Our society isn’t in a position to give the ultimatum “if you cannot work well with K-12 students you shouldn’t be a teacher”? Really?

No one said distractions are “on the menu” (whatever that means) but if you cannot engage and connect with your students and all that that implies, then no, you should not be a teacher. I’m pretty confident in what I said.

And again, how about we don’t write more brain dead op eds about phones, as if we need another one

Real talk, don’t be a teacher then? If you can’t handle kids owning cell phones, you cannot be a teacher. I’m sorry, but that’s how the world is and educational practices need to catch up

These op eds irritate me. You see them somewhere like three times a year and it’s always some gen x retiree saying the exact same thing as the last one. It’s never needed and always in poor taste. Where is the “good” to a student at WEM who feels like he has to bring a kitchen knife to school to avoid getting jumped after class? Where’s the “good” to the Grafton student who jumped off a bridge in 2018? Where’s the “good” to the students in the stolen car crash on Webster street? How about the classmates of 6 year old Candice who was run over last year? Kids have other problems, don’t waste op eds on this.

This is a rough city to be a kid in, and I don’t see op eds about the harsh reality of most students are up against nearly as much as I see brain dead battle axes wringing their hands about Apple products. Take the kids’ phones away. Go ahead. They’ll still be suffering bullying and domestic violence and homelessness. How focused on their chemistry do you think they’ll be? It’s like, “congrats you took their phones away. I hope that makes you feel like you’ve done a good job”

It’s just in really poor taste to me.

I cannot respect articles like this. If you think cell phone use is the biggest obstacle Worcester students face in their education, you’re a self absorbed idiot not paying attention, or misinformed, or both.

How about a minority majority district with very few teachers that look like them and who can relate to them on a cultural or linguistic level. How about the violence that other students bring on each other. How about the terrible home life some of the kids have. How about the rotting asbestos filled school buildings they sit in every day (looking at you WEM and Columbus Park)

“Telling kids that “back in the day” we only talked to our moms in the office if she called for an emergency fell on deaf ears.”

I wonder why.

Kelly Square is “gentrified” in the sense that there are a lot of new buildings and shops that are more or less owned by people not from the city, but strictly speaking, gentrification implies a population replacement of some kind. There’s no significant population to speak of in Kelly Square. Maybe the old factories that were turned into lofts? They still look nasty anyway. And if you go down Millbury street, there’s no kind of gentrification there. Drug dealers and their houses all down that road. Mostly Hispanic all the way past Quinsig. Ave too. I wouldn’t say Green Island is all the way gentrified. Definitely the tip of the iceberg tho. It’s a complicated scenario, because the new development isn’t replacing anyone per se, as Kelly Square/Polar Park areas of Green Island didn’t have a high population to begin with because the housing simply didn’t exist before. When it does, I wonder how that will change the surrounding areas.

If you want to see current gentrified neighborhoods, you’ll have to look a little bit further north, at downtown. 145 Front St. and The Grid changed the face of downtown, as well as the demographics. Didn’t do the city or its residents many favors, as I haven’t heard great things about either (mostly The Grid).

Kind of sucks because Union Station is the hub of public transportation, and people with cars simply don’t need to live near it the same way low-income families do. In addition, a good indicator in Worcester of gentrification or soon-to-be are the dispensaries. Look where the dispensaries are, and you’ll find gentrification of some kind nearby. Just lost my place near mayflower due to a predatory landlord from out of state.

You want to see “ghetto” areas too, but idk if Worcester has what can actually be called ‘ghettos’ technically speaking. If you want to see low-income neighborhoods with majority renters, then try Millbury St., Union Hill, look around Main South (west side) , and drive around the streets off Vernon-Winthrop or Grafton. You’ll see some rough looking areas. Anywhere between Vernon Hill and Grafton street, but each block is different. Don’t forget to take pictures of Worcester East Middle. That shit is prisonlike. Some of the roads off Shrewsbury street up behind cristoforo colombo might make good photos (especially since the rough areas are so close to a district like Shrewsbury st.) hope this helps.

I’d be down. A third place would be nice. Not sure how it’d work, but sounds fun. Somewhere near city center would probably work best, somewhere easy to go by bus in case a member doesn’t have a car or something

You’ll be seeing me

With every rotary I glide through while neither I nor any other driver in the vicinity uses a turn signal, my heart gets a little bit colder

Look buddy I didn’t make Worcester’s streets this way, Worcester’s streets made me this way. It’s how I learned to drive. I know nothing else. I must drive angry

I fucking hate this

Worcester as a city is struggling to pay rent day by day. I don’t know how people do it

Try Clark University. Centrallyish located and they’d probably be down with the purpose

Maybe, depends on the person, but it’s just not what you’d “have” to do as if there’s no other options

And I will say, the time isn’t that different if you take the Acela. Plus, trains are fun

You can also get there by train. Union Station > Back Bay via commuter rail, and then Amtrak Acela to Washington Union Station. Not sure how much that would cost, but it's doable.

No thanks (: