“Drawing almost no attention, the nation crossed an ominous milestone last year that threatens more economic polarization and social division: For the first time, public colleges and universities in most states received most of their revenue from tuition rather than government appropriations.”
““What you see is a generation that’s struggling with really deep questions about how to be a pluralistic society and a pluralistic campus and how to be an open society and an open campus,” said Sam Gill, vice president of communities and learning at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which led the effort with Gallup, the polling company.”
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Enrollment in language courses other than English fell 9.2 percent in colleges and universities in the United States between the fall of 2013 and the fall of 2016, according to a new study by the Modern Language Association.
The study includes research based on the enrollments of undergraduate introductory courses as well as advanced-degree programs.
Of the 15 most commonly taught languages, the only two that showed gains in enrollment during the 2013-16 time frame were Japanese and Korean. Enrollment in Japanese language programs grew 3.1 percent, and enrollment in Korean language programs grew 13.7 percent.
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Surprisingly, news categorized as false or fake was 70 percent more likely than true news to receive a retweet. “Political” fake news spread three times faster than other kinds, and the top 1 percent of retweeted fake news regularly diffused to at least 1,000 people and sometimes as many as 100,000.
True news, on the other hand, hardly ever reached more than 1,000 people.
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Turning off the buzzing breaking-news machine I carry in my pocket was like unshackling myself from a monster who had me on speed dial, always ready to break into my day with half-baked bulletins.
Now I am not just less anxious and less addicted to the news, I am more widely informed (though there are some blind spots). And I’m embarrassed about how much free time I have — in two months, I managed to read half a dozen books, took up pottery and (I think) became a more attentive husband and father.
Most of all, I realized my personal role as a consumer of news in our broken digital news environment.
”“It’s possible to teach art history, English, or French literature in a really didactic, transmissionist, passive manner,” he says. “And it’s equally possible to teach anatomy, physiology, or mechanical engineering in a really engaged, inquiry-driven manner. One of those leads to students who develop these habits of mind for problem solving, teamwork, and communication. The argument that certain disciplines, by default, lead to certain competencies or skills — and others don’t — is not a very good argument.”
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Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned.
An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s finger muscles from developing sufficiently to enable them to hold a pencil correctly, they say.
“Children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago,” said Sally Payne, the head paediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust. “Children coming into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not be able to hold it because they don’t have the fundamental movement skills.
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