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teachingtales · 1 year

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Forgot to upload these last week. 10 November is the Marine Corps Birthday and 11 November is Veteran’s Day in the USA. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

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teachingtales · 1 year

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teachingtales · 1 year

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About the Halloween Crowd Crush in the Itaewon District of Seoul, South Korea

The information here is to provide some clarification on crowd crushes, and some specific information on what happened in Itaewon. First, some general information:

The circled parts are very important: uneven ground + narrow passageway.

Let’s compare this to another crowd crush that happened in April of 2021 in Israel:

Again, we have a situation with a narrow passageway and a sloping floor (a staircase, in this case).

There is an idea that people will file through an area without much incident, it’s crowded and slow but it’s otherwise not going to be a problem. After all, if I fall down, I can just stand up again. But in reality, it is a matter of physics…at this density, we almost behave as a liquid. You fall down, and suddenly there are people on top of you.

Being on top of the pile, you cannot easily push yourself off. You can roll, but you’re only rolling across the pile, not off. You’re too high/far for any of the rescue people on the ground to pull you off (to reduce the pressure on lower layers). And you can’t easily push yourself up because people are squishy and squirming, there’s no way to get firm enough “ground” to push off. So you’re stuck trying to rock yourself off of the pile, putting additional pressure and taking more time. This is why rescue workers began pulling at the bottom layers rather than trying to pull/push off the top layers.

My students have been haunted by the images (not shown here, but shared on social media). Those images may haunt them for years, maybe forever. What we can do is use those bad images to remind us to be safe. It’s not their fault, of course. The victims had no idea this would happen…most people don’t understand crowd crushes. I know about them because of my fields of study. So it’s not to say it was their fault. But from this lesson, we can stop others from being in this situation. We can pause and go the long way, or wait a few more minutes to let the crowd dissipate, and we will be safer and the crowd will also be safer.

Unfortunately, VERY unfortunately, safety lessons are “hard learned”. It means that we only pay attention after a tragedy. THEN we think about safety.

It’s hard to deal with because this was something no one expected. It was an accident. And I think people are upset because they “should have” expected it. But really, only people like me who had to study this stuff, we know it’s a reasonable expectation but most people don’t. It’s not their fault; but now we are all very aware of it at the same time. Maybe now politicians can understand this risk better.

We have to remember there is no one to blame. Some people want to place blame; I think it helps them feel safe. If they can blame X, then avoid X, they believe they are safe from this type of harm. They blame “being drunk” or they blame “pushing”, or “they were too young to know better.” But really, it is not that. It was pure physics. A lot of people in a narrow alley + uneven/sloping ground + one or two people tripping and falling = a “wave” of people falling, too. It’s not about age, drunkenness, etc.

And that’s hardest for people to accept. We want to think we have control over our lives, over our safety. We want to think we can be safe if only we do XYZ. But a lot of life is just luck. And this makes people feel really uncomfortable, so they get upset and try to blame someone or something.

I think that’s why these tragedies are burned into our memories so hard, because not only are they devastating and tragic as a human loss, but they are also a very horrifying reminder that any of us or our loved ones can just…not be here tomorrow.

We do the most we can, and have to accept that it’s the most we can do.

If you need someone to talk to, my inbox is always open.

#teacher #teaching #student #students #classroom #class #student life #history #distance learning #study #itaewon #halloween #crowd crush #seoul 2022 #seoulkorea #seoul halloween crush #seoul halloween stampede #halloween crush

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teachingtales · 2 years

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I don’t usually post this stuff but my friend is awesome and is going through a rough time; I want to help so I am posting this.

Her IG link: https://instagram.com/momcat_rescue

She works hard doing low-paying work and all her money goes to helping stray cats. She has saved so many cats, and has dealt with the emotional trials of losing some, too. Not only is she busy with this and work, she recently was in the hospital for a life-saving operation. All she thought about were how many cats still needed help.

With the rainy season, she is unable to work and still has her own hospital bills. She houses many former strays and they have run out of food. She is trying to sell her cellphone just to afford food for them for a while.

Currently, she still needs US $140 to cover their food. Her donation links are here: https://linktr.ee/momcats

She appreciates all donations and posts updates on the condition of the kitties. Donations are great, and so are reblogs 😻

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teachingtales · 2 years

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Lesson 1 for Geography is about maps, and I include color blindness for why we should use simple patterns more than colors. I wish other teachers would get the memo!!

Color vision

Good GRIEF I have HAD it with school assignments with colored maps! The boy is sitting trying to look at a map of world religions and color his own as a study guide. However, as a ‘deuteran’, what he sees is more like the lower bar, here. (Normal color vision is the top bar.) While he can distinguish red from green if they are highly saturated, like ‘fire-engine’ red, he definitely cannot see the muted colors on the assignment he has today.

I know I’ve posted about this before! But color blindness / deficient vision is, percentage-wise, NOT that uncommon. Almost ANY classroom is going to have at least one student with this. And virtually EVERY single teacher acts confused when we bring it up, like they’ve never had to work around this before. And then they give assignments where color vision is required ANYWAY!!

*Charlie Brown AAAUGH! moment*

#color vision #color blindness #school #education #teacher #teaching #student #students #classroom #class #geography #geography memes #geography class

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teachingtales · 2 years

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teachingtales · 2 years

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Seriously fuck this HATEFUL country and people who deny its hatefulness and help perpetuate the hatefulness.

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teachingtales · 2 years

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My random unsubstantiated hypothesis of the day: the popularity of "stim" videos, fidget toys, and other things like that is a warning sign that something's Deeply Wrong with our world.

Don't freak out. I am autistic. These things are not bad. However, can we just...take a second to notice how weird it is that there are entire social media accounts full of 10-second videos of things making crunching noises, people squishing slime in their hands, and objects clacking together, and that enjoying them is mainstream and normal?

It seems that nowadays, almost everyone exhibits sensory-seeking behavior, when just a decade ago, the idea of anyone having "sensory needs" was mostly obscure. It is a mainstream Thing to "crave" certain textures or repetitive sounds.

What's even weirder, is that it's not just that "stim" content is mainstream; the way everything on the internet is filmed seems to look more like "stim" content. TikToks frequently have a sensory-detail-oriented style that is highly unusual in older online content, honing in on the tactile, visual and auditory characteristics of whatever it's showing, whether that's an eye shadow palette or a cabin in a forest.

When an "influencer" markets their makeup brand, they film videos that almost...highlight that it's a physical substance that can be smudged and smeared around. Online models don't just wear clothes they're advertising, they run their hands over them and make the fabric swish and ripple.

I think this can be seen as a symptom of something wrong with the physical world we live in. I think that almost everyone is chronically understimulated.

Spending time alone in the forest has convinced me of this. The sensory world of a forest is not only much richer than any indoor environment, it is abundant with the sorts of sensations that people seem to "crave" chronically, and the more I've noticed and specifically focused on this, the more I've noticed that the "modern" human's surroundings are incredibly flat in what they offer to the senses.

First of all, forests are constantly permeated with a very soft wash of background noise that is now often absent in the indoor world. The sound of wind through trees has a physiological effect you can FEEL. It's always been a Thing that people are relaxed by white noise, which leads to us being put at ease by the ambient hum of air conditioning units, refrigerators and fans. But now, technology has become much more silent, and it's not at all out of place to hypothesize that environments without "ambient" white noise are detrimental to us.

Furthermore, a forest's ambience is full of rhythmic and melodic elements, whereas "indoor" sounds are often harsh, flat and irregular.

Secondly: the crunch. This is actually one of the most notably missing aspects of the indoor sensory world. Humans, when given access to crunchable things, will crunch them. And in a forest, crunchy things are everywhere. Bark, twigs and dry leaves have crisp and brittle qualities that only a few man-made objects have, and they are different with every type of plant and tree.

Most humans aren't in a lot of contact with things that are "destroyable" either, things you can toy with and tear to little bits in your hands. I think virtually everyone has restlessly torn up a scrap of paper or split a blade of grass with their thumbnail; it's a cliche. And since fidget toys in classrooms are becoming a subject of debate, I think it pays to remember that the vast majority of your ancestors learned everything they knew with a thousand "fidget toys" within arm's reach.

And there is of course mud, and clay, and dirt, and wet sand. I'm 100% serious, squishing mud and clay is vital to the human brain. Why do you think Play-Doh is such a staple elementary school toy. Why do you think mud is the universal cliche thing kids play in for fun. It's such a common "stim" category for a reason.

I could go on and on. It's insane how unstimulating most environments humans spend time in are. And this definitely contributes to ecological illiteracy, because people aren't prepared to comprehend how detailed the natural world is. There are dozens of species of fireflies in the United States, and thousands of species of moths. If you don't put herbicides on your lawn, there are likely at least 20 species of plant in a single square meter of it. I've counted at least 15 species of grass alone in my yard.

Would it be overreach to suggest that some vital perceptive abilities are just not fully developing in today's human? Like. I had to TEACH myself to be able, literally able, to perceive details of living things that were below a certain size, even though my eyes could detect those details, because I just wasn't accustomed to paying attention to things that small. I think something...happens when almost all the objects you interact with daily are human-made.

The people that think ADHD is caused by kids' brains being exposed to "too much stuff" by Electronic Devices...do not go outside, because spending a few minutes in a natural environment has more stimuli in it than a few hours of That Damn Phone.

A patch of tree bark the size of my phone's screen has more going on than my phone can display. When you start photographing lots of living organisms, you run into the strange and brain-shifting reality that your electronic device literally cannot create and store images big enough to show everything you, in real life, may notice about that organism.

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teachingtales · 2 years

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