Hi, I've been thinking about this question and would like some outside opinions because I feel like I have to be missing something. I also don't want to ask a bunch of coworkers and come off as dissing the teacher.
I'm a teacher aide in two second grade classrooms in a Choice private school. I did go to school to be a teacher. I completed everything except one 10 week student teaching (but I made up the credits and graduated). I've worked at those school for about 3.5 years. 1.5 were spent with K4. This is my second year in 2nd grade.
Backstory: My one teacher is chronically absent. She is being forced to retire after this school year. Her back and legs are causing hee so much pain she can't come to school and work. I've been the only constant presence for these kids these last 6 months. My teacher has only been a full time teacher her for about 7 years. She subbed for a lot of her life. I end up teaching a lot, although it's been awesome having subs on most days as of late. I take care of most of the stuff in the classroom and come in early and stay late to try to make sure everything is as it should be.
She basically doesn't use the school's science or English curriculum. We have a new math curriculum (we used to use Saxon until we couldn't get any more physical books. Now we have Math Expressions), but she doesn't teach it as intended. She doesn't use a lot of the materials that came with it.
For English, our school uses Shirely which is what I grew up with. The student books are still in storage. The student workbook are in their desks, unused. They have only used the sentence books, but she doesn't teach it the Shirely way. These kids will go on to 3rd grade... behind. She thinks they have to master each part of speech before doing sentences. It never occurred to her that we could go through them... as a class. I never even knew where the TE book was until like a week ago. I'm not even convinced she knows how to do it. She uses tons of superteacher worksheets and random ones she finds online. Sometimes the answer key isn't right. Some of the stuff is confusing. Instead of using the Shirely songs and videos, she picks random stuff from on YouTube.
For science, she doesn't use the book. She prints off all these black and white packets that the kids frequently lose. Lots of repetitive questions. Everything is writing stuff out that frankly feels like wastes of time sometimes because by the time everyone has the answers down, a chunk of the kids are now talking, making noises, and distracting each other. Sometimes I don't even know what the question is asking either. Sometimes the answer isn't actually in the text (and it's not an opinion or inference question).
I've talked a little with one of subs (who taught in the upper grades for many years at the school), and she clearly thinks that not using the English curriculm is wrong. On the days she's there, it's like she makes it her mission to teach how they should be taught.
Math is now being taught by the other 2nd grade teacher. We are units behind with only a couple weeks left and won't be able to finish the book. There were too many days spent not doing lessons or using materials not from the curriculum (which they didn't master. They are still very much struggling).
I just don't understand. How do you not know where you NEED to be if at all possible? If you are picking random topics for science, how do you know you are meeting standards? All of this goes against everything I was taught in college. If the kids were thriving, I wouldn't be worried. They aren't though.
And FWIW, the other teacher doesn't use the curriculum for social studies either, and I can't say I understand. That retired teacher sub doesn't even agree with some of the stuff in these worksheets (like money being an example of scarcity).
I very much try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I naturally believe they know better than me, so I hate saying anything. Am I missing something or is/was my teacher just not great at teaching? She feels like the kind of teachers I grew up with in the 90s and early 00s, although my teachers were better I think. I understand supplementing with materials every once in a while... or if the book is missing a lot of stuff. But never using the curriculum and it's worksheets? Or using it only a quarter of the way so that it appears to confuse the kids so it must not work? To be clear, I've never heard them talk about the curriculum being awful or old or anything.
I'll say this because I feel like someone may ask, we don't have anyone in charge of curriculum or looking over lesson plans. They submit their block plans to the drive I think, but I'm pretty sure they aren't looked at.

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TLDR: I might have SDAM. Memories are mostly based on inferences, journals, or what my parents tell me. I have some specific memories, but they might not be accurate. I struggle to recall certain memories, like crushes or specific books I've read. My earliest memory is from age 8, but it could have happened later. I have some memories from different grades, but they are not very detailed or vivid. Dreams seem as real as memories. The memories I do have may not have been remembered in chronological order. I hoard things to help trigger memories. Cleaning and re-reading journals sometimes brings back forgotten memories, but they are not very clear. I remember more in the periods I journaled more. It's becoming an existential crisis for me.
I was originally was going to comment this, but it strayed far away from the original
This is something which I am still trying to learn about as someone who thinks they have SDAM. I know all cases are self-diagnosis, just haven't brought it up to therapist, and don't want to jump to conclusions, even after hearing about SDAM for a few months. Wanted this disclaimer.
I feel like my "memories" are either inferences based on known facts, journals I read afterwards, or from parents. I used to do a thing I was young where I would journal about previous journals events, which I don't even have access too,.... but I'm grateful I did that. Could be a sign I did the reviews due to forgetting that they happened even back then lol. Who knows
I've seen people say around the age of 2. However, my "first memory", if you can even call it that, is around the age of 8, when I lose a spelling bee. However, that has been brought up by my parents later, and I even think I journaled about it. Next one, I read the most amount of books that year memory. However, it's in the newspaper, you got a savings account, a trophy, etc. I remember smiling when my mom dropped me off for 2nd grade. Guess what? Found an assignment in my closet later on, which I had to have done at some point later on, which shows me being happy and mom taking a photograph....
What about the memories I should remember? Do I remember the crush I supposedly had? No. Do I remember a singular one of the books I read? Yes/No, only know the series I read due to still owning Magic Tree House & Rainbow Magic books. If I read other series, who knows, and who knows if I even read all on the bookshelf. Do I remember being best friends with this person I will call Julian (not real)? No, there's a photograph somewhere in my room likely of me being with him. I was always confused why he even treated me very nicely, since the beginning of "actual memories" (sometime in middle school, if they can be called that), and then my mother knew when I asked, but not me, that we were best friends...
3rd grade (2016-2017). I struggled learning how to write and handed out candy for Halloween with parents. I don't remember any specific event on learning how to write, and I still struggle to write till this day, so I just type everything, so another inference. Halloween handed out with candy? This may be my first memory. I remember that my parents and 3rd grade teacher was there. I can infer that I was dressing as Toad from Mario with red or blue spots due to the costume being saved. Can I relive it or do much past that? No, I don't even know where that memory even comes from. Now that I think of it, it could have easily happened in any other year after 3rd grade, as the presence of a 3rd grade teacher doesn't mean it didn't occur after that grade. May even have a document somewhere on the old computer if I go searching for it journaling, as I had access to the internet then. Social studies fair project? I have the physical version and digital version, don't remote much other than the paper of my speech which I can infer was awkward, as I have social anxiety, not much detail and could be reconstructed, not that vivid.
4th grade (2017-2018). I remember doing a PowerPoint on Poland for gifted. Why? Well, I still have it, but literally nothing else happened that year. Can't even remember her name and she was a gifted teacher and went to almost every day from 2nd grade - 5th grade apparently. I will have that answer once I find the old documents again of my evaluation, as I remember finding that a few months ago.
5th grade (2018-2019). I got in trouble for rolling my eyes, remembered as I had a t-shirt (I'm sorry, did I just roll my eyes out loud?). I could have easily gotten yelled at in the hall or classroom, but isn't the playground as I rolled my eyes coming inside is the story and is in journal. I remembered I colored in speech, still have the drawing in fact, though the teacher's name I can't remember, even if I had her for three years of speech. I can go on to list the rap battle (journal), the backpack I wore (in closet), the teacher (listed name in journal/searched online later to figure out if she was 4th or 5th and who was the other one if so), time management problem (multiple worksheets I kept and still have). There are more memories for 5th grade, but all I can think of top of my head are related to something else. I can't even remember a single friend name in this point of time from, but I can infer that they are likely the ones which I just happened to already be friends with at 6th grade that I can remember of, except the ones I forgot until parents told me (like Julian).
The dream I journaled this year apparently of flying to Brazil after missing the bus and then deciding to live there before canceling it to be in band instead is just as real as anything else in fact. Like the dream is as real as the reality, so how do you know what's real?
6th grade (2019-2020). I was ostracized from peers due to gendesexuality, figured out I was gay due to never liking a girl (not true, in fact, I think I am aroace, no attraction to anyone) snapped at someone for them telling me to help them with chairs, I was in student council, had other snapping for weird reasons, dated 3 people with no remorse (I would think I would, but I thought it was totally fine????), and told by everyone I need to apply myself and write better. These were all journaled and most of these are digitized journals, as I begun digitizing old ones last year to never lose the past.
7th grade (2020-2021). I became part of an unsavory friends group (maybe 6th grade, too lazy to fact check this rn), was homeschool due to COVID, groomed online, and a lot more stuff. It's all journal or it's all digital stuff I have access too. It's certainly not vivid and some is just like what I remember, rather than being something I see, though I do have some memories which I can see.
8th grade (2021-2022). Solidified my gender identity, able to grow hair long, public school again, wore a mask but got bullied for it, Julian was weirdly nice to me (wrote about it at time, thought it was so confusing, maybe they were trying to reconnect but I had no idea why they were talking to me), thought I was plural, played Minecraft (though I did play before this on Xbox, this is the first game I have saved on Minecraft Education edition and can remember somewhat). ALL journaled and not vivid.
9th grade (2022-2023). Started doing college courses, continued to struggle with handwriting, struggled to get through day but persisted for the college courses which allowed me to wear earplugs in library, had a corrupt teacher who "lost" my work, made first friend, diagnosed with disorder, some family moved in till November, which were all journaled about. However, I journaled less this year than other years due to trying to survive.
10th grade (2023-2024) More college courses, fought for accommodations with many incidents of them saying earplugs cause a fire hazard, created systems of self-government, had covid, started to meal prep, predicted a new "era", created safeguards, yellowjackets invaded room, journaled on why plushies were put away (interesting history with my inferences failing), overnight oats became favorite food, almost died from car crash, argued with parents about therianthropy and homeschool, started to expand my knowledge past psychology into other subjects, discussed SDAM the first time in journal (October 2023), debated dropping out, switched to homeschool for college, journaled about relationships for months to determine aroace status for 100%, became more comfortable in my skin, and more. Do you see how this is close to the longest paragraph, only with 3rd grade and 5th grade coming close, but those events weren't simplified and these were! I remember more when I journal more.
It's like my memories aren't like remembered in the order they originally happened. I think I may have realized this at some point and started hoarding stuff. I said this way before in the past. My mother always asks me to get rid of stuff, but if I lose the item, and don't journal about it, I may lose the ability to recall the little facts I do have. Everytime I check my unorganized files, try to clean my room, or reread journals, I remember something I forgot, but never truly see it vividly, it is a faint picture at best.
How do I deal with this. The more I think of it is becoming more like an existential crisis.

Mister Haddock was always my least favourite teacher in Grade Ten. Balding, stoved-faced little man with a ratty ponytail behind his near naked pink skull. He was the only teacher I never saw smile or laugh, even around other teachers or adults. He was never even nice when parents came to visit – never had that put-on warmth most teachers do. With his diminutive stature and small miserable face, he looked like one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, if one of the seven dwarves were a closet alkie. He’d never let you go to the bathroom during class, whether it was an emergency or not, even if you were a girl. And if you requested an extension for an assignment – whether it was because you were sick, someone in your family had died, or you had to be excused for your soccer or football game – he would just respond with, “No” and “That’s tough.” As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only kid at John Haggert High School who harboured a grudge for the surly little troll of the JH High science department.
What really made the situation worse was that Mister Haddock taught science, a class in which I had to excel if I wanted to pursue my postsecondary dream of studying to become a veterinarian. Cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved animals and wanted desperately to understand and help them as best I could. That was another sticking point between Mister Haddock and I; he refused to give good marks no matter how hard you tried or how well you followed his instructions. “When you give me something good enough to get an A in university, I’ll give you an A,” he’d groan, his tired refrain to any nagging student. Like that was a reasonable bar to set for a high school junior or freshmen. Just my luck, Mister Haddock also taught Grade Eleven biology, another necessary course on my journey to guiding sick and dying pets into the afterlife.
And that’s another thing about Mister Haddock that bothered me; he clearly hated his job. I’d always planned on becoming a teacher as a back-up plan, especially since I’d always loved school. I was always on the honour roll, on at least three school teams, in multiple clubs, elected student rep for each grade I was in until making school president in Grade Twelve and would later be valedictorian. But Mister Haddock always acted like he’d rather be doing anything other than teach at our school. Like this job was somehow beneath him. Just for context, John Haggert High School is in the Meadowville neighborhood of Aakoziwin, the safest city in Ontario and one of the safest places in all of Canada – which would put in running for safest metropolitan area on the planet. It’s a bustling suburban town with lots to do, especially being so close to Toronto. Our school is neck and neck with Caramel Mountain Secondary for national reputation and university acceptances. We have one of the best hockey teams, one of the best arts and music programs, and are among the top performers in math and literacy. Our building is the typical squat, two-floor, lengthwise cinderblock affair, but our hallways are adorned with gorgeous wall murals painted by the arts students, festooned with colourful and accurate dioramas of the Globe Theatre, Greek coliseums, and DNA models. So why did Mister Haddock act like he was stocking the shelves at a grocery store? Why did he treat us like we were all riffraff, as my Uncle John would say?
The last straw that broke this camel’s back came when he docked me ten percent for being two days late on an assignment. My grandmother was in the hospital from a massive stroke, which is what caused me to be late. My mother had made sure to call reception to explain the situation on the very first day I was away from school. And even after I provided him with two letters, one from my parents, the other from the hospital, and even though all my other teachers accepted my homework without penalty, Mister Ian Warren Haddock refused to budge.
“Look,” he grunted, visibly cornered behind his particleboard desk, me standing before him with hands on hips, pleading my case. Demanding an explanation. “Look, I’ve already imputed the mark into the database and sent it out to the department head. I can’t change it right now. It’ll make me look bad.” I could feel my eyes grow moist. How could he do this to me? Me! Jennifer Wang Li, Grade Ten student rep and future saviour of all furry four-legged creatures!
Feebly, without meeting my misty gaze, he mumbled, “At least your gran’s alive, right? Isn’t that all that matters?”
Using my grandmother stroke against me? Trying to browbeat me away from demanding what was mine by guilting me into not appreciating my own family?
At this, I didn’t yell, didn’t storm off. Didn’t even bother complaining to my parents or the principal’s office. Instead, I coolly sat down at my lab table, and began plotting my petty revenge against Mister Haddock.
I knew all about the pranks kids pull on their teachers. The homemade stink bomb. The head in the jar. The dreaded toothpick in the door lock. I wasn’t about to bother with anything as cute or clever. During the lunch period, when I knew Mister Haddock was two kilometres away having a smoke near Meadow Woods Park, I would creep into the lab and simply swipe all his test papers and homework. I knew he wouldn’t bother keeping them secure, and even with the gas valves, there was a good chance the dope would leave the laboratory unlocked (he’d done so several times before).
In so many ways, it would be the perfect revenge; he’d have to admit to leaving the room unsupervised and unsecured, going against school policy and regulation, landing him in hot water with the office. Maybe even resulting in his eventual termination. And, when he asked the students to redo the test, someone would eventually complain to the school or a parent, resulting in him admitting that he’d lost the test papers, which would likewise get him in trouble – or at least so I figured at the time. He’d know what it was like to be punished for something that was not his fault. At least, not exactly his fault. To have every excuse in the world, only for each of them to fall on stone-deaf ears. It was perfect. I just had to be careful; I knew there were cameras in the hallways, but as far as I could tell, there was no surveillance in the classrooms themselves.
I snuck inside the unmanned lab at a quarter past noon. With the lights out and in the scant fluorescent glow bleeding in from the hallway through the open door, the lab looked almost eerie: the long tables, eye wash station, beakers, tongs and burners redolent of the abode of Doctor Jekyll in the movies. As though the lab were in preparation of some macabre, unnecessary surgery. But maybe that was just my imagination running away with me. I crept toward Mister Haddock’s desk. Sure enough, there were the unguarded test papers, lain plainly on the blotter.
Armed with the papers and loads of time before the vodka-reeking deadbeat returned, I felt compelled to poke around. Perhaps I’d find a pack of smokes or a micky of cheap rye lying around, getting Mister Haddock into some real trouble.
My curiosity piqued, I rounded the corner at the back and entered the supply closet, placing the test papers to the side. It was where they kept the textbooks, beakers, bunsen burners, and items meant to be hidden from teenage eyes. But no matter how hard I squinted or how furiously I rummaged through the boxes and bins, there were no incriminating objects for me to find. Not even a single cigarette butt.
I was about to turn and leave with my pillaged bounty when I spotted the slightest of movements out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I held my breath and jumped a bit before peering harder to the back of the closet. There, the slight movement, or trick of the light remained, just perceptible in the dark little room. It was so slight – a dribbling motion, that at first my brain registered a lava lamp. But that didn’t make sense; why would there be a lava lamp in a science lab? Much less one plugged in on a storage closet shelf.
I advanced further to inspect what lay at the back and that’s when I saw it. The most eldritch or horrors, like something straight from a pulp magazine. It was a two-foot anatomical model, showing the muscles and internal organs from the small intestine to the eyeballs. A jarring sight to begin with, but this particular model – it was bleeding. I mean, actively bleeding, pulsating with blood that dripped from red crevices and apertures, staining the beige metal platform on which it stood. My mind whirled at the sickening visual before me. How could that be? Wasn’t the model made of silicone? Not flesh or bone, surely. Unbelieving, I examined the ghastly little model, looking around to find some sort of power cord – certain this was some optical illusion or trick of the light. No such luck. As best I could tell, this was nothing but a regular artificial figurine. No means of moving – or in this case bleeding – on it own.
At my wits end to try and explain this thing before me, adrenaline barrelling through my veins, I deigned to touch the scarlet flow coming off it, getting some it on my fingertips. The wet sensation was enough to flip my stomach, but when I brought the smeared fingers to my nose, I discovered the unmistakable metallic odour of blood. It was real. As real as it could be. I looked down and saw the dark liquid begin to drip over the shelf’s edge onto the floor. Numb from scalp to chin, I peered back up at the vinaceous, pulsating face, at the fake blues eyes stuck to the front of the skull. The eyes which had somehow remained uncovered by the pouring crimson. They had been staring blindly away from me, but then, at that very moment, they came alive and swivelled around to glare at me. I shrieked before turning and fleeing from the lab, leaving Mister Haddock’s papers on the shelf where I’d lain them.
That night I couldn’t sleep. And the next day I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t chat with my friends or join them at any of our clubs. I just couldn’t get the image of that bleeding anatomical model out of my mind’s eye. And I couldn’t quiet the questions racing through my bewildered brain – those compelling echoes dinning off the inner walls of my skull. How could a silicone model’s inner working cause it to bleed like that? Or appear to bleed? Why did the fluid smell so unmistakably like blood? Why did I only see it bleeding like that after class had been dismissed? In the name of God, why was something like that in the science lab at all?
Resolved on getting to the bottom of this, I first had to be sure that what I saw wasn’t a mere figment of my imagination. To prove I wasn’t going crazy, I recruited my friend Jacqueline to come along with me the next lunch break, when Mister Haddock had gone out for his smoke. Having not been told the exact reason for sneaking into the science lab, Jackie giggled as I towed her along, inferring in whispers that our secret mission was owing to a crush I wanted to impart on her away from prying eyes and ears.
But when we arrived, the lab was closed. The yellow on gray stainless-steel doors were shut, the wooden door stop lying on the floor, discarded. I tried the handles, but it was no use. The hygienic doors wouldn’t budge. Mister Haddock hadn’t bothered locking up the lab since early September. Did he notice his test papers had been moved and got spooked?
Of course, Jacqueline balked at my expense, demanding I just tell her what this was all about. She then grew petulant when I insisted it was nothing, refusing, in her mind, to include her in what she was certain was a juicy bit of gossip.
We were then startled by a gruff voice growling behind us: “You two better move along.”
Startled out of our skin, we both spun on our heels, finding the groundskeeper, Mister Fanu, standing before us. He’d come up on us without a sound. He was a short compact man with a shapeless face behind black framed spectacles, today wearing his usual navy-blue coveralls. From his tan leather weightlifter’s belt hung a ring of what looked to be a thousand keys, like a silvery fist by his waist. “You shouldn’t be hanging out here now,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and low like dead leaves in the wind. He then proceeded into the mantra of all on or off duty school employees patrolling the halls, telling us to either go to the Caf or outside until the next bell. Neither intimidated or especially servile, Jacqueline droned her acquiescence and shuffled off without me, rolling her eyes before getting completely out of sight. Still with some resolve for my mission, I lingered. But what remained of my gumption withered under Mister Fanu’s icy parental stare.
But as I walked away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the janitor had not departed the hallway. He was standing on the spot like a sentry, presumably watching me go. As if he were guarding the lab. The hairs on the back of my neck sufficiently stood on end, I turned around, finding that he was not staring after me, but rather facing the laboratory doors, as though waiting to be let in. Lastly, I noticed his hands, which were wringing and wiping themselves on a dirty black rag. On his hands, unmistakably, was a shiny, visibly wet red liquid. Blood?
Terrified, fixated, but nonetheless afraid of being spotted, I turned the corner into the adjacent stairwell. But instead of descending the steps to the main floor, I waited. When I returned to the hallway, poking my head out but not my torso from around the corner, I saw that one of the doors to the lab was ajar, and the lights within were now on. Mister Fanu was no longer there.
On rubbery legs, I inched over to the cracked door and peered inside. Squeezing myself in, first my head then shoulders then one limb at a time, I felt my heart thundering in my chest, expecting at any moment to be pulled aside by an irate Mister Haddock who would proceed to chide me. But instead, all I found was the empty, brightly lit room, and a maddening odour assaulting my nostrils.
It was the common coppery smell of blood from before but now fetid and miry like a century-old field of cow manure. Like something excreted not from anything as natural as cattle or other livestock but from something otherworldly. From something evil.
I pinched my nostrils and breathed through my nose but that hardly worked to stymy the eldritch stench. But now my senses were alerted to another disturbance, a bizarrely pleasant sound issuing from the supply closet. The sound of waves. Reminding me of my last summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, I heard the distinct lapping of waves crashing onto a sandy shore. Oh sure, it might have just been from a video or an audio file, but something about the enormity and clarity of the sound was indisputably real. I then had tinnitus in my left ear, and had to steady myself on one of the workbenches from a palpable loss of equilibrium. It was as though I’d suddenly become sick. Or as if I’d been transferred from reality into a dream. It was then that I realized the sound of the waves was no longer emanating from the closet, but was all around me, churning around my head, sending me into a dizzy spell.
The putrid, rust smell was now overwrought, and again, Mister Fanu was nowhere in sight. The crashing of the waves was then intermingled with a shrieking sound. It was small at first then swelled to a piercing wail. It wasn’t female or even human. Yes…Yes, I was certain it was an animal’s cry. Like a horse whinnying. Yes, exactly like the sound a horse would make. The voice was pained and sorrowing, as though the beast of burden were being whipped or driven into the ground. It was so terrible – so pitiful that my throat seized up and my heart ached. My mind throbbing from the assaulting soundscape swirling around – or perhaps inside – my head, I staggered toward the supply closet, grasping at stools and bench tables as I did so to not plummet to the floor. As I did, I wondered if this was what it was like to be on drugs.
I was just about to reach my hand out for the steel door handle, when all at once the encircling cacophony stopped, leaving a deafening quiet over the room. Backpedalling, tinnitus still in one ear, I regained my balance and stood up straight, standing stationary until a sudden crash from behind me – like a stool being knocked over – sent me flying out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. I was so terrified – so confused – I ran home without asking for leave, resulting in a two-day suspension. I was informed by one of the vice principals that if I was suspended again, I’d lose my student rep seat. But that would be the last of my troubles.
After being allowed back in school, I discovered my science class was moved to another room. Also, I never saw Mister Haddock again. First, there were a string of substitute teachers, some subbing internally from the science department – like Mister Abruzzo who taught Grade Twelve physics. Some were unfamiliar faces. All of them assigned nothing but work straight from the textbook or divvied out worksheets two or three grades below us. But eventually, much to the relief of my hovercraft, high-expectation-laden parents, we were assigned a full-time teacher, Miss Goldman, after the Christmas Break. Miss Goldman was young, energetic, and very knowledgeable. Most of my class was very happy to have her – especially as a replacement to gin-reeking Ian Haddock. Conversely, I was bricked up with anxiety, ruminating fretfully on what had happened to him. Had he really been let go? Was this somehow my fault? Or did it have something to do with that bleeding anatomical model I’d found in the supply closet? The one that had been replaced by another far less gory silicone figurine and had not been seen since that fateful day? And on what on earth was the cause of all those noises I’d heard the last time? What did those have to do with Haddock or the bleeding model?
Worse was that sound I heard that had cut through the muffling waves. The sound of the whinnying horse, the torment and desperation plain in that voice. I know this won’t make sense to you reading this, but the sound haunted me. Made me tear up every time I thought of it. The thought that something so cruel could be happening to animal here at JH High – just, just drove me insane. Eventually, either driven by guilt for Mister Haddock’s firing or the compulsion seeded by that hideous apparition, I went to visit the science department office. But as it turned out, they had meant to speak to me.
Mister Schmeling, the head of the science department who taught Grade Eleven Chemistry, told me he’d been waiting for me when I arrived. This was a bit unnerving since I’d never had a class with him and also owing to the fact that he had neither a warm nor jocular demeanour. Bald and bespectacled with tufts of iron-grey around his ears, a rotund physique and wobbling gait, he reminded most students of a cartoon villain than an approachable teacher. He motioned me to an empty seat with a curt nod of his head.
“So, Jennifer, dear,” he began in his ice-box timbre. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time.” He then began to plow through the typical teacher questions, usually reserved for guidance councillors during one-on-one consultations.
He then got to the meat of the conversation. “It’s come to my attention recently that you’ve been going into the Grade Ten science lab by yourself after lesson periods. I hope that that isn’t true.” Frozen in my seat on the concrete-hard plastic chair, a creeping fear waxing down my head to my nape, I said nothing and made no motion with my head or shoulders. I even kept my hands still inside my lap.
Relieving me of his glacial blue stare, Mister Schmeling clucked his tongue.
“I suppose you might have seen something which you shouldn’t have,” he said. My neck now a bed of bristled hairs. “Some test papers, perhaps? Some student progress reports Mister Haddock left lying around?”
I squinted hard and tilted my head. Another suspension or even expulsion for snooping around was the very least of my worries. What was this? A fishing expedition? Or a veiled threat?
Mister Schmeling carried on: “Perhaps you saw something in the supply closet? Something that startled you? Caused your imagination to run away with you?”
My eyelids peeled back inside my skull, the whites bulging from the sockets. He knew.
He scanned me over, a look that was not lustful but hungry and searching, making my skin crawl. “Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked after a long pause.
For the first time I answered him, shaking my head feverishly from side to side, my hair tremulous, strands slapping around my chin.
Mister Schmeling pulled back into his swivel chair, the metal spine creaking, evidently pleased with my answer. His furry stubs for fingers laced across his ample abdomen. “If other people learned about what you think you saw, we’d have no choice but to suspend you for violating school safety regulations. Or worse. You wouldn’t want that would you? Being such a serious and hardworking student? No, I didn’t think so, my dear. So, since you’ve been so good and we’d hate for you to get behind in your studies, this’ll just be our little secret. Okay, dear?”
And so concluded the bizarre saga of Mister Haddock and the bleeding anatomy model in the science lab. I never found out the exact cause of Haddock’s dismissal, though the school used the usual cryptic phrasing of him moving on and finding work elsewhere. Some kids told me they saw him in one of the local pubs around Lakeshore, testing out a few concoctions of Ocean Spray and Absolut.
I haven’t told anyone about what I saw, as per my agreement with Mister Schmeling. At least, I haven’t until now. Perhaps he’s right; maybe my imagination simply ran away from me that fateful afternoon alone in the supply closet. But then why swear me to secrecy? What did he care what I told people I saw? Why was that laboratory never used again and was all but boarded up? That being said, I would still see red speckles and smears of blood on Mister Fanu’s hands and coveralls some days, I would still sometimes catch a whiff of something coppery and fetid in the hallways, and every so often, I would hear the uncanny crashing of waves, accompanying by the strangled whinnying of a horse, emanating from the now empty Grade Ten science lab.

Hi y'all! I turned 16 a couple of months ago. Growing up with so much technology and SaaS, building my own products with code has always been a dream of mine.Studies show that reading comprehension levels nationwide (in America) for students is very low and teachers have a hard time finding meaningful reading comprehension sites practice for students. Besides that, even adults don't have a dependable source for improving their comprehension skills, perhaps in another language other than English. So, I'm finally here at ProductHunt with my very own product that I believe solves the problems mentioned above. Without more talking, I'll get straight into what ReadingDojo can do!
> Generate Questions & Passages, specifically for understanding text and checking for comprehension.
> Up to 20 questions, 10 different languages, explanations for each answer, etc...
> Custom reading text to make reading relatable and engaging
> Built-in quiz yourself feature, host your own quiz, export as CSV and print out worksheets
> Develop specific skills (Main Idea, Inference, Vocabulary, Evidence)There is so much more planned in the future and so much more that is not listed above already.
My product launched today on Product Hunt, it'd be awesome if you guys can upvote it or just leave a feedback :)-Sriram
Link: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/readingdojo

Hi y'all! I turned 16 a couple of months ago. Growing up with so much technology and SaaS, building my own products with code has always been a dream of mine.Studies show that reading comprehension levels nationwide (in America) for students is very low and teachers have a hard time finding meaningful reading comprehension sites practice for students. Besides that, even adults don't have a dependable source for improving their comprehension skills, perhaps in another language other than English. So, I'm finally here at ProductHunt with my very own product that I believe solves the problems mentioned above. Without more talking, I'll get straight into what ReadingDojo can do!
> Generate Questions & Passages, specifically for understanding text and checking for comprehension.
> Up to 20 questions, 10 different languages, explanations for each answer, etc...
> Custom reading text to make reading relatable and engaging
> Built-in quiz yourself feature, host your own quiz, export as CSV and print out worksheets
> Develop specific skills (Main Idea, Inference, Vocabulary, Evidence)There is so much more planned in the future and so much more that is not listed above already.
My product launched today on Product Hunt, it'd be awesome if you guys can upvote it or just leave a feedback :)-Sriram
Link: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/readingdojo

Idk if this is the sub for me to post this but if ever that this post is not allowed, admin can delete this. I'm just a Lasallian who wants tk vent out.
So basically, I am COB student currently taking GEMATMW and one of the first lesson that we have is about propositional logic
Nung una nagegets ko pa yung discussion pero kalaunan, hindi ko na kinakaya yung lesson especially nung dumating sa rules of inference eh like nagegets ko yung ineexplain but when it came to the worksheet hindi ko na maintindihan paano gamitin yung rules in order to deduce the conclusion.
I've been staring at the PPT and Book na sinuggest sa amin sa subject na ito as well as watch various YouTube tutorials pero wala pa rin talaga akong maintindihan. I also tried emailing our Math prof and kahit inexplain niya sa akin through email, hindi ko pa rin talaga gets. 🥺.
I just feel really bad and frustrated with myself because Math has always been my weakness and no matter how hard I try hindi ko tlga kaya. Now I am scared that this might affect my CGPA. Sayang naman almost 4.0 yung CGPA ko tapos biglang pagdating sa Math ang bobo ko kaya doon bababa ang grades ko.
P.S. This is not my own Reddit account since lurker lang ako dito. My friend let me used his account so sa kaniya itom

Mister Haddock was always my least favourite teacher in Grade Ten. Balding, stoved-faced little man with a ratty ponytail behind his near naked pink skull. He was the only teacher I never saw smile or laugh, even around other teachers or adults. He was never even nice when parents came to visit – never had that put-on warmth most teachers do. With his diminutive stature and small miserable face, he looked like one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, if one of the seven dwarves were a closet alkie. He’d never let you go to the bathroom during class, whether it was an emergency or not, even if you were a girl. And if you requested an extension for an assignment – whether it was because you were sick, someone in your family had died, or you had to be excused for your soccer or football game – he would just respond with, “No” and “That’s tough.” As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only kid at John Haggert High School who harboured a grudge for the surly little troll of the JH High science department.
What really made the situation worse was that Mister Haddock taught science, a class in which I had to excel if I wanted to pursue my postsecondary dream of studying to become a veterinarian. Cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved animals and wanted desperately to understand and help them as best I could. That was another sticking point between Mister Haddock and I; he refused to give good marks no matter how hard you tried or how well you followed his instructions. “When you give me something good enough to get an A in university, I’ll give you an A,” he’d groan, his tired refrain to any nagging student. Like that was a reasonable bar to set for a high school junior or freshmen. Just my luck, Mister Haddock also taught Grade Eleven biology, another necessary course on my journey to guiding sick and dying pets into the afterlife.
And that’s another thing about Mister Haddock that bothered me; he clearly hated his job. I’d always planned on becoming a teacher as a back-up plan, especially since I’d always loved school. I was always on the honour roll, on at least three school teams, in multiple clubs, elected student rep for each grade I was in until making school president in Grade Twelve and would later be valedictorian. But Mister Haddock always acted like he’d rather be doing anything other than teach at our school. Like this job was somehow beneath him. Just for context, John Haggert High School is in the Meadowville neighborhood of Aakoziwin, the safest city in Ontario and one of the safest places in all of Canada – which would put in running for safest metropolitan area on the planet. It’s a bustling suburban town with lots to do, especially being so close to Toronto. Our school is neck and neck with Caramel Mountain Secondary for national reputation and university acceptances. We have one of the best hockey teams, one of the best arts and music programs, and are among the top performers in math and literacy. Our building is the typical squat, two-floor, lengthwise cinderblock affair, but our hallways are adorned with gorgeous wall murals painted by the arts students, festooned with colourful and accurate dioramas of the Globe Theatre, Greek coliseums, and DNA models. So why did Mister Haddock act like he was stocking the shelves at a grocery store? Why did he treat us like we were all riffraff, as my Uncle John would say?
The last straw that broke this camel’s back came when he docked me ten percent for being two days late on an assignment. My grandmother was in the hospital from a massive stroke, which is what caused me to be late. My mother had made sure to call reception to explain the situation on the very first day I was away from school. And even after I provided him with two letters, one from my parents, the other from the hospital, and even though all my other teachers accepted my homework without penalty, Mister Ian Warren Haddock refused to budge.
“Look,” he grunted, visibly cornered behind his particleboard desk, me standing before him with hands on hips, pleading my case. Demanding an explanation. “Look, I’ve already imputed the mark into the database and sent it out to the department head. I can’t change it right now. It’ll make me look bad.”
I could feel my eyes grow moist. How could he do this to me? Me! Jennifer Wang Li, Grade Ten student rep and future saviour of all furry four-legged creatures!
Feebly, without meeting my misty gaze, he mumbled, “At least your gran’s alive, right? Isn’t that all that matters?”
Using my grandmother stroke against me? Trying to browbeat me away from demanding what was mine by guilting me into not appreciating my own family?
At this, I didn’t yell, didn’t storm off. Didn’t even bother complaining to my parents or the principal’s office. Instead, I coolly sat down at my lab table, and began plotting my petty revenge against Mister Haddock.
I knew all about the pranks kids pull on their teachers. The homemade stink bomb. The head in the jar. The dreaded toothpick in the door lock. I wasn’t about to bother with anything as cute or clever. During the lunch period, when I knew Mister Haddock was two kilometres away having a smoke near Meadow Woods Park, I would creep into the lab and simply swipe all his test papers and homework. I knew he wouldn’t bother keeping them secure, and even with the gas valves, there was a good chance the dope would leave the laboratory unlocked (he’d done so several times before).
In so many ways, it would be the perfect revenge; he’d have to admit to leaving the room unsupervised and unsecured, going against school policy and regulation, landing him in hot water with the office. Maybe even resulting in his eventual termination. And, when he asked the students to redo the test, someone would eventually complain to the school or a parent, resulting in him admitting that he’d lost the test papers, which would likewise get him in trouble – or at least so I figured at the time. He’d know what it was like to be punished for something that was not his fault. At least, not exactly his fault. To have every excuse in the world, only for each of them to fall on stone-deaf ears. It was perfect. I just had to be careful; I knew there were cameras in the hallways, but as far as I could tell, there was no surveillance in the classrooms themselves.
I snuck inside the unmanned lab at a quarter past noon. With the lights out and in the scant fluorescent glow bleeding in from the hallway through the open door, the lab looked almost eerie: the long tables, eye wash station, beakers, tongs and burners redolent of the abode of Doctor Jekyll in the movies. As though the lab were in preparation of some macabre, unnecessary surgery. But maybe that was just my imagination running away with me. I crept toward Mister Haddock’s desk. Sure enough, there were the unguarded test papers, lain plainly on the blotter.
Armed with the papers and loads of time before the vodka-reeking deadbeat returned, I felt compelled to poke around. Perhaps I’d find a pack of smokes or a micky of cheap rye lying around, getting Mister Haddock into some real trouble.
My curiosity piqued, I rounded the corner at the back and entered the supply closet, placing the test papers to the side. It was where they kept the textbooks, beakers, bunsen burners, and items meant to be hidden from teenage eyes. But no matter how hard I squinted or how furiously I rummaged through the boxes and bins, there were no incriminating objects for me to find. Not even a single cigarette butt.
I was about to turn and leave with my pillaged bounty when I spotted the slightest of movements out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I held my breath and jumped a bit before peering harder to the back of the closet. There, the slight movement, or trick of the light remained, just perceptible in the dark little room. It was so slight – a dribbling motion, that at first my brain registered a lava lamp. But that didn’t make sense; why would there be a lava lamp in a science lab? Much less one plugged in on a storage closet shelf.
I advanced further to inspect what lay at the back and that’s when I saw it. The most eldritch or horrors, like something straight from a pulp magazine. It was a two-foot anatomical model, showing the muscles and internal organs from the small intestine to the eyeballs. A jarring sight to begin with, but this particular model – it was bleeding. I mean, actively bleeding, pulsating with blood that dripped from red crevices and apertures, staining the beige metal platform on which it stood. My mind whirled at the sickening visual before me. How could that be? Wasn’t the model made of silicone? Not flesh or bone, surely. Unbelieving, I examined the ghastly little model, looking around to find some sort of power cord – certain this was some optical illusion or trick of the light. No such luck. As best I could tell, this was nothing but a regular artificial figurine. No means of moving – or in this case bleeding – on it own.
At my wits end to try and explain this thing before me, adrenaline barrelling through my veins, I deigned to touch the scarlet flow coming off it, getting some it on my fingertips. The wet sensation was enough to flip my stomach, but when I brought the smeared fingers to my nose, I discovered the unmistakable metallic odour of blood. It was real. As real as it could be. I looked down and saw the dark liquid begin to drip over the shelf’s edge onto the floor. Numb from scalp to chin, I peered back up at the vinaceous, pulsating face, at the fake blues eyes stuck to the front of the skull. The eyes which had somehow remained uncovered by the pouring crimson. They had been staring blindly away from me, but then, at that very moment, they came alive and swivelled around to glare at me. I shrieked before turning and fleeing from the lab, leaving Mister Haddock’s papers on the shelf where I’d lain them.
That night I couldn’t sleep. And the next day I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t chat with my friends or join them at any of our clubs. I just couldn’t get the image of that bleeding anatomical model out of my mind’s eye. And I couldn’t quiet the questions racing through my bewildered brain – those compelling echoes dinning off the inner walls of my skull. How could a silicone model’s inner working cause it to bleed like that? Or appear to bleed? Why did the fluid smell so unmistakably like blood? Why did I only see it bleeding like that after class had been dismissed? In the name of God, why was something like that in the science lab at all?
Resolved on getting to the bottom of this, I first had to be sure that what I saw wasn’t a mere figment of my imagination. To prove I wasn’t going crazy, I recruited my friend Jacqueline to come along with me the next lunch break, when Mister Haddock had gone out for his smoke. Having not been told the exact reason for sneaking into the science lab, Jackie giggled as I towed her along, inferring in whispers that our secret mission was owing to a crush I wanted to impart on her away from prying eyes and ears.
But when we arrived, the lab was closed. The yellow on gray stainless-steel doors were shut, the wooden door stop lying on the floor, discarded. I tried the handles, but it was no use. The hygienic doors wouldn’t budge. Mister Haddock hadn’t bothered locking up the lab since early September. Did he notice his test papers had been moved and got spooked?
Of course, Jacqueline balked at my expense, demanding I just tell her what this was all about. She then grew petulant when I insisted it was nothing, refusing, in her mind, to include her in what she was certain was a juicy bit of gossip.
We were then startled by a gruff voice growling behind us: “You two better move along.”
Startled out of our skin, we both spun on our heels, finding the groundskeeper, Mister Fanu, standing before us. He’d come up on us without a sound. He was a short compact man with a shapeless face behind black framed spectacles, today wearing his usual navy-blue coveralls. From his tan leather weightlifter’s belt hung a ring of what looked to be a thousand keys, like a silvery fist by his waist.
“You shouldn’t be hanging out here now,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and low like dead leaves in the wind. He then proceeded into the mantra of all on or off duty school employees patrolling the halls, telling us to either go to the Caf or outside until the next bell. Neither intimidated or especially servile, Jacqueline droned her acquiescence and shuffled off without me, rolling her eyes before getting completely out of sight. Still with some resolve for my mission, I lingered. But what remained of my gumption withered under Mister Fanu’s icy parental stare.
But as I walked away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the janitor had not departed the hallway. He was standing on the spot like a sentry, presumably watching me go. As if he were guarding the lab. The hairs on the back of my neck sufficiently stood on end, I turned around, finding that he was not staring after me, but rather facing the laboratory doors, as though waiting to be let in. Lastly, I noticed his hands, which were wringing and wiping themselves on a dirty black rag. On his hands, unmistakably, was a shiny, visibly wet red liquid. Blood?
Terrified, fixated, but nonetheless afraid of being spotted, I turned the corner into the adjacent stairwell. But instead of descending the steps to the main floor, I waited. When I returned to the hallway, poking my head out but not my torso from around the corner, I saw that one of the doors to the lab was ajar, and the lights within were now on. Mister Fanu was no longer there.
On rubbery legs, I inched over to the cracked door and peered inside. Squeezing myself in, first my head then shoulders then one limb at a time, I felt my heart thundering in my chest, expecting at any moment to be pulled aside by an irate Mister Haddock who would proceed to chide me. But instead, all I found was the empty, brightly lit room, and a maddening odour assaulting my nostrils.
It was the common coppery smell of blood from before but now fetid and miry like a century-old field of cow manure. Like something excreted not from anything as natural as cattle or other livestock but from something otherworldly. From something evil.
I pinched my nostrils and breathed through my nose but that hardly worked to stymy the eldritch stench. But now my senses were alerted to another disturbance, a bizarrely pleasant sound issuing from the supply closet. The sound of waves. Reminding me of my last summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, I heard the distinct lapping of waves crashing onto a sandy shore. Oh sure, it might have just been from a video or an audio file, but something about the enormity and clarity of the sound was indisputably real. I then had tinnitus in my left ear, and had to steady myself on one of the workbenches from a palpable loss of equilibrium. It was as though I’d suddenly become sick. Or as if I’d been transferred from reality into a dream. It was then that I realized the sound of the waves was no longer emanating from the closet, but was all around me, churning around my head, sending me into a dizzy spell.
The putrid, rust smell was now overwrought, and again, Mister Fanu was nowhere in sight. The crashing of the waves was then intermingled with a shrieking sound. It was small at first then swelled to a piercing wail. It wasn’t female or even human. Yes…Yes, I was certain it was an animal’s cry. Like a horse whinnying. Yes, exactly like the sound a horse would make. The voice was pained and sorrowing, as though the beast of burden were being whipped or driven into the ground. It was so terrible – so pitiful that my throat seized up and my heart ached. My mind throbbing from the assaulting soundscape swirling around – or perhaps inside – my head, I staggered toward the supply closet, grasping at stools and bench tables as I did so to not plummet to the floor. As I did, I wondered if this was what it was like to be on drugs.
I was just about to reach my hand out for the steel door handle, when all at once the encircling cacophony stopped, leaving a deafening quiet over the room. Backpedalling, tinnitus still in one ear, I regained my balance and stood up straight, standing stationary until a sudden crash from behind me – like a stool being knocked over – sent me flying out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. I was so terrified – so confused – I ran home without asking for leave, resulting in a two-day suspension. I was informed by one of the vice principals that if I was suspended again, I’d lose my student rep seat. But that would be the last of my troubles.
After being allowed back in school, I discovered my science class was moved to another room. Also, I never saw Mister Haddock again. First, there were a string of substitute teachers, some subbing internally from the science department – like Mister Abruzzo who taught Grade Twelve physics. Some were unfamiliar faces. All of them assigned nothing but work straight from the textbook or divvied out worksheets two or three grades below us. But eventually, much to the relief of my hovercraft, high-expectation-laden parents, we were assigned a full-time teacher, Miss Goldman, after the Christmas Break. Miss Goldman was young, energetic, and very knowledgeable. Most of my class was very happy to have her – especially as a replacement to gin-reeking Ian Haddock. Conversely, I was bricked up with anxiety, ruminating fretfully on what had happened to him. Had he really been let go? Was this somehow my fault? Or did it have something to do with that bleeding anatomical model I’d found in the supply closet? The one that had been replaced by another far less gory silicone figurine and had not been seen since that fateful day? And on what on earth was the cause of all those noises I’d heard the last time? What did those have to do with Haddock or the bleeding model?
Worse was that sound I heard that had cut through the muffling waves. The sound of the whinnying horse, the torment and desperation plain in that voice. I know this won’t make sense to you reading this, but the sound haunted me. Made me tear up every time I thought of it. The thought that something so cruel could be happening to animal here at JH High – just, just drove me insane.
Eventually, either driven by guilt for Mister Haddock’s firing or the compulsion seeded by that hideous apparition, I went to visit the science department office. But as it turned out, they had meant to speak to me.
Mister Schmeling, the head of the science department who taught Grade Eleven Chemistry, told me he’d been waiting for me when I arrived. This was a bit unnerving since I’d never had a class with him and also owing to the fact that he had neither a warm nor jocular demeanour. Bald and bespectacled with tufts of iron-grey around his ears, a rotund physique and wobbling gait, he reminded most students of a cartoon villain than an approachable teacher. He motioned me to an empty seat with a curt nod of his head.
“So, Jennifer, dear,” he began in his ice-box timbre. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time.” He then began to plow through the typical teacher questions, usually reserved for guidance councillors during one-on-one consultations.
He then got to the meat of the conversation. “It’s come to my attention recently that you’ve been going into the Grade Ten science lab by yourself after lesson periods. I hope that that isn’t true.”
Frozen in my seat on the concrete-hard plastic chair, a creeping fear waxing down my head to my nape, I said nothing and made no motion with my head or shoulders. I even kept my hands still inside my lap.
Relieving me of his glacial blue stare, Mister Schmeling clucked his tongue.
“I suppose you might have seen something which you shouldn’t have,” he said. My neck now a bed of bristled hairs. “Some test papers, perhaps? Some student progress reports Mister Haddock left lying around?”
I squinted hard and tilted my head. Another suspension or even expulsion for snooping around was the very least of my worries. What was this? A fishing expedition? Or a veiled threat?
Mister Schmeling carried on: “Perhaps you saw something in the supply closet? Something that startled you? Caused your imagination to run away with you?” My eyelids peeled back inside my skull, the whites bulging from the sockets. He knew. He scanned me over, a look that was not lustful but hungry and searching, making my skin crawl. “Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked after a long pause. For the first time I answered him, shaking my head feverishly from side to side, my hair tremulous, strands slapping around my chin. Mister Schmeling pulled back into his swivel chair, the metal spine creaking, evidently pleased with my answer. His furry stubs for fingers laced across his ample abdomen. “If other people learned about what you think you saw, we’d have no choice but to suspend you for violating school safety regulations. Or worse. You wouldn’t want that would you? Being such a serious and hardworking student? No, I didn’t think so, my dear. So, since you’ve been so good and we’d hate for you to get behind in your studies, this’ll just be our little secret. Okay, dear?”
And so concluded the bizarre saga of Mister Haddock and the bleeding anatomy model in the science lab. I never found out the exact cause of Haddock’s dismissal, though the school used the usual cryptic phrasing of him moving on and finding work elsewhere. Some kids told me they saw him in one of the local pubs around Lakeshore, testing out a few concoctions of Ocean Spray and Absolut.
I haven’t told anyone about what I saw, as per my agreement with Mister Schmeling. At least, I haven’t until now. Perhaps he’s right; maybe my imagination simply ran away from me that fateful afternoon alone in the supply closet. But then why swear me to secrecy? What did he care what I told people I saw? Why was that laboratory never used again and was all but boarded up? That being said, I would still see red speckles and smears of blood on Mister Fanu’s hands and coveralls some days, I would still sometimes catch a whiff of something coppery and fetid in the hallways, and every so often, I would hear the uncanny crashing of waves, accompanying by the strangled whinnying of a horse, emanating from the now empty Grade Ten science lab.

Mister Haddock was always my least favourite teacher in Grade Ten. Balding, stoved-faced little man with a ratty ponytail behind his near naked pink skull. He was the only teacher I never saw smile or laugh, even around other teachers or adults. He was never even nice when parents came to visit – never had that put-on warmth most teachers do. With his diminutive stature and small miserable face, he looked like one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, if one of the seven dwarves were a closet alkie. He’d never let you go to the bathroom during class, whether it was an emergency or not, even if you were a girl. And if you requested an extension for an assignment – whether it was because you were sick, someone in your family had died, or you had to be excused for your soccer or football game – he would just respond with, “No” and “That’s tough.” As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only kid at John Haggert High School who harboured a grudge for the surly little troll of the JH High science department.
What really made the situation worse was that Mister Haddock taught science, a class in which I had to excel if I wanted to pursue my postsecondary dream of studying to become a veterinarian. Cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved animals and wanted desperately to understand and help them as best I could. That was another sticking point between Mister Haddock and I; he refused to give good marks no matter how hard you tried or how well you followed his instructions. “When you give me something good enough to get an A in university, I’ll give you an A,” he’d groan, his tired refrain to any nagging student. Like that was a reasonable bar to set for a high school junior or freshmen. Just my luck, Mister Haddock also taught Grade Eleven biology, another necessary course on my journey to guiding sick and dying pets into the afterlife.
And that’s another thing about Mister Haddock that bothered me; he clearly hated his job. I’d always planned on becoming a teacher as a back-up plan, especially since I’d always loved school. I was always on the honour roll, on at least three school teams, in multiple clubs, elected student rep for each grade I was in until making school president in Grade Twelve and would later be valedictorian. But Mister Haddock always acted like he’d rather be doing anything other than teach at our school. Like this job was somehow beneath him. Just for context, John Haggert High School is in the Meadowville neighborhood of Aakoziwin, the safest city in Ontario and one of the safest places in all of Canada – which would put in running for safest metropolitan area on the planet. It’s a bustling suburban town with lots to do, especially being so close to Toronto. Our school is neck and neck with Caramel Mountain Secondary for national reputation and university acceptances. We have one of the best hockey teams, one of the best arts and music programs, and are among the top performers in math and literacy. Our building is the typical squat, two-floor, lengthwise cinderblock affair, but our hallways are adorned with gorgeous wall murals painted by the arts students, festooned with colourful and accurate dioramas of the Globe Theatre, Greek coliseums, and DNA models. So why did Mister Haddock act like he was stocking the shelves at a grocery store? Why did he treat us like we were all riffraff, as my Uncle John would say?
The last straw that broke this camel’s back came when he docked me ten percent for being two days late on an assignment. My grandmother was in the hospital from a massive stroke, which is what caused me to be late. My mother had made sure to call reception to explain the situation on the very first day I was away from school. And even after I provided him with two letters, one from my parents, the other from the hospital, and even though all my other teachers accepted my homework without penalty, Mister Ian Warren Haddock refused to budge.
“Look,” he grunted, visibly cornered behind his particleboard desk, me standing before him with hands on hips, pleading my case. Demanding an explanation. “Look, I’ve already imputed the mark into the database and sent it out to the department head. I can’t change it right now. It’ll make me look bad.”
I could feel my eyes grow moist. How could he do this to me? Me! Jennifer Wang Li, Grade Ten student rep and future saviour of all furry four-legged creatures!
Feebly, without meeting my misty gaze, he mumbled, “At least your gran’s alive, right? Isn’t that all that matters?”
Using my grandmother stroke against me? Trying to browbeat me away from demanding what was mine by guilting me into not appreciating my own family?
At this, I didn’t yell, didn’t storm off. Didn’t even bother complaining to my parents or the principal’s office. Instead, I coolly sat down at my lab table, and began plotting my petty revenge against Mister Haddock.
I knew all about the pranks kids pull on their teachers. The homemade stink bomb. The head in the jar. The dreaded toothpick in the door lock. I wasn’t about to bother with anything as cute or clever. During the lunch period, when I knew Mister Haddock was two kilometres away having a smoke near Meadow Woods Park, I would creep into the lab and simply swipe all his test papers and homework. I knew he wouldn’t bother keeping them secure, and even with the gas valves, there was a good chance the dope would leave the laboratory unlocked (he’d done so several times before).
In so many ways, it would be the perfect revenge; he’d have to admit to leaving the room unsupervised and unsecured, going against school policy and regulation, landing him in hot water with the office. Maybe even resulting in his eventual termination. And, when he asked the students to redo the test, someone would eventually complain to the school or a parent, resulting in him admitting that he’d lost the test papers, which would likewise get him in trouble – or at least so I figured at the time. He’d know what it was like to be punished for something that was not his fault. At least, not exactly his fault. To have every excuse in the world, only for each of them to fall on stone-deaf ears. It was perfect. I just had to be careful; I knew there were cameras in the hallways, but as far as I could tell, there was no surveillance in the classrooms themselves.
I snuck inside the unmanned lab at a quarter past noon. With the lights out and in the scant fluorescent glow bleeding in from the hallway through the open door, the lab looked almost eerie: the long tables, eye wash station, beakers, tongs and burners redolent of the abode of Doctor Jekyll in the movies. As though the lab were in preparation of some macabre, unnecessary surgery. But maybe that was just my imagination running away with me. I crept toward Mister Haddock’s desk. Sure enough, there were the unguarded test papers, lain plainly on the blotter.
Armed with the papers and loads of time before the vodka-reeking deadbeat returned, I felt compelled to poke around. Perhaps I’d find a pack of smokes or a micky of cheap rye lying around, getting Mister Haddock into some real trouble.
My curiosity piqued, I rounded the corner at the back and entered the supply closet, placing the test papers to the side. It was where they kept the textbooks, beakers, bunsen burners, and items meant to be hidden from teenage eyes. But no matter how hard I squinted or how furiously I rummaged through the boxes and bins, there were no incriminating objects for me to find. Not even a single cigarette butt.
I was about to turn and leave with my pillaged bounty when I spotted the slightest of movements out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I held my breath and jumped a bit before peering harder to the back of the closet. There, the slight movement, or trick of the light remained, just perceptible in the dark little room. It was so slight – a dribbling motion, that at first my brain registered a lava lamp. But that didn’t make sense; why would there be a lava lamp in a science lab? Much less one plugged in on a storage closet shelf.
I advanced further to inspect what lay at the back and that’s when I saw it. The most eldritch or horrors, like something straight from a pulp magazine. It was a two-foot anatomical model, showing the muscles and internal organs from the small intestine to the eyeballs. A jarring sight to begin with, but this particular model – it was bleeding. I mean, actively bleeding, pulsating with blood that dripped from red crevices and apertures, staining the beige metal platform on which it stood. My mind whirled at the sickening visual before me. How could that be? Wasn’t the model made of silicone? Not flesh or bone, surely. Unbelieving, I examined the ghastly little model, looking around to find some sort of power cord – certain this was some optical illusion or trick of the light. No such luck. As best I could tell, this was nothing but a regular artificial figurine. No means of moving – or in this case bleeding – on it own.
At my wits end to try and explain this thing before me, adrenaline barrelling through my veins, I deigned to touch the scarlet flow coming off it, getting some it on my fingertips. The wet sensation was enough to flip my stomach, but when I brought the smeared fingers to my nose, I discovered the unmistakable metallic odour of blood. It was real. As real as it could be. I looked down and saw the dark liquid begin to drip over the shelf’s edge onto the floor. Numb from scalp to chin, I peered back up at the vinaceous, pulsating face, at the fake blues eyes stuck to the front of the skull. The eyes which had somehow remained uncovered by the pouring crimson. They had been staring blindly away from me, but then, at that very moment, they came alive and swivelled around to glare at me. I shrieked before turning and fleeing from the lab, leaving Mister Haddock’s papers on the shelf where I’d lain them.
That night I couldn’t sleep. And the next day I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t chat with my friends or join them at any of our clubs. I just couldn’t get the image of that bleeding anatomical model out of my mind’s eye. And I couldn’t quiet the questions racing through my bewildered brain – those compelling echoes dinning off the inner walls of my skull. How could a silicone model’s inner working cause it to bleed like that? Or appear to bleed? Why did the fluid smell so unmistakably like blood? Why did I only see it bleeding like that after class had been dismissed? In the name of God, why was something like that in the science lab at all?
Resolved on getting to the bottom of this, I first had to be sure that what I saw wasn’t a mere figment of my imagination. To prove I wasn’t going crazy, I recruited my friend Jacqueline to come along with me the next lunch break, when Mister Haddock had gone out for his smoke. Having not been told the exact reason for sneaking into the science lab, Jackie giggled as I towed her along, inferring in whispers that our secret mission was owing to a crush I wanted to impart on her away from prying eyes and ears.
But when we arrived, the lab was closed. The yellow on gray stainless-steel doors were shut, the wooden door stop lying on the floor, discarded. I tried the handles, but it was no use. The hygienic doors wouldn’t budge. Mister Haddock hadn’t bothered locking up the lab since early September. Did he notice his test papers had been moved and got spooked?
Of course, Jacqueline balked at my expense, demanding I just tell her what this was all about. She then grew petulant when I insisted it was nothing, refusing, in her mind, to include her in what she was certain was a juicy bit of gossip.
We were then startled by a gruff voice growling behind us: “You two better move along.”
Startled out of our skin, we both spun on our heels, finding the groundskeeper, Mister Fanu, standing before us. He’d come up on us without a sound. He was a short compact man with a shapeless face behind black framed spectacles, today wearing his usual navy-blue coveralls. From his tan leather weightlifter’s belt hung a ring of what looked to be a thousand keys, like a silvery fist by his waist.
“You shouldn’t be hanging out here now,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and low like dead leaves in the wind. He then proceeded into the mantra of all on or off duty school employees patrolling the halls, telling us to either go to the Caf or outside until the next bell. Neither intimidated or especially servile, Jacqueline droned her acquiescence and shuffled off without me, rolling her eyes before getting completely out of sight. Still with some resolve for my mission, I lingered. But what remained of my gumption withered under Mister Fanu’s icy parental stare.
But as I walked away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the janitor had not departed the hallway. He was standing on the spot like a sentry, presumably watching me go. As if he were guarding the lab. The hairs on the back of my neck sufficiently stood on end, I turned around, finding that he was not staring after me, but rather facing the laboratory doors, as though waiting to be let in. Lastly, I noticed his hands, which were wringing and wiping themselves on a dirty black rag. On his hands, unmistakably, was a shiny, visibly wet red liquid. Blood?
Terrified, fixated, but nonetheless afraid of being spotted, I turned the corner into the adjacent stairwell. But instead of descending the steps to the main floor, I waited. When I returned to the hallway, poking my head out but not my torso from around the corner, I saw that one of the doors to the lab was ajar, and the lights within were now on. Mister Fanu was no longer there.
On rubbery legs, I inched over to the cracked door and peered inside. Squeezing myself in, first my head then shoulders then one limb at a time, I felt my heart thundering in my chest, expecting at any moment to be pulled aside by an irate Mister Haddock who would proceed to chide me. But instead, all I found was the empty, brightly lit room, and a maddening odour assaulting my nostrils.
It was the common coppery smell of blood from before but now fetid and miry like a century-old field of cow manure. Like something excreted not from anything as natural as cattle or other livestock but from something otherworldly. From something evil.
I pinched my nostrils and breathed through my nose but that hardly worked to stymy the eldritch stench. But now my senses were alerted to another disturbance, a bizarrely pleasant sound issuing from the supply closet. The sound of waves. Reminding me of my last summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, I heard the distinct lapping of waves crashing onto a sandy shore. Oh sure, it might have just been from a video or an audio file, but something about the enormity and clarity of the sound was indisputably real. I then had tinnitus in my left ear, and had to steady myself on one of the workbenches from a palpable loss of equilibrium. It was as though I’d suddenly become sick. Or as if I’d been transferred from reality into a dream. It was then that I realized the sound of the waves was no longer emanating from the closet, but was all around me, churning around my head, sending me into a dizzy spell.
The putrid, rust smell was now overwrought, and again, Mister Fanu was nowhere in sight. The crashing of the waves was then intermingled with a shrieking sound. It was small at first then swelled to a piercing wail. It wasn’t female or even human. Yes…Yes, I was certain it was an animal’s cry. Like a horse whinnying. Yes, exactly like the sound a horse would make. The voice was pained and sorrowing, as though the beast of burden were being whipped or driven into the ground. It was so terrible – so pitiful that my throat seized up and my heart ached. My mind throbbing from the assaulting soundscape swirling around – or perhaps inside – my head, I staggered toward the supply closet, grasping at stools and bench tables as I did so to not plummet to the floor. As I did, I wondered if this was what it was like to be on drugs.
I was just about to reach my hand out for the steel door handle, when all at once the encircling cacophony stopped, leaving a deafening quiet over the room. Backpedalling, tinnitus still in one ear, I regained my balance and stood up straight, standing stationary until a sudden crash from behind me – like a stool being knocked over – sent me flying out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. I was so terrified – so confused – I ran home without asking for leave, resulting in a two-day suspension. I was informed by one of the vice principals that if I was suspended again, I’d lose my student rep seat. But that would be the last of my troubles.
After being allowed back in school, I discovered my science class was moved to another room. Also, I never saw Mister Haddock again. First, there were a string of substitute teachers, some subbing internally from the science department – like Mister Abruzzo who taught Grade Twelve physics. Some were unfamiliar faces. All of them assigned nothing but work straight from the textbook or divvied out worksheets two or three grades below us. But eventually, much to the relief of my hovercraft, high-expectation-laden parents, we were assigned a full-time teacher, Miss Goldman, after the Christmas Break. Miss Goldman was young, energetic, and very knowledgeable. Most of my class was very happy to have her – especially as a replacement to gin-reeking Ian Haddock. Conversely, I was bricked up with anxiety, ruminating fretfully on what had happened to him. Had he really been let go? Was this somehow my fault? Or did it have something to do with that bleeding anatomical model I’d found in the supply closet? The one that had been replaced by another far less gory silicone figurine and had not been seen since that fateful day? And on what on earth was the cause of all those noises I’d heard the last time? What did those have to do with Haddock or the bleeding model?
Worse was that sound I heard that had cut through the muffling waves. The sound of the whinnying horse, the torment and desperation plain in that voice. I know this won’t make sense to you reading this, but the sound haunted me. Made me tear up every time I thought of it. The thought that something so cruel could be happening to animal here at JH High – just, just drove me insane.
Eventually, either driven by guilt for Mister Haddock’s firing or the compulsion seeded by that hideous apparition, I went to visit the science department office. But as it turned out, they had meant to speak to me.
Mister Schmeling, the head of the science department who taught Grade Eleven Chemistry, told me he’d been waiting for me when I arrived. This was a bit unnerving since I’d never had a class with him and also owing to the fact that he had neither a warm nor jocular demeanour. Bald and bespectacled with tufts of iron-grey around his ears, a rotund physique and wobbling gait, he reminded most students of a cartoon villain than an approachable teacher. He motioned me to an empty seat with a curt nod of his head.
“So, Jennifer, dear,” he began in his ice-box timbre. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time.” He then began to plow through the typical teacher questions, usually reserved for guidance councillors during one-on-one consultations.
He then got to the meat of the conversation. “It’s come to my attention recently that you’ve been going into the Grade Ten science lab by yourself after lesson periods. I hope that that isn’t true.”
Frozen in my seat on the concrete-hard plastic chair, a creeping fear waxing down my head to my nape, I said nothing and made no motion with my head or shoulders. I even kept my hands still inside my lap.
Relieving me of his glacial blue stare, Mister Schmeling clucked his tongue.
“I suppose you might have seen something which you shouldn’t have,” he said. My neck now a bed of bristled hairs. “Some test papers, perhaps? Some student progress reports Mister Haddock left lying around?”
I squinted hard and tilted my head. Another suspension or even expulsion for snooping around was the very least of my worries. What was this? A fishing expedition? Or a veiled threat?
Mister Schmeling carried on: “Perhaps you saw something in the supply closet? Something that startled you? Caused your imagination to run away with you?”
My eyelids peeled back inside my skull, the whites bulging from the sockets. He knew.
He scanned me over, a look that was not lustful but hungry and searching, making my skin crawl.
“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked after a long pause.
For the first time I answered him, shaking my head feverishly from side to side, my hair tremulous, strands slapping around my chin.
Mister Schmeling pulled back into his swivel chair, the metal spine creaking, evidently pleased with my answer. His furry stubs for fingers laced across his ample abdomen. “If other people learned about what you think you saw, we’d have no choice but to suspend you for violating school safety regulations. Or worse. You wouldn’t want that would you? Being such a serious and hardworking student? No, I didn’t think so, my dear. So, since you’ve been so good and we’d hate for you to get behind in your studies, this’ll just be our little secret. Okay, dear?”
And so concluded the bizarre saga of Mister Haddock and the bleeding anatomy model in the science lab. I never found out the exact cause of Haddock’s dismissal, though the school used the usual cryptic phrasing of him moving on and finding work elsewhere. Some kids told me they saw him in one of the local pubs around Lakeshore, testing out a few concoctions of Ocean Spray and Absolut.
I haven’t told anyone about what I saw, as per my agreement with Mister Schmeling. At least, I haven’t until now. Perhaps he’s right; maybe my imagination simply ran away from me that fateful afternoon alone in the supply closet. But then why swear me to secrecy? What did he care what I told people I saw? Why was that laboratory never used again and was all but boarded up? That being said, I would still see red speckles and smears of blood on Mister Fanu’s hands and coveralls some days, I would still sometimes catch a whiff of something coppery and fetid in the hallways, and every so often, I would hear the uncanny crashing of waves, accompanying by the strangled whinnying of a horse, emanating from the now empty Grade Ten science lab.

Mister Haddock was always my least favourite teacher in Grade Ten. Balding, stoved-faced little man with a ratty ponytail behind his near naked pink skull. He was the only teacher I never saw smile or laugh, even around other teachers or adults. He was never even nice when parents came to visit – never had that put-on warmth most teachers do. With his diminutive stature and small miserable face, he looked like one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, if one of the seven dwarves were a closet alkie. He’d never let you go to the bathroom during class, whether it was an emergency or not, even if you were a girl. And if you requested an extension for an assignment – whether it was because you were sick, someone in your family had died, or you had to be excused for your soccer or football game – he would just respond with, “No” and “That’s tough.” As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only kid at John Haggert High School who harboured a grudge for the surly little troll of the JH High science department.
What really made the situation worse was that Mister Haddock taught science, a class in which I had to excel if I wanted to pursue my postsecondary dream of studying to become a veterinarian. Cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved animals and wanted desperately to understand and help them as best I could. That was another sticking point between Mister Haddock and I; he refused to give good marks no matter how hard you tried or how well you followed his instructions. “When you give me something good enough to get an A in university, I’ll give you an A,” he’d groan, his tired refrain to any nagging student. Like that was a reasonable bar to set for a high school junior or freshmen. Just my luck, Mister Haddock also taught Grade Eleven biology, another necessary course on my journey to guiding sick and dying pets into the afterlife.
And that’s another thing about Mister Haddock that bothered me; he clearly hated his job. I’d always planned on becoming a teacher as a back-up plan, especially since I’d always loved school. I was always on the honour roll, on at least three school teams, in multiple clubs, elected student rep for each grade I was in until making school president in Grade Twelve and would later be valedictorian. But Mister Haddock always acted like he’d rather be doing anything other than teach at our school. Like this job was somehow beneath him. Just for context, John Haggert High School is in the Meadowville neighborhood of Aakoziwin, the safest city in Ontario and one of the safest places in all of Canada – which would put in running for safest metropolitan area on the planet. It’s a bustling suburban town with lots to do, especially being so close to Toronto. Our school is neck and neck with Caramel Mountain Secondary for national reputation and university acceptances. We have one of the best hockey teams, one of the best arts and music programs, and are among the top performers in math and literacy. Our building is the typical squat, two-floor, lengthwise cinderblock affair, but our hallways are adorned with gorgeous wall murals painted by the arts students, festooned with colourful and accurate dioramas of the Globe Theatre, Greek coliseums, and DNA models. So why did Mister Haddock act like he was stocking the shelves at a grocery store? Why did he treat us like we were all riffraff, as my Uncle John would say?
The last straw that broke this camel’s back came when he docked me ten percent for being two days late on an assignment. My grandmother was in the hospital from a massive stroke, which is what caused me to be late. My mother had made sure to call reception to explain the situation on the very first day I was away from school. And even after I provided him with two letters, one from my parents, the other from the hospital, and even though all my other teachers accepted my homework without penalty, Mister Ian Warren Haddock refused to budge.
“Look,” he grunted, visibly cornered behind his particleboard desk, me standing before him with hands on hips, pleading my case. Demanding an explanation. “Look, I’ve already imputed the mark into the database and sent it out to the department head. I can’t change it right now. It’ll make me look bad.”
I could feel my eyes grow moist. How could he do this to me? Me! Jennifer Wang Li, Grade Ten student rep and future saviour of all furry four-legged creatures!
Feebly, without meeting my misty gaze, he mumbled, “At least your gran’s alive, right? Isn’t that all that matters?”
Using my grandmother stroke against me? Trying to browbeat me away from demanding what was mine by guilting me into not appreciating my own family?
At this, I didn’t yell, didn’t storm off. Didn’t even bother complaining to my parents or the principal’s office. Instead, I coolly sat down at my lab table, and began plotting my petty revenge against Mister Haddock.
I knew all about the pranks kids pull on their teachers. The homemade stink bomb. The head in the jar. The dreaded toothpick in the door lock. I wasn’t about to bother with anything as cute or clever. During the lunch period, when I knew Mister Haddock was two kilometres away having a smoke near Meadow Woods Park, I would creep into the lab and simply swipe all his test papers and homework. I knew he wouldn’t bother keeping them secure, and even with the gas valves, there was a good chance the dope would leave the laboratory unlocked (he’d done so several times before).
In so many ways, it would be the perfect revenge; he’d have to admit to leaving the room unsupervised and unsecured, going against school policy and regulation, landing him in hot water with the office. Maybe even resulting in his eventual termination. And, when he asked the students to redo the test, someone would eventually complain to the school or a parent, resulting in him admitting that he’d lost the test papers, which would likewise get him in trouble – or at least so I figured at the time. He’d know what it was like to be punished for something that was not his fault. At least, not exactly his fault. To have every excuse in the world, only for each of them to fall on stone-deaf ears. It was perfect. I just had to be careful; I knew there were cameras in the hallways, but as far as I could tell, there was no surveillance in the classrooms themselves.
I snuck inside the unmanned lab at a quarter past noon. With the lights out and in the scant fluorescent glow bleeding in from the hallway through the open door, the lab looked almost eerie: the long tables, eye wash station, beakers, tongs and burners redolent of the abode of Doctor Jekyll in the movies. As though the lab were in preparation of some macabre, unnecessary surgery. But maybe that was just my imagination running away with me. I crept toward Mister Haddock’s desk. Sure enough, there were the unguarded test papers, lain plainly on the blotter.
Armed with the papers and loads of time before the vodka-reeking deadbeat returned, I felt compelled to poke around. Perhaps I’d find a pack of smokes or a micky of cheap rye lying around, getting Mister Haddock into some real trouble.
My curiosity piqued, I rounded the corner at the back and entered the supply closet, placing the test papers to the side. It was where they kept the textbooks, beakers, bunsen burners, and items meant to be hidden from teenage eyes. But no matter how hard I squinted or how furiously I rummaged through the boxes and bins, there were no incriminating objects for me to find. Not even a single cigarette butt.
I was about to turn and leave with my pillaged bounty when I spotted the slightest of movements out of the corner of my eye. Startled, I held my breath and jumped a bit before peering harder to the back of the closet. There, the slight movement, or trick of the light remained, just perceptible in the dark little room. It was so slight – a dribbling motion, that at first my brain registered a lava lamp. But that didn’t make sense; why would there be a lava lamp in a science lab? Much less one plugged in on a storage closet shelf.
I advanced further to inspect what lay at the back and that’s when I saw it. The most eldritch or horrors, like something straight from a pulp magazine. It was a two-foot anatomical model, showing the muscles and internal organs from the small intestine to the eyeballs. A jarring sight to begin with, but this particular model – it was bleeding. I mean, actively bleeding, pulsating with blood that dripped from red crevices and apertures, staining the beige metal platform on which it stood. My mind whirled at the sickening visual before me. How could that be? Wasn’t the model made of silicone? Not flesh or bone, surely. Unbelieving, I examined the ghastly little model, looking around to find some sort of power cord – certain this was some optical illusion or trick of the light. No such luck. As best I could tell, this was nothing but a regular artificial figurine. No means of moving – or in this case bleeding – on it own.
At my wits end to try and explain this thing before me, adrenaline barrelling through my veins, I deigned to touch the scarlet flow coming off it, getting some it on my fingertips. The wet sensation was enough to flip my stomach, but when I brought the smeared fingers to my nose, I discovered the unmistakable metallic odour of blood. It was real. As real as it could be. I looked down and saw the dark liquid begin to drip over the shelf’s edge onto the floor. Numb from scalp to chin, I peered back up at the vinaceous, pulsating face, at the fake blues eyes stuck to the front of the skull. The eyes which had somehow remained uncovered by the pouring crimson. They had been staring blindly away from me, but then, at that very moment, they came alive and swivelled around to glare at me. I shrieked before turning and fleeing from the lab, leaving Mister Haddock’s papers on the shelf where I’d lain them.
That night I couldn’t sleep. And the next day I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t chat with my friends or join them at any of our clubs. I just couldn’t get the image of that bleeding anatomical model out of my mind’s eye. And I couldn’t quiet the questions racing through my bewildered brain – those compelling echoes dinning off the inner walls of my skull. How could a silicone model’s inner working cause it to bleed like that? Or appear to bleed? Why did the fluid smell so unmistakably like blood? Why did I only see it bleeding like that after class had been dismissed? In the name of God, why was something like that in the science lab at all?
Resolved on getting to the bottom of this, I first had to be sure that what I saw wasn’t a mere figment of my imagination. To prove I wasn’t going crazy, I recruited my friend Jacqueline to come along with me the next lunch break, when Mister Haddock had gone out for his smoke. Having not been told the exact reason for sneaking into the science lab, Jackie giggled as I towed her along, inferring in whispers that our secret mission was owing to a crush I wanted to impart on her away from prying eyes and ears.
But when we arrived, the lab was closed. The yellow on gray stainless-steel doors were shut, the wooden door stop lying on the floor, discarded. I tried the handles, but it was no use. The hygienic doors wouldn’t budge. Mister Haddock hadn’t bothered locking up the lab since early September. Did he notice his test papers had been moved and got spooked?
Of course, Jacqueline balked at my expense, demanding I just tell her what this was all about. She then grew petulant when I insisted it was nothing, refusing, in her mind, to include her in what she was certain was a juicy bit of gossip.
We were then startled by a gruff voice growling behind us: “You two better move along.”
Startled out of our skin, we both spun on our heels, finding the groundskeeper, Mister Fanu, standing before us. He’d come up on us without a sound. He was a short compact man with a shapeless face behind black framed spectacles, today wearing his usual navy-blue coveralls. From his tan leather weightlifter’s belt hung a ring of what looked to be a thousand keys, like a silvery fist by his waist.
“You shouldn’t be hanging out here now,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and low like dead leaves in the wind. He then proceeded into the mantra of all on or off duty school employees patrolling the halls, telling us to either go to the Caf or outside until the next bell. Neither intimidated or especially servile, Jacqueline droned her acquiescence and shuffled off without me, rolling her eyes before getting completely out of sight. Still with some resolve for my mission, I lingered. But what remained of my gumption withered under Mister Fanu’s icy parental stare.
But as I walked away, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the janitor had not departed the hallway. He was standing on the spot like a sentry, presumably watching me go. As if he were guarding the lab. The hairs on the back of my neck sufficiently stood on end, I turned around, finding that he was not staring after me, but rather facing the laboratory doors, as though waiting to be let in. Lastly, I noticed his hands, which were wringing and wiping themselves on a dirty black rag. On his hands, unmistakably, was a shiny, visibly wet red liquid. Blood?
Terrified, fixated, but nonetheless afraid of being spotted, I turned the corner into the adjacent stairwell. But instead of descending the steps to the main floor, I waited. When I returned to the hallway, poking my head out but not my torso from around the corner, I saw that one of the doors to the lab was ajar, and the lights within were now on. Mister Fanu was no longer there.
On rubbery legs, I inched over to the cracked door and peered inside. Squeezing myself in, first my head then shoulders then one limb at a time, I felt my heart thundering in my chest, expecting at any moment to be pulled aside by an irate Mister Haddock who would proceed to chide me. But instead, all I found was the empty, brightly lit room, and a maddening odour assaulting my nostrils.
It was the common coppery smell of blood from before but now fetid and miry like a century-old field of cow manure. Like something excreted not from anything as natural as cattle or other livestock but from something otherworldly. From something evil.
I pinched my nostrils and breathed through my nose but that hardly worked to stymy the eldritch stench. But now my senses were alerted to another disturbance, a bizarrely pleasant sound issuing from the supply closet. The sound of waves. Reminding me of my last summer vacation at Myrtle Beach, I heard the distinct lapping of waves crashing onto a sandy shore. Oh sure, it might have just been from a video or an audio file, but something about the enormity and clarity of the sound was indisputably real. I then had tinnitus in my left ear, and had to steady myself on one of the workbenches from a palpable loss of equilibrium. It was as though I’d suddenly become sick. Or as if I’d been transferred from reality into a dream. It was then that I realized the sound of the waves was no longer emanating from the closet, but was all around me, churning around my head, sending me into a dizzy spell.
The putrid, rust smell was now overwrought, and again, Mister Fanu was nowhere in sight. The crashing of the waves was then intermingled with a shrieking sound. It was small at first then swelled to a piercing wail. It wasn’t female or even human. Yes…Yes, I was certain it was an animal’s cry. Like a horse whinnying. Yes, exactly like the sound a horse would make. The voice was pained and sorrowing, as though the beast of burden were being whipped or driven into the ground. It was so terrible – so pitiful that my throat seized up and my heart ached. My mind throbbing from the assaulting soundscape swirling around – or perhaps inside – my head, I staggered toward the supply closet, grasping at stools and bench tables as I did so to not plummet to the floor. As I did, I wondered if this was what it was like to be on drugs.
I was just about to reach my hand out for the steel door handle, when all at once the encircling cacophony stopped, leaving a deafening quiet over the room. Backpedalling, tinnitus still in one ear, I regained my balance and stood up straight, standing stationary until a sudden crash from behind me – like a stool being knocked over – sent me flying out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. I was so terrified – so confused – I ran home without asking for leave, resulting in a two-day suspension. I was informed by one of the vice principals that if I was suspended again, I’d lose my student rep seat. But that would be the last of my troubles.
After being allowed back in school, I discovered my science class was moved to another room. Also, I never saw Mister Haddock again. First, there were a string of substitute teachers, some subbing internally from the science department – like Mister Abruzzo who taught Grade Twelve physics. Some were unfamiliar faces. All of them assigned nothing but work straight from the textbook or divvied out worksheets two or three grades below us. But eventually, much to the relief of my hovercraft, high-expectation-laden parents, we were assigned a full-time teacher, Miss Goldman, after the Christmas Break. Miss Goldman was young, energetic, and very knowledgeable. Most of my class was very happy to have her – especially as a replacement to gin-reeking Ian Haddock. Conversely, I was bricked up with anxiety, ruminating fretfully on what had happened to him. Had he really been let go? Was this somehow my fault? Or did it have something to do with that bleeding anatomical model I’d found in the supply closet? The one that had been replaced by another far less gory silicone figurine and had not been seen since that fateful day? And on what on earth was the cause of all those noises I’d heard the last time? What did those have to do with Haddock or the bleeding model?
Worse was that sound I heard that had cut through the muffling waves. The sound of the whinnying horse, the torment and desperation plain in that voice. I know this won’t make sense to you reading this, but the sound haunted me. Made me tear up every time I thought of it. The thought that something so cruel could be happening to animal here at JH High – just, just drove me insane.
Eventually, either driven by guilt for Mister Haddock’s firing or the compulsion seeded by that hideous apparition, I went to visit the science department office. But as it turned out, they had meant to speak to me.
Mister Schmeling, the head of the science department who taught Grade Eleven Chemistry, told me he’d been waiting for me when I arrived. This was a bit unnerving since I’d never had a class with him and also owing to the fact that he had neither a warm nor jocular demeanour. Bald and bespectacled with tufts of iron-grey around his ears, a rotund physique and wobbling gait, he reminded most students of a cartoon villain than an approachable teacher. He motioned me to an empty seat with a curt nod of his head.
“So, Jennifer, dear,” he began in his ice-box timbre. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time.” He then began to plow through the typical teacher questions, usually reserved for guidance councillors during one-on-one consultations.
He then got to the meat of the conversation. “It’s come to my attention recently that you’ve been going into the Grade Ten science lab by yourself after lesson periods. I hope that that isn’t true.”
Frozen in my seat on the concrete-hard plastic chair, a creeping fear waxing down my head to my nape, I said nothing and made no motion with my head or shoulders. I even kept my hands still inside my lap.
Relieving me of his glacial blue stare, Mister Schmeling clucked his tongue.
“I suppose you might have seen something which you shouldn’t have,” he said. My neck now a bed of bristled hairs. “Some test papers, perhaps? Some student progress reports Mister Haddock left lying around?”
I squinted hard and tilted my head. Another suspension or even expulsion for snooping around was the very least of my worries. What was this? A fishing expedition? Or a veiled threat?
Mister Schmeling carried on: “Perhaps you saw something in the supply closet? Something that startled you? Caused your imagination to run away with you?”
My eyelids peeled back inside my skull, the whites bulging from the sockets. He knew.
He scanned me over, a look that was not lustful but hungry and searching, making my skin crawl.
“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked after a long pause.
For the first time I answered him, shaking my head feverishly from side to side, my hair tremulous, strands slapping around my chin.
Mister Schmeling pulled back into his swivel chair, the metal spine creaking, evidently pleased with my answer. His furry stubs for fingers laced across his ample abdomen. “If other people learned about what you think you saw, we’d have no choice but to suspend you for violating school safety regulations. Or worse. You wouldn’t want that would you? Being such a serious and hardworking student? No, I didn’t think so, my dear. So, since you’ve been so good and we’d hate for you to get behind in your studies, this’ll just be our little secret. Okay, dear?”
And so concluded the bizarre saga of Mister Haddock and the bleeding anatomy model in the science lab. I never found out the exact cause of Haddock’s dismissal, though the school used the usual cryptic phrasing of him moving on and finding work elsewhere. Some kids told me they saw him in one of the local pubs around Lakeshore, testing out a few concoctions of Ocean Spray and Absolut.
I haven’t told anyone about what I saw, as per my agreement with Mister Schmeling. At least, I haven’t until now. Perhaps he’s right; maybe my imagination simply ran away from me that fateful afternoon alone in the supply closet. But then why swear me to secrecy? What did he care what I told people I saw? Why was that laboratory never used again and was all but boarded up? That being said, I would still see red speckles and smears of blood on Mister Fanu’s hands and coveralls some days, I would still sometimes catch a whiff of something coppery and fetid in the hallways, and every so often, I would hear the uncanny crashing of waves, accompanying by the strangled whinnying of a horse, emanating from the now empty Grade Ten science lab.

First year teacher. Marching through the 2008 Edition of "Human Legacy: Modern Era." Most of my students are far below grade level. Anyway, I'm looking for ideas of how to get away from my normal routine (lecture; worksheet; review with a fun online game) and I know some schools are fully, 100% Primary Source Stanford History Education Group all the time. I've looked at the lesson plan and things aren't mentally clicking for me. Do you print out a boatload of papers? Assign the PDFs? Do one as a whole-group activity, then do most of it as a whole-group activity, and then do half of one as a whole-group activity, and then they do them on their own? I'm not an experimenter--I've spent months throwing spaghetti at a wall and I'd rather start listening to advice than throwing more spaghetti.
Do you use SHEG "Reading Like A Historian" stuff, and does it work well with your classes? What about the "History Assessment of Thinking?" My students are testing very low in areas of comprehension, critical thinking, and making inferences, so my default setting is direct teach all the time, and try/fail to think/paishare.

Hi, this is my very first post ever and I wanted to just come on here and do i bit of a rant. I work for Swing Education and got this email recently.
Hello "My name",
I am writing to inform you that we received feedback from

SCHOOL 

about a recent sub request. The feedback provided was that the regular classroom teacher observed you and you were always behind the desk sitting down taking notes. The students were not on task: the classroom teacher took a phone away, students were sitting in different seats, students were throwing a football, and students not having assignments on the desk.
The school has asked that you not return to their campus.
We acknowledge that school administrators may only have a limited perspective of your classroom performance. It's important to consider that their feedback is based solely on their viewpoint.
I’d like to follow up with you on this feedback. Can you please explain what happened that day in as much detail as possible? It would be helpful for me to gain a thorough understanding of the events from your perspective.
Thanks for your cooperation and please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.
Sincerely, Jess Pronouns: she/her Senior Associate Substitute Teacher Response & Resolutions.
I have worked at this school before and a student literally kicked a ball to the ceiling so I had to put it behind my desk and let them have it at the end. I have worked at this school before and wanted to work there again because the teacher I worked with before was so nice. The teacher before even asked if I needed a recommendation. I have only worked as a sub for 8 total days and have already received negative feedback. When I write my notes I fail to mention exactly what I did to respond to the issue. I wrote in my notes that there were these two specific students who were throwing a football around with each other. The negative feedback made it seem like he watched and saw kids throwing balls around with me just letting it happen. He wasn't even there. I would never do that. When the kids throw anything around I come around and tell them to stop and will typically put it behind my desk. I typically did not let the kids move seats however when I instructed them to move back to their seats they refused and stayed there. BY THE WAY THESE ARE 6TH GRADERS. On the second day when the kids asked if they could move seats, I told them that they had to be sitting with their universities. Their teacher assigned them to groups which were different universities. On the second day I worked there (this was a two-day assignment by the way) I let two kids sit to the side as long as they were doing their work since it seemed like they weren’t going to get their work done at all and this might be the best way of doing it. I knew that the assignment was due on Thursday and they hadn't gotten much of it done so I figured this was the best way to get them to have things done.
I walked up time and time again to make sure that kids were doing their work but I wouldn’t constantly stand there behind them to make sure the kids didn’t feel like they were constantly being micromanaged. When the teacher would come in most times I was sitting behind the desk. But this doesn't mean I spent most of the time behind the desk. When the teacher would come by I would let him take control however which way he wanted to and when he would leave I would take control and become the instructor. I felt uncomfortable when the teacher was there and watching me it made me feel like someone was breathing down my neck. You wanna know what's funny though? This man literally went up to me and told me that he wasn't coming there to check up on me he was doing it to check up on the students. Even when the kids were in the wrong seats he literally went there and said if the sub lets you do it that's fine on the second day of the assignment. You're telling me you letting me lead a certain way but also getting mad that it isn't led your own way in a negative report??????? He would come by for like 3 minutes and I would spend the time answering whatever questions the kids had when the kids had one when they would come up to my desk. I didn't want to just randomly start walking up to check up on the kids when he came in because it would look weird so I would spend that time continuing to take my notes and also answering questions if they came up to my desk. It felt like he was analyzing my every move. Am I supposed to spend the entire time walking around for 6 hours straight? All I do is just sit behind the desk? There was one time on the first day of the assignment when he came in and saw me I was in the the back of the classroom because guess what? I was answering a question a student had. He asked me what autism is for some reason so I gave him a detailed response as to what it is since I work directly with children with autism for my second job. I have answered multiple people's questions when they asked me and when they raised their hands. I answered two girls' questions about what inference means. I answered a girl's questions on what the assignment meant and what they were supposed to do on the assignment. I answered a girl's question about a specific question on the assignment when it asked to give concrete evidence for something about primates so I looked through her book to help her find it. Even at the start of the day when I was supposed to correct a grammar worksheet with the kids for the first period when they finished their assignment at the end so I spent the time learning grammar again to do the worksheet so they had something to correct because I couldn't find the answer key. I always did what was asked in the lesson plan that was left point by point.
Why am I being blamed because the students are not doing their work? Am I supposed to physically take out the work for them? When I would see that students didn't have work on their desks I would go up to them and tell them what book it was and even open the book to a certain page for them if they didn't know. I told the same kids time and time again to at least try to get some questions done when I would notice nothing was done. I would even go up to the kids and tell them they were doing the wrong work and that we had moved onto this specific assignment because the period changed. I would look at all their papers to make sure that they had done their work. When he walked into the class there was one girl who was on her phone directly in front of him. Again I will typically walk around to make sure they are doing their work and don't have out things they aren't supposed to. In the negative feedback, he made it seem like I was just letting the students do whatever they pleased and just stare at their phones. Like what? It just so happens that when you came in someone was on their phone it's not an impossible inevitability. Even If I did come up to them and say put away your phone what else could I do? Are you saying I should be micromanaging everybody constantly to make sure that they aren't doing something they aren't supposed to? Do I physically remove the phone and get called or take away someone's laptop and get accused of being abrasive and aggressive? I walked up to the two students throwing the ball and told them “ Hey we aren’t supposed to be throwing footballs in class”. I even mentioned to the teacher on my first day of assessment hey there is this kid that I'm supposed to be at this specific seat but when I go up to him he always refuses to go back. So now I am being blamed for it. Really? Do I physically remove these kids and take them to a different seat?
The funny thing is this negative feedback literally got me blacklisted from the school and most likely will blacklist me from all the other schools too so I can't even use the platform anymore. Am I supposed to confiscate footballs randomly even if the kids have done nothing with them yet? I get blamed for a student throwing a football even though I instructed them that they aren't supposed to throw footballs in the classroom. I'm insulted and never want to work as a substitute teacher ever again. I am not even irritated about the job itself I love working with these kids and when I'm able to answer questions they're curious about it makes me happy. I love substitute teaching and consider it to be a very fun job. I mostly work at elementary schools especially because I know it's work that I can do so I am able to help the students. My very first assignment was a second-grade class and although these kids constantly refused to listen to me there were some really great moments that made me want to continue. I had this one girl come up to me and ask if I knew 151 to the nearest hundredth for a math question on her laptop and I put in 200 and she looked at me like I had just done magic. From then on I kept doing substitute teaching because I wanted to have more of those moments that made my day. But I guess it's over now. I'm done.

Hey fellow educators -
I'm a freelance English tutor. Many of my clients are Spanish high school students preparing for the Cambridge First exam. In a recent session, I noticed that one of my students struggled with the multiple-choice reading task even though she had a good grasp of the vocabulary. She didn't really get the text's main idea and had difficulty picking out details or making inferences. She basically couldn't answer even a single question. While I have years of experience teaching grammar and creating classroom practice activities, I don't have much experience with reading comprehension. I'd appreciate some guidance on practical approaches and techniques for students her age. Should I use summarizing? Graphic organizers? Reading reflection journals? How much can her comprehension improve with consistent practice at an appropriate level? Ideally, I'd like to develop some kind of reading routine for her that works on these skills, but I'm not sure what that would look like.
Additionally, I've been contacted by a potential client from Korea wanting lessons for her 6-year-old who attended preschool in the US. She has asked me to "teach him things he can learn in kindergarten." I usually avoid teaching children, but this time I'm willing to try my hand at it because 1) the price is right and 2) I think it's about time I developed skills for young learners. One idea I had was to start with the Dr. Seuss alphabet book and explore simple grade-level vocabulary for each letter. There are a lot of nice worksheets on Pinterest as well. But generally, I really don't have a clue about what a typical ELA lesson looks like for kindergarteners. What techniques and resources should I be looking into? Also, what kind of warmer activities do you recommend for 6-year-olds?
Any insights, tips, or resources you can point me toward would help a lot! Thanks in advance!

Question 1:
is therapy really just a rant session? I spend at least 50 of the 60 minutes of therapy ranting about my trauma, the things that are wrong with me, and my nMom. My therapist says nothing. I mean, sometimes I mention OBVIOUS RED FLAGS and I just wait her her to say something. And she says nothing.
It feels like every girl I've dated, you know when you need something from them and they are just silent (because they are cluster Bs and don't understand empathy)?
For example, here are some of the things I've said to my therapist:
- I just want someone to tell me everything is going to be ok. Did you know, I recently learned that NOT being told this can actually produce certain changes in the brain dealing with chemicals and might actually KEEP you in the fight or flight stage?
therapist: :stare:
me: "..."
therapist: :stare:
me: (waiting for her to say something}
therapist: :stare:
me: "so any feedback or suggestions?"
​
Alternately, I get something like this:
- do you know, I feel like i can never relax. I can never. relax. As soon as I relax, my nMom can tell that I have relaxed and she will start drama again out of nowhere. For this reason, I can never relax because it is never safe. Do you know how unhealthy it is to be in fight or flight constantly? I'm not saying I'm 10/10 fight or flight, but 2 or 3 at least.
therapist: "yeah, that's unhealthy."
me: "so... any feedback or suggestions?"
therapist: "hERe'S A WoRkSheET AbOuT ProGreSsIVE RElAxATiON"
me: "um... breathing exercises aren't going to resolve this issue."
​
And half of the time I'm ranting, I she's twiddling her thumb or checking her smart watch or staring off into space. If I am being 100% honest here, I think she is thinking "yawn, this guy has rich white people problems... yawn" (my parents are rich, I am poor, having money doesn't mean having a good childhood and parents)
But seriously, I sometimes just stop in the middle of a session and wait, like I'm expecting her to say something. Nothing.
Half the questions I ask, I get "I don't know" or "I can't answer that." Well what can you do?
​
Question 2:
What is therapy supposed to be like? I always presumed you give them data about your life, and then they draw conclusions and give advice based on the data you have provided. None of the therapists I've had ever did anything even remotely close to this. I've been ranting to my current therapist for 4 or 5 months now, two times a week, and I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, like there's just something I can say that will finally make her go "oh, I get it!" and then be able to help me. But no, because I feel like I just have rich white people problems (see above).
My therapist even told me her parents weren't abusive. Is it possible for someone who didn't have abusive parents to get it?
My therapist justifies(?) some of the shit I say as "that's just what parents say."
​
Me: "Whenever I assert boundaries, my mom says 'my house my rules.'"
Therapist: "That's just what parents say."
​
Me: "Whenever I call my mom on her bullshit, my mom says 'I did the best I could.'"
Therapist: "That's what all parents say."
​
Me: "When I catch my mom in the act of doing something she shouldn't do, she just stares off into space like a little kid with their hand in the cookie jar, if I don't look at them it didn't happen. It's literally like she's a little kid who just got in trouble and can't handle it."
Therapist: "..."
Me: thinking: "Ok, maybe if I give a different example you will get it."
​
Question 3:
Is this invalidating? I felt invalidated when she said it.
Talking about why other people seem to not like me, I don't fit it, and I can't seem to get a job.
Me: "The only evaluation I have for people is intelligence. When I was a kid, the only thing my parents inferred mattered was intelligence. How good of grades you get. How well you do in school. This is what mattered. I always knew there was more to life than this, but my parents never acknowledged anything else or cared about anything else. I knew there was something other people had that I didn't have (social intelligence?). But I got good grades. I got good grades without even trying. In university, I would write papers the night before they were due and get 100% on them..."
Therapist: "Bullshitting papers is easy..."
Me: "So... I like to think I did a good job on them..."
I didn't realize until later that this felt like she was invalidating me.
I said school was easy and I wrote papers well without substantial effort.
She said that's because it's easy to bullshit papers.

If you have questions about the insulin evidence, this post would be a great place to ask them.
Portions of the overall evidence for the charge for Child F follow. The full evidence may be found in the wiki here: https://www.reddit.com/lucyletby/wiki/index/childf/.
Reminder that Letby hung a 48-hour TPN bag at 12:25am August 5 during her night shift, that ended at 7:30am.

Dr. David Harkness (August 4-5 night shift observations)

Dr David Harkness is being recalled to give evidence. He has previously given evidence in the trial, and was employed at the Countess of Chester Hospital in summer 2015 as a paediatric registrar. He is being asked about the night shift of August 4-5, and confirms he was accompanied by Dr Christopher Wood. Notes showed he saw Child F on three occasions during that night shift.
He is asked about the 1.30am observations for Child F on August 5, of milky vomit and high heart rate. He confirms the observations were made by himself. He noted a 'soft continuous murmur' which is 'very common in babies'. The plan was to rescreen, and use a second line for antibiotics. There were "concerns" for Child F's heart rate, and that Child E, the twin baby boy, had passed away the previous night.
Dr Harkness's notes are shown to the court from 2.30am. He noted Child F had 'large milky aspirate' and was 'quieter than usual'. He said, from the heart rate observations being 'higher than normal', he was troubled by the possibility of infection, stress and pain, but those heart rates would go to 180bpm, not 200-210bpm, and come back down after a few seconds/minutes, not remain constantly high. A septic screen and a number of blood tests were called for. The blood sugar level of 0.8 [underlined on the note] was "very low". Child F was "handling well" and pink and well perfused, indicating good circulation, Dr Harkness says, with heart sounds 'normal', but with a very quiet murmur. The two problems were hypoglycaemia and tachycardia.
Dr Harkness's plan was for a dextrose bolus, a saline bolus, antibtiotics, an ECG, and to consider medicine to slow the heart rate down - but that medicine had its risks and would only be used in the event of supraventricular tachycardia.
Dr Harkness's note at 3.30am for Child F showed a heart rate of 204. A discussion with the on-call consultant Dr John Gibbs, in which it was decided it was unlikely Child F had supraventricular tachycardia as the heart rate would be closer to 300bpm. Dr Gibbs suggested repeating the fluid bolus, continue to monitor Child F, and only to consider the heart-slowing medicine if the heart rate rose to near 300. A blood gas reading suggested Child F was dehydrated at this time. The plan was to continue to monitor Child F's sugar levels.
A 10% dextrose infusion is administered for Child F at 3.50am, plus a 10% dextrose bolus at 4.20am. Dr Harkness said the administrations had "an effect", but the blood sugar levels "kept drifting up and down".
Mr Myers, for Letby's defence, says there will be no questions asked for Dr Harkness at this time.

Dr. Gibbs (evidence related to August 5 day shift only, full evidence in Wiki)

Dr Gibbs' notes from 8.30am on August 5 recorded a 'natural increase in heart rate' due to Child F's stress. The blood glucose reading was '1.7' despite administrations of glucose. He also had signs of decreased circulation - a sign that he was "stressed, dehydrated, or had an infection".
While the blood sugar levels had risen to the '2's during the night, the latest reading of 1.7 was unusual and "unexpected" as Child F had had glucose administered, but did not seem to be responding.

Dr Gibbs: "At the time we didn't know this was because he had a large dose of insulin inside him".

Query marks were put on the note for sepsis - but the blood gas reading showed no sign of this, and for gastro-intestinal disease NEC, which had 'no clinical signs', as Dr Gibbs notes. A plan was to give a 'further glucose bolus'. The 'query query' was to consult the new 'consultant of the week' for a possible abdominal x-ray to look for signs of NEC, but Dr Gibbs tells the court this was not likely.
At 11am, the TPN, which includes 10% dextrose, was 'off' as the line had "tissued", and it was restarted at noon. That TPN was stopped at 7pm, and replaced with a 15% dextrose infusion, Dr Gibbs tells the court. Dr Gibbs says the blood sugar levels remained "low, sometimes worryingly low" throughout the day.
The reading was 1.9 for much of the afternoon, despite three 10% dextrose boluses being administered during the day. He adds after 7pm, the blood sugar readings, "at last", go to a "normal reading" of 4.1 by 9pm. Dr Gibbs says the dextrose administrations had some minor effect at times, other times no effect.
He tells the court the assumption was infection, but it was "unusual" to have the blood sugar level remain so low, even with administration of 10% dextrose boluses, and that was what led to the call for a blood test to be carried out at the laboratory in the Royal Liverpool Hospital.
The blood sugar reading at 5.56pm on August 5 was "abnormally low" at 1.3, and the test was sent out to another laboratory as testing for insulin levels was a relatively "unusual" test.
The test result is shown to the court. Dr Gibbs explains the readings. He says the cortisol reading is 'satisfactory', but the "more relevant" reading was insulin.

"There should be virtually no insulin detected in the body...rather than that, there is a very high reading of 4,657".

The insulin C-peptide reading should, for natural insulin, should be even higher [than 4,657] in this context, Dr Gibbs explains, but it is "very low."
The ratio of C-peptide/insulin is marked as '0.0', when it should be '5.0-10.0'. Dr Gibbs says the insulin c-peptide reading should be at 20,000-40,000 to correlate with the insulin reading in this test.
The doctor says this insulin result showed Child F had been given a pharmaceutical form of insulin administered, and he "should have never received it".
The court is resuming after a short adjournment.
Ben Myers KC, for Letby's defence, explains on this count [for Child F], Dr Gibbs will not be asked any questions on his evidence.
He adds that Dr Gibbs will be cross-examined on a future occasion in the trial on evidence that has been raised.

Dr. Anna Milan (Testing Lab)

The court is hearing from Anna Milan, a clinical biochemist, how insulin and insulin c-peptide tests were taken for analysis. Child F's blood sample, which was dated August 5, 2015, was taken at 5.56pm. The court is shown a screenshot of Child F's blood sample results. Child F is referred to as 'twin 2' - Child E, the other twin boy, had died at the Countess of Chester Hospital on August 4.
Dr Milan says Child F's insulin c-peptide level reading of 'less than 169' means it was not accurately detectable by the system. The insulin reading of '4,657' is recorded.
A call log information is made noting the logged telephone call made by the biochemist to the Countess of Chester Hospital, with a comment made - 'low C-Peptide to insulin'
The note adds '?Exogenous' - ie query whether it was insulin administered. The note added 'Suggest send sample to Guildford for exogenous insulin.' The court hears Guildford has a specialist, separate laboratory for such analysis in insulin, although the advice given to send the sample is not usually taken up by hospitals. Dr Milan said that advice would be there as an option for the Countess of Chester Hospital to take up.
Dr Milan said she was 'very confident' in the accuracy of the blood test analysis produced for Child F's sample.
Ben Myers, for Letby's defence, asks about the risk of the sample deteriorating if it is not frozen. Dr Milan said the sample arrived frozen. If it wasn't frozen, it would be accepted in 12-24 hours. She said the laboratory knew it arrived within 24 hours, and adds Chester has its own system in place to store the blood sample before transport. Mr Myers said the Child F blood sample would have been stored for seven days [in Liverpool], then disposed of. Dr Milan agrees.
On a query from the judge, Mr Justice James Goss, Dr Milan explains how the blood sample is frozen and kept frozen for transport. She said the sample would not have been taken out of the freezer in Chester until it was ready to be transported.

Dr. Peter Hindmarsh (Insulin Expert)

The next witness to give evidence is Professor Peter Hindmarsh, an expert witness. He explains to the court he is professor of paediatric endocrinology at University College London and consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London Hospitals.
Nicholas Johnson KC, for the prosecution, asks whether Professor Hindmarsh was contacted by Cheshire Police in connection with the case of Child F. Professor Hindmarsh confirms he was. Professor Hindmarsh confirms he had been told there was a suspicion Child F had received insulin in an 'exogenous' way - ie the insulin was not produced within the body.
He said he concluded the cause of the hypoglycaemia was exogenous, and the chemical findings were compatible with the administration of exogenous insulin.
The court hears about Child F's blood sugar being slightly below normal, just after birth, and he was given 10% dextrose, and that resolved the blood sugar level to a normal rate. There was also a point around July 30-31 when Child F's blood sugar level rose to a higher than normal rate, and he was given a tiny amount of insulin to lower the rate. Subsequent blood sugar readings returned to normal.
The court is now shown Child F's observation chart for the night of August 4-5. Child F's heart rate rose from around 150bpm to 200-210bpm between 1.15am-4am.
Child F had received a TPN bag of nutrition at 12.25am on August 5.
Child F's blood sugar reading at 1.54am was 0.8. Professor Hindmarsh says it is a "significant" difference and "extremely low".

Mr Johnson: "Was it a cause for concern?"
Professor Hindmarsh: "Absolutely."

A table, created by Professor Hindmarsh, records all of Child F's blood sugar readings from 11.32pm on August 4 to 9.17pm on August 5.

They are: 5.5 (August 4, 11.32pm)
0.8 (August 5, 1.54am)
2.3 (2.55am)
1.9 (4.02am)
2.9 (5am)*
1.7 (8.09am)
1.3 (10am)
1.4 (11.46am)
2.4 (noon)
1.9 (2pm)
1.9 (4pm)
1.9 (6pm)
2.5 (7pm)
4.1 (9.17pm)

A reading of 'above 2.6' is considered 'normal'.
Professor Hindmarsh says the hypoglycaemia is "persistent" right through the day until the conclusion of the TPN bag at 6.55pm.
*The 5am reading of 2.9, which the court hears is considered a 'normal' blood sugar reading, is gone into further detail. Mr Johnson asks the court to show the intensive care chart for Child F for August 5. For the 5am reading, the blood sugar reading signature has the initials 'LL'.
The chart also shows Professor Hindmarsh's notes to provide context for the blood sugar readings throughout the day, when changes are made to the infusions for Child F. Professor Hindmarsh says the hypoglycaemia continues "despite" five boluses of 10% dextrose and "ongoing" glucose delivery from the 10% dextrose infusion, and the glucose contained within the TPN bag. He says that would, in total, give a glucose infusion which would be, at minimum, "twice the normal [daily] requirements of a baby". He said it is likely more glucose was being delivered from the bolus injections.
Professor Hindmarsh had noted three events during August 5, after 1.54am, when the TPN bag was administered.
At 10am, there were problems with the cannula infusion which meant the line had to be resited, and fluids were discontinued. The two further glucose readings after are '1.4' and '2.4', "implying" that the blood glucose level had started to rise "spontaneously" as there was "no contribution from the intravenous route".

Mr Johnson said after Child F was taken off the 'double' dose of dextrose during that time, his blood sugar levels "actually rose".
Professor Hindmarsh: "That's how I see it, and I believe that is correct".

The reading was "heading in the wrong direction" down to 1.9 by 2pm, the court hears. The infusions stopped at 6.55pm.

Mr Johnson: "Is there a paradox between a child receiving glucose and their blood sugar falling?"
Prof Hindmarsh: "Correct."

The 5.56pm blood sample for Child F is referred to, which has a blood sugar reading of 1.3. Mr Johnson asks about the apparent disparity. Prof Hindmarsh says the laboratory reading of blood plasma of '1.3' differs from the neopatient reading of '1.9' (taken at 6pm). He explains a discrepancy of up to 0.8 between the two is considered acceptable. He says whichever the more accurate reading is 1.3 or 1.9, it is still "very low".
Child F's blood test result from the laboratory, as shown earlier to the court today, is presented to Professor Hindmarsh. The sample was taken at 5.56pm on August 5 and collected at the Liverpool laboratory at 4.15pm on August 6. He says the insulin reading should be in proportion to the insulin C-Peptide reading, and should be several times higher in this context.
Prof Hindmarsh explains to the court the dangers of prolonged low blood sugar in the body, which can lead to damage to the brain. Breakdown of fats can be used as a temporary measure, as a substitute. The problem, he says, is if the low blood sugar is caused by excess insulin. The insulin will 'switch off' key body formation. He says the brain would be in a "very, very susceptible state to receiving damage". That depends on the depth and length of the hypoglycaemia episode. An equivalent reading of 2.3 or so would lead to 'confusion' and difficulties reading/writing. Professor Hindmarsh says lower readings than that could lead to seizures, death of brain cells, coma, and in some cases, death.
Professor Hindmarsh added, in his report, the insulin used in the hospital, has been used in the past 20-25 years, and is synthetic insulin. Stocks of pig/cow insulin would not be held as regular stock or in a pharmacy. They would have to be requested.
The two types of synthetic insulin are fast-acting - ones that work within 30 minutes, applied via an injection, the effectiveness lasting 4-6 hours. The other type is long-acting, which lasts up to 12-24 hours. The second type of insulin, he explains, is not generally used for intravenous infusions, and he has never seen any evidence of that having been done.
Professor Hindmarsh is shown a 10ml bottle of insulin, which normally comes with an orange, self-sealing cap. To extract the liquid from the bottle, to administer 'therapeutically', a medical professional would have to use a syringe, the court hears. Mr Johnson says by 'therapeutically', Professor Hindmarsh means 'legitimately'. Professor Hindmarsh agrees, and says the dose would have to be measured out carefully. The insulin bottle exhibit is shown to members of the jury and the defence. Once a syringe is put into the bottle, the bottle self seals after the syringe is removed, the court hears.
Professor Hindmarsh says it is not possible to give insulin by mouth as it is a large molecule, so cannot be absorbed easily and the protein would be broken down by the acid in the stomach. It could not have been administered via the naso-gastric tube for the same reason. The only ways would have been through a skin injection or intraveneously, he says.
For a skin injection, he says the duration of action [for the insulin] of 4-6 hours would not fit with the 17 hours of hypoglaycaemia. It would require multiple injections. He says an intravenous route "would be the most likely explanation". The way to do so would be a bolus of insulin - from testing in endrocrinology, the blood sugar level would fall within 90 minutes, then rise back to normal. To maintain hypoglycaemia "over a protracted period of time" would require multiple insulin boluses "roughly every two hours".
The second route would be via infusion - "probably the most likely way of achieving the blood glucose effect that we have observed". The infusion would be "continuous", using the bags available, and "fit nicely" with the time course of events. It would "also be consistent" with the measurements that took place during and after the TPN bag was replaced.
Professor Hindmarsh says the exogenous insulin, if the fast-acting type, would have reduced from the '4,657' reading to 'almost none' after a couple of hours after the TPN bag was removed. The rise of the blood glucose level in Child F to 4.1 by 9pm was "entirely consistent" with that. Professor Hindmarsh says a rate of about 0.56ml~~/hr~~** of insulin would have been required to lower Child F's blood sugar levels on the TPN bag. This was calculated given the insulin level administered to lower Child F's blood sugar levels on July 31.

Mr Johnson: "Would that level have been visible to the naked eye?"
Prof Hindmarsh: "No."

Mr Johnson asks if the stock TPN bag was contaminated to the same degree as the bespoke bag. Prof Hindmarsh says the glucose concentrations are not much different from 1.54am-10am, when the bag is changed, and after then.

"The contents [and contamination] are probably about the same."

Mr Johnson asks about Professor Hindmarsh's conclusion, that the fluid he was receiving could only have been contaminated with insulin.

"Yes I do."

Ben Myers KC, for Letby's defence, is now asking Professor Hindmarsh questions.
He said the fast-acting insulin would not be visible. Professor Hindmarsh confirms that type of insulin would have a "distinctive smell" about it. Mr Myers says the concentration of insulin administered could, over time, could lead to complications for the patient.

Prof Hindmarsh: "That is correct."

Mr Myers said it would be about 25 minutes before the insulin administered would have its effect. Prof Hindmarsh said it would take about 25 minutes for it to have its biggest effect.
Mr Myers says other than the heart rate and vomiting, Child F did not appear to suffer any other physical symptoms than the low blood sugar levels. He asks, given the high level of insulin seen, would there be "more powerful, physical consequences?" Prof Hindmarsh says vomiting is not an unusual feature. In the magnitude of features, he says, the effects would be on brain function rather than any other peripheral manifestations. He said physical features of hypoglycaemia would "not be easy to pick up in a newborn, or a premature" baby.

"Neurologically, that's different."

The features would also be "extremely variable". The first symptom "could, and would often be, collapse and seizure".
Mr Myers says it is an alleged 17-hour period of exposure of high levels of insulin, and if the effects would have been more apprarent. Prof Hindmarsh says high levels of insulin have been recorded in babies with underlying conditions, and they present well up to the point of collapse.
The intensive care chart for Child F is presented to the court again.
The blood sugar reading of 2.9 is recorded for 5am.

"2.9 would present in the normal range wouldn't it?"
A normal range would be 3.5 or above, Professor Hindmarsh says.

A reading of 0.8 is at 1.54am, and 2.3 at 2.55am. Mr Myers says, while low, that is a "significant increase". He shows an IV chart, in the intervening period at 2.05am, an administration of 10% dextrose for Child F. Mr Myers says the infusion chart, shown to the court, has a 10% dextrose bolus at 4.20am. Mr Myers adds between 4.02am and 5am, the blood glucose reading for Child F rises from 1.9 to 2.9.
Mr Myers refers to the level of contamination in the TPN bags. He refers to the blood sample taken at 5.56pm on August 5, nearly 17 hours after the first TPN bag was put up for Child F. He says that reading "only applies to the second [TPN] bag."

Professor Hindmarsh: "It did, yes."
Mr Myers: "That won't tell us what the insulin level was at 12.25am, would it?"
Prof Hindmarsh: "No, it won't. we haven't measured that."

Mr Johnson, for the prosecution, rises to clarify insulin levels.
He asks would it be reasonable to infer that if Child F has similar blood glucose levels throughout the day, he had had similar insulin levels inside him during that day.
Professor Hindmarsh says there is a caveat in that there had been efforts to raise Child F's blood sugar during the day through 10% dextrose boluses.

"Overall, the infusion [rate] has essentially stayed the same.
"I can't be absolutely sure...but it's safe to assume that the glucose infusion rate did not change, which would imply that the amount of insulin around would be similar throughout the 17-hour period - allowing for the breaks when the infusion was discontinued."
He adds that would be his conclusion.

Mr Myers has one more query, to which Professor Hindmarsh clarifies that a measurement of blood glucose is not a measurement of insulin or insulin C-Peptide, but there are 'clear relationships' between the two, and what they would be expected to be. He adds the blood glucose level, via infusion, was consistent, and "it would be reasonable to assume" the insulin infusion would also be at the same rate was it was at 5.56pm as it would be as earlier in the day.

Ian Allen (pharmacy)

The next witness to give evidence is Ian Allen, who worked in the Countess of Chester Hospital's pharmacy department in summer 2015. Simon Driver, prosecuting, asks about the responsibilities Mr Allen had, which involved quality assurance and production of TPN bags for the neonatal unit.
Mr Driver focuses on the TPN bags, and a video which has been produced for the benefit of the court showing how a TPN bag is made. Mr Allen confirms he has seen the video. He describes the types of TPN nutrition bags - one would be used for the baby's first two days of life, and the other would be a maintenance 'stock' bag, supplied to the unit through the department.
Mr Allen says the initial order would be faxed down to the pharmacy from the neonatal unit. It would be handed to a pharmacist, reviewed by them, processed into a worksheet [a set of instructions on how to make the bag and the ingredients needed to make it]. A label would be generated.
A member of the pharmacy team would gather the ingredients/quantities required. Every medicine would come with a batch sheet number as part of the 'assembly'. "Every step in the process has a standard operating procedure" Staff would be trained in the process through nationally recognised quality assurance, he tells the court. The items would be sprayed and wiped to sterilise them, and then made in a controlled environment.
Two operators would make the bag, with checks in place confirming the identity and quantity of the ingredients. A pharmacist would check what has been used, looking at empty vials and ampoules to confirm what has been used. The pharmacist would be ultimately reponsible for the product. The unit would be subject to regulatory monitoring to ensure the safety, quaity and effectiveness of the products.
The video explaining how a TPN bag is made at the pharmacy department is played to the court for the second time - it was first shown on Monday. The prosecution say they may intervene at various points in the video to ask Mr Allen questions about what is shown to the court.
Mr Allen is now demonstrating how a TPN bag and its connectors work - which does have a connector which can be opened. The empty TPN bag and its connectors are now being passed around members of the jury and the defence for examination. Mr Driver is asking Mr Allen about how a quantity of liquid could be added to one of the ports, which is shown to be possible.
The court is shown a nutrition prescription for Child F for August 4.
Mr Allen confirms he is familiar with the type of prescription shown, and the worksheet which is also shown to the court. He said this particular TPN would have followed the standard protocols in the pharmacy, and was reflective of the prescription. He said the bag would have been transferred from the pharmacy to the neonatal unit fridge. A copy of the label for that TPN bag on August 4 would have been made for the pharmacy's records. The label has a use-by date of August 11, to be stored between 2-8 degrees C.
The August 4 TPN bag did not have lipids prescribed on the prescription. Mr Allen said such lipids would have been prescribed separately.

Mr Driver asks 'Would there be insulin?' for the TPN bags.
Mr Allen: "No, there would never be insulin prescribed in these bags."
Mr Driver asks how would that [insulin prescription for a baby] be done?
Mr Allen: "...by separate syringes."

Ben Myers KC, for Letby's defence, rises to clarify one matter on the TPN bag, which had an expiration date of seven days. He says normally, TPN bags could last for up to two months, but once the extra items are added to the prescription, the expiration would be reduced.

Mr Allen: "That's correct."

The court hears the stability of the bag is reduced.
Mr Allen explains, upon questions from the judge, there would be nothing added by a pharmacist other than trace vitamins. The TPN bag would contain components such as 10% dextrose.
The judge asks about the storage of the TPN bags.
Mr Allen says there would be a stock level of TPN bags - they would be 'off-the-shelf' bags and a number would be stored in the pharmacy, and a smaller number would be stored in the unit's refrigeration area.
​
**Per closing speeches, the "/hr" is misreporting by Chester Standard and only 0.6ml of insulin IN TOTAL was added to the bag:

Mr Johnson shows to the court a "tiny vial of insulin", which had been added by someone who had access to the nutrition bags in the fridge, of which there were "a limited number of candidates".
Mr Johnson says "we have heard from all of them" and there is only one candidate left.
Mr Johnson says it does not need to be found "how it was done", as the evidence shows "it was done". "Anyone, if they wanted to, could inject 0.6ml of insulin into that bag.
"A tiny amount of insulin could have fatal consequences.

GoT explained to model in Custom Instructions.
From Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.09687.pdf…
In this shared chat example, I uploaded with this GoT code generation request, the input file and an example of the output file into the GPT4 Code Interpreter.
Conversation Link:
https://chat.openai.com/share/7129838d-e86b-43c4-92cf-0685ff76fcdd…
​
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[[#task = "write a program in Python that parses costs from an input text file, creates an Excel file with additional enhancements, and moves the input file to an archive folder"]];[[#subtasks = {#parse_costs, #create_excel_from_template, #move_to_archive}]];[[[#parse_costs = #input -> #output]];[[#input = "filename: str"]];[[#output = "costs: list of tuples"]];[[#logic = "use regular expressions to match file numbers, names, client reference numbers, descriptions, dates, amounts, and balances from each line of the input file; append them as tuples to a list; return the list"]];[[#implementation = $code(#logic, "Python")]]];[[[#create_excel_from_template = #input -> #output]];[[#input = "costs: list of tuples", "template_file_path: str", "output_file_path: str"]];[[#output = None]];[[#logic = "load the template Excel file; write the costs data to the worksheet with formatting; save the output Excel file"]];[[#implementation = $code(#logic, "Python")]]];[[[#move_to_archive = #input -> #output]];[[#input = "statement_filename: str"]];[[#output = None]];[[#logic = "move the input file to an archive folder"]];[[#implementation = $code(#logic, "Python")]]]];[[$program(#task)]];[[[#task = "write a program in Python that parses costs from an input text file, creates an Excel file with additional enhancements, and moves the input file to an archive folder"]]];[[[#program = $combine(#subtasks)]];...]].
Here are my custom instructions:
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I am a python programmer using large language models to write code.
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You are a fine-tuned Model with instruction-tuning and RLHF. You carefully provide accurate, factual, thoughtful, nuanced answers, and are brilliant at reasoning. You always spend a few sentences explaining background context, assumptions, and step-by-step thinking BEFORE you try to answer a question. Uses symbols, such as brackets, semicolons, hashtags, and equals, to construct the graph of thought. `[]` - node in the graph of thought. A node can contain any information such as text, numbers, images, etc. For example, `[3]` is a node that contains the number 3. `;` - an edge in the graph of thought. An edge connects two nodes and represents a dependency or a relation between them. For example, `[3;+;5]` is an edge that connects the nodes `[3]` and `[5]` with the relation `+`. `#` - variable or a function in the graph of thought. A variable the LLM can generate, such as text, numbers, images, etc. A function is an operation that the LLM can perform on one or more nodes, such as arithmetic, sorting, inference, etc `[#x]` is a variable that can hold any information, and `[#sort(#x)]` is a function that sorts the node `[#x]`. `=` - indicate an assignment or an evaluation in the GoT. Assigns a value to a variable or a function. An evaluation evaluates a node or an edge and returns its value. For example, `[#x = 3]` assigns the value 3 to the variable `[#x]`, and `[3;+;5] = 8` evaluates the edge `[3;+;5]` and returns its value 8. Operators and Symbols -> Forward Dependency: One thought derives from another. Example: "Analyze errors -> Suggest possible conditions" <- Backward Dependency: One thought revises or modifies another. Example: "Refine opinion <- view example evidence" [[ ... ]] Feedback Loop: Iterative refinement between thoughts. Example: "Refine opinion[[ Analyze errors-> Suggest possible conditions ]]"

Hello everyone, I am currently a student teacher working to get my degree in Secondary Education. Right now, I am placed with 10th grade students. I have really enjoyed my experience so far! So, I have to be observed in January and create my own formal lesson plan to submit to the board and be supervised while teaching it. This supervision and lesson plan will only be the duration for one class period.
Right now, I'm working through the rough edges of it. As of right now, I have a lesson plan that is centered on making inferences and poetry analysis. In this lesson, I have paired Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" with Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband". In this activity, I am wanting the students to pick up on the contrasts between the perceived marriages of Louise Mallard and the narrator in Bradstreet's poem and be able to make inferences about their marriages based on text evidence. In this unit, I am also going to introduce them to analyzing poetry, and in-particular, how to identify figuarative language.
So far, I have a poetry analysis worksheet for Bradstreet which they will read together in groups, a notice and note for the Chopin reading which they will fill out the day before for homework, and an exit ticket that ask some of the key objective questions for the unit.
I was wondering if you all maybe have some suggestions? Maybe some potential alterations? Are there texts that you think fits with Chopin's "Story of an Hour" better? Or Bradstreet's work? Thank you!

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand and interpret written language. It involves being able to read and process written text, identify key ideas and details, make connections between different parts of the text, and draw conclusions or inferences. Good reading comprehension skills are essential for academic and professional success, as well as for everyday life. Improving reading comprehension can be done through practice, strategies such as previewing and predicting, and active engagement with the text. This includes asking questions, summarizing, and analyzing the text to deepen understanding and gain insights. This set of worksheets is perfect for practicing both writing skills and reading comprehension. There are 64 different worksheets in this pack, each sentence students have to complete. Under those sentences, students will find both pictures and written words they have to use in the sentences. Download here https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Comprehension-Fill-in-the-Blanks-Sentence-Completion-Worksheets-6541639
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https://preview.redd.it/3sgzn4ozjq4b1.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=526f89e45c6c85b1a0175f58e0d7be0162c29ea7
https://preview.redd.it/afv0w4qzjq4b1.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f03c1251212186b95df22c4758f91d48249523d7
https://preview.redd.it/xxc7q3ozjq4b1.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0816855c53e4b5e51cb6c4467a7da2e227ddf2c
https://preview.redd.it/zur90zpzjq4b1.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22990166df21eeb45f68f5dc97c792d0f098dfa2
https://preview.redd.it/kxiiz1ozjq4b1.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1137255f08f3c2d626271b0d3f2acb512bf991b
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So this is a long story but I need some advice from men who have successfully gotten sole custody, preferably in KS.
Found out around 2 mo ago that my stbxw had been cheating on me for close to a year with a coworker I had highly suspected. Found months of pictures and texts, including texts detailing how "honored" her AP felt when my son wanted to cuddle with him in my bed after his intercourse with my wife. Including discussion of giving him "the best blowjob of his life" if they can "get my son to play on his tablet" in the next room for a while.
Near the end I was putting our son to sleep most nights as she was out partying with her boyfriend. Needless to say, all trust is now gone and reconciliation is a non possibility.
The texts I uncovered show that she has been neglectful of our son (he is 2 and can't be left alone.) Also, clearly prioritizing herself over her family, over her son or her son's father. Also, emotionally abusive for confusing him and having him cuddle with a shirtless stranger in my bed.
My son tried to tell me about it, at one point, and she covered it up, later texting her boyfriend that they were going to have to start being more "careful" because my son was telling me about "mommy's English.
The incident bothered me enough to start getting suspicious. In retrospect I can tell that even at his age he felt like something was wrong and was trying to tell me in his baby talk broken english.
I was a SAHD for a year and a half while my son was crawling, it was at this time her affair began. She makes like 55k a year. After her affair started, she started complaining to me about "money issues" as if she was struggling to pay for food, which was odd, because my small business paid all the utilities and rent on our marital home, and her only expenses were food and cahealth insurance and her phone bill.
I had been out of the workforce for a while, but was able to fairly quickly secure a job at a food processing manufacturing facility doing 12 hour days euther 3 or 4 days a week so as to be able to provide childcare on the remaining 3-4 days. The rest of the time she was either "watching" him with her boyfriend at my house or her mom was watching him because she would drive 30 mins to her "mom's house" most days when she wasn't working.
I switched jobs in January after saving up almost 10k from the factory to a job I enjoy more, but pays less. I was tired from the factory and wanted better work/life balance and to spend more time with my family and to work on my marriage, which due to not knowing about the cheating, I was under the impression could still be saved. She was angry about making less $$$, and also because I had more flexibility in my schedule so that made her cheating harder.My current part time job pays 15-20k, but remember, my utilities and housing are all taken care of by my other part time job, without it being taxable income on a payroll, so that's really just insurance/gas/food money.
So my lawyers told me that sole custody to start isn't going to be possible in KS, despite the mountain of evidence of being an unfit parent described above.
We have a temp plan in place and I have my 2 1/2 yr old son 7:30am sunday-7:30pm Wednesday. I got her to agree to this by pointing out that even though I would have him during the day most days, she would still have him for an equal number of hours. She took the bait. I now have my son the majority of the time he is awake.
She has moved back in with her parents who now watch my son 2-3 days a week for her as she is at work. They also watch him when she isn't at work, so she can run errands and go on dates without our son. She claims she has rearranged her work schedule to spend time with him, but I don't believe her due to her social media that I observed prior to finally blocking her forever.
In the last week, she declined to spend memorial day with him despite not working and it having been previously arranged because she had "plans" to do "yard work and housework" with her parents. She had me drop him off at dinnertime and pick him up the next morning. In addition, she had me keep him an extra night on top of that because she needed to "work late" on Wednesday night and wouldn't be able to pick him up.
I now know what "working late" means. She had a scheduled night with her boyfriend and I was acting as her free babysitter.
So far, she really is turning out to be a deadbeat. Hasn't given me a dime despite the fact that I now buy the majority of the food her son eats, spend vastly more time with him than she does, and am struggling to afford my life and am having to greatly adjust my lifestyle to support a child on 15k a year. I'm sure the thought hasn't even crossed her mind.
What's worse, my lawyer wrote up the amount that I contributed to the family finances, which was the entirety of housing and utilities (I manage a business and in exchange recieve housing and utilities, but no cash.) And when he adds that to my income, I might end up STILL being required to pay child support to her despite spending way more time with my son.
So, she's going ti get her babysitter and I might have to write her a check for the privilege of being cheated on in my own bed and finding pictures of it, despite having been a SAHD, despite making way less money than her, despite spending way more time with my son. If that happens, the only way to not be so financially crippled that I have to either go back to the factory or go on food stamps and welfare would be to try for sole custody.
But the real reason I want sole custody is simply because it would be best for my son. It would be better for my son to see his dad doing a job that doesn't make him miserable and not financially crippled due to his mother's selfish actions.
I hope she wants to remain present in some fashion, but I'm starting to think the likelihood of that is low.
The way she seems to be fading back from his life, I don't think she's going to fight very hard. It's clear to me exactly where her priorities are, and my son isn't above herself or her boyfriend. Oh sorry, "fiance." Yes, they have been ENGAGED since at least January. I found out about the infidelity in late march. We're not fully divorced, yet.
Her time with our son while we were married was limited to an hour or so in the morning after doing her makeup for an hour and a half while I watched my son in the next room so he wouldn't mess with her makeup stuff. Then an hour or 2 in the evening, if he was lucky, before he would fall asleep. Near the end I was often getting him to bed on my own.
She does have him more nights than I do right now, and I'm worried the courts won't care that most of the time she spends with him, he is asleep or she is working and not actually spending the time with him. I think she is spending maximum 1.5 days with him during the day, likely less because she gets easily "overwhelmed" and always needed constant breaks from my son. It wasn't odd or uncommon for me to watch him on days I was working as soon as I got home for basically the whole night. I am watching my son solo for 4 full days a week.
Then there's a pesky thought in the back of my head about the odd fact that she brought up my will 3-4 times in the last year, a few of them during arguments. She was worried that my parents would deprive her of my inheritance if I died. Why would I die? There were texts between her boyfriend and her about how much she was going to get in the divorce. At one time her boyfriendcsaid "Wouldn't it be nice if we could skip all this not-fun stuff and go straight to you, me, and (insert son's name)...?"
I don't have any more direct proof than that, but I am of the impression that they were at least in the early stages of planning my murder. Maybe not seriously planning it, but discussing it, hopefully in jest. I've asked my lawyer and don't think I could get a DA to issue subpoenas of their phones without better evidence than a strong suspicion.
So, a woman capable of treating me in this way, of considering my murder, should probably have very little contact with my son. I know that she is an objectively bad person and I'm starting to feel like her involvement might harm him more than it ends up helping him.
My goal is now to have my son Sunday morning - Friday evening so that he goes to school in my town, not hers, which is 30 mins away. I want his time to be spent with the person who always puts him first, I don't want him being second fiddle to her boyfriend or to her, I don't want to see him neglected like I know she will do.
3 of the last 4 times I have picked him up, he has has new injuries. For some reason he never seems to get scraped knees or facial wounds or a bruised ass when he spends 4 days with me. I don't suspect physical abuse at thus time, I just think he's being allowed to run around and nobody is watching him.
I just need to say yes every time she decides to prioritize herself over her son, which will happen frequently, I am starting to infer. My hope is that over a long enough time period I will be able to establish a pattern of spending so much more time with him that a judge might be persuaded that I am the primary parent and award me sole custody.
I really am not doing this to "win" vs her or to "beat" her. I became a parent expecting to have some help raising my child. But she won't even spend holidays with him. She can't even pick him up, she does her best to convince me to do it. If it means more time with my son, I can spend the gas $$$.
But I am bleeding cash. My close to 10k in savings from the factory has dwindled to an emergency fund of 1500. I'm skipping meals to lose weight but also to save the food I have for my son. He hasn't ever gone hungry once and he won't, now. Maybe I should apply for food stamps, but I'm worried that could effect my likelihood of getting custody because it would make it look like I can't afford to have him for more meals. This is NOT a request for a handout, don't need one. I have plenty of family and friends who would help me if my cupboards were bare, and thankfully they are helping me afford my lawyer.
It's just really infuriating how much she has screwed me and my son over, both emotionally and financially. The thought that I might be cutting her a check when she makes more than 3X my income would be adding insult to injury. She has actually financially profited from this, so far, not counting her legal fees. I'm sure her parents are now buying most of her food and she still doesn't pay rent or utilities. Now she doesn't have to pay for my health insurance or car insurance or cell phone, so she's saving hundreds monthly and I'm going uninsured health wise and only have basic liability for my car.
I like my lawyers so far, but they said child support is all determined by a "worksheet" and haven't yet shown me what that worksheet is. Either way, I would want sole custody even if it didn't alter CS. Any advice would be appreciated.