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Making mistakes is human and learning from mistakes, too

Allowing children to make mistakes builds their autonomy, increases their tolerance for frustration, and teaches them how to manage their emotions appropriately. Making mistakes is a natural part of any learning process, and it is key to the development of personality in childhood and adolescence. Few adults have doubts about it, and yet many parents try at all costs to prevent their children from falling into error and consequent ...Read full article...

The children of the future: Strong minds, warm hearts

Educate in empathy to reduce violence and increase happiness is the key to having a stronger society. The brain areas that regulate empathy overlap in part with those of violence, so activation of these brain circuits in one direction, for example, in empathy, could act biologically as an inhibitor of the other. Violence and empathy, therefore, would be related but incompatible concepts, so the more empathetic someone is, the ...Read full article...

Coronavirus: The role of the press

In any free society, the press’ role is to inform, not to tell people what to think. However, for decades, media companies found a gold mine in creating polemic on television and radio and decided to create talk shows where journalists and so-called experts opine – not inform – about the news of the day. Parallel to finding talk shows as a gold mine to attract viewers, the press ...Read full article...

Overdiagnosis and Overmedication threaten the lives of Children

Autism, attention deficit disorder, anxiety. A precipitated diagnosis and a so-called definitive conclusion for a growing child with a “strange” behaviour can lead to a boy or girl to be labelled under a category that will surely accompany him all his life, with the consequent consequences, both individual and social. Some health professionals aim to point out this operating model. These professionals include psychologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians, teachers, professors, among ...Read full article...

Body composition: Does the scale tell you the truth?

You want to get in shape and you decide to give the gym a chance. Apart from showing off a more stylized body, you have read that strength exercise is life insurance. You overcome the first laces and laziness starts, the plan is going well, but when you get on the scale, impatient to see the fruit of so much work, what you contemplate leaves you out of play; ...Read full article...

Stealth Mosquitoes take over the cities

Mosquitoes that transmit diseases such as malaria, dengue or Zika virus have found a paradise in cities. Although their original habitat for laying eggs is the hollows of trees in rainforests, where there is stagnant water, these insects have adapted very well to urban environments. For them, a pot represents an ideal nest. Two researchers, one from Miami and one from Pisa, have analyzed what makes these animals so ...Read full article...

Get to know the mysterious teenage brain

Adolescence is the stage of development in which the transition to adult life takes place and is characterized by an accelerated growth rate. During this time, there are a series of neurological, cognitive and socio-emotional changes, in addition to physical and sexual maturation. All these experiences include the transition to social and economic independence, the development of identity, an increase in self-centeredness, the acquisition of the skills necessary to ...Read full article...

The Capital Sin of Education: The lack of incentive to Learn

If you knew everything, what incentive would you have to find new things to learn? Probably none. Well, that is the reality of the traditional education system. Most classes, including language classes, whose mirror is the traditional educational model base their methods on providing answers and content, rather than letting students find them by themselves. In other words, the desire to know and learn is discouraged. In a world ...Read full article...

Don’t let your children’s grades define them

Error as a source of learning rather than a symbol of failure is necessary and essential to life, but in today’s educational system error is penalized. One way or another, we all fall or have fallen into traps. We have believed that school grades mean something, that they tell us how our children work, how intelligent they are, how they behave in class and worst of all, we have ...Read full article...

Generation OW: Addicted to screens and unhealthy habits

85% of teenage girls are sedentary while male lack of physical activity hits 78% in a generation that has been baptized as OW for overweight. Experts have long been warning that young people do not do all the physical exercise they should. Now we have the confirmation: 80% of adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age around the world do not perform the minimum daily activity to be ...Read full article...

Only science and technology will fire up Education

Curricula should reinforce collaborative skills and critical thinking. Education is boring because current programs and methodologies date to 1900s. That is why the educational systems should be updated to enhance creative skills, critical thinking and teamwork in a practical and collaborative environment focused on the development of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. That is the objective of 239 international companies that gathered at the International Exhibition of Technology ...Read full article...

Personal Sovereignty leads to Exceptionalism

It’s not the flag, it’s what it represents. It’s not the national anthem, it’s what it represents. It’s not the country, it’s what it represents. It’s not you, it’s what you represent. Arrogance is nothing else than proudness of one’s insufficiencies. An arrogant individual is one who clings to things that do not exist or that ceased to exist. The opposite of an arrogant individual is someone who seeks ...Read full article...

Meet the wealthy, famous polluters

The wealthiest people on the planet earn more and pollute more. Isn’t it tempting to believe millionaires when they tell you they, more than anyone else, care about the environment? Isn’t impossible to not believe their claims about saving the planet when they donate so much money to ‘favour the poor’? In practice, all of that sounds noble, but when posing a magnifying glass over these and other claims, ...Read full article...

Support Organic Farming: Eat locally grown foods

When you talk about eating organic, it is not about eating less meat or not being able to eat what we love. It is about eating what is available in local businesses and markets, which has not traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to reach our tables. Basically, eating organic is about being self-sufficient at the family, community and country level, rather than importing fruits, vegetables and, grains, for ...Read full article...

Why the melting pot is not always positive

The smells, noises and mixture of personalities is not always positive. The cultural, political and social melting pot also results in negative consequences for all. Human civilization is a fascinating story about the search for ways to approach our own existence. Until then we had spilled into small groups across the planet, but we found a different way to settle in the world, and get more energy from their ...Read full article...