Mini Hungarian language lesson: house of cards

A historic house being demolished to make way for yet another hotel is an everyday occurrence in downtown Budapest.

But today's news about the demise of the house that used to host the pub called "The Wichmann" is sadder than most.

The pub itself was owned and operated by nine-times canoe world champion Tamás Wichmann. With its stripped-down interior, welcoming atmosphere and legendary schnitzel sandwiches it was a unique place we kept returning to in the noughties.

It was an anachronism, a place that shouldn't exist, it felt like we were stuck in the 1980s but in an absolutely positive sense.

Then in 2018 it was announced the pub will be sold; Wichmann was 70 at the time and said he was just tired and old. He died less than two years later

But the demolition of the house erases a lot more than just the memory of a legendary pub.

Take a look at this gate ornament for example. If your first reaction is WTF?, I'm not blaming you.

But that isn't a Star of David there and as for the swastika, it was yet to become a symbol of terror when this door was made. (The ankh is an ankh at least.)

For this house used to be the home of the Theosophical Society of Hungary in the first half of the 20th century.

Education secretary @GavinWilliamson now delivering a statement in the Commons on plans for bringing children back to school. Stay tuned for live updates.

The government's response is proportionate to the risk at hand, @GavinWilliamson says.

.@GavinWilliamson says in a small number of areas where infection rates are highest, only vulnerable pupils and children of key workers will attend primary school face-to-face. This is NOT all Tier 4 areas. The overwhelming majority of primaries will open as planned on Monday.

For secondary schools, it will be a staggered start, says @GavinWilliamson – with staff testing starting from 4 January, exam years returning on 11 January and everyone back in by 18 January

In particularly hard-hit areas, @GavinWilliamson says that exam year students, as well as vulnerable students and children of key workers, will still attend secondary schools in person, with all other classes taking place remotely

Ugh... (*rolls eyes*)

One issue I haven't seen discussed widely in #education that has been a thorn in my career since day one is teacher certification...and I received something this morning to remind me how this thorn continues to persist.

A thread. 1/

I've seen it reported often over the past decade plus how there is suddenly a teacher shortage here and there, but what doesn't get reported is how little of an effort states put forth to try and recruit talented educators. In my experience, nearly the opposite has been true. 2/

Most recently, I had applied for a new cert in a state that shall remain nameless. I applied early in the school year knowing that paperwork takes time, hoping that by the time that paperwork was processed, I'd be able to look for a new job.

It's been 2 years now. Nothing. 3/

In 2011, I completed my MA in educational technology.
This master's degree program was so young at the time, no state had any sort of certification to go with it.

Seeing that State X now has an ed tech cert, I applied for that cert so I could apply for public school jobs. 4/

State X, however, told me that even though I had the master's degree that they were looking for AND the transcript to prove it, it still wouldn't be good enough for them.

Why?

They wanted to see the course descriptions for that program I took a decade ago now. 5/

Clearly, anyone who thinks school closures are doing great harm to children is just playing politics. That's why publications on the right, such as NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and CBS News have all chimed in to support it.

NPR article 1 - in which they have the audacity to suggest that schools are not contributing to spread and that "going to school is really vital for children." What a Trumpian statement.

NPR article 2 - in which they relay a vast right-wing conspiratorial talking point that 3 million children have gone missing amidst the pandemic, with school closures as a culprit. Is this responsible journalism, NPR?

GOP squawkbox Washington Post: "Researchers say that in some cases, closing schools, and leaving children in the care of adults who do not force them to wear masks or socially distance, may put them at higher risk of contracting and spreading the virus."

The alt-right New York Times, quoting an expert from Hillsdale -- err, Boston University: "The more and more data that I see, the more comfortable I am that children are not, in fact, driving transmission, especially in school

Sex education is more than just putting condoms on bananas. Sex education is a foundation for our development as people. We know — it sounds totally awkward to talk about this with your fam. Don’t worry! We’ve got you ⤵️

Spark a convo by getting everyone involved ✨

Build a foundation to understand what everyone’s own experiences were and where they would like to see change.

Always helps to go over the basics: definitions, benefits, and what actually is problematic.

Hit ‘em with the overwhelming statistics in favor of sex education.

In the early 2010s, there was a lot of pushback from up-and-coming left media figures like Owen Jones and Laurie Penny to criticisms of their PMC and educational backgrounds.

"So what if we went to Oxford, or if our parents were solicitors?", the line of defence went. "Our hearts are in the right place. We fight for the many, not the few."

Ten years on, seeing where PMC domination of the left has taken the movement, we can revisit those criticisms and see the importance of the original pushback.

What a PMC parental background and a prep-school and Oxbridge education tend to provide their beneficiaries with is a high degree of entitlement, verbal polish and presentation, and an often unshakeable personal confidence.

Combined with the utopian and improvement- and uplift-focused aspects of left thought, this prior socialisation tends to produce a highly authoritarian form of left-managerialism, one in which the PMC left appoint themselves both moral spokespeople and moral technicians.

Just a few thoughts for home-schooling parents as a parent who has had a 12-13 year old daughter out of mainstream school for most of the last 18 months. I appreciate that this won't help everyone (maybe just one person) but hope it brings comfort.

Our daughter has been in and out of mainstream school since October 2018 due to an ongoing medical condition she’s being treated for. The first few months were hard as she completely fell between the cracks of education and health care. She had no education for about 3-4 months

Her condition is not aided by extra anxiety and therefore we have had to take a soft approach to her education. Since sorting things out through various services, she was back at school part time for the last semester. Things were taken day by day

Although she is only studying certain subjects, she soon made up ground in those areas, and though she may not be top of her class, she is doing OK. Her mental well being remains most important to us.

Remember that the school system was very anxiety inducing for some of our kids. Some have thrived more under lockdown without peer pressure, constant testing and anxiety/expectations. As adults we can better coping skills to deal with anxiety and we can share them with our kids

The current issue of #schoolclosures is so complex I am loathed to add my opinion to the twitter soup

Massive uncertainties✅
High stakes✅
Huge health trade offs✅
Opposing opinions ✅
Easy answers 🚫

I'll just add a few simple thoughts

1/9

Firstly, don't be fooled by twitter

It has the most shouty and polarised opinions only, the moderates have been largely hounded out

Both public and scientific opinion is almost certainly much more nuanced and balanced than this platform would fool you into believing

2/9

Next, advocating for widespread closure is a legitimate opinion in the current environment

Massive, uncontrolled community transmission and looming hospital capacity issues, with high prevalence of infections among children (esp teens) are a bad mix

3/9

BUT, this would be be associated with massive, lifelong harms to children, who have already missed months of school due to the pandemic

BUT, trying to run schools with frequent, large scale closures/isolations/staff sickness may be a losing game, esp for secondary schools

4/9

I can understand the government wanting to keep them open, and I 100% believe they should be the absolute priority: Last to close, First to open

Have we reached a stage where the risks of opening now outweigh the harms of closure?

I don't know the answer

5/9

How we got here, a thread (1/25)

Before Christmas, owing to rising infection rates, Greenwich advised their schools to shut before the end of term – several councils later advised the same.

.@educationgovuk threatened these schools with legal action if they did, resulting in schools re-opening their doors for the last few days of term.

The General Secretary of the ASCL, @RealGeoffBarton, accused the @educationgovuk of using "bully boy tactics" to stick to a "robotic mantra to keep schools open whatever the cost" but added "the costs could be incredibly high."

During this time, @KevinStannard1 warned that we could be heading for another exams U-turn (*spoiler alert*: he was correct). (5/25)

A lot of people on Twitter have really strong opinions about grad degrees (MBA or MS). If you are a 25-year-old PM thinking about whether to do an MBA or not, just ask where you want to be by the time you are 40.

1/n

I did this exercise with someone a few months back, and his answer was Director at a FANG company in the US. He was thinking of doing a US MBA and then join a place like Amazon after graduation. I asked him to go to Linkedin, check profiles of Directors at Amazon.

2/n

Ignore outliers like someone selling their company to Amazon at 22 and then hacking the career ladder. Look at an average profile like yours. We all think we are exceptional/above average but we are probably not.

If you plot a graph, there will be people at the extremes.

And look at the middle.

Unless you are willing to take bets in your career with more risk than the average person, basically an alpha bet, mostly you will land there.

Also, remember that higher education is about optionality.

I was talking to a friend about why he chose to go for an MBA in spite of leading product at an early stage company. His answer was that if he ever wanted to move away from Product and take up a general management position at a non-tech company at 40, he should have that option.

@erica_pandey @axios This article is so misleading. My thread:

@axios As a retired teacher with 30 years of experience in both private and public education, I challenge you to show me an average "private" religious-affiliated school that has tents or daily testing. You're comparing apples to oranges This is political propaganda, not journalism!

@axios Most "private" schools are Catholic/religious-affiliated schools, not elitist private schools popular with rich liberals that you're implying with misleading tweet. Religious-affiliated schools pay teachers much less and survive on bare-bones budgets.

@axios I don't know of any Catholic/religious-affiliated school that has money to build tents for outdoor instruction or pay for testing to stay open. This is awful reporting to lump all "private" schools together and not distinguish the difference. Propaganda! Journalism is DEAD!

@axios Using Poly Prep Country Day School and Boston Trinity Academy, a 6th-12th grade school, as your "examples" of most private schools is disingenuous, bordering on dishonest. These are the exceptions, not the rule for most private schools.

The new semester starts tomorrow so I thought I'd share some useful advice on how I made friends during remote learning from scratch - I just finished my first semester at a new university taught entirely online so I haven't met anybody in person nor have I set foot on campus

1) Send emails introducing yourself to ppl in your cohort. I emailed the other two PhD students starting with me after we attended our virtual induction and started a group chat. I also emailed another student whose work I knew of already and started a friendly chat using that

2) If your class doesn't involve breakout rooms, ask your lecturer to perhaps introduce them. I am taking German and 50% of the class takes place in breakout rooms. It's a place to vent, laugh, and make the small talk that normally happens before/after class

3) For classes that can't have breakout rooms: I asked a lecturer if they could put my email in the zoom chat during class if anyone is interested in starting a group chat. It worked, I hadn't spoken to anyone during class but we were all in the same boat and now the chat is lit

4) Ask your supervisor/lecturer to put you in touch with others in your department - particularly those who have similar research interests. Trust me when I say I get so excited if someone new emails me asking if they want to chat, and others probably feel the same

1/
I'm supposed to be preparing for a teaching conference but and I'm struggling with the impossible position teachers face in this perilous time.

Asymmetrical polarization is too kind a term for what we're experiencing.

"Fuckers" was also too kind, but pearls were clutched.

2/
The relationship between education and government of and by the people is self evident. Education- like roads and libraries, is a public good. But education is, as I've written before, incompatible with ideologies built on lies.

3/
Trumpism and education are incompatible. This isn't a partisan statement. There are Republicans, like @RepKinzinger , who reject the dishonesty at the very foundation of Trump's bid to reverse our election.

But where education concerns truth, Trumpism is built on lying.

4/
There's a vast, well-funded network of organizations dedicated to souring public support for higher education. They have been enormously successful.

5/
Education is popular and incompatible with the fossil fuel industry's goals. But trashing education itself isn't a winning message. Most parents want their kids to have access to the economic mobility that higher education has historically offered (before the debt crisis).

The Maoist struggle session is the only known end point for the traitors who will soon challenge us.

The time is coming when many of us will have to stand up to co-parents, school head teachers etc when they challenge us with what they know to be falsehoods.

The struggle👇

session is of course the same as the inquisition that was used in Europe in the Middle Ages. The technique was developed and used by the Jesuit Brotherhood, later in Mao’s China and now by the globalists. Nothing has changed.

The basics are that the enemy knows that he 👇

or she is telling lies. The object of the process is not truth but the victim’s throwing-away of the ability to decide. Domestic or workplace abusers of the more calculating kind use this method as a way of hobbling their victims, knowing that even if submission is not there, 👇

the fear of future assault will be.

The challenge that is coming, whether it is about vaccines being the only route to ‘herd immunity’ or how illness is spread by asymptomatic (healthy) people will one based on bogus scientific doctrine.

But do *not* focus on the untruths.👇

Their aim will not be to determine truth but to force us to submit to labels, whether ‘denier’, ‘anti-vaxxer’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’. This is the object of the struggle.

The traitors have also been trained to make you feel that you’re under observation. They will make 👇

PRACTICAL TIPS TO AN EFFECTIVE 1-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN!

My dm has been, over the period, flooded with questions on how to be consistent and effective in the 1-year Bible reading plan.

So in my first thread in 2021, I thought it'd be a blessing to give this guide.

#2021Thread

These are very easy-to-follow tips that can transform your Bible reading plan from not so interesting to fun and impactful.

In this thread, you'll learn;
1. Best time to do your reading plan
2. How to monitor your progress or consistency, etc.

1. READ IN A QUIET PLACE!

Find a quiet and distraction free location for your reading. It’s nice to have a comfy spot that is well lit.

You need to be comfortable when reading, else your attention will easily drift to the discomfort. You don't need to sweat whiles reading too.

2. DIVIDE YOUR READING SCHEDULE!

Try to schedule your reading at the same time everyday. Another effective strategy is to break it into 2 parts in the day; morning and night.

For instance,
A. Morning reading - New Testament
B. Night reading - Old Testament

3. GET AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER!

Enlist the help of a friend or digital reminder. A partner will keep you accountable by reminding you to read.

A friend is more appropriate because they allow you to discuss what you are reading. It's a fun way to share your insights.

ANOTHER ROUND OF 40 GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUIZ QUESTIONS- 1. In Architecture, what is the purpose of a Gargoyle?

2. How many square inches in a square foot?

3. Which Singer-Songwriter formed the bands The Housemartins and The Beautiful South?

4. Whose notable works included writing The Ugly Duckling and The Emperor's New Clothes?

5. And whose notable works included writing Snow White and Hansel and Gretel?