Accidental Blogger

Food – Deliciousness in Portland, Maine.  I'm intrigued by "ravioli are stuffed with sweet local shrimp and haddock" – shrimp in ravioli isn't uncommon or remarkable, but haddock? 

Happiness – Is happiness catching?  Maybe, but not like the global pig flu pandemic.

Work Out, Become Smart – Mice on treadmills smarter than mice not on treadmills.  Weightlifting and stretching are good for your physical health, but they won't make you smarter.  Aerobic exercise will, although it must be fairly intense, at least if you're a mouse.

Knowledge and Thinking – If they don't drop out, what should we teach them?  You need a knowledge base.  Well, yes.  But critical thinking ability is way more important than collection of random trivia, in my opinion.  Of course, this is like the nature-nurture debate: meaningless as an abstract discussion.  The op-ed is light on facts, so it's not clear to me exactly what they're doing in the Massachusetts schools, and I'm skeptical of anything called "cooperative learning" or "skills training," but that's not remotely the same thing as "critical thinking."  Even the author's suggestion that "critical thinking" pushes aside subjects like literature strikes me as absurd.  For example, I took a Milton class in college, and the valuable part of that is that it made me a better thinker-reader-writer, not that I can talk about metapoetry or talk about how Satan fits within the epic tradition.