#not much hits harder than the scene where lane's mom finds out about her secret life

[panharmonium]

Mama, please, the phone.

[lucemferto]

Niki Nihachu & Barbara Kean

Gonna drop something controversial real quick.

Niki Nihachu is the most tragic character on the Dream SMP – and I don’t mean in the sense of her having a tragic story (though she is up there), but in the sense that she is tragically mishandled.

I want to start out by saying that this essay is by no means an attack on the content creator Niki Nihachu or her abilities as a performer. She is frequently one of the strongest actors on the SMP and I have no idea how much of her character writing was within her power. How much of it was improv, how much pre-planned, how much something she genuinely wanted to do and how much stuff she just stumbled into or – in the worst-case scenario – was forced upon her. I don’t know.

The Dream SMP is not very transparent when it comes to their creative process. As such I can only judge it as a discerning viewer and English major dropout, who retained some half-remembered stuff about narratology.

So, a few weeks ago, I tumbled on here that Niki’s character journey reminded me a lot of the character Barbara Kean from the hit TV-show Gotham. Then I got an ask asking me to elaborate. This is the elaboration.

Barbara Kean

So, a quick crash course for people who haven’t seen Gotham (the greatest comic book show on Television, seriously, what are you doing with your life?!): Barbara Kean was a major female character throughout all five seasons of Gotham – and not once during those five seasons did the writers ever figure out what they wanted to do with her.

Every 10-12 episodes or so, Barbara’s role shifted completely. She started out as cop-protagonist Jim Gordon’s girlfriend at home and moral compass, then became part of a bisexual love triangle, then a hard-drinking jealous party girl with a backstory as repressed, lonely rich kid, before being kidnapped by a serial killer and ultimately making her perfect metamorphosis into the psychotic ex-girlfriend trope.

And that was Season 1.

Since then, she became the pseudo-Harley Quinn to the pseudo-Joker, a whip-wielding dominatrix, the obligatory female member in a supervillain squad, some sort of information broker, a mafia kingpin, the leader of a girl-power posse and – my favourite – the reincarnated wife of an ancient immortal who also controls all of Gotham and transferred that control over to her before that plot-point was dropped harder than a half-dead Oswald Cobblepot of the Gotham piers.

Also, she’s Batgirl’s mom.

In short, it’s a mess – but that’s what makes Gotham kinda fun.

Character Cohesion

Now, obviously, Niki’s character journey has not been quite as extreme. But it falls into the same traps, I find. Namely, that there’s just a distinct lack of character cohesion or character continuity.

Now, character cohesion or character continuity doesn’t mean that the arcs these characters undertake can’t be explained in a logical way. Barbara’s character journey is logical in the sense that you can explain it all with in-universe logic – but it’s not logical from a narratological sense now, is it?

Character Cohesion basically means that a character’s journey is reflected in their personal conflict – their Want vs. Need. Their arc is the natural continuation of what was set-up in previous sequences. Everything falls into a whole with Set-up, Confrontation, Resolution – we set up the character’s Want, their Want and Need are conflicting, the Want vs. Need is resolved. Ideally this coincides with the plot beats of the large conflict surrounding the cast.

When you look at Barbara in Season 1 of Gotham, you’re not thinking “This one right here – she’s the reincarnated wife of Ra’s Al Ghul”. Because why would you? There was no set-up; it’s not part of what her character was about in this moment – or any moment before that concept was introduced. It’s not needed for her character conflict (or any thematic conflicts for that matter).

It’s quite transparently just something that is affixed to her so that she has something until the writers come up with the next at which that first thing will dropped, underdeveloped.

Niki in Season 1

Niki follows the same route, unfortunately. She’s set-up as the resistance in L’Manburg, allies herself with Eret and HBomb until – oops – it doesn’t end mattering, because that entire side of the “plot” is completely underdeveloped. Just be a damsel until Wilbur can swoop in and save you, Niki.

Okay, but now she has a big moment with Tommy and Tubbo just after the pit-scene. “We’ll figure something out”, she says. “We need L’Manburg back”. This is all before the backdrop of Wilbur completely giving in to his role as a villain and Techno’s apparent “betrayal”.

So, now, surely, Niki is gonna affect change in Pogtopia and will have some influence on either Tommy or Wilbur, the two people she’s closest to. What’s this? Her biggest contribution is holding a birthday party where Quackity convinces Wilbur to hold off on his TNT-plan? And after that … she’s just gonna be part of the Pogtopia-masses?

Now, I like Wilbur’s writing and Season 1 generally, but when it comes to Niki (and Eret) something went terribly wrong. Both of them provided many a set-up – none of which were taken advantage of, unfortunately.

And, just to be clear, I’m not putting the blame on Niki here (or at least not most of it). Season 1 was pretty firmly in Wilbur’s hand … and Season 2 was a train wreck.

Niki in Season 2

Niki is – for the most part of Season 2 – a nothing character. She has no real conflict, no character beats, no arc. This is because through some unfortunate writing decisions, Season 2 is pretty squarely focused on a specific set of characters – and even fewer of those characters are granted a fully explored, completed character arc.

It all culminates in her Doomsday villain arc – a moment that can be logically explained from both an in-character perspective and a meta-perspective, but unfortunately, it’s not justified from a technical writing point of view.

Niki burning down the L’Mantree is her “Ra’s Al Ghul’s reincarnated wife”-moment. It’s a big statement that put her character on the map for a large part of the audience again. It was a striking visual. It could not be ignored.

Most of that was because it was a stark departure from her characterization in Season 1. Now, such a departure doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. The problem comes in when

a.) The full potential of the character in their previous narrative role had not yet been fully or even partly exhausted

b.) It cuts into an on-going character arc and drastically changes its course

c.) It’s not foreshadowed or developed properly.

And most of those are true for Niki’s character. She was not necessarily underdeveloped but underexplored in Season 1 and had no consistent storyline going on in Season 2. She was a witness to Tommy���s trial, but that was never worked into an on-going storyline for her. No matter how much we retroactively pretend like this turn to villainy, this breakdown, was brewing deep inside of her – there was no foreshadowing.

The reason, why I said it’s understandable from a meta-perspective, is that the content creator Niki Nihachu had a self-admittedly hard time getting her foot in in Season 2 – because Season 2, for as much love as I will heap upon Tommy’s and Dream’s storyline, was a pretty messy.

So, the villain arc was not well foreshadowed and Niki’s turn was developed, but what happened after she was in it?

Niki in Season 3

Well, unfortunately that problem of an inconsistent storyline never really went away for her. In the beginning of Season 3, she hatched her wagons with Jack Manifold, which was a pretty big tonal shift – from darkly tragic to cartoonish villainy.

But as Jack kept developing his character in that lane and following up on big plot development with corresponding character moments, Niki again just … vanished. She then changed gears again, joining the Syndicate – a great idea if only the Syndicate actually streamed together and developed a storyline and group cohesion.

As it stands right now, Niki’s character exists in the negative space of the fandom imaginations. We are given some scraps and good character moments – her sleeping in a jail cell, “I started baking again”, her secret city – but those moments never coalesce into a full-fledged storyline.

Her character’s journey is still as fragmented and underexplored as it ever was. I really hope that – with Wilbur’s revival and the new character conflict that seems to arise from that for her – she manages to finally get the foot in and get the storyline and dynamic arc she deserves.

[edintheclouds]

Who Needs Charters When You Have Public Schools Like These?

Who Needs Charters When You Have Public Schools Like These?

New York Times, April 1 2017.

David L. Kirp APRIL 1, 2017

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Starting in kindergarten, the students in the Union Public Schools district in Tulsa, Okla., get a state-of-the-art education in science, technology, engineering and math. CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

TULSA, Okla. — The class assignment: Design an iPad video game. For the player to win, a cow must cross a two-lane highway, dodging constant traffic. If she makes it, the sound of clapping is heard; if she’s hit by a car, the game says, “Aw.” “Let me show you my notebook where I wrote the algorithm. An algorithm is like a recipe,” Leila, one of the students in the class, explained to the school official who described the scene to me. You might assume these were gifted students at an elite school. Instead they were 7-year-olds, second graders in the Union Public Schools district in the eastern part of Tulsa, Okla., where more than a third of the students are Latino, many of them English language learners, and 70 percent receive free or reduced-price lunch. From kindergarten through high school, they get a state-of-the-art education in science, technology, engineering and math, the STEM subjects. When they’re in high school, these students will design web pages and mobile apps, as well as tackle cybersecurity and artificial intelligence projects. And STEM-for-all is only one of the eye-opening opportunities in this district of around 16,000 students. Betsy DeVos, book your plane ticket now. Ms. DeVos, the new secretary of education, dismisses public schools as too slow-moving and difficult to reform. She’s calling for the expansion of supposedly nimbler charters and vouchers that enable parents to send their children to private or parochial schools. But Union shows what can be achieved when a public school system takes the time to invest in a culture of high expectations, recruit top-flight professionals and develop ties between schools and the community.Continue reading the main story Union has accomplished all this despite operating on a miserly budget. Oklahoma has the dubious distinction of being first in the nation in cutting funds for education, three years running, and Union spends just $7,605 a year in state and local funds on each student. That’s about a third less than the national average; New York State spends three times more. Although contributions from the community modestly augment the budget, a Union teacher with two decades’ experience and a doctorate earns less than $50,000. Her counterpart in Scarsdale, N.Y., earns more than $120,000. “Our motto is: ‘We are here for all the kids,’ ” Cathy Burden, who retired in 2013 after 19 years as superintendent, told me. That’s not just a feel-good slogan. “About a decade ago I called a special principals’ meeting — the schools were closed that day because of an ice storm — and ran down the list of student dropouts, name by name,” she said. “No one knew the story of any kid on that list. It was humiliating — we hadn’t done our job.” It was also a wake-up call. “Since then,” she adds, “we tell the students, ‘We’re going to be the parent who shows you how you can go to college.’ ” Last summer, Kirt Hartzler, the current superintendent, tracked down 64 seniors who had been on track to graduate but dropped out. He persuaded almost all of them to complete their coursework. “Too many educators give up on kids,” he told me. “They think that if an 18-year-old doesn’t have a diploma, he’s got to figure things out for himself. I hate that mind-set.” This individual attention has paid off, as Union has defied the demographic odds. In 2016, the district had a high school graduation rate of 89 percent — 15 percentage points more than in 2007, when the community was wealthier, and 7 percentage points higher than the national average. The school district also realized, as Ms. Burden put it, that “focusing entirely on academics wasn’t enough, especially for poor kids.” Beginning in 2004, Union started revamping its schools into what are generally known as community schools. These schools open early, so parents can drop off their kids on their way to work, and stay open late and during summers. They offer students the cornucopia of activities — art, music, science, sports, tutoring — that middle-class families routinely provide. They operate as neighborhood hubs, providing families with access to a health care clinic in the school or nearby; connecting parents to job-training opportunities; delivering clothing, food, furniture and bikes; and enabling teenage mothers to graduate by offering day care for their infants. Two fifth graders guided me around one of these community schools, Christa McAuliffe Elementary, a sprawling brick building surrounded by acres of athletic fields. It was more than an hour after the school day ended, but the building buzzed, with choir practice, art classes, a soccer club, a student newspaper (the editors interviewed me) and a garden where students were growing corn and radishes. Tony, one of my young guides, performed in a folk dance troupe. The walls were festooned with family photos under a banner that said, “We Are All Family.” This environment reaps big dividends — attendance and test scores have soared in the community schools, while suspensions have plummeted. The district’s investment in science and math has paid off, too. According to Emily Lim, who runs Union’s STEM program, the district felt it was imperative to offer STEM classes to all students, not just those deemed gifted.Photo Students congregate at the start of the Global Gardens after school program at Union Public Schools district’s Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in Oklahoma. CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times In one class, I watched eighth graders create an orthotic brace for a child with cerebral palsy. The specs: The toe must be able to rise but cannot fall. Using software that’s the industry standard, 20 students came up with designs and then plaster of Paris models of the brace. “It’s not unusual for students struggling in other subjects to find themselves in the STEM classes,” Ms. Lim said. “Teachers are seeing kids who don’t regard themselves as good readers back into reading because they care about the topic.” A fourth grader at Rosa Parks Elementary who had trouble reading and writing, for example, felt like a failure and sometimes vented his frustration with his fists. But he’s thriving in the STEM class. When the class designed vehicles to safely transport an egg, he went further than anybody else by giving his car doors that opened upward, turning it into a little Lamborghini. Such small victories have changed the way he behaves in class, his teacher said — he works harder and acts out much less.

Superintendents and school boards often lust after the quick fix. The average urban school chief lasts around three years, and there’s no shortage of shamans promising to “disrupt” the status quo. The truth is that school systems improve not through flash and dazzle but by linking talented teachers, a challenging curriculum and engaged students. This is Union’s not-so-secret sauce: Start out with an academically solid foundation, then look for ways to keep getting better. Union’s model begins with high-quality prekindergarten, which enrolls almost 80 percent of the 4-year-olds in the district. And it ends at the high school, which combines a collegiate atmosphere — lecture halls, student lounges and a cafeteria with nine food stations that dish up meals like fish tacos and pasta puttanesca — with the one-on-one attention that characterizes the district. Counselors work with the same students throughout high school, and because they know their students well, they can guide them through their next steps. For many, going to community college can be a leap into anonymity, and they flounder — the three-year graduation rate at Tulsa Community College, typical of most urban community colleges, is a miserable 14 percent. But Union’s college-in-high-school initiative enables students to start earning community college credits before they graduate, giving them a leg up. The evidence-based pregnancy-prevention program doesn’t lecture adolescents about chastity. Instead, by demonstrating that they have a real shot at success, it enables them to envision a future in which teenage pregnancy has no part. “None of this happened overnight,” Ms. Burden recalled. “We were very intentional — we started with a prototype program, like community schools, tested it out and gradually expanded it. The model was organic — it grew because it was the right thing to do.” Building relationships between students and teachers also takes time. “The curriculum can wait,” Lisa Witcher, the head of secondary education for Union, told the high school’s faculty last fall. “Chemistry and English will come — during the first week your job is to let your students know you care about them.” That message resonated with Ms. Lim, who left a job at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa School of Community Medicine and took a sizable pay cut to work for Union. “I measure how I’m doing by whether a girl who has been kicked out of her house by her mom’s boyfriend trusts me enough to tell me she needs a place to live,” she told me. “Union says, ‘We can step up and help.’ ” Under the radar, from Union City, N.J., and Montgomery County, Md., to Long Beach and Gardena, Calif., school systems with sizable numbers of students from poor families are doing great work. These ordinary districts took the time they needed to lay the groundwork for extraordinary results. Will Ms. DeVos and her education department appreciate the value of investing in high-quality public education and spread the word about school systems like Union? Or will the choice-and-vouchers ideology upstage the evidence?

David L. Kirp is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and a contributing opinion writer.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 2, 2017, on Page SR2 of the New York edition with the headline: What an Ordinary Public School Can Do. Today's Paper

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