“Americans’ satisfaction with the quality of K-12 education in the U.S. has fallen six percentage points in the past year to match the record-low 36% reading on this measure, which Gallup has tracked for 24 years. In contrast, parents of K-12 students remain largely satisfied with the quality of the education their oldest child is […]
“This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? …I often have curious thoughts like this, but I dismiss most of them because if I answered all of them I would get nothing else done.”
“Dear Parents and Guardians, We hope you had a rejuvenating summer break! As we embark on another exciting academic year, we’re thrilled to introduce some groundbreaking, utterly necessary, and slightly confusing -learning platforms to enhance your child’s educational experience.”
“Overall, 73 percent of Americans say teachers are undervalued, 67 percent support increasing their pay even if it means raising property taxes, and 66 percent say that teachers should have more say over what is taught in schools—a substantially larger share than the percentage of poll respondents who said the same for school boards, local […]
“Preston Mutanga created a shot-for-shot version of the trailer with animated Lego characters. Then the producers asked him to work on the movie.”
“Daunt’s focus has been devolving power to local store managers. A great bookstore, he thinks, is a reflection of the community in which it exists. A Barnes & Noble next to a thriving church needs to be different than one down the street from a high school… “We sort of take three steps forward and […]
“Children can benefit from them for a couple of reasons. For one thing, sleepovers provide an experience, like trick-or-treating, when the power balance between grown-ups and children can shift in the latter’s favor for the simple reason that parents don’t have the stamina to keep up with (or even stay awake for) kids’ antics. Feeling […]
““These reports are not intended to say, ‘this is the exact roadmap of how to do this or what the future is,’” Magiera explained. “These are more about what we are hearing these thought leaders saying from around the world and coalescing around these points, and here’s how Google sees our role in it, and […]
““Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government?” the brief asked. “This was a surprise to America’s Finest News Source and an uncomfortable learning experience for its editorial team.”… In a filing that read in places like one of its articles, The Onion laid out why it believes the authorities in […]
“Over the weekend, ESPN broadcast a replay of a recent esports event that saw the world’s most advanced Microsoft Excel users go head-to-head in a knockout tournament.”
“I started playing word games as a way to stop reading the news first thing in the morning.”
“Going into next year our focus is really about providing stability to our kids, some sense of routine, some sense of normalcy.”
“Big data tells us there are very simple things that do make people happy, things that have been around for thousands of years. After reading all the studies on happiness, I concluded that modern happiness research could be summed up in one sentence, a sentence we might jokingly call the data-driven answer to life…”
“School is by its nature one of those middle rings, a place where we intermingle with difference. For many of our families today, school stands alone as the one existing, operative middle ring in their lives. Little wonder, then, that families approach school with intense expectations, along with fears. As much as some may wish […]
“This is especially important considering the assault against intelligence and critical thinking the country has faced in recent years. The introduction of the scientific method in the 17th century lifted humanity out of the fetid and superstitious Dark Ages into the bright and vibrant Age of Enlightenment. The simple idea that we objectively gather verifiable […]
“How do you self-identify? You probably have many aspects to yourself and would resist being reduced to or stereotyped as any one of them.”
“Miller is quick to note that the authors of the original study did nothing wrong, and that it is typical for small studies to have findings that turn out to be “fragile” when submitted to follow-up studies. As she notes: “All this back and forth is good social science, but from a practical standpoint it […]
“In addition to synchronous, asynchronous, blended, and hybrid online courses, faculty are encouraged to adapt the following face-to-face modalities to promote student retention, community cohesion, and the joyful spirit of learning in Hell.”
“For Sandel, and for others in the communitarian tradition, even social liberalism concedes too much to its classical progenitor, reproducing liberalism’s principal error (which is also, historically, its greatest strength) – its emphasis on the individual. For Sandel, our sociality is prior to our individuality, and the way we view work should reflect that fact. Work is not […]
“But math helped Havens feel like he was in control. There are rules, but they’re logical and consistent across disciplines. And unlike prison, even when Havens understands the basic workings of a problem, the end result is often a surprise. Math, in many ways, is the perfect antidote to incarceration—and more incarcerated people than we […]
“I will let go of… I am grateful for… I will focus on…”
“2020 was nobody’s favorite year and yet, it was a good year for my endeavors. In a surreal plot twist, the near-decade of work I’ve been doing in conspiracy culture suddenly became highly relevant. The bizarre claims and reasoning I’ve been neck-deep in for years emerged as a dominant force in American culture. I was […]
“A machine can learn rules, whether it’s chess or music. Offered a variety of options, it can eventually come up with something. But creativity has a human quality: It accepts the notion of failure. The way machines approach a problem is always about the bottom line: “This move is good because it offers the best […]
““Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society […]
“Calamity forces people to ask fundamental questions: What is a community for? How is it put together? What are its basic needs? How should we provide them?”
“All the men had started out together in the shared misery of detention, but then Boochani did something extraordinary: Letter by letter, pecked out on contraband telephones while locked up on Manus, he wrote his first book.”
“A recent study… looking at longer-term outcomes described “Sesame Street” as “the first mooc.” But that description sells the show short; massive open online courses, like other kinds of “remote teaching,” are mainly an educational catastrophe… The story was different with “Sesame Street.” For kids who were under six in 1969, watching “Sesame Street” had a […]
“The Corps would be trained in modern handheld technologies that provide facile, crisp communication and organization skills that arrest geometric spread. In addition, Corps members could become apprentices for jobs in key parts of the supply chain we now deem essential (delivery, warehouse workers, etc.). We send young people to the front lines of wars […]
“The goal is to arrive at the most efficient and elegant means of achieving a particular effect. “I want the result to be complex, but I want to simplify the process it takes to get there,” Dr. Ku said. “It reminds me of the quote in ‘Amadeus’: ‘There are simply too many notes.’”
“Although many teens and young adults say there are payoffs to attending college, slightly more (73%) say on-the-job experience is a good way to prepare for success in the workforce compared to degrees or other educational experiences.”
“Students tend to see more value in their postsecondary education when it features coursework relevant to their jobs.”
“This report is part of a series on the evolution of K-12 education, mapping out current and emerging trends in classroom education.”
“I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen […]
“When I get an electrician to figure out why the breaker in my living room keeps flipping, I understand she may be more or less skillful in diagnosis and repair than another licensed electrician. What I don’t expect is that she could have wildly different—perhaps completely opposing—ideas about how electricity works and how to wire […]
“An extremely thorough guide.”
“The researchers found that when participants spent longer than normal doing their leisure activity, their belief in their ability to perform their job increased. But this was only the case when they had a serious hobby that was dissimilar to their job, or when their hobby was similar to their work but they only did […]
“Functional vs. expressive copy: Functional means helpful—it organizes things in a clear way and anticipates our audience’s needs, helping customers have an easy, enjoyable experience in-store and online. Used primarily for wayfinding and ordering, this copy is so seamlessly integrated that it calls attention to the product—not itself. Functional doesn’t mean sterile; it means clear… […]
“One of the world’s greatest pianists takes the stage. He panics. Where is the plastic lobster? He doesn’t know. He only knows he can’t play without it.”
It began life as a shortcut for scribes and proved just as useful for early typesetters, eventually working its way into the English alphabet as the 27th letter. We collectively dropped it from the ABCs, and the decline of handwriting and manual typesetting made it less useful. But its flexibility and grace have kept it […]
“To the student who does all the homework in his hardest subject and turns it in promptly… For the rest of your life, you will never again think of this C, but you’ll bring your character and your capacity for hard work to all your future endeavors.”
“Snowplowing has gone so far, they say, that many young people are in crisis, lacking these problem-solving skills and experiencing record rates of anxiety. There are now classes to teach children to practice failing, at college campuses around the country and even for preschoolers.
“The Covington saga isn’t fake news, strictly speaking. The events on the Mall really happened; what’s more, the surrounding story raises many questions of broad, genuine interest… It would be wrong, however, to take the moral interest of the Covington video at face value. To the extent that the video raises interesting questions, it does […]
“There are 46 independent schools in the state with about 17,900 students this school year, as compared to 57 schools and about 22,700 students in the 2006-07 school year, according to the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools… Nearly half of the 939 independent schools examined in a national study lost students between 2006-07 to 2013-14, according […]
“The familiar high school rituals take place every spring. Athletes sign letters of intent to play for college programs as their coaches beam with pride, the photographs splashed across social media. Other high school seniors wave college acceptance letters as their names are announced at school assemblies. But one school system in Virginia wanted to […]
“Once their songs reach a certain level of complexity, humpbacks drop that tune entirely and pick up a new, simpler one.
“We got so far into digital technology without thinking about how it would feel to let go of this thing that was such a part of people’s lives… It doesn’t feel the same to get an email as it does to open a letter. You see someone’s personality in a handwritten letter. It feels like […]
“At midnight on New Year’s Eve, all works first published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain. It has been 21 years since the last mass expiration of copyright in the U.S.”
“If you create something, you’re killing a lot of other things. And the way I write, since I do leave out most of the connections, and very little is pinned down, I feel that I am doing a minimum of damage to other possibilities that might arise in a reader’s mind.”
“It’s important to clarify that having smart friends isn’t as important as having studious friends in this study. The researchers didn’t find that friends’ grades mattered. What influenced a student’s college grades was his or her friends’ high school study habits.”
“HundrED has selected 100 inspiring innovations that are changing the face of K12 education today.”
“Though not widely appreciated at the time, studies now show that stress and despair can significantly influence health, especially that of the heart.”
“In essence, these independent findings showed that the progressive ideas inherent in the new curriculum were little used, with improvements in teaching being predominantly within a formalistic rather than a progressive approach. The implication was that ‘policymakers should work with rather than against educational realities’…”
“While [Judge] Brandeis believed that anyone had the right to express their views, he did not believe that anyone had the right to be amplified… The media landscape has changed significantly over the last 86 years, but the nuance in Brandeis’ arguments lives on. Brandeis recognized that the key to sustaining a commitment to free speech is […]
“The new administrative capital, or NAC (so new it doesn’t even have a proper name), is mooted to be the biggest planned city ever, aiming to house 6.5 million people and covering a 270 square metre footprint between the Nile river and the Suez Canal, east of Cairo.
“I suggested ten questions that parents should ask if they want to get a real sense of what’s happening in their child’s school this year.”
“Schools with strict dress codes often claim that such regulations prevent in-class distractions, create a workplace-like environment, reduce pressures based on socioeconomic status, and deter gang activity. However, in an age of #MeToo and easy internet access, controversy is increasingly cropping up over whether excluding students from the classroom for violating dress codes is worthwhile, […]
“Some of the most successful businesses to emerge in recent decades have staved off short-term pressures, forcing their investors to be patient with uncertainty and experimentation.”
“I don’t see independent schools going anywhere anytime soon,” Slangen said. “But what can we do with what we have now and how might we be able to make an impact, a difference? To be a little bit more equitable, a little bit more accessible, a little bit more of the solution.””
“More than 7 million people viewed teacher Flossie Lewis’s Brief but Spectacular take on growing old in 2016. When it aired, her former students contacted us by the dozen, many to express appreciation for the profound impact she had on their lives. Flossie, now 94, returns in this special installment for an inspirational class discussion […]
“University of Virginia researchers who looked at data from more than 1,000 students found that all of the advantages supposedly conferred by private education evaporate when socio-demographic characteristics are factored in. There was also no evidence found to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefit more from private school enrollment.”
“The researchers found that the more teachers immersed themselves in restorative practices, the better students rated their relationships with these teachers. And the strong relationships in turn linked to a greater sense of respect between teacher and student and fewer disciplinary referrals. Given these findings, it’s perhaps unsurprising that restorative practices are popular with students. […]
“What do the researchers conclude? They find a precisely zero effect of the exam schools on college attendance, college selectivity, and college graduation… The authors note that it is still possible that the schools affect outcomes later in life, such as employment or wealth.”
““Not a single thing about the school day has changed,” Campbell says. “But we no longer have the little battles over taking off a hat or pulling kids out of class and calling parents because their shorts are too short,” he adds. “Students feel free to be themselves.””
“Research should inform education policy and practice, but it shouldn’t dictate it. Common sense, practical experience, personal relationships, and old-fashioned wisdom have a crucial role to play in determining when and how research can be usefully applied. The researchers who play the most constructive roles are those who understand and embrace that messy truth.”
Whether you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond, the Well Midlife Tuneup will put you on a healthier path to improving your body, mind and relationships.”
“The houses are not just a thing you do… It’s really your whole school culture.”
“The walls weren’t built in the forest but in and around farms. By the middle of the 19th century, New England was over 70 percent deforested by settlers, a rolling landscape of smallholdings as far as the eye could see. But by the end of the century, industrialization and large-scale farms led to thousands of […]
“Faced with declining numbers of young Mainers and increased competition for international students, a private Maine high school is making cuts and looking for new ways to market itself…”
It can be superficial, it can be misleading, and it can produce bad design… Even so, design thinking is still a useful lesson in how we, as designers, think about the democratization of our craft.”
We reviewed a foundational meta-analysis of summer learning programs conducted by researchers as well as evidence from 25 studies of such programs since 2000. The programs covered in our review included voluntary at-home summer reading programs, voluntary classroom-based summer programs, and mandatory summer programs that students must attend to avoid in-grade retention.”
“Sixth, I was encouraged to visit districts, and even states, that are transforming their schools — all of their schools. Their leaders bring a compelling message about the urgency of change and lay out aspirational possibilities. They prioritize essential competencies, not state-mandated tests and obsolete curriculum. They trust teachers to lead the way, both in […]
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.”
With innovation’s unending arrival on our doorstep, I thrill at the access and stimulation that have arrived with it, but I wonder about how we cope with it, about what we learn from it… I wonder, for instance, about schools with metal detectors. I wonder about airports with liquid-free travel and computers with parental controls; […]
Three young American computer savants pleaded guilty to masterminding an unprecedented botnet—powered by unsecured internet-of-things devices like security cameras and wireless routers—that unleashed sweeping attacks on key internet services around the globe last fall. What drove them wasn’t anarchist politics or shadowy ties to a nation-state. It was Minecraft.”
Never mind, for now, whether or not you actually believe in any of these creatures. We are interested here not in whether they are real but in to what extent they seem as if they could be… Perhaps, then, the solution we seek is mathematical: tally up all the fundamental principles violated by a supernatural […]
The Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility’s Teachable Moments project provides 10 ways teachers can engage with controversial topics in their classroom. Generally, the strategies mirror recommended pedagogical strategies such as finding out what students already know, making connections to students’ lives and families, and creating space for kids to opt out of conversations that […]
“Remember: Can your responses for them. Be ultra-specific in your asks. Do not be a time-suck. Play the long game. Focus on getting a response first before asking for everything that you might want from this person.”
From transforming all of higher ed to targeted corporate training in five short years. Who could’ve predicted such a fate? Lots of people, it turns out.”
When parents got personalized information about attendance, chronic absenteeism dropped 10 percent.”
They concluded that five correlated factors—segregation, family structure, income inequality, local school quality, and social capital—were likely to make a difference.”
Atkins is asking teachers to pay close attention to the age of their students, as well as to how much exposure they may or may not have had to the violence.”
Amateurs don’t have any idea what improves the odds of achieving good outcomes. Professionals do. Amateurs show up to practice to have fun. Professionals realize that what happens in practice happens in games.”
I spent just over a year at the Bodleian being sassy on social media and making GIFs out of centuries-old collections. The animation of the Bodleian’s collections lent them new life. Beautiful images painstakingly made by monks and illustrators hundreds of years ago leapt from their pages anew onto Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds.”
“This same theory was put forward in 1930 by philosopher Bertrand Russell, who devoted a chapter of his book ‘The Conquest of Happiness’ to the potential value of boredom. Imagination and capacity to cope with boredom must be learnt as a child.”
What distinguishes her is not merely the breadth of her catalogue or the cataract force of her vocal instrument; it’s her musical intelligence, her way of singing behind the beat, of spraying a wash of notes over a single word or syllable, of constructing, moment by moment, the emotional power of a three-minute song. “Respect” […]
“The problem is not that overworked professionals are all miserable. The problem is that they are not.”