If you are an #educator, you may have spent recent weeks grappling with your position with respect to #student#NonviolentResistance. You’re not alone, and in this moment, perhaps it is helpful to identify ways #teachers & staff at #schools, #colleges & #universities have supported students engaged in nonviolent #CivilResistance. Below, I will share a range of options, progressing from familiar #faculty roles to those with greater proximity to student #NonviolentAction.
@msquebanh
I apologize for commenting without reading the article, but I assumed that. My comment was directed at the fact that there is any controversy at all in opposing genocide.
That should be the least controversial thing possible.
No one should be agonizing over how to express opposition to genocide.
Just visited the school I retired from four years ago to say hi and check out the new renovations.
Whiteboards everywhere!
(er, sorry, “vertical non-permanent surfaces“)
While I appreciate the philosophy of getting the kids up and working things out for themselves, I’m really wondering about the massive amounts of plastic waste in the form of depleted whiteboard markers. Personally, I hated whiteboards when it was mostly just me using one, because I was constantly running out of markers. I can’t imagine how they cope now that all the students are using them, as well.
This is clearly an “out of sight, out of mind” issue for most folks, and I’m sure the petroplastics industry is totally fine with finding new ways to make money. But it’s incredibly shortsighted.
I know all about the drawbacks of chalk, but those inconveniences seem pretty minimal compared to the waste generated by whiteboards.
Is there a third low-tech option out there that allows for fine detail (so no drawing in sand 😄) without the waste? Why did people stop using chalkboards? The dust?
@Saltssaltgirl I was in a very serious wreck in 1st grade. The school wanted me to repeat 1st grade because I had missed a good deal of time being in the hospital and then at home in a hospital bed, and I would need to miss more time moving forward from there due to doctor visits and therapy.
My teacher refused to sign that form and declared that she would come to my house after school and tutor me personally so I would not lose ground.
When I was getting my degree, she let me work in her classroom for some of my assignments and practicums. She was an honored guest at my wedding.
Now as a teacher myself, I look to her example for advice - what would she do or say? how would she approach a student in this situation or that?
Bonnie was an amazing teacher. It is a shame in some ways that she is retired now. Those kids are missing out.
@Saltssaltgirl I was smart, but I struggled with spelling. This was in the mid-1970s in a small rural school. Maybe today I'd be diagnoses with some disorder, but I was just a bad speller then. In 5th grade (+/-) our regular teacher was sick and the substitute, who lived in town and was known to us kids, took me aside one day and said, "you can learn how to spell these words we're studying, I'm sure of it," or words to that effect. I could and I did. I still remember her confidence in me.
Israel had destroyed literally all universities in Gaza and damaged over 400 schools. Lest we forget also Israel's deliberate targeting of university professors and academics.
@appassionato
Don’t you know education and knowledge is Hamas? Schools are Hamas. Books too. Pencils? Hamas. Everything is Hamas if you try hard enough.
The headline of Gaby Hinsliff's piece this morning in the Guardian says it all:
'if we run out of teachers, who will teach our children?'
The crisis in our schools is not just an immediate problem of education but will have impacts across the generations.
We needed to have sorted this out long ago, but the toxic impact of Tory education policy has undermined, disempowered & compromised the teaching profession to such an extent we're now in crisis
If you read the FT, you'll be keenly aware of ex-journalist Lucy Kellaway's New Teach charity that has been running a very successful programme to get older workers who fancy a change in career to become teachers.
But, of course, this relatively cheap to run but successful scheme to reduce the shortage of teachers, has been defunded as part of the Dept. of Education's need to find budge cuts to fund (more) tax cuts.
The Tories have little care about public education!
'Following the successful development of the Black Teacher Archive (BTA), beginning in 2020 with initial funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the BTA’s public unveiling in 2023, a pair of new grants will allow the project to expand its reach and impact in the coming years.'
@researchbuzz Thanks, again!❤️ I love the 3 fundamental tenets of the project: "Usability, reciprocity" and "investment in and intellectual community."
Have any of you ever read r/Teachers on Reddit? Shit is WILD over there. Like, my kids come home from 7th and 8th grade and talk about how there are 7th graders who just can't read and I'm like "my kid is exaggerating" and then there's actual damn TEACHERs talking to each other saying "Shit my kids can't read like just CAN'T"... and it's apparently stuff teachers have been saying for around 10 yrs... In about 5-10 years our society is going to collapse as far as I can see. #teachers#education
People aren't hearing. It's not at the scale like it was in say 1998 or 2002 or something. It's like, we combined the wrong teaching paradigms ("sight words" and some shit) with COVID and ... now... tell me what your assessment is? How is it going in middle school?
@dlakelan I am a high school teacher and it’s a huge issue. It’s undiagnosed learning disabilities, which turn into behavioral issues. It’s underfunded schools. It’s hungry children who are often forced to work, take care of siblings/other family obligations, it’s focusing on standardized tests instead of the whole-student approach, it’s finding the way back from Covid. I can go on.
A letter to parents from the SSTUWA
23 April stop work action
Dear parents,
It is likely that your child’s public school may be closed on the morning of Tuesday 23 April 2024. If it is open, it won’t be for lessons as normal. #union#sstuwa#westernAustralia#teachers#teachersStrike#education#parents
This situation applies to the schools your children are being educated at if you are a parent of one of the 72 per cent of primary students or 66 per cent of secondary pupils who goes to a public school.
We want the public education system fixed. We want it fixed for the benefit of teachers, principals and above all for students. This is the first stop work action teachers have taken in over a decade. That’s how serious the situation has become for our members.
The SSTUWA’s community research suggests over 80 per cent of WA voters agree that all children deserve a quality education.
We agree too and that requires better salaries and working conditions for teachers and principals.
@br00t4c
The best teachers will leave the profession. Offering more money won’t make the best teachers put up with adolescent violence. The parents are at fault. They have not taught their children to show respect for adults who are trying to teach them.
So many #teachers off at the moment with some sort of cold-adjacent viral infection. I am relieved when it’s a 5-period day! because I can’t get put on cover. Interesting and terrifying that no one is testing to see if it’s #Covid. 5 out of 8 science teachers have had it so far and not one has tested.
@jeffowski Reminds me of the guy who tried to negotiate with the quartet for his wedding.
"If you think we're pricey," the band leader said, "I'll make you a deal. Call the local union and get a quote for four plumbers to work five hours on a Saturday night. We'll take that amount instead."
Parents, stay away & let's pay #teachers more!
"One day, during [remote learning], a mother of one of my students sent me an email. The subject line, in all caps, read, “I CAN HEAR EVERYTHING AND I DON’T LIKE IT.” We were discussing Romeo and Juliet. Her email quoted things students had shared . . . It was the liveliest discussion they’d had all year. I never fully understood why the parent didn’t “like” what she heard. It didn’t matter. Our classroom wasn’t for her." https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/03/phone-free-schools-movement-parents-teenagers.html
Serious question for K-12 #teachers in #Illinois: do you incorporate any lessons about Casimir Pulaski into your curriculum? Any acknowledgement whatsoever about why there's a random Monday off from school every March? Does he get a mention? Inquiring minds want to know! #PulaskiDay#DadThoughts#History#Histodon#Histodons
Red flag: In the US, "#teachers are dead last among all occupational groups and professions in feeling their opinions count at work, that their supervisor creates an open and trusting environment and that they are treated with respect each day. Teachers are also the highest of all professions in experiencing burn-out and stress. And it’s no wonder why half of all teachers are currently looking for a new job." https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonbusteed/2024/02/23/to-fix-us-education-free-our-teachers/
@failedLyndonLaRouchite@petersuber@academicchatter
The article you linked to says "are dissatisfied with their workplaces", and the Forbes article is about "miserable work environment" - i.e. same thing - so not clickbait at all.
