Best Of MetaFilter

Clifford Dale Rinear was a carpenter. No word on whether he incited any riots.

Mudpuppie exercises her sleuthing skills and shares some post-HS bios of the 1911 Spokane High School Yearbook students.

Caution: School Lunch by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (cc by)

Some interesting insights from elsietheheel and Eyebrows McGee, among others, in the Cafeteria Wars school lunch thread. Also, isn't there a better term besides "lunch ladies"? Why, Yes, yes there is.

198.365 a box full of letters addressed to me, #363 in explore by ashley rose, (cc by-nc-nd)

On a sunny January morning at the Burggymnasium Altena, Herr Hohage instructed us to close the blinds on our floor to ceiling windows. The day before, we had asked him how people could be taken in by [Hitler]. He intended to demonstrate.

In the Hitler practice photos thread, MissySedai recalls her time as a young exchange student in Germany, a shattering classroom lesson on the persuasive power of Adolf Hitler, and the letters home that processed the pain.

My 6th Grade Teacher: Mrs Grace by dok1 (cc by)

Seattle area MeFite femmegrrr gives us the inside scoop on why a school's teachers are boycotting a standardized test

This is not about school testing. This about an expensive, useless, misused test originally purchased under unethical circumstances. And about fabulous, heroic teachers doing their jobs -- standing up for their students.

Hanging Around by hellosputnik (cc by)

MetaFilter member Eyebrows McGee sits on a school expulsion board and has to face difficult decisions each day:

But fully half of the expulsions I processed in this batch read, "No one appeared on behalf of the student." Not ONE ADULT in the ENTIRE WORLD was willing to show up for an 11-year-old's expulsion hearing. No parents, no grandparent, no relative, no guardian, no pastor, no social worker, no employer or neighbor or coach. Not one adult for a 15-year-old on track to graduate who was in the first trouble of his career (the principal expelling him (properly, under the rules) asked us to give him a suspended sentence, which lets him stay at school as long as he doesn't screw up again, because he's a good kid).

Student in Class by Tulane Public Relations (cc by)

In a thread about apologizing to grade school teachers many years after the fact, member Navelgazer tells the story of an impromptu popularity contest that had the potential to hurt the least popular kids, but thanks to their amazing teacher, it got turned around:

Anyway, the next day, the last day, he's giving us the speech about having never taught a class nearly as gifted as this one, the speech every teacher gives, but this time it's utterly 100% sincere, and he's near tears, and there's just good feelings going all around, which must be how we convinced him to let us do the thought experiment with our classmates.

I don't know at what point it dawned on him just how cruelly awful an idea that was, but by then we had control over the classroom and there was seemingly nothing he could do about it.