What does an atheist know?
He doesn’t know anything. He wonders astray. He doesn’t know where north is, where south is, or where is the exit. He dies. And nothing. That’s what it’s all about.
Quote
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New Faces
At this point, I barely know any of their names. They have 4 new names to learn; I have almost 120 new names to learn. Still, we’re getting to know each other, learning what makes each other tick…
A good first day at school.
School Year’s Eve
Tomorrow, I begin my twenty-fifth year teaching, my sixteenth with Greenville County Schools. Am I ready? I’ve reviewed and signed all my IEPs and 504 plans. I’ve worked with other eighth-grade teachers to create this week’s lesson plans (and of course, the administration tweaked the lesson plan template, as they do every single year). I’ve spoken to teachers and administrators about which students I need to focus on early in order to form a good relationship so that when things sour, I have that good relationship to appeal to. I’ve spoken to my co-teacher in my inclusion class about what we’ll be doing and had a fruitful discussion about how we will work together. I’ve watched (almost) all my safety training videos (the same ones, year after year after year after year after year…). I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, and I still don’t feel ready for tomorrow.
Part of that is because of what I’ve heard about this year’s group of kids. “They’re the toughest bunch we’ve ever had” was the common assessment of most seventh-grade teachers. I’m not looking forward to a year like that. Yet they always mature some over the summer, so I’m hopeful that will mitigate things a bit.
The Boy, though, feels even less prepared than I do. “I just want to go back to elementary school” has been his mantra. New starts always make him nervous, but K pointed out to him all the new things he’s thrived in this summer: a new scouting troop; summer camp with a different scouting troop; band camp with a group of strangers. Still, he’s reticent. I can understand that.
The Girl is just ready to go. She’s got so many AP classes this year that it’s troubling (seven out of her eight classes are AP: four the first semester, three the second semester), but she’s stubborn and resilient. She’ll make it.
K is not looking forward to the morning rush, but she and I will slip back into it.
Only the animals are calm about it…
Scout Family Campout Day 2
Scout Family Campout Day 1
Staff
Here’s a picture of our entire school staff — teachers, custodians, counselors, paraprofessionals, administrators, and cafeteria workers.
And here are all the people who were working here when I first started teaching at the school:
I am, in short, the seventh-longest serving teacher at the school at this point.
Books
This is my new reading/focus corner. All those books? Mostly provided by the generosity of the state’s education department. But the state has also said all books I have students read have to be vetted. By three teachers. So I don’t know if it applies to these books or not. If so, I’ll hang a sign on the bookshelf:
Books for Decoration Only Due to State Documentation Requirements
Meet the Teacher
No Rest in Hell
I recently dipped into a social media feed titled “HELL IS REAL” to see what kind of discussion goes on there. Not much discussion — mainly just a bunch of disturbing memes.
Meme 1: No Rest in Hell
The question that comes immediately to mind: why would an all-loving and omniscient god create a bunch of creatures he knew would end up in eternal torment that he himself created? It just makes no sense.
Meme 2: Hell is not a joke
Two things struck me about this: first, the imagery is so disturbing. Second, “affirm yes”? Did the creator of this meme think that at some point we would be standing in front of God, and he’d patiently point out that we didn’t affirm “Yes” (redundant much?) in our social media feed so it’s off to eternal torment for us…
Meme 3: Hear Hell
This one is so oddly specific. If we could hear the people screaming in hell, we might not fornicate. We might lie; we might do drugs; we might murder (see meme below), but we sure as hell wouldn’t fornicate.
Meme 4: Choices
Why is the devil eating this guy? And do hoodies lead you to hell?
Meme 5: Roads
If only this god who so wants to spend eternity with us had done a better job getting us to that point…
It’s disturbing that in 2023 people still have such simplistic, brutal, and illogical views. They pass this poison on to children and scar them for life. I just can’t understand how they can posit a) a loving god and b) an eternity of torment. It just makes no sense to me.
Trombone Shorty
Two Walks
Birthday Dinner
Reworking a Favorite
A favorite of mine, taken just weeks after K and I got married. Edited for the third time…
Crusades
The meme — I couldn’t pass it up. The Crusades — not something one would joke about. So I said so.
In the end, the original poster devolved to this:
I’m not sure what he was referring to when he complained I deleted a comment: I didn’t knowingly delete any comment. Still, the rest of the comment left me wondering how someone like that can function in society. If you’re an adult willing to call someone stupid, who is willing to behave in such a juvenile manner, how can you hold a job? If it takes so relatively little to get you to behave like a pouting child, how can you keep your mouth shut when it really matters?
In the end, I left the conversation with the following final words: “Thanks for the wonderful Christian example. I’ll leave you to have the last word. Make it a good one!”
Getting Ready
The start of the school year approaches — only a little over a week and a half from now, I’ll be starting my twenty-fifth year in the classroom. Or twenty-sixth? Or twenty-fourth? Twenty-somethingth. This is a year of changes in a lot of ways. My room layout has been, more or less, the same for the last decade. If it works, why mess with it? But now I have a new desk from K and a new bookshelf from our house, so things are getting a little bit of a shakeup.
I’m also planning some changes in the simple things we do every day in class. No more article of the week for on-level classes as the bell-ringer. More discussion in class, more discussions that are simple, shorter. More writing, writing that is less structured and more choice-oriented.
The Boy and I spent a good bit of the late morning and early afternoon in my classroom, arranging things, putting books back on shelves, wiping down a few things.
Changes
K changed jobs a few weeks ago, moving away from pure surveying and CAD work to something a little different: water-line inspection. Sort of. She works for Greenville Water now, which means she no longer needs the fancy desk she was using.
Which means, I took it to school today. When I walked into my room, this is the sight that greeted me: all the desks turned up, ready for the poor custodians to come and scrape gum off the bottoms of desks.
More changes when we got back home: our neighbors are going to be moving out at some point in the near future. They’ve lived there long before we arrived. It will be strange for someone else to live there.
Church Nostalgia
Sunday
Saturday
I spent some time working outside; K stayed in the house. Typical summer Saturday.
And So It Begins
