Recently in Education Category
Phones Are Destroying Kids' Ability To Read Books
Jeremy S. Adams writes: "And yet we somehow expect these same kids who can't enjoy a simple bike or horse ride to sit down in a corner and spend hours reading a book. Keep in mind one of the most shocking yet revealing statistics in modern educational research: teens are more likely to read a novel at thirteen than they are at seventeen. As one of my best friends recently observed, 'My son used to be a voracious reader -- a couple books a week. And then we gave him a phone and the reading stopped.'... Which brings me to another demoralizing data point in the quickly degenerating mental state of American students. Two weeks ago, Pew Research released disturbing findings about American educators which found that 58 percent of high school instructors noted their students had "little to no interest" in learning. A whopping, though completely unsurprising, 72 percent say cellphone distraction is a major problem."
Search for tax exempt organizations | Internal Revenue Service
You don't need to pay a website for access to a charity's 990 filings and tax-exempt determinations. They're available for free on the IRS website.
Euclid's elements in color
Translated and published in 1847 by Oliver Byrne: The first six books of the elements of Euclid, in which coloured diagrams and symbols are used instead of letters for the greater ease of learners. High resolution scans on the Harvard Library website.
Once upon a time, encouraging patriotism and an appreciation for our country's blessings was considered a fundamental aim of public schools in America: "84 Freedom Awards Go To Tulsa: National winners of the 1967 Valley Forge Freedoms Foundation Awards were announced Wednesday with 81 awards going to Tulsa schools and educators and three to Tulsans who helped 'promote a better understanding of the American way of life.' Winners were selected by a 34-member panel of judges. Tulsa received the largest number of awards of any city in Oklahoma. Dr. Charles C. Mason, superintendent of schools left Wednesday for Valley Forge Penn. where he will receive the school awards Thursday -- George Washington's birthday. For the past 16 years Tulsa schools have received many of the awards in various categories.... Verl A. Teeter, 4020 S. Sandusky Ave., received a George Washington Honor Medal Award in the public address category for his speech on "Protecting and Preserving Our American Heritage," delivered before the Broken Arrow Rotary Club last fall. An identical award in the sermon category went to Rev. G. E. Gotoski, 5324 E. 46th St., for his sermon on 'A Christian Manifesto.'" Mason was the namesake of Tulsa's 10th and short-lived high school. Teeter was an educational consultant, former school superintendent, and prolific letter writer. Gotoski was pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Tulsa, a congregation of the American Lutheran Church, a merger of Norwegian, German, and Danish Lutheran denominations that would later be merged into the ELCA.
Fascinating to read the names of long-lost school districts and schools. This was just after the peak of Tulsa Public Schools enrollment, before round after round of closures, with 10 high schools (including Mason), all accredited by the North Central Association, 21 junior high schools (including Carver Middle School, the only school in the district to carry the middle school designation), and 76 elementary schools. Dependent districts Mingo (4 teachers) and Leonard (12 teachers) still existed, as did Red Bird (3 teachers) in Wagoner County. I see Verl A. Teeter listed among the publishers and publishers' representatives; I remember him as a consultant at Catoosa Public Schools who tested me when I was in kindergarten.
Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest
Jonathan Haidt, co-author with Greg Lukianoff of "The Coddling of the American Mind" writes:
"Greg is prone to depression, and after hospitalization for a serious episode in 2007, Greg learned CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). In CBT you learn to recognize when your ruminations and automatic thinking patterns exemplify one or more of about a dozen "cognitive distortions," such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, fortune telling, or emotional reasoning. Thinking in these ways causes depression, as well as being a symptom of depression. Breaking out of these painful distortions is a cure for depression.
"What Greg saw in 2013 were students justifying the suppression of speech and the punishment of dissent using the exact distortions that Greg had learned to free himself from. Students were saying that an unorthodox speaker on campus would cause severe harm to vulnerable students (catastrophizing); they were using their emotions as proof that a text should be removed from a syllabus (emotional reasoning). Greg hypothesized that if colleges supported the use of these cognitive distortions, rather than teaching students skills of critical thinking (which is basically what CBT is), then this could cause students to become depressed. Greg feared that colleges were performing reverse CBT.
"I thought the idea was brilliant because I had just begun to see these new ways of thinking among some students at NYU. I volunteered to help Greg write it up, and in August 2015 our essay appeared in The Atlantic with the title: The Coddling of the American Mind. Greg did not like that title; his original suggestion was "Arguing Towards Misery: How Campuses Teach Cognitive Distortions." He wanted to put the reverse CBT hypothesis in the title."
Dartmouth: SAT/ACT Requirement Restored | National Review
"The cruelest joke about removing the standardized-testing requirement for elite colleges is that the policy -- designed specifically as a way to increase minority enrollment -- achieves the exact opposite of what colleges intend. Rich and privileged mediocrities used to have their parents donate to secure admission to elite schools. Now, in an era of exponentially increased competition for admission, the rich simply hire six-figure 'college counselors' who stage-manage a child's entire life down to the em dashes in their admissions essays."
In addition to being a pioneer of web development and a visionary in the field of mobile technology, Russ McGuire is a board game developer. This article is a detailed and fascinating discussion of the trade-offs involved in small-scale board game production.
MIT Alumni Association Selection Committee Ballot - Candidate Profiles
Steven Carhart '70 is running for one of three open seats on the MIT Alumni Association Selection Committee. I applaud his manifesto, which compares the present moment to his years as an undergraduate in the turbulent late 1960s. (Emphasis added.)
"Today I believe we are facing challenges of comparable depth. They seem to come from the hubristic premise (hardly unique to MIT) that educational institutions can solve large social problems, protect students from confronting difficult emotional or substantive challenges, and simultaneously maintain educational quality. The means to achieve these goals seems to be an ever-growing number of administrative offices. However lofty their intentions, they seem to have produced greater internal conflict over social issues, a distracted and burdened faculty, and the highest administrative cost per student of any Ivy Plus university.
"If elected to the AASC, I will seek to nominate candidates who will proactively urge the Institute to renew its focus on providing the world with rigorously trained STEM graduates, attracted from all communities of talent regardless of means, and taught by the best faculty and most innovative researchers."
FIRST - Mouser - Dean Kamen intervew
Mouser is an electronic parts company that sponsors FIRST Robotics. They've got a great little 9 minute interview on their website with founder Dean Kamen about the value of FIRST Robotics. "Every player can turn pro!"
