Posts by urbantinker8

Larry Walker24 said:

I don't even know where to start with this one. Honestly, just looking at the thread makes my blood boil. People really think they can just say whatever they want without any consequences, and then act all surprised when things get heated. It’s exhausting. I'm sitting here trying to have a chill morning with my coffee, and I stumble into this mess? Give me a break. kaže:
Who's lying?🍿
We’ve got a massive, chronic shortage of mathematicians, physicists, software engineers, and chemists. It's getting ridiculous.
Look, this place is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. Nobody in their right mind is going to choose a career in academia if they have the option to land a gig at a top-tier research institute, a major bank like JPMorgan, or some high-paying tech firm. It’s just common sense.
The whole reform is a complete train wreck. This "life skills" curriculum thing? It’s a joke. Nobody knows who’s calling the shots or who’s actually footing the bill. People are losing their minds out there.

Drop what you know right here.😉

I’m telling you, it is an absolute nightmare trying to find a decent naturalist—or if you want to sound trendy, a "STEM professional"—whenever we need a replacement. Whether it's for a quick fix or some long-term thing, finding someone who actually knows their stuff is basically impossible.
We’ve been struggling to keep our heads above water for months now. My colleagues over at the tech firms are constantly scrambling to cover shifts because you can't find a single decent entry-level grad to fill a gap, let alone a senior engineer or a professor. It's a joke.

Directors are full of it. None of them actually ran a public search for someone with, say, a biology or chemistry background, so everything they feed to the press is just pure fiction. They tell one story to the media and then there's the actual reality on the ground. It's a joke.

So they’re just straight-up lying. Typical.

I’m out here busting my ass and nobody wants to pick me up from Chicago. It doesn't even matter if it's a swap or whatever—it’s obvious I’ll just have to head back to Germany or the UK, only this time I'll be gone for a lot longer. Honestly, let the students take over the teaching, and maybe then the directors will actually start paying decent wages so they can find someone to do the job.

Actually, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to—like, what specific details or which subject we're talking about—but from what I've seen, it seems to align pretty closely with this article. I don't mean to generalize about specific schools, but there's definitely a shortage of science teachers that's starting to cause some real chaos in the classrooms

Larry Walker24 said:Since I work in STEM, I can tell you straight up—they're lying through their teeth!

I can give you the full breakdown in a private message.

Who exactly is lying?🍿
Mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, chemists—there's a chronic shortage there.
Salaries are just as ridiculous as people say here, and honestly, I don't think anyone in their right mind would choose teaching if they had the option to work at some research institute, a major bank, or a solid tech firm.
The whole education reform is a complete mess; nobody seems to know who's calling the shots or who's footing the bill, and morale is pretty much bottomed out.

Just share whatever you know here.😉

From what I've seen, we have an absolutely massive problem finding science specialists—or to use the trendy term, STEM professionals—whenever we need a substitute, whether it's for a short stint or something long-term.
We end up scrambling for months on end, and colleagues in those departments are constantly getting pulled away to cover classes twice as often because, frankly, you can't find a recent grad to fill a gap for even two or three months, let alone someone with actual engineering or professor-level experience.

so, here is a little look at the absolute chaos currently unfolding in our school districts

I suppose I find the whole thing somewhat entertaining, in a detached sort of way—just watching these self-proclaimed "visionaries" stumble blindly through their latest round of sweeping reforms. 🍿
I suspect we'll eventually see everyone nostalgic for the old public education system from back in the day, lamenting how much everything has shifted since then. 🤣🤣
They call it "education for life," but if you ask me, it feels more like schooling for corporate drones.

This self-important Secretary of Education keeps dropping these absolute gems of wisdom every single day.🙂

The part that really gets me about this whole situation, though, is how she just dives headfirst into these massive reforms without having an actual plan, a coherent strategy, or even a basic sense of direction. She just decides things on a whim and runs with it.

I’ve been chatting with some colleagues over at our local public school districts, and honestly, it’s just pure chaos right now.☕

So, my gut tells me the first thing she’ll do is start slashing teaching positions, and only after those cuts are made will she actually bother thinking about curricula, specific subjects, or how many hours kids should be sitting in a classroom. And then... oops... she’ll probably realize there isn't a clear objective in sight, but hey, who cares, right? By then, it’ll likely be election season again, we'll get a new administration, and the whole cycle starts all over again with someone else pushing their own set of half-baked ideas.🙂

It’s honestly nauseating.

Tyler Ruiz502 said:

I honestly can't even begin to wrap my head around how some people operate—it’s just... it's baffling, really. I was sitting there thinking about it earlier, and it just strikes me as such a bizarre way to approach things. It's like people just decide to be completely nonsensical without a second thought. Anyway, I don't know, maybe I'm just overthinking it—which, let's face it, is a chronic problem for me—but there's definitely something fundamentally off about that whole vibe. Just totally out there. Tyler Ruiz502 says:
Oh, good grief.🤦
If that actually made you happy...👍

There we go. 😬 If you’re actually feeling some sort of satisfaction from being completely blindsided—well, honestly, I’m just glad I could be the one to make it happen for you. 🤣

So, thanks for that.

nimblelynx7 said:You claimed that changing an elective shouldn't be approved regardless of how perfectly the request is filed—if doing so messes up the scheduling or throws any of the teachers' workflows into chaos. I’m with Tyler Ruiz502 on this one. There’s really no point in begging for it.

To looks like they’re prioritizing the teachers' interests over what the students actually need.

We dealt with those kinds of "elective" subjects too. Though, back then, we actually had the choice between religion or ethics. They actually bothered to organize an ethics class just for our group of 14 kids in the third grade.

We were officially given a choice between three or four specialized courses, but it was always a total sham. Every single year, right at the start of the term, they’d just notify us that our selections had been overruled. Apparently, our preferences didn't matter—they just shoved us into whatever classes fit the teachers' schedules or filled the gaps in their hourly requirements. Typical.

Sent from my iPhone using Reddit

No, that isn't what I wrote.
I mean, maybe try reading other people's posts a bit more carefully instead of twisting what they actually said.😉

nimblelynx7 said:There’s no changing the curriculum. It would just create unnecessary headaches for the school staff.
?

And then people have the nerve to claim that students are actually the priority in our education system.

Sent from my iPhone using Reddit

did anyone actually write somewhere that there "won't be any changes to electives"?🤦 🤦

Honestly, I am just completely exhausted by all these annoying trolls who apparently don't know how to read for actual comprehension.🥱

Tyler Ruiz502 said:Look, they had every single required detail and they handed it in right on schedule, so it was totally valid. But honestly? Just out of pure principle, I refused to call it a "request"—I don't feel like I have anyone to ask permission from. I just titled it: "Subject: Withdrawal from Religious Studies."

Sent from my iPhone using Reddit

oh, man.🤦
if that’s what counts as a win for you...👍

Sarah Hall53 said:I feel like you guys are being a little strict about this—back home, if a parent showed up in person to hand over a request or a formal note (mostly just so there wouldn’t be any doubt about who actually wrote it), they’d honestly accept a scribble from a notebook.

it really needs to be a legitimate, properly organized piece of paper submitted to the registrar on time, signed by an adult, which I guess means high school seniors can sign their own stuff at that point.😁
not many people bother to write them out by hand, but if it has all the necessary elements of a formal request and gets turned in before the deadline, it'll likely be fine.

Sarah Hall53 said:But hey, if you’re really that determined, you can always just submit a formal request. They'll respect it just the same.
Honestly, you could probably just scribble your request on a scrap of paper torn from a kid's notebook—no fancy title or anything—and they’d still take you seriously. 😉 I’ve actually done it myself.

not here in the States, though.

Tyler Ruiz502 said:Why on earth do they call this a "request" instead of an actual formal demand? Usually, you’d use the word "request" when you're asking for some kind of special favor or a right that isn't already guaranteed by default.
But getting a printout of your voter registration records—that's just standard procedure, isn't it? It should be automatic. 🤷

Well, back in high school, dropping an elective wasn't really a given at all.
You have to take one, I suppose; you just get to pick which one. You can't exactly opt out of having any electives whatsoever.

Does the specific terminology used in the memo actually matter that much, though?🙄
Maybe they call it a petition because once you factor in everyone's choices—which then dictates teacher workloads, time slots, and the whole master schedule—everything becomes a bit more complicated.
And if too many people start swapping or dropping classes at once, the whole thing could potentially collapse like a house of cards.

northerntiger9 said:I’ll just say what I’ve said before—to put it bluntly, it’s basically 100 women and 200 breasts 😬. When it comes to religious education, things vary wildly—not just from town to town, but from neighborhood to neighborhood, depending on the school, the teacher, or the local priest. Look, if you're worried about your kid needing sacraments one day and want them in religious ed classes, the only real move is to ask around at the school or your local parish to see how it's handled in your area. You need to find out if the school insists on church participation for sacraments, if the church demands school attendance, or if there are any other hoops to jump through. People on forums like this might argue or swap stories, but that's just noise.

One thing that makes Cleveland a bit different, though—a huge number of kids don't take religious ed. The whole "better to enroll them so they aren't left out" argument doesn't really apply here. In my kid's class, more than half the students aren't enrolled, and the schools manage those gaps in the schedule so well that the kids who skip it don't miss a beat.

One last thing, since I'm already typing: if anyone wants to opt their child out of school religious ed, you have to submit a formal request by August 15th at the latest. After that, the window is closed.

I suppose that rule applies to all elective subjects too—things like signing up, opting out, or switching between ethics and religion classes.
The request needs to be handed in to the school board by August 15th, though if you want to stay ahead of the curve, maybe try getting it in by July 1st. That way, when the faculty meets for the final summer session before the new school year kicks off, they’ll actually have an accurate headcount for each subject, which makes it much easier for them to finalize the schedules without everything becoming a total mess.

nimblelynx7 said:So first you call me a liar, then you pivot and suggest I might actually be telling the truth?

I have no clue what the standards are like in other counties or schools, and I certainly can't speak for your situation either, but I'm not sitting here claiming you're lying.

A handful of us, myself included, didn't go through the official channels because we didn't meet all the requirements. I got my First Communion at my grandmother's local parish by paying $33 under the table plus $33 standard fees, so technically I've got all my sacraments covered. I even serve as a godparent for kids now—presumably because parents want someone they trust to teach their children about faith. (Though I doubt that has much to do with the money side of things.)

I didn't get married in a church, and during the whole "general crackdown" era, I ended up marrying a woman on a Saturday.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S7 using Reddit

You started off by stating something that was just flat-out wrong—claiming that EVERYTHING was mandatory, which, obviously, isn't the case.☕
Then you moved on to this half-truth about priests keeping a tally of who misses Mass. Maybe they do that in some tiny little town out in rural Nebraska, but that doesn't make it a rule everywhere.

I'd suggest not presenting your own version of reality as if it's some universal truth, whether it's here or in any other thread.😉

nimblelynx7 said:It wasn't mandatory like it is here in the States. Take math, for instance—it was treated as an "elective" back then. But if you skipped religious studies at school, the folks at the church knew about it, and they had no problem withholding sacraments.

For the kids, having those sacraments mattered, likely because of that sense of belonging. For parents, it was about making sure nobody suspected they were Mexicans, or worse, atheists.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Reddit

I don't think that's really accurate, either.
Maybe that was the vibe in some small towns, perhaps, but in a place like New York City, it definitely wasn't like that—at least, not everywhere.
Personally, I never attended religious education classes growing up, but plenty of people in my class did; there were quite a few who never even stepped foot in a church on Sundays, yet they still went through communion, confirmation, and eventually had big church weddings later in life without any issues.

So, I guess we shouldn't generalize based on assumptions.

rowdypanther12 said:Religious education was never actually mandatory in schools 😁 I went through school back in the 90s and I never attended religion class 😁

Of course it was never mandatory.

I suppose this is just more evidence that certain people on these forums tend to spread all sorts of misinformation across various threads, presenting it as if it were their own lived experience or some kind of universal truth.🙄

Once we actually have enough qualified staff on hand and every school across the country is fully equipped—that’s when it might become mandatory.

If you want my two cents... I don't see that happening anytime soon.😁

silentsurfer2 said:Quincy:

I can't work with that. Give me some actual content to rewrite. silentsurfer2 says: It’s honestly great whenever someone outside the establishment spots something like this. Since they aren't part of the machine, nobody can pull the "you're just biased" card on them.👍👍

There’s more of us lurking here. We’re just watching the thread unfold because everything that needed to be said has already been laid out perfectly. 👍

If there’s any silver lining for those of us without kids—the ones who won't be dealing with kindergarten drop-offs for at least another decade—it’s this: the era of helicopter parents and their precious little snowflakes is finally hitting a wall. Everyone’s fed up with them. Honestly, I’m starting to think we’re finally heading back toward a generation of actual, functional parents. Fingers crossed. 🙂

Well, I certainly hope so too.🙂
Because things have drifted into such an absurd territory right now that I find myself feeling a sort of profound secondhand embarrassment while listening to the "arguments" some parents are making about absolutely everything.🤦🤦

Richard Perez3 said:I honestly can't wrap my head around how you even begin a conversation with someone who truly believes that picking one out of four multiple-choice options is some kind of gold standard for measuring actual skill or expertise—and I don't even mean the tricky questions, just the basic ones.

I guess I'm just at a loss.

This just reminded me of something.
The other day, at one of those high-end Ivy League universities, a professor was actually asked to dumb down his exams.
Apparently, because their students aren't exactly cut out for the heavy lifting, the faculty doesn't want to "depress" them.
They literally asked this guy to make the test easier.
Like, turn it into a basic multiple-choice thing.
🤣🤣
I have never given a multiple-choice test in my life, nor do I ever intend to, so people can say whatever they want about me.

It’s just wonderful how everyone seems so incredibly full of all this talk about logic and critical thinking being something schools "stifle rather than nurture."🤣🤣

I mean, if you actually took the time, dear parents, to continuously foster those skills at home starting from when they're little, there wouldn't be any subject out there capable of "killing" them.😉
The way people view reading to their kids these days is, unfortunately, just as dismissive as their attitude toward required reading assignments, and honestly, it feels pretty futile to argue for the value of Judith’s perspective to someone who hasn't even sat down to read a single story by Jesse.

And by the way, even though I was already told once that it’s just some niche etymology thing, I just can't help feeling a bit of secondhand embarrassment seeing such an illiterate username based on some floral diminutive.🙂

I suppose I should probably start by mentioning that... well, there isn't much to say here, really. It feels a bit strange to just sit down and provide a blank space, though I guess that’s the nature of things sometimes. Maybe there was an intention behind this, or perhaps it’s just one of those moments where the words haven't quite decided to show up yet. I'm not entirely sure, honestly. It’s a bit like standing in front of a vast, empty field in Nebraska, just waiting for something—anything, really—to break the horizon, but for now, it's just quiet. Very quiet.

Maria Gray3 said:I just wanted to say how much I sympathize with anyone working in education if this represents the average parent’s mindset when dealing with teachers. 😢

I always figured that in my own job, I’d have to put up with nonsense without any real way to call people out on it. If that’s how things look in schools, I feel for you and the kids you're teaching. Treating them like precious little snowflakes isn't actually doing anyone any favors.

It’s a sad reality that everyone calls for school reform to move away from rote memorization, yet parents seem to want exactly that—little programmed, high-achieving robots. They just want tiny little worker bees who can memorize formulas, specifically in STEM fields because that's where the money and prestige are now, all while stripping away any sense of creativity or breadth. They'll just end up being the ones posting illiterate comments on Facebook with a disclaimer like, "don't mind my grammar." It's pathetic.

I guess you could say that... yeah.🐔
I suppose I should probably start by saying that when someone decides to drop a Quote like this into the middle of a discussion, it really changes the whole rhythm of the conversation, doesn't it? It’s funny, in a way, how a single highlighted passage can just sort of hang there, waiting for someone to make sense of it, though I guess I’m not entirely sure if that was the intention here. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It feels a bit like when you're walking through a quiet park in Seattle and you suddenly stumble upon a sign that's been partially weathered away—you know it's meant to convey something important, but you find yourself wondering about the context of the person who put it there in the first place. Anyway, I'll try to wrap my head around what's being suggested, even if it takes me a moment to get there.

It’s a bit of a funny thing, really, how people constantly call for education reform—specifically this big push to move away from rote memorization—yet when you actually look at what parents want, it seems like they're just asking for something else entirely. I guess there's this underlying desire to essentially raise little programmed little drones, tiny little worker bees who can churn through formulas, especially in STEM fields since that's where all the money and prestige seem to be hiding these days. It's almost as if they want the technical proficiency without any of the actual creativity or breadth of thought, which is a bit of a strange trade-off, I suppose. They want the results, but without the substance, leading to a future full of people posting illiterate nonsense on Facebook while adding those little disclaimers like, "don't mind my grammar, I'm just on social media." It’s honestly kind of sad to think about.

I honestly feel such a sense of relief whenever someone who isn't part of the establishment notices something like this, because, I suppose, they can't really be accused of being biased or having some hidden agenda.👍👍

I’ve been sitting here reading through this whole thread, and I have to say, it’s kind of hilarious to me how some people are out here embarrassing themselves with such narrow-minded views. They seem to genuinely believe they’re some sort of high-society intellectuals just because they’ve "read a lot of books," which I guess is their way of claiming superiority, though it honestly just comes across as rather pretentious.🤦
I suppose I’m also sitting here, somewhat impatiently, rooting for the homeschooling movement, if only to see where all those potential outsiders might end up one day.🤣

hiddendriver34 said:I honestly think the required reading list could be a lot more dynamic. There are so many absolute classics that aren't included—books that really should be.

I mean, why have we had Flaubert and Balzac on the mandatory list for a century (and I’m not even exaggerating here 😁), while Stendhal hasn't made the cut once? He was just as vital a national author from that same era. It feels like someone drafted this list decades ago and everyone's just been too afraid to touch it since.

That kind of rigid, cemented canon basically just fuels those "copy-paste my essay" websites.

If you asked me, I’d give students a few core requirements, but leave the rest as electives—though I'd provide a curated list for them to choose from! And those electives wouldn't need to be identical in every school, or even for the same teacher year after year.

The whole "read whatever you want" approach to electives just aligns with that Summerin drawing and parents who act like "my little angel can do whatever they please." 😁 That's just not a serious way to teach.

Based on how people view things these days, I suppose that wouldn't really count as elective reading anymore, either.