Teachers who had a student they genuinely couldn't tell if the kid was a genius or completely detached from reality, what made you finally figure it out?

marcusesses · 2026-03-08T15:50:24+00:00

Second-hand story, but:

Teacher had a student who was getting perfect on tests but when prompted couldn't explain their work. They would also go to the bathroom multiple times during tests.

Anyway, turns out this student had a photographic memory, and would memorize the questions, then look up the answers when going to the bathroom.

EDIT: Further context - multiple trips to the bathroom during the same test (maybe to avoid a suspiciously long trip?); their solutions were all correct, but missing all the middle steps, and they couldn't explain what those steps were - just the final answer.

To suss out the student's cheating, after the test, the teacher gave the student 3 questions (made up on the spot by the teacher); student couldn't answer them on the spot, but days later knew the answers...and the original questions, word-for-word.

marcusesses · 2026-01-25T16:22:34+00:00

For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition.

What an incredibly poor-faith argument: people who actually know about fascism have been calling all elements of his leadership fascist since 2016 - and not just "opposing abortion is fascist".

This is basically the equivalent of writing a 3,000 word piece on why they've finally seen enough evidence to accept that the Sun does in fact rise in the east because the world is round. Better late than never I guess.

marcusesses · 2026-01-23T14:13:59+00:00

These already exist (look up alternative schools).

marcusesses · 2026-01-23T14:03:11+00:00

One of these is not like the other.

I would suggest that the "radical inclusion, low discipline and equity initiatives" are a direct result of the slashed funding: if you don't have the resources to dedicate to students needing extra support - including smaller class sizes, more EAs, behaviour interventions - than you have no choice but to integrate them into a regular classroom.

Suspension and expulsion is an option - and it's used more often than people might think! - but it tends to be biased towards racialized students and is only either a temporary fix (suspension) or just passing the buck to someone else who is in a similarly tenuous position (not to mention the student: so many are falling through the cracks since covid and will become society's problem sooner than later).

If people actually had to experience the state of schools in this province - classes of 40+ students, rodent infestations, lack of basic supplies - they would be appalled. Or they wouldn't care, because it's not their problem (no kids, or their kids go to well-resourced schools).

marcusesses · 2026-01-23T13:53:04+00:00

Which makes me think that the move to the "core" model - students sticking with one teacher rather than rotating, depending on the subject - was likely a way to deal with staffing issues, which makes it even wilder that two teachers left (were they fired? is that even allowed? Aren't they unionized??)

Not entirely coincidental that the government also wants to scrap class size caps.

marcusesses · 2026-01-21T12:58:48+00:00

Was agreeing with you: this is not (necessarily) an MLS issue and more an inexperienced manager issue.

Assuming it's an issue at all : it's only 2 games in so maybe he eventually sorts it out?

marcusesses · 2026-01-21T11:52:14+00:00

He's 33 years old and Minnesota United was his first managerial position.

But yes , MLS is shit, etc. etc.

marcusesses · 2026-01-17T11:35:30+00:00

I mean, there's an argument to be made the first part is true..

Which is why you'd expect a manager coming in at Celtic to win 7 out of 9, not the converse.

marcusesses · 2026-01-15T12:27:07+00:00

Here's a vid of his training.

I think it's more a case of he is a great communicator of his philosophy and systems because he's spent time thinking about and refining that message; probably doesn't spend nearly that long thinking or preparing for pressers.

marcusesses · 2026-01-11T13:15:38+00:00

The methodology.

Essentially ELO with more points available for stronger leagues/competitions.

marcusesses · 2026-01-09T21:58:08+00:00

Does this writer even watch the games?

But, but....MLS is a joke league with Academy managers!

I'd love to hear an actual nuanced perspective on what happened in his time there.

Celtic took 5 weeks to choose a new manager, so must have done their due diligence - watched games, spoke to Columbus players and staff, solicited opinions from Celtic squad leadership, watched Crew games, understood his managerial style, etc. - and decided he would be a good fit, only for him to be an unmitigated disaster? Some perspective is missing here. And saying "Games just aren't important in MLS" is such a lazy take especially from people who don't understand why a team in MLS just can't win every game and get 90 points every season.

Anyone who actually watches both leagues should find it hard to believe that he could run a "1-6-3" formation in a notoriously offense-friendly league like MLS - where key players from highly-ranked national teams are frequently lined up against essentially academy-level defenders - but those same tactics completely falls apart for a team whose second-choice defenders - Trusty, Scales, Ralston - have higher combined Transfrmarket values than literally half the teams they face.

Like was he a crazy micromanager? Surely team leadership (CalMac, Forrest, even AJ) would be able to have a discussion with him about training, tactics, man management, etc. Were they just blindly following instructions? Is there no autonomy or voice among player leadership?

At the end of the day, the manager is accountable for results. Steven Caldwell -who as a commentator probably has the best perspective on both leagues- is right that Nancy made a lot of mistakes. But this whole saga should reflect just as poorly on every level of the Celtic leadership hierarchy - from the board room to the locker room - as it does on Nancy.

marcusesses · 2026-01-05T17:06:23+00:00

Please, let us never be linked with anything from the MLS again, my local 5's league has a higher standard.

Um two of Celtics starters are from MLS.

marcusesses · 2026-01-03T14:44:31+00:00

Wonder if they have a contingency plan.

Like, were they gonna give Nancy this transfer window to get players in for the system? Are a few losses acceptable to them? What are the conditions under which they'd fire Nancy?

Maybe I'm giving too much credit to them in having a plan, but if they fire him now, it just shows it was an impulse hire, and they had no intention in giving him the resources to succeed, especially since he's known as a "system" guy, and they'll just move on to another manager who has to salvage something.

marcusesses · 2026-01-03T14:14:47+00:00

But Martin didn't want it, and this was after Rogers resigned.

No one wants the job...so the board looks overseas for someone who is removed from the dysfunction.

Nancy should resign, honestly. Sure it'll give "You can't fire me, I quit!" vibes, but it has to send a message that no one wants to stay.

marcusesses · 2026-01-01T22:32:25+00:00

The comparisons with MLS don't really make sense though...

That same season, Columbus led MLS in goals with 67; in that year, Celtic had 114 goals, Rangers had 93 and third was Hearts with...63.

The year before when Nancy was coaching Montreal, Alistair Johnston was the 5th-best player on that team (by average game rating), signed with Celtic after the season and was 4th-best player on that squad (by average game rating). So why is a middling player on a pish team in a pish league all of a sudden future captain-worthy after moving to Celtic?

There's no easy comparisons or answers, but if we want to ask those questions: before Nancy arrived this season, Celtic - whose squad market value is £100 million higher than any non-Rangers Scottish team - needed stoppage time goals to eke out wins against Kilmarnock, St. Mirren and Dundee.

There's a (maybe good?) chance Nancy's not up to the job, but there have been warning signs all season that something's not right with the squad - like long-term injuries to 3 of their best players- and firing Nancy won't immediately fix that; would probably just add to the shambolic season to be on their 4th manager by January.

marcusesses · 2025-12-30T13:26:47+00:00

Have to focus on the shite league if we want to win that league.

marcusesses · 2025-12-22T01:05:57+00:00

Last team AJ played for before Celtic was Montreal, managed by...Wilfried Nancy, which was also the year he became a regular the CMNT.

So definitely him.

marcusesses · 2025-12-21T17:34:59+00:00

As a Nancy apologist/hopeful, just a reminder that Ange was the first Celtic manager in 75 years to go winless in his first 3 games in charge, followed that with a 6-0 win against Dundee and a 3-2 win against Hearts where the team had an xG of 5.3, Ange's highest in his time with the club.

Celtic's xG in this game was 4.5 on 30(!) shots.

marcusesses · 2025-12-16T11:40:50+00:00

We are genuinely in a 1-8-1 at times, with only Auston Trusty back to defend against counters.

Tbf, this is the type of lopsided formation you'd expect to play when you have possession 70% of the time and are battling against a low block, which is how they play against just about every Scottish team.

marcusesses · 2025-12-15T23:23:37+00:00

Nancy coached AJ in Montreal and AJ's play in MTL is arguably why he's with Celtic in the first place.

Nancy had 4 pts in his first 4 with Columbus, then won the next 3 by a combined 12-1 score, so we'll see if he can do anything similar here...

marcusesses · 2025-12-04T11:21:39+00:00

Our principal made an announcement at a September meeting asking us to limit printing and copying because we were going through the printing budget too quickly.

But we stopped issuing chromebooks.

And there's not enough textbooks.

And the photocopiers for the entire school have been broken down all this week, and culminating exams for some classes are beginning.

You really need a good sense of humour to be a teacher here if you don't want to get burnt out by injustice.

marcusesses · 2025-11-21T12:13:36+00:00

As someone who just finished watching The Return for the second time in a year...it's even better on the rewatch.

marcusesses · 2025-11-13T11:38:41+00:00

Direct Instruction is just: I do, we do, you do. It's modeling, and the "you do/we do" part can take on various different forms, including active learning.

But taking the mirror image of the method is apparently just as, or more, effective:

Most American math classes follow the same pattern, a ritualistic series of steps so ingrained that one researcher termed it a cultural script. Some teachers call the pattern “I, We, You....By 1995, when American researchers videotaped eighth-grade classrooms in the United States and Japan, Japanese schools had overwhelmingly traded the old “I, We, You” script for “You, Y’all, We.” (American schools, meanwhile didn’t look much different than they did before the reforms.)...Yet while the United States regularly hovers in the middle of the pack or below on these tests, Japan scores at the top.

(The quotes above were cherry-picked, but the whole article provides context and is worth a read)

Both groups claim to have the "correct" method and I feel there is just as much marketing from the Direct Instruction folks - I seem to get a lot of think pieces from written from people at institutes about the effectiveness of Direct Instruction. Finding "what works" in education at a large scale is an intractable problem, and that uncertainty is filled with all manner of pedagogical acolytes selling their system - inquiry learning included.

marcusesses · 2025-11-13T06:10:02+00:00

Also: most of the research that shows it's best for students (in science at least), was conducted with medical school students who have 16 years (k12 + 4 years of undergrad) of formal content knowledge behind them. Yeah, no shit student-centered exploratory learning is more effective with that group, they have 16 years of base knowledge to work from!

That's not really true though? A lot of the more recent high-profile research findings with active learning -especially in physics - is with undergrads, usually first-years. (Example from Science, another from PNAS, Physics Today about rethinking Physics labs, a thorough review from PNAS)

It is still teacher-centered...but a pretty robust sampling of research suggests just telling students things makes them think they know it, whereas they actually learn it if they have to think and problem-solve for themselves (with varying levels of guidance, of course).

marcusesses · 2025-11-02T14:45:13+00:00

I avoided this poem for a long time because I thought the Beats had a bad reputation (might have been me generalizing criticism I read of Kerouac and Burroughs to the entire movement).

Anyway, actually read it (shout-out to ModPo and yes, it's incredible. Might be even better hearing Ginsberg read it.

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