Nearly two decades of learning and teaching language, literature, and culture can probably be distilled into this: Non scholae sed vitae discimus! Sapere aude!
Still not Widener Library
Joined July 2024
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I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of the hype and kerfuffle about Nolan's Odyssey movie.
Here, feel better by reading some lovely poetry by Tennyson. Try reading it out loud, especially the end.
poetryfoundation.org/poems/4…
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Well done, sir!
Looking at these three photos reminds me just how much life can change when you trust the path God has for you. In the first photo, I had just earned my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. At the time, I truly believed that was the direction my life was going. Then, lmI started mowing lawns for people who couldn’t do it themselves. What began as a simple act of kindness slowly became something much bigger. I realized that what fulfilled me most wasn’t sitting behind a computer, it was serving people, hearing their stories, and knowing that something as simple as cutting a lawn could make someone’s day a little easier. That realization led me back to school, where I earned my master’s degree in Social Work.
Today, the third photo represents where that unexpected journey has taken me, running an organization built around helping others and inspiring young people to serve their communities. In a way, both degrees still play a part in what I do. My computer science background helps with our websites, coding, technology, and everything happening behind the scenes, while social work connects directly to the people, families, and communities we serve. But neither degree could have taught me the lesson that this journey has: sometimes your purpose finds you in the place you least expect it.
As a kid, I hated mowing lawns. Now I wake up every day grateful for the opportunity to mow lawns for free for people in need. That still amazes me. So if your life doesn’t look exactly like the plan you had for yourself, don’t lose faith. You never know what God is preparing you for, what door He is about to open, or how something you once disliked could one day become part of your purpose. I thought I was choosing a career. God was leading me toward a calling.
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True for any field and discipline! Honestly, confident clowns spouting nonsense about Shakespeare are a dime a dozen on the internet! And, no, I will not dignify your nutty authorship conspiracy "theory" by giving you the attention of engaging even to debunk it here.
Spend 20 years studying chemistry.
Collect data.
Run experiments.
Publish papers.
Earn a PhD.
Go online.
Get told you’re wrong by someone who asked ChatGPT about it 30 seconds ago.
That’s the AI era.
Expertise took decades to build.
Confidence now takes a prompt.
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It's cruelty, not compassion.
One of our worst habits in education is that we lower standards because some students can't meet it. We call this "compassion."
The problem with it is that when the standard is lowered for some, it bleeds into a lowering of standards for everybody. The whole classroom is now organized around the people least able or willing to meet the higher expectations.
This is akin to what happens throughout our society writ large.
Someone struggles, so instead of helping him rise to the expectation, we redefine what can reasonably be expected of him. This is true of moral standards, especially; we excuse irresponsibility or antisocial behavior, or we treat ordinary expectations as unreasonable demands on others.
We do this long enough and everyone is living according to these diminished expectations. All boats sink with the receding waters of standards.
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Too often this turns into yet another way to blame the teacher and let misbehaving students off the hook. "Build a relationship" is not a magical fix.
“Build a relationship” is directionally correct, but it doesn’t prevent behavior problems…and behavior problems are NOT an indication that the teacher failed to build a relationship. It shouldn’t come up when a student gets in trouble.
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Eye candy!
無料でPDFがダウンロードできる系で個人的に非常におすすめなのは、メトロポリタン美術館の展覧会図録。
古今東西、様々なテーマのものが読めます。
このアカウントをフォローしてくださっている方の大半は確実に楽しめると思います。
リンク↓
metmuseum.org/ja/met-publica…
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Get this stuff out of schools.
A review of 58 studies on universal school-based mental health programs was done. Not a single researcher apparently felt it was worth including whether the program was harmful as a planned outcome measure for the study to evaluate.
Harms were found anyway!
Among them? Worse mental health, more rumination, worse emotional dysregulation, lower emotional awareness, lower quality of life, and…
LASTING NEGATIVE EFFECTS on mother-child and father-child relationships at a six-month follow-up.
🚨 universal school-based mental health programs are BAD mental health policy and BAD family policy.
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Listen carefully, and then recite this lovely sonnet out loud yourself.
Some words were meant to be heard aloud.
More than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare wrote perhaps the most beautiful description of enduring love ever put to paper.
Take a minute and listen to Sonnet 18.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
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