Describing the Gifts

Winter break vacation over, and I caught a special ed job. You know, in one of those classes. For three days. 

Actually, things went pretty smoothly. Most of the class had one-to-one aides, and the teacher had clear routines in place. 

Third period, Tuesday. The class had a standing lesson with the speech therapist. As it was the first day back after the break (they had a professional development day on Monday, so no students), the speech therapist did an activity about the break. 

She asked them what they got for Christmas, but they couldn't just tell her. They had to give two hints, and the others were to guess what it was. As an example, the speech therapist said, "I got something that I wear on my feet and it has three white lines on it." 

They easily identified the gift as Adidas sneakers. 

She demonstrated with a couple other of her gifts. Then she left them to figure out how to hint about what they got for Christmas. 

The activity went fairly well. Most of the students got right to work and were able to hint about their gifts. Mostly, I was asked how to spell things. 

Calvin, who likes to smudge his work after he completes it, was having a time writing anything down. His one-to-one aide was trying to assist. He asked Calvin what he got for Christmas. Calvin said he got a violin. 

A violin???

That seemed odd. But then the next day I learned he was in a strings music class, and suddenly a violin made more sense. 

They finished up the lesson with the speech therapist having them read out what they wrote and having the class guess what they got. 

You'd think a speech therapy class would be more about having them work on how they talk. At least, that's what I assumed when I first heard of it. But no. It's more of them discussing things. Whatever works, right? 

And now I have an interesting activity I can apply if I ever have need of it. (I love watching others work. I steal liberally from them.) 

Think Local

How many major news events have happened since my last Tuesday post? Too many. 

How many major news events happened between when I wrote my last Tuesday post and when that post went live? There was a whole Venezuela thing that happened. 

So, between now (Sunday evening) and when this post goes live, what are the chances something else awful has happened? Pretty high, I would say. 

But as of this writing, it's all #ICEoutforGOOD happening. Because ICE murdered a woman for the whole world to see. And people are defending them! 

Of course, they've been murdering people all along. It's just not getting out into the wider news apparatus. And they're hiding it better in those concentration camps. If you don't realize that atrocities are happening there, you're not paying attention. 

Where to begin? What to write about? I've been bookmarking things on Bluesky. Let's see what I collected:

• The Psychiatrist Who Warned Us That Donald Trump Would Unleash Violence Was Absolutely Right
• Experts Warn U.S. in Early Stages of Genocide Against Trans Americans: Genocide scholars say policies targeting transgender Americans match early warning signs of mass atrocity.
• ICE custody deaths
• A great place to find your organizing home
• Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators
• At least four videos show what really happened when ICE shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday. DHS has established itself as an agency that cannot be trusted to live in or present reality.
• You Have What Trump and Musk Want: And you have the power not to give it to them.

But the main thing I was noticing this past week was how to help. And there was a whole thread of where to help locally. The national apparatus isn't doing anything. They've all surrendered in advance. It's the local level that's putting up the fight. 

They don't have capacity to terrorize more than 2-3 cities at a time. Which means they rotate teams to new cities without relief. Which means consistent resistance by fresh activists in each new city will break them over time. Which means if you're city's not occupied, rest up and get ready.

[image or embed]

— borderless (@borderless.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 2:17 PM

(Link to the NY Times article, but it's behind a paywall, so unless you subscribe, you won't be able to access it.) 

And finally, some videos:

Continuing Sleeve One

I'm about an inch away from binding off sleeve one:

The plan is to then do sleeve two, and then add the ribbing to the bottom of both at the same time. Much as I did with the front and back (albeit without the detour into Kitchener stitch). 

I don't have any subbing jobs booked for this week (as of my writing this Sunday afternoon), so that means I might not work at all, or I could work up to all five days. The fewer days I work, the more likely I'll get more sleeve done. I'll keep you posted. 

Sweater Tracking:

• Starting the Sweater
• Getting to the Back
• Missed Deadline
• Distractions from Knitting
• A Month Late
• Inching Along
• Tracking the Growth
• Weekly Sweater Update
• Moving Right Along
• Good Progress
• Almost to the Interesting Part
• Plot Twist
• Not Worth the Effort
• Sleeve Progress

Out of Class

The Friday before winter break. (I saved my subbing stories for when I was back at work.) It was a minimum day. Finals had been Tuesday and Wednesday, so the classes were pretty empty, and I was not surprised. 

Second period. Grant asks if he can go to another class. Any other day, my answer would be no. But this day? 

"Let me call the teacher and see if it's okay."

So, I called Ms. B's room. (I did a long term in Ms. B's class a few years back.) Mr. J answered the phone. (I did a long term for Mr. J a year and a half ago.) Because Ms. B wasn't there, Grant couldn't go to the class. No big deal.

After second period was snack. I headed for the restroom. On the way there, I ran into Ms. B.

I told her a student had wanted to come to her class second period. 

"Was it Grant?"

She got it in one.

She told me he had had her last year, and he liked to visit. (Ms. B had been at an event for one of her children, so she had not been on campus.) 

So, if Grant had gone, he would have returned anyway. 

He found something else to do for the class. (They had an assignment, but as Ms. C was out of the country, her grades for the semester were already turned in, so the assignment wasn't going to count, anyway.) 

Disappeared

Thursday before winter break. (I saved all my subbing stories for when school was back in session.) Seventh period business math. 

The last two days before winter break I caught a math class. Although, it doesn't really matter what the class was as the finals had been Tuesday and Wednesday, and with the grades due Friday, Ms. C had to have submitted them before she left. Which meant the class would have nothing to do (that counted). 

But Ms. C left them a math worksheet (word problems relating to Buddy the Elf from Elf). 

Not that they were really doing it. 

We'd been in class maybe fifteen minutes when Harley asked to use the restroom. As she sped from the room, the rest of the class erupted in complaints. 

"She's gone." 

"Don't let her go." 

"She won't be back." 

"She's on the escort list." 

(She was not on the escort list. I checked.) 

Unfortunately, I had already said okay, and there was no warning in the lesson plans to not let her go. If it had been any other day, I would have been more upset, but considering the timing...

About five minutes later, Prescott asked for a restroom pass. I told him he had to wait (I have a one-at-a-time policy as do most subs and teachers). He was certain Harley wouldn't be back, so I let him go. 

Mistake. 

Anyway, Harley did return. Fifteen minutes later. So, yeah, it was a while. I did my usual, "Where ya been...?" that I ask students who take forever out of class. She said she had gone to the office for reasons. (I wish they would just ask to go to the office. I don't generally say no.) 

Harley then asked to leave class again. This time she "needed water". The office people gave her a burrito, so now she was thirsty. Um, no. One outing per class period. (And besides, it was a minimum day. We had maybe twenty minutes left of class.) She was not happy with me. (She complained of dehydration, as the students always do when they insist they need to get water.) 

Remember Prescott? Yeah, he was still not back from his restroom pass. He who had been whining about how long Harley would take. 

As the end of the period approached, I collected back their papers and made sure they returned computers. The bell rang. And that is when Prescott finally returned to class. (He had left his backpack behind.) 

Deep sigh. 

He who howled the loudest? He was out of class for forty minutes. (It would have probably been longer if it had been a regular schedule day.) 

When they take forever to the restroom, I do note it for the teacher. Those who are in the habit of disappearing to the restroom get placed on the escort list. That is, if they need the restroom, they must have security escort them. 

Not His Own Work

Monday. Continuation high school. Math, fourth period. 

(This was the Monday before winter break. I saved all my subbing stories for when I was back at work.) 

The students had work online. It's a program called IXL. I'm familiar with it as all the schools in the district use it. 

When a student answers a problem, the program immediately tells them if they got it correct or not. If they got it correct, they move on to harder problems. If they didn't, the program shows them how to solve the problem, and then gives them a similar one to solve. 

The goal is to get to 100. It can take twenty problems or it can take forty problems, depending on if the student is getting the problems correct. (If it's taking much more than twenty problems, it's time for the student to ask for help.) 

So, when I walk the room while the kiddos are on IXL, I know what to look at on their screen to make sure they're on track. Twelve problems with a score of 72? They're right where they should be. Twenty-two problems and a score of 31? It's time for me to gently ask if they need some help. 

Jasper was on his phone. I reminded him that phones weren't to be used in class. When it looked like he was back on his phone, I stood over him again. I urged him to get on task. Then when he did...

He wasn't solving the problems. He took a screenshot. Then he uploaded that screenshot into Google's Gemini. And Gemini solved the problem for him. He took that answer and input it into IXL...

Yeah, that's not how that's supposed to work. 

I asked Jasper if he didn't understand how to do the work. He said he did. (Doubtful, but okay...) So, then I explained that he needed to do his own work, not use AI to do the work for him. This was cheating. 

He didn't see my point. He explained that he didn't want to take the time to solve the problems. He knew how to do it, but he needed to do it quickly. When I pointed out that Mr. F wouldn't appreciate him doing it this way, he replied that Mr. F would be okay with it as Mr. F knew he needed the credits. 

Uh huh. Sure. 

(I've had similar discussions with students in the past. They're singing a different tune after their teacher hears they didn't do their own work.) 

Mr. F is a very gentle teacher, but he's also very strict. I imagine Jasper is not going to like having to explain how he did his work to Mr. F. 

(Mr. F is also an author. Here's a link to his Amazon page.)

Good News?

For my first screaming into the void current event post of the new year, let's have some good news...

Trump says he’s dropping push for National Guard in Chicago, LA and Portland, Oregon, for now. I mean, he's threatening to come back "when it's needed", of course. And this is only happening because the courts have been pushing back. It never should have come to this, but I guess people needed to see the authoritarian overreach before they really got it. But I'm going to be happy for this win anyway. 

Stephen Miller Is The New Republic’s 2025 Scoundrel of the Year. The next lines of this article are great: "He was counting on a nation of haters. He was wrong." I'm proud of us for that. Enough of us have pushed back that he was unable to fulfill his goals. Now, that's not to say that he hasn't done a lot of real damage, but it would have been so much worse if we did not fight back. And we need to continue to do so until he's being tried for his crimes. 

And finally, We Are Going to Win. I mean, I hope so. The bit under the headline, "Trump's revolution will fail, but we still have a long and painful road ahead of us," rings the most true. I look forward to getting past this era, but it's going to be a lot to clean all of this up and make sure it never happens again. 

Any other good news? Please link in the comments.