In response to a question about how to reach college and other young voters, one strategist suggested getting involved with their interest in music. Getting involved with their interests in gaming and robot competitions could work also.
International scouts for top analysts already visit video games' competitions. Wonder how many were hired playing eSports at the Asian Games in Indonesia. Robot battles also might serve as prime recruiting venues.
Gamers report having a controller in their hands improves their emotional well-being. Gaming stadiums, like South Korea's League of Legends (LOL) park, Russia's Spodek, and those in Canada and Chongqing, China, are taking advantage of the gaming phenomena that is becoming a $150 billion dollar industry. Knowing gamers dislike crumbs in their controllers, trendwatching.com reports Doritos now offers the snack in Towel Bags that provide a way to wipe off residue from the tasty treat.
With or without Towel Bags, spectators can watch the action on gaming stations while eating the usual fare sold at sports arenas. The LOL park, developed by Riot Games, will have a cafe open 24 hours a day and a hall of fame selling jerseys and 3D printed miniatures of LOL pros. Mastercard has a three year deal to sponsor League of Legends World Champiionships. And Coutts, bankers to the Queen of England, is courting esports' millionaires. Tyler Blevins, known as "Ninja", published a graphic novel for his millions of gamer fans.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Big Projects Combat Climate Change
"Oddly, few modern educational systems spend much time teaching systematically about the future," David Christian writes in his book, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything. A teach-in, modeled on the protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, did inspire the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. What those students learned in the past half century is: environmental converts relapse. Efforts to promote fossil fuel alternatives, recycling, foregoing plastic, and organic farming have produced only marginal results.
While enlightened solutions to environmental mischief need to continue, ideas for major projects required to combat the effects of unchanged behavior on global warming also need to begin. Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry expects temperatures of 115 degrees Fahrenheit to be five times more likely by 2050 than they were when extreme temperatures spiked in 2000. In 2016 and 2017, Kuwait and Iran began competing to break the highest reliably recorded temperature.
While enlightened solutions to environmental mischief need to continue, ideas for major projects required to combat the effects of unchanged behavior on global warming also need to begin. Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry expects temperatures of 115 degrees Fahrenheit to be five times more likely by 2050 than they were when extreme temperatures spiked in 2000. In 2016 and 2017, Kuwait and Iran began competing to break the highest reliably recorded temperature.
Do work and education have to take place in the heat of the day? For religious reasons, business already is conducted at night in Muslim countries during Ramadan. Research shows teens need more sleep than they get when their bodies want to stay up until 11 pm or later and schools expect them to arrive at 7:30 am or 8. In Las Vegas, I understand some students already attend classes at night. While living in Jamaica, Noel Coward wrote a song based on his observations.
At twelve noon the natives swoon
and no further work is done.
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
Working and learning during hotter climate changing days will require more and more air conditioning to keep people from dying from the heat and rats and insects from devouring and contaminating harvested food. To reduce the greenhouse gases and ozone pollution that air conditioning generates requires the difficult tasks of developing less toxic refrigerants and reducing the need for electricity. It would be much easier and faster to move the time for work and study to a cooler time of the day.
Trees are recognized as climate change saviors. They produce shade, reduce pollution, and sop up greenhouse gases. China is planting a tree wall to protect Beijing from sand/dust storms from the Gobi Desert. To produce these benefits, trees (as well as crops) need a system for channeling excess monsoon water their way.
Try asking kids who are building with blocks or computers to design a system to carry too much water from hurricanes and monsoons to drought areas. Why not locate pieces of aluminum pipe in various parts of the world that governments can fit together like LEGOs to make temporary pipes that channel overflowing lakes and rivers to forests and crop land suffering from drought? In Origin Story, Christian writes about moments in history when "Goldilocks conditions" are just right, like Baby Bear's porridge, for transitions in evolutionary change. Often these moments are "aha" insights when someone combines things that already exist in a new way.
In an earlier post, "Gone Fishin'," I reported on the long floating plastic boom designed to collect plastic and other debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as "the blob" between California and Hawaii that forms the warm water that seems to nourish the warm, dry winters dehydrating forests along the northwest coast of North America. Could this plastic garbage be melted for use in 3D printers? Maybe it could provide insulation and furniture for the 3D houses printed for the world's 68.5 million refugees now living in makeshift camps. (See more about "building" 3D houses at the earlier post, "Necessity: Introduce Students to New Technologies.")
Invite kids who are not bound by what is and what always has been to think about ways to solve the new challenges climate change does and will continue to present. How can solar and wind energy be stored and distributed? What can be done to reduce the amount of stuff ending up in methane-generating dumps? Students who love science fiction also might look into the solar geoengineering ideas that involve improving the ability of clouds to block or reflect sun rays. Insect control without dangerous chemicals, endangered animals, shipping and public transportation, drought-resistant crops and farming methods, all need big new plans for the best future.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
In Praise of Print
Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce.com, made his billions creating a software company in the cloud's digital age. Why did he and his wife, Lynne, just plunk down $190 million to purchase Time, a print magazine founded in 1923? They say they want to find solutions to some of the most complex problems in today's society.
Do complex problems in today's society lend themselves to hashtag solutions, slogans on posters in marches, presidential "debates," and election campaign ads on TV? Consider: racism, gun violence, immigration, cancer, gene editing, an income gap between the Benioffs and nearly everyone else in the world, corruption, censorship by the government in China and Facebook in the US, robots replacing human workers, marriage, privacy versus national security, climate change, lopsided trade balances.
TV headlines and 3-minute interviews, apps, and a limited number of Twitter characters have not solved today's problems, and they never will. The Federalist Papers argued before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. An extra Bill of Rights was needed. The print media backed further Amendments needed to clean up initial mistakes about the election of the President and Vice President, slavery, women's suffrage, and alcohol.
Print carries revolutionary ideas everywhere in the world. Why do authoritarian governments always shut down the press? Writing at Iowa's Storm Lake Times, with a circulation of only 3,000, Art Cullen won a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for showing transparency's importance as a guard against bribes affecting government decisions. He wondered who was enabling the local Board of Supervisors in Buena Vista County, population 10,000, to help fund a million dollar defense against the Des Moines Water Works. His editorial disclosed the corn and soybean agribusiness farms that were contaminating drinking water with nitrates from their fertilizer.
Open a discussion about tariffs at the dinner table or on social media. You'll see a difference of opinion on the purpose of tariffs, if they can accomplish these purposes, even if these purposes need to be achieved. Does anyone mention what they have read about what government representatives, experts on economics, seniors, Walmart shoppers, or farmers have said about tariffs?
Informed judgments require the extended, detailed information print provides. Read the"Letters to the Editor," too. I'm often inspired by the readers who take time to compose the thoughtful opinions published. A grandmother's letter told why she insisted her two teen-aged grandchildren, she called them "screen zombies," put down their "tiny rectangles" to take in the spectacular sight of crossing the four-and-a-half-mile bridge over Chesapeake Bay.
A digital marketer like Marc Benioff deserves gratitude for funding the printed link between society's complex problems and those who depend on the extensive body of information needed to solve them.
Do complex problems in today's society lend themselves to hashtag solutions, slogans on posters in marches, presidential "debates," and election campaign ads on TV? Consider: racism, gun violence, immigration, cancer, gene editing, an income gap between the Benioffs and nearly everyone else in the world, corruption, censorship by the government in China and Facebook in the US, robots replacing human workers, marriage, privacy versus national security, climate change, lopsided trade balances.
TV headlines and 3-minute interviews, apps, and a limited number of Twitter characters have not solved today's problems, and they never will. The Federalist Papers argued before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. An extra Bill of Rights was needed. The print media backed further Amendments needed to clean up initial mistakes about the election of the President and Vice President, slavery, women's suffrage, and alcohol.
Print carries revolutionary ideas everywhere in the world. Why do authoritarian governments always shut down the press? Writing at Iowa's Storm Lake Times, with a circulation of only 3,000, Art Cullen won a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for showing transparency's importance as a guard against bribes affecting government decisions. He wondered who was enabling the local Board of Supervisors in Buena Vista County, population 10,000, to help fund a million dollar defense against the Des Moines Water Works. His editorial disclosed the corn and soybean agribusiness farms that were contaminating drinking water with nitrates from their fertilizer.
Open a discussion about tariffs at the dinner table or on social media. You'll see a difference of opinion on the purpose of tariffs, if they can accomplish these purposes, even if these purposes need to be achieved. Does anyone mention what they have read about what government representatives, experts on economics, seniors, Walmart shoppers, or farmers have said about tariffs?
Informed judgments require the extended, detailed information print provides. Read the"Letters to the Editor," too. I'm often inspired by the readers who take time to compose the thoughtful opinions published. A grandmother's letter told why she insisted her two teen-aged grandchildren, she called them "screen zombies," put down their "tiny rectangles" to take in the spectacular sight of crossing the four-and-a-half-mile bridge over Chesapeake Bay.
A digital marketer like Marc Benioff deserves gratitude for funding the printed link between society's complex problems and those who depend on the extensive body of information needed to solve them.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
China Feels Winds of Change
Not only has the US President tired of China's theft of intellectual property and lopsided trade balance, but Malaysia's new 93-year-old prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, is fed up with loans for Beijing's worldwide Belt and Road Initiative. Labeling China's project "new colonialism," Dr. Mohamad traveled to Beijing to cancel the previous Malaysian government's agreement to finance a rail line and two pipelines for an inflated $20 billion (China may, however, have a way to regain these contracts, if Beijing turns over Jho Low, who was the mastermind of a financial scam in Malaysia). Sierra Leone's new president, Julius Maada Bio, also told China it canceled the previous administration's contract to build a new airport, since the existing one is underutilized.
Despite heavy Chinese spending in support of Abdulla Yameen in the Maldives, the atolls that occupy a key position to monitor trade in the Indian Ocean, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won a surprise victory in that country's September, 2018 presidential election.
Chinese citizens also were none too happy in September, 2018, when they learned President Xi Jinping, at a meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, committed another $60 billion to 53 African countries after committing $60 billion in 2015. Censors quickly removed social media criticism that claimed loans would not be repaid and aid was needed for domestic projects.
China's unabashed interest in Africa's mineral commodities and growing market is arousing dormant European competition. Following his trip to China to inquire about funding for infrastructure projects, President Buhari of Nigeria received visits by French President, Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and British prime minister, Theresa May. It was Mrs. May's first trip to former British colonies in five years.
At home, Tiananmen Square did not end demonstrations in China in 1989. Labeled "picking quarrels and causing trouble," "public-order disturbances," strikes by workers in factories and service industries, or just plain incidents, the Communist Party still tries to tamp out what it considers threats to peace and security by arresting demonstrators and those who post social media information about the protests. Despite these government crack downs, protests continue. In 2016, for example, parents of dead children, whose only children were born during the era of China's one-child policy, took to the streets in Beijing. This year, parents protested a local government's decision to transfer children from nearby schools to distant ones. Whether land is seized by local officials, soldiers demand higher pensions, or a minority wants to practice religion, state controls continue to spark tensions.
China fears large movements, such as members with loyalties to international trade union organizations or religions (Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, or Christian). The government is wary of any large gathering. Security keeps visitors out of Hongya, the Dalai Lama's birthplace in March, when in 1959, a demonstration against Chinese rule in Tibet led to the Dalai Lama's exile and the dissolution of his government there. During the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, police canceled the Norlha Basketball Invitational tournament in China's Tibetan region. The Public Security Bureau feared the large crowd of spectators the tournament would attract in the Dalai Lama's former domain. (Also see the later posts, "Challenging Chinese New Year" and "Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball.")
Despite heavy Chinese spending in support of Abdulla Yameen in the Maldives, the atolls that occupy a key position to monitor trade in the Indian Ocean, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won a surprise victory in that country's September, 2018 presidential election.
Chinese citizens also were none too happy in September, 2018, when they learned President Xi Jinping, at a meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, committed another $60 billion to 53 African countries after committing $60 billion in 2015. Censors quickly removed social media criticism that claimed loans would not be repaid and aid was needed for domestic projects.
China's unabashed interest in Africa's mineral commodities and growing market is arousing dormant European competition. Following his trip to China to inquire about funding for infrastructure projects, President Buhari of Nigeria received visits by French President, Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and British prime minister, Theresa May. It was Mrs. May's first trip to former British colonies in five years.
At home, Tiananmen Square did not end demonstrations in China in 1989. Labeled "picking quarrels and causing trouble," "public-order disturbances," strikes by workers in factories and service industries, or just plain incidents, the Communist Party still tries to tamp out what it considers threats to peace and security by arresting demonstrators and those who post social media information about the protests. Despite these government crack downs, protests continue. In 2016, for example, parents of dead children, whose only children were born during the era of China's one-child policy, took to the streets in Beijing. This year, parents protested a local government's decision to transfer children from nearby schools to distant ones. Whether land is seized by local officials, soldiers demand higher pensions, or a minority wants to practice religion, state controls continue to spark tensions.
China fears large movements, such as members with loyalties to international trade union organizations or religions (Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, or Christian). The government is wary of any large gathering. Security keeps visitors out of Hongya, the Dalai Lama's birthplace in March, when in 1959, a demonstration against Chinese rule in Tibet led to the Dalai Lama's exile and the dissolution of his government there. During the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, police canceled the Norlha Basketball Invitational tournament in China's Tibetan region. The Public Security Bureau feared the large crowd of spectators the tournament would attract in the Dalai Lama's former domain. (Also see the later posts, "Challenging Chinese New Year" and "Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball.")
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Globalization's Impact on Fashion
Hard to believe in times past fashion confined itself to separate French, Italian, and US markets rather than to today's cross-cultural global industry. Even when Vogue magazine has separate international editions in Arabic and for Latin America, Poland, and the Czech Republic, Vogue's original edition features a global array of designers and models, such as Somali-American Halima Aden, the Tanzanian-Norwegian twins Martine and Gunnhild Chioko, and Grace Bol from South Sudan.
Although global e-commerce, references to no borders or boundaries, diversity, and presentations in exotic locations seem to be the mode, a former culture minister in Italy observed, "a globalized world puts greater value on the distinctions and sense of identity...." Brands with strong national identities, like Chanel and Burberry, do not shy away from projecting their heritage and point-of-view in the global marketplace. At Chanel, Hamburg's Karl Lagerfeld insured the future of the Lesage embroidery house. Japanese designer, Jun Takahashi, admits his inspiration from the British punk rock youth culture.
Fashion will always search for what is new and different. Flappers cast off their constrictive undergarments to Charleston in short shifts that could move. Dior fashioned voluminous skirts to signal the end of fabric rationing in World War II. The man who put on a Lumumba University
T-shirt to work out in CIA's gym wanted the attention he received.
Today, creating an individual identity is easy. Simply incorporate a touch of another country's culture. I treasure an African "gold" necklace of straw and wax a friend brought me from Mali. On my coffee table, guests can pick up and examine the carved wooden sling shot I found at a bazaar sponsored by West African missionaries. Add stuffed dates and rice wrapped in grape leaves to your dinner menu. And when you browse through mail order magazines from a museum (store.metmuseum.org) or a nonprofit (unicefmarket.org/catalog), look for foreign items for yourself and for holiday gifts that might introduce children and older friends to a new culture and distinctive identity.
Although global e-commerce, references to no borders or boundaries, diversity, and presentations in exotic locations seem to be the mode, a former culture minister in Italy observed, "a globalized world puts greater value on the distinctions and sense of identity...." Brands with strong national identities, like Chanel and Burberry, do not shy away from projecting their heritage and point-of-view in the global marketplace. At Chanel, Hamburg's Karl Lagerfeld insured the future of the Lesage embroidery house. Japanese designer, Jun Takahashi, admits his inspiration from the British punk rock youth culture.
Fashion will always search for what is new and different. Flappers cast off their constrictive undergarments to Charleston in short shifts that could move. Dior fashioned voluminous skirts to signal the end of fabric rationing in World War II. The man who put on a Lumumba University
T-shirt to work out in CIA's gym wanted the attention he received.
Today, creating an individual identity is easy. Simply incorporate a touch of another country's culture. I treasure an African "gold" necklace of straw and wax a friend brought me from Mali. On my coffee table, guests can pick up and examine the carved wooden sling shot I found at a bazaar sponsored by West African missionaries. Add stuffed dates and rice wrapped in grape leaves to your dinner menu. And when you browse through mail order magazines from a museum (store.metmuseum.org) or a nonprofit (unicefmarket.org/catalog), look for foreign items for yourself and for holiday gifts that might introduce children and older friends to a new culture and distinctive identity.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Refugees at Work
Not all 68.5 million migrants identified by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) live in camps. In the US, for example, asylum seekers can receive work permits, if their cases are not resolved in 180 days. In July, 2018, one asylum seeker from Sudan was given a court date in 2021.
What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.
The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.
What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.
The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.
- Women cook native dishes at Mazi Mas in London.
- Home cooking from Syria is on the menu at the New Arrival Super Club in Los Angeles.
- Detroit is opening Baobab Fare, a Burundian restaurant and market.
- The Sushioki chain in Durhan, North Carolina, advertises the cooking of refugee chefs.
Friday, September 14, 2018
Real Imaginary Friends
Have you heard about digital personalities? Your teens and students already may know a new kind of avatar named Miquela Sousa. By 2020, trendwatching.com reports AI, facial recognition, emotional sensing, and other new technologies will create 5 billion virtual assistants and virtual companions or computer-generated influencers (CGI).
Marketers are able to tailor a perfect CGI for every marketing segment's sex, age, size, and passions. That's what Trevor McFearies and Sara De Cou are doing at Brud, an LA-based tech startup. Vogue's September, 2018 issue describes Miquela Sousa, the 19-year-old model and musician Brud based on current tastes and culture cues. Stylist Lucinda Chambers outfits Lil Miquela, as she is known since 2016 by her Instagram followers, in Alexander McQueen for a Vogue photo shoot. Miquela's interests are said to be: recording music, the politics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, relapsing into tomboy clothes and activities, makeup tutorials on YouTube, and new Drake albums. She has blunt-cut bangs, straight dark hair past her shoulders, rather thick eyebrows over her brown eyes, full pouty lips, a slim but not skinny body, a pretty face speckled with freckles lightly covered with foundation a tad darker than medium.
What does a marketer want a susceptible young person to do after interacting with Miquela Sousa? Imitate her look, fashions, activities, and causes. The latter, in her case, are liberal.
It is easy to slip out of reality and get caught up imitating what a made-up CGI looks like, wears, does, and says. Too easy.
Marketers are able to tailor a perfect CGI for every marketing segment's sex, age, size, and passions. That's what Trevor McFearies and Sara De Cou are doing at Brud, an LA-based tech startup. Vogue's September, 2018 issue describes Miquela Sousa, the 19-year-old model and musician Brud based on current tastes and culture cues. Stylist Lucinda Chambers outfits Lil Miquela, as she is known since 2016 by her Instagram followers, in Alexander McQueen for a Vogue photo shoot. Miquela's interests are said to be: recording music, the politics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, relapsing into tomboy clothes and activities, makeup tutorials on YouTube, and new Drake albums. She has blunt-cut bangs, straight dark hair past her shoulders, rather thick eyebrows over her brown eyes, full pouty lips, a slim but not skinny body, a pretty face speckled with freckles lightly covered with foundation a tad darker than medium.
What does a marketer want a susceptible young person to do after interacting with Miquela Sousa? Imitate her look, fashions, activities, and causes. The latter, in her case, are liberal.
It is easy to slip out of reality and get caught up imitating what a made-up CGI looks like, wears, does, and says. Too easy.
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Virtual Reality Goes to School
To prepare students for future success, they need early exposure to new technologies the way Bill Gates learned computer science in his teens.
California-based, Facebook-owned Oculus recognized the importance of getting kids up to speed on virtual reality (VR) and donated its VR headsets to schools, libraries, and museums in Japan, China, and the United States. According to an "Innovation of the Day" post on trendwatching.com, Oculus also is helping the public school system in Seattle, Washington, develop a course intended to teach how to create VR and helping teachers learn how to make the most educational use out of VR technology.
Virtual reality is already a hit in the gaming world of China's Tencent company's "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and "MonsterHunter: World." Competitors played Tencent's "Honour of Kings" at the 2018 Asian Games' eSports demonstration event in Indonesia. The eSports' event will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games but not a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Although the games include such sports as boxing and shooting, the International Olympic Committee said electronic sports promoted violence and contradicted Olympia values.
It should be noted: VR is not just for kids. Elderly folks, physically unable to enjoy the foreign travel of their younger days, readily put on VR headsets to travel on new adventures.
California-based, Facebook-owned Oculus recognized the importance of getting kids up to speed on virtual reality (VR) and donated its VR headsets to schools, libraries, and museums in Japan, China, and the United States. According to an "Innovation of the Day" post on trendwatching.com, Oculus also is helping the public school system in Seattle, Washington, develop a course intended to teach how to create VR and helping teachers learn how to make the most educational use out of VR technology.
Virtual reality is already a hit in the gaming world of China's Tencent company's "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and "MonsterHunter: World." Competitors played Tencent's "Honour of Kings" at the 2018 Asian Games' eSports demonstration event in Indonesia. The eSports' event will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games but not a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Although the games include such sports as boxing and shooting, the International Olympic Committee said electronic sports promoted violence and contradicted Olympia values.
It should be noted: VR is not just for kids. Elderly folks, physically unable to enjoy the foreign travel of their younger days, readily put on VR headsets to travel on new adventures.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
How Students Can Get the Education They Need
Singapore, with an entire population of six million, and the Success Academy charter school network of 17,000 students in 47 New York schools, produce outstanding academic achievement. In the latest results from the triennial test of 15-year-olds from around the world, Singapore scored top marks in math, reading, science, and a new collaborative test, according to the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Students from Success charter schools score the highest marks on New York's standardized state tests, despite the fact 76% come from low income households and 93% are not white.
Before deciding, "Sure, small populations achieve academic excellence, but our country or State has millions of students to educate," consider the fact that these millions can be and are separated into classrooms. Some schools also group students into "houses," where teachers get to know their pupils while teaching them the same subject for two years A bigger drawback is the assessment of teachers in large school districts, where they are unknown to those charged with evaluating them. A study at Peking University raises another question about the impact of pollution on testing days. Results on heavily polluted days reduced scores on verbal word recognition but not math tests, and toxic air seemed to have a greater impact on the scores of men rather than women. Yet, something can be learned from the testing and academic approaches in Singapore's and New York's Success charter schools.
Ideas from Singapore
Before deciding, "Sure, small populations achieve academic excellence, but our country or State has millions of students to educate," consider the fact that these millions can be and are separated into classrooms. Some schools also group students into "houses," where teachers get to know their pupils while teaching them the same subject for two years A bigger drawback is the assessment of teachers in large school districts, where they are unknown to those charged with evaluating them. A study at Peking University raises another question about the impact of pollution on testing days. Results on heavily polluted days reduced scores on verbal word recognition but not math tests, and toxic air seemed to have a greater impact on the scores of men rather than women. Yet, something can be learned from the testing and academic approaches in Singapore's and New York's Success charter schools.
Ideas from Singapore
- Students wear uniforms.
- Traditionally, teachers led classes and did not rely on students to learn for themselves, but now group work and teacher-pupil discussions also are used.
- Entire classes still progress through the same narrow and deep math curriculum. Struggling students receive compulsory extra sessions to help them keep up.
- After classes end at around 2 pm, students can go to a "Maker Space" to learn how to use modern technologies, such as 3D printing, stop-motion film production, or programming robots.'
- Students who said they did not play video games showed a better ability to effectively divide tasks and communicate well to resolve disagreements while solving unfamiliar problems in a teamwork test of ability to collaborate.
- By 2023, without giving exams, career guidance officials will help teachers prepare students for work with programs in computing, robotics, electronics, broadcast journalism, drama, sports, and other "real world" options.
- Reforms are guided by educational research and tested before deciding how to handle full-scale implementation.
- Programs will acquaint parents with career objectives that, in the future, may matter more than exam results.
- An exam still stresses students and parents who know high and low achievers are separated into different schools by age 12.
- There are no teacher unions.
- Classes with as many as 36 students and an excellent teacher are considered better than small classes with mediocre teachers.
- To develop and maintain excellent teachers, 100 hours of training in the latest teaching techniques are provided for teachers each year.
- Master teachers are designated to train their peers.
- Teachers receive rigorous annual performance assessments by supervisors who know them by name and evaluate them in relation to the social development and academic performance of their students.
- Teacher salaries are based on those earned by professionals in the private sector.
ePals.com to find a connection.
Ideas from New York's Success charter schools:
Ideas from New York's Success charter schools:
- Students are called "scholars."
- Scholars dress in orange and blue solid and plaid uniforms.
- Halls are immaculate with scholar artwork displayed on the walls.
- A "golden plunger" award provides incentive to keep bathrooms clean.
- Multicolored carpets in elementary school classrooms are divided into rows of squares with a circle in each indicating where each child is to sit with hands still and eyes following whoever is speaking.
- Classrooms have white smartboards and bins of specially selected books.
- In timed segments, teachers provide instruction at the beginning of class. Students then work individually or in pairs (building something or working math problems, for example) and finish by sharing ideas with class.
- Laboratory science is required five days a week.
- Schools also teach sports, chess, and the arts.
- Common courtesy, saying "please" and "thank you" and respecting peers and adults is required.
- A free curricula model is online.
- Parents are required to read to their children at home, supervise homework, keep reading logs, and respond to school communications in 24 hours.
- The schools are less successful in accommodating children who perform poorly or chronically misbehave, as well as those with disabilities and special learning needs.
- No transfer students are accepted to fill vacancies after fourth grade, when they are likely to be too far behind their classmates.
- Teachers receive constant observation and advice for improvement.
- Teachers are expected to know each child's reading, math, English language arts, and science level, goal, need for help and how it will be provided.
- Some teachers, designated as exemplars, receive extra pay and serve as models for others.
- Some teachers leave because of long hours and high stress to perform well.
- There are no teacher unions, bit teachers receive generous pay, benefits, and teacher training.
- Budget is funded by a combination of public and private philanthropic money.
- Director knows how to employ political advocacy.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Vietnam and U.S. Demonstrate the Value of Short Memories
Chances are, looking back on your life, you remember having an enemy who later became your friend. Kids also go through those off and on enemy-friend relationships, as do countries. Turning Germany into a friend after World War II proved far better than trying to condemn the country forever following World War I.
In the U.S. we learned at Senator John McCain's funeral service on September 1, 2018 last Saturday, even though he was captured and tortured for over five years in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese now recognize him as someone who helped bring about the reconciliation of the United States and Vietnam.
Haiphong harbor, once mined by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, now is valued as an import/export hub needed to handle U.S. trade pulling out of China. In February, 2019, President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un chose Vietnam for their meeting to discuss demilitarization of the Korean peninsula and lifting the crippling economic sanctions that keep North Korea from enjoying the prosperity South Korea and Vietnam now enjoy.
Today, both the United States and Vietnam continue to contest China's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters in the South China Sea. After declaring in 2015 no intention of militarizing its artificial islands there, China now has radar installations, reinforced concrete bunkers, and missiles on three Spratly Islands west of the Philippines, a compliant challenger dependent on Chinese investment. China also has landed bombers in the Parcel Islands disputed with Vietnam.
Vietnam, nonetheless, with its powerful military force, successfully prevented China from locating an oil exploration rig in its waters. At home, Vietnam has experienced anti-Chinese protests. Meanwhile, in its ongoing challenge to excessive maritime claims by all countries violating the international Law of the Sea Convention, a U.S. destroyer's Freedom of Navigation Operation sailed within 12 miles of one of China's seven artificial islands in May, 2018. Then, the US canceled an invitation to China to participate in annual naval drills off Hawaii and invited Vietnam instead.
Vietnam also has challenged China's claims in the South China Sea by building two of its own artificial islands on the Nanhua Reef in the Spratly Island chain. According to China, the reef where Vietnam built is only above water at low tide, and typhoon "Jasmine" washed away much of the reclaimed land dredged up from the ocean floor. China also was proud to add Vietnam used a technique inferior to the way China sucks up sand for its taller islands.
Both low tech and high tech industries benefit from Vietnam's and the US's short memories. Check clothes labels, and you probably will see a number of items were made in Vietnam. At the same time, the oncology treatment IBM's Watson chose at Phu Tho General Hospital enabled a patient to move and eliminate the need for painkilling medication. Google Brain and technology experts also applaud Vietnamese Dr. Le Viet Quoc's effort to make deep learning a reality and to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into advertising research.
At "Age of AI and Vietnamese Enterprises," a Hanoi summit on July 25, 2018, more than 400 AI, economists, and financial experts and delegates from Vietnam's leading firms heard Harvard's James Furman urge private-government cooperation on AI research and applications. Vietnam's own Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment told the summit's older generation to eliminate obstacles preventing companies from making full use of younger employees with math skills and an interest in new technology.
Modeled on Silicon Valley, California, Vingroup JSC, a Vietnamese conglomerate worth about $3 billion, intends to consolidate its diversified businesses in VinTech City, where the focus will be technology development (including development of new generation materials), applications, manufacturing, and services. A sub-unit will house the Big Data Institution and Vin Hi-Tech Institution.Vietnam finds the key to using Big Data effectively is creating teams that include Big Data technology experts and those with a full understanding of the industry using the data. Working together, technology and industry partners are best able to incorporate unstructured data about customer activities, such as internet use and applications, with structured and semi-structured industry data in order to develop new digital products and services. Just like in the United States, Vietnam knows data found to have great long-term value for a company, needs to be protected from nearby and distant competitors, even if they are friends.
In the U.S. we learned at Senator John McCain's funeral service on September 1, 2018 last Saturday, even though he was captured and tortured for over five years in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese now recognize him as someone who helped bring about the reconciliation of the United States and Vietnam.
Haiphong harbor, once mined by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, now is valued as an import/export hub needed to handle U.S. trade pulling out of China. In February, 2019, President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un chose Vietnam for their meeting to discuss demilitarization of the Korean peninsula and lifting the crippling economic sanctions that keep North Korea from enjoying the prosperity South Korea and Vietnam now enjoy.
Today, both the United States and Vietnam continue to contest China's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters in the South China Sea. After declaring in 2015 no intention of militarizing its artificial islands there, China now has radar installations, reinforced concrete bunkers, and missiles on three Spratly Islands west of the Philippines, a compliant challenger dependent on Chinese investment. China also has landed bombers in the Parcel Islands disputed with Vietnam.
Vietnam, nonetheless, with its powerful military force, successfully prevented China from locating an oil exploration rig in its waters. At home, Vietnam has experienced anti-Chinese protests. Meanwhile, in its ongoing challenge to excessive maritime claims by all countries violating the international Law of the Sea Convention, a U.S. destroyer's Freedom of Navigation Operation sailed within 12 miles of one of China's seven artificial islands in May, 2018. Then, the US canceled an invitation to China to participate in annual naval drills off Hawaii and invited Vietnam instead.
Vietnam also has challenged China's claims in the South China Sea by building two of its own artificial islands on the Nanhua Reef in the Spratly Island chain. According to China, the reef where Vietnam built is only above water at low tide, and typhoon "Jasmine" washed away much of the reclaimed land dredged up from the ocean floor. China also was proud to add Vietnam used a technique inferior to the way China sucks up sand for its taller islands.
Both low tech and high tech industries benefit from Vietnam's and the US's short memories. Check clothes labels, and you probably will see a number of items were made in Vietnam. At the same time, the oncology treatment IBM's Watson chose at Phu Tho General Hospital enabled a patient to move and eliminate the need for painkilling medication. Google Brain and technology experts also applaud Vietnamese Dr. Le Viet Quoc's effort to make deep learning a reality and to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into advertising research.
At "Age of AI and Vietnamese Enterprises," a Hanoi summit on July 25, 2018, more than 400 AI, economists, and financial experts and delegates from Vietnam's leading firms heard Harvard's James Furman urge private-government cooperation on AI research and applications. Vietnam's own Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment told the summit's older generation to eliminate obstacles preventing companies from making full use of younger employees with math skills and an interest in new technology.
Modeled on Silicon Valley, California, Vingroup JSC, a Vietnamese conglomerate worth about $3 billion, intends to consolidate its diversified businesses in VinTech City, where the focus will be technology development (including development of new generation materials), applications, manufacturing, and services. A sub-unit will house the Big Data Institution and Vin Hi-Tech Institution.Vietnam finds the key to using Big Data effectively is creating teams that include Big Data technology experts and those with a full understanding of the industry using the data. Working together, technology and industry partners are best able to incorporate unstructured data about customer activities, such as internet use and applications, with structured and semi-structured industry data in order to develop new digital products and services. Just like in the United States, Vietnam knows data found to have great long-term value for a company, needs to be protected from nearby and distant competitors, even if they are friends.
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