CNLB

umami enthusiast // big into math

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@dee_of_e did you know that in america every penis is the same length

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@JoshTBVO gulag

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

FWIW if i do have a kid (big TBD at the moment) i have no idea what kind of school i'll send them to because i don't know them yet! maybe they'll
be like me and i'll home school them or maybe they'll be an ADHD ball of energy that needs to be outside all day.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

a thread with some thoughts about the education debate

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

i'm not here to judge anyone's decisions

but in the aggregate, if you decide to send your kid to a worse school for political reasons, a) it won't change anything, b) they'll probably still do fine, and c) they might really resent you for it anyways

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

you also can't fix the problem by throwing money at it. there is ample evidence that changes in cost per student in public school systems don't move the needle as much as we'd like to think

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

the reality is that high SES students tend to do okay even at low performing schools, and low SES students tend to do struggle at high performing schools

despite what all of us in the education world might hope and strive for, schools have serious limitations

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

i never find it particularly admirable when people try to fix systems via individual moralistic decisions, especially because the underlying logic implies that the whole thing could just be better if everyone ELSE stopped being so selfish, etc

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

i don't have children, but i am a strong believer in every parent's right to do what is best for their child. for a family with any kind of privilege, this necessarily involves participating in systems that are antithetical to progressive egalitarian values.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

desegregating schools is the correct thing to do, but it is a macro process. it will never happen because enough good and moral people make the good and moral decision.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin the bulk of my teaching experience is with older students (middle/high school, undergrad, graduate) but i've worked with students as low as 3rd grade. admittedly im a bit clueless about like, how preschoolers develop the concept of a number, etc

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin as in: maybe its better at the end of the day for a student to get things wrong if they have a stronger understanding of the process, than to get them right mechanically

maybe not also. but its not and unreasonable question

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin those "baroque weird strategies" are super efficient and eliminate the need for pencil/paper to do arithmetic. i am also skeptical that teaching them to all students in lieu of "standard" methods is the right call, but they are objectively better if you can learn them

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin so much if it comes back to test scores, which are of course useful and important.

but in a real world sense, with calculators and AI and everything else, is reliably getting the right answer actually the right goalpost?

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin so the question really becomes: do you try to teach for mastery, or do you assume from the outset that some large percentage of students won't get there?

i think this is a harder question than your thread makes it out to be.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@rustbeltjacobin you don't see anyone who has real mastery of multiplication line up a standard algorithm setup on pencil and paper to do 24x13.

and the really sharp kids don't need to be taught how to do it. they just figure it out and stop doing the busywork.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

nick, stav, adam, in order

[images @huggysqueezejoy]

Every friend group got the philosopher and the cute one and the sacrificial object

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

everyone gets a puppy vs diarrhea forever. he did #1 and now he's also solving #2

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

17 new public bathrooms. Across all five boroughs.

Because you can’t wait — and you shouldn’t have to.

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@majamediaco at 36, after many relationships and a failed marriage, and about to remarry, my answer is: with careful effort, and optionally with the help of a couples therapist, are we able to identify bad cycles and patterns, take personal and joint responsibility for them, and change them?

[CNLB @cnorrisl]

@blondspit 50% of my bad/scary subway interactions have happened on the F platform at 2nd ave. magnet for violent crazy people