Should Anger Be Encouraged in the Classroom? Political Education,Closed‐Mindedness,and Civic Epiphany

In light of recent political developments in Western democracies, several political commentators and theorists have argued that encouraging anger in citizens may contribute to social justice and should therefore constitute an aim of civic education. In this article, Douglas Yacek investigates these claims in depth. In doing so, he expands on previous work on the political and educational significance of anger — particularly by critical and “agonistic” theorists of civic education — in two distinct ways. First, Yacek explores the psychological costs and benefits of cultivating student anger. Second, he examines the potential cultural effects of anger in Western democratic societies. While sympathetic to the defenses of anger that have been recently offered in political and educational theory, Yacek concludes that we should be cautious about embracing anger in civic education. In particular, he argues that anger involves serious psychological risk, may exacerbate the social problems that it sets out to solve, and can lead to a disposition of adversarial and politically counterproductive closed‐mindedness. In the closing sections, Yacek suggests that experiences he calls “civic epiphanies” are central to cultivating a politically beneficial form of open‐mindedness, and argues that such experiences should therefore be encouraged in civic education.     

How Should Instructional Designers Be Educated?

Simon suggested that design, defined broadly, is concerned with any kind of deliberate problem solving, whether it be in fields traditionally associated with design, like architecture and engineering, or fields involving the design of instruction. Since instructional design is a kind ol'skillcd professional behavior, the education of other skilled professionals is examined and suggestions are made for analogous instructional techniques in any field. The question of how instructional designers should be educated is related to the larger question of how to teach people to design in general.     

How Should Energy Be Defined Throughout Schooling?

The question of how to teach energy has been renewed by recent studies focusing on the learning and teaching progressions for this concept. In this context, one question has been, for the most part, overlooked: how should energy be defined throughout schooling? This paper addresses this question in three steps. We first identify and discuss two main approaches in physics concerning the definition of energy, one claiming there is no satisfactory definition and taking conservation as a fundamental property, and the other based on Rankine’s definition of energy as the capacity of a system to produce changes. We then present a study concerning how energy is actually defined throughout schooling in the case of France by analyzing national programs, physics textbooks, and the answers of teachers to a questionnaire. This study brings to light a consistency problem in the way energy is defined across school years: in primary school, an adapted version of Rankine’s definition is introduced and conservation is ignored; in high school, conservation is introduced and Rankine’s definition is ignored. Finally, we address this consistency problem by discussing possible teaching progressions. We argue in favor of the use of Rankine’s definition throughout schooling: at primary school, it is a possible substitute to students’ erroneous conceptions; at secondary school, it might help students become aware of the unifying role of energy and thereby overcome the compartmentalization problem.     

Should China Be Unhappy?

Taken from the popular magazine Oriental Outlook Weekly, this selection features interviews with two of the authors of the best-selling book China Is Unhappy, as well as an interview with Xu Jilin, one of China's most prominent liberal scholars, reflecting the wide range of opinions on the rise of China and its implications for the world.     

Should Exam Be Stopped?

The exam system has come to be the main topic of modern education.As it plays so important a role in the area of education that it is under much discussion as to its use.People who are for it try to develop this system more;those who are against it believe that such a system should be stopped.Should exam be stopped?In my opinion it should be.Firstly,a number of people think that an exam is the only way to test knowledge,but,in fact,that is not true.A few questions given in an exam could in no…     

Does Parental Mind‐Mindedness Account for Cross‐Cultural Differences in Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind?

This study of 241 parent–child dyads from the United Kingdom (N = 120, M_age = 3.92, SD = 0.53) and Hong Kong (N = 121, M_age = 3.99, SD = 0.50) breaks new ground by adopting a cross‐cultural approach to investigate children's theory of mind and parental mind‐mindedness. Relative to the Hong Kong sample, U.K. children showed superior theory‐of‐mind performance and U.K. parents showed greater levels of mind‐mindedness. Within both cultures parental mind‐mindedness was correlated with theory of mind. Mind‐mindedness also accounted for cultural differences in preschoolers’ theory of mind. We argue that children's family environments might shed light on how culture shapes children's theory of mind.     

Should Students Be Allowed to Miss?

ABSTRACT

Many educational policymakers consider attendance as a tool to induce learning. Researchers also agree that attendance has a positive effect on learning; however, there are few empirical studies that measure the nature and significance of that effect. The authors analyzed the effect of class attendance on academic performance and evaluated the existence and importance of a minimum attendance requirement. Using student data from a sample of public primary schools in Chile, and considering for endogeneity and sample selection bias, they found two important results. First, attendance had a relevant and statistically significant effect on educational performance. Second, the existence of a threshold was identified, but educational performance did not continue to decrease after a certain number of absences, which seems to contradict policies that have a minimum attendance requirement.     

How Should We Teach Sex?

In the face of differences about how sex should be taught to young persons, and consistent with a liberal principle of neutrality, educationalists can adopt one of two strategies. The 'retreat to basics' consists in teaching only a basic agreed code of sexual conduct, or a set of agreed principles of sexual morality. The 'conjunctive–disjunctive' strategy consists in teaching the facts of sexual activity together with the various possible evaluations of these facts. Both strategies are beset with significant and insuperable difficulties. Perhaps one should presume only to teach sex in a way that maximises the foundational liberal ideal of autonomy.     

How Do Instructional‐Design Practitioners Make Instructional‐Strategy Decisions?

Many theories have been proposed to help instructional designers make instructional‐strategy decisions, yet it is not clear if these theories are actually used by ID practitioners. This study used a web‐survey to examine the design strategies of 113 ID practitioners. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they used learning or ID theories as well as 10 other design strategies, to help make instructional‐strategy decisions. Respondents were also asked how often they used different information sources to learn about new theories, trends, and strategies, and to respond to a set of contrasting statements depicting objectivist vs. construc‐tivist assumptions. The results indicate that ID practitioners most often rely on interaction with others both as a means of making instructional‐strategy decisions and of learning about new theories, trends, and strategies. Only fifty percent of the respondents said they regularly use theories when making instructional‐strategy decisions, using other design strategies more frequently instead; and most practitioners are eclectic in their underlying philosophical assumptions. Based on these results, we discuss implications for training and ongoing support of instructional designers.     

How linguistically‐informed are phonics programmes?

Successive UK government policies have strengthened the phonics element of the National Curriculum for English in England. The policies have included inviting publishers to submit completed self‐assessments of their systematic phonics programmes. The self‐assessment criteria focus on what is deemed to be ‘high‐quality provision’, as defined in the Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading chaired by Jim Rose. The programmes whose self‐assessments were judged to be accurate by small panels of independent evaluators have been subsequently listed on a central government website. The authors have acted as independent evaluators in this process and, between them, had the opportunity to inspect the content of over 100 phonics programmes. They have noted that many of these programmes (most of which did not meet the Rose criteria) contained numerous linguistic inaccuracies, particularly in relation to the English spelling system and its grapheme‐phoneme correspondences. The existence, number and range of these errors jeopardise policy implementation and National Curriculum delivery and pose risks for the quality of teaching and learning. The article suggests some reasons for these findings in related published debates and in policy documents, and that phonics programmes need to be more linguistically‐informed. The article concludes with some implications for practice.     

Should Internet New Words Be Used Widely?

不明觉厉、男默女泪、火钳刘明、细思恐极、人艰不拆……这些令人,一头雾水,却貌似成语的网络新词,近日在网络世界流行开来。这些"成语"虽言简意赅却晦涩难懂。然而,也有不少网络词语正走进现实,它们不仅出现在青少年的作文中,甚至连《现代汉语词典》也收入了"囧"、"雷"这样的词汇。那么,网络新词是否会给传统语言文字带来负面效应?能否被广泛使用呢?     

How to Be A Good Guest?

Sarah is very happy. She is going to be 13 in two weeks. Her mother says it is a big day for a teenager. She said that Sarah could have a tea party to celebrate.There are20people in Sarah’s class.And her mother said she could invite all ofthem.So they bought beautiful cards andwrote down the guests’(客人的)names,andthe time,date and place of the party.Sarah’s mother also wrote down her phonenumber,so that guests could reply(答复).Then they posted the invitations.When you receive an invit…     

How Should One Read a Book?

Activity 1 Think about the following questions,and write down your answers before reading the essay?(1)When you happen to stay with a stranger,for example,another passenger sitting next to you on a train over a long haul,which are you more likely to do,to initiate talks,or to wait for him or her to do so?How would they be different?