I haven't come here in a while. I'm sorry about that. See, I'm working on a website, a real website, but it's hard and now I'm procrastinating working on a website. In the meantime, I have no real news. I have no real life. I'm constantly thinking about my students now that I tutor and how inept I am at understanding learning disabilities.
Can I just take a class in learning disabilities without getting the whole teaching certificate?
Here's where I love the Internet.
The Internet tells me that I should use sandpaper letters with students who have dyslexia. Who would have thought?
The Internet says I should be patient with students who are uncooperative, that they have their reasons for not working with me.
Because, ultimately, I'm a bitch and have absolutely no patience. The kids who can see through me can tell. They are the most sensitive and the most likely to have no patience themselves.
So, I'm starting a new thing with uncooperative students.
They get what they want. If they do even a little bit of work, they get rewards and shit. I don't care if they learn. They need to figure that out themselves, that teachers have already learned their multiplication tables and really have no interest in dragging yet another student through the muck of memorizing it. But it comes in handy at a restaurant when everyone is splitting the bill and no one knows how much of a tip to leave.
Please don't cheat the waitress because you didn't pay attention in math class. Please. She's probably a starving artist and she only waitresses to earn some money and get out of the house a few times a week. She'd much rather stand in front of her blank canvas and stare into space to see what it is supposed to turn into.
I can't actually wait to get to work today. My resolve to let my uncooperative student do whatever she wants begins now. She can waste her mother's money. She can draw, read, write about how mad she is at me for pushing her. Anything except distract the other students. She can turn her jacket backwards and pull her hood up over her face so that I am reminded of Helen Keller.
Yes, I have a student who is practically Helen Keller in the first scenes of the movie.
And I am not going to drag her by the arm. I am not going to pull her under a running tap. I am not going to jam my fist into her fist to spell the word water.
I am going to let her define the rules. I am going to ask her to determine if what I am trying to get her to do is ultimately good for her.
She can hear, after all. And she can see.
I'll still have no patience with my students. It's all a ruse, any of them who think I have. It's all a ruse.
Thank you for listening, jb
Can I just take a class in learning disabilities without getting the whole teaching certificate?
Here's where I love the Internet.
The Internet tells me that I should use sandpaper letters with students who have dyslexia. Who would have thought?
The Internet says I should be patient with students who are uncooperative, that they have their reasons for not working with me.
Because, ultimately, I'm a bitch and have absolutely no patience. The kids who can see through me can tell. They are the most sensitive and the most likely to have no patience themselves.
So, I'm starting a new thing with uncooperative students.
They get what they want. If they do even a little bit of work, they get rewards and shit. I don't care if they learn. They need to figure that out themselves, that teachers have already learned their multiplication tables and really have no interest in dragging yet another student through the muck of memorizing it. But it comes in handy at a restaurant when everyone is splitting the bill and no one knows how much of a tip to leave.
Please don't cheat the waitress because you didn't pay attention in math class. Please. She's probably a starving artist and she only waitresses to earn some money and get out of the house a few times a week. She'd much rather stand in front of her blank canvas and stare into space to see what it is supposed to turn into.
I can't actually wait to get to work today. My resolve to let my uncooperative student do whatever she wants begins now. She can waste her mother's money. She can draw, read, write about how mad she is at me for pushing her. Anything except distract the other students. She can turn her jacket backwards and pull her hood up over her face so that I am reminded of Helen Keller.
Yes, I have a student who is practically Helen Keller in the first scenes of the movie.
And I am not going to drag her by the arm. I am not going to pull her under a running tap. I am not going to jam my fist into her fist to spell the word water.
I am going to let her define the rules. I am going to ask her to determine if what I am trying to get her to do is ultimately good for her.
She can hear, after all. And she can see.
I'll still have no patience with my students. It's all a ruse, any of them who think I have. It's all a ruse.
Thank you for listening, jb
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