Sliding under the desk

Sometimes the awkward, human moments of teaching are the most memorable.Lila Steinberg is a teacher retired from the New York City Public Schools.     

The Shaping of the Curriculum

Abstract

Curriculum design might appear to be a project for a pure educational theory. An example of such a theory is Paul Hirst's deduction of distinct forms of knowledge’ upon which rests his advocacy of the liberal curriculum’. Hirst's theory, though immune to many of the attacks that have been directed at it, fails to consider how (if at all) the structure of knowledge maps on to the structure of our mental (learning) faculties. The partitioning of the manifold of knowledge may correspond not at all to the optimum curricular partitioning of the teaching manifold. Further, as a curriculum proposal, Hirst's account needs to be underwritten by an account of the purpose of education. Accounts of the latter sort normally invoke considerations of a political nature. Such considerations, together with the influence of other forces, tend to pull curricula in directions which many educationalists regard as undesirable. Can pure educational theory reassert itself as the controlling force behind curriculum planning? I argue that there is little prospect of its so doing.     

SAQ,SSI and STSE education: defending and extending “science-in-context”

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Many scholars suggest that recent major science education initiatives apparently tied to intense economic competitiveness and growth have prioritized...     

From Brown to Ayers v. Fordice: the changing shape of racial desegregation in US higher education

Racial desegregation in higher education is taking on a new direction as the twenty‐first century approaches. The Brown v. Board of Education decision brought down legal racial barriers to segregated education, and this landmark US Supreme Court ruling was implicitly intended to apply to higher education as well. The positive changes for African Americans in removing racial barriers contributed significantly to the civil rights movement and opening avenues of opportunity. Yet, there has always been a fundamental tension between the removal of the vestiges of racial segregation to create equal educational opportunity, and the activist stance of addressing historical and current discriminatory educational policies. This is evident in the recent higher education desegregation and affirmative cases as the Federal Courts advocate the colour‐blind interpretation of higher education desegregation law and educational policy, while African Americans argue in favour of the enhancement of the public Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the explicit use of race as a form of diversity. This article examines the salient positions and racial identity politics surrounding this tension. I also argue that broader issues of racial control and power need to be addressed by educational institutions, the courts and the larger society in the debate about race, social justice and the removal of the vestiges of segregation.     

The role of speed of processing, rapid naming, and phonological awareness in reading achievement

This study investigated the role of speed of processing, rapid naming, and phonological awareness in reading achievement. Measures of response time in motor, visual, lexical, grammatical, and phonological tasks were administered to 279 children in third grade. Measures of rapid object naming, phonological awareness, and reading achievement were given in second and fourth grades. Reading group comparisons indicated that poor readers were proportionally slower than good readers across response time measures and on the rapid object naming task. These results suggest that some poor readers have a general deficit in speed of processing and that their problems in rapid object naming are in part a reflection of this deficit. Hierarchical regression analyses further showed that when considered along with IQ and phonological awareness, speed of processing explained unique variance in reading achievement. This finding suggests that a speed of processing deficit may be an "extraphonological" factor in some reading disabilities.     

Rapid demand curves for behavioral economics

A method for determining the relationship between food consumption and the price of food (demand function) in behavioral economic experiments is described. Although previous methods have generally required as long as 40 days, the present method can generate a complete demand function within 7 days, and therefore may be more suitable for use in the evaluation of drugs, toxins, and physiological/anatomical interventions. Moreover, measures of circadian rhythmicity, post-reinforcement pause durations, and interresponse times can also be generated. Three experiments tested the stability of the method in a variety of procedural manipulations: repeated exposure to the procedure, increasing versus random daily food price, and size of daily changes in food price. The procedure generated demand functions that were similar to those that require more extended testing, and the demand functions were not generally affected by procedural manipulations. Body weight, which can also affect consumption, generally decreases with increases in the price of food; so this variable should be recorded and used as a covariate in analyzing demand functions. With the exception of circadian rhythmicity, the other measures were stable across procedural variations and showed expected changes as a function of food price: postreinforcement pause durations increased as price increased, but interresponse times did not.