Teacher Comics: Cliffhanger?

Apologies for being away from comics for so long, folks. If you’ve been following me on Tumblr, I’ve been regularly posting older content from this site for a new audience and I’ve been generally pleased at how well-received they’ve been. I took that step because frankly, teaching 7 classes with no break had finally gotten the better of me and I was starting to feel a bit burned out. I don’t believe my work was suffering but my hobbies definitely suffered… ergo, the lack of posts for most of the last month.

This comic should easily lead into next year’s run of strips though, which should pick up in September. In the interim, I will continue my tradition of posting summer journal comics featuring my wife and children starting this Monday.

Teacher Comics: Wishin’ days away

I’m sort of paraphrasing The Thief of Always by Clive Barker here and it’s true. Sometimes constantly waiting for some soon-to-come thing will blind you to what could happen in the now.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s comic.

Teacher Comics: Countin’ down

Of course, I know teachers who twist and contort the calendar to make it sound like we have less days. One colleague of mine recently told me that we technically have even less days than the students are saying because we teachers have a few professional development days coming up… and those days aren’t really teaching days, so they shouldn’t count toward the overall total.

I am not making that up.

Teacher Comics: I’m not your butler.

I’m often amazed at students who think I should be at their beck and call whenever they have some small need.

Teacher Comics: Welcome back!

I’m not going to put too much stock into these test scores, is I guess what I’m saying here.

Teacher Comics: A good plan?

Teacher Comics: Unbirthday

 

My going out of my way to NOT wish kids a “Happy Birthday” has become something of a running joke to many of my students.

Teacher Comics: Lending Library

Students are allowed to read a book after they are finished with the Ohio Graduation Test, so my book nook did a brisk business over the past week.

I’m enormously proud of my classroom’s lending library. I’ve worked pretty tirelessly over the last five years to create a space full of awesome books for teenage readers, including a sizable section of graphic novels. I scour thrift stores, secondhand shops, and yard sales to either find good books for my classroom, or books I can sell at a profit and use the cash I get for those books to buy better ones for my classroom. Our school’s media center has not received any funding from the state of Ohio for almost TEN YEARS, people. It’s a travesty I try to combat a little with my collection of books.

It’s so rewarding when I have kids who took classes with me three years ago come by and tell me how much they loved a certain novel or book they would have never been in contact with if it hadn’t been because of a resource I created.

Teacher Comics: You take the test, you pass the test

My favorite moment of the entire week. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to know what second person point of view was in my life!

Teacher Comics: Geez

I hope this doesn’t come off as complaining as schools have been given a really bad hand here when it comes to administering this test. As far as I’m concerned, my school does a damn fine job of figuring out to give this test to hundreds of sophomores while still attending the needs of the rest of our student body.

If I were to play pretend I was the guy in charge, here’s what I would do: I would stagger these tests so that there wasn’t a five exam marathon pileup in the middle of March. That’s not good for anybody. I’d give each exam its own day, maybe one exam every other week for… 10 weeks, let’s say. March through April. That would give students space enough to prepare a bit. Schedule those testing days on a Friday and give all the students NOT taking this test the day off. Get them out of the building and allow administration and proctors to focus on the task at hand. The students taking the test would get a half-day; when they’re done with the test, they can go home.

Even in writing this I know why it wouldn’t work… bussing would be expensive, the scheduling of days off and half days would put a strain on budgets, grading the exams takes time, and a dozen other reasons that have nothing to do with giving students the optimum opportunities to do well on these exams.

Oh well, what do I know. I’m just a teacher with ten years of experience…