learning

James W. Prescott, PhD sent news that research documents that BPA, an endocrine disrupter, impairs social relations until the fourth generation. The reproductive damage of BPA has been well documented. See Peat Myers interview below. The social consequences of endocrine disruption are new. The importance of this finding and its impact on the socialization of humanity is staggering.

We all know that the environment controls and regulates gene expression even damages gene structure and function. Some 80,000 chemicals dumped into our environment most of them toxic. BPA is just one, and alone represents 7 billion pounds annually.

Lynn has been working with a group of committed educators to get the standardized monkey off our kid's backs.

Also see http://ttfuture.org/whats-new/events/featured_interview

How to Increase Graduation Rates
Lynn Stoddard

If School District Superintendents want to increase graduation rates, they should not tighten the screws on teachers to standardize students. A recent study found that teacher’s job satisfaction is at an all-time low. Nearly a third of new teachers say they are very, or fairly likely, to leave the profession. This confirms my perception that teacher morale has never been lower than it is now. I lay the blame on federal government intrusion into education, which the 10th amendment says is a state responsibility. Ever since the “Nation at Risk Report” in 1983, the U.S. Office of Education has applied several “reforms” all based on the idea that it is possible to make students alike in knowledge and skills – and that teachers should try harder to do. Standardized achievement tests are used as a whip to make sure all students know and can do the same things at grade-level check points.

No wonder teachers are demoralized! They know they can’t standardize students like cars or washing machines! The Common Core State Standards are the latest attempt to sell the idea of standardization to teachers and the general public. It is setting teachers and students up for failure on a grand scale. There will be an increase in good teachers leaving the profession, more students dropping out and fewer students graduating than ever before, all because students refuse to be standardized.

A friend sent a link to a New York Times article about technology in the classroom – NOT.

The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix...   More

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