Didactic Synapse

Recently someone on Reddit asked: “how is teaching stressful?” I thought I’d share my fun little response I wrote.

Are you kidding? I canot even begin to answer that question because I am so totally exhausted from teaching. It is one of the most stressful jobs on the planet.

In addition to pouty, arrogant, disinterested students (whose passion for learning — or at least passing standardized tests — you must excite or be condemned for being bad at your job), you will face endless bureaucratic mandates; mountains of tedious paperwork, related to student activities and not; gallons of emails, most of it nearly pointless, but just barely important enough to get you into big trouble if you delete it without reading it; years of “professional development” which often translates into mind-numbing seminars or lectures at best; meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting; conferences about young people who brag about how they hate you, your class, the curriculum, and everyone in the building, refuse to do work, but still deserve to pass the class; and a socio-political environment that demonizes you at every turn for not instantly remedying all of the nation’s ills yet provides almost no support for this herculean task.

Then there are the myriad challenges of preparing lessons, designing activities, teaching the actual class, and grading papers. Once you’ve finished all of that, you can write up your goal reflection for the year, finish your club sponsor duties (for which you may or may not get paid), and help struggling students after school. Also don’t forget to check your mailbox and remember to send those things to Central Copy before you leave, or else you won’t have them when you need them on Friday. Also that student who is doing the independent study project needs to meet with you.

Don’t get me wrong — I love my job and I cannot imagine doing anything else. I also love my district and I’m very lucky to have a supportive administration that respects me.

But it’s a job with stress like you will not believe.

This week I’m back with 77 minutes of news and perspectives on fracking, movies, gun violence, economics, and killer robots. Buckle up and tune in!

DS #79: Nuclear Fracking

Action of the Week: Fight Media Consolidation

Top 3 Links of the Week

• BusinessWeek: To prevent massacres like Newtown’s, expand Medicaid
• Documentary film: The Inconvenient Truth Behind “Waiting for Superman”
• Pain continues after war for American drone pilot

Current Events

• Connecticut School Shooting
  • RIP Victoria Soto
  • Amish community response in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania (2006)
  • Tim Wise: Of heroes and hype: Mass murder and the absurdity of the “more guns” crowd
  • Jeffrey Sachs: America’s real freedoms
  • Why most mass murderers are privileged white men
  • Davey D: An open letter to the media about the Sandy Hook shooting
• Greek hospitals suffer in ailing economy
• Fracking
  • Colorado drilling rigs closing in on ‘60s nuke site
  • Promised Land trailer
  • Matt Damon on Tavis Smiley
  • Fracking lobbyists prepare case against Matt Damon’s Promised Land
  • Affirming Gasland
  • Gasland’s Josh Fox on PBS NOW

Economics

• Dirty white gold: Monsanto in India
• HSBC: Too big to jail, the new poster child for US two-tiered system of justice
• DemcoracyNow: Matt Taibi on HSBC
• DemocracyNow: Barlett and Steele on The Betrayal of the American Dream
• Paul Krugman on robots and economics
• Microwave vies with fiber for HFT

Education

• 2010 Merit pay study: Teacher bonuses don’t raise student test scores
• Brookings Institution: Class size: What research says and what it means for state policy
• Maryland schools chief calls for three-year moratorium on standardized testing
• Rhode Island teacher’s resignation letter

Killer Robots, Etc

• BusinessWeek: Robot workers: Coexistence is possible
• It’s time to target Cerberus
• Ban helium balloons, academic warns

Hip-Hop

B. Dolan: “Which Side Are You On?”

This week we look at riots at Foxconn, the horrible reviews for Maggie Gyllenhall’s dumb new movie, and regrets of a-bomb scientists. Strap in and enjoy!

DS #74: Foxconn and the A-Bomb

Top 3 Links of the Week

• Dave Zirin on the NFL Referee lockout
• Chronicle of a death foretold
• Are we asking too much from our teachers?

Current Events

• Jeffri Chadiha on referee lockout at EPSN.com
• Drug testing: Peeing to participate
• No criminal charges for “pepper spray cop”

Economics

• What’s behind the Foxconn worker riots?
• Don’t tell anyone, but the stimulus worked
• Tax cuts don’t lead to economic growth
• Fed warns high-frequency trading firms
• Senate panel looks into high-frequency stock trades
• China Labor Bulletin: A Decade of Change

Education

• UW-Madison lab works with controversial data for Chicago schools
• The scientists’ petition: A forgotten wartime protest
• ESP: How do students get better?
• PBS Frontline: Dropout Nation
• Education drama ‘Wont Back Down’ fails to make the grade
• School reform’s propaganda flick

Killer Robots, Etc

• Security firm to hold zombie crisis scenario
• Baxter robot aims to keep jobs in the US

Hip-Hop

Sadat X: “Gamer”

You know how Mitt Romney made all his money by running a private equity firm? You know how those firms buy struggling companies and make them more efficient, and then sell them off, making a hefty profit in the process?

Well tonight I was listening to a BusinessWeek podcast featuring an interview with a guy who has spent his life doing this stuff. And it hit me: Here’s how I’m going to make my first million dollars.

Private equity firms help improve all sorts of businesses — manufacturing, finance, service-sector, you name it. But what’s the only business that is not constantly subjected to efficiency upgrades and relentless waste-fighting measures?

Private equity firms!

So what I’m gonna do is become a private equity consultant for private equity firms! I’ll go to the board of directors of equity firms and say “I’ll bet your workers aren’t firing people and dismantling companies as efficiently as they could be.” And they can pay me a huge fee to stand over people like Mitt Romney with a stopwatch and lecture him on how to be more efficient.

Ka-ching! This idea is patent pending, by the way. If anyone wants to use it, I am hereby attaching the same stipulations from my “[your product] SUCKS” guerrilla marketing tactic that I came up with eight years ago. ($100K each to ETAN/US and the Alachua County Labor Party.)

I’m gonna be so rich.. I can’t wait. I’m gonna buy me some mink socks and a new iPad and a diamond collar for Tito.