JBB’s Final Thoughts Episode 42: Another Transition/Another Reset

Update: 2023-02-26

Description

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JBB’s Final Thoughts Episode 42: Another Transition/Another Reset

Thirty-two months after my last podcast, I’m back at it and just in time for my retirement from teaching… What’s next on the horizon, I have no idea… but like everything else, it should prove to be an adventure. Please join me as I restart this effort to share my (final) thoughts. Also please check-out JBB’s DRP (Daily Reflection Prompt)

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Past JBB’s Final Thoughts Podcast Episodes

Credits/images:

music: Social Blindness – 22K by Smart Sound Music

JBB’s DRP (Daily Reflection Prompt)

All images and screen grabs by Joe Bustillos ©2023 except where noted

Jimmy Carter (caricature) by David Levine, https://shop.nybooks.com/collections/david-levine/us-presidents

Episode Notes/Script/Post:

Joe Bustillos here.

How long has it been? June 2020, I was in the process of going from teaching STEAM at Fitzgerald Elementary to teaching Robotics at Cashman Middle School.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2020-03-11 zSpace at Fitzgerald ES</figcaption></figure>

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<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2020-02-04 LEGO WeDo Robotics at Fitzgerald ES</figcaption></figure>

I really hoped that I could pump out at least one new podcast each month. I have spent the last two and a half years creating my curriculum, first completely remote with no access to actual robots, then fully face-to-face with students who have forgotten and some who have rejected any civil norms of being a student in a classroom.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2021-02-11 Online Teaching Looks Like This</figcaption></figure>

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<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2021-04-20 Cashman Robotics Room 300</figcaption></figure>

So the podcast fell victim to the demands of creating the world in six period increments daily to a largely silent invisible audience and then to a mostly nice but also suffering the misbehavior of a handful of malcontents. Ack. I regularly field the question “do you like teaching?” I love what I do, but in the moment it can really depend on which group of proto-humans I’m working with.

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"> 2020-03-03 Reading Week - funny Hair Day

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2020-03-03 Reading Week – funny Hair Day</figcaption></figure>

So the reason for this post? A teacher next to my room told me that his students had “discovered” my podcast and then a bit later I heard the intro music to my podcast coming from his room. That was an interesting experience.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">JBB’s Final Thoughts YouTube page</figcaption></figure>

And then another teacher mentioned to me that he had heard my podcast and started listening to it. He hadn’t finished the episode but said he remembered a reference to Jimmy Carter from the episode… Wow.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">jimmy-carter-teeth-by-david-levine</figcaption></figure>

All this to say that I kind of feel like I need to post new content… So here we are.

I’m still not sure if I have the bandwidth to continue doing the video version of this podcast. As much as I believe that video is much more “personal” and I believe in the format, I just don’t have the time needed to write, produce, shoot and edit a “regular” video production. But I’m thinking, if I discipline myself, i can squeak out a “regular” audio podcast, especially one like this episode which is all talking heads. I don’t know. What do you think. Seems that most “find” the podcast via YouTube and not the audio versions posted on Apple or Google or RSS. So, let me know in the comments what works for you.

So in this episode, I don’t know that I want to attempt to do some summary about what’s been happening in my life over the past two and a half years (other than the “online to malcontents” summary that I posted above). This week I informed the school district that this will be my last year teaching the Middle School/Public school face-to-face grind. So, for me the countdown begins, twenty-six weeks done, fourteen more to go.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">2020-05-21 Adios Fitzgerald & Thanks</figcaption></figure>

Like I said before, I love what I do, but I can’t keep up the pace of coming up with new curriculum for two to four subjects on a daily basis over 180 days per year, giving meaningful feedback to the efforts of over 180 students in a timely manner and chasing down a dozen or so disruptive individuals who are dedicated to fucking up my efforts and the efforts of their classmates. But I decided last October, because of the efforts I put producing the daily writing prompts for my Mentorship class and the minimal efforts put into responding to said prompts by my students, I decided to post these daily prompts on my main blog under the category: JBB’s Daily Reflection Prompt (or JBB’s DRP for short). I’ll post the URL in the show notes: https://joebustillos.com/category/jbbs-daily-reflection-prompt/

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://joebustillos.com/category/j