Lately NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed that we prohibit food stamp recipients from using the stamps toward soft drinks, but Kathryn Baer explains that why is a bad idea for all kinds of reasons: ‘Ellen Vollinger, the legal director at the Food Research and Action Center, the leading anti-hunger advocacy organization in the country, points out that [...]
What do the best classrooms in the world look like? Amanda Ripley posed this question in an article in Slate last week, and the answer is somewhat surprising: ‘Classrooms in countries with the highest-performing students contain very little tech wizardry, generally speaking. They look, in fact, a lot like American ones—circa 1989 or 1959. Children [...]
Yesterday I was pleased to find that The Guardian ran an article by Bettany Hughes about Socrates, the man many consider to be the father of Western philosophy. Hughes thinks that, in some sense, 5th century Athens’ problems are very much like our own and that Socratic wisdom is as useful today as it was then: ‘Putting aside [...]
Juan Williams, a longtime correspondent at both Fox News and NPR, was fired from NPR this morning: On the Fox News Channel Thursday morning, Juan Williams objected to NPR’s decision to fire him and stood by his statements earlier in the week about Muslims. Mr. Williams said he was being honest when he said on [...]
Last week, I came across a very interesting blog post by philosopher and writer Justin E. H. Smith on the state of higher education. Before leaping into the specifics, though, I want to start with a story he begins with about going to the symphony: Most recently, I found myself watching Anne-Sophie Mutter playing a violin piece composed specially for her by [...]
If you haven’t already watched this video illustrating part of Sir Ken Robinson’s fantastic talk on changing education paradigms, you should as soon as possible. Robinson is a British author who writes on creativity and education, and he has some incredible things to say. Before I summarize his talk, though, here’s the video itself: Here’s the gist of [...]
