VIA: National Public Radio, TED radio hour.
​
Why do many of us hate, even fear math? Why are we convinced we're bad at it? This hour, TED speakers explore the myths we tell ourselves and how changing our approach can unlock the beauty of math.

We’ve seen examples of “old-fashioned” bullying since the TV made its appearance in the American household; the mean boy shoving the weaker child on the playground, or the rich girl making fun of the orphan dressed in rags. But modern bullying often takes the form of less obvious taunting, exclusion, or uses multimedia to spread photos, videos, and gossip like wildfire.

Why are kids with learning struggles common targets?
While the victim of bullying in a 1950s TV show might eventually see a happy ending, today’s victims of bullying often endure years of depression, anxiety, fear, or humiliation.
​

Teens and social media are a modern-day love story – mostly inseparable, and with plenty of ups, downs and drama. Social media is still relatively new, and there’s still a lot to learn. The more we can understand about social media and its effect on teens, the more we can help them manage it in ways that will enrich them and see them flourish into the happy, healthy adults they are all capable of being. 
In a groundbreaking study, published in the journal Psychological Science, teenagers had their brains scanned while they used social media. Thanks to some brilliant technology, and social media’s almost magical way of having teens be still for a while, there were some remarkable findings.

How to interpret what teachers say during parent’s meeting?
 
Parent-teacher meetings carry many messages you might not be aware of. Some of these comments a teacher, or several teachers, may make about your child’s performance at school need to be translated to understand what the core issues are that your child is facing. when these issues are not taken seriously, your child may have difficulties in the coming school years,  while when addressed at any early stage, these  can be avoided easily
First Phrase:
We often hear the sentence, “Your child is smart, but if he could only focus a bit more,” or “Your child is very smart, he just does not fully apply himself.” These sentences usually indicate that your child has many strong cognitive skills, but might be lacking in one or two, making him act in certain ways. These examples might indicate a weakness in attention and concentration. This, of course, can affect other activities and not just academics.
Second Phrase:
Let us go into more details. When a teacher says “your child is smart but takes a long time to finish a certain task”, or “is one of the last to finish the assigned classwork”. In this case, a weak skill might be behind such phrases. Some of these kids might be perfectionists, but, if it is a frequent occurrence then a cognitive weakness is on hand.  This might show that processing speed is an issue, that your child is not able to finish the assigned task in the indicated time and would usually cause long homework sessions at home too!
Second Phrase:
Sometimes, the phrase might result in some sort of confusion. For example, your child performs well in one test and does not in the one that follows. In this case, teachers say that his work level is fluctuating, and they tend to ask for higher levels of performance. This preference comes from the fact that, since the child managed to get a good result once, he can easily get good grades and at all times. In this case, the child might have different levels of cognitive skills, where some are high levels while others are low! This results in a variation of output depending on the skill used at that exact test.
Third Phrase:
Is your child not reading up to his grade level? This is usually related to a cognitive weakness in auditory processing, or phonemic awareness. This skill is what is needed from us to unglue, blend, segment and manipulate different sounds. Reading difficulties can be caused by many other weak skills including visual processing, attention, memory, and processing speed.
If these phrases are common during the school year, then your child might need to schedule an assessment to determine which skills are weak and what can be done to help train those skills!