I’m not, God damn it. I refuse to do it. I am not dedicating another blog post or another minute of time with my precious mind on trying to make sense of ILEARN results and how it has been several years since they have correlated in any way at all with my perception of my students’ abilities.
That way lies madness. That way also lies comparing my results to the other 8th grade Math teacher and trying to come up with reasons why our scores might be different, and that madness is even worse madness than normal madness. I’m gonna walk away from this fucking computer and go read a fucking book, and I’m not thinking about school or the internet or teaching or math or fucking test scores for one more single second tonight because it is not worth it.
It hasn’t started yet, but apparently the thunderstorms currently headed my way are going to bring flash floods, hail measured in inches, and several dozen tornadoes. So, great! We were all surprised by the two fog delays we got last week; apparently I get to look forward to flood delays tomorrow morning, because if 2026 has shown me anything at all, it’s that when it is possible for there to be fuckery, it is an absolute certainty that fuckery there will be.
The trend of rough-as-fuck days continues; I had to do an office referral today for a kid who wouldn’t stop using the word “jigaboo” in class, and amended the referral a bit later when I discovered he’d also written “KKK” on his desk. It was also one of those days where everyone is having the same comprehension issue and I absolutely cannot figure out what is causing it. We are working on simple volume and surface area formulas; today, specifically, volume and surface area of spheres. The relevant formulas:
I generally will teach them how to calculate both formulas (not especially tricky) and then point out that since 4π and 4/3 π are always going to be the same number, you can actually shortcut the formula and use 12.56r2 for surface area and 4.19r3 for volume. The volume formula is a little bit of an estimate, but they’re both perfectly cromulent for what we’re doing.
For the first time since I’ve been doing this, this year’s kids showed a marked preference for the fuller version of the formula, and a lot of them simply could not wrap their heads around the shortcut formula. I was getting a ton of them who were multiplying 4.19 by the radius cubed and then insisting that they needed to divide by 3 afterwards. I would point at the formula they were using and ask them where that formula told them to divide and it wasn’t helping.
“Literally just multiply 4.19 by the radius three times. So if the radius is 7, you’ll calculate 4.19x7x7x7.”
“Okay. So when do I divide?”
“You don’t have to divide. Dividing by three is already worked into the 4.19.” And then I’d demonstrate how I got that number, for, like, the fourteenth time. And then they’d do a sample problem and still divide by three.
I had one of them write the volume formula as (1πr3)/3– so the whole thing as a big fraction, but replacing the four with a one for some reason. I pointed out that they had that wrong and told them that they needed to use four and not one, and then walked them through a problem.
“Okay. So when do you multiply by one?”
<head explodes>
“You don’t. First, it’s not in the formula. Second, multiplying by one would give you the same answer anyway, remember? So there would be no reason to put that in there.”
“Oh, okay.” <Does a problem.> “So, now I multiply by one?”
I change tactics. “Point to the one in the formula.”
They point at the one in the formula that they wrote down and still haven’t fixed.
“Have you noticed that you’re pointing at the one that only exists in your formula, the one I told you was wrong? Look at the formula at the board. Is there a 1 in there anywhere?”
“No. So where does it go?”
…
For six straight hours. I’m going back to selling furniture, God damn it.
The older brother of a kid in my building was murdered by the police.
A former student was shot a couple of miles from school and may be paralyzed for life.
And just yesterday another former student was arrested for murder. Despite being a minor the police are releasing his name all over the fucking place.
Oh, and another younger brother of former students who would have been one of mine in a couple of years got airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis today for unspecified reasons and is expected to be gone “indefinitely.”
I have a doctor’s appointment in a couple of weeks and she’s going to ask me about my mental health. I’m going to have to lie.
Second hour, my Algebra class. Supposedly the smart ones. I overhear one of my boys listing off ingredients.
“Stop looking up the Big Arch and do your math.”
The boys at the table exchange glances.
“How did you know that was the ingredients for the Big Arch?”
“I’m fat. Do your work.”
During sixth hour, I have to explain to a student that we have a “turn off the lights and hide” policy during lockdown drills because it is, in fact, a better idea for 800+ kids to be quiet and hiding during an emergency than jumping out the windows and running away, which is what he suggests the right idea would be.
He points out that most school shooters are students of the school (a fact I’m not completely sure of, but whatever) and that they would surely know which classes had students in them and would not be fooled by darkness and silence.
I ask him “Does Mrs. So-and-so have a fourth hour class?”
“Why would I know that?”
Today’s assignment has sixteen “real” questions and, just so that the points end up as a multiple of 10, which I care about for no reason, I include four questions taken from preschool standards, just to give the grades a little bump for the hell of it. Four students miss at least one of these questions and I have to explain to one of them, a native English speaker, what “fewer” means.
A teacher is absent and I am covering her homeroom, which means that both classes will be in my room at the same time. My prep period is fourth hour which is right before Advisory. A student knocks on my door at the beginning of fourth hour.
“I’m in Mrs. Such-and-so’s class.”
“I’m covering her advisory, not her fourth hour.”
“But <other adult> told me to come here.”
“There is a literal sign on her door saying that her Advisory class should come to me. Not her fourth hour. I’m not covering her fourth.”
“What should I do?”
“Mrs. Whatshername is covering her fourth. So if they aren’t in Mrs. So-and-so’s room they’re probably in her class. Go look and see if there’s a sign on the door.”
She repeats that the other adult told her to come to me.
I step out of the way and grandly reveal the empty classroom.
“There are no other students in here. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”
She stares at me.
I close the door.
A student tells me she wants a rat and a snake as pets. I ask if she plans to put them in the same cage. She says she might have to since “there’s not enough room.” I ask what she means.
There are four humans, four cats, and three dogs living in her home. The dogs are a pit bull mix, some sort of dog with the word “mountain” in the name, and a St. Bernard. She lives in a trailer.
I had at least one more when I was prewriting this. If I remember what it was I’ll add it in. This was a ridiculous day.
I considered not posting tonight; after all, if I’m going to lose one significant streak, I may as well lose more than one, but here I am nonetheless. I’ve already disappointed myself, surely I can’t follow that up by disappointing my adoring public.
Shut up, yes you are. And yes you do.
I am … superstitious isn’t the right word, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is– in exactly one way: I’m fully convinced that full moons fuck kids up. To wit, as I was leaving work today, someone mentioned that tomorrow was the full moon, and suddenly the utter fucking ridiculousness of my day just clicked. Like, oh, of course there’s a full moon. You were in that classroom. You saw those kids. And that’s the thing; when I walk into my day entirely unaware of the phase of the moon, experience the psychotic behavior from my lovely lil’ dipshits, and then find out that’s what was going on? That’s evidence, dammit. I shouted one room into twenty minutes of complete silence today. I’ve had such a good year that these kids have barely heard me raise my voice at all, so when I do lose my temper it gets a real reaction.
There are days where I simply can’t make this shit any simpler, and today was one of them. “See this number? See this number? Divide them shits. Make sure this one’s on top.” That was it. Calculating scale factors just isn’t that hard. And my third hour in particular made it abundantly clear that every second of my instruction had literally just passed through their heads like a neutrino through aerogel, leaving not a fucking trace of a mark behind. There’s only so many times I can be asked questions which I have literally just answered before I lose my shit, and asking a room full of fourteen-year-olds what three divided by one was and getting “one” and “four” as answers– this is not a fucking joke, it really happened– was the last straw.
I don’t give a damn if your parents tell you to go to school. You’re clearly already used to being a disappointment; what’s one more thing? If this is all the effort I’m going to get out of y’all, you can go. The office is down the hall. I’m not even going to write you up. Just fuck off. Go home, go to hell, I don’t care which. You aren’t entitled to my fucking oxygen if you’re not going to be a student.
This is the second day in a row where I have walked out of my last class of the day so overstimulated I was nearly vibrating, and … gah. This is an absolutely insane thing to complain about but I think my kids like me too much this year; nine of them attached themselves to my desk during sixth hour and I just cannot handle that much sustained attention from teenagers despite over two decades of teaching. Get away from me, all of you.
This is just to say that this week was utterly insane and I’m mentally shot and I’ll try and give you a book review or something tomorrow, but I need to go play Nioh 3 right now because I’m not good for anything else.
Yet another Goddamned snow day today, an asynchronous one at least, but my schedule for the next couple of weeks is tight enough as is and I can’t do new instruction on asynchronous days. So today involved a lot of keeping an eye on my email and Nioh 3. This also means that unless next week’s planned teacher inservice day gets cancelled, I’ll go until at least the second week of March without a five-day week. That’s got to be a record, at least during my career. Covid doesn’t count.
As far as I know, there’s no precipitation predicted for tomorrow at all, so hopefully I’ll get to go to work like a big boy. What did you do today?
I have talked about this before: possibly the most consistent aspect of my teaching career has been my weekly trivia question. It’s had a few different incarnations over the years, but the way it usually works is that I post a question on Monday and, for those who choose to participate, an answer is due by the end of the school day on Thursday. Anyone who gets it right gets a piece of chocolate or a Jolly Rancher or something similar on Friday. No one has to participate; it’s purely for an excuse to hand out candy.
The kids can find the answer to the question any way they want, including ways that might be considered cheating in other contexts. The only rule is that I will not tell them the right answer or confirm that their answer is right. They can look answers up however they want, they can ask each other— every so often I will seed a completely ridiculous answer to see how far I can get it to spread— or they can ask other teachers or staff members. Everything’s legal.
The picture above is not the exact same picture I used— it’s the same march, from a slightly different angle— but I can’t find a high-res version right now to use on the site, and the exact picture doesn’t really matter all that much anyway. The question is “Name any two people in this picture.” Which, okay, isn’t exactly trivia, but whatever, my game my rules.
Martin Luther King, obviously, is a gimme, although my students have shown the annoying habit of deciding any Black man in a black-and-white photo is King regardless of whether he looks anything like him. So they really only have to identify one other person, and the fact that King is linked arm-in-arm with the woman next to him (who has “Not Rosa Parks!” written in my handwriting underneath her) is kind of a hint as to who she might be.
Anyway, one of my girls turned in an answer on a half-sheet of paper. She wrote “Coretta Scott King” at the top of the paper, “Martin Luther King, Jr.” in the middle of the paper, and her own name— kind of important if you want your candy— at the bottom. Relevant: she is Latina and has a very obviously Latina name.
As I was going through the answers this afternoon, I discovered that one of my students in a different class period had obviously fished her paper out of the basket they get turned into and copied her answer. Now, again, technically this isn’t cheating. It’s kinda gross, but it’s not cheating. However, he’s not getting any candy tomorrow.
Why not? And how do I know his answer was copied from hers, specifically? Take a moment and think about it. See if you can come up with the reason. It’s cool, I’ll watch a video while you’re thinking about it:
This young man also wrote three names on his piece of paper. At the top was Martin Luther King, Jr. At the bottom was his name. And the third name? The one in the middle? Was the name of my other student, in all her Mexican glory. A fellow student in his grade at his school.
Now, I warn them: they can find out the answer however they want, but if I get an answer that I think betrays an exceptional lack of thought being put into the process, I reserve the right to make fun of them the next day. Usually this happens when I have a question beginning with the words “Which President …” and get someone who was never President as an answer.
I will have a grand fucking time mocking this answer tomorrow, I tell you.
(Also, left to right: Bayard Rustin (in the stocking cap), Philip Randolph, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Ruth Harris Bunche, Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King Jr, Coretta Scott King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Hosea Williams in the dark coat with the child in front of him. I recognized Randolph, Lewis, Abernathy and both Kings without looking them up, and I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t recognize Rustin.)
