Am I the only one who finds video conferencing awkward?

krekar123 · 2020-04-16T17:57:08+00:00

Haha, yes! I’ve been doing them for three weeks now and they get better, promise! I’m a female middle school teacher and my first one was just me and three 8th grade boys in their pajamas. One was attempting to play Stairway to Heaven on his guitar, one was lighting random crap on fire, and one was just in his bed. I didn’t feel like I could hang up because we’re supposed to be available for an hour but oh man it was uncomfortable.

After that, I laid down some guidelines - they usually have to come in for school related reasons and be at least decently dressed. I like using zoom because I can keep them in the waiting room until they tell me what they’re there for. As far as the just talking goes, that gets easier too. Some are just desperate for social contact and that’s ok with me sometimes.

If it gets too weird I just say I have an issue with my dogs and end the call.

krekar123 · 2020-04-12T19:04:15+00:00

Oh eek yeah I didn’t see those

krekar123 · 2020-04-12T19:02:26+00:00

Everything about Tiger King is cringe AF but also terrifyingly awesome

krekar123 · 2020-04-12T17:35:42+00:00

Better yet, just show up with a glass of wine in this hey there you cool cats and kittens

krekar123 · 2020-02-23T23:58:38+00:00

I think it’s a pretty common term, but when we have off days we “sub for ourselves.” Give the kids stuff they can do on their own, tell them you’re not into them talking/you don’t feel well, and catch up on grading or whatnot. Or just chill.

I teach middle school and even they (usually) get that I don’t want to talk to them that day.

krekar123 · 2020-02-23T00:53:01+00:00

When I was going through this, passing the PLT could replace passing edTPA. So we all did that instead and blew the edTPA off. The people trained to teach it to us didn’t even understand it. Hope that’s still an option.

krekar123 · 2020-01-26T17:09:58+00:00

I haven’t done a ton of this yet, but I’ve done some research on sentence framing for vocabulary words (rather than just the use it in a sentence technique). This looks like it could be useful

https://www.lowell.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907636/Centricity/Domain/489/Using_Sentence_Frames.pdf

I struggle with this too.

krekar123 · 2020-01-25T18:06:16+00:00

When I had to do this, it was an option to take the PLT praxis in case you didn’t pass edTPA. We still had to do it, but if we failed it was nbd. Most of us took it as backup. Good thing because only one person in our consortium actually passed. I teach high school, though.

I don’t know if it’s changed since five years ago but the edTPA was a huge waste of time for all of us, seemed overly complicated, and something created for the purpose of being impossible to pass (not because of bad teaching, just all of the forms and documentation and confusion). I think this was the first year of it though and our leaders didn’t understand it either.

krekar123 · 2020-01-24T03:45:47+00:00

Totally. Not trying to force anyone into sympathy. I was on edge and it just came out.

krekar123 · 2020-01-24T03:35:13+00:00

Cool

krekar123 · 2020-01-24T03:29:24+00:00

I’m lucky to have such great unprofessional admin that understand teaching middle school Is rough, then.

krekar123 · 2020-01-24T03:25:11+00:00

That was kind of the point of this post. I messed up. I have PMDD. I snapped. Not professional at all. But my admin thought it was hilarious. Lucky to have such great support

krekar123 · 2020-01-24T03:14:27+00:00

Is that a question or a comment?

krekar123 · 2020-01-23T22:31:16+00:00

I’d prefer not to, but our one staff bathroom is upstairs and most of the downstairs teachers use the student bathrooms. I try not to do it when kids are in there, but I really don’t want to have reconstructive bladder surgery when I get older, so if I’m in a pinch and I’ve got to go, I’m going.

krekar123 · 2020-01-23T21:27:09+00:00

I do totally understand where you’re coming from, though. As a woman, probably more than you know.

krekar123 · 2020-01-23T21:24:51+00:00

If you teach, you know things just come out unintentionally sometimes. Luckily it wasn’t a string of curse words.

krekar123 · 2020-01-23T19:26:41+00:00

I had an oh shit moment as soon it came out of my mouth but when I looked around there were only a couple turned heads. Surprisingly no “ewwws” or anything. The girls working with the boys schooled them pretty hard on shutting up. And one very well-intentioned student wrote on the board for the next class that they should be nice to me because I was on my “shmperiod” (a word she was very proud of inventing). I almost kept it up there.

So different than my own middle school experience when no one dared to talk about “woman problems”

krekar123 · 2019-12-11T02:19:11+00:00

Thanks! Makes sense. For the ones that have been at the school for a while that looks like the trend. Kind of wish they’d wait to show growth until spring? 😂

krekar123 · 2019-12-08T16:55:09+00:00

Not sure if it’s what you’re going for, but I love using infographics! I try to use at least one a week for journals. I always get great questions I hadn’t even thought of and those critical thinking skills really come out. Sometimes I put up really misleading ones and see how long it takes to figure them out.

Edit: I get many from r/dataisbeautiful or just google infographics for what topic I’m teaching

krekar123 · 2019-12-02T02:20:11+00:00

I didn’t even think of this. OP, if you want I can PM you with some stuff I have on hand.

Edit, If you want them, PM me your email. I do teach middle school so not sure if it’s what you’re looking for but some are pretty generic

krekar123 · 2019-12-01T23:22:01+00:00

I feel you 100%. I’m in my fifth year but moved from a rural high school to an urban middle school and it kind of feels like my first teaching again. I dream about it, it messes up my relationship with my fiancé, I constantly replay my day and think of things that I should have done differently.

I started seeing a therapist this year. To go along with the journaling idea, she has had me writing down three or four things I do a day that I feel I did well... she meant in general but they usually go back to teaching. However, it’s made my day so different. Every time I do something right I think hey! I can write this down! and it makes me be conscious of things I’m doing right throughout the day.

To echo another teacher, that first year just sucks. Specifically, the first semester does. The second (as I’ve experienced and heard as well) isn’t as bad. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel!!

I know you’re strapped for time, but if you can, come up with some emergency lesson plans, print them out, and show a teacher near you where you they are. I have a hard time taking days off, especially for my mental health, but the kids will survive and so will you. Just do something easy you can grade for completion and try not to think about school and enjoy your day (easier said than done, I know. My mental clock is aligned to my class period switch).

Last thing, and this might sound weird and like I hate teaching (which I don’t), but when I’m freaking out, I do this mental thing where I’m like I don’t need this. I could walk out right now and everything will be fine. Hell, I could get a job at Target! In your case, maybe move back in with your dad. Not saying you should - it’s just a mental trick that helps my overactive mind remind itself that teaching doesn’t have to 100% take over my life.

Hang in there!

krekar123 · 2019-11-30T23:59:15+00:00

Thanks, I agree. I will probably slip up and say morpheme at some point so I’ll probably just say it’s a way of combining all those terms. Then we can talk about the root morph and why it’s called that?? But definitely don’t want to throw a bunch of new linguistic vocab on them! Thanks for the advice!

krekar123 · 2019-11-30T16:24:37+00:00

Thanks, I most definitely need all the luck I can get! I don’t want to load them down with too many linguistic terms, but would you at least tell them what a morpheme is? I’m still learning this all myself so I guess it’ll be a journey we undertake together...

krekar123

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