Utah HB215. The one with the vouchers and scholarships.


Backroads
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15 minutes ago, Vort said:

I fear that this might be very widespread,

One of the homeschooling families at the dojang are fundamentalist Christians. Not an insult, their words. Their kids are polite, deeply religious and can barely read above a 4th grade level. One is 17 the other is 14. 

Edited by LDSGator
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34 minutes ago, Vort said:

I just happened to have had a relevant conversation last night with my second son (the lawyer, father of my granddaughters). He's moving to Houston later this year and has found a local immersion school that would give his daughter eight hours a day of school instruction using Spanish. My son and his wife are very interested, but not for eight hours a day. More like two. They might be willing to put her in for half-days. They have written to the principal to ask how much flexibility there is. No response yet, but they aren't holding their breath. In my son's words, "If the principal says 'My way or the highway', we'll be taking the highway." They are already looking into other possibilities.

This is where my son told me something unexpected, something that made me feel good personally but very bad for homeschooling in general. His basic statement was: You and mamma did homeschooling in a way where we were taught to value learning as an end in itself. You taught us math, and also why it was fun and why it was important. You taught us reading, and also encouraged it a lot. In contrast (says my son), the parents of most of the kids he knew who were homeschooled seemed to not care much about learning or education per se. They were content to do whatever the minimal requirement was. Their view of homeschooling was that they were keeping their children away from harm and evil, while my wife's and my view was that we had the privilege and joy of teaching our children all the cool things in life in our very own home, rather than farming them out to state-sponsored daycare for forty-five hours a week.

I don't remember having considered that viewpoint, and it was eye-opening. As I wrote above, it was personally fulfilling but a dim view of the future of homeschooling. When the parents themselves don't much value learning, the children don't get the best experience.

My son brought up something else I remember well. When they were little (but not that little, say around ten or twelve), my wife picked up some so-called Christian textbooks on science. I thumbed through them and found them quite awful, but not bad enough that I refused to let the children use them. One was called something like "God's beautiful earth" and featured deep scientific teachings like, "Look at this beautiful world! God created it. The oceans hold much marine life. God created them." It was embarrassing to read. No scientific principles were conveyed, and for that matter no important religious principles, either. In retrospect, it's obvious that the books were targeted toward homeschooling parents who neither knew nor cared much about science, but who were looking for something to provide some science learning of some sort to their children. At that point, you can start making strong arguments that public school is actually better (in that narrow area) than homeschooling.

I fear that this might be very widespread, and that my wife and I might be a distinct minority with respect to our feelings on the importance and beauty of education. I hope that things improve going forward.

I was thinking about my comment to @LDSGator last night and thought I actually needed to clarify it a bit.

First, I wanted to state that the idea of the 3 Rs being important and everything else being icing is only theoretically the case for an individual, but it is NOT the case for society at large. If no one ever learned anything but reading, writing and arithmetic that would not be a better state than diversity of knowledge and learning.

Second, the comment that everything else is icing isn't meant to imply that icing isn't good. What, after all, is cake without icing? Unappealing. Icing makes the cake.

Third, in discussing it with my wife I had stated something along the lines of your point above... The important things to teach are actually 4 fold. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and.........wait for it........ a love of learning. Yep. That's exactly what I said to my wife. Well, it was that and how to learn sort of rolled up into a single concept. Learning to learn.

So I appreciate what you've shared here.

As it relates to the, which is better homeschooling or public schooling, question.... well I don't think there's an answer to that because the question isn't actually meaningful. It's the variables within either state that make either better or worse. Making the broader argument that one is better than the other is an argument about those variables. It's an argument that the overall variables involved in the public arena have changed or corrupted for the worse, making public schooling overall more dangerous, and that the variables involved in homeschooling have changed and improved, making homeschooling overall safer. That argument can never be applied individually without looking at the specific variables in the specific instance.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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23 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

 ...and can barely read above a 4th grade level. One is 17 the other is 14. 

I've been surprised at how much my daughter learns without us as parents actually teaching her. Granted, she seems to be a little genius in a lot of ways. But it's constantly amazing to me. As an example, years back before we had ever even thought about starting to teach her how to write we came across a drawing she'd done on her own where she'd written the word "CAT" on it.

What's my point?

Well... I cannot help but wonder about the variables that go into how and why a child learns or does not. My daughter clearly learned to write the word CAT from television and board books. That combined with her intelligence and she just worked it out. I am, in many ways, confident that we, as parents, could never teach her a thing and she'd end up being functionally literate. (Note: we're not going to put that to the test. It's just something I believe.)

That being said...we did provide her with resources to learn how to write CAT. She had board books with words in them that we read to her before bed. She watched a lot of TV/Internet shows that were learning based. So from a certain perspective, it WAS our parenting that taught her to write the word CAT. It just wasn't direct. It was moderately intentional though. We read to her because we knew reading to kids was important. We turned on educational type shows intentionally.

When I see a story about a 17-year-old who can barely read above a 4th grade level though....there's something else going on besides just "homeschooling". There are other factors at play...some of which may well be intentional restriction, parental apathy, innate intelligence, genetics, etc., etc. The point being.... stupid, lazy, weird parents have stupid, lazy, weird kids. Homeschooled or not.

It is interesting to think about, for sure.

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Just now, The Folk Prophet said:

I've been surprised at how much my daughter learns without us as parents actually teaching her. Granted, she seems to be a little genius in a lot of ways. But it's constantly amazing to me. As an example, years back before we had ever even thought about starting to teach her how to write we came across a drawing she'd done on her own where she'd written the word "CAT" on it.

What's my point?

Well... I cannot help but wonder about the variables that go into how and why a child learns or does not. My daughter clearly learned to write the word CAT from television and board books. That combined with her intelligence and she just worked it out. I am, in many ways, confident that we, as parents, could never teach her a thing and she'd end up being functionally literate. (Note: we're not going to put that to the test. It's just something I believe.)

That being said...we did provide her with resources to learn how to write CAT. She had board books with words in them that we read to her before bed. She watched a lot of TV/Internet shows that were learning based. So from a certain perspective, it WAS our parenting that taught her to write the word CAT. It just wasn't direct. It was moderately intentional though. We read to her because we knew reading to kids was important. We turned on educational type shows intentionally.

When I see a story about a 17-year-old who can barely read above a 4th grade level though....there's something else going on besides just "homeschooling". There are other factors at play...some of which may well be intentional restriction, parental apathy, innate intelligence, genetics, etc., etc. The point being.... stupid, lazy, weird parents have stupid, lazy, weird kids. Homeschooled or not.

It is interesting to think about, for sure.

Understand. All fair points. 

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20 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I was thinking about my comment to @LDSGator last night and thought I actually needed to clarify it a bit.

First, I wanted to state that the idea of the 3 Rs being important and everything else being icing is only theoretically the case for an individual, but it is NOT the case for society at large. If no one ever learned anything but reading, writing and arithmetic that would not be a better state than diversity of knowledge and learning.

Second, the comment that everything else is icing isn't meant to imply that icing isn't good. What, after all, is cake without icing? Unappealing. Icing makes the cake.

Third, in discussing it with my wife I had stated something along the lines of your point above... The important things to teach are actually 4 fold. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and.........wait for it........ a love of learning. Yep. That's exactly what I said to my wife. Well, it was that and how to learn sort of rolled up into a single concept. Learning to learn.

So I appreciate what you've shared here.

As it relates to the, which is better homeschooling or public schooling, question.... well I don't think there's an answer to that because the question isn't actually meaningful. It's the variables within either state that make either better or worse. Making the broader argument that one is better than the other is an argument about those variables. It's an argument that the overall variables involved in the public arena have changed or corrupted for the worse, making public schooling overall more dangerous, and that the variables involved in homeschooling have changed and improved, making homeschooling overall safer. That argument can never be applied individually without looking at the specific variables in the specific instance.

Whoops, was supposed to quote this one instead. 
 

apparently my computer skills are not above 4th grade either. 

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

One of the homeschooling families at the dojang are fundamentalist Christians. Not an insult, their words. Their kids are polite, deeply religious and can barely read above a 4th grade level. One is 17 the other is 14. 

Sadly, a lot of "homeschooling" material produced by various Protestant groups is not focused on teaching core academics as it is in teaching theology *as* academics. The end result is that children who are taught using these materials are often below-level. 

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17 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

Sadly, a lot of "homeschooling" material produced by various Protestant groups is not focused on teaching core academics as it is in teaching theology *as* academics. The end result is that children who are taught using these materials are often below-level. 

It is sad, I totally agree. 

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3 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I've been surprised at how much my daughter learns without us as parents actually teaching her. Granted, she seems to be a little genius in a lot of ways. But it's constantly amazing to me. As an example, years back before we had ever even thought about starting to teach her how to write we came across a drawing she'd done on her own where she'd written the word "CAT" on it.

What's my point?

Well... I cannot help but wonder about the variables that go into how and why a child learns or does not. My daughter clearly learned to write the word CAT from television and board books. That combined with her intelligence and she just worked it out. I am, in many ways, confident that we, as parents, could never teach her a thing and she'd end up being functionally literate. (Note: we're not going to put that to the test. It's just something I believe.)

That being said...we did provide her with resources to learn how to write CAT. She had board books with words in them that we read to her before bed. She watched a lot of TV/Internet shows that were learning based. So from a certain perspective, it WAS our parenting that taught her to write the word CAT. It just wasn't direct. It was moderately intentional though. We read to her because we knew reading to kids was important. We turned on educational type shows intentionally.

When I see a story about a 17-year-old who can barely read above a 4th grade level though....there's something else going on besides just "homeschooling". There are other factors at play...some of which may well be intentional restriction, parental apathy, innate intelligence, genetics, etc., etc. The point being.... stupid, lazy, weird parents have stupid, lazy, weird kids. Homeschooled or not.

It is interesting to think about, for sure.

I don't have the numbers right now, but one of the big pushes for reading science right now is that there is a gap between the kids who very well could pick up reading on their own and those that need the letters and sounds taught. The latter number is concerningly huge.

So while it might sound nice to expose kids and hope they're in the former group, it's not trusty.

It's impossible to say why those teens can't read, but I feel a parent ought to know when one reading education plan isn't working.

On the other end of the spectrum, today zi l has to assure a mother her kid was reading at an age-appropriate skill level, was passing all assessments of such, and no, is not at risk of having to repeat kindergarten.

 

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48 minutes ago, Backroads said:

So while it might sound nice to expose kids and hope they're in the former group, it's not trusty.

Just to be clear, this is not what I was suggesting. My point was there are more failings than just "homeschooling" going on. 

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10 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Just to be clear, this is not what I was suggesting. My point was there are more failings than just "homeschooling" going on. 

Oh, now I'm sad I thought I suggested so!

My intended point is that whatever educator be that parent or teacher would do well to keep an eye on struggling readers. I've heard from some homeschooling friends there is a certain degree of "wait and see" in various skills, but that best comes with a point when you have to say "Billy's had all the time to go at his own pace and he still can't read. Maybe we need to try a new tactic or look into a learning disability". 

Formal schooling, for good or for bad, does tend to be more rigid on a timeline. Though I have a theory anxious parents helped contribute this.

This is my third year teaching kindergarten, and at the beginning of every year I have at least one concerned parent freaking out how their kid is behind because they can't read. Meanwhile I'm setting up alphabet and phonemic awareness lessons...

Edited by Backroads
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On 1/25/2023 at 8:27 PM, The Folk Prophet said:

So what? A... who needs high school chemistry? and B... Google and Wikipedia have mastered it. 😀

My children often ask me for help with their schoolwork.  When there was just one or two of them, no problem.  But as I got more children asking about more involved topics, I first ask them,"What have you looked up online?"

I have very few questions from them anymore because they've learned to teach themselves.  And this isn't just on topics that I'm not familiar with.  I do this with subjects in which I'm considered an expert. 

So, only when they have already searched and can't quite figure it out, they come to me.  My first course is to ask them what they've figured out so far and ask them what doesn't make sense.  And it is usually just some odd wording that they can't quite figure out.  Only rarely do I need to actually explain some new principle because they've already looked it up.

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21 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Third, in discussing it with my wife I had stated something along the lines of your point above... The important things to teach are actually 4 fold. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and.........wait for it........ a love of learning. Yep. That's exactly what I said to my wife. Well, it was that and how to learn sort of rolled up into a single concept. Learning to learn.

The thing about this is that children are naturally curious about EVERYTHING.  But in our desire as parents to protect them from harm, we tend to diminish that curiosity to things that we "approve of."  But in so doing, we tend to quash curiosity in general.  Thing is that public schooling is actually designed to do this on purpose, not as a side effect.

It is a balancing act to shun the dangerous curiosity (Kender) while encouraging the love to learn meaningful things.  Notice I used the word "meaningful" instead of "useful."  That's the big issue with public schooling.  The very format is created to learn "useful" knowledge rather than "meaningful" knowledge.

Useful knowledge certainly has its place. It is what will get you a job.  We certainly don't want to discourage that.  But today, two things have happened:

  • "Useful" knowledge is being put in 2nd place to "Meaningful" knowledge, which in and of itself is not bad, but...
  • "Meaningful" knowledge has now been replaced with "Woke" knowledge.

Some people can go through public school's "usefulness machine" and still come out with a curiosity that will serve them well.  But the vast majority don't.

Can homeschoolers do this as well?  Absolutely.  I've seen some do that.  Any schooling system will have successes and failures.  But based on the statistical bell curve, homeschoolers have fared far better in both the useful and meaningful knowledge categories for the past 20 years.

Ideally, we teach the children enough meaningful stuff that they seek out the useful stuff on their own.  Homeschoolers often do this.  They also fail a lot as well.  Public schools don't even try -- not anymore.  As a result, those that come out of public school being able to think about deep topics are rare indeed.

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6 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

As a result, those that come out of public school being able to think about deep topics are rare indeed.

I'm not sure public school's job is or should be to teach deep thinking. Moreover, I'm not fully convinced deep thinking can be taught or learned. I'm also not sure that's the job of homeschooling. Nor am I really convinced that deep thinking is individually important. I mean in the aggregate it is, but individually, there are an awful lot of people who don't think deeply who are, have been, and will be just fine.

School is to teach useful skills. That's the point as I see it. People need to know how to read and write. Beyond that, specialization in any given thing needs paths for people to go down. We need ('need' being a relative word) doctors and philosophers and scientists and engineers.

But, honestly, without more important and meaningful core ideals, deep thinking is likely more dangerous than helpful.

Another way to put it....wisdom matters a whole lot more.

But we need deep thinkers, of course -- wise ones. But we do need them. And public school should have resources for those who are so inclined. But the idea that every kid needs to come out of public school able to think deeply doesn't quite work out in a variety of ways to my thinking.

My goal in homeschooling my children is useful education. I'd like it if my kids can think deeply too...but honestly it's way down the priority list. If I can instill in my kids humility, faith, love, patience, kindness, long-suffering, a work-ethic, and the basic useful skills they need for life, I'm going to consider myself pretty darned successful. Additionally I kind of think whether they end up being deep thinkers or not isn't really up to me. Don't get me wrong...I'll talk deep thoughts with them. Obviously. I never shut up about my philosophies. You can bet my kids will get an earful. But whether they learn to think deeply or not.... As I said, I don't know if that really can be taught or learned.

Keep in mind.... I don't know what I'm talking about. This is just my view. ;)

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20 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

But, honestly, without more important and meaningful core ideals, deep thinking is likely more dangerous than helpful.

Another way to put it....wisdom matters a whole lot more.

Overall, I think we agree.  But I think we're having a semantic disagreement.  Let me expound a bit.

I wrote about my daughter and her experience with the companion not understanding "What is The Word"  This companion was so stunted in her education that she couldn't even bring herself to understand the question much less the answer.  She thought the question itself was ridiculous, even heretical.

Most people politically are given talking points because they don't really have an opinion otherwise.  Talking points in and of themselves are fine enough.  They can get people to start thinking in a particular direction.  But most people don't think in that direction.  They can only parrot.  That's why if you refute them, they don't have a counter-argument.  And they don't even try to figure out what you're saying. They just call you racist or crazy or any other epithet.  Or they do something more extreme (defame, cancel, vandalize, assault, kill).

What we can hope to do is get them to think and learn for themselves, not just GIGO.  And fostering that innate love of learning is the best way to do that.

Edited by Carborendum
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34 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I think we're having a semantic disagreement

Maybe.

34 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I wrote about my daughter and her experience with the companion not understanding "What is The Word"  This companion was so stunted in her education that she couldn't even bring herself to understand the question much less the answer.  She thought the question itself was ridiculous, even heretical.

I just can't help but think that "education" isn't the problem here. Idiots are gonna idiot.

34 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

They can only parrot. 

Some of the most educated people in the world do the same.

35 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

What we can hope to do is get them to think and learn for themselves, not just GIGO.  And fostering that innate love of learning is the best way to do that.

I see a different solution. I think you'll generally agree. What we can hope to do is help people turn to Jesus Christ in humility and faith.

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29 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Some of the most educated people in the world do the same.

That's true, and sometimes the most educated people in the world have worked tremendously hard and have knowledge, skills and abilities that the rest of us don't.
 

I agree with you that some people might have a Ph.D and be generally useless to society, but that way of thinking is so widespread that we often forget to comprehend that people with advanced educations might know more than us because they’ve studied a topic far more in depth than we have. 

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3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

My children often ask me for help with their schoolwork.  When there was just one or two of them, no problem.  But as I got more children asking about more involved topics, I first ask them,"What have you looked up online?"

I have very few questions from them anymore because they've learned to teach themselves.  And this isn't just on topics that I'm not familiar with.  I do this with subjects in which I'm considered an expert. 

So, only when they have already searched and can't quite figure it out, they come to me.  My first course is to ask them what they've figured out so far and ask them what doesn't make sense.  And it is usually just some odd wording that they can't quite figure out.  Only rarely do I need to actually explain some new principle because they've already looked it up.

Say what you will about the evils of the internet, but it's created a golden age of "look it up yourself" education and it's wonderful.

 

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2 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I'm not sure public school's job is or should be to teach deep thinking. Moreover, I'm not fully convinced deep thinking can be taught or learned.

I agree with you on that. Deep thinking, critical thinking, these are rather vague terms. When people complain "this and that doesn't teach critical thinking" I'm not sure how to respond. I could probably look up a list of strategies some blogger or professor put together and teach those, but I don't know how to guarantee that will result in the desired thinking, however that is defined. Most of these strategies, I find, tend to be very biased.

I think deep/critical thinking is a concept that is more of a journey. You'll just have to develop it independently. 

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

That's true, and sometimes the most educated people in the world have worked tremendously hard and have knowledge, skills and abilities that the rest of us don't.
 

I agree with you that some people might have a Ph.D and be generally useless to society, but that way of thinking is so widespread that we often forget to comprehend that people with advanced educations might know more than us because they’ve studied a topic far more in depth than we have. 

I'm sure you have a point, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. People with advanced education might know more than us. Sure. But they might not. Is there more to what you're trying to say than that? Because I agree that they "might". But a person with no formal education might know more than us too. And in these days of information overload, it's entirely possible the latter is just as true as the former. It also strikes me that in these days of misinformation overload that people with advanced educations are just as likely to be off their rockers on their studied subjects as those without formal education.

Do you sense from me that I don't carry a ton of respect for higher degrees? Why yes. Yes you do.

(To be fair, I do respect the work, time, and effort it takes to acquire them.) ;)

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17 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I'm sure you have a point, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.

My bad. 
 

My point is that many people seem to be intimidated by higher education. So much so that our culture makes it clear that “just because someone is educated doesn’t mean they are smarter than anyone else.” “I’m from the school of hard knocks.” Or, my personal favorite,”I did my own research so I don’t need to listen to no one with one of them degrees.” 
 

We get those messages all the time. In fact, we get them so much that the pendulum needs to swing back to “Sarah has a Ph.D in X. Maybe she does know more than me even if it’s an interest to me.” 

Edited by LDSGator
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See this meme here? Someone once said that this meme is wrong-because people in nicely dress suits wrongly get judged for not being Christian enough and the guy with long hair is just whining, no one judges him. 
 

Well, what I’m trying to say (and again, sorry for not being clear) is that people have moved so much against formal education that the pendulum might need to swing back in this case as well.

 

Sorry again for not being clear. 

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25 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I'm sure you have a point, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. People with advanced education might know more than us. Sure. But they might not. Is there more to what you're trying to say than that? Because I agree that they "might". But a person with no formal education might know more than us too. And in these days of information overload, it's entirely possible the latter is just as true as the former. It also strikes me that in these days of misinformation overload that people with advanced educations are just as likely to be off their rockers on their studied subjects as those without formal education.

Do you sense from me that I don't carry a ton of respect for higher degrees? Why yes. Yes you do.

(To be fair, I do respect the work, time, and effort it takes to acquire them.) ;)

I agree.  It could go either way.  It is really about two things:

1. How available is the information?
2. How much work do you put into it?

While I certainly don't have as much respect for advanced degrees as others do, I do definitely respect anyone (with or without a degree) who has spent the work and time to obtain knowledge from ANY source -- as long as it is correct information that they are receiving.

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

My bad. 
 

My point is that many people seem to be intimidated by higher education. So much so that our culture makes it clear that “just because someone is educated doesn’t mean they are smarter than anyone else.” “I’m from the school of hard knocks.” Or, my personal favorite,”I did my own research so I don’t need to listen to no one with one of them degrees.” 
 

We get those messages all the time. In fact, we get them so much that the pendulum needs to swing back to “Sarah has a Ph.D in X. Maybe she does know more than me even if it’s an interest to me.” 

I guess I haven't seen that culturally. I'll take your word on it. My view on Ph.Ds comes from interacting with people who have them, rather than a cultural thing. I'm not actually down on Ph.Ds They just don't, in and of themselves, impress me as much any longer.

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