The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Watering brains

Students writing exams during hot weather are advised to water their brains. Researchers at London’s Institute of Psychiatry and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge found that “teenagers’ brains work less efficiently when they become dehydrated, making tasks such as problem-solving far harder.” Researchers cautioned that “poorly ventilated classrooms or exam halls could lead to pupils becoming dehydrated enough to affect the neural activity in key parts of their brains.”

Purging history in Texas

The Texas State Board of Education has approved controversial changes to that state’s social studies textbooks. The Huffington Post reported May 25 that in Texas, “where half of the four million students are Hispanic, references to the cultural contributions of Latinos are being pruned from the curriculum.” Changes are pushing the curriculum in a more conservative direction, critics argued. Especially worrisome is the fact that other school districts buy educational materials produced in Texas. “Decisions that are made in Texas have a ripple effect across the country,” said Phillip VanFossen, head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and professor of social studies education at Purdue University, Indiana.