Eva Gulotty

So it goes. Process Chemist and DnD Nerd. What gives you joy?
She/her

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

I was talking to a grandmother last week about schooling. ‘I can see the difference’ she said. ‘When my children were young, primary school was relaxed. If the weather was good, they went outside and ran around. If they were sick, they stayed at home. Now with my grandchildren they are seated in desks for more of the day and if they are ill, they are worried that they’ll lose their 100% attendance for the term. The pressure is on to pass their phonics test when they are six and then to learn their times tables at speed by the time they are nine. They feel it and their parents feel it too’.

There’s lots of talk about SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) at the moment, and how increasing numbers of children are being identified as SEND. It’s less common to ask questions about what SEND really means, and whether the education system creates more children ‘with SEND’ as it becomes more pressured and rigid.

For what SEND really means is that a child cannot learn in the way which mainstream education expects. They cannot keep up with expectations, either for academic work or for behaviour. SEND is something which happens in the interaction between a child and the education system. In a system where no 6-year-old is expected to sit still and learn to write their name, then a 6-year-old who just wants to run around outside isn't a problem. In a system where everyone is meant to be able to read by age 6, then they are.

We know from research that if a child is young in their year, they are more likely to be identified as ‘having SEND’. We know that summer born boys are far more likely to be identified as ‘having SEND’ than autumn born girls. We know that the impact of this immaturity resonates through the years, with the youngest in the year doing less well at GCSE. We know that the number of children ‘with SEND’ is going up year on year.

It's not really plausible that more children each year have difficulties in learning, nor that being born in August makes you more likely to have learning problems than if you are born a few weeks later in September.

It’s far more likely that in the push to ‘drive up standards’ the education system is becomes less, not more, suited to how children develop and learn. It’s more likely that the system is penalising immaturity – and children are inherently immature. That isn’t a lack or a defect, it’s a defining part of childhood.

As the education system becomes more rigid and pressured, we’d expect more children not to be able to manage without adaptations. This is exactly what we see. Those children are holding up the flag for all the others, saying that this system is not child-friendly and doesn’t take account of developmental needs and differences.

What if, instead of having higher expectations of the children, we had higher expectations of the education system? What if those expectations were of flexibility, reducing pressure and prioritising lifelong learning and wellbeing instead of short-term testing?

What if we saw the increasing number of children ‘with SEND’ as a sign that the system isn’t working for the many ways in which children develop, rather than a sign that more and more children have learning difficulties? We’ll never sort the ‘SEND crisis’ until we start looking at SEND as an interaction between children and the education system. The more rigid the system is, the more children it will fail.

Illustration by @_MissingTheMark from the book A Different Way to Learn.

[Bastian Grabe @BastianGrabe]

Excited to share our latest work in @an_chem ! We developed a universal calibration method for DOSY that works for both small and big molecules - no more drama with solvents, structure, or temperature. Perfect when MS says 'nah. #NMR #DOSY https://t.co/Kg8q0hCj5l

[Pedro Leão @Leao_pel]

Advice for PhD Candidates:

1. Choose a supportive advisor.
2. Seek sincere connections, not just "networking."
3. Papers open doors; ethics and meaningful connections open the right ones.
4. Stay connected to your initial motivation.
5. Your actions define you, not your title.

[David AttenBruh @AlHendiify]

Holy shit guys not only were they theoretically able to help frogs recover from Chytrid by providing a gentle hot spot, but they found that the frogs recovered thru heat were potentially resistant to future infections https://t.co/jdWZUUt0Ue

[Gary Parrish @GaryParrishCBS]

Alex Rodriguez asked a question. Reggie Jackson answered it.

(Shouts to the producer and rest of the desk for staying out of Reggie’s way and just letting him talk. I doubt they expected this answer. But it’s a great few minutes of television.)

[Jen Heemstra @jenheemstra]

As a research mentor, it’s common to see someone whose project is not working but they are doing all the right things to troubleshoot.

Don’t underestimate the power of saying “Even though your experiments are failing, you are still succeeding at research.”

[Felix Helberg @unitas_spiritus]

"More than half the drop in America’s total fertility rate is explained by women under the age of 19 now having next to no children."

[Omar Baddar عمر بدّار @OmarBaddar]

His family survived the Holocaust.
He founded Human Rights Watch.
He directed the ACLU.

Now he’s saying Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Excellent CNN interview:

[Bobby Allyn @BobbyAllyn]

Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI situation. Wow:

[Tomasz Oryński @TOrynski]

Someone reminded me of that thread today, so ill tell you something.

I live in Finland now. Some time ago I left my job hoping to get another one. It didn't worked out and I became unemployed.

(A secondary thread).

[Jared Yates Sexton @JYSexton]

Apple has unintentionally made one of the most fitting and revealing advertisements of the modern era.

My god. This horror perfectly encapsulates the feeling of life as the powerful wreak escalatingly careless and clueless destruction.

[Chris Hayes @chrislhayes]

“Can you call the philosophy department and tell them I’ve been arrested?” is an all-time quote.

[Yaz Minsky @Yaz_Minsky]

“We didn’t listen to 4’33 because the silence wasn’t the silence I wanted them to hear” might be MORE anti-art than the people who just hate it for not being music.

[Janel Comeau 🍁 @VeryBadLlama]

Columbia’s own website has a page about how the last time they called for a mass arrest of student protesters, they were in the wrong and fucked up their reputation for decades

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

New: 28 unions—representing tens of thousands of workers—are demanding "the immediate reinstatement of all student and student workers disciplined for pro-Palestine protests and the end to the repression of protest on Columbia’s campus."

"An injury to one is an injury to all."

[death angel @angel_0f_deathx]

my view of homeless people changed forever when i learned that more than half of them were foster kids who aged out of the system and were left with no family or resources.

[S. Bear Bergman @sbearbergman]

When I teach professionals, I sometimes put them in groups to discuss and take notes. I specifically name that women are overwhelmingly called upon to serve as recorders, so I ask that every group assign a man to do this. The reactions are *wild*. Regularly, one man makes a 1/x

[World Central Kitchen @WCKitchen]

We are aware of reports that members of the World Central Kitchen team have been killed in an IDF attack while working to support our humanitarian food delivery efforts in Gaza. This is a tragedy. Humanitarian aid workers and civilians should NEVER be a target. EVER.