Standing Astride "Wokeness" And Saying "Stop!"

Math is racist?  What's next, gravity?  At least some eminent mathematicians are standing up against this sort of silliness:

Californians have witnessed many foundational pillars of society come under siege by fringe activism. They shouldn’t be too surprised that now even eternal, ubiquitous, infinite, and perfect mathematics is the next target in the crosshairs.

It’s only the chic excuses for decades of abysmal math results in U.S. schools that change, and with approximately four in 10 of California’s public school students proficient in math currently, the latest blame shifting should stretch parents’ patience.

A Seattle public schools pilot program has adopted framework for a K-12 curriculum teaching that “math has been appropriated by Western culture” and beyond that, is currently being used “to oppress and marginalize people.”

“The mathematicians of Alpha Centauri are doing the same math as us,” says UC Berkeley Professor Richard Borchends, winner of the planet’s most prestigious math award, the Fields Medal. “Life’s too short to waste on such folly.”

The Fields Prize is mathematics' equivalent of a Nobel, there being no Nobel Prize for Math.  Let's return to the article:

Harvard Professor Emeritus David Mumford says, “The idea that math is ‘racist’ is absurd,” he shot back. A second professor emeritus at uber-prestigious Harvard, David Kazhdan, says, “Empty claims without any concrete examples.”

Another Fields medalist, Prof. Martin Hairer at London’s Imperial College, says that context matters and that “no one truly suggests math in itself has a racist or bigoted component,” offering the understandably frustrated observation that “culture wars raging in the U.S. seem distant and incomprehensible.”

Bruce Berndt, named among the 10 most influential mathematicians, says that there may be some prejudiced “potholes” along the way, as in any human endeavor.

“In the thousands of mathematical papers I’ve read, I have never found anything that could be identified as racist. It’s a sad fact that science is being politicized by those who prefer ignorant prejudices over facts. Mathematics, thankfully hasn’t suffered too much.”

One of the world’s top-tier female mathematicians, requesting anonymity, is unconvinced that race or sex has anything to do with manipulating numbers successfully. “Math isn’t racist or sexist,” she says. “The problems of teaching mathematics in school have less to do with math and more with politics. Anyone who doubts that is blind to the sort of society in which we live.”

All I can offer is a "hear hear!" and an invitation to read the complete article.

What An Idiot

Do people really mean stuff like this when they say it, or are they virtue signalling to show off their leftie bona fides?

Centennial School Board candidate Jessica Schwinn suggested white people who quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are racist and accused them of advocating for white supremacy.

I have to believe she knows such a view is unsupportable (by reason), yet she voices it anyway.  What gives?

Put Out To Pasture

Ecstasy was the second cruise ship that I sailed on, it saddens me when these beauties get broken up:

Carnival Cruise Line’s oldest ship, Carnival Ecstasy, recently sail her final cruise after more than 31 years in service.

Carnival Ecstasy’s final cruise was a five night sailing out of Mobile, Alabama on October 10, 2022.  After the cruise was over, the ship sailed to Miami where the vessel stayed docked for several days.

On October 20, the cruise ship departed from Miami and is now headed towards Aliaga, Turkey.  Carnival Ecstasy’s ETA in Turkey is on November 7, 2022.

There is a large cruise ship recycling center in Aliaga. Four of Carnival Ecstasy’s sister ships (Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Imagination, and Carnival Inspiration) were scrapped here during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most recent ship I sailed on has also been sold for scrap:

On 12 April 2017, after being handed over to CMV she consequently departed Singapore as the Pacific Pearl sailed to Damen Shiprepair Schiedam in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and underwent dry dock to become Columbus.^[14] In 2018, she underwent dry dock with Damen Shiprepair in Amsterdam.

In March 2020, CMV's operations were temporarily shut down, along with the rest of the cruise industry, to combat the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. By July 2020, CMV had entered administration. On 12 October 2020, Columbus was auctioned by CW Kellock & Co. London, and was sold to Greek ferry operator Seajets.^[15] The ship was bought by SeaJets, but due to the ship aging and other problems, SeaJets sold her for scrap in Alang.^[6] She was beached in Alang, India for scrap on 12 April 2021 and scrapping begin on 5 August 2021.

Climate Nihilism

Why do people choose to believe something that isn't true?  Are their lives so devoid of meaning that they have to create drama in their lives, they have to be a part of a fantasy bigger than themselves?

The main reason policymakers are pursuing pro-scarcity policies is because they, along with most of the public, believe the environment is getting worse, not better. The share of Americans who say the state of the environment is fair or poor rose from 49% to 61% between 2015 and 2022. Movies and television reinforce this perception. In David Cronenberg’s new film, “Crimes of the Future,” industrial waste, such as from microplastics, has become so prevalent that people’s bodies start evolving so they can eat it.

But almost every major environmental trend is improving. Lead, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide pollutants declined 99%, 91%, and 61% between 1980 and 2018, according to the U.S. EPA. It’s true carbon emissions are rising again. But that’s because natural gas shortages are forcing nations to burn more coal, which is twice as polluting. Carbon emissions globally were flat over the last decade and declined 22% in the U.S. from 2005 and 2020. And there is little evidence that microplastics actually harm human health, something Cronenberg himself acknowledged.

Why, then, do people think things are getting worse? 

Natural gas, easily gotten from frakking, and nuclear power are the most green large scale energy sources we have today.  We should be pursuing those with a vengeance.  The fact that we're not tells me that energy independence and higher living standards are not the goals of the environmental movement or our current administration.

Be A Hero. Eat Meat.

I Am Unemployable

I spent some time a few nights ago running through Indeed.com looking at different jobs.  I came to one conclusion:  I'm unemployable.

For years my dream job has been to work at a gaming company, one that designs and manufactures slot machines, running the calculations for slot machine wins--a Game Mathematician.  Most of the entry-level jobs seek a "recent college graduate", and the more advanced positions require skills I don't have.  I'm in no man's land, probably a common experience for people of a certain age.

There are many analytical-type jobs, often in health care, and there are also the education jobs (specifically community college).  Those jobs require a submission not only of a resume, but also of a statement of support for minorities, members of underserved communities, the disabled, the sexual minorities, English learners, etc.  Here's an excerpt:

Candidates must exhibit an appreciation of, a sensitivity to, and a respect for a diverse academic environment, inclusive of students, faculty, and staff varying social, economic, cultural, ideological and ethnic backgrounds. 

Some of them are even more declarative. 

We believe that educational justice can only be achieved when all students are successful — including students of color, students from low-income communities, English learners, and students with disabilities. Our team is committed to addressing gaps in educator understanding and practice, pairing support with high expectations, allowing all students the opportunity to access high-quality instruction.

Educational "justice"?  How about "excellence"?  If you're using "woke" terms like "educational justice", you're not interested in high expectations, you have ideological goals that don't align with academic excellence, despite claiming otherwise. 

To be honest, I don't care about your social, economic, cultural, ideological, or ethnic background.  If you're in my class, I'm going to teach you math.  If there is a difficulty, we'll see what other resources are available to help me to teach and you to learn.  I'm interested in my students as students, not as members of groups that don't have any relation to learning math.  You want so-called educational justice?  Seek academic excellence, and justice and success will follow.

You can say I'm old-fashioned, and I am, but tell me, how are your "woke" views working out?   Is student achievement going up?  Is there any evidence that high school students are doing better than in the recent past, or that university students are graduating better prepared to succeed in the adult world?  The reason so many jobs require university degrees is because high school diplomas are worthless, a point I've made several times on this blog.  A university degree today is only slightly more valuable than a high school degree of the past.

No, I don't fit the political or ideological structures in education today, and I'm too honest to lie in a statement of ideological conformity.  Thus, until I find a position that is not directly related to teaching math, I'm sort of stuck where I am.  Five more years, I should be able to make it.

"Eco morons"

I think this “gluing” trend will end if more of the victims act like Volkswagen did:

Eco-demonstrators who glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen factory then moaned that their hands hurt and they could not go to the toilet have been arrested.

Nine activists from the Scientist Rebellion group broke into Autostadt, a museum and car showroom opposite Volkswagen's main factory in Wolfsburg, late on Wednesday and glued themselves to the floor of the Porsche pavilion.

They vowed to continue their protest until Volkswagen agreed to lobby ministers to decarbonise the transport industry.

But they began complaining after just a few hours that they had no food and staff had refused to bring them a bowl to defecate in...

As the protest got under way, Mr Grimalda tweeted: 'Together with 15 other members of Scientist Rebellion I have occupied the Porsche pavilion at Autostadt.

'Nine of us glued to the floor and some of us on hunger strike until our demands to decarbonise the German transport sector are met.'

But just two hours later, he had begun complaining that museum staff 'refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating'.

He added: 'People in support can get out of the building but then they couldn't get back in. We can't order our food, we must use the one provided by Volkswagen. 

'Lights off. Random unannounced checks by security guards with bright torches. Police just came in'...

Images showed dozens of riot police inside the pavilion and people being arrested outside, ending the protest on its second day. 

That Volkswagen provided them food and water shows more decency than I would have.  I support locking the building and coming back in a week.

Democratic Soul-Searching After The Upcoming Election

Rest assured, I’ll never be a Democrat. And after the upcoming midterms, I suspect the party will have to do some soul-searching because Republicans have closed the gap in more races where Democrats have been heavily favored to win.  link

Never gonna happen.  They’ll lose, howl louder, and do more crazy stuff the next time they “win” an election.  That’s how the parties work, both of them.  There’s no “soul-searching”, just plotting to win the next one.

The Mathematics of Card Shuffling

Did you know there was such a field of study?  I didn't, and neither did I know that there's an expert in this field:

Their engineers assured them that the machine would sufficiently randomise a deck of cards with one pass through the device, reducing the time between hands while also beating card-counters and crooked dealers. But they needed to be sure that their machine properly shuffled the deck. They needed Persi Diaconis.

Diaconis, a magician-turned-mathematician at Stanford University, is regarded as the world's foremost expert on the mathematics of card shuffling. Throughout the surprisingly large scholarly literature on the topic, his name keeps popping up like the ace of spades in a magician's sleight-of-hand trick.

So, when the company executives contacted him and offered to let him see the inner workings of their machine – a literal "black box" – he couldn't believe his luck.

With his collaborator Susan Holmes, a statistician at Stanford, Diaconis travelled to the company’s Las Vegas showroom to examine a prototype of their new machine. The pair soon discovered a flaw. Although the mechanical shuffling action appeared random, the mathematicians noticed that the resulting deck still had rising and falling sequences, which meant that they could make predictions about the card order.

The field of probability was founded on gambling.  I guess some things never change :-) 

Read the whole thing, it's fascinating.

It's Fun Wasting Other People's Money

How could anyone have thought this was acceptable?

Local officials were set to gather on Wednesday in San Francisco's Noe Valley Town Square to celebrate their latest win: a single public toilet that will cost as much as $1.7 million to build and won't be completed until 2025. 

But the celebration was canceled after a San Francisco Chronicle columnist highlighted the "mind-boggling" and "maddening" details of the project. 

California Assemblyman Matt Haney told the newspaper that he now considers the price tag "inexplicable."

As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

How Much More Will Canadians Tolerate?

Not much, I hope:

 

source

How do you end tyranny without a 2^nd Amendment?  Well, you could wait 70+ years for it to crumble on its own, like the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc did.

A stitch in time saves nine.

Another (Democratic Myth) Bites The Dust

Democrats always squeal that Republican desires to clean up the voter rolls, to ask for ID at the polling station, to clean up Democratic cheating shenanigans--these are all attempts to squelch the vote of minority voters.  I don't hear any Republicans complaining about this result:

It was already clear after Georgia's primary election set new turnout records this spring, but it bears repeating once again: Democrats don't tell the truth about voting rights...

With this much-maligned law, Georgia's legislature had actually made voting more accessible to its citizens than it had been previously. They also made voting more accessible than it is in New York, New Jersey, Biden's Delaware, and a variety of other states that Democrats would never try to pretend are Jim Crow states. Georgia legislators had actually expanded early voting and made it easier for almost anyone in the state to cast a valid vote...

And now, once again, the results are speaking for themselves. Raffensperger announced on Tuesday that Georgia voters just set a new record for first-day early voting in a midterm election, with nearly twice as many people voting on Monday as had done so on the first day of early voting in 2018. Georgians are on pace to set a new record for midterm turnout in 2022 and are voting at levels that rival turnout for the 2020 presidential election.

If anybody is trying to suppress the vote, they are doing a pretty lousy job of it. But of course, this was also true in 2018, another extremely high-turnout election whose results Democrats still deny. 

They lie so shamelessly.

An Election Prediction

 

They Should Be Applauded

If more lefties knew that Che was a racist and a homophobe, maybe they wouldn't be so enraptured with him:

A University of llinois Chicago official was seen on video demanding an anti-Marxist display set-up by conservative students be removed from a sidewalk at the public university. 

"There’s a difference between public property and state property," an official at the college, identified by the Young America’s Foundation as associate director of UIC’s Center for Student involvement, Vance Pierce, said in the video. "Public property is anybody can set up outside on the sidewalk, there’s no issue. But inside, we do have some policies that we’re trying to share with you."

Chapter members of the Young Americans for Freedom had established a table on a sidewalk on Oct. 10 for a YAF-sponsored event called "No More Che Day," YAF reported. The Young America’s Foundation has sponsored "No More Che Day" on the anniversary of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara’s death at college campuses across the country for years to educate students about his "vicious campaigns to impose Communism on countries throughout Latin America."

YAF said the students were handing out literature regarding Guevara’s history at a table set up outside. 

The college students are heard pushing back on the school official’s claims, saying a sidewalk is public property. Pierce told the students that they could set up "across the street" and "do whatever," arguing that where they were located is "indoor of the circle of buildings" and "not just opened to anybody."

"Indoor of the circle of buildings."  What a tool.

Hearts Are Breaking Everywhere

Will this give North Korea the excuse it needs to invade?

The global superstars of BTS will perform their mandatory military service in South Korea, the group's representatives said Monday, confirming a move that was long dreaded by their army of fans.

The group's seven members will all fulfill their requirement to serve and not seek any further delays or special exemptions, BigHit Music said in a statement. It said that oldest member Jin will be the first to serve, with the stars to reconvene as a group again around 2025 after fulfilling their service commitment...

Under South Korean law, all able-bodied men are expected to serve 18 to 21 months in the military to defend against the threat from the country's nuclear-armed neighbor, North Korea. But the law allows for special exemptions to be made for some, including athletes, musicians and others who enhance the country's prestige.

Test Scores, and Learning in General, Are Plunging

It's not attributable to the 'rona, either, although the lockdowns accelerated the process:

Recent national student test scores showed a massive decline in learning in reading and math. This achievement implosion has several explanations – one is the increasing politicization of classroom instruction, which is reducing rigor and diverting attention from improving students’ foundational knowledge and skills...

The politicization of classroom instruction leads not only to indoctrination but also, as the California student noted, to lower student achievement. “It’s not a school’s place to impose on the students any viewpoint,” he observes. “What we need to do is really encourage achievement for all people.”

When they can't give you good government, they give you "woke" government.  When they can't give you good education, they give you "woke" education.

Strange Bedfellows Have Made My Feet Cold

Did that title get your attention?  😆

I'm filling out my mail-in ballot--sadly I only get one, unlike others in California, and since I'm a Republican none of my votes will count anyway.  Anyway, I'm reading up on the ballot measures.

California's voter information guides include information about each ballot measure, and then have a feature I really like--four submitted attempts to sway your vote:  Argument in favor of Proposition #whatever, Rebuttal to argument in favor of Proposition #whatever, Argument against Proposition #whatever, and Rebuttal to argument against Proposition #whatever.  It's a pretty good bet that I can tell which way to vote just by looking at which individuals and organizations have signed on to each of those four arguments.

But not this time, not for Proposition 30.

Here's how the Attorney General's office summarizes Proposition 30:

Increases tax on personal income over $2 million by 1.75% for individuals and married couples and allocates new tax revenues as follows: (1) 45% for rebates and other incentives for zero-emission vehicle purchases and 35% for charging stations for zero-emission vehicles, with at least half of this funding directed to low-income households and communities; and (2) 20% for wildfire prevention and suppression programs, with priority given to hiring and training firefighters.

Isn't that quite the mix of goals!  And we're only going to tax "the rich"!

I've seen one commercial dozens of times for this proposition, and we're told none of that.  All we're told is that California has the worst air quality in the state, and that our bad air quality is caused by car exhaust and fires caused by global warming.  Voting for Prop 30 will change this.  

Yeah, right.  I already leaned against Prop 30 before opening the voter information guide.

The Argument In Favor of Prop 30 was signed by the president of the CalFire State Firefighters (shocking, I know), a doctor in the American Lung Association, and the vice chair of the Coalition for Clean Air.  The Rebuttal to the Argument Against Prop 30 was signed by the CEO of California Environmental Voters, a Senior Attorney on Climate and Clean Energy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a/the senior climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yes, I leaned harder against this proposition.

Then I looked at the Rebuttal To Argument In Favor, and it was signed by the president of the California Teachers Association and the former State Superintendent of Public Instruction.  The Argument Against Proposition 30 was signed by the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the president of the California Small Business Association, and the President of United Latinos Action.

Those are some strange bedfellows, so strange that Hell itself must have frozen over.  In between their shivers and chattering teeth, they remind us that California has a huge budget surplus and thus we already have plenty of money to hire more firefighters.  They also remind us that our electrical grid is already so delicate that the state suffers blackouts every summer, and more electric cars isn't going to help that situation.

Despite the fear of frostbite on my feet, I'm voting NO on Proposition 30.

Generators

Things are beginning to look ugly in Northern Europe:

Britons are arming themselves with everything from generators to thermal underwear as they brace for rolling blackouts caused by the broader energy crisis in Europe.

At least I have a small generator to keep some equipment running (see the comments), and a trailer with propane if there are really bad times.

One thing I'll say about humans, we don't like being cold.  Cold kills a lot more people each year than heat does.

Does Oil Influence A Country's Economy?

 

Learning Less

A good summary of why students are learning less:

Students find exams stressful, so we are told to reduce the number of exams. Neither do students like to read, so we are told to assign easier and shorter readings. Students find it hard to concentrate, so we are told to break down lectures into small chunks and intersperse activities in between. Students enjoy media content and are happy to engage with YouTube and social media, so we are told to incorporate more videos and make course material and assessments more creative and interactive. Some students don’t like to speak in class, so we are told to make sure there are myriad ways students can participate without having to actually speak.

Along with "grade inflation, flexible deadlines, warm language in feedback," these initiatives deny students a chance to learn, Wanic and Powell write. "The student-centered mindset has led to a dumbing-down of curricula and a constant pressure on educators to motivate students, rather than a pressure on students to take ownership of their own success and failure." It leaves them poorly prepared for the future.

(said in best Chandler-from-Friends voice) Could this be any more true? 

Notice how all of those actions are teacher inputs, and aren't improving student achievement.  Isn't it time to focus on student inputs, and maintain some standards in the process?

The Story Behind The Rick Roll Song

This is far more interesting than you might think it would be:

Dems Don't Want You To Get Ahead

In the summer of 2017 I drove for Uber--not because I needed to, but because I wanted to.  I wanted to see what it was like. I made a killing at it, too, earning around...wait for it...$700 in several weeks that summer!  And oh, the things I learned.

I knew the deal when I signed on to Uber.  I knew what they'd pay, and I knew I could work (and not work) whenever I wanted.  Sounded pretty fair to me.

I enjoyed having that side gig.  After California passed AB5, reclassifying most gig workers as employees, I learned that there are a lot of jobs that got reclassified against the wishes of the workers.  People who do medical transcription for just one office--now an employee.  Freelance writers who get most of their money from one publication--now employees.  Certain musicians--employees.  Translators--employees.  Independent truckers who contract mostly with one company--now employees.  You get the idea.

Many Uber, Lyft, and Doordash drivers railed against the new law.  It was so bad that in 2020, California voters passed Proposition 22 which excepted app-based drivers and delivery companies from being considered employees.

Not to be outdone, Slow Joe wants to pass a national version of AB5.

Shameless. 

Update:  I'll just copy Instapundit's entire post here:

BIDEN TO GIG WORKERS – DROP DEAD: Crime, especially in the big cities but also increasingly in their suburbs, is skyrocketing. But the Biden administration is preparing robbery on a massive scale, according to Issues & Insights. You know Biden, he’s from the government and he’s here to help us:

“In essence, the White House wants to outlaw gig work in America. No, it’s not saying so outright. The Biden Labor Department obscures that harsh reality with words meant to deceive. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says the department’s proposal is needed to safeguard ‘​​our nation’s most vulnerable workers,’ and ensure they are not deprived ‘of their federal labor protections.’

“Left out is the part that, should the proposal become policy, millions of Americans will be stripped of their jobs and income. Under its rule, the Labor Department would be free to ‘determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.’ And it will determine in every case that the worker in question must be a hired employee, no longer free to continue his or her job as an independent contractor.”

The key word there is “independent.” That idea threatens the bureaucrats, the mainstream media, and the power-hungry politicians. Just remember what they mean by “covering” something. With a pillow. Like Dave says.

What Is This?

What is it used for?

A fellow math teacher gave me this yesterday, knowing of my penchant for slide rules.  It's not a slide rule; it looks like a combination ruler, protractor, and compass, with a few formulas and trig values thrown in for good measure.  It says "Made in China", so I assume it's no older than the 90's.

At first I thought it might be some draftsman's tool, but closer inspection makes it seem like nothing more than an overgrown ruler.

Has anyone used one of these things?  What might it be good for?

Yes, the bottom part rolls.

More Sickness Up North

I can't even...:

On September 7, Margaret Marsilla called Joshua Tepper, the doctor who planned to kill her son. 

Marsilla is 46, and she lives outside Toronto with her husband and daughter, a nursing student. She had known that her 23-year-old son, Kiano Vafaeian, was depressed—he was diabetic and had lost his vision in one eye, and he didn’t have a job or girlfriend or much of a future—and Marsilla asked her daughter to log onto Kiano’s account. (Kiano had given his sister access so she could help him with his email.) He never shared anything with his mother—what he was thinking, where he was going—and Marsilla was scared. 

That was when Marsilla learned that Kiano had applied and, in late July, been approved for “medical assistance in dying,” aka MAiD, aka assisted suicide.

His death was scheduled for September 22...

When we think of assisted suicide or euthanasia, we imagine a limited number of elderly people with late-stage cancer or advanced ALS in severe pain. The argument for helping them die is clear: Death is imminent. Why should they be forced to suffer? 

In 2015, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that assisted suicide was constitutional. In June 2016, Parliament passed Bill C-14, otherwise known as the Medical Assistance in Dying Act. MAiD was now the law of the land. Anyone who could show that their death was “reasonably foreseeable” was eligible. In this respect, Canada was hardly alone: The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand, among others, allow assisted suicide. So do ten states in the U.S. 

We devalue human life at our peril.

California's Genius Governor, Part 2

It was just a couple days ago I wrote about Gavin Newsollini's lack of knowledge about economics.  Well, that was then, this is now, and nothing has changed but the date:

Whatever billions California Governor Gavin Newsom hands out to voters right before Election Day he’ll take back — with interest — almost as soon as he’s won his four more years running one of the nation’s worst-run state.

Just as voters are getting their mail-in ballots — and even a few (!) non-voters — Newsom is sending out inflation relief checks of up to $1,050. That’s nearly enough to fill ‘er up twice.

“Relieving” inflation with free money is like treating a headache with a ball-peen hammer...

Newsom is handing out “free” funny money while inflation is raging, and then he’s going to raise taxes on gas, income, and who knows what else during what looks to be a nasty recession.

This guy is going to end up making Joe Biden look like King Solomon.

And there’s a non-zero chance that Newsom will be our next president.

There is a famous quote, various attributed to many different people but not appearing in print before the 1950s, along the lines of "A republic can only exist until voters realize they can vote themselves money from the public treasury."  I wonder how close we are to that point.

Highly Inappropriate

Today, in all our staff members’ mailboxes, was a flier for an incumbent school board member who is running for reelection.  I could not identify this person in a lineup, and neither do I know anything about the positions this person takes, so this isn’t a personal or political issue, but it just seems wrong.  I’m not sure what the applicable law or policy is, but it doesn’t seem right to have political materials placed in our work mailboxes.  Seems shady to me.  And since the person is a current and a prospective school board member, it’s possibly a conflict of interest.

What do you think?

Painting Yourself Into A Corner

Imagine the logical contortions needed to justify this:

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, transgender women who are born male must register for the Selective Service, which provides the Defense Department with troops in the event of a military draft. Transgender men who are born female do not have to register for the Selective Service. While the policy was established before Biden took office, the Biden administration has not changed the standard...

The website states that all biological males must register for the draft, including “U.S. citizens or immigrants who are born male and have changed their gender to female.”

The website also notes that “Individuals who are born female and have changed their gender to male” do not have to register.  

When your government needs you to bleed for your country, there are only 2 genders--and they're the ones people are born with.  Your government doesn't care about your feeeeeeeelings or how you "identify".

California's Genius Governor

Newsollini is such a genius, he thinks a new tax on oil companies will bring gas prices down!

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday he will call a special session of the state Legislature in December to pass a new tax on oil companies as punishment for what he calls "rank price gouging."

Newsom told reporters on Friday that the special session will begin Dec. 5 after all the votes have been counted from the November elections and newly elected lawmakers are sworn in...

Kevin Slagle, vice president for the Western States Petroleum Association, said "a better use of the special session would be to take a hard look at decades of California energy policy and what they mean to consumers and our economy."

"If this was anything other than a political stunt, the Governor wouldn't wait two months and would call the special session now, before the election," Slagle said. "This industry is ready right now to work on real solutions to energy costs and reliability if that is what the Governor is truly interested in." 

I'd wonder if a class in economics might help our executives and legislators, but Donkey Chompers, a representative from New York, supposedly has a degree in economics and it obviously hasn't helped her.

If we get the government we deserve, we in California are getting it--good and hard.

Isn't It Funny How...

 

Just sayin'.

1/10 of 1%

Each year, Stanford University chooses a football game for "teacher appreciation" and offers free tickets to teachers.  I received two, and the guy who teaches next door to me picked me up at 2pm for the almost-three-hour drive to Palo Alto.

Maybe Stanford didn't expect to win this game and that's why they chose this game to give away free tickets.  The stadium was closer to empty than full, even the student section was very small.  Oregon State came in 3-2 against Stanford's 1-3 record.

Oregon State received the opening kickoff and moved swiftly down the field.  The Stanford defense held them to a field goal attempt, which was missed.  That seemed to be the way it would go for Oregon State.

It was an ugly game, with many Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties against both teams.  Stanford led 17-7 at the half.  At the end of the third, Stanford led 24-10, and the already light crowd started to thin even more as the outcome couldn't possibly be in doubt.

Then something happened in the 4th quarter.

Oregon State scored twice, missing two-point conversions both times.  They had narrowed the Stanford lead to 24-22 with under 6 minutes remaining in the game.  After that last touchdown, Stanford awakened and started looking like they did in the first three quarters, moving the ball down the field with ease.

Sometime around the 50 yard line I turned to my friend and said, "You know what my 1/10 of 1%, alternate reality ending is for this game?  Oregon State holds Stanford to a field goal, then drives down the field for a touchdown to win."  We both laughed, neither team played like that could be the outcome.

With less than a minute left in the game, Oregon State held Stanford to a field goal and a 27-22 lead.  Then they started moving down the field.

On their last offensive play they snapped the ball for a pass play.  There's no way the receiver should have caught the ball, there's no way he should have stayed in-bounds, and there's no way the two defenders should have let him avoid their tackles.  But all of that happened, leading to a 56-yard touchdown with 13 seconds left in the game.  The 2-point conversion failed.

Oregon State beat Stanford 28-27.

It was an ugly win, but a W is a W.

The friend I went with was rooting for Stanford.  He likes to root for the Northern California teams, and besides, his father-in-law went to Stanford.  I have a lot of respect for Sammie Stroughter, who played at Oregon State and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and later became our high school's football coach (I was texting him throughout the game), so I leaned towards Oregon State.  I wasn't rude about it--heck, Stanford gave me the tickets and I was obviously not seated in the OSU fan area, why be an obnoxious guest?  And since I don't really have strong feelings for either team, I was just hoping for a good game.  We didn't really get a good game, but that 4th Quarter, though....

Kickoff was 8pm and the game didn't end until after 11.  I got home a little after 2am.  Great way to spend a day.

One Surprise, One Not So Much

She's from Oregon:

Betsy Johnson is not running for Miss Congeniality. The longtime Democrat now running for governor of Oregon as an unaffiliated candidate is more likely to drop a swear word than a political platitude. When voters asked if she would repeal Oregon's drug decriminalization law, she responded, "Hell yes." On education, she declared, "Let's not worry about pronouns. Let's worry about mathematics."

So far, I like her. 

This comes, not at all surprisingly, from California:

A football player at a high school in California has been forced to stop carrying a pro-police flag as the team rallied onto the field, as critics said it made them feel "unwelcome and uncomfortable."

Some others compared the "thin blue flag" to a Confederate one, forcing school administrators at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita to tell the player to ditch the controversial symbol...

The school's principal also reiterated that the decision was not to signal a shift in support for law enforcement — especially after officers assisted the school during a mass shooting in 2019.

Which one surprises you?

At This Point, I Say Hang'em

In the 21st century, men should be long past raping young women just because we can.  Should the allegations in this case be proven, prison is too good a punishment:

A cargo ship was sailing across the Atlantic Ocean when the captain summoned two young US Merchant Marine Academy cadets to his room and gave them each a drink.

Shortly thereafter, the students started feeling like something was wrong.

Unbeknownst to them, their boss had spiked their drinks, according to a previously unreported complaint filed by the US Coast Guard. Once they were incapacitated, the captain raped one cadet and attempted to sexually assault the other, the Coast Guard alleges.

I wrote about similar happenings back in June.  Our women cadets should not have to live in fear during their training, and I expect the US Merchant Marine Academy to take stronger steps in the future to ensure they are not put in such danger.  I don't mean paper steps, either, I mean action.  This is disgusting.

I will be writing my congressman about this.

Update, 11/2/22:  It's been more than 3 weeks since I wrote my congressman.  That's a week for the letter to get to DC, a week back, and more than a week to come up with a reply.  I've received none.

Using Technology To Teach English

This seems interesting.  I wonder if it's scalable:

That spirit has been harnessed at Mr Oyarbide's school, Nava College Preparatory Academy. The school was the trial site for a scheme that has pitched using the metaverse to help teach English to students with a limited grasp of the language.

The term metaverse is used to describe a series of virtual reality worlds that can be accessed through a browser or virtual reality (VR) headset.

The idea behind the scheme is to harness the power of VR technology to bypass traditional teaching methods and plunge students into a world of possibility in a virtual universe...

For Mr Oyarbide, the possibility of sharpened focus among his easily distracted students had huge appeal.

"I've been teaching for 12 years. If kids can figure out anything it is how not to pay attention! I wanted to try something different, do normal learning from books for one period and then switch to VR."

In doing this, he discovered that a VR environment swept away the inhibitions of many of his students wrestling with learning a new language.

He says the technique helped them practise their language skills without embarrassment.

Sounds good, but anyone with half a brain can see potential problems with this sort of pedagogy--Mr. Ovarbide included: 

Students would usually use the VR equipment for two or three hours a week...

Despite the positive impact VR has had on his teaching methods, Mr Oyarbide is not a starry-eyed convert to the avalanche of metaverse hype typified by Facebook's rebranding as Meta.

He says there is still great advantages to a traditional classroom setting.

"The old approach to teaching through books does not go away. And you're not going to wear a headset for four hours a day. But it does allow you to reduce teacher talk and create a tangible space for a student's confidence to grow."

Sounds good so far!

Retirement Pay

Retired teachers are allowed to lose 15% of our purchasing power, but only 15%:

The teachers’ retirement system provides a unique benefit that preserves retirees’ “purchasing power.” When inflation reduces the value of their pension dollars by more than 15%, the system makes a permanent adjustment, pushing retirees’ purchasing power back up to 85%. 

The inflation rate CalSTRS used for the fiscal year that ended in June was 8.3%, according to the retirement system’s announcement. 

That pushed the purchasing power of about 50,000 retirees below 85% for the first time, triggering new adjustments for them, according to the announcement. Only teachers who retired in 2005 or earlier were eligible for the adjustments, which showed up on this month’s pension checks. 

CalSTRS’ announcement said the system has “one of the strongest anti-inflation programs operated by any public pension system in the nation.”

I guess that's something.

Some Say Data and Evidence Are Tools of White Supremacy, I Say Such People Are Idiots

When the facts contradict your expectations, believe the facts:

Since Texas enacted its law, four other states have done the same, bringing the total of constitutional carry states to 25.

While there are some differences in how these states have implemented constitutional carry (e.g., a couple of them require you to be a resident of the State to carry, while others set an age minimum, etc.) it’s fair to say that overall, half of all states now allow citizens who can legally possess a firearm to carry at least a handgun without a permit. This national wave has been a tremendous victory for gun rights and continues the trend of expanding the right to carry...

Every time a state adopts constitutional carry, anti-gun groups, as well as much of the media (but I repeat myself), warn that every minor dispute will turn into a bloody shootout and the state’s homicide rate will therefore skyrocket. They also claim that the “research is clear” in favor of their arguments.

But is it really?

With so many states now having enacted some form of constitutional carry, this is no longer a hypothetical question. While some states have only recently enacted these laws, most others have had them for several years.

As of 2020, the most recent year for which detailed CDC data is available, 16 states had already embraced constitutional carry. By looking at the homicide rates in those states as well as their gun homicide rates in particular, we can get an idea of whether constitutional carry states actually are more dangerous than the nation as a whole.

If the anti-gun argument is correct, constitutional carry states should be far more violent, especially in the crime-surge year of 2020.

Fortunately, the CDC provides very detailed statistics on public health, including data on underlying causes of death, so we can check. The statistics are reported online through the CDC’s WONDER tool, an acronym which stands for “Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research.” All of the data I am about to discuss can be found through that tool.

Read the original for the data data data, I'll jump to the conclusion:

Regardless, the data does not support the anti-gunners’ argument that constitutional carry states are especially violent and that violence is caused by permitless carry. Even when it comes to gun-related homicide, constitutional carry states are at least as safe as the nation as a whole, and perhaps slightly safer.

The only question I have about the author's analysis would strengthen his thesis.  When he says "the average overall homicide rate among the sixteen constitutional carry states in 2020 was 6.9 per 100,000, beating the national average of 7.5 per 100,000", I think his comparison is wrong.  He shouldn't compare the rates in the carry states to the national average, which includes those carry states, but to the average of the non-carry states.  Thus, the 6.9/100,000 would be compared to a number even larger than 7.5/100,000.  Then a simple comparison of those two ratios could reveal whether or not the difference is statistically significant, which it no doubt would be.

No wonder lefties don't like evidence.  The real world is conservative and disappoints them again and again.

Who You Gonna Call?

Termites or roaches are bad enough, what happens if you think you have ghosts?  Read here to find out:

For a few years, I was a ghost hunter...Ever since I began working that unique gig, I constantly get asked for advice from people who want to investigate their own homes for ghosts but aren’t sure how to go about it. So to help them — and all of you — here’s a guide on what you should do.

Time And Effort Aren't What Counts.

In football, practice isn't what counts, performance counts.  It should be the same in education:

Maitland Jones Jr., a chemistry professor at New York University who also taught for four decades at Princeton, was fired in August after undergraduate students circulated a petition complaining that his course was too difficult. 

Dozens of the college students, many of them aspiring doctors, signed on to the petition in the spring. 

"We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class," the petition read, according to the New York Times.

These are the kinds of snowflakes you get when everyone gets a participation trophy growing up.

In Favor of the ACT

The author of this article took all the archived ACT tests, taught at an ACT prep program, and analyzed ACT scores.  Keeping in mind the cardinal rule of statistics--without data, all you have is an opinion--this man backs up his assertions with data:

Exams like the American College Test (ACT) are supposed to assess how much information students learned in high school and, by implication, their preparedness for college. However, they’ve been criticized as being biased against female, minority, and low-income students.

data data data

Clearly, the ACT does not discriminate against females.

He's very familiar with the test:

As a biological psychologist, I’ve taught mostly in the fields of neuroscience, brain function, learning theory, cognition, and the like. But I also spent 12 years teaching high-school science, math, and ACT prep courses for a large, nonprofit tutoring center that drew students from about a dozen varied high schools.

To stay abreast of changes to the ACT, and to understand it from my students’ perspectives, I took all of the ACTs archived at the center and new versions as they were released. I know the test pretty well.

data data data

What does he conclude? 

Taking a more rigorous high-school curriculum helped everyone.

These overall scores are often used to claim that the ACT is racially biased. However, if the scores are considered in terms of race and self-reported postsecondary aspirations, a more complex picture emerges...

One criticism of standardized tests is that only the well-to-do can afford “expensive” prep courses. Critics stress “expensive” to emphasize their claim that prep courses advantage wealthier students. This is wrongheaded for two reasons.

First, prep courses are not that helpful. I analyzed the pre- and post-test scores of 205 students who took the ACT prep course offered by the tutoring center where I taught...

These modest improvements are typical for test prep courses and cannot, alone, change the trajectory of anyone’s academic career. Further, the data do not support the contention that the inability to take a prep course, per se, is preventing deserving students from going to college.

The second, more important point is that test prep materials are available for free either through high-school programs or online. While there may be social or circumstantial barriers to accessing the online materials, wealth is not one of them. I’ve never met a high-school student without a smartphone.

Finally, it’s important to reiterate that an ACT prep course simply cannot substitute for four years of high school. Accessibility to a prep course is not what’s standing between an unprepared student and college admission. It’s unfair to students to claim otherwise...

Does the ACT discriminate? After 12 years of teaching this and similar standardized tests, I’ve learned that the only way to do well on the ACT is to take it after having learned the basic material that it covers. That takes several years of high school. There are no shortcuts, tricks, or special strategies (much to the dismay of many students and their parents).

I'll speak for myself here, not for the author of the article above.  Students and parents see these standardized test scores the same way they see grades, as commodities to be hoarded and maximized.  Rather, scores and grades are and should be merely proxies for learning.  If you don't do well, it's because you didn't learn the material that was being tested.

Is there a racial bias?  Perhaps, but it's not in the test itself, but rather in an educational system that focuses on pop psychology and feeeeeelings instead of the hard work of teaching and learning.  When they can't give you good government, they give you "woke" government; when they can't give you good education, they give you "woke" education.

There is no royal road to geometry.

Is This What Systemic Racism Looks Like?

It looks like the pro-abortion movement:

Dozens of states passed forced sterilization laws inspired by the eugenics movement and designed to, in Sanger’s words, encourage “the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks-those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”

Given these historical realities, it’s no surprise that Planned Parenthood officials in recent days have sought to separate themselves from their founder’s genocidal views, but the reality that eugenics remains embedded in the abortion group’s very physical structure to this very day as seen in data cited by the Liberty Counsel brief:

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s most recent data, Black women accounted for 33.6 percent of all reported abortions in 2018, even though they make up 13 percent of women in the United States. Black women also had the highest abortion rate (21.2 abortions per 1,000 women) and ratio (335 abortions per 1,000 live births).

Further, abortion-induced deaths of the unborn in the Black community are 69 times higher than HIV deaths, 31 times higher than homicides, 3.6 times higher than cancer-related deaths, and 3.5 times higher than deaths caused by heart disease.”

You want to talk about structural racism in the United States? A map of Planned Parenthood’s clinic locations looks like Exhibit A:

The racial disparity in abortions is largely intentional: A study based on 2010 Census data shows that nearly eight out of ten Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are within walking distance of predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods.

More specifically, Planned Parenthood intentionally located 86 percent of its abortion facilities in or near minority neighborhoods in the 25 U.S. counties with the most abortions.

These 25 counties contain 19 percent of the U.S. population, including 28 percent of the Black population and 37 percent of the Hispanic/Latino population. In 12 of these counties, Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos are more than 50 percent of the population.

Given such data, it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that what Sanger wrote privately in a 1939 letter to a friend remains true today of Planned Parenthood...

The conclusion is the extermination of the Negro (sic) population.  

Don't go ballistic at me--Sanger said it, I just posted it.

This Weekend's Camping Trip

We had a random 3-day weekend in my school district, so I went with some friends to the Eastern Sierra.  My trailer's front window has not been replaced after the August break-in, but since the window has been ordered and I can see light at the end of the tunnel, I decided to I'd take my trailer out for the first time since Baja.

We saw the tufa formations at Mono Lake:

and then went to Bodie State Historic Park, a ghost town kept in a state of "arrested decay":

We also sat around a lot and ate a lot.  It was a great way to spend a weekend!

The 25th Amendment

Remember when the left breathlessly mentioned the 25th Amendment in reference to President Trump?  President Trump was obviously in possession of all his faculties, the lefties just didn't like that he didn't roll over for them like some other Republicans have.  Notice that they, who always screech about "our Democracy" (and they really do mean their democracy), are always willing to abuse the powers granted by the Constitution whenever they think they can get away with it.  Fortunately, they couldn't then.

Now, which president is more in need of being replaced due to 25th Amendment incapacitation--Donald Trump, respected (if not liked) by leaders all over the world whilst trying to drain the swamp here at home, or Slow Joe Biden, who mumbles his way through speeches and then starts to wander in any direction but the one in which his handlers want him to go?

You know why they're not talking about the 25th Amendment?  Because they like having President John Gill to push all their stupid anti-American ideas, even if he consistently says the wrong thing and those pulling the levers behind the curtain have to walk it back.

Perhaps the even bigger reason that no one is talking about the 25th Amendment is because dumping John Gill would leave Kamala Harris as president.  Let's be serious:  she's so unlikable that she dropped out of the presidential race before earning a single Democratic convention delegate, and she's as dumb as a box of hair. 

“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree...”

Genius, this one.  And if you think that quote is a little unfair, take your pick from amongst these.  Or these.  Or these.

So if we get rid of John Gill, we're stuck with Kamala Harris.  It's hard to say which is worse.

We'll have to wait until a Republican is in the White House before we talk seriously about the 25th Amendment again.

Camping

Been camping this weekend, with blog posts scheduled.  Don't know what kind of internet connection I'll have so I don't know if I'll even be able to post comments this weekend--but I'll be home soon and everything will return to normal.

A Strong Dollar

A strong dollar makes life difficult for American exporters, because foreigners will have to spend more of their own currency for each dollar of product they want to buy.  American travelers, however, can have a field day on a strong dollar.

A decade ago I went to Europe when a euro was worth $1.33.  Now it's essentially equal to a dollar, thus having lost 1/4 of its value in that time.

In 1975 I went to Britain with the sterling worth $2.05.  When I went in 2018 it was worth $1.33.  Today it's worth about $1.11, having lost over 16% of its value in those 4 years.

I'm considering returning to Iceland in February, so let's talk about the krona.  When I went 10 years ago there were about 130 kronur to the dollar.  In February 2017 there were 110, and in February 2018 there were 100.  Today there are 144 kronur to the dollar, meaning that the krona has lost 30% of its value in less than 5 years.

Oddly enough, the Mexican peso has held steady for about 2 years now.

Of course, all this could change tomorrow, but for right now I'm enjoying the thoughts of extravagant vacations.

Tell Me Again Who The Fascists Are?

 

Tentative Agreement Vote Update

I'm not allowed to vote on our contract because I'm not a union member, but I was included in an email announcing the results of said contract vote:

Hey Folks,

Some communication from the union-

Colleagues, 

The Tentative Agreement Ratification voting results are as follows:

Ballots Submitted:  868 

Yes, I accept the Tentative Agreement:                 851     (98.0%)

No, I do not accept the Tentative Agreement:       17   (1.9%)  

The membership has ratified the Agreement.

Thank you to the Bargaining Team for their outstanding work in negotiating this historic deal. 

In unity...

There are over 2000 members in our bargaining unit, fewer than half of them voted.  And less than 2% of them voted against it?  Hmmmm.  I'd bet we could get over 10% to vote against a statement that the sky is blue.

Less than 2%.  I'm friends with our school's union rep and knew he'd get my joke, so I replied with the following:

A percentage very much like the Russian annexation votes in occupied Ukraine.

College Free Speech Rankings

You can quarrel with their methodology if you want, but FIRE ranks the University of Chicago as #1 and Columbia in last place at #203.  

Is your school on the list?  Mine isn't, but as a military academy it wouldn't be expected to have strong free speech protections for cadets.  Local university Sac State isn't on the list, but UC Davis (aka Berkeley-lite) is.

California's Best Schools?

According to this article (your mileage may vary), the top public school in California is in the SF Bay Area, near Stanford.  The next nine are all in Southern California.

As for the top private schools, five of the top ten are in the SF Bay Area, with an additional one being online.  The remaining four are in Southern California.

Not one school in the Sacramento area.  Not one school anywhere in Northern California north of Oakland.  Oakland.

Perfect AP Score

It's hard not to be impressed with a student who earned the only perfect score in the world on the AP Calculus test:

An Indiana high school student received a perfect score on the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam this spring, the only student in the world to achieve such a feat.

Felix Zhang, currently a junior at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Indiana, aced the test with 108 points out of the 108 points possible. 

Impressive.

On the other hand, if only 1 person in the world can achieve this, what does that say about the reasonableness of the College Board's standards? Did more students used to achieve this, but now no longer do for some reason?  Enquiring minds want to know.

California Is Withholding Test Results

They wouldn't withhold them if they made Dems look good. On the other hand, this is a one party state, and the Dems would will be reelected even if, in LBJ's terms, every one of them was found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.  So why the shenanigans?

The state of California is delaying the release of test scores to the public, potentially pushing the release until after Election Day. Coincidentally, those test scores may not reflect well on Democratic leaders across the state.

According to EdSource, the California Department of Education is withholding the scores from its Smarter Balanced tests so that they can be released at the same time as other data on the California School Dashboard. There is no good reason for this, and in fact, it is a break in precedent. EdSource notes that since the department began releasing those results in 2015, it has been consistently released before other dashboard data, ranging from releases in the last week of August to the first week of October...

It isn’t hard to see why Democrats would want to stall the release of test scores until after Election Day. The school closures and restrictions handed down by Democrats at the state and local levels dramatically set students back, and all the data show this. The 2020-21 test results found that scores “declined significantly” after “five straight years of gradual improvement,” according to EdSource. The achievement gap between white and Asian students on the one hand and black and Hispanic students on the other also widened thanks to closures, which affected students in poorer communities the most.

Is This Helping Mother Earth?

A couple months ago I wrote about mandatory composting here in California.  Yes, that's right, mandatory composting.  To limit methane from landfills, or something.

So I've been composting.  Here's a picture from this morning:

A couple weeks of composting--a couple apple cores and a lot of loose-leaf tea.  In a 3-gallon bag.

The bags haven't ever lasted more than about 15 days, they deteriorate quickly so I'll have to dispose of this very soon.  The bag is a bigger waste than whatever methane we're supposedly saving.

You're welcome, Gaia.

Are They Really Doing What's Best For Kids?

If I were designing a school, I wouldn't focus on teaching kids to think the world's out to get them while simultaneously not teaching them skills and knowledge they'll need to succeed in that world:

A “woke” California high school that boasts of having a “Social Justice Academy” has scored a dismal 19 percent math proficiency rate.

San Leandro High School’s “Social Justice Academy” is a three-year “rigorous” and “career-themed” program.

The program is aimed at 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, according to the academy’s website.

As part of the course, students are required to become activists and advocate for left-wing causes.

However, the school is suffering in more traditional subjects like math, where students are getting appallingly low scores.

Such schools are for the adults, not for the children.

Student Bathroom Use

Yes, if you're a parent and you hear that your child isn't allowed to go to the restroom whenever they need or want to at school, you might blow up and think such policies are insane:

• My children told me some of their teachers are limiting bathroom breaks to 3 to 4 times a semester.

• I thought this was an isolated thing, but I asked parents on Facebook, and it's fairly common.

• Experts say limiting bathroom breaks like this can be both physically and psychologically harmful.

  
  

While I don't limit the number of times my students leave for the bathroom--I have no desire to monitor the pee-pee habits of my students--let me share with you a little justification from the secondary school perspective.

Secondary school students will have anywhere from 4 to 8 classes a day.  If each teacher were to limit bathroom passes (again, I don't, but hear me out) to 3 or 4 a semester, your kid could be leaving class anywhere from 12 to 32 times per semester.  What about breaks between classes?  What about lunchtime?  What about immediately before school and after school?  12 to 32 times per semester.  Leaving class.  Missing out on instruction.  And that's if the teachers are limiting bathroom passes.

At my high school there's no guarantee they're headed to the restroom.  No, we have students whom some of us call roamers--they just walk around campus.  They're not your Advanced Placement students, either, if you get my drift.  Once they leave the classroom I have no control over them, and it's not like our administrators have all sorts of free time to walk the campus to ensure that kids who are supposed to be headed to the bathroom are, in fact, headed to the bathroom.  So these kids roam.  They could be gone 20-30 minutes, I have no control over that because I have to stay in the classroom and teach.  

The idea behind bathroom passes is to keep students in class during class time, and to encourage them to use the restrooms when it's not class time.  Given all the mischief secondary students can get into, that's a reasonable goal.

Parents who have nothing better to do than to squeal when they learn their baby's pee-pee rights are being restricted, I ask this--how can we better achieve both our goals?  How can we minimize the missing of class, ensure students are supervised, not have to extend the school day by having longer breaks (there are state laws about "instructional minutes" per school day and year), and satisfy you that your child isn't going to burst his or her bladder?  I'm seriously asking to work together on this.

And I'm not interested in discussing time-of-the-month or medical issues.  Those are issues that should be dealt with separately, as they're nothing students can control.  I want to discuss the 99% of the time when those aren't the issue, how can we better achieve both our goals?

Because that article linked above just runs fingernails down a blackboard for me.  It made it seem like teachers limit leaving classroom just because they can, there was no recognition of the very legitimate reasons for doing so, and such writing does no service to anyone--except those who want to stir up trouble and acrimony.

Pictures

A couple hours ago my sister texted me for some pictures of nana when she was my sister's age.  I went through a lot of boxes before I finally found something close--nana wanted pictures of us in the 1970s, I wouldn't have that many pictures of her!  It took awhile but I found a couple.

During my search I found some other pictures, and I sent them to interested parties.  It was quite fun.

And then, I found a small wallet-sized picture.  This post is now complete.