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—Witthaya Prasongsin—Getty Images(SeaPRwire) - Certain leaders boil down America’s math crisis to just two words: test scores. For decades, hopes of progress have been crushed by stagnant or declining scores. There’s full-on panic over slipping global competitiveness, urgent demands for more drills, worksheets, and twice-weekly tutoring—anything to boost those test scores. But the actual crisis runs deeper: we’re teaching the wrong kind of math and assessing it incorrectly. We spend thousands of hours on outdated rote memorization-based math that’s everywhere in high-stakes tests—math most students will never use as adults—while completely overlooking the math that shapes our daily lives. This is a flawed plan crafted by policymakers who don’t fully grasp math, with a public that’s equally confused about the subject going along with it. The word “math” alone might transport you back to high school—algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus for the more advanced students. A flood of obscure concepts: factored polynomials, side-angle-side theorems, irrational numbers, the chain rule. Worksheets designed to sharpen our ability to do short, step-by-step calculations quickly and correctly, manually. This math curriculum was established for the U.S. by the Committee of Ten in 1893, when rote math was critical for many esteemed careers: architects, surveyors, civil engineers, weapons specialists, astronomers. Then computers arrived. From a handful of mainframes in the 1960s to the omnipresent supercomputer-powered smartphones of today, we live in a world drowning in data. Math permeates and shapes our lives via algorithms, optimization, statistics, probability, and artificial intelligence. These shifts cry out for a complete revamp of the math we teach in schools. Yet we’ve made the wrong choices, attaching increasing importance to rote math that’s becoming less and less relevant. We’ve turned rote math scores into the primary indicator of educational quality—a system that ranks, sorts, and penalizes students. But this isn’t unavoidable. Our schools could focus on teaching math that’s meaningful—the kind that influences what we watch, read, and trust. Math is the foundation of important financial and healthcare choices every American makes. It can either help civil society thrive or our lack of math knowledge could split us apart. The right math can captivate, empower, and lift up students, giving our people the skills to handle life-altering challenges. Take an example: suppose you’re ill and a medical test comes back positive. Your doctor says the test is 90% accurate, so you have a 90% chance of having the disease. But the doctor has mixed up two probabilities: the chance you have the disease given a positive test, and the chance of a positive test given you have the disease. They sound similar, but these odds can vary by 25 to 50 times. Without understanding this, you might make a life-or-death choice based on a flawed data interpretation. Or consider a young adult who opens a FanDuel account, sure they’ll outsmart the odds. They use a credit card to cover initial losses, not realizing the ruinous long-term effects of compound interest. To get out of debt, they pay for a sketchy online certification, making their financial troubles even worse.Beyond these personal financial situations, math has a huge impact on society as a whole. Every month, the U.S. unemployment rate dominates news and policy decisions, with all attention on the U-3 statistic: the total number of unemployed people as a percentage of the civilian labor force. The problem? Most people don’t understand this number. Someone is considered “employed” if they worked just one paid hour in the past month, and “unemployed” only if they had a job interview in the last month. Adults who’ve stopped looking for work are ignored. But it’s hard to find a news story that explains U-3 or mentions the more revealing TRU measure— which includes unemployed workers, part-timers who want full-time jobs, and those earning less than $20,000 a year—currently at 23.6%.Without a basic understanding of how these metrics are defined and what they exclude, Americans can’t correctly understand economic conditions or hold policymakers responsible.Every decade, the U.S. spends billions counting its population—331,449,281 in the 2020 Census. That level of precision (down to the last person) is a myth. The Census Bureau’s own research admits that Black and Latino communities are undercounted at rates several times higher than white communities. These inaccurate numbers determine how congressional seats, electoral votes, and over $2.8 trillion in annual federal funding are distributed. A population that understands math would demand better.Many Americans also mix up correlation and causation. Look at studies that claim math scores are crucial for future success. Few people know how success is defined in these studies, that the correlations are actually weak, or that both math scores and success are influenced by a common factor: parental resources. When we confuse correlation with causation, our education policies are built on an illusion.Our education system is built on a data illusion, which hurts all of us. We overload K-12 students with 112 standardized multiple-choice tests—rote math is ideal for these exams. The cost of these tests is kept low by using ones designed to be graded by computers. And if a computer can grade a task, it can perform that task itself. We actually define educational success using narrow skills that computers can do instantly and flawlessly. Then we casually force these test scores to fit a bell curve, setting kids against each other in cutthroat competition that harms their mental health and takes away the joy and meaning of learning. We treat America’s kids as data points, but what we really need is to teach them data analysis skills.This testing doesn’t prepare kids for adult life. Only 37% of U.S. adults have the math skills needed for everyday financial or medical choices. Around 93% of Americans say they feel anxious about math. And less than half can answer whether their money will buy more, less, or the same after a year if their savings account earns 1% interest and inflation is 2%.None of this has to happen. With the federal Department of Education being dismantled, states have a chance to fix math education. Our schools should focus on data and financial literacy, statistical thinking, and the impactful concepts of math. Let AI handle the rote work while students learn and apply the math ideas that are important—showing math’s relevance, creativity, and fun. If we do this, we’ll raise young adults with the math skills to help themselves, their communities, and our democracy grow and succeed. This article is provided by a third-party content provider. SeaPRwire (https://www.seaprwire.com/) makes no warranties or representations regarding its content. Category: Top News, Daily News SeaPRwire provides global press release distribution services for companies and organizations, covering more than 6,500 media outlets, 86,000 editors and journalists, and over 3.5 million end-user desktop and mobile apps. SeaPRwire supports multilingual press release distribution in English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Chinese, and more.

—Photo-illustration by TIME (Source image: Getty Images; Juanmonino)(SeaPRwire) - When stress keeps you awake, counting sheep may not be enough. Instead, experts recommend a simple mental technique that can calm even the most active thoughts. They rely on it themselves.This method is called “cognitive shuffling.” It’s a mental exercise that gives your brain something neutral and mildly engaging to focus on, helping it relax into sleep rather than staying stuck in overthinking mode. Here’s what you need to know—and how to determine if it could work for you.What is cognitive shuffling?The idea was introduced more than ten years ago by Dr. Luc Beaudoin, a cognitive scientist who first developed it due to his own struggles with insomnia.Here’s how it works: After following your usual bedtime routine, pick a word that doesn’t carry strong emotional weight and consists of five to twelve letters. “The word should be emotionally neutral—avoid anything linked to stress or intense feelings,” says Patricia B. Pedreira, a health psychologist and postdoctoral associate at Duke University Medical Center specializing in behavioral sleep medicine. “Stay away from words like ‘money,’ ‘deadline,’ or anything that might trigger anxious thoughts.” Some of her preferred choices include blanket, garden, bedtime, and kitchen.Once you’ve chosen your word, go through each letter one by one, coming up with as many unrelated words as possible for each. For example, if your word is “bedtime,” your list might look like this: B: butterfly, basket, bagel. E: envelope, Egypt, emerald. (In practice, continue until you run out of ideas.) “The key is keeping them unrelated,” Pedreira notes. “If your mind starts making connections or building stories, you’re missing the point.”Every time you name a new word, take a few seconds to briefly visualize it. If you landed on “goat” for the letter G, for instance, “you’d picture a goat in your mind,” Pedreira explains. “You don’t need to create a highly detailed image—just a quick mental snapshot will do.” Hold that image for a moment, then move on to the next letter.Ideally, you won’t finish the entire word—instead, you’ll drift off to sleep. “You might fall asleep mid-letter, complete the whole word, or lose track of where you are,” Pedreira says. “None of that matters. The goal isn’t to finish perfectly.” If you reach the end of the word still awake, simply choose another word and start over.If you find yourself stuck or repeating the same words, the issue might be your initial choice. Nina Kaiser, a psychologist in San Francisco who teaches cognitive shuffling to both children and adults, suggests avoiding words with repeated letters. Once you’ve exhausted all options starting with a particular letter, encountering another instance of that letter later in the word forces you to repeat the same list—which can easily lead to mental looping. This makes “Google,” with its double Gs and Os, a poor choice, while “planet,” with six distinct letters, is much better.Why it worksWhen your brain is replaying or analyzing recent events, those thoughts can keep you in an alert, problem-solving state that prevents sleep. “Your task is to shift gears and redirect focus toward something more conducive to falling asleep,” Kaiser explains. “You’re choosing something deliberately dull instead of stimulating—giving your brain a clear activity rather than just telling it, ‘Don’t think about what’s worrying you.’”The method also provides a constructive alternative to lying awake watching the clock. “It replaces rumination with purposeful action,” Pedreira says. “Instead of passively obsessing over sleeplessness, people have something active and positive to do.”There’s also a neurological explanation. During the day, your brain operates with faster waves tied to focused attention; as sleep approaches, these slow down into slower, more diffuse patterns. “It’s a gradual transition into a relaxed, loosely connected mental state,” explains Sarah Gray, a psychologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Cognitive shuffling helps guide your brain through this shift instead of keeping it trapped in analytical mode.That’s why it often outperforms counting sheep, according to Gray. Counting quickly becomes monotonous, allowing stressful thoughts to resurface. In contrast, cognitive shuffling offers just enough stimulation—generating words, holding onto letters, imagining objects—without overexciting the mind. The visualization component is especially important: briefly picturing each item keeps the brain occupied enough to block intrusive thoughts. “It genuinely helps the brain disengage and settle into a softer, more open state,” she says.Who benefits mostCognitive shuffling is most effective for individuals struggling to fall asleep due to repetitive thinking or racing thoughts. “I frequently see this in otherwise good sleepers who bring daytime stress into bed with them,” Pedreira observes.In other words, it’s not a cure-all for sleep disturbances. It doesn’t address chronic insomnia disorder, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, circadian rhythm disorders, or insomnia caused by medication side effects or hormonal changes—all of which require medical treatment. It also tends to be less effective for people with aphantasia, a condition characterized by difficulty or inability to form mental images. Similarly, it may not suit anyone for whom visualization feels taxing or activating rather than calming.One crucial reminder: avoid turning cognitive shuffling into a chore. “If someone believes they must perform it flawlessly or visualize with perfect clarity, they’ve undermined its purpose,” Pedreira warns. “This technique should feel effortless and gentle, not like a test.”If you don’t nod off within the first minute or two, don’t panic—and certainly don’t start fixating on the clock. “It’s completely normal to remain awake with an active mind for ten to fifteen minutes,” Gray points out. The real problem arises when people become anxious about not falling asleep immediately, as that worry perpetuates wakefulness. That’s precisely why cognitive shuffling exists: to offer a low-stakes activity while your brain gradually unwinds, rather than adding another layer of stress. This article is provided by a third-party content provider. SeaPRwire (https://www.seaprwire.com/) makes no warranties or representations regarding its content. Category: Top News, Daily News SeaPRwire provides global press release distribution services for companies and organizations, covering more than 6,500 media outlets, 86,000 editors and journalists, and over 3.5 million end-user desktop and mobile apps. SeaPRwire supports multilingual press release distribution in English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Chinese, and more.

The San Luis Potosi Desert Highlands in Mexico. —Photo Beto—Getty Images(SeaPRwire) - My initial encounter with Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. left me bewildered.It was May 5, 2014, shortly after I relocated to New York. Having been raised in Mexico and spent years residing in Europe, I anticipated a modest cultural observance—perhaps a low-key gathering among Mexican expatriates. After all, Cinco de Mayo is not considered a major holiday back home.Instead, I was met with something entirely different.From the moment I arrived, the holiday was inescapable: airport banners, street advertisements, and restaurant promotions were everywhere. During my taxi ride to Manhattan, I even saw a news anchor wearing a sombrero under the banner “Cinco de Drinko.”Over the years, this pattern has repeated every Cinco de Mayo I have spent in the United States. Bars are packed with patrons clamoring for tequila shots, drinking excessively with little regard for the day’s actual significance. Many Americans conflate Cinco de Mayo with Mexico’s Independence Day or simply treat it as a justification for cheap drinking.This spectacle is, at best, confusing, and at worst, an offensive caricature of Mexican heritage.In truth, the holiday commemorates Mexico’s improbable 1862 victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla. It is a narrative of resilience, not revelry. Somewhere along the way, however, that meaning was reduced to a spring break-style stereotype centered on heavy alcohol consumption.Yet, Mexico’s history with spirits is far more ancient, profound, and nuanced than that. Our culture is rich, not superficial. I discovered this truth in the Chihuahuan Desert.My mother, Cecilia Romo, was an economist specializing in arid regions. During my childhood, I frequently joined her on trips to remote areas of northern Mexico, where she studied how local communities could derive economic value from landscapes that seemed barren.The desert is a harsh environment. Temperatures fluctuate dramatically, from freezing nights to scorching days, and water is a rarity. Survival is never a certainty.However, one plant thrives there: the Dasylirion. This hardy plant is the source of sotol, a spirit now being recognized as the next major Mexican export alongside tequila and mezcal.Despite comparisons to tequila and mezcal, the Dasylirion is neither an agave nor a cactus. It is a wild desert plant that requires 15 to 20 years to reach maturity. It endures drought, high winds, and extreme heat that would destroy most crops, flourishing where almost nothing else can.While the spirit has been produced for over 800 years, it only received its Denomination of Origin in 2002—decades after tequila and mezcal had already established global markets.Observing my mother’s work, I became captivated by the plant’s resilience. In the most unforgiving conditions, it stores exactly what it needs to survive. When harvested and distilled, the resulting spirit is remarkably clean and crisp—essentially just plant and water.Much like fine wine grapes grown in challenging soil, the harsher the conditions, the superior the final product.Its flavor profile is both familiar and unique—leaner, cleaner, and more refined than what many expect from Mexican spirits.For much of the 20th century, sotol’s development was hindered by anti-distillation laws that forced it underground. By the time it gained formal recognition in 2004, tequila and mezcal had already claimed their spots on the world stage.Now, sotol is making a comeback, increasingly viewed as the third pillar of Mexican spirits.The timing is significant. While overall alcohol consumption in the U.S. is trending downward, a new pattern is emerging: people are drinking less but choosing higher quality, seeking products that are authentic, artisanal, and rooted in their origin.Sotol fits perfectly into this shift.What fascinates me most, however, is not just the drink itself, but what it symbolizes. Northern Mexico is rarely portrayed in the American imagination as a place of craftsmanship or refinement; it is more often viewed through the lens of border politics or migration. Yet, the region possesses a deep tradition of determination, lucha, and resilience—qualities embodied by the sotol plant.In this sense, the spirit offers a meaningful way to reframe our perspective.It serves as a reminder that Mexico is not merely a caricature of sombreros and shots. It is a nation of depth, complexity, and discovery.So, this Cinco de Mayo, perhaps the most meaningful change would be a subtle one. Instead of drinking more, we could choose to drink differently. Rather than celebrating a stereotype, we might cultivate curiosity about the genuine history and culture behind what is in our glass.And perhaps we can take a lesson from the desert—one particularly relevant to the times we live in: the value of resilience, patience, and the quiet strength of growing where others believe nothing can. This article is provided by a third-party content provider. SeaPRwire (https://www.seaprwire.com/) makes no warranties or representations regarding its content. Category: Top News, Daily News SeaPRwire provides global press release distribution services for companies and organizations, covering more than 6,500 media outlets, 86,000 editors and journalists, and over 3.5 million end-user desktop and mobile apps. SeaPRwire supports multilingual press release distribution in English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Chinese, and more.

An urban community garden in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. —Gustavo de la Paz/Europa Press—Getty Images(SeaPRwire) - Most urban rooftops are far from scenic—they’re either a tar-paper or concrete slab sweltering in summer heat, or a windswept, desolate patch in winter. But according to new research published in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society, city rooftops, alongside vacant lots and urban green spaces, could be transformed into something far different: working farms. When properly developed and repurposed, the study’s authors found, urban gardens could satisfy up to 28% of the fruit and vegetable requirements of 190 million people across Europe.The study was led by Stepan Svintsov, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development in Dresden, Germany. The team used geographic information systems (GIS), a surveying and modeling tool, to catalog available rooftop and ground-level space across 840 cities in 30 European nations. The smallest city by population was Melun, France, with 9,000 residents, while the largest was Paris, home to 7 million people. By land area, the smallest city was Mislata, Spain, at 0.2 square kilometers, and the largest was once again Paris, spanning 100 square kilometers.Not every potential urban plot mapped for agriculture will make a suitable growing site. The researchers do not plan to use high-tech growing systems like vertical farms or hydroponics. Instead, their focus is on the most accessible option for most people: traditional, low-tech, soil-based farming. This creates a low barrier to entry, but also brings with it the same challenges that must be managed on traditional farms—including soil erosion and nutrient runoff. For this reason, they only selected rooftops with a slope of no more than 2°.“We need to level the rooftop,” explains Prajal Pradhan, an associate professor in the faculty of science and engineering at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and a co-author of the study. “That’s how we arrived at the two-degree rule.”Europe’s regions also vary widely in their suitability for urban farming. Southern Europe faces water shortages and high evaporation rates that restrict urban agricultural efforts. Northern Europe has shorter growing seasons due to lower temperatures and less daylight. Central and Western Europe face local constraints including high population density and competing land uses.After accounting for all these variables, the researchers determined that between 4,500 and 7,500 square kilometers of urban land and rooftops could be used for farming—an area equal to up to two islands the size of Mallorca. On average, up to 9% of a city’s total land area could support rooftop farming, while 7.2% could be used for ground-level cultivation.This adds up to a massive supply of fruits and vegetables—between 11.8 million and 19.8 million tons each year. Different cities will see varying benefits from this local produce. For example, Berlin could meet up to 45% of its own produce needs by growing food within city limits. Cerdanyola del Vallè, a town near Barcelona, would actually have a harvest surplus, producing enough food to cover 140% of its annual needs. When scaled up beyond Europe to the global stage, the researchers reference another study that found urban farming could meet 5% to 10% of the world’s fruit and vegetable requirements.Urban farming does more than stock grocery store shelves and farmers’ markets—it also cuts greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating the carbon footprint created by shipping fruits and vegetables across continents or oceans. “Take a tomato grown in Spain and shipped to Germany,” Pradhan says. “Compare that to a tomato grown right in Berlin.”The so-called “last mile problem”—the distance consumers travel from their homes to grocery stores to purchase produce—could also be eliminated or drastically reduced. When crops are grown directly on nearby rooftops or adjacent lots, no travel is needed at all. All of this works toward achieving the 15-minute city ideal: designing urban spaces so that residents are no more than a one-km, 15-minute walk or bicycle trip from all of their basic needs.Urban farming also offers other secondary benefits, most notably reducing urban temperatures. In summer, brick, concrete, and asphalt cities act as nothing short of heat traps, baking in intense sunlight during the day and radiating heat back out at night. Covering rooftops and empty lots with vegetation counteracts this effect, creating an overall cooling impact. Pradhan cites studies showing that residences near an urban garden experience lower summertime temperatures than those located farther away.Transforming underused urban space into farmland is not a perfect solution. The researchers concede that growing crops within urban centers could expose food to heavy metals like lead, zinc, cadmium, and nickel, carried in runoff from cars, factories, and aging buildings. What’s more, every hectare (2.5 acres) of urban land converted to farming is one less hectare of greenspace available for recreation—a critical feature for any livable city.Even so, the researchers conclude that the benefits—both literal and metaphorical—of urban farming easily outweigh the downsides, contributing not only to better provisioned residents but also happier, healthier communities.“There are a great many benefits tied to mental health,” Pradhan says. “It’s not only about biodiversity, not only about the environment, not only about food access—it’s also about embracing a healthy way of living. All of these elements are part of a holistic, healthy lifestyle.” This article is provided by a third-party content provider. SeaPRwire (https://www.seaprwire.com/) makes no warranties or representations regarding its content. Category: Top News, Daily News SeaPRwire provides global press release distribution services for companies and organizations, covering more than 6,500 media outlets, 86,000 editors and journalists, and over 3.5 million end-user desktop and mobile apps. SeaPRwire supports multilingual press release distribution in English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Chinese, and more.