Free advice

Posted on by Luther M. Siler

If, after a reasonably relaxing six-and-a-half hour sleep cycle, you nearly die on the highway on the way to work because 1) somebody parked their car in a really shitty place on an offramp and oh also 2) you’re honestly fighting falling asleep for basically the entire drive, and then you get to work and, bleary-eyed and brainless, try to open your classroom door with your keycard badge, which, uh, doesn’t work on those kinds of doors, just go home. The day is not going to get better.

I also screwed up solving a problem on the whiteboard for my first hour class, only not only could I not find my error, neither could the entire class, and we sat and stared at it as a group for probably ten minutes. Turns out that, while 1.5 is half of three, that doesn’t mean that 3/1.5 equals 1/2! It equals two.

One grown adult, fifteen honors students, and it took me until lunchtime to figure out what I’d done wrong. I definitely should have given up and gone home after first hour.

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Luther M. Siler

Teacher, writer of words, and local curmudgeon. Enthusiastically profane. Occasionally hostile.

5 thoughts on “Free advice”

      1. Oh, darn it, I forgot (I have a lot on my mind). It’ll come back to me, I’m sure. In the meantime, what thoughts do you have on choosing a grade level(s) to teach at? (I’d have to do an alternative licensure application of some sort, of course, as I don’t have a degree in teaching–only a BA in writing and literature, and a MA in history (public history track, not education/teaching track). In the past, I’ve held licenses for both substitute teaching and as an educational aide, and found it a good way to build relationships with schools as I worked towards a teaching license. I’m exploring places to live, and if I get set up as a teacher there, that could be a good strategy to make the relocation easier.) Feel free to send an email, if you’re more comfortable with that: croftwillow at yahoo dot com. Thank you, either way!

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        1. Crap. Sorry, the spam filter caught this for some reason. Honestly, I’d think mostly about what ages of kids you’re most comfortable with and what you want to teach. If you’re thinking of yourself as a single-subject teacher with rotating groups of kids, that’d point you toward middle and high school, and if you want the same 32 munchkins all day long while you rotate through subjects you’re thinking elementary. I’ve taught everything from PreK-8th and while I have a couple of licensures that I could put toward high school, I’ve never really been interested in moving up to older kids.

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  2. Good timing on your part, though, with this post! It’s probably not funny to you, but I got a chuckle out of it! Especially since I saw the title of your blog. I was like “Seriously?”

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