I was writing reports all weekend so I missed this. I'm going to rant a bit now. I don't expect anyone to read this since this blog has like a maximum of 2 views. I am annoyed at this secondary strike (Possibly more according to some other news). I'm hoping most students do not attend. First off I need my students in my class. I've read so many people saying "one day of missing classes won't do much". If it was just one or 2 students away, then yeah, they have friends that are in the class who can help them later, the majority won't be affected and my whole term plan can go ahead. The problem comes when more than 40~50% are away. It's harder to justify continuing the lesson. Too many students would've missed content and the power of mass is that if a few too many students complain about the difficulty of a lesson, you have to make changes. We have a very tight schedule in Physics due to our school's math department not teaching algebra and trigonometry to about half of our year 11 students, meaning we actually have to teach that in physics class. I spent 2.5 lessons on simple torque problems because students did not know how to rearrange equations. I know that doesn't mean much for some people, but it just means I just need a bit more time to slowly drip feed them how to rearrange equations at the same time as learning a new concept. We have 4 lessons per week and one lesson missed screws up the whole scheme that now some content will have to be crammed into a 2~3 hours than 4 which takes a lot of toll on the rest of the students who weren't a part of the protest.
Secondly, a lot of these kids... are actually quite the hypocrite that makes you mad. A lot of these kids aren't aware why we have this climate problem and how they're a part of the problem. They will go to this protest thinking they've done so well for the climate when in reality, a lot of them get dropped off by cars at school regularly, and even got dropped off to the protest. They often buy brands and products that are known to be a part of the problem (the clothing industry produces a lot of pollutants, but I know one student who went to the protest bought a bunch of new branded shoes). They freely trash the class and school because they can't be bothered picking up their trash and "The cleaners are paid to do this". They buy food and products packaged in plastic, drink out of plastic straws which will add to the large pile of plastic that the world is sitting on. They often go on trips with their family, on plane trips and cruises that add to the CO2 gases around the world. They protest for methane, but buy and eat meat and dairy products freely. They are oblivious to the population crisis and they don't care about how many children people are having. They some how think that the government and corporations are this evil place that dumps plastic and pollutants in rivers, but in reality, they're just mass producing what the students themselves buy instead of environmentally friendly stuff. I'm not saying all these students are bad, but the amount of change in attitude I saw after the last protest made me realize that not many of these students actually care about the planet, they just care about feeling like they care and taking a day off to be with friends to 'feel' like they care. If they really cared, they'll study to become a politician, a scientist, an entrepreneur that makes products that are environmentally friendly, they'll ride their bicycle to school and keep the school a nice and tidy place, use less plastic and buy environmentally friendly product and tell their parents to too. I loved how some Australian students took this initiative and rather than skipping school, they went and planted trees on their own time. I hope our students do the same.
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