While living in Fresno, California, during the early 1970s, Judy Chicago undertook a research project focused on female artists throughout the ages. These days, such an initiative hardly seems revolutionary—many books have since been published about pioneers by historians like Linda Nochlin, Griselda Pollock, Mary Garrard, and more. But at the time, art history as it existed in the U.S. was almost exclusively focused on the achievement of white males based in Europe and New York. Chicago sought to change that.
She learned that nuns aided in illuminating manuscripts alongside monks, and that women like Anna Claypoole and Sarah Peale were painting in the U.S. during the 19th century. She came upon the work of artists like Artemisia Gentileschi, the Baroque painter whose work has more recently acted as a symbol of the #MeToo movement, and Angelica Kaufmann, who during her day was among the most famous Neoclassical artists. She saw how paintings by Judith Leyster and Rosalba Carreira could offer visions of women by women, and how Impressionists like Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were forced to live in the shadow of their male colleagues. (Most of the women Chicago surveyed were white and European. Chicago has said her limited focus was due in part to the purview of the literature she relied upon.)
“Many of these artists struggled with obstacles similar to those I had encountered: negative attitudes toward women; not being taken seriously; and, most grievous, being deprived of the opportunities and rewards that allow one’s career to flourish,” Chicago writes in The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago, which was published earlier this year by Thames & Hudson. “Even in the face of innumerable impediments, including a lack of formal art training, they had carved out lives for themselves in a world where only male artists had the support of the culture.”
Since Chicago began her research project, many of the women she explored have been given proper museum surveys and biographies of their own. Now, Chicago has been inscribed in the lineage of which Gentileschi, Carreira, Morisot, and others are a part. This Saturday, the de Young Museum in San Francisco will open Chicago’s first-ever retrospective, cementing her place in history as one of the most important feminist artists ever. Though that show doesn’t include her most famous project, The Dinner Party (1974–79), it will feature a breadth of work that spans the full of her career, from early paintings done on car hoods to her latest series focused on death and ecological destruction. Below, a look at Chicago’s expansive oeuvre.
Early Feminist Experiments
People now know Judy Chicago’s name far and wide—but in fact, it wasn’t the moniker she was given when she was born to two Jewish liberals in Illinois’s largest city in 1939. Early on, the young Judy Cohen demonstrated a natural aptitude for art and was exposed to leftist politics, thanks to her father, who was a registered Communist. It wasn’t until the ’60s, after she had studied art at the University of California, Los Angeles and after her first husband had died, that she took on a new last name.
In 1966, she christened herself Judy Chicago on the advice of her dealer Rolf Nelson, who admired her Illinoisian accent. For a show at California State University, Fullerton, she exhibited a sculpture, along with a text offering insight into the name change: “Judy Gerowitz hereby divests herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance and freely chooses her own name: Judy Chicago.” The sculpture she showed was a set of semi-translucent acrylic half-spheres set atop a table-like structure. Smooth and sleek, it was of a piece with the Finish Fetish aesthetic that was pervasive in California at the time. It looked a lot like Minimalist sculpture—with key differences: it was a lot less imposing, and a lot more colorful.
The Minimalist sculptors gaining name recognition at the time were largely white men based in New York making giant art out of industrial materials and mathematical systems. Chicago, who exhibited alongside them in Kynaston McShine’s famed 1966 show “Primary Structures” at the Jewish Museum in New York, took issue with this, and sought to find a way to create art that would be reflective of her own experience. One method was to generate a form of abstraction that referred directly to vaginas, vulvas, and breasts—a project she had begun in grad school with works painted on car hoods that collapsed male and female sex organs. (She would later return to making these abstractions throughout her career, producing them until 2004.) They were panned by her male colleagues and professors who saw them. Another was to make her repetitive forms colorful and quite unlike the steely creations being put out by the Minimalists.
But Chicago found herself frustrated with the abstract language she had engineered, since it couldn’t fully communicate her struggle as a woman. And so she ventured in a new direction.
The Life of the Party
During the ’70s, alongside many women across the U.S., Chicago joined the fight for women’s liberation. In response, her work began to tackle feminist themes more directly. Her practice also began expanding beyond gallery walls. For one series of performances, titled “Atmospheres,” she sprayed plumes of smoke amid arid landscapes, in an attempt to “feminize” her surroundings. (More recently, these works have been criticized for their ecological impact—a San Diego venue pulled out of hosting one in 2021 as part of the Desert X biennial, claiming that the smoke sculpture would hurt flora and fauna nearby.) Yet there were also projects from this era that looked nothing like art at all.
In 1970, Chicago started the Feminist Art Project at what is now the California State University, Fresno. Intended as a space for women, who were often marginalized at top art schools across the country, the Feminist Art Project was a part of Chicago’s consciousness-raising efforts, and was later redeveloped with artist Miriam Schapiro as the Feminist Art Program at CalArts. In 1973, Chicago would leave CalArts to cofound, with Arlene Raven and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, the influential Woman’s Building in L.A., where they hosted the Feminist Studio Workshop.
Chicago also made a space for women artists to make art, with Womanhouse, a 1972 project in which a Chicago, Schapiro, and other women artists, including their students, inhabited a Los Angeles house to create a collaborative Gesamtkunstwerk that included performances and installations there, drawing hundreds of visitors. Chicago’s contribution was Menstrual Bathroom, for which she lined a lavatory with feminine hygiene products that appeared to be used.
Many consider Chicago’s greatest work to be The Dinner Party (1974–79), an epic installation resembling a triangular table with place settings honoring women from throughout history, from Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut to American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. At each of the 39 settings was a plate depicting the sitter’s vagina, often with allusions to their artistic style or character. Beneath the table are tiles with the names of around 1,000 other women. The project was an example of the way Chicago began to merge “high” art with “low” craft techniques, such as a ceramics and embroidery, which had been historically been considered lesser than painting and sculpture because of their historical associations as so-called women’s work.
After premiering at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the installation toured the nation. Lucy Lippard called it “one of the most ambitious works of art made in the postwar period” in Art in America, although her critical admiration for the piece was rare at the time. The piece now resides at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, though this wasn’t meant to be the piece’s home—Chicago planned on giving it to the University of the District of Columbia, then rescinded the offer after Republicans in the House of Representatives called it “obscene” and withdrew funding for the school in 1990.
The Dinner Party marked one attempt to tell “‘herstory’ through techniques that were considered ‘womanly,’” as Chicago recalls in The Flowering, and it was met with big crowds and national media coverage. But not everyone sang its praises. Some accused Chicago of exploiting the workers she enlisted to produce the project—a charge she vehemently denies in her autobiography. Others claimed that Chicago’s dinner party had an exclusive invite list—few women of color made the cut. In 2018, Chicago explained this absence by telling the New York Review of Books that there was “little or no knowledge about any of these women” of color when she began working on The Dinner Party. When women of color do appear, they are often not placed on equal footing to their predominantly white company. Alice Walker famously focused on Sojourner Truth’s plate, which was one of the few that featured not a vagina but three faces. “It occurred to me that perhaps white women feminists, no less than white women generally, cannot imagine that black women have vaginas,” Walker wrote.
Since The Dinner Party, Chicago has worked predominantly in a figurative mode. After such a grand installation, Chicago’s next series was something more intimate: “The Birth Project,” which sought to right an art-historical wrong by offering depictions of mothers during labor that had rarely been seen throughout art history. Chicago attributed this absence to the patriarchy, saying, “If men had babies, there would be thousands of images of the crowning.” The resulting pieces, done via needlepoint and needlework, abstractly show children emerging from vaginas, with women’s bodies appearing to split open and emit rays of light in the process. At times, these images seem violent, even disturbing; at others, they are beautiful.
After this came “PowerPlay” (1982–87), a series of paintings in which a muscular male figure’s body appears to undergo various transformations—shedding his skin in one memorable work, and peeing all over a mountainous landscape in another. She continued her exploration of power and domination with “Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light” (1985–1993), which sought to understand the roots of a genocide that resulted in the killings of more than 6 million Jews and an estimated 5 million from other marginalized groups. Interwoven in it were meditations on colonial conquests in the U.S.
In recent years, Chicago has found widespread success. She now has representation with two galleries, Salon 94 and Jessica Silverman, and has said that her work’s appearance in a Getty Museum show about the postwar L.A. art scene, held as first of the Pacific Standard Time initiative, in 2011, helped cement her reputation. She has since designed the runway for a Dior show and appeared on the “TIME 100” list.
All the while, Chicago has continued making her politically engaged her art, directing much of her focus toward environmentalist concerns over the three decades. Building off concerns explored in bodies of work such as the needlework series “Resolutions: A Stitch in Time” (1994–2000), Chicago’s most recent series, “The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction” (2015–19), is just as much a project about the horrors wrought by humanity on the natural world as it is on her own mortality. In these paintings done on black glass, sinewy humans are shown on their deathbeds, and animals are depicting crying out on pain. Amid the carnage, Chicago periodically sounds a hopeful note. In Stranded (2016), she shows a polar bear atop a shrinking icecap. Beneath it is a text quoting the environmentalist Derrick Jensen: “Every creature on the planet must be hoping that… our time of awakening comes soon.”


Robotics researchers at Oregon State University reckon that they've created a robot that walks more like a human than any before. It's hoped that it could allow robots to be more integrated into our lives.
The breakthrough is based on "spring-mass" theory, which combines a mechanical system of walking with computer control. That combination lets the robot react blindly to rough terrain while maintaining balance and retaining efficiency of motion. The team described their technique in an article in IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
The concept was theorised less than a decade ago, and came from studies of both human and animal walking and running. It turns out that we combine sensory input from nerves, vision, muscles and tendons to create our locomotion.
Putting Theory Into Action
Now, that process has been put into a working robot - one named ATRIAS, which has been undergoing testing for several months. It's three times more energy-efficient than other human-sized two-legged robots. "Other robotic approaches may have legs and motion, but don't really capture the underlying physics," said Jonathan Hurst, who runs the Dynamic Robotics Laboratory at Oregon State University.
Hurst added that he believes legged robots will be able to more closely integrate into human lives. "We know it is possible, based on the example of animals. So it's inevitable that we will solve the problem with robots. This could become as big as the automotive industry."
He said: "We're convinced this is the approach on which the most successful legged robots will work. It retains the substance and science of legged animal locomotion, and animals demonstrate performance that far exceeds any other approach we've seen. This is the way to go."


Scottish cattle droving was once important in our economy, notably when Crieff ‘tryst’ was a major cattle market, before railways ended the droving trade there.
Table of Contents
In the story of Scottish cattle droving, not much remains that is obvious in the landscape.
Below is a picture of an ordinary country lane in Perthshire.
It leads down to the River Earn, at a point called Dalpatrick Ford, near the town of Crieff, in Perthshire. (It’s marked by the line of trees in the picture below, in the middle distance.)
The notch in the centre of the picture in the hazy background hills is the mouth of Glen Turret. The shoulders of the ‘Munro’ Ben Chonzie are on the left, by the tree. Basically this is a view looking due north into the Highlands.
While Glen Turret has no through road; to the east, (right) just out of shot, is the Sma’ Glen. This glen is a historic through route between Highland and Lowland.
A Network Of Drove Roads
Though it looks an attractive-enough bit of Perthshire countryside, there is a ghostly network converging on the old ford here from several Highland routes out of the north.
And they are all related to the long-vanished trade of Scottish cattle droving.
The peaceful Dalpatrick Ford was a main crossing place for the herds, raised in the north, when they were driven south to the autumn market or tryst; where they were bought by dealers from the south.
Highlandman’s Loan (cf ‘lane’)
Roughly in the first half of the 18th century, this market took place in nearby Crieff, then later at Falkirk, further south, beyond the River Forth.
A straight line from Dalpatrick Ford back north towards the entrance to the Sma Glen more or less follows a road still called Highlandman’s Loan.
This historic name in the story of Scottish cattle droving recalls its connection to the hardy Highlanders who came this way long ago.
Cattle in the old days were black!
When it comes to pinning down what sort of cattle the drovers were moving south, most sources speak of the small black and wiry Highland cattle, often going by the name of kyloes.
These seem to have originated in the far west of Scotland, mostly on the islands.
The red hairy coos that are practically an icon of Scotland today also came from the west, but were bigger, though perhaps not as big as some of the pedigreed specimens so beloved of tourists today.
Sometimes you see black ones, sometimes they have paler coats – but it was their ancestors who made those one-way journeys south. (More on where to see Highland cattle in Scotland here.)
Crieff – Once Scotland’s Largest Financial Centre
It is extraordinary to think that in its cattle-dealing heyday, the little resort town of Crieff was virtually Scotland’s largest financial centre – and, in an eerie echo of today’s straitened circumstances, much of the cattle business was done on credit.
There wasn’t much cash around, so the dealing was based on bills of exchange. This written promise to pay was in circulation pretty much like a banknote.
There was even a bank crash in 1772 which brought down several embryonic financial houses who had interests in the cattle trade.
As an aside, the word ‘pecuniary’, ie relating to money or measured in money, goes all the way back to the Latin noun for cattle: pecus. This in turn is a reminder of societies whose wealth is or was measured in cattle. And this of course includes the Scottish clans of old.
A Tryst – An Agreed Meeting Place
In Scots, the word tryst means an agreed meeting place – so that the dealers trysted with the owners or drovers to meet them in order to do business. (More on Scottish words here.)
There’s a strand of meaning of the standard English trust in there as well.
– and so we return to the idea of credit, and the collapse of economies when that trust is absent.
True in the old days and still true today. I wonder if the Crieff pubs in those days had a sign behind the bar that said something like ‘Cash Only – Nae Coos’. Actually it’s more likely they said ‘Nae rowdy Highlanders’.
By then the Jacobite threat had faded and English dealers felt more confident about travelling north of the Border!
Strictly speaking, Crieff’s role in the story of Scottish cattle droving as an important tryst ended not because of financial reasons but because of the more peaceable political situation in the latter half of the 18th century.
The tryst moved to Falkirk as it was nearer England. But just imagine those drovers, as they made their way through the mountains in all weathers, hoping for a good price for their speculative purchases on the hoof.
Cattle Drovers To Cowboys
And in turn, when changing economic conditions impacted on the Highlands and emigration sadly became almost the norm, the skills of the hardy Highland cattle drovers were exported and made their mark in the New World.
Their descendants became some of the cowboys of the ‘Wild West’. (Our page on Scotland’s music also makes reference to the songs they took with them across the Atlantic.)
Finally – your guide to Highland cattle spotting in Scotland.
Can’t go wrong with this accommodation in Crieff.


Nevertheless, the main system used in most nations is the progressive tax which emphasizes on paying as one earns (Christia, 2006). Each system of taxation is fair and unfair in its own way. Progressive, regressive, and lump-sum taxation systems are unfair while proportional taxation system is very fair when applied in obtaining revenue.
Progressive tax system is where the effective tax rate increases as the amount affected by the rate increases. In most cases progressive tax system is known as the PAYE (Pay as you earn). This means that the more a person earns the more tax he or she pays (Hatzipanayotou, 2004). With progressive tax system those who work hard to earn more are likely to be charged more in terms of tax and this is unfair. Progressive tax rate encourages laziness and discourages hard work. On a different perspective regressive tax system is the opposite of progressive. In this regards with decreases effective rate the amount affected increases on the other hand (Christia, 2006). This is also an unfair system of taxation as those who have will pay less as compared to the poor. In addition, this means that the more a person earns the less he or she pays in form of tax and the less a person earns the more he or she pays in form of tax (Freedman & Chamberlain, 2007). Lump-sum tax system on the other hand does not give priority on the efforts placed by individuals in developing their nations. Therefore, these three systems of taxation are unfair.
Proportional taxation system emphasizes on the effort placed by individual citizens in trying to build their countries. In this taxation system, the effective tax rate is fixed irrespective of the amount being taxed (Slemrod, 2000). Therefore, the more a person earns the more he or she takes home with the tax rate being the same. Schmidt (2000) points out that when one is lazy hence


Ethical Hacker Jobs
Hopefully you’ve never been a victim of cyber crime. Cyber crime is the new frontier for criminals. It’s scary what these outlaws are capable of. Who can help protect you? That’s the job of an ethical hacker.
Ethical hackers, sometimes called penetration testers, are computer hackers. With permission they use invasive computer hacking skills to test security systems to expose weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Any loopholes or problems with security can then be fixed to help make the cyber world safer. Their job is to stay one step ahead of the bad guys – to think like cyber criminals in order to stop them. And it’s very lucrative.
Every company in the world collects information on computers and servers. All of our personal information is stored somewhere and criminals want it. This is why computer security is a billion dollar industry.
Cyber crimes such as poached emails, data tampering, logo switching, spam mail, stolen identities, credit card theft, destructive viruses, password pilfering, corporate espionage, and even cyber terrorism are all threats that our highly connected world must deal with. Most of these crimes happen to unsuspecting victims and may go unnoticed for long periods of time.
Ethical hackers are experts with computers. They are able to manipulate servers, networks, operating systems, programming languages, and wireless systems to help solve security issues. The biggest skill they have is that they are able to penetrate security systems. It’s scary to think that people can do this, but ethical hackers are extremely trustworthy and pass multiple background checks – companies don’t want valuable information put in the wrong hands. Luckily, ethical hackers use their skills for good, not evil.
Ethical hackers always have to stay on top of the latest trends, software, and hardware. New breakthroughs in security and new advancement in crimes mean the industry is always changing. Being creative and thinking outside the box are good qualities for an ethical hacker to have when they work in teams or solo.
Ethical hacking is a relatively new career. E-commerce companies, government agencies, private firms, and security consultants are drooling for the chance to hire a great ethical hacker to legally break into their systems. Most ethical hackers learn the trade by mastering computer languages and programming skills from books, websites, and experts.
Do a Google search to find ethical hacker training and certifications on the Internet. As this career is computer based, there is plenty of information on the Internet – some legit and some a bit questionable. The most respected certification, and one that is approved by the US Department of Defense, is the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC Council) Ethical Hacker Certification.
The EC Council’s Ethical Hacker Certification covers all aspects of hacking – legality, footprints, scanning, system hacking, Trojans, backdoors, sniffers, social engineering, web servers, web app vulnerability, SQL injection, viruses, linux hacking, cryptography, pen test methods, and much more. To become certified, ethical hackers must have experience and pass extensive exams. Certification opens up more job opportunities and higher pay.
The information security field is a growing global industry. There are plenty of jobs available. Currently, the average salary for an ethical hacker is $66,000 per year, but with a few years of experience they will make over $100,000 per year. That’s not bad for staring at a computer screen.
Ethical hacking is the future of cyber crime fighting. As long as you stay on top of the game and use your highly developed skills for good – you’ll make a huge paycheck. This career rocks because you get to legally hack and help protect the world.
Quick Facts About Ethical Hacking Work
Job Title: Ethical Hacker, Penetration Tester
Office: At a computer
Description: With permission, use computer skills to penetrate information systems to increase security, identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and decrease criminal penetration
Certifications/Education: No formal education required. EC Council Certification
Necessary Skills: Knowledge of programming, script languages, hacking
Potential Employers: Private firms, Security consultants, Banks, Government
Pay: Average $66,000 per year, Over $100,000 with experience and success
Helpful Ethical Hacker Job Links:


The United States Postal Service (USPS) plays a vital role in the daily lives of Americans by delivering mail and packages to every corner of the country. At the helm of this massive operation is the U.S. Postmaster, a crucial figure responsible for ensuring efficient mail delivery across America. In this article, we will explore the various responsibilities and challenges faced by the U.S. Postmaster in maintaining reliable postal services.
Overseeing Operations and Logistics
As the head of USPS, the U.S. Postmaster is tasked with overseeing all operations and logistics involved in mail delivery. This includes managing thousands of post offices, processing centers, and transportation networks spread throughout the nation. From urban areas to remote rural communities, it is the responsibility of the U.S. Postmaster to ensure that mail reaches every American household in a timely manner.
Efficient logistics management is crucial for streamlining processes within USPS. The U.S. Postmaster works closely with regional managers and supervisors to optimize routes, schedule deliveries, and allocate resources effectively. By constantly monitoring performance metrics and adapting strategies as needed, they strive to enhance efficiency and minimize delays.
Implementing Technological Innovations
In an increasingly digital era, USPS faces new challenges posed by electronic communication alternatives such as email or online bill payments. To stay competitive and meet customer expectations, the U.S. Postmaster must embrace technological innovations that enhance efficiency without compromising security.
One area where technological advancements have been implemented is in package tracking systems. The U.S. Postmaster has championed initiatives that provide customers with real-time updates on their packages’ whereabouts through online platforms or mobile applications. These innovations not only improve customer satisfaction but also enable USPS to efficiently manage its vast volume of parcels.
Additionally, embracing automation technology has helped streamline processes within USPS facilities such as sorting centers or post offices themselves, reducing human error and increasing overall efficiency. The U.S. Postmaster plays a crucial role in identifying and implementing these technological advancements across the postal service.
Ensuring Employee Training and Development
A vital aspect of maintaining efficient mail delivery is ensuring that USPS employees are well-trained and equipped with the necessary skills to carry out their duties effectively. The U.S. Postmaster is responsible for overseeing employee training and development programs throughout the postal service.
By providing comprehensive training, USPS employees can handle various tasks efficiently, ranging from sorting mail to operating advanced machinery. The U.S. Postmaster collaborates with human resources departments to develop training programs that address evolving industry standards, technological advancements, and safety protocols.
Moreover, the U.S. Postmaster ensures that employees receive ongoing professional development opportunities to stay updated on best practices and enhance their performance. By investing in employee growth, USPS can maintain a highly skilled workforce capable of meeting the demands of modern mail delivery services.
Advocating for Postal Service Modernization
The U.S. Postmaster serves as a vocal advocate for postal service modernization by actively engaging with policymakers, stakeholders, and the public alike. They play an essential role in shaping legislation that supports USPS’s mission and secures its financial stability.
As technology continues to reshape how people communicate, the U.S. Postmaster must advocate for reforms that allow USPS to adapt while still fulfilling its universal service obligation – providing affordable mail delivery to all Americans regardless of location.
By collaborating with legislators, industry partners, and the public, the U.S. Postmaster works towards securing funding for infrastructure improvements, implementing cost-saving measures without sacrificing quality of service or compromising jobs within USPS.
In conclusion, the U.S. Postmaster plays a vital role in ensuring efficient mail delivery across America by overseeing operations and logistics within USPS, implementing technological innovations, ensuring employee training and development, and advocating for postal service modernization. Through their leadership and strategic decision-making, the U.S. Postmaster works towards maintaining reliable mail services that connect communities and facilitate communication nationwide.
This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.


On this day 150 years ago, a statewide referendum overwhelmingly affirmed the Virginia Convention‘s vote to secede. The tally was 125,950 to 20,373, or about 86 percent in favor. A landslide, in other words. Towns from Lynchburg to Centreville were unanimous in their support, while in all of Augusta County only ten men braved a “no” vote. And make no mistake: voting “no” was a brave act. Ballots were public; one had to step up and announce his preference, and do so in the face of declarations like this one from the Staunton Vindicator: “We look upon such conduct [voting no] as treason, and deserving the halter.” A dentist dared to express his sympathies for Lincoln and was threatened with “summary punishment.”
Martinsburg was the only town in the Shenandoah Valley to vote against secession (3-to-1 against, in fact), but even Martinsburg had its share of “secesh” sentiment. On the Fourth of July that year, a young woman who claimed that a Union soldier had sworn at her mother shot and killed the man. Her name? Belle Boyd, of course.
Oh, and she was acquitted on all charges.
IMAGE: Virginia Sentinel (Alexandria, Virginia) Tuesday, May 21, 1861; Issue 62; col B


Master of Natural Sciences (MNS)
Natural Sciences (Interdepartmental Program)
ABSTRACT Many high school Geometry students lack the perseverance required to complete complex and time-consuming problems. This project tests the hypothesis that if students were provided with a means of organizing their problem solving work they will be less apt to quit when faced with complex and time-consuming mathematical problems. This study involved students enrolled in 10th grade Geometry and 10th grade Honors Geometry in two similar high schools. After trying unsuccessfully to implement methods adapted from an engineering workshop, I designed a graphic organizer that was simple to use and acceptable to the students. Ultimately, I did not detect a direct effect on perseverance, but the graphic organizer appeared to increase student communications about problem solving and aided the teacher in quickly diagnosing student problem-solving progress. Thus, it did help to create classroom conditions conducive to student engagement.
Document Availability at the Time of Submission
Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.
(Treadway) Duncker, Angelique Renee, "Exploring Student Perseverance in Problem Solving" (2013). LSU Master's Theses. 671.


Last modified: 2002-09-28 by rick wyatt
Keywords: coat of arms | united states |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors
by Joe McMillan, 15 February 2000
Immediately after declaring independence on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress constituted a committee consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson to propose a design for a seal for the new United States of America. It was not until June 20, 1782, however, following the fruitless efforts of this and two other committees, that Congress approved a design recommended by its Secretary, Charles Thomson. Following the adoption of the Constitution of 1787, Congress enacted a law confirming this design as the great seal of the United States. The obverse of the seal consists of the coat of arms, which is officially blazoned in the original approving legislation as:
"ARMS. Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules; a chief, azure; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayed proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll, inscribed with this motto, E Pluribus Unum.Thomson's explanation of the symbolism was also approved by the Continental Congress:
For the CREST. Over the head of the eagle, which appears above the escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and surrounding thirteen stars, forming a constellation argent, on an azure field."
The correct adoption date is 20 June 1782, when Congress adopted the report of the committee that designed the seal (of which the COA constitutes the obverse). The 7 July 1884 date is nothing more than the date of the act by which the Secretary of State was appropriated $1,000 to buy new dies for the seal. Although that purchase led to a new "artistic execution of the arms," to borrow Jan's words, it did not change the legal definition of the design, which is the
blazon contained in the report approved on 20 June 1782.
The only substantive legislation on the COA since 1782 was an act of Congress under the current Constitution, passed on 15 September 1789, stating that "the seal heretofore used by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be, and hereby is declared to be, the seal of the United States."
This language has twice been reenacted in slightly condensed form, but only to incorporate it in the collected Revised Statutes in the late 19th century (as RS 1793) and then, on 30 July 1947, into the modern United States Code, as 4 USC 41: "The seal heretofore used by the United States in Congress assembled is declared to be the seal of the United States." Neither reenactment changed the legal description of the COA in the slightest.
If an official source is needed, refer to the Department of State publication, "The Great Seal," a copy of which is on the department's website http://www.state.gov.
Joe McMillan, 20 March 2000
by Joe McMillan, 16 February 2000
To illustrate the variation that used to exist in representations of the U.S. COA, here is the COA from the regimental color of the senior infantry regiment of the U.S. Army, the 3rd Infantry (The Old Guard), circa 1863. The color is on display at the Old Guard Museum at Fort Myer, Virginia.
Joe McMillan, 16 February 2000
The designers of the COA consciously used 7 white and 6 red stripes to avoid violating the heraldic rule against placing color on color.
Notes by William Barton, an attorney and student of heraldry who advised Charles Thomson on the design of the COA, and who drafted the official blazon, state that "as the pales or pallets consist of an uneven number, they ought, in strictness, to be blazoned--Argt 6 pallets Gules: but as the 13 pieces allude to the thirteen States, they are blazoned according to the Number of __pieces paleways." Thus the azure chief of the arms is on an argent field (color on metal). With seven red and six white stripes, it would be on a gules field (color on color).
Source: Richard S. Patterson and Richardson Dougall, The Eagle and the Shield: A History of the Great Seal of the United States (Washington: Department of State/GPO, 1978), p. 81.
Joe McMillan, 17 February 2000


I have 5 short answers questions in environmental chemistry related to fracking. Can you help me doing them?1
Remember to use a word processor to prepare your homework (handwritten
documents will not be graded and will receive a zero). You are welcome to discuss
the questions with your instructor but not with your classmates before submitting
the assignment. The use of the material provided during lectures as well as internet
resources is assumed in answering any of the questions. Please remember to
properly reference the sources of information employed. Turn in your assignments
before the beginning of class on April 8.
(a) List three advantages of natural gas (NG) as a source of energy.
(b) What percentage of the electricity produced in the US is generated from NG?
(c) What is the projected growth (%) in NG reserves in the US from the Marcellus Shale?
(a) What is the fracking fluid used in the Marcellus Shale typically made of? What is the
function of each component in the mixture?
(b) How much water is needed for horizontal drilling?
Are you aware of any problems or complains that have been associated to hydraulic
fracturing? Give a detailed explanation.
Are you aware of any alternative chemical that has been tested to substitute the use of
water during fracking? Explain.
Based on the pros and cons of fracking, fundament your decision to accept or reject an
offer of $750,000 from Chesapeake Energy Corporation to drill in your backyard to
extract NG from shale? Consider this is the house of your dreams and you will not be


Where's Yours? Got a smartphone or tablet?
There are many apps available for smartphones, the Blackberry and Android based tablets that use GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to help you track them should they become lost or stolen. Some of these apps are free, others are not and some may be available as part of a package of other functions.
Which one you choose is up to you but you should research any apps you have concerns about before downloading them.
To safeguard your phone or tablet you should:
- Read the app's reviews. The reviews posted in the Android Market can sometimes be inconclusive or misleading. However, recent structured complaints about misconduct should be a clear warning.
Check the apps permissions. If an Android app wants to do anything more involved than responding to your direct input, even just going online, it must seek authority in a "permission's list" shown before you download it. Ensure you examine the permissions.
Requests for access to the phone's storage and internet connection should be fine assuming the app stores data and displays online information or adverts. But if an app requests activity that has no clear link to it’s function, be cautious.
In particular, beware of requests relating to access to your contacts list, calendar or browsing history, monitoring or placing of phone calls or sending text messages.
- When in doubt, search. If an app's reviews are inconclusive and its permissions raise concerns, try doing a simple Web search linking the app’s name and eg malware?.
- Install Anti Virus Software. Make sure that you keep this software up to date to stop newly developed threats affecting your phone or computer.


Why I Cant Withdraw My Crypto Into Cash – What is Cryptocurrency? Put simply, Cryptocurrency is digital money that can be used in place of traditional currency. Basically, the word Cryptocurrency originates from the Greek word Crypto which implies coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is just as old as Blockchains. The difference between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or journal system in place. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source protocol based upon peer-to Peer deal technologies that can be carried out on a distributed computer network.
One specific way in which the Ethereum Project is trying to resolve the issue of smart agreements is through the Foundation. The Ethereum Foundation was developed with the goal of establishing software application options around wise agreement functionality. The Foundation has released its open source libraries under an open license.
For beginners, the significant difference between the Bitcoin Project and the Ethereum Project is that the previous does not have a governing board and therefore is open to contributors from all walks of life. The Ethereum Project takes pleasure in a much more regulated environment.
As for the projects underlying the Ethereum Platform, they are both making every effort to supply users with a brand-new method to take part in the decentralized exchange. The significant distinctions between the two are that the Bitcoin procedure does not utilize the Proof Of Consensus (POC) procedure that the Ethereum Project uses. In addition, there will be a hard work to incorporate the newest Byzantium upgrade that will increase the scalability of the network. These 2 differences might show to be barriers to entry for prospective entrepreneurs, however they do represent crucial distinctions.
On the one hand, the Bitcoin community has actually had some battles with its attempts to scale its network. On the other hand, the Ethereum Project has actually taken an aggressive technique to scale the network while likewise tackling scalability problems. As an outcome, the two projects are aiming to provide different methods of case. In contrast to the Satoshi Roundtable, which concentrated on increasing the block size, the Ethereum Project will have the ability to implement improvements to the UTX procedure that increase transaction speed and reduction costs. In contrast to the Bitcoin Project ‘s plan to increase the overall supply, the Ethereum group will be dealing with decreasing the rate of blocks mined per minute.
The significant difference in between the two platforms comes from the functional system that the 2 groups utilize. The decentralized element of the Linux Foundation and the Bitcoin Unlimited Association represent a traditional model of governance that puts a focus on strong community participation and the promotion of agreement. By contrast, the ethereal structure is devoted to building a system that is versatile enough to accommodate modifications and add brand-new features as the requirements of the users and the market change. This design of governance has been embraced by several dispersed application groups as a way of handling their tasks.
The major distinction between the 2 platforms comes from the fact that the Bitcoin neighborhood is largely self-dependent, while the Ethereum Project expects the involvement of miners to support its advancement. By contrast, the Ethereum network is open to factors who will contribute code to the Ethereum software stack, forming what is understood as “code forks “.
As with any other open source innovation, much controversy surrounds the relationship between the Linux Foundation and the Ethereum Project. The Facebook team is supporting the work of the Ethereum Project by supplying their own framework and producing applications that integrate with it.
Simply put, Cryptocurrency is digital money that can be utilized in location of standard currency. Generally, the word Cryptocurrency comes from the Greek word Crypto which suggests coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is just as old as Blockchains. The distinction in between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or journal system in location. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source procedure based on peer-to Peer deal innovations that can be executed on a distributed computer network. Why I Cant Withdraw My Crypto Into Cash


On some level, most people probably suspect that clothing sizes don’t mean very much, if only from the experience of struggling to fit into garments that should fit but don’t (or vice versa). But put your mind at ease: it is undeniably and objectively true that the sizes of different “sizes” vary dramatically. Measurements for a women’s “size 8” waist can vary by up to five inches depending on manufacturer and brand–according to a 2011 NYT investigation–and the average size of each size has been creeping up over time (presumably so as not to hide how the average American’s size has increased over that same time).
Given an apparently standardized system of sizing, you would think these sizes would be, well, standardized. Why aren’t they?
Before the factory mass production of household commodities, clothing was, for the most part, custom-made. Most people wore handmade garments (or hand-me-downs), but if you could afford it, you hired a tailor or dressmaker to clothe your family’s individual array of bodies. Because each garment was created to fit a specific person’s dimensions, clothing was linked, literally and conceptually, to the specific body of that individual. The kind of standardization required to mass produce and market factory-made clothing did not exist.
Manufacturers first figured out how to mass produce men’s clothing to meet the need for military uniforms, the millions of variously-sized but otherwise identical garments that the deep pockets of the state would gladly pay out for. But ready-to-wear clothing for women and children took longer: it was easy to churn out identical copies of the same garment, but modifying the adult male standard was more difficult. Basing garment dimensions on age (for children) and bust measurement (for women) turned out to be far from ideal. (Though a positive outcome of the quest to standardize clothing sizes was debunking the hypothesis that bust size indicated anything beyond the size of a person’s bust.) In the 1930s, clothing manufacturers estimated that a lack of standard sizing was costing them $10 million per year, and the Mail-Order Association of America–representing retailers like Sears Roebuck–was overwhelmed with returns of poorly-fitting items.
Who could solve this problem? Would it be the producers? Or the consumers?


Cotton textiles are cloths which are woven by hand or machine using cotton fibres and they are part of our lives now. In modern day society an average person has a collection of 50 clothes in his or her wardrobe. As a country grows economically it also increases international presence, so does the clothing styles corresponding to the global fashion. One can see young people in London and Lahore, Sweden and Sydney all tend to wear the same kind of clothing. However, different cultures have modified these originally European styles in accordance with local values and lifestyles.
The most important function of clothing besides covering our bodies is to serve as a signifier of social identity, including gender, and it would remain true forever. If we look at the history of cotton textiles, clothing of the 19th century made a distinctions between men’s and women’s clothing in colour, shape, fabric, and style but later these distinctions have broken down, especially when women claimed for equal rights. As we see now-a-days trousers and t-shirts are two good examples of men’s styles now worn regularly by both men and women.
Even though research and new technologies has discovered various new kinds of fibre which can be used in weaving but cotton would stay the most dominating fibres of all due to its nature of softness and sweat absorbs quality. New textile techniques and tread of going green demand use natural products for weaving clothes and textile industry is successful in achieving this goal by blending cotton with many other fibre types available. Innovations in textiles and clothing manufacturing often appear first in the specialized sports clothing and then rapidly spread to everyday dress. Just as clothing sends signals about gender, it carries messages about situations and occasions; special formal attire of some sort will continue to be a part of fashion for the foreseeable future.
Fashion designers now-a-days spend more time on designing daily used clothes than clothing for special occasion and this trend towards casual wear dress is expected to rise. A continuing long-term fashion trend in designing casual and sports attire in the overall wardrobe of both men and women is key to the future businesses in textile industry. Tailored suits as business attire are now rapidly giving way to more casual dresses and blend of cotton with newly discovered fibres is the future.


With a bachelor’s degree now the must-have job credential, pressure is mounting to find ways to make college more affordable.
Most proposals to improve access for low-income students focus on tweaking the financial aid system. But what’s required instead is a complete overhaul of what we mean by “college.” It’s time for an entirely different business model, not just to get the cost down but to change fundamentally the way higher education is delivered.
“Going to college” still typically means leaving home to spend a few years at an expensive brick-and-mortar institution and choosing from courses delivered by that institution. Perhaps going to college should be more like hiring a general contractor.
The core business function of the contractor-college would be assembly and quality control rather than running an institution and hiring faculty or holding classes. In this model, the college would customize for each student a package of courses and educational experiences from many suppliers. Degrees would be tailored to the student’s needs, including their home and financial situation, location and career interests. The value of the college’s brand would be in its proven ability to customize a rounded, inexpensive and high-quality degree for each student.
What would a contractor model look like? Several developments in education suggest what the future may hold.
Instead of a sharp division between high school and college, there would be overlap between the two, with students as young as, say, 15, completing college-level classes.
Certain colleges have long accepted Advanced Placement courses for credit. And Minnesota is one of several states already offering “concurrent enrollment,” meaning students can receive both high school and college credit for the same course. This system allows students to reduce their time at college and thus reduce their expenses by continuing to live at home. Simultaneously, it smooths the transition to college-level work. At contractor-colleges, concurrent enrollment would be the norm.
It’s also likely that online courses would play a larger role.
Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are already cutting the cost of introductory course material to near zero. Now some tech companies, such as Google and Instagram, are joining with MOOCs such as Coursera and Udacity to turn online courses into micro-degrees, the equivalent of majors tailored for particular industries. Meanwhile, College for America, an online spinoff of Southern New Hampshire University that charges just $2,500 in annual tuition, is partnering with companies such as Gap, McDonald’s and Dell to design and deliver degrees for company employees. The Starbucks College Achievement Plan has signed up thousands of employees for its online partnership with Arizona State University.
Expect such partnerships to spread, and expect contractors to play the middleman between online suppliers and students. They will cobble together one or more online industry-certified majors with a semester abroad, electives and a brief period of residence at a brick-and-mortar institution, all of which adds up to a full degree.
Contractor-colleges would also base progress on completing assignments and examinations rather than credit hours. This approach would allow students to study at the pace that’s best for them, enabling many to cut the time and cost needed to gain a degree. Western Governors University, an online nonprofit with affiliates in several states, is among the colleges already basing progress on demonstrated competence rather than the traditional hours spent in the classroom.
The key ingredient needed for contractor-colleges to take off is reform of accreditation. Today, accreditation applies to specific institutions, not courses. And it is no sure guarantee of quality — witness the dismal graduation rates at some accredited institutions. But formal accreditation is needed for students to have access to federal aid. Although that’s not a huge problem for a student enrolling in a low-cost online course, it’s a significant issue for a contractor-college assembling a broad range of educational experiences for modest-income students.
There’s reason to believe, however, that our accreditation system could soon start to change. For instance, the Obama administration recently announced a pilot program that will grant accreditation to institutions at which more than half the curriculum is provided by nonaccredited partners.
Even better would be to imitate Britain. There, a nonprofit credentialing organization called City & Guilds operates in parallel to regular university accreditation. It credentials course curricula and arranges examinations for courses that can be taken anywhere. If the U.S. adopted a similar program, contractor-colleges could organize a degree from a menu of certified courses.
A contractor intermediary serves clients by bringing components together from various suppliers to create a more cost-effective and customized product. For example, Google’s Android mobile operating system links a vast range of hardware and applications and permits customers to obtain phone services from multiple telecommunication companies. We need the same model in higher education to get quality choices up and costs way down.
Editor’s note: This op-ed also appeared in the Los Angeles Times on November 6, 2015.


Heber C. Kimball
Heber Chase Kimball (June 14, 1801 – June 22, 1868), commonly known as Heber C. Kimball, was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement. He served as one of the original twelve apostles in the early Mormon church, and as first counselor to Brigham Young in the presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847-1868.
|This religious leader article is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.|
- I have learned by experience that there is but one God that pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this earth-the first man. That first man sent his own Son to redeem the world, to redeem his brethren; his life was taken, his blood shed, that our sins might be remitted. That Son called twelve men and ordained them to be Apostles, and when he departed the keys of the kingdom were deposited with three of those twelve, viz.: Peter, James, and John. Peter held the keys pertaining to that Presidency, and he was the head.
- Journal of Discourses 4:1 (June 29, 1856)
- We will yet save the Constitution of the United States. We will do it, as the Lord liveth, and we will save this nation, every one of them that will be saved. Brother Brigham Young and brother Joseph Smith stand at our head, and will do that thing, as the Lord liveth. Yes, we, as their children, with our children to assist us, will do it. We have got that power, and so have they, and will bear the kingdom off victoriously to every nation that is upon God's footstool; and I know it.
- Journal of Discourses 5:213 (Sep. 6, 1856)
- "Do you not quarrel, brother Heber?" says one. No, I do not. But; when a woman begins to dispute me, about nine times out of ten I get up and say, "Go it," and then go off about my business; and if ever I am so foolish as to quarrel with a woman, I ought to be whipped; for you may always calculate that they will have the last word.
- Journal of Discourses 5:277 (Sept. 27, 1857)
- Do you believe that a dead woman can conceive from a live man and bring forth a live child? Do you believe it, any of you mothers? Do you believe it, any of you fathers? No, you know better. Well, if a woman will not produce when she is dead, then the earth cannot produce living things if it was dead. Does the earth conceive? It does, and it brings forth. If it did not, why do you go and put your wheat into the ground? Does it not conceive it? But it does not conceive except you put it there. It conceives and brings forth, and you and I live, both for food and for clothing, silks and satins. What! satin grow? Yes. What produces it? The silkworm produces it. Does the silkworm produce except it conceives? No, it eats of the mulberry tree. Where does the mulberry tree come from? It comes from the earth. Where did the earth come from? From its parent earths. Well, some of you may call that foolish philosophy. But if it is, I will throw out foolish things, that you may gather up wise things. The earth is alive. If it was not, it could not produce: If you find a piece of earth that is dead, you cannot produce anything from it, except you resurrect it and restore it to life.
- Journal of Discourses 6:35-36 (Nov. 8, 1857)
- And he further says that the wicked will come and say, We have prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many mighty works. And I will add to this that many of them will have to say, We have stolen hundreds of cattle from the Mormons, and driven them from their homes, because they preached a new religion. Still the Lord will say, I know you not.
- Journal of Discourses 9:129-130 (Jan. 6, 1861)


In comparison to the age of the traditional financial system of a centralized currency, Cryptocurrency is a relatively new concept understood properly by only a few. Thus, it naturally follows that as of now it faces numerous legal, economic and security issues. The address of these issues is key to the maintenance of the most essential element in any currency – that of trust.
Some of these challenges are as follows
Regulatory Framework: One of the key properties of cryptocurrencies existing today is that they are decentralized and hence have no central bank backing the value of the monetary units. As the bonus bitcoin concept is relatively new, most countries lack a legal framework to regulate the value and flow of cryptocurrencies. In this scenario, countries like Russia and Bangladesh have declared certain cryptocurrencies as illegal.
Volatility: Currently, most of the trading of cryptocurrencies in the market is based on speculation rather than merit. This makes cryptocurrencies highly volatile, driving away investors void of a high-risk appetite, and at the same time, promoting cryptocurrencies as a virtual asset rather than a currency.
Illegal Activities: Since cryptocurrencies work on blockchain technology, all transactions are pseudo-anonymous and as such untraceable. This leads to its usage for various unethical and illegal purposes, including tax evasion and money laundering.
Cryptocurrencies have also, since their launch, become the standard of payments on the dark web. Bitcoin has been coded to have only a limited supply, and the creation of bitcoins is expected to come to an end by 2140.


2 Allred Names Carved on Independence Rock
Story and description written by Alice Allred Pottmyer originally published in AFO Newsletter #68 Fall 2006
Photos below contributed by Gary D. Allred who wrote: "When the Allred's came west, many stopped at Independence Rock and carved their names on the rock. Then to make money they would carve others names in the rock. I visited the site in 2009 and found my 2nd Great Grandfather's name carved in the rock and took these pictures."
Reuben Warren Allred lineage: Reuben, James, William, Thomas, Solomon born 1680 Lancashire, England
Reuben Warren Allred, etched the following into the southeast side of the Rock in 1849:
A Taylor Co.
Sept 10, 49
Reuben Warren Allred was a son of James and Elizabeth Allred. He was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, in 1815.
Independence Rock was called “The Register of the Desert” for the pioneers following the Oregon/California/Mormon Trails. Later the Pony Express Trail went by the Rock. It was named Independence Rock because if the pioneers arrived at Independence Rock by
July 4, they could reach Oregon, California or Utah before the heavy snows and thus avoid the fate of the Donner Party.
Independence Rock is on Hwy. 220, 48 miles southwest from Casper, Wyoming. Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove are about five miles away. The north side of the Rock is today a Wyoming state rest stop. There is adequate parking and water available. There are interpretative signs about the Rock as well as area wildlife. Gates permit people to walk around the Rock and see the names etched along the south side.
The book, Historic Inscriptions on Western Emigrant Trails, is authored by Randy Brown. It was published by the Oregon California Trails Association, Independence, Missouri. No other Allred names were listed. Also, there were no Ivie or Sanders names listed. Descendants of both Sarah Allred Ivie and Mary Allred Sanders also travelled West.


Computer image showing what the probe may have looked like when landing on the comet.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NASA
Comet Probe Mission is Scrapped
News story originally written on June 30, 1999
NASA cut its newest project, which would have sent a probe to a comet. Sometime in 2005, the comet may have landed on comet Tempel 1. Now, there is no more money to continue the mission.
NASA spent a lot of the money on the new Chandra-X Space Telescope and the Hubble Telescope. They both needed extra money to fix problems. The left over money will be given to different projects.
The probe should have studied the core of the comet. Scientists were hoping to study the makeup of these weird objects. We could have learned how to better protect our planet from a possible collision.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Our online store
includes issues of NESTA's quarterly journal, The Earth Scientist
, full of classroom activities on different topics in Earth and space science, as well as books
on science education!
You might also be interested in:
It was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. It seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. Either way, NASA led the way to a great century of discovery. Unfortunately,...more
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on October 29th at 2:19 p.m. EST. The sky was clear and the weather was great. This was the America's 123rd manned space mission. A huge...more
Scientists found a satellite orbiting the asteroid, Eugenia. This is the second one ever! A special telescope allows scientists to look through Earth's atmosphere. The first satellite found was Dactyl....more
The United States wants Russia to put the service module in orbit! The module is part of the International Space Station. It was supposed to be in space over 2 years ago. Russia just sent supplies to the...more
A coronal mass ejection (CME) happened on the Sun last month. The material that was thrown out from this explosion passed the ACE spacecraft. ACE measured some exciting things as the CME material passed...more
Trees and plants are a very important part of this Earth. Trees and plants are nature's air conditioning because they help keep our Earth cool. On a summer day, walking bare-foot on the sidewalk burns,...more
There is something special happening in the night sky. Through mid-May, you will be able to see five planets at the same time! This doesn't happen very often, so you won't want to miss this. Use the links...more


The following is a guest post by our good friend Julio Covarrubias.
(You can find Alfonso Reyes’s “Cartilla Moral” referred to below here: https://regeneracion.mx/cartilla-moral-alfonso-reyes/)
Spectres of Vasconcelos… in AMLO’s “Cuarta Transformacion”?
As a part of AMLO’s recently unveiled education and anti-illiteracy campaign, his administration is reprinting and distributing copies of Alfonso Reyes’ “Cartilla Moral,” a pamphlet Reyes wrote as a kind of “layman’s guide” to ethics in 1944. It had been commissioned by then Secretary of Public Education, Jaime Torres Bodet for an anti-illiteracy campaign of that era. The purpose of the Cartilla was to promote principles for a kind of public morality, to create a new kind of citizen.
Now, imagine a world where the US government distributes a pamphlet on moral philosophy to the masses. Unheard of!
But what interested me about AMLO’s discourse on the literacy campaign was his philosophical justification for including the Cartilla as a part of it. His justification is essentially that there is a need to ward off the ideology of materialist individualism, where accumulation of material goods and self-interested behavior are seen as the good. He argues that there are higher goods required to live a fully human life and that distributing the Cartilla is necessary to start a public reflection/discussion on the ethical principles and values that should govern Mexican society.
This interested me because these are the same kind of grounds that Jose Vasconcelos used to justify his stance on education, especially as pitted against John Dewey’s pedagogical views (or what Vasconcelos would have regarded as the “Anglo model” of education). Vasconcelos served as Minister of Education in the post-Revolutionary government. Of Vasconcelos’s work during this period, Octavio Paz has written that:
His work was brief but fecund, and the essence of it is still alive. In part he carried out the task begun by Justo Sierra, which was to extend elementary education and to improve the quality of instruction on the higher levels, but he also tried to base education on certain principles that were implicit in our tradition but had been forgotten or ignored by the positivists. Vasconcelos believed that the Revolution was going to rediscover the meaning of our history, which Sierra had sought in vain. The new education was to be founded on “our blood, our language and our people.”
“If the Revolution was a search and an immersion of ourselves in our own being,” Paz said, “no one embodied this fertile, desperate desire better than José Vasconcelos, the founder of modern education in Mexico.”
By contrast to this, Dewey is seen as having believed that the scientific method had displaced classical education (i.e., reading the “Great Books”), and that this called for a change in education that was—Gregory Pappas will correct me if I am wrong—more student-centered, learning-by-doing type stuff. The main point of contention for Vasconcelos, though, was that the political end of education should be merely to prepare individuals to be useful citizens in a democracy, not to train them into a particular world-view.
According to Jose Antonio Aguilar Rivera, although Vasconcelos was, at first, pleased with the growing influence of Dewey’s philosophy in Mexican education, he came to vehemently oppose it. As Octavio Paz puts it, Vasconcelos understood the concept of education as entailing already “an image of the world and a program for living.” “School,” said Vasconcelos, “should be a summary of the general experience of humanity.” And, for Vasconcelos, the most important lesson of the human experience, the main purpose of an education, was to introduce the child to a world that escaped the “brutish necessity” of the natural world and that “develops according to the rules of morality or art,” that is, the world of the higher goods of an intellectual, moral, and aesthetic nature (the “spiritual”). Such a program, Paz points out, must naturally turn to tradition. And for Mexico this would mean looking to its Spanish and indigenous roots, not to the Anglo-Saxons, who, on Vasconcelos’s reading of world-history, were always enemies of the “Latins.”
Vasconcelos perceived, correctly in my view, that Dewey’s ideas (or, at least, the ideal of education we are here attributing to Dewey), were attempting to be neutral with respect to what, in contemporary philosophical parlance, we would call “a comprehensive view of the good,” or a world-view attached to a particular form of life. But Vasconcelos’s point is that this is a false neutrality, since Dewey’s view is already informed by a comprehensive view of the good. For Vasconcelos, “pragmatic pedagogy” is just Protestantism being brought to bear on pedagogy. In fact, Dewey’s pedagogy embodied Anglo-Saxon values that for Vasconcelos were inimical to the aims and values of Mexico, Latin America, and even to civilizationas a whole.
In regard to the first claim, Vasconcelos believed that one of the worst things the porfiriato did to Mexicans was, in fact, to submit them and to try to impose on them the Anglo-Saxon values written into the official state ideology: Herbert Spencer’s positivism. As he wrote in La raza cosmica,
We have been educated under the humiliating influence of a philosophy conceived by our enemies… with the purpose of exalting their own goals and annulling ours. In this manner, even wehave come to believe in the inferiority of the mestizo, in the unredemption of the Indian, in the damnation and the irreparable decadence of the Black… If we do not liberate the spirit, we shall never be able to redeem matter.
But, Vasconcelos thought, these Anglo values are a danger to all civilization. “The nineteenth century,” he wrote, “with its emphasis on practical science, made war on the literati… Later, it became evident that a society without literati was simply barbaric.” (He was referring here, presumably, to the science-worship of the positivist period.) But for Vasconcelos, as Aguilar Rivera notes, the new barbarians—the Anglos del norte—“were even more dangerous than the old ones, because they had at their disposal the means of destruction and the power of modern technology… They were, simply put, a ‘threat to the spirit.’”
Robinson y odiseo, the book where Vasconcelos lays into to Dewey and the Anglo-Saxon education, was published in 1935, although it obviously owes a lot to Rodo’s Ariel. It’s been 84 years, but, man, doesn’t this almost sound like a critique of our modern day educational system? As Vasconcelos puts it in Robinson,
Al criterio pragmático se dice ante la cosa: ¿como puedo aprovecharla? Una civilización cabal no puede acallar en los labios del niño a otra pregunta vieja que adquiere: ¿cual es el ser de la cosa?
(“…the pragmatic criteria asks before the object: of what use is the thing? But the excellent civilization cannot silence in the mouth of the child a much older question: what is the nature of the thing?”)
With the shuttering of philosophy departments and cuts to humanities programs of recent times, isn’t this “civilization” (I won’t call it “our”) doing exactly this?
Of course, a nosy liberal will say, we might have reason not to think the state has any business creating specific types of human beings, or setting morality in any substantive way. Vasconcelos’s own positive educational project, of course, while achieving everything Paz describes, we still would now regard as ethnocentrist/racist. As Minister of Education, Vasconcelos set himself the task of instilling the people with what he regarded as the foundational elements of Western culture—Spanish/“Latin” being the more lofty, and therefore superior, inheritor to that culture, over what he regarded as a vulgar Anglosaxonism.
My worry isn’t that he was ethnocentric against the Anglos, though. Instead, I mean that this project was essentially about Westernizing/Hispanicizing the mestizo and Indigenous peoples of Mexico. To accomplish this, Vasconcelos, contra Dewey, saw the teaching of the classics as essential, and he set himself the explicit goal “to have the highest works brought to the humblest hands, and thereby achieve the spiritual regeneration that must precede all regeneration.” Once accomplished, he thought this would provide the Mexican people with the historical orientation necessary to come to terms with the great purpose that their Ibero-American legacy had imparted on them…. Cue the thesis of the The Cosmic Race: to bring about the coming of the new American man who would resolve all racial conflicts and the opposition between East and West.
I have read somewhere that so many youths were inspired by Vasconcelos’ anti-illiteracy campaigns that, with the zeal of missionaries, many shipped off to rural schools to teach, and that, in public places, one could find university students standing on chairs and soapboxes reciting poetry and reading literature, so that the masses could at least in this way have access to them. Something about this seems moving. Characterized one way, a sympathetic interpreter will admit that, while doing violence to Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of life, these efforts simultaneously were important in providing a basic education that all the non-literate could use to better their social position, or to secure their interests in interactions with state authorities. From another perspective, though, we could see the student reciting Shakespearean sonnets in a public square to bemused onlookers as, essentially, trying to shout into existence a Mexico that would have required many of the onlookers to disappear…
I am not sure yet about the details of Obrador’s literacy campaigns. And surely there is something to Vasconcelos’s piece that, even the thought that the state doesn’t have any business creating specific types of human beings, is itself rooted in some comprehensive view of the good (Rawlsians don’t @ me). Either way, I’d hope his project isn’t as thoroughly Vasconcelista as all this.
Check out the story at el Universal: https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/mochilazo-en-el-tiempo/la-cartilla-moral-que-amlo-desempolvo.
I am getting most of this information from José Antonio Aguilar Rivera, The Shadow of Ulysses: Public Intellectual Exchange Across the U.S.- Mexico Border, Trans.Rose Hocker and Emiliano Corral (Boston: Lexington Books, 2000):
 Octavio Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude, 152.
Vasconcelos qtd. in Aguilar Rivera 20-1.
Who cares. (Ok its Rawls)
You know this book.
Aguilar Rivera, 16.
Robinson y Odiseo, 37. My trans.
Of course, Vasconcelos’s list of “Great Books” was very non-traditional, including books like Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s True History of the Conquest of Mexico, and Hernan Cortes’Letters From Mexico. (Aguilar Rivera 33 fn. 63). But, even though he elsewhere emphasized the need to trace Latin American patriotism to both the Hispanic and indigenous traditions, he clearly intended the latter to be absorbed into a kind of cultural scaffold he envisioned was provided by the former.
Vasconcelos qtd. in Aguilar Rivera 15.
This dovetails with what I have argued in presentations here and there—and some of this is in the upcoming publication of the Prize Essay on Latin American thought—that mestizajewas part of the logic of elimination characteristic of settler societies, since what we are talking about here is basically a project that sought to complete the colonial mission of erasing Indigenous peoples.


The land here is not too good for lumber, or raw materials, so that is where the trading comes in. William Penn received a grant, which the King called Pennsylvania. In addition, a variety of religions such as the Presbyterians, Quakers, Mennonites, Dutch Calvinists and Lutherans were also prominent in the region. In 1668 granted the Carolina charter to eight Lords Proprietor. The diverse population of the Mid-Atlantic colonies made any close cooperation very difficult. The New Netherland settlement along the Hudson River in New York and New Jersey, and for a time New Sweden along the Delaware River in Delaware, divided the two great bulwarks of English settlement from each other.
Without the fertile farmlands to raise livestock and grow grain, the colonial region wouldn't specialize in many things. Therefore, the southern United States and Virginia, in particular, were expected to be similar in climate to Southern Spain. You can also be outdoors a lot. Indigo was mainly cultivated in South Carolina beginning in 1739, due to the efforts of Pickney, and became one of the biggest cash crops of the colony up until the end of the war. That is how you get your groceries. .
Some decisions were still made at town level although most were made at county level. Historical Background Who, how, and why the colonies were settled made a big difference in the lifestyles amongst the three different regions. A typical farm was 50 to 150 acres consisting of a house, barn, yard, and fields. Up north, the winters were much too harsh to grow these grains. A predominant feature of the region is the. Because of this, colonists and Virginia Company initially tried to cultivate such plants as mulberry trees and orange trees, which were not sustainable.
There are threee types of resources: natural, human, and capital. If no Appalachian Mountains and coastal lowlands were present, there would probably be fewer ranges of rich farmlands. The climate was much colder back then than it is now. That is also a factor that affected what goods people in New England would trade. Some of the natural resources include the rich, fertle farmlands and rivers that fill the region. Farming consisted of fairly large farms that used slaves and indentured servants as workers. Bad soils and rocky hills made colonists buy most of their grains.
This region had humid summers and temperate winters which are prime conditions for agriculture. Assessment Corroborating Questions will be from the culminating part of this activity. British colonies These colonies provided fish, whale products, and. The land was also much cheaper than in Europe, which encouraged new arrivals that contributed to the diversity of the area. The geography and climate of the area had a significant impact on the economy and survival of the colonies. For natural resources, there are rich, fertile farmlands and rivers.
The Middle colonies are often called the breadbasket colonies because they grew so many crops, especially wheat. In 1664, England sought control of a Dutch colony called New Netherland, which had been founded in 1624 as a trading post for fur. Winter and early Spring is dry while humidity builds through the summer till fall. With the introduction of African slaves in 1619, plantations began to arise that could meet the demand in Europe. They provided grants of land and religious freedom in the colony. Later, in 1680 the king gave William Penn, a Quaker and large landowner in Ireland, 45,000 square miles of land west of the Delaware area.
Their climate helped them become the 'breadbasket' of. Usually they were printers, tailors, or carpenters. Women also began to take a role in the economy. If you want to become a farmer in this region, the moderate climate and winters will help you identify when it is time for harvesting. The moderate climate and mild winters can affect the livestock and grain this region specializes in. The Middle colonies, the middle region of the 13 colonies, were the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Slaves worked on farms, onboard ships, in the shipbuilding industry, or lived in cities as skilled laborers. They could find general work such as helping load or unload ships or being house servants. In order for the colonies to receive the products it can't produce, people need to trade. It may seem insignificant, but then the Mid-Atlantic Colonies wouldn't have many items to trade for. The same city was the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the U. The average growing season varies from 170 to 200 days.


What does To The Victor Go The Spoils mean?
To the victor go the spoils (or to the victor belong the spoils) is a proverbial expression, meaning that the winner of a contest not just wins the subject of the contest, but receives all additional benefits as well.
The expression can be used in all situations where a race, conflict or competition is involved.
For instance, if a sports team wins a high-level competition, we can say to the victor go the spoils, because the team will surely receive all financial bonuses atop of the title win.
What's the origin of To The Victor Go The Spoils?
Historical literature shows that “spolia optima” (“very best spoils” in Latin) was a commonly used term in Roman times.
It referred to victorious commanders, who would receive the defeated officers’ goods and riches.
The actual origin of the expression, however, comes from American politics from the 19th century.
It was a reference to the spoils system, which was a political agenda that was situated around cronyism and nepotism.
Spread & Usage
How did To The Victor Go The Spoils spread?
The first known user of to the victor go the spoils was William L. Marcy, a New York senator, who uttered the expression in 1828.
The proverb then became increasingly popular in politics, featuring in numerous speeches and caricatures alike.
It is also sometimes featured in TV and cinema. For example, the term appeared in the TV series The Sopranos, uttered by Tony Soprano during the second episode of Season 2.


Would you like to eat this famous dish?
The dishes of every region and every country around the world are quite different from each other and today we will tell you about a unique dish of Britain.
Today we are going to tell you about the famous ‘Stargizay Pie’ in Britain in which you can see half the heads of fish coming out.
England is famous for its variety of pies, apple pies, pot pies and other pies.
But the foot we’re going to tell you about today has a sardine fish’s head and tail sticking out.
In the 16th century, when people in a village in England had nothing to eat during the severe winter, a local man saved everyone’s life. Tom Baukok, a local fisherman, landed his boat in the cold and stormy weather and hunted a variety of marine life to create a large foot that made the fish’s head visible so that people thought it was a fish. available.
Now every year on December 23 this day is celebrated in the memory of this fisherman and on this day a pie is made from which the heads of the fish are seen sticking out.
This day is celebrated every year under the name ‘Tom Baukok Eve’.


The Untold Story of the Fight for Equality in the RCMPBook - 2015
When thirty-two women were hired as mounted police officers in 1974, it was a media sensation. After all, these were not the brawny heroes of Canadian history, or the dashing and handsome Mounties portrayed in over two hundred Hollywood movies. Women were thought to be afraid of guns and incapable of protecting themselves. Training officers at the RCMP's academy wondered if the women were capable. Could they march? Could they lift weights? Would they cry? The original uniform (pumps, a pillbox hat and a shoulder bag for a revolver and handcuffs) did little to further equality, and if a female officer complained of harassment, supervisors actively and openly pushed her to resign. The move to put women in uniform was neither a beginning nor an end to women's journey toward equality in the RCMP. Women have served in the RCMP since 1873, providing social services, searching female gold smugglers and tending to prisoners. For decades, Mountie wives were scrutinized, vetted and subjectto regular inspections of their housekeeping. A Mountie's wife must be a silent worker, always upholding the values of the RCMP. Although the RCMP promoted itself as a gender-neutral organization in 1974, the fight for recognition was about to become heated. In 1978, after a female Mountie was shot in the line of duty for the first time, male Mounties questioned the ability of women to make split-second, life-and-death decisions. Despite overwhelming resistance, the women of the RCMP managed toassert their equality as police officers on their own terms, breaking ground for women's rights in Canada. Drawing on first-hand accounts from forty-five male and female RCMP officers, news reports and archival resources, historian and former plainclothes RCMP officer Bonnie Reilly Schmidt offers an in-depth look into the history and propaganda of this iconic institution. SILENCED is the compelling true story of how women transformed not only their role in the RCMP, but our very notion of whatit means to be Canadian.
Publisher: Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia : Caitlin Press, ©2015.
Characteristics: 264 pages ;,23 cm.


By Bernard Yack
By exhibiting how Aristotelian principles offers new perception into our personal political lifestyles, Yack makes a important contribution to modern discourse and debate. His paintings will excite curiosity between quite a lot of social, ethical, and political theorists.
Read Online or Download The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought PDF
Best History Theory books
Whilst Patrick Buchanan took the degree on the Republican nationwide conference in 1992 and proclaimed, “There is a spiritual conflict happening for the soul of our country,” his viewers knew what he used to be conversing approximately: the tradition wars, which had raged during the prior decade and may proceed until eventually the century’s finish, pitting conservative and non secular americans opposed to their liberal, secular fellow electorate.
Confronting the various significant theoretical concerns at stake in diplomacy, this quantity makes an attempt to explain and clarify the large function that multilateral co-operation can play in aiding to stabilize the form of the present foreign order.
How do states distinguish buddies from enemies, companions from rivals, and groups from outsiders? neighborhood below Anarchy exhibits how the improvement of universal social identities between political elites may end up in deeper, extra cohesive types of cooperation than what has been formerly expected through conventional theories of diplomacy.
The cave in of communism and the adoption of parliamentary democracy resulted in swift and dramatic academic switch in nations previously below the regulate of the Soviet Union. Leaders of the affected nations stated the necessity to strengthen academic structures throughout the rebuilding procedure and embraced this change in a brief time period.
Additional info for The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought


Sokikom is an award-winning developer of math social learning games designed to motivate elementary school students in grades 1 through 6. Founder and CEO Snehal Patel got the idea for Sokikom when he was a math tutor and become aware of how many students weren’t excited about and engaged in learning math. Snehal saw that these kids were missing out on building the foundation in math skills that they were going to need to succeed in high school, college and beyond. He also saw that math games – especially those that were social – got these same kids excited about and engaged in learning math. “This made me think,” he says, “How many other students in the U.S. face this same problem, and how can we use online technology to address it?” That was the genesis of Sokikom – a highly engaging online math game with community and team-play elements.
Victor: What does the name “Sokikom” mean?
Snehal: The name Sokikom is a mix of some math geekiness and a portmanteau – a blend of the parts from two words – social and communal. Both of these words are joined by two k’s, which when backed against one another look similar to the mathematical symbol for a natural join. So, Sokikom means joining social and community to improve learning.
Victor: How do you pronounce “Sokikom”?
Snehal: Sokikom is pronounced as so-kee-kom.
Victor: What products does Sokikom offer?
Snehal: Sokikom currently includes three online math social learning games: Frachine, which focuses on fractions, decimals and percents; Opirate, which emphasizes mathematic operations and algebra; and Treeching, which concentrates on the principles of measurement, algebra, patterns, time and money. We are currently developing our fourth game, which will concentrate on geometry, for release in summer 2011.
Victor: What are the benefits of Sokikom math games to schools, districts, states?
Snehal: One of the biggest challenges – if not the biggest – in early math education is engaging students. Sokikom offers educators the ability to motivate students in an exciting math social learning game, where students experience intense engagement. Teachers tell us it is unlike anything they have ever seen before. Sokikom also provides students with adaptive learning personalized to their needs. We know implementing education technology can be challenging. That’s why Sokikom was designed to be fully web-based so it’s easy to deploy, manage and integrate in school settings.
Lastly, Sokikom leads to real learning improvements, as our U.S. Department of Education-funded research studies reveal.
Victor: How are the Sokikom math games unique from other similar products/services? What companies do you see as in the same market?
Snehal: Sokikom is unique because it is the first fully web-based math learning game for all the elementary grades that is massively multiplayer online. This means that not only can two, three or four kids play the same game at once, but over 30 kids can play the same game in real time. And, hundreds of these games can be played at once. This results in social learning, where kids help kids learn math in a way never seen before in education.
There are other companies offering students ways to learn and practice math skills online in a game-like setting. But, frankly, no other company is offering an online math game in a social learning environment like Sokikom.
Victor: What impact can the Sokikom math games have on student achievement?
Snehal: Our games are having a truly positive impact! As our research studies – funded by the U.S. Department of Education – have shown, Sokikom leads to measurable progress in both test scores and student motivation to learn math. For example, a school in Arizona saw a 15 percent increase in math scores after just 2 ½ hours of game-play. That’s huge! More information about our research can be found at http://www.sokikom.com/results/.
Victor: When were the Sokikom math games developed? What’s something interesting or relevant about their development history?
Snehal: We began designing the games in 2008 and continue to refine our existing games and develop new ones. Something not many people know about our development process is we have conducted more than 100 user-testing sessions, with individual students and entire classrooms, to inform the development of our game. These tests were designed to find the best ways to improve student motivation and achievement with Sokikom.
Victor: Where did the Sokikom math games originate? Where can you get them now?
Snehal: The idea behind Sokikom originated when I was tutoring kids after school, and the games were developed in Chandler, Ariz., where our company is based.
Parents, educators and students can sign up for our free, unlimited-use basic account. Or, they can upgrade to our premium version directly from our website at www.sokikom.com.
Victor: How much do the Sokikom math games cost? What are the options?
Snehal: We have a 100 percent free, unlimited-use, basic version for parents, educators and students. We also have premium versions for educators and parents. Educators can purchase an annual subscription to our premium version for $20 per student. Parents can purchase a six-month subscription to our premium version for $49 per student, or they can purchase a month-to-month subscription for $11.95 per student. All premium accounts give unlimited use to all of Sokikom’s math games and extra content. In addition, the premium versions provide extra incentives and rewards for students.
Victor: Are the Sokikom math games a school or home product?
Snehal: Both! Our games are designed to positively impact learning both in and out of the classroom.
Snehal: Sokikom is currently being used in more than 100 elementary schools in the U.S. and growing rapidly. You can see examples of Sokikom’s math social learning game in action by watching the amazing video on our homepage: https://www.sokikom.com/. None of this footage was scripted – it was captured as students played Sokikom in the classroom with their peers. And there are now some print success stories describing this experience on our website as well.
Victor: Who are the Sokikom math games for, and who are they not for?
Snehal: Sokikom is designed to improve math learning for the foundational skills of students in grades 1 through 6. Since Sokikom is skill-based, even older or younger students can use it. Sokikom is not for students seeking specific help learning advanced math topics such as those taught in advanced high school or college mathematics.
Victor: How do the Sokikom math games affect student engagement in learning math?
Snehal: Students who may not have had success or interest in learning math in the past get excited when it is presented to them in a social learning game environment. Gifted students are compelled by the safe, competitive aspects and recognition they receive within the player community.
Sokikom combines the engagement of game play with what’s inherently interesting about mathematics. Our proprietary technology for guided instruction – and student-to-student tutoring – makes learning more effective in the classroom and at home. We call this unique approach Massively Multiplayer Online Social Learning Games.
Victor: Are the Sokikom math games aligned to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics?
Snehal: Yes. We are also rooted in the nationally recognized standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points for Grades PreK-6.
Victor: What is your view of the impact of technology on math instruction?
Snehal: I believe technology plays a critical role in the improvement of math instruction. It provides a higher level of engagement, creativity and personalization than a traditional textbook. It also allows us as educators to quickly determine what works and what doesn’t for a particular student.
Victor: What are some of your thoughts on education these days?
Snehal: I think we may be facing the biggest education challenge in our history. This is mainly due to the rate of technological advancement of our civilization. It can be argued that human civilization has advanced more so in the past 50 years than in any other 50-year period in history – just think about what the world looked like 50 years ago. Most of these advancements have been technology-related, which is largely based on mathematics, problem-solving and critical thinking. These skills are essential, not only to continued innovation, but also to thriving in this technology-enabled world.
Victor: What formative experiences in your own education helped to inform your approach to creating the Sokikom math games?
Snehal: My family moved a lot when I was young. From kindergarten to sixth grade, I moved to five different schools in various states across the country. Back then, I didn’t like all the moving. But now, I’m thankful because it gave me the opportunity to learn in different states, schools, classrooms and with different teachers. This was also when I began to realize that many of my peers struggled in math – as did some of my elementary school teachers.
Victor: How do the Sokikom math games address some of your concerns about education?
Snehal: When I was young, I saw firsthand that my peers had trouble understanding math, and they quickly found it boring and lost interest. Sokikom motivates students to learn math and allows them to work with their peers to improve their knowledge as well as teach other students.
Victor: What else would you tell educators or leaders in education about the value of Sokikom math games?
Snehal: I think one of the biggest concerns with games of any type is their educational merit. Conventional wisdom has always told us games are meant to be for fun or entertainment, not for serious learning. Our research dispels this notion by providing sound evidence that games can improve both learning outcomes and student motivation to learn.
Victor: What is your outlook on the future of education?
Snehal: I’m optimistic! As much as I believe in Sokikom, it would be silly for me to think it is the one solution to all our education problems. It is not. But what Sokikom can do is play a critical role in the acceleration of student achievement in mathematics. I see Sokikom and other valuable technology tools as essential contributors to educational improvement and the evolution of the role of a teacher from a monolithic instructor to more of a coach. As our research shows, with Sokikom, students become more excited about learning, increase their test scores and build a firm foundation in math skills.
Victor Rivero tells the story of 21st-century education transformation. He is the editor-in-chief of EdTech Digest, a magazine about education transformed through technology. He has written white papers, articles and features for schools, nonprofits and companies in the education marketplace. Write to: victor@VictorRivero.com