All posts tagged: ground

Ofsted promises report cards will be ‘sensible middle ground’

Ofsted promises report cards will be ‘sensible middle ground’

Published by skeptic

Ofsted’s national director also signals move back to ‘looking more at statutory outcomes’ Ofsted’s national director also signals move back to ‘looking more at statutory outcomes’ More from this theme Recent articles The national director for education at Ofsted has promised to a find a “sensible middle ground” on the incoming national report card system. Lee Owston told leaders at the Schools and Academies Show today not to believe everything they read, after Ofsted report card proposals leaked to the press last week. Proposals leaked to the Financial Times indicated schools could be judged on a sliding five-point scale from ‘exemplary’ to ‘causing concern’, against 10 evaluation areas including teaching, achievement, inclusion and preparation for next steps. Owston told attendees in Birmingham: “You would expect me to be putting every single option available to me on the table so that I can have a debate with the right individuals, and those elements that sit at the extremes of what we might want to do are dismissed. “I’m narrowing down all of the time to get …

Campuses are ground zero in debates about antisemitism − but that’s been true for 100 years

Campuses are ground zero in debates about antisemitism − but that’s been true for 100 years

Published by skeptic

(The Conversation) — When Eliza arrived on her West Coast college campus in the fall of 2020, building community was difficult due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Yet over time she forged a network of friends, anchored by her sorority. Three years later, those relationships were severely tested by events over 7,000 miles away: the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. Due to her support for Israel, she was ostracized by people she once considered close friends, including her sorority sisters. Walking around campus, she removed her Star of David necklace. To be clear, Eliza was not concerned about her physical safety. But she sensed a social penalty for being Jewish and wanted to avoid dirty looks and political confrontations. As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounted, progressive campus activists, including some Jews, fervently adopted the Palestinian cause as an extension of their battles for racial and social justice. Opposition to the war has become a generational cause for earnest Zoomers, akin to the Vietnam War for …

AI could help people find common ground during deliberations

AI could help people find common ground during deliberations

Published by skeptic

Participants were divided up into six-person groups, with one participant in each randomly assigned to write statements on behalf of the group. This person was designated the “mediator.” In each round of deliberation, participants were presented with one statement from the human mediator and one AI-generated statement from the HM and asked which they preferred.  More than half (56%) of the time, the participants chose the AI statement. They found these statements to be of higher quality than those produced by the human mediator and tended to endorse them more strongly. After deliberating with the help of the AI mediator, the small groups of participants were less divided in their positions on the issues.  Although the research demonstrates that AI systems are good at generating summaries reflecting group opinions, it’s important to be aware that their usefulness has limits, says Joongi Shin, a researcher at Aalto University who studies generative AI.  “Unless the situation or the context is very clearly open, so they can see the information that was inputted into the system and not …

Ground operation in Lebanon could be imminent, officials say

Ground operation in Lebanon could be imminent, officials say

Published by Sam

Fears are growing that “no one is safe” in Lebanon after Israel’s airstrike in central Beirut, according to the executive director of a humanitarian nongovernmental organization working to support families displaced by the bombing campaign. Humanitarian workers were “shocked” by the strike in Beirut’s Cola district, Jihan Kaisi, the Executive Director of the Union of Relief and Development Associations, or URDA, told NBC News. “This Cola area is crowded with families, with displaced families, who came to this area thinking it’s safe,” she said. “It’s a very crowded area.” And the strike targeting the area, just a couple of miles from downtown Beirut and the city’s Zaitunay Bay, she said, showed there was “no safe place guaranteed in Lebanon.” She added that a deadly strike in the Sidon or Saida area in southern Lebanon on Sunday, had also heightened fears in that part of the country. Thousands of families have been sheltering there under the belief that the heavily populated area would be safe and now they don’t know where else to go, she said. Some …

Why Panpsychism (Everything Is Conscious) Is Gaining Ground

Why Panpsychism (Everything Is Conscious) Is Gaining Ground

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On Monday, we looked at a Cornell University evolutionary biologist who made the case — with Cornell’s apparent backing — that the goldenrod plant is intelligent. This points to the growth of panpsychism (everything is conscious*) in mainstream science. The current drift to panpsychism was probably inevitable. A couple of other recent science news stories offer a bit of background. Dr. Chimp is In We were told last week that wild chimpanzees seek out medicinal plants to treat illness and injuries: The results suggest that chimpanzees seek out specific plants for their medicinal effects. The study is one of the first to provide both behavioral and pharmacological evidence of the medicinal benefits to wild chimpanzees of feeding on bark and dead wood… In this paper, we demonstrate how watching and learning from our primate cousins may fast-track the discovery of novel medicines, while also emphasizing the importance of protecting our forest pharmacies. PLOS. “Wild chimpanzees seek out medicinal plants to treat illness and injuries.” ScienceDaily, 20 June 2024. The paper is open access. Actually, the …

How an Indian state became a testing ground for Hindu nationalism – podcast

How an Indian state became a testing ground for Hindu nationalism – podcast

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Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports from Uttarakhand, which offers a glimpse into what the future might look like if the BJP retains its power in national elections “One of the most significant elements of Modi’s rule is how his Hindu nationalist politics has reshaped the country,” the Guardian’s south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen tells Michael Safi. “Uttarakhand is a state where I think we’ve seen the real consequences of that narrative play out.” Hannah explains how religious tensions have been stoked in the state of Uttarakhand through conspiracy theories, political rhetoric and the destruction of Muslim shrines and tombs. We hear about the rising violence against the Muslim minority in the area and why this election is a concerning time for them in the state. Continue reading… Source link

Israel says it seized key Gaza-Egypt corridor as Rafah ground offensive intensifies

Israel says it seized key Gaza-Egypt corridor as Rafah ground offensive intensifies

Published by Sam

Israel’s army said Wednesday it took control of a vital Gaza-Egypt corridor it suspects aided weapons smuggling as the ground offensive against Hamas in the border city of Rafah intensified. A military spokesman said about 20 tunnels were found in the area of the corridor, a claim rejected by Egypt which accused Israel of using allegations of tunnels under the border as cover for its Rafah offensive. The UN Security Council was set to meet for a second day of emergency talks after a strike at the weekend ignited a fire that Gaza officials said killed 45 people and injured about 250. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was among the many leaders to voice revulsion at the bloodshed, demanding that “this horror must stop”. Read more????Live: Israeli military says it has full control of strategic Gaza-Egypt border corridor Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said, however, that the war could go on until the year’s end. “We may have another seven months of fighting to consolidate our success and achieve what we have defined as …

Escaping Rafah: on the ground in Gaza’s last refuge – podcast | News

Escaping Rafah: on the ground in Gaza’s last refuge – podcast | News

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On Monday morning, the Israeli military dropped leaflets over eastern Rafah. They warned residents that military operations were going to start there, and they needed to go to ‘safe zones’ further north. The information caused chaos, as thousands of people tried to leave. The decision of whether to stay or go is a complicated one. “There is no safe area in the Gaza Strip,” journalist Nedal Samir Hamdouna tells Michael Safi. He’s living with his family in a tent in Rafah. Garam, 16, based in the eastern area of the city, explains how expensive it is to leave. It’s a difficult call if you don’t know whether Israeli forces will invade and you need money for food. In this episode, we follow Nedal and Garam as they navigate the confusion of this week and decide whether to stay in Rafah or risk leaving, and entering areas that have been destroyed. Reporter Ruth Michaelson explains why Israel is targeting Rafah, and what the reaction has been from Israel’s allies. Photograph: Aaed Baker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock Support The …

Israel’s Rafah operation is fueling tensions with Washington. Here’s the reality on the ground.

Israel’s Rafah operation is fueling tensions with Washington. Here’s the reality on the ground.

Published by skeptic

To aid groups working in Rafah, the debate over Israel’s military operation in southern Gaza looks like only one thing: semantics. Israel’s military insists it has only launched a “limited” operation at the edge of a densely packed city — and not the full-blown invasion that the Biden administration warns would be a “red line” that could fray the relationship between the two allies. But the city of 1.4 million, filled with war refugees from northern Gaza, is already a slow-moving disaster, said Scott Anderson, the deputy director of UNRWA, the main U.N. agency in Gaza, and one of its few staffers still in Rafah. Anderson told POLITICO that the Israeli incursion of Israeli troops into the southeastern part of the city is already causing chaos, and prevented aid from reaching people who desperately need it. UNRWA’s fuel stocks are depleted and its food rations will run out on Friday, he warned in a Zoom interview Monday. The Biden administration has said a major invasion would be a red line — noting that it could …