Peter Kupfer's Blog

Stupid Movie Names

The Land Before Time

How can you have a land before time? Time started?

And how many of these movies are there? Like 20? When does time start?

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funerals

I went to my grandpa’s funeral today. It was okay, but I am never quite sure how to act. At times, I feel a little guilty because I didn’t cry, and my cousins (at least some of them) were. I guess everyone acts different, but it makes me feel insensitive some times.

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Motivation

Some of my students (I’m not sure how many were involved) played a trick on me today. I found it to be very rude, but they of course didn’t.

I let a student go to the bathroom, and he was gone for a while. Another student kept asking about it and I let him go check it out. He came back and said the first one was stuck in the toilet. I sent a second to try to help, and he came back with a similar report.

I was concerned, and the class was laughing about it and I talked to them about how rude they were being and that they needed to be sensitive. They just kept laughing.

During this, we were trying to study for the final the next class period. This whole episode took about 25 – 30 minutes and pretty much distracted the whole class. There were three main instigators. 2 will probably fail regardless, and the others will probably get an A, so the review didn’t matter for them, but others were trying to listen.

Anyway, it turns out that the student who was allegedly in the bathroom had been hiding in the room the whole time.

In general, I don’t like pranks, but this is my least favorite kind of prank, because it preys on people’s trust and caring. I was generally concerned for this student’s health and was trying to make sure the class wouldn’t make fun of him when he returned while he was in the room laughing at me the whole time. It destroys my trust a little in every student.

It did make me realize something though, and if you are ever dealing with a teacher again, remember this. There aren’t a whole lot of extrinsic rewards to teaching, so what has to drive me, are intrinsic rewards. These intrinsic rewards are why I became a teacher, to help students learn things and to try and school fun and worthwhile for them. Events like the one I just described really kill my intrinsic drive to teach. I used to think it was the only thing I could ever do, but now a days a lot of other things are looking attractive. So, if you are parent or a student, please remember this.

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Up late…

I always stay up too late.

I don’t understand why I do it. I just have a block against going to sleep. When I know I should, I just don’t want to. I can’t do it until I am like dying! It is unhealthy and stupid.

Oh well. Hopefully time for bed now.

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