Category: Body & Mind

Schools Should Teach how to Dissent

The role of schools often gets debated in places where safety and wellbeing are in doubt. Some people argue all schools should do is make kids into workers with little concern towards student’s mental and physical health. On the other hand, many argue schools should be places where kids learn about the world around them for the sake of bettering oneself and society. To me it seems that now more than ever we should encourage education to be all about self and societal improvement (particularly since robots are taking all our jobs). Indeed, over at the Conversation they’re running a piece on the importance of teaching students to question the world in order to improve it.

It is only with the opportunity and capacity to dissent that we can determine if our laws and systems guiding us are good or just. Further, in order to invoke our right to dissent, citizens have to know how to dissent, which calls into play the role of schooling.
…
[Students] should learn the skills of dissent, including consciousness-raising, coalition building, persuasion, public demonstration and pursuit of traditional government avenues for change. This type of instruction is happening in some schools, but not systematically enough across all schools, as courses in civics and social studies have been cut in order to focus on testing and such. Students receive even less of this kind of instruction in poorer schools.

Read more

For Happier Cities get More Cyclists

a couple, bicycles

Cities where people cycle regularly are happier than cities in which cycling is rare. The evidence continues to mount that building good cycling infrastructure will improve the life of everybody in a city – regardless if they ride or not. Urban planners already know that designing cities for pedestrians and cyclists make for better environments and now the on the ground happiness can be traced to it too. Get out there and ride a bike or ask your local politicians to make riding safer.

In Bogotá in 2017, for the first time, there were more survey respondents using bicycles than cars – 9 percent vs. 8 percent – with a satisfaction rate of 85 percent for bicycles against 75 percent for private vehicles. Only 19 percent users of the city’s bus rapid transit system, TransMilenio, reported being satisfied with its service.

The data from Colombia is consistent with international evidence.

A survey of 13,000 people in the United States by researchers from Clemson University in 2014 showed that cyclists were the happiest commuters.

Similarly, a survey of 1,000 people in London showed that 91 percent of the respondents bicycling to work found it satisfactory, while only 74 percent of bus commuters and 73 percent of Underground users were satisfied with their daily travel experience.

In the Global Happiness Report 2017, countries with high bicycle use tend to among the happiest overall, like the Netherlands (ranked sixth; daily bike use: 43 percent), Denmark (ranked third; daily bike user: 30 percent) and Finland (ranked first; daily bike use: 28 percent).

Read more.
Thanks to Delaney!

Ways to Better Avoid Fake News

Argument analysis flowchart
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0

The term fake news may new to the modern discourse but the idea is very old. Before President Trump started making up new phrases we called “fake news” we used words like lies, propaganda, and fiction. Regardless of the source of the term there are ways to protect yourself from falling prey to these efforts to destabilize your brain. A former CIA officer has provided six quick tips to help you better deal with an onslaught of lies when it seems hard to trust news sources.

Don’t Blindly Trust Sources, Assess Them

Diving into the meat of the story itself, readers should pay particular attention to the sources cited and how their background is relevant to the subject at hand.

“Intelligence analysts are careful to explain upon what they are basing their analysis, and that includes explaining the credibility of their sources,” Otis said. “If a piece is on the government, are [the journalists] citing people who worked in government 20 years ago or people who are there with first-hand experience now? Similarly, are they citing a diverse range of experiences and backgrounds, or quoting [or] citing a people who only agree with each other [or] confirm the assessment [or] the event in question?”

Read more.

There are Benefits to Long Commutes

Long commutes feel like a slog, but there are benefits to sitting on a train and staring out the window everyday. Londoners have some of the longest commutes in Europe which has led to some neat research into the benefits of these long and regular journeys. On the way to and from work people are able to contemplate their work-life and have a clear separation between work and home. Another, more obvious, benefit is that people who take public transit to work are healthier than those who drive.

To find out more, Richard Patterson at Imperial College London analysed detailed data from the English National Travel Survey, allowing him to determine exactly how much exercise the average commuter gleans from their daily journey. He found that roughly a third of public transport commuters met the government’s recommendations of 30-minutes exercise a day, through their commute alone.

Patterson points out that governments could consider these benefits when they decide their funding for transport networks, since encouraging people to give up their cars and take a train or bus could end up having a real effect on public health. In the UK, for instance, he calculates that a 10% increase in the use of public transport could result in 1.2 million more people reaching the recommended levels of physical activity. “Some decisions, which may not seem to have much to do with health, can have these knock-on effects for people’s wellbeing,” he says.

Read more.

Want to Impress Your Colleagues? Be Honest With Yourself

Interview

Many people want to change how their coworkers or their boss views them in the workplace, and no matter the reason for wanting a change there are tons of suggestions on how to do so. Indeed the self help industry in the USA is worth $10 billion dollars! That’s a lot of desire for self-improvment in American offices. Here’s a tip to save you money: don’t buy those self-help shills and instead get some self-reflection. It turns out that being conscious of how those around and adding in some metacognition is all you need.

According to executive coach Joel Garfinkle — whose advice is geared more toward your professional relationships — if you’re trying to change the way your coworkers see you, pay close attention to how your behavior impacts them. “Start by being honest with yourself. Notice how your behavior affects those around you. How do people react to you in meetings? In the coffee room or at lunch? If clients aren’t returning your calls, perhaps your behavior is making them feel pressured or uncomfortable,” Garfinkle writes on his blog.

The idea here is that by being honest with yourself about the way you affect others, you can begin to make behavioral changes, like talking less and listening more. “If you’re the type who usually dominates the conversation in meetings or groups, try keeping absolutely quiet and taking notes for a change,” writes Garfinkle. “If you usually hang back and let others take the spotlight, write down some key points that are relevant to the topic being discussed and speak up.” According to Garfinkle, making these changes will slowly change your colleagues’ perception of you.

Read more.