May 2012
3 tags
Creative Education: Teaching Is Simple! →
creative-education:
Teaching is simple - not easy, but simple. Efficiency is not the goal. Standardization is not the goal. The goal is to have a professional teacher in every classroom. Professional teachers have a strong Teaching Philosophy, well grounded in the history of education, learning theories, and teaching…
I don’t find this useful.
I agree that helping students master...
2 tags
failure
I accomplished 0 of my fit teacher goals today.
Now I’m going to eat ice cream.
And sleep.
Sorry.
“A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln...”
– Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% (via mchotdog)
what a radical idea yo
(via matthewdgold)
Bam. Kids “misbehave” for actual, real, valid reasons. And have feelings.
(via amydentata)
Maybe it’s very different in high schools,...
3 tags
Overshooting
I work hard to challenge my GT kids. I want them to like science, and for most of them that means they need to spend some time puzzling things out for themselves.
All year I’ve thrown them tough problems, and I’ve seen them get frustrated or completely stuck, and almost always I can question them out of it. Or, at least, question enough of them out of it that when I do re-group, the...
2 tags
Found out today that I am missing another...
At this point, my ecology unit is basically independent study.
Sigh.
TRANS COUCHSURFING NETWORK - PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST... →
transcouchnetwork:
Hi! I just started a tumblr, the Transgender Couchsurfing Network. After seeing dozens of posts come across my dash about displaced or homeless trans people needing places to crash, I decided that there had to be a way to organize these posts somehow, and to put those in need in contact with those willing to lend a hand. If you’re trans and need a place to stay, or if you...
“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year...”
– Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters - Courtney E. Martin (via kaitykait)
Hmm.
April 2012
1 tag
I bought new grading pens yesterday.
Then left them at school this evening :(
girlwithalessonplan:
Since we’re all counting: 18 school days.
What! I have 29.
Romney to students: borro money from parents, take... →
2 tags
Hmmm.
I make most of my own teaching materials.
I mean, I steal a ton of ideas from everywhere, and often steal whole documents, but I revise and rewrite and reformat. I’m picky and particular and trust almost no one’s writing as much as my own.
Sometimes, though, I get lazy, or I find a particularly impressive resource and decide that I don’t need to do any revising. It always leads...
halvgal:
In other news, I’ve sorted out my career path because I am fucking tired of trying for the moment with job applications:
Work until next summer and save ALL OF THE MONEY
Go to Oslo from May until July and learn Norwegian
Teach English abroad until I meet a beautiful foreigner/wed into a possibly aristocratic family and no longer have to take care of myself
Your life plan is the...
1 tag
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allisonunsupervised replied to your post: Fit Teacher Challenge:
How about something portable?And only twice? Goodness. I’d starve by lunch, and I eat at 11:35.
I eat “lunch” at 10:15, so I am usually not ravenous by then, even though I skip out on breakfast.
But what this means, practically speaking, is that I eat one meal at 10:15AM and then I eat again at like 7:30PM, with the...
2 tags
Fit Teacher Challenge:
Between now and the end of the year (6 weeks!), I will:
Run three times a week
Drink 32 oz of water a day (note: I realize this is significantly less than the recommended amount, but it is significantly more than I drink now)
Eat breakfast at least twice a week
The third one will be the most difficult.
4 tags
1 tag
Springtime Fashionable Teacher, Perhaps?
lhuddles:
talesofan8thgradeteacher:
Any plans for a spring Fashionable Teacher?!
It’s going to be a lovely week in the northeast and combined with my improved habits (thanks to Fit Teacher), I actually might put myself together!
Boost. I’m not teaching but for those of you who are…?
Could be some good motivation for continuing to put in effort as May begins…
itssnix asked: About the take home test: Make sure it's clear what level of thinking/response you want. I know if I'm giving my students the whole wide world worth of resources to use, I expect a higher quality response. It helped me for my take-home case studies to tell them exactly how long I wanted the response, what would get them a poor grade, and what would get them a good grade. Also make sure...
allisonunsupervised asked: Those reply boxes are too short. I think you can diffuse the potential for cheating by carefully distributing the variations-- have names on them already, maybe, according to who would work together-- showing you're a step ahead- and just emphasizing that it's not about facts but showing their thinking (I KNOW you will talk and look; I WANT you to. But I'll also know if you are...
“What the PISA and NASSP analysis shows is that, when we take out the bottom...”
– Schools Matter: How Much Teachers Affect Student Achievement, and Other Myths (via girlwithalessonplan)
Team Teachers: Voting Begins! Summer Book Club... →
teamteachers:
Hey everyone! I’ve compiled the suggested book and made the google form for voting (let’s hope it works right!).
Click this link to vote
Below I have linked to the amazon listings of each book so you may read the summary.
We had a ton of people vote last year, but then a much smaller group…
“Pluto is interesting because it’s fixed on its moon, Charon, and they rotate...”
– Sufjan Stevens on why Pluto had to be a dwarf
(foxandfayvel)
#For never was there a tale of more planetary woe / #Than this of moon Charon and her beloved Pluto.
(via sunshineinthetardis)
OMG the tags! (via korilian)
1 tag
Take-Home Test?
I’m seriously considering giving a take-home test for my evolution unit.
It would be in the form of a case study. We’ve done one whole-class case study and one individual/small group case study so far in class, and I’m in the middle of giving extensive feedback on the individual case study assignments (they range from “clearly and accurately articulated” to...
1 tag
Great Friday!
Yesterday we did not have students because it was a PD, and I was not looking forward to today. My kids had been off the rails all week, and I was sure that a beautiful Friday after a day off would be insanity.
But they were all wonderful, even my most challenging class. And I realized that I was approaching them differently—my most challenging class, and my other classes.
Today I loved...
Not in Teacher School: Class outside? →
mollyrockstar:
There are two primary requests a teacher will hear most often from her students. One is reserved for the spring months, “Can we have class outside today?” The other is not seasonal, but rather remains consistently appropriate for annoying a teacher any day of the year. “Can we just watch a movie?”
And sometimes, even the best teachers do show movies. Doing this is often viewed by...
4 tags
“We cannot pretend that multiple layers of growing inequality — in home,...”
– Education and the income gap (via gjmueller)
File under: wait, what?
lhuddles:
If George Zimmerman raised over $200,000 on a website, certainly if I set up a website, people will want to donate to me, right? A poor little teacher with student loans?
Lhuddles* > George Zimmerman
*lhuddles can be replaced with any teacher’s name. especially a tumblr teacher.
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Student Writing
“Selective pressure is pressure to fit in.”
Never Again
I assigned case studies last week and now I’m grading them and they are taking like 10 minutes apiece to grade.
Definitely chunking it out differently next time.
ChristinaMused: Spring →
christinamused:
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no…
1 tag
"Gifted"
Me: [something something common ancestry relatedness...]
Student P: Ms. F! Ms. F!
Me: Yes?
Student P: I have a question.
Me: All right.
Student P: You know how people say that salamanders are related to dragons--
Me: Dragons aren't real.
Student P: I know, but if salamanders are related to them--
Me: Salamanders can't be related to things that are not real.
Student P: I know they're not real!
Me: I don't understand your question.
Drained
The kids have been wearing me down this past week.
I need to do many things. I need to do laundry. I need to eat dinner.
I’m hungry.
I need to sleep. I need to find some good, clear illustrations of common ancestry. I need to make a key for the difficult homework I handed out to GT today.
But I don’t even want to move. I’m just sitting here on my couch staring blankly at my...
2 tags
The Only Class that has Yet to Annoy Me
Student N: Was Darwin crazy?
Me: What? No.
Student T: So he wasn't like Einstein?
Me: What?
Student T: Darwin wasn't crazy like Einstein was crazy?
Me: What? Einstein wasn't crazy.
Student C: He was weird, though.
Me: Well, sure. Darwin was weird too.
Student T: All scientists are weird.
Student N: No! Ms. F is a scientist and she's not weird.
[general assent]
Really?
I'm probably going to fail at medical school.
quixoticandabsurd:
I can’t even write about why I want to be a doctor.
Fuck personal statements.
I still can’t write lucidly about why I want to teach.
“The monetization model of online publishing — a legacy model that hasn’t changed...”
– Maria Popova (via nedhepburn)
Oh hey! We had this exact conversation yesterday, over kombucha and Kate Beaton comics.
(via rachelfershleiser)
Ra-men.
Not just newspapers, obviously. It’s why I will continue to yearn for the next Ragtime while scorning 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight.
(via...
WE WERE SO BEAUTIFUL!: raphaellaskies: Sixteen... →
raphaellaskies:
Sixteen Things Calvin and Hobbes Said Better Than Anyone Else
fyeahliteratureshit:amandaonwriting:
On life’s constant little limitations
Calvin: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.
On expectations
Calvin: Everybody…
My proposal for Maine got approved!
Going to spend a week learning field ecology and natural history in Acadia National Park this summer! Pretty excited.
privilegedwhitegirl asked: In regards to the source of that Ann Romney quote: Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within the website are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in...
Positively Persistent Teach: iamlittlei: ““Why... →
positivelypersistentteach:
freudianslipped:
iamlittlei:
““Why should women be paid equal to men? Men have been in the working world a lot longer and deserve to be paid at a higher rate. Heck, I’m a working mom and I’m not paid a dime. I depend on my husband to provide for me and my family, as should most women… and if a woman does…
According to Snopes.com, this is fake.
...
Anyone Else?
markct:
Get that feeling they are a terrible teacher sometimes?
Yep.
Do I Have To?
Every morning when I get to school I sit in the car and sip my coffee and read my tumblr until the current song finishes, thinking, “I don’t wanna go.”
Once I’m walking in, it’s fine.
7 weeks.
1 tag
everydayramny replied to your post: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Interesting observation. How so? I’m a big LOTR fan.
Maybe it sticks out to me because I watch the movies a few times a year, but I just no longer think that the visual effects are as convincing as they used to look. In the same way that movies from the 80s have unconvincing visuals.
LotR was so far ahead of its time that I think it took...
3 tags
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Fantasy and sci-fi movies have a way of looking almost instantly dated.
For years I was astounded by the perpetual youth of Peter Jackson’s LotR films. Fellowship was released in 2001 and even in 2008 it looked current.
It wasn’t until about 2010 that I began noticing, though not admitting, that the films were showing their age. Now when I watch them there’s no denying that...
2 tags
