The Achievement Gap – Is Our Educational Perspective Part of The Solution or Part of The Problem?
February 23, 2010
The Piton Foundation produced a narrative called The Achievement Gap – Colorado’s Biggest Educational Problem, which stated:
“Research has repeatedly demonstrated the link between a student’s economic background and academic performance. Children from poor families perform worse than those from more affluent backgrounds. Poverty is strongly tied to race and ethnicity, so frequently schools with large proportion of minority students are also predominately low-income. And when low-income children attend schools where almost every other student is also from a poor family, the negative impact on performance is even more pronounced.”
Is it possible that students from low-income families feel “less than” or not “as smart” as students whose families are self-sufficient?
The inner creates the outer and it is our job as educators to ensure that students develop an awareness that does not allow their outer circumstances to dictate their inner world.
What follows is an article that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on 2/19/10, which indicates a relationship between the achievement gap and a student’s state of mind that can be managed with the proper leadership.
Placebos: It’s Mind Not Matter
By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer
LONDON (AP) – When it comes to the placebo effect, it really may be mind over matter, a new analysis suggests.
In a review of recent research, international experts say there is increasing evidence that fake treatments, or placebos, have an actual biological effect in the body.
The doctor-patient relationship, plus the expectation of recovery, may sometimes be enough to change a patient’s brain, body and behavior, experts write. The review of previous research on placebos was published online Friday in Lancet, the British medical journal.
“It’s not that placebos or inert substances help,” said Linda Blair, a Bath-based psychologist and spokeswoman for the British Psychological Society. Blair was not linked to the research. “It’s that people’s belief in inert substances help.”
While doctors have long recognized that placebos can help patients feel better, they weren’t sure if the treatments sparked any physical changes.
In the Lancet review, researchers cite studies where patients with Parkinson’s disease were given dummy pills. That led their brains to release dopamine, a feel-good chemical, and also resulted in other changes in brain activity.
“When you think you’re going to get a drug that helps, your brain reacts as if it’s getting relief,” said Walter Brown, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown and Tufts University. “But we don’t know how that thought that you’re going to get better actually translates into something happening in the brain.”
