Why are all the apps and tech thingies being so annoying this morning? Why do they need passwords all of a sudden when it’s the same device and I’ve been using the app on that device since the beginning of time? I was grading last night and my school computer was like NOPE. You don’t have internet. I’m like, every other device disagrees with you. I can imagine my senior years spent arguing with robots and phones as they assume they are smarter than I am, but they require a precise order of things being done that seems to change every time. Mind-boggling.
In good news, today is the last day of diagnostic testing at school, so the last day the kids will have an hour of testing, staring at a computer, before then having all of their classes and flailing massively at times. It’s funny how hard it is for them to stare at a computer for any sustained amount of time, considering they do it to play games and/or text friends for hours. I guess those things hurt their brains less?
So speaking of their brains, we spent three days teaching about appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in the classroom, trying to head off the stupidity in the future, and sure enough, at least four kids copied and pasted from AI (granted, English is not their first language and may be the bigger concern), but here’s one of their answers…
Sigh. So there’s some work still to be done. Not surprisingly. Welcome to my world.
OK, ironing is slow because it’s all still tiny people and things…
Although maybe all my quilts are tiny people and things. This is Wednesday night; I finished the graveyard except for one tiny bit on the other side of an arm that wasn’t ironed yet.
Then last night, I ironed the rest of the graveyard, an arm, a bunch of people, and the Statue of Liberty being born in blood…
Not symbolic at all. I thought I ironed the ICE swamp next, but it’s the main figure next, so that’ll be some bigger pieces tonight. I’m really hoping I can clear some time this weekend to finish the ironing…but it’s also gonna be hot and ironing when it’s hot sucks.
In other news, sigh. Because I’ve seen people say it’s because the shooter was trans or blaming depression meds and maybe sometimes we should provide more mental health services and reduce access to guns.
Maybe those are the things that we need to worry about. As I spent yesterday in a meeting about a kid who is potentially dangerous. Y’all aren’t protecting students and teachers enough. In case you were wondering about that.
I’m sure there’s a lot of uneducated people out there who think this is accurate.
And I’m ready to see a pregnant man, because that rectum is a fucking penis. So many things wrong with this picture.
Ending with hope for the school year. It says Love Nida, then a heart and science.
Yes, someone also crossed it off. I think today I deal with all the desk writing. I mean, I doodle all the time when I have to listen. Yesterday, I needed to explain how to NOT email me 78 times a day about your late work and how to actually turn in late work and notify me and how many emails I was gonna ignore. Because literally a kid left school early, turned in their warmup (which I grade on Sunday; already told them that) at 9 PM, then emailed me and asked me to grade it right then. Like WTF you little weasel. No. Anyway, I will spend the rest of the year RE-explaining how to submit late and regraded work.
Today I am still teaching about AI, but how to use it to research information or find websites that will help. Not to copy. Teaching citations (really simple ones). I’d like to think last year taught them that, but am starting to doubt that. We’ll see. Kids forget things in a really random way. Things that drive me nuts like: trying to hand in one page of your unit packet at a time. They did packets last year and it doesn’t seem to matter; they have forgotten everything. After school, I’m going to ceramics, then coming home and eating a solo dinner (it’s OK; I have a good book) and probably grading some shit, and then ironing. I have to be up at a reasonable hour tomorrow to do a Zoom with a quilt museum and another artist about a dual solo show (I know, weird) next year…and I’m going to try to go to the opening. Hopefully it works with school. Also looking forward to a three-day weekend so I can do something besides work. That’s a joy.
Kathy Nida 