#teacher rant

[greekmythcomix]

How I teach the Iliad in highschool:

I’ve taught the Iliad for over a decade, I’m literally a teacher, and I can even spell ‘Iliad’, and yet my first instinct when reading someone’s opinions about it is not to drop a comment explaining what it is, who ‘wrote’ it, and what that person’s intention truly was.

Agh. <the state of Twitter>

The first thing I do when I am teaching the Iliad is talk about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about Homer:

We know -

- 0

We think we know -

- the name Homer is a person, possibly male, possibly blind, possibly from Ionia, c.8th/9th C BCE.

- composed the Iliad and Odyssey and Hymns

We don’t know -

- if ‘Homer’ was a real person or a word meaning singer/teller of these stories

- which poem came first

- whether the more historical-sounding events of these stories actually happened, though there is evidence for a similar, much shorter, siege at Troy.

And then I get out a timeline, with suggested dates for the ‘Trojan war’ and Iliad and Odyssey’s estimated composition date and point out the 500ish years between those dates. And then I ask my class to name an event that happened 500 years ago.

They normally can’t or they say ‘Camelot’, because my students are 13-15yo and I’ve sprung this on them. Then I point out the Spanish Armada and Qu. Elizabeth I and Shakespeare were around then. And then I ask how they know about these things, and we talk about historical record.

And how if you don’t have historical record to know the past, you’re relying on shared memory, and how that’s communicated through oral tradition, and how oral tradition can serve a second purpose of entertainment, and how entertainment needs exciting characteristics.

And we list the features of the epic poems of the Iliad and Odyssey: gods, monsters, heroes, massive wars, duels to the death, detailed descriptions of what armour everyone is wearing as they put it on. (Kind of like a Marvel movie in fact.)

And then we look at how long the poems are and think about how they might have been communicated: over several days, when people would have had time to listen, so at a long festival perhaps, when they’re not working. As a diversion.

And then I tell them my old and possibly a bit tortured simile of ‘The Pearl of Myth’:

(Here’s a video of The Pearl of Myth with me talking it through in a calming voice: https://youtu.be/YEqFIibMEyo?sub_confirmation=1

And after all that, I hand a student at the front a secret sentence written on a piece of paper, and ask them to whisper it to the person next to them, and for that person to whisper it to the next, and so on. You’ve all played that game.

And of course the sentence is always rather different at the end than it was at the start, especially if it had Proper nouns in it (which tend to come out mangled). And someone’s often purposely changed it, ‘to be funny’.

And we talk about how this is a very loose metaphor for how stories and memory can change over time, and even historical record if it’s not copied correctly (I used to sidebar them about how and why Boudicca used to be known as ‘Boadicea’ but they just know the former now, because Horrible Histories exists and is awesome)

And after all that, I remind them that what we’re about to read has been translated from Ancient Greek, which was not exactly the language it was first written down in, and now we’re reading it in English.

And that’s how my teenaged students know NOT TO TAKE THE ILIAD AS FACT.

(And then we read the Iliad)

[circulars-reasoning]

Hi, I hope this ask isn’t too invasive…

You’ve mentioned before that you’re an English teacher, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to speak a bit on how you became one (education? certifications?) and what it’s like for you teaching while living with DID.

The reason I ask is, I’m a senior in high school and I’ll be going to college in the fall. I’m really worried because I have so many alters who all want different things for my life. But in general, I’m drawn to teaching and many of my alters are okay with the idea of pursuing this as a career - especially if I can teach English, which has always been my best subject (I’m in the US).

I’m really scared about entering the adult world, and want to be as prepared as possible for this shift. Hearing from a system who followed the career path I’m considering would be really amazing!

If this ask bothers you or if you’re not comfortable answering it, I totally understand. Thank you for your time and consideration!

- Freya

Hey!!! Sorry I missed this ask -- I hardly use this blog and actually plan on deleting it soon. Just need to get around to reblogging the important posts.

But this is an important one, and I really want to respond here, in the hopes that you'll see it.

I'm an English teacher for 6th grade in the US, and I can say that, without a doubt, college was harder than being a teacher is currently. Do not let your experiences in college stop you from your goal. The professors will not be kind to you, especially if you don't know what's happening to you.

I'm going to pop this under a cut because boy howdy I am rambling.

In terms of college and working to become a teacher with DID:

Firstly, and most importantly: Scheduling. You will need to be completely on top of scheduling out your few years of college. You don't need to be perfect, mind you, but please be aware of what classes are required and when you will take them. My college fucked me over on this. The reason it's so vital is because most education programs in the US are 5 year programs -- 4 years of college, and a 5th year of one semester of a "practicum" (an unpaid internship at a school). During your practicum, you're not supposed to take any extra classes. I was taking 3 classes on top of my practicum to stay under 5 years. Don't do this. Either bite the bullet and do that extra 5th year of schooling, or plan accordingly so you don't get stuck the same way I did.

Now that that's out of the way:

DID definitely impacted my ability to study for things. It really helped having someone else holding me accountable; my partner, my roommate for 3 of my 4 years of college, really helped me out and basically did the education degree alongside me in spirit. If you can, find someone else to help you study.

That someone else should not be a fellow education major. This is because almost all of them will drop out by the time you graduate. That's a sorry truth, unfortunately. In my Junior Literature class of 6 students in my junior year, only 3 moved on with their degree; in my senior year, I was the only one who moved on. This is because college is fucking grueling, and everyone dropped out, thinking teaching would be harder (I'll get to that).

Don't try to overcome your disorder in college. Don't try to heal or recover while going through classes. Try to survive. You do not need to focus on recovery immediately, and it is a BAD idea to pile that much on your shoulders while in college and while teaching. Try to maintain and survive as best as you can. Recovery is a process and it will work on its own as you go through.

You can absolutely bullshit your way through an English degree, easy. It's not hard. Especially if you start writing about fanfiction in Lit 101 -- or at least, in my experience, that got me far. If you know you'd good at English, I would highly recommend it, esp if you're good at School English.

For your other classes, you'll likely have to do gen ed credits. Be creative and have fun. To fulfill my math credits, I took programming and "mathematical excursions" (you do fun shit with math and learn to pay for a house -- it was incredible). To fulfill science credits, I took Astronomy as a night class and got to look through a telescope during a night class for an A. It was awesome. (Well, ok, that class sucked, but you get the point).

DON'T OVERSTACK YOUR CREDITS. I wouldn't go above 18 credits per semester. I usually did around 16, and the minimum we could do was 12. Don't go minimum, but do not overstack. Again, scheduling, don't overschedule yourself.

You'll take a form of practicum each year more than likely. This will be where you go to a school and teach for a bit, and then you'll go do homework about what you taught. In your first year or two, you won't be doing almost any of the teaching; you'll shadow a mentor teacher who will show you how to do the thing. This is honestly so beneficial, but...

TAKE NOTES. For fucks sake, the memory part of DID fucking destroyed me in college, and notes would improve everything. Take double notes, honestly -- physical notes while in the school, and digital notes once you get home.

GET ENOUGH SLEEP. DID leads to insomnia so frequently. Start trying to keep good sleeping habits now, because it WILL get worse as college goes on. Do NOT do what I did and try to survive on 3 hours of sleep a night. It is not sustainable and you will catch every single disease these kids transfer onto people, I swear to god.

The Dean of Students will actually help. A lot. Please go to them if you're struggling. If you can't go, then send someone you trust to advocate for you. In my senior year when everything was going to shit with my mentor teacher (she was a horrible woman) and the admin at school were shitty to me (again, a horrible woman in charge), my partner went to the Dean and advocated for me. That mentor teacher was forced to retire from the school the next year, and my admin had to extend my semester by 3 days to give me a better practicum with someone who could actually do their fucking job. Do not feel scared to advocate.

Please. Please, if you remember nothing, remember this: do not listen to your coworkers in your final practicum. Don't listen to what they say about you becoming a teacher. These people are jaded assholes who, in my experience, want nothing more than to bomb the school. I wish I was kidding, but genuinely, so many of them are horrifically jaded and don't want to be there, ESPECIALLY when your practicum starts (which almost always coincides with state testing schedules). Teaching is awesome, genuinely, so long as you enjoy it.

And lastly for the college aspect: It gets easier. It really does. College was absolute hell for me up through senior year. This was because not only was I doing full coursework (ouch), but I was also starting to really understand and process bits of my trauma (yikes) and I was still with my abusers (yikes). This makes it so, so much harder, in so many ways. And I still did it. And now, here I am to live and tell the tale, and now that I am a teacher?

This shit is so much more forgiving. I have slipped up so fucking much, but as long as you do your best and mean well, your bosses will fucking adore you. They desperately need warm bodies in the room to help make sure the kids don't set fire to each other, and you are certainly going to fit the job description if you give a single shit.

Be open about some of your issues, but not all. I'm very open at work that I suffer from a disorder that leads to amnesia, but I'm careful about how I do this. "I actually have an issue that leads to a lot of forgetfulness, so if it's possible that you could send me a reminder of that meeting, I'd appreciate it." That's all I needed, and now we have a group calendar and my coworker has forgiven me numerous times for missing something.

Your mistakes as a system are completely seen as just. Normal Ass Human Mistakes. Forgot a meeting? Happens to everyone. Broke down crying in front of the kids? Shit fam, the teacher across the hallway walked out last week, you're doing remarkably just because you stayed.

The kids can fuck you up. Genuinely. They WILL trigger you. You WILL get memories of your childhood and it WILL hurt. And you will get through them with patience, time, and understanding. It'll be okay. Please, work hard on reminding yourself that these kids are not actively malicious. They do not understand your perspective.

To that note, almost every single teacher I know has a therapist. It is not a shocker to be in therapy. Most teachers need it. If you don't have one, I highly recommend getting one, if just to bitch about your coworkers with someone who will nod and say, "You deserved better than that, you're right."

Most of teaching is paperwork and meetings. Like genuinely, it's kind of ridiculous. We have meetings every Monday and Thursday, with occasional meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday. It's a LOT of meetings, and everything needs documented.

Work life balance. Please have one. This is when you start working on not bringing work home.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZZES ARE OKAY. GENUINELY. I was so firmly against them as a student in college -- "that doesn't test genuine knowledge!" Neither does school. Please save yourself the hours of grading and do a few multiple choice quizzes. In some counties the system you use will autograde them.

God I could talk about this for hours on end. I'm really genuinely happy to answer so many questions about this. If you want to know anything specific, feel free to ask. I'm also over on @circular-bircular and plan to use that as my main system blog, so you can ask me more questions there if you want.

You've got this. I am absolutely rooting for you.

[avonsdrabbles]

Man, I hate the mentality among some of my coworkers in this county that just using the right teaching strategy will somehow make things better.

A person at a planning meeting today was talking about how she was trying so many teaching methods already, but nothing was working. Her class was unruly, constantly talking, and treating her with no respect. She talked about how she’d tried rewards, proximity, challenges and competition, collaboration, yada yada yada.

I get it. I was like that too. I tried everything, and seemingly none of the teaching tricks worked. And another teacher jumped on it and was like. “Oh, have you tried changing the seating?” Yes. “Have you tried rewarding the entire table, rather than the individual kid?” Well, no, but I tried individual rewards, and they had no interest. Maybe I’ll try group rewards???? “It worked for me!”

I sighed. Because if they aren’t reward driven, they won’t be reward driven, regardless of the format you put it in.

I finally chimed in and explained my own struggles, and how I overcame them. “I had a class like that — disrespectful, didn’t care, constantly talking over me. I fought and fought and fought, trying everything to get them to care. And they didn’t. And at the end of the year, I asked them, what can I do to not fail my kids next year like I failed you? And they were shocked, because they’d had no idea what they did got to me.”

These are 11 year olds. They don’t get it! They don’t know you’re a human being unless you show them. I started being more open about my trauma. I started being more casual about my personal life. I started talking about my partner, and the games I play and fandoms I write for. THAT is what ended up working.

So I told her, “You can’t change their behavior. You can only encourage good ones. Right now, it feels like you’re putting this all on yourself, when it’s not on you — it’s on them. Make sure they know the effect it’s having on you, and let them know you’re not at your best at the moment because of it. Don’t feel bad for struggling to have patience with them, because you’re allowed to struggle, same as them.”

Another teacher nodded. He smiled and said, “that’s great. You should try that strategy, and hey, you can also try-“

And he told her all about competitions between grade level classes.

My method wasn’t a “strategy.” It was being human. It was teaching these 11 year olds that people are human around them. But teachers are so focused on finding that Trick That Works, that Strategy That Solved The Problem, that they don’t realize that teaching isn’t about strategies and learning practices. It’s about being a person, and letting the kids be people, and making sure they have the tools to BE those people later on.

Bluh.

[disast3rtransp0rt]

I have gotten the opportunity to be the Safe Queer Adult for several teens while substituting at a high school and it has been the most incredible experience. I am beyond thankful for each and every exhausting moment and I need to vent some positivity.

I am so grateful for the two closeted-ish trans kiddos who anxiously shared their information in whispers after hearing me say "You can call me Miss or Mister, I don't care." and now regularly swing by my room just to hear their actual names/pronouns used with joy. And I'm grateful for the 14 year old lesbian (who will absolutely build her future wife a she-shed from scratch someday) who heard me say "my girlfriend" and immediately stopped fucking around in class and started turning in assignments/chatting with me at my desk/asking her more studious friends for help focusing. I'm even grateful for the conservative boy who started thinking about how his words impact other people after I said one of his offhanded homophobic comments really hurt my feelings - cause he spends every morning before school in my room chatting even though I'm not his teacher. He hadn't known I was queer until that moment, but other students did, and the awkward silence must have made him think.

Cause I'm the Cool Substitute. The one who will work with you about extensions and let you have test corrections without jumping through extra hoops. I know from living through both sides of the relationship that respecting kids and showing them patience is the best and fastest way to ensure empathetic, confident adults.

They know how dearly I treasure each nervously extended phone screen covered with prom dress pinterest ideas and transitional haircut options. They can rely on how hype I will get over their 3-second "new haircut glamour pose" when they walk into class. It costs me nothing to give an exhausted athlete a 1 day extension on his project after 2 consecutive basketball games. Kindness goes so far, but especially with kids, and I hope this little rant can reach some people who need to see it.

To quote Dr. Chuck Tingle, "The inertia of all things is toward love."

[ms-camucia]

School rant, sorry its kinda rambly. TW for school shootings, bomb threats, the whole Apalachee High situation.

Nothing like last week's news to make me so, so glad I’m not in a classroom anymore.

I taught in Georgia and South Carolina for 13 years. Even did an observation at Apalachee during grad school, since it was a relatively quick drive from Athens/UGA - you know, back in the distant past of 15 years ago when teacher training had actual rigor and requirements in this part of the country. I even taught at the psychoeducational alternative school that Barrow county bussed their most extreme EBD kids to. So yeah, this hit close to home for me.

My financial situation basically changed overnight last year, when Dr. Mr. Camucia finally finished his fellowship and became a full-fledged attending. This let me quit my job right in time for South Carolina to implement its policy where teachers would have to submit every. single. thing. that would be used throughout the year. Every book, website, lesson plan, PowerPoint - all would have to be submitted within the first two weeks for administration to approve, and parents would have the right to veto or challenge anything they want. You know, in addition to the million other things teachers already do, and crap I had to do handling the yearbook.

(You can only imagine what a policy like this would be like for me, teaching a class called Media Art where both teaching Photoshop and media literacy/criticism were in my standards 🙃)

But things, particularly where I was teaching, were already Bad. And, in fact, getting Worse. This was a school where we already had an entire year of bomb threats well before Covid (including one with an actual failed bomb! My fanfic Footnotes was borne of the insanity of that year!) - that basically showed the exact protocol of what happens when something like this happens at a school. We did all the things everyone claims would stop this sort of thing -

-They added metal detectors (which basically flagged almost everyone, causing 1st period to basically lose 20 minutes a day since so many kids had to get wanded down every morning). They gave up on those after about a week.

-They added more cops, more cameras, sealed off more doors, did all the things, but the bomb threats, kids bringing in weapons, etc. just kept happening.

-They even (years later) added a security system very similar to the one at Apalachee - except, oh, wait - my classroom, and like six others were just… not hooked up to the system. They took my old school panic button, said they’d fix it "later" and give me one of them fancy lanyards with the panic switch, and that just never happened. Three of the classrooms didn’t even have the fire alarm work for their room! They straight up missed fire drills!

My last year there, there was a huge fight in the cafeteria. Like the kind that makes the news, not the kind that happen almost every day that just get posted to tiktok or whatever (I was on bus line afternoon duty, and frequently had kids compliment me on how bored I’d look breaking up those kinds of fights).

But this was a 10 or so person brawl that ended up with multiple student injuries, blood all over the floor, a whole school lockdown, and a teacher breaking their leg trying to hold back the crowd watching/recording/cheering it on. I taught two of the main participants - they were suspended, then "expelled," then mysteriously just showed back up a month later after some sort of appeal to the board of ed. I was told to let them make up any work they missed during their month off, which they both referred to like it was a vacation (would it surprise anyone to know these were football players?).

This isn’t isolated. Ask almost any teacher and they’ll have multiple accounts of kids just… not facing consequences when they get written up, or not caring about parent calls (because the parent doesn’t care either), or seeing ISS and OSS as vacations since they just get to sleep and play with their phones. I don’t think people who haven’t been in a school realize just what it’s like now. And I don’t know what the environment was like at Apalachee, but I know that the facility where the most troubled kids for that specific part of Georgia was shut down last year - I know this because I worked there.

Apparently all of the GNETS (Georgia Network of Educational and Therapeutic and Support) schools in Georgia were shut down last year for having these kids not mainstreamed enough. I can say from having worked there as an art teacher that the system was not perfect, but that these kids did not belong in a mainstream classroom. I was stabbed, kicked, spat on, had literal shit thrown at me - and I was one of the better liked teachers! But at least there were smaller class sizes and much better ratios of social workers and psychologists working with the kids and their families. We had access to resources that regular public schools are just stretched too thin to pursue, things like getting families off the street, clothes and food for students' whole families, etc. So these kids were just sent back to their home schools for their presumably already overwhelmed regular Special Ed departments to deal with.

Apparently in Barrow County, where Apalachee is, all of the kids who were at the alternative school are sent to just one school per level, plus taking on additional kids from other, smaller counties in the area. I’m sure caseload numbers went way up, and the behaviors being dealt with got a whole lot more extreme in just one semester.

This kid should have had so many red flags. There already were, according to the FBI! But as far as schools, there should have been a dozen counselors, administrators, etc. who had worked on a fat ol BIP (behavior intervention plan) about this kid that every teacher got before he even stepped foot into their classroom. It’s not uncommon to get kids where you know for a damn fact you’re not supposed to let them go to the bathroom unaccompanied, or have to check in with guidance every morning, or who have to get their backpack searched every morning (or aren’t allowed to have a backpack at all! I had a few of those!). But that apparently just… didn’t happen.

So, yeah. Every part of this whole situation has just made my skin crawl. Those kids and those teachers should be alive. Those kids who got shot and will be traumatized for life should have never had that happen to them. The cult of gun worship in this country is sickening, and the more we gut public education, the more teachers will just throw their hands up and give up like I did - this isn’t going to get better without drastic, dramatic change. And I really just don’t see it happening in this country.

I miss teaching. I miss my kids. I was, by all accounts, pretty damn good at it. But with things the way they are, and the sheer insane number of things we expect teachers to be able to do while also blaming them for everything, I'm not going back.

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

There have only been a handful of times in my 7-year teaching career that a student made me so instantaneously Furious that I honestly thought I was going to lose control and either say or do something I would regret. The first time was 4 years ago.

I told a fifth grade boy to sit down and he looked me right in the eye and with a snide voice said

"OK, BOOMER!"

The other two times were today. For the last two weeks we have been building up to what I'm hoping is going to be a giant mural over native americans. We first learned about the Native American tribes in Texas. Over the course of 2 days I showed them videos of murals in cities like New York and Philadelphia so they could see what really great murals look like. I explained that whatever they had to draw had to be large. This week we introduced the research component. We gave them a brochure to fill out about their tribe where they had to answer all kinds of questions and draw pictures. Today was the second day of that and as I was giving them more pointers about Google I pulled up art from each of the tribes.

I reminded them that when they were done researching they could start planning a rough draft of their mural on a page of blank white paper and then transfer that over into a giant piece of paper.

The first thing I heard when I told themm this today was

"What's a mural?"

As they researched today I pulled up some recent pow wows on YouTube and played them. I heard several kids be extremely surprised because they thought Indians were make believe or something. They kept saying "oh wow I didn't realize they were real!" " those are real people there ?" "I didn't know they still existed!" "where are they at?"

So then a few kids finished up so I told them to starr a rough draft of what they wanted to put on their part of the mural. Three kids brought me the most absolute random drawings in the world. Trying not to be disparaging I asked them "Can you tell me what this picture has to do with your tribe?"

They pouted and exclaimed "You didn't tell us the pictures had to be about INDIANS!!"

[thecircularsystem]

Sup u said ur a teacher and I just realised that means you probably came back from a long break of teaching.

Is it hard to adjust between the two things with parts of your system forgetting how to do things or expecting something else or is it just life?

or, you know, restarting things is scary does it get easier? Or are you just someone whos good at restarting things

This is how teaching feels currently-

No, it does not get easier, and each year, the start of the year is hell. We have to refigure stuff out, we have new things we have to learn on top of it, and teachers are treated like absolute dogshit.

But for some of us, it feels worth it. And all of us can agree that we needed someone like me as a kid, so... we're at least glad we can be that for someone else.

[lamelavellan]

Sometimes being an autistic teacher is fantastic. Routine, regular socialization that surrounds my hyper focus’s, it’s varied enough while still being comfortable most of the time, you kick ass at the job in the eyes of students at least because boy you like your subject area.

Then you have the lows like being hunted for sport by your neurotypical peaked in high school and wanted to relive it types. For some reason they are usually English teachers?

Sensory hell is all around you in the halls which are loud as all hell and muggy and usually smell strongly of funk and weed. Your classroom is a somewhat refuge but usually it’s loud and dirty and things are constantly being moved or changed and you’re trying to accomplish tasks and help students while also ignoring the *change* in your things you’ll need to fix in the five minutes you get to pee between classes when they want you to stand outside your door. You will get a nasty gram email for not being out there enough if you have the misfortune of needing to reset your room often or pee frequently. Did I mention how LOUD IT IS. With the occasional even louder interruption of a drill or a random long winded intercom message.

Your students love you but FUCK your coworkers rarely get on with you. Even the ones who do are clear that they find you odd and your methods unorthodox so there’s always that little edge of a taste of judgement. Wait until you try to write or respond to an email. That’s a whole word puzzle of a situation.

I need to sleep for a week.

[burgerspeople]

As I write lesson plans, the more I consider getting certified in a subject other than English. Trying to teach kids how to write a multi paragraph essay by spring when half of them can’t write a paragraph, and at least a fourth of them can’t write a complete sentence, is so frustrating because it reflects on MY teaching when test scores suck. They keep shoving data trainings at us thinking it’ll save test scores. I’m like… we KNOW how to access and interpret the fucking scores. Give us training as to how we can teach these skills better because something clearly isn’t working at our school or any of our feeder elementary schools. 💀💀

[mavrla]

I graduated three years ago from my master’s program. I finished with a straight-A average, got the best grade on the scale from my thesis, and got picked to a research group for a multidisciplinary project from a bunch of qualified candidates. I was told by my supervisor and by the person who graded my thesis that I should continue my studies on PhD level. I wanted to continue my studies on PhD level. So what did I do when I arrived back from Rome?

Started teaching in middle school. 

The reasons were (mostly) financial: COVID shut me the opportunity to return to my old place of work, and I got offered a teaching position after sending applications to practically anywhere I could imagine working. The idea of having a job that I had an education for was alluring, too, even though I never really wanted to teach for a long term.

I have now taught in middle school for 2,5 years. I don’t particularly like the job - I like to teach, yes, and both religion and history are lovely subjects with many opportunities - as the everyday demands with cramped classrooms, students who need more individual support that it is possible for one person to offer (while still teaching all the other kids in the classroom), and the angry parents are quite a lot to deal with. They also create the kind of challenges I don’t particularly want to solve, nor have the resources to solve. On a personal level, I don’t feel like I’m moving forward or learning to be a better teacher, and so, with all this cynicism that is just increasing every day, the entire purpose of my job is to survive for a day, a week, a month, until the next vacay. Which I need to use to gather my strength and rest. The sheer noise of school/classroom makes me want to go directly to sleep after each workday. 

In short, I’m working in a job that could be interesting, but isn’t that for me. I need to find an out before I get even more burnt out than I already am.

The obvious choice, the dream choice, would be going back to the academia. But, as we all know, it isn’t that easy. PhD applications are a challenging project, where you need to stand out as both an excellent scholar and a person that is agreeable enough to work with. And trying to stand out as a middle school teacher who just *wants* to return to academia because she can’t tolerate the idea of staying in the classroom for any more time is... difficult.

I always feel like I’m not enough to apply anywhere. I might have a curious mind, but my imagination is lacking and it has always been very difficult to me to find a fresh angle to any given topic - which, to me, sounds like an essential skill to a PhD student. My English is better than it has been, but I’m still not anywhere near native speaker level, and I have little other language skills to compensate for that. I read French, Italian, and German all to some degree, but I’m not capable of writing or conversing in them. As a historian, my knowledge of ancient languages is lacking, too. My Latin isn’t as good as it should be. My Greek is barely there, as are my Hebrew and Arabic. I know I can study more, I know I *have to* study more, but still, the feeling of being just too incapable of doing anything with these skills lingers.  

I know I can write. The problem is I hate writing. After graduating, I have participated in two different article collections, and it's been an honor, but I still enjoy reading other people’s thoughts far more than I enjoy vocalizing my own. So, this has lead me to think that perhaps I don’t want a PhD, perhaps I just miss the academia - getting to read and converse and enjoy being surrounded by curious people who love the same sticks and stones I do? Maybe academia in itself is my happy place, but taking the next step there isn’t for me? 

So maybe I should leave my job and apply for another master’s. I could do history, as I already have a strong background there, or Islamic studies, psychology or philosophy, as I used to minor in those. I could expand my expertise and study something like gender/intersectionality studies. Or I could just try to apply to some prestigious school and see if the grass is greener in there, if that would make me feel like I was able to conduct original research sometime in the future.

At the same time, I feel like doing a new master’s would not only be a financial suicide but also taking a step back - a step I have already taken and completed relatively successfully. I have ideas that I love, I have willingness to pursue these ideas and see where they would take me, but taking the next step and trying to sell these ideas feels so terrifying that it’s debilitating. I have spent so many days lying in my bed reading fanfiction when I could have sent emails to some professors I know could help me (or ignore me, which probably is the more realistic worst case scenario in comparison to the imaginary derision and laughter I’m expecting in my head).

I feel so tired and confused and alone with all these thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears. Some days, they just hurt me more than they usually do, and today is just one of those days.

[greekmythcomix]

✨Why Paris is such an Utter Plonker✨

(2014: https://greekmythcomix.com/comic/why-paris-is-such-an-utter-plonker/)

This little ranty Paris infographic is also a two-section video over on my YouTube channel: an explanation of the comic and then a detailed literary rant, with evidence, expanding on all these points. An essay, if you will, on Paris’ Plonkerness.

Enjoy!

youtu.be/1pJ-BOwkHaE

[circulars-reasoning]

"Teacher Therapy" -- JFC

Anyone ready for a break from my usual content? Good, stay with me.

A friend linked me this absolutely fucking god awful video, and I really need a good break to write about what I'm actually passionate about (Teaching). I cannot resist writing a live-blog reaction commentary to this. Below is Teacher Discourse, and the video is all about why this person quit teaching due to... a lack of corporal punishment in schools???? Boy howdy, let's get into this.

Timestamps are listed out, and those are when I paused to address what was just said.

TW for: Advocating for Child Abuse, mentions of trauma, and an entire ramble about, y'know. The American School System.

Timestamp 0:15 - Those of you who aren't teachers might be wondering what these behavioral plans are. She explains them later in the video, but I thought it might help you to see them described here.

Maybe you had them as a kid, maybe you didn't, but they're all the rage nowadays. She specifically mentions PBIS (which actually is not what the system is called anymore - this specific behavioral system is called MTSS now, or "Multi Tiered Student/Structural Supports." I'll be calling it PBIS, or "Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports," for the purposes of this post, as what this teacher is specifically bitching about pertains to the structure of punishment.). I happen to work at a school which uses PBIS, so here's the breakdown of how it works:

Students receive positive or negative reinforcement for good behaviors. Positive Reinforcements (such as school currency, more recess time provided, or mid-month games for good behavior) and Negative Reinforcements (such as removal of assignments, removal of class-time, early dismissals) are given for individuals, whole classes, or entire schools in the case of good behaviors. Then, for bad behaviors, students receive positive and negative punishments. Negative punishments (removal of privileges, removal of peer attention, etc) are typically used less than positive punishments. Positive punishments in PBIS look like "Steps." Here's my school's step system:

At the start of the year, and throughout the school year, the values presented by the PBIS system are shown to students, with clear expectations. Students are told that they will receive steps when they have broken or ignored these PBIS standards. A student misbehaves in Semester 1 by speaking during a test during English, which goes against the Respectful standard. After many informal warnings about this behavior, the behavior continues, and the student receives a Step. This is Step One. Step One is a formal warning, and an email home. Then, they misbehave the next day in Math by breaking pencils - also against the Respectful standard (this one gets broken the most, I won't lie). They receive Step Two, which is a classroom reflection form and an email home. Step Three is a lunch detention. Step Four is a meeting with an administrator and a counselor. And Step Five is a referral. The student cannot get rid of steps, but they reset at the start of Semester 2. Students also cannot get two steps in one day unless the teacher who wants to give a second step contacts the counselor first. I've never seen a student earn two in one day.

To put it in perspective - the majority of my students, by this end of Semester 2 (when teachers and kids are more burnt out and volatile) currently have at most two steps. There are some who have, like, 12, but they are very rare and often have problems that a school management system cannot solve (disorders, trauma, etc) and are handled on a more case by case basis. Also, students who do bigger actions - for instance, punching another student or threatening another student - receive referrals and bigger consequences, bypassing the step system due to the severity of the broken rule.

The TL;DR: PBIS is a system of positive and negative supports that encourage students to follow well detailed rules. If students break the rules, they receive increasingly more severe consequences. Students are given more chances to learn from mistakes this way, and it genuinely works in the placement I am at currently. Let's see how this woman fucks it up.

0:22 - "I hate to say the quality of kids, but- haha" Oh so you're a mask off kid-hater. Awesome! Yeah, there's a reason you hate to say it, and it's because you're arguing that kids have value based on their behaviors. That a kid can have a level of quality, like they're a fucking watermelon that's a little overripe at the store. The elementary schoolers are not produce you can scrunch your nose at, Martha, that's a living person!!!

0:28 - "The moral development of the kids in our classrooms are at a totally different place." No? Coming from someone who went into teaching straight out of schooling, absolutely not. I see the same exact behaviors at the schools I teach at that I always saw, with some minor variations in sourcing of behaviors. For instance, when I was school, kids would vandalize because their friends dared them to. Now, the kids vandalize because TikTok told them to. Wow, big difference, still a problem (and I could rant about how social media is harmful, but that's neither here nor now).

0:56 - "If you were to go to other countries-" I"m going to cut you off right there. Your gripe is with the American school system. I don't give a fuck what it's like in other countries at the moment, because taking into consideration their behavioral supports also means dissecting the health care in that country, the poverty levels in that country, the socio-economic status of the individuals attending school, the rigor of the teaching degrees in those countries, the age of the goddamn students being spoken about-- this is such a useless point to mention, and we aren't even a minute into the video!!! If you have a complaint about the American school system, mention it, obviously, but not in your video which, thus far, seems to be about why kids are morally bankrupt.

1:26 - "Those out of control schools are the very ones that gravitate toward these kind of New Age discipline philosophies." Oh my god. Woman. 1, no, that's blatantly false; schools of all kinds are making the switch to these systems because it's shown a marked improvement on behavioral issues when done well. 2, NEW AGE DISCIPLINE PHILOSOPHIES?? PBIS was introduced in 1997. That's the year I was BORN woman! 3, it's not a discipline philosophy. PBIS isn't about discipline. IT'S IN THE NAME!!! PBIS is meant to be a behavioral intervention and support. Intervention and Support means to correct someones course in life to prevent negative outcomes. Discipline means, and direct quote from the Google Definition here because it's perfect in this regard: "the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." So your issue with PBIS is that it doesn't condition students to obey you. At least tell it like it is.

1:59 - 'Here's my definition of PBIS for those who don't know-- anyways I made a poll for people to tell me if they want to bring back corporal punishment.' WHAT? Define the word!!! Define what it is!!! And god, what does the survey have to do with anything? How did your students learn anything when you jump tracks this quick?

2:15 - "People actually voted more highly in favor of bringing back corporal punishment, but it wasn't as big of a gap as I thought." That's disgusting, and I wish it were a bigger gap, in that I wish that there was .00001% of responders who said they wanted the punishment brought back. A teacher should never fucking advocate for the physical discomfort or distress of a child. Fucking hell. How did about 55% of people agree with hurting children? Disgusting.

2:31 - WHY DID YOU NEED TO MENTION THAT PADDLING IS STILL LEGAL IN SOME STATES??? Please someone fucking write to those senators of those 19 states (I should look up to make sure my state isn't one, jfc. EDIT: WHAT IN THE GODDAMN HOW MANY ABUSE VICTIMS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? Oh my god I feel sick. It's not my state thank fuck but please consider writing to your senators to get this shit banned.)

2:51 - "They call that punitive and they say that's bad bad bad- hmhmm!" That's because it is. Do not half-chuckle at me, I do not agree with your thoughts that physical discomfort is somehow a good teaching tool.

2:54 - "Office referrals are completely off the table." Straight up lies. Unless you mean the extraneous referrals teachers who were salty were writing up for... throwing a pencil across the room out of anger? Y'know, she probably means that. She probably means that she isn't able to give a referral to that kid she hates.

3:21 - "The worst behaved kids are the ones getting all the rewards." That's because it's not rewards for behavior. It's conditioning. It's literally giving them rewards for the GOOD behaviors they have, to show them that these good behaviors have good repercussions, and the more things they do good, the better things are for them. The students who are already well behaved don't need a cheer squad celebrating that they sat in their chair that day instead of standing on it. This woman seems to think that showing kids that struggle with their behavior that good behavior has good repercussions is somehow rewarding the bad behaviors. (There's a lot I could say about this idea, and a lot of stuff I would love to discuss honestly, but I'm only 3 minutes into this dumpster fire.)

3:32 - The PBIS system actually has entire pages detailing why giving too many material based rewards (like the bag of candy she mentions) is actually a very bad idea. Instead, we should be giving them material rewards for behaviors at the start, but also positive affirmations and helping them see the consequences of their actions. "Hey, here's a [school currency], and look! Because you focused today, you turned in that assignment, which turns your grade into a B. I'm so proud of your progress today, keep it up!" The kid is going to correlate good behavior to good repercussions. You slowly stop giving out material rewards unless the kid still needs that support. But lord knows she never got to that point with her kids if she was only using PBIS as a punishment system, rather than behavioral management.

3:44 - If your best skill for "motivating students" was negative punishment (removal of privileges), then you should have been fired a LONG time ago. One of the biggest skills teachers need to have is learning how to motivate their students to learn simply because learning is amazing. My kids work hard, because I purposely choose books and curriculum alternatives that interest them. I give them surveys about how I can teach them better, and then I actively show them I am listening to them by actually doing the things they request. I discuss their requests! The form is 100% anonymous too. Treat the kids like people!! (Also? The kids still get detention, loss of recess, and especially in-school suspensions! It's just that we don't give them out for just any behavior we feel like -- we don't rule over the kids nearly as much as teachers like you would like).

4:00 - All of the attention is going to the kids who are acting out... as a means... to get attention they are lacking... and you're upset about this??? Does the attention really need to be going 100% all kids all the time full tilt, or are we able to focus on the kids who need more equitable attention? JFC, you're literally upset that kids who need more attention are now getting the attention they need.

4:17 - "The worst behaved kids got snacks!" Your kid was acting out because they were hungry. Full stop. A lot of the students you have actually experience a lot of food insecurity. That's exactly the kind of thing PBIS is helping to address; we show them through the step system that the way they're handling this situation isn't okay, and they need to change the behavior. Let's do a story here. I had a student who I gave a step to because he was playing games in class, which is against the school rules, and he'd already received his informal warnings. This led me to contact home. This led the parent to screen him for ADHD, because he had been reminded so many times to stop. This led to that student getting accommodations for extended time. We helped the student get benefits he needed. The snacks are no different; the student being sent to the office talks to a counselor, opens up about being hangry, and gets food because that's what they need to be successful. Punishing kids for being developmentally children, for being fucking human, is never going to work.

4:24 - Awww, someone's salty that the students told the principal how shitty she was. Newsflash, kids are oftentimes going to hate you because they're kids and you are in a position of authority over you. And that is 100% valid. I think that's fair of the student, because they're still learning to attribute their frustration of the system to the system. The student may hate you, and that's fine. Your job is not to make a child like you. In all honesty, I think students hating teachers is incredibly normal, because many of them have yet to realize that you are a human being and not just a cog in the authoritarian machine they're living under.

4:29 - This is the only point of hers that I agree with so far - A LOT of these systems are not being used the way they're supposed to be. Many teachers are using them as discipline, rather than interventions. They use them as a punishment - "be quiet or you will get a step." I've also found myself slipping down this path from time to time, and it absolutely is not helpful, to you or the kids. PBIS is an intervention system; it needs to be used to show students that the current behavior isn't working, and they need to tackle their problems by using the PBIS standards. I genuinely feel that PBIS needs a lot more clarity for the students, and that teachers need more training in it than they get. But let's see what her complaints are.

4:33 - BRIBE THE KID MODE??? Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh read a study on developing intrinsic vs extrinsic motivations in children you-- uuugh

4:47 - Classrooms would be silent, and "well-behaved," and absolutely no learning would get done. You would get your wish for perfectly behaved children because you'd be abusing them. This is traumatic. (This is also an overgeneralization - you would have longer stretches of quiet as you conditioned the students into being Perfect Angels, but you would inevitably run into the kids who have a Fight response to your punishment, and that is when you will be ill equipped to teaching that kid how to not try to kill you). You are talking about abusing children in the hopes of making them obey. Your job is to fucking teach them. Re-read the job description.

5:10 - HOW DOES SCRUBBING TOILETS HELP CORRECT BEHAVIOR OF BEING A JERK TO YOU IN CLASS? Genuinely, HOW? Even if you are going the punishment route, even IF you try to utilize that incredibly flawed premise... the punishment would need to correlate to the behavior you're trying to fix. This is why these people are awful teachers. They don't teach; they try to control, manipulate, and traumatize children into giving them the power rush they want.

5:19 - "And help beautify your school!" If the child is mouthing off at you, then you need to address that behavior. If the child connects mouthing off with "you are now being punished for that action by being a janitor" -- it's entirely likely they will then see those jobs as punishments, labeling those who have to do it as someone who did something "wrong." You're setting up incredibly bad associations, and now you've traumatized that child into believing that cleaning something indicates something is wrong. Source: I can't clean the bathroom without dissociating because cleaning = punishment, so if I'm cleaning, it's because I fucked up. Trauma fucks you up!

5:22 - My eyes have rolled so far that I got to see the inside of my brain melting from your rancid bullshit.

5:27 - The people cheering are child abusers.

5:33 - "We know at a deep internal level that it would work." It would traumatize them into obeying you. I'm so disgusted that you thought teaching was the best job for you. I'm so glad you quit. I hope everyone like you quits.

5:38 - Loosey Goosey??? It is well researched my guy. Like. It has been researched. (That last link is, sadly, the best I could find for that particular article.) You're just salty because it helps kids mental health instead of their "discipline."

5:43 - Bitch I was a long term sub for two straight years at both the middle and high school levels. I have been sliced open with nails, kids have attempted to asphyxiate me, and clocks/trash cans/phones have all been thrown at me. I get what you're talking about, and each and every instance of this was kids who had a disconnect between their behaviors and the reasons for those behaviors. Each time. 100%, I do not blame those children for their behaviors at all, because nobody had taught them how to connect their feelings to healthy actions. Their frustration about me asking them to sit led to them genuinely trying to kill me. That is how much people like you (and the exact opposite of you, but that might be for a different post) have hurt these children.

6:04 - Oh god if you're saying this is controversial NOW, I'm terrified for the upcoming escalation. Was the child abuse not controversial?!!

6:15 - T. Tiny little monster people. Ma'am. Ma'am that is an entire ass human person. That's just a living breathing individual. Imagine being the ex-student of this cunt. Imagine seeing her call you, someone who was in elementary school at the time, a monster. My heart goes out to everyone who had to suffer with this abuser in their lives.

6:19 - THE WORST OF HUMANITY THAT IS INSIDE ALL OF US? Honey, it's not inside you, you're wearing it like it's Gucci!

6:32 - The worst of humanity is not getting embodied in these students. I am so stunned that someone could even possibly suggest this. What in the goddamn. And you go on to describe behaviors like... oh no... they spit! Yes, the worst of humanity -- dictators, abusers, bigots, etc. -- clearly committed the worst sin of all: spitting. Shove a cactus up your ass and spin, and I swear, it would hurt less than me having to listen to you speak.

6:49 - I do not trust any single person who describes a student as manipulative. That is an Entire Ass Child.

7:15 - "They have them completely fooled." I am almost too disgusted for words... Reminder, this woman taught ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Little ones, who are just learning school for the first time. And she is calling them, little monsters, "untrained," THE WORST OF HUMANITY???? How can anyone possibly agree with this woman? How do you get so jaded in a career that YOU CHOSE? If you ever, EVER, find yourself agreeing with what this woman says, then do not interact with a child ever again. I am so repulsed by her monologue here about how children are the scum of the earth when "untrained."

7:40 - Now you argue that right and wrong are being defined incorrectly? I do not trust this argument, ever. It SCREAMS puritan values. Tell me, what have we really 'redefined' about right and wrong?

8:11 - You've given no context for why the woman, a grown ass adult woman, was screaming at another. What was the context of the behavior?? Why did the woman need to have security called? Oh, that's right, your concern is to have people obedient, not actually fixing what's wrong in their life. Nice to see that extends to literal college aged students. Jesus christ how does anyone manage to hold a conversation with you without crying?

8:29 - Oooh so you're upset about riots huh? You're not a fan of people defending their rights. Unsurprising.

8:44 - Take a drink, she's used the word brainwashed! Hint: Children are not being brainwashed any more than this woman was brainwashed by HER OWN upbringing!

9:08 - Is. Is she suggesting that "Karen" culture is people... supporting Karens? Because genuinely, I have had to repeatedly remind my friends that politely requesting their food not be literally deadly for them to eat is not being a "Karen." Like, "Karen" culture is so blatantly negative and a Bad Thing that people are attributing completely normal behaviors to being a Kar- ooooh that's what this woman is doing. Oh. Oooooh. Yeah you're an asshole.

9:23 - Shocker of all shockers, when a student has a mental breakdown, an administrator, counselor, or parent, might want to know... y'know... what triggers them. That's why they're asking what you did. They're trying to get to the bottom of what caused the meltdown, and 9/10 times, it's caused by a figure in authority doing something that made them uncomfortable. Grow up and admit you make mistakes.

9:32 - THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE JUSTIFIED! The feelings they had are OKAY TO FEEL! Their feelings ARE VALID. The BEHAVIOR is not. WHICH IS WHY WE ARE TRYING TO PREVENT THE BEHAVIOR. (And the feelings, because genuinely, discomfort does not aid learning and actively negatively impacts it! So we want to prevent discomfort!!)

9:40 - Just realized this section is called "entitlement." =_= Gag me.

9:53 - Once again: not random. These random systems are not random -- they're well researched. For those curious, the "horrible" ideas she mentions here, like not saying no to kids, are also research based, and yes, they do work. It contributes to a growth mindset, where students don't feel like they're forever trapped in who they are in the moment.

10:10 - ... Should. Should the responsibility NOT be on the teachers? Like. You are in charge of (if you're like me) 140 students in a single day, each day, every day. YEAH I HOPE YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. It is YOUR responsibility to take care of them. Again, please, reread your job description.

10:35 - She brushes up on actually good topics here - administrators struggling under state standards, the fact that testing drowns out the relationship building and negatively impacts learning, etc - but she's using these points to somehow argue that... it's the kid's fault? I'm so tired of this woman. The system is broken, and that is a problem, but that will never and has never been the fault of children. And yes, that IS why teachers are quitting in droves -- because the system is fucking broken and awful and I swear it is legitimately bringing me to an early grave. Still not the fault of the kids tho.

11:11 - The kids can't do this, actually. Have you tried? Cause I have. I'm an English teacher, and yes, I start off the school year each year with students writing out the rules and expectations before I teach them. I tell the kids to write down "what do you think the expectations of classrooms are?" And genuinely, only the "well behaved" kids SOMETIMES get it. (Actually, a lot of the underprivileged quiet kids hit the nail on the head with my rules, but that's a story for another time and not a 7 page essay already). THEY DO NOT KNOW THESE EXPECTATIONS UNTIL YOU EXPLICITLY TEACH THEM, and even then, you need to remind them, because they need to ACCESS those expectations! GOD I am tired of this woman.

11:37: WHAT'S THIS? The. There's a lack of correlation? Between behaviors and the natural consequences of their actions? It's almost like, when done properly, PBIS helps to build those correlations! But no, go ahead, rant about how you want kids cleaning toilet bowls because they said something disrespectful to you in class.

12:18 - Do I even need to say it?? Remarkably, shame is not a motivator. It has been shown that shaming kids actively hurts their learning, mental health, and achievement in all areas. But she doesn't care, because all she cares about is having an easy time. Teaching isn't easy. Boot up, bitch.

12:53 - Here's an example of a model that I think needs reworking. "I'm not mad, and you're not in trouble" isn't a bad first step... but "I am angry, I won't lie, and I need a second to calm down my anger. I'm going to breathe, and then we'll discuss why this happened, and how we can prevent it in the future" has always worked a lot better for me. I do agree with her that this isn't the best, but she needs to understand that when the rules are bad, you break them as a teacher. Straight up. That's what I do. They wanna fire me for being not a child abuser, thank god, I wouldn't wanna work there anyways. (And guess what? Since the kids like how I speak to them and how I communicate my emotions, they behave better in class, which leads to extended learning time, which leads to improved scores, which leads to me already being marked distinguished repeatedly on observations because, surprise surprise, I'm a good teacher cause I break the rules. Go figure!)

13:19 - YOU NEED TO TEACH THEM HOW TO REASON. You can't have an intellectual conversation at the level of adults with a student at that age! You need to break down their feelings and thoughts! Jesus CHRIST DID YOU TAKE DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCH? This isn't an "unpopular opinion," it's straight up misinformation.

13:46 - Aww, am I a mama bear now? But no, thinking about the worst situation I've seen in a classroom, I think back to the worst school I've subbed at. The reason it was the worst situation? The teacher was strict as hell with her kids, and I was a substitute. They took one look at me and said "I GET A FREE PASS TODAY!!" (Note: that's the first time I ever had to fill out a physical injury statement at work, because that's the day a child physically attacked me for asking her to put away her phone!). And still I do not blame her, because I feel it was those in authority that failed that day.

14:03 - Now she's bringing up Catholic school. No, sweetie, I wasn't imagining that. I was imagining my abusive family. Cause that's what you sound like. You sound like the parents who wanted to be in control of every aspect of my life in order to "protect me" and "help me understand real life so I could have a good future." Gag me. Shut up, already.

14:17 - I really do think what we have now is still broken; but anyone within their right mind can acknowledge that we have a better system now than we used to.

14:33 - "That's how it feels being a teacher in a classroom of hostile little people." No. It's not. It might have felt that way to you, but that's because you made them hostile. You were the subject of their hatred. For me, when my students get hostile (and yes, it does happen), it's because they're frustrated by what they have to do. And 9 times out of 10, that frustration is fucking JUSTIFIED! And that's when I step in, and tell them, "I think it's bullshit too. I think you're right to be frustrated. But because the system sucks, we have to do this for the time being, and if you do this, I can do these things for you to help alleviate that frustration." A lot of the times, it's promises for a better future (which I have already made progress on, such as changing how the 6th grade curriculum was this year and moving a novel they hated to the 7th grade year instead, where they will be able to process it better with more experienced teachers who had a curriculum prepared already for said novel.) If a student is hostile with you, that's not a bad thing, and the fact that you felt fear shows you earned that hostility via your actions.

14:47 - Again, you're a bad teacher if you don't know how to handle a situation where a student gets hostile.

14:58 - Teachers see their students more than their parents do, full stop. Students are with you, for instance in my school, from 7:50 until 3:30, and that's barring you having a club after school. That's 7 hours and 40 minutes. Barring any after school activities, assuming a child wakes up at 6 to make it to school on time, to achieve 8 hours of sleep, that child is with their parents from 3:30 until 10. That's 6 and a half hours. No matter what, you are with those students more than those parents are. Yes. It IS our job to raise these kids. Furthermore, you're assuming the parents DO have the capability and tools to raise these kids. Many parents work after school, many parents have multiple kids they're raising, and surprise! Some parents are fucking abusive! REREAD THE FUCKING JOB DESCRIPTION!

15:15 - I'm not a parent myself (and never plan to be) but seriously, is there some sort of parent handbook she knows about that I don't? Is there really something out there that spells out "all the things your parents should've taught you"? If there is, can someone send it to me, cause mine certainly failed in a few aspects.

15:29 - A student thinks misbehaving is fun. Why? If they think it's fun, then there's clearly a disconnect there between what they should be doing and what they are doing, and it's up to you to help them reason. If that goes against your rules, then either they need to understand why the rule is in place, or the rule needs changed.

15:48 - 'Waaaa the 5 year old gets more chances than I, a grown ass woman, get!!! That's so unfair!!!!' GROW UUUUUP

16:19 - False. Yes, this is a thing - exceeding, meeting, approaching is the latest rubric scale being sent out. But grades are still a fucking thing. I think what she's likely getting salty about here is actually floor grades -- wherein students, in many more locations around America right now, cannot get below a certain grade. For instance, at my school, if a student just straight up never does the assignment, they get a 50% (Rather than a 0). This is research based and has improved both the student's AND my mental health so fucking much that I refuse to listen to any argument that this is bad.

16:40 - I would LOVE sources on this. A school that does away with grades entirely? SIGN ME UP! Oh wait, did you mean "I no longer can use grades as a punishment for my students, because America is making a big push to be standards based, and therefore all of my grades have to follow the set curriculum standard?" Bite me.

17:04 - Yep! Straight up, yeah. Even when I was in school, they were trying to do away with "holding kids back" a grade. They offered remedial courses instead. Ever heard of summer school, woman? The only time students were held back a grade in my school was when they were in 12th grade and did not have enough credits to graduate (at which point, they just... sorta dropped out.) That's why I was teaching 9th grade English to 10th grade students. Because they didn't get held back 'a grade' -- they got held back a class. And that's not a bad thing, why would it ever be a bad thing, you stinky wet noodle?

17:11 - Skill issue. Next!

17:28 - Ooo I hope you read mine next, you fucknugget! While you were busy studying posts from child abusers, I was busy looking at the research and being the best teacher I could be for these kids.

17:42 - 8 years? God, you were a teacher for 8 years. I feel sorry for the poor children you abused in that time.

17:50 - Why were you always in fear as a teacher? I've never been in fear for my job. I have never felt in fear for what I've done as a teacher. I've had administration come to me to speak with me directly over actions I've taken, and not once have I felt in fear. I have been accused of "crazy" things, and I laughed and explained what actually happened, and the students in those situations went "Oooooh I misinterpreted." And it was explained, and I changed my behavior and they changed theirs (in some cases). Wow! All of it worked out and I am still marked as Distinguished.

17:59 - DISCIPLINE ACTUALLY EQUALS LOVE??? Woman please see a therapist, please for the love of god, I think you have some really fucked up ideals that you need to talk through with a professional.

18:33 - Why does she assume that her students would live like this in their futures? Most of my students (I teach 6th grade currently) already have big goals for their futures. Yes, the majority want to be YouTubers, but just speaking with them, they understand the work that goes into that -- they talk to me about editing, they talk about making their own VTuber rigs on Blender -- they're super advanced! The kids who want to be game designers use their free time in class to program games on GimKit. Kids, when their love of learning is fostered rather than beaten out of them, will be productive because they love to be, not because they're forced to be.

18:47 - They are CHILDREEEEEEEEEEEEN

19:14 - POJKIHGUYFVBHKM??? "People are basically motivated by two things in life: love, and fear." Therapist. Please. I am not even trying to use that as an insult, I am being legitimate. Is that all you are motivated by? When I do the dishes, I'm not doing them because I love them or because I'm scared of them -- I do them because they need to be done! It's neutral! Motivation is neutral what are you smoking oh my god.

19:35 - If this was the fullest extent of what people were saying, then yes, she would be right -- If all you are trying to do is get kids to love you and your subject, then you will always, always fail. But the thing is, that's NOT the key to PBIS, and that's not what I do with my kids. The very first thing I do with my kids, when they come to class, is set up rules and expectations. And I tell them: If you hate English, good. If you love English, good. Regardless of if you hate it or love it, it holds these specific values in your life. I ask them what they want to do or be, and explain how they'll need to use the skills taught in my class for those specific things. I explain how they don't need to be GOOD at it -- they just need to try. And then I reflect that in my teaching and my grading. If they try, they pass, and they typically pass well (well being A-B range). If they earn a C, it's typically because, frankly, they're bad at English. And I make them understand, I FORCE them to understand, and I DO yell at their parents, that Cs are the Average Grade. They mean you are Perfectly On Point for 6th grade, and you are right where you need to be. And remarkably? The kids love me for it. If you treat the kid like a kid who is a living breathing human, you have almost no problems. I wonder where this woman went wrong.

20:22 - Students should not fear learning. Students should not fear making mistakes. She is making the assumption that every single misbehavior is a personal choice on the part of the student, when usually, that's not the case. Please, please, read up on frontal lobe development, I think it would really benefit your understanding of a small child's decision making abilities.

20:40 - False, but at this point, everything you're saying is just to paint yourself as a Goddess Martyr of Every Hurt Child Abuser Teacher Out There UwU. Thank god this video is nearly done.

20:46 - Causal Pink-Collaring of teaching, love that (sarcasm).

20:56 - I love my job. Again, sounds like a skill issue!

21:21 - Honey all you did in this video was advocate for abuse...

21:43 - For once, I agree with you! The vast majority of teachers are not absolutely bat shit. All teachers are actually just people, and some have issues that makes it so they shouldn't be teachers. You fall into the latter category of 'People who should not be teachers because they hate children.'

22:00 - The only difference you're making here is burning away my braincells.

Oof. The rest is the Click Subscribe ramble.

TL;DR: FUCK THIS WOMAN AND HER ENTIRE PRACTICE!!! I am SO RELIEVED she quit teaching!!!

[avonsdrabbles]

This might be a very dumb question but uh, what happened to you after university?

This is my final year and i know in the vaguest senses of what happens immidiately after. Like eventually i probably get a job, settle down, have a fistfight with the king of england but i kinda wanna hear ppls stories

First of all, love the goal of a fistfight with the king of England. Do it. Punch his jaw out.

Second of all… ough.

When I graduated, I attempted to immediately dive into teaching. It… failed pretty hard I won’t lie. I started as a substitute because nobody took my application to be a full-time teacher. I tried to do a few interviews but I didn’t get any callbacks.

I was a substitute for 2-3 years before I eventually went to a different county and immediately got hired there. In the meantime, I lived with my abusers, all while hiding my secret multi-year relationship from them. It was… not a great time.

Now, I’m 26, and have been teaching for 3, going on 4 years, at a full time placement. I’m engaged, planning to maybe get married next year, and I have a house.

The key thing to remember is that you’ve got years and years. The vague sense of what’s going to come next… never really goes away. After you graduate, your life becomes your own entirely. No more school schedule to be beholden to. It’s hard to have all that uncertainty. (My therapist and I actually made a 6 sided “uncertainty cube” to roll that acts like a magic 8 ball, so if I ask it a question, it’ll respond with “maybe” or “it could happen.” Mine says “wouldn’t you like to know, weatherboy?” on one side.)

[inquisitiveteacher]

After a very long two days of being disrespected, argued with, and blown off by my students, I'm so incredibly frustrated with the state of education in the United States.

I **want** to help my kids. I truly care about them and want to foster inquiry and knowledge in them, to help prepare them for their future, and yet I constantly feel like I to fight to even do that.

If its not fighting an overloaded too fast standards and standardized testing system, bureaucratic red tape on the administration and political side, or simply the overloaded schedule and to do list of my life as a teacher. Then its me having to push a student who literally refuses to learn in my class to explore new cultures.

I even tried dedicating a day for students to think about their future and just have fun thinking about what they liked to do outside of school and work. I still got push back and over half of the class blew off the assignment.

I know there are kids I've helped and I know I'll still help more, but I **hate** the spot I am in right now with my classes. No matter how much scaffolding, they won't talk to each other for group activities. I get complaints during game-based learning because it's "not fun."

I just

[circular-bircular]

so like. do teachers get a summer vacation like the students? do you just not get paid for like 2-3 months out of the year? or do you actually have to do teacherly stuff during those 2-3 months? or like... if you're not teaching, do you have a side job or anything to help make ends meet?

OJIUHYBVGYFUBYI You have NO idea how many feelings I Have on this topic--

Okay, SO.

Yes, teachers do get a summer vacation. In my specific county (and most I've seen in my state), teachers have one day after kids leave to pack up their rooms and shit, and then a week before school starts again to get lessons/rooms in order. Otherwise, we get two months off. It IS pretty nice and is time all teachers desperately need to decompress from being a teacher.

Teachers can either opt-out or opt-in of summer pay. I am currently opted-out, and that is because I need the money throughout the other 10 months of the year. See, when you opt-in for summer pay, you get a paycheck over the summer -- but that money comes out of your paycheck throughout the rest of the year. ATM, I'm in a really nice county, so I make around 3k per month. That's with two months of pay completely empty during the summers. That is also split between two paychecks each month, so I get about 1.5k at a time. Some teachers get paid less because they need the money over the summer, so they get a pay cut through the year to survive. That's about 1k each paycheck.

Yeah. Teachers do not get paid enough.

So, what do I do over the summer?

No, legitimately, I'm genuinely worried about next summer. This summer I should be fine, but I do intend to pick up a second job to cover summer expenses next year. I've been thinking about a bookstore if I can, because I genuinely (read: autistically) love shelving books. I also recently created a commissions sheet for my writing, but I have yet to actually set up anything fully. Too scared to!

This year, I've got a workshop over the summer for school, for which I'll be paid around 1k for if I did my math correctly. That'll be a nice little boon for something I likely would've been doing for free anyways (it's a curriculum planning workshop, so... making lessons and shit).

Most teachers need to have two jobs to survive. Just off the top of my brain:

My math teacher friend does tutoring for 50 bucks an hour after school.

My co-teacher does home and hospital teaching after school. She's also teaching a remedial course over the summer.

My OTHER co-teacher does yoga lessons as well as tutoring, which she keeps up over the summer. She's also teaching a remedial course over the summer.

The math teacher is the only one who doesn't work over the summer afaik, and that's because her wife has a government job that pays big bucks.

Also... most teachers do have teacherly things they do over the summer months. I plan for my classes and fuck around on Blookets, prepping for the start of the year. It's not much, but it is all unpaid.

Here's a reminder to everyone to PLEASE support your teachers!!! Again, I live in a VERY rich county and get paid quite a lot. My salary is absolutely batshit compared to where I used to teach, and my state is ranked pretty high in terms of pay. My heart goes out to literally everyone in places like Florida and Texas, as they pay and experience is... Eesh.

[redtail-lol]

Me having a fucking breakdown in class yesterday because my ASL teacher doesn't understand my needs and limits despite me communicating them to her and pushing me to go way beyond what I'm able to do.

I've told her I get bad physical anxiety symptoms (emotional anxiety symptoms are absent and always have been) when in certain social situations. I don't like sitting in table groups and I don't like having to do the assignments that require me to collaborate with other students. I've managed but they're really uncomfortable. Why does she expect me to be able to sit down and play board games with classmates? I don't know any of them. I know it's for practicing signing but come on. That's way beyond my limits.

Yeah so yesterday I spent my 7th period with my counselor. Who is actually really awesome btw shoutout to her for trying to find me resources for a diagnosis and to set me up a 504 plan even without one. Love that somebody believes me about what I can and can't do.