apron1 (u/apron1) - Readit News

apron1 commented on Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record wsj.com/articles/teachers... · Posted by u/dpflan

sopooneo · 7 years ago

I think you have a point. But in my experience with two polar opposite schools in Massachusetts, the ones that have a lot of "helicopter parents" don't have any issue with passing rates on the mandatory state tests. They're at over 98% passing.

The tests the parents in such wealthy schools get upset about are the teacher assigned ones.

But again, I only have deep knowledge of two schools, so am happy to be corrected if I'm on off this.

apron1 · 7 years ago

I think more testing initiatives, whether to help failing schools or in top schools are misinformed at best and cancer at worst. They eventually would converge to east asia style meaningless competitive exams which are utterly destructive to any actual learning.

apron1 commented on Why I’m so “against” Ethereum threadreaderapp.com/threa... · Posted by u/DyslexicAtheist

apo · 7 years ago

By now the Ethereum bloat is so bad that cheaply running an individual node is practically impossible for a lay person.

This is an important yet under-appreciated point. It's now extremely difficult to sync an Ethereum node from scratch. If the processes ever completes on commodity hardware, it takes weeks. And that difficulty will only climb as more and more stuff gets dropped onto the Turing-Complete "world computer."

This situation drives users in ever greater numbers to services that tell them which transactions are valid or not. Verification with a full node, the bedrock of censorship resistance, dies a death of 1,000 cuts as a result.

apron1 · 7 years ago

Vitalik Buterin disagrees with you specifically on the topic of endlessly increasing impractical eth blockchain:

https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/because-of-ethereums-expo...

apron1 commented on Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record wsj.com/articles/teachers... · Posted by u/dpflan

allcentury · 7 years ago

There's much more to this story. My mother, a high school calculus teacher for the last 22 years is so ready to retire.

I didn't think my mom would ever retire, she spends countless hours coming up with unique lesson plans for the kids - they usually involve games, real world use cases and many ah-ha moments. She lives for those moments when a kid lights up when they understand the value of what their learning.

Now though, over the last 8 years, she told me that parents have ruined the job she loves. Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected.

She told me of an email she received that said "X is trying to get into Princeton - an A- isn't going to get her in. What extra credit can she do to make this an A?".

It's endless and my mom, for fear of a lawsuit, doesn't know what to do. The teachers union in Massachusetts made all the teachers sign liability waivers and arbitration waivers if a lawsuit happens. My mom is scared stiff and either bends over, or doesn't and let's the vice principal or principal take the heat, ultimately it leading to an extra credit assignment.

My mom's job sounds miserable and if you were to ask me 15 years ago, what I might do in my retirement - I would have said taught CS at a disadvantaged high school. Now though, I'm seconding guessing that retirement plan.

apron1 · 7 years ago

What did anyone expect when everyone whole-heartedly supported more mandatory testing and measurement intiatives to help failing schools, almost about a decade back? If you start emphasizing test scores, that's all that will be optimized.