This question is inspired by the university of Michigan's grad student union's announcement that it will strike this week. As noted in the university's response Michigan state law prohibits state employees from striking and GEO's contract with UofM (signed in April) has a clause that prohibits work stoppages.

Are strikes performed in violation of the law (state or otherwise) or a contract justified? Why or why not?

I asked a similar question over in ~games and am interested to hear how ~books would respond to the same setup.

Here's the task: pretend you're a professor! You have to do the following:

• Choose a focus for your class on literature (with a snazzy title if you like)
• Choose the books that you, as a professor, will have your class dive into in order to convey key concepts
• Explain why each book you chose ties into your overarching exploration

Your class can have any focus, broad or specific: victorian literature, contemporary poetry, Shakespearean themes in non-Shakespearean works -- whatever you want! It can focus on any forms of literature and does not have to be explicitly limited to "books" if you want to look at some outside-of-the-box stuff (I once took a literature class where we read afternoon, a story, for example.)

After choosing your specific focus, choose what will be included on your syllabus as "required reading" and why you've chosen each item.

Primarily non-US, as there's been a lot of discussion for various places in the States.

In my country (Croatia, EU), nobody knows anything, including the government, and the school year starts in three weeks. With the govt change this summer, and the new ministers enjoying their summer vacations, they only created a "task force" last week, which only met today for a few hours and concluded "there are challenges ahead". The minister in charge "thinks" schools will start normally, and "thinks" masks won't be required, with no straight answers or plans.

Teacher associations, individuals, parent groups have been calling for development of some kind of strategy for weeks (as a tourism-powered 2nd wave hit us), but there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency on the part of govt.

This leaves parents (we'e gor one kid in primary school, other in kindergarten) in total fog, there's no way to prepare. Our family is better placed to handle this due to grandparents around to help and flexible schedule (self employed), but the online school from this spring was a disaster and I don't see a chance of the fall doing any better.

Even with preparations it would be hard, right now looks like it's going to be a disaster.

How is your country (not) coping with these challenges?

(edited to clarify the school year start)

Here's the task: pretend you're a professor! You have to do the following:

• Choose a focus for your class on gaming (with a snazzy title if you like)
• Choose the games that you, as a professor, will have your class dive into in order to convey key concepts
• Explain why each game you chose ties into your overarching exploration

Your class can have any focus, broad or specific: level design in first-person shooters; the history of pixel art; the psychology of non-linear narratives; the use of sound effects in mid-2000 platformers; the limitations of turn-based systems in tabletop strategy games, etc. Anything goes, and any forms of gaming are valid!

After choosing your specific focus, choose games that you would put on your syllabus as a sort of "required playing" for students, and talk about why you've chosen each item and what it brings to the table. If you decide to choose, say, NetHack and The Binding of Isaac for your class on "Roguelikes, Roguelites, and the Fallacy of the Berlin Interpretation", discuss how those particular games illustrate some of the key concepts you want to convey to your learners.

While I'm intending this to be serious and straightforward, I also like the idea of people having fun with it, so feel free to come up with some less serious or more entertaining classes. I'd love to see the outline for course that explored, say, the history of exploding barrels or an investigation of taste levels in the fashion of JRPG outfits.

Admittedly keep education flowing is some corporate language. The only people who care about education are left-wing politicians and the actual teachers, neither of which matter now.

Anyway, my state government is broadcasting classes with 3 subjects from around 2PM to 4-4:20PM. The last subject of the day (3:30PM until the end) is only broadcast on the app they made and their YouTube channel unfortunately. All the classes are uploaded onto YouTube for posterity.

The app they made is mainly a chat, later limited to 15 messages as an attempt to stop copy-pasting from flooding the few meaningful/serious answers (it is a live chat with 20k people in it simultaneously so good riddance), to little avail IIRC. (IIRC because I watch by TV because my battery is limited and the screen is too small to actually copy to a textbook)

The quality is kinda mediocre but nothing bad enough usually. One time it was a 4:3 480p clip with interlacing, which is based until you start caring.

They are also sending us "handouts" (apostilas, PT-BR to English) and the normal state tests every bimester.

As for the teachers, they have sent us pretty much the full student workload via Google PDFs on WhatsApp, which is the opposite of private, but privacy is hardly possible when you're Brazilian and likely don't even have an up-to-date (defined as less than 5 years old ^LMAO ) PC. They haven't done any zoom/meet chats to teach us stuff however, since that's kind of the purpose of the TV/YouTube broadcast.

Not leaving the house much these days (due to social distancing and also insane heat in NYC right now) means I've got some time to kill that I'd like to spend productively.

I took MIT 6.00.2x: Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science a few years back when I was refreshing my Python skills. I think it's been updated a bit since then. It was a high quality course and I enjoyed it, though there are so many Python-related courses these days, I can't guarantee it's the best.

I'm currently taking:

1. Model Thinking on Coursera from the University of Michigan. I don't know where I saw this recommended (maybe on Tildes or Hacker News?) but it's quite good so far. Scott Page teaches about how to use various models (mental models, computational ones, etc.) for breaking down and analyzing various problems and systems. I've only just started but I quite like it.

2. Testing and Monitoring Machine Learning Model Deployments on Udemy. Taking this along with a few coworkers since it's relevant to what I do. Only just starting but appears to be quite good and works through a well-documented example project on Github.

I've also come across a few that seem like they might be good courses for the future:

• Bayesian Methods for Hackers
• Probalistic graphical models on Coursera (3-part sequence, not free)
• Computational probability and inference

Now your turn: what have you taken? What did you like or not like, and why? What do you want to take?

I'm a teacher in the US, and the question of whether schools reopen is very much still up in the air (and location dependent). However, I heard some internal talk from my district that looks like they are, at present, leaning towards a partial reopening that will likely have me back in the building, in-person, with a room of students in the fall.

Assuming this is the case, I want to prepare now. I'm operating on the following assumptions:

1. Provisions from the school and district will (allegedly) meet a certain minimum, but there is an effective maximum beyond those measures that I can independently pursue.

2. Until the virus's spread is contained, the likelihood of someone who is infected with COVID-19 being in my room is non-negligible.

As such, I'm looking to maximize the safety of myself and others in my room as much as possible. I'm looking for guidance in the following areas:

1. What are the best, legitimate masks I can get for myself? N95s are out of stock everywhere, or, if they're in stock, they're from sketchy sources that are almost certainly selling fakes.

2. What are the best masks I can get for students? They are supposed to be bringing their own, and I assume our school will have something in place for kids without them, but if for whatever reason a child makes it to my class without a mask (or breaks theirs or something like that), I'd like to have extras on hand for them.

3. Is there any other PPE I should look into? Gloves, facemasks, robes, etc. I don't mind wearing whatever will keep me and others safe, even if it looks ridiculous. On the other hand, I don't want to go overboard either.

4. Where can I get bulk hand sanitizer and/or cleaning wipes? These also seem to be widely out of stock. Also, are there types/brands that are more effective than one another?

5. Is there anything else I should stock up on now? I'm worried about a run on already low supplies once schools announce reopening plans.

6. What best practices should I employ while in the classroom setting? I want to protect myself and the kids in my room as much as possible. Anything that I can control to reduce risk (e.g. procedures, ventilation, etc.) I want to implement.

7. What level of risk am I potentially putting myself in? I need some straight talk here. Be as transparent as possible with me about the reality of what I'm potentially facing.

8. Is there anything else I need to know or do in advance of the school year starting? I've got time to prepare. I want to make sure I do whatever I can now. Even if it turns out in hindsight that I overprepared, I'll be happier knowing I did everything I could rather than being in a position where I wish I had done more.

Also I should note that I am willing to pay for quality. I don't want to put my life in the hands of the cheapest options out there. As much as I resent the idea that I would have to pay for any of this myself, I'm not about to gamble on this.

My feelings are a bit mixed as there are painful consequences on both sides of the equation. However, I ultimately feel that schools in their current set up cannot work in the current environment and shouldn't be re-opened. The likelihood of the virus spreading and killing grandparents, parents, and teachers is guaranteed. But I feel like the US has to address the negative consequences of kids staying at home. What that would look like, I'm not 100% sure. I don't even think you can apply a set of guidelines that would fit every situation out there.

Some things that I think would work in some areas:

• Open air schools
• Cafeteria food delivery to students on free, or reduced lunch.
• School-provided internet hot spots (I think this is being provided for already in some places)
• Traveling teachers- teachers providing some sort of in-person check ups on students, especially those that are at-risk.
• Schools move towards being open in the Spring, Summer, and partial Fall, with Winter break replacing Summer break.
• Schools partially re-open, with 1/5th the students coming in on one day a week.

Would really be interested in hearing the thoughts and ideas of others on this topic. Especially the people who work in the education field.