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Josh Knox

Just Joshin' #129 (School Days)

Published 6 days ago • 6 min read

1 Family Photo:
Picture Day

Calvin's picture day pictures were taken by Lifetouch. Lifetouch is a school photography and yearbook company. They were acquired by Shutterfly in 2018. Shutterfly is a previously-public online picture company. They were acquired by Appolo Global Management for $3 Billion in 2019. Appolo Global management is a private equity firm with $600 Billion in assets under management.

Lifetouch makes it fantastically easy to purchase picture day photos. There's a 30% off $60 early bird special weeks before picture day. There's a 50% off $90 last minute special the night before picture day. On picture day itself, I was able to purchase Calvin's photo package through their mobile enable website using my phone and a credit card.

Buying picture day pictures includes selecting quantities and sizes of printed photos, as well as choosing from a list of add-ons. Do you want your child's photos touched up? Perhaps professionals can airbrush any early-onset signs of age from around your kindergartener's eyes. Do you want the plain blue school-picture backdrop? Maybe we can spice things up with a retro laser background for a nominal surcharge? Wait! Before you confirm your order...do you want keychains?

I bought the base package. No add-ons.

We got Calvin's school pictures back this week. The results disappointed my low expectations.

I won't be posting Calvin's picture day picture here. My philosophy on sharing children's photos with the internet is that they are fine to share as long as they respect the dignity of the child. Posting awkward/embarrassing photos doesn't respect the dignity of the child.

I took the picture above when I dropped Calvin off at school on the morning of picture day. It's a bit blurry—I don't have the latest iPhone and the lighting wasn't great.

In fairness to Lifetouch, the picture day photo they sent us is well-lit and in focus. Their picture has Calvin appropriately framed and looking directly into the camera.

But where Calvin looks happy and confident in my photo, in the Lifetouch photo Calvin just looks confused—as if somebody told him to smile, but he'd never in his life had anybody teach him how to smile. So instead, he just sort of stuck out his bottom teeth like a puppy with an underbite.

I'm not upset. Portrait photography is difficult. Working with kids is difficult. A subject's smile is only one of many things the photographer is working to get right, along with lighting, and focus, and framing, and aperture, and I guess touching up any skin blemishes in post-production if you pay for that particular add-on. Also, as a stranger how can the photographer even know if a given child is capable of smiling?

A consequence of providing school photography at society-wide scale is there are fewer chances to capture a particular child's smile than there are with a persistent dad and an outdated iPhone. At least I have my personal picture day photo—which might not go in the yearbook, but it's the one we'll be putting on the fridge.

--

I think there's a metaphor for public education in here. Or maybe it's just an anecdote about public education.

1 Dad Joke:
Library Day

Calvin's class got to check out their first books from the school library this week. Calvin chose a book on polar bears.

The book had polar bear one-liners sprinkled in between polar bear facts.

Imagine these jokes told by an AI-generated polar bear comic:

How do polar bears stay cold?
​They turn on the bear conditioning!

Where do polar bears keep their money?
​In snow banks.

Why do polar bears have fur coats?
​Because they look silly in jackets!

What do polar bears eat for lunch?
​Ice berg-ers!

What is a polar bear's favorite breakfast?
​Ice Crispies!

What do you call a bear with no teeth?
​A gummy bear!

Highlights:
Thinking Day

​The Magic Of Critical Thinking: How To Make Better Decisions by Paul Millerd​

People say “you go to school to learn how to think” but show no evidence that this happens. We assume critical thinking happens at work but we can’t explain how we do it. How is something so central to the way we live in the modern world so poorly understood? What do we mean by “critical thinking” and how one might improve such a skill?

​The EduSkeptic's Guidebook 1.0 by Freddie deBoer​

In a document that appears to have disappeared from their website, the neoliberal reform shop RAND Education once stated: "Some research suggests that, compared with teachers, individual and family characteristics may have four to eight times the impact on student achievement. But policy discussions focus on teachers because it is arguably easier for public policy to improve teaching than to change students’ personal characteristics or family circumstances."

​Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here? by Mark Edmundson​

I was about to go off to college, a feat no one in my family had accomplished in living memory. “I think I might want to be pre-law,” I told my father. I had no idea what being pre-law was. My father compressed his brow and blew twin streams of smoke, dragon-like, from his magnificent nose. “Do you want to be a lawyer?” he asked. My father had some experience with lawyers, and with policemen, too; he was not well-disposed toward either. “I’m not really sure,” I told him, “but lawyers make pretty good money, right?”
​
My father detonated. (That was not uncommon. My father detonated a lot.) He told me that I was going to go to college only once, and that while I was there I had better study what I wanted. He said that when rich kids went to school, they majored in the subjects that interested them, and that my younger brother Philip and I were as good as any rich kids. (We were rich kids minus the money.)​
...
​Education has one salient enemy in present-day America, and that enemy is education—university education in particular. To almost everyone, university education is a means to an end. For students, that end is a good job. Students want the credentials that will help them get ahead. They want the certificate that will give them access to Wall Street, or entrance into law or medical or business school. And how can we blame them? America values power and money, big players with big bucks. When we raise our children, we tell them in multiple ways that what we want most for them is success—material success. To be poor in America is to be a failure—it’s to be without decent health care, without basic necessities, often without dignity. Then there are those back-breaking student loans—people leave school as servants, indentured to pay massive bills, so that first job better be a good one. Students come to college with the goal of a diploma in mind—what happens in between, especially in classrooms, is often of no deep and determining interest to them.
...
​So, if you want an education, the odds aren’t with you: The professors are off doing what they call their own work; the other students, who’ve doped out the way the place runs, are busy leaving the professors alone and getting themselves in position for bright and shining futures; the student-services people are trying to keep everyone content, offering plenty of entertainment and building another state-of-the-art workout facility every few months. The development office is already scanning you for future donations. The primary function of Yale University, it’s recently been said, is to create prosperous alumni so as to enrich Yale University.

​Patrick McKenzie (@Patio11) on Twitter​

Two occasional hobbyhorses of mine intersecting: the necessity of creating certain UXes which are broadly useable by population and the existence of a large contingent of users who cannot read in the sense that you read.​
...
This difficulty is not made easier by a resistance in many places to saying forthrightly “We need to revise this form to account for a user who is far less literate than anyone in this room” because saying that out loud is more insulting than denying existence or public benefits.

iamJoshKnox Highlight:

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​iamJoshKnox​​

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Josh Knox

Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇

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