Thoughtful Neutrino

@GeriPerna And in those pre-starbucks days, the only way I knew how to get a seriously strong caffeine drink was to stir a large scoop of this stuff into actual coffee.

Swiss Mocha was the bomb!!!

@realpeteyb123 I feel this way about pinatas at kid's parties. The rest of the adults are sitting back waiting for the smack-off, but I'm standing right behind the hitter ready to grab the stick when the candy drops so they don't blindly keep swinging.

If the kids are in the pool, I’m watching them, I don’t leave their sight for even a second to tell my wife anything. Don’t care whose over, don’t care how much people think I’m weird, if they in water, I’m the human hawk. My kids are the best swimmers you seen for their age, been swimming from 4 years old. Don’t care, I’m still watching. Also, you need to teach kids how to save each other if something happens. I’ve even taught them to save adults if they collapse as well. Do as I say, X. I’m dad.

@Supersonic_Red For me, not so much. At school, I could usually forget how poor my family was for a few hours and lose myself in learning. But stuff like these book fairs reminded me that we had no money for extras, not even a little bit.

They were the greatest! 😍

@JustJoshinNH Last days of school and my students are rushing around getting their teachers to sign their yearbooks. Many of them walk away from my desk asking their friends to read what I wrote to them.

Laugh if you want but I was disquieted a few years ago at how many people mocked the idea of learning cursive. When you dismiss something that’s whimsical or lovely for its own sake, you go down a grim, lifeless, uninspired path of flat greys and push button slop.

@AuthorGFAllen Absolutely.

Do you think writing is a skill or a talent?

@eugenejohnson_ Two days before, I give students the actual exam questions. I tell them, "knowing the answers to these questions will get you a 70 on the test". Then, the test includes 1 last question: "Tell me what you know that I did not ask you". That's how you get an A.

I had four students take pics of my exam and upload them to ChatGPT while I was in the room. Lol. I gave the students a study guide for the final on the first day of class. Many students are lazy and don’t care. Cheating is rampant. AI only emboldens them.

Let me try to explain for the people telling Texan’s who we should elect. Many of us didn’t want to give Cornyn a 3rd or 4th term but had no alternative. Paxton is not perfect, we know that, but he is the first option we have to get Cornyn out and he has been a good AG.

@ceraliza Women are more approachable when they're smiling. When I was much younger (and prettier) it angered me when men told me to smile. They were basically saying, "do something to make me more comfortable around you."

I was on the bus heading home after work, exhausted and staring out the window. Some guy sitting across from me kept looking over until he finally said, “SMILE, LIFE CAN’T BE THAT BAD” I looked him dead in the eye and said “I’m on my way back from identifying my fiancé’s and sister’s body which is how I found out they were having an affair” His face drained instantly, and he started apologizing over and over, saying he was “just trying to cheer me up.” At the next stop, he got off even though it clearly wasn’t where he meant to stop. None of it was true. But it annoys me when people think they have the right to dictate how people are feeling and what expressions they make, especially when they don't know what is going on in their lives.

@RonDeSantis X needs this today. Thank you, Coach and Governor.

Well, get ready to compete against FL schools who will up the standard on fringe benefits: customized waterbeds, lifetime notary authority and round-the-clock reserved booths at Beefs. Game On!

@wvfunnyguy No. This is entirely wrong.

Marco Rubio honoring Kyle Busch 🙏🙏🙏

@teachthemx3 Crazy. The teacher in the room proctoring the exam should have the ability to individually delete students from the test who aren't physically in the room with them. The test is paused if they leave for RR break. Something's broken.

My morning assignment was to help find students hiding around campus. They are in the bathrooms and other places using AI on their phones to take finals that were supposedly secured with LockDown Browser. At some point, we may need to admit that students will always find a workaround if they’re determined enough.

@rpondiscio Hard to explain but, for some teachers, doing the job right means 12hr days. So faced with the choice of doing a crappy job at ~8hrs/day, or doing it right at 12hrs/day, the raise in pay is enough to keep them in the profession with self-respect.

I’m in favor of raising teacher pay. But I’m unclear how this will “fix” education: is it that teachers are not working hard but will for a raise? Or that higher salaries will lure capable people from law, medicine, tech, etc.?

@jenteach13 Oh, they do talk about me. They are forced to explain to my next employer why they got rid of me.

Nobody talks about the teacher who documents everything. Who emails all year. Who warns parents before it's too late. Who holds the line on standards. And then gets blamed when the grade is final, and the parent finally shows up.

@FactsAboutTexas This makes no sense. Good Austin restaurants have stressed parking lots because the lefties who live there just hate cars. Good small-town places are never stressed because there's plenty of space.

@Debra_Tisler Seems like the effectiveness of the accommodations is measured by student contentment. If no one is complaining, then everything is working. This applies to the general ed students too.

Perhaps the issue lies in hollow IEPs and a lack of instruction that actually produces meaningful progress. School districts (LEAs) receive federal, state, and local funding to provide specially designed instruction, not to rely primarily on accommodations, yet that is what is happening every day. I see it firsthand in the IEP meetings I attend. For example, a 10th grade student with dyslexia and significant literacy deficits is too often handed spell check, audio books, and extended time as the primary solution instead of receiving compensatory services, intensive instruction, stronger goals, and meaningful specially designed instruction to remediate the underlying skill deficits. It feels like an educational crime scene: scrub the record, minimize the data, and draft a narrative that says “nothing to see here.” Then come the heavy accommodations, the final nails in the coffin.

@TolentinoTeach I gave my kids large jump-ropes to play with (pushed the desks aside). They found tons of uses for them. Best was tying a shoe to one end of the rope, tossing it into the hallway to "fish for people". They caught a few, dragging them on their bellies.

It is fascinating to watch how both adults and students collectively begin losing their minds near the end of each school year. Today, one student somehow managed to put ice down another student’s pants. Another spent twenty minutes passionately arguing that banning cell phones is unfair and that students should at least be allowed to send messenger pigeons to communicate with their friends. Meanwhile, two students were locked in a heated debate about the importance of melatonin. When is May going to end, bruh?

@3YearLetterman Oh this might be interesting.

And followed

@jenteach13 High school science classes should have no more than 25. Especially chemistry. I'm a good lab instructor, but I'd be really pushing the safety limits at 30 kids. Most of them are adult-sized and you just can't get to them fast enough.

Nobody talks about what class size actually does to a classroom. I had 44 kids in Spanish 1 in Arizona. Desks touching. I could not walk to the back of the room. I gave more multiple-choice tests that year than in any other year in my career. Not because it was a good assessment. Because it was survivable. Language is not a lecture. It requires me to hear each student speak, catch the error, correct it, and keep going. With 32 kids and 50, I get 90 seconds per student on a good day. The research says 15 to 18. Language teachers say 10 to 12. I have never once in 30 years taught 18 students. I have 32 now. The people who made that decision called it reasonable. Full piece in comments.

@LauraPowellEsq Teachers in these districts often try to shift work over to paper, but face paper rationing on campus. We can't win. Just survive.

Not only are school districts forcing children to rely on electronic devices instead of written materials, they are also holding parents financially responsible when those expensive, relatively fragile devices are damaged, lost, or stolen. Many middle schools no longer provide lockers, which means students are required to carry their Chromebooks with them throughout the entire day. They often have no secure place to store them during lunch, PE, or other on-campus activities, and they must also bring them to after-school programs, sports, and other outings. Despite these conditions, students are expected to keep these cheaply made, easily damaged devices in working condition for years, or else their parents may be charged for repairs or replacement costs. Our district charges inflated prices for repairs and bills families the full replacement cost of a new device, even when the replacement provided is used and worth substantially less. Districts pressure parents to purchase annual insurance policies that cost $25 per year, but those policies frequently exclude many of the most common causes of damage. Parents are given no choice whatsoever. These devices are issued to students whether families agree or not, even as many parents increasingly complain that excessive reliance on screens in schools is undermining their children’s education. To add insult to injury, school districts shift the financial burden for these unwanted devices onto families.

@teachthemx3 Yep, you have to make peace with the fact that you cannot fight this battle alone. Meanwhile, make a difference with the kids you can reach.

Update: Admin informed me that the student is being placed in our credit recovery class. For those unfamiliar, credit recovery (Edgenuity) is a multiple-choice program that can be completed in about 20 minutes for an entire semester-long course. If the student doesn't want to devote 20 minutes, they can pay someone to do it for them. x.com/teachthemx3/st…