In which I am still able to be surprised

On August 21, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching4 Comments

I’ve been teaching for 20 years, or, at least, this is year 20. In that time, I have seen a lot of ridiculous shit. Put two or three experienced teachers in a room together and encourage them to tell stories and it can go on for hours, and that’s before I give the other person a chance to talk.

Something happened in my classroom today that has never happened– not only in my career, but I’m pretty sure in my entire school experience, even as a student.

Think back to when you were in school. Remember when that kid puked? Of course you do. You may not remember a single other thing about that kid other than that one time that they puked, but you absolutely remember that one time that kid puked. Everyone has at least one of these stories, and some of us, in theory at least, have to be the kid who puked. But everyone remembers somebody.

I had a kid tell me earlier today that he wasn’t feeling well. I asked him if he needed the nurse and he said no, but asked if he could go to the bathroom. I gave him a pass and sent him on his way. He was back in a reasonable amount of time and I checked in on him when he came back and he said he was feeling better. I chalked it up to temporary intestinal distress and forgot all about it.

During my prep period I happened to throw something away in the trash can next to my desk and discovered, rather disconcertingly, that there was an enormous pool of puke in the bottom of my trash can. We’ll skip the part where I tracked the sick kid down and insisted he see the nurse; it’s not important or especially interesting, other than when he told me he hadn’t asked to go because he didn’t want to get sent home, which … maybe raises a red flag or two? I’m gonna keep a close eye. No, this isn’t that story.

The story is that during this kid’s class period I have not only 20-some-odd other kids, but there are two adults in the room, and this kid managed to vomit into a trash can and absolutely fucking no one noticed. I didn’t hear it. I didn’t see it. I didn’t smell it. Neither did anyone else, because 8th graders are absolutely biologically incapable of ignoring puke, as you might well expect them to be. And this isn’t, like, he threw up in his mouth and then just spat it out or something minor like that. He had to have lost most of the contents of his stomach into this trash can. There had to have been heaving. Horking, if you will. And he did it completely invisibly.

I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so horrified.

Recording for posterity

On August 16, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Two twelve-hour days later, I’m fucking exhausted, but I needed to get this written down before collapsing into bed, because I genuinely had one of the best moments of my career tonight while talking with parents at the 8th grade Open House. This is a very short story, but powerful nonetheless: one of my dads, on the way out of the room, stopped, looked around for a moment, then came back into the room and told me he really loved the way I’d set up my classroom.

“I was terrible at math as a kid,” he said. “I feel like I could actually have learned in here.”

It’s going to be a good year.

Back, but not back-back

On August 14, 2023August 14, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

In accordance with our previous discussion, of course.

I am … unreasonably tired, and this is mostly a proof of life, written on either the day of or the eve of Indictmentpalooza 4. The next two days are going to be 12-hour days and I will have to bring a change of clothes along with me to both. Go ahead, place your hand on the screen; you’ll be able to feel my excitement.

Wait, what?

On August 13, 2023August 13, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Yesterday I said I was genuinely excited about school starting this week. Today I’ve mostly been a ball of anxiety, although I think I’ve been masking it pretty well, maybe? I don’t know. I did a better job keeping busy yesterday– for the most part I had no choice, being honest, as we went to a birthday party in Indianapolis, and driving back and forth to Indy in a single day is gonna keep you busy whether you want it to or not. Today … not so much. I have done a lot of sitting and staring. Finished the crossword and the Spelling Bee on the NYT app. I’ll probably finish the book I’m reading today. That’s about it.

I’m hoping to find out one of two things tomorrow– either that we hired a new math teacher and therefore the size of most of my classes are going to drop by about a third, or that they’ve agreed to split my Honors class into two classes, which will put me into an overload status (bad) but substantially increase my pay because of said overload (good). One of my current life goals, and it’s entirely reachable provided no major crises this year, is to be completely debt-free other than the house by the end of this school year. With the extra pay from an overage class it goes from “entirely reachable” to very close to easy. One way or another I should know by the end of the day. I’ll finish up the classroom tomorrow and then I can spend Tuesday and Wednesday worrying about curriculum. All good, right? Sure.

In which I am stunned and grateful

On August 11, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching3 Comments

This table represents the largesse that the Internet has showered upon me from my wish list over the course of the last week or two, and y’all, I’m not exaggerating or joking at all when I tell you that this is probably about $350 worth of supplies. Those Post-It poster cards are like $120 a pack all by themselves. There are 600 pencils in those boxes, which is probably at least a semester’s worth. Two boxes of Expo markers will get me through most of the year. There are not many kids wearing masks any longer so 300 of them will probably set me for the rest of my career. (I will probably give at least one of those bags to the nurse so that she has more on hand, actually.) And you would be amazed at what an 8th grader will do for a sparkly gold star.

Shut up, I’m trying to be genuine here.

None of you had to shell out for any of this– from the number of packages I’ve received there have been several who didn’t reveal themselves either here or on Bluesky– and my appreciation is deep and real. Thank you.

The room is coming along:

Bored 6th grader, for scale.

The main innovation here is moving one of the semicircle tables to front and center from where it was last year, over by the green board, and it tended to be a haven for the kids who weren’t planning on doing a lot of work. I also stole the second one from a supply room, and some of the desks have changed orientation, giving me a decent middle area to stomp around in while I’m talking. In theory, at some point in the near future the wall on the left is going to be acquiring a full-length whiteboard, which is why there’s nothing on it right now, but who knows how long that will take. I’m required to be back on Monday; everything this week was off-contract, and I think I got enough done today that next week I can focus on fine-tuning the details (my desk is a useless mess right now) and actually worrying about curriculum and assignments and shit for the first couple of days of school.

Nerrrrrrrdddsssssss

On August 10, 2023August 10, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Teaching2 Comments

I didn’t make it over to school today; I woke up this morning and the thought of getting out of bed was just unimaginable, much less driving a million thousand miles away and throwing desks around all afternoon. So I get to do it tomorrow! Hooray!

Instead, today got swallowed up by, to start, (other than lazing about, I mean) some research into what it would take to add high school mathematics to my teaching license. I don’t want to move up to high school but it’s come to my attention that I have a fair number of seventh graders in my honors algebra class, which is already a ninth-grade class, which means that those kids are going to take Geometry next year, which technically I’m not allowed to teach? So I’m looking into that. I have to learn enough calculus to pass an exam, though, which … eek. I may have dropped out of Calculus 3/4 of the way through my senior year of high school and not looked at it since then; don’t tell anybody.

Tonight was eaten up by a kind of ridiculous little project; I have 152 kids on my roster so far (that number will– is guaranteed— to change) but just for the sheer hell of it I went through last year’s Student of the Month database and compared that list of kids to my class roster. I discovered that 58% of the students who won SOTM last year are in my class, which is already a nice slant, probably accounted for by the fact that I have the Honors kids, and that of those 152 kids on roster eighty-four of them won SOTM at least once last year. 55%. And it’s not like that guarantees that the other 45% are knuckleheads, either. I have a couple– literally, two– who I know to keep an eye on from last year, but it’s literally two kids. I think I can handle two Project Kids(*) during the first few weeks while I figure out who the rest of my hot spots are.

(*) This looks kinda racist. I mean Kids Who I Have Decided To Make a Project Of, not Kids From Project Housing.

I’ll post classroom pictures tomorrow, especially if I make any serious changes from how the room looked last year. The problem is with the style of desks I have and the layout of the classroom I have, putting everything in straight rows is really the only solution that makes sense, or at least the only solution that I’ve been able to come up with so far, but maybe I’ll have a burst of inspiration tomorrow. We’ll see.

Also, I think that everyone who spoke up the last time I mentioned having BlueSky invites is taken care of, but I got another code today, so if you’re still out in the cold and you need one (or if I missed you last time) let me know.

Fuck saving money

On August 9, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

If there are people– any people– working in schools during the summer, the Goddamned air conditioning in those buildings needs to be on, and it is bloody fucking insane that I’ve had to deal with this bullshit twice this week. It’s going to happen again tomorrow, but I’m going to show up prepared to be a sweaty fuck all afternoon, which I did not do today, because I had already forgotten the lessons Monday should have taught me. And the AC was off, and it was humid as fuck, and I was not dressed to be moving furniture in a windowless classroom with no moving air.

Tomorrow’s gonna suck too, but at least I’ll be prepared for it.

On school supplies

On August 7, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Teaching7 Comments

A touch of housekeeping before I dive into this: I set a personal record this morning for the fastest time I’ve ever fled a PD session, leaving after the keynote address, which was basically a very nice and funny man going “Man, teachers are cool, aren’t they?” I left because apparently having a few hundred teachers in the building to learn stuff wasn’t enough of a reason to turn the fucking air conditioning on in the building, and I was sweating like a pig and I really needed eyedrops from my car and when I got to my car I found it impossible to get back out and go back into the building.

Do other careers do this? Do lawyers need to get together every now and again to get a rah-rah speech about how cool and important lawyering is? Do venture capitalists work in buildings where basic things like environmental control are hosted off-site and not accessible to the people who actually work there? No, right? It’s no.

Can we talk about school supplies, just for a minute? I had a whole rant I went into about this at dinner tonight, and part of the reason I have this site is so that when I feel compelled to rant about something or another it lands here and not on my family, and I broke that rule tonight. The problem, of course, is that now a lot of the venom is exorcised and I don’t necessarily need to write the post. Nonetheless! Let me provide you with a few pieces of advice, for those of you buying school supplies for your kids:

Yes, you are responsible for buying supplies for your own kids, the same way you’re responsible for food and clothing for them. Yes, the school is funded with tax money. Yes, you pay taxes. Would you like that dollar back? Go buy some fucking pencils and paper.
Many teachers, myself included, keep large amounts of school supplies on hand for kids who for whatever reason don’t have them, and this is absolutely not a wealth thing. However! The very second you imply that I personally am responsible for providing your child with school supplies, your child loses access to anything I pay for and bring to work. This is irrevocable unless you personally apologize. Go buy some fucking pencils and paper.
Some teachers are very picky about school supplies! There are probably reasons. Some, but not all, of those reasons may be good ones! Ask them.
If your kid’s school is picky about school supplies, however, it’s probably because the school secretary is sick and fucking tired of parents asking what kind of pencils they are supposed to bring and so now the supply list says “Yellow Ticonderoga #2 Pencils” and not “Pencils.” Whatever pencils your kid has will be fine. Whatever paper your kid has will be fine, although do pay attention if a particular teacher asks for loose-leaf, because those little torn edges are annoying as fuck.
I have literally never encountered a school that asked for Yellow Ticonderoga #2 Pencils and actually got uppity about some other pencil. I would love to hear about it if it happens, and you’re within your rights to complain about it. Politely.
Some teachers (hi!) are going to shrug and say something like “they need something to write with and something to write on.” Others will be more picky. Guess what? Teachers are human, and policies vary from class to class, because there are different humans running those classes. Again, ask, and if a teacher says they don’t really care or doesn’t specify a list, just make sure you kid is prepared to take some notes. That’ll probably be good enough.
Some teachers will not have lists at all! Sometimes we just got our job four days ago. Sometimes we haven’t thought about it yet. You’ll be okay. Go buy some fucking pencils and paper.
Some things are going to be communal! If you don’t like it, eat a gallon of ass and homeschool your kid. That box of tissue paper isn’t just for your child. If you are upset because little Jimmy got the real expensive colored pencils and you don’t want the dirty poors touching his pencils, if you think that’s communism, find a bridge and jump off because your kid is better without a parent who ego trips about school supplies. I mean this genuinely and with all my heart. Go buy some fucking pencils and paper.
If you saw a supply list at Wal-Mart or whatever, be aware that no one at the school knows where the hell that list came from, and no one at the school has any idea that that list even exists. That list got made up on the spot and sent over by a secretary twelve years ago and they’ve been photocopying it every August ever since, and there is not a single person at your child’s school that knows anything about it or can do anything about it.
That said! You already know what the basics are. Buy those– paper, pencils, a couple of notebooks, some hand sanitizer and tissue paper, maybe some markers or colored pencils or crayons depending on your kids’ age. Again, nobody is really as picky as these lists indicate. Your constant stupid questions made us this way.
There is one exception to this rule: if your child is of middle school age, or otherwise is expected to travel from class to class while carrying their materials, do not buy them a pencil box. Buy them a pencil bag. Pencil boxes are for kids young enough to have their own desks that things can be stored in. Why? Because if you drop a pencil bag, it hits the floor and goes splat and maybe if it’s unzipped a pencil might fall out. If you drop a pencil box on the floor it will explode, and your kid’s shit will go everywhere, and because passing period is chaos and middle school students are savages, your kid’s stuff will quickly be kicked to the four corners of the universe and your kid will die of embarrassment on the spot.
This is what I mean when I say unreasonable-seeming specificity can sometimes have a good reason. Please do not buy middle schoolers pencil boxes.