Archive for May, 2021

The coddling of college students

Posted: May 11, 2021 by chrisharper in education, Uncomfortable Truths
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By Christopher Harper

Instead of readying college students for the rough-and-tumble world of work, it appears that a growing number of professors want to enhance the coddling of this generation.

In an article in the faculty union newsletter at Temple University, where I teach, Amy Lynch of the College of Public Health argued for an emphasis on “trauma-informed teaching.”

Following is some of the pablum she preaches:

–Do not have any penalization for students who feel unsafe attending a class in person.

–When possible, have students sitting in a large circle or square, with no one’s back facing another individual.

–Offer choices to students concerning assignments. “You can complete this assignment as a written paper of 2,500 words, or you can submit a flipgrid with at least 4,000 words.”

Note: I had never heard of a flipgrid until now. Here is a definition: Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to create “grids” to facilitate video discussions. Each grid is like a message board where teachers can pose questions, called “topics,” and their students can post video responses that appear in a tiled grid display.

–Show unconditional positive support for students, directly to students, and in conversations with colleagues about students. 

–Actively acknowledge and discuss when current events trigger emotions related to systematic oppression….

–Educators can promote student resilience.. [by] celebration of “missed successes,” [and] with warm compassion-based “social autopsy,” growing together with the discovery of what went wrong…. 

Note: I had never heard of a social autopsy. Here is a description: A social autopsy is a problem-solving strategy designed to support social skills. Students with difficulties understanding social interactions can use a social autopsy to analyze the social errors they made. Examples of where social autopsies may be used include:

–Ignoring others’ greetings
–Asking a question in a class without raising a hand
–Continuing to talk on the same topic
–Sneezing without covering one’s mouth

For more information, see https://buildingmomentuminschools.blog/2016/02/05/social-autopsy-and-other-social-teaching-tools/

If my colleagues and I follow this plan, Professor Lynch argues, “the seeds of trauma-informed education are planted with the hopes of a full forest of trauma-informed education stakeholders soon to emerge.”

If a student has difficulties, I always want to help. But I am not a psychologist; I am a teacher. I make suggestions to students on how they can seek help outside of the classroom for difficulties they might have.

For the 26 years I have been teaching, I always encouraged students to get outside of their comfort zones. That was the best way to prepare oneself for the tough job a journalist had to do. Now it appears I’m supposed to make students feel more comfortable.

Simply put, It’s unlikely that graduates will enter a “trauma-informed” workplace once they leave the comfort of college. 

Very Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora: Tebow, Audit Panic, Golden Globes, Pipelines and a Civil War Preview

Posted: May 11, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

A reminder to every sports station that is making fun of the Tim Tebow signing, not only did he keep in shape thanks to his baseball career (where he made it to the AAA level) but everyone seems to forget that in his only season as a starter he went 7-4 as a starter with a .500 record in the playoffs and then was never given a starting job again.

They’ll never forgive him for his public Christianity.

The Democrat panic over the audits in Texas and other states is making a better argument for the steal of election than anything I can say.

In fairness however the democrats aren’t trying to win arguments they’re trying to enforce obedience.

I see the Golden Globes will not make it to TV this year.

Eventually when you shoot only for an easily outrages niche market the number of people willing to put up with you will shrink to a point where it isn’t worth the cash.

That’s where the woke news divisions are heading

There are already talks of gas lines and soon product shortages over the disruption of a pipeline due to a hack. Two thoughts leap to mind.

  1. There should ALWAYS be a manual override
  2. Normal people will suddenly find out what the Green decision to stop pipelines will cost.

This type of thing will cost the Democrats any state or federal election they can’t steal

Oh One other thing about the gas lines and the lack of goods that this pipeline thing will produce. It’s a sneak preview of the effect of any actual non-cold civil war will produce.

It’s something the urban left and those who are pushing this should consider, granted those who are paying for all this stuff would consider it a feature rather than a bug but those getting paid will quickly discover that it doesn’t matter how much you have in a bank account if you don’t have easy access to food or water.

Report from Louisiana: Year Round School?

Posted: May 10, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Year-round school.  A lot of districts do it, but I am not a fan.

Louisiana’s (new) Superintendent of Education is proposing year-round school in our state. I know that there are a couple of schools in our local district that are already doing this, elementary schools mostly, but as a teacher, I must tell you, I don’t think I’d like this.

Here’s the thing. I need that summer to recharge. While most people are under the impression that teachers get “three months off” or “all summer off,” of course that is not the case. I am about to retire after twenty-five years in the classroom, and I can assure you that I’ve never ever had three months off, and I’ve never had a summer where I wasn’t required to do some sort of professional development.

Every five years or so we have some sort of curriculum change that requires professional development…training…inservice; new technology, new gradebook software, new this, new that…all of it requires PD. Time taken out of your “summer.” 

As rewarding as it is, teaching is exhausting work. And really, this isn’t the post where I want to defend the position that teachers are underpaid for what they do, and that yes, we knew what we got paid when we went into the profession. That is for another day.

But year-round school? Nope. Glad I won’t be there for that.

Kids need the break too, you see. Yes, indeed, some of them need school all the time; their life at home might be terrible and maybe they aren’t getting meals and maybe they don’t get enough supervision and sometimes the electricity and water aren’t even turned on.

Schools have become the place to catch all of these issues that are neglected at home. We feed our students breakfast and lunch, teach them sex education, breast cancer awareness and self-examination; we do vision and hearing checks, we help seniors sign up for Financial Aid. We provide jackets and clothing for kids in need and sometimes we pay an electric bill. Schools are now social support service providers and while I love kids and will help any child in need every single time, we have to wonder if this is the job of the school.

Are we losing sight of education?

Most opponents of year-round school suggest that kids need time to be with their families, to go on vacation, Disneyland! Most of the kids I teach can’t even dream of going to Disneyland and have never been on a family vacation; some are homeless and live in hotels. Most of my high school aged students work and they work hard, long hours.

When we shut down for Covid, our kids were working. They didn’t log onto Google classroom every day to do math problems and watch YouTube documentaries; they took advantage of the time to work, make money, pay bills.

Not all of them, obviously, but a lot of them. I know this for a fact.

And so as I consider the proposal of year round school, I am conflicted. I think about these kids; they need some down time, too. They are working, they are trying to survive, they are trying to finish school. Where’s the downtime? Teachers need to recharge, too, and a lot of teachers depend on summer jobs to supplement their salaries.

Schools can provide everything else. Can’t we provide a few weeks with no school?

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

McCain’s Matrimonial Math

Posted: May 10, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Robert Stacy McCain as a man with six children and five grandchildren is very good at reproductive math and yesterday he shared some with the public.

 from the day a girl reaches menarche, she has a fixed number of potential reproductive opportunities — in a healthy female, 12 cycles a year for about 25 years from ages 15 to 40, or roughly 300 lifetime chances to become pregnant. If she does not become a mother as a teenager (and middle-class America adamantly believes that teenage motherhood is the worst of all possible fates), this means her reproductive opportunities are reduced to about 240 — 12 menstrual cycles per year for about 20 years. Thus, every year that she delays motherhood represents a reduction in her total fertility.

This biology and math and biology and math don’t give a damn if you are work or want to blame the patriarchy or anything else. The simple truth is that the longer you wait to have children the less likely you will have them.

Now given that the people least likely to have children seem to be those who have embraced the world of the woke this is likely very good news for society and also explains the great need for the left to begin stealing elections in earnest because it’s hard to vote the dead when they haven’t been born and the future belongs to those who show up.

There was a time before the sixties when if a man had a solid job and worked hard it was almost impossible for him to fail to get a wife if he wanted one, my advice to young ladies is this. If you don’t want to be old and alone in your forties find a young man who works hard and has a decent job and pursue him, I’d also suggest a man of faith as he is believes there are eternal consequences if he decides to betray a wife.

In these days of insanity the good hard working God fearing men are a premium product and if you choose to listen to society rather than this advice then if you end up alone and lonely or forced to pick from the dregs in the end you will have only yourself to blame.

You have been warned.

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