Tag: school

TBT^16: Back to the Grind 202[4]

The Portly Politico6 Comments

My two-plus months of living like a French duke and/or welfare queen have come to an end.  Yours portly returns to the salt mines of secondary education today.  Classes won’t start back until Monday, 19 August 2024, but teachers reports back today for the usual bout of annual trainings, AFLAC representatives, handbook excursions, etc.

[UPDATE:  due to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Debby, we won’t report back until Monday, 12 August 2024—whoa!  But I’m still going to grouse about going back to work.  —TPP]

I’ve never quite understood why we report back on a Thursday, when we could easily cover all of this foolishness in a day or two of meetings the following week.  It seems like a way to deprive us of one, final, long weekend before the drudgery returns.

To be frank, I am not much looking forward to this school year—a sadly common refrain from yours portly the past few years.  Our enrollment is way down, which will bring with it all sorts of austerity measures and demands for teachers to sacrifice more time and energy for the good of the school.

Last year was absolutely brutal, and while I’m always cautiously optimistic, I am having a hard time talking myself into a good attitude this year.  Perhaps simply getting back into a rhythm will be its own reward.

With that, here is 3 August 2023’s “TBT^4: Back to the Grind 202[3]“:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Celebration of Life for Bob Gunn – Remarks

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Earlier this year one of my dear colleagues, Bob Gunn, passed away after suffering from a stroke.  He had worked at my school since its founding in the mid-1990s, and was an integral part to its operation, its culture, and its legacy.

Tonight (Saturday, 22 June 2024), my school is hosting a celebration of life service in honor of Bob, his legacy, and his memory.  I’ve been asked to say a few words, which I have included in this post.

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Lazy Sunday CXLIX: End of School Events

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The end is nigh!  The end the school year, that is.  Unlike all the folks that work year-round—the fools!—I get to revel in approximately two months of summertime goodness every year.  It’s a fair trade-off for the brutally long hours I put in during the school year.

With this ending-of-all-things in mind, I figured I’d glance back at some recent posts about end-of-school-year events:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^4: SimEarth

The Portly Politico54 Comments

May.  It’s the superfluous final month of school.  There’s not enough time to cover any new content, but too much time to launch right into exam review.  The result:  an odd limbo in which neither students or teachers wish to dwell.  It’s the time of year when everyone is in on the game of modern education—we’d all be better off doing and being somewhere else, but we’re still going through the rituals of an industrial-era factory.

Naturally, with summer looming, I’m getting the itch to do some gaming again.  Since finishing Disco Elysium a few weeks ago, I have not played any game deeply.  I did purchase Planescape: Torment, the spiritual ancestor of DE, but only managed to get in about an hour of playtime.  One of my students asked me earlier this week about Stardew Valley, which I played religiously for about two weeks in probably 2013.  That’s a modern classic I want to dust off soon.

As for the ostensible subject of this post, my forays into SimEarth have been nonexistent since those halcyon days of May 2020, when America’s love affair with The Virus was in full swing.  Being cooped up in the house got me nostalgic for the classics, but I need to revisit the planet simulator soon.

Big plans for the summer.  If I play all these games as planned, my eyeballs might fall out.

With that, here is 11 May 2023’s “TBT^2: SimEarth“:

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TBT: Chapel Lesson: Listening

The Portly Politico2 Comments

School’s back, and that means Chapel on Thursdays!  Today is one of the first chapels of the school year.  I always enjoy hearing the short little devotionals from our chaplain, and they’re quite beneficial for those students who choose to take them to heart.

There was a small chance that I might be asked to serve as chaplain this year—quite a responsibility!—but the school obtained someone more qualified for the job (in other words, someone with an actual degree in theology and practical experience in ministry).  I imagine I will still be called upon, at times, to provide a short homily or lesson when the new guy is absent.

Regardless, it seemed like an excellent time to look back at this little message I delivered to our students last year.  Listening is hard, and it’s even harder when we’re constantly engulfed in noise.  That makes it particularly hard to listen to God’s Still, Small Voice, much less the much louder voices of people around us.

With that, here is 30 August 2022’s “Chapel Lesson: Listening“:

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School Resumes!

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Here we are—the first day of school!  The 2023-2024 school year marks yours portly’s thirteenth consecutive year in the classroom (after returning to my current school in 2011), and my fourteenth year total (I taught at my current school in the 2008-2009 school year, before being unceremoniously dumped due to the privations of the Great Recession).  It’s been a crazy ride.

I’m at that point in my teaching career where I can pretty much coast in terms of course prep and assessments.  I’ve pretty much memorized American history (well, at least, the very limited survey of American history that I teach), and as anyone who reads this blog knows, I can wax poetic on pretty much any topic for hours (much to my students’ chagrin, I imagine).  It’s a good place to be professionally.

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Homecoming Week Grind

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The end of The Age of The Virus has brought about a return of “normalcy,” as then-candidate Warren G. Harding famously said during the 1920 presidential election.  Normalcy is good, and I welcome it.

Granted, the world of today is not the same as the world of The Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago.  Widespread lunacy seems to constitute “normalcy,” and the sane among us must do our best to endure it.

But if the The Virus fundamentally transformed the assumptions of our civilization—fear trumps freedom; coercion trumps liberty—the outward trappings of “the good old days” still stretch a thin facade of fun over the face of a conquered people.

So it was that my school celebrated its annual Homecoming this past week.  It was fun, but fun can be a grind!

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Phone it in Friday XXVI: Unschooling with John Taylor Gatto

The Portly Politico9 Comments

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything about John Taylor Gatto, the teacher who rejected compulsory schooling and argued forcefully in favor of a true education, one unbounded from mass school schemes.  I was on a kick back in the spring of listening to his talks, but hadn’t listened to him much lately.

That is, until the YouTube Algorithm—may it be praised—tossed this video into my feed:

I know, I know—it’s nearly an hour long.  I don’t expect you to listen to it all now (please finish reading this blog post first), but if you’re in the car or warshing (as my girl would say) the dishes, put it on in the background.  It’s a must-listen.

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Phone it in Friday XXIII: School’s Back!

The Portly Politico22 Comments

School’s back, baby!  We resumed classes Wednesday, 17 August 2022, a full sixteen days after the poor unfortunates in my county’s public schools resumed (they started back on Monday, 1 August 2022; while the school district has transitioned to a “semi-year-round schedule,” as they call it, it still seems borderline criminal to start school that early).

Just like last Friday’s post, I’m actually filing this one early; indeed, I’m writing it the day before school resumes.  As such, I can’t comment on how this first, abbreviated week has gone, but I can give some insights into what we’re planning on doing, and how I’ve prepared for the start of this year.

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Lazy Sunday CLVII: School, Part I

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Aside from a fairly early issue of Lazy Sunday about education, I haven’t really done one about school.  Now that I’m back to work, it seemed like a good time to revisit some timeless classics about education, school, etc.:

  • “Back to School with Richard Weaver” (and “TBT: Back to School with Richard Weaver” and “TBT^2: Back to School with Richard Weaver“) – I used to reread at least the introduction to Richard Weaver’s seminal Ideas Have Consequences, probably the most powerful book I’ve ever read (besides the Bible).  I haven’t read it in some time, but I think it’s time to pick up this old chestnut again.
  • “First Day of School 2019” – Ah, yes, the 2019-2020 school year—easily the most unusual school year any teacher has experienced, with the possible exception of 2020-2021.  I was absolutely burned out by the time The Age of The Virus hit in mid-March 2022, and it ended up being a bit of a silver lining (with all due respect to those who suffered and even died because of it).
  • “SubscribeStar Saturday: Returning to School in The Age of The Virus” – I grew so accustomed to the freedom of working from home, I was actually really dreading returning to school for the 2020-2021 school year.  It wasn’t that bad overall; 2021-2022 was much more difficult.  But it was certainly an unusual—an unprecedented!—time to be a teacher.  I still feel sorry for those who entered the profession this year.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments: