Simpson's Paradox

Dept of Ed: To improve online teaching quality, we’ve decided that teachers need more paperwork. There’s now a new form for lesson plans and you have to submit then in new places and there are new, required PD sessions where a boomer will tell you about Jamboard again and we have a new evaluation system for teachers on how well you’re incorporating technology and there are new benchmarks and paperwork for this and you’re supposed to evaluate your junior teachers on this and there’s another mandatory meeting about how to do that and of course you won’t be paid extra for any of this.

Me: I’m not doing any of that bullshit. Make me.

My student: Hi teacher, I’m doing class in my car parked outside Starbucks because the wifi’s out in my building, but don’t worry, I brought a pencil and my homework packet.

Me: Ok, yes, I’ll work very hard to make our online classes work for you guys.

Me: Why? You ask me why? For personal joy and artistic expression, for lifelong learning, for intellectual curiosity, for connection to the human experience, for —

My accountant: Let me clarify. Was this class in game design so you can claim your tuition as a company expense?

Me: Oh. No, not really.

When I came out of classes and saw a paper on my windshield, I expected it to be a nasty note telling me that I’d managed to park incorrectly because the left side of parking lot is closed on the third Wednesday of the month or on the full moon or whatever. I hardly ever drive, plus there have been a lot of, uh, let’s call them location surprises and procedure changes that happen while teaching in a summer of  covid/heatwave/wildfire smoke/school construction/street construction.

But it was really the best note! a Star Trek communicator! It matches the sticker on the back of the car! And there was no name!

It is a freaking joy because I miss my ASC work pranks so badly and now I keep looking at my summer coworkers and thinking “Is it you? Are you the secret nerd?”

I rarely watch TV. I know this sounds like I live in a cave or like a weird humblebrag (Oh, I don’t watch frivolous Netflix! I’m much too busy with my hours of regular exercise, making all-organic meals from scratch, and volunteering for worthy causes!) but I just don’t fall into TV shows very much. I usually drift off to sleep or reach for my phone, so it’s always a nice surprise when I find I do really like a TV show.

via Elizabethan Memes for Bond of Association Teens

I recently stumbled into these shows that are basically just these happy history nerds trying out regular life in different historical periods: Tudor Monastery Farm, Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm, and Wartime Farm. After researching daily life in that time period, Ruth and the boys set out to farm, cook, and just generally live using historical methods, and they have have such a good time making old crafts and recipes. 

There are usually three recreators, Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands, with Tom Pinfold instead of Alex a couple times. As Ruth and the boys try out these historical activities, they’re pretty blunt about how they’re doing — whether the work is frustrating or a historical recipe is nice. This is great, because I feel like a lot of popular history is either by someone who dreamily wishes they were born in the  glorious past, or it’s all about how dirty / smelly / sickly / backwards everyone was back in the dark ages. Instead, the history nerds gamely try out historical ways of  life, and describe how it’s going.

I should warn you that these shows have some really gruesome moments. There aren’t any jumpscares or any scenes intended to frighten, but when they say it’s time to butcher the pig, skip ahead a few scenes because, well, they’re going to butcher the pig.

The first one I found is the Tudor Monastery Farm. We typically think of Henry VIII when we hear “Tudor” but this is under Henry VII, in 1500.  The year is actually not terribly important, since farm life in 1490 or whatever wouldn’t have been too different from 1460 or 1500, right? But it’s definitely pre-reformation Tudor times, you can see that in the role of the monastery. They also talk about the upcoming changes in the reformation, but mostly they try to live like Tudor tenant-farmers.  I loved this show, so I was delighted to find the book version, How To Be A Tudor, which was so interesting, and much more detailed.

All the Farm shows also hit the right difficulty of explanation, where I wasn’t confused about new terms and I didn’t feel condescended to.  I think some of it is because the three history nerds seem to be excited and genuinely interested when they ask experts to show their crafts, or demonstrate something they’re making. Sometimes they have Prof. Ronald Hutton turn up to tell then about old ceremonies and customs, and he’s just as excited to recreate the ceremonial cutting of the last sheaf of wheat as they are.

My favorite is Wartime Farm (unfortunately, my favorite is the only one that’s not on Amazon Prime), which covers British countryside life in WWII. This one doesn’t follow the usual full-calendar-year format of the other ones, instead it looks at the increases in rationing and local food production over the course of the entire war. They still wear historical clothes and do all the historical activities, like covering the windows with blackout curtains or canning with the WI. Also, the historians talk to people about their experiences, or their parents’ experiences, in the war.

Wartime Farm is weirdly perfect pandemic viewing. In a year when our shops had empty shelves and we were seriously limiting shopping trips, I enjoyed watching Ruth cook with canned goods and ingredient substitutions. And after watching people hoard TP and hand sanitizer last year, and gasoline last month, I really understood the fairness of the rationing books. (Yes, of course some people cheated, but the whole idea of rationed goods is that everyone gets something, instead of one guys buys up everything and everyone else is screwed.) A lot of the war effort, like blackout curtains against night air raids, only work because everyone is participating.

WorkBro just sent me this so I could answer the question and help him finish his crossword. On one hand, it reminds me of being back in the staffroom together between classes.

But also, the mortifying ordeal of being known.