A 4th-Grade Teacher Refused to Lie to His Students, so He Taught the True History of Christopher Columbus

This is an important story, so pay attention.

Nathanael Madden is a teacher at Cold Spring Elementary in Potomac, Maryland, and he has decided to take a different path when teaching his students about a very controversial historical figure.

Madden decided that he would teach the real history of Columbus and Columbus Day to his 4th-grade students, and his tweets about his student’s responses went viral.

Madden said about his decision,

“School is often a very confining and controlling place for kids, and I want to create a space for students to feel liberated by learning. I want all students to feel that they are free to be who they are and that they have a place of belonging in my classroom. This also means that we can’t ignore our world’s current realities, as well as how everything has been impacted by historical realities. Through my teaching, I constantly encourage and challenge my students to be critical questioners and critical thinkers so they can be active and informed participants in our world.”

Madden shared a series of tweets in which he talked about how his students responded to his lessons laying out the “alternative history” that is not usually taught in public schools.

Madden added,

“For so long, particularly in the US, the story of Columbus as a heroic explorer has been the dominant narrative, erasing and ignoring the voices of Indigenous peoples who have known the truth for centuries. As we grapple with the myths of American exceptionalism and start listening to the voices of different marginalized groups, we can uncover the truths of history.”

American public education has come a long way since I was in grade school; I don’t remember anything other than praise for Christopher Columbus around the time we celebrated Columbus Day at school.

The times, they are a-changing…and that’s a good thing.

The post A 4th-Grade Teacher Refused to Lie to His Students, so He Taught the True History of Christopher Columbus appeared first on UberFacts.

A Man Paid off the Entire School Lunch Debt for 400 Kids in His Town

Children should never go hungry in the United States, but the sad fact is that it happens every day to thousands and thousands of kids. And sometimes we forget there are actually things we can do to help – but there are.

Andrew Levy, a real estate agent in Jupiter, Florida, decided to take things into his own hands after he saw a list detailing the outstanding lunch debt owed by 400 kids in 9 schools in his area.

The debt totaled $944.34, which is not so much, all things considered. Levy decided to pay the entire debt off for the kids and their families.

One man in Jupiter, Florida, decided that he could make a difference in his town by paying off the lunch debt for every child in the system.

Posted by 5NEWS on Monday, October 14, 2019

A woman in Jupiter named Angie Vyas-Knight got the ball rolling when she shared a post on Facebook talking about the school lunch issue and how kids were going hungry. She then got the local stats from the Palm Beach County school board and compiled a list outlining the debts. This list eventually reached Andrew Levy, who said, “I thought that’s crazy. Food is something you shouldn’t have to think about. Children shouldn’t learn hungry.”

After he paid off the debt, Levy started thinking about the issue in a bigger context. Levy realized that many more kids in his area, not just in Jupiter, need help paying for their school lunches. In fact, students in Palm Beach County, a district with more than 180,000 students, currently have an outstanding lunch debt of $50,000 .

Levy said, “I’m going to do either a GoFundMe page or a fundraising page that can raise money every quarter, so lunch debt never accumulates so that children never have to worry about a hot meal and parents never have to worry about paying the bill.”

If you want to help out, visit the district’s website to get more information.

Unfortunately, this is a major issue that many school districts have to address. We can only hope that more people like Andrew Levy will step up to the plate to help out the kids in need.

It’s called thinking BIG!

The post A Man Paid off the Entire School Lunch Debt for 400 Kids in His Town appeared first on UberFacts.

These Students All Have Very Cool Teachers

I had some teachers I didn’t like too much when I was growing up, but the really, really awesome ones definitely made up for it.

And these students have some real gems right here. These teachers all seem pretty great.

Let’s just hope the students appreciate them!

1. I like their style.

History professor teaches about the first man in space. from funny

2. Don’t be stupid.

A little wisdom from my Physics professor from funny

3. He’s a true wizard.

Our professor wears his hat and cape every time he conducts an experiment from funny

4. This is pretty cool.

George Fox University’s iMac Box Wheel

5. You better be quiet.

Genius teacher from funny

6. The substitute cat is here.

My teacher is the greatest from wholesomememes

7. One of the good ones.

“My face physically hurts from smiling so much today, I love teaching you guys” -my professor, who’s such a good soul from MadeMeSmile

8. This guy is awesome.

9. Follow the face.

My teacher raises a picture of his own face to make sure no student is lost during the fire drill. from mildlyinteresting

10. Better have a good argument.

All set for my meeting with the student that missed more than 30 classes this semester and emailed me to set up an appointment to talk about his grade.

Posted by David Red on Tuesday, April 24, 2018

11. Please act accordingly.

Spotted in the window of a biology professor office at a community college. from funny

12. Algebra is cool, bro!

The coolest math teacher in town from pics

13. “It’s in the syllabus!”

Frustrated with the same old questions, my profeesor ripped off his shirt in the middle of lecture from funny

14. Just go with it.

15. We have a winner!

My professor gave me a present today.. from funny

Let’s give it up for all the teachers out there!

They do their best every single day and put up with a ton of BS from kids and parents. Bravo!

The post These Students All Have Very Cool Teachers appeared first on UberFacts.

These Students All Have Very Cool Teachers

I had some teachers I didn’t like too much when I was growing up, but the really, really awesome ones definitely made up for it.

And these students have some real gems right here. These teachers all seem pretty great.

Let’s just hope the students appreciate them!

1. I like their style.

History professor teaches about the first man in space. from funny

2. Don’t be stupid.

A little wisdom from my Physics professor from funny

3. He’s a true wizard.

Our professor wears his hat and cape every time he conducts an experiment from funny

4. This is pretty cool.

George Fox University’s iMac Box Wheel

5. You better be quiet.

Genius teacher from funny

6. The substitute cat is here.

My teacher is the greatest from wholesomememes

7. One of the good ones.

“My face physically hurts from smiling so much today, I love teaching you guys” -my professor, who’s such a good soul from MadeMeSmile

8. This guy is awesome.

9. Follow the face.

My teacher raises a picture of his own face to make sure no student is lost during the fire drill. from mildlyinteresting

10. Better have a good argument.

All set for my meeting with the student that missed more than 30 classes this semester and emailed me to set up an appointment to talk about his grade.

Posted by David Red on Tuesday, April 24, 2018

11. Please act accordingly.

Spotted in the window of a biology professor office at a community college. from funny

12. Algebra is cool, bro!

The coolest math teacher in town from pics

13. “It’s in the syllabus!”

Frustrated with the same old questions, my profeesor ripped off his shirt in the middle of lecture from funny

14. Just go with it.

15. We have a winner!

My professor gave me a present today.. from funny

Let’s give it up for all the teachers out there!

They do their best every single day and put up with a ton of BS from kids and parents. Bravo!

The post These Students All Have Very Cool Teachers appeared first on UberFacts.

15 Funny Tweets About College Life

Leaving home to go away to college can be a real eye-opener, depending on how you were raised. If you didn’t have much responsibility growing up, getting to class on time and doing all your work might seem next to impossible.

And that’s what these tweets are all about: learning things almost IMMEDIATELY in college that you don’t learn in high school.

Do any of these look familiar to you?

1. Ain’t that the truth.

2. They’re all morons!

3. It’s crunch time!

4. Why did I do that?

5. Do what you gotta do.

6. She’s gone forever.

7. It’s a different ballgame.

8. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

9. They’ll be in charge soon.

10. Classic dorm decor.

11. That’s not helping.

12. The crying alarm.

13. Two worlds colliding.

14. Way to go!

15. Just keep it professional, okay?

Ahhhh, what a nice trip down memory lane!

Share some of your similar college experiences with us in the comments!

The post 15 Funny Tweets About College Life appeared first on UberFacts.

These Easy Back-To-School Tips Might Have Teachers Cheering

Teachers, listen up! With everyone back to school, here are a few teacher life hacks to help you get through the year!

10. A wireless doorbell can silence a class and save your voice.

9. This pillowcase hack will keep your room organized.

8. Keep your tissue boxes from walking away.

View this post on Instagram

What’s the best way to show you the most amazing teacher hack ever? With an animated version of how it works, of course! . . Are you tired of the tissue box going missing? Are you concerned about all the germs on the box? If you are, go snag yourself one of these bad boys! . . I bought my under the counter thingy at Walmart, trimmed the grate to fit where the entire tissue comes out. Shake the box up really good so the tissues loosen up inside and they come out easier. Hang it in a convenient spot and you’re good to go! If you need a tutorial of how I did mine, go check out my highlight story “Tissue Box Hanging Thingy Hack” . . . #teachovertherainbow #texas #iteachintexas #texasteachersofinstagram #teachintheheartoftexas #texasteachertribe #texasteachers #4thgradeteacher #4thgrade #iteach4th #libertyelementary #LISD #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #tftpickme #iteachtoo #teacherlife #teachersofig #teachergram #teachermom #teachersofinsta #teacherlove #allthingsrainbow #classroompinspirations

A post shared by ?Mrs. Carnline, M. Ed? (@teachovertherainbow) on

7. This glue hack will save teachers money while keeping craft time neat and tidy.

6. Keep your students focused on reading with these easy-to-make reading strips.

5. Salt shakers are a great tool to keep glitter organized (if not totally contained).

4. A closet shoe organizer can hold almost anything.

3. With the help of a few household items, you can create a fun word game.

2. Eliminate lost pencils by having your students place them in personalized toothbrush cases.

1. And lastly, teachers. Set an alarm and remember to leave work at a decent time. You need your rest!

 

You got this teachers – we’re rooting for you!

The post These Easy Back-To-School Tips Might Have Teachers Cheering appeared first on UberFacts.

15 Teachers Recall the Most Obvious Crush a Student Ever Had

These 15 teachers had no trouble telling when these students were crushing, and though the instances range from sweet to awkward, they all have one thing in common – it definitely wasn’t a secret.

15. Points for creativity but I doubt the police would consider them a get out of jail free.

Working as a substitute teacher, i had a sixth grader hand in a poem that went: “Roses are red, violets are Blue I am single, how about you?”

She also worked her phone number into another poem she handed in.

14. I’m going to go ahead and cringe for everyone reading this.

Not a teacher, but this one girl had such a blatantly huge crush on my film studies teacher when we were 15/16 – she herself was mixed-race and would ask the poor guy if he “preferred white chocolate, dark chocolate or caaaaaramelwinkyface” safe to say that was awkward for everyone present in the room

13. There’s never a wrong time to quote Mary Poppins.

Back when I was teaching preschool. Three-year-olds don’t do subtle. He always wanted to hold my hand when we went on walks, to sit next to me at circle time, and just to look at me with puppy eyes. It was adorable, but at the same time it was a relief when he grew out of it.

Years later, I was teaching an all-boy class at a vocational high school and was lucky enough to get a bright new teacher on a Comenius exchange to co-teach the class with me. She was also quite attractive and the boys…. reacted. Since it was an English language class, I got a kick out of doing my best Mary Poppins impression: “Close your mouth, please, we are not a codfish.”

12. Is it just me, or does this sound like potentially dangerous behavior?

I teach at a local university and I’ve had a few including one who used to sketch me during class, one who tried to put his arm around me, etc. The most obvious and persistent was a student who used to follow me after class every day, show up at my office “just to talk,” and spent all of his time attempting to look down my shirt. He ended up dropping out of college halfway through the semester.

11. If that’s not a perfect history teacher response, I don’t know what is!

I’m not a teacher, but I do have a story of when I was a HS student. It was my senior year and I had a crush on this young history teacher. he would come on model un trips with us as a chaperone so he knew who I was. It was my birthday and he heard from a different teacher across the hall. He said “happy birthday” to me, and my response was “thanks, I’m 18.” I blurted it out very quickly and realized literally the second it left my mouth how inappropriate it was. His response, “well you can vote now!”

10. Now that kid has all of our hearts, let’s be honest.

I had a student who had a rough life. Mom pretty much abandoned him,and grandma was raising him by pawning him off to family on the weekends. I knew he was going to have a rough life if someone didn’t step in and let him know he mattered. He asked me one day how I would know if someone loved me. I jokingly replied that that person would bring me coffee in the morning. A few days later he came into the gym with a huge smile and a cup of gas station coffee. He walked right up and handed it to me along with a bag of creamers and sugars. He said he didn’t know how I liked my coffee so he grabbed one of each. He saved his allowance, and asked his grandma to leave for school early so he could stop by the gas station. The next year he brought me a coffee mug so I could remember him when I drank my morning coffee. That kid will always have my heart.

9. I have no idea how teachers handle social media these days.

In the days of msn, I got a chat invite from someone who had the same last name as me. I assumed it was a relation, but they didn’t say anything and so I left for a bit to eat. I came back and saw a couple more people had been added to the chat and saw they’d been talking about me. I realised they were students because they referred to me as ‘Miss –‘. They were teasing one of the others for his crush on me and he was defending my ‘massive ass’ as ‘hot’.

8. Props to that guy for keeping his private life so totally under wraps for 4 years.

I had a crush on my teacher in high school. After I graduated, I asked him out to lunch with my best friend and me. He agreed. We met up a few days later and he walked in… with his husband. That was a rough day for me.

7. Well, that was a quick turnaround, but props for logic and math abilities.

I had a kid ask me to marry him the other day. Then he proceeded to say I would be way to old for him by the time he was old enough to get married.

6. He had that followup ready to go!

I had a student ask me if I was married….yes. This was followed by, “but are you happily married?” I started teaching way too young.

Edit: Appreciate the silver and gold! I’m glad to have amused y’all with my awkward moment.

5. That’s definitely hard to hide, right guys?

When I was playing Hamlet in the school play, and the girl playing Ophelia got stage fright at the last minute, so the drama teacher had to costume up and sub in for her, on her knees in a low-cut bodice, hanging onto my leg, and screaming, “Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!”.

I got a boner in front of 500 people.

4. You might be easily forgotten, but you might not. First loves are tricky!

I taught Pre-K and one student always wanted to he around me and would pretend to slip up and call me mom. He saw my phone had a screensaver of me and my at the time boyfriend and he got all mad and said I should break up with him lol. Kids are adorable, I doubt he’ll remember me in a few years

3. That’s such a tough situation to handle.

I was a special needs teacher. There was zero subtlety. One student would constantly try to lift up my skirt.

2. Toxic masculinity rears its ugly head again.

I teach at a university and students ask me out. I had a student once ask me out in front of the class while I was teaching, but I think it was more a power move than anything else.

Edit: Bonus story! I teach a sexuality class and a student brought up negging. I asked the class for a definition and one dude goes, “you’re pretty for a sociologist.” The entire class was horrified that he had negged me.

1. Ah, the sweet innocence of little children.

I taught preschool and the owners grandson would tell everyone we were going to get married once he was done with first grade. He even gave me mittens with hearts on them because hearts are for love.
He’s in middle school now and doesn’t remember me. ??‍♀️

Just one more reason teachers are saints because I’m not sure I could be so consistently gracious.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Did they know about it? Tell us what happened in the comments!

The post 15 Teachers Recall the Most Obvious Crush a Student Ever Had appeared first on UberFacts.

A School in Tennessee Banned ‘Harry Potter’ Books. In 2019.

What year are we living in? Oh, that’s right, it’s 2019…and apparently, some things never change.

A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee, has removed J.W. Rowling’s world-famous Harry Potter books from its shelves because the school’s pastor said, “These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”

St. Edward Catholic School pastor Father Dan Reehil wrote an email to parents at the school explaining the decision. Reehil said in the message that he consulted with several exorcists in the U.S. and in Italy before making his decision. That seems like time well spent, doesn’t it?

Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, said, “Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school. He’s well within his authority to act in that manner.”

This is not the first time that the Harry Potter series has been under scrutiny from schools. From 2001 until 2003, the series was on the American Library Association’s list of “most challenged books.”

Father Reehil started exploring the possibility of banning the Harry Potter books after he received an inquiry from a parent. I bet that kid thinks his parents are a BLAST.

It’s hard to believe that this kind of thing still happens in 2019, but here we are…

The post A School in Tennessee Banned ‘Harry Potter’ Books. In 2019. appeared first on UberFacts.

A Boy Befriends a Second-Grader with Autism Who Was Having a Rough First Day at School

We see so many news and social media stories about how kids are cruel and mean and they have no respect these days. Well, I think this wholesome story might refresh you perspective on that way of thinking.

The first day of school is rough for anyone, and that was definitely the case for a second-grader in Wichita, Kansas, named Connor Crites. The young boy is autistic, and, as happens with people on the spectrum, he became overwhelmed with the back-to-school routine and started crying.

That’s when a fellow second-grader named Christian Moore stepped in. He saw Crites crying, so he went over to hold Crites’ hand and console the boy. Moore’s mother was nearby, and she snapped a photo of the encounter that she shared the story of Facebook, where it quickly went viral.

I’m so proud of my son, he seen a kid balled up into a corner crying, so he went to console him, grabbed his hand and…

Posted by Courtney Coko Moore on Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Moore’s caption on her photo read “I’m so proud of my son, he seen a kid balled up into a corner crying, so he went to console him, grabbed his hand and walked him inside of the school! It is an honor to raise such a loving, compassionate child! He’s a kid with a Big heart, the first day of school started off right.”

Connor Crites’ mother April responded to the heartfelt gesture. She said, “That’s all I can ask for, is someone to be open to him like that. I’m so happy that something so positive is coming from all this, that my son got a friend, hopefully a friend for life.” April also explained that her son was nonverbal until he was 5 years old.

Connor himself said about the encounter, “He was kind to me. I was in the first day of school and I started crying. Then he helped me and I was happy.”

People on Facebook responded to the moving post.

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

A big heart indeed.

The post A Boy Befriends a Second-Grader with Autism Who Was Having a Rough First Day at School appeared first on UberFacts.