South Carolina Students May Receive Credit For Religious 'Released Time' Courses, Court Rules

In a "tremendous victory for religious education," a South Carolina court has ruled that students may receive credit for taking religious courses that meet secular standards, USA Today reports. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has approved a 2006 South Carolina law permitting schools to give credit for "Release Time" courses, ending years of courtroom battle between Spartanburg Dictrict ...

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Step Up to Our Teachable Moments

We are all teachers, whether we want to be or not. You are a teacher when you help your child take their first step. You are a teacher as a grandparent when you teach the grand kids how to make cookies. You are a teacher at work when you take a younger co-worker under your wing and mentor them to make sure they do the task correctly. So if we are all inner teachers, why do we not show more respect for the teachers who make teaching our children their career? According to the Institute of Educational Sciences, close to four million Americans make their living teaching our kids. Our children, ...

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Will Teachers Become Obsolete?

In the early 1980s, I was having breakfast with some of my new in-laws. One of them, Uncle Joe DaSilva, was a watch-maker. He had a little shop in a strip mall in Hempstead and he was contemplating his future. At one point he held up a $5 Casio watch and said, "Why would anyone bother to get a watch fixed?" He estimated there were maybe a few hundred such people left on Long Island -- those with an appreciation for finely crafted time pieces -- maybe a few thousand. A few weeks later he started stocking his little shop with inexpensive watches for sale so that he could stay in business.At ...

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Storm Warning: Why Higher Ed Needs New Leadership Now

A perfect storm roils the horizon of higher education. Three towering and swiftly moving storms -- affordability, student loan debt, and seismically shifting demographics -- are about to collide. The power of their convergence and the resulting collateral damage will challenge the very survival of colleges that refuse to evolve. The perfect storm will shake our industry to the core if we are not equally swift to throw off an outdated paradigm. A new generation of college presidents must step up to confront the turbulent landscape that will be the "new normal." Former President John F. Kennedy ...

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'Dark Knight Rises' Production Notes: Batman Fans Get 50 Pages Of Anticipation

"Dark Knight Rises" production notes: 8 things you need to know The internet went into a tizzy late Thursday when it was revealed that Warner Bros. was offering the "Dark Knight Rises" production notes for free download on the film's website. (Production notes are often handed out to press during pre-release screenings; they contain some plot synopsis, interviews and -- obviously -- notes about the production.) THR.com "declined ...

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Making Motherhood a Choice, Not a Destination

In many places in Latin America the only future a young girl imagines is becoming a mother. In developed countries motherhood is more commonly experienced as a choice, but in the favelas of Brazil the identity of motherhood is status--a "destination" sought by teenage girls who view the opportunity to have a baby as a validation of their esteem even though they are unprepared to raise a child. Favelas can be violent places to live. The rules ...

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Nick Miranda, Buffalo Man, Finds $1,500 In Savings Bonds, Tracks Down Owners

When Nick Miranda began clearing the clutter in the basement of his new home, he likely expected to clean cobwebs and dust, not come across a stack of savings bonds. But when the 29-year-old pulled up the cover of an old ironing board Monday, that’s exactly what he found –- 15 $100 U.S. savings bonds purchased in 1984, theBuffalo News reports. The Buffalo, N.Y., resident immediately set out to find the bonds' rightful owners ...

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Fast Food Workers Of Reddit Tell You What Not To Eat

On the heels of a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) with a McDonald's employee, an AskReddit conversation thread popped up yesterday that we couldn't tear ourselves away from. "Fast food workers of Reddit, what is the one menu option at your employment that you would recommend people never eat? (Because of cooking safety, cleanliness, unhealthy, etc)," asked user 4ScienceandReason. This thread, which generated over 6,000 comments ...

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Teen Smoking: First-Time Alcohol And Drug Use Use Among Teenagers Flourishes In Summer

A recent survey finds that with more idle time and less adult supervision, significantly more teens try alcohol, smoking and drugs for the first time in the summer than at any other time of year, Teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 are more likely to try drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or marijuana, or using hallucinogens for the first time during the months of June and July than at any other time during the year, according ...

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Act Upon a Feeling

Recently, walking through the streets of the upper east side of Manhattan, I spotted the One Million Acts of Kindness bus parked near the sidewalk. Bob, the creator of One Million Acts of Kindness, had a dream to instill a goal, a sort of mindset, onto every person. His hope is for everyone to perform one million acts of kindness in their life and to keep up a mindset of kindness and compassion every day. Bob is a father of three kids in ...

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Travel Makes the Soul Soar

"In the midst of our lives, we must find the magic that makes our souls soar." - Anonymous I stumbled across this quote several days ago as I rifled through a large section of journals at Barnes & Noble. After looking at over 30 journals (typical America), I found myself smiling as I placed this one in my hands. However cheesy, isn't this the principle of life? Essentially, we spend our days seeking out our place and purpose in the world, the missing piece of the puzzle. And when we come across it, that moment when we can without a doubt say, "This is what I'm supposed to be doing," you ...

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Go Wash Your Mouth Out With Soap!

When you're a kid, parents usually separate the good words from the bad -- acceptable language from language that might make your extended relatives cringe. As you grow in age and become exposed to the real world, your opinion of these words may change. You may consider the context they are communicated in or maybe they just become a homogenous part of your vocabulary used in necessary situations. However, have you ever considered using these words in an actual paper that would be graded by a teacher? Of course not! Many students revert to that age-old phrase, "It's a bad word," and never ...

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Do Scottish Teenagers Really Care About Independence?

Teens and politics rarely go together. I mean, there are those in school that clearly have a passion for politics and they rear their ambitious and argumentative traits in the debating society and that's great -- I am partial to a good debate myself and enjoy watching others. But what of Scottish Independence and Scottish teenagers? Do we really have any understanding of what it really means for Scotland? Or indeed what it really means at ...

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Space Dust Cloud Circling Young Star Vanishes, Baffling Astronomers

Planetary formation may occur more quickly than previously thought. A team of researchers observed a young star surrounded by a circumstellar disk of dusty material using data from 1983, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Planets often arise from these disks. The star, which the team estimates to be 10 million years old, is 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.The infrared emission patterns of the star's system, which can be used ...

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Mars Rover Landing Set For August 5, NASA's 'Curiosity' Team Says

The biggest rover ever launched to another planet is just one month away from its target: the Red Planet, Mars. NASA's huge Curiosity rover is hurtling toward a planned late-night landing on Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (early Aug. 6 EDT), and the anticipation on the science team is high. The reasons are clear: At 1 ton, Curiosity is the largest rover ever aimed at Mars. It will land in a completely new way, using a giant parachute ...

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