NOVA Gothic -A list of 20 creepy/weird/terrifying things about life in Northern Virginia

 

Like many other states, Virginia has a split identity. The Western and Southern regions are largely rural and agricultural, but the Northern regions have been overrun by suburbs of  Washington DC. Which may sound innocuous, but as someone who's lived in the NOVA area for most of their lives, I can attest to the fact that it's not all wine and roses, man-made lakes and big box stores. Here's a partial list of some of the unnerving aspects of living in NOVA - some a little silly, otherwise legitimately terrifying:  

1. You’ve never seen a bear/wolf/bobcat in your neighborhood, but you know someone who has.
2. Suiting up like Mad Max for a trip to the grocery store before any snowstorm expected to deposit more than 2.”
3. Local radio stations run ads for global weapons systems.
4. No one questions your 60-minute daily commute to the adjacent suburb.
5. That guy throwing something into a trash at the local park could be discarding harmless picnic scraps ... or they could be a spy making a dead drop.
6. Paying as much for a house as other people might spend to purchase their own private Caribbean Island.
7. Helicopters have been circling for over an hour. No one notices.
8. Neighbor down the way, when asked what they do for a living, answers in the vaguest way: “I’m a civil servant.”
9. Potentially living next to (or on top of) the unmarked graves of Civil War soldiers.
10. Our most insidious invasive species isn’t kudzu, it’s McMansions.
11. Government shutdowns are existential crises.
12. Fire drills? Earthquake drills? Try nuclear attack drills.
13. Is it a road improvement project, or are they installing yet another secret underground bunker? 
14. HOAs with more power than some third-world governments.
15. Every day, the data server farms creep a little closer to your home.
16. Our local competitive sport isn’t high school football … it’s school board meetings.
17. Pairing business suits with tennis shoes or flip flops is socially acceptable.
18. Local roads with 10 lanes.
19. Helicopter dog parents.
20. Stars? Apparently they’re a real thing, but no one’s ever actually seen them thanks to the 24/7 glare of traffic lights, LED-illuminated retail signage, and office buildings with all the lights left on overnight.

"He's a 10, but ...": literary edition!

A while ago, my students became obsessed by some sort of Tik Tok trend which involved trying to guess the identity of a classmate or famous person based on a phrase that begins with the words "He's/She's a 10, but ..." and culminates in some sort of coded clue to their identity. 

Not long thereafter, I was brainstorming games for an upcoming gathering of literary friends and decided to repurpose the trend into a literary challenge. 

How many of the following fictional characters can you identify based on the clues provided? 

1. He's a 10, but frankly he doesn't give a damn
2. He's a 10, but he has far, far better things to do
3. He's a 10, but he hasn't figured out what to be or not to be
4. He's a 10, and he's got some Great Game
5. He's a 10, but pictures don't do him justice
6. She's a 10, but you'd always be Wondering where she wandered off to
7. He's a 10; the twist is that he's a little dodgy
8. She's a 10, and she's already got her own wedding dress
9. He's a 10, and he's got a personality as big as a whale
10. He's a 10, but sometimes clever women leave him feeling a bit Adled
11. He's a 10, but he refuses to grow up 
12. She's a 10; in fact, you could say she's earned an A
13. He's a 10, and his love for you will never die
14. He's a 10, but he may end up bugging out on you
15. He's a 10, but he's a bit of a swinger
16. He's a 10, but he tilts at windmills
17. He's a 10, and he's willing to grant you his affection even though he holds your family in low regard
18. He's a 10, but his business trips are epically long
19. He's a 10, but all the king's men may not be able to save his soul
20. He's a 10, but you can see right through him
21. She's a 10, but don't make the Eyrer of comparing her to a bird in a cage

ANSWERS:

1/Rhett Butler, Gone With The Wind; 2/Syndey Carton, Tale of Two Cities; 3/Hamlet, Hamlet; 4/Kim, Kim; 5/Dorian Gray, The Picture of Dorian Gray; 6/Alice, Through the Looking Glass; 7/The Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist; 8/Mrs. Haversham, Great Expectations; 9/Ahab, Moby Dick; 10/Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; 11/Peter Pan, Peter Pan; 12/Hester Prynn, The Scarlet Letter; 13/Dracula, Dracula; 14/Gregor, The Metamorphosis; 15/Tarzan, Tarzan of the Apes; 16/Don Quixote, Don Quixote; 17/Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice; 18/Odysseus, The Odyssey; 19/Willie Stark, All The King's Men; 20/Griffin, The Invisible Man; 21/Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre

50+ Things that Teachers in the 1980s Never Had to Say

 

I'm almost old enough to have taught in the 1980s, but not so old that I don't still remember what the educational experience was like for my classmates and I during that excruciating decade of chalkboards and bookbags, overhead projectors and filmstrips, textbooks and typewriters, gym uniforms, analog clocks, snacks containing peanuts, selling candy bars door to door, writing in cursive, sneaking cigarettes in the bathrooms, books by a variety of exclusively European authors, and unchecked bullying.  There was good. There was bad. And there was a lot of ugly. 

40 years later and here we are, still teaching students basically the same content - English, math, history, science. But the way in which teachers interact with students has certainly undergone enormous technical, cultural, and ethical changes.  Some of the items in this list are factual, some snarky, and yes, some are probably not PC, but they all reference legitimate transformations that have occurred since my math teacher back in 1981 memorably rebuked: "You need to be able to do calculations in your head because it's not like you're going to be carrying a calculator in your pocket everywhere you go!" 

Spoiler alert: there's still plenty of good, bad, and ugly to go around. :-(

THINGS THAT TEACHERS IN THE 1980s NEVER HAD TO SAY: 

1.       Put your phones/airpods away!

2.       Did you use AI/ChatGPT/Google Translate to help you with this?

3.       Anyone caught accessing the computer code to identify the correct answers on today’s online quiz will automatically receive an F.

4.       Don't make me block that webpage.

5.       You seem upset - do you need some time to de-escalate?

6.       You didn’t do the assignment! I'm afraid I have no choice but to record it in the gradebook as a 50.

7.       We've gathered here in this conference room to talk about how we work as a team to support ___ to make better choices.

8.       What’s your preferred pronoun?

9.       What’s your parents’ last name?

10.   There will be a school-wide active shooter drill after lunch.

11.   No, you may not film TikTok videos in school.

12.   Guys, you need to remember to recharge your computer at home, not at school.

13.   Pull those pants up over your hips! 

14.   No, the Earth is not flat and the moon landing was not a conspiracy. Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.

15.   Yes, you are still considered tardy even if your parents dropped you off late because there was a line at Starbucks.

16.   If it snows tomorrow, we’ll be doing a virtual school day, so be sure to log in at the usual time.

17.   Why aren't you wearing a mask? 

18.   Who’s wearing that awful perfume? Oh, wait, that's probably Axe body spray. 

19.   Yes, racism is still happening, and yes, it’s a bad thing.

20.   Remember not to bring anything metal so you don’t set off the metal detectors.

21.   Of course you can retake that quiz/test to bring up your grade.

22.   Of course we’ll accept work late without any sort of penalty.

23.   All textbooks will be online this year.

24.   Now remember that this assignment is differentiated, so there will be different expectations for each student.

25.   Do I need to email your parents?

26.   I’ll be posting the homework to our class website.

27.   Bottled water is fine, but no Starbucks drinks in the classroom.

28.   Should we hold ___ back a grade, just because they failed all their classes? Don’t be silly.

29.   No, you may not use my Lysol wipes to clean the mud off your sneakers.

30.   No, I will not loan you a cord to recharge your phone.

31.   Completing homework won’t actually count towards your grade.

32.   Has that app been approved for use on the school network?

33.   We’ll be streaming today’s movie from my personal Netflix account.

34.   Are you wearing your pajamas right now?

35.   You may pull out your books or Kindles after the test.

36.   Whatever you do, don’t sell those fundraising items door to door! It’s too dangerous.

37.   Our choral/orchestra concert will be composed of works representing diverse cultures.

38.   Some of the books we’ll be reading will be by diverse authors.

39.   We’ll use the onboard bus cameras to review what actually happened.

40.   Remember not to bring anything that contains peanuts to the class party.  

41.   No, you may not listen to music on your cellphone while you work.

42.   Maybe you're gay, or maybe it's just a phase you're going through ... but you probably want to keep this to yourself unless you want to get bullied.  

43.   Marijuana’s okay, but watch out for opioids because the fentanyl may kill you.

44.   No rapping or beatboxing in class!

45.   What if I don’t want to use my cellphone to download authentication codes to access required school apps?

46.   No, we are not going to give you admin privileges for your school computer so that you can download games

47.   No fidget spinners or glitter slime in the classroom!

48.   No, your hamster does not count as an emotional support animal. 

49.   I'm afraid that book isn't available to be checked out; it's been banned by the school board. 

50.   Fortunately our field is artificial turf, so we’ll still be able to have PE after last night’s rains.

51.   Be sure to separate your trash into the appropriate recycling bins!

52.   Don’t worry - the cafeteria always offers at least one vegetarian option.

53.   What do you mean, you don’t know how to sign your name in cursive?

54.   What do you mean, you don’t know how to tell time on an analog clock?

55.   I am not now, nor will I ever be, your “bruh.”

100+ Things That Scare Us - an Alphabetical List of All Things Creepy, Spooky, and Horrible

In honor of Halloween, thought I'd assemble the following list of things that are generally considered to be unnerving or terrifying. Had to draw a line somewhere, so have left off weird phobias and gag answers - like "taxes." What follows is, I think, a fairly comprehensive list of the impedimenta that horror story/horror movie writers use to give us goosebumps. What have I missed? 

A- Abandoned buildings/places, acid, AI/sentient robots, aliens, alligators, amnesia, anthropomorphized objects, apocalypse, Armageddon, asteroids, asylums, attics, axes

B- Banshees, bats, bears, bedbugs, bees/killer bees, black cats, bloods, boogiemen, bridges, buried alive

C- Cannibalism, catacombs, cellars/basements, cemeteries/crypts, chain saws, chupacabras, circuses/carnivals, clowns, cobwebs, corpses, creepy children, crossroads, cults/secret societies, curses

D- Danse macabre, darkness, death/Grim Reaper, decapitation, decomposition, deja vu, demonic possession, demons/devils, dentists, dinosaurs, dolls, doppelgangers, dungeons

E- Earthquakes, enclosed spaces, eternity, evil eyes, exorcisms

F- Fires, flesh-eating bacteria, flying monkeys, fog/mist, fortunetellers/psychics, freezing, full moons, furries

G- Gargoyles, ghosts/poltergeists, ghost stories, ghouls, gnomes, goblins, golems, gravediggers/grave robbers

H- Hags/crones, Halloween/All Hallow's Eve/Samhain, hallucinations, hanging trees, haunted places (houses, castles, forests ....), hearses, heights/falling, Hell, hitchhikers, horror movies, human sacrifice

I- Icepicks, imaginary friends, insanity/mania, insects/bugs, insomnia

J- Jump scares (unexpected noises ....)

K- Knives, krakens, Krampus

L- Labyrinths/mazes (corn, topiary ...), leeches, leprechauns, levitation, locked-in syndrome

M- Mad scientists/doctors, magicians/illusionists, mannequins, masquerades, mirrors, monsters, mummies, mutations

N- Needles, nightfall, nightmares

O- Obsession/fanaticism, occult, ossuaries, oubliettes, Ouija boards

P- Paranoia, paranormal abilities (telekinesis ...), parasites, peeping Toms, pigs, pipe organs, piranha, pits/fissures, plagues/diseases, psychosis, puppets/marionettes, purgatory, pyromania

Q- Quicksand

R- Radiation/nuclear disaster, reincarnation, religious orders (monks, nuns ...), rodents, Russian roulette

S- Sacrilege, scalpals/razors, scarecrows, scorpions, seances, serial killers, shadows, sharks, skeletons/skulls, skin-changers, sleepwalking, space, spiders, spiritualists/mediums, snakes, stalkers, submarines, supernatural objects (monkey's paws, amulets, books, photographs ...), supervillains, swamps/bogs

T- Tarot cards, taxidermized animals, thunderstorms/thunder/lightning, tommyknockers, tornadoes, torture

U- Uncanny zone

V- Vampires, ventriloquist dummies, volcanoes/lava, voodoo, voodoo dolls, vultures

W- Wax dummies/wax museums, wells, wendigos, werewolves, witchdoctors, witches/warlocks, worms

Z- Zombies

70+ Ways to Terrify a Teacher in 5 Words or Less

 

This one goes out to all my teacher peers who find themselves in a continual state of stress and can't figure out why. You aren't imaging things, my friends - the fear is real! 

1. Here’s another district initiative
2. You're getting a new student
3. Let’s analyze the data
4. “Just differentiate more”
5. Where’s your lesson plan?
6. Grades are due today
7. Meetings will be during prep
8. We’ll need you to cover
9. We’re adding more required trainings
10. We are short staffed
11. Your sub has cancelled
12. There are no subs
13. Please avoid requesting leave
14. “You’ll be floating”
15. Today is your observation
16. There's a full moon
17. The day after Halloween
18. “I’m going to throw up”
19. "My head itches"
20. The copier is jammed/broken
21. No more copy paper
22. The internet is down
23. The A/C is out
24. The cage is empty
25. School starts next week
26. Tomorrow is Monday
27. Year round schooling
28. We’re shortening winter break
29. We’re extending the school year
30. It didn't snow
31. No more snow days!
32. The soda machine is empty
33. We’re out of coffee
34. Indoor recess today
35. You've been assigned lunch duty
36. “Can we use glitter?”
37. “I forgot my meds”
38. Let’s start with an icebreaker
39. It's testing season
40. Principal needs to see you
41. Parent has requested a meeting
42. We’ve received a complaint
43. “My child told me …”
44. "My mom/dad says ..."
45. They’re bringing their advocate
46. The parent is always right
47. Stomach flu is going around
48. It's probably just a cold
49. S/he's a spitter/runner/biter
50. S/he has a sibling
51. You taught my parent
52. You're not eligible for retirement
53. Just follow the script
54. Teach to the test
55. We're going virtual/hybrid
56. No holidays this month
57. You'll be chaperoning
58. Mandatory committee assignments
59. We’re introducing new software
60. We're adopting new standards
61. We’re piloting a new initiative
62. We're overenrolled this year
63. We're increasing class sizes
64. No raises this year
65. Budgets are being tightened
66. Anyone can teach
67. It's just a little mold
68. You can't teach that anymore
69. That book is now banned
70. That might offend someone
71. "I'm having trouble breathing"
72. Gang activity is increasing
73. "There's going to be a fight"
74. "S/he has a gun"
75. Please shelter in place
76. This is not a drill

 

More Appropriate Names for NFL Franchises

 

My friends and I were mocking the preposterously macho names of certain sports teams and got to wondering what would happen if cities were forced to name their sports franchises after what the cities were *really* famous - or, better yet, infamous - for. After some brainstorming, we came up with the following list, replete with unjust and offensive stereotypes. Turning off comments to thwart trolls and others lacking the common sense to realize that this is meant entirely in jest ... which is a shame, because I'd love to see what other people come up with!

• Baltimore Ravens = Baltimore Homicides
• Cincinnati Bengals = Cincinnati Biergartens
• Cleveland Browns = Cleveland Cornholes
• Pittsburgh Steelers = Pittsburgh Smog
• Buffalo Bills = Buffalo Frostbite
• Miami Dolphins = Miami Wackadoodles
• New England Patriots = New England Misanthropes
• New York Jets = New York Snarks
• Denver Broncos = Denver Wackybackys
• Kansas City Chiefs = Kansas City Meatsmokers
• Las Vegas Raiders = Las Vegas Whales
• Los Angeles Chargers = Los Angeles Kaleeaters
• Houston Texans = Houston Rocketmen
• Indianapolis Colts = Indianapolis Cornstalks
• Jacksonville Jaguars = Jacksonville Parrotheads
• Tennessee Titans = Tennessee Purebreds
• Chicago Bears = Chicago Gangsters
• Detroit Lions = Detroit Blight
• Green Bay Packers = Green Bay Cheeseheads
• Minnesota Vikings = Minnesota Smorgasbords
• Dallas Cowboys = Dallas Megachurches
• New York Giants = New York Skyscrapers
• Philadelphia Eagles = Philadelphia Hooligans
• Washington Commanders = Washington Bureaucrats
• Arizona Cardinals = Arizona Militiamen
• Los Angeles Rams = Los Angeles Traffic

25+ Things Teachers Wish Their Principals Knew

Will preface this by establishing that I have a huge amount of respect for educational administrators - the principals, assistant principals, deans and other professionals who attend to the business of making education possible.  Too often, these professionals are given enormous responsibilities, then forced to operate within a system so full of restraints and constraints, there’s no legitimate way to fulfill all the expectations placed upon them.

One of the constraints admins have to work with is the teachers that they manage, of which I am one. Make no mistake: we can be demanding, uncomprehending, and judgy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have useful feedback to provide. Collaborating with other teachers, I’ve compiled the following “wish list” of teacher expectations for admins. Some are serious, some are silly, but all of them share the same refrain: the system works best when teachers and admins work in harness to maximize efficiency, respect professionalism, and prioritize students.

We can all get behind that - right? 

1. Class size matters. If building relationships with students is as important to you as you say it is, then we need you to cap the size of our classes. When you give us too many students, we have no choice but to shift focus from individual students to classroom management, simultaneously shifting our definition of "success" from "how can I make sure each student is successful?" to "how few kids can I keep from falling through the cracks?" 

2.  Room condition matter. It’s not enough to provide classrooms; our students need to know that they are respected, valued, and prioritized. That’s why we need you to keep classrooms in good repair. We realize it can be hard to find the funding and bandwidth for things like broken furniture, missing ceiling tiles, and inadequate HVAC units, but poorly maintained rooms leave students feeling like they are being warehoused rather than respected.

3. Everything takes longer than you think it takes.  It’s easy to add new responsibilities to teachers’ workload by justifying: “this won’t add more than 5-15 extra minutes a day.” The problem is that all those extra responsibilities, collectively, add hours to our already long days. We need you to be thinking about the impact of these requests collectively, not as one-offs and asking yourselves what responsibilities you might be willing to offload to free up time for the new ask you are implementing.

4. Protect our prep time!  It’s not the extra duties - bus duty, cafeteria duty, chaperoning assemblies - that crush us; it’s the incredibly high opportunity cost of the time they consume. Our work/life balance already stinks; anything that takes away our prep time ends up needing to be carved out of our “life” time. Please consider this before treating us as gap-fillers.

5. Differentiation is possible, but only to a certain extent.  Don’t get us wrong - we’re ready and willing to differentiate! Within the bell curve of "normal," differentiation is imminently do-able: add some scaffolds here, optimize "voice and choice" there. But those students who inhabit the standard deviations? The gifted ones, the ELL-1s and -2s, the ones with extreme behavior issues? The amount of differentiation they require goes far beyond what we can deliver in a classroom without either working ourselves to death or shortchanging the other students. 

6. Analyzing data is useless if the data is incomplete, biased, or invalid. No 40-question multiple choice test can accurately assess whether a student has mastered an entire curriculum; we all need to stop pretending that it can. Factors such as literacy, focus/attention, and background knowledge inevitably taint results. If you want us to analyze data, fine - but let's all start by having an honest conversation about the limitations of the data being analyzing, and how to incorporate other types of data that minimize the influence of factors unrelated to content.  

7. Content mastery matters. When admins treat teachers like they are interchangeable - forcing science teachers to teach finance classes or drama teachers to teach journalism classes - students lose.  Effective teachers know how to shape their content to make it age-appropriate, engaging, accessible, logical, and authentic - but this feat requires a deep and genuine understanding of the content we are teaching. Otherwise we’re just teaching out of a textbook, and students don’t learn that way. 

8. Worksheets can't replace instruction.  Speaking of which, we need you to understand that worksheets can’t replace instruction. We understand that sometimes those “please send —s work home so they can complete it while they are sick/suspended/on vacation” requests are unavoidable, but we’d like to make it clear that in most cases, students are going to be missing critical content that will need to be made up.

9. Students with special needs don’t necessarily learn the same way. We get why you occasionally mandate that certain “best practices” be deployed building wide. Just remember that students who learn differently may not respond to best practices that work for their general education peers. Give your special ed teachers permission to exempt themselves from school-wide mandates that won’t benefit their students.   

10. Being a special education teacher takes more time. In almost every circumstance, special education teachers are required to do much more work (extra meetings, extra paperwork) for the same pay as their general ed peers. Cut them some slack by exempting them from non-essential tasks and giving them time to fulfill their extra responsibilities. 

11. Our biggest challenge isn't how to teach our content effectively; it's how to manage the behaviors of our students.  The evidence isn't just anecdotal: psychologists, sociologists, and educational journals agree that student behaviors really are becoming harder to manage than ever before.  What's the answer? I'm not sure, but I do know for sure that the answer isn't doubling down on holding teachers responsible for managing student behavior in the classroom.  Teachers need admin (and school psychologists, and sociologists, and mentors, and deans) to step in and help fill in the gap, because at this point teachers have maxed out our management toolkits, and we haven't got the time to acquire degrees in psychology. 

12. Lack of consistency kills our credibility with students.  School-wide expectations are great, because they minimize student confusion and establish identifiable boundaries. But when admins allow some teachers to opt out of enforcing expectations - or when admins themselves inconsistently enforce the rules - students (understandably) start inferring that all rules are negotiable and/or situational. 

13. Human intelligence is a bell curve. Education's biggest gorilla in the room: human intelligence is a bell curve, and no amount of growth mindset, brain-based instruction, or equity-centered best practices is going to enable someone with a 75 IQ to perform at the same level of critical thinking as someone with a 100 IQ. How about giving us the flexibility to meet these students where they are rather than refusing to acknowledge their unique needs? 

14.  Gifted kids don’t want to act as role models for unmotivated kids. Speaking of standard deviations, gifted/high achieving students don't deserve to be plopped into classes that bore them simply so that they can serve as "role models" for other students. Bored students become behavior issues, and the students they are supposed to "inspire" merely become frustrated and resentful. Help these  students fulfill their potential by being willing to look for flexible ways to meet their needs rather than warehousing them in classes that can't possibly challenge them.

15. Relationships require time and effort. Teachers don't actually need more PD explaining why forming relationships with students is important.  What we do need is for admins to understand that standing at the door greeting kids as they come in the room isn’t some sort of magic bullet.  We need you to create dedicated opportunities during the day for genuine trust-building and mentoring to happen. 

16. You can lead a horse to water .... Our students may be minors, but they're also human beings, possessed of free will. Ultimately, they decide whether to participate in learning, and sometimes even the best practices at our disposal - voice/choice, gamification, relevance/authenticity, remediation, or external/internal motivation - won't be compelling enough to coerce them into participating. 

17. Kids don’t care about the learning objective.  ... So stop making us post them in the classroom. No kid EVER walks into a classroom and says to themselves, "I wonder what state standard our lesson is going to be addressing today?" 

18. Sometimes kids really do need to repeat grades.  Yes, we're all familiar with the research that suggests that kids held back in school suffer social and emotional harm. Yes, we all know it's a hard sell to both students and their parents.  But what about the social and emotional harm of setting these students up to fail the entirety of their remaining school career?  Expecting three weeks of summer school to remediate an entire year of learning – expecting, for that matter, that these students will participate willingly in summer school after choosing not to learn the previous nine months – is the most reckless kind of magical thinking. 

19.  Just because you aren’t seeing stuff doesn’t mean we’re not doing it. Do teachers have learning objectives even if they're not written on the board? Are we capable of designing effective lessons without using lesson plan graphic organizers? Can we build relationships with students even if we aren't standing at the door every morning to greet them? Please evaluate us on our outcomes rather than procedures. We're professionals, not students - we shouldn't have to show our work in order to get full credit for figuring out the right answer.

20. We need you to have our backs when parents interfere. Parents aren't our bosses - you are. If you're giving us good performance evaluations, then there's a presumption that you're satisfied with the way we're doing our jobs. So when parents engage us in inappropriate ways, or challenge what we teach, or accuse of bias, you need to stand up for us. Reasonable feedback is always acceptable, but stop asking us to do unreasonable things because you’re afraid to tell a parent that they're wrong.

21. We have ideas for how to fix things.  Yes, we complain about stuff you can't fix, which can be annoying. But we’re also in a position to make suggestions that may never have occurred to you, and that are imminently implementable. It would be great if you could find ways to tolerate the former in order to encourage the latter. 

22. Group thank-yous aren’t enough. Nothing wrong with thanking the whole staff for their collective efforts, but nothing discourages teachers who are going the extra mile and achieving noteworthy achievements more than being lumped in with teachers who are just phoning it in.  An email, a drop-in during our planning period, a call-out during a staff meeting - they cost you nothing but speak volumes. 

23. We hate icebreakers.  Just because we're surrounded by students all day doesn't mean we enjoy being treated like kids.  Please, we beg you, allow us to retain our dignity and socialize in a way befitting adults. 

24. Let us choose our own PD.  Don't get me wrong: no one is debating the value of PD. But every teacher has their own areas of strength and weakness: information that’s new or useful to one teacher may be repetitious or irrelevant to another. Let teachers choose the PD they need and give them a way to opt out of PD that's irrelevant or redundant.

25. Don't give teachers a hard time when we need to take leave. We understand our shifts can be inconvenient to fill.  But that doesn’t make it okay to make teachers feel guilty about the fact that they have responsibilities outside of school. If your expectation is that teachers prioritize their school obligations over legitimate family, personal and community obligations, then you need to reconsider your priorities as a human.

26. Stop making us feel guilty about working hard. The biggest slap on the face of all? Admins who are complicit in creating unsustainable teacher workloads, who then turn around and berate their teachers for "working too hard." Nothing could be more tone deaf, more aggravating, more condescending than admins signaling to teachers that overtime is a just punishment for not working efficiently. How can admins actually help? When you see a teacher working late, instead of remarking "Oh my goodness, go home!" try substituting "What can we do to help reduce your workload?"

Are You a Democrat, a Republican, or a MAGA Republican?

Are you a Democrat, a Republican, or a MAGA Republican? Enjoy this convenient guide that clarifies the subtle differences! 

DEMOCRAT	REPUBLICAN	MAGA REPUBLICAN
Some rights are so essential, the federal government needs to protect access to them	Rights not specifically granted to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution should be left to states to decide	In general, no government has the right to tell people what they can and can't do. (So keep your hands off our gas stoves!)
Republicans are misguided	Democrats are misguided	Democrats engage in child sex trafficking and harvest babies for food
Illegal immigration is  unfortunate, but in general immigrants don’t pose a threat to the U.S.	Illegal immigration is a threat to U.S. security	The vast majority of illegal immigrants are either terrorists, criminals, disease carriers, here to steal our jobs, or here to live a life of luxury sponging off our social services. They deserve to be caged like the animals that they are.
Unbridled capitalism creates social injustice; regulations and unions are necessary to protect citizens from capitalism’s excesses	Financial markets operate best when freed of unnecessary regulation; most market systems work better if privatized.	Unbridled capitalism is what makes American great; if people are stupid enough to allow themselves to be exploited, that’s on them
Spending whatever is necessary to protect U.S. citizens is more important than fiscal responsibility	Federal expenditures should be moderate and fiscally responsible	The federal government should be fiscally responsible but also fund all the social services that directly benefit us.
“Traditional family values” perpetuate racial, economic, and gender injustice; basic humanism should be the moral code of all Americans	Traditional family values should be the fixed moral code of all Americans	If traditional family values perpetuate racial, economic, and gender injustice, then that's   because God wants things to stay that way.
If you increase taxes on the rich, the poor will benefit	If you reduce taxes on the rich, the poor will benefit	One day we’re going to be rich, because that’s the American Way; when we make it, we don’t want the government taking our money
America is the greatest country in the world, but we also have flaws we need to address	America is the greatest country in the world, and anyone who says otherwise is woke	America is the greatest country in the world, and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor
The best way to win wars is to avoid them	The best way to win wars is to maintain the largest, most lethal military force in the world	The best way to win wars is to nuke our enemies into oblivion
The U.S. government has an obligation to protect those who can’t protect themselves	People should pull themselves up by their bootstraps; social safety nets are morally corrupting	Social Darwinism, baby – only the strongest deserve to survive.
Human life begins at birth	Human life begins at conception	Nature intended women to be baby incubators & caregivers; any roles or rights that might interfere with this function should be terminated
The most effective way to address crime is via a combination of prevention, punishment, and rehabilitation	The most effective way to address crime is punishment	The only safe criminal is a jailed criminal – or, better yet, a dead criminal.
Our nation's energy needs should be weighed against potential environmental impacts	Our nation's energy needs should be weighed against potential economic impacts	As the superior race here on Earth, it’s our right to do whatever the hell we want with the natural resources we harvest.
Climate change is an existential threat	Climate change isn’t the threat that some make it out to be	Climate change is fake
The right to bear arms and to use them to defend oneself is conditional.	The right to bear arms and to use them to defend oneself is unconditional.	The right to bear arms and to use them for pretty much any purpose, however reckless or irrational, is unconditional.
Health care is a human right, and therefore should be guaranteed by the federal government.	Individual should bear the responsibility of securing their own health care from private providers, ensuring that people who can’t afford health care don’t sponge off those who can.	Health care is nice, but if people have to die in order to protect our country from becoming a socialist state, then so be it.
Freedom of religion means that no one should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on others	Freedom of religion means that no one should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on others - except Christians, because the founding fathers intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation	Freedom of religion means that Christians should feel free to discriminate against all religions that aren’t Christian
Marriage is a union between two people who love each other, regardless of gender	Marriage is a union between a man and a woman	Marriage is a union between a man and a woman in which the woman is subservient to the man’s will
With respect to international affairs, the U.S. needs to weigh its own interests against the need to guarantee essential human rights around the world	With respect to international affairs, the U.S.’s priority should always be to protect its own interests	America should take care of Americans, and leave the rest of the world the hell alone
The U.S. voting system is resilient to fraud; the ultimate objective should be to encourage everyone to participate in the process	The U.S. voting system is vulnerable to fraud; the ultimate objective should be to allow people who want to vote to do so, within reason	The U.S. voting systems is hopelessly corrupted, as proven by the fact that the our candidates keep losing. The ultimate objective is to ensure that our candidates win by whatever means necessary.