Teaching Occasionally

This might be on brand for you https://www.bluboho.com/collections/sweetness-collection

No hugs. Fist bumps or high fives are fun, but handshakes invoke a sense of maturity in older grades. Depends on what kind of mood you'd like to set/how old the students are. I end up at a new school every year and never know their names, so I like doing something like this to get to know them as they come in on the first day.

They do, but they share them on Spotify. One kid in my class made their friend a breakup playlist full of uplifting songs after they got dumped.

I teach in a French immersion school. The FI students can't read well in English (I'm talking both decoding and comprehension) or French, have poor verb conjugation skills in French, and generally have to work harder to achieve academic success, which can actually be alienating for students with learning challenges. So while there are definite benefits to being in a bilingual program, it is certainly not without its problems.

It doesn't sound like the reference has to be from the Bible, or any religious text. It says "or". Pick something your students are going to relate to. I'd personally ignore the religion piece altogether, since I'm not comfortable teaching that type of content and there are other types of texts (myths, fairytales) through which the students can find an entry point. (For example, analyze the evil stepmother trope in Harry Potter with the Dursleys).

I have my grade 7s write Affirmations to each other. I usually do this once a week, or more often if there's tension in the classroom. Each kid has a notebook and they're distributed to the class at random. I tell them to write something positive -- anything -- that's at least two lines. It can be anonymous or signed. Then the notebooks are handed to me and I hand them back to the kid it belongs to. Once they've read the message, in the back of their book they write the date and name of the student whose book they wrote in, since my rule is that they cannot write in the same book twice until they've gone through everyone in the class. When I first start this with a group, I follow up with a circle discussing how they felt to receive a positive message, and if it makes a difference that it was anonymous or signed. Once they get used to it, I do follow-up circles more infrequently.

Relevant to me today

The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma'am

the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”

wHat did I just put my eyes on

Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers

“Where are you going and where have you been” by Joyce carol oates

“The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury

the lottery by shirley jackson

i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf

Ett halvt ark papper. I cried so much.

Ночь у мазара, А. Шалимов

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme

there will come soft rains by bradbury was very unsettling for middle school me

I had no idea so many were all written by Ray Bradbury, why did he do this to us

Ray Bradbury is a master of the unsettling short story, and for a couple years in high school, I wanted nothing more than be able to write like him​.

Reblogging for my future short story unit

I thank students. For example, "thanks Jimmy for getting ready quickly." "Thanks Sally for making sure your books are out." It's more personal and less scripted, but still positively reinforcing what I want from everyone. I also thank students more privately for things I appreciate ("thanks for staying in to clean that up") so it suits my style.

Is that the fucking 401

That is the fucking 401

Of course it’s the fucking 401

I heard that babies are born on the 401, grow up on the 401, and take over for their parents as driver of the family car on the 401

What the fuck.

This is literally a right of passage as Ontario driver. You don’t truly drive until you can drive on the 401. I’m not even exaggerating.

The fucking 401. Had to drive on the fucking 401 only 2 days after getting my first car, a week of having my licence. Got boxed in by like six 18-wheelers and nearly caused a 20 car pileup squeezing my way between them just trying to get off at my exit.

The most terrifying thing I have ever seen

Imagine most of your life just being THIS DAMN HIGHWAY because your dad is in the military and is stationed on ONE end of the 401 and AAAAALL of your family is located at the OTHER END of the 401… Imagine this for 17 years… That’s more than half my life.

Fuck the 401 😂😂

No wonder yalls healthcare is free..it’s because of this…isn’t it?

My son drives this to work everyday. An hour down the 400 to get to it and then the 401 to his job every day. It’s the same highway we traveled regularly to see our daughter in Quebec. It’s just part of life.