Christakis, M.P.H., M.Ed., is an early-childhood educator, public-health advocate and Harvard College administrator. Her column for TIME Ideas usually appears on Tuesdays. You can read more of her work at ErikaChristakis.com.
From the rise in plastic surgery to advanced prosthetics, the line between the real and unreal has long since eroded
If we want to stop violent assaults in youth sports, we need to change the rules of the game
Even if we eliminating the cheating, what remains is the dangerous misconception that testing is a proxy for teaching
We use financial incentives in many areas of life for a simple reason: they work. Why not with teen pregnancy?
There’s no reason to believe President Obama’s laudable proposal won’t inflict a high-stakes testing climate on young kids who aren’t ready for it.
A study on gender disparities in elementary-school performance found that boys received lower grades than girls, even when their test scores were equal to or higher than the girls’
Why do we push our young ones while asking little of our older kids?
Your average kindergartner knows the proper way to prevent germs from spreading. So why won’t adults get with the program?
Our emotional response to this rape case erodes the pursuit of justice, for both the victim and the accused
The preference for male babies—and the resulting skewed sex ratio—may be at the root of the rise in violence against women
