A Nice Gesture

 I'll be happy to utilize this new benefit:

The Department of Interior on Wednesday said the federal government is waiving fees on national parks, wildlife refuges and other federal lands for anyone who has worked in the United States Armed Forces, including the National Guard and Reserves, as well as immediate family members of fallen service members, beginning on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

“With the utmost respect and gratitude, we are granting veterans and Gold Star Families free access to the iconic and treasured lands they fought to protect starting this Veteran’s Day and every single day thereafter,” U.S. Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt said in a statement Wednesday.

In the last couple years I've visited Great Basin (no entrance fee), Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Yellowstone National Parks.  Considering that I've only spent a grand total of 6 hrs in Yosemite (except for the time I drove through it on Highway 120 to get to the Eastern Sierra), I'll have to go there some time.

What are your favorite US national parks?

A Fat Man's Conan

 A couple weeks ago I was given a box of my brother's trading cards and comic books.  Inside I found these 3, and boy did that take me back:

Would it surprise you to learn that a lot of us read comic books at West Point?  In addition to Marx' Communist Manifesto and Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Lord-knows-what-other-major-works, many of us read comic books.  And Groo was mine.  My best friend and I would walk down to the PX every month as soon as the new issue arrived, and it was a big deal to get back to the barracks and read it.

Groo was as great a warrior as Conan, but was a nice guy and a little clueless.  When he had to open up a Number 9 can of whoop-ass on someone, the artist let us know what was going on but skipped the gore.  Good always triumphed, and there was a moral at the end of each issue.

My kinda comic.  Groo-oo-oo-oo-oo!

These 12 Graphs Show Mask Mandates Do Nothing To Stop COVID

 The complete article is here.  Here are some of the graphs:

Go read the article and see all the graphs.

I don't need to be a "medical professional" to analyze numbers and know that masks are useless against viruses--especially when such is stated on the boxes of the masks so many people buy and wear!  As I've said before:  Science would indicate that you should believe the data, not your intuition.

Oh, and here's more data.

Electric Cars

In the green Democratic People's Republic of Kalifornia, if the wind doesn't blow, there's no electricity.  If the wind blows too much, there's no electricity.  If the sun doesn't shine, there's no electricity.  If the sun shines too much, there's no electricity.

But we're going to ban internal combustion engine cars.  

So, about those electric cars:

 

Where does the electricity for those electric cars come from, anyway?  It's certainly not from nuclear plants.

Appropriate For The Weekend

I am a grading demon.  

Before I left work today I was able to finish grading all the quizzes I gave on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  I come home from work today completely caught up--until next week.

But I'm going to enjoy the feeling while it lasts!  We teachers don't get to feel like this often.

The Pasta Feed

 Each year our school's cheerleaders have a fundraising "pasta feed".  If I remember the story correctly, the owner of the Old Spaghetti Factory is either a cheerleading alum, or his/her daughter is, so they donate lots of food and our cheerleaders serve it up.

Doesn't work that way in the era of the 'rona.

Today we ordered from a local restaurant, which kicked part of the receipt over to our cheerleaders.  We had to go to the restaurant to pick up our orders (OSF is too far away from school), where we were met by cheerleaders who welcomed us and ran in to get our orders.

Then we headed back to school.  One teacher went to the store and picked up some tiramisu and some flavored Pelligrinos, and we tailgated in the parking lot at school.

Fun way to spend a late afternoon--a "preevening", as Sheldon once called it on Big Bang Theory.

The Latest Quiz

The most recent test isn't due until Friday night, but my instructor has already posted another quiz!

Fortunately I turned in the test a day or so ago, and I finished the quiz tonight.  I'll look it over for errors over the next couple days, and then turn it in early.

I don't know why he's doing this, but test/quiz directions now say to show all work "as shown in class".  He knows that 2 of us in the class are math teachers, and the other teacher currently teaches calculus.  I'm in the course for a review, as it's been 35 years since I've been in a calculus class--but I have to do everything exactly his way, including his formatting?  That's not cool.  He should be able to look at my work, see if it's mathematically valid or not, and grade it accordingly.  But he's the instructor *sigh*

Reactions To Our Newest Supreme Court Justice

Democrats now want to pack the court because Barrett is a justice.  When will they learn that their short-term victories lead to longer-term losses?

Then there's the issue of press bias.  If you don't see any difference in these two headlines, you are part of the problem:

 

And if you need any more evidence that the American Left is divorced from reality:

Seen on Facebook: “Black man swears in woman appointed by racist misogynist.”

This Season's First Bowl Bid

I don't know when the last time Army played a PAC-12 opponent was, but I know when the next time will be:

Army has accepted an invitation to the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, becoming the first team to secure a bowl bid this season, according to a news release Saturday.

It will be the Black Knights' first trip to Shreveport, Louisiana, since 1996. Army will face an opponent from the Pac-12, which begins its truncated season on Nov. 7.

Army is currently 6-1 (against some perennial football powerhouses, don't forget!) and is currently ranked 25th.  The ranked PAC-12 teams are #15 Oregon and #20 USC, neither of which has played yet.

Also, for the first time since WW2, the Army-Navy Game will be held at West Point.  While it has been played in a few other cities, it is most often held in Philadelphia.

When An Unstoppable Force Meets An Immovable Object

 Something's got to give.  It was almost her own psyche.

Joanne has the story of an autistic woman who, upon entering Stanford, swallowed the woke victimhood Kool-aid hook, line, and sinker (to mix some metaphors).  In her own words, she became a zealot.  

In her first year at Stanford, which was “centering the marginalized,” Wallace dedicated herself to fighting systemic ableism, which she believed threatened the lives of disabled people.

Then came a competing zealotry.  Which one would win out?

Black Lives Matter ended her obsessive victimhood, writes Wallace. Instead, she spiraled into “self-loathing,” crippled by racial guilt.

Fortunately she was able to come back from the brink:

A friend sent her a link to James Lindsay’s anti-woke site, New Discourses. She started reading dissident ideas and questioning her beliefs. Wallace moved away from autism advocacy. “I could no longer ignore the fact that my obsession with justice hadn’t made me a good advocate; it had made me unbearable,” she writes.

Good Lord, how many people today need to read and consider the implications of that last sentence?

The Next Calculus Test

 At about noon yesterday I received an email that my calculus instructor had posted a new test.  This one is "only" 10 pages long, and is due no later than Thursday night.  Sheesh.

De-Photomath-ification

Photomath is a very cool app--you hold your phone over a math problem, the app reads the problem, and then it gives you a step-by-step solution as to how to solve the problem.  That's great in some contexts, it's absolutely dismal if you're a teacher trying to determine if a student knows how to solve a math problem.

The last test in one of my classes had such obvious rampant cheating that I sent an email to all the parents.  Of the half-dozen responses I got, all were supportive of my efforts to keep the testing as clean as possible.  I was very pleased to get those responses.

But what about the next test?

I took out the test yesterday and used Photomath on all the applicable problems.  Seeing how Photomath solved a problem told me how to alter the problem so that using Photomath was useless.  And I did this to all but the word problems.

I learned that sometimes Photomath glitches. It writes some things "goofy", or it makes an outright mistake.  I opted not to change those problems--if I see student work that looks "goofy", or makes the same error as Photomath makes, I'll consider that strong evidence of cheating.

For all intents and purposes, I have de-Photomath-ified the test.

I don't believe in trying to trap students in mistakes.  Prior to the test I'll notify their parents about what I've done.  I'll explain what I did above, letting them know that I'm being vigilant in ensuring as much academic integrity as I can.  I'll also ask them to supervise their student's test-taking as much as is practicable.

We'll see how it turns out.

Unicorn Sighting: A University President With A Spine

Every once in awhile you find a university president who shows some fortitude, who speaks about the values that our universities used to promote.  He doesn't pussy-foot around:

Northwestern firmly supports vigorous debate and the free expression of ideas — abiding principles that are fundamental for our University. We encourage members of our community to find meaningful ways to get involved and advocate for causes they believe in — and to do so safely and peacefully. The University protects the right to protest, but we do not condone breaking the law.

What started as peaceful protests have recently grown into expressions that have been anything but peaceful or productive. Crowds blocked the streets of downtown Evanston and nearby residential areas, disrupting businesses and local families, defacing property and violating laws and University standards. Some of the instigators appear not to be Northwestern students at all, but rather outside activists.

While the protesters claim that they are just trying to get our attention, that is simply not true. Several administrators — including our Provost, Deans, Interim Chief Diversity Officer and Vice Presidents for Research and Student Affairs — have held numerous discussions with concerned students, faculty and staff, and I am participating in a community dialogue tomorrow evening that was scheduled weeks ago.

Events in recent days seem to indicate an intent by organizers to escalate matters, and to provoke NUPD into retaliation.

I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the overstepping of the protesters. They have no right to menace members of our academic and surrounding communities. When students and other participants are vandalizing property, lighting fires and spray-painting phrases such as “kill the pigs,” we have moved well past legitimate forms of free speech.

I've long disagreed with the "emanations and penumbras" that equate actions to "symbolic" speech. Vandalism isn't speech, and good on Morton Shapiro for saying as much.

Changes To My Teaching

 I've been in this business for over 20 years, but every once in awhile I still come across some technique that I think is valuable enough to add to my teaching repertoire.  Last weekend i came across such a technique on Instagram, of all places.

Often, when covering new material, I'll periodically ask, "Are there any questions?"  Often I'm met with silence, so I move on.  I know in my heart that's not the best course of action, but I do it because I didn't have an alternative.

I switched to, "What questions do you have?"  Almost as often I would still be met with silence.

Now I say, "We'll move on after I answer two questions from you."  For whatever reason, that wording causes students to ask clarifying questions.  I don't know why, but it does.

Yes, someone could ask, "What's your favorite color?"  I'd answer the question but then redirect:  "I still need two questions about this material", implying that I'd implied that the questions must be about what we're learning.  :-)

At the very least, there is much less awkward silence during our online instruction.  At the most, it's driving students to seek a better understanding of what we're learning.  Win-win!  Now I just need to do it enough times to make it part of my teaching habit.

You've Heard of the "Freshman 15"?

Well I've gained the COVID 19.  At least.

Put on a pair of jeans today that I hadn't worn since school closed back in March.  I'd like to believe that not wearing them caused the waistline to shrink, a lot, but I'm guessing that's probably not what happened.

Update on Cheating

Have I written before about the massive cheating that took place on my last pre-calculus test?  It was so bad, and so obvious, that I sent an email to all the parents in the class letting them know what had happened and suggesting that they go over their child's test with the child.  I told them the three problems that I thought had extremely strong evidence of cheating (by large numbers of students in the class, but I didn't call anyone out in particular) and suggested that if they saw comments on those three problems that they might consider discussing the issue with their kids.

I've received more than a handful of replies from parents and students since those emails went out.  Every single response from the parents has been laudatory, thanking me for having high standards, for caring enough to notify them, for caring about integrity, for being diligent enough to catch cheating.  A couple students didn't follow instructions (show all work) but, in a private Zoom meeting, explained their rationale for not showing some work, and their explanations created enough reasonable doubt that I restored the points I took off.  One or two students still insist they didn't cheat but cannot explain how they got the answers they did.

This morning when I got to work, an email was waiting for me.  One student completely owned up to cheating, apologized, said that cheating wasn't "him" and that that wasn't the kind of person he wanted to be.  Etc., etc., etc.  If his email wasn't from the heart, it was still thorough.

There is some graffiti (a graffito) on the door to our long-since-gone auto shop:  You are more than your mistakes.  That really speaks to me.  Cheating once is a mistake, more than that is a pattern and might be indicative of what kind of person you are.  The author of this morning's email seemed sincere in wanting to keep it at the "mistake" level, and I hope he does.

Other teachers may sigh and look away from cheating, I grab my sword and flag and rush up that hill.

Update:  If you're wondering what I'm going to do to make it harder for students to cheat on a math test at home with no supervision, I don't want to give away my plans here--but yes, absolutely, I'm going to modify future tests to make them significantly harder to cheat on.  And no, I don't usually just give "problems" that can be solved with the Photomath app--but I catch those.  And I catch Desmos.com help, too.  Given the material I teach, I'm coming up with ways to nullify the effectiveness of these tools, which will make cheating even easier to catch.

It's a technological arms race!

Some Teachers Are Idiots

 I implied in a post earlier today that I don't believe for a second that most, or even many, of America's teachers are racists.  Many of them are, however, blatantly anti-conservative, and that causes some of them to do really stupid things.  Oh look, here's an example:

Take, for example, a woman who was teaching a seventh-grade class for O'Maley Innovation Middle School in Gloucester, Massachusetts...

"The teacher asked, 'Who supports Donald Trump?'" Jackson recalled to WHDH-TV. "And I was the only one to raise my hand."

He noted to WBZ that "a few kids were going to raise their hands, but then they heard the teacher say to me, 'Oh Mr. Jackson, I thought I liked you.'"

It got worse.

"Then she asked why I support a racist and a pedophile," he noted to WHDH.

Jackson added to the station that "she also said, 'I am ashamed of any woman who voted for Donald Trump,' and I told her my mom and one of my grandmothers voted for Donald Trump."

Other kids in the class smelled blood — and apparently his teacher did, too.

"I was just upset because other kids in the class were ganging up on me, laughing at me, and she was laughing and wouldn't say anything to them," Jackson noted to WHDH.

I'll bet this teacher would claim she strongly opposes bullying, too, but let's continue:

Once Jackson's family found out what went down in his class, they fought back.

They contacted a First Amendment attorney and asked the school for an apology, WBZ said — and got one.

Jackson told WHDH that the teacher later apologized to him in front of the entire class, and he said that helped...

Gloucester Public Schools Superintendent Ben Lummis told WHDH he was disappointed after first hearing about the incident.

When teachers act like this, it makes us all look bad.  

 

My Duty Is Almost Complete

 

I need to go to the post office tomorrow, so I'll drop this off then at the dropbox at my local City Hall, which is right next to the post office.  At that time my duty in this election will be complete.

The top right area I cut out in the photo above is my ballot tracking information.  I have signed up at the WheresMyBallot web site so I will know when it is received by our election officials.  Here's part of what that site shows so far:

Update, 10/19/20:  Duty complete for the next two years:

 

Update #2, 10/21/20:  No change yet at WheresMyBallot.sos.ca.gov .

Update #3, 10/22/20:  I got an email notification today:  "This is a message from Sacramento County Elections. Your ballot for the 2020 General Election was received and will be counted. Thank you for voting!"

Paternalistic Racism

Happenings like this, while occurring more frequently, are still so shocking that they never fail to surprise me:

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” says SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

Here's my favorite of the changes:

Academic grades will now focus on mastery of the material, not a yearly average, which board members say penalizes students who get a slow start, or who struggle at points throughout the year.

Mmhmm. 

I've always enjoyed that "slow start" argument.  Can anyone show me any data demonstrating that "slow starts" are the reason students fail?  I thought not.

I didn't do it this year, what with the distance teaching and all, but in other years I've always given my students the option of having the final exam be 100% of their semester grade.  That way, students who "take a little longer" will have the rest of the semester to master the material.  Don't do any homework?  No problem!  Didn't have time to prepare for a chapter test?  No problem!  Just be ready by December if it's first semester or June if it's second semester.  

This would be only about content knowledge, mastering the material.  Maybe you didn't know it in October for the quiz, but you know it now, that's what counts, right?

Never has a single student ever taken me up on this offer.  Do you wonder why that is?  Me either.  The "slow start" argument is a non-starter with me.

My favorite part of the article, though, pertains not to the changes being made but to the reason they're being made:

According to data presented by the district, under the old grading system, teachers fail minority students more than White students – a lot more.  (boldface mine--Darren)

During the first semester of last year, 30% of all D or F grades were given to English learners. One in four, 25%, of failing marks went to students with disabilities.

By ethnicity, 23% went to Native Americans. Another 23% of failing grades went to Hispanics. And 20% of D or F grades went to Black students.

By comparison, just 7% of failing marks went to White students.

Let's skip, for a minute, the racial makeup of this school district.  It doesn't matter to me if those numbers seem out-of-whack or not.  Look at what's boldfaced.

Teachers are failing students.  Teachers, so often referred to as "heroes" in other contexts, are blatantly racist.  These people to whom you entrust your children every day are racists.  They don't care about black- or brown-skinned kids (but for some unexplained reason they're OK with Asians), they fail these students.  Even more unexplained is that the teachers unions support this kind of thinking!  Why any teacher would pay a union that essentially calls them a racist is far beyond me.

We know that racial disparities in academic performance exist all across the country.  So, you can believe that all of America's teachers are ardent racists--teachers, who go into this profession to be "change agents" to "empower" students, who are some of the most soft-hearted people out there--or you can believe it's something besides teachers.  I go with Option B.

I support some of the changes San Diego made, but looking at their reasoning and their justifications, let's just call their reasoning what it truly is:  the soft bigotry of low expectations.  Rather than working to help the district's students to rise to what are probably low expectations anyway, the district has chosen to attack its teachers' morality and decency and to lower standards for students.  And why shouldn't they lower standards, right?  After all, those black and brown kids can't learn as much as white kids, right? 

The arguments used by these so-called anti-racist, so-called educators sound like they came right out of the KKK handbook.

Let It Go

Twice before I've missed 2 points on a test or a quiz, and each time I questioned the instructor about the nature of the mistake I made he just gave me the points back.  I'm not going to do that this time.  The pressure to be perfect is gone now.

Test 3 is the 14-page monster I've written about.  Quiz 10 at the bottom is due tomorrow at midnight.  I think I can work enough to ensure I ace what our instructor is calling a "mini-test".  It's only 2 pages.  It's just too much to expect not to make a single error somewhere in a 14-page tome.

Update:  I just noticed something on that screenshot above.  Looks like he pushed out the due date on Quiz 10.  Maybe he did that in Thursday's class, the video for which I will watch tomorrow.