Sarcasm is simple! Yeah, right. Although sarcasm is widespread, found across languages and in the various ways we communicate, it is not simple. For most children, learning to understand sarcasm is challenging. Sarcasm can be defined as “the use of remarks that clearly mean the opposite of what they say, made in order to hurt someone’s […] … learn more→

Despite the change in direction towards methodologies that prioritize interaction and communication for the teaching of foreign languages, we remain anchored and constrained in the paradigm of the use of a single language to teach that same language. Today we know that in human nature there is no room for compartmentalized languages ​​and that the limits […] … learn more→

In a park in July, during the picnic following the end-of-year concert of a musical initiation device through orchestral practice, several children spontaneously grab their instruments and start playing Frère Jacques for ” say goodbye to their music teacher ”. Visibly moved, Bernard, one of the executives of the device, turns to us and declares: “No, but don’t […] … learn more→

Black people make up just 9% of the STEM workforce in the U.S. As a scholar who studies how STEM educators can more effectively reach Black students, I want to help all people develop an understanding of how anti-Black racism is a significant barrier for Black students learning STEM. Many scholars have argued that our current ways of teaching STEM are bad […] … learn more→

When we decided last summer to create an undergraduate course about pandemics, we faced skepticism. Weren’t students and instructors tired of the COVID-19 pandemic? And would looking at pandemics from the perspective of numerous disciplines make it hard to address the topic with depth, or would we achieve a sense of cohesion? As an anthropologist, […] … learn more→

Fully vaccinated adults are celebrating their new freedom and removing their face masks. Yet for parents of children under age 12, the rejoicing might be short-lived. Since children that age do not yet have access to vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says they are better off staying masked when in public and around people they don’t […] … learn more→

South African student voices have largely remained unheard in formal discussions around COVID-19. A pandemic that should not be put to waste, COVID-19, on some podiums, is seen as laying the groundwork for germination of seeds of change. The students in this collection of stories by the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN, a project […] … learn more→

Screen-based devices have increasingly become part of our human experience – even more so since the pandemic began. This trend includes watching more and more videos. For example, before COVID-19, the average American watched about six hours of videos a day on devices ranging from televisions to desktop computers and mobile phones. By one estimate, this figure has “surged” more than 40% […] … learn more→

Many academic writers are avid readers. That’s because there is a strong connection – not causal, but surely correlated, she says hastily – between reading and writing. Reading and writing are mutually beneficial, they feed each other. I was thinking about the read-write connection just this morning as I sat reading the books section of […] … learn more→

Bills in the federal and New South Wales parliaments have sought to stop teachers talking about gender and sexuality diversity in the name of either religious freedom or parents’ rights. If passed in its current form, the NSW Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 would prohibit teachers from discussing gender and sexuality diversity. It would also make offering targeted, requested […] … learn more→