This Week on Reddit

This week I explored the same subReddits as last week: r/Teaching, r/Teachers, and r/Education. I read more about parent/teacher struggles in the time of distance learning. One post described a teacher's encounter with an apologetic parent. After about an hour of anger and complaints from the parent, the parents realized that she was blaming the school and teachers for the struggles she is experiencing through the pandemic. The post was a nice reminder that we all need to give each other some grace through these difficult and unprecedented times. Parents are struggling. Teachers are struggling. Let's try our best to help and support each other rather than blaming each other for our problems.

I read another post from a tired and frustrated teacher who could not bring himself to grade the first essays of the school year. He knew that the students did not finish the necessary prep work for the essays. He was feeling burned out and unable to reach students properly through the virtual platform. The post was filled with comments that offered wonderful suggestions to help students improve their work before he read and graded the essays. The suggestions included peer review and self assessment. These tools set students up for success and stress the importance of editing, feedback, reflection and collaboration, while lightening the load of teachers. The teacher was grateful for the suggestions and planned to implement them. What a brilliant example of using social networks to collaboratively problem solve!

I didn't feel comfortable creating my own post on Reddit this week but I did comment on two posts. First, I commented on an Ed-Tech Help post. This post asked for help keeping students engaged while teaching online learning. I recommended Padlet, Mural, and Flipgrid. I saw that someone else recommended Desmos and I thought of Sam.

Next, I commented on a post that shared this article. The article was strange to me because it explained that Princeton did not find any issues with the 2012-2014 wages. They are choosing to pay $1M to avoid litigation. Redditors commented that Princeton is setting a precedent with this settlement. I shared that I am not impressed or excited by this article because Princeton did not recognize or speak out against an actual pay gap issue. Rather, the motive behind paying female professors is to avoid litigation. I finished the article wondering about what I had just read. Is there an actual pay disparity? If so, can't Princeton recognize this and right their wrongs rather than denying an issue and avoiding litigation by paying a settlement?