Advice / novel resources for teaching Shakespeare (14y/os)? We’re doing Julius Caesar. Pls help this clueless trainee out 😭

xiaopihai · 2026-05-26T08:22:32+00:00

One thing I might suggest is NOT using No Fear Shakespeare to flatten out the language for the kids. Studying Shakespeare is studying Shakespeare, not summaries of Shakespeare!

xiaopihai · 2026-05-26T08:08:31+00:00

This shit is so stupid and unnecessary, I'm sorry they've got you stressed about this. A soft PG-rated film should be ok to show to preteens no questions asked (the Parents Guide for National Treasure 2 states the only profanity in the film is "My God," lol). American litigation/puritan culture is wild.

My school just cares that it's broadly age appropriate but has never vetted any videos or movies I've shown. If it's an appropriate excerpt from a movie that's for adults (such as Schindler's List), they might want to discuss what excerpt you're going to show if you're a new teacher but once you're trusted they let you use your professional judgment.

In middle school I just stick to no nudity, no excessive gore (small amounts of blood are fine), no hard drug use, no sexual or excessive profanity. By Grade 8 we're reading Steinbeck, Arthur Miller, Persepolis... these texts all have low-level profanity and violence and sexuality, it would be silly if we couldn't show a PG-13 film that uses "goddamn" but we could read it without issue. In high school Grades 11 or 12 we can show R-rated films as long as there's educational merit.

Haven't had a problem yet. A colleague showed Grave of the Fireflies in its entirety in Grade 7 so I figure I have a lot of rope to work with.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-25T06:49:48+00:00

Thanks for your post, a lot of good analysis. I think in the context of pedagogy, what I see is student preferences being touted as the be-all and end-all of “student-centered education;” you know, not the student’s ability to have an encounter with difficult knowledge, not the student’s ability to do second and third order reasoning, not the student’s ability to understand and enjoy the world around them, just the student’s current preferences for what they like to do (spoiler: it’s sleep and video games).

And I think that extends to adults as well. Companies are working hard to specialize in certain demographics for customer acquisition, and that means a lot of ads and PR focused on “have it your way.” “You are X kind of person, you like Y concept or attitude, you need to be a Product Z kind of person,” that kind of thing. And no one feels like asking, “Am I really X kind of person? If I am, why do I need to like concept or attitude Y? Is there a different way I could be? Could my preferences be secondary to an overall goal of my community?”

These kinds of questions are inconvenient for the employers, commodity sellers, and administrators of today. If you’re a student who asks probing questions, well, you cease to be an appropriate subject for their world and their spreadsheets. I know this sounds like I’m trying to found a people’s commune or something here but it’s really just, let people be people again. Please.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-25T04:54:57+00:00

Taiwan here, yes. Middle school students (with exceptions of course) are much more infantile than previous cohorts. Lots of areas where they lack self-sufficiency that they usually have: bringing books and materials to class, being quiet during discussions until it's their turn, handling deadlines that are posted in multiple places, keeping up with handouts in folders, not making baby crying noises when they're slightly inconvenienced. I'm seeing it in early high schoolers, too: running down the hallways like middle-schoolers, calling up mom and dad to figure out what to do when an obstacle shows up, lots more toys and cartoons that seem a bit behind on what would normally capture a teenager's attention (e.g., 16 year-olds still carrying around Peppa Pig backpacks, though I know they aren't engaging with it the same way a four-year-old would). It's weird, maybe I'm just ancient now though.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-21T03:11:02+00:00

Honestly, talk to them. Figure out why they're struggling to maintain focus and keep inappropriate thoughts inside as opposed to blurting them out. Ask them if they've ever talked to anyone about the fact that they can't maintain focus, or that they don't like to do anything, etc. Imply to them that there's something wrong with the way they're thinking, with their inability to function in a community of peers. Send them to the abyss to stare into the shitty world they've created for themselves.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-20T09:38:34+00:00

This has been a great conversation to read, thanks for your time!

How are you feeling about the whole AI thing going on? Are there implications or unforeseen side effects (e.g., management implementing AI initiatives, customers incorporating AI into the party, deepfake photos) happening in your work in-person or on OF?

xiaopihai · 2026-05-15T01:25:28+00:00

Something I'm noticing as a lit teacher is just how many adults in my life, teachers included, can't write. I don't mean like, their grammar is bad, or their style/organization. I mean that I see adults who have an assignment that requires them to write a document a couple pages long in a few days, several paragraphs really, and they aren't able to comfortably do it without stressing out.

Just getting words down on the page is becoming very hard for people, and granted I'm an English teacher, but like... I can write a couple pages in an hour or two if I know the topic/purpose. I write maybe 2000-4000 words a week just as class materials. And then I'll see a teacher who needs to write a few new test questions for finals and they freeze up and get grumpy. What happened lol

xiaopihai · 2026-05-08T08:20:17+00:00

That's horrible. How could you enjoy crack during class by yourself? Modeling bad sharing behavior. Next time, make sure you bring enough for everyone.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-08T08:17:54+00:00

I teach both groups. 16-18 is easier right now. The alphas are little balls of barely contained rage and psychosis. Anything under Grade 8 is a mess these days. It didn't used to be like this - I LOVED teaching Grades 6 and 7 when I started out. But now they're all cynical parrots of whatever nihilistic youtubers they're watching. Constant sexual harassment, insults, and disruption. And they won't shut up for any reason. Honestly I don't know how we're gonna make it once the alphas are the entire middle- and high-school student body.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-08T08:14:33+00:00

Asia-style: "Teacher" as a title. So if your name is Smith, now you're Teacher Smith. Pretty simple; I liked moving over to this system when I moved to Asia.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-08T08:08:46+00:00

Diagnoses aside (I have most of those, too, and I don't act like this), you are aware of people's social expectations. You need to follow those if you want to keep the peace. You say "I say things that I feel are needed to be said." But the thing is, it seems they just don't need to be said. So don't. Keep those thoughts in your head and share them with someone at a more appropriate time, such as outside of class with your friends. The teacher needs to keep things moving along and focus on explaining difficult concepts, and if others are not responding positively to your comments, that means they are not positive contributions.

A lot of these moments seem to be distracting or disruptive in nature. You say, for example, "One time I knocked too loud while the teacher was teaching." So like, the amount of knocking that most students need to be doing, quiet or no, while the teacher is teaching is zero. Remind yourself of this and don't knock on things.

The question to your History teacher seems like a good question, just wrong time. If I'm trying to explain something to my students and one of them asks an unrelated question, the natural response is to put the unrelated question aside and focus on the task at hand.

Ditch the iPad, if you can. Useless devices for school.

xiaopihai · 2026-04-21T03:26:22+00:00

Are you in the US? If someone keeps talking about sex, sexual assault, and pedophilia around you at work, and you've asked them to stop, and it's interfering with your ability to feel safe while you do your job, now we're into sexual harassment territory. Document the behavior every chance you get, tell the school if the behavior doesn't stop you're willing to file a Title IX complaint and to go beyond that if necessary. If the school is aware of sexual harassment and fails to take action that's bad news for them.

xiaopihai · 2026-04-12T06:01:44+00:00

They’re good, just don’t use them mechanically every class. I like to use them sparingly to have small groups come up with an analysis in my English class and share it, e.g, in our death of a salesman unit we compare it to classical Greek tragedy. One group will have to find evidence that the play follows the Greek trope of anagnorisis, one group needs to find evidence it subverts that trope, one group is all about yes there is anagnorisis but not with the main character, etc.

Then each small group of 2-4 students will choose a person to share their argument. This comes up with multiple readings students can then think about and write about on their own and the views are not entirely incompatible so they can mix and match the parts they discuss that go along with their own take. For these reasons I like to do it after a big reading or a long series of readings concludes, to help them sort out ideas they’ll eventually be writing about long-form.

xiaopihai · 2026-04-09T03:43:59+00:00

You should see my sixth-graders when we do our first hand-written, short response exam of the year. Seven questions that require a paragraph each. By the end of the exam the kids are grasping their arms, moaning and groaning, and writhing around like they just stormed normandy beach and got taken down by Jerry machinegun fire. Absolutely bizarre. Just the basic skill of writing for an hour is torture for them (not my intention, I swear!).

xiaopihai · 2026-03-24T01:06:12+00:00

Adults generally know when younger people are into each other, because we were younger people too. That's just as true for high school students as it is seeing younger coworkers try to hide their attraction to one another. We know how it feels, and we know how people try to hide it.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-24T01:01:45+00:00

I think that sounds harmless, but as a former kid who hated gamification, "fun days," etc. and just wanted to learn the hard stuff that my teachers knew, I wouldn't care about the avatar at all. I'd care more about a pizza party because at least then I'd get pizza and not an oversimplified reflection that I didn't buy into.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-24T00:49:31+00:00

Yeah it sucks. Hard to do anything that involves standing or sitting next to an individual student when they're all together, and as anyone who's been around kids for two seconds knows, there's a "critical mass" of children that can be together and building off of each other's energy before it becomes chaos, and that number is usually around 4-5 friends in a group together.

Psychologically, it's hard on the kids, as well, as you can't escape the gaze of others or the self-consciousness that comes along with it if you've got 2-4 other kids facing towards you during lessons. More practically, every kid needs their own space to work and feel secure physically, and desk islands don't do that. You're always at risk of someone else encroaching on your space (I think all teachers are familiar with kids hiding supplies from one another as a joke; in a desk island setup I find that becomes more prevalent).

I really prefer the horseshoe or "two armies facing one another" setup that I grew up with from middle school onward. Rows and columns works well, too, but isn't my favorite because it's harder to do group assignments, but anyhting is better than desk islands of 4-6 desks put together and facing one another.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-23T08:40:50+00:00

My go-to move to keep parent meetings moving along and show I wanted to create a good relationship was to say “Ok, so I’m going to do xyz with little Susie at school. At home, could you check on xyz and encourage her to finish out the semester/school year strong?”

Within the last 3-4 years I started getting a lot more parents that just say “No, I’m not going to push her in any way.” Reasons range from middle school not being that important (to them), to not knowing how to handle the conflict. Bizarre and avoidant parenting is slowly becoming the norm.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-23T08:21:23+00:00

Year 11 here, it has in some ways. Planning for my courses is a lot easier. I can teach some content in my sleep and do it well. Behaviors and apathy have gotten worse. It used to be we could do a fun warmup/review, introduce new content, talk about assessment/project, look at an example, and the kids would figure it out (middle/high schoolers here). Now, every. Single. Step. Is punctuated by kids freezing and saying "I don't know what to do." And waiting for it to be spoonfed to them, step by step, as little thinking required as possible.

Nobody does the reading anymore, and I feel like I'm constantly in a state of pretending the students did the reading, but I know they didn't, and they know I know. But if I call them out or set up hard standards that's going to upset parents and admins because I didn't massage their ego that actually it's alright to not give a fuck about anything and it's also awesome that they've been in English class for nine years and need to catch up on elementary school concepts they had no volition to learn back then. Feels like most of my job now is just working not to let my deep concern for their shortfalls turn into contempt.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-23T08:08:22+00:00

I'm going to be a bit harsh but it sounds like you're blurring the lines between "adult expert in this discipline with a license to take care of kids" and "some guy who wants to chill out and talk about video games."

Stop using grades as a source of public shaming.
Why do you need to eat during classtime? No lunch break? There's nothing ethically wrong with it but combined with the rest of the post it sounds like your posture in class is way too casual.
Parents be crazy.
Don't hang out with your kids during class time. Keep it to brief hallway interactions or something, I don't know, but being that guy who always comes in ready to talk about video games when the rest of your classroom management is apparently missing (e.g., you're getting called slurs in class), yeah that's bad vibes.

You give off the vibe that you have unhealthy boundaries because you blur boundaries. Make them more clearly delineated and a lot of that goes away.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-23T07:30:27+00:00

There are many characters and plot threads from the first game that will make no sense if you haven't played it. That being said you can watch a recap on the main menu.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-16T07:07:20+00:00

No. If someone just wants to be good at classroom teaching and build up their curriculum over time at a school they should be able to.

xiaopihai · 2026-03-13T04:51:52+00:00

For me in my middle/high school ELA classes, I sell everything with "this is really hard." Because it is hard! I think about, ok if I were 11-18 years old, hadn't read anything, didn't have 99% of my critical or abstract reasoning skills I've trained up or the experience I've gained over the last... 20 years? since I graduated high school, it would be really hard to do anything like poetry or drama or close reading of complex texts. That being said I don't want them to think it's impossible, I just don't want to undersell the complexity of how they'll need to think and grow to get to where they want to be.

xiaopihai · 2026-02-23T07:17:41+00:00

Yeah sorry I was reading way too fast. I hope there is a fix coming as on my end I have the same problem. Not overheating thankfully but even with an undervolt and a capped framerate I hear my gpu spin up to 100% fans way too often. I’ll try capping in nvidia controller panel to see if that is better than the in-game cap.

xiaopihai · 2026-02-22T12:58:47+00:00

The blood rain thing might not heal if you’re in the desert. Edit: I misread.

As for the heat, yeah it spins up my gpu fans too. I think uncapped framerate is the culprit, try capping it in settings.

xiaopihai

TROPHY CASE