Writing Prompts
TOPIC 1 - Should Gum Be Allowed in School?
SOURCE A
SOURCE B
SOURCE C
Chewing gum improves memory
By Emma Young in Blackpool
Chewing gum can improve memory, say UK psychologists. They found that people who chewed throughout tests of both long-term and short-term memory produced significantly better scores than people who did not. But gum-chewing did not boost memory-linked reaction times, used as a measure of attention.
“These results provide the first evidence that chewing gum can improve long-term and working memory,” says Andrew Scholey of the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. “There are a number of potential explanations – but they are all very speculative.”
One third of the 75 adults tested chewed gum during the 20-minute battery of memory and attention tests. One third mimicked chewing movements, and the remainder did not chew.
The gum-chewers’ scores were 24 per cent higher than the controls’ on tests of immediate word recall, and 36 per cent higher on tests of delayed word recall. They were also more accurate on tests of spatial working memory.
“The findings are intriguing, although it is clear that questions remain to be addressed,” says Kim Graham of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK. “In particular: what is the mechanism by which chewing improves memory?”
Chewing it over
There are three main potential explanations, says Scholey. In March 2000, Japanese researchers showed that brain activity in the hippocampus, an area important for memory, increases while people chew – but it is not clear why.
Recent research has also found that insulin receptors in the hippocampus may be involved in memory. “Insulin mops up glucose in the bloodstream and chewing causes the release of insulin, because the body is expecting food. If insulin receptors in the brain are involved in memory, we may have an insulin-mediated mechanism explaining our findings – but that is very, very speculative,” Scholey says.
But there could be a simpler answer. “One interesting thing we saw in our study was that chewing increased heart rate. Anything that improves delivery of things like oxygen in the brain, such as an increased heart rate, is a potential cognitive enhancer to some degree,” he says.
But a thorough explanation for the findings will have to account for why some aspects of memory improved but others did not, Graham says. She points out that gum-chewers’ ability to quickly decide whether complex images matched images they had previously been shown was no better than the controls’.
By Emma Young in Blackpool
Chewing gum can improve memory, say UK psychologists. They found that people who chewed throughout tests of both long-term and short-term memory produced significantly better scores than people who did not. But gum-chewing did not boost memory-linked reaction times, used as a measure of attention.
“These results provide the first evidence that chewing gum can improve long-term and working memory,” says Andrew Scholey of the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. “There are a number of potential explanations – but they are all very speculative.”
One third of the 75 adults tested chewed gum during the 20-minute battery of memory and attention tests. One third mimicked chewing movements, and the remainder did not chew.
The gum-chewers’ scores were 24 per cent higher than the controls’ on tests of immediate word recall, and 36 per cent higher on tests of delayed word recall. They were also more accurate on tests of spatial working memory.
“The findings are intriguing, although it is clear that questions remain to be addressed,” says Kim Graham of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK. “In particular: what is the mechanism by which chewing improves memory?”
Chewing it over
There are three main potential explanations, says Scholey. In March 2000, Japanese researchers showed that brain activity in the hippocampus, an area important for memory, increases while people chew – but it is not clear why.
Recent research has also found that insulin receptors in the hippocampus may be involved in memory. “Insulin mops up glucose in the bloodstream and chewing causes the release of insulin, because the body is expecting food. If insulin receptors in the brain are involved in memory, we may have an insulin-mediated mechanism explaining our findings – but that is very, very speculative,” Scholey says.
But there could be a simpler answer. “One interesting thing we saw in our study was that chewing increased heart rate. Anything that improves delivery of things like oxygen in the brain, such as an increased heart rate, is a potential cognitive enhancer to some degree,” he says.
But a thorough explanation for the findings will have to account for why some aspects of memory improved but others did not, Graham says. She points out that gum-chewers’ ability to quickly decide whether complex images matched images they had previously been shown was no better than the controls’.
SOURCE D
TOPIC 2 - Should our students be required to wear a school uniform?
SOURCE A
Effects of uniforms at issue:
People on both sides of the school dress code debate offer research to support their claims.
~~~~~~~~
by Mark Guydish
Apr. 13--KINGSTON -- In the passionate debate before the Wyoming Valley West School Board passed a new structured dress code Wednesday, both sides insisted research supported their opinions. Who was right?
Both sides.
The question is: How do you define research?
It is easy to find data from school districts where such dress codes were implemented that emphatically show positive changes. Here's some of it:
--In 1994, Long Beach Unified School District, California, became the first public school district in the nation to require all students in grades K-8 to wear uniforms. In two years, they saw the suspension rates drop by 28 percent at the elementary level and 36 percent in middle schools, as well as a 51 percent decrease in fights in grades K-8, and a 34 percent drop in assault and battery. Schools in Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, and Virginia have made similar claims since then
.
--A 1996 survey of 306 middle school students in the Charleston, S.C., County School District found students in a middle school with a uniform policy had better perception of school climate than students in a school without a uniform policy.
--A study of six Ohio public urban schools showed uniforms didn't increase test scores, but that graduation rates rose an average of nearly 11 percent, attendance increase an average of 3.5 percent in four schools, and expulsion rates dipped slightly.
Other similar evidence exists, but critics contend such data is seriously flawed because it typically involves only one district or doesn't take into account other factors that may have caused the changes. University of Missouri Sociology Professor David Brunsma, for example, points out that when Long Beach introduced uniforms, it also introduced other major reforms in content standards in the classrooms and teaching strategies.
Brunsma, in fact, is widely and repeatedly cited as the definitive source so far for comprehensive research on school dress codes. He co-authored a 1998 study that one Wyoming Valley West parent indirectly cited when she read from an article in the school newspaper. Brunsma did more extensive work after the 1998 study that was published in a book.
Brunsma looked at massive federal databases, crunching numbers from multiple districts and multiple years, and tried to correct for a variety of factors including demographics. His bottom line conclusion in the 1998 report: "Our findings indicate that student uniforms have no direct effect on substance use, behavioral problems or attendance. A negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement was found." That negative effect, however, was slight.
His later research echoed that. According to an Education Week article, in his book The School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us About American Education, Brunsma wrote "Despite the media coverage, despite the anecdotal meanderings of politicians, community members, educators, board members, parents, and students, uniforms have not been effective at attacking the very outcomes and issues they were assumed to aid."
A 2002 study in the Houston Independent School District by Adolfo Santos, political science professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, backs Brunsma's findings. Santos looked at 28 middle schools where uniform dress codes were implemented in the 1990s. He reported that the rate of in-school and out-of-school suspensions rose sharply, though he notes that other factors could be at play, including the possibility that teachers took a keener interest in enforcing the new dress code.
Yet even Brunsma, in his 1998 report, conceded that uniforms may change people's attitudes, which in turn could make it easier for other initiatives to successfully change the school: "Instituting a uniform policy can be viewed as analogous to cleaning and brightly painting a deteriorating building in that on the one hand, it grabs our immediate attention but on the other, is, after all, really only a coat of paint. This type of change serves the purpose of attracting attention to schools, it implies that serious problems are existent and necessitate this sort of drastic change, and it seems entirely possible that this attention renews an interest on the parts of parents and communities, and opens the possibilities for support of additional types of organizational change."
Lost in much of the research is the cost to parents of the switch to a new dress code, a frequent complaint by parents. For that, we can look most recently at Hazleton Area School District, where a new policy was introduced this year. The Wyoming Valley West policy is based heavily on those of Hazleton Area and Scranton School District.
When Hazleton started school, The Times Leader polled some parents on the cost of new clothes. The findings were as diverse as the research on uniform impact.
Older children could be a bigger factor if they have stopped growing and, unlike youngsters, may not need a whole new wardrobe every year or two. Joann Petchel pointed out that she had to shop for a new wardrobe to meet the new dress code when she could have gotten by with a few new pairs of shoes for her daughter.
Sheila DeAngelo, on the other hand said she outfitted her son for under $100 and that the dress code made shopping much easier. It's worth pointing out that one complaint of some critics is that the dress code in Hazleton Area and Wyoming Valley West seem to favor males. One parent at Wednesday's Wyoming Valley West meeting looked at students sampling outfits and said, "Why do the girls dress like boys?"
Monica Cahalan, a longtime Hazleton Area activist who successfully fought an earlier attempt to tighten Hazleton Area's dress code, said she spent more than $1,200 to buy clothes for four children, and noted that she had to pay higher prices online for some items because local vendors were out of stock.
One Wyoming Valley West teacher said the district runs a center to provide clothes to low-income families, and even complained that many times her resources are used simply for kids who are violating the existing policy by wearing unacceptable T-shirts or pants that hang too low. She suggested the new policy would allow her program to focus on helping those who need the clothes because of family income.
In fact, nationwide, some districts that set up stricter dress codes also set up extensive programs to provide clothing for low-income families, collecting funds and seeking grants to buy the clothes.
If a clear conclusion can be drawn from all this, it could well be that the research, both local and national, is still inconclusive.
Works Cited
Guydish, Mark. "Effects of Uniforms at Issue: People on Both Sides of the School Dress Code Debate Offer Research to Support
their Claims." Times Leader, the (Wilkes-Barre, PA), 13 Apr. 2007. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=2W62W641745445.
People on both sides of the school dress code debate offer research to support their claims.
~~~~~~~~
by Mark Guydish
Apr. 13--KINGSTON -- In the passionate debate before the Wyoming Valley West School Board passed a new structured dress code Wednesday, both sides insisted research supported their opinions. Who was right?
Both sides.
The question is: How do you define research?
It is easy to find data from school districts where such dress codes were implemented that emphatically show positive changes. Here's some of it:
--In 1994, Long Beach Unified School District, California, became the first public school district in the nation to require all students in grades K-8 to wear uniforms. In two years, they saw the suspension rates drop by 28 percent at the elementary level and 36 percent in middle schools, as well as a 51 percent decrease in fights in grades K-8, and a 34 percent drop in assault and battery. Schools in Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, and Virginia have made similar claims since then
.
--A 1996 survey of 306 middle school students in the Charleston, S.C., County School District found students in a middle school with a uniform policy had better perception of school climate than students in a school without a uniform policy.
--A study of six Ohio public urban schools showed uniforms didn't increase test scores, but that graduation rates rose an average of nearly 11 percent, attendance increase an average of 3.5 percent in four schools, and expulsion rates dipped slightly.
Other similar evidence exists, but critics contend such data is seriously flawed because it typically involves only one district or doesn't take into account other factors that may have caused the changes. University of Missouri Sociology Professor David Brunsma, for example, points out that when Long Beach introduced uniforms, it also introduced other major reforms in content standards in the classrooms and teaching strategies.
Brunsma, in fact, is widely and repeatedly cited as the definitive source so far for comprehensive research on school dress codes. He co-authored a 1998 study that one Wyoming Valley West parent indirectly cited when she read from an article in the school newspaper. Brunsma did more extensive work after the 1998 study that was published in a book.
Brunsma looked at massive federal databases, crunching numbers from multiple districts and multiple years, and tried to correct for a variety of factors including demographics. His bottom line conclusion in the 1998 report: "Our findings indicate that student uniforms have no direct effect on substance use, behavioral problems or attendance. A negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement was found." That negative effect, however, was slight.
His later research echoed that. According to an Education Week article, in his book The School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us About American Education, Brunsma wrote "Despite the media coverage, despite the anecdotal meanderings of politicians, community members, educators, board members, parents, and students, uniforms have not been effective at attacking the very outcomes and issues they were assumed to aid."
A 2002 study in the Houston Independent School District by Adolfo Santos, political science professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, backs Brunsma's findings. Santos looked at 28 middle schools where uniform dress codes were implemented in the 1990s. He reported that the rate of in-school and out-of-school suspensions rose sharply, though he notes that other factors could be at play, including the possibility that teachers took a keener interest in enforcing the new dress code.
Yet even Brunsma, in his 1998 report, conceded that uniforms may change people's attitudes, which in turn could make it easier for other initiatives to successfully change the school: "Instituting a uniform policy can be viewed as analogous to cleaning and brightly painting a deteriorating building in that on the one hand, it grabs our immediate attention but on the other, is, after all, really only a coat of paint. This type of change serves the purpose of attracting attention to schools, it implies that serious problems are existent and necessitate this sort of drastic change, and it seems entirely possible that this attention renews an interest on the parts of parents and communities, and opens the possibilities for support of additional types of organizational change."
Lost in much of the research is the cost to parents of the switch to a new dress code, a frequent complaint by parents. For that, we can look most recently at Hazleton Area School District, where a new policy was introduced this year. The Wyoming Valley West policy is based heavily on those of Hazleton Area and Scranton School District.
When Hazleton started school, The Times Leader polled some parents on the cost of new clothes. The findings were as diverse as the research on uniform impact.
Older children could be a bigger factor if they have stopped growing and, unlike youngsters, may not need a whole new wardrobe every year or two. Joann Petchel pointed out that she had to shop for a new wardrobe to meet the new dress code when she could have gotten by with a few new pairs of shoes for her daughter.
Sheila DeAngelo, on the other hand said she outfitted her son for under $100 and that the dress code made shopping much easier. It's worth pointing out that one complaint of some critics is that the dress code in Hazleton Area and Wyoming Valley West seem to favor males. One parent at Wednesday's Wyoming Valley West meeting looked at students sampling outfits and said, "Why do the girls dress like boys?"
Monica Cahalan, a longtime Hazleton Area activist who successfully fought an earlier attempt to tighten Hazleton Area's dress code, said she spent more than $1,200 to buy clothes for four children, and noted that she had to pay higher prices online for some items because local vendors were out of stock.
One Wyoming Valley West teacher said the district runs a center to provide clothes to low-income families, and even complained that many times her resources are used simply for kids who are violating the existing policy by wearing unacceptable T-shirts or pants that hang too low. She suggested the new policy would allow her program to focus on helping those who need the clothes because of family income.
In fact, nationwide, some districts that set up stricter dress codes also set up extensive programs to provide clothing for low-income families, collecting funds and seeking grants to buy the clothes.
If a clear conclusion can be drawn from all this, it could well be that the research, both local and national, is still inconclusive.
Works Cited
Guydish, Mark. "Effects of Uniforms at Issue: People on Both Sides of the School Dress Code Debate Offer Research to Support
their Claims." Times Leader, the (Wilkes-Barre, PA), 13 Apr. 2007. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=2W62W641745445.
SOURCE B
SCHOOL UNIFORMS: AN 'UNFASHIONABLE' DISSENT
Mr. Evans always fancied himself a conservative. Now, he's not so sure.
HEADY from President Clinton's "bully pulpit" endorsement of uniforms in public schools, advocates of the notion are pushing such policies in many school districts. Admittedly, the idea of uniforms for public school students does hold out some beguiling promises. Those favoring uniforms, including the President, see them as a way to get around the problems posed by students' wearing gang attire; they also see uniforms as a way to blur the economic distinctions among students. They even see uniforms as a way to promote a more serious and scholarly academic environment in the schools. What possibly could be the downside of such promises?
To begin with, the programs that have gained parental support, media attention, and, as a result, political endorsements are mostly in elementary schools, where the age of the children means that the problems the uniforms will allegedly solve don't exist to any significant degree. At the same time, elementary school children are not as concerned with individuality and personal rights as high schoolers are, and so they do not view required uniforms as intrusive or objectionable.
In those schools in which the style and color of clothing are legitimate issues that affect the safety of students, codes that prohibit the wearing of gang attire and regalia should already be in place. Thus the need to adopt a school uniform policy to solve that particular problem is overstated or irrelevant. It will be interesting to see how the courts will handle the inevitable challenges to mandated school uniforms, since there is a significant difference between a public school's prohibiting specific attire because of legitimate concerns for student safety and a public school's requiring uniform dress. To avoid these sticky legal issues, some schools may opt for a "voluntary policy." But, besides being oxymoronic, voluntary policies simply don't work at the high school level.
Where gangs are concerned, the wearing of school uniforms will be cosmetic at best and will not change the gang mentality or reduce the potential of antisocial, gang-related behavior, either on campus or off. Ironically, mandating the wearing of school uniforms might even make it easier to be a gang member since school administrators could no longer readily recognize the trappings of the gangs.
That school uniforms will blur the economic distinctions among students is, at best, a specious argument. In the first place, most children and adolescents (unlike adults) don't really care much about such distinctions anyway, and those who do won't have their attitudes altered by wearing a uniform. Do those who see this cosmetic leveling as a positive aspect of school uniforms also propose to ban high school students from driving cars to school, from wearing jewelry, or from carrying money? Do they propose to eliminate or make free all the various activities that pose an economic hardship for certain youngsters and their families? I mean such things as participation in school athletics, attending the school prom, or buying school rings and yearbooks. Economic distinctions are part of the fabric of our society, and they will not be unraveled by covering them with a uniform.
Finally, the notion that school uniforms will somehow create a more seriously academic school environment and so improve achievement is not supported by any evidence. To the contrary, in my 21 years of experience as a high school principal, some of the students whose clothing and hairstyles were (from my point of view anyway) the most outlandish were also among the most outstanding scholars and school leaders. The important word in that last sentence is some. Young people are not "uniform," and we cannot categorize them as academically inclined or not merely by looking at their attire. The cheating scandals at U.S. military academies clearly demonstrate that uniforms have little to do with creating an environment conducive to genuine scholarship and academic achievement.
One of the real ironies that I see in the school uniform movement is that it is so ardently supported by many who would call themselves "conservatives." I have always fancied myself to be a conservative, but that is because I always thought that "liberals" supported "Big Government" and endorsed its intrusions into our lives. We noble conservatives opposed such meddling and social engineering (tailoring?). While President Clinton's endorsement of school uniforms fits nicely with my view, the support for this form of governmental intrusion that comes from conservatives does not. Why would a true conservative want the government (i.e., the school board) telling parents what their children must wear to school? I find this as puzzling as I do the fact that some conservatives want the government, through its schools, to organize and support prayer and other religious activities in schools. Perhaps I have been mislabeling myself.
Evans, Dennis L. "School Uniforms: An `Unfashionable' Dissent." Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 78, no. 2, Oct. 1996, p. 139. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=9610177905&site=ehost-live.
SOURCE C
TOPIC 3 - Should plastic bags be banned?
SOURCE A
SOURCE B
SOURCE C
TOPIC 4 - Should school be year-round?
SOURCE A
SOURCE B
TITLE:Year-round schooling worth exploring but not suited for all
SOURCE: Palm Beach Post, The (FL), Jul 13, 2014
DATABASE: Newspaper Source
Year-round schooling worth exploring but not suited for all
July 13--The lure of year-round schooling is increasingly on the minds of Palm Beach County School Board members, forever in search of ways to boost test scores and halt the exodus of students to charter schools. Could the end of long, lazy summer vacations be nigh?
Not likely. While the School Board is urging some initial steps toward experimenting with a year-round schedule, there's no indication that education leaders have an appetite for implementing such a sensitive change on a broad scale.
That's the right approach. Year-round schooling can benefit many students and better accommodate some families, but it can also disrupt long-held family traditions and stunt some children's personal growth. With research about its benefits mixed, it's better suited as an option for individual families, not a districtwide policy.
Summer breaks are a holdover from America's agrarian past, but they are so ingrained into the national psyche that suggestions about doing away with them are likely to be greeted with heavy resistance.
That's no reason to dismiss them, however. Research suggests that breaking up the long summer vacation into a series of smaller breaks can help some students avoid the so-called "summer slide," when many forget much of what they learned during the previous school year and have to be re-taught.
The research is mixed, though, with some studies suggesting little to no benefit for many students. What is relatively clear: the "summer slide" is more prevalent among low-performing students, so year-round schooling is more likely to help those already struggling. Students with better grades and test scores will benefit less.
This is part of the logic behind summer-school programs. It's also why some area charter schools offer classes during the summer as a way of keeping struggling students engaged.
But summer is also when many families plan long trips, when extracurricular activities like band and sports take on increased importance, and when many teenagers begin their first jobs. These are important milestones for many children, and confounding them could be counterproductive.
In most school districts that switch to year-round schedules, the number of school days doesn't increase. The typical 180-day school year remains, but instead of a long summer break, there are a series of eight-week school periods broken up by three-week breaks.
As The Post's Jason Schultz reported, the school district used year-round schooling at Jupiter-area high schools from 1976 to 1982. But the aim then was to address overcrowding issues, not to boost student performance. The objective now would be very different.
District officials are considering trying out year-round schedules at a handful of schools, though they likely wouldn't be started for at least two years. School Board member Debra Robinson has suggested they could function as choice programs, allowing parents to opt into it if they feel it's the best fit for their families.
Year-round schooling is often more expensive, with operating costs increasing at campuses that don't shut down for extended periods. This is another important factor that must be weighed, and another reason for the School Board to start small.
___ (c)2014 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at www.palmbeachpost.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
SOURCE: Palm Beach Post, The (FL), Jul 13, 2014
DATABASE: Newspaper Source
Year-round schooling worth exploring but not suited for all
July 13--The lure of year-round schooling is increasingly on the minds of Palm Beach County School Board members, forever in search of ways to boost test scores and halt the exodus of students to charter schools. Could the end of long, lazy summer vacations be nigh?
Not likely. While the School Board is urging some initial steps toward experimenting with a year-round schedule, there's no indication that education leaders have an appetite for implementing such a sensitive change on a broad scale.
That's the right approach. Year-round schooling can benefit many students and better accommodate some families, but it can also disrupt long-held family traditions and stunt some children's personal growth. With research about its benefits mixed, it's better suited as an option for individual families, not a districtwide policy.
Summer breaks are a holdover from America's agrarian past, but they are so ingrained into the national psyche that suggestions about doing away with them are likely to be greeted with heavy resistance.
That's no reason to dismiss them, however. Research suggests that breaking up the long summer vacation into a series of smaller breaks can help some students avoid the so-called "summer slide," when many forget much of what they learned during the previous school year and have to be re-taught.
The research is mixed, though, with some studies suggesting little to no benefit for many students. What is relatively clear: the "summer slide" is more prevalent among low-performing students, so year-round schooling is more likely to help those already struggling. Students with better grades and test scores will benefit less.
This is part of the logic behind summer-school programs. It's also why some area charter schools offer classes during the summer as a way of keeping struggling students engaged.
But summer is also when many families plan long trips, when extracurricular activities like band and sports take on increased importance, and when many teenagers begin their first jobs. These are important milestones for many children, and confounding them could be counterproductive.
In most school districts that switch to year-round schedules, the number of school days doesn't increase. The typical 180-day school year remains, but instead of a long summer break, there are a series of eight-week school periods broken up by three-week breaks.
As The Post's Jason Schultz reported, the school district used year-round schooling at Jupiter-area high schools from 1976 to 1982. But the aim then was to address overcrowding issues, not to boost student performance. The objective now would be very different.
District officials are considering trying out year-round schedules at a handful of schools, though they likely wouldn't be started for at least two years. School Board member Debra Robinson has suggested they could function as choice programs, allowing parents to opt into it if they feel it's the best fit for their families.
Year-round schooling is often more expensive, with operating costs increasing at campuses that don't shut down for extended periods. This is another important factor that must be weighed, and another reason for the School Board to start small.
___ (c)2014 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at www.palmbeachpost.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
SOURCE C
Title: Are holidays too long? Toronto Star (Canada), 03190781, Aug 08, 2008
Database:Newspaper SourceAre holidays too long?
Section: Editorial, pg. AA06
Most Ontario school children still have nearly a month of summer holidays yawning in front of them. But for students at a handful of schools around the province, the new school year has already begun.
These schools offer a "year-round" or "balanced" calendar, which spreads out teaching days and vacation time more evenly throughout the year. So instead of getting two months off in the summer, pupils at Roberta Bondar Public School in Brampton have a four-week holiday in July, a two-week break in October, three weeks off over Christmas, one week in February and a two-week March Break.
The advantage of shorter but more frequent holidays is that students have less time to forget what they have learned. That means teachers can dive into the curriculum at the beginning of each school year without having to spend weeks reviewing basic concepts.
Special needs and low-income students, as well as those who are learning English, stand to gain the most from year-round schooling. But everyone can benefit. After all, long division and French verb conjugation have a way of getting fuzzy after two months away from class.
Unfortunately, year-round schooling has not gained momentum in Ontario. Toronto's Catholic board does not offer it, although a spokesperson said it is exploring the possibility of a pilot project in 2010. Toronto's public board operates four alternative schools on a year-round calendar, but appears to have no immediate plans to expand the model. "It's not on the front burner," chair John Campbell says.
Clearly, some hurdles would have to be overcome - notably, the absence of air conditioning in older schools, as well as resistance from some parents and staff who are wedded to the traditional schedule. But given the clear advantages of a year-round calendar, school boards ought to consider making this option more widely available.
Copyright (c) 2008 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.
Database:Newspaper SourceAre holidays too long?
Section: Editorial, pg. AA06
Most Ontario school children still have nearly a month of summer holidays yawning in front of them. But for students at a handful of schools around the province, the new school year has already begun.
These schools offer a "year-round" or "balanced" calendar, which spreads out teaching days and vacation time more evenly throughout the year. So instead of getting two months off in the summer, pupils at Roberta Bondar Public School in Brampton have a four-week holiday in July, a two-week break in October, three weeks off over Christmas, one week in February and a two-week March Break.
The advantage of shorter but more frequent holidays is that students have less time to forget what they have learned. That means teachers can dive into the curriculum at the beginning of each school year without having to spend weeks reviewing basic concepts.
Special needs and low-income students, as well as those who are learning English, stand to gain the most from year-round schooling. But everyone can benefit. After all, long division and French verb conjugation have a way of getting fuzzy after two months away from class.
Unfortunately, year-round schooling has not gained momentum in Ontario. Toronto's Catholic board does not offer it, although a spokesperson said it is exploring the possibility of a pilot project in 2010. Toronto's public board operates four alternative schools on a year-round calendar, but appears to have no immediate plans to expand the model. "It's not on the front burner," chair John Campbell says.
Clearly, some hurdles would have to be overcome - notably, the absence of air conditioning in older schools, as well as resistance from some parents and staff who are wedded to the traditional schedule. But given the clear advantages of a year-round calendar, school boards ought to consider making this option more widely available.
Copyright (c) 2008 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.
TOPIC 5 - Should seat belts be required on school buses?
SOURCE A
A RARE CASE OF REGULATORY RESTRAINT
by Sean Paige
In what well could be a first, a leading government agency with responsibility for public safety has recommended against -- you read it right: against -- heaping yet another safety mandate on the mountain of regulations already in place to ensure that accidents don't happen and that everyone in America can live happily ever after.
In a recent report to Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recommended against requiring seat belts in most school buses. It actually suggested, in another possible first, that the cost of installing new belts didn't outweigh the benefits. Lap belts on school buses were found to have "little, if any, benefit" in reducing serious or fatal injuries in serious head-on collisions, the NHTSA reported, and in some cases actually might increase the risk of injury to small children.
Redesigning school-bus seats to accommodate safety belts would reduce passenger capacity by 17 percent, studies indicated, and add $50 per seat to the cost of a new bus, or about $100 million. Those costs, combined with the probability that some safety belts would be used improperly, actually increasing risks to children, did not outweigh the potential benefits of saving an estimated one life per year, the NHTSA determined.
Although such cost-benefit appraisals may appear cold and even calculating, they are essential in a world of limited resources and necessary trade-offs. The Bush administration has underscored the point by bringing in John Graham, founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the White House. In that capacity, Graham essentially regulates the regulators, reviewing proposed new rules from agencies and rejecting those for which sound analysis is lacking.
Proposed regulations that don't pass muster with OIRA receive a "return letter," forcing the agency from which they came either to drop the proposed rule or do the analysis -- including costs versus benefits -- necessary to justify it. Graham's office has issued about 20 return letters to agencies in the 10 months he has been on the job. That is more than the total number issued by that same office in eight years of the Clinton administration.
WORKS CITED:
PAIGE, S. A Rare Case of Regulatory Restraint. Insight on the News. 18, 25, 8, July 15, 2002. ISSN: 10514880.
by Sean Paige
In what well could be a first, a leading government agency with responsibility for public safety has recommended against -- you read it right: against -- heaping yet another safety mandate on the mountain of regulations already in place to ensure that accidents don't happen and that everyone in America can live happily ever after.
In a recent report to Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recommended against requiring seat belts in most school buses. It actually suggested, in another possible first, that the cost of installing new belts didn't outweigh the benefits. Lap belts on school buses were found to have "little, if any, benefit" in reducing serious or fatal injuries in serious head-on collisions, the NHTSA reported, and in some cases actually might increase the risk of injury to small children.
Redesigning school-bus seats to accommodate safety belts would reduce passenger capacity by 17 percent, studies indicated, and add $50 per seat to the cost of a new bus, or about $100 million. Those costs, combined with the probability that some safety belts would be used improperly, actually increasing risks to children, did not outweigh the potential benefits of saving an estimated one life per year, the NHTSA determined.
Although such cost-benefit appraisals may appear cold and even calculating, they are essential in a world of limited resources and necessary trade-offs. The Bush administration has underscored the point by bringing in John Graham, founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the White House. In that capacity, Graham essentially regulates the regulators, reviewing proposed new rules from agencies and rejecting those for which sound analysis is lacking.
Proposed regulations that don't pass muster with OIRA receive a "return letter," forcing the agency from which they came either to drop the proposed rule or do the analysis -- including costs versus benefits -- necessary to justify it. Graham's office has issued about 20 return letters to agencies in the 10 months he has been on the job. That is more than the total number issued by that same office in eight years of the Clinton administration.
WORKS CITED:
PAIGE, S. A Rare Case of Regulatory Restraint. Insight on the News. 18, 25, 8, July 15, 2002. ISSN: 10514880.
SOURCE B
SOURCE C
TOPIC 6 - Should students be disciplined for profanity on school grounds?
SOURCE A
No more potty mouth in the halls of Colonel Gray Senior High School
Last semester, Grade 12 English teacher Jackie Cutcliffe was walking through the halls of Colonel Gray Senior High School in Charlottetown when she heard a barrage of profanity. "Every second or third word was the f-word," she says. "When I turned around, I was totally shocked." The student swearing was the type Cutcliffe thought "would never be caught dead" cursing with a teacher so near at hand. The incident was one of many that led staff at Colonel Gray to start an anti-swearing drive, with suspension as the most severe consequence.
Principal Bob Andrews says the school is simply following existing policies against verbal abuse, and when it comes to abusive profanity, students have always been suspended (although three have been suspended in the last two weeks, compared with seven in all of last semester). But in cases of "casual careless" swearing, he says, students have been getting a mixed message: "Students would argue, 'oh well, it's okay in Mr. A's class but it's not okay in Ms. B's.' " Still, the question of what constitutes casual profanity is somewhat murky. "We haven't created a laundry list," Andrews says. "We've asked students to try to recognize that people's tolerances may be different."
Parent response has been positive, according to Andrews. Some students have complained, saying swearing is part of their vernacular, and hard to turn on and off. But the principal notes that many of them have part-time jobs where they manage not to swear. And while the school reserves the right to refer chronic "casual cursers" for counselling, or even to suspend them, so far, all most have needed is a simple reminder. Cutcliffe says virtually everyone she's approached recently have been co-operative. "They'll say, 'oh yeah, sorry.' "
PHOTO (COLOR): 'Abusive' profanity means suspension, 'casual cursers' can get counseling
Works CitedIzenberg, Dafna. "No More Potty Mouth in the Halls of Charlottetown." Maclean's, vol. 120, no. 8, 05 Mar. 2007, p. 33. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=24238825&site=ehost-live.
Last semester, Grade 12 English teacher Jackie Cutcliffe was walking through the halls of Colonel Gray Senior High School in Charlottetown when she heard a barrage of profanity. "Every second or third word was the f-word," she says. "When I turned around, I was totally shocked." The student swearing was the type Cutcliffe thought "would never be caught dead" cursing with a teacher so near at hand. The incident was one of many that led staff at Colonel Gray to start an anti-swearing drive, with suspension as the most severe consequence.
Principal Bob Andrews says the school is simply following existing policies against verbal abuse, and when it comes to abusive profanity, students have always been suspended (although three have been suspended in the last two weeks, compared with seven in all of last semester). But in cases of "casual careless" swearing, he says, students have been getting a mixed message: "Students would argue, 'oh well, it's okay in Mr. A's class but it's not okay in Ms. B's.' " Still, the question of what constitutes casual profanity is somewhat murky. "We haven't created a laundry list," Andrews says. "We've asked students to try to recognize that people's tolerances may be different."
Parent response has been positive, according to Andrews. Some students have complained, saying swearing is part of their vernacular, and hard to turn on and off. But the principal notes that many of them have part-time jobs where they manage not to swear. And while the school reserves the right to refer chronic "casual cursers" for counselling, or even to suspend them, so far, all most have needed is a simple reminder. Cutcliffe says virtually everyone she's approached recently have been co-operative. "They'll say, 'oh yeah, sorry.' "
PHOTO (COLOR): 'Abusive' profanity means suspension, 'casual cursers' can get counseling
Works CitedIzenberg, Dafna. "No More Potty Mouth in the Halls of Charlottetown." Maclean's, vol. 120, no. 8, 05 Mar. 2007, p. 33. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=24238825&site=ehost-live.
SOURCE B
WOULD YOU PLEASE NOT REPEAT THAT?
BY Lane Hartill, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Teachers target the 'anytime, anywhere' expletives of students.
Kenny Nguyen doesn't hesitate to use the F-word now and then. He'll also refer to classmates in less-than-printable terms.
"To us, it's just the way we talk to each other; it's not offensive," says Kenny, who is a high school junior in Boston.
Kenny's attitude is common among teens in America's high schools. Cussing has become so mainstream that it's often not even noticed among peers.
"With teenagers, they really are in the midst of a cursing culture. They hear it everywhere," says James O'Connor, author of "Cuss Control: The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing." "I will ask an entire student body, 'How many of you swear?' and it's got to be 99 percent who raise their hands gleefully, proudly."
In many schools, teachers are so consumed with other duties that sanitizing mouths is low on the priority list. But at least some educators across America are tired of having their ears burned.
Take Larry Hensley-Marschand, principal of Southport High School in Indianapolis. His staff was fed up with student swearing, but didn't have the time or desire to fill out the cumbersome paperwork required to cite students.
So Dr. Hensley-Marschand thought up a new line of attack. He streamlined the citation process, and instead of giving lip service to punishing vocabulary-challenged kids, he took concrete action.
In the fall of 1999, the principal instituted a policy that thrives today: When students spout off, they are immediately taken to the dean's office, and their parents are called and told what they said.
The second offense brings an in-school suspension. If a student verbally assaults someone in conjunction with a threat, he or she may be taken to a juvenile center.
Since the rule came into effect, the number of offenders in the dean's office has dropped by 30 to 50 percent. The middle school also participates in the program.
Hensley-Marschand is quick to note that curbing cussing was not the only cause for the increased civility in his school's halls. But, he says, it certainly was a catalyst.
While anecdotal evidence suggests more-frequent swearing, at least among students, Prof. Timothy Jay, author of "Why we Curse," compared cursing frequency and word usage of people in 1986 and 1996 and found little difference.
Linguists point out that profanity is embedded in culture. For instance, it's sometimes considered appropriate in response to pain or stress. It also changes as the culture changes.
"I don't know what profanity is any longer, because we've so detoxified the Christian vocabulary that the GD and JC has sort of gone the way of bloody and gadzooks," says James Twitchell, an English professor at the University of Florida.
Professor Jay also points out that teens are not well equipped with the proper language to talk about sexuality in a society that still has shades of Puritanism.
Many kids want to go against the grain of authority, too. "The minute we can find somebody saying 'We don't say that,' then [students] know exactly what must be said," Professor Twitchell says.
What is particularly telling, linguists and educators note, is how willingly kids use obscenities around adults.
"Shame codes are not invoked over these bits of language," Twitchell says, noting that kids are not reluctant to swear in public largely because social norms have changed.
"It has something to do with changing ways that younger and older people interact," says Dennis Barron, a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "There's more in-your-faceness or less concern about what you can say in public than there used to be."
This has led to more swearing. But interestingly, swearing hasn't lost its negative connotation.
When Mr. Barron asks undergraduates what is the No. 1 thing they would change about language, he gets the following responses:
- Spellings should be changed.
- The words "you know" are overused.
- There's too much swearing.
She also says that sometimes girls' mouths are fouler than boys,' explaining that the "ladies don't swear" theory is dated at best.
Emily Jarvis, who attends Edison High School in Fresno, Calif., says that the frequency of swearing depends on the house in which you are raised. (Mr. O'Connor says that 70 to 75 percent of children say their parents swear.)
O'Connor says to tame teens' tongues, parents and teachers must stress that being an individual (something teens are drawn to) can come in part from separating yourself from the swearing pack.
Dr. Jay, on the other hand, says teachers should use a combination of rewards and punishments to deal with inappropriate language.
Works Cited
Hartill, Lane. "Would You Please Not Repeat That?." Christian Science Monitor, vol. 93, no. 74, 13 Mar. 2001, p. 21. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=4182522&site=ehost-live.
SOURCE C
Read the article about.....
School police in Kansas Ticket Students for Foul Language
SOURCE D
Title: Why Swearing Is Good for You. By: Sharples, Tiffany, Time, 0040781X, 8/10/2009, Vol. 174, Issue 5
Database: Middle Search Plus
It not only vents frustration, but a new study shows it actually alleviates physical pain
There is a certain four-letter word that is forbidden in polite company but often uttered by women in labor. According to a study in the journal NeuroReport, saying the F word can do more than vent frustration: it can actually reduce physical pain. To prove this, psychologists at Britain's Keele University asked 64 college students to immerse their hand in ice water for as long as possible. In one go-round, the students were allowed to repeat a curse word of their choice while they endured the painfully cold water; in the other, they were asked to use a non expletive. Swearing not only allowed students to withstand the discomfort longer but also decreased their perception of pain intensity.
The study found that when participants used a curse word, their heart rates were consistently higher--a physiological response consistent with fight or flight--than when they were repeating a neutral word. "In swearing, people have an emotional response, and it's the emotional response that actually triggers the reduction of pain," says Richard Stephens, the study's lead author.
"Swearing probably comes from a very primitive reflex that evolved in animals," says Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Stuff of Thought, an exploration of the psychology of language. "In humans, our vocal tract has been hijacked by our language skills," so instead of squealing in pain, "we articulate our yelp with a word colored with negative emotion."
But next time you drop the F bomb, consider this: in Stephens' study, cursing reduced the perception of pain more strongly in women than in men. That may be because in daily life "men swear more than women," says Pinker, which could have a dulling effect on these verbal painkillers in men. "That's one of the reasons that I think people should not overuse profanity," says Pinker. "That's not because I'm a prude but because it blunts [swearwords] of their power when you do need them. You should save them for just the right occasions."
Database: Middle Search Plus
It not only vents frustration, but a new study shows it actually alleviates physical pain
There is a certain four-letter word that is forbidden in polite company but often uttered by women in labor. According to a study in the journal NeuroReport, saying the F word can do more than vent frustration: it can actually reduce physical pain. To prove this, psychologists at Britain's Keele University asked 64 college students to immerse their hand in ice water for as long as possible. In one go-round, the students were allowed to repeat a curse word of their choice while they endured the painfully cold water; in the other, they were asked to use a non expletive. Swearing not only allowed students to withstand the discomfort longer but also decreased their perception of pain intensity.
The study found that when participants used a curse word, their heart rates were consistently higher--a physiological response consistent with fight or flight--than when they were repeating a neutral word. "In swearing, people have an emotional response, and it's the emotional response that actually triggers the reduction of pain," says Richard Stephens, the study's lead author.
"Swearing probably comes from a very primitive reflex that evolved in animals," says Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Stuff of Thought, an exploration of the psychology of language. "In humans, our vocal tract has been hijacked by our language skills," so instead of squealing in pain, "we articulate our yelp with a word colored with negative emotion."
But next time you drop the F bomb, consider this: in Stephens' study, cursing reduced the perception of pain more strongly in women than in men. That may be because in daily life "men swear more than women," says Pinker, which could have a dulling effect on these verbal painkillers in men. "That's one of the reasons that I think people should not overuse profanity," says Pinker. "That's not because I'm a prude but because it blunts [swearwords] of their power when you do need them. You should save them for just the right occasions."