Gotta clear out last week's backlog of articles

[conuly]

Don't blame me for the old news! Blame the Christmas season.

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Pope Francis tells shoppers: Don’t buy products made by modern-day slaves

A clear, molecular view of how human color vision evolved

Iraqi Kurds say siege of Mount Sinjar broken

The strange normality of life in the middle of Syria's war

A Growing Economic Recovery Bypasses Low-Wage Workers and Their Tables

Basic income paid to the poor can transform lives

Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies

She's quite right. Cats ARE inherently valuable animals.

Bin Laden Expert Accused of Shaping CIA Deception on 'Torture' Program

NASA just emailed the space station a new socket wrench

Curiosity Rover Drills Into Mars Rock, Finds Water

Simultaneous Flooding and Drought in California: Human-Caused Climate Change?

Congress To Nutritionists: Don't Talk About The Environment

Turkey has ruled to recognise Alevis' places of worship but there are worries over the outcome of this decision.

Obama hails 'new chapter' in US-Cuba ties

Identical Twins' Genes Are Not Identical

Police Patrols in New York Public Housing Draw Scrutiny

The devalued American worker

The Humane Interrogation Technique That Actually Works

USA and Torture: A History of Hypocrisy

2014 really was a crappy year.

Their adaptation to high altitude was passed down by Denisovan ancestors.

At Rikers Island, Union Chief’s Clout Is a Roadblock to Reform

Los Angeles and New York Pin Down School Kids and Then Say It Never Happened

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yo, I don't think I ever told you, but your Lj here is really my favorite 'news group' - I read just about all the links you post, and often follow them farther. So, thank you; it's really useful that you do this. A lot of this stuff, I wouldn't know about if not for you.

*hugs* Happy Holidays to you and yours, my friend. LOL, and hey, where's that hand-written letter the nieces were spoze to send me awhile back? Tell 'em I've waited long enough that just a letter won't do; I want artwork to put on my refrigerator. Good artwork; subject of their choice. Thanks! ;-D

[conuly]

OMG I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THOSE ONCE I SENT OUT THE PRINTS. I mean, we had homework and shit to get done, and I kept putting it on the back burner. God, I always have hated homework. It's like the school day never ends when you have homework!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, you're not a horrible person, silly; you're just a busy person. So get the girlies art supplies for Xmas and have 'em crank out a passle of refrigerator-art for Happy New Year Thank-yous; that will be a lot more fun than writing letters to people they don't know.

Oh, do I hear you about homework! I hated my own when I was a kid; I hated being required to assign it (to preschoolers!) in some of the centers I worked in; I hated my daughter's homework more than I'd hated all the rest put together.

I say there should be NO homework until middle school, and very little after that: if the school-day isn't long enough to cover the curriculum, perhaps smaller classes, better teachers and/or a better curriculum are required. Making children keep on doing schoolwork when they're not in school is just like making adults work overtime without pay, and it fosters disparity, because the only children who succeed under those conditions are those who've got a grown-up at home able and willing to coerce and assist them. If there has to be homework at all, it should be 'extra credit' only, not part of the regular grade.

[conuly]

I say there should be NO homework until middle school, and very little after that: if the school-day isn't long enough to cover the curriculum, perhaps smaller classes, better teachers and/or a better curriculum are required. Making children keep on doing schoolwork when they're not in school is just like making adults work overtime without pay, and it fosters disparity, because the only children who succeed under those conditions are those who've got a grown-up at home able and willing to coerce and assist them. If there has to be homework at all, it should be 'extra credit' only, not part of the regular grade.

Hear, hear. Plus, it teaches all the wrong work habits, like "Teachers will lie and say anything, but they won't really fail you if you don't do your work" or "It's okay to rush and skim, so long as it gets done" and "Nobody minds if your mom does it or you copy off your friend".

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The only reason my daughter got to walk with her class for Graduation was because I took up arms in the Homework Wars, wrote several major papers for her outright, and 'assisted' so much with the research and copy-editing of the rest that I might as well have written them outright.

It was so bogus. She was buried under a veritable mountain of make-work assignments of zero relevance to her actual education, and her high-school diploma depended on completing all that junk. She genuinely worked her butt off to complete it, but I had to work mine off as well.

If I had it all to do over again, I'd do just as I did, but I'd start sooner and have a lot less compunction about "doing her work for her". By what frickin' right does the school load her down with so-called 'work' of no benefit to her or anyone else? Why the hell should I condone that egregious imposition by either forcing her to do it or allowing her to fail?

Actually, if I had it all to do over again, I'd probably start doing her homework for her outright in about second grade: it would have saved so very much time and stress for both of us. The only thing homework ever taught her was to hate homework, and she learned that lesson the first year she had any, so there was no point in repeating it ad infinitum for ten more years.

[conuly]

For years I had nightmares that they were suddenly going to remember I had turned in my final assignment for civics after the actual due date AND the actual late date (AND the final date for grades to be sent in... actually, I think I turned it in the day before graduation) and take away my diploma.

This was not helped by the fact that I never bothered to pick up my diploma in the first place, and it is presumably still at Curtis High School getting dusty.

[conuly]

Also, thank you :) (But not about suddenly besetting me with guilt, about the other part of your comment.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, you're welcome! I'm not besetting you with guilt, hon; if you've got guilt, you're generating it yourself. I'm just reminding you, so you won't have permanent guilt for forgetting until it's too late to do anything about it. You said they'd write letters; you said nothing about when - most people will have forgotten about it, so they'll be extra-pleased and touched to receive them after all.

I'd suggest something like stencils and/or print-blocks - it's easy to crank out a lot of art-cards with those, and if they all look much the same, who's to know?

[conuly]

Bit late now, but we'll get them for Little Christmas, with their bikes.