Monday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was the "Brutal week" thread that I discussed yesterday. So, I'll go to the next most active which was titled, "Did your FCPS go on a really pitiful field trip this year to the Smithsonian art museum?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster describes her daughter's field trip during which they visited one of the Smithsonian art museums, but spent less than an hour at the museum and only saw three paintings. This was a huge disappointment. Several other posters responded to say that their children had the same experience. Some explained this by saying the the short trips were necessitated by the need for the buses to return to pick up students from middle schools. Regardless, nobody seemed happy about the experience. Several posters said that their children had been looking forward to the field trip because, due to COVID, they hadn't been on one in years. Later in the thread a couple of posters who said they have chaperoned such trips in the past explained that seeing only three or four paintings is normal, though some described spending longer periods of time in the museum. The discussion eventually grew to include other field trips, especially one to Jamestown and one poster described a field trip to Philadelphia. Much of the discussion focused on the costs of trips and the distances to various locations. I'm a little surprised that the topic of field trips could generate so much discussion, but there seems to be a number of posters for whom field trips are very important.

Next was a thread posted in the "Private/Independent Schools" forum titled, "GDS Teachers Used Chat GPT to Write Report Card Comments". The original poster linked to an article in Georgetown Day School's student newspaper, "The Augur Bit", which described teachers using ChatGPT for, as the subject lines says, writing report card comments. The original poster is outraged by this. Other posters feel similarly, viewing it as a kind of cheating that replaces personalized comments. I was somewhat baffled by this myself because by the time you have typed enough personalized information into ChatGPT, you have essentially written a comment. Some posters, who support using ChatGPT, explained that this was exactly the point. The comments were still personalized, but ChatGPT was being used more or less like spellcheck on steroids. ChatGPT supporters also asserted that teachers routinely copied and pasted the same comments from one report card to another. Therefore, personalized comments were not really a thing. Some diehards insisted that teachers either have or should be given adequate time to draft individualized comments that displayed an understanding of each student as that was the entire purpose of such comments. They expected that this sort of individualized attention was something that came with the cost of private schools. Quite a few posters supported doing away with comments altogether given that they appeared to either be the result of copying and pasting or artificial intelligence. Other posters were less bothered by the use of AI than they were by the apparent hypocrisy of teachers who forbid students from using ChatGPT for their school work, but then used it themselves. It does seem inevitable that services such as ChatGPT will eventually be viewed much as calculators are today. They haven't eliminated the need to learn basic math, but they make doing math much easier. While I have mixed feelings about the use of ChatGPT, I agree with the posters who congratulated the student journalists for tackling this topic and felt that it reflected well on the GDS administrators who allowed the article to be published.

The third thread that I will discuss today was titled, "Question for cheaters: Doesn’t social media (and family iPhone tracking) make cheating super risky?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster sees technology as making cheating more risky than in the past. For instance, smart phone location sharing allows spouses to track each other, meaning that a cheater could easily be spotted some place he or she shouldn't be. Moreover, online resources, especially social media, allow anyone who feels wronged by the affair, or its ending, to exact retribution by easily exposing the affair to family members or work colleagues who can easily be found online. Many posters respond to say that they never use location sharing and find doing so to be strange and controlling. That doesn't address the revenge aspects of issue, however. One poster argues that technology actually makes affairs easier by providing apps and services to help find an affair partner and encrypted communications apps with which to communicate. Other posters suggest burner phones and choosing a good affair partner who won't likely to "Fatal Attraction" on you. But, a poster who as been cheated on insists all of this thinking misses the point because cheaters make stupid decisions and that is how they get caught. Eventually the thread becomes just another discussion of why people cheat with continual back and forth about who uses or doesn't use location sharing.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum. Titled, "what does 'flexible scheduling' for DC teachers mean?", the original poster asks about one component of a bill introduced by At Large Council Member Robert White. The bill, aimed at increasing teacher retention, requires the Office of State Superintendent for Education (OSSE) to establish a pilot program to test flexible scheduling policies. The original poster wants to know what "flexible scheduling" will mean in this regard. The original poster can be forgiven for being confused because the bill in question does not explain or detail what is meant by flexible scheduling. It appears the details of that will be left to the schools that submit proposals to be included in the pilot program. As such, "flexible scheduling" may end up meaning a lot of different things. Several posters, especially those who are teachers, warn about the high number of educators leaving the profession and believe that flexible scheduling can help with retention. As always, there are posters who have very dim views of teachers and think that with their days ending at 3:15 and having all summer off, teachers have it too easy already. The fact that days don't actually end at 3:15 for teachers is patiently, though probably futilely, explained. Fairly quickly this thread devolved into a fight between what can generally be described as pro and anti-teacher posters. I don't really have the patience for reading posts about this endless debate, so I didn't, and therefore can't describe them to you. What is clear is that teachers are unhappy. No amount of accusing them of being lazy is going to change that and, in fact, makes it worse. So, we can do nothing and watch teachers leave in increasing numbers — this appears to be what some posters actually want — or try to address their complaints. I have no idea whether flexible scheduling is something teachers want or whether it will help with retention. But, if schools want to try it as part of a pilot program, why not let them?