“In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?”
Read the full article here.
[video]
(Source: kingdude, via alicedanslalune)
Wise, old Cody.
“In a statement posted on the embassy Web site, Petr Gandalovic said “the Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities — the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.”
Mirca Sekerova recommends Americans “open a geography book once in a while…stop blaming our country for this.”
And Petr Manda commented: “Well done, U.S. education system.”
Article here.
“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.” —
-Terry Tempest Williams in Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert
Nothing could be more true about the current state of education in our country.
German designers Yanik Balzer and Max Kuwertz, who recently sent us an upcycling project in which they transformed a Euro pallet into a set of three chairs “with almost no waste of material.”
(via From Shipping to Seating: Balzer Kuwertz’s Upcycled Pallet Chairs - Core77)
Needless to say, pallet reuse is a favorite notion at Uncon, see here.
![tedx:
In the free market of individual desire, I negotiate my value every day.Hence, the contemporary man’s anguish. His obsession. “Am I desirable? How much? How many people are going to love me?”How does he respond to this anguish? Well, by hysterically accumulating symbols of desirability [fancy cars, clothes, jewelry]. I call this accumulation, along with others, the seduction capital.It is said — about consumption — that our age is materialistic. But it’s not true.
We accumulate objects in order to communicate with other minds. We do it to make them love us. To seduce them. Nothing is less materialistic or more sentimental than a teenager buying brand new jeans and tearing them at the knees because he wants to impress Jennifer.Consumerism is not materialism. It is rather — engulfed matter sacrificed in the name of the love god, or — rather — in the name of the seduction capital.
— TEDxParis speaker Yann Dall’Aglio on the free market of love. Watch his entire talk here.
Photo by Flickr user @Doug88888.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/376d55c62c44cc20e9b85891b9f35b76/tumblr_mif7cx9ybg1qedf7ko1_500.jpg)
tedx:
In the free market of individual desire, I negotiate my value every day.
Hence, the contemporary man’s anguish. His obsession. “Am I desirable? How much? How many people are going to love me?”
How does he respond to this anguish? Well, by hysterically accumulating symbols of desirability [fancy cars, clothes, jewelry]. I call this accumulation, along with others, the seduction capital.
It is said — about consumption — that our age is materialistic. But it’s not true.We accumulate objects in order to communicate with other minds. We do it to make them love us. To seduce them.
Nothing is less materialistic or more sentimental than a teenager buying brand new jeans and tearing them at the knees because he wants to impress Jennifer.
Consumerism is not materialism. It is rather — engulfed matter sacrificed in the name of the love god, or — rather — in the name of the seduction capital.
— TEDxParis speaker Yann Dall’Aglio on the free market of love. Watch his entire talk here.Photo by Flickr user @Doug88888.
As a teacher in DC Public Schools, this hits very close to home. I will read this book, and hope you all can to. Here’s a snippet from a review by Jennifer Howard of Michelle Rhee’s new book Radical.
If you are, have been or might soon be the parent of a school-age child in Washington,you have an opinion about Michelle Rhee, who ran the city’s public schools from 2007 to 2010. In a town full of divisive personalities, Rhee polarized opinion more than any other public figure I can remember, with the exception of a handful of officials. (Here’s looking at you, Marion Barry.) Either you admire her do-whatever-it-takes attempts to overhaul a system that had become a national embarrassment, or you loathe her as a power-mad, union-busting, school-closing dictator who trampled over teachers, parents and public servants.
…students can turn in assignments beyond the deadline and even beyond the semester without any penalty. The idea is that students would meet the standards and learn the content and that no penalties should be issued for turning it in late. What do you think?
My school has turned to the exact opposite approach for daily work - no late work accepted at all. And it works!
All the more reason for high-quality college guidance counseling at urban high schools. We’ve got one - do you?
Some of the poorest high schoolers in the country are also among our top-performers. These “low-income, high-achieving” students come from the poorest 25 percent of families, but their grades and SAT scores place them in the top 10 — or even top 5 percent — of all students. Getting these students in our best colleges should be a national ambition. It would increase social mobility, raise national productivity, increase taxable income, shrink our deficit, cut income-support payments … you get the point.
But the point is, we’re failing. In fact, the majority of these smart poor students don’t apply toanyselective college or university, according to a newpaperby Caroline M. Hoxby and Christopher Avery — even though the most selective schools would actually cost them less, after counting financial aid. Poor students with practically the same grades as their richer classmates are 75 percent less likely to apply to selective colleges.
From
The Awl’s harsh critique of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). A must read for all interested in the future of education:
They’ve been described as “a relentless force that will not be denied,” revolutionary, “the single most important experiment in higher education.” Also MOOCs are getting a drubbing from academics and others who believe there’s more to higher education than can be provided via “distance learning.”
It’s not quite free, as early MOOC proponents began by promising. It is worth mentioning, too, that Udacity is a venture-funded startup, that classes will be supervised not by tenured profs but by Udacity employees, and that Thrun declined to tell the Times how much public money his company will be raking in for this pilot—or what more may have been promised should the pilot prove “successful.”
Okay, fine, but let’s get this straight: public money has been mercilessly hacked from California’s education budget for decades, so now we are to give public money, taxpayer money, to private, for-profit companies to take up the slack? Because that is exactly what is happening. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just fund education to the levels we had back when it was working?
Read the entire article here.
And one of the guys suggested that all young male teachers should wear wedding rings. I mean if they aren’t already married to get fake ones. This would be to deter our students crushing on us.
I think it’s an interesting, if not egotistical thought.
What do you guys think?
Yes, great idea. Let’s all lie to our students because that’s what makes for a trusting classroom environment. Fucking teacher education.
A proposal by the Prince George’s County Board of Education to copyright work created by staff and students for school could mean that a picture drawn by a first-grader, a lesson plan developed by a teacher or an app created by a teen would belong to the school system, not the individual.
The measure has some worried that by the system claiming ownership to the work of others, creativity could be stifled and there would be little incentive to come up with innovative ways to educate students. Some have questioned the legality of the proposal as it relates to students.
Read the full Washington Post article here.
The other day when my Head of School walked into my classroom with Bob Woodward, I was like…