Are there any teachers who can really talk about solutions to the problems covid presents? Rather seriously, of what I can find anecdotally online (as I know no teachers IRL) that even trying to have in-person classes haven't really helped, because parents pull their kids out of class or a significant chunk misses school due to being out sick/quarantine and now the entire lesson plan is screwed up.
There's a lot of talk about this in parent's groups on FB. Basically, parents all want their kids in school as daycare. Schools have logistics problems due to students/teachers/support staff/bus drivers/etc. being sick. I think if some parents could enlist the police to drag sick teachers to school, they would do that.
In my area, schools are combining classes across grade levels because teachers are sick but parents are demanding that schools be open. This accomplishes the daycare aspect of school, but to pretend it's about enhancing learning is fanciful.
The parents don't create that pressure though. Americans use school as childcare because we don't have adequate childcare. People don't have leave, paid or otherwise, to take care of their children at home, but they must go to work anyway.
This is a labor issue, not an "individuals are mean" problem.
> Americans use school as childcare because we don't have adequate childcare
This doesn't make any sense. What would it look like to have "adequate childcare" for third graders? You wake up and decide whether your kid was going to school or child care that day?
Until relatively recently, married women didn't really work, not at the rate they do now. So, if the child was home, there'd be a parent, typically the mother.
But the public school system isn't all that old either. From about the early 1900s. Before that, there was no compulsory schooling. Kids would be home. Once again, typically with family as life itself was very different. Children living on a farm did not have daily interaction with large groups of children. You'd have your siblings and that's it for the most part.
And none of these changes happened in a vacuum. So the school thing and the work thing and the child care thing, they all happen because of each other and around each other. And now we've put ourselves in a situation where we use school as child care. And we realize that we've painted ourselves in a corner.
Yeah it is. Schools are run poorly because they fail to acknowledge that they are child care and as such it needs to be consistent and reliable. If school closes for 6 months where is childcare plan b going to come from. How do you replace a skilled teacher that can handle 20-30 kids with one that does 2-3 and not cause huge pain for a family’s finances?
I'm only 40, but for my entire life school systems have been told that their number 1 job is education. Every time they're given performance metrics to hit, they're in regards to education. We as a society are telling our school system that they're an educational institution, not a child care one, and if the school system started to behave like a child care institution, we'd collectively be pissed off at them.
Sorry, but you're dead wrong. It is a larger society problem, not the school system being poorly run. They're being run with the goals that we give them in mind.
The performance metric always includes number of open days. That’s why they add days if you get too many snow days. Those extra days have no impact on education.
The goal is set with the legacy expectation that women will stay home and do childcare but that isn’t a reality for many folks. So schools have an equally important child care role.
For many folks the problem of unreliable child care can be worse than no child care. If i knew there wasn’t going to be school for 3 months I can plan for that business can open that provider the service. If schools randomly open and close for 3 months nobody knows what to do and few new business will risk start up costs too fill the gap.
Here's the situation on Day 1 return from vacation in my district:
- ~20% of the teachers at one school out sick
- classrooms being combined due to low staff. Some classrooms combined across grade levels.
- Substitutes in many classrooms. Administration staff being used as substitutes.
This is all before we are passed the median incubation period for New Year's Eve infections, so I would expect staffing levels to continue to deteriorate. (Also keep in mind that some teachers will be out because their children are sick, so kids being infected this week will lead to future staffing pressures.)
In that context, I'm glad you mentioned snow days. Our district is really small; many kids walk to school. However, many teachers & other staff live in other districts and so do not walk to work. When it snows here, the schools generally close on the basis of teachers & staff not being able to make it to school. Parents do not usually throw tantrums on those snow days. This week/month is going to be like snow days in that school staff will not be able to make it to work. Parents are trying to ignore that reality and not being realistic about making alternate plans.
That sounds like a terrible situation. Sorry you have to deal with that. When things are that dire I guess you have to prioritize what’s important. From what you describe they are prioritizing for child care.
The older kids probably need more education focus the k-5 kids need the child care. That’s probably administratively hard to pull off though.
To add to our situation, the major hospitals in our metro area area are doing "diversion," which means e.g. there is no room at the trauma center for auto accident victims. "Elective" surgeries like cancer treatments are being deferred.
Nobody expects this wave to continue indefinitely. From what I can see, the peak of the wave may pass in a 1-2 weeks (this is my layperson's understanding). A few years back when storms caused damage to some schools, naturally the kids were out for some time and everybody was fine. But now many parents (pressured by their jobs) are in dire need of childcare, so everything must continue as normal. IMHO better would be for the kids to take at least the week off. It would suck for everybody, but it also seems like the kind of intervention that could save a life or two somewhere in our city.
Teachers and administrators participate in some of those groups. Some people even manage to be teachers and parents simultaneously. School board members sometimes have kids in their districts. The discussions tend to cover a lot of bases.
I'm a parent, not a teacher, but my public school has gone through three phases of the pandemic since my son entered kindergarten:
1. Beginning of last school year: entirely remote. (Except for some children of essential workers; they were in a computer lab-like setting. In many cases they were in their regular school's classrooms, but not the same ones as their teachers, and the other kids in the room would be in different Zoom classes.) This was awful for the standpoint of learning or child care. Adults can barely stand Zoom for that long. I did my best to help my son keep focused, but it didn't work that well, and it came at the expense of my focus on my own work. I have a friend who just pulled her kids from public school for this time and went full-on home-schooling. She said the whole family's mental health and the educational experience greatly improved.
2. End of last school year: most kids in the classroom most days, a few unlucky ones still fully remote due to classroom size limits not actually recommended by the CDC, everyone on Zoom. The classroom is basically a computer lab, but now at least everyone in the room is doing the same thing. Obviously this was better for (most of) the parents, and a little better socially for (most of) the kids, but I think still pretty lousy for learning. The experience wasn't as engaging for the kids as it'd normally be, and the teacher has lost the parents who to varying extents helped keep the kids focused in phase #1.
3. This school year: kids in the classroom, wearing masks, getting weekly pooled COVID tests. If the pool tests positive, everyone gets tested individually and (for 10 days) goes into a "modified quarantine". Under those rules, kids who haven't individually tested positive can be in the classroom with the kids who have already been exposed to the same thing, but no after-school programs or extracurriculars or the like.
I of course hated phase #1 and #2, and I think they far outlasted any reasonable belief they were worthwhile. Phase #3 seems like a more reasonable compromise. I'm sure learning would be better if everything were normal, but this isn't as obviously harmful as phases #1 and #2 were. My son is definitely learning things at school. I don't know how much compared to a normal year. I too would love to hear a frank teacher's perspective on this.
I live in an area where the case rates have been relatively low, which obviously helps. Less disruption due to sickness/quarantine.
I wouldn't mind moving on to phase #4 where school-aged kids must have the COVID vaccine (along with the many other vaccines that are already required) and school goes back to normal. Schools should be fully open before restaurants and bars and the like.
My daughter's pre-K and too young for the vaccine but that's another story.
The solution is to stop testing and quarantining. People don't want to hear it, but that's it. Omicron is a cold. Stop quarantining students and teachers who are around someone who's sick. If you have symptoms stay home, if you don't then go to school. In a few months it'll burn through the population and problem solved.
A lot of the student and teachers being kept home are symptom free.
In my personal experience such statements are actually not rare among specific minorities, and only in spaces between those minorities. They will never be said in a public way, because it makes them targets. I've been pulled aside by fellow minorities and warned against communities I had expressed interest in in the past, always in private in confidential spaces.
But what you're saying is that people will disagree about what communities are "toxic and non-serious". I might think that, e.g. much of the blockchain space easily matches that sort of description, but it would be harder to say whether that's a majority or minority viewpoint.
Because it's good for people to have and to share diverse opinions. The point of moderation is to prevent fringe elements from ruining something for everyone else, not to enforce homogeneity where consensus has yet to be formed.
It might be that they cannot censure the offending member in any capacity, due to their core team member status. In that case, resignation is the only thing they have to effectively rebuke behavior.
As pointed out on r/rust, the approved Governance RFC states quite unambiguously that the Core Team is accountable to the community wrt. their behavior:
> Subteam, and especially core team members are also held to a high standard of behavior. Part of the reason to separate the moderation subteam is to ensure that CoC violations by Rust's leadership be addressed through the same independent body of moderators.
Public shaming by respected community members is probably somewhat effective. However, they chose not to do that here. Without knowing more, I have to trust their judgment. But I recognize that it’s unsatisfying.
This has a much worse effect though. Instead of damaging a single member they are now damaging the whole core team by leaving it unspecific, and they are damaging Rust as well.
I suspect that doing it this way puts pressure on the core team members who don't subscribe to the behaviors moderate the people on the core team who are problems. But one can never know.
Yes, that's how I read it too. At a guess, if the threat to resign didn't change anything the resignation also won't change anything and strongly suggesting the core team can not be trusted not to lie is a very harsh move that has the power to destabilize the whole Rust experiment. Massively dumb move this.
I think the only thing damaged is the concept to follow a COC to the letter. This was expected, people complained about it thoroughly and I think communities work better with a flexible approach as I don't think any personal conflicts have caused problems anywhere to a relevant degree. There are neither judges nor attorneys here.
It might be that the details would also damage the core team and The Rust community much worse with a flood of people leaving or people being targeted for harassment/abuse.
I'll give that the benefit of the doubt, but if that is the case then Rust is dead because if the core team can't be trusted to handle something like this then probably Rust as an experiment has failed, you won't get further corporates taking a gamble on Rust if this sort of cloud is hanging over the core team.
Well I think Amazon has a vested interest in the language at this point. Does the core team even matter that much now? If the core team falls apart could Amazon not simply pick up the reins? It doesn't seem to have hurt C# or Swift to be driven by a company.
There have been many points of friction in the history of C# and Swift caused by company-driven goals influencing the development of the language ecosystem in ways that some of their communities disagreed with. Leaving that aside, those languages were purpose-built by those companies for their use. Amazon didn’t create Rust, and it’s hard to imagine a hostile takeover would be received well.
Friction points are unavoidable. The point is they survived and have flourished under the direction of these companies who benefit from their continued existence.
I agree a hostile takeover would not be good for anyone but if the existing management structure turns out to be a roadblock maybe stewardship from a big tech company wouldn't be so bad.
Yes, because if you accuse a group when you should be accusing an individual you are doing all of the people in the group a disservice. Then you should just say nothing. 'wie A zegt moet ook B zeggen'. If there are major upsides to this approach then I'm not aware of them, do tell.
Someone else mentioned "the Russian proverb, 'If you've said A, say B'"... In Swedish it's "Har man sagt A får man säga B". Seems rather international.
Is there any possibility they are under formal legal contract ie. NDA? Don't know how formal the Rust organization is setup/whether that would be a part in the process of joining the moderation team.
Is HR on the employees side? No. Same thing here, the moderation team didn't realize that their job was to protect the core team from the rest, holding the core team accountable wasn't a part of their job even if it was warranted.
An NDA for an open-source project? I sincerely hope no one tried that, but if they did, that's a radical idea and the effects must be studied (never let someone doing something weird go to waste, science can learn from it!)
Environmental exposure is major factor, especially with heavy metals in the diet. Heavy metals can drive inflammatory responses and metals like lead are associated with cognitive decline. Lead exposure historically was associated with high-traffic locations (typically poorer people live closer to high-traffic zones, which also leads to asthma).
This could lead to all kinds of confounding factors, i.e. people with different lead exposure history could respond differently to 'anti-inflammatory diets'. Then there's liver damage; the liver processes many toxins and unprocessed toxins could cause neural damage and dementia, there's literature on that as well.
This is a self-report survey about historical diet. It's basically meaningless regardless. People that think they're healthy will report that they ate a lot of foods they currently think are healthy, not what they actually ate. This is true even if people are asked days later, much less years.
If the subject is politically polarized then I am inclined to agree. Its an open secret that right leaning opinions are taboo across academia. That doesn't actually mean such opinions are wrong.
>>Its an open secret that right leaning opinions are taboo across academia.
Nonsense
I went to a top school in the US and encountered if anything, a constant right-leaning bias, and some people at the same school at the same time are now top RW personalities on Fox, books, etc.
What is happening is that the RW, and particularly the GOP, which was formerly the party of science, technology, and progress, has in more recent years turned towards authoritarianism and this requires a decoupling from facts.
And, yes, the facts (e.g., anthropomorphic global warming, vaccination, voting dynamics, etc.++) do in fact lean against common RW shibboleths used to crank up their populist amplification needed for their ambitions.
If a bona-fide expert presents data and expert scientific interpretation about how vaccines, public health measures, or voting actually works, that is not political. What is political is calling that political and attempting to silence it because you do not like the conclusions.
What it does mean is that people making claims like yours are most likely in the wrong here, and are attempting to silence the very real opposition because they do not like it.
Your anecdote does not match study/survey data that has been around for at least a decade.
>And, yes, the facts (e.g., anthropomorphic global warming, vaccination, voting dynamics, etc.++
Part of the problem is this insidious, preemptive appeal to "consensus" as a misleading substitute for certainty, particularly in biological or social sciences. This isn't physics or math and the science is never so certain as to justify putting careers into jeopardy over dissent.
>a bona-fide expert presents data and expert scientific interpretation about how vaccines, public health measures, or voting actually works, that is not political
It is political when the science on these subjects is not actually settled as is dishonestly claimed and the only allowable opinions of so called experts at the vast majority of our academic institutions consistently align in a certain political direction.
Reality's liberal bias is an illusion, borne of groupthink, social shaming, a collusive media, and exclusion/shaming of dissent. The fact that one or more experts believe something does not make it true, and there is clear evidence of political bias in the sciences. For a more obvious example, consider nonsensical "consensus" that race does not exist, or cannot be used to predictively classify humans. Look at what happen to Watson for daring to suggest that maybe 200k years of natural selection did not stop at the shoulders. The same ideologically driven bias has spread to virtually all soft sciences, and laymen do not understand the hard/soft distinction.
Can I, in the process of litigation, bring in political polarization experts to testify that a subject is too politically polarized to permit experts testifying?
The definition of abusive behavior is unfortunately ambiguous though. Not everybody agrees to it. That's how you get people claiming folks are too sensitive and other people claiming so and so is an abuser for some more ambiguous circumstance.
That doesn't matter. If everyone just calls out the behavior that they think is abusive then eventually we'll get to a new, lower level of abuse. There'll be some contention where people disagree, but there is already so that doesn't change much.
I was thinking more of a "verified by stripe" type flow. They just need a location and a hash that prevents multiple signups. I realize that's just moving the problem, but hey the whole idea is impractical anyway.
Exactly, I hate seeing discussions about "peak fertility," especially since the people posting about it usually don't know it's more like 30. [0] And more than that, the risk of complications is much higher for teenagers. [1] A relevant quote:
> Adolescent mothers (ages 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm delivery and severe neonatal conditions. (4)
And just because you might be in the "peak fertility" period doesn't mean you should rush to have children. If you are not ready for kids, they will suffer for it, and none of the girls I knew who got pregnant in high school were mature enough to handle a child and finish school (much less the fathers), so their parents and grandparents had to step in and do most of the parenting.
These kinds of discussions, especially combined with the evolutionary biology pseudoscience, really remind me of the way incel forums talk about women. Especially with the interesting absence of any mention of men's fertility, which also peaks around 30. [0]
Being falsely arrested and sent to jail is bad enough. Many people who experience that have no desire to relive the experience through a long-=drawn out and possibly expensive process of litigation.
