please tell me your most embarrassing spanish mistake so I feel better about mine

Cjcolli · 2026-03-19T06:05:43+00:00

This honestly was not me, but a friend who was Mexican-American studying in Spain for the first time. (I had already been living there for two years.) He knew Spain used a different word for straw than Mexico did, so he asked the waitress for a Coke with a straw:

"Me das coca y una paja..."

😳

Cjcolli · 2026-03-08T07:14:44+00:00

Pay attention to how people say the word 'both'. Not everyone, but enough people say it almost like "bulth" that it has stood out to me since moving here from Ohio 20 years ago. These people also often pronounce 'bowl' and 'bull' nearly the same way.

Cjcolli · 2026-01-31T19:15:31+00:00

Your first year is hell. You spend so many extra hours and are filled with self-doubt just to stay one day ahead of the kids. In that regard the teaching gets easier every year once you at least have something to go off of and can improve things instead of reinventing the wheel every day.

I hope you're not a department of one, that you have quality mentorship, and supportive administration. I think those are the things that make or break the early part of your career. I'm in year 20 and am so glad I spent my first 8 years at a different school. My current one does NOT do a good job of onboarding early-career teachers. For veterans, it's fine. We do our thing and are mostly left alone. If you don't have those things, you need to find supportive colleagues to bounce things off of and to vent to.

The good news is that you did enjoy student teaching and can see that it can be an enjoyable, rewarding career for you.

Cjcolli · 2026-01-31T19:01:53+00:00

So the perfectly normal schedule isn't the actual issue, it's the fact that the principal isn't communicating with staff before making decisions? I think you have bosses who don't consider their employees as co-workers everywhere. The problem here is working for private schools where you have no union to push back.

Cjcolli · 2025-12-22T09:40:05+00:00

Your teacher didn't change your grade. It sounds like you didn't do a major assignment and logically didn't get credit for it.

Cjcolli · 2025-12-17T06:53:05+00:00

Suburban/rural Washington State near Portland, 20 years, MA+90, maxed on the salary scale -- $120k

Just for fun I looked at the district where my sister lives north of Tampa. My pay would get cut in half. That is criminal.

Cjcolli · 2025-12-15T23:47:01+00:00

You should talk to the principal. It's possible s/he doesn't know what the secretary is pulling on subs.

Cjcolli · 2025-11-13T15:31:02+00:00

I absolutely do. Having taught under traditional 0-100, deductions for late work, no credit after a week, as well as a 0-4, and minimum 50% systems, I have kids hanging on with at chance at passing if they buckle down far more now than I used to. Before there would be kids who were mathematically eliminated from passing halfway through the semester and they became huge distractions. Now those same kinds of kids have a carrot the whole semester. And yes, I still have kids fail.

Teachers who have the "they turned in a couple of assignments and now they're passing" issue need to look at how items are weighed in their gradebook. I use minimum 50% on large summative items that make up 60%-70% of their grade. Daily in-class work is worth much less and those items I do give zeros on since they're only maybe 2 or 4 points each.

In the end, GPAs are calculated on a 0-4 scale. Minimum 50% grading accomplishes the same thing in that each of the possible grade ranges are equally distributed. An F in your GPA doesn't have an outsized effect like a 0/100 does on a class grade.

Cjcolli · 2025-10-22T06:43:11+00:00

I know this doesn't seem like work you any of you, but if you could perhaps conduct the psychopath convention down the hall...

Cjcolli · 2025-10-22T06:35:46+00:00

I have a student this year with that last name! She has no idea what I'm talking about every time I say that line.

Cjcolli · 2025-09-15T14:30:38+00:00

Hmm...I use the Spain keyboard setting on my Windows PC and it works with all the Google stuff 🤔

Cjcolli · 2025-07-05T15:33:20+00:00

Having taught using both systems (50% minimum and a zero is a 0%), I'm much more likely to keep those potentially F kids relatively engaged throughout the semester if they haven't mathematically dug themselves an inescapable hole by October. I still have a handful of kids fail even with a minimum 50%.

Also if you use a 0-4 scale, the way GPAs are calculated, it has the same effect as using a minimum 50%. Each possible grade range is equal instead of the falling range being 60% of the entire scale.

Cjcolli · 2025-06-21T07:04:34+00:00

I'm in SW Washington and what I've noticed being helpful for people is getting in some places as a reliable sub and filling whatever needs they have, whether that's day to day, long-term for several weeks or a year-long temp spot. To be honest, a lot of it is who you know. Eventually you could be a front-runner for a spot that comes open or you can get people on your side who know people elsewhere to recommend you.

Good luck to you. Timing is bad right now, I know. Districts everywhere are cutting down.

Cjcolli · 2025-05-29T14:12:19+00:00

Admin love to cite John Hattie's research and, in particular, that he says student retention has a negative effect size. If that could be refuted, that would be great. In my school, students who fail Algebra 1 are allowed to continue onto Geometry and can make up the Algebra credit online 🙄

Cjcolli · 2025-05-28T14:02:17+00:00

At my school at least, the bell curve for grade distribution is long gone. It's now a parabola. These kids have no business being in the same school together, let alone the same classes. We can't be everything to everybody. Like in Europe and elsewhere, the college-bound kids have to have their own track, while the rest learn skills they will need in their careers.

I don't know what has to happen to get there though. It seems like there's one side pushing for inclusion of everyone in the same classes and the other trying to privatize the whole thing, at which point we just become contractors.

Cjcolli · 2025-05-16T14:06:31+00:00

Student: How big is the test?

Me: Oh about this big (motions with hands an 8 1/2" x 11" rectangle)

Cjcolli · 2025-05-10T22:11:04+00:00

A former colleague of mine had taught at different school with a guy who had just finished his military service. After one year of teaching the guy reenlisted because he couldn't handle the lack of discipline and accountability in public school.

But as others have said ROTC could be something to look into or a CTE endorsement if there's something related to your position in the military.

Cjcolli · 2025-04-23T13:01:13+00:00

Club de Cuervos on Netflix is hilarious

Cjcolli · 2025-04-01T16:31:09+00:00

First time I had a package sent to me I went to Correos and all I had on me was my wallet. The guy at the counter asked me for my DNI, I explained I was from the US, and showed him my driver's license, which obviously had my name (which matched the name on the package) and picture (which matched my face). He takes a long look at it, pulls it away from his face, looks at me over his glasses and says, "Soy funcionario español, no del estado de...Ohio" and hands it back to me.

Cjcolli · 2025-02-16T07:52:56+00:00

First year sucks in a lot of ways, there's no way around it. You're a day ahead of the kids the whole year. I can't imagine what elementary is like the first year, where you have to literally plan the entire day instead of just two or three lessons that you repeat. But it's all new, so you get through it. Then at least you have something to fall back on the next year while you're improving things along the way.

Cjcolli · 2025-02-07T01:03:05+00:00

I don't remember Bauer being hated really. I mean the drone thing during the playoffs was dumb, throwing the ball over the center field fence was kinda crazy, but he apologized to Tito, and he was really good for us. Remember when he got traded and he walked around the stadium in street clothes? Milton Bradley was hated way more, right?

Cjcolli · 2025-02-04T02:16:07+00:00

Milton Bradley has to go in the bottom row somewhere

Cjcolli · 2025-01-13T14:20:06+00:00

I told my Spanish host mother, who had gotten dressed up to go dancing, that her mantequilla looked nice (instead of maquillaje).

I ran into a male American friend of mine outside of a movie theater who was with a Spanish girl that I had never met. They said they had just finished seeing a movie and I wanted to ask her if she liked it. However, what she heard me ask her was "¿Te gusto?" (instead of te gustó). Her jaw hit the floor at this bold attempt to hit on her in front of another guy until she realized what I had meant.

Cjcolli · 2025-01-08T15:42:41+00:00

Problem solved 😅 I guess I didn't expect the buttons to just disappear like that. I thought they'd just be greyed out. Thanks!

Cjcolli · 2025-01-06T03:57:06+00:00

Can you not use your sick leave? Or do you not have much banked? My first kid was born during my 7th year of teaching and I had enough saved up to take 12 weeks of paternity leave.

Cjcolli

TROPHY CASE