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Post by kewpie on Apr 14, 2014 11:40:33 GMT -5
>his is one example for which race did seem to matter: white parents are at least twice as likely as black and Latino parents to request a specific teacher. <
Just because some asked for a specific teacher, doesn't mean that they get the teacher. At my children elementary school, they repeatedly told parents NOT to ask for any specific teacher.
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Post by keepthefaith on Apr 14, 2014 12:24:16 GMT -5
At both elementary and middle - you are not allowed to ask for a specific teacher either; nor a change in teachers which is why I was curious how people manage to do this too!
As for the race example, I don't agree with the author given our experience - where I live (very diverse population adn school) it's a moot matter but I am sure it's relevant for some in the US (and that is a shame). M
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 14, 2014 14:21:35 GMT -5
Although schools generally don't want people (parents) to make specific teacher requests, they generally will accept parental input if it's done in a respectful, thoughtful way. For example, at my son's school for 5th grade, it was well-known (by involved parents) that one of the teachers was very demanding; she spoke very "properly," and had a personal interest in classic literature, and enjoyed giving numerous written assignments. My ADHD, dyslexic, dysgraphic son only half-jokingly said he'd rather die than have her, and she likely would have been frustrated having him in the classroom, too. What I did in the spring of the preceding year was to send a letter to the principal that expressed how my son was a "hands-on learner," who had a strong interest in non-fiction topics of math and science. I noted how previous placements with patient and flexible teachers who embraced interactive classroom approaches seemed to optimize his learning, and how he benefited by being in an environment where clear but not rigid expectations were given. I'm not sure if my letter did the trick, or if he would've been assigned to a different teacher regardless, but the good news was he didn't end up in the other classroom!
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Post by michellea on Apr 15, 2014 17:06:35 GMT -5
When it comes to homework, my kids know (knew) that I expect them to do it, I hope they don't wait until the last minute, and they own it. I've already passed whatever grade they happen to be in, and their teachers don't need to know whether or not I can do the work. Teachers are interested in my kids' skills. That said, I do help in these ways: 1. I'll review my son's papers (if he asks) for spelling, readability and grammar. I've told him that, "for the rest of his life, he needs to employ the strategy of having an adult who can spell look at his writing" - his spelling is at the 4th percentile and he is unable to produce written work with accurate spelling. 2. I'll help shop for project supplies (and pay for them). 3. I'll read directions or questions if asked. 4. I'll help study/quiz if asked. 5. I'll hire a tutor if you need one. 6. I'll encourage after school help.
Luckily, both my kids are very diligent at completing homework, making up work, trying to get along with their teachers. I have talked with them about the importance of getting on a teacher's "good side", and they have learned first hand the rewards a good reputation reaps. They are not super high achievers, but they have gained the respect of their teachers and this goes a long way to opening doors.
I have not asked for a particular teacher, but when given the chance have described what would be an appropriate teacher. For the most part, my kids had good teachers in critical subjects. There were a few here and there that were weak, but part of life is dealing with less than idea situations.
As far as my clients - Almost everyday I tell one of them to stop doing their kid's homework. The fall out from intense involvement can lead to drama, anxiety, family conflict, and a false data that ultimately the school uses against the student. Parent find it very difficult to lay off of homework help.
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Post by jisp on Apr 15, 2014 17:48:55 GMT -5
Some humor about this regarding Michellea's list. When my daughter was in 5th grade she supposedly asked me to help her study for a spelling test. I am dyslexic. Apparently I corrected her even though she spelled the word right and my correction was wrong. After that she never asked me to help her with spelling.
Also I just want to add that there is a fine line between "helping" and supporting. I went to a funeral this winter of the most wonderful man. He was a well known child psychologist. I did not know him professionally instead I knew him as a close family friend who I always could count on for give great advice. At his funeral one of his granddaughter's got up and talked. She is now in her 30s and she spoke about how she remembers coming home one spring break and having a paper to write. The paper was not happening. It was for a philosophy class and she was completely blank about what to write or even where to begin. Her parents tried to help her but that only ended up with her getting angry and feeling even more frustrated. Then her grandfather showed up. Instead of trying to "help her" he sat in her room and asked her to talk about her philosophy class and the readings she had done for the class. The two of them talked for almost an hour, but the need to write a paper was never discussed. But by the time her grandfather left the room, she knew exactly what she was going to write about and how she was going to approach writing the paper for her class. Gerry didn't sit down and work with his granddaughter to create an outline and organize her ideas, but he supported her in her own growth and his approach empowered her and showed her that she could indeed write a college level philosophy paper.
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Post by vp4 on Apr 16, 2014 20:06:37 GMT -5
Should I stay out of it when my son doesn't do any make up homework? Two weeks ago, he was home with stomach ache for a whole week. So, he missed an entire week of classes. But he was well enough to go shopping with his mom, etc. I knew he was milking it. But didn't say anything after biting my lip. Don't want to piss off the emperor even more, especially during the divorce. When he left for the school last week, I told him to get with his teachers and get caught up and finish all homework that was due during the week when he was home. He did so with all except for Spanish. So, I asked what is going on with Spanish. He responded that he didn't have worksheets to do the homework. I asked him if he talked to the teacher. No response. I told him to talk with his teacher. Still hasn't done it per the teacher. Of course, being the hovering parent, I am annoyed. Tell me I should stay out, because I am about to grab his neck when he comes home Friday for the long weekend. I am not happy with the never ending lack of motivation. I am trying let him fail, etc., but I can't help myself. And I am 99% sure now, that he is not going back to boarding next year. I am done with that. Things are going to get a lot "worse" for him. I will move to where his school is and he will live with me (unless of course his mother blocks it in court). Why can't he understand the gift he is getting with this private school education and make the best of it!!
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 16, 2014 20:52:37 GMT -5
"Why can't he understand the gift he is getting with this private school education and make the best of it!!"
Because he is a teen, and NOT a mature adult yet. I know your son's behaviors upset you, and I'm not trying to tell you to be happy about them, but adolescence really is a better time for him to learn for himself what consequences can be for making some of his own choices, including choosing not to do his Spanish homework. As hard as it is, try to look at the positives, which is that he did get caught up on all else except the Spanish. It's so much better than not having done any.
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Post by vp4 on Apr 16, 2014 22:01:29 GMT -5
I can't allow him to go on this way. I have sold my retirement funds to pay for this school. I feel like the sacrifice I am making deserves better response. It cost me about $18K in tax penalties alone for ealry withdrawal, to pay for his tuition. Tuition was 50K. I don't even want to think about how much 68K in a 401K could grow in 20 years. I guarantee you, he is going to spend 90% of his awake time on youtube this weekend. He needs a kick in the pants and then I am going to let him do what he wants rest of the year, hoping he learned a lesson. Then I will decide if I should continue to sacrifice my future financial freedom for him or not. I just can't think like you all do, even though what you say makes sense. I can't imagine this kid learning from even an F, not that he will get one. I keep thinking about everything you all say and tell myself "let him fail and he will learn from it" but I don't believe for one second he will learn anything from it.
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Post by jisp on Apr 17, 2014 6:52:32 GMT -5
It is interesting how parenting challenges and themes reappear. I volunteer as a support person for another organization and this week a parent there was dealing with a similar feeling, but around a different subject. The feeling you are having VP4 is of resentment. We all resent our children at various points in their lives. Even parents of those "perfect" kids get frustrated with all the sacrifice it takes to raise a child and how the child (or rather more often teen) seems completely self-absorbed and unwilling to appreciate that their caregivers are giving up things to help them along the path to adulthood. In my own experience and in the experience of many of my the parents I have helped or worked with over the years the "thank you" doesn't come until the child's brain is almost fully developed around age 23. So you have some time.
I see nothing wrong with telling a child that you need to see them make an effort if they want to remain at their current private school. That is not letting him fail, but that is making it clear to him that he is being given an opportunity that he should value.
I think a lot of parents think that learning from their mistakes means allowing them to get an F and then watching as their child suddenly finds their inner motivation and goes from being a slacker to a type A student. Sadly it doesn't work that way, except in movies and story books. More likely your child will get an F and he will seem non-plussed. He might not care about the grade and continue doing what he is doing. But the F sends a strong message about who he is and how his actions impact him. He might decide he does not care about grades and at that point you as his dad will have to accept that, just like you will have to accept a whole range of choices your son will make as a young adult that you might not approve of 100%. But the thing is sometime in the future your son might need good grades to do something he cares about and he will remember what happened when he didn'tt manage his time the way he should. On the other hand if you interfere that lesson will not get learned and if your son does not achieve a personal goal in the future rather than evaluating ways he contributed to his failure he will blame those around for him for not holding him up.
Finally the divorce you are going through is obviously not amicable. I am sorry. That can be so stressful. It is also very stressful on teens. Is your son getting any regular therapy or help to assist him during this difficult time? I can't imagine the power he must feel being able to make you feel angry and resentful by NOT doing his school work while he is also able to have fun and make his mom happy while going shopping with her. That is a lot of power for a young person to have. This is one reason why divorce can have such a big impact on kids. If you and your ex can not get on the same parenting page then I strongly recommend that you give your son some tools to help him navigate this complex adult world. It will help him once he is an adult and is trying to form his own relationships.
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 17, 2014 8:10:44 GMT -5
vp4, earlier in this discussion thread you said that your son had a 3.65 GPA, and last year he had a 3.95; you also mentioned that he wants a career in Engineering.
My husband and I were both exceptional students when we were in school, however we have no learning differences. It took time for us had both to accept that our "2e - twice exceptional" son, even with a high IQ that can qualify him for MENSA (he did not want to join), was never going to place the same "priority" on grades that we did. I thought he spent too much time playing video games when he was younger, too. His high school grades ranged from A's to D's, with an overall B average. He still got accepted to all 7 universities we applied to (though they were not "Ivy League") He graduated from college with his Electrical Engineering degree last May, with only a 2.8 GPA. Do we feel he was capable of more? Yes. Did it prevent him from getting a job with a good company? No. He is financially independent in terms of paying for his own apartment, food, clothing, cars (and motorcycles) and insurance, etc. although he defers to us for dealing with some details, like what to invest his 401(k) in. I suspect he stills spends a lot of his "free time" on the computer, because I see the multitude of stupid You Tube videos that my son forwards to my husband, but it is his life, and even though he's not "fully mature" by our standards, he's come a long way from his teen years.
Jisp has given you good advice about trying to ensure your son has appropriate emotional support during this difficult time; I would encourage you to contact someone like a family therapist for your own support, as well.
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Post by vp4 on Apr 17, 2014 21:52:25 GMT -5
jisp, this has nothing to do with the divorce. His mom and I haven't gotten along in nearly a decade. We had been constantly at odds about what to do with his LDs. We haven't told him anything about divorce yet. All these years, he had said "Mom, why don't you love dad?" one time and nothing more. I know it pains him but there is nothing I can do. I had stayed in this "marriage" to lessen the hurt he will feel while he and I battle the LDs. Parents of his best friend are going through a divorce now and his buddy has not been keeping in contact regularly. That probably bothers him. We are going to let him know when everything is done with.
healthy, what are some good engineering schools? I am thinking Drexel, Univ of Wisconsin, Univ of Illinois, the Univ of California schools, etc. I may have to look for smaller schools so that he doesn't get overwhelmed. Engineering was more my idea but he has gotten around to liking that path. I had told him I will support if he wanted to go in another direction. At this time he has no idea or inclination to find out about the various displines in Engineering. I am trying to expose him to them by taking him to Engineering fairs and in summer he will take Introductory Engineering online class at Brown. I tried to explain being an Engineer myself but he rolled his eyes and that is a sign for me shut up. It is probably too early to worry about the discipline anyway.
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 17, 2014 22:56:31 GMT -5
vp4, there are tons of good engineering schools beyond just the M.I.T./Stanford's of the world. You mentioned some, but there are so many more, like Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, and Purdue, just to name a few. No matter what, it's important to be sure the program is accredited by ABET ( www.abet.org/accreditation/ ) One thing I'm concerned about is that some universities have great reputations in particular areas (such as Embry-Riddle for Aeronautical Engineering, UNLV for Entertainment Engineering and Design, Missouri Science & Technology University for Explosives Engineering, U. Mass Lowell for Plastics Engineering, University of Maryland for Fire Protection Engineering) but if your son isn't really sure that he wants to major in Engineering to begin with, then it probably doesn't make sense for him to attend one of them. In fact, any university that has "...Institute of Technology" as part of its name, including some of the well-regarded smaller ones for undergraduates, like Rose Hulman, may not give him enough alternative options for majors other than STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). From what you've described about your son, and his keen interest in computer/electronic gaming, not to mention the strong demand for software programmers, I really wonder if your son might find his "niche" doing that as an eventual career? It's a good thing to expose him to Engineering Fairs but some colleges even offer "summer camp" experiences, such as www.purdue.edu/summercamps/engineering.html or undergraduate.rutgers.edu/for-parents/pre-college-programs ; while the "Intro to Engineering" online class is probably better than nothing, the chance to be with other kids and using actual labs, etc. can make a much better impression.
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Post by bros on Apr 17, 2014 23:54:51 GMT -5
Rutger's has a pretty good engineering department - but it is rather large, with freshman and sophomore level classes in the hundreds of people
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Post by jisp on Apr 18, 2014 6:05:19 GMT -5
VP4, Even if you are not divorced just yet and even if the marital disagreement has been going on for a decade the simple fact that your son can illicit such different reactions in his two parents needs to be addressed. You say you know it pains him and there is nothing you can do, but that is not the case. There is something you can do!!! By providing your son with somebody to talk to who can help your son handle the pain and understand it so that it does not impact other areas of his own life, you will be giving him a life skill. Children look to their parents as role models for everything, including marriage and relationships. Your son is watching everything you and your wife do and will incorporate that into his daily life as he grows older. It will impact how he collaborates with peers, handles a difficult boss, presents himself for an interview, treats a partner, parents etc….Few of us are perfect role models. We all have faults. When those faults are out in the open and talked about children do much better moving forward into adulthood. Awareness can give them more control over their actions and empower them to become better. Getting therapeutic help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength because it means that a child can label dysfunctional behaviors and exchange them for more functional ones. Your own marriage might not survive, but your son can be empowered to move on and not feel as though his parents problems are his problem.
Engineering is a broad field. And the early engineering curriculum at many schools can be grueling. Taking an online course is challenging for a middleschool/HS student. It requires self-discipline and there is the challenge of not having a mentor or person to talk to when you do not understand anything. I agree with healthy that doing a summer program where your son can get exposed to a wide range of engineering type activities might help. There are some wonderful camps out there that expose kids to the hands-on part of many careers and those camps can become real motivators for kids like yours. It is awfully late to sign up for these camps but it is always worth calling to see if they have an opening. Explorations at Wellesley College (and St Johns School in CT) is one such program.
One type of program many people do not know about is that there are some small liberal arts schools such as Clark University and Wheaton College in Norton MA (Not to be confused with the other Wheaton in IL) that have partnerships with Engineering programs. Clark has a partnership with Columbia and Wheaton with Dartmouth. Students at these schools do an extra year at the engineering school and then graduate with a BS and a BA. The nice part about these two schools is they are both LD friendly so if your son still needed accommodations and support he could start off in a nurturing environment. Keep in mind in order to participate in the engineering program a student has to get good grades and have recommendations from his professors.
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Post by michellea on Apr 18, 2014 10:36:13 GMT -5
I concur that finding someone to help your son process his family situation, develop self awareness and adaptive skills will be the best gift you can give your son - even more important than the academic ones. Beyond that, if he is considering a career in engineering, UMass Amherst has an interesting 2 week engineering summer college program that is designed to give him a peek into the engineering options, academic rigor and college life in general. www.umass.edu/summercollege/summer-engineering-institute Admission is rolling. Beyond the Engineering, he could also choose to study other fields such as Forensic Chemistry, Astronomy, Digital Forensics to name a few. While there he'd stay in the Honors college dorms with high school students enrolled in the Summer College program. He may not be thinking of UMass as a college of choice, but the program could still be helpful to understand what is out there. Like Clark and Wheaton, UMass will accept accommodations. www.umass.edu/summercollege/summer-engineering-institute
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Post by vp4 on Apr 18, 2014 12:28:15 GMT -5
Thanks for all the useful info. I am considering also to send him to enrichment classes during the summer. About 6 weeks of Physics, Pre-calculus and Biology (all classes he will take next year) to give him some leg up on next year's hard work. I will probably have to postpone an onsite summer program introducing him to Engineering till next summer. I primary looked at Brown, RPI which have classes to introduce high school students to Engineering. Glad to see there are more options out there. He might still do an online class at Brown this summer. I know it looks like a busy schedule. He will still have 4 weeks to sit on his a*s and watch youtube. Probably this summer is also a time to get him started on ACT Prep. (not taking SAT because of his difficulties with LA and he bombed in PSAT)
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Post by jisp on Apr 18, 2014 20:30:44 GMT -5
vp4- remember your son is still a child. I know he might not look like a child but he is. I remember my daughter (who is in her 20s) driving by the high school and saying to me, "Oh they are babies". It sounds like you are expecting your son to do a lot of academic work over the summer. But making your son do more academic work in hopes that it will motivate him and result in him being less "lazy" is not necessarily going to result in a child who is motivated and determined to achieve and do his best. From reading your posts it sounds like you are frustrated with your son's lack of motivation. In my experience children who are pushed to do academic work without having an inner drive to do the academic work often burn out in college and that is something no parent wants.
So rather than pushing your son to do more of the same, why not indulge the thing he is interested in. Find a film class…. set him up so he can make his own Youtube videos…..have him meet people who are working to make TV and movies a reality. Expose him to all the potential that is out there for him. Once he sees what is out there, he will then realize what skills and education he needs to succeed in that area and you might be surprised at what your boy can achieve on his own without his father micromanaging course of study.
I am not sure how much you know about my own son and his story. My son had a variety of significant learning challenges. He also suffered from some serious mental health issues. Although we had provided him with tons of remediation over the years by the time our son entered HS he was defeated and unmotivated and depressed. We brought him to a tutor who told us that he could not work with our son because our son had no desire to learn from him. Several schools even told us they could not educate him. More than one adult called our son "Lazy" and us-the parents "enablers". Michellea, who participates here even came to one of our nightmare IEP meetings where some blamed our son and us for his struggles. Now eventually we were lucky and we found a wonderful cognitive psychologist who was able to help our son learn how to learn. But what really got our son motivated was when we sent him on a program called SEA (www.sea.edu) one summer for 2 weeks. SEA combines academic learning with hands on experiential learning on a tall-ship sailing vessel that goes out into the ocean and does science. SEA is at woods hole and while attending the program the students go to visit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's labs, climb into a submersible, go on a navy research vessel and more. Our son came back from that with a new sense of purpose. He saw that real scientists did not sit at desks all day taking notes and writing, but were out in the world doing things. He saw that there were skills that successful scientists had that were skills he had. He saw his own potential beyond the classroom that was frustrating him so much. After that summer our son was unstoppable. He found a way to learn what he needed to learn. He invested energy into learning how to learn. By the time he went off to college he was driven and determined to succeed. And the more he succeeded the easier success got and the more confident he became. He graduates in a few weeks. And this boy who had not managed to pass Algebra 2 by his senior year in HS was admitted to top Group 1 Phd Programs in Mathematics. He has an NSF RTG grant and will be studying mathematical biology with one of the top people in the field he is interested in.
Your son's time this summer would be better spent getting his mental health in order and then exploring career paths and things he enjoys outside the classroom and in the real world. He needs to live life to see why the classwork is so important. Otherwise the classwork will just be tedious and something he does to please his father and not something he wants to do for himself so he can be the person he wants to be.
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Post by kewpie on Apr 21, 2014 9:55:46 GMT -5
>remember your son is still a child. I know he might not look like a child but he is.< So true. teens with learning challenges tend to think and behave 2-4 years below their chronological age. I have to remember this when I deal with my own overgrown children. Big body does not equal big brain.
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Post by SharonF on Apr 21, 2014 10:08:19 GMT -5
I know little about engineering. But I have seen the value of summer programs or gap year programs that healthy and jisp describe so well. Another program with apparently a good summer program is Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. www.stevens.edu/sit/My niece, who's from the western side of the U.S., went to a summer program at Stevens while in high school. She applied to and was accepted at several big name universities with well-known engineering programs. But she chose to go to Stevens because of her great experience during their summer program. Her major is bio-medical engineering. Parents mean well. But we often cannot spark motivation within our own kids. In fact, the harder we try to push our kids, the more they seem to ignore our efforts and advice. Often, the spark and motivation for our kids' success comes from hands-on experiences which are far more rewarding than the daily grind of classwork and even enrichment classes.
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Post by bros on Apr 21, 2014 11:37:15 GMT -5
I know little about engineering. But I have seen the value of summer programs or gap year programs that healthy and jisp describe so well. Another program with apparently a good summer program is Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. www.stevens.edu/sit/My niece, who's from the western side of the U.S., went to a summer program at Stevens while in high school. She applied to and was accepted at several big name universities with well-known engineering programs. But she chose to go to Stevens because of her great experience during their summer program. Her major is bio-medical engineering. Parents mean well. But we often cannot spark motivation within our own kids. In fact, the harder we try to push our kids, the more they seem to ignore our efforts and advice. Often, the spark and motivation for our kids' success comes from hands-on experiences which are far more rewarding than the daily grind of classwork and even enrichment classes. Stevens is amazing from what I have heard - for the summer program and as an engineering school. My uncle went there in the 80s and studied electrical/computer engineering. In the 2000s, my uncle invented some large scale projector switching system that Disney bought for a million dollars. My uncle invested the money after paying off his condo and car, then he kept working, and when the economy crashed, what was left of the million dropped quite a bit.
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Post by empeg1 on Apr 21, 2014 23:37:03 GMT -5
The other thing that I found with my youngest is that her spark and interest in learning began in college. It is at university that she has explored new fields, taken classes because of intellectual curiosity and where I see she applies her efforts to the max. High school was a grind to her.
Remember too that one does not have to attend a tier 1, big name school to succeed. A neighbor's son attended a state college in California, a small one near the Oregon border. The son studied in a very small department and was mentored by faculty. He then went on to a big name school as a PhD student. This man is now a full professor at U of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Not bad!
A good university is one that matches a specific student. My nephew, brilliant, a 100% correct SAT, attended Harvard as an undergrad and it was the wrong school for him. My nephew may be brilliant but he is also shy with limited social skills. The better school for him would have been Reed. My nephew is a real intellectual. At Harvard, he got good grades but felt overwhelmed, never met any professors, and struggled to feel part of the school and to meet people.
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