Posts by Chloe Roberts2

Hey, I’m reposting this. I’m living in San Diego, I've been dealing with psychosis since I was seven, and I'm currently a student looking for a friend or two. Honestly, I don't care if you have a diagnosis or not.
I'm really just looking for someone to hang out with in person—maybe grab a coffee, talk, and actually get to know each other.

In my downtime, I mostly just lose myself in books or video games.

Jacob Lopez2 said:Go back and actually read my posts, because you are clearly reading them with total misunderstanding and attacking the wrong person. I expect an apology in your next post, because I was the one who explicitly wrote that parents should STOP enrolling their children in religious education, whereas some other woman on this forum argued they enroll them just to protect them from being mocked by kids for not going...
So, you've targeted the wrong person in the lowest way possible. You're spitting on someone who thinks exactly like you do. What will you do to those who don't think at all? You've gone way too far.

It was already too late, and neither of us were being particularly clear. My bad.

Jacob Lopez2 said:Isn't that enough of an argument for believers to stop enrolling their children in religious education under the guise of "protection"? I still don't get the logic here. If you actually wanted to protect them, you'd remove them from that environment entirely.

From what, woman? You honestly think it's okay for your kid to learn that atheists are somehow responsible for Auschwitz? That is pure indoctrination.
It's one thing to claim the world was created in seven days—which is just a blatant lie—but this is something much more sinister.

Are you even religious? Do you have atheist friends? Co-workers, neighbors? How can you even look them in the eye after posting something like this?

Look, I'm an atheist. I'm not a communist. I'm an atheist and a capitalist. And I'm certainly not a Nazi. Take someone like Stepinac, for example; he was both a Catholic and a fascist. He essentially gave the green light to the atrocities at Auschwitz, and frankly, if it weren't for the presence of atheists, America wouldn't even be larger than a small suburb outside of Washington, D.C. Without atheists, California would probably be part of the Kingdom of Italy. Personally, I don't trust a single word coming from anyone making claims about Auschwitz like this.

Around here, you’re expected to show up for both if you're looking to get through communion or confirmation.

Can we start our own dedicated thread for recommendations?
Right now, we’ve got those two threads going—one for stuff like "searching for books, looking for recs, swapping, or giving books away," and then the other one for "what we're reading right now and what we recommend (with a brief summary)."
I was thinking it might be cleaner if we split them up: let the first thread handle the actual buying, selling, and trading, while the second becomes strictly about the reading experience itself. Like, a "currently reading" space where you share what's in your hands along with a quick take on it, leaving a brand-new thread specifically for pure recommendations.

What do you guys think?

She’s just fishing for a reaction, honestly. You can see she’s only suddenly claiming that religious studies have been reinstated in schools right after some other user on this board brought it up

Religious education shouldn't even be part of the school curriculum because it’s not about teaching actual facts; instead, it just turns into a platform for discrimination. Plus, these instructors answer to the church rather than the state, and since there isn't a real secular alternative offered in elementary schools, we aren't actually providing proper supervision for the kids.
All of this stems from the fundamental issues with religious classes and those outdated Vatican agreements.

Allowing grade changes at the end of the semester would basically just be handing out participation trophies to anyone running a campaign. Honestly, should the government really be stepping in just because some kids are lazy or simply couldn't care less about their classes? I mean, what exactly is it that these kids shouldn't be expected to study on a regular basis?

redridge13 said:The brutal reality of being a teacher😢
Honestly, I was almost moved to tears reading this.

Since you’re already going off about toxic parents and basically modern-day witch hunts, could you dive into what actually happens to teachers when they get caught being awful? Like, what kind of professional "death penalties" are we talking about here?
Because, if I'm being real, I can't think of a single instance where a truly terrible teacher actually lost their job and stayed gone.

The blame lies squarely with our outdated legislation and those overly protective labor laws.

OT
It’s such a shame we aren't including someone like Maya Angelou in the mandatory reading list this year.

rowdypanther12 said:I haven't read the book in question myself, so I'll take that with a grain of salt, but since I asked what grade level this is for, I still feel like a 17 or 18-year-old shouldn't be shielded from "normal" literature.
By the way, you can find A Song of Ice and Fire in the children's section at most public libraries, which means any ten-year-old could check it out and read it—and that's easily the most explicit book I've come across since reading Marquis de Sade when I was 15.😂

😂 What an absolute idiot, seriously.😵 🤣

Sure, libraries might struggle to stock all these titles, but maybe the solution isn't more dusty paperbacks, but rather switching to e-books.
There's a whole digital library platform online where students can just log in using those AII accounts they get through school, giving them instant access to the entire required reading list.

Is this actually about the kids from Athens...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-djeca-patrasa

I’d probably just turn that into a casual get-together over coffee, or maybe some gaming if we're actually talking about playing something.

urbantinker8 said:Good grief, who was even talking about Shakespeare for second graders?😕

The article in that link is pretty sensationalist, I think, and it seems to have been written by someone who clearly doesn't understand how things work, like in vocational high schools, for instance.
The works mentioned are usually handled in fragments, mostly during class periods with a teacher's help.
I doubt even the most advanced honors students are sitting down to read the entirety of Homer.😁
The same goes for Shakespeare, Frost, Whitman, or any of those other classics.
Reading a specific excerpt for homework isn't exactly a massive undertaking, especially when you have analysis provided right underneath, but it does require spending a bit of time and actually engaging your mind, which, I guess, is what most students tend to avoid.

Having spent plenty of time in the classroom myself, I feel like I can get a pretty decent handle on what constitutes a small, medium, or large amount of effort for a given age group.😉

😵 Just a slip of the tongue, my bad. 🙂

urbantinker8 said:I suppose if you give them something just a tiny bit more challenging, they’d have to put in a little extra work and maybe strain those mental gears just a touch, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
If we mostly serve up stuff that requires almost zero intellectual heavy lifting, then I guess you have to wonder where the actual growth or progress is supposed to happen.

We are talking about high school, after all.
The absolute peak of their daily mental engagement shouldn't really be leveling up in a video game or obsessing over their status on Facebook.

It really isn't. Pushing your brain a little isn't a bad thing, and I never said there shouldn't be any effort at all—I just think the effort needs to be proportional.
A little mental heavy lifting to actually learn something is fine, but a "little effort" shouldn't feel like mindless torture or an endless slog through boredom.

Look, if 90 percent of students find a required reading way too dense or overly complicated, then the issue lies with the book, not the kids.

I think we need to distinguish between healthy engagement and total burnout, and you seem to be blurring that line. Shakespeare is simply not appropriate for this level of effort or as a logical next step in their reading progression.

Why wouldn't we make things more accessible? We aren't asking them to just scroll on their phones all day; we're asking for reading material that actually makes sense for them.

I'm dropping this link here again, just in case you truly believe Shakespeare belongs in a second-grade curriculum.
http://www.nytimes.com/news/education/reading-lists/.../1534121/

To reiterate, Shakespeare will still be read, but it should happen during structured classroom time, guided by a teacher. THAT is what's appropriate.

swiftranger16 said:Stouffer is just the tip of the iceberg! I’m honestly proposing we just strip everything out of schools that requires actual effort from students or teachers. If it doesn't align perfectly with what our kids find fun or easy, get rid of it. We could solve the whole school year length issue too—two weeks should be plenty to cover whatever's left. We don't even need to worry about the weather or anything else.

But seriously, ladies, have you actually thought about what the curriculum experts are saying? Like, they’re claiming the learning outcome is basically just mastering prepositions or something? Or is the goal for fifth graders just to learn how to mash words together? I’d love to hear from any of you who actually step into a classroom or are involved as parents. Otherwise, you're just talking for the sake of it.
Has anyone actually sat down and read the curriculum? I highly doubt it. It’s way easier to just throw out criticisms based on vibes.
The American English curriculum is a total mystery—it's vague and poorly defined, as usual. But instead of looking at that, the whole country is obsessed with specific book lists, and now everyone is picking sides over Stouffer. They threw out the bait, the little fish bit, and here we are. Though I guess I shouldn't even mention Preradovica... wouldn't want to start a whole new wave of drama.

Shakespeare and his other works will still be part of the curriculum during class. It seems you haven't been paying very close attention to the syllabus.

And regarding all this talk of "effort," nobody is actually suggesting we abolish school or eliminate hard work entirely; it’s just that reading Shakespeare isn't exactly tailored to what students want right now. The school itself should be designed around the students.
The level of effort required needs to match the actual capacity of a student's brain.

We aren't subsistence farmers anymore. Digging in a garden or working the soil isn't comparable to modern learning, even though people love to draw those kinds of parallels. We're still stuck with this outdated mindset that learning has to be an exhausting grind, much like how our ancestors thought they were accomplishing something just by digging holes in the dirt all day.

No, that's not it. Learning needs to be adapted to the individual. That doesn't mean we scrap education or knowledge; it means school should actually be a place where kids learn something. But they shouldn't be forced to slog through assigned reading if it's just too much for them.

The whole point of literature isn't to glorify American heritage or serve as some tool for national pride. The goal is to cultivate the student. You won't achieve that by forcing them to finish a list of books if they're never going to pick up another book again once they graduate. The act of reading is what matters; the specific content is secondary.

Learning doesn't have to be a struggle. You won't actually achieve anything just by cramming. Throughout elementary school, high school, and even now at university, I found that simply reading the text and keeping up with my assignments was more than enough.

urbantinker8 said:Well, yeah, it is subjective, I guess, though there might be some sort of criteria involved.
you can't just toss random authors into a canon simply because they happen to be trending right now.

Or maybe you can.🤷

And what about you, buddy? 🙂

As for the snow... I remember times when classes were actually canceled because of it.
there was once a week where school just didn't happen (the last time I recall that happening was back in 2013, I think.).
on the other hand, I don't think a single hour of class has ever been canceled because of the heat.

On average, Americans read less than one book a year. In fact, fewer than half of Americans even pick up a book at all. What am I supposed to say? It is what it is.

Classics like Homer and Shakespeare will eventually get read, along with other essential literary works, during summer reading sessions.
This list is basically just standard required reading. Students should be allowed to choose what they actually enjoy based on their own interests—just like any real book lover would. I mean, why should anyone else get to decide how I spend my free time?

The whole point here is to try and boost the literacy levels of students and future generations.

The people obsessing over these specific titles are just trivia buffs. At the end of the day, they're the only ones actually gaining anything from this. There.

urbantinker8 said:Fine, but then just say it out loud: let's add this to the required reading list as an example of trash lit and let the kids debate it until they're blue in the face.👍
Instead of just haphazardly tossing in various "authors" without any real criteria or cohesive plan... just as examples of... nothing, really.
It seems like as long as it's modern and easy to digest, the actual value doesn't matter much.

🙏

...and let's not forget those summer makeup classes that would probably be held until August 1st in 105-degree weather.
We'll all just pass out from heatstroke, I suppose.🙄

I mean, personally, it doesn't matter too much to me since our board meetings always run until July 15th, so we're already sitting in a greenhouse at 95 degrees anyway, but imagine adding thirty students to a single room for five or six or seven hours a day in that heat...🙂

And who exactly gets to decide what makes a work valuable? It's all subjective anyway.

The whole point of required reading is to get kids to actually read, not necessarily to lecture them. Besides, you develop recursive thinking through the act of reading itself.
That's why reading matters. As for anyone claiming there's a translation out there, I haven't been able to find one.

Here's an article from West Georgia. http://www.westga.edu/~mmcfar/The%20Role%20of%20Active%20Reading.htm

Active reading is recursive—it's a process where the reader circles back to territory they've already covered to reach a deeper, more thorough interpretation (128). Since producing decent literary criticism relies on being a decent reader, this is precisely the kind of skilled reading we need to cultivate during this course.

Lawrence Torres56 said:😁
Honestly, this is just repackaging everything kids used to do in preschool, except now it’s being moved into a school building instead of a daycare center, and instead of just twice a week (about 250 hours a year), it’ll be every single day (that's 600 hours!). Like I said before, it feels like we're just conditioning these little kids from the moment they can walk to sit still and take it, basically introducing them to a life of labor without any actual downtime.😁

As far as nursing vocational schools go, they aren't teaching anything less or any differently than they did under the old four-year program. And theoretically, they can still apply to medical school after. They just need to absolutely crush the advanced level of their high school exams and pass the entrance tests. Even now, only a tiny handful actually pull it off. That's because the requirements for med school demand a much deeper, broader knowledge base than just patient care, which is really the core subject matter for a future nurse, whereas doctors only need a smaller slice of that specific knowledge.
Those who graduated from a vocational nursing program don't just have "some basics" to become a doctor, and it's definitely not true that they are halfway there in terms of knowledge. Med school professors don't waste their time teaching students things that were already covered in vocational school; they move straight into entirely different courses where it's vital for students to have a broad foundation, the mental stamina to absorb massive amounts of data, and the ability to synthesize it all. You pick up those skills in a traditional high school if you're a top-tier student. Not every high schooler even has the capacity to make it through med school.

They aren't learning anything less or different than when it was a four-year program.🤦

Having general education subjects for all four years versus just the first two is a huge distinction—it's not the same thing as constantly honing your skills every day before taking finals versus having a three-year gap in your knowledge for the exact same subject.

In this reform, just like every other overhaul they try to push through here in the States, the main goal is just to be able to say "we implemented a reform." It doesn't matter if the reform actually drags us back ten years... the important part is pretending to push through some European-style ideals, regardless of whether they actually work in practice.

Medicine is medicine, and specialized subjects are specialized subjects. This idea that a doctor only needs a small portion of what a nurse learns is just proof that you're talking about something you don't understand...
Under the current educational model, a nurse with higher certification (knowledge-wise) actually has a much greater advantage over a doctor who just barely walked out of med school... by the time they finish their vocational training, their level of knowledge is on par with a third-year med student, if not higher....
Look, it’s a whole different ballgame when we start asking ourselves if having some fancy piece of paper actually matters more than just being damn good at what you do. I mean, what are we even doing here? Are we really going to prioritize checking boxes to make sure everything lines up perfectly with some bureaucratic federal mandate, even when those rules don't make sense for the job, instead of focusing on providing actual, high-quality vocational training that people can actually use? It’s wild, right? We’re basically deciding whether we want mindless compliance or the kind of real-world expertise that everyone—literally everyone—is counting on to keep things running smoothly.

Actually, it won't be in the schools; it'll be in daycare centers.

Sorry, I’m not quite following you there.

I honestly don't get how they can claim there isn't enough room when the church is hosting religious education classes right in their own facilities, especially considering that's exactly where the kids need to be for their First Communion and Confirmation prep sessions.