Discover Top Posts Tagged with #mrs. b

Mrs. Ada Bennett, recently widowed. We’re playing blades in the dark :D

#oc rp #blades in the dark #mrs. B #Ada Bennett

As predicted

C is here. And so is Steve.

An enormous eyeroll in lieu of a stolen 📸 that never happened.

🙄

#Landcon Paris 2025 #fandom #shitshow #Mrs. B

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Another chapter 4u

#crowscare #cm&m raven #ryo #embry #the monster #rune #mrs. B #Ingram #venna #Crows Magic and Monsters #its not me its my basement #inmimb #tricks n treats

D4 Ms Beakley?

Whoever made Mrs. B pissed was never heard from again…

#I have to say this was the hardest one #her SHOULDERS #my art #ask me #face meme #Mrs. Beakley #DuckTales #DuckTales 2017 #Mrs. B

Day Twenty-Nine

I managed to get through last month without catching more than a little sniffle, but this morning I woke up with a headache, stuffy nose, sore throat, and fever. So the September cold got me in October...

I still went to work because it was just a teacher workshop day: meetings, NEASC stuff, PLC & department stuff... I’m doubly bad in meetings when I’m sick, apparently. Like, one of my older colleagues announced- when we were well over our allotted meeting time, I might add- that one way we could save time is by showing each other how to use Powerschool more efficiently. He said there should be a process for that, so I said, “The process is that you find a Millenial and bribe them.”

Thank goodness my colleagues think I’m funny.

We cruised through NEASC. Then I went to lunch with Mr. W, Mr. T, Mr. F, Mrs. T, and Mrs. B. That’s almost the whole Cacophony. Most of them had PLC or Department meetings afterwards, but not Mr. T and I. Social studies is so far ahead of the game. So he went to finish entering grades and comments for progress reports, and I went to touch up my next APUSGOV unit (my grades and comments were done three days ago because I am a wizard). I ended up gutting my unit test and putting a bunch of new stuff in it, so that’s done. I also had time to redecorate the team bulletin board.

Not a bad day’s work.

Day One Hundred Twenty-Two

So we’ve spent the past several classes studying the Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War, the Yemen War (threw that one in today for kicks), and the war against ISIS- all of which are interconnected. Today my job was to highlight that interconnectivity, and to widen students’ focus to explain- wait for it- proxy wars!

Giant. Geopolitical. Lesson. Of. Doom.

I mapped out who’s on which side (directly or indirectly) in each war, and we chatted about whether being on the same side always meant wanting the same end result (short answer: no). What I asked students to consider was how conflicting interests among major regional and global powers could cause problems in these wars, and make it harder to get results (ie- how might it make it harder for forces to succeed in taking Raqqa, an operation they read about for homework). And I asked them to consider how a country’s decision with regards to one war might affect the others. The ultimate takeaway- and it’s a big one for ninth graders- is that decisions countries make have far-reaching consequences. Students don’t tend to “see the whole board,” which I know I’ve written about before, and showing them how to do it is awesome. And exhausting. But mostly awesome.

Sooo that was my first eighty minutes. Second eighty- and thank God again for Mrs. T and the double-block classes- was devoted to thinking big thoughts about some of issues related to these wars. First, we talked about the refugee crisis. I like using visuals and putting a face on the people we’re taking about, so I showed the immense 4.1 Miles, which is a documentary that follows the Greek Coast Guard as they rescue refugees making the crossing from Turkey (Mrs. T, who is a parent, would like me to warn you that watching it as a parent is damn near impossible because these Coast Guard guys are pulling little kids out of the water). We discussed- as do many people in the film- what should be done about the refugee crisis, and (this is the trickier question) who is responsible for doing it. They were a little quieter than I thought they might be about this, but perhaps the politicized nature of the topic made it intimidating to speak about. I have their written responses, though, and have to read those still.

The second thing we discussed- after lunch- was the way in which we fight our wars. I always have kids ask why we don’t just bomb all of Syria (or whatever country we’re talking about), or why don’t we use the same tactics ISIS uses in fighting against them, and so on; in short, they’re ask me why we have rules for waging war. A former Marine named Phil Klay recently wrote an eloquent defense of the rules of war and the importance of moral courage. He’s more expert on the subject than I’ll ever be, so I read his op-ed to the class and had them identify and assess his argument. They found that assignment quite challenging- which it is- so I gave them more time to work than I’d originally planned to give, but in the end I think we had a pretty good conversation.

Overall, I’m happy with how the day went. It’s a lot of information for the kids to take in, and none of it is simple, and that’s okay because it teaches them that war isn’t simple. It shouldn’t be waged rashly or ignorantly. And that’s a good lesson for kids to learn.

And after all that I totally deserved coffee and ice cream, right?

Mrs. B brought coffee to Mrs. T and I during our team meeting. And the powers that be served coffee at today’s afternoon teacher workshop session. Yay, free ice cream! That’s a way to make an extra three hours of work on the day less of a hardship.

After the ice cream, I went and worked with my two World counterparts on the other ninth grade teams, revising the UBD templates that describe the course. I also went to talk to Mr. I, who is one of our special ed. case managers, about a student who is struggling. I’m trying to figure out how to help him, and I need some help myself. Mr. I is on it, so here’s hoping he’s successful, because I don’t want a student to sit in my class and feel lost.

Teacher workshop day tomorrow. Woot.