spiders

daydreams, imaginary friends

traitorous fifth column secret fae here to tear apart the human world floorboard by floorboard with my teeth

we are always learning things about the world, and so excited to share them with you

see @iliana for our good posts


spiders
@spiders

i wish i could become a high school biology teacher, but without the enormous mental, physical, and financial toll of having to go through college again,

or of being exploited by a government that doesn't give a fuck about teachers,

or navigating the extreme difficulties of creating large amounts of classroom learning material while suffering from chronic wrist and hand pain due to rsi

just let me have a job where i can info dump about biology to people in peace and get paid for it


spiders
@spiders

i'm chronically unemployed because of autism and adhd and not having a college degree or marketable skills, and only being qualified for menial service-sector jobs that literally almost killed me in 2019

the only job i've ever had that actually made me happy (before i had a mental breakdown and burned out from it because of the abusive working environment) was something that was, in a lot of ways, teaching.

the higher ups really did not want it to be described as teaching, because "that's the professor's job", but realistically you could not actually succeed in that job without learning how to be a teacher, at least a little bit, because the professors frequently did not explain things clearly.

teaching is one of the few jobs (alongside the almost entirely unobtainable "field botanist" role, which would be our dream job) where the mere concept of doing it does not fill me with instant revulsion and existential dread and the urge to Exit Reality, where i could see a version of myself being happy doing it, if they were somehow able to put up with labor conditions even worse than the previously mentioned job that wrecked us with its bad work environment


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in reply to @spiders's post:

shit i was gonna reccomend you look into uhhh....being a teaching assistant/special ed assistant/paraeducator (the job has different names in different places and counties) but they typically prefer it if applicants have finished a college degree of SOME KIND.

OTOH if you've got experience getting paid to teach/tutor/'assist' at the college level that's highly relevant work experience.

'teaching assistant/paraeducator' but like. it's teaching adjacent and pays minimum wage or better if you live somewhere with functional unions. doesn't always pay over the summer so check that part carefully.

otoh I think being a teaching assistant requires a certain kind of emotional kung fu mastery because you are generally assisting in the classrooms with kids who may or may not want to be there, don't care about the material, etc.

on the other other hand I get a lot emotionally out of helping kids that remind me of the struggles my ADHD/autistic/neurodivergent friends and myself had in school. OTOH some people are shits and you need a little thick skin.

but it's like all the doing and none of the planning and helping other people out with the clerical/paperwork side.

i hope this rambling perspective from someone currently employed as public school teacher was not obnoxiously unhelpful

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