hmm updates. finished my master's and credential-- i taught middle school in LAUSD and quit after three months because i was getting physically ill on the way to work from the stress and admin was like. doordashing food to the front office. in retrospect there are a lot of things i would've done differently but i was not in a position health-wise to think clearly about the situation.
didn't assign any homework ever because kids had basically every AI app on their phones and were pretty diligent about using them in their other classes, in PD meetings LAUSD would encourage AI use for teachers too as a lesson-planning supplement. i would observe 'star' teachers and see their printed script start with chatgpt. "certainly! here's your scripting for your lesson on (x)." feels impossible to have the high ground if you put yourself in that situation. i unfortunately care about curriculum design and differentiation in order to increase accessibility for all students so i was working like 80 hours a week basically. and equitable grading for 100 students writing shit on paper is absymally slow when there's nothing in the tank.
in my creative writing elective we did a lot of corita kent / learning by heart -influenced observational writing and drawing. did a lot of surveying and felt like i really tried to get to know my students and tailor things to their interests but yeah didn't really land + even when it did i was sorta cowed or exhausted from trying to untangle the early cynicisms. being a kid rn feels impossible and idk how they do it.
since then i have been subbing at various progressive schools in LA which feels a little fucked up precisely because of how awesome and calm i feel when i'm in those 40k/head spaces.
oh and my grandma died. i still miss our house that burned down last year and now i'm in this new world without her in it too. it's hard but overall i like where i live and want to find some kind of compromise between high-need and my own emotional tensility. i'm too brittle
