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A teacher/mom wrote an open letter for her resignation. Parents everywhere are freaking out.

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Teacher Wendy Bradshaw recently had her own kid, and it seems like holding a baby that might someday pass through America's educational system lit a fire under her ass to speak out about how terrible that system has become. Bradshaw worked in Florida's Polk County and specialized in younger children, infant through fifth grade. The strict standardization that higher grades have been subjected to for years has been making its way down, beginning to touch even pre-schoolers with test-based learning. This forces teachers into narrower and narrower teaching plans that aren't conducive to actual learning. After sending in her letter of resignation, Bradshaw posted it on Facebook where it has now been shared over 50,000 times.

Today I resigned from the school district. I would like to share with you what I gave them. Feel free to share it if it...

Posted by Wendy Bradshaw on Friday, October 23, 2015

The letter reads:

To: The School Board of Polk County, Florida
I love teaching. I love seeing my students’ eyes light up when they grasp a new concept and their bodies straighten with pride and satisfaction when they persevere and accomplish a personal goal. I love watching them practice being good citizens by working with their peers to puzzle out problems, negotiate roles, and share their experiences and understandings of the world. I wanted nothing more than to serve the students of this county, my home, by teaching students and preparing new teachers to teach students well. To this end, I obtained my undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees in the field of education. I spent countless hours after school and on weekends poring over research so that I would know and be able to implement the most appropriate and effective methods with my students and encourage their learning and positive attitudes towards learning. I spent countless hours in my classroom conferencing with families and other teachers, reviewing data I collected, and reflecting on my practice so that I could design and differentiate instruction that would best meet the needs of my students each year. I not only love teaching, I am excellent at it, even by the flawed metrics used up until this point. Every evaluation I received rated me as highly effective.

Like many other teachers across the nation, I have become more and more disturbed by the misguided reforms taking place which are robbing my students of a developmentally appropriate education. Developmentally appropriate practice is the bedrock upon which early childhood education best practices are based, and has decades of empirical support behind it. However, the new reforms not only disregard this research, they are actively forcing teachers to engage in practices which are not only ineffective but actively harmful to child development and the learning process. I am absolutely willing to back up these statements with literature from the research base, but I doubt it will be asked for. However, I must be honest. This letter is also deeply personal. I just cannot justify making students cry anymore. They cry with frustration as they are asked to attempt tasks well out of their zone of proximal development. They cry as their hands shake trying to use an antiquated computer mouse on a ten year old desktop computer which they have little experience with, as the computer lab is always closed for testing. Their shoulders slump with defeat as they are put in front of poorly written tests that they cannot read, but must attempt. Their eyes fill with tears as they hunt for letters they have only recently learned so that they can type in responses with little hands which are too small to span the keyboard.

The children don’t only cry. Some misbehave so that they will be the ‘bad kid’ not the ‘stupid kid’, or because their little bodies just can’t sit quietly anymore, or because they don’t know the social rules of school and there is no time to teach them. My master’s degree work focused on behavior disorders, so I can say with confidence that it is not the children who are disordered. The disorder is in the system which requires them to attempt curriculum and demonstrate behaviors far beyond what is appropriate for their age. The disorder is in the system which bars teachers from differentiating instruction meaningfully, which threatens disciplinary action if they decide their students need a five minute break from a difficult concept, or to extend a lesson which is exceptionally engaging. The disorder is in a system which has decided that students and teachers must be regimented to the minute and punished if they deviate. The disorder is in the system which values the scores on wildly inappropriate assessments more than teaching students in a meaningful and research based manner.

On June 8, 2015 my life changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I remember cradling her in the hospital bed on our first night together and thinking, “In five years you will be in kindergarten and will go to school with me.” That thought should have brought me joy, but instead it brought dread. I will not subject my child to this disordered system, and I can no longer in good conscience be a part of it myself. Please accept my resignation from Polk County Public Schools.

Best, 
Wendy Bradshaw, Ph.D.

Like most conscientious teachers, Bradshaw just wants kids to get something great out of school. Instead, she's getting herself and her kid out of it. Maybe her letter is going viral because parents everywhere are recognizing what a loss this is.


Nicki Minaj was accused of mocking the disabled on Halloween and fired back immediately on Twitter.

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It's November, but the ripples of celebrities offending people on Halloween are still being felt. Over the weekend, Nicki Minaj dressed up in a fairy costume (although it also kind of looked like an outfit North West would wear). She then posted a video of herself waving her fairy wand and telling a person in a wheelchair, "Walk. I command you to walk!" People on Twitter were shaking their damn heads and writing that Minaj was making fun of disabled people. 

Minaj took down the video, but she also clarified on Twitter that she was not making fun of anyone and that the person she waved her wand at is not actually disabled. It was just a joke with her friend.

https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/660896809661796352https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/660897134531575808https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/660899231998218240

And so another celebrity Halloween controversy has been settled. On to the next.

A guy thought he found money on the street. It turns out he was being pranked by Jesus himself.

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This has to be the best prank based on Matthew 6:24, "You cannot serve God and money." A guy thought he found a 20 pound note on the streets of Portsmouth, England, but Jesus had other plans.  

When he unfolded the bill, he found that the beautiful face of Queen Elizabeth II had been replaced by the even more beautiful face of the King of Kings. On the one hand, phony bills like these a fun way for the church to catch your attention and get the message across. But then again, the Church might not want to promote the idea that Jesus was a prankster, because who knows where the pranks end and the miracles begin. 

Found a £20 note on the pavement...absolutely buzzin', opened it up and this was on it...

Everything you know about addiction is wrong, according to this video.

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Everything you know about addiction is wrong in kind of a beautiful way, according to a video produced by "In a Nutshell" in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Hari. It pulls upon the work in Hari's new book, Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, to make the argument that addiction needs to be viewed as a product of isolated environments and disconnection from other people. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg&index=2&list=PLrEnWoR732-BHrPp_Pm8_VleD68f9s14-

Besides that, the other big takeaway is that heroin addiction is way more digestible when it's explained using cute colorful animation.

Article 26

A tattoo artist let his 4-year-old daughter give him a tattoo. Is he the best or the worst dad ever?

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It's adorable when kids show a knack for their parents' careers at a young age. Young Chloe Bellomo might just grow up to join the family business of tattoo art. At the tender age of 4, she inked her first tattoo, a strawberry, on her dad's arm: a Take Your Daughter to Work Day memory that will literally last forever.

Brad Bellomo owns 3rd Eye Tattoo in Largo, Florida. Her daughter was inspired by the ceiling art in the parlor. Her artistic pursuits didn't begin on skin: "She had come in here a few times, watched other artists and myself doing the art on the ceiling there and she said, 'I want to do one.' And right away, (I) gave her the chance to do one right up here," Bellomo said. Chloe wanted to further emulate dad by doing a tattoo: "I like to paint my daddy," she said.

 

Last week I posted a picture of what looked like chloe tattooing me... There was no needle and it was more of a test to...

Posted by Bob- Tat on Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Chloe chose a strawberry simply because it was cute, and Brad plans on inking a Wu Tang Clan "W" in the middle because Chloe likes to sing, "bah bah black sheep have u berry wu," he wrote on Facebook.

The Facebook post has over 119,000 likes and 14,000 shares. As per usual, commenters were excited to judge Brad's parenting. One person commented "Child abuse," another reported it to Facebook for "graphic violence," but most people are just jealous that their kids can't be trusted with a needle.

Head over to Wave 3 News for a video interview with the Bellomos.

Article 24

Ohio frat suspended after 'serenading' sorority girls with gross song asking for nude pics.

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An Ohio frat was suspended for "serenading" a sorority with a nude pic-centric rendition of "Hey Jude." The song was changed to "Send Nudes," and the lyrics were altered from a heartwarming message of comfort for a heartbroken child to a plea for nude pics. If you think it's marginally funny or clever, the lyrics will surely make you change your mind:

https://twitter.com/ohitchcock/status/659551615809167360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A clip of the song was posted by student journalist Olivia Hitchcock on October 28th and has been picked up by various news outlets since. The university swiftly suspended the frat and released a statement saying that “a preliminary investigation has produced information linking the behavior to Acacia, a registered fraternity at Ohio University.”

The fact that it's Acacia singing the song is of special importance because they're considered "notorious for drugging their free drinks and raping girls" by student activists. "FuckRapeCulture," a campus organization, also started a petition to ban the frat for allegedly sexually assaulting women at an off-campus house. 

This has been another installment of frats being terrible.


When a bride's photographer didn't show up to the wedding, a stranger stepped in to save the day.

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Matt and Heather Koehler were married in September, and although it was apparently a beautiful ceremony, there are only grainy cell phone pics recording it. Right before she walked down the aisle, the bride found out there'd been a terrible mix-up and the photographer she hired wouldn't be able to make it to the ceremony. Her friend Stacey felt so terrible for her that she called up a friend who had never even met the Koehler's and explained the situation. Why? Because that friend, Dana Gruszynski, is a professional photographer with a soft spot for love. And they made plans.

The "first try" table.

She writes on her blog that after meeting Heather she offered to do a re-shoot of her and Matt in their wedding clothes, so they'd have something for the mantelpiece, at least. But she didn't think that was enough:

We set the date for 3 weeks later. I NEEDED to do something more for this bride so I got to work. I contacted her sister, Ashley, and she helped me get started. She contacted her side of the family and rallied up everyone she could. I also contacted one of their best friends, Kevin, and he helped me rally up Matt's side and friends.

Matt & Heather got married on September 12th, 2015 at My Sisters Barn. I saved the cell phone pictures I found on Heathers Facebook so I had something to go off. I wanted to recreate this day as close as I could.

Dana and Heather's friends surprised her with as close a recreation of their wedding day as they could, complete with a resurrected cake table:

Looks even better than before!

And they rounded up as much of the family as they could:

"The invite said casual formal."

Heather and Matt were completely surprised and a little overwhelmed:

Matt's barely keeping it together.
Heather's letting it all hang out.

They even got to recreate their first dance, walk down the "aisle" to the same song, and feed each other cake with their hands, which is the best part of any wedding:

You should really be drunk to do this.

It was a wonderful surprise for the couple, and a story that's a lot more interesting to tell than," Yeah, we had a photographer at our wedding." Way to go above and beyond, Dana. You truly do love love.

Making love to the camera for real.

Article 21

Viola Davis's adorable daughter made dressing up as your mom for Halloween actually seem cool.

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Dressing up as your mom for Halloween is a bold move that could potentially read as more half-assed than throwing on black skinny jeans and a witch hat five minutes before a party. But if your mom is actress Viola Davis, dressing up like her is pretty badass. Davis shared a Facebook photo of her adorable daughter, Genesis, reenacting the historic Emmy moment from earlier this year when she became the first black woman to win best lead actress in a drama

Davis wrote:

So.....the Elsa costume? Didn't work for her. The Pirate? A no go. So she finally said," I just want to be YOU mommy"! So... uhh.....this is ME.

https://www.facebook.com/viola.davis/photos/a.255177374661664.1073741828.250999675079434/501963466649719/?type=3&theater
Cool mom alert.

It's unclear if Davis herself dressed up, but hopefully she went along with the theme and came up with a creative Eggs 911 costume.

Study: nearly half of Tinder users are already in relationships, other half are fools.

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Another cheerful study has been released that confirms your worst dating fears: meeting an available partner is even harder than you thought. According to a new survey from Global Web Index, that's in part due to the fact that 42% people who used Tinder in the last month are already in relationships—including 30% who are currently married. This has some people wondering if Tinder is becoming a new avenue for cheating, especially since the survey also revealed that 62% of Tinder users are male, a statistic reminiscent of the cheating cluster-f** known as Ashley Madison, a site whose real user base was estimated to be 90-95% men

"Instead of ending our deeply broken relationship, let's just cheat with Tinder."

In an interview with The Guardian, a Tinder spokesperson suggested that there are reasons a married person might use Tinder other than cheating: "Tinder is a social network and these are many use cases for it—not just dating. People are using it to make new friends, to network, and they use it when they travel to meet new people in the area." Presumably the spokesperson misspoke and meant to say "meet new penises in the area," instead.

Article 18

This woman turned the tables on the creep that was filming her by filming him instead.

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This woman caught a creepy guy filming her and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. Jase Dillan, an aspiring singer from Boston, was out running some errands when she noticed a guy filming her crotch and backside. He quickly put away the camera when she spotted him, but Dillan wasn't going to just it slide. She got in her car and decided to keep an eye on him, using her side mirror to monitor his activities. He was only about three feet away, so she could see the viewfinder on his camera. She noticed that he was "zooming in on [women's] crotch area" for a solid few minutes, even looking at women who "couldn't have been older than 12 or 13." She then decided that the perv had to be stopped.

https://www.facebook.com/bostonsara/videos/10102165415247387/

She got out of her car and started filming him with her phone camera. He tried to act cool and walk away, but she didn't let him, mockingly asking him if it made him uncomfortable and calling him out for being a "creepy f*cking dirtbag." She asked him to delete the footage of her, but he denied that he even had any. She also called him out for having a wedding ring. While he played innocent the whole time, he did ask her why she thought he would need her permission to film her.

Unfortunately, the police can't do anything about it because he wasn't technically breaking laws. Since Dillan can't legally pursue him, she at least wanted to "raise awareness about this type of behavior" and "encourage young women stand up for themselves."

Article 16


Article 15

Woman "having a good day" pays it forward for stranger who broke the law.

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It sucks to return to your car and see that you got a parking ticket, but sometimes you might actually break even.

Apparently, a woman named Liz was having a good day, likely due to things that had nothing to do with parking. To celebrate, she left a "pay it forward" note and cash for the owner of a nearby car that had received a parking ticket. It is nice to pay it forward, Liz, but hopefully this flagrant violator of parking rules can still learn that there are consequences for their actions. 

The picture was posted to Reddit over the weekend with the headline, "Found this on my windshield..." As far as we know, the poster has yet to pay it forward.

Way to brag about having a good day.

"Pay it forward."

Young Haley Joel Osment is proud of you, Liz.

Here's the video of Seattle news anchors enthusiastically reporting the story.

Taylor Swift is getting sued for stealing lyrics, but she'll probably shake it off.

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Taylor Swift is getting sued. Shockingly, it's not by Katy Perry. R&B artist Jesse Graham, known for being more than a thousand times less famous than Taylor Swift, says that she stole a phrase in her hit "Shake It Off" from one of his songs. The New York Daily News hilariously details Graham's accusation:

Graham, 50, alleges that the chorus of Swift's 2014 anthem ("Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate") borrows from his slow-jam "Haters Gone Hate," which contains the phrase "Haters gonna hate, players gonna play."

https://instagram.com/p/8oB4DljvIn/

Prior to initiating this doomed $42 million lawsuit, Graham unsuccessfully asked to be named a co-writer on "Shake It Off" and to take a selfie with Swift. Way to keep it professional, dude.

Is this the singer who will take down T-Swift's empire? Probably not.

Here are the songs in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=48&v=808MLaHcBs4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM

Graham says that there's "no way" Swift would have been able to come up with the lyrics "haters gonna hate" without his song. What's next, Jesse Graham? Did you invent the phrase "welcome to the stage," too?

This mom is looking for the woman who passed a note to her son and made their day.

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A mom from Pell City, AL posted this message to a Facebook page called What's Happening in Pell City, because she wanted to tell everyone what happened. According toWBRC, Melissa Simms was having a god awful day that started with splitting her last 10 dollars with her husband so they'd be able to drive to work and the doctor's office. Simms has had several major surgeries recently, and had to go in for a checkup, where she was dismayed to discover she'd owe an additional co-pay. Simms' son was sick home from school and had accompanied his mom to the office. While she was talking to the doctor a woman approached him with an envelope. Now Simms is looking for her through social media:

Pay it forward. To the doctor.

Her post reads:

Sorry I had to share this... I was having one of those days where it just seemed everything was going wrong and then....a unknown woman which I will call her an (EARTHLY ANGEL) handed this to my son while we were at the doctors office to give me. This made my whole entire day THANK YOU and I will pay it forward! I have read about these random acts of kindness, but this is the first time I have ever experienced it first hand!!! Just thought maybe this could cheer up someone's day as much as it has mine!!!

The note from the anonymous woman says,"I've had days like you are having today. Hang in there. Joshua 1:9." The subtext of this note was, "Here's a hundred dollars," because money talks, baby! Joshua 1:9 presumably refers to The Bible verse that says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Pretty inspiring stuff for the religious or the desperately poor.

100 dollars makes a huge difference on a difficult day. Simms was able to cover her co-pay and buy dinner for her family, which includes five children. She's vowed to pay it forward, even if she can't find the Good Samaritan and repay her directly. Here's hoping it'll come around to all of us eventually.

Article 11

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