Dr Flavius Akerele III's The E Team Education blog

Do you remember the funny scene from Richard Pryor’s version of Brewster’s Millions: NONE OF THE ABOVE ? Scott Peters versus Carl DeMaio, running for congress here in San Diego are both setting a very bad example for our children with their tasteless attack ads on each other: please stop and talk about something that actually matters. Dr Flavius A B Akerele III The ETeam

In my opinion, people get a doctorate for a variety of reasons; the chief among them is love of learning. However, a close second reason is; to be able to have job security or at least the ability to always find a job because of their level of education. The climate and playing field has changed in education, there are no guarantees anymore it seems. Doctorate job seekers are sometimes being told that they are “overqualified”, by educational institutions! Doctorate job seekers are sometimes hiding their education when they apply for a job, especially if that job is outside of education. The adjunct pool has grown and continues to grow in colleges, and these adjuncts are often doing the equivalent of a fulltime work without the benefits and pay. Is a doctorate worth it? Yes it is. I will never regret the time, effort and passion I put into getting it, but employers need to stop being scared of doctoral job seekers. They are people just like you, they are not trying to “s...

You may or may not agree with this article I am going to share, but I thought it compelling enough to stimulate a discussion. “Getting Beyond One 'Right Way' of K-12 Reform” “Why don't we get education changing the way successful systems change?” “This means that we keep working to improve the schools we have, but don't bet all our chips there. At the same time, we should be open to innovation, letting organizations and individuals try things outside the givens of conventional school and conventional teaching.” “Call it a "Split Screen" strategy.” “It does work. In successful, self-improving systems, new ideas get tried and early adopters pick them up. Initially, most people remain with the traditional ways, but as the new strategy improves, people shift. In time, a transformation occurs; sometimes rapidly.” “Unfortunately, education policy does not work like that. Deep inside, its working premise is to develop a consensus o...

  “What You Need to Know About the Past 7 Days” “Just a Thought” “As legislators, deans, parents, and students debate what to do about the problem of sexual assaults on college campuses— many of them all but awash in alcohol —maybe it’s time to take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Maybe it’s time for Americans to start teaching their teenagers to drink responsibly (if they want to drink), and time to rethink our drinking-age laws—which, let’s face it, seem to have done little more than create a thriving fake-ID industry.”   “Really, where has the current approach gotten us? High-school kids sneak off to drink under stadium bleachers and in parks that closed at dusk. College students party in their rooms and at fraternities and in bars. If you didn’t hear it earlier this week, listen to the piece that NPR’s Patti Neighmond did on college drinking for Morning Edition. Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Bosto...

YouTube has given many people “with stars in their eyes” a platform to broadcast their “work”. Quite frankly most of it is garbage (but harmless). However, we are also seeing an increase of “prank” type videos, street fights, and unnecessary violence videos being broadcasted. I am going to talk about the pranks because they are not really pranks and certainly not nice. I am not going mention the names of the ‘pranksters’, post a link, or give these clowns anymore of a platform then they already have, but I will say that these pranks are skirting the edge of being racist. These pranks consist of things like fake farting on people, stealing peoples’ phones to check the time, stealing people’s gas, or more recently, “Selling Guns In The Hood Prank”. The pranksters are all white males. They are trying to pass these “pranks,” off as a “social experiments” to see the reactions of ‘poor black people’ when an outsider threatens or provokes them.   All their pranks...

 We love to punish people in the United States of America; you could almost say it is national obsession. Case in point: “ Incarceration in the United States of America is one of the main forms of punishment, rehabilitation, or both for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. At year-end 2009, it was 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population”, that is over two and half million currently, does not include other forms of legal detention. The trouble with a punishment-based society is that it does not work in the long run because the punishment is not consistent. What is legal in one state could be punishable in the state next door. A person could be on a cross-country journey and end up in jail because something they were doing at the beginning of the trip became a illegal after crossing an invisible line 600 miles later. Then there are the elephants in the room in regards to punishment...

I remember distinctly spending a lot of money on textbooks in 1980s when I first went to college, I got my terminal degree in 2011 and realized the price of textbooks kept going up. The textbook industry in my opinion takes advantage of students; they sell high and buy back low, plus they force students to get “new” editions of textbooks all the time even though there are no significant changes in the book. Anyway, I found the article I am about to share interesting because it comes down to what is in the best interest of the students, and I am sure saving money helps students. “Rise of Online Booksellers Brings Complaints From Campus Bookstores” “When the orange Chegg bus rolls onto a campus, one person is unlikely to be excited about its free swag and energy drinks: the college-bookstore manager.” “The rise of online textbook retailers such as Chegg, Amazon, and Half.com, has put official college and university bookstores on the defensive. Once the default s...