WeAreThatIs

I'm still doing commissions! Here's one I finished recently.

This is a pair of D&D characters for a lovely couple. It's a very cute little love story they've come up with for the pair.

Source: [x]

Librarian: -slides me a blank library postcard- Write your address on this like it would be mailed to you.

Me: Sure?

Librarian: -takes it back- Great! Now we have mail with your address on it!

Me: …does it really work that way?

“There actually isn’t a rule that says I can’t cast this spell. I checked.”

“Which book?”

They are not “a little lady’s man.”

Don’t excuse him picking on a girl as him having a crush. Correct the behavior and stop treating it like it’s cute and normal.

Also stop insisting little boys have crushes on significantly older women. It’s gross.

DO NOT:

Yell at them for three hours

Take away their devices and look through them

Make them sit in their rooms in silent and do their homework alone

Side with the teacher and not get your child’s side of the story

Tell them that their grades are the most important thing they should worry about

INSTEAD:

Ask if they’re having trouble with other students or teachers

Sit down with them and help them with what they don’t understand

Speak calmly instead of yelling

Don’t invade their privacy by looking through their devices

Don’t take away their hobbies as punishment

Never make them feel unsafe or unable to trust you

“But that’s unfair to the people who submitted on time!”

I didn’t say you had to give everybody full credit. Drop the grade for each individual assignment by 5% for every day late until it gets down to 20%. Never, ever take it below 20%.

Here’s my rationale:

1. If you are a good educator, then you created that assignment in the first place because YOU WANTED YOUR STUDENTS TO LEARN SOMETHING. You still want them to have an incentive to complete that learning experience even if it’s not “on time.”

2. You want to prepare your students for the the real world, right? Well, if you missed a deadline (for example, submitting report cards), would your boss throw away everything you’d worked on, dock your paycheck, and tell you to try again next time? No. They would be upset with you, but they would ask you to take time out of your schedule to finish the project as quickly as possible. It wouldn’t cease to exist.

3. Based on point #2, if you are teaching high school or below, not accepting late work is holding children (who by the way, generally do not have full control over their schedules or what materials they have access to) to a higher standard than adults. 

4. If you are teaching college or graduate school, you are working with adults who are taking years out of their lives and paying thousands of dollars to learn from you. Why make it harder for them than it already is?

5. You have or will teach students with extenuating life circumstances that they don’t tell you about (e.g. chronic illness, caring for children or sick relatives, abusive relationships) because they are embarrassed to share this information or have already been taught to shut up and stop making excuses.

6. You have or will teach students with learning disabilities that they don’t even know about. I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school after years of being treated like I was just a bad kid. I suffered from depression and anxiety for over ten years before I went on medication. I did not even learn the words “executive dysfunction” until I was in grad school.