TeachedUp Comics: Absolutely Glowing

From Collection 1 - Year One, "The Rookie"

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teacher gets on to student for using a cell phone in class

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When you're first starting out as a teacher, you're very much "in the moment" when it comes to classroom management (and behavior management). You are just a handful of years older than your students (if, like me, you taught high schoolers), and you feel the weight of having to prove yourself (not just to your students, but to their parents and also your fellow educators -- whether imagined or not) every day.

All of the characters in the TeachedUp Comics series are conglomerates of students and educators I've known over my years in the classroom. (For my readers who don't know, I spent 6 years in K12, transitioned to community college (where I also was very much immersed in the K12 world) for 12 years, and later moved out into the Learning and Development SaaS world as a fully-transitioned teacher (albeit still adjuncting for a couple institutions of higher learning)). This early episode shows how short-sighted a young instructor can be at the beginning. It also serves to show how technology has changed, which is kind of a retro twist on things (a constant characteristic of DrLaFazia.com, in general).

Here's what I originally shared on LinkedIn:
When I was first starting out as a science teacher, the cell phones were backlit (_if_ you wanted to be able to read the text-only screens in the dark, that is). They gave off a characteristic eerie glow. Students would hide their cell phones under their desks and attempt to text (there was a strict no-cell-phone policy in place).

This was before apps (unless you count the "play a high frequency that people over a certain age shouldn't be able to hear" alert setting...) Texts still had very low character limits. Unless you had a Blackberry, you were hitting the keys multiple times to come up with the letter you wanted to display.

I had only just gotten my own cell phone a few years before (at the age of 18). It was a new frontier: teaching in k12schools at the dawn of the cellular technology age.
I miss a lot about my time in a K12 classroom: having my own room and lab area, getting a chance to build and experiment with crazy things; interacting with new personalities everyday (one of the most overwhelming aspects of teaching, but also one of the most rewarding) and seeing those personalities grow and develop as they're challenged over the span of a year (or more, when I was privileged to have worked with kids over multiple years). Enough to go back into the classroom full-time? Maybe not.. but certainly enough to reminisce and reflect though creative outlets like the TeachedUp webcomic.

By the bye, if anyone has the gumption to "discover" Mr. Anthony Culpepper and place him in print across several newspapers, you know how to find me. Come contract-in-hand. :::wink:::