u/literatureandlatte

Something I did NOT anticipate when deciding to become a teacher was kids putting 2 + 2 together regarding my own and my daughter’s ages.

I am 25, my daughter is 7. I had her when I was 17 turning 18. One of my fifth graders looked at me the other day during an after school activity and conversationally asked how old I was. Not thinking, I told her my age. I could see the wheels turning. She looked at me, looked at my daughter, looked back at me and shouted, “YOU WERE 18!?”

Then, another fifth grader looked at her and said, “that’s nothing, my cousin was 12 when she had her first baby.” 💀

I wanted to crawl into a hole and never make an appearance again.

Moving forward, do I just tell kids that it’s rude to ask someone their age? Obviously I don’t want them to go home, tell their parents, and their parents think I’m causally condoning teen pregnancy because that is not the case!

My fiancé and I are currently going through the OCIA process (yay!) and we have a seven year old child. We were under the impression that since our child is seven, they would be able to go through the sacraments with the rest of their classmates given that we had them baptized BEFORE the rite of enrollment.

Apparently, that’s no longer allowed. Our priest and religious educator are requiring that my child goes through the OCIA process and that it be adapted for children. When I ask the religious educator how the content is going to be adapted, I’m not given a straightforward answer only that “it’s being worked on.”

The thing is, there has yet to be any sort of adaptation for children. My kid is just sitting in OCIA with me for two hours, once a week, being exposed to content that’s a bit inappropriate for a 7 year old (adult family planning, abortion, etc).

I’m not certain why we cannot move forward with the baptism and follow the regular path for enrollment, reconciliation and first holy communion that all second graders go through.

Also, I acknowledge that my fiancé and I are not yet Catholic so that might have something to do with the why. I’m still not certain I agree with that being the reason we cannot move forward with baptism.

Is this normal?

I am applying to grad school and I’m fairly certain I want to teach middle grades (5-9 in my state). I currently sub for all grades throughout my district and every time I mention this, other teachers audibly gasp and try to convince me to pick a different age group. I get that it’s a difficult age group for various reasons, but I had the most amazing middle school teachers that helped me through so much. They’re the biggest reason I decided I want to become a teacher.

I’ve subbed for over a year now and the middle schoolers in my district run up to greet me & ask for me to come back. Sure, they can be total assholes but that’s part of the charm. Obviously subbing vs full time teaching is completely different.

Middle school teachers: would you have chosen differently? How is it teaching middle school ages full time?

I (28F) and my fiancé (29M) and our daughter begin OCIA classes in two weeks. I grew up in a Protestant (Baptist) family. My fiancé grew up in a lukewarm Catholic family, but never really attended mass himself. We’ve attended different churches, but as a student of history and theology, I find myself drawn to the Catholic Church more and more by the day. I literally can’t shake it (I’ve tried).

As a Protestant, growing up I heard alllll of the popular anti-Catholic claims but it goes even deeper than that.

My family was one of the first Huguenot families to settle in New Jersey. Big time calvinsists, obviously.

As you could imagine, this conversion has sparked some conversations between myself and my family. Unfortunately, the conversations are not very productive. For them to belong to a denomination that places so much emphasis on sola scriptura, over half of the time they can’t even back their claims up with scripture. They’re simply certain that I am making a big mistake, and that they’re sad they won’t see me in heaven someday.

It has gotten so bad that when my daughter attended VBS at our church (Catholic) and then my families church (Baptist) my dad made it a point to tell me how much more she loved going to their VBS over ours. He encouraged her to agree with him on the matter (she’s 7). He was also concerned that her making the sign of the cross at their VBS would confuse the other kids, so maybe I should have a conversation with her about when it’s appropriate to do that.

Absolutely insane.

It is clear to me that they will never accept us converting to Catholicism without patronizing us every chance they get. It is even more clear that they do not even consider Catholics to be Christian.

I am left wondering, how does one navigate this divisiveness?

I (25F) have attended a major university for the past 3.5 years and I graduate with my BA in political science in the fall. I will continue attending for my MA in the spring. I have a 3.6 GPA (totally bombed my first semester). I had to attend mostly online because I had to work while going to school and being a single mom.

I am noticing that as graduation approaches, many of my family and friends do not hold my college experience to the same standard as if I were to have attended all four years in person. I have even gotten comments like, “yeah, college is easy when you can sit at home and use Ai.” I have fought so hard to be where I am today, so for people to minimize that struggle really hurts. I know that I earned my degree, so the ai comments don’t really bother me. What bothers me is that now I am wondering how much credibility my degree holds since I did not attend uni in person.

As a Protestant to Catholic convert, I know my first confession is coming up. I am equally excited and nervous. Am I just supposed to look at the priest and give him a running list of the sins I’ve committed over the past 25 years (my entire life)? Or should I focus on the bigger ones that weigh on me daily? Do I give a back story, or do I keep it simple?

I don’t want to accidentally turn this into a therapy session and the priest look at me like I’m insane🤣

When looking at the history of philosophy, we often point to monumental figures like Plato, Locke & Kant. Does the current structure of academic philosophy allow for the creation of new "great works" of that scale? Also, is there a consensus on whether the core topics of philosophy have been largely exhausted? Thereby leaving contemporary philosophers to work primarily on refining frameworks that already exist? What (if any) are some examples of recent (20th/21st century) works that the discipline considers to be on par with historical canon?

I am concluding my BA in political science this fall, after which I intended on going back for my teaching MA in the spring. The closer I get to becoming an actual teacher, the more I question whether or not I actually want to teach full-time at all.

Here’s the thing, I am extremely fortunate in the sense that my husband has a great job and I technically do not need to work full time, let alone at all. I subbed all throughout last school year, taking on two long term positions back to back. The first was a sped role, where I basically acted as academics intervention for the kiddos who needed extra one on one time. The second was a 3rd grade ELA role, where I finished the last three months of school being their sole teacher. This included following lesson plans, grade book, going on field trips, parent contact, etc. After being in that 3rd grade classroom, I’m not so sure I want a classroom to myself every year. I very much enjoyed being able to go from class to class rather than being glued to one spot all day.

Has anyone here opted to stick as a sub rather than certified teacher? What would be the cons of doing so?

I was raised Baptist, my fiance never really attended church but his family is mostly Catholic. We have decided to convert to Catholicism. We do not begin our RCIA classes until August, but we would still like to attend Sunday mass and begin getting involved with our parish. As you may know, Protestant services and Catholic mass are completely different. We attended our first mass two weeks ago, and I felt like I had so much learning and catching up to do. Like I was behind. I didn’t know the motions, or the prayers. I couldn’t find a rhythm. I know not to take the Eucharist, but beyond that am I somewhat lost. I’ve taken the past two weeks to educate myself as much as possible, even subscribed to the Word on Fire Institute. I’ve read about half of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I guess what I want to know is this - Is it frowned upon to attend mass in “observation mode” for now? Of course, in a respectful manner such as standing and kneeling when necessary.

My fiancé (M27) and I (F25) have decided we would like to join the Catholic Church. We have recently become members at a local parish and will begin RCIA classes in August. My fiancé and I both come from a long line of “good ol boy” Protestants, as in “I can life my life however I want as long as I attend church most Sunday’s and believe.” In fact, I am a direct descendent of a group of Huguenot’s that settled in Elizabeth, NJ in the 1600’s. I hope that gives an idea of just how deeply rooted their resentment of Catholicism is.

Anyways, as you might imagine, my family has not been the most receptive of this change. They have become victims of a very bad game of telephone and believe all of the common misconceptions about the Catholic Church (Catholics worship Mary, Catholic is not Christian, etc). My question is, how do I go about having non-combative conversations with them? I know that I can’t make them convert with us, but honestly the mockery and constant need they feel to criticize The Church is twisting my perception of the people that I love.

I would love to hear from other people that have been in similar situations.

I’ve seen many discussions on how the cast was able to tell an entire story through micro expressions. One scene in particular that really sold this for me is when Hannah & Garrett are at Malone’s, and Hannah calls out hockey for being a violent sport and suggests Garrett enjoys the violent aspect of it. As an audience, especially those that may have not read the books, you see Garrett react to this in a way that doesn’t reach its full impact until Garrett reveals his childhood to Hannah. The accusation catches him off guard, and you can see his internal struggle that is happening very early on. Personally, this is one of my favorite Garrett/Belmont moments and I feel it is overlooked.