RL peeves! >< @$!#

[Luna]

@Cobaltasaurus Yeah I get that. I would just eye roll and move on. Most people aren't going to be invested in you education but those who care about you beyond 'cool...congrats'. This could be for varying reasons, people who aren't friends but aquantences, people who you need to spread on toast because they're jelly, people who failed or couldn't go to school and for that we go right back to jelly, etc. Not that it's not frustrating, but know who to bitch to so you don't end up being more irritated than before.

Like, when my ex wants to bitch out of visitation and I tell him he needs to spend time with the baby (I know she's 5, not a baby but she'll still be the baby at 20) Ive learned NEVER say fuck all about school. He's dropped out like 3 times and I think owes something like $20k for no degree and screwed up his GI Bill. Oddly enough, his mom who HATED me in no uncertain terms is crazy supportive.

Negative people are the worst. Haters drinking haterade everywhere.

[Sfire]

@Admiral said:

It's only impossible to get a 4.0 GPA if your teachers are asshats and use bullshit grading systems that make perfect scores impossible.

And if they do that? Report their asses.

It's kind of sad that the university system has devolved into this because of grade inflation. "Didn't get an A? Report your teacher!"

It's so common one of my professors flat-out said he modified his grading scale:

A = "You didn't earn it, but I'm sick of doing paperwork for bullshit reports."
A+ = "You actually did A-level work. Feel good about yourself."

[Coin]

@Spitfire, this is actual truth in high school, too. I teach high school and the culture has changed dramatically in the past ten or fifteen years. You still get parents who know that teachers go through hell and that a lot of high school students are just demons in the class room. However, more and more the general consensus is that when the student gets bad grades it is the teacher's fault, and parents will get mad at the teacher because of it, while the student sits there smug as a bug.

It's not all the time or all the students, and there are bad teachers, but in my personal experience, the level of pedagogue-blaming is getting higher and higher. From what I can tell talking to other teachers across the world, it's global, too.

[BetterJudgment]

Earlier this week, I had a college student who, three weeks into the course, still does not have the textbook (i.e. who ordered it at the end of the first week of class online and didn't pay for expedited shipping instead of getting the list of books that was available over a month before class started and ordering it then) assume that he could take the announced quiz over this week's chapter at a later date because he doesn't yet have the book. It took all of my considerable professionalism not to stare at him and say, "That'll happen when monkeys fly out of my ass."

[Coin]

@BetterJudgment, sometimes the level of student entitlement makes me think all my students are MUers. XD XD XD XD XD

[Miss Demeanor]

Having one kid in middle school and one kid in high school, I can unequivocally say to the parents who only ever blame the teachers... FUCK. YOU. Fuck you for taking NO time to invest in your own child's future. Fuck you for raising the next generation of entitled whiny bastards that MY kids will get taunted by.

My children, both of them, have IEP's in place for various reasons. My teen isn't doing too bad right now, though he could stand to do a little more at home in regards to studying. My pre-teen? He's in bad shape atm, and we're working hard to pull him back up. Which is why the nice tablet he got for Christmas is hidden away until his grades improve. Until he starts showing that he's taking the initiative and putting in the effort to do his school work. And its hard for him (and me, and the teachers) because there ARE kids in his classes with parents that take up a LOT of the teachers' time trying to defend their lazy ass crotch-spawn.

So yeah, my apologies to all the teachers out there dealing with those bitch-ass parents and students. Its because of the good teachers that my youngest son still has a fighting chance to pass this year since the state took away summer school for 6th graders. And only 6th graders. (separate peeve) Teachers rock and I don't know how the Hell you guys do it without bitch-slapping idiot people left and right.

[2mspris]

I don't tend to blame teachers for my kids failure to do what they are quite capable of doing. I do, frequently, blame the administration of our school however for whatever annual "stunt" in the name of get good press that they pull that runs the risk of derailing parent's efforts and children's efforts.

This year's stunt? All of the students in grades 6-9 have been given Chrome Books. This is how they are to do/submit their homework. (It began at Christmas break, so this semester is the first.) Beginning next year it will be how they use textbooks, as those will all be in ebook form.

The problem they are already facing is that we're a largely rural community - and not all students even have internet at home, but the school expects those families to get it. (And in some of those cases the options for getting that is pretty much crap.) There are also issues with the way that they have set up the "security" of the Chrome Books, most of the adults at the school can't help the students with issues that come up and they have locked down the students doing anything from the school's wireless except to access the school's "Student Portal" page and their one assigned Gmail accounts that each student gets.

Outside of school, the kids can access more stuff - but anything they do access it keeps a record of and notifies the school. (They've already had 5 7th grade boys lose their Chromebooks for attempting to surf porn on them - and then they attempted to fine the parents, which has gone over about as well as you would expect.) They've also made it a requirement that the students maintain a social networking profile (Most are on FB.) in a lot of classes, but their Chromebooks are locked from accessing those sites at all.

And since half the assignments are expected to be emailed in to the teachers, they've already discovered that 2 enterprising students were taking home 2+ Chromebooks a night and doing homework/submitting it for their fellow students and getting paid to do that. But there is literally no way to tell who is actually doing/submitting the work because the teachers aren't being handed anything and not all of the parents are able to monitor it closely (because again, no internet at home in some cases). And in the other cases, some teachers still do want the homework printed off and handed in - but the Chromebooks aren't set up to print anything off at the schools, you have to put the homework on a USB and then take it to the library to print - where you are suppose to pay for the pages printed - so students are being made to pay for their homework printing and then turning it in.

The level of fucked up that the Administration of our school has created with this, just to "keep up with the times" because they realized this year that we are the last public school in the county to not have take-home tablets for the students, is awesome.

I guess I should be happy that I've got a Techno-Wiz kid, though it's frustrating as well. It was bad enough last year that I had teachers at the school sending their laptops home with my kid, for him to fix them. Now we get frequent calls/messages from his classmates wanting his help fixing problems - this is the age of nerd popularity I suppose, but it's a bit annoying.

[Luna]

Mine is in kindergarten. You're all scaring me. And to top it off, everyone knows who I am instantly. I'm the only one with blue (was pink) hair.

[2mspris]

@Luna said:

And to top it off, everyone knows who I am instantly. I'm the only one with blue (was pink) hair.

I'm "that mom", the one who they've come to know because I put every effort into being on top of whatever my kids are into and doing, especially at school. (Right now I've got one in 2nd grade and one in 8th grade.) When my oldest was in 3rd grade, one of my friends used to make fun of me for being the mom who made her kid do his homework the minute he came home ever afternoon, who wouldn't let him do things unless his grades were decent and who would show up at the school to speak to the teacher or an administrator whenever there was a problem. (And not in an OMG What are you doing to my poor kid - way.) To her mind I shouldn't try so hard & I should be letting the kid figure it out on his own. Then go figure 2 years later when one of her kids was failing his subjects in school (except for Gym) she was calling me for help.

[Darinelle]

My puppy is trying to eat my slippers.

I am currently WEARING my slippers....

Dammit. She's so cute but I have to stop her anyway.

[Arkandel]

Ruby, one of my dogs, is the most submissive, mild-mannered and non-aggressive creatures imaginable. On the contrary Izzie, my cat, is the kind of bully who takes advantage of such weaknesses so for years now every time she gets pissed off for any reason (say, if I kick her off my lap because I need to get up and go to the bathroom) she's been known to run over to Ruby and beat her up out of the blue to vent.

Over the years Ruby has been getting braver. Yesterday though it was hilarious and horrifying at the same time when the cat, freshly rejected from sitting in front of me while I was watching TV, went over to smack the poor dog while she was actually asleep, got snarled at and chased off the couch by a suddenly enraged dog whose primal instincts of fuck-off-dammit were finally activated after years of abuse-tolerant inertia.

It didn't last long, she got scared of her own rage and stopped within seconds then just looked confused (... 'what just happened?') but to see her actually baring her teeth like that was a revelation. I didn't know that bitch had it in her.

[Ganymede]

One of the reasons I will likely send my kids to a private school is so we do not have to put up with the shit at a public school.

If the teachers will not accept homework in paper form, or hand-written, I will go over their heads to the administration. If the administration does not act, then I am not above getting other parents to join in my dissent. And they will know my name is the Lawyer when I lay my vengeance upon them.

Seriously, kids need to be submitting homework by hand, and essays in printed form. That's how shit is done still in real life.

[Glitch]

@Ganymede said:

That's how shit is done still in real life.

Only for legal stuff, which is why I imagine your world is filled with paper. I very rarely have to do anything on paper and it's definitely going to continue in that direction, rather than the other way.

[Ganymede]

@Glitch

No, that's how shit's done in real life.

People still do a lot on paper by hand. Architects. Engineers. Drafters. Surveyors. Politicians. You name it. You probably do it. And you will never convince me that working out mathematical problems is easier with a computer (absent the use of calculation programs).

Computers are tools. When those tools are broken or unavailable, the world does not stand still. I want my kids to have the basic skill of hand-writing something. If everything gets digitized, they will not be required to practice.

On top of that, many kids are fucking morons when it comes to computers.

[Glitch]

@Ganymede That is patently false. The information, visualization and documentation tools of all trades are moving toward digital mediums. Some more slowly than others, but you are wrong to claim otherwise.

If you want your kids to have basic hand-writing skills in case of some technological apocalypse, that's fine, but you're still wrong about "how shit's done in real life."

[lordbelh]

@Ganymede I never come across anything handwritten anymore. The only times I personally write is when I'm jotting down my grocery list. At work it's all email or printed out, same with any sort of purchases I make, and hell, all Goverment mail here is electronic now as well. The person taking notes at meetings is sitting with a laptop, not a pen and a notebook.

I'll admit that math is easier doing by hand, though.

[Ganymede]

@Glitch

I want my kids to have basic hand-writing skills because it's considered proper in my circles -- and from a recruiting and etiquette standpoint -- to send hand-written notes of thanks for various occasions.

I want my kids to have basic hand-writing skills because, in locations where one does not have a computer, being able to communicate by written note is essential. This includes many non-office venues, like farming, construction, maintenance, etc. Many doctor's offices still rely on a physician's hand-written notes, despite calls for -- and regulations requiring -- the digitization of such things. Those physicians simply prefer scanning the information in after the fact, rather than input into a computer.

And, let me tell you, those fuckers can't hand-write worth shit.

So, no, I'm not being false, nor is my statement false. My opinion may be wrong, but it is equally grounded in experience.

[Thenomain]

@Ganymede

A doctor's handwriting has always been the butt of many jokes, so the modern era isn't to blame there.

[Misadventure]

You can write on a digital surface, which bypasses the use of paper until needed, and lets one develop their hand writing.

[Deleted]

@BetterJudgment said:

Earlier this week, I had a college student who, three weeks into the course, still does not have the textbook...

All through my first two years of college I didn't buy the books at all. I paid attention in class and listened to the teacher and when I had to do required reading I just winged it as best I could when the test came around.

I did this because I was flat broke and used my pell grant money to buy food and live on. It can be done, and well, though my grades stayed in the B-range rather than the A-range because of it. So I can understand students not buying books.

Students not buying books and then expecting special treatment, however, is another thing entirely.