Probablemente entre las nuevas generaciones el título El Ascenso del Hombre es poco conocido, pero se trata de una de las producciones pioneras de documentales sobre ciencia y tecnología para la televisión. Producida por la British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) en 1973, esta serie tuvo un gran impacto internacional siete años antes que la famosa Cosmos y presentó el desarrollo de la ciencia a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad en 13 capítulos.
Lo mejor de este proyecto dirigido por el matemático Jacob Bronowski, convertido en gran divulgador y conductor de televisión que inspiraría al mismo Carl Sagan, es la manera de presentar una especie de biografía personal de las ideas en forma de programas de televisión y que más tarde se convertiría en libro de divulgación de culto, ahora publicado por Editorial Planeta bajo el sello de Paidós.
A partir de esta serie, la televisión se convertiría en un excelente vehículo de divulgación y de fomento de la cultura científica. El mismo Bronowski afirmaría que “si la televisión no se usara para presentar estos pensamientos en forma concreta, sería tanto como desperdiciarla”.
Este libro es una excelente opción para iniciar las lecturas de este 2018. Aborda el desarrollo del conocimiento en general y de la ciencia en particular, no como ideas abstractas sino como ideas concebidas desde las diversas culturas humanas, desde la aparición hombre hasta el siglo XX.
Abarca los conceptos fundamentales que iniciaron el largo camino del ser humano hacia el conocimiento de la naturaleza a partir de las culturas humanas más simples, de acuerdo con sus facultades básicas y su contexto geográfico, biológico y social específico. Nos explica la ciencia como una actividad humana donde los descubrimientos son hechos por los hombres, no solamente por las mentes privilegiadas.
El Ascenso del Hombre es un clásico de la literatura de divulgación científica ameno, interesante y con un lenguaje al alcance del público no especializado.
Link de descarga: http://www.eumed.net/jirr/pdf/4.pdf
LindaBrown, una mujer de Kansas que en la década de 1950 puso nombre a un contencioso que prohibió la segregación racial en las escuelas estadounidenses, murió a los 76 años, según informaron este lunes medios locales.
Nacida en Topeka, la capital de Kansas, Brown tenía 9 años cuando su padre, el reverendo Oliver Brown, trató de inscribirla en 1950 en la escuela pública primaria más cercana a la vivienda familiar.
La negativa de la escuela SummerSchool a aceptarla por ser negra provocó cuatro años más tarde el histórico fallo «Brown v. Board of Education», con el que el Tribunal Supremopuso fin a la doctrina «segregada pero igual» que regía en la educación pública estadounidense desde 1896.
El Supremo determinó que «separar (a los niños negros) de otros de edad y calificaciones similares únicamente por su raza genera un sentimiento de inferioridad en cuanto a su posición en la comunidad que puede afectar a sus corazones y mentes de un modo improbable de revertir».
Concluyó, asimismo, que la segregación era una práctica que violaba la cláusula de «protección igualitaria» recogida en la Constitución.
AunqueBrown puso el nombre, el contencioso agrupaba numerosos casos recopilados por la Asociación Nacional para el Avance de la Gente de Color (NAACP, en inglés) de estudiantes afroamericanos rechazados en instituciones educativas alrededor del país.
Un portavoz de la funeraria de Topeka Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel confirmó a medios estadounidenses que Brown murió este domingo por razones que no han trascendido.
En una entrevista con PBS en 1985, a raíz del 30 aniversario de la sentencia, Brown dijo «sentir» que la decisión del Supremo había tenido «un impacto en todas las facetas de la vida de las minorías en toda el país».
«Lo pienso en términos de lo que ha hecho para nuestros jóvenes, en la eliminación de ese sentimiento de ciudadanía de segunda clase. Creo que ha hecho que los sueños, las esperanzas y las aspiraciones de nuestros jóvenes sean hoy mayores», añadió.
Según The Washington Post, la escuela Summer School, que había rechazado su inscripción en 1950, intentó negársela de nuevo el mismo día de 1954 en el que el Supremo prohibió la segregación.
Aunque fue ella quien se convirtió en un icono de los derechos civiles, el «Brown» de la sentencia «Brown v. Board of Education» pertenece a su padre, que fue quien interpuso la demanda y que murió en 1961.
At an hour-long event staged in a Chicago public high school auditorium this morning, Apple said it would introduce lower-priced devices and initiatives aimed at regaining market share at America’s schools.
The company will offer a new 9.7-inch iPad that will be compatible with its Pencil drawing stylus, which previously only worked on the higher-priced iPad Pro. Last year Apple dropped the price it charges schools for the low-priced tablet to $299, a reduction of $30 from the consumer price. Today Apple also announced that Logitech, a Swiss company that makes computer accessories, will introduce a $49 drawing stylus that can substitute for Apple’s $99 Pencil.
Since 2012, Apple has lost its grip on the educational hardware market for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. According to a report by U.K.-based Futuresource Consulting, which sells its market research studies to Apple and other tech firms, in 2012 Apple sold 52% of all mobile computing products to K-12 schools in the U.S. But last year Apple had only 15% of that market. Chromebooks made by Samsung, Acer, and other manufacturers are now the dominant players, with 58% of the market last year. Windows machines trailed in second place at 22%.
Courtesy: Futuresource
Apple’s share of the education hardware market has shrunk since 2012.
Future source doesn’t break out the value of the K-12 education hardware market but its research shows that school spending on all information technology products, including hardware, software, information technology services and assessments totaled $18 billion in 2017.
Why has Apple’s popularity taken such a hit? Four reasons: Its devices have cost more than twice as much as competitors’, its batteries didn’t last as long, iPads lack the keyboards viewed by teachers as essential to writing instruction, and Apple’s computing environment does not live mainly in the cloud. By contrast, students working on cloud-based Chromebooks can use any machine to get access to their work and administrators can easily implement systemwide changes from a dashboard on a single computer. And Chromebooks sell for as little as $149.
At the Chicago event today, Apple announced several new education apps. It is introducing a tool called Schoolwork, which will make it possible for teachers to give digital handouts to students, including notes, PDFs, and web links. One of Schoolwork’s selling points is privacy. Only teachers will be able to see students’ data. But Google also promises privacy for student information and it’s not clear whether Apple’s system is more secure. Schoolwork will launch in June. Apple is also updating its Pages word processing app, which will allow teachers and students to make books together using handwritten notes, photos, videos and drawings using pre-made templates.
EEUU/March 27, 2018/BY JAMES WALKER/Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com
Apple is said to be preparing a low-cost iPad for launch at a rare education-focused event next week. The company will make a revived push into classroom devices after losing ground to strong competition from Microsoft and Google.
Education software
According to a report from Bloomberg today, Apple will launch a «lost-cost iPad» for teachers and students during its event at the Lane Technical College Prep High School in Chicago next week. It comes as Apple recommits to education devices with its first dedicated event since 2012.
The device will be a new lower-cost version of Apple’s entry-level 9.7-inch iPad. Apple is also developing specialised classroom software to improve the iPad’s usability in schools. Further details on the as-yet unannounced device are currently scarce. Insiders who spoke to Bloomberg said they could not disclose more information because of the private nature of the plans.
9.7-inch iPad Pro
Apple
The launch will see Apple make a bold re-entry into the education market. Over the past couple of years, education PC makers have become highly competitive. The industry is currently led by Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Google’s Chrome OS platforms, both of which have recently launched new education software experiences and upgraded school-oriented hardware.
Throughout the increasingly fierce battle between Microsoft and Google, Apple has so far remained on the sidelines. The rising dominance of Chrome OS, coupled with Microsoft’s renewed efforts to promote Windows 10, now seems to have prompted Apple to take action. The cheaper iPad may help it to regain its lost ground in the classroom, particularly in the U.S. market where it has struggled to compete with low-cost Chrome OS products.
Tablet convenience
It’s of note that Apple seems to be choosing the iPad as the device to spearhead its new education strategy. For years, the company has promoted the iPad as a more modern alternative to traditional PCs. Apple frequently cites advantages including the device’s portability, light weight and responsiveness as key reasons for consumers to choose one over a regular PC.
Apple may now be taking this message into classrooms. With Microsoft and Google still predominantly focused on laptops and convertibles, Apple could try to sell schools on the promise of touchscreen tablets. iPads might be simpler to distribute to students and easier to carry during the day.
Apple MacBook Pro (2016)
Apple
With Apple also expected to unveil a new entry-level MacBook, the company seems to be waking up to the computing needs of schools. While MacBooks are still popular with college students, Apple’s failure to launch more low-end devices has made them uncommon in the classroom.
Next week’s event could debut a renewed focus on education PCs, which can only be positive for teachers and students. With Microsoft, Google and now Apple now aggressively competing for classroom dominance, schools have more hardware to choose from and increasingly sophisticated software platforms. Soon, all three major ecosystems may have compelling hardware options and dedicated learning experiences, helping to digitally transform the education sector.
EEUU/March 27, 2018/By Grant McPherson Staff Writer/Source: http://leader.mainelymediallc.com
Residents have numerous questions regarding profiency-based diploma program
State officials attended a Scarborough board of education meeting to discuss where the state was in its implementation of proficiency-based diplomas as well as the challenges they face, but residents still have many questions.
Maine Department of Education Chief Academic Officer Paul Hambleton and Sen. Brian Langley (Dist. 7), chairman of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, spoke before board members, school staff and the public Thursday, March 15 and answered questions about what kind of regulations the state was considering.
Following a state mandate, ninth graders at Scarborough High School must demonstrate they have mastered skills in eight different educational areas in order to graduate. Residents are concerned how the new grading system will affect their children’s chances of being accepted to colleges and universities.
Hambleton, who taught English and special education before joining the department of education, said he’s heard both concerns and success stories from around the state regarding the transition. He spoke before the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee and asked for clarification from the legislature about what the definition of “proficient” should be.
“The struggle I was having was in one particular area of the law,” Hambleton said. “It describes the diploma as something that is awarded when a student reaches proficiency in all eight areas and my challenge with that after talking to colleges is if we take that at straight face value, we were concerned about the way we were setting it up was going to result in a lot of kids not being able to meet that bar.”
Hambleton has been back and forth in discussion with the legislature about amendments to the law, which could look similar to aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act and Every Student Succeeds Act, the latter a reauthorization of the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Acts.
“Now the question is, what does a diploma mean,” Hambleton said. “The other moving piece is what do we expect kids to be able to do by the time they graduate high school? Do we want to create a statewide definition for all students in all eight areas before they exit high school? That’s been our challenge. Where is that model and where do we land on that? What are we expecting all kids in the state to be able to do regardless of zip code? How do we help all kids get there without creating a barrier that will trip kids up? That’s essentially where we are now, finding that sweet spot.”
Over the next couple weeks, Hambleton said he would work with the legislature and his department to try and answer some of those questions.
Langley spent 27 years teaching culinary arts at the Hancock County Technical Center in Ellsworth before his time in the legislature and was present when the proficiency-based diploma bill was introduced. He said that a proficiency based grading system is not a mandate of the new law and local school districts are free to implement it, create a hybrid system or keep a numerical method of grading.
Langley said he doesn’t know how many schools have chosen a proficiency based grading system, but that eight high schools in Maine will graduate students this year with performance-based diplomas.
The law took effect Jan. 1, 2017 and Langley said as long as the state legislature continues to turn over every few years there will continue to be amendments to the law. However, he is hopeful the changes will be beneficial in the long-term.
“It’s been difficult for those whom the system has always worked for,” Langley said. “They will continue to say it still works. I spent my career working with castaway kids. When they had been given up on they would end up in my program. With a grading system of one through four for a perfect blueberry pie taste, they could begin making one when they compare themselves against a standard and not someone else’s work.
“Most school systems already have proficiency based (models). In kindergarten through second grade, a report card shows if a student can tell time to a quarter of the hour, count to 10 and recite the alphabet.”
Langley said the legislature would wait for an amendment to the law from the department of education or possibly choose to delay further implantation by a year. While not originally planning to attend the Scarborough Board of Education’s meeting, he said he felt obligated when he heard a municipality was discussing how to implement its own methods.
“It’s nice to see so many people out for a school board meeting,” he said. “From my perspective it’s hard and people are very concerned about what’s best for their kids. A lot of school systems have trouble finding enough people to serve on the school board. You will develop thick skin working through the issues and come out better for it.”
Scarborough resident Jeannine Uzzi said while she supports the transition to proficiency-based education, making sure colleges and universities understand students’ transcripts is critical.
“I have no philosophical issue, but the fact of the matter is the onus is on the district to replace the familiar transcript with narrative data and it will take a lot of hard work upfront before the switch to a different grading system,” she said. “Proficiency-based education will not disadvantage students in terms of learning, it should be an advantage. There need to be resources put into recreating how we grade assessments and how teachers are trained. The town has to invest money to support changes.”
Maria Connolly, another resident, was less enthusiastic about the change. She said the discussion about proficiency based education has only caused more anxiety for her children, who are considering private school to ensure a better chance at being accepted to the college or university of their choice.
“You have the future of our children in your hands,” she said. “We want you to leave a legacy of positivity for them. I regret I didn’t get involved in the discussion sooner. I regret my 13-year-old son came up to me at the beginning of the school year asking to go to Cheverus for the rest of his high school career because he was unhappy with the grading system. As a 13-year-old he was worried about the impact on himself. If a 13-year-old saw the writing on the wall, then you as the board of education and superintendent should have.”
The ongoing crisis of democracy has two markers: The erasure of memory and the politics of disposability.
In the age of Donald Trump, history neither informs the present nor haunts it with repressed memories of the past. It simply disappears.
This seems especially true regarding the current cult of violence, guns and domestic terrorism.
Such violence is not only evident in the horrors of early fascist and Nazi regimes, but also in the massacre of Vietnamese infants and children at My Lai , and in the guns turned repeatedly on children in the United States, most recently in Florida.
An estimated 188 shootings have occurred at U.S. schools and universities since 2000. There will be no escape from mass violence in the U.S. until it is placed within a broader historical, economic and political context to address the totality of forces that produce it.
Focusing merely on mass shootings or meaningless gun-control laws does not get to the root of the systemic forces that produce America’s love affair with violence and the ideologies and criminogenic institutions that produce it. Historical and social amnesia in fact facilitates America’s addiction to violence.
This is especially troubling when the “mobilizing passions” of a fascist past now emerge in a stream of hate, bigotry, lies and militarism that are endlessly circulated at the highest levels of the Trump administration and in powerful conservative media such as Fox News, Breitbart News and conservative talk radio stations.
These right-wing media stalwarts have been joined by newcomers like Clear Channel and Sinclair Broadcast Group.
And so the politics of disposability, in which the well-being of citizens, democratic ideals and the social contract are tossed away, is no longer the discourse of marginalized extremists. It’s now trumpeted daily by the conservative media machine and exists at the highest levels of government.
America is watching and listening, and so too is Trump himself. His tweets often make reference to actual fake news, and not just the stories he labels as such because they fail to fawn over him:
Thank you to @foxandfriends for the great timeline on all of the failures the Obama Administration had against Russia, including Crimea, Syria and so much more. We are now starting to win again!
The politics of disposability is increasingly evident not so much in rise of mass shootings in the United States but in the fact that they are getting deadlier, especially as they involve the maiming and killing of children.
Seventeen people, most of them teens, are now dead at the hands of a 19-year-old shooter armed with an AR-15 assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. They won’t be the last to die. The question is not if, but when, in a society that has turned malignant with violence.
Violence is indeed a cancer metastasizing through American society. The proliferation and sales of guns as both an industry and form of entertainment is at the heart of such violence. The profits from weapons of war and death are now a more important investment than investing in the safety, security and lives of young people.
The logic of disposability and the war culture it legitimates was on display recently as Trump listened to the impassioned testimony of parents and children who have seen their children and friends killed in gun shootings.
President Donald Trump listens to Florida high school students and one of their parents as they issue a plea for tougher gun laws at the White House on Feb. 21, 2018.(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
He responded by advocating for teachers to be armed and trained to have concealed weapons. Instead of confronting the roots of violence in America, he followed the NRA line of addressing the epidemic of violence, mass shootings and the ongoing carnage with a call for more guns. He normalized the insane logic that mass violence can be met with more violence.
“A teacher would have shot the hell out of the gunman before he knew what happened,” Trump said at the annual CPAC conference.
Trump, who was the recipient of US$30 million in campaign funds from the NRA, channels its head, Wayne LaPierre, who calls for more armed teachers. LaPierre trades in fear-mongering, mistrust and even Cold War rhetoric, calling gun control advocates “socialists.”
Trump and LaPierre have no interest in preventing school shootings. On the contrary, they want to “prepare for shootings” by turning schools into war zones.
This logic is breathtaking in its moral depravity, its refusal to get to the root of the problem and its unwillingness even to advocate for the most minor reforms such as banning assault rifles, making illegal the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines and expanding background checks.
There are 300 million guns in the United States and since the 2012 mass murder of 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, hundreds more children have died of gun violence.
There is no defence for putting the policies of the NRA ahead of the lives of children.
Criminal acts often pass for legislative policies. How else to explain the Florida legislature voting to refuse to even debate outlawing assault weapons while students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sat in the gallery and watched this wretched and irresponsible act take place?
How else to explain that the U.S. House of Representatives, seemingly reduced to an adjunct of the NRA, voted to pass a law that would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons across state lines?
These are the people who have the blood of thousands on their hands. The power of money in politics has morphed into a form of barbarism in which financial gain and power have become more important than protecting the lives of America’s children.
Children no longer have a safe space in America, a country saturated in violence as a spectacle sport, its citizens routinely brutalized by repeated deadly acts of domestic terrorism followed by the criminal inaction of their elected representatives.
Any defence for the proliferation of guns, especially those designed for war, is, in fact, criminal. It’s political corruption, a government in the hands of the gun lobby, and a country that trades in violence at every turn in order to accrue profits at the expense of the lives of innocent children.
This is how the logic of disposability works. This is how democracies die.
Children have more moral courage
And this debate is not simply about gun violence, it is about the rule of capital and how the architects of violence accrue enough power to turn the machinery of death and destruction into profits while selling violence as a commodity.
Violence is both a source of profits and a cherished national ideal. It is also the defining feature of a toxic masculinity so perfectly personified by Trump, pussy-grabber-in-chief.
Gun reform is no substitute for real justice and the necessary abolition of a death-dealing and cruel economic and political system that is the antithesis of democracy.
What are we to make of a society in which young children have a greater sense of moral courage and social responsibility than the zombie adults who make the laws that fail to invest in and protect the lives of present and future generations?
First step: Expose their lies, make their faces public, use the new media to organize across state lines, and work like hell to vote them out of office in 2018.
Hold these ruthless walking dead responsible and then banish them to the gutter where they belong. At the same time, imagine and fight not for a reform of American society but a restructuring along the lines of a truly democratic order.
EEUU/March 27, 2018/BY DR. LEANA S. WEN/Source: http://thehill.com
Baltimore City joined a lawsuit brought by Healthy Teen Network against President Trump, challenging a decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to cut funding from evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention education.
In June 2015, the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) was awarded an $8.6 million grant to implement comprehensive, evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention education in all of the City’s more than 120 middle schools and high schools.
In July 2017, BCHD received notice from HHS that the grant period would be terminated two years early. This termination amounts to a reduction in overall grant funding to $5.1 million — a funding cut of $3.5 million. Despite multiple phone and written requests for explanation, Baltimore City has not received a response from HHS as to why our program is being terminated.
This cut is not just cruel — it’s unprecedented. Funding for Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiatives (TPPI) was appropriated by an act of Congress — a statutory mandate — specifically dictating to HHS the parameters under which the funding was to be distributed. The funding appropriated is still available for the five-year grant period.
There is no reason to terminate it early. HHS made its decision despite the early success of the program and strong evidential foundation, violating the Administrative Procedure Act’s requirements that agency decision making not be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or contrary to law.
The funding cut means that 20,000 students in Baltimore will no longer have evidence-based curricula, creating a vacuum of critical health education for vulnerable youth. In addition to eliminating education on physiology, as well as STD and HIV prevention, the funding cut also removes the financial support necessary to train teachers and build capacity for health education. Last year, BCHD trained 115 teachers to deliver evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. These facilitators ensured that more than 10,000 Baltimore City teens received this valuable education during the 2016-2017 academic year alone.
The Trump administration’s actions also jeopardize the newly-formed Youth Advisory Council, which is comprised of Baltimore City teens who serve as peer health advocates and share information about reproductive health. For the participants in this program, their education goes well beyond health: the program gives them control over their lives and empowers them to make the best choices for themselves. One participant told us, “Without this education, I likely would have been a teen mom and my future would have been very different.”
As a doctor and public health official, I have seen how much this evidence- and science-based grant has helped Baltimore. In particular, I am deeply concerned about three major areas if funding is curtailed.
First, this will slash educational attainment and economic opportunities for our youth. This cut comes at a time when Baltimore City has made remarkable progress, reducing teen pregnancy by 61 percent since 2000. Numerous studies show us that reducing teen birth rates increases young girls’ ability to graduate from high school and to have economic stability for themselves and their families.
Second, these funding cuts will increase costs for our City and for our country. In 2010, teen pregnancy and childbirth accounted for nearly $10 billion in costs nationwide. We should be doing everything we can to empower our youth to succeed and to thrive.
The devastating impacts of these cuts extend beyond Baltimore City: These cuts will affect 81 grantees across the country, totaling $213.6 million. As a result, it is estimated that 580,000 students will no longer be provided with essential evidence-based reproductive health education.
Third, these cuts will adversely affect health outcomes for our most vulnerable mothers and children. Teen mothers give birth at higher rates to preterm, low birth-weight babies, who are more likely to have worse health outcomes. Adolescent and teen pregnancy is also associated with increased risk of infant mortality.
There are also poorer long-term health outcomes for the mothers themselves. I voice my concern not just as a doctor, but as a new mother to a seven-month-old son. Parents want nothing more than to have a healthy child. If we have a strategy that will improve health outcomes for our women and children, then the last thing we should do is cut funding that could hurt generations to come.
In Baltimore, we do not see this funding cut as a number. We see the faces of 20,000 teens who will not receive critical pregnancy prevention education. We see the effect on their futures and on their children’s futures. We see the impact on our communities. We fear what this means for valuing science and evidence, and for how we can continue to fulfill our responsibility of protecting health and ensuring well-being.
Leana S. Wen M.D. is the health commissioner of Baltimore City. Follow her on Twitter @DrLeanaWen.
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Courtesy: Futuresource
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