#teaching rant
Text
Big fat teaching rant under the cut
Unlike last year where the kids were just jerks, kids this year are really really low as far as achievement and grade level.
I have no idea what they were taught in elementary school but they're just so far behind in everything. And it's not just intellectually they are emotionally like second graders.
I am honestly thinking about maybe next year studying to get certified in early childhood development because I don't feel like I'm equipped to teach kids at such a low level.
Being certified to teach 4th grade through 8th grade I assumed I will reach a happy medium of teaching maybe 6th grade.
But for the last 2 years the kids that are coming in are not at grade level. And it seems like each year they are lower and lower. I would really have to know how to teach and manage a class of first and second graders in order to be able to teach fourth grade.
Physically they are 4th graders but mentally, emotionally and behaviorally they're in first and second grade. I have one that can't count past 15. In another class, one couldn't tell me which number was bigger between 22 and 27.
It's to the point where the kids that are on the gifted and talented list are just regular 4th graders. There is nothing exceptional about them, the other kids are just that low.
As far as behavior, some days are good and some days are bad. I have spent so much time and just trying to get my 10th period(last class of the day) kids to stop talking long enough for me to even give them instructions, they are almost a week behind everyone else.
The other classes have good and bad days and one day I think I've got them corraled, they're quiet and they're listening and then the next day is chaos again.
I can't even get them to put their notebooks back in the same place every day. I can tell them where to put it. I can stand there and show them where to put it and the minute I move away they are putting it on a different shelf.
Today I gave the following instructions:
" get out your composition books. Turn to page 7.
Then you are going to copy down the I can statement from the board."
The I can statement said I can review this chapter by answering questions on page 79.
In EVERY SINGLE CLASS;
"Miss!!! We don't have a page 79 in our composition books"
"No. You are WRITING this on pg 7 of your composition book. The questions are on pg 79 of your TEXTBOOK."
(10 seconds later)
"Miss! I can't find page 79 in my composition book cuz you didn't tell us to number the pages that far!"
"No. I JUST SAID, you write on PAGE 7 of your composition book. The questions are on pg 79 of your TEXTBOOK."
"Miss!! I don't see any questions on page 7."
I am not kidding and I am not embellishing. I had to answer that question about 75 times in one day.
I'm guessing these kids were in preschool and kindergarten when covid hit and they never made it up. They are at such a deficit that I worry about them even being able to go through school and complete it. I see them getting frustrated around freshman year and just dropping out and never coming back.
49 notes
·
View notes
Note
I hope it's alright to ask a question like this! As a system who hopes to work with children in the future, I'd like to ask if you've found that having childhood trauma affects how you work with kids or how it feels to work with them. We get scared a lot that working with kids might somehow trigger us or make us feel unhappy just because we had a bad childhood, and while I know you and I do not have the same childhood and probably won't have the exact same experiences I think asking someone about this could give us some good insight :)
However I know that this could be maybe an uncomfy question? so please don't feel like you're under any obligation to answer!!! I hope you have an amazing day!!!!
- Sleepy of @endless-hourglass
I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back to you! I joined a group blog recently and my inbox got absolutely buried!
Childhood trauma has absolutely impacted my ability to teach kids. It's been... so terrifying and so interesting and so useful, being the way I am. I'm actually going to plug this under the cut, because it can be intense, looking into all this, and I'm also about to RAMBLE. Teaching and how trauma impacts people are the two biggest passions of mine to discuss.
Trauma has impacted how I teach massively. I will say, teaching is absolutely my passion, and I adore my job. I'm so happy I get to be there for these kids, that I get to take care of them and help them grow and become better people.
Note: TW for trigger talk, trauma mentions, and mentions of depression, sui, and sh.
It is also hard as shit and I amaze myself each day for being able to handle this garbage.
Teaching in a school is absolutely triggering. You have to deal with ableism constantly, reminders of your past that you'd rather forget about, and kids being kids. Sometimes, it's not even shit you can help. I've had students who share the name of one of my abusers, many times, and just seeing that name was enough to make me dissociate horribly.
... However.
That does not make it inaccessible. It just means you have to adapt.
At work, the majority of staff (and by that I mean, those who speak with me and the relevant administration) know that I have "memory problems" and need "additional reminders." If ever asked, or if I felt the need to share, I've mentioned that I have a "mental disorder that impacts memory acquisition." I've been incredibly upfront about having autism, and I've shared with a handful of teachers that I have "an incredibly severe/what is considered one of the most severe trauma disorders." One teacher knows I have dissociative identity disorder -- she's a bestie of mine.
The reason I shared these things? Accommodations. My work has been incredibly happy to work with me, particularly because it's obvious I'm willing to do what needs to get done to not only appease the standards, but do my best for the students. I take this shit seriously, I get good results, and so they need me to stay. If that means sending a few more reminder emails than is usually expected, all the better.
This, obviously, doesn't cover for everything. I can call my administrator to get 5 minutes out of class because, "I'm triggered right now and need a breather," but that doesn't negate the effects of the trigger on me, and I still need to handle it. So I do. That's the beautiful thing about teaching for me: I can not only learn to handle my shit, but I can teach the kids how to handle theirs.
For instance: The student I had with my abusers name. I saw it and I immediately dissociated pretty harshly. I couldn't handle seeing her name. It hurt too badly and brought out our protector (who, funny enough, hates teaching. He deals with it since we all enjoy it, though).
So, here's what I did: I got good. No, literally. I mean, it would've been horrific for that poor child if I asked her to use a nickname in my class, or if I avoided her name entirely. People deserve to be called by their names. So I worked on overcoming that trigger. I meditated, I spoke with my parts, I spoke with my therapist, and I internalized, processed, and compartmentalized the shit I'd been through.
This doesn't mean the trigger doesn't affect me anymore. It sometimes still does. But I got good enough at taking a breath and saying, "She isn't her, and she will never be here, and it'll be okay" that I can now handle seeing the name on my roster.
This goes for all of my school based triggers. They still affect me -- I'm still healing, after all, and that'll be a lifelong process -- but I don't let them impact my value.
The thing is, even when I was dissociative, I could manage that. I might not be the Best Teacher Ever, I might not do everything correctly, but I do know one thing well: emotional regulation and how to display that.
I have a lot of stress toys in my room, and I let my students use them. I let them know I use them myself. I show the kids how many grades I have at any given moment, to remind them that I am only human and can only do so many at a time. I have a flip-plush octopus that goes from sleepy to angry, and I use that to show the students MY mood -- "No, this doesn't necessarily mean I'm angry, but it does mean I'm having a ROUGH day, and so I want you to know that if I'm snappy or mean, it's because my octopus is flipped and I need to calm down." The kids can see instantly that I"m not at my best, *I* can see I'm not at my best, and by the end of one class period, it usually ends up being flipped back, because (and never let yourself forget this fact)... the kids care.
They care so damn much about you. A lot of them try not to show it, or will actively rail against it, but when you treat them like the people -- not children -- that they are? They will give that back to you. And the thing is, as much as it sucks to admit, these kids are absolutely going through trauma. These are students who have come to me about self harm. About depression. About being a DID system due to child abuse. They are eleven and they write me poetry about death. I've had to mandatory report numerous times, helping a child escape horrific domestic violence because of it.
It's triggering, yes. But I also know what to do. I've studied trauma and I've learned how to regulate myself, because I'm an adult and I can do that. These kids can't. Nobody is there to teach them, because the ones hurting them are the ones who are supposed to be teaching them those regulation skills. it sucks, the world sucks, their parents suck--
But you have the opportunity to make it better.
My trauma is a burden. It hurts and is heavy and I'm tired of carrying it. But I will always value the lessons and the teaching I have wrung from it. I am grateful that I can help traumatized students. I am grateful that my trauma-based learning sessions are boring for me, because I know all of it already. I am grateful that I can provide standard practice suggestions for troubled students, that I can say, "Actually, I've noticed that so and so seems to be triggered by being seated with their back to the door," and see the neurotypical eyes light up in shock at that revelation.
You have the power to be someone so special for these kids: you could be the person who understands them.
That's why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place.
HOOOOOO Boy sorry for the ramble!! I just... I have spent so long hating being disabled. Recently, I've found joy in what I"ve learned, at least. I hope things go well for you, anon. <3
#teacher talk#teaching rant#did#osdd#system#actually dissociative#actually did#dissociative identity disorder#other specified dissociative disorder#cdd#complex dissociative disorder#armageddon comes while i’m sleeping#teaching with DID
18 notes
·
View notes
Note
oh, hey there! i love so many of your clone wars fics and i’ve followed you for a while. but - and bear with me, i might sound weird - i didn’t know you were a teacher? secondary school, is… i’m not american but it’s between junior and high school, i think?
as a sixteen year old who is thinking of doing a history degree, then that one one year course thing that equips you to teach, and then hoping to become a high school history/english teacher - do you have any advice, things you wish you’d known before going into teaching, or anything like that?
i think i’d love teaching - the only thing keeping me up at night is that i won’t be able to find a job because there are many teachers, that i won’t have any free time because i know the hours are long, and that i won’t be able to support myself financially/put any potential kids through schooling/save up enough money for basic expenses, due to stuff like the inflation rate and teachers being infamously not paid well— do you have any experience or advice regarding any or all of those things, if it wouldn’t be any trouble to share?
please feel free to ignore this - i know that adults are busy in general, but also, congrats on adopting your kid, i hope that y’all are doing great! - i just wanted to ask because i honestly don’t know any of my teachers well enough to ask them any of this, and my family isn’t exactly supportive of me wanting me to be a teacher (they…. don’t think i’ll be paid anything, but i don’t think that’s completely true!), so i just thought i’d ask. again though, no worries abt answering<3
okay whoa! just found this, but i'm going to attempt to answer now! truly don't know how i missed it. this may get a bit lengthy, so i'll put a cut.
first, thank you for your kind words! our bonus daughter is doing great. life looks drastically different now than it did a few months ago, but i can't imagine it any other way. <3
okay so -- yes! secondary school in america is generally 7-12th grade. i'm certified for all of those levels, but presently teach grade 8. which depending where you are living could be different for you. here, it's 13/14-year-olds.
i did things a bit unconventionally, but i honestly recommend it, now having the perspective of peers who did it 'the right way.' i studied something unrelated to education for my undergraduate (4-year degree). then, i did an alternative certificate program to get my certification. this means i graduated university in may 2020 and had my first classroom in august 2020. it was a bit much at once, but it worked well for my personality, because i'm a sink or swim person.
most of my co-workers studied education in undergrad, meaning they completed rotations of student teaching and spent four full years learning all of the things to know about teaching. which is a viable route!!! in my opinion, though, much of what is taught is not super applicable in a real life 2023 classroom so i'd just as well have all of that mandatory" material condensed into a one year online program i can zoom through while getting real experience. the big things to know about teaching is that you'll never know it all. in my opinion, there is no amount of training that will adequately prepare you because every child is different and every teacher is different. the only was to find your stride is to do it. you'll fail a little, for sure! but what better lesson to teach your students?
to address finding a job: i'm not sure where you're located and if this affects anything, but here in america i can tell you it is verrrry easy to find teaching jobs. there is such a shortage in education because so many veteran teachers who have been sticking it out for years have finally had enough and left the profession. i work at an incredible school with a ton of support, but we had three teachers leave us this year specifically to go into data analytics because they can work from home and have a more flexible schedule. of course, getting experience with children is valuable for your resume! but at least in the united states right now, the standard is sort of 'hey if you're certified and don't have a criminal record, we'll hire you!" which is...not great for education as a whole. but great for prospective teachers...i guess?
now for the money: hmm. so first off, let me say that teachers deserve to be paid more, without a shadow of a doubt. i think we all know this so i'll save the soapbox. but THAT BEING SAID. at least in my region, i make a livable wage. do i deserve more for the amount of work i am actually doing? yes! am i struggling financially? no. of course, there are other things to take into consideration such as the cost of living in your area. but to encourage you (and your parents possibly?): i am fully supporting my family right now on a salary. my husband just graduated from law school, so as soon as he passes his bar and gets a job (fingers crossed), things will change a little. but as of now, i am able to comfortably support myself, him, a toddler, and a teenager. i am a saver and don't waste money! but i have also not gotten to a point of misery or anywhere close.
however, it needs to be said, only you know your propensity for saving vs. spending. i have many friends who DO financially struggle because they live a different lifestyle than me. and that's okay! but it's a give and take. you have to decide what is the most important to YOU and go from there. for me, it's supporting my family and prioritising family experiences over things. for many, it's a nicer house or food or entertainment or whatever. and none of those things are bad!
in conclusion: teachers (at least in my area) are paid a livable amount. but it is absolutely not the amount they should be living on, in proportion to the work they do. remember: we are not paid for summer. many districts will spreadout paychecks to include the summer...but that's the money from the school year. NOT more money. i have mandatory trainings and symposiums i have to attend this summer and i'm not being paid for them. i spend hundreds of dollars on supplies/decorations/snack for students and i'm not being paid for them. i stay at the school until almost 7pm every night to watch my students' games and concerts and i'm not being paid for them. i could say no to many of these things! but i won't because i'm a good teacher who knows these things are *necessary.* it's a hard reality, though.
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Just saw a post about ODD and how it’s overdiagnosed, fantastic post, Will reblog shortly — but I didn’t wanna derail and I have a story.
My second student teaching practicum was with an 11th grade English class. Practicums are where teachers-in-training go to schools and watch other teachers do their stuff. Over time, the one in training starts doing the lessons. This was an observational practicum, with a One Lesson a Unit practical session.
After I saw one day’s worth of classes, my mentor teacher sat me down and walked me through the IEP/504 binder she had. I was very lucky to have an organized mentor that year, and one who had a lot of diversity in her roster. She had a student with incredibly high-support autism, a large amount of students with incontinence, plenty of other things — and most notably, a student with ODD.
I say most notably because this kid, the teacher stopped on and said “I’m sure you noticed him in class today,” in an exasperated tone. She explained she was at her wits end and wished he could be moved to a different class. She told me to just “do my best” with him, and to not expect much.
The thing is, I didn’t notice him in class that day. He had seemed just like every other kid. After that conversation, I had to actively work hard to ignore the prejudice she had set me up with, where I caught myself over analyzing his actions to see what he was doing to oppose me. How fucked is that?
The day of my first practical lesson comes around, and this kid plays it up massively. He’s honestly hilarious — he laughs it up a lot, pretends to be the perfect student. He raises his hand to answer a question, I call on him (I can see his classmates waiting in anticipation, thinking I’ve made a mistake), and he shouts “hold on, let me get a drink of water real fast.”
He then proceeds to take his water bottle and waterfall the entire thing into his mouth.
Now, keep in mind, I was being observed by my supervisor and the teacher mentor. I was sweating bullets the entire day. I was terrified. But the thing is…. He’s just a normal fucking kid.
So I treated him that way. I crossed my arms, smiled, and didn’t stop him. The class laughed a bunch, and he swallowed, and laughed.
And I stared him down, and said “you good? Looked refreshing.”
“Yes ma’am. What was the question again?”
I repeated it. And he answered it. And the class (a little more giggly than before) moved on.
After the class was done, both the teacher and my supervisor sang my praises. Apparently, I had handled his “opposition” perfectly by “not showing him it affected me.” And I’m just… he was just joking around. He was being a teenage boy while he still could. It was completely harmless, and honestly, I’m just happy he’s drinking water.
All this is to say: ODD as a diagnosis is fucking hell for kids in school. Teachers allow themselves to be prejudiced against kids who are labeled with “problematic” disorders, and it leads to so much drama. I wish it weren’t like this. The system needs to be better for kids like him.
1 note
·
View note
Text
Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.
Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU
#knitting#no it's not a real pattern but I can't write one that makes sense because I have no freaking clue what any of that means#How do you make things that aren't basic rectangles#Why has every knitter I've asked for help just said 'patterns are easy; you just have to know how to read them' & then refused to teach me#Where do I even find a goat to sacrifice#How do I join the pattern cult#I am so confused#I've been knitting for almost a decade but I can only make scarves and potholders#I learned one (1) stitch by watching a YouTube video and none of my friends or family knit so I have no IRL resources#And nobody I meet seems to want to take the time to explain the rest to me#I taught myself to sew through trial and error but that doesn't really work with knitting because error is pretty much just... Unraveling?#Anyway sorry for the tag rant I'm just frustrated that I see pretty things I want to make but the instructions are in an alien language#And the gap between 'absolute novice' and 'intermediate' seems to be about 20 years of experience and formal instruction
672 notes
·
View notes
Text
you know what? i know all of tumblr is obsessed with ed (and I get it, the trauma and wet cat energy is captivating) but I am a stede girlie. i too harbor unmanageable amounts of guilt day after day for shit that doesn't matter anymore. i too am constantly trying to compensate for my lack of experience in a skill i love and i hate myself for it. i embarrass myself constantly. i dont know how to maintain loving relationships. i've been bullied more times than i can count for liking unconventional methods of presentation, or not knowing the inside knowledge and nuance of something, or most frequently just not being cool or tough or masculine enough. I am cringey. I am queer. I am insecure, scared, stupid, but I live on despite it anyways and i think that's such an important message to teach other queers, especially camp queers.
#anyways this was way longer than intended it to be but yeah#ed is great but stede is always who I will connect with most#ofmd#ofmd s2#our flag means death#blackbeard#black beard#ed teach#edward teach#stede bonnet#rant
970 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ok so Stede Bonnet can grab his love interest by the lapels and slam him up against a wall and kiss him and it results in sweet sweet lovemaking, but when I, Anthony J Crowley,
#ofmd#good omens#our flag means death#ofmd spoilers#our flag means death spoilers#ineffable husbands#aziracrow#Crowley#aziraphale#gentlebeard#stede bonnet#edward teach#ofmd season 2#our flag means death season 2#good omens season 2#gay#lilly rants#Blackbeard#neil gaiman#1k
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Things I do instead of studying...
Scroll Tumblr
Watch study motivation
Read study motivation quotes
Think about studying
Worry about not studying
Lay in bed doing nothing
Daydream
Chat with friends
Have slight mental breakdowns because of studying
Wondering why i don't have time to study
#school#studyblr#exam season#exams#high school#study notes#study motivation#study blog#studyspo#study aesthetic#study with me#studying#student#study rant#rants#personal#tough times#teaching#Exam rants#study memes#Literally my life
300 notes
·
View notes
Text
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
youtube
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)
#man this week has been hard for classics teachers#Iliad#greek mythology#tagamemnon#greek myth#odyssey#homer#greek myth retellings#comix#greek myth comix#classics teacher#teaching#myth#history#ancient greek history#horrible histories#the idiots#teaching resources#teacher rant#Youtube
885 notes
·
View notes
Text
when your son somehow manages to discover the best gossip so you keep him around the pizzeria simply to find out the most recent rumors of the customers
a continuation of this au which is now my roman empire
#hueso teaches leo spanish simply to gossip w him about the customers#leo’s fav part of the day is going into his dad’s office and listening to him rant about the latest patron who got on his nerves that day#i just think they're neat#sometimes a family is a monotone bone man and is snarky turtle son he found on the street#senor hueso#rise hueso#rottmnt hueso#leonardo hamato#rise leo#rottmnt leo#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#tmnt#rottmnt fanart#tmnt fanart#rottmnt seperated au#papa hueso au#<< i guess thats what this au is now lmao
281 notes
·
View notes
Text
Came across this in a fic again and I have to vent for a moment here: Ed's hair isn't unclean or not taken care of. Ever. Even at his lowest, in the first two episodes of season two, his hair is light and blows with the wind, it's got perfect waves, there is zero grime in it. Impossible Birds Ed hair has clearly been fairly recently washed, combed out and conditioned. Ed canonically loves soap, and you don't get that hair without owning a comb or brush and frequently working oil into it. He's at sea! The air is salty! It'll dry out your hair, but Ed's hair doesn't ever look dried out. The day he decides to commit suicide he puts his hair up into a lovely bun, with whispy stands framing his face. I have no idea what some people are watching, because Ed taking meticulous care (and most likely also putting pride and love) into his hair is clear, on-screen canon.
Like, if you want to write about how he was neglecting himself in his depression Kraken era? There's plenty there for you on screen as well! He sobs all night, probably sleeps on the floor if he sleeps at all. He doesn't wear his knee brace. He drinks and does drugs (and admits to that being poison to Frenchie!). He's pushing everyone away, he's pushing himself hard into a role that made him passively suicidal even before the breakup depression. He doesn't watch his back during raids At All. There's so much self harm there to address. If you want to, it would probably be plausible to add him not bothering to properly care for any wounds he might obtain during a raid. But he clearly doesn't neglect bathing and hair care. They're probably the only elements of self-care he actually still does during this dark time!
Even rock bottom Ed doesn't neglect his hair. And that says things about him! It's also something I'd love to see actually addressed in fic (will probably write it myself one of these days...): Taking good care of his hair, putting on jewelry, doing his makeup, these are things that seem to bring Ed joy or relief in his darkest moments. Where's my fic about these quiet moments of self-care being a straw he clutches to when everything else is terrible?
I love a good bathing together/doing each other's hair fic. It's intimate and loving! And Stede and Ed are prime material to write a mutual caretaking and bonding over it couple! Ed canonically loves soap and taking care of his hair! And Stede brought an entire fucking bathtub on a ship, the wonderful madman. S1 Stede's hair is always carefully curled, and we know that's not its natural state (it's wavy but not in this manner) from seeing him in S2, away from his certainly plentiful bath and grooming equipment. Stede probably has an hour of daily hair routine! We know he has nice smelling, probably expensive soaps. Where's the fic where they share in this?
There's so much potential! They can show each other their favourite care products! Sometimes they'll work on each other and sometimes not at all! Ed's rich hair oils will make Stede's hair all sticky and weird! Ed will think it's hilarious and adorable, he'll try to ruffle his hair and make it stick up worse and Stede will pout! 🥺 He'll look like this, just with weird spiky hair! One ill-advised day they try putting Stede's curlers in Ed's hair and then they almost can't get them back out because Ed's hair is so long and has lots of natural wave and it'll cling to the curlers and it's awful (they laugh about it afterwards, once Ed has very carefully brushed his hair out again and it no longer pulls at his scalp).
Makeup was a thing done by men and women at the time, especially for aristocrats (as seen in Episode 5), so Stede will know his way around hoity toity makeup, meaning rouges and whites (contained lots of lead, yuck!). Meanwhile Ed does pirate costume makeup for Blackbeard endeavours, that's a whole different thing. And both of these are makeups they don't actually enjoy doing (Stede avoids heavy makeup for the party, and Ed's Kraken makeup is part of his whole Everything Is Awful And I'm Making Myself Feel That look). But we see Ed do nice makeup that seems to be him! On his supposed to be final day on Earth, he cleans away all the Kraken coal, he cleans up his cabin, he gets rid of drugs, booze, Izzy (everything that was harming him), he does up his hair really nice and in a style that's very much Not Blackbeard, and he puts on a gorgeous bit of eyeliner that really brings out his eyes. And now that they're safe and happy together, when Ed decides he wants to look pretty today, not only can Stede lose his marbles over the look, Ed can also show him how to make his own eyes pop like that. They can stand in front of their mirror together, giggling and trying not to poke anyone in the eye.
Like. This is a fancy bathroom items for fancy bathroom items couple. They will bond over their love of bubble baths and nice smelling soaps and soft oils for hair and skin! They will learn each other's routines and how to do them just right for them. Let Stede learn that Ed loves his baths scalding hot (Stede has to wait a while for it to cool before he joins him in the tub because he'll get all pink and lightheaded). Let Ed learn how to put in Stede's curlers for him if Stede wants his hair to look extra fluffy the next day. Let Ed learn to massage Stede's back and Stede learn to massage Ed's knee. There's so much potential for loving caretaking with this ship. The trope doesn't at all require Ed to not know or not want to take care of his hair and hygiene. Fuck's sake.
#okay#bye#I can't believe we're still here folks#why were we ever there?#ofmd#ofmd meta#ed teach#stede bonnet#teeny rambles#teeny rants more like#🤨
207 notes
·
View notes
Text
Back to work tomorrow.
Back to messing up and pretending to be someone I'm not.
Back to acting like nothing bothers me or at least trying to.
The only things you need to do to be a teacher is have the ability to have no ego at all, to take having your ego crushed over and over again and to be able to mimic others to a T.
Where I work absolutely nothing I have done on my own has mattered. Any new idea I come up with is completely passed over. Anything I do that works in my classroom is ignored. Even things that bring higher grades are not praised.
Last year my co-teacher came from another district where basically all of their students were hand-picked to be there so there were no discipline problems, and none of the students were low in any field.
The complete opposite of our district.
She came in with the idea that kids did not need any kind of visual stimulation and the fourth graders could sit and write notes non-stop for 45 minutes every single day. There were no pictures to augment the notes, no clarifications of large words. They just dictated the notes.
And this went against every single professional development day I'd ever had in my life which said that students need visual cues, they need things explained to them, they need sound, they need repetition, they need movement, and above all they need fun.
But this was a lady who had a PhD and yet for some reason was teaching fourth grade and so I had to do everything she said even though I knew it was the worst thing for my students.
This year I don't make the lesson plans, I don't make the lessons, I don't make the copies, I literally do nothing but mimic what the other teachers do.
And now there is a 2nd year teacher who is the new darling because she took something that we have been doing for years put a slightly different spin on it claim to have invented herself and made a big presentation of it to some higher-ups who were here last week.
Now not only do I have to mimic her when I have 5 years seniority and no more about the subjects than she does) I now have to rearrange my room so it looks like hers.
But it is a job and it is a paycheck and I have to be very careful not to let my true feelings show or else I could get in big trouble.
On a semi-related note, my ADD pills finally came in and they are $400. When I called the pharmacy to find out what was going on they said they never got a new insurance card from me so basically I've been painful price for everything since January. So I called today and ordered the card and I only have 5 days to get it in or else I'm stuck paying the full price because after 5 days who knows what's going to happen to that prescription. It takes weeks and weeks and weeks for me to get the pills anyway and I'm really afraid that I won't get them at all if I don't pick them up within the 5 days.
The insurance sent me a link to where I was supposed to be able to download a card but in registering for the website I need my policy number...... which is located on the card......THAT I DON'T HAVE!!!!!
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why did Ed shoot Izzy then?
Figured I'd go ahead and rant about this because once I started thinking about it, it took a bit to unpack, and someone might be interested? Eh, anyway
So the reason this is actually an odd moment is this: it comes across as careless, but Ed's real violence is never careless. Ed's violence is actually really precisely targeted. He has a reputation for violence, total strangers call him a "fucking madman," and he does do some stuff offscreen ("I have seen you maim a few people") but in terms of what we actually see on our screens Ed becomes violent himself very, very rarely.
But here, he shoots Izzy. A very violent act, done casually and to someone he knows personally.
Why? Izzy thinks it's because of Stede, says himself in this scene that the source of the poison on the ship is Ed's feelings for Stede, tells Stede Ed shot him "because I dared to mention your fucking name."
But that just doesn't track. Ed is clearly brooding over Stede at several other points, and he doesn't get remotely violent. He doesn't join in the fighting at the wedding when he sees the figurine that looks like Stede or throw it against the wall later, or even become violent in any of the scenes that figurine appears in. If anything, the evidence rather suggests that Izzy has mixed up "poison" and "cure": Ed gets notably more chill when he's looked at that figurine recently.
So why does Ed shoot Izzy here? And when Izzy came to him a few minutes before with "I have love for you, I'm worried about you," why did Ed blow him off, then get scary at something that did invoke Stede?
Well, because it's Izzy who's saying this. It's not Stede himself, it's the combo of Ed having Izzy and Stede in his head at the same time that's provoking violence.
Izzy set the terms for this relationship. Ed was vulnerable and open, and Izzy said that was a fate worse than death. Ed thought he was in a safe space, and Izzy threw shame and threats at him.
Ed conformed to Izzy's expectations, directly and completely. Izzy was clearly happy that Ed was cutting off his toe and making him eat it. Izzy set the rules, and Ed followed them. That's right down to the scene before this, when Izzy says that the crew are refusing to throw away the treasure and Ed says "and that's another toe." There are rules, they're being followed.
And then Izzy goes and tries to change the rules. Tries to encourage Ed to be vulnerable. Invokes the original source of the pain that made Ed vulnerable in the first place.
It's actually kinda admirable that Izzy does this. What he's doing is beginning to acknowledge how wrong he was before. But it's too little (he still thinks of Stede as a problem, not a solution) and far too late.
Ed's not going to take anything that hits him where he hurts from Izzy. He followed the rules--hell, he's still following the rules when he shoots Izzy, hits him on the same leg that was losing toes. He doesn't owe Izzy one iota of vulnerability. And more importantly, he can't become vulnerable with Izzy. The relationship is absolutely and completely entrenched. This story ends with one of them killing the other. And just like Izzy's the one who started them on the path of that story, now Ed's the one who's going to push it forward.
#ofmd s2 spoilers#ofmd#ofmd s2#our flag means death#ofmd spoilers#ofmd meta#ed teach#izzy hands#I can't believe I went on for that long#well i found something else to rant about my spiral parallels are almost out so cool#ed totally didn't think for a second izzy was dead come on if he wanted Izzy dead he would have made Archie first mate#blackbeard
256 notes
·
View notes
Text
You really can't engage meaningfully with Ed's story in S2 without firmly centring his mental illness and suicidality, because that's inherently what the story is: it's the story of a man having a severe mental breakdown and going to increasingly erratic extremes in order to achieve his end goal, which is to not be alive anymore...and then it's the story of his recovery from that.
And so much of my frustration with the way I see this being talked about (or, in many cases, not being talked about) reflects my more general frustration with how we talk about mental illness and neurodivergence, so buckle in because this got long (also I am going to be discussing suicide here, as well as very brief mentions of psychosis and ocd, so please take care).
There's this trend when we talk about mental health: we go 'oh mental illness isn't an excuse' or 'mental illness doesn't make you do bad things' or variations thereof. These are, in my opinion, some of the worst things to ever happen to the discourse around mental illness. It's reductive. Absolutely mental illness can lead you to do things that you would not have otherwise done, even things that you would be absolutely appalled by, if you were mentally well. What do you think mental illness is if it's not something that impacts your brain and how your brain functions? If your mental illness doesn't directly lead to problematic behaviour, then that's fantastic, but that experience is not universal. It's not an 'excuse' - it's an explanation for certain behaviours that's vitally important to acknowledge and understand in order to try and mitigate harm.
There's also this thing that happens with discourse around mental illness where we assume that what you do in the grips of mental illness is reflective of something that's innate inside you. You were violent whilst in the middle of psychosis? Oh, it's because you're an innately abusive person and this just reveals who you really are. You have Tourette's and one of your tics is a racial slur? Oh, it's because you're an innately racist person and this just reveals who you really are. Your OCD is rooted in a fear that you're going to murder your family? Oh, it's because you inherently do want to murder your family and this just reveals who you really are.
It's bullshit. What you do in your mentally ill state is not some deep philosophical reflection of your true character, and the idea that it is is something that causes really deep, dangerous harm to mentally ill and neurodivergent people.
So, now that that's over with, back to Ed.
Ed was behaving in ways that were acknowledged in canon as being extremely out of character whilst in the midst of a severe breakdown. Fang himself said that he'd 'never' seen Ed behave this way; even Izzy, who actively pushed for Ed to embody the extremes of his Blackbeard persona, ended up concerned because it became so extreme and out of character that it was impossible not to be concerned by it. The crew who mutinied on Izzy within a day didn't mutiny on him for months, not until their lives literally depended on it, because it's heavily insinuated that they were hoping he would get better. Because this wasn't the Ed that they knew (the Ed that we came to know in S1 - an inherently soft man who is caught in a culture of violence and is tired of it).
The show wasn't subtle about this. It didn't bury the lead. As well as the constant reminders that he was acting out of character in increasingly alarming ways, this was very clearly depicted as a breakdown, an almost total collapse of Ed's mental health. We saw Ed detached and numb and completely dissociated from the world around him. We saw him in private moments of despair, breaking down. We saw him behaving erratically in the grips of mania. We saw him display absolutely textbook warning signs of someone whose made the decision to die by suicide. We saw him smile and say 'finally' at the moment when he knew he was going to die.
The show basically painted a giant neon sign over his head flashing 'THIS MAN IS EXTREMELY UNWELL' in bright lights, and if you miss that, then it's because you're deliberately avoiding looking properly.
(And, important to note, that most of the people that I've watched the show with outside of fandom discourse absolutely took away from these episodes what the show was intending - they saw how unwell Ed was, they were devastated for him, and they desperately wanted him to get better.)
When Ed steered the ship into the storm, and threatened to put a cannonball through the mast, his clear goal was to create a situation where the crew had no choice but to kill him. I've seen people describe this scene as Ed 'trying to hurt the crew', and I think that's very much a misrepresentation of what the show was depicting. It was very blatantly a suicide attempt. He wanted to die, and he didn't care what he had to do in order for him to achieve that goal. That doesn't make it good behaviour, and it doesn't mean people didn't get hurt, but it does make it a very different situation than if causing harm had been his main intent.
There is a fundamental difference between 'he is doing this because he explicitly wants to cause harm to the people around him' and 'he's doing this because he's suicidal and beyond the point of being able to rationally consider who might be getting hurt in the process of ensuring that he ends up dead'. One of those is a bad person who enjoys causing pain - and the other is a deeply unwell person who can be supported and helped to recover and be better (and should be, for the good of themselves and the people around them).
And on that note, the failure to engage with this as a mental health story is also, I think, why I've seen some people get so upset about the show not doing Ed's redemption arc 'right' - because this isn't a redemption arc, and it's not trying to be. One day I'll do a separate post about how much I love that the show explicitly rejected a carceral approach, opting to essentially put him through community rehabilitation rather than punishing him, and even mocking punitive prescriptive measures (that rubbish youtuber apology speech was supposed to be rubbish and unhelpful), but that's one for another day.
The fact is that the show is telling a story about mental illness, and that inherently means that Ed's arc is a recovery arc, not a redemption arc. And if you're expecting a redemption arc, then you've fundamentally misunderstood the story that they're telling (and the revolutionary kindness at the heart of the show).
I have a lot of feelings about this because I genuinely believe that it was one of the best depictions of mental illness and suicidality that I've ever seen. Within the confines of it being a half hour, eight episode comedy show, they told a story about mental illness that was surprisingly realistic (with the obvious fantastical over the top elements of it being a pirate show - and piracy is explicitly depicted as a culture where violence is heavily normalised), and that didn't shy away from the messier, darker, more complex elements of mental illness (particularly of being suicidal).
And then, most importantly, after all that, the show took me gently by the hand said 'you are not defined by what you do in your lowest moment - you can make amends, you can recover, you are still loved, and you are worth saving'.
#cw suicide#cw suicidal ideation#cw mental illness#cw ocd#cw psychosis#i'm tagging all the things just in case someone has them muted for their own wellbeing#ofmd#our flag means death#edward teach#ofmd meta#mental illness#neurodivergence#erin rants
160 notes
·
View notes
Text
nerds (affectionate)
#eric and belle: *ranting abt their favorite things and subjects and stories*#ariel and adam: *staring at them with literal hearts in their eyes*#couples who continue to teach each other new things!!!! they're so!!!#disney#beauty and the beast#the little mermaid#belle#prince adam#ariel#prince eric
688 notes
·
View notes
Text
cool down
#you guys need to know that i read all of your rant tags and comments and love them a lot#also if we wont get them kissing but like they are laughing so much they cant kiss properly type of kissing i will start a riot#arty party#ofmd#our flag means death#our flag means death fanart#gentlebeard#blackbonnet#blackstede#stede bonnet#edward teach#blorbos from my favorite pirate show
1K notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
fuckyeahesadribic
Fuck Yeah Esad Ribic
jboy44
Untitled
fuckyeahesadribic
Fuck Yeah Esad Ribic
thesimsfreesovietnam
The Sims FreeSO Vietnam
mochimotchi
Mami