High school students, and their parents, stress out about their grade point averages (GPAs). Fact.  But, why? Because colleges consider GPAs to be the single most important factor in making admission decisions. Makes sense, right? But the criteria by which these high school teachers use to determine these grades vastly differs from school to school. That’s unfair.

As a college advisor, I meet with students across the United States, so I see a wide variety of grading rubrics and final grades.  Even the schools that seem to be transparent about how grades are determined because they publish a detailed rubric at the start of the school year still have variances that may seem sketchy. 

Some teachers dock points for each day an assignment is turned in late, while others will allow a pile of late work to be turned in the day before the grading period ends.  Hmm.  Others allow students to retake exams that they fail or let them drop the lowest test scores to improve their grades.  Many give extra credit points for ridiculous things like bringing treats to class or going on field trips.

Over the years I’ve seen some doozies. One student took a 3-week summer history class where the teacher told him he didn’t need to attend the actual classes.  Really! He just needed to show up on the last day of the summer program with all of his completed assignments.  This student gathered up notes from a previous history class that he had failed and turned them into his summer teacher for credit.  The shocker was that the teacher gave this student an A in the history class – he obviously didn’t look at the pile of papers.  But the ridiculous part of this story is that the teacher actually replaced this student’s previous F’s in the fall and spring semesters with A’s! How is this fair to the other thousands of students who suffer from reduced GPAs when they fail a class?

To get students to actually take state mandated standardized tests each year, teachers and administrators have bribed students to do well on the tests by offering a full-letter bump in their final grade if they score at a specific percentage on the standardized tests.  In other words, if the student gets an 80% in the chemistry section of a standardized test, this chemistry teacher would bump the student’s final grade by one letter grade.  Say what? 

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve seen a teacher not budge when a student received an 89.99% and gave him a B+.  This actually happened to one of my clients, who was a straight-A student until he got this single B+ in Chemistry.  The student asked the teacher if he could do extra credit, write an essay or do anything to bump his grade to an A so he could become the class valedictorian during his senior year.  Sadly, the teacher wouldn’t budge, and even though the student reached out to the principal and superintendent of schools, the teacher refused to change his grade.

When teachers use unethical grading practices to help their students improve their GPAs or to gain high scores on standardized tests (which reflect well on the teacher), that ruins the value of GPAs for everyone. College admissions officers are savvy to schools with substandard curriculum but they aren’t always aware of grading practices of particular teachers.  Seems to me that there should be more transparency about actual grading rubrics and policies on Rate My Teacher so colleges get a realistic view of student achievement in classes.

As the sole superpower in the world, I would hope that America would lead the way in preventing continued, and worsening, rising temperatures caused by man-made releases of CO2. 

It seems like social media is the only real way to reach people with news that will directly affect them.  The oligarchy that runs this nation certainly doesn’t allow the press to honestly state the scary facts about climate change.

I read an abstract recently and feel more than ever that our next president of the United States needs to lead us out of this impending path of destruction.  Greenland’s ice sheet is melting, and it’s feeding on itself.  This is the positive feedback loop that I blogged about in “Do Your Part for Earth Day: Don’t Drive Tomorrow!”

I can’t believe there isn’t a major panic happening worldwide with this news.  We, as a civilization, simply don’t have enough time to allow the oil companies and government (oligarchy) to use up every last drop of oil and then frack the h**l out of the earth to release methane so they can squeeze billions of dollars in profits before they actually develop a real infrastructure for clean renewable fuels.

It’s going to take a revolution – a groundswell – to quickly move to an energy source that drastically reduces the CO2 released every day.

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I already feel that the English language and communication skills are slipping into a muddled mess of confusing messages. My posts about the “Lost Art of Communication” and “Use Your Words, not Emojis!” address the many ways our modes of communication have deteriorated since the invention of smart phones. But this new “improvement,” is anything but an improvement. It’s ridiculous, and here’s why.   Google’s new “Smart Replies” tries to analyze your conversation and then offers ready-to- send responses to a photo – as if emojis weren’t enough. It picks out something unique about the photo and then conjures up a cute remark. For instance, for a photo of an adorable puppy, the remark might be “so cute!” While this might be the natural progression in social media technology, if we can’t write a 3-word reply ourselves, we really have bigger problems to consider.    First, if we’re too busy to respond to a photo, then we probably shouldn’t be on social media. Suggestion: don’t try to multitask. See my posts “There’s No Such Thing as Multi-Tasking While Studying” and “Why You Shouldn’t Use Laptops or Tablets in Class.”  Just get your work done and then indulge in social media when you can write your own responses.   Second, if words don’t come to mind about a photo, then move on. The best responses are those genuine ones that come from the heart. Nobody wants a robot responding to their posts anyway.   Third, when you let artificial intelligence (AI) speak and act on your behalf, you’re stepping away from healthy human interaction. It’ll be more difficult for you to have face-to- face or any kind of direct human relationships, and that can lead to feelings of isolation and depression.   So, slow down. Fully engage in whatever you’re doing. And spend some time communicating with friends and loved ones directly.   [Source] 

Finland has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, and they attribute this success to their Finnish baby boxes. Yup – boxes.  All expectant mothers in Finland receive a cardboard box with a small mattress that fits right into the bottom of the box.  These “Starter Kits” are filled with infant clothes, sheets, bibs, sleeping bag, and bathing supplies, and the state gives these to mothers before they take their babies home from the hospitals.  Because these baby boxes are so easy to move around, parents can place them on the floor next to their beds or carry them from room to room with ease.  The babies can bond with their parents without the danger of being suffocated when placed next to parents while they sleep.

These Finnish baby boxes originated in the 1930’s but today they are popping up all over the world. In India and Southeast Asia, baby boxes include clean-birth kits to prevent infection during and after delivery.  They even include mosquito netting to protect the infants against malaria.  Governments around the world are providing these low-cost baby boxes for low-income families. 

The infants feel more secure because the box is the perfect size for newborn babies.  I always thought it was odd that we place our newborn infants in their cribs down the hall in their bedrooms.  That certainly doesn’t help with bonding and the enormous space in the crib probably feels like a football field to the infant.  These baby boxes give them the sense of security with the 4 walls just inches away.  Parents get a better night sleep and don’t have to jump out of bed to run down the hall to check on the baby every time she cries.  Clever idea!

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For millions of Americans, drinking a cup, or two, of coffee in the morning is part of their routine to kick start the day.  Heck, sometimes we even need a little boost in the afternoon too!  Right?  And now, energy drinks, like Red Bull, have become the go-to caffeine jolt that teens have flock to when they’re tired. While we know these energy drinks are loaded with caffeine, until now we didn’t know how dangerous they are for teens to consume.

According to Dr. Stephanie Lai, a pediatrician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, energy drinks often contain twice as much caffeine as coffee and eight times as much as soda. Yikes! She says that teens are mixing alcohol with energy drinks, which is especially dangerous to their health. Combining high-caffeine energy drinks with alcohol may give a teens the perception that they’re not drunk, when they really are. And when they don’t feel tipsy, they tend to drink more, which is SUPER BAD.  Remember Four Loko?

The side effects of too much caffeine are well known.  It increases blood pressure, heart rate, palpitations, insomnia, and dehydration.  Not good.  And, caffeine is addicting, which means that teens will experience caffeine withdrawal when they don’t get their drinks.  Withdrawals cause anxiety, tremors, irritability, headaches, and fatigue. 

Because energy drinks are classified as “natural dietary supplements” and not food, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t regulate it.  Can you believe this?  Many energy drink companies don’t list their caffeine content because they claim that it is a “proprietary blend.” Wow.

So it’s time to have that talk with your preteens and teens.  Give them the facts about caffeine, energy drinks, alcoholic energy drink mixes, addiction, and health risks.  Then recommend that they simply get more sleep, exercise, and eat healthy foods. 

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With the Stanford attacker in the headlines because he raped a young woman while she was unconscious and received a ridiculously lenient sentence of just 6 months in jail and probation, everyone’s talking about sexual assault crimes on college campuses.  That’s a good thing.

We’re trying to open the dialogue about sexual and gender-based violence so that victims will feel supported as they come forward.  Everyone knows that rape victims who speak out about their attacks typically find themselves belittled and chastised as defense attorneys try to paint an image of the victim’s promiscuity as if she asked to be raped. This is why reports of rape on college campuses have been widely underrepresented. 

So when the Washington Post wrote “These colleges have the most reports of rape,” I cringed. Readers will comb the lists of colleges to see which ones have the most reported rapes, which may change their pristine images.  No, I am not trying to play down the importance of publishing these huge numbers.  It is appalling that Ivy League and other prestigious colleges rank in the top 10 with 40+ rapes per year.

The reason I cringe is that these colleges probably don’t have more rapes than other colleges.  Instead, they have probably created a comfortable and supportive atmosphere on campus where victims of rape tell authorities and press charges against their attackers.  So the reason for the recent increase in rapes on campus may really just be the fact that at these particular colleges, more victims are comfortable with coming forward and being counted.

According to the Washington Post, one in five women say they have been sexually assaulted while in college. As you review the list of colleges, keep in mind that all of these colleges have underreported numbers – even the top 10 colleges with the most reported rapes. The sooner sexual assault victims are treated like victims, and rapists are treated like perpetrators and criminals, the sooner we’ll see a decline in attacks on college campuses.  For tips about how to protect yourself against rape, check out this blog I wrote. 

Don’t let Hillary’s premature announcement that she is the presumptive Democratic nominee stop you from getting to the polls today! It’s your civic duty – and you might be surprised by what the young voter turnout does for this exciting race. 

Some of you may think it’s too late, or too confusing, to vote if aren’t affiliated with a party or may have lost your ballot. Don’t be. 

Here are 3 easy tips to make voting TODAY easy for you.

#1: If you are a “No Party Preference” voter and have received a nonpartisan vote-by-mail ballot, simply take your blank ballot to your polling location to exchange it for a Democratic crossover ballot. 

#2: If you lost your ballot, or haven’t received it, just go to ANY POLLING LOCATION and vote by provisional ballot.  Easy peasy!

#3: If you’ve received your vote-by-mail ballot, you can drop it off at ANY POLLING LOCATION in your county today.  

Now go VOTE!

Hey Californians!  Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

If you’re confused about the ballot measures and all of the people running for offices OTHER than President, check out Ballotpedia. All you have to do is enter your zip code, and you’ll get tons of information on everything (and everyone) on your ballot.  If you don’t have time for that, just vote for what you know – it’s ok to leave sections blank.

If you have a preference for the presidential race, please make sure you vote for that person.  

Just remember – make your voice heard and VOTE!

I remember giving my teachers gifts on the last day of school.  No – it wasn’t to bribe them for good grades, but to thank them for teaching me all year long. They weren’t expensive gifts: a box of candy, a nifty ruler, the proverbial shiny apple. It was a time when kids – and their parents – respected and appreciated teachers. 

Not like today, when students demand good grades (even if they didn’t earn them), and parents accuse teachers of unfair grading and challenge them about topics covered on tests (when the parents don’t like the grades their kids receive).

I’ve always believed that you should always support your child’s teachers.  They’re overworked, underpaid, and bullied by parents and students alike. Besides, when parents and students are respectful and grateful to teachers, this encourages the teachers to become even better teachers.  After all, “praise begets emulation, — a goodly seed to sow among youthful students” – Horace Mann.

So, now that the school year is winding down, spend a moment (and maybe a few bucks to buy a gift) to thank your children’s teachers.  You have no idea how much they’ll appreciate it. 

It’s been 8 years since Jaclyn danced with the competition teams at No Limits Dance and Performing Arts. 

Jaclyn and Kory nailed “I’ll Be” and won 1^st Overall at most of the competitions that year. 

It’s my favorite duet!  Great memories! 

This number was choreographed by Athena Harrah (now Knight) – thanks Athena!