepted by Statesman. Champ immediately asked to meet with her, offering to pay off her student loans if she came to work with them after she finished medical school

Statesman logistics are a bit different than Kingsman. Initially, Champ was just looking for medical personnel to take over at the agency and Ginger seemed to have really great ideas. However, he soon learned about her tech knowledge and her proficiency for mathematics and decided to move her to the role of quartermaster. She’s basically in charge of everything except mission assignments. He acts all gruff about it and will rarely compliment her upfront, but he genuinely thinks she’s a great leader and a good influence on the other agents

She was the youngest member to join the agency until Tequila joined the ranks. She is still the youngest member of the tech/medical team

Her family thinks she provides the cyber-security for Statesman and created the biometric security system that protects the whiskey (she did, but she lets them think that’s all she’s done), which is how she has so much money to send home

As she got older, she kind of became aware of her own sense of loneliness. She never really addressed her sister’s death and now that she has a sense of stability and isn’t running around in preparation for the next thing, she realized that she didn’t have anyone to turn to when she was feeling low. She and her family weren’t super close. They love each other, but they’re states apart, and they all dealt with losing Abigail in different ways, so things just... never quite healed right. She wants to get back out there and make friends, but it’s hard when your time is limited, you can’t even be truthful about what you do for a living, and you can be called away to work at a moment’s notice. That, and because she never quite got down the unspoken rules of maintaining friendships, she isn’t super great at meeting new people.

She gets into her own head too much. When she’s able to just speak and not think about everything she’s saying, she does fine.

She’s one of those people that would love a boyfriend, but she isn’t going to go out of her way to get one. Dating apps bore her, singles mixers make her uncomfortable, and she tried an online service once, but deleted her account when she got a dick pic (”You pay $9.99 a month to do this? How dumb are you?”)

She so desperately wants to be an agent. She wants to go out in the field and experience missions hands on and learn about the world outside of coding and firewalls and medical enhancements. She wants to experience her gadgets to the tasks she makes them for (AND THE ONLY REASON WHISKEY HAD VOTED AGAINST HER IS BECAUSE SHE REMINDS HIM OF LELA BECAUSE I REFUSE TO LET VAUGHN MAKE WHISKEY INTO A SEXIST FUCK)

When she is able to become a part-time field agent (Because Whiskey didn’t die because he didn’t betray everyone), Tequila ends up being the one training her (”As a thanks for savin’ my hide, Ginger- I mean, Agent.”)

One would think because she is “geeky”, she would like to read. She’s actually more of a movie buff. However, her movie taste is almost exclusively rom-coms and animated flicks, with maybe a few sci-fi ones thrown in

When she meets Merlin, her instinctive thought thought is that he looked like Picard from Star Trek. And then he talked and she thought about the Muppets (It is in the novelization and it is honestly the cutest fucking thing)

She personally adores super fancy lingerie. That’s what she buys for herself. Since most of her money goes to her family, expenses, and medical research, what she has for herself goes to elegant teddies and lace panties

The first time she and Merlin have sex, he thinks she prepared for it, only to see her closet. All of her every-day clothes are stuffed into drawers or tossed aside, wrinkles by damned, but all of her fancy underwear is hung up, pristine

Her corgi is a gift from Merlin. They’d been going out for a while when she learns that Kingsman recruits get dogs and she gushes over the concept. That gives him an idea. He gets her a corgi for Christmas that next year. She takes to him instantly and names him Rowlf after the Muppet

In recent years, she had started to teach herself to play the violin again. She’s not great, but she does it almost as a form of self-reflection. However, she only plays in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom, because even though her sister never got to grow up, it feels like they’re playing together again

She prefers tea over coffee, but when Tequila accidentally introduces her to those bottled Starbucks frappuchinos, there are always a couple empty bottles lying around the lab

Her eye sight is super poor and while Champ offered to pay for her to have LASIK, she refused because “I look cute in glasses”

She bites her nails and is trying to quit

Her favorite movie is a tie between “The Fifth Element” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (One of the reasons why she found Harry so charming was because he reminds her of Colin Firth ;) )

She likes alcohol that is crazy and probably illegal in some places. I’m talking the ones with dead bugs in them. She wants to try all the weird shit

She decides to go with the code name “Ginger Ale” because when Champ asks her what she wants to go by, she says that because it’s bubbly, sweet, and goes great with most alcohols. He laughs so hard he nearly cries and insists she stick with it because it suits her perfectly <3

[socialjusticeartshare]

First She Was Separated From Her Family, Now She’s Separated From School

A refugee child, once separated from her mother at the border by Trump, now struggles with online school.

Every weekday morning, a 12-year-old refugee named Génnezys logs into her seventh grade online classroom. She sits at a tiny table in a corner of her cluttered living room. Before logging in, she tapes her phone to a chair and dials my number on FaceTime. Once we’re connected, I peer into the screen of a laptop lent to her by her public middle school. For hours, I observe coronavirus pandemic-era education for Génnezys and about 20 other children of multiple races, nationalities, and economic circumstances. What I see is both heroic and tragic.

Génnezys is one of the thousands of immigrant children who were torn from their parents in 2018 by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. I wrote about the desperate efforts of Cruz, her incarcerated mother, to find her 10-year-old daughter. They were reunited after about six weeks. Cruz later borrowed $6,000 from a friend for a coyote to smuggle her three-year-old daughter into the U.S. The child was detained for a few days then released to Cruz.

I asked Génnezys to invent a pseudonym to protect her family from U.S. government reprisal, and she came up with a fanciful one based on the Spanish pronunciation — HEH-neh-sees — of the first book in the Old Testament.

Today the family resides in a small Southern city. Cruz works as a janitor, earning a bit less than $10 an hour. They live in a small apartment with one bedroom, which Cruz and the girls share with her boyfriend. He is also an immigrant, and he pays half the rent. He’s employed in construction, and he leaves for work very early in the morning. Cruz goes to work after taking her four-year-old daughter, whom I’ll call Bety, by bus to a daycare center. With school strictly online now because of Covid-19, Génnezys stays in the apartment all by herself from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., often supervising an 8-year-old girl who has her own school computer with headphones. This child’s Latina immigrant mother works, too, so Génnezys acts as babysitter. Before online school started in September, she worried intensely that being without an adult in the home would be lonely and scary. I live hundreds of miles away, so I volunteered to sit with her via FaceTime. She says that she feels much better when I’m with her.

During the first two days of remote school, the teachers, all young or middle-aged white women, cycled though a dither of confusion and kind but mostly fruitless efforts to actually see and hear their students. One problem was that the online platforms were glitchy. The class links often crashed, leaving the students, including Génnezys, with blank screens. But by week’s end, the kinks were worked out — yet the students remained silent phantoms.

“Know that I see you. I hear you. I’m with you,” one young teacher intoned to the kids right after introducing herself. They had names like Hassan, Rasheeda, Yennifer, and Travis. “Black Lives Matter,” the teacher added. She was met by silence from her new students, and she could not see their reactions either. She asked them to turn on their mics and cameras, but getting them to comply was harder than pulling their teeth. “What did you do all summer? How did you deal with Covid? Talk about your family!”

A boy with an Arabic name turned on his mic just long enough to say that he had a baby sister. Indeed, the loud wailing of an infant could be heard. The teacher skipped a beat, then the boy’s mic went dead. No other students turned on their microphones. Not even Génnezys, who had earlier proved she was not shy. When the teacher mispronounced her name on the first day of school, Génnezys politely but firmly corrected her. She is a brilliant girl who knew no English whatsoever two years ago yet speaks it almost perfectly now, and who scrolls through the internet on her own initiative for details about the accident that crippled Frida Kahlo.

Though she has defended her name and sometimes has been the only student to answer her teachers’ questions about math, Génnezys remains strenuously silent about most of the details of her life. The family all got sick in late May, with many days of fever, coughing, muscle aches, nausea, dizziness, and diarrhea, as well as loss of appetite, taste, and smell. They recovered, but Cruz is suffering now from hair loss — a condition just recently recognized as a complication of Covid-19.

When Cruz got sick, she was employed in housekeeping at an upscale chain hotel. She said she fell ill after being ordered to enter and clean a room occupied by a woman who was coughing. She was not given PPE for the job.

Cruz estimates that in her building complex of a few dozen apartments, about 20 other people came down with Covid-19. “No one died, but some were carried off to hospitals in ambulances,” she said, adding that all were immigrants from Latin America.

Latinos comprise fewer than one in five residents in the county. But they make up about half of the people in Cruz’s census tract, while just across a main thoroughfare almost everyone is white and owns a house.  In Cruz’s tract, many of the Latinos live in cramped little rental apartments.

During the outbreak and their own illnesses, Cruz and her children were never tested for Covid-19. Nor did she contact me, though she instructed her preteen daughter to call me for help if she took a turn for the worse. The family just stuck it out, but Cruz was fired by the hotel because of her sickness and missed work. She got the janitorial job just as soon as she felt better. She couldn’t self-quarantine: She had rent to pay, kids to feed. None of this is something Génnezys wants to talk about in online seventh grade.

She doesn’t turn on her camera either.

It’s hard to know exactly why the students as a group refuse to show themselves to their teachers or to each other. Middle school is the empire of peer pressure — pressure not to stand out, even in normal times, when rows of children are looking at and breathing with each other, along with a teacher in a real room. But the kids’ reluctance now seems at least partly due to how dispirited and disconnected their virtual classrooms feel. Génnesyz’s teachers practically stand on their heads coaxing interactions with the students, but the teachers’ energy seems TV-ish, abstract.

The kids are alone. They have no books. The only class that resembles normal school is math. As in times past, the teacher writes figures on a board and explains what they mean. The other classes are a mishmash of hyperactive YouTube science videos with men who speak too fast, and a woman with a white coat and test tubes performing experiments — work the students normally would be absorbed with in a classroom lab, but which they can only stare at now from afar, wall-eyed. An art class features hip-hop music, whose teaching intention is muddled, and digital choose-and-drag stickers and emojis. Strange, sci-fi cartoon people in Génnezys’s American History class purport to recount the high points of the antebellum human bondage, the Civil War, and the Black Codes. After that lesson, I asked Génnezys if she understood what a slave was. She still didn’t know — though she did remember the cartoon guy saying that a man named Frederick Douglass had been forcibly separated from his mother. She knew what that meant, from firsthand experience, but didn’t mention it in class. With me, she minimized her experience. She’d learned that Frederick Douglass was an infant when he was taken. “But, um, I was 10 when it happened,” she said. “I was a big kid, not a little kid.”

One teacher conducted a lesson about why students should participate in small- group, online “breakout” chat rooms. “Because they help us get to know each other?” said Génnezys, daring to speak.

“Very good! Thank you for that, Génnezys!” chimed the teacher, saying all the syllables correctly. Then she warned the students that they must use “appropriate language” in the chat rooms, and that their language was being watched.

This teacher also held a “correct answer” contest, with her pupils silently checking T’s and F’s on their screens. “True or false: If you fight at a school bus stop, you will be punished as severely as if you’d fought a school. True! Right, Brian! Brian gets a point! He’s pulling ahead of Corinne! Next question. True or false: If you touch the private body part of someone else at school, whether on purpose or by accident, you will be punished the same, either way. Yay, Corinne! She’s back in play!”

But there are no school bus stops now. There are no “someone else”s at school.

Génnezys has another reason not to turn on her camera: She is ashamed of her clothes. She fits a girl’s 14 now, but her wardrobe dates from a year ago, when she was size 10 and 12. Her shirts are too tight for her rapidly developing body. In the morning she puts on her mother’s dresses. They are several sizes too large.

Read Our Complete CoverageThe War on Immigrants

Cruz can’t afford to take her daughter shopping. She just lost another week of work, and wages, due to Covid-19. Two co-workers at her janitorial job tested positive and one is in the hospital. Because Cruz worked closely with both infected women, she was quarantined for 14 days. She had no proof that she had already contracted Covid-19. She had to stay home, along with Bety, who ran around the apartment laughing, yelling, and rifling Génnezys’s little desk while her sister tried to pay attention to online class.

An employee from the county health department came by to deliver some onions and pieces of fruit. Cruz finally got a negative test result but still had to finish the quarantine. Génnezys did not tell her teachers what was happening.

Génnezys also avoids the camera because of what Cruz calls “her obsession.” On the second day of school, a teacher asked, “What is your favorite thing to do?” Amid the mass silence, Génnezys activated her mic and bravely answered: “Play with slime,” she said.

“Slime?” said the teacher, nonplussed.

“Yeah. Slime.”

“Ah. OK. Yeah. Slime. Well, that sounds relaxing!”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Slime” is a faddish kid product that’s been around since the 1970s. Back then, it was valued by boys for its gross-out appeal. Now it’s prettier, smells nice, and is all the rage among preteen and teen girls. Many make it from a home recipe involving glue, borax, food coloring, and plastic beads from craft stores like Michael’s.

Génnezys was already into slime by age 10, back in Central America. Cruz’s partner there, an extremely violent man who was neither of the girls’ fathers, was terrorizing and assaulting Cruz and the children, threatening them with death. The girls witnessed the violence. Cruz made plans to hide Bety with her sister and flee to the U.S. with Génnezys. Meanwhile, Génnezys discovered slime. “In my country,” she remembered, “it was called moco,” which is Spanish for snot. She pushed it, pulled it, rolled and wrapped it, over and over and over. It calmed her, Cruz remembers.

After a grueling trip north, including a stay in a filthy, crowded stash house, things got worse at the border when the Trump administration took Génnezys from Cruz and shipped her 2,000 miles away to a child detention center. There, she was warehoused with mostly older Central American girls who’d come to the U.S. by themselves, pregnant or already with babies.

After spending six weeks with these young women, according to Cruz, 10-year-old Génnezys was using racy language and discussing sex. After she was reunited with her mother, she experienced night terrors and walked in her sleep for three months. She had three sessions with a psychologist. Then, said Cruz, “She entered a new phase of her life: adolescence,” and “she hardly talked about what happened.” Even so, Cruz added, “Two weeks ago, after Génnezys had an eye exam that showed a problem with one of her eyes, she mentioned to me that an older girl in the detention center hit her hard in that eye with a ball. That was two years ago. She’d never told me till now. Sometimes I worry about what’s in her head.”

Outside of her head is slime: jars and jars of it in all colors and textures, from shiny and glistening to rough and frothy. “I love YouTube slime videos,” Génnezys told me. The site has a plethora of young girls extolling their slime collections, as well productions with sexy women’s voices doing ASMR routines, and images of long, manicured fingernails digging languorously into the goo.

“I worry about it,” said Cruz. “It’s such a waste of money. But she would rather have slime, even, than clothes that fit her.”

If Génnezys were to activate her camera for her classmates and teachers, they might see her furiously and endlessly twisting, pulling, and punching her strange doughs as she fidgets at the computer and tries hard to do her schoolwork. A few months ago, Wired magazine interviewed a neuroscientist and psychologist who suggested that people might be gravitating toward slime during the Covid-19 crisis to simulate the feeling of touching actual people.

As a Central American refugee child, Génnezys has been traumatized by murderous violence, forced family separation, poverty, and plague. More and more, however, nonrefugee children in America are joining her in the grief and fear of being apart and alone. How many of these kids are scrunched over their own computers, secretly toying with slime?

“I don’t know,” Génnezys said when I asked her that question. “Maybe I’m the only one. Before the virus, I didn’t play with it in school because school was good. Now, I don’t think I could do school if I didn’t have slime. Without it I’d be dying.

“Dying of what?”

“Boredom.”

Article Source

[succeedly]

3 Things Great Teachers Do

Joe Fatheree on episode 159 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Global Teacher Prize finalist Joe Fatheree talks about what great teachers do. He shares his observations and also his hopes for improving the profession.

FREE WEBINAR ON INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover Online. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry-based learning. Join me, Richard Byrne and Monica Burns next Tuesday, October 3 for a special webinar on 10 Ideas for Excellent Inquiry-Based Learning

The Kids Discover online platform lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners at three different lexiles. It is a perfect inquiry-based tool you can use in your classroom and with your students.

Go to http://ift.tt/2v6Yj8m and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

3 Things Great Teachers Do

Shownotes: http://ift.tt/2wYZCGr Thursday, September 28, 2017

Introducing Joe Fatheree

Vicki: So today we’re continuing our recording at NNSTOY, the National Network for State Teachers of the Year.

We have Joe Fatheree @josephfatheree with us! He is a 2016 Global Teacher Prize Top Ten Winner. He does a lot of work with NNSTOY, and he is actually a full time classroom teacher teaching creativity and innovation.

But Joe, you and I today are going to talk about, “What do great teachers have in common?” because you know and have worked with so many amazing teachers.

Where teaching is today

Joe: Well, I’m excited, because I look out at the world, and we have – UNESCO says, by 2030, we have a teacher shortage of 25.8 million teachers. And that concerns me. What’s the next generation? Where are they going to look to for teachers?

I do a survey of my students every year. It used to be 30-40% of my kids wanted to be a classroom teacher. In the last 4-5 years, I’m down to about 3-4% of my student population.

So I look at these kids who are getting ready to come out of high school. They’re creative. They’re on fire. They want to change the world. They want to leave it in a better place than they were given.

They have all the right components in their heart, but they’re not looking at teaching as a profession.

On the flip side, I look at all the amazing teachers that I work with around the world. Many of them have been recognized at the highest level. Many of them will unfortunately never be recognized, but they have the same attributes.

So I’m trying to figure out… what’s the missing link here? Why do these great kids not see the career path that great teaching can provide them?

So I am looking forward to having a conversation with you – a little bit, about that today – about what those attributes look like.

#1 Great teachers have a deep love for giving back to children

Vicki: OK. So what DO they look like?

Joe: I think the first one is… Just an incredible deep love for giving back to kids. Yesterday, we had Stephen Ritz at the conference from the Green Bronx Machine. Steven lives and works in the South Bronx. He talks about it being a very challenged and challenging disenfranchised community. But they’re still people. They’re people who love their kids, they love their community.

Read or listen to the interview with Stephen Ritz “This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year”

Work is a very difficult proposition because of the unemployment rates. But they want to give back and do things. But Steven has found passion in his kids. He’s finding ways to connect with these kids.

We had a group of these young men here. They participated in a National Fellowship for Black Male Teachers. One of the guys was talking about this deep love to give back to kids of color. He wants to be that Black male role model.

Vicki: (agrees)

What the healthy, appropriate love of a teacher for children looks like

Joe: So everybody, I think, has their different “flavor” of love, the reason they got into teaching. But it all comes back to this fundamental piece about how they LOVE KIDS.

We had a conversation around the dinner table this morning about a teacher who had lost a student in a traumatic accident a couple of years ago. She was very articulate about the fact that, “That was MY child.”

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: You know, that’s how we see them. We see them as an extension of our family. So I think first of all it’s that great love.

Vicki: And there are a lot of people who have a hard time mentioning that. Obviously, there’s different kinds of love, and there are some teachers who have an inappropriate type. But we’re talking just a deep – almost parental – I mean, you know, we can never pretend to be parents. But for me, I just feel like they’re almost my kids.

Joe: (agrees)

Vicki: How do you feel?

Joe: Well, exactly. I think the great teachers around…. There’s definitely this “wall” that’s out there that you just… There’s unfortunately these inappropriate things, and you don’t want to minimize the impact that they have because they’re terrible incidents. But that’s not where the bulk of the teaching world is.

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: The bulk of the teaching world is about giving back and making sure the next generation is successful.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: I see teachers every day giving everything they have to ensure that these kids are successful.

So I think that’s the first piece. Just your giving of yourself. And you’re working with each individual child. They all come in with, you know, their individual talent sets and their weaknesses that we have to shore up. But the great teachers find a way to elevate the great ones to new heights. And the ones that are struggling, to find their strengths and build them up.

I always like to focus on the positive and deal with the negative. I think great teachers find ways to do that.

#2 Great Teachers find “out of the box” ways to work with and inspire every child

Vicki: What’s next? What else?

Joe: I love the fact that we have teachers that really find “out of the box” ways to work and inspire each child.

We live right now in a world that the educational systems are very rigid. At least here in the United States, and a lot of school systems around the country. And I don’t think they were ever intended to be that way. So we have a lot of people that are out there, and they’re lambasting this or that. It’s just where we’re at. It’s just this system development over time.

You have 300+ million people who have 300+ million ideas about how education is. This is what we’ve agreed upon. But it doesn’t always necessarily work in the everyday environment.

So great classroom teachers understand how to look outside of the box. I think what we do — you know, as classroom teachers when we went through our pre service training — we were skilled in the science of teaching. You continue to get trained in the science of teaching throughout the course of your career.

But what I love about great teachers – the world changers – They’re masters in the art of teaching, and I think that’s the real magic in the classroom.

They know how to look at each situation and find ways to inspire and engage kids, no matter what the subject matter or no matter what curriculum you’re looking at. (Despite) issues with it – budget issues you have in school… they find ways to be successful. That doesn’t make it OK for those shortfalls to be there, or for our system to be rigid, because those things need to change. But I really appreciate those teachers that have learned how to go above and beyond to create that magic in a classroom.

#3 Great Teachers bring their authentic selves into the classroom

Vicki: And don’t you find that it’s when many of those teachers bring their own personal interests and love into the classroom?

I mean, I remember… (when I was) judging the Global Teacher Prize, you get to see a lot of the different types of teachers. And I remember – you know, one teacher was dancing, and one teacher was doing this or that. And it’s almost like a little personal spark of themselves that comes into the classroom to make it unique.

Joe: Even a kindergarten student can tell whether you’re a phony.

Some of the smartest people in the world are four.

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: And they just know, when you come in the classroom whether you’re real and authentic and you want to be there for them.

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: And so whenever you’re able to peel those layers away, and you bring YOU to the classroom. The kids know that you’re in it with them.

And it’s not just like, “I’m assigning this just to assign it. There’s a purpose with it. Mr. Fatheree’s going to be with it the entire way.”

Sometimes (it’s) leading from the front, but most of the times, (I’m) supporting from the back, and giving them a platform to showcase and to do things.

I think that’s the real trick. (For)a lot of people early on in their careers, that’s difficult because you’re still defining who you are as a person. You’re looking to emulate the people around you. But I think at some point in time, you’ve just got to be YOU.

I know for me, in my second year of teaching, I was asked to teach English to low level learners. And a lot of these kids were 17 and 18 years of age. They had second/third grade reading levels. Attendance was a real issue. Discipline problems were just everyday occurrences.

What I was given was the traditional English curriculum. I had these aspirations that every kid loved to diagram sentences…

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: … and they all went home at night and had adjective and adverb parties where they all got together and figured those things out.

And that was a mistruth. And so what I had to do was strip things back.

We integrated hip hop music into the classroom. I had to bring a little bit of my personality in and become more real, and hop up there and sing with them, and be off key, and you know… let them have a little fun with me in the classroom.

Because then it became OK for them to make mistakes.

Vicki: (agrees)

Let’s get rid of this big lie about teachers

So, as we finish up, if there was one lie that you think many people in the world believe about teachers – that you could completely erase out of all of these brains – what would that lie be, that you would want to just completely get rid of?

Joe: I think that the biggest one I would have to deal with is that teachers don’t care.

Vicki: (agrees)

We have to tell the story of how amazing teachers really are!

Joe: And if the general public (thinks)… and as teachers, I think it’s incumbent upon us to do a better job of telling the story of what we do. Most of the teachers take a back seat. They never tell all the stories of the money they donate to the schools, the unbelievable countless hours they spend way above and beyond the call of duty… Just the “A game” that they bring to school every day.

And the care they have, not only for the kids, but for the kids’ parents and their communities.

So, I guess, if anything, what I’d love to be able to do is to stand before people and paint this picture of what a real classroom teacher looks like. I’d like to let people see how the bulk of America’s teaching force really is, and how they care for your kids, and how they want them to find success in the next years.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s really part of the purpose of the show, is to have a 10-Minute-Teacher Show five days a week, because I think when you sit back and you look at the amazing profession of teachers…

There are so many amazing teachers out there!

But you know, it’s so challenging to get people to come on this show to be interviewed because most teachers say, “I’m just a teacher. There’s nothing special.” And they don’t understand their existence – that they show up every day, the fact that they love kids? That’s special.

Teaching is a fantastic profession!

Joe: In 29 years in my career, I now look back with kids that I’ve mentored all over the world. They are community leaders. They’re doctors. They’re lawyers. They’re farmers.

And I got to be a part – literally a part – of building community. And I watched it in real time in my eyes. And there is no other job on the planet that gives you that satisfaction – not just when they’re 10 and in your classroom, but when they’re 18 and 38 and they’re still doing things.

And you walk into their place of business, and it’s immediately – you still have that same respect – because they know what you gave to them and continue to give to them.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: So I think it’s the most exciting job on the planet.

And I would just encourage people who are listening to go beyond the classroom. If your children are looking for careers, teaching is a tremendous career opportunity for them. We’d love to have them join hands with us.

Vicki: And it starts with all of us, treating this wonderful profession with respect. Sharing powerful stories of what teachers are doing. Teachers and our students are very remarkable.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Bio as submitted

Joe Fatheree serves as NNSTOY’s Director of Strategic Projects. His primary responsibilities include the coordination of state chapters, STEM, virtual circles and NNSTOY Fellows, video production and technology support. He continues to serve as the instructor of Creativity and Innovation at Effingham High School located in Effingham, Illinois.

Joe is also an award winning educator and filmmaker. Prior to this position, he served as a founding board member for Advance Illinois. During his tenure at Advance Illinois, he served on the executive committee, legislative committee, and chaired the Educator Advisory Committee. He also served on a professional development committee for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2015, Joe was selected by the United States Department of Education to serve as an official delegate to the International Summit on the Teaching Profession.

He has received numerous educational awards over the course of his career. In 2016, he was recognized as a Top 10 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize. He was recognized as Illinois Teacher of the Year in 2007, and as the recipient of the NEA’s National Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009. He is a former president of the Illinois Teacher of the Year organization.

Joe’s television work has aired nationally on PBS, The Documentary Channel, the Major League Baseball Network, and Hulu. As a producer he has received three Mid-America Emmy awards, two for producing and one for writing. He served as a senior developer on The Composition Book Jam and has authored numerous articles and blogs.

Twitter: @josephfatheree

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post 3 Things Great Teachers Do appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

3 Things Great Teachers Do published first on http://ift.tt/2jn9f0m

[growthvue]

3 Things Great Teachers Do

Joe Fatheree on episode 159 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Global Teacher Prize finalist Joe Fatheree talks about what great teachers do. He shares his observations and also his hopes for improving the profession.

FREE WEBINAR ON INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover Online. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry-based learning. Join me, Richard Byrne and Monica Burns next Tuesday, October 3 for a special webinar on 10 Ideas for Excellent Inquiry-Based Learning

The Kids Discover online platform lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners at three different lexiles. It is a perfect inquiry-based tool you can use in your classroom and with your students.

Go to http://ift.tt/2v6Yj8m and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

3 Things Great Teachers Do

Shownotes: http://ift.tt/2wYZCGr Thursday, September 28, 2017

Introducing Joe Fatheree

Vicki: So today we’re continuing our recording at NNSTOY, the National Network for State Teachers of the Year.

We have Joe Fatheree @josephfatheree with us! He is a 2016 Global Teacher Prize Top Ten Winner. He does a lot of work with NNSTOY, and he is actually a full time classroom teacher teaching creativity and innovation.

But Joe, you and I today are going to talk about, “What do great teachers have in common?” because you know and have worked with so many amazing teachers.

Where teaching is today

Joe: Well, I’m excited, because I look out at the world, and we have – UNESCO says, by 2030, we have a teacher shortage of 25.8 million teachers. And that concerns me. What’s the next generation? Where are they going to look to for teachers?

I do a survey of my students every year. It used to be 30-40% of my kids wanted to be a classroom teacher. In the last 4-5 years, I’m down to about 3-4% of my student population.

So I look at these kids who are getting ready to come out of high school. They’re creative. They’re on fire. They want to change the world. They want to leave it in a better place than they were given.

They have all the right components in their heart, but they’re not looking at teaching as a profession.

On the flip side, I look at all the amazing teachers that I work with around the world. Many of them have been recognized at the highest level. Many of them will unfortunately never be recognized, but they have the same attributes.

So I’m trying to figure out… what’s the missing link here? Why do these great kids not see the career path that great teaching can provide them?

So I am looking forward to having a conversation with you – a little bit, about that today – about what those attributes look like.

#1 Great teachers have a deep love for giving back to children

Vicki: OK. So what DO they look like?

Joe: I think the first one is… Just an incredible deep love for giving back to kids. Yesterday, we had Stephen Ritz at the conference from the Green Bronx Machine. Steven lives and works in the South Bronx. He talks about it being a very challenged and challenging disenfranchised community. But they’re still people. They’re people who love their kids, they love their community.

Read or listen to the interview with Stephen Ritz “This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year”

Work is a very difficult proposition because of the unemployment rates. But they want to give back and do things. But Steven has found passion in his kids. He’s finding ways to connect with these kids.

We had a group of these young men here. They participated in a National Fellowship for Black Male Teachers. One of the guys was talking about this deep love to give back to kids of color. He wants to be that Black male role model.

Vicki: (agrees)

What the healthy, appropriate love of a teacher for children looks like

Joe: So everybody, I think, has their different “flavor” of love, the reason they got into teaching. But it all comes back to this fundamental piece about how they LOVE KIDS.

We had a conversation around the dinner table this morning about a teacher who had lost a student in a traumatic accident a couple of years ago. She was very articulate about the fact that, “That was MY child.”

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: You know, that’s how we see them. We see them as an extension of our family. So I think first of all it’s that great love.

Vicki: And there are a lot of people who have a hard time mentioning that. Obviously, there’s different kinds of love, and there are some teachers who have an inappropriate type. But we’re talking just a deep – almost parental – I mean, you know, we can never pretend to be parents. But for me, I just feel like they’re almost my kids.

Joe: (agrees)

Vicki: How do you feel?

Joe: Well, exactly. I think the great teachers around…. There’s definitely this “wall” that’s out there that you just… There’s unfortunately these inappropriate things, and you don’t want to minimize the impact that they have because they’re terrible incidents. But that’s not where the bulk of the teaching world is.

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: The bulk of the teaching world is about giving back and making sure the next generation is successful.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: I see teachers every day giving everything they have to ensure that these kids are successful.

So I think that’s the first piece. Just your giving of yourself. And you’re working with each individual child. They all come in with, you know, their individual talent sets and their weaknesses that we have to shore up. But the great teachers find a way to elevate the great ones to new heights. And the ones that are struggling, to find their strengths and build them up.

I always like to focus on the positive and deal with the negative. I think great teachers find ways to do that.

#2 Great Teachers find “out of the box” ways to work with and inspire every child

Vicki: What’s next? What else?

Joe: I love the fact that we have teachers that really find “out of the box” ways to work and inspire each child.

We live right now in a world that the educational systems are very rigid. At least here in the United States, and a lot of school systems around the country. And I don’t think they were ever intended to be that way. So we have a lot of people that are out there, and they’re lambasting this or that. It’s just where we’re at. It’s just this system development over time.

You have 300+ million people who have 300+ million ideas about how education is. This is what we’ve agreed upon. But it doesn’t always necessarily work in the everyday environment.

So great classroom teachers understand how to look outside of the box. I think what we do — you know, as classroom teachers when we went through our pre service training — we were skilled in the science of teaching. You continue to get trained in the science of teaching throughout the course of your career.

But what I love about great teachers – the world changers – They’re masters in the art of teaching, and I think that’s the real magic in the classroom.

They know how to look at each situation and find ways to inspire and engage kids, no matter what the subject matter or no matter what curriculum you’re looking at. (Despite) issues with it – budget issues you have in school… they find ways to be successful. That doesn’t make it OK for those shortfalls to be there, or for our system to be rigid, because those things need to change. But I really appreciate those teachers that have learned how to go above and beyond to create that magic in a classroom.

#3 Great Teachers bring their authentic selves into the classroom

Vicki: And don’t you find that it’s when many of those teachers bring their own personal interests and love into the classroom?

I mean, I remember… (when I was) judging the Global Teacher Prize, you get to see a lot of the different types of teachers. And I remember – you know, one teacher was dancing, and one teacher was doing this or that. And it’s almost like a little personal spark of themselves that comes into the classroom to make it unique.

Joe: Even a kindergarten student can tell whether you’re a phony.

Some of the smartest people in the world are four.

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: And they just know, when you come in the classroom whether you’re real and authentic and you want to be there for them.

Vicki: (agrees)

Joe: And so whenever you’re able to peel those layers away, and you bring YOU to the classroom. The kids know that you’re in it with them.

And it’s not just like, “I’m assigning this just to assign it. There’s a purpose with it. Mr. Fatheree’s going to be with it the entire way.”

Sometimes (it’s) leading from the front, but most of the times, (I’m) supporting from the back, and giving them a platform to showcase and to do things.

I think that’s the real trick. (For)a lot of people early on in their careers, that’s difficult because you’re still defining who you are as a person. You’re looking to emulate the people around you. But I think at some point in time, you’ve just got to be YOU.

I know for me, in my second year of teaching, I was asked to teach English to low level learners. And a lot of these kids were 17 and 18 years of age. They had second/third grade reading levels. Attendance was a real issue. Discipline problems were just everyday occurrences.

What I was given was the traditional English curriculum. I had these aspirations that every kid loved to diagram sentences…

Vicki: (laughs)

Joe: … and they all went home at night and had adjective and adverb parties where they all got together and figured those things out.

And that was a mistruth. And so what I had to do was strip things back.

We integrated hip hop music into the classroom. I had to bring a little bit of my personality in and become more real, and hop up there and sing with them, and be off key, and you know… let them have a little fun with me in the classroom.

Because then it became OK for them to make mistakes.

Vicki: (agrees)

Let’s get rid of this big lie about teachers

So, as we finish up, if there was one lie that you think many people in the world believe about teachers – that you could completely erase out of all of these brains – what would that lie be, that you would want to just completely get rid of?

Joe: I think that the biggest one I would have to deal with is that teachers don’t care.

Vicki: (agrees)

We have to tell the story of how amazing teachers really are!

Joe: And if the general public (thinks)… and as teachers, I think it’s incumbent upon us to do a better job of telling the story of what we do. Most of the teachers take a back seat. They never tell all the stories of the money they donate to the schools, the unbelievable countless hours they spend way above and beyond the call of duty… Just the “A game” that they bring to school every day.

And the care they have, not only for the kids, but for the kids’ parents and their communities.

So, I guess, if anything, what I’d love to be able to do is to stand before people and paint this picture of what a real classroom teacher looks like. I’d like to let people see how the bulk of America’s teaching force really is, and how they care for your kids, and how they want them to find success in the next years.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s really part of the purpose of the show, is to have a 10-Minute-Teacher Show five days a week, because I think when you sit back and you look at the amazing profession of teachers…

There are so many amazing teachers out there!

But you know, it’s so challenging to get people to come on this show to be interviewed because most teachers say, “I’m just a teacher. There’s nothing special.” And they don’t understand their existence – that they show up every day, the fact that they love kids? That’s special.

Teaching is a fantastic profession!

Joe: In 29 years in my career, I now look back with kids that I’ve mentored all over the world. They are community leaders. They’re doctors. They’re lawyers. They’re farmers.

And I got to be a part – literally a part – of building community. And I watched it in real time in my eyes. And there is no other job on the planet that gives you that satisfaction – not just when they’re 10 and in your classroom, but when they’re 18 and 38 and they’re still doing things.

And you walk into their place of business, and it’s immediately – you still have that same respect – because they know what you gave to them and continue to give to them.

Vicki: Yeah.

Joe: So I think it’s the most exciting job on the planet.

And I would just encourage people who are listening to go beyond the classroom. If your children are looking for careers, teaching is a tremendous career opportunity for them. We’d love to have them join hands with us.

Vicki: And it starts with all of us, treating this wonderful profession with respect. Sharing powerful stories of what teachers are doing. Teachers and our students are very remarkable.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Bio as submitted

Joe Fatheree serves as NNSTOY’s Director of Strategic Projects. His primary responsibilities include the coordination of state chapters, STEM, virtual circles and NNSTOY Fellows, video production and technology support. He continues to serve as the instructor of Creativity and Innovation at Effingham High School located in Effingham, Illinois.

Joe is also an award winning educator and filmmaker. Prior to this position, he served as a founding board member for Advance Illinois. During his tenure at Advance Illinois, he served on the executive committee, legislative committee, and chaired the Educator Advisory Committee. He also served on a professional development committee for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2015, Joe was selected by the United States Department of Education to serve as an official delegate to the International Summit on the Teaching Profession.

He has received numerous educational awards over the course of his career. In 2016, he was recognized as a Top 10 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize. He was recognized as Illinois Teacher of the Year in 2007, and as the recipient of the NEA’s National Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009. He is a former president of the Illinois Teacher of the Year organization.

Joe’s television work has aired nationally on PBS, The Documentary Channel, the Major League Baseball Network, and Hulu. As a producer he has received three Mid-America Emmy awards, two for producing and one for writing. He served as a senior developer on The Composition Book Jam and has authored numerous articles and blogs.

Twitter: @josephfatheree

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post 3 Things Great Teachers Do appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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Bride to Be Diaries: The Tinder Brides Wedding Party!

Good morning everyone!

Time for your second instalment from the gorgeous Tinder Bride, and its time to be introduced to the girlie contingency of her wedding party!

Hello Cwtchers!

I hope that you have all been keeping well since I did my last Tinder Bride post!

I think most girls in their lives have been asked or have thought to themselves ‘If I ever get married, I would ask so and so to be my bridesmaid or part of my wedding’.  I can actually remember having hypothetical questions growing up with my girlfriends. Although for me it was simple when the hypothetical became reality it was also a very hard as I didn’t want to leave anyone out.

I do not want to come across bigheaded or arrogant but I genuinely feel that I am a very lucky lady and I thank God every day for blessing me with not only an incredible family but also an amazing group of friends. Coming from a Welsh/Arab background, I have a large and very close family filled with two fab sisters, three gorgeous nieces and two lovely sisters-in-laws who are all involved and so supportive along with my mother and mother in law to be. My friends derive from various walks of life and I genuinely didn’t want to let anyone down. However I had to draw the line somewhere and decided on having 2 maids of honour, 6 bridesmaids and 2 flower girls. I’m sure there has and will be some negative mutters or expressed views away from our ear shots about how our wedding is big and/or too expensive but it is our beautiful big day and Tom and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

From my perspective I couldn’t envisage my wedding day without my two sisters and three nieces by my side; it was not even something I would even contemplate. I am the middle of two sisters (5 siblings in total!) and we have an incredible bond. It was therefore an easy decision to ask each sister to be my maids of honour. Rema is my big sis and the rock of the family. She is the sibling who everyone goes to and I always turn to her as I trust her opinion as being on the same par as that of my Mother’s. Rema is the type of sister who doesn’t like a great fuss or the limelight but I’m making sure she encompasses her main role on my big day and she feels like the special sister she is to me.  Rema says ‘To be asked to be my sister’s maid of honour is a huge privilege. I was so emotional when I was asked as the gift they gave me to ask was so personal and thoughtful. In Tom she has found the perfect person who is loved by the whole family – they are perfect together. I am so looking forward to seeing my beautiful sister marry her prince charming’. Sariyia is little sis and the youngest sibling; she is also the most famous non-famous person I know! She loves being the centre of attention and we love her for being like that.  She truly is unique and I love her and all of her ideas to date! Both sisters have an amazing bond with my fiancée Tom. In fact when they are all together it’s like they are the three sisters! ‘When I was called by JOM to tell me they were engaged, I sobbed uncontrollably; together with the rest of the family we are ecstatic. I cannot wait for the wedding of the decade and I am so honoured to be their MOH. Jenine will look beautiful but I will definitely be better looking still!haha!’. 

Aleah is the eldest of the grandchildren and I became an aunty when I was 14; we have always had a special relationship as I do with each of my five nieces and nephews especially as I have been such a big part of their lives as they have been in mine. Tom is adored by them and they adore him too.  Aleah is going to be a bridesmaid along with her sister Farah who will be 14 when we wed. To think of these two in their bridesmaid dresses makes me feel very emotional. Aleah says ‘I was so grateful to be asked to be a Bridesmaid on my Aunty’s special day; it is a day we are all waiting and looking forward to. Jenine has always been there for me and she could not have found a better husband and Uncle in Tom’. Farah’s thoughts are: ‘When Jenine asked me to be her Bridesmaid, I wanted to cry with happiness as I always wanted to be a Bridesmaid and I keep counting down to the big day; it is even more of a dream come true as my Aunty is so special to me. I especially loved the bridesmaid gift they gave me which I will treasure forever’. 

Gabriella is who we refer to in the Abdo Family as Princess Abdo – she is the little apple of everyone’s eye. Although she is 5, she constantly looks online for flower girl dresses and matching shoes which is so very cute. She once told Uncle Tom that she found a dress which ‘only cost 50pence and that she and Holly-Mae would love to wear it’ it was in reality £500! Gabby ironically was the main reason I chose my wedding dress but I’ll talk about that more another time. Holly-Mae is 2 years old and is also our flower girl. Being the eldest and currently only grandchild on the Sulley side it will be lovely for my fiancé’s family as she is understandably adored by them all.

I know that Tom is so happy to have his niece involved and for me having Gabby and Holly-Mae holding hands together walking down the aisle will not only epitimise ultimate cuteness but also will personify and will symbolise our families coming together. I just pray they don’t get stage fright!

Although I could have kept my bridal party at just family, I couldn’t not have my best friends by my side either. Kate is a friend who I first met playing netball at the age of 10 years old. We were marking each other on the netball pitch. This game should have been the battle of the best- the battle of rival Primary Schools – instead we bonded sisters from other misters growing up together and even our sisters are the best of friends.  Kate is currently a teacher at an international school and I can’t wait to have her back home this summer!

‘Over the years Jenine has definitely earned the title of my sister from another mister. We have been there for each other through the best and worst times and I am so excited to be a part of what will be one of the most important days in her life. Being Jenine’s bridesmaid is a massive privilege and I can’t wait to see her looking amazingly beautiful walking down the aisle to marry the man she loves and luckily for him we approve. Jenine and Tom deserve to have the best day and I look forward to having a role in making that happen. I promise to be caring, attentive and I will NOT turn up hung over to anymore official bridesmaid duties unlike when I had my bridesmaid dress fitting!

Rachael – I first met Rachael when we sat at our High school induction day. We both turned around to each other and acknowledged our checked trousers which were both wearing! Our friendship began in the Howell’s School sports hall and has seen us through to living together in London and back home again. Rachael is such a thoughtful and kind person who shares my love of RnB music, comedy, pizza and nacho Saturday loving winter nights in watching Strictly and the Xfactor like no other!

‘Jenine is probably the most organized bride I have come across and I love hearing all the plans she has got for the wedding! We have been friends for over 20 years so I am excited and honoured to be part of the big day and I cannot wait to see everything come together’. 

Claire – my real life Barbie doll! I not only went to high school with Clairey but also ended up very randomly at the same university. We have shared so much together whilst sharing two sets of different friendship groups due to school and uni which in turn means we are part of a ridiculous amount of WhatsApp groups. My fiancé is basically the male version of Claire – always happy, positive, fun and annoying early morning people.  ‘

I’ll never forget the overwhelming feeling of happiness when reading a poem written to me about our blossoming friendship over the years and asking me to be her bridesmaid. It is safe to say that I welled up. To be part of your friend’s big day is so special and I am so privileged to be by her side when she says I do’. 

Helen – I have known Hel since my high school days too right through to living in Wimbledon together with Rach. Helen is my straight talking, quirky and inspirational friend of mine. Hel is not only an amazing science teacher, cook and baker, but such a fab mother to Harrison and wife to be this August! I am so proud to be in turn Helen’s bridesmaid this year and having shared the experience of being engaged and organising a wedding with her.

‘Every girl has a different idea of how her wedding day should be, but what unites every woman is the desire to be surrounded by their best girlfriends leading up to and on that day. He role of a bridesmaid is truly an honour and I am so excited to have Jenine by my side at my wedding this August and to be able to reverse that next September when I am one of her bridesmaids. Our friendship has always been extremely strong and full of love; to be able to support each other and share the fun and laughter throughout the intimate stages of planning a wedding takes that bond to the next level – bring it on!!’  

Then we have three amazing ladies giving readings. Bonnie is one of my best friends who I met when in high school and I was Bonnie’s bridesmaid in 2014; Bonnie is one of the kindest and funniest people I know, as well as being the most caring and best Dr ever!

Caitlin is my Twinny – fellow Solicitor who I met before we qualified at work. We soon realized we shared a love for football and also our Birthdays hence the nickname! We also have Tom’s girl best friend Kelly. Kelly has been so warm and welcoming since Tom and I met and it was fab knowing Tom had such a close girl-friend as it resonated with myself having close boy-friends too!

That’s my female entourage..keep watch for the introduction to the male party in due course..!

Disclaimer: Please note I did not bribe the above mentioned people for their overwhelmingly kind comments – thank you xxx

Liked this? You might also like these! :)

Bride to be Diaries: Introducing The Sporty Bride

Bride to Be Diaries: Introducing Jenine, The Tinder Bride

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Bride To Be Diaries: Spring Bride Ali Does All Or Nothing

Bride to Be Diaries: Introducing The Glitzy Bride!

The post Bride to Be Diaries: The Tinder Brides Wedding Party! appeared first on Cwtch The Bride.