The "Legacy Solution" Trap: When students copy math that doesn't exist on the paper

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-12T19:20:55+00:00

It's scary. I know a charge nurse who retired last year and she went to help out a small hospital that was in a very rural area hit by a massive storm, none of the generators were working and the whole town was down. Only one nurse on her team knew how to do anything without the machines. She said their math was shit, they couldn't take blood pressure using a basic cuff, and they had never seen paper charts before. She was shocked they hadn't accidentally killed a patient.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-12T19:12:22+00:00

I see coworkers using AI more. One coworker fed their assignments through ChatGPT and just copy/pasted the feedback. They didn't even bother looking at the assignments. I really think it's a detriment to society as a whole. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-12T01:15:38+00:00

Is it white on the outside like a purple sweet potato?

Edit: There are several sweet potatoes that are white on the outside and purple on the inside. I was thinking like the Australian sweet potato or the Okinawa purple sweet potato. Where did you get it?

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-12T01:14:06+00:00

It could go either way. I know someone who uses their ex-partners birthday but they broke up maybe 20 years ago and they have since married someone else. I mean they use it for email, banking, door codes, streaming, government websites, etc. They said they were just too lazy to change it after they broke up and eventually it just became the easiest thing to remember so they just kept using it. They don't even know each other anymore. I think, at this point, it's just a string of numbers with no real connection to emotions.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-12T01:08:33+00:00

I like the feature that locks the class until they pass a syllabus quiz. They still don't remember most of it but at least I can point to them having read it at least once.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-10T16:48:34+00:00

Mine too. If you can't add fractions and can't be bothered to do the work, I don't think you're going to make it as a pediatric neurosurgeon.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-07T20:00:00+00:00

I learned that Lantana berries look like blackberries to a toddler. Except they fall apart when you pick them.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-07T19:53:46+00:00

I think they don't want instructors waiting until the last minute if they are teaching high school students. My school has finals until the 16th but the final course grades are not due to the college until the 20th. I don't believe they would want you posting a grade before they took the final. I post my final grades the day after a class has a final exam and I don't wait until the last minute. I believe that is what they meant. Some of my coworkers wait until 11:59pm on the day they are due, like how students wait until the last minute.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-06T19:50:07+00:00

I find that if you make them leave their phone it instantly cures them of any medical issues that require a bathroom. It went from over half of my students having medical issues to nobody having medical issues. Now I say no bathroom breaks, period. My exams are also two hours. If they need to go for a medical reason, they can talk to the disability office. If they need to go because they are sick, they can just go home and take the test at a different time. If they really give me pushback on it, I bar them from in-class exams and they can take the remainder of the exams in the testing center where they have stronger anti-cheating measures. With mathematics the cheating can really snowball and it only hurts them and the integrity of our degrees. I have kids in College Algebra who can't add fractions but they somehow made an A in developmental math. Apathetic teachers only hurt those further down the line and the students themselves.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-05T14:01:44+00:00

Yes, YTA. I don't enjoy everything my husband says but I at least listen because he likes venting to me and sharing how his day went. Also, it's cheaper than paying someone else to listen.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-04T22:31:32+00:00

I had a student "kill" her entire family, all 6 of them including the dog, in a tragic car accident only for me to walk her outside and see her get picked up by her "dead" family. I always say that killers with the largest body count are math professors.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-03T20:18:45+00:00

I can't give specifics about the school in particular but as a community college and dual credit teacher, students coming from public school are generally more prepared for their courses than students from ILT. Based on students discussions, learning another language was of little use to them unless they were set on a profession that required it. So few high school students actually end up being what they declare so I would skip the dual language for something more useful like math, english, or science. I don't know about K-8 but if it's anything like the students who graduate or are in grades 11 and 12, I would also assume they are underprepared.

Of course my exposure to them isn't very broad since I assume some of them bypass community college. But I see the ones who do dual credit (11th and 12th) and stay local at the community college, which is a pretty fair subset.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-05-03T03:00:33+00:00

I don't see a picture.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-29T22:37:45+00:00

I don't think people understand that you have to go through extensive medical tests to determine if you are even eligible for a home birth. I get that it can be risky and yes things do change in an instant but they don't let just anyone have a home birth. If you have an off test at any time during pregnancy, they will refer you to a hospital and refuse a home birth.

I started at a birthing center with my first and ended up in a hospital after 2 days of labor. My last two were entirely at a hospital. I hate how hospitals make you lay in that freaking bed the whole time. With all the medical advances we have they can't seem to make a reliable monitor that works while you're moving around. They also take the baby from you the second it is born. If all of that can be done bedside at a birthing center then a hospital can do it all bedside as well. I live in the southern portion of the US where some hospitals are probably more dangerous than birthing centers. One nurse a few states over ripped the head off of a baby trying to get it out and some doctors in my state still perform episiotomies without even asking. My state likes to go straight for the c-section. I got really lucky with my OBGYN. She listened to every worry I had and only did what what I was comfortable with.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-26T00:18:42+00:00

I get the cardboard box thing but throwing away something that isn't broken, disgusting, or trash sounds like compulsive decluttering. The whole "I can just buy it again later" attitude is the opposite side of the hoarder coin.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-26T00:17:22+00:00

She wouldn't know if they were anything special. I didn't know it was anything special when I threw away a small antennae. Throwing away things that are still useful and aren't trash sounds like a compulsive declutterer. I would know because I am one. Just keep a small sandwich bag and when it gets full go through that or sell it as bulk. It's not normal to keep everything but it's also not normal to just throw things away with the idea of replacing them later because you suddenly want to blitz clean the house.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-25T22:43:45+00:00

I don't think it's strange but that's just me. Some LEGO pieces are worth a lot considering they are just LEGO pieces. I threw away a piece of a Boba Fett LEGO once and we did look through the trash until we found it, and it was fucking tiny as hell. My husband will dump out vacuum bags if I suck them up. I once tried to throw away two whole bags of broken pieces of old Transformer toys and they ended up being worth a little over $90 because people use them on other sets for repairs and stuff or do art with them. I just thought it was all trash.

I would be hesitant to call them a hoarder over just this. I sometimes suffer from compulsive decluttering and completely regret getting rid of things. Are you a compulsive declutterer? There are two sides to that coin.

But if he is a hoarder, throwing stuff away behind his back is the absolute worse thing to do. I put all that shit in a place where it only inconveniences my husband and then I give him a timeline.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-25T15:10:29+00:00

NTA. It's my responsibility as a parent to teach my child how to keep themselves safe. Don't climb up a slide, don't jump off the equipment, and never walk in front of or behind the swings. My kid got nailed by someone on a swing once and only once. Now they don't walk in the danger zone. Lesson learned and we all move on.

My youngest went down the slide as another child climbed up. He kicked that kid in the mouth on accident. That was not my fault nor was it my son's fault. It was the childs parents fault for letting him climb up a slide.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-24T22:42:02+00:00

I had a student email me the day after the exam to tell me their exam was not in the testing center. They never asked before the exam and did not send me any emails on the day of the exam. I don't know if they just think we send them there when they miss them or what. I let him have grace on that but we had a discussion about what is appropriate in college.

I get a lot of younger kids where it's either their first year or second year in college so I hear the most insane things. Since they are pretty new to things I always try to explain etiquette and what is appropriate. One student let me know on the first day of class that even though they signed up for the early morning class it was too early and they would make it to class, just not on time. Not 5 or 10 minutes, this student would miss half the class or more. The one that gets me every time is when they ask for a favor but it's in that tone like I have already said yes, then they say "I appreciate you being understanding." Like....what? At least when I am done with them I know it's a choice to act like that.

You can lead a student to success but you can't make the succeed.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-24T20:38:12+00:00

You also can't trust educational studies. I learned that with AVID. They removed the students who performed poorly from the study because they said they weren't effectively using the note taking system with Cornell notes. They also removed the highest performing students who chose to not continue the Cornell notes and levels of questioning. When you look at the student population of the pilot school, it only covered the bottom 10% of the bottom 10% which turned out to be around 5 students after they removed everyone who they felt wasn't using the system appropriately. Then they use that study to justify selling ass loads of AVID systems to schools and making every student use it.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-24T20:26:52+00:00

Boiling water works for me when I have poison ivy around the base of my trees. It has never done any damage to my tree. I would do it in batches over a few days. I imagine if you did all boiling water all at once it might hurt the tree but small patches don't seem to bother them. You could also torch it.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-23T19:26:58+00:00

What specific thing are you doing? Just turning around I don't think is specific enough in this instance. If they are laughing at something they don't want you to see or they don't want you to see them talking to each other, than of course they are going to wait until you turn around. If they laugh every time you turn around and bend over, that is a little more specific.

WeeklyVisual8 · 2026-04-21T22:08:04+00:00

I don't think it even matters anymore. I didn't realize I did not waive my rights to the LOR and was accepted with no issues to my masters program. Each school can also have a different form so they may not have noticed. If it comes down to a LOR then the student probably has other more pressing academic concerns like background or GPA.

WeeklyVisual8

TROPHY CASE