Keeping the Gender of a 2-Year-Old Secret
During last week’s discussion of whether couples choose to learn the sex of their baby before he or she is born, a number of you said you wanted to keep the secret as long as possible, because the moment people hear “boy” or “girl” they begin to make assumptions about a child.
One couple in Sweden decided to take that logic a few steps further, and are refusing to tell anyone whether their toddler is a boy or a girl.
The child — called Pop in Swedish papers to protect his or her identity — is now two-and-a-half-years-old, and only a handful of close relatives (those who have changed the child’s diaper) know the sex. Pop’s parents, who are both 24, say they made this decision in the hope of freeing their child from the artificial construct of gender.
jason Jeremy Hunsinger, Learning creative parenting
News: The Evidence on Online Education – Inside Higher Ed
Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new “meta-analysis” released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.
The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took “blended” courses — those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction — appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment.
jason Rochelle Mazar
According to an article in the The Globe and Mail
On Wednesday they travel to Toronto. Among other events, the Empress, a world-renown expert on children’s literature and an author of children’s books, will tour the Toronto Public Library’s Osborne Collection of children’s books.
My partner Yuka has worked at the Osborne for 20 years. I’m sure it will be busy times preparing.
jason Yuka
Morbid Anatomy: Michael Jackson to be Plastinated by Gunther von Hagens!
Michael Jackson will live on as a ‘plastinated’ creature preserved by German doctor Gunther von Hagens.
Von Hagens has caused controversy with everyone from the Pope to the chief rabbi in Israel with his practice of embalming corpses with preserving polyurethane.
Yesterday, he declared: ‘An agreement is in place to plastinate the King of Pop.’
Can this be true? Who knows. We shall see!
jason Livejournal
Gawd Bless the American Right
Republican Missouri Rep, Derides Gov. Spending to Feed Hungry Children: They can Get Free Food at Church or Get a Job!
Cynthia Davis, a conservative Christian Republican State Rep. from Missouri, is against government spending to feed hungry children during the summer, claiming if they were allowed to go hungry, children old enough would be more likely to get a job so they can eat. “Hunger can be a positive motivator,” declared Davis, in her weekly Capitol Report column that is a case study in conservative callousness towards the poor.
In a bizarre display of tone-deafness, which is extreme even by the standards of the most hard-hearted of conservatives who are against government “hand outs’ of any kind, Rep. Davis railed against an innocuous press release announcing Missouri’s Summer Food Service Program, which plans to feed thousands of low-income children during the summer months.
Taking issue with the premise that the recession makes summer food programs more important than ever, Davis believes “[t]he reverse may be true,” because families can economize by doing without twinkies and chips and thereby save money to buy beans to feed their children. She accuses government officials of using the economic “crisis” (she added the quote marks) as an excuse for more government spending of her tax dollars.
How dare the government spend her hard earned tax dollars to feed poor children? Outraged that the summer program cost $9.8 million, “[t]hat money is coming from us,” said Davis. She proposes that hungry children instead, should be forced to rely on the charity of friends and neighbors and go to church for a free meal, like “…they did when Louisiana had a hurricane,” helpfully added Davis.
jason Alejandra, Evil children, Evil, hunger
testing to see if I can now crosspost to http://jason.dreamwidth.org/ as I cross post to Livejournal and Vox. Fingers crossed!
jason Livejournal
Interesting to hear. Of course IMHO the tools we use to think with influence what and how we think. I try to get my students to think on this… with a variety of tools, but I thought of it as a practical rule of thumb, not in this manner. This will add to the discussion.
Education Policy Blog: How Does Our Language Shape the Way we Think?
For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.
jason Livejournal
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