By Geoffrey James   contributing editor Inc., com.

By the laws of mathematics, most bosses are more or less average when it comes to management talent. However, bosses who are really awful tend to share these 10 easily-identifiable characteristics. — Geoffrey James

1. They’re indecisive.

Horrible bosses analyze problems to death and make tentative decisions, which they frequently revisit. By contrast, great bosses make decisions quickly and hold firm to them because they know that failure to decide is failure by default.

2. They’re impatient.

Horrible bosses have a short fuse and are quick to vent frustration on employees. By contrast, great bosses keep their tempers in check lest browbeaten employees make more and worse mistakes.

3. They’re overly dramatic.

Horrible bosses inflate every setback into a disaster, every competitor into a nemesis, and every workday into a series of conflicts. By contrast, great bosses turn setbacks into stepping stones, competitors into allies, and each workday into a good day.

4. They’re controlling.

Horrible bosses believe there are only two ways to do something: “My way or the highway.” By contrast, great bosses use their employees’ individual traits to align personal goals with business goals.

5. They’re not self-aware.

Horrible bosses ride the roller coaster of their own emotions, dragging employees along with them. By contrast, great bosses cultivate the emotional awareness to understand their own processes and harness them to everyone’s… more

6. They play favorites.

Horrible bosses hand out plum assignments, perks, and raises to employees whom they like the best. By contrast, great bosses give each employee the opportunity to excel in his or her own way.

7. They’re overly vain.

Horrible bosses hog the limelight and take the credit for the successes of their team. By contrast, great bosses always realize that without actual workers doing actual jobs, there would be no such things as a “job creator.”

8. They’re inflexible.

Horrible bosses are forever trying to replicate past successes, even if they’re ancient history. By contrast, great bosses treat past successes warily because “what got you to where you are now won’t get you to where you want to go.”

9. They blame others.

Horrible bosses finger-point and scapegoat when things go wrong. By contrast, great bosses know that the failure of a team is always a failure of its leadership and rarely of the team itself.

10. They’re never grateful.

Horrible bosses characterize themselves as “self-made” because they’ve worked so hard. Great bosses are always conscious that they’re successful because they’re standing on the shoulders of giants. Loosely adapted from the… more

Internet 2017  —– I want to add micro-managing, but then again, that probably falls under Controlling! CW

 

I was recently in a small taco shop getting a quick dinner. I went in to sit down wanting a few minutes to read the latest on my Kindle reader. As I sat there, my attention was attracted to a group of gabbling young mothers, all eating and talking a mile a minute. Next to them at a different table sat three little girls all about three, four and five years old. The girls were supposed to be eating but each one of them sat glued to a small Gameboy/cell phone that was playing games. The little girls were not talking to each other, to the adults or even eating much. I was shocked.

I mean, yes, I have my Kindle but, then again, I’m not five with a group of other kids. Where is the playing, talking and interaction these kids need to grow up? One little girl had not even touched her food and the mother was so busy talking, she didn’t even notice. Yea Gods! What is our society coming to? I am afraid to think.

THE BLOG 

11/10/2015 11:06 am ET Updated Nov 10, 2016

Education vs. Edutainment

By Bobby George

Somewhere along the way, our culture adopted the idea that learning wasn’t fun – that to inspire children, we needed to entertain them. We needed to stimulate their interests and reward them for their efforts. It didn’t matter if they accomplished the task, or were even inspired by the activity, just so long as they were happily entertained.

What this path misunderstands, which is a key observation that the Italian educator Maria Montessori offered, is that children are born naturally inquisitive. You don’t have to force them to learn – and, most importantly, you don’t have to sugar coat their successes, any more than their failures. Children inherently, one could say biologically, see the world as an opportunity to discover their interests.

Theories abound about how this shift toward what is loosely called “edutainment” happened, and how it has been fully incorporated into our cultural consciousness.

First, with the advent of television, and other forms of mass media, some claim we witnessed an unprecedented rise in consumerism. Children, once but a Wall Street oversight, were quickly understood to be the fastest way into the family pockets.

Marshal McCluhan, for his part, highlighted the fact that it wasn’t even so much the content, or even the consumption, that mattered with mass media. Instead, it was how children were transfixed by the medium itself. With movement and light, new medias projected upon childhood an array of perceptions by which to view the kaleidoscope of life. Shiny and bright, something was a foot.

Second, others conjectured, perhaps more alarmingly, which is not to say more seriously, that the excessive infant mortality rates at the turn of the twentieth-century directly contributed to us, as adults, lavishing our children with unabated gifts and praise. . ..

In J.G. Ballard’s autobiography, Miracles of Life, he tellingly writes:

“My parents had been born in the first decade of the 20th century, long before antibiotics and public health concerns for vitamin-enriched foods, clean air and water. Childhood, for families of any income, was a gamble with disease and early death. …”

What this insight reveals, as a snapshot in a time that remains all-too-present for some, is that there was a sense in which the greatest accomplishment of childhood was simply – or not so simply – making it out of childhood.

Now, there’s an alternative path, a third way, which may be directly related to the industrialization of education and provide an adequate solution to our inquiry. Which is to say, it may very well hold the secret to why “edutainment”, or the idea that children need to be entertained to learn, became the prevailing mode of engagement with children – not only from parents, but also from our institutions.

What are our expectations of childhood?

Here, we take a lesson from the French philosopher Roland Barthes. In Mythologies, a collection of articles written to express our tendency as a society to create modern myths based on our social values, Barthes laments, “All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world”.

His point is rather profound.

When toys are created by adults, they often betray the novelties of childhood. When toys are manufactured, with overly specific outcomes in mind, they actually limit that sense of discovery that exploration affords.

What we lost was the ability to pursue your own interests, and what we gained was the idea that we needed to entertain children to make them want to learn.

What makes Maria Montessori so relevant to this conversation, both historically and as a contemporary. . . It placed an emphasis, not on adulthood, but on the experiences of childhood. On following the interests of children, instead of trying to fabricate them through overstimulation.

If we are to take children seriously, and not just apply the model of edutainment to education, it will be with a realignment of the ways in which we think about learning itself.  Maybe we can start by listening to our children.

Follow Bobby George on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobbyjgeorge

Bobby George

CEO at Montessorium

____________________________________________________________________________________

Good article by Bobby George on the ‘need’ to entertain children. The idea of edutainment has clearly spilled over into the school system where more and more teachers and administrators are killing themselves finding new ways to keep their students entertained.

A couple of major points missed in this article and obvious to our society is the advent, across the nation and the world, of more effective birth control. In my life time, the number of children in an average family has dropped from eight, to four, to two and then to singles. Many families today have one or two children only and four is considered ‘large’. Obviously, with much, much smaller families, the emphasis on the remaining children becomes more intense. Each child now is more important than ever before because there are fewer of them per family. Think of China with the One Child only rule that was in place for years and years.

Clearly, the remaining children are treated like the little Prince or Princess their family feels them to be. Therefore, the happiness of each child becomes more critical to his or her parent and a domino effect is created all the way down the line.

Additionally, due to the rising cost of living, more and more families have two parents working as opposed to one parent working as was common before the 70’s. The working mother syndrome involves a lot of guilt for not being there at home with the kids. This results in guilt buying of more stuff to compensate. So it goes, round and round.

There is no clear evidence that kids get anything more out of life by being showered with stuff. There is a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Since it certainly doesn’t look like the cost of living is going to go down anytime soon, with two working parents; it is time parents and school personnel re-evaluate the entire concept of edutainment with our children and students.

 

I walk into my local Big-Name Hardware store.

Since I am somewhat new to the area/store, I stop and stare around. The building is about the size of a small football field. I am looking for clues about how to find my bathroom widget.

First, there is no store directory. Call me very old school, but growing up, there were always big directories posted right at the front door that you, the customer, could consult. No.

Then I begin to wander. I go up and down and up and down and where I think the logical place for bathroom thingies. No.

From the corner of my eye I think I see a store employee whisking away. I turn and run after him. In a loud and commanding voice, I say “Excuse me, excuse me!” There is a significant pause. The clerk, unable to escape, turns to me and I ask my question. He says, “Ah, don’t know Ma’am. Try aisle eight.”

I turn and then, confused if eight is to my right or left. I turn back. The employee has disappeared as quickly as the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. I then trudge on, determine the sequence of the aisles. After quickly grabbing another unlucky clerk, manage to find my thingy. Then it is time to go get in line with all the other gits.

Can’t begin to count the number of times this same process was repeated, when, imagine my surprise!!!!!! I found I could go to this thing called Amazon.com, find my thingy, order it and have UPS deliver it. Right to my door. Wow! Sure, it cost a tiny bit more for delivery, but, geese, isn’t my time worth something?

Online shopping was a brand new and exciting proposition. Gee! No more huge warehouse, no chasing surly clerks, no idiot treatment. Just pay your money and get your thing. Hum.

The big names in marketing today, Amazon, Google, Nike and yes, Walmart are industry giants because they have tapped into something – Responsiveness. They are (quickly) responsive to customer needs and don’t make people beg them for help.

The big losers today are Macys, Sears, Penny’s among many others. Long gone are the days when I could go into a woman’s department store and have someone help me find a pair of black pants. The usual response is something like “There over there,” arm wave, “I think.”

HR specialists, who specialize in HR, are doing the hiring at big retail firms. For construction, they are hiring people who have never done a day of construction in their lives. In education, HR people, who hire,  have never taught a class and have no idea of what is involved. In clothing and make up lines, the people who are hired have never been buyers and have little retail experience.

In their infinite wisdom, the people getting hired are the youngest, least experienced and are those who will work for the least amount of money. This, of course, is saving the company money. Right. Retail managers are discovering that if they threaten their employees’ jobs daily, they can maybe get them to smile, put their cell phones away and be of service.

These young people have no job loyalty, little work ethic, no commitment to anything except their friends and when they get paid.

So, commercial retail is dying, duh.

Amazon is actually bringing back the little guy retailer. Amazon is simply a conduit house for hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of little retailers who are selling one, two, maybe three things. Since this is their little business, since this is their bread and butter, the little guy is very committed to getting you you’re thingy, like right now.

I continue to shop online and still go to the Big Hardware store when there are things I simply can’t get elsewhere (boxes, fertilizer, plants.) If it were possible, I would do absolutely everything online. I get tired of employees telling me one more time “Sorry, Ma’am, I just don’t know if we carry that or not.” And then, tramping all over the back forty looking for ‘it.’ Retailers really, really, need to wake up and catch a clue. Courtney Webb

Minimum wage in California in 2017 is $10.50 an hour. If an employee works full-time (unlikely) their salary per month is $1848 gross. I recently moved out of the poverty belt of apartments and into a place where most of my neighbors don’t do crack. A one bed room is $1100 per month and a two bed room is $1200. For this I can rest fairly easy that my car is not getting jacked and I can actually sleep through the night. How can anyone live on that kind of money? Answer, you can’t. A person is either still living at home with parents or with several roommates. Additionally, since the public transportation system is so poor, people are forced to maintain autos that they really can’t afford. Once again, for young people who have these jobs, mom and dad are really footing the bill and underwriting what the employers don’t pay.

BUSINESS  – Huffington Post

09/04/2015 02:46 pm ET

The 10 Companies That Pay Americans The Least

Most of them are in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries.

Thomas C. Frohlich, Michael B. Sauter and Sam Stebbins 24/7 Wall St.

Amid soaring corporate profits and stagnating worker wages in the past decade, growing numbers of low-wage workers are demanding higher pay. In the wake of intensifying debates over income inequality, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a rule in August that will require publicly traded companies to document the ratio of their highest-paid employee salary to that of their typical worker.

The nation’s lowest paying companies frequently operate within one of three industries: restaurant chains, department stores, or hotels. These industries fall into two sectors, leisure and hospitality and retail trade, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), account for more than 70% of U.S. workers paid at or below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Click here to see the lowest-paying companies in America.

In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., David Cooper, senior economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said, “Typically, jobs in these industries are lower skilled jobs and require low levels of education.” Partially as a result, there are usually large pools of available workers who are relatively easy to train.

“The business model in these industries is often to treat staff as sort of interchangeable cogs,” Cooper said. As a consequence, wages are often very low.

Many jobs at the nation’s lowest paying companies are tipped positions. While tipping is often regarded as mitigating low wages, the practice also sends the message that a company has only a small obligation to pay its employees, Cooper explained. “Tipping essentially passes the wage requirement from the employer directly to the consumer.”

Many of these jobs are also part-time positions, which together with inconsistent tips, mean wages are not just low, but also erratic. Unpredictable schedules and payments “prevent [workers] from taking advantage of a lot of other economic and financial resources,” Cooper said. Car payments, tuition payments, and any spending structured over a period of time becomes very difficult in these circumstances.

Typical wages at these companies often are in stark contrast with the pay of its CEO. Seven of the 13 companies listed reported total annual compensations of their CEOs at well over $10 million. And the compensations of all but two CEOs increased — even as their employee wages did not, and in some instances as their companies reported losses and shrank operations. The CEO of Aramark, Eric Foss, was paid $32.4 million last year, up 44.2% from his compensation in the previous year. The SEC’s new rule requiring documentation of the pay ratio within public companies does not take effect until 2017. However, the EPI has tracked the ratio since 1965. That year, CEOs made roughly 20 times the pay of their median worker. Last year, CEOs at the largest 350 companies made an average of 300 times the wage of their typical employee.

Most agree that wages at many companies are too low. What remains controversial, however, is the best way to address the problem. Cooper and other researchers argue that the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is inadequate for the vast majority of low-wage workers to afford the basic necessities of a moderate standard of living. Workers in low wage jobs tend to be older and more educated today than in previous decades.

Michael Strain, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute, said that while the intention is good, raising the minimum wage would not effectively achieve its stated goal. Instead, Strain favors expanding public assistance programs such as the federal income tax credit because such an approach would better focus on low wage earners and people who really need the help.

Daniel J. Mitchell, senior fellow at conservative think tank Cato Institute went further, claiming in an email exchange, “The inequality issue is a blind alley,” and raising wages could actually cause harm. Raising the minimum wage could actually cause unemployment. Instead, policy makers should focus on economic growth.

These are the lowest-paying companies in the country, according to 24/7 Wall St.

• Macy’s, Inc.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 166,900
> CEO compensation: $16.5 million
> Revenue: $28.1 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 823
> Industry: Department StoresLike many department stores, Macy’s is one of the nation’s lowest-paying companies. More generally, the retail trade sectoremploys 13.3% of all U.S. workers paid at or below the minimum wage. At Macy’s, the average hourly wage for a sales associate is $9.33, about half the average for sales associates nationwide. Macy’s closed hundreds of stores last year, cutting around 2,500 jobs. The company reported revenue of $28.1 billion in the company’s latest fiscal year. CEO Terry Lundgren made $16.5 million, the eighth highest total CEO compensation among the over 100 companies reviewed. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Starbucks Corp.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 191,000
> CEO compensation: $21.5 million
> Revenue: $16.4 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 7,303
> Industry: RestaurantsCoffee giant Starbucks employs roughly 141,000 people in the United States at more than 7,300 locations. Because the coffee chain offers some benefits not commonly offered in low-paying jobs, it has long been considered the ideal job for young students supporting themselves or even single parents. However, an increasing number of reports suggest the famous Seattle company makes life difficult for its employees. Of particular note is the company’s increasing use of complicated and inconsistent scheduling, a practice also used by many other major retailers. This practice means that baristas’ hours may be posted with little notice, preventing them from making other plans, and therefore nearly denying them the ability to earn extra incomefrom other sources.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Sears Holdings Corporation

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 196,000
> CEO compensation: $5.7 million
> Revenue: $31.2 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 1,733
> Industry: Department StoresSears Holdings is the company behind Sears and Kmart department stores. Sales associates at Sears are paid an average of $8.72 an hour. Cashiers at the retail giant make even less, at an average of $8.37 an hour. In sharp contrast, CEO Edward Lampert’s compensation last year totalled $5.7 million. According to Glassdoor.com, only 21% of surveyed company employees approved of Lampert. Low employee pay and a lack of confidence in the company’s leadership may be just the tip of the iceberg for Sears. The company’s revenuedropped by 16% in its most recent fiscal year, after already dropping 10% the year before. Sears Holdings was one of only two low-paying companies that posted a net income loss in the most recent fiscal year.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• TJX Companies

Toby Talbot/AP

> Global workforce: 198,000
> CEO compensation: $28.7 million
> Revenue: $29.1 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 2,581
> Industry: Apparel RetailTJX Companies, the parent company of TJ Maxx department stores and discount retailer Marshalls, employs nearly 200,000 workers in the United States. According to employee reviews posted on Glassdoor.com, the average TJ Maxx cashier earns $8.45 per hour. In contrast, total compensation of CEO Carol Meyrowitz last year was $28.7 million. On an hourly basis, that amounts to over 1,600 times what the average Marshalls cashier makes. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Aramark

ASSOCIATED PRESS

> Global workforce: 269,500
> CEO compensation: $32.4 million
> Revenue: $14.8 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 449
> Industry: Food ServicesFood service company Aramark had net profits just shy of $150 million in its fiscal 2014. It is also one of the nation’s lowest paying companies. Based on wage submissions on Glassdoor.com, a typical cashier makes just over $9 per hour. CEO Eric Foss, on the other hand, made more than $32.4 million last year, the highest total CEO compensation of the more than 100 companies reviewed. Based on a 40-hour work week, Foss’s per hour wage is about 1,700 times that of some of his employees.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Target

Bloomberg via Getty Images

> Global workforce: 347,000
> CEO compensation: $28.2 million
> Revenue: $72.6 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 1,790
> Industry: General Merchandise StoresSales floor team members and cashiers are paid an average wage of less than $10 per hour at Target. By contrast, CEO Brian Cornell earned $28.2 million in total compensation last year, higher than the compensation of all but three other chief executives at the over 100 companies reviewed. While many companies on this list are extremely large by revenue and are also very profitable, Target posted a net income loss in its latest fiscal year. The weak financial performance was partially due to a failed attempt to enter the Canadian market. It was also the result of a costly data breach at the end of 2013, which according to the company resulted in net cumulative expenses of tens of millions of dollars. The total retreat from Canada cost billions.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

 

• Kroger Co.

David J. Phillip/AP

> Global workforce: 400,000
> CEO compensation: $13.0 million
> Revenue: $108.5 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 3,770
> Industry: Food RetailOf the over 100 companies reviewed, Kroger had the third highest revenue in its most recent fiscal year. The company reported nearly $108.5 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2015, a 9.3% increase from the previous year. Despite growing revenue, two of the most common positions in the company, cashiers and grocery clerks, each are paid an average wage of less than $10 an hour. The lowest paying job at Kroger is that of a courtesy clerk, earning an average hourly wage of $8.04. While the lowest paying jobs at Kroger are hovering just above the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, CEO Rodney McMullen’s compensation has climbed in each of the last three years, from $5 million in fiscal 2013 to $8.9 million in fiscal 2014, to its current level of nearly $13 million. Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• McDonald’s Corp.

Eugene Hoshiko/AP

> Global workforce: 420,000
> CEO compensation: $1.7 million
> Revenue: $27.4 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 14,350
> Industry: RestaurantsMcDonald’s, the largest fast food chain in the world, pays its crew members an average hourly wage of $8.24. In New York City, most McDonald’s workers are paid the lowest amount allowed by law, $8 an hour. Wages at the burger restaurant are not just low, but erratic, as employees often work part-time, unpredictable hours. This often means such workers do not qualify for benefits, and together with the low wages increases the likelihood employees will require public assistance programs such as SNAP. And inconsistent schedules make planning particularly challenging. McDonald’s reported revenues in excess of $27 billion in its most recent fiscal year, the largest of any restaurant chain. Earlier this year, McDonald’s hired a new CEO, Stephen Easterbrook. In his first year on the job, Easterbrook is expected to be compensated a reported $1.7 million.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Yum! Brands, Inc.

Reed Saxon/AP

> Global workforce: 537,000
> CEO compensation: $5.0 million
> Revenue: $13.3 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 18,225
> Industry: RestaurantsThe vast majority of employees at Yum! Brands, which operates restaurant chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, are part-time, hourly-paid workers. While many Pizza Hut employees are paid tips in addition to their ordinary wages, employers are not responsible for this portion of a worker’s wage. Still, even including tips, the average total compensation of a Pizza Hut delivery driver, for example, was just over $20,000 annually. Taco Bell and KFC workers frequently earn even lower wages. Yum! Brands is one of the nation’s largest employers. With so many employees making wages at or below the poverty level, workers, like many others in the fast-food industry, have gone on strikes and staged walkouts over the past several years.Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

• Walmart Stores Inc.

John Locher/AP

Global workforce: 2.2 million (1.4 million US)
> CEO compensation: $19.4 million
> Revenue: $485.7 billion
> No. of U.S. locations: 5,321
> Industry: Hypermarkets and SupercentersWalmart is the largest company by revenue, with a reported $485.7 billion in revenue last year. Walmart is also by far the nation’s and the world’s largest employer, employing more than 2.2 million people. About 1.3 million of those work in the United States. While out of the retailer behemoth’s 11,453 total locations 6,290 are outside the United States, Walmart’s U.S. presence is nearly ubiquitous. There are at least five Walmart stores in every state, and most states have more than 100 Walmart locations. Walmart is the largest low paying company, paying an average of less than $10 per hour to its sales associates. In contrast, CEO Douglas McMillon’s total compensation in 2014 was $19.4 million. Unlike most CEO wages, however, McMillon’s compensation declined by nearly 32% from the previous fiscal year.

While in Korea, I was impressed by the public transportation system. Buses arrived at the bus stops every 15 minutes, not every 30 minutes as I see in California. There were many, many taxis everywhere and the prices were reasonable. The majority of people however, rode the underground subway system. Families generally had one car and everyone else used public transportation. The buses and trains were favored by the very young and the very old. However; there were lots of in-betweens too. It is good to give people more options and then the need for higher per hour pay is not as great.

Walmart Failed in Korea Because of a Lack of Walking Around—–Sebastian Marshall blog – 2011

Y’know, you can read all the case studies you want. It’s hard to fully understand international business without going to different countries and walking around.

So, let’s talk business and walking around. I was in Seoul, South Korea for a month last summer.

I came to like Korean culture a lot. Koreans are some of the strongest, proudest people I’ve come across. They manage to combine a strong warrior culture with the utmost civility, order, cleanliness, and quality of life.

It’s incredible. Many societies with a strong militant, warrior feeling about them descend into kind of a barbaric police state sort of vibe, constant terror in the air.

Korea? Nope. The men are proud, masculine, patriot, somewhat militant, but in a good way. There’s a mix of strong, expansive, traditional values, along with a large minority undercurrent of modernity. It’s really good – it’s the best of all possible worlds. There’s problems – the blatant racism and xenophobia kind of sucks, but I don’t mind it so much. Nowhere’s perfect.

Let’s talk Walmart. We’ll get back to Korea in a moment.

Walmart has really, really low prices. There’s a few reasons for this – the company is one of the best in the world at logistics, so they manage to have fast turnover of inventory without keeping too much on hand at any given store. I’d love to see how their logistics division runs sometime – I remember reading that they’ve got some of the most sophistication about predicting and automatically changing stock at stores based on factors like the weather changing that are hard to pin down.

This means they can charge less. And because they’re so big, they’ve got a lot of bargaining power with their suppliers. There’s over 4,000 Walmart-owned stores in the USA doing over $258 billion in sales.

Let’s talk 1998. Population of South Korea in 1998 is around 46 million. American economy 1998 is in extremely good shape. Population of South Korea is just a bit under 50 million people. The fundamentals of the South Korean economy were excellent, but the Asian Financial Crisis had just destroyed the exchange value of the Korean won.

That was, y’know, almost correct. This was a, “Hey! This is a fantastically good opportunity to buy!” type buy on Walmart’s part.

And they got it all right. Everything. Except one little thing – Koreans weren’t interested in going to Walmart.

Yup, the stars were all aligned, the U.S. dollar was artificially high, the South Korean won was artificially low, Walmart had been experiencing great domestic growth, and the South Korean economy looked like it would be in pretty good shape after the financial crisis shook itself out.

But Koreans weren’t interested in the Walmart model.

To explain why, I’ll say – you gotta go walk around South Korea. I can explain it and it’ll make sense, but it’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t really resonate unless you go to Korea.

Korea’s got the longest work hours in the developed world, and it’s not even really close.

According to the OECD’s 2004 report, Korean average work hours per year comes in at 2390. Japan, internationally renowned workaholic land? Only 1828. USA? 1777.

So, Koreans work a lot. A whole lot. A lot, a lot, a lot.

When they’re not working, they’re not interested in lower quality experiences for less money.

Damn near everything in Seoul is really, really nice. All the restaurants, the food, the transit and trains, the buildings, everything. It’s clean and prestigious and high quality and upscale. The whole country. It’s like Japan in that regard.

So, Walmart rumbles in, gets a good price on the currency, and opens 16 spartan Walmart stores with low prices.

Things don’t sell.

Emart and Walmart are night and day different. Emart is closer to a spa than a warehouse. As you walk through the aisles, there’s samples of fresh juice, fresh coffee, fresh grilled meat, fresh hot and iced teas… I’d just gone in to buy some tuna and fruit, and I walked out (1) having eaten effectively a whole lunch worth of little samples, and (2) with about five times more groceries than I intended to buy. There must’ve been 40 plus samples in there, all managed by different friendly, smiling staff.

But they didn’t walk around enough. Koreans work, work, work, work, work. When Koreans aren’t working, they want the best. Not the best price. The best. Combine that with a bit of a nationalist sentiment that favors local companies, and you’ve got an $800 million loss on your hands. . . .  Koreans don’t buy into discounting.

Numbers are good, but you can’t just trust the numbers. Gotta walk around too.______________________________________________________________________________

Good article by Sebastian Marshall, however, there is even more to the Walmart-Korean story than that. Having lived in Korea, let me report that Koreans have a real Korea First policy. They support their own.

In streets all around town, in restaurants and shopping centers, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of tiny Mom and Pop businesses. I typically shopped at the corner market which was literally about 150ft from my apartment. It was owned by an older man and run by himself, his wife and his son. They eventually sold out to a younger couple. I feel confident they were able to make enough money in the sale to support their retirement.

Not so in America. The Waltons, owners of Walmart stores, are listed in the top twenty richest people in America. Walmart typically comes into a neighbor, lowers the prices on everything, drives out the little guy. They then hire all young people with lower salaries and lower (if any) benefits.

The Walmarts in my area (yes, I shop there,) have in the last few years, forced out almost all of their older staffers. In the two stores I frequent, it would be a safe bet to say there are no employees there over the age of forty. Wow!

So, people are living longer, medical costs are rising. The chances of being successful in any small business is marginalized by huge mega businesses and the chance to make enough money to either live on or retire on are melting like snow in June. The American Dream is slowly being crushed under the heel of big business.

Good for you Korea. And, yes, keep all those little old ladies working!

Stacey Patton

Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University

Student Evaluations: Feared, Loathed, and Not Going Anywhere

 

May 19, 2015

Janet Wilson has a number burned into her mind: 4.7. That’s the average student-evaluation score, on a five-point scale, that she has to reach to feel safe. Her score helps to determine her fate as a full-time, non-tenure-track professor at her West Coast research university.

“Everybody in my department is obsessed,” says Ms. Wilson, a teacher in the humanities for more than a decade. (This is not her real name: Fearing career repercussions, she asked that a pseudonym be used.) “We talk about how we get into that 4.7-and-above range. We talk about that more than about how to teach.”

Often, rather than discuss challenges in the classroom, Ms. Wilson and her colleagues pass around advice on what it takes to reach the magic number. One popular strategy is to bake cookies or brownies for students. (Chocolate-chip cookies are seen as the golden ticket. And if you’re making brownies, leave the nuts out: A student’s allergy could tank your score or, worse, lead to a phone call from Human Resources.)

She and her colleagues have shared other tips, too:

—Hand out evaluation forms when the most irascible student in class is absent.

—Be sure that the only assignment you give right before the evaluation is a low-stakes one. “Have them write an easy paper where they can talk about themselves and their journey in the class,” Ms. Wilson advises. And never give back a graded assignment on evaluation day.

—Don’t leave the classroom while the evaluations are being filled out — even if you’ve been told that you’re supposed to do so. That way one or two unhappy students won’t talk out loud and poison the rest of the class’s opinions.

—Don’t give students too much time at the end of class to fill out the forms. “If they’re in a hurry, they’ll give you all fives unless they’re mad at you,” Ms. Wilson says.

—Oh, and let students hand in papers late, retake exams like it’s the DMV, and complete extra credit, which is almost as valuable as a chocolate-chip cookie. “You can’t make a student too mad at you,” she says. “We all know we can’t afford to uphold grading standards because of the pressure put on us.”

This is a grim vision, but it’s one many professors might recognize. Student ratings of professors can have the feel of a high-stakes game. Faculty members speak of evaluations’ driving decisions on hiring, promotion, and tenure; adjuncts say they feel paralyzed when a low score can mean a pink slip.

“They line up everybody’s evaluation scores and pick from the top,” Ms. Wilson says of her department. “If we don’t get good evaluations, the chair will call us in and ask: How do we get these numbers up?”

Of course, not every institution or department is a firm believer in the importance of evaluations. But faculty concerns remain strong — even among professors, like Ms. Wilson, who say they actually like getting feedback from their students. “Don’t get me wrong, I think student evals are useful,” she says. “I used to push my students, even the ones I didn’t like, to fill them out. I don’t want to do away with them. But it’s just frightening that administrators turn the entire discussion of what your teaching is like over to a bunch of 19-year-old kids.”

Is the Customer Always Right?

Like Yelp in the restaurant industry or TripAdvisor in tourism, the student evaluation can be a powerful tool of communication for the frustrated student-customer. That’s precisely what worries many professors: They view evaluations as part of the growing pressure, especially at public institutions, to treat students like clients and professors like service employees.

Earlier this year, a Republican state senator in Iowa, Mark Chelgren, proposed a bill — which never came close to passing — that would have fired professors, even tenured ones, who scored low on their student evaluations. Mr. Chelgren cited high student-loan debt to argue that students should be able to hold their professors accountable through metrics. “Professors need to understand that their customers are those students,” he told The Chronicle.

Many faculty members say it’s folly to place anywhere near that much emphasis on evaluations whose utility is questionable at best.

Michael P. Chaney, an associate professor of counseling at Oakland University, in Michigan, says that over the past few years, more of his colleagues have expressed concern over the role of evaluations. “We’ve been debating how relevant and beneficial they are,” he says. “There seems to be a disconnect between how faculty view their usefulness and how the university’s promotions and tenure committees view them.”

Among the reasons to be cautious: Response rates tend to be low, a problem that has worsened as more colleges turn to online evaluations. Completed evaluations all too frequently include racist and sexist invective. And students often use the forms simply as a space to vent their frustrations.

“I don’t view student evals as very valuable,” Mr. Chaney says. “Students either really, really like you, or they don’t. There’s no in between.”

Adam McKible, an associate professor of English at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, echoes Mr. Chaney. Faculty members at his institution, which is part of the City University of New York, are scored on a five-point scale, he says, and “you either get ones or fives — there’s no subtlety in the middle.”

“There’s space on the back for comments,” he says. “Occasionally students write something thoughtful. But they mostly say things like ‘He’s an awesome dude’ or ‘Loved your mustache.’”

Those comments aren’t particularly useful for his teaching, nor will they carry much weight in promotion decisions. Still, Mr. McKible, who has been teaching since 1993, keeps a big, fat file full of evaluations. At times he has adjusted his teaching based on the feedback: “I’m more conscious of my behavior in the classroom if students say I’m being too tart or assigning too much work,” he says.

Other comments, though, are just downright hurtful. Mr. Chaney, a gay white man who teaches courses about diversity, was particularly bothered by one student’s note: “I’ll pray for you.” Other students have accused him of having “an agenda.”

“Because of those types of comments, I don’t read all of my evaluations,” he says. “I collect them, but they’re sitting in a file cabinet.” Thinking about the harsh feedback, he says, “makes me hypersensitive and hyperaware to the point where it is difficult for me to be fully present in the classroom.”

Valuable Data?

Such concerns aside, do student evaluations work as a tool for measuring professors’ classroom work? Philip B. Stark, chair of the statistics department at the University of California at Berkeley, has studied the question. His findings: Evaluations are little more than popularity contests, it’s easy to game the system, good professors often get bad ratings, and bad professors often get good ones.

Mr. Stark has argued that “fear of bad ratings stifles pedagogical innovation and encourages faculty to water down course content.” His study concluded that “relying on averages of student teaching-evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned.”

But many administrators aren’t ready to abandon evaluations just yet. For them, faculty concerns are overstated. Evaluations, the administrators say, are just one tool to help them make decisions about tenure, promotion, and hiring.

How important a role they play varies by institution. Christine W. Thorpe, an assistant professor of human services and chair of the department at the New York City College of Technology, another CUNY campus, says her faculty colleagues are rated on a five-point scale. When she sees a score under a four, that’s a red flag.

New adjuncts with low scores are generally not asked to return, Ms. Thorpe says. If professors who have been teaching for a number of years find their scores trending downward, Ms. Thorpe pulls them in for a talk: It could be a sign that their strategies are stale.

“We tell that instructor, We know you’ve been committed to the department, but your scores are low. What’s happening? Can you improve this?,” Ms. Thorpe says. “My intention is not to fire them but to help them improve their teaching experience.”

But if two or three semesters go by with no change, she says, “I try to phase them out by reducing the number of classes they are given to teach, and then I bring them in and counsel them out of teaching.” (She sometimes proposes that terminally low-rated instructors take a break before possibly returning to the classroom.)

Ms. Thorpe says that the evaluation scores of full-time faculty members are monitored just as closely — especially professors fresh out of graduate programs, which are notorious for not teaching Ph.D.’s about pedagogy. And she points out that evaluations aren’t the only tool for tracking that development: Peer observation plays a large role as well.

Ms. Thorpe and other administrators say they are aware that student evaluations are sometimes rife with bias and accusations. “We take all of this under consideration,” she says. “We don’t just run with an accusation and penalize a professor.”

If evaluations aren’t going away, administrators can at least make sure to put them in context.

There’s much to be gained from building a student-evaluation data set, says John A. Holland, director of the writing program at the University of Southern California, which employs many faculty members off the tenure track. “It’s very important that we look at the data carefully to understand a professor’s interactions with students over time,” he says. “I have a whole history of evaluations to look how they perform in a cumulative fashion.”

But “there can be aberrations,” he says. So once he has his results, Mr. Holland sends the data to instructors. Those with low scores are invited to come in and discuss them. “We have a mentoring relationship with newer faculty,” he says. “Mentors can talk through how to improve.”

“Student opinions are only one measure — not the exclusive measure,” he says, but a symbolically important one. “We want students to know that their opinions do matter. Evaluations are not just a blow-off at the end of the semester.”

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Teach to the Test? Just Say No   –  Reading Rockets

By: Craig Jerald

 

It is possible for educators to make better choices about how and when to teach to the test than the alarmist newspaper articles and editorials would seem to suggest. This article from the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement aims to help readers think beyond simple compliance with federal law or basic implementation of programs.

Every spring, education-related newspaper and magazine stories raise the alarm that schools are teaching to the test. Scores of articles and editorials paint a disheartening picture of frustrated teachers forced to abandon good instructional practices for a relentless stream of worksheets based on boring, repetitive test-preparation materials. Even Hollywood actors are chiming in. Actress Alfre Woodard recently told a Louisiana newspaper, “My sister-in-law is left standing in front of her class with a pamphlet, teaching to the test because everyone must pass.”¹

Although the phrase — and the concern — are hardly new, many observers blame the No Child Left Behind (NClB) act for escalating teaching to the test from a problem into an epidemic. The law “virtually transformed the concept of education,” according to a recent editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, “turning teaching and learning into a mere exercise in prepping students to test well.”²

What’s wrong with teaching to the test?

The phrase “teaching to the test” is used widely but seldom defined, causing much confusion about what it means and whether it is bad or good. Indeed, in a recent editorial in the Washington Post, the respected education reporter Jay Matthews claimed that teaching to the test simply means aligning classroom instruction and curriculum to standards; the practice is a good one that should be supported.³

Assessment expert W. James Popham helps to clarify the difference. He defines two kinds of assessment-aware instruction: “curriculum teaching” and “item-teaching.”⁴ Curriculum teachers focus on the full body of knowledge and skills represented by test questions even though tests can employ only a sample of questions to assess students’ knowledge about a topic.

Item teachers narrow their instruction, organizing their teaching around clones of the particular questions most likely to be found on the test — and thus teach only the bits of knowledge students are most likely to encounter on exams. For example, item teachers might drill students on a small set of vocabulary words expected to be assessed rather than employing instructional strategies that help students develop the kind of rich and broad vocabulary that best contributes to strong reading comprehension.

The latter kind of teaching to the test is unethical. For one reason, it misrepresents how much students really have learned about a topic. in the example, students who learned only the 10 words on the vocabulary portion of the reading test will score well even though they have not developed a broad vocabulary, which is supposed to be the goal. in mathematics, students who have been drilled only on test-like questions do not have the opportunity to master a particular skill or concept and often cannot correctly answer questions that assess the same skill or concept in a different way.

Popham also contends that “because teaching either to test items or to clones of those items eviscerates the validity of [tests]… item-teaching is reprehensible. it should be stopped.”⁶ But the problems with teaching to the test go beyond the fact that it interferes with test validity. Parents and educators are much more concerned with how it affects the curriculum and classroom instruction itself.

For example, some worry that item teaching and other test-preparation strategies are taking over more of the weeks and months prior to testing. ” Others worry that the negative effect on instruction stretches back to August and September, with “drill and kill” strategies that substitute memorization for understanding and strangle good instruction all year long.

According to Lauren Resnick and Chris Zurawsky, the combination of accountability, the lack of a clear curriculum, and cheaper off-the-shelf tests is a recipe for bad teaching. “When teachers match their teaching to what they expect to appear on state tests of this sort,” they write, “students are likely to experience far more facts and routines than conceptual understanding and problem-solving in their curriculum….

Like Resnick and Zurawsky, many observers worry that drill-focused forms of teaching to the test can crowd out opportunities to teach students more advanced cognitive skills, such as how to solve problems and communicate effectively. They point to the work of economists, such as Frank Levy and Richard Murnane, who warn that all kinds of jobs, but particularly higher paying jobs, increasingly require fewer rote and routine skills and ever more complex skills. Analyzing tasks performed in jobs across the economy between 1969 and 1999, for example, Levy and Murnane found a big decline in rote tasks and routine work along with a skyrocketing demand for “expert thinking” skills (the ability to solve problems that require more than simply following rules or applying knowledge to new situations) and “complex communication” skills.⁹

Back to Top

Fool’s gold and false choices

The decision to narrowly teach to the test might be bad for students in the long run, but is it really inevitable? Is there an unavoidable trade-off between helping students develop advanced problem-solving and communication skills they will need later in life and helping them perform better on standardized tests while they are in school? More to the point, do “drill and kill” strategies for teaching to the test actually produce higher test scores than other forms of instruction?

During the 1990s, Chicago instituted a number of accountability policies requiring students and schools to meet performance standards on nationally norm-referenced standardized assessments.

A trio of widely respected researchers — Newmann, Bryk, and Nagaoka — then affiliated with the Chicago Consortium on School Research, decided to investigate “What happens to students’ scores on standardized tests of basic skills when urban teachers…assign work that demands complex thinking and elaborated communication…?”¹¹

The researchers conducted a three-year study analyzing classroom assignments and student gains on standardized tests across more than 400 Chicago classrooms in almost 20 elementary schools. Nearly 2,000 classroom assignments were scored based on a rubric that evaluated the extent to which the assignments called for “authentic intellectual work” from students — applying basic skills and knowledge to solve new problems; expressing ideas and solutions using elaborated communication; and producing work related to the real world beyond the classroom.

Newmann, Bryk, and Nagaoka then analyzed student test-score gains on the commercially developed, nationally norm-referenced Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) assessment and the state-developed Illinois Goal Assessment Program (IGAP) exams. The results were startling. In classrooms where teachers employed more authentic intellectual instruction, students logged test-score gains on the ITBS that exceeded the national average by 20 percent. However, students who were given few authentic assignments gained much less than the national average. A similar pattern emerged when researchers examined results on the IGAP assessments.

Those results strongly suggest that accountability and standardized tests need not be in conflict with good instruction, and that Resnick and others are wrong to assume that off-the-shelf tests require teachers to give up teaching higher level skills. “Fears that students will score lower on conventional tests due to teacher demands for more authentic intellectual work appear unwarranted,” the researchers concluded. “To the contrary, the evidence indicates that assignments calling for more authentic intellectual work actually improve student scores on conventional [standardized] tests.”¹² in other words, teaching to the test by “dumbing down” instruction offers only a kind of fool’s gold, promising a payoff that it does not deliver. The choice between good instruction and good test scores is a false one.

Many experts also agree that some forms of direct test preparation can be healthy in small doses, and it might even be necessary for tests to provide valid results.

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Making better choices

Clearly, it is possible for educators to make better choices about how and when to teach to the test.

Cynthia Kuhlman, principal of Atlanta’s high-poverty, high-minority Centennial Place Elementary School, where nearly all students consistently meet state standards on Georgia’s assessments, says, “We don’t teach to the test here at all. We have a curriculum that is mapped to the state’s standards, and we teach almost entirely through theme-based projects. You would be hard pressed to find a worksheet at Centennial Place.”¹³

But some schools will need more than simple stubbornness to resist the lure of teaching to the test. Many teachers and administrators clearly do feel pressure to engage in “item teaching” and rote instruction; and, especially in states that use off-the-shelf norm-referenced exams, educators increasingly worry that they might be sacrificing higher scores if they do not.

It is time to overturn the common assumption that teaching to the test is the only option schools have when faced with high-stakes testing. Over-reliance on “drill and kill” and test-preparation materials is not only unethical in the long-term but ineffective in the short-term. Because there really is no trade-off between good instruction and good test scores, this is that rare case when educators can have their cake and eat it, too.

 

 

An afternoon with the writer’s group.

######

He’s all tats and rap and
syncopation and gyration.

He is young, he is old, he
is idealistic and has no ideals.
He is the white rapper, new age,
all Eminem.

They love him with his good looks, and shaved
head and chains and boots.

“How’d you like it?” I asked him about the group.
“It was okay,” he said.

“I’m not sure I’m
getting a lot out of it anymore,” I tell him.

“I only write for myself,” he remarks.
“If I like it, that’s all I care about.
Doesn’t matter what other
people think.”

I nod gravely,
seeking to respect his muse.

“I’m looking for a writing
group to help me with dialogue,” I tell him like
he’s interested.

“Oh, yeah. Dialogue, that’s that word I was trying
to say, the word for how people talk to each other.”
“Right,” I keep going. “Just read The Big Sleep,
Raymond Chandler, master of dialogue.
Ever read it?” He looks at me blankly.

I back peddle desperately.
“It was a movie too, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall,
Very famous. You may have seen it?”
“Who’s Humphrey Bogart?” he asks.
“Oh, an actor,” I say.

He has to get going, we say goodbye.
I guess I never will really understand
that rap stuff.

This is the first in a series of blogs about what is going on in education today and what is happening to the three R’s – Reading, writing and arithmetic.

Realtor.com

How Much Do School Districts Affect Real Estate Prices?

By Sam DeBord | Jun 1, 2016

When people buy a home, a number of factors influence their decision. The look of the home, as well as its size, layout, age, and proximity to amenities are all important, depending on the buyer.

The local school district is a factor with significant influence. We’ve always known that good schools attract families with school-age children, but recent statistics add concrete numbers and surprising trends to the storyline.

Extreme school buyers

When looking at trends, it’s often entertaining to find the extremes. The best school districts near Seattle have recently seen a huge influx of buyers from China, paying premium cash prices for homes that many are purchasing for their future grandchildren. Neighborhoods on the east side are seeing large numbers of buyers who merely want to know where the best schools are, and are then buying remotely, without viewing the houses in person. These buyers greatly value education.

The domestic home-buying population also clearly values the right school. A 2013 realtor.com® survey of nearly 1,000 prospective home buyers showed that 91 percent said school boundaries were important in their search.

Dedication to Education

 

Bottom of Form

Consumers are willing to sacrifice certain things to live in the right school district. Some of the realtor.com survey results were surprising: One out of five buyers would give up a bedroom or a garage for a better school. One out of three would purchase a smaller home to wind up in the right district.

Buyers are also willing to put their money where their mouths are. One out of five home buyers said they would pay six to 10 percent above their budget for the right school. One out of 10 would double that to 20 percent. Considering that premium could approach $100,000 in a lot of markets, it makes you wonder: How much investment in a school district is appropriate?

Do School Districts Influence Home Prices or Vice Versa?

Conversations about schools and their effect on a home’s value are often of the “chicken or the egg” variety. Homes in the best school districts, on average, sell for higher prices than similar homes in less-popular school districts. A simple analysis might say that good schools are wholly responsible for this added value.

At the same time, on average, more affluent home owners live in more sought-after school districts. Statistics often show that for large sample sizes, the more affluence there is in a community, the higher test scores will be in that same community. Test scores are just one measure of “good schools,” but they’re a highly quoted measure. There can be a self-reinforcing mechanism here that might overemphasize the effect of the school itself on the prices of those homes. One might even hypothesize that the high home prices make the schools better.

…….

School tests and test scores are now being called ‘high stakes testing.’. When we realize how much only one component, the value of houses on the market are affected by test scores, we start to get a more clear picture of what education is becoming in America today.

 

….

Fight Like a Girl Club.com

 

The Breast Cancer Diet

Katie May 1, 2011 Health, Nutrition 2 Comments

Has it ever occurred to you that there could be a connection between breast cancer and your diet?  Some researchers say that there are two key things in preventing cancer- estrogen regulation and immunity boosting.  Dr. Kristi Funk, MD, founder of The Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills, CA says that while a genetic change is the root of all breast cancer,  breast cancer is fed and fueled for the most part by estrogen. Dr Funk believes that if we can decrease estrogen in our bodies, we can remove some of that fuel that makes cancer cells multiply and divide.  How do you do that? Here are 7 things, directly from a blog that Dr. Funk wrote, that help suppress estrogen. Dr. Funk also discussed this on a Dr. Oz show that aired in 2010.

1. Three cups of green tea a day can prevent breast cancer by as much as 50% because of its high EGCG antioxidant content. Squeeze a little lemon into your cup and increase the antioxidant power of your tea.
2. Garlic is a good immunity booster that also has anti-inflammatory properties.
3. Olive oil, borage oils and flaxseed oil contain monounsaturated fat, which can help suppress breast cancer.
4. Turmeric helps decrease estrogen. As little as one teaspoon a day has been shown to reduce tumor growth. Get your daily dose by mixing it into salad dressings, rice or vegetable dishes.
5. Cruciferous vegetables, such as kale, bok choy and Swiss chard bind estrogen in your GI tract and reduce tumor stimulation. They also detoxify the liver, which helps reduce the toxins flowing through your body that can irritate cells and turn them into early cancers.
6. Seaweed/Kelp are high in iodine, this is another estrogen reducer.
7. A daily supplement of Vitamin D (2000 IU) can prevent tumor metastasis, reduce cancer cells and aid estrogen inhibitors. Calcium-rich foods, such as sardines, salmon, milk and cheese are also highly recommended. Or, 15-20 minutes of sunshine every day can help you in getting your daily dose of Vitamin D. All of these combined can decrease your breast cancer risk by up to 50%.

In addition to and somewhat related to diet is, Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA has been shown to add to the risk of breast cancer.  BPA is found in almost everything from metal food cans to some plastic containers.  Since BPA is an unstable polymer and seeks fat, it grabs onto products when they are heated. This is why it’s recommended to remove frozen entrees from the plastic container and put onto a glass plate before heating in the microwave.  Studies using human breast cancer cell cultures show that BPA acts the same as the natural  estrogen estradiol and can weakly interact with the estrogen receptor.  This study also showed that BPA can alter breast cell responsiveness and cause direct damage to the DNA of the cells that were cultured.

With or without cancer, clearly it’s best to eat a diet that’s as healthy as possible loaded with lots of vegetables. Upon diagnosis, did you change your eating habits immediately? Did you receive any nutrition counseling prior to surgery or treatment? Let’s discuss!

References: http://www.pinklotusbreastcenter.com, http://www.breastcancerfund.org

Image courtesy of allrevitolcream.com

Full disclosure:  The author of this blog has blogged in the past for Pink Lotus Breast Center.