Today is the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster. Today, people know about the disaster, with many becoming familiar from the excellent miniseries Chernobyl. It has an IMDB score of 9.2 and is worth watching on HBO Max.
At the time, it was the radioactive fallout over Scandinavia that got my attention. Ten years later, I had a student who had been there.
Student dies from self-inflicted gunshot in Valley Forge High School cafeteria
A friend teaches at Valley Forge. He called me a couple of hours later to tell me what happened and about the student. That’s not my story to tell, and the inside scoop is probably all over social media.
YouGov: Words that men or women are more likely to know
YouGov asked a bunch of Americans which words they knew. Some words were recognized much more frequently by men, and some by women.
Here are the words that men knew more:
aileron, azimuth, boson, bushido, checksum, degauss, femtosecond, gauss, howitzer, katana, milliamp, neodymium, parsec, piezoelectricity, servo, strafe, teraflop, thermistor and yakuza
Here are the words that women knew more:
bandeau, boucle, chambray, chenille, chignon, damask, doula, espadrille, freesia, jacquard, kohl, peplum, pessary, ruche, sateen, taffeta, tulle, verbena, voile and whipstich.
YouGov did not ask the surveyed people to define or explain the words.
Snow Days are the best.
Everyone from students all the way up to the district superintendent gets a tap on the shoulder by Frosty, and told, “You are free. Nobody will expect anything from you today.”
WSJ: Classroom Phone Bans Work. So Why Don’t All Schools Do It?
A large urban district in Florida saw an increase in student test scores. A smaller school district in rural California is experiencing a dramatic decline in student behavioral problems. The reason for both: the absence of smartphones in the classroom.
Public schools are administrated by political animals without the ambition or ability to run for office. Some care about education, but no incentive rewards that.
Parents don’t push for phone bans because they don’t care about their children. A flip phone with no data plan solves all these issues. Parents are so eager to be liked, they willingly put their children in danger.
Sometimes you want to learn stuff without working too hard. The Youtube channel, Fall of Civilizations is smart and engaging.
That is the beauty of having education be a state responsibility. Different states can take different approaches, and we see what works. It’s called the “Laboratory of Democracy”.
Mississippi is our poorest state, but it is winning in elementary education, doing about as well as Ohio.
How did the school district in the capital of Iowa acquire an illegal alien from Guyana as their superintendent?
Jackie Norris is the chair of the Des Moines School Board. Norris used to be the White House Chief of Staff for First Lady Michelle Obama.
Whatever can happen, will happen, if you wait long enough.
That is an operating principle in modern physics. There is a 1 in 6000 chance that a nickel dropped on to a table top, will rest on the edge of the coin. If you dropped a nickel every 10 seconds, within 17 hours, you’d expect a nickel to land on the edge. It’s a very unlikely event, but it will happen.
The College Fix: Survey shows teachers despise ‘equitable’ grading policies
‘Equitable’ grading is a policy that was being implemented prior to the Covid lock-down. It is designed to never fail a student, regardless of the student’s lack of aptitude or effort. During and after the Covid lock-down, principals embraced the policy to hide their failure.
‘Equitable’ grading was encouraged by the federal Department of Education and implemented by school districts without anyone ever talking to teachers.
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