If you like stories of amazing women, buckle up, because this one is a wild ride.
During WWII, the Soviet Air Force’s 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew incredibly harrowing missions, bombing Germans with rudimentary biplanes in the dead of night. The Germans called them Nachthexen—”Night Witches”—because the only warning they had before the bombs hit was an ominous whooshing sound akin to a witch’s broom.
The “whoosh” sound was due to the fact that the women would cut the planes’ engines as they approached, gliding in stealthily before dropping their bombs. And the Night Witches moniker was fitting, considering the fact that the 588th was an all-female regiment.
Their missions were incredibly dangerous, especially considering how the women were equipped. Most of the recruits were in their late teens to mid-20s, and crew members had to learn how to pilot, navigate and maintain the aircraft so they could serve the regiment in any capacity. They underwent an intensive year of training to learn what usually took several years to master.
The planes they flew were rickety biplanes made of plywood and canvas, which were usually used for crop dusting and training. According to the Wright Museum, a tracer bullet could easily cause the plane to burst into flames, causing some of the women to refer to their aircraft as “a coffin with wings.” The planes’ top speed was just 90 mph, and the weight of the two bombs and crew they carried meant they had to fly low. That made the planes easily visible targets, so the women only flew their missions under the cover of darkness.
The open design of the aircraft and the fact that they flew at night also meant that the women were fully exposed to frigid temperatures during Soviet winters. According to The History Channel, the planes would get so cold, touching them would tear off bare skin.
Since there had been no women in combat in the Air Force before, they were given hand-me-down men’s uniforms and had to tear up bedding to stuff into the end of their boots to make them fit properly. Due to the limited capacity of their aircraft and limited funds, they also were deprived of the modern equipment their male counterparts had access to—radar, radios, machine guns and even parachutes. Instead, they had to use maps, rulers, compasses, stopwatches and pencils to perform their missions. And if they needed to bail out, they just hoped they were close enough to the ground to survive.
Up to 40 two-person crews would be sent out each night to complete between eight and 18 missions each. They would go out in groups of three, with two planes acting as decoys to draw the German searchlights and flack gun attacks away from the third. The one advantage the small, slow biplanes had was maneuverability, so they relied on fancy flying to create a diversion. When the navigator of the third plane tapped the pilot on the shoulder, she would kill the engine and silently swoop in for the bomb drop. The three planes would each take turns in this manner until all three planes had dropped their payloads.
The term “Night Witches” was coined by the Germans, but the women took on the nickname with pride. They had every reason to be proud. They were so feared that any German who downed one of their planes was automatically awarded the prestigious Iron Cross medal.
From June 1942 to October 1943, they flew more than 23,000 combat sorties, collectively logging over 28,000 flight hours and dropping more than 3,000 tons of bombs and 26,000 incendiary shells on Nazi targets. Their bombing raids wreaked havoc on river crossings, railways, warehouses, fuel depots, armored cars, firing positions and other valuable logistical targets. They also made 155 food and ammunition supply drops to other Soviet armed forces.
By the end of the war, the Soviets has lost 32 Night Witches in service. The 588th Regiment was highly decorated; of the 89 Soviet women who received the Hero of the Soviet Union award—the country’s highest honor in WWII—22 were Night Witches.
However, when the Soviet Union held a massive victory parade after the war, the Night Witches weren’t included in it. Their planes, which these badass women had painted flowers on to add a feminine touch, were deemed too slow.
Learn more about the Night Witches with NBC News Learn:
An Operation Smile volunteer reverses an oxygen mask so a child with a cleft condition can blow a bubble for the first time in Guadalajara, Mexico. (Operation Smile Photos)
For thousands of children born with cleft conditions, Operation Smile provides simple, playful tools—like bubbles—to strengthen the skills they need to speak and thrive.
While a bottle of bubbles might seem out of place in a hospital setting, you might be surprised to learn that, for thousands of children around the world born with cleft lip and palate, they can be a helpful tool in comprehensive cleft care. Lilia, who was born with cleft lip and palate in 2020, is one of the many patients who received this care.
As a toddler, Lilia underwent two surgeries to treat cleft lip and palate with Operation Smile’s surgical program in Puebla, Mexico. Because of Operation Smile’s comprehensive care, it wasn’t long before her personality transformed: Lilia went from a quiet and withdrawn toddler to an exuberant, curious explorer, babbling, expressing herself with a variety of sounds, and engaging with others like any child her age.
Lilia is now a healthy five-year-old, with the same cheerful attitude and boundless energy. Her progress is the result of care at every level, from surgery to speech therapy to ongoing support at home—but it’s also evidence that small, sustained interventions throughout it all can make a meaningful difference.
Lilia at age 1, before surgery, and at age 5, 4 years post-surgery
Cleft Conditions: A Global Problem
Since 1982, Operation Smile has provided cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries to more than 500,000 patients worldwide with the help of generous volunteers and donors. Cleft conditions are congenital conditions, meaning they are present at birth. With cleft lip and palate, the lip or the roof of the mouth do not form fully during fetal development. Cleft conditions put children at risk for malnutrition and poor weight gain, since their facial structure can make feeding challenging. But cleft conditions can have an enormous social impact as well: Common difficulties with speech can leave kids socially isolated and unable to meet the same developmental milestones as their peers.
Surgery is a vital step in treating cleft conditions, but it’s also just one part of a much larger solution. Organizations like Operation Smile emphasize the importance of multi-disciplinary teams that provide comprehensive, long-term care to patients across many years. This approach, which includes oral care, speech therapy, nutritional support, and psychosocial care, not only aids in physical recovery from surgery but also helps children develop the skills and confidence to eat easily, speak clearly, and engage in everyday life. This ensures that each patient receives the full range of support they need to thrive.
Marie, 11 months, with her mother at Operation Smile Madagascar before her cleft surgery (Operation Smile Photos)
A Playful (and Powerful) Solution
Throughout a patient’s care, simple tools like bubbles can play a meaningful role from start to finish.
Immediately before surgery, children are often in a new and unfamiliar environment far from home, some of them experiencing a hospital setting for the first time. When care providers or loved ones blow bubbles, it’s a simple yet effective technique: Not only are the children soothed and distracted, the bubbles also help create a sense of joy and playfulness that eases their anxiety.
Milagros Rojas, a volunteer speech therapist in Peru, using bubbles in a screening with a patient. (Operation Smile Photos)
In speech therapy, bubbles can take on an even more important role. Blowing bubbles requires controlled airflow, as well as the ability to form a rounded “O” shape with the lips, which are skills that children with cleft conditions may struggle to develop. Practicing these skills with bubbles allows children to gently strengthen their facial muscles, improve breath control, and support the motor skills needed for speech development. Beyond that, blowing bubbles can help kids connect with their parents or providers in a way that’s playful, comforting, and accessible even for very young patients.
Finally, bubbles often follow patients with cleft conditions home in the “smile bags” that each patient receives when the surgical procedure is finished. Smile bags, which help continue speech therapy outside of the hospital setting, can contain language enrichment booklets, a mirror, oxygen tubing, and bubbles. While regular practice with motor skills can help with physical recovery, small acts of play help as well, giving kids space to simply enjoy themselves and join in on what peers are able to do.
Bubbles at Home and Beyond
Today, because of Operation Smile’s dedication to comprehensive cleft care, Lilia is now able to make friends and speak clearly, all things that could have been difficult or impossible before. Instead of a childhood defined by limitation, Lilia—and others around the world—can look forward to a childhood filled with joy, learning, discovery, friends, and new possibilities.
CTA: Lilia’s life was changed for the better with the care she received through Operation Smile. Find out how you can make an impact in other children’s lives by visiting operationsmile.org today.
Many people delight in logic puzzles and the brain challenge they offer. But one of the most studied logic tests has proven persistently befuddling for people across the board.
Developed in 1966, the Wason Selection Task has a high failure rate despite its seeming simplicity. According to Michael Stevens of VSauce, studies have shown that somewhere between 90% and 96% of people are unable to come up with the correct answer.
What exactly is this test? There are various versions of it, but let’s look at the original one that Peter Wason created.
You have four cards in front of you labeled A, G, 7, and 8, like this:
Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other. Your task is to determine which cards you would need to turn over to judge whether the following rule is true: If there is an A on one side, there is a 7 on the other.
That’s it. Sounds simple enough, right? Then you start working your way through the reasoning, and your brain starts to feel a bit sticky.
Even a Cambridge math professor had to backtrack on the test
Hannah Fry, a British mathematician and University of Cambridge professor, went through this task with Stevens on their joint YouTube channel, The Rest Is Science. Fry said she had encountered a version of the test before and gotten it wrong the first time, but she didn’t remember what trap she had fallen into or why.
This time, she walked through the logic aloud and figured it out. (If you want to try solving it yourself, go for it. Spoilers are below.)
Here’s how Fry worked through the problem in real time:
“So, right, you know that these four cards, a letter on one side, a number on the other, which means that there is a number hiding behind the A, there’s a number hiding behind the G. There’s also a letter behind the 7, and there’s a letter behind the 8.
The rule says if there is (this is what I’m trying to test) if there is an A on one side, there is a 7 on the other. Right? So, turning over the 8 doesn’t tell me anything. I mean, I don’t really care what’s on the other side of the 8 because even if it’s an A…”
Then Fry stopped herself.
“Uh oh, no, wait. That’s not true. Oh, hold on. I’ve got it wrong already.”
She recalibrated.
“Immediately, the first thing you want to do is check whether there’s a 7 on the reverse of the A. To see if there’s a 7. Turning over the G, I don’t think tells me anything because I don’t really care what’s on the reverse of the G. The rule doesn’t involve G’s. It says if there is an A on one side, which there isn’t, so I don’t care. So, I can ignore the G card.
The 7 card I’d be really tempted to turn over to see if there was an A on the other side, because then that would be another instance of the rule. But the way the rule is phrased is that it says if there is an A on one side, there is a 7 on the other. It doesn’t say you can only have sevens where A’s exist. So actually, you could have a J on the other side of the 7, and it wouldn’t violate the rule. That would be fine.
So, even though my temptation is to say turn over A and 7, actually, I think you need to turn over A and 8. Because if you turn over 8 and it’s got an A on the other side, that would violate the rule, right?”
Bingo. You would turn over the A and 8. Fry was correct. But even this Cambridge math professor, who had seen a version of the logic test before, stumbled through it a bit.
Changing the letters and numbers to a story about drinking changes the failure rate
Stevens then asked Fry how she would approach a different version of the task. Instead of letters and numbers, the cards show the ages of different people on one side and what they are drinking at a bar on the other. This version of the task includes a “human” storytelling element.
“Once again, you have four cards,” said Stevens. “And you are a police officer, and it’s your job to make sure that no one is drinking underage. On some of these cards, you can only see their age. You’re going to have to turn them over to see what they’re drinking. On others, you only see what they’re drinking. You’ll have to turn them over to get their age.
A social rule-oriented version of the Wason Selective Test. Photo credit: Canva
This is what you see in front of you, these four cards: The age 12, the age 35, the drink soda, and the drink beer. Which ones do you need to turn over to determine whether or not the rule is being obeyed that you cannot drink underage?”
The answer is the same as before: the first and last cards. But this task feels much easier than the first. As Stevens and Fry said, “It’s instinctive.”
Making the test about people and a potentially broken social rule makes the task much less abstract. But it also makes it clear that the puzzler needs to do something key to solving the letters-and-numbers version as well: look for a counterexample.
A counterexample is something that would disprove the rule. In the first task example above, if the 8 has the letter A behind it, the “If A, then 7” rule would be disproven. And that’s the only card that could possibly disprove the rule.
In the drinking-age version, we instinctively look for the counterexample, most likely because it’s socially ingrained in us to look for someone breaking the rule. It’s the same logic, but we have a better natural sense of how to figure it out when it involves a human story that taps into the way we naturally think. Few of us naturally think as abstractly as the first version requires without some training in logical deduction.
If you’re interested in diving deeply into the logic details, the full video does just that. But isn’t it fun to see how a small tweak shows us we’re a lot smarter than we thought?
Forget the corner office. Gen Z is rewriting the rules of professional success, and their approach might save us all from burnout.
While previous generations dutifully climbed the corporate ladder rung by rung, Gen Z is choosing to do things differently. These youngsters, born between 1997 and 2012, embrace a clear philosophy: work should fund your life, not consume it. It’s a simple dogma. This emerging trend, dubbed “career minimalism,” goes beyond the corporate buzzword, representing a fundamental shift that challenges what we thought we knew about ambition, success, and the definition of “making it” in today’s economy.
The statistics are striking: 68% of Gen Z workers claim that they would not pursue management rolesunless they came with higher pay or a better title. This isn’t laziness. It’s a well-thought-out strategy. Generation Z watched Millennials sacrifice their twenties to corporate culture, only to face economic uncertainty, housing crises, and unprecedented stress levels.
Gen Z is boldly saying “No thanks” to that traditional blueprint.
Janel Abrahami, Glassdoor’s Career Pivot Strategist, puts it perfectly. “Gen Z is more willing to embrace a flex mindset than older generations,” Abrahami tells Upworthy. “While past generations often prioritized climbing the corporate ladder, Gen Z is looking for the career equivalent of a lily pad: a sustainable route where they can jump to whatever opportunity best fits their needs at the moment. That could mean taking a pay cut for more free time, accepting a lower title for a more creative role, or switching to an industry they see as more stable. Since 70% of Gen Z questions their job security as AI advances in the workplace, many are proactively moving toward sectors like skilled trades, healthcare, and education.”
This lily pad mentality represents a profound shift in how an entire generation views professional growth. Instead of linear progression within a single company, Gen Z sees their careers as a series of strategic moves that prioritize personal fulfillment, financial stability, and most of all, time for the things that actually matter to them.
Generation side hustle
Despite the moniker “career minimalism,” 57% of Gen Z employees have at least one side hustle, more than any generation before them. Is it about the money? Not exactly. For Gen Z, side hustles are where their ambition thrives.
Nearly half (49%) of Gen Z side hustlers say their primary motivation is to be their own boss, while 42% are driven by the desire to pursue their passions. These numbers tell a story about a generation that refuses to wait for opportunities. When their 9-to-5 doesn’t provide creative fulfillment or meaningful impact, they create it themselves.
A teacher in Iowa sums it up, saying, “I always joke that I don’t dream of labor… If people were truly passionate about their job, it wouldn’t pay anything. Passion is for your 5-9 after the 9-5.”
Similarly, a research analyst echoes this sentiment, saying, “While having a job that you’re passionate about is really cool, it’s important to have other interests that are not tied to your work life.”
The broader statistics are even more telling: 66% of Gen Z and Millennials have started or plan to start side hustles, with 65% intending to continue their entrepreneurial ventures long-term. Meaning, this isn’t a phase, it’s a fundamental reimagining of how work fits into a fulfilling life. The pattern is clear: younger generations are diversifying their income streams and refusing to put all their professional eggs in one corporate basket.
Work-life balance as a non-negotiable priority
While older generations might view work-life balance as a nice idea, Gen Z regards it as essential infrastructure for a sustainable life. Thirty-two percent of Gen Z rank work-life balance as the most critical aspect of a job, compared to 28% of Millennials and 25% of Gen X. More significantly, they’re willing to prioritize this balance over higher compensation, a move that would have been unthinkable to previous generations entering the workforce.
“Employers may be surprised by the changing attitudes of Gen Z in the workplace,” says Abrahami. “However, this doesn’t mean that Gen Z is abandoning work; instead, they are redefining ambition through career minimalism. If Gen Z feels unsupported in achieving the work-life balance they seek, they may become less motivated or start looking for opportunities that align better with their values and lifestyles.”
Canva provides a standout example: through initiatives like “Force for Good,” the company encourages employees to contribute over 10,000 hours annually to community projects. This commitment to purpose-driven work has helped Canva achieve a 92% employee satisfaction rate.
These changes aren’t just nice-to-haves, they’re competitive advantages. Companies that embrace Gen Z-friendly policies are seeing measurable improvements in engagement, retention, and overall performance.
What every generation can learn from career minimalism
Gen Z’s approach to work is not radical; it’s rational. After watching previous generations sacrifice their health, relationships, and personal fulfillment for corporate success that often proved fleeting, Gen Z chose a different path.
These lessons are valuable for everyone, regardless of age:
Boundaries create sustainability. Gen Z’s insistence on work-life balance is a nugget of wisdom. By setting clear boundaries, they dodge the burnout that has plagued older generations and create space for long-term productivity and creativity.
Diversification reduces risk. While previous generations sought security in a single employer, Gen Z believes that proper security comes from multiple income streams and transferable skills. Their side hustles are money-generating insurance policies against rapidly changing industries and A.I.
Values-driven work increases engagement. When work aligns with personal values, engagement and performance naturally increase. Gen Z’s demand for meaningful work benefits everyone by forcing companies to clarify their purpose and impact.
Flexibility enhances productivity. The data is clear: flexible work arrangements lead to higher retention, better performance, and increased job satisfaction across all generations.
For Abrahami, the way Gen Z operates in the workplace feels like a breath of fresh air, and she encourages managers to get to know their Gen Z direct reports. “Gen Z’s habits will continue to shape our workforce, so it’s important employers take the time to truly understand them,” Abrahami notes. “Their approach isn’t about laziness; rather, it’s a new representation of how they define success. They want sustainable careers that align with their goals, whether that means prioritizing a job that prevents burnout or one that provides security from layoffs. Older generations have much to learn from Gen Z, and we’re likely to start to see these values become more widely accepted.”
Gen Z’s philosophy in the workplace offers a compelling answer to the age-old question: “What if there’s a better way?” Their formula is refreshingly simple: stable jobs for security, side hustles for passion, and strict boundaries for sustainability.
As workplace dynamics continue to evolve, the rise of career minimalism, fueled by Gen Z’s values, will reshape not only how we define professional success but also how we experience fulfillment. The future of work may belong not to the climbers, but to those content to hop from lily pad to lily pad with purpose and self-awareness.
The corner office can keep its view. Gen Z has found something better: a career that actually fits their life, instead of consuming it. And honestly? The rest of us should take notes.
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
Some languages are harder to learn than others. Many who’ve tried will say that Eastern languages like Chinese Mandarin and Japanese are extremely difficult for non-natives because of the unique sounds and intricate writing system. Others, like Hungarian or Finnish, have complex grammar rules that are challenging for beginners.
Some people find pretty much all of them simple. Or at least, they enjoy the challenge.
Arieh Smith, a YouTuber known as Xiaoma, is a polyglot—someone who has mastered many languages. He’s known as a linguistics master and his skill and teachings have earned him nearly a whopping seven million subscribers on social media.
Xiaoma recently traveled to a well-known part of the world and finally met his match in the form of a dialect he just couldn’t crack: English.
No, not regular American or British English, but a specific accent and dialect called Glaswegian; spoken in Glasgow, Scotland.
Xiaoma says Glaswegian is known as one of the trickiest English accents in the entire world, and so he was eager to go and see—or hear—it for himself. He quickly meets up with a local guide who has agreed to show him around the city, and immediately, Xiaoma can hardly understand the man at all. When the guide tells Xiaoma that the day is going to have “tops off weather,” the YouTuber is baffled. (It’s just a clever, and cheeky way, of describing good weather.)
“You guys speak English, but it’s different, it’s like…”
“Swahili,” the guide finished for him. Xiaoma agrees.
Later, Xiaoma interacts with a few randoms on the street, who all greet and welcome him warmly, even though they can’t understand each other all that well. Eventually, Xiaoma tries his hand at a few of the Glaswegian phrases he’s picked up, but he just can’t seem to match the pace and cadence of the natives—even though they’re technically speaking the same language!
You’ve got to watch the whole series of interactions to truly appreciate this fascinating dialect:
Reactions poured in as nearly a million people have viewed the video to date. Many were fascinated by the language, but even more viewers appreciated the cultural representation on display in the video.
The video resonated especially with UK residents and people who had Scottish ties:
“This might be the most authentic representation of glasgow ive seen on an international channel – no sanitised tourist pish, just normal folk on the street.”
“Was born and raised in Glasgow for the first 9 years of my life, been back there a few times over the year but not returned in maybe 20 odd years now, this made me extremely homesick as to how friendly and willing to chat to strangers everyone is, you don’t get that South of England.”
“The language is rich but their cheekiness is richer”
“Glaswegians you’ll notice are very informal but very friendly. Most of the slang is crude humour jabbing at the nature of things and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Man, being a native Scot I always have a big smile on my face hearing Scottish folk talk, especially Glaswegians. Pure magic, like!”
Many different towns and regions across the UK have their own specific dialects, but a lot of them are becoming “diluted” due to global television, social media, etc. It’s related to a concept called “global homogenization.” The more we’re able to travel both physically and digitally, and the more we all consume the same media and culture on a large scale, the more we lose some of the regional intricacies that make the world so fascinating. Languages blend together, cultures flatten on, accents disappear. For example, the Brogue—an extremely rare English dialect found in some Atlantic coast islands in the United States—is quickly fading away.
Not Glaswegian.
“Interestingly, what is not happening in Scotland is the dilution of accents to a more homogenised anglicised accent on the scale that we are seeing in England, and in fact the Scots accent remains very distinctive,” Professor Jane Stuart-Smith of Glasgow University told The Independent in 2015.
While the accent is beautiful, in its own strange way, maybe its the local culture and the good-hearted nature of the people who speak it that keeps it alive. You might not be any closer to understanding or speaking Glaswegian after watching Xiaoma’s video, but with any luck, your interest in visiting Scotland will be piqued.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
I briefly explained and then he sat down to watch with me. It was 2022. A discussion about fascism on X had led me to look up “The Wave,” a 1981 ABC Afterschool Special based on a real-life high school experiment in Palo Alto, California, in 1967.
The real experiment was both fascinating and terrifying
In the real experiment, first-year history teacher Ron Jones had students at Cubberley High School engage in a simulation of how fascism spreads as part of a lesson on World War II, with him playing the role of the dictator. His intent was to show skeptical students how the Nazis came to power by creating a social movement he dubbed the Third Wave.
“It started out as a fun game with the most popular teacher at school,” Mark Hancock, one of the students in Jones’ history homeroom class, told Palo Alto Online in 2017. “He told us, ‘If you’re an active participant, I’ll give you an A; if you just go along with it, I’ll give you a C; if you try a revolution, I’ll give you an F, but if your revolution succeeds, I’ll give you an A.’”
Hancock said he started off planning to get that revolution A, but it quickly grew beyond grades and turned into something real. “At the end, I was scared to death,” he shared.
It began with Jones rallying the students around the idea of “strength through discipline” and “strength through community.” He had them engage in regimented behaviors and handed out membership cards. At first, it was just fun, but students began to enjoy feeling like part of a special community. Jones pushed the importance of following the rules. The students even formed a “secret police” to monitor other students, and if someone broke a Third Wave rule, they’d be reported and publicly “tried” by the class.
The students got wrapped up in it to a frightening degree and even Jones found himself enjoying the way the students responded to him. “It was pretty intoxicating,” he told Palo Alto Online.
But according to Verde Magazine, Jones felt like he’d lost control of it by the fourth day.
The experiment ended at the end of the week with a rally. Jones told the students they were actually part of a real national Third Wave movement and that the national leader was going to speak to them at the rally. Jones turned on the televisions to white static and watched the students eagerly wait for their leader to speak. That’s when he broke the news to them that they’d fallen for a totalitarian regime. Instead of a Third Wave leader speech, he played them a video of a Nazi rally.
According to a school newspaper at the time, most students were disillusioned. But one student said, “It was probably the most interesting unit I’ve had. It was successful in its goal to achieve the emotions of the Germans under the Nazi regime.”
What the 1981 film gets right
“The Wave” follows the true story quite closely and still holds valuable lessons. One chilling scene shows a kid who had been sort of an outcast prior to the “movement” saying, “For the first time, I feel like I’m a part of something great.” He was particularly crushed to find out it was all a fascist facade.
As is the cyclical nature of history, “The Wave” and what it can teach us is especially relevant today. According to NPR, “surveys of more than 500 political scientists find that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.” The benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, had “U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy from zero (dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy),” noted NPR. After President Trump’s election in November 2024, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. By April 2025, that figure had dropped to 53, and public ratings fell below 50 for the first time since Bright Line Watch began collecting data in 2018.
Why this story feels so timely right now
The most recent Bright Line Watch surveys from early 2026 show expert ratings have stabilized around 57, still the lowest recorded since the project began.
John Carey, co-director of Bright Line Watch and a professor of government at Dartmouth, summed up the matter by saying, “We’re moving in the wrong direction.”
Since President Trump’s election in November, various publicationsworldwide have suggested that much of Trump’s rhetoric echoes that of Nazi Germany, with some pointing out parallels between each administration’s first 100 days in office. Other publications have criticized the comparison.
At any rate, this afterschool special is incredibly timely. If you can get past the ’80s aesthetic, it’s worth watching. Even my teen kids got into it, once they stopped making fun of the hair and film quality.
This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.
Many kids are seriously struggling in school. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an estimated 49% of public school students started off the 2022-2023 school year behind in at least one subject. More recent data shows some improvement, with that figure dropping to 44% for the 2023-24 school year, though millions of students remain behind.
While there are several factors contributing to this issue, including the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, underfunded schools, and a growing teacher shortage, many educators feel that one majorly overlooked factor is parental involvement, or the lack of it, in their child’s education.
A former teacher’s blunt take on parental denial
One former teacher bluntly stated that it was parents’ “denial” that’s to blame. Odion, who now works as a flight attendant, made her case in response to another teacher’s TikTok asking parents why they’re unaware that their children are underperforming for their grade level.
In the original video, user @qbthedon laments that his 7th grade students still perform at a 4th grade level, and, despite his efforts, those kids still move onto the next grade even though they’re not ready. The worst part is that the parents don’t seem to be aware that their kids are extremely behind.
This lack of awareness and engagement dates back further than the pandemic years, says Odion, who taught Pre-K and Kindergarten in 2013.
Case in point: parent-teacher conference nights, where virtually no parent would show up. Odion then recalled one father who did attend with his daughter, called Tia for the story, but would not believe that Tia did not know the full alphabet.
“In kindergarten, you have to at least know, I think it was 80% of the 52 letters, as in uppercase and lowercase, and you have to be able to identify at random. So, I’m telling the dad that she barely knows 10 letters. And he’s in denial. ‘Nah, you know, she knows her letters,’” Odion says.
She then acts out that night, using a makeshift flashcard like she did to test Tia.
“I literally said, ‘What letter is this?’” Odion says while holding up the letter “M.” “She said something that’s not it. Put another one down. ‘What letter is this?’ She don’t know it.”
Still, the dad insisted that Tia knew her letters. Eventually, he blamed Tia’s older brother, who, despite only being a sixth grader himself, was “supposed to teach her.”
“It is not up to a child in elementary school, or middle school, or really any of your older kids, as someone who’s an older child… It is not up to the kids to teach younger kids,” Odion says in the clip.
Using another example, Odion states that a fifth grader in her class was reading at a kindergarten level and could only process basic sentences like “I see you” and “I like to see.”
In this instance, the students should be held back in order to fully learn the year’s curriculum. But Odion argues that parents fight against it “because they are more concerned about the optics of a child being held back than actually taking care of the child’s needs.”
Why holding kids back is not a simple solution
While the research shows that holding kids back a grade does improve their academic performance by granting them more time, there are still significant pros and cons to consider. In other words, being held back might not be the best solution for every struggling child. The biggest point Odion seems to be trying to make is that in addition to teachers and administrators, parents need to be more proactive in their child’s education.
“Parents, y’all can’t be backseat drivers about your child’s learning. You have to help reinforce it at home. You put a kid in front of that phone or iPad whenever they come home, it better be on YouTube, and it better be learning about letters and sight words. You can’t tell me you can’t read to the kid. It takes 10 minutes to read to the kid. No one is that busy,” she concludes.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
For all of our disagreements in modern American life, there are at least a few things most of us can agree on. One of those is the need for reform in public education. We don’t all agree on the solutions but many of the challenges are undeniable: retaining great teachers, reducing classroom size and updating the focus of student curriculums to reflect the ever-changing needs of a globalized workforce.
And while parents, politicians and activists debate those remedies, one voice is all-too-often ignored: that of teachers themselves. This is why a short video testimony from a teacher in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County went viral. After all, it’s hard to deny the points made by someone who was just named teacher of the year and used the occasion to announce why he will be leaving the very school district that just honored him with that distinction.
In a video carried by Fox5 Atlanta, 2022 Gwinnett County Public Schools Teacher of the Year Lee Allen breaks down what he sees as the overriding problems in the county’s school system. While his comments are specific to that of Gwinnett County, it’s virtually impossible to not see the overlap across all of America and how the problems have only grown more challenging in the years since.
What Lee Allen said about leaving
“At the end of this year, I will be leaving Gwinnett County Schools, leaving behind the opportunity to submit for state teacher of the year, roughly $10,000 in salary, and most importantly, the students and colleagues I’ve built strong relationships with,” Allen, a math teacher at Lawrenceville’s Archer High School, says at the beginning of his remarks. “I’m leaving in hopes that I can regain the ability to do the job that I love.”
Normally, one might assume teacher pay is the overriding issue for educators like Allen. But he makes it clear that he is, in fact, leaving money on the table to avoid what he deems as unacceptable changes to the student body and how the district manages its teachers and the learning environment.
Four big problems that pushed a Teacher of the Year out the door
“First issue at hand is student apathy and disrespect for school rules and norms. … We have an alarming number of students that simply do not care about learning and refuse to even try.”
“We are also experiencing incredible disrespect and refusal to follow basic school rules. There is little to no accountability or expectation for grades or behavior placed on students or parents. Rather than being asked what the student can do to improve their understanding, teachers are expected to somehow do more with less student effort.”
“Cell phone use. Teachers simply cannot compete with the billions of dollars tech companies pour into addicting people to their devices. Phones allow constant communication, often being the spark that fuels fights, drug use and other inappropriate meetups throughout the day. We need a comprehensive district plan with support behind it in order to combat this epidemic and protect the learning environment.”
“Lastly, there is a huge disconnect between administrators and teachers. The classroom in 2022 is drastically different from just three years ago. Most administrators have not been in a classroom full-time in years or even decades. Many teachers do not feel understood, valued or trusted as professionals from administrators and the decisions that they make.”
While Allen points fingers at administrators and student behavior, he also says that the pressures put on both students and teachers alike by COVID-19 had a catastrophic impact on learning. “The pandemic has acted as a catalyst and turned a slow negative trend into an exponential crisis,” he says.
His suggestions for fixing the problem
But he also offers some solutions, stating, “I won’t list complaints without offering ideas for improvement.”
All administrators should spend at least one week in a high needs classroom, “without a suit, without people knowing your title and in the same room, all day, for an entire week.”
Prioritizing smaller class sizes.
Greater transparency from the district in terms of needs and expectations and goals.
“We all want the same thing and we cannot accomplish this without supporting one another,” he says near the end of his remarks.
With hundreds of thousands of views, it’s clear his remarks resonated with people well beyond his school district.
There’s almost nothing more important than how we educate our children. And while the national political debate centers on areas of far less importance generated to gin up controversy and campaign fundraising, it’s families and local leaders who will need to do the heavy lifting of reprioritizing the fundamental principles of learning and leadership if we want an American educational system that can compete on the global stage. After all, when literal award-winning educators like Allen are walking away, it’s clear something more needs to be done.
This article originally appeared five years ago. It has been updated.
Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and college professors have heard every excuse in the book. Whether it’s a third grader claiming their “dog ate my homework” or a college freshman claiming their grandmother died to get out of a test, they’ve heard it all a billion times.
The top excuses teachers say they hear all the time
Yes, some students actually say they didn’t do their work because of a holiday predicated on drinking or getting stoned and others have the audacity to say, “Hey! I needed a vacation.” After spending week after week fielding excuses, there’s a good reason why most educators are skeptical when they hear one from their students.
But every once in a while, an excuse that seems way too improbable to be believed actually is true.
Reddit user u/minecraftplayer48 asked the teachers of Reddit to share the “best excuse for being late that turned out to be true” and the stories were all pretty great. But it wasn’t only teachers who chimed in; a lot of people shared stories from when they were students and had an excuse that was so crazy they didn’t think anyone would believe them.
17 excuses that sounded fake but were completely true
Here are 17 of the best excuses for being late that were actually true:
1. Revenge of the torque wrench
“My auto teacher let me practice removing and adding the tires on his vehicle. The next morning it was about 20 minutes into first period and no sign of him. He comes running into the classroom out of breath and his hair is all messed up. He points at me and says ‘YOU!!!! What is a torque wrench used for???’ I respond with “I don’t know.” He says ‘ I know you don’t know!!!” Turns out one of his tires came off while driving down the highway.” – ethnicjello
2. Mom wanted to sleep in
“She had to take her sister to school and drive her mom to rehab. She was always late to class because her mom just wanted to sleep in. Problem was if the mom was late or did not go she would have violated her probation and gone to prison. I never marked her late. If she missed anything important she could come in at lunch or after school to make it up.”– RM156
3. That was you?
“Student here, I headed into school early to get some studying done in the library before my night class. I was one exit away when I was caught in a 3 car accident. Most of the expressway afterwards was gridlock with only one lane left open. I did eventually make it into my lab class 15 minutes late, with a few scrapes and bruises. My professors reaction was simply ‘Oh that was you!”” – AlienCowAbduction
4. School bus blew up
“I was one of about 20 kids who were late to school. We showed up at the school office as a group and when questioned why we were late, we said ‘The school bus blew up.’ They questioned ‘So the engine blew up?’ The kids ‘No, the whole bus, in flames. It blew up.’
“There was much conference between the teachers, all of them thinking we embellished the story. Next thing you know, one of the admin staff has the news website open, very obvious image of an entire bus on fire with a bunch of kids in our school uniform standing in front of it. Our late slip for class read ‘School bus blew up.’” – AusPB90
5. B.U.I.
“Told me he got pulled over by the cops for wobbly driving on his bike and they thought he was drunk. Turned out he was just dodging all the slugs on the street.” – Fortisvol
6. Chicken of death
“A guy in my college class missed class one day. The next day he came in with his eye covered up and medical paperwork in hand. Apparently he got pecked in the eye by a chicken.” – BrrToe
7. Chicken 2: The chickening
“When I was student teaching, I was late because there was bunch chickens in the middle of the road. They wouldn’t move at all. This is in the middle of a city of 200,000 people. Freaking chickens.”
“I finally get to school and profusely apologize to my mentor teacher and I told her why I was late thinking it sounded ridiculous. She said, ‘yeah, those chickens are fucking assholes, they surrounded my car in the McDonalds parking lot last year. Don’t worry about it.” – Makenshine
8. Cracker Barrel conference
“Taught a group of seniors first period. It was towards the end of the year. I had a class of around 30 and only 5 were there when the bell rang. Halfway through class, the rest of them show up. They went out to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and brought me some back. All was forgiven.” – SwansonsLoveChild
9. Beary late
“Bear in the backyard. No access gate. Animal control had to tranq it from the roof and drag it through the house. Made the news. Got to retake the test I missed after sending her the news article.” – Vladtehwood
10. Present the flat
“We had an exam in my class and the teacher got a message from a student saying that he was going to be late because his car had a flat tire (the student was known to party), the teacher didn’t think it could be true, so as a joke the teacher asked him to bring the tire back. He brought the flat tire back in the middle of the exam. Needless to say, the professor didn’t expect that.” – Sapang
11. Moo
“A kid missed my first-period class one morning but was in school later that day. When I asked him why he hadn’t arrived in time for my course, he said his cow was birthing its calf that morning, so he’d picked being in the barn over English. Made sense to me. His essays weren’t going to win any ribbons at the county fair, but his calf could.” – Bobosbigsister
12. Abduction
“In high school a kid came late to history class. He was a joker so when someone asked him where he had been, he goes ‘I was kidnapped.’ Everyone laughed, until he goes ‘no really.’”
“Turns out 2 guys kidnapped him and tossed him into the back of the minivan he was using for his morning paper route. They drove him around while they robbed something. I can’t remember what happens after. I think they just drove the van somewhere and got away.” – notinmybackyardcanad
13. Honesty is the best excuse
“Not a teacher, but a kid walked into my class one day and literally just said ‘Sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to be here.’ He wasn’t wrong I suppose.” – Scally59
14. It actually was the dog
“A little off topic but in 8th grade, a friend of mine turned in their homework late because her dog literally ate her homework. She even brought a note from her parents.” – JoeyJoey2004
15. Is this a real excuse? Or is it fantasy?
“‘Sorry Bohemian Rhapsody came on just as I parked.’ — My art teacher when he was about 5:55 minutes late.” – Deeberber
16. I took a shortcut
“This happened to me as a pupil; a very quiet, unassuming kid in our class came in to German with about five minutes of the class left. We went to a Catholic school and the teachers were all quite strict and intimidating. Classes were usually silent, especially in junior school. When this boy came into class at the end of the lesson that day, the door flew inwards with such force that the teacher gave an audible gasp.”
“It had been raining heavily outside, his hair was plastered to his forehead. His blazer was dripping and sodden. He had mud caked into his trousers up to his knees, and he was breathing heavily. The teacher exclaimed, ‘Brendan! What happened?’ We all stared up at him in shocked silence. This quiet, unassuming little boy let out a big sigh and just said, ‘I took a shortcut.’ And went straight to his seat.”
“That line became iconic in our school for years afterward.” – lestat85
17. Pug lovers can attest
“Kid was late to school and had to miss a very important football game. The reason? His fat pug fell asleep on his phone. The pug’s fat rolls muffled his alarm.” – tip52
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
A high school teacher’s TikTok sparked a serious conversation about screen time, low expectations, and the surprising role BookTok is playing in the literacy crisis.
Studies show that kids are spending a lot less time reading these days. In 2020, 42% of nine-year-old students said they read for fun almost daily, down from 53% in 2012. Fourteen percent of 13-year-olds read for fun daily, down from 27% in 2012. Among 17-year-olds, 19% reported reading for fun in the last year data was collected, down from 31% in 1984.
It’s safe to say that modern technology is a big reason why kids aren’t reading as much. A recent report found that teenagers spend an average of eight hours and thirty-nine minutes per day on screens, compared to five and a half hours for pre-teen children. So, it’s no wonder they don’t have any time left to crack open a book. In December 2024, Ms. C, a high school teacher on TikTok who goes by the name @stillateacher, brought the topic up with her class and learned they stopped reading for fun at the end of middle school.
Why are kids stopping?
“So, even those who are like avid readers of the Percy Jackson series in fourth and fifth grade fall off,” the teacher says. “Honestly, there are many reasons to stop reading recreationally, like increased pressure inside and outside of school, a desire to spend more time socializing, and, of course, the phones.”
But the teacher says there’s an obvious reason “right in front of our faces”: the adults. “Adults have lowered the bar for how much you should read as a teenager so far that the bar cannot be found,” she continued. “There are many educators who have the mindset that you shouldn’t teach whole books because kids just won’t read them.”
“I’ve taught at schools where teaching novels is actually discouraged,” she continued. “And I have conversations with teachers in other content areas who say that they themselves never read books, that they don’t think it’s important for students’ long-term success. All this said, it is not entirely surprising that high schoolers don’t wanna read.”
How does reading benefit kids?
Kids laying down in the grass reading. Photo credit: Canva
The significant decrease in the number of children who read for fun means that many will miss out on the incredible benefits of regularly curling up for a good book. Studies show that children who read for pleasure enjoy improved cognitive performance, language development, and academic achievement. Reading is also linked to fewer mental health problems, less screen time, and more sleep. Findings suggest that kids get the optimal benefits of reading when they do it for around 12 hours a week.
“You forgot empathy,” one commenter added. “People who read are better at empathizing because they have been able to put themselves in the shoes of others and learn about different perspectives, people, cultures, experiences.”
And @stillateacher has seen these incredible benefits first-hand. “But I’m telling you, the handful of kids I teach who do read are built different. Kids who read have stronger critical thinking skills, more success across all academic areas, and, honestly, just a stronger sense of self. Because reading helps you figure out who you are as a person,” the teacher said.
The case for BookTok
The decline in young people’s reading is a serious problem that must be addressed. So, it’s terrific that the teacher used her platform on TikTok to bring it to the public’s attention. Interestingly enough, she says that TikTok is one of the few platforms encouraging kids to read.
“And honestly, thank goodness for BookTok because I think it is one of the only drivers of adolescent reading that still exists,” she concluded her post. “Isn’t that sad? Like, the schools aren’t doing it, TikTok’s doing it. We gotta start a movement here.”
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
