All my friends know that I love to cook. I see it as my therapy, and a tasty way to exercise my creativity. I will cook anything, but some days I just want comfort food. I just want some fried chicken, Macaroni and cheese, Greens, and some Hoe Cakes.

Yes, you read that correctly, Hoe Cakes. They are deliciousness in your mouth. They are similar to pancakes, but can be eaten at any time of day and with any meal, or as a snack.

A cornmeal hoe cake, or hoecake, also known as Jonnycakes, is a sort of fried cornmeal flatbread – kind of like if you took cornbread batter and skillet fried it like a pancake. The inside puffs up like cornbread, while the outside gets nice and crispy from frying it in the oil. It’s the perfect companion to a mess o’greens, or for breakfast or as a sweet treat when drizzled with a bit of syrupp.

Personally, I prefer my Hoecakes to be sweet with a little bit of honey or molasses. Talking about them is just making me hungry. Here is a link for you, and join me with my favorite treat. Y’all ain’t tried nothing ’till you had these little darlin’s. And that’s real talk.

Deep South Dish: Southern Cornmeal Hoe Cakes

– Maverick

If You Build It, They Will Learn.

Schizophrenia and other serious psychological disorders typically manifest during young adulthood or late adolescence. For years researchers have tried to find out causal factors, their associated triggers and prevention strategies.

A study performed by a team headed by Akira Sawa, director of the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center, appeared in the journal Science on Jan. 18 indicates that chronic stress during adolescence influences the function of a gene known to place people at risk for developing several types of mental illness. The study’s findings also indicate the importance in mental illness of epigenetics, which is the study of how people’s experience and environment affect the function of their genes.

In the paper, researchers describe a mechanism for why this happens, along with a possible drug that might help prevent the onset of the disease by targeting the stress system.

The study can be found: At the Journal Science.
Sawa A. Et al. (2013).  “Adolescent Stress–Induced Epigenetic Control of Dopaminergic Neurons via Glucocorticoids” Science, Vol. 339 no. 6117 pp. 335-339. DOI: 10.1126/science.1226931.

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As everybody knows, unless your just not payign attention, most parents tell lies to their children as a tactic to change their behaviour. Often in my case it did not work, but it was a popular practice in my childhood. A study of families in the United States and China indicates that this practice is an international constant and may have long-term effect on behavioral development. Oddly, the most frequent example related to parents threatening to leave children alone in public unless they behaved in socially acceptibole ways. “I’m goign to leave you little Jimmy!!!” (Oh the KMart memories!)

Persuasion ranged from invoking the support of the tooth fairy to telling children they would go blind unless they ate particular vegetables.
Another strategic example was: “That was beautiful piano playing.”

Read more on the BBC’s website: Most Parent’s Lie to Their Children.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend reporting on a study finding “effective teachers can boost the test scores of students.”  Now I’m no student of pedagogy, but this tory just states the obvious.  My personal opinion is that if you don’t know the information, there is no way in the world that you will be able to teach it to someone else in an effective way.   

The three-year study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, published Tuesday Jan 8, is the first large-scale research to show, using random student assignment, that some teachers can produce test-scoregains regardless of the past performance of their students, according to foundation officials.

As a lifelong student of social sciences, I see this study as flawed as it assumes that test scores are a reasonable measurement of teacher effectiveness.  In my opinion, they are only a measure of academic knowledge retention and that only within one’s short-term memory.  The most ineffective teacher can look good if a student decides to place some effort into the process and study the material prior to the test. 

Measuring a teacher’s effectiveness can be performed via test score examination, but only as an element of a full-scale analysis.  Such elements as voluntary class participation, and student engagement in class discussion is much more effective when attempting to see whether a teacher is effective, rather than the quantitative score from an exam. 

Read more from the Wall Street Journal’s Blog: Good Teachers Linked to Test Success, and follow them on Twitter @WSJ.