Elianna

I wonder if I read the framework differently than other people, for no other reason than I'm a math teacher, and used to reading these frameworks with an eye of how they can be implemented. I don't mean to say that my understanding of math is better, but more, what these kind of things actually mean for student learning. First and foremost, frameworks like this are not usually treated as proscriptive, i.e. "you must lecture on this at every moment". They're more aspirational, i.e. "we would like students to be able to be exposed to material about this, and form their own answers about it, in a guided method." Because I'll tell you honestly, right now, many students already have answers to essential questions asked, based on what they learned in current math classes, and the answers are wrong because the classes left things out. For example, for the question "Who is a Mathematician", I would be shocked if most students didn't say "an old white guy with funny hair", unless they were influenced by more modern stereotypes and say "nerdy white guy who can't talk to women". The goal of this framework is for the students to say "me". As that was always my goal when teaching, I fully support it, this framework just elaborates on some of the related questions. I mean, that last column is absolutely essential, and I would be shocked if any mathematician didn't think about and answer those questions for themselves at one point in their lives. The problem is that non-mathematicians look at a question like "How can math be used to communicate information?" or "Can I use mathematics to comprehend my everyday life?" and answer "uhhhhh..." and "oh goodness no!", and we (the teaching establishment) not only feel that we need to change that, but also that by changing the answers to those questions, also increase a student's interest in and capacity to learn math more fluently. Lastly, I'll conclude by saying that instead of "dumping" on those who like math, this is an attempt to create MORE people who like math.

Adam and I really enjoyed Lupin. It's kind of like Leverage, but a continuing storyline over 5 episodes, and with one main hero (with helpers) rather than a team. Definitely looking forward to season 2, and will be devastated if there isn't one!

I'm sure you're right on what the actual percentage is. I guess my point was that there IS a minimum percent, and it's more than the percent to elect a single seat, and yet there's still the mess.

But Israel has that 5% rule!

I agree that it is quite fantastical, but it's very engaging. What I found most surprising is how interesting they made the chess matches to audiences that aren't interested in chess. (Speaking for myself, I know how the pieces move. I could play a game following the rules. And that's it.) I don't know how the games were to anyone who knows anything about chess, but they supposedly had Kasparov as a technical consultant, so maybe the games are challenging, plus my guess is that they got the depictions of the Soviet System correct (even though all the players and events were fictional). I wish that someone could do something similar with bridge. Maybe based on Sachar's book?

Them living in Fantasyland might well be the best answer for what's going on with all this, no?

I suspect that Brexiters want the border to be drawn between (the Republic of) Ireland and the rest of the EU.

I saw a musical version of this on Broadway (from the same source material) called "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder". It was really quite entertaining. Jefferson Mays played all the D'Ysquith family (the musical version of the D'Ascoyne family in the film) and he was really good in it, too. I wish that they had recorded it so it could be rewatched in these times, but here's a segment from the Tonys that year, that showcased the musical (which won the Tony that year for best musical):

I read it. The suggestions sound reasonable. But still not a substitute for having kids in class. Khan Academy has videos for every math subject. Kids don't learn solely from that, they learn by interacting with other kids. The suggestion of having kids speak on the phone to each other sounds good, but how are you going to explain (3x+1)(x+5) over the phone to someone who already doesn't get it from the video?

Not anymore. I basically retired (but not officially - slightly too young) when I moved to Switzerland. I think that this is a giant mess. Clearly, the best solution is to hire more teachers and set up portable classrooms to help with having smaller classes for social distancing, but this is not a realistic solution. Even if districts had the money, there's not that many teachers willing and able to supplement the staff at a place. If I were a legitimately retired teacher (65+), would I want to put my life on the line? Quite likely not, and I think that my husband would have serious things to say, even if I were. The one positive about everyone learning from home is that April 2020 was one of the first Aprils in a very long time with no school shootings. Pretty grim statistic, no? Doesn't make me eager to go back to teaching in the US, to be honest. Anyway, haven't read the linked article yet - if I have time in the morning I'll come back and post comments.

I don't want to repeat what he's said, but he HAS tried name-calling. Didn't seem to work.

Okay, I knew that I can resize the history by making something else smaller, but the problem is, if I make the playing screen smaller, I won't be able to see THAT as well, and it would be annoying. I guess I can move it to see one, then move it back? And my eyes have been checked and my glasses are still okay, so as far as I know, it's not a question of new glasses.

Okay, I confess. I was one of the players using the old flash version of BBO. In fact, I didn't even know it was old and discouraged until a few months ago. So I've tried switching to what I think is the new one (direct from the BBO main page, which also looks very different than the last time I was there - but I guess that was 10 years ago, so it probably makes sense), but what I've noticed is that the side information is really small. It's really hard to see the previous hand, and the hand records (+results of other tables). Is there a way to enlarge them on my side? I tried my usual way of enlarging the screen (apple symbol + "+), and even clicking in the side panels first didn't make the print bigger for the side panels.

I remember some Sex Education lesson in 5th grade, where they told us that HIV/AIDS is passed through anal sex. It was very memorable, because as one might be able to guess, I had no idea there was such a thing as anal sex. They didn't actually use those words, but the lesson was basically anti-STDS, and was explaining that a condom was always important against STDs, and that the cells in the anus were more permeable than in the cervix. This was 1990 or thereabouts. ETA: I don't know if they said it and I just missed it, but I didn't learn that to get a sexually transmitted disease, one's partner must first have it. I definitely walked away from this lesson with the idea that sperm became HIV/AIDS if it was transmitted anally. I have no idea when I unlearned that, but probably that 9th grade health class mentioned above. I think that it might have to do with being in LA? In a smaller town, if one is "downright crazy", one really stands out, and if that person goes somewhere bigger for college (like to become a teacher), that person might feel freer and less watched, and thus stay in the big town. So I wonder if LA attracts more "interesting people" because of that dynamic. That and the idea of being a star actor, of course.

In my freshman year I had a very interesting experience with my health class. At first, they didn't have a teacher, so we had two subs, for a week each. Then they got someone who was supposed to be the regular teacher, but she was obsessed with every disease she thought she had, or thought that she might have. We spent about a month learning about almost every disease under the sun it felt like, until someone decided to submit a HW assignment in red ink. This was a genius move. She started yelling at the class about it, and not like normal teachers who are offended by non-blue/black ink. She completely lost her cool, accusing the person, in front of the whole class, of writing in blood and trying to get her sick. I remember thinking that she was absolutely crazy, because the assignment was a full page of writing, and who would use that much blood for a silly Health class assignment? That was her last day. We had another sub for a week, and after that the school managed to convince a teacher that retired last year to come back until they found another sub. He decided that the most important thing that teenagers should learn about was STDs, but at least listened to us after a week of complaining, and switched to nutrition. He stayed about a month until the school found another teacher (victim?) willing to take us on. I don't remember much about the last guy, except that he seemed nice and reasonable, and was colorblind (he told us that his wife lays out his clothes for him the day before). I think that we were all ready for a quite, nonmemorable teacher, and settled down for the last month of class. I have no memory of what he taught us, but he was still in the job the rest of my years in high school, so he must have been okay.

I think that he was likely a baby boomer, but I could be wrong about ages. This was 1997, and I think that he was likely in his 40s or 50s, but I could be way off.

My AP Government + Economics teacher just gave up on teaching. (For those who don't know, an "AP" designation on a class means that it is supposed to be college level while still in HS, and that students take a test at the end of the year to be eligible to earn college credit.) He literally taught us almost nothing about government the first semester, and absolutely nothing about Economics the second. He had assigned reading books that we never went over in class, so no one read (Crime and Punishment for Government, and The Little Prince for Econ). He would go on these long lectures based on whatever he felt like talking about for the day. The one that really stands out is that he told us that women don't need the right to vote, because they control men through sex, and so can vote through men. The others were just as unenlightened, but it's been 20 years so I don't remember them. Probably should be happy about that.

I also missed Russian Doll on Netflix, which we really enjoyed. I don't even want to say what it's about because figuring that out is part of the fun. But it's really well acted!

The two main bridge clubs in Zuerich are opening this coming week. They've laid out new rules, and are limiting number of tables, but they are opening.

We've only watched one episode of SF. It wasn't great, but I'm hoping the second episode will be better. Haven't convinced Adam to give it another chance yet. We watch Patriot Act, but a lot of times I think that we're not the target audience. I can't explain what I mean, it's just that a lot of his asides or other cultural references have no meaning to us.

Just a note - what's on Amazon Prime for us, may not be on AP in the US. Adam and I really enjoyed Good Omens. We had started watching it on BBC2, but then signed up to AP because of Star Trek Picard, and watched it there. The actors were great, and really brought the characters to life. I will admit that I liked the book better, but this was quite a good approximation. As mentioned above, Star Trek: Picard. Like all ST that it interesting to me, what I found interesting was more what it had to say about modern times, than about its universe. I will say that it had a lot for longtime fans, if you were fans of the characters. If you're expecting stories more in the vein of TNG, this may not hit the same beats for you. We've also been binge-watching Farscape and Defiance. We had seen Farscape years ago, but it's so amusing that it was worth it to watch again. It's definitely in a pre-Battlestar Galactica vein of SF TV shows, if you know what I mean. Basically, experimental astronaut Jon Crichton accidentally falls into a wormhole, and is chased around that side of the universe by an insane military commander (who changes over the seasons), and he's just trying to find his way home. (That's basically the spoken introduction of each episode.) Defiance is more in the style of Skiffy wanted to save money. It's basically a western, set in post-apocalyptic St Louis. This time the apocalypse was caused by aliens who thought that earth was unoccupied and sent a terraforming ship, which was stopped and a war ensued. It is now peacetime, and humans and a variety of alien species are living in (very) relative peace, and mostly a western with Sci-Fi favors proceeds. Can only recommend the first two seasons, as that's as far as we've seen. We started watching Bosch, but we just couldn't get into it anymore, and to be honest, if the shows proceed like the books, I don't think that we could watch him doing things he does in the books considering what's actually going on in the US. It was hard enough reading the books, but at least one can think that they started 30 years ago, and he's a product of those times, but they've moved the story forward at least 15 years (he's a veteran of the first Gulf War instead of Vietnam). We also have been catching up with Superstore, of which we only saw one season in the US. Its a comedy about people working in a Walmart-like store.

Adam and I really enjoyed "Shtisel". It's an Israeli show about a Hassidic family, and is very involving. We really liked that it was a portrayal of religious Jews as people first, unlike many shows that treat them as caricatures. Even if you understand Hebrew, about 25% of the show in the first season (50% in the second) is in Yiddish, so you might still want subtitles if you don't understand both languages. (There's another, Netflix produced, show about religious Jews called Unorthodox, which was good, but it wasn't as magical as Shtisel, and not as nice to its subject matter. It's about a very specific community of Hassidic Jews, that all the others think are extreme.) On a different note, I just finished the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race. I had never seen it before, and it's very entertaining. But perhaps not for everyone. We both are enjoying Dark, which is a German sci-fi show. I don't want to spoil it by comparing it to another show, plus we're still in the first season. Do people also want recommendations for Amazon Prime?

While there are cases in the US of people saying "I could care less", it doesn't mean that's how it's said in the whole US. If you asked most Americans, most would say the proper phrase is "I couldn't care less", and that the other way is laziness. A better example of oppositeness would be "homely".

Speaking as one who learned English in the US, I agree with you. I notice that the people who disagree seem to be Brits. Perhaps it's a difference in British vs. American English? Since living in Switzerland, I've noticed that there's a difference, not just in vocabulary, but also in grammar. I can't think of specific examples, but there are things that BBC has said that I thought were phrased in a strange way.

Yes, but I bet people would have been saying the same exact thing if Bernie Sanders would be the choice, with a side helping of "remember Corbyn?".