Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail - Jessica Lahey - The Atlantic

A new study explores what happens to students who aren't allowed to suffer through setbacks.

JESSICA LAHEY writes this interesting article, from which I have just given a few chunks. You can find the entire text here: 

Thirteen years ago, when I was a relatively new teacher, stumbling around my classroom on wobbly legs, I had to call a students' mother to inform her that I would be initiating disciplinary proceedings against her daughter for plagiarism, and that furthermore, her daughter would receive a zero for the plagiarized paper.

"You can't do that. She didn't do anything wrong," the mother informed me, enraged.

"But she did. I was able to find entire paragraphs lifted off of web sites," I stammered.

"No, I mean she didn't do it. I did. I wrote her paper".

I don't remember what I said in response, but I'm fairly confident I had to take a moment to digest what I had just heard. And what would I do, anyway? Suspend the mother? Keep her in for lunch detention and make her write "I will not write my daughter's papers using articles plagiarized from the Internet" one hundred times on the board? In all fairness, the mother submitted a defense: her daughter had been stressed out, and she did not want her to get sick or overwhelmed.

In the end, my student received a zero and I made sure she re-wrote the paper. Herself. Sure, I didn't have the authority to discipline the student's mother, but I have done so many times in my dreams.

I believed my accumulated compendium of teacher war stories were pretty good -- until I read a study out of Queensland University of Technology, by Judith Locke, et. al., a self-described "examination by parenting professionals of the concept of overparenting."

Overparenting is characterized in the study as parents' "misguided attempt to improve their child's current and future personal and academic success." In an attempt to understand such behaviors, the authors surveyed psychologists, guidance counselors, and teachers. The authors asked these professionals if they had witnessed examples of overparenting, and left space for descriptions of said examples. While the relatively small sample size and questionable method of subjective self-reporting cast a shadow on the study's statistical significance, the examples cited in the report provide enough ammunition for a year of dinner parties.

One participant from a study said this:

I have worked with quite a number of parents who are so overprotective of their children that the children do not learn to take responsibility (and the natural consequences) of their actions. The children may develop a sense of entitlement and the parents then find it difficult to work with the school in a trusting, cooperative and solution focused manner, which would benefit both child and school. 

Look how well she concludes herself on this matter, precise and crisp in putting her views straight to the point:

I have learned to enjoy and find satisfaction in these day-to-day lessons, and in the time I get to spend with children in need of an education. But I fantasize about the day I will be trusted to teach my students how to roll with the punches, find their way through the gauntlet of adolescence, and stand firm in the face of the challenges -- challenges that have the power to transform today's children into resourceful, competent, and confident adults.

Read the entire article  here

Bacteria Are Blowing in the Wind | The Scientist Magazine®

Ten kilometers (more than 6 miles) into the atmosphere, a plethora of microbes is thriving, possibly affecting cloud chemistry and playing a role in atmospheric conditions, according to new research published today (January 28) inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous research on snow and rainwater collected at high elevations had already established that bacteria in the air initiate moisture condensation that leads to precipitation. Some of these microbes secrete special proteins that allow them to initiate ice crystallization, which may affect weather by changing the temperature at which ice crystals form in the sky. But most microbe-rich precipitation was collected from the Earth, and may represent different bacterial communities than those in the atmosphere, which may have different properties for ice nucleation and cloud formation than those found in rain water, explained senior author Konstantinos Konstantinidis, a microbial genomicist at Georgia Tech. Read More

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How Aggressive Narcissism Explains Lance Armstrong - Joseph Burgo - The Atlantic

A good read from The Atlantic about  "narcissistic personality disorder" and a good example for how we should look at a matter from every angle: 

Given his persistent lying and bullying, his arrogance and apparent indifference to the feelings of others, and the pain he inflicted on so many people, it's difficult to feel much compassion for Armstrong -- to even care to understand why he behaves the way he does. But let's try.

A lust for money, for fame, or for victory -- these are the main motivations the world has assigned to Lance Armstrong following his revelations during the Oprah interview and his dubious mea culpa. Yet these explanations, though thoughtful and widely shared, don't fully account for his propensity to lie, no matter what the cost to others who challenge him, in order to achieve victory and preserve his heroic self-image.

While "narcissistic personality disorder" has been floated in connection with Armstrong's name, this diagnostic label is more often used to vilify social pariahs like Bernie Madoff or Anders Behring Breivik than to shed genuine light on the person's psychology. Armstrong's grandiose personality certainly fits the profile of a narcissist, but these days, that label is most often hurled as an insult, used to express hostility toward egomaniacs who think too highly of themselves. How exactly does that label help us understand his history of relentless and ruthless lying? Read More

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Treaty to Curb Mercury Pollution | The Scientist Magazine®

Treaty to Curb Mercury Pollution | The Scientist Magazine®:

After 4 years of negotiations and an all-nighter this past weekend, delegates in Geneva came to a consensus at 7 a.m. Saturday morning (January 19): more than 140 nations agreed to enter the Minimata Convention, a treaty to regulate the use of mercury in everyday commodities, such as batteries, fluorescent lamps, and cosmetics, as well as mercury emissions from coal power plants, gold mines, and certain types of factories. Other sources of mercury that the delegates discussed include dental fillings, medical thermometers, and blood pressure devices. The treaty, named for the Japanese city that suffered one of the worst bouts of mercury poisoning, aims to significantly reduce global mercury emissions by 2020. Read More

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Being Married Helps Professors Get Ahead, but Only If They're Male - Alexis Coe - The Atlantic

A new study of history professors shows that married men get promoted faster than their single colleagues, while the opposite is true for women.

I have given the gist of the study highlighting the important findings. I opine this is a very interesting and relevant research and clears the air on gender roles at workplace, especially, academia pretty much!!! Go on read, it fun :)

Robert B. Townsend, deputy director of the AHA, surveyed 2,240 associate and full professors of history and released the findings in this month's Perspectives on History. Female historians who were either married or had been married at the time of the 2010 survey took an average of 7.8 years to move from associate to full professor. Women who had never married were promoted in an average of 6.7 years. Almost two times as many of the female full professors listed their status as divorced or separated, which suggests their professional obligations were somehow less compatible with marriage than their male colleagues. They were also more likely than their male colleagues to have never wed at all.

"I have a theory about this," said Tara Nummedal, an associate professor of history at Brown University. "It seems pretty clear that smart women are going to find men who are engaged, but I just don't see that it works the other way." She added that a female professor with a stay-at-home spouse is quite rare, but often sees men with stay-at-home wives, allowing them to fully commit themselves to their professions.

Nummedal sees women called to committee work far more than men, but offers another reason. "Men are better at protecting their time," she said, further observing that women do recognize that they are called upon more often, but are compelled by a sense of community, not just professional obligation.

"The person who ends up getting the job," Nummedal continued, "is a man who has a woman who is willing to follow him, or is single."

Women were two times as likely to take leave to support their partner's career, the study said. "This explains why marriage accelerates a man's career," said Seth Rockman, an associate professor of history at Brown University. "If men can continue to find wives who will abandon their professional aspirations to assist their husbands, well, that's it in a nutshell." Rockman, who is married Nummedal, called the statistics depressing. "The degree of backsliding in the current generation is stunning."

The gender breakdown within a department plays a significant role. Typically, there are more men than women within a discipline, and yet committees seek as much diversity as possible. Women, then, are often asked to do double the amount of service as men, a number that increases for women of color. While service is certainly considered when promoting, publications play a much larger role. Service takes time away from research, so women will have a harder time keeping up with the publishing output of their male counterparts.

"This is one of those places where the ability to say 'no' and pick where you should devote yourself to the university may have very different consequences," said Rockman, which is not to say that men are trying to avoid service entirely. Professors of both sexes do care a great deal about furthering an institutions goals and enriching the community, but men assert greater control over exactly how that happens.

And to conclude the authors say: When we look at these kinds of issues, whether it is the wage gap or child care, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a fundamental problem with the professional workplace, which is still best structured for single males, or males with wives who support their careers.

For the complete article go here or the following link:

Being Married Helps Professors Get Ahead, but Only If They're Male - Alexis Coe - The Atlantic:

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Being Married Helps Professors Get Ahead, but Only If They're Male - Alexis Coe - The Atlantic

A new study of history professors shows that married men get promoted faster than their single colleagues, while the opposite is true for women.

I have given the gist of the study highlighting the important findings. I opine this is a very interesting and relevant research and clears the air on gender roles at workplace, especially, academia pretty much!!! Go on read, it fun :)

Robert B. Townsend, deputy director of the AHA, surveyed 2,240 associate and full professors of history and released the findings in this month's Perspectives on History. Female historians who were either married or had been married at the time of the 2010 survey took an average of 7.8 years to move from associate to full professor. Women who had never married were promoted in an average of 6.7 years. Almost two times as many of the female full professors listed their status as divorced or separated, which suggests their professional obligations were somehow less compatible with marriage than their male colleagues. They were also more likely than their male colleagues to have never wed at all.

"I have a theory about this," said Tara Nummedal, an associate professor of history at Brown University. "It seems pretty clear that smart women are going to find men who are engaged, but I just don't see that it works the other way." She added that a female professor with a stay-at-home spouse is quite rare, but often sees men with stay-at-home wives, allowing them to fully commit themselves to their professions.

Nummedal sees women called to committee work far more than men, but offers another reason. "Men are better at protecting their time," she said, further observing that women do recognize that they are called upon more often, but are compelled by a sense of community, not just professional obligation.

"The person who ends up getting the job," Nummedal continued, "is a man who has a woman who is willing to follow him, or is single."

Women were two times as likely to take leave to support their partner's career, the study said. "This explains why marriage accelerates a man's career," said Seth Rockman, an associate professor of history at Brown University. "If men can continue to find wives who will abandon their professional aspirations to assist their husbands, well, that's it in a nutshell." Rockman, who is married Nummedal, called the statistics depressing. "The degree of backsliding in the current generation is stunning."

"This is one of those places where the ability to say 'no' and pick where you should devote yourself to the university may have very different consequences," said Rockman, which is not to say that men are trying to avoid service entirely. Professors of both sexes do care a great deal about furthering an institutions goals and enriching the community, but men assert greater control over exactly how that happens.

And to conclude the authors say: When we look at these kinds of issues, whether it is the wage gap or child care, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a fundamental problem with the professional workplace, which is still best structured for single males, or males with wives who support their careers.

For the complete article go here or the following link:

Being Married Helps Professors Get Ahead, but Only If They're Male - Alexis Coe - The Atlantic:

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