Amanda Ripley's Blog, page 5
July 7, 2013
Surviving a Plane Crash
Planes almost never crash. When they do, most people survive. In this way, at least, the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 at SFO on Saturday was no exception.
Of all the people involved in serious plane crashes between 1983 and 2000, over half survived. To be clear, these crashes all involved fire, serious injury and major damage to the aircraft. And yet, as with the Asiana flight, most people emerged from the wreckage.
So what determines who lives and dies? Luck matters. Or fate or whatever you like to call it. But human behavior matters, too. More than we think.
People who move quickly, leave their carry-on baggage behind--and, importantly, take note of theie nearest exit before the crash, perform better, according to aviation safety research and all the plane crash survivors I've ever interviewed. The initial instinct is to do nothing. To shut down, to await direction, which almost never comes.
Survivors, of all kinds of disasters, do not typically wait for directions. They take action. And as we can see from this excellent Wall Street Journal story about the moments after impact on Flight 214, humans are capable of remarkable grace in the most wretched of moments:
"'She was a hero,' he said. 'This tiny, little girl was carrying people piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was crying, but she was still so calm and helping people.'"
We did not evolve to survive plane crashes, it's true. But we're getting there.
Of all the people involved in serious plane crashes between 1983 and 2000, over half survived. To be clear, these crashes all involved fire, serious injury and major damage to the aircraft. And yet, as with the Asiana flight, most people emerged from the wreckage.
So what determines who lives and dies? Luck matters. Or fate or whatever you like to call it. But human behavior matters, too. More than we think.
People who move quickly, leave their carry-on baggage behind--and, importantly, take note of theie nearest exit before the crash, perform better, according to aviation safety research and all the plane crash survivors I've ever interviewed. The initial instinct is to do nothing. To shut down, to await direction, which almost never comes.
Survivors, of all kinds of disasters, do not typically wait for directions. They take action. And as we can see from this excellent Wall Street Journal story about the moments after impact on Flight 214, humans are capable of remarkable grace in the most wretched of moments:
"'She was a hero,' he said. 'This tiny, little girl was carrying people piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was crying, but she was still so calm and helping people.'"
We did not evolve to survive plane crashes, it's true. But we're getting there.
June 21, 2013
Hyperdrive
It used to be enough to go to college, pick up a few skills, and ease onto a career track. But now that information is updated hourly and available to anyone, anywhere, everyone must keep learning. And one thing we know about learning is that you can’t do it if you aren’t motivated. In the July Atlantic, my pitch for teaching motivation in school, early and often.
June 10, 2013
Tracking Around the World
A front page story in today's New York Times proclaims that grouping kids by ability is back in fashion in American classrooms. But that's not all; the article also claims that tracking, which refers to putting children in different classes based on their abilities, is also enjoying a resurgence. That would mean that America is moving in the opposite direction from the smartest countries in the world.
These two very boring terms--grouping and tracking--are actually very different things. And one is much more perilous than the other. Groups of kids, if well-managed by a strong teacher, can be fluid; kids can come and go depending on their needs throughout the year. They are all in the same room, and the content is usually the same--but the faster-moving groups go deeper.
Tracking typically means teaching kids different content in separate classrooms or schools. Statistically speaking, tracking tends to diminish learning and boost inequality wherever it is tried. In general, the younger the tracking happens, the worse the entire country does on PISA, a sophisticated test of critical thinking in math, reading and science. There seems to be some kind of ghetto effect: Once kids are labeled and segregated into the lower track, their learning slows down.
I am not sure if tracking is back in style in the U.S. or not. In fact, I'm not sure it ever went out of style. America has been aggressively--though quietly--tracking kids for a very long time. Tracking in elementary school remains a uniquely American policy. The sorting begins at a very young age, and it comes in the form of magnet schools, honors classes and gifted and talented programs. As kids get older, tracking takes the form of Advanced Placement courses or International Baccalaureate programs. In fact, the United States is one of the few countries where schools not only divide younger children by ability, but actually teach different content to the more advanced track. In other countries, including Germany and Singapore, all kids are meant to learn the same core academic material, but some kids go deeper.
Most higher-performing countries are slowly, haltingly delaying tracking until age 16 or so. When they do so, they see their PISA scores go up. When Poland delayed tracking kids into academic or vocational high schools, their reading scores went from below average for the developed world to above. Kids who would have otherwise been transferred to vocational schools scored about 100 points higher than kids like them who'd taken the same test a few years earlier. The results were breathtaking. The expecations had gone up, and kids had met them.
Today's Times article only offers evidence for an increase in grouping, not tracking. It seems to conflate the two as if they move in tandem. I'm not sure if that is true. Tracking, an old American tradition, is distinctly unAmerican, especially in the younger years. Now is not the time to go back.
These two very boring terms--grouping and tracking--are actually very different things. And one is much more perilous than the other. Groups of kids, if well-managed by a strong teacher, can be fluid; kids can come and go depending on their needs throughout the year. They are all in the same room, and the content is usually the same--but the faster-moving groups go deeper.
Tracking typically means teaching kids different content in separate classrooms or schools. Statistically speaking, tracking tends to diminish learning and boost inequality wherever it is tried. In general, the younger the tracking happens, the worse the entire country does on PISA, a sophisticated test of critical thinking in math, reading and science. There seems to be some kind of ghetto effect: Once kids are labeled and segregated into the lower track, their learning slows down.
I am not sure if tracking is back in style in the U.S. or not. In fact, I'm not sure it ever went out of style. America has been aggressively--though quietly--tracking kids for a very long time. Tracking in elementary school remains a uniquely American policy. The sorting begins at a very young age, and it comes in the form of magnet schools, honors classes and gifted and talented programs. As kids get older, tracking takes the form of Advanced Placement courses or International Baccalaureate programs. In fact, the United States is one of the few countries where schools not only divide younger children by ability, but actually teach different content to the more advanced track. In other countries, including Germany and Singapore, all kids are meant to learn the same core academic material, but some kids go deeper.
Most higher-performing countries are slowly, haltingly delaying tracking until age 16 or so. When they do so, they see their PISA scores go up. When Poland delayed tracking kids into academic or vocational high schools, their reading scores went from below average for the developed world to above. Kids who would have otherwise been transferred to vocational schools scored about 100 points higher than kids like them who'd taken the same test a few years earlier. The results were breathtaking. The expecations had gone up, and kids had met them.
Today's Times article only offers evidence for an increase in grouping, not tracking. It seems to conflate the two as if they move in tandem. I'm not sure if that is true. Tracking, an old American tradition, is distinctly unAmerican, especially in the younger years. Now is not the time to go back.
May 7, 2013
“The filters are in students’ heads.”
This is funny. From Scholastic Administrator story on Finland:
“One anecdote that truly illuminates the difference between U.S. and Finnish culture came when visitors asked librarians how they filter the Internet for students. Finnish educators didn’t understand the question, Walker says, because the concept was so foreign to them. Finally, the two responses the group got were, ‘Students know these computers are for learning,’ and ‘The filters are in students’ heads.’”
“One anecdote that truly illuminates the difference between U.S. and Finnish culture came when visitors asked librarians how they filter the Internet for students. Finnish educators didn’t understand the question, Walker says, because the concept was so foreign to them. Finally, the two responses the group got were, ‘Students know these computers are for learning,’ and ‘The filters are in students’ heads.’”
“The filters are in students’ heads.”
This is funny. From Scholastic Administrator story on Finland:
“One anecdote that truly illuminates the difference between U.S. and Finnish culture came when visitors asked librarians how they filter the Internet for students. Finnish educators didn’t understand the question, Walker says, because the concept was so foreign to them. Finally, the two responses the group got were, ‘Students know these computers are for learning,’ and ‘The filters are in students’ heads.’”
“One anecdote that truly illuminates the difference between U.S. and Finnish culture came when visitors asked librarians how they filter the Internet for students. Finnish educators didn’t understand the question, Walker says, because the concept was so foreign to them. Finally, the two responses the group got were, ‘Students know these computers are for learning,’ and ‘The filters are in students’ heads.’”
May 6, 2013
A Boy Survivor
I’ve been reading Richard Ford’s novel Canada, told from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy whose parents—unexpectedly, disastrously—rob a bank in 1960 in North Dakota. Damn, this is some fine writing.
One paragraph in particular encapsulates what separates human beings who recover from trauma and those who do not. It is almost a trick of the imagination, a kind of elegant delusion that changes everything. The boy and his sister have just visited their parents in jail, for what would be the first and last time. They are alone and abandoned in the world, and yet the boy makes a decision, as they stand on a bridge, staring out at the Missouri River:
“I wondered, for just that moment, if we were like that: small, fixed figures being ordered around by forces greater than ourselves. I decided we weren’t. Whether we liked it or even knew it, we were accountable only to ourselves now, not to some greater design….And by then I was well on my way to knowing how to subordinate one thing to another—a lesson the game of chess teaches you, and does so almost immediately. The events that made all the difference to our parents’ lives were becoming secondary to the events carrying me onward from that August day….I believe that’s ... why I felt freed…why my heart was beating hard with exhilaration.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grown-up author occupy the voice of a teenager so completely. That is hard to do. I keep having to remind myself that this experience did not actually happen to Richard Ford. It is fiction, which makes it brilliant.
One paragraph in particular encapsulates what separates human beings who recover from trauma and those who do not. It is almost a trick of the imagination, a kind of elegant delusion that changes everything. The boy and his sister have just visited their parents in jail, for what would be the first and last time. They are alone and abandoned in the world, and yet the boy makes a decision, as they stand on a bridge, staring out at the Missouri River:
“I wondered, for just that moment, if we were like that: small, fixed figures being ordered around by forces greater than ourselves. I decided we weren’t. Whether we liked it or even knew it, we were accountable only to ourselves now, not to some greater design….And by then I was well on my way to knowing how to subordinate one thing to another—a lesson the game of chess teaches you, and does so almost immediately. The events that made all the difference to our parents’ lives were becoming secondary to the events carrying me onward from that August day….I believe that’s ... why I felt freed…why my heart was beating hard with exhilaration.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grown-up author occupy the voice of a teenager so completely. That is hard to do. I keep having to remind myself that this experience did not actually happen to Richard Ford. It is fiction, which makes it brilliant.
A Boy Survivor
I’ve been reading Richard Ford’s novel Canada, told from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy whose parents—unexpectedly, disastrously—rob a bank in 1960 in North Dakota. Damn, this is some fine writing.
One paragraph in particular encapsulates what separates human beings who recover from trauma and those who do not. It is almost a trick of the imagination, a kind of elegant delusion that changes everything. The boy and his sister have just visited their parents in jail, for what would be the first and last time. They are alone and abandoned in the world, and yet the boy makes a decision, as they stand on a bridge, staring out at the Missouri River:
“I wondered, for just that moment, if we were like that: small, fixed figures being ordered around by forces greater than ourselves. I decided we weren’t. Whether we liked it or even knew it, we were accountable only to ourselves now, not to some greater design….And by then I was well on my way to knowing how to subordinate one thing to another—a lesson the game of chess teaches you, and does so almost immediately. The events that made all the difference to our parents’ lives were becoming secondary to the events carrying me onward from that August day….I believe that’s ... why I felt freed…why my heart was beating hard with exhilaration.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grown-up author occupy the voice of a teenager so completely. That is hard to do. I keep having to remind myself that this experience did not actually happen to Richard Ford. It is fiction, which makes it brilliant.
One paragraph in particular encapsulates what separates human beings who recover from trauma and those who do not. It is almost a trick of the imagination, a kind of elegant delusion that changes everything. The boy and his sister have just visited their parents in jail, for what would be the first and last time. They are alone and abandoned in the world, and yet the boy makes a decision, as they stand on a bridge, staring out at the Missouri River:
“I wondered, for just that moment, if we were like that: small, fixed figures being ordered around by forces greater than ourselves. I decided we weren’t. Whether we liked it or even knew it, we were accountable only to ourselves now, not to some greater design….And by then I was well on my way to knowing how to subordinate one thing to another—a lesson the game of chess teaches you, and does so almost immediately. The events that made all the difference to our parents’ lives were becoming secondary to the events carrying me onward from that August day….I believe that’s ... why I felt freed…why my heart was beating hard with exhilaration.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grown-up author occupy the voice of a teenager so completely. That is hard to do. I keep having to remind myself that this experience did not actually happen to Richard Ford. It is fiction, which makes it brilliant.
Coming to NYC
I’ll be giving a talk about The Unthinkable at the 9/11 Tribute Center in Manhattan on May 14 at 6:30 pm. It’s been 12 years since I began interviewing disaster survivors all over the world, starting in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. I am honored to be returning to this complicated place carrying a message of hope. Please join me if you can make it.
April 29, 2013
American Exceptionalism
Marc Tucker explains why Americans are so burnt-out on tests that they might cannibalize the Common Core—the best thing to happen in American education in a long while.
“American teachers’ experience of testing is very different from that of their counterparts in the top-performing countries. They see cheap tests, unrelated to what they teach and incapable of measuring the things they really care about, being used to determine their fate and that of their students. What is ironic about this is that, because these other countries do much less accountability testing than we do, they can afford to spend much more on the tests they do use, and so are getting much better tests at costs that are probably no greater than what we are spending for our cheap tests.”
“American teachers’ experience of testing is very different from that of their counterparts in the top-performing countries. They see cheap tests, unrelated to what they teach and incapable of measuring the things they really care about, being used to determine their fate and that of their students. What is ironic about this is that, because these other countries do much less accountability testing than we do, they can afford to spend much more on the tests they do use, and so are getting much better tests at costs that are probably no greater than what we are spending for our cheap tests.”
Testing America’s Patience
American students, teachers and parents are sick of tests and rightly so. For years, they’ve been bombarded with ridiculous, dumbed-down tests that waste class time and demoralize everyone.
Now some are taking their rage out on the Common Core, a new set of voluntary, rigorous standards designed by educators around the country.
That is a mistake, understandable as it may be. And it’s one that could grow into a tragedy over the next year if things continue as they are.
Here’s what we know for sure: The U.S. urgently needs more rigorous standards aligned to international benchmarks. That is what the Common Core does. I have traveled to the most impressive school systems in the world, and their standards look a lot like the Common Core.
But to sell this idea to a wary public, the proponents of the Common Core need to make a deal: In exchange for subjecting students and teachers to new tests, ones which will be harder (since that is what happens when things get, er, harder), they need to give something up. Cancel other tests. Reduce the total number of testing days by half.
And please, for the love of God, insist that the new Common Core tests are actually smarter. There must be essays, and they must be graded by humans. Enough is enough. Abandon the insulting tests and spend the money on meaningful ones. Or you will see more and more kids and parents refusing to take even smarter tests, more teachers gaming the system or just quitting their jobs, and politicians will eventually buckle under the pressure and give up on the Common Core—the most meaningful step towards rigor taken by the United States in decades.
Now some are taking their rage out on the Common Core, a new set of voluntary, rigorous standards designed by educators around the country.
That is a mistake, understandable as it may be. And it’s one that could grow into a tragedy over the next year if things continue as they are.
Here’s what we know for sure: The U.S. urgently needs more rigorous standards aligned to international benchmarks. That is what the Common Core does. I have traveled to the most impressive school systems in the world, and their standards look a lot like the Common Core.
But to sell this idea to a wary public, the proponents of the Common Core need to make a deal: In exchange for subjecting students and teachers to new tests, ones which will be harder (since that is what happens when things get, er, harder), they need to give something up. Cancel other tests. Reduce the total number of testing days by half.
And please, for the love of God, insist that the new Common Core tests are actually smarter. There must be essays, and they must be graded by humans. Enough is enough. Abandon the insulting tests and spend the money on meaningful ones. Or you will see more and more kids and parents refusing to take even smarter tests, more teachers gaming the system or just quitting their jobs, and politicians will eventually buckle under the pressure and give up on the Common Core—the most meaningful step towards rigor taken by the United States in decades.
