Thursday's Most Active Threads

The thread about the Gaza war continued as the most active thread yesterday with over 600 new posts. The thread about billionaires withholding funds to colleges that I've also previously discussed was the second most active. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "People tell me being weird is a great thing, but I find it isolating" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that she hates being weird in the way that she thinks and the activities that she enjoys. Being weird has caused her lots of loneliness and she wonders if others can relate. I guess I just have to come out and say it. This thread is weird. The original poster absolutely, unconditionally, under no circumstances will explain what is weird about her. She does let on that she is "heavily obese", but that is hardly weird. As a result, it is very difficult for others to offer advice and it looks like the original poster eventually abandoned the thread altogether. Several posters also described themselves as weird, but in their cases they claimed to be normal or better than normal in their appearances. As such, they tended to attract normal people which was problematic for them because normal people can't relate to their weirdness. Some posters who are not outwardly weird even reported being rejected by groups of weirdos. This left them stranded in a world in which they are too weird for normal people but not weird enough for weird people. Eventually the thread was almost completely hijacked by a poster who is a woman, but much prefers to hang out with men. This is something she thinks is weird. This led to all kinds of debate about gender stereotypes and expectations for women. Then a weird thing happened when a poster announced that she was a "female farmer" which I don't actually find weird in the abstract, but I was surprised to find on a forum for "urban moms". But, I welcome the poster who provided one of the more elucidating responses. To further disabuse me of my notions of who frequents our website, a second poster immediately identified themself as also being a farmer. So, maybe I am the weird one. One poster attempted to politicize the discussion with a claim that the "Democratic left" celebrates "eccentricity" and being "offbeat". I have no objection to that assertion, but his claim that this is a bad thing was, frankly, weird. Conformity prevents change and, without change there cannot be progress. So, of course I celebrate those who are weird.

The next most active thread was the one about the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a saga that continues today. But, having discussed that thread I'll move to the next most active which was originally posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. However, it deals with an issue related to schools so I moved it to the "Schools and Education General Discussion" forum. Let me just take a second to express my frustration that it is becoming increasingly common for posters to post any and all topics in the General Parenting forum with little regard for the guidelines. A "sticky" post even exists to reinforce the message that posters should be sure to choose the most appropriate forum. I spend a lot of time moving threads from this forum to others. The title of this thread was "mad - kid in kindergarten has late birthday" and the original poster complains that there is a boy in her son's kindergarten class who will be 7-years-old in April and, therefore, should be in first grade. The practice of having children either start school late or repeat a grade is commonly referred to as "redshirting" and is a topic of continual heated discussion on DCUM. Many parents see developmentally-appropriate reasons to redshirt a child. But, other parents see redshirting as simply a method of gaming the system and providing unnecessary and unfair advantages to a child. The original poster didn't explain her objection to redshirting other than that it was "ridiculous". I checked to see whether the original poster might elaborate in subsequent posts but, instead found that the original poster had sockpuppeted throughout the thread. Whereas in the first post she claimed the seven-year-old was in her son's class, in a later post she posed as another poster whose daughter had a seven-year-old in her kindergarten class. In an another poster, the original poster said that she has a child in 1st grade that she is considering redshirting. Because of these posts, I locked the thread. I would advise this poster to join the thread discussed above because this is very weird behavior.

Next was a thread titled, "small fixes to make this process more sane." and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As I have written many times now, there is a tremendous amount of frustration with the college and university application process. While posters may disagree on which precise aspects of the process are unfair, they all agree that the process is specifically biased against their child. The original poster of this thread proposed three changes that she believes would improve the process. The first, limit the number of institutions to which a student can apply via the Common App to 20, already exists. So, no need for that change. The second suggestion was the number of times the SAT or ACT can be taken to two. The third was to require colleges to disclose the number of legacy students and athletes admitted via Early Decision (ED), an application type that I discussed yesterday. There is some merit to the original posters second and third suggestions. The fact that some students retake standardized tests over and over again has been one criticism of the exams and among the motivations for schools to become test optional. As I discussed in my blog post yesterday, there is a widespread belief that "unhooked" students (those who are not legacies, athletes, etc.) don't have much of a chance for ED admissions. Disclosing those numbers might help settle this argument and allow applicants to better judge their likelihood of admission. Since ED applications are limited to one school, it would make sense for unhooked students to avoid those schools for which acceptance is heavily weighted toward hooked students. Very few of those responding seem to think these changes would improve the process. The concern about limiting tests is that it puts too much pressure on kids when they take the exam. I agree that everyone can have a bad day and a flubbed test might not be reflective of the student's ability, but the original poster did allow for a single retake. Blowing two tests is sort of a pattern. The objection to the second idea is even less convincing. The argument is that ED mostly benefits the schools rather than the students and the students it benefits are those who have a clear first choice. Both of these points may be true (the second is obvious), but neither really suggests any negative to the original poster's suggestions. After reading thread after thread about the admissions process (and having gone through it personally with two kids), my own feeling is that parents are mostly upset by the lack of transparency and clarity about the admissions process. If the factors that lead to admission are clear, parents can prepare their kids to address them. But, in the current environment, entry to selective colleges seems like a crap shoot. Nobody really seems to know what helps and what doesn't. For the control freaks out there, this is an impossible situation.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "talking about Palestine/Israel", the original poster provides a lengthy description of her own views on the current war between Israel and Hamas — which I would describe as supportive of the Palestinians with little demonstrated concern for the Israeli victims of Hamas' attack — and then says that she avoids disclosing her thoughts to her children because they might offend others by repeating them. Several posters offer ideas for how to approach topics such as this with kids. Such ideas included addressing the topic with considerable more nuance, advising her children to listen more than they talk, and telling them simply not to reveal their beliefs in public. But, as could be expected, the thread quickly devolved to a debate about the conflict. Several posters were skeptical of the original poster's sincerity, finding her strongly biased. Others had a strong need to present their own views. Eventually the thread became simply another discussion more appropriate for the Political Discussion forum and, after several reports complaining about the thread, I locked it.