The Foot and the Flag: Patriotism, Place, and the Teaching of War in a Military Town

This manuscript describes the patriotism taught and not taught by nine teachers to the children of soldiers near a military base in the American South. The nine teachers, all participants in a qualitative study, detail the pressures endured and the pedagogical and curricular decisions made as result. The teachers experienced social and political pressure from the broader community to avoid controversial or complex issues, fear that complicated teaching troubling more simple notions of patriotism would stress or possibly traumatize their students (the children of soldiers), and pressure to teach within the district-assigned curriculum map. The teachers responded in different ways. However, each path taken by teachers led to uncomplicated and uninterrupted notions of patriotism

Between the Visceral and the Lie : Lessons on Teaching Violence

Drawing from two qualitative case studies, one researching how teachers teach about war to the children of soldiers and the other examining how teachers teach lynching near historic lynching sites, this critical phenomenological study weighs how much horror and how much hope should be taught if the aim of the instruction is a liberating education. The author argues that a balance of both is necessary. Students cannot be left in the hopelessness of knowledge alone but must be taught how to engage their world with the possibility of making change

Musical Expression on Wind Instruments: Perspectives from a Panel of Experts

Musical expression, or a performer’s interpretation of the aesthetic message intended by the composer, involves thoughtful manipulation of perceptual variables such as dynamics, tempo, articulation, and timbre. Musical expression is commonly associated with artistry and achievement in music, yet research on pedagogy for teaching musical expression to wind instrumentalists is limited. The purpose of this study is to use perspectives from professional wind instrumentalists and conductors to explore how musical expression on wind instruments is demonstrated and measured. The qualitative tradition of the Delphi method, with three rounds of data collection, provided the structure for answering the research questions. The importance of effectively communicating musical interpretation through performance was a recurring theme within the data collection as well as the literature review. Findings suggest that a performer’s abilities both to appropriately analyze the music and then to successfully communicate his or her interpretation of the music to a listener are critical for achieving artistry in musical expression. The study may provide valuable insight for a deeper understanding of pedagogical strategies needed for teaching musical expression to wind instrumentalists

Critical teaching in classrooms of healing: Struggles and testimonios

Using testimonio methodology, this article describes the testimonio and struggle of two Chicanx activist social studies teachers teaching in a large urban high school serving socio-economically poor Latinx students. Both teach critically working to develop their students’ understanding of how their ethnic and community histories contrast with larger historical narratives. Both teach the racism, misogyny, and homophobia rampant in American history by connecting it to the present. They also engage a culturally sustaining pedagogy to give students strength from their cultural inheritance. Each approached this differently, one developing an ethnic studies course, and the second developing a circulo de hombres, and embedding a youth participation action research. Each teacher tackled critical teaching and healing simultaneously from different perspectives yielding a variety of accompanying struggles

Threading the Needle: On Balancing Trauma and Critical Teaching

This essay describes and takes up the task of what the authors call threading the needle—teaching difficult content with a critical lens while simultaneously teaching with a trauma-informed pedagogy. Drawing data from three qualitative studies, one focused on teachers teaching for social justice in unjust school spaces, another looking at how teachers teach war to the children of soldiers, and a third how teachers teach lynching in schools near historic lynching sites, this manuscript argues that threading the needle is made more difficult by a too generalized definition of trauma informed teaching, shortsighted professional development on the topic, and too little direction on pedagogy. This leaves teachers feeling adrift and subtly signaled to avoid teaching difficult content with a critical lens, confirming for some teachers the absence of teaching controversial topics of race, class, gender, sex, and resistance altogether while others teach critically, but quietly, outside the watchful eye of the school

PRICKLE1 MUTATION CAUSES PLANAR CELL POLARITY AND DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION DEFECTS ASSOCIATED WITH CARDIAC OUTFLOW TRACT ANOMALIES AND OTHER STRUCTURAL BIRTH DEFECTS

Planar cell polarity (PCP) is controlled by a highly conserved pathway that regulates directional cell behavior during development. Here, we show that Bj mutant mice harboring a mutation in Prickle1 (Pk1), a core PCP component, exhibit a wide spectrum of developmental phenotypes with a common etiology involving cell polarity defects, including skeletal anomalies, cochlear patterning defects, and congenital cardiac anomalies. As a result, Bj mutants die at birth with cardiac outflow tract (OFT) malalignment. This is associated with a shortened OFT due to loss of polarized cell orientation and failure of second heart field cell intercalation in the dorsal pericardial wall required for OFT lengthening. OFT myocardialization was also disrupted with cardiomyocytes failing to align with the direction of cell invasion into the outflow cushions. The expression of genes mediating canonical and noncanonical Wnt signaling were altered. Also noted in the Bj mutants were shortened but widened bile ducts, along with reduced b-catenin expression indicating disruption in canonical Wnt signaling. Using an in vitro wound closure assay to examine cell migration behavior, we showed Bj mutant mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells are unable to establish polarized cell morphology or engage in directional cell migration. The actin cytoskeleton in mutant MEFs failed to align with the direction of wound closure. Unexpectedly, Pk1 mutants exhibited cilia defects, shown by reduction of primary cilia formation in Bj mutant MEFs and functional and structural defects associated with motile cilia in the tracheal epithelia. These findings are intriguing given the phenotypes exhibited by the Bj mutants are reminiscent of those seen in ciliopathies, suggesting Pk1 may play a role in regulation of cilia. Together these findings show Pk1 plays an essential role in PCP and the regulation of cell polarity and directional cell migration essential for development of the OFT and other tissues.Doctor of Philosoph

Winning counterterrorism's version of Pascal's wager, but struggling to open the purse

AbstractLankford's essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford's data. However, I question his ensuing arguments about beauty and goodness, and thereby the practical value of his work in counterterrorist propaganda.</jats:p

Predisposing the Decision Maker Versus Framing the Decision: A Consumer-Manipulation Approach to Dynamic Preference

The dominant approach to the study of dynamic preference is to generate preference change by manipulating aspects of decision-problem presentation (problem description, task procedure, contextual options). The predisposing approach instead manipulates the decision maker’s mental state while holding problem presentation constant. Three illustrative studies are outlined here. The first modified preferences for ambitious consumption by manipulating subjects’ consumption energy. The second modified preferences for immediate consumption by manipulating subjects’ hedonic resources. The third modified preferences for consumption itself by manipulating subjects’ desire proneness. Whereas framing is thought to affect perception, predisposing apparently can affect tastes and so involves a special kind of preference dynamism

C++ Compilers & ISO Conformance

Conformance to Standards is becoming recognized as one of the most important assurances compiler vendors can provide to programmers. Conformance enables code portability and wider use of a language and its libraries. However, establishing the conformance of a compiler is difficult—especially for C++, which was slow to develop (with acceptance of a Standard occurring years after the language was introduced)