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• Project 012: World Wide Partners

  Private school kids and public school kids living in harmony? In Santa Cruz it's possible. A contribution to Project 012.
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  • 012: New School
  • Date: Aug 29 2008
  • Contributors: GOOD magazine

• Project 012: A Roof Grows In Harlem

  How can students understand the importance of reusing and recycling when greenery is an abstract notion? For Project 012, Joy Osborn suggests bringing nature to urban schools.
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  • 012: New School
  • Date: Aug 20 2008
  • Contributors: GOOD magazine

• The Education Issue

  In our fear about what will happen if every child doesn’t know the quadratic formula by heart, we’ve created a far more damning problem: We’ve taken all the fun out of learning.
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  • 012: New School
  • Date: Aug 13 2008
  • Contributors: GOOD magazine

• Flashback: Sugata Mitra Gets Talky For TED

  In the spirit of our current fascination with learning (see The Education Issue), we're keen to revisit this video of Sugata Mitra (from January of 2007). After witnessing uneducated Indian children teach themselves how to use a computer without instruction, Mitra ponders what else kids can teach themselves.
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  • Date: Aug 28 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

  We noticed this plagued Kottke the other day, and we knew there was a word for it... The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is the experience of learning about a word, fact, phrase, or, perhaps, a certain phenomemon for the first time, and then encountering it again soon after. It's named after a prominent military left-wing group in postwar West Germany, the Baader Meinhof Group also known as the Red Army Faction, and coined by a reader of the St. Paul Pioneer Press who came across the group's name a couple times in a row and thought 'my goodness, what a... phenomenon.' Is it a déjà vu-esque parapsychological event? Evidence of selective attention? Cognitive bias consequent of the recency effect? Or, maybe, just a big coincidence? Who knows. But next time it comes up, which it very well may in the next, say, day or two, you'll have the details. Thanks Ash "Blackberry" Bennington Illustration from S.R. Wells' "New Descriptive Chart," ca. 1869, via Huntington Library
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  • Date: Aug 26 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Big Ideas From Big Think

  In a ten-week series called Think Science Now, web site Big Think welcomes shameless nerding out with ten interviews from the world's leading scientists about their cutting-edge research in biology, chemistry and human disease, and their biggest personal inspirations.
  
  For example: Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa describes his experience as a Mexican migrant farm worker-turned-neuroscientist who left the fields, learned English and graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School to become a brain surgeon. And, Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a Rhoades Scholar considered to be among "the 100 smartest people in the world," plays in a rock band on top of her career exploring natural selection at the level of individual genes. Totally inspiring/hot.
  
  Bonus: Viewers are encouraged to cast a vote for the most compelling profile, and for every ballot cast, Pfizer donates $1 to DonorsChoose.org. And you can vote for each scientist once. Go ahead; Pfizer can afford it.
  
  Image: This week's interview is Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, a research scientist in neurobiology and genetics who earned his M.D. by the age of 22.
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  • Date: Aug 19 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Missing the Point?

  I read Trubek as arguing for questioning Catcher's sacred status in the canon, not for throwing it out with the bathwater. She makes good points about what has made and still makes Catcher important. I read it in high school, and again recently in my late 30s. I can't remember how I felt as a teen, but I didn't relate to Holden at all on my latest reading. I found him (and possibly by extension, the author) to have a strangely hyperidealized image of children. In contrast, I can and did very much relate to the narrator of Speak, Lindsay of Freaks and Geeks, and Angela in My So Called Life. Because I related to them, should they be on the list? Maybe yes, maybe no. Just like Catcher. I don't agree with the PC stance that we have to try to include everyone's voice. But I do think it makes sense to include more than one, and to acknowledge that one, particularly of a wealthy white male, isn't universal. For anyone interested in questioning Catcher further, Frank Portman's King Dork, a YA novel, makes an entertaining, if not high art, case. And what is wrong with including television shows or a movie along with books? One well-written show or movie as a complement to a dozen books might provide a different window to similar themes.
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  • Date: Sep 08 2008
  • Posted by Girl_Detective

• Broaden your mind!

  I read Catcher in the Rye in 1980 when I was in High school. Not because it was assigned, but because my big sister said it was a good book. Memories of it made me curious to pick it up again this last spring. I agree that the setting will be foreign to many adolescents today, but the internal dialogue, Holden's worries and comments about the world DO resonate today. And Phoebe is irresistible! The books recommended by Trubek, while they may better catch the attention of a particular demographic, will not necessarily speak better to today's readers. A common mistake in education today is that teachers think kids only want to read about kids just like themselves, and that kids need to read about characters just like themselves in order to work though their issues. Children in any one of Trubek's demographics may feel even more alienated if the only literature that they are exposed to show kids like themselves in difficult times. In contrast a Dominican girl for example may get a lot more out of reading about a white boy who ALSO has issues.
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  • Date: Sep 06 2008
  • Posted by lufi

• Embarrassed

  This series of articles on education reminds me of how embarrassed I am of my own generation sometimes. There are those of us who would rather pay someone than to get our hands dirty with our kids. We would rather plop them in front of a tv screen in the back seat rather than have a conversation or sing silly songs. We would rather pay to put our kids into a private school than to actually get involved with our kids' education. Both of our kids went through the public school system in Los Angeles and are doing just fine thank you. Our daughter graduated from one of the best small liberal arts schools in the country and is currently in her second year of a Masters program. Our son got his BFA in graphic design from one of the best art schools in the world. Hell, he even works for this magazine so he must have done okay! They did well because we were involved with their education. We both had full time jobs but we made the time because it was important to us. If it's not important to the parents, then it won't be important to the kid. And if that happens, no school in the world will be able to fix it, no matter how much money you throw at it.
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  • Date: Aug 31 2008
  • Posted by edkasky2