Is this a test?

I must have left my car door unlocked… I just walked out to it (in the back back of my driveway, behind the house) and someone had gone in and left the door ajar. Wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t left my center console and glove compartment open :/

For sharing:

I’m like:

This is one of my giblets.  I know as teachers we chip in for fundraisers all the time–and you don’t even know this kid–but if you would like to support her, it would mean the world.

The IU foreign language program is LEGIT. It is hard to get in and these kids are coming back basically fluent.  We have an amazing French teacher prepping kids for this, and Sunny has been working for this since her freshman year.

Her family isn’t in the position to pay for her expenses. They love her and support her and are so, so proud of her.  She’s been working two jobs since she could legally work and holding on to a 3.8 GPA, she’s been saving for this and taking care of all her teenage extras (and taking her kid brothers out once and while). She’s even cut back on dance so she can focus on art and France. 

The man holding this #BlackLivesMatter sign is Richmond (CA) police chief Chris Magnus, whose department has not lost an officer or killed a citizen since 2007, the year after he took over. This is not an accident, this peacefulness is the direct result of his leadership. Police departments across the country should be looking to his department as an example to be followed.

‘Chief Magnus changed the department from one that focused on “impact teams” of officers who roamed rough neighborhoods looking to make arrests to one that required all officers to adopt a “community policing” model, which emphasizes relationship building.

They also apparently go through the details of officer-involved shootings elsewhere, picking them apart and using them as teaching tools for what NOT to do or what the officer could have done to avoid shooting the person.

I grew up here. I’m close to Richmond. It used to be one of the most dangerous cities in America. Literally. In 2006 it was #11 in the Most Dangerous Cities in America. 

Now? It doesn’t even break the top 100.

What changed? This guy became police chief in 2007.

The other day I had an ask about how I handle students who have anxiety about presenting in front of the class, and one of the things I said was that it’s tough when kids expect us to be mind readers.

To illustrate this: we have a student this year who has had a lot of truancy issues. He came here halfway through the year from another school after getting arrested. He’s a big kid with a face that has a bad attitude written all over it. He shows up late or not at all, he doesn’t do his work, and sits in the back of the room on his phone with a scowl.

The class had group presentations today and he actually happened to do some work for his group, but when it came time for them to go up and present, he said he wasn’t going to do it and “fuck presenting, this is stupid.” I sent him down to the office for his lovely use of language and the group presented without him.

The dean came up shortly after and informed me that apparently this kid has struggled with a really bad stutter all his life…not all the time, but when he gets nervous, and he didn’t want the other kids in the class to laugh at him. Nobody knew this before - his file just says he attended speech therapy in elementary school but there was nothing else about it. And with some of the kids in that class, I can’t blame him for being nervous.

I had him stay after and just present the specific slides he worked on, just to me. He apologized for the way he acted in class and was gracious and appreciative. He did seem a little nervous and stammered a couple times, but recovered quickly. I told him that I’ll put a note in for the maternity leave sub that for the next presentation, he will be allowed to present 1:1, and for the one after that it will be the teacher and half the class (the good half) so that he can slowly get used to presenting without pushing him to an uncomfortable situation.

But we need to know these things! If the dean hadn’t come to tell me, he would have gotten a failing grade, because it’s not in his file, we’ve never been notified by a parent, I’ve seen no evidence (because he hasn’t had to present in here yet and doesn’t get nervous in class when the spotlight isn’t on him), and he didn’t advocate for himself!