You tell your kids, "that's just how Latin is", and you just have to get to memorize them as is. I think that some linguists have guesses as to the sources of conjugations, but no one really knows for sure.

I'm surprised you got feedback at all. Most large companies with functional HR or legal departments prohibit their employees from giving interview feedback for fear of lawsuits. It is so easy to think that you didn't get the job because of something you said, but I've heard all kinds of crazy, random reasons interviewees don't get jobs: hiring manager leaves, and process needs to restart from scratch with new person; sudden and unexpected hiring freezes from way on top, etc. etc. etc.

In Latin, pronouns are often used for emphasis, so there may be many correct translations of the same sentence. The sentence in an answer key may not be exactly the same as the one the student writes, but both can be equally correct. I think there's a very important lesson here for kids, though: that translation isn't an exact thing, and there is rarely one "right" way to translate something from one language to another. This is useful to know when reading literature in translation, or more topically, when a modern day leader in a foreign country says something that's quoted in this country, it is often key to understand who did the translation, and what other translations might be valid.

I like the Pocket Casts app. Not free, but a darn good deal for a one-time $2 purchase. By default, it only downloads podcasts when you are on Wifi, you I don't need to worry about data much.

Maybe coming at the problem from a different angle will help. How about the portfolio mentioned above with a tile tracker on it? It is big enough that you shouldn't lose it often, but when you do, the tracker will help you find it.

I don't know the original author, but you really should read Katie Meyer's books: http://www.katiemeyer.net/p/homepage.html She's kind of a big deal around here.

It is amazing to me what I do and do not remember. 30 years ago, my Latin teacher taught us six kinds of adjectives that take the dative with a little rhyming mnemonic: kind, friendly, dear, pleasing, hostile, near. How is it that I can remember this, but not what I'm supposed to do this weekend?

I think finitimis is ablative, an adjective modifying agris. As critterfixer says about, though, finitimus takes the dative, that is, the thing that is near-to shows up in the dative. The english preposition "to" is often a good translation for dative uses: in the fields near to the farmhouse.

Isn't this exactly what opoids are?

I think the big mythology is creating this one bucket called "STEM" and assuming lots of commonality across it. The job market for computer science graduates is completely different than for, say marine biologists, even though they are both "STEM".

I kind of feel like this is true for many components of the admissions package when applying to elite colleges. There's been so much grade inflation that 4.0+ GPAs aren't special, they are table stakes. Apparently the essays don't differentiate much. Elite colleges have way more applicants with astronomical test scores than they can admit, so again, high test scores are needed but not differentiating. Those that do alumni interviews tend not to put too much emphasis on those.

My Spanish is rusty, but I think many native speakers would be more used to 24 hour time. And "de nieve a cinco" is a fun typo...

In the NYT article, it says she worked as a nanny and stable hand to support the family. I don't know her at all, but I have no reason to doubt what she says. It would be really interesting to see what happened to her other siblings.

In her own words from her blog at https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/15/20-unconventional-books-that-changed-my-life, she says that "I was homeschooled by my mother until I was around 12 or 13, and then, when she had to return to work and enrolled my younger siblings in public school, I began working full-time instead of going to school."

If one guard is falling asleep, there is a problem with the guard. If all the guards are falling asleep, there is a problem with the faciilty. Most pools that I know of (granted, which are larger), force the guards to rotate every 15 minutes, because it is impossible to concentrate on this potentially life-saving job for any longer than that. How often does he get a break?

Do you know if they are trying to detect dementia by looking at homeschool curriculum purchases? Asking for a friend.

In good faith, and not trying to stir any pots, could someone help me understand what the bolded means? What would be an example of someone who is a strict atheist, believes there are no supernatural powers, but still has "a basic spiritual belief"? What would be an example of someone who doesn't have a "basic spiritual belief"?

I'm surprised too -- do you know if that number includes rejected proposals? I wonder what is more common: more broken engagements or denied proposals?

The lack of notes is, ridiculous. I view note-taking as an important skill to learn, not matter what the actual subject matter is, and students need to learn the different ways to take notes for different kinds of classes. If, by design, the students aren't going to learn hardly any Spanish, they might as well learn how to take notes.

The decision for Spanish to be a once-a-week class is on the administration, surely not the teacher's decision. Given that this is a once-a-week class, how many different classes does this one teacher teach? Either she must be very part-time, or teach a rather large number of classes. If this is true, I can see why it took a while for her to get back to you, and why maybe she is reluctant to assign homework which she'd need to grade. As far as GPA, is it weighted? Doesn't seem right to have a five-day-a-week English class have the same weight as a once-a-week Spanish class, but I don't know if middle schools are that sophisticated in their GPA calculation.

Can you clarify what you mean by the bolded? 8's original post made it sound like her definition of a class is 700+ students sitting in one lecture hall all at once, but in your case it sounds like you've got at most 200 student sitting on each lecture. It strikes me that there's a big difference between the two. I suspect that a student might be able to ask a question in a 200 seat lecture hall, but that's just not feasible in a 700+ setting.

"The driver staring blankly at him ..." is an absolute phrase which modifies the whole sentence. This is grammatically correct, but kind of old-timey and sounds a little rough to our modern ears. This construction is much more common in Latin, so you tend to see it more in older writing where the English writers are influenced by their Latin studies.

deleted by moderator unnecessarily aggressive

Generally, I'd encourage students to learn languages they are interested in, but Polish is a very difficult language to learn. I would think it would be next to impossible to learn two good years of high school Polish without ongoing help from a native speaker. If you really wanted to do this, I would seriously look at a summer trip to Poland or some other immersive experience. Another downside of studying less-popular languages is the possibility of not continuing in the language in college. Even if his Polish is accepted for entrance into college, if he goes to a college that doesn't offer Polish (most of them, I'd guess), he'd need to study another language for graduation requirements, and probably wouldn't be able to test of said requirements.

As far as I can tell, the charter schools in my district are what other places would call "magnet schools". They are free to attend, (don't know about fundraisers), specialized to some area: STEM, arts, environmental issues, language immersion, etc., but operated by the school district and taught by teachers in the same union as the non-charter public schools.