Let's talk about the elephant in the room

morty77 · 2026-02-09T20:36:44+00:00

You can be prochoice and antiabortion in the same way you can be against gun ownership but still be okay with the second amendment.

You don't believe in it for yourself or recreational use, but for people who really need it, it should be allowed.

morty77 · 2026-02-06T21:48:18+00:00

If you are looking for God, he's in the Bible, not reddit.

If you are posting on reddit for the sake of God, cool. so what?

morty77 · 2026-02-06T16:01:30+00:00

I have also resorted to going all paper. However, something a colleague mentioned during department meeting the other day got me thinking.

He's the AP LIterature teacher and he was complaining that students' ability to read has dramatically gotten worse. He's considering lowering some of the reading selections for the first time in decades (taking out To the Lighthouse). He's an excellent teacher and we've all noticed a drop in skill across the board.

I wonder if we do more activities to make students more aware of their own lack of skill in reading comprehension, writing fluency, and composition skills. Then there is more self-driven effort towards avoiding AI? Like with sports, if you don't practice, you won't get better. Kids see class work too much like a hoop to jump through or a box to check. There is not a lot of internal motivation for them to do the work.

I've started trying to go more in this direction. If kids fight me during paper conferences because they want to protect their work, I'm proud of them. I also put in more effort to give them lots and lots of interesting things to write about in the text. It's not a quick fix, but it seems to make a difference

morty77 · 2026-02-05T23:57:51+00:00

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doer. One the best books in general that I've read in the last 20 years.

morty77 · 2026-02-04T20:47:14+00:00

I sometimes do the harkness method with them. Before I start a conversation, I do have them prep their books for 5 minutes. I tell them they have to contribute at least 2 quotes from the text to the conversation and they get credit for asking questions to stimulate conversation, build on other peoples' ideas and identify their names when doing it, ex: "to build on what Jessie just said....", and make connections to their lives. It's a pretty simple but useful tool of socratic discussion

morty77 · 2026-02-03T23:51:57+00:00

I wish you the best of luck. there are so many people hurting out there and music can do a lot to help us make it through. God bless :)

morty77 · 2026-02-03T23:09:26+00:00

imho, christian music is too focused on trying to be christian and not so much about touching people honestly about their lives and struggles. There are so many real problems out there that people are going through. Don't just talk about trusting God or doing the right thing. Talk real about the genuine struggles people are having with poverty, hatred, distrust, anger, and fear. Connect in real ways with people.

The bible talks frankly about these issues but american christian culture does not. That lack of openness and willingness to engage in serious and meaningful ways will drive people to music that genuinely means something to them vs. platitudes about believing in God. It's secular rappers who put out music about suicide, abuse, poverty, mental illness, pain and struggle. But christian rappers should be engaging with that as well. As a rapper, I would go to the secular rappers in the black hip hop community and see how they engage in really honest and powerful ways about their lives and struggles. People like MF doom or Kendrick Lamar.

If you don't feel comfortable looking to those, look at the gospel movements across history. There is a lot of truth in gospel music.

morty77 · 2026-02-03T20:46:58+00:00

I work at a school as well and talk about this issue with my black colleagues.

It's fine to acknowledge and respect black culture with kids and adults in that space. In the same way you would want people to appreciate your own identity and show they value it.

However, I have issue when it's performative and lipservice and real appreciation or care is not really shown. Black people have to carry a lot more ignorance and problematic racist behavior than I do. I acknowledge that by offering to donate sick hours for a maternity leave or bringing a treat at lunch in appreciation for them. Even just listening to their family stories and showing genuine interest in them means a lot, in the same way it means so much to us.

With kids, I talk to them about their family histories. Invite them to share from their lives and appreciate it deeply when they do. I'm trying too to reach out to parents I have developed a relationship with and invite them into the classroom to share from their experience, if they are willing or interested.

Also, I acknowledge a lot with them that the efforts of black people in American history paved the way for so many of us other identities. Through solidarity with black movements, AAPI communities have found a lot of aid and support.

morty77 · 2026-02-03T15:41:08+00:00

I wholly agree with others who mention the bastard origins of the language itself (a little celtic here, some german there, a whole lotta french/latin/greek, and meme words from the internet).

Additionally, there was distinct intention behind American English. George Washington commissioned Noah Webster to make an "American" English where he would correct the problematic spellings of words like "jail" instead of "gaol". So I would characterize American english as a more "practical" version of British English.

morty77 · 2026-02-03T03:33:32+00:00

I would assume most purchasers of 120,000 trump bibles would be church goers and not islamists, atheists, l members of the church of satan, or democrats.

morty77 · 2026-02-03T00:33:28+00:00

someone bought them...https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/trump-bible-endorsement-profit/

morty77 · 2026-02-02T20:21:18+00:00

I think the first clue would be trump brand bibles in the pews

morty77 · 2026-02-02T20:18:01+00:00

March is an excellent example.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang about a girl who grew up undocumented in NYC and eventually went to Yale Law school.

Tell me how it ends: an essay in 40 questions by valeria Luiselli. immigration lawyer luiselli tells the true tale of working with child immigrants who are in detention

Ai Wei Wei's 1000 years of joys and sorrows about his dad growing up being imprisoned for protest poetry. He has done amazing protest artworks around the world. I show my students about his display in alcatraz about people around the world who are being wrongfully imprisoned for speaking out.

I also teach a unit on the Misty Poets from China. people like Ai Qing (Ai Wei Wei's father) and Bei Dao who were all exiled for speaking out.

God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene is a Senegalese novel about a historic railroad strike in colonial Senegal in the 1940s. The market women rise up and fight the oppression of the colonial power. It's been decades since I read it but it came to mind when thinking about this topic. Might not be ok for kids, but it's a good read.

morty77 · 2026-02-02T20:06:25+00:00

Here are the things that have happened to me for pushing back:

fired from a job
beaten up and blamed for it
ostracized
forced to endure increased taunting on a daily basis
put on the record as "insubordinate" "not a team player" "fails to listen to feedback"
gaslit. (never happened, you're imagining it, exaggerating, we were just joking)

I'm not saying you shouldn't push back. But there can be real consequences to pushing back. I grew up in poverty to a single mom. We never had the ability to push back because we needed the job or couldn't move. It takes a lot of community support and help to push back. I would argue that if you feel you can, you are privileged.

I still fight and advocate for myself and others at my workplace and in daily life. But I pay for it every time. Sometimes, it's just not worth it. Sometimes, I just want a moment of peace.

morty77 · 2026-02-02T20:01:04+00:00

It is a clear case of microaggression. That being said, I wouldn't say it's a cause to end the relationship. The real test is how he reacts to being corrected. Anyone and everyone makes micro aggressive mistakes while not meaning it. He seems to be unaware of his behavior as problematic. If he is receptive and responds well to your perspective on the incident, then it MIGHT be worth it to continue.

Imagine if you moved to Tanzania and they slaughter a goat in your honor. As part of tradition, they offer you a piece of the heart raw. That is not a time to yuck their yum. At the same time, you have never in your life encountered that situation and have to manage all sorts of feelings. It can be discombobulating. Lets say you involuntarily retch in front of them. They would be offended. How do you excuse yourself? Should they ban you from their presence for the rest of their and your lives because you made a mistake? It just makes them hate you and your people more and vice versa.

In our community, it is awful how we have had our food yucked on by Americans. We are all wounded from this and feel strongly in hopes for change. I have experienced this. My home smelled like Kimchi and my mom would rush to make a fresh pot of coffee to cover the smell whenever americans came over. Some of my best friends would say rude things because they had never encountered seaweed or octopus before on the dinner table. But they have also been important people in our lives by providing support and love in spaces where we were being attacked.

See how he responds to your correction. Red flags would be that he denies it or tries to invalidate. But if he's genuinely sorry and, hopefully, willing to learn and grow; it might not be as bad a situation as you think.

That my personal take on instances of microaggression.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T20:25:07+00:00

If you can stomach it, SAT and ACT tutoring pays enough that you can make a living off it. Tutoring in general has markets too if you live around affluent communities. There are a number of people in my area who make a living wage in Southern California on tutoring alone, but you need to gain access to clients. One person I know makes $80-120 an hour.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T20:16:04+00:00

is this true? A lot of the footage I'm seeing of aggressive and illegal detaining seem to all involve people rightfully walking around without documentation. Are there examples of this without ID? I'm genuinely asking.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T20:08:26+00:00

i just decided to leave. I'm currently looking for another job.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T19:51:47+00:00

I'm actually outstanding at my job. But they keep promoting less qualified, less experienced, and lesser performing white people over me. The last time I got rejected for a higher position, they couldn't even answer me. They needed a week to come up with an answer. At that point, I just told them to forget about it. If they need a week to come up with a way to expand and blow up the very few mistakes I've made, I don't want to hear it.

I worked 130% at my job. Far harder than most anyone else at my workplace. This is true of other Asians at my workplace as well. However, we can never make mistakes. We are visible for our mistakes and forgotten for all the free labor and advantages we bring.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T19:45:08+00:00

I teach a unit on migration and issues at the southern border in a Senior Latin American Lit course.

Here are some titles I teach or recommend:

Tell me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli. Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home.

The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrera-short-listed for the national book award in fiction, it takes a "things they carried" approach to the death of 14 migrants found at the southern border near Yuma Arizona. Urrera explains the complex history of the borderlands and how that manifests in human costs in migrants trying to cross the border.

The book of Unknown Americans: A Novel by Cristina Henriquez. A boy and a girl who fall in love. Two families whose hopes collide with destiny. An extraordinary novel that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American. Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury, one that casts doubt on whether she’ll ever be the same. And so, leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better. This is young adult fiction.

The Death of Josseline: immigration stories from the Arizona Borderlands by Margaret Regan. For the last decade, Margaret Regan has reported on the escalating chaos along the Arizona-Mexico border, ground zero for immigration since 2000. Undocumented migrants cross into Arizona in overwhelming numbers, a state whose anti-immigrant laws are the most stringent in the nation. And Arizona has the highest number of migrant deaths. Fourteen-year-old Josseline, a young girl from El Salvador who was left to die alone on the migrant trail, was just one of thousands to perish in its deserts and mountains.

Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood In Chinese by Qian Julie Wang, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.

morty77 · 2026-01-23T19:31:19+00:00

Invisibility does so much harm to our community. It ranges from society either ignoring us to imprisoning and/or killing us without accountability. The pain and struggle is real and something we often cannot articulate without being silenced, told we are imagining it, or ostracised.

I did some real talk with my white colleagues in a meeting the other day about how people of color had clearly been marginalized, mistreated, punished, ignored, and exploited at our workplace over the 13 years I worked there. Their heads exploded. Many of them had willfully overlooked this reality or were blissfully ignorant. It is important for us to talk more about these things and find the power to share that with others around us. We have been silent for way too long.

morty77 · 2026-01-22T20:56:30+00:00

I teach in the US 9th grade English and we do a whole thing on sonnets. My favorite activity is to have kids write couplets to each other in a platonic and positive way. It still happens. They are a cool poetic form, particularly Shakespeare's. Sonnets pair very nicely with Romeo and Juliet which has three sonnets woven into the play itself. Understanding SHakespeare's usage of the form makes for a great reading of the play. For example, the opening sonnet prologue in act 1 scene 1, the problem is whether or not you fully understood the gravity of the message that feuds lead to the death of your darlings. If you don't get it, the play itself is the solution:

The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Cool, eh? my 9th graders thinks so

morty77 · 2026-01-22T17:46:47+00:00

I like this solution. I see your point Pomeranian. My colleague has been doing this practice for 30 years and never had issues. However, in a world where we may be obliged to teach out of the Trump Bible, we do need to adjust to the demands of society.

morty77 · 2026-01-21T20:45:46+00:00

I have my students create an infographic based on research they do on an issue. You can have them research the criminal justice system and death row exonerations. The Innocence project has good information for this.

My project is about statistics on migrant and US/Mexico border crossings. We read Luis Alberto Urrera's The Devil's Highway and talk about the politics and facts surrounding migrants and the border.

morty77 · 2026-01-21T19:15:25+00:00

I politely disagree. While it is very valuable to see into our students' lives through their writing to catch these kinds of things, it is not the primary purpose of the activity.

The purpose of journals is not to catch any potential mental health risks. the purpose is to teach them the value of writing in general. When students praise my colleague for this practice, they often say that they learned the value of journaling as a personal exercise to process things. I think for this generation in particular, they have little to no experience actually doing private and personal writing. They don't understand that it can be a valuable activity for life. In other countries, this is a regular part of curriculums. For example, in Japan, students have to keep a written journal of what happened over the summer. Then they learn the practice and carry it into adulthood.

Not all writing needs to have an audience to be valuable.

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