10.09.2013
10.06.2013
Rich People Just Care Less
OCTOBER 5, 2013, 2:25 PM
Rich People Just Care Less
By DANIEL GOLEMAN
A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power.
Read the full NY Times article here.
Rich People Just Care Less
By DANIEL GOLEMAN
A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power.
Read the full NY Times article here.
10.05.2013
He's tough enough to be a Sissy in Wyoming
"It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living. Contrasted with this is a relationship to external reality which is one of compliance, the world and its details being recognized but only as something to be fitted in with or demanding adaptation..." D.W. Winnicott
Longtime cross-dresser Sissy Goodwin of Douglas, Wyo., has been anything but weak as he stands up to bigotry in the Cowboy State. His story here.
Longtime cross-dresser Sissy Goodwin of Douglas, Wyo., has been anything but weak as he stands up to bigotry in the Cowboy State. His story here.
10.01.2013
Affordable health care is good news for students!
The Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with Free Range Studios, created this seven-minute cartoon video explaining Obamacare.
Some basic questions get answered here.
More information and application here and here.
Some basic questions get answered here.
More information and application here and here.
9.29.2013
Eros the melter of limbs...sweetbitter, smiles.
Carvaggio painted Eros as a young boy with a smile, signifying his destructive potential. "By the 17th century in Europe...it was a well-established fact that the only people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment." For more: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/why-didnt-people-smile-in-old-portraits/279880/
More on the rarity of smiling in art:
More on the rarity of smiling in art:
9.27.2013
9.21.2013
9.13.2013
9.09.2013
Giving Employers What They Don't Really Want
By Robert J. Sternberg
June 17, 2013
Often what we think other people think is not what they think. For example, Michael Barnes and I conducted a study some years ago, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, on the extent to which partners in intimate relationships understood what each other wanted. We computed the correlation between what one partner actually wanted and what the other thought he or she wanted. On a scale of 0 to 1, the correlation was a meager 0.3. In other words, even people in intimate relationships don't know very well what each other wants.
The stakes for understanding our partner's wants in an intimate setting are pretty high. Equally high for academe are the stakes for understanding what employers want in college graduates. Students pay many thousands of dollars for a college education in order to prepare themselves for the job market. If the college or university is providing the wrong stuff, that's a poor investment for the students.
Reading the recent literature in the field of higher education, you might notice that what educators think employers want involves several trends:
1. Employers want students to have college majors that provide them with readily transferable job knowledge and skills. The more professional the major, the better.
2. They want students who have had access to top-quality means of knowledge transfer. In this view, perhaps MOOCs are hot because, in the ideal, the lectures would cost the students (and the colleges) next to nothing and be taught by the most famous scholars in the world.
3. They want students who have demonstrated, through grades and standardized-test scores, that they are high achievers. In addition, employers want evidence of knowledge acquired in college. The problem is that none of those three assertions holds up well, at least according to two recent surveys of what employers really want, one conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the other by The Chronicle.
What do employers want? The association surveyed employers in the business and nonprofit sectors to find out what they most value in hiring college graduates.
With regard to Trend No. 1, 93 percent of the employers surveyed said that "a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate's] undergraduate major." They were not saying that a student's major does not matter, but that, overwhelmingly, the thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills a job candidate has acquired in college are more important than the specific field in which the applicant earned a degree. Looking at successful leaders in business and in the nonprofit sector, you find that they have majored in everything under the sun. Many ended up, by choice, pursuing careers in fields other than the one in which they majored.
On Trend No. 2, the association's survey found that "more than nine in 10" employers surveyed said it was important that job candidates "demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued new learning. More than 75 percent of employers say they want more emphasis on five key areas, including critical thinking, complex problem-solving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings."
Those are not skills optimally developed through passive learning in lecture settings, including MOOCs. Rather, they are skills developed through active learning in settings that encourage dialogue, give-and-take, real-world problem-solving, and active mentorship. Put another way by the association, "Across many areas tested, employers strongly endorse educational practices that involve students in active, effortful work—practices including collaborative problem-solving, internships, senior projects, and community engagements."
As for Trend No. 3, educators seem to assume that employers want concrete evidence of achievement, in the form of grades, for example. But, the association's survey found, "employers consistently rank outcomes and practices that involve application of skills over acquisition of discrete bodies of knowledge." High grades on tests just don't cut it alone in terms of the broader knowledge and skills that employers value.
If we were to summarize the survey results, we might say that employers want the knowledge and skills that will be crucial not only to a student's first job, but also to his or her second, third, and fourth jobs. They want a student who has learned how to learn and how to adapt flexibly to rapidly changing demands. They're not all that concerned about specific majors or things like what gets academic credit and what does not.
The Chronicle also conducted a survey of employers, with similar results. It found, for example, that employers tend to place more emphasis on practical work and internships than on academic work. As The Chronicle survey also reported:
Again, the survey did not say that major does not matter—simply that other qualifications matter more.
Why do we as educators often misperceive what employers want? Why are many of our impressions about what they want not entirely or even barely correct? At the very least, several current emphases in the higher-education literature do not seem to match well with the real demands of employers. Given that many students' main goal in going to college is to find a good job, why do we read so much about MOOCs, majors, and college-credit acquisition? Those issues may be important, but—according to the employer surveys—they are not central to generating the skills that best lead to employability.
Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, two of the great cognitive psychologists, have proposed that many of our errors in thinking are a result of cognitive habits that work some of the time but not all of the time. Two such habits are representativeness and availability.
Representativeness is the degree to which something is similar in its essential characteristics to whatever population of things it is viewed as representing. The college major, for example, seems representative of what employers look for, because a major in a particular field seems to be what employers in that field want in a candidate. The student's major is viewed as representing the job. In some cases, it well may. But the association's survey makes clear that employers care more about ethics, critical thinking, creative thinking, and common sense. So in that case, representativeness leads us astray.
The cognitive habit of availability is thinking that what comes easily to mind must certainly be important. The more we hear about college majors, MOOCs, and college credit for knowledge acquired outside the campus, for example, the more we may think that those things are important and provide the answers to our problems, whatever the problems may be. So solutions to other problems somehow seem to become solutions to the problem of employability, even though they are not.
For those who really care about most students' No. 1 concern, employability, it would behoove them to read the results of those two surveys carefully. They tell us what employers really want—not just what we imagine they want—and, more important, what students need to succeed in life.
And they tell us that creative, critical, practical, and wisdom-based decision-making and problem-solving skills, along with a mindset of lifelong learning and a strong work ethic, are far more important than current fads in the literature.
Robert J. Sternberg is provost and senior vice president at Oklahoma State University, and a professor of psychology and education there. He also is treasurer of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. He will take office on July 1 as president of the University of Wyoming.
http://m.chronicle.com/article/Giving-Employers-What-They/139877
June 17, 2013
Often what we think other people think is not what they think. For example, Michael Barnes and I conducted a study some years ago, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, on the extent to which partners in intimate relationships understood what each other wanted. We computed the correlation between what one partner actually wanted and what the other thought he or she wanted. On a scale of 0 to 1, the correlation was a meager 0.3. In other words, even people in intimate relationships don't know very well what each other wants.
The stakes for understanding our partner's wants in an intimate setting are pretty high. Equally high for academe are the stakes for understanding what employers want in college graduates. Students pay many thousands of dollars for a college education in order to prepare themselves for the job market. If the college or university is providing the wrong stuff, that's a poor investment for the students.
Reading the recent literature in the field of higher education, you might notice that what educators think employers want involves several trends:
1. Employers want students to have college majors that provide them with readily transferable job knowledge and skills. The more professional the major, the better.
2. They want students who have had access to top-quality means of knowledge transfer. In this view, perhaps MOOCs are hot because, in the ideal, the lectures would cost the students (and the colleges) next to nothing and be taught by the most famous scholars in the world.
3. They want students who have demonstrated, through grades and standardized-test scores, that they are high achievers. In addition, employers want evidence of knowledge acquired in college. The problem is that none of those three assertions holds up well, at least according to two recent surveys of what employers really want, one conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the other by The Chronicle.
What do employers want? The association surveyed employers in the business and nonprofit sectors to find out what they most value in hiring college graduates.
With regard to Trend No. 1, 93 percent of the employers surveyed said that "a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a candidate's] undergraduate major." They were not saying that a student's major does not matter, but that, overwhelmingly, the thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills a job candidate has acquired in college are more important than the specific field in which the applicant earned a degree. Looking at successful leaders in business and in the nonprofit sector, you find that they have majored in everything under the sun. Many ended up, by choice, pursuing careers in fields other than the one in which they majored.
On Trend No. 2, the association's survey found that "more than nine in 10" employers surveyed said it was important that job candidates "demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued new learning. More than 75 percent of employers say they want more emphasis on five key areas, including critical thinking, complex problem-solving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings."
Those are not skills optimally developed through passive learning in lecture settings, including MOOCs. Rather, they are skills developed through active learning in settings that encourage dialogue, give-and-take, real-world problem-solving, and active mentorship. Put another way by the association, "Across many areas tested, employers strongly endorse educational practices that involve students in active, effortful work—practices including collaborative problem-solving, internships, senior projects, and community engagements."
As for Trend No. 3, educators seem to assume that employers want concrete evidence of achievement, in the form of grades, for example. But, the association's survey found, "employers consistently rank outcomes and practices that involve application of skills over acquisition of discrete bodies of knowledge." High grades on tests just don't cut it alone in terms of the broader knowledge and skills that employers value.
If we were to summarize the survey results, we might say that employers want the knowledge and skills that will be crucial not only to a student's first job, but also to his or her second, third, and fourth jobs. They want a student who has learned how to learn and how to adapt flexibly to rapidly changing demands. They're not all that concerned about specific majors or things like what gets academic credit and what does not.
The Chronicle also conducted a survey of employers, with similar results. It found, for example, that employers tend to place more emphasis on practical work and internships than on academic work. As The Chronicle survey also reported:
- College graduates were most lacking in "written and oral communication skills, adaptability and managing multiple priorities, and making decisions and problem-solving."
- "Only 19 percent of employers look for specific majors and do not consider candidates without them, while the majority—78 percent—will consider any major."
- "Executives are least interested in considering candidates with specific majors (14 percent)."
Again, the survey did not say that major does not matter—simply that other qualifications matter more.
Why do we as educators often misperceive what employers want? Why are many of our impressions about what they want not entirely or even barely correct? At the very least, several current emphases in the higher-education literature do not seem to match well with the real demands of employers. Given that many students' main goal in going to college is to find a good job, why do we read so much about MOOCs, majors, and college-credit acquisition? Those issues may be important, but—according to the employer surveys—they are not central to generating the skills that best lead to employability.
Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, two of the great cognitive psychologists, have proposed that many of our errors in thinking are a result of cognitive habits that work some of the time but not all of the time. Two such habits are representativeness and availability.
Representativeness is the degree to which something is similar in its essential characteristics to whatever population of things it is viewed as representing. The college major, for example, seems representative of what employers look for, because a major in a particular field seems to be what employers in that field want in a candidate. The student's major is viewed as representing the job. In some cases, it well may. But the association's survey makes clear that employers care more about ethics, critical thinking, creative thinking, and common sense. So in that case, representativeness leads us astray.
The cognitive habit of availability is thinking that what comes easily to mind must certainly be important. The more we hear about college majors, MOOCs, and college credit for knowledge acquired outside the campus, for example, the more we may think that those things are important and provide the answers to our problems, whatever the problems may be. So solutions to other problems somehow seem to become solutions to the problem of employability, even though they are not.
For those who really care about most students' No. 1 concern, employability, it would behoove them to read the results of those two surveys carefully. They tell us what employers really want—not just what we imagine they want—and, more important, what students need to succeed in life.
And they tell us that creative, critical, practical, and wisdom-based decision-making and problem-solving skills, along with a mindset of lifelong learning and a strong work ethic, are far more important than current fads in the literature.
Robert J. Sternberg is provost and senior vice president at Oklahoma State University, and a professor of psychology and education there. He also is treasurer of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. He will take office on July 1 as president of the University of Wyoming.
http://m.chronicle.com/article/Giving-Employers-What-They/139877
9.04.2013
Tulsa school sends girl home because "dreadlocks" and "afros" are too distracting.
"A father in Oklahoma said this week that he was forced to pull his daughter out of classes after the charter school she was attending sent her home for having the wrong hairstyle.
Terrance Parker told KOKI that he is a barber and he always made sure that his 7-year-old daughter, Tiana, had an appropriate haircut for school.
“She’s always presentable,” he explained. “I take pride in my kids looking nice.”
Officials from Deborah Brown Community School in Tulsa declined speak to the station on camera, but the school policy states that “hairstyles such as dreadlocks, afros, mohawks, and other faddish styles are unacceptable.”
KOKI reported that the “school feels that could distract from the respectful and serious atmosphere it strives for.”
“She went to the school last year and didn’t have any problems,” Terrance Parker pointed out. “It hurt my feelings to the core.”
And from the way that 7-year-old Tiana wept as she spoke to KOKI, it was obvious that her feelings were hurt as well.
“They didn’t like my dreads,” she said. “I think that they should let me have my dreads.”
Tiana has now been enrolled in a new school, which welcomes her hairstyle."
By David Edwards Wednesday, September 4, 2013
By David Edwards Wednesday, September 4, 2013
9.02.2013
All of the institutions involved in the production of sex as a biological category defined as male or female, where each is distinct and opposite from the other, are participating in reproducing lines of power. Claims that XX is female and XY is male are just that: scientific CLAIMS about the natural world, authorized by the ruling order and processed through organizing structures which assign meanings based on frames of intelligibility already circulating in the culture at large. What counts as normal and natural or as "fact" comes out of ways of making sense already ideologically invested in the existing social order. Often it closes off our ability to imagine otherwise. Any manifestation which does not fit the facts is rendered abnormal, deviant, or (worse) irrelevant. Consider, for instance, that the same institutions which organize these knowledges also historically neglected the study of women, scientifically justified the inferiority of non-white people, and claimed that social Darwinism was fact. These "findings" were coherent with dominant ways of thinking about sex, race, and class, and worked in their historical moment to legitimize prevailing practices and policies. ~Chys Ingraham
9.01.2013
8.30.2013
The Most Disturbing Argument in the Attempt to Ban "The Bluest Eye" from Alabama High Schools
It’s always depressing to see attempts to get good, challenging literature out of school curricula. But the current push to get Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye removed from the federal Core Curriculum for eleventh graders as part of a larger effort to resist federal involvement in education, contains a particularly disturbing element. As The Atlantic Wire reports, some conservatives backing the attempt to ban the book are suggesting that scenes of sexual assault in the book amount to “child pornography”:
Hotzclaw told the Alabama Media Group, “The book is just completely objectionable, from language to the content.” The novel is seemingly the most controversial on the 11th grade reading list, and thus, an easy one to criticize — there have been efforts to ban it in schools and libraries since it was written in 1970. It does contain graphic scenes of forced sex (which the conservative blog Politichicks helpfully provided context-free in a post titled “(WARNING: Graphic) Common Core Approved Child Pornography”).
First, calling The Bluest Eye child pornography is a troubling thing to do because it’s not true. It’s grotesque to accuse Morrison of producing child pornography when she’s doing anything but, and it suggests the weakness of the actual case against The Bluest Eye that the novel’s detractors have to reach for this kind of hyperbole.
But even more than that, suggesting that scenes of rape are pornography erases the distinction between sexual assault and consensual sex in a way that’s all too common in our larger culture. And it plays into the idea that depiction of a bad act is always an endorsement of it, a belief that tends to circumscribe what’s possible and effective in art in a way that’s truly unfortunate. Taken together, these approaches make for ugly, but effective way, to suggest that a work of art that’s forcing a confrontation with the reality of rape is actually meant to titillate. If you drive people away from honest depictions of sexual assault because they think consuming the material makes them complicit in the sexual exploitation of children, or that it renders them sexually abnormal, you’ve found a very good way to prevent them from engaging with work that could expand their thinking and their empathy. That approach is dangerous because it’s got the potential to be very, very effective. Right now, the people using it are marginal. But that’s not a reason to take this argument seriously, and to expose it for what it is.
BY ALYSSA ROSENBERG
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/08/30/2557951/bluest-eye-alabama/
Hotzclaw told the Alabama Media Group, “The book is just completely objectionable, from language to the content.” The novel is seemingly the most controversial on the 11th grade reading list, and thus, an easy one to criticize — there have been efforts to ban it in schools and libraries since it was written in 1970. It does contain graphic scenes of forced sex (which the conservative blog Politichicks helpfully provided context-free in a post titled “(WARNING: Graphic) Common Core Approved Child Pornography”).
First, calling The Bluest Eye child pornography is a troubling thing to do because it’s not true. It’s grotesque to accuse Morrison of producing child pornography when she’s doing anything but, and it suggests the weakness of the actual case against The Bluest Eye that the novel’s detractors have to reach for this kind of hyperbole.
But even more than that, suggesting that scenes of rape are pornography erases the distinction between sexual assault and consensual sex in a way that’s all too common in our larger culture. And it plays into the idea that depiction of a bad act is always an endorsement of it, a belief that tends to circumscribe what’s possible and effective in art in a way that’s truly unfortunate. Taken together, these approaches make for ugly, but effective way, to suggest that a work of art that’s forcing a confrontation with the reality of rape is actually meant to titillate. If you drive people away from honest depictions of sexual assault because they think consuming the material makes them complicit in the sexual exploitation of children, or that it renders them sexually abnormal, you’ve found a very good way to prevent them from engaging with work that could expand their thinking and their empathy. That approach is dangerous because it’s got the potential to be very, very effective. Right now, the people using it are marginal. But that’s not a reason to take this argument seriously, and to expose it for what it is.
BY ALYSSA ROSENBERG
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/08/30/2557951/bluest-eye-alabama/
8.27.2013
Unemployed Black Woman Pretends to be White, Job Offers Suddenly Skyrocket
"If you don’t believe that racism in the job market is real, then please read this article by Yolanda Spivey. Spivey, who was seeking work in the insurance industry, found that she wasn’t getting any job offers. But as an experiment, she changed her name to Bianca White, to see if employers would respond differently. You’ll be shocked and amazed by her phenomenal story."
http://www.techyville.com/2012/11/news/unemployed-black-woman-pretends-to-be-white-job-offers-suddenly-skyrocket/
http://www.techyville.com/2012/11/news/unemployed-black-woman-pretends-to-be-white-job-offers-suddenly-skyrocket/
8.14.2013
8.13.2013
Deja news: Obama wins Ohio, Republicans try to make voting harder...
From Rachel Maddow's blog:
The last time Ohio Republicans tried to make voting harder, they ended up having to repeal their own bill. That 2011 measure, HB 194, would've cut early voting days by half. State voters forced a referendum to overturn the law, and Ohio Republicans decided to take it off the books themselves rather than place it before voters in 2012. In repealing HB 194, lawmakers left in place a new ban on early voting for the weekend before the election, only to have a court order the state to put those days back.
So that went well, right? Last week the folks at Plunderbund noted hat an Ohio lawmaker is now working on a bill to cut early voting days in half and final weekend voting, again. In an August 5 memo seeking co-sponsors, Representative John Becker (R), wrote, "This bill would reduce the length of time for absent voting from 35 days before Election Day to 17 days; limiting early voting to two weeks prior to the election concluding on the Friday before the election."
It appears that Becker has company.
The Toledo Blade reports that the old repealed HB 194 is making a comeback, only not as a single measure:
A variety of bills this session have been introduced or are in the early stages of seeking co-sponsorship that would, among other things, restrict absentee and early voting hours, require photo identification at the polls, eliminate the February and August special elections typically used for local property tax levies, and permit online voter registration*.All of these, at least at some point, were part of the debate over House Bill 194, even if they didn’t necessarily make the final law.
As the nice lady from the Ohio League of Women Voters tells the Blade, putting the measures that make voting harder in separate bills "certainly makes it harder to referendum, doesn't it?"
It is worth remembering that Ohio expanded early voting after polling places wound up with long lines in 2004, a year when George W. Bush won the state. After Barack Obama won Ohio in 2008, Republicans tried to cut the hours. Obama won Ohio again in 2012. Deja news.
Deja news: Obama wins Ohio, Republicans try to make voting harder
8.12.2013
8.11.2013
Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of "Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of Nature," calls upon her audience to work, play and think in terms of multispecies cosmopolitics, a new approach to recuperating the Terrapolis on which we live.
8.08.2013
8.03.2013
8.02.2013
Aphorism #75 from "Monogamy," by Adam Phillips
Babies tell us nothing about infancy because they can't speak. And our beginning, of course, like all beginnings, tells us nothing inevitable or predictable about our middle or our end. Monogamy as our beginning and our end is too wishfully neat, too symmetrical for the proper mess that a life is.
But if monogamy is where we start from, our first knowledge is of infidelity: that is what knowledge is about. Temporarily the mother can be everything to the child, but the child cannot possibly be everything for the mother. He can't feed her or sexually satisfy her, or have adult conversations with her. From the child's point of view the mother is—as the father will soon be—a model of promiscuity. She has a thousand things to do. She knows other people.
Small children, like uxorious husbands, are the most devoted of partners to their parents (they like coming with them to the toilet). Their parents, however, libertine if only in their responsibilities, have other commitments. Small children understand monogamy. Adults often find it daunting, even beyond them.
But if monogamy is where we start from, our first knowledge is of infidelity: that is what knowledge is about. Temporarily the mother can be everything to the child, but the child cannot possibly be everything for the mother. He can't feed her or sexually satisfy her, or have adult conversations with her. From the child's point of view the mother is—as the father will soon be—a model of promiscuity. She has a thousand things to do. She knows other people.
Small children, like uxorious husbands, are the most devoted of partners to their parents (they like coming with them to the toilet). Their parents, however, libertine if only in their responsibilities, have other commitments. Small children understand monogamy. Adults often find it daunting, even beyond them.
7.29.2013
RE: the right-wing myth of the post-racist, post-racial America.
"For scholars of critical race theory, 'racism' is almost always articulated as an everyday occurance, as pedestrian rather than spectacular... everyday racism defines race, interprets it, and decrees what the personal and institutional work of race will be" (Sharon Patricia Holland).
7.23.2013
7.22.2013
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Student Loans
As the Senator says, "We shouldn't treat our students like a profit center." Listen to her floor speech from 7/8/2013.
7.18.2013
7.17.2013
7.16.2013
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