When schoolteachers in Los Angeles went on a weeklong strike in January, the head of the local teachers union described it as a “battle for the soul of public education.” When Denver public school teachers went on a three-day strike in February, they did it in the name of “schools Denver students deserve.” When teachers began their […] … learn more→

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., recently reintroduced their Child Care for Working Families Act – a bill they say will “ensure affordable, high-quality child care for working middle class families and those living paycheck to paycheck.” Taryn Morrissey, author of “Cradle to Kindergarten: A New Plan to Combat Inequality,” and […] … learn more→

Many people underestimate the difficulty involved in learning a language. This is because language acquisition goes beyond comprehension. It also involves socialisation and emotion. The high level of personal engagement this requires is even more challenging at South African universities, where students are struggling to meet the demands of academic life. This situation has compelled […] … learn more→

When it comes to how deeply embedded racism is in American society, blacks and whites have sharply different views. For instance, 70 percent of whites believe that individual discrimination is a bigger problem than discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions. Only 48 percent of blacks believe that is true. Many blacks and whites also fail […] … learn more→

Amazon’s recent decision to pull out of plans to establish a new headquarters in New York City received a lot of attention. Much of it focused on whether the big tax breaks the company would have gotten as part of the deal were fair and reasonable. Noting that the company would have brought 25,000 new jobs and […] … learn more→

How should you present yourself as an academic on the internet? It’s a vexed question. There are just so many options for making a ‘place’ where people can find out more about you that it can be hard to make a decision. I’ve been thinking about this since Blair wrote to me with a question: […] … learn more→

Angry student: “Why do I have to learn algebra? I’m only going to be teaching eight year olds!” Me: “Because the parents of eight year olds want their teachers to know more than an eight year old.” –I used to get Education majors quite often in my math courses, before they became cloistered into special […] … learn more→

I call to perform a management to a call center. The person with whom I speak warns me that, at the end of the call, I will receive another to assess how I have been treated. When finishing any menu in a restaurant, the waiter, with kindness, asks me if everything went well. Then, he suggests that […] … learn more→

For the last fifty years or so the number of international students choosing to spend some time studying in a foreign country has been steadily increasing, with the United States of America being one of the top destinations. Of course, such a decision is not without potential issues, and having a different native language is […] … learn more→

The phenomenon of perfectionism has grown considerably over the last twenty-five years, affecting men as well as women. That’s what we learned from recently leading one of the most important studies ever done on perfectionism . And we have also learned that perfectionists become more and more neurotic and unstable, and less reliable and organized over time. Perfectionism […] … learn more→