#eddie b

[nipplesnipplesnipples]

James H. by Eddie B

[so-many-crushes]

[danifandxm]

lissen the only thing scary in the Venom movie was when Eddie tore open a whole bag of frozen tater tots and aTE THEM RAW WITHOUT COOKING THEM

[quadcrushuk]

So much love to Eddie and all the other people who reffed at Chips and Gravy!! Thank you for volunteering <3

[roughridingrednecks]

Birdman

[roughridingrednecks]

Mr. Beard

[quadcrushuk]

What a wonderful hugger eddie Bruce is :)

[maggiebellemorgan]

I Don't Know How to Get Rid of This Book

A colleague gave me this book, and now that I've had the misfortune of reading it, I don't know how to dispose of it.

To be clear, Eddie B. and I agree on several key things: Teachers are undervalued. U.S. public schools are understaffed. Teachers are not only unsupported but undermined by districts and administrators in their attempts to discipline students and, you know, form responsible citizens, in ways that are both demoralizing and dangerous to teachers and bad for students. Teacher workplace injuries aren't taken seriously, and there's no outlet for them to express their concerns without being victim-blamed and even sued or fired for it. Parents often enable the worst in their children out of their own insecurities but in a way that stymies their own kids' growth. I could go on.

However, he clearly crosses the line into unhelpful and even ableist thinking. He props up a conspiracy theory that disability identifications are just about excusing student behavior, when we have several good explanations for why identification numbers are going up -- which have a lot to do with including children identified with disabilities in school rather than pushing them out. He seems to be advocating for a more zero-tolerance approach to school discipline, although perhaps it's not fair to say that he's advocating for anything other than for teachers to get to air their gripes without being attacked, even though research has borne out that such policies were racist, sexist, and ableist and funneled kids into prison. At no point does he point to disinvestment, austerity, privatization, charter schools, deprofessionalization, or any other systemic causes of these issues, but rather "kids these days" and their parents.

Now, I don't by any means endorse attacking him on social media with racial slurs for his hot takes on student behaviors, which is apparently a thing that has happened to him. I just think he's taking the wrong tack.

He's also out of touch. At one point he muses that a teacher must've had a great relationship with her principal if the principal had her personal number; all principals are always texting everyone on blast all the time while still being terrible, in my experience. Also, none of these stories are actually all that shocking. I only worked in U.S. public schools for ten years total, and for each anecdote shared in his book, I could think of at least a couple on the same theme that were much worse that had happened to me or a colleague.

Moreover, he needs an editor. I know it's not a big deal to some people, but the typos, strange capitalization and usage choices, inconsistencies in formatting, and overall lack of gloss was very distracting to me. He just copy / pasted submissions from social media followers and free versed his responses to them, without theme, organization, or even too much humor, in my opinion.

The colleague gave me this book, unsolicited, under the condition that I pass it on to "another traumatized teacher". Respectfully, she doesn't have what it takes to be a teacher, especially the universal positive regard for children with exceptional behavioral needs, or even the ability to not take those behaviors personally. I wouldn't embarrass myself by sharing this with any teachers, due to the bad opinions expressed in it and the weak sauce of the scandals included. I wouldn't put it in a Little Free Library where a student might read it and get any bad ideas. I wouldn't give it to a non-teacher lest they incorrectly believe this is how good teachers feel. Sound off with your suggestions.