Snyder Than You

The Power of Tumblr. The Beauty of Strangers.

Sun, 27 May 2012 10:05:02 -0400

The Power of Tumblr. The Beauty of Strangers.:

We can’t wait to see, hear and read all about how Room 220 is totally kicking butt out there.

detroitsomething:

My name is Ray Stoeser. I am a high school teacher living and working in Detroit. Below is a testament to the power of Tumblr and social networking. Most importantly it is about how 554 complete strangers helped change the lives of my Detroit students.

The Power of Tumblr. The Beauty of Strangers.

I am a second-year English teacher at Crockett Technical High School in Detroit, MI. I love being a teacher. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. There are many days (most days) when I want to give up. But I keep coming back. I keep staying up until 1, 2, 3 in the morning grading papers and lesson planning. And it’s because of the students.

My students need a lot of help. I teach 10th and 11th graders, but their reading levels range from 1st grade to 12th grade with an overall average of 7.5. Differentiating for them all can be challenging. There are also a lot of misconceptions about students in the inner city—misconceptions that my students continue to disprove on a daily basis. Every single one of my students wants to go to college. They came, despite the ice and snow, to a free ACT prep class I offered every Saturday morning for a month. They organized a brilliant Socratic Seminar on poverty and the nonfiction expose Nickel and Dimed and conducted it for Rep. Hansen Clarke. They are remarkable students. This year their reading levels have jumped an average of 1.5 years and their writing jumped three years. They work harder than any other group of kids I have ever met.

Unfortunately, adults keep letting them down. And it almost happened again. I was slated to teach the first ever AP class at my school: AP Language and Composition. I was excited! The group of kids that joined the class were not necessarily the highest performing; they just realized how important being able to write is for a college-bound student. They worked like machines all year. They brought up their average scores on the Synthesis, Argumentative, and Rhetorical Analysis essays from a 1 to a 6 on the (9 point scale). They couldn’t wait to take a crack at it on May16th.

Right before we were about to order the exams, I found out from our administration that they did not have the funds they had originally allocated for the test. In short, they mismanaged the money and now my students were going to be out on their own. This was $57 very few could pay, especially on such short notice. They had worked so hard all year and the adults had failed them. In an episode of rage and frustration I ordered the exams anyway knowing that I still had until June to raise the money. I didn’t tell my students about this so they could focus on the exams without having to worry.

May 16th came and went and the students felt so good about their performance on the exam. But now the time came to raise money. On May 24th I created an account on gofundme.org and made a plea for donations. We needed to raise $1,254 to cover the bill. Less than 30 hours later we had raised the entire amount and MORE.

How did this happen? Tumblr and YOU.

I created a post that was then featured in the #education tag and was reblogged by the amazing PositivelyPersistentTeach. The reblogs skyrocketed to 96! The donations came flying in from all of the world! People like: Angela, Amy, Anna, Jean, MJ, Sue, Ceira, Jason, and Ember. I even received emails of encouragement from fellow educators and students wishing my students and me well. It was a beautiful sight. In 24 hours we had raised over $800.

Then the blog, Inothernews, reblogged the post and within thirty minutes the post had been reblogged 500+ times and $500 had been donated from people like Emily, Simone, LP, Kaetlyn, Kim, Rebecca, Nick, Natalie, Matthew, Randi, Cathering, Karnythia, and more. MY STUDENTS HAVE 100% OF THEIR AP EXAMS FUNDED BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU! Without your help these students would NOT have had their exams scored. Those of you who donated, THANK YOU. And those of you who maybe were unable to donate but simply reblogged the post, THANK YOU!

Tumblr is amazing. This site has brought so many people from all of the world together. But you, the stranger, the person I and my students have never met, are the hero. You turned Tumblr into an instrument for SOCIAL JUSTICE. You have helped play a part in closing the achievement gap.

So on behalf of all the students from Room 220 at Crockett High School in Detroit, MI, thank you.

Sincerely,

Ray Stoeser

P.S. Because the project is actually OVERFUNDED, I will be donating the leftover money to students in my class who need to take or retake the ACT but cannot afford it. Thank you all so much!

Here are some pictures of my students:

(All of the parents and students have signed a media release form)

myvonne: quickwitter: My mom was a baby when the Golden Gate...

Sun, 27 May 2012 10:03:15 -0400

myvonne:

quickwitter:

My mom was a baby when the Golden Gate Bridge first opened. My Grandparents took her with them and joined the throng of people, much like these folks did, to walk across the bridge.

guardian:

Happy 75th anniversary Golden Gate Bridge!

Photograph: Doug Atkins/AP

Oh wow! That is a lot of people!

This really makes the annual Mackinac Bridge walk on Labor Day look a bit puny.

cornerstoneguide: “The “DONATE NOW” campaign which has adorned...

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:06:37 -0400

cornerstoneguide:

“The “DONATE NOW” campaign which has adorned all of our literature for 10 months has garnered about 10% of the goal we needed by last New Year’s to secure the fest’s future. We took that as a sign.” [x]

Let’s show another sign. DONATE TODAY.

thedailywhat: Infographic of the Day: According to...

Sat, 26 May 2012 17:04:55 -0400

thedailywhat:

Infographic of the Day: According to the CDC, meals have quadrupled in size since the ’50s — and subsequently, we’ve gained an average of 26 pounds apiece.

Sick.

Literally.

[gizmodo]

inothernews: Via the New York Times: The boy in the picture...

Sat, 26 May 2012 16:48:55 -0400

inothernews:

Via the New York Times:

The boy in the picture is Jacob Philadelphia of Columbia, Md. Three years ago this month, his father, Carlton, a former Marine, was leaving the White House staff after a two-year stint on the National Security Council that began in the Bush administration. As departing staff members often do, Mr. Philadelphia asked for a family photograph with Mr. Obama.

When the pictures were taken and the family was about to leave, Mr. Philadelphia told Mr. Obama that his sons each had a question. In interviews, he and his wife, Rosean, said they did not know what the boys would ask. The White House photographer, Pete Souza, was surprised too, as the photo’s awkward composition attests: The parents’ heads are cut off, Jacob’s arm obscures his face, and his older brother, Isaac, is blurry.

Jacob spoke first.

“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He brought his head level with Jacob, who hesitated.

“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.

“So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.

“Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.

(Isaac, now 11, asked Mr. Obama why he had eliminated the F-22 fighter jet. Mr. Obama said it cost too much, Isaac and his parents recounted.)

In keeping with a practice of White House photographers back to Gerald R. Ford’s presidency, each week Mr. Souza picks new photos for display. That week, Jacob’s easily made the cut.

“As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own,” Mr. Souza said. “That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.”

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”

tyleroakley: I had to. I shouldn’t because I’m not...

Sat, 26 May 2012 16:35:15 -0400

tyleroakley:

I had to.

I shouldn’t because I’m not from the Mitten State, but I have long loved the state, tried to move there, and consider the Les Cheneaux area more my home than where I currently lived, on the eastern edge of the area I have lived all of my life.

nationalpostsports: New idea or totally sexist?The CBC is...

Sat, 26 May 2012 16:12:04 -0400

nationalpostsports:

New idea or totally sexist?
The CBC is planning some counter-programming for female non-hockey fans as the Stanley Cup final begins next week, but faced a backlash on Twitter as a slew of posts denounced the idea as sexist.

Viewers can go online to listen to an alternate commentary from Lena Sutherland and Jules Mancuso, who run WhileTheMenWatch.com. They describe their site as a sports talk show for women, “Sex and the City” meets ESPN, with banter “from a woman’s point of view.”

“One afternoon while (our husbands) were both watching the same game on TV Jules and I were on the phone and we started just making comments to each other like, ’Did you see that guy’s hair?’ and ’What’s going on with that coach wearing the suit four sizes too big for him?”’ said Sutherland of their web show’s inspiration.

“And we kind of thought, ’Wow, this is funny, wouldn’t it be great if we could tune into an alternative version of the commentary from a female perspective?’ And that was kind of where we got the idea.”

Not everyone was happy with CBC’s decision.

“Seriously #CBC? While the Men Watch? I’m a serious sports fan and can go toe to toe with any male fan. Thanks for the patronizing insult,” wrote Laurie Kempton.

This is the thing I find funny about those feminists who are a bit trigger-happy about things that are geared “for women” or “for men” as opposed to “for everyone.” This show was created by women.

“Oh, but that’s just because they are blinded by patriarchal stereotypes they were indoctrinated with since birth.”

Really? And what about accepting people - and individual women - for what they are, what they think, and what they do, which you so adamantly preach at those of us “blinded by the patriarchy”?

As an aside, I have a four-year-old daughter. My wife is a tomboy who knows little about cutesy, “girly” things, fought against wearing dresses growing up, never like the color pink and hates Barbie. My daughter? Wears nail and toe polish and sparkling pink shoes, loves Disney princesses, and grabbed with glee the Barbie she was just given at a charity. Oh, and has carried a “purse” basically since she could walk.

I’m personally quite scared, although she very much likes playing cars with the boys and was very aggressive in soccer this spring (well… as aggressive as a four-year-old can be). And she easily holds her own with her 8- and almost 7-year-old brothers.

How about it you ladies just watch the regular sports with the guys and let the girlie girls watch While the Men Watch with other girly girls without judging them for what they want.

Don’t forget, the comic Cathy’s readership is mostly women, too.

transient-high: So many people live within unhappy...

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:12:03 -0400

transient-high:

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, comformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

-CHRISTOPHER MCCANDLESS

the man

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” - Thoreau

“I went into the woods… to suck all the marrow out of life.” - Thoreau

“Two roads diverged in a wood / And I, I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.” - Frost

(I did not take the time to look up the exact quotations. Yet.)

explore-blog: The world’s hardest-working countries,...

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:02:00 -0400

explore-blog:

The world’s hardest-working countries, ranked.

Interesting that the laziest people in the world are European and those of European descent. Yes, I am an American. Woo hoo! Well, laziest or most efficient and/or privileged.

[EDIT] It’s not “hardest working” it’s “most hours worked”. This is a definite difference and really plays into the question of efficiency and types of work, which really shows why most of Europe doesn’t work nearly as much as the rest of the world.

So what’s up with Greece, Hungary, and Poland, and why is Greece in such an economic quagmire?

And why are there no African nations listed? I take it I shoud actually look at the list?

lickystickypickywe: f***yeahreading: What speed do you read...

Sat, 26 May 2012 14:56:26 -0400

lickystickypickywe:

f***yeahreading:

What speed do you read at? (Remember, it’s not a race!)

PS: photo-reply is turned on :)

I’m sorry I am not sorry about being a little proud of my almost speedreading capacities. (speedreaders are crazy robots who read 1500 words a minute)

Meanwhile, I have always been a slow reader, yet have also always read above my grade level. This claims I read just above third-grade level, but I will assume it means in speed and not in comprehension. This score is actually 15 points higher than previous scores because I kept screwing up trying to get a picture of the score. I would have thought Staples would let me share that directly. Oh well.

thedailywhat: CISPA Update of the Day: CISPA, the Cyber...

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:33:46 -0400

thedailywhat:

CISPA Update of the Day: CISPA, the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act that passed the House in April, likely is headed for a Senate vote in early June.

To drum up opposition to the legislation, which would create “a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws,” Fight for the Future, Democrats.com, The Liberty Coalition, and the Entertainment Consumers Association have created a new website called Privacy Is Awesome. The site outlines the top five ways to help defeat CISPA:

Call your senators and tell them to oppose the Lieberman-Collins bill (CISPA), and ask for a constituent meeting during the Memorial Day recess to help change their mind.

Email senators offices about CISPA, expressing your opposition.

Keep calling senators until they plan a constituent meeting.

Donate to anti-CISPA organizers — the same teams that helped defeat SOPA/PIPA.

Share your opposition online — Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is spearheading opposition to the legislation, concluding a recent Senate floor speech with:

I believe these bills will encourage the development of a cyber security industry that profits from fear and whose currency is Americans private data. These bills create a Cyber Industrial Complex that has an interest in preserving the problem to which it is the solution.

Watch the full video here. It’s terrific.

[death+taxes}

thedailywhat: This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: The...

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:24:36 -0400

thedailywhat:

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: The Trayvon Martin gun-range target was bad enough. Then a bunch of white kids had to go and launch multiple #Trayvoning Facebook groups (that have since been removed).

Trayvoning is like Tebowing, except totally the opposite — white (and apparently, black) kids pose as a gunshot victim, wearing a hoodie, and holding Skittles and an iced tea, which is what Martin had on him when George Zimmerman shot him to death in February.

Facebook group members said they were merely combating “racism against whites”: “White people are becoming more and more oppressed.”

[hypervocal]

Seriously, people? This is straight up stupid. “White people are becoming more and more oppressed.”

"When I read the Stanford discussion thread, I saw young people with deep moral yearnings. But they..."

Sat, 26 May 2012 11:14:02 -0400

“

When I read the Stanford discussion thread, I saw young people with deep moral yearnings. But they tended to convert moral questions into resource allocation questions; questions about how to be into questions about what to do.

It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero. Understanding heroism and schmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets, more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job.

”

- David Brooks, The Service Patch - NYTimes.com

"We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:52:34 -0400

“We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”

- B. F. Skinner (via lickystickypickywe)

Amen.

thedailywhat: Say What Now of the Day: Pastor Charles L. Worley...

Mon, 21 May 2012 20:01:24 -0400

thedailywhat:

Say What Now of the Day: Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, went on an anti-President Obama rant earlier this month during a sermon. Then he got off topic:

I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. Build a great, big, large fence — 150- or 100-mile-long — put all the lesbians in there… Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out… And you know what, in a few years, they’ll die.

He ended his sermon with this thought:

God have mercy. It makes me pukin’ sick to think about — I don’t even whether or not to say this in the pulpit — can you imagine kissing some man?

Notice the “Amens” from the congregation throughout.

[towleroad]

That is just scary and very, very wrong and very, very not Christ-like.

And yet I’m thinking of moving to North Carolina?

chaplinnn: americawakiewakie: (Occupy Chicago/NATO Protests)...

Mon, 21 May 2012 19:38:53 -0400

chaplinnn:

americawakiewakie: (Occupy Chicago/NATO Protests) What is your threshold? When will you fight?

This is all we talked about at work today. Turns out that a lot more of my friends ended up downtown yesterday as well, which makes me really happy.

Hey, teachers on Tumblr: what do you think of this?

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:36:11 -0400

Hey, teachers on Tumblr: what do you think of this?:

Personally, even as a licensed but non-hired teacher, I’m not fond of teachers selling lesson plans. I prefer the community model of sharing them freely. There are dozens of sites with free lesson plans and teaching communities. Even so, I can understand a teacher needing and wanting a little extra money from their work if others are willing to pay it. (And making $700,000 from lesson plans means many someones are willing to pay for these lesson plans.

If I had the income, I’d probably pay for good lesson plans, too, if I have to. I need a good foundation to start from.

CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL GUIDE: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE FUTURE OF CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:12:54 -0400

CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL GUIDE: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE FUTURE OF CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL:

cornerstoneguide:

From Cornerstone Festival, via email:

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL

May 15, 2012

Dear Cornerstone Festival Family:

We are so grateful to have been able to share with you the gift that has been Cornerstone Festival all these years. Our annual gathering in this truly…

Very sad to hear this. I only got to one full Cornerstone, but have followed JPUSA since 1990, when a colleague introduced me to their amazing magazine.

I am thankful that that one Cornerstone was 1998, with Over the Rhine and a tribute to Rich Mullins. My wife, 8-month-old son, and I made it (thanks in part to horrible directions by Mapquest, to the last two songs of Steve Taylor’s set in 2003. i still wish I would have had the opportunity to see The Canticle of the Plains performed. And 77s. And. And. And….

Maybe they’ll put out an anthology or a website full of videos and bootlegs from all these years of being the best “Christian” music festival on the planet. (I can hope, right?)

And this is how I find out they had a Tumblr? So sad.

thekidshouldseethis: “Rooftops in the summer are hot. Cooling...

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:23:53 -0400

thekidshouldseethis:

“Rooftops in the summer are hot. Cooling down buildings wastes energy. Solution: Painting roofs with energy saving white reflective paint.” The White Roof Project is a nonprofit dedicated to curbing climate change by painting NYC roofs white and then hopefully franchising the volunteering activity out across the United States.

And they’re absolutely onto something. In 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pitched this idea. According to the Wall Street Journal, “white roofs and pavements could mean a one-time reduction of 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That… translates to removing all the cars in the world for 18 years.”

Former President Bill Clinton wrote last summer that white rooftops could lower “the utility bill in every apartment house 10 to 20 percent…”

And in the southeastern region of Almeria, Spain, the reflective roofs of their greenhouses (and they’re seriously into greenhouses) are cooling the air temperature in the region “by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade since 1983. The rest of Spain, however, has experienced temperatures rise 0.5 degrees Celsius.”

Sounds like it might be time to get some white paint and a few ladders. Read more about The White Roof Project, and if you’re in NYC, volunteer!

thedailywhat: Kickass Kid of the Day: As 9-year-old Josef Miles...

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:00:00 -0400

thedailywhat:

Kickass Kid of the Day: As 9-year-old Josef Miles and his mother walked around Kansas’ Washburn University campus last weekend, he noticed a group of Westboro Baptist Church members picketing as people headed to graduation ceremonies.

Josef asked mom if he could create his own sign, and promptly staged a one-man protest. His sign, written in pencil on a tiny sketchpad, read simply, “God Hates No One.”

[augustachronicle]