dorchadas

It's not an excuse - it's just the way it is. If kids don't have parental encouragement or involvement at home, they won't see the value in education. I taught in a rural district in the South that epitomized this. Cultural/familial attitudes towards education matter a lot more than anything the school can do. After all, kids still spend more time with their parents and family than they do at school; those attitudes rub off.

And it's not passing the buck to the parents; we're not asking the parents to teach them, merely to be involved, take an interest in the kid's education and show them the value of an education and encourage them to do the stuff they learn outside. The school can't do it all, nor should it have to (I'd argue teachers are already doing a lot more than they were ever trained to do because parents often don't have time to do it in our current society).

Not even money. How involved are the parents in the child's education. That's generally the number one predictor I found in my years of teaching.

We need to remember the average adult only reads at a 6th grade level... Not that that's good, but I'd say there's many other factors involved than just the schools (parental involvement, do they read outside school, etc)

You'd think so, but I've taught ESL math. Good luck getting them to understand what's even going on without speaking their language. Especially if some, like my students, come in at high school having only really had five years of formal schooling.

You need the language to teach the math, basically. Also, not all of the kids I had were literate in their first language (A Mayan language, so most weren't) or even their second (often another Mayan language) or third (Spanish usually), so you can't just say 'Give them a workbook'

I'd like to hear about this. Trying to rebuild social skills I felt I never learned or have lost, including approaching people I find attractive without seeming like a creep. Email on profile.

Seriously. What a depressing and dehumanizing view of the world. I moved away from my entire social circle two years ago, and it's been extremely rough. I knew people here when moving, and have made good friends, but it's not the same. I miss the deep interactions and just the shared experiences I had with all my friends back home - I seriously consider moving back pretty much every single day because of it. Discord and other messaging apps are nothing but a simulacrum of actual interaction. Physical interaction is what matters; I've become more and more convinced of that recently - and more and more Luddite because of it. But the real world is physical, not digital, and I think too many people forget that. Shame very few others seem to view this and keep pushing for tech that'll make us more and more disconnected for little upside (looking at you, chatbots).

Deep, in person social connection is a must and I truly question whether the GP is as well off without it as they think they are.

I do, and I think Neil Postman called it out even in 1992. We've surrendered our culture to technology, and it's going to be dammed hard getting it back. Especially once LLM's can be trained to manipulate you at the deepest psychological levels. We're in for a bumpy ride, and I don't see any way of escaping it.

Anecdotal, but I was in the Yucatan Peninsula in 2019 doing Spanish classes. My teacher was Maya, and he said now it had become fashionable to be able to speak Yucatec Maya whereas growing up you didn't want to. Several other of the Maya teachers also confirmed, and stated they were (ré)learning when they might've forgotten or not been raised with it.

They were also very much 'Somos Maya first, it was the core part of their identity, over being Mexican.

The same is less true for the Chuj Maya I taught in the States, though since they immigrated there they're at much greater risk of assimilation and losing their culture. But a lot of work had to be done in teaching them to not be ashamed to be Maya. But, given they mostly were refugees from Guatemala, it makes sense.

Can I ask where you're at? I'm a certified teacher, and since it's math/physics I can easily transfer it to any other state. Really debating moving somewhere dark if I move back to America, just so I can have the sky.

Sadly, they still are and it's super depressing.

Late to the party, and I dunno if you'll see this, but could it have been E.O. Wilson's Half-Earth? He makes the argument in that book for keeping at least 50% of the land (connected) wild for animal use.

> I wonder how happy these people were if the homes next to theirs constantly had same issues as these communities suffer from

Or even if they just live on a normal income in a city acutely affected by it. That's what really turned my opinion on the matter, when I tried to move to Galway city in 2016 to find out that a lot of the housing was taken up for tourists. Now I'm in Dublin, and it's even worse, in the midst of the largest housing crisis the country has seen (and it's not due entirely to lack of building - during the pandemic the number of long-term lets doubled, mostly as AirBnB owners fled back into the market). It's absolutely awful what it has done to cities as whole, not even talking about actual neighbourhoods.

But I suspect most people here make a really good income, and can afford to live in other places that are generally insulated from this, and don't have to worry about competing with others in the lower-end rent market.

There's also a lot of weirdly libertarian "I should be able to do what I want with my property", ignoring all negative social externalities that we already regulate against. It's quite funny, from people who (I'd assume) would generally be more left-leaning/liberal.

> There seems to be certain lack of empathy. Or they feel superior in sense that we bring money, we should be served as some type of royalty for that.

God, I see this attitude way too much. Hotel owners also exhibit this in Dublin, as they demolish cultural and historical institutions to make way for more hotels to cater towards tourists. Tourists are not a viable way for a city to thrive long-term.

You've got it exactly backwards - It's entitlement from tourists to feel like they should be allowed to live as locals over the actual locals, not for people who work in a place to want to have affordable housing there.

Because AirBnB is destroying the housing market for the people who actually live and work in an area. It's pushing them out and destroying cities because tourists feel entitled to have a home to stay at instead of a hotel

This might sound gate-keepy and elitist (and, y'know what, it is, and I openly admit to it because I don't think it's necessarily bad), but I 100% agree. Not all reading is quality reading, and if you're just rushing through whatever YA novel is hot right now, it's not the same as sitting down and reading literature. Or working through dense non-fiction work à la Adler. It's nothing more engaging than binging Netflix or Marvel movies, but they certainly think it is.

It's also funny as this reminds me how little r/books actually talks about books. It's mostly validating each other for never challenging themselves, and - shock - "I read a classic and it's actually good".

Thanks! I actually like the underground music already, just gotta find venues that do it here in Dublin.

I think these things are well known, and the problem is that meditation is being lifted from its original context by people who don't understand it - and who can't navigate these things that are supposed to be navigated with teachers.

And then top it off by corporations promoting mindfulness as a panacea for everything so they don't have to worry about fixing underlying issues and can keep us running for longer, and I'm surprised this isn't more commonly talked about.

I think there is still some algorithm-based teaching, or at least the students I taught had been taught via algorithms. The simple O(n^2) multiplication one, or long division, or adding/subtracting with carrying/borrowing. I know a lot of the perceived complaints about the 'common core' change were a push away from this, though I never had any of those students (too young, and I left teaching two years ago, at least for now). That said, I think the common core way was a better way to go about it to help kids get a number sense.

I see so many kids who don't know that, for, say, 28 + 35 you can simply rearrange this to be 30+33. They have no concept of what addition means, or how you can regroup parts. Same with breaking down multiplication and how you can do it by parts and then sum it. They have no concept of how the numbers work, basically, and I don't think algorithms would give them that sense, it'd just give them steps to compute stuff.

At least in math they didn't learn those operations though, because they don't have a strong foundation in the basics to understand how it works. Mental arithmetic is often indicative of at least a somewhat stronger number sense, and this shows at upper level math courses. Even at the high school level, where I had to struggle with kids who were way too reliant on a calculator and couldn't do basic math because of it, and thus struggled to do anything more advanced or abstract.

And, as a former secondary math teacher, I would argue that the use of a calculator has absolutely created a generation of zombies who can't do, or understand, basic math. We're talking simple things like multiply, or figure out how many Monsters they can buy for $5, or calculate change.

If they can't do basic arithmetic, there's no way they can understand the actual concepts underlying math, or have any type of number sense (and they don't; though, granted, neither do most of their elementary school teachers). It'll be absolutely horrible if they have no idea of how to craft a coherent argument, or deeply think because ChatGPT just spews out something (and who knows if it even gives factual answers; they'll never know to check). Couple this with other issues arising from over reliance and overuse of smart phones and we're setting ourselves, and them, up for a grim future facing serious existential problems (.i. climate change)

Not only that, but it seems like any time I mention struggling to focus on some task, I instantly get told, no, I do have ADHD and need to get tested for it. Like, no, I just don't want to sit here and correct these math equations my code couldn't copy right.

Any tips for how to get into it as an adult?

Any advice on where to start for someone who'd like to learn to dance better at nightclubs?

How did you find that stat? I'd love to look it up for Ireland, Dublin and Galway especially.

Sadly, it looks like it is. For another example in Tennessee, look at Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Even as recently as 50-60 years ago most the locals lived in the areas. Since then, they've been priced out by all the tourists and cabins, etc. And it doesn't really show any signs of slowing down, to my knowledge.

And if they're using local housing, and paying more than locals can reasonably afford, I'd argue that's worse for locals.

I do think things like tiktok have caused it to explode. I remember my last year of teaching we had a PD session on what to do if teens start self diagnosing themselves with various behaviours. It causes issues cause then they often do start exhibiting other behaviours they didn't have and it leads to a lot of problems. Tiktok has also done massive damage to things like DID where people claim it and that they can just 'switch' to their 'alters' at will. I knew some people who actually had DID and they hated this and how it basically made light of all the serious issues they have.

So I do think the self-diagnosis trend is increasing thanks to social media networks. And in some ways it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> So there aren't enough houses.

There are close to enough for the locals. The problem is when tourists feel entitled to houses, like I said. Stick them on the periphery, and let the locals actually live where they work. Instead, we're doing the opposite, and destroying cities and neighbourhoods and pricing out locals in the process.

> What right do you have over the property of others?

I suspect this is where we're going to inherently disagree. People don't own their property in a vacuum, nor do they (nor should they) have unlimited 'rights' to do what they want with it. We don't let people dump toxic waste or oil on their properties for good reasons, and I think extending this to short-term lets is perfectly sensible due to the overwhelmingly negative benefit it has on residents. Doubly so when its corporate landlords in question doing it.

For a lot of these places there are enough houses for the people who want to live there. Or it's a whole hell of a lot closer. The issue is there's not enough houses for the people who want to live there and all the tourists who feel entitled to be able to stay in a house on their vacation. A house that takes away from locals, and destroys any culture of the neighbourhood.

Why should a tourist get a house? Especially if it takes away from the locals being able to actually live somewhere.