EELS Should Be the Class Mascot

SEL, short for Social-Emotional Learning, has been defined and used in schools for over thirty years. Prior to 2018, however, I had heard the letters, but never really saw anything about SEL in the first twenty years of my teaching career. This was also true of nearly all of my colleagues I had asked about it. My introduction to what SEL is began on Valentine’s Day, 2018, after the horrific Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 and wounded 18 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 

The day after Parkland happened, I was on the phone with Joe Fatheree, a dear friend and fellow teacher from central Illinois, talking about teachers not having much say about school safety, or seeing any real progress to reduce the number of school shootings and other violent acts, for decades. We were wondering what could be done to try and produce real results in helping our youth maintain control of their emotions, and generally creating safer schools and environments where kids could learn and grow more while not worrying about so much actual and potential violence too many of our students see with high frequency. As we talked with more colleagues, safety personnel, administrators, school counselors, psychologists, and social workers, and other experts who had interests in this topic, we began to hear and learn about this SEL topic in detail. I was intrigued.

Two years later, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the world began to shut down for nearly one year. The school I worked at did remote learning and some hybrid learning during that time. Once the world began to come out of the shutdown, something became very apparent about the health of many of our students, as well as adults - the state of our mental health was largely in peril. Rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, violent actions, and other mental health issues rose dramatically in the U.S. and around the world. Now, there was a substantial rise in mental health issues prior to COVID for nearly a decade, but post-COVID it accelerated to the point where districts all around the country began to take an interest in SEL. In my own school district, SEL became one of our four district goals. 

But something both interesting and worrisome began to happen over the last several years regarding SEL - it became politicised. Some politicians began to use language like SEL is part of the Left’s drive towards ‘wokeness’, and that SEL was a way to indoctrinate America’s youth towards a Leftist-Communist political agenda that was destroying the country (Harvard, Kansas, National Review). By 2024, at least eight state legislatures have introduced bills that would limit or ban SEL from the state’s public schools (APA, EdWeek). SEL has now become associated with wokeness, critical race theory (CRT), progressive and Leftist indoctrination programs, and so on. I wonder, though, how many of those who are making claims on either side of the issue actually understand what the core SEL ideas are when it was developed back in 1994, by those who formed the leading organization that drives SEL, CASEL - the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

Traditional SEL is built around five competencies, which are Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-Making. In order to attain any level of competency within one of these competencies, certain skills must be learned, practiced, and applied. One list showing skills associated with each competency is: 

 Self-awareness
The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. The ability to accurately assess one’s strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a growth mindset.

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  Identifying emotions

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  Accurate self-perception

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  Recognizing strengths

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  Self-confidence

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  Self-efficacy

Self-management
The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations — effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, and motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic goals.

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  Impulse control

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  Stress management

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  Self-discipline

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  Self-motivation

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  Goal-setting

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  Organizational skills

Social awareness
The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and community resources and support systems.

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  Perspective-taking

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  Empathy

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  Appreciating diversity

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  Respect for others

Relationship skills
The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. The ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.

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  Communication

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  Social engagement

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  Relationship-building

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  Teamwork

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  Collaboration

Responsible decision-making
The ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms. The realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and a consideration of the well-being of oneself and others. How is the content being taught applied in a student’s life and in society?

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  Identifying problems

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  Analyzing situations

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  Solving problems

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  Evaluating & Reflecting

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  Ethical responsibility

I also include two newly proposed competencies: Positive Purpose, and Curiosity & Healthy Skepticism. These include vital skills we need in an age of Artificial Intelligence, and an age of mis- and dis-information. By the way, this list of skills can be added to lesson plan templates, to help keep track of what skills naturally arise and are needed/used in any lesson at any grade level! Teachers already work and use these skills everyday, but likely don't realize they're including EELS within their work with students!

On the surface, when people see these skills for the first time, it is often eye-opening to learn these skills are fundamentally what SEL is meant to expose and teach to students. Not many parents have a problem with such a skills list when they see it, and tend to insist they, of course, want their children to be strong with each skill, because these are skills necessary to navigate and thrive in life. 

I am at the point where I think we need to re-brand SEL. In fact, I’d like to rename it. We have the letters in the wrong order - let us change SEL to ELS, and call SEL what it really is and should mean: Essential Life Skills. As part of the brand, it helps to have a mascot and visual, so I’m thinking of EELS: Everyday Essential Life Skills. 

When students have exposure to and practice with applying these types of skills in everyday situations both in and out of the classroom, the benefits are impressive - and long-lived into adulthood. Studies over the last few decades have shown the following: 

• Improve academic growth and achievement; on average, 11% improvement for students who went through these types of programs;

• Significantly improves a variety of student outcomes: societal skills, academics, social behavior, ability to handle emotional stresses, attitudes towards school and everyday life, fewer behavioral and conduct problems in school;

• Improvements in a variety of student outcomes last long-term (some measured to 18 years after the EELS exposure in school);

• EELS programming and exposure beginning in Kindergarten and lasting through the schooling years of development last a lifetime - those individuals are more likely to stay out of poverty, stay away from drug and alcohol addiction, have better mental and social health, stay out of prison, and get and hold higher paying jobs;

• EELS expenses in school are paid for, and then some, after students leave the school system: there is a 11:1 payoff to the economy for those who came through successful EELS programming and exposure in the school systems - for every $1 invested in EELS, society gains $11 in returns;

• EELS in schools is a key component to reducing poverty and improving economic mobility; 

• Perception among education system stakeholders overwhelmingly feel there is a need for EELS in schools: students, parents, teachers, administrators, scientists, and employers;

• EELS are not all intuitive, but need to be taught and learned; many of the skills are based on societal norms, and need to be taught to our youngest students and continued to be presented year after year for reinforcement as societal stresses increase with age. It would be wise to consider including EELS in all teacher training programs, along with the benefits of including them in the classroom; 

• Most employers (70%) see Emotional Intelligence (EI) as an immediate, essential skill set for their employees: in an age where jobs are significantly and routinely changing or being eliminated due to technology and artificial intelligence, workers are under more and new stresses that have never been experienced in human history, and many are not able to cope and adapt mentally, emotionally or socially. 

Students who are able to maintain control over emotions are more likely to stay out of trouble, be non-violent, and find calmer ways of resolving issues with other students. They can focus better in class. They can work better and more productively with classmates, because collaborative and teamwork skills are part of the EELS. Learning about these and getting real experience and practice with skills don’t suddenly abandon a person upon graduation - they tend to remain over one’s lifetime. This is why people strong in EELS tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive citizens for life - and they tend to earn more and stay out of trouble compared to those who grew up with little or no real exposure and practice with EELS. 

One feature I like about this addresses my original exposure to SEL, which was in the name of school safety. Schools and communities where students are strong and competent in EELS tend to be safer, and kids tend to learn more. 

EELS are a MUST IN SCHOOLS, AND FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND AND MASTER! Especially in the AI world they are inheriting.

Let EELS be your Class Mascot!

And, please don't think about this being one more thing put on your educator plate:

Food Insecurity and suggestions of how we can do something about it in classrooms

I’m a big fan of the television drama The West Wing, which premiered in 1999. I remember in one episode early in the second season (2000), the character President Bartlet, while campaigning, said that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. was growing up in poverty. It is a good assumption that this also implied 1 in 5 American kids is food insecure, if not routinely hungry. 

Twenty six years later, we have nearly 1 in 5 children in the U.S. being food insecure. In an age of record stock markets (which have been setting all-time records since the Obama administration through the present, minus the COVID period) and humanity’s first trillionaire, we have made very little to no real progress with ensuring all of our children have ready access to nutritious food, where the 18.4% figure (from 2024 data) is over 14 million kids not knowing when the next meal is coming, at least not consistently.  

I suspect most who read this will be aware, if for any other reason than common sense, that children don’t do as well in school when they are hungry. And this is the case for those students who already are coming from lower income families, which have other issues against the school children coming from those families, which include going to schools that are likely underfunded relative to the schools kids from higher-income families attend; and lower income families and children are overrepresented by children of color. For example, Black and Latino families are about twice as likely to be food insecure than White families. Food insecurity is a factor in the academic achievement gaps we see in so many diverse school districts around the country (here are data from the Evanston, IL, school districts to show examples of academic achievement gaps), and low performance in many urban school districts.

The reasons food insecurity is a factor in academic performance and student learning are numerous. Even adults are hard-pressed to remain healthy and perform at work at optimal levels when hungry. Lower income families in general have less access to high-level nutritious food, often living in the ‘food desert’ areas of cities, where fresh produce is miles away. Hunger (and the resulting decrease in the nutrition needed for good overall health) affects concentration, physical and mental health, proper brain development of children, energy levels, behavior, mood, memory, and motor skills. 

I and countless other educators presently worry about the next few years when it comes to nutrition in public schools because of the politicization of federal aid to low income families, such as cuts to SNAP benefits and funding for free and reduced lunch programs around the US, which are already affecting millions of our children. 

One avenue to help with this situation in schools is to consider having school gardens, both outside and inside schools. Indoor farming has become more possible in classrooms over the past decade due to efforts such as the Green Bronx Machine, founded by my friend Stephen Ritz, who has taken time to write full K-12 curricula centered around growing food in classrooms. He uses primarily tower gardens, and has helped transform his school in a poverty stricken section of the Bronx, and turn around not only the school, but the entire community. He has taken this global, and helps set up school gardens and food programs all around the world. I have tower gardens in my classroom and adjacent research center, where my students and I grow fresh produce to donate to a local food pantry over the fall and winter months, when outdoor farming is not possible around Chicago. 

This past school year we grew and donated 809 bags (mostly gallon sized) of arugula, kale, chard, basil, parsley, and lettuces (166 pounds) from late September through early May, using just 5 towers, which went to dozens of families each week who rely on the food pantry. We will be expanding this with student-built grow systems both in the high school and some elementary classrooms in our feeder district. We hope to add more and more resources throughout more and more classrooms each new school year, since the need for food assistance continues to grow around the country, up to 14% of households from 10% since COVID.

The US was making some progress reducing food insecurity from highs during the Great Recession, but the percentage is rising back to those levels after the COVID pandemic. 

For educators, there are two other pieces of this I’d like to mention. One is the inclusion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into classes and community service projects. The second is to realize the future importance of indoor farming to this generation of young children, due to climate change. 

The UN SDGs are something I have included in my classes for most of the past decade, after they were adopted by all nations in 2015. As a science teacher, most of the 17 issues defined as the SDGs will need STEM as a primary means of finding real solutions to those issues, and No Hunger, SDG #2, is one of those issues. Any type of classroom and school farming is something that can bring attention to our children, and make them aware of and able to help those classmates and community families who may not be as fortunate as others when it comes to food insecurity. 

Things like possible population growth, and most importantly, the effects climate change (SDG #13) will have on global agriculture, will make outdoor farming more and more challenging, and likely less productive as top soil loss and nutrient level degradation in our most fertile farmlands (especially outside the US) continue to decline. The growing fresh water crisis in many parts of the world plays into this complex system. Indoor farming is something my students and I talk about as a part of the solution to feeding their world several decades from now, and it already is having an impact here and in other parts of the world, where they are investigating industrial indoor farming (mostly hydroponics). I think this is something educators can use in multiple ways of applying STEM knowledge and applications, as well as developing community service projects that begin introducing this important concept to the children who will be seeing this type of farming in their lives, and as one of the pieces of solutions to climate change the world will need to consider and develop on bigger and bigger scales, such as this massive indoor farm in New Jersey, from AeroFarms. 

It is possible to link indoor farming in classrooms, regardless of STEM subject one teaches - I’m doing this as an AP Physics teacher, and the students love having the tower gardens in the room and helping feed community members, despite it being outside of our curriculum. 

It is important to make students aware that not everyone is able to have consistent and predictable meals. It is important that we get nutritious food to those kids who need it, in order to help them grow and develop as healthy as possible, which in turn will optimize their learning in school. It is important this generation understands that these newer farming techniques and technologies exist and are developing here and abroad because it will become more important in the future due to climate change. We owe it to them. 

Reflections on teaching & learning - An interesting nugget from a former student

 I've been the luckiest teacher during my career. I've always had administrators who have essentially allowed me to try whatever I want to do with teaching and working with students, and this has allowed us to explore whatever interests and passions students have, both in and out of the classroom. This type of professional freedom is missing in so many schools and classrooms here and around the world. I wish we could get the education world to the point where teachers are unleashed and can work within their personal passions and interests to help provide the opportunities and experiences that will unleash students from the conformity and standardization that is still rampant within educational systems, and allow them to explore and find their interests and pathways. 

One result of how I have been working with students, and that I just learned about, is something I must share. A former student wrote to me out of the blue. It was incredibly sweet and humbling, as it is every time I hear from former students who are appreciative and grateful for their time with me in high school, and how it helped determine how their academic life evolved. This student has just completed his PhD at Stanford in environmental economics, and will soon cross the country to be an assistant professor at MIT. This alone is beyond impressive, but not surprising because of his interests and abilities in high school that allowed him to do research and actually DO science and other activities most students don't get the chance to do...but it made that long-term road to where he now is possible, because he realized he was passionate about discovery and figuring complexity out. 

But then what he told me is how this approach to go beyond textbooks and the confinements of typical course curricula has made a much bigger impact on students, as well as on society. Zane roomed with two other PhD students that were also from my classes back in Evanston. They knew of others from our program who were also currently at Stanford, about to get their doctorates in STEM (and one in English, but also from my classes). They knew of 9 or 10 ETHS students who were getting their Stanford PhDs; they apparently checked, and this is the same as the number of STEM PhD candidates from the whole of the United Kingdom. If this is accurate, I'm shocked, since we are talking Stanford, and countries form the EU certainly encourage their best and brightest to study there and the other US powerhouse universities. 

Regardless, I had NO IDEA about this. I know dozens of my former students have received STEM PhDs, as well as numerous other fields, over the last quarter century, but this made it so much more real. I know I do not do anything particularly special when I teach - I'm NOT a great story-teller, or jokester, and I don't do dramatic presentations or dress up or jump up and down on desks - but I do focus on 2 things: good, trusting relationships with students, and providing a couple dozen different programs and opportunities to help students explore what is interesting to THEM, and help them do some work in in those areas, mostly outside the classroom. Most of what we do has nothing to do with classwork or topics, but who cares - this is where they practice critical thinking and problem solving, and often it has to do with community service, so they are seeing how smart, caring individuals can help others in a variety of ways, which is something they carry into their studies and careers years down the road. They may forget some details of electromagnetic induction problems they'll never use again, and they'll forget some score on some test, but they DO remember the opportunities that helped them develop into the human beings they want to be...that's the secret sauce! 

UNLEASH STUDENTS AND LET THEM EXPLORE A BIT, and THEY WILL AMAZE YOU AS WELL AS THEMSELVES! And from one general public high school, perhaps you'll have groups of students from the same years together in your classes getting their doctorates at a place like Stanford, in numbers that are comparable to the total number from entire states or countries! 

IT IS THE POWER OF OPPORTUNITY that should be one of the pillars of education at all levels, to help our next generation discover their joys and passions, and develop those along the life pathways that are best for them, and ultimately best for society and the world! 

Thoughts on why EELS should be a classroom's class pets! Let's call SEL skills what they really are

 SEL, or Social-Emotional Learning, has been a guiding framework and set of ideas and skills students (and all human beings) should be exposed to, taught, and made use of throughout their lives. Prior to the COVID crisis, shutdown, and reopening, SEL has taken on new life and widespread interest among school districts and educators because of the need to help so many students and adults recover from emotional damage and baggage caused by and during the global shutdowns. But also more recently, SEL has become part of the political culture war, as many conservatives and Republicans feel SEL is part of attempts to teach our children about DEI and 'wokeness', indoctrination of students, and other reasons that have given SEL a black eye for many around the country. 

I say the SEL has the letters in the incorrect order - try ELS instead, meaning Essential Life Skills. Since students, and all human beings, need the skills everyday, we get EELS, or Everyday Essential Life Skills! 

Here are some of my thoughts about renaming/rebranding SEL as EELS. I include graphics any teachers can use immediately as handouts, posters, or to add to student assignments and literature, reasoning behind all this, and evidence as to why EELS are essential for student growth and learning. Teachers of all ages and grade levels are encouraged to include EELS in all aspects of your classroom culture and curricula - and teachers are already using numerous skills, likely without knowing the skills are associated with traditional SEL models. So these are not new, but instead a foundational part of every classroom! Check it out. 

Inspired by quantum mechanics, how I think about my students (and humans in general)

 Yes, this title is correct. I've been inspired by quantum mechanics to develop a different mindset about how to think about my students, and human beings in general! What on earth does this mean?!

If you know anything about quantum mechanics, it is probably the core concept you've heard of (usually this comes up in a chemistry class in high school, but usually not much is done with it except a mention of the concept): particle-wave duality. 

This is the notion that something like an electron, which most people think of as a tiny solid ball, or particle, can actually, under the right conditions that we're observing the electron, can act as a wave. Or that a photon, which is light and most would think of as a wave, can actually, under the right conditions that we're observing the photon, can act as a particle. An example of an electron or other similar pieces of matter, acting like particles is shown below. 

This is from an old photo in my classroom of particles moving in a bubble chamber at Fermilab. Each track is an individual subatomic particle moving through a medium. Particles do this; at least in this type of experiment or observation. The same electrons in this photo, if observed in a different way, like moving through a small hole or slit, will look like this:

This is an electron beam in a cathode ray tube in my lab. The alternating rings we see are electrons undergoing diffraction, which only waves can do! 

The important question to consider is: when an electron is just moving through space, and we are not observing it, is it a particle or a wave????

The answer is, in quantum mechanics, both! When not being observed, we cannot know what state the electron is in, and mathematically we create a wave function that has the two possible states in the function, along with coefficients that are related to the probability of being either a particle or a wave! 

Probabilities, and a mix of possible states when not being observed, is where I start relating this to my students. Also, the notion that the way we observe an electron helps 'select' the state we actually observe the electron, is key (some say that an observation 'collapses the wave function' into one specific state of the object, which is the state we observe...either a particle or a wave, if it's an electron). 

Here's what I mean for human beings. Think of all the emotional or mood states in which a human can be observed. We can be happy, sad, angry, curious, bored, excited, annoyed, and so on. However, can we know, exactly, which of these particular states our best friend is in at a specific moment in time, when he or she is not with us? If we cannot observe them in any way, of course the answer is we cannot know for sure. The best we can do is give the odds, or probabilities, of them being in a particular state at a given moment. This is no different than how we treat electrons in quantum mechanics. 

And then, when our friend walks into our room and we can actually now observe him or her, then we see one of those possible states 'crystallize' or 'collapse' into one specific emotional or mood state! And, the way we observe them can have an effect on which state we see. If we are in a room that is dark, damp, and depressing, and/or we are in a bad mood, this will affect which state we see our friend in - they may have been in a good mood just before walking in, but became more depressed or concerned for us when they see us and our mood, or the environment of the room! Again, this is similar to quantum mechanics, where the way we observe an electron (i.e. the experiment we do), selects the specific state, particle or wave, that we actually observe. 

So I think of my students as 'quantum critters', who are some complex mix of possible emotional or mood states, all superposed with each other when I have not yet seen the students. When they are in the hallways walking to my room, I do not have a clue what mood state they are in - I can only assign probabilities that they are happy or sad or angry, etc., at any given moment before stepping into my room. This is like an emotional or mood wave function. What's more, and makes this even more complex a situation, human beings have unique, complex emotional/mood wave functions! We are all different from each other, because we have a unique set of probabilities for being in a given emotional state. My students are not at all like the way we traditionally have thought about humans for over a century - where, just because they are the same age, all 3rd graders are basically identical to each other (and this can be said for every grade level). Even if you say this is ridiculous, it is certainly how we have treated them for a century in nearly all schools. All 8 year old kids coming to school are put in the same 3rd grade classroom, given the same supplies and books and resources, do the same activities and lessons for the same amount of time on the same day, take the same assessments, and are expected to learn the same things and do equally well. Even if some kids do poorly, not much time is taken to fix the problems, because the class has to move on to the next topic in order to complete the curriculum in the same amount of time, regardless of how well any one student is or is not learning. 

This sounds like we think of students as being identical to me! And it is ridiculous! 

Thinking of students, and all human beings, as unique, complex mixtures of possible states, with unique and complex mixtures of talents and strengths and weaknesses and interests and intelligences (such as the eight intelligences defined in Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences), is a more realistic view of a human being! This type of mindset for a teacher is invaluable because it forces us to think differently than the traditional approach to education, teaching, and learning - and it forces us to set up our classes differently, and provide a better mix of teaching techniques, better variety in activities and types of lessons, and allowing for more student input and opportunities for them to learn more and better. It forces us to think about and add more SEL skills, or as I call them, Everyday Essential Life Skills (EELS), which all humans need to be strong in for everyday life. 

A strange diagram helps show how I think about a student, or every human being - a complex, unique mixture of possible emotional/mood states: 

WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!! SO WE NEED TO SETUP SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS TO DEAL WITH THIS BETTER THAN WE HAVE, SO EVERY STUDENT HAS A CHANCE TO MAXIMIZE THEIR LEARNING AND SKILLSETS! 

We are NOT all the same, where the traditional (i.e. standardized) teaching method is to give everyone the same things at the same times and doing the same lessons to take the same assessments on the same days, while expecting the same results...this does not work for all students, and way too many are left behind! 

Let's change the mindset from traditional education to a 'quantum education' approach, where we identify, accept, and work with the FACT that EVERY STUDENT IS COMPLEXLY UNIQUE! 

There's more about all this given in my TED Talk, with an example of doing this with new levels of (unprecedented) success when addressing the issue of racial academic achievement gaps that plague so many diverse districts across the country, in something we called Project Excite. 

Population growth rates in US and around the world - general decline in birth rates in 'advanced' countries

 This is an interesting report from NPR about the birth rates in the US and all over the world. Women and families are having fewer babies than they were decades ago, with more and more families making the conscious decision to not have babies. This is beginning to create significant changes in global population projections, but more immediately this is affecting economies and national planning around the world. Most significantly, here in the US, as well as China, many European countries, and elsewhere, there are not enough young workers to help the rapidly increasing number of elderly people. The big question is, is this sustainable? More and more countries and states are now below the replacement rate for sustaining a stable and growing economy, which will cause disruptions in nations. Another question is how will this affect future climate models and change the predicted global demographics, which then affect the future course of the human race?

These are important questions, and mix in with the questions being faced with the advent of AI, advanced robotics, and climate change. This is an inflection point in human history, with an unknown pathway ahead of us. 

Questions that come to mind include: 

- here and in other countries with aging populations and declining work forces, what is the future in quality of life for the elderly? We already know that program like Social Security and Medicare are financially unsustainable with the present funding model and reality. Fewer young workers will accelerate the financial pressures on retirement, how to deal with more and more elderly, the health care system, and other sectors of the economy. 

- Combining AI and robotics into the mix, since all of these big issues are obviously connected and inter-related: AI and robotics are disrupting the job marketplace in most sectors of the economy already, and soon these will have an effect on all aspects of jobs, daily life, and the economy. With more and more human jobs being taken over by AI and robots, the prospects, and, possibly, the quality of life for many young people, could be in decline. What jobs will young people have available to them? With even more uncertainty for young people, will this be a feedback loop that causes even further declines in birth rates? With uncertainty of jobs, how and why would we expect young people to be able to have and afford kids, even if they want to have children? And will this likely be a new pressure and discouragement to having babies? If this were to happen, it feeds into a worsening of the elderly situation. 

- Will the rapid and continuous improvements and advancements of AI and robotics (and soon to be quantum computing networks) provide the solution to the job markets' stresses, but at the same time only increase our reliance and need for more and more AI and robotics, which puts more pressure on what is available for humans to do? This is another likely (negative) feedback loop with unintended consequences for young people. 

- For today's teenagers and pre-teens who are seeing all of this in front of them, what will this do in terms of having hope? We have what may be a perfect storm of an aging society, climate change, AI and robotics changing economies and causing disruptions and vast uncertainties in job markets, nationalistic politics and possible authoritarianism in the US and other western countries, a 'war' on immigration that is creating further pressures on declining numbers of workers within the US economy, drastic and rapid increases in the wealth gaps between the uber-wealthy and average citizen, and questioning about what purpose humans can find within all these changes happening at once. Does anyone have good models for understanding all these massive changes at once? How can we deal with this when today's leaders are not even talking about and recognizing the complexity of all this change, let alone any possible solutions?

There is MUCH TO PONDER and digest here, and all of this is progressing faster than humans have been capable of keeping up with in terms of predictions, policy, planning, and processing to keep up with the changes. 

A Climate Report, if interested

 This is a recently published report showing evidence of climate change and global warming. Check it out if interested; it is always a good idea to actually see why scientists have been predicting and measuring climate change, induced by humans, since the late 1960s, when oil companies, of all entities, developed the first climate models. 

**WORTH THE WATCH: Where the AI race is likely taking the human race**

 Although this develops a very dark, maddening, and scary scenario for the future of humanity, it is the reality of our time that AI, and the quest of a handful of companies to "win the race" of AI dominance, is leading us down a potentially ridiculous pathway that limits human beings in what they will be able to do, and how one will be able to find purpose in life. 

This conversation between Jon Stewart and Tristan Harris is worth the watch - although terrifying, it is something we all should see, think about, debate, and take action by telling our representatives to actually WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING about developing guidelines, policies, regulations, and laws about what we want to happen with AI (and its integration into robotics and quantum computing). This will not be easy because it will fly in the face of what the AI Tech leaders want, who are all Mega-wealthy and powerful and integrated into the political world already, BUT WE HAVE TO TRY to build in something that still allows human beings to have purpose in this world. 

Keep in mind that just a few days prior to this post, Amazon announced it will be reducing its workforce by as much as 600,000 (one-third of its present workforce) by 2033, as they will be replaced by robots; they plan on automating 75% of its operations. This is happening in the present, and is no longer just a 'sci-fi' type possibility. 

You can help FEED SCHOOL CHILDREN IN MALAWI online!! Please consider checking out our EMPATHY Project

 The GoFundMe site for the EMPATHY Project is up and running. Please consider ANY amount, even something like $5 is around 8500 kwacha, and all of this adds up quickly to help multiple schools feed their children for the entire school year! Everything helps, and is appreciated by everyone involved! 

Check this out to learn more about the EMPATHY Project, where we help feed children for the school year in Malawi. 

Also, the spring planting season is fast approaching in the southern hemisphere, so this is an ideal time to contribute funds to help purchase seed and fertilizer! 

THANK YOU for your consideration! Below is a photo of a field of corn one of the schools owns and maintains, and the harvest is used to feed kids throughout the entire school year! We help support two dozen schools, and thousands of children. 

              

Website for independent science research for high school students

 For the STEM educators out there - if you have students who have an interest and passion for wanting to try actual science research, but they do NOT have access to professional laboratories and universities (which is the VAST majority of high schools in the country, and globally), perhaps the CABS site can be useful and help find novel research questions students and teachers can pursue WITHOUT professional labs and equipment! There really are countless legitimate, discovery level projects students can take on by using equipment most high schools have, and can build the experiments in school or even in their own house! 

If you have students who are into coding, there are endless options for developing computational studies on just about any phenomena in any discipline. There are also online databases and datasets, as well as citizen science options, students can make use of! All these types of resources can be found with the CABS sites. For examples of actual student papers from their research studies, check these from former students. 

Two new resources for elementary teachers and students

 I am breaking out two new animated resources that are most useful for elementary teachers. 

The first is a STEM story I wrote some years ago, but just had the text. It is entitled Little Sue and the Rock, and is a story for children in grades 1-3. The goal is to introduce to younger children the concept of atoms, and what atoms are made of. It goes through electrons, and a nucleus, and then that a nucleus is made of protons and neutrons. But then it introduces the fact that protons and neutrons are made of still smaller pieces called up and down quarks! Quarks are typically unknown even to high school science classes, and therefore high school students, which seems silly to me since I think it is fundamental we present the most basic ideas of what the world is made of in simple, and accurate, terms. By the way, it is fun to encourage and challenge students to write stories that try to explain a science or math topic! 

The second resource has to do with Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL. Most schools in the country have made it a goal, at some level, to bring in more SEL to deal with some of the issues we've been dealing with with children and teenagers since the Covid pandemic, specifically mental health issues. But SEL has become politicized and is under attack in many regions of the country, and has begun to be frowned upon by many educators. The trouble is, the skills described and contained in traditional CASEL SEL are actually essential life skills any parent would want their children to be strong in, in order to have a healthy and successful life! I am proposing and pushing for a re-branding of SEL to EELS - Everyday Essential Life Skills needed for success! This is a short booklet with animated pages that introduce and define what the EELS are, and I ask all who are parents to decide if the skills shown are part of "left wing indoctrination", or if they are skills you yourself use every day of your life, and are skills any parent would want their kids to know and be strong in. I have yet to find anyone who does not want kids to be strong in the listed skills! 

What does E = mc^2 mean? What are the consequences?

In my classes, when we are going through the usual classical physics portions of energy and work, I also throw in a couple days of modern theories of energy, including special relativity and some basic quantum mechanical ideas. After we see one way of deriving E = mc^2, and Einstein's energy equation in special relativity, I want to make a point that this is a truly large breakthrough in our thinking of the physical world. I like to use E = mc^2 as a stepping stone to better understand the following:

The discovery of E = mc2 basically sets up the discovery of quantum  mechanics, and the weirdness we see with particles.

            Energy = matter, is effectively what this tells us.

These are two forms of the same stuff, like steam (energy) and ice (matter)  are two forms of the same H2O molecule.

     Whatever properties energy (waves) can have, then matter (particles)  has those properties.

     Whatever properties matter (particles) can have, then energy (waves)  has those properties.

Examples:

If waves have wavelengths, then so must particles

If particles have momentum, then so must waves (light/photons)

If matter is affected by gravity, then so must waves (light/photons)

This equation also re-defines conservation of mass and conservation of energy. In nuclear reactions, conservation of mass is violated, since products weigh less than reactants.

         Conservation of mass-energy is now more correct!

• This equation changed the course of history, as we entered the age of nuclear power and weapons.

• It allows us to understand how stars form and 'burn,' and their life cycles

• It allows us to understand how heavier elements are formed through thermonuclear fusion (nucleosynthesis; we are made of star dust!!)

• It allows us to understand how the universe can form from a burst of pure energy (Big Bang), as we have phase transitions from energy to matter or vice versa.

• The unification of space and time allows us to understand what causes gravity (warps in space-time)

• It allows us to understand how to make particle accelerators and explore the basic question, "What are we made of?"
• It led to the prediction of antimatter 

• It allows us to think in terms of multiple dimensions, giving rise to things like string theories

• It allows us to begin to understand radioactive processes, and nuclear physics

• The theory of photons allowed Einstein to understand photoelectricity (solar energy), for which he won the Nobel Prize

• This also helped lead to his discovery of 'stimulated emission,' the process that makes lasers possible

• It predicts 'matter waves' or the wave-particle duality, which is the heart and soul of quantum mechanics

Not bad for something that seems so simple and innocent!

Science Modeling: Example, Climate models

Because this was an election year, I think there was an increased interest among many about climate change, and whether or not humans have any impact on climate and global warming. For full disclosure, I am a PhD physicist and know several experts on climate science, and there is no question in my mind that humans have something, and likely most, to do with climate change...the multiple, independent studies and evidence for this is too great, and experts who study this don't even question whether this is still a question.

But what the vast majority of non-scientists do not understand and tend to ask me, is how in the world can any scientist make a prediction about what could happen 100 years in the future? Especially when weather forecasts on the evening news cannot even get the weather correct one week from now? A valid, and important, question. The answer is very sophisticated climate models and computer simulations.

"Huh??" is a typical reaction when someone hears this for the first time. Computer simulations involve taking a mathematical model, and in this case, for a global climate system, the sets of mathematical equations relevant to the system are crazy hard to solve...nonlinear, partial differential equations for a huge number of different phenomena, all interacting with each other to lead to what we observe in nature. So difficult is the math that no one can possibly solve these with pencil and paper, and worse yet no one can possibly run these crazy hard equations through time by hand. But with powerful, crazy fast computers that can do trillions of calculations per second (i.e. supercomputing systems), one can code up the equations and figure out solutions to them. The result is a prediction over time of what the world may look like given an initial set of conditions to start the calculations.

How does a scientist have any confidence that results spewing from the computer are at all realistic? How do we know if anything about the simulation is believable or reliable? Well, one can look at past climates and events that affected climate, and put those conditions into the computer model and simulation. Run the simulations for past events and conditions, and compare the simulated predictions to real data and results that are measured - if the real data and simulated results overlap, then one has some confidence that the simulation is working properly. Do this for a large number of past events, and if all of them are showing good overlap with actual data, then confidence grows.

One can then make predictions with the simulations, even for past data and climates. One can change the parameter values for all sorts of things, leaving others fixed in value, to see if the changed values can make significant changes in climate by themselves. When one does this with natural parameters one does not get the increases in temperatures that are measured over the past century (especially since the 1970s). However, when one changes the greenhouse gas parameters, that alone creates the increase in temperatures we observe. Computer simulations are one avenue to show that human contributions to increased greenhouse gases has caused the increase in global temperatures.

For an excellent example of all this in action, check our the TED talk by Gavin Schmidt. He shows the process of making the models, and shows predictions for the future, having gone through the calibration and verification process described above.

Getting students active outside of the classroom

Here is a link I was fortunate to have published on the Varkey Foundation blog. It deals with having as a teaching goal to get each student to try something, no matter how big or small, outside of the classroom, and not as a grade or extra credit, but just because they are hooked on something and want to do it on their own! It is a challenge, for sure, but can be done. And if teachers have this mindset, it helps them to encourage applications of the material taught in class, as well as promote creativity and curiosity in students. I think these life skills are generally more important than much of the content we teach in just about any course. The link is here. Note that there are other important blog posts from other Global Teacher Prize finalists on the Varkey site - we can all learn from some of the very best teachers on the planet!

Educate Illinois School Districts about State Charter Schools and Support HB2660

Charter schools have gained much attention over the past decade, as many seem to think they could be a ‘silver bullet’ in education and make an enormous difference for children and families.  Certainly there are some outstanding charter schools, but at the same time there are also mostly average charters, relative to public schools, and some charters that under-perform compared to public schools. 

In Illinois, the normal process for creating a charter school includes a group presenting their proposal to a local School Board, and then allowing the School Board to vote either for or against allowing the charter school into the district.  If it is a yes vote, then the district works with the charter to arrange the finances for the charter school.  If it is a no vote, the charter group may take their proposal to other districts.  

However, over a decade ago, when a charter school was denied in Woodland School District 50 and Fremont District 79 (in the Gurnee area), a new law allowed the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to overturn the local School Board’s decision.  Not only did Woodland and Fremont have to allow Prairie Crossing Charter School (PCCS) to run in the district, but the financing formula stated that Woodland and Fremont had to fully pay for the charter school, using its general state aid (GSA) at a per capita cost.  

Today, some twelve years later, Woodland receives about $3.5 million in GSA for some 6600 K-8 students.  But it must then proceed to give $3.1 million to PCCS for only 330 students.  This is over $3 million that any other school district in the state of Illinois gets to keep for its annual budget, but that Woodland must somehow make up.  In the time PCCS has existed, Woodland has lost some $27 million! 

About a year and a half ago, more new legislation created the State Charter Commission, which has seven members appointed by the governor.  The ISBE used to have control of what I’ll call ‘state charter schools’ such as PCCS, but now the new commission has control.  The commission has said in the next decade, it would like to see as many as 100 of these charter schools across the state, where they have sole power to induce on any local school district if it sees fit.  This process has no oversight or control from local School Boards, the ISBE, or the state legislature! 

A second state charter school has been put into the Rich Township District 227 about two years ago, costing #227 multiple millions of dollars already.

Suppose your district spends $10,000 per student total in its budget.  For every 100 students that would attend a state charter school, that is $1 million your district would lose to the charter, and would have to make up.  In an era of already tight budgets, this is devastating to the educational budget of a local district.  

More are certainly on the way.  The issue is not necessarily whether or not one likes charter schools, because for some families this is beneficial, and that is great.  The issue is to change the funding formula so that it does not decimate local school district budgets! 

Hence Woodland, Fremont District 79, and Rich Township have a proposed bill in the Illinois House, HB2660, that changes funding from a per capita cost to the district, and instead take the percentage of state funds (revenue) that a district has in its budget and multiply that percentage by the number of students going to the charter school.  That will determine the amount of money the district would pay the charter school.  The rest would need to be paid by the state, through the GSA funding mechanism, since this new school was in fact created by the state – the state should have some ‘skin in the game’  to fund a school it alone is responsible for.

The two State charter schools that have been created in Illinois have already caused 3 districts to lose a combined $40 million dollars is General State Aid.  These funds are diverted to the state charter without your school district’s consent or ability to deny.

Woodland as well as the other two schools with State Charters located within their boundaries (Fremont Elementary District #79 and Rich Township #227) have fought the good fight expending thousands in legal fees to change how the charters are funded to no avail.  We have been advised by the ISBE (Illinois School Board of Education) that this issue requires a legislative solution. 

This is a crucial time to gain support for a change in how these charters are funded.  We believe HB 2660 may be a solution. 

The knowledge that the new State Charter Commission can add charters at will with absolutely no authority of the State legislature, Illinois School Board of Education or the Local Districts to deny the charter or control the funding is a ticking time bomb.  This opens up the door to anything from Virtual Charters to Home School Charters to drain what little State funding public schools receive.  With forecasts of 82% funding levels for General State Aid and 19% for State Transportation in FY14, the affected 3 districts will soon have no state funds left.

Presently, there is a group, Virtual Learning Solutions in St. Charles, that wants to set up a virtual school district, and may take 18 districts in the Fox Valley area to the State Charter Commission, trying to force the virtual school on these districts.  They would like to start this in the fall of 2013.  This means 18 more districts are at risk to lose large portions of their GSA to a charter district they do not want.  This will continue to affect potentially any public district in the state of Illinois. 

We need to educate school districts about this, and get them to ask local state representatives and state senators to support the HB2660 legislation that does not punish the local district alone when a charter school is created and forced on a local district by the State of Illinois.  With only 3 affected out of over 850 districts in the state, this is NOT on anyone's radar - but it needs to be.

Let your district school board and superintendent know about this issue.  If they agree it could be a financial impediment to the district budget, should a state charter school be forced on them, then ask them to contact the state rep and senator.  

Check out Flatland 2: Sphereland, now on DVD

Many of us have likely seen the movie Flatland and/or read the book back in high school. This is a classic book that tells the story of flatlanders, who live on a two-dimensional world, only to be visited by SPherius, who shows two mathematicians of Flatland the 3rd dimension.  It is such a creative way to present the concept of dimension to math students, and the movie has been shown to millions of students around the world.

A sequel to Flatland is now out, with Kristen Bell once again being the voice for the main character, Hex.  It continues the story to where flatlanders want to explore their 2-D universe, but a young mathematician's measurements show something strange - straight lines that are not straight, and triangles whose three angles add up to more than 180-degrees.  This is the basis to the geometry on 3-D surfaces, and this story provides a very good extension on the concepts used in the original Flatland movie.  The notion of a 4th and higher dimensions is brought up in Sphereland, which coincides with modern physics ideas of general relativity and string theory.  In addition, the idea of multiple universes (the so-called multiverse) is used in the story.  Again, this provides a very creative way to add visuals and a story to get students to think about these really strange, abstract ideas in math and physics.  There are also worksheets for many of the math and physics concepts on the Sphereland DVD (yours truly helped out with these).  Check out the Sphereland Facebook site for more news on this project.

Thoughts on What it Takes to be Successful

The most recent book by Malcolm Gladwell, “Outliers: The Storyof Success,” has some interesting findings about those who reach levels of success that are out of the ordinary. 

One of the ideas I found most interesting is that we typically view successful people as those who have a ‘natural ability’ or talent within their field, and that they have achieved success and greatness because of that talent.   We say that about great singers and musicians, athletes, businessmen, scientists, and so on.  But when this is studied, an interesting conclusion is reached.  Almost never is there a case of someone who is considered an expert or master within their field who got there solely based on talent or ability.  Instead, it takes years of plain old hard work to reach great levels of success in just about any field.  What’s more, there is a threshold that is really prevalent in just about any field – 10,000 hours.  That is, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master something and reach a level of success that is considered to be ‘outlier’ status.  The Beatles, Mozart, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, and countless others did not simply arrive one day as one of the greatest in their respective fields.  Instead, the Beatles used to play 7 or 8 hours every night in clubs before anyone knew them as THE Beatles.  Mozart, although a child prodigy, did not compose anything of recognized greatness until he was in his late teens, with countless hours of playing and composing behind him.  Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had about 10,000 hours of programming practice before they made their breakthroughs.  There are many ‘natural,’ gresat athletes, some of whom are better athletes than Jordan.  But no one worked harder or put more time in the gym than Jordan because he simply wanted it more than anyone else. 

But there is something that comes along with the 10,000 hours.  In many instances, such as Gates and Jobs, timing (i.e. pure luck of the draw) cannot be overlooked.  Gates and Jobs, if they were born a few years earlier, would have likely been in technology, but so far into a career that it would have been difficult to find the time or have the freedom to make the changes they had in mind.  Had they been born later, they would have missed the period of just 3-5 years where personal computing breakthroughs and access became a hot fad and everyone had to have one.  In other words, society has to be at a point where it is ready for your idea or product; otherwise, it will not have a chance to take off. 

Studies of IQ show that those who are of ‘genius’ stature on paper are not automatically guaranteed success in life.  And what is the biggest factor rather than the IQ value?  It is cultural upbringing and what the parents did for careers!  Now, these are highly correlated factors for anyone to attain success, but it also shows up for genius level IQs, too.

 In a classic project by Lewis Terman, he selected a pool of some 1400 childhood geniuses (called the 'Termites') based on IQ, using the assumption that high IQs was the driving factor for success.  But Terman then followed these students over many years, all the way through college and into their careers.  The findings for their success split almost exactly along the split of families that were middle class on up and low income families.  In middle and high income families, parents practice what Annette Larens calls ‘concerted cultivation.’  This is where parents are actively involved in their children’s lives and education, the homes are filled with books, a sense of entitlement is picked up by their children, and talents and interests of the children are pursued.  In lower income families, there is a different way of raising children she refers to as ‘natural growth.’  Parents provide basic needs of the children (food, clothing and shelter) but are largely absent from their children’s education and interests, there are few books, and parents rely on others to focus on specifics of their children’s needs – teachers are responsible for teaching, doctors are responsible for their health, and so on.  So the child is largely on their own as far as growth and finding their way in the world.  This is a feature of low income families, regardless of race.

This leads to an interesting suggestion for education.  What the findings in this book suggest is that it requires a full community to help low income children.  And, most importantly, THIS NEEDS TO BEGIN AT AS YOUNG AN AGE AS POSSIBLE.  The attitude of success, a sense of entitlement, being read to and having access to books, ensuring that students and parents are aware how the education system works and what opportunities are available, and so on, need to be part of the education system for young, poor children.  Parents are not doing this for most children who fall into this demographic, so the system must – if this does not happen, then we already know the results, which is effective failure for academic success of these kids.  To me, this sounds so similar to Hillary Clinton’s ‘It Takes a Village,” and in my experience it is true.  I have seen this work for Excite children where I work, and I have seen kids who make it to high school without any support – they are beaten emotionally, are far behind academically, see no chance of success that is related to anything academic, and are just putting in their required hours in school, with no opportunities as part of the picture.  It is largely too late for many teens, which is why we need to be doing this on a regular, massive basis in elementary schools.

There will be more to come on some of this.

The Semantics of the ‘Did you or Did you not Create your Business’ Debate

The silliness of the presidential campaign season is in full gear.  Not much substance in August, as the two campaigns need to do anything in their power to focus on negatives of the other side.  One of the topics under debate, if you want to call it a true debate – probably a war of words is more accurate – is built around a comment made by Pres. Obama, to the effect that someone who has a successful business did not do it entirely by themselves.  Gov. Romney and his surrogates make it a point at any speech or interview to make the comment that the Republicans DO think that that same business owner did create his or her business on their own. 

Both sides are correct, but of course cannot simply go on to provide the details that show both are correct because both want the issue. 

Did Bill Gates come up with Microsoft on his own?   Well, in the sense that he co-founder Paul Allen developed the idea for a software company that would have a graphics-based operating system to do the same and much more than the old DOS system, absolutely.  It was their ideas that led to the formation of the concept of the company.  Romney and the Republicans have a check in their column.

However, I believe the point the President is trying to make, and he and his surrogates make this point at all their speeches, is that forming a company that is successful absolutely takes the countless hours of hard work from the founder, but is not at all possible without help along the way.  Gates, for instance, would not be where he is without the teachers at his school that allowed him to use one of the few personal computers available in the vicinity for countless hours.  To get a company going almost always involves the assistance of the banks to get the loans and seed money, or family and friends to help put pieces in place.  One can get extremely detailed with the ‘village’ view, where it takes all the public infrastructure like roads and bridges and airports and shipping services to get your product to market, and the public school system that allows an educated work force from which to hire your employees, and all the other companies and stores and employers of the world that provide jobs to the masses so you have customers to be able to afford your product, and so on.  It truly does require a community with MANY parts in order for any business to start up and succeed over time.

In the end, ideas and concepts for products and services aredeveloped in many different ways, by individuals and small groups of individuals.  It does take that willingness to take on often truly staggering risks for an individual to put everything on the line and invest the time, effort, money and other capital into the project of developing a company.  Many do have wonderful ideas, but cannot take that step into a risk of losing possibly everything, so kudos galore to those who can and do take that giant step into the unknown!  They deserve to reap the benefits should that idea and company take off…capitalism at its finest.  But there is also truth to the fact that one cannot sell a product or service if there are no potential customers or ways of getting the product to those potential customers.  This is where the ‘it takes a village or community’ mindset comes in.  This is the ‘big picture’ view of success. 

So BOTH are right!  Can we please just move on and get to the main issues that Americans are worrying about???