Here's what stupid uneducated people imagine that college literature professors do: teach. Har har, stupid ignorant idiots! Here is what college literature professors actually do: write obscure papers that nobody will read. Now that's where it's at!
Stating that he's "appalled" by Friday's pepper-spraying of peaceful University of California-Davis protesters—an incident that sparked public outrage (and led to two three cops being placed on paid leave)—UC system president Mark Yudof has ordered an urgent review of police procedures at all 10 UC campuses. Good!
Upon realizing the pedogogical potential of Russell Brand's dirty prank calls, the headmaster of a hoity-toity north London school incorporated them into an English exam that was then administered to 14-year-old students. Now he doesn't understand why are some of the kids' parents are so upset about this.
Seeking out additional sources of income is always a tempting option for today's financially strapped college student. That said, you might want to double- and triple-check the credentials of the sexologist for whose study you have just signed up, as he might just be some random dude trying to have sex with you in a motel room.
If your parents like to pull the annoying ol' "when I was a kid, we trudged five miles in the snow to get to school because we were tough (unlike you kids nowadays)" act, this video of Chinese schoolkids braving icy rivers and risking fatal falls just to make it to class will put them in their place.
In hindsight, it's regrettable that nobody believed 15-year-old Julio Artuz when he told them he was being bullied and humiliated by one of his teachers. People believe him now, though, because Artuz used his cellphone-video machine to catch his orange-shirted teacher in the act.
Artuz, who attends Bankbridge Regional School in New Jersey, told NBC that his enraged teacher's comments made him "feel like I'm trash." So he used the technology that God gave him and collected himself some damning evidence. After watching his video, we get the feeling that his teacher—who has been placed on administrative leave pending action by the local education board—won't be in a position to swear and threat to kick his ass anymore:
Did you know that homosexuality is a gateway drug? "Gateway drug to what,?" you ask. Well, I'm not really sure, because I didn't attend Baylor University, which offers a whole course on the subject, or even major in Gateway Drug Studies.
The War on Hugs continues apace in America's prison-schools, with panicked administrators enforcing no-hugging policies to ensure that their youthful charges don't injure each other—or worse. The latest casualties are 14-year-old Florida middle schooler Nickolas Martinez and his female friend, who just received a one-day in-school suspension for hugging on school grounds. Have they no shame?
Here's a plan that should offer foolproof results: Shorter University, a Christian Baptist institute of higher learning in Rome (Georgia, not Italy, but same difference, really) has sent all 200 of its employees a "personal lifestyle pledge." The pledge promises that the signee will refrain from all acts of homosexuality — as well as lesser transgressions like adultery, premarital sex, doing drugs, and drinking in the presence of students — but mainly homosexuality.
What is it with kids these days? Amirite? You know what I'm talking about. In this particular case, I'm talking about how kids in elementary and middle school have, sure, okay, improved their standardized test scores in math over the past two decades—but in reading, there's been only "modest improvement." Kids these days! From the NYT:
Have you ever seen this kind of woven bracelet before? Supposedly all the kids are wearing these things now—errrrr, I mean, planning on wearing them, soon, very soon, like any day now. It's so they can smoke their weed and get high, to spite you!
A majority of unemployed Americans say they're confident that they'll find a job in the next year—a better job, at that. Meanwhile, college grads as a group are despondent over their own economic prospects. Now: considering the state of college in this country, we hesitate to make too much out of a college education. But when all the people who may have actually taken an economics class are the most pessimistic, we'd gently suggest that that's a bad sign. Perhaps the unemployed should tone down that optimism just a bit.
As the dying middle class sees its children swallowed by the student debt bubble as they desperately take out loans to afford college degrees from their likely substandard schools, it's worth remembering the fact that the vast majority of college students in this country are part-timers who will never graduate. You'll never guess how much money we're wasting on remedial English classes! From the LA Times:
The parents of a severely autistic 11-year-old boy in Virginia are suing their local school board and two former school employees for $20 million for negligence and abuse. Their strongest piece of evidence: disturbing school bus surveillance footage of an alleged attack on the boy.
