I got this idea from the Toast, which does link roundup every day and I love it. So, here are some things I read on the internet this week:
One question I often get about teaching in a Title I school is: How did these students get so behind in the first place? This Atlantic Article delves into one (of the many, many) factors that impact students, particularly students at low-income schools: toxic stress from a young age.
...The problem is that when disadvantaged children run into trouble in school, either academically or behaviorally, most schools respond by imposing more control on them, not less. This diminishes their fragile sense of autonomy. As these students fall behind their peers academically, they feel less and less competent. And if their relationships with their teachers are wary or even contentious, they are less likely to experience the kind of relatedness that Deci and Ryan describe as being so powerfully motivating for young people in the classroom.
Alexandra Petri's election satires are consistently gold. Here's one of the latest:
If Sanders supporters complained about other things the way they complain about election results
CHESS:
This game is rigged. The pawns get to move almost NOWHERE, whereas the QUEEN (DETECT ANY RESEMBLANCE HERE???) can just move wherever she likes with no apparent rhyme or reason. She’s not a bishop or a rook. Why does she move like one? Also, the black pieces have to move second, which is TOTALLY unfair and needs to be looked into, unless I am playing with the white pieces today.
I have always thought it was a little bit hilarious that the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility are upset about moving into a cottage that is basically my dream home.
Important Influences: Rain is a big influence. It never really stops raining here, so we have a lot of time to stay in and think about what kinds of window coverings would be best and how many more cushions we need to embroider. Marianne is always taking walks in the rain. I swear: one day she’s going to get really sick in a flushed, sweating, erotic way, and I’m just going to be like: I told you the rain was bad.
Finally, my high school English teacher posted this article from American Scholar a few weeks ago, and I think it is the most beautiful thing I've read this month.
I Will Love You in the Summertime
The Polish poet Anna Kamienska died in 1986, at the age of 66. She had converted to Christianity in her late 40s, after the unexpected death of her beloved husband, the poet Jan Spiewak. People who have been away from God tend to come back by one of two ways: destitution or abundance, an overmastering sorrow or a strangely disabling joy. Either the world is not enough for the hole that has opened in you, or it is too much. The two impulses are intimately related, and it may be that the most authentic spiritual existence inheres in being able to perceive one state when you are squarely in the midst of the other. The mortal sorrow that shadows even the most intense joy. The immortal joy that can give even the darkest sorrow a fugitive gleam.