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Mixed-Age Classes Hinder Kids’ Academic Progress in Head Start
Most Head Start classrooms serve children of mixed ages and that may limit the academic growth of older children, according to new research to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers found that 4-year-olds in Head Start classrooms that included higher concentrations of 3-year-olds were up to five months behind in academic development compared with their peers in classrooms that had fewer younger children. As of 2009, about 75 percent of all Head Start classrooms were mixed-age. Head Start is a federal preschool program that promotes the school readiness of children in low-income families from age 3 to age 5.
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Fatal Fat Shaming? How Weight Discrimination May Lead To Premature Death
Wbur: As soon as the chair broke under the weight of his 533 pounds, Jeff Newell knew he wouldn’t get the job. With a background in customer service and a culinary arts degree, Newell, of Taunton, Massachusetts, had been searching fruitlessly for work for several years. Finally, a great job near his home opened up that seemed a perfect fit with his credentials. But then came the chair-breaking incident. Humiliating, yes, but even more infuriating because the interviewer, offering neither help nor an apology, simply shook her head and made a face. “I knew what she was thinking: ‘This person is overweight and he’s going to be lazy and why should I hire him?’ ” Newell said.
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What Does Success Mean for Long-Suffering Sports Fans? An Identity Crisis, Researchers Say
Scientific American: In August 1987, in the midst of one of the darkest periods in English soccer history, a countercultural movement sprung into existence in the stadium of the Manchester City Football Club when a man named Frank Newton brought a five-foot inflatable banana to a game for a laugh. Laughs being rare in the stands at that time, other fans embraced the idea of inflatable bananas and a trend bloomed. Vendors started selling them. Newton himself soon switched to a six-foot inflatable crocodile, according to a definitive account at the Manchester City fan newsletter MCIVTA. Other fans hoisted inflatable sharks, airplanes, and wading pools.
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Science says lasting relationships come down to 2 basic traits
The Atlantic: In most marriages, levels of satisfaction drop dramatically within the first few years together. But among couples who not only endure, but live happily together for years and years, the spirit of kindness and generosity guides them forward. Every day in June, the most popular wedding month of the year, about 13,000 American couples will say “I do,” committing to a lifelong relationship that will be full of friendship, joy, and love that will carry them forward to their final days on this earth. Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people. The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction.
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Cars vs. Bikes vs. Pedestrians
The New Yorker: We’ve all been there. You’re walking down the sidewalk, minding your own business, when, hurtling toward you, threatening public peace, safety, and sanity, is that horror of all horrors: a bicyclist. Bicycling on the sidewalk is illegal in New York—not to mention dangerous!—and your sense of righteous indignation grows and doesn’t subside until you speak your mind, profanely. Of course, the same scenario can unfold from a different angle. You can be biking along peacefully, following the rules (hello, bike lane!) when, out of nowhere, against the light, a pedestrian walks blithely into the street, with no regard for the rules or your safety. You swerve; cue the expletives.
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Neuropolitics, Where Campaigns Try to Read Your Mind
The New York Times: In the lobby of a Mexico City office building, people scurrying to and fro gazed briefly at the digital billboard backing a candidate for Congress in June. They probably did not know that the sign was reading them, too. Inside the ad, a camera captured their facial expressions and fed them through an algorithm, reading emotional reactions like happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear and sadness....
