Remember those yellow 'Livestrong' wristbands? In 2003, now-infamous cyclist Lance Armstrong created a charity to support cancer research after he developed testicular cancer, and promoted it using the silicone rubber accessories. They soon caught on as a philanthropic status symbol, and ...
More »Radio+TV
What might help would-be psychopaths
We need to talk about Kevin. Kevin Khatchadourian is a 15-year-old boy who committed a massacre at his high school and killed his father and sister. Growing up, he exhibited early signs of psychopathy: chronic unrest during infancy, failure to ...
More »School’s out for ever? PISA shows decline in uni expectations
School's out for summer School's out forever For an increasing number of Australian high schoolers, Alice Cooper's lyrics resonate. They especially do so with 15-year-olds from lower SES backgrounds, according to a new ACER report. Based on PISA data, the report collated ...
More »Why Victoria should change its school term structure: opinion
Winter has started. Cold, short days add to the challenge of a long second term for teachers, students and families in Victoria. First term is now a distant memory but anyone associated with schools in Victoria would be saying to ...
More »The latest research on bouncing back
American developmental psychologist Emmy Werner was one of the first people to ever use the term 'resilience'. It came out of her landmark study of children from Kauai, Hawaii, from their birth in 1955 to their late teens, in the 1970s. At the ...
More »Futurist predicts kids’ destinies
Phil Ruthven AM is no ordinary futurist. As the founder of global economic and social market research firm IBISWorld and the newly-formed Ruthven Institute, he has nearly fifty years of experience, as well as access to volumes of big data, to ...
More »Could a new language strategy help close the gap?
In 2017, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students constituted approximately six per cent of all Australian school enrollments. Yet, it is well-known that they tend to struggle in this context compared with their non-indigenous peers: their 10 point lower school ...
More »Ivory powers: the piano’s hidden benefits
Although music is a universal cultural characteristic, according to national peak body Music Australia just 23 per cent of government schools provide students with an effective music education. By contrast, 88 per cent of independent schools do so. This is additionally concerning as it ...
More »NAPLAN labelled “bizarre” and “least valid” test
An education expert based in the US has given a scathing review of NAPLAN, labelling it "absurd", "bizarre" and the worst of a dozen tests he has studied in depth. Les Perelmen, a retired professor from MIT University, reviewed the ...
More »Bridging the training and teaching gap: can tradies become teachers?
New plans to review teacher registration across the country may lead to more former tradies in the classroom, but experts say it may not be that easy to implement. Simon Birmingham's announcement last week was aimed at increasing practical learning and ...
More »