kids Archives

These amazing kits make electronics simple and fun for every student

One tool erases frustration and boredom and makes electronics fun for students

Very young students often have a hard time engaging meaningfully in electronics projects. Sure, most middle school kids can learn the function of basic electronic components and follow a set of instructions to create a basic circuit on a breadboard. Often, however, their work suffers from the mistakes, short-circuits, and sloppiness that plague any novice.

More limiting than the struggle to keep bare wires from accidentally brushing each other, is the wall that most students hit after they create the alarm circuit or lie detector that they built from the schematic in the textbook.

While their imaginations are ripe with ideas of things they might like to build, most young students lack the fundamental knowledge to push beyond the canned circuits provided by their teacher and to create something original.…Read More

Study: Single-sex ed may not actually be better for kids

Do students really learn better when separated by gender? New research indicates that they do not, the Huffington Post reports. Study results released this week by the American Psychological Association found that students do not perform better in math, science or verbal subjects when they attend single-sex schools, or single-sex classes within coeducational schools. The research, which analyzed 55 years worth of data, refutes theories that adolescent girls thrive when separated from boys, and that boys perform better when they have a curriculum specifically tailored to them…

Apple settles with FTC after kids blow millions on the app store

Apple agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday after a formal complaint said the company was billing customers for millions of dollars worth of App Store purchases made by children without their parents’ consent, readwrite reports. The initial complaint, filed January 15, alleged Apple was in violation of the FTC Act by not informing parents that once they initially entered their Apple ID username and password combination to purchase an app or an in-app item, their iOS device would approve any further purchases for the next 15 minutes without asking for further authorization…

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School encourages homophobic humiliation as student punishment

Two Arizona high school students who were caught fighting faced a controversial punishment concocted by their principal: Either endure a suspension, or sit in the school courtyard holding hands while other students shout and throw homophobic slurs at you, Takepart.com reports. The message here seems to be that there’s nothing more horrific than being perceived as gay. Student Brittney Smyers told ABC 15, “Kids were laughing at them and calling them names asking, ‘Are you gay?’” Pictures of the boys holding hands surfaced online with some singing the principal’s praises, while others denounced his tactics as shortsighted and discriminatory…

What high schools are teaching teens about the war on terror

What kids learn in school tends to change with the times, and some curricular regulations that are either antiquated or simply embedded in beliefs have raised eyebrows across the country as of late, the Huffington Post reports. Yet regulation aside, in a layer of education that reaches students firsthand, is the textbook: the student’s omniscient manual in any given subject. Because these books dictate student knowledge and can shape perspective, their contents are sometimes the source of controversy. In Louisiana, for example, one commonly used textbook teaches students “the accumulated wisdom of the past from a biblical worldview.” And while September 11 is a recent memory that many still live with, the attacks are a distant reference to schoolchildren today. As the event and its subsequent war have become “recent history,” The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf took to examine how high schoolers are learning about 9/11 and the years following…

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Opinion: How schools (even great ones) fail kids with ADHD

There’s a group of students struggling through school rd to navigate that gets little attention in the media or in the debate about how to fix schools: Children with ADHD, the Washington Post reports. ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a brain condition that makes it especially hard for children to focus and concentrate in school and has a number of other symptoms. It is too often misunderstood by teachers, parents and even the students themselves. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 9.5% or 5.4 million children 4-17 years of age, had been diagnosed with ADHD, as of 2007. Many others who have the disorder haven’t had the benefit of a diagnosis. Here is a powerful post by David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., writing about the difficulties that his two sons, ages 7 and 15, have confronted in school as a result of ADHD…

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