u/veggie_hoagie

Sorry if this gets removed, but I just wanted to say, y'all are amazing.

It's a nearly daily occurrence that I experience some frustration with my job, think about coming here to post about it, and then immediately see that the same topic has been broached within the last 24 hours.

I'm not sure about my policy to withhold sharing slides with students?
Another professor just asked about it.

I feel baffled by my students' lack of engagement?
Another professor just asked about it.

I become despondent after reading a number of woefully subpar essays?
Another professor just posted about it 2 hours ago.

I am spiritually uplifted after a particularly enthusiastic and talkative class and decide not to march onto campus and resign tomorrow?
Another professor just wrote about the same experience.

I'm just thankful that y'all are so honest and active on this sub. It's helping me keep my sanity. And I can't afford to lose it in early October.

Thank you. And thank you for hanging in there. On behalf of your students, thank you.

I will be back teaching at community college again after a break of 11 years. I will be teaching American government.

I have been following this subreddit for several months, and the semester is fast approaching. Some posts have made me rather...apprehensive, fearful that I will be walking into classrooms of total apathy and entitlement.

So really, what does the bell curve of effort look like in your classes? What percentage of students seem genuinely interested and actually try to succeed? What percentage of students seem to be totally indifferent and give no/little/very poor effort? What percentage might be in the middle, that is, students who maybe aren't obviously engaged but will still try to do decently well and submit their assignments on time and with reasonable effort?

I just want to prepare myself for what levels of attentiveness and effort I can anticipate.

I will be teaching American National Government in the fall. It will be my first time teaching at the college level in 11 years.

Basically, I am wondering what, if anything, to assign between classes. My colleague uses a program called Perusall, where students answer questions posted in the margins on readings, notes, etc. The students’ responses can be automatically graded, though I don’t know how well that grading functions.

I feel like it is a good idea to have some kind of take home work, but I don’t want it to be so heavy that it takes over what we do in the classroom. I’m also not sure if I want students to prepare for the meeting to come (as a kind of appetizer) or do work based on what we did in the most recent class (review/application).

I hope this all makes sense. Just curious what has worked best for y’all, especially for social science and humanities courses.

Does anyone have any advice for preparing and delivering a teaching demo? It’s for about 10 minutes.

Should I strive to make it interactive/engaging? Or should I keep it simple?

Any major dos or don’ts?

Hi chess friends,

I have been playing the Grunfeld and Nimzo for the last couple years, but never fully loving either.

I dislike some variations of the Grunfeld (like 8. Bb5+, 8. Be2, 8. Be3, and 8. Rb1), where it feels hard to play for a win in the main lines and where otherwise I have to choose secondary lines with evaluations like +0.6 and still it feels hard to play for a win.

As for the Nimzo, I just don't find it very exciting. I get lots of 4. Bd2 and 4. Qc2, and the game often feels like a stale positional struggle. I also see decent numbers of Catalans, 3 Knights (where I don't love the Ragozin, though the Vienna with ...b5 can be fun). Still, I also see lots of Londons, and playing in QGD style against Londons also isn't enjoyable.

For these reasons, I am drawn back to the KID (I played it a few years ago). Why did I stop playing it? Two main reasons. First, the Classical variation with dxe5 (the exchange, endgame variation), where I feared it would be hard to play for a win. This could also apply to other variations where white plays dxe5 and trades queens, like in the Makagonov. Second, the Bayonet Attack in the Classical variation. Here, when I look at the lichess masters database, I see so many draws: so not only is the evaluation unpleasant (+0.6 to +0.7), but black doesn't seem to have great winning chances.

So, KID players, what is it like playing the KID below the master level? I am OTB 1800 USCF, but I think I am objectively stronger than that: I just haven't played much OTB in years. So I would be playing the KID against opponents in the 1600-1700 range as well, and again, I fear I might struggle to win in an endgame line against a lower rated opponent.

What variations do you see most?

Do you have difficulty playing for a win in endgame lines? And how often do you see such lines?

Do you ever feel like giving up on the KID, and if so, what might you play instead?

Cheers.

I last taught from 2013-2015. I did this then, and I'm wondering if y'all think it's still a good idea.

Basically, I've been thinking of having students fill out a simple info page. I am teaching American National Government, so some of the questions are geared specifically toward the course.

Here are the basic sections (not the full form, but just to give the outline/basic idea):

1. Name, preferred name, major/program
2. Reason(s) for taking the course (options are given for students to check off + space for short reply)
3. How familiar the student is with the material (options are given for students to check off)
4. Topics that interest them most (options are given for students to check off + space for short reply)
5. Where the student gets news/information from (options are given for students to check off + space for short reply)
   + also, how confident student is in ability to assess reliability of info they see/hear
6. What helps the student learn (options are given for students to check off + space for short reply)
7. Any responsibilities students have outside class that could affect their attendance/participation/ability to complete coursework
8. How student feels comfortable sharing their views, including on controversial topics (options are given for students to check off)
9. Room for them to share anything else they'd like me to know

What do you think of the idea of this form in general?

And do you see any glaring omissions or something that should be removed or tweaked?

Thanks!

I need to get this off my chest.

Since when did journalists and sports announcers get so compulsive about using the word “moment?”

It’s all over political journalism. Everything is about what an event means for “this moment.” How candidates aren’t “meeting the moment.” Speakers will just carelessly throw the phrases like “at this moment” into their sentences when it adds no semantic value. The hosts of The Daily, the NYT podcast, are especially guilty of this.

Well, if you’ve watched the World Cup, you’ve heard it there too. Constant talk about how a team “had a moment.” So you mean, had a chance? A scoring opportunity? No. Just a moment. Or an announcer will mindlessly say that this team is so good “in these moments.” What moments? Again, you’ve uttered syllables but not actually said anything. Now that you’ve read this, sadly, you’ll hear it far more often.

Is this a huge deal? No. But language is all about clarity. Outside of artistic contexts, language is about describing reality rather than bringing attention to itself. Just like when a speaker habitually says “you know” or “like” as fillers. These are distractions, and if I’m distracted by how a speaker says “moment” every other sentence, I’m not paying attention to the content of the podcast or game.

Am I the only one who has noticed this or is bothered by it?

Has there been any lengthy treatment of prediction markets through critical theory?

It seems prediction markets have now turned nearly anything into a commodity. It seems to be a topic well suited to Marxist economic and cultural analysis — especially given the heavy advertising, promotion during televised sporting events, etc.

In elementary school, I (38/M) was tested for and admitted to my public school's gifted program. Recently my parents gave me loads of files, including my KTEA and WISC-III test scores, and I am wondering whether I actually deserve the gifted label.

I was tested in 2nd grade on the advice of my teacher. I was given the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA), and I scored 99th percentile in both verbal and nonverbal. I then took the WISC-III, and scored 123 on verbal and 108 on performance, for a full-scale IQ score of 116.

From what I can tell, admission to the gifted program (in my state at least) wasn't based solely on the WISC results and was based on a holistic assessment, so an IQ score ≥ 130 wasn't required.

Seeing these results was a bit surprising, especially the 116 IQ. I graduated valedictorian of my high school and top student in my major at a mid-sized state university. I began teaching at the college level at age 25. I have excelled at language and writing-related tasks, so it certainly makes sense that I scored higher in verbal on the WISC-III, and I do sometimes feel I struggle (relatively) with other kinds of tasks -- especially mechanical in nature, so that makes sense of the near-average performance score. But I also do well with logic-related tasks, like chess (99.9 percentile on chess.com).

So, I guess I am wondering how to make sense of all of this information. ChatGPT, after I feed it this data, suggests quite a wide range of possible IQ.

Am I really "gifted?" And what even is giftedness, really? Is it just a label that is conferred by a psychologist, or is it more strictly based on one's assessed IQ (say, ≥ 130)?

Edit: The original post mistakenly referred to the KBIT test: instead, it was KTEA.

I taught American National Government at a community college between 2013 and 2015. I started off each class with a discussion of current events (which was relatively safe at the time – not sure I want to risk that now), and then lectured for the remainder of the time. I unfortunately had to leave that position (relocated), and I just accepted an adjuncting role at a different community college, so this fall will be my first time teaching undergraduates in quite a while.

Since 2015, I have been casually following developments in education – especially higher education – including by following relevant subreddits. I also briefly worked at a high school as a substitute before deciding I wanted to be back on a college campus. I have read quite a bit from teachers and professors about shorter attention spans, lower standards, diminishing skills, etc. I have also seen it during my time as a tutor.

In short, how do y'all feel about lecturing for the entire duration of class (say, 90 minutes)? Is it better to incorporate group activities? Have you altered your pedagogy much over the last 15, 10, or even 5 years?

In general, I think I prefer lecturing, mostly because it is what I am used to. I am not at all opposed to incorporating more engagement, but developing engaging activities to accompany any lecturing would take some thought, time, and care, so if it's recommended that I incorporate such activities, I'd like to get started on that now over the summer.

Thanks in advance for any advice and guidance!

I will do my best to be concise here.

Quick backstory: My brother (41M) did not have an easy childhood. In grade school, he was identified as having a learning disability. My parents took him to multiple specialists and sent him to private schools that would best meet his learning needs. There were challenges for sure in his teens and 20s, but by his late 30s, he found a career he enjoyed and succeeded in.

The autism diagnosis: About a year ago, my brother became convinced he has autism (level 1 support needs). This idea was suggested by a coworker of his, and I think he became convinced of it after watching lots of TikTok/Facebook videos about what it means to have autism.

In particular, I think he identifies with a few elements of autism. First, he has struggled with communication (I think, in part, because of his learning disability). Second, and relatedly, he can struggle with socializing, which can be attributed to any number of factors, including the learning disability and its effects on his self-esteem throughout his life. Third, he says he thinks differently from others, especially by thinking in terms of pictures rather than words.

He quickly latched onto this idea of having autism. He eventually saw a specialist (psychologist) who did give him a diagnosis of "mild autism." We never saw any detailed report explaining how or why the psychologist came to this conclusion.

My family all disagrees with the diagnosis: My parents and wife disagree with this diagnosis. For one, my parents (as I said) took him to multiple specialists in the late 1990s. He received lots of testing. No one ever suggested he might have autism.

I know the understanding/conception of autism has changed over the years, which leads to the strongest objection.

My wife, to keep it vague/anonymous, is in the medical field. She is in a specialty that requires that she be very knowledgeable of the DSM and be able to diagnose autism. While my brother meets some criteria for an autism diagnosis, he does not meet others. Importantly, he did not show signs of autism as a child. He communicated like others, he played like others, he emoted like others, and he did not engage in repetitive behaviors.

In short, I think my brother is swept up in this 'trend' of identifying as autistic. And again, while he does have some traits associated with autism, such overlap does not mean one has autism.

Of course, it is great that there is more awareness about autism. Efforts to reduce ignorance and stigma are important. But unfortunately it seems its widespread discussion on social media has led many people to, incorrectly, believe that they too have autism.

The fallout: My brother's behavior changed dramatically after receiving this diagnosis. I should note, we live in different states, but my family talks weekly over the phone to stay in touch.

His close friend (40F), however, noted behaviors my brother had never exhibited before, including stimming behaviors. He also became very quick to anger, so much so that his best friend cut of all contact with him. This devastated him. He threatened to sue her several times (I won't get into why), largely as a strategy to get her talking to him again.

Shortly thereafter, he visited my parents, and he showed erratic behavior that frankly scared them. And when I talk to him on the phone, he exhibits wild swings in emotion and sometimes hangs up in anger and frustration.

He lost his job after his diagnosis as well. We don't know the details, but apparently his behavior became so concerning that they also put a restraining order on him. He has looked into suing them for workplace discrimination.

He found a new job within a couple months, but was fired from that one too. It seems he thought he knew how to run the place better than the owners. He has since found a new job.

Last year, my brother cut off all contact with me, my wife, and my parents. No response to phone calls or texts. Eventually he started talking to me on the phone, but he said he would never talk to my parents again. Why? Because they refused to accept his autism diagnosis.

The development of irrational beliefs: When he resumed talking to me, he began expressing irrational and delusional ideas -- especially related to the loss of his best friend. He said my parents snubbed this best friend (before the whole autism thing started) at a family event. This isn't true. He said my parents then failed to help him recover this friendship after the friend cut ties with him. This also isn't true: my father especially tried to get them talking again, but the friend said she wanted nothing to do with my brother until my brother got help and went back to his old self.

He now says my parents basically failed at parenting him, failed to teach him emotions, and now failed to help him get his best friend back. He said he would only ever talk to them again if they agreed to accept his autism diagnosis and also went, in person (8 hours away), to apologize to the ex-best friend (though it's still not clear what they would apologize for).

Whenever he is challenged on any of his ideas, he gets extremely defensive and angry. I try to present facts that disprove his narrative, but he simply isn't open to hearing me. I try to be delicate so he won't cut me off as well. It's a balancing act.

What my family thinks: Like I said above, we don't think he has autism. We also don't think that ought to matter much. We all want what is best for him. We want him to be happy. If he thinks he has autism, that's fine. But we think it's unreasonable to demand that we say we agree when clearly we don't.

We think there are other issues going on. We think he needs ongoing mental health treatment, in whatever form his specialist sees fit. What my brother sees as 'autistic meltdowns' or 'unmasking' we see as rude and disinhibited behavior. His behavior has been so jarring that it cost him two jobs and his best friend, and he has scared and severely angered family members.

Wrapping up: I don't want this to end my family. I don't want my brother and parents to never talk again. But it seems they are at an impasse. Is our only option really to lie to him and tell him we think he has autism? We don't want to lie, and we don't want to start feeding into whatever his irrational beliefs are just to appease him. We don't want to convey that his behavior has been acceptable.

TL;DR: My brother is refusing to talk to my parents because they don't believe in his autism diagnosis, and he is developing irrational beliefs that are making reconciliation impossible. What should we do?

There was a Mt Joy song bracket contest earlier this year, and Julia won.

Why do you think that is? What makes this song so amazing?

I just listened to it now (for maybe the 143rd time) and for me I think it just so beautifully enacts feelings of daze, out-of-bodyness, and longing. Lyrically, yes, but more so instrumentally. It’s ethereal without being trippy. It’s like being lost in a daydream.

It reminds me of first meeting my wife and wondering, while trying to impress her and be present, if we would have a life together.

What do you think explains the brilliance of Julia?

Hello friends,

I have posted here several times recently. I am a lifelong agnostic and recently becoming persuaded by theism. I am drawn to Christianity for several reasons, but I struggle with core doctrines.

I come here because I have great admiration for Episcopalianism and have considered joining a local congregation myself. Also I ask here because I expect a wide range of responses given how tolerant TEC can be of various points of view.

Basically, how confident are you in the Incarnation? I struggle to believe that god appeared on earth 2000 years ago and didn’t leave behind irrefutable evidence. I know some argue that god is coy on purpose, to invite rather than coerce and so on. How confident are you in affirming this believe, and why? Do you wrestle with doubt?

I feel the same about the Resurrection, though in some sense I find it a bit easier to believe. And one can believe in the Resurrection but still doubt the Incarnation - ex: perhaps god chose to exalt this wise teacher.

Some Christians (of various sects) seem so confident that Christianity is true - confident in the Incarnation and Resurrection. I don’t see how I could ever get there. I’ve read maybe 100 books on Christianity, listened to podcasts and so on. It seems I am not wired to believe. I simply don’t know how one can be so confident in things so extraordinary.

Any resources or personal accounts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I want to be supportive of independent media, but the whole enterprise feels like clickbait with a subscription plan.

For instance, why is nearly every post here presented like a title to a 2015 Ben Shapiro video?

Am I the only one who sees it like this?

I’ve read allegations that Rubin has released episodes with AI material. Can anyone share any examples?

I ask you wise Episcopalians because I know I will get a variety of thoughtful answers.

As for me, I am an agnostic who is drawn to theism and Episcopalianism specifically. But I have doubts about Christianity, and one of them is basically as follows:

The earth is billions of years old. Humanity in its modern form has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Millennia of darkness, confusion, suffering, and death. I struggle to accept that god revealed himself, during all this strife, just one time, to a select group of first-century Jews. And while he could have made his Incarnation an undeniable fact, he chose to disclose his identity selectively rather than overwhelmingly.

I am familiar with the names for this issue. Divine hiddenness. The scandal of particularity. And I have read some responses to these objections. I find some pretty clever and somewhat satisfying. But it’s a nagging thought for me. Especially when I consider deep time and how long god seems to have waited. All those people, all over the world. And he shows up only 2000 years ago.

What I like about Episcopalianism is that doubts aren’t discouraged. There is a broad theology that accommodates a range of views. So I come here to see how y’all think about this. Does it cause you doubt? Do you just accept the Incarnation as a brute, beautiful, somewhat inexplicable fact?

I am seeking guidance on how Episcopalians understand the general resurrection. Please share your own thoughts or suggest sources that you have found helpful.

A central tenet of Christianity is the promise of the general resurrection -- that all will be raised and given pneumatic (incorruptible) bodies.

At times I can accept the resurrection of Jesus (for what it's worth, I'm an agnostic/seeker drawn toward theism and Episcopalianism). But I'm also asked to believe that God will at some point resurrect everyone and redeem all creation.

Simply put, I find this so inconceivable as to be a stumbling block to faith. I understand that God is meant to be loving and just, so a just and loving god would not allow his creatures to be forgotten. I understand that Jesus' resurrection is meant to preview our own. I understand how a classical conception of god can support this kind of belief, but I find it so at odds with our modern understanding of, well, everything, that I just can't begin to fathom it. We -- everyone human who ever lived -- is going to live forever, zipping around the cosmos in superbodies?

From some of the research I've done, Jesus and the Pharisees may have borrowed this idea from the Persians when the Jews were in exile (with 'Pharisee' itself being a derivative in some way of 'Farsi'). [Note that the Sadducees do not believe in an afterlife, resurrection, etc.]

So on the one hand, I think one could say Jesus and his followers were preaching their ideas about eschatology, the afterlife, etc. to the best of their ability, but may have been wrong. On the other hand, that view could lead one to immediately cast doubt on many other important ideas. Maybe there is no general resurrection and we just inhabit a spiritual afterlife forever? Maybe..., or maybe..., or maybe actually...

Anyway, I'll leave it there. How do y'all think about it? Do you believe it? Do you interpret this promise differently? I understand that Episcopalians often have a range of views on matters of doctrine and theology, even though they affirm the classic creeds.

(I have edited the post to comply with rules for this subreddit.)

I just joined this subreddit this morning.

The second I clicked 'join,' I received this pop-up.

Please tell me this is a joke.

https://preview.redd.it/2eg650q3ha2h1.png?width=2794&format=png&auto=webp&s=36a7195f532dd139bae30d4aa476b7072e4e9102