A dump about teaching and science, from the JediTeacher.

JediTeacher

19422

295

#1 Fun fact: I'm actually named after James Kirk. Mom was a huge Trekkie. I can't teach without coffee.

#2 It gets harder every day, but I do love teaching.

#3 Yep. Classes are large this year. I'm fortunate to not have 30 though, but some teachers in my district aren't that lucky.

#4 That moment hits me when the ladies up front call me to remind me.

#5 I'm actually a 55 year old man, so you know it's bad if I look like this. It is stressful, but I do love it.

#6. Fortunately, I have all sixth grade this year, making it easier to plan and teach each day. This is the second year in a row it has been a very large group though.

#7 Vaccines suck when you are getting them, but they are worth it. I still haven't had Covid once!

#8 Some kids are bad about it. I take late work to a point though. Kids can't control their life circumstances.

#9 I have to remind them all the time they EARN their grades.

#10 They really do love labs, and I love doing them. Seeing the science happen is important.

#11 I don't want pizza. I want a pay raise higher than inflation for once.

#12 It's hard to keep the year on track.

#13 No one has set fire to my room. Yet. They do manage to sometimes massively screw up due to not reading lab directions.

#14 I am not ready. Send help. And by the way, we don't get summers "off" because we don't get paid. The district withholds part of my salary and pays it to me. In other words, they help us budget our ten month salary so it lasts 12 months.

#15 Seems like a lot of papers handed into me are covered in orange dust. The cafeteria does have some healthy stuff that isn't processed, but they won't eat it. They seem addicted to those takis and hot cheetos though.

#16 I get kids on the first day of sixth grade who think the Earth is flat or the sky is blue because it reflects the oceans.

#17 I do push them, but I'm not some superstar teacher. I'll take the praise and the bump in pay that comes with the scores though.

#18 Y'all might want to start getting upset about this if you are American.

#19 EVERY. SINGLE. ASSIGNMENT. If I'm giving you work, yes it is a grade.

This is me. Note the lightsaber. It is purple. Why? Ask Samuel Jackson. Yes, I wear kilts to school. The kids love it. I am the Jedi Teacher.

Week 1 in the life of a teacher post is here. https://imgur.com/gallery/week-life-of-teacher-week-1-is-over-look-what-you-did-imgur-ClABX8M

teacher

teaching

memes

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JamieFoxxisNOTaWayansBrother

I prefer to not talk to coffee people before OR after their coffee if at all possible

1 month ago |

Bertisintrouble

#1 or, maybe you can't coffee without teach...

psychobob2213

BitRoyal

I had a Mrs Elmore once. I don't remember ever turning anything in late, but it was first year Latin, so not many essays or projects.

kaarbaakimgr

I believe the grammatically correct way to write fibromyalgia is “fibromyalgia”

The air quotes are not optional.

Fun fact: On top of everything else, I've had 8 concussions, so I make spelling and grammar errors. Thank you though, I'll proofread more.

AyatollahBahloni

https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1eHowd3h4YzJmNnM3aTBrZHdlcjZvZ3N6azE5b2l1cjRtb2M3aXl3eSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/D6WuLOKOpR2fK/200w.webp

Thank you!

secularink

FuzzyMedic

Janeway was amazing.

At her best in Year of Hell, as was the rest of the cast.

3Davideo

#16 "... we live in Minnesota. The ocean is over a thousand miles away. And the sky is still blue."

QueenPinx

You’re doing great Jedi teacher :) interesting, caring…and bad ass kilt

Thanks! I just bought another kilt. Lol. I usually only wear them on Fridays, but I am going to be wearing them each day next week to break the kids into the idea. They really do like them.

Samcharles77

Keep on teachin'

NLOVNI

This was mainly college but I had two types of teachers. 1) You start with an F and have to work your way up. 2) You start with an A/B and have to keep up. Are you either?

They start with a blank slate. The first grade they submit becomes their average. The average changes as they submit work. Thus they fully earn their grade. Assignment categories are weighted - labs and tests are worth more than homework and class activities.

That’s preferable IMO. My hardest graduate class was taught by a professor that graded 30% as an ‘A’. Some curve. I think he just liked to show us how much we don’t know but didn’t penalize us for it. Not great for motivation, again IMO. I’m fortunate to have had access to affordable or free education and some really good teachers. You seem like one of the good ones. Keep up the good work.

monkeyninja

#2 I’m in the same boat @OP. Ketamine infusions for the PTSD and fibromyalgia along with talk therapy to unpack the experience, and topical ketamine for the arthritis has me able to sleep through the night without pain. I know it doesn’t work for everyone but it changed my life. I found out about it from a random post I made similar to this on Reddit. Hopefully it’s something useful to you as well and I’m getting to pay it forward.

I will certainly look into that, thank you!

I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about it. I definitely hemmed and hawed about choosing to try it and dragged my feet a long time. It was the topical pain relief I got from the compounded prescription that helped me feel better about taking a chance on it and it ended up working out for me

BIC777

Stay strong. You're doing important work.

Appreciate it. I love it - the kids keep me young.

emu314159127001

Props on the buzzcut. I'm a year younger, with technically more hair, but thin on top, i just buzz it off. Looks so much better than combover

I've worn it like this pretty much my entire life. It just thinned out over the years and I never changed the cut. Lol.

tyfghtr

#16 I had a 6th grader once say to me "Israel was supposed to be a holy nation chosen by God until the bad people came. Like America."

...Hoo boy. That is way too much for me to unpack here bud, I just let that one go in an awkward silence terminated with an "mmhmm, ok" and continued with the lesson. Just wow, I... I don't even know where to begin.

Tangurena

Once upon a long time ago, I had a coworker that was involved in a Christian cult. They were adherents of "Anglo-Israelism" - that one of the "lost tribes of Israel" wandered until they settled in Britain and then migrated to America. They'd keep kosher and celebrate both Jewish & Christian holy days. I trolled the dude, but what he taught me came in handy when I dated Jewish women and was able to keep a kosher house for them. Fascinating cult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism

And this was a fascinating little story. I never heard of them. Thank you.

SilverStarling

#7 I got all the covid jabs offered, still got covid every time (including now).

The wife and I have never had it. Sorry about your luck - Covid is nasty.

I seem to have got away with just feeling shit for a few days this time.

prfesser

#9 Tell them what I told my students: "I don't give grades, I just keep score."

After over 20 years, that's the first time I've heard it. That is going in my syllabus, thank you.

slimvictor

As another 55 year old teacher, thanks for this dump!

You are welcome!

TankLovesFranya

1) Thank you for what you do, especially the actually holding kids accountable part! 2) #18 is wrong, per pull spending is WAY up in most places but teacher salaries, as well as student performance, have not kept up. THIS is what Americans should be angry about.

Millions of funding is being with held from states right now. If teachers made more, they would have a wider pool of qualified and motivated applicants. I've seen way to many hires that were: "Well, we need an adult in the room. We don't have a choice." That happens because of a lack of applicants. All the union busting from the state of Florida isn't helping either. Teaching is no longer respected or valued in society by a lot of people.

https://www.the74million.org/article/interactive-school-spending-is-up-teacher-pay-isnt-see-whats-happening-in-8900-districts/

DMSledge

#7 Measles making a comeback in Alberta. The anti-vax stupidity is strong here.

Texas too. And one father who had a daughter die said he still wasn't going to vaccinate his other kids.

bigblindguy

I got every vaccine I was offered for Covid. Still had it 3 times. No regrets, would get the vaccines again: Am alive, a few long term effects but not in the ground so big thumbs up and high fives all around.

Wife and I have been lucky enough to not get it. My oldest son did.

AnAcuteCaseofLonliness

#18 this reminds me of a billboard I saw today in Georgia. It asked the viewer to reconsider whether or not high school was necessary. Some people truly want to destroy our future.

Some people want and are bringing back child labor.

LifeIsADanceOfMinds

"#1 Fun fact: I'm actually named after James Kirk. Mom was a huge Trekkie."

So, is is James, Kirk, or Tiberius?

fartharder

James R Kirk

Dead naming? https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9815/who-is-james-r-kirk

Tiberius is canon in two movies.

I'm James Elmore. Didn't get the Tiberius part.

L0rdinquisit0r

because you would be tibs elmore, pronounce in kids ryme and slagging voice

puromento

Did you post a story here about how your mom went into labour, but waited until the end of the new ST episode before going to the hospital?

Yes! That was me. :)

DoseOfScience

Honestly, still enjoy 'flipped' classrooms or whatever the proper term is. They do a recorded lesson you can watch anytime and then the instructor helps with left over questions. Might just be my personal preference tho.

I've thought about trying to do that, but there are a lot of rules about showing student faces, and I move around the room a lot as I teach. I do post my presentations for the kids to look at later though.

The main one I'm thinking of is Big Bad Tech on the youtubes. Admittedly, that's heavily biased toward STEM.

Seethreepeeoh

Remember kids, AI isn't a threat to education. It's only a threat to testing [skelator cackels and runs off]

It's a threat to actually learning anything

Agreed. AI is hot garbage. It has legitimate uses in things like drug research, astronomy or reading medical imaging, and that's about as far as I trust it, as long as actual human experts are checking everything.

Grovertrove

It does have some benefits for differentiation (something along the lines of Diffit), but 100% agree, a human set of eyes HAS to be checking over things to ensure compliance as well as factual correctness (saw it conflate some things on regulation that came out of the Gilded Age with things from the late 1950s... that was interesting).

MagicalScientist

Problem is that it keeps ending up being more work to check the AI than it is to get information from scratch, or do a task from scratch (see: that one study where programmers who used AI thought they were being more productive, but it was actually slowing them down by a large percent).

#14 My mom was trying to make this "point," once, and she said "Well, do they get paid in summer months or not?" Only if they choose that option, they're paid for what they're paid for, and most choose to get paid like other people. Fun fact; teachers generally have to work longer than 8 hours, the extra period for "prep" isn't enough to grade everything, necessarily. Also? No supplies? Guess who often pays?

Yes. Teachers do not get paid over summer! We pay ourselves with our own money is what happens, the school district just budgets it for you. Our contract is only for the duration of the school year. We do not get summers "off" where the school pays us to sit on our butts.

They seriously SHOULD get paid for the extra time they put in.

I appreciate that. I feel I do more for society now than I did when I was making six figures as a computer network engineer.

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