He Threatened to Poop on My Desk

Voicemail: [00:00:00] He got all up in my face and said, if you tell. I'm coming in here tomorrow and I'm gonna shit on your desk,

the 

Andrea: classroom. Hey, teacher besties. Welcome to How to Survive the Classroom. And I just, I'm gonna preface this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna warm you up with the fact that I am. Probably like most of you, um, if you are still in school, which I hope not 'cause it's June and I hope you're done by now, but when I'm recording this, it's basically May.

And so I'm crashing out so severely every time I get in this part of the year. And this was the same whether I taught high school or college or whatever. I get to May and. From Madagascar to return to Africa where they're getting ready to land the plane and everything so far has like gone along kind of [00:01:00] swimmingly.

And then there's that moment where the penguins are like coming down to land and he's like, you just, you gotta, you gotta kiss it, you gotta kiss it like you kiss in your sister and then they slam into the ground and everything just es and falls apart. That's kind of the energy I'm bringing into today.

So just as a fair warning. That's where we're at. Um, I recently was sent a clipping of one of my producer's plants, I forget what it's called. There's like a special word when you, like, you take a clipping and you try and grow it and like fern gully it back to life. And sadly, um, if you remember what happens at the end of Fern Gully where like those.

Evil industrialists run it all over and there's like a green black goo that consumes the lives of all of the plants and the happy fairies. That's essentially what I have done to this plant. I think. Um, sadly I feel so bad about it. I should have said no when he was like, do you want me to send you some of my baby plants?

And I should have been like, I [00:02:00] cannot be trusted. Um, and he sent it and it, I.

For a little bit, and then I put it up in my office so I could look at it and then I forgot it was there. And it may in fact be a dried husk at this point, but who's to say? Because it's not right in front of me, it might still be alive and I might be able to bring it back to life potentially. Um.

Speaking of things, uh, that need to be brought back to life. So I am living in the great state of Indian, and I don't know if this has been the case for everywhere that my listeners live, but y'all, I would actually love to hear some of the new policies that are getting pushed out. I'm like. Such a nerd when it comes to stuff like that.

Like I, I told you guys about how I did like a, a principal comedy show and the beginning part of that was essentially the Principal Association representative going through all of the policies that are coming through [00:03:00] in the state of Indiana, you know, as a warmup to my comedy bit. Um, and so they went over some of the things, and one of the things that kind of blew my mind is that the state of Indiana is pushing really hard to reduce.

State or, um, what is it, property tax, right? They're like, we're gonna just gonna like reduce property taxes and you're welcome by like $200. And that's a year. Okay? We're not talking about like per month. We're not talk like none of it's per year, $200, like per year that they're trying to reduce it. Um, and of course when you rep, when you present it as like lower taxes, everyone's like, oh my gosh, yes.

I love that idea. Meanwhile. Indiana's like an older state, right? Like these school buildings, a lot of them were built like the one of the middle schools that I'm constantly at was built in the early 19 hundreds, right? Like I think 1911 was when that building was built. So these are older buildings that require upkeep and maintenance and money to let them run.

And so while I'm hearing [00:04:00] about all of this getting pushed through, I then have a teacher friend who works in this district and she messages me last night and she's like, Hey, did you know. I teach at such and such elementary school, the water is gonna be shut off tomorrow because there's problems with the pipes.

And so they told us they're going to be filling buckets and bringing the buckets to school, and that we, as the teachers should quote, discourage the kids from going the bathroom because we're low on water and I.

I'm What? What? And so I Googled it, right? And I talked to um, daddy Chat, GPT about it, and I was like, is this illegal? And chat, GPT was like, ah, a little bit like it's probably a health code violation because you're supposed to have potable water and like hand washing stations available. So I guess tech.

[00:05:00] Potential stations than maybe. Um, and I also, because I've lived here long enough, I know one of the school board members and messaged her and I know they discussed it and they said there was enough water today. I don't know if that means from the pipes. I don't know if that means from the buckets, but that's what I was told.

And so it's this really frustrating thing to be in this, um. In this kind of area where you fully understand the implications of some of these things, like removing $200 per household from the school district, like for those households, $200 is gonna be two. Great, but are you gonna notice that split amongst 12 months in a way that's gonna be really meaningful to you?

Like what would that be? Less than $20 a month. Like you're telling me that that would be enough for your kids to probably not have appropriate resources or much bigger class size. And it, the thing is, is like [00:06:00] they're not gonna see it immediately. They're gonna be really angry in a couple of months or in a couple of years when.

Hey, why is there 40 kids in my kids' class? Why can't I get ahold of the teacher? Why are our teachers not licensed? And all of these other things. And it's like, I hope you enjoyed your Starbucks that you had once a month, um, because essentially that's what you ended up buying instead of resources for the classrooms.

And that is I think, one of the more frustrating things to. You know, in these higher ed situations where I'm, I'm now like Dr. Andrea Ham, and you would think that would buy some kind of influence over anything, but I fear that even at this level, everyone's just like shaking their heads and like, ah. Like I, I, I don't, I don't know what we're doing.

And so I think that the biggest thing that we can all do is what we've been doing, right? And actually something that I did here at that principal meeting is [00:07:00] that we are gonna keep working really hard to try and do what's right by the kids every single day because that's what we do as educators and.

Administrators and all that is that we keep working hard and we get loud when we need to. Um, so I am in fact looking at opportunities to see how I can like, show up and talk to the legislature. Um, when I talked to the, okay, I have to tell you guys this because maybe you didn't know because I didn't know I asked her.

I was like, so how do you get in to talk to your legislature? Like, what, how, what is that process? And in the state of Indiana, all you ha it's, it's first come, first serve, first thing in the morning, you sign up. And they will give you three minutes. Did you guys know that? I did not know that. Um, and she also pointed out, she's like, listen, like if you come in hot, people are gonna immediately ignore you, shut you down, all of that kind of stuff.

Um, she's like, but if you can do it in a way where you're like educating them about things that maybe they hadn't considered, you know, that is a much better way. So if you guys just wanna show up to your legislature and just be [00:08:00] like, Hey, boo. We gotta talk, you can do it for three minutes. Um, so I'm sharing that with you.

Um, also. Where the lottery money actually goes because that was a big chat. Like we, we chatted about like we know at least in California, which is where I grew up and where my producers are in California, they really push like how much money it goes to the school system in the state of California for the lottery.

And I was curious about that. So we did do a little Googling and what we found is, yes.

I guess fairness to the California lottery, at least they have very specific accounting of how much money goes to which schools every single year, what percentage goes to what distributions, all of that. And you can even look by county and find out how much money has been given in the last fiscal year versus future [00:09:00] fiscal years.

So I was very interested by that. Of course, they are not telling us how much money they're profiting. They're not telling us. Any of that kind of stuff. And I don't think anywhere it says specifically like all of the profits go to schools. I would find that very difficult to believe because obviously the lottery makes a lot of money.

Um, but I did see that they do cut it down by percentages and then they'll tell you like dollar amount as well, which again, I found fascinating. So 80%, almost 79.9% goes to K 12 schools. And then 14% goes to community colleges, and then 3.7 to CSU schools, and then 2.3 to uc schools, and then 0.1 to other educational entities, which I feel like is just them being like, ah, who's to say where that 0.1 goes?

But you can actually, like, you can look and see. Quarterly reports on where it went and how it was given to specific schools. It will not tell you what those specific school districts [00:10:00] did because the schools are completely in charge of that. So the money comes from the lottery and it goes directly to those schools, and then the schools are able to use their discretion as needed to spend that money how they want.

That is one of those interesting things where it's like, I am so curious because I'm sure that each school district has to have some sort of like financial report that they report what they're doing with all of this money. But I mean, even me in my position and all of this stuff I, I have to do with education.

I don't think I've ever actually looked at a school district's financial report to see where all of the money is going. Um. So I'm just, I'm just trying to stir the pot and make you guys show up to your legislature and have you guys start fights. Good fights, growing fights, fights that make the school system so much better.

Um, I also, one more thing and then I'm gonna, we're gonna listen to some, uh, fan stories. [00:11:00] Um. I tomorrow night am gonna be doing a 20 minute standup set on Zoom, and I don't know if you guys know, but like Zoom comedy sets are very like amongst comedians. That is considered one of the hardest things to do because comedians like we, we kind of feed off the crowd.

We know we're doing well because we can see the responses of the audience and all of that. And so challenging to do standup comedy. I've talked to comedians about it and they're like, yeah, like it's so hard 'cause you're just like staring at yourself talking, hoping that the other side is getting it, but you don't really know if they're getting it.

And I'm like, you mean? All of 2020 and 2021. The only difference here is I'm not breastfeeding off camera like this sounds great. My toddler's not asking me for goldfish at the same time that I'm trying to engage potentially 30 students, potentially none because they don't have their cameras [00:12:00] on. Like that's hard for you.

That's adorable. Right. So I'm actually really excited about that because. That no one is gonna be there under criminal duress, which is what it was over Covid, where like if you didn't show up to Zoom, your parents could get in trouble because you were missing class. So yeah, I feel like ultimately doing comedy and I mean, I don't know, maybe some of the teachers are there under duress because maybe it was like a mandatory pd, but.

Who's to say, I don't know. I'm probably not gonna see their faces 'cause teachers are as bad as students and they're probably not gonna turn on their cameras. So we'll see. I'll let you guys know how that one goes. Um, but, oh, I also have a show coming. If, if you were listening to this when this episode first comes out, I have a show coming on, um, in San Diego, June 7th.

Mic drop in San Diego. So please come see me, come hang out. I'll have all sorts of stories. It will be so much fun. And I have lots of other dates to announce for the teacher's lounge, but we're gonna do that at the end of the episode, so stick around for that. Or if you wanted [00:13:00] to take a peek, you go to teacher lounge live com, that would be fine too.

So, um, alright, let's listen to the first story sent in by you guys. 

Voicemail: I know how crazy it to, but in my first year of teaching I had a student skip. I marked him absent as as one does, and at the end of the day, he came storming into my room with a friend, just absolutely enraged at me, and they started throwing food at my wall.

I specifically remember them throwing Pop Tarts at my wall. I was sitting at my desk and he got all up in my face and said, if you call home and tell my family that I skipped, I'm coming in here tomorrow and I'm gonna shit on your desk. It was my first year of teaching. I was so stunned. I thought it was such an insane thing to say to a teacher.

I didn't know what to do in that moment, but thankfully the kids stormed out and left. So I went to find an administrator [00:14:00] and it was the end of the day, none to be found. But I did find a counselor, uh, who was very involved in discipline issues. So I explained the situation to her and she was like, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

What did you do? I said, I, I came to find you. And she kind of looked at me like, what do you want me to do about it? So that wasn't any help. And I put in like a behavior referral in our system and nothing was ever done, but the kid acted like we were best friends the next day. So.

Andrea: I feel like you buried the lead. I need to know if his threat worked. Like did you call home or No, because if you didn't call home, that's absolutely why he acted like you guys were best friends the next day because he is like, I got her. I got her. I've been, you know, I don't think I've ever had a threat that someone was going to [00:15:00] defecate on my desk.

That would be a new one for me, not something I ever had to actually deal with. I do feel like I had students that would like. Kind of murmur stuff under their breath, but they wouldn't usually like, actually like kind of buck up, you know? Especially because I, and, and in that situation too, you couldn't have diffused it because he came in hot like mad that you had.

I guess snitched, like done attendance appropriately. Like I, that's such a hard, hard situation. Also, throwing Pop-Tarts at a wall is so wasteful. If you're gonna throw something at a wall, I feel like it needs to be something that is less delicious. Pop-Tarts are legitimately, I. So tasty, unless they were like the Unfrosted Poptarts, which are crimes against Humanity.

So maybe I could see that. Which like you marked him absent and then maybe he went to go get some, some snacks and all that was left was Unfrosted. Poptarts. I could see crashing out over that. [00:16:00] But to be fair, as I said at the beginning of this episode. It's not a huge stretch for me to get from where I am right now to crashing out.

So it makes sense that I would like try and justify somebody throwing food at a wall and threatening to poop on your desk. But I do wanna know if you actually called home because I'm, I wanna know if you did. Did you have to say. He threatened to, and I quote shit on my desk like, that is a wild phone conversation.

And I love that you had to write that in a referral. There were several times where I would write a referral and then I would just kind of look at it and be like, this, this is, this is insane. And I would like take a picture and like usually send it to, to my friends, um, and just be like, can you believe.

That I had to write this referral today. Um, and I would also love to hear the wildest referrals that you guys have had to write because I'm sure there are some doozies. I I never really [00:17:00] got in trouble for. Really insane things like that. I did have a friend who stole the popcorn maker that they would bring for like school events and all that, and he hid it in the boys' bathroom and he popped popcorn at lunch and then was selling the popcorn outta the bathroom and he got in trouble for it and sent home.

And again, I'm just wondering, like writing out the referral, how dumb would you feel being the teacher that's like student. Sold popcorn out of the boys bathroom. Like that is the wildest things that we have to write with an absolute straight face and sometimes have to tell parents with an absolute straight face like, Hey, your child is in trouble because he was doing an illegal popcorn sales operation out of the restrooms.

Like insane job. Um, let's listen to. 

Voicemail: My first two years of teaching were a wild ride. So I had, um, a sweet young [00:18:00] lady I thought named Victoria in my classroom, and she sat the back of the class, um, I think I had her for two years. And then, uh, one day Victoria came to school with a black eye. So as a polite, concerned adult, I went up to her and I said.

Victoria, like, what happened to you? Um, and her, her answer was not what I expected. So she said to me,

said to me, um, expect me expecting that she got beat up or something, or into a fight, some somewhat. She said, I, and this.

Some girl's guy and she beat me up. So that left my jaw, my jaw, a jar. I was [00:19:00] completely shocked because this girl seems so sweet and for her to point blank, say, um, yeah, some

a of teaching. Probably the most second most shocking thing a student has said to me. But I think that's as bad as it gets to me, honestly. 

Andrea: Awesome. Yes, Andrea is how you, uh, pronounce my name, but I don't get mad if somebody calls me Andrea or Andrea. The Andreas do tend to get mad if you call them an Andrea, but the Andreas usually don't carry either way.

I don't know what that's about. Um, I think that this is such a good example because parents and people on. In general, right? They, when I talk about some of the things that students share, especially with like secondary teachers and all of that kind of stuff, they a lot of times have the impression that like we are doing something outrageous to get this information from these kids.

That we are like waterboarding [00:20:00] information out of them about their sex lives, which do like. The amount of times that I have accidentally overheard because I am just existing in my own classroom, or I have done something like that where I'm asking an innocent question just like, Hey, oh my gosh, is your eye okay?

And then they come out with something like that. Is it just deeply horrifying? Because I'm sure that in that moment you're just. I regret asking, like didn't, she could have just been like, nah, man, I got in a fight. But like for a lot of these kids too, like they see that like you are trying to genuinely like care about them and connect with them.

And so that creates like this kind of relationship where it's like, oh, they care about me so I can just tell them the whole story because they're. Home life relationships and stuff like that maybe are a lot more casual than what I would maybe share or somebody else would maybe share with their adults in their life.[00:21:00] 

Man, the things that these kids will share with us are absolutely insane, and sometimes out of nowhere. I, one of my most viral videos that I have out there. Is the video where I talk about how I have a student who made a joke about his dad hanging himself and it's so horrifying. Like I never share the joke, I just reference it real quick.

It's at the very beginning of my video. Um, and like. In the context of how that actually happened was I had like that student who I'm still in contact by with by the way. Um, he and I, he sends me messages and updates me pretty often. Um, and we were just hanging out in the morning. I was getting ready for my day, you know, prepping.

I would always open my off my classroom 25 minutes. Before the first bell. So he had been in my class previous years, so he would always come in, eat his, eat like the school breakfast on one of my desks and we would be chatting and then a couple other kids you'd, you'd have like that morning group. Right?

Which is also, by the way, one of the things I miss most about teaching high school is having a morning group. [00:22:00] Um. And so they would just kind of hang out and they'd be vibing and stuff and I sometimes I'd be a part of the conversation. Sometimes they forgot I was there and it was always when they forgot I was there that they would say some of the absolute wildest things.

And it wasn't always about their own lives. It would be things about other kids that I taught that they didn't realize that I taught. And so they would be like, oh yeah, like, and then Kimmy got jumped after school and I'd be like. Kimberly Williams or whoever, right? That's a made up name. If I don't think I ever taught a Kimberly Williams, um, I'd be like them and they'd all look at me like, oh, I forgot you were literally there right now.

Or, oh no, now we've snitched. Um, and they would, they would accidentally snitch on their friends sometimes. And, you know, as a mandated reporter, like depending on the situation, I might, you know, send a little message to a parent, send a little message to, um. You know, a, a guidance counselor, like the first caller did, like, because that is usually what we do is like.[00:23:00] 

Either know whether the admin is actually gonna take us seriously or if we know that the admin wants us to go first to the counselors, 'cause that's the case sometimes then we'll reach out to the counselors and some of the kids are frequent flyers and so meaning that like they may have spent a lot of times with those counselors and so they have a really good relationship set up with that counselor.

Um, and it's something. They're making bad life choices, but no crimes are being committed. I usually would be like, Hey, send it to the counselor. Ask the counselors there if there's anything I need to know. Because to me, that was always a huge, huge piece that. I needed, like I would have, oh my gosh, there were so many times where I'd be really frustrated with the behavior of a student and then I would talk to the counselor and be like, Hey, like I can't connect with this kid.

I don't know what is going on. Can you tell me what, like anything I need to know about this [00:24:00] kid's life? And then all of a sudden they would be like, oh yeah, so, and then they would give me this insane backstory and I'm like. That would've been good to know. Um, but because of privacy stuff, a lot of times you can't like just send a mass email and be like, Hey, here's the trauma history of student B.

Um, and so you have to kind of like seek it out. And there were several times that I had students that I was like, I. Um, like found out that their parents had passed away, that they were living in cars, that they were living in a hotel, um, that they were recently placed in a foster home, that they were parents were going through a really ugly divorce, like so many times that that was the case.

And you know, it's that whole saying that like, behaviors, communication. Um, and that's also been weaponized by a lot of, well, I, I honestly think well-meaning administrators, um, who. Are trying to help equip teachers that sometimes, um, are instead making teachers feel like they're not doing [00:25:00] enough. Um, because they'll be like, well, behaviors, communication, did you build a relationship first?

And sometimes kids come in throwing Poptarts at the wall, you know, or you just say, Hey, how would you get a black eye? And they pop off with their sexual history, right? And so that, like, those are the things that like, I think. It's hard for admin to remember that that's how quickly that stuff happens, right?

Is that like, why were you talking to that child about their sex life? Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was not like, that was not, that was not how that happened at all. Like, I was just existing and asking them how they got a black eye and they, that's what came out of their mouth. Right. Um, something for people who aren't in classroom.

Whew. It can be a ride. Um, on that note, I am going to give you guys a really cool resource, so stick around. Oh, and I'm gonna tell you about all of the fun teachers lounge shows that we have coming up. So we'll be right back. All right. Teacher [00:26:00] besties. So I am gonna share a resource with you and I'm half sharing it to warn you about it and half sharing it with you to maybe point it.

To something maybe you could use because, and I feel like this is the way I view a lot of ai. Um, if you're a human that is like, I hate ai. I get it. This, this resource is just not for you. Um, I am still of the mind that I am undecided on, um, like the, the ethics and how to handle it and all of that. But if there's a resource out there, I guarantee you, your students.

So much like I use it for all of the different t-shirt designs. I use it for like, if I am stuck and need to find a template for something, I go to Canva. Um, the resource I'm sharing with you isn't is a resource on Canva. It's not Canva itself. Hopefully you guys are aware of Canva. They do have an education.

Part of their site that has like blank templates, lesson planning [00:27:00] templates, sub plan templates, a lot of stuff like that. So if you've never played with Canva or looked at Canva, I highly recommend you do that. They do have a free educator, um, account, so I would also encourage you to do that. I think they also have a free student account.

Um, and I just read like this morning that the owner of Canva or the business, I dunno if she, I think she's. Is one of the most successful female owned startups, or Canva is one of the most successful female owned startups. It's worth like $38 billion or something like that, which is wild. Um, especially because I have a paid version now that I'm not a K 12 teacher.

Um, but we're talking like $140 a year for access to all that stuff. This is not an ad, by the way. They're not paying me for this. They should be, but they're not. Um, but I. Honestly just am really enthusiastic about finding free resources for teachers. And so I have the paid version, but they do have a free, free version for teachers.

And, um, even, I know they did have a learning management system that was like trying to compete with Google Classroom and [00:28:00] Canvas, canvas and all of that, but I don't, I didn't love it. So, um, that's the other, the other caveat, it does have really, really cool graphics and stuff like that. For slideshows, not as much in love with their slideshow format because the videos don't always play super well.

Um, but if you are looking for really cute templates, they do have a lot of really cute templates. So just putting that out there and for one pagers, if you're doing that in your classroom, fantastic. Um, but the new thing that they just started is called Magic Write. Online AI text generator. And when I read that title, I immediately got a stomach ache because I was like, no, we don't need another way for students to not write their own papers.

Um, and I think that all of us as educators, were trying to figure out. How we can use AI and train students to use AI in a way that does not cripple creativity in a way that does not cripple critical thinking. Um, and so I want us to be looking at these tools in that [00:29:00] lens, you know, that like, okay. We know that our students have access to ai.

When I would do writing assignments in my classroom, even like a couple years ago when AI was less prolific, it was on paper and pen. Um, even though we were one-to-one school, everyone had a Chromebook. First drafts were on paper, on pen, and phones were put away. Chromebooks were put away because it was the only way that I could get them to do those first steps kind of on their own.

Um, also making things really personal is another way to do it. Um, you're never gonna keep every single kid. From using it. Um, but it is, you know, it's, it's something, and I do use AI a lot for brainstorming and for checking legality of whether or not you should send kids to school when there's no running water, like stuff like that.

So, I mean, I feel like it's, it's kind of turning into almost as useful as Google, but probably I know if it more or less reliable because. Necessarily everything I find first answer on either, but, you know, that's how I'm using it. Um, okay, so this Ai I text [00:30:00] generator, um, it is powered by open ai, so it's meant to a, according to them, and this is a quote from them, and this is why as a writer.

Writing teacher, writing teacher. This is gonna make us nervous. Um, it says it helps you get out of first draft fast. Simply start with a prompt and watch as copy blog outlines, list bio captions, content ideas, brainstorms and more appear in seconds. And that is always the thing that stresses us out. I mean, it's pretty obvious for us when kids come in with AI written stuff, um.

But you know, it does have a couple of things that potentially could be used for. Um, so I do like that it. Basically take, you could put some of your writing into this platform and it will help you format it so that it is more in your own tone again, as a writing teacher, terrifying. Because one of the reasons we can tell that kids are screwing up is because it doesn't sound like them.

Right? Um, but again, that's why I'm [00:31:00] sharing it with you guys because. I highly doubt there's a whole lot of students, I don't know, maybe, maybe there's some high school student that is forced to listen to this on their way to school with their teacher mom. So, sorry, kid. Uh, don't listen to this part. So they have, um, magic, right?

For docs that improves and analyzes the entire document, um, whether it's to expand a list, add examples, complete thoughts. So it kind of is turning an AI. Creative writing Grammarly is kind of the way I'm seeing it. Um, the way I like to use AI for writing is for things like sitting down and having, like, I hate writing recommendation letters.

I don't care how much I love the kid. I hate writing recommendation letters. And so I will put a prompt in and be like, write a recommendation letter for blah, blah, blah for this thing. And it'll create it. And then I'll be like, add in this.

So I do for stuff. I'm trying to see if there's, okay, so they've got a thing about branding. So for businesses, like if you've got your [00:32:00] side hustle like all of us do, it could be helpful for that. Um, they also do stuff for content writer writing, so if you're a content creator, it potentially could be helpful for that.

Um, I just know as educators, we, it's good for us to be aware that like. If you have a kid on Canva, it doesn't mean that they're not using AI writing stuff. Um, they very well could be, and it's good to know and be aware of. Anytime that we see an AI text generator, it's more likely they're gonna use chat GPT, because that's just what's out there and available, and they're pretty familiar with at this point.

Um, but you know, I'm, I'm also really, really interested for those of you guys who are teaching writing, and. Drafting and all of that stuff, what you're doing in your classrooms, because now that I am, you know, going on my second year teaching college, you know, I make my students for, we have a really big writing project we do, and they have, um, seven deadlines and they're very specific to the schools that they're doing their field experience at.

So it'd be very, it'd almost be more work to tell, chat, write everything [00:33:00] is so.

But I'm really curious to hear what you guys are doing in your classrooms to combat the AI stuff. Um, like have you noticed it getting worse? Have you figured out strategies other than paper and pen? Um, because I know we have AI checkers, but they're not super great and even AI checkers will sometimes flag grammarly rewrites.

So you know how you, when you're using Grammarly, and it'll be like, you should change the formatting of this sentence so that it's a little bit more grammatical, grammatical. So that it is, does the grammar's good? Um, and it, when it does that rewrite, that can sometimes flag as ai, um, which is terrifying to me because I definitely used that when I was doing my dissertation.

So I didn't use AI for literally anything else, but I did use Grammarly to help make my sentences do the words. So. I don't know. I don't know if that would flag or not. Um, but I would love to hear from you guys kind of what your take is on that and how you're approaching it in the [00:34:00] classroom. Because I think that we could all really, really benefit from hearing some good strategies on how to combat it and how to teach kids responsible use of this new tool.

'cause it's not gonna go away like it, it'd be lovely to be like, oh yeah, it's gonna be, you know, either cost prohibitive or it's just gonna go away like. It's not like it's not gonna go away, just like the internet didn't go away and we had to learn how to do research on the internet instead of doing research in encyclopedias, which yes I did.

Um, like it's, it's, it's not going away. So I think that the wisest thing is to be a part of guiding how to do it in a responsible way. Um, and I'm actually, this summer, I'm. Hopefully gonna be part of an AI working group for AI and education. They have to interview me and I'm like, why? Why are you interviewing me?

I'm obviously the perfect fit. Um, but I'll let you guys know if they want me. They might not. 'cause it's like real adults that are doing it and sometimes the real adults don't wanna work with me, which is so weird. Can't believe. Um, speaking [00:35:00] my work this.

Early on in the episode June 7th, I'm gonna be at Mic Drop in San Diego, and that is the only one I'm doing on that visit because I'm visiting family. I'm originally from San Diego. We're gonna be vibing, hanging out with my nieces, trying to like, give them core memories so that they know that I'm the best aunt.

Um, and then August 10th, um, actually hold on, lemme get, do this in order. August 9th, we're gonna Tempe, Tempe.

On August 10th, we're gonna be in Irvine. We're gonna be at the Irvine Improv. That is a big, big old site. And last time I was there, I was watching, uh, John Chris actually perform and thinking, wow, this is so cool. Wouldn't it be fun to perform at a place like this? And now I'm gonna be doing it with the teacher's lounge, which is, again, I don't know if I've talked about it enough for you guys to be familiar, but the teacher's lounge is gasper.

And Phil Lindsay. And we basically are on stage at the same time. It's not a traditional standup [00:36:00] show. My one on June 7th is, um, the one with the three of us is not traditional standup. Um, we're all up there together and we just bully Phil Lindsay a lot. Um, 'cause he's a homeschool nerd and it's really fun.

So, um, it's a really, really fun show. All of the shows are 21 and up language. Warning, I guess, um, because, uh, you know, Gaspers from New York, so I'm just gonna blame him. He doesn't, he doesn't know how to talk like an elementary school teacher. So, you know, just fair warning there. Phil has to wear earmuffs sometimes when we're telling stories.

Um, okay. And then the next. Site that we're gonna be at will be in Richmond, Virginia, which is only a couple hours from where I did some of my initial teaching, which is very exciting. So we're gonna be at the Richmond Funnybone September 13th, and then we are gonna be at the Raleigh Improv on September 14th in C North Carolina, which is very confusing that they call it.

Sneaky. Um, [00:37:00] then we're gonna Ohio on November, and then November 9th, Pittsburgh, um, and then September. October. There we go. October 24th, Houston, Texas, and then October 25th, Addison, Texas. We are so excited. We are literally so thrilled to bring the show to you guys. We had the absolute most fun ever doing our show in February, and we have been working on getting these dates for you guys at really great locations where the food is amazing and the vibes are good, and I cannot wait.

You guys are gonna have so much fun getting together, hanging out with us. It's really important to us that meet and greet is always included. So, you know, if you've ever wanted to meet me or gasper, or I guess maybe if you wanted to meet Phil, I don't know why you'd wanna meet him, but he'll be there too.

Um, and you could meet all of us because we always, it's, we recognize, especially with educators, that your weekends are precious and. Financially money is precious and we try and keep the [00:38:00] cost down as much as we can for the tickets. Make manageable for to lost on. People are sacrificing, um, time and money and all of that, and we really, really work very hard to put on a very fun show.

So it feels like it is money well spent and time well spent because we want you to feel really excited about your job and really excited about being around other educators and bullying people who come who aren't educators and all of that stuff. It's just a really, really fun show. So I hope that you.

Take the time, look up the dates. Um, we're gonna be announcing more dates as it gets closer, um, but most of the dates should pretty much be up by now because it's June. So you're gonna go to teachers lounge live.com, and we've got all of the links there for all of the different dates everywhere we're gonna be.

If there's somewhere you want us to be, then make sure that you email us as well so we can add you to the schedule because we are still getting our dates for 2026. Going, which is very exciting. [00:39:00] So, um, if you guys have thoughts about the resources, I have asked a lot of questions of you guys today, so I would love to hear from you.

Um, if you wanna let me know, um, you can either send a voice memo, right, we've got that on podcast or andrew.com. You can share it in a voice memo. You can also hit us up. Um, on Instagram or TikTok at Educator Andrea, or you can email me andrea@humancontent.com. Or you can contact the whole Human Content podcast family at Human Content Pods and be sure to check out the Patreon book club where we are reading the best book.

Um, I am so excited. We haven't, well, I guess by this point we will have. Announced it, we're gonna do the new Emily Henry one, which is a perfect summer read. So I'm very, very excited about that. I love Emily Henry's books. She is so, so good. So enjoy that. I'm very excited. Please join our book club. It's so fun.

We do a couple of extra episodes a month. I do it with Denver. Um, and then we also have a live where we all talk about the book together at the end of reading the book. So I think you guys are gonna love it. It's gonna be [00:40:00] really, really fun. Um, and thank you so much to those of you guys who have left the views.

I really appreciate it. It helps. People find the show, it helps make it on all the lists and do all of that kind of stuff. Um, and if you haven't yet, please do leave a review and share the podcast with somebody who you think would love it. Um, and maybe somebody else who you think wouldn't love it. You don't know.

You don't know their life, they might. Okay. Maybe they'll like it, maybe they'll be into it. Um, you can get the full video episodes up every single week on YouTube at Educator. Andrea, thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Andrea Forche. Our executive producers are Andrea Forche, Aaron Corny, Rob Goldman and Shanti Brook.

Our editor is Andrew Sims. Our engineer is Jason Pizzo. Our music is by O Omer Ben v. Our recording location is the Indiana State by College of Education. To learn more about our How to Survive the Classrooms program dis. Claimer and ethics policy and submission verification and licensing terms. You can go to podcaster andrea.com.

How to Survive the Classroom is a human content production. 

Voicemail: How to[00:41:00] 

Andrea: Thank you so much for watching. Want more of how to survive the classroom? You can watch more episodes right now. Just click on that little box over there. You see it, and if you haven't yet, please subscribe. Okay, bye.