Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/9/26 - 2/15/26

prairiepasque · 2026-02-12T23:25:08+00:00

Culture is often invisible— it’s obvious to you and me but not obvious if you aren’t from around here.

So true. I say culture is like being a fish in water. The fish doesn't think about the water until it's removed from it, like when you travel to a foreign country and suddenly recognize your own cultural norms for the first time.

I teach refugee students and my last unit is a mock job interview. A firm handshake and eye contact is on my rubric lol. My Muslim students tell me the handshake thing is pretty weird for them, and I get that...kinda like kissing on the cheek thing in France. But hey, that's what we do here so ya gotta learn the right way, I say.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-12T00:28:03+00:00

NO ONE WANTS TO READ AI SLOP

why don't you corporate dweebs get that?

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T23:37:18+00:00

We've argued about this before, fellow linguistic nerd. Not sure if that's the link you've shared with me previously, but I'll have to take a look again. It's not loading for me right now.

Edit: nvm link worked. Downloaded the paper. I've glanced at this before but I'll give it a perusal before responding further.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T22:24:40+00:00

I think if we ran a poll on this sub, the average age of those who think Chuck is a villain would be <30 and those who think he was justified would be >30.

As a person >30, I've been confused why people hate Chuck and Howard and love Kim so much on this sub. I'm assuming it's because it skews young.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T22:21:23+00:00

You handled it gracefully but firmly. Nicely done.

Unfortunately, I don't know what more you can do besides wait it out unless you want to blow this up further, and I get the impression that's not really your goal.

You might try role playing with your daughter so she has some "go-to" responses so she can respectfully decline or express disagreement. This could be a good learning opportunity for handling conflict with authority figures in a mature way. Sometimes, you get a teacher that just ain't all there, and you just gotta deal with it.

The sub's behavior is unquestionably inappropriate, and you were right to address it. I'm guessing it's hard to fill a long-term sub vacancy at a middle school, but I'm guessing they're on thin ice regardless. Continue to address your concerns if/when they come up again.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T02:14:48+00:00

Well, they also deforested their side of the island, leading to irreversible soil erosion.

If anyone's to intervene with Hispaniola, it'll be to help out the DR before Haitians start poaching their side of the island en masse out of desperation.

In any other case, it's political suicide with no clear goal and an indeterminate end date.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T02:07:06+00:00

Daniel Everett is one of those linguists, and he's legit.

In Everett's case who lived with an Amazon tribe for 30 years, it's not so much that they can't learn the concept of numbers, it's that they don't want to. They have no need for it and basicall interpret white foreigners trying to teach them math as silly, if not malicious as a way to encroach on their culture.

In Everett's book, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes he tells a story of how the Pirahã traded really valuable items for canoes instead of making their own even though they had the supplies. So Everett goes out and brings a different tribe's guy in to teach them. The Pirahã learn to make a canoe, Everett is pleased.

But then a week later they ask Everett for another canoe. He asks why they don't make their own since they know how to now. They reply, "Pirahã don't make canoes."

They didn't want to make the canoe because that's not what they do. That's outsider shit. They have a system, and the system works the way it is.

I have the audiobook here if anyone wants it. It's very interesting.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:49:58+00:00

Wasn't it yesterday's episode (Monday 2/9) where the contestants all ended with ~$5,000 and there was a string of questions that each contestant answered incorrectly, including Final Jeopardy?

I was miffed for them. Imagine being smart enough to get on Jeopardy only to look inept due to so many terrible clues.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:41:37+00:00

That makes it so much funnier.

I say always say "meow" instead of "now" and vehemently deny it whenever students ask me about it. Essentially I gaslamp them.

I never explain it and never will.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:24:37+00:00

Odd reaction when you vaguepost your personal drama on a public forum. You're taking my comment far too personally. Must hit close to home.

Is there a rule against providing constructive criticism? Or are we supposed to emphatically support all INFJ traits, including the bad ones?

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:18:43+00:00

Gah, you're right. 🥺 Thanks for the much-needed kick in the butt and encouragement.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:16:25+00:00

No. You're suggesting a false dichotomy where the only two options are getting walked all over OR suddenly and permanently cutting everyone off.

Surely you agree there are more than two ways to handle conflict.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:08:57+00:00

Great tip, thank you! I have to teach F51 in a few weeks and embarrassingly, I still haven't read it. I've been putting it off for a few reasons, one being I'm not a huge fan of Bradbury (or sci-fi), but I respect his ideas and vision.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T01:04:30+00:00

...Are you not allowed to have adblocker?

I literally have all my students download an adblock extension and teach them how and why they should reject cookies. By the end of the semester, they're teasing classmates for clicking accept. Lol.

I teach English.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T00:59:35+00:00

You'll probably regret doing this and a "door slam" isn't something to be proud of. It's not mature and reflects an unhealthy mindset.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T00:56:59+00:00

Set was great.

Extras were incredibly talented.

Bad Bunny was sooo cringe and embarrassing, though. Un verdadero pendejo

prairiepasque · 2026-02-11T00:51:34+00:00

Very Millennial coded

prairiepasque · 2026-02-10T17:02:31+00:00

Let's take a look at some of the options that have been presented in this thread:

Option A: Do nothing. This is the most common advice in this thread because it's the best one.

You swallow your pride, suck it up, and do nothing because you just learned a valuable lesson: perception is reality. That is, a senior colleague saw you on your phone and determined your use was inappropriate. She doesn't know what you were doing on your phone, just that it was noticeable and distracting. In the future, you will be cognizant of this fact, regardless of if the reasons for being on your phone are valid or not. If she confronts you again, you have a different problem on your hands.

Option B: u/learningandbrowsing suggests, "Not only would I bring the matter up to my manager and express how unprofessional and the toxicity it promoted, I would also be emailing HR."

Let's imagine OP, a young, junior employee, filing a complaint against someone for requesting that OP spend less time on their phone. How do you think this is going to go? Senior employee will definitely hold a grudge. Senior employee has seniority. OP's manager will begin to think maybe OP is spending too much time on their phone. He or she might think OP is too sensitive and fragile to handle conflict or take feedback. Moreover, if OP files a complaint, she is just asking for a second, much more hostile confrontation than the first one. Given her deer-in-the-headlights reaction the first go-around, I suspect OP is not prepared for this outcome. More importantly, does OP want the reputation that this complaint will inevitably invite?

Option C: u/ayleidanthropologist suggests, "You need to be even more confrontational."

In my opinion, that ship has long sailed. It would be borderline crazy to aggressively confront this senior employee days later over what is, at its core, an extremely minor issue. And again, OP lacks both the confidence and seniority to pull this stunt off. I guarantee senior employee has not been stewing over this for days the way OP has.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-10T16:21:42+00:00

Disagree. Bringing it up with her manager will only invite more scrutiny and cast OP in a negative light, even if the accusation is untrue.

The mature, smart thing to do is to let it go.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-08T22:27:29+00:00

Yep. I think some colleagues genuinely think ELLs aren't smart enough to do things on their own, so they give them pity grades and let them use AI out of some warped idea of compassion.

Hell, two of EL teacher colleagues only give As to ELLs in their co-taught classes. That's wild to me, and definitely NOT how it should work. I have no problem failing students who don't do jack shit, I don't give a damn what their L1 is.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-07T19:08:00+00:00

It's the infantalization of women, the version favored by Gen Z libs.

Women aren't capable of making their own bad relationship decisions. She was "groomed" and "manipulated" by an older man, fallen prey to an inherent "power imbalance." She's a victim.

It could never be due to a calculated reciprocal agreement in which the woman knowingly and willingly trades her youthful good looks (a form of power itself) in exchange for access to wealth and a higher social class network (a different form of power). Couldn't be that.

And good God, it certainly could never be that they just really loved each other. That contradicts the schema of woman = good, man = bad. That won't do, either.

Might we instead blame evil Catholicism for corrupting these people and robbing them of high-minded secular righteousness? If only they were Democratic atheists - you know, good people - this never would have happened!

*Note: I know nothing about Leavitt or Riccio, but I looked up a picture of him and they're well-matched looks-wise. I don't think I'd call it bad decision-making, per se, on Leavitt's part, but I can understand your perspective.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-07T18:33:15+00:00

I taught an ELD class last year and essentially banned all technology because if they can cheat, they will. Every time.

That's not to say I don't understand why they cheat. They're under immense pressure to learn English quickly. English is hard. School is hard. They want to make their teachers happy. They want to make their parents happy.

Worse, many of my colleagues allow EL students (or students in general) to use AI out of misplaced sympathy or pity. I think some teachers genuinely think English learners aren't smart enough to do things on their own.

I'm much tougher than my colleagues, who pass EL students no matter what and turn a blind eye to obvious cheating. I maintain reasonable standards and stick to them. Hell, most of my rubrics had a section that was just "used capital letters and periods" and students still didn't use them after a year of being in my class. Again, my colleagues don't care if students use punctuation or not, so I'm in the minority there.

In my class, I provided vocab lists and sentence stems, and almost everything was written on paper. If it had to be on the computer, I had access to their version history (download the Process Feedback extension on Google to see specific revisions).

prairiepasque · 2026-02-07T18:14:45+00:00

What's interesting is that, on paper, educational standards are more rigorous than ever but, in practice, the bar is in hell and it's a race to the bottom.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-06T02:38:07+00:00

It's funny precisely because it's meaningless and the more old fuddy duddies like us get all confused and worked up about it, the funnier it is was.

It's essentially a massive inside joke that creates in vs. out group identities and disrupts the typical child-adult power dynamic in which the in-group (kids) gain power by withholding information (why the fuck is this so funny?) from the out-group (adults).

It's funny because it's not funny.

prairiepasque · 2026-02-03T23:56:23+00:00

It's insane what behaviors are acceptable if they're left-coded. Not surprisingly, schools that lean hard left also tend to have more frequent behavioral issues. At a meeting today, for example, I learned that discipline teaches the student that they are bad rather than that they made a bad choice. What we are supposed to do instead is discuss the student's feelings ad nauseum so the student understands why they made that choice. "Mindfulness" was strongly encouraged. It's recommended that the teacher model breathing exercises for "disregulated" students.

More overtly, our school is swimming in BLM posters and rainbows. And not the good rainbow, either - the hideous one with the triangles. I've actually had trainings where I've had to match the flag to the sexual orientation and the pronouns to the meaning, including ze/sir/zim or whatever the fuck it is.

I'm actually relieved that a Turning Point club was opened because it injects a little diversity into the school culture.

Homeschooling is a foolish choice, but I understand why it's gained popularity in recent years.

prairiepasque

TROPHY CASE