It's finals week. My students are the frog and I'm the turtle.

All asks will be answered after I put grades in. Good luck to all taking exams.

Comic by MrLovenstein

Today I showed my freshmen Rammstein for the first time. One half were PUMPED and the other half called me old.

One specific kid said, "That's a hard drop!" so he won.

When colleagues get out the "but what if they are just experimenting/it's just a phase" in regards to our non-binary / trans students my response is always "so what if they are? It's real to them now."

Like these people are teenagers the time in life when experimenting with yourself and your identity is what you do?

Some people are goths with 14 and stay that way their whole life and others suddenly wear pastels in their 20s and nobody makes a fucking fuss about that, so like?? What's the problem?

I'm not responsible for their whole life and the important thing is that people feel accepted in their identity when you encounter them - it's not your damn business what sort of person they decide to be down the line.

So we were doing Renaissance Art Day in my World History class-- because if I can teach a mini lesson on how to draw one point linear perspective and call it standards-based instruction, I WILL DO IT-- and I was working with the table doing subtractive sculpture (okay, soap carving, sue me, marble is expensive and I don't trust fifteen year olds with chisels), and a kid looked at the thing I was carving and asked what it was.

"I dunno yet," I told him. "I'm just sort of going with it. It seems bird-ish, or maybe like a dinosaur. I'll let it tell me what it is when I get there." (It ended up being a very annoyed cardinal.)

"It looks like that one Pokemon," he told me. "You know the one I mean."

"I don't, actually," I said. "Pokemon was a little after my time, and so I never got into that."

And then-- Reader, his eyes got ENORMOUS, and he said, "You're older than POKEMON?!" as though he could imagine nothing worse in the world.

Like, I am going to turn 40 this summer, but in that moment, I think I was older than god.

When I was told I was teaching Hamilton, I was nervous. Historically, my kids have not enjoyed learning about millennial faves. But dang, I've been impressed by how much they're engaging with this:

A frequent class cutter stays late to finish a paragraph about how much Hamilton's life reminds him of his own.

Students being appalled that he was shot by a political rival but also super into it as a historical reflection of Biggie and Tupac

A frequent sleeper stays awake and begins bopping to Helpless and tells me it's actually not half bad.

A student who's constantly talking over me to her friends instead sings along to Satisfied by the end of the song.

A table of girls Google Anthony Ramos to fawn over him. Across the room, boys fawn over Jasmine Cephas Jones

I think this unit might work out.

Standard Student Behavioural Plan in 2023:

Thomas Syche (Version 66.6)

Thomas needs to be spoken to in a quiet, reassuring voice, especially when hiding under his desk in the corner and ignoring all attempts to contact him. Thomas needs 30 minutes of rest time for every 3 minutes of work he completes, as well as a further 10 minutes of time to crawl around the classroom in an upside-down wheel position while making seductive cat noises (as jointly approved by college principal, senior board members and Thomas’ guardians). Thomas is very shy and does not like attention, which is why he only responds to questions with shrieking sounds, an indication of his severe feelings of anxiety. These sounds are a genuine form of communication by Thomas and any answers he gives through this language should be recorded and marked by all teaching staff accordingly. Thomas is encouraged to provide his (optional) consent to participate in all group tasks and may wear his teacher-cancelling headphones throughout each lesson. His entire year group are reminded to carry on them at all times the Cat Communication Sounds For Beginners infographic provided by School Psychologist Number 18 (note: numbered in order of recent resignations), in order to best foster successful peer communication and good will. Thomas must be gently reminded (on an ongoing basis) that biting, throwing chairs and hurtful cat screams are not his most effective forms of group work. Thomas has been entrusted with carrying his medication upon his person at all times and should be strongly (yet gently) discouraged from selling it to the Year 3s, overdosing in the maintenance staff toilet, or melting the remaining tablets with the Science lab technician’s bunson burner from behind the bins at the back of the school near the roundabout across from the oval, like last time. Thomas is not allowed to use his mobile phone for any reason during school hours, other than communicating with his best middle-aged online gamer friends in Chechnya for emotional support during tests, as well as to snooze his fifty-seven alarm reminders to take his morning, mid-morning, breakfast, elevensies, afternoon tea, dinner, supper and dessert medications, for which he must be supervised at all times by an appointed staff member to take the exact medical dosage required - see Thomas’ personalised staffing roster for medication supervision (note: roster updated last minute, frequently - seek immediate legal advice if you miss your assigned time). Thomas is both strongly (and gently) discouraged from bringing his katanas, num-chuks and home-made wolverine cutlery claws to class, and has been recommended to keep such emotional support items in his locker, along with his emotional support mature minor medicinal marijuana, emotional support vape, and his emotional support Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 2023 high performance gaming laptop, to which he is legally entitled twelve hours of non-stop extra-curricular daily usage in order to further develop and extend his already significant hyperfocus and bladder retaining abilities (please note, if parental credit card bounces upon game purchase, immediately enact Lock Down Procedure Felidae Carnivora and bypass campus A and B ceiling sprinkler systems, like last time). For any questions or proposed alterations to this behavioural care plan for Thomas, please contact: Thomas himself, directly (and gently) from underneath his desk, exactly 58 minutes and seventeen seconds after his elevenses medication consumption. In communicating with Thomas, please refer to the approved staff copy of the Cat Communication Sounds For Beginners infographic.

Top 10 Hilarious and Relatable Statements for Teachers

Teachers have a lot on their plates, from lesson planning to managing classrooms full of students. Sometimes, they need a good laugh to relieve the stress. That’s why we’ve made a list of the funniest statements that every teacher can relate to. So grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up, and enjoy these hilarious tweets that are sure to brighten your day. Teacher Life: You know you’re a teacher…

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Remembering the English teacher I had around 16/17yo who had a brilliant idea. While teaching advertising language one day she tells us that her husband works in advertising and companies send him mock-ups of planned campaigns so she’s brought some in.

Can’t remember what product it was marketing but one of them was a pair of handcuffs in a red velvet lined box.

You’re really gonna mention your husband then show handcuffs he has to a class of late teens while you’re 7mos pregnant and not expect a reaction?!?

Us teachers really are the stupidest sometimes.

My students' assignment was to write a text about a romantic relationship they have or had. Since most are teens that never had a relationship, I usually just let them make up stuff.

One of my students came up with a nice coffee shop meet-cute where she's working abroad and met this guy who came in every day to see her and he was annoying at first but she realized he was actually pretty nice and now they are together.

My fanfic ass is living for it. You go, Bella!

Just thinking about how fake and stupid this sounds:

My then-bosses gave Workbro and me a hard time about nothing at our Christmas party in 2019. It made me feel really unappreciated at work, so I decided to start looking for a new job. So when I went back to work the first week of January 2020, I had a whole plan of finding a new job, and the first step was to digitize all the worksheets, class activities and lesson plans I'd made, and put them in my own Google Drive, so I could take them with me when I left. It took me about 2 months to scan and upload and organize everything I had in my class binders, so by the beginning of March 2020, I just happened to have put all my teaching resources online.

So I'd be ready whenever I found a nice new job. Definitely not because I was about to spend the next 3 years of my life teaching online.

If I read that in a novel, I would roll my eyes so hard.

Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

So yesterday I wrote a whole long tl;dr Thing about some serious bullshit the school district I work at was trying to pull that was going to affect my ability to communicate with students, and I had spent a LOT of time contacting other folks about it-- administrators, principals, district folks, basically any contacts that I have developed in my thirteen years of teaching-- and I was not very hopeful because my district is good at some things, but giving a shit about making teachers' jobs harder isn't one of them.

BUT. BUT I WON. THEY'RE GOING TO UNDO THEIR STUPID DECISION. I AM VICTORIOUS.

\o/

And it only took multiple hours of phone calls, emails, two nights of anxiety dreams, and district-level folks bald-face lying to me about things!

WHATEVER I DON'T CARE I WIN

Today two of my students (who normally text and fall asleep) begged me to let them take their books home because they wanted to read more. One said with a huge smile, "This book is actually dope though. I like it."

faith unshaken.

"A Palestinian family in Tal al-Sultan camp, west of Rafah, decorates its tent in preparation for the month of Ramadan in order to preserve Ramadan customs and bring joy and happiness to the children to alleviate the effects of war." from Belal Khaled, 02/Mar/2024:

Do the traffic cones have any basic knowledge like shapes and colors or do they have to learn all that from road wiz?

They have a school session every week

Gonna take a nap before the next classes 🫨🥲