A rolling thread where we are teachers

*being laid off from my longtime FT teaching job

Collected field-trip forms for a teacher today, and the students had to fill out a Google Form pertaining to an upcoming dance; tomorrow I'm with a class that's doing Jump Rope for Heart. Actually feels like school.

Next week I start what will hopefully be a long term gig, instructing a few 1-hr classes in creative writing to young teens (middle school aged). Mostly 2nd or 3rd gen Chinese students living in the Bay. Seems like the parental terrain might be a little fraught, but judging from the sample classes I watched, the kids are pretty all right and into what’s going on.

Le table, if this sounds like a ballache no probs at all, but I'm shit at teaching the creative writing element of our Language GCSE - do you have any useful tips/places to look/texts etc?

I mostly know poetry. One book that contains a lot of different prompts and ideas re: poetry is this volume: http://www.matthewjohnburgess.com/new-page

It also does a good job of mixing contemporary poetry with older poems, which is essential when teaching poetry— can't have students thinking there are no poets any longer.

As far as my own strategies, so much isn't taught any longer, so that I often spend an hour-long session going through basics like euphony and cacophony, another session going through metaphor, another going through parataxis, etc. We also read a lot of poems aloud and listen to/watch poets read their poems so that the kids feel they're more alive.

Another good strategy for getting things started is picking a quote that might be related to the lesson of the day, even if the quote is from someone who isn't a poet or fiction writer or whatever. Having kids talk about what they think the quote means and how it means what it means gets their brains moving in a creative direction, so that the segue into talking about poems— whether their own or someone else's— is easier.

I have some other strategies, too, but I should mention that one of my big things from the beginning of *any* class is to inform students that it is an okay space to get weird and really be *creative* with language...good poetry isn't staid or stuffy!

I forgot to say thank you for this, Tabes! Some really interesting ideas. So much is about trying to get people to 'forget themselves' in some way - get past the barrier that they're awful at it etc and a lot of these techniques are about making the process exploratory or whatever. Thanks again.

Telling sign that your math text may be out of date: the one in front of me, in the data unit, has a graph of the year's top-selling albums:

1. Rockinghorse, Alannah Myles
2. Reckless, Bryan Adams
3. Greatest Hits, Anne Murray
4. Boy in the Box, Corey Hart
5. The Thin Red Line, Glass Tiger

(Also a telling sign the school may be in Canada.)

I detect some dissimulation on the part of the publishers: there's no way Corey Hart's 1985 album was still selling that well in 1992, when the Alannah Myles album came out.
Just find 2023 versions of those artists to enlighten your students: e.g. Bryan Adams = Drake.

Mathpower Eight--the front page with the copyright has been ripped out. Does sound suspect (though I don't doubt the Anne Murray album might still be hanging around).

i heard from a teacher friend that the librarian in their school was tasked with making posters for black history month highlighting black scientists and this guy made them using AI art generators rather than, you know, using pictures of ACTUAL BLACK SCIENTISTS. He apparently doesn't understand the problem.

The high school music club has started a Music League and one of my students invited me to join. I can't express the level of pride and responsibility I feel at being invited into the high school music nerd space.

yayyyyy!! that sounds so much fun!

Some parent from the board I teach with was posting on Facebook today about how her kid's school won't allow the students to take soccer balls (or any kind of ball) out at recess. This is preposterous. I can guarantee that what she's talking about are days when the field is out of bounds because of weather, and everyone's confined to the hardtop. On those days, sure, the school will likely say "No soccer" because of safety.

Some of the comments have pointed this out, but of course some of them are like "The inmates are running the asylum."

Did you know that some people hate teachers?

Just the kind of email you want to get from the homeroom teacher the day before:

Thank you for picking up my job. I am going to warn you this is a tough crew. I have a few kids who like to express themselves through behaviour.

I am in the office as Teacher in Charge so you can call if you need me.

Here are a few notes to get you going: I am trying to paint a clear picture here for you...this looks overwhelming though (sorry).

...followed by notes on 12 (!) students I have to be aware of.

If I don't make it back, tell the world my story.

The punchline: not middle school, grade 3/4.

oh lord

Glad the teacher told me up front; lowered expectations help. The really bad thing is that it looks like rain the entire day, meaning I can't bribe them with outdoor time, and also that they very likely won't even get their regular recesses.

doesn't everyone like to express themselves through behaviour

I think she's euphemizing.

Wasn't all that bad. Sent one kid out early (the homeroom teacher was TIC--"teacher in charge"--so she was there), basically fine after that. But I can see where this'd be a tough class every day.

I'm hoping one day (wish I'd done it myself before retiring) a teacher leaves me a dayplan that just says "Be afraid--be very afraid."

I had to leave early today for a doctor's appointment, so I set up my last class with their project before leaving them with the sub. As I was trying to give them the overview, they were like, "Why are you leaving? Are you going to see Bruce Springsteen again?" I told them it was a doctor's appointment, and one of them was like, "Ok hear me out. WHAT IF...you walk into the doctor's office and Bruce Springsteen is THERE?"

hey that does happen sometimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NinSGaFDXM

Lol that’s cute, Lily

There are plans that aren't nearly enough, and then there's the opposite. I'm in for kindergarten tomorrow, and I'm looking at the dayplan the teacher has emailed (8 pages of 12-point type over two separate documents) and the three pages of supplemental notes. It's overkill. To be fair, she emailed it two days in advance, but I'd much rather have a clear, simple dayplan of about two pages to look at the morning of.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/034/711/Screen_Shot_2020-07-24_at_11.33.38_AM.jpg

only way to respond to that plan, good lord

Definitely a challenging day--12 Ks who felt like 25--but the micro-developed dayplan hurt more than it really helped.

The kind of thing that makes anyone who's been at this for a while just shake your head: major revamp of the Ontario language curriculum, released yesterday, government wants it in full effect by September. That's bad enough, but the funny part is the new focus on phonics (and reintroduction of cursive!). When I started supplying in the early '90s, anything phonics-related was being phased out for "whole language," and when I started full-time in '98, phonics was practically verboten. My board purchased some expensive, rather insane program around that time called First Steps. Every three or four years, there'd be something else new come along--First Steps went from the number-one focus to something you monitored on a casual basis to something you dashed off as an afterthought in June to a piece of paper buried in the deepest recesses of each student's OSR. Now everything's come full circle.

I know cursive is a nice skill to have, but seriously? In today's world?

https://globalnews.ca/news/9787008/cursive-writing-reintroduced-ontario-schools/

Very humid outside, storm looming, end-of-year intermediate dance (whole school), Friday afternoon, A/C not working--truly one of life's best experiences. I had cafeteria supervision: thought I was going to pass out. Was also reminded of the eternal mystery of how anyone gets through adolescence. There was this one kid, sort of looked like Michael Cera, who wandered around for the full two hours clutching this large box of Welch's Fruit Snacks. I don't know if it was his way to ingratiate himself with others--there was something sad about it. I did see four of five students wearing Expos hats, so maybe that's a thing now.

Very last thing you want to see on a dayplan: instructions for vacating the room in case your one student-of-concern has a meltdown. I think I run into this once every couple of weeks now. Luckily, I haven't yet had to follow through (and today, the student-of-concern is absent). Before I retired, there were two such students in the room next to me (grade 1/2). They'd clear out frequently, leaving whichever one of them was having the meltdown to turn the room upside down while an adult stood there and watched.

Last day for me; they didn't bump the retired-teachers days, so I've hit my limit for the year. I've got stuff to attend to but expect I'll go crazy anyway. Five months off will be the longest not-working window of my life, along with that first COVID spring-summer--which, because there was so much to monitor and think about and discuss, didn't feel like a layoff.

Half-day in a middle school to finish, and they're having a pre-Easter fun day. One period in the gym for a school-wide rock/paper/scissors tournament, one period co-supervising the games/art room (where I am right now). Free money.

Why I'm posting: one of those absurd moments that still makes me love this job. As 300 adolescents filed into the gym, all hopped up on cinnamon swirls--I mean hormones--whoever was in charge of music had Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" blasting. Surreal and thrilling. When the tournament got underway (class winners going against each other in a double-knockout format), the noise level was enough that I had to get some tissue paper and make impromptu earplugs. Insane--how did ESPN not cover this?