PD Day Agenda

9:30 sharp (as per the email to staff)- PD Day begins
Teachers wander into the library and mill about, slowly noticing that we have assigned seats. Some people try to switch groups. One entire table switches locations because they have been placed so far to the front and side that they cannot see the screen.

9:33:30 – Principal address
“Today’s PD will be extremely useful.”

9:35:12 – First speaker.
Topic: substance abuse
Y’all, it is happening: kids are still abusing substances. You know it, I know it, they know it. Sure, the overall stats are pretty good and, yeah, we *could* invest in vape detectors for the bathrooms, but that costs money, so instead someone will tell you about marijuana and cannabis as though it is still the 80s. We will not talk about things like phones, social media, opioids or fentanyl. Stay focused.

Some time later – Break – supposedly 10 minutes but now 5 because we are already behind

10:47:08 – Teacher-led presentation about [Literacy/ Numeracy]
Note that this session will begin just late enough that the staff who worked like crazy on this presentation will have to cut something important, and every minute extra will shorten our lunch.

10:48:00 – ICEBREAKER
Today we will either be annoying the Humanities teachers and boring the Science/ Math teachers or annoying the Science/ Math teachers and boring the Humanities teachers. Roll the dice.

10:59:21 – Chipper staff members (confession: I am usually one of them) begin desperately attempting to convince other staff that they should stop saying that they “hate [math/English]” and that they really should not tell their students that [any subject but mine] won’t be useful after high school.

10:59:42 – If the school is providing lunch, (unlikely but possible) it arrives. It is set it up in the back of the room as staff continues to learn about [math/English] and why we should integrate it into our classroom. The smell of lunch now fills the room as the staff presentation continues.

Special note: today’s lunch is scheduled to begin 30 minutes later than on a normal school day. The smell of food should permeate the room long before teachers can eat.

11:12:37 – The buzz of teacher talk suggests that everyone is on task and excited to use [math/English] in our classes next week. Or maybe it suggests that Mr. X has pulled out pictures of his twins – now 6 months old! – and everyone is cooing over them. Well, everyone except the AP Physics teacher, who is still marking tests, and two basketball coaches who are hunched over a playbook. “Look!” says a harried teacher-presenter, “That playbook is a perfect example of [math/English]!”

11:28:16 – Everyone applauds the teacher-presenters. One of them is visibly sweating; another has just wiped away tears; a third is still looking at pictures of the twins. The principal announces that all 17 afternoon sessions are now “self-directed learning” to honour us as professionals. To prove we have “engaged with the content” teachers are required to complete a “proof of engagement” after each session. This may include Google forms, e-signing a document, taking an online test, a spit shake, swearing on a religious text of your choice, taking a blood oath, offering up your firstborn unless you guess the name of a short bearded visitor, hopping on one foot for exactly 2 minutes and 16 seconds, and other activities to show that we have completed each session.

11:30 – Teachers leave for lunch

12:30ish – Some teachers return

Afternoon – 43 voluntary meetings are available for teachers to attend this afternoon. None of them are about any of the 17 required afternoon topics. They are voluntary so we do not have to be there because this is the time scheduled to complete our required self-directed work. If we choose to attend the voluntary meetings, we will have to complete the required work at home. Oh, and the Principal will be at all voluntary meetings and will take attendance. Just in case.

Partial list of the 17 Mandatory Self-Directed Training Sessions

From the Ministry of Education: The total video time of this training is 7.25 hours, not including the time required to prove you did the work. We have allotted 3 hours for you to complete it. We have disabled your playback speed options on some – but not all – of the videos. If you figure out which videos allow you to change the speed, AND if you skip slides on the boring slideshows and just go straight to the tests, you can probably finish by the end of the school day.

Note: all training will be identical for all staff K-12 at all sites. There will be no differentiation.

7 minutes, 8 seconds: Equitable and Inclusive Schools

14 minutes, 12 seconds: Child Abuse Prevention and Reporting

8 minutes, 47 seconds: Appropriate sign-offs for professional emails

4 minutes, 3 seconds: Cybersecurity, Part 3

21 minutes, 32 seconds: Ladder skills

3 minutes, 54 seconds: Concussion Symptoms

3 minutes, 2 seconds: Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

18 minutes, 7 seconds: Stop, Drop and Roll

5 minutes, 4 seconds: Shoe Tying – Reverse Chain or Bunny Ears?

1 minute, 44 seconds: Self-care to Prevent Burnout – You Are Responsible for Your Mental Health

Conveniently, no one knows when the teachers go home.

What happened on Tuesday

What happened was a thunderstorm with a massive burst of lightning and a thunderclap so loud that I jumped out of bed even before I understood that the dog was barking.

What happened was that the dog went crazy, running and barking and shaking, after the thunderclap that shook our house and shook me out of bed, so now I was wide awake and went downstairs to the kitchen, where I talked to my visiting in-laws about the much-needed rain that was pouring pouring pouring down.

What happened was that the rain started coming down so hard after that giant clap of thunder that it took us a second to register the blaring of the fire alarm. “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!” a vaguely female electronic voice stated with an oddly calm urgency. She managed to time her words in between the deafening blares of the alarm. Lights flashed from every unit, the already nervous dog went wild, and even my father-in-law, who’s lost a lot of his hearing, had to cover his ears, while my mother-in-law jumped up, and I ran to the back door to let the dog out, then both of my children came loping downstairs, blearily asking what was going on as if our house was not suddenly and obviously full of noise and strobe lights and chaos. “It’s the fire alarm!” I yelled, and my voice was not calm or electronic and my words were not timed to fall between the blaring blaring blaring of the alarm, so I had to repeat myself several times even though what I was saying was painfully obvious.

What happened was that I ran down to the basement to try to turn off the insistent incessant alarm, and the frantic dog escaped from the backyard and tore down the driveway, seeking refuge anywhere that was not our shrieking, strobing house, so my son ran out the front door and intercepted him, then somehow the terrified dog and my somewhat-less-terrified mother-in-law ended up in the backseat of her car, trembling and meanwhile I dragged a chair into the basement and stood on it, ineptly pushing and jabbing at one unit, trying to stop the noise.

^{*What happened was that one week earlier, Max had encountered a skunk and even though we had washed him and washed him, his wet fur now smelled distinctly of skunk, even as my mother-in-law sat with him in the back seat of her decidedly not skunky car, calming him.}

What happened was that I could not make the alarms stop screaming, maybe because they’ve only gone off twice in five years and both times Andre was the one who stopped them, but now he wasn’t home, so I called him at work and when he didn’t pick up, I kept calling and calling while I pushed and held and twisted and pulled and tried everything I could think of to stop the sirens. When that didn’t work, I got off the chair and threw all the fuses, desperate to make the noise stop, but then I was in the dark with the strobing lights and the blaring noise.

What happened was that Andre called back, alarmed and annoyed, and he told me to unplug each unit until I found the one that was the center of the storm of sound, and then, if they still wouldn’t stop sounding to just “throw them in the freezer” and I thought that sounded odd, but we’d once put a bat in the freezer (it’s a long story) and the noise was so loud that I didn’t think too much about it: I stood on the kitchen chair and unplugged one alarm then another while the kids did the same upstairs until suddenly, mercifully, the noise stopped, but when one of the units let out an errant “beep,” I threw them all in the chest freezer in the basement.

What happened was I had planned to meet up with colleagues for lunch, so once I had four alarms in the freezer and the dog coaxed out of the car and everything more or less back to normal, I left. As I drove to the restaurant, I wondered about those frozen fire detectors, but they were there now and quiet, so I continued. And all was well. I came home, took them out of the freezer, and took my younger child to the dentist to talk about braces. It took awhile.

What happened was that as the fire detectors defrosted, they decided they were not done: they started to scream. My mother-in-law put the (still slightly skunky) dog in the backyard, and he tried to escape again. My father-in-law decided enough was enough so he put the alarms back in the chest freezer, and when I came home I decided that I was done with alarms for the day, so even though I’m off for the summer and even though Andre was working, I ignored the clearly unsolved problem.

What happened was that Andre came home and said, incredulously, “You put them in the FREEZER?” and swore that he had said to put them in the cooler which is the ice chest and which does not actually freeze things – especially not fire detectors – and while I can admit that he might have said that, I also reminded him that we have put weirder things in the freezer, so he shook his head and went upstairs to change his clothes then went downstairs to take four frozen fire detectors out of the freezer.

What happened was that freezing the alarms (twice) had caused condensation to build up and the batteries to get low, but this time I knew better so, barefooted and disheveled, I took the dog outside before the chaos (re)commenced.

What happened was the dog treed a raccoon and one of our cats got into a fight with a neighborhood cat, and as I tried to calm things down, two little boys, brown as berries and attracted by chaos, wandered by and stopped for a chat. One told me that he was four and he could lift this rock and he could spell his own name. He was astonished to learn that I was a teacher and wondered why I was sitting on my front steps with a dog. I said, “because it’s summer” and he didn’t ask about the thin sound of fire alarms seeping up from the basement and only wandered away with his cousin when Andre came up and asked if I knew where the compressed air was. I did not.

What happened was that Andre, looking somewhat wild, begged me to go ask our neighbours if they had compressed air while he went downstairs to blow dry the fire detectors and even though this request was patently insane because who has compressed air, I got up from the porch and went door to door, barefoot and trailing a dog, asking. The two oldest neighbours laughed out loud and delightedly asked how our fire alarm was holding up. I didn’t tell them that four units were frozen and dying and currently being blown dry in an attempt to bring them back to life but in a silent sort of way because that was even more insane than asking 75-year-olds for compressed air on a Tuesday night. I tried four houses; no one had compressed air.

What happened was I came home empty-handed and finished blow-drying the four dead-ish detectors, leaving one after another on the basement floor, dazed, with their poor half-dead eyes winking weakly on and off until Andre fetched them and put them back in their places – except for one that we dubbed the “problem child” and put back into the cooler (not the freezer) until further notice.

As far as I know, one week later, it is still there.

Attendance concerns #SOLC25 5/31

Thanks to one of my colleagues, many of us have this sticker on our laptops:

You would think that this would help us remember to turn in our attendance for every class every day, but if our Vice Principal is to be believed (and he seems reliable enough), it does not.

As a result of my inability to submit attendance for all of my classes before 4pm, I have written myself an attendance letter.

(NB: Our lovely administrators would never actually write a letter like this!)

Dear [Employee Name],

We are writing to express our concern regarding your recent attendance pattern: specifically, [insert problem here: you keep forgetting to turn it in].

Our records indicate that you sometimes take attendance as soon as class begins. We commend you for your optimism! We know that on those days, invariably, at least 12 students arrive late – generally walking in one by one over a 45-minute period – and thanks to our fancy tracking system, you have to keep a record of the time at which each student enters the class. We understand that this might be difficult for you, but noting their arrival time is imperative for our systems.

We are here to support you. May we suggest noting arrivals on a piece of paper and hoping you don’t misplace it before you enter the data later in the day? Do you even have paper near you? If not, why not? If so, where do you keep it? And do you manage to keep a pen, too? That would be impressive organization for a teacher who is also moving about the room to respond to her students. Alternately, perhaps you could pause your instruction, freeze the projected computer screen each time another student enters, then navigate to our school attendance site and immediately enter their arrival. Would that disrupt your teaching? If so, what is your plan to manage that problem?

Consistent attendance taking is crucial to the smooth operation of our school. Your attendance-taking pattern has impacted [explain specific impacts, e.g., our records]. According to our computerized records, your period Z class has nearly perfect attendance, despite the fact that one student no longer attends school at all. We note, too, that you insist that this class is “nearly unmanageable” with “students entering and leaving at will.” This implies that perhaps you are forgetting to submit your attendance for this class.

We are here to support you. Have you tried using a hall pass system? Perhaps students in this class would be willing to write their arrival and departure times on a piece of paper strategically placed near the door. Attention: do not write student names where others can see them; this might be shaming. We realize that all the other students have seen the late arrivals; nevertheless, we invite you to manage attendance privately. Maybe you can place the paper a little out of the way? And put a cover on it? And you will probably want to attach a pencil. We are certain your students will use this paper appropriately. Also, please note that even if a student spends 70 minutes of the 75-minute class period “in the bathroom”, you should still mark that student present and note the time they arrived.

We encourage you to discuss any underlying issues that may be affecting your ability to maintain regular attendance, and we highly doubt that your attendance records reflect anything close to reality. Please reach out to [supervisor’s name] to discuss potential solutions and support options available to address these concerns. Please note that [supervisor’s name] is unwilling to text you every. single. day to remind you to do your attendance. That’s what your laptop sticker is for.

We value your contributions to the team and want to work with you to ensure your attendance meets school expectations.

Sincerely,

[Name]

[Title]

Teacher Math #SOLC25 3/31

Word problem:
Having been made aware – repeatedly – that photocopying is consistently the largest line item in the school’s budget, a teacher has nevertheless decided to make photocopies for a grade 9 English class. The activity will require only one day, so students who are absent today will not need a copy. 24 students are enrolled in the class. How many photocopies should the teacher make in order to have enough for all the students without “wasting” money?

Break down using the GRASS method.

GIVEN: Read the question carefully. Figure out what values are given.
24 students are enrolled in the class.

REQUIRED: Figure out what is required.
Enough – but not too many – photocopies for the students who attend class today.

ANALYSIS: Analyze the question and use appropriate math operations.
It’s one week before March Break and one (1) student has already left on vacation. Their parent notified you. Experience tells you that up to two (2) more students may have already left without letting anyone know.

24-1-1 = 22 OR
24-1-2 = 21

It’s the first week of Ramadan and class is at the end of the day. There are at least seven (7) Muslim students in the class. Some of them will be fasting, and some of them may be fasting for the first time in their lives. This is difficult, so some of them may go home before the end of the school day. Still, it’s only Monday, so probably most of them will try to stick it out. Estimate: one (1)

22–0= 22 OR
22–1= 21 OR
21–1= 20

The flu has been going around. Loads of students and teachers were out last week, some for up to five (5) days. Today’s list of absent teachers is long, and during period one, about a third (⅓) of the class was absent. This class was pretty healthy last week. Are they more likely to be sick this week as a result? Check the online attendance to see if anyone has already been called in sick by their parents. One student is marked absent. Estimate: at least one (1) and up to three (3) sick students.

22–1= 21 OR
22–2= 20 OR
22–3= 19 OR
21–1= 20 OR
21–2= 19 OR
21–3 = 18 OR
20–1= 19 OR
20–2= 18 OR
20–3= 17

Last week you sent emails home to several families addressing student behaviours. Of the four (4) families you contacted, two (2) replied. How many of these students will attend class today? Educated guess based on experience: three (3) will attend and one (1) will skip in frustration.

21–1= 20 OR
20–1= 19 OR
19–1= 18 OR
18–1= 17 OR
17–1= 16

Finally, students may not be able to attend due to “Acts of God”: “I missed my bus after lunch” or “I got suspended for fighting in the bathroom” or “My best friend’s boyfriend just posted on IG and another girl was in the picture so I had to stay with her because she was so upset” or “Sorry, Miss, I forgot it was a Day 1 and I went to my Day 2 class and I only realized it wasn’t my class after 25 minutes.” Estimate for today: an optimistic zero (0)

WAIT: don’t forget to add in the extra copy for the student who loses their sheet between the time you hand it out and the time they need to use it. (approximate elapsed time: 8.3 seconds)

20+1= 21 OR
19+1= 20 OR
18+1=19 OR
17+1= 18 OR
16+1= 17

SOLUTION: Solve the question.
Maximum photocopies required: 23
Minimum photocopies required: 17

Repeat these calculations for each of today’s classes.

STATEMENT: State your answer in simple words.
For today’s classes, in order not to waste money, the teacher requires somewhere between 17 and 70 kajillion photocopies.

Realize after all of this that at least three students will be gone for some or all of the class because of a volleyball game. Their coaches posted about this on the email conference three (3) minutes after you finished photocopying.

Good luck!

The day after Pi Day #SOL23 15/31

These days, it feels like everyone knows about March 14, Pi Day. I know we didn’t do this when I was younger, but now it’s a thing, so I thought about making some sort of pie yesterday, but skipped it because it’s March Break and I didn’t feel like it.

This morning, I came downstairs to find this (it was on my phone, but I needed my phone for the picture):

I’ll admit, it took me a minute. At first, I thought my husband might be referring to one of our new favourite things which a younger colleague recently shared when I was all steamed up: Cave Johnson Lemons

(Really, you should listen. It’s hilarious.)

But… no, I wasn’t quick enough. Here’s our conversation.

I’m pretty sure (but not 100% sure) that the final picture is from the internet and not from his office, but one can never tell: apparently, in our house, we skip Pi Day and go straight for the Ides of March.

Literature made me do it #SOL23 9/31

Look. I’ve slept through my alarm, so my husband has to wake me up, and this morning’s shower is non-negotiable, so in I go even though I am already running late. As I wash my hair I mentally review my closet and select the navy and white sundress even though it is March and still cold because I know I can layer the light gray cardigan over top and no one will be any the wiser.

I am out of the shower, face cream on, hair combed, mascara on and down the stairs for breakfast in under five minutes. Andre has made me a smoothie – he really is the best – but I have to wait for the water to heat for tea. Breathe. Crossword. The water boils and I pour it over the tea, gulp a little more smoothie, run up the stairs to wake the boys then back down the stairs to stop the tea steeping then back up the stairs to finish getting ready.

Black leggings are obviously a no – the dress is navy. I dig for gray leggings. Nope. The only available tights are also black. I search again for the gray leggings while my brain again mentally scans my closet. Ah, there are the leggings! I dry my hair then brush my teeth, wishing – not for the first time – that I were ambidextrous, a skill I imagine using mostly to do things like dry my hair and brush my teeth at the same time. Superpowers, I think, would be wasted on me.

Ok. Ready. Just socks.

Socks.

What the heck kind of socks am I going to wear with gray leggings and a navy dress? Gray. I need gray. There are no gray socks in the drawer. I have white – that’s a no – brown, black. I stare at the socks. In the caverns of my mind I hear my stepsister, Jamie, saying, “I’d go with the _______ pair. ______ goes with everything.” I have no idea whether she said “brown” or “black.” ARGH.

Um… Ok, focus on shoes instead. Which shoes will I wear? I slip on a brown pair, then catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror- nope. I grab a navy pair – but with which socks? Precious seconds slip by. Andre walks into the bedroom and stares at me, barefoot, with multiple pairs of socks on the bed and several pair of shoes on the floor. He looks perplexed. “What are you doing?” I explain my conundrum and he suggests solving it with brown boots. Perfect! I zip them up. Not perfect. They look…wrong.

My carpool buddy will be here any minute. I have not had any tea. I need to be ready about three minutes ago. I still haven’t made my lunch. I stare at the sock drawer as if gray socks might magically appear. I remember that I threw out my last pair a few weeks ago – holes. My carpool buddy arrives downstairs. Suddenly, the solution is obvious: Shakespeare socks. I’m an English teacher! Sure, they don’t match, but they say “To be or not to be” so I can claim literature and no one will be the wiser. Precisely no shoes (probably in the world) go with a navy dress, dark gray leggings and blue-ish Hamlet socks with white skulls and green crowns, so I throw on some navy slides, rush down the stairs, toss a bit of tea down my throat, grab my lunch and run out the door.

No one commented all day long, but I’m pretty sure it was one of the more unusual outfits I have worn in a while. Whatever. March Break starts in under 24 hours. And tomorrow I’m wearing jeans.

Video Game Poetry #SOL23 4/31

I have spent much of the morning in the same room as Mr 12, who is deep in a video game with a bunch of his friends. At first I was annoyed – it’s hard to write with someone talking loudly right by me – then inspiration struck: somewhere on Twitter, people are turning their bedmate’s sleep talking into Insta-style poetry. Here, very lightly edited, is the poetry of 12-year-old gamers. (Apologies for the curse-words. I promise he mostly curses in video-game play.)

And then, a miracle occurred

Only years after we started did anyone outside of schools begin to wonder. After all, teachers had been doing so much with so little for so long that people had forgotten that we, too, were subject to the basic laws of physics. Let’s be honest: most people had forgotten the basic laws of physics, so it was easy to forget the rest.

No one questioned how our classrooms were set up, the computers charged, the rooms tidied. No one wondered how teachers were able to give exams, grade all the final projects, communicate with parents, write report cards and start an entirely new semester with an entirely new set of classes and students all in the same week.

When politicians or parents or the public added another thing to teachers’ plates, they never wondered how it would get done. “This isn’t much,” they thought – if they thought about it at all. Soon we were able to give epipens, handle both epileptic and non-epileptic seizures, monitor blood sugar, stop bleeding, re-start hearts and more. We could identify and support students with any and every learning need because we seemed to have endless time to read the latest research and put it into place in the classroom.

Every English teacher read hundreds of books per year so they could always recommend the latest ones. Science teachers set up perfect labs, day after day, week after week, month after month. History teachers never lacked for primary sources. Art rooms were constantly clean. Teachers called home for every absence, every missed test, every concern. We all returned student work the day after it was submitted.

No one really noticed. “After all,” they thought, “that’s what teachers *should* do.” The less generous grumbled, “It’s about time they did their jobs” while the more charitable thought, “teachers seem much more relaxed than when I was in school.”

When the first scientist suggested that maybe something unusual was happening, teachers basically ignored it. “Oh,” we laughed, “don’t be silly. Teaching is easy. We have plenty of time.” When the second voice joined the first, a few of us started to worry. Luckily, it was a long time before our secret stash of time turners were revealed and we had to confess just how many hours all of this actually took…

*****

Sorry. Just kidding. Today we had about three hours to tie up loose ends from last semester, tidy our rooms – or change rooms or even schools – and prepare for all new classes. But fear not, we have three whole days of teaching full time before our report cards are due. Totally normal.

Who is Charlie?

Lately I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep. I finish reading, turn off my light and close my eyes… then some rebellious part of my brain hears “PARTY!” and gleefully begins to list all of the things I need to do. These wild worry-happy neurons are willing to let pretty much anything in:

things I should have completed but haven’t
things I need to do for school
things I need to do for my family
things I need to do in the morning
things I need to do before I die
things I don’t really need to do but, you know, I might as well add to the list

Any self-respecting 50-year-old working-parent-brain knows how to handle an unplanned fret-festival: paper. I live by the mantra on the paper is out of my head, and I keep a pencil and post-it notes next to my bed. I like using the little ones because they imply that my lists are somehow manageable. I also like to pretend that I won’t fill up three or four or five…

Things usually look more manageable in the morning, even if sticky notes litter the cover of my book. But Monday, I woke up to this:

Um, y’all… I don’t know anyone named Charlie. And who is the questionable person who goes with Charlie? What activities do they need? Was I planning them? Do I need to plan them? I have no idea.

I spent Monday dutifully crossing off most of the things on this list, but Charlie lingers. What does Charlie need? Who is Charlie? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that my list-making brain was playing a practical joke on me. I suppose the only solution is to go upstairs and read for a while and see what I put on tonight’s list… Maybe I’ll wake up with things for Charlie to do.

October Multiple Choice for English Teachers

How many books have you read since school started six weeks ago?
- Easily a book a week since all of the students in all of my classes read independently and silently for at least ten minutes per day.
- Do you mean the books I read to model reading behaviours for my students or the books I read at home? Or maybe the professional books I read?
- Does it count if I don’t remember them?
- [quiet weeping] I keep starting the second chapter but someone keeps farting loudly… in every class.
When you model writing in front of your students, they…
- watch with interest, asking questions and noticing how I am shaping my work.
- glance up from their own writing occasionally if they are stuck and need some inspiration.
- keep talking
- Wait – I’m supposed to write in front of them? I’m not sure I should turn my back to the class.
How many phones have you confiscated so far?
- We have incorporated phones seamlessly into our daily routine so that students recognize them as useful learning tools.
- My students and I co-created classroom rules; as a result, they respect the rules and only use phones at pre-determined times.
- 14. Yesterday. During first period.
- [quiet weeping] I’ve started loaning my phone to students when theirs run out of battery.
How many assignments have you graded?
- We have a routine where students choose their best work every Friday. They polish it and hand it in so that I can provide feedback over the weekend. We don’t need grades because each student has individual goals that they set for themselves and they are monitoring their progress. So far, everyone has an A.
- Six weeks of school; six assignments. I strive for a 24-hour turnaround.
- One. The next one is due at the end of the week.
- One. Mostly. [quiet weeping] Ok, I’m lying. Some students have turned in *something* and I swear I’ve looked at it.
What is the current state of the magnetic poetry on your chalkboard?
- We have a multi-class collaborative poem that is currently up to four stanzas of rhyming iambic tetrameter.
- Students are using each other’s creations as springboards for their own writing.
- Someone separated the words “pretty flowers” from the rest of the bunch.
- Even though I removed all of the potentially vulgar words from the set, one student – who has yet to turn in any actual work – has managed to write “I want to tongue your mother” and other vague obscenities every day.
Which unit are you studying?
- We have eschewed “units” as a colonial construct; instead, each student has determined their own course of study, including stretch goals.
- We are right on schedule: we’ve completely wrapped up the second of four units, leaving time in the semester for a final project.
- So… that first unit is taking longer than I thought.
- I think this semester might be one long unit.
How effective are your anchor charts?
- My students have worked together to create attractive, informative anchor charts that cover the bulletin boards and indicate that this is *their* classroom.
- The anchor charts around the classroom both support and reflect student learning.
- I have some.
- I’m waiting for the chart paper we ordered in late August to finally come in.
How often do you eat lunch?
- Daily. With my students. I supervise a club every day. Interactions with students are paramount.
- Every day. With my colleagues.
- I mean, I eat…
- I keep forgetting to pack a lunch. Yesterday I gave a student some money when he took a “bathroom break” and he brought me a McDonald’s hamburger and some fries.
Your sleep patterns can best be described as…
- An effective routine that allows me to function at my peak
- 8 hours per night.
- Erratic
- I just want to get through a night without school nightmares.
According to your therapist, how many weeks before you go on stress leave?
- This is simply unthinkable. My students need me.
- Stress leave? Teaching is my dream job.
- We think I’ll probably be fine.
- I’m just trying to survive to November.