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The summary points out that "Cyberbullying is widespread among today's teens, with over one-third having experienced it, engaged in it, or known of friends who have who have done either." But that one-third is cumulative of bullies, people who have been bullied and even people who know someone who's been bullied.

20 percent of teens "say they have sent/posted nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves." But the data from the Cox survey showed that while 20 percent of teens "have engaged in sexting," that number, too, is cumulative. Only 9 percent "sent a sext," while 17 percent received one, and 3 percent forwarded a "sext."

it's important for parents to talk with their teens about appropriate use of the Internet. Don't scare them or shut down their use, but do remind them to mind their manners, think before they post, and seek help if someone is bullying or harassing them.

no better place for my children to watch that speech (or any other, for that matter) than in a place where ideas are encouraged, where critical thinking about those ideas is a natural part of the conversation, and where appropriate response and debate can flourish. Where the adults in the room lead my kids to dig deeper, to validate facts, and consider the many levels of context in which every speech and every debate takes place. Where the discussion around it is such that it lays to rest the concern that many seem to have about this particular speech in general, that in some way the President will be able to “indoctrinate” our kids into some socialist mindset. If schools are the fully functioning learning communities that we hope they are, they should be the place where our kids learn to make sense of ideas, not to fear them. That, however, is not the message we are sending.

In the midst of all of the “uproar” over the President’s planned speech to school kids on Tuesday, I keep thinking about what all of this says about schools, about what they are for, and about the perception that a lot of people in this country have of them.

Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.

today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors

we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed

A Textbook Example of What's Wrong with Education A former schoolbook editor parses the politics of educational publishing.by Tamim Ansary var addthis_options = 'delicious, digg, facebook, google, reddit, stumbleupon, twitter, more'; Print Forward addthis_pub = 'glef'; Share Comments(38) Comment RSS Click to enlarge pictureThe Muddle Machine Credit: Monte Wolverton Some years ago, I signed on as an editor at a major publisher of elementary school and high school textbooks, filled with the idealistic belief that I'd be working with equally idealistic authors to create books that would excite teachers and fill young minds with Big Ideas. Not so. I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, "The books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone today!" Every time a friend with kids in school tells me textbooks are too generic, I think back to that moment. "Who writes these things?" people ask me. I have to tell them, without a hint of irony, "No one." It's symptomatic of the whole muddled mess that is the $4.3 billion textbook business. Textbooks are a core part of the curriculum, as crucial to the teacher as a blueprint is to a carpenter, so one might assume they are conceived, researched, written, and published as unique contributions to advancing knowledge.