On Course

WNPR's David DesRoches blogs about education and learning in Connecticut and beyond.

[ctoncourse]

The Marshmallow Test: Revisited... Does Wealth Matter More Than Willpower?

The “marshmallow test” is often referred to by people advocate the power of willpower and delayed gratification. The test -- created by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s -- involved placing a marshmallow in front of a child, and then telling that child if she could avoid eating it for 15 minutes, she’d be given an additional marshmallow. 

Mischel’s team then tracked these kids over time, and showed that the kids who were able to wait that 15 minutes had better outcomes later in life, and were better able to cope with frustration and stress as teenagers. 

Turns out, that might not be the whole story. NYU’s Tyler Watts and UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan did the experiment again, but this time, they changed things up. From The Atlantic: 

In restaging the experiment, Watts and his colleagues thus adjusted the experimental design in important ways: The researchers used a sample that was much larger—more than 900 children—and also more representative of the general population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parents’ education. The researchers also, when analyzing their test’s results, controlled for certain factors—such as the income of a child’s household—that might explain children’s ability to delay gratification and their long-term success.

Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success.”

The study also pointed out that poor kids are more likely to eat the first marshmallow because they don’t have stockpiles of food at home, whereas a wealthy kid can wait the 15 minutes because there’s never a worry about going hungry. And for the poor kid who’s told that food is coming if they wait, well, that’s not always the case, either. So there might be a problem with their trust of adults. 

As a takeaway, it might be worth noting the problem with many psychological studies -- replication of findings. As The Atlantic points out: 

Some scholars and journalists have gone so far to suggest that psychology is in the midst of a “replication crisis.” In the case of this new study, specifically, the failure to confirm old assumptions pointed to an important truth: that circumstances matter more in shaping children’s lives than Mischel and his colleagues seemed to appreciate

[ctoncourse]

Teacher Spends Two Days as a High School Student and it Changes Everything

A principal suggested that a recently-promoted “teacher coach” spend some time as a student, and what she found was significantly intriguing.

Her biggest takeaway is that students are too often passively absorbing information instead of being actively engaged in learning, and this makes being a student incredibly tiring (Grant Wiggins, the blogger who posted the teacher’s story, didn’t name her). 

Here’s a snippet: 

In eight periods of high school classes, my host students rarely spoke... I don’t mean to imply critically that only the teachers droned on while students just sat and took notes. But still... most of the students’ day was spent passively absorbing information.

It was not just the sitting that was draining but that so much of the day was spent absorbing information but not often grappling with it. I asked my tenth-grade host, Cindy, if she felt like she made important contributions to class or if, when she was absent, the class missed out on the benefit of her knowledge or contributions, and she laughed and said no

I was struck by this takeaway in particular because it made me realize how little autonomy students have, how little of their learning they are directing or choosing.

Here are the teacher’s three takeaways: 

Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting 

High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes

You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long

That last part about being a nuisance really struck me. Here’s how she explains it: 

I lost count of how many times we were told be quiet and pay attention... you start to feel sorry for the students who are told over and over again to pay attention because you understand part of what they are reacting to is sitting and listening all day. It’s really hard to do, and not something we ask adults to do day in and out.

In addition, there was a good deal of sarcasm and snark directed at students and I recognized, uncomfortably, how much I myself have engaged in this kind of communication...

Of course it feels ridiculous to have to explain the same thing five times, but suddenly, when I was the one taking the tests, I was stressed. I was anxious. I had questions. And if the person teaching answered those questions by rolling their eyes at me, I would never want to ask another question again. I feel a great deal more empathy for students after shadowing, and I realize that sarcasm, impatience, and annoyance are a way of creating a barrier between me and them. They do not help learning.

Questions are one of the most powerful forms of language we have -- as journalists, as students, even as people. It opens up lines of communication. It shows where concern or weakness might lay. It’s how we dig at things and get to the bottom of them. 

There’s a lot to be taken away from this teacher’s experience, but for me, it’s simple -- just walk for a while in a student’s shoes, and their apparent quirks or problems will begin to make a lot of sense. 

[ctoncourse]

Corporal Punishment Still Allowed in 19 States, Despite Evidence Saying it Makes Kids Worse

Here’s a list of states that still allow school officials to beat children (Click on the state to read about its law): 

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

Colorado

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Indiana

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

Missouri

North Carolina

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Wyoming

At Holmes County High School in Bonifay, Florida, kids in wood shop make the paddles used to smack their classmates, as reported by this StateImpact Florida story.

“You can’t buy them anywhere,” said Eddie Dixson, the school’s principal. “There’s not a market for them, so yeah, students make it.”

Dixson says the wood shop teacher gives students a wooden plank and asks them to create a handle. The teacher tells students the dimensions for the paddle and hands them a belt sander.

The paddle is light in weight. It’s about 6 ounces, 16 inches long, 5 inches wide, and half an inch thick and made of ash wood. Dixson says the school decided that was a good size.

“There’s no regulatory agency that I’m aware of,” Dixson said. “But you wouldn’t want a heavy oak type [of wood], that would not be a good thing.”

Thousands of students are whacked by teachers each year, according to a report by the Children’s Defense Fund. Most of the kids are African American or have disabilities. 

Corporal punishment is claimed to solve problem behaviors, but time and time again researchers, pediatricians, psychologists and other child behavior experts say the end result is usually more problem behavior. There’s even evidence to suggest that spanking can actually harm the brain. That is, hitting your child could make them dumber. 

The Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment of Children has extensive information on the body of evidence showing the harmful effects of hitting kids.

Here’s former Daily Show host Jon Stewart ripping into a 2014 Kansas proposal to allow anyone to hit a kid hard enough to bruise. The bill died in committee:

Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

The United States remains one of the few industrialized countries where it’s OK to hit kids in school. Watch below a 30 minute documentary about corporal punishment in schools:

The Board Of Education. A Documentary About Corporal Punishment In US Public Schools. from jared abrams on Vimeo.

[ctoncourse]

Texas just passed a law making it OK to paddle kids. So I thought I’d repost an earlier blog about corporal punishment in schools. 

[npr]

Why can’t kids today just work their way through college the way earlier generations did?

The answer to that question isn’t psychology. It’s math. A summer job just doesn’t have the purchasing power it used to, especially when you compare it with the cost of college.

Let’s take the example of a working-class student at a four-year public university who’s getting no help from Mom and Dad. In 1981-‘82, the average full cost to attend was $2,870. That’s for tuition, fees and room and board.

The maximum Pell Grant award back then for free tuition help from the government was $1,800. That leaves our hypothetical student on the hook for just about $1,000. Add in a little pocket money, too — say $35 a week. That makes an extra $1,820 for the year on top of the $1,000 tuition shortfall.

Now, $3.35 an hour was the minimum wage back then. So, making $2,870 meant working 842 hours. That’s 16 hours a week year-round — a decent part-time job. It’s also about nine hours a day for three straight months — a full-time, seven-day-a-week summer job. Or, more likely, a combination of both. In short: not impossible. Far from it.

For today’s public university student, though, the numbers have all changed in the wrong direction.

Why Summer Jobs Don’t Pay

Illustration: Michelle Kondrich for NPR

[ctoncourse]

Summer jobs = not much.

[scienceisbeauty]

Preserved 440-pound blue whale heart.

Via Wired.

JFYI, a blue whale ticker is equivalent in size to a Volkswagen beetle (from Whale Facts).

[ctoncourse]

Whoah! That’s so cool! 

[desrocheswnpr]

The Key to Raising a Brilliant Child? Keep Them Asking Questions, Science Says

Questions have been a powerful force for a really long time. It’s what led to the Enlightenment, to the growth of reason and scientific thought, to the current changes taking place among schools that are focusing more on mastery of skills instead of fact regurgitation. It’s also the foundation of critical thinking, and in the increasingly polarized climate of the United States, it’s hard to argue the benefits of questioning everything. 

Over at NPR, Anya Kamenetz from Education Team had a chance to interview  Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff, who wrote a book called, “Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children”. 

“What we do with little kids today will matter in 20 years,” Hirsh-Pasek told NPR. “If you don’t get it right, you will have an unlivable environment. That’s the crisis I see.”

The authors talk about what they call the “six C's”: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence. Here’s a snippet of the interview (the bold italics is Kamenetz): 

Golinkoff: So, if you’re going to have a kid who engages in critical thinking, you’re not going to shut them down when they ask a question. You’re not going to settle for “because.” You’re going to encourage them to ask more. And you want them to understand how other people think.

If you see a homeless person in the street: What do you think that person is thinking? How do you think they feel about not having a home?

Get someone else’s point of view activated to help them recognize that things are not always what they appear. That’s going to help them understand critical thinking.

OK, so that helps me understand how these skills are all interrelated. Perspective-taking, which I think of as a component of empathy, you’re saying is also foundational for critical thinking.

Hirsh-Pasek: Yes, theory of mind is important to be able to do critical thinking.

So if a kid asks you why the sky is blue, it’s probably a good idea to not say “just because,” or even to explain the actual reason. Getting them to discover it on their own could be the key to their future. 

(Photo via http://austinsirkin.tumblr.com) 

[ctoncourse]

Art In English Class? Some Say Yes... Visual Literacy Can Help Us Wade Through Modern Life

(Screenshot of video by Ryan Caron King/WNPR)

High school English class is usually a time to read books and write essays. If you draw pictures, you might get into trouble. But not in James Shivers’s English class at CREC Public Safety Academy in Enfield -- he actually asks his students to draw.

Eighteen-year-old Samantha Vasquez was initially skeptical at the thought of drawing and looking at art as an English lesson.

"At first, I was kind of like, really against this because I didn't understand it," she said.

She's a book lover, and thought all this attention on visuals would be distracting.

"But when you get to actually see what he's doing," she said, "you can kind of see he's trying to put visuals with the writing and things like that, and it opens up new ways to view different things."

Her teacher, James Shivers, uses what's called "visual literacy" as way to get his students to think critically. Being "visually literate" means being able to decode, or decipher, all the visual beauty and noise of modern life. It means being able to understand different media messages – billboards, pop-up ads, commercials, message boards, social media, news articles, and even street art.

In other words, it's about visuals as a way to convey meaning. Here's how Shivers describes one of his drawing lessons:

"So it's making a visual argument, without using words," he said. "So it's very abstract, but they're very good at it too."

Above: James Shivers shows a piece of a visual literacy project. (Screenshot of video by Ryan Caron King/WNPR)

Shivers has been a teacher for over 20 years, but when he first started teaching ninth graders six years ago, he noticed something. His students were constantly on Facebook, checking their Instagram feeds, or posting to Snapchat. These social media distractions frustrate most teachers, but it inspired Shivers.

"I realized every student had a phone in their hand," Shivers said. "And that grammar -- that multimodal grammar -- was in their hand, and I kept thinking -- how can I use this? How can I explore this?"

If done correctly, visual literacy has a lot of benefits. A Yale report found that children tend to use bigger words after describing a piece of art. It's understood that the more senses that are exposed to learning, the more knowledge students will retain.

One of the lessons involves drawing. By making their own art, the thinking goes, students get a better handle on the process, which can offer insight into what visuals are intended to mean, and what might be lying just beneath the surface.

"I remember when we first started, a lot of you said, 'I can't draw, I can't draw, I can't draw,'" Shivers told his students. "Then think about where you are now in terms of drawing. Do you feel more confident or not or..."

A student called out from the back of the room, "I still can't draw!"

"Still can't draw," Shivers shot back. "So change hands today. Draw with your other hand."

Shivers turned off the lights and turned on a Smart Board projector. A photograph of a bronze sculpture appeared on a screen. It was a man with no face -- his left arm wasn't visible, with his right arm bent across his stomach. His head tilted slightly down.

"I'm going to ask you to draw," Shivers said. "You'll have about five or ten minutes to draw. As you're drawing, I want you to think about what mood this piece is sending out."

Jorge Serrano sketches during an assignment in Shivers's class in March 2017. (Ryan Caron King/WNPR)

He then asked them to write down any emotions they might feel, or to come up with a story. When they were done, Shivers put another photo up on the screen. It was the same sculpture, but a different angle. Again, they drew and then wrote. Then, he put up a third photo -- same sculpture from a third angle.

When they were done, they talked it out. Everyone saw something different. One student saw brooding in the sculpture. Another, malice. One perceived nostalgia. Another, strength.

"We actually see what we know," Shivers said. "So we study this in psychology, so whatever's in us comes out as we look at the world. And so to become aware of that allows us to see into situations, which is called insight."

Senior Matt Hutchings admitted he's not an artist. But, by drawing things out -- it does help him see other perspectives.

"I'd still rather write than draw," he said. "But, in some parts drawing can help me understand something differently and get a deeper feeling for it."

Ten thousand miles away from Shivers's classroom, a University of Sydney professor is among several researchers who have studied visual literacy. Since 2012, Australia has incorporated visual literacy into its national curriculum.

Professor Jon Callow pointed out that visuals are everywhere, so they can't be ignored. So the question for researchers is what sorts of visual literacy practices are effective?

Callow said the key is thoughtful engagement with a variety of what he calls "visual texts."

"How might we help kids and students at certain points step back and go -- OK, I really like this and I think it's because they're doing these things, visually, as well as with audio or video or something like that as well," Callow said. "Or -- I just read something and I don't know if it's true or not. It looks like it could be true because it's a really slick website -- it has ABC news, or it has some other title at the top or an icon -- but I'm not convinced that just the look of it is what makes it credible, so I need to be able to back and look at the viability or validity of it and ask those questions as well."

Above: See the evolution of pictographs into modern Chinese characters. This is visual literacy in one of its earliest forms. Via Emaze.com)

Visual literacy advocates point out that it's not a magic pill, and some students respond better than others. But some form of this method has been around for centuries. Before there were words, there were pictures. The first letters were pictures, and some languages still use pictographic words or letters.

And of course there's the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." Well, in visually literate classrooms, words are also worth a few pictures.

[ctoncourse]

Does it Matter that Trump’s Pick for Education Secretary is a Big Donor to Republican Senators?

Money in politics is nothing new. But where that money comes from can be an important factor in determining the legitimacy of the democratic process. That’s why we have campaign finance laws and a long history of trying to make sure big money doesn’t influence decision-making (too much). 

Enter President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, billionaire Betsy Devos. According to the Washington Post, Devos and her family gave over $800,000 to Republican senators -- many who are tasked with vetting her for the job. From the Post: 

During the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, DeVos and her relatives gave at least $818,000 to 20 current Republican senators, including more than $250,000 to five members of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission records. ...

To money-in-politics watchdogs, the DeVos family’s contributions create a conflict of interest for senators now charged with judging Betsy DeVos’s fitness to helm the Education Department.

“She’s acknowledged that her family gives, and gives a lot, because it’s aiming to buy influence,” said Robert Weissman of Public Citizen, who said the scale of the DeVos family’s political donations is unusual for a prospective Cabinet member. “Against that backdrop, how are the senators supposed to evaluate her nomination in an unbiased way? They can’t.”

Watchdog groups are calling for these senators to recuse themselves from the confirmation hearings. But this is not a new issue. The Post notes that President Obama’s pick for commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, donated about $20,000 to Democratic senators who then voted on her confirmation four years later. 

DeVos also has quite a different vision for public education than the current administration -- one that would likely include more public money for school vouchers (which could include religious schools) and charter schools. This then begs the question -- are these watchdog groups asking for the senators to recuse themselves because they took money, or because the confirmation involves a person who’s opinion is different from theirs? 

Partisanship takes many faces. If we’re going to shed light on only one dark corner, that leaves less light in the other. The whole room should be lit up. 

(Photo via PublicDomainPictures.net)

[ctoncourse]

Wow... Check Out This New Tech That Helps Kids With Dyslexia to Read

This is cool. It’s a device that you scan over text and it reads it to you. I’ve never used it, and I can’t endorse it, and I can’t even say that this is anything much different from technology that’s already out there. (Smart phones will read text, for example). 

But I love that two people with dyslexia are out there trying to innovate, trying to do something different, trying to change people’s perceptions of what it means to have dyslexia. The founders are husband and wife team, Jamee and Payden Miller.

Side note: The company behind the Read ‘n Style pen, Hidden Abilities, recently won an Award for Entrepreneurship by the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. 

Here’s a little explainer from the Hidden Abilities website: 

The idea for the Read ‘n Style pen began when Jamee was in elementary school. Like many others, she struggled with reading. When Jamee had homework, she went to her mom for help, and the two of them would sit at the kitchen table taking turns reading. Jamee would read a page out loud and her mom read the next to her. They would repeat this process back and forth until they were finished. When it was her mom’s turn to read, Jamee would follow along with her, reading the words on the page as her mom pronounced them out loud. Seeing the words, then listening to them pronounced helped Jamee understand what she was reading, improved her spelling, and built her vocabulary.

[ctoncourse]

How Many Prisoners Have Dyslexia? We Don’t Know, But It’s Probably A Lot

Roughly one-third of prison inmates are functionally illiterate. 

That’s according to a new survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. 

That’s one out of every three people behind bars has trouble reading, or grasping concepts presented in what they read. Compare that with the general population, which is roughly one out of four.

The results are even worse for math skills -- over half of all prisoners can’t do basic things with numbers. 

But what’s most fascinating is the absence of key data. There’s not a single mention of the word “dyslexia” -- even though it’s likely the reason why a large portion of prisoners can’t read well enough to get or maintain a job. 

Dr. Sally Shaywitz works at the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. She estimates that about 20 percent of the general population has dyslexia. Others guess between 10 and 15 percent. It’s not really known because there’s no consistency behind diagnostic procedures, and there’s no universally recognized definition of dyslexia (though there have been efforts to change that), which is a condition where people have trouble connecting sounds with letters and words on a page.

So if 20 percent of the general population is functionally illiterate, according to the NCES report; and by Shaywitz’s estimate, 20 percent of people have dyslexia, it would not be a huge leap to connect this illiteracy to this condition. 

By comparison, if more people in prison can’t read, it’s highly likely that more people in prison have dyslexia, which also comes with a unique set of strengths, such problem solving ability, spatial awareness, and out-of-the-box thinking. 

In fact, there are many successful entrepreneurs who have the condition. Some say it’s because of dyslexia that they’ve found success. 

This means that our failure to understand dyslexia, and the failure of school systems to try to understand it on their own, has undoubtedly caused many students to fall into a life of antisocial behavior. It’s a large, and completely undiscussed, contributor to the rampant school-to-prison pipeline. 

Maybe one day there will be data to support this. And when that happens, you can bet I’ll be one of the first to report on it. 

[beeps-bravely-through-her-fear]

Ninth grade

Ninth graders will tell off-topic lunatic stories with such intensity and passion that you can’t help but get caught up in their nonsense.

They are silly and scared.

Ninth graders will wait to whisper-ask if they can use the bathroom. They will also fart with abandon while giggling. They are afraid to say the word “sex” but gleefully discuss Melanthius’s mangled genitals in The Odyssey.

Ninth graders will leave cough drops on your desk when you are not feeling well. They get nervous if you’re absent, even if you tell them the day before “I am going to be absent tomorrow.”

Ninth graders are slowly understanding the world around them. “If they’re lying about the buggers in Ender’s Game,” they say, “does that mean all governments lie to keep their people under control?” You are quiet. They put their head down.

You are going to break their hearts this year.

Ninth graders blush when talking to you. They might be a little in love, in a removed, chaste way. You are an aunt, a wise cousin, a mysterious neighbor. They will crimp their hair and draw on their wrists. They like that you’re a nerd. They imagine meeting your dog. They want to perform for you.

Ninth graders cry when Tom Robinson is killed. They get so angry at Capulet and Tybalt. They hate Napoleon and wish for Snowball to come back to run the farm. They think Telemachus whines too much and that no one should be handicapped like in Harrison Bergeron. They believe George and Lennie could’ve run.

“But this was written a while ago,” they reason. “Things are different now.”

That one kid picks his head up. “Not that different.”

Ninth graders will one day be older. Please, please. You need to save this world. I am counting on you to save this world.

[ctoncourse]

Great look into a freshman class! 

[npr]

Student parent.

Ever heard that term? It’s used for a student who is also a parent, and there are nearly five million of them in colleges around the country. That’s over a quarter of the undergraduate population, and that number has gone up by around a million since 2011.

It can be really, really expensive to be a student parent, especially if you need to pay for child care while you’re in class.

In some states, child care for an infant can be as much as $17,062 a year, according to a report by Child Care Aware of America. Add that on to the ever-rising cost of college tuition — both private and public — and the financial strain of getting a college education becomes a huge burden for low-income parents. So much so that only a third of student parents get a degree within six years, often citing mounting debt as a reason for dropping out.

For College Students With Kids, Getting Cheap Child Care Is A Challenge

Illustration: Maria Fabrizio for NPR

[pleatedjeans]

Three cheers for these guys [x]

[blackphoenixincorporated]

This is how to be a good ally.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Using their Bro-ness for good, not evil

[ladyflowdi]

So a tiny story: on Black Friday a few weeks ago I went to Gamestop to buy my brother a game for Christmas, and I noticed this older man was watching me like a hawk. He was loitering around the front of the store without really buying anything, and every time I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye he was looking at me. I went to look at the PS4 games, and he was looking at something right behind me. I checked out the Nintendo games, and he was looking at them too. I was the only woman in the store, by the way.

By the time I got in line to pay he was loitering at the front of the store again, and I just had that feeling that he was going to try and take the game I just bought, or steal my purse, as soon as I left the store. OR, he was going to try and follow me home. And I know I don’t have to explain that terror to any woman reading this, but all I could think was that I’m in this Gamestop alone with at least twenty other men and something is about to happen. I’m beginning to freak out, to the point where I’ve just pulled my pepper spray out of my purse and into the pocket of my coat. 

So there I am, next in line to pay, and there is this GIGANTIC dudebro right behind me, and I say gigantic as a 6 foot tall woman. He says, “Ma’am? Don’t be offended, but would it be alright if I walked you to your car?” and I was like “Are you serious?” and he was like “There are some weird guys in here right now. Have you noticed that guy watching you?” and then I showed the dudebro the pepper spray in my pocket and he was like “Right on. Would you still let me walk you to your car?” and I said yes.

So I paid, and waited while HE paid, and he walked me to my car. And just as I was getting in, the weird guy who’d been loitering came out of the store, saw me and my dudebro, and turned around and walked away in the opposite direction. 

In short: men who recognize that women are unsafe in dark alleys, college campuses, grocery stores, gas stations and retail stores and do something about it are the kind of quality men that this world needs more of.

[general-anxiety]

Oh god, this made me tear up. Take care of each other out there.

[givology]

Against All Odds, This Afghan Girl Finishes Her Education Despite Child Marriage

Yalda had many suitors. But when she resisted, her parents didn’t pressure her. Until 9th grade.

Meet Yalda, an inspiring young girl who graduated high school early and is now preparing for college! She was inspired by soldiers to learn English and further her education. Yalda is proof that one can achieve their dreams despite any obstacles! 

[ctoncourse]

Study Suggests Listening Skills Can Predict a Child’s Ability to Read

Researchers from Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory found that a 30-minute listening test given to three-year-olds is a strong predictor of how well that child will learn to read. It can also help figure out if the child will develop a learning disability. 

Nina Kraus, director of the lab, says this is a big step forward toward better understanding the complex mechanisms associated with reading and listening to sounds.  

Kraus told KQED that this discovery could help schools and parents figure out how to allocate resources early on.

“There are excellent interventions we can give to struggling readers during crucial pre-school years, but the earlier the better,” said Kraus, a professor of communication sciences, neurobiology and physiology in the School of Communication. “The challenge has been to identify which children are candidates for these interventions, and now we have discovered a way.”

Kraus suggests parents and teachers can create spaces that would help some vulnerable children overcome any literacy challenges they might face. Here are some things you can do, according to KQED: 

1.  Reduce noise 2.  Read aloud 3.  Encourage children to play a musical instrument 4.  Listen to audiobooks and podcasts 5.  Support learning a second language 6.  Avoid white noise machines 7.  Use the spread of technology to your advantage

Here’s Kraus giving a speech called “Breaking the Wall to Neuro-education: How the neuroscience of sound, language and music shapes human communication.”: 

(Photo via HearingReview.com)

[ctoncourse]

How Are Kids Learning in a ‘Post-Truth’ World?

It’s official -- Oxford Dictionaries have named “post-truth” as the word of the year for 2016. It’s an adjective, meaning: “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

  From the Oxford University Press: 

The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics.

Here’s a graphic that explains it a little: 

Soooo, what the heck does that mean for schools? Canadian teacher Andrew Campbell wrote an insightful piece about this very idea. Here’s a snippet: 

There’s considerable evidence that, contrary to conventional wisdom, people do not naturally seek truth. Rather than gathering facts and forming opinions based on evidence, most people form opinions and then accept or reject facts based on whether they confirm their beliefs. ...

A second factor is the existence of filter bubbles. Eli Pariser first explained how search algorithms use personal information (e.g. location, past click behaviour, search history, etc.) to shape what information is provided to users. This means that a search is likely to provide results that confirm what you already believe, even if what you believe is wrong. ...

Currently, most educators seem to be walking their students into a Post-Truth future. Schools embrace the role of filter bubbles and the democratization of expertise, teaching students that using Google is an essential 21st Century Competency and encouraging the use of social media as a trusted source of information.

If, however, we believe truth is important, we must formally and explicitly begin to teach students about the digital world they are entering. All citizens need to be aware about the role algorithms play in what they read on their screens, and there’s no better group to start this with than students...

We also need to start helping students understand the value of a free and independent media. ... Students must become thoughtful activists of Internet content. Algorithms are built on user behaviour, so if we change our behaviour we can change what we see.

This is a real thing that’s happening. Emotional reaction has replaced informed decision-making. That’s always been a problem, but it’s exacerbated by an over-saturation of information that preys on stereotypes and fears. Schools are ground zero for mitigating this dangerous trend, and teaching students how to think critically, and for themselves, is step one in this process. 

[ctoncourse]

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You can’t make this stuff up. One of the hardest jobs in the education world, and the demands are three short sentences long. I hope this charter school finds much more than they’re looking for. 

Check out the ad for yourself.