How a single-gender environment can lead girls to choose a STEM career

I believe I read an article in 2015 that co-ed education does not help either genders. Boys & girls learn in different ways because their brains are structured differently. But, in co-education system, & since most teachers end up being females, boys are treated the same as girls. This adversely affects the learning abilities of boys, so much so, that post-secondary education institutes in North America are reporting more female enrollment than males.

Now, here's an article highlighting the research how an all-girls education system provides positive role models & peers, which help more girls in learning & accepting that they can also achieve a successful career in STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) fields.

So, all this new research in 21st century is saying that co-education has worse outcomes for both genders. Didn't old religions also practice that thousands of years ago? I don't know about other religions whether they ever dealt with co-education issue, but Islam specifically said to keep the genders separate. Now, Islam's gender separation has a much bigger scope in society than only mixed gender schooling but schooling is a huge part of a student's life.

Western countries ridiculed the separate gender schooling system of the Islamic countries for hundreds of years. They systematically broke that system down in the guise of gender equality in education, even when, gender equality can still be achieved with separate education system. Islamic countries instituted co-education system in the name of modern & Western education system. Now, the research from Western education institutes is coming out to affirm the benefits of single-gender education system.

Western countries, & their public, are like those stubborn & rebellious children that when they are told by their parents not to do something, they will still do it, & when they suffer because of their actions, then they learn the benefits what their parents said, based on their knowledge & wisdom. Except, the difference in a child doing something wrong & then learning from it, & countries changing their social, educational, & political systems to follow certain other countries, & then learning that they might've made a mistake is not the same. Turning around such social, educational, & political systems take decades & decades, & affect generations after generations.

So the hard lesson here is, & especially for Muslims, that blindly following the West will only lead you to disaster. Critically analyse what & why something is positive & negative in the light of modern science of the time & religion, & then implement it if it seems beneficial.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/how-a-single-gender-environment-can-leads-girls-to-choose-a-stem-career/article26498295/

It's a call heard from academia to business: More women are needed in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering & math. But how best to encourage girls to consider careers in STEM?

It turns out simply encouraging them to take risks & be the best they can in any subject leads many to consider STEM fields.

This is the strategy of many all-girls' schools.

For St. Clement’s School principal Martha Perry, simply ensuring that her pupils receive a well-rounded education is the focus of the school.

“Our emphasis is girls learning, and if girls are interested and keen on a STEM subject then we’re going to make sure we support them and we are going to make sure that they have access to the best possible instruction, the best possible facilities and the best possible experience to be learning,” she says.

Not that she has to be overly concerned. Of the Toronto all-girls school’s most recent graduating class, roughly one third of the 64 students were going on to study STEM subjects at the post-secondary level.

Studying at a single-sex school may have a bearing on that. According to a study by Goodman Research Group, which evaluates programs, graduates of girls’ schools are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science & technology at the postsecondary level compared with their peers at co-ed schools.

A similar study undertaken by the University of California, Los Angeles, commissioned by the U.S.-based National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, suggests that girls’ school graduates are three times more likely than their co-ed independent-school peers to consider engineering careers.

From Ms. Perry’s perspective, the nurturing surroundings of an all-girls school play an important part in their development. St. Clement’s doesn’t put an overarching emphasis on STEM subjects, believing instead that the school’s best role is to give its students the opportunity to believe that they have the capacity to make a difference in anything they do.

“I think a girls-only environment actually allows girls to explore their own passions and their own interests and affords us the opportunity to provide them with a wealth of different options to explore,” she says.

The reasons for this vary. According to Megan Murphy, the executive director of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools (NCGS) in Virginia, two of the biggest are peer role models & overcoming a media message that too often portrays women as being less capable than their male counterparts in STEM subjects. In addition, she says, historically the majority of science teachers at girls’ schools were women, too.

“Whether it’s from a faculty perspective, a graduate perspective, or a peer perspective, girls at girls schools have a wealth of role models and I think that’s probably the key factor as to why we see so many more girls at girls’ schools pursuing STEM subjects as undergraduates,” she says.

In addition, she explains, being around peer role models who love science & math helps deflect some of the media or popular culture messages that portray women as less capable of successfully studying STEM subjects than men.

Being among peers doing the same thing, whether in a physics club or a science Olympiad, helps build girls’ confidence that they can thrive in STEM subjects. That confidence is key to a long-term commitment to a field of study. For instance, the UCLA study suggests that 47.7% of women entering postsecondary education from single-sex schools felt well prepared in math, compared to 36.6% entering college from co-ed schools.

“When you check out of Algebra 1, even in a little way, that’s a critical building block for every single science or technology class that comes after that,” Ms. Murphy says. “So if you lose them in the pipeline as middle schoolers, it’s really hard to get them back.”
...

Much like St. Clement’s, Elmwood School in Ottawa doesn’t put a direct emphasis on teaching STEM subjects, but helps its students build what headmistress Cheryl Boughton refers to as “balanced brains,” based on a concept explored by American educator & psychologist Dr. JoAnn Deak.

Consequently, the responsibility charged to Ms. Boughton & the rest of the faculty is to ensure that by the time the girls graduate from Elmwood, they are well versed in all areas of academia & not just the subjects in which they are particularly strong.
...

"Testing Stress" by Nate Beeler

"Testing Stress" - Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH, US

Rush movie quote

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Sats stress is crushing children's love of learning

A great opinion piece on how current education system in UK (but I can expand it to pretty much all education systems around the world, except maybe a few ones, which don't conform to what's being said here) are not igniting the flame of life-long learning & curiosity in children in school & instead, making them hate schools & learning in general by forcing them to do things in school, which is killing their curiosity & love of learning.

I see this everyday around me. People who were very smart & intelligent in school life (elementary, secondary, post-secondary etc.), & are still intelligent in their work lives, eschew even basic reading. Some still are curious & love to read but they are mostly reading fiction novels of romance & thrill. These are majority of our populace. Heck, these people don't even like to watch documentaries, to expand their learning & mental horizons.

So where's the disconnect that such intelligence in school life stays behind in their school lives?

Problem is the current modern education system. They are trying to make children rote learners or mere tools for teachers & the education boards to show that their students are successful in schooling system, & hence, those education boards & teachers are meeting their periodic targets.

Kids to adults in the education system come to learn that if you want a good job, assuming it is being awarded on merit & not on networks, then you need as high marks as there can be, & based on current education system, those marks can be achieved through rote memorization, regurgitation, & essentially, doing what the teacher / professor is telling me to do in class & in exam.

But that's not how learning & school used to be. Learning & education system built by such great teachers / philosophers as Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle were not based on strict tracking & meeting targets but essentially based on absorbing the knowledge for life. Their idea of learning was for learning is for life. They created curiosity in their students. They wanted their students to not study just enough to get a great mark in the next exam, but to think and learn about themselves, their society, & their world around them; however small it might be, whatever it might be.

That's why, in today's "modern" world, lots & lots of people are "educated" but they have not learnt anything. They are considered "educated" based on the number of degrees they have earned, which they got by regurgitating the materials on exam papers. They never actually gained the powerful idea of how to be curious & actually read & watch & travel to learn. Most people's lives don't revolve around learning about themselves, their society, & their world around them, but what can I learn now, which will help me make some money. Well, that course of "learning" has got us where the world is today; everyone is at someone's proverbial throat, because people have lost humanity & selfishness is enjoying its day out.
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http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/may/16/secret-teacher-sats-stress-childrens-love-of-learning

It’s funny really, we’ve all been there. We all remember sitting on the carpet with our legs crossed, listening wide-eyed to our teachers reading a book to us in class. That’s what many of us recall about primary school – how fun it was & how free we were to explore our ideas.

In many ways, that’s the point; to immerse our children in a world where learning is fun, to open up their imaginations & encourage them to be inquisitive in a safe space. As Socrates said, education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. As a primary teacher, that’s a good guiding mantra. Let children discover, their eyes light up & sparks ignite.

Unfortunately, in the wake of their Sats preparation, my year 6 class – & I’m sure every year 6 child across the land – would probably say this isn’t so. Flame lighting has been swapped for vessel filling. Yes, they’ve been learning & yes, they have made “progress” (lots of it for some). We know this because we’ve measured their strict diet of test, drill, repeat twice every half term for the entire year.

The issue here is whether it was worth it, because in so many respects the drive for floor targets & pupil premium percentage increases have robbed students of their primary school experience. The regime is focused on spelling & grammar, reading comprehensions & mental maths – combined with extra practice tests, interventions & booster clubs fitted in anywhere between dusk & dawn. Children can hardly remember what an art book looks like, or what a decent PE lesson feels like, or what a music lesson sounds like. They’re so confined to their desks that the process of developing the whole child has gone out of the window & their actual interests & other skills no longer have a place in school life.

Little Ricky, for example, loves geography. He’s fascinated by the world around him & can’t wait to get the atlases out on the search for capital cities, rivers, mountain chains & forests. This is where he comes alive & feels worthwhile. Excitement fills his wings & he’s ready to fly anywhere in the world – until he is pulled out for his maths booster. Yes, he needs extra support in adding fractions & rotating around a point, but seeing his shoulders drop & his smile fade is heartbreaking & frustrating. Nobody is denying he needs his maths – he has to be ready for secondary school & his future – but it’s just as important that he gets time & space to be him. He needs to connect with what he wants to learn because that’s where he switches on. That’s what he’s good at; that’s where we get him.

It’s at this point we need to wonder who we’re doing this for. Is it really for him? Because it feels like we’re missing who he really is, who they all are. What sparks their flame gets dampened. If your dyslexic child flourishes through art, tough. If the quiet, timid child at the back of your classroom comes out of their shell through drama, forget it. If the young carer, who comes in late because they’ve been changing their parent’s bed, feels they can express themselves through a map, no chance. Get down & give me the area of a quadrilateral.

Already so many children are being turned off school. It’s not just my Victorias & Emilys, who read every night & write stories for fun. It’s not just these children who are going home & telling mum it’s all getting too much. At least these children can complain – my Jaleels & my Delanes don’t know how to, their protest is not so eloquent. They share their thoughts through their poor punctuality & lack of focus. They are sick more, turn up less & don’t want to be there because it’s easier not to try than fail to get the results they “need”. A regime of test & repetition, rote & regurgitation is putting them off. They’re bored. They’ve had enough. They are saturated.

Apart from lesson objectives, all these children are really being taught is that school is a chore & a burden. Because of their Sats, these children are anxious & unhappy, rather than excited or inspired. They are only 11 years old & already asking for extra papers to take home so they can cram over the weekend. Some have trouble sleeping & can’t eat, while others stop attending school altogether. This is all before they have even started secondary education.

Of course, their levels will be great; we make sure of that – we have no choice. But what are they really learning? They are learning that education isn’t stimulating & nobody is listening to their needs. The kindling of their educational flames is fast being extinguished by tracking & targets.

We need to ask ourselves what we want for our children. Do we want them to learn that their passions, interests & dreams don’t count? Do we want them to learn that bottom lines & level 4s are more important than their self-confidence & talents? Or do we want them to know that we hear what they have to say? That the question is more important than the answer? That learning is a lifelong journey that should inspire?

As teachers, it’s our job to ensure that the flame of learning gets kindled & burns brightly for all, whatever their capacity, interests or age. But we need to think really carefully about what we put children through, because there’s no way we can engage them through more years of study if they’ve already run out of appetite.

"Standardized Tests" by Mike Keefe

"Standardized Tests" - Mike Keefe, US

In India, exam cheating is just a symptom

A good opinion piece. Although, the piece is focused on India only, the problem of rote learning / memorization is a problem all over South Asia. Heck, Muslims in South Asia feel proud to memorize the whole Quran, without understanding a word of it. Most don't even know the Arabic language. Those people become masters in rote memorization but don't understand what words are coming out of their mouths.

This problem of rote memorization & writing only prescribed answers in exams also lead to "in-the-box" thinking. Creativity is stifled. Silo thinking is encouraged. That's why, most South Asians don't go into subjective or abstract studies (philosophy, religious studies, political sciences etc.) in their lives. Their studies are focused in sciences & math, & even in them, students are encouraged to regurgitate what they memorized in class.

As per my knowledge, this problem of rote memorization is not only limited to elementary or secondary school levels, but, in some cases, go all the way up to professional studies. For instance, students of the Chartered Accountant professional designation in Pakistan are required to memorize the whole international financial regulation book & then pretty much regurgitate it in their exams. So whoever is great in rote memorization & dumping it all in the exams ends up becoming a Chartered Accountant. How can they solve a problem which will require integrative, subjective, & creative thinking?
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/in-india-exam-cheating-is-just-a-symptom/article23669759/

It was the picture that gave rise to worldwide derision – an image of relatives & friends scaling the facade of a four-storey building in Bihar, India, to help the pupils inside cheat on their school-leaving exams.
 
Clearly, cheating cannot be tolerated. But beyond the immediate offence, India needs to tackle the root causes of such large-scale cheating, which happens in various parts of the country. A prominent cause is the system of rote learning common in Indian schools.
 
Rote learning turns students into parrots, capable of memorizing anything but understanding nothing. The syllabus of the Indian Central Board of Secondary Education relies on memorization & so do the exams. In many subjects, students don’t write essays; they merely tick long lists of multiple-choice questions.
 
What few sentences they do write on their own have to be identical to what’s found in the textbooks to win high marks. Any variation, even if they represent an improvement or show originality, receives low marks. Students who aim for originality & answer questions correctly but in their own words are penalized.
 
If rote learning is abolished, then cheating will vanish on its own. Students will only be able to succeed if they have understood the concepts taught, because their exam answers will have to reflect their understanding, rather than their memory.
 
With the exception of new & improved cheating techniques, rote learning kills creativity, along with originality & critical thinking, which is why India is so rarely in the vanguard of anything new in science, technology or design.
 
It’s not that Indians are not capable of creativity. You only have to look at the magical skills of Indian craftsmen to appreciate the beauty they can produce. And you only have to look at Indians based abroad to know their abilities. But India’s domestic education system discourages innovation, exploration, risk-taking & the questioning of accepted wisdom.
 
Who are the educational reformers who can take on this job? Few names but one come to mind: Sugata Mitra, who won the 2013 TED Prize for his fascinating experiments in the use of the Internet in education. Prof. Mitra advocates the benefits of letting children loose in a room with computers, an Internet connection & minimal supervision by teachers. (If nothing else, this would solve the problem of absentee teachers, another bane of the Indian system.)
 
Prof. Mitra was once asked to name one single measure the Indian government could take to instantly raise the abysmal standards in government schools.

“Let students use the Internet in exams,” he replied. “In doing so, the whole system would have to change. The kind of questions set in exams would have to change. You can’t ask, for example, simple factual questions because they would be too easy to answer. The questions would have to be framed instead to probe students’ understanding of concepts & principles. Educators would also have to teach differently, just as officials would have to rethink the school curriculum.”

Unfortunately, Prof. Mitra has taken himself off to Newcastle University in Britain because the Indian government has shown no interest in his ideas, even though they could lead to enormously improved outcomes.
 
In other words, the radical reforms India needs are not likely to happen soon. In India, change only happens very slowly & gradually – the country’s culture & mentality are Menshevik, not Bolshevik.
 
Meanwhile, children continue to endure an education system that is a joke. Last year, an annual independent status report on rural schools found that after 5 years of primary education, more than 60% of children were unable to read simple text at a second-grade level.
 
Yet these same children will leave school & face ferocious competition for jobs where the only qualification that counts is their exam grades.
 
When the State Bank of India advertised 1,500 menial vacancies in 2013, it received more than 17 million applications. That’s not a typo: 17 million.
 
So while it’s easy to scoff at the people perched on those window sills, the reality is that Indian parents will go to any lengths – or heights – to help their children succeed in their last exams.

Pledging allegiance to Islamophobia in US classrooms

As I have blogged several times in the past (in regards to Charlie Hebdo incident or the gang-style shooting in Sweden highlighting immigrants' situations in Europe), this op-ed piece talks about how Arabic language is associated with terrorism & Islamophobia.

Immigrants to US & Canada are constantly asked (in some cases, told) to assimilate & integrate with the culture of their new homelands. Assimilation & integration is a two-way street. Immigrants will happily assimilate & integrate with the culture of new homelands, as long as their native counterparts are also absorbing what immigrants are bringing to the nation.

But, that does not how it happens. Native residents (Anglo-Saxon Caucasians) of North America want immigrants to forget all about their pasts (culture, language, social norms etc.) & do as they are told to do by the native population.

Native residents have in their mind that beggars can't be choosers, so immigrants should change their ways, but native residents won't change their ways a bit ... to make their guests feel welcome.

Ironically, when these native residents of North America move to any other country in the world, which has a different culture than theirs, they try to change that country's culture or boldly defy it. For instance, Dubai authorities have politely asked their expat populations several times to cover up in public places but Europeans & North Americans stroll around in public places (malls etc.) in bikinis. Now, that may be acceptable in Miami or Rio or Bangkok, but it's not in Dubai.

Problem is that the native populations of North America & even Europe have a superiority complex. Lack of knowledge is hysterical (how is Arabic & Afghanistan are related is beyond me). Most of the population is closed-minded, & don't have any desire in learning something other than their own culture. This may not be as much visible or extreme in bigger cities, like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia etc. (where both kinds of populations, native & immigrant, come across each other quite often), but a big chunk of population also lives in much smaller cities, e.g. Thunder Bay, Brandon, Kamloops, or, as in this op-ed, Pine Bush. Immigrant population is usually relatively much smaller or even non-existent in these smaller cities, compared to large metro areas.

Remember, you need both hands to clap. Assimilation & integration requires both sides, native & immigrant populations, to reach out towards each other & understand each other; be they be living in a large metro area or a small town. Until that happens, both sides will keep blaming each other for not extending the hand of friendship & trying to understand each other's cultures.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/pledging-allegiance-islamophobia-classrooms-150322050951640.html

2 weeks after New York City announced that its schools would observe the principal Muslim holidays, another school district in the State of New York signaled that Islamophobia in the US, & its classrooms, was hardly on the decline.
 
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School recited the American Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. The exercise was part of the School's "National Foreign Language Week", an event held to celebrate the "many races, cultures & religions that make up [the US & the Pine Bush] School District".
 
However, an event celebrating American multiculturalism & pledging patriotism was immediately met with anger & offense - driven by the conflation of the Arabic language with Islam, & in turn, inassimilability, violence & terrorism.
 
The controversy sparked by the "Arabic pledge" highlights, very vividly, how different dimensions of Arab or Muslim identity - even language - are conflated with threat. And more audibly, how even reverent attempts to reconcile Arab or Muslim culture with American identity incites zeal & scorn.
 
Pine Bush is roughly 85 miles away from New York City. Although within a 2-mile drive of the Big Apple, the School District is culturally & demographically worlds away. At 95%, the small town is overwhelmingly white. The Arab & Muslim-American populations are negligible, as is the presence of other minority communities.
 
National Foreign Language Week was an institutional attempt to culturally integrate (racially & religiously) minority students. Providing a platform, within the walls of the classroom, for these students to celebrate their native tongues, customs, & identities.
 
This invaluable teaching moment, as soon as the pledge was recited in Arabic, mutated into mis-education & malice.
 
"The pledge should always be said in English," one student stated. Several parents were offended, "because they had family members killed in Afghanistan," associating the language with war, & a nation where Arabic is not even spoken.
 
The chorus of opposition was united by a common baseline. Namely, that Arabic was anything but a standalone language. But rather, the linguistic tentacle of perverted representations of Islam, ISIL & al-Qaeda, & terrorism.
 
The very utterance of the language instantly evoked this imagery, & the translation of the pledge of allegiance from English to Arabic signaled hostility, imminent takeover, & the "clashing civilizations" discourse permeating through every pore of American society.
 
Instead of standing firm with the spirit of National Foreign Language Week, the Pine Bush High School principal apologised for the recital. Consequently, endorsing the idea that reciting the American pledge of allegiance in Arabic was an inherently unethical or unpatriotic act. A decision from the school's principal administrator & educator, no less, delivering a lesson (in Islamophobia) that won't be soon forgotten by the School's more than 1,000 students.
 
The Pine Bush pledge of allegiance controversy has also revitalised discussion of the tolerable scope of multiculturalism within American schools. Namely, which languages or cultures are deemed acceptable for students to celebrate at school - & which ones are considered pariahs?
 
This controversy, juxtaposed with NYC's plans to observe the Muslim holidays, illustrates that the answers to this question are more complex than clear. Indeed, languages - like Arabic & English - are more than merely systems of communication. They are symbols, expressions of membership, & perhaps most saliently, religious & racial proxies.
 
Arabic, in past & present in the US, does not only signal foreignness, but also an inextricable nexus to Islam, the Middle East, & the Orient. Spheres positioned as America's geopolitical & normative rival.
 
Several languages - primarily European ones such as French or Italian, for instance - are deemed assimilable with English. And therefore, American culture & its classrooms. However, other languages such as Chinese or Spanish are frequently branded as alien, inferior, & menacing. The former associated with long-embedded tropes of Asian hostility & subversion, & the latter linked to intense xenophobia & nativism.
 
However, Arabic - & the maligned entities & ideas it is associated with - stands head & shoulders above (other foreign languages) as linguistic pariah. While the pledge recited in Chinese or Spanish may have caused a minor stir, its reading in Arabic - as illustrated this past week at Pine Bush High School - rose to the level of national alarm & outrage.
 
A degree of zeal that matches the still climbing heights of Islamophobia on US streets. Which, unfortunately, is still being taught within the vast majority of its schools. While NYC's decision to observe the Muslim holidays offers a much heartening exception, Pine Bush - exactly 2 weeks after that unprecedented step forward - still stands as the unequivocal rule.

Life of Pi (Quote 3)

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The Growing Argument against Homework

A great piece. Most adults, I see now, who grew up doing mountains of homework, me included, never grew their love of learning & curiosity. So, as soon as, exams are over, books are donated, recycled, or thrown in the dumpster.

Homework becomes an evil monster of some sort. It bothers not only kids but takes away precious time of their parents, too, who may want to spend that time in educating their kids the world outside of books.

Furthermore, all this homework & learning is not raising an educated populace who rationally think of the consequences of their actions in all spheres of all their life. Evidence is right in this article that parents are fighting the school that why their kid is not getting homework. That kid is in elementary school. The history & current evidence is showing that homework is not really helping anyone learn anything, except frustrating parents & their children, alike.

Parents, who themselves grew with mountains of homework, want their kids to do mountains of homework, too, without rationally thinking, how is it helping their own kids become educated. Their success in life is not dependent on how they did their homework in Grade 1. It depends on what & how they do in university. And even at university levels, homework is becoming more about reading & understanding the material & actively discussing it with their peers, not filling out pages & pages with exercises & diagrams.

Disclaimer: I'm not discussing education reform, because even universities are not great in igniting the love of learning in people. They are experts in molding people in a certain way.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/the-growing-argument-against-homework/article23358570/

A New York City elementary school’s decision to ban homework in favour of play has infuriated some parents.

Many people seem to believe that working on assignments after school is an essential part of a child’s success. But if you actually do your homework on homework, evidence suggests its benefits are negligible at best. Given what we know about kids’ sedentary lifestyles, of course we should ditch homework for play.

“The topic of homework has received a lot of attention lately, & the negative effects of homework have been well established,” the school’s principal, Jane Hsu, wrote in a letter that was sent home with students last month, reports DNAinfo.com.

“They include: children’s frustration & exhaustion, lack of time for other activities & family time &, sadly for many, loss of interest in learning.”

Instead of working on essays or math problems at home, students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade are encouraged to read & spend time with their families, the principal said.

The new policy was prompted by the fact that too many children had to sit out recess because they failed to hand in homework assignments.

A committee the school established a year ago to investigate the problem concluded there is “no link between elementary school homework & success in school.”

Ultimately, therefore, it would be better to have kids running around at recess & after dinner playing hockey, or basketball, or tag, or whatever activity it might be.

But some parents are so upset they are threatening to pull their kids from the school.

“I think they should have homework. Some of it is about discipline. I want [my daughter] to have fun, but I also want her to be working towards a goal,” Daniel Tasman, the father of a second-grader at the school, told DNAinfo. He is now looking for another school.

“I was just thinking maybe I’ll keep my daughter here for another year, but this pushed me over the edge,” he said.

Over the past few years, a movement has emerged that is questioning homework. Parents are sick of having to help kids complete mountains of assignments.

“If one thing happens in 2015, it should be a concerted campaign to eradicate this illogical, damaging, ass-paining institution once and for all,” novelist Caitlin Moran wrote in The Times, a British newspaper, earlier this year.

Some politicians are also asking what’s the point.

In 2012, French president François Hollande proposed banning homework for children in primary & middle school.

Last year, an elementary school in Quebec banned homework because it was putting too much pressure on students & their parents.

Homework is not only a pain, its “educational value” is still unclear, particular at younger grades.

One public school in Barrie even noticed that grades went up after homework was banned.

If the ban in New York gets kids playing outdoors, other schools should follow suit.

According to the latest “report card” issued by Active Healthy Kids Canada, only 7% of children ages 5 to 11 meet Canada’s daily physical-activity guidelines.

Those guidelines set an embarrassingly low bar: at least one-hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day.

For a little historical context, harken back to an anti-homework argument in the 1920s. Back then, physicians in the US worried that homework might damage children’s health. Doctors believed ... that children needed 6 to 7 hours a day of fresh air & sunshine, as Etta Kralovec, author of The End of Homework, has pointed out.

If we want our kids to grow up to make sound decisions based on evidence, we should set a good example by banning homework in elementary school.

A Dark Truth, (Quote 6)

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Criminal Minds, S1E4 (Quote)

Translation: Although, we all can see our physical selves in a mirror, none of us can see our real being. Our real selves can only be seen by others.
So, always be open to constructive criticism of yourself to improve yourself.

Cloud Atlas (Quote # 9)

It's pretty much 2 quotes in one:
 
1. If you want to know your true yourself, you need to see yourself from others' eyes / perception. It is similar to what French poet, Jacques Rigaut, said (which I will be posting btw here soon) that your true self can only be seen by others. So, we should be open to learning & improving ourselves through constructive criticism of ourselves from others. None of us is all-knowing & perfect.
 
2. Since, the beginning of time (or civilization), regardless of whether you believe in a religion or not, we humans have worked tirelessly to increase our life span; so much so to achieve immortality. Be the alchemists of ancient civilizations or modern A.I. (artificial intelligence) & robotics engineers, we are still trying to achieve immortality. But immortality is supposed to be in our "words & deeds", & not in our physical immortality. Our words & deeds affect people around us &, perhaps society, to the point that they may have rippling effects throughout the future of this world.

 
During our finite lives, we may never realize how we may have affected the world, but you can look at any of the prominent people in our histories around the world, good or bad, have gone on to achieve immortality through their words & actions.

 

Inside Your Teenager's Scary Brain

Teen years always the most troubling & scary part of our years. Although, this article is a good one, every parent has a different way & experience of bringing up their teen through those difficult years. Some pass with flying colours, while others crash & burn. Every parent has their own story & wisdom to pass on to other parents. What actually works is different for everyone. But then, it never hurts to learn from others, either, or at least keep these thoughts in the back of one's mind.
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Conventional wisdom has long held that our brains are largely developed by puberty. However, research in the past 10-15 years has shown that our brains continue to develop in fundamental ways through the teen years & even into the late 20s & 30s. In fact, Jensen argues in her new book, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents & Young Adults, the teenage years comprise one of the brain’s most critical periods for development—likely every bit as crucial as early childhood. “That 7 years in their life is, in a way, as important as their first 7 years of life,” Jensen says. “It is probably one of the most important 7-year [periods] in their entire life.”

Among the most popular misconceptions about brain development is the idea that the most important changes happen in the first 3 years of life. This “myth of three,” has been the source of intense parental anxiety over the fear that “adults are in a race against time to provide stimulation to their infants before their synapses are lost,” writes Paul Howard-Jones, a professor of neuroscience & education at the University of Bristol in the journal Nature. ... Behind the seemingly invincible teenage boy with the booming voice & adult body is a brain that is still incredibly vulnerable to everything from sports-related concussions to mental illness & addiction. New research is uncovering ways in which the activities that so often typify teenage years, such as experimenting with cigarettes & marijuana & alcohol, can lower a teen’s IQ or increase susceptibility to mental illness later on. Chronic stress stemming from family violence, poverty or bullying has also been linked to changes in the teen brain that can raise the risk of mood disorders or learning disabilities.
 
At the heart of our understanding of brain development are 2 basic concepts: grey matter & white matter. Grey matter consists of neurons, the brain cells that form the building blocks of the brain. White matter, axons, are the connections that form between grey matter, helping to move information from one area of the brain to the next.
 
While grey-matter growth is indeed almost completely finished by the age of 6, white matter—the wiring between brain cells—continues to develop well into the 20s. In fact, says Jensen, that wiring is only about 80% complete by the age of 18.
 
Along with new wiring, the brains of teens & young adults are also undergoing a process called myelination, in which those white-matter connections are being coated in a protective fatty material. Myelin acts as a form of insulation, allowing signals to move faster between brain cells, helping to speed the flow of information in the brain. Since both the wiring to the prefrontal cortex, & the insulation, is incomplete, teens often take longer to access their prefrontal cortexes, meaning they have a harder time making accurate judgments & controlling their impulses. The process of myelination continues into the 30s, giving rise to questions about how old someone must be to be considered to have a fully developed “adult” brain.
 
At the same time that teens’ brains are laying down connections & insulation, puberty has triggered pituitary glands to release hormones that are acting on the limbic system, the brain’s emotional centre. The combination of heightened emotions & an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex explains why teens are often prone to emotional outbursts, says Jensen, & also why they seek out more emotionally charged situations, from sad movies to dangerous driving.
 
Hormones also appear to have a different effect in teens than they do in adults. The hormone THP, which is released by the body in response to stress, has a calming effect in adults, but actually seems to have the opposite effect in teens, increasing stress. It’s one reason why teens are prone to anxiety & post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s also a good reason, Jensen says, why parents & schools should be sensitive to the problem of bullying.
 
Along with new wiring, insulation & hormones, teen brains are highly sensitive to the release of dopamine, which plays on the areas of the brain that govern pleasure & helps explain why teens seem to take so many risks.
 
It’s not that they don’t know any better. In fact, reasoning abilities are largely developed by the age of 15 & studies have shown that teens are as accurate as adults when it comes to understanding if an activity is dangerous. Their brains are just more motivated by the rewards of taking a risk than deterred by its dangers. So even if they know something might be bad—speeding, drinking too much, trying new drugs—they get more pleasure from taking the risks anyway.
 
Central to our understanding of how teens learn is “pruning”—a period when the brain begins to shed some of the grey-matter cells built up in childhood to make room for the growth of white matter. A long period of grey-matter growth in childhood, followed by vigorous pruning in adolescence, has been linked to higher intelligence, Jensen says.
 
It’s for this reason that Jay Giedd, an expert in child & adolescent brain imaging at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, describes the teen years as a special period of “use it or lose it” for the brain. Brain cells grown in childhood that continue to get used in adolescence form new connections, while those that go unused wither away. It’s also another reason why parents should be anxious about what happens during the teen years—adolescence now appears to be a period that can make or break a child’s intelligence.
 
A significant consequence of pruning is that IQ, once thought to be fixed for life after childhood, can in fact change dramatically during the teen years.
 
Learning is a process of repeatedly exposing the brain to something that stimulates the production of dopamine, which strengthens connections in the brain’s reward centre & helps form new memories. Addiction, therefore, is simply a form of “overlearning” by the brain, Jensen says. That process can be controlled by the prefrontal cortex, but since teens are so primed for learning & have less of an ability to access the prefrontal cortex, they’re also more susceptible to addictions.
 
In an era marked by the ideological tug-of-war over how best to raise our teenagers, what’s a parent to do with this new science of the teenage brain? More rules—an approach exemplified by Yale professor Amy Chua’s 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother? Or in intervening too much, do parents risk raising teens whose brains never learn how to become an adult—an approach typified by the backlash against “helicopter parenting” & movements like “slow parenting” & “free-range kids.”

In Teenage Brain, Jensen puts herself squarely in the camp of the highly involved parent. She encourages parents to proof-read their teen’s homework, help them make lists to prioritize their assignments, watch them as they do schoolwork to see if they’re getting distracted & to not be afraid to “sound like a broken record” in reminding teens over & over again about the dangers that could befall them.
 
She encourages parents to “be your teen’s frontal lobes” & to “try to think for your teenage sons & daughters until their own brains are ready to take over the job.”

Jensen argues that it’s a parent’s job to protect their teens from their own often short-sighted behaviour, while allowing them enough room for “safe failures.”

In the quagmire of parental advice, it’s no surprise that the counterargument to the neuroscience approach to parenting is robust, & passionate. Psychologist Robert Epstein, author of The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen, believes that adolescent rebellion has little to do with brain development & lots to do with how society treats teenagers. He argues scientists have it backward: teens don’t act out because they have immature brains struggling to navigate an adult world, but because they have adult brains railing against a society that treats them like children.
 
Other research is challenging the notion that teens have a less mature & less connected prefrontal cortex & are therefore inherently more impulsive than adults.
 
At Temple University, Steinberg has used a car-racing video game to show that when teens are alone they perform as well as adults on tasks involving a tradeoff of risk & reward. But when other teens are in the room watching, adolescents tend to make far riskier decisions. Adults show no difference if other adults watch them, suggesting that teen risk-taking is likely social.
 
BJ Casey, director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Cornell University, found that teens could be less impulsive if they were offered rewards. The greater the reward, the longer teens took to make a decision, suggesting that parents trying to control a hot-headed teen might want to offer rewards for good decisions rather than punishing bad ones.

“You look at the high school dropout rates & the people that fall off the curve not because of academic reasons, but because of peer pressure or drugs,” Jensen says. “It’s so sad because this is a time where you can actually make up for your innate weaknesses. We could get so much more out of our teenagers—& who they become later in life, in many cases—if we took a different approach to this window of time.”

http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/inside-your-teenagers-scary-brain/

Criminal Minds, S1E2 (Quote)

Multiple Choice, Multiple Students

A great idea to improve learning in students & works more like how decision-making takes place in today's workplace ... as a team. Plus it may sow the seed of curiosity & learning in students than students just preparing for a test without understanding or remembering any of the material as soon as the final exam is over.
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Immediately after each student completes a 30-question, multiple-choice exam, Gilley makes all his students take the exact same test again, only, this time, in groups of four. ... But does it help prepare students for life after university? “Nobody goes into a room & writes a multiple-choice test for their job,” Gilley says. “People sit down in groups & discuss things to get points across.”

 

A recent study co-authored by Gilley showed higher retention of course material when students have collaborative group tests immediately after the individual test. “It’s not just that I know the answers better,” says Danny Congleton, a first-year bachelor of arts student at UBC. “I understand the reasoning behind why certain answers are correct.”

 

Faculty over the years have seen the benefits of the two-stage exam, to the extent that more than 50 classes at UBC have implemented them today, across courses in physics, chemistry, biology, math, statistics & computer science.

 

One drawback to the test, however, is that consensus doesn’t necessarily translate into the correct answer. As well, for some difficult questions, a group may leave without any certainty over which answer was correct.

 

“The longer you delay the feedback, the less useful it becomes,” says Jim Sibley, a staff member at UBC’s Centre for Instructional Support & co-author of a book on team-based learning. “Can you imagine you hit a golf ball & I tell you in a week in which direction it went, & then you try to adjust your shot?”

 

And, to make sure no slacker shows up unprepared, the two-stage exam system can be weighted such that the individual test accounts for 85% of the exam mark, whereas the remaining 15% comes from the group test. In that case, everyone knows the right answer by the end of the exam, everyone has individual accountability, & the students learn from each other. “You’re not the teacher anymore,” says Sibley. “You’re the architect of a learning experience.”

 

 

http://www.macleans.ca/education/multiple-choice-multiple-students/