Giveaway Thank a teacher, get a SpeakEC Cards mold sample set (1 Viewer)

[krafticus]

After posting an update in the "What do you do thread", and a brief statement about my wife's job, I figured I'd offer a sample set of my recently acquired SpeakEC Cards mold chips. (with a follow on set coming behind, that I will send out to the winner(s) once they come in (whenever that may be).

This year has been a challenging year for school students and teachers across the nation. Many children and teachers struggled to strive in the virtual world. I don't want to go into any politics or arguments. To participate, please relay a story about how a teacher went above/beyond this year for your children, or if you are a teacher, what you did to help your students in this crazy time. If you don't fall into one of those categories, let me know about how a teacher helped you in your early days. I will have my wife read the responses posted, and select her favorite. it could 1 or more (up to 3). Teachers mean the world to my family, and I hope they've been good to you as well.

Once my wife has selected her favorite, I will add a few extra goodies to that box. (heck, I'll probably stuff every box with extras)
Free shipping world-wide, and all are able to participate.

#NoChipperLeftBehind !!

Cut off for entries/stories/blubs/documentaries will be Tuesday June 15 (our last day of school here in MD). Midnight, Eastern Time.

 

[blackhole]

We do homeschooling for our two 9 and 11yo girls. Everything going good so far but we recognize our incompetence in some disciplines... So we hired an english teacher, Mrs Chrisafoudis. Just the fact that she adapted her teaching to Zoom, and to the point that the girls absolutely love it (and are actually making good progress) is something. A lot of Quebec kids don't like their english courses, to say the least, as their parents are far from bilingual themselves. Hats off for Mrs Chrisafoudis for making it interesting (and efficient).
That said, here's the thing : her husband suffered from a severe meningitis this year, with consequences comparable to a cerebral stroke. He now is in intense readapt, learning to do the simplest thing again like walking... You can imagine the mental and physical fatigue she (and he) is going through. Sure, it's her job, and she has to work (more than ever), but catching the attention of two kids when you are exhausted... on a not that cool subject as second language... Wow! It's a vocation, I'm in admiration for those kind of teacher, and we should praise them so much more.
Thanks for doing this cool giveaway!

 

[Forty4]

Great idea @krafticus
Sounds like I need to strike up a conversation with my brother, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. Hopefully one of them have a good story.

 

[davethesave]

I am a teacher. I teach various grades and to complicate matters... I teach Health & Phys. Ed. Oh yes it has been fun... not really.

Being an Ontarian, we are in lockdown. only recently had golf courses opened, sporting events across the board have been cancelled and our beloved Raptors, Leafs, Argos, TorontoFC, and Blue Jays... well... you can look up each team to see where they are right now.

The direction I was given was "you need to just teach the kids health and mental health and all that" online.... wonderful. Sooooo now that kids are totally sedentary on their computers for classes that sometimes last all day long, I have to keep the kids enthralled with my nutrition powerpoint or my lecture about addiction or PEDs?? Instead I have sworn to get the kids moving and having them do various workouts. I have to plug FitON which is a free website/app for anyone that is looking for some sort of activity to do at home....

To make a long story longer... I care about my kids. I want what is best for them. I do believe this year is more of a lost year, and I don't know if talking everyday about mental health or other health topics quite satisfies what they need. They NEED TO MOVE! They need to get outside. They need to be kids! While I do see importance in textbook knowledge and all that important stuff.... we are truly setting this generation back socially. The gap that we will see with kids and how they interact with one another in the years to come is scary.

I will refrain to get into how badly these kids need team sports... but I have had students who are trying to prep for college/university come to me at a loss because they are out of practice with their teams and ultimately they may be the end of their athletic aspirations as Colleges in the states will continue to seek out top talent as my athletes remain idle up here.

WHAT HAVE I DONE TO HELP MY STUDENTS DURING THIS CRAZY TIME?
I think I have shown them that I am human. I am not a superhero. I am not immune to all that affects us in the world. I am doing the best I can do and in doing that I know they are doing the best they can do in my classes. This is not about grades, or hard deadlines. This is about being there for eachoether in our times of need. Seeing one another on camera to remember that we were once a class, a family, a homeroom, etc. Once life was one way... and now it has changed... how will we adapt? Evolve? Can we cope? I think I have helped my students understand that we need to lean on one another, we need to check up on eachother, and we need to appreciate everything that we have in life, because we see what happens when life is literally taken away from us. It is my hope that this understanding of how important they are in this house of cards is vital to knowing their worth. Normally they would get that with in person human face to face interactions, but as an educator I have to highlight that point.

N.B. I teach about 60 grade 6/7 students and about 100ish grade 10/11 students... Ask me for the ridiculous virtual schedule and you may blow a blood vessel!

Long winded response... I apologize... if you have any questions I can get into further detail.

Thank you for doing this.

PS. My mom is a retired teacher, and my pregnant wife is also a teacher but safely here at home.

 

[DeeVee8]

I'm also a teacher (19 yrs and counting) who moved to the virtual world to teach tech courses. I'm not trying to win the sample set, I just wanted to let you know that what you're doing is pretty cool.

 

[Talrem]

After posting an update in the "What do you do thread", and a brief statement about my wife's job, I figured I'd offer a sample set of my recently acquired SpeakEC Cards mold chips. (with a follow on set coming behind, that I will send out to the winner(s) once they come in (whenever that may be).

This year has been a challenging year for school students and teachers across the nation. Many children and teachers struggled to strive in the virtual world. I don't want to go into any politics or arguments. To participate, please relay a story about how a teacher went above/beyond this year for your children, or if you are a teacher, what you did to help your students in this crazy time. If you don't fall into one of those categories, let me know about how a teacher helped you in your early days. I will have my wife read the responses posted, and select her favorite. it could 1 or more (up to 3). Teachers mean the world to my family, and I hope they've been good to you as well.

Once my wife has selected her favorite, I will add a few extra goodies to that box. (heck, I'll probably stuff every box with extras)
Free shipping world-wide, and all are able to participate.

#NoChipperLeftBehind !!

Cut off for entries/stories/blubs/documentaries will be Tuesday June 15 (our last day of school here in MD). Midnight, Eastern Time.

View attachment 707611

I am a teacher in NYC. I could tell many stories of struggles faced by my students and myself, but I’d type for days about them all. I would also like the donation of chips to go to someone more deserving than I am (preferably a teacher) - someone who could use a bit of positivity in this dark time. Teachers are always overworked and underpaid. It’s one of the sacrifices we make for a better tomorrow.
Thanks for this post! It’s much appreciated!

 

[Coyote]

My teacher in 3d grade realized I wasn't just "introvert", as my parents told him, but rather terrorized and lacking any self-confidence.
He started praising me in public consistently for my admittedly excellent work (which I didn't think was excellent up to then) and managed to turn me somewhat socially functional ever since.
He even persuaded me to attend the school's summer camp that following summer, without mom and dad for two weeks, for the first time in my life. I was quoted saying "I have to get used to that, in view of my service in the Army"
I never cried again for being away from mom.
My soul is forever indebted to my late teacher.

 

[moose]

Yeah I don't need a sample set either but I have been working from home teaching college level mechanical technology for over a year. Earliest I will be back in a classroom will be 2022! We have been using d2L to deliver material electronically for many years but now everything is 100% online. I have a Surface tablet and use it to create live notes with OneNote during classes. I also use Teams to collaborate with my students for their project course. I find Teams to be very efficient for this and I can hold 1 on 1 meetings online to discuss and review their weekly progress with all my students. Even when we return to in person instruction, I will likely keep doing the 1 on 1 meetings online now.

 

[wmaddix]

Most importantly, I want to thank your wife for all the blood, sweat and tears. Teaching is hard work. It's often thankless. And it's also monumentally heroic.

Too often we get captivated by the master teacher narrative, the one who succeeds against incomprehensibly difficult odds. I'm thinking Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, for example. But the truth is that it's the small things that make the biggest difference. Inspiring kids to be their better selves. Modeling how to interact with this world. Your wife is a hero not because of her made-for-Hollywood epic success stories--it's because of the small things she does each and every day to make a difference in the lives of our kids.

So here's a story of one of those simple, everyday things. I was grading when I got to a struggling student's test. To my surprise, she aced it. So I fired off a quick e-mail to the mom, saying, "Wow, your daughter got the highest score in the class! I'm super impressed." That e-mail took me less than a minute. But the mom replied that it made her so proud she started crying.

Teachers are superheroes, not because they go above and beyond. Saving lives is their everyday job.

 

[FDLmold]

High school chemistry teacher here. We were hybrid, then virtual, then hybrid, then full time this year. I tried about ten ways to deliver content to my students, attempting to see what was effective, if anything. Nothing stuck very well. I held them to a high standard as much as I was able, but the end of the year we all coasted. We were ready.

 

[Coyote]

High school chemistry teacher here. We were hybrid, then virtual, then hybrid, then full time this year. I tried about ten ways to deliver content to my students, attempting to see what was effective, if anything. Nothing stuck very well. I held them to a high standard as much as I was able, but the end of the year we all coasted. We were ready.

Despite being a classics-oriented pupil (Ancient Greek, Latin, History, Sociology) I got full marks (100/100) in Chemistry as late as the 11th grade. Probably because Chemistry isn't that much mathematical (like Physics) and my Chemistry teacher had bra-piercing nipples.

 

[trigs]

I'm a high school English teacher. Teaching English online has been incredibly difficult and I am hoping that things can get back to normal next school year. I really miss being in the classroom with the kids. It is very difficult to interact with the students online, and I've always felt that that is the most important part of teaching. Sure, I will obviously teach the curriculum and cover all the necessary assignments and such, but I personally enjoy it most when I can have discussions with my students and actually get to know them and get them to think critically about things. I have been known to take a break from the school work during class if there is something interesting or significant that the students want to talk about. Engaging with them on topics they are interested in and actually getting them to question and think about things from a different perspective is incredibly important imho. Although I am an English teacher, I majored in philosophy in university and I always try to connect my lessons to broader philosophical topics and concepts that are important and necessary for life in general.

It's kind of funny, but I'm sort of known as the teacher that all the "bad" students like. I've been told on multiple occasions that so-and-so student hates all his teachers and skips all their classes except mine. Even at my previous teaching job (I used to teach high school credits to adult students), where literally half my students were high school drop outs for whatever reason, and many had behavior and/or emotional issues, the administration would always put the "problem students" into my class because it seemed that I was always able to control them and help them. I actually had students at that school refuse to have any other teacher but me.

Just this week, I received an email from one of my previous students who recently got accepted into university. She emailed me thanking me for inspiring her interest in philosophy and literature and for helping her through grade 10 which she stated was one of the roughest years she's ever had to deal with. As a teacher, you rarely get any recognition about doing your job well, but this email was definitely touching for me.

People who ridicule teachers and the teaching profession really don't understand how challenging being a teacher can be. Obviously there are bad teachers that just don't care and don't try, but there are people like that in every type of job. Imho, being a good teacher is an incredibly difficult job that really not many people would be able to handle.