Category: schools

Posted on

A Navy SEAL Trains Dogs to Run and Attack School Shooters

No doubt about it: anxiety is running high in schools across the U.S. And that goes for students, teachers, and parents.

Many conversations center around prevention, gun laws and protection. What will it take to make sure another shooting, like the ones at Highlands Ranch STEM or Stoneman Douglas High School, never happens again?

While legislators and the voting public debate the issue, a Navy SEAL offers a solution that may mitigate loss of life and number of injured: specially trained dogs.

When Joshua Morten returned home from five tours overseas, his thoughts turned from the violence he witnessed on the battleground to what he heard was happening in schools. So he decided to do something about it; he’s using his skills at K-9 handling to train dogs to run after attackers and take them down.

Morton told NBC News, “I did not expect to see what I saw overseas, to see it in schools. But, unfortunately, it’s happening. I’ve been trying to find this solution for a very long time.”

After training dogs to search for drugs and explosives using what he calls the Morton Method, he set about teaching them to find shooters.

The process starts with finding trainable dogs that can run toward the danger while avoiding running children. He uses a partner who fires blank rounds from a semi-automatic rifle. Then, Morton guides the dog towards the noise.

This training is critical because he doesn’t want the dogs loose in a dangerous situation trying to locate the intruder at random. Instead, the dogs use all their senses to find the target.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Morton uses his friends to act as fleeing students and tries to create the scenario in a realistic manner as possible. The dog’s only objective is to aggressively attack and take down the shooter.

After the exercises are over and the protective padding comes off the “shooter,” it’s all smiles and wagging. Nothing personal.

“They’re trained to deal with that specific situation,” Morton says.

Those who have seen one of Morton’s dogs in action are impressed with the dog’s ability and focus. The dogs are clearly capable of bringing down the shooter in a matter of seconds.

Others strongly disapprove of Morton’s solution and took to Twitter with their concerns.

Others wondered if the solution was practical given that finding and training enough dogs would be difficult and expensive.

Then, there is the question of ethics. Is it right to send a dog into a shooting scenario where it runs the real and likely risk of getting injured or killed?

But the public’s skepticism does not seem to bother Morton. He, along with some of the school administrators he’s worked with, are convinced these dogs can help. He’s even breeding them so he can work with them as soon as they are old enough. Without fear and with specialized, formal training, Morton’s dogs will be at the ready the next time a former student or enraged stranger decides to take out their frustrations on our children.

Terrifyingly, they’ll be put to work soon.

The post A Navy SEAL Trains Dogs to Run and Attack School Shooters appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Women in Africa Are Recycling Plastic into Bricks for a Schoolhouse

Tthe world produces over 300 million tons of plastic every year, much of which quickly goes into the trash where it takes centuries to decompose. In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, women are putting plastic garbage to good use by turning it into bricks to build schools, New York Times reports.

Many women in Abidjan make a living by gathering plastic waste from city streets and selling it to recycling centers. Those same women are now working with a Colombian company to convert the waste into bricks to build schools.

The project will result in hundreds of classrooms to serve about 26,400 students — plus, it’s an opportunity for the women to make a better living.

Many schools in the area are built out of traditional mud-bricks and wood. These buildings require a lot of upkeep, as they easily erode in the sun and rain.

The buildings made out of recycled plastic, on the other hand, will last practically forever. In this context, plastic’s slow decomposition is a benefit.

Also, the country’s classrooms are severely overcrowded, with up to 90 students in each class. Additional classrooms are desperately needed.

Since Abidjan produces about 300 tons of plastic waste a day, there’s plenty of plastic to use. Each classroom takes about five tons of plastic waste.

The company converting the waste, Conceptos Plásticos, initially produced the bricks at a factory in Colombia, but they are now building a factory in Abidjan, which will make the classrooms much cheaper to produce.

Several classrooms are already up and running, and the project plans to deliver 528 total, each of which will fit 50 students.

The post Women in Africa Are Recycling Plastic into Bricks for a Schoolhouse appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

An increasing number of schools…

An increasing number of schools and companies in Japan encourage their students and employees to cry as a way of relieving stress and improving mental health. There are also people who are called “namida sensei” meaning “tears teacher”.

Posted on

Nikola Tesla planned to make…

Nikola Tesla planned to make school children smarter and healthier by saturating them unconsciously with electricity, wiring the walls of a schoolroom with high-voltage lines. The plan was provisionally approved by then superintendent of New York City schools, William H. Maxwell.

Posted on

British Schools Are Getting Rid of Analog Clocks Because Kids Can’t Read Them

Remember that slight buzzing sound of those old, industrial clocks on the wall when you were growing up. I sure do, because all I did was stare at them all day waiting to get out of class.

Well, it looks like future generations of students in the United Kingdom will never get the pleasure of staring at those analog clocks because those relics are being removed from classrooms because kids can’t read them.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

You read that right. School kids in the U.K. can’t read the clocks and are getting majorly stressed out because they don’t know how much time they have left during exams. Of course, this is a sign of the times. With almost everything in our lives leaning towards the digital spectrum, it’s not too hard to believe that kids wouldn’t know how to tell time in 2019.

Malcolm Trobe, the deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders, says, “You don’t want them to put their hand up to ask how much time is left. Schools will inevitably be doing their best to make young children feel as relaxed as the can be. There is actually a big advantage in using digital clocks in exam rooms because it is much less easy to mistake a time on a digital clock when you are working against time.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

And this is not the only alarming trend among school kids in regard to technological advances. A pediatric occupational therapist in England named Sally Payne said that young kids are having difficulties holding pens because they are so used to iPads and other digital devices. Payne said, “It’s easier to give a child an iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. Because of this, they’re not developing the underlying foundation skills they need to grip and hold a pencil.”

Very strange times we live in…

The post British Schools Are Getting Rid of Analog Clocks Because Kids Can’t Read Them appeared first on UberFacts.