Sweden Debuts Gender-Neutral Preschool
At best, a school model for the more-enlightened future, and at worst, an intriguing social experiment. Via Yahoo News:
At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.
From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.
Egalia doesn’t deny the biological differences between boys and girls — the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct. What matters is that children understand that their biological differences “don’t mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities.”
The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward. Breaking down gender roles is…
Six Million American Kids Have Food Allergies
Most parents I know agree that when they were kids, hardly anyone had food allergies. Now the kid who brings a PB&J sandwich to school might as well have sneaked in a dirty nuke. This report from Medpage Today confirms the explosion in food allergies, but doesn’t answer the obvious question: Why?
Food allergy in children is more common than previously thought, and often is associated with severe symptoms and multiple foods, a new survey found.
The prevalence of food allergy in children and adolescents younger than 18 was 8% (95% CI 7.6 to 8.3), according to Ruchi S. Gupta, MD, of Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues.
That percentage translates into almost six million children in the U.S., the researchers noted.
And among these allergic children, 38.7% had a history of severe reactions and 30.4% were allergic to more than one type of food, they reported online in Pediatrics.
Previous studies have suggested that the…
Nearly One in Three American Children Live Without A Father
Via the Huffington Post:
The number of children living apart from their fathers has more than doubled in the last fifty years, from 11 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 2010.
That’s one of the key findings from a new report on fatherhood in the United the States that was released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project — just in time for Father’s Day.
The findings paint a grim picture of many fathers’ lack of involvement in their children’s lives, using data from over 10,000 people to determine the percentage of “absent” or “non-resident” fathers in America, which the report defines as those who do not live with their children.
A decline in marriage rates may be partially to blame. In 1960, 72 percent of the adult population was married; that share had dropped to 52 percent by 2008. Eighty seven percent of children ages 17 and younger were living with two married parents in 1960 compared with 64 percent in 2008.
According to the report’s co-author Gretchen Livingston, an increase in divorce rates over the last half-century may also play a role.
Donors Pledge $4.3 Billion For Child Vaccinations In Poor Nations
A case of good humanitarians. Via Reuters:
International donors led by Britain and Bill Gates pledged $4.3 billion on Monday to buy vaccines to protect children in poor countries against potential killers such as diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.
“But every 20 seconds, a child still dies of a vaccine-preventable disease. There’s more work to be done.”
The funding should allow more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children to be vaccinated by 2015, helping to prevent more than four million premature deaths, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) said.
“Today is an important moment in our collective commitment to protecting children in developing countries from disease,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who attended the pledging conference in London.
[Continues at Reuters]
Many Public Schools Begin Charging Students For Attending Class, Textbook Use, Teachers’ Materials
This is so sad: in school districts across the country, the concept of a free public education is fading into the past. The Wall Street Journal writes:
Public schools across the country, struggling with cuts in state funding, are shifting costs to students and their parents by imposing or boosting fees for everything from enrolling in honors English to riding the bus.
At high schools in several states, it can cost more than $200 just to walk in the door, thanks to registration fees, technology fees and unspecified “instructional fees.”
Though public schools have long charged for extras such as driver’s education and field trips, many are now asking parents to pay for supplies needed to take core classes—from biology-lab safety goggles to algebra workbooks to the printer ink used to run off grammar exercises in language arts. In some schools, each class comes with a price tag, to be paid at registration. Some…
Student Creates LEGO Helmet So You Can Listen To Comics
Kirstin Butler writes on i09:
A student in product design at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Robson created the toy with his own memories as inspiration. He said:
When I was young I played with LEGO a lot and all I used to read was the comic stories in LEGO Club magazines, I’d like to give something back to them as they helped me learn to read… I’ve been looking at what I enjoyed in my childhood to apply to new ideas and solutions of today.
By inserting the LEGO-brick USB into a slot in the helmet, the lucky kid wearing it can follow along with the comics, games, and puzzles in the subscription-only magazine.
Our only question is, when can we order the adult-size version?
“Prodigy of Color” – The Art of Aelita Andre, Age 4
Four year-old Aelita Andre has a solo show opening at New York City’s Agora Gallery on June 4th. It might not come as too much of a surprise that a child should be able to produce beautiful, abstract expressionist art on par with the professionals, who are probably tapping their “inner children,” anyway. Aelita Andre, however, has been given free reign to so do, with as much space and materials to explore her creativity as anyone could want. Moreover, she displays real talent; working in thoughtful, methodical way, and making deliberate creative choices. Discovered via BoingBoing:
Video: Are We Training Kids To Believe That Total Surveillance Is Normal?
Via TED Talks, Cory Doctorow discusses how parents’ and schools’ constant and total monitoring of kids’ internet usage and conversations trains young people to accept a complete lack of privacy, and total disclosure of their lives, as normal and good. Are today’s parents raising their children in a manner that plays into the hands of Big Brother?
Catholic Church Officially Blames Hippies for Their Child Abuse Scandals
Via the LA Times:
Blame the flower children. That seems to be the chief conclusion of a new report about the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. The study, undertaken by John Jay College of Criminal Justice (PDF) at the request of America’s Catholic bishops, links the spike in child abuse by priests in the 1960s and ’70s to “the importance given to young people and popular culture” — along with the emergence of the feminist movement, a “singles culture” and a growing acceptance of homosexuality. It also cites crime, drugs, an increase in premarital sexual behavior and divorce.
The problem with this conclusion isn’t that it absolves molesting priests of responsibility. Even the study’s authors wouldn’t go that far. Rather, the flaw with the theory is that it’s unsupported by any data or evidence. It thus detracts from the report’s other findings, which are based on empirical research. Indeed, aside from its…
Do Students Eat Like Prisoners?
Good Magazine looks at the similarity between prison meals and children’s school cafeteria food — both rich in starch-y/milk-y goodness, and costing around $2.65 per day to provide. It should also be pointed out that both children and prisoners are daily confined to small spaces and given little opportunity to burn off these massive calorie counts. I suppose school is intended to be practice for where the kids will eventually end up?
A Baby Gets a TSA Patdown (Photo)
Cynthia Newsome reports on NBC KSHB-TV
KANSAS CITY, Missouri— A photo of two Transportation Security Administration agents doing a full pat down on a baby, approximately 8 months old, has gone viral.
It happened at the Kansas City International Airport.
A passenger, Jacob Jester, captured the image on his cell phone. Since he tweeted the picture on Saturday, it has had more than 200,000 hits.
The photo shows the helpless baby being held up in the air by his mother while the TSA workers do their job. Jester has an 8-month-old son and would not want his son to be subjected to a hand search by TSA agents.
5,200 Pentagon Employees Bought Child Pornography, Investigation Halted After 8 Months
Mark Crispin Miller writes on News from Underground:
Here’s one I missed completely, and it’s likely you did, too. It aired on CNN last January.
Kids Celebrating Osama Bin Laden’s Death (Photos)
Matt Stopera posts on BuzzFeed:
This is kind of disturbing. Check out these pictures of kids celebrating Osama’s death in Times Square…
New York Libraries: Come on in and Watch Some Porn
Photo: PFHLai (CC)
Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:
If you don’t mind getting your face punched in, New York’s public libraries might just be your new favorite place to watch people have sex with each other on the internet. Sure, you’re surrounded by other patrons, but it’s free!
You might think that watching people pound away at each other in the most graphic and jarring manner in public might run contrary to a library’s mission of promoting literature and the arts, while providing a safe and tranquil place to read, work, and study. And sure, in 1973 Miller v. California pulled porn out of the categorical forcefield of free speech. But, the NY Post reports, NYPL rep Angela Montefinise thinks everyone’s favorite part of the Bill of Rights includes PornHub: “In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech, the New York Public Library cannot prevent adult patrons from accessing adult content that is…
KidZania: The Consumerism-Brainwashing Amusement Park Coming To The U.S.A.
The Morning News visits KidZania, a surreal amusement-park-of-the-future with locations in Dubai, Portugal, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and soon, the United States. Its a Sims-like miniature world in which children play-act at being adult worker-drones and consumers:
The children are learning factory work, it’s in a job bottling Coca-Cola, and when they’re working at a restaurant, that “restaurant” has golden arches. The dentist office is sponsored by Crest.
At the heart of the concept and the business of KidZania is corporate consumerism, re-staged for children whose parents pay for them to act the role of the mature consumer and employee. The rights to brand and help create activities at each franchise are sold off to real corporations.
Killing the Unborn … With Radiation
Via Washington’s Blog:
Preface: I am not against all nuclear power, solely the unsafe type we have today.
The harmful affect of radiation on fetuses has been known for decades.
As nuclear expert Robert Alvarez — a senior U.S. Department of Energy official during the Clinton administration — and journalists Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon wrote in 1982 in a book called Killing Our Own:
In recent years controversy has arisen over the particular vulnerability of infants in utero and small children to the ill-effects of radiation. Exposure of the fetus to radiation during all stages of pregnancy increases the chances of developing leukemia and childhood cancers. Because their cells are dividing so rapidly, and because there are relatively so few of them involved in the vital functions of the body in the early stages, embryos are most vulnerable to radiation in the first trimester — particularly in the first two weeks after conception. This…
Pakistani Teenager Tells Of Failed Suicide Bomb Mission
Coat of Arms of the Taliban regime (1996-2001). Photo: Falerístico (CC)
With the increasing number of suicide bombing, it is often asked, what were they thinking? Why did they do this? After 14-year-old Umar Fidai’s explosive vest failed to detonate, he discusses how the Taliban trained him and his regret towards his actions. BBC News reports:
In early April a suicide blast ripped though a Pakistani shrine packed with thousands of devotees, leaving scores dead. Both attackers were schoolboys in their early teens. But one survived and told the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool what made him want to take his life and the lives of others.
“All I was thinking was that I had to detonate myself near as many people as possible. When I decided it was the right time, it was a moment of happiness for me,” said 14-year-old Umar Fidai.
“I thought that there would be a little bit of pain, but then…
Why Do Girls Wear Pink?
No, it’s not an immutable law of nature. In the 1920s, retailers began encouraging pink (a strong color) for boys and blue (a dainty one) for girls, before the trend reversed after World War II. For centuries prior, both boys and girls wore white dresses.
In light of hysteria over a photograph in J. Crew’s new catalog depicting a mother painting her son’s toenails pink, Smithsonian Magazine explores how we got to this point:
For centuries, children wore dainty white dresses up to age 6. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.
The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid. Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the…
