My take on this is my take on school in general: it's manipulative, coercive, and overall bad for you. I say this having considered becoming a teacher, and having chosen to become a librarian instead precisely because I refused to lend my energy to the school system.
Teachers have a disproportionate influence over the lives of basically everyone. School being compulsory, and most people* not even understanding that alternatives exist let alone having the resources or wherewithal to pursue them, the influence of teachers is very nearly inescapable, and yet they always demand more. More hours, more days, more ceaseless undivided attention (regardless of the quality of their content or the interests of their captive audience), all in direct contradiction to mounting evidence that all of those things are bad for you.
Studies from Europe indicate that homework, for example, at best does nothing at all, and more likely is actively bad for you. (This doesn't really require modern science -- John Holt and John Gatto were writing about this in the 80s -- but modern science confirms it.) Students nowadays are subjected to levels of anxiety that would've gotten their grandparents hospitalized. The pandemic largely disbanding in-person schooling resulted in a noteworthy drop in student suicide rates. And still, the school system demands more control, more influence, more access to more of young people's waking lives, seemingly not content until every conscious breath is scheduled and supervised.
And then there are teachers' unions. Considering how badly teachers are paid and what utter trash their benefits are, it can be observed that the only significant function teachers' unions serve is to keep bad teachers from being fired. I know it's only anecdotal, but I have in my own experience observed teachers who re-use the same test papers for literally decades without changing a thing. This might be acceptable in math -- math doesn't change much -- but I've seen history teachers do this. Fuck's sake, man. Unions certainly do little enough to guarantee the quality-of-life of teachers making any effort to do their best.
The combination of artificially insatiable demand and utterly dogwater compensation means that the system has an incentive to churn out an unholy number of mediocre teachers, and then never let them be removed no matter how mediocre their service is. This is leaving aside the problem of teachers forgetting that the people across the desks from them are their employers, not their subjects, and the authoritarian attitudes that comes with that.
(I have to include an asterisk * above because when I say "most people" I mostly mean "most parents" -- the people actually affected by the failures of the school system are routinely denied any voice whatsoever in the management of that system, and as a matter of course denied any choice about their own education, so we can only talk about the knowledge and ability of people who are at least one step removed from even being involved in the situation, which is it's own problem, as you might imagine. In no other aspect of life does leaving decision-making in the hands of people unaffected by the consequences of their own decisions lead to good outcomes...)
There's more I could go into here. The failures of 'zero tolerance,' for instance; the root causes of school violence; the almost comedically cruel euphemism that is 'bullying'; the entire concept of the school-to-prison and school-to-military pipelines. There's a lot wrong with the idea of giving teachers more influence over people.
I am explicitly not saying that social media is the answer, but I am saying that I can very easily understand the desire -- the need -- of young people to claw back a few minutes at a time of their own waking lives for themselves.
I kind of wish you'd posted this before your original post, though I appreciate it was significantly more effort to type. You've made a number of well laid-out points that I largely agree with, but I'm not sure your original post indicated anything other than teacher and/or union bashing, which was difficult to get on board with!
I really appreciate the response. There are many good points you have. Though I would place much of the blame on school administrators, districts, and politicians that are meddling in the education system rather than teachers. I have family that are teachers and some I wouldn’t trust to teach basic arithmetic.
I personally would weigh teachers opinions heavier than those of the school and district administration as they are front line and see what our children are experiencing directly. I do agree that much of our education system could use reform to be more holistically focused on children’s general life and well-being. Though I consider that an extension of a general reform of our society with a greater push towards better work/life balance, improved social services, infrastructure, housing, etc.
As you’ve eloquently presented, teacher pay and benefits are abysmal. I would rather spend more time and taxes to improve those work conditions rather than condemn the union. I was regularly in classes of over 30 students (mind you, this was 2 decades ago) and decreasing the student:teacher ratio has always been an active topic they are working towards. Whether it’s better to have a lower ratio vs firing bad teachers is up for debate. There have been plenty of studies that show high student:teachers ratios are detrimental to students.
I haven’t spent a lot of time exploring the different schooling theories and styles like Montessori but perhaps another style may be a good change. A lot of parents aren’t aware of the options they have for their children, but that may also have socio-economic barriers that prevent them from being able to make a choice.
I think the problem there is (likely) more the social media than the phones. I grew up with high schoolers having phones in the classroom in 2009-2013; Twitter and Facebook were the big two, and Instagram wasn’t what it is now. Even then, Facebook & Twitter could kind of suck/cause drama way more than just the more basic things phones can be used for cameras, calculators, web browsers, and messaging family & friends.
“Addictive social media” in particular, is probably where congress’s eyes need to be placed. That sounds like what this union is saying as well doing a quick skim, so 👍👍 .
What were we warned about back in the prime Facebook/Twitter era? Short term dopamine driven feedback loops or some such?
This is the result of not heeding that warning.
You’re right that blaming phones is dumb. The phone is a tool, just like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build something, or destroy something. It’s all about how it’s used.
In another lifetime I worked for an MSP that would perform network services for local industries. One of our customers, a lumber processing plant, needed ethernet drops for some fancy new controllers for their kilns. I count that job as one of the worst experiences in my career due to the heat alone. It was the middle of July, pulling 12 hour days next to giant furnaces in tin shacks. I probably lost 30 pounds in sweat alone on that job. I could wring out my shirt and jeans at the end of each day. It was absolute misery. I have no idea how the guys who actually worked there each day could do it
Heat is no joke, and I find it appalling that we have nothing in place to protect people from it
RICO charges are no joke & are generally not used unless it's a slam dunk case. This almost guarantees that someone that was conspiring with Trump has flipped on him.
There is plenty of evidence saying that working outdoors at specific temperatures and humidity is extremely harmful and dangerous, but no legal obligation for employers to provide more rest/water breaks and shade the hotter it gets.
We have a construction crew next door everyday building a new warehouse and I’m happy to see that they call it quits on days the temp spikes up past 100. There is zero shade around here mid day, and they’re basically working out in the middle of a huge concrete slab currently. Most of the time they start early and end early with the exception of a few guys hanging around to unload flatbed with incoming materials. Very rare, but it seems a few firms out there do care about their employees well being.
We should have a national system like how the army uses. There are heat categories and depending on what the heat & humidity are tells you how long you can work for and how long your rest period is. It also tells you how much water you should be consuming for each level of heat. This system kept us safe in Iraq in 130 degree heat so I don’t see why we couldn’t implement it.
this. we spent money to determine these levels to and like the internet this should benefit everyone. Heck I don't know what the levels are and I should as I should follow them if Im doing a weekend project.
I don't get why kids are allowed to have phones in the school. Just install signal blockers. Parents can call the office if there is an emergency like it's 1995.
Easy, they try to come in and collect fees, I’ll send straight to detention. Eventually all those FCC guys will be stuck in the mean teacher’s room next to band class. Problem solved!
Signal jammers are illegal. Certainly wouldn’t be a good idea to install those in the US, where school shootings are common.
Edit: Also, unrelated to the signal jamming thing you talked about:
Phones are useful in case of a fight were to occur, which happen very often (at least in schools I went to). Video recordings are good to determine fault. School surveillance cameras are often cheap, blurry, unreliable, have many blind-spots, and also forbidden in classrooms (at least in the US). In addition, sometimes classrooms still use old textbooks that only have 1 class set, and are very heavy to carry, and they aren’t available online, so in that case, kids can just take photos of the textbook and the school saves a lot of money from having to copy-print the textbooks, so maybe they just need to make 1 or 2 copies for the kids that don’t have a phone. Phones are very useful, just needs reasonable rules. A complete ban is not necessary in my opinion.
A lot of people don’t realize this but signal Jammers are illegal. There was actually a professor who was put on administrative leave for using one, he was lucky that he didn’t have to pay fines or that he wasn’t sent to jail for it.
I agree that they shouldn’t be allowed to have phones during class. It would actually probably be best if the students had assigned classrooms, they stuck their phones in a teacher-controlled box at the beginning of the day, then the teachers move classrooms to teach each subject.
Then the kids get their phones back during lunch and at the end of the day.
I agree. Just have a designated box or place for the students to leave their phones in each classroom. They can grab them in an emergency or on their way to lunch.
the only people that's stopping are the honest ones and those who only have access to one(or none) phone. It'll just add on the teachers already heavy load. I don't think it's such a great idea turning school into basic military training.
Meh… Kids need to learn self control. Who’s gonna hold their phones when they have a job, or during a funeral? Workplace don’t want to be responsible for your phone, and they’ll just fire you if you get caught using your phone during work hours. Also liability problems… what happens if the phones are damaged or missing? What if some creepy pedophile teacher injects spyware in the phones when the kids attention are focused on a test?
If you can’t leave you phone in a backpack for a few school hours, how do you deal with not being able to use your phone at a job which may have even more hours, and which your livelihood depends on?
Depends where you work, everywhere I’ve ever worked in the last two decades haven’t minded you using your phone providing you aren’t spending all day staring at it.
Even if you are allowed to use your phone, I’m pretty sure low-performance would get you fired from almost every job. The point still stands, kids need to learn self-control starting at a young age.
Morbid but with the amount of school shootings that have happened the more people that can call 911 the better. The kids need the phones to possibly save their lives. Signal blockers are not the answer.
Not sure how that matters. Teachers and other staff could have phones true, but what if a shooting happens in the bathroom? Or in the halls where there are no teachers? Or the teacher is killed first and all the kid’s phones are locked up somewhere?
But to be clear, I don’t think that means kids should be using them during class. I can’t remember where I saw this, but putting boxes on each desk where kids can put their phones that stay there until after class or an emergency is an option. Or just tell them to keep them in their pockets and discipline them if they use them during class.
I own multiple. Again, I don’t see how that matters. In an environment where school shootings are common, taking away a way to reach emergency services at anytime, anywhere should be a non-starter.
I’m with you on this. How is having like 300+ more options available (depending on the school) to call the police really something that will help with school shootings specifically. Like if it happens a teacher would call.
People are so paranoid about not having instant connections available at all times. It is not that needed. Especially with kids in school.
Having everything at your fingertips is great, in theory. But for kids without the ability to regulate, it’s as much a distraction than an advantage.
Don’t forget that Trump is now a convicted rapist, as confirmed by the judge in his E Jean Carroll case. Close to half of the US population is willing to vote for a convicted rapist. Now tell me democracy is not in peril in the United States with a straight face.
The problem is they’ve lost touch with reality. They refuse to believe anything that paints “their side” in a bad light and instead choose to believe in vast conspiracies to frame everyone. To their world view there’s a cabal of rich powerful liberals that control all media and government departments around the world and they’re constantly working to frame or eliminate conservatives.
They literally don’t believe Trump has ever done anything wrong in his life and that everything he has been accused or even convicted of is fake. Any reports even suggesting his involvement in anything negative are fake and part of the massive conspiracy.
There’s literally no way to reason with them as they can simply choose to ignore anything they don’t like and chalk it up to the “liberal conspiracy” probably while muttering something about George Soros and Bill Gates.
That’s not really true. The E Jean Carroll case found him liable for defamation in a civil case. The standard was lower than for a criminal conviction (just as OJ lost his civil case but was not convicted of murder).
Furthermore, Trump basically accepted that he was liable for defamation, but not necessarily guilty of rape. That was enough for the judge, so he did not have to “confirm” anything else.
You’re kind of both right and both wrong. Trump was not literally convicted of rape, that’s true. On the otherhand the defamation he was found guilty of was saying the E Jean Carroll was lying about him raping her. One logically follows from the other. You do raise a good point though in that the burden of proof in this case was lower.
At the very least we can say it is highly likely Trump is a rapist based on his conviction (plus the various comments he has been caught making such as his infamous “grab em by the pussy” remark).
In general, when someone refuses to contest an allegation then nobody will determine whether the allegation is true. There are reasons to do this even if the allegation is false. For example, it might be too expensive to litigate. Or in defending yourself against one charge, you might have to reveal additional information that you don’t want brought to light.
In other words, nobody found Trump guilty of lying. For all we know, the judge and jury thought Trump was telling the truth. But legally, they were forced to presume he defamed Carroll because Trump refused to contest the allegations. The only thing the court had to decide was what the damages would be if Carroll was telling the truth. Which automatically became the actual damages.
That said, it’s entirely reasonable for you to suspect he committed rape based on other evidence. But the court verdict itself neither supports nor refutes your suspicion.
Realistically Trump would have at least attempted to defend himself if he was actually innocent barring worry about being forced to reveal even more incriminating evidence (which for the purposes of this conversation would actually be worse). The only other reasonable explanation I could see applying would be if he just didn’t care, that he felt the judgment would be small enough he could effectively ignore it, and that he knew his base wouldn’t care because they never believe he does anything wrong. That still seems to run counter to his usual behavior though and would demonstrate a level of calculation that literally Trumps entire life has shown him incapable of, although maybe for once he actually listened to one of his advisors.
While the court case isn’t absolute proof of his guilt, it does weigh very heavily in favor of it. I think it’s highly misleading to say it neither supports nor refutes the allegations of rape. It absolutely supports those allegations, it just doesn’t unequivocally prove them.
Actually, Trump was explicitly found NOT liable for rape, but for “sexual abuse” in the E Jean Carroll case. This was a question that was asked of the jury, and they said that they had not proven that he raped her.
That said, I fully believe he did rape her and do agree with your assertion that it is still likely that he’s a rapist. However, it is still factually inaccurate to say he’s a “convicted rapist” or even that he was found liable for rape because those have specific legal meanings.
Many of them literally believe without irony that Democrats drink the blood of young children to stay youthful forever. Feeding off their adrenochrome.
Sure the people they’re voting for aren’t very good at all. But in their minds they’re better than adrenochrome vampires. The problem is most of them have no contact with reality. And nothing will sway their minds once they’ve been made up. Literally made up
I got pretty bad heat stroke once while running in Texas. Was in the military, and due to a stupid miscommunication was told I was not allowed to drink water.
Lap or two later and I started having symptoms I’d never experienced before.
I can 100% believe that my look and behavior could have been mistaken for drug use.
I had stopped sweating, looked pale and disoriented, I’m sure I was not speaking clearly. My friend grabbed me and dragged me to a water fountain.
Once I had time to recover, get some A/C, and rehydrate, I was pretty much fine, though I remember having one hell of a headache like a hangover.
Yeah, you start acting this way because your brain literally starts to boil in your skull. Over a certain temperature, your sweat glands start dying and so your body has no other effective ways to shed heat from your core.
Well There’s Your Problem just had a very horrifying episode about heatstroke - they had a physical therapist on to talk about the Jordan McNair heatstroke case in 2018 at U Maryland.
3 times in my life I can tell you that I had heat exhaustion. One time I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. It is the absolute worse feeling I’ve ever experienced
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