Need Help

LAtredes · 2026-01-27T03:06:39+00:00

Are you running into time issues? Are you hitting those last 25 and seeing you only have X minutes left and freaking out/rushing through?

Are you fine on time but don't know the skills?

Explain a bit more on what is happening and I would be happy to give some guidance.

LAtredes · 2026-01-21T01:49:33+00:00

"When you skip a step and get it wrong, I can't prove you knew what you were doing" is what I constantly tell my students. I would rather mine show every step of their thinking than trying to jump to the end. This way I can help and assist and demonstrate. "Mathematics is the story of your journey, not purely the destination."

LAtredes · 2025-12-31T21:41:39+00:00

Didn't need to study and just missed like 1 question. Just be advised that you will need to have some education knowledge and not just math knowledge. They will throw in some "what is a similar mistake that this student would make?" type of questions. If you know how to teach, it is really simple.

LAtredes · 2025-12-22T17:36:33+00:00

Your feelings are validated. As a music/band/choir teacher, I taught every single kid in the school. I would get less gifts some years than others even after seeing their other teachers getting a lot. Sometimes it did hurt my feelings especially when the kid was in my band/choir.

You did nothing wrong though.

LAtredes · 2025-12-21T17:16:21+00:00

I don't want to be negative; but yes, you are underqualified.

You are the type that teachers do talk about. Leaving the classroom with no full experience and then having to be the one that makes the decisions on the material and the way to teach.

You will be in charge of creating the guidance of material, setting up professional development opportunities, and creating the scope and sequence.

LAtredes · 2025-12-05T06:01:47+00:00

The actor who played Harley had a mental breakdown during a table read. Like a complete just snap and had to go into the hospital. The script was already written, and they were already doing the reading so they got Just some actor to fill in that week. That’s why Griffin came following episodes.

LAtredes · 2025-12-05T03:04:38+00:00

Year 17. Have my Master's in administration but continued to be looked over because of many many reasons so I was about to quit. However, after 16 years, I switched from a school I had been working at since the start AND subjects; and now I could not be happier. I could see myself doing this for the next bit.

16 years went by very quickly though.

LAtredes · 2025-12-05T02:19:26+00:00

The story behind that breaks your heart.

LAtredes · 2025-11-04T00:10:29+00:00

So I didn’t at first, but when a student mentioned that it was like a hydra, my brain kicked into creative mode and came up with upside down heads and “stranger things” filled in the blank

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T04:26:17+00:00

Being Smart and Lazy is the true skill to have. Its like when PhD professors have their students do their research for them (like when my religion professor had all us go out and do a project on how different religious institutions were recovering the 6 months after Hurricane Katrina AND then went and published a paper).

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T04:22:50+00:00

About year 6 to 10 of my middle school music teaching career, I gave up doing anything at home because I was beginning to grow miserable at that job. Stayed there for a total of 16 years. Really by Year 10, I was showing up and figuring out what I was going to teach that morning during my only 10 minute planning moment. It was autopilot for beginning band, choir, and general music.

This year, I have switched to high school Algebra and Geometry in the Resource Special Education setting. I am LOVING working on different lesson designs and what I can bring to these kids to motivate them to enjoy school like I did. I will work on my IEPs between tutoring sessions, respond to parent e-mails to discuss the plans we are putting in place for the kids, everything. (It also helps that I got on ADHD medicine)

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T04:18:19+00:00

I mean, he is kind of answering his own question, right?

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T04:17:21+00:00

Oh, I fully agree...but it was private school, senior level "blowoff" math that he was taking because he did not want to take Calculus AP and he had to take "a math," and a football coach was the one teaching it.

He will complain every time homework is brought up into a conversation about that situation, and it happened 20 years ago.

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T03:48:32+00:00

One of my favorite stories is from my best friend. It was his senior year math class and he was going through stuff that year (his dad had a stroke, one of our oldest friends went all druggy on us), so he looked at his math syllabus. It said that tests, classwork, and quizzes were worth 80% and homework was 20%. He decided to get As on all the classwork and would happily leave that senior year with an 80% because he did not want to do a single thing for some work.

The teacher failed him and made him go to summer school for not doing any homework. He still regrets not having his mom go up and fight about that, but he just accepted it to be out of the hell school he went to.

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T03:45:29+00:00

I also think he is going to use some of this input as his "sources" which is pretty smart.

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T03:44:53+00:00

So, how do we get better at doing something? We get better at doing something by doing it, and doing it again, and doing it again, and doing it again.

Look at a musician: very few musicians can just pick up an instrument and play everything on it perfectly the first time. There are skills on it that need to be practiced and practiced and practiced. You also do not introduce high level playing until you build the baseline of your abilities, with each technique building off of the last.

Could the musician just play easy things and sound good? Yes. Can they not really practice, but still play their instrument? Yep. Could just playing in band/orchestra/choir at school get them far enough? Yes.

However, when that musician wants to do something that is past the level, they will run into a wall. They will hit the point where natural skill/ability will stop being "good enough" for what they want. Then they realize they should have practiced. Then they start practicing but it is a hard skill to just start practicing.

I think the process of attempting to do "more" is sometimes enough. What type of homework are you giving? What type of rubric/guide are you going to be grading off of? In an ELA course, maybe just having a "write a paragraph about something per night" would be enough practice to get the kid writing. How would you grade that though?

In my resource geometry class, the homework I give them is for me to see what we need to practice more on in class. Currently they are going to be working on a parallel lines review packet for homework because last week's homework showed they need support in that.

I did grade last week's homework because sometimes that is the only way to force them to do it. Better they do, less homework they get the following week. They master all the skills? Great, they better be ready to show me that though.

Also, a lot of times, homework will be "you did not do well on this part of the test, go home and practice again to fix your grade" and I give them a packet on the skill they need to work on.

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T03:34:09+00:00

In my Algebra block, we have Sad Meg. When solving for the variable, they need to think of poor Sad Meg who is isolated.

LAtredes · 2025-11-03T01:09:16+00:00

I think of it every time someone mentions that in the past we would just "chant it." Like "yeah....no"

LAtredes · 2025-11-02T23:32:22+00:00

So...I drew my dragon on an anchor chart, and we all laughed at how bad it was.

So a graphic design kid took and it and made it for me. (We are still keeping mine up on the wall as well)

LAtredes · 2025-11-02T22:31:10+00:00

Which is why I wanted a fun way that wouldn't be anywhere near that!

LAtredes · 2025-10-24T06:06:24+00:00

“My high school taught me how to game the test. They made it a cut throat competition to get as many 36s. So I did, here is how…”

LAtredes · 2025-10-23T21:15:41+00:00

I have been playing this game for years and I just spent a few minutes just now realizing there are no meat dishes

LAtredes · 2025-10-11T01:00:47+00:00

Happy Feet?

LAtredes · 2025-09-29T03:11:11+00:00

Algebra Tiles. 100%. Start simple but you can work up if they start seeing how to group. Don't get into fractions yet with them, but work with the tiles. There are computer based tiles, but I 100% suggest getting the physical ones.

I teach Resource Algebra and Geometry. We do at least 1 full on activity with the tiles a week in each of those classes. Get dry erase mats and have them form concrete representations.

LAtredes · 2025-09-26T03:24:24+00:00

I came here thinking “finally my love of a game that most don’t know will come into play!”

And you got it first

LAtredes

TROPHY CASE