#taught senior level maths

[creetchure]

every once in a while i think about my lukewarm take that "kids who come from priviledged private schools might not need help in college whereas kids from less priviledged schools might, simply because they haven't been given the same tools in life" that got me yelled at in real life for like a whole half hour and i go. huh.

[jungkookstatts]

Nepenthe - University Superstar Drabble 3

Nepenthe - [N]. Something that can make you forget grief or suffering

[Summary]: Jungkook’s life has always been a polarizing battle. It has been pushed and pulled from a constant fight about which should take control: his heart, or his brain? He could never balance it all, the overwhelming emotions too much to even out all by himself. But when he met you…all of that disappeared. When he met you, he felt both organs rest, allowing him to embrace all that is life, and all that is you.

[Theme]: Jock!Jk, LacrossePlayer!JK x TeacherIntern!Y/N, Friends(?)ToLovers!AU, EnimeisToLovers!AU, Inside the mind of Jeon Jungkook

[Rating]: 18+ for mentions of the deed, fluff (so many tingling feelings), a slight hint of cheating (if you'll call it that [I feel like everyone has a different boundary with what they associate as cheating, so I'll put this here and leave it for you to decide])

[Word Count]: 1,545

[A/n]: Not me setting my expectations for men to the highest standard with this drabble. Read with caution.

[Masterlist]

Jungkook was the quiet boy. He always kept to himself, just bunny smiles and wide eyes as he went about his younger years.

The boy was good. Never had to flip his green card to yellow or red in his life — minus the one time he accidentally hurt a girl's feelings in the second grade for calling her pigtails uneven.

He never missed a day of class, never once received a grade lower than a C+, and never got involved in drama or fights.

Every day was a blessing when he was growing up. His parents taught him well, giving their son their best heretic traits of pure goodness to Jungkook to go about his life with. He was giving and generous with his friends, even more so to strangers. Always giving up his favorite things to make someone feel better or sacrificing his time to spend a little extra with someone who needed him near. Beyond humble and caring he was, always the teacher’s favorite student.

But that was Jungkook. He was the good boy. Until he came face-to-face with puberty.

Junior High was dreadful. That goodness he went about life in started to not make sense. He was angry and breaking out in pimples and his voice started cracking with every breath he took. In what world would holding goodness be okay when the growing pains in his shin provoked him to quit the soccer team?

It was a mess. He was a mess.

And he was so unbelievably horny.

It was embarrassing how horny he was.

In the eighth grade, he was chosen to be the class speaker at his graduation ceremony. However, as he stood up there, all he could think about was whether or not the crowd could see the massive boner he waist-banding under his belt buckle. It was as if he was sporting a hard-on with every breath he took, and suddenly he realized that his right hand became much stronger than his left.

The next two years couldn’t have gone by any quicker, because soon Jungkook was the most popular kid in his high school. His sophomore year was by far the easiest with the way he was climbing up in popularity.

Jungkook was in every upper math class, honors, and AP course a person could possibly have the opportunity to fit into one semester. Despite being in classes with total nerds and questionable individuals, the minute he exited his upper-level courses, he was bombarded with the cheerleading team sticking their boobs in his face and his own friends fighting to ask him when he had the next day off practice to hang out together.

He would have guessed it was from his final stages of puberty. Finally, that crack in his voice was gone, and the pains in his bones were starting to fade. Besides, he was pulling so many women, he started getting tested every week just to make sure that he wasn’t overdoing it with how much sex he was having.

By his senior year of high school, he was one of the tallest, most athletic kids in the class. And, as if no one was expecting it at all, he was elected his high school's prom king.

Through it all, Jungkook still didn’t find much reason to apologize. It was a strange word coming from his lips. He had always respected others enough to the point where it was rare that he really did anything wrong. Not because he was a person who didn’t have any negative thoughts or who didn’t indulge in negative actions. But Jungkook was always good at blending. If he wanted to do something bad, he did it with others. If he had negative thoughts, he pretended he didn’t. Big walls and big problems formed from his very own defense mechanism to never have to run into upsetting someone else from his presence.

His “jockiness” formed with his first girlfriend, Park Haneul. She was quite the opposite of Jungkook. If she had a problem, she’d say it right then and there with no warning or build-up to coat any of her insults. She also constantly had a problem with Jungkook, which made it really hard for him to understand why. He felt like he was doing all the right things — he listened to her, let her cry on his shoulder, hugged her when she was feeling down, made her tea when she was angry, gave up almost all his time for her, took her out on the over-ly expensive dates she demanded as a “make-up” technique. He did it all, and yet there were still fights and a dissatisfied girlfriend by the end of the day.

When he finally got fed up after being yelled at and told that he wasn’t being a good boyfriend, he figured he needed to say that he was sorry to make it right. However, it was really hard for him to muster the words to apologize.

Instead? He coated himself with the biggest percentage of confidence within himself that he could bring out.

And, well.

It worked.

His relationship with Haneul began to feel like a ride in a Rolls-Royce. Not a singular bump in the road or crack in the windshield could be felt. His relationship with her was smooth sailing. However, just because he couldn’t feel the bumps in the road or the cracks in the windshield, doesn’t mean they weren’t there.

Three years rolled by, and he couldn’t do it anymore. There was no "pop", no drive that made him feel this overwhelming sense of love he knew he was supposed to feel when she told him she loved him. It wasn't fair to either of them, and he couldn't take it anymore. Not when he realized that he wasn’t feeling anything when he looked into her eyes. Not when he looked in yours and felt the life of passion you lived through them.

He wanted that. He wanted to hold your face and stare into your eyes until he could learn how it felt to feel like you did. He wanted to be near you; to watch that fire in your eyes teach him how to live as you warmed his soul while doing so.

And so, he left in search of your fire. He searched and searched and searched until he found it in a coffee shop, covered in his coffee. With just a bat of your eyes, you became a nepenthe to him. Years of pining and tensity he spent while trying to find you lifted, and that desire to join you in life came back.

It was a strong desire for Jungkook to be everything to you. To be the reason you light up in flames and laugh until your stomach hurts and to be the person you run to when you need to feel safe. He wanted to do everything to you that you did to him. And he soon found himself in a crossfire between who he was in elementary school and who he was in high school. A heart of humility and good, so full of passion and warmth, competing with his defensive brain who so brutally reminded him of all the walls he built in order to protect that special heart of his.

It took reality to break his wall. While your aura warmed him, it also warmed everyone else. And you were in high demand to light aflame to whoever captured it first.

But the fact angered Jungkook. You’re not to be captured. You’re to be spread, just like a fire naturally would. And if he had to spend the rest of his life protecting your flame from those who dared misunderstood it, then he was going to do it with everything he had.

The intimacy of being understood was what made him fall in love with you. Though you slowly began melting his candle into the pores of your heart, that look in your eyes sped up the process. It was as if you held him hostage as you nodded your head, telling him that you understood, telling him that you loved him. Euphoria ripped through his body, that feeling of falling in love for the first time was excessive, almost abnormal as it took over his soul.

You single-handedly made him forget all of his grief — years of suffering he spent trying to balance himself and figure out who he was and what he wanted to feel in life. You gave him joy on a silver platter, handing it to him as if you didn't just find his true self protected behind all those walls.

It was then that he realized that you’re gonna be where all his paths end. You've embraced his weakness and helped him strengthen into this foreign body he knows is himself but better. That weak, confused boy at the center of thick walls and defense mechanisms and hurtful words stands with you by his side. He’s made it a mission to go about his new life, walking with you with the intent be everything to you that you are to him. This is the start and end of all lines. He does not want more. He just wants you. Only you, and you alone.

----

[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts , 2023] 

[piedoesnotequalpi]

Fake Fic Title:

From The Ladder’s Last Rung

Hello! I am fairly sure (after some googling) that your title is a reference to a Noah Kahan song!

Anyway, to me "last rung" can mean either the highest or the lowest point on a ladder, depending on your perspective, and that is the premise of this fic concept!

Race goes through elementary/middle/high school with a reputation of being both the class clown and one of the smartest people in his grade. What most people don't know, though, is that he uses the class clown part of his personality to deflect from the fact that he is not doing as well, grades-wise, as people might think--sure, he takes AP history when it's available, but he never gets higher than a B- on his report card for it. So when senior year rolls around, the combination of good grades in most other subjects and extracurriculars that make him seem interesting means he is able to get into one of his reach schools.

Anyway, Race goes off to school and he's very excited about the whole thing. He can finally put history, which is his least favorite subject, in the metaphorical rearview mirror; he's going to major in math and minor in dance; he's going to join all the clubs that weren't available to him in high school. During course registration, he ignores the suggestion from his RA that he should perhaps consider only taking one math class his first semester and registers for honors calculus (yes, this is a thing at some colleges) and an upper-level math class that only has a prerequisite of calc 1 and 2.

The problem with college, especially the first semester, is that it is often a big adjustment from high school no matter what your high school was like. Classes that really should not be taught lecture-style are taught that way, you're (sometimes) in a new city/town and even if you aren't you probably don't know a ton of people, and suddenly you have a much higher degree of independence. So Race is dealing with the general first semester freshman woes of making new friends and having a roommate and balancing time and navigating dining halls, but he's also dealing with the fact that for the first time in his life, he's struggling in his math classes. And that makes everything worse for him, because if he can't even do the one thing he's supposed to be really really good at, then how can he get through the rest of college? Does he even deserve to be there? Clearly his college made a mistake when they accepted him despite his less-than-perfect history grades. (those are his thoughts, not mine; he does deserve to be there)

As I mentioned earlier, he's used to using his class clown-esque personality to deflect from what's actually going on in his life, so almost no one knows how stressed he is. He still talks to his high school friends a lot, but so many of them are at their colleges having (as far as he's aware) a much easier time adjusting, so he doesn't want to talk about it with most of them. He goes to office hours sometimes, but he is very careful about which problems he gets help with to keep up the illusion that he knows what's going on. This would be less of a problem if he met up with his classmates to do homework, but he's worried he won't be useful enough to them. And obviously he would rather die than tell his new college acquaintances how overwhelmed he's feeling. The semester goes by in a blur of homework stress and club meetings and conversations where he just barely manages to convince everyone that he's doing okay (it's a lot harder than it used to be), all overlaid by the feeling that he's not good enough.

Being a college student gets easier, but not easy enough that he's able to turn everything around by the end of the semester. He withdraws from one of his math classes, and doesn't do great in the other, and he does...okay in his other classes. It's not the end of the world, but it does mean he has to drop out of the honors calculus sequence and possibly retake the class he withdrew from. But that doesn't stop Race from feeling like a failure, even though the only people who see his grades are him and his parent(s) (I haven't decided what his parent situation is in this), and they're understanding. It'll be easy to make up the credits he lost from the course withdrawal by taking some lower credit electives in later semesters, and he has seven more semesters to raise his GPA and figure things out.

And then we come back to the title and my (mis)interpretation of it (I wasn't just rambling pointlessly this whole time): To Race's parent(s), he's fallen off the bottom rung of the metaphorical ladder, so it's pretty manageable to get back up and keep going. But to Race, he's fallen off the top rung, because he can't stop thinking that he peaked in high school.

Things do get better for him, and later on he'll probably experience stuff that's way worse and wish it were just a rough first semester of undergrad, but in the moment, it really sucks!

[oswinsdolma]

i've been reading a bunch of modern aus lately, and i've noticed that quite a lot are a bit uncertain about how the british education system works. it's not a problem by any means, but for anyone who wants it, here is a brief explanation:

we don't say "grades", we say "years", e.g. 7th grade would be year 7. we also don't say things like freshman/sophomore/senior etc. it's just the numbers.

however, some primary schools split into infants and juniors, infants being from yR-2 and juniors being y3-6

we also have a national curriculum all throughout compulsory education, which means everyone studies the same thing, more or less. there are discrepancies at GCSE/A-level with different exam boards, but in general, most people take either the same, or very similar exams, and are taught the same skills.

you start primary school when you are four or five in year R, and continue through primary school from years 1-6.

at the end of year six, you take the SATS, which are a really insubstantial national standardised test for english, maths and spag

it is also optional to take an exam called the 11+ at the end of y6. if you pass, you can go to grammar school. these can be state or private, and are basically redundant nowadays, and just used so parents can say that their child passed the 11+ and got into the Smart School. These are usually single gender and low-key cult like, but otherwise, are exactly the same as normal state "comprehensive" schools.

secondary school is from y7-11. at the end of y11, everyone takes the GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). you have to do english, maths and sciences, plus several other subjects. most people have between 7-13 GCSEs, and if you fail english language or maths, you have to retake until you pass, even into college.

GCSEs are graded on a scale of 9-1, 9 being an equivalent to A** and is the top 1% of the students who got 7+, and 1 being an F/U. the pass mark is a 4.

the grades you get in your GCSEs are kind of irrelevant, except they determine which subjects you can take for A-level.

After secondary school, you have to stay in full time education for another two years (allegedly, though ik a few people who dropped out), and most people do A-levels (Advanced Level Exams). Instead of doing loads of subjects like at GCSE, you pick 3-4 and study them for two years. these are a LOT HARDER than GCSEs.

if you do four a levels, you're kind of a try hard. honestly, if you do it, good for you, but as a cultural thing, so many people who did four a levels were the most insufferable people who only did it to gloat, and then couldn't handle the workload.

oh, also this entire system is pretty much 100% exam based. for 2/3 of my a levels, i had a coursework essay that was pre graded, but it was only worth 20% of my final grade, and those were rare occurrences. at GCSE, unless you do art or something like that, everything is exam based.

A-levels are graded on a scale of A*-E, and then a U if you literally get nothing. which happens more often than you might think.

this is the bit that i see a lot of people get confused about. in the UK, we don't call university "college". college, to us, is where you take your a levels. if it's an independent institution, it's a "college/further education centre". if it's attached to a secondary school, it's called a "sixth form" (because y12 was year six of senior school in the old system).

i'm sorry i'm trying to be as clear as i can but our education system is complex af

your A-level grades determine where you can apply to uni, which you HAVE to do through a system called UCAS.

UCAS (the university and colleges admissions service) is a national system where you put in all your details required to apply for uni. you start it in the june of y12 and send it in by January** IN MOST CASES

to apply for uni, you need to list all your qualifications/details, predicted grades, personal statement essay and teacher references. this all gets submitted by your school.

HOWEVER. if you are applying to medicine, vet, dentistry, oxford or cambridge, the deadline is in october, and you have to submit written work, do multiple assessments and do rounds of interviews in addition to everything else (would not recommend).

you can also apply to conservatoire for music/drama schools, which tend to have their own deadlines and systems because they're not technically universities

okay nearly at the end

the closest thing we have to an Ivy League is the Russell Group, but it's not as prestigious. Russell Group unis tend to be higher ranked, offer niche courses and demand high grade requirements.

Oxford and Cambridge are not normal universities. i CANNOT stress this enough. you apply through ucas, but the courses themselves are unique and highly competitive (the one i applied for had like 10 spaces)(i got rejected lmao). also they are arranged in colleges within the uni, so it's like a collection of tiny unis linked by a larger institution. colleges are not subject specific and most of them have weird cults. if you're writing oxbridge students, google it, not just for accuracy, but because it's absolutely hilarious.

interviews are also more like interrogations. i was reduced to tears on several occasions, and you also have to swear not to reveal the questions you were asked (everyone does it anyway but STILL IT'S WEIRD). for example, one of my interviews, i was given a poem about feet and asked to analyse it on the spot over a blurry zoom screen. they don't ask you about yourself. they don't ask you about school. they just quickfire questions at you for forty minutes and roll their eyes when you take more than a few seconds to answer.

we also don't have majors/minors. you choose one subject that you apply for specifically, and spend 3-7 years studying that subject pretty much exclusively. the only deviations from this might be if you were taking archaeology and took an art history class or something — everything is really closely related.

we can also drink at 18. not that an age limit has ever stopped anyone in the uk from getting drunk. getting pissed in a field is a major pastime for anyone from the ages of 12-28. it's a problem.

instead of having dorms at uni, most people live in flats. there will be like ten people on a corridor with a shared kitchen. you only live in university housing for your first year, unless you are at oxbridge, in which case i think it's mandatory to live in your college for your whole course.

community college and private universities aren't a thing either. when you apply to uni, you apply to student finance (unless your parents are absolutely LOADED and pay for you) and get a loan for your tuition, and also a maintenance loan based on your household income, which is used to pay for rent, food, etc. you cannot be exempt from financial aid but a lot of people do not receive enough, particularly in recent years when the cost of living in the uk has gone up so much.

university is roughly £9-10k per year (depending on where you study) which is a Lot. but why are people in the US paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, are you guys okay???

also, if you're scottish, university in scotland is free. they also have a standard four year systm rather than the three year system in england and wales (idk about ni i didn't apply there). why?? because the english government is absolute shite and they got rid of the state university programme for england (blame the tories)

don't do your research on the student room. just don't. for your own sake.

and a couple more cultural things before we leave off

we all wear uniform until we get to year twelve. everyone. even the four year olds.

Nottingham Trent university is just the butt of so many jokes and I really don't understand why (they're not even the lowest in the league table 😭😭)

Durham is full of Oxbridge rejects who are in denial about it, and is also the butt of a lot of jokes

everything i have mentioned so far is about STATE education. private education runs on different tracks: you have prep schools, which run from yR-8, and senior schools that run from y9-11, and most of them have attached sixth forms. there is a massive cultural and economic divide between state and private school kids, because they get so much more help applying for uni, and also there is so much nepotism in our government. like. politicians wear their old school ties in parliament so they know who to give favours to. it's AWFUL.

some private schools are so fancy they loop back around and are known as "public schools". they're schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Marlborough, etc. really old institutions that basically guarantee you a place at oxbridge because of family legacy (though this has got a lot better over the last decade or so)(but they still have an unfair advantage).

a lot of compulsory education schools are really religious because education in the uk used to be run basically by the church, and the church still own a lot of schools. universities though, even the ones with roots in the church, are atheistic, their religious links symbolic or supplementary to their main purpose.

okay that ended up being way longer than i thought, but i hope someone finds this useful when writing, or at least interesting.

[mariacallous]

Since March 2020, economists have warned of potential long-term losses in economic productivity and opportunity that could result from extended school closures. The World Bank predicted that the lifetime incomes of school children at the time could decline as much as $17 trillion worldwide, and significantly increase the share of families living in poverty.

In the U.S., where schools stayed closed longer than in most developed countries, the pandemic wiped out the progress made in student learning since 1980, new national test scores show. National Assessment of Educational Progress results from late 2022 show the largest declines ever recorded in fourth- and eighth-grade math, and reading scores that have regressed to levels not seen for two decades. Low-income and minority children lost the most instruction during the pandemic, their scores dropped the farthest, and gaps between the lowest- and highest-scoring students have widened. This raises the possibility that a smaller number of students will exit the K-12 system prepared to make their own way in the economy.

These urgent academic needs are more worrisome when paired with our latest research findings at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, which suggests the quality of classroom instruction has declined in districts serving high numbers of disadvantaged students. Top leaders of five school systems we’ve interviewed regularly since 2020, who speak to us candidly in exchange for anonymity, said they’ve made little to no progress carrying out targeted academic recovery efforts. Their instructional focus now, they said, has shifted to tending to gaps in adult skills, which includes re-emphasizing the basics of high-quality teaching and centralizing curriculum materials to keep everyone on track.

In our fourth and final report on these districts’ day-to-day recovery efforts, system leaders said that students with different needs were not actually getting tailored instruction, additional learning time, or high-quality tutoring to backfill their gaps.

“It’s difficult to point to a model classroom at this point,” one top leader told CRPE researchers, after visiting a number of schools.

Teachers’ skills appear to have slipped for a variety of reasons. Educators often had to give up planning and collaboration time to manage staffing shortages. A lack of substitutes prevented teachers from attending trainings on recovery strategies. And an uptick in teacher resignations resulted in a wave of younger and less experienced new hires. District leaders worried that many senior teachers’ skills and focus have eroded and that the newer teachers are far from ideally prepared.

“The pipeline is so much smaller that we’re taking risks and bets on potential teachers that are not always working out,” one school system leader said.

The fact that some districts must shore up teaching before they can effectively help students recover learning comes amid troubling news that third through eighth grade U.S. students are learning at a slower pace than before the pandemic. The results of progress tests taken by 6.7 million children last year and analyzed by assessment company NWEA suggest that the average student needs an additional 4.1 months of instruction to catch up in reading and an additional 4.5 months of instruction to catch up in math.

Of course:

Learning acceleration didn’t happen. Our series of reports on these five school systems shows that when buildings reopened, many pledged to help kids make up for lost learning time via a strategy called acceleration. All students would attend classes taught at grade level, and those who had missed key ideas or skills would get immediate help. Districts first delayed adopting this strategy because of inconsistent student and teacher attendance. Later, many dropped acceleration in favor of strengthening traditional one-teacher, one-classroom instruction. They did this because acceleration requires diagnostic and intervention skills many teachers lack, and districts were unable to provide necessary training. Acceleration also requires more differentiated teacher roles and more minute-to minute adult collaboration than teachers are used to. Districts exhorted teachers to pay attention to differences in kids’ needs and levels of preparation, but they could do little to bring about the changes required for acceleration.

Expectations for students have stayed too low. During the pandemic, most districts and states dropped their testing programs and stopped issuing low grades regardless of student performance. Many also lowered requirements for grade promotion and waived high school graduation requirements, especially for completion of the “hard” math, science, and English courses that hang up many students. Despite many studies documenting serious learning loss and predicting big declines in high school and college success, most parents still think their children are making acceptable academic progress. It’s understandable that educators sought to ease the load on students, but these actions may have made urgent work in school appear to be unnecessary.

School attendance declined and many students disappeared. Though many students attended school as soon as they opened, attendance rates at every level declined. Majorities of children who needed extra learning time did not enroll in new district programs designed to help them recover key skills. Some parents kept children home because they feared COVID-19; some may have feared growing school violence. Some parents that began at least nominal homeschooling haven’t re-enrolled their children in districts; others haven’t been able to get their kids to school regularly.

Schools have resisted changing teacher roles and responsibilities. School districts that have struggled to manage staffing shortages and spikes in teacher resignations are largely ignoring ways to make teaching more attractive. A recent CRPE study shows that districts often focus on recruiting more teachers, instead of on improving working conditions to make the job more attractive. Schools should experiment with workforce redesigns such as teaching in teams, hiring subject matter specialists from other fields, creating personalized instruction roles for teachers, and offering more pay for specialized skills in math, science, and special education. Those strategies are rarely on the table as districts negotiate with unions over changes in pay and class size. “We spent a lot of money on retention bonuses and ‘please stay’ payments,” one system leader told our researchers. “You might as well burn that money because it didn’t bear out. People left anyway.”’

Political controversies have distracted school leaders. Political disputes over how schools handle cultural issues related to race and LGBTQ+ concerns have disrupted teaching and learning, leading to spikes in discriminatory incidents and also declines in achievement, new studies show. Conservatives have threatened educators and inundated school offices with public information requests, while progressives have pressed for “dismantling white supremacy” in mathematics. The time administrators have spent managing adult concerns helped propel the current teaching crisis because it distracted them from the normal business of helping teachers assess student progress, differentiate their instruction, and rally behind a vision for student success.

After the stresses of the pandemic, a desire for normalcy is understandable. But school and district leaders need to shout louder about the needs of students and staff. And policymakers, community leaders, parents, businesses, and philanthropists need to listen and collectively figure out solutions without picking partisan and ideological fights about them. The experiences of these districts align with other new research that suggests the influx of federal pandemic school aid (most of which has already been spent or allocated) has not been sufficient to cement the kind of large-scale recovery programs necessary to address the magnitude of learning loss. States, districts, and communities must consider new ways to help students still tracking significantly behind. They could explore other avenues for extending tutoring efforts. And they could better engage historically marginalized parents in the search for solutions to best help support traditionally disadvantaged Black and brown students who, as NWEA describes, “remain furthest from recovery.”

The short-term consequences of doing nothing for students most in need are easy for many people to dismiss. But passing through an entire cohort of young people with very large gaps in academic knowledge and vastly under-developed emotional skills would be a mistake.

The moral, economic, and social consequences of that much lost adult potential have yet to be tested. We urge communities to collaborate and find solutions that would avoid making that gamble.

[werepuppy-steve]

.

my level of education is what i'm the most embarrassed about when i talk to people about school bc like. i was constantly one step away from committing suicide in high school. i didn't care about what i was being taught in my classes. i looked up all my homework questions on google junior and senior year instead of figuring them out myself. i graduated with a couple low B's, some high C's, and one F.

i was actively guided away from the advanced classes by both myself and my guidance counselor. i've never taken a math class past algebra 2. my english classes consisted of worksheets and going over verbs and nouns and adjectives and whatever else is lumped in with that group. the ap classes were where all the higher level fancy lessons were. i'm on the literary analysis website and i don't know what literary analysis actually is. i scored 14 on my practice ACT.

i dropped out of college 3 times and have no intentions of ever going back, even if it means i'll be stuck at my current job serving food to doctors and nurses and other smart people for the rest of my life.

and i guess most of it can be chalked up to not understanding the material and having teachers who got frustrated with me instead of ones who were actually willing to help me learn. but all of this has come to bite me in the ass 9 years later when i'm trying so hard to get my life on some kind of track and i always feel so fucking stupid around everyone i talk to bc they have thoughts about things that go beyond "i liked it" and "i didn't like it".

[orcaoceanking]

Main Characters:

⭐Shing (Neo) Yu

Asian. Half Chinese half Vietnamese. Male. Age:15 Height: 5'8 eyes:brown. hair:black birthday: July 16th.

Mild autism. Speech impediment stutters. Hard headed, gets mad and frustrated easily. Serious overprotective type of guy. Only let's his guard down with his close friends.

Struggles with academics. Has a scar above his eyebrow

Interests: wrestling, martial arts. Video games.

Parents

🌀Father: Guan Yu

Age: 40 height: 5'9

Strict father.

Martial arts teacher. Owns a training studio for his students. Wants his son to be the best. Named his son Neo from the matrix

🌀Mother :Kieu Vu

Age: 36 height: 5'2

Carefree loving mother. Owns a hair salon. Loves her children

⭐ Lisa (neos younger sister)

Age: 12 height: 4'5 eyes: hazel

Birthday: January 29

Interests: singing, dancing, cut fashion. Has a crush on Neo's close friend Raphael but he only sees her like a little sister. She likes to hang around the guys

⭐ Raphael (Raph) Johnson

Age 15 African American half Russian.

Height: 5'6 age:15 eyes:brown

Has a hard relationship with his father. Only child. His mother (Dariya) died when he was 10 in a shooting. She saved his life and he hid under her body. Remembers it everyday.

Interests: playing music. Guitar. Wants to be in a band. Likes to play songs with Neo's sister who likes to sing. Average grades.

🌀 Darrel Johnson

Age: 40. African American. Height: 6'1

Police officer. Strict on his son and enforces the laws. Single father. Wants his son to be successful and go to college and not focus on music as a career. Has a beef with Neo's dad Guan. They use to fight each other when they were teenagers over a girl Darrel's wife who died.

⭐Adrien Bartkowski

Height 6'1 age:15. Caucasian. polish.

Eyes: blue. Hair: curly brown.

The youngest child of 2 older sisters in college. They treat him like a little kid and spoil him. Very smart and intelligent. Academic scholar strives for success. Helps the guys with homework and even helps them cheat on test. Is a smooth talker. Very mature for his age. Level headed the leader of the group but also lacks the strength and energy. Lives with his father.

°Mary (20) goes to a nearby university studying Forensics.

°Ashley (23) lives in New York city works as a waitress lives with her boyfriend Tyler (25) who is a Store manager. She study to be nurse. Only comes visit family on the holidays.

Parents

Father

🌀Mandek Bartkowski

Age:45 height: 5'11

Works as a construction worker. Is good friends with Darrel they see each other and talk on lunch breaks.

Mandek likes to watch sports and TV. They get together with other guys on night out at bars and drink together.

Easy going father but also gets drunk a lot. Divorced from his wife Amelia.

🌀 Amelia

Age: 43 height: 5'7

Divorced her husband because he drinks too much they divorced 5 years ago. She lives in New Jersey close to Ashley. Works an office job. Lives alone with 2 cats and plants.

Other characters

Coach Charleston :

Neos wrestling coach gets on his ass about his grades and pushing him to reach state championship. Has a secret sexual relationship with a senior student.

Mr. Kline

Math teacher who doesn't care if his students cheat on their tests. Talks about how the education system is flawed and thinks it's better to work together then against each other and compete.

Principle Walker

African American. Age 42

Went to highschool with Darrel and Guan. Older than Guan and was on the wrestling team had a big rivalry.

Is a smart mouth talker. Finds any reason for Neo to get in trouble to have a talk with his dad and hurt his chances to compete.

Officer Chester

Age: 41 height 5'10

Darrel's police partner in crime. Often. Shows up at the school for anything. Gives Raph and the boys a ride sometimes. Taught them how to shoot a gun.

Otis:

Height: 5'9 eyes: green hair: black Neo's rival and enemy. Also trains with Neo's father on his off season in the summer time. Wants to prove he's better than Neo. Always gets under his skin. A player who flirts around with all the girls.

Mrs. Parry

Science teacher very passionate about her job tries to give the best advice she can to her students. Her husband Tyler Parry is a bartender at the local bar down the street from school. Their son Alex (12)

has a crush on Lisa

Alex Parry

Age:12 height:4'7 eyes: brown hair:brown

A trouble maker

Christina Tao

Height: 5'4

Female student having relationship with coach Charleston. A good person but also confused on what she wants to do in life. Doesn't really talk much to other people .

Tiffany Jenkins

Age: 15 Height 5'7 eyes: blue hair:red.

A ginger girl in competition with Adrien to be student council class president. A try to be know it all. Very sassy. Her two friends Jenny and Allison follow her to be class Queen.

[crabpeach]

Something my SO's mother made me realize the last time we were visiting was that I don't think I ever really learned English in school.

Like I took English classes, but I never really understood what they were trying to teach me. Nothing ever stuck.

In elementary school, they would do these reading tests that would say how well we could read. In 3rd grade, they said I was "reading at an 8th grade level". But I remembering never attempting books harder than the 1st grade level for as long as I could and struggling on assigned reading. And when 8th grade finally came and went, there was no one to retest me to make sure I was keeping up in my reading level.

When I wanted to go to the merit-based school with a specialization in science, I had one of the best math scores in the county. But I didn't make it because my reading score was abysmal. I had to go to the IB high school instead. IB exams were much more intensive with writing. And I still didn't really get it. It wasn't until my senior year of high school, after bouncing around high schools, that they realized I didn't qualify for any of the higher difficulty English classes they offered. So they put me in "regular English". And holy hell, we were learning about sentence structures! And basic grammar! For the first time, education was helping me understand how to write!

I wished I had been in regular English the whole time. I never really had agency in what I was being taught. They thought because I was so good at math, I must be smart enough for everything else. Because I had managed to keep my grades up in every class they threw at me, that I was good enough for the harder stuff. But I'm 10 years removed from that one class and it's still the only time I can remember being taught something about the English language that was helpful.

[wutbju]

Martin J. Ehde, age 93, of Gulfport, passed away on January 7, 2024.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Martin and Beatrice Ehde; and his sister, Gwendolyn Ehde.

Martin is survived by his wife of 29 years, Beverly Nell Edhe; his stepchildren, Paula Ingram (Joe), David Sanford (Pam), Tim Sanford, DO, (Tracy); his siblings, Carol Faye Stowe (Leon) and John B. Ehde (Cindy Sue); his grandchildren James Ingram, Laura Sanford, DO, Mitchell Sanford, DO, Jaden Sanford, Katelyn Sanford, Hope Sanford, Matthew Sanford and Jamie Sanford; and 3 great-grandchildren.

Martin was a native of Minnesota and a resident of Gulfport. He received his PhD from Bob Jones University. He taught high school math and went on to teach Greek, upper lever math, and science at the University level.

He did research on Creationism, reading and collecting libraries of books and biking/running when able. He taught singles at First Baptist of Gulfport before Hurricane Katrina and seniors at First Methodist of Okmulgee, OK in later years.

Martin was a blessing and a ray of fun to all who knew him, he will be greatly missed.

[meccademiacaoching]

Success Stories: Students Who Thrived at Tutoring Centers in Dubai

In today’s competitive academic environment, many students turn to tuition centers in Dubai for the support they need to excel. Whether it’s mastering a challenging subject, preparing for important exams, or building confidence, these centers have proven to be transformative for many students.

This blog will take a closer look at inspiring success stories from students who thrived after enrolling in tutoring centers in Dubai. We’ll explore how personalized tutoring and expert guidance played pivotal roles in these students’ academic journeys.

1. The Struggling Student Who Found Confidence

Sara, a high school student in Dubai, was struggling with mathematics. Despite trying hard, she found it difficult to grasp key concepts and her grades were slipping. Sara’s parents decided to enroll her at a tutoring center in Dubai that specialized in mathematics.

The Turning Point

At the tutoring center, Sara was paired with a tutor who not only had a deep understanding of mathematics but also took the time to explain concepts in ways Sara could relate to. Through one-on-one sessions and tailored exercises, Sara’s confidence grew, and so did her grades.

The Result

By the end of the academic year, Sara had moved from failing math to achieving an A grade. This success boosted her self-esteem and transformed her approach to learning, proving that with the right guidance, students can overcome academic challenges.

2. The Overwhelmed Student Who Found Focus

Ahmed, a university student in Dubai, was juggling multiple subjects and extracurricular activities. As his exams approached, he realized that he was struggling to manage his workload. With deadlines piling up, Ahmed sought the help of a tutoring center in Dubai that offered comprehensive study support.

Time Management and Academic Strategy

The tutoring center didn’t just help Ahmed with his subjects; they also taught him effective study strategies and time management skills. By breaking down his workload into manageable tasks and focusing on his weak areas, Ahmed was able to regain control of his academic responsibilities.

The Result

Ahmed’s academic performance improved drastically, and he was able to balance his studies with his extracurricular activities. His grades rose, and he developed crucial life skills that would benefit him well beyond his university years.

3. The Exam-Taker Who Conquered Test Anxiety

Fatima, a high school senior in Dubai, had always been a diligent student. However, when it came time for her final exams, she began experiencing extreme test anxiety. No matter how much she studied, she felt overwhelmed during exams and couldn’t perform at her best.

Overcoming Anxiety with Personalized Support

Fatima’s parents enrolled her in a tutoring center in Dubai that specialized in test preparation and anxiety management. The center’s experienced tutors provided tailored mock exams, helped Fatima develop a deep understanding of the subjects, and taught her techniques to manage stress during tests.

The Result

Fatima’s performance in her final exams was remarkable. Not only did she conquer her anxiety, but she also achieved top marks in all her subjects. This success was a testament to the power of personalized tutoring and psychological support in overcoming academic challenges.

4. The Gifted Student Who Needed Extra Challenges

Omar, a young student in Dubai, was excelling in his studies and constantly achieving top grades. However, he quickly became bored with the regular curriculum and felt that he wasn’t being challenged enough. His parents sought out a tutoring center in Dubai that offered advanced coursework and enrichment programs.

Pushing Beyond the Standard Curriculum

The tutoring center offered Omar access to advanced material that challenged him to think critically and engage with higher-level concepts. With personalized guidance from expert tutors, Omar was able to deepen his understanding of subjects like science and math and explore areas of interest outside of his school curriculum.

The Result

Omar thrived in this environment, developing a deeper passion for learning. His academic growth was evident, and he was even accepted into an elite scholarship program that recognized his exceptional abilities.

5. The International Student Who Needed Extra Support in English

Layla, an international student in Dubai, was fluent in multiple languages but struggled with English comprehension and writing. As an expatriate, Layla faced the challenge of adapting to the English-medium curriculum, which hindered her academic progress.

Tailored English Support

Layla’s parents enrolled her in a tutoring center in Dubai that specialized in language acquisition. The center’s tutors provided personalized lessons that focused on English grammar, writing skills, and vocabulary. Through interactive lessons, Layla gained the tools to improve her writing and communication skills in English.

The Result

Layla’s performance in English improved significantly, and her newfound confidence allowed her to engage more actively in class discussions. By the end of the year, she had made remarkable progress in all her subjects, demonstrating how targeted language support can make a difference.

6. The Middle Schooler Who Improved Study Habits

Zayd, a middle school student in Dubai, had trouble staying organized and managing his time effectively. His grades were average, but he often found himself overwhelmed by assignments and struggling to stay on top of his schoolwork.

Building Strong Study Habits

Zayd’s parents enrolled him in a tutoring center in Dubai that focused not only on academic tutoring but also on study skills and organization. His tutor taught him techniques for better note-taking, prioritizing tasks, and creating effective study schedules.

The Result

Within months, Zayd became more organized, and his grades improved significantly. He learned how to approach his studies with a more strategic mindset, which translated to greater academic success.

7. The Underperforming Student Who Rediscovered a Love for Learning

Maya, a student who had once enjoyed school, started falling behind in her studies during her later school years. The joy she once had for learning was replaced by frustration and a lack of motivation. Her parents decided to seek help from a tutoring center in Dubai to reignite her passion for education.

Rekindling the Spark for Learning

At the tutoring center, Maya’s tutor worked with her to identify her interests and passions. Through creative and engaging lessons, Maya rediscovered her love for learning. Her tutor used real-life applications of academic subjects to make them more relatable and fun.

The Result

Maya’s enthusiasm for learning returned, and her grades improved significantly. She became more engaged in school, participating in discussions and showing a renewed interest in her academic future.

8. The Test-Taker Who Aced Their SATs

Sami, a high school senior, was determined to perform well on the SATs and secure a scholarship for his dream university. However, despite his best efforts, he wasn’t achieving the scores he needed to be competitive. His parents enrolled him in a tutoring center in Dubai that specialized in SAT preparation.

Comprehensive SAT Prep

The tutoring center offered a tailored SAT preparation program that included mock tests, practice questions, and focused review sessions. Sami worked closely with experienced tutors to identify his strengths and weaknesses, and the center provided him with the tools to improve in each section of the SAT.

The Result

Sami’s SAT score soared, and he was accepted into a prestigious university with a scholarship. This success was a direct result of the focused, expert tutoring he received, demonstrating how specialized support can help students achieve their academic goals.

9. The Struggling Student Who Developed Lifelong Learning Skills

Yusuf, a student who had consistently underperformed in school, was falling behind in almost every subject. His lack of confidence was holding him back, and his academic struggles were affecting his self-esteem. Yusuf’s parents sought help from a tutoring center in Dubai that offered holistic support.

A Holistic Approach to Education

The tutoring center took a personalized, multi-faceted approach to Yusuf’s education. Tutors not only helped him catch up in his subjects but also worked on boosting his confidence and teaching him how to learn effectively. They instilled in him a love for education and a sense of self-efficacy.

The Result

By the end of the year, Yusuf’s academic performance had improved dramatically. He had become a more confident learner, equipped with lifelong study skills and the ability to overcome challenges. This success story highlights the importance of nurturing both academic and personal growth.

Conclusion: The Power of Personalized Support

The success stories of students who thrived at tutoring centers in Dubai underscore the transformative power of personalized academic support. Whether it’s improving grades, overcoming challenges, or boosting self-confidence, tutoring centers offer a unique opportunity for students to reach their full potential.

These inspiring stories show that with the right guidance and tailored support, any student can succeed—proving that success in education isn’t just about hard work; it’s about the right support and the right approach.

[tandonshows]

I was talking to someone recently about why I started my podcast, You Are What You Love, where I interview people about the most influential piece of media in their lives. Sometimes that becomes a conversation about fandom, sometimes it becomes a conversation about building their personality, and sometimes it becomes a conversation about the hardest, darker points of their lives, and how they got through them.

Me, I'm a writer. I can say that now and mean it. But growing up, I had a hard time recognizing that. I rejected it wholeheartedly, actually. In high school, my english teachers told me I had a talent for it, encouraged me to apply to summer programs where I'd hone my skills, and tried to get me to see the magic behind it all. But I couldn't really connect with it, take their thoughts seriously, or envision a career where I wrote professionally. In my spare time (which there never seemed to be enough of) my top three activities were: reading, consuming as much television as possible, and engaging with people about both of those things.

But all of that was hard to recognize as anything more than a hobby or a release. Because I was also pretty good at math and science. And that was the type of thing you could get into college for, make a career out of, build a life around. I was one of the captains of my robotics team, had my first professional programming job at 15, and my senior year, took AP Calc, AP Physics, and applied to a ton of computer science programs all over the country. And when I got in, I had this weird moment of pause.

I'd already taught myself most of what I'd be learning in the first 3 years of school. The program I was thinking about going to said I could test out of classes and take graduate level courses for my undergraduate degree. One of them was theoretical mathematics. When I thought about that I thought "God, why?"

So, I took a year and worked. I worked in programming. Did lots and lots of code. And the thing was, I'd never hated math or science. I liked the way it all made sense, the way everything had a right or a wrong answer, and the way problems had one solution, but multiple ways to get there. If a robot wasn't doing what you wanted it to do when you pressed the corresponding button, it was because you did something wrong in the code. If a program spit out the wrong answer, it was something you did wrong. And when you got it right, there was a satisfying knowledge that you had, in fact... gotten it right.

But in that year, I was miserable. The satisfaction of getting an answer right didn't fulfill me. It didn't make think about the future. It didn't keep me up at night. It was something I was good at, but not something that made me happy.

And I turned back to the thing that did. I tore through books. I watched TV in the background at work. I wrote. A lot. I shared that writing with people. With strangers. They told me it meant something to them. That it gave them a break. That it made them feel something.

And slowly, I realized what my teachers in high school were trying to tell me. Writing was just as valuable as math and science. Math helped the world turn, kept bridges in the air, helped build programs that made life easier. But writing helped us understand ourselves. It helped us remember why we were alive.

I just couldn't hear that over the other, louder part. The part that we all hear: that's a wonderful hobby, but what would you do with a writing degree?

I get caught in that back and forth all the time. What is writing doing for the world? Could I be putting more good into the world if I had stuck with robotics, or programming, or math? Does putting stories out into the world make enough of a difference?

I have to talk myself back into being a writer a couple of times a month. Have that crisis about whether it's going to mean something in the long run. Wonder whether the time I spend telling stories could be spent making a different kind of change in the world.

And I just wanted to convince myself, convince all of us, that it does. That you would be putting something into the world no matter what path you chose. That doctors and lawyers and computer scientists play their part, but that they couldn't if they didn't have a release. If they didn't have art to escape to, to learn about themselves with, to connect with people over. If we forced all of our artists to be engineers, if I forced myself to be one, someone who was meant to do that might not have the art they needed to get through the day.

Every episode of You Are What You Love reminds me of that now. Listening to people talk about the one thing, the one book or movie or tv show or comedy special or poem etc, that changed them -- that gave them solace, that taught them to stand up for themselves, that made them believe they were worthy of love -- reminds me every week that we are nothing without art. That art is just as valuable as math and science. That engineers can't function without artists, that books can make us feel safe, tv can make us feel loved, movies can make us feel bold. And I hope I don't forget that ever again.

[superstuckclamp]

saw you tagged "how do you pass the class without knowing at least half the material" on the dan and phil/uk grade boundaries post and i thought id explain even tho that was prob rhetorical: thats not really how they grade here at university! my experience isnt universal because i did a humanities degree not like engineering or whatever, but you dont get quizzes and multi choice tests Ever afaik unless its like, languages and grammar. (for major grades anyway) its mostly essays and coursework, they are testing your application of knowledge more than memorisation of specific things youve been taught. so you do have to know the material, but what theyre grading on is if you can prove it to them, basically. 40 is the pass mark and it usually means its sloppy work but you know what youre talking about or maybe didnt try hard or rushed it, in my experience. in gcses and A levels you do get more of that multi choice thing which is why the boundaries are a bit higher. also that chart says a D is a pass which, technically anything except U ("ungraded") is a pass, but in reality if its less than a C its considered a fail by most people. you have to get C or above in maths and english in order to progress to A Levels, for example. i obviously dont know how the american system works or how they grade you at college but i think the SAT is a multi choice test right? our college entrance exams are A levels and they dont work like that, theyre usually part coursework and part exam, and the exam might have some multi choice questions in but a lot of it will be stuff like "explain the function of mitochondria. balance this equation. translate this excerpt. explain the nitrogen cycle using a diagram" so yeah. god a levels were a fucking nightmare

I don’t know anything about STATs- I’m not American.

I think I misunderstood that it was a college/university grading system. I’ll take the L there. I assumed it was high school.

Regardless- I wouldn’t consider sloppy work to be passing. From when I remember from my grading system it had to be both a clear argument and an understanding of the course material in order to pass when it came to university/senior high school students. That’s how you you would do well in the provincial exams in high school… and that’s how you do well in university exams. Like the exam is to show your demonstration of the knowledge as well as your ability to take outside knowledge and apply it to the material. And we got docked heavy for grammar, which was my worst nightmare because I suck at English grammar. Then course material is just the learning part of the program, yeah it gets graded, but definitely not nearly as important as the tests/exams for demonstrating your understanding.

Multiple choice is like 10% of the grade, short answers and essay questions were the majority from what I did. If you aren’t clear, don’t use proper grammar, and aren’t demonstrating what you learned; definitely a fail- or 50% depending on the prof/instructor. Which is passing where I live.

Which I think is the same thing your talking about, applying rather than memorising. I think we just place the percentage at a different point even thought the bar is the same. If that makes sense? I don’t know. Drunk as fuck. Definitely not rhetorical, I was really questioning how it worked. I like learning so thank you 💕💕💕

[wdr2-rlbmut]

Stanford’s writing layoffs prompt backlash

Stanford is clearing the ranks of lecturers at its prestigious creative writing program to make way for a new batch.

By Nanette Asimov

Stanford University’s announcement that 23 creative writing instructors will be pushed out of their jobs and replaced has set off a national backlash in the literary community and among students in the program.

“Why would senior faculty vote to fire their colleagues who are doing so much of the work of teaching?” celebrated author Joyce Carol Oates posted on social media, raising questions about whether Stanford’s decision was meant to save money or was inspired by rank sexism.

“I am puzzled most by the lack of simple collegiality & generosity at one of the most wealthy universities in the world,” Oates wrote. “Stanford’s endowment could support an entire nation. Yet, much-admired (writing instructors) were fired after having requested modest raises which would have brought their salaries to levels far below senior faculty.”

Also, she noted, “only male senior professors voted to fire.”

Stanford officials say their decision to replace the instructors, some of whom have taught there for many years, is about none of the above.

Instead, the program that allowed the 23 instructors to teach Stanford undergraduates in the first place was intended only to provide them with “term-limited appointments” of about one year, Stanford explained on Aug. 21.

“Changes to the program were made based on the program’s values and original intent; it was not based on finances,” Debra Satz, dean of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences told the Chronicle.

The act of learning and teaching creative writing can inspire deep bonds between students and instructors, said some of those very students and instructors.

To hear them tell it, students learn to peer inside their souls and convey what’s there to readers, while instructors are nothing short of the clergy who guide them to enlightenment.

“Undergraduate writing workshops are places where students, away from their families and their hometowns for perhaps the first time, are able to tell stories they’ve never told before and craft those stories into art,” Peter Lessler, a 2017 Stanford graduate who majored in math wrote to the university about the importance of the program.

Now, the San Francisco resident is working full-time on a novel.

The study of writing is “serious and necessary,” he wrote, and gets into “the spiritual work that John Keats called ‘soul making.’”

The classes of about 15 undergraduates each have waiting lists by the hundreds each quarter, say the instructors, who are not just any writing hacks off the street.

All 23 are graduates of Stanford’s selective Wallace Stegner Fellowship, “considered the most prestigious creative writing fellowship in the U.S. for emerging writers,” university officials wrote in their announcement.

Stegner, who established Stanford’s creative writing program in 1946, was a literary master whose novels, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Angle of Repose,” and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” were often set in the American west.

Also in the 1940s, a Texas oilman named E.H. Jones, whose brother, Richard Foster Jones was head of Stanford’s English department, established the Stegner Fellowship.

Its graduates could apply for a “Jones Lectureship” which were the short-term teaching appointments that continue to this day.

Over time, however, the instructors stayed on for years.

“I’m very sad because I love my job so much,” said Nina Schloesser, who became a Jones lecturer in 2012 and said she has been told to leave after this year.

“It’s been my honor to see many young people grow,” she said, adding that instructors and students have formed “lasting relationships that are about our love of craft and love of literature. For me, it’s been very profound.”

Colleague Sarah Frisch, a former Stegner fellow who became a Jones lecturer in 2009, said, “I feel heartbroken. Not just for myself. I feel heartbroken for future generations of students who won’t have the benefit of long-term relationships.”

The instructors said that after they asked the university for a raise last year, Stanford provided it, but also set up a working group to consider changes to the program.

This month, the working group decided to restore the intent of the Jones lectureship and give new Stegner Fellows “the opportunity to apply to be Jones Lecturers once they have completed their fellowships,” Satz said in her letter.

It was also signed by Gabriella Safran, a senior dean for the humanities and arts, and Nicholas Jenkins, faculty co-director of the creative writing program.

The new appointments will be one year “with the possibility of renewal for up to four more years.”

Lessler and hundreds of other supporters have signed a petition asking the university to reverse its decision.

Tom Kealey, one of the 23 lecturers being let go, called the layoffs a “scandal” and wrote in a post on Medium that “the impact on undergraduates will be immense.” Reach Nanette Asimov:nasimov@sfchronicle.com; Threads: @NanetteAsimov

[zooterchet]

Kindergarten: Calculate lucky number. #12, flip of Saul Lancaster down a hill, calculation of four man vrykolakas a man extra through mail fraud, and knee wrench of Ku Klux Klan Christian into Judean-Epiphany.

Center School: Writ of Jonathan Frakes as Riker, Xanatos, and Touched by an Angel. Forbidden dress color, red, as histrionic sociopath, especially if worn as panties; own mother, as proof of reference.

Elmwood School: Growth of tadpole, calculation of iodide starch, and pH test of acid or base at middle line of 7, without parent assistance, despite having served detention, for ignorance of history of ocean; textbooks, indicating "ooze", basal salt sea floor, as harmful if polluted.

Middle School: World history as performed through teachers, Preamble and Constitution and Amendments taught by Italian Mafia teacher cohabitating with dominatrix submissives, advanced class on mathematics as having calculated stock market off of newspapers into separate math on sheet.

Highschool: Exempt from sexual education, taking senior year gymnasium at freshman year instead, gym hockey; honors history, advanced placement electives, honors literature, high level French, calculus at senior year, and criminology classes all four years; web design, technical drafting, psychology, and sociology, with out doors prize fight bout, against future Trump banker Jim Duggan, as scheduled.

UMass-Amherst: Entry into honors program, refused to qualify for President, taking History Pre-Law despite qualifying for lobby CIA program in oil, first semester.

MUSH: Print of "Gotham", off of stolen trademark, payment to M3 staff for printing for comic books and publishing, not collected a dime of cent due to argument crisis (Brick framed writer, as a pedophile, a Jungian).

SNHU: Army Reserve, vengeance unit, taking shower rapists to task; Christine Warren, Cassie-Leigh Stock, and Michael Fargnoli; three individuals had claimed to smoke pot, but had not, registered falsely for their jobs in Communications, Nursing, and Economics.

Biden: Offering Trump Campaign, knowledge of Biden, as Ronald Reagan, actually Kamala Harris.

It takes a madman to fly skies like these.

[jcmarchi]

Edgerton Center hosts workshop for deaf high school students in STEM

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/edgerton-center-hosts-workshop-for-deaf-high-school-students-in-stem/

Edgerton Center hosts workshop for deaf high school students in STEM

The percentage of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals who have bachelor’s degrees is 15.2 percent lower than their hearing counterparts, and for those who do have degrees, most are in business and education. Deaf adults with degrees in STEM fields are few and far between. MIT Edgerton Center instructor Amanda Gruhl Mayer ’99, PhD ’08 has set out to bridge this gap by piloting a new MIT workshop called STEAMED (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math Experience for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students). 

The workshop tasked students with building an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), teaching them new skills to build circuits, motors, and frames. At the end of the course, students tested their robots at the Z Center pool. Gruhl Mayer worked with Brian Gibson, a science teacher at Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing; Edgerton Center instructors Chris Mayer and Christian Cardozo ’18; and MIT student mentors rising senior Ryn Moore and Ruben Castro ’24. With several instructors and mentors at varying levels of American Sign Language (ASL) fluency, ASL interpreters strengthened communication between all participants.

Gruhl Mayer became interested in deaf education when she moved into her first house in 2020 and met her neighbor’s deaf 13-year-old daughter, who was interested in science. Gruhl Mayer wanted to encourage her to delve deeper into STEM subjects. As she learned ASL, Gruhl Mayer quickly discovered that important scientific terms, like “amino acid,” “acceleration,” and “circuit,” lack common signs in ASL because there aren’t enough deaf scientists and engineers for the vocabulary to develop naturally. While pursuing a master’s degree in deaf education at Boston University, she deepened her passion for deaf culture. “I really want to push the pipeline for more deaf scientists and engineers. And I think we need to start with students,” Gruhl Mayer says.

Gruhl Mayer’s students entered the course not knowing exactly what they would be building, and quickly learned how to construct their own ROVs using SeaPerch kits from the MIT Sea Grant program. The ROV project is a favorite at the Edgerton Center for introducing high school students to power tools and circuits, and this is the first time it was presented to deaf students. During the workshop, the students and interpreters developed signs to use for new skills and concepts, like “soldering” and “buoyancy.”

Students waterproofed their motors, built thrusters, and connected them to controllers. They used power tools to create PVC pipe frames with attached foam core to make them neutrally buoyant, then tested the movement of their ROVs in a small tank inside the classroom. Students modified their designs to create unique ROVs, decorating them using lights and colored markers, and took them for a test drive in the Z Center Pool. Students picked up skills quickly and taught each other as they learned, each designing a unique ROV that could move in all directions, navigate through obstacles, and even pick something up off the bottom of the pool.

Brian Gibson, who’s been teaching hands-on science at Horace Mann for 21 years, says, “I’ve enjoyed watching the students become more independent and using different materials and tools that they haven’t used in the past and become pretty proficient with those tools.” The students also enjoyed the increased responsibility. “Typically, we’re not allowed to use certain tools. They don’t offer us much responsibility. And so now, we were able to see how the tools work. I think that opens new opportunities for us,” says Bárbara Silva, a rising junior at the Horace Mann School. Students also appreciated the freedom and creativity that comes with not being graded. “At school, at home, or anywhere, things have to be perfect. But here, you could fail, and then you learn something new,” says rising junior at Newton North High School Lucy Howard-Karp.

Among the takeaways for the Edgerton Center instructors is recognizing the unique challenge of having to use your hands for communication while concurrently building. For example, hearing teachers often said “good job” to students while they were working, which made the students stop their work to watch the interpreter. Students requested that teachers wait for a good stopping point to give them praise, and only interrupt if the students are doing something that needs to be corrected. Gruhl Mayer points out, “Deaf students are just like hearing students. They have the same potential, enthusiasm, work ethic, etc. But there are educational tweaks that need to be made for deaf students, to help them learn in the way that’s best for them.”

Gruhl Mayer’s vision to make STEM accessible for deaf students has the potential to drive discoveries in the science community. “The term is called ‘deaf gain,’” she explains. “Deaf people see the world differently, which gives them a new and fresh perspective. This unique viewpoint drives their creativity and innovation. So many amazing discoveries have been made by deaf scientists and engineers.”

Gruhl Mayer plans to run the workshop again next summer with more participants, hopefully having this year’s students come back as mentors. The students plan to get their fellow classmates excited to sign up by bringing their ROVs to school and showing off what they built.

[pebl-design]

Interview - Spaces Magazine (with Jonathan Blaseg)

What is your background and history? 

A year ago I was living in Rwanda with my wife and two children working as a Design Director for a large multi-disciplinary firm that had just won the National Design Award for Architecture.  Previous to that I was a Senior Associate at the Minneapolis firm, Coen + Partners, another winner of the National Design Award. While my experience at large firms was amazing, I have always been drawn to the construction and craftsmanship of projects, particularly as it relates to individuals; inspired by this sentiment I opened PEBL Design, a landscape design/build practice, with three partners at the beginning of 2019. 

Before Landscape Architecture I received a Physics degree from St. John’s University and spent several years as a High School Math/Science teacher. I have continued my passion for teaching as an Adjunct Professor with the University of Minnesota’s Graduate School, where I have taught since 2012. This spring semester I have the unique opportunity to co-teach a studio with graduate students of both architecture and landscape architecture.

What is your current role and how long have you been doing this?

As a Partner at PEBL Design I lead the firm’s creative direction, overseeing vision, design, and implementation for all of our projects. In name, PEBL is a brand new company, nevertheless my construction partners have 36 years of regional experience building landscapes of all scales. When forming the company we were all really attracted to the idea of a design/build model since it allows for creative problem solving and quality control throughout a project, ultimately providing a great value for our clients.

What is the difference between a landscape architect and a landscape designer? 

It’s kind of like the difference between an architect and a carpenter; while many carpenters can design and build a magnificent home, there are certain assurances that hiring a registered Architect affords. To legally call oneself a Landscape Architect (LA) you must have a degree from an accredited LA program, worked under a licensed LA for a minimum of three years, and have passed four levels of licensure exams (per their state of practice). 

What is a landscape architect? 

Similar to Architects, Lawyers, and Doctors, Landscape Architect (LA) is a legal title and to call oneself a LA you must have a degree from an accredited LA program (usually a Masters Degree), worked under a licensed LA for a minimum of three years, and have passed four levels of licensure exams (per the state of practice). LAs have the training to design a vast variety of spaces, from community master plans and public parks to residential gardens or sub-surface drainage systems. Honestly, just check out all the amazing projects in this magazine and you’ll get a feel for the diversity of work that we do.

Do you have a favorite project of yours?

A couple years ago I led a residential project named Lake Marion that won the LILA International Garden Design Award; a primary objective for the client was simply to access their land and enjoy the otherwise impassable natural terrain. We designed a series of interconnecting paths and gathering spaces that allowed the family to appreciate the 22-acre site. Passing through four unique ecological zones, the paths strategically minimized disturbance and a thorough restoration replaced invasives with a vibrant palette of native vegetation. Additionally, I designed five ecological art “lines” that stretched for several hundred feet, the ephemeral installations utilized wood removed from the site and serve to extend views and provide invitation. 

Who’s your favorite Landscape Architect?

I named my dog after Dan Kiley. He was a master of complementing a project’s architecture and no matter the scale of his work he maintained a balance and serenity in his projects; they always feel contextual and timeless.

You teach at the University of Minnesota, been a Design Director at an Architecture firm in Rwanda, and now run a Design/Build firm. How has your work been different in those areas, how are they the same?

Everyone has a personal connection to the Landscape and that dynamic ties into all of my work; it has always been my mission to tap into what makes a designed landscape appropriate and meaningful. Whether its a Conservation University in Rwanda or someone’s backyard, there are far more similarities than differences, they all start with similar questions, the answers just tend to vary: what’s the health of the soil, what’s supposed to grow here, who shares this place, what’s the climate, what are vernacular construction methods, how should you move through the space, what does it connect, and what’s the best use of the space?

What trends do you see today in landscape architecture? What do you applaud, what do you wish would go away?

I really love to see the trend toward more nature-based playgrounds and pollinator friendly lawns. I would love to see more creativity and less ubiquity in our landscapes, there are sooo many wonderful plants out there and yet designers tends to utilize the same species over and over and over again. 

How has a changing climate affected your work?

I think climate change has affected all of my projects, whether its addressing the loss of biodiversity in southern Rwanda, planning for shifting ecosystems in Northern Minnesota, developing walkable communities, utilizing sustainable materials, or selecting plants per new hardiness zones, like the Sycamore in my boulevard. Beyond responding to the climate crisis, I feel like LAs are well-positioned and have a great opportunity to make a significant impact on emissions; by most accounts half of the CO2 expelled into the atmosphere is related to the construction of buildings and therefore how we design and plan our sites can significantly affect the carbon footprint of our projects. 

What is something surprising about you only your close friends may know?

I won grand champion market lamb at the Central States Fair three years in a row. 

What would you like to add?

When you build a house it looks the best on day one, landscapes are different, they are a dynamic medium that's often unruly and complex. Landscapes take time to evolve and while they are often difficult to steward, I’d like to think they “give” a lot more than they “take.”