28 Comments
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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

I would like to reemphasize, this situation is not unique to this school, which is a med school. I have experienced similar at other schools stretching back 20 years.

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Francis Turner's avatar

I suspect they are trying to say "don't fail them and do grade inflation" without actually saying that.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

No need, they handle that on their own after all grades are turned o their own. No, they are trying to make all students equal because the students and their parents demand it. Well, that is what they are telling us anyway.

Does the standardized yet proficiency level appropriate testing strike as mutually exclusive as it does me?

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

It has a very Catch-22 style of thinking to it. And this is the weird dichotemy I have also noticed in the whole DEI movement. We must include students of all ethnicities, genders, handicaps, and lifestyles. And at the same time "We must exclude or cancel anyone who doesn't think the same way we do." So if there is someone who does not define themselves by their group, but as an individual and thinks that inclusion based on "their group" is excluded, and marginalized.

Ultimately what happens to those "standards" is they are rounded down for the LCD which is not fair at all for those high proficiency in English. Their work and acumen for learning the language is to be relegated to review information they already knew?

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Interesting. The email alert for this comment didn’t come through. I saw a notification balloon notifying me of Francis’s reply below yours, but did not receive an email alert to his either. I wonder how many other comments I have missed.

Have you noticed this on your stack. I have only recently noticed this.

Very catch 22ish indeed. Which is why one of my suspicions is that they are trying to create cause to get rid of us old timers at the school.

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Kim's avatar

I got Substack mail caught in my hosts MailChannels spam handling system for a while, a couple weeks ago.

Although, I get a weekly notice about any such mails that come from domains that haven't been previously "caught" by the system when such mail is blocked. With the option to release it and whitelist the domain.

Perhaps your mail host has some such similar system in place?

It's too bad we can't have multiple mail addresses registered for notification.

On the other hand, I also saw that they posted about recently redoing stuff for mobile and how posting works. Perhaps it were simply a temporary hick-up while they moved things around.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

I am going through the Substack site to fine comments I was not notified of. This is one of them. I suspect that it is due an “Update” as updates elsewhere are known to Fauci things up.

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Kim's avatar

Odd. Only thing I can think of, beyond trying to get in contact with staff, is to check the content filters (Content preferences):

https://substack.com/settings#content

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Francis Turner's avatar

Jimmy says catch 22, the other word that comes to mind is Kafkaesque

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Thanks. This has become the norm at this school now, sadly. It had been at other schools but not this one. Madness, like confusion and panic is contagious it would appear. This madness is found in each email they send out. I was seriously beginning to doubt my read on the situation. Thanks for confirming that I am not the crazy one, though I stand almost alone against the madness. Nothing new withy that though.

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

"Standardizing appropriate to each proficiency level," sounds like ridiculous bureaucratic speak. It sounds good at first glance. Well who wouldn't want things standardized? It's unfair to not standardize isn't it? Because if you treat each set differently then that would be wrong.

And then there is...to each proficiency level. Well that too is right isn't it? You can't standardize to one proficiency level because that would be unfair too. And it would be treating those will more proficiency like those with less proficiency.

I could see something akin to standardizing in tiers to each proficiency level. So a beginner, imtermediate, and advanced standardization. But taught using the same book sounds ridiculous unless you divided the book into three parts. But it sounds to me like you have one class with a broad proficiency in English, and what you did previous based on your assessment is you changed your teaching by using parts of a texty and omitting others based on on-the-fly assessment of your students. This sounds good because you are using the course as a guide rather than a hard and fast rule on how to teach all students.

And then the ridiculous changing how the students will be assessed after the class is already over. That's not fair, not only to the students, but to the teacher.

I once was going to teach high school, and failed at student teaching. The frist reason was I was still barely a kid myself and horrible at classroom management. The second was that I didn't like the pass/fail policy of seniors. You could pass as a senior pretty much coasting all year long. And this was back in the nineties.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Thanks you. This has become so pervasive and with even my esteemed colleagues, including the Aussie woman who has a masters in education and told masked students after the speech contests that she would have liked to see more smile, while she herself was wearing a mask, are all in for this, save one, the other unmasked reprobate, that I was beginning to doubt my read on this. Seriously, how can any thinking person come up with such statements?. Make 1984 fiction again. Make Monty Python fictional comedy again.

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Kim's avatar

Pretty much sounds like "No Child Left Behind"/"Every Student Succeeds" and other such similar endeavours which has infected the western world for decades.

Basically another step in the feminization of the educational systems.

"Everyone is great" on the surface with a focus on achievements through backstabbery and social influence, DIE/BRIDGE as Jimmy pointed to.

Meanwhile, achievements through the merit of hard work and brilliance continue to suffer.

Yet people like to claim; things were worse, when the bully feared a bloody nose.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Japan actively sought to implement much of the US’s educational system. I remember this being discussed in the late 90s. Unfortunately, they imported the bad parts only, IMHO. Given the results of the US Department of Education, why any one would want to replicate is beyond me; assuming, of course, that their goal was to improve education. The fact that they do indicates either they are stupid of have other motives. As I work in education in Japan and have kids going through primary education here, I honestly do not know which it is.

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Kim's avatar

I can't claim to know which parts overlap with the US systems, or the details of either, but at the very least I do like them having the kids being responsible for cooking and cleaning; including, on occasion at least, cleaning of the neighbourhood.

- "why any one would want to replicate is beyond me"

Given what I've seen at least some Japanese say about NHK: it were setup to make the Japanese docile and subservient to the interests of USA, rather than to improve education.

Basically a continuation of the GHQ's original activities.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

One of the things that has confounded me since my early days here; my Japanese roommate’s lived in object filth. Most of the J guys did and it seems the girls were no better. Unless the guy had a girl friend who would clean his dorm room and do his laundry for him, filthy. But when we visited elementary schools, all the kids cleaned.

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Kim's avatar

Here we have student apartments with people discovering somalis planting potatoes in the apartment above thanks to the mud/dirt layer leaking water through their roof, and instances of some 20 indians sharing a single such apartment.

So our reference points for what object filth entails is probably a bit too different for me to be able to envision what you experienced. Especially with the military background; I'm guessing that required things being squeaky clean?

Perhaps they felt the dorm were just a temporary residence, and therefore not worth the effort? Perhaps it's that (in)famous Asian study focus and they just neglected everything else? Or, mishaps, they just didn't know what to do about all that sudden freedom and no one ordering them around?

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Never taking out the trash, never doing laundry unless they had a girlfriend and she would do it. Same with cleaning the toilet and shower stall. And I mean never doing any of these, not mention sweeping the room.

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Kim's avatar

To be fair, I'm quite adverse to taking out the trash myself. Although, I at least have the excuse of the recycling centre being some 200 metres off in the wrong direction for heading off to anything decent. 😅

Never doing laundry though? Are you sure these were humans you were living with?

Personally I hate sweeping, it's just shuffling dust around. Mopping and wiping is were it's at for any sort of cleanliness!

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c Anderson's avatar

D- and F to be replaced with no credit because you wouldn’t want to impact a student’s GPA. ⁉️ https://nbc16.com/news/local/western-oregon-implements-strength-based-grading-d-and-f-to-be-replaced-with-no-credit

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

That makes no sense. No credit is 0%. 0% is far more damaging to the GPA than 50% is. But it is the left coast, so….

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c Anderson's avatar

Students that see they are not going to get a passing grade usually drop the class, so I wonder if they instituted this because the students were too dim to drop?

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

Reading the article, it makes even less sense. You question is scary, if that is the case. Students too dim witted to drop a class that they are failing are given a NC allowing them to graduate with a higher GPA. Wonderful. Talk about watering down the value of a degree from that school. The admin is no smarter than those too stupid to drop classes they are failing at.

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c Anderson's avatar

This is what Marxists mean when they say you never want a “serious crisis go to waste.” https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/20/examining-oregon-decision-to-drop-high-school-essential-skill-requirements/

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

We have, as our Ambassador to Japan, one who is infamous for saying just that while he worked for Obama.

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Alex Fox's avatar

Miyamoto Musashi is rolling in his grave.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

One thing to keep in mind, this is not new. New for this school, but I have been run through this at other schools in the past.

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