A few studies suggest that introverted teachers—especially those who may have falsely envisioned teaching as a career involving calm lectures, one-on-one interactions, and grading papers quietly with a cup of tea—are at risk of burning out.
.. In some ways, today’s teachers are simply struggling with what the Harvard Business Review recently termed “collaborative overload” in the workplace. According to its own data, “over the past two decades, the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more.”
.. 41 percent of teachers leave the profession within five years of entering it.
.. Barbara Larrivee’s book Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout cites five different analyses that show “being introverted predicts burnout” in the general workplace.
.. “If the community of educators has agreed to value student learning styles, why not allow adults the freedom to play to their own strengths as well?
Scalia’s Putsch at the Supreme Court
Justice Breyer was referring to the compromise at the heart of the 1977 precedent, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, that Mr. Carvin was asking the court to overrule. The court in that case upheld the constitutionality of the fair-share fee as long as it was limited to the union’s collective-bargaining expenses and did not subsidize the union’s political or other “nonchargeable” activities.
.. The case was Locke v. Karass. The decision was unanimous.
What changed since 2009? How could the court go from unquestioning acceptance of a long-lived precedent to a situation in which all that remains in doubt is whether that same precedent will be overturned in early June or late June? In the answer to that question lie some disturbing observations about the Roberts court.
It’s no secret that in recent years, major segments of the Republican Party have declared open season on public employee unions — selectively, of course. Police unions and correctional officers’ unions, which have stood in the way of reform-minded policy initiatives in states and cities across the country, have been exempt as targets. Conservative and Tea Party ire has instead been focused on teachers’ unions.
India’s Move Against the Poor
The Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act disqualifies from local political office citizens who have been formally charged with serious crimes, citizens who are behind on loan payments to rural cooperative banks, citizens who haven’t paid their electricity bills, citizens who don’t have a functional lavatory at home and citizens who lack certain educational qualifications.
.. The stipulation that men running for local office should have high school diplomas and that women and Dalit candidates should have completed middle school was the most controversial part of the amendment, because it would disqualify about one half of Haryana’s rural voters. For that reason, the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the law, “Rajbala and Others vs. the State of Haryana and Others,” is a landmark in conservative jurisprudence and a dangerous departure from the ideal of a participatory democracy.
.. The second problem is that the law, in effect, punishes the poorer half of Haryana’s population for the failure of both state and national authorities to provide free education to all Indians.
.. Populist in idiom rather than intent, the B.J.P. appears to be using these two states as laboratories in which to test the chances of a broader conservative move to limit the political participation of the poor.
Why Are So Many Preschoolers Getting Suspended?
From a 3-year-old suspended for too many toileting mishaps to a 4-year-old booted out of school for kicking off his shoes and crying, toddlers are racking up punishments that leave many parents and child experts bewildered. Overall the rise in school suspensions and disproportionate impact on youth of color has triggered a flurry of interest from activists and high-ranking government officials, and for good reason: A February 2015 report from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project examined out-of-school suspension data for every school district in the country and found that nearly 3.5 million children—about six out of every 100 public school students—were suspended at least once during the 2011-12 school year, with close to half of those (1.55 million) suspended multiple times.
.. What makes preschool-age suspensions and expulsions further problematic is how out-of-school punishment feeds the school-to-prison pipeline. Research shows that repeated suspensions breed student disengagement, making youth more likely to dropout and more susceptible to entering the juvenile justice system.
.. “Poverty absolutely presents an extenuating circumstance in preschool suspensions,” said Thompson, adding that children in poverty often attend poorly resourced preschool programs with teachers ill-prepared to respond to behavior-management issues and more prone to opt for suspensions. A Pennsylvania State University study that examined the impact of race and socioeconomics on punitive discipline also found “race and class … inextricably linked.”
.. schools where active play is sacrificed in exchange for academics in an effort to close learning gaps. Expecting toddlers to sit still for long periods “is not developmentally appropriate. Young children learn through … inquiry and discovery,” she said, and when teachers misunderstand this they’re “more likely to recommend suspension or other inappropriate interventions.”