Chaos Theory

Robots and Jell-O shots

At a children's museum, no less!

Terms teachers use instead of "stupid" and why

Sad, but you know it's true, eh?

"In the spring, “She’s behind” means, “She’s missing key ideas or assignments from this year.” But in the autumn, when behind is most often heard, it means, “She entered my class unprepared. I’ll do my best, but it won’t be easy.” It means, “Her schools so far have failed to teach her.” It means, “I don’t know when—maybe last year, maybe the year before, maybe earlier—but she fell off track, and I’m not sure if I can bring her up to speed.”

“She’s behind” means “Time is running out for her.”

Jonathan entered ninth grade as far behind as any student I’d ever taught. One day, as he stared in confusion at the fraction 8/3, it became clear that he didn’t know what 1/3 meant. “Here,” I said, drawing a circle. “Cut this into three equal pieces.”

He couldn’t do it—the pieces kept coming out dramatically different sizes. After his fourth attempt, I gave him a hint, and on his sixth, he got it. I forced a smile.

In moments like that, I tell myself that high school is simply too late. By age 14, too many students have slipped through the cracks. Too many never properly learned to read. Too many suffer from misconceptions that would take years to unravel—never mind teaching them new content. By age 14, it’s too easy to be so far behind that you’ll never fully catch up.

And the saddest part? I’ve heard third grade teachers say the same thing.

Behind, in this sense, is a word of humility for teachers. (More darkly, you could call it defeatism.) It’s a confession that, for each student, I am only one teacher in a long lineage. You do your best with a kid like Jonathan, but even your best won’t heal him completely. And you learn not to blame his parents or past teachers, because next year’s teacher could just as easily blame you."

Bumper sticker roundup

Links to ponder.

I gotta love Lisa Schmeiser

On modern-day cyborg pregnancies:

"I unsubscribed from one newsletter the week that I learned I was carrying the equivalent of “two heirloom tomatoes.” I refuse to let any editor think it’s acceptable to draw a direct line between slow food and slow gestation."

“Are you getting the food comparisons?” was the first thing someone would say. The second was, “What was the food item that made you snap?” For my friend Maria, it was a cheese-covered mango. “Who does that? Why would you cover a mango in cheese? Why not just use a burrito?”

It gets funnier. Like on the subject of needles:

“There, there. Soon you’re going to be speared with a harpoon for science.”

My husband has a mild needle aversion, so he did not share my fascination. “Oh, don’t worry,” I reassured him. “The needle’s so big, it has to be wheeled in. The beeping of the forklift will warn you it’s coming.”

And then there's the ultrasound picture...

"Then we moved on to the ultrasound. I took my husband’s hand in preparation for what surely would be one of the most tender moments of our life together…

…And saw the nightmare crest of a Viking battle helmet. The fetus elected to give us a full frontal shot, so what we saw — grinning skull with outsized cranial cavity and hollow eye sockets; spindly, claw-like appendages; disturbingly sharp ribs — was suitable for framing only if the proud papa were H.R. Giger.

Phil and I both reared back. The technician gave us a look that suggested we were already terrible parents. “Is baby’s spine,” she said. We could see every mace-shaped vertebra floating below that grinning death’s-head noggin. “Is baby’s heart. Looks good. Is baby’s kidneys. Looks good. Baby has toes” — they looked more like velociraptor claws, really — “Baby’s brain.”

So I was going to have an alien queen. I hoped she wouldn’t ram her spike-like ovipositor down my throat the first time I tried to ground her.

The technician printed out a set of ultrasound prints, suitable for framing and giving to people upon whom you wished permanent psychological damage. We debated for only a moment before concluding that throwing the prints out would not make us bad parents."

When I went online after the Alien Queen reveal, I was saddened but unsurprised to discover that my cohort had all had photogenic ultrasounds: lots of adorably snub-nosed fetuses in profile, waving tiny hands at nothing in particular but captioned with things like, “Baby girl saying hi to her mama!”

 

 

It's that time of year again.

I hate moving season.

The Emperor Norton Bay Bridge

I'm in favor of it. Are you?

Okay, this is kind of funny

"Ross is not cool" graffiti.

My Little Resume

Oh lord, someone actually did that.

The dangers of traveling while female

"Yet behavior taken as mere geniality in men – accepting rides or invitations, staying for a cup or tea or dinner, even engaging in idle conversation – is often taken in women to be a sign of sexual willingness. My male friend can accept a newfound friend’s offer of a drink, of a meal, of a sofa bed, without being presumed to have given sexual consent; I have no such luxury. Once, after sustaining a bad fall in Tbilisi, I allowed a neighbor to give me a lift to the local pharmacy and help me buy bandages to stop the bleeding. Disoriented from my fall and the blood loss, and eager not to appear ungrateful, I gave him my phone number. Over the next few days, I fielded between five and seven phone calls a day, as my neighbor demanded a date with me in no uncertain terms. As far as he was concerned, my willingness to get in his car was not the result of a medical emergency, but rather a proclamation of sexual desire."

Metafilter discussion thread. 

It's been awhile since I've had some Caitlin Moran quotes

• "Always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit. You’d be amazed how easily and repeatedly you can confuse the two. Get a big biscuit tin."
• "You know what – it really is OK if a woman comes along and does just a little bit of pioneering."
• "Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. There are boys out there who look for shining girls; they will stand next to you and say quiet things in your ear that only you can hear and that will slowly drain the joy out of your heart. The books about vampires are true, baby. Drive a stake through their hearts and run away."