It is estimated that 13% to 20% of children living in the United States has experienced a mental health disorder in the last year. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, one in five adolescents between 13 and 18 years old has or will have a serious mental illness, and suicide is the third leading cause of death for youth aged 10 to 24.
A nationwide shortage of school psychologists and counselors disproportionately affects these students as well, as they often attend more crowded, under-resourced schools, though they have the greatest need.
Some districts and universities are working to train staff to identify and, in some cases, assist students with mental illness on campus. Teachers21, a nonprofit subsidiary of William James College, a graduate college of psychology in Newton, Massachusetts, is working with classroom, school and district leaders and other school staff to build mental health treatment into their pedagogy. Trauma-informed teaching has become a popular concept, feeding into the idea of restorative justice
Most of these efforts — and a focus on social-emotional learning in general — are concentrated in elementary schools, and by the time a student reaches middle school, the emphasis begins to fizzle out. And by the time a student gets onto a college campus, efforts are all but non-existent, said Williams James President Nicholas Covino, who is a practicing psychologist.
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Report calls for national strategy to help schools prevent suicide, substance abuse
The Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust created a joint policy paper that calls for a national strategy to improve childhood resilience and school responses to crises involving suicide, drugs and alcohol, District Administration reports.
The issue is relevant to schools, where students spend about half their year, because suicide is now the third leading cause of death in children ages 10 to 14, and more than 1 million middle school and high school age students have a substance abuse disorder, the authors note.
The policy paper details four main areas of concern that need to be addressed on the school level: the need to partner with community-based organizations, such as Communities that Care; the need to improve school climate through such programs as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS); the need for proactive screening for mental health risk factors and potential substance abuse; and increased staffing of mental health workers and training of teachers.
Snapchat and Instagram filters are influencing how young people think about beauty.
Alarmingly, more people are requesting plastic surgery to look better in selfies, according to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
And in one disturbing emerging phenomenon, dubbed “Snapchat dysmorphia,” some patients are getting plastic surgery to look more like their filtered selfies.
According to Boston University researchers, digital filters are likely contributing to a rise in body dysmorphia, where people are overly anxious about their appearance.
Selfish selfie-takers cause Trevi fountain fisticuffs
Eight-person fight ensues after tourists battle for best spot in front of Roman monument
Two tourists’ quest for a perfect selfie has caused a brawl at Rome’s Trevi fountain.
Last year, Rome pledged to crack down on bad behaviour involving the city’s fountains, imposing fines of up to €240 (£215) for people caught snacking or camping on the fountains’ pedestals, dipping their feet in the water or going for a swim.
Residents are particularly irked by tourists who try to recreate the scene from Federico Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita, in which the late Swedish actor Anita Ekberg wades into the fountain.
Playing video-game shooters, we now know, is not a major contributor to youth violence. Granted, kids’ enthusiasm for Fortnite can be a little much, but we are old enough to remember Garbage Pail kids and have played Pokémon.
Fortnite is, in many respects, a classic “third place”—a place that is neither home nor school, but where kids can socialize and play beyond the watchful eyes of parents or teachers. These are places where kids learn to negotiate conflict, become independent, and explore what kind of person they want to be. They are important experiences that we too often design out of our kids’ lives through structured activities and all of the shuffling back and forth we do in today’s busy world.
we’ve seen that one of the best things educators can do is bystander training.
Metaliterate Learning for the Post-Truth World to be Published this Fall!
definition:
Metaliteracy is a pedagogical model for ensuring that learners successfully participate in collaborative information environments, including social media and online communities.
Metaliteracy supports reflective learning through metacognitive thinking, the ethical production of new knowledge, the critical consumption of information, and the responsible sharing of verifiable content across media platforms. Through metaliteracy, learners are envisioned as teachers in collaborative social spaces. This book examines the newest version of the Metaliteracy Goals and Learning Objectives, including the four domains of metaliterate learning.
A study from the University of Maryland found that people recall information better when it is presented to them in a virtual environment, as opposed to a desktop computer.
The U.S. Department of Education has finally made a move on its efforts to fund development of open educational resources. The agency issued a notice this week inviting proposals for an “open textbooks pilot program” with an Aug. 29, 2018 deadline. The program was mandated in an omnibus spending law, H.R. 1625, approved by Congress earlier this year. ED expected to issue between one and three awards.
The winning proposals will be eligible for between $1.5 million and $4.95 million. The latter amount is nearly the entire fund of $5 million stipulated for the pilot in an explanatory document that accompanied the spending bill.
The application has three “absolute priorities” and one “competitive preference” priority. The absolutes are these:
The project must involve consortium with at least three institutions participating, along with representation from industry or workforce groups and nonprofit or community organizations;
The proposal needs to fill current gaps in the OER “marketplace” and be able to scale beyond the consortium members; and
The plan needs to address how the OER will promote degree completion.
