With open classrooms allowing lots of movement, we don’t often have to deal with issues of seating arrangements. But, an interesting study (from back in 1993) found that students (adults in this case) who sit on the right side of the room are more right-brain oriented. They tend to be more the artistic types, less cautious in responding and less analytical. Right side sitters also scored higher on femininity on a Masculine-Feminine scale.
Since we’re creatures of habit, I wonder if we can see this pattern in the seating arrangements for lessons and community meetings. On balance though, I’d think this would be another argument (if another was necessary) for allowing students and lots of movement so there is more mixing and sharing of talents.
Why have I not found this site before, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. A place where people will put serious thought, rigorous design and atrocious single-mindedness to create, well I’m not sure I can call it anything other than, “very interesting” projects. Applications of robotics that would make Asimov cry (probably with joy at human ingenuity, probably).
They carefully detail how to create such wonderful projects as:
On an personal level, I’ve always felt that the sense of justice shapes the way people react to the world on a fundamental level. In the language of Montessori, justice is a fundamental need of humanity. As we mature we begin to see justice from different perspectives, and after going over the history of human rights, I wonder if this applies to societies as well.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous theory about the stages of moral development center around the idea of how people see and react to justice and injustice. His first level (pre-conventional) is based on how moral actions affect oneself; if I do this then they will do that right back to me (and I won’t like it). In the second level (conventional) the main concern is how actions affect and are perceived by society; it’s not right to do this because everyone will talk about it (and I don’t like that). The final level (post-conventional), moral judgments are made based on some underlying principles; I should not do this because it will violate someone’s universal human rights (and I would have violated my own principles).
When we talk about the history of human rights, we are discussing how society has gone through these different stages. The first rule of justice, no matter the culture, is some variant of the Golden Rule, an eye for an eye. Eventually we discover the rights of the citizen, then finally the rights of humans. In humans, this moral evolution is innate in potential but not necessarily realized. Similarly is societies, after all, the Greek democracies eventually failed. But there seems to be a general trajectory of history toward post-conventional morality. Robert Wright, in his book “Nonzero” sees this path as the almost inevitable outcome of the beneficial nature of cooperation to human societies.
Of course Nonzero was written in the post-Cold War and pre 9/11 period, when the world was breathing a sigh of relief when the potential for global thermonuclear war seemed to disappear (I also remember David Rudder’s 1990 had a similar theme).
A slight tilt of the face to the left or the right changes the emotional message you send. There’s a whole field of study on what’s called laterality that looks at how the asymmetry of your posture says things you might not realize.
Mike Nicholls has done some interesting work. In one study, he took two pictures of just the left side of peoples’ faces and reflected one half to make a composite image that basically had just two left sides or two right sides. The image above (which was not done by Nichols) shows an original photo, a left-left composite and a right-right composite. He found that:
… head turns of just 15 degrees can bring about significant changes in the perceived emotionality.
Nicholls discusses the implications with regards to the fact that portraits tend to feature the left side of the face. However, it is also interesting to think about what this means for non-verbal communication. Another paper, using 3D imaging of facial movements showed that:
Emotions are expressed more clearly on the left side of the face than the right … There was a trend, however, for left-sided movement to be more pronounced for negative than positive emotions.
These last few weeks we’ve been talking about human rights, and today I heard a poignant article on NPR about the anti-homosexual bill being debated in Uganda. It touches on so many of the rights issues we’ve been discussing in class and more. Incitement by American evangelical pastors, whose invective against homosexuality is subsumed by the more tolerant US culture, can sow viscous seeds of hatred in a less liberal society. The Ugandan law being debated would increase the institutionalized discrimination to the point of including execution for gays and prison sentences for people who do not inform on them.
But the article also addresses Ugandans’ instinctive animosity against colonialism. Since homophobia has taken an important place in the Christian mythology of Uganda (in 1886 two dozen Christian palace pages were executed for not engaging in homosexual acts with the king). When foreigners (NGO’s and liberal governments) say homophobia is a violation of peoples’ human rights, the Christian Ugandan proponents of the bill claim cultural imperialism and colonialism. Note the phrase “Christian Ugandan” and consider the irony.
As an added bonus, there’s also Rick Warren, the American mega-church pastor, quoting Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” in his late-in-coming but nice to hear condemnation of the bill. It raises the question of moral conflict, as sincere opponents of gay rights see their works taken to their scary extreme.
Adolescents often need help to realize that words have power, sometimes much more than you realize.
Though it’s not emphasized, the article also has a lesson on checks and balances in a democratic government; the Ugandan president now opposes the bill. It also teaches about international relations and the power of diplomacy. Sweden has said it will cut international aid to Uganda and the issue is overtaking other international issues. The BBC article on the topic has a great quote from President Museveni:
“The prime minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays,” he said.
“[UK] Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays.
“Mrs Clinton [the US secretary of state] rang me. What was she talking about? Gays.”
Galileo Galilei matched careful observation of sunlight and shadows on the moon, with some beautiful geometry to estimate the height of lunar mountains, in 1609. He needed the Pythagoras’ Theorem and the quadratic formula, both of which middle school students should be familiar. Larry Phillips has a nice post describing how Galileo did the math. The image below (from Pioneers of Science shows how to get started.
From the Gutenberg Project eBook of Pioneers of Science by Oliver Lodge.
Perhaps one of the most amazing sequences of images ever taken. NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft took these movies looking back at the Earth from 50 million km away. You can see the moon clearly crossing the face of the planet. This really resets your perspective. The full movie is below.
To get anywhere in the solar system takes a long time and is not easy. The Mars rovers took years to get there and were built to be very light because heavier spacecraft are harder to lift into orbit and take more energy to get them where they’re going (and to slow the down when they get there). Getting humans to other planets, or even another solar system, is an even greater challenge. New Scientist magazine has a nice little article on different types of deep-space spacecraft that might work.
