LJ Idol Week 20, in which it's the end of the world. Almost. {Immanentize the eschaton}
For those of you who are already up in my business on a regular basis, you know what my day job is. For those of you who aren't: I am a professional wrangler of savage and ferocious wildlife. In other words, I teach high school. Now it just so happens this term, I've got a group of really awesome kids - bright, fun, great senses of humor. Especially second period.
To give you an example: We do a lot of junk in Google Classrooms that involves the kids typing personal responses\reactions to hypothetical scenarios and whatnot and being able to see\respond to each other's comments. One of the questions one time was "What do you personally think is worth fighting for? Under what circumstances will you initiate a confrontation with someone?" Most the kids were typing stuff about standing up for friends and family, some were posting stuff about defending personal honor, that sort of stuff. And then this one girl posts about how she'll confront people over environmental issues because saving the planet is extremely important. I read her response, start thinking to myself "cool, most the answers aren't nearly so big-picture"...and then I realize that, in addition to being one of the only students to post a big-picture answer, she's also one of the only students who's uploaded a personal avatar\user icon to her school Google account. It's a picture of Darth Vader doing a Force Choke. At this point I lose my shit laughing, and am just like "I love that you're talking about saving the planet with a Darth Vader icon." Her immediate, split-second response? "Oh, nobody cares about Alderaan. I'm only worried about Earth!" And to the credit of the entire rest of the class and their delightfully warped senses of humor - nearly all of them bust out laughing.
Like I said. Hella awesome kids.
So a few weeks ago, I had to miss school on Friday because I got roped into some grab-ass professional development conference all weekend. Professional development wise, it wasn't particularly painful, but I was still rather aggravated about having to miss school for it. (And give up a weekend, but whatever, I got epic brownie points for it. I also skipped out on part of it go ice skating at the mall across the street where I fell and nearly broke my wrist, but that's a story for another time when our vocabulary word is "karma.")
Me being gone meant the kids would be left with a sub. And, as I tend to do when I know in advance I'll be absent or off campus, I left some instructions on the board for my students:
I left more detailed instructions for the sub, of course, and those had nothing to do with inciting the apocalypse, but my district is pretty hardcore about tailoring instruction to help visual learners and making sure clearly state classroom expectations, so I thought this would be both useful and appropriate.
I showed a picture of my lovely artwork to my department chair and she said it looked like the Death Star was peeing on the school - which is totally fine because the kids aren't supposed to use the Death Stars to pee on the school OR blow it up, so either interpretation is valid. (I mean, we're English teachers FFS, "any interpretation is valid" is how we justify our lives.)
So the conference came and went, I left with a wounded wrist which is to be expected from any situation where there's that much wank in one place (I like to think the ice rink mishap was just a cover story), and went back to school on Monday morning.
The school did not appear to be burned down, which was a good indication that the kids had followed instructions! Yay! And when I entered my classroom to take stock of whatever damage had\hadn't been done in my absence, I was delighted to see the kids had been practicing their editing skills as well.
Not only was the Death Star stream straightened out to more closely resemble a proper laser blast from a fully operational space station of doom, but the following details had also been added to the scene: An additional flame on the school, a fire truck approaching the scene, a Fox News van on site complete with two camera men recording the event, and an FBI helicopter circling overhead. One of the fleeing stick figures was now also holding a flower pot magnet in his outstretched arms.
And I knew, IMMEDIATELY, this was the work of someone in my second period goofball squad.
The suspects innocently filed in after first period left, and they quietly took their seats, many of them admiring the handiwork on the board and trying quite hard not to laugh. I was finally just like, "Okay, who did it?"
I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't give every single one of them bonus points when I found out it was a class-wide collaborative effort.
The best part? They defended it by claiming it symbolically represented the destruction of public education in America.
To give you an example: We do a lot of junk in Google Classrooms that involves the kids typing personal responses\reactions to hypothetical scenarios and whatnot and being able to see\respond to each other's comments. One of the questions one time was "What do you personally think is worth fighting for? Under what circumstances will you initiate a confrontation with someone?" Most the kids were typing stuff about standing up for friends and family, some were posting stuff about defending personal honor, that sort of stuff. And then this one girl posts about how she'll confront people over environmental issues because saving the planet is extremely important. I read her response, start thinking to myself "cool, most the answers aren't nearly so big-picture"...and then I realize that, in addition to being one of the only students to post a big-picture answer, she's also one of the only students who's uploaded a personal avatar\user icon to her school Google account. It's a picture of Darth Vader doing a Force Choke. At this point I lose my shit laughing, and am just like "I love that you're talking about saving the planet with a Darth Vader icon." Her immediate, split-second response? "Oh, nobody cares about Alderaan. I'm only worried about Earth!" And to the credit of the entire rest of the class and their delightfully warped senses of humor - nearly all of them bust out laughing.
Like I said. Hella awesome kids.
So a few weeks ago, I had to miss school on Friday because I got roped into some grab-ass professional development conference all weekend. Professional development wise, it wasn't particularly painful, but I was still rather aggravated about having to miss school for it. (And give up a weekend, but whatever, I got epic brownie points for it. I also skipped out on part of it go ice skating at the mall across the street where I fell and nearly broke my wrist, but that's a story for another time when our vocabulary word is "karma.")
Me being gone meant the kids would be left with a sub. And, as I tend to do when I know in advance I'll be absent or off campus, I left some instructions on the board for my students:
I left more detailed instructions for the sub, of course, and those had nothing to do with inciting the apocalypse, but my district is pretty hardcore about tailoring instruction to help visual learners and making sure clearly state classroom expectations, so I thought this would be both useful and appropriate.
I showed a picture of my lovely artwork to my department chair and she said it looked like the Death Star was peeing on the school - which is totally fine because the kids aren't supposed to use the Death Stars to pee on the school OR blow it up, so either interpretation is valid. (I mean, we're English teachers FFS, "any interpretation is valid" is how we justify our lives.)
So the conference came and went, I left with a wounded wrist which is to be expected from any situation where there's that much wank in one place (I like to think the ice rink mishap was just a cover story), and went back to school on Monday morning.
The school did not appear to be burned down, which was a good indication that the kids had followed instructions! Yay! And when I entered my classroom to take stock of whatever damage had\hadn't been done in my absence, I was delighted to see the kids had been practicing their editing skills as well.
Not only was the Death Star stream straightened out to more closely resemble a proper laser blast from a fully operational space station of doom, but the following details had also been added to the scene: An additional flame on the school, a fire truck approaching the scene, a Fox News van on site complete with two camera men recording the event, and an FBI helicopter circling overhead. One of the fleeing stick figures was now also holding a flower pot magnet in his outstretched arms.
And I knew, IMMEDIATELY, this was the work of someone in my second period goofball squad.
The suspects innocently filed in after first period left, and they quietly took their seats, many of them admiring the handiwork on the board and trying quite hard not to laugh. I was finally just like, "Okay, who did it?"
I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't give every single one of them bonus points when I found out it was a class-wide collaborative effort.
The best part? They defended it by claiming it symbolically represented the destruction of public education in America.