Jill Duggar Dillard Part 11

[kjmackin]

For the last 11 years I dealt with major stomach problems. For the first 8 years it was constant vomiting with no clear triggers followed by the last 3 or so years being lower GI issues being blood showing up in the stools. Which when blood in the stools popped up I knew I neeeed to see a Dr because of an awesome family history of colon cancer.For a bit it looked like I finale have diagonsis with it being Chrons but further research/studies determined that wouldn't be the case. But on a very random hunch I went to a allergist this past summer for the first time and got some relief because of those test result from an allergist.

 

My results were peanuts, some other type of tree nuts, shrimp, strawberries, cod (although that result is viewed as questionable), and other seasonal dust and mold allegergies. But the biggest shock was finding out about having Wheat & Chicken. Both of these meant a complete over haul in diet. Since before the results me & my husband ate chicken with every meal and it was my go to meat at fast food places.But after 2 months we were able to find a good subsutie with trukey (some how not allergic to trukey or eggs) and it cost up an extra $.75 at most per pound over chicken. As for wheat it been way harder but after almost six months we kinda got it figured out when we at home but it's harder when we go out so  I average having wheat just one day a week.Although one the benefits with a wheat and chicken allergy  I can also justified to my husband about buying vegan frozen entree. Plus  I have a pork intolence.I'm expecting to have some trouble with the allergies when my MIL vist in March followed by when we go home for a wedding in August .

 

My social group works and breathe STEM or mainly engineering. I get lucky when the topic changes to something else but usually that only last for seconds. At some point over dinner and Catan (7 of us) we talked about the Common Core. Truthfully our censuses was the math aspect was good. Think besides me that the way math was being taught was pretty close to how they thought out the problem.

[Cactus]

6 hours ago, Toothfairy said:

Please tell this to the parents that are bitching. Common core is awesome. It's suppose to prepare kids for college. I mean there are 18,19,20 year olds that can't do basic math or fractions

One of the library FB groups I frequent has a long thread of librarians despairing that their college student library assistants can't get their heads around Dewey -- lots of kids seem to have never learnt decimals. At all.

The thread was fairly evenly split between 'WTF dumbass college students' and 'Don't judge them, just help them learn'. 

[AlysonRR]

15 hours ago, karen77 said:

I only wear socks under my sandals on rare occasions, I prefer to be barefoot, really.

 

Me, too. It's just a PNW thing I've noticed.

12 hours ago, sophie10130 said:

Also as a math person and an education person, CC will HELP your child learn math better. Math, especially higher math, isn't all algorithms and memorizing like we all learned in school. It is mostly intuition and problem solving. CC helps to teach math the way students see it in the real world and later in their math education. I see it a lot when kids reach calc. They want to use their memorization techniques, but there are so many different types of problems in calc that this method clearly fails. It's only the students who can learn to intuit on THEIR OWN or get outside help with tutors that succeed in calc.

I started having difficulty with math at the higher levels because of this issue. I could memorize, but it didn't help when I needed an actual understanding of numbers and how to manipulate equations.

Even though some of the math common core approaches challenge me personally, I love that they are helping my kids understand numbers better.

My son, on the autism spectrum, gets it much easier than my daughter, who would prefer to memorize stuff and regurgitate it. The methods common core curriculum experts recommend are helping her move beyond basic arithmetic into an understanding of numbers. I love it.

[AlysonRR]

1 hour ago, kjmackin said:

At some point over dinner and Catan (7 of us) we talked about the Common Core.

I want a social group that centers around Settlers of Catan!

[OnceUponATime]

34 minutes ago, Cactus said:

One of the library FB groups I frequent has a long thread of librarians despairing that their college student library assistants can't get their heads around Dewey -- lots of kids seem to have never learnt decimals. At all.

The thread was fairly evenly split between 'WTF dumbass college students' and 'Don't judge them, just help them learn'. 

My library got rid of Dewey for this reason. I find it harder to find books with a jade colored sticker with a castle on it (which would be history) than to find the right number range. Apparently I'm a minority. I wish they had kept the numbers and had just added the visual cues as aids. Now finding specific subjects is trial and error. I hate it.

[HarleyQuinn]

6 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

Butchering the English language isn't just a Southern thing.

That's true, it isn't, but "ain't got none" specifically seems to be, and for some odd reason that phrase has always gotten on my nerves. 

[WhyNotJulie]

Really sorry if this has already been discussed - but now that Guatemala is listed as one of the places that "pregnant women should avoid" ( or where women should avoid becoming pregnant) due to the Zika virus, do you think the Dillards might implement some form of natural family planning..?

[HereticHick]

6 minutes ago, WhyNotJulie said:

Really sorry if this has already been discussed - but now that Guatemala is listed as one of the places that "pregnant women should avoid" ( or where women should avoid becoming pregnant) due to the Zika virus, do you think the Dillards might implement some form of natural family planning..?

No. Jesus will protect them because they are extraspecial snowflakes.

[OnceUponATime]

In my local news they had a report over how the link between Zika and birth defects may have be overstated (as in there was under-reporting of the birth defects before the virus and just before the virus this was started to be corrected and may now be over-reported). They are still saying take precautions, but that it may be a bit overhyped.
I have yet to find a similar report elsewhere though (and don't really trust the newspaper that it came from).

[weirdemmaline]

17 hours ago, Mothership said:

Spent my childhood in the UP--Michigan stereotypes are mostly self-imposed:  Yooper  and troll jokes.

my parents recently moved to the UP from the Twin Cities (where my dad had lived all his life and where my stepmom had moved from Iowa to be with him)... It's hilarious how quickly they've adapted to the yooper thing.

[missegeno]

43 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

No. Jesus will protect them because they are extraspecial snowflakes.

It can't hurt them because they pray right. This makes their mission even more important. Instead of passing out bug spray and mosquito netting, what the affected countries need is to realize that they pray wrong and once they start praying to GotHard instead of Mary, God will be pleased and and let all the heavenly grifters live a life of sunshine and miracles.

/sarcasm. (And yes, I know that Catholicism isn't a religion of "praying to Mary," just to be clear)

[missegeno]

2 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

That's true, it isn't, but "ain't got none" specifically seems to be, and for some odd reason that phrase has always gotten on my nerves. 

As a (somewhat) Spanish speaker, I wish English had double negatives! It gives a nice oomph to the negative. In English, the only way to oomph up "I don't have any" is "I ain't got none" or "I don't fucking have any." I wouldn't use either outside of a casual context, but the latter feels clunky to me in comparison to the grammatically incorrect version.

[EmCatlyn]

On January 28, 2016 at 7:57 AM, missegeno said:

Why is it so important that parents can't help? Mine never helped. Homework is for the kids to do, not the parents. Am I just being obtuse? I don't have kids, and maybe times have changed and its the norm now?

I am glad you brought this up.  About 20-30 years ago, there was research that showed that one of the biggest predictors of student success was parental involvement.  (Big surprise!)

Different teachers/schools handled this "revelation" differently, but basically it endorsed and legitimized the middle-class parents' practice of helping kids with homework and projects to give them "an edge."  Teachers in some cases started feeling justified in asking for more on homework because they could expect the parents to help.  In extreme cases (my son's second grade teacher was an example) the teacher tried to guilt the parents into doing some of her work. (With my son's teacher, parents were supposed to grade the children's homework after they had done it, and the teacher would "spot check" to make sure that the parents were grading right.)

There are real problems with expecting parents to help kids with homework, not the least of which is that it severely disadvantages kids whose parents lack the skills or time to help with homework.  Another big problem is that it encouraged parental over-involvement.  The so-called " helicopter parent" is a real problem these days.  Many kids are coming to college totally unprepared to encounter difficulties or tackle problems on their own.

All this is to say that while, as parents, many of us help our kids with school work, no homework assignment should expect parental help and parents should have the sense to pull back and not give too much help.

The whole point of common core is to help children understand things for themselves as part of their learning of concepts and processes.

 

 

[JesSky03]

10 hours ago, ClaraOswin said:

I am a million pages behind over here.

But I was just looking at the Duggar blog that showed all 9 of Izzy's monthly photos. And okay...I am one of the first ones to balk at posts "diagnosing" people with various diseases or disorders or whatever....

BUT....I seriously think it's possible that Izzy could have torticollis. My son had this at birth. Likely from the way he was positioned in my uterus. We noticed it on his 2nd day of life because he never turned his head left of midline. One of the big indicators of torticollis is a head tilt to one direction. I noticed Israel had this in almost all of his monthly photos. I thought it could just be a coincidence. So I googled. Sure enough, his head seems to tilt that way in most of his pictures. I'm not diagnosing him, of course. Maybe that's just the way he looks. But if these were photos of one of my relatives' kid...I'd probably tell them to ask their doctor about it.

If he by some chance would have it, I doubt they'd ever do anything for him though. My son was in physical therapy for it from 2 months old to about 8 months old. We did tons of exercises with him at home. And we had to make sure to hold him certain ways and position him certain ways when he slept. Thankfully because of all of our efforts...it's pretty much gone now. And we didn't end up needing to get him a helmet for plagiocephaly (thankfully I see no signs of that with Izzy.) I know someone else who basically chose to ignore her child's torticollis. He is a toddler now and his head is still a big oddly shaped, he still has a tilt, and I think it has caused some eye problems.

Anyway....just wondering if anyone else here had a child with torticollis and if so, did you notice the tilt with Izzy's head? It seems like people who have a child with this are hyper-aware of it in photos. I remember when my son was a baby I mentioned PT on Facebook and a friend from high school sent me a PM asking if it was torticollis because she noticed his tilt in photos.

Okay...no more rambling. Bring on the flames since I am mentioning a medical condition. Ha!

A lot of his infant pictures show him titling his head to the left, but now that he is bigger I don't see it so much. My sister's almost 3 month old daughter (born IUGR) refuses to look to the right. You turn her head to the right and she instantly turns it back to the left. They are starting physical therapy and trying to avoid a helmet. I don't know too much about it of course, but maybe it's possible he had a mild case as an infant and has outgrown it? I do hope they take him to an actual doctor for checkups- I imagine this is something they are trained to look for. Especially considering his chaotic birth situation. 

19 hours ago, sophie10130 said:

Also as a math person and an education person, CC will HELP your child learn math better. Math, especially higher math, isn't all algorithms and memorizing like we all learned in school. It is mostly intuition and problem solving. CC helps to teach math the way students see it in the real world and later in their math education. I see it a lot when kids reach calc. They want to use their memorization techniques, but there are so many different types of problems in calc that this method clearly fails. It's only the students who can learn to intuit on THEIR OWN or get outside help with tutors that succeed in calc.

I've seen so many complaints on Facebook about kids learning addition in a way that isn't put one number on top of the other and add down the columns, but by grouping in tens and parents saying "wtf is this shit?" only to have it explained to them and say "Ohhhh, that's how I add in my head!" 

EX: what's 8+5? We know 8+2 is 10. Once we take 2 away from 5, we get three. So 10+3=13.

Spelled out like this, it seems harder than say, counting on your fingers up to 13, but with bigger numbers it makes more sense, but they are starting with basic numbers in 1st grade so that when they reach numbers like 224+15 in later grades they can use the same methods.

220+15+4=220+19=239

I don't have any kids in school yet so what I've seen of CC is all been on social media. Some of it seems crazy to me and some of it I'm like okay, yeah I see how that would make sense when trying to do math in my head. But looking at the above problem, 224 + 15, it makes much more sense to me to take 224 + 10 + 5. 

[missegeno]

Thanks for your response @EmCatlyn! That is a really helpful explanation. It sounds like there has been a big shift since I was in grade school. It's worrisome that parents are often expected to help now. I have taken a number of classes about educational psychology, and one of the main take-aways that I got from those classes is that parental involvement is ideal, but not always possible. For example, Montessori schools have wonderful outcomes, but they only really work in cases where the parents are highly engaged. If parents aren't actively engaged, the touted benefits disappear.

 

In an ideal world, all parents would be actively engaged, but it's simply not possible for many parents. What a disadvantage for the children with single parent who work after school to keep heat in the house and food on the table. Even if those evening shifts are only occasional, that's going to interfere with homework on those nights. Involving parents is wonderful, but programs should be mindful of the limitations placed upon parents who have to make tough decisions in the interest of doing what's best for their child. Avoiding the evening shift so you can help with homework isn't going to be very helpful if it means the child goes hungry. Similarly, getting your kid used to having someone guide them through each problem doesn't seem to do much to help them learn to figure things out themselves.

 

If you are going to try to standardize education (as I understand cc is attempting to move toward), you can't make it require resources that many kids simply don't have through no fault of their own.

 

(none of this, other than the thank you at the beginning, is targeted at anyone in particular, just the rant in my head)

[EmCatlyn]

3 minutes ago, missegeno said:

As a (somewhat) Spanish speaker, I wish English had double negatives! It gives a nice oomph to the negative. In English, the only way to oomph up "I don't have any" is "I ain't got none" or "I don't fucking have any." I wouldn't use either outside of a casual context, but the latter feels clunky to me in comparison to the grammatically incorrect version.

English does have double-negatives. You were just using them. 

It is just a question of which dialect of English we are speaking.  Within each of the major variants or "national" dialects of English, there are class and regional variants or dialects.

American "Standard" English, the dialect identified with a certain level of education has rules against the double-negative, and most of us automatically avoid the double-negative. But  other dialects of English use the double-negative quite naturally.

The idea of avoiding the double-negative In "educated" speech is relatively recent.  Even as far as Anglo-Saxon (Old English) there were regional variations about the double-negative. Writing for the Court in Middle English, Chaucer used the double-negative.

The concern about the double-negative doesn't really come up until the Renaissance (though Shakespeare, a writer of the period, uses the double-negative occasionally) and is codified into the "standard" around the 17th-early 18th century.   I believe it is reinforced by the "logic" of the Enlightenment. 

My point is that while "prescriptive" grammar may say that the double-negative is unacceptable, there is nothing intrinsically "wrong" with it.  The person who says "I don't have none," is understood.  The language is clear.  And "descriptive" grammar tells us that the double-negative (and "ain't") are found in various regional and non-dominant class dialects.

A lot of times even Standard-dialect speakers may choose the double-negative for emphasis, if for no other reason than that it catches attention by going against the expected structures.

[Georgiana]

I've always been gifted mathematically, and I've been told it's because I have excellent math sense (I perceive math akin to physics, where numbers move and can move based upon governing laws that cannot be violated.  In my head, it is as if I am working with physical things).  My math teacher in high school used to doc me points on tests because I would skip steps in my work because I could sense whether the move or a combination of moves was "allowed".  I went from math into logic, which went into logical atomism (trying to find the "root" of math), which went into cognition and linguistics (same guys laid the foundation via Epistemology for modern linguistics and cognitive science), which went into language acquisition and early cognition, and then AI/Machine intelligence.  Basically Russell-->Wittgenstein-->Quine/Turing/Sellars etc.

All that is to say I can wrap my head easily and instinctively around many mathematical ideas and philosophies, I can create algorithms to model the world around me, I can manipulate algorithms, I can solve equations....and I cannot for the LIFE of me wrap my head around common core or operate in it.  It makes absolutely no sense to me.  

No one way of teaching math (or any subject) is going to work for everyone.  If you want people to learn, you have to let go of forcing them to do it "correctly" and just measure their ability to operate and use the knowledge.  I was in the honors math program my entire life, but I would have straight up flunked every math class if your ONLY evaluation was my ability to use and understand CC.  Math is the ability to set an manipulate equations to find a solution; CC is a WAY to do that, but it is not the only way.  My issue with common core is that schools are testing on CC, and not on the student's ability to successfully solve of manipulate an equation.  Teach them a way, but if they want to use a different way on their exams AND they get the correct answer, they should be allowed to do that.

I mean, yeah so I multiply by 9 weirdly.  So what?  It gets me the correct answer faster.  There is no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to use my method if it WORKS and it makes sense to me. 

[QuiverDance]

14 hours ago, Toothfairy said:

Please tell this to the parents that are bitching. Common core is awesome. It's suppose to prepare kids for college. I mean there are 18,19,20 year olds that can't do basic math or fractions

This.  I HATE the constant CC bitching.  I can see it working with my daughter, who despite being MY DAUGHTER, is actually really great at math, and therefore probably will not graduate college with a liberal arts degree, decide she doesn't want to live in poverty, and then beall... I guess I'll go to law school then?  Which is what I did.  Which was NOT SMART.  I hope for better things for her.

[quiverofdoubt]

Another major reason I believe parents have to help with homework is that many teachers are given way too much to cover in class. So a lot of homework is actually brand new material for the kids.  I babysat a little girl, a long time ago, who was sent home division homework in second grade.  She couldn't do it, there were huge fights at home.  Mom brought it to teachers attention, and the teacher said "oh, we won't cover that in class for a week or two. but that homework is due tomorrow, so you need to teach it to her".  Sadly, I don't think that's uncommon.  For a lot of kids homework isn't practice at all but brand new concepts. a highschooler might be able to cope with that, but not an elementary student.  So mom and dad are expected to teach what there isn't time for in school.

[louisa05]

43 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

I am glad you brought this up.  About 20-30 years ago, there was research that showed that one of the biggest predictors of student success was parental involvement.  (Big surprise!)

Different teachers/schools handled this "revelation" differently, but basically it endorsed and legitimized the middle-class parents' practice of helping kids with homework and projects to give them "an edge."  Teachers in some cases started feeling justified in asking for more on homework because they could expect the parents to help.  In extreme cases (my son's second grade teacher was an example) the teacher tried to guilt the parents into doing some of her work. (With my son's teacher, parents were supposed to grade the children's homework after they had done it, and the teacher would "spot check" to make sure that the parents were grading right.)

There are real problems with expecting parents to help kids with homework, not the least of which is that it severely disadvantages kids whose parents lack the skills or time to help with homework.  Another big problem is that it encouraged parental over-involvement.  The so-called " helicopter parent" is a real problem these days.  Many kids are coming to college totally unprepared to encounter difficulties or tackle problems on their own.

All this is to say that while, as parents, many of us help our kids with school work, no homework assignment should expect parental help and parents should have the sense to pull back and not give too much help.

The whole point of common core is to help children understand things for themselves as part of their learning of concepts and processes.

 

 

The teacher I subbed for yesterday (fifth grade) had "homework forms" on her desk. The content of the form was basically that parents are required to help with homework for a minimum of 1.5 hours per week and return the signed form vouching that they did. 

I taught high school for 16 years. By the last four years or so (I stopped teaching full time after the 2009-10 school year), I had a lot of students who could not handle working on anything on their own. We had a grade portal online where we were required to post all assignments. The last year, I had three kids who were seniors in honors classes that did not keep track of their own homework; their mothers would go online each day and check what their assignments were and text them around 3 p.m. telling them what to bring home with them. These were kids that were headed to college on academic scholarships in less than a year. I know for a fact that only one of the three graduated from college. And that one had a mom who effectively moved to the city where she went to college, so it is likely mom continued to helicopter her through. 

Parental involvement is important, but as you say, what was accomplished when educators learned that was not increasing the right kind of involvement but instead, in many cases, encouraging over-involvement. 

[EmCatlyn]

3 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

That's true, it isn't, but "ain't got none" specifically seems to be, and for some odd reason that phrase has always gotten on my nerves. 

"Ain't got none" is not a Southern expression.  It is in the working class dialect in the Northeast too. 

As for "butchering" the language, we need to keep in mind that there are class and regional dialects involved.  Who is to say that one dialect is intrinsically superior to another?  The assumption that there is one "right" way to speak or write and all others are "butchered" or corruptions of that "right" way is historically inaccurate.

Dialects are usually not corruptions of the "standard" language.   They are developments and divergences from an original, but the "standard" form is usually not the original but just the dialect that acquired most prestige.

Now I can be very snobby about "grammatical correctness" and usage, but I feel we must recognize that the choice of one dialect as better than another is not because one is the "right" "not-corrupted" form of the language but because there is one that is preferred by the speakers with most status.)

[Chickenbutt]

My granddaughters get a homework sheet listing their homework for the day. A parent/grandparent is asked to sign the sheet after assuring that the homework is completed. We are not asked to check it, just to make sure it is done. The girls will occasionally ask for help on a particular question or math problem. If I can help them find the answer or the formula to work out the problem, then I do. I can't do the math (lol), but I can certainly find in the math book where it shows how to do it. Then the kid reviews that section and does the problem. I see nothing wrong with facilitating the learning, but doing it for them? Not a chance. I already did my homework when I was in school. I am certainly not doing theirs.

[dpndetfarm]

As long as we have taken up the homework issue I must say I always have been, am now, and always will be opposed to that nightly homework. Some teachers give it as a packet to be handed on on Thursday or Friday. AT LEAST  through grade school kids need to relax their minds after a day in the classroom.

Ultimately they should be playing and physically active for some part of that play, but decompression is important.  If you didn't get through what you needed to during the day continue it the next day.  The kids who got whatever the homework concept  is in class are just irritated and the kids who didn't get it are frustrated. A teacher can spin it any way they want to, but it is an unnecessary burden and makes the smarter kids with more involved parents look even more superior to those kids who perhaps aren't as bright and/or don't have  the parental involvement a school assumes is there.

The gap gets wider, trees are wasted, and time for childhood is lost. 

This rant brought to you by an educator and parent of 2 now grown ADD kids. 

If my grandson actually takes a nap I will weigh in on the two countries the vacationarians may or may not be in. Right now I am off to rescue tissue paper!

[Antimony]

I had friends in college who had their parents proofread their papers. That was very  strange to me.

I usually asked an English major to proofread. In the case of my undergrad thesis,  she looked only for grammar and not at all for content (it was 50 pages on polymer chemistry. ) It'd be weird to ask my mom...

[singsingsing]

Common Core looks terrifying and insane to me, but that's probably because I'm absolutely hopeless when it comes to even basic math. As an adult woman, I calculate 8+5 by counting on my fingers. I do not know my times tables past, say, 5x5. I have no idea what 8x5 is, I would have to sit there and count out eight fives to tell you the answer. I don't know how to find a square root. I can't do simple division in my head. All I have to say is, thank God for calculators.

I try really, really hard to not judge people for not being good at grammar/spelling/writing, because I have no idea what their struggles have been. Maybe they're just lazy and don't care, but maybe they have a learning disability or just plain suck at language. I know I wouldn't want people to mock me for my difficulties with math. But I feel like math difficulties are a lot easier to hide. Everyone has a calculator on their phone these days.