CTK Insights

Here is a question: should students be given partial credit for incomplete solutions. I was still reading Andrei Toom’s online book to which I referred in the previous post when I was advised on twitter.com that New York City Council is in turmoil over a controversial policy that gives students partial credit for wrong answers [...]

The news are sometimes overwhelming. The latest I read came from National Geographic Daily News. A new research by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, suggests “that human evolution may have a big influence on whether you’re liberal or conservative—not to mention how smart you are, whether [...]

A story in foxnews.com under the caption “Detroit School Leader Sends Wrong Message, Some Parents Say” tells of the president of the city’s school board who shockingly confessed that he can’t pen a coherent sentence. Mathis, 56, of Detroit, has had difficulties with language as early as fourth grade, when he was placed in special [...]

In the Fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $45 million to six school districts, including Denver, for a two-year study of teaching. I’ll quote a response to this news from James D. Starkey, a retired teacher. The purpose of the study is a quest to find out the best teaching practices. [...]

Jerry Becker who runs a very useful list server occasionally broadcasts collections of sayings to read, enjoy and benefit from. In the latest (SAYINGS XXVIII) the first piece of wisdom was credited to G. K. Chesterton, an English writer of more than 100 years ago. The oxymoronic quote “The thing I hate about an argument [...]

    Groundhog Day for the Fifth Column of Malice by Melanie Phillips Spectator.co.uk, 12/30/2008   So there is indeed now a war. In Gaza. Actually, there are two wars going on: one involving rockets and warplanes, and the other involving the media, as Barry Rubin notes: Nothing is clearer than Hamas’s strategy. It gives [...]

  Israel’s Response IS Disproportionate December 30, 2008 By Jonathan Mark JewishWorldReview.com   I condemn Israel’s disproportionate attack on Hamas because, so far, it has only lasted four days and I would like to see a proportionate response that terrifies Hamas for seven years, the years that have filled Sderot and neighboring towns with nightmares, [...]