Why are college students ever trusted to run their own lives?

I'm reading "Expecting Students to Play It Safe if Colleges Reopen Is a Fantasy/Safety plans border on delusional and could lead to outbreaks of Covid-19 among students, faculty and staff" by Laurence Steinberg (a psychology professor who wrote a book called "Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence').

Most types of risky behavior — reckless driving, criminal activity, fighting, unsafe sex and binge drinking, to name just a few — peak during the late teens and early 20s.... Under calm conditions, college-age individuals can control their impulses as well as their elders, but when they are emotionally aroused, they evince the poor self-control of teenagers.... But it’s hard to think of an age during which risky behavior is more common and harder to deter than between 18 and 24....

My pessimistic prediction is that the college and university reopening strategies under consideration will work for a few weeks before their effectiveness fizzles out. By then, many students will have become cavalier about wearing masks and sanitizing their hands. They will ignore social distancing guidelines when they want to hug old friends they run into on the way to class. They will venture out of their “families” and begin partying in their hallways with classmates from other clusters, and soon after, with those who live on other floors, in other dorms, or off campus. They will get drunk and hang out and hook up with people they don’t know well. And infections on campus — not only among students, but among the adults who come into contact with them — will begin to increase....

[U]niversities must be informed by what developmental science has taught us about how adolescents and young adults think. As someone who is well-versed in this literature, I will ask to teach remotely for the time being.

We need to keep these little monsters locked up until they're 25. Who knows what they will do with their freedom? They might party in their hallways and become cavalier about wearing masks and sanitizing their hands. There's no end to the dangers of freedom. You really cannot trust people to put safety first, week after week, month after month. At some point, they will hang out and hook up.

"What does all of this mean for colleges suddenly forced to move online because of the coronavirus pandemic?"

"The only thing they can create right now is distance.... They do not have the time or resources necessary to map out the rest of their courses and build online versions on the fly that can accommodate large numbers of students. They will not be able to train their teachers how to teach or their learners how to learn. There will be little personalization.... [I]t’s a mistake to say that colleges will be 'moving to online education.' All they’ll really be doing is conducting traditional education at a distance. That will be hard enough."

From "Everybody Ready for the Big Migration to Online College? Actually, No/One consequence of coronavirus: It will become more apparent that good online education is easier said than done" by Kevin Carey (NYT).

Carey is the author of "The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere" (2016). He's for on-line education.

"Singapore, which has been heralded for its response to Covid-19, decided that closing schools would do more harm than good."

"Political leaders and health officials there have addressed concerns about Covid-19 through clear, consistent and transparent communications about their response to the virus. If schools remain open, officials could enact measures to limit any potential spread among children and staff. All students could be checked daily for fever, a possible sign of Covid-19 infection. Even more attention should be given to hand washing and reminding children not to touch their faces. Children should be taught to sneeze into their sleeves. Schools can consider changing seating arrangements to keep children six feet apart.... Nonetheless, government officials may feel pressure to close schools. For true effectiveness... [c]hildren couldn’t gather in other settings, which would be very difficult to enforce. If schools close, child care programs will likely close too and working parents may have to stay home to watch their children. Health care and critical infrastructure workers would not be able to do their jobs for the same reason...."

Writes Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in NYT.

Are classrooms big enough to put all the children 6 feet away from any other child? That strikes me as absurd, but the main message I'm seeing from this column is that schools are better than families at keeping an eye on children and controlling them. And also schools are childcare facilities, and if they shut down, vast numbers of adults won't be able to go to work, and that will have a terrible effect not just on the economy but on the provision of health care services.

Student challenges history professor and is threatened with expulsion

"A Native American student at Cal State Sacramento University was told by her history teacher that there was no genocide against the indigenous population of North America. When the student, Chiitaanibah Johnson, took issue with this claim and challenged him, she was ejected from the class and expelled."

"The professor said he didn’t care for the term `genocide` as he didn’t think it accurately describes what happened in relation to Native American history."

"U.S. History Professor Maury Wiseman accused Johnson of `hijacking` his class when she challenged him on this. He also pointed out that he was very offended at her accusations that he was a `bigot` and `racist`..."

"By the end of the week, he had expelled her from the class, according to Vincent Schilling, writing for Indian Country Today Media Network."

"`The whole thing started on Wednesday,` Johnson said in an interview with ICTMN. `He was talking about Native America and he said the word genocide. He paused and said ‘I don’t like to use that word because I think it is too strong for what happened’ and ‘Genocide implies that it was on purpose and most native people were wiped out by European diseases`."

"At first, even though she was outraged at the professor’s comments, she decided against responding… So she wrote what he said down."

"`I wrote it down. I was enraged for what I felt were obvious reasons. I didn’t say anything [on Wednesday] because I knew that if I didn’t have anything specific to back it up in terms of tangible or solid evidence that he would not take my comments into consideration`."

"But on Friday, after the teacher’s discussion on the Iroquois Confederacy and the Portuguese expeditions, she confronted him – she had no other choice..."

"So she stood up and began reading from an article by the United Nations that defined the term as `the deliberate killing of another people, a sterilization of people and/or a kidnapping of their children`."

"Humiliated in front of the class, the professor stopped her and he said,`that is enough`."

Read more http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/09/history-teacher-denies-native-american-student/

Learning for the 21st century

It`s different to what was required in the 20th century because you don`t have to actually know anything. So they say.

Here`s Learning and the Brain:

"In an age where so much knowledge is easily found on Google, there is little advantage in carrying a lot of information in one’s own mind. What is valuable is the ability to ask critical questions, synthesize information to develop opinions and work with diverse others to achieve broad goals. But our educational system—at the prekindergarten through college level—focuses on giving students knowledge rather than training them to be thinkers."

http://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/likely-succeed-preparing-kids-innovation-era-tony-wagner-ted-dintersmith/

So they are going to study our brains while emptying our minds, all the better to manipulate us.

I think the recent emotional responses to the Brexit vote exposes how far the global educators have come. Few people interviewed felt it necessary to back up their opinions with facts.

Education Scotland: the puzzle about the attainment gap

Now I have my own ideas about what would narrow the educational attainment gap between those at the top and the bottom of society, and like many other people, standardised testing is not one of them. So, given the recent pronouncements of John Swinney,  I went in pursuit of teachers` opinions which seemed a bit mixed and all over the place.

Then I came across a most extraordinary post from the Learning Zoo: This is a blog by Anne Glennie who says of herself on Twitter, with 2,130 followers, that she is a Primary Teacher, Literacy Consultant & Trainer, who resides in the Isle of Lewis. Her tweets have obtained 2,988 likes. 

What she noted was that the Education Scotland website had presented two contradictory versions of why disadvantaged children have difficulty with reading. One presented the answer to that as a failure of children to learn the letter-sound relationships. (Phonetics) and this was the original version: 

 

Children need to develop a number of inter-connected skills to learn to read successfully. An important first step is for children to develop decoding skills, through the teaching of phonics (how letters are linked to sounds) and phonological awareness. A balanced reading programme should also develop children`s fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Evidence from Scotland shows that children from disadvantaged background are more likely to have difficulties with their reading. One of the key factors which drives this appears to be the quality of  of the home learning environment, which can influence children`s phonological awareness, vocabulary development and oral language.

As a result, phonics-based approaches are more likely to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds master the basics of reading.

========================================

Anne Glennie celebrated the fact that Education Scotland had finally `got it` as I would have too.

However, that was short lived when she realised that Education Scotland had surreptitiously changed the text a few weeks later:

Learning to read is complex. Children must develop a range of inter-connected skills and knowledge. Some skills and knowledge develop as a result of direct instruction and practice. Others develop more slowly, through children having many repeated experiences with books.

Evidence shows that children from disadvantaged backrounds in Scotland are less likely to attain well in their reading. Key factors which drive this appear to be the quantity of reading experiences that young children have at home and the quality of those experiences. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to have less access to high-quality picture books, their home reading experiences tend to be less frequent and their conversations with adults about books tend to be shorter, less playful and narrower in scope. Home learning environments influence children`s views of what reading is for, their knowledge of books and stories, their phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary and oral language development.

---------------------------------------

The puzzle was that both posts were dated February 2016 and no acknowledgement of any edit was given.

http://www.thelearningzoo.co.uk/2016/04/24/education-scotland-and-the-mystery-of-the-shifty-document-swap/

She asked many questions about that and then this one.

"Did Education Scotland knowingly deceive practitioners by quietly removing the old document and publishing a look-a-likey replacement, hoping that no-one would notice the complete u-turn in advice?"

Well, yes I would say so.

How else are the authorities going to promote early interventions and interfering in the lives of women (families) from the first trimester  (12 weeks of pregnancy) and the Named Person, (chief gardener) fantasy?

Reading must not be about a tried and trusted teaching method for which the evidence is overwhelming, if the GIRFEC named person theory is to survive. It`s got to be about families and the early years.

New assessments will be online

On 1st September 2015 Nicola Sturgeon announced plans for National Standardised Testing of pupils in order to yield crucial data to help `reduce the attainment gap`. This was despite the fact that such an idea was incompatible with the philosophy of Curriculum for Excellence.

"Teaching unions such as the EIS explicitly stated that `the introduction of a national system of standardised assessment is not the answer" to educational inequality`."

"And of course it soon became clear that Sturgeon’s plans were not rooted in any substantial evidence or advice, with FOI releases showing that the standardised testing policy had been based on just four emails and a series of unminuted meetings."

"[L]et’s not forget, we will still be faced with a scenario where a private company is able to profit from the inappropriate testing of children as young as five years old."

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/05/24/national-standardised-testing-the-story-so-far/?platform=hootsuite

"Speaking at the EIS AGM in Dundee, Mr Swinney said the Scottish Government would issue a tender later this week to buy an online system from an expert provider that would conduct the assessments contained within the new National Improvement Framework."

"The online system will be in place for the 2017/18 session and use the latest technology to ensure pupil’s progress in P1, P4, P7 and S3 is easily measured by teachers without adding to their burden by asking them to mark the new assessments..."

"The system will quickly and automatically generate individual reports for teachers, providing information on where a child has done well and highlighting areas where support may be required. This report will be used for discussion with parents about their child’s learning, along with other assessment evidence..."

" `Assessments will be as short as possible and your professional judgement will be key`... "

"`In one of my first interviews as Education Secretary, I was asked whether the assessments will be internally or externally marked. I wasn’t ready to give an answer then. I am now`."

"`My answer is this: that’s the wrong question and it fundamentally misunderstands what we are doing`."

"`You all know – because schools already use these systems – that assessment can be delivered using modern technology that provides the results automatically. No additional workload – no high-stakes, externally marked tests. It’s not internal or external. It’s automatic`."

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Standardised-assessments-will-not-add-to-workload-2565.aspx

 

"EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan, has used his AGM address to urge Scotland’s teachers to stand together to reject the overburdening of pupils and teachers with excessive assessment..."

"Mr Flanagan also warned that the introduction of the new National Improvement Framework, and new National Standardised Assessments, must support learning and teaching in schools and not be used to promote a target-setting, league-table approach to measuring pupil progress."

http://www.eis.org.uk/public.asp?id=3358

Compare with Finland:

 

 

Plans to provide funding directly to headteachers

"BATTLE lines are being drawn up over controversial proposals to hand more education funding direct to headteachers instead of councils."

"Local authority leaders have warned SNP proposals to give more funding directly to schools could damage the drive to improve attainment by restricting the use of funding."

"However, Scotland's Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said the plans, included in the party's election manifesto, would give `real power` to schools."

"The row follows the publication of the manifesto which included broad proposals for a shake-up of the ways schools are run with the setting up of education regions."

"In addition, the SNP intends to give more public money directly to headteachers to use on local priorities including moves to close the attainment gap between rich and poor." 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14519827.Councils_attack_SNP_moves_to_give_more_money_to_headteachers/

How will this affect headteachers in the role of Named Persons ?

Children must learn about the EU

"Despite the lack of a formalised EU competency, education at the European level has been rapidly brought to the forefront of the EU agenda with a specific role in the Europe 2020 Strategy to improve Europe’s knowledge economy through education and training provisions. Apart from this, compared to other policy areas, education has seen little light when it comes to EU policy-making. However, the European Parliament has identified a new role for education, which was made public... in the form of the European Parliament Resolution of 12 April 2016 on Learning EU at School (2015/2138(INI))."

"The Resolution calls on the European Commission to continue to strengthen its activities in the field of education, particularly in the wide dissemination of information on the EU, as well as to provide a common framework and guidelines for learning about the EU."

^{https://educatingeurope.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/learning-eu-at-school-1949-vs-2016/}

The European Union has a distorted view of itself because it says that the EU is based on the rule of law: everything it does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by its member countries. However, there is plenty of evidence to show that this is not the case.

Regardless, children will be encouraged to share the EU`s distorted view. In other words, there are going to be indoctrination programmes for children in European citizenship as well as global citizenship. 




The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) was established in 1997.

Says the speaker in the video: "1993 was the year when the European Union was born. To us it had been sold as a political project. But these letters which we had found in December pointed in a totally different direction. The files showed that the ERT and the European Commission were meeting on a regular basis. It went on in complete secrecy. The ERT and the European Commission worked hand in hand."

The CEO published a report Europe, Inc.: Dangerous Liaisons between EU Institutions and Industry. "That report exposed the influence of industry lobbying on the new EU treaty being signed at that time. The report warned that lobby groups such as the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) and their influence over EU decision-making came at the expense of democracy and social and environmental concerns."

"ERT was credited with being the driving force behind a single European market by former Commission President, Jacques Delors. A 1985 ERT paper by Wisse Dekker, Europe 1990: An Agenda for Action, was sent to heads of state and government officials throughout Europe...The subsequent EC White paper, that the 1986 Single European Act was based on, closely followed ERT’s plan for a single market."

Their plan: "Adopt a single market, monetary union, infrastructure projects, a flexible labour market, deregulation; downsize public services, austerity measures, privatisation and so on - the whole neoliberalism agenda follows."

Dekker had written: "If you choose not to have a single market programme, then you have given us no choice but perhaps take our business elsewhere." [from telex discovered among other ERT documents]

"This was a clear threat. The ERT represented 60 percent of Western Europe`s industrial output. This was blackmail. Why did none of the elected representatives speak about this?" 

Note: all documents referred to can be found via the World Wide Web.

The brain drain in and out of the United States

Sharp and to the point. But misses a few other essentials.

The United States has sucked in the best brains from around the world to do research and innovate in their universities, funded by their taxpayers who happen to be the the middle and working classes. It was great while their companies were actually producing in the United States and taxpayers had some sort of return on their investment.

But now those companies from the US who have actually benefited* from the universities have invested in other countries while hiring great lawyers to ensure they do not pay taxes themselves. In other words they are a constant drain on the country.

*See changing trends between use of benefitted/benefited

Students do better without digital devices

"Allowing students to use computers and the internet in classrooms substantially harms their results, a study has found."

"The paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that students barred from using laptops or digital devices in lectures and seminars did better in their exams than those allowed to use computers and access the internet."

"The researchers suggested that removing laptops and iPads from classes was the equivalent of improving the quality of teaching."

"The study divided 726 undergraduates randomly into three groups in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years. The control group’s classrooms were `technology-free,` meaning students were not allowed to use laptops or tablets at their desk. Another group was allowed to use computers and other devices, and the third group had restricted access to tablets."

"`The results from our randomised experiment suggest that computer devices have a substantial negative effect on academic performance,` the researchers concluded, suggesting that the distraction of an electronic device complete with internet access outweighed their use for note-taking or research during lessons."

"The research had an unusual twist: the students involved were studying at the West Point academy in the US, where cadets are ruthlessly ranked by exam results, meaning they were motivated to perform well and may have been more disciplined than typical undergraduates."

"But even for the cream of the US army’s future crop, the lure of the digital world appears to have been too much, and exam performance after a full course of studying economics was lower among those in classes allowed to use devices."

"`Our results indicate that students perform worse when personal computing technology is available. It is quite possible that these harmful effects could be magnified in settings outside of West Point,` the researchers concluded."

"In a learning environment with lower incentives for performance, fewer disciplinary restrictions on distracting behaviour, and larger class sizes, the effects of internet-enabled technology on achievement may be larger due to professors’ decreased ability to monitor and correct irrelevant usage."　

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/11/students-who-use-digital-devices-in-class-perform-worse-in-exams?utm_medium=email&utm_source=flipboard

Subsidy Sam livens up windfarm debate

"Tommy the Turbine has a fictional rival to liven up the debate about windfarms. A leading Highland objector has created `Subsidy Sam` to challenge a character used by the industry."

 

"Sam highlights the massive public subsidies used to finance the technology. Beauly-based Lyndsey Ward, who ... published her story online, claims youngsters have been `indoctrinated` by a host of school activities including visits to windfarms."

"`Tommy the Turbine` is already online and been used in schools in Ireland. She said: `What`s been happening is similar to what fast food and fizzy drink makers did previously - sponsoring school sports equipment and leaving us with an obesity epidemic."

"The wind industry goes into schools in Scotland and never is the other side of the story told. Youngsters are being brainwashed into thinking we`d be doomed without windfarms. It`s a cynical ploy to keep the subsidies flowing into the next generation."

"Caithness campaigner Reanda Herrick successfully fought to have turbines removed from schoolgrounds after a series of incidents involving faulty towers."

"She said: `They never tell children how turbines chop up birds, or about the thousands of trees felled to make way for windfarms or how often blades fly off, or tell children in poor households why their parents can`t afford their energy bills.`"

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2016/4/22/in-the-news-today-josh-370.html

The best in class ?

The Sutton Trust is a do tank, they say of themselves. They commission regular research to influence policy and to inform their programmes to improve social mobility through education.

Here, Norman Atkins from Relay Graduate School of Education gives a US perspective at Sutton Trust`s Best in Class summit in March 2016.

 

 



It`s one to keep an eye on. This is what critics say of the Relay Graduate School of Education:

"Reformsters have managed to build and fund an entire alternate education universe in which they make up their own credentials, their own schools, their own entire system built on a foundation of nothing but money, connections, and huge brass balls. There's never been anything like it since hucksters pitched medicinal snake oil off the back of a wagon, and it would be kind of awesomely amazing, like watching a python consume an entire elephant - except that instead of an elephant, this parallel shadow system is gutting public education in the communities where it is most needed." Read more.

http://curmudgucation.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/relay-graduate-school-of-charter.html

The trauma inflicted on the nation`s children

By Claire Fox

"Even if you’re not a parent, a teacher or a primary school pupil, you can't have missed that it’s Sats week. The media is drowning in tales of tearful tweens and the trauma being inflicted on the nation's children by the tyranny of testing."

"To be honest, while headlines scream `factory-farming education` and `inhumane testing treadmill`, I want to scream back: `Oh please stop whining`..."

"Why do those on the brink of life's great adventure of adulthood seem so cowed and scared, to the extent that they demand protection from offence? My argument is that fragility is a core part of many young people's identity because we socialised them that way. And that takes me back to primary school. In the book I trace a parallel between over-coddled children - pre-loaded with therapeutic concepts, encouraged to complain at discomfort - and the growing number of over-sensitive, offended young adults in academia. School policies in particular have promoted notions of vulnerability from an early age..."

"Every trope used in relation to the #LetOurKidsBeKids bunk-off presages the problems ahead. The parents' complaint against the government's primary curriculum is that children find it `crashingly dull`, urging teachers instead to teach `stuff that actually interests and engages children`. So lesson number one for these primary school pupils: if your interests aren't catered for, if you don’t enjoy what or how you're being taught, you have a right to storm off in a strop? Once we concede education should be sanitised to cut out the horrible bits, we're setting up future demands for trigger warnings when lectures might contain any material deemed unpleasant."

"But for me the most destructive aspect of phenomena such as Let Our Kids Be Kids is how they incite the young to see their problems through the prism of psychological harm. Irresponsibly, campaigners have asserted that pupils are `traumatised` by the prospect of failing the tests, with Sats blamed for inducing stress, panic-attacks and anxiety. Indeed Natasha Devon (who is co-founder of the appropriately named Self-Esteem Team) fell out with her government masters when she weighed in to the Kids Strike row by declaring `the culture of testing and academic pressure is detrimental to mental health`..."

"Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas, a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and a regular contributor to TV and radio debates, including Question Time and Any Questions?

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/05/11/stop-whining-about-sats-mollycoddled-children-will-turn-into

My criticism is that she conflates political correctness, mental fragility and testing in primary schools as if these different strands coalesce into a single narrative. That is not necessarily so. It is true that they are all being enacted in the classroom and we have a right to ask, towards what end?

Pupils must take care to exude British values, whatever they are, because they can shift and seem rather strange. For instance, it`s important to tip toe around gender identity these days and there are many more identities than you might think. Diversity is something to celebrate but ethnicity ought not to be mentioned. Sustainable development is an acceptable part of the script but do take care how you express that in terms of environmental activism or you may end up in front of police officers accused of being a future extremist. And don`t forget your family is under surveillance too. Political correctness and the politics of offence is being practised in school, and it is no accident.

As for what is being done about mental health, Clair Fox is correct that children are being pre-loaded with therapeutic concepts. Social and emotional learning is now part of the school curriculum so that if girls and boys speak the language of emotion and sensitivity that is because they have been encouraged to reflect on their feelings ad nauseam. Of course, the one thing children can do is dramatise and play it up; there is no surprise about that. Kids are playful by nature. It is a pity that they do not have a more enriching experience to play around with.

Testing children in primary schools is another dead end. So much of what is going on in school is a complete waste of kids` time. And yes, some of it is harmful. If the only language around to protest is the language of trauma, so be it. It is good to see parents getting involved.

At this point it might be worth having another look at UK Column`s coverage of MAPPA, the Police and Crime Bill and the growing networks around children`s mental health. It begins about 15 minutes into the programme and suggests a much darker agenda is afoot. 

　

See also http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-nurture-room.html

CfE: a bureaucratic burden

The purpose of the curriculum is encapsulated in the four capacities - to enable each child or young person to be a successful learner, a confident individual, a responsible citizen and an effective contributor. 

Here`s how it works.
 

Did you every hear such garbage in your life?

==============================

"Teachers are to step up industrial action against reforms by boycotting work associated with the Curriculum for Excellence, union leaders have announced."

"The NASUWT said it has given notice it will be escalating its current action from Thursday May 12."
 

"It comes amid claims from the union that the reforms have `simply piled on the pressure` to teachers across the country."
 

"Members of the NASUWT are being instructed to refuse  planning, assessment and reporting work linked to Curriculum for Excellence which does not meet the recommendations made by a specialist group set up to make the reforms less bureaucratic."
 

"That could see them refusing to submit daily or weekly plans as well as not producing detailed folios of pupils` work to support assessments."
 

"NASUWT general-secretary Christ Keates said the instruction `to escalate our existing industrial action will empower teachers to challenge and remove the unnecessary bureaucratic burdens being placed upon them by the Curriculum for Excellence.`"
 

"She added it would also help teachers `take control of their professional lives and to focus on their core role of teaching`."

Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/news/scots-teachers-in-curriculum-for-excellence-boycott-1-4118350#ixzz47jr7KhIu 

Parents must not opt out children from RE classes

"Headteachers have demanded that parents lose the legal right to withdraw their children from religious education."

"School leaders will call on the government to revoke the law allowing parents to opt out of classes after a motion was overwhelmingly carried at the National Association of Head Teachers annual conference in Birmingham this morning."

"Delegates argued that giving parents a choice to take their children out of religious education (RE) undermines the teaching of ‘British values’ – a core part of the government’s strategy to tackle radicalisation."

"Speaking to the motion, which calls for school leaders to be given greater power to force children to attend RE lessons, headteacher, Hilary Alcock stressed it was the `vital element of education in the 21st century.`"

"The head of Buntingsdale Primary School and Nursery, Tern Hill, added that `parents may not always know what is best` for their children."

^{https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/heads-call-parents-lose-legal-right-withdraw-children-re-lessons}

How many atheists are radicalised ?

Tracking emotions for personalised learning

 

"The race is on to provide students with personalized learning experiences based on their individual emotions, cognitive processes, `mindsets,` and character and personality traits."

"Academic researchers, for example, are busy developing computerized tutoring systems that gather information on students' facial expressions, heart rate, posture, pupil dilation, and more. Those data are then analyzed for signs of student engagement, boredom, or confusion, leading a computer avatar to respond with encouragement, empathy, or maybe a helpful hint."

"`The idea is that emotions have a powerful influence on cognition,` said Sidney D'Mello, an assistant professor of computer science and psychology at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana. `The increasing power and affordability of eye-tracking, speech-recognition, and other technologies have made it possible for researchers to investigate those connections more widely and deeply`, he said."

"`Ten years ago, there were things you could do in a lab that you couldn't do in the messiness of the real world,` D'Mello said. `Now, you can get a reasonable proxy of a student's heart rate from a webcam.`"

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/digital-tools-evolving-to-track-students-emotions.html

Who`d be a child in this world ?

Opting out of the Every Student Succeeds Act

Here is more about America`s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the resistance mounting against it. It is worth reading for what it tells us about what is coming our way soon and the obstacles to be surmounted.

From Peg With Pen:

"Currently it's Spring of 2016 and we are in the thick of Opt Out."

"Opt out is still surrounded by intense bullying and harassment by school district employees (I anticipate that this will grow unfortunately). But, the good news is that the Opt Out Movement continues to increase in numbers. Opt Out, the People's Movement, grows by the day - and thank god for that because the work ahead of us is daunting. "

"Here’s why. Opt out has been completely co-opted. However, also understand that co-optation is typical when people are attempting to create a revolution. The .01% will co-opt in any way they can in order to gain leverage. They will use pawns to help create co-optation and compromise. These pawns who receive corporate funding will continue to push corporate ideology - which right now means singing the praises of ESSA."

"And the passage of ESSA means that the end of year test eventually could become passé. ESSA is pushing for online, daily testing - testing that is embedded inside online curriculum. Children will now be subjected to online modules in which they must master something before moving on to the next online module. It might be called personalized learning, mastery learning, proficiency-based testing, competency-based education, innovative assessments, and more. ESSA is pushing for these online assessment systems, as is ALEC, and the many foundations and organizations that are hoping to cash in."

"As Stephen Krashen states: Competency-based education is not just a testing program. It is a radical and expensive innovation that replaces regular instruction with computer "modules" that students work through on their own. It is limited to what can be easily taught and tested by computer, and is being pushed by computer and publishing companies that will make substantial profits from it."

"Not only are they pushing for daily online testing and curriculum, they are pushing for people to DROP the end of the year test. Who knew! They support Opt Out!"

"Meanwhile..............."

"Everyone , and their mother, will quietly guide the states and districts to assist them in implementing ESSA state policies - which of course will include daily online testing - via lots of federal cash..."

"Also, be sure to read how the Rockefeller Foundation plans to solve the `youth employment crisis` via competency-based hiring. Never forget that the goal is to gather data from cradle to adulthood. As daily online testing infiltrates the schools there will be more data than ever before - the data will be used to control, manage and direct our children into employment - or prison - in order to benefit the .01%.. Competency based hiring will be made possible due to the data that will morph into micro-credentials or digital badges online. This is already happening - it was planned patiently, methodically, and over years."

Read more http://www.pegwithpen.com/search?updated-min=2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2017-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4

Chris Hedges spoke at the Opt Out conference but the quality of sound is not good.

This video is better.

　
Beginning about 39 minutes, Chris Hedges talks about the growth of the prison population after the Clinton administration.

"The prison system......a microcosm of what our corporate masters are planning for the rest of us... They have the mechanisms by which they can shut down dissent."

Knowledge devalued and a reversal of roles

From the USA:

"If SETRA passes in its current form, the federal government will be empowered to expand psychological profiling of our children. Parents must understand this threat so they can mobilize to stop it."

"SETRA is a proposed reauthorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act, which created bureaucracies and funding for education research (the results of which are routinely ignored if they contradict the dogma of the progressive education establishment). But SETRA would go beyond merely wasting money and plunge the government into an area it has no constitutional, statutory, or moral right to invade: the psychological makeup of children."

"Section 132 of SETRA expands authorized research to include `research on social and emotional learning [SEL] . . . .` SEL is defined as `the process through which children . . . acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.`"

"SEL is all the rage in public education. The idea is that imparting academic knowledge is passe’ because if a student wants to know something, he can Google it (seriously – this is a common theme in education circles). Instead, the theory goes, schools should focus more on `non-cognitive` skills to jumpstart education – helping students develop government-approved thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors that will supposedly make them more productive workers."

"In other words, the school will do what the parents should be doing (encourage development of these non-cognitive traits), while the parents do what the school should be doing..."

http://beta.townhall.com/columnists/emmettmcgroarty/2016/04/15/why-does-your-congressman-want-to-psychologically-profile-your-children-n2148674

The same thing is happening in Scotland with Curriculum for Excellence, GIRFEC and the Named Person scheme.

Corbyn and Cameron clash on education

"Small rural primary schools will be offered protection against closure in a concession to appease Tory MPs after a backlash against plans to force all schools to become academies."

"Ministers are also willing to listen to concerns among Conservative backbenchers over proposals to end the election of parents to school governing bodies. Explicit protection for village schools, probably with additional money after a national formula is introduced to fund all schools in the same way, will be accompanied by a charm offensive in the coming weeks... "

"However, there will be no reversal of the core policy of forcing all schools to become academies by 2020, or have plans to do so by 2022, which will feature in the Queen’s Speech. “We are certainly not on U-turn territory. That’s just not on the cards,” a Department for Education source said. “There is support for this across government.” "

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/primaryschools/article4733844.ece?shareToken=659951495f1dffdef3b7ba1323f8fce2