January 13, 2015

Linkworthy

I probably could've written this post last night but somehow laying down with a book sounded better.  It was Monday night.  Motivation on Monday nights is an all-time low.  I cooked dinner and that was the extent of it.

However, this morning, I have a 2 hour delay.  Instead of sleeping in, I decided it's worth my time to just sit on the couch and watch Sunday's Downton Abbey.

In a perfect world, I'd have a kitchen renovation post put together for today because the kitchen is 99% done.  However, I haven't quite gotten around to all that.  Here's a preview…


Anyway…

My bookmark tab is filling up again.  Here's some articles I've come across lately that I've really enjoyed.

Differentiation doesn't work.  Word.  It just doesn't.  If you don't know what it is, it's putting 25-30 kids of varying ability levels into one teacher's care and telling the teacher to split them into homogenous groups and teach each group the same skill at a different level.  It is the number one method of educating in America today and I assure all you non-teachers that it doesn't work and this is why the U.S. has failing test scores compared to the rest of the world.

A vaccine study that scared us all into believing the worst of our doctors.  Working with the children of the general population, I think they all need to be vaccinated (a bold statement, I know). I read another article about how a pediatrician doesn't want anti-vac parents in his office (or their children as patients) because he knows they don't trust him as a doctor if they don't believe him when he says their child needs vaccines.  A nurse friend posted it on Facebook but now I can't find it.

And at the other end of the spectrum…Deep Thoughts on Leggings.

Oh, gym regulars.  I've been on every side of this.  I've been a regular and I've been a new person, but I've been a new person 5 times now and my status as such has never worn off (after 7 months) here. I think you have to show you are absolutely serious about your gym commitment in order to get "them" to accept you.  I probably never would've found acceptance at my beloved Alaska gym had I not vowed to show up everyday (because I had nothing else to do). I've also seen floods of people enter every January 2nd and I've witnessed the exodus each February 2nd.  As someone who is a natural introvert, being shunned because you're new at something, anywhere, is a terrible feeling.

Are we raising a generation of helpless kids?  Yes, yes we are.

Why half the nation's teachers are leaving the profession.  100% agreement. It is so much cheaper to keep employees you have rather than go through the process of recruitment/hiring.

Stop saying "military wife" is the toughest job in the military.  This infuriates me.  The army requires NOTHING of me.  Any volunteering or event-participation I've ever done is because of Scott and my loyalty to him.  It's looks bad when your wife never shows up, you know?  But other than that, the army is not my job.  The military will teach you patience for sure, but I don't have to live in a tent, eat MREs, or leave my family/home for months at a time. This "toughest job" thing is probably believed by the same people who carry ACU patterned purses…(that was mean…I apologize).

While we're talking about the military..OPSEC.  Operational Security.  Keeping things to yourself instead of posting them online for all to see.  Did you know that if you tweet/Facebook your spouse's coming home date, the whole mission can be delayed for days?  They won't come home on time because you couldn't stop telling people everything.  This, obviously, irritates me.
Now (also obviously) I tell people online and off that we're a military family, but I try not to give out specifics.  In fact, I actually scrubbed my Facebook page (which is private anyway) of any military photos and all employment information.  Identifying information can be dangerous…or maybe I'm just crazy.  A crazy person, concerned about OPSEC…with a blog.  I remember being cautioned by more experienced army wives once upon a time and now I feel like I'm mature enough to know exactly what they were talking about.

Have you read anything interesting online lately?

14 comments:

  1. OH girl I'm so with you on the whole military wife thing. While it CANNOT be easy to be a military wife, I think a lot of times people gloss over what active military members actually do. I think that's why I get so up in arms when people compare my situation (football wife) to the military. Yes, the hours and loneliness can see the same but there's one VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. One is a game.

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  2. AMEN to differentiation. Seriously. Non-teacher blog-readers probably scrolled right on through that one but any teachers just applauded you. And yay for your kitchen reno! I can't wait to see pictures :)

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  3. I hate when people crap on people who start new at the gym ever, any time of year. It's very disgusting to me. I support healthy pursuits any time of year, whether they're tied to a date or if they last or not.

    It's not easy to be a spouse for a lot of reasons, and military spouses don't have the corner on that. Now the people in the military? They do. They're the only ones who do what they do.

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  4. Is that a gray wall in your kitchen!?

    I want to do a lot of reading on vaccinations before we have kids. I'm pretty uneducated on the issue, beside a few really in-depth blog posts I've read on the topic. I know there are some we'll skip (i.e. Gardasil, for many reasons) but there are others I just want to learn more about before jumping on the do-or-don't train.

    Are we raising a generation of helpless kids? YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

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  5. I am definitely with you on differentiation. Luckily, when I was in high schools, most of the classes were broken up by level, so it was easier, but one grade only had two levels, and with 400 kids in a grade, you can imagine how crazy that was. The helpless kids article is SO true. I'm starting a new group at work for juniors and seniors in high school and I had to flat out tell their parents that the kids needed to schedule meetings with me through their own calls and emails... their parents do EVERYTHING for them.

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  6. I would have sat on the couch and watched tv as well...can't beat that!

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  7. I've actually called my husband while he's out of town to ask him to either stop posting location-specific things on Facebook or ask his friends/co-workers to stop tagging him. We're not military; mine is more of a need for him to stop essentially saying "dear Facebook, I'm not home/my wife's home alone"

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  8. Love the article on helpless kids. Totally agree.

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  9. I completely agree with the "toughest job" BS. I am a spouse not a service member. Sure it sucks having the military dictate certain aspects of your life like when you will move and up root your family or when your spouse will be gone for training/deployment, but that doesn't mean my job is harder than theirs. Give me a break. Hahaha Purse... hahaha... mostly true.

    After teaching for several years it is clear that differentiation is majorly flawed. Then again so is most of our education system. This new push for common core makes me never want to go back into teaching at the grade school level. We need to look at other countries that have it right like Holland or Australia. Places where they don't rely on test scores and the latest new method. I'm not saying chalk and talk is the way to go but there is something to be said for adapting timeless methods to fit today's society.
    This anti vaccine push kills me. Doctors weigh the pros and cons of giving anyone any form of medication or vaccination. They recognize that getting the vaccine outweighs the risk of getting the disease. I have a bit of an understanding for parents that use an adjusted shot schedule as to not overload the child but that should be on a case by case basis. The average healthy child's immune system can handle it.
    Ok i'll step off my soap box now...

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  10. I couldn't agree MORE with the differentiation article! I could write a whole blog post, book, article myself about my thoughts on this! But I won't. We can discuss via email. lol

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  11. I agree with the whole military wife, though my husband and I weren't yet married when he was in the military. I just don't understand some people. I just feel like... and I mean this in the kindest way.. you chose this life. You did, they did, your next door neighbour did. I am not in the military but every time I whine about being an expat and how I miss my family, I want to smack myself. I chose this life. You know? Anyway. Totally agree with the anti vaccs and that doctor saying they don't want people in his office - he has a right to do that. Ugh helpless kids - so freaking true!
    I rarely like every link that people post in posts like this but I seriously loved them all. Especially the leggings one ;)

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  12. I agree on the gym thing. I get annoyed with the suddenly crowded classes and gym, but I do my best to be patient. And ... working out in the mornings actually helps me avoid most of the crowds.

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  13. Good articles! Though my views on vaccination are opposite yours ;) But I'm a minority.

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  14. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of those articles and all of your thoughts on them! I think we agree on each and every one of those topics... well, of course we do! :)

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