29 de abril de 2014

Brasil estuda participar de teste da OCDE sobre habilidades na idade adulta

O estudo mede competências em leitura, matemática e solução de problemas tecnológicos; primeira edição foi realizada entre 2008 e 2013

29 de abril de 2014 | 22h 05

Bárbara Ferreira Santos - O Estado de S. Paulo

SÃO PAULO - O Brasil estuda participar de uma prova da Organização para Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) semelhante ao Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes (Pisa), principal avaliação do ensino básico do mundo, mas voltada para adultos. Os resultados do primeiro estudo do Programa Internacional para Avaliação das Competências de Adultos (PIAAC), voltado para pessoas de 16 a 65 anos, foram anunciados nesta terça-feira, 29, em Brasília.

O teste mede habilidades em leitura, matemática e solução de problemas tecnológicos entre adultos. A primeira edição foi realizada entre 2008 e 2013 e aplicada em 23 países: Alemanha, Austrália, Áustria, Bélgica, Canadá, Coreia, Dinamarca, Espanha, Estados Unidos, Estônia, Rússia, Finlândia, França, Irlanda, Itália, Japão, Noruega, Holanda, Polônia, Reino Unido, República Tcheca, Eslováquia e Suécia.O Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (Inep) não confirmou a participação na segunda edição, que deve ser concluída em 2016, mas afirma que está estudando sobre a prova para saber se vai ou não participar. Chile, México, Colômbia, Argentina e Equador devem fazer parte da segunda prova.

O estudo coletou informações sobre como essas competências são empregadas no dia a dia e como são desenvolvidas, mantidas e perdidas com o passar do tempo. Segundo Andreas Schleicher, diretor-adjunto de Educação da OCDE, a prova não só mede o desempenho individual, mas mapeia como ele impacta na economia e na sociedade. "Pessoas com os níveis mais altos têm mais chances de conseguir bons trabalhos e têm boas chances de ser mais saudáveis, de participar de políticas públicas e de participar de voluntariado, por exemplo. Queremos entender como a economia traduz melhores habilidades em melhores trabalhos e melhores condições de vida. Não é um teste sobre indivíduos. É sobre o papel que as habilidades têm na economia e na sociedade".

Educação básica. Para Schleicher, esse tipo de prova consegue mapear algumas barreiras da educação básica que se perpetuam na vida adulta. Diferentemente do Pisa - que não leva em conta as notas das escolas das zonas rurais brasileiras -, este estudo deve ser aplicado em pessoas de diferentes regiões e de diferentes estratos sociais. "Como não são pessoas que estão na escola, pega pessoas em toda a sociedade. Vendo esse retrato poderemos ver o que será possível fazer em termos de políticas públicas. Nós só conseguimos melhorar o que medimos".

Ele explica que quem tem uma base boa na educação básica tem mais chances de continuar aprendendo ao longo da vida. "As pessoas que são bem educadas na escola continuam estudando durante a vida, continuam a ler. Mas as pessoas que não desenvolvem as habilidades básicas nas escolas continuam aprendendo menos, participam menos dos treinamentos e a barreira não só continua como aumenta na vida adulta".

O estudo mapeou que o nível das habilidades (que vai de 1 a 5, do menor para o maior) está relacionado com as oportunidades de emprego. O salário médio por hora dos trabalhadores com pontuação no nível 4 ou 5 (os mais altos) em letramento - aqueles que conseguem fazer inferências complexas e avaliar a veracidade de proposições ou argumentações em textos escritos - é mais que 60% maior que o de trabalhadores com pontuação no nível 1 ou menor - aqueles que conseguem, no máximo, ler textos relativamente curtos para localizar uma única informação que é idêntica à informação dada em uma pergunta ou instrução, ou possuem um vocabulário básico. Aqueles com baixa competência em letramento também têm duas vezes mais chances de ficarem desempregados.

De acordo com Schleicher, essas habilidades podem ser perdidas ao longo do tempo, se não usadas. "Isso acontece particularmente com os mais jovens. Os jovens que não usam essas habilidades acabam as perdendo. Isso mostra como é importante obter, após o período escolar, bons trabalhos nos quais se possa usar suas habilidades", afirma. "É papel do indivíduo ser seu próprio professor durante a vida, querendo aprender, mas empregadores podem criar ambientes que propiciem o aprendizado no dia a dia e governantes devem criar políticas públicas para garantir a educação de qualidade."

How does one of the top-performing countries in the world think about technology?

Hechinger Report by Sarah Butrymowicz /

SINGAPORE—Forty students in bright yellow shirts hunched over their computers in Singapore’s Crescent Girls School as they raced against their teacher’s digital stopwatch. They had just a few minutes to add their thoughts about a short film on discrimination into a shared Google Doc and browse the opinions of their classmates.
When the time was up, their teacher led a discussion about the meaning of discrimination and how to judge the credibility of an argument. The computers sat mostly forgotten.
“The technology just fades away, and that’s what we hope for it to do,” said principal Ng Chen Kee.

Students at Crescent Girls School in Singapore discuss conflict and discrimination in groups while working on a shared Google Doc. (Photo: Sarah Butrymowicz)

Crescent Girls has plenty of flashy gadgets, but balances those with these more subtle exercises in a way that’s emblematic of how Singapore tries to approach education technology. Glitzy tech that serves no purpose other than being cool is frowned upon. In classrooms in Singapore, digital devices are increasingly viewed as a means to bring students together in collaboration, rather than separate them further.
In contrast, American students who have tools like tablets and computers in the classroom often use them in isolation, powering through interactive worksheets and online quizzes. Indeed, technology’s main purpose often seems to be giving students personalized learning paths and a way to progress at their own pace.
In part, it’s because online learning in America grew out of a push to move away from rigid requirements of the number of hours a student should spend on a subject in favor of allowing them to move on once a concept is mastered. “That’s where the conversation started within the U.S.,” said Allison Powell, a vice president at the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNacol). “In a lot of other places, it wasn’t about taking an individual online course. It was ‘Let’s integrate it into the classroom.’”
Singapore has been one of the highest performing countries on international assessments for decades, while the United States remains stuck below the top performers. Investments in education technology have been a key part of Singapore’s national plan for two decades and have been cited by some experts as a reason that the country has so much academic success.
Singapore, South Korea and Uruguay were praised by Richard Culatta, director of the United States Department of Education office of educational technology, as global leaders in technology in the classroom. “These are impressive places and they didn’t get there because they randomly decided to do it. These are countries that have not taken their eye off the ball,” he said. “There’s a point where if we’re going to remain competitive globally, we need to make sure we’re keeping up.”
In the late 1990s, the Singapore Ministry of Education unveiled its master plan for technology. The first phase was spent building up infrastructure and getting computers into schools. In the 2000s, in phases two and three, the ministry focused on training teachers in how to use gadgets and identifying schools to experiment with new innovations.
The Ministry of Education would not provide information on how much money it had spent on these initiatives, but in a presentation for the World Bank, said phase one had cost $2 billion over five years and phase two $600 million over three years. In 2010, the Ministry of Education committed another $610 million over eight years for technology in schools, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Crescent Girls School was selected in 2008 to be one of these so-called FutureSchools. With extra money from the Ministry and support from the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore’s teacher training university, these eight schools must develop and trial new types of technology. If they work, the plan is to spread them to other schools.
History teachers at Hwa Chong Institution are working to create new social media platforms for students to share reflections. Students at Canberra Primary School visit a 4D immersive lab in groups to learn about different environments, like the rainforest. Crescent Girls has developed the “digital trails” platform, where students and teachers make interactive maps by adding text, photos and videos. The school also has a room full of touch-screen tables, loaded with games and applications to prompt discussion and teamwork. In one, four students, each with a different responsibility, must use geometry concepts to protect a submarine from enemies.

A student at Marsling Secondary School in Singapore navigates around a virtual environment for the first time. His teachers plan to make a digital gallery for the students to show case designs and comment on each other’s work. (Photo: Sarah Butrymowicz)

Beyond the FutureSchools, the Ministry is also bankrolling other tech endeavors for schools. Researcher Kenneth Lim has set up a lab at the NIE where he’ll design custom immersive virtual environments for any lesson teachers want, such as a lesson on perspective in an art class or one on water shortages in geography.
The worlds are designed to be incomplete and act as a virtual workbook, where students can try to fill in the blanks. They wander around with their avatars, talking to classmates in person and online. “Their whole threat level is lowered,” Lim said. “They make mistakes.”
Singapore is trying to move beyond the much-criticized culture of high-pressure testing and studying by memorization here and in many other Asian countries. That’s why officials are focusing on soft skills, like collaboration and confidence. Technology, like Lim’s work, is becoming a popular way to allow students to learn by exploring without worrying about the consequences of failure.
On a January morning, Lim and his team helped eighth graders in a Design and Technology class at Marsiling Secondary School enter their virtual world for the first time and practice drawing basic shapes. The end goal was create a gallery that would allow students to comment and help each other on their work.
It’s the first major technological project the school has undertaken, and as Principal Foong Lai Leong stood in the corner watching, she was trying to think of other courses that might benefit from some digital lessons. Science and art, definitely, she decided. Maybe even certain topics in math.
There’s no pressure from the Ministry of Education to use technology for any particular subject or in any way. It is encouraged, but always with a reminder to “be wise, be judicious,” said Ng Pak Tee, an associate dean at the NIE. “It should not be a teacher looking at a technology saying, ‘Wow.’”
This careful and deliberate introduction of digital devices into the classroom sets Singapore apart from many places in America. While some districts or schools have rolled out programs thoughtfully, they’re still the minority, Powell said. “I get calls from superintendents and principals on a daily basis [saying], ‘I went out and bought 500 iPads. Now what do I do?”

pesquisa mostra que a ciência brasileira é dominada por homens

Entre os cientistas com até 40 anos, são seis homens para cada mulher no nível mais alto do CNPq, segundo estudo de gênero
"Conciliação de maternidade com ciência é questão séria e delicada. Muitas cientistas são solteiras e não têm filhos", diz economista

DANDARA TINOCO (EMAIL)O Globo

Publicado: 29/04/14 - 6h00

Atualizado: 29/04/14 - 8h03

CAROLINA ARAUJO: Matemática no Impa e samba na Lapa
Foto: Simone Marinho / Simone Marinho — CAROLINA ARAUJO: Matemática no Impa e samba na Lapa Simone Marinho / Simone Marinho

RIO -

- Dá para ver que nós somos poucas. Acredito que muitas meninas, mesmo as interessadas em exatas, não vejam a vida científica como uma possibilidade de carreira. Esse tipo de divulgação é importante para incentivá-las. A ciência Acostumada a resolver problemas relacionados a geometria birracional e teorias de singularidades, a matemática Carolina Araújo não chegou a se surpreender com o resultado de pesquisa do Programa Mulher e Ciência: no Brasil, apenas 22 pesquisadoras com menos de 40 anos estão no mais alto nível de bolsas de produtividade em pesquisa do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), contra 136 homens. A relação de seis para uma era esperada por Carolina, uma entre as duas dezenas de brasileiras que atenderam aos critérios do levantamento “Jovens Pesquisadoras”. Em meio a 50 pesquisadores do quadro permanente do Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (Impa), ela é a única do sexo feminino.precisa de diversidade - opina Carolina, de 37 anos, formada na PUC-Rio e doutora pela Universidade de Princeton, nos EUA.

Para a carioca, a escolha por uma carreira de exatas ocorreu com naturalidade. Filha de uma engenheira, ela elegeu os números como preferência desde criança. Hoje, tem sua própria sala na sede do Impa, no Horto, bairro da Zona Sul carioca, onde dedica até dez horas por dia à resolução de problemas rabiscados com giz num quadro negro. Por vezes, o trabalho toma também parte do fim de semana. Nas horas que sobram, a matemática, solteira, gosta de arriscar passos de samba e frequentar uma roda de choro na Lapa.

- Na minha turma de doutorado havia uns 15 alunos, e apenas duas ou três eram mulheres. Ainda assim, era quase um recorde: quando a gente olhava fotos de turmas anteriores, só via carinhas masculinas - descreve.

Fenômeno é mundial, diz economista

À frente do “Jovens Pesquisadoras", Hildete Pereira de Melo, economista da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), confirma que o quadro não é uma particularidade do Brasil:

- A masculinização das ciências é mundial. Ela está ligada aos papéis de gênero, uma questão que ainda não está bem resolvida também nos Estados Unidos e na Europa.

O objetivo do programa é inspirar e atrair mais delas para as carreiras científicas. Em edições anteriores, foram perfiladas pioneiras das ciências no Brasil, como a economista Maria da Conceição Tavares, a psiquiatra Nise da Silveira, a bióloga e ativista Bertha Lutz e a agrônoma Johanna Döbereiner. A quarta edição deve ser publicada até junho. Já entre as jovens pesquisadoras, há especialistas em imunologia, farmacologia, ciências ambientais, física e genética, além de outras áreas. A seleção tem cientistas de noves estados. O Norte é a única região não representada.

O levantamento constatou que a participação de mulheres na ciência cai de acordo com o avanço da carreira. Enquanto, na iniciação científica, a participação feminina chega a 56%, nas bolsas de produtividade em pesquisa, consideradas pela academia como critério de excelência, a parcela é de apenas 36% do total concedido em 2013. São 4.970 para mulheres e 8.994 para homens.

A pesquisa mostra ainda que a entrada delas nesse sistema é mais tardio que a deles. Para pesquisadores do sexo masculino, a maioria das bolsas de produtividade é concedida a cientistas de 45 a 54 anos. Entre as mulheres, esse patamar é mais comum entre as cientistas de 50 aos 59 anos. As faixas etárias de menor representatividade feminina coincidem com a idade fértil.

- A conciliação da maternidade com a ciência é uma questão muito séria e delicada. Em alguns casos, as cientistas têm de fazer escolhas. Muitas são solteiras e não têm filhos - detalha Hildete.

É o caso da matemática Carolina, que diz que a decisão de ser mãe ou não “ficará mais para frente”. Outra selecionada entre as jovens pesquisadoras que já chegaram ao topo do carreira científica, a engenheira química Mariana de Mattos, de 38 anos, também afirma não ter pressa para escolher se terá filhos.

- Não vou dizer que não tenho vontade, mas não é prioridade para mim. Nunca foi. Não acho que a maternidade seja incompatível com a carreira científica, mas é muito difícil manter a produtividade quando se é mãe. Sobretudo nos primeiros anos de vida da criança, não dá para ficar escrevendo artigos e participando de congressos - observa Mariana, que é casada com um engenheiro químico.

Nas Humanas, ingresso mais tardio

A socióloga Isabel Tavares, que também participou do levantamento “Jovens Pesquisadoras", explica que, em algumas carreiras, como as de humanas, o ingresso feminino é ainda mais tardio.

- As carreiras de exatas são extremamente competitivas, então essas mulheres precisam entrar antes para garantir o seu espaço. Ao passo que nas humanas, em que o processo é menos competitivo, elas até entram mais velhas - pondera. - No caso das mulheres que optam por ser mães, às vezes elas precisam se distanciar da carreira durante um determinado período. A depender da área, só vão recuperar isso em cinco ou dez anos.

Coordenadora do Laboratório de Tecnologias do Hidrogênio da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Mariana considera a diferença entre homens e mulheres jovens no topo da carreira científica como “estúpida”. Ela diz, no entanto, que nunca se sentiu vítima de preconceito na academia:

- Nunca achei que as dificuldades que apareceram no meu caminho surgiram por eu ser mulher. Foram obstáculos inerentes à carreira científica, como os problemas para conseguir equipamentos. Por outro lado, as vezes sou procurada por alunas que têm receio de participar de processos seletivos para trabalhar em chão de fábrica. Eu digo para não abaixarem a cabeça. Mulheres também podem comandar operários.

Para Hildete Pereira de Melo, ainda há um longo caminho na construção da igualdade de gêneros nas ciências. Ela conta que, no Brasil, a mudança começou a ocorrer na década de 1960, quando o presidente João Goulart publicou a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação:

- A LDB fez equivalência da escola normal (de formação de professores) com o ensino médio. Dessa forma, houve uma explosão da entrada de mulheres nas universidades. Só nos últimos 40 anos é que a academia abriu as portas para elas. Há uma avanço, claro, mas ele acontece a passos de cágado.

White House to Press Colleges to Do More to Combat Rape

The New York Times

By JENNIFER STEINHAUERAPRIL 28, 2014

WASHINGTON — Reacting to a series of highly publicized rapes on college campuses, the White House on Monday released guidelines that increase the pressure on universities to more aggressively combat sexual assaults on campus.

The recommendations urge colleges, among other measures, to conduct anonymous surveys about sexual assault cases, adopt anti-assault policies that have been considered successful at other universities and to better ensure that the reports of such crimes remain confidential. The guidelines are contained in a report by a White House task force thatPresident Obama formed early this year, and the administration is likely to ask Congress to pass measures that would enforce the recommendations and levy penalties for failing to do so. The government will also open a website,NotAlone.gov, to track enforcement and provide victims with information.

Many advocates for such a crackdown may see the proposals as an inadequate response to a crisis, but the White House is hamstrung about what it can do without congressional action and has just begun its own attack on the issue.

“Colleges and universities need to face the facts about sexual assault,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said. “No more turning a blind eye or pretending it doesn’t exist. We need to give victims the support they need, like a confidential place to go, and we need to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

The task force says that one in five college students has been assaulted, but that just 12 percent of such attacks are reported.

Mr. Obama appointed the panel after a number of recent cases — at Yale, at Dartmouth and at Florida State — focused attention on the problem and led to accusations that college and university officials are not doing enough to police sexual crimes committed by students. The resulting furor has led to calls that Washington, where Congress and the administration are already moving to crack down on sexual assault in the military, take similar action when it comes to colleges and universities.

“The American people have kind of woken up to the fact that we’ve got a serious problem when 20 percent of coeds say they’ve been sexually assaulted,” said Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California.

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said the recommendation for mandatory sexual assault surveys “has been consistently the No. 1 request of student survivors and advocates.”

“I am pleased that the task force has recommended this important step to increasing transparency and accountability, and look forward to growing our bipartisan coalition supporting this and other much-needed reforms,” she said.

The report emphasizes that universities need to do a better job to make sure that sexual assault reports remain confidential. Sometimes fears that reports will become public can discourage victims from coming forward.

The task force further found that many assault-prevention training efforts are not effective, and it recommends that universities and colleges institute programs like those used at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Kentucky, which train bystanders on how to intervene.

Lawmakers and the White House have previously condemned the assaults on campuses, but the federal government has largely left responses up to college officials and the local authorities. Congress last year passed theCampus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, which requires that domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking cases be disclosed in annual campus crime statistics. But victims’ advocates say that does not go far enough.

And a federal law from two decades ago that requires colleges and universities to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses, including sexual offenses, is rarely enforced, critics say.

There have been some high-profile instances in which the Department of Education has gotten involved in an effort to raise awareness by imposing fines at universities where the most egregious cases have been reported.

Last year, the agency fined Yale University $165,000 forfailing to disclose four sexual offenses involving force over several years. Eastern Michigan University paid $350,000 in 2008 for failing to sound a campus alert after a student was sexually assaulted and killed. The department also reached a settlement last year with the University of Montana at Missoula after investigating the university’s sexual-misconduct policies and finding them woefully inadequate.

Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, universities that violate student rights in sexual assault cases also risk the loss of federal funding, but the punishment has never been applied.

In the recommended “climate surveys,” participants anonymously report their experiences with unwanted physical contact, sexual assault or rape, and how their schools responded. Some lawmakers would like to see such surveys be mandatory and to possibly make federal funds like Pell grants contingent on their being carried out.

Ms. Gillibrand and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who both spent much of last year trying to legislatively police sexual assault in the armed forces, have now turned significant attention to such problems on the nation’s campuses.

“After a year of working hard to reform how the military handles sexual assault cases,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an email, “the stories I have heard from students are eerily similar.”

Ms. McCaskill said she planned to conduct her own survey of 350 colleges.

In all, nearly a dozen senators seeking new federal funding to battle campus sexual assaults.

28 de abril de 2014

Comissão de Educação analisa projeto que cria programa de combate ao 'bullying'

Programa poderá fundamentar as ações do Ministério da Educação e das secretarias estaduais e municipais de Educação

A Comissão de Educação, Cultura e Esporte (CE) examina nesta terça-feira (29) projeto que institui o Programa de Combate à Intimidação Sistemática (bullying). O projeto define como bullying "todo ato de violência física ou psicológica, intencional e repetitivo que ocorre sem motivação evidente, praticado por indivíduo ou grupo, contra uma ou mais pessoas, com o objetivo de intimidá-la ou agredi-la, causando dor e angústia à vítima, em uma relação de desequilíbrio de poder entre as partes envolvidas". Atos de intimidação praticados na internet (cyberbullying) também entram nessa categoria.

O projeto (PLC 68/2013), do deputado Vieira da Cunha (PDT-RS), estipula que o programa poderá fundamentar as ações do Ministério da Educação e das secretarias estaduais e municipais de Educação. Determina ainda que é dever dos estabelecimentos de ensino, dos clubes e das agremiações recreativas garantir medidas de conscientização, prevenção, diagnose e combate à violência e à intimidação sistemática.

Na justificação do projeto, o autor faz referência a estudos que revelam a força e o caráter pernicioso da prática do bullying em crianças e adolescentes e indica que a pretensão maior da iniciativa é a de "conscientizar a sociedade para o problema e, assim, evitá-lo".

Ao dar voto favorável à matéria na Comissão de Educação, a senadora Kátia Abreu (PMDB-TO) destacou que a proposta não envereda pelo caminho mais polêmico do Direito Penal, mas insiste no caráter educativo para coibir comportamentos de intimidação sistemática.

A relatora acrescentou que é preciso um esforço coletivo em favor da difusão de "um clima de paz e de tolerância, com a aceitação das diferenças", além de respeito à intimidade e à integridade física e mental das pessoas. Kátia Abreu afirma que o objetivo é defender os princípios básicos da cidadania e dos direitos humanos.

Após a análise da CE, o projeto será apreciado pela Comissão de Direitos Humanos e Legislação Participativa (CDH).

A reunião começa às 11h, na Ala Alexandre Costa, sala nº 15

(Agência Senado)

Open Space Offices and Open Space Schools–Borrowing Across Organizations? by larrycuban

Some viewers and friends ask me from time to time where do I get my ideas for writing twice-weekly posts about school reform and classroom practice. I tell them that I read lots of blogs, magazine articles, and curated websites written by teachers, administrators, school board members, historians of education, and state and federal policymakers. I listen to current and former graduate students who stay in touch with me. And then there are films I watch, magazines and books I read, and friends and family I talk with every week where schooling, policy, and classroom teaching are completely absent.

From all of these writings, conversations, and experiences I get ideas and jot them down on post-its or make copies of the blog, article, or video and put them on my desktop screen as reminders for possible posts. I think about each one, scratching out some entries on post-its and deleting PDFs but keeping a few. More often than not, I consider how "new" ideas, innovations, popular policies, and classroom practices have a history that often goes unnoted.

And that is how I came to write about open space offices and schools.

Connecting Office Cubicles and Open Space Schools

A week ago, I saw an article criticizing open space in offices, the open areas filled with cubicles for employees that began in the U.S. and Europe in the 1950s , accelerating in the1960s and since have become so widespread, 70 percent of all office space is open, as to be satirized in Dilbert and "The Office."

After reading the article (and similar ones--(see here and here), I noted the dates for introducing open space offices and thought about the architectural innovations in schools--called "open space"--that swept across U.S. schools in the late-1960s through the late-1970s. I asked myself: with all of the influence that business practices have had on schooling historically, are open space schools another instance of that influence? I was curious and began--you guessed it--researching it on the Internet. I did find one writer who made the explicit connection between open space offices and schools. No others could I find.

Keep in mind, however, that open space schools are not identical with "open classrooms," a pedagogical innovationaimed at classrooms in both traditional age-graded school buildings as well as in those newly-built open space schools.

Still, open space schools, like "open classrooms," did have (and still does) a progressive pedagogical philosophy in creating pods, large spaces for groups to assemble, cubicles for small group and individual activities and few, if any, classrooms with four walls. No hallways either.

Progressive-minded educators wanted to liberate teachers from traditional instruction in self-contained classroom buildings that architecturally looked like egg-crates. They wanted open space for small group activities, team-teaching, multiple learning centers for young children, student-driven projects for youth, and frequent collaboration among both teachers and students. Open space schools, these advocates said, would make "frontal teaching"disappear.

Criticism of open space schools, however, arose in the 1970s from teachers, parents, and administrators about the noise and distractions that accompanied lessons taught cheek-by-jowl in open spaces. Many students and teachers found it hard to manage activities that required team-work, collaboration, and independence. Within a few years, teachers and administrators had erected bookcases and sliding partitions to re-create self-contained classrooms. Over time, open space buildings were demolished to be replaced with new ones containing, yes, you know what I will put next: "egg-crate" classrooms and corridors.

And what about open space offices? One writer who summarized research on the psychological ill effects of open space upon office worker performance, said: "they [open space and cubicles] were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction." Such effects were very close to what teachers, embedded in open space schools, said decades ago.

Back to my original query: with all of the influence that business practices have had on schooling historically, are open space schools another instance of that influence? My answer is "yes." That influence, however, is not new; it has been around for well over a century.

The early progressive movement at the beginning of the 20th century contained two competing wings --administrative and pedagogical: Pedagogical progressives sought student-centered curriculum and instruction with sensitivity to child and youth development while administrative progressives sought efficiency through Frederick Taylor's "scientific management" and Edward Thorndike's focus on measurement. Empowered by "scientific management," academics and superintendents imbued with heart-felt beliefs in more efficient schools, according to historian David Tyack, handily beat followers of John Dewey in influencing school and classroom practices.

The point I make is that business influence on school organization, structure and use of space has a long history and did not begin or end with open space schools.

Smartphones and the 4th Amendment

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAPRIL 27, 2014, The New York Tim

More than 90 percent of American adults own a mobile phone, and more than half of the devices are smartphones. But “smartphone” is a misnomer. They are personal computers that happen to include a phone function, and like any computer they can store or wirelessly retrieve enormous amounts of personal information: emails, photos and videos; document files; financial and medical records; and virtually everywhere a person has been.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether law enforcement officers during an arrest may search the contents of a person’s mobile phone without a warrant. The court should recognize that new technologies do not alter basic Fourth Amendment principles, and should require a judicial warrant in such circumstances.

The court is considering the issue in two separate cases. In one, Boston police officers arrested a man on drug charges and seized his flip phone. After seeing an incoming call on the phone’s outer screen, they opened the phone and checked the call log, which led them to an apartment where they found drugs, money and firearms.

In the other case, a San Diego traffic stop turned into a gang investigation after the police seized the driver’s smartphoneand found suspicious text messages. Hours later, a detective searched the phone “looking for evidence,” he said, and downloaded “a lot of stuff,” including photos and videos that implicated the driver in gang-related crimes. As a result, the seven-year prison sentence the man originally faced was enhanced to a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life.

The Fourth Amendment requires, as a general rule, that police officers obtain a warrant based on probable cause before searching “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” This was a central concern of the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, who knew well the danger of “general warrants” that allowed government authorities to enter a home and rummage around looking for incriminating evidence.

There are a few narrow exceptions to the warrant requirement. For example, when police officers lawfully arrest someone, they may search his or her body and immediate surroundings and seize any belongings to ensure officer safety or the preservation of evidence. But mobile phones aren’t weapons and pose no physical threat, and any evidence on the phone can be preserved by using special devices to prevent remote deletion of the data.

The government nevertheless argues that mobile phones are no different from other personal items that may already be searched, like wallets, purses or address books. But the exception for searches incident to arrests was limited by the constraints on what a person could physically carry. Modern mobile phones have obliterated that rationale. Of the new iPhones, the smallest-capacity model can hold the equivalent of 16 pickup trucks of paper, thousands of photos or hours of videos.

In other words, permitting police officers to search a mobile phone, or any digital storage device, essentially gives them access to someone’s entire life; allowing them to do so without a warrant renders the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures meaningless. This is not a hypothetical concern. There are 12 million arrests in America each year, most for misdemeanors that can be as minor as jaywalking. The majority don’t end in a conviction, and yet if the government wins this case, any one of them could result in the warrantless search of the person’s phone.

The Supreme Court has recognized the need to adapt to new technologies, as when it ruled that the government attaching a GPS tracking device to a private car was a Fourth Amendment search. For better or worse, mobile phones have become repositories of our daily lives, and will become only more powerful over time. As a rule, the police should have to get a warrant to search them.