Unmute !

this is the best response image ever

oh gods it was parents evening again tonight..

That “he talks??” bit gets me

Yeah, kids talk. If your kid doesn’t talk to you, it’s because of one of two reasons:

Kids are not stupid, not at any age level. They pick up on shit and they remember and then when they grow to be teenagers, they know who they can talk to about stuff and who they can’t.

My 13 year old nephew is not particularly affectionate with his mother and he rarely talks to her about anything important, but there are times I can’t get that kid to stop hanging off me and he has those serious conversations with me, like when we discussed his friends coming out to him as bisexual.

It’s not even that hard to make a kid feel loved and welcome. I don’t even know what my nephew is talking about half the time with his games, but they’re important to him, so I let him talk and I make appropriate noises of shock and sympathy when they are needed.

He watches a lot of YT channels, so we’ve discussed the importance of regulating your media, because I don’t want motherfuckers like PewDiePie shaping his world view.

He reads anything from Stephen King to manga and he does that because I’ve been reading him books since he was a baby. I do it with all of my nieces and nephews; when they get school-aged and old enough to read on their own, our “us” time is going to the bookstore and letting them pick out a drink and a book.

Because reading is important to me and I want it to be important to them, too. Now, it’s not something I suggest, it’s something that my nephew asks for.

“I finished my book, Aunt [Dessie], when can we go to the bookstore again?”

And when I tell him a date, I make sure to keep it.

Saying, “You can talk to me about anything” and “you can rely on me” is all well and good, but words are just words. You have to mean it and you have to show them that you mean it.

Otherwise, when it gets to those important moments in their life, they’re gonna shut you out rather than let you in.

US things that I only know from the internet/tv and that i won’t believe until i’ve seen them with my own two eyes: 

can’t believe i forgot 

I can’t believe, in an industry ripe with falsehoods, you managed to list everything that actually exists

I forgot about high school……. Like completely forgot I ever attended

Me, thinking about high school:

please watch this

source

This is so intense like… if you miss your mark you get beheaded

You’re doing them a disservice by not including who they are! These girls are high school students. They are the Tomioka High School Dance Club from Tomioka High School in Osaka. They went viral in Japan when they got runner up in the “All-Japan High School Super Cup Dance-Off” held as part of Yokohama’s summer of dance this summer (August 2017). You’ll know Yokohama’s summers of dance from the regular mass Pikachu dances you see on social media each summer. 

They’ve blown up since then. The promotional video they made at the school has more than 30 million views. They’ve been on tons of TV shows, including performances with Oginome Yoko, the original singer of the song (Dancing Hero (Eat You Up)) that they remixed for their dance. 

This dance routine was riffing off the comedian Hirano Nora and actually includes some of her comedy catch phrases in the remix. (They even got her to join them eventually!) For the uninitiated, one of the most accessible forms of comedy in modern Japanese pop culture are comedians like this who create outlandish SNL type characters and then appear on one or more shows regularly as that character. Hirano Nora’s gimmick is that she’s a woman from the height of Japan’s “bubble economy” era in the 80′s when there were tons of newly wealthy yuppies. This is why the remix is called “Bubbly Dance”. (Compare her to similar comedy character Blouson Chiemi whose gimmick is that she’s a modern, man eating career woman.)

These girls deserve all the fame they’re getting. You can read about them in the Asahi Shinbun and also check out this piece on Akane, their 25 year old coach via Japan Forward. 

!!!

who wants to hear the story about how a girl in my spanish 2 class fought back against the horrible spanish teacher and won

if this gets 2 notes i will tell it

one note is good enough for me.

so there’s this girl in my spanish 2 class. we’ll call her kayla.

kayla is a sophomore. she is funny and outspoken and a little crazy. the main thing to remember about kayla is that she will stand up for herself when needed. and that’s why something happened with her and my spanish teacher.

we’ll call my teacher miss irving. miss irving has been teaching spanish for 30 years. she’s a little forceful, hates technology, and hates when people don’t just listen to her without questioning it.

it began when kayla entered class late near the beginning of the school year. “sorry, ma’am,” she said to miss irving. “i was at the counselor’s.”

miss irving looked up at kayla and asked for a pass. kayla didn’t have one, but she said that miss irving would be able to call the counselor and the counselor would verify her visit. miss irving refused to do so and gave her detention on the spot. kayla started trying to justify her own actions, and she received yet another detention.

this marked the beginning of a long, long feud. every time kayla did something, miss irving would reprimand her for it. kayla put on chapstick or began to eat in class and miss irving began to yell. kayla read a paragraph slower than the rest of us and miss irving would snap at her. slowly, kayla began to get fed up.

the last straw for her was when she asked miss irving to go to the counselor during class, and it changed everything.

“miss irving? i have an appointment with the counselor down the hall. may i go?”

“obviously not,” my teacher snapped back. “you can’t leave in the middle of the class.”

“but i need to see her, i have an appointme-“

“i don’t care. you’re going to translate that paragraph-“

“ma’am, i already translated it-“

“well, then i’ll give you more work to do-“

“no.”

at that word, all of the heads in the clasroom turned. it’s an unspoken rule that you don’t say no to miss irving. but kayla had fire in her voice, and was now standing up and glaring at the teacher.

“excuse me?” miss irving responded, and kayla went off.

“no matter what i do, you get on to me about it. i have issues that i need to take care of that you refuse to understand. you’re a teacher. you’re supposed to care about us. it’s your job! listen to me carefully: i. have. mental. health. problems. and there are times i need to eat in class or i need to go to the counselor’s office because of it, so could you just get off of my ass about it and try to understand?”

miss irving turned beet red and sent her to the principal’s office.

what followed was a battle between the two. miss irving kept emailing kayla’s parents, but kayla’s parents took their daughter’s side. then my teacher emailed kayla’s other teachers and asked them to take her side, but the other teachers said they didn’t ever have problems with kayla.

kayla went to talk to the principal about the situation and told her what was going on. the principal talked to miss irving, and miss irving lost her teacher of the year award for that year. she also received a strike on her teaching record for refusing to respect a student’s mental health protocol. and kayla won.

miss irving still teaches our class and we still have kayla with us. now, miss irving doesn’t hide her hatred for kayla at all. she expresses it fully to her other classes. and most of those other classes hate her as well.

but my class and i love kayla. because kayla has a newfound power, and she doesn’t take it for granted. instead, she uses it to help us.

and this matters so much to me because, one day, she helped me.

i have generalized anxiety disorder. one of the methods i can use to calm myself down is by doodling, and doodling also helps me listen more closely to the teacher’s lesson. so i started doodling on the edges of my papers in spanish a lot, especially when we started having tests every class period and it became very anxiety-inducing for me.

miss irving started taking points off for every doodle i made. and i mean A LOT of points. i drew an eye in the corner of a worksheet once and i got an 80 instead of a 100. when i tried to explain that it was for my anxiety, she didn’t care. so now i had even more anxiety because i couldn’t reduce my anxiety.

one day, miss irving was lecturing and i was doodling, when she started to yell at me for it.

i can’t remember a lot about what happened because at that moment i went into a full blown panic attack. but what i do remember is kayla standing up and yelling at her.

“what are you doing? stop! she’s obviously having a panic attack!”

she came over to my desk and led me through breathing exercises. calmed me down. told me my doodle of half a face looked really good, asked me how long i’d been taking art and about my disorder. the entire class was silent, watching, and miss irving was fuming.

when i was calm enough to, i thanked kayla, and she squeezed my hand in a silent alliance.

then miss irving walked back to the whiteboard and never said anything about my doodles again.

the moral of the story? just because a teacher or principal or parent is older than you doesn’t mean they deserve to be obeyed no matter what. if what your “elders” say to you or do to you belittles you, tears you down, or keeps you from being able to get help or be a better person, they are not doing their job, and you can stand up for yourself and others.

don’t be afraid to question the authority just because they say they shouldn’t be questioned.

Kayla’s a fucking hero

Every time I see a story about a teacher like this I want to show up on campus and tell them to square up like I’m Meredith Gray.

Reminder that protesting is worth getting suspended for

#yeah a walkout is disruptive but you know what’s more disruptive? FUCKING SHOOTINGS

I’m reblogging this again because I wanted to add a note: PROTEST ANYWAYS.

If your schools threaten to suspend you, protest anyways. En masse. Because you know what gets tracked by district, state and federal administration? Suspensions.

Schools and schools systems *must report* their suspension levels etc. Every year all this data from the state gets compiled into a huge report and presented to the State Board of Education and the state legislators. By. School.

You know what happens to schools districts with unusually high rates? Big Trouble.

So if your principal/superintendent threatens to suspend any student participating in a walkout? Still do it. Because here’s what will happen: You’ll walk out, get suspended, the school will be empty basically for *days* effectively starting a strike, the principal will have to report it to the district, the district will have to report it to the state and there’s a solid chance your school’s administrative team could be replaced.

YOU HOLD ALL THE CARDS HERE. Don’t let them think otherwise. There is literally nothing they can threaten you with that won’t come back to bite them square in the ass.

Heads up to HS students worried about college if you protest: check out Hampshire College, they’re 100 percent gonna read “I walked out and got suspended because of it” as “I am a thoughtful and dedicated student who will put doing what’s right first” and also they don’t require SATs.

Like srsly I wouldn’t be super surprised if in a year or two every new student at Hampshire walked out this year.

So. Today in class we assigned Macbeth roles to students to read. When I asked the class who wants to be Lady Macbeth, a young man raised his hand. I kind of stared at him like “Lady Macbeth,” and he nodded like “I know what I’m about ma’am.” So then the student who ended up as Macbeth raised his hand and said “HE’S THE ONE, HE’S MY WIFE!” So I said “yeah sure why not,” and the entire class period they were blowing kisses to each other and winking at each other, and every now and then Macbeth would say “I’m the luckiest man on Earth” and Lady Macbeth would put a hand to his chest, and be like “BABE!”.

I just stared at them, knowing that they CLEARLY have never read ‘Macbeth’ before, so… all this lovey dovey… I don’t know if I have the heart to tell them the truth.

Update:

there must be more

the drum is filled with hot steam and then sprayed with cold water. the pressure on the outside of the drum is far more than inside. the pressures try to maintain and find balance taking the drum as a casualty.

“Oh FUCK that’s cold!”

when youre in the shower and someone flushes the toilet

My Chemistry teacher did this the first day of class with a coke can, a hotplate, and a basin of water. I have never forgotten the scientific principles behind it, and here’s why.

There were 20-something of us in the classroom, all dying of sleep deprivation since it was the first day back to school, first class of the day. Mr. Moses was that teacher you weren’t sure how to deal with. I mean, the man’s name was Noah Eugene Moses, for starters. He drove a Harley to school, but also drove the bus. He had giant cokebottle glasses and a doofy mustache with shaggy ex-Beatles hair. He always wore suspenders and a grease-stained t-shirt because he had a potbelly and taught the shop/electrical classes. He wasn’t even really lecturing; he was throwing in tidbits of the syllabus in the midst of bad jokes and fun stories. We were all a bit nervous, because none of us had taken a class from him before, but his tests were legendary—nobody had ever made it out with an A (until I did, but that’s another story for another time and involves a really awesome bet and some hair cutting scissors).

Well, as we were fighting to stay awake, and attempting to take notes of whatever he was talking about, he was pacing around the room from here to there, straightening things and moving stuff. He was very scatterbrained, and it was easy to tell from how he kept forgetting where he put his coke. Turns out, that was just a ruse. He had the can filled with just a tiny bit of water, and the things he was moving around were stacks of papers and books hiding the hot plate and water basin. So he set his coke can down onto the hot plate, continued talking loudly enough so we wouldn’t hear the water boiling, and then knocked it over really fast into the water basin.

BANG!!!!!!!!

Three girls fell out of their seats, one dude swore so violently I’m pretty sure the devil himself cringed, everyone at least jumped and screamed, and I actually broke my pen in half.

See, with rapid decompression comes a vacuum, and with a vacuum comes a rushing of air that creates a massive sound. Think “thunder”. That’s the same principle behind it. His little tiny coke can of steam into a bucket of ice water, and we had a bang so loud the band teacher came in from across the hall to see “what was exploding today.” To which Mr. Moses responded, “Nothing, it imploded. Explosions are chapter 3.”

And that’s when I knew it was going to be the best class ever.

epic

The only white foolishness I condone

I love how he respected the force and threw himself back a reasonable force distance

SPOILER

back in freshman year of high school we had this teacher who was really fucking annoying and HATED cell phones with a fucking passion. at the beginning of the school year he had us sign this goddamned “contract” that we wouldn’t have it in class or he would confiscate it.

so this annoying douchebag kid was on his phone and the teacher went “you have to give it to me now you signed the contract” and the kid didn’t even look up and said “contracts signed by a minor are not legally binding” and continued to text. and i hated that kid but…..dare i say iconic

anyway he got detention for it but i just found out he got into law school this year

omg

sometimes my mom will ask me if i have any advice to help my little sister navigate the treacherous waters of high school and i will never understand why she thinks i can help because in high school i

i should also point out that my sister is a tall, blue-eyed blonde who is really into a sort of rose-gold-and-pineapples aesthetic, and when i was her age i looked like this:

I have said it before and I will say it again, everything you did to hide your insecurities came across as a really cool, above it all, wise beyond her years kind of person. Literally, I looked up to you so hard because you were so unapologetically yourself, so I guess your advice to your sister could be to just embrace everything about herself and wear it with confidence even if it’s faked because people will buy it, and be inspired by it.

omg ;w; i know it was ten million years ago but that is still such a sweet thing to hear, holy shit

this was the result of a korean high school having no rules for their senior photos

Amazing

12 Adult Actors Who Played Teens Vs. What Teens Really Look Like

Grease, enough said 

i love that this article is not only pointing out a super common and troubling phenomenon in movie culture but was also probably set up the way it is specifically so the author could put embarrassing pictures of their friends on buzzfeed

i remember around the order of the phoenix there suddenly cropped up a wierd amount of grumbling that though they were cranking out the harry potter films at the absurd pace of one every eighteen months, essentially dropping a whole new season of television with hundred million dollar special fx straight to theatres every year and a half, and the literally only recast two? characters, main or supporting, in eight films, and one of them* was bc somebody DIED, and so they had the same cast starting at actual aged eleven filming movie one which came out in 2001, and then just ten years later released film eight representing the end of their seventh year in 2011, a three year age gap in-canon and irl, and ppl were grumbling that this three year age gap was somehow both unacceptable and unprecedented. meanwhile the average high school student in movies is twenty six.

do u ever feel like you’ve accidentally tricked certain people into thinking you are smarter and have more potential than you actually do and do you ever think about how disappointed they’ll be when you inevitably crash and burn

Fun fact: Impostor Syndrome is ridiculously common among high-achievers, particularly women. If you identify with this post, odds are pretty good that you’re exactly as smart as people think you are, and the failure you’re afraid of isn’t inevitable at all.

Even Maya Angelou stated, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

and don’t forget this is one of the psychological barriers placed in by thousands years of patriarchy and male supremacy.

My computer science professor actually talked about this on the first day, it was really cool.

Fun brutal fact: in addition to the existence of imposter syndrome, being “twice exceptional” (also known as 2e) is also a thing. That means being intellectually gifted AND ALSO having a disability that affects your ability to succeed at study or work. Such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc etc etc. A lot of people believe that it’s not possible to be both, but it very much is.

Society tends to have very high expectations for how well gifted people will perform. Society tends to have low expectations for how well disabled people will perform. Society tends to attribute invisible disabilities, including mental illness, to a failure of willpower or effort or a bad attitude.

So if you read this post and went “no, but seriously, this is not just low self esteem on my part, people keep thinking I’m smart and then I keep crashing and burning and disappointing them and they can’t understand why I didn’t live up to their expectations, it happens again and again and when I tell someone how I feel and ask for help, they just tell me to stop being so hard on myself and that I’ll succeed if I have more self-confidence,” it is not just you.

(Also, one of the previous posts in this thread buried the lede a little. Imposter syndrome is ridiculously common in people from underrepresented groups in academia and other high pressure/high status fields, particularly women and people of colour. Maya Angelou did not only feel out of place because she was a woman.)

This essay also totally changed my view on the intersection of impostor syndrome and mental illness.