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Retina Scans at Airports Have Arrived 0
- Culture
- February 28, 2017
For some 15 years, airport security has become steadily more invasive. There are ever more checkpoints, ever more requests for documents as you make your way from the airport entrance to the airplane. Passengers adapt to the new changes as they come. But my latest flight to Mexico, originating in Atlanta, presented all passengers with
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How Historical Illiteracy Fuels Political Polarization 0
- Culture
- February 28, 2017
Greater knowledge of the past would help improve America’s public discourse. Once again, President’s Day has come and gone and Americans spent little time reflecting on their past leaders—in part, because Americans know so little history at all, even about the country’s most well-known Founding Fathers. For example, in a 2012 survey commissioned by the
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Why Schools Need to Go Back to the Basics of Writing 0
- Education
- February 28, 2017
Once upon a time in America’s schools, teachers were instructed to teach their students the basics of good composition. According to Bernard Sheridan, a school superintendent in Massachusetts in 1917, these basics included: An absolute mastery of ‘the sentence idea.’ Freedom from glaring grammatical mistakes. Correct spelling of all ordinary words. Unfailing use of the
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The Subtle Conditioning of Social Media 0
- Culture
- February 28, 2017
Like most Americans, I partake in the unparalleled commitment to digital eavesdropping that is social media. Some of the key vicarial activities participation in Facebook (I’m not a Twitter user) offers are to “like” and “share” posts. That sounds harmless, right? Of course, it does; but I would argue that, in liking and sharing posts, we’re actually
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Are Pre-K Advocates Overlooking Its Problems?0
- Education
- February 28, 2017
In recent years, support for preschool education has grown by leaps and bounds. After all, who wouldn’t want to help adorable little kids get an early jump on success? But the enthusiasm for Pre-K dampened a bit with the release of two studies, one from 2012 which studied children in a Head Start program and
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Why So Many College Grads Are Bartenders 0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
Imagine you are offered a job to work 60 to 70 hours a week as an English graduate assistant, teaching those who need to be taught and doing some research at a salary of about $15,000 a year. You love to teach and you care about people, so you take the job. You begin to
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