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Should sex ed include fertility information?

Exactly what sort of safe sex should be taught to our young students is always a topic of debate. As we recently saw in Texas, abstinence-only programs don’t seem to work and can even lead to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases. Telling kids too much about how to have sex bothers many parents, educators and lawmakers, though. It seems that the jury is still out on the best way to empower students with sex-ed knowledge. One topic that is never debated, or even discussed, as it relates to sex education is fertility itself and that needs to change, according …

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Four Keys to Successfully Adopting New Instructional Materials

Leading change can be quite a challenge, especially when you’re asking teachers to let go of materials and techniques they have used for most of their careers. Here’s how we approached this successfully in our district. By Cristina Charney and Janeal Maxfield As math instructional specialists for the North Thurston Public Schools in Washington State, we were tasked with helping elementary teachers adopt a new math program for teaching to the Common Core standards several years ago. Initially, we thought this would be easy. Our district had chosen Stepping Stones from ORIGO Education to be our new program for core …

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How companies learn what children secretly want

Faith Boninger, University of Colorado and Alex Molnar, University of Colorado If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about. In the U.S. …

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Why it’s hard for adults to learn a second language

Brianna Yamasaki, University of Washington As a young adult in college, I decided to learn Japanese. My father’s family is from Japan, and I wanted to travel there someday. However, many of my classmates and I found it difficult to learn a language in adulthood. We struggled to connect new sounds and a dramatically different writing system to the familiar objects around us. It wasn’t so for everyone. There were some students in our class who were able to acquire the new language much more easily than others. So, what makes some individuals “good language learners?” And do such individuals …

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Why science and engineering need to remind students of forgotten lessons from history

Muhammad H. Zaman, Boston University Lately, there has been a lot of discussion highlighting the need for incorporating social sciences in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines in order to foster creativity, increase empathy and create a better understanding of the human condition among scientists. Unfortunately, however, all this talk hasn’t changed the reality on the ground. As a researcher and teacher in biomedical engineering, looking at the fundamental functions of the human body, I feel that we in engineering (as well as other sciences) have done a disservice to our students. We have failed to connect them to …

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Who’s in Favor of Early Childhood Education?

Early childhood education is something that most Americans can agree is needed. A poll conducted by the bipartisan team of Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies found that 70 percent of respondents were in full support of a universal preschool plan as long as it did not contribute to the national deficit. Sixty percent of the Republicans polled supported the plan, despite its close ties with the Democratic Chief. Want to see who’s pushing to make preschool more accessible and of better quality, and where the movement is taking place? Keep reading. President Obama has been vocal about his belief that a publicly-funded …

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Music training speeds up brain development in children

Assal Habibi, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Observing a pianist at a recital – converting musical notations into precisely timed finger movements on a piano – can be a powerful emotional experience. As a researcher of neuroscience and a pianist myself, I understand that the mastering of this skill not only takes practice, but also requires complex coordination of many different brain regions. Brain regions – that are responsible for our hearing, sight and movement abilities – engage in an amazing symphony to produce music. It takes coordinating both hands and communicating emotionally …

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How to Revolutionize the US Educational System

Right now, free public education in America comes at a price. Whenever the country hits turbulent financial times, as it did during the Great Recession, it takes its toll on the quality of education available in our K-12 schools—and it can take decades for the resulting deficiencies to rear their ugly heads. When town and city administrators curtail the hiring of new teachers, or force the retirement of older teachers, class sizes increase.  The teacher-to-student ratio expands accordingly, meaning less face time per student, reducing the overall effectiveness of educational institutions. An economic crisis does not just affect school budgets.  …

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Help your children play out a story and watch them become more creative

Sandra Russ, Case Western Reserve University Just about every institution these days is looking for creative individuals. Adults who can innovate in high-quality ways and contribute to the progress of science, engineering and the arts. Creative expressions start from an early age. Children express creativity through “pretend play” – an activity that involves using imagination and make-believe. They make up stories and ideas “from scratch” and use props like blocks or sticks to represent different ideas and objects – for example, a block becomes a telephone or monster. The question is, does playing in such a way help children become …

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Zero tolerance laws increase suspension rates for black students

F. Chris Curran, University of Maryland, Baltimore County The State Senate of Michigan is currently considering legislation that would scale back “zero tolerance” discipline policies in the state’s public schools. Zero tolerance discipline laws require automatic and generally severe punishment for specified offenses that could range from possessing weapons to physical assault. They leave little leeway for consideration of the circumstances of the offense. The bill, already approved by the State House, proposes to add provisions that would consider the contextual factors around an incident, such as the student’s disciplinary history, and would ask whether lesser forms of punishment would …

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