Dress codes in school may pay dividends later

21 Jul

In Does what is worn in school matter?  Moi said:

Particularly in the elementary grades it is important that teachers model appropriate behavior and appropriate attire. Given the number of children in distressed circumstances in contemporary society, it is important that schools be one institution where appropriate behavior is modeled. Another purpose of a good basic education is to equip children with the skills and the ability to make choices about their life. It has been my observation that many in education, not all, like to “rage against the machine” or what they perceive to be the dominant political dynamic. That is their right during their off hours. If a child wants to grow up and lead JP Morgan Chase, that is THEIR choice and THEIR right as well. The teacher is there to equip the child with the skills to follow THEIR dream. Many children come from families and backgrounds who are not as equipped to nurture and promote the child’s dreams as other families are. All children deserve a chance and a teacher modeling professional dress is an important part of the education of these children.

Moi supposes that after “business casual” probably degenerated into P.J.s and flipflops, banking giant UBS put the brakes on and delivered a dress code to its employees. Huffington Post has a good synopsis of the code along with a link to the actual document at the post, UBS 43′ Page Dress Code Warns Employees Not to Show Underwear:                                                                            https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/dressing-for-success-in-school/

Apparently, too many folks on the job have no clue what is appropriate work attire. Melissa Korn writes in the Wall Street Journal article, What Not to Wear To Work:

A new survey shows U.S. adults expressing more outrage at scantily-clad co-workers this year than they did last year.

The   report, commissioned by temporary staffing firm Adecco and based on interviews with more than 1,000 U.S.  adults, found that 72% of Americans believe strapless or backless tops and dresses are “inappropriate for the workplace,” up from 66% (strapless) and 64% (backless) in June of last year.

Showing a little skin below the knee by wearing shorts, flip-flops or open-toed shoes is also a bigger no-no this year. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say shorts are inappropriate at the office, up from 55% last year. Meanwhile, 76% said flip-flops aren’t appropriate attire, up from 71%, and the percentage that disapproved of open-toed shoes in general increased to 35% from 31%.

Mini-skirts, while still meeting with disapproval by 69% of respondents, are slightly more acceptable this year than last year, when 70% said they were inappropriate.

Perhaps more surprising than the findings regarding workplace attire were the results of a question about offensive workplace activities. Forty-nine percent of survey respondents said they were offended when people clip or bite their nails at work. That means 51% actually aren’t offended when a colleague breaks out the clipper for some finger-and-toe grooming. (We beg to differ.)

Other habits respondents found offensive include taking your shoes off, putting on makeup and brushing your hair at work.    http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2012/07/20/work-wear-101-what-not-to-wear-to-work/?blog_id=226&post_id=228

It would be great if people were judged by what Dr. King described as the “content of their character,” but people are quite often judged by the clothes they are wearing.

Meds Available has some interesting thoughts about clothes in the article, What your Clothes Say about You:

The truth is, whatever reasons you may have for choosing your clothes says you are still trying to make a statement even if that statement is “I don’t care about fashion.”

But clothes is more than just the fashion trends. It is who you are and who you want to be.

Dressing your emotions

How you look on the outside reflects or affects how you feel on the inside. If you know you are wearing fashionably chic clothing, then you feel a little more confident than if you wore baggy ones. Subsequently, if you are wearing an ill-fitting dress, your actions will tell everyone that you are uncomfortable with what you’re wearing, which affects your confidence, performance, and mood.

Dressing for your future

How you carry yourself through your clothes can say who you want to be. For example, if you want to be a respectable lawyer, you would make it a point to dress in professional looking blazers and “power” outfits to serve as a constant reminder of what kind of person you are trying to be.

Dressing to Impress

How others view you based on your fashion sense also affects your mental health. The clothes you wear everyday can be used against you by judgmental people in the society. They use it as a yardstick to determine who they are talking to – whether they are talking to a “somebody” or a “nobody.” It is unfortunate that there are many people who are like that and teenagers are especially aware of the presence of these people that they easily believe they will only be hip enough for them if they are thin and trendy, solely based on the opinions of these people.

The sad part about this is that these teens, in spite of their better judgments, worship these people. They allow themselves to be swept by their mockeries and bullying, which lead them to depression, anorexia, or depression and anorexia. At some point, they may succeed in impressing these people with their clothing size and style, but when the curtains fall, they feel naked because what they are wearing are not their true colors.

Clothing is never a luxury but a necessity but not because it clothes and protects you from environment, but because you simply need to feel beautiful and special. You may or may not love fashion but you have to love what you wear.                                                                                http://medsavailable.com/articles/be-careful-of-what-you-wear-you-may-be-wearing-the-wrong-attitude

Often schools and public authorities are concerned about clothing worn by children at school because it may indicate gang affiliation or gang identity. See, Gang Identity http://www.gangfree.org/gangs_identity.html There are several reasons moi feels that all children deserve a good preschool and a good basic education. Those reasons center around the purpose of education which in addition to individual enrichment are the ability to understand and participate in the political process and the opportunity to acquire skills which will make them employable and able to care for themselves and their families.

Related:

Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects                                                                                                     https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/study-girls-as-young-as-six-think-of-themselves-as-sex-objects/

Does what is worn in school matter?                                                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/does-what-is-worn-in-school-matter/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Data mining in education

19 Jul

Marc Parry has written a fascinating Chronicle of Higher Education article which was also published in the New York Times, Big Data on Campus:

With 72,000 students, A.S.U. is both the country’s largest public university and a hotbed of data-driven experiments. One core effort is a degree-monitoring system that keeps tabs on how students are doing in their majors. Stray off-course and a student may have to switch fields.

And while not exactly matchmaking, Arizona State takes an interest in students’ social lives, too. Its Facebook app mines profiles to suggest friends. One classmate shares eight things in common with Ms. Allisone, who “likes” education, photography and tattoos. Researchers are even trying to figure out social ties based on anonymized data culled from swipes of ID cards around the Tempe campus.

This is college life, quantified.

Data mining hinges on one reality about life on the Web: what you do there leaves behind a trail of digital breadcrumbs. Companies scoop those up to tailor services, like the matchmaking of eHarmony or the book recommendations of Amazon. Now colleges, eager to get students out the door more efficiently, are awakening to the opportunities of so-called Big Data.

The new breed of software can predict how well students will do before they even set foot in the classroom. It recommends courses, Netflix-style, based on students’ academic records.

Data diggers hope to improve an education system in which professors often fly blind. That’s a particular problem in introductory-level courses, says Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation. “The typical class, the professor rattles on in front of the class,” she says. “They give a midterm exam. Half the kids fail. Half the kids drop out. And they have no idea what’s going on with their students.”

As more of this technology comes online, it raises new tensions. What role does a professor play when an algorithm recommends the next lesson? If colleges can predict failure, should they steer students away from challenges? When paths are so tailored, do campuses cease to be places of exploration? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/colleges-awakening-to-the-opportunities-of-data-mining.html?emc=eta1

For a really good explanation of “data mining” go to Alexander Furnas’ Atlantic article.

In Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask, Furnas writes:

To most of us data mining goes something like this: tons of data is collected, then quant wizards work their arcane magic, and then they know all of this amazing stuff. But, how? And what types of things can they know? Here is the truth: despite the fact that the specific technical functioning of data mining algorithms is quite complex — they are a black box unless you are a professional statistician or computer scientist — the uses and capabilities of these approaches are, in fact, quite comprehensible and intuitive.

For the most part, data mining tells us about very large and complex data sets, the kinds of information that would be readily apparent about small and simple things. For example, it can tell us that “one of these things is not like the other” a la Sesame Street or it can show us categories and then sort things into pre-determined categories. But what’s simple with 5 datapoints is not so simple with 5 billion datapoints….

Discovering information from data takes two major forms: description and prediction. At the scale we are talking about, it is hard to know what the data shows. Data mining is used to simplify and summarize the data in a manner that we can understand, and then allow us to infer things about specific cases based on the patterns we have observed. Of course, specific applications of data mining methods are limited by the data and computing power available, and are tailored for specific needs and goals. However, there are several main types of pattern detection that are commonly used. These general forms illustrate what data mining can do. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388/

With the ability to collect vast amounts of information comes the question of what about privacy and what is the definition of privacy?

Ljiljana Brankovic and Vladimir Estivill-Castro discuss privacy issues in Privacy Issues in Knowledge Discovery:

Recent developments in information technology have enabled collection and processing of vast

amounts of personal data, such as criminal records, shopping habits, credit and medical history, and

driving records. This information is undoubtedly very useful in many areas, including medical

research, law enforcement and national security. However, there is an increasing public concern

about the individuals’ privacy. Privacy is commonly seen as the right of individuals to control

information about themselves. The appearance of technology for Knowledge Discovery and Data

Mining (KDDM) has revitalized concern about the following general privacy issues:

· secondary use of the personal information,

· handling misinformation, and

· granulated access to personal information.

They demonstrate that existing privacy laws and policies are well behind the developments in

technology, and no longer offer adequate protection.

We also discuss new privacy threats posed KDDM, which includes massive data collection, data

warehouses, statistical analysis and deductive learning techniques. KDDM uses vast amounts of

data to generate hypotheses and discover general patterns. KDDM poses the following new

challenges to privacy.

· stereotypes,

· guarding personal data from KDDM researchers,

· individuals from training sets, and

· combination of patterns.

http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/~vlad/teaching/kdd.d/readings.d/aice99.pdf

In Who has access to student records? Moi said:

There is a complex intertwining of laws which often prevent school officials from disclosing much about students.

According to Fact Sheet 29: Privacy in Education: Guide for Parents and Adult-Age Students,Revised September 2010 the major laws governing disclosure about student records are:

What are the major federal laws that govern the privacy of education records?

  • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 20 USC 1232g (1974)

  • Protection of Pupil’s Rights Amendments (PPRA) 20 USC 1232h (1978)

  • No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. 107-110, 115 STAT. 1425 (January 2002)

  • USA Patriot Act, P.L. 107-56 (October 26, 2001)

  • Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC Part I, Ch. 5, Subch. 11, Sec. 552

  • Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act (Pub. L. 106-386)

FERPA is the best known and most influential of the laws governing student privacy. Oversight and enforcement of FERPA rests with the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA has recently undergone some changes since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act and the USA Patriot Act….https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs29-education.htm

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/who-has-access-to-student-records/

See, The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act balancing act https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/the-federal-educational-rights-and-privacy-act-balancing-act/

Still, schools collect a lot of information about students.

Jason Koebler has written an interesting U.S. News article, Who Should Have Access to Student Records?

Since “No Child Left Behind” was passed 10 years ago, states have been required to ramp up the amount of data they collect about individual students, teachers, and schools. Personal information, including test scores, economic status, grades, and even disciplinary problems and student pregnancies, are tracked and stored in a kind of virtual “permanent record” for each student.

But parents and students have very little access to that data, according to a report released Wednesday by the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that advocates for expanded data use.

All 50 states and Washington, D.C. collect long term, individualized data on students performance, but just eight states allow parents to access their child’s permanent record. Forty allow principals to access the data and 28 provide student-level info to teachers.

Education experts, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, argue that education officials can use student data to assess teachers—if many students’ test scores are jumping in a specific teacher’s class, odds are that teacher is doing a good job.

Likewise, teachers can use the data to see where a student may have struggled in the past and can tailor instruction to suit his needs.

At an event discussing the Data Quality Campaign report Wednesday, Rhee said students also used the information to try to out-achieve each other.

“The data can be an absolute game changer,” she says. “If you have the data, and you can invest and engage children and their families in this data, it can change a culture quickly.”Privacy experts say the problem is that states collect far more information than parents expect, and it can be shared with more than just a student’s teacher or principal.“When you have a system that’s secret [from parents] and you can put whatever you want into it, you can have things going in that’ll be very damaging,” says Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “When you put something into digital form, you can’t control where that’ll end up.”

According to a 2009 report by the Fordham University Center on Law and Information Policy, some states store student’s social security numbers, family financial information, and student pregnancy data. Nearly half of states track students’ mental health issues, illnesses, and jail sentences.Without access to their child’s data, parents have no way of knowing what teachers and others are learning about them.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/19/who-should-have-access-to-student-records

The U.S. Department of Education enforces FERPA.

Resources:

Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You        : http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205,00.html#ixzz2172ZKahA

What is Data Mining? – YouTube
  ► 3:22► 3:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-sGvh6tI04

Defining Privacy for Data Mining                                                                      http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~jsvaidya/pub-papers/ngdm-privacy.pdf

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects

18 Jul

In Children too sexy for their years, moi said:

Maybe, because some parents may not know what is age appropriate for their attire, they haven’t got a clue about what is appropriate for children. There is nothing sadder than a 40 something, 50 something trying to look like they are twenty. What wasn’t sagging when you are 20, is more than likely than not, sagging now.

Kristen Russell Dobson, the managing editor of Parent Map, has a great article in Parent Map. In Are Girls Acting Sexy Too Young?  Dobson says:

A 2003 analysis of TV sitcoms found gender harassment in nearly every episode. Most common: jokes about women’s sexuality or women’s bodies, and comments that characterized women as sex objects. And according to the 2007 Report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, “Massive exposure to media among youth creates the potential for massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are sexual objects.”

Those messages can be harmful to kids because they make sex seem common — even normal — among younger and younger kids. In So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, co-authors Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., write that “sex in commercial culture has far more to do with trivializing and objectifying sex than with promoting it, more to do with consuming than with connecting. The problem is not that sex as portrayed in the media is sinful, but that it is synthetic and cynical.”

http://www.parentmap.com/article/are-girls-acting-sexy-too-young

The culture seems to be sexualizing children at an ever younger age and it becomes more difficult for parents and guardians to allow children to just remain, well children, for a bit longer. Still, parents and guardians must do their part to make sure children are in safe and secure environments. A pole dancing fourth grader is simply unacceptable.

The most recent example of the culture sexualizing women involves starlet, Dakota Fanning. Sean Poulter is reporting in the Daily Mail article, Dakota Fanning’s ‘Lolita’ perfume ad for Marc Jacobs is banned for ‘sexualising children’

A perfume advertisement featuring teen actress Dakota Fanning has been banned on the basis it appeared to ‘sexualise a child’.

The actress is 17, but she looked younger in the magazine ad for ‘Oh Lola!’, where she was sitting on the floor with the perfume bottle between her thighs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2059097/Dakota-Fannings-sexually-provocative-perfume-ad-banned.html#ixzz1dImHgIQP

Moi loves fashion and adores seeing adult looks on adults. Many 20 and 30 somethings prefer what I would charitably call the “slut chic” look. This look is questionable fashion taste, in my opinion, but at least the look involves questionable taste on the part of adults as to how they present themselves to the public. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/children-too-sexy-for-their-years/

Jennifer Abbasi reports about a study conducted by Christi Starr and Gail Ferguson in the LiveScience article, Why 6-Year-Old Girls Want to Be Sexy:

Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit. Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with. http://www.livescience.com/21609-self-sexualization-young-girls.html

See, Study: Girls As Young As 6 Are Thinking Of Selves As Sex Objects http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/07/18/study-girls-as-young-as-6-are-thinking-of-selves-as-sex-objects/

Citation:

Journal Article

Sexy Dolls, Sexy Grade-Schoolers? Media & Maternal Influences on Young Girls’ Self-Sexualization

Christine R. Starr and Gail M. Ferguson

Sex Roles, Online First™, 6 July 2012

Concern is often expressed that mass media contribute to the early sexualization of young girls; however, few empirical studies have explored the topic. Using paper dolls, we examined self-sexualization among sixty 6–9 year-old girls from the Midwestern United States; specifically self-identification, preference, and attributions regarding sexualized dress. Based on simultaneous maternal reports, we also investigated potential risk factors (media consumption hours, maternal self-objectification) and potential protective factors (maternal television mediation, maternal religiosity) for young girls’ sexualization. Findings support social cognitive theory/social learning theory and reveal nuanced moderated effects in addition to linear main effects. Girls overwhelmingly chose the sexualized doll over the non-sexualized doll for their ideal self and as popular; however, dance studio enrollment, maternal instructive TV mediation, and maternal religiosity reduced those odds. Surprisingly, the mere quantity of girls’ media consumption (tv and movies) was unrelated to their self-sexualization for the most part; rather, maternal self-objectification and maternal personal religiosity moderated its effects.

The Girl Scouts of America has some great suggestions for dealing with a reality television world.

Here are suggestions from Girls Scouts Research about how parents can talk to their children about reality television

Tips for Parents

Real to me: Girls and Reality TV/ Girl Scout Research Institute

Reality TV is a popular form of entertainment for young people today. While this may seem like a benign phenomenon, our research suggests that girls who view reality TV on a regular basis are impacted signifi­cantly on personal and social levels. Regular viewers seem to have more extreme expectations of how the world works and relate to their peers differently than do those who don’t watch as much. Reality TV can also serve as a learning tool, inspire families to explore new interests and activities, and encourage young people to get involved in social causes.

Tip #1: TV watching is the number-one activity for girls, but they don’t necessarily want it to be this way. Use this opportunity to create alternatives for your entire family….

The good news is that girls would like to spend their time differently. Ninety percent of girls would rather spend an hour hanging out with friends than an hour watching their favorite TV show, and 84% would rather spend an hour doing a fun activity. This finding is similar to one from the GSRI study on social media, which found that even though girls today communicate profusely through the computer and/or their mobile devices, most prefer in-person time with friends….

You can even think about ways you can use what you see on TV to get the family interested in other things. For instance:

o Try out a recipe seen on a cooking program.

o Explore a place—through books or the computer, or in person—inhabited or visited by characters in a program you like.

o Engage in a fun family activity seen on a favorite show.

Put effort into demonstrating that face-to-face communication and enjoyable activities are important in your family, and you’ll create a healthier balance between TV and other things family members like to do.

Tip #2: Reality TV is here to stay, but not all shows are created equal. Be mindful of the type of reality TV your daughter is consuming, consider watching with her, and use the shows as learning tools and conversation starters….

Our study suggests that competition-based shows (American Idol, Project Runway, etc.) and makeover shows (The Biggest Loser, Extreme Home Makeover, etc.) have the most potential for inspiring conversa­tions with parents and friends, making girls feel like anything is possible, and helping girls realize that there are people out there like them. These shows have an educational and awareness-based component, portraying new ideas and perspectives; increasing girls’ exposure to people with different backgrounds, values, and beliefs; and teaching girls things they might not have learned otherwise. Makeover shows in particular raise awareness about important social issues and causes….

o Did your daughter relate to the characters or scenarios?

o What did she think about the situations portrayed? Does she have any questions?

o What did she agree or disagree with? What is the most valuable thing she came away with?

o Is she inspired by what she saw? What inspires her?

o Does x-show encourage new passions or thoughts about what she wants to be when she

grows up?

….By being mindful of the variety of reality programs that exists and monitoring/participating in what your daughter is watching, you are in a better place to inspire conversation and learning.

Tip #3: Talk about the differences between reality TV and actual reality.

This is especially true of girls who watch reality TV regularly. These girls are more likely to be comfortable with gossiping, feel that girls have to compete for a boy’s attention, and say it’s natural for girls to be catty and competitive with one another than are girls who watch reality TV less frequently. They are also less likely to trust other girls and to place more value on being mean and/or lying to get ahead.

What girls don’t often recognize is that much of what they consider “real” is actually scripted. In the Girl Scout Leadership Journey MEdia, TV producer Melissa Freeman Fuller shares that crew members often feed lines to participants, set up situations, and edit shots to make things seem more dramatic and inter­esting.* As an adult, you may be able to distinguish between reality and scripted TV and to take the latter with a grain of salt, but young people are more impressionable and perhaps believing in and mimicking these behaviors….

o Does your daughter find herself mimicking the negative behaviors depicted or is she totally turned off by them?

o Does she assume this is just the way the world works?

o Does she know a lot of people who depict these behaviors?

o What are some ways she might react differently that could produce a better outcome?

…Because girls so often think that what they see in reality TV programs is an accurate portrait of real life, it is imperative that you discuss the differences between the two. If shows don’t reflect your daughter’s reality, encourage her to create media that does.* [Emphasis Added]

Tip #4: Encourage your daughter to look beyond the mirror.

Girls who regularly view reality TV are focused on the importance of physical appearance and more likely to think that a girl’s value is based on this, and it’s a shame, because of course girls have so much more to offer the world than their looks. Make sure your daughter knows this. Compliment her on her talents and praise her for her values or willingness to try new things. Encourage her to pursue interests that are not based on improving her looks….

Tip #5: Model healthy relationships.

One of the more troubling findings of this study is that reality TV shows seem to promote questionable behavior, appearing to compel girls to act out stereotypes like being catty and competitive and fighting among themselves for guys’ attention. Girls understand that reality shows depict unhealthy relationships, but they don’t always understand that these kinds of behaviors aren’t and don’t need to be the norm. As long as girls think that other girls can’t be trusted and that it’s necessary to fight and beat out others in order to “win” the affection of a romantic interest, they will continue to engage in actions like those above.

Girls need to believe that they can trust one another and that not all girls are out there to hurt others through relational aggression, bullying, and other detrimental behaviors. As a parent, keep your eye out for potential harmful behaviors between your daughter and her friends/peers. Promote healthy relationships and prevent gossiping in your own life so that your daughter has a model of healthy relating to look to. Think about groups or places in which your daughter can build positive relationships, such as Girl Scouts, and encourage her to develop these relationships with her peers.

Tip #6: Keep girls grounded.

Some reality shows feature characters competing for a prize, be it fame, fortune, or status, and in some cases these characters choose to lie, cheat, or be mean along the way. Regular reality TV viewers are more likely than their non-viewing counterparts to internalize this and believe that one has to do these things in order to get ahead in life.

As well, many girls want to become famous—more so now than in years past. While it’s encouraging that girls have high hopes for their futures, it’s important they don’t go overboard to become noticed and recognized. Becoming famous often means focusing on external beauty and acting out; it’s critical that girls remain grounded and in possession of the positive values instilled in them by family and other healthy influences. Continue to encourage your daughter to cultivate such internal assets as assertiveness, confi­dence, individuality, and creativity; she’ll go far. More information on the research cited here can be found at www.girlscouts.org/research.

Dr. Wilda has been just saying for quite a while.

Resources

  1. Popwatch’s Miley Cyrus Pole Dance Video

  2. Baby Center Blog Comments About Miley Cyrus Pole Dance

  3. The Sexualization of Children

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Penn State: An example of ‘groupthink’

18 Jul

The latest scandal involving lapses in ethical behavior is the Penn State child abuse scandal. There have been other lapses in ethical behavior and unfortunately there will be future lapses. Many are shaking their heads and asking, why? Manuel Velasquez, Dennis Moberg, Michael J. Meyer, Thomas Shanks, Margaret R. McLean, David DeCosse, Claire André, and Kirk O. Hanson.of Santa Clara University have an interesting framework for making ethical decisions. In, A Framework for Thinking Ethically, they write:

Recognize an Ethical Issue

  1. Could this decision or situation be damaging to someone or to some group? Does this decision involve a choice between a good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two “goods” or between two “bads”?
  2. Is this issue about more than what is legal or what is most efficient? If so, how?

Get the Facts

  1. What are the relevant facts of the case? What facts are not known? Can I learn more about the situation? Do I know enough to make a decision?
  2. What individuals and groups have an important stake in the outcome? Are some concerns more important? Why?
  3. What are the options for acting? Have all the relevant persons and groups been consulted? Have I identified creative options?

Evaluate Alternative Actions

  1. Evaluate the options by asking the following questions:
  • Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm? (The Utilitarian Approach)
  • Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake? (The Rights Approach)
  • Which option treats people equally or proportionately? (The Justice Approach)
  • Which option best serves the community
    as a whole, not just some members?
    (The Common Good Approach)
  • Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be? (The Virtue Approach)

Make a Decision and Test It

  1. Considering all these approaches, which option best addresses the situation?
  2. If I told someone I respect-or told a television audience-which option I have chosen, what would they say?

Act and Reflect on the Outcome

  1. How can my decision be implemented with the greatest care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?
  2. How did my decision turn out and what have I learned from this specific situation?http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html

Clearly, those in positions of authority failed at Penn State. The reason for the failure my lie in “group think.”

Lawrence J. Cohen and Anthony T. DeBenedet, M.D. have written a fascinating Time article, Penn State Cover-Up: Groupthink in Action:

While Big Football certainly played a role, what happened at Penn State is best explained by a psychological phenomenon known as groupthink, whereby sound decisionmaking is impaired by the bigger concern of group unity and preservation. Insider groups — private clubs and fraternities, religious groups and sometimes corporations — are particularly prone to groupthink, and it’s hard to imagine a more inside group than university president Graham Spanier, senior vice president Gary Schultz, athletic director Tim Curley and revered football coach Joe Paterno. The characteristics of groupthink, first described by social psychologist Irving Janis in 1972, are that the group sets itself above the law, avoids transparency and oversight, and protects itself at all costs. Instead of trying to find the best solution, it encourages the conformity of opinion, often around the wrong decision.

Groupthink also helps explain why the leadership protected Sandusky — one of their own — instead of vulnerable children. As Janis said his book Victims of Groupthink, the phenomenon “is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out-groups.” The outsider status of Sandusky’s child victims was most likely exacerbated by the fact that many were poor. The e-mails detailed in the Freeh report show that this particular insider group managed to twist logic to the point where they thought that it was more “humane” to cover up the repeated allegations of Sandusky’s abuse than to report them to the police. The “only downside” they saw to this decision was that they would be vulnerable if the truth came out. The humanity — and vulnerability — of the abused children and potential future victims didn’t come into the discussion.

Janis first described groupthink as the dynamic behind foreign policy fiascos like the Bay of Pigs, and the concept is still applied to political decisions. Some of Janis’ recommendations to prevent groupthink have been widely followed, such as appointing a devil’s advocate, introducing outside voices and allowing brainstorming to occur without judgment or criticism. Over the years, his original concept was also criticized, especially what he described as the conditions necessary for groupthink to emerge: internal cohesion, crisis, pressure, group insulation and members with similar ideologies and backgrounds. More recent research has actually found that groupthink can occur when group dynamics aren’t as optimal, which means that it’s more ubiquitous than Janis initially thought, and in this sense, perhaps more dangerous.   http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/17/penn-state-cover-up-group-think-in-action/#ixzz20vEBtcaq

The University of Oregon has a great synopsis of “groupthink.”

In Groupthink, the synopsis describes the key elements of “groupthink.”

Groupthink occurs when a homogenous highly cohesive group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all their alternatives and options. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an outgroup opposed to their goals. You can tell if a group suffers from groupthink if it:

  1. overestimates its invulnerability or high moral stance,
  2. collectively rationalizes the decisions it makes,
  3. demonizes or stereotypes outgroups and their leaders,
  4. has a culture of uniformity where individuals censor themselves and others so that the facade of group unanimty is maintained, and
  5. contains members who take it upon themselves to protect the group leader by keeping information, theirs or other group members’, from the leader.

Groups engaged in groupthink tend to make faulty decisions when compared to the decisions that could have been reached using a fair, open, and rational decision-making process. Groupthinking groups tend to:

  1. fail to adequately determine their objectives and alternatives,
  2. fail to adequately assess the risks associated with the group’s decision,
  3. fail to cycle through discarded alternatives to reexamine their worth after a majority of the group discarded the alternative,
  4. not seek expert advice,
  5. select and use only information that supports their position and conclusions, and
  6. does not make contigency plans in case their decision and resulting actions fail.

Group leaders can prevent groupthink by:

  1. encouraging members to raise objections and concerns;
  2. refraining from stating their preferences at the onset of the group’s activities;
  3. allowing the group to be independently evaluated by a separate group with a different leader;
  4. splitting the group into sub-groups, each with different chairpersons, to separately generate alternatives, then bringing the sub-groups together to hammer out differences;
  5. allowing group members to get feedback on the group’s decisions from their own constitutents;
  6. seeking input from experts outside the group;
  7. assigning one or more members to play the role of the devil’s advocate;
  8. requiring the group to develop multiple scenarios of events upon which they are acting, and contingencies for each scenario; and
  9. calling a meeting after a decision consensus is reached in which all group members are expected to critically review the decision before final approval is given.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/grpthink.html 

For a really good example of “groupthink” in action, see the Strategically Speaking Blog.

There is an excellent example of “groupthink” in How to identify groupthink: An introduction to the Abilene Paradox at the Strategically Speaking Blog.

When your organization makes decisions, do you find the same dysfunctional activities repeated over and over? If so, you want to be on the look out for the paradox and find a way to cut it off before it causes more damage. If you want to identify the paradox at work within your group, we’ve compiled the following list to look out for:

  • Members exhibit different opinions in the group as opposed to one on one
    If your people are telling you one thing and then offering their true opinions only in private, there’s likely an issue with communication. It’s common for bad news to have trouble flowing upstream in an organization, but if no one’s telling you the plan is a dud, you’ll never know.
  • Members are discouraged to dissent, often seen as lack of commitment
    When someone on your team offers constructive criticism, is it encouraged, or are they accused of failing to be a team player. If anyone offering a different opinion is asked “hey, where are your pom-poms?” you may have a problem on your hands.
  • Members seem frustrated or resentful towards management and other team members
    If your organization has a habit of letting bad ideas come to fruition, then it stands to reason that someone’s being blamed for each failure. There’s plenty of reasons for employees to be resentful of management- some is reasonable and some isn’t. In this case, you’re looking for resent for being blamed- often for tasks that when assigned were already doomed to failure.
  • Members avoid responsibility or even attempt to blame others
    The same systemic habit of failure mentioned above can often lead to a culture of blame. If no one feels the freedom to point out bad ideas, then no one wants to take responsibility for them either.
  • Members exhibit a lack of trust
    Eventually, all of these things erode trust. Employees distrust management that doesn’t listen to their concerns and that delegates not only tasks, but also blame for failed initiatives. Corporate politics then lead to backstabbing and blame-shifting among employees under such management, as everyone does what they can to avoid being targeted.
  • All decisions require unanimous agreement
    Leadership by committee can breed horrible decision-making. On the one hand, it may increase buy-in. On the other hand, every member is incentivized to agree as soon as possible, or risk being stuck in committee session longer than they want, as well as risk the image of dissenter.
  • Very little dissent from group opinion is observed
    Again, lack of dissent is not always a good thing- in fact, if you as a manager aren’t encountering any dissent for the decisions you make, that should be a red flag. You have a choice- you can go on believing that the reason that your employees fail to argue with you because all of your decisions arise from bulletproof logic and infallible judgment, or you can probe to find out if the Abilene Paradox is thriving under your leadership. http://mystrategicplan.com/resources/how-to-identify-groupthink-an-introduction-to-the-abilene-paradox/

Increasingly, more emphasis is placed on teams.

Susan Cain has written the New York Times piece, The Rise of the New Groupthink:

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in. 

But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all

In order to prevent more Penn States, two things must happen. First, those responsible for the lapse in behavior must be punished. Second, some dissent and even “whistleblowing” must be tolerated to air what may sometimes be “dirty laundry” sooner rather than later.

Resources:

Ethics Resource Center                                                                                         http://www.ethics.org/

Ethics and Virtue                                                                                                          http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/ethicsandvirtue.html

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school

16 Jul

In Early learning standards and the K-12 continuum, moi said:

Preschool is a portal to the continuum of life long learning. A good preschool stimulates the learning process and prompts the child into asking questions about their world and environment. Baby Center offers advice about how to find a good preschool and general advice to expectant parents. At the core of why education is important is the goal of equipping every child with the knowledge and skills to pursue THEIR dream, whatever that dream is. Christine Armario and Dorie Turner are reporting in the AP article, AP News Break: Nearly 1 in 4 Fails Military Exam which appeared in the Seattle Times:

Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can’t answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

Many children begin their first day of school behind their more advantaged peers. Early childhood learning is an important tool is bridging the education deficit.

eSchool News.Com reports that the Pre-K Coalition, which includes the American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, Council of Chief State School Officers, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of State Boards of Education, National Education Association, and the National School Boards Association has released the report, “The Importance of Aligning Pre-K through 3rd Grade.”

Gains made in high-quality preschool programs must be sustained and built upon throughout the K-3 years, according to the report. Robust P-3 initiatives align comprehensive early learning standards with state K-3 content standards in an effort to promote children’s healthy development, social and emotional skills, and learning. Those standards should be connected and build upon one another so that pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and primary grade educators can develop and select effective curricula, teaching strategies, and assessment systems. Teaching teams should engage in joint professional development….
The Common Core State Standards hold promise in helping schools connect early learning to later grades, but many state K-12 systems might not connect to early childhood education systems within the same state….
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/22/report-sets-forth-early-learning-recommendations/

Our goals should be: A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood. ©

Think small, Not small minded ©

Money spent on early childhood programs is akin to yeast for bread. The whole society will rise.

Nancy Cambria writes in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, School camps in St. Louis area aim to give incoming kindergartners a leg up. The St. Louis programs are typical of many pre-kindergarten programs which are aimed at giving at-risk children a running start.

Some in the child development field worry that the programs are indicative of a national push by too many school districts to regiment young children into rigid, performance-based academic learning too early.

“I don’t have a problem that children have a four-week introduction to going to school in the summer, but you don’t want them to burn out and get them turned-off to school,” warned Joan Almon, director of programs for the Alliance for Children at the University of Maryland.

Administrators and teachers at Hazelwood said the monthlong program that ended last week gives children a chance to test the waters of a more structured school environment so they have less anxiety and more academic and social confidence in the coming school year.

Most of the classrooms are led by district kindergarten teachers, which, at bare minimum, gives the students the chance to know familiar faces when the school year starts in August, said Shanon Drennan, the coordinator for Sunny Start at Garrett Elementary.

For teachers, such programs get more children up to speed earlier on the basic routines and early reading and writing skills needed for an intensive learning year ahead. That makes things easier from the start for teachers who must achieve a lot of goals with their students in just nine months, Drennan said.

Mary Carver said her daughter, Annabell Wallsmith, loves Sunny Start.

“It gets my kid motivated to jump into kindergarten,” she said. “She’s learning the social skills, and it gets her more ready to read.”

TOO MUCH STRUCTURE?

But Almon worries that the motivation behind kindergarten summer school in some districts is to prepare students earlier for mandatory assessment testing and to move them away from the free play and exploration that research suggests enhances learning in young children.

“I just think that when we get caught in thinking the most regimented approach will be the best way, I haven’t seen them bring about a love of learning or a comfort with a group situation or an excitement about learning,” she said.

In the most extreme example she’s seen, Almon said, one North Carolina school district openly praised a teacher in their kindergarten summer “boot camp” program who wore military fatigues as she shouted lessons in ABCs and 1-2-3s….

Almon said the push she has seen toward rigid academics is particularly common in lower-income school districts where the stakes for funding and accreditation are high. She cites one study that found kindergartners in New York and Los Angeles public schools spent two to three hours a day in chairs working on literacy, math and testing and allowed about 20 minutes of play time.

At St. Louis Public Schools, Cheryl Davenport, the director of early childhood programs, said the district’s free “Kindergarten Here I Come!” program focuses heavily on play, though academic enrichment is a clear goal for their students.

The program, which has been running for more than a decade, enrolled about 400 children this summer. Although it’s open to all St. Louis children about to enter kindergarten, Davenport said the bulk of the program’s students are recommended by district preschool teachers who identify them as perhaps needing “a little bit of extra time and focus on basic skills such as early reading and early writing.”

But, she stressed, the program is geared toward fun. So math and lessons are typically given outside at the water table with measuring cups. Prereading and science come through cooking and art projects.

“Our program is meant to provide additional enrichment time,” she said. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/school-camps-in-st-louis-area-aim-to-give-incoming/article_3dc0b0b4-9063-5755-9261-90cf94269b23.html#ixzz20cfmYtC6

One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. Without continued sustained investment in education in this country, we are the next third world country.

Related:

The state of preschool education is dire                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/the-state-of-preschool-education-is-dire/

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/seattle-research-institute-study-about-outside-play/

College Board’s ‘Big Future’: Helping low-income kids apply to college                                                                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/college-boards-big-future-helping-low-income-kids-apply-to-college/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Why I support the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS

15 Jul

Moi’s local PBS stations are KCTS Channel 9 and NPR’s KUOW. It had been a few years since moi had been inside the KCTS building as a member of the KCTS Advisory Board. The specific reason for moi’s return was a July 10, 2012 lunch speech featuring PBS President, Paula Kerger. Ms. Kerger provides competent and forward-looking leadership for PBS, but more important, she symbolizes PBS’s commitment to adapting and serving the areas in broadcasting which are under-served, whether it is in content of programing or geography.

Mayer N. Zald of Vanderbilt University writes in the 2008 article, Politics and Symbols: A Review Article:

The relation of symbols, myths and rituals to the functioning of the state and the social system is a venerable concern of social philosophy and social science. In social theory symbols and rituals have been variously presented as a means of evoking symbols of solidarity, and as representing and reaffirming the power and authority of the state, of signalizing the power within the state. Furthermore, symbols can be seen as reaffirming and rewarding the virtues held dear in the polity and as a means of reassuring the citizenry that all goes well. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1966.tb02268.x/abstract

Symbols are very important to what happens in society.

Moi remembers that when she was a member of the KCTS Advisory Board, there was the relentless drum roll in Congress to “defund” public broadcasting. Not much has changed. The reason this post begins with a discussion of symbols is evident when one looks at the PBS funding mix. According to Alternative Sources of Funding for Public Broadcasting Stations:

For public television and radio stations system-wide, the share of funding derived from the federal appropriation to CPB is approximately 15 percent, with larger percentages to smaller and rural stations, and smaller percentages to larger stations.

According to information reported to CPB by public television licensees during fiscal year 2010 (the latest information available),38 individual contributions accounted for 22 percent of system revenue, the largest single source of revenue. The share of revenue for public television from CPB was 18 percent. System-wide, public television revenue sources were as follows:
Source of Funding Percentage of TV System Revenues
Contributions by individuals 22%
CPB (federal appropriation) 18%
State government support 14%
Underwriting by businesses 13%
University support 8%
Foundation support 7%
Other federal grants and contracts 5%
Local government support 4%
All other sources 9%
The revenue received from these various funding sources differs significantly from licensee to licensee. Smaller licensees (those with less operating revenue) and licensees that provide service in small television markets tend to receive a greater percentage of their revenue from federal sources than large licensees and those operating in large television markets.

According to an earlier study by the GAO,39 for public television stations with annual budgets less than $3 million, the federal share of their revenue is approximately 33 percent, while for the largest public television stations the federal share is approximately 10 percent.

Public radio revenue sources are similar to those for public television, with individual contributions again being the largest source of revenue. The share of revenue for public radio from CPB in FY 2010 was 11 percent. System-wide, public radio revenue sources were as follows:
38 Each public television and radio station that receives a Community Service Grant from CPB must file an Annual Financial Report (AFR) or Annual Financial Summary Report (FSR) reporting its revenues and expenditures, and a Stations Activities Benchmarking Survey (SABS) on non-financial activities.
39 GAO Report at 29.

Source of Funding Percent of Radio System Revenues
Contributions by individuals 34%
Underwriting by businesses 19%
University support 13%
CPB (federal appropriation) 11%
Foundation support 8%
State government support 3%
Local government support 1%
Other federal grants and contracts 1%
All other sources 10%
Again, the relative sources of funds differ significantly from licensee to licensee. Smaller licensees and licensees that provide service in small markets receive a greater percentage of their revenue from federal sources than large licensees and those operating in large markets.

http://cpb.org/aboutcpb/Alternative_Sources_of_Funding_for_Public_Broadcasting_Stations.pdf

What critics of public television are really saying is that they do not like the symbolism of a public broadcasting system.

Prior to the luncheon, moi sent a series of questions to KCTS. Here are the key questions and the responses:

1.     Any stats that you have about how educational programs help teachers and students as well as parents

FROM RAISING READERS 2008 STUDY:

See the attached PDF on Raising Readers Success Stories, p. 13 (includes link to full study)

Children who watched SUPER WHY! scored 46% higher on standardized tests than those who did not watch the show.

Here is the link: http://www.pbs.org/about/media/about/cms_page_media/146/raising_readers_a_story_of_success_1.pdf

FROM READY TO LEARN (2005-2012 Report)

Here is the link:

http://pbskids.org/readytolearn/

2.     How programs help children of color, low-income children and children in families where English is not the first language

FROM RAISING READERS 2009 STUDY:

See attached PDF on Raising Readers Success Stories, pp. 5-6 (includes link to full study)

The study found that preschoolers from low-income communities who participated in the PBS KIDS Raising Readers media-rich curriculum outscored their peers who did not participate in the curriculum on all tested measures of early literacy, such as naming letters and knowing their sounds. Furthermore, children who

started out with the lowest literacy skills gained the most, learning an average of 7.5 more letters than children in the comparison group.1 Ultimately, the study showed that utilizing PBS KIDS Raising Readers content for both kids and teachers helps build critical literacy skills to better prepare children from low-income communities for success in kindergarten.

Here is the link:

http://www.pbs.org/about/media/about/cms_page_media/146/raising_readers_a_story_of_success_1.pdf

4.     Any information about how PBS presents diverse views and engages its audience in thoughtful discussion about sometimes contentious topics.

Building on a long tradition of educational value, KCTS 9 and PBS are in the midst of developing new projects that extend the value of public media to teachers and learners both inside and outside of traditional classrooms. With more and more users looking to mobile and web-based platforms, public media is placing greater emphasis on “transmedia” content – content that follows users and learners across devices. For example, a child may watch SuperWHY! via broadcast as well as access its themed learning games through mobile/tablet. At the same time, her teacher might be pulling an interactive literacy game for a classroom Smartboard via PBS LearningMedia and taking an online professional development course on supporting early literacy via PBS TeacherLine.

What’s new with KCTS 9?

·         KCTS 9 is in the midst of rolling out a localized version of www.PBSLearningMedia.org (see below) and will begin producing standards-aligned digital learning assets geared particularly toward the needs of Washington schools. In-house educators have initiated listening sessions with districts and ESDs in the region.

·         This year KCTS 9 will institute a permanent home for its community-generated media projects. Dubbed the 9 Media Lab, this effort will include a comprehensive home for digital storytelling projects, with full time staff support, technical training and production support for community and youth participants, and a full complement of small, consumer grade video cameras, basic audio equipment and desktop editing units. As a preview to the 9 Media Lab, students and educators produced video diaries exploring education reform efforts at Lincoln High School in Tacoma. (Learn more at http://kcts9.org/education/golden-apple-awards/lincoln-center).

·         In connection with its documentary on the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair, KCTS 9 teamed up with HistoryLink.org and others to produce a ten unit curriculum on the World’s Fair which is available free, online at http://kcts9.org/education/worlds-fair-curriculum and which won a Heritage Award from the Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO).

·         This past year marked the 20th Golden Apple Awards, a ceremony and program that honors outstanding educators from across Washington state.

·         KCTS 9 continues to extend early learning support in Spanish as well as English. Vme, the Spanish language broadcast presented by KCTS 9 in Washington, offers 30 hours/week of high quality educational programming in Spanish – close to ten times the amount of children’s programming on commercial Spanish networks. Vme recently hosted a teacher training and family science night for migrant families in Toppenish.

What’s new with PBS?

·         As referenced above, PBS is ambitiously pursuing a transmedia approach. That means new resources are being developed to work in sync with the broadcast offerings of programs like Dinosaur Train, Sid the Science Kid, Curious George, Word Girl, Electric Company, Martha Speaks and other valuable programs. These new resources include mobile apps for phones, tablets and Smartboards, as well as strong web presence for PBS Kids, PBS Parents and PBS Teachers.

·         PBS LearningMedia (www.PBSLearningMedia.org) is a new online library of over 20,000 learning assets designed especially for use in the classroom. Teachers can search assets by subject, theme, grade level, media type and soon by standard. From STEM to early literacy, arts and social studies, the collection has resources for preK – post12. PBSLM allows teachers to stream content from children’s shows, American Experience, Frontline, NOVA, etc – it also allows them to access focused 2-4 minute clips that resonate with a particular classroom activity. This free service also allows teachers to create class lists to email links for clips, along with related questions to students and parents. (eg. a teacher message might be: “Tomorrow we are going to discuss federal vs. state power. Examine this clip from Freedom Riders and be ready to discuss how the federal government responded to states’ segregation laws during the Civil Rights Movement. Can you find any parallels to the recent Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s immigration laws?”)

·         PBS TeacherLine (www.pbs.org/teacherline) offers a catalog of online professional development for educators. Courses in the areas of literacy, math, science, ELL strategies, instructional technology are available quarterly at competitive prices and teachers in Washington can receive clock hours and graduate credit through several institutions.

·         American Graduate (http://www.americangraduate.org/) is an effort by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that uses media to highlight the challenges of secondary education, examines disparities, and supports efforts at improved graduation rates.

Clearly, for those who value early learning programs for at-risk children, PBS is a valuable instrument of delivery of quality programming for these children. Much of the PBS allocation goes to support under-served rural areas that are not competitive in a for-profit model.

The issue is the symbolism of a public entity model. Many of those who attack the PBS model do not want to admit that there is a value to having some institutions outside the for-profit model. These institutions provide “public” goods which do not readily translate into a for-profit model. One only has to look at the amount of reality television programming currently on television because these programs bring in advertising dollars. Do we, as a society, need more shows like, “Ice-Road Truckers” and “Cajun Pawn-Stars?” Moi supports PBS because it delivers quality, diverse programming, gives voice to under-served communities, provides a forum for the arts, and has children’s programming with high quality learning content. Yes, PBS is a powerful symbol, but the fact that it exists is a symbol of this society’s strength, not weakness.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Personal learning networks (PLNs) and education

15 Jul

Peter DeWitt has written an interesting Education Week piece about personal learning networks (PLNs), Do Our Students Have PLN’s?

Teachers need to make sure that they are fostering strong PLN’s in the classroom because as much as it is important to learn from a teacher, we also understand that the conversations students have with one another can be invaluable as well.

Through social media and other venues there is a lot of talk about personal learning networks (PLN). A PLN consists of all of the places where you get your information and its how educators tap into educational conversations with colleagues near and far. It’s a fantastic way to stay current in our practice as educators. As a principal, I believe it’s highly important to be connected so I can bring the most current and best resources to staff and in return they share their best resources with me…

Students do have personal learning networks and they have to decide, much like we do, whether that PLN is a good one or a bad one. Their PLN begins with their parents. We have all learned a great deal from our parents and at a very young age they helped shape our thinking before we ever stepped foot into a school building. Our parents taught us how to talk, read (in some cases), walk and how to ride a bike. If you haven’t thanked your parents lately for being the first member of your PLN, perhaps you should.

Secondly, our students learn from their teachers. In some cases it may be a self-contained teacher that they spend their days with in the classroom. Other times they may switch classes and learn from a variety of teachers. Some teachers and the ones they truly connect with and others they just learn from.

Thirdly, students learn from one another. In some cases their peer groups are their strongest PLN. They may work in groups or by just listening to answers that other students give when teachers ask questions. Teachers need to make sure that they are fostering strong PLN’s in the classroom because as much as it is important to learn from a teacher, we also understand that the conversations students have with one another can be invaluable as well.

Lastly, in my opinion (you may have more) students have PLN’s that are on-line. These PLN’s, depending on the age of the student, need to be monitored because they can have positive or negative impacts and consequences. However, connected teachers and principals know that students can learn from the likes of Twitter. There have been countless conversations between classes of students and other educators. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2012/07/do_our_students_have_plns.html?int

For an excellent example of how to create a PLN, see 10 simple steps to creating a free online Personal English Learning Network:

So, how do you find your English speaking friends and create your own Personal English Out There Learning Network? Just follow the process below and you will soon have unlimited English speaking opportunities for free whenever you want them:

  1. Join an international social network like Facebook and a free online web phone like Skype, then make some online friends by joining groups that promote friendship, use the search tool to find groups under ‘meet new people’ or ‘make friends’
  2. Contact people using the words “Hi, I am using a new system called English Out There can I practise English with you, it will only take a few minutes each time”, in the text chat system and using the special pre-written EOT message in our ‘Social Media Tool Kit‘
  3. Make as many English speaking friends as you can, preferably in different time zones and with different accents, 15 to 20 should be enough
  4. The more practice partners you have the more likely you will be able to practice 24/7 and be able to hear global English
  5. Do the lesson and prepare the Out There Task questions
  6. See who is online and text them to see if they can talk
  7. Call those who say ‘yes’ and use the language from the lesson to break the ice and get going
  8. Talk for about five or six minutes and then say “Goodbye”.
  9. Text another friend in your network and ask the same questions again.
  10. Repeat four or five times with different people in your network.

REMEMBER:  Ask your questions, have a quick chat and then GO! You will be amazed with the results.
http://englishoutthere.com/10-simple-steps-to-creating-a-free-online-personal-english-learning-network

In Children’s sensory overload from technology, moi said:

Like it or not, technology is a part of life. The key is to use technology for YOUR advantage and to not let technology control you. Parents must monitor their children’s use of technology. Caroline Knorr has an excellent article at Common Sense Media, How Rude! Manners For the Digital Age Parents must talk with their children about the responsible use of social media and the Internet. Common Sense Media has some great discussion points in the article, Rules of the Road for Kids https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/childrens-sensory-overload-from-technology/

Resources:

5 Things You Can Do to Begin Developing Your Personal Learning Network                                                                  http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-things-you-can-do-to-begin-developing.html

Personal Learning Networks for Educators: 10 Tips                                                      http://gettingsmart.com/news/personal-learning-networks-for-educators-10-tips/

Building a Learning Network for Students                                                                            http://classroom-aid.com/2011/11/20/building-a-learning-network-for-students/

23 Resources about Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)                                           http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2010/05/09/16-resources-about-personal-learning-networks-plns/

Related:

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

What is a creativity index and why are states incorporating the index into education?                                                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/what-is-a-creativity-index-and-why-are-states-incorporating-the-index-into-education/

The digital divide in classrooms                             https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/the-digital-divide-in-classrooms/

Critical thinking is an essential trait of an educated person https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/critical-thinking-is-an-essential-trait-of-an-educated-person/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Study: Low-income populations and marriage

14 Jul

In UN-traditional Father’s Day message: Don’t become a father unless you can make the commitment to YOUR child, moi said:

Humans have free will and are allowed to choose how they want to live. What you do not have the right to do is to inflict your lifestyle on a child. So, the responsible thing for you to do is go to Planned Parenthood or some other outlet and get birth control for yourself and the society which will have to live with your poor choices. Many religious folks are shocked because I am mentioning birth control, but most sluts have few religious inklings or they wouldn’t be sluts. A better option for both sexes, if this lifestyle is a permanent option, is permanent birth control to lessen a contraception failure. People absolutely have the right to choose their particular lifestyle. You simply have no right to bring a child into your mess of a life. I observe people all the time and I have yet to observe a really happy slut. Seems that the lifestyle is devoid of true emotional connection and is empty. If you do find yourself pregnant, please consider adoption.

Let’s continue the discussion. Some folks may be great friends, homies, girlfriends, and dudes, but they make lousy parents. Could be they are at a point in their life where they are too selfish to think of anyone other than themselves, they could be busy with school, work, or whatever. No matter the reason, they are not ready and should not be parents. Birth control methods are not 100% effective, but the available options are 100% ineffective in people who are sexually active and not using birth control. So, if you are sexually active and you have not paid a visit to Planned Parenthood or some other agency, then you are not only irresponsible, you are Eeeevil. Why do I say that, you are playing Russian Roulette with the life of another human being, the child. You should not ever put yourself in the position of bringing a child into the world that you are unprepared to parent, emotionally, financially, and with a commitment of time. So, if you find yourself in a what do I do moment and are pregnant, you should consider adoption.https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/un-traditional-fathers-day-message-dont-become-a-father-unless-you-can-make-the-commitment-to-your-child/

Children need stability and predictability to have the best chance of growing up healthy. Dr Thomas Trail and Dr Benjamin Karney from the University of California Los Angeles studied and analysed results from a survey of 6,012 people. The study is Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More?

Here is the press release for the study, Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More?

For Immediate Release

Media Contacts:
Ben Norman (UK) +44 (0) 1243 770375
Amy Molnar (US) +1 201-748-8844
sciencenewsroom@wiley.com

Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More?

People with lower incomes value the institution of marriage just as much as those with higher incomes and have similar romantic standards for marriage, according to a new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The new research suggests that government initiatives to strengthen marriage among low-income populations should move beyond promoting the value of marriage and instead focus on the actual problems that low-income couples face.

The study, which analysed results from a survey of 6,012 people, was carried out by Dr Thomas Trail and Dr Benjamin Karney from the University of California Los Angeles. Although previous research has shown that divorce rates are higher and marriage rates are lower among low-income populations in the US, the researchers found that on most measures low-income respondents held more traditional views towards marriage than respondents on higher incomes.

Although low-income and high-income respondents reported similar romantic standards and similar problems with relationship processes such as communication, low-income respondents were more likely than affluent couples to report that their romantic relationships were negatively affected by economic and social issues such as money problems, drinking and drug use.

“Over the past 15 years, efforts to tackle declining marriage rates and increasing divorce rates among low-income couples in the USA have been guided by assumptions about why there are fewer low-income marriages and why a higher percentage fail” said Dr Trail. “The aim of our study was to separate the myth from the reality.”

Previous research has focused on specific low-income groups including unmarried mothers and cohabiting couples with children. This is the first study to use a comprehensive survey to compare the attitudes and experiences of people from a range of incomes, and the findings provide important new information about how similar people with low- and high-incomes are in their values, standards, and experiences of marriage.

The researchers solicited the views of a stratified random sample of 4,508 Florida residents, with smaller random samples from California (500), Texas (502) and New York (502).

66% of the respondents were female, 53% were married and 61% were white. A further 14% were Black and 19% were from non-White or Black Latino/Hispanic communities. Interviews were conducted over the telephone and lasted an average of 27 minutes.

The average age of the respondents was just under 46 years. Self-reported income put 29% in the low-income category, 26% in the moderate-income category and 35% in the high-income category. Just under 10% were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

The team found that, compared to people with higher incomes, those with lower incomes held similar values toward marriage and were less likely to approve of divorce. However, lower income respondents were more likely than were higher income respondents to value the economic aspects of marriage, including the husband and wife having good jobs.

“Prompted by the belief that the institution of marriage is in crisis among the poor, the federal government has spent $1 billion on initiatives to strengthen marriage among low-income populations,” said Dr Benjamin Karney. “Often these are based on the assumption that there must be something wrong with how people on low incomes view marriage or that they just are not very good at managing intimate relationships.”

“We found that people with low incomes value marriage as an institution, have similar standards for choosing a marriage partner and experience similar problems with managing their relationships,” concluded Trail. “We suggest that initiatives to strengthen marriage among the poor should also take social issues into account, as they can place a tremendous amount of stress on a marriage.”

This study is published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. Media wishing to receive a PDF of this article may contact sciencenewsroom@wiley.com

Full Citation:
Trail. T, Karney. B, “What’s (Not) Wrong With Low-Income Marriages”, Journal of Marriage and Family, Wiley, June, DOI 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00977.x

Paper URL: http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=20447479&m=59989&u=1579652

Contact the Author:
Dr Tom Trail can be contacted via:
Stuart Wolpert, University of California Los Angeles
Phone: 310-206-0511
Email: swolpert@support.ucla.edu.

In 3rd world America: The link between poverty and education, moi said:

Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of society’s problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.

The best way to eliminate poverty is job creation, job growth, and job retention. The Asian Development Bank has the best concise synopsis of the link between Education and Poverty For a good article about education and poverty which has a good bibliography, go to Poverty and Education, Overview  There will not be a good quality of life for most citizens without a strong education system. One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. Without continued sustained investment in education in this state, we are the next third world country.

The Casey Foundation reports in 2011 Kids Count Data Book about the well-being of children. Readers can create a custom profile for each state using the data center, which describe in detail how children in each state are doing. Two articles detail why this society must be focused on job creation and the expansion and preservation of the middle class. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/3rd-world-america-the-link-between-poverty-and-education/

Here is a key portion of the study:

Although low-income and high-income respondents reported similar romantic standards and similar problems with relationship processes such as communication, low-income respondents were more likely than affluent couples to report that their romantic relationships were negatively affected by economic and social issues such as money problems, drinking and drug use.

“Over the past 15 years, efforts to tackle declining marriage rates and increasing divorce rates among low-income couples in the USA have been guided by assumptions about why there are fewer low-income marriages and why a higher percentage fail” said Dr Trail. “The aim of our study was to separate the myth from the reality.”

The team found that, compared to people with higher incomes, those with lower incomes held similar values toward marriage and were less likely to approve of divorce. However, lower income respondents were more likely than were higher income respondents to value the economic aspects of marriage, including the husband and wife having good jobs.

“Prompted by the belief that the institution of marriage is in crisis among the poor, the federal government has spent $1 billion on initiatives to strengthen marriage among low-income populations,” said Dr Benjamin Karney. “Often these are based on the assumption that there must be something wrong with how people on low incomes view marriage or that they just are not very good at managing intimate relationships….”

“We found that people with low incomes value marriage as an institution, have similar standards for choosing a marriage partner and experience similar problems with managing their relationships,” concluded Trail. “We suggest that initiatives to strengthen marriage among the poor should also take social issues into account, as they can place a tremendous amount of stress on a marriage.”

In other words, government policies are not helping to promote marriage and sustain marriage and families. See, Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?hp

Related:

Talking to your teen about risky behaviors https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/talking-to-your-teen-about-risky-behaviors/

A baby changes everything: Rapper Jay-Z gets religion about the ‘B’ word                                                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/a-baby-changes-everything-rapper-jay-z-gets-religion-about-the-b-word/

A no-brainer: Early childhood learning                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/a-no-brainer-early-childhood-learning/

Children too sexy for their years                            https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/children-too-sexy-for-their-years/

Hard truths: The failure of the family                     https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/hard-truths-the-failure-of-the-family/

Dr. Wilda says this about that that ©

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Possible unintended consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ‘Obamacare’ ruling

12 Jul

Mark Walsh has an intriguing Education Week about the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Obamacare” decision and its possible impact on education. In Ed. Law Challenges Loom After Health-Care Ruling, Walsh writes:

Legal analysts say that part of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the federal health-care law will encourage states to challenge education laws and other federal aid programs and legislation passed under Congress’ spending power, a pivotal aspect of the historic ruling.

The justices ruled 5-4 to uphold a key provision of the Affordable Care Act—the requirement that individuals purchase a health-insurance policy with at least a minimum level of coverage—as a valid exercise under Congress’ taxing power. But the court effectively ruled 7-2 that the states could not be threatened with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they refused to participate in the law’s expansion of the federal health-care program for the poor.

That portion of the June 28 decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. SebeliusRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader (Case No. 11-393) could open the door to lawsuits over the spending strings attached to federal programs—or even the conditions for securing federal waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act, some commentators say….

Mr. Bagenstos of the University of Michigan noted that some federal education laws, such as the ESEA, have relatively frequent reauthorizations and revisions, leading to uncertainty about when conditions are first imposed. And other federal laws that come with conditions on the states, such as Title IX, are not grant programs per se but anti-discrimination statutes.

“The rules aren’t tied to any particular funds” under such statutes, he said.

Mr. Bagenstos does not believe that the state challenges he predicts ultimately will be successful. But the Medicaid ruling could alter the dynamics of state-federal relations over such things as federal waivers for the No Child Left Behind Act, he said.

“A state could say, ‘Look, if our waiver gets denied, we’re going to court,’ ” Mr. Bagenstos said.

“Do I think these arguments are going to be successful in the courts? Ultimately, no,” he added. “But these are arguments that are going to take a while to work their way through the courts.”http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/12/36scotus.h31.html?tkn=PPTFLaYDB9dQxlfFlrIbQ3taERAkJIQPVmNa&intc=es

The possible reason for concern about education law suits is the portion of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion which deals with the possible coercive aspects of Medicaid expansion.

Health Reform GPS has an excellent summary of the case in Summary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of National Federation of Independent Businesses et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al.. Here is the portion of the case Walsh writes about:

“The Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate. That is true whether Congress directly commands a State to regulate or indirectly coerces a State to adopt a federal regulatory system as its own.” Majority, p. 47-48. “When, for example, such conditions take the form of threats to terminate other significant independent grants, the conditions are properly viewed as a means of pressuring the States to accept policy changes.” Majority, p. 50. Furthermore, the Medicaid expansion “accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for four particular categories of the needy: the disabled, the blind, the elderly, and needy families with dependent children. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is transformed into a program to meet the health care needs of the entire nonelderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level. It is no longer a program to care for the neediest among us, but rather an element of a comprehensive national plan to provide universal health insurance coverage.” Majority, p. 53-54. However, “nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the Affordable Care Act to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that States accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding.” Majority, p. 55. http://healthreformgps.org/resources/summary-of-the-u-s-supreme-court-decision-in-the-case-of-national-federation-of-independent-businesses-et-al-v-sebelius-secretary-of-health-and-human-services-et-al/

It is important to understand the U.S. Legal system in order to understand why there might be unintended consequences from the court’s decision.

Mark F. Radcliffe and Diane Brinson of DLA Piper LLP (US) have written an excellent Findlaw article, The U.S. Legal System. The portion about the U.S. Supreme Court explains the role of precedent.

Supreme Court Review

There are two ways to get a case reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court: by appeal and by certiorari . The losers in certain types of cases – for example, cases involving claims that state statutes are unconstitutional – have a right to appeal to the Supreme Court.

For most cases, though, there is no right of appeal to the Supreme Court. However, a party who has lost a case at the federal Court of Appeals level can file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. A petition for certiorari is a document explaining why the Supreme Court should review a case. If the Supreme Court grants certiorari , the appeal proceeds. If the Court denies it, the Court of Appeals’ decision stands.

Thousands of petitions for certiorari are filed each year and most are denied. The Supreme Court is likely to grant certiorari on a case only if the case involves a matter of national interest or the Court believes that it must decide the case to resolve conflicts among the Circuit Courts and create uniformity in federal law.

Precedent

An appellate court’s decision on an issue is binding on lower courts in the appellate court’s jurisdiction. Thus, an appellate court’s decisions are “precedent” that the lower courts in the appellate court’s jurisdiction must follow (apply).

Example: In Effects Associates, Inc. v. Cohen , the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the grant of a nonexclusive copyright license can be implied from the copyright owner’s conduct. This decision is binding on the federal district courts located in the Ninth Circuit. Those courts are not free to decide that a nonexclusive copyright license cannot be implied from conduct.

A lower court’s decision is not binding on a higher court. In fact, appellate courts frequently reverse decisions made by trial courts to correct the trial courts’ “mistakes of law.”

Because the United States Supreme Court is the “highest court in the land,” the Supreme Court’s decisions are binding on all courts in the United States. http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241487.html

The litigation may just be beginning.

Related:

Online symposium: The Bar Review version of NFIB v. Sebelius http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/07/online-symposium-the-bar-review-version-of-nfib-v-sebelius/

The Roberts Court and the Role of Precedent                               http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11688820

The Nature and Timing of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Interpretation of Precedent                                                                            http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/CITE-IT/Documents/Hansford%20etal%202002%20Nature%20and%20Timing%20of%20t%20US%20Supreme%20Court.pdf

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’

11 Jul

Two reports and one article by Diane Ravitch in the Washington Post, which is a reply to the report by the Center for American Progress regarding whether children are learning the skills which are necessary in the 21st-century. These papers highlight the questions of what skills are necessary for children to be successful and whether they are learning these skills in school. Moi discusses the report, Do Schools Challenge our Students? What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the U.S. from the Center for American Progress in Report from Center for American Progress report: Kids say school is too easy. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/report-from-center-for-american-progress-report-kids-say-school-is-too-easy/ In response to the report, Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” wrote Are U.S. schools too easy? Ravitch argues:

Let me address a few of the many, many problems with this report.

First, the authors missed multiple opportunities to analyze the data and chose to rely on simple cross-tabulations and frequency counts. Anyone who has taken a Research 101 course can tell you, one of the first important rules is to not make conclusions based on frequency counts. More on the missed opportunities later in this post.

Second, the authors’ conclusion that students are not being challenged in school is based on the results from one question posed to students that asked, “How often do you feel the math work in your math class is too easy?” At the 4th grade level, the authors bemoan the fact that 37% of students thought the math work was “often” or “always or almost always” too easy. At the 8th grade level, the comparable percentage was 29%. The authors continue by arguing that this unchallenging work results in far too few students — 40% at 4th grade and 35% at 8th grade —meeting the NAEP proficiency standard.

This is problematic because (a) the NAEP proficiency standards are an arbitrary score with little or no correlation with any student outcomes (Gerald Bracey and many others have mentioned the flaw in using NAEP proficiency scores to argue low student performance); and, (b) the authors fail to point out that 46% of the 4th grade students reported that math class work was too easy “almost always or always” achieved proficiency as compared to only 33% meeting proficiency who responded that math work was “never or hardly ever too easy.” According to the logic used by the authors, we would increase the percentage of students meeting proficiency by making math work easier….

–the greater the percentage of students reporting that math class was interesting and engaging, the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy;

– the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy, the greater the percentage students reported that they were learning in class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/are-us-schools-too-easy/2012/07/11/gJQA059HdW_blog.html

The second report asks the question of what skills are need for students to be successful in the 21st-Century.

Sarah D. Sparks has written a good synopsis of the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century in the Education Week article, Study: ’21st-Century Learning’ Demands Mix of Abilities:

The committee found these skills generally fall into three categories:

  • Cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and analytic reasoning;
  • Interpersonal skills, such as teamwork and complex communication; and
  • Intrapersonal skills, such as resiliency and conscientiousness (the latter of which has also been strongly associated with good career earnings and healthy lifestyles).

Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who was not part of the report committee, said developing common definitions of 21st-century skills is critical to current education policy discussions, such as around Common Core State Standards.

“Unless we want to have just a lot of hand-waving on 21st-century skills,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said, “we need to get focused and purposeful on how to learn to teach and measure these skills, both in terms of research investments and in terms of the policies and practice that would allow us to develop and measure these skills.”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/study_deeper_learning_needs_st_1.html

The National Research Council has published the report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century

Here is the press release for Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Transferable Knowledge and Skills Key to Success in Education and Work; Report Calls for Efforts to Incorporate ‘Deeper Learning’ Into Curriculum

WASHINGTON — Educational and business leaders want today’s students both to master school subjects and to excel in areas such as problem solving, critical thinking, and communication — abilities often referred to by such labels as “deeper learning” and “21st-century skills.”  In contrast to the view that these are general skills that can be applied across a range of tasks in academic, workplace, or family settings, a new report from the National Research Council found that 21st-century skills are specific to content knowledge and performance within a particular subject area.  The report describes how this set of key skills relates to learning mathematics, English, and science as well as to succeeding in education, work, and other areas of life.

Deeper learning is the process through which a person develops the ability to take what was learned in one situation and apply it to new situations, says the report.  Through deeper learning, the person develops transferable knowledge, which includes both expertise in a particular subject area and procedural knowledge of how, why, and when to apply this knowledge to solve unique problems in that subject.  The report refers to this blend of transferable content knowledge and skills as “21st-century competencies.”

The committee that wrote the report identified three broad categories of 21st-century competencies: the cognitive domain, which includes thinking and reasoning skills; the intrapersonal domain, which involves managing one’s behavior and emotions; and the interpersonal domain, which involves expressing ideas and communicating appropriately with others.  Supporting deeper learning and developing the full range of 21st-century competencies within mathematics, English, and science will require systematic instruction and sustained practice, which calls for instructional time and resources beyond what is currently spent on content learning, the report says.

Research has identified features of instruction that support the process of deeper learning and therefore the development of transferable knowledge and skills in a given subject area.  Curricula and instructional programs should be designed with a focus on clear learning goals along with assessments to measure students’ progress toward and attainment of the goals, the report says.  These programs should feature research-based teaching methods such as using multiple and varied representations of concepts, encouraging elaboration and questioning, engaging learners in challenging tasks while also providing guidance and feedback, teaching with examples and cases, connecting topics to students’ lives and interests, and using assessments that monitor students’ progress and provide feedback for adjusting teaching and learning strategies.

Goals for deeper learning and 21st-century competencies are found in the new Common Core State Standards for mathematics and English language arts and the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education.  All three disciplines emphasize the development of cognitive competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, and argumentation, but differ in their interpretation of these competencies.  For example, the rules for constructing an argument and what counts as supporting evidence are different for physics than they are for history or essay writing.  Research and development is needed to create and evaluate new curricula for 21st-century competencies and to more clearly define and develop assessments of cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal competencies, says the report.

Because 21st-century competencies contribute to learning of school subjects, widespread development of those competencies in the K-12 curriculum could potentially reduce disparities in educational attainment and other outcomes, the report suggests.  But the committee found that research to date linking 21st-century competencies to desirable education, career, and health outcomes is limited and primarily correlational and does not show causal effects.

Cognitive competencies, however, show consistent, positive correlations with desirable educational and career outcomes, the committee found.  Among intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, conscientiousness — being organized, responsible, and hard-working — shows the strongest correlation, while antisocial behavior is negatively correlated with these desirable outcomes.  The committee also found that the total number of years a person spends in school strongly predicts adult earnings, health, and civic engagement, suggesting that schooling develops a poorly understood mix of valuable 21st-century competencies.

The report recommends that state and federal policies and programs support deeper learning and acquisition of 21st-century competencies, including efforts to help teachers and administrators understand the role of these competencies in learning core academic content and create environments that support students’ learning of these skills.

The study was sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Pearson Foundation, Raikes Foundation, SCE, and the Stupski Foundation.  The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.  They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter.  The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.  For more information, visit http://national-academies.org.  A committee roster follows.

Contacts: 

Lauren Rugani, Media Relations Officer

Luwam Yeibio, Media Relations Assistant

Office of News and Public Information

202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu

Additional resources:

Report in Brief

Pre-publication copies of Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Centuryare available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu.  Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

In moi’s opinion, the most relevant of the papers is Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century because the question of whether there is a skill-set which will help most students be successful. Is an important question. For a contra opinion, see Jay Mathews’ 2009 Washington Post article, The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401532.html

Schools have to prepare students to think critically and communicate clearly, the label for the skill set is less important than the fact that students must acquire relevant knowledge.

Resources:

Partnership for 21st Century Schools                                                     http://www.p21.org/

21st Century Workplace: Skills for Success                             http://www.elcosd.org/hs/CFF/21st%20Century%20Workplace_%20Skills%20for%20Success.pdf

Contemporary Literacy: Essential Skills for the 21st Century http://www.infotoday.com/mmschools/mar03/murray.shtml

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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