The Invisible Assignment

Tuesday. Eighth grade math, sixth period. 

They had various assignments in Google Classroom. One was notes. The teacher had created a video for them to watch while they filled in notes from a worksheet that she had provided. Then they were to practice what had been in the notes. (It was the distributive property.) 

Because eighth graders, Ms. S (also a sub) and I were redirecting the kiddos back to what they were supposed to be doing (all. period. long.). 

One boy had nothing written on his paper. I told him to get to work. 

"I'm doing it." And then he used the flashlight on the pen to show that the pen he was using had invisible ink. 

Deep sigh. 

Then, of course, the invisible ink pen garnered all the attention from his classmates. It had to be passed around and such. (The link goes to WalMart, but if you search "invisible ink pen with uv light" you should find similar in your area.) 

But what the boy didn't seem to get (even though both Ms. S and I both explained it) was that he wasn't going to get credit for having done his work in invisible ink. Because his teacher wasn't going to look that hard at his paper. If she can't see work there, she's going to consider it not done. 

You'd think this would be obvious. Not to an eighth grader. 

Bluesky Migration

As I pondered what I was going to rant about today, something weird happened on Bluesky. Suddenly it got a huge influx of new users. Not only that, a couple people I know online joined. And that got me thinking.

I don't know exactly when I joined Bluesky. My first skeet* is dated October 16, 2023. So, it was likely a day or two before that. When I first joined, I did not know what to do with the platform. It was new. A wide open space.

I am not an expert. I dabble. A little. I scroll. But, I have picked up a few things that new users might want to know, and so I'm including those here in the hopes that you'll join me. My user name is @zizirho.bsky.social if you do happen to find your way over there.

First, there's an unofficial ID check. It's #ProofOfCat. Post a picture of your cat with the hashtag (as well as the name of the cat and/or something interesting about said cat). Sadly, I have no cat, so I have not done this. Some users have posted pics of their dogs in lieu of #ProofOfCat. 

Next, make sure to set your feed to "Following". One of the problems in the other places is the algorithm will feed you posts that you might not want to interact with. If you keep it on "Following", you'll only see skeets* from those you are following. 

Until you have a robust list of people you are following, you can use the "Discover" feed. With the influx of people, several users have created "Starter Packs" to help newbies find good feeds to follow. They've also created a few starter packs of feeds not to follow, but they are labeled as such.

Not to follow? That brings me to one of the lovely things on Bluesky--the nuclear block.

If you block someone on Bluesky, you never have to think of them again. It blocks them so you never have to see them again. It also makes you disappear from their feeds, so they can't see you. One big issue on other sites is how those who want to harass you can find ways around a block to get back to you. Here, they can't. 

(If you hit "subscribe" on a starter pack, you are given the option of blocking that entire list. Useful tool.)

And finally, if you find a skeet* or a thread you want to "pin", you can "quote post" and put an emoji pin in it. That collects your pinned posts in a handy spot to find them again. (I haven't quite gotten the hang of this, but I'm assured it works.)

Oh, it turns out there are some other ways you can scroll. I found this while finding skeets* to add to this post: 

I'm rather surprised I had as much to write about as all of this. I'm hardly an expert. But I find that Bluesky is where I spend most of my time scrolling nowadays. I hope you'll join me. 

And another helpful graphic:

(If you're looking for a "what if?" post, I have suspended them. Temporarily? I'm not sure right now.)

*Skeet is not the official name. There's a debate as to what to call posts. Someone on the anti side advocated against in the perfect way to make everyone else adopt the term, so it's probably going to stay.

Learning Curve

I didn't do a whole lot of knitting last week. I went from this:

To this:

So, a little progress. 

But what I really wanted to talk about today is Canva. 

I got a new computer over the summer. (It became necessary.) And when I did that, I was not able to import the photo editing software I'd been using--Picasa. Picasa was abandoned several years ago, but it was the thing I knew how to use. It only had simple tools, but it did the jobs I needed it to do.

I had been looking for something similar enough. And online I had heard some people talking about Canva for various online images, so I decided to check it out. 

And it turns out that it does just what I need it to. It's how I've been editing my classroom photos since October. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to get what I needed, but now I can do that fairly quickly.

So, I thought today I'd finally be able to show off that mistake in this dragon pattern. You know, the mistake that made me frog the whole thing. 

Alas, it's going to take me more time to figure out how exactly to do that than I have time for today. 

All I could do was circle the biggest mistake. (The other mistake, the reason that I decided frogging was worth the trouble, is way harder to see.) 

You may need to click on the image to make it bigger. Then look inside the circle. See how that cable snakes like a backward S? If you look on the other side, you can see how the cables all twist the same way, making for a spiral-like thing. That's what that was supposed to look like in the circle.

It's going to take me some time to figure out all the ins and outs of Canva. Hopefully it won't disappear like Picasa did. (I mean, I should probably learn Photo Shop, but that's not happening any time soon.) 

Do you use Canva? Do you have a better way of editing photos?

Caught in the Lie

Wednesday. Eighth grade English. Third period.

Bernard asked to use the restroom.

Restroom policies are thorny. Why can't we just let the kiddos go? Because some of them just roam campus, getting into mischief and missing class time. So, there are various policies. 

My policy is one at a time, and I keep a list. If the teacher doesn't care about the list, they can ignore it. But for those that keep track, it's there. 

Ms. N left me her policy, which was that the students were given a pass with five out-of-class-free times. I was to initial this for any student who went.

So, when Bernard asked to use the restroom, I asked him for his pass. He told me Ms. N had never given him one. 

I don't like telling a student no for the restroom, so I let Bernard go. But I made a note on my restroom list that "Bernard said he never got a pass". 

The next day I got an email from Ms. N. (She just responded to the email I sent her about how the day went.)

Quick question: did you sign off on the students who used the restroom yesterday? If not, I will do that tomorrow or make them stay after and owe time, especially since they know they need a bathroom pass (Bernard did get a bathroom pass, FYI... sorry you had to deal with that).

Uh oh... Bernard's in trouble...

This is why I write these things down. Students get caught in these lies (and hopefully will be less likely to lie in the future when they get caught). 

As for my answer, I replied that everyone else had given me their pass. 

Middle schoolers trying to get away with stuff. If I had a dollar for every time they made the attempt... 

A Smooth Transition 13

It was one of those weeks...

Well, yeah, I do mean that, but really what I'm talking about is work--the substitute teaching of it all. And luckily, it wasn't a bad week, which I kind of needed with the state of the U.S. and all.

It was one of those weeks where I don't really have any good stories for the blog. This is good for my mental health, but not so much for the blog. Which makes it a good time to do a Thursday 13. (The "smooth transition" is number nine.)

1. "Puppies with hormones." That's how my fellow sub co-teacher referred to seventh graders, and I find the description apt.

2. That was Tuesday. It was a co-taught eighth grade English class where both teachers were out. (It was "collaborative scoring" which meant all the eighth grade teachers in the district were at the district office reading student essays. It's the best time of year for subs as we have plenty of work those days.)

3. Tuesday's classes were challenging. But we had an easy lesson plan. They were watching The Birds. Yes, the Alfred Hitchcock film. The class has a unit on suspense where they read excerpts from Cujo and they had just finished reading "The Tell-Tale Heart". 

4. Wednesday I was at a different middle school but I again had eighth grade English. Same reason. And I again, I was in co-taught classes with another sub. Alas, this sub wasn't as helpful as the co-teacher I had the previous day.

5. At least the classes weren't terrible. (Not that Tuesday's classes were "terrible". Just "challenging".) I'll talk a bit more about Ms. N tomorrow.

6. Thursday I ended up in a Spanish class. The teacher was chaperoning a field trip that was supposed to take place the previous week. But it got postponed due to the Dodgers. 

The field trip was to a Day of the Dead celebration in L.A. But when the Dodgers won the World Series, they got a parade and celebration in the city. That fell on the Day of the Dead celebration. So, the Day of the Dead celebration got postponed. 

7. The Spanish classroom was opposite the classroom where I covered that seventh grade science class at the beginning of the school year. (So, if the science classroom had been room 101, the Spanish classroom was in room 102.) I could wave to Mr. H from the door (and, in fact, I did). 

8. And between those classes (in the equivalent of room 122) was the history classroom I had covered a couple weeks back. Which also had a sub covering. Who I know. It was a big sub day. 

9. The students were so excited when someone mentioned seeing Ms. S over in the science classroom. Because, this happened to be the day of transition. Mr. H had finished his thirty days as the long-term sub, and the next one was due to begin. 

Before I left that gig, Ms. W had lined up the third sub for the class, and it was an English teacher who had retired at the end of the last school year. So, when the students were ready to descend on the class, I let them know that Ms. S would be there for the next six weeks (thirty school days), and they could say hi at any time. 

10. I had subbed for Ms. S several times, and in fact, a couple times last semester. 

11. Friday I had a ninth grade English class. For another teacher I have subbed for in the past (but had not this school year until then). 

12. Fourth period was really happy to see a sub. Although, they won't be so happy when she returns, as several of them wasted the period, and I left names. 

13. What was their lesson plan? They were prepping to write their essay. (That is, they were reading the articles that they would use as their sources for the essay they would write the next week.) This would be the essay that the ninth grade English teachers will then all score at the district office at some time after. And we subs will again all have a day of work covering those classes. The cycle begins again.

Unexpected Familiar Face

I finally got back to the continuation high school last Monday. 

It used to be that the sub caller would put me over there, as she knew I was fine with working there. But ever since we went to the computerized scheduling app, finding and catching those days has been harder. And with the long term I started the year with, I just haven't seen the school since about February. 

February? Let me go back into my posts. I'm sure I wrote about the last time I was there...

Nope. The last blog post I have from the continuation high school is from August 2023. According to my year end stats, I only spent three days there last school year. Ouch. No wonder they barely remembered me.

(Not true. They remember me. The staff, anyway. The students were more like, "You subbed at [insert home school's name here]".)

I was in the English class. They were either working on their district essays (the district has them write essays every quarter to measure how well they can write) or reading (We Were the Lucky Ones) and answering questions. And, it went pretty much how I expect the classes to go. That is, many did little to nothing while a few got done what they needed to do.

Fifth period, as I was walking the room taking attendance, the students did their usual, "Don't you sub at...?" bit. 

Then one boy said I had been his math teacher last year. 

That's when I placed him. I mean, I recognize the kiddos when I see them as knowing I've seen them before, but where had I seen them? Yeah, it's not always there. But this boy? Yeah, I remembered him from last year's long term in Mr. J's math class.

And... I did not expect him to be there. There were a couple students who I would not be shocked to see there as they did little to nothing in class. This boy? As far as I recall, he was doing fine in math. He had a passing grade. He did the assignments. 

Deep sigh. At least he doesn't have to make up his math credits. Clearly, he did need English credits. 

But that's why the continuation high school exists. It's for students to come back from whatever setback led to the possibility of them not graduating. 

Not Normal

I just can't.

It's fun to think up "what if this happened?" when the world is normal. When things are okay. 

But when the dystopian nightmare is reality? 

Nope. I can't.

And if you think things are good, you aren't paying attention. Like, to Argentina. I'm already exhausted just thinking about the future. (If you think things are good, why are you here? We obviously don't have anything in common.) 

So, for now, I'm suspending "what if?" I don't know what I'll replace it with. Or if I'll find my mojo again. 

Today I leave you with the "Authoritarianism" pages from Stop Project 2025 Comic, even though it's now way too late for that. 

(This is the playbook for the incoming administration. If you believe the lie that he knew nothing about it and didn't plan to use it, I have some swampland in Florida that you might be interested in.)