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The Hysterical Style in American Academe
ducation is, as the philosopher Henry Bugbee tells it, “more fundamentally the task of placement within the fullness of historical time — so that it may become the time of our lives — than it is in adjustment simply in contemporaneous relationship to the things around us.” That is, reading, thinking, and studying are not simply in the service of conforming to the current arrangement of the world, but of developing a long view of human nature that allows us to consider more seriously what might be good as such for human beings, both individually and in community, thereby deepening our sense of what we might mean, for instance, by words like “justice.” This should be especially true for those devoted to the study of human things: philosophy, literature, history, languages, and so on.
A spouse's education can positively impact their partner's overall health -- ScienceDaily
They found that the effect of spousal education on a person's self-assessed overall health is positive and relatively large, suggesting that people benefit from having more highly educated partners in the same way (and to roughly the same extent) that they benefit from being highly educated themselves.
This pattern was especially pronounced among women, whose health was more closely tied to spousal education than men's. This finding, Hernandez said, could reflect the time period (1960s-1970s) in which most of the respondents completed their education, married and entered the labor force.
Private Schools Are Indefensible - The Atlantic
The most astonishing of Gallagher’s admonitions was this: “While I often arrive at the office well before 8:00 a.m., that does not mean a parent should ever be waiting for me in the vestibule, parking lot, or outside my office door.” This is what prosecutors in murder cases call “lying in wait.”
Gallagher’s email made it clear that parents had been trying to thwart others’ college prospects in order to enhance their own children’s odds. He sent his missive shortly before winter break, which in private schools is the equivalent of a Friday news dump. It was the kind of school communication that simultaneously put bad actors on notice and reassured the other parents that evil was not triumphing. Inevitably, every parent in the senior class was freaked out that their own children might have been targeted.
After the break, the school’s head, Bryan Garman, sent a follow-up email reiterating the policies Gallagher had announced. He also reminded parents that the college counselors would not “respond to any inquiry for student records” for other people’s kids. The parents’ behavior, Garman said, had become “increasingly intense and inappropriate” and had included “the verbal assault of employees.” But these transgressions were placed within a therapeutic context of acceptance and nonjudgment. College admissions, he wrote, “can stretch the patience and emotional capacity of parents.” (If you want to know if you’re rich, try behaving badly and see if someone in authority will apologize for stretching your patience and emotional capacity.) By the end of the school year, two of Sidwell’s three college counselors had quit.
Private Schools Are Indefensible - The Atlantic
Less than 2 percent of the nation’s students attend so-called independent schools. But 24 percent of Yale’s class of 2024 attended an independent school. At Princeton, that figure is 25 percent. At Brown and Dartmouth, it is higher still: 29 percent.
Rural areas lag in degree attainment while urban areas feature big racial gaps
Fully 84 percent of the counties in the bottom 10 percent on degree attainment rates are mostly or completely rural, the group found. And just 16 percent of the counties in the top 10 percent are rural. Counties with low attainment rates are most heavily concentrated in the South, running from the borders of Oklahoma and Texas to the Atlantic Ocean.
Proximity to a college campus is a major driver of the rural attainment gap. Rural counties are home to 14 percent of the nation's campuses, the analysis found, even though these areas cover 97 percent of land area in the U.S.
What Japan's Wild Snow Monkeys Can Teach Us About Animal Culture | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Imo had innovated a new behavior that spread to her peers. Age and sex both influenced its transmission: Younger monkeys and females were more likely to learn potato washing than adult monkeys and males. The next stage began when Imo and her peers matured and reproduced. Now the behavior spread to the next generation with every new baby, males as well as females, learning sweet-potato washing from its mother. Age and sex were no longer factors. “Pre-cultural pressure is working,” Kawai wrote. A new behavior had become fixed within the troop.
Book Review: ‘Ending Medical Reversal’ Laments Flip-Flopping - The New York Times
“Often the study of the study of how therapies should work is much more extensive and comes before the study of whether therapies do work,” the authors write. Thus a medical culture based on “should work” rather than “does work” is condemned to constantly correct itself when the science is finally evaluated for outcomes that matter.
To fix this constant backtracking would require nothing less than a revolution in how doctors are trained, with an emphasis on the proven and practical rather than the theoretical. (It would also require a second revolution in how doctors practice, with less prestige and remuneration for coming up with new ideas and more for validating old ones.)
Comparative Accuracy of Diagnosis by Collective Intelligence of Multiple Physicians vs Individual Physicians. | Medical Education and Training | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
Using the top 3 diagnoses given by each user to adjudicate solutions, the diagnostic accuracy of all users was 62.5% (95% CI, 60.1%-64.9%). The accuracy of individual residents and fellows was 65.5% (95% CI, 63.1%-67.8%) compared with 55.8% for medical students (95% CI, 53.4%-58.3%; P < .001 for difference vs residents and fellows by z test for proportions) and 63.9% for attending physicians (95% CI, 61.6%-66.3%; P = .10 for difference vs residents and fellows).
Sociologists study the impact religion has on child development -- ScienceDaily
They found that third-graders' psychological adjustment and social competence were positively correlated with various religious factors. However, students' performance on reading, math, and science tests were negatively associated with several forms of parental religiosity.
The findings suggest that parental religiosity is a mixed blessing that produces significant gains in social psychological development among third-graders while potentially undermining academic performance, particularly in math and science.
"Religion emphasizes moral codes designed to instill values such as self-control and social competence," said Bartkowski. "Religious groups' prioritization of these soft skills may come at the expense of academic performance, which is generally diminished for youngsters raised in religious homes when compared with their non-religious peers."
First space, then auto—now Elon Musk quietly tinkers with education | Ars Technica
That first year, Musk’s children accounted for nearly two thirds of the student body. “It was really small,” remembers Dahn. “Especially when five [students] from the same family... go on vacation and you have three kids [left].”
It is not unusual for parents to have a grassroots effort to build their own school, according to Nancy Hertzog, an educational psychology professor at University of Washington and an expert in gifted education. “But money talks in terms of how that school is directed and supported,” she says. “The worry would be, are these schools preventing kids from other populations getting in? Are there strict test scores, and can they support kids with disabilities?”
Students learn Italian playing Assassin's Creed video game -- ScienceDaily
In a class called Intensive Italian for Gamers, all students made progress equal to two semesters of Italian over the course of a single fall semester. By the final, students were 3 to 5 points ahead of students in a traditional Italian course.
Lesson learned? Massive study finds lectures still dominate STEM education -- ScienceDaily
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Marilyne Stains and her colleagues found that 55 percent of STEM classroom interactions consisted mostly of conventional lecturing, a style that prior research has identified as among the least effective at teaching and engaging students.
Another 27 percent featured interactive lectures that had students participating in some group activities or answering multiple-choice questions with handheld clickers. Just 18 percent emphasized a student-centered style heavy on group work and discussions.
The happiness project | Science
In 2010, cancer biologist Lei Cao—inspired by a family member who had died of cancer—wondered whether she could combat it by looking beyond drugs or genes. Her team at OSU created a 1-square-meter enclosure filled with so many mazes, running wheels, and bright red, blue, and orange igloos that her daughter dubbed it “Disneyland for Mice.”
<img class="fragment-image" src="https://d2ufo47lrtsv5s.cloudfront.net/content/sci/359/6376/624/F3.medium.gif"/>
A fish at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor gets to choose between an empty tank and one filled with marbles.
PHOTO: AUSTIN THOMASON/MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY
When injected with cancer cells, animals housed there developed tumors 80% smaller than those in control mice, or no tumors at all. Cao even discovered a possible mechanism: A stimulating environment seemed to activate the brain's hypothalamus, which regulates hormones that affect everything from mood to cancer proliferation. “We showed that there's a hard science behind enrichment,” she says. “You can't just treat the body—you have to treat the mind.”
The happiness project | Science
Today, lab mice live in shoebox-size cages hundreds of thousands of times smaller than their natural ranges, and rats can't forage or even stand upright. Both spend their days blasted by ventilation and bright fluorescent lighting that disrupts their day-night cycles. “We're doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing to make these animals happy,” Garner says. Lab animals tend to be obese, have weak immune systems, and develop cancer—all before scientists do any experiments on them.
Kids in high-achieving schools: 2-3x addiction rates?
"We found rates of addiction to drugs or alcohol among 19 to 24 percent of women in the older cohort by the age of 26, and 23 to 40 percent among men. These rates were 3 and 2 times as high respectively, as compared to national norms," Luthar said. "Among the younger cohort by the age of 22 years, rates of addiction were between 11 and 16 percent among women (close to national norms) but 19 to 27 percent among men, or about twice as high as national norms."
Luthar said a look into the lives of these adolescents provide some clues to the cause of these high rates of addictions.
When the NESSY groups were first assessed, they all attended the best schools in the region -- suburban schools with very high-standardized test scores, rich extra curricular offerings and high proportions of their graduates heading off to very selective universities. In general, kids at such schools experience enormous pressures to achieve, and many come to live by the dual credos of "I can, therefore I must" and "we work hard and we play hard" with the playing involving parties with drugs and alcohol.
Also implicated is affluence in the school community.
"Not all of these students were from wealthy families but most were; as parents typically had advanced educational degrees and median incomes much higher than national norms," Luthar said. "And without question, most of the parents wanted their kids to head off to the best universities, as did the kids themselves."
Hungary: The War on Education | by Jan-Werner Müller | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
The number of university students has been declining dramatically since 2010; meanwhile, the age at which students can legally leave school has been lowered from eighteen to sixteen. Orbán, as part of his self-professed turn to “illiberalism,” has put forward the notion of a “work-based state.” In theory, such a state is the opposite of a polity where financial speculation generates most of the wealth. In practice, this idea has meant public works programs—especially for Roma—that critics view as highly exploitative; it has also resulted in an attempt to create a workforce primarily of manual laborers, where everyone knows their place and can at most aspire to employment by German industry (Mercedes is currently spending a billion euros on a new plant in central Hungary).
Personality differences uncovered between students at different US universities – Research Digest
larger universities tended to have more extraverted students; more urban and diverse universities had more open-minded students; universities requiring letters of recommendation had more agreeable students; public colleges had less agreeable students than private colleges; and more expensive colleges had higher trait Neuroticism. Differences like these could reflect students with particular personality profiles being drawn to particular institutions; selection could be at play, in the sense of university selectors showing a preference for particular personality types; and also students’ personalities could be shaped by the culture of their university.
Under challenge: Girls' confidence level, not math ability hinders path to science degrees -- ScienceDaily
The research team found perception gaps are even wider at the upper levels of mathematics ability -- among those students with the most talent and potential in these fields. Boys are significantly more confident in challenging mathematics contexts than otherwise identically talented girls. Specifically, boys rated their ability 27 percent higher than girls did.
Perceived ability under challenge was measured using a nationally representative longitudinal study that followed 10th grade students over a six-year period until two years after high school. A series of questions in the 10th and 12th grade surveys asked students to indicate their level of agreement with statements such as "I'm certain I can understand the most difficult material presented in math texts."
Why Black Americans Stay Poor - Bloomberg View
a study exploring the idea that racial wealth inequality stems from life choices and personal achievement -- that is, that blacks would be as rich as whites if only they got good educations, formed stronger families, worked hard and saved money. Using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the researchers found that, as of 2013, none of that seemed to matter: Whether they were college-educated, married with kids, employed full-time or prudent savers, black families’ net worth was invariably many times lower than that of white families with the same characteristics.
Suzanne Nossel: Donald Trump’s Assault on the Enlightenment | Foreign Policy
Trump’s declaration of war on the arts and humanities must be seen in the context of his repudiation of the American ideals — grounded in the Enlightenment — of self-expression, knowledge, dissent, criticism, and truth. These proposals are an early effort to entrench within the machinery of the U.S. government his elemental disdain for intellectuals, analysts, and experts. Seen this way, they deserve to be rejected even by conservatives who have gleefully targeted these agencies in the past. If Donald Trump makes our venerable federal arts and humanities agencies disappear, it will represent a victory for his illiberal agenda, one conservatives and liberals must unite to defeat.
Running away
For four years my strategy had been deflecting and defending from my past—running away from my hometown just as I ran around a forehand. But I realized there are no rules that must be kept; you can stay the same or you can change. You’ll never be lovelier than you are now. Strategies need only be temporary.
The Finnish educational model and current Hungarian reality
The Finnish system is radically different from the Hungarian one, especially as transformed by Viktor Orbán in 2011. One difference is that in Finland parents can’t choose the school to which they will send their children. All children attend the school maintained by the local community closest to his or her home. Moreover, there is no tracking like in the United States. Proponents of the Finnish system claim that the success of this model lies in the uniformity of education provided. Thus, there are no “elite schools” but there are no markedly inferior schools either, such as one finds in Hungary. The Hungarian system exacerbates the divide between the haves and the have-nots and stands in the way of social mobility.
While the current government made it compulsory for children to attend kindergarten for three years, beginning at the age of three, and to enroll in first grade at the age of six, Finnish children start school only at the age of seven, preceded by a voluntary preparatory year. Children must attend school between the ages of 7 and 16, but almost all of the graduates continue their education. About half of them attend gymnasium, which is a three-year course of study. The other half attend basic-level vocational schools. The choice of trades is great: a Finnish 16-year-old can choose among 119 programs.
There are 17 universities and 27 colleges in Finland, where the competition for admission is fierce. In 2011 out of 66,000 applicants to universities only 17,000 gained acceptance, while out of 70,000 applicants to college only 22,100 were accepted. Finnish higher education is free.
According to OECD’s “Education at a glance,” Finland has one of the highest levels of educational attainment among the OECD countries: 84% of 25- to 64-year-olds have completed at least upper secondary education (against an OECD average of 75%) and 39% hold college or university degrees (OECD average: 32%). A few more facts about Finnish elementary education can be found here and here.
The same “Education at a glance” of the situation in Hungary points out that although a large number of people finish high school, only 23% of young people are expected to complete university studies. The OECD countries’ average was 39% in 2014. “Moreover, this rate has considerably decreased since 2010, by almost 9 percentage points.”
Innovation in liberal arts
Many liberal arts colleges (e.g., Antioch, Reed, Colorado, St. John’s) have been sources of innovation in undergraduate education. Due to their small size, emphasis on undergraduate education, and private control, they have been free to experiment with alternative curricula and pedagogies, unencumbered by the influence of powerful practitioner groups or the fixed requirements of professional licensure. If the liberal arts college as an educational alternative dies out or morphs into another type of higher education institution, an influential “test kitchen” for innovation in undergraduate education will disappear or, perhaps, become too peripheral to play a leadership role.
Declawing the ‘tiger mom’
“Our research debunks the idea that there is something intrinsic about Asian culture, traits or values that produces exceptional educational outcomes,” Lee says. “First, the change in U.S. immigration law in 1965 was critical, because it ushered in a new stream of immigrants from Asia who are hyperselected – meaning that they’re more highly educated than their compatriots and also more highly educated than the general U.S. population.” For example, only 4 percent of people living in China have college degrees, but about 51 percent of those emigrating to the U.S. do. […]Moreover, these immigrants exceed the academic attainment of most Americans, 28 percent of whom are college-educated. “The biggest predictor of a child’s success is parental education,” Lee notes. “If your parents are college-educated, the likelihood of you going to college and graduating is very high.”
Studying Dante
In the late nineteen-eighties, I spent a semester in Florence, where I sat in on a Dante course at the university. The entire term was devoted to the analysis of a single canto. As it happened, the canto was Inferno 19, which is devoted to simony. Dante reserves a special hole in the third sub-circle of the eighth circle of Hell for corrupt Popes; they are stuffed into it, one after another, headfirst. Their feet are then lit on fire. Among the issues the class discussed at length was how, exactly, new Popes could be accommodated. Had space been left open for all those that would come along? Or did each new arrival compress his predecessor into some kind of pontifical pesto?
Clay Johnson on the robot raising his child
The Amazon Echo is summoned by the word "Alexa" -- you say that word, and then ask it questions or tell it to do something (play some music, set a timer, check the weather, etc) and it just does it. And it works great. Especially on 2.5 year olds. I've noticed recently that Felix has started interacting with Alexa. He can't quite say the word well enough to trigger a response (he's almost there) but he'll bark orders at her; more interestingly, he treats her as an authoritati...ve source. A few days ago, Felix told me that it wasn't time to go back home from the playground because Alexa said it wasn't time to go. Then, On Saturday, on the way to a birthday party, after I disobeyed the GPS's command to take a highway, Felix chimed in from the back seat: "Dad, *other* Alexa said you need to take the highway" Our minds were blown at this for a lot of reasons. And it's all fascinating, and I'm sure somebody will write books about the kids who grew up with computers they could talk to just like they wrote books about my generation interacting with televisions and the Internet. But that's *not* the point of this little Facebook post. No, the point is, Amazon shipped functionality that allows you to make the Echo say things via a handy remote control. So realizing that Felix viewed his invisible friend "Alexa" as an authority, and realizing that I could make Alexa say things, we seized the moment tonight. C: Felix, it's time for bed. F: NEVER. THERE WILL BE NO BED. NOT NOW NOT EVER. NO NOTHING. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. (exact words.) C: Okay. Well, I'm going to go get a bath ready. Alexa: Felix, it's time to go take a bath. F: Really Alexa? Alexa: Yes. Please join your father in the bathroom. Felix was in the bathroom immediately, and told me that it was time for his bath. After bath, he promptly told Alexa good night. She told him to have sweet dreams. Parents who are prime members, the Amazon Echo costs $99, and it is worth every penny. Tomorrow we'll try housework.
