The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever

Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, or reason can provide the tools that people need in order to make good decisions.

By Marty Kaplan
Alternet.org
Originally posted September 16, 2013

Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece about it in Grist:  “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.”

Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly.  His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions.  It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem.  The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are.  We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.

The entire article is here.

The experts' step-by-step guide to cyber security

By Kitty Dann
The Guardian
Originally published April 2 2015

Where does cyber security fall on your to-do list? If it’s not a priority, it should be because 60% of small businesses suffered a breach in the year leading up to October 2014. The worst of these breaches disrupted operations for an average of seven to 10 days.

We recently held a live Q&A on the topic, with a panel of experts on hand to answer your questions. From risk assessment to keeping your business safe on a budget, here are some of their suggestions:

The entire article is here.

Social media: A network boost

Monya Baker
Nature 518 ,263-265(2015)
doi:10.1038/nj7538-263a
Published online11 February 2015

Information scientist Cassidy Sugimoto was initially sceptical that Twitter was anything more than a self-promotional time-sink. But when she noticed that her graduate students were receiving conference and co-authoring invitations through connections made on Twitter, she decided to give the social-media platform a try. An exchange that began last year as short posts, or 'tweets', relating to conference sessions led to a new contact offering to help her negotiate access to an internal data set from a large scientific society. “Because we started the conversation on Twitter, it allowed me to move the conversation into the physical world,” says Sugimoto, who studies how ideas are disseminated among scientists at Indiana University in Bloomington. “It's allowed me to open up new communities for discussions and increase the interdisciplinarity of my research.”

The entire article is here.

Texas Bill Would Bar Pediatricians From Talking About Guns with Patients

By David Knowles
Bloomberg News
Originally posted March 26, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

“We, as physicians, ask all sorts of questions—about bike helmets and seat belts and swimming pool hazards, dangerous chemicals in the home, sexual behaviors, domestic violence. I could go on and on,” Gary Floyd, a Fort Worth pediatrician and board member of the Texas Medical Association, told the Texas Tribune.

The entire article is here.

Should ethics be taught in schools?

By William Isdale
Practical Ethics
Originally published March 4, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Can we teach ethics?

One problem with teaching ethics in schools is that there are many competing theories about what is right and wrong. For instance, one might think that our intentions matter morally (Kantianism), or that only consequences do (consequentialism). Some regard inequality as intrinsically problematic, whilst others do not. Unlike other subjects taught in schools, ethics seems to be one in which people can’t agree on even seemingly foundational issues.

In his book Essays on Religion and Education, the Oxford philosopher R.M. Hare argued that ethics can be taught in schools, because it involves learning a language with a determinate method, “such that, if you understand what a moral question is, you must know which arguments are legitimate, in the same way in which, in mathematics, if you know what mathematics is, you know that certain arguments in that field are legitimate and certain arguments not.”

The entire blog post is here.

Proposed symbol for hidden disabilities taps into debate over disclosure

By Staff
Torstar News Service
Originally published March 1, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Last week, a Torstar News Service story about Toronto mother Farida Peters, who carries a sign alerting strangers that her 5-year-old son has autism, generated discussion about the issue of disclosing invisible disabilities and public reaction.

Despite mixed feelings about labelling her son, Peters found the sign has made their daily commute on the TTC easier. Instead of the annoyance and tart comments she used to encounter, passengers have reacted with support and encouragement. If he becomes disruptive or upset on a crowded subway car, they are more understanding.

Brydges says while people can be intolerant when faced with behaviour they don’t understand, providing an explanation like Peters’ sign can shift the dynamic. That’s where her symbol comes in.
“Ultimately, I developed this for people who need help when they are least able to ask for it,” she says.

The entire article is here.

10 Ways That Brain Myths Are Harming Us

By Christian Jarrett
Wired
Originally posted December 12, 2014

Here are two excerpts:

1). Many school teachers around the world believe neuromyths, such as the idea that children are left-brained or right-brained, or that we use just 10 per cent of our brains. This is worrying. For example, if a teacher decides a child is “left-brained” and therefore not inclined to creativity, they will likely divert that child away from beneficial creative activities.

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6). Brain training companies frequently make unfounded claims about the benefits of their products. One myth here is that playing their games can revolutionize your brain health, more than say socializing or reading. In October, dozens of neuroscientists wrote an open letter warning that the “exaggerated and misleading claims [of the brain training industry] exploit the anxiety of older adults about impending cognitive decline.”

The entire article is here.

Teaching Moral Values

Panellists: Michael Portillo, Anne McElvoy, Claire Fox and Giles Fraser

Witnesses: Adrian Bishop, Dr. Sandra Cooke, Professor Jesse Prinz and Dr. Ralph Levinson

Teaching your children a set of moral values to live their lives by is arguably one of the most important aspects of being a parent - and for some, one of the most neglected. In Japan that job could soon be handed to teachers and become part of the school curriculum. The Central Council for Education is making preparations to introduce moral education as an official school subject, on a par with traditional subjects like Japanese, mathematics and science. In a report the council says that since moral education plays an important role not only in helping children realise a better life for themselves but also in ensuring sustainable development of the Japanese state and society, so it should to taught more formally and the subject codified. The prospect of the state defining a set of approved values to be taught raises some obvious questions, but is it very far away from what we already accept? School websites often talk of their "moral ethos". The much quoted aphorism "give me the child until he is seven and I'll give you the man" is attributed to the Jesuits and why are church schools so popular if it's not for their faith based ethos? Moral philosophy is an enormously diverse subject, but why not use it to give children a broad set of tools and questions to ask, to help them make sense of a complex and contradictory world? If we try and make classrooms morally neutral zones are we just encouraging moral relativism? Our society is becoming increasingly secular and finding it hard to define a set of common values. As another disputed epigram puts it "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything."

Could moral education fill the moral vacuum?

Moral Maze - Presented by Michael Buerk

The audio file can be accessed here.

School Psychology in Rural Contexts: Ethical, Professional, and Legal Issues

Lynn M. Edwards, Amanda L. Sullivan
Journal of Applied School Psychology 
Vol. 30, Iss. 3, 2014

Abstract

Delivering psychological services in rural communities presents a number of unique challenges for practitioners relative to their peers in urban and suburban communities. In this article, the authors describe the current context of rural schools and examine the ethical and legal issues school psychologists may face when practicing in rural educational settings. They link these issues to the field's ethical guidelines and educational policy and offer practical recommendations for resolving potential dilemmas. Implications for practice, training, and research are discussed.

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As in any professional context, it is important that rural practitioners engage in ongoing self-reflection of their competence, well-being, and ethical conduct. Our focus was on professional issues for rural practitioners, but these issues apply to small communities generally, including those located within more densely populated locations where similar social dynamics operate (e.g., ethnicity/cultural communities, a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community, universities, or military communities; Schank et al., 2010). For school psychologists practicing outside of schools (e.g., private practice), other ethical issues related to the provision of mental health services and social justice may be more salient than the topics addressed herein (see Bradley, Werth, & Hastings, 2012, for discussion). In general, practicing in tightly bound communities requires recognition and responsiveness to the distinct professional context created by social and geographic parameters in order to ensure the provision of ethical, effective services.

The entire article is here.

Lady Gaga's foundation supports youth mental health discussions - all by text messaging

By Will Schutt
Medill Reports
Originally posted April 24, 2014

Texting offers new way to get youth engaged in mental health discussions. Creating Community Solutions and Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation are sponsoring a texting conversation about mental health. All you need to chime in is a cell phone. The latest digital mental health discussion for and between young people kicks off today.

An emerging mental health “conference” offers a new kind of group rapport: a conversation entirely conducted by texting.

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Occasionally, people text in who are in crisis. To make sure they get immediate assistance, one of the first texts people receive is the number for the national hotline for mental health crises.

The entire article is here.

Three Myths of Behavior Change

Published on Mar 20, 2013

Jeni Cross is a sociology professor at Colorado State University. She has spoken about community development and sustainability to audiences across the country, from business leaders and government officials to community activists. As a professor and consultant she has helped dozens of schools and government agencies implement and evaluate successful programs to improve community well-being. In this talk, she discusses her work around changing behaviors.

Whose Character?

Why Character Education is Inherently Flawed

Lelac Almagor
Boston Review
November 26, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

In pursuit of character education, our schools have convened research groups to identify the most important character strengths, taught special courses on character alongside electives such as music and art, and assembled “character report cards” with separate ratings from each teacher for each trait. The favored buzzwords are “dual-purpose instruction,” infusing ordinary lessons about fractions or paying attention with the language of character. “Make it the air we breathe,” one administrator told us. “Put it into everything.” When kids misbehave, we urge them to show more character; students who do well win character awards at special assemblies; we start giving points for integrity, and then integrity starts to mean following directions, and then we start taking integrity points away. Instead of teaching these strong and simple values, we muddy and diminish them until they are just another set of arbitrary rules, or new names for the same old rules we’ve always had. Character starts to look a little more like compliance. The lapse in integrity is our own.

For my part, I’ve given up on character education as such, on pre-planned lessons pushing abstract nouns. I won’t set out to repair some deficit in my kids that can be blamed for the trouble they encounter. Nor do I favor reframing our everyday conversations to match the jargon of the day.

The entire article is here.

Suicide prevention efforts grow in statehouses

By Maggie Clark

USA Today

Originally published September 13, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

Every day, more than 100 people commit suicide in the U.S. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people between the ages of 25 and 34, and the third-leading cause of death among those between 15 and 24. Between 2008 and 2010, there were twice as many suicides as homicides, according to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Still, in many areas of the country, suicide-prevention efforts are virtually nonexistent.

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Restricting access to guns for suicidal people may well help to reduce suicides, said Dr. Richard McKeon, chief of the suicide prevention branch of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, but it's not the only thing that can work.

"What's needed is a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention using multiple interventions, not just one," McKeon said. That could include restricting weapons access, training or building general awareness, he said.

The entire article is here.

Why Failing Med Students Don’t Get Failing Grades

By Pauline Chen
The New York Times
Originally published February 28, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

Medical educators have long understood that good doctoring, like ducks, elephants and obscenity, is easy to recognize but difficult to quantify. And nowhere is the need to catalog those qualities more explicit, and charged, than in the third year of medical school, when students leave the lecture halls and begin to work with patients and other clinicians in specialty-based courses referred to as “clerkships.” In these clerkships, students are evaluated by senior doctors and ranked on their nascent doctoring skills, with the highest-ranking students going on to the most competitive training programs and jobs.

A student’s performance at this early stage, the traditional thinking went, would be predictive of how good a doctor she or he would eventually become.

But in the mid-1990s, a group of researchers decided to examine grading criteria and asked directors of internal medicine clerkship courses across the country how accurate and consistent they believed their grading to be.

The entire story is here.

Effective and Ineffective Supervision

Nicholas Ladany, Yoko Mori, and Kristin E. Mehr
The Counseling Psychologist
January 2013 41: 28-47
First published on May 23, 2012

Abstract


Although supervision is recognized as a significant tenant of professional growth for counseling and psychotherapy students, the variability of the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of supervision has come under scrutiny in recent times. Our sample of 128 participants shed light on the most effective (e.g., encouraged autonomy, strengthened the supervisory relationship, and facilitated open discussion) and most ineffective (e.g., depreciated supervision, performed ineffective client conceptualization and treatment, and weakened the supervisory relationship) supervisor skills, techniques, and behaviors. Moreover, effective and ineffective behaviors, along with best and worst supervisors, were significantly differentiated based on the supervisory working alliance, supervisor style, supervisor self-disclosure, supervisee nondisclosure, and supervisee evaluation. Implications for supervision competencies and supervisor accountability are discussed.

The entire article can be found here.

A presentation by Nicholas Ladany on effective supervision can be found in the PowerPoint Vault on this blog.