No Gr_du_te Left Behind
The New York Times -- September 30, 2007
by James Traub
"At the University of Charleston, a not-exactly-selective institution on the banks of the Kanawha River in the capital city of West Virginia, incoming students take a standardized test designed to measure reasoning and writing skills and then take the test again after sophomore year and once again as seniors — to see if their education is doing them any good. Courses are constructed around a series of defined 'liberal learning outcomes' like critical thinking and creativity, and if the students’ work shows that many of them aren’t hitting the outcomes, the teachers go back to the drawing board. Ditto with the standardized tests. 'We take data seriously,' says Alan Belcher, a member of the Faculty Center that rides herd on the whole process, 'and we act on it.' Apparently they act well: in its promotional materials, U.C. boasts that it posted 'the largest learning gain from first to final year' of any of the 40 schools that participated in a trial of the Collegiate Learning Assessment, one test it uses."-- Read the Full Article
Are We Leaving Students Behind?
The Gainsville Times -- September 30, 2007
by Jeff Gill
"The federal No Child Left Behind Act is set for a face-lift, but whether it's a tweaking here and there or a major overhaul remains to be seen ...The law, which has influenced state and local education thinking and policy the past five years, is up for reauthorization, with elected officials and education groups issuing proposals and insights ... The latest plan, announced earlier this month, is the draft version of a bill from U.S. Rep. George Miller, Democratic chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and the committee's senior Republican member, Buck McKeon of California ... The bill proposes wide-ranging changes, including a focus on boosting graduation rates and changes in the labeling of schools that don't make 'adequate yearly progress,' or AYP, which lies at the heart of the accountability-driven law ... But perhaps one of the most significant changes -- and one that's sure to please many school administrators -- centers on how to measure academic progress ... Will Schofield, superintendent of Hall County schools, said the CRCT was not originally designed to measure annual growth of individual students ... Schofield said that generally he is encouraged by early revisions of the law ... 'Up to this point, we have invested our nation's resources and our children's futures in an accountability system designed to help our most fragile students become minimally proficient,' he said ...The focus hasn't been on 'demanding the creation of innovative systems that allow all students to be challenged and stretched toward achieving at their fullest potential ... Additionally, beginning to talk about measuring 21st-century skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration is a hopeful sign.'"-- Read the Full Article
Alternative Reality: UW Prof Touts Computer Game Learning
Wisconsin Technology Network -- September 29, 2007
by Joe Vanden Plas
Madison, WI — "In an era of standardized testing, the idea of introducing computer games into the classroom might be tantamount to driving a square peg into round hole ... Even though parents and educators increasingly see the value of computer game learning, the powers who drive education policy are either still too wedded to the type of learning that prepared students for the industrial age, or they think teaching with computer games is too radical to suggest at the moment - even if they know the digital world is creating a new paradigm for education ... The potential value of computer game education, and the counterintuitive thinking it requires, has not been lost on University of Wisconsin-Madison professor David Williamson Shaffer, author of “How Computer Games Help Children Learn' ... Shaffer, who recently explained his support for computer game learning before the Madison Chapter of the World Future Society, actually holds a consensus view that critical and creative thinking have great currency in today's knowledge-based economy ... The disconnect comes in how best to stimulate creativity and innovation ... In Shaffer's view, K-12 education still is structured around the rote learning that was important to the previous economic (industrial) age, and it is increasingly teaching kids the basic skills they need to pass tests - at the expense of developing critical thinking and problem solving. He is among a growing chorus of educators who say it's long past time for schools to prepare children for the participatory and creative culture they will encounter in the future workplace." -- Read the Full Article
Pin the Noose on the Honky
The American Daily -- September 29, 2007
by Lee Culpeplper
"Ramming multiculturalism, diversity, and intolerant-tolerance down the throats of captive students keeps many public schools quite busy. But unwelcome menaces like critical thinking and factual history jeopardize this multicultural indoctrination of students; consequently, many politically correct educators have fought shamelessly and successfully to abolish these perceived 'threats' from their classrooms. While PC terms often sound nontoxic and even advantageous, they have actually served to strangle the ability to think ... The disturbing news from Jena, Louisiana, elucidates my point. Racial mayhem has struck this small town. There we have two racial sub-cultures that clearly expose the foolishness of the PC agenda engulfing America. Multicultural zealots insist that all cultures are equal. In fact, they encourage individuals to mindlessly celebrate the culture in which they were born – especially if an individual’s culture runs diametrically opposite to America’s productive melting-pot society. Even more troublesome, to support assimilating into America’s mainstream traditions equates to an abominable sin in multiculturalism’s pagan religion ... On the other hand, the two cultures clashing in Jena help to expose political correctness for the sham that it is. If these two sub-cultures (one white, one black) of American society are equal to every other culture, then what’s the problem? Obviously, these two cultures are counterproductive for the people who live them – that’s the problem! Many other worldly cultures are counterproductive, too. Muslims who see all non-Muslims as infidels -- worthy of slaughter -- is a relevant example ... Ignorance appears to be an obvious factor in Jena’s disaster. Perhaps if these students were taught factual history and critical thinking skills versus politically correct garbage, they might be farther along in their social development. Maybe advocating every culture except mainstream American culture has also contributed to their stunted intellectual growth ... When it comes to multicultural brainwashing, one thing is certain. If we cave in to the pressures of political correctness, every American will stand guilty of hanging his own noose." -- Read the Full Article
Poetry Analysis Teaches Useful Skills
The Paly Voice -- September 28, 2007
by Mia Pond of the Campanile
"The only five classes that specifically state poetry as a part of their curriculum are American Literature 11, Women Writers, Literature of Sport, Advanced Placement English and American Writers of Color, according to the Palo Alto High School course catalogue ... The Paly English Department does not offer an English elective solely dedicated to the study of poetry, a class that other local high schools have ... The English Department must strengthen and emphasize the department's teaching of poetry ...This addition to the curriculum would further develop students' literary analysis skills and improve students' overall reading comprehension ...Teachers expect students enrolled in freshmen and sophomore English courses, like Critical Thinking I, to "demonstrate their writing, vocabulary and language skills (sentence structure, paragraphing and punctuation) largely in the context of literature," according to the course catalogue ... By incorporating poetry into the classroom environment, students would better understand and identify essential literary terms and devices. Reading and analyzing poetry allows students to observe the impact of diction, tone, imagery, meter and syntax, all of which influence every form of literature. " -- Read the Full Article
For Would-Be Citizens, a New Test is In the Offing
MSNBC.Com -- September 28, 2007
by By Dunia Elvir, Elisa Ross and Alex Johnson, Telemundo and MSNBC
Los Angeles — "For Veronica de Castillo, it is crunch time ... De Castillo is applying for naturalization, and she has been studying for the civics test that is one of the main hurdles would-be new citizens must face ... But for de Castillo and thousands of other immigrants, the rules are changing in the middle of the game. In one year, the U.S. immigration agency will administer a new test, one that goes beyond the facts and figures that applicants knew to memorize (How many branches are there in the United States government?) to probe their understanding of fundamental principles of U.S. democracy (What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?) ... What is now a basic U.S. history quiz will morph into a fairly advanced civics exam ... 'It worries me because the majority of U.S. Hispanics have trouble with English. I think it was easier before, but we’ll do our best,' de Castillo said ... The main objective was to make sure applicants could demonstrate “critical thinking about government or history.” But immigration officials made it clear that they also wanted to promote patriotism by helping prospective citizens “better understand and relate to our shared history,” according to written guidelines for drafting the 100 questions ... 'Our idea is to make this a test which is more relevant, which instills a greater sense of civic pride,' Gonzalez told NBC News when the agency undertook the project late last year." -- Read the Full Article
Modern Confusions Over Confucius
Taipei Times -- September 28, 2007
by Herbert Hanreich
On Sept. 28, the birthday of Confucius (??), Taiwan and other parts of the Chinese cultural world commemorate the ideas of this sage, as he is generally called ... Although abolished as a national holiday in Taiwan some years ago, this day is an occasion for politicians, educators and other public figures to reflect upon the meaning of his writings for the modern age ... Governments are also involved: China, which brutally suppressed Confucianism until quite recently, will be spending around US$10 billion over the next couple of years to establish so-called Confucian Institutes all over the world. They are expected to promote Chinese culture at a global level, assuming a role similar to that of Goethe-Institutes for German culture ... Given the fact that one of the key features of Confucian thought is a great concern for political and social stability based on a high respect for political and social (family) leaders, it is no wonder that communist-ruled China, with its autocratic social systems, re-embraces Confucianism at a broad level, especially in times of eroding belief in the communist doctrines among its youth ... Culture matters, as the title of a famous book suggests, particularly in China: If party dogma fails to control its subjects, then resorting to the indigenous Confucian culture seems to be an obvious step which stipulates nearly unconditional obedience vis-a-vis state authorities, with the party chief functioning as head of an expanded 'family' ... It is disconcerting, however, to learn that voices favoring a revival of Confucianism can also be heard in today's Taiwan, more than 20 years after the introduction of democracy ... Around the time of Confucius' death, Socrates was born, a noticeable coincidence, bringing the godfathers of two important civilizations very close on the time line of human history."-- Read the Full Article
Why Does This Even Matter?
The Dallas Morning News -- September 27. 2007
by Heath Henry, Professor of History — Princeton
"It is a constant in the career of every educator to hear that dreaded question: 'Why do I have to learn this?' ... As a history teacher, I face this dilemma quite often. I frequently hear from students and adults who see no need for history to be taught at all. Some subjects have it even worse, as every stand-up comic and late-night host loves to joke about math. My fellow teachers and I give a heavy sigh (usually accompanied by a head shake) ... Of course, most of us respond with unhelpful answers like, 'You will need to know this for college ... or the test ... or next year's class' ... There is a better answer: These subjects train the brain to work in new and stronger ways ... It is strange that people will spend hours in a spinning class and never say, "How am I going to use this in real life?" No one goes to the instructor and says, "I never plan to ride a bike, so why do I need to do this?" It is understood that these exercises are used to strengthen muscles and tone the body, not train for a career in cycling ... The same thing happens when kids go to class and learn those complicated geometry formulas. The muscle (i.e., the brain) gets strengthened and toned ... When students learn about chemical compounds, poetry measures or geographic features, they are also increasing their ability to think critically and creatively. In my class, students do not just learn facts of history, they learn how to value and use information. Teaching a 15-year-old how to use his or her standard-issue brain is one of the most valuable (and difficult) duties I have." -- Read the Full Article
Meeting of the Minds
Inside Higher Education -- September 27, 2007
by Doug Lederman
"In one way or another, leaders in higher education have been working for 20 years on trying to find valid and meaningful ways of measuring how well students learn. Although some institutions have developed their own measures, most college officials agree that there has been much less progress in revealing those results to the public and in finding ways to give students information they might use to compare their chances for success across different institutions, a point made bluntly and quite critically in last year’s report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education ...The discussion in recent months about how to alter that landscape has at times pitted the federal government against college officials: Education Department officials have accused some college leaders of dragging their feet and refusing to be held accountable for their performance, and many in higher education assert that the government has tried to impose an overly simplistic, overly standardized approach that fails to account for the rich diversity of colleges’ missions and students ... Today, the Education Department plans to announce that it is giving three college associations a $2.4 million grant to help them assess existing, and develop new, tests and other tools to measure student outcomes on a wide range of skills. Officials of the Education Department and the three groups — the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges — herald the development as a breakthrough ... The embrace of the project by the three groups, their leaders said, shows that colleges are unafraid to assess their performance, but want to ensure that the measures used are appropriate, intelligently crafted, and fully represent the many kinds of skills that students need. And the department’s financial backing, said Sara Martinez Tucker, U.S. under secretary of education, shows that department officials meant it when they said they want colleges to 'do it themselves,' rather than have the government do it to them ... 'It is my hope and expectation that this represents a transitional moment in both the dialogue about how to measure student learning and, even more important, in the actual practices we use to do that,' said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the AACU, which is taking the lead on the project. 'The primary responsibility for achieving educational excellence falls on colleges and universities themselves. And through this initiative, over 1,200 colleges and universities in three different associations will come together to move the assessment agenda forward, in ways that respect the best traditions and the most important purposes of American higher education' ... Critics of the push for comparing the learning outcomes of institutions and individuals (notably the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities) have complained that the Spellings Commission and the Education Department have rushed to adopt standardized measures of general education skills (such as writing and critical thinking) that are not up to the task. They have also argued that other crucial desirable 'outcomes' of an undergraduate education, such as civic engagement or ethical reasoning, cannot be measured by existing tools, and that some outcome measures popular on campuses — such as electronic portfolios — may have more promise than standardized tools ...The proposal put forward by the three associations — which the Education Department chose over several competing proposals in a competition, Tucker said in an interview — deals with all three issues. In full, said Schneider, the project aims to find ways to measure the “broad array of learning outcomes that most colleges and universities consider essential to a good education,' such as those AACU laid out in its recent report, 'College Learning for the New Global Century' ... The newly funded FIPSE project contains three main parts. NASULGC will lead the way on a project that will review the effectiveness of three major standardized measures of general education skills that are part of the Voluntary System of Accountability that the land-grant association and AASCU are crafting. Experts from the organizations that sponsor the Collegiate Learning Assessment. the Measure of Academic Progress and Proficiency and the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency will work together with other testing experts to assess the tests’ relative reliability and validity, so that 'you will know it means when you score high or low on one of these tests,' said David Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at NASULGC ... 'When you’ve got something new, like measuring critical thinking, the academy is skeptical, and it wants lots of testing done before we start making decisions on it,' he said. 'We want it done right and we want to measure this by the standards that we use to measure the other kinds of research that we do. This grant will allow us to do that, to fill in that gap' ... AASCU’s part of the project (in which AACU will also participate) will involve an attempt to try to develop tools for measuring student outcomes that aren’t easily measured, such as civic engagement, teamwork, personal and social responsibility, and the like. This effort aims to respond to the idea that many of the traits that a good liberal arts or general education develops are hugely important, but not easily measurable and hence difficult to assess. The goal would be to develop metrics or 'rubrics' that colleges could use to measure some of those traits in their students ... The third piece of the project, on which the Association of American Colleges and Universities will take the lead, seeks to tap into the significant work that many colleges have done to try to measure their students’ development using electronic portfolios. Many departments, schools and colleges have developed ways of using collections of student work to show progress not only on general skills like writing but on those tied to their fields of study. AACU’s goal, said Schneider, is to assess the quality of existing e-portfolio assessments on campuses and further develop and share the best ones. ...The extent to which the collaboration might represent a breakthrough might be most evident in the fact that even the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities — which has vigorously opposed department efforts to push colleges to use comparable, standardized measures of student learning — viewed the moment favorably ... 'The idea of putting a competitive grant out there through FIPSE is a very positive development,' said Sarah A. Flanagan, vice president for government relations and policy development at the private college association. Flanagan said she had not seen the details of the proposal, so could not comment on every bit of its substance. But 'we take this as a signal on [department officials’] part that they are willing to work in partnership with colleges in addressing some of the complex policy issues that face higher education.' "-- Read the Full Article
Causes of Global Warming – Are We Fooled By Hubris?
Fractals of Change -- September 26, 2007
Commentary on "Fooled by Randomness," by Nassim Taleb
"According to Nassim Taleb in 'Fooled by Randomness' we like to tell ourselves stories, perhaps to aid in remembering otherwise unrelated events. Often these stories can mislead us because we tend to assume that events which come first are the cause of events which come after even though the events may actually be either unrelated or both the independent results of some unknown third event. Philosophers are sufficiently aware of this fallacy to give it a Latin name – ' post hoc ergo propter hoc' ... Among other examples, Taleb, who is a trader, points to the absurd sound bites in the daily financial press which ascribe a cause to every statistically insignificant market move. If the market moves fast enough, the same cause is often used for the move in both directions ... Taleb points out that scientists are no more immune to bad logic and group think than the rest of us. Those who mistook scientific consensus for proven fact “knew” that the earth was flat and that the sun circled it ... We have another tendency in our storytelling according to me: we humans like to be the cause of everything. We hate being helpless. Think of all the stories about the wrath of various gods in all the mythologies of the world. The people were sinful so God destroyed the city; the woman was vain so the Goddess punished her; the sacrifice was not properly prepared and therefore…What these stories really say is that we control the gods and not vice versa. My friend W, who prefers to remain anonymous, pointed out to me that the sale of indulgences to those who felt a need for some kind of forgiveness is another example of man controlling God. He also pointed out that there are resemblances between individual purchases of carbon credits and indulgences. Hmm ... It hurts to believe that we have almost no control over our environment. Somehow it’s psychologically more comfortable to believe that it’s all our fault (or at least the fault of our neighbors with SUVs) and we have it within our control to placate the gods or nature with some well-designed sacrifice ...The assumption that climate is within our control is hubris even though it may eventually be true. There is stuff – lots of stuff – that we neither understand nor control. Many civilizations spent much of their declining fortunes in rituals and monuments designed to ward off the effects of climate change and other catastrophes they didn’t cause – but wanted to believe they were in control of. Everyone knew that witches were responsible for crop failures – most people even “knew” who the witches were ... We have to answer critically important questions like is the current warming trend short or long-term? Is it reversible? Did we contribute to it or cause it? In either case, can we reverse it? if warming continues, will seas continue to rise (not a given because snowfall patterns as well as temperature govern glacier extent)? We’ll have to takes many actions before all the results are known since no action is an action in itself ... This will all take our best thinking but Nassim Taleb’s point is that we are not actually designed to think very well. We have the same brains as the people who believed the earth was flat and who conducted witch trials. In order to do good thinking, we have to be aware of and fight against our tendency to tell ourselves stories when no story line actually exists. I’d add that we also have to watch our tendency to cast ourselves as major characters – even villains – rather than believe that we are just bystanders ... Does skepticism imply inaction? Nope. "-- Read the Full Article
Hoosier Kids Raise Test Scores
Ft Wayne Journal Gazette -- September 26, 2007
by Kelly Soderlund
"Indiana students made strides in both reading and math and outscored their peers on a test administered across the country ... Results from the National Assessment of Education Progress, also called The Nation’s Report Card, were released Tuesday showing Indiana students scored above the national average in both reading and math and made gains since students were tested two years ago. While math scores have steadily increased for the past 15 years, reading scores have remained stagnant, getting back to where they were five years ago after a dip in 2005 ... The national test is given to fourth- and eighth-grade students in all 50 states every two years. More than 110 Indiana schools participated in the test, which was administered to 3,100 Hoosier fourth-graders and 2,600 eighth-graders ...The schools that participated were not released and the report only lists statewide data ...While Indiana students made gains overall in the test scores, they did little to narrow the achievement gap among ethnic groups from two years ago. The achievement gap between low-income students also remained unchanged from 2005 ... Closing the achievement gap becomes harder when students start performing better, said Peter Kloosterman, professor of mathematics education at Indiana University. To lower the gap, upper-income students must stop making gains or low-income students must progress faster, he said ... The improved math scores can be attributed to a revised curriculum more focused on critical thinking, problem solving and applied mathematics, he said. Reading scores are harder to raise because it takes more outside influences than what goes on in the school building to get students to hit the books, Kloosterman said." -- Read the Full Article
Wake Forest Plans Realignment for Calloway, Babcock Schools
Wake Forest University News Service -- September 26, 2007
"Wake Forest University announced an administrative realignment today to strengthen its two business schools. The change is aimed at capitalizing on the strengths of the schools, promoting collaboration in teaching and scholarship, and creating new opportunities to ensure that students receive the most comprehensive and forward-looking educational experience possible. Leading the initiative will be a single dean for both schools whom Wake Forest Provost Jill Tiefenthaler will appoint by next summer ... The realignment of the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy and the Babcock Graduate School of Management under one dean is being launched as Wake Forest develops a strategic plan for the university that will outline university priorities in the years ahead ...'Our university planning process has revealed that interdisciplinary studies and cross-school collaborations are critically important to our success in doing what liberal arts universities do best — developing thoughtful, ethical leaders in all professions, whose critical thinking skills are informed by a broad range of disciplines. … A powerful first step in creating such a collaborative environment across the University can begin with the Babcock and Calloway Schools,' declared Tiefenthaler ... Wake Forest is one of only a few national universities that still administers undergraduate and graduate business programs entirely separately. According to Tiefenthaler, the University of Virginia is the only other school she could identify that follows the same model."-- Read the Full Article
Arkansas Expands Public Libraries, Opens Doors
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (The Rogers Hometown News) -- September 26, 2007
by Gov Mike Beebe
"Expanding our public libraries will open doors to both young and adult Arkansans. Public libraries are valuable to our communities, and like any other public service, they require funds for upkeep, maintenance and proper training for employees. In an effort to ensure that resources will be available for Arkansas public libraries, this past legislative session, we increased state aid to public libraries by $ 1. 7 million, bringing the total to $ 4. 9 million the first year and $ 5. 7 million for the following year ... The new money will assist in revamping the regional library systems across the state. Smaller library systems will now be able to access new and improved ways of sharing books and connecting staff. We live in a globally connected society, and expanding the resources that are available to our library systems is crucial. The new funding will help broaden technology and allow multiple library systems to share interactive Web sites. As a result, books may now be checked out and returned electronically, eliminating manual procedures, saving time and granting access to individuals across Arkansas ... Libraries are essential to education because they support curricula, teach information literacy and help foster critical thinking skills. Libraries are vital to business and help connect our entrepreneurs with resources and guidance that develop their skills, foster innovation and promote creativity. Over the years, however, local funding has not kept up with community growth, and libraries are often limited in the level of resources they can provide to their patrons." -- Read the Full Article
Patriarch Mutafyan and the Armenian Version of 301 (I)
Turkish Daily News (In the 46th Year as Turkey's English Daily) -- September 26, 2007
by C Cem OGUZ
"No doubt, the settlement of the notorious Armenian-Turkish dispute principally revolving around the 'Armenian genocide' is indeed imperative. Yet, I regret to say that prospects for a resolution do not look promising. In almost every discourse, those made by Westerners in particular, it has become highly fashionable to talk about the need for reconciliation with the past. But nobody has clarified so far what reconciliation with the past means. What indeed are the prerequisites of this vague and abstract concept? What does the Armenian side understand from reconciliation? Last but not least, should it be unilateral, meaning that it should only apply to the Turks? ... For reconciliation, in the very meaning of the concept, there must be a reciprocal willingness. More importantly, reconciliation depends ultimately on civil society, not governments. Thus, as long as the following question remains unanswered, I unfortunately do not believe that it is realistic to talk about a Turkish-Armenian reconciliation: Have our beloved Armenian friends managed to reconcile with their past, or are they, too, in a state of denial and blindly trying to convince themselves that they are only victims without any guilt? ... I unfortunately do not believe that the answer to this question is 'yes, they did,' because of four simple reasons: First of all, for outspoken Armenians, the 'activists,' any resolution to the dispute means nothing more than unconditional surrender of Turkey ... Secondly, the Armenian institutions that are thought to represent civil society on the Armenian side are not helpful. Those inside Armenia are obviously under the strict control of the government. Given the character of the Armenian regime today, I do not believe that they can act independently. Those of the Diaspora, on the other hand, believe that they are the first and foremost forbearers of the 'national cause'... Thirdly, the 'genocide' has become an essential part of Armenian identity. Our Armenian friends themselves admit that memory, after all, has been the stronghold of Armenian identity. The 'genocide' is what is assumed to be uniting them. ... Finally, neither side is tolerant to critical thinking. The Turkish government has rightly been criticized for a while now over Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Our Armenian friends, however, are not immune to such a 'mental barrier.' Just a little example in that regard: I have had a great deal of respect for the Turkish Armenians' Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan II ever since I heard him say, at a symposium held in Kayseri last year, that it is unethical for Armenians and Turks 'to ignore each other's responsibility or completely put it on the other side although responsibilities weren't equal in the brutal consequence.' His noble approach to the controversy profoundly purified from potentially combustible human instincts such as revenge indeed serves as a valuable road map for constructive and healthy dialogue between these two peoples." -- Read the Full Article
High Schools Looking for Ways to Boost ACT Scores
The Messenger (Serving Troy and Pike County Since 1866) -- September 25, 2007
by Misty Bell
"With college acceptance standards on the rise, local school officials are doing what they can to ensure area students are ready to face these challenges - getting into college and succeeding once they get there ... 'I want (our students) to have the tools so that when they graduate from high school, they have options for what they want to do,' said Linda Felton-Smith, superintendent of Troy City Schools ... Felton-Smith presented the results of Charles Henderson High School's Class of 2007's ACT scores at a recent board of education meeting. The scores were down somewhat from the year before, with an average composite score of 18.6 - .8 lower than the previous year's average ...The averages for Pike County Schools were slightly up in 2007, county schools superintendent Mark Bazzell said ... 'Our ACT scores were up a little bit, but we're still below the state average,' he said ... 'I don't think students in local schools should be discouraged at all by the increase,' said Buddy Starling, dean of enrollment management at Troy University. 'Our intention is that it has a very positive effect on the number of students we attract and retain.” Starlng said there are certain ways schools can better prepare students for the ACT and for college ... 'Of course, beginning with their freshman year, students should be absorbed in these college-prep courses that prepare them for the ACT,' he said. 'We just can't place a high enough emphasis on critical thinking and reading comprehension for the ACT.' " -- Read the Full Article
The Risks and Rewards of Staying Neutral
The Chronicle of Higher Learning -- September 25, 2007
A glance at the current issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
"Some professors prefer to keep their beliefs and backgrounds out of classroom discussions, striving for a neutral space where students can discuss their ideas openly. Others have no problem with disclosing personal points of view. Charity Scott, a professor at and director of the Center for Law, Health & Society at Georgia State University's College of Law, considers both approaches and notes that each carries risks and rewards ... One plus of 'the neutrality approach,' she says, is that it 'endeavors to be respectful of students, to challenge them to think for themselves, and to avoid appearing to indoctrinate them to a professorial orthodoxy.' Yet, she wonders, "could persistent 'hiding the ball' of professorial opinion, even to the point of deflecting students' questions about it, impair the educational process?" Silence on such matters could, for example, 'unconsciously be role modeling disengagement rather than critical thinking,' she writes." -- Read the Full Article
Tribute To Teachers
BruneiDirect.Com -- September 25, 2007
by Zasika Mushdi, Courtesy of the Borneo Bulletin
Brunei, Darussalam — "Bandar Seri Begawan - Teacher's Day was officially celebrated last Sunday as a token of appreciation for the 'parents at school' and their never-ending efforts of providing knowledge ...'The idea of influencing the lives of children and guiding them with lessons for life is one that really appeals to me. I fancy a shot at being Sidney Poitier. Yet the responsibilities that come with being an educator outweighs that of any other job,' said a 25-year old IT manager ... 'I don't think I would have the patience to become a teacher,' said Reeda Malik, 37, a civil servant ... He recalled his experience with one of his favourite teachers, Mr Gokul, who taught him English, Commerce and PE at St Margaret's in Seria ... 'He was young, hip, and on the same wavelength as us kids at the time. He was always joking with us, and the way he taught was really great. He never spoke down to us, but rather, he taught us like he was telling us stories around the camp fire' ... When asked what the impacts his teachers had on him were, Reeda answered, 'Creative thinking and critical thinking were the two significant impacts which I've been fortunate enough to gain from some of the really good teachers in my past.' "-- Read the Full Article
Sheikha Mozah Bags Chatham House Prize
The Peninsula (Qatar's Leading English Daily) -- September 25, 2007
Doha — "H H Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, wife of H H the Emir, will be awarded the prestigious Chatham House Prize by the Duke of York in a ceremony to be held at the Drapers’ Hall in London on October 15 ... The annual award is given to a leading international statesperson deemed to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year ... The award is to be presented to Sheikha Mozah, Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation For Education, Science and Community Development, for her commitment to progressive education and community welfare in Qatar and her strong advocacy of closer relations between Islamic countries and the West, Chatham House said ... Sheikha Mozah has been recognised internationally for her work as Unesco’s Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education, and as a member of the High Level Group of the United Nation’s Alliance of Civilisations. She has received various honorary doctorates for her work, most recently from Imperial College in London ... The Chatham House Prize is awarded by the renowned Royal Institute of International Affairs which was founded in 1920 to analyse and promote understanding on international relations. Previous recipients of the prize include Victor Yuschenko, President of the Ukraine, and Joaquim Chissano, President of Mozambique ... In February 2007, Sheikah Mozah delivered a lecture at Chatham House in which she argued: “I believe that in order to refute the “Islam” versus “West” doctrine we need to engage in both critical thinking and design thinking." -- Read the Full Article
Teachers Connect With Counterparts in Ethiopia
San Jose Mercury News -- September 25, 2007
by Michele Tjin, Los Gatos Weekly-Times
"It would be a laughable exercise to compare what Los Gatos High School teacher Steve Hammack has in common with his counterparts in a Third World country. Hammack's students come from a place of plenty; students in Ethiopia live in mud huts reinforced with newspapers. Despite the differences, Hammack and two of his high school colleagues flew halfway across the world to Ethiopia and found a shared kinship with their counterparts ... Hammack, Kurt Kroesche and Kristi Grasty spent 16 days in Ethiopia, sharing teaching philosophies and strategies with high school teachers there. Hammack had been to Ethiopia earlier, working with student groups, but he realized that the students would only be at their schools for a few years. Teachers, on the other hand, are more permanent ... 'What I decided is that we should leverage what we have,' said Hammack, a science teacher. 'If we work with teachers, the impact will be sustained' ... Hammack, Kroesche and Grasty teamed up with 13 other Bay Area residents in July to train teachers in various parts of Ethiopia. In Dessie, a town 10 hours north of the capital, Addis Ababa, they introduced to all the high school teachers there the idea of students working interactively and doing group work. Teachers have been employing traditional "chalk and talk" methods, Hammack said ... Despite these hurdles, the native teachers were enthusiastic about learning, Kroesche and Grasty said. Their aim was to present different strategies for critical thinking, and they accomplished that by studying a text by Plato, which Kroesche uses in his classes. The pair stressed the concepts of inquiry and wonderment. After teaching for a few hours each day, they brainstormed with the teachers on how they could apply what they learn in different subject areas. The next day, the teachers tried out their newfound skills on a group of 10th-graders."-- Read the Full Article
Catholic Character
Inside Higher Education -- September 25, 2007
by Elizabeth Redden
"Don’t try reaching a Wyoming Catholic College student by cell. Students can’t have cell phones on campus — a donated cattle ranch in western Wyoming’s Wind River Mountain Range — or in the surrounding towns ... Nor can students have television sets, and while there are four computer stations with Internet access in the student lounge, there aren’t any Internet connections in the (single-sex) residence halls. (“Inter-visitation” is punishable by almost certain expulsion, while alcohol consumption is punishable by expulsion, too, says Wyoming Catholic’s president, the Rev. Robert W. Cook) ... Faculty members at the brand-new college would be expected to ensure that any research paper they assign could be completed within the confines of the college’s library and, anyway, Father Cook says, more than 90 percent of the papers that students will ever write at Wyoming Catholic are 'not research papers but thinking papers. To quickly get them to do research papers is to ask them not to think. We’re intent on trying to get these youngsters to engage in critical thinking ... We say to them, ‘Look, God gave you the greatest computer ever created: your brain.’ ”-- Read the Full Article
The New Citizen
Diario El Universal -- September 25, 2007
by Michael Rowan
"A few years ago, an assault force descended upon the Jewish school at 7AM to search for weapons for overthrowing the government, burnishing a terror Jews will never forget of how the Third Reich started in Germany. Not long after, the authorities visited the German school to mandate military indoctrination of its students only to be lectured by the German Ambassador that his nation would never again participate in the atrocities Adolf Hitler perpetrated on German youth dressed in brown shirts and indoctrinated in the dictates of the thousand-year Reich that produced the holocaust and killed fifty million people before it was stopped ... Well, they're back, but this time it's the president and his brother who is now the Minister of Education and whose mission is to instruct the young through a new curriculum the government is devising about the glories of the Bolivarian socialist revolution so they become New Citizens - loyal, docile and quick to obey, like Hitler's brown-shirts. In George Orwell's classic '1984' about Big Brother's indoctrination of New Citizens, students learned New Speak, the myths of the revolution that reversed the meaning of words. In New Speak, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, frowning at an order of the authorities was called face-crime, and critical thinking meant repeating doctrine exactly as authorized. Similarly Adan Chavez claims his new curriculum will inculcate critical thinking in Venezuelan students and schools that refuse to obey will be closed ... As an example of New Speak critical thinking, here is the specific objective in the course syllabus for pre-med students in Venezuela's state-run medical schools: "Appreciating the role of the Bolivarian Revolution led by President Hugo Chavez in the process of revolutionary transformation of Latin America, the Caribbean and the world." Yes, you read that right: the revolution is for the world, just like the Third Reich. So the next time you see the doctor, if he says, I will now apply my Bolivarian scalpel to your throat in the glorious knowledge that no true believer in the revolution can ever die, you might want to get a second opinion." -- Read the Full Article
Global Conversations Series Focuses on Latin America
University News -- September 24, 2007
by Megan Henderson
"The Global Conversations discussion of Latin America brought home the desire for a strong, united international and cultural studies program at UMKC ... Students, faculty and staff gathered in Miller Nichols Library Thursday, Sept. 20, to hear from Dr. Viviana Grieco, assistant professor of History; Dr. Bill Black, associate professor of Economics and Law and Dr. Alice Reckley, associate professor and chair of Foreign Languages & Literature. They spoke about their research in Latin American studies and opportunities available to UMKC students ... It is a dream to have a strong Latin American and Latino studies program here, just like at other universities, Grieco said ... 'If you want … major institutions to rewrite curriculum … it is a great project, but it takes time,' she said ... Reckley agreed with Grieco ... 'Interconnection is essential in everything we do [at UMKC],' Reckley said. 'Even without the institutional name, everything we do is cause for celebration' ... Grieco and Black discussed the cluster course they teach this semester, "Latin American Crises and Opportunities." Black said his interest is in international finance and fraud ... 'I'm teaching because I'm interested in it,' he said. 'Latin America is far more diverse than people think in [the United States]. If you're interested in the question of development, Latin America is the most interesting place' ... The course focuses on an interdisciplinary approach and the development of analytical tools and critical thinking skills, Grieco said. In addition, the course will test theories of development as they are applied to Latin America ... 'This is not a course for memorizing content,' Grieco said. 'Students need to be able to think critically and solve problems when they face them.' " -- Read the Full Article
Amid Protests, Supporters Make Their Voices Heard
The Columbia Journalist -- September 24, 2007
by Susan Campriello with Matthias Bernold, Benjamin Protess and Sandra Remilien
New York, NY — "While hundreds of protestors lined Broadway shouting their disgust at Columbia president Lee Bollinger’s invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak this afternoon, a small but vocal minority found an audience inside the campus gates ... 'This event has opened up some minds and that is what an academic arena is about,” said Fatemah Farsh, 21, a graduate film student at Columbia who draped herself in an Iranian flag that read, 'No war in Iran.' Farsh, who was born in Iran but has joint U.S. citizenship, said Americans take Ahmadinejad more seriously than Iranians ... Some students supporting the university’s decision to invite Ahmadinejad made their presence known on campus by wearing orange armbands. Allen Long, 24, an organizer with World Can’t Wait, an anti-Bush organization, wore an orange T-shirt to get his point across ... 'Critical thinking is really important in an academic setting,' Long said, adding that he is opposed to Ahmadinejad’s views. 'The best way to get truth is to have it all debated' ... Some members of the university’s faculty were opposed to the Iranian president’s presence on campus. But those in support saw it as a teaching tool as well as an endorsement of free speech. Etem Erol, a lecturer in Columbia’s Middle East language department, argued that hearing from Ahmadinejad minimizes his image as a dangerous world leader ... 'Are we afraid he’s going to change our minds? Let the man speak,' he said, sitting in his office after the speech. 'Those who aren’t crazy about his policies should be the first to invite him here. By not talking to him and demonizing him we’re playing into his hands.' ”-- Read the Full Article
Many College Grads Unprepared to Work
The Kankakee Daily Journal -- September 24, 2007
by Greg Chenoweth
"The nation's employer-tribe has spoken. About half of college grads should leave the island ... That's hyperbole, but recent data hints that direction, according to a report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), 'How Should Colleges Prepare Students to Succeed in Today's Global Economy?'... Saying so are our culture's war-worn elders, executives from 305 mid- and large-sized companies who require most job applicants to hold a bachelor's degree. The project also convened three focus groups -- let's call them tribal councils -- in Milwaukee, Fairfax, Va. and Atlanta, and interviewed 510 squaws and braves, recent grads from four-year colleges ... Although 95 percent of employers confess that higher education incubates our culture's brightest hope, only 55 percent felt recent grads are 'very well prepared' to succeed in entry-level jobs. The biggest need is '360 degree people,' those with both technical and people skills ... Apparently, it's not enough to throw a spear well. You gotta deal with the raucous horde scavenging the meat ... So, 7 of 10 employers ask that colleges and universities not only cultivate scientific progress, but place more emphasis om global issues, cultural values and creative thinking. Six of 10 even ask for more instruction in integrity and ethics. All 'soft stuff' ... It's happening on the other side of the ocean too. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia put $25 billion into 100 new colleges and universities, $10 billion of which is from his own pocket. It's 'the most ambitious effort in the world,' according to Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education. College enrollments there jumped from 136,723 in 2002 to 214,572 this year, a 57 percent spike ... But that effort isn't just about getting kids in school. It's the birthing of a certain type of schooling. The core issue, according to Zvika Krieger in The Chronicle of Higher Education, is this: 'If these new universities can effectively train a new generation of Saudis to think critically, their effects will be far reaching' ...Think critically. Hmm. That's what the employers said. Could it be the tribes speak the same language?" -- Read the Full Article
New Student Standards Published By International Society For Technology In Education
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) -- September 24, 2007
Press Release
Washington, D.C. — "The second edition of National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS*S), published this month by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE(r)), places new emphasis on creativity, innovation and critical thinking in the classroom. While the first edition, published in 1998, emphasized embracing and mastering technology tools, the updated standards reflect a need for big-picture thinking in an educational arena that is increasingly driven by assessments and accountability ... 'We've shifted emphasis from learning how to use technology to how to use technology to learn,' notes ISTE CEO Don Knezek. 'In 1998, it was enough to define what students needed to know about and be able to do with technology. In today's test-driven climate, educators are seeking specific skills to help students innovate, think critically and work collaboratively to help ensure their success in a digital world'... Knezek's observation is supported by extraordinary demand for the new standards from state departments of education and school districts in the U.S. and internationally. To date, ISTE has heard from more than 150 U.S states and districts and nearly a dozen countries requesting permission to use the revised standards for a wide variety of purposes, including state and district technology plans; training for teachers, administrators, and faculty; and publication through books, coursepacks, web sites, and conference presentation." -- Read the Full Article
Are You a Conformist or an Anti-Conformist Conformist?
The Genius Tree Blog Network -- September 24, 2007
by Brian Lee
"The most ancient social duality is the tendency of humans to split into one of two groups .. The Conformists: who, out of fear of humiliation, band together in like-minded packs; dressing, talking, and thinking in the acceptable way of the majority ... or ...The Anti-Conformist Conformists: who, out of fear of humiliation, band together in like-minded packs; dressing, talking, and thinking in the acceptable way of the minority ... Each group sees themselves as distinctly unique from the other in every way, trying as hard as they can to accent their strengths and insult the other’s perceived weaknesses; but in truth, both are essentially the same ... Humans, by nature have an irrational fear of rejection; the most powerful social force we know. Consider that fear of public speaking often ranks higher than fear of death in studies of human motivators. If those studies are correct, most people would rather die than risk being rejected by a large group of their peers ... As a result of this fear, humans look to their political, social, and religious leaders for guidance on how to act, look, talk, dress, and behave so that they might safely blend in. We learn from our early programming a list of what is acceptable and what isn’t. We learn to give a hard time to anyone who doesn’t fit the mold ... About the time I entered the stage of relativism in my intellectual and ethical development, I started to question conformity. Why should I just blindly do what everyone else is doing? Just because they’re doing it doesn’t make it right. Why don’t more people think for themselves?... I was going through the same process as most students do when they enter college. Experiencing separation from my family and being exposed to many conflicting, yet valid, points of view opened my mind considerably ... As a kid, you tend not to question what your parents tell you. You might resent them for it, but deep down, you know that they are 'right.' When you leave the house and begin making your own decisions, you realize that there’s a world of possibilities out there ... If you go to college, or are an avid reader, you begin to realize that people with seemingly opposing view points can both be 'right.' The concept of right and wrong becomes relative to the eye of the beholder ...To some people in this stage of development, conformity becomes absurd. Why should they do what others think is 'right' when there may not even be a 'right' and 'wrong' to begin with? (Hence their entrance into the anti-conformist movement.) ... Anti-conformists look to political, social, and religious leaders for guidance on how not to act, look, talk, dress, and behave so that they might safely stand out. Their list of what’s acceptable and what’s not is often simply the mirror opposite of the conformists list ...To show to the world that they are rejecting the norm, they don the uniform of the anti-conformist. Depending on the band, it might be a color of clothing, a hairstyle, a body accessory, or a way of life. While considerably different than the conformists, the anti-conformists begin to look surprisingly alike ... In their haste not to conform, they made the same mistake of their adversaries: letting someone else control how they think. Instead of blindly following someone, they blindly rejected them. By hating the idea of dogmatism, they became dogmatic in their approach ... Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t necessarily make it right, but it also doesn’t make it wrong. Automatically rejecting the majority is no wiser than automatically accepting it ... Both conformists and anti-conformists are guilty of not thinking critically ... My first introduction to this concept was in my teens as I was developing my taste for music. I found it fascinating to observe the music tastes of other people and analyze how they came to their conclusions ... Depending on where you live, there’s usually a majority opinion on what is considered good music. Popular music (or 'pop') is typically safe, repetitive, and easily memorable; while underground music is typically edgy, harsh, or 'different' ... I’d like to see a move towards critical thinking, where each individual studies the possibilities, evaluates all sides, and makes a decision based on strong reasoning. Music and Movies are relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but they represent how people tend to think on larger issues as well ... Instead of automatically going along with everyone else or automatically rejecting everyone else, it would be nice if each person would make their own decision with all available information ... If everyone used this type of thinking, we’d still have a wide diversity of opinions, we would just be more respectful of those that don’t agree with us." -- Read the Full Article
Teachers Union Fights for Extra Pay Due
South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- September 24, 2007
by Marc Freeman
"The Palm Beach County teachers union is savoring its recent victory over the school district in a grievance case, and this week will seek an award of $190,000 in back pay for about 60 affected teachers ... Odyssey Middle School west of Boynton Beach violated classroom scheduling procedures by requiring teachers to teach what amounted to an extra class last year for no added compensation, an arbitrator ruled in a binding decision ... The school expanded a 20-minute homeroom period into a 50-minute session called 'Critical Thinking,' during which teachers had to 'interact with students, teaching them math, language arts or science lessons, albeit without having to also prepare a lesson plan or to issue specific grades,' arbitrator Mark I. Lurie wrote on July 20 ... He gave the district and Classroom Teachers Association until Sept. 30 to settle on payment terms for the award ... In opposing the grievance, the district argued that a majority of Odyssey teachers agreed to the modified schedule in advance. The district also claimed that the session, which addressed skills needed by students for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, was not an actual extra class period warranting more teacher pay ... 'That schedule was proposed by teachers and selected as the schedule by teachers, not the administration,' Principal Bonnie Fox said on Friday. 'They asked for more time to meet the needs of the students.' Teachers did not seek extra pay when they endorsed the schedule change, she said ... The school shaved about 15 minutes from other classes to expand the morning homeroom period ... 'It was still time they would have had for instructional time, anyway,' said Van Ludy, district labor relations director ... But the arbitrator found that the change 'imposed an additional increment of work' upon the teachers, and the union and teachers did not have an opportunity to properly vote on it before the start of the 2006-07 school year. Odyssey has resumed a 20-minute homeroom period this year ... In late June, Odyssey received its third straight A grade, based on student achievement, from the state Department of Education. Asked about the union's actions, Fox pointed to the school's performance and said, 'We're having a wonderful year. I'm looking ahead. I don't look back.' "-- Read the Full Article
A Missionary Coming Your Way?
GlobalThink.Net -- September 23, 2007
by Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman
"How often does your doorbell ring and there stand two bright-faced, neatly dressed Mormon missionaries? Or up the path comes a modestly dressed family bearing the Adventist Watchtower pamphlet? I have had wonderful discussions with these earnest believers who were unaware that they were trying to convert a jaded religious historian. But on September 8, another missionary tried to 'invite' Americans to convert to his religion — Islam. Due to the price on his head, Osama bin Laden did not come up the path — but did use electronic media, stage-managed by his American convert, Adam Gadahn ... He told us: 'As you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourself from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.' As any good missionary should, he cited authority: notorious America basher Noam Chomsky (also dear to Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s increasingly dictatorial President Chavez) ... If he were not a wanted criminal, I could imagine him walking up my path to make his case. I would be ready with a few questions of my own, thanks to fascinating pictures on a website called 'ThebeautifulreligionofIslam.com' My words do not compare with these pictures ... Stoning. 'Please, Sheikh bin Laden, how do you justify stoning a young woman to death in this day and age?' Reponse: 'Our duty is to prevent vice and promote virtue. This is how we do that. We do not stone anyone who does not deserve it' ... Hanging. 'In the Taliban’s Afghanistan, considered by you the most model Muslim society, hanging was a daily affair. One young man, PayAm Amini, whose crime was growing no beard and not cutting his hair properly, was hanged in public on Sunday Sep. 29, 2002. He screamed: '..we didn't kill anyone, we don't deserve to die. So many terrible crimes are committed in this country every day and yet no one is punished for it' …'Women, whom you say are 'respected' are also hanged and beaten and their executions photographed. How do you justify hanging women?' His response: 'Don’t you believe in equal opportunity?'... Beating. 'Women are beaten all the time. How do you justify this?' His response: The Holy Quran (38:44) tells us: 'And take in your hand a green branch and beat her with it and do not break your oath.' Also, (Q. 4:34): 'As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and beat them' ... 'What about the beatings that you gave to young men caught drinking beer?' His response: 'My religion is against alcohol' ... Persecuting other religions. 'I have seen a picture of a Hindu being beaten by Muslims in a mosque in Bangladesh. He was captured outside the mosque while going home. After Friday prayers were over, the Muslims came out and grabbed the first Hindu they could find. Mr. Vimal Patak a Bangladeshi-born Hindu was beaten to death with sticks as the mullahs chanted ‘kill the Kafir!’ (non-Muslim). With clasped hands he begged for his life and died a brutal death. How do you justify that?' His response: 'He should have converted to Islam' ...Maiming. 'We see that you amputate the hands and feet of thieves and others considered enemies of Islam. How do you justify that?' His response: 'The Quran (5:33) tells us: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with Might and Main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter. Anyone who disbelieves in Islam and speaks against it is considered to be waging war against Allah and his messenger' ... Lynching. 'A while ago in Ramala, Palestinians lynched two Israeli soldiers by tearing out their entrails and then throwing the men out of windows, holding their bloody hands up to the cheering mob. The same has been done to those Palestinians suspected of working for the Israelis—hideous executions with no trial. How do you justify that?' His response: 'The Quran text cited for maiming applies here. We prevent vice and promote virtue' ... I then show missionary Bin Laden and his companions (his academic admirers) the door. Sorry, Sheikh, come back in 500 years when you are more civilized. No snake oil for me today."-- Read the Full Article
This is What I Mean by Innovative Thinking: Part 1
Reparing the Healthcare System -- September 23, 2007
by Stanley Field M.D., FACP, MACE
"The public education system is just as broken as the healthcare system. The concept of 'No Child Left Behind' is in reality empty rhetoric. In my opinion, it is a well intended but simplistic concept. It is a naïve view of the meaning of education ... In my view the purpose of education is to teach children how to think. The goal is not to memorize material to pass a standardized test. Once you understand the concepts effective reading, and arithmetic, reading comprehension and mathematical abstractions are easy. In our world we should be teaching people how to think in order to prepared them for our knowledge based economy ... Alvin and Heidi Toeffler nailed it in their recent booke “Revolutionary Wealth” which explains the nuances of education in the knowledge based economy ...'In the early 20th Century, business in short had a crucial stake in massifying armies of young to help build the mass-production economy of the industrial age' ... 'Sir Ken Robinson, senior advisor on educational policy to the president of the famed Getty foundation in Los Angeles and author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative stated' The whole apparatus of public education has largely been shaped by the needs and ideologies of industrialism…predicted on old assumptions about the supply and demand for labor. The keywords of this system are linearity, conformity and standardization' ... 'There are many forces that are for changing the dysfunctional public education system. They are the teachers, the parents, and the students who all recognize that our public education system is broken. They are the ones, the consumers of education, which are going to have to force the controller of public education to change the system ' ... Does this sound familiar? It also relates to the healthcare system ... The Tofflers’ then quote Bill Gates who they say finally laid it on the line in 2005: ... 'America’s high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, or under funded. By obsolete I mean that our high schools-even when they’re working exactly as designed-cannot teach our kids what they need to know today… This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system: it is the system' ... When I was at Columbia College the courses were very different than those at William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx. The high school curriculum in the mid twentieth century taught facts. It was up to the student to figure out how to integrate and abstract these facts into the real world if he had any chance of being successful and creative. The same was true when my children were in high school in Texas in the 1980s. All of us went to public high schools. These high schools were considered excellent public high schools at the time. The same obsolete teaching methods prevail in excellent public high schools today ... t Columbia College in New York, I was not taught any specific facts. I was taught concepts. Even in the pre medical courses we were taught concepts and few facts. I believe the facts are easily figured out if one understands the concepts behind the facts. When I was in medical school the same thing was true. The concepts were critical to learning the facts. It has little to do with memorization of facts. An excellent example is our final exam in pathology. The only question on the final pathology exam was a request to write ten important pathology questions and then answer them. I wrote ten questions that I thought were the most important questions about pathology. When it came time to answer them I was stumped. I wrote the best answers I could. I walked out of the test convinced that I failed my own test. Some of the people in the class were bragging about how easy the test was. I kept chiding myself for being so stupid as to ask such hard questions ... It turned out I got honors in the course and most of the others got a passing grade. Some failed their own test. Subsequently, I discovered it was a test of understanding the concepts and not regurgitating facts. I wrote the best questions in the class. The concepts had to be concepts that prepared you to be a competent critical thinking clinician." -- Read the Full Article
ASU Working to Cancel Out Math Apathy
East Valley Tribune -- September 23, 2007
by Ryan Gabrielson
" 'It’s not the side of my brain that works the best,' said Bernardo, a communications major. She earned credit for college algebra during her senior year of high school and doesn’t intend to ever take another math class ... Arizona State University officials worry that most students think like Bernardo, which limits the number of students who might study engineering, chemistry and some business fields ... So in hope of changing students’ minds, ASU is demolishing the traditional math class ...'The biggest problem that we have, nationwide, is the perpetuation of the myth that mathematical ability is a God-given talent,' said Carole Greenes , incoming dean of the education college at ASU Polytechnic campus. “And that if you can’t do mathematics well, you can still survive.' 'You can’t just stand up there and put an equation on the blackboard, not that people use blackboards anymore,' said ASU Provost Elizabeth Capaldi ... Instead, teachers are giving students problems that various industries face and the students learn by solving ... Or, more often, by stumbling ... On Tuesday, Marilyn Carlson, an ASU math professor and researcher, told students in her college algebra class to envision working for a detergent company ... Students worked in teams to build boxes from a sheet of paper that would carry the largest amount of product possible ... They knew the formula to calculate a box’s volume ... But they had to figure out by themselves the formula for what dimensions would maximize volume ... The approach is the polar opposite of a math lecture, where instructors teach how to work a formula, and later explain why ... Carlson is director of ASU’s Center for Research on Education, Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. The college algebra class is Carlson’s laboratory; her students are also her test subjects ... The National Science Foundation is providing $500,000 to see if ASU students learn better with the alternative method ... Class has only been in session a month and it’s too early to measure success. However, it’s already clear that when students determine how long a lesson takes, the instruction slows down ... 'It’s not that the students aren’t smart. They’re not used to having to do this,' Carlson said ... Across the university, Capaldi said she is trying to change the curriculum to build students’ critical thinking skills. But math is her top priority." -- Read the Full Article
No Child Left Behind: Its Lessons, Its Future
The Indianapolis Star -- September 22, 2007
Q&A With Secretary of Education
by Andy Gammill
"Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of education, is responsible for enforcing the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, which sets up an accountability system for schools. Before being appointed secretary, she served as a domestic policy adviser to President Bush and helped create No Child Left Behind ... Spellings was in Indianapolis on Friday as part of a Midwestern bus tour promoting the reauthorization of the act, and visited The Children's Museum ... Question: Are there lessons learned, changes you would like to see in No Child Left Behind? ... Answer: Oh yes, we have learned a lot in the 51/2 years. We need to do a better job of giving our schools credit for the job they were doing. But 51/2 years ago, only a handful of states were doing annual assessments. Indiana was one of them, I'm proud to say ... Obviously unions are not very enthusiastic about the idea that we start to pay people who do the most challenging work and who get results. But you know what? We need to start thinking about highly effective teachers instead of highly qualified teachers, so that's going to be an important part of the law ... Q: Many schools with low test scores are in urban settings. How do we fix urban schools? ... A: It's going to take a variety of strategies. Obviously the things that are going on at the school I was at this morning, the charter school, Andrew J. Brown. Charter schools, there's great potentiality there. But you know what it's going to really take is more time and earlier intervention. That's what they do at these very successful schools. They work harder; they go longer. They engage parents and families. It's not any one thing. I see those things working all over the country ... We know what we have to do; we just have to have the will to do it and to continue to hold ourselves accountable for doing it. That's what's so important about No Child Left Behind. If we don't have that accountability, we reduce the will, the appetite, the motivation to really do that work ... Q: Many educators object to No Child Left Behind. Are they the problem, or is there truth to what they say? ... A: Sure, there's some truth to what they say; that's why we're trying to make improvements to the law. But I also want to say this: People do have anxiety about this task before us. I mean 50 percent of our African-American and minority kids are getting out of high school on time. We ought to have anxiety about that ... And you know change is hard for grown-ups, for all of us. But it's necessary, and we have got to pick up the pace if we want to meet this great goal to have every kid on grade level by 2014." -- Read the Full Article
Critical Thinking Goes Beyond Dogma
The Indianapolis Star -- September 21, 2007
by A Z Soforenko
"In his criticism of the Fresh Thoughts piece by student Barrett Tenbarge supporting President Bush on the Iraq war, John Sherman (Letters, Sept 18) seems to suggest that Brebeuf Preparatory School must teach selective critical thinking ... It could be that Sherman believes one person's critical thinking is another person's dogma. By definition, critical thinking stands by itself and should not be open to criticism. In Sherman's case, apparently critical thinking is OK if you agree with his dogma ... I commend Tenbarge for his ability to frame his position in an orderly and constructive manner. Associating Tenbarge with verbiage such as 'offensive and vulgar' did not make Sherman's case for Brebeuf being a nurturing haven of critical thinking quite credible ... I am 76 now and Bush et al. didn't fool me either. I didn't attend Brebeuf, but this is still my America and Bush is still my president, until he isn't." -- Read the Full Article
A Plea for Critical Thinking
Comrade Kevin's Chrestomathy (Another Damn Stupid Liberal Blog) -- September 21, 2007
by Comrade Kevin
"It wasn't until I entered grad school that I was taught these nuggets of truth ... ♦ Critical thinking requires a skeptical eye that accepts no truth as Gospel and attempts to hone one's own unique, independent viewpoint ... ♦ Critical thinking takes into perspective that there are two (and often more) sides to any issue. Consider both, contemplate both, and seek the inherent truth. Strip away spin, conjecture, smoke and mirrors, filters, and personal prejudice ... ♦ Know that truth is neither the domain of liberal, nor of conservative points of view. The truth supersedes political allegiance ... ♦ Don't drink the kool-aid. Don't take anything on faith unless you've carefully weighed every argument ... ♦ Contemplate the argument of your opposition. Don't just dismiss it as contrary to your own and in the process fall prey to a condition know as tunnel vision. Don't walk through life with blinders on ... ♦ Being skeptical and having a critical eye is not the same thing as being a pessimist ... ♦ Understand that pessimism and optimism both are two sides of the same coin; furthermore, understand that both are merely different ways to perceive the same reality ... ♦ Flattery will get you everywhere, but only the the truth will set you free ... I think critical thinking ought to be taught at a very young age in schools. This sort of wisdom, it has been argued, used to be imparted by parents to their children around the dinner table. I would even go a step forward and argue that this sort of wisdom has never found popular audience. Nevertheless, a new generation has grown up bereft of these life lessons. If parents are either unwilling or incapable of doing so, then I think schools need to inform pupils of these very important facts of life ... This blog has a primarily liberal conceit but I think it needs to be said that I have gone out on a limb and made some fairly conservative statements. While I do identify as a Progressive, I don't buy into every tenant of the Democratic party nor do I necessarily agree with all so-called liberal issues. I know that it's very easy and tempting to want see the world in monochrome but it benefits a person to be of an analytical bent. The problem is that we give critical thinking lip service but we don't actively foster it amongst ourselves. Truth is not always easy, nor comfortable, but it is the only way to be a well-rounded citizen. I feel as though it is the duty of all people to look beyond simplistic, knee-jerk, pat answers for complex problems ... We often times can't understand why so many people fall prey to scare tactics and fear. The simple reality is that without a sense of critical thinking, people trust blindly and do not question the one-sided views with which they've been raised. Some may say that critical thought is the domain of the intellectuals and the fortunate, but I disagree. I propose that we teach our children how to think for themselves. This by no means indicates that I'm proposing we encourage rebellion or the destruction of society itself, as some might fear, but rather that we show the world as it is: a complex place which has few easy answers." -- Read the Full Article
What it Means to be Scientifically Literate
Entertaining Research -- September 21, 2007
The Prize Winning Pieces of the Second Annual Seed Science Writing Contest
"First prize winner: In an era in which we tremble at offending the sensibilities of our neighbors, students must comprehend that it is not only possible but absolutely vital that we criticize each other’s ideas firmly yet civilly. They must do this despite clear cases of prominent scientists falling into petty, acerbic (and therefore counterproductive) exchanges. The responsibility for fostering scientific literacy of this sort—that is, literacy construed as an ongoing commitment to evidence over preconception—falls upon all of us in our discussions both formal and informal, both public and private. When scientific celebrities fail to set a good example for students, it is especially incumbent upon the rest of us to set them back on the proverbial right track, rather than to reflexively hasten their derailment ... We do our children no favors by going easy on them—or, more to the point—allowing them to go easy on each other. Nature has a way of being far tougher. If we can create environments in which they can safely have small epiphanies in the light of evidence, they will be motivated to share those lessons. They will then be scientifically literate in the sense that scientific discourse will continue to endure and flourish. And that is the sense that ultimately matters ... Second prize winner: Understanding that our scientific knowledge is “only” a model is the key to true scientific literacy. Knowing this tells us that our science has built-in limitations, but that it does resemble reality in very fundamental ways. More importantly, that understanding gives us permission to use our models when they are useful—and permission to discard them when they no longer meet our needs ... A literate person is not a walking dictionary, but someone who has enough knowledge about the language to be able to read. Being able to examine our models, critically evaluate them, and even discard them is far more scientifically literate than being able to regurgitate facts for a standardized test. Surely, a certain basic, fundamental knowledge is vital to avoid having to constantly return to Descartes. But as he found, even then, critical thinking is necessary to verify these fundamental “facts.” Ultimately, our models and descriptions of reality must be subject to two overriding criteria: How useful is this model, and how much does this model resemble our observations? ... Scientific literacy requires an understanding that science is only a model. We have to be able to jettison our models when our critical thinking leads us to that conclusion.' " -- Read the Full Article
Are Diplomats Necessary?
The New York Review of Books -- September 21, 2007
Commentary on "independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unacountable Elite," by Carne Ross
by Brian Urquhart
"Diplomacy is one of the world's oldest professions, although diplomatic practice as we know it is a relatively recent development. Using ambassadors and envoys, often distinguished personalities of the time (Dante, Machiavelli, Peter Paul Rubens), was an accepted practice throughout recorded history. It was also regarded, in Europe at least, as 'a kind of activity morally somewhat suspect and incapable of being brought under any system.'[1] ... The establishment of the international rules of diplomacy, including the immunity of diplomats,[2] began with the Congresses of Vienna (1815) and Aix-la-Chapelle (1818). The rules were a European creation gradually adopted in the rest of the world. Further international conventions update them from time to time. Diplomats have enjoyed a surprising degree of immunity from criticism for the often violent and disorderly state of international affairs ...The history of diplomacy abounds with double-edged bons mots on the nature of ambassadors and diplomacy: "honorable spy"; 'splendide mendax'; 'a process of haggling, conducted with an utter disregard of the ordinary standards of morality, but with the most exquisite politeness'; and the sixteenth-century Sir Henry Wotton's famous comment, allegedly in jest, that 'an ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.'In 'Independent Diplomat,' Carne Ross has little patience with the qualified admiration and curiosity with which ambassadors have traditionally been regarded. He tells the story of the disillusionment and rebirth—also in diplomacy—of a fifteen-year veteran of one of the most internationally respected diplomatic establishments, the British Foreign Service ... Carne Ross's book has a firsthand quality that deserves attention. Many of his criticisms and suggestions are by no means new, but his growing disaffection with diplomacy and diplomats should stimulate serious critical thinking about the conduct of international affairs. On the other hand, his use of generalized stereotypes does not inspire confidence." -- Read the Full Article
Up the Down Staircase With Hugo Chavez
The American Spectator -- September 21, 2007
by Perry L Glanzer
"This week Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez threatened to take away a cherished right of parents in his country -- the right to direct their child's education. Of course, Chavez did not directly threaten this right. Like most state authorities, he attacks through regulation ... Chavez threatened to close or take over private schools that did not submit to his government's oversight and its new curriculum and textbooks. After all, Chavez reasoned, 'Society cannot allow the private sector to do whatever it wants' ... Of course, most everyone believes that neither public nor private schools should do whatever they want. What Chavez likely means is that his government does not want private schools teaching content that threatens his regime's outlook ... Not surprisingly, Chavez's recent pronouncement merely follows the Soviet tradition articulated in the 1919 book, ABC's of Communism: ... 'When parents say, 'My daughter,' 'My son,' the words do not simply imply the existence of a parental relationship, they also give expression to the parents' view that they have a right to educate their own children ... From the socialist outlook, no such right exists....The parents' claim to bring up their own children and thereby to impress upon the children's psychology their own limitations, must not merely be rejected, but must be absolutely laughed out of court ... As usual, such views are justified by appealing to the need to promote the common good or some other positive goal. For example, Venezuela's education minister (who also happens to be Chavez's brother) says Chavez merely wants to promote "critical thinking" through his regulation ... Unfortunately, the Chavez-like desire to reduce parental freedom and to regulate private schools for 'society's interest' appears to be growing in America. One finds academics at places such as Stanford calling for increased state regulation to make sure home and private schools do not 'aim solely to replicate and reinforce the worldview of the parents or cultural groups of the children who attend the school.' Similar to the case in Venezuela, such appeals are justified as ways to protect freedom and critical thinking ... Those truly interested in freedom and critical thinking should actually recognize two opposite points. First, parents primarily need to protect "critical thinking" in their children by ensuring that public schools (even more than private schools), through their curriculum and pedagogy, do not aim solely to replicate and reinforce the worldview of those in power ... Government bureaucrats who relish control, like Chavez, delight in public schools. After all, public schools can more easily be used to promote nationalist sentiment in children ... The second point citizens who value 'critical thinking' and 'freedom' must remember is that these ideals are best protected when parents enjoy well-protected rights to choose private or home schools. The open competition of worldviews promoted by allowing private and home schooling helps foster freedom and diversity of thought." -- Read the Full Article
God's Army Marches Onto Campus
The Christian Science Monitor -- September 20, 2007
Commentary on "God's Harvard, A Christian College on a Mission to Save America," by Hanna Rosin
by Marjorie Kehe
"They're young, they're bright, and they're so eager that they make the rest of us look half asleep. In between canvassing relentlessly for their favorite politicians and earning SAT scores that would turn most other kids chartreuse with envy, these young crusaders remind themselves to "take vitamins, do sit-ups, study, read [the] Bible' ... They're the 'Joshua Generation,' the youthful Evangelicals who hope to 'shape the culture and take back the nation.' Whether these kids terrify or delight you has everything to do with your political and religious views but, one way or the other, they are people that you should probably start getting to know. God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America by Hanna Rosin offers an intriguing introduction ... Rosin is a reporter for The Washington Post and, as she is a secular Jew, this is hardly her natural constituency. She approaches this world as much an outsider as will many of her readers ... Her subject is Patrick Henry College, a small Christian college outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 2000, by 2002 it had already become a major pipeline supplying youthful interns to the White House ... In fact, such activity is the college's raison d'être. 'You are the tip of the spear,' the college's founder, homeschooling activist Michael Farris, likes to tell his students. These kids - many of whom were homeschooled - are the academic elite of the evangelical world. Farris aims to mold them into 'shape-shifters' - bright kids who, combining Ivy-caliber educations with conservative Christian values, will 'move between two worlds with their essential natures intact' ... Rosin does a good job of allowing individual students to emerge from the pack. There is free-thinking, stylish Farahn Morgan who's not quite sure she really belongs at Patrick Henry. There's star-struck, Hollywood hopeful Daniel Noa, a home-schooler from a family of Californians so mainstream that "you couldn't pick them out in a crowd." There are couples like Elisa and Aaron who struggle to integrate romance, family, and faith. (The standard assumption at Patrick Henry is that all women - no matter how stratospheric their SAT scores - will one day leave the workforce for motherhood.) ... For the most part, Rosin's profiles of Patrick Henry's young charges are sympathetic and even affectionate, despite what occasionally seems to be her bemusement. As a reader, I was utterly intrigued by these kids yet in the end also frustrated that I never got to know any of them very deeply - although I understood Rosin's decision to gain breath by following several students rather focusing on one or two ... Rosin also interviews Patrick Henry faculty members and the showdown that eventually develops between them and Farris is one of the most fascinating parts of the book. Critical thinking slams up against dogmatic certainty and the inevitable collision is not pretty to watch." -- Read the Full Article
Higher Education for Soldiers
WTVY News4 -- September 20, 2007
by Erica Proffer
Dothan, AL — "Getting a degree while serving in the military is becoming a little more stress-free ...That is thanks to a military program designed to give students the flexibility to start classes at home and serve abroad ... A local university ranks among the top in the nation at providing this educational opportunity ... While serving in the military can be a full-time job, a nation wide program is helping Wiregrass soldiers also take a full-time class schedule ... The program is called Service Members Opportunity Colleges, better known as SOC ... Basically, it gives a soldier the freedom to travel and stay enrolled in a collegiate system, even one based from home ...'The situations our soldiers find themselves in require complex thinking. The kinds of critical thinking that college degrees foster,' says SOCAD Project Director Dr. Judith Loomer." -- Read the Full Article
Re-Opening the American Mind
TownHall.Com -- September 20, 2007
by Suzanne Fields
"The first hint of autumn, a sudden cool night making a sweater feel right and a bright day without the stifling humidity of summer, fills us with the remembrance of the ambivalent emotions about 'back to school.' We remember the pleasure of seeing old friends, but we remember as well the hard chairs that overnight replaced the sensuous luxury of beach towels on sand. We wax nostalgic about the delight in discovering new ideas in books, but few of us miss the adolescent pressures of high school ... This 'semester' we're getting a white-hot debate over how to prepare the rising generation for life in the 21st century. It's about time ... No public-school program generates more controversy than the 'No Child Left Behind' legislation of 2001, or as one cynic describes it, 'No Child Left Alone.' The motives behind the legislation were mostly good -- to get all children proficient in reading and math -- but teachers have often been required to 'teach to the test,' and critical thinking is limited to figuring out how to answer questions so that test scores are high enough that school districts don't lose federal money. The goals perpetuate the notion that children and teachers are like Xeroxed copies of each other ... An emphasis on reading and math, however laudable, has had the unintended consequence of converting the humanities into a second-class muse. This pervades higher education, too. On many college campuses, there's a solemn dirge sung softly over the decline of the humanities as multiculturalism and political correctness continue to poison the wellsprings of critical thinking ... But finally other voices in other rooms are rising above stale thinking, examining what we've lost since the great books were reduced to relevant and trendy treatises. Allan Bloom, who wrote a bestseller in 1988 called 'The Closing of the American Mind,' railed against the dumbing down of the university, of how the idioms of rock and rap had infiltrated the Academy and diluted an appreciation for great writing. He won the argument, but lost the war. Identity politics trumped all. But the traditionalists who were routed haven't been idle, and reinforcements are cantering, if not yet galloping, to the rescue. There's a revival of the idea of free inquiry, an alien doctrine little understood and fiercely resented in many faculty lounges." -- Read the Full Article
Beyond the Death Penalty Debate
Cyprus Mail -- September 19, 2007
by Antonio Cassese, University of Florence
"China's decision to execute the head of its drug regulatory agency has rekindled international debate about capital punishment. It is an age-old question, one that harks back to Plato, who in his Laws saw the need to punish by death those who commit egregious crimes ... Supporters of capital punishment usually put forward three arguments to justify state-sanctioned killing of those who take the life of another. First, there is the old law of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” In the words of Immanuel Kant, not some Texas governor, no other 'penalty is capable of satisfying justice' ... Then there is a utilitarian argument: capital punishment deters many criminals from murder. Furthermore, killing murderers prevents recidivism: if released from prison, they might kill again ... The third argument is also utilitarian, although of a lower quality: the state saves money by killing murderers instead of keeping them in prison for life at the expense of the community ... Abolitionists respond with two ethical arguments. First, in a modern democracy, punishment must be not only retributive, but should also try to rehabilitate the criminal in order to enable him to live in society with other human beings. But, while this is a compelling argument, those who know modern prisons recognise that many inmates are not susceptible to improvement – a fact that cannot be attributed only to conditions of detention ... The second ethical argument is based on the commandment “thou shalt not kill”, which also enjoins the state to refrain from killing. But this argument is undermined by the fact that the state can resort to lethal force to prevent serious crimes, or to fight a war or rebellion ... Opponents of the death penalty also rely on utilitarian arguments. The death penalty is irreversible. If a convict turns out to be innocent, his execution cannot be undone ... Moreover, abolitionists assail the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Thucydides, in recounting the Athenians’ discussion of what penalty to impose on the rebellious Mytilenians, noted that 'the death penalty has been laid down for many offences, yet people still take risks when they feel sufficiently confident; it is impossible for human nature, once seriously set upon a certain course, to be prevented from following that course by the force of law or by any other means of intimidation whatsoever' ... Criminologists have shown, statistically, that in US states where convicts are executed, serious crimes have not diminished. Other criminologists argue that this finding, if well-founded, should then apply to any criminal law: every day, criminal prohibitions are infringed; yet if we did not have such prohibitions, crimes would be even more rampant. In their view, capital punishment serves at least to restrain the homicidal leanings of human beings ... So the death penalty debate boils down to an exchange of conflicting ethical and utilitarian views. But we should not sit idly by and refrain from taking sides. I, for one, believe that the death penalty radically negates the doctrine of human rights, which is founded on respect for life and the dignity of human beings ... But, whether or not you oppose the death penalty, two lessons can be drawn from the debate. First, the fight for human dignity and respect for life, as with any struggle for human rights, is set in motion and tenaciously pursued by members of civil society, by individuals more than by states. It was a representative of the Age of Reason, Cesare Beccaria, who first advocated in 1764, in a few pages of a seminal booklet, the abolition of capital punishment ... But, whether or not you oppose the death penalty, two lessons can be drawn from the debate. First, the fight for human dignity and respect for life, as with any struggle for human rights, is set in motion and tenaciously pursued by members of civil society, by individuals more than by states. It was a representative of the Age of Reason, Cesare Beccaria, who first advocated in 1764, in a few pages of a seminal booklet, the abolition of capital punishment ... The second lesson is that the death penalty debate should not absorb all our attention. If we intend to abolish the gallows, we should also fight for the prevention of crime and against the inhumanity of many prisons. After all, what is the point of suggesting imprisonment as an alternative to electrocution, if inmates are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment? ... How can we ignore that a high number of inmates commit suicide – self-inflicted capital punishment – to escape the inhumanity of their imprisonment? How can we ignore that many states today kill not only through legal punishment, but also by murdering and massacring in international or civil wars, or by allowing starvation? In short, opposition to the death penalty cannot be an end in itself, for it is only one element of a more general fight for human dignity."-- Read the Full Article
Critical Thinking Wins the Day at Halton Catholic
Tomorrow's Trust (A Review of Catholic Education) -- September 19, 2007
by John Borst
Dryden, ON — "By the slimmest of margins the trustees of the Halton Catholic District School Board have chosen the more judicious and one can argue more Christian path when, by a 4 to 3 decision, they agreed to allow the HPV vaccine to be distributed in their schools ... According to a Hamilton Spectator report the decision to cooperate with the provinces Health Unit clearly hinged on the OCCB letter of September 13 th and the influence of priest trustee Rev. David Wilhelm, a trustee from Milton. Wilhelm reminded his fellow trustees, “If this was so morally reprehensible, the bishops would have come out and said that clearly' ... The bishops, by reminding trustees that the decision rests first with the parent as “prime educator” of the child, allowed Wilhelm to convince the majority of four that the “decision is well beyond what trustees are there for' ... More disturbing, however, is the thinking of the three trustees who voted to prevent the local Health unit nurses from distributing the HPV vaccine on school board property ... Somehow they have come to believe that the application of a vaccine to prevent cancer was the same as telling young people they can safely practice sex outside of marriage. This unfortunately, is the kind of fuzzy thinking that gives liberal educators and philosophers of education ammunition that faith-based schools will hinder the development of critical reasoning skills and thus the future autonomy of children." -- Read the Full Article
Graduates Know Even Less About History
The Capital Times -- September 19, 2007
by Anita Weier
Madison, WI — "The University of Wisconsin-Madison did relatively well in a 50-college test of how much students learned about history and economics during four years of college, but students in Wisconsin and nationally knew little when they came in and not much more when they left ... No college did better than a D-plus on the Civic Literacy Test released Tuesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonpartisan conservative educational organization that stresses the values of a free society ... The national average was F ... The test of 14,000 randomly selected students revealed that some of the most expensive Ivy League universities, with the highest-paid presidents and largest government subsidies, were the worst-performing, the institute found ... Overall, the nation's freshmen and seniors scored slightly more than 50 percent on the 60-question exam. The institute said that a kindergartner would have scored about 20 percent correct just by guessing ... The study tested freshmen and seniors at the colleges and universities, in order to determine how much history they learned there. The researchers did not test the same students in freshmen and senior years, but those who were freshmen and seniors in the same year ... Eastern Connecticut State University ranked first, by adding 9.65 percentage points to the score from freshman to senior year. Marian College, a private school in Fond du Lac, was second, with a 9.44 percentage point gain, while the University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked 15th, gaining 6.3 percentage points ... Asked about the exercise, David McDonald, chairman of the History Department at UW-Madison, termed the test interesting but questioned the institute's conclusions ... Students generally learn basic history in high school, he said, adding that they often study historical details in order to pass college entry exams, but then go on to pursue other knowledge at the college level ... Students at several expensive universities, including Yale, Cornell, Princeton and Duke, actually lost ground during four years of college education ... But the median score of students at those prestigious universities was higher than most colleges where students gained more knowledge during their college career ... For instance, freshman at Yale got 68.94 percent of the answers right and those at Cornell got 61.9 percent correct, though seniors did worse in both cases ... 'The time has come for higher education's key decision-makers -- state legislators, trustees, donors, alumni, faculty, students' parents -- to hold the nation's colleges and their presidents accountable for teaching their students America's history and institutions' ... McDonald said nationwide, students who took the test did well on questions regarding Abraham Lincoln, the New Deal and Brown vs. Board of Education, and did worst on the Revolutionary War, Plato and the requirement for a just war, a question that he said was strangely phrased ... Students who study history in college learn that events are the results of several levels of cause, and that people are products of their times, McDonald said ... 'They learn that evidence must be scrutinized and viewed with skepticism,' he said. 'Our job is to produce people who can do critical thinking, who are aware that they hold certain views and understand why.' " -- Read the Full Article
Private School: A Sound Investment
The Indianapolis Star -- September 19, 2007
by Tamara Castleman
"The financial wellspring for many families is in fact a shallow pit. With so many demands on a fixed pool of cash, parents who want to provide a private-school education for their children face some tough choices ... Yet many families see private schooling as a solid investment in their children’s future, even if it means waiting to save for college ... Jules Yates had no doubt about sending her children to private school, even though she and her husband support three children on one income ... 'Good early education increases cognitive and social development, which yields significant long-term benefits,' Yates said. 'My personal research showed that kids who have a private-school education are more likely to graduate from high school, own a home, have long-term marriages and have a greater percentage yield on their lifetime earning. The immediate benefit they get from private school is worth the deficit in college savings' ... In the 'Private Schools: A Brief Portrait” report, the U.S. Department of Education noted that, compared with their peers in public schools, private-school students performed higher on standardized testing, had more demanding graduation requirements, were more likely to complete advanced-placement courses and were more likely to obtain a bachelor’s or advanced degree by their mid-20s ... As Lynn Boone, director of Montessori Centres, explained, 'Private schools teach critical thinking, the choice/consequence connection, social skills and leadership skills at a very young age. The sooner children develop these life skills, the better they fare. I believe that private school, especially through third grade, is essential, because that’s when children develop a love of learning' ... Anne Scheele, director of institutional advancement at The Orchard School, echoed Boone, saying, 'Our students learn how to think, not just to digest facts, and they’re willing to take risks.' " -- Read the Full Article
Venezuelan Education
Two Weeks Notice -- September 19, 2007
by Greg Weeks
Charlotte, NC — "The latest flap over Venezuela is the announcement that private schools must submit to the state’s socialist curriculum or be shut down ... 'We must train socially minded people to help the community, and that's why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented,' said Zulay Campos, a member of a Bolivarian StateAcademic Commission that evaluates compliance with academic guidelines ... 'If they attack us because we're indoctrinating, well yes, we're doing it, because those capitalist ideas that our young people have — and that have done so much damage to our people — must be eliminated,' Campos said ... But Adan Chavez said the goal is to develop 'critical thinking,' not to impose a single philosophy ... It is well worth reading the interview of Adán Chávez, who is the Minister of Popular Power for Education. Unfortunately, the ministry’s site does not provide specific links to different pages, but it can be easily found by searching for 'Entrevista a Ministro del Poder Popular para la Educación,' on September 19, 2007... El punto fundamental está en que sectores de la oposición han utilizado el término para tratar de confundir, como si eso fuese algo pecaminoso. No. Es la lucha de las ideas, repito. Se trata de transformar el viejo sistema capitalista, salvaje, destructor,basado en los antivalores que mencioné, en una nueva sociedad, en un sistema educativo que nos va a permitir construir, definitivamente, el hombre nuevo, la mujer nueva ... What bothers me is the insistence that it is a battle over ideas, when in fact the state is telling you that one idea must die and the other is the only future for the country. It reminds me of all the junk being taught in U.S. school systems, where capitalism is shining, triumphant and flawless. For all his criticism of the U.S., Chávez is just doing the same in reverse. One thing is evil, one is good; you’re for us or against us. Neither involves much critical thinking."-- Read the Full Article
Catholics Need Critical Thinking to Effectively Evangelize
CatholicCitizens.Org -- September 18, 2007
by Catholic Media Coalition and Les Femmes, The Women of Truth -Mary Ann Kreitzer
"Of all the skills necessary for Catholics to survive and evangelize in the modern world, critical thinking ranks near the top of the list. False ideas bombard one from the time he rises and turns on the radio for the morning rush-hour report until he heads for bed after the eleven o'clock news. In between he's constantly assaulted by messages telling him how to eat, wash, dress, and think. Politicians, newsmen, columnists, and talk show hosts try to form his opinions often feeding him slanted stories and false information. To fight the culture of the lie Catholics need to be able to reason effectively, recognize logical fallacies and false arguments, construct good responses, and defend the truth. But to defend truth, one needs the ability to sift through data that's been twisted and spun to find the truth to defend. That's easier said than done in a world of virtual reality." -- Read the Full Article
Commentary
Critical thinking is indeed at "the top of the list" for people of all religious as well as secular persuasions. The critical issue isn't whether we independently and collectively believe things, but rather with the why, what and how we allow ourselves to believe things. This article provides a very close look at the nature of legacy beliefs comparing the "legend" and the "historical facts" through which we need to reexamine and reconcile our former understandings of the true character of Abraham Lincoln. In so doing, it illustrates a common burden we share as the curious, open, fair-minded, independent-thinking individuals we aspire to be: that of overcoming and reconciling what we have long held to be the "truth" with that which is, in fact, the Truth. Critical thinkers approach such self-discovery with open-but-skeptical curiosity and intense intellectual humility because recognizing what one actually knows, as well as what one doesn't actually know, is at the crux of being able to intellectually serve reason focused on critical objectivity. Evangelizing is most effective from within this context: when it enlightens the critical intellectual path upon which others can independently confront, reconcile, and temper their own legacy beliefs with reality. Imposing concepts for "absolute truths" on critical thinkers, especially when such truths are based on "arguments by authority," become counter productive. To the extent the seminal concept of critical thinking serves as a tool for independent deliberation on any path, it will make anyone's journey to discovery all that more rewarding.
Five Ways to Boost Charter Schools
The Washington Post -- September 18, 2007
by Jay Matthews
"Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham, two of my favorite educational researchers, have inspired me to save the charter school movement with five brilliant if perhaps too far-sighted suggestions for reform ... The Washington-based think tank Education Sector www.educationsector.org has just published their paper, 'A Sum Greater Than the Parts: What States Can Teach Each Other About Charter Schooling.' They may be horrified by what I have done with their facts and insights, but I think my ideas will push charters in the right direction -- more good ones and fewer bad ones ... In theory, charter schools are a great idea. There are now more than 4,000 of them with more than 1 million students in 40 states and the District. These independent public schools give smart educators with fresh ideas a chance to show what they can do without the deadening hand of the local school system bureaucracy around their necks. They also give public school parents more choice. The problem is, as one former state charter school official told me, there are a lot of loons out there starting charter schools. We don't seem to be able to get rid of their loony schools as easily as the original advocates of charter schools promised. That is one reason why charter schools, despite including some of the best public schools I have ever seen, do no better on average than regular public schools in raising student achievement ... Here are my suggestions for fixing that situation, based largely on what I learned from Mead and Rotherham: ... 1. Stop letting local school boards authorize charters. Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, and Rotherham, co-director of Education Sector and a member of the Virginia Board of Education, used a grant from the Annie E.Casey Foundation to analyze reports they oversaw on charter schools in California, Minnesota, Arizona, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Florida and Michigan and four cities: New York, Indianapolis, Chicago and the District. They conclude that "perhaps the most significant lesson of the charter school movement to date" is that the number and quality of charter schools depend on who does the authorizing and how well they do it ... 2. Don't listen to parents about charters. I have twisted Mead's and Rotherham's conclusion a bit, but not much. Here is what they say: "Charter advocates often point to parental choice as the ultimate form of accountability: If schools are not delivering results, the argument goes, parents will go elsewhere. Yet experience has shown that parents choose schools for a variety of reasons, and often, even low-performing charter schools are popular with parents' ... 3. Kill laws that limit the number and autonomy of charters. We journalists often describe charters as independent public schools free of the usual state and local school regulations. Mead and Rotherham point out that charters are often not so independent. State laws often limit their number, their location, their pension rules and other matters. "Many of these policies were intended as quality measures," they write, "but the evidence from our sample does not suggest that states that place many regulations and limits on charter schools have better outcomes than those that do not ... 4. Judge charters on individual student gains. Mead and Rotherham endorse the national trend toward improving data collections systems so each state can see how much each child has improved at each school each year. They also recommend collecting measures of charter schools in addition to state test scores, and letting at least one authorizer specialize in serving at-risk students, drop-outs or others with special needs. Such record-keeping would make it much easier to compare charters to each other, thus opening the way for my fifth and last suggestion ... 5. Ge t rid of the lemons. Mead and Rotherham don't say this, but their complaints about the difficulty of closing low-performing charters suggest they would not be upset if Jack Welch's rule became law. When Welch was chief executive of General Electric, he tried to remove each year the bottom 10 percent of performers in the company -- the lemons. That seems a harsh tactic to use with human beings, but I think it would work fine with charter schools. Inertia is a powerful force in public education. It helps explain why we have so many mediocre schools. There is not much we can do about closing regular public schools, but charters are different. Pro-charter and anti-charter people could unite on the lemon-removal plan. The pro-charter folks could raise charters' average performance levels and the anti-charter people could get rid of a lot of charters. It would have to be done on the state level, because there are no consistent national measures of charters. But it would shake up the charter universe, I think in a good way." -- Read the Full Article
Critical Thinking
The Real Kato Online: Commentary -- September 18, 2007
by Ken
"How would you do on a Google interview? Or... as President? ...There's a widely-linked post making the rounds right now (I found it via Kottke). It lists interview questions that have been asked to Google job applicants. Google is well-known for screening job applicants tightly, using difficult interview questions ... The interesting thing about the post is the comments, where the vast majority of people are demonstrating exactly what Google doesn't want in their employees. See, most of the questions have answers that are both obvious and wrong. If you latch onto the first answer you think of because you haven't bothered to think things through carefully, then you're not the sort of person that Google wants ... I wanted to talk about four of the more interesting questions. Read the questions first and think about how you'd respond, then scroll down for a little analysis ... 1. How many golf balls can fit in a school bus? ... 2. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? ... 10. In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. if they have a girl, they have another child. if they have a boy, they stop. what is the proportion of boys to girls in the country? ... 17. You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.) ... What do you think? How would you answer these questions during a job interview? ...The last problem is particularly interesting to me. Besides its illustration about critical thinking, the problem shows how a group might arrive at a non-optimal solution to a problem when everyone unilaterally acts in their own self interests. (This solution is called the Nash equilibrium, which you might remember from the movie 'A Beautiful Mind', starring Russell Crowe ... Acting against one's own unilateral self-interests might not seem like right thing to do, if you look at things in a shallow way, without thinking critically... but as I'll discuss in an upcoming article, that's exactly what we have to do when it comes to setting governmental policy ... Maybe Google should pick our next President." -- Read the Full Article
Patriotism Requires Citizens to Question Government
The Indianapolis Star -- September 18, 2007
by John Sherman
Indianapolis — "When our daughter attended Brebeuf Preparatory School, she was challenged to think critically. Apparently, that is no longer a requirement, based on the astounding comments made in a Sept. 14 'Fresh Thoughts' by Brebeuf student Barrett Tenbarge ... Considering myself a staunch patriot, I find his comments offensive and vulgar, stating that we who dare question our government are unpatriotic. (It reminds me, eerily, of my years living abroad under various dictatorships where unquestioning loyalty was required.) Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al. must be high-fiveing over the fact that they've fooled him ... He apparently does not know that this war was begun on false pretenses and has resulted in the loss of tens, but more likely, hundreds of thousands of lives, and unbelievable destruction to the cities and towns of an innocent country. We have created martyrs for generations to come ... I am comforted by the fact that most people of Tenbarge's age would find his comments as offensive as I do. There is hope for America, as long as we can get patriots back in charge of the government and return to the teaching of critical thinking in every classroom." -- Read the Full Article
Commentary
Unlike dialectic argument aimed at getting different points of view to a working concept towards resolving real world problems, debate -- on a stump before partisan listeners, on TV before a viewing demographic, or in an editorial column before a following of loyal readers -- has an entirely different purpose: to win over the acceptance of your audience even when your position may be wrong. Transferring histrionics, stage presence, and effective rhetorical delivery into memorable sound bytes and linguistic zingers generally takes precedence over the merits or integrity of any logical constructs that may be presented in debate formats. Manipulative tactics, fallacious techniques, and visceral "hot buttons" are intentionally called upon to "stir emotions" and to "trick" us in the audience into believing one or another argument makes more sense than another. While critical thinking is necessary to prepare for and to participate effectively in debate, it is usually more necessary for those of us who might be in the listening audience. This the case, the social phenomenon of "patriotism" plays to our highly-charged emotional and sociocentric, as well as to our egocentric, belief systems making open and critical objectivity in dialectic discussion near impossible. As futile as attempting to defend one's best intentions, one's character, one's god, one's gender, or one's loyalty called into question by an unpopular question, patriotism is a social bonding mechanism that makes us feel good about ourselves. When someone steps outside the boundaries of what bonds us to each other, critical discussion becomes impossible. Consider the phenomenon of patriotism, which exists throughout the world. Wherever we might live, our leaders, our historians, and our institutions create histories -- as Dr. Richard Paul in this year's International Conference on Critical Thinking keynote address points out -- "to make us look much better than we are and to take those who have come into conflict with us and represent them as worse than they were and are. In other words, patriotic history is dishonest history that makes us unjustifiably feel good about ourselves. This is what most societies want of their historians; 'Tell us about the past so we can see how heroic we are.' Fine and good, but what does that imply about others. If we are the chosen people, then everyone else is not chosen. If we are number one, then everyone else is below us. If we're the most important, then others are unimportant or of lesser importance." So, when one considers the purpose of building consensus for just causes under calls to patriotic unity, it may be truly said the sincerest form of patriotic expression, even when initially socially unpopular, is a process that tollerates the open and critical dissent which potentially exposes us to better actionable options behind which we might more appropriately unify. Without specifics on points made in Tenbarge's "Fresh Thoughts," we are left to speculate specifically on what the debate is about. The author appears to be responding to a popular but often misplaced notion that dissent, by definition, is not in the best interest of the country. At the same time, we are left to wonder specifically what he is saying when he speaks of "false pretenses." Isn't that an oxymoron?
Developing Learners’ Metacognitive Skills
L'Express (Lexpress.mu) -- September 18, 2007
by Shardha Sandapen
Port Louis, Mauritius —"The term metacognition means knowledge about one’s own learning or knowing how to learn. Thinking skills and study skills are both examples of metacognitive skills. Learners can be taught strategies to assess their own understanding, figuring out how much time they will need to study something, and choosing an effective plan of attack to study or solve a problem ... While most learners gradually develop adequate metacognitive skills, others do not. Teaching metacognitive strategies to them can lead to a marked improvement in their achievement. Students can learn to think about their own thinking process and apply specific learning strategies to think themselves through difficult tasks. For example, self-questioning strategies are particularly effective. This involves teaching students to look for common elements in a given type of task and to ask themselves questions about these elements. Hence, in Literature classes, we can teach our learners to look for characters, setting, problems and problem solutions, starting with specific questions and then letting students find these critical elements on their own. Students also comprehend better when they are taught to ask themselves the Wh questions (who, what, when, where and how) as they read through a text ...The simple act of rereading an extract or paragraph that we have not been able to understand is an example of a metacognitive skill. As we read through a text, information is constantly entering our minds through our senses. Similar to a computer, the mind processes this information and (more effective than the computer) assesses our understanding of it. Thus, when we come across an extract or paragraph that we do not understand at the first reading, our brain activates its metacognitive engine, almost automatically. This is what makes us reread the extract or paragraph more slowly or look for other clues, such as pictures, metaphors, similes or simply refer to glossary terms to improve our understanding ... Metacognition also enables learners to develop effective study strategies and ever since Aristotle, philosophers and educators have been using study strategies to improve learning. But how do students learn? How do we learn? How do you read this article or any other piece of writing? Are you underlining or highlighting key sentences? Are you taking notes or summarising? Are you discussing the main ideas with a friend or mate? Or while reading a book are you putting the book right under your pillow at night and hoping the information will somehow seep into your mind? "-- Read the Full Article
Lyceum of Aparri
The Manila Bulletin Online -- September 18, 2007
"Lyceum of Aparri is one of the top performing higher educational institutions in Region 2. It is also considered as one of the best of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao in Catholic Education ... Aside from having priest educators committed to service God’s people, the College offers courses with computer subjects and with internet exposures, a school hospital for Nursing and Midwifery students, and the lowest and most negotiable financial terms for the quality of education students get ... Through the years, Lyceum of Aparri has been producing national and regional topnotchers, thus paved the way for level II 3rd Re-accreditation by the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities - Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA) ... Lyceum of Aparri is an Archdiocesan Catholic educational institution of higher learning, inspired by its motto: Laxate Retia (Cast out the nets), envisions to inculcate the values of the gospel in the integral formation of individuals to become productive and competent professionals through its collaborative culture of excellence ... As an Archdiocesan Catholic higher educational institution, Lyceum of Aparri commits to provide quality education in the region through its value-oriented programs and services. As a Filipino educational institution, Lyceum of Aparri upholds and promotes national heritage through its curricular programs ... The institutional goal of the College is to become a dynamic and responsive learning community where students strive to achieve higher learning standards through its quality, interactive, and engaging academic programs ... Its institutional objectives include preparation of productive and competent professionals who will take active part in the moral, spiritual and social transformation of the community and the society at large; development of reflective and critical thinking skills among its students that will prepare them to become globally competitive through its technology-assisted academic programs; and providing learning opportunities for students to cultivate the values of respect, responsibility and social-awareness through its community extension service." -- Read the Full Article
Intelligence Specialization vs. Generalists
Travels With Shiloh -- September 17, 2007
Commentary On: "Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis," by David T Moore, Sr Intelligence Authority, NSA
"I recently got my grubby little hands on a copy of a book titled “Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis” by David T. Moore and published by the Joint Military Intelligence College. One of the first things I wanted to bring out was a chart that is located at the end of the book (pages 92-93). It’s Moore’s view of the environment that analysts operate in ... While Moore’s chart was intended to describe national level intelligence agencies I think it’s applicable to law enforcement agencies as well. I’d argue that the description of analysts in the 1970s and 1980s in the chart is a pretty good representation of how analysts are generally expected to do business in the LE community. They have specific areas of study that change very little over time. Analysts are considered ‘deep specialists’ that focused on specific crime groups for extended periods of time and information tended to focus on covert sources ... For the most part, current attempts at transformation of law enforcement analysts seems to be striving to bring us into the '1990s and 2000s' column. I think most of the resistance to change encountered from analysts and detectives alike focuses on a few key areas. I’ll talk about one now and come back to this topic in future posts ... 'Deep specialists' and 'large well-defined issues and adversaries:' Specialization does offer some hefty benefits. Information can be absorbed and placed into context in ways that are simply beyond the reach of those with only a limited familiarity with the subject. Further, it offers an organization a clear repository of information about a specific subject. “If you want to know about group A go to analyst Z .” Similarly, having long term issues/adversaries allows analysts to discard the vast amounts of information that doesn’t fit into those categories. If you’re only looking at credit card theft you can throw out all that reporting on carjackings ...The sheer volume of information available to analysts now also argues strongly for specialists. Can anyone get enough of a 'jist' of a complex issue to provide usable analysis without becoming a specialist?...The problem with both of these ('deep specialization' and 'well defined issues') is that they’re so resource intensive. State and local agencies involved with intelligence analysis have fewer resources than their federal counterparts. If you only have 10, 20 or even 40 analysts to cover a state what areas do you emphasize? What do you exclude? I think a few minutes of thinking would reveal dozens of criminal organizations or crime types that would be worthy of specialization. In short order either resources would be swamped as agencies attempt to specialize in everything that needs attention or they’d have to abandon large portions of the criminal environment as terra incognita. Neither of those options are acceptable ... Specialists also come with their own set of problems. As Heuer points out in his book, specialized analysts have difficulty recognizing gradual evolutionary change (and sometimes radical change as evidenced by the failure to understand the significance of events leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union) ... Specialization also tends to create ’silos’ of information and create obstacles to collaboration between analysts. If I’m working on Asian organized crime, for example, why should I talk to the street gang analyst?... The ideal position may be, as Moore points towards his future, a mix of generalists and specialists. Specialists could provide context and insight on specific high value issues while generalists cover other areas and act as conduits between specialists." -- Read the Full Article
Venezuela's Chavez Warns Private Schools
Newsday.Com -- September 17, 2007
by Sandra Sierra, Ian James in Caracas, and Joshua Goodman in Bogota
Caracas, Venezuela — "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to close or take over any private school that refuses to submit to the oversight of his socialist government as it develops a new curriculum and textbooks ... 'Society cannot allow the private sector to do whatever it wants,' said Chavez, speaking on the first day of classes ... All schools, public and private, must admit state inspectors and submit to the government's new educational system, or be closed and nationalized, with the state taking responsibility for the education of their children, Chavez said ... A new curriculum will be ready by the end of this school year, and new textbooks are being developed to help educate 'the new citizen,' said Chavez's brother and education minister Adan Chavez, who joined him a televised ceremony at the opening of a public school in the eastern town of El Tigre ... The president's opponents accuse him of aiming to indoctrinate young Venezuelans with socialist ideology. But the education minister said the aim is to develop 'critical thinking,' not to impose a single way of thought."-- Read the Full Article
Schools Eye Startup's PC - Sharing Tech
The New York Times -- September 17, 2007
by The Associated Press
"When the government minister for technology in Macedonia, one of Europe's poorest countries, decided to jolt the nation's educational system by outfitting schools with new computers, he had a surprising array of blue-chip choices ... After all, between a soon-to-be-released laptop dreamed up by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, the 'Classmate PC' from Intel Corp. and other inexpensive options, low-cost computing for international schoolchildren is now one of technology's hottest concepts ... Yet when Macedonia sealed its 44 million euro ($61 million) computing venture, the government went with a tech provider whose own CEO acknowledges 'nobody's heard of us' ... That vendor is a Silicon Valley startup called NComputing Inc., and the reasons it won the Macedonian contract -- and deals in several U.S. schools -- could make the company a force in education and other big computer markets ... NComputing's technology lets organizations take one PC and parcel its computing power out to 'thin clients' used by multiple people. The concept is old, but the march of progress in computing could be making it feasible on a wider scale. Even today's lower-rung PCs are loaded with processing power and memory that largely sit unused except in extreme kinds of programs ... NComputing users plug a keyboard, mouse and monitor into a little box that maintains a connection to one hub PC or server. Wires are necessary for now, but soon wireless links will be possible ...Software in the NComputing boxes gives each of the users an individual computing session -- with different desktop appearances and different programs -- even though all of them are sharing the central processor and hard drive in the hub PC ... Depending on the configuration, NComputing's boxes can split one PC up to 10 ways. One server can be divvied up into separate 30 workstations ... As a result, NComputing says each workstation can cost as little as $150 to $175, including installation, technical support and the requisite hardware ... In comparison, the far more celebrated laptops from the nonprofit MIT spinoff One Laptop Per Child are now expected to cost around $190, while Intel's portable Classmate PC is about $225. Those prices don't include service costs that might arise ... To be sure, this is not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison. The vision of the One Laptop Per Child program is more comprehensive: Its innovative laptops, which can be hand-powered, are designed for students to use at home as well. The project's organizers are adamant that when children can keep and tinker with the laptops, they will experience profound improvements in critical thinking and problem solving." -- Read the Full Article
Teaching the Test
TriCities.Com -- September 17, 2007
by Ben Talley
A good friend and fellow educator has said to me more than once, "You know, we’ve yet to find an ancient civilization that kept any record of their test scores' ... Fast forward to America of 2007. Our current civilization appears to be enamored by an extreme overemphasis on test scores, and various other statistical data, as a method of measuring the success or failure of our public schools ... No Child Left Behind leaves much to be desired ... Like so many noble efforts that lack proper scientific research, No Child may ultimately be right on track to have an effect diametrically opposite to that goal for which it was intended. In other words, NCLB may actually be serving to "dumb down" America, not make us brighter and better ... Recently, I passed by a classroom and heard a student ask a deeply insightful, thought-provoking question ... 'That’s not an SOL,' I heard the teacher reply, 'so we can’t talk about that. If something’s not going to be on the SOL test, we don’t need to be talking about it at all this year' ... How sad." -- Read the Full Article
How Many Computers Does it Take to Turn On a Teacher?
Shanghaiist -- September 17, 2007
Shanghai — "We've just spent an entertaining and enlightening weekend at the Learning2cn education technology conference at Concordia International School in Jinqiao ... The topics covered included podcasts, wikis, cyberbullying and making exciting lessons within a technology setting. Issues related to laptop schools may seem irrelevant to most of us, but the event is groundbreaking inasmuch as it is probably one of the largest and most significant English language technology conferences that has ever been held in China. It is the fruition of 18 months of planning between several technology coordinators at the Shanghai American School, Concordia and the Shanghai Community of International Schools ... Highlights included Alan November's seminar about learning the grammar of Internet searching to uncover agenda, filter out commercial spam and forge meaningful international relationships. We encouraged him to make his new student learning pack available in Mandarin. If you want to do your bit to foster critical thinking among net users then come forward and we'll hook you up ... It is easy to take it for granted that a room full of tech curious educators would embrace new Internet tools without equivocation, but a number of salient concerns emerged. Our new friend Jamie Mackenzie is worried that too much Internet content is nothing more than meaningless blather. Other speakers noted that schools are spending lots of money on new facilities without adapting their teaching and learning paradigms. Filtering and control issues were also prevalent throughout the conference ...The underlying sentiment was still upbeat. Will Richardson's final presentation on self directed learning was full of encouragement that our RSS feeds can be our teachers and libraries rolled into one." -- Read the Full Article
Morocco's New Academic Year Begins with New Tools and Objectives
Magharebia -- The News & Views of the Maghreb -- September 16, 2007
by Sarah Touahri
Rabat, Morocco — "Close to seven million Moroccan pupils returned to school on September 13th to kick off the 2007/2008 academic year, themed 'family and school: working together to make good citizens' ... Teacher Majid Abdellaoui indicated that the goal behind this year’s theme is for students to develop critical thinking, socialisation, respect for democratic values and human rights and civic activities and education, as well as to teach students about rights and responsibilities to help them become responsible involved adults ...Family participation in schooling has also taken on a new dimension. In order to give parents a greater role of the success their children's schooling, the Ministry for National Education plans to share educational concepts with them and to collect their expectations, suggestions and reactions ... Meanwhile, curriculum managers have said that the beginning of the school year would be marked by the publication of new course books for the baccalaureate, the integration of the Amazigh language for the first time into the fifth year of primary education and the preparation of new teaching programmes for secondary education. The revision of the teaching structure is characterised by a desire to steer more pupils towards science and technology in order to meet the country's need for more engineers and technicians ...As part of the "10,000 engineers" initiative, the national education ministry introduced the mathematics B stream into technical schools this year. Preparatory courses for the grandes écoles (higher education professional schools) have also been increased with the opening of three centres in Laâyoune, El Jadida and Taza, while existing centres will be launching 13 new preparatory courses, taking enrolment from 5,691 to 7,276 this year." -- Read the Full Article
Neander-Thoughts and Thinkers Ideas in Religion That Never Worked
OpEdNews.Com -- September 16, 2007
by Dennis Diehl
"The Neanderthal stage of human development has always fascinated me. What beings these "not quite us" types must have been. Powerful in build and physical abilities. Impervious, compared to modern Homo Sapiens, to pain and injury. When one researcher sought to find a counterpart in our culture to explain the skeletal injuries found in most Neanderthals, the American Rodeo star won. The injuries rodeo riders suffered dealing with large animals were the same as those of the Neanderthal. Massive bones and skulls, amazingly peg like teeth used as tools over a lifetime and probably the attitude to go with it all, a Cro-Magnon, modern man, had better to have outsmarted him before he was broken in two ... Neanderthals existed for several hundred thousand years as a being on this planet. Hard to believe, but it is true. They were in Europe already when modern man entered showed up in the long trek out of Africa. European Neanderthals had no other human competition until about 35,000 years ago, and when it showed up, they lost. A culture that had the same tools and the same way of being simply lost out to creative thinkers, who, while not as physically powerful, were more intelligent and forward looking. A Neanderthal lived day to day in the present and seemed to have no foresite and few insights. This finally proved to be their downfall and the last Neanderthal may have departed the planet trapped in a cave in Southern Spain where they had been driven over thousands of years of losing out to the more "enlightened" Cro-Magnon...Us ... There are no Neanderthals on the earth today, but there are Neander-thoughts. A Neander-thought is an idea, way of thinking or being, that no longer works. Just as Neanderthals seemed incapable of insight and foresight, creative solutions and critical thinking, Neander-thoughts today are holding humans back from making any real progress and actually expose us all to being consigned to some trash heap of history for not recognizing it ... Neander-thoughts fall into endless categories, but for my intended purposes and from where I tend to come from in my experiences, I will deal with Religious Neander-thoughts. There are political, economic, social and pseudo scientific Neander thoughts out there causing no end to problems as well. However, at the present time, it seems that religious Neander-thoughts are the ones tearing the planet apart...again." -- Read the Full Article
Europe is Now in the Terrorist Bull's Eye
Santa Cruz Sentinel -- September 16, 2007
by Laina Farhat Holzman
"Over Labor Day weekend, news was released that Denmark has arrested eight terror plotters and Germany has picked up three and are looking for more. All of these men are Muslim, all are citizens or permanent residents, several are converted Europeans, and all appear to have connections and have been trained by al-Qaida in Pakistan. Both groups were accumulating materials with the intent of producing powerful explosives [bigger than the Oklahoma City bombing] to be used against American or other targets in Europe. Both groups were close to carrying out their objectives. It seems that Sept. 11 was being targeted for these attacks, and the intent was to kill and maim as many as possible ... Particularly noteworthy is that the arrestees come from a wide range of Muslim countries [Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Turkey] and converted Europeans as well, making it difficult for the police to target. This indicates that recruitment is active globally and the obvious sources of indoctrination are the mosques funded by the most radical Saudi sect, the Salafists [Wahhabis]. Training has moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan, another cause for concern. It is fortunate that the European police are one step ahead of the terrorists — so far ... A reporter for National Public Radio was asked how Europeans are greeting this news of two close calls with massive destruction and the knowledge that such enemies live among them. She said that many Europeans blame the United States for stirring up this hornets' nest. It seems few are blaming Islam or the Muslims within their countries, but some do — and go so far as wanting to ban Islam and admit no more Muslim immigrants. Good sense must be somewhere in the middle, but where is it?... What Europeans evidently do not understand is that neither the U.S. nor America's European allies are at the base of Muslim terrorism. Rather, this has been an issue growing since the 1920s and 1930s, when some Muslims rejected the modernization begun by European colonizers and continued by their secular leaders. In the 1930s, one educated Egyptian, Sayyid Qutb, pinpointed the agony of Muslims who could see how backward and weak their societies were and his crisis of faith resulted in writings that influenced generations of Muslims, including Osama bin Laden ... They knew that they had once been a world-class power, and they believed that Allah must have removed his grace from them because they had fallen away from true, pure Islam. Their task, as they saw it, was to rein in all Muslims to their view of piety, remove secular leaders in Muslim countries, plant cells in the West and work toward re-establishing a single Muslim rule around the world. This view is as delusional as it is fanatical ... Unlike the Japanese, who recognized their own backwardness and weakness in the 19th century and set about catching up by emulating the West, the Muslims were overcome by humiliation and opted for a resumption of the jihad that launched Islam in the seventh century. It is telling that except for oil exports, 250 million Arabs export each year less than do 5 million Finns. However, jihadists have not rejected everything Western and modern. They love the technologies of death and have mastered modern communications. Only liberal democracy is rejected. In addition, Islamism has attempted to suppress traditional mainstream Islam and has become a frightening neo-fascist cult around the world ... Although Islam has no central clerical authority [such as the Vatican for Roman Catholics], Saudi money — the fruits of the overheated oil revenues — has been used to export recruitment, training, mosque building, salaries for firebrand clerics and brainwashing schools around the world. Suddenly, the only Islam one hears about is Wahhabi Arab Islam. The Saudis constitute only 1 percent of Muslims around the world, yet provide 90 percent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding all other Islamic traditions ... Education is a major concern. The popular media tell us that poverty is not the motivator for terrorists or suicide bombers. Rather, this Mafia-like cult is "very well educated" I beg to differ. Many have technical educations in engineering or medicine, but have never had a whiff of critical thinking. How many of them have studied philosophy, political science or history? A Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a Saudi university does not qualify for critical thinking — and that goes also for the great Egyptian Islamic university and the Shiite schools in Iran. They are medieval." -- Read the Full Article
Assessment Services at Alamogordo Schools
Alamogordo Daily News -- September 16, 2007
by Dr. Doug Householder, Director, Integrated Instructional Services
"Some children have challenges which interfere with their ability to follow the standard curriculum and make academic progress. These challenges include speech and language difficulties, emotional, medical or neurological problems, learning disabilities, developmental delays and other problems ... Likewise, some students may exhibit traits, aptitudes and behaviors indicative of superior intellect and may require program modifications to reach their ultimate academic potential; whether academically challenged or intellectually superior, thorough assessment is needed ... Assessment is the process of gathering information from many sources, using a variety of methods that best address the reason for evaluation, and provide a full picture of the student and his or her unique needs. This is different than testing, which is limited to administration and scoring of tests ... At Alamogordo school's Integrated Instructional Services, we select the assessment methods that ensure fair and non-biased assessment, that are tailored to the needs of the individual student in the context of a comprehensive delivery system that facilitates educational progress for all children ... At Alamogordo school's Integrated Instructional Services, we select the assessment methods that ensure fair and non-biased assessment, that are tailored to the needs of the individual student in the context of a comprehensive delivery system that facilitates educational progress for all children ...These approaches include but are not limited to techniques such as norm- and performance-based assessments; functional assessment; standardized measures of intelligence, cognitive processing, language use and understanding; academics; curriculum-based assessment; psychological, personality, and other social-emotional measures; behavior rating scales; ecological assessment; portfolio review; creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, etc ... The goal of any assessment is to fully understand the student and the context of his or her learning challenges, and to help design and promote the best program that will help the student maximize their educational goals." -- Read the Full Article
Colleges Shouldn't Ban Controversial Speech
The Pueblo Chieftan -- September 16, 2007
by Dr. David Svaldi, President Adams State College
Alamosa, CO — "Adams State College was recently selected to participate in the National Endowment for the Arts’ The Big Read Program. Through the leadership of Dr. John Taylor and Dr. Carol Guerrero-Murphy, Adams State will receive grant funds to promote the reading of Ray Bradbury’s 'Fahrenheit 451' throughout our community ... While the activities are designed to encourage reading, critical thinking and artistic expression for all age groups, the drama in both Bradbury’s story and the play based upon his book flows from 'firemen' who burn banned books. Book speech is 'free,' unless it involves books judged to be so subversive that the public must be protected from their ideas ... Regrettably, book banning and book burning are as American as apple pie ... While some believe that the Soviet Union fell because the United States outspent them in an arms race, I believe the Soviet empire crumbled a little bit each time a certain idea, theory or discovery was deemed inconsistent with Soviet doctrine and, thus, not for discussion ...As Aristotle observed, the true mark of an educated person is an ability to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it. Adams State graduates do not have to abandon their beliefs. But they do need to understand as much of the reality of the world they will live in as is possible ... 'The Big Read Program' will teach all of us that no book ought to be burned, and that the truth will survive the test of debate. As famed British debater Charles James Fox declared, 'The truth will out. "-- Read the Full Article
Celebrating Great Design Across the Muslim World
Globeandmail.com (Arts) -- September 15, 2007
by Lisa Rochon
"Architecture can produce strange and wondrous sensations. At night, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers, the world's tallest commercial skyscrapers, seem to liquefy against the skyline, dazzling the eye with the highest grade of stainless-steel cladding. They are convincing evidence of Malaysia's desire to be a world economic player ... In this case, architecture is manipulated by its maker, American architect Cesar Pelli, to resemble mountains of bling. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture - the world's most generous and rigorous prize for architecture - was presented last week within the dazzling confines of those Petronas Towers. The nine winning projects - from urban redevelopments to a hand-built rural schoolhouse - were selected from across the Muslim world for their relevance to site, local culture and the imprint of the human body ... In North America, where architecture is dominated by massive cultural institutions and soaring condominiums, it's difficult to fathom the importance of a small elementary school in northwest Bangladesh. The two-storey structure in Rudrapur that was honoured by an Aga Khan Award uses easily available materials - bamboo for structural trusses, mud reinforced by straw for walls. It was built by volunteer architects, local craftsmen, pupils, parents and teachers in four months at a cost of only $23,000. The walls are 1.6 metres thick - deep enough to carve small chambers where children can read or play ...Creativity runs like a river through this modest school. Rather than endorsing traditional learning by rote, the school fosters education through skills development and understanding of village life. The day begins with an assembly in which students meditate on their goals, followed by the singing of Bangladeshi folk songs and the sharing of news, both global and personal. Prodip Tigga, the young headmaster, returned to his native Bangladesh to lead the school after studying computer science at the University of South Australia ...The Aga Khan Awards are given every three years, with a prize fund of $500,000 to be distributed among the winning projects' architects and, in some cases, the clients. For the 2007 awards cycle, a total of 343 projects were nominated by local architects (and included a shopping mall in Montreal.) A jury of experts from around the world chose a short list of 27 contenders for onsite review by technical experts, and eventually nine projects were selected for recognition ... The Aga Khan Award was created 30 years ago by His Highness the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismailis, a branch of Shia Muslims. About 15 million Ismailis are scattered through 25 countries, with about 80,000 living in Canada after being forced from countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The award was established to recognize contemporary architecture inspired in meaningful ways by place and history without relying on kitsch references to Islamic decorative arts or, indeed, colonial design ... 'The award really has a fairly simple objective,' the Aga Khan said during an informal speech delivered at the awards conference in Kuala Lumpur: 'That the processes of change in the physical environment in the Islamic world, and elsewhere, enable people of all backgrounds and faiths to live a better life. I don't believe that the physical environment can be improved year after year unless we have the courage to bring to bear upon it a process of continuous critical thinking ... 'In many parts of the umma [the collective nation of Islamic states] there are fears that critical thinking equates to disloyalty,' he added." -- Read the Full Article
Fighting the Political Apathy of Teens
The San Mateo Daily Journal -- September 15, 2007
by Hanna Hoffman
"Politics don’t intrude in a teen’s life. For the most part, we are left alone. The news is confined to its respective channels, and many adults change the subject to something that we can understand if we enter a political conversation ... I don’t see many teens fighting this ignorance: for many of us, the most political we get is watching The Colbert Report or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Many accept what these shows have to say, mimic their parent’s political beliefs and call it a day ... But, what about real political discussions? What about arguments and debates? Where can we go to test the foundation of the ideas we hear? How can we practice democracy before having the chance to vote? ... A lot of teens want more. Josh Sohn of The Stanford Daily argues, “Even the most paternalistic statesman has to admit there are some 16- and 17-year-olds who could vote intelligently.” I agree; however, instead of waiting for this to happen and installing false-hope in this idea, teens are taking action ...One forum that teens have access to is high school. We practice democracy in our student government. Students campaign for office in different ways: at some schools, like Mills and Serra, students give speeches to a live assembly. Other schools, such as Burlingame High School, play videos of speeches over the school television network. Ultimately, just like any other election, the votes are based off of name recognition. As Mills senior Allie Washkin said, “A lot of people, when they vote, just vote for their friend or the person who made the most jokes in their speeches ... High school also offers mock trial, a team where students simulate an actual trial and act as lawyers, witnesses, clerks and bailiffs in competitions against other schools. This offers students an opportunity to hone their critical thinking skills and develop foundations for public speaking and formulating and analyzing ideas. There are also clubs such as Junior Statesmen of America and the Model United Nations, two nationwide organizations giving students interested in politics a chance to get involved." -- Read the Full Article
Lansing Middle School Student Wins WordMasters Challenge
The Ithaca Journal -- September 15, 2007
"A student representing Lansing Middle School recently won highest honors in this year's WordMasters Challenge — a national language arts competition entered by more than 225,000 students annually that consists of three meets held at intervals during the school year ... Students at the school who achieved outstanding results in the year's final meet also included soon-to-be freshmen Tara Miller and Matthew Loring. Cathy Moseley coached the students in preparation for the challenge ... The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking, which first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships ... Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think analytically and metaphorically." -- Read the Full Article
Our View: Catch-22
Craig Daily Press -- September 15, 2007
Craig, CO — "Somehow, at Monday’s editorial board meeting, the conversation steered to education ... After 60 minutes of going back and forth on various issues, from funding and parents, to curriculum and teachers, the only consistent theme the board could come up with is this — the education system has problems ... And one of its biggest issues is there are so many issues, and school systems are caught in a Catch-22 on many of them ...Case and point: You have a federal program that has a mandate to leave no child behind. Resources are poured into ensuring that all children get a solid education ... In theory, it sounds good, right?... But the problem, in the editorial board’s opinion, is resources are seemingly being poured into those who are behind. This creates a system where teachers are forced to cater most of their time to those not making the grade. What happened to this is the standard and you need to be here or you fail? The problem with failure, it seems, is it’s viewed not an individual or family’s failure, but the school system’s ... And perhaps the current is why teachers have actually told parents not to teach them at home because the child will become too advanced for the class ...The other problem with this no child left behind philosophy is how success is measured. You have tests, and therefore many teachers instruct toward test standards instead of critical thinking." -- Read the Full Article
Superintendent Presents District Goals
The Garden City News -- September 14, 2007
by Stephanie Mariel Petrellese
"The first Board of Education work session of the school year began on a positive note as Garden City Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen presented his annual list of district goals. He started the meeting on Monday evening with the goals his administration has accomplished, which were then followed by those that are currently still being worked on, and those that the district plans to focus on this school year ...Dr. Feirsen, who presented his first list of goals three months after beginning his job in August, 2005, explained that many items are carried over from year to year. "We don't really let go of something until it is totally cooked," he said ... He also explained that developing a list of goals is a challenge since "education is pulled in 17,000 different directions." Dr. Feirsen listed legal mandates, stakeholder groups, pending and current legislation, auditors, and most importantly, the educational needs of students, as examples. "One of the major enemies that school districts fight is the fight to establish priorities," he said ... In an effort to strengthen students' critical thinking skills, Dr. Feirsen and his staff will study the possibility of administering a College Work and Readiness Assessment in the future. The CWRA measures critical thinking by providing test-takers with a multi-disciplinary task. "-- Read the Full Article
Superintendents Speak Out About School Rankings
Picayune Item -- September 14, 2007
by Amanda Shelby
Picayune, MS — "Schools within the Picayune School District, Pearl River County School District and Poplarville School District all received rankings of level three or higher from the Mississippi Department of Education ... Level 3 is considered fully accredited. Schools below Level 3 receive additional attention from the Mississippi Department of Education ... The classification levels range from a 1 to a 5, and are based on results of statewide performance testing. Level 1 is low performing, 2 is under-performing, 3 is successful, 4 is exemplary and 5 is superior. Accreditation rankings of all the school districts and individual schools in the state were released last week ... The statewide tests are given in grades 3 through 8 for language, reading and math. High school students are tested in Algebra I, Biology I, U.S. History and English II. The tests are also used to determine a school’s Adequate Yearly Progress as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind accountability plan ... Poplarville Superintendent Carl Merritt said in an interview Tuesday that he is proud of the school district ... 'We did well, and I’m proud. It all goes back to expectations. We all have expectations that we know we have to meet. We look at it as a challenge,” Merritt said ... However, Merritt said even though the district did well in the testing, there is always room for improvement ... 'We’re not satisfied. We don’t ever want to be satisfied. We always want to improve,' Merritt said. 'We’re trying to be aggressive. We’re requiring more from students. Not so much recall, but problem-solving and critical thinking.'" -- Read the Full Article
A Convoluted Book
Political Cortex (Brain Food for the Body Politic) -- September 13, 2007
by Justo6o8o7
"Convoluted. That's the word that came to my mind after finishing this enlightening yet strongly opinionated account written by the high-profile man who was in charge of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and then the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the two United Nations commissions responsible for divesting Iraq of illegal nuclear, chemical, germ and radiological armaments. On the one hand, Blix presents many unknown details regarding the twelve-year-long international efforts to ensure that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi government's varying degrees of cooperation with those efforts, especially in the months prior to the US-led invasion of that country. But on the other hand, Blix--both as an inspector and in the book--permits his own bias to cloud his judgment, handles the entire affair in a roundabout and disconnected manner, and uses circular reasoning that leads nowhere ... Dominating this book is Blix's personal narrative of the months, weeks and days leading up to the invasion of Iraq. He recounts numerous meetings with leaders such as Secretary-General Annan, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, US secretary of state Colin Powell, US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, and British foreign secretary Jack Straw, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the operations of the United Nations and the US government. As might be expected, his sketches of these political leaders are flattering. I found it disconcerting that he emphasizes form over substance by repeatedly praising the correctness and politeness of his meetings with these figures and pointing out the importance of occasional humor in breaking a tense atmosphere with Iraqi officials ... Though I expected enlightening information to compose the heart of Disarming Iraq, it is in fact the book's sole redeeming quality. Blix related how as UNMOVIC gradually exhausted natural search locations, it relied more heavily on leads by Western intelligence agencies. "No sites given to us by intelligence were ever found to harbor weapons of mass destruction." (p. 93) Suspected mobile germ weaponry labs turned out to be hydrogen factories for Iraqi weather balloons (p. 154). In addition to the absence of weapons, no illegal activities were discovered at any of the sites which inspectors visited (p. 156). The inspectors were unable to produce a single shred of incriminating evidence. Blix's description of mutual hostility between the spy-ridden UNSCOM, which demanded continuation of inspections, and the IAEA, which desired to close the case against Iraq, is an interesting read as well ... The lack of sound logic and authentic critical thinking is painfully evident. Blix's failure to connect the dots regarding Iraqi innocence and American warmongering is as serious, if not more so, than the Bush administration's failure to detect the warning signs of 9/11. It is obvious to almost everyone in the world--with Blix himself a notable exception--that the US government forged evidence and grasped at straws in order to justify a preplanned invasion of Iraq to seize the country's large oil reserves and provide a fertile new playground for Western big business. Moreover, the Iraqi claim of infiltration by American spies is corroborated by the report that US members of the inspection team asked questions about who was investing in the Nineveh Free Trade Zone and how closely the mosques were related to the regime, questions which were totally unrelated to the search for weapons (pp. 119-120). These undercover agents seemed to be preparing the way for US armed forces to destroy mosques and for Western corporations to remodel the economic structure of Iraq. American spying on Iraq through the UN inspection commission from the mid-1990s onward would also explain the Iraqi government's tendency to refuse to cooperate with American inspectors ... If the US government had planned to invade the country years in advance, as Blix himself admits; if Iraq was fully disarmed in 1994, as all the evidence declares; and if the US was infiltrating and crassly manipulating the UN Security Council, as Blix heard (p. 207), then the UN inspections from the late 1990s onward were an American-inspired charade--and Blix was a part of that charade. He notes that the Iraqi regime accused him of being a spy (p. 67), which is little wonder given his presumption of Iraqi guilt, yet Blix dismisses all the espionage charges as "petty obstacles" to inspections. Thruout the book, Blix's talk of the disarmament process and of "key remaining disarmament tasks" demonstrates a disconnection from reality as one intrusive inspection mission after another fails to find the much-hyped weapons or prohibited activities. He comments that Iraq would be in a more difficult position if it possessed no weapons of mass destruction at all, which is precisely the intent of the warmongering neoconservatives whose belief in Iraqi guilt he shares." -- Read the Full Article
A Profile You Want Your Employer to See
Washington Square News -- September 13, 2007
by William Marshall
New York, NY — "It's like Facebook for résumés ... That's what the Wasserman Center for Career Development is calling it, anyway. NYUeVita, launched earlier this year, is the online service NYU developed to help students create a résumé showcasing their extracurricular activities. About 2,500 NYU students have already made use of the program, officials said ... Once logged onto NYUeVita, students can get started by writing a mini-biography to preface their list of experience. Then users build their résumés by filling in their various jobs, internships, courses, activities, volunteering, and club and organization memberships ... These qualifications can be attached to a specific skill category, such as "critical thinking" or "leadership." This allows the user, when creating an online portfolio for an employer, to include only the information tied to skills that are relevant to that particular job. Users can also include writing samples, and even upload pictures and videos to showcase their art." -- Read the Full Article
GRE Overhaul Causes Confusion
Excalibur (York University's Newspaper) -- September 13, 2007
by Subha Arulvarathan
Toronto, ON — "First change of many for graduate school entry exam ... For those with grad school on the mind, it might just be a little harder to get in than you thought ... Two new types of questions are going to be added to the computer-based general Graduate Record Examination (GRE) test. Announced on July 20 and effective this November, the change came from the Educational Testing Service (ETS), a private, nonprofit organization that administers the test ... Numeric entry, one of the new question types, will ask test-takers to answer a quantitative question by entering a numeric answer into an empty box (there will not be a multiple choice option). The second change, involving text completion, requires test-takers to fill in two or three blanks within a sentence or passage from separate multiple-choice lists. If one of these blanks is filled incorrectly, no marks will be awarded for the question ... One of the major concerns is that test-takers will not have enough time to prepare for these potentially more challenging questions ... 'We are not going to count it [these questions] this time,' reassured Tom Ewing, a spokesperson for ETS ... However, Ewing could not be specific on when they would count ... 'We don’t know. It will depend on when we get enough data, and we’re satisfied with the questions and that they work as they should,' he said ... This is only the beginning of the changes ...The aim of the general GRE is to test the verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills through question types like reading comprehension, sentence completion and problem solving." -- Read the Full Ariticle
Fame School' Opening in Abbey Community College
Wicklow People (Independent.ie) -- September 13, 2007
Dublin, IE — "Wicklow's young singers and dancers will have a chance to join their own fame school' later this month when Backstage Academy of Performing Acts opens a training school at Abbey Community College on Sunday, September 23 ... Backstage, which has been operating in Bray for the past seven years, is open to 8-18 year olds and will run every Sunday during the school year from 2pm-5pm ... Participants will be introduced to a variety of disciplines from mime and percussion, to drama, film and TV acting, and even modelling and circus skills ... Dancing, in the form of hip hop, jazz, break, stage and urban street is also incorporated in the courses ... The workshops are led by a team of qualified staff, who also help the young people develop their communication skills, critical thinking and self confidence ... Each year senior students from Backstage also travel to New York to spend time with students at the famous Juilliard School and they also undertake studio training at the BBC in London." -- Read the Full Article
Breaking Ranks
The Colgate Maroon-News (Colgate University) -- September 13, 2007
by Geoff Guenter
"College rankings are some of the most utilized and most talked-about resources available to students searching for the right school. Recently, though, there has been controversy surrounding the formula for college rankings, especially around the most popular rankings: those of U.S. News & World Report ... Presidents from 64 colleges have signed a letter drafted by an organization known as the Education Conservancy, which characterizes the ranking system as misleading. The letter calls for presidents of member schools not to fill out the U.S. News reputational survey, in which college presidents give their subjective opinions of other colleges. Presidents who sign this letter pledge not to use college rankings to promote their respective schools or to affirm their school's value ... President of the University and Professor of Philosophy and Religion Rebecca Chopp did not sign this letter. Instead, she and presidents from 17 other top liberal arts colleges recently drafted and signed a different statement, which President Chopp calls 'a temperate response' ... In the statement, Chopp and others do not denounce the U.S. News ranking system outright. They express concern over the 'inevitable biases in any single ranking formula' and posit that rankings can 'contribute to [the admissions] frenzy and to a false sense that educational success or fit can be ranked in a single numerical list.' The statement goes on to suggest that 'ranking agencies should maintain a degree of distance to ensure objectivity' ... In addition to Colgate, the other schools represented in the statement are Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Bryn Mawr College, Carleton College, Colby College, Grinnell College, Hamilton College, Haverford College, Middlebury College, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, Trinity College, Vassar College, Washington and Lee University, Wesleyan University and Williams College ...One of her concerns with the U.S. News rankings is that a lot of importance is placed on the wealth and endowment of the school ... 'Students ought to look at all the rankings and then do their homework,' Chopp said, referring to her hope that students will use their critical thinking skills to discern the right college for them using all available information." -- Read the Full Article
Report: Schools Aren't Preparing Kids for College
eSchool News Online -- September 13, 2007
by Meris Stansbury
"The Alliance for Excellent Education convened a panel yesterday to discuss a new issue brief highlighting the disconnect that exists between the way high school teachers prepare their students for the future and how students actually achieve success. An emphasis on college readiness, panelists said, is needed to inform, assess, and improve high school teaching for the 21st-century ... Students are taught to believe that earning a high school diploma means they are prepared to enter college, and many policy makers and school leaders still believe that multiple-choice assessments are adequate measures of students' skills. But at a panel discussion convened by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) on Sept. 12, researchers and education professionals said this is too often not the case ... In terms of assessments, multiple-choice tests rarely ask students to explain their reasoning or apply knowledge to new situations. 'High schools are increasingly boxed in by assessments,' said Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University's School of Education. 'There's just a huge mess of expectations' ... To help solve these problems, AEE and ACT have outlined definitions for college readiness. AEE defines it as 'the knowledge and skills students need to succeed in entry-level college coursework without remediation.' ACT's definition consists of four parts: habits of mind, key content knowledge, academic behaviors, and contextual skills ... 'Habits of mind' refers to the skills that professors consistently identify as critical-thinking skills, such as analysis, interpretation, problem solving, and reasoning skills. Key content knowledge is the essential knowledge of each discipline that prepares students for advanced study, or study of the 'big ideas' in each content area." -- Read the Full Article
Students Place High on Tests
The University Leader (Fort Hays State University) -- September 12, 2007
by Gayle Weber
Western Kansas — "From freshman to senior year, Fort Hays State University students are adding more to their education than 90 percent of other universities’ students ... According to results from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, FHSU ranked in the top 10 percent among all colleges and universities in adding value to a student’s education ... The test was given to students during their freshmen and senior years to assess critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and writing skills." -- Read the Full Article
Laptops, Not Textbooks, Are Que. Board's Approach to Education
The Canadian Press -- September 12, 2007
Sherbrooke, Quebec — "Teacher Anne Lawton's Grade 6 class in Sherbrooke, Que., have been settling into their new desks, but they won't be cracking any textbooks ... That's so old school ... They'll be powering up their Apple MacBook laptop computers that they're getting from Sherbrooke Elementary School, which kept them over the summer to update their operating systems ... Her pupils have been working on MacBooks since Grade 3, part of an ambitious program launched five years ago by the Eastern Townships School District that equipped all 5,600 students in grades 3 to 11 with laptops and put them in classrooms with high-speed wireless Internet access ... The $12.5-million project got unanimous approval from the English-language school district's board ... 'Probably if you were to use one word that characterizes the state of technology in schools today, it would be wildly uneven,' says Susan McLester, editor-in-chief of California-based Technology and Learning magazine and its website www.techlearning.com, a resource for teachers ... 'I live at Berkeley and I can tell you my kids go to schools there and they don't use much technology, and we're not exactly in the boonies' ... Teaching may be the least technologically enabled profession in society, says Penny Milton, chief executive officer of the non-profit Canadian Education Association ... 'We have not developed a classroom practice that takes advantage of kids' almost innate capacities and desire to use the technologies available to them,' she says ... School administrators and board trustees often see technology as an add-on cost coming out of the system's capital budget, whereas textbooks are a familiar operational expenditure. Milton says this ignores the fact that the two costs are related - that downloading information eliminates the need for stacks of new textbooks each year ... Information technology is of little benefit if you stick to traditional top-down teaching models - what Lawton calls 'chalk and talk.' But it lends itself well to project-based learning, prevalent in Quebec schools with or without computers ... Students work co-operatively to research and report on assignments, an approach where Milton says teachers become the 'first learner' ... 'If kids are deeply engaged in inquiry-based learning that is relevant to them, they learn things that the teacher didn't know,' she says ... The use of computers and the Internet has accelerated students' need to filter information, be discriminating and develop critical thinking skills that weren't expected of earlier generations until they hit university, says McLester."-- Read the Full Article
Key to Literacy, Librarians Now 'Highly Endangered'
The Seattle Times -- September 12, 2007
by Lynn Thompson
"When Monroe High School librarian Lorraine Monprode took her first job, she was checking out filmstrips and cassette tape players. She knew when a class report on World War I was due because a clutch of students fought over the same volume of the encyclopedia ... Flash forward about 25 years. Monprode guides students researching World War I bunkers to online resources that include video tours of actual bunkers, audio recollections of soldiers who fought in the war, and hyperlinks to other electronic sources, all at the same time a classmate on another library computer searches the same materials ... In the age of information overload, librarians say their skills at finding authoritative and accurate sources and helping students think critically about what they read are more important than ever. But some districts around the state, including Darrington and Granite Falls, have cut librarian positions to balance their budgets ... 'The reality is that some districts and principals try to get test scores up by spending more time on test-taking and less time on open-ended projects, what we call discovery learning,' said Marianne Hunter, president of the Washington Library Media Association and a high-school librarian in Lacey, Thurston County." -- Read the Full Article
Greenpeace Founder Shifts Opinion of Nuclear Plants
Monroe News (Informing Monroe County, Michigan for more than 180 Years) -- September 12, 2007
by Charles Slat
"Though he once called nuclear power plants "the most dangerous devices that man has ever created," Dr. Patrick Moore, a pioneer in the environmental movement, now says nuclear energy is the best bet to help solve the world's energy and pollution problems ... 'The major shift we need to make in energy is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel,' he told those attending a Monroe County Chamber of Commerce Koffee Klub meeting Tuesday at Monroe County Community College ... His visit was sponsored by DTE Energy, which is contemplating building a new nuclear power plant near its existing Fermi 2 complex in Newport ... Dr. Moore, a founder of the Greenpeace International, now is co-chairman of Clean & Safe Energy Coalition, a group advocating a 'nuclear renaissance' in electrical power production ... He said nuclear power is far cleaner and its energy cheaper to produce than from plants fueled by coal or natural gas ... Though he said he didn't believe in cataclysmic predictions about climate change, 'it's very clear that we are involved in changing the chemistry of the global atmosphere with our use of fossil fuel' ... He also said pollution from the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and automobiles 'has the single biggest impact on public health today' ... Asked later why anyone should believe him now since his past assertions about nuclear power were seemingly so wrong, he replied that they needn't believe him ... They just need to do their own critical thinking.'" -- Read the Full Article
Why is Bush's Kid Brother Getting Federal Bucks?
The Raw Story -- September 12, 2007
by Nick Juliano
"An independent watchdog agency has asked the Department of Education to investigate why President Bush's younger brother, Neil, has received money earmarked for the president's signature education initiative to sell a curriculum program that has not been subjected to the rigorous evaluation it deserves ... Neil Bush, 52, who has no background in education, founded Ignite! Learning in 1999 with donations from his parents and a slate of international business interests. The company produces 'Curriculum on Wheels' devices -- computer/projectors that are pre-loaded with software aimed at preparing students for standardized tests that are the central tenet of the president's No Child Left Behind law ... The 'COWs' are sold to school districts at a cost of $3,800 to $4,200, although they have not been subjected to peer-reviewed scientific studies, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW says nearly $1 million has been spent on the systems in 16 school districts, mostly in Texas, where George W. Bush served as governor before his election in 2000, and Florida, where brother Jeb Bush is governor ... The watchdog group is requesting an investigation from the Education Department's inspector general, alleging that the Ignite! systems do not meet the standards laid out by Congress dictating how NCLB funds can be spent ... Ignite's Web site includes anecdotal testimonials from teachers who have used the program. But some teachers are less than impressed with the system, saying it supplants rote memorization for critical thinking skills." -- Read the Full Article
Making the Grade
Smokey Mountain News -- September 12, 2007
by Julia Merchant
"Much like a band-aid on a kid’s scraped elbow, No Child Left Behind was put in place to mend an educational system many claimed was in disrepair. An increasing number of critics, however, are questioning the effectiveness of the act as a permanent fix for the problems plaguing America’s schools ... No Child Left Behind, in its inception, was lauded as a way to make sure all students in the U.S. — poor or rich, white or minority, regardless of IQ level — were receiving the same level and quality of education. A standardized test was put in place at the end of third through eighth grades, as well as 10th grade, to assess what children had learned over the course of the academic year. The tests measure a school’s Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, and a certain percentage of students from all groups must meet that standard ... The idea of an assessment was, and still is, a good and necessary thing, say many educators. John Sanderson, principal of Central Elementary School in Waynesville, says the assessment helps keep track of populations that had previously fallen below the radar in many instances ... After a year of preparation, everything a child has learned is boiled down to a series of questions, an end-of-course multiple-choice exam, which will take them just a few hours to complete. How students answer these questions determines whether the child has mastered enough subject matter to have adequately completed a grade ... A standardized test has innate problems, say some educators. Using a test that only covers two subjects — math and reading — can cause other subjects to be left to the wayside and encourage a narrow form of thinking ... 'When you’re spending so much time worrying about whether students can bubble in tests, you don’t worry about enrichment,' says Kevin Norris, Kathy’s husband and a gifted education specialist at Cherokee High School. He also says the tests fail to measure critical thinking ability. " -- Read the Full Article
On the Public's Deluded View of Us As a 'Christian Nation'
Daily Kos -- September 12, 2007
by Randian
"As USA Today reports, a majority of Americans now believe that 'the nation's founders wrote Christianity into the Constitution, and people are less likely to say freedom to worship covers religious groups they consider extreme'... According to a poll by The First Amendment Center, cited in the USA Today article, '55% believe erroneously that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation.' And whereas 'three out of four people who identify themselves as evangelical or Republican believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. About half of Democrats and independents do' ... Imagine that; half of all Democrats (and independents) believe that the U.S. Constitution - which, of course, makes it very clear that there can be no official state sanctioned religion - makes us a 'Christian nation' ... 58%, say teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead prayers. That is an increase from 2005, when 52% supported teacher-led prayer in public schools ... 43%, say public schools should be allowed to put on Nativity re-enactments with Christian music than in 2005, when 36% did ... Half say teachers should be allowed to use the Bible as a factual text in history class ... only 56% agree that freedom of religion applies to all groups 'regardless of how extreme their beliefs are.' That's down from 72% in 2000 ... More than one in four say constitutional protection of religion does not apply to 'extreme' groups ... Seventy-four percent say public school students should not be allowed to wear a T-shirt with a message or picture that others might find offensive, more than at any time since the survey began in 1997 ... About a third, 34%, believe the press 'has too much freedom' — the lowest percentage in 10 years — but most distrust the news media. Sixty percent disagree with the statement that the news media try 'to report the news without bias' ... Given such findings, I would fully endorse the comments of Gene Policinski, the center's executive director, who states 'We are seeing the product of years of not teaching the First Amendment at a young age. People are applying their own values ... rather than educated knowledge' of the Constitution."-- Read the Full Article
Stanford Expands Distance Learning Across the Globe
Stanford News Service -- September 12, 2007
by Lisa Trei
"Researchers at Stanford and at universities in Africa and Latin America are pushing the boundaries of distance learning to develop new collaborative models that will prepare students to work in an increasingly borderless world ...Under the recently launched International Outreach Program (IOP), headed by Reinhold Steinbeck, Stanford faculty are helping to redefine the way students learn whether they are in high-tech classrooms on campus, in remote wildlife parks in Tanzania, in teacher-training colleges in Chile, or at a university in Cali, Colombia ... 'What's really exciting about this is that it opens a whole new chapter in engaging students in these countries in globally distributed courses,' Steinbeck said of these and other pilot projects supported by IOP, which is based at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) under the auspices of the International Initiative. 'We are very determined to make this a collaborative process' ...The concept for IOP grew out of Stanford's experience in distance learning with universities in Russia in the late 1990s. Katherine Kuhns at FSI led that effort. Political science Professor Coit Blacker, now FSI's director, team-taught a popular Stanford political science course, International Security in a Changing World, to college students from Moscow to Siberia. 'With the IOP pilot projects, we wanted to build upon the lessons learned from FSI's Initiative on Distance Learning, which fostered critical thinking skills in a new generation in Russia,' Blacker said. 'We're delighted to expand Stanford's outreach efforts into other regions with new interdisciplinary content and innovative approaches to learning and teaching.'" -- Read the Full Article
Bringing Science in Line with Real Life
L'Express (lexpress.mu) -- September 11, 2007
by Pauline Etienne
Mauritius — "A three-day forum on teaching and assessment of science was held last week. The little interest in scientific subjects is becoming critical. The ministry wants to examine the reasons and try to reverse the trend ... Less than 25% of pupils opt for science and only 10% take computer studies at School Certificate (SC) level. Less than 3% of pupils take computer studies at Advanced level (HSC). So says a report of the Mauritius Research Council (MRC). The obvious lack of interest in scientific subjects at secondary level is a major cause of concern for the education authorities ...This is why the MRC has strongly recommended a complete review of the teaching and learning of science at primary and secondary levels. Last week, a three-day colloquium on science was held on the theme. 'How curriculum and assessment can address the gap between Science in and out of the classroom.' The aim was to 'rehabilitate the teaching of science,' said Lucien Finette, one of the main organisers of the forum ...The minister of Education, Dharam Gokhool, announced at the colloquium: 'In the coming year, there will be a pilot scheme in some schools of a new combined science at O-level to offer pupils a new route into the sciences.' In fact, students who do not opt for scientific subjects will be 'given a general coverage of science at SC level to enable them in the future to have a strengthened scientific background to face the requirements of an increasingly technological environment' ...The loss of interest in scientific and technological subjects is in contradiction with the fact that “science and technology literacy is nowadays a must to comprehend the world and contribute positively to its development'. This is why the MRC has undertaken a number of studies on this issue. 'Many reasons were advanced as to why students shy away from science. These range from the subject being perceived as difficult and meant only for the bright ones to a perceived lack of job opportunities,' says the executive summary of the report ... It appears that one of the main reasons for the lack of interest in science is the fact that it is taught in such a boring way that it can put people off for life. Teachers attending the forum agreed on the need for change to have more interaction between teachers and pupils. 'Scientific subjects are no longer merely the teaching of mathematics, chemistry and physics. It is more than that and the subjects are interdependent,' commented Lucien Finette ... At primary level, one of the main problems appears to be one of language. 'Science textbooks (…) must be simplified so that the English vocabulary used is consistent with the vocabulary expected at that level.' The MRC highly recommends a more 'child-centred, active learning approach in teaching science to develop thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills amongst children'. Teachers have an important role to play in arousing children’s interest in the subject and the MRC recommends that specialised teachers be taken on to teach scientific subjects. " -- Read the Full Article
The Problem Isn't Generic 'Religious Extremism'
The New York Times (On Faith) -- September 11, 2007
by George Weigel
"Six year after 9/11, we certainly should have learned that the threat that made itself lethally clear that day was not generic -- 'religious extremism' -- but very specific: global jihadism ... Nor ought we think that what we 'say to' the jihadists will have much of a soothing effect on their passions, as if they were overwrought teenagers and we were high-school guidance counselors armed with reassuring words and a prescription for Prozac ... Indeed, I suspect that what we say to each other, as Americans, is much more important on this anniversary than what we say to the jihadists. And what we ought to be telling each other today, on 9/11+6, is what we cannot not know ... We can't not know the identity of the enemy -- global jihadism -- and what that enemy believes. That is, we can't not know that global jihadism teaches that it is the duty of every Muslim to use any means available to advance the prospects of a world that acknowledges the sovereignty of Allah over all aspects of life and that lives under Shari'a law. (That the vast majority of the world's Muslims do not hold this view is both true and irrelevant.) ... We can't not know that the jihadists read the history of the past 1,350 years through the prism of their theological convictions, not through the lens of Westrern progressivist concepts of how-things-will-turn-out ... We can't not know that the jihadists are carefully monitoring our cultural and political morale, eager to find the first signs of the weakness they detected in the late 1990s, which emboldened them to attempt an enormity like 9/11 ... We can't now know that this struggle against global jihadism is for the long haul. The issues it poses will be on the next President's desk on January 21, 2009, and on the desk of every President for the foreseeable future. And we can't not know that anyone who doesn't understand this has no claim on the presidency ... We can't not know that inter-religious dialogue cannot be an exchange of banal pleasantries but must focus on helping Islam assimilate the positive achievements of the Enlightenment, including the separation of religious and political authority and the idea of religious freedom as an inalienable human right.."-- Read the Full Article
Commentary
"The Problem" isn't that we can't now see, but that we refuse to admit, all absolute religious and secular belief systems have blind spots with inherent potentials for "non-generic" extreme interpretations. Nobody takes issue with global jihadism being the direct cause of the attacks on September 11, 2001; nor that when manipulated, that the Qur'an can be interpreted to specifically call for jihad against "infidels," nor with what should be obvious, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims don't entertain that perverted line of reasoning even though their theocratic institutions in recent generations of stifling open questioning and dissent have predisposed them to it. Yet if, as the author seems to suggest, this problem is not with "generic religious extremism" but with Islam pure and simple, he is blind to this inherent problem in all religions and cults. This is no time to point fingers at each other or to proselytize in behalf of alternative leaps of faith. Each of us is born into social environments with legacy beliefs and belief systems. We inadvertently come to accept many beliefs we really haven't thought much about. As a responsibility to ourselves and to each other, we all have a moral responsibility to independently reconcile and integrate our beliefs with real world working abstracts of "the truth" as we individually see it, as opposed to accepting the edicts, mandates, mantras and pretense in behalf of the truth that others would impose on us if they could. In other words, everybody has a right to say and believe what they want, but nobody has a right not to think about what they believe. Yes, the Enlightenment which gave rise to values of democratic and open critical dissent among and between belief systems was and continues to be a rich deterrent to most religious extremism. It needs to be revisited not just by Muslims, but by all people, societies, governments and their religious institutions, so that blind faith never gets the upper hand over critical reason as it did on 9/11/01.
Majan College Student Wins Grant to Study in USA
Times of Oman -- September 11, 2007
Muscat — "A student of Majan College (University College) has won a grant to study in the United States of America for a year awarded by the American Embassy, Muscat. Ibrahim Al Bandari of the BA English Language degree programme attributes his success to the foundation laid by his parents, who relentlessly strove to provide the best for him educationally and otherwise. At an early age Ibrahim was exposed to the English language, which enhanced his interest in developing his skills further ... Upon completion of his Thannawiya, Ibrahim enrolled for the BA (Hons) English Language degree programme offered at Majan College. Ibrahim acknowledges his skills and abilities to the excellent tuition, personal development, encouragement and support gained during his three years as a student in Majan College. He recalls his experiences as a student representative, the knowledge and confidence gained on the programme and the focus given to developing analytical and critical thinking skills ... Although at ease with the language, Ibrahim’s ability to critically analyse and argue different topics related to linguistics was an added advantage to his performance at the scholarship. “I thank Majan College for all their support and encouragement. I would also like to thank all my tutors particularly Dr Maha, Dr Wendy, Dr Rajat and Abdul Said and all my colleagues,” says Ibrahim. He takes with him their best wishes for the ensuing year." -- Read the Full Article
Students Get Slow Introduction to Laptops
Colorado Springs Gazette -- September 11, 2007
by Shari Chaney Griffin
"More than an hour after they sat down with a PC tablet in front of them, about 80 seventh- and eighth-graders in the 21st Century Curriculum Pilot Program got permission to open them up Monday ... Slowly ... Lifting the LCD screen too quickly is the easiest way to break the computer, teacher Will Colebank reminded the students ... They were excited to see inside, after spending time noting all plugs, ports and jacks on the outside ... Eventually, the tablets, which are laptop computers with a screen that can be laid flat and written on with a stylus like a Palm Pilot, will be one of several tools used to teach critical thinking and reasoning, information literacy and other topics covered in the Harrison School District 2 program ... A grant from The Daniels Fund paid for the laptops. " -- Read the Full Article
Teaching About Global Climate Change
NSTA Reports (National Science Teachers Association) -- September 10, 2997
by P John Whittsett, NSTA President
"Nearly everyone discusses the weather, and recently the concept of 'global warming' has entered the conversation. When it’s hot, some say global warming is the cause. When it’s cold, some may conclude that global warming is a myth. These statements are obviously based on short-term observations and have little to do with a long-term event like climate. Most students have difficulty distinguishing between weather and climate because they view their world from a very limited perspective ... To assess the extent to which our climate is changing, we must examine temperature and other weather-related information over a long period of time. Reliable data has shown a temperature increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius in the last century. Additionally, 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 15 years. It is clear that the Earth’s temperature is rising ... The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Project 2061 promoted a massive overhaul of the education system. Like Science Matters, Project 2061’s Science For All Americans identified the big ideas, but also demonstrated the connections among them. Energy and how it moves within and between systems is one of those big ideas. Within this topic, fossil fuels are shown to be part of a dynamic cycle of formation and conversion back to gas through combustion, but the time scales are certainly not aligned with our current use of fossil fuels ... The single most significant document used by curriculum developers is the National Science Education Standards. The Standards ask that students recognize that human activity can produce negative outcomes. Standard F asks students to use critical-thinking skills to examine global issues and develop a global awareness ... The AAAS Benchmarks state that in grades 6–8, students should understand that our climate has changed due to relatively small variations in the atmosphere. The Benchmarks recommend that high school students understand that life as we know it must adapt to our climate, that our climate results from the transfer of energy in and out of the atmosphere, and that technology can have unintended outcomes ... NSTA strongly supports environmental education as a way to instill environmental literacy in students. NSTA’s position statement on environmental education states that instruction should be based on the national standards, be interdisciplinary, and include all viewpoints." -- Read the Full Article
Public Perception Of Biotechnology
Medical News Today (MediLexicon International Ltd) -- September 10, 2007
by Barbara Janssens
"The term 'biotechnology' elicits a range of emotions, from wonder and awe to fear and hostility. Alan McHughen from the University of California in Riverside (CA, USA) now reviews public knowledge of biotech, popular misperceptions, scientific illiteracy and the role of the media. How is coexistence dealt with in the US and Europe? Who benefits from agricultural biotech -- only big companies or also the society at large? In the public interest, who is best suited to provide advice to weary consumers? ... Find these answers in the latest issue of Biotechnology Journal, devoted to 'Talking Biotech with the Public' which will be entirely FREE for download during the month of September 2007, at http://www.biotechnology-journal.com/. In this way the publisher Wiley-Blackwell wants to show its commitment to an open public dialogue. The BTJ issue features Forum and Scientific Articles on science communication, biosafety and public perception of biotechnology and GMOs. Moreover, a free Podcast will be broadcast on September 14, 2007, and features interviews with science communication experts and a humoristic Audio Play of a Journalist-Scientist interview provided by EMBO Science and Society. Download the free podcast: http://www.podcast.biotechnology-journal.com/ ... Alan McHughen claims that academics have to get more engaged in public education and social empowerment. The public might in part not be interested in being taught details of molecular biology, but may be willing to learn critical thinking skills to face all controversial issues in our increasingly complex modern world. 'Biotechnology is not new in this regard' said McHughen, 'everything from automobiles to barbeques warrants appropriate experts working in the public interest to assure safety'."-- Read the Full Article
STS-5 and the Impact of Apollo-era Decision-Making
The Space Review -- September 10, 2007
by Paul Torrance
"Some time between June 27 and November 11, 1982, the Apollo-era managers at NASA made a key decision: they ordered the removal the crew escape provisions from the Space Shuttle. Not that the shuttle crew escape provisions were any good—in fact, the crew escape system was never “crash dummy” tested as was done with the Apollo launch escape system (LES) and the modern automobile. Unlike the Apollo LES, two SR-71-style Blackbird ejection seats were basically just put into the Space Shuttle without “crash dummy” testing ... I think this early decision demonstrated a lack of both leadership and vision of the Apollo-era management (notice I did not call them “leaders”). This decision meant the Apollo-era management did not learn from Apollo 13 how to succeed or how to fail in the business of human space flight. This STS-5 decision would set the stage for the Challenger and Columbia disasters to come. There are also ethical implications of their decision that have caused a generation of NASA managers, astronauts, and engineers to follow the lower ethical standard path they chose ... Early decision-making, including critical thinking, is not easy. In the Battle of Dunkirk, the old commanders on top on both sides no doubt relied on the experiences of the First World War. When wars begin, often it becomes quickly evident when weapons are no longer effective. The Monitor-versus-Merrimac US Civil War battle instantly made the wooden ship extinct worldwide so far as battleships go ... Above my desk is a fairly recent “NASA Values” chart. The chart begins by stating, “We are dedicated to the values of safety.” In a day and age when we have infant car seats and laws regarding how to put infants into car seats and how to install infant car seats into cars; with seat belt laws, air bags, front impact, side impact, and rollover crash dummy tests of automobiles, I must confess I feel like an oxymoron when I drive to work in my car strapped in by my seat belt knowing there is an air bag in the steering wheel, when the space shuttle launches human beings on a rocket with no launch escape system by an agency that does not seem to know the reason for its own success and failures ... Thus, in the spirit of oxymoronism, I think it is pretty ugly that the same difference, or should I say indifference, has left my agency in the fine mess it is in today. But in the spirit of “pessimistic optimism”, I end this article with my own perhaps 'obscured vision' for American human space flight, and leave that vision open to debate." -- Read the Full Article
USAO's On a Mission to Draw New Students
The Oklahoman -- September 10, 2007
by Susan Simpson
Chickasha. OK — "On a recent day, a chorus of cicadas broadcast loudly from the trees lining sidewalks at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma ... Inside the buildings of this century-old campus, administrators are singing their own chorus of sorts, loudly voicing an aggressive plan that some say will either raise the campus to new crescendos or silence it forever ... USAO leaders are raising academic admission standards to rival that of the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, seeking substantially more money from lawmakers and boosters and wooing top students from across the state and nation in an effort to shed its image as a regional university ... The state's only public liberal arts university 'seems destined either to alter dramatically the terrain of Oklahoma higher education or to destroy itself,' said Sanders Huguenin, USAO's vice president for academic affairs.University leaders say the campus has long been overlooked for its unique quest, which is to provide a liberal arts education rivaling that of private colleges but with a public school price tag ... Many Oklahomans don't understand the university's curriculum, finding the liberal arts concept foreign, even though it dates back to the beginnings of American higher education ... Instead of training students for one of hundreds of specific professions, the liberal arts approach aims to provide a broad and comprehensive education that stresses general knowledge, interdisciplinary learning and critical thinking. Only bachelor's degrees are offered, and some courses are taught by teams of professors from different disciplines." -- Read the Full Article
Hero Worship is Incompatible with Critical Thought
Cyprus Mail -- September 9, 2007
"At the end of last month, the Education Ministry sent out a circular to the heads of all state schools setting out the three main targets of the new school year which starts this week. The main target was the development of inter-cultural dialogue in schools, as a way of cultivating greater tolerance and acceptance of other cultures ... The European Parliament and European Council declared 2008 the European Year of Inter-Cultural Dialogue, pointed out the circular, adding that cultivating a multi-cultural conscience among children was an imperative, given the growing number of foreign students at state schools and the changing cultural composition of our society. A list of sensible suggestions as to how this could be achieved were included in the circular ,,, Another target for the new year was to make schools more inclusive by making each class cater for the individual needs, skills and interests of each child so that all students could feel a sense of achievement and nobody would feel excluded or marginalised. These are commendable objectives, in line with European values and current educational thinking, but whether schools are in a position to achieve them at such short notice, without any time to prepare, is another matter ... What is important, for now, is that the ministry has recognised the need for schools to adapt to the changes our society is undergoing. But the third and final aim makes a mockery of this superficial modernising drive, as it exposes the government’s real thinking on education. It will focus on “acquainting children with the life and work of Archbishop Makarios III”, as 30 years from his death were marked this year! ...The suggestions made by the ministry for acquainting children with Makarios defy belief. Here are some of them: “Every school to organise an exhibition of works inspired by the life and work of Makarios; research to be carried out about artistic works that were inspired by Makarios; projects to be written about the life and work of Makarios; artistic events to be staged, devoted to Makarios; magazines and newspapers published by schools to be devoted to the memory of Makarios' ...The Makarios-worshipping aim of the ministry is anti-educational and exposes the true intentions of the government regarding state schools, which is, quite blatantly, to discourage free and critical thinking. And we wonder how the ministry mandarins hope to achieve the other two aims of the school year – multi-cultural conscience and inclusiveness – which require open-mindedness, when dogmatic thinking remains an educational ideal." -- Read the Full Article
Commentary
It's human to socially gravitate towards authoritative leadership on ideas and issues seeking our own acceptance in the notoriety of others especially when what we have least in common is "critical thinking." Acculturation within and across societies, cultures and religions constantly pulls us into intellectual assumptions and positions of acceptance in our associations with others, which need continual reconciliation. In fact, when we build our own convictions around the thinking of our heroes, when our thinking becomes their thinking by proxie, we work at cross-purposes with the fundamental concepts and cadre of best practices of critical thinking. This article illustrates a classic example of where, as institutions, we precondition our intent to "think critically" like the leaders we admire thereby undercutting our very ability to begin the critical thinking process. When the collective thinking of our institutions on one hand embrace "critical thinking" but on the other impose whose critical thinking we must embrase, it becomes obvious they either don't understand the fundamental cadres and best practices of independent thought or that they intentionally are out to indoctrinate and brainwash us in their "thinking," ableit, beliefs. Voluntary acceptance of such beliefs, without the intellectual work of independent critical process, is not "thinking." All social institutions, religious as well as secular, are inclined towards telling us what to think; not how to think. Our individual ability to see and think independently and critically is our only defense against this tendency.
No Paine, No Gain
Guardian Unlimited -- September 8, 2007
Commentary on Thomas Payne's "Rights of Man, by Christopher Hitchens
by Nicholas Lezard
"I cannot remember how much was made of the connection at the time, but it was fitting that the good citizens of Lewes rebelled against the owners of the Lewes Arms, Greene King, when the company decided to ban Harvey's, that most excellent beer, from the pub. They may have been thinking of this passage from the American Declaration of Independence: 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same course, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future safety.' For Thomas Paine lived for a while in Lewes (a fact that the town keenly promotes, even if it exaggerates the time he spent there); and Paine's ideas had a great influence on the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, as Christopher Hitchens notes, the first person to use the phrase 'United States of America' was Paine ... This is one of a series of books about 'books that shook the world', and if the publisher has chosen to put Hitchens on its front cover rather than Paine, this is understandable. For who knows now what Paine looked like? At least Hitchens' name, and his face, are bankable. And who, outside a university history faculty, now has read the Rights of Man in its entirety - or even piecemeal? ... But the idea of the Rights of Man is not one that ought to go away. John Gray, the contrarian philosopher, has said that "it is time Paine, Marx and other secular prophets were gently shelved in the stacks". One hopes Gray never approaches the levers of power with an attitude like that. Set against such a sentiment the words with which Hitchens ends his book: 'In a time when both rights and reason are under several kinds of open and covert attack, the life and writing of Thomas Paine will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend.'... He's not wrong. Hitchens makes much, for instance, of Paine's scorn for established churches, and reminds us of Paine's reply, on his deathbed, to two presbyterian ministers who asked him, 'Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?" was "I have no wish to believe on that subject' ... Religion may be one of the bees in Hitchens' bonnet these days, but he gives due treatment to Paine's ideas on liberty, as you would expect. What he does most usefully, though, is place Paine's ideas in context, and in particular as a reaction to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, from which Hitchens quotes carefully in order to bring out its full contempt for the ordinary person. In fact, only two short chapters, totalling 34 pages, deal specifically with the Rights of Man - the rest sets us up for the subject, in a way which suggests that Hitchens takes one of his jobs (as visiting professor in liberal studies at the New School in New York) very seriously. And there is no such thing as an irrelevant digression in this book. It is, for instance, important to learn how Paine risked his life for the sake of his principles during the aftermath of the French Revolution; or how he expressed his defence of free speech - long before the words attributed to Voltaire - in his follow-up to the Rights of Man, The Age of Reason ... One interesting feature of this book is its style. We have become used to a certain rhetorical flamboyance from Hitchens - whatever you might think, or have thought, of his politics, he has never been less than a pleasure to read - but here he seems to have restrained himself in this regard. AJ Ayer wrote a very excursive book about Paine, which is perhaps one of the reasons why Hitchens has been rather more tight-laced than he usually is. Then again, it might simply because here he feels he has no need to score points, or win an argument. But by anyone's standards, this is an elegant and useful primer on a subject which, pace John Gray, ought still to engage us all. For after all, as Paine himself said, these are times that try men's souls." -- Read the Full Article
America's Double Trouble
Science & Spirit -- September 8, 2007
by Trey Popp
"The nation's science and religion literacy was put to the test in America's heartland this spring, not by a battery of school tests, but by the opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, a small town within driving distance of half the U.S. population ... Visitors to the Creation Museum encounter a state-of-the-art exhibition whose visual displays are the curatorial equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster. The museum is inventive in other ways, too. In an effort to reconcile a literal interpretation of the Bible with natural history, it portrays children frolicking under the placid gaze of a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rexes, explains how coal can be formed in a few weeks rather than millions of years, and posits that all animals were created as vegetarians ... Whatever one may say about the quality of 'science' and 'religion' the Creation Museum presents, visitors flock through its doors. Most of them lack enough knowledge in either sphere to participate in a critical debate ... only seven percent of American adults are scientifically literate and only one in five college graduates makes that mark, according to a 1998 report on "civic scientific literacy" by Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University Medical School. American fifteen-year-olds rank behind their peers in twenty-two other countries—including the Netherlands, Poland, and South Korea—in scientific knowledge, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And last year's report from the National Science Foundation indicates that the public's scientific knowledge hasn't improved since the 1990s—though it did in almost every European country surveyed ... The nation's religious IQ isn't much better: About one-third of American adults believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, according to a recent Gallup poll, but that doesn't mean they've read or remembered it. Only half of American adults can name one of the four Gospels, and still fewer know that Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. A scant one-third know that the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by Jesus, not Billy Graham. One 1997 survey found that eighty percent of born-again Christians erroneously thought that "God helps them that help themselves" is in the Bible. Misinformation multiplies when the subject shifts to Islam or Hinduism, the second- and third-largest religions in the world with a combined following of 2.5 billion; few Americans know even basic tenets of either faith ... Improving both scientific and religious literacy may be the only hope of averting a future in which the American public is divided between adherents of science and adherents of faith, each group trying to out-shout the other in an effort to win over the undecided middle. That is why Collins, an evangelical Christian, regards the Creation Museum as an "utterly heartbreaking" sign of the times." -- Read the Full Article
Time to Ask Why the Education System is Failing Us
The Vancouver Sun -- September 8, 2007
by Michael Campbell
"'Whenever you think about the future, no matter where you start, if you think about it long enough, you'll always wind up thinking about education. . . . Brain power is the answer no matter what the question, and for brains to function well they have to be well stocked with information and ideas, and trained in coming up with fresh, new approaches' ... Richard Worzel, Canada's leading futurist ... Worzel is trying to say more than just 'look at my great enlightened goodness.' Worzel is issuing a warning that if we don't adapt our education system to meet the challenges of a world that changes with breathtaking speed, then we will be left behind individually and collectively ... Think about it. How much of our discussion on education ever gets beyond the latest contract issues? If a child's education is really the key to our future, then parents, teachers, school boards and the ministry of education better wake up to the fact that class size and salaries are not the key determinants of effective schooling ... Where is the focus on innovation in terms of delivery, critical thinking, and preparation for meeting the challenge brought on as our competition with countries like China and India intensifies? How are we going to deal with the increasing gap between the literacy rates between girls and boys? Unfortunately, as Worzel points out, 'The problem is that education and the means by which we deliver it is the single social structure most resistant to change at a time when change is happening faster than at any other time in human history.' "-- Read the Full Article
Don’t Let the Conformity Get to You
The Journal (Queens University) -- September 7, 2007
by Sayyida Jaffer
Kingston, ON —"University should teach students to think outside the box ... This week, thousands of new students flock to Queen’s to begin their university careers. Traditionally, campus environments have been hotbeds of social change—for examples, one need only look to the twentieth century’s civil rights or anti-apartheid movements ... But one of the first lessons Queen’s students learn is the importance of conformity ... Frosh Week is one of the first tangible experiences first-year students have at Queen’s and they deserve for it to be an enjoyable and purposeful one. However, when thousands of students are required to do the same thing at the same time, it sends a strong message that there is only one way to be accepted and successful at Queen’s and that is through conforming to the norms of the student culture here ... In Principal Hitchcock’s fall 2006 convocation address, she made several comments that I think get at the crux of what university is supposed to be about: 'Queen’s abounds in different perspectives, different theories and different cultures, and at this university you have been encouraged not to take refuge in your own opinion. We’ve urged you to see issues from competing perspectives, to question, to doubt, to resist the allure of certitude.' Frosh Week is comprised of several key principles: dress the same, say the same thing at the same time and do what your frosh leader tells you. There’s no opportunity for students to question because it suggests one is a sore sport or, worse, not committed to the group. Likewise, there’s no organized alternative, because Frosh Week organizers do not plan for such. Students go, or you are on your own ... Principal Hitchcock also stated that, “The world needs citizens and leaders who are determined advocates for what they believe in. … It’s been said that leaders are those who take us elsewhere. I believe that you will take us elsewhere.” If Queen’s develops leaders, then that commitment should start now. Let students’ first experience here be a celebration of independent thought—not an exercise in groupthink ... It’s vital for students to engage with another side of Queen’s culture—a side that values exploration and critical thinking. After all, isn’t that what university is supposed to be about?" -- Read the Full Article
Religion, Liberalism and Progressivism
The Mahablog -- September 7, 2007
"I’ve been struggling with an essay by Stanley Fish in the behind-the-firewall New York Times. Fish seems to be arguing that liberalism and religion are incompatible and that liberal society requires the diminution of religion ... Liberalism is in no way incompatible with my religion. However, I’m not going to dismiss Fish’s argument out of hand, even though I think he has several blind spots ... First, I want to repeat the point made by Mark Lilla in his recent New York Times essay, 'The Politics of God,' that I blogged about here: 'Separating political authority from religious revelation made modern liberal society possible' ... I cannot emphasize this enough: 'Separating political authority from religious revelation made modern liberal society possible.' Lilla provides a long and thoughtful analysis of western civilization going back to the Reformation, and he makes a solid argument that joining religious and political authority, even when done in a reasonably progressive and benevolent way, leads either to totalitarianism or ongoing violent conflict, or both ... I want to digress one more time, to a wonderful blog series written by John McGowan and posted on Michael Berube's blog in June 2005. It's called "the Republican Assault on Democracy," and it's in three parts ... It's interesting to me that Lilla and McGowan both call liberal democracy a 'miracle.' Particularly in a country as large and diverse as ours, we ought to be a roiling mass of warring factions. Ironically, I believe one off the reasons we've managed to keep the great experiment going this long is our almost 'religious' devotion to the Constitution ... McGowan wasn't writing about religion specifically, but I wanted to get his points about liberalism in front of you before wading into the Stanley Fish essay." -- Read the Full Article
The Norwegian, the Scotsman and the Japanese
Imomus (Blog) -- September 7, 2007
"A Norwegian, a Scotsman and four Japanese women walk into a Berlin restaurant. In between the sesame chicken and the panacotta two questions about Japan come up. The Norwegian, an artist, has been to Korea several times and Japan once. During the course of workshops with art students he's found it very hard to get them to do "critical thinking" -- for him, the beginning of creativity. What he finds puzzling, though, is how amazingly creative Asian countries are, despite this. They come out with the equipment we all use daily, with the most imaginative animation series, computer games, and so on. So how do they do it? The Norwegian also wants to know about the state of the Japanese art world. Is it healthy and thriving? ... The ball's in the Scotsman's court. I take a deep breath, a bite of chicken, a swig of white beer, and start with the art world question. Japan's art market is underdeveloped, I say. There are some "pop stars" like Murakami and Nara, who've mostly made their names outside Japan. Inside Japan (a bit like Berlin), there aren't really serious art collectors. Inside Japan, people like Murakami and Nara make their money by doing corporate identity (Vuitton, Roppongi Hills) or mass-producing souvenirs. It's a bit like Andy Warhol's statement that he'd be happy for people to have his pictures printed on the side of plastic shopping bags. In Japan, it's really like that. Art is collapsed into the mass market. Galleries are often in department stores, and often show what we'd think of as commercial work; record sleeves, airline advertising. But also there's the wider perspective that Japan doesn't really have a tradition of high art separated from design, crafts, practical things, commerce. That idea of "fine art" is a Western import. And there's no point in accusing Japanese artists of 'selling out'. When Nara makes a puppy-shaped alarm clock, he's distributing his work through the radically flat social structure of Japan much the way Warhol said he'd like to ... As for critical thinking, that too is a Western way of looking at things. We in the West (in places like Scotland and Norway) have a metaphysical tradition which encourages us to think we can step outside of social contexts and judge things from a place of security, objectively. What we don't see is that what we call 'critical thinking' isn't objective or critical at all -- it's all tied up with assumptions we inherit from Plato and protestantism, the idea that you can say 'No!' and that this radical 'No!' and the 'outside' it comes from is where everything good starts. Asian societies have a different underpinning, a Confucian one, which sees the maverick, the loner, the outsider as a loser. For those societies, there is no safe or objective 'outside'. Radical affirmation takes the place of radical dissent; the 'yes' wins over the 'no', the 'we' over the 'me'. You innovate not by trying to divorce yourself from others, but by joining a team. It is this team or family (Kaikai Kiki, Murakami's organization, would be an example) that makes everything possible, including expressions of originality ... The paradox you quickly reach here is that Western-style 'critical thinking' is actually so endorsed by such central institutions (corporations, the academy, the media), is paid such daily lip service by educators and facilitators and team leaders, that it's become the most conformist, obedient, hierarchical and unoriginal thing you could do. As I sang in my song 'Robocowboys', there's so many insiders on the outside / I think it's beginning to be the inside / there's so many mavericks off the beaten track / they're beating a track to my door / and i'm beating them back with a board. And so, all over the West, a kind of theatre of the absurd is played out in colleges and workplaces daily; the moment when some teacher, team-leader or other authority figure commands a bunch of cowed students or employees to 'think critically' on cue. Shouting at them to 'get out of the box', he actually crams them into one ... At that moment in the conversation a sort of miracle occurred. Naoko Ogawa, a Japanese woman who'd been very quiet up until that point, produced a plastic-bound portfolio from her case and handed round a series of clear-wrapped cards. On these were mounted her 'jewelry' -- but it wasn't like jewelry we'd ever seen before. Naoko makes small aluminium rectangles with rounded corners and traditional Japanese kimono patterns printed on them. As the text on each card explains, you crush these metal leaves to your clothing, 'either destroying or changing it'. There's only a limited number of times you can clasp the crushed metal to the crushed cloth beneath before the aluminium fatigues and begins to crack. At that point, Naoko says, you should throw the metal sheet away and buy a new one ... The pieces themselves -- each one is unique, and in a packet you get three or four, in assorted patterns and colours -- were very beautiful. I'm not normally interested in jewelry at all (just the other day I was telling Hisae I can't understand people who stand in front of jeweler's windows gawping at silver and gold rings and necklaces), but Naoko's pieces were just so original and so attractive that I really wished I could afford the €118 she was charging for each packet. It was also a very Japanese proposition; the way the card was laid out, with a strip of pictures along the top showing, on a neutrally-dressed woman's torso, how to attach the metal tabs (the photos were very frontal in a Mark Borthwick sort of way), the rather conceptual, quirky yet unpretentious instructions (a bit like early 1960s Yoko Ono text pieces), the trad kimono patterns of the tabs themselves ... Naoko was typically self-deprecating about her work (if being a maverick is the Western conformity, being self-deprecating is the Japanese boasting); 'I haven't presented them very well,' she said. She told us she'd come to Berlin because she wanted to work with Bless, the amazing fashion design team on Mulackstrasse who do conceptual jewelry (they'll sell you customized designer USB cables!). After she'd interned for them for a while, Bless told her she should set up on her own. I'd love to direct you to a website where you can see or buy her stuff, but she doesn't have one ...The Norwegian's questions were answered much better by the Japanese woman's work than by the Scotsman's waffle. Here was something that presented itself, without big claims, in an artisanal tradition, something you could buy in a shop rather than a gallery. And yet its originality could easily match and outstrip that of your average work of art. The instructions printed on the packet asked the user to rethink his or her relationship with clothes and jewelry. The odd beauty of the results would spark conversations wherever the aluminium was worn. 'That's pretty amazing,' people would say, and their way of thinking would be subtly freshened." -- Read the Full Article
Commentary
This slice of life narrative clearly brings to the fore a range of paradoxes and assumptions, premises and pretense that frequently appear in discussions about "critical thinking," where critical thought becomes its own self-serving end as opposed to a tool for rendering definition, structure, insight, objectivity and understanding to other contextual domains; and to the wide diversity of contributions made by different thinkers within those domains. As what poses for critical thinking is commoditized and "collapses into the mass market," it becomes too easy for us to pull the critical thinking label out of our back pockets and slap it onto our non-examined opinions in self-endorsement. (For example, "I used 'critical thinking' to reach this conclusion. Therefore, you must accept it.") As, the term's use becomes less specific, more ambiguous and vague, it also becomes less understood and valued. One needs always to ask first, "Just what do you mean by "critical thinking? "Tell me how this line of thinking is constructed?"
Aga Khan: Keep on Asking Questions
The New Straits Times -- September 7, 2007
Kuala Lumpur — "A nation will not be able to develop unless its people are willing to accept critical thinking as a vital part of progress ... 'The process of change is indefinite and in order for the people to move forward, they will have to adopt critical thinking, without which they will remain stagnant ... The youth of today should always question and not stop questioning because otherwise the world will fall asleep,' said Aga Khan, the 49th Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims ... Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2007, he said the award had encouraged a congregation of intellectuals in many fields ... 'It has allowed for the harnessing of intelligence, experts from various fields and not just architecture. It has brought about many changes to the societies in the Islamic world,' he said." -- Read the Full Article
Former Teacher's Dream of a Math Learning Center is Set to Open
St Louis Post Dispatch -- September 6, 2007
by Tim O'Neil
Ferguson, MO — "Many teachers strive to make mathematics fun. Vicki Adams may have pulled it off ... Adams quit her classroom job with the Orchard Farm School District in June to create a hands-on learning center, a sort of Magic House for numbers ... She and her small band of volunteers are almost done arranging their color-splashed activities and have sent 1,500 letters to area teachers and school officials, hoping they'll bring their charges on math-friendly field trips. The grand opening is Saturday ... 'We've tried to build in a lot of critical thinking, heavy-duty thinking, only without the kids knowing that it's heavy duty,' said Adams." — Read the Full Article
Flacks for Alarmists
The Courier Mail -- September 6, 2007
by Bob Carter
Townsville, AU — "The question of press bias about global warming is in the news again ... Writing in the Japan Times, Christopher Lingle asks 'What's up with the journalists in the mainstream media?', adding that 'reporting on issues relating to global warming has become strikingly one-sided' ... Things have in fact come to such a pass that Newsweek recently equated global warming sceptics (itself a derogatory term for climate rationalist scientists who give priority to factual evidence over speculative computer models) with Holocaust deniers (yes, again), and accused them of being in the pay of Big Oil or Big Coal (yes, again). The unoriginality and ad hominem nature of such silly accusations, which are fuelled by trashy websites like Exxon's Secrets, DeSmogBlog and SourceWatch, have become tiresome ... As US sceptic Frank Miele has pungently, though accurately commented – those who are vocal in their support for global warming doomsterism are 'less interested in free expression of ideas than in total compliance with their ideas, less interested in critical thinking than in being critical, and less interested in the truth than in their truth'. These attributes will of course be on abundant display in this, the week of the Sydney APEC." -- Read the Full Article
What Works: Fresh Blood or Old Hands? Experience or Novicity?
Occam's Razor -- September 5, 2007
by Avinash Kaushik
"A reader of the blog had a interesting question that made me think about the value of experience, or the value of 'having been around for a while', vs the value of pure passion and excitement and moldability ... I get lots of wonderful email every day with delightful questions, this one made me think harder ... Here is the actual excerpted question ... with a quandary: Is it better to hire and train a really bright, freshly minted college grad, or does the extra value returned by someone who’s been a web business analyst for several year merit the extra expense?... A reader of the blog had a interesting question that made me think about the value of experience, or the value of 'having been around for a while', vs the value of pure passion and excitement and moldability ... I get lots of wonderful email every day with delightful questions, this one made me think harder ... The answer is of course: It depends ... In many industries experience trumps everything. 'You have operated a lathe / the Space Shuttle / a school bus for 15 years? Congratulations Ian you have the job - Jack could you show new graduate Avinash from Ohio State the door please, do let him know we appreciate his passion' ... The web in some ways is unique, at the moment ... It is young, it is vibrant, it is evolving at a rapid pace, everything new is old quickly (and yes sometimes it seem the old is 'new' again) ... This complex organism demands a stunning amount of flexibility from people whose job it is to analyze it. It requires a atypical ability to let go of the past experiences and learned behaviors quickly so as to understand the new in a new way rather than taking the old known square pegs and try fit them in new round holes ... On the web, specifically for analysis of this interesting medium, experience counts for something. But in the grand scheme not as much as it used to ... On the web here is what counts: ... 1) You actually “get” the web. I mean in your blood you are a web being, you marvel at its beauty, you use it, you love it, you 'get' it (very critical if you are ever to be able to 'get' your website visitors and make sense of all the clicks you have - no 'get' web, no 'get' insights) ... 2) You are a inherently flexible being and you are open to new things, in fact you have experience proving that at every new job you ditched the old junk and moved your employer to the latest optimal mindset, not technology but mindset (very critical for someone to see evolution of the web and understand newest measurement opportunities - clickstream or otherwise). Entrenched mindsets will not win the war when it comes to Web Analytics ... 3) Change will not kill you. If you think for a moment this is different from #2. This is critical because human beings love the known, most fear change, and a few can’t see future opportunity because they can’t or don’t want to change. Yet for the foreseeable future the only constant in the web measurement space is change - as you build out a team / skills you want to be ready for that ... 4) Critical thinking. From Wikipedia: “Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analyzing and evaluating. It includes all possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense' ... You want a Analyst right? Not a Report Writer? You can find critical thinking in a guy flipping burgers at McDonalds or doing advanced statistical analysis. Look for it." -- Read the Full Article
Mill Creek Students Get Crime Scene Experience
Jackson Herald (MainStreetNews.Com) -- September 5, 2007
by Brittany Whitley
"Jessica King’s ninth grade gifted students learned how to solve murders just like detectives on television’s CSI on Thursday at Mill Creek High School, but unlike the detectives on TV, it only took them about 50 minutes ... In the classroom, there was a crime scene set up. The evidence was marked A-G ...The CSI, or crime scene investigation, project, called “How did Stan Smith Die?” was designed to teach the students critical thinking skills, measurements, the characteristics of life, which include among other things DNA and cells, and scientific method skills." -- Read the Full Article
Dranesville Offers Deeper Curriculum
The Connection -- September 5, 2007
by Scott J Krischke
"Throughout this past summer there has been one thing on the mind of school administrators at north Herndon-area Dranesville Elementary School: expansion of education and learning opportunities for its students ... 'Research shows that early childhood is such an important time to develop literacy, critical thinking skills and really to just encourage good learning habits,' said Dranesville Elementary School principal Lucinda Romberg. 'We want to have a chance to expose them to as much as possible in the classroom not just to prepare them for continuing education, but to become lifelong learners' ... This year, Dranesville Elementary School will welcome nearly 100 young students to its new full-day Kindergarten program while at the same time introducing the school’s approximately 650 students to a regular "strategic thinking skills" program. Both of the initiatives are designed to foster the learning skills seen as integral in future education endeavors and the real world, according to Romberg." -- Read the Full Article
Middle East Tensions Flare Again in U.S. (Update)
Inside Higher Ed -- September 5, 2007
by Scott Jaschik
"The academic year in the United States is opening with flare-ups of tensions over the Middle East, and specifically over scholars who write critically of Israel ... On Tuesday, the Middle East Studies Association released two letters protesting what the group considers to be serious violations of academic freedom. One concerns Norman Finkelstein, the DePaul University political scientist who was denied tenure in June and who has since been placed on a paid leave, with his classes called off and his office shut down. The other concerns the decision by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to call off a lecture by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, two scholars who have written a book that is harshly critical of the influence of Israel and its supporters on U.S. foreign policy ... Today, Finkelstein is expected to stage a protest over his situation by teaching the class that the university canceled and then going to his old office, from which he has been barred. Finkelstein has vowed to enter the office, even if that gets him arrested, in which case he says he will go on a hunger strike. (Update: On Wednesday, Finkelstein and the university announced a settlement. Details will appear tomorrow on this site.) ... Meanwhile, at Barnard College, a tenure case that has been attracting attention since last fall is getting more intense (at least among those outside the college). Competing Web sites offer analyses of the work of Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist whose book that criticizes the use of archaeology by Israel has been praised by some and panned by others. A critic’s column this week that suggested that El-Haj’s status as a Palestinian was an important area of inquiry is being cited by Middle Eastern studies scholars as a sign of how ugly some of the debates have become ... The canceled lecture in Chicago was just the latest of disputes involving the ideas of Mearsheimer and Walt, who hold endowed chairs, respectively, at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. They have a new book out, 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy', which argues that the United States alliance with Israel has not advanced U.S. interests in the Middle East and criticizes the way supporters of Israel influence Congress and the executive branch. The book is an expanded version of an essay they wrote last year, which was hailed as courageous by some and criticized as irresponsible by others ... As tenured professors at top universities, the authors don’t have to worry about job security. But they do seek audiences for their ideas and they were scheduled to talk this month at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. They were uninvited. The council has said that the reason is not fear of their ideas, but the belief that their ideas would be best explored in a program that would include 'other perspectives.' According to the council, this was always the intent, and when people to oppose them could not be lined up, the event needed to be called off ... The letter from the Middle East Studies Association about the nixed talk calls the decision 'a serious violation of the principles of free expression and the free exchange of ideas.' It notes that both authors have spoken at the council previously, without having anyone to oppose their views, and questioned why only when talking about their new book are they 'subjected to the litmus test of ‘balance' ... A number of prominent professors, generally of the left (Howard Zinn, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado and others, some of them quite controversial themselves, such as Ward Churchill) have issued calls to back Finkelstein. One such call says his treatment amounts to 'a fundamental threat to the intellectual ferment and critical thinking so desperately needed — in academia and in society — at this time in history.'" -- Read the Full Article
UC Regents Must Demand a Shift in Paradigm
Stockton Record (RecordNet.Com News Worth Sharing Online) -- September 5, 2007
"There's an easy-to-understand gulf between intellectual genius and the operational function of any large organization ... Academic excellence and management skills don't naturally go hand in hand ... Nowhere is the gap wider than within the 10-campus University of California system. In a scathing assessment, Richard Blum, chairman of the UC Board of Regents, has called UC's administrative structure 'dysfunctional' ... On one hand, the system is clearly a global leader in research and development. It employs some of the brightest people on the planet ... On the other, its governing tradition has hardly kept pace with the sprawling network of campuses and independent leaders ... Blum told his fellow regents that UC administrators work so hard at democratic solutions - an elusive consensus - that forward motion is hamstrung on some issues and painfully slow on others ... A side problem, the San Francisco financier says, is that no one takes responsibility ... Blum, the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., delivered the critical analysis just nine days after university President Robert Dynes announced his resignation ... The report must become more than words. An overhaul is required and the UC structure is daunting (516 full-time employees in the president's office alone) ... Every premise needs to be challenged, starting with the UC system's funding from the state and its accountability to the California Legislature ... Even the Board of Regents' structure deserves a new look. With 25 members, it is unwieldy ... Focus needs to be given to decision making, leadership dynamics, compensation traditions, and policies and procedures that have not been reviewed for 40 years ... Ethical assumptions are wrong ... Great ideas need the right environment. UC campuses foster visionary thinking and intellectual breakthrough as well as anyone in the world ... It's time for the system to get its organizational act together as well ... Richard Blum has issued the call. Will the University of California's leaders apply the principles of critical thinking to their own practices?" -- Read the Full Article
Liberalism and Secularism: One and the Same
Behind The Times (Think Again: a blog at the NY Times) -- September 4, 2007
by Stanley Fish
"Back in June, I wrote three columns (”The Three Atheists,” “Atheism and Evidence” and “Is Religion Man-Made?“) about the recent vogue of atheist books, books that accuse religion of being empty of genuine substance, full of malevolent and destructive passion, and without support in evidence, reason or common sense ... The authors of these tracts are characterized by professor Jacques Berlinerblau of Georgetown University as “the soccer hooligans of reasoned discourse.” He asks (rhetorically), “Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than thirty seconds without referring to religious peoples as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the public good, crypto-Nazis, conjure men, irrationalists … authoritarian despots and so forth?” ... In a similar vein, Tom Krattenmaker, who studies religion in public life, wonders why, given their celebration of open-mindedness and critical thinking, secularists “so frequently leave their critical thinking at the door” when it “comes to matters of religion?” Why are they closed-minded on this one subject? ... An answer to these questions can be found, I think, in another publishing phenomenon: the growing number of books and articles dedicated to the rehabilitation of liberalism both as a political vision and as a self-identification of which one needn’t be ashamed ... A recent example is Paul Starr’s “Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism” (2007). Starr, a professor of sociology at Princeton, claims that what unites liberals are political principles rather than agreement 'on the ultimate grounds on which these principles rest.' This is the familiar (and suspect) claim that liberalism is not a substantive ideology but a political device that allows many ideologies to flourish and compete in the marketplace of ideas. Liberalism, says Starr, “is only a framework – that is, it provides a space for free development.' Where there are deep 'divisions over the meaning of the good life,' he continues, the 'neutrality' of the liberal state 'furthers mutual forbearance' ... But right there, in the invocation of 'free development' and 'mutual forbearance,' Starr gives the lie to liberal neutrality." -- Read the Full Article
A Nation is Defined by the Breadth of Its Cultures
NorthJersey.Com -- September 4, 2007
by Maryann Woods-Murphy
"In 'Multiculturalism means anti-American" (Other Views, Aug. 23), Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute paints a distorted and inflammatory view of multicultural education -- one that plays to fears and stereotypes ... She claims that a multiculturalist 'agenda' 'calculatedly' seeks to 'prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture' ... But some people agree with Journo and say multiculturalism goes too far, overcompensating for the way non-Western culture had been ignored in our curricula by now ignoring the roots of our Western civilization. Students, such critics argue, graduate deeply ignorant of their own Western tradition ... Instead of pride and joy in the accomplishments of Plato, Galileo and George Washington, these students supposedly feel embarrassed to be the product of what is often called the "dominant culture." They fail to understand the tremendous strides that have brought us democratic institutions. They ignore the advantages they have enjoyed in a developed and democratic society ... To see if this could be so, I investigated history standards as presented on the state Department of Education Web site. Standard 6.3 requires teachers to "explain to students that the concepts of democracy and citizenship originated in Ancient Greece." It recommends such books as "Citizenship in the Western Tradition" and "Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece" as background reading ... I learned that students indeed learn about classical Western cultural traditions as well as about the interesting offerings of non-Western cultures. In addition, there is a constant emphasis on teaching critical thinking, developing opposing viewpoints and diverse perspectives ... Students are exposed not only to their own history, but also to that of others. More important, they are armed in today's classroom with the tools of critical thinking, analysis and open inquiry. It sounded to me that, unlike the picture Journo had presented where students learn to scoff at the West in favor of an appreciation of "Navajo patterns," they are learning the workplace readiness skills needed in a global society ... The Greek philosopher Socrates exhorted his followers to 'Know thyself.' The further back we investigate our DNA, the more we understand just how connected we all are. As we trace human migration across ice caps and plains, we find the specks of our genetic past across the seas and continents. We learn that when we "know ourselves" we are also forced to learn about the customs and traditions of our neighbors in lands far away ... When w |
