A Look at Obama and Education

Previously, I’ve lambasted the Republicans for their corporate and terrifying views and ideas about education. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the concept of privatizing education in the US is one of the more disturbing campaign trends that I have seen. I pray to god that I will never see the day that happens. The idea of corporate owned schools is too ridiculous to fathom, yet the Republican candidates are pushing for it quite hard.

            What about the Democrats? I have to show both sides of the story after all, so I started doing some research on what Obama has done during his time in office. In less than five minutes time I found myself with a browser full of tabs. I found news story after news story detailing all of the bills that he has passed to help education and educators.  I’m going to go through a few of them below.

            One of the first things that I found was Obama’s reform of the No Child Left behind act. In September of last year, Obama permitted states to ignore some of the main tenets of Bush’s No Child Left Behind act.

He commented on this decision with “We can’t let another generation of young people fall behind because we didn’t have the courage to recognize what doesn’t work, admit it and replace it with something that does. We’ve got to act now.” Now that sounds like the president I voted for.  Link

He went on to say, “Teachers too often are being forced to teach to the test.  Subjects like history and science have been squeezed out.  And in order to avoid having their schools labeled as failures, some states perversely have actually had to lower their standards in a race to the bottom, instead of race to the top.”

So, right off the bat I stumbled across something spectacular. Barack Obama undid one of the biggest failures in education from the Bush administration. So, I took an internet stroll over to one of my favorite websites “WhatTheFuckHasObamaDoneSoFar.com” It didn’t take long to stumble over this gem. (citation) When Obama passed The American Recovery and Restoration Act in during his administration, he saved the jobs of over 400,000 teachers across America. That is absolutely astounding!  The entire state of Wyoming has 568,000 people. Obama’s  work saved almost an entire state’s worth of education jobs. Why is no one shouting this information from the rooftops? But wait, there’s more. Part of the Recovery Act was providing 70.3 billion dollars for educational program. (citation) I want to demonstrate just how much 70 billion dollars is.  Egyptian president Mubarak is believed to be the richest man in the entire world. His net worth is 70 billion dollars. That’s how much 70 billion dollars is. (citation) I’m not done. A stealth bomber costs about a billion dollars to produce. It is one of the world’s most advanced planes. It would take seventy stealth bombers to equal the amount of money Obama put towards education.  At every step of the way, Obama has been supporting education in America it seems. I was absolutely astounded to find this out. It would seem like this information should be brought up any time someone discusses education funding in politics. The further I go looking into what Obama has done for this countries education system, the more I am astounded.

One just needs to mosey on over to the White House page of Education to see just how dedicated he is to this nation’s children. Here’s a great one for example, “On December 16, 2011 the Obama Administration announced that nine states -- California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington -- would receive grant awards from the $500 million Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge fund.”   That’s just one example. The list goes on and on down the page.

This being an election year, things are beginning to heat up in the debates. I’ve mentioned that the Republican view of education terrifies me to my core. Rick Santorum, a proponent of privatizing the education system, recently made a comment that has caused quite a stir. Last week Santorum claimed that Obama was a “snob” that wanted everyone to go to college. This was meant to be pejorative, but It doesn’t seem that bad to me. What’s wrong with wanting people to go to college? Absolutely nothing! Hell, a significant portion of our country is currently unemployed. Wouldn’t helping people increase their skill sets and get a degree help fix that issue? I’m no economic theorist; I’m just a poor white college student with a keyboard. However, it seems to make sense to me that education is a good thing. Maybe I’m ranting, but I have opinions and this blog is an outlet for me to express them.

I’m actively afraid of “intellectual fear.” I went to high school in a rural small town deep in the mountains of North Carolina. Something that astounded me was the idea that a college education would turn you into an elite snob. College wasn’t pushed very hard where I’m from. I thought it was just small town intellectual fear. But now I’m hearing it from a front runner of the Republican Party? That is terrifying to me. That small Republican town that I came from is going to hear that Santorum quote and agree with him.

That is why I thank my lucky stars that today it came out that Obama holds double digits over either Romney and Santorum. (citation) Also, today Obama came out and asked the country’s governors to invest more money into education. He believes that if the United States is going to be able to compete in a global economy, we need to have a highly trained workforce. The key to this, he says, is higher education. (citation) 

I suppose that this blog became a little bit of a rant of why I’m voting Obama again, but I’ll be damned if choosing a President that supports education isn’t one of the most important things I can think of.

Autism, the amygdala, and empathy

                This week’s film discussed the topic of disability, art therapy, and education of the disabled. When I hear about educating people with disabilities, I immediately want to know exactly what causes this disability and what effects it causes. I feel like it’s incredibly important to find the root cause of a disorder first, if you wish to educate someone with it. Autism is an interesting example to look into. In fact, the documentary from class discussed autism more than any other disorder.

                Autism is actually a very common disorder and practices in education haven’t really kept up with the research being completed by institutions. In fact, autism is estimated to be found in as many as one or two in a thousand children born today. Many of the issues surrounding autism education are about overcoming the impaired social interactions that are associated with the condition. I believe that in order to overcome these issues, we need to understand their root cause.

                When it comes to autism, we need to examine the structures in the brain that are causing these specific behaviors. Currently, there are many theories that postulate the neurological origin of the disorder. However, in my opinion, the most interesting path to pursue is a structure known for its role in emotion. Currently, there are two camps of thought. The entire debate centers around the role of the amygdala. The amygdala is a small almond shaped clusters of nuclei located in the limbic system. Often times, the limbic system and its surrounding structures are referred to as the “old” or “lizard” brain because of its primitive origins.  It is responsible for a number of neural processes. The amygdala is the center of emotion based learning. When we learn to fear or become anxious of something, we learn to avoid it. This learning is because of the amygdala. However, because of this, over activation of the amygdala seems to be responsible for panic or anxiety attacks in humans.

                How does the amygdala play a role in autism? Bauman and Kemper in 1985 originally noticed that in the brains of post mortem autistic brains, there was severe abnormality in the limbic system, specifically in the amygdala.  Many neuroscientists have postulated that the amygdala is vital in social interactions. Some researchers claim that over-activation of the amygdala would is a cause (or potentially symptom) of autism. They argue that over activation in the limbic system would explain the extreme anxiety associated with social interactions. However, there is an alternative explanation proposed by other theorists stating that it is under-activation of the amygdala that would explain the behavior of social withdrawal and a limited understanding of proper social cues and reactions.

                Assuming that the amygdala is the source of these issues (which some researchers are beginning to believe that the amygdala is a victim of a much larger disorder, however the research is still coming in on that theory), how can we properly begin to instruct individuals with autism? There is a theory that understanding that social interactions may be over stimulating the amygdala is the very first step to fixing the problem. If these individuals are not naturally inclined to understand complex social interaction, and that it may cause something like anxiety attacks, it is probably best to instruct these individuals on proper emotional responses.

                The Autism Research Center, located at the University of Cambridge, has developed a program that can potentially assist children with autism.  This program focuses around fifteen fifteen-minute long CGI episodes. These shows use everyday vehicles such as trams, trains, and other rail based transportation to teach children with autism emotion recognition skills. These rail cars are called The Transporters. Each of the episodes focuses on a particular emotion in context. The programs use these rail cars with oversized and over emoted human faces on the front to demonstrate each emotion. The theory behind the rail based vehicles as characters is that many children with autism prefer motions that are structured and repetitive. These trains can only move on their tracks, therefore they are unable to make spontaneous movements.

                This program sounds like many other educational series aimed at children, however this particular series of exercises has been clinically shown to improve emotion recognition in children with autism. This research is backed by the Autism Research Center and more specifically, Dr. Simon Baron Cohen. Dr. Cohen is a well-respected figure in the autism research field.  The fact that this program has actually shown a marked improvement in emotion recognition is absolutely amazing. This could be an amazing step towards helping to integrate children with autism into the classroom. The video below introduces Dr. Cohen and explains the program.

                Now that I have rambled about the limbic system and rail cars with faces, the question still remains as to how this is going to assist educators. As I said earlier, many of the issues that educators face when working with children with autism is their inability to understand emotion. Now, considering that this short program series (fifteen minutes a day for four weeks) has shown considerable help in allowing these children to understand emotion, this seems like an absolute no brainer. More research based on emotion education needs to be completed. We should be actively searching for a way to assist educationally disabled children become as well rounded as their non-disabled peers.

                What does the amygdala have to do with autism education? I believe that now that we can pinpoint neural structures responsible for these behaviors, we can also begin to assess how to treat children with autism (be it with therapy, biofeedback, or unfortunately medication). However, I believe that this information has a much more practical application. If educators understand that their students are having reactions that are akin to panic attacks, that can help them begin to empathize with the experience that children with autism go through. We often, mistakenly, assume that because children with disabilities are different than us, we cannot possibly understand what kinds of emotions or thoughts that they are having. However, I believe that neurological research in this field can help everyone empathize with educationally disabled individuals, rather than pity them.