Search

The Student: A Short History by Michael Roth Yale University Press, 2023, $26 (cloth); 216 pages. As reviewed by Jonathan Zimmerman Every year, at convocation, my university's president tells the [...]

Conflict over the curriculum is nothing new in American public education, which has never been insulated from the culture wars. In the past few years, conflict over the teaching of race has torn through history and social studies classrooms, inciting the most serious fight over America's past since the last "history war" in the 1990s. At issue in the current conflict are debates over what schools should teach K-12 students about the history of race and racism in the United States. The chief flashpoint in this fight has been the "New York Times's" 1619 Project, led by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, which seeks to retell the story of America's founding through the lens of racial inequality. Pushback on the 1619 Project has included the Trump administration's 1776 Commission, which produced a series of proposals seeking to ban 1619-aligned curricula and oppose critical race theory. For this policy dialogue, the "HEQ" editors asked Donnalie Jamnah and Jonathan Zimmerman to discuss the latest round of history wars in K-12 public education, exploring the extent to which the past helps us understand the troubled present, as well as what the future might hold. Donnalie Jamnah is the K-12 Partnerships Manager for the education team at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. In that role, she manages several programs including the 1619 Educator Network. Prior to joining the Pulitzer Center, she worked as a classroom teacher and instructional coach. Zimmerman is a past president of the History of Education Society and the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. His work examines how education practices and policies have developed over time, and the myths that often cloud our understanding of teaching and learning. He is the author of nine books, including "Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools" (2002), which the University of Chicago Press will release in a revised twentieth-anniversary edition in 2022. "HEQ" policy dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references for readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

Advancements in ferroic materials center upon understanding domain structures and their boundaries. This study innovates by directing the growth of lead halide perovskite microcrystals from the gas phase onto pre‐chosen substrates, thereby inducing an interfacial strain that prompts ferroelasticity‐driven structural transformation. A method of ferroelastic engineering in vapor‐grown perovskite heterostructures is thus unveiled, revealing ordered domain patterns of bright crystals with contrasting electro‐optical properties. In the case of the frustrated halide perovskite crystals, the strain is relaxed by the formation of alternating crystallographic twin domains. In the demonstrated orthorhombic system, these domains alternate between (110) and (002) orientation, with a (112) domain boundary. Perovskite ferroelastic effect with facet stability is correlated, attributed to the exposure of lower surface energy terminations, promoting the material's stability and efficiency. This findings result from direct electrical measurements, which pave the way for the tailored design of ferroic materials, optimizing their optoelectronic characteristics for enhanced device performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoiding the discussion of controversial topics in U.S. classrooms deprives students of an important part of their learning. Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson, authors of "The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" (University of Chicago Press, 2017) say Americans are terrible at having informed, reasonable debates in part because schools do not prepare students for such exchanges. Although our policies encourage or even require instruction about controversy, we do a poor job of preparing and supporting teachers to ensure that they can provide such instruction. Teachers need both the prestige to lead the discussion of controversial issues and the protection to do so consistently. In addition, Americans need more education about exactly what constitutes a controversy, which is itself a controversial issue.

Cd(1-x)Zn(x)Te (CZT) crystals are the leading semiconductors for radiation detection, but their application is limited by the high cost of detector-grade materials. High crystal costs primarily result from property nonuniformity that causes low manufacturing yield. Although tremendous efforts have been made in the past to reduce Te inclusions/precipitates in CZT, this has not resulted in an anticipated improvement in material property uniformity. Moreover, it is recognized that in addition to Te particles, dislocation cells can also cause electric field perturbations and the associated property nonuniformities. Further improvement of the material, therefore, requires that dislocations in CZT crystals be understood and controlled. Here, we use a recently developed CZT bond order potential to perform representative molecular dynamics simulations to study configurations, energies, and mobilities of 29 different types of possible dislocations in CdTe (i.e., x = 1) crystals. An efficient method to derive activation free energies and activation volumes of thermally activated dislocation motion will be explored. Our focus gives insight into understanding important dislocations in the material and gives guidance toward experimental efforts for improving dislocation network structures in CZT crystals.