#on teaching

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Parents evening with my little Year 8 class. I always try and have a KS3 because I don't want to lose my skill teaching younger kids. So far, I've made one parent cry with pride because I showed them the podcast her kid made on Mary Seacole, and three have said they love history since they started with me this year specifically. Winning.

[babydipper]

Another thing about being a teacher is that,, you just have to accept your body and you have to accept it ugly. No one has ever pointed out my physical flaws more times than my 7,8,9 years old. And you have to hear it, acknowledge it, and answer it.

I have never liked my facial hair. "Teacher, why do you have a beard and a moustache?" Because women have facial hair too and it's natural.

I have been anorexic. "Teacher, why do you have such a big tummy?" Because every body is different and it looks different at different times and in different positions.

I look better with glasses. I look better without glasses. I should do more make-up. I shouldn't do make-up. I look bad in red lipstick. And so on, and on, and on...

And genuinely, it has stopped bothering me. They don't mean to hurt me. They are making observations and giving opinions. I get unique opportunities to set example how they should see a body, how they should react when someone criticises their looks.

But, to give them justice, no one has ever called me beautiful and good and just loved me so purely like they do. Overall, a win.

[ghstbrd]

Today I decided to start creating my own damn worksheets for my students. I plan to start with subjects that are close to home that they otherwise wouldn't be exposed to (first up is a lesson on Teresita Urrea, Mexican revolutionary "saint" who lived in El Paso briefly), but also would love to create resources for teachers (and parents) at various grade levels and on an expanding list of (mostly social-justice oriented) topics (like a worksheet for MLK day that doesn't just harp on his non-violence without touching on his more radical ideas). I plan to publish them all for free, so stay tuned and get your printers ready!

[stargir1z]

bell hooks, teaching to transgress. chapter 10: building a teaching community. 

[draconicmaw]

Something that doesn't get talked about as much as it should is the way we condition male vs female students in the US.

As someone who currently works in a teaching position (I am essentially a TA for chemistry students whose grade is below a certain level), I found it both fascinating and alarming how differently female and male students approach their learning.

Unfortunately, it seems that we condition girls from a young age that math and the sciences are "hard" and that they should be intrinsically "bad" at them. So female students (generally) are underconfident, are more likely to seek help for their grades from people like me, and thus are more likely to get higher grades.

It's the opposite for males -- from a young age they are conditioned to think that finding math or sciences to be "hard" is "girly" and therefore they should be intrinsically better at such subjects. This adds up to (generally) overconfident young men who find it emasculating to get help for their grades (and their understanding of the subject) and thus do more poorly.

This is all culminating in the fact that we have underconfident women and overconfident men going into STEM fields where they need a realistic grasp on their own skill sets and understandings, and it is really a problem on both ends.

It's a complex gender issue, like many others, that really needs to be addressed but just isn't.

[galadrieljones]

My students are writing creepypastas for their final projects this quarter and they all have such weird, cool ideas. Some of them are even going to make like, found footage horror tiktoks and I am so excited lol. I just want them to get out of the house and like go fake legend-tripping or something.

[septaout]

june 2nd 2020 — just needed to put this here, i sent emails to all my students’ parents and they’re all getting back to me, saying kind things to me or how their kids love the videos i’ve been doing or just to tell me how their kids are doing and it warms my heart, i’m so happy to hear from my students, i miss them a lot, and i am glad to know i’m not working for nothing and that even though it’s been complicated at first, it was all worth it in the end. really grateful for these kids.