An Off-Label Use of Parental Rights? The Unanticipated Doctrinal Antidote for Professor Mnookin’s Diagnosis

In the intersection of technology, curriculum and intentions, a specific issue of interest is found in the gap between teachers’ intentions and implementations of curriculum. Instead of approaching curriculum and technology as something fait accompli, teachers are considered crucial in the re-discovery of what and how to teach. The thesis depicts the mind-set of teachers and their beliefs in relation to computing curriculum. Three perspectives are covered in the thesis. Based on original documents and interviews with curriculum developers, the enactment of the computing/programming curriculum during the 1970s and 1980s is explored (Paper 1). This historical perspective is supplemented with a perspective from the present day where current teaching practice is explored through teachers’ statements (seminars with associated questionnaires) regarding their beliefs about teaching and learning programming(Paper 2). Finally with a view from a theoretical perspective, teachers’perception of instruction is discussed in relation to a theoretical framework where their intentions in relation to theoretical and practical aspects of knowledge are revealed (Papers 3 &amp; 4). The initial incitement to offer computing education during the 1970s was discovered in the recruitment of a broader group of students within the Natural Science Programme and the perception that it would contribute to the development of students’ ability to think logically and learn problem solving skills. Data concerning teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning programming unravels an instructional dependence among today’s teachers where students’ logical and analytical abilities (even before the courses start) are considered crucial to students’ learning, while teachers question the importance of their pedagogy. The thesis also discover two types of instruction; a large group putting emphasis on the syntax of programming languages, and a smaller group putting emphasis on the students’ experiences of learning concepts of computer science (not necessarily to do with syntax). In summary the thesis depicts an instructional tradition based on teachers’ beliefs where the historical development of the subject sets the framework for the teaching. Directly and indirectly the historical development and related traditions govern what programming teachers in upper secondary school will/are able to present to their students. From deploying two theoretical approaches, phenomenography and logic of events, upon teacher’s cases it is shown that the intended object of learning (iOoL) is shaped by the teacher’s intentions (e.g., balancing the importance oftheory and practice, using different learning strategies, encouraging learning by trial-and-error and fostering collaboration between students for a deeper understanding). The teachers also present a diverse picture regarding what theoretical knowledge students will reach for.QC 20150227</p

Kids Are Not So Different: The Path from Juvenile Exceptionalism to Prison Abolition

Inspired by the Supreme Court’s embrace of developmental science in a series of Eighth Amendment cases, “kids are different” has become the rallying cry, leading to dramatic reforms in our response to juvenile crime designed to eliminate the incarceration of children and support their successful transition to adulthood. The success of these reforms represents a promising start, but the “kids are different” approach is built upon two flaws in the Court’s developmental analysis that constrain the reach of its decisions and hide the true implications of a developmental approach. Both the text of the Court’s opinions and the developmental and neuroscientific research on which the opinions rely reveal that the developmental approach is not coherently defined by the legal line between childhood and adulthood. This lack of alignment has led to calls to extend the age of juvenile exceptionalism to young adulthood. But extending the exceptionalist frame obscures the central role that immaturity plays in most offenders’ full criminal careers and preserves a destructive fiction that youthful offenders are a distinctive, more sympathetic, and less corrupt subset of the millions of people charged with committing crimes. This Article argues that the developmental approach, followed to its logical conclusion, calls not for an age extension for juvenile exceptionalism but rather for a wholesale remaking of the entire criminal justice system in line with an abolitionist vision

The Adolescent\u27s Stake in the Allocation of Educational Control between Parent and State

Courts policymakers; and scholars have long struggled with the question of how to allocate educational control between parents and the state, particularly where parents\u27 preferences are religiously motivated. While the debate reflects a broad range of viewpoints, these viewpoints share a common blind spot: They focus on the state\u27s interest in imparting certain knowledge and skills; and ignore the state\u27s interest in facilitating interactions among ideologically diverse peers. This Article argues that, particularly for older adolescents, the nature of their peer interactions has a far bigger impact on their development than does the content of their curriculum. Drawing on the psychological literature of child development, this Article suggests that exposing these older adolescents to ideologically unlike peers will facilitate identity development that best balances their interest in maintaining a sense of affiliation with their parents\u27 religious community, on the one hand, and their interest in exercising autonomy in the making of important choices, on the other. This Article raises questions about the appropriateness of home schooling and even private religious schooling in the late teenage years, and considers measures short of prohibiting such forms of education that might encourage ideological mixing among older adolescents