upworthy

testing

Humor

Teacher caught on camera showing up to her middle school at 10pm in a bonnet and pajamas

Adults have anxiety the night before a big test, too.

@misswinans_teach/TikTok

Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear a bonnet and PJs.

While we often think of test day as purely a stressful day for students, teachers definitely feel the pressure too. Just take middle school teacher Sarah Ashley Winans’ word for it.

Winans recently went viral on TikTok after sharing a video of herself entering the school she works at in the middle of the night, decked out in her pajamas and a bonnet. No, this wasn’t a bizarre episode of sleepwalking—Winans woke up from her pre-test day slumber and realized she had forgotten to plug in her computer charging cart that would be vital for students to take the exam.

Luckily, the crisis was somewhat easily averted. In the clip we see her hop out of her car, unlock the building, walk down the hall and into her classroom, and in two seconds flat she comes out flashing an “all is well” peace sign to the security camera. Phew.

@misswinans_teach

Test taking anxiety isn’t just for the kids. Mind you…this was at 10:15 p.m. 🫠🫠 #itsfineimfineeverythingsfine #viralvideo #teachersoftiktok #teachertok #middleschoolteacher #teacherlife #teacherhumor #middleschool #fyp #trending #sendhelp #whyamilikethis

“Test anxiety isn’t just for kids,” her caption read.

In an interview with Today, Winans shared how this test anxiety comes from a place of wanting all her students to feel at ease. "I don't really sleep the week of testing, because I want them to be OK, and I want them to feel confident, not to be nervous and worried. I know testing can really put a lot of pressure on people."

teachers, teacher of tiktok, test day, test anxiety, state testing, prepping for test, funny teachers, state exam, chromebook Sarah Ashley Winans. Courtesy of Sarah Ashley Winans

Down in the comments, people really felt for Winans’ plight.

"I just know you were stress texting your principal,” one person wrote. Another echoed, "Yall know she was (on the phone) with someone bc she was scared to death."

Indeed, Winans did call her administrator before making her adventure to the school (luckily only a five minute drive away), and that was actually how she got this hilarious footage. "She let me look at it, and then I said, 'I have to record it,'" Winans told the outlet

Viewers who were not feeling secondhand anxiety just chimed in with pure appreciation.

“This is so Janine coded,” one person wrote, referencing Quinta Brunson's character in Abbott Elementary.

teachers, tests, testing, abbott elementary, gif Janine from Abbott Elementary. media.giphy.com

“Not all heroes wear capes, they’re in bonnets plugging in the chromebook cart at 10pm,” quipped another.

Still another said, “Just so you know, you’re an amazing teacher because WHO would go late at night when you’re already in your jammies? You’re awesome.”

Following the huge response to her video, Winans told Today, that she hopes it humanizes teachers a bit and reminds folks they aren’t perfect, but still do everything they can to provide for their students.

"This is just something we do. Teachers, you make mistakes, and you forget to do things and, I mean, you just do what you have to do to make sure your kids are successful. And I was just doing my job."

So, in addition to providing education, therapy, and mentorship, teachers also have to do a little recovery missions from time to time. That’s just reason #509 why they deserve more.

As a new school year is well underway, Winans seems to be doing just fine as she's posted videos of her classroom redesign project and an adorable fit check.

@misswinans_teach

A little ootd to get the week started😂😂 #teachersoftiktok #viralvideo #teachertok #middleschoolteacher #ootd

She certainly looks well rested!

This article originally appeared in May. It has been updated.

From Your Site Articles
teachers
HumorJoy
More

After a massively successful marketing stunt, 2 Chainz put the attention on a good cause.

What an awesome idea.

Last month, rapper 2 Chainz decided to rent out a house in Atlanta, paint it a nice shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, scrawl the word "trap" across the front, and open it up to the public as a sort of ad hoc art installation — you know, just normal stuff, as one does.

The whole thing was a marketing gimmick to promote his latest album, "Pretty Girls Like Trap Music," and the project quickly took on a bit of a life of its own.

The pink trap house has been a runaway success, tagged nearly 300,000 times on Instagram in just a couple weeks. Then, 2 Chainz put that attention to good use.

On July 4, 2 Chainz teamed up with the Fulton County Board of Health, Atlanta AIDS, and Test Atlanta to offer free HIV testing to anyone who wanted to stop by the house.

Fulton County Board of Health say they pulling up today!! Come get tested and know your status! By the way this is Free99

A post shared by 2 Chainz Aka Tity Boi (@hairweavekiller) on

1 in 7 people living with HIV in the U.S. doesn't even know it. That's what makes the free HIV screening so important.

More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are HIV-positive, and those who don't know their status, are most likely to spread the virus. While there's been a lot of progress in how we treat HIV/AIDS over the past several decades, it's still a serious issue that needs attention.

By stepping up and making it easy to get tested, 2 Chainz is fighting the stigma that comes with an HIV diagnosis and helping prevent future outbreaks.

Pretty cool, right?

Everyone should know their HIV status. Yes, everyone.

It's easy and free. You can check the Centers for Disease Control website to find a clinic near you.

In the meantime, 2 Chainz's Pink Trap House is open through July 7 (though there's a chance it'll be extended), so if you happen to be in the area, swing by, snap a few selfies, and let the world know you were there!

More
Heroes

Firefighters are killed every year by wildfires. These scientists want to change that.

True
NC State

In November 2016, huge forest fires swept through eight southern states in the U.S.

They burned more than 119,000 acres and shrouded regions from Alabama up to West Virginia in smoke. Parks shut down, residents evacuated, and more than 6,300 firefighters were deployed to the area to try to contain these raging fires.

As devastating as these fires were, wildfires are actually pretty common. On average, the United States sees more than 100,000 wildfires every year — in fact, the U.S. Wildfire Tracker shows 45 large fires burning in the United States at the time of this writing.

Embers fly around a firefighter at the Sherpa Fire of June 2016 near Santa Barbara, California. Photo by David McNew/AFP/Getty Images

This means that right now, firefighters are putting their lives on the line as they respond to wildland fires. And because of climate change, the fires are becoming more frequent, intense, and long-burning — making them even more dangerous to the men and women whose job it is to try and put them out.

In July 2013, 19 firefighters were killed in an Arizona wildfire at Yarnell Hill, the worst wildfire tragedy in U.S. history since 1933.  

An aerial view of the charred landscape after a wildfire swept through the area on July 7, 2013 in Yarnell, Arizona. Photo by Laura Segall/ Getty Images.

When firefighters are overrun by flames and there is nowhere to escape, as was the case at Yarnell Hill, they have one last-ditch survival tool at their disposal: portable fire shelters.

These emergency shelters have been standard issue for wildland firefighters since 1977. They look a little bit like an aluminized sleeping bag, and they are made of layers of fire-resistant materials, such as fiberglass and silica fabrics, with a reflective outer shell. The current models are designed to withstand radiant heat temperatures of about 500 degrees Fahrenheit to shield against intermittent flames and trap breathable air.

So, if there is no other option available, the firefighters deploy one of these shelters — they only take about 20 seconds to open — climb inside, strap themselves in, and lie face-down to the ground, feet towards the flames. Then, they try to ride out the fire.

A portable shelter used by firefighters as a last-resort safety precaution. Image via NC State/YouTube.

If flames don't come into direct contact with the shelters, these shelters can provide precious minutes of protection. But if flames do directly contact them, they don’t hold up long. And, sadly, they were not enough to save the firefighters at the Yarnell Hill wildfire.

Roger Barker and his colleagues at the Textile Protection and Comfort Center have worked closely with first responders for decades, but after this tragedy, they decided to try and help.  

With funding from FEMA, they set about improving these shelters by developing new fire-resistant materials in their laboratory.

"This is one way that our research could have a real potential benefit in terms of helping protect them and perhaps even save some lives," Barker says.

Of course, this is no easy task.

A laboratory test at NC State. Image via NC State/YouTube.

Any new material has to be light and easily deployable, Barker explains. It also has to insulate so that the temperature of the air inside the shelter stays breathable. It needs to protect the firefighters not only from the radiant heat of the fire close to the shelter, but it also needs to hold up — at least for a few minutes — if flames actually reach the shelter. It also can't release any toxic fumes or gases as it heats up.

"We obviously can’t make anything that you could carry around be [completely] fire-proof," Barker says. But if you can make something hold up for a few minutes (instead of seconds) if it catches fire, he explains, "that would make all the difference for their survivability."

A camera view of the inside of a shelter during a lab test. Image via NC State/YouTube.

The team made several new materials and tested them. The first trials involved only small swatches, then they built entire prototype shelters and tested them inside a simulator — called the Fire Dome — that produces a fireball over 2,000 degrees and big enough to engulf the whole shelter.

So far, the materials they made are holding up.

"We've come up with several candidates of materials. We've fabricated them, and we've tested them," Barker explains, "and so far, we are really pleased with the results that we're seeing."

Next, he says, they need to test their prototypes in the field.

A view of one of the field tests of the new materials. Image via NC State/YouTube.

Working alongside NC State's College of Natural Resources and firefighters, the team plans to test their materials and prototype shelters during controlled or prescribed fires to see how they hold up in as realistic of conditions as possible.

These tests will give the researchers insight into what the conditions are like in an actual forest fire.

In fact, they have already observed a few smaller-scale tests in forests during prescribed burns over a nine-week intense summer camp, and the have learned a lot from their close partnership with working firefighters who actually use these shelters.  

"These are human lives. That’s what’s important to realize. You work in a laboratory, but it affects real people," John Morton-Aslanis, a research associate at the textile center, emphasized.

A firefighter approaches a wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California in September 2016. Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images.

"This is an extremely important project," said Joe Roise, professor of forestry and environmental resources at the College of Natural Resources. "And if we can get a better product out for them to use, it will change the situation across not just North America, but across the world."

From Your Site Articles
HeroesMore
Family

Diseases, beware: A chemist may have found a way to detect you sooner.

Imagine being hit with a dangerously high fever hundreds of miles away from the nearest hospital.

You live in a rural area, have little money for treatment or transportation, and don't have an easy way to physically get to the hospital.

When you're eventually able to see a doctor and take some tests, that's when he tells you some disconcerting news — you have malaria, your condition has already worsened, and now your treatment options are limited.

If only there had been a way to find out sooner, when more could be done.

The streets of Timbuktu in Mali. Image via iStock.

That's the harsh reality many people face in sub-Saharan Africa when it comes to malaria.

According to UNICEF, more than a million people die from malaria each year, and 90% of those cases of malaria occur in sub-Saharan Africa. What's even more heartbreaking is that the majority of those deaths are children under the age of 5.

Malaria also hurts the continent economically — Africa loses up to $12 billion every year due to a loss in productivity.

A close-up of the culprit. Image via CDC Global/Flickr.

Luckily, chemists at Ohio State University are developing a way to test for malaria without having to visit a doctor.

And all the patient needs is a piece of paper!

This would help people get malaria diagnoses sooner — if the test is positive, they know it's critical to go to the doctor, and when they do go, it would already be for treatment and not just for testing.

Currently, patients can take a Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) to find out if they have malaria or not, but the climate in Africa combined with the considerable expense of the test often prevent it from being an option. However, these are issues a new home test can address.

Image by Pam Frost Gorder, used with permission.

The man leading this charge is Abraham Badu-Tawiah, an assistant professor of chemistry and biology at Ohio State.

Having grown up in Ghana, he knew he wanted to come up with a way to provide an accurate diagnosis for people far away from a proper medical facility.

"Our main motivation is really to get to know whether you’re sick or not sick early enough so that we don’t wait or think it’s too late," said Badu-Tawiah. "If it’s just in the initial stages, you can actually take your time and do something to focus on getting well."

So how does this piece of paper work?

As a patient, all you would need to do is put a drop of blood in the reservoir, fold the paper in half, stick it in an envelope and then mail it to their lab. After a round of testing, you get your results. That's it!

Image by Pam Frost Gorder, used with permission.

The paper itself uses a special wax ink that creates a barrier to keep the blood sample in place. It's also charged with ionic probes that can tag the specific antibodies that act as biomarkers (basically, indicators) of a particular disease. Even better, the ionic probes aren't affected by light, temperature, or humidity and can keep the sample intact for up to 30 days — ideal for patients in sub-Saharan Africa.

Once the lab has the paper, they just dip it in an ammonia solution, peel the layers apart and put it in front of a mass spectrometer — the device that can find the disease biomarker and tell whether someone is sick or not.

Right now, the testing needs to be done in special labs because mass spectrometers aren't immediately available in developing nations and they're very expensive. However, smaller, less expensive ones are already in the process of being developed. So help is on the way!

It's also possible to use this device to test for certain cancers. In time, hopefully all of them.

In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Badu-Tawiah and his colleagues state that they can test for any disease where the human body produces antibodies. This includes ovarian cancer and cancer of the large intestine.

But they're not stopping there.

"It will cover all kinds of cancer eventually when we advance in knowledge," added Badu-Tawiah. "What we need is to be able to identify a specific biomarker for each cancer."

The paper is designed to be very affordable at just 50 cents a piece.

Image by Pam Frost Gorder, used with permission.

And that number could go even lower once they enter mass production. Access for all, regardless of location, is incredibly important to Badu-Tawiah.

"Making the resources accessible to a lot of people I think is the solution. That’s why I came up with this idea to build a bridge and to connect the rural and the cities," he said. "This will be useful for a lot of people, not only in Africa, but in the U.S. and many other places. It will change lives."

The scientists are also working very hard to make the testing process less invasive and more comprehensive.

Image by Pam Frost Gorder, used with permission.

"Our next move is actually going down from blood to saliva and then to urine," says Badu-Tawiah. "We are really hopeful that within a few years, this will come to fruition."

They're also developing a separate method that is able to detect malaria, syphilis, HIV, and tuberculosis all on the same device.

Pretty amazing, right?

This type of research has the potential to change how the world approaches deadly diseases.

Just thinking about how a drop of blood on a piece of paper could potentially replace a long journey to a testing facility is an exciting development.

In places from Africa to the U.S., this kind of innovation could one day be available at the corner drug store. It has a long way to go, but the prospects so far are exciting.

In this instance, it really is the smallest things — like a 50-cent piece of paper — that can make the biggest difference.

Family
Trending Stories