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It starts at birth when immediately you’re taken and tested with Apgar scores. Are you pink enough? Do you cry enough? Make enough faces?

It’s easy to understand why Apgar scores are important, though. They let us know quickly and easily whether or not a newborn needs immediate medical attention, but what about the other measures of our lives?

Here’s the rundown. Deep breath please….

Facebook friends. Linked In connections. Twitter followers. Pants size. Bra size. How much does your baby weigh? How many miles do you run? How often and how fast? Marital status. How many children do you have? How many countries visited. Languages spoken. Borders crossed. How many times have you been to Burning Man?

We have measurements to decide whether our children are gifted enough to start first grade on the accelerated track and No Child Left Behind tests to show if a student reads and writes well enough to pass to the next grade.

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar

Those tests in turn help us determine whether our teachers are teaching well enough for our children to pass those tests. Don’t forget SATs, A-levels, O-levels, APs, and whatever your home country equivalent would be.

Once you pass all those tests with high scores, you’re then free to move to the next level.

In college and university, the yardstick arrives in the form of cum laude, class rank and don’t forget the extra points for where you get your degree. Honor societies, sororities, academic clubs and sports teams. All that helps others decide whether or not someone should hire you, when it will then be decided how much money you’ll make for salary.

From there, these logically follow:

How much do you have in the bank? Credit rating. How many days vacation and where do you go. How many square feet in your house or apartment. What kind of car do you drive? How posh is your neighborhood? Depending on your profession and how many years you’ve been in the field, other tests quickly follow. Tests and more tests rank you on a scale of how good a lawyer, doctor, accountant — or really anything else — you are. And if you’re a blogger, you simple cannot forget Alexa ranking, Linked In connections, Google Page Rank, website stats and RSS subscribers.

Once we know exactly how much you make, where you live and what you drive, it’s far easier to find where you fit socially. Are you married or single? How many sexual partners have you had? Do you have orgasms one at a time or multiple and how big is your penis? How often do you have sex? How often do you date and where do you take your dates. What brands of clothing do you wear? What size clothing?

What is wealth without health?

We measure what we eat by calories and weight which help us maintain our hips, chests and clothing size. And just when you thought your food was safe once inside your body, here comes Rate My Poo to tell you how your shit compares to others. There’s even a Top 10.

There’s eyesight, hearing, height, weight, cholesterol, blood sugar levels and blood pressure. How long does it take to get pregnant? What is your sperm count? How many children do you have? What month did your child learn to sit up, crawl, walk and speak? How many hours in labor? Which then leads right back to where we began with Apgar scores.

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Then, when you find yourself listless and confused from all the prodding, poking, pulling and testing, someone comes along to quantify your happiness and self esteem.

Anyone else ready to have a nervous breakdown?

While these scales do provide us important information, at what point do we stop living our lives by numbers? Numbers that ultimately have the potential to damage our internal self esteem when we find others simply don’t respect us enough because we don’t rate highly enough.

What happens if the playing field changes? Let’s say you’ve done supremely well in high school, aced your college qualifying exams and then suddenly your family moves to another country where those scores mean nothing. Or you’re the perfect size 6 in clothing and somehow find yourself in a place where a larger, plumper body type is preferred?

What does that say about you? What does that say about our system?

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What would happen were we to suddenly get rid of all these personal and professional measurements? Are some of them necessary to ensure our happiness and well being? Share your thoughts below.

Designed by Colin Purrington from Swarthmore College, you can add these spoof disclaimer stickers to science textbooks that promote such “spurious” theories as evolution, gravity, and plate tectonics.

Below are some examples, and you can see them all here.

Picture modified from Textbook disclaimer stickers and Feature image by the mad LOLscientist

Apparently, the text of the sticker at the top left is taken directly from the Georgia Cobb County School District (un-ironic tagline: “A community with a passion for learning”).

The other stickers on the site (which can be downloaded as a PDF) were all made up.

Unsurprisingly, the site has come in for some flak. My two favorite comments by far are these:

Be gone with your foul pagan gravity. We ain’t haven’ it.

If you’re going to argue factually, then you will lose…In truth, facts can neither prove or disprove the unprovable.

So there you have it!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What do you think of these textbook disclaimer stickers? Are they (as one commenter suggests) “Kinda meanspirited and… anti-religious” or are they totally spot on? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The other day, I came across a list of fourteen downloadable files of books that have been made illegal or banned.

“Banned books?” I thought to myself. “Feh.” I generally look skeptically whenever I hear something has been banned because experience has shown me when someone says a book shouldn’t be read it’s an attempt at censorship and not because there is truly something harmful in the book.

And really, how can a book be harmful?

A quick scan through a list of banned books through the ages only confirms my initial feeling.

• The Diary of Anne Frank banned in Lebanon for portraying Jews favorably.
• The Da Vinci Code deemed offensive to Christianity
• Gustave Flaubert was prosecuted in France for “offenses to public morals” because of his Madame Bovary.
• Not Without My Daughter banned in Iran because it shows Iran in a bad light.

Do you see a pattern here? People and political bodies excise literature and art that conflicts with their world view. As world view shifts, as it inevitably does, the list of censored and outlawed materials changes too. While truth may be a difficult entity to determine, when a government or other body seeks to limit and thus carefully construct the information their citizens receive, propaganda overtakes our vision of reality.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 — banned by Joseph Stalin in 1950 — vividly portrays the type of world created by just this type of censorship.

It Begins By Indoctrinating the Children

According to the American Library Association, parents challenge books more often than any other group under the guise of protecting their children. I’m so proud! “Anti-family,” I believe is the doublespeak term used to justify these actions.

Ironically, when a government wants to censor the actions of its people, they first indoctrinate children in the ways of “correct thinking” and those children then spy on their parents. Refer back to Orwell’s 1984 to see how this happens.

But are there some books that shouldn’t be open for public consumption?

Last week, I would have said no. All books should be open and readily available to those who want to read them.

Of course, I get that certain books contain materials that aren’t appropriate for younger children – be that with sexually explicit or violent content – but you don’t protect children by simply removing the offending material from public consumption.

Then I came across this list of 14 books.

Should Simply Reading About Illegal Subjects Be Outlawed?

Photo by PugnoM

This list includes a Beginner’s Guide To Growing Marijuana and another on How-to Grow Psychedelic Mushrooms. Fine, I understand they might be banned because they encourage and teach people to cultivate illegal crops, but those are plants, right? How much harm can they really do and how many mushrooms will the average person grow? That and whether or not these crops should even be illegal is a topic worthy of another article in itself.

Then I come across a book with 100 Ways To Disappear and Live Free. Or the secrets of manufacturing methamphetamines by Uncle Fester.

All of these are already available for sale or even free over the internet. While my Amazon search for Justin Gombos’ Fooling the Bladder Cops only lead me to a small selection of deluxe hydration bladders, Yahoo brought me right to what I wanted to read.

That’s when my initial resolve begins to waver.

While many of us might find it a great party trick to pick a lock or help a friend set up grow lights in an empty closet, the bottom line is these books help train you to commit crimes or learn to get away with them.

Do you really want someone at the wheel of your flight or train ride having tricked a urine test?

How many of those people living free and clear off the grid are law abiding citizens who mean and do no harm but simply want to be alone. (If my experiences living on a tiny island off the coast of Panama is any indication, that number is extremely small.)

Some other titles to consider:

• Twenty-one Techniques of Silent Killing.
• Silent But Deadly: More Homemade Silencers.
• The ever maligned Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Is Information Dangerous In Itself?

When I originally found this list of books, my thought was to publish the titles as a list of interesting banned and illegal books with quotes and links to them, but then I had a second thought. After all, there’s plenty of information to suggest these books are indeed dangerous.

Do you agree with our decision?

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As an aspiring young adult author, this tweet from a fellow writer caught my eye a few weeks ago:

After it was retweeted multiple times by published children’s authors, I looked into it a bit more and found that the writer had attempted to browse the young adult section of the Orlando Public Library, where she discovered only teenagers aged 13 through 18 are allowed to hang out and browse unaccompanied by a parent or librarian. The library’s policy states:

Club Central is a place on the first floor of the Main Library designed and reserved for use by teens from 13 through 18. It is a comfortable, inviting place created for teens to study, socialize, and have fun. The use of the facility and resources, including the seating, computers and AV equipment, is limited to those from 13 through 18 years of age. Other library users wanting to use Young Adult materials will be assisted in retrieving materials by staff.

Before I continue, I want to point out that many libraries have “kid zones,” which I fully support. I love the idea of a safe place in the library for teens to read or study without their parents having to worry about the pervs and weirdos that sometimes pop up in public places.

However, in this particular case, it’s not a special room for teens – it’s the teen section. Meaning that those 12 years old and younger, or 18 years old and older, must request a specific book from that section to have a librarian retrieve it. And those who simply want to browse – which personally is how I most often find books – must do so with either a parent or librarian escort.

I find the idea of presenting my ID, then being accompanied by a librarian to the young adult shelves to browse while she waits, extremely embarrassing. The title of this article is intentionally suggestive – in the attempt to keep molesters and kidnappers away from our teens, we’re all treated like potential perverts. Not to mention the fact that this is a big inconvenience for the librarians themselves, who have to leave their work to escort us adult YA readers.

Photo by marissas23

A “teens-only” room is one thing, but young adult literature is another. Adults enjoying novels with teenage protagonists is nothing new (Catcher in the Rye comes to mind), but with the success of young adult series like Harry Potter in recent years, YA is more popular with people of all ages now than ever. And most YA novels are written by adults. I find it completely ridiculous to think that a children’s book author can’t even find his own book on the library shelves without an escort.

Good intentions aside, I believe this is the start of censorship, and violates what the American Library Association stands for. The ALA website states:

“Libraries help ensure that Americans can access the information they need – regardless of age, education, ethnicity, language, income, physical limitations or geographic barriers…ALA actively advocates in defense of the rights of library users to read, seek information, and speak freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

I hear a lot about banned books and protests over which books should be on school reading lists. Book censorship attempts to shield teens from what some deem to be controversial material, and denies them the opportunity to experience a lot of great literature in the process.

I know the library isn’t “banning” books. Adults can still freely check out young adult books from libraries like the one in Orlando. But limiting anyone’s ability to browse at their leisure sparks censorship, and at a library, that frightens me. The bottom line is that libraries are not required to provide teenagers with an adult-free zone, but they are required to give everyone the ability to access books and seek information, “regardless of age.”

And the solution is simple – give teens a “teen only” space that doesn’t include the entire young adult section, like a small sitting area. Many libraries already have something like this in place. I don’t believe providing any type of limited access space should come at the cost of denying people the right to browse books without having to wait for a librarian to abandon her duties and watch.

Libraries are the best place for teenagers – or anyone – to have free access to information. Therefore, restricting their access to an entire section of books once they hit their 19th birthday, in my opinion, is hypocritical and in violation of what the ALA so clearly advocates.

Community Connection

If you’re interested in more literature controversy, check out how one school banned the dictionary.

The news of the possible “ban” on the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition spread internationally and caused some outraged feedback from parents, as many felt the dictionary was not the problem. As one parent pointed out:

“That is not the worst word in the dictionary. Kids are going to be exposed to things, and it is the parents’ job to explain it to them, not the teachers’ or the school district’s (job).”

This argument is nothing new. In some places, other banned books include: Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia, for its display of disrespect towards adults; Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for its use of the ‘n’ word; and even J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series for its use of witchcraft.

Those are just a few. Is it just me, or do the themes of friendship, youthful determination and overcoming oppression completely override any negative aspects of these books?

Some teens, however, do realize the importance of reading whatever the hell you want to read.

For example, take the girl who kept a lending library of banned books inside her locker. She encouraged students to borrow from the 62 banned books inside her locker, with everything from The Perks of Being a Wallflower to Animal Farm. The makeshift library provided students with a way to read these classics without the risk of getting in trouble with parents.

Give the girl a freaking medal.

In the end, students in southern California were given the option of using an alternative dictionary to the one temporarily removed, but are still able to use the old. Next assignment: an essay on the definition of “ignorance” and how to prevent it.

Community Connection

What do you think, is it justified to ban certain books? The dictionary?

Photo by Shermeee

Technology is expanding, research is identifying more efficient teaching methods, and parents are setting higher expectations in the face of budget cuts. As a result, public schools in the United States have had to step it up to keep pace with changing times.

Classroom experiments such as The Wave and strategies to address the growing variety of students and learning needs have come and gone over the years, but even so, public school is a much different place than the one where your grandfather walked barefoot uphill both ways many years before. Here’s what’s happening in the classroom now:

Learning Theories and Classroom Strategies

Forget the droning voice of a teacher dominating the classroom. Today’s classroom experience is about the students. Several recent learning theories and classroom strategies have surfaced that recognize no two students are exactly the same, therefore different teaching theories must be employed to reach every student.

Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences notes that intelligence is more than IQ. People learn and understand information through a number of avenues, and while our society places attention on highly articulate and logical people, there are others who show strength in other areas. Gardener’s list of intelligences highlights those who excel in words, numbers and reasoning, pictures, awareness of the body, music, interaction with people, self-awareness and nature.

Photo by cliff1066™

Recent theories also highlight the strengths and opportunities available when learning is put in the hands of students. In problem-based learning, students assume responsibility for acquiring knowledge while the teacher provides tools and becomes a facilitator in the learning process. Teachers provide the basic background on how to solve certain problems, and then students are given case studies, which are essentially “story problems” with missing information that require critical and logical thinking to solve.

The theory of constructivism is based on the idea that we all have a unique understanding of the world around us and that learning requires an adjustment of our way of thinking in order to grasp new experiences. Classroom learning revolves around using prior knowledge to understand new information. This opens the door for hands-on learning and open-ended classroom discussions that ask students to interpret and predict what will happen in particular situations.

Gender-Based Education

Long gone are the days of segregation … or are they? There has been a growing trend in recent years to separate students based on gender. Supporters of this type of teaching strategy argue that boys and girls learn differently and this offers a safe learning environment where students can speak freely.

This learning strategy has fired some people up, though, especially because it almost appears to move backward in time. Many also argue that it is not only gender but other factors, such as socio-economic status, that need to be considered when discussing cognitive development in students.

Nonetheless, gender-based education is moving forward. Whether it’s here to stay is another question.

Mobile Technology in the Classroom

Though many schools are banning cell phone use during classroom hours, many others are embracing the growing number of students who are intimately familiar with today’s technology trends. Apple has hopped on the bandwagon and is offering a wealth of programs through iTunes U, which has more than 200,000 educational audio and video files available for download.

Recognizing that students are versed in their technological gadgets, teachers have become more lenient in allowing the use of cell phone calculators and immediate connections to WiFi for information searches. Others are asking students to create audio and video podcasts as classroom projects.

Photo by Tostie14

Virtual High Schools

Taking technology even further, students have the opportunity to attend classes through a virtual high school. Some schools offer courses through this module while students may choose simply to complete all their coursework through an online curriculum.

The flexibility afforded by virtual high schools is a huge draw for students and schools alike. The ability to pick up Internet-based coursework anytime and anywhere means that traveling families and working students can still complete high school with a high-quality education. Virtual high schools give students who feel stifled in ordinary classrooms the opportunity to take an array of challenging and interesting courses—ranging from the history of photography to engineering principles—that might not be found in the standard American high school.

Technical Academies

What do you want to be when you grow up? Now students can decide at the ripe old age of 14 when they have the opportunity to attend a technical academy in lieu of high school.

Technical academies offer students a fast track into their chosen field of study (which ranges from media and technology to bioscience and early education). With strict entry requirements, they require students be serious about their classroom work. In addition to the standard math / English / science regimen that most high school students sit through, students attend courses that introduce them to and immerse them in a particular field. When they graduate, students at these academies often walk away with technical diplomas, which give them an opportunity to jump into the working world or get a head start on higher education studies.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Do you think these techniques are effective for helping people learn? Would you change anything? Discuss in the comments.

Photo: Joe Shlabotnik

This year, over half-a-million students will flock from all over the world to attend the most expensive colleges on earth. But why?

It doesn’t matter to foreigners that the cost of our colleges is outrageous or that the quality of education in the United States is, and has long been, questionable. Regardless of the diploma, an American education carries worldwide prestige. Saying that you studied in America is like saying you winter in Hawaii or that you drive a Bentley.

Photo: joebeone

To start with, the level of education in American high schools is generally considered lower compared to many other countries. The skills needed to pass the BAC, a national exam required to graduate from French high school, are equivalent to two years of college in the United States. For many foreign students, our colleges are easy because they’ve studied the stuff in high school already! Maybe that is part of the appeal.

American college is a product being sold to consumers. It is marketed aggressively and internationally. American colleges have more money to spend on marketing than any other country– and they should for what they charge in tuition! But that doesn’t mean they are better. It just means they can offer fancier amenities and accommodations.

In France, they have Club Med. In America, we have “Club Ed.”

As a former international college recruiter, I passed out plenty of colorful glossy brochures to starry-eyed Europeans. Here is what I would tell American and foreign students today who are interested in attending an American college:

1. Generally speaking, it’s very easy to get accepted into American colleges. You just need money and decent grades.

2. It is fairly easy to get good grades in college due to the “dumbing down” of classes and grade inflation.

3. Do not be fooled by college rankings. One of the criteria used by US News & World Report to rank colleges is the total amount of money a college spends. This could include anything from a president’s salary to a new stadium or campus entertainment. Colleges are also rated based on how much money they receive from alumni.

4. Know what kind of degree you are after and figure out if your degree will actually translate into a job (something many American students do not do).

5. Consider going to college in a country outside the U.S. and maybe visit during Spring Break.

If you’re an American who loves to travel, why not get your degree abroad? One major benefit to enrolling in an offshore college is that you can get a quality education that may be dirt cheap or perhaps even free. Whenever you can get a quality education without going into debt, you win! Because of rising tuition costs and a lagging economy, many savvy Americans have opted to study overseas.

For Americans, there are other advantages to studying abroad. First, you can check off becoming well-rounded from your to-do list. That begins the minute you get your passport stamped! If you are in a country where you will be learning and speaking a second language that’s a huge bonus.

Secondly, you may finish your program or field of study sooner. In England, for example, you begin studying your major during your first year.

Book cover image courtesy of the author

Finally, if you want an international career, studying overseas will allow you to make contacts with students from all over the world. Americans should be aware that admission into a foreign university can be tougher than getting into an American school. But if you manage to get accepted to a college overseas, it would be foolish not to pursue it.

College in the United States has become one of the most over-exploited and over-priced products in the world.

The American university is being marketed to the world as a glitzy luxury product complete with first class accommodations that rival Disney World or Vegas.

When you peel back the brand names, the perfectly manicured lawns, and learn about the quality of education, you may find that American colleges are not worthy of all the hype.

Community Connection:

If you’re persuaded by April Norhanian’s argument that pursuing a college degree abroad is smarter than studying for one in the US, Matador Abroad contributing editor Sarah Menkedick offers advice about 7 Countries Where Graduate School Is a Fraction of US Costs.

Wondering whether you need a degree to become a professional writer? The Traveler’s Notebook contributing editor Teresa Ponikvar ponders the question in this article.