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Study: There Are Instructions for Teaching Critical Thinking. Whether or not you can teach something as subjective as critical thinking has been up for debate, but a fascinating new study shows that it’s actually quite possible.

Study: There Are Instructions for Teaching Critical Thinking

Experiments performed by Stanford's Department of Physics and Graduate School of Education demonstrate that students can be instructed to think more critically. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of critical-thinking skills in modern society. The ability to decipher information and interpret it, offering creative solutions, is in direct relation to our intellect.2.

Arts ed

There’s a storm in a teacup, a crisis in the art... - Mrs Tsk * Dissonance. Resource_34. Why boarding schools produce bad leaders. In Britain, the link between private boarding education and leadership is gold-plated.

Why boarding schools produce bad leaders

If their parents can afford it, children are sent away from home to walk a well-trodden path that leads straight from boarding school through Oxbridge to high office in institutions such as the judiciary, the army, the City and, especially, government. Our prime minister was only seven when he was sent away to board at Heatherdown preparatory school in Berkshire. Like so many of the men who hold leadership roles in Britain, he learned to adapt his young character to survive both the loss of his family and the demands of boarding school culture. The psychological impact of these formative experiences on Cameron and other boys who grow up to occupy positions of great power and responsibility cannot be overstated.

Nevertheless, this golden path is as sure today as it was 100 years ago, when men from such backgrounds led us into a disastrous war; it is familiar, sometimes mocked, but taken for granted. The Feminine Technique: Trina Robbins explores the long, hidden history of women in comics. A woman named Barbara Fiske Calhoun died in White River Junction, Vt., last week.

The Feminine Technique: Trina Robbins explores the long, hidden history of women in comics

She was 94 and her death went unnoticed by all but family and friends. Cultures of popular music. BHA President Jim Al-Khalili delivers 2014 Voltaire Lecture. April 15th, 2014 The room was heaving in Conway Hall last night as British Humanist Association (BHA) President, physicist and broadcaster Professor Jim Al-Khalili gave this year’s Voltaire Lecture on the theme of ‘Lessons from the past: science and rationalism in medieval Islam.’

BHA President Jim Al-Khalili delivers 2014 Voltaire Lecture

The lecture was chaired by his predecessor as President, and current BHA Vice President, the journalist Polly Toynbee. Jim took his audience on a tour of the medieval world and told the story of a golden age of science written in Arabic, and of famous scientists such as Ibn al-Haytham, whom he declared stood alongside Archimedes and Sir Isaac Newton as one of history’s three greatest physicists. Early Baghdad, and the Arab World at large, he explained, was a place of deep and rigorous learning at a time when Europe was in the Dark Ages. The contributions of its many scholars were well known then around Europe; but their legacies have not been well remembered in the West, or indeed in the Arab World.

The limits of non-cooperation as a strategy for social change. Vukovar, October 1991.

The limits of non-cooperation as a strategy for social change

Credit: www.croatia.org. All rights reserved. Politics and Art: The Role of the Arts in Promoting Human Rights and Exposing Injustices. Wednesday 26 March 2014, 8:15 PM This event is organised by Lacuna: A Writing Wrongs Project.

Politics and Art: The Role of the Arts in Promoting Human Rights and Exposing Injustices

‘What I have most wanted to do . . . is to make political writing into an art.’ – George Orwell Chaired by Maureen Freely, English Pen president, the panel will discuss the role of the arts in promoting human rights and social justice issues. Paulo Freire: dialogue, praxis and education. Contents: introduction · contribution · critique · further reading and references · links Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice.

Paulo Freire: dialogue, praxis and education

His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia). Freire was able to draw upon, and weave together, a number of strands of thinking about educational practice and liberation. Sometimes some rather excessive claims are made for his work e.g. Hall_cultural_identity. David Foster Wallace On The Key To Living A Compassionate Life. David Foster Wallace, widely considered one of the most brilliant writers of his generation, wrote prolifically about an incredibly wide spectrum of human experience.

David Foster Wallace On The Key To Living A Compassionate Life

Stuart Hall: “We need to talk about Englishness” Stuart Hall asks me to pour the tea.

Stuart Hall: “We need to talk about Englishness”

We discuss how long the pot should be allowed to stand before pouring and try to recall George Orwell’s strictures on the subject (he recommended shaking the pot and allowing the leaves to settle). What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)? A Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics) What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)?

What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)? A Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics)

A Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics) Marxist and other “left” critics and opponents of identity politics are often mistaken for opponents of the identity groups that such politics aim to support and promote. Such critics can be easily mistaken as opponents of gay rights, LGBT rights, black and Latino equality, or the like.