Saturday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was the thread about The Satanic Temple offering abortion services. I've already covered that thread so I'll move on to the next most active thread which was titled, "Uninvited from Super Bowl party" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster explains that her husband commands a military unit that has an annual Super Bowl party. The original poster, who has been feeling lonely and isolated, was looking forward to attending the party. The host of the party was scheduled to be on duty during the game, so the original poster's husband volunteered to take his shift. Subsequently, someone else — it's not exactly clear who — emailed the original poster's husband, copying the original poster, to say that due to capacity reasons the original poster and her children could not be hosted this year. Many posters found this behavior by whomever sent the email to be appalling and shockingly rude. Some of those went so far as to propose retaliatory ideas such her husband withdrawing his offer to cover the host's shift. While the original poster and her family had attended the party in previous years, this was the first year that her husband held the command position. Some posters suggested that those attending the party were planning to relax and maybe engage in gossip and didn't want the boss's wife around. As such, they argued, the original poster should not take this as a personal slight. It was just something that went with the job. They further hypothesized that the previous commander's family did not attend and that the original poster should not have expected to have been invited this year. Beyond that, multiple posters urged the original poster to focus on why she was feeling isolated and lonely and to work on fixing that rather than worrying about the Super Bowl party.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum and titled, "Paying for and saving for college - how do UMC people do it?" The original poster describes a situation which is fairly common on DCUM, but must appear completely baffling to anyone not familiar with our website. The original poster and her spouse earn about $320,000 annually and have saved $30,000 for their 12 year old child's college and $15,000 for their 7 year old. The original poster fears that their income will be too high for college financial aid, but not enough to pay for college. She wants to know how "regular" people address this issue. First, only on DCUM are those earning $320K annually described as "regular". Because most of those replying are familiar with DCUM income perceptions, the original poster is not beat up too badly on this account. Several posters do, however, question why the original poster has not been saving more, frequently mentioning their own track records of saving which have yielded much better results. Several posters mentioned attending state schools that have lower tuitions and paying via cash flow. I was not able to read all 10 pages of this thread, but from what I saw, responses basically repeated variations of "save more", "plan for state schools", and the occasional "our kids got merit scholarships". There was some bickering between posters about whether the original poster's financial situation was a disaster or actually pretty healthy.

The next thread, while new, was a return engagement of a topic covered just a few days ago. Titled, "GDS admissions" and posted in the "Private/Independent Schools" forum, this thread again addresses enrollment cuts that Georgetown Day School will be experiencing. Briefly, when GDS consolidated its campuses in Tenleytown, the school made several commitments to the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, including an enrollment cap and traffic management promises. The school exceeded its agreed upon enrollment cap during the changed COVID environment. In order to get back under the cap, GDS will limit admissions during the current admissions period. In addition, several neighbors are not happy with the current traffic situation and demanding that the school do a better job in that regard. The original poster is hoping her child will be accepted for kindergarten, but is worried about the cut in acceptance opportunities. Nobody really knows how attendance limitations will impact admissions, other than there will be fewer spots. How many fewer and at what grades is left to speculation. But, just as in the earlier thread, the discusion is almost immediately hijacked by arguments between Tenleytown residents who are angry with GDS, and GDS supporters who blame the ANC and local residents for creating problems. What is new in this thread is one or more posters who display complete disdain for DC in general and Tenleytown in particular. These posters even bash DCPS for good measure. If these posters are in anyway representative of GDS sentiment (and I strongly suspect they are not), it is understandable why local residents are not thrilled to have them around.

The final thread at which I'll look today was titled, "Be Honest: Would You Be Happy If You Paid Full-Price For an Elite School and Your Child Became an". Posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, the thread seems to be uniquely designed to upset me. The subject line is overly long and then ends in a cliff hanger, two my pet peeves, before continuing in the body of the post to say "Elementary School Teacher?". I am a huge fan of teachers, elementary school teachers included, so right off the bat I am bothered by the implication that the job is disappointing. The original poster goes on to say that in the city in which she lives, there is a local public school that has a close relationship with an elite university. Most of the teachers at the school are graduates of that university or equally prestigious schools. The original poster reiterates the question contained in the subject line, asking posters if they would be bothered if their child ended up doing this. I'll be honest and say that I am not going to read this thread because I am sure it would only make me angry. Instead. I'll just take this opportunity to pontificate a bit. I firmly believe that teachers have the power to change lives. There are few jobs in which someone can have as much positive affect on others. As such, I think that it is outstanding that graduates of elite schools are willing to devote themselves to the profession. I am disappointed by the attitude that I continually see displayed on DCUM in which college is only valued on the basis of the salary that a degree can command. Why not consider the value of making the world a better place? I don't know that graduates of elite colleges make better teachers than graduates of run of the mill schools. I suspect not, but it could be true. Either way, the teaching profession should be one of respect rather than disappointment and we should be proud of graduates of any school who decide to become teachers.