As time flies, relationships can naturally change and fade. Often, you mean to send a text or make a call, only to look up and realize it’s been two years since you last communicated with that person. So how do you reconnect without making it weird?
Sara Sutton, the founder of FlexJobs and a networking expert, shared a simple, 10-word message that can help create reconnections: “You crossed my mind, and I wanted to say hi.”
Sutton believes this straightforward message works whether you’re trying to reconnect with a colleague for professional reasons or rekindle a faded friendship.
The message may seem too simple for some, but that’s the point. It’s simply a statement of fact: you’re thinking of the person. Offering a simple “hello” also acknowledges them without adding pressure to respond.
An invitation, not an interruption
People typically feel good when they know they’re being thought of, and this message offers a way to express that without making things awkward. It also avoids any sense of manipulation or pressure to respond. It puts the ball in their court to say thanks, reply and re-engage, or simply let it lie. In any case, you’ll likely get a sense of whether the person genuinely wants to reconnect.
It can still feel awkward to reconnect with someone, even if the “You crossed my mind, and I wanted to say hi” message works. Plus, not every relationship is equal. Your connection with this person may have ended with unresolved conflict or lingering feelings.
Other ways to reconnect
Fortunately, there are other approaches if you want to rekindle a friendship. If it’s been a while since you last spoke, you might start by sending a friend request and a message on social media. You could also share a photo of the two of you and say, “Came across this and wanted to say hey,” or something similar. If you have a shared interest, such as having been teammates in college, you might reference a recent article about the team you both played for.
With former colleagues, you may not have their personal contact information or feel comfortable using it after such a long time. Experts suggest using LinkedIn for initial contact, since that’s the platform’s purpose. Alternatively, sending a festive email during the holiday season with a quick reminder of who you are (“Happy holidays from your former cubicle mate at [Company]”) can help break the ice.
Whatever method you choose, it’s best to make it easy for the other person to respond quickly, if they choose to. Make no mistake: initiating a reconnection can still feel awkward. But it’s likely the other person hasn’t reached out for similar reasons. At worst, they’ll feel good knowing you thought of them and move on. At best, they’ll thank you for taking the first step to reconnect.
Parents trust report cards more than test scores, with consequences for kids
Most parents want to help their children succeed. We check report cards, ask about homework and try to help our kids study. When that fails, we sometimes hire tutors. But in an era of rising grades, it’s easy to be misled.
A new study reviewed by The Hechinger Report found that parents often assume everything is fine when their child’s report card shows mostly A’s, even when standardized test scores slide. That assumption may underestimate the help and guidance their child needs.
In an online experiment, researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Chicago created hypothetical fifth graders, whom they called Stacey and Robert, and asked more than 2,000 parents how they would advise the children’s parents to respond to different scenarios of grades and test scores. Test scores were expressed as percentile ranks on standardized tests, such as the annual state tests that public school children take each spring, so that parents could compare Stacey and Robert with those of other children nationwide. And study participants were given an imaginary $100 per week to “spend” however they wished. Options included enrolling the child in an after-school program, hiring a tutor or saving the money for a vacation or bills. They could also invest their own time, such as helping with homework or reading together.
Parents advised increasing time and money spent when both grades and test scores were low. Parents were less likely to provide extra help or resources when grades were high and only test scores were low. The researchers found that parents were more likely to step in when grades were low but test scores were higher.
More than 70% of the parents said they trust grades more than tests for making decisions about their own child, and fewer than 9% said they had more confidence in tests.
The findings appear in a draft paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and may still be revised. It was publicly circulated by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago this month.
As test scores have fallen nationwide while grades have risen, the researchers believe that parents may be underinvesting in their children. “Parents are the key to children’s success,” said Ariel Kalil of the University of Chicago. “What you need is for parents to be making investments in their kids’ skill development, and you need that parental effort to be happening early and often. Anything that depresses parent investment is a problem.”
Kalil is concerned that this underinvestment in children is more pronounced in low-income communities, where, she said, high grades are often issued for below-grade-level skills. After the COVID-19 pandemic, schools struggled to persuade families to enroll in free tutoring and summer programs to make up for months of disrupted instruction. Many report cards showed solid grades, reducing the urgency for parents to act.
Paired with other recent research on long-term academic and economic consequences, this study strengthens the case that grade inflation isn’t harmless. Inflated grades may feel encouraging, but they can send false signals both to students, who may study less, and to parents, who may see less reason to step in. Ultimately, it not only hurts individuals but also American labor force skills and future economic growth, the researchers argue.
Kalil, a behavioral scientist, believes that parents have more confidence in grades because they are familiar and easier to understand. Meanwhile, score reports are complicated, and even many well-educated parents are confused about scaled scores and percentile rankings.
A survey that accompanied the online experiment revealed that a sizable share of parents don’t trust standardized tests. Forty percent of the parents in the study said that tests were biased. Almost 30% thought student scores were a reflection of family income. Fewer than 20% of parents thought tests captured their children’s skills.
Kalil says there’s another psychological phenomenon at play even for parents who understand and value standardized tests: the tendency to ignore bad news when it is paired with good news. “If the report card is all A’s, there’s a cognitive bias towards sticking your head in the sand and rejecting the bad information,” said Kalil.
There were hints in the data that Hispanic families were most trusting of grades and least trusting of test scores, while Asian families were more willing to heed test results. But few Hispanic and Asian parents participated in the survey, so these patterns were not statistically significant. (Almost 70% of the respondents were white and 20% Black.) Parents with at least a bachelor’s degree also paid more attention to standardized exams.
Solving the problem won’t be easy. The researchers say schools can do more to explain what test scores measure and how to interpret them, but better communication alone may not shift parents’ instincts. Reversing grade inflation would be the most direct solution, but that would require a broader shift across schools — something that is unlikely to happen quickly.
In the meantime, the burden is on parents to read report cards with a critical eye. When grades and test scores don’t align, it’s worth asking why. A strong report card can be reassuring, but it may not always tell the full story of what a child knows — or what help they might need.
This storywas produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
The Spanish coastline during the summer can have unbearable heat, especially due to rising temperatures caused by climate change. As a result, towns such as Alhaurín de la Torre are bombarded with dangerous levels of heat for residents and tourists. However, there is relief in the town’s shopping district thanks to a growing group of knitting grannies.
In 2019, Eva Pacheco partnered with the Senior Citizens’ Social Center to knit a multi-quilt awning to shade the popular Malaga Street from the sun. The heat had been a growing issue for Spain’s tourist industry, especially along the coast. It was important to protect citizens and visitors alike from sunburn, heat stroke, or worse.
A different kind of community project
Every Wednesday, 40 elderly women from the community would gather, socialize, knit, and crochet for three hours. They would then stitch all of their creations together to create a colossal quilt. In the end, they created a 500-square-foot awning so residents and tourists could shop on Malaga Street while being protected from the sun. To say it was a success would be an understatement.
The shade provided by the giant blanket lowered the temperature by as much as ten degrees. It also shielded folks underneath from harmful UV rays. Since the knitted awning was primarily made from water-resistant synthetic yarn, it wouldn’t absorb water during rainy days.
Lastly, it was reusable. The awning could be taken down after the summer months. This way, it could be washed, repaired, and reinstalled every year.
It not only improved the lives of the shoppers outside, but also those of the knitters and crocheters. The majority of the team that created the massive quilt were older widows who didn’t have many social outlets for making friends. Along with that, according to AARP, knitting can also help stave off Alzheimer’s, among other health benefits.
Since its initial creation, the colorful, shade-producing blanket has dramatically increased in size. It is currently over 13,000 square feet and features many more colorful designs. In 2024, the group started creating knitted blankets and quilts featuring the faces of celebrities like Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas, and many others. While intended to protect tourists while shopping, the awning has become a tourist attraction itself.
Other places take notice
Their success has since inspired many other communities to create their own quilted canopies to provide shade. The residents of the nearby city of Coín have also created quilt barriers to protect against the sun’s heat. La Línea de la Concepción has a similar series of canopies, but they are made of mandalas rather than blankets. It has also inspired New Iberia, a sister city of Alhaurín de la Torre, to make its own “crochet ceilings.”
Over time, there will hopefully be other methods to cool down our streets. There is something to be said for the fact that it took creativity, community, and a little bit of fun to come up with a quality solution.
Beyond this evidence of political polarization, though, there’s another, less divisive reality. Ask people to name their best teacher, and regardless of their political affiliation, they will likely offer a similar answer. Most people will say that they learned a lot from a teacher who knew them, cared about them and made learning relevant to their lives.
Over five years, from 2020 through 2025, we askedmore than 2,000 Americans, including Democrats, Republicans and independents, what makes a very good teacher. We expected deep partisan divides. Instead, we found something rare: genuine, cross-partisan agreement.
How we ran the study
We began in 2020 with a nationally representative survey of 334 adults, asking them to recall a teacher they learned a lot from. We then asked the survey participants to look at 10 statements that might describe a good teacher and rank them from most to least important.
Five of the statements we offered focused on relationships – like caring about students, making educational lessons relevant and giving students individualized support. The other five focused on whether teachers covered a lot of material, rewarded top performers with grades or prizes, and whether they applied rules consistently to all students.
Respondents generally focused on highlighting the same seven out of 10 statements, giving us a vision of how they perceived a very good teacher. People prioritized the same factors – how much the teachers cared about their students and whether they supported them – regardless of their age, race, gender or political affiliation. Republicans and Democrats were indistinguishable in their descriptions of effective teaching.
People did not prioritize whether teachers covered a lot of material, made students compete or ran a strict and disciplined classroom.
In 2022, we conducted a similar survey of 179 teachers in Arizona and California. The results echoed our 2020 survey participants’ view: Teachers also defined very good teachers as ones who emphasized relationships, made lessons relevant and knew the subject matter.
Given the prominence of politically charged education debates, we were a bit surprised by our results. We began to wonder: Do people privately agree on what it means to be a good teacher, but change their opinion if their image of good teaching is associated with an ideological orientation they disagree with?
To explore this question in late 2024 and early 2025, we ran a third experiment with a nationally representative sample of 1,562 adults from a range of political backgrounds.
We gave all participants the same description of a very good teacher, identified in our previous experiments. We then randomly noted if these descriptions of a good teacher were endorsed by Democrats, Republicans or people with no political affiliation.
When the participants read the teacher descriptions without any political labels attached, about 85% of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed with the description of a very good teacher.
When we added a note saying that a political party the survey participant did not identify endorsed a particular description of a good teacher, they became less likely to support the statement.
The effect was sharpest among Republicans: Support fell from 85% to 64% when the description was tied to Democrats. Democrats’ agreement slipped less, from 86% to 76%, when the description was tied to Republicans.
Even with these caveats, nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Democrats still agreed on what it means to be a good teacher.
Political scientists call this affective polarization: How we react to an idea depends not just on the idea, but on who we think supports it.
Yet at the individual level, many Americans continue to express confidence in their own local schools. Our findings suggest that part of this gap may be driven by how issues are framed rather than by fundamentally incompatible beliefs.
Federal and state education policy over the past four decades, including laws like No Child Left Behind, which mandated routine federal testing in reading and math, emphasize testing and competition. These priorities don’t always match what Americans across the political spectrum say they value most.
But these disagreements coexist with a shared beliefs about what good teaching looks like in practice.
Recognizing this gap could open new possibilities for education reform. When debates focus exclusively on disagreements, they can obscure areas of agreement that might otherwise serve as starting points for collaboration.
We encourage readers to go ahead and run a similar, small experiment: Ask people about their best teacher, then listen to what they say. The answer, it turns out, is likely more unifying than you expect.
