#alsup

Last month, thousands of employees with probationary status across the federal government were fired by the Trump administration in an extraordinary and coordinated move. On Thursday, a pair of court rulings called for agencies to reinstate a untold number of them. What happens now isn’t so clear cut. Agencies are sorting out how to bring back these employees and give them the back pay ordered by…

A federal judge on Thursday ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative. Ruling from the bench, Judge William H. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California went further than a previous ruling. He found that the Trump administration’s firing of…

In Lost at School, Ross Greene asks educators to take a look at their discipline program. He argues that a system of punishment and rewards does not work for children with behavioral challenges. He suggests that educators instead try to get to the bottom of each child’s behavioral challenges and provides a template for discussion with parents, and students on how to pinpoint and begin to solve problem behaviors with the child. Greene highlights the importance of listening to children about their issues. 

“vast majority of challenging kids already know how we want them to behave. They know they’re supposed to do what they’re told. They know they’re not supposed to disrupt the learning of their classmates or run out of the school when they’re upset or embarrassed. And they know they’re not supposed to hit people, swear, or call out in class. So they don’t need us to put lots of effort into teaching them how we want them to behave. And while this may be hard to believe, most challenging kids already want to behave the right way. They don’t need us to continue giving them stickers, depriving them of recess, or suspending them from school; they’re already motivated. They need something else from us.” - Ross Greene, Lost at School. 

“Challenging behavior occurs when the demands and expectations being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively.” - Ross Greene, Lost at School. 

New Post has been published on http://awesome-facts.net/til-us-district-judge-william-alsup-learnt-java-in-order-to-better-judge-the-oracle-vs-google-case/

TIL: US District Judge William Alsup learnt Java in order to better judge the Oracle vs. Google case

TIL: US District Judge William Alsup learnt Java in order to better judge the Oracle vs. Google case

submitted by irfus [link] [666 comments]

Is there such a thing as a “good person”? Or is that completely context-dependent, subject to circumstances and the world around us? Having said that, how authentic are personality tests and can anyone ever really pinpoint a “personality type”? More importantly, how free is our will? If a good person is placed in a bad situation and acts within the constraints placed upon her, does she automatically become a bad person? Or is she merely a puppet of society, forced to make the best of her circumstances, even if it sometimes means hurting others or forcing a fake smile to keep up appearances?  These are the questions that came to mind when reading Gladwell’s The Power of Context, a short essay on the tiny dots that paint a larger picture.

The Good Samaritan experiment at the Princeton Theological Seminary is a powerful example of the importance of context and the mistaken tendency toward the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). What kind of person studies religion? What would you imagine of this person’s character? Most people would say that a student of religion, especially one driven by the desire to help people for a higher purpose, is a fundamentally good person.  But is this necessarily true? The results of the study would beg to differ. As Gladwell claims, “character…isn’t what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be” (Gladwell 297).  

Students at the seminary were individually asked to prepare a short talk in a nearby building on a given biblical theme. On the way to this talk, each student encountered a man “slumped in an alley, head down, eyes closed, coughing and groaning” (298). While some students stopped to help the man, others did not. What made the difference? Out of the students that were told they were late to their presentation, only 10% stopped to help. Conversely, 63% of the students who believed they were early to their presentation assisted the man. This startling truth – that being tardy worried students more than a man’s health and physical condition – makes it difficult to accept that character is consistent. Rather, it seems fluid, adjusting to the given situation and circumstance. Even though a person may hold certain beliefs or convictions, the right set of conditions can drastically change their behavior, even causing them to act contrary to those ideals they hold most dear.

It is startling to think that such a seemingly insignificant phrase as “oh you’re late” could completely realign someone’s behavior. In physics, this dynamic manifests itself in the chaos pendulum. Two pendulums are linked together. When someone sets the device in motion, it behaves in a particular manner. However, if someone were to set the pendulum in motion again with the slightest variation, it would swing in a radically different matter. This phenomena and the Power of Context are one of the same. The slightest change can produce largely different results.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani seems to have intuitively understood this concept. He is best known, rightly so, for having cleaned up the streets of NYC. How did he do this? By “fixing Broken Windows” – implementing small changes to make a big impact.

I know that I was born in Miami, Florida. But is that truly where I am from? Who am I? Am I a dream? How do I know that the scorching heat of the sun on my back during a sunny day is in fact reality? If dreams can be made into reality, then where does my anchor take landing? After all, Wharton's Age of Innocence dubbed telephonic communication without wires as some kind of Arabian nights marvel. What if an entire generation gathered together to conjure up my existence? Okay, perhaps that is an exaggeration. But what if our existence is some kind of fantasy? When will I wake up from this “dream”? 

But for the sake of sanity, I will assume that the life I lead is indeed reality. I don't consider myself a part of Miami. In fact, I loathe it. I cringe at the very prospect of answering the dreaded question - where are you from? Yet, I wonder why I am so repulsed by it. After all, this is where I was born. This is what I would be told to call my home. Perhaps “told” is key.  Why can’t I convince myself this fact? Why do I struggle with this question so much? Is it the loss of my American identity in a myriad of cultures, an amalgamation of a spectrum of ethnicities from across the globe? Is it the fact that I live in America while simultaneously am not? In theory, but not in practice?  It always seems as if I am out of place. The awkward flamingo in the bunch.  For instance, take this one time when I stopped by the convenience store for a bag of chips and a granola bar. I am in line, a Cuban lady is in front of me checking out her groceries. The cashier and her begin conversing in Spanish, chuckling and laughing in between each item scanned. I understand some bits, though I expected to pick up more. After all, I studied Spanish diligently for three straight years. The lady left promptly after, and I put my goods on the counter. “Que tal?” What’s up? I asked her, forcing a smile in the process.  “Hay caliente afuera, no?” It’s hot outside, right? I thought I would seize the opportunity to practice my three years of Spanish taken in high- school. Yet she couldn’t be bothered, sighing instead, proceeding to scan my bag of chips. What did I do wrong? Was I not capable of speaking the “mother tongue” that she and her client were  doing just moments before? I kicked up some lyrics from “The Whitest Boy Alive” that night. How ironic?

I’m a white European-style raised American momma’s boy learning to live in the suburbs of what my friends joke around as “Northern Cuba.” But perhaps the disjointed culture is just a fragment of the hollow shell I feel.  Maybe it is the gilded film that coats this city? The letting loose and trying to feel alive? The Great Gatsby of Miami? Whatever it is, I know that this “from” isn’t what I call home.

Whenever I think of “froming,” I always picture some kind of woodlands, surrounded by the ambiance of chirping birds and the occasional passing deer. Other times, I can see the wide enchanting ocean with giant, “surfable” waves crashing along the shore. But more often than not, I see a young city with seasons, with people wearing their overcoats and scarves draped around their necks. Girls wearing ear muffs, others simply in their long-sleeves with snowflakes tapered on the front. Coffee and iced tea in their hands. Bags of whatever in the other. Some talking it over with friends. Others taking their furry pets for a walk, maybe tugging on the leash to nudge them in a certain direction.

One thing is for certain. The trees are enchanted with an array of dazzling colors – cherry red, unripe tangerine-flavored orange,  and playground yellow. And during the night, well, I see a sky starry with stars. That, I think, is where I am from.