Bibliotectress

Honestly, I’m at a loss. It’s so hard to get a single school of teachers to stick to one policy, let alone at a district or state level. When I send an all-staff email at my school (and they’re occasionally important with scheduling details), Outlook often tells me that only 67% of them even opened it.

I feel like you’d either have to: a) incorporate cellphones as a tool in class and have standard repercussions (e.g. 1st/2nd time earn a detention, 3rd time earn a Saturday school) for kids texting/on social media, or b) do something like a box on the desk so it’s visible but they can’t touch it.

I just don’t think it’s possible to ban them at school. Too many parents don’t respect any school authority figures after COVID with all the culture war stuff (fight to return to full day school, fight to not wear masks, fight to censor bipoc and lgbtq+ books/lessons/celebrations, etc.). I think either way, it’ll just end up being another shitty part of a teacher’s job.

They were all pretty close to the books except that they cut out a lot of the pointless bickering that kept happening all the time, so I’d blame JK Rowling for those.

I work in a high school in a California school district where they’re discussing banning cell phones.

Most teachers I’ve talked to about it think it’s really fucking stupid because you’re not going to be able to ban them, partly because a TON of parents showed up at the school board meeting to say they would send them with their kid anyway for a variety of reasons. The board also talked about different things they could buy to take phones and lock them up during class or as students come in. Most of the solutions were pretty expensive, and some of the schools are literally falling apart, so that also pissed people off.

A great start would be to have a campus-wide rule that is CONSISTENT. Some teachers give out a detention if they even see the phone. Some do activities with QR codes and use them as tools. Some have boxes on the corner of their desk and students are required to keep their phone in the box so the teacher can see if they reach for it. We have students with free periods, and if they don’t go home, they hang out outside around campus or in the library. Should phones be banned then too? Or just during class?

There are so many ways to try to deal with it, and at least in my school (not even the district as a whole), every teacher deals with it differently. I doubt the state of New York is all that different.

Anywhere not on the coast or high in mountains, yes. I’m in a large valley, and summers can be pretty rough. Not Phoenix rough, but still rough.

Wow that’s a huge hail ball! I get excited when they’re marble-sized.

You’re really busy today.

They are, and normally I’d agree with you, but they just recently legalized abortion and that SHOCKED me. So who knows?! Mexico might do anything!

That was super fascinating! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain!

How do you get into that line of work??? Not because I want to, just morbid curiosity. I’m too squeamish.

I can’t remember if I played this first, or Tetris. It was probably pretty close for me?

This is honestly genius, and something I need to get much better at doing.

That’s one of the biggest reasons why I don’t. I was angry I had to start logging in to visit those.

I played that game obsessively over two days and got through ending E, and it absolutely destroyed me. I was depressed for weeks.

Thank you for the link! That was deeply satisfying to watch. The camera quality is so good.

That game is impossible. I can’t believe how many people in the comments say they’ve beaten it. I never beat it as a kid, and when I tried it again on the switch a couple of years ago, I still couldn’t make it very far.

Probably also the country of Ukraine, our ally that was invaded by Russia.

China was first. This is from March: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/time-money-love-china-brainstorms-ways-boost-birth-rate-2023-03-15/

Oh. That’s one of those words I’ve only ever read (generally in brit lit), and thought it was pronounced as row like row a boat. Thank you for the correct pronunciation!

I mean… it’s a Bethesda game with all the little finicky Bethesda things like long load screens and quick travel (unless over encumbered) with load screens. Buggy lag and characters that don’t fully load, or speech that doesn’t match the mouth movements until the second or third line of speaking. Also a fair amount of fetch quests, and lots of decisions to make about how you want to play the game.

I’m having a blast, but I don’t get bored by game exploration. I feel like the random characters you can talk to and the setting make it very immersive. The voice actors are great even for rando characters that you come across. It’s honestly super fun. I want to play it more during the work week, but I don’t think I’ll have much time again until the weekend because it really sucks me in, and I want to give it more than 30 minutes at a time.

I disagree after the Madison stuff, but I’m not judging you for it.