March 1, 2016

More Teacher (Non) Hacks

I found a two more Buzzfeed articles that insist they have hacks for teachers. 

Here's the first teacher non-hack post I did awhile back.





Let's get started.

#3 and #4.  I'm not buying chevron material and crafting benches out of crates. Kids are gross and they'll get them dirty. Also, if you teach 2nd grade or above, kids can't sit on the edge of a crate. It's cheap plastic with no support underneath.

#6. You can separate your community art supplies by color, type, and size all you want. They're going to get mixed up and messy because children. My students all have their own pencil boxes with their own stuff. I run a classroom based on capitalism. It's much easier to sort out the supplies they bring, make up for deficits myself (i.e. give them what they need), and keep everything separate. 

#7. Use tin cans for supply caddies. I bought caddies for $7 each at Wal-Mart. They're much nicer than a pile of tin cans. I did try this once and ended up not liking how they turned out. Buying cheap little pails or containers is the better route to go.

#9. Any school worth its salt will provide you with an easel if you teach the primary grades. I wouldn't even know how to go about building one, let alone make it look like I didn't try to build it.

#10. This will only work if they're your books on your personal shelf. Of course no one will remember to put them back in the correct location.

#12.  Have I ranted about these No Name signs yet? They are impractical because there's always more papers than clips and no one will look at it anyway. Side note: This sign hurts my eyes. Too many patterns.

#15. These crates will be knocked over by noon.

#16. Using a hook isn't that hard.  I solved the "stuff on the floor problem" by holding the students accountable for picking up their own things. They learn to do it if you ask them to enough times.

#21. I knew my friend had tried this so I sent her a text about it as soon as I read the article.



#23. I'm not going to build my own furniture. I'm just not. 


#26. I want to like this idea, but I want people to stop telling me to do things with fabric. 
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The next "article". Or rather, just a collection of photos, was written by this guy who believes children are our future. But he hasn't written anything else about education and he doesn't know how to construct an actual sentence.


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Have you seen anything out there lately that you know would just never work in a classroom? Pinterest is full of as many bad ideas as it is good ideas.


9 comments:

  1. I had a lady tell me the best thing to use with teaching is a cricut. When you walk into her room, it's fancy letters galore that are all laminated perfectly as well. You can totally tell she's a first year teacher and she is more worried about the looks of things like that instead of teaching (she's on an improvement plan but still makes stuff for the kids with a cricut).

    I think the crate idea is cute but yet you need time and if you have a bigger kid, the results may not be pretty!

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  2. A lot of Buzzfeed's aggregate posts are complete and utter bullshit. I'd love for someone to do an experiment "I did everything Buzzfeed suggested and this is how it turned out".

    I'm also convinced that 90% of the stuff they post, particularly like this, is compiled and written by people who have no experience. Or common sense.

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  3. Why don't people who actually teach write this stuff? ;-P

    Because I was feeling crafty before I started teaching 6th grade, I did upcycle some empty cans from home by covering them with fabric to hold some supplies for my classroom store. But that's about it. My art supplies are all stored in clear Ziploc plastic containers. I bought them when I started teaching first grade. Cheap and easy. Take that Buzzfeed. ;)

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  4. Haha, I know I am not a teacher, but just my short time observing/interning....I can't see some of these working either. Even just for babysitting my niece and nephew (like the crate seat idea)

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  5. Teach hacks kill me. They clearly never come from anyone who has been in a working classroom.

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  6. i love this.. people are always sending links or buying things for KC to use in his classroom and he's like... no. i honestly wonder who comes up with half this crap.

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  7. Wow, who came up with this stuff!? Wow.

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  8. The bookshelf thing.

    I teach PreK and K and I keep a storage bin next to my bookshelf. If the kids take a book from the shelf, they put it in the box when they are done. I put the books from the box back on the shelf at the end of the day. A few extra minutes of work for me, but much less headache than trying to search through an unorganized bookshelf!

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  9. I agree, there seems to be a lot of impractical ideas floating around on Pinterest for teachers. While I'm not a teacher as a parent, I can even see the impracticalness of so many of the ideas. Kids are messy and no matter how organized/clean you try to be things will get messed up.

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