School Climate & Safety

The Absolute Best School Climate Blogging (This Week)

By Ross Brenneman — August 09, 2013 1 min read
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Solitary confinement; the Bling Ring; and delicious, delicious water—here’s what you might have missed this week in news and thought related to student engagement, school climate, and the world that affects them.

1. “‘Young people with disabilities become trapped in a cruel cycle of discrimination’ and ‘are locked away in solitary confinement where their conditions only deteriorate and they fall further behind in their education.’”

Susan Ferriss, for the Center for Public Integrity, on a suit alleging mistreatment of minors in California’s juvenile justice system

2. “How can Twitter, which runs up against the subjectivity of content, measure the silencing effect of words that intimidate and shame?”

—The New Yorker‘s Emily Greenhouse, about Twitter’s policy toward hate speech and abuse

3. “Would Red Bull instead of Ritalin have ‘done the trick,’ for your child? I guess we’ll never know. You are a bad parent for not giving your children Red Bull.”

—Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan, on a new report about the number of emergency room visits for incidents related to stimulant abuse

4. “Ever-more ubiquitous celebrity culture makes it tougher to convince youths that they ought to value hard work and earned success. Today, kids are daily seeing someone publicly win the lottery—and be celebrated for doing so, with money, fame, and all that comes with it.”

Rick Hess, on how the movie “The Bling Ring” demonstrates that popular culture tends not to celebrate humility, discipline, or modesty

5. “The sexualization of girls and the infantilization of adult women are two sides of the same coin. They both tell us that we should find youth, inexperience, and naivete sexy in women, but not in men.”

—Occidental College sociology professor Lisa Wade, on how Mickey Mouse led to the infantilization of women

6. “You know what beverage has never once been linked to excessive weight gain? Water.”

KJ Dell’Antonia, writing for The New York Times’ Motherlode blog, about the link between sugary beverages and youth obesity

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Rules for Engagement blog.