Many parents don't think their kids are interested in sex, but believe that everyone else's kids are, a new study reveals.

"Parents I interviewed had a very hard time thinking about their own teen children as sexually desiring subjects," said study researcher Sinikka Elliott, an assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. "At the same time, parents view their teens' peers as highly sexual, even sexually predatory."

Parents Don't Think Their Own Teens Are Having Sex | LiveScience.

School board President Carol Emrick announced that she was resigning from the school board at to night's meeting.  The school board will appoint someone to fill her remaining term till December 2011. There will be an announcement and directions on how to apply on the district web site and local papers. 

To reduce adolescent risk taking, a different approach is needed: one that recognizes how adolescents reason. Research by Dr. Valerie Reyna sheds light on adolescent decision making and suggests new approaches for helping youth make good choices.

Resources on Risky Decision Making in Adolescents.

MEXICO CITY — Can't afford to pay your income taxes? Paint a picture instead.

That's the deal Mexico has offered to artists since 1957, quietly amassing a modern art collection that would make most museum curators swoon. As the 2009 tax deadline approaches, tax collectors are getting ready to receive a whole new crop of masterworks

In Mexico, artists can pay their taxes with artwork - USATODAY.com.

A few times each month, second graders at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., take time from math and reading to engage in philosophical debate. There is no mention of Hegel or Descartes, no study of syllogism or solipsism. Instead, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg and his undergraduate students from nearby Mount Holyoke College use classic children’s books to raise philosophical questions, which the young students then dissect with the vigor of the ancient Greeks.

About time or about time it came back. Two questions the wee ones constantly ask are how and why. The two basic subjects that help answer these questions physics and philosophy are some far off high school elective if they are even taught at all.  Hard to design a multiple choice standardized test with a question like “Does a tree deserve respect”? 

Philosophical reasoning taught in the second grade. - NYTimes.com.

In an era when students talk back to teachers, skip class and wear ever-more-risque clothing to school, one central Texas city has hit upon a deceptively simple solution: Bring back the paddle.

Lack of freedom can be measured directly by lack of stupid. Freedom means freedom to be stupid. We never need freedom to do the smart thing. You don't need any freedom to go with majority opinion. There was no freedom required to drive a Prius before the recall. We don't need freedom to recycle, reuse and reduce. We don't need freedom to listen to classic rock, classic classical, classic anything or Terry Gross. We exercise our freedom to its fullest when we are at our stupidest.

Penn Jillette's Homage to Hummer - WSJ.com.