I’m starting a new feature here at AQSLL… Education and Learning News.  I’ll be linking to education and learning related news stories, blog posts and generally interesting topics.  I’ll often include a quote as well.

Here is the first installment.  Enjoy! 

Graduates condemned to “coffee shop” jobs from the UK Telegraph:

His comments follow remarks by Lucy Neville-Rolfe, an executive director at Tesco, who said British school leavers have basic problems with literacy and numeracy and have major “attitude problems”.

Mrs Neville-Rolfe, an Oxford graduate and former civil servant, said students’ attitudes to their appearance, work, authority and discipline were poor.

The 56 year-old, one of the most powerful and well paid women in British business, said despite many A Level students and university graduates not being able to read or write or understand maths, more were achieving better results.

She also attacked students who felt that it was their right to gain employment.

“They (students) don’t seem to understand the importance of a tidy appearance and have problems with timekeeping,” she said in a speech to the Institute of Grocery Distribution’s conference on skills on Wednesday.

“Some seem to think that the world owes them a living. The truth is that a certain humility and an ability to work hard are important for success.

“More broadly, a society where people don’t feel the need to work to gain material possessions will not be a stable or successful society.”

The hidden power of play from Boston.com

AT A TIME of great international turmoil, growing globalization, and exploding technological advances, making time for child play seems an unaffordable luxury. Yet, a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics — due out today — makes just the opposite case. It argues for the essential role of play in the healthy mental, physical, and social/emotional development of the child.

Today, many elementary schools have eliminated recess in favor of more time for academics. Even kindergarten children now take tests and are assigned homework. After-school tutoring and organized sports have cut deeply into the time for spontaneous, self-initiated play.

Summer camps devoted to sports, computers or exam preparation are rapidly replacing those that once offered swimming, boating, hiking, campfires, and storytelling. Bike riding is down and computer game playing, which purportedly teaches computer skills, is up.

Even infancy is no longer seen as a time for play as an entire industry now markets a wide variety of computer programs, CDs, and “educational toys” for the infant and toddler set. The not so subtle message here is that play is superfluous; play is for slackers. But this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of play in human life.

Secret millionaire donates fortune to Lake Forest College from Chicago Tribune

Like many people who lived through the Great Depression, Grace Groner was exceptionally restrained with her money.

She got her clothes from rummage sales. She walked everywhere rather than buy a car. And her one-bedroom house in Lake Forest held little more than a few plain pieces of furniture, some mismatched dishes and a hulking TV set that appeared left over from the Johnson administration.

Her one splurge was a small scholarship program she had created for Lake Forest College, her alma mater. She planned to contribute more upon her death, and when she passed away in January, at the age of 100, her attorney informed the college president what that gift added up to.

“Oh, my G**,” the president said.

Groner’s estate, which stemmed from a $180 stock purchase she made in 1935, was worth $7 million.

Posted on March 11th, 2010 in Education and Learning News |