tingilinde

good riddance to DeVos

But how to repair the damage she's done on the behalf of the Republicans and sleazy for-profit schools?

 

seamus finnigan writes a complaint letter

He's not happy with his private education. (via The New Yorker)

 

 

pz on theistic evolution

PZ Meyers is on a roll.  Video as well as something of a transcript.

snip

...

The conservative/evangelical/fundamentalists who embrace creationism will not be appeased by a) encouraging a more agnostic perspective, b) highlighting a few people who combine Christianity and evolution, who are all probably going to hell, and c) whispering a few mealy-mouthed platitudes about theistic evolution, which the problematic religions all reject anyway.

I also have to point out that all the waffly talk about agnosticism is not only going to be ineffectual, it’s operationally false. It is literally true that science has to be agnostic on the matter of gods, because we can’t say for sure that there isn’t some cosmic intelligent being rattling around in the woodwork, however we can say that all the religions that people actually practice, that make claims about the nature and history of the material universe, are false. They’re wrong. That I don’t use the science classroom to trumpet that news to my students isn’t because I’m unsure, but because it is entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

As usual, though, this particular problem in educating people about science is blamed on the atheists, rather than the ignorant conservative religious folk who are fed a steady diet of malicious propaganda. Just once I’d like to see one of those sociological studies try not to see atheism as the problem, but rather that the entirety of the conflict is resting on the dogma of certain religions.

...

 

the parent trap

Another part of college debt.

 

a language learning app

Lynn gives two thumbs up to Beelinguapp.

I have no idea, but trust Lynn's recommendations.

 

 

telepresence "robots" in the classroom

Very simple and they appear to have a positive impact.

 

getting into the right school at any cost

An Atlantic piece on kids with wealthy helicopter parents focused on Ivy admissions using niche sports as a tool.  But there's a big supply and demand problem. 

College sports are an interesting subject gong back to the era of "muscular Christianity" and the idea of the rounded (always male and usually upper class) student in the second part of the 19^th century. There are a number of positive and negative aspects to it these days and the pandemic may force some decisions.  But these rich helicopter parents...  

 

 

 

thinking you're figured it out..

Our online survey showed that all of the students had the required hardware and internet bandwidth to participate in the online courses

a letter to parents

A letter to parents from Lego in 1974 on what Lego is for..

a tip of the hat to John

outdoor learning

It's been practiced on and off in Germany, some of the Nordic countries and even the US over the past 140 years.  It makes a lot of sense with Covid-19 -  here's a Danish school.