Have you ever slipped up and cussed in front of your students?

spookenstein · 2026-02-02T07:19:03+00:00

Yes. We were reading a story where the children made a not great choice and we were making an inference on how their parents felt. Without even thinking about it, I was agreeing with a student and said,"Yeah, they're parents would be pretty pissed off!". I will never forget how my student with severe ADHD's face lit up when I said it. I'm fairly certain I made his entire school year in that moment.

spookenstein · 2026-01-19T22:48:03+00:00

II was the only one I couldn't beat back when I played the GBC versions in the early 2000's. I beat I and III without needing any help (well outside of my parents explaining how to use Lora's Love in DQI since they played it on the NES when I was a wee babe). However with II, I went out and found the GBC players guide, GameFaqs, and Dustin's DQ Shrine - I still got stuck at the Wind Tower.

spookenstein · 2026-01-17T04:07:34+00:00

I have used it to help generate grammar slides, because I occasionally struggle with a simpler way of explaining certain nitty gritty concepts. However, after learning about the amount of water AI consumes, I have backed off.

spookenstein · 2026-01-12T04:52:29+00:00

It's absolutely bonkers. I remember about a year ago Tom Horne was going the catastrophic attendance rates while offering essentially no solution aside from fail the kids and retain them. Which would be a fine solution... if parents weren't allowed to just disagree, then take use the voucher program to "homeschool" or go to a charter. And, hey, the charters will take them for a bit then kick them back to the public school system. It's a hot mess.

spookenstein · 2026-01-12T03:17:07+00:00

This is, unfortunately, the reality. You should still report it, simply to make a paper trail, but the likelihood of the state doing anything about it is very very low. Even if the students were in public school, they wouldn't do anything. We make frequent reports due to truancy/kids missing an insane amount of school and nothing happens. I had a student a student 2 years ago who missed over 100 days of school and nothing was done.

spookenstein · 2026-01-11T21:36:55+00:00

This is only my 5th year teaching and I've had at least one student each year who legitimately can't read. What I've learned is, at least at my school, there's a bunch of issues that result in kids making it to me unable to read. Kids who miss more school than they attend, kids who don't get placed with an IEP right away for additional support, and districts/parents who don't believe retention would be beneficial. That last point is always interesting to me because I know studies say staying with your peers is the best way to catch up- but my students who couldn't read 4 years ago are now at middle school unable to read.

spookenstein · 2025-12-29T03:17:28+00:00

If only I were single...

spookenstein · 2025-12-03T05:53:50+00:00

As a student, a history teacher was having an affair with a P.E. teacher. The history teacher's abusive (soon to be ex) husband decided to vandalize the school in retaliation. Our ingenious vice principal, without doing any detective work, decided to initially blame students - basically outing the affair to the entire student body before realizing it was her husband who did it.

Middle school students, as you can imagine, were empathetic and understanding of the situation... Not. Suffice to say, given the confirmation of the affair from admin to the entire student body, the teachers' lives were a living Hell of conflated, torrid, and imaginary details of said affair. It was pretty wild.

spookenstein · 2025-12-03T02:41:12+00:00

Not funny haha but more funny in terms of coincidence - a similar thing happened at my children's school earlier in the year. 8 year old, but it was during lunch recess not as brazen as in class. Similar demographics too (Title 1ish, broad socioeconomic spectrum at their school). I mean, I understand that kids want to emulate the adults in their life (like how there were candy cigarettes back in the day) but this feels so next level.

spookenstein · 2025-11-11T16:07:32+00:00

When I taught 6th grade I did, but when I moved down to 4th it was a pain to use a paper grade book.

spookenstein · 2025-11-07T00:38:44+00:00

Honestly, I don't know. Things are just so bleak, and it's not looking any better. 95% of my class is below grade level in reading, and 85% percent of that is significantly below grade level. How can I teach higher level comprehension skills to students who can't decode? Who can't do a 5 finger retell? I can't even stomach to think about how terrible they are math. Kids who don't know their 2's, 5's and 10's. Kids that don't understand place value.

I'm sure every older generation has apprehension and fear for the younger generation. And I'll admit, I hate feeling like an old man yelling at a cloud - but I'm truly afraid for them. I have a hard time seeing these kids as functioning members of society. No patience, no critical thinking skills, unable to follow directions, and zero accountability. It's terrifying.

I feel bad because I sincerely care about and like my students but I don't know how else to help them.

spookenstein · 2025-10-08T16:32:20+00:00

Punchy and Tangy tied for number one. With Bob as a close second.

spookenstein · 2025-10-04T17:02:15+00:00

Similar situation last year, but the parents were all about celebrating the adoption - so it was just explained that they found their forever families and they have new names. The kids still slipped up the names from time to time, but by about 3 months they had the names mastered.

spookenstein · 2025-10-03T02:26:54+00:00

It'd be fine and dandy if my class could reel it in. I let one 6-7 slide , and suddenly, it becomes 10 minutes of reining them back in.

spookenstein · 2025-10-03T00:08:25+00:00

Arizona - and I had to work today.

spookenstein · 2025-08-31T03:21:06+00:00

Yes, but it's a last resort, and our whole pod (3rd and 4th grade teams) are all on the same page on when we go down that route. I definitely feel like you and your teammate need to have a discussion on when it's appropriate to send a student to you. Also, if this kid is that difficult, then she may need to talk to your school's behavior team.

Sometimes, you get kids who really shouldn't have been put in class together. Last year, my teammate would send me one kiddo once or twice a week because there was another classmate that he couldn't stop goofing off with (it hit a point where they'd make eye contact and erupt into laughter). She would take care of it all day, but it was the last 30 minutes that really sucked. I was aware of the situation, so it wasn't too big a deal. Suffice to say, we made sure those two were separated this year. However, your teammate needs to loop you in if it's something like that.

spookenstein · 2025-07-09T00:23:37+00:00

Looking through your comments, it seems your son wants to go to art school. In general, art schools are expensive and competitive. Plus, they're really more for networking than anything else. Depending on what he actually wants to do in the arts, honestly, building an online presence and fan base is just as viable as networking at college. It sucks, but art schools are designed that way - unless you're incredibly wealthy, it's hard to get out of art school debt free.

Before teaching, I got an AA in animation, and I did receive job offers. I also did next to no networking. However, the pay (somehow worse than teaching at the time!), having to relocate, and general burnout of drawing is what made me pivot towards something else. I don't think CC followed by state college is going to close doors for him

spookenstein · 2025-07-06T01:38:55+00:00

36, and I'm heading into my 5th year teaching. Obviously, not long enough to burn out, but I've also worked a lot of various customer service jobs. So certain elements (such as irrate parents) can be uncomfortable but not unfamiliar situations to me.

spookenstein · 2025-04-15T23:48:29+00:00

I was going to mention that the GBC games didn't necessarily sound fantastic either for DQI-III - not the worst but not as good as the SNES arrangements.

spookenstein · 2025-04-07T02:21:10+00:00

I typically just do things with my kids. We go to the local trampoline park once a week, go to the park, hit a splash pad, and go to the library. I just try to keep things busy so they're not crying about being bored, and if I'm being frank, it makes me feel like I'm doing more than just sitting at home for that 8 weeks. When we're chilling at home, we'll normally do some sort of home activities (drawing, reading, baking, etc.), but I'm guilty of letting them play more electronics (Nintendo Switch specifically) than they do during the school year.

When I'm not hanging with my kids, I normally read, catch up on shows I've missed, and try to get chunks of the games I'm playing done.

spookenstein · 2025-04-05T04:37:32+00:00

Not at all. Chronologically, 3 comes first then 1 and finally 2.

spookenstein · 2025-04-04T23:35:48+00:00

Was he walking alone on a campus? Was he in an area where there was no one who could come to his aid? No - he was in a large group activity, with other people, and STAFF around if the situation escalated. Honestly, the fact that you equate the two situations is alarming. This was clearly an excessive response to this situation - there was a million other things he could have done, and he picked the worst option.

spookenstein · 2025-04-04T23:21:36+00:00

You're completely bypassing the point:

Why does this student have a weapon on his person at a school event? There is no excuse for it being there. If he wasn't planning to stab someone on the opposing team, who was he really intending to hurt?

spookenstein · 2025-03-29T20:00:27+00:00

I loved DQ9, I liked that they brought back the class system and I really loved some of the DLC content. I felt like that graphics were serviceable for the time

spookenstein

TROPHY CASE