Realitista

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85%

First. U.S. schools suspend millions of kids — 3,328,750, to be exact. Since the 1970s, says a National Education Policy Center report published in October 2011, the suspension rate’s nearly doubled for white kids, to 6%. It’s more than doubled for Hispanics to 7%, and to a stunning 15% for blacks. For Native Americans, it’s almost tripled, from 3% to 8%.

Second. If you think all these suspensions are for weapons and drugs, recalibrate. There’s been a kind of “zero-tolerance creep” since schools adopted “zero-tolerance” policies. Only 5% of all out-of-school suspensions were for weapons or drugs, said the NEPC report, citing a 2006 study. The other 95% were categorized as “disruptive behavior” and “other”, which includes cell phone use, violation of dress code, being “defiant”, display of affection, and, in at least one case, farting.

Third. These suspensions don’t work for schools. Get rid of the “bad” students, and the “good” students can learn, get high scores, live good lives. That’s the myth. The reality? It’s just the opposite. Says the NEPC report: “…research on the frequent use of school suspension has indicated that, after race and poverty are controlled for, higher rates of out-of-school suspension correlate with lower achievement scores.”

Fourth. They don’t work for the kids who get kicked out. In fact, these “throw-away” kids get shunted off a possible track to college and onto the dead-end spur of juvenile hall and prison. “Studies show that one suspension triples the likelihood of a juvenile justice contact within that year,” California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told the California Legislature last month. “And that one suspension doubles the likelihood of repeating the grade.”

Fifth. All these suspensions have led many communities to create “alternative” schools, where they dump the “bad” kids who can’t make it in regular public school. Lincoln High School was set up as one of those alternative schools.

Good Posture Can Improve A Beer Gut

Lord knows I need all the help I can get on that

The Benefits of Good Posture

There are several ways that good posture can improve both mind and body. Below we list a few of them:

Improves organ function. When we’re slouched forward, our rib cage is actually pushing down on our internal organs. All this mushing can cause digestive problems. By having good posture, we keep things nice and open for our intestines to do their work. Reduces tension and pain in neck, shoulders, and back. If you suffer from chronic pain in your upper body, it may be caused by your poor posture.

Prevents humped shoulders. We often only associate the shoulder hump with little old ladies and Quasimodo. But men can develop a “dowager’s hump,” too. The hump develops through a combination of bad posture and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is common in older women, but men can also see a significant loss of bone mass as they age. You can help stave off the hump by focusing on maintaining good posture throughout your life (and taking a calcium supplement when you get older).

Increases height. Studies have shown that taller men earn more money and attract more women than their shorter counterparts. That’s not to say if you’re shorter, you can’t make lots of money and be a lady killer. I mean, look at Tom Cruise. But these studies suggest height is one of the evolutionary factors that we take into account when we size people up. But before you go out and buy some lifts, consider the fact that many men are walking around 1 inch shorter than they actually are due to poor posture.

Prevents “beer belly.” Have you ever seen those old men who have super skinny legs and arms, but then a small or sometimes huge beer belly? Well, there’s two factors at play here. First, as we age, our metabolism slows down, and as men, we store more fat in our bellies. This factor can be mitigated by proper diet and exercise. The other factor is- you guessed it- posture. As mentioned above, bad posture causes your rib cage to push down on your organs. Your organs are surprisingly malleable and will consequently protrude out and push against our abdominal wall. We see the effects of this pushing in our little Buddha Bellies.

Norway's controversial 'cushy prison' experiment

Sometimes if you want to bring out the humanity in a person, you have to treat them like a human.

Can a prison possibly justify treating its inmates with saunas, sunbeds and deckchairs if that prison has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe? Live reports from Norway on the penal system that runs contrary to all our instincts - but achieves everything we could wish for

When he recently claimed of offenders that it was ‘just very, very bad value for taxpayers’ money to keep banging them up and warehousing them in overcrowded prisons where most of them get toughened up’, our current Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke was widely harangued for his progressive views.

A recent opinion poll showed the British public wants harsher prison conditions; they don’t agree with the Government’s response to over-population and reoffending by pushing through far-reaching reforms which emphasise shorter sentences while placing prisoners in a working environment.

And yet, an extensive new study undertaken by researchers across all the Nordic countries reveals that the reoffending average across Europe is about 70-75 per cent. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the average is 30 per cent. In Norway it is 20 per cent. Thus Bastoy, at just 16 per cent, has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe.

Read more here

How to save on mall rent

Move out and you miss out on that critical foot traffic that only a mall can give. Stay and you pay exorbitant rent. Seems like the small business owner in a shopping centre is stuck between a rock and a hard place. But there is an alternative: kiosks. These are basically little stalls that are erected in the middle of the walkways - they are not strictly letting spaces. What would normally be a space of floor that people just walk on can become a revenue stream for the mall owners if there’s a kiosk there. Kiosks are therefore often seen as an added bonus for mall owners. Further to this is that mall management almost always charge lower rentals to kiosk owners.

Do not confuse these kiosks for those mobile wooden stalls with wagon wheels: you know, those ones that look like carriages. Those were just the pioneers. Kiosks now can be little gems of design in their own right.

If Darth Vader Actually Raised Luke Skywalker

Cute. I could sure use some Jedi powers with my kid sometimes.

What if “Luke, I am your father” wasn’t the beginning and end of pop culture’s tensest father-son relationship? That’s the premise of comic artist Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader and Son — a sweet, funny, charmingly illustrated story that imagines an alternate universe in which the Dark Lord of the Sith actually raises his son. From potty training to lightsaber batting practice to ice cream runs, the endearing absurdity of the duo’s dynamic makes for a remix treat of the most entertaining variety.

Lots more pages here