“In this essay, ethicists… argue that the US public schools' sponsorship of tackle football is ethically indefensible and inconsistent with their educational aims. Their argument relies on three ethical principles and a growing body of evidence that many students who play football suffer traumatic brain injury and cognitive impairment that undermine their academic success and life prospects, whether or not they suffer concussions. The authors also address educational claims made on behalf of football, the legal principles governing custodial responsibilities of schools and parents, factors that limit the moral and legal significance of children's consent to participate in football programs, and evidence that sponsorship of football programs subjects educational institutions to unsustainable financial risk.”
“Research has confirmed the basic summary I offered in 2005; using learning-styles theories in the classroom does not bring an advantage to students. But there is one new twist. Researchers have long known that people claim to have learning preferences… THere’s increasing evidence that people act on those beliefs; if given a chance, the visualizer will think in pictures rather than words. But doing so confers no cognitive advantage.”
“A study of 6,200 children… found that elevated curiosity was linked to higher math and literacy skills among kindergarteners. That effect remained strong even when researchers compared kids with similar levels of “effortful control,” or the ability to concentrate and pay attention. Even more surprising, she discovered that students from impoverished backgrounds with a strong thirst for knowledge performed as well as those from affluent homes. ‘At high levels [of curiosity], the achievement gap associated with poverty was essentially closed,’ Shah says.”
“Consumers motivated by pleasure believe that what pleases them differs greatly from what pleases most other people. They will therefore prefer a large assortment. But when seeking to meet a utilitarian need with the same product, they are less inclined to see their preferences as being greatly different from those of other people. They will then be satisfied by a smaller assortment from which to choose.”
“When one connection, called a synapse, strengthens, immediately neighboring synapses weaken.”
““The most regretful people on earth,” the poet Mary Oliver wrote… “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
“As business leaders recognize the limitations of business silos and hierarchies, they invariably attempt to add new structures, like matrices or networks, to make their structures more agile… Instead of restructuring, companies can initiate change by assigning accountabilities for specific business outcomes to small teams or individual problem owners.”
“The groups that performed well treated mistakes with curiosity and shared responsibility for the outcomes. As a result people could express themselves, their thoughts and ideas without fear of social retribution. The environment they created through their interaction was one of psychological safety.”
An orchestra of 120 players takes 40 minutes to play Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. How long would it take for 60 players to play the symphony?”
“We may be accidentally creating a lifelong intuition in children that software has feelings that can be hurt, that it’s an intelligent being to be respected–or even an authority to be obeyed.”
Many designers and school reformers believe that in old age, pessimism and cynicism go together. Not true… Both my tempered idealism and cautious optimism have a lot to do with what I have learned over the decades about school reform especially when it comes to technology. So here I offer a few lessons drawn from these experiences over the decades.”
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