March 2011
36 posts
1 tag
You can't have a positive relationship with...
adiemtocarpe:
Keeping this in mind today with my students.
I’m going to keep this in mind as well. Very well-said.
I can’t seem to comment on your posts, but have been meaning to tell you that, if it helps, I have been where you are now and even had a student who spit at me. Right now, one of my middle schoolers has also taken it upon himself to begin the rigorous testing...
3 tags
I don't think I'm old enough...
Jose: Miss N!
Me: (looks around to see if he's pointing to someone else; we generally go by Miss/Mr. first name in the after school program) ...oh! Miss N? Miss J-----. I'm Miss J-----.
Jose: Oh! Sorry, I thought it was N because of Nubis.
Me: ...oh! (I hold up the Anubis pendant I wear daily) Anubis?
Jose: Yeah! I thought that was your name!
2 tags
Sometimes they know exactly what you need to hear.
(On the way out of the car in the school parking lot, I managed to tear a whole and leave a run through a knee-high while trying to pull it back up and snag a thread from my skirt on the door, undoing the front half of the bottom hem. After a visit to our office, I managed to keep the skirt hem together with a pair of paperclips, but the run is still very obvious and has been noticed by several of the middle school girls. I try to ignore it the best I can through tutoring and snack. Most of the students have been dismissed to clubs, and J is hanging back with me for media.)
J: ...you look different today.
Me: I do?
J: Yeah. I don't know but you look different. Were you on a business trip or something?
Me: A business trip?
J: You look like maybe you were on a business trip.
Me: Well, I was gone for a week visiting my writing friend I mentioned in comics...
J: You look good. You look really professional.
Me: Thank you, J. I guess I'll have to figure out what it is so I can do it again.
4 tags
Registration fee for Multi-Subject CST exam: $79
Registration fee for LAST exam: $79
Registration fee for ATS-W exam: $79
Registration fee for GRE: $160
So much for paying off the credit card.
6 tags
For Next Tuesday -
We’re going to start “advertising” the Comics Club around the school, and I’m going to make a point to try and draw in artists who may want to draw comics but may not know how to write them, and students who may want to write a story for a comic but are not confident in their ability to draw. We’re working on scripting, and how it translates from words to page. In...
6 tags
4 tags
Clearly the Greatest Story Ever Told
My plan was to act out the "shortest melodrama" skit with the three comic students I had yesterday in order to demonstrate writing a basic comic script. I twist up the paper and show them how the prop represents each character.
Me: So now we have our characters. Page 1, panel 1 -- we need a setting. Where are we?
S: The Eiffel Tower!
Me: ...ok! The Eiffel Tower! (We can't exactly use the 'You must pay the rent' skit so I might as well run with it.) What's our conflict?
J: The damsel's hanging from the Eiffel Tower and she's about to fall.
S: Yeah! And she's running back and forth and there are LASERS firing at her! (While explaining this, he is running back and forth accordingly with his arms flailing over his head.)
Me: Lasers! Ok, what's happening in panel 3?
S: The bad guy is sitting in a chair shooting the laser gun!
Me: C, what kind of villain is it?
C: (Just as confused as I was) ...a...creepy villain?
Me: Panel 3 - the creepy villain is sitting in a chair shooting lasers. What about panel 4? What is the Damsel saying?
S: She should have a thought bubble!
Me: What is she thinking?
C: ...help?
J: Help!
S: Help! I'm gonna die!
And thus went the strangest script I may have ever written down.
4 tags
Dinosaur and Lackadaisy are not happening today — most of the Dinosaur strips that I have read so far that are student-appropriate are actually far above my students’ reading levels. Lackadaisy…well I love the comic and love the idea of a historical comic but forgot the fact that, you know, by nature of being a prohibition-era story about a speakeasy and gangsters…not...
7 tags
World Blues 2011: Teachers’ unions now face... →
econblues2011:
Teachers’ unions now face decertification and an end to collective bargaining in Wisconsin and Michigan. In Wisconsin, the governor and legislature passed legislation ending collective bargaining rights for public employees. In Michigan, the governor was empowered to take over financially…
This post notes some really interesting information about the origins of the...
4 tags
This is very random and personal, but here it goes: since I had finished with my student-teaching experiences last semester, I had felt until recently like I was just existing, purposeless. I still have other projects going, most of them related to psychology or social justice and one of them rather hefty, but that still left me with a definitive void. “Directionless” is the best...
5 tags
Tomorrow -
- I start taking over the comics club, which will now be more about creating comics but will also have that same comic-reading, Voltron-watching flex time. Right now, the layout is looking like:
Comic-reading/cartoon-watching flex time
Mini-lesson
Comic-making (work) time
Things I am bringing tomorrow to supplement the stack of Marvel comics (mostly Spiderman and Batman):
Rapunzel’s...
3 tags
Today -
I witnessed the Media Club as they made up questions for a “Man on the Street” segment and then went out into the halls, swapping the roles of producer, reporter, and crew, to ask students about everything from New Moon to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to impending budget cuts at their school.
I was incredibly impressed — and not entirely sure what they want me in the...
monasequeda asked: I loved your response to the 90 sick days. It.Was.Awesome. Mad props to you.
4 tags
The Admiral on Tumblr: Coddled Teachers: 90 paid... →
About half of this response is my own frustration, and probably won’t be at all useful to other teachers (or copy-editors or the like) who know better. But the latter half is serious.
lmliberty:
Let’s see, you work three-quarters time, get a 3 month paid vacation every year, not to mention holidays off and you do get vacation time. And for good measure, how does 90 paid sick days a...
5 tags
Thank you Mom for your TV Knowledge, you are... →
Mom posed the question on this lazy Sunday afternoon, “If you could meet any five people that are no longer around anymore, who would it be?” Somehow it ended with us trying to find the name of a tv show that mimicked the talk show roundtables, but with historical figures rather than current personalities.
How great an idea is this? Pairing up, students would have to know enough...
5 tags
Current Events: Bringing Japan to the Classroom →
What’s going on in Japan right now is impossible to ignore, and there are many reasons I would think it would be important to address in the classroom. News like this can be overwhelming and frightening, no matter the students’ (or teachers’) age. While bombardment is not going to put anyone at ease, the right amount of knowledge can empower students not only to understand what...
1 tag
A Request for Tumblr Teachers
mswormwood:
world-shaker:
When sharing activities or teaching ideas, please tag the post “Teaching Idea”.
My favorite thing about education is that excitement you feel when you have a new idea for how to reach your students. I would love to see this tag happen.
I normally don’t ask this, but would you please reblog if you’re an educator on Tumblr?
“teaching ideas” is pretty much the reason...
Crooks and Liars: Conservative husband apologizes... →
Dear Honey,
I’m sorry.
I am a conservative husband, belong to the Tea Party and I voted for John Kasich. I have been married to a Cleveland teacher for almost 14 years and my vote let her down.
I apologize:
For letting people tease you about having the summer off and not asking them to thank you for the tough days ahead that begin in early August. I know for a fact you work more hours in...
