Ope there it is
@opethereitis
EdD, Middle school humanities teacher, & QSA club advisor trying to make the chaos functional. This is obviously a personal account & my opinions are my own.
“When were you there last?” is my fave question for people complaining about how dirty or dangerous a city is. Recent answers abt Seattle: “oh at least a year ago” and “I’d never go there.” Dude, this city is beautiful (and very walkable), with great public transit. But yeah, stay home and hate.
Walking with the @washingtonea.bsky.social at the Seattle Pride Parade was so much fun! There is no was to capture the joy and love that this community brings.
Pic 4 — a quote from a very real and totally not made up “WA teacher” 🙄 (This is the weirdest thing, because there are nonunion teachers, who would’ve happily been quoted for this… Which begs is the question — are they even out of touch with the anti union teachers?)
Pic 3 — apparently we should worry deeeeeeply because the people running a statewide organizations with tens of thousands of members are making 2-4 times the average teacher salary (a salary we only have because of our union)? Freedom Foundation’s top salaries for comparison:
Pic 2 — what if I cancel my union membership? Apparently I’ll save around $1,000 a year…but hey, then I can buy liability insurance. Which probably wont eat into that $1k at all…eye roll (funny how they leave out all of the free CEU credits union membership can access that non union have to pay for)
An anti union mailer from the freedom foundation. They are just soooo bad at this. A story in pictures: Pic 1 — warns teachers their dues are “spent on mostly progressive causes” you mean like health care? Pulling kids out of poverty? Libraries? Basic rights for the marginalized kids we teach?
Fixed it. Headline writers are such drama. The article sites only 2 people (who both already moved) in its evidence that billionaires are leaving.
Yes. It is so different from the website families see when looking at colleges:
It is WILD that either of these engravings could be interpreted as “transgender ideology.”
Although the cost of living is high in CA and NY, that’s still a pretty big pay cut.
Seattle Pride & Seattle Trans Pride were the best reminders that there’s a joyful & loud community here.
I am nearly done with the 3rd draft of this dissertation & at this point I know I’m making progress but it feels like I’m climbing up a sand dune here, but not like a little one. This feels like I’m at the bottom of Sleeping Bear looking up & knowing I just have to accept the slog. #gradschool
These were side by side in my news feed. How do they even rationalize this?
The anti-union mailers are so weird. My union negotiated contract is worth way more than $1000 — both in increased salary over non-union workplaces, and basic protections. Working in a union state means my workplace is so much less arbitrary.
The birds are nesting in our local grocery store’s garden center. ❤️
Seeing pics of gigantic protests in big cities is inspiring, but it was also pretty amazing to see 2 separate protests in our conservative small-town county seat that were each nearly as big as the protest in the nearby (small) city. Also here is my favorite “sign.”
March 20 = slash EI funds April 2nd = encourage people to get EI 🤦♀️
Cutting fed funding mostly seems to hurt the communities that voted for the people cutting the federal funding the most. That doesn’t make it better…it’s just frustrating.
Representative @emilyrandallwa.bsky.social held a town hall so popular that the room overflowed — so she held a second one immediately afterward…because THATs what representative government looks like. #democracy #townhall
The DOE (whose new hobby is picking on trans kids) wants examples of discrimination by school zip code. Completely unrelated fact – the DOE’s zip code is 20202. enddei.ed.gov
We met with out legislators yesterday to talk about bills impacting education and trans youth. It went well, and we got to see the huge 5051 protest that occurred simultaneously #protecttranskids #civics #washington
It bugs me that middle school materials tend to be hyper cute b/c they’re designed for elementary kids. So, I like to make beautiful things for my secondary kids. Like a choice board for midsummer nights Dream. #middleschoolteacher #middleschool #shakespeare #teaching
Seasoned teachers cut their teeth during NCLB & are good at protecting kids. Veteran teachers have only taught post-Newtown & are good at protecting kids. New teachers grew up protecting each other & are the best at protecting kids. This is not going to change the way we #protecttranskids
Reversed the usual “I do, we do, you do” this week when teaching hero’s journey. Instead it was: You do—a circle on your fav movie We do—a chalk circle w/friends We all do—a giant circle with each student as a part & ended w/pass the phone #englishteacher #teaching #herosjourney