Expanding the Case for Educating the Whole Child

By Bill Madigan

First in a series of three blogs on education and ethics.

All of us in the world are still suffering the consequences of the economic collapse of 2008.  On September 29, 2008, $1.2 trillion dollars of market value was lost, with much more to follow for weeks and months afterwards.  Both blindness and greed influenced this depressing economic collapse.  As Tim Adams states in an article written for the British newspaper The Observer, “The individual corporate men who catastrophically lost billions of dollars and, on the other side of those bets, the extraordinary ragtag of obsessive individuals who saw what was coming and made eye-watering fortunes.”  Even though these people possessed advanced academic university degrees, something more was amiss. These people were blind and out of balance.

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Visiting AVID in Australia

By Jim Nelson, Executive Director, AVID Center

AVID Executive Vice President Granger Ward and I spent the week of February 6 in Australia meeting with colleagues who are either implementing AVID or supporting its growth and implementation on that amazing continent.  We began working in Australia about five years ago after a wonderful AVID teacher, William DeJean, moved from Southern California to Australia to teach at a university.  He introduced AVID to a group of educators from Wodonga Middle College (the equivalent of an American middle school) and it became our first site in Australia.  They have flourished and AVID has spread to the secondary college (high school) and one of the feeder primary schools.  William remains our AVID consultant on the continent.

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Algebra in 8th grade: What’s changed?

By Dr. Charles Powell (see other posts by Chuck)

Algebra in the 8^th grade is a hot topic currently. But Algebra I in the 8^th grade isn’t a new topic. Algebra was taught in the 8^th grade when I was in middle school more than 30 years ago. So why all the sudden fuss; what has changed?  It turns out, plenty, and not as media pundits would have you believe.

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AVID: A Social and Economic Imperative?

By Christopher Scott, Director II, Capital Region III AVID/CalSOAP, Sacramento County Office of Education

As the effects of the Great Recession continue to ripple across our nation, there is much chatter in the media regarding the widening gulf between society’s “haves” and “have-nots.” Television talk shows, online publications, and hard-copy print are rife with stories detailing the dismal economic prospects for our youth as everything from robotics to global outsourcing daily diminishes not just their broader career opportunities, but their chances for any employment that will support them beyond mere subsistence. The resulting negative impact on social mobility and the “hollowing out” of the middle class hardly bode well for the future of our democracy.

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21st Century Educating

By Bill Madigan

A noted neuroanatomist named Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor had a massive stroke in her medial left hemisphere early one morning.  The resultant hemorrhage permanently destroyed an area of her brain responsible for mathematical computation.  In addition because of the proximity to Broca’s area (speech production) and Wernicke’s area (understanding and writing speech), she was completely unable to communicate verbally or understand speech – a deep challenge, given she was in a hospital for many months.  She remembers curling up in a fetal position for much of that time while her traumatized brain slowly healed. Eight years later she is able to do complex math and she travels extensively giving talks and seminars. Even though the damaged portion of her brain remains permanently destroyed, new brain cells have come to the rescue to restore lost capacities.  With the patience and rigorous help from her mother who was a schoolteacher, she has regained not only her lost mental toolbox, she has a new and astounding appreciation of the “plasticity” or resiliency of our brains.

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