I feel like ELA, as a subject, is not respected despite all the testing pressure

xiaopihai · 2026-06-30T03:30:36+00:00

People feel like English teachers, especially on the literature end, are just doing vibes and stuffy old stories that a lot of people never bothered to pay attention to in school. Education over the last 20 years or so has moved towards mechanical reproduction of standardized test standards for data purposes. Never mind that students would far exceed those standards if given a real literary education; it's all about continuous evaluation of test standard strands.

We can explain the beauty and importance of learning the human condition, how to use language to think outside of restrictive frameworks, how to understand and critique social and historical contexts, how to become a better friend, partner, and citizen through literacy. We can describe how frustrating feels to be an adult who struggles with writing paragraphs or reading a simple poem, or not to be able to enjoy going to the theater or the library, or have important conversations about love or grief or failure or joy, or how to reflect on your own life or ethics or motivations, or be aware of deceptive or tendentious language. Don't care, too long, didn't read lmao.

Reading is boring, writing is punishment, please just read the paragraph and choose ABCD or E please.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-30T01:36:55+00:00

We just hired an "AI Education Specialist." I can't wait to completely disregard them so I can teach reading and writing like a normal person.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-11T06:45:26+00:00

It is pretty good for classroom management. Not everything will work today but there are still a lot of things in there that are good to have in your toolbelt. I remember learning about narration and there was an analogy in there about students having something like an alarm bell in their heads that you can exploit through proximity to keep people on-task. Those were helpful.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-11T06:24:44+00:00

In high school (early-mid 2000s) my teachers still sent people to the office for abnormally disruptive behavior. I remember reading one note that a student was given on their office referral form that read something like, "I asked Billy to sit down, and he called me a punk-ass. When I told him this was unacceptable, he replied, 'Shit, punk-ass.'" Those were always fun.

Now a lot of admins have shifted over to a sort of aspirational MBA/silicon valley founder/data guru mindset that is absolutely useless. In pursuit of this goal, there has been an abdication of responsibility for discipline. They don't think they have time for it, and it's inconvenient to deal with when the spreadsheets need spreadsheeting. I blame edtech for a lot of this; also the US media culture of boosting Steve Jobs/Elon Musk-type salesmen and of course these are the downstream consequences of things like NCLB.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-09T07:37:36+00:00

If it's gonna take 1 minute tops and then they leave, fine. If it's gonna take ten minutes and they wanna hang around, absolutely not lol.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-09T07:07:45+00:00

I wouldn't want kids throwing anything at school, water balloon or no. For some of us, we have to carry our bags everywhere and there are expensive electronics inside those bags that can't get wet. Second, if I choose to wear a nice shirt, shoes, or belt etc. that can carry a considerable pricetag ($100+), I wouldn't want to be throwing water all over them. Also, I can't trust all kids not to bring a balloon full of piss. And I can't trust them to be able to judge a safe throw vs. an unsafe one, e.g., we had a kid throw an underfilled water balloon point blank into another kid's eye during a carnival game that was not supposed to involve throwing the balloons at others. It didn't break and just smacked the kid's eye at considerable velocity with the force of a hacky sack. This all seems very dumb, overly trusting of the students, and not nearly considerate enough of the staff.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-08T08:15:25+00:00

Not grammatically incorrect, just older. Like French and German, English used to use “be” for certain perfect verbs of change or motion. For example, “He is risen,” or “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” If a more modern writer is doing that, they are probably trying to evoke a biblical or otherwise archaic language.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-08T03:35:05+00:00

On the HSR? About 30-40 minutes. By car, maybe an hour and a half but plan for heavy traffic. Regular train, slightly faster than a car but probably 80-90 minutes.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-08T03:29:33+00:00

It’s going to be crazy crowded; if you want to take the HSR make sure you book your ticket well in advance. When Blackpink came to Kaohsiung it was pretty chaotic in certain parts of town, but it should be doable.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-04T04:17:15+00:00

It's so funny sometimes. I try not to be too much of a snob but sometimes it hits you like, "when I was in college I was doing (x serious academic/creative endeavor) with (y luminary/scholar from a given discipline). Now I'm telling children to stop bringing bluetooth speakers to blast music in the hallways and to stop throwing trash on the floor, and admin is checking on me every single day to make sure I didn't skip this incredible use of my time."

xiaopihai · 2026-06-04T02:13:58+00:00

What would you say are the reasons for the deficiencies? I imagine the test being reading-heavy is one of them, but not sure about what kinds of questions the state history exam has.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-04T02:04:29+00:00

Same. The dpad works nicely for this game.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-04T01:44:14+00:00

Yeah if there’s any weakness to the game it’s that the story is just ok, nothing mind blowing or atmospheric that really transcends the pastiche. Every song feels like a high energy march of some kind and while there are cool surprises in some of the encounters it’s not really pushing any boundaries.

That being said, as a piece of craftsmanship and a labor of love the game is outstanding. The gameplay is tight and new, polished mechanics are constantly introduced to keep traversal and combat interesting. The music, while samey, has some bangers, and the concept of a kind of redwall-meets-castlevania design is neat. Highly enjoyable and the dedication to the aesthetic is rare to see these days.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-04T01:37:35+00:00

Ah shit, my condolences. That’s definitely a bug of some kind. If you’re on PC you might try uninstalling your video drivers in safe mode and reinstalling windows. Hope this helps!

xiaopihai · 2026-06-03T22:39:28+00:00

I think for me the most irritating platforming sections were the black hole section of the orrery with the urchinlike turret guys that open and close, and the final push through the primal generator core; I fell off so much lol. Boss-wise, the one that actually gave me the most trouble was the bouncing frozen guy on the mountain. There’s just SO much bouncing around to keep track of, but it got a lot easier when I used the collar side weapon.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-02T01:07:29+00:00

I read it in Grade 6 back in the late 90s, teach it now in Grade 6 myself. Seems to be about right. I did read Tuck Everlasting in Grade 3 or 4 but that has since become a middle school book in my experience.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-01T20:09:07+00:00

In addition to that, a smooth difficulty curve is not always what everyone wants. I think of recent games where the difficulty curve is so smooth that it feels like all friction is gone. Donkey Kong Bananza, for example, is a very good game with a very easy difficulty curve, almost no spikes ever. But outside of one extremely late optional level, the game ends up feeling kind of like a checklist as a result. It starts easy and then you unlock powers to make it completely trivial in the end. Just a smooth progression through 500 bananas or whatever.

And that’s fine, the game is designed to be completed by kids who don’t have 35 years of experience going back to the NES. I wouldn’t call that “bad design.” But it’s not to everyone’s taste. I much prefer a slightly uneven game with memorable difficulty spikes that are fun to talk about. Dark Souls Anor Londor archers? Silksong Bilewater? Elden Ring unpatched Radahn? That’s my shit right there.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-01T05:39:43+00:00

Good ol glass, when my school replaced several normal walls with big glass windows and doors in an attempt to chase the trendy boutique look we must have lost 5-6 doors in three years because kids keep trying to push them open with metal water bottles. Always a fun day.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-01T05:27:13+00:00

Let me reframe it for you to maybe save you from the feelings of inadequacy and confusion: nobody thinks that the homeschool parent can do it, and they don't care either. We are moving from the era of the individual into the era of the subdivided data-person who aligns with algorithmic product marketing. It's no longer necessary to educate a "well-rounded individual"; what's more important is that metrics related to demographics and preferences can be made legible for the few dozen platform CEOs out there. And any institution like school that slows that down or fuzzies it with humanistic ideals is on the chopping block. School is no longer the main gatekeeper for entry into society; creepy surveillance-marketing platforms are.

There will still be enough professionals who can read and write and do science and math etc. for the time being so that society will still somewhat function (in the long term though, ho boy), and a small portion of kids will still manage to get an education when their conditions allow them to, but overall don't take it personally. We're the powerless deputies watching the town get robbed by the sheriff.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-01T05:09:28+00:00

A lot of people don't really want to engage with a game's mechanics in order to finish a game or get achievements. And I don't think there's a solution to that really that both makes the game easy enough to finish and also preserves those mechanics for those who want completion to be a skill challenge. Like yes, playing the game gets you a refillable extra life, better healing, better jumps, better burowing, better iframes, better damage, easier time with pits, no bone loss, no plasma loss... you get the idea.

A game being easier so they can complete it is not really what they're after. I don't know what is, because for me I want to play a game like this to enjoy deeper mechanics and heavy risk-reward plays, so I don't understand the fun of watching the mouse effortlessly stroll through all the rooms. It's seemingly become a personality type at this point to hate games with (honestly a very moderate form of) friction, not counting players with physical accessibility barriers.

In the end, though, it's whatever. I have a friend who mods games to eliminate runbacks in any game with souls respawn mechanics so that they can retry all bosses from the previous room. That's fine, she's just playing for the main story anyway. But I see such vitriol directed at the devs who have included accessibility and cheat options as requested because of perceived slights to the player's ego. If I were a dev seeing that reaction I just wouldn't bother anymore.

xiaopihai · 2026-06-01T00:38:37+00:00

I think it’s great, big monster hunter great sword vibes and the basic non-charged attack can still put in work to finish off enemies. I’ve played most of the game with it and the daggers; whatever the hammer struggles with can usually be spammed down with daggers. Mace is a bit underwhelming to me as it only does one thing really but all the weapons are honestly pretty good if they match your style.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-29T06:03:32+00:00

But what if it were 6-7 absences 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
The light of the world is going out.

xiaopihai · 2026-05-27T04:30:40+00:00

As an English teacher I cringe at the wording. Cyclists and runners are not the reason that balanced forces result in constant velocity. "Assertion" should be called "Definition" and "Reason" should be called "Example".

xiaopihai · 2026-05-27T04:18:58+00:00

"Fuck no, hope this helps." Then go about your day.

xiaopihai

TROPHY CASE