I guess it really is true - if you think that you can do something, then you probably can. Or, maybe, if you haven't been told that you can't - if you have the correct mindset that you have the ability to do whatever you set yourself to, regardless of your "innate" talents, then you can. Psychology professor Carol Dweck has a book out about this, and some good research (and lots of people who would probably say that it's true and they don't need research to convince them) to back her up.

An interesting aspect of this, and the lead to the story is how knowing you're smart can supposedly hold you back. If you're told that you're smart, then you lose the incentive to develop your brain, and you just attempt to "act" smart. Seems like she should write a book for parents on how to motivate their kids, how to give them the proper mindset.

Posted by Chris at 10:31 PM in Education, Random, Science | Comments (0)

Stanford Magazine has a good dual-viewpoint article on the question of how good or how bad the American education system is doing today. Personally, I tend to put more faith in the second viewpoint -- that the spite all the negative hype, American children are actually doing pretty well. Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, more kids are graduating, more kids are going to college (especially more females), and while our schools are by no means perfect, we are certainly not in a "crisis."

Continuing in this vein, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report last Friday showing that public schools educate children basically at least as well as private schools. Of course the Federal Education Department barely mentioned anything about the report, since the administration is much more in favor of vouchers to send kids to private schools.

Posted by Chris at 08:41 PM in Education | Comments (0)

Posted by Chris at 10:41 PM in Education, Politics, Science | Comments (0)

I just noticed that the Hunter College news page has an item about the studio I was in (link is to item above it), we assisted the Bronx River Arts Center.

Posted by Chris at 01:24 PM in Education, Environment, Planning | Comments (0)

Interesting article in Scientific American Mind, courtesy of noise between stations:

Kraft makes the argument that we are born with this creativity — young children are invention machines — but 20 years of convergent-thinking education strengthens the left brain’s domination over the right brain.

Posted by Chris at 12:56 PM in Education, Science | Comments (0)

Stanford has up some well designed pages for their: d.school | multidisciplinary design innovation center. They have run multidisciplinary product design classes out of the Mechanical Engineering Department for a long time that were very popular, with a focus on usability and sustainability. It is nice to see a full curriculum developed in this interesting area. (From noisebetweenstations)

Posted by Chris at 01:51 PM in Education | Comments (0)