Polls: Education & Career

It’s 2 am, and you’re asleep. Your boss calls you. You respond with “sir, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning.” He responds by saying “I’m paying you way too much money to hear those words come out of your mouth.”

Speaking for myself 25 years ago ONLY! I would send a TYPED SNAIL MAIL TY note to the person / committee head as I viewed it as an OPPORTUNITY to talk myself up again & also to make myself memorable by including some exchange we had at the interview. I would also talk up the secretary, security, custodian - IDGAF who or titles - just to get SOME small advantage over other candidates.

So, are TY notes still a thing and if so what format? IMHO, If you're NOT sending a TY you're a fool & don't deserve the job!!

Also, I've been on hiring committees where the person DID send a TY but neglected to sign it in ink. To me that was a 🚩🚩🚩 that they were either lazy or didn't pay attention to details and became a ❌ against them. To me that kind of shit matters - a lot!

Hello all.

I finished high school at 18 like everyone else with above average marks. I wanted to go to art school and become an animator. However life did not turn out the way I wanted. Due to various personal reasons which I don't want to disclose here, I was not able to go to art school and later ended up as a hikikomori (recluse).

However I did not want to remain living in the dark and watch everyone else succeed. Hence when things sorta improved in my life I tried to give another attempt to follow my artistic passion. At 25 I started drawing once again. It almost felt like learning from scratch as I had never drawn since I was 18. However as I started to draw once again a wave of nostalgia hit me. It felt as if the carefree high school kid in me was alive once again. I felt a type of happiness I had never felt in years. I knew I was on the right track!

I kept improving my art and after few months joined a 2 years diploma course in animation. It felt too late to go for a 4 years course in an art school even though they teach more in depth over there. I graduate in another year as I am already half way in. If things does go as planned and I do get a foot in the door in let's say an animation studio, I will be 28 then. Does it feel too old? Anyone else here who started their career at a later stage?

Pros of Merit Pay:

Incentivizes high performance:

Merit pay can motivate teachers to improve their skills and teaching methods to achieve better student outcomes, potentially leading to higher student achievement.

Attracts and retains talent:

By rewarding excellence, merit pay can attract and retain high-quality teachers, which can help improve the overall effectiveness of schools.

Addresses inequities:

It can potentially address disparities in teacher compensation, where teachers in higher-need schools or those with higher levels of student achievement may receive additional compensation.

Promotes accountability:

Merit pay systems can create a greater sense of accountability among teachers via salary outcomes.

Can be used to reward leadership and mentoring:

Merit pay systems can include incentives for teachers who take on leadership roles, mentor other teachers, or contribute to school-wide initiatives.

Cons of Merit Pay:

Focus on standardized tests:

Merit pay systems that rely heavily on student test scores incentivize teachers to "teach to the test," narrowing the curriculum

Potential for administrative bias:

Evaluation processes can be subjective leading to biased outcomes, unfairly penalizing certain teachers or rewarding others disproportionately.

Negative impact on collaboration:

Merit pay systems can create a competitive environment where teachers are less likely to share resources or collaborate with each other.

Administrative burden:

Implementing and maintaining merit pay systems can be complex and time-consuming.

May not accurately reflect teacher effectiveness:

Standardized test scores may not be the best indicators of a teacher's overall effectiveness or contributions to student learning.

May not address underlying problems:

Merit pay systems may not effectively address the root causes of low student achievement, such as inadequate resources, lack of support for struggling students, or systemic inequities.

How an individual pronounces certain words can often tell a lot about where they are from.

We won't get into that here, but we will acknowledge that the word MISCHIEVOUS has many different pronunciations.

How do you pronounce MISCHIEVOUS?

Here's its definition...

mischievous
adjective
1 : harmful, injurious; example: mischievous gossip
2 :
a: able or tending to cause annoyance, trouble, or minor injury
b: irresponsibly playful; example: mischievous behavior

Please vote in the poll.

Even 9 year old children are being taught about Transgender Identity etc. What is your opinion on sex education in schools?

This is not frequent enough pay. All companies should pay at least weekly, if not daily

I graduated about 8 years ago. College didn't go exactly how I expected with unexpected things in my personal life and covid. I now have a good job and am training for a better one, I've travelled, made some interesting friends, but at times I still miss high school. Is it normal?

Is high school really the best four years of their lives or does their popularity help them go on to bigger and better things like college, well paying jobs, and good adult lives?

In my career as a teacher I started out being what I now consider to be a complete unreasonable prick. I would assign work over the vacation as well as frown upon parent/student chosen off days. I wouldn't even give any consideration to cuts of class when the student was having personal problems (think like crying in the bathroom, family crisis, had to work, didn't have child care - yes, I've had teen parents as students, etc). I still shudder when I think that I was that awful person.

Like everything else in life I lived and I learned. I now ENCOURAGE IF NOT DEMAND students to take a day off and I tell their parents explicitly "If adults can give themselves a day off why can't kids if they're not up to it?". I realized that there is nothing going on in my classroom that is more important than the lives that they live. The entire concept of giving school work over a break is so ludicrous to me now! It's called a "break" for a fucking reason (plus HW of ANY kind has ZERO discernable statistical difference in grades, retention, class satisfaction, etc).