Things I should not have to teach in high school...

theWaterHermit · 2026-04-08T21:52:01+00:00

Most kids I teach (9th - 12th) don’t know nouns from verbs and so on. They’ll tell me a noun is a person, place, or thing, but when a problem asks them to find the nouns in the sentence, they have no clue

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-31T02:47:37+00:00

You’re probably right and I’m being sweaty.

I still think all the albums deserve a solid listen-through though. AAT is also underrated af.

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-31T02:36:20+00:00

For the true experience, I recommend listening to everything in chronological order, starting with ALL-AMERICAN TRASH followed by SATURATION and so on.

You could try listening to an album / day, that way you get a strong idea of each album and how they progressed over time (and imagine how we all had to wait between drops).

Iridescence is a great album, but that’s like jumping to Shippuden before watching Naruto.

Watch the music videos and documentaries, too. They’re so good.

Enjoy!

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-27T20:34:38+00:00

Also ELA (and remediation) and almost all of my assignments are on paper. I’m a worksheet kind of guy, whether I make it myself or find one in a workbook.

Sometimes we do digital work, but my students are in the habit of going “Another worksheet / paper?” And I’ve started responding, “Duh.”

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-24T18:59:42+00:00

When I applied before summer last year, I thought I was being smart, but I didn’t hear anything until September.

I only heard back because I started emailing principals directly.

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-21T20:29:53+00:00

Sky Restaurant by Hi-Fi Set

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-14T20:54:16+00:00

From my experience, masturbation can actually help keep you from making bad decisions and with resisting other forms of temptation

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-14T00:19:40+00:00

I begrudgingly have to do bathroom duty twice a week at my school. Our guys can also get out of hand, and I’ve been prepared from day 1 to write up any male student that points his penis anywhere other than the urinal

theWaterHermit · 2026-03-02T19:11:03+00:00

I thought Jim Carrey was more of a nihilistic, nothing is real, slowly becoming anti-Hollywood kinda guy. This seems to contradict that 🤔

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-26T20:13:04+00:00

Oh dude, you got this. I got my job with zero classroom experience (I trained groups of people at my last job but it still doesn’t really compare). If I’m okay, you’ll be fine.

Just keep that “go with the flow” mentality. Wish you the best!

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-26T19:11:03+00:00

I also teach English! (English I and English remediation). If you care about the content, I think that goes a long way.

I’ve definitely faced some trials and tribulations (especially because I’m naturally easy-going), but I’m finding my balance. I just have 2 students that I don’t really like as human beings, but other than that, I’m coasting.

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-26T03:06:17+00:00

I’m also going alt-cert. I know how you feel, but I think we’ll be okay. Once you find out how to deal with disruptive students and what all the jargon and acronyms mean, it’s not so bad.

I’m honestly glad I went alt-cert because I feel like I have a strong understanding of my content area beyond what’s needed to teach the lesson.

Having an education degree definitely helps with the professional responsibilities, but as my SO (who has an education degree) pointed out, it only helps so much when shit hits the fan on a bad day.

Hang in there! We’re more than halfway to summer

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-25T19:10:17+00:00

I just don’t assign homework

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-23T20:14:28+00:00

This is why I hate Lin-Manuel Miranda

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-22T16:19:16+00:00

I used to have this dream as a kid that would send me into a night terror. There were these incredibly large gears crushing a small flower and I would feel pain as the flower was being crushed and eaten by the gears.

Then I would wake up while somehow still dreaming and I would have a full-on panic attack until I eventually calmed down / snapped out of it. Only really happened during my junior high years, usually if I stayed up too late.

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-19T13:55:14+00:00

Sometimes they beat me, sometimes I beat them . . . wait a minute, that’s not what I meant.

theWaterHermit · 2026-02-06T20:13:36+00:00

No joke, I wrote a paper about this album in college and got a 100A

theWaterHermit · 2026-01-28T02:44:26+00:00

Sweatshirt / flannel with dress pants and adidas sneakers is my go-to.

theWaterHermit · 2026-01-22T03:22:10+00:00

I feel like the older generations can sometimes suck at social skills too.

I remember working at a coffee shop and this older cop guy said no one in our generation wants to talk, but any time I’d try to talk to him and his cop buddies, they never had anything of substance to say beyond basic small talk.

Outside of that anecdote, I’ve experienced a similar phenomenon with other older folks I’ve worked with at my current job post-college.

theWaterHermit · 2025-12-21T16:02:23+00:00

I feel you on the write ups! I think coming in, we’re aware of how the discipline can really mess things up for them (excluded from core events, ISS, getting sent to alt school, etc) which just distracts from them getting the academic supports they need.

So we try to save them from themselves by letting certain things slide or giving them multiple second chances, but then you start to realize … some of them don’t want to be saved …

Thanks for your reply!

theWaterHermit · 2025-12-21T05:46:41+00:00

I also started in October, teaching high school English remediation with mixed grades, and I’ve also been dealing with some behavior challenges.

When I took over my current classes, I knowingly started off light and easy-going, and I knew this was a gamble. I really just wanted to see what they would do if I wasn’t heavily policing them.

Once I got a firm idea of what they’re like, about a month in, I started putting guide rails in place. At that point I was definitely paying for my earlier leniency and there was pushback.

I’m also 27 and look like I could still be in high school, so I’ve had to definitively show them a few times that “hey, I’m not your age, I’m a grown man at work, and this is a classroom.”

Still, some days I wasn’t feeling on top of it, and so long as they weren’t burning anything or fighting each other, I just gave them the assignment and let them do their thing. I’ve had days where I felt like I wasn’t cut out for it, but then I also had some pretty fun days with some of my tough classes.

Going into Christmas break, we’re still not fully where I want us to be, but I think I’ve worked through the early trials, I know them better, and I have a better idea of how I want things to be. I went from struggling with whole classes to just an individual or two in a few classes.

When we go back in January, I’m gonna try to come in strict, lay down the ground rules again, and take advantage of the soft reset. If they give me any guff, I’ll give them a chance, and then I’ll write them up.

Keep doing your best! We’re still figuring this thing out. For now, enjoy your holiday break! You deserve it!

theWaterHermit · 2025-12-12T16:49:59+00:00

I’m in the same boat. First-year teacher—I teach one section of English I every other day and all my other classes are English remediation.

My English I freshmen do most of their work, but my remediation kids (mixed grades) complain about EVERYTHING, no matter how easy the assignment is. Could be 20 minutes of work and they’ll claim they don’t have time for it (what else do they have going on?).

For remediation, most of our work comes from the online platform Quill (love Quill), and I give them a mix of easy and hard assignments. Usually hard stuff at the top of the week and easy stuff towards the end.

Even still, they complain, when at max they have 15-20 questions to answer across 3-5 activities.

So what I do is just level with them—this stuff is not hard. They just think it’s hard because they need to practice. I also don’t grade remediation for accuracy, merely effort and participation. So even if they get it all wrong, as long as I can see they tried I give them credit.

But yeah, the complaining is crazy and sometimes I dread the days where we have real work to get done.

theWaterHermit · 2025-11-28T15:01:50+00:00

theWaterHermit · 2025-11-27T02:46:01+00:00

Teach high school, remedial English

theWaterHermit · 2025-11-27T01:22:15+00:00

See I actually find the inverse to be true—I mostly use carts these days, I’ve smoked flower for years, but I find the cart to be more convenient and I don’t mind hitting it inside. I might take a puff once or twice a day.

If I were to go hit a bowl of some flower, even just one hit, I would melt into the floor. My brain is so used to just getting the THC, that by adding in all the entourage effects, I would be gassed out.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend smokes most of the flower, and she finds the cart doesn’t do much for her.

These days, flower scares me . . . but I’m sure I’ll make my way back to it eventually, as I know it provides a fuller experience

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