(UPDATE: I tagged the heck out of this, but your boost is still appreciated.)
You've probably already heard of the many ways that #Florida's government is creating some scary times, aggressively censoring many resources our K-12 students have access to, including significant and vital African American history, education and coursework.
Teachers in my hometown are fighting back. The Freedom School in St. Pete will be offering grade 9-12 students free African American History classes — starting with the history of Africa and the Middle Passage all the way to contemporary studies and a critical lens on America's wealth, power, and global position. This material is no longer (in cases, never was) included in FLDOE curricula.
Please, if you're able to make a donation to SP Freedom School, consider doing so now. Also, you should check out their site. Below I'm going to link the Tampa Bay Times article covering their story too.
Susan David (Harvard Medical School) has an interesting diagram on the relationship between 'hard' #skills & (so-called) #softskills which usefully summarises why so much of UK #education policy is wrong-headed.
Its the soft skills (often built through #arts & humanities, and the #socialsciences) that actually are ever more vital.
That's not to say 'hard' skills are unnecessary, but they are certainly not sufficient!
As she's suggests these (soft skill) attributes really need a better name!
University of Texas regents approved the creation of a new college to house Civitas Institute, a conservative "community of scholars" that researches free-market principles.
@maegul@fediversenews sure. There is one #active sever the number one. But place three is also great! Its not the members that count. Its the activities. And the #education#edutooters are active on mastodon.education. so proud of it. To bad @Gargron wont add my server to join.mastodon.org
Eighth grade history scores have dropped five points for the first time since 1998 (when tests were first recorded). Some of this is the pandemic, but most of this is our failing educational system. Only 14% of students scored at or above "proficient." In short, we are leaving our children behind. This is the generation that will enter the job market in about ten years.
The New York Times has a sample quiz. I scored 5 out of 5
My goal with the school #garden is to ensure that everything grown is edible. A bunch of volunteers grew inside & outside the raised beds. This particular flower - nasturtium maybe - is everywhere. I took a class out to harvest beans, & several of the recent migrants from Africa started eating the leaves and stems of this flower. I didn’t know if it was edible! But they urged me to try a leaf. It was yummy: spinachy & spicy. Gotta try a flower now. Google says it’s edible 😅 #today#education
Patrick Pearse, poet, writer, founder of Scoil Eanna (St Enda’s) in 1908 and commander-in-chief of the forces of the Irish Republic during the Easter Rising, was executed in Kilmainham Jail, #OTD 1916.
“We need to ensure that there are some appropriate interventions in place to get that student off a pathway to violence and have them be successful in an educational environment.”
Another great #Civics 101 episode: why we don't talk about reconstruction https://overcast.fm/+2sZyHuia0 This has been a problem at schools even before the culture wars we are now experiencing. This podcast gives a great explanation as to why. TL;DR: all to preserve the American mythos at the expense of diversity, equality of opportunity, and inclusion.
If NCERT Has its Way, the Study of Indian History Will Move Entirely Outside of India
Deleting pages and chapters can only be described as an entirely unintelligent way of reducing content. And the NCERT's choice of deletions explains what its motivations are, writes, Romila Thapar.
Random #Debian Astro package of the week is lightspeed. Light Speed! is an OpenGL-based program which illustrates the effects of special relativity on the appearance of moving objects. When an object accelerates past a few million meters per second, these effects begin to grow noticeable, becoming more and more pronounced as the speed of light is approached. These relativistic effects are viewpoint-dependent, and include shifts in length, object hue, brightness and shape.
1/2⤵
The moving object is, by default, a geometric lattice. 3D Studio and LightWave 3D objects may be imported as well. Best of all, the simulator is completely interactive, rendering the exotic distortions in real-time!