STRANGE things you never thought would come to pass. Queueing to enter a supermarket. Being thrilled by the sight of the bin lorry arriving. Making your own surgical mask. These days. But the oddest thing of all? Being glad to see politicians.

Fewer than one-third of America's teachers say ed-tech innovations have changed their beliefs about what school should look like, according to a new Education Week survey.

LIKE many of your readers, I would imagine, I am a fairly enthusiastic armchair football supporter with no real club affiliation.

NEIL Mackay (“Johnson? Sturgeon? When it comes to coronavirus they are both the same”, The Herald, May 5) lambasts Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson for both taking an almost identical approach in their fight against Covid-19, somehow implying that this is in itself a fault.

READING about the Brooks family and their foraging for food (“Family serves a dinner-time treat ... Japanese Knotweed crumble”, The Herald, May 2) provoked very happy memories of another forager-par-excellence; Rosalind Burgess, the Skye weaver, cook, and writer of an excellent book on how to use the things you grow and forage.

IT is good to see that one of your readers, R Russell Smith, has been enjoying our wildlife and fresh air, having “walked over fields and alongside the burn close to home, enjoying the sunshine and company of lambs gambolling” (Herald letters, May 5).

YOU report (HeraldScotland, May 5) that Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the UK government’s key advisers on the current lockdown restrictions, has resigned after breaching the government (and his own) strong advice on the need for social distancing.

LIKE many people with a wee bit of time on their hands at the moment, I enjoy a morning walk along the cycle track between Elderslie and Castlehead, a nice enough stroll, if you like litter that is; and I mean, really like litter.

BEING a full-time, voluntary, unpaid carer, since November 2018, for my wife, who has dementia, I would like to ask a question of the Scottish Government, especially Jeane Freeman, the health secretary.

THE Herald has reported (May 6) on another economically and socially “lost generation” of children and young people due to Covid-19.

Keeping preschool class sizes at or under 20 children, and keeping child-teacher ratios at 10 to 1, will work for most children in preschool, according to a new study.

Class size does matter for teachers and students, but only if the instruction used in the small class size is different from those instructional practices used in a large one.

The situation in the Clark County School District is a perfect storm that serves as a reminder of how difficult it is for school officials to plan for changing conditions

Size matters in nurturing the relationship between teachers and students.

The highly polarizing 2016 Presidential campaign blitzed the swing state of Virginia. And in the year that followed, a new study in the journal Educational Researcher suggests school bullying problems likewise split along political lines.

Today's commentaries on bullying in schools come from Ann Mausbach, Kim Morrison, Signe Whitson, Sandy Harris, Julie Combs, and Stacey Edmonson, Dr. Elizabeth Englander, Tamara Fyke, Stuart Ablon and Alisha Pollastri.

Until now desktop users had the option to opt-out of the 2017 interface redesign, but next month you'll be forced to use it (and may also need to upgrade to a new browser).

To celebrate 15 years of Google Maps, the popular mapping program gets a redesign, a host of new features, and an installation in New York's Madison Square Park.

EUGENE Cairns (Herald Letters, May 6) feels that a fitting tribute to our NHS heroes would be to name hospitals and wards after those who have died in our service during the pandemic crisis.

THE Government’s ambition to reach a daily target of 100,000 tests across the UK by the end of the month will, as Matt Hancock admitted, require a “huge amount of work”.

Online directories for residential phone numbers have morphed into paid-for services that people largely use for background checks. If I just want a phone number, I'm out of luck.

The money is better spent on sincere and hardworking teachers.

It's resulted in a creepy Orwellian environment where Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others have replaced Big Brother.

The fear is that instead of using it to prevent crime and catch terrorists, facial recognition is instead used for political purposes. But we won't stop it or protect privacy by freaking out.

Social networks are calling themselves platforms rather than publishers to skirt around legal issues, and it has to stop.

Why hasn't every PC user on the planet upgraded to Windows 10 by now? Because Microsoft, as usual, can't communicate to anyone why they should.

In the possible coming of Article 11 and Article 13 to law in the European Union, some see disaster for the internet. What's really happening is an attempt to legally extort money out of Google, Facebook, and other far-too-successful US-based mega-corporations.

Expert says labels, books, and writing centers all help with skill development

While independent schools can feel quite different from their public, charter, and parochial counterparts, the glue that holds all schools together is this noble charge we call teaching.

While teaching is still in the top 10 of highly regarded professions, parents have stopped encouraging their children to become teachers. Guest blogger Heather Harding explores what should be done.

Being a school leader is difficult. They are meant to focus on improvement while also negotiating their way through adult behavior. Can leadership coaching help them focus on what truly matters?

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said that half of Chicago teachers were "illiterate" in a 2011 email, recently released to a city newspaper.

From age 17, Ana Maria prayed to serve God in Switzerland. While she waited, she became a dance instructor with no idea dance would become her ministry.

Three teams of youngsters from the United States were given the chance to impress at the UEFA Champions Festival with a series of special exhibition matches in Munich.

Youth and grassroots football was the focus as UEFA President Michel Platini attended the finals of a grassroots programme and a new maxi-pitch was opened in Amsterdam.

Seeing an opportunity to talk about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the staff at SonRise Café in Tokyo sells Easter eggs before Easter.

Two OMers were asked to help a church network deliver relief supplies to churches in Kumamoto after two large earthquakes had struck the area.

Dozens of states offer the seal of biliteracy, but more than 80 percent of students who earn the honor are concentrated in just five states, a new report reveals.

The ballot measure essentially repeals Proposition 227, the 1998 law that made it tougher for districts to offer bilingual education.

In California, nearly 1 in every 4 children don't speak English fluently. On Election Day, the state's voters will decide whether to overturn a longstanding policy of teaching these children in English-only classrooms, or whether to embrace bilingual forms of teaching.

Dig into what two leading Democratic presidential candidates have to say in their platforms about charter schools with Education Week's detailed analysis.

Little is known about the pharmacokinetics and required dosage of metronidazole in preterm neonates.

In this study the pharmacokinetics of metronidazole in preterm neonates was investigated by measurement of the drug in dried blood-spot samples. A dosage regimen is proposed that should result in more appropriate, less frequent dosing in the most preterm neonates. (Read the full article)

Corticosteroids inhibit the expression of many proinflammatory cytokines released during the course of community-acquired pneumonia infection. Corticosteroids have been found in some studies to be associated with improved clinical outcomes in adults with pneumonia. No studies have investigated corticosteroid use in children with pneumonia.

Results showed that corticosteroid treatment in children with pneumonia is common and its use is highly variable across institutions. Although corticosteroid therapy may benefit children with acute wheezing treated with β-agonists, corticosteroid therapy may lead to worse outcomes for children without wheezing. (Read the full article)

The current standard of care includes informing women about prenatal testing and newborn screening for cystic fibrosis and providing genetic counseling to parents whose child is referred for sweat-testing. Despite counseling, early data identified some persistent confusion about residual risk.

Prenatal discussions about carrier testing and newborn screening for cystic fibrosis are not routine. Parental anxiety about abnormal results from a screen is decreased after speaking to a genetic counselor when scheduling the sweat test. Despite counseling, residual risk continues to be poorly understood. (Read the full article)

Few epidemiological studies, which included varied exposure assessment, have investigated the relation between drinking-water–disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes and hypospadias, and their results have been inconclusive.

Little evidence was found for an association between trihalomethanes and hypospadias, but a novel association between water consumption and hypospadias was found. Factors that influence maternal water consumption, or other contaminants in tap or bottled water, might explain this finding. (Read the full article)

Cardiovascular risk factors predict the development of premature atherosclerosis. As the number of risk factors increases, so does the extent of these lesions. Assessment of cardiovascular risk factors is an accepted practice in adults but is not used in pediatrics.

In this study, the authors discuss how the presence of ≥2 cardiovascular risk factors is associated with vascular changes in adolescents. The findings were compared with the Patholobiological Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth risk score to demonstrate that a simple method of clustering is a reliable tool to use in clinical practice. (Read the full article)

Internet use has rapidly become a commonplace activity, especially among adolescents. Poor mental health and several somatic health problems are associated with heavy Internet use by adolescents.

Results of this study provide evidence of a U-shaped relationship between intensity of Internet use and poorer mental health of adolescents. Heavy Internet users were also confirmed to be at increased risk for somatic health problems in this nationally representative sample of adolescents. (Read the full article)

Approximately 27% of children with rotavirus in the hospital acquire it while hospitalized for another condition. Pediatric rotavirus vaccination greatly decreased the number of children hospitalized with rotavirus from 2007 to 2008.

Routine community-based rotavirus infant vaccination protects hospitalized children from acquiring rotavirus. Thus, community-based vaccination efforts should be encouraged as a strategy to decrease hospital-acquired rotavirus. (Read the full article)

No studies have focused on the financial impact of fellowship training in pediatrics.

The results from this study can be helpful to current pediatric residents as they contemplate their career options. In addition, the study may be valuable to policy makers who evaluate health care reform and pediatric workforce-allocation issues. (Read the full article)

Primary care providers (PCPs) identify patients with undescended testis (UDT) and refer them to surgical specialists. Referral beyond the recommended times for orchiopexy has been reported, and PCPs' accuracy in identifying and distinguishing UDTs from retractile testes has been questioned.

We describe 3 observations that are strongly correlated with UDT, that is, birth history of UDT, prematurity, and visible scrotal asymmetry. UDT diagnoses are best made by 8 months of age, to reduce confusion with testicular retraction and to facilitate timely orchiopexy. (Read the full article)