“If you drown, allow yourself to feel the depth of the ocean. And then resurface when you know that’s the deepest you can ever go. And promise to never to go beyond that.”
“You give and give, only to realize that there isn’t much left to give. So you shut doors and learn to heal, learn to give to yourself. Only to have people say you’re being selfish. But then retort and say “Fuck you, I am still going to give but to myself first."”
“Sometimes people forget how hard it is to go about your day. How hard it is to just love someone who loves you. When depression hits you, you forget everything, you forget that you’re loved and you love someone. Because its this piece of shit that reminds you constantly that you are not worthy of the love. That whatever you set out to do won’t be enough because you are not enough. I feel this constantly. Some days I’ll be fine but days like today, breathing even crying feels like the biggest task in life. So, I want everyone to know, that this will pass and one day we will look back and realize that this had to happen, to let us become who we are today.”
- g.d (this will make us weak before it makes us strong)
3It is Summer vacation so I decided to go on Pinterest and just search. Just search. Then I came across this Cult of Pedagogy post from 2015 and took a listen. She reviews 5 common teaching practices that she, as a teacher, decided to kick to the curb.
I used to do this even as a high school teacher mainly because the students asked for it and I thought Well, if this what gets the students interested. And then I stopped because, as the blog relates, it was more of a distraction than engaged reading.
2. GIVING STUDENTS PREPARED NOTES
When she began talking about this (I decided to listen to this post rather than read as I cleaned my kitchen), I thought this would be a great idea! Provide these notes and the students can follow along. But wait, this was one of 5 teaching practices she wanted to abandon. I continued to listen and then she said, “…when no effort is required in the learning process, learning doesn’t last very long.” This 2017-2018 school I realized, I made learning way too easy for my students. This section of the article talked about the use of Powerpoints and then I realized, Oh crap, I did so many online presentations! So, personally, I will abandon (or at least rely less) on presenting Google Presentations.
3. WHOLE-CLASS PUNISHMENTS
This effected me this year. I did not do whole-class punishments, but I this do whole-class judgement. THIS is what I need to abandon. I do not do whole-class punishments, but I do say things like, Ugh, Period # is such a pain orPeriod # hates me orPeriod # is so annoying. This needs to stop. For my own sanity’s sake.
In the post what she does instead of punishments is, “The best way to deal with a rowdy class is prevention: If you have a lot of days when your whole class feels chaotic, this is symptomatic of a larger problem. It may be that your directions aren’t clear. Your students might be bored. You might need to build more opportunities for interaction and movement into your lessons. Or it might be time to re-establish clear behavior guidelines and consequences.“
In my case, I have to find what is symptomatic of a larger problem. This year, it was one student and I let his behavior determine the detriment of the class. But I also think, as she stated, this student might have been bored. This student might have needed more opportunities for interaction and movement into my lessons. He needed me to re-establish clear behavior guidelines and consequences.
4. USING LEARNING STYLES TO PLAN INSTRUCTION
Not gonna lie, I used to do this. Instead I have been practicing more of what she had suggested to do instead: “Provide a variety of learning experiences to all students.” Variety helps, but I also found high schools can manipulate a situation and not know it. For example, I had students select a role they feel is their strongest and a group of kids assumed that if they all took the same role they would work in the same group. Only one student flourished in that role.
Last but not least…
5. “DIFFERENTIATING” BY HAVING ADVANCED STUDENTS HELP STRUGGLING STUDENTS A.K.A. Peer Tutoring
This is an oldie but goodie teaching strategy and I abandoned this one a long time ago. I think this is good for that go-getting elementary school student, but in my high school classroom I have learned that my more advanced students simply preferred to be around those who were like them. They liked to be in a group that matched their intelligence, and they would not mind helping if a student actually wanted to the help. But some of my Advanced students have told me that in middle school they would get bullied to do all the work or do the assignment for them. Instead, if I see a student struggling I ask a student Hey [student’s name] mind helping [student’s name 2] with this? Sometimes this is followed with Do I get extra points? in which I respond, regardless of who the student is, You get a thank you and you are amazing.
So that is that, my reflection on listening in (and reading through) the Cult of Pedagogyblogpost on ineffective teaching practices.
I know what I can do for next year, but as a teacher, we can always evolve to be a better 1% of ourselves the next day.
So my BF and I were playing a mod called Osiris something (don’t remember the name) on a video game last night called Mount & Blade Warband. He bought it for me as a gift because he is amazing, but that’s not the point of this post.
Anyway, as we played I got called the usual names like “tits” and “pussy,” and he kept apologizing to me for how rude they were being and he was worried how I was taking it. I just kept responding with the same old “it’s fine, it’s been this way forever, it’s nothing new, it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.”
But I realized something as I woke up this morning— It’s NOT fine. Women should be able to play games and not get lewd comments all the fucking time. And although it may not phase me (I’ll admit it sure as hell phased 14 year old me when I started online gaming) it may still phase other women a lot! Being objectified for our genitalia and being told to “go save yo pussy starsword, it’s the part worth savin!” Is definitely not ok, this wouldn’t fly in real life. I just wanted to put this out there, I don’t know if there is some movement specifically against this but I feel it important to talk about. Thanks for listening to my ramblings.
