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Posts Tagged ‘students’

Bookshop Plus Cats

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photos: The Literary Cat Co.
Since Literary Cat Co. opened in Kansas about a year and a half ago, 32 of the store’s foster cats have been adopted by bookstore customers.

Today’s story is about a business in Kansas that meets two very different goals at the same time — and makes a lot of people in the community happy.

Sydney Page reports at the Washington Post, “At a bookstore in this Kansas town, three cats are on the full-time staff. Hank, a domestic longhaired cat, is the ‘regional manager.’ His job duties involve keeping track of the computer cursor and ‘sleeping in adorable positions 22 hours a day,’ according to the bookstore website.

“ ‘He’s the boss of this place,’ said Jennifer Mowdy, owner of the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kansas — a bookstore that doubles as a cat lounge and feline foster home.

“Scarlett Toe’Hara, a black short-haired cat, who is polydactyl — meaning she has extra toes — is the ‘assistant (to the) regional manager.’ She is the front door guard, plant inspector and treat tester.

“Mike Meowski — a domestic longhaired cat with one eye, named after Mike Wazowski in Monster’s Inc. — is ‘assistant (to the assistant to the) regional manager.’ His role involves cuddling guests and quality control for boxes. …

“Mowdy opened the store in 2023 after 17 years as an educator. While teaching, Mowdy volunteered with animal rescues and fostered cats. She also loved bookstores. …

” ‘I decided I could do it; I could create something,’ Mowdy said.

“There are typically about seven cats — in addition to Hank, Scarlett and Mike — who live in the bookstore as foster cats. They’re ‘temporary staff,’ and Mowdy’s goal is for her customers to adopt them.

“ ‘We partner with a rescue, and when they get a cat that they think has a personality that would fit, or they haven’t been successful in adopting a cat through other means,’ she said. ‘If we have the room, we take them in.’ … The cats come from SEK Animal Advocates, a local rescue network. …

“Lori Seiwert and her husband adopted a brother-sister duo from the Literary Cat Co. shortly after it opened. The cats are named Frog and Toad after the picture book. …

“Frog, who is male, and Toad, who is female, turned 2 in February. Seiwert said she and her husband often stop by the store to visit Mowdy and play with the other cats.

“ ‘It’s a nice thing for such a small community,’ she said. ‘It’s very homey.’

“Most cats are adopted within six months of arriving at the bookstore, though some find homes much faster; others have stayed for up to a year. …

“Mowdy looks after the cats with Caitlin Fanning, a bookseller. They also have a volunteer who visits the store on Sundays and Mondays when it is closed to feed the cats and care for them.

“The bookstore is near Pittsburg State University, so college students often bring their own books to study there and snuggle some cats.

“ ‘We’ve got lots of cozy chairs and reading nooks,’ Mowdy said. ‘Lots of people don’t buy anything, they just come and play with the cats. That’s perfectly okay. We need to get the cats socialized, too.’ …

“The bookstore has become an environment for shy or unsocialized cats to get comfortable around people. …

“Before leaving work for the day, ‘we just make sure everybody is fed and watered, and anybody that needs meds gets them,’ Mowdy said. ‘We tell them goodnight and don’t cause any trouble, and we see them in the morning.’ …

“As far as books go, the Literary Cat Co. carries a wide range of authors and genres.”

This bookstore sounds like a place that “shy or unsocialized” humans could make friends, too, but I can’t help wondering how long a bookshop can last if it doesn’t matter that “lots of people don’t buy anything”!

More at the Post, here. Lots of pictures.

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An Income to Keep Teens in School

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 23, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Chris Granger/Times-Picayune.
New Orleans 12th grader Dejah Grimes was part of a pilot program, soon to be expanded, that gives students $50 per week with no strings attached.

Paying kids to do something they should be doing anyway — for their own sake — does not always have the intended result. But I can see that to keep some teens in school, it might help. And for those who’d stay in school anyway, what a nice bonus!

Marie Fazio writes at the Times-Picayune, “Every Wednesday morning for nearly a year, Dejah Grimes woke up to a $50 deposit in her account, money she was free to spend however she chose.

“Most weeks she gave the card to her mom, who put it towards the water or electric bill. Occasionally she used it to go to the movies or the mall with her friends, or to pay for school expenses, including the recent purchase of a black polo shirt with the G. W. Carver school logo embroidered on the breast, a privilege reserved for seniors.

“ ‘It helped my family a lot,’ Grimes said. ‘It really made life easier.’

“Now, hundreds of other New Orleans teens are set to receive similar assistance as part of a groundbreaking study on the impact of providing young people with a ‘universal basic income,’ or recurring cash payments with no strings attached. 

“After promising preliminary findings and a $1 million investment from the city of New Orleans, a guaranteed income program that began with 20 students at The Rooted School in 2020 will expand this fall to 1,600 high school seniors at schools across the city over the next three years. Deemed the ‘$50 Study,’ the program gives students $50 per week and follows their academic and financial progress. It’s one of the first of its kind to study the impact of universal basic income on youth. 

“Researchers said that high schoolers over the past two years — 386 students from The Rooted School in New Orleans, The Rooted School Indianapolis and G. W. Carver High School — who received payments missed fewer days of school, showed more literacy growth and enjoyed more financial stability than their peers who did not receive money. …

“At the height of the pandemic in 2020, [Jonathan] Johnson, then executive director of Rooted New Orleans, noticed an alarming spike in absenteeism among his students, many of whom had to take on extra shifts at work to help their families make ends meet. 

“Hoping to alleviate some of the financial stress on students, they launched a ‘micropilot’ with 20 Rooted seniors, ten of whom received weekly payments. From 2022 to 2024, they expanded to a randomized control trial with 386 students over two cohorts.

“According to preliminary data, which has not yet been peer reviewed, students who were given the funds attended an average of two more school days per semester and their reading test scores grew by nearly double that of the control group. Researchers also found students who received the money demonstrated better ‘financial capability,’ a term used to refer to financial literacy and real-world application, and scored higher on tests measuring their financial well-being.

“Stacia West, who co-founded the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at University of Pennsylvania and acts as lead researcher for the $50 study, said the program can provide young people with valuable lessons, including how to navigate — or avoid — risky financial instruments such as payday loans and credit cards.

“ ‘The fact that these kids are able to interact with these financial markets so early,’ said West, who is also an associate professor at the University of Tennessee, ‘means they’re going to be better equipped when they get into their 20s to make better financial decisions.’

“Students in phase one of the study, which took place from 2022 to 2023, only used about half of cash assistance. About 47% of the money remains in the students’ bank accounts, suggesting many are saving.

“Of the money they did spend, about 50% went towards food and groceries, 30% to goods and services, 12% to transportation, 3% to healthcare and the rest to other expenses.

“Results from the second phase of the study, which followed 28 students from Rooted Indianapolis, 47 students from Rooted New Orleans and 155 students from G. W. Carver — a Collegiate Academy-run high school — will be published in the spring.

“Grimes, who participated in the second phase, said having the money helped her family with unexpected expenses, like food and travel purchases while out-of-town for her great-grandmother’s funeral. This summer, she used it to pay for Ubers back and forth to work as a camp counselor-in-training at Live Oak Camp. …

“Malik Williams, a junior at G. W. Carver, said he spent money on food and school supplies, including a pair of New Balance sneakers and a pair of headphones.

“New Orleans used to have a guaranteed basic income program aimed at young people ages 18-24 that was part of a national initiative called Mayors for Guaranteed Income. An effort to expand the program in December was not funded by the city council.

“Jeff Schwartz, Director of Economic Development at the City of New Orleans, said in a statement that the agency is ‘thrilled to be an investor’ in the $50 study. …

“West said that the Rooted School’s study is the first to track the impact of guaranteed income on young people. … ‘I think this could be a new way to think about educating and socializing our children financially.’ “

Not to mention relieving some of the stress that interferes with learning, I’d say. Financial literacy shouldn’t be the only goal. Staying in school, learning more, having a better shot at a good future as a result … what about that? I hope to track down the newer study once it’s completed.

More at the Times-Picayune (Nola.com), here.

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Birdhouse Championship

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 15, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Naturskyddsforeningen.
The aim of the Swedish birdhouse championship is to encourage birds’ nest building and children’s commitment to nature.

I follow @swedense on Instagram, which is where I learned about an annual birdhouse competition for students.

The Swedish birdhouse championship, says Swedense, “is for primary and secondary school classes and is organized by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, @naturskyddsforeningen. The aim is to encourage birds’ nest building and children’s commitment to nature.

“This year’s special prize goes to the special school at Sanda education centre in Huskvarna for their contribution ‘Trafikljuset’ (traffic light). The birdhouse has a built-in camera that lets students follow a nesting bird’s yearly cycle from eggs to flight-ready birds in the schoolyard.

“Birdhouses have come to play an important role in the biodiversity of the forest. The lack of older deciduous trees means that many birds in Sweden are currently suffering from a housing shortage.”

Meanwhile, others are getting into the act.

“Bee Breeders Competition Organizers is excited to announce the results for its Legendary Bird Home / Edition 2 competition! This is the second competition in a series aiming to raise awareness for the global environmental crisis. This competition was held in collaboration with Birdly – a socially-responsible start-up that aims to support environmental activism worldwide through funds raised by selling bird homes.

“Bee Breeders worked with an international jury panel consisting of: Marco Barba, Mexican industrial designer and founder of Marco Barba Design and designer of the KUKU birdhouse product; Andris Dekants, project manager at the Latvian Ornithological Society; Farid Esmaeil, co-founder of Dubai based X Architects and winner of the Aga Khan award for the Wasit Natural Reserve Visitor Center project; Mark Gabbertas, founder of West-London based Gabbertas Studio with a portfolio that includes the Gloster Birdhouse; James Krueger, Design Principal in HMC Architects’ in San Diego studio; Heike Schlauch of Heike Schlauch raumhochrosen which has designed the ‘Vorarlberger Baukunst’ birdhouse series; Jolanta Uczarczyk, who runs Uczarczyk, through which she produces original, handmade works such the Mocak Bird Feeder; and Chad Wright, founder of Studio Chad Wright with a portfolio that includes the Attic birdhouse.”

Last year Sofia Wickström, then a 9th grade student at Futuraskolan International Bergtorp, was one of the finalists with Naturskyddsforeningen. The school’s profile on her says she had “been working on her birdhouse during wood shop since the end of 8th grade totaling about 50 work hours. Her entry is called ‘Bergsprängaren’ (Boom Box).

“When designing her birdhouse, she was inspired when seeing two old boomboxes on the floor of the woodshop room where the project got started, she decided then and there on her design. According to Sofia, the hardest part and what actually took the longest time in making the ‘Boom Box’ birdhouse was getting the edges round and smooth. … In researching birds for this project, Sofia found that small birds actually love bright colors; this was perfect as she herself is a big fan of bright colors, hence the pretty pink/green look to the birdhouse.”

More here and here. Good photos here. I especially love the birdhouse with stones embedded in plaster and a handy woodpile. Who can resist designing a birdhouse after seeing these pictures?

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Banned Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 26, 2022| 7 Comments »

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union during Stalin‘s regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer’s death.

John has worked with optical engineers in Ukraine for decades now. Some years ago, when one of the engineers was in the US to talk to clients, we got to share a meal and a chat. I remember it was a sweltering hot day. We had no air conditioning in our dining room, and we were all sweating.

At the time, I must have been reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, a fantastical satire on the USSR, written in the time of Stalin. We began to talk about it, and John’s colleague described what one had to do to read the book’s loose unpublished pages before Ukraine gained its freedom. Under the table in the library with a flashlight.

That memory came to mind in the last few days as I watched the Soviet Union try to return from the dead in Ukraine. My train of thought took me to current headlines about banned books in the US and an article in the New York Times that gave students a chance to opine on that trend.

The Times staff explains, “In the article ‘Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S.,’ Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter write about the growing trend of parents, political activists, school board officials and lawmakers arguing that some books do not belong in school libraries.

“As we regularly do when The Times reports on an issue that touches the lives of teenagers, we used our daily Student Opinion forum to ask teenagers to share their perspectives. The overwhelming majority of students were opposed to book bans in any form, although their reasons and opinions were varied and nuanced. They argued that young people have the right to read unsanitized versions of history, that diverse books expose them to a variety of experiences and perspectives, that controversial literature helps them to think critically about the world, and that, in the age of the internet, book bans just aren’t that effective. … Thank you to all those from around the world who joined the conversation this week, including teenagers from Japan; Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia; and Patino High School in Fresno, Calif.

” ‘I think the idea of people trying to censor speech is absolutely abhorrent. Right to freedom of speech, religion, peaceful assembly, petition, and press is our 1st amendment and one that we take for granted …

” ‘As a teenager I am still trying to find my way in this world; I want to know as many other viewpoints as possible so that I know my thoughts are my own and not just a product of a limited amount of information. Even if these books are not required reading they should be allowed in libraries. Families can decide what books are allowed in their homes but trying to force a community to get rid of a book is a way of forcing one’s beliefs on an entire community. Removing books about issues faced by marginalized groups is a way to ignore them, a way to minimize the issues faced by those groups and allow the banners to not have their opinions challenged. This is a democracy that should be open to discussion and if it is then people will find others who agree and disagree with them.’ [Jason, Maine] …

” ‘Maybe a student has past trauma that they may struggle to deal with, a book that has a topic based on their past may comfort them and bring them closure. These books also inform students on what really happens within the mind and life of someone else. Banning books is an overall loss for a school or library, it only limits human growth.’ [Alex, Michigan]

” ‘Reading the article and these comments just makes me think, ”Jeez, the fact these books are being challenged shows how much some people need education on the subjects of them.” These books may have hard topics but they essentially are a needed part of education. They might be brutal and hard to swallow, but they are the best examples of real-world problems and history. They provide a good sense of realism and give kids somewhat of an idea of what goes on and has gone on in the world.

” ‘Challenging these books is like trying to protect someone from the world. Then instead shoving them in front of something that makes them think, “Everything will always work out,” And, “These things will never happen again.” It makes them think the world has no struggle or insanely big problems. When in reality it definitely does and they will be directly affected by these problems.’ [Jordan, Massachusetts]

“While it’s reasonable to be concerned about the material your children are reading, as some material might not be age appropriate, there is almost never — honestly, never at all — justification for banning a book. …

“Books are the primary way to tell stories, to learn right from the mouths of people who have witnessed things we need to learn and grow from. Our society depends on the idea of future generations learning and progressing, and with the banning of books all we are doing is going backwards, not forwards.” [Meghan, Illinois]

Read more at the Times, here.

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Vermont’s Multilingual Education

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 7, 2021| 8 Comments »

Photo: Ben James/Connecticut Public Radio.
Teacher Susan Blethen supports ESL students in a normal high school classroom in Burlington, Vermont.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, I assist teachers at two different Rhode Island agencies where they lead English as a Second Language classes. Since Covid, the classes have been online. I think it’s harder for the adults to learn a new language than kids, but our students are very motivated. They have their reasons — “to get a better job,” “to help my children with their homework,” “to talk to the doctor,” “to go to university.” It’s satisfying to watch them progress.

Young students from other countries also have reasons. Ben James of Connecticut Public Radio has a story about a few in the public school system of Burlington, Vermont, where multilingual liaisons smooth the transition to American schools.

“In an office at Burlington High School, just off Lake Champlain in northern Vermont, Chacha Ngunga made a phone call.

“ ‘Jambo jambo,’ he said, greeting a student’s father in their shared language, Swahili.

“Ngunga is a multilingual liaison — one of 12 employed by the Burlington district.

“A few feet away, Noor Bulle, another liaison, made a call in Maay Maay, one of the two major dialects of the Somali language. He reaches a Somali Bantu mother whose five children would soon enter district schools. The mother expressed amazement that her family was already on Bulle’s radar.

“Tens of thousands of Afghans who left their country after the Taliban took over in August will be resettling in the United States. Many of them are kids, so schools across the country are preparing to get these students up to speed. According to Bulle, the multilingual liaisons act as cultural brokers, helping refugee families understand how the U.S. school system works.

“Bibek Gurung, a graduate of Burlington High, is now a junior at Champlain College in Burlington, studying criminal justice. He arrived in Burlington during fifth grade, speaking almost no English. He said his Nepali-speaking liaison helped him with high school and with what he calls life stuff.

“ ‘I was actually looking for a job, and he advocated for me,’ Gurung said. ‘Through him, I was able to work for the Burlington Police Department as a beach-and-park patrol officer.’ …

“Shawna Shapiro, an associate professor at Middlebury College whose research focuses on the high school-to-college transition for refugee students, says many English learners in the U.S. finish high school unprepared for college. Part of the problem, she said, lies with English language learning programs that place students in lower-level academic classes, leaving them bored and underchallenged.

“Shapiro said educators underestimate not only refugee students’ abilities, but also their cultural and family resources.

“ ‘When you talk with students … you hear [them say,] “I feel underchallenged,” and then you pursue that a little more, and they say, ‘That’s frustrating because my parents were leaders in the refugee camp, and my mom was a professor, and my uncle was a police officer, and we’re here, and it feels like no one recognizes any of that,’ ” she said.

“Samjana Rai, a college-bound senior who arrived from Nepal when she was in seventh grade, has heard a similar frustration from her peers about low expectations.

” ‘A lot of my friends want to go to college,’ Rai said. ‘But because of classes that they had to take in sophomore year, freshman year, it’s a little harder for them to go to the college that they want to go to.’ …

“Down the hallway from the multilingual liaison office, 30-year veteran teacher Susan Blethen introduced a lesson to her integrated class of native English speakers and English learners. It’s taught by two teachers: the regular subject teacher and Blethen, who is a specialist in English Language Learning. …

“One purpose of the mixed classes, Blethen explained, is to make sure the English learners are being taught material that stimulates and inspires them to take on more challenges. In previous years, many of the English learners in this class would have been placed in what’s called ‘sheltered instruction,’ separated from their native-English-speaking peers.

“Blethen was the first teacher in Vermont to become certified as an English language learning instructor. She recalled a moment from early in her career.

“ ‘I actually had a social studies teacher yell at me when I was a young teacher, saying, “Why are they in my class if they can’t speak English? You have to teach them English before they can come into my class.” ‘ …

“Standing with a group of her peers, [Somali student] Aden said the languages and cultures of refugee students are still undervalued. …

“ ‘Bilingual people aren’t dumb. [They] can be challenged, and they can be doing higher things.’

“Aden herself plans to take honors civics next semester. ‘I thought, instead of doing an easy class, I should just challenge myself, because I’d be learning more if I did.’ ”

More at WBUR, here.

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Fun, Fake New Yorker Covers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 9, 2021| 5 Comments »

These are real New Yorker covers, but for a laugh (or a tear), check out fake pandemic covers created for an art class, here.

In New York, an art teacher’s creative idea in the pandemic was to make magazine covers in the style of the New Yorker magazine. The next thing the students knew, their work had gone viral on social media.

Michael Cavna writes at the Washington Post, “A masked woman pauses to perch between two worlds: the Zoom-room confines of her virtual life this past year, and the real physical realm of a post-pandemic future. As her classmates spring across a laptop keyboard, the emotional moment resonates, a split-second frozen in art.

“Its creator, Lauren Van Stone, a New York college student originally from Connecticut, rendered the work to empathize with anyone else enduring virtual learning. ‘I felt inspired to illustrate a piece that focused on the tentative reopening of schools,’ she says, ‘and the mixed feelings that many students will inevitably have upon re-entering society.’

“Van Stone created the artwork for her third-year illustration class taught this semester by Tomer Hanuka [@tropical_toxic on Twitter] at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Hanuka had asked his students to create moving-past-the-pandemic works in the style of a New Yorker magazine cover — and was so impressed with the finished pieces that he shared some of them last week on Twitter.

“Soon, the virtual world was as moved by the students’ art as Hanuka was. Within a few days, the first tweet in the viral thread of 17 works attracted more than 130,000 likes and more than 30,000 retweets. Nearly 60,000 liked Dou Hong’s poignant image of two figures on a park bench: One is of a woman, the other an outline filled with names of covid victims. …

“Hanuka, a veteran illustrator who has contributed covers to the New Yorker, was shocked by the public response. … He had merely sought to give the student artworks some exposure beyond the classroom. But his timing couldn’t have been better: As millions of Americans are vaccinated daily amid cultural debates over evolving social and medical protocol, the art reflects the year we’re emerging from — and where we hope soon to be. …

“The assignment was to analyze the storytelling mechanisms within ‘classic’ New Yorker covers and create original ideas using some of that visual vocabulary.

‘It’s about observing a seemingly mundane detail that, by the way it’s presented, illuminates a bigger story,’ says Hanuka. …

“Amy Young, who’s originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, created a powerful cover showing a family around the table with the deceased matriarch missing, her living husband and their wall picture bathed in the lavender tint of loss. Existing alongside the buoyant hope of vaccination, she says, is the ‘grief, sorrow and perhaps even bitterness experienced by those whose loved ones have already passed away. I wanted to show that duality of emotions in my cover, and how they can find co-existence in a family.’ …

“Katrina Catacutan, from Baltimore, drew a reunion with her significant other, in a home brimming with her collection of pandemic plants that evolved to include ‘propagating cacti’ and various vegetables.

“Once their works were posted on Twitter, the students were stunned by the impassioned response. ‘It really showed me just how powerful art is, in the way it can connect countless people from across the world over one shared feeling or image,’ says Jane McIlvaine of New York, who depicted a cat watching its formerly locked-down owner exit their home. …

“As for their teacher, he is not only wowed by the outcome, but also by how his young artists have persevered academically during the pandemic. Some of them hold day jobs, and some have been cut off from their families for a year. Yet, Hanuka says, ‘They had the emotional bandwidth to gather for four hours a week — and that’s just my class — to discuss color choices and compositions with all the gravity and focus these topics demand. … They were asked to find logic in the chaos — to make sense of it, by way of beauty. They practiced their craft rigorously and showed up.’ ”

See the covers at the Washington Post.

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Students Sail Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2020| 5 Comments »

skynews-students-yacht-atlantic_4977292

Photo: Sky News
Dutch students sail across the Atlantic to get home after coronavirus blocks their flight.

Of all the nutty adaptations caused by Covid-19, this is one of the most unusual. A group of Dutch students who were on an educational sailing trip in the Caribbean were unable to fly home. So they sailed all the way back over the Atlantic Ocean.

Aleksandar Furtula (with contributions from Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague) reports at the Washington Post, “A group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.

“The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.

“That gave one of the young sailors, 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans, one of the biggest lessons of her impromptu adventure. …

“ ‘The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important.’

Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan. …

“The teens hugged and chanted each other’s names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.

“For Hurkmans, the impossibility of any kind of social distancing took some getting used to. … Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she encounters coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.

“ ‘I think that after two days she’ll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home,” she said. ‘There’s nothing to do, she can’t visit friends, so it’s very boring.’ …

“Masterskip, the company that organized the cruise, runs five educational voyages for about 150 students in all each year. Crossing the Atlantic is nothing new for the Wylde Swan, which has made the trip about 20 times.

“The company’s director, Christophe Meijer, said the students were monitored for the coronavirus in March to ensure nobody was infected. He said he was pleased the students had adapted to life on board and kept up their education on the long voyage.

“ ‘The children learned a lot about adaptivity, also about media attention, but also their normal school work,’ he said. ‘So they are actually far ahead now of their Dutch school colleagues. They have made us very proud.’

More at the Washington Post, here. A Reuters article with other details is here.

 

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Augmented Reality Mural

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2019| 4 Comments »

Photo: David Swanson/Philadelphia Inquirer
Asiaish Lawrence speaks about his involvement in Dreams, Diaspora, and Destiny, an augmented-reality mural that involved students from the Haverford School and Philadelphia’s Mastery Shoemaker Charter School.

At my last job, my very artistic colleague Melita tried to explain augmented reality (AR) to me. It sounded like science fiction. As I recall, she had ideas about using it in one of the exhibits she curated, but I don’t remember what the upshot was. Our workplace appreciated new technology, but not necessarily arts technology.

Schools tend to be more open than that. Recently, I read an article that both explains the AR concept and shows how it was used by students from somewhere I once lived. (Years ago, I lived in a third-floor walk-up directly across from the Haverford School.)

Grace Dickinson wrote the augmented-reality story at the Philadelphia Inquirer in October, but the project she describes is available for at least a year.

“Mural Arts Philadelphia is bringing art to life with the city’s first augmented-reality mural, Dreams, Diaspora, and Destiny. The project invites viewers to experience a large-scale painting completed on a warehouse at 53rd and Media Streets through the lens of a smartphone app that casts holograms and generates a changing soundtrack as you move from left to right. Picture a metaphysical version of Pokémon Go in which the power of a screen momentarily alters reality around you.

‘To see the augmented-reality mural, you’ll need to download the free app, created by the local production firm Blue Design. It’s available in the Apple App store under the name ‘MuralArtsAR.’ ”

The idea was that people who showed up at 53rd and Media would just need to point their phone screens with the app at the mural.

When you do that, Dickinson says, “Immediately, elements such as light beams, colorful orbs, floating crystals, and sculpturelike figures will begin to pop out from the painting, covering a wall the length of a city block. …

” ‘I like making art that the viewer can look at for 15 or 20 minutes and really get lost in,’ says muralist Joshua Mays, who conceptualized the project with Philadelphia DJ and producer King Britt, the mastermind behind the audio component. ‘Both King and I are futurists, so we enjoyed the idea of going deep in order to create further realms to discover.’

“With the yearlong Dreams, Diaspora, and Destiny project, Mays and Britt set out to visualize possible futures for West Philadelphia, involving students from Mastery Shoemaker Charter School, across the street from the mural, as well as from the Haverford School. The collaboration marks the first Mural Arts Philadelphia partnership to connect public and private high school students. …

“Says Mays, who worked with about 30 students, ‘I want them to always remember to aspire for something greater but to also continuously stretch their imaginations — and their imaginations really ran wild with this.’

“Thinking about the destiny of West Philadelphia, the students dreamed up imagery ranging from an undersea world full of squids and water spirits to a landscape where robots intermingle with humans in everyday life.

” ‘I picture clean energy, no smog, with holograms suspending all around us, and a soundtrack of Kanye West’s Graduation album playing on repeat,’ Haverford School senior Garrett Johnson says. …

“Including the students’ ideas in his design, Mays developed a progressive series of abstract images that start with a representation of the African diaspora and end with a portrait of a woman holding a shining seed between her fingers, the focal point of the mural.

” ‘The seed is meant to unveil a world of future possibilities, radiating out to a past that reconnects the main character with her ancestral heritage.’ …

“The audio component, which you can hear through the app, follows the temporal transition of the painting. Drums, chants, and other tribal percussion notes mark the beginning, shifting to trumpet and electric piano tunes inspired by ’70s jazz, and ending with rhythmic, hip-hop-inspired beats mixed with futuristic sounds. …

” ‘I recorded them doing things like riding the elevator up and down, banging on the water cooler, and closing classroom doors,’ says Britt. ‘Then I manipulated the recordings into musical notes — so, for instance, the water cooler became the kick drum, and the elevator was worked into the sound of a keyboard.’ …

” ‘I had the kids come up with a list of questions to ask [neighborhood elders], such as, “How do you think the mural will affect this neighborhood?” and, “What did the neighborhood look like 20 years ago?” and, “What kind of music do you like?” ‘ ” says Britt, who then included snippets of the interviews in the soundtrack.

More here.

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Exposure to Nature Benefits Schoolkids

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 22, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Bethesda Magazine
New research finds some children are more attentive after experiencing a class taught on the lawn.

As the fourth snow event of March 2018 decorates my yard, I’m finding it hard to visualize academic lessons on a lawn, but I know they do happen.

Tom Jacobs writes at Pacific Standard, “A carefully designed 10-week study found outdoor lessons ‘boost subsequent classroom engagement, and boost it a great deal,’ writes a research team led by Ming Kuo of the University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign. ‘After a lesson in nature, teachers were able to teach for almost twice as long without having to interrupt instruction to redirect students’ attention.’

“In the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Kuo and her colleagues note that, while many European nations have incorporated classes in nature into children’s education, the idea has not been embraced in the United States. This may reflect ‘concern on the part of teachers that outdoor lessons will leave students keyed up and unable to concentrate,’ they write. Their findings debunk that notion.

“The study featured third-graders (ages nine and 10) at an environment-oriented magnet school in the Midwest. The kids were predominantly African American, and 87 percent qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch.

“Two teachers — one keen on the idea of teaching in nature, the other somewhat skeptical — each ‘delivered 10 pairs of lessons over 10 different weeks.’ On five of the 10 weeks, the first lesson of the pair was taught at a grassy spot just outside the school, adjacent to some woods.

” ‘For any given pair of lessons, both the treatment lesson (in nature) and its indoor counterpart were delivered by the same teacher to the same students, on the same topic, in the same week of the semester,’ the researchers write.

“The students’ engagement in the lesson taught immediately afterwards—which was always indoors—was measured in a variety of ways, including the teacher’s perception; the judgment of an independent observer who examined photographs of the classroom; and how often the teacher needed to stop teaching to attend to a student’s inappropriate behavior.

” ‘Classroom engagement was significantly better after lessons in nature,’ the researchers report. … Most striking was the reduction in ‘redirects,’ which are defined as ‘instances where a teacher interrupted the flow of instruction to redirect students’ attention.’

” ‘Normally, these occur roughly once every 3.5 minutes of instruction’ in a third-grade classroom, the researchers write. But after a lesson in nature, ‘teachers were able to teach for 6.5 minutes, on average, without interruption.’ …

“The five-minute-long walks to and from the outdoor learning area may have played a positive role. It’s also possible the kids were responding to rejuvenated instructors.” More here.

In college, I found the occasional springtime lesson on the lawn distracting, but there is no doubt it could perk up a teacher. And I know that both kids and adults benefit from just getting up and moving.

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A Teacher’s Hints on Creative Writing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 23, 2018| 7 Comments »

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Art: Dawn Marie Livett
Music goes hand-in-hand with other creative endeavors. This teacher writes, “Through music, from classical to popular, kids encounter themselves and experience the feelings and sensations associated with their worlds.”

Jeffrey Pflaum, a reader of this blog who taught children creative writing for many years, asked me if I’d be interested in reporting on some of his techniques. I am. This post is adapted from one of his blogs.

Pflaum writes that using experiences, reflections, and insights geared to “struggling, reluctant, and average readers and learners” in grades 3 to 6 helps them develop. “One key step to learning about any world is to know our selves first. …

“As an introduction to reading and writing I deal with kids’ inside worlds. What does each child have to know about mind, self, and imagination in order to learn? What makes up this inner universe? Why is it so important to know the contents of our worlds before studying the worlds of different subjects? …

“My lessons connect with the children’s inner lives.  It doesn’t help when education builds test walls around creativity and motivation, two huge channels to learning and developing a passion for reading. Education’s role is to open up students’ worlds so they are receptive to new ideas. … Motivation becomes self-motivation and education means self-education.”

Pflaum finds that helping children to develop self-knowledge enables them to tap their inner worlds and use their life experiences to enrich both schoolwork and everyday life. “Thoughts, ideas, feelings, fantasies, daydreams, dreams, dialogues, monologues, memories, reflections, and all the mental image pictures are the stuff of our inside worlds,” he says.

In one exercise, “kids close their eyes, visualize words in the mind, describe them orally and in writing, and then draw/sketch what they ‘see.’ Some examples of words for this practice exercise are: dog, rose, apple, room, sky, rainbow, clouds, parrot, pencil, pen.

“From here, I’ll build two-word sentences such as: Frogs hop; children play; birds fly. And then I probe what they are viewing with questions: What are you looking at? What pictures do you see in your mind? What thoughts are triggered? What feelings are connected to the image? Can you describe the mind-picture and your experience? Draw/Sketch the sentence you visualized (crayons, markers, pencil, or pen).”

Another exercise I liked had to do with using music for creative inspiration. It starts with a counting technique and progresses to listening to music, with the following instructions: “ ‘Sit back and relax. Put your heads gently down on the desks, close your eyes, and enjoy the music. When it’s over, write whatever you experienced inside yourself.’ … They learn to appreciate the contemplation process and the music as it soothes them into their worlds and journeys of self-discovery. …

“Through music, from classical to popular, kids encounter themselves and experience the feelings and sensations associated with their worlds.  They see what brings them up and down and learn to create a positive attitude towards contemplation, reflection, and self-expression.”

More ideas for teachers can be found at http://www.JeffreyPflaum.com. Some approaches might also work with adult students.

Educator Jeffrey Pflaum

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https://www.bamradionetwork.com/home/experiences-reflections-and-insights-a-project-in-reading-and-emotional-intelligence

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How Poetry Can Reach Kids

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 2, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photo: Ben Fractenberg
Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author, a National Book Award Honoree, a Kirkus Award winner, a Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors.

Some children and teens who think they don’t like literature can really open up to it through poetry that is less intimidating. That’s the view of Jason Reynolds, author of the young adult novel Long Way Down, among others. Recently, he talked to PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff about using poetry to capture the attention of reluctant readers.

“Woodruff: While Hollywood has figured out how to get boys to watch movies, the formula is trickier for getting boys to read, especially among those who have already expressed frustration and boredom with books.

“Reynolds: If you were to tell me that you were afraid of dogs, I wouldn’t then return to you with a pack of pit bulls. … What I might do is casually walk with you by one of those doggy day cares. The ones with the pups small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Yippy little fur balls that get so excited, their tails wag the entire back halves of their bodies. The dogs that grin and want nothing more than to lap your skin with fervent affection. …

“So then, why, when it comes to young people who don’t like reading, who feel intimidated by literature, do we answer that cry with an onslaught of the very thing they fear? Why do we show up with a pack of pit bulls in the form of pages, and expect them to stop running away?

“Perhaps they haven’t found the right style of book because, sometimes it isn’t about subject matter, or voice, or point of view. …

“For some kids, those words [on the page] — the amount of words — is equivalent to a snarling dog. So, why not start with the less threatening, palm-sized pup in the window? In this case, poetry.

“Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.

“And the white space, for an intimidated reader, adds breathability to a seemingly suffocating task. …

“With the incredible selection of poetry and novels and verse from past to present, this is an opportune time to use them to chip away at bibliophobia. Less words on the page, more white space, without necessarily sacrificing the narrative elements.

“And once young people experience turning those pages, once the rush of comprehension and completion laps at their psyches for the first time, perhaps they will know they need not fear a thing created to love them, and for them to love.”

Read a 50-word poetic narrative that Reynolds wrote to draw in kids, here. See also this post on “poetry slams,” another way to get young people engaged in language arts.

My thanks to poet Ronnie Hess for posting the Reynolds piece on Facebook.

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Teens Approve Young Adult Galleys

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 1, 2013| 2 Comments »

Asakiyume is a wonderful writer. I have read many of her stories for adults and her three main young adult books. The latest is perhaps the most marketable so far. Kids, teachers, librarians — all sorts of people — will be as riveted as I was. (Perhaps she will comment below with a few words on the theme.)

While waiting for an agent, Asakiyume asked Kelsey Michele Soderstrom to paint the main characters, below, and began to plan a website about the book and its exotic settings.

I thought of Asakiyume when I read an article in the Concord Journal the other day about high schoolers who weigh in on galley proofs of young adult books.

The Journal says, “Just two years after the group’s inception, the Concord Carlisle High School Young Adult Galley has been selected as one of 16 Young Adult Library Services Association Teen Top 10 review groups.

“Members of the group will read galleys, or uncorrected proofs of books, before they are sent off to be published, and select 10 they like best. This information will be used to select YALSA’s top 10 galleys this year.

“Jennifer Barnes, ex-teen library services consultant at Concord Carlisle High School, was the head of YALSA’s teen fiction division and used to bring galleys into the high school’s libraries for interested students to read. The galley group formed …

“When Barnes left the school, students still wanted to review galleys but had a harder time procuring them. …

“Using Kindles, group members would download galleys off of NetGalley, available to bloggers, educators and members of the media. The CC Group members would also send letters to publishers requesting galleys.

“Then, still looking for more galleys to review, the group decided to apply to be a YALSA  Teen Top 10 Review group. …

“ ‘Sometimes authors will respond [to reviews],’ [recent grad Clare] Bannon said. … ‘It was so cool when an author would respond to something you wrote. It would encourage you to keep reading and keep reviewing stuff.’

“The group will continue to get together and meet up to discuss books throughout the YALSA Teen Top 10 process.” More at WickedLocal.com.

Art for Asakiyume’s latest story: Kelsey Michele Soderstrom

 

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Volunteers Work Remotely

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We blogged a while back about tutoring students via distance learning. Kyle Spencer at the NY Times wrote about it here:

“Newly designed software for the tutoring of beginning readers has bridged the gap, allowing volunteers to meet students online from a distance. P.S. 55 is testing the program with students in its four first-grade classes.”

Now it turns out that remote tutoring is not the only kind of remote volunteering possible. In this article by Casey Armstrong at Shareable, we learn more about why “volunteers don’t have to be in the room anymore to physically volunteer.”

“As far as fun volunteering opportunities go, playing with kittens at an animal shelter is probably unequaled. It’s no wonder that the option to do this over the internet is a popular one. The Oregon Humane Society gives volunteers the chance to control robotic arms wielding toys for bored cats waiting to be adopted. This opportunity is not only good for the cats and volunteers, but it’s a great way to encourage donations and adoptions.

“And, if you look beyond the surface, this is more than just a stunt. It proves a concept: Volunteering can be done from anywhere by anyone if you accommodate it with the right technology. … Check out Reach-In.com if you’re interested in setting up your own robot volunteer opportunity.”

Photograph: Librado Romero/The New York Times
Edward Muñoz, a first grader at P.S. 55 in the Bronx, works out tricky words with Jenny Chan, his tutor in Midtown Manhattan.

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Books for Kids in Laos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

My husband and I like Colin Cotterill’s quirky mystery books about Dr. Siri Palboun of Laos. The series starts with The Coroner’s Lunch, in case you are interested.

Cotterill has been involved in several worthy causes in Laos, including one addressing the abysmal lack of children’s books in the country. You can read how he got started on his quest for children’s books, here. That work is now handled by Sasha Alyson at Big Brother Mouse, who writes:

“Do you remember the excitement of rushing home to read a book that you hoped would never end? Many Lao children have no such memories, because they’ve never seen a book that was fun or exciting to read. Some have shared textbooks; others have never seen a book at all. We sometimes have to explain how books work: ‘Look, if you turn the page, there’s more!’ ”

Big Brother Mouse is a “Lao-based, Lao-owned project.” More.

Cotterill also works with http://www.copelaos.org to help victims of land mines left over from the CIA’s “secret war.”

And, pointing out that more than 75 percent of children in the far north of Laos have no schools, Cotterill funds efforts to get hill tribe students into teachers colleges. More.

Art: Colin Cotterill at http://www.colincotterill.com

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