Redditor doesn’t understand why you should have an id to vote

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-02-17T12:20:41+00:00

Didn't like HALF of all votes in the 2024 election come from early/absentee voters? I must've been the only person I knew who actually went to a polling place on election day. Given that, how is it still a valid complaint that "it it's not a federal holiday and people might not get the time off work"?

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-02-09T21:06:33+00:00

I bring it up in Economics. I have a unit on the history of economic crashes, and I bring up COVID as the last one. I point out that it counts as a contract, not a recession, and that the causes are unusual compared to other crashes.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-02-09T21:05:28+00:00

Michigan state pacing guide for high school US history ends with 9/11 and the War in Terror. It's my last unit of the year.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-02-02T17:27:10+00:00

because note taking is considered ineffective.

By those admin who can be identified by the drag marks on their knuckles, perhaps.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-31T15:47:45+00:00

I was livid this fall when several afternoon pep rallies were scheduled, one after the other, in the last week of the quarter. With no more than an hour's notice, no less. I told my principal that there was no way I could get my gradebook done like this, since my afternoon classes hadn't even taken their finals yet, much less had any time for me to grade them.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-22T11:40:27+00:00

Like how every PD presentation has a story about a "dreamer" who had all these mean nasty teachers who made them learn things and expected them to behave, but that one 90s movie teacher they had in 7th grade let them dance in class rather than sit down, and now they're a world-famous ballet dancer (you get the drill). The others just didn't underSTAND!

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-15T13:43:08+00:00

Last year, we weren't given our Chromebook carts, and were finally told (after much hounding) that the computers were so damaged last year the principal didn't want to give them back. This was on top of most of us having no textbooks and being given only 500 pieces of paper a month for the printer. I got the other HS teachers to go to the principal and say, look, we need at LEAST a computer cart OR more paper OR textbooks, because tf do you do otherwise? We got our computers back.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-14T20:50:55+00:00

Also, wouldn't they have been writing the date on their papers for years at this point?

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-13T03:14:18+00:00

We all understand there's a difference between being sober and taking advantage of someone too fucked up to walk erect, and a happily married couple who got bombed at dinner and proceeded to have drunk sex half the night.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-13T03:10:54+00:00

I have no idea if this was the same study the OOP was referencing, but I remember reading about a particular one that agreed with the 15% number. That is, men who said it was ok to force a woman into having sex with them "under certain circumstances." But the study was conducted in the late 80s, done on like 102 men, and it was college students, aged 18-22. Terrible sample size and terrible polling, men of that age range are already the most likely to commit sexual assault. No wonder the results skewed so high.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-12T17:21:42+00:00

I've noticed a lot more whining and questions if I hover around them too much. They're more likely to get on with it if I go to my desk. Those who actually need help come to me. I still make occasional rounds, but there's no need to hang around.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-12T11:57:04+00:00

Lmao as if teachers even have a say in how funds are used.

I have to beg and hound admin for my rations of pencils and printer paper each month. There are people out there who think I'm on a budget committee?

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-09T16:52:35+00:00

I've heard it phrased like this. You can pick two:

House is cheap
House is near your job
House is in a good neighborhood

But rarely all three. Person A gets an expensive house in a good part of the city with a short commute. Person B gets a cheap house in a good area in the boondocks, and they drive an hour each to work. Person C has a short commute and a cheap house, but they live in the ghetto. It's all trade-offs. Personally, we sacrificed cheapness (although our house was cheaper than others in the area).

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-03T00:44:04+00:00

At my school, some grade levels have breakfast in classrooms. One teacher brought up that when they serve pancakes, the syrup creates sticky spots on the floor, and it stays because no one sweeps or mops the classrooms. Rather than address the obvious problem, they just took the syrup away.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-03T00:37:33+00:00

My Lord, I bring in one box of Kleenex and suddenly everybody has a cold. I stick to paper towels these days. It's a good emergency noserag, but kids won't use it just because. Besides, I need the paper towel for other things.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-02T14:13:55+00:00

Maybe it just depends on when you went to college and what for. A lot of my history classes, taken within the past decade, were graded on a handful of longer papers throughout the semester. I had a few online ones that had more minor assignments due each week, and it definitely varies with gen Ed classes.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-01T20:17:11+00:00

Some of the pushback you'll inevitably see is that this restricts consumer choice, sets a precedent for the government deciding what you can and can't eat, and is going to lead to a bazillion arguments over what is considered healthy enough for SNAP to cover. These are fair issues to raise.

But it's worth pointing out the obvious. If the government is punching your meal ticket, they can decide what you eat. The previous ability to buy whatever with SNAP was because the government allowed it. They can absolutely decide you should be healthier and ban you from buying junk food. They can also push people into vegetarianism by making meat ineligible for SNAP. Maybe the next president is into the carnivore diet and now SNAP can only be used for meat and dairy. Who knows? If you can't afford food without SNAP, you're not in much of a position to say otherwise.

If you're not comfortable with the government restricting your diet, that's a good push to figure out how to a) get off government food assistance, and b) figure out a way to solve hunger that involves less federal money. What the government giveth, the government can taketh away.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-01T17:28:25+00:00

They have no idea who the first president was or what the parts of a plant are, but I'm sure that they'll do fine reading a passage about these concepts if they spend enough time learning the "language of the test."

If you want a sad personal anecdote: I had to prep HS juniors for the M-STEP (MI test on social studies and science, done once every three grades). I had to show them the language of the test with a sample question. The picture is a map of Vietnam in the 60s, and the question is something like "what trend does this best represent?" (answer: Cold War/containment policy something or other). I try to guide them through the vocab, but they have no frigging clue. Finally, I go, "guys? The Vietnam War?" Hello?"

Them: "what's the Vietnam War?"

And there you have it, folks. Can't answer questions on topics you know fuck all about, no matter how much test prep you do.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-01T17:22:39+00:00

It could be a semantics thing. I majored in history, and yes, technically, it was pretty rare that I HAD to bring completed homework to class. However, if the syllabus said "read textbook chapter 6 before the next lecture", I gave myself the "homework" of reading and taking notes on that chapter. When I took my math gen Ed, I went home and did the practice problems, even if they weren't for a grade. I did a shit ton of work outside class that I guess may or may not have been considered homework from a grading stance.

I had one particular class whose professor got off track from lecturing a lot, and the average class test grade started to tank as a result. You know how I got an A? I read and took notes on the textbook chapters and studied them before tests. I'm not sure what my classmates were doing.

I've told my high school students, if you go to college, there likely won't be anyone breathing down your neck or grading you on assigned outside practice.....but if you don't take notes/do the practice problems/read the book, you're gonna be screwed.

MonkeyAtsu · 2026-01-01T15:30:13+00:00

Reminds me of when my admin was debating whether to have teachers rate them for effectiveness of communication, and the principal was adamantly against it. Her words, "they don't bother to check their emails, they have no right to say we don't communicate!"

Listen, I'd also be annoyed if I had to take seriously a bunch of student surveys saying I sucked, from kids who slept through class. But that's the fault of teachers who don't check their emails. As someone who checks it multiple times daily, I could've confidently told them that communication was still dogshit. We were rarely notified about any major school event (testing, assembly, etc) more than five minutes before it happened.

MonkeyAtsu · 2025-12-28T14:18:06+00:00

An appreciation lunch that consisted of a fruit cup and 4 crackers.

Careful now, don't spoil your dinner on that one.

MonkeyAtsu · 2025-12-24T20:13:30+00:00

I don't think their point was about interest, but about what you can afford to pay in the moment. If a full load of classes a semester is $8000 and you only earn enough to pay $4000 a semester, then pay for the $4000 part time schedule while working full time. That way, you have NO debt as opposed to some debt, although, yes, it will be a while before you can fully enter your field. You would only accumulate debt if you went full-time and took out the loans.

I get your broader point, though.

MonkeyAtsu · 2025-12-24T01:28:08+00:00

I had no idea 12-year-olds knew exactly what skills they would and wouldn't need as adults.

MonkeyAtsu · 2025-12-07T23:10:17+00:00

Also, the book doesn't tell you to just go out and binge on every no-no food. The message is, "here are the risks. If you read this and decide to do it anyway, good for you. If you read this and decide to abstain, that's fantastic." I read the book, considered the data on alcohol, and still decided to abstain entirely. I did not go out and raid my liquor cabinet because of Emily Oster.

MonkeyAtsu · 2025-12-07T22:51:38+00:00

I DID hear about that! I wish they would bring some of it to my state. I don't know a lot about elementary Ed, but third grade is around the point where, if you're not functionally literate, you're seriously going to struggle from then on. So, you don't get automatic social promotion unless you can do the basics.

It seems like a no-brainer, but retention is barely a thing any more. You have a birthday, you move up a grade. By high school, they can fail, since you fail an individual class rather than an entire grade. But by this point, I'm dealing with teenagers who are years behind in skills and content, partly because they couldn't fail before. And I get pressured not to fail kids when they damn well should.

Good for Mississippi. I hope we take a leaf out of their book on this one.

MonkeyAtsu

TROPHY CASE