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How California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum Got Sucked Into the Culture Wars
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By
Top researcher calls such inclusive models the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of American education reform
As a middle schooler, early December was an agonizing time of year for civil rights activist Karen Korematsu. When the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack approached, she made excuses to avoid the school bus where students subjected her to racist bullying.
“Go home.”
“You don’t belong here.”
Korematsu, 70, said a teacher’s lesson about the December 7, 1941, bombing in Hawaii only added to students’ animosity toward Japanese Americans like herself. Rather than presenting “both sides of the narrative,” she said her teacher taught them that “the Japanese are very bad people” who “killed over 2,000 servicemen.”
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Children raised in neighborhoods with low socio-economic status are at risk for low academic achievement. A new longitudinal study followed young children from such neighborhoods from birth until age seven to explore whether children s capacity to act kindly or generously towards others (prosocial behavior) - including peers, teachers, and family - is linked to their ability to perform well in school. The study showed that prosocial behavior may mitigate academic risk across early childhood.
The findings were published in a
Child Development article written by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Leeds, and the Bradford Institute for Health Research.
This week:
I describe what two librarians are doing to promote information literacy.
I point you to other resources on countering disinformation.
Tackling Disinformation in the Classroom
Molly Kerby understands political polarization. She sees it every day on her campus. Western Kentucky University, where she has taught for nearly three decades, draws from the bluer cities of Louisville and Nashville as well as deep red regions of Appalachia. While many of her students are proudly the first in their families to attend college, they also arrive with an inherited mistrust of institutions, from higher education to mainstream news media. Students question professors’ authority. Parents question their textbooks.
On the campaign trail, Joe Biden promised to select a teacher to be his secretary of education. Just before Christmas, in a surprise choice, he named Connecticut Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona to the post. Cardona has been a teacher albeit for only about five years before becoming a principal and district administrator.
Biden has now doubled down on his pro-teacher stance by nominating San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten to be deputy secretary of education, the number two position in the U.S. Department of Education.
With Cardona, Marten will play a pivotal role in advocating for and implementing President-elect Biden’s expansive education agenda, including getting funds to states, so they can open the majority of their elementary schools within 100 days of his taking office.