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Page servilis for those who always wanted a petty fiend valet but did not know that until now.
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I bought a new desktop computer (a refurbed Dell on Amazon). It came in today and after one small hiccup in starting for the first time a call to the 3rd party seller for some tech support it's up and running fine. I have a small laptop that I received as a gift last summer but it's starting to act wonky and I'm going to have to send it into HP for maintenance.
I love having a desktop PC. I know they're not really practical to some people in today's world but I just don't want to give them up. So I have it for daily use and the laptop for gaming nights.
Yeah, I know this probably doesn't belong in this thread but hey, I'm bored, in severe pain, and am catching a cold. I decided I'd ramble about it here instead.
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I prefer desktops too.
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I like my desktop as well. While laptop and tablets are some of the trendy things, it's like me and smart phones. I won't get one, but I do have a flip phone. 1998 ya'll!!
Also there might not be a teacher's strike in WV thanks to the House of Delegates motion to table the bill indefinitely. We'll just have to see if the motion to reconsider passes tomorrow...
Sometimes I think teachers' strikes do more harm than good, at least when they do them during the school year. Often schools are shut down because of them, and this hurts the students more than anything. Why can't they do this when school is out for summer?
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Because the fact is when the state legislature decides to under-cut teachers ability to TEACH, striking is the only way to go. Trust me, having been involved in a few teacher strikes (the infamous one back in 1995 and now 2018's and 2019), it's not like the teachers WANT to not work. They do. But if you're in a job where you're constantly being asked to pay for supplies, act as a guardian to children, and then also educating them, there's only so much crap you can take.
Oh, I agree. Several of my friends are or have been teachers. I know their frustrations. I just wish there was a way for both the teachers and students to win during strikes because someone is going to lose out.
Well I think the loss is more towards the fact as this: IF the state legislature body is comprised of morons, then you need to remove the morons. But that's just me.
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Heh. I agree with that. Our legislature here in Arkansas is a morass of moronity. I have a friend who's been asked to run for representative for her district and I hope she does, but the ol' boy network is so entrenched in the smaller districts like hers that she'd have an uphill fight all the way.
Well, better stop here. This is about to turn into a political discussion and I have asked no one have those in the House of Respite. So this will be my last post on the subject.
Carry on, Housemates!
Sokay. Right now we can discuss why I think if you're going to have ex-SO involved in gaming, there's just certain things you don't do in that setting.
Plus you know, I have dog sitting clients and my neighbor all this week (what's left of it...)
What couldn't you do in that setting? Assuming the XSO is ok with them.
Undertaker servilis, for getting rid of all that excess corpses...
Privatize education. It's not a panacea, but it should help to get rid of legislative interference.
Undertaker servilis, for getting rid of all that excess corpses...
You need to submit these for publication if you haven't already. I know Paizo isn't going to put out any more 1e stuff, but with modifications, you might get them placed in some other company's bestiary.
Hello, Housemates! How goes your day so far? (And evening, depending on where you are).
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Privatize education. It's not a panacea, but it should help to get rid of legislative interference.
This would make things exponentially worse. Private schools are not legally required to follow any standard of education. The transfers we get from the local private school have huge gaps in basic content knowledge.
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As dangerous as it is to have ideologues in government dictating what children are taught, imagine how bad it would be in an organization where profit was the only goal? The stories I have heard from Cyz about the charter schools she worked at were bad. They have every incentive to cull poorly performing students to boost their ratings instead of actually improving those students. Diploma mills? Imagine children getting done with school and finding out their parents paid for expensive childcare that taught them no marketable skills? Or even basic knowledge? (I leave the argument that public education already is this to better folk.)
Well I can speak to it as the son of two teachers, each of whom were not just dedicated to their students, but also the idea that learning should be equable. But that's all I'm saying on the matter.
With regards to what Cal was asking: I mean I guess it's like this: When someone's X-SO decides to tease the other about the fact they don't have Kingdom Hearts 3 (because the other can afford the game system to play it and the other can't) and there's the new girlfriend next to the other former...it makes things VERY uncomfortable to game around.
Yikes! That would be very, very difficult. Do you think you'll be able to deal with it?
John! How's the world treating you today?
Well. Since June of last year my son and his roommate have been staying with me after the multiple housemate arrangement they were in wasn't working out any longer. So they moved in with me, with the understanding they'd save some money and get a place of their own. No money has been saved, but that's a rant for another time.
Anyway, his roommate is a filthy, irresponsible, childish, and crude person. He's a funny guy at times which is why I've not Force choked him yet. But he's always sneaking things that belong to other people, like food or drinks. It's been building up for months, but my son told him a few minutes ago he had to be out of the house by the end of March. I hope my son sticks to that and he does move out. I don't mind my son living with me for as long as he wants. But even I have to agree it's time for his roomie to go.
*tense moments on Martin Street*
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As dangerous as it is to have ideologues in government dictating what children are taught, imagine how bad it would be in an organization where profit was the only goal? The stories I have heard from Cyz about the charter schools she worked at were bad. They have every incentive to cull poorly performing students to boost their ratings instead of actually improving those students. Diploma mills? Imagine children getting done with school and finding out their parents paid for expensive childcare that taught them no marketable skills? Or even basic knowledge? (I leave the argument that public education already is this to better folk.)
Charter schools are exactly the kind of thing I was talking about re: no accountability. A lot of the current problem is charter schools without accountability siphoning funding away from schools that are held to those standards.
My school gets the kids who get kicked out of the private schools because they don't want to deal with them. Moving toward privatization would just lead to more of the same - booting the problem kids without teaching them because they're a drain on resources.
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Agree with Scint. My aunt was a teacher and basically private schools did not prepare students for adequately for the local examination scene. They're good if you're looking for outgoing, can talk shop sort of people, but the problem is when you're talking about examination standards, they just don't make the cut. And if you can't pass the gcse o levels etc to get your qualifications, it's problematic trying to get higher education.
Privatize education. It's not a panacea, but it should help to get rid of legislative interference.This would make things exponentially worse. Private schools are not legally required to follow any standard of education. The transfers we get from the local private school have huge gaps in basic content knowledge.
I don't think a private school should be legally required to follow any particular standard. I do think that a school should specify in the contract with the students' parents to what standards those students will be taught - and if those standards are not met, the parents' payments should be refunded, probably with some additional indemnity. Schools would then either meet the standards, or go out of business.
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I don't think a private school should be legally required to follow any particular standard. I do think that a school should specify in the contract with the students' parents to what standards those students will be taught - and if those standards are not met, the parents' payments should be refunded, probably with some additional indemnity. Schools would then either meet the standards, or go out of business.Privatize education. It's not a panacea, but it should help to get rid of legislative interference.This would make things exponentially worse. Private schools are not legally required to follow any standard of education. The transfers we get from the local private school have huge gaps in basic content knowledge.
Most of parents are not prepared to set up teaching standards for their (or any other) children in the first place and would be duped into agreeing to crappy school contracts. Only the few worst cases would go out of the business.
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Privatize education.
Not just no but hell no. That is a wretched and terrible idea for all the reasons listed above.
Also, in addition to what Drejk said about crappy contracts, good luck to any normal middle-class parents at winning the inevitable court case against a wealthy private school's lawyers when the demand for a refund for failing to properly render services is challenged.
Because you know as well as I and anyone else here that that's exactly what will happen - the parents will claim the school didn't hold up their end of the bargain, the school will disagree, it'll go to court, and the richest side will win. As usual.
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Here private schools (called non-public) are present and function quite ok, but they are still subject to most of the legal regulations concerning schools and Ministry of Education oversight.
Results of teaching in public and private schools seems comparable, public school pupils seem to have slightly better average scores in Polish language (subject that combines Polish Grammar and general Literature), while private school pupils have slightly better scores in History, Math, and various Sciences, and much better scores in English, though for the second most often picked foreign language, German, public school results are better.
There are various advantages and disadvantages to both - e.g. private schools have better equipment, but worse PE facilities for example, because that requires a significant investment into real property, while most public schools occupy buildings that were designed as schools from the scratch, private schools have smaller classes allowing for better quality of education, but many parents have a stupid customer mindset - "I pay for education so I want excellent grades" that hurts teaching a lot when they don't care about actual quality of learning only good grades.
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I don't think a private school should be legally required to follow any particular standard. I do think that a school should specify in the contract with the students' parents to what standards those students will be taught - and if those standards are not met, the parents' payments should be refunded, probably with some additional indemnity. Schools would then either meet the standards, or go out of business.Privatize education. It's not a panacea, but it should help to get rid of legislative interference.This would make things exponentially worse. Private schools are not legally required to follow any standard of education. The transfers we get from the local private school have huge gaps in basic content knowledge.
And this right here is the biggest red flag. A move toward privatization necessitates profit to sustain the school. This means education becomes not a right but a luxury that only the wealthy and upper-middle-class can afford. Why take in students whose families can't pay tuition? Why take in students who require expensive accommodations for medical reasons?
Education has long been heralded as a means to escape poverty, but what about children whose family can't afford to pay for a better school? This avenue is cut off from them. It effectively kills the idea of social mobility. So many higher-paying jobs these days won't even look at you without X amount of education, and that includes trade school. But these options of career training all cost money even without privatization. And we're swiftly automating and outsourcing away the unskilled work that people deprived of a basic education can do to earn a living. Long-term, it effectively kills the middle class.
If you really want to fix education, force legislators to actually learn how pedagogy works instead of forcing through a restructuring of how to teach every five years (confusing the hell out of the students and accomplishing nothing because their metrics don't actually analyze the right data to yield results...) so they can pretend they're doing something to shill for votes. And, y'know, put it as a national priority like other countries do.
While we're talking about schools. Obviously, the quality of America's public schools varies wildly by State, and even by school district. My family didn't move frequently enough during my childhood to qualify me to make any sweeping statements about America's schools in general.
But ye gods, school is hell. If you gave me the choice between cutting off a hand of my choice or reliving the sixth through tenth grade, I'd ditch the hand. I don't exaggerate, I'd rather learn to live one handed. I can't speak for grades eleven and twelve, I never took them - enough was enough and I took a high school equivalency test as soon as I was old enough by the laws of my State. I'm guessing they aren't Valhalla-esque beer and murder paradises.
I'm not a teacher, I'm not even a particularly intelligent person, I didn't do well in school, though I stress that points two and three are unrelated. I'm decent at showing people how to do things I know how to do, but that lacks scalability and I don't know how one would go about scaling such a thing. The reason I'm complaining without offering some better alternative to our current way of "educating" is because I don't have one. If I had to create one, I'd defer to the expertise of people who know better. But, at the very least in my part of the country, it'd be blasted hard to make a worse system then the one we've got.
If the goal is to impart knowledge, one would have to actively try to impart less. I've memorized a lot of factoids and study guides that I've long since forgotten, but I'm hard pressed to recall a single thing my teenaged self was "taught" that improved my understanding of anything.
If the goal is to impart useful knowledge, I learned to read, add, and subtract in the second grade, and that's been just about it! If you asked me to come up with the best way to not impart useful knowledge to a large number of littlings, if you asked me the best way to keep them from acquiring useful knowledge, I'd probably come up with something along the lines of, "keep them indoors all day, keep them all in one building so we can watch them all at once and make sure they aren't learning anything useful by purpose or accident. Divide them into groups so that they can be watched closely by a minimum of staff. If they have time on their hands they might use it to philosophize and thereby acquire knowledge, so keep them constantly busy, mostly with rote and repetitive tasks, or by talking at them. But take care not to impart knowledge through talking at them. Humans learn best when physically active and in good health, so keep them in chairs and do not under any circumstances allow them to stand up or walk around. Wake them early in the morning and keep them up late at night. If you can't contain them in the building all day and night, send busywork home with them to keep them awake."
When a system is so broken that it does the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do, my impulse is to, rather than try and fix it, resign the whole thing to the scrap heap and design a new system.
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Will leave it to the experts to discuss about privatising education or reforms of the education system. Id just say its a bad idea based on my aunts experience as a teacher for privatisation.
What we did in my country was to have everyone after high school, sit for the GCE O levels that has been marked by Cambridge. From there on, people go to polytechnics or go to the junior college to take their GCE A levels to qualify for university.
Now if I were going to make changes to the education system in America, I'd probably start having a single national examination that all high school kids would need to pass.
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Standardized tests, or "teaching to pass the test" rather than actual teaching children useful things just haven't gone the way the government had hoped. Many schools are abandoning this method. And to address Asmodeus' Advocate and his school experience I couldn't be more the opposite. I absolutely loved high school, particularly the 11 and 12 grades. I'd gone from being the picked on fat kid to someone who wouldn't take crap and was very popular (I don't say that to brag. It's just how things worked out). Hell, I'd relive those years if I could.
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Hell, I'd relive those years if I could.
Oh really...
Just sign here. And here. Initial there, there, and there...
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Do you have a pen? Mine's not working...
Vidmaster7 was saying once he had a co-worker who couldn't do basic maths or tell the time. I should think that everyone out of high school can do that...
I would think that some basic standards should be set?
Sure, some basic standards and life skills should be mandatory, but the test shouldn't be the focus of learning. That's a very narrow spectrum that holds back the really good teachers who could impart a great deal of learning to a student.
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I dunno about reliving high school other than the fact I was less picked on than I was 7th through 9th grade. That and the fact my dad was also one of my AP teachers. So... yeah. But I can say this: If we're talking about improving education for everyone, then there has to be understanding that some people don't learn the same as everyone else.
Also I REALLY wish my dogs would learn to settle down more. :p
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If we're talking about improving education for everyone, then there has to be understanding that some people don't learn the same as everyone else.
Also, I REALLY wish my dogs would learn to settle down more. :p
Yes. That's another issue with standardized learning; not everyone learns at the same rate as others. It's a pretty crappy method of teaching.
And tell those dogs to behave or I'll...I'll...let them romp and play all they want. I'm a sap.
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Messenger servilis, bat-imp mail delivery service!
I went to sleep at around 11 pm and awoke at 2:20 am. It's now 6:06 AM. I'm not at all pleased by this. Add the excruciating pain I have in my left knee and trying to clean house and write a Saturday night adventure and I'm gonna be quite lovely company all day.
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Incanter Servilis, a petty fiendish acolyte for all you dark magicians.
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Are you going to compile all the Serviles into a single .pdf? Please? Please?
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I'll see what I can do...
No graphics, though, unless I draw them myself.
Ordering graphics is too expensive :(
Cal,
You are a sap. I'm okay with romping puppies. Mostly because they don't weight over 10 lbs and thus are unlikely to bowl me over. When they get to like...7-8 months and more and weight like 35-40 lb or more...it gets a little annoying having them jump on you.
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Never! Bring on the doggos!
I'll see what I can do...
No graphics, though, unless I draw them myself.
Ordering graphics is too expensive :(
Graphics are not required. Your descriptions and my imagination will fill in the gaps.
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Hey Housemates,
Dizzydoo42 is going through a really rough patch this weekend and would appreciate any positive laser beams, thoughts, prayers, dancing chickens, whatever you have to spare right now.
I don't do dancing chickens. I do occasionally think that the Avengers are going to save us... Does that work too?
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Hey, it's at least an ethos.