(I am. here, as always, to be the threatening witchy figure for the Buffistas. Does it work? Who knows? But the offer is always open.)

I kind of love this. Actually, no "kind of" about it.

I'm so sorry for all of you parents and your kids having to navigate this. I can't even imagine.

I can’t really get into a debate about the situation teachers are in about why reopening is just not a good option in California right now without getting super emotional, so I’m just going to say that I hear your frustration and it’s also a lot more complicated than it may seem.

I did a lot of crying over math in a totally analog, in-person school situation.

The math online tool of choice here is Mathspace. While it has a 4-star rating from teachers, it has .5 of a star from parents and kids. One teen's review says "MathSpace is the leading cause of teen suicide."

It's an adaptive program, so if you get problems right, you don't have to do as many. If you get problems wrong, you have to do more. (this in itself is an issue, b/c with 5-6 hours of homework a night, time mgmt is key).

But. The coding is massively fucked up. If it marks an answer wrong, you have to figure out whether the answer was, in fact, right, and you are not getting credit for it (about 15% of the time), the answer was right, but you entered it in the wrong format (for instance, the prompt is "x = _____" and you enter "9" and MathSpace marks it wrong until you enter "x = 9" so that the whole line reads "x = x = 9."), or your answer is the equivalent of the answer MathSpace is expecting, but it still marks you wrong (for instance, if you enter "square root of -3" but it wanted "negative square root of 3") or if you just literally got it wrong.

So you can understand the math completely, get the right answer to every problem, and still get a C and spend an hour or more.

There are far more tears with this then I remember from my own struggles with math.

I can’t really get into a debate about the situation teachers are in about why reopening is just not a good option in California right now without getting super emotional, so I’m just going to say that I hear your frustration and it’s also a lot more complicated than it may seem.

I get that, but they are doing a terrible job of communicating with parents. And our district does not seem to have a plan, or they are not sticking to it. They're just floating along waiting for a vaccine to take care of it for them. That's their tacit plan.

But. The coding is massively fucked up. If it marks an answer wrong, you have to figure out whether the answer was, in fact, right, and you are not getting credit for it (about 15% of the time), the answer was right, but you entered it in the wrong format (for instance, the prompt is "x = _____" and you enter "9" and MathSpace marks it wrong until you enter "x = 9" so that the whole line reads "x = x = 9."), or your answer is the equivalent of the answer MathSpace is expecting, but it still marks you wrong (for instance, if you enter "square root of -3" but it wanted "negative square root of 3") or if you just literally got it wrong.

So you can understand the math completely, get the right answer to every problem, and still get a C and spend an hour or more.

What a fucking nightmare! Matilda's anxiety would be off the charts with that. Like, I'd seriously need to sedate her to do math in that environment.

I'm so sorry for all of you parents and your kids having to navigate this. I can't even imagine.

Pix, I should OF COURSE have added teachers into that list. Again, I really can't imagine.

Our school district has made a bad situation for teachers completely untenable.

I keep thinking this should be a great opportunity to redesign how we educate kids, taking into account all the post-Industrial Revolution / Information Age insights and capabilities as well as social and economic needs.

b/c with 5-6 hours of homework a night, time mgmt is key

Sara has never had that much homework, and we're supposed to be one of the top public school districts in this area. I think 5-hours is serious overkill, but the work Sara has been given is so frigging easy, it's insane. When I compare it to what I was doing in high school? It's infuriating.

Meanwhile the district went "hybrid" a few weeks ago, meaning grades are divided in two, and half the class goes in two days a week, and does remote three, and vice versa. It's a scheduling nightmare, and we've had positive cases every week the kids have been back.

Our numbers are climbing here, and we're just waiting for another lockdown -- Philly announced its new restrictions the other day, and just about everything is shutting down or being only very minimally open.

I can’t really get into a debate about the situation teachers are in about why reopening is just not a good option in California right now without getting super emotional

Pix, I get how complicated and frustrating and emotional it is. My mom is a teacher in a Friends school (with pre-K) and while they're in school right now, full time, she is EXHAUSTED by the protocols they have to keep in place, on top of reminding four-year-olds not to touch each other, hold hands, take their masks off, etc. They've had a few scares so far, but no positives. That said, it's a school of maybe 125 kids.

Aims, the house is awesome, and the address is perfect!

What Jen said about parent, kids, and teachers. This is just such a nightmare for all.

The plan was for me to take Molly to the vet today for some antibiotic and steroid shots in reaction to her loud, snotty breathing yesterday. But even after being dosed with a sedative she managed to escape the towel I was trying to bundle her in with some levitating snake corkscrew move, and then led me on an 80-minute chase in circles around my apartment before I gave up for fear of doing more harm than good. Fortunately, after a cooldown period from panting her breathing doesn't seem to be any worse, and she let me pet her while she was hiding out under the sofa.

In related news, my cardio goals for the next couple of days have been met.