Dispositions for Good Teaching

The central focus of my work over the past 30 years has been to struggle with two overarching and related questions. First, what are the qualities of personhood that the adults in our nation’s classrooms must embody to be worthy of teaching our richly diverse students? And second, how do we best prepare ourselves and our colleagues for this work? In this article I reflect on the first of these questions, and do so in light of the fact that any discussion of “teacher dispositions,” either in pre-service or in-service contexts, is best engaged from the perspective of the students who populate our nation’s public schools. These children and young adults reflect a multi-faceted and increasingly broad spectrum of racial, cultural, linguistic, economic, religious, and sexual identities. The adults in these spaces determine, in large measure, both the tone and the outcome of schooling. On the one hand, we have teachers who are highly effective in working in diversity-enhanced schools, and on the other, we have those who are utterly unprepared and even destructive in their teaching. Having benefited from the former, an urban African American low-income student, upon receiving an academic award and scholarship at her high school graduation, acknowledged the work of her principal and teachers by saying, “You made us think we were smarter than we thought we were.” And having suffered from the latter, a Jamaican immigrant student said in a town meeting I facilitated for a school district outside New York City, “Some of our teachers steal our hope.

Linking Global Citizenship Education and Education for Democracy through Social Justice: What can we learn from the perspectives of teacher - education candidates

The respective projects of education for global citizenship and education for democracy are inherently intertwined; the richness and salience of one is dependent on the expression of the other. While both of these ideals are varied and broad in definition, they are each gaining prominence in theoretical debates, in policy development, and at the school level, where the implementation of (formal) education takes place. In this article we examine the construction of meanings ascribed to global citizenship education, survey its position in the curriculum today, and connect it with education for democracy. Structured around the findings of a multi-faceted study with teacher-education candidates in education programs at an Ontario, Canada, university, this article uses data that demonstrates how education for democracy, like global citizenship education, is largely perceived in and between a binary of mainstream and critical orientations. Further, we find that central descriptors of critical perspectives have been coopted or conflated, resulting in reduced meaning. To add a practical element to this conversation, we present six proposals to develop and bolster the critical facets of education for democracy and global citizenship, including addressing the local in global, welcoming conflict in learning sites, and highlighting the primacy of equity in each approach

MICROTUBULE PROTEIN : Identification in and Transport to Nerve Endings

The subunit protein of microtubules, tubulin, has been demonstrated to be present in isolated nerve endings by gel electrophoresis, amino acid composition, and peptide mapping. The tubulin constitutes approximately 28% of the soluble protein of the nerve endings. The transport of tubulin to the nerve endings has been demonstrated and its relationship to slow transport is discussed

Long-term yogurt consumption and risk of incident hypertension in adults

The Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study cohorts are supported by grants UM1 CA186107, UM1 CA176726, and UM1 CA167552 from the National Institutes of Health. The current analyses were supported by small grants from the National Dairy Council, the General Mills Bell Institute for Health and Nutrition, and the Boston Nutrition and Obesity Research Center. The Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center is administratively based at Boston Medical Center and is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIDDK) grant P30DK046200. (UM1 CA186107 - National Institutes of Health; UM1 CA176726 - National Institutes of Health; UM1 CA167552 - National Institutes of Health; small grants from the National Dairy Council; General Mills Bell Institute for Health and Nutrition; Boston Nutrition and Obesity Research Center; P30DK046200 - National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIDDK))Accepted manuscrip

Seasonal variation in recapture of mass-reared sterile codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae): implications for control by sterile insect technique in British Columbia

In 1992, the Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release (SIR) Programme was initiated to eradicate codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L.), from montane, fruit-growing valleys in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Excessive damage in 1994, and failures to maintain sterile:wild (S:W) over- flooding moth ratios at 40:1, a target deemed necessary for eradication, led to concern about activity of sterile moths and recommendations to supplement control in spring. Using pheromone-baited wing traps and passive sticky pane traps we monitored operational S:W ratios to determine if they continued to fall below 40:1 post-1994. Seasonal flight activity and recapture of sterile moths was compared with that of wild moths from 7 May - 1 September, 1995 - 1999, in nine commercial orchards in Cawston, BC. Mean weekly catches of wild males in pheromone traps, reflected first- (May) and second-generation (August) peaks of flight activity in orchards supplemented with pheromone disruption, but only a single period of activity in insecticide supplemented orchards. Weekly catches of sterile moths in these same orchards were always at their lowest in spring, and activity was correlated with seasonal air temperatures. Yearly average S:W ratios in the insecticide-treated orchards ranged from 24:1 - 203:1 in 1995 - 1997. Examining S:W ratios using data from those weeks when wild moths were actually caught, indicates ratios were frequently (29 - 91%) less than 40:1 in spring but S:W ratios fell below 40:1 less often during summer than spring. Passive pane traps also revealed patterns of fewer sterile moth catches, and lower S:W ratios in spring, compared with summer. Our data suggest low overflooding ratios contributed to slower than predicted population reductions, and increased release of sterile moths, of improved quality, between 1995 and 1997 did not significantly increase mean weekly catches or S:W ratios in individual orchards in spring. Therefore, continued application of supplemental insecticides, or a pheromone disruption treatment that reduced catch of moths, but did not significantly affect S:W ratios in spring, is recommended. We conclude that similar analysis of trap data for the entire SIR Programme (1994 - 2004) and correlations with damage would provide recommendations for the best use of sterile insects as part of any future area-wide codling moth management programme

Effect of Cigarette Smoke Exposure and Mutant Kras Overexpression on Pancreatic Cell Proliferation

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer‑associated mortality. The major risk factor for pancreatic cancer is cigarette smoking. Kras mutations are commonly observed in human pancreatic cancers. The present study examined the hypothesis that exposure to cigarette smoke and overexpression of a mutant Kras gene in the pancreas affects pancreatic cell proliferation in mice. Mice overexpressing the mutant Kras gene (KRasG12D) in the pancreas as well as wild‑type mice were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke for 2 weeks. Overexpression of mutant Kras increased cell proliferation in pancreatic ductal, acinar and islet cells. Notably, cigarette smoke exposure decreased cell proliferation in pancreatic ductal and acinar cells, and had no effect in islet cells. Cigarette smoke did not affect pancreatic protein levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α, p53, or cyclin D1, but mutant Kras overexpression slightly decreased TNFα and p53 protein levels. Therefore, pancreatic cell proliferation in mice overexpressing mutant Kras is associated with the later development of pancreatic tumors, but effects of cigarette smoke on pancreatic cell proliferation do not provide a good model for human pancreatic carcinogenesis

LHS6343C: A Transiting Field Brown Dwarf Discovered by the Kepler Mission

We report the discovery of a brown dwarf that transits one member of the M+M binary system LHS6343AB every 12.71 days. The transits were discovered using photometric data from the Kelper public data release. The LHS6343 stellar system was previously identified as a single high-proper-motion M dwarf. We use high-contrast imaging to resolve the system into two low-mass stars with masses 0.45 Msun and 0.36 Msun, respectively, and a projected separation of 55 arcsec. High-resolution spectroscopy shows that the more massive component undergoes Doppler variations consistent with Keplerian motion, with a period equal to the transit period and an amplitude consistent with a companion mass of M_C = 62.8 +/- 2.3 Mjup. Based on an analysis of the Kepler light curve we estimate the radius of the companion to be R_C = 0.832 +/- 0.021 Rjup, which is consistent with theoretical predictions of the radius of a > 1 Gyr brown dwarf.Comment: Our previous analysis neglected the dependence of the scaled semimajor axis, a/R, on the transit depth. By not correcting a/R for the third-light contamination, we overestimated the mass of Star A, which led to an overestimate the mass and radius of the LHS6343