Dark Night of the Soul

 The bored Gods know I've been through some things and have had some dark times. This is one of those times.

On or about August 7, I got a call from the schedule director at my school. He told me I had been moved from freshmen to seniors for my entire school schedule. In 15 years I had never taught seniors. I have always made it abundantly clear that I like freshmen.

Not only do I have seniors, I have all the seniors who don't qualify for Honors or Advanced Placement. Our school also sends our best and brightest seniors to the junior college. So the seniors I have are mostly male and mostly cashed out already. I gave them a questionnaire about their reading habits (or lack thereof) and only one of 76 students reported liking to read.

Two teachers of seniors quit last spring. The only other teacher of seniors this year has all the Honors and Advanced Placement seniors. She is starting her sixth year, while I am starting my 15th.

Rarely does my reality match my anxieties about what might happen, but the first two and a half weeks of this school year are coming damn close. Students who flounder academically are more likely to act out. They are more likely to have poor attendance. And if they have perfected any skill, it's manipulating the system.

I have poured vast amounts of energy into engaging these students, and the best I can say is that they are not openly defiant. But I am dreading each and every morning and coming home exhausted every afternoon.

No worries! Only five more years to go after this one! [Sarcasm]

It's not clear who made the decision to put me in this position. The man who called me on August 7 blamed the woman upon whom I had already initiated banework. She, in turn, told me to my face that she had no hand in the schedule.  It could have been the principal himself. He only cares whether or not the students are wearing their uniforms and IDs, which is an easy ask with freshman but impossible with seniors.

I could have been placed with 76 students who hate school simply because I had success keeping my freshmen in their uniforms and IDs.

Or, more likely, it was yet another vindictive act from someone who bears me ill will and can lie with a straight face as well as any cheap politician.

Either way, I have ramped up my work for the union. Our steward has noted that the chronologically oldest teachers at both campuses have suddenly been given seniors for the first time.

Yes, I have initiated my banework, using multiple tactics.

The only consolation I have in this dark night of the soul is that I have so many great connections with the support staff in my building. I know all the janitors and security guards and enjoy warm, friendly relationships with them. They don't blink an eye if I ask them to unlock an office door or point out a parking space. This is my only blessing in the workplace just now.

I have so little energy at the end of the day that I can't even contemplate writing an amusing blog post. Best I've been able to do so far is drag myself to the gym to exercise, but I'm not sure how long that will last when it starts getting dark earlier.

Last week I took a plate of fresh scones and a pot of tea to Sisyphus, just to ask for a little good advice. He said I should go review The Exile and the Kingdom by Camus and adjust my enthusiasm to match my students'. Sounds like a plan.

Here's hoping this Equinox finds you in a patch of sunlight with a soft cat on your lap. Don't give up on "The Gods Are Bored." I'm a stubborn someone. I'll be back.

Another Chat with ChatGPT

 What a Brave New World we live in, my friends! Today, in preparation for my sermon here at "The Gods Are Bored," I had another lively chat with ChatGPT. Here are the results.

This is my second post about ChatGPT. It's an AI text-generating software that is available for free to any high school kid who needs to write an essay about that novel they didn't read. You can even put it on a 9th grade setting, to get text that has mistakes in it!

Today the English department at my school had a meeting with our district's Assistant Senior Superintendent. The ASS came to our meeting specifically to inform us that our district will not be blocking the ChatGPT app or any other text-generating AI app. The ASS sniffed, "Go back to using paper and pencil. Do you have enough paper? I can order paper."

Friends, I can't make this shit up.

Even I, Anne Johnson, who have only been teaching 13 years can recall a time when essays were written by hand, and only the final draft was typed out on a clunky desktop computer. My students were never willing to re-write, revise, expand, or edit their work. And who could blame them? A revision involved putting a red carat at the end of a sentence and slapping a series of sticky notes on the draft. I hadn't done that myself since 1975! Now, with Google Docs, I can say to a student, "Why don't you look at that second paragraph and offer another example and some more insight?" And I get it.

I guess you can't blame me for taking my umbrage to the source of the problem: ChatGPT. I opened a new account and asked it, "Should a 9th grade student use ChatGPT to write an essay?" And of course it expounded brilliantly on how it is not in any way a substitute for true critical thinking and creativity. Well! Humility! One loves seeing that in artificial intelligence, since it is so often missing in the human race.

No surprises there. So next I asked it some specifics about how shoes are used as symbols in the novel The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. The House on Mango Street often appears on lists of Best Books of the 20th Century, and deservedly so. It's positively brilliant.

Not only could ChatGPT not identify how shoes are used as symbols in the book, it gave inaccurate quotes and glaringly wrong information about the text. This lil bot is surfing the web and latching onto inaccuracies that it then spouts as truths.

Emboldened, I asked ChatGPT about another novel I teach, Forged by Fire, by Sharon Draper. The bot did even worse with this lesser-known book. The stepfather became an older brother (?) for one thing.

What I loved was that, when I pointed out to ChatGPT that it was wrong, it apologized and promised to do better. Maybe that's why my district's ASS likes it so much -- it's a suck-up.

Then I got another idea. Remember how I asked it if the Gods were bored, and it said "blah blah blah" instead of a simple YES? Today I specifically asked it about my blog.

Anne's Question: What is the blog "The Gods Are Bored" about?

ChatGPT's Answer: I am unable to determine the specific blog you are referring to as my training data only goes up until 2021 and "The Gods Are Bored" could refer to a number of different blogs or websites. However, a blog with a similar title could be about religion, spirituality, mythology, or other related topics. The blogger might explore different beliefs and practices from around the world and offer their own perspective and insights on these subjects. The "bored" aspect of the title could suggest that the blogger is looking at these topics with a critical eye and perhaps finds certain aspects of religious beliefs and practices to be tedious or lacking in engagement. Without more specific information or access to the actual blog, it is difficult to say what the exact focus or tone of "The Gods Are Bored" might be.

Dang! The Smithsonian didn't want me, and neither does ChatGPT! And then it has the cheek to imagine what the blog *might* be about! HA HA! BAMMMP!!!  WRONG, YOU STUPID BOT! This peerless blog is a channel to bored deities from multiple pantheons over millennia of recorded history!

Sorry this sermon is so long. But here are my encouraging takeaways:

1. ChatGPT doesn't read books. It couldn't tell me what color Esperanza's shoes were, even though she describes the same shoes three times in a 100-page book.

2. Chat GPT doesn't have access to my blog. I remain inscrutable to it.

3. Finally, after all these years of begging y'all to send me loose leaf paper, my ASS is going to order reams and reams of it. Oh, the irony.

I have one last message for both my ASS and ChatGPT, and I'll give it as only a Super Bowl-Bound Eagles fan can do it:

HEY, YOUS!

Snippets

 Nearly a month without "The Gods Are Bored!" Tells you how exciting my life is.

But in the interest of navel gazing I'll record some events.

*Thumbing my nose at the Supreme Court, but mindful of Loki's advice to lay low (see below), I took all of my students outside on a sunny day and showed them the Four Directions. Literally had them turn East, South, West, and North. And surprise! I'm having a much better year so far with this batch of kids.

*Went to a Renaissance Festival with my sister. When we sat at an ampitheatre to watch a show called "Puke and Snot," we were told by Snot that Puke had Covid. Snot asked if there was anyone in the audience who would like to read Puke's part of the script. And I guess my three readers know how that turned out! (Years of Fairy Festivals prepares one for such contingencies.)

*Got to know my students quickly, discovered that one of them is a backup quarterback for one of the powerhouse football teams in the county. When that student complained of a headache two days in a row -- and admitted he'd taken some tough hits in practice -- I alerted the nurse. Student was taken to the hospital and put on concussion protocol. Kind of put me off football for about ten minutes, but I couldn't stay away because

*The Philadelphia Eagles are undefeated! A big 6-0! Still I have to ask myself how I can support a game that scrambles the brains of sweet freshman students in my classroom.

*Speaking of Philadelphia, the aggressively mediocre Phillies are in the National League Championship Series. It's been a banquet in Philly lately.

*My school broke ground on a big new addition. It's being built over my assigned parking space, so I got a new space. The new space is closest to the Auto Tech shop, so I walk through there every day. It didn't take me long to notice the gleaming new Subaru Outback in one of the bays. Who knew? Subaru donated a brand new car to the school so students could learn about modern technology in cars! I like the Subaru I own, but I wasn't wedded to it. Until now. Anne will be Team Subaru forever.

*Today I got a Covid booster. My fifth Covid shot. Didn't make any plans for the weekend.

Well, last year was really challenging in the workplace. I'm knocking on wood, but so far this 2022/23 batch of freshmen is the best since way before the pandemic. They're still wiggly puppies, but they aren't writing expletives on each other's papers or punching the little kid when no one is looking. And they love the books sent to them by your generosity!

With no lint remaining in my navel, I big you farewell.

The Great Wide Open

 Boy, is it ever hard for me to keep my mouth shut about my religion in my classroom! After all, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have dedicated ourselves to promoting and respecting deities who have been deprived -- by time or tide, or both -- of their praise and worship teams. So when a student comes in and proudly shows off his brand new, store-bought book from home called Celtic Mythology, ahem.

You know how "religion" turns into "mythology?" Some other religion steals its holidays and relegates its deities to "myth" status. The winning religion gets to keep the title of "religion," and the losing one gets flung in the dustbin of "myth." I tell you what. I'm not going to be the one who tells The Morrigan that She's a damn myth.

Well! That's actually an aside! Today's sermon is about something else.

For reference, here's a photo of the front of my school where I work:

EXHIBIT A: VO-TECH WHERE I WORK

Isn't that a gorgeous building? It was designed by the same architect who designed the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Yes, those are pillars! And above the pillars is a motto: "He Who Hath a Trade Hath an Estate."

What I want you to dwell upon, though, is that nice grassy lawn, and the lovely mature trees. The school was built in 1926. They just don't do it like this anymore. I would say there's about three acres of lawn in front. We also have a standard-sized football field and a baseball diamond out back.

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my teacher desk, conversing with a student who is sitting right up front in what I jokingly call the "teacher's pet seat." This student is a very quiet young lady.

The school will be having a pep rally next week, and the student asked me where pep rallies are held. (I teach freshmen.) I told her we all go out to the back fields and sit on the bleachers.

She said, "That's so much space out there. And there's so much out front. I've never seen so much open space before."

Reader, look at the photo and let that sink in.

My heart just broke.

Kids have said heartbreaking things to me before, but this one I guess just mangled my aorta because of my own lived experience. My school was bordered by a county park and was three miles from the vast swath of Antietam Battlefield. When I was that girl's age I could ride my bike to the Potomac River and sit all day by myself on the bank.

What kind of childhood has this poor girl had?

I do know that many of my students have to stay inside all the time because of crime, or repressive parents, or babysitting, or all of the above. Still it boggles my mind that someone has attained the age of 14 without ever having at least made one excursion to the beach just 50 miles away.

My students keep writer's notebooks, and sometimes I read about grandparents in the Dominican Republic, about riding horses and milking cows, and gathering eggs, and swimming in those gorgeous tropical playas. But I also read other notebooks in which the writer goes to school, goes home, locks the door, and stays inside. I remember one girl wrote, "I can't even sit on the stoop."

Tomorrow I will take all of my students outdoors onto that front lawn. I will literally point out the Quarters to them, and the motto on the building, and the soft grassy lawn, and the old trees. We will be present in gratitude to the open space that was a gift from the taxpayers of New Jersey to kids who want to fix cars.

If it's the most open space some of them have, then we'll honor it as such.

The Night Before School

 Whelp, my friends, it's 7:15 pm on August 31, 2022. Which means in 12 hours I'll be back in the saddle as a school teacher.

It would be so much harder without y'all.

Donations of books have poured in. I got some brand-new titles from Barnes & Noble and lots and lots of lightly-used books from ABE and Thriftbooks. I have 20 books and haven't even spent all the money yet.

I won't get to my classroom until Friday morning. When I get there, I will have a big bag of books that I know my students will want to read. That's such a relief.

May the Gods bless and keep you all. Wish me luck.

Oh, Romeo Romeo Why The Hell Is That Your Name?

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," William Shakespeare edition! What ho, and wherefore?

Herewith an explanation:

"Romeo and Juliet" is a rite of passage for our public school teenagers. Seems like every freshman in the US of A (not to mention the UK) has to read it.

And since all three of you know I teach public school freshmen, you know I must needs teach this tome.

Aye, there's the rub.

As you might imagine, my freshmen can't even graze the surface of the original text. Oh, me! Zounds! It biteth like an adder!

Kind of a shame, because "Romeo and Juliet" is full of poetry and all sorts of fabulous imagery, especially name-dropping, at numerous intervals, bored deities. At the same time, it's a ripping good tale with lots of action and those fabulous plot twists.

My district purchased a "side by side" edition of "Romeo and Juliet" that has Shakespeare's text on the right-hand page and a "translation" on the left-hand page.

Aye, zounds, there's another rub. My students can't read the translation! It's still too hard. Their eyes glaze over. And those long speeches? Forget it. No one is willing to read them out loud.

There's another translated version of "Romeo and Juliet" online, called "No Fear Shakespeare" by Spark Notes. In previous years I have used that one, because it really is easier to read. However, this year Spark Notes put the whole thing behind a paywall. And my district won't buy it because we already have the unreadable one.

Enter Anne, with a Bear.

Readers, I wrote my own translation of "Romeo and Juliet" this summer.

I was faithful to the original. In fact, I was more faithful than the translations. I used some rhyme!

Only one character got a new name. The Apothecary became the Drug Dealer. After all, who these days has a gram of poison that can knock you dead even though you have the strength of twenty men?

And I made one other change that was inspired by this year's freshmen.

It's hard to explain the term "banished" to modern urban teenagers. Let's see. Romeo has to leave the city, and he can't come back or he'll be killed. That was a thing 400 years ago.

As one of my students pointed out this spring, it's still a thing. Now it's called deportation.

So Romeo doesn't get banished. He gets deported.

If you have idly wondered what I've been doing this summer, this is it. I re-wrote "Romeo and Juliet" with struggling urban readers in mind.

This year it will get a pilot run, and if the students like it, I may try to sell it on a teacher platform. Not sure how that will fly with Spark Notes, but hey. I didn't plagiarize their text. I can't even access it!

What a sad story. "Romeo and Juliet," I mean. Not my awesome hood-inspired translation!

A Public School Teacher Reads "The Dawn of Everything" in the Spring

 What's the name of this blog again? Something about Gods. What's my name? Oh, I know this one! My name is Miss. Pretty sure of that. It's a very common teacher name.

So for Xmas my husband (I forget his name) gave me a book called The Dawn of Everything. It's a heavy book. I mean heavy as in it hurts your hands to hold it. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's over 700 pages, including exhaustive footnotes and bibliographies.

I've been reading this book with teacher brain since early March. It was interesting, I think.

Long story short, this book is about, em ... everything? First thing in the morning? Well, I am an absolute expert on that! I have to be everything to everybody at 7:15 a.m. every weekday! Heck, it's dawn or near dawn or before dawn when I wake up, ten months of the year. So I know me some dawns.

The book. It's about ancient cultures, and Indigenous Americans, and whether or not human history leads in a straight line from little bands of hunter-gatherers to Elon Musk buying Twitter.

Now, I would absolutely hate to ruin this important and fascinating book for you, so I'm not going to offer up any spoilers here. Mostly because I can't. I read this book with teacher brain. I think I got the message of it, but I won't be sure until mid-July when the fog clears and I'm no longer chronically sleep-deprived.

It's not just The Dawn of Everything that eludes my fried-egg-in-the-pan brain. It's the Sunday New York Times, the cookie recipe on the side of the oatmeal box, the exit signs on the New Jersey Turnpike, the laundry directions on a pair of blue jeans. I can't comprehend basic syllables, let alone sentences.

Well, it's 8:12 p.m., my bedtime. I feel like I could sleep for 15 years.

I have not used The Dawn of Everything as a book to fall asleep while reading. It's too heavy for that. Plus, my cat Gamma bats books out of my hands when I read in bed.

I liked The Dawn of Everything? Ask me again in August.

Shhh ... Don't Tell!

 I did it. Just don't tell any administrator, okay? I know I can trust you.

I talked about bored Gods in school.

This is the first year I have ever had upperclassmen. And I have them, by golly! One class of 13 juniors.

They are my first class in the morning. Because we are short on buses, some of them have to get picked up at 5:45. (The buses have to run multiple routes.)

So what I actually have is 13 of the sleepiest people on the planet, at 7:45 in the morning, and I'm expected to engage them.

Trouble is, the junior curriculum for my district is ridiculous. I can't see how it would engage them to spend 8 weeks on Fahrenheit 451, when half of them would gladly burn every book in the room.

In these cases I always fall back on Antigone, by Sophocles.

Have you read it? It's about a brave young woman who defies the decree of a dictator to bury her brother, because the laws of the Gods are more important than the laws of men. Of course she pays for it with her life, but damn. Girl has some spine.

I like teaching something where the female lead is badass.

Antigone is not in the curriculum. But I feel like if some admin wanders in, I can say, "Oh yes, I'm teaching Sophocles," and that will be acceptable.

Oh, and if you haven't come across this 2,200+ year-old wonder, it's short! Two quick acts, and everyone dies in the end. Appreciate that, because it takes Shakespeare five acts to slaughter his casts.

But ah, there's a rub.

When the title character, Antigone, talks about following the laws of God, she's not talking about Yahweh. She's talking about Zeus. And as you can imagine, I make that crystal clear from the get-go.

So today, as I looked out over 13 sets of glazed eyes, I asked: "Emmm... people really worshiped Zeus. Those people would be offended if you called Zeus a 'myth.' And in the Bible, God says, 'You shall have no other gods but Me. Clearly implying that there are other Gods. So, students ... sit up ... open your eyes ... Where is Zeus now?"

This opened up a semi-lively discussion, which included (in no particular order) the fact that Africans brought into slavery were forced to be Christians when they had their own Gods, the fact that some people who worship Thor are racists, and the fact that we don't know much about the majority of our planet; namely, the part that's under water.

Wow! A philosophical discussion at my school, at 8:00 in the morning!

One student said he thinks Zeus is satisfied with His status with us moderns, because at least we know who He is. Which made me ask the students, "What happens to Gods whose names are forgotten?"

No one had an answer for that. But I'll bet they think about it after the basketball scrimmage. Well, maybe not.

First time my day job and my blog have intersected. It was fun.

I'm a Wreck at the Vo-Tech

 When was the last time I interviewed a bored deity? A long time. But I can't blame them for boycotting me. Who wants to talk to a human wreck who can't even keep her upholstery clean?

This is just a follow-up on the hate crime in my classroom. To recap, a student wrote the "n" word on a Black student's paper during a time when everyone was circulating around the room. The student who received the slur reported it as a HIB (harassment, intimidation, and bullying).

I turned in a ton of handwriting samples to the administration, and this helped them to determine whose handwriting best fit the scrawl on the paper. They clearly identified a boy and proceeded to grill him about it. He cried. He pleaded innocence. His tears moved the vice principals.

They didn't see the look the kid shot me in between grillings. With face masks, all I can see is eyes. But that's all you need to see, really.

Long story short, another student confessed to the crime. The student said he didn't know the paper belonged to an African American student. He said he thought it was funny. And he said he imitated his best friend's handwriting.

This satisfied the administrators and the girl. The boy who confessed was removed from my class. The girl is back.

The boy with the distinctive handwriting and menacing glare is still in my class.

It's unrealistic to expect that I'll never have issues like this in my classroom. But by and large, the students at my school are pretty dedicated and respectful. And the baddies don't last. But with a TikTok challenge called "Slap a Teacher," I am on my guard.

I've got a wand. I found a piece of rose quartz at the beach over the weekend. I put up a grid of the Four Quarters on my desk. Every day I wear my Witch Ball and my copper bracelet.

There are no atheists in the foxhole.

Free Advice on What Not To Say at Work

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," home of one proficient (not distinguished) teacher. If you're a teacher yourself, you probably know just what I mean.

I totally expected the transition back to full-time teaching to be stressful. How could it not be? Last year I spent most of my days "teaching" from a recliner, while covered by the ample rump of Gamma Cat.

But this transition has been horrible. Worse than anticipation by a country mile.

I won't even go into the standardized testing (seven days out of the first 25, including the past two days). Nor will I dwell upon the fact that the assistant superintendent decided that the AP Lit kids would be better off with a substitute teacher than with me, when their teacher went out for emergency surgery. (Long story)

But what I will dwell upon here is toxic positivity. It's been a problem in my school district ever since I've been there.

Maybe you have this poison in your workplace, too?

"Let's all be positive here! If you just try being positive, you'll feel better!"

When someone says this, here's what I actually hear:

"It really sucks to work here, but don't you dare acknowledge that. Cover it up with a smile, and take whatever drugs you have to in order to keep that smile on your ugly mug."

Today we had another round of standardized testing. I hate using the computer programs and often fuck it up (including today). And yet two administrators tried to coax one of those phony baloney smiles out of me.

I wasn't having it. I'll smile when there's reason to smile, not because I'm told to smile.

But wait. There's more!

At lunchtime I have a paid "duty" in the cafeteria. I enjoy it, actually, because I'm buddies with all the janitors, and we joke around. Today, the new vice principal came in. She asked me how I was doing, and I admitted to being pretty stressed out.

Her response? "Ah, just have a glass of wine when you get home."

Wait. What?

Free advice to my three readers: Never recommend a glass of wine for a stressed-out employee! You might be speaking to an alcoholic.

This is what I mean by "toxic positivity." Instead of recommending a glass of wine, middle managers should be taught how to acknowledge the reality and severity of the stress. Just fucking listen.

OMG INTERRUPTING THIS RANT FOR A WORSE ONE!

William Shatner breaking down in tears because Jeff Bozos sent him into orbit? GAG ME WITH A PLATINUM SPOON.

You know what I'm positive about? I'm positive all billionaires should be eaten. With or without a glass of wine.

Fast Times at Parent Night

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where surprises lurk like tripping hazards around every corner! I'm your befuddled host, Anne Johnson, proficient school teacher.

Once a year during the first week of October, public schools fling wide their doors for an evening event called -- variously -- Parent Night or Back-to-School Night. In the case of my school, this extravaganza also includes presentations and tours for potential students, since we are a magnet school.

This year, some person in the top ranks of our command squad decided that Covid risks are alarming enough to turn the bulk of Parent Night virtual. Interested 8th graders and their families would still be welcome in the building, but parents of existing students would have to come to Google Meets online.

So the command squad ordered each of us to create individual Meet links, and then the squad put all these links up on the school web site, with our names on them. The sun set over Camden, and we teachers reported to our classrooms and opened our Google Meets.

Parents started trickling in for me right away, considering that I now have 7 classes total.

About 30 minutes into the ordeal, it was time for the parents of my first class of freshmen to log in. So, the way Google Meet works is that someone asks to join and I (the teacher) have to admit them. Which of course I was admitting everyone, because email names and such are wacko to begin with.

Have you noticed that this younger generation is more technologically savvy than their elders?

My Meet attracted trolls with bad grammar and spelling and worse language. There I was, trying to tell parents about how I grade silent reading, while the "chat bar" was filling with the "n" word from some user who actually even blocked their ID in the chat. The ordeal culminated with a comment about Romeo and Juliet that suggested the play should be buggered by me, a white cracker (and some more insults) smoking that fine weed.

With the help of text messages from colleagues, I was able to purge the Meet of the monsters and resume affable chatting with parents. Certainly not my fault that the command put all those Google Meet links on a public platform.

If you are retired from the ed biz, like my friend Ol' Buzzard, you are very lucky indeed. Apparently this upstart social media platform named TikTok is giving youngsters the idea to film acts of vandalism and mayhem in the school setting. October, for instance, is "slap a teacher" month. I have no doubt that "disrupt online Parent Night" was a "challenge" as well.

Lord love a cross-eyed fruit fly! And to think I am staring down the barrel of seven more Parent Nights before I can hang up my chalk and retire! I think I may have to downsize the dreams of my golden years.

First Day of School, April 22, 2021

 What a wacky week! September behavior in April! And I'm not talking about the weather.

This past week marks the first time I have had students physically in my classroom for over a year. I have been trying to teach them over the Internet since last fall, and it's been a challenge.

But I guess I won them over, because they seemed so happy to see me in the flesh! Was I an influencer somehow? And wowsa, did I entertain them when they sat down in their desks! I did Mummers strut. I did happy dances. I squealed. I wiped fake tears. When the wind caused the cheap windows to vibrate, I told them it was a nest of murder hornets, sit very still. Oh I was in rare form!

Only about half of my students have returned, and the rest are still online. So I am teaching in a mask, online and in person simultaneously. It's like having a litter of kittens to foster. Soon as you pay attention to one, another one wanders off to walk in fresh paint.

Perfect time for poetry, don't you think? I compiled 40 poems, mostly by writers of color, to do a poetry unit. I call it "Poetry Playoffs" and use brackets like the NCAA to find the class favorite poem.

When freshmen arrive at high school, we teachers get what we call a "honeymoon." They are timid and well-behaved and eager to please. This phase usually lasts about six weeks.

Well, there are only six weeks left in the school year, and the past two days I got small classes of honeymooning freshmen, sitting quiet and attentive (and laughing at me).

It's wonderful to finally have students back in class. Wonderful. The only reason anyone would do this grueling job is the chance to be around young people. And what terrific students I have! Great kids. Their lives matter.

P.S. - I've been doing an SAT prep class online since September, and I gave those students an "out" by asking them if they think they're good to go. Darn if those lil pups didn't say they want to keep doing SAT prep because they like getting together with me. Four kids, opting to do SAT prep! Give me a damn Oscar.

P.P.S. - I saw a bald eagle fly over the school three times this week. This afternoon it lingered long enough for me to be absolutely positive what I was looking at. I don't see it as an omen, just an incredibly uplifting sight.

Mandescending and Mindfulness

You've heard the term "mansplaining," and I really like it. Whoever coined it was pretty smart. The definition is basically a man explaining to a woman something that the woman is either more knowledgeable about because it's her lived reality as a female, or something she has trained to do and knows how to do already.

For instance, my daughter The Fair was filming an event the other night with high-end equipment she is well trained to use, and some dude tried to tell her how to set up the tripod. Really?

I'm going to add a new term of my own: mandescending. This is where a man is condescending to a woman and dismisses her out of hand, even though her concerns are serious, maybe either health- or job-related.

Yesterday my school district had a professional development workshop, and part of it was yet another session on how to use the baffling new web site for which the district spent tons of money to purchase a full package. The web site does a gazillion tasks but is about as user-friendly as a potted cactus. Every time we get a demonstration, the same guy comes. He's yet another of those paid consultants who spent a few years in the classroom, couldn't wait to get out, and saw this web site as a ticket.

Honestly, I'll be the first to admit that if I had trained as a teacher I would have been looking to move into corporate somehow after five to ten years. The teaching profession is poorly-paid, overly scrutinized, underappreciated by the public, and physically and emotionally exhausting.

Part of what makes it exhausting is trying to learn the web site du jour.

To return to my narrative, I was attempting to keep up with the blistering pace of this man's presentation, and as usual I fell a step or two behind. When I asked why my page didn't look like his, he came to my station, flicked a few buttons, and said, "There you are." And sniffed with derision.

I went to the vending machine and bought a Snickers bar. First one I've eaten in two years.

The joy of the Snickers soon abated, but my fury has not.

This country treats its elders with condescension. Or mandescension, you decide.

In the summer of 1979, I was working in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins University. I had a job with a special archive of psychiatric documents that belonged to a prominent Hopkins physician named Adolf Meyer. In order to prepare a documentary list of the voluminous records this man kept (which included extensive correspondence with Freud, Jung, and other psychiatric luminaries), the university purchased a word processor. It was the first one any of us had seen.

A technician wheeled the word processor into our office space and showed the lead archivist how to use it. But then an interesting phenomenon occurred.

One by one, the oldest professors in the Hopkins community dropped by to see the word processor. These were men (of course, it was 1979) who had probably written multiple scholarly tomes, using Royal typewriters or even legal pads. They wanted to see the machine in action. And so did I.

A few years later, I found myself working for a publishing house, preparing copy for encyclopedias. The work was done with pencil and electric typewriters. Then the company bought two word processors, but no one was particularly interested in using them. Having had a little bit of exposure to one, I gladly accepted a spot at the word processor. I got a raise.

I know I should have kept up with computing. I know I should be more capable when it comes to new web sites. Perhaps it shouldn't count that I was the most proficient with technology when certain workshop presenters were probably learning to use the potty.

I know my mental capacity isn't what it once was. I don't even write for this site like I used to. But to be dismissed with such thinly-veiled disdain was a nasty jolt. I'm old. I'm obsolete. I'm female. Thanks for reminding me.

But wait, there's more.

After being humiliated in the web site training, I had to go back into a general faculty meeting for both of the Vo-Tech campuses. When both campuses get together, it's a lot of teachers. A good two hundred plus, I should think. We fill an auditorium.

The rest of the long day was spent in mindfulness training. We had to ground, center, follow our breath, feel our feet on the floor (mine were cold), yada yada yada. Be in the moment, and if your thoughts drift, pull back to breath.

First of all, when I do this practice, it is tied to my religion, which I firmly separate from my work responsibilities. So I deliberately let my thoughts go as haywire as they wanted to. Here's the short list:

1. Wow, that guy is such an asshole! Karma's gonna come for him when he's 60, for sure. I'd like to be there when he gets confused over the communication system between himself and teachers on Mars. He won't have tenure. Maybe he'll get fired! Maybe a woman supervisor will tell him, "You're all washed up. Hit the road!"

2. I wonder where that mindfulness facilitator got her dress. Is that drip-dye, tie-dye or some other process? I like the way it drapes too.

3. Damn, I wonder what's going on with this student teacher I got assigned all of a sudden! Did she flake out on her previous assignment? What's up with that? Why did I even agree to do it?

4. Getting old sucks. I'm so tired all the time. I'm sick of people. I don't want to go out for lunch. I don't want to go to the gym anymore. My body is so weary, and my feet are cold. Why don't they turn on some heat in here? Dammit, I thought about putting foot warmers in my shoes, and I didn't do it! Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

5. I wonder if I should pull back the ivy in the back yard just a foot or two. But grass doesn't grow well, and Mr. J never mows the lawn. Isn't the ivy better? But pulling the ivy would be good exercise. Yeah, but you know how annoying it is working with that English ivy. Yeah, maybe I'll just leave it. But if I had a nice straight line down the back, I could put up a stone border, like a rock wall ... what, am I supposed to be feeling my back against the chair? Fuck that. Fuck this whole thing.

6. I think I'll stop by Woodstock on the way home and see how they're doing. It's sort of on the way. Let's see, if I take Haterfield-Berlin Road to White Horse Road, and then ... that leads right to Springdale. Easy! Because it's such a long slog up Route 73. Oh! Why does everyone have their hand up in the air? Did I miss something? Who cares?

7. I can't believe I'm hungry after wolfing down that Snickers.

8. Donald Trump is an asshole. All powerful men are assholes. Geez, even Bernie Sanders couldn't run a tight ship. But this country will never elect a woman. Women won't vote for a woman. I wonder why that is? But I know it's true.

9. Camping or a hotel? I'm too old for camping! I'm not sleeping in a tent on the ground. But the hotel is so expensive. I could use that money to improve the front porch, so I don't have to look at the disgraceful, hideous house across the street ... Is it time to go yet? FUCK! Another two hours? I can't even. Like, camping isn't as bad as all that. You wake up in the cool morning air ... snap, I would have to buy so much equipment. But then I would have all the equipment, and I could use it again! Yeah, use it again to go camping. I'm done with camping! I spent my whole teenage decade in a tent! You know what else I'm done with? Mindfulness! Just another trendy stupid thing our school district is flirting with. You'd think they would train us on what to do when angry parents start shouting in our faces.

10. Whoa, look at the shop teachers! They are giggling like kids. Welding and mindfulness: perfect together.


If you've gotten this far, I know you get the drift.

Readers, my stats tell me that I have had over a million page views here at "The Gods Are Bored." I think a significant number of those are spammers of the pornographic variety. Still, someone has been reading my drivel. If that is you, do you want me to bake you a pie?

Gratitude Project

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I asked all of my students to look around the room and write something nice about everyone they liked in the room. I gave them the sentence stems "I like you because ..." and "I'm grateful for you because..."

I put the names of students in my other classes up on the projector screen, so that every student I have could say something nice about every other student I have.

I compiled a personal list for each of my 65 students, with everything everyone said about them. It took a long time ... thank goodness 65 kids didn't say something about each and every kid in the room/on the list. But every kid had at least two kids who said something nice about them.

This is Zaire. He got the most comments. Everyone loves him.

Today was the last day before winter break. I handed an envelope to every student, warning them that this was not scientific, and people they expressed gratitude for might not have reciprocated -- but to dwell not upon "who said it to whom" but rather "what was said."

They loved it. It was worth the time and effort.

Blessed Solstice to you and yours ... out of the darkness we come!

The High Cost of Halloween

No one would ask a public school teacher to work on Christmas. It's a holiday.

Except if you're a Pagan, the holiday is December 21, and we're always still in school on that day.

For me, it gets worse.

As a Pagan, I need to take off work on Samhain.

Now, if I was a Pagan student, I would get the day off with no penalties. Teachers don't get that opportunity. If I want to celebrate the most important holy day on my yearly calendar, I have to lose either a sick day or a personal day.

So, what's the big deal about calling out sick on Halloween? Well, I did a little bit of math. For my first eight years of teaching, I am in a pool where I will be compensated $70 per day for unused sick or personal days. I have taken off Samhain (either one or two days, or one-and-a-half days) every year since I started teaching. Eight years, $70 per year ... That's $560. Throw in Imbolc, which I also take off every year, and the pot jumps to $1120.

Where's that war on Christianity that the moron Sessions is crowing about?

This looks to me like discrimination. Trust me, I'm watching our political events very closely, because I am ready to sue for that entire $1120 if the Christians push too hard on, say, something ridiculous like prayer in school.

Just for the record, I would be very willing and able to come to school on Christmas and teach a full day.

The Conservatives in Camden

Well, well, well! Another September, another year of teaching school! If you worked in the profession, you'll know that your administration waits until you are comfortable at your grade level and period length, and then they will change it up on you and make it baffling again

My classroom has no air conditioning. We had two heat advisory days this week. We got to leave early yesterday -- 12:45. That's not so early. I was so overheated I was dizzy driving home.

But enough whining! Pity party over.

I have one class of sophomores this year. I haven't had sophomores in the past four years. (see above re changing things up) There's a whole new curriculum for sophomores. I'll look at it next week. I have plenty of time, since I have to give a standardized test between now and then.

Today, having five minutes left in class with my sophomores, I asked them the question: What isn't fair? I started listing their gripes so they could see them on the screen.

Of course they began bitching about the uniform policy right away, and the school rules in general.

Then a student of color said, "Taxes aren't fair."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I think there should just be one percentage for everyone. If a person makes $5 million, they are already contributing more taxes than someone making $50,000. They shouldn't have to pay a lot more."

I said, "So you don't think the rich should be taxed at a higher rate than the middle class?"

And he said, "Nope. Think about it. They worked hard to get that money. They should get to keep it."

I said, "Well, that makes you a conservative."

Then a few other students challenged him. One girl said, "But the rich have it to spend. They should give back more! People need help!"

So I said, "Does anyone else in here agree with what she said?" A few hands went up. "You guys are liberals," I told them.

In the end, it shook out at about 50-50. These are teenagers, espousing personal opinions that might be coming from their homes and might be coming from their own thinking. Either way, there are fiscal conservatives in Camden, New Jersey.

Stupid Republicans. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

All the time and energy they spend gerrymandering, and vote-suppressing, and spreading their racism thick, like peanut butter on a sturdy slice of bread ... they could actually receive legitimate votes from minority voters who are fiscal conservatives. And don't even get me started on the social issues! I'll bet I don't have a single student who believes in a woman's right to choose. Well, maybe a few. But not many.

And yet, if I said to my conservative student of color, "Would you vote for Donald Trump? Would you vote Republican?" he would fall out of his chair. I can answer for him. Never in a million years.

I'm no sociologist, but I see this all the time. I would say that at least one in three, maybe more, of my students would test as conservative and vote that way, if not for the sickening racism on display in the Republican party.

But that racism cancels out everything else. Thank all the Gods and Goddesses of all the pantheons, now and forever.

Labor Day 2018

If you  know me at all, you know that I am passionate about unions. I wish there was a bored god of unionized labor forces -- I would make that deity dinner every night of the week, and pie on weekends! What this world really needs is a God or Goddess of Collective Bargaining.

It has been 10 years since I marched in the Philadelphia Labor Day Parade. I wasn't even sure they had it anymore. I kept Googling it, and I never saw any plans for this year. Then last week, about mid-week, I got an email from the AFL-CIO, asking me to march in a parade near me! Well, gee whiz. You don't even have to ask! Let me lace up my sneakers!

I sent my RSVP to Philadelphia and showed up this morning at the Sheet Metal Workers hall on Columbus Boulevard, wearing a gray "NJEA Proud" t-shirt I got last spring. Of course I was the only member of NJEA at the march, but there was a nice contingent of Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, so I marched with them.

It's 94 degrees outside today.

Remember when the Orange Menace got elected, and we had that great big Women's March on Washington? I went to that. It's just my personal emotional need to be gathered with like-minded individuals in large numbers. And that is why I braved incredibly hot conditions to be with Philadelphia's union membership.

The Philadelphia Labor Day parade is a moving spectacle. Each local has its membership decked out in matching t-shirts in vivid hues, with pro-labor slogans on front and back. It's easy to find your group, even thought there's more than a thousand people there. The unions march off with their banners ... and it's a long walk, about two miles, to Penn's Landing.

Before the march begins, a bunch of politicians give speeches about the importance of organized labor. This year we had Pennsylvania's governor, Philadelphia's mayor, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, a brace of Congressmen, and some organizers reporting on progress toward unionizing the big Marriott that's opening in Center City. Everyone was Union Proud, Union Strong! The governor said he would veto any anti-union legislation that reached his desk. (What was he going to say to a throng of union members in Philly? But I believe him.)

Here's a new theme, found on banners and t-shirts alike:

Considering that the Heir has two jobs and the Fair has three, I would say this sums up how to make America great again.

I didn't take many photos, since I didn't know anyone. But I did like the hopeful message on this t-shirt:

If there was any sentiment among organized labor that the Orange Menace was out to help unions, that has evaporated like a puddle on a hot summer afternoon. The Menace was roundly booed, and the odious Janus decision by the Supreme Court was not only booed, it was mocked on many a t-shirt.

 I do know that organized labor is the dinosaur, and the ownership class is the asteroid. But it's nice to think, just for one hot, end-of-the-summer day brought to you, like the weekend, by organized labor, that there might be a place for collective bargaining still in this country. Pipe dream, yes. But let me sleep just a few more hours.

United we bargain, divided we beg.

I Feel So Protected by Jeff Sessions and His Religious Liberty Task Force!

My name is Anne Johnson, and my religion is under attack. I'm glad to see that someone in the government is willing to do something about it.

Last month, attorney general Jeff Sessions announced a new Religious Liberty Task Force as part of the Department of Justice. As Mr. Sessions put it so eloquently, "a dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom."

How did he know?

As a Pagan, I have closely held religious beliefs that are under attack all the time!

Let's take a small example: holy days. I have never, ever had the right to worship on Samhain or Imbolc without incurring a financial penalty. My choices, on my recognized religious holidays, are to take a personal day or a sick day. Now let's say that my state compensates its workers for unused sick and personal days. Over my ten years of teaching, I have lost $700 on Halloween alone! Is this fair? This challenges my tradition of religious freedom!

I expect shortly to see Mr. Sessions address this. By next year, all Americans should have a day (or two) off for Halloween. This dangerous movement away from religion needs to be curbed, and I mean right now.

Now let's take a larger example of my closely held religious beliefs as a Pagan. I believe in personal agency, in the freedom each individual has over his or her body. If, say, a court of law overturned precedents that provide women the right to choose how to govern their own bodies, I would find that an attack on my free exercise of closely held religious beliefs. If nuns can be excused from providing health care that includes contraceptives, then a Pagan employer should be required to provide health care that includes contraceptives. It's a belief that we live by.

I expect shortly to see Mr. Sessions address this. We shouldn't waste any time, because there are a lot of young women out there who need the protection of the Pagan path in order to secure their personal agency!

According to our attorney general, "Religious Americans are no longer an afterthought." Well, thank all the Gods and Goddesses for that! I don't want to be an afterthought! Not when I can use my platform as a public school teacher to promote interest in my faith! Gone are the days when I will deflect questions about the magic wand I keep on my desk. Now, that wand is a "teachable moment." I might write a whole "back to school" blog post about how to make your teacher desk an altar to the Gods, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits. Afterthought, indeed!

Yes, it's time to restore religion to its proper place in our Godsless society. I'm sure Mr. Sessions will take the steps I have requested above as part of his Religious Liberty Task Force. And Jeff, you are welcome any time to drop by my classroom and see how my faith and my beliefs are lived out every day as a shining example to my students.

Blessed be! 

Waiting for Judgment

Some of us are eager to please, and some of us are super-competitive, and some of us are both. I'm both. Give me a job, and I want to do it well. I want to be the best at it.

Bored Gods and Goddesses aren't plagued with doubts about their skills. They're perfect all the time, and they are not particularly eager to please. Oh, to be divine!

I'm still waiting for my final teacher evaluation of the year. I've had two already: one announced, one unannounced.

Have you ever been hunched over and overwhelmed by your grueling job, only to look up and see someone standing there with a clipboard, charting your every move? And then scoring it numerically? How can a number be affixed to something as nebulous as teaching? Well, fling some money at some specialist, and they'll find a way to quantify everything.

Have you ever sat down to lunch with a bunch of colleagues who've all been evaluated numerically, and their numbers are all better than yours? Welcome to my world! The 25-year-old, second-year teacher who is with me 8th period got a better score than me ... and he was late to class.

I'm never late to class. I still wallow in mediocrity.

Our school district uses an evaluation tool called Danielson, which has about 10,000 categories, called "domains." Supervisors breeze into the classroom, watch the goings-on for a class period, and judge all of those domains based on a 40-minute span of time, one day out of 181. One would think that everybody would be mediocre under those conditions, but some teachers are always distinguished. They get 3.95 out of 4 possible, time after time. (I'm beginning to think some select few of my colleagues are actually bored deities. But I'm afraid to out-and-out ask.)

The thing about observations, they're the only time a boss even comes in your classroom. It's not like these people pop in to say howdy and see what you need. They don't drop by to chew the fat. Three times a year they slither in and start assigning numbers to every little thing. Then they disappear.

It's the middle of April, most of my co-workers are long finished with their evaluations, and I'm still awaiting the clipboard.

 At night I dream the observer is in the back of the room ... and I'm passing out textbooks and dropping them on the floor ... and the document camera won't turn on ... and the kids aren't paying attention ... and half of them are asleep. Then I wake up and go to work. Day in, day out.

All this and Donald Trump too.

Union, Yes!

We at "The Gods Are Bored," as well as Great Deities of Justice from multiple pantheons spanning millennia, congratulate the teachers' unions of West Virginia for reaching a deal on their contract demands!

EXHIBIT A: THIS IS WHAT SOLIDARITY LOOKS LIKE

Two weeks ago, if you had asked me about the future of organized labor -- as it faces certain disruption by a conservative Supreme Court -- I would have said, "Palliative care only, send to hospice."

And then ... in deep red West Virginia ... a "right to work" (for less) state ... the teachers just walked out. Fifty-five counties, all the teachers walked out.

EXHIBIT B: ANNE FEELS STRONGLY ABOUT THIS

Bring it on, corporate pig-dogs! We will taunt you mercilessly!

I'm not playing, here. I believe in unions. No system is perfect, but the practice of collective bargaining, so maligned in our modern times, is the only way to keep decent, living wages in the hands of hard-working people.

All glory, laud, and honor to the WVAFT, the WVEA, and their parent organizations! Guess what? The bargain the teachers brokered extends to all public employees in the Mountain State!

United we bargain, divided we beg.