Flying through this Saturday, like this little buckling, to get to our weekend!
#kid #babygoats #happysaturday #babyanimalstagram #babyanimal #babygoats #sillygoat #goatsofinstagram #goatsofig #babyanimalphoto #babyanimalphoto #animalphotography #animalphotographer #pet #petphotography #petphotographer #petsofinsta #petstagram #petsofinstagram
Did I ever tell you all about the time my dad was teaching and a student climbed IN the window?
I only got like two responses on this but it’s one of my favorite stories from my dad’s classroom so buckle up.
So my dad taught junior English at a local high school, he taught on the second story of a building that was built back when schools had large windows that opened, and his windows faced the front of the building.
So one day in like April he’s teaching Moby Dick or Gone with the Wind or something with the windows open a crack to allow spring air into the classroom and one of the windows opens further and a kid climbs in through the window.
This kid, who hasn’t been at school since winter break, puts his finger to his lips. crouches for a second under the window, crawls to the classroom door, peaks out the window in the door, opens the door and slips into the hall.
He apparently then dashes down the hall, slips through the door into another junior English class (taught by my dad’s friend), where he again puts his finger to his lips, jogs across the room, climbs out the window (which faced a courtyard on the backside of the front hall) and disappears.
Turns out, the kid had been in a juvenile detention center since Christmas, escaped, and decided no one would look for him in his school. To this day I have no idea what happened after he climbed into the courtyard.
#this kid and the pie kid are my favories
Please tell about the pie kid because this story is hilarious and I want to hear about the pie kid
Ah yes, pie kid. The pie kid is legendary at the school.
So my dad’s school has faculty meetings every Teusday after school, and the teachers would all bring food (because after 7+ hours of school even teachers are hungry then they have to sit in a meeting for at least an hour talking about test scores or whatever).
So this kid, I don’t know what the motivation here was, but he would sneak into the library and take food from the meetings. Usually they just let him because, I mean, he’s not really harming anything. That just made him bolder though. One day he began taking an entire pie from the meetings.
So one day he’s sitting in the hall eating an entire pie because high school, and security took offense at this (because he was in the building after all students were supposed to leave, also he was apparently a trouble maker who security was familiar with) and this is where the story starts getting a little crazy.
Obviously, when security shows up, pie kid runs (carrying the uneaten half of his pie). This becomes a normal Teusday afternoon sight: security chasing pie kid through the halls as he’s eating pie stolen from a faculty meeting. The kid regularly found himself in odd corners of the building, including the roof, the boiler room, the field house, the magnet school behind the high school, etc. hiding from security and eating his pie.
Eventually, security caught up with him and his pie and dragged him to the principal’s office.
Now, the principal at this point is a little.. strict. He runs a tight ship.. or thinks he does.. you know those people who are VERY concerned with their world being EXTREMELY orderly and the world just stares them in the face and refuses? That was this principal’s life. He was trying to make a 2,500 student high school walk in lock step. As shown by the last story, that doesn’t happen at this school.
So the principal is alerted that pie kid, who’s been on the run from security for 2 months, is in his office with today’s pie. So the kid waits in the office finishing his pie and the principal walks in, closes the door, sits down, and says something like “what is going on?”
At this point the kid (who has finished his pie of the day) gets up, calmly walks over to the window, opens it, climbs out, hops the bushes under the window, and runs away.
That was the last anyone at the school saw him.
Well that was unexpected but a lovely tie in and that school needs to have better control of its windows.
a lovely pie in
Mr. Rogers had an intentional manner of speaking to children, which his writers called “Freddish”. There were nine steps for translating into Freddish:
- “State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street.
- “Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.
- “Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”
- “Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.
- “Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.
- “Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.
- “Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.
- “Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.
- “Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.
Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children – The Atlantic
Rogers brought this level of care and attention not just to granular
details and phrasings, but the bigger messages his show would send.
Hedda Sharapan, one of the staff members at Fred Rogers’s production
company, Family Communications, Inc., recalls Rogers once halted taping
of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to
cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never
suggest to children that they not cry.In working on the show,
Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R.
Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who
worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to
Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions
about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that
it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support
from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of
Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production
carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse
children in that way.In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of
child development is actually derived from some of the leading
20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well
known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate
degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there
recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret
McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the
theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik
Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards
in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for
almost half a century.This is one of the reasons Rogers was so
particular about the writing on his show. “I spent hours talking with
Fred and taking notes,” says Greenwald, “then hours talking with
Margaret McFarland before I went off and wrote the scripts. Then Fred
made them better.” As simple as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood looked and sounded, every detail in it was the product of a tremendously careful, academically-informed process.That idea is REALLY worth learning to talk to the kiddos. Mr. Rogers still has a lot to teach us–especially for our own kids.
The statement signed by the former directors and deputy directors of the CIA and the open letter signed by retired Adm. William H. McRaven, head of the Special Operations Command during the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, are remarkable. We witness thirteen men who have led our intelligence services and a retired admiral of the US Navy inform the president of the United States that his actions essentially violate the oath of office imposed on him when he was inaugurated.
Excerpt:
In times of crisis, the leaders of the military and intelligence communities try to put aside their differences, often many and sundry, and work together for the good of the country. That’s what’s happening today with a remarkable group of retired generals, admirals and spymasters who have signed up for the resistance, telling the president of the United States, in so many words, that he is not a king.
Thirteen former leaders of the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have signed an open letter standing foursquare against President Trump, in favor of freedom of speech and, crucially, for the administration of justice. They have served presidents going back to Richard M. Nixon mostly without publicly criticizing the political conduct of a sitting commander in chief — until now.
They rebuked Mr. Trump for revoking the security clearance of John Brennan, the C.I.A. director under President Obama, in retaliation for his scalding condemnations and, ominously, for his role in “the rigged witch hunt” — the investigation into Russia’s attempt to fix the 2016 election, now in the hands of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. The president’s latest attempt to punish or silence everyone connected with the case, along with his fiercest critics in political life, will not be his last.
You don’t need a secret decoder ring to see what’s happening here. John Brennan, who knows whereof he speaks, believes that the president is a threat to the security of the United States — a counterintelligence threat, no less, in thrall to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The president attacks him, severing Mr. Brennan’s access to classified information. The deans of national security rise up to defend him — and, by implication, intelligence officers and federal investigators who are closing in on the White House.
They are sending a message to active-duty generals and admirals, soldiers and spies. Remember your oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Think twice before following this man’s orders in a crisis. You might first consider throwing down your stars.
Here’s the statement (or open letter) signed by the twelve former CIA heads:
As former senior intelligence officials, we feel compelled to respond in the wake of the ill-considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the White House regarding the removal of John Brennan’s security clearances. We know John to be an enormously talented, capable, and patriotic individual who devoted his adult life to the service of this nation. Insinuations and allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Brennan while in office are baseless. Since leaving government service John has chosen to speak out sharply regarding what he sees as threats to our national security. Some of the undersigned have done so as well. Others among us have elected to take a different course and be more circumspect in our public pronouncements. Regardless, we all agree that the president’s action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances – and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech. You don’t have to agree with what John Brennan says (and, again, not all of us do) to agree with his right to say it, subject to his obligation to protect classified information. We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case. Beyond that, this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials. As individuals who have cherished and helped preserve the right of Americans to free speech – even when that right has been used to criticize us – that signal is inappropriate and deeply regrettable. Decisions on security clearances should be based on national security concerns and not political views.
I know for a fact I’ve told this story on here before but I’ll never get over the time when I was working retail and I was cashing out some lady so I asked “cash, debit or credit how are you paying, ma’am?” And she said “that’s none of your business.” And demanded to speak to my manager about my invasive question
Oh, I’ve got one in this vein: a lady called our company wanting us to come steam clean her tile floors, but refused to give her address, instead demanding that we do it at our location. And hung up when I tried to explain that her floors were attached to her house.
Let that sink in for a second.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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