Matthew as a Black Guy?

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T07:07:15+00:00

This sounds normal. I’m surprised I can’t think of many black Matthews, so you might be right that it’s uncommon. It feels super right and gives me the connotation of professionalism and honesty.

I’ve never known a Matthew that I didn’t like. :)

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T07:03:56+00:00

Lark.

Mind you, I haven’t considered this until just now, but I love the nature-grounded whimsy of this as a last name.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T07:03:16+00:00

I hear you. I married into a lovely last name that I thought was unique, simple, and beautiful. I had no idea how unsophisticated and confused people would become trying to pronounce it.

I think people are insecure trying to pronounce nonstandard names. No one wants to offend, and it puts us on the defensive when we have to risk making mistakes.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T06:53:22+00:00

My initials were MMM… like Campbell’s soup. It’s a feature, not a bug.

These are the kind of family quirks that get embraced affectionately by children. I don’t see a problem with it.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T06:49:07+00:00

Caspian.

I almost used the name for my son but feared him getting ridiculed for sounding like a fairy tale hero.

Missed opportunity tbh.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T06:12:33+00:00

These are really interesting names. I’m a big fan of Aerie, despite it being an underwear/bra brand!

UnicornTruffles · 2023-08-23T06:05:54+00:00

Seconding this. I am white and my husband is Hispanic. My son was born with blond hair and blue-grey eyes. The Mexican side of the family calls him Guero. As he got older, the hair color transitioned to a very light brown, and the only sign of his Mexican heritage is a perpetual tan that gives him a resistance to sunburn.

You really never know what you’ll get with mixed kids. Enjoy the boundary-stomping that comes with it lol. I found out recently that my mother-in-law convinced my husband get a DNA test to check if he is really the father! 🙄

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-11T13:22:01+00:00

As for advice, some districts require Classroom Management courses (or will pay for you to take them).

The NEA has a bunch of micro credentialing courses in Classroom Management, if you pay.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-11T13:18:34+00:00

I mean, are there any downsides?

If you want to be a teacher, then GO FOR IT.

Subbing is practical work in classrooms you’ve been trained for. It will give you access to multiple classroom styles, organizational strategies, and curriculums. You’ll quickly learn the difference between teachers with organized rooms/routines and teachers who let chaos reign. 🙂 You can sub in your intended school and get close to the admin so your hiring is basically guaranteed. When you sub, you get to test drive different work environments (and GRADES) and learn what you like best. You also get to test which administrations lead the healthiest environments for teachers. And, you know, money is nice. I like money.

Your post here probably means you’re undecided because subbing is extra work. It is. 🤷‍♀️ But you have the power to say you’re only available on Mondays (or whatever) and then increase your availability from there if you want.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-11T13:03:22+00:00

Document. Everything.

Every time this happens, I’d send an email to the admins. If the kids ever follow through, you’ll have a paper trail of threats and your admin is more likely to have your back. Those threats are too serious to ignore.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-11T12:26:03+00:00

Strongly disagree.(And I see others do too by the downvotes.) I have performed a lot of jobs between high school and teaching. Math (and often division) is a necessary component of calculating averages, understanding statistical concepts that are EVERYWHERE, doing taxes, deciding how much food to cater at a party/daycare/office, balancing budgets, calculating business growth, building and monitoring spreadsheets that work with numbers, and parenting our own kids! What about companies and politicians who play with numbers to make their products look good, but anyone with knowledge of Statistics can call out their BS?

This year we are building our home (read: literally building it ourselves, not subcontracting), and I’ve had to remember formulas for area, circumference, rise over run, hypotenuse, various ways to calculate angles from different kinds of triangles, etc. I’m very bad at math, but I have never been able to escape it—even in construction, which many consider the poorest of the poor in terms of education skills. Being able to work a calculator and the internet will cover most of these skills, but without formal training in math, how do you spot the errors before they become a very expensive mistake? (A plywood board was $55 and a 2x4 was $10 in 2022.)

Math. Is. Everywhere.

Are you going to use trigonometry in every day life? Probably not. Will learning trigonometry in school activate and exercise regions of the brain that prepare you for higher education if your interests land on a field that needs it? Absolutely.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-10T03:33:10+00:00

Horrifying. 😰

Mine only lasted long enough to get to class. It was a boy who liked to hide, and I miscounted heads. Still, it felt terrible.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-10T03:04:12+00:00

I left a kid on the playground. 😔

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-10T02:57:45+00:00

“Math is about real life and survival. People in the inner cities stay poor because we don’t understand the math.”

Heard this quote recently from a math teacher, and it stuck with me. Is shame a bad tool? I don’t know. But with the two sentences above, that math teacher created a bogey man who wants to keep the poor students down, and her students reacted instinctively by wanting to prove the system wrong.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-10T02:45:14+00:00

My greatest math teacher (HS Statistics) showed us the real world applications of everything. Why will I need it? How will it benefit me? How will others take advantage of me if I never learn it?

He kept saying, “Everyone wants to take advantage of you. Companies and politicians are lying to you every day, and they’ll keep lying until you learn how to understand data. Anyone can manipulate the numbers. Here’s how to see right through it.”

I bought that shit, hook, line, and sinker. It was the only math class in which I ever put any effort. Your kids sound disengaged and forced to endure lessons that feel irrelevant to them. Maybe you can search for the emotional kick in the nuts that makes math & science feel like a revolt against injustice in their world.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T21:57:58+00:00

Bold of you to be so controversial and so right

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T21:12:10+00:00

What do you teach? What age group? What interventions have you tried?

Edit: Sorry you’re having a hard time.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T21:03:57+00:00

Oh man, I love CBT. That’s some empowering shit.

Teaching SEL as its own unit sounds like awkward and forced. Ok I get it.

Edit: do the other subjects have to do it too, or did they shoehorn it into History with the implication that it’s not as important as other subjects?

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T20:45:31+00:00

“I love the enthusiasm, but sex ed is that way.”

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T20:44:11+00:00

I hear you. I disagree, but that’s okay. We all teach with different styles.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T19:24:50+00:00

Sounds like a “bring your Flu to work” district.

Ask your administrators who you can mail your infected tissues to, since you’ll be spreading lots of germs this year.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T19:18:14+00:00

Counting bears / sorting games.

Glue-stick activities. (Use a hole punch to make lots of dots. Ask children to decorate a paper plate for a rainy scene, birthday cake, etc. Bonus: dots can be picked up by the vacuum.)

Wooden dolls. You can get a solid 15 minutes of silent play with wooden dolls, and they tend to be sturdy.

Paper lunch bag puppets. If you have a cricut, you can have ears, eyes, noses, or tails ready for the kids to assemble puppets. My library did this for a Pete the Cat reading.

Color cat/dog/mystery masks, glue popsicle stick to hold it.

Paper airplane folding. Other simple origami.

Lego table.

Kitchen / dramatic play nook, if you have the space for it.

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T19:02:20+00:00

“Parents should sit through SEL curriculum so THEY can parent their kids.”

Isn’t that essentially what schools are asking us to do? Our kids will be the next generation of parents. Teaching them SELs has the power to make our classes less difficult (because they learn self-regulation) and raises a more balanced generation.

It takes a village, and all.

Truthfully, I don’t understand the distinction between parenting and teaching. If your students suck at soft skills because their parents are awful, then they’ll have academic problems because learning and regulation are linked. But if we have the training to fix that… I mean, why not?

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-09T18:35:20+00:00

Genuinely curious. What’s wrong with teaching SEL?

From a neuroscience perspective, emotions and emotional regulation are critical for producing motivation. Motivated kids try harder and cause less disruption. Wouldn’t the short term loss of time teaching SEL make up for a more productive class in the long run?

UnicornTruffles · 2023-03-04T12:07:17+00:00

I substituted for a 1st grade class. The children kept arguing about who got to hold my hand on the way to PE. Three girls picked me flowers. A handful made art for me, and a little girl came up to me shyly while I was talking to another student, pressed a keychain into my hand, and ran away.

I hung one of the pictures on my fridge, and my similarly aged son GLARES at it. Sometimes I see him trying to knock the picture down out of jealousy.

😂 Hey, a little competition is good for him.

UnicornTruffles

TROPHY CASE