#educational stuff

[hypewinter]

So the Ghost Zone counts as its own domain right? Then I propose foreign exchange student Danny Fenton.

He's very quiet and very smart but more importantly, he's pretty dodgy about his country or origin. He's never given a straight answer about where he comes from. Only saying things like "oh we're big on combat sports" or "technically we're a monarchy but there hasn't been a king since the last one was locked away for being a tyrant". It's to the point where students have made a running bet to see who can figure out Danny's country of origin first. And Tim plans to win that bet.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[iliothermia]

Hey y'all. It's International Holocaust Awareness day Both of these books changed me. Consider reading them or please share for someone else who might. It's never a bad thing to learn more.

Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Slomo Venezia This is one of the only books I've found that touches on the living conditions and viewpoint of a Jew from Greece. Reading it, the author felt like a friend. It was horrifying.

Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide this book explained people were taught to completely separate Jews from being human in people's minds in the years leading up to the Holocaust- especially in the medical field. It has interviews with some of the doctors who did these things. The site for the books also has an archive of images, films, objects, publications, recorded sounds and documents. You can find information on many communities. Thank you

[somewhereinmalta]

It certainly is most educational.

[salvadorbonaparte]

German television did something very impressive recently that I need to share with my international audience.

There is a popular children's show called "Die Sendung mit der Maus" (the show with the mouse). The show combines live-action educational segments and animated entertainment segments. Typically this would include, for example, a visit to a factory explaining how something is made, followed by a cute animated sequence like Shaun the Sheep. The show is written in a way that is easy to understand for children of different ages without being dumbed down or condescending. Actually, I occasionally watch it as an adult because I'm still learning new things from it.

A few days ago, it was Memorial Day for the Victims of National Socialism. To honor that, there was a special episode. The episode explained Stolpersteine (stumbling stones - small brass plates on the ground with the names of victims of the Nazis). Then, they covered the life of Felix Nussbaum, a German Jewish artist who was murdered in Auschwitz.

The episode explains the Nazi rise to power, their ideology, World War Two and the Holocaust and what that meant for Jewish people in Europe. It doesn't shy away from using words like "murdered" instead of talking around it. It explains things slowly, in easy language and emphasizes how people felt and how they dealt with horrible situations like hiding, fleeing and being arrested. They talk about it openly and honestly without it being too intellectually and emotionally difficult for children to follow.

In the 1930s Felix Nussbaum worked on an animated cartoon that was never finished and the script was lost for decades. To honor Felix Nussbaum's legacy, the animation team of Die Sendung mit der Maus animated his script and used that as the entertainment segment of the episode.

This episode is an impressive example of how children can be introduced to difficult topics and also deeply respectful of Felix Nussbaum's work and legacy.

[reality-detective]

This is Brilliant 😂

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[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[sweethysteria]

[sandersstudies]

The thing about teaching with after-school programs and extracurricular nonprofits is that my students are not a rotating door I see for one semester or one year and never again. Some students might be around a few months, but some are around for years, including all summer, and including into adulthood.

Some of my older students I have known for many years. Some people who are now mentors and teachers themselves were my first students. One of my now-peers was my mentor when I was a kid and he was a young adult. And I think that dynamic helps create a space where kids are treated with the correct amount of respect and discipline.

There is no "well just get through this semester with band-aid solutions and I never have to deal with this kid again." It HAS to be "okay so if this kid grows up and is still part of our community, what kind of foundational skills and assistance can I offer NOW so they are able to function and cooperate as an adult and a peer?" "If this kid is going to be returning for years, what is a baby step we can take right now that will compound over time?"

I also take a lot of feedback from my students. If I may teach or direct them in the future, I want to hear what's working for them and what isn't, and be sincere about my own attempts to grow and learn for and with them. I am building memories for them with the assumption that in 5-10 years they will be my peers in my community.

[thegoodwitchtg]

💐You prefer it this way!💖🪄♀️

[lanadelreyworshipperr]

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[tikkunolamresistance]

i’m seeing a lot of people on instagram and irl praising president elect trumps most recent statement regarding the hostage crisis and middle east strife.

they say this should have been americas stance from october 8th 2023 onward. while i agree the focus on the hostages has waned globally and our concern should really be rescuing who we can and those responsible should be held accountable, the language of this post is rhetorically manipulative to the jewish community. he is telling a lot of us what we want to hear, we want someone to really stand up for us on the political stage (ritchie torres) and stay with their full chest that they are on our team— but this message is not doing that. this message is that of a war monger drumming up his base to create more chaos as the transition of power becomes an even larger public spectacle. i can tell because he says the world wants the hostages back. that it’s demonstrably false. for example, a staffer to the new york city mayors office was suspended without pay this week for tearing down hostage posters.

this statement from trump uses the hostages to bolster a hawkish sentiment that is growing into mainstream.

i don’t have answers or edits to his statement. it speaks for itself. i’m just very tired. tired of this rhetoric, tired of every day bringing conflicting reports of broken ceasefires and coalitions of global powers backing theocratic regimes.

the path to peace is fraught with violent traps and i see far too many of us falling into it over and over again. people i regard as brilliant are taking trumps statement as a net positive. i have a sick feeling its not.

[teacupsandcyanide]

Something I miss from earlier eras of the creative side of the internet was things just being unabashedly low-budget. Just all unashamedly amateur, unprofessional, ‘I don’t own a good camera but I have a story to tell you’, ‘I can’t afford a good mic but I have a song to sing for you,’ ‘I don’t have any kind of background in editing or lighting and I only just picked up this guitar last Tuesday but here’s an entire musical me and my friends wrote about our favourite book, we filmed it on a potato and put it up on YouTube in ten minute segments because we thought it was pretty funny.’

[reality-detective]

LOL 😂