Arctic Destruction
I just want to put this document here so I can find it again: Global Linkages: A graphic look at the changing Arctic. It was compiled by the UN Environment…
Marie Snyder
Seligman’s Hope Circuit
Martin Seligman is famous for a learned helplessness study I wrote about a few years back: In a famous experiment, dogs were put in a compartment and trained to jump…
Are Grades Harmful to Students?
A bold claim was made to me recently that giving students grades on assignments and tests actually impedes their ability to self-assess their work. It’s a big deal when an…
A Different Sort of Electoral Reform
What if politicians were no longer allowed to campaign by burning fossil fuels travelling all over the world?? What if there were a very strict and low limit on campaign…
OFSTED Report
OFSTED recently published a report on what works in schools. Some of the ideas were relevant only to the U.K., but other ideas can be used here. They studied schools…
Amber Alert Red Herring
People were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert Thursday night. And now, on social media, people are REALLY upset that people were upset to be woken up…
On Fake News and Russian Collusion
In a recent interview in AcTIVism, Glenn Greenwald, one of few people Edward Snowden agreed to speak to, shamed other countries that benefited from Snowden’s revelations but refused to grant…
The Cost of Inequality: Davis 2019
This is a great video of some excellent speakers to listen to while you make dinner or, maybe, do your taxes. In a nutshell, governments need to stop taking out…
Kids These Days!
Here’s Greta Thunberg, 16, at Davos 2019, the World Economic Forum: At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable…
On the Covington Catholic School Incident
The best part of this issue, if there can be a good part, where a bunch of high school boys surrounded Nathan Phillips to get a little kick from exercising…
10 Year Challenge
I posted this challenge on social media recently. This is what we do to be sociable: play online games and forward memes. Discussing the world and screaming into the void…
We Still Have Agency Around Climate Change
There’s one seed left. The Agenda talked with Michael Mann and a few others in the field about “Burnout and Despair: Studying the Climate” Mann focused on the many ways…
Why Protest?
This will be the shortest post ever! Here’s my argument delineated in premises and a conclusion (P=premise, SC=sub-conclusion, C=conclusion): P1. Human beings are wired for immediate, or short-term, survival, not…
On Continuums: ASD, OCD, ADHD, Alzheimers, and Allergies
Since the Aspergers designation was excluded from the DSM V, many people were, and are, outraged that all cases fall under the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) instead of the separate…
On Evaluating Teachers and Edu-Speak
I just went through the final teacher evaluation of my career, since we are evaluated every five years, and I don’t expect to do this for more than another four.…
Fridays for Future
I went to the first #fridaysforfuture protest in our area with my youngest, yesterday, outside my MP’s office. The idea is the brainchild of Greta Thunberg who wants all students…
Energy Conservation in the Home: I’ll Show You Mine…
I know this is just one tiny piece of the puzzle, but there IS an effective way to get people to reduce their energy usage in their homes: publicize how…
Gertz’s Nihilism and Technology
I really love this book. First of all, the chapter headings and sub-headings are all clever little in jokes, like “Beyond Google and Evil,” that make anyone with a cursory…
On Taxing the Rich
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshest Democrat to hit the White House, is making headlines for mimicking the dance sequence from The Breakfast Club back in college, and wanting to raise marginal…
On Coddling Our Kids
The Agenda has a video with Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist. I watched it with my kids, and we had a good discussion about it. Haidt published a book, The Coddling…