October 2011
41 posts
2 tags
Aunque se vista de seda, mona se queda.: You Can't... →
eyesonthebackofmyhead:
Usually, I keep this black ceramic coffee mug in the reading support room, but today I brought it along with me to one of the sixth grade classrooms when I went to help the teacher facilitate a writing assignment for JA Biztown (…
I have this one! It was a Christmas gift from my parents and is one of my favorite mugs; when I was still living at home, working on...
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Self-Advocacy?
It’s an interesting point to bring up in the higher education classroom, and I’ve been thinking on this for at least the past hour in the back of my head.
I really do feel that a professor still has some responsibility, if not to teach (though I believe they do in fact have a responsibility to teach, despite what I’ve seen in some of the lecture halls and classes I’ve had...
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Cathedral Building: When presenting difficult... →
fromtheclassroomtrenches:
I agree with this post only if she is speaking about high school. Once a student gets to college, they ARE expected to educate themselves. In college, students are expected to be self-motivated and exploratory, and be able to bring up suggestions in class when they see a gap in the professor’s thinking. I have issue, not with the topic this post deals with, because...
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No, as a matter of fact I'm not technically old...
I have two daughters — one who calls me Mommy, and one who calls me Daddy. They are both college-aged women.
I am twenty-four.
So how does that work exactly?
Ball culture (drag) in major US cities involves houses, headed by house mothers or fathers, and are comprised of bands of “children” who drag and compete together under the house mother or father’s mentoring. ...
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When presenting difficult topics in classroom...
it’s a poor idea to leave it to the students to figure them out and react to it as they will, with no guidance. New and complex issues should be dealt with as thoroughly as possible both in the context of the literature at hand as well as that of the students’ experiences, society, and sometimes pre-existing prejudices.
My daughter (not biological, nor long-raised — I will...
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“As a social worker, assume that EVERYONE has strengths - it’s our job to help...”
– - My Social Work 300 lecturer.
I’m not sure why, but this just really stuck out to me when she said it in class. So much so that I wrote it down in the margins of my planner. I just liked how she emphasized that EVERYONE has strengths, everyone, and as social workers we have a job to help people...
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Things I've started doing to keep this job from...
watching Original Series Star Trek
knitting scarves
working on an old short story/novella
trying to complete the first issue of an original comic
learning to dance
learning to can things
making my own quick pickles
making my own dips
fantasizing about saving up for a little spot with enough space for a garden and some chickens
applying for other jobs
making whatever headway I can...
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I'm happy to see so many people reblogging the...
I’m a firm believer in the idea that, if we fight for some peoples’ rights, we should stand up for everyone’s rights.
So, if you hate the ‘f’ word (and I mean the three-letter one, not the four-letter one), I’d hope you wouldn’t use the ‘r’ word either.
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So I had applied for a Teaching Assistant position...
Sent them an email a little over a week after putting my resume in, asking if we would hear if they had filled the position. (They specified no phone calls.)
When they wrote back to tell me that they filled the position…
They spelled my name wrong.
My name that I had signed the email with.
Insult to injury.
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If you want to do something about bullying RIGHT...
check out the White House facebook page. There’s a thread dedicated to explaining why the White House has gone purple today, and in that thread are several remarks encouraging violence against LGBTQ people. Maybe by the time you get there, they’ll have been deleted. But if they haven’t been:
Click the ‘x’ in the upper right hand corner of the comment.
Choose...
I have no idea why posting personal posts on LGBTQ issues on here still makes me so nervous sometimes. It’s a little like opening up on a whole different level. Things from the personal side generally do not make it over here — two different sides of my life.
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relevant repost of something from the personal...
Warning: Blunt and brutal honesty.
I am getting very weary of people treating LGBTQ youth suicides as an alarming new trend. This has been happening for years. LGBTQ individuals make up 10% of the population but approximately 30% of youth suicides, and that is not a number that has drastically changed over the last decade.
This is not a sudden explosion. This is not an epidemic. This is a...
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Some of today's Purple Teachers →
teamteachers:
Click through to meet some! If you wore purple today to support your LGBTQ students, post a pic and tag it “purpleteachers”!
All of you purple teachers make me swoon.
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Focus
This is, first and foremost, an education blog. On my personal blog, I tend to make posts about LGBTQ politics that may not have anything to do with education or, in a community of caring educators, would already be preaching to the choir. But where LGBTQ issues and education intersect, I post that here.
Now, I’ve posted something at the personal blog that is not specifically...
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Apparently my coworker is one of those people.
He laughed when I told them.
“I don’t approve of it, but I think it’s great.”
“What? Why?”
“Corruption of innocence. It’s great.”
I hate where I work.
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No amount of psych training will help me...
Sesame Street’s youtube channel was hacked, and replaced with hardcore porn.
What horrifies me more is that, while searching the Sesame Street tag on Tumblr, I’m finding more people laughing and/or cheering the act than decrying it.
Really, what mindset gains joy over this? It isn’t a mild-mannered prank, and it isn’t as if it was targeted at some...
Responsible people do not set kitchen towels on...
Which is why I’m trying not to do that while making PPT’s fall collection.
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I admit it -
I giggle a little in endearment when I see a little Monster following me. I know quite a few.
Apparently if you ask me a question,
no matter what it’s about, I’ll try to research enough to answer it that also puts some responsibility on the asker while pointing them in the right direction.
…oh jeez, I’m a teacher.
jeannefrancoise asked: How I can be employed by United Nations?
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Never flee the state before you finish your...
Finally got on the phone with the woman in the teacher certification office at my college. Apparently there was a piece I have to do on my own, an account thing online, because everything is done digitally now, before I CAN fill out my paperwork.
(Embarrassed admission: this whole process has been incredibly confusing for me and at one point made me doubt my ability to teach.)
Thank you oh...
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Being completely honest -
I have never been so unhappy to be in one particular place as I have been today.
Upon learning we were supposedly helping to set standards and benchmarks for a community program we’re developing, I almost gained new enthusiasm. In fact, I ended up staying up late following exciting trails of research-based practices from article to article to help me make informed contributions in setting...
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Check this out if you work in Virginia: →
The Cox Charities has opened up their grant application for the 2011 year. For some reason they did so on October 10th with a deadline of November 11th, which seems a little sadistic to me, but if you have an education and/or mentoring program that could use some financial assistance they do give rather large chunks of money.
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Sandra Day O'Connor and Verizon Foundation... →
“Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and theVerizon Foundation have announced the launch of a new national contest for middle schools designed to help renew the teaching of civic engagement.
The contest, Civic Impact Challenge, involves using iCivics (an online education project that O’Connor spearheaded) to teach students civics, encourage them to learn...
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We know Teachers Count - Now Get Some Support From... →
I stumbled upon this one while looking for mini-grants.
TeachersCount is a national organization whose aim is to raise the status of the teaching profession. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Not only does their site offer a listing of grants for teachers, it also offers a wide variety of supports and resources for teachers — as well as for prospective teachers, and for non-teachers who...
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October 11th is National Coming Out Day
I was so caught up in grant deadlines and comfortable in the “Happy Valley” that I almost missed it, and thus I did you all a disservice!
But there is still time to acknowledge today with your students and staff, even if it’s just a passing comment that opens up dialogue later on.
The Background:
National Coming Out Day was first celebrated in 1988. It was organized in order...
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Teach for America Cleared to Come to Ohio →
positivelypersistentteach:
longdivisionnnn:
I realize I’m pretty late to the party on this but can I just say that !!!!!!!!! Now they just need to get it off the ground by the 2013-14 school year so I can teach in Cleveland.
WE. DON’T. NEED. TFA!
They just let go of hundreds of teachers last year — now they are going to go to TFAers? That’s not right. They are not long term...
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Double Jeopardy
thesnarkysub:
On my penultimate day with the kids I have come to think of as mine, I devise a review Jeopardy! game. They’ve been hankering for a game, I’ve obtained permission from their real teacher, and I think it’ll be a good way to focus the whole class’s attention on one problem.
The first few questions go by pretty quickly—the kids appoint their teammates who are doing best in the class to...
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I Want to Ride a Giraffe: What I need... →
demonbunny4:
What I need are there to be young adult, fiction books… that have males with eating disorders or males who get raped (by either females or males… that aren’t “my father/uncle/brother molested me” stories…). I can’t find them. I can find biographies of men who have dealt with eating disorders… but…
This is my “daughter”, and I’m always incredibly proud of...
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OH. I TOTALLY FORGOT TO MENTION.
There are two people (of more than two) from my alma mater that really changed my life: Dr. Suzanne Johnson and Elizabeth O’Connor.
I had never considered psychology until I took Dr. Johnson’s Developmental Psych course. These women are dynamic, intelligent, and took me under their wing for all manner of things, giving me the chance to help them with an article on lesbian mothers and...
I can't find my two years' worth of compiled...
Not funny.
Searching my hard drive again.
Then checking every flash drive I can find in this apartment.
Then…starting from scratch if I have to, because this is important stuff. (Luckily I still have access somewhere to the bibliography I helped compile for Johnson and O’Connor’s last article, which has the bulk of it.)
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Good children eat dirt.: Checking in - HELP. HELP.... →
missescargotpudding:
1. I made time for me. Since my school starts classes at 7:25am, I’m up at 4am everyday. And I don’t get home until 4:30-5pm. I’ve almost fallen asleep in public so many times the past two month it’s ridiculous. So, this week I said no to furiously planning and grading papers after school. I…
I’m turning twenty-four in October.
I both can and cannot imagine...
