nolly

Various random life things:

A's school: another year, another summer crisis, more-or-less contained

Did I mention the newest head of his school is... kind of a mess as a head? Differently a mess than our old head who was a mess. So this summer there was a crisis for the third summer in a row, and at this point I'm just kind of "okay, it's May, it's time for a crisis with that school." THIS year the mess was that the head apparently did not articulate to either himself or the board that the school had NO MONEY, and was just merrily going around spending money as if they had it. The board apparently did not know any better either??

So far -- this school really has had some good luck so far in this regard -- there has always been someone who comes in and solves it, and this year it was a new family who came onto the school's board, identified within a month of joining the board that HEY, this school has NO MONEY, and put in place avenues to fix it, getting rid of a bunch of rented space it turned out the school could do without and laying off some teachers (that was really bad and I'm still angry with the head about that part -- not the layoff, but the part where because he wasn't straight about it, it happened at the end of May instead of not renewing their contracts at the normal time like normal schools).

A month or so in, everything actually seems... not terrible? It sounds vaguely to me like the board is doing some of the things the head was previously responsible for. The Head is teaching science, which was his profession before becoming Head and which he is actually really good at, at least on the evidence of a month of it; I've never thought middle school science was worth anything (having only seen mediocre to terrible middle school science classes) and I'm having to revise that opinion. A. is actually writing things at school, unlike the last couple of years??

E has the useless physics teacher again, is teaching number theory, and has informed me about AIME changes

E: had an amazing time at (second) math camp; the kid who had a crush on her (whom she is good friends with) was also at that camp, everyone knows that he has a crush on someone but no one knows who (or at least no one is admitting to knowing who), and it all continues to be awkward.

E is a junior now. She is taking AP English (Lang), AP Physics 2, and AP Psych (she has a free period), and will be taking four classes in the spring, one of which is history -- she got her schedule changed so that she wouldn't have English and history in the same semester. I am sure you can see which one is the hard class for her! It seems like a great class and like they get enough practice in writing that she'll actually learn something, even if she's never going to be a great writer. She's already a much much better writer than she was as a freshman! Which is not saying a whole lot, lol, but if she knows what she's going to write (this is the hard part that will take her half an hour to an hour) she can actually write a couple of paragraphs in twenty minutes, which she definitely could not do a couple of years ago. AP Psych seems like a fun class, not too hard, I have not much to say about it and neither does she. Her Physics 2 class is with the same doofus who taught her Physics 1, who as far as I can tell does no actual teaching, although E says there are sometimes powerpoint slides involved. (Slides! For teaching physics! I ask you. Not that they don't have their place, they do, but if that's the only thing you're using for teaching high schoolers their first intro to E&M, and in particular you never use the blackboard...) One of her friend's parents told me that he also has the kids grade their own assignments. So does he actually do anything?? I am dubious. (It occurred to me to ask her, while writing the above, whether her teacher ever did problems with them, and she was like, "Not really," and then she thought about it for a second and said, "I think that would be really helpful!" YES. YES IT WOULD.)

I'm listening to her teaching her first (zoom) class in number theory as I write this. So a few years ago, apparently, some high schoolers put together this online nonprofit where high school girls who were interested in math competitions could hang out online (mostly on Discord), and apparently the tradition is that they ask the MOP girls to teach classes to the others (one hour a week). (Not all of them accept, but many of them do, and I strongly encouraged E to.) It's almost all high schoolers running this and teaching and etc, with a few of the emeritus kids who are in college now helping out -- and I see now also the adult who runs the math competition self-study that E does, who I imagine was awesomely helpful -- and I must say I've been very impressed with their organization thus far from what I've seen from E -- someone (probably several someones, and probably including the aforementioned adult) has really sat down and thought through the logistics of all of this, including that high schoolers probably need a lot of scaffolding to teach! (E needs, and has obtained, quite a lot of scaffolding.) Anyway, she has stressed out over this class for weeks now but honestly it seems to have gone quite well -- it was a bit rocky in the beginning but once they hit talking about problems she was good.

Also, about a month ago (near Worldcon, so I just got around to posting it now) E has informed me in other-other-fandom news that the MAA has partnered with official testing sites for the second round of its math competitions, which comes with some annoyances (the math boards are blowing up over the restriction that kids under 13 (nb: not 13 and under, as a previous version said) can't take the AIME -- this is a rule of the testing sites -- which does affect A. who would probably be eligible to take it before then) but which I think is actually almost wholly really great and I salute them, this has got to have been a lot of work and it speaks to a lot of thought having been put into it. (Also, like. If you're under 13, just go do Mathcounts or something. The AIME will still be there when you get older.)

in which I go on for a while about Stake Conference, because that's what's been going on with me I guess

(For new people: a "ward" is a congregation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and a stake is a collection of wards. A ward is headed by a bishop as one of three in a bishopric; a stake is headed by a stake president as one of three in a stake presidency. Twice a year the stake meets together in a weekend-long series of meetings called Stake Conference)

We had stake conference a couple of weeks ago, the first one under the new Stake President. (I talked a bit about the changing of the guard at the last Stake Conference here.) The new Stake President decided he wanted to have a panel discussion and asked me to be the moderator, which I thought was sort of hilarious but it does turn out to be something I have certain skills at! (At the very least, I had the self-awareness not to use audience members to demonstrate that interpersonal distance was black magic, but in general, having just been to Worldcon was rather useful in this regard!) Although it turns out the thing I do not have skills in is extemporaneous speaking without notes -- if I have notes I don't look at them very often, and I can then go off-script and improvise, but I need notes as a crutch so that my brain has something to build on -- which I only realized the morning of, so that was exciting. Also there was some really lovely music because my stake is awesome at music (it is my job to organize the music, but really this time it was mostly being support staff which I'm super happy to do, being a ringer in two choirs -- next time I think I'll arrange to conduct a choir, which will be great fun), and Awesome Organist was there and it's such a pleasure to work with him, and Awesome Music Guy did youth choir (one of the ones I sang in even though I am not even faintly a youth) even though he's also in the stake presidency now which was really nice of him (but also I know he wanted to very much).

ALSO the new stake president. It was like something that had been coiled up in me for nine years was suddenly allowed to relax. Because our old stake president... he was fine, I guess? And I came to respect him and believe that he genuinely cared about our stake? But I never did like him. I perceived him as just so full of himself. That's my problem, I understand. But our new stake president is... there's a bit in Mere Christianity where C.S. Lewis talks about what someone who has really accepted Christ would look like:

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

They will not be very like the idea of "religious people" which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less... To become holy... to put it at the very lowest, it must be fun.

I thought about this while watching the new stake president. He had been my bishop fifteen years ago (the person called Bishop S here), and at that time he was in the process of becoming the person he now is, but he hadn't become that person yet. He was kind, and learning how to be kinder, and he wasn't quite having fun yet. Now he strikes me as that kind of person in every particular. He is the kind of person -- he has done this to me -- who will ask you about yourself and be genuinely interested in you, when he hasn't seen you for years, and will remember your family and ask about them. (He's also a CEO, so the people skills come with the territory a bit, and people in my religion are socialized to do this kind of thing in general, but like. I know a few CEOs and none of them do the genuine interest quite as well as he does, including fifteen-years-ago him.) Old stake president... I will uncharitably say that he was more of the kind who liked to draw attention to himself, who was very loudly kind to you in a way that was what he thought you needed and wasn't what you actually needed. Also new stake president was very into the music, and he had arranged the speakers for stake conference so that the vast majority of them were women and people of color, except when he really couldn't get around it, which is something I've never seen before.

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December 2011

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