AwardAward Volume XXV, No. 1 • New York City • SEP/OCT 2019 www.EDUCATIONUPDATE.com Winner CUTTING EDGE NEWS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE Cover Photo Credits: Top (Shutterstock/wk1003mike); Bottom (Shutterstock/Billion Photos) violence DISRUPTS learning education MENDS minds 2 EDUCATION UPDATE ■ FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS & STUDENTS ■ SEP/OCT 2019 GUEST EDITORIALS EXCLUSIVELY PREPARED FOR EDUCATION UPDATE Teaching Democracy Hunter College President Our freedoms are under attack by a president who threatens to imprison his political opponents, who openly wishes Looks Ahead to the he could “get rid” of journalists, and who props up white nationalism. School’s 150th Year Our elections are undermined by wide- spread voter suppression, by extreme this year, perhaps our most diverse group partisan gerrymandering (which was just ever. Nicholas Bloom brings expertise on upheld by the Supreme Court), and by subsidized housing, Ashley Jackson on open invitations to foreign interference— orchestral harp, Collin Craig on African with Trump even joking about it with American rhetoric, Anita Raja on com- Vladimir Putin recently. puter science, Lázaro Lima on poetry and Our very moral character as a nation documentary film… Each brings fresh is tested when government leaders por- ideas and perspectives. By RANDI WEINGARTEN, tray immigrants and asylum-seekers From overseas, our students who have PRESIDENT, AMERICAN not as people in need, but as invad- earned prestigious academic awards— FEDERATION OF TEACHERS ers so threatening and worthless that like the Fulbright, Marshall, and Luce— Teachers have always had a huge the government’s inhumane treatment of are also getting underway. I just heard responsibility for the next generation: To them—denying even children adequate from three recent grads who have teach and nurture students so they have food, sleep and hygiene—is somehow arrived in Beijing, each the recipient of a the opportunity to live fulfilling lives. deserved. The shooter in El Paso, Texas By JENNIFER J. RAAB, Schwarzman scholarship, a competitive To make our classrooms and schools used the president’s own language in his PRESIDENT, HUNTER COLLEGE national award that funds a year of gradu- safe and affirming. To help young people hate-filled manifesto, and since then, the Even after 18 years as President ate study in Beijing to promote a richer develop the skills, confidence, and sense administration has gone on to wage a of Hunter College, the start of a new understanding of China’s role in global of responsibility to be engaged citizens. continued war against immigrant fami- school year is still very exciting for me. trends. I know they’ll do Hunter proud. As schools reopen this season, the lies, raiding their workplaces, and sub- Returning students reconnect with class- But this year is extra special because role of America’s teachers is even big- jecting them to inhumane conditions in mates and faculty, while new students we are celebrating Hunter’ 150th anni- ger—they are called on to be defenders detention centers. I have come to the make their initial choices on classes and versary—the perfect time for reflection. of decency and guardians of democracy chilling realization that the president of clubs. The halls are abuzz with promise Fleeing his native country over his because, while our democracy has never the United States, by his actions, is lead- and possibility! role in the Young Ireland movement been perfect, today its very existence is ing a homegrown hate movement. New faculty join as well—26 new faces continued on page 31 threatened. continued on page 31 Children Hear the Blaming Gun Violence Message of the Gun on the Mentally Ill we model a surprisingly un-American Survey); more than one gun for every attitude: that there is nothing to be done. man, woman, and child; many arms This should ring false to the nation that of military grade (able to kill dozens has confronted everything from the Great of people in seconds); and virtually no Depression to traffic fatalities to the control over who owns a firearm and the AIDS epidemic. power of the firearms they own. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, The evil expertise of the National Rifle I can see my field being used as a scape- Association lies in defending this inde- goat and a cop-out in the fight over gun fensible firestorm. It spends lavishly to policy. “Mental health” is trotted out to buy and bully politicians into passive blame when a shooting occurs. What acceptance of gun death as an acceptable everyone needs to know is that people part of the American way of life. Any with psychiatric disorders are no more continued on page 31 likely to be violent than the general popu- By HAROLD KOPLEWICZ, M.D. lation. And the most important risk factor By ALLEN FRANCES, M.D. What must our children think? for violence, whether it’s to oneself or to Our country now lives in a perpetu- Again and again, a terrible spree of others, or even accidental, is the presence al state of terror. The rate of gun violence IN THIS ISSUE gunfire takes 10, 20, 50 lives. The nation of firearms. They have the capability in the United States is 50 times higher Guest Editorials ....2, 3, 7, 11, 17, 18 flirts with addressing the elephant in the of magnifying sad stories and making than in the United Kingdom resulting in Violence in Schools & Society ....2, 16 room — the gun — but as the funerals poor decisions irrevocable, whether it’s an alarming 40,000 deaths per year and pass and the shocking pain subsides, we a person who is angry at his boss or one 80,000 injuries. We have, on average, Colleges ...2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, 19, 23 retreat to a stalemate. who feels desperately alienated from his one multiple shooting/day and frequent STEM Education ............................8 What must our children think? They peers. enough mass murders that kids are afraid Law & Ethics ..........................10, 15 must think it’s open season and nowhere If lawmakers are serious about the to go to school and grownups fear assem- Museums .......................................12 is safe. High school, college, elemen- health of our children, they will see that bling in malls and places of worship. Learning Specialist ......................12 tary school, church, concert, Walmart, guns are the primary poison that threat- This unprecedented murder and may- Math ..............................................13 out on the town. Columbine, Virginia ens them. Guns are the method of death. hem arises from our ubiquitous gun cul- Medicine ..................................14, 16 Tech, Newtown, Charleston, Las Vegas, We need only look at the statistics from ture: Almost 400 million guns in civilian History ...........................................14 Parkland, and now El Paso and Dayton. our own states’ different approaches to hands (half the world’s total accord- When we fail to act on gun violence, continued on page 31 ing to the watchdog group Small Arms Sports ............................................19 SEP/OCT 2019 ■ FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS & STUDENTS ■ EDUCATION UPDATE 3 GUEST EDITORIALS By Empowering Women, We Serving Our Students By TIM HALL, Improve the Lives of Everyone PRESIDENT, MERCY COLLEGE By CHARO UCEDA Women are now more likely than men to At Mercy College, we take seriously In March 2018, the Pew Research have a college degree. the obligation to serve our students. It Center published a set of promising yet is an obligation we inherited from the discouraging statistics concerning gen- Sisters of Mercy, who gave the college der equality: Over the past half-century, its motto: inserviendo consumeri, “to be women had strengthened their position consumed in service.” in the U.S. labor market with higher We don’t call the service owed to wages, yet their leadership roles at top our students “customer service,” though, levels of government and business were since we don’t think of our students as still lagging. The Pew researchers found “customers,” any more than a physician the following: would call her patients “customers” or a • Women comprise 47% of today’s U.S. Jewish rabbi her congregants “custom- labor force, up from 30% in 1950. ers.” In fact, our college founders would • Women have seen steady growth in probably be astonished at the notion labor force participation over the past that service finds its highest expression several decades. In 2017, 57% of women when located in a commercial transac- President Tim Hall, Mercy College 16 years and older were either employed Source: US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor tion. They would say, I think, “Can’t you or looking for employment; in 1980, the Statistics, Pew Research Center imagine service in contexts other than one’s customers and they increasingly percentage was at 51% • In business and government, women where money is changing hands?” So, we understand what good service looks • Growing wages for women have still lag in top leadership positions serve our students, even though we don’t like. Institutions interested in attracting narrowed the gender pay gap, however, although there was a recent jump to think of them as customers. today’s students can’t afford to have women still earn less. Women’s median 23% of women in the most current US Our students can’t opt out of taking lousy cultures of service. Why should hourly earnings were $16.00 in 2016, Congressional period session from the final exams or writing research papers students put up with burdensome regis- up from $12.48 in 1980, while men 19% in 2013–2015. However, women “because they are paying our salaries.” tration processes when they know what earned $19.23 in 2006, down slightly continue woefully underrepresented That’s what makes them students and not it’s like to shop on Amazon? Why should from $19.42 in 1980 as only 6.6% of Fortune 500 company simply customers.