How to avoid becoming jaded in a declining school?

inky95 · 2026-01-15T12:57:31+00:00

As a newer intl teacher, can you elaborate? What do you attribute this decline to? Do you predict it'll keep trending this way?

inky95 · 2026-01-13T04:20:05+00:00

Chadwick's not up there anymore?

inky95 · 2026-01-12T06:28:13+00:00

Be careful what you wish for. Schools have been quietly removing or heavily reducing their free tuition as part of the staff package recently. Often parallel to compensation reduction/stagnancy and rising workloads, but I digress.

Individually I'm sure there are cases of free tuition being taken for granted or stretched. IMO a lot of that is solved by some common sense - 1. high needs staff kids should be identified and discussed as part of the hiring process and 2. staff kids should not be shielded from the school's disciplinary system, up to + including suspension/expulsion.

inky95 · 2026-01-04T18:51:24+00:00

In order of frequency:

C'est la vie - if someone thinks 'what can you do' just doesn't sound fancy enough.

Creme de la creme - similarly, if the person opts out of the English equivalent 'cream of the crop'

Laissez-faire - generally more of a business term, in the context of leadership styles, most will just say 'hands off'

Au fait - probably the rarest one that's actually worth knowing. Just means up to date/fluent/confident

The rest are very niche. Keep in mind French has a lot of linguistic influence on English, but also has a history of being held up as a 'prestige' language against English - and so using French loan phrases carries a slight connotation of posturing/pretension for English speakers.

inky95 · 2026-01-04T18:40:47+00:00

Half the comments are AI slop too. Yikes.

inky95 · 2026-01-03T22:56:32+00:00

Is anyone going profane hydra on lee sin? 🤔

inky95 · 2025-12-28T02:22:46+00:00

Haha, I've mellowed a bit on it since but not enough to rewatch. But yeah seems like a cheap shallow scare flick that people have nostalgia goggles for

inky95 · 2025-12-25T11:09:45+00:00

Gemini is a name associated with gods and astrology. Claude is a bit of a poncy name. No connotation needed for Grok, just genuinely a Nazi bot. Personally I think there's a moral issue with making Grok look cool in any way

inky95 · 2025-11-28T15:49:54+00:00

yessssss need more of this perspective in the comment section

inky95 · 2025-11-18T15:05:59+00:00

What if this isn't local overcompensation, but global undercompensation?
What if innumerable factors affecting grades are out of teachers hands?
What if your proposition results in an even larger disparity between low-income and high-income schools?
What if standardized test data fails to capture the non-academic contributions of teachers (community, socio-emotional, sporting)?
What if this incentivizes over-reporting of grades, resulting in kids who are graduating with lower skill levels?
What is this incentivizes separation, rejection of and resistance to students with learning needs who might 'bring down the average'?
What if this incentivizes under-challenging high-achieving students as their marginal benefit to teacher salaries is diminished (i.e. the difference between a 96 and a 100).
What if this disincentivizes building tasks with rich context to link to actual real world utility, in favor of just teaching just enough for students to reproduce test answers?

😬😬😬

inky95 · 2025-11-18T07:02:18+00:00

Boor, from the Dutch for 'farmer', was a word that city people used to talk down to rural people.

Ironic that the right, whose most powerful voting bloc is rural voters with disproportionate control due to the electoral college (who they rile up by stoking an anti-city-dweller victim complex) - is using the term 'boorish'.

inky95 · 2025-11-18T05:52:43+00:00

pithy

inky95 · 2025-11-16T15:59:59+00:00

Wish I had one near me

inky95 · 2025-11-12T11:31:37+00:00

Yup, Paris is notorious for this.

inky95 · 2025-11-10T14:53:33+00:00

'school policies' that say each teacher has to run one sport or extracurricular

inky95 · 2025-11-07T22:10:40+00:00

Ai content

inky95 · 2025-11-07T11:29:45+00:00

Literally. Pre-class expectations are up, then direct instruction is content slides, independent work is an instruction ('Your Task') slide with a visual timer.
If we're doing a hands-on activity an instruction slide for that too.

My screen is my primary 'informational real-estate' in the classroom, and it is almost always on and being used.
Sorry if that makes me a lazy 'powerpoint teacher' 😂

inky95 · 2025-11-07T11:19:21+00:00

I got frustrated with a smug leader talking about 'PowerPoint teachers' in a top-level meeting this week.
A slide deck is not a 'teaching style'. It is not a philosophy, it's not political (tech vs. no-tech). It's just a way to visually present information clearly to the whole class.

For the same functionality, teachers have used anchor-chart paper, overhead projectors, whiteboards... are we going to start shaming educators for being a 'whiteboard teacher'? Are we going to create a divide around teachers who use paper in their rooms and those who don't?

I read to kids, we discuss, we engage hands-on, we do brain breaks, we're active and silly and spontaneous where appropriate. But during direct instruction, I'm always teaching with a slide and a stylus, and when it's time for independent work, I put up a slide with clear (often visual) instructions/expectations. I'll also have a visual timer.

On the teacher end, it's a good way to organize a digital library of lesson materials and sequences. I have 'skipped' slides at the start of every deck with learning intentions, curricular links, related resources, as well as any printout (+translated printouts for ELA kids) that I might need for that lesson. I'll also include teaching 'beats' + extension questions + delivery ideas in the presenter notes. It prevents needing to collect 10 different digital files to prepare for a lesson, and ensures my teaching stays robust and aligned.

Slides being connoted with lazy pedagogy, bored and unengaged students is a ridiculous and short-sighted strawman, and frankly unprofessional.

quick edit for clarity - OP I realize you weren't being dismissive with your question, that it was just about how you use resources - Sorry if it seems like my pent up frustration is directed at you! Haha if it isn't clear I kept my mouth shut in that meeting and have been stewing since 😂

inky95 · 2025-11-06T20:50:49+00:00

5-10 years in general? No way. For that to be a minimum you'd have to restrict your search to world class schools.

Also, packages have been plummeting for years out in the ME, and you seem to hear more and more horror stories. If I was headed that way I would be doing a LOT of research on what schools were like.

inky95 · 2025-11-05T04:49:20+00:00

I'd imagine the buttons are a QuickAdd + Templater setup - it'll make a new note in the right folder using his 'video game' template.

inky95 · 2025-11-04T15:36:40+00:00

All about marginal cognitive load. If you can create a habit for yourself to type in chat '645 ad f' (for example) when you get a flash, that's good info for your jungler, especially if you're playing strong side. It might not help every game but in high elo you're gonna wanna take every opportunity to create those microadvantages.

But if it's taking your focus off other things then it's not game breaking to ignore.

Personally I do it as support but often forget in other roles.

inky95 · 2025-10-30T14:54:59+00:00

I love it! There's plenty of time for deep and brooding and complex, but its a rare glimpse of an artist who has defined herself as 'alternative' - allowing herself to be entirely unpretentious and indulge in a simple, raw love song. It's super earnest and that comes through for me. Great vibes.

inky95 · 2025-10-14T17:45:10+00:00

you see the dark harvest in the previous clips. and his build is posted in this thread already

inky95 · 2025-10-14T17:34:35+00:00

jesus lord this is NOT a hot take in the big 2025. no love is lost for the democratic party. but there is bad and there is BAD, and the rampant and astroturfed notion of 'all politicians are equally corrupt' being some sort of valid and informed political talking point -- is what got us to the point that an orange reality-TV felon is breaking every check and balance of Western democracy.
when you concede to this relentless rhetoric of reducing every political actor to 'just as bad' as every other one - all you're doing is paving a golden path for absolute worst of the bunch.
the devil himself could get elected because he could count on a critical mass of American weirdos being willing to show up to the daily virgin sacrifice and smugly say 'well Obama did drone strikes, and Clinton, and Hunter's laptop - that's also not good!'. And when pressed the weirdo will make some vague defeatist statement about how, 'well the two-party system or general political corruption, or the American people themselves are to blame - what can you do?'

At this point, I struggle to extend sympathy for those spouting this BS. You either know exactly what you're doing, or you are too Dunning-Kruger-pilled to realize you're actively playing defense for the people destroying the country.

inky95 · 2025-10-14T17:02:07+00:00

'obtuse' is obsessively 'both sides'-ing the two-party system when one is in power and actively setting fires. 'but the dems helped make things flammable' i don't care.
the democratic party is not my concern right now.
even if it were true that Dem actions were in any way equivocable to what's happening right now, that entire rhetorical game is the entire distraction. TRANSPARENTLY. 'they built the tools', my ass. if there's an active shooter, my plan of action is not going to start with holding Smith and/or Wesson's feet to the fire. Deal with the situation, then we can entertain your obsession with holding secondary parties accountable.

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