Boarding Schools for Girls

Larry Cohen has been a teacher, principal and school social worker. All of those careers have required him to interact with students, and over the years, he's learned some things that he's now sharing in his book, I'm Still Trying to Figure It All Out Myself.

Cohen and his book were featured in an article by Jennifer Broadwater of the Howard County Times:

In 25 chapters, he outlines the qualities he believes are essential to leading a "healthy, safe, successful, and happy life." ...

"I just feel that kids need to be made aware of the risks. Accidents are really incidents. They can be avoidable," he said. "I don't want to be preachy, but what I hope comes through in the book is that despite all this, hey, life's OK. But we've got choices to make to keep it OK, because your life can change on a dime."

Among Cohen's chapters are those focused on family and parenting, education, open-mindedness, respect and self-respect, responsibility and following through, self-control, attitude, hope and optimism, empathy, laughter, sense of purpose, and a dozen more.

"In the end, it is the choices we make that ultimately shape our lives -- our choices in our attitude, in what we say and do, in how we act and react, in how we behave, and in how we choose to treat ourselves and others," Cohen writes in the book.

Labels: parenting, advocacy

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Too much work, too much stress and too little sleep have all been associated with negative health outcomes in adolescents and teenagers. And a new study from Duke University and the University of North Carolina indicates that many employers may be contributing to these problems.

• The Duke/UNC researchers have determined that many employers are breaking state laws by allowing teenagers to work more than three hours a day on school days and to work late hours at night.
  
• Youth under 16 years of age are required to have a work for signed by their parents and employers.
  
• They are not permitted to work between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. or long hours when school is in session.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.

Labels: work, sleep, stress

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It is okay to encourage students to go to college even if they don't show promise academically, according to a new study in the American Sociological Review. Children who do not get into college or complete their degrees do not suffer mental health damage if encouraged to do so.

• Professors John Reynolds and Charlie Baird found that the percentage of high school seniors who want to get college degrees had doubled compared to the percentage of people who had earned degrees between 1976 and 2000.
  
• This created an effect they called "ambition inflation."
  
• In order to study this effect, the researchers used data on 4300 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, comparing symptoms of depression among those did and those who did not achieve their educational goals.
  
• There was little difference between the two groups.

However, students with lower levels of education showed depression relating to lower attainment, but not from feelings of failure. Many young people believe that they can go back and earn degrees in their 30's or even later.

"Aiming high and failing has consequences to mental health, while trying may lead to higher achievements and the mental and material benefits that go along with achievements," Dr. Reynolds said. "Young adults with college expectations may visualize having their entire lives to realize their educational plans."

Labels: colleges, education

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A new study from the Kamaron Institute of Management Consulting Educational Services found that 48 percent of American pre-teens and teenagers -- and 30 percent of elementary students -- are affected by cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is a term that describes the use of Internet e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, cell phones, or other forms of information technology to deliberately hurt, taunt, ridicule, threaten or intimidate someone.

About 70 percent of those surveyed told researchers that they were unlikely to tell their parents about the incidents. The most popular reasons given for cyberbullying were not liking a person and believing bullying is humorous.

The Institute surveyed thousands of students and teachers in order to design lesson plans, activities, prevention strategies, videos, and guides for parents and teachers.

"Most students we survey are unaware they could be leaving a trail of electronic fingerprints in their wake," said Margaret Ross, CEO of Kamaron. "When I speak with teen leadership organizations discovering they may not be as invisible as they thought, it makes a big impact."

Labels: cyber-bullying

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A California sorority has created a program to help boost the self-esteem and achievement potential of adolescent girls. According to a Feb. 17 article by Jennie Rodriguez of recordnet.com, the sorority women are working with students in Stockton, Calif.:

Members of the Gamma Alpha Omega sorority at University of the Pacific started the program, White Roses, last year to help adolescent girls with educational and personal issues that may put them at risk of one day dropping out of high school.

Sorority members collaborated with Stockton Unified School District teachers to create a curriculum that's aimed at helping the girls become well-rounded. It entails leadership workshops, tutoring, mentorship and community service.

This year, the sorority is concentrating on Cleveland School.

For 13-year-old Ariel Raquel, the one-on-one attention she receives from the sorority sisters allows her to communicate her needs better. "They actually helped me a lot, especially with homework," said Raquel, an eighth-grade student.

Labels: mentoring, girls education

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A middle school in Virginia is among the most recent public schools to incorporate single-sex classrooms in an effort to enhance the learning environment for both male and female students.

A Feb. 17 article by Tisha Thompson of foxla.com provided the following details about effect that the gender-specific initiative at Virginia's Woodbridge Middle School is having on female students in one teacher's math classes:

"Before, the girls never spoke up," [Math teacher Sara McLaughlin] said. "They never talked. It was the boys that dominated the class." Now, McLaughlin says she gets lots of girls volunteering, like sixth grader Erin Andre. "Boys they can just make you feel so little. And you don't have to feel so little in here."

Teaching methods are different. Girls always work with partners or in groups. We do more girly type things like I'll try and use an example of going to the mall," says McLaughlin.

In between problems the girls get a surprise quick break to chat with friends. But then, its right back to the numbers, without the distraction of boys. "Now in my math class I feel like the entire 90 minutes is focused on math," says McLaughlin.

Labels: single-sex education, math

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During a March 13 interview with Katie Couric during The Daily Beast's "Women in the World" conference in New York, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan described 2010 as an essential year in the effort to educate girls and young women.

A March 13 cbsnews.com post by Alex Sundby provided the following details about the queen's dedication to educating girls:

"I really do think this is a do-or-die year, and I don't mean that metaphorically; education really can mean life or death," Queen Rania told Couric, according to The Daily Beast.

Without a major initiative to educate the 600 million girls in the developing world, they are condemned to lives of poverty and disease, Queen Rania told Couric.

"Educating a girl is probably the highest returning investment that a country can make," the queen said.

Labels: girls education

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Spending too much time watching television, surfing the Internet, playing computer games, texting on cell phones, watching movies, and reading magazines is taking a toll on the health of American children and teenagers, according to a new study from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Victor Strasburger and his colleagues went through studies on the effects of media consumption and found that too much exposure to media makes children more violent, more likely to engage in early sex, more likely to consume tobacco and alcohol, more likely to be obese, and more likely to have attention deficit disorder.

For example, the impact of media violence on real-life aggression is 0.31 times higher, a statistic compared to the impact of smoking and lung cancer, which is 0.39 higher.

Dr. Strasburger had three guidelines for parents:

• Limit media to less than one or two hours a day;
• Keep media devices out of young people's bedrooms;
• Watch media with your child and discuss the contents.

In the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Strasburger noted in his reported that today's children spend as much time with media as they do sleeping.

"Too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects, and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media," according to the report. "More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concerned and increased action."

Labels: media_influences, health

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Teenagers who contract mononucleosis are at greater risk for chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a new study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

• Dr. Ben Katz and his colleagues studied 301 teenagers with mononucleosis, and found that 24 percent did not make a full recovery within six months of being diagnosed.
  
• Two years later, 4 percent had chronic fatigue syndrome -- a prevalence that was 20 times the rate of the general teenage population.
  
• Dr. Katz is now trying to figure out why some teenagers recover and others do not.

The study appeared in the journal Pediatrics.

Labels: health

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Girls and boys express mean behaviors in different ways -- but a new study from Australia found that both boys and girls share a similar understanding and experience with mean behaviors.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rhiarne Pronk of Griffith University studied relational aggression and victimization among teenagers, and found that both boys and girls experience unpredictable friendships, social exclusion, rumor mongering and gossip, some of which involves e-mail and the Internet. However, both groups used these techniques to enhance their social standing or acceptance.

Dr. Pronk found that certain characteristics put adolescence at higher risk for victimization in relationships. These factors might include a lack of social appeal or emotional reactiveness. Children who are too popular or too talented also attract relational aggression.

The study appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Labels: relationships, aggression, bullies

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Teen pregnancy is on the rise again this year, and many girls admit to getting pregnant so they can "have someone to love." But parenting isnt all cuddles and warm fuzzies. A unique parenting class aims to get that point across.

"Since last Thursday& a Vidalia High School [MS] sophomore has been caring for a mechanical baby that needs all the tender, loving care a newborn baby needs. She fed, soothed, cleaned and changed the diaper of her lifelike doll equipped with sensors that recorded her every move 24 hours a day. Her parenting class teacher will receive a report from the electronic doll that will be used to determine [the students] final grade." [Source: The Natchez (Missouri) Democrat]

The student admitted to the newspaper that she has been spending a lot less time with her friends, and that caring for the baby is harder than she expected.

"I'm not having kids anytime soon," she said.

Labels: pregnancy, mothers, teenagers

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