Cheers & Jeers
Courtesy of Brittney Bell
鈥淚 always tell them, I teach you ELA, but if 10 years from now you don鈥檛 remember a single thing I taught you, but you remember that I love you and support you, I did my job,鈥� said Brittney Bell, who often transforms her classroom into other worlds to reinforce lessons.
Courtesy of Laurel Highlands School District
Justin Ward, a life skills teacher at Laurel Highlands High School, is a finalist for the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year.
Associated Press
Kandiss Taylor, Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate participates in a republican primary debate on May 1, 2022, in Atlanta.
Cheers: There鈥檚 been a lot of ink spilled in recent months about the high turnover rate among American teachers and the problems in replenishing their ranks. For that reason, any school would be wise to hang onto educators as dedicated as Justin Ward and Brittney Bell. Ward, life skills teacher at Laurel Highlands High School, and Bell, fifth-grade instructor at Carmichaels Elementary School, are two of 12 teachers across the state who are in the running to be the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year for 2024. As the 缅北禁地 reported this week, Ward returned to his alma mater after college graduation 鈥渢o give back to the community that impacted me. 鈥� it鈥檚 so satisfying just to see the daily victories with my students. They need us. A lot of times, this is probably the most consistent stability that they see,鈥� he said. Bell has 鈥渨ild ideas and a big heart,鈥� doing things like transforming her room into a space station or surgical room to discuss career possibilities with students. She believes teaching needs to be 鈥渞elationship-driven.鈥� She explained, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about them doing well on the state tests or scoring high. They need to know that no matter what they do educationally, you are in their corner.鈥� And those students are lucky to have teachers like Ward and Bell.
Jeers: The argument about whether Earth is round or flat was seemingly settled somewhere around 1600. But for Kandiss Taylor, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia and now a district chair in that state, the question of the planet鈥檚 roundness or flatness is apparently still up for grabs. In a recent podcast, she seemed to agree with two guests who earnestly believe the orb we inhabit is flat. Taylor then went on a diatribe about globes, suggesting that the presence of globes 鈥渆verywhere鈥� is part of some wider conspiracy. She exclaimed, 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 what they do to brainwash. For me, if it is not a conspiracy, if it is real, why are you pushing so hard everywhere I go?! Every store, you buy a globe, there鈥檚 globes everywhere. Every movie, every TV show, news media 鈥� why?鈥� Given the penchant for book banning by Taylor鈥檚 ideological fellow travelers, let鈥檚 hope they don鈥檛 go after globes next.
Jeers: Need something else to keep you awake in the middle of the night? Then how about the fact that more than 300 researchers, engineers and executives who are developing artificial intelligence have signed on to a letter stating that AI, in the words of The New York Times, 鈥渕ight one day pose an existential threat to humanity鈥� and 鈥渟hould be considered a societal risk on a par with pandemics and nuclear war.鈥� Anyone who has seen the classic movie 鈥�2001: A Space Odyssey鈥� and its renegade HAL 9000 computer can easily imagine how artificial intelligence could turn against us. Moreover, artificial intelligence could eventually lead to the elimination of millions of jobs as it carries out tasks more efficiently than we could ever dream of. That will lead humans to do 鈥� what? It might be best to go slow when it comes to developing AI.