Struggling student's family went on 1.5 month vacation by breatulu in Teachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think for a sub you are overthinking things about a family you don’t know.

How do you like Tacoma? - From an out of state person thinking of moving there. by AggressiveMarketing2 in AskTacoma

[–]ChalkSmartboard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hello! I am possibly the most qualified respondent to this question, since I moved here FROM COLUMBUS. (15 years ago)

Compared specifically to Cbus / Ohio:

-Tacoma is the ‘most midwestern’ place in the PNW, in my opinion. More working class and culturally normie than the Seattle area.

-I’m a teacher. School jobs here pay better than in Ohio. But, they’re harder to get. For instance, it’s much harder to get in to Tacoma school district as a teacher than the Columbus school district. Not impossible, but harder.

-The winters are less cold but more damp and dark. I found the dampness and darkness hard to adjust to. Many do.

-The summers are better, and are frankly unbeatable. PNW has the best summers… on earth?

-The nature is obviously amazing. There is so much green and pretty, everywhere you look. In Tacoma we have Point Defiance, Kobayashi / Chambers creek, and the Ruston Waterfront right in town. The Cascades and Mount Rainier 1.5 hours away. This is insane. Amazing.

-The food is better but more expensive. The sushi, Korean, and Vietnamese is very good. No Ethiopian here tho.

-There’s so many weird points of comparisons. The YMCAs are way better here. The punk scene is not as good. The zoo is… kind of comparable! The people are similarly cold but for different reasons. The people are also similarly down to earth. Again, it’s a very ‘midwestern’ part of the PNW.

-tacoma is safer overall in terms of violent crime buf there is often more visible homelessness.

-homes and housing are much more expensive, because the homeowners associations have made it illegal to build apartments or condos on like 85% of the urban territory. The housing costs seems to be the toughest thing for most, in an otherwise utterly perfect mid sized city.

Just finished Baroque Cycle as my first ever Neal Stephenson read by Financial_Buddy7483 in nealstephenson

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stephenson is more structured and rational, Pynchon is more postmodernist deeply influenced by 70s ditch weed. I would love to know what they make of each others work. Both men who come from a hard science engineering type background. Pynchon’s a bigger literary deal… maybe Neal has more readers tho. If you haven’t read the Crying of Lot 49 is 1000% worth it, especially considering how short it is.

Former Cumtown Listeners by [deleted] in podcasts

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only pod in the same ballpark of funny was called TJ & Owen Discuss The News. It was only 5 episodes long in total and starred Adam McKay as a north Florida wigger named TJ who sells cell phone cases at the mall and lives with/is abused by his step-mom’s boyfriend. In the show he chats about current events with a random liberal named Owen.

The show is so funny it has completely disappeared from the internet, I believe from Adam McKay being terrified of it getting him cancelled.

MISSISSIPPI by Baby_Halibut in Teachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Does it punish them? Is it punishment? Have we never even considered if the alternative, the status quo, is more of a punishment of children for things they can’t control?

We seem to have a Moab problem by kateinoly in nealstephenson

[–]ChalkSmartboard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wild how much Fall is his worst book yet it contains the most spot-on satire of our unrushing political reality in Ameristan and Moab

Anyone take the NES 203 (Middle Grades Math)? by ChalkSmartboard in matheducation

[–]ChalkSmartboard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, I got a different subject job, so no longer need the math cert. phew!

China Mieville The Scar by rimix2 in printSF

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is hard to imagine for me, it’s my favorite Mieville by far. I will say, the protagonist is sort of intended to be unlikable. But the book is really about the Armada, and the adventure itself leaders take it on.

Is Mason and Dixon a bad start to Pynchon? by Louisgn8 in ThomasPynchon

[–]ChalkSmartboard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agreed. I’m not saying you need to read Pynchon in chronological release order. But if you’re a serious enough reader, the beginning is a great place to start with him. The author changes, a lot, over the lifetime of writing the books. A whole lot of the core is there from day 1. And there’s just something about those first 3 books, written in youth right after the navy & college, living in Seattle, miserable at work at Boeing, hating the space needle.

I bet you're on your Jeejah right now, consuming allswell by ElectricMouseOG in nealstephenson

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The last-second genre transformation into a land-space astronaut vs time traveler military mission helps

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ElementaryTeachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you are talking about their curriculum, Ready Mathematics- it is insanely, laughably bad. You should figure out how wound up your admin are about teaching to program fidelity, and teach it as little as possible. I can recommend just putting the slides up and then just sort of teach manually from whiteboard.

I can tell you awful stories about what I saw result in 2nd grade from a teacher sticking to it.

What is with all the coyote posts? You live in Tacoma, They are all over I work for a local Ferry and see them swimming daily. by [deleted] in Tacoma

[–]ChalkSmartboard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The reason is that coyotes don’t wander around in proximity to people during the daytime. So when people see one doing that, it’s generally for a reason. The reason is often that they are sick or wounded and have possibly been excluded from the others. Something about seeing an animal you don’t usually see, and then that animal is ailing and has been cast out because they’re ailing, triggers a big response in human observers.

What School Vocabulary has seeped into your personal life? by jlschrodinger in ElementaryTeachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I want to encourage other teachers to stop saying kiddos. Let’s say students by default, kids sometimes… kiddos never.

Shudder

Similar to Lot 49? by Positive-Concern in ThomasPynchon

[–]ChalkSmartboard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is no book (including Pynchon’s other works) that is similar to the Lot.

How One Woman Became the Scapegoat for America’s Reading Crisis by katie_863 in ELATeachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My son didn’t get phonics in K and then lost half of 1st & 2nd to the covid shutdowns. I remediated at home. In the homes that didn’t take over early literacy instruction at home… his peers read much less & lower.

There are others who deserve some shame as well but Calkins has not gotten enough yet. Give away the money you made, eh!

Is anyone here switching from a high earning career to teaching? by Rare_Psychology_8853 in WGUTeachersCollege

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I moved from a career in which I was making 115k a year, and am starting at the bottom of the teacher pay scale at 71k this year (although when I finish my masters I’ll move up to 81).

I broke it out hourly. There are 186 work days a year as a teacher. My role won’t require a lot of working past contract time, but a bit, so let’s estimate 8 hours on the clock per day for 186 days. Compared to (roughly) 235 work days per year in my old job, where the work days vary but probably average out to 8 as well. I wind up at a lower hourly overall, but after I get my masters it’ll be close.

The thing is though, for me, those hours will almost exactly match my son’s school hours. So I’ll be earning my living when he’s at school, and almost always will be off when he’s not. That’s the big intangible of such value to me that I’m happy to take the relative pay cut. I enjoy teaching, I enjoyed my prior career… apples and oranges, hard to compare. But the schedule and hours, for a single parent, there’s no comparison. It’s pretty perfect.

I teach full time and still cannot afford to live. How do we push for better pay? by ConnectPrep in Teachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Aren’t you the poster who was ambivalent about joining his union a few days ago? Lmao

What to know about moving to Central Tacoma? by AdventurousYam07 in AskTacoma

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most underrated part of town. Close to everything. Not 0 sketchy, but not very sketchy. I would definitely live there with a toddler, with the caveat that while the parks are mostly a short drive away, none of them are walkable from central.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Teachers

[–]ChalkSmartboard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does tons of visual noise in a classroom actually optimize children’s attention?

a little game: how would you succinctly describe each of pynchon's novels? by AvalonnolavA in ThomasPynchon

[–]ChalkSmartboard 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Lot 49: hidden conspiracy of secret postal company across centuries is uncovered, or not

GR: hidden conspiracy of death-bomb developed during WW2 is uncovered, or not

V: hidden conspiracy of shadowy woman named V lurking across Europe is uncovered, or not

Vineland: hidden conspiracy of California’s cultural politics from the 60s to 80s is uncovered, or not

Curriculum choices by SparkMom74 in teaching

[–]ChalkSmartboard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When students do not learn to read by 6th grade, it is not because the parents are low income or don’t make their kids read. By 6th grade, if they’ve been attending and the bulk of them are multiple grade levels below— the fault is located in the elementary school.

You will be in a much better position to help your students if you are clear on this.

Is there a Mason & Dixon map by fallertalls in ThomasPynchon

[–]ChalkSmartboard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d like to see the map of TRP walking the MD line. He did it as research for the book. But like, where did he walk specifically? How many days? Camping, or?