The Educator's Notebook

Even More Focus On Knowledge Instead Of Skills In Early Grades
Atlantic - 4/13/18

“The bottom line is that policymakers and advocates who have pushed for more testing in part as a way to narrow the gap between rich and poor have undermined their own efforts. They have created a system that incentivizes teachers to withhold the very thing that could accomplish both objectives: knowledge. All students suffer under this system, but the neediest suffer the most.”
Another Good Summary Of The Evidence Against Learning Styles
Lifehacker - 4/12/18

"Instead of teaching to learning styles, create lessons by asking, “How can I best help students grasp the meaning of the material?” That means if you want kids to understand what a French accent sounds like, you’d have them listen to a recording. If you’re trying to have them understand maps, you’d give them an actual map and have the practice getting from Point A to B.”

Admissions Offices Under Legal Scrutiny: Antitrust, Discrimination
NPR - 4/11/18

"The Justice Department is reportedly investigating possible antitrust violations by a number of elite colleges related to the sharing of information between them to enforce the terms of their early-admissions programs.”
“How To Level The College Playing Field”
New York Times - 4/7/18

“Why Teenagers Become ‘Allergic’ To Their Parents”
New York Times - 4/11/18

“As teenagers begin to disentangle from their folks, they inevitably sort a parent’s every behavior and predilection into one of two categories: those they reject, and those they intend to adopt. Unfortunately for the peace of the household, each of these categories creates its own problem for teenagers intent on establishing their individuality.”

Intelligence (Beyond Just Thinking) Isn’t Possible Without Feeling
Aeon - 4/13/18

“Most proposals for emotion in robots involve the addition of a separate ‘emotion module’ – some sort of bolted-on affective architecture that can influence other abilities such as perception and cognition… But research from the behavioural and brain sciences suggests that emotion is not just an ‘added feature’ layered on top of ‘standard’ cognition. Instead, it’s an integral part of our cognitive machinery.”
The Expanded Mind: From Mind-Body Interaction to Mind-World
New Yorker - 4/2/18

“There were many kinds of thinking that weren't possible without a pen and paper, or the digital equivalent -- complex mathematical calculations, for instance. Writing prose was usually a matter of looping back and forth between screen or paper and mind: writing something down, reading it over, thinking again, writing again.”

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