The Price of a Human

Many have often pondered at how much a human being was worth. In Chicopee, Massachusetts, a man seemed to have found the answer. Outside of a Pride gas station on May 17th, the man went up to a station maintenance man and offered to trade his three-month old daughter in exchange for only two 40-ounce beers.
“For two 40s, you can have her,” Brace told the employee, according to Chicopee Police Chief John Ferraro’s account.
The maintenance man then immediately called the police on 24-year-old Matthew Brace, Northampton resident. When the Chicopee police arrived on the scene, they found Brace and his daughter hiding behind a trashcan at the hotel where the man was staying, directly across the street from the gas station.
Details of the case have been released and are as follows: Representatives from the state Department of Children and Family Services took the small girl into custody and, while Brace was not arrested, he has to appear in court on the charge of reckless endangerment of a child.
The baby’s mother, also at the scene, was in the gas station convenient store when the event occurred. She was buying cigarettes and was not charged.
Is the world happy now that Matthew Brace has put a price on a person? Are we relieved that the answer has finally been found? Does anyone else think that it is ironic that the event took place at a Pride gas station? Only time will tell.

“Is There Something That You’d Like to Share with the Class?"

Those are the age-old words that always seem to come out of a teacher’s mouth at the worst possible moment. No matter how much a student says that, yes, they were listening to every word of the lesson, the teacher still does that believe them. Your doodling in class is their way of proving that your thinking was elsewhere. There are no excuses. Until now.

Recently, a study has been conducted by psychologist, Jackie Andrade to find out who, when listening to speech, remembered more: people who doodled or people who did not. The results were shocking and would satisfy many of the world’s doodlers, fidgeters, and pen-clickers.

Andrade asked 40 business people to listen to the same 2 1/2 minute tape. 20 of the participants were instructed to shade in squares and circles on a piece of paper, which was the psychologist’s sly way of saying, “doodle.” The other 20 were not. The tape was meant to be rather boring and contained 16 specific details, such as names and places, that the 40 people would be asked to remember and recite to Andrade afterwards.

The people who drew while listening to the tape, or the “doodlers,” could recite an average of 7.5 names and places. The people who did not doodle could only remember an average of 5.8, which was 29% less than the doodlers.

There is not a proven scientific explanation for why doodling, fidgeting, or clicking your pen allows a person to remember more details. However, psychologist Andrade has many theories, one of which being that doodling causes a lack of daydreaming. Daydreaming requires much of your brain power and leaves less for listening and memory. Doodling does not demand nearly as much brain power, but enough to occupy your brain and keep you from daydreaming. Doodling, the happy medium, is such a low use of brain power that you can still pay attention to your surroundings.

This means that technically, during class, it may be argued that it be smart for teachers to encourage their students to doodle rather than the alternative: daydreaming. So while you’re sitting in social studies class, and drawing a flower up the side of your paper, know that that flower is helping you learn more.