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Edge.org: The 2014 Question

What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?
Ideas change, and the times we live in change. What established scientific idea is ready to be moved aside so that science can advance?


-- Note: Click Title Link To View The Responses Of 176 Scientists

Federico Babina: Archist Series

Famous Works of Art Transformed Into Buildings

Putt-Putt Perfection

The story of IT manager Rick Baird's legendary round of perfect putt-putt golf, only the third score of 18 in the Professional Putters Association's 50-year history of putt-putt tournament competition.

Ting-a-ling!

Listen: Kurt Vonnegut Reads Slaughterhouse-Five (6 Parts)

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More:

Kurt Vonnegut Diagrams the Shapes of All Stories in a Master’s Thesis Rejected by U. Chicago

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KV: Previously on AA(P) 

Metropolis II by Chris Burden

Education Blame Game

The Myth Behind Public School Failure
In the rush to privatize the country’s schools, corporations and politicians have decimated school budgets, replaced teaching with standardized testing, and placed the blame on teachers and students.

Until about 1980, America’s public schoolteachers were iconic everyday heroes painted with a kind of Norman Rockwell patina—generally respected because they helped most kids learn to read, write and successfully join society. Such teachers made possible at least the idea of a vibrant democracy.

Since then, what a turnaround: We’re now told, relentlessly, that bad-apple schoolteachers have wrecked K-12 education; that their unions keep legions of incompetent educators in classrooms; that part of the solution is more private charter schools; and that teachers as well as entire schools lack accountability, which can best be remedied by more and more standardized “bubble” tests.

What led to such an ignoble fall for teachers and schools? Did public education really become so irreversibly terrible in three decades? Is there so little that’s redeemable in today’s schoolhouses?


-- Note: Click Title Link for Yes! Magazine Article by Dean Paton


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How Our 1,000-year-old Math Curriculum Cheats America's Kids
By hiding math's great masterpieces from students' view, we deny them the beauty of the subject. Most of us never get to see the real mathematics because our current math curriculum is more than 1,000 years old.

 For example, the formula for solutions of quadratic equations was in al-Khwarizmi's book published in 830, and Euclid laid the foundations of Euclidean geometry around 300 BC. If the same time warp were true in physics or biology, we wouldn't know about the solar system, the atom and DNA. This creates an extraordinary educational gap for our kids, schools and society.

If we are to give students the right tools to navigate an increasingly math-driven world, we must teach them early on that mathematics is not just about numbers and how to solve equations but about concepts and ideas.


-- Note: Click Link For Complete LA Times Op-Ed by Edward Frenkel


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Are Prison Education Programs Worth It?
Education behind bars means a greater likelihood of post-release employment; post-release employment means stability and independence and a lower chance of re-arrest. Study after study has shown that prison education “works,” which means that it prevents recidivism, and thereby saves taxpayers money.

A RAND study from last year that calculated that every dollar invested in prison education now brought savings of $4 to $5 due to educated inmates released and kept out of prison in the future. Other calculations break it down into even more actuarial ratios.

The Florida Department of Corrections performed an audit in fiscal year 1993-94, calculating a “combined Costs-Consequences Analysis” ratio of $1.66 return for every taxpayer dollar invested, and a return of $3.53 for every dollar invested in inmates who completed degrees.

Again and again, we see that prison education has a positive and demonstrable impact on recidivism. But is that all that matters?


-- Note: Click Link For Complete Pacific Standard Mag. Article by Lauren Kirchner

Oskar: Deutsche Sprache

Doonesbury.com

Thanks for your comment, which I've posted on our BLOWBACK page.

All the best,

David Stanford, Duty Officer
Doonesbury Town Hall

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KEITH MOON

Allan Smithee | Philadelphia, PA | February 28, 2014

 

I thought Blowback readers would enjoy a good blog entry from the site Dangerous Minds, called "Did Keith Moon Play Drums on a 1976 Doonesbury Novelty Record?"  The post even links to 10 songs from the legendary LP Jimmy Thudpucker's Greatest Hits, and features a video as well.