These kids aren’t prodigiously gifted. They’ve just had the gift of the kind of education we no longer value.”
A sense of safety and security in childhood is integrally tied to mental and physical health later in life—as well as emotional wellbeing, and the formation of the coping mechanisms that allow a person to deal with later adversity in ways that do not involve killing. It is this sense that can be undermined sometimes even by the best of intentions.”
“A disciplinary action associated with meaningful, peaceful participation in a protest will not negatively impact their admissions decision, because we would not view it as inappropriate or lacking integrity on its face.”
“Alumni who strongly agree that they were challenged academically are about 3.6 times as likely as those who do not strongly agree to say they were prepared for life outside of college. Similarly, those who strongly agree that they were challenged academically are about 2.4 times as likely as those who do not strongly agree to say their education was worth the cost.”
To restore balance between the art and the science of medicine, we should curtail initial coursework in topics like genetics, developmental biology and biochemistry, making room for training in communication, interpersonal dynamics and leadership.”
Students who received multiple field trips experienced significantly greater gains on their standardized test scores after the first year than did the control students.”
“The Peter principle, the eponymous scholar [Laurence J. Peter] explained, happens when any employee in a hierarchy rises to the level of his or her own incompetence… Organizations, Peter and his co-author Raymond Hull argued, tend to reward rank-and-file high performers with promotions to management, even though the roles demand utterly different skills.”
The median American uses three of these eight social platforms… Facebook and YouTube dominate this landscape, as notable majorities of U.S. adults use each of these sites. At the same time, younger Americans (especially those ages 18 to 24) stand out for embracing a variety of platforms and using them frequently. Some 78% of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, and a sizeable majority of these users (71%) visit the platform multiple times per day.”
What should students be learning for the 21st century? This conference will discuss top-level changes in the Mathematics school curriculum, regarding what branches and topics should be added or emphasized and why, and just as crucially, what should be de-emphasized or removed.”
I asked them to name the defining challenge of their generation. Several mentioned the decline of the nation-state and the threats to democracy… I asked the students what change agents they had faith in. They almost always mentioned somebody local, decentralized and on the ground — teachers, community organizers.”
Copyright
Every week I send out articles I encounter from around the web. Subject matter ranges from hard knowledge about teaching to research about creativity and cognitive science to stories from other industries that, by analogy, inform what we do as educators. This breadth helps us see our work in new ways.
Readers include teachers, school leaders, university overseers, conference organizers, think tank workers, startup founders, nonprofit leaders, and people who are simply interested in what’s happening in education. They say it helps them keep tabs on what matters most in the conversation surrounding schools, teaching, learning, and more.
– Peter Nilsson