Hurlshort

So private schools are clearly not the solution.

That's kind of the gist I'm getting at, typically you get what you put in, particularly in High School. It's incredibly arrogant to just call all the teachers **** because KP didn't get anything out of his time in High School. As I said in an earlier post, each teacher is going to have good and bad moments, good and bad lessons, good and bad connections to students. When a student sits through a class for a year and picks up no useful skills, it is a failing of both parties. But that student probably only has 6 classes, whereas the teacher probably has 150 students, so there is quite a difference in scale. I've never met a teacher who doesn't strive to help their students reach the next skill level, and they tend to do so with any tools they have at their disposal. Some are better than others, some are more burnt out than others. It's not an easy job, you've got 150 students with different needs and abilities, and it is pretty tempting to give more time to the students who want to be there. It's funny, but most of my friends in High School were stoners. They were all smart, they could ace tests without studying while I was stuck working my butt off. I was a bit frustrated at that, but then by graduation I realized they had no motivation or work ethic, and I ended up feeling sorry for them. KP deserves a lot of credit for breaking out of that spiral and getting through college, of course. Also recognizing subject-verb agreements may be important, but I still had to look up the rule right now. I haven't taught Language Arts in a decade. The goal is to help people write competently, not memorize grammar rules. Those are just tools.

Well you brought up your individual experience, so it shouldn't be a surprise that someone would question it. I'm saying your personal experience makes it very clear that you wasted your time in High School. Don't try and pin that on anyone else. It sounds like you weren't being challenged, which is a fair criticism, but why the heck would a teacher bother to challenge the stoner who never does any work? You set yourself up for that, have some accountability. You have no idea if those teachers were **** or not, you were tuned out. Also they idea that learning to read = access to books is absolute BS. Kindergarten teachers do a bit more than just hand kids a few books.

There was not a single mainstream media source that was referring to Bush as Hitler. Stop lying.

So you were homeschooled?

So...basically you didn't apply yourself but that isn't your fault? You teachers were **** but you were on drugs and didn't do any work? Come on. Also seem to be ignoring whole k-8 experience, which taught you to read and do enough math to fart around in class and still do well on those quizzes.

Bush was certainly not portrayed favorably by much of the media, but he was never compared to Hitler. His intelligence was typically the target. Cheney usually got the evil mastermind schtick. But let's be honest, the rhetoric was never anywhere near as intense as it is on both sides as it is right now. You've got a purely antagonistic relationship, and the pace is unprecedented. It is constant, the first 10 days in office have been more controversial than most people's first year.

I have that same latitude and that is the way I run my classroom. I'm telling you, the classroom experience and the job of the teacher has not changed that much in the last century. Good teachers are going to ignore all the noise that parents, politicians, and administrators throw around, and good students are going to take advantage of those lessons. Although let me clarify when I say good teacher. This isn't a simple label. Almost every teacher is going to have good days, students they connect with, moments of inspiration that capture the imagination. As you gain experience you can collect those moments and hopefully recapture them regularly. But at the same time every teacher will also have bad days, students who hate them, and lessons that flop. A good teacher to me is the one that can ride out the storms, stay enthusiastic, tune in for the students and tune out the bad stuff. The teachers in Texas and the teachers in California are all fundamentally the same.

A Utopian ideal that young people tend to cling to?

Actually Texas has made it illegal to teach some of the Federally mandated curriculum, like Common Core. But then again, they adopted new standards that are very similar. I don't know, Texas is pretty crazy when it comes to education. But none of this matters all that much, because content is nowhere near as important as skill development, which thankfully no one political pays that close attention to and any decent teacher knows that should be the primary focus of education.

WoD, it's kind of like the n-word. They can use it, but you can't.

Phew, I was worried that all this freedom we have given up was not paying off, but it seems like it is making a difference. What freedoms have we given up?

Phew, I was worried that all this freedom we have given up was not paying off, but it seems like it is making a difference.

Just wanted to clarify for all the non-American folks.

I owe more than expected, so I hate you.

We went to war with the British over far fewer taxes and property rights violations than the US Government is hammering us with today. We do teach the Revolutionary War in 8th grade. It's a big unit.

That's the problem, nobody is telling these kids they should be ditch diggers. They can be anything they want if they go to community college. But with a bit less snark, college is fairly accessible to almost any student coming out of High School. This is great because it offers opportunity to a diverse range of students instead just of the ones that come from specific socio-economic backgrounds. But it also means you are going to have a much wider range of academic abilities. Couple that with the fact public education has been doubling down on math, science, and language arts for decades and devaluing trade skills, and you have some issues. Trying to convince my students that plumbers, electricians, and mechanics are not only important, but can make a lot of money is not an easy task. They get the exact opposite message from their parents and society as a whole.

I remember very similar numbers making the rounds about 20 years ago when I was entering college. It's not a new problem.

That sucks. Both HR and MK were good games. I wish they had worried less about amazing graphics and just tried to turn out a solid title on a decent budget, but I guess that isn't the Ubisoft way. "Hey, we invested a moderate budget in HR and it sold really well, let's spend way more on the sequel and hope it sells way more." Squeenix, not Ubisoft.

It is your prerogative to watch youtube videos of some guy in the dark, but you don't HAVE to share that with us.

Well he clearly doesn't listen to Dave Mustaine's lyrics. I think it is a pretty big deal for the legal residents who couldn't return home. And it doesn't seem entirely over yet. Also the fact that a federal judge has already had to block part of an executive order in the first week of his presidency seems like a big red flag. Has that happened before?

I think you may be lowballing there. It's only been running for 4 and a half hours. I expect they will meet their goal by tomorrow. Maybe within 24 hours. Also, these things tend to be front and back heavy. So I expect big numbers toward the end of the campaign as well. Right now it is getting $100k an hour, roughly. The question is how long will that last? I expect it will be comparable to Wasteland 3, and may surpass it. I was way off!

I assume he's just kind of a figurehead for Mike Shanahan.

The immigration policies before 1965 restricting certain countries had more to do with racism than fearmongering. Although there is certainly a measure of fear in racism itself.

Yeah, I'm not defending extremism, I was just explaining how it happens.