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Even if it's not true...it makes a good story

@specialkthegreat / specialkthegreat.tumblr.com

Samkat. My blog has a mix of social justice concerns, pop culture, and giraffes.

If you’re an adult, especially if you’re new to being an adult, you need to start being aware of how your interactions with minors will affect them. It doesn’t matter if you still feel like a teenager and it doesn’t matter if your underage friends are super duper mature in your conversations with them. As an adult, it is up to you to place boundaries and not cross them for the sake of keeping the minors in your life safe. It is up to you to know what is and isn’t appropriate to say and do to them. Please think critically about the way you interact with minors and don’t hassle them, pressure them, or make them feel unsafe for any reason under any circumstances. You’re the adult. You should know better.

As an educator, I hate the bell curve system, but I really hate teachers who say, “You won’t get an A in my class.” It’s not just because it causes students to begin the semester with a feeling that they will fail the course: it’s because it is the teacher admitting to their own failure to teach. 

We are literally paid to teach a full curriculum. “I don’t give out A’s” to me translates to “I cannot 100% do my job.” There is no reason a good teacher can’t give you an 80-100% understanding of what is in the course. It’s our job to make sure you understand as much as we can. 

A class average of 50 is isn’t a statement of how hard the material is. It’s a statement that the teacher cannot complete 50% of their job.

This has some good points, but also some really really bad ones. A low class average is not always indicative of a bad teacher, and can just as likely form as a result of the students unwillingness to do the work necessary to do well. Don’t blame teachers for your inability to apply yourself.

Students!!! are rarELY!!!! LAZY!!!! they are there to learn! Teachers who assume that students are “just unwilling to do work” forget that students are people and most of them have about 258 million outside stresses that are causing them to ignore schoolwork, and! It’s still my job to engage + excite students so they want to do work! nobody wants to do busywork! 

And this post isn’t about the so-called lazy people! it’s about the students who do apply themselves and walk into a class and are told to their faces that there is no way for them to totally succeed. Education shouldn’t be like a rigged carnival game!! it shouldn’t be a gamble!!!! i believe in challenging students! I don’t believe in telling them that no matter what, they can’t win!

as for my “why not, it’s their class to teach”

  • many students rely on merit-based scholarships
  • SO many students have severe anxiety about grades and you are telling them “i’m going to be the source of many panic attacks”
  • you are not making them want to work - why bother when they’re incapable of being recognized for it?
  • students who are already struggling are going to get labelled LAZY and are going to see their grades drop even though they can’t control their ability to learn 
  • just imagine for a second that learning disabled students exist. guess who most frequently gets called unwilling to do work?
  • IT IS OUR JOB to be the medium between information and the students, not to CRUSH THEIR VERY SPIRITS
  • ALL IT TAKES IS ONE TEACHER TO RUIN A SUBJECT FOREVER, DO YOU REALLY WANT IT TO BE YOU

I’m terrified of this culture I see on tumblr which dictates that if a person does something wrong, or makes a mistake, or displays a moment of ignorance they are trash and worthless and deserve to be torn to shreds. A human being does not stop being a human being because they said something stupid. The idea that we should all aspire to a very specific sense of social and ideological purity or we deserve to die is dictatorial and frankly frightening.

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LONDON — Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.
Watch the full interview here. 

I think the West is the only place calling them ISIS; the Middle East and elsewhere calls them Daesh. Here’s the thing: Daesh hate being called Daesh. Daesh wants to be called the Islamic State because Daesh thinks it gives them legitimacy and validity. Plus, Daesh is very insulting to them, so I think we should call Daesh Daesh as a fuck you to Daesh.

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What does Daesh mean?

Technically, Daesh is an acronym for their full name in Arabic (al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham), but it also sounds very similar to Arabic words meaning “one who crushes things underfoot” and “one who sows discord” (“daes” and “dahes”, respectively) so that’s why Arabs like to call them that.

it’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if vegans or racist piss me off more during tragedies

what have the vegans done now

Stop saying Hermione belongs in Ravenclaw 2k15

Ravenclaws are wise, and open to new ideas.

Hermione is knowledgeable, and completely rejects new ideas until there’s a mountain of proof for them.

There’s a difference here.

Hermione basically completely rejects the concept of wisdom, so she’s clearly not a Ravenclaw.

The trope of the “crazy” girlfriend is so prevalent and joked about now that girls getting into relationships are so worried about seeming imposing that they do not speak out about things that make them uncomfortable and are forced to let their boyfriends emotionally manipulate them into normalizing otherwise inappropriate behavior. They do not speak up and then are faced with dealing with an uncomfortable situation for so long, which can really affect their self esteem and emotional health. “Jokes” aren’t always jokes, especially at the expense of women. They are usually integrated into people’s thinking to the extent that they truly affect people’s opinions of women and the way they see them.

Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.