Clipmarks | Education Clips

For most people college is a waste of time

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:48:05 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century

Tags: education, college, certification

Educating evolution

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:49:29 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: It is so amazing that after so many years and progress; educating youth about evolution is still considered revolutionary.
this must be evolved

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash

In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history

over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.

“If you see something you don’t understand, you have to ask ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ ” Mr. Campbell often admonished his students at Ridgeview High School.

On the projector, Mr. Campbell placed slides of the cartoon icon: one at his skinny genesis in 1928

one from his 1940 turn

another of the rounded

“How,” he asked his students, “has Mickey changed?”

Tags: evolution, religion, education

Education: the most important global issue

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:13:42 GMT

clipped by: tumblon
clipper's remarks: Education determines the character, competence and creativity of the next generation; it is the most important global issue of each generation.

Clip Source: www.marketwatch.com

"The public supports education, and not just through one kind of system," Allen noted. "We are encouraged by increasing attention in the presidential race but are far from saturated with what should be considered the most important global issue of our time."

Tags: education

School House Rock ~ Corporations and Media

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:36:10 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: blog.puppetgov.com

[Video]

Tags: education, corporations, fun

Countries who have not adopted the metric system

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:52:01 GMT

clipped by: BigBadWolf
clipper's remarks: Not that I am in any hurry to learn it but... geez now I feel like I am standing alone in a 100 acre open field!

Clip Source: upload.wikimedia.org

Tags: education, politics

Russia Invading Georgia!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:00:47 GMT

clipped by: jamesgrimes
clipper's remarks: Someone in a chatroom named Jessica B has gotten the US state of Georgia confused with the country of Georgia!

Priceless government education at work!

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A concerned citizen calling herself Jessica B has written a post on the comments section of the website Yahoo, saying "I live in georegia but i dont see rusia no where not even sound but they says theres tanks should i be worrie”.

“i herd on the news that rusia has invaded but i dont see them no where wats going on," she continued.

Her mind was presumably put at ease by a fellow contributor, who reassured her with the words "You are in the state of Georgia. The nation of Georgia is on the other side of the world".

It is unclear whether the original post stems from a genuine geographical error or whether it is a hoax, but it has become a viral internet phenomenon, with over 4000 people recommending it on the Digg.com website.

Science Battles Ignorance

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:14:16 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: By ignorance I mean literally ignoring reality and substituting myth and superstition. The solution is simple. If the students insist on replacing reality with dogma on science tests let them be graded accordingly.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash

But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.

Tags: school, evolution, biology, florida

God's honest truth?

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:55:11 GMT

clipped by: pitim
clipper's remarks: The law is being presented in Sweden as if it mostly concerned fundamentalist Christian sects in the backwoods; but the Christian Democratic party, which represents such people if anyone does, is perfectly happy with the new regulation. There is little doubt that combating Islamic fundamentalism is the underlying aim,

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The Swedish government is making it illegal for schools to teach religious doctrine as if it were true. Britain should follow suit.

The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools - after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum's time will have to be secular. "Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism," said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Creationism and ID are explicitly banned but so is proselytising even in religious education classes. The Qur'an may not be taught as if it is true even in Muslim independent schools, nor may the Bible in Christian schools.

The decision looks like a really startling attack on the right of parents to have their children taught what they would like.

First Generation College Students

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:39:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: minnesota.publicradio.org

They're the first to go to college

About one fourth of the state's undergraduates are the first in their families to go to college, according to a 2004 survey of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

All around him, he felt the pressure to put more emphasis on finding a job than focusing on school.

To stay in school, Meza surrounded himself with a group of supportive guidance counselors and teachers. He also joined Admission Possible, a college readiness program for low-income juniors and seniors.

"The biggest barrier to college education for first-generation students is sort of feeling of being a fraud," Olson said. "A lot of times, first generation college students feel like, 'I've made it this far, I'm kind of fooling people. They're going to find me out any day now, that I don't really belong here.' And they get those messages of not belonging in so many different, subtle ways."

Tags: radio, college, first-generation

edwired: You Have Been Warned

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:32:19 GMT

clipped by: akipta

Clip Source: edwired.org

It’s the first day of the semester–always a happy time for me–and particularly because this semester I have two small classes to teach (a luxury for me).

But what really has me charged up this semester is that I’m teaching a new course, “Lying About the Past” that is an investigation of historical hoaxes, plagiarism, and fakery. The first half of the semester my students will be examining the history of historical hoaxes. The second half of the course is a practicum, by which I mean we will work together as a group to create an online historical hoax that we will then turn loose on the Internet to see if we can actually fool anyone.

Our plan is to launch the hoax, whatever it might be, before the end of the semester. So remember. You have been warned.

Tags: hoaxes education history

California Parents Can Home School Again

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:49:04 GMT

clipped by: cheapogroovo
clipper's remarks: Another small victory for the freedom movement.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Parents may legally home-school their children in California even if they lack a teaching credential, a state appellate court ruled Friday. The decision is a reversal of the court's earlier position, which effectively prohibited most home schooling and sparked fear throughout the state's estimated 166,000 home-schoolers.

Tags: education, teacher, fascism, government, homeschooling

Open Letter to Jenny McCarthy

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:38:58 GMT

clipped by: laceym
clipper's remarks: Doctors will have such a great time practicing medicine in the next few years.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Dear Jenny,

Thank you! Thankyouthankyou thank YOU!

You see, my medical education had a few gaps. I was unfortunate enough to do my training during the last couple of decades, which means I never saw measles, pertussis, polio, and many other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Well, last year, I saw three cases of pertussis! Sweet! And it looks like, if I play my cards right, I may get to see some measles.

If I were in charge of awards for medical education, I'd give you one. But, alas, I'm not. I guess we'll have to find some other way to honor all your hard work, education, and expertise. I mean, my four years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, and 3 years of residency can't hold a candle to your experience as a Mommy Warrior. I wish we could just bottle that. Or perhaps isolate it in northern Idaho.

Tags: antivax, cult, ignorance, medicine, sarcasm, boobies

10 Questions, and Answers, About Evolution

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:23:55 GMT

clipped by: jedipunk

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

“Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document by Jonathan Wells, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based group that advocates intelligent design, aims to highlight the weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Here are his questions, along with responses compiled by the National Center for Science Education. More questions can be found on Dr. Wells’s site, http://www.iconsofevolution.com/ More information about biological evolution can be found at http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/.

Tags: science, evolution

McCain Team Shoves William Ayers Cover-up Into The Spotlight

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:13:17 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Some highlights:

While the University sits on the complete Annenberg Challenge records, several months ago I was able to obtain certain key records of the Challenge - including board minutes, annual and semi-annual reports and financial records - from Brown University's Annenberg Institute. Brown housed the national Annenberg Challenge program that was set up in 1993 by a gift of $500 million from Walter Annenberg.

While the material I was provided is helpful it is no substitute for the complete documentary record that is apparently housed at the University of Illinois and thus that public University should immediately make available to the public those records.
Below is an analysis of what I found in the documents I was able to obtain.

Clip Source: justoneminute.typepad.com

Rich Lowry reprints this press release from the McCain campaign

“The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?”

—McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

That will make it harder for the media to ignore this. Pete Yost of the AP reported on this (sort of) yesterday; today the Chicago Tribune local politics blog reported that Mayor Daley would rather not be involved:

Jake Tapper of ABC News repeats the Brian Rogers statement

Rogers the raised the fact that, as the Chicago Tribune reports here, the University of Illinois this week refused to release records related to Obama's work with Ayers on the education project the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, at the request of an unnamed donor of the materials.

Diamond, the main man on this story, has also gone though some of these missing documents and posts his thoughts

Tags: william ayers, "weather underground", education project, university of illinois, mayor daley, chicago annenberg challenge, documents

Why Pain Hurts?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:14:58 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.psychblog.co.uk

Although we typically associate pain with physical damage to the body, thinking only in terms of physical damage is counter-productive. We also need to tackle the psychology and neuroscience of pain both to fully understand it and to help people affected by it. [Mind Hacks]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: www.psychblog.co.uk

Those with lower income or less education spent a higher proportion of time in pain and reported higher average pain than did those with higher income or more education. The average pain rating increased with age, although it reached a plateau between the ages of about 45 years and 75 years, with little difference between men and women. Satisfaction with life or health and the pain indicators tended to move in opposite directions. [from Krueger & Stone, 2008 abstract]

If you’re still wanting more on pain then you could pop over to the How to Cope with Pain blog and read their May Pain Carnival where there’s links to loads more great articles on pain, pain perception and current thinking in the area.

Tags: pain