petitedeath:

pol102:

Via firstbook:

If you work with kids from low-income neighborhoods, First Book can help you get brand-new, high-quality books.

This is how income inequality happens. Read to your kids, people! And donate to First Book, while you’re at it.

this is so true, they would tell us at my school too since we were all low income and it was unhelpful and hurt because we were already in high school. Our library was sad and we didnt even have enough text books for each student. Nearly half of my class never graduated. But also the teachers never cared and there was no help so no one bothered when kids fell behind. 

[x]

As a teacher, I give girls what I hope is a lot of attention.  I don’t know if I give girls their fair share, but I aspire to, especially after noticing that boys are willing to use their greater share of teachers’ attention to get girls who they feel aren’t being quiet and docile enough punished.  I have therefore acquired a reputation for “caring more about the girls.”  This has had two marked results: Some straight boys have gotten more hostile toward me, and most girls have gotten more confident around me.  This makes me think I’m doing something right.

Longer thoughts on how this phenomenon relates to sexual harassment in classrooms, if you’re interested: The girls figured out I won’t report them if they hit boys who are sexually harassing them, I’ll only report the boys.  This led to an increase in how often girls got the last word and boys got smacked in my classes, and, also, to a DECREASE IN HOW OFTEN GIRLS GOT SEXUALLY HARASSED.  The sexual harassers seem to have been depending on the sort of “equal blame” and “retaliation is never warranted” and “don’t hurt others’ feelings” perspectives so many schools try to instill in kids; the sexual harassers were usually the ones bringing me into the situation by saying, “Miss, she hit me!  You should write her up!”  Once they figured out I was only ever going to respond, “If you don’t treat girls like that, they won’t hit you,” the girls got more confident and the sexual harassers largely shut the fuck up.

In schools, fighting against sexual harassment is often punished exactly the same as, or more severely than, sexual harassment — a lot of discipline codes make no distinction between violence and violence in self-defence, and violence is ALWAYS the highest level of disciplinary infraction, whereas verbal sexual harassment rarely is.  Sexual harassers, at least in the schools I’ve been in, rely heavily on GETTING GIRLS IN TROUBLE WITH HIGHER AUTHORITIES as a strategy of harassment — creating an external punishment that penalises girls for and therefore discourages girls from fighting back.  Sexual harassers are willing to use their greater share of floorspace to ask to get girls who won’t date them punished.  By and large, teachers do punish those girls when they swear or hit.  Schools condition girls to ignore sexual harassment by punishing them when they speak up or fight back instead.

Once the sexual harassers in my classes understood that girls wouldn’t be punished for rejecting them, they backed off around me.  And there started to be a flip in what conversations I get called into — girls are telling me when boys are being nasty (too loud and dominant), instead of boys telling me when girls are being uncooperative (louder and more dominant than boys think they should be).

(via torrentofbabies)

(Source: colinfirthhasmoved, via petitedeath)

(via petitedeath)

Kalitena on Facebook  (via oldloveinyoungbodies)

(Source: waitforhightide, via saffronsugar)

booksandwildthings:

satanmoriarty:

dizpotter:

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS?

I mean, can we just talk about how this parallels the actual education system?  Where they’re so concerned about teaching us things like logarithms and graphing that we don’t know shit about what’s actually out there in the adult world, like doing taxes or writing checks or anything?  I mean, “It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations, which after all, is what school is all about.”  School children are often under the impression that getting A’s in all their classes ensures a successful future, but really, it’s so ignorant because the real world isn’t just one big question-and-answer paper.  There is so much more to the world than being able to give back information like some kind of super-computer, and brainwashing children into thinking that theory is key is just going to lead to a bunch of children falling flat on their faces when they’re pushed into the adult world and feel as if everything new they try to do is wrong because it wasn’t taught to them step-by-step.  I just really love Harry’s line, “And how is theory supposed to prepare us for what’s out there?” because I feel as if sometimes we just learn things for the sake of knowing them, despite whether it is actually useful. Yes, school is important, and getting bad grades isn’t a good way to start your future, but it’s so much more than that, you see.

this sounds a lot like something Hermione would say

I think that’s the reason why everyone has such strong negative feelings toward Umbridge (as a person, not a character). I can’t tell you how many times I heard people say that they wanted Umbridge to die more than Voldemort. And I must say that I feel the same.

Voldemort is a racist dictator. While these have existed, and still do, the majority of us don’t live under such a tyrant. We’ve heard about them in history books and on the news- but they’re already dead or on the other side of the world. While we can be horrified at the terror such a person can spread and how, well, evil they can be, a character of this archetype doesn’t strike a personal chord with most of us.

But Umbridge does. As stated before, she represents everything that we hate about the public school system. Most of us know or have a teacher, professor, principal, or school administrator who, to probably a lesser degree, personifies what Umbridge is saying. They teach only to the test, or tell teachers to do so, they insist on including useless things in their curriculums, they PASS LAWS SO THAT SUCH A SCHOOL SYSTEM CAN CONTINUE. This is something that affects nearly every public school in the US, (and I’m guessing the UK as well). Nearly every student has to go through school learning things that they will never use in real life and that in no way prepare them for the real world, just so the various boards of education can use the higher test scores as ‘proof’ that we’re ‘smarter’ than other states, countries, etc., and therefore deserve more funding.

We hate Umbridge so much (again, as a person, not a character) because she represents a villain we all have in our own lives. Possibly every single person who has read this book can connect with the frustration Harry and the other students feel.

We hate Umbridge so much because everything she is, everything she represents, is very real and very personal to every single one of us.

(Source: dracoharrys, via saffronsugar)

gorgonetta:

wordsbydan:

7 Great quotes about libraries on photos of beautiful libraries

With libraries around the world in danger of extinction, Flavorwire posted a series of great quotes about libraries from famous writers. I decided to pair them with some of the world’s most beautiful libraries. You’re welcome;

1. Trinity College Library - University of Dublin
2. University Club Library – New York City
3. Admont Abbey Library – Austria
4. Real Gabinete Português de Leitura – Rio de Janeiro
5. Suzzalo Library at the University of Washington – Seattle
6. Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
7. Canadian Library of Parliament – Ottawa

Click on the photo to see it full size. Support your local library, kids.

This is a wonderful set.  I wish United States-based public library administrators and zeitgeist-setters would pay special attention to the Bradbury and Twain quotes.  The dumbing-down and de-archiving of public library collections in this country is making it harder for someone to use the library to give themselves an education in anything beyond pop culture, current news, and what it takes to be a good employee (not a good thinker, or a good person, or a good citizen), and is rapidly eroding our collective memory.

(via trespassurged)

Sam Seaborn, The West Wing (via theaccidentaloptimist)

(via digitaldressformreborn)

Isaac Asimov  (via 17momentsofspring)

(Source: youtu.be, via booklover)

bondagefairy:

do-i-know-this-girl:

teal-deer:

iraqiyamuslima:

lalondes:

Malala Yousafzai, in a 2011 interview with CNN, discussing her activism on behalf of girls seeking education in Pakistan.

YES YES YES!! I love this. FOREVER REBLOG!! 

YOU GO GIRL!

I’m going to point out again for those who don’t click links: This young woman was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban for speaking out on behalf of women’s rights in Pakistan. 

She is fifteen years old. She is also still alive. It is likely that she will suffer lifelong language and coordination difficulties given where she was shot (left side of her head) but she hasn’t given up her fight. 

While Islamic clerics in Pakistan have issued a Fatwa against the men who tried to murder her, the Taliban has re-iterated its intent to murder her and her father. 

I can’t express how much of a hero this woman is. She’s only fifteen, and yet she’s faced such impossible odds, and she’s still fighting. I just wish there was something I could do to help her.

It’s symbolic, but it would send out a big message of support: nominate her for the Nobel Peace Prize.

guys, sign the petition. it takes you 5 seconds to honor the bravery of this strong girl.

(Source: lalondes, via booklover)

sherridea:

ehaggrd:

lukexvx:

politics-war:

Founder of a free school for slum children Rajesh Kumar Sharma, second from right, and Laxmi Chandra, right, write on black boards, painted on a building wall, at a free school run under a metro bridge in New Delhi, India. At least 30 children living in the nearby slums have been receiving free education from this school for the last three years.

Dude

get shit done

College kids living on ramen diet: suck it the fuck up.

 Adrienne Rich, feminist writer who recently passed away. It is from a chapter called, “Taking Women Students Seriously” from her book called, On Lies, Secrets and Silence. (via iamyourlung)

(Source: theselam, via booklover)

The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books (via robot-heart-politics)

but america is exception we dont have to listen to anything from other countries

(via ludwigfearurbach)

(via trespassurged)

adventuresinlearning:

Using Philadelphia as an example, this graphic compares the cost, both financial and societal, of education and incarceration. Designed by Jason Killinger for Maskar Design

(via latefor-thesky)

mercycorps:

poptech:

Education against all odds in Afghanistan – audio slideshow

As they say, education is light.
Every member of society should have knowledge.
Through knowledge we can solve all our problems.

(via Toni Greaves/Mercycorps)

Thanks to The Atlantic, PBS Newshour, Poptech and all who’ve reblogged this slideshow featuring our INVEST vocational training center in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Learn more about these incredible, courageous women.

(via petitedeath)

President Obama in North Carolina today on why Congress has to act to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling (via barackobama)

(via saffronsugar)