scholarly journals De-schooling Well-being: Toward a Learning-Oriented Definition

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santiago Rincón-Gallardo

Purpose: (1) Critique conventional schooling as detrimental to student well-being and learning. (2) Articulate an alternative that is more conducive to learning and well-being in classrooms, schools, and educational systems. Design/Approach/Methods: I review the historical functions of compulsory schooling, the main critiques to conventional schooling developed over the past century, emerging knowledge on the neuroscience of learning and well-being, and cases of large-scale pedagogical transformation from the Global South. Findings: I argue that conventional schooling is detrimental to well-being, that deep learning is a precursor of well-being, and that compulsory schooling is not designed to cultivate it. Well-being has to be de-schooled so that students thrive in schools: The grammar of schooling has to be replaced with the language of learning. This requires deep and widespread cultural change, and some movements of pedagogical renewal from the Global South offer important lessons on how to accomplish this. Originality/Value: Expanding the scope of existing debates about student well-being by questioning the assumption that compulsory schooling is inherently good and pointing out that unless the default culture of schooling is replaced with cultures of robust learning, student well-being efforts will simply reproduce the very problems they seek to solve.

Genome ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Glen Levine ◽  
Suchot Sunday ◽  
Ruth E. Dörig ◽  
Beat Suter ◽  
Paul Lasko

Drosophila mutants have played an important role in elucidating the physiologic function of genes. Large-scale projects have succeeded in producing mutations in a large proportion of Drosophila genes. Many mutant fly lines have also been produced through the efforts of individual laboratories over the past century. In an effort to make some of these mutants more useful to the research community, we systematically mapped a large number of mutations affecting genes in the proximal half of chromosome arm 2L to more precisely defined regions, defined by deficiency intervals, and, when possible, by individual complementation groups. To further analyze regions 36 and 39–40, we produced 11 new deficiencies with gamma irradiation, and we constructed 6 new deficiencies in region 30–33, using the DrosDel system. trans-heterozygous combinations of deficiencies revealed 5 additional functions, essential for viability or fertility.


2021 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Petri Kettunen ◽  
Tomas Gustavsson ◽  
Maarit Laanti ◽  
Andreas Tjernsten ◽  
Tommi Mikkonen ◽  
...  

AbstractIn 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic affected almost every company in some way also in the Nordic countries. Depending on the different industry sectors of the companies, the impacts have varied from minor risks to severe disruptions but also even booming businesses. In all, agility and resilience have been required to continue and even to survive. In 2018, we started conducting large-scale agile surveys in Finland and Sweden. For the 2020 survey round, we included questions about the current pandemic situation impacts and how agility has helped to respond. The respondents represented software professionals from different industries, not limited to information and communication technology (ICT) companies. The results indicate that although the perceived impacts have mostly been negative (53%), it is not all so. One-third (33%) reported positive impacts such as increased business and better well-being. The majority (55%) of the responses indicated that agility has helped to respond to the pandemic situation. Remarkably, 59% reported that their companies have improved agility during the past year. Improved agility appears to be positively related to the ability to respond to the pandemic. We did not discover significant differences between the Finnish and Swedish respondent cohorts.


Author(s):  
Aristotle Aristotle ◽  
Jonathan Barnes ◽  
Anthony Kenny ◽  
Jonathan Barnes ◽  
Anthony Kenny

Aristotle's moral philosophy is a pillar of Western ethical thought. It bequeathed to the world an emphasis on virtues and vices, happiness as well-being or a life well lived, and rationally motivated action as a mean between extremes. Its influence was felt well beyond antiquity into the Middle Ages, particularly through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. In the past century, with the rise of virtue theory in moral philosophy, Aristotle's ethics has been revived as a source of insight and interest. While most attention has traditionally focused on Aristotle's famous Nicomachean Ethics, there are several other works written by or attributed to Aristotle that illuminate his ethics: the Eudemian Ethics, the Magna Moralia, and Virtues and Vices. This book brings together all four of these important texts, in thoroughly revised versions of the translations found in the authoritative complete works universally recognized as the standard English edition. Edited and introduced by two of the world's leading scholars of ancient philosophy, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in the ethical thought of one of the most important philosophers in the Western tradition.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eilat Elbaum ◽  
Chaim Garfinkel ◽  
Ori Adam ◽  
Efrat Morin

<p>Observations from the past century and projections for the end of this century exhibit a decrease in precipitation over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and surrounding land areas, but the magnitude of the expected drying is unknown. Changes in precipitation are controlled by both thermodynamic (moist) and dynamic (dry) processes, but the relative contributions of these processes, in particular on regional scales, is not well understood. Previous studies have analyzed the ability of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) multi-model mean to represent the spatial and seasonal patterns of the Mediterranean hydroclimate. A wide spread exists among the individual models, which can be exploited to better understand the factors controlling future climate. Garfinkel et al. (2020)<sup>[i]</sup> found that large-scale mechanisms contribute about 50% of the model spread in Eastern Mediterranean drying. This study further explores the variance across models in projected changes of the moisture budget by decomposing them into mean dynamic, mean thermodynamic and transient components. These components are then related to the variance across models in projected large-scale processes. Through these analyses, uncertainties regarding future changes in precipitation can be reduced.</p><p><sup>[i]</sup> Garfinkel, C. I. et al. (2020) ‘The role of zonally averaged climate change in contributing to inter-model spread in CMIP5 predicted local precipitation changes’, Journal of Climate, 33, pp. 1141–1154. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0232.1.</p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Piachaud

Children's lives have been transformed over the past century. Family incomes have increased, children lead lives that are more solitary, attitudes to childhood have changed, new products have been developed and commercial pressures on children have increased. The importance of these commercial pressures is analysed. Do children understand advertising? How is child poverty affected? How does increased materialism affect psychological well-being? The issues raised for public policy are discussed in terms of children's freedom.


2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 5-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Tu ◽  
P.J.M. de Laat ◽  
M.J. Hall ◽  
M.J.M. de Wit

The distribution of precipitation events in the Meuse basin during the past century has been found to reflect the large-scale atmospheric circulation, as characterised by the Grosswetterlagen system. Statistical analysis of the long observation records (1911–2002) for the basin showed that although the annual (November to October) and winter half-year (November to April) frequencies of wet days (≥1 mm/day) were nearly stable, the associated precipitation amounts have significantly increased since 1980. From 1980 onwards, the very wet days (≥10 mm/day) in the winter half-year have become more frequent. No obvious change was identified for the summer half-year (May to October) very wet days. Both the precipitation amounts of wet and very wet days in the winter half-year and the occurrence of associated atmospheric circulation of the types/sub-types west cyclone, southwest cyclone and northwest cyclone showed a significant increase around 1980.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Ghilain ◽  
Stéphane Vannitsem ◽  
Quentin Dalaiden ◽  
Hugues Goosse ◽  
Lesley De Cruz ◽  
...  

Abstract. The surface mass balance (SMB) over the Antarctic Ice Sheet displays large temporal and spatial variations. Due to the complex Antarctic topography, modelling the climate at high resolution is crucial to accurately represent the dynamics of SMB. While ice core records provide a means to infer the SMB over centuries, the view is very spatially constrained. General circulation models (GCMs) estimate its spatial distribution over centuries, but with a resolution that is too coarse to capture the large variations due to local orographic effects. We have therefore explored a methodology to statistically downscale snowfall accumulation, the primary driver of SMB, from climate model historical simulations (1850–present day) over the coastal region of Dronning Maud Land. An analog method is set up over a period of 30 years with the ERA-Interim and ERA5 reanalyses (1979–2010 AD) and associated with snowfall daily accumulation forecasts from the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO2.3) at 5.5 km spatial resolution over Dronning Maud in East Antarctica. The same method is then applied to the period from 1850 to present day using an ensemble of ten members from the CESM2 model. This method enables to derive a spatial distribution of the accumulation of snowfall, the principal driver of the SMB variability over the region. A new dataset of daily and yearly snowfall accumulation based on this methodology is presented in this paper (MASS2ANT dataset, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4287517, Ghilain et al. (2021)), along with comparisons with ice core data and available spatial reconstructions. It offers a more detailed spatio-temporal view of the changes over the past 150 years compared to other available datasets, allowing a possible connection with the ice core records, and provides information that may be useful in identifying the large-scale patterns associated to the local precipitation conditions and their changes over the past century.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjum Amin-Chaudhry

Purpose – In the past hundred years, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has seen a remarkable development with various notions of “what is the right thing to do” for the corporations in that era. This paper aims to highlight the journey of CSR staring from an “abstract concept” in the early twentieth century to a well-recognised and “expected business practice” in the present. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a meta-analysis of the relevant CSR literature and finds 12 common themes emerging in different periods. This is presented in a chronological order starting from early 1920 to the present day for ease of understanding. The literature chosen is intentionally broad as not to miss a clear view of the times and the themes in CSR discourse. Findings – The concept of CSR was viewed as a “social obligation” in the earlier literature (1920s-1960s), as the businesses were thought to operate for the well-being of a community and not for the prosperity of the sole owner(s). A little later, in the 1960s and 1970s, only adoption of socially responsible activities and practices, which were voluntary and beyond legal obligation, were deemed CSR. The 1980s saw businesses trying to find a rational and financially quantifiable justification for adopting activities that were socially responsible, thus the emphasis of “corporate social performance”. The 1990s shifted the impetus on “reporting, transparency and accountability” with numerous reporting requirements. The 2000s sought a win-win situation through the development of “creating shared value” as a result of adopting CSR initiatives. The concept of CSR became an “accepted and expected business practice” in the decade of 2000, with various governments, global entities and organisations issuing their own understanding and definitions of CSR. Originality/value – This research paper provides an account of the evolution in the concept of CSR in the past century which has seen numerous changes in the manner businesses conduct their operations. The identified themes are reflective of the journey of CSR. This is an informative paper which is very topical in today’s climate of stakeholder scrutiny of business’ working.


Author(s):  
Joseph Piacenza ◽  
Irem Y. Tumer ◽  
Christopher Hoyle ◽  
John Fields

The North American power grid is a highly heterogeneous and dispersed complex system that has been constructed ad-hoc over the past century. Large-scale propagating system failures remain constant over the past 30 years as the rising population and affiliated energy centric culture continues to drive increases in energy demand. In addition, there are continued negative effects from various types of energy generation strategies, including renewables, on the environment. This paper presents a methodology for a high-level system optimization of a power grid capturing annual cost, energy use, and environmental impact for use during the early design trade studies. A model has been created to explore the system state of a power grid based on various types of energy generation, including both fossil fuel and renewable strategies. In addition, energy conservation practices for commercial and residential applications are explored as an alternative solution to meet predicted demand. A component for incorporating design trades within the model has been developed to analyze the feasibility of trading surplus energy between interconnections as a means to address issues with excess generation and mitigate the need for additional generation. The result is a set of Pareto Optimal solutions considering both cost and environmental impact that meet predicted energy demand constraints.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-65
Author(s):  
G.E. Seidel

Abstract People involved with production animal agriculture in the U.S., including owners and workers, are often portrayed as callous to animal welfare. While callous people exist in any population, I maintain that most people who own and work with farm animals do consider animal welfare, both for moral and economic reasons. It is rare that stressed, unhealthy or injured animals are more profitable than healthy, unstressed ones. Furthermore, the owners of farm animals and related facilities overwhelmingly are families or individuals (~97%), not corporations; most owners of so-called industrial farms are but a generation removed from so-called family farms, and most of these owners still have values similar to those of traditional family farms, although their hired workers may not. Farmers need to have income, so husbandry practices need to be profitable for farms to be sustainable. However, production animal agriculture has not been very profitable, partly because most products are commodities, and this low profitability has been a major cause of the huge decrease in numbers of farmers and farm units over the past century. The net result is larger units with less attention paid to individual animals, which can be problematic, but does not necessarily result in decreased animal welfare. Modern genetic tools and facilities can be used to promote animal welfare simultaneously with improving production efficiency and economic viability.


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