If I understand it correctly, Microsoft sells discounted keys to organizations as part of their Volume Licensing for businesses.
Some places on the internet take advantage of that, and sell the keys individually.
I love to hate on all of the glaring deficiencies of the US just as much as anyone, but it may be unwarranted in this instance.
The US is not the top of the list, but far from the bottom, being 15th out of 58.. That amazes me, considering how bruised and battered the education system is.
The American education system is underfunded, and politicized in every negative way. Then we get posts like this that attempt to bash it further.
The fact that we are in good company in regards to reading levels only speaks to the dedication of most educators. They certainly aren't in it for the money...
They are currently reading at a higher level than 30 years ago.. Though they are still a couple points behind pre-pandemic levels, it is still close enough that it leads me to believe these teachers are apparently new to teaching and a bit alarmist.
I teach 7th and 8th graders, and proficiencies certainly fluctuate from year to year. That is even more exaggerated with the pandemic "virtual learning" year.
Each year we have been able to pinpoint exactly what content they missed, because at this age group the content they missed was foundational.
That said, though technology has affected how we all relate to information, students in my classroom are able to approach novel challenges in creative and unique ways, and it is always exciting to see them grow and develop new skillsets from the unique vantage their lifetime has provided them.
Sure, it can be jarring and frustrating when we approach a lesson or topic that presumes a skill set they are missing, but part of being an educator is providing students with opportunities to grow those skills.
Educators deserve to be able to vent to each other, but I think it is irresponsible to post things like this publicly, because it gives the wrong impression and feels very negative.
A side topic, but this pulls to mind the gay rights movement in my lifetime. It always felt like an extension to the civil Rights movement. Which is all the more concerning with the current rhetoric around gender and sexuality.
This really hit home to me when I was a teenager and a colleague at work started talking about the famous demonstrations she attended. She was probably 60, but looked and acted 40, which made it especially jarring.
A similar thing happened when I visited the Martin Luther King Jr national museum in Atlanta. They have pictures and items scattered throughout, and as we were browsing, an older man was nearby excitedly talking about each of the people in the exhibit on a personal level. As it turned out, he was friends with all of them. It made it feel bizarre, because we walked into a history museum, and left with it feeling too recent to be history.
The final shock for me was when my mom casually mentioned that her elementary School was segregated! My siblings and I were shaken. She acted like it was something we should have already known, and maybe we should have already pieced that together when analyzing the time frames. The problem was that the Civil Rights movements in my mind were compartmentalized in the History section.
I honestly like the small, eclectic vibe better.
I don't know what the number is, but I'll arbitrarily say, anywhere under a quarter million is perfect.
I know the federation model provides a strength against the cascading list negatives that plague popular platforms, but I don't doubt that with a large enough user base, exploits would certainly seep in, particularly with ease of AI bot manipulation and astroturfing.
It reminds me of the Linux saying "security through obscurity".
Same bitrate, file size, and metadata (with my tags still included), along naming schemes and occasional misspellings.
Many of the songs I ripped and shared via Napster in the late 1900's continued to appear on legitimate platforms years later.
"No man ever steps in the same river twice". Everything flows.
Similarly, impermanence is a fundamental aspect of reality, and fighting it ultimately results in feeling things are unsatisfactory in some way.
Here's the author Jason Pargin riffing on the topic of nostalgia , and the key takeaways for him are that:
That said, I have a penchant for sentimentality, and fall victim to nostalgia at every given whim I get, especially when visiting my parents' house where I grew up.
I love to allow myself to be transported to the viewpoint of my younger self, which I feel I have lost some connection to.
I often find I was stronger and more worthy than I gave myself credit for.
If only I could properly translate that into the current moment, it would remove a lot of self-doubt that holds me back from living with confident authenticity.
This topic is always at the forefront of my mind.
I am in education, surrounded by students aged 5 to 15, and I don't feel like my aging process would have been so pronounced this past decade had it not been juxtaposed against a setting of perpetual youth.
The curriculum demands "college and career readiness", but I believe the biological imperative at that age range is really focused on social and emotional development; students figuring out what life is about, and what directions they want to grow.
It forces a perspective on all the adults to consciously consider what aspects of life are genuinely important, and what skills and lessons to impart; which inevitably leads to self-reflection.
I quit skateboarding years ago, though I still felt youthful. A skateboarder at heart, work, education, and pursuit of vice all got in the way at the end of the day when I would normally grab my board.
The self-discipline and mindset of skateboarding transferred to a number of other skills I developed in the interim, and they have all served me well. It was as if I was cashing in on my youth.
Then, about a year ago, I quit drinking. Oddly enough, it feels as if it has accelerated the aging process. Though I have more energy, it makes me feel a bit rigid, having removed a lubricant that protected me from the coarseness of life.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, around the same time I picked up skateboarding again. It feels as if, having sacrificed the drink, I've been gifted a piece of my youth back.
I don't know how long my old body will allow it to continue, but I will wring every ounce of joy out of it while I still can!
Here's the link to the republished DOJ file. We'll see how long it stays