The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
This month’s edition featuring Roald and Strrrt, and entirely too many Goddamned books. I swear, I read.
Also, I figured out after taking the picture that I have a setting called “Rich Contrast” enabled on my phone somehow, which is why the last two images have looked so very saturated. It’s fixed now, but I was too lazy to retake the picture.
Dropped off my stuff in the new classroom today. I don’t love it, but it’ll do, especially if I come up with some ways to liven the space up a bit, and the fact that every single square inch of wall can have stuff attached to it is encouraging. I haven’t done any actual decorating– everything on the walls was there when I walked in today, including the (genuinely appreciated) welcome message on the bulletin board, but here’s what we’ve got:
The view from my desk. My biggest class is only twenty-four kids, which is spectacular, as I have way more desks than that, but they’re armchair style and they’re currently in rows. I’ll rearrange them eventually but for now that’s what we’ve got.
Major disadvantage #1: the classroom has no windows and therefore no natural light, which is going to murder me during the winter. I’m never going to see the fucking sun, and I predict I go out a lot for lunch, especially since my lunch and prep periods run together so I’ve got a longer contiguous break than usual.
The desk area itself. There’s a nice open space in front of it; I could put a group work table there or I could see if somebody has a couch or a chair they don’t want or something like that. There’s plenty of space in the room, especially with a max of 24 kids.
Problem the second: that teeny little whiteboard is all the space I have in the room, and I can apparently choose between using it as a whiteboard or using it to project on, but not both, which is … suboptimal. Now, on the plus side, I did ask the principal if it was possible to put whiteboards on the entire back wall of the room and she didn’t blink. I’m not getting it tomorrow or anything but it wasn’t immediately shot down, so hopefully I won’t have to deal with this for too much longer, as that’s an instructional handicap and not an environmental one. I can cope with no windows; I’ve had windowless classrooms before and there are ways to deal with them. No whiteboard space? That’s a genuine problem.
And then the final view of the room. There’s a doorway to the classroom next to me in the back there, which … okay, that’s fine, I guess. If I’m not getting new whiteboards right away I need to come up with something good for that back wall. We’ll see.
Book of the Month is going to be Ania Ahlborn’s Seed, even though you maybe shouldn’t read it.
God damn it, I swear I read books. I think there’s only like two or three on here new to this month.
(And, because I feel like it needs an explanation: I really want to read the John Gwynne book, but there are three sequels. I’m waiting until I finish a few more of the series books on the shelf before adding another one.)
This is easily the smallest stack of books that I’ve posted since I started doing this series some number X of years ago, and while I really didn’t get a lot of reading done in September, it’s worth pointing out that I started Ken Liu’s thousand-page Speaking Bones in late August and it took until the 11th to finish. So while this was still a light month it’s not quite as light as the pile indicates.
Book of the Month is Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld.
This was a month where I bought several new books and then didn’t read very much, so … yeah. And I even pulled a couple of books off the shelf and decided I wasn’t reading them after all; I don’t do that very often.
Who else could not possibly be any happier to see the end of August?
Six books, all from my Unread Shelf, next to Squirrelly Dan for scale. Which book has the most pages, and which has the fewest? The answer may surprise and enthrall you!
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