Instead of Friday Favorites, I’m now going to make Friday’s a surprise. You have to tune in to find out if it will be a trick or a treat…

Today is a quiz:

  1. 5+5+________
  2. Is Pluto a planet?
  3. What is the difference between they’re, their and there?
  4. Is America a democracy or a republic?

ANSWERS:

  1. 10. Except if you go to a school that has the show your work model. Then the answer can be anything you want as long as you show your work. True story: my daughter can do a lot of math in her head, so when it came to these sorts of problems she would just write down an answer. She got 5 out of 10 points for the correct answer. Another student who wrote down 13 got 8 points out of 10 because they showed all their little stickpeople to designate that they did work… I guess in the real world when someone gives you change of .70 instead of 7.00 you immediately say- That’s fine I know you did the work and it’s OK if you don’t know how to do basic math…
  2. Pluto is now recognized as a dwarf planet. As new information comes to light, science updates its books and definition. That is progress because we know what was wrong before, or right before because we are able to garner more evidence. (fyi- there is no sarcasm intended here. It is a smart to fix/amend things when more info is gathered. No one made a mistake. They just didn’t know certain things before)
  3. They’re (they are) going to the movies. Would you put that book over there? Do you want to go to their house for dinner? Does it matter if we use the correct words? I don’t know. But my daughter now ends her emails with the pronouns she/her uses …
  4. A constitutional or federal democratic republic. Does it matter? Probably not. But does it really matter how we interpret things like the constitution?

57 thoughts on “Anything Can Happen Friday”

    1. I get it. But you can’t say the definition of one word matters while the definition of another doesn’t…we need to be consistent. I’ve gotten trolled for taking definitions at their literal meaning…it’s one way or the other

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      2. I’m just saying it’s all gotten a little nuts about which words matter and which don’t. I want all words to matter equally and for them to stand for something. When I’m having a discussion and someone uses a word, I’ll ask them to define the word they’re using so I can figure out what they’re saying and where they’re going. I worry about too much time spent on things like flies and voice timber and not enough about substance

        Liked by 1 person

      3. My daughter was watching some panel where the moderator said that the American people don’t want a debate, they want the fly. When did this type of behavior come to define us? I mean really, we get what we deserve. Sorry I’m ranting, but when I see what people think/post about I get incensed.

        Liked by 2 people

      1. It normalized the sharing of pronouns so those with less obvious identities aren’t singled out in sharing their signifiers – participating in a common courtesy instead of immediately identifying those sharing as “other”

        Liked by 2 people

    1. What we choose to focus on is getting harder and harder to deal with. We ignore facts. We reinterpret things that we do not like. We arbitrarily alter things to fit what we want them to instead of what they are. And then we wonder why we are here now…

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  7. Never mind the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’……….. how can people not understand an apostrophe in ‘you’re’ is for a good reason? Drives me up the wall when I read something and they only ever using ‘your’…………… honestly, I can only think it’s laziness!

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  8. Don’t get me started on the math stuff. If we could go back in time to when my kids were in elementary school I would have written an 1000 word essay as a comment. I did a bit of protesting about this approach. Someone actually gave me promotional materials comparing the old way vs. the new way that stated the old way was too focused on getting the right answer—totally baffling.

    I remember my son getting problems like 22+22 and being expected to write down his thought process for solving the problem. His math skills were way ahead of his writing skills—it was so frustrating for him.

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    1. I taught my daughter old school to supplement her new approach and I made her memorize her times table. At the end of the day she had an exceptional SAT math score and knows how to figure out the tip at a restaurant… the new way is ridiculous for 75% of the students. 2+2=4 because it does.

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      2. One of my friends specifically decided to send his kid to private school because he doesn’t like how public teaches math. And he’s a former math teacher

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  9. I remember being required to show my process in geometry class. Had to write what I did plus show numbers of what I did. It took forever to do my homework, and taught me that I’m not a person who deals well with busywork.

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  10. I would really not like it if the person who said 5+5 is 8 went on to become an engineer, physician or other professional who needed to be exact and correct in their calculations. That’s crazy. It’s math….it’s either correct or incorrect and I really don’t care how you got there. They’re, there or their….don’t get me started….I have to instruct college seniors who sometimes don’t know the difference. Pluto will always be a planet in my mind. It probably will become one again because….everything is relevant, right? Democracy, in it’s purest form, is when the majority has almost limitless power over the minority. This is why we have a Republic where states elect representatives to make laws, following the Constitution and Bill of Rights…which protect rights from being changed by the will of the majority. Clear as mud?! xoxo

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  14. I don’t understand the she/her approach. The university where I was an adjunct for the past two years is having heavy layoffs of many including adjuncts. Glad that she/her found another job in the school system. Have a great day.

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  15. I am happy to hear that Pluto has regained status as a planet–even if dwarf is added to it. I was personally affronted by the declaration that Pluto was no longer a planet. All those years and then his (yes, Pluto is male) identity was stripped from him overnight. I could hear him whimpering in the cold dark–well I could have if sound traveled through space like it does in science fiction movies.

    Liked by 1 person

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