Teachers often select young students to be the sun and planets. The student sun stands in the middle while the teacher helps students playing (and maybe dressed as) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune walk in elliptical orbits around the sun. A moon also can be chosen to walk around Earth. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, students can play roles as rocks in the asteroid belt that some scientists think might be the remains of a planet that exploded in the solar system. (And, of course, there is the fear that one of the large rocks from the asteroid belt might hit Earth and destroy life here.) There is much more to the universe.
Sometime later in a student's education a teacher, or shows with Carl Sagan or someone like him, may mention Earth is part of a solar system located on one side of the Milky Way galaxy, which is filled with other planets and billions of stars in fixed positions. Like our sun, some stars have two or more planets that might sustain extraterrestrial life. Some stars are brighter than others and some have different colors depending if they are dying or just developing. The universe is filled with a spectrum of light not visible with the naked eye.
The Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe; the Andromeda galaxy is the biggest one closest to the Milky Way. At some places on Earth that are free of man-made lights, it's possible to see the stars in the Milky Way and the entire Andromeda galaxy spiral. A black hole that sucks up light seems to be located near the center of galaxies where it might hold galaxies together like the sun's gravity attracts the planets. When galaxies crash into each other, they seem to send ripples throughout the universe.
Beyond their solar system, students have much to research about the universe and many ways to demonstrate what they have learned. Perhaps a Milky Way of students dressed as different colored stars could surround student stars holding a large black garbage bag representing a black hole. The rotating solar system students would be positioned on one side among the stars. Classrooms could even act as separate galaxies, bump into each other in the hall, and set off a kind of wave like that performed by spectators at a ball game.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Must Someone Look Just Like You?
I heard a woman telling a friend she didn't know much about those running for school board positions in the coming election. In response, the friend said, "Just vote for the women." Such advice rings sort of hollow at a time when DNA research finds, unless DNA shows someone is an intergalactic alien with six arms, less than one percent of a person's DNA makes him or her different from everyone else. We might as well vote for anyone.
Nkechi Okoro Carroll, a black female TV writer and showrunner at the CW network, reminded TV studios they cannot expect one African American to convey the perspective of all blacks. She herself grew up in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast and attended an English boarding school. She knows nothing about the hood.
When I was growing up in Chicago, I asked my mother why there were no black sales clerks at Marshall Fields. She said the store didn't think white customers would buy anything from people who didn't look like them. For a long time, the same thinking, or lack thereof, prevented older, white managers from hiring young, professional women to sell the advertising, copiers, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and everything else they sell today.
The point is, you can't tell a book by its cover and you can't tell those who have something valuable to share by the color of their skin. Stereotypes make it easy to assume we have nothing in common with teachers, characters in books, police officers, politicians, and anyone else who doesn't look like us and we have everything in common with those who look the same as us. Reality suggests more careful discernment pays off when it comes to human relationships.
Nkechi Okoro Carroll, a black female TV writer and showrunner at the CW network, reminded TV studios they cannot expect one African American to convey the perspective of all blacks. She herself grew up in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast and attended an English boarding school. She knows nothing about the hood.
When I was growing up in Chicago, I asked my mother why there were no black sales clerks at Marshall Fields. She said the store didn't think white customers would buy anything from people who didn't look like them. For a long time, the same thinking, or lack thereof, prevented older, white managers from hiring young, professional women to sell the advertising, copiers, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and everything else they sell today.
The point is, you can't tell a book by its cover and you can't tell those who have something valuable to share by the color of their skin. Stereotypes make it easy to assume we have nothing in common with teachers, characters in books, police officers, politicians, and anyone else who doesn't look like us and we have everything in common with those who look the same as us. Reality suggests more careful discernment pays off when it comes to human relationships.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Taking a Break
I want to express what a joy it has been to touch base with blog visitors from 85 different countries and to take a moment to review topics covered in past entries.
In my introductory post on July 17, 2012, I said I hoped to help kids feel comfortable with the globalization that would be part of their lives. Today I add my hope that human rights violations decrease in their lifetime, toleration for all religions grows, and AI, 3D printing, 6G networks, VR, the IofT, and other technological advances enhance rather than threaten their futures.
I was surprised to see that my first post about China was not until Feb.2015. Since then, Beijing launched its One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road global expansion, increased its military hard power, and added soft power films and International Flower Festivals to its cuddly pandas.
During the past seven years, the African continent also gained importance. One of the blog's single most popular posts, with 140 views, was "Games Children Play," which provided instructions for filling bags for students with samples of Africa's coffee, tea, chocolate, cotton, and other products. Both research in and distribution of remedies for malaria, AIDS, and other diseases now tackle their devastating impact on Africa's progress. Mobile phones already facilitate banking, information about markets, catching animal poachers, and street repairs. Exploitation and corruption are at least recognized, if not yet cured.
Finally, I want to thank all the sources, from trendwatching.com to globalsistersreport.org, that have provided the information I was able to convey to you
In my introductory post on July 17, 2012, I said I hoped to help kids feel comfortable with the globalization that would be part of their lives. Today I add my hope that human rights violations decrease in their lifetime, toleration for all religions grows, and AI, 3D printing, 6G networks, VR, the IofT, and other technological advances enhance rather than threaten their futures.
I was surprised to see that my first post about China was not until Feb.2015. Since then, Beijing launched its One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road global expansion, increased its military hard power, and added soft power films and International Flower Festivals to its cuddly pandas.
During the past seven years, the African continent also gained importance. One of the blog's single most popular posts, with 140 views, was "Games Children Play," which provided instructions for filling bags for students with samples of Africa's coffee, tea, chocolate, cotton, and other products. Both research in and distribution of remedies for malaria, AIDS, and other diseases now tackle their devastating impact on Africa's progress. Mobile phones already facilitate banking, information about markets, catching animal poachers, and street repairs. Exploitation and corruption are at least recognized, if not yet cured.
Finally, I want to thank all the sources, from trendwatching.com to globalsistersreport.org, that have provided the information I was able to convey to you
Thursday, March 21, 2019
On the Mexican Side of the Border
The days of confining children in tent cities on the dusty Texas side of the Rio Grande are over. Guards need no longer bar the concerned visitors who set red balloons afloat over the camps to show those inside someone cared about them.
But migrants still cross into Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador. In the five-year span from 2010 to 2015, the UN estimates over 300,000 left Central America. The Economist magazine (March 16, 2019) mentioned 8,000 left in January and February this year.
Mexico understands the plight of Central Americans who seek asylum from government repression of the poor, gang violence, and soldiers, like those who murdered San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and four nuns in 1980 and the environmental activist, Berta Caceres, in Honduras in 2016. Besides fleeing violence, migrants also risk the long, hot and dangerous journey north when they are displaced by mining activities and when coffee and other crop prices drop or when a lack of rainfall, heat, and a plague of insects reduce crop yields. (Also see the earlier post, "How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents A Pound?")
Since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became Mexico's President in December, 2018, his humanitarian welcome has cut into the estimated $2.5 billion organized crime was used to pocketing for trafficking migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. As requested by Washington, D.C. migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. now remain in Mexico until close to their court dates.
But migrants still cross into Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador. In the five-year span from 2010 to 2015, the UN estimates over 300,000 left Central America. The Economist magazine (March 16, 2019) mentioned 8,000 left in January and February this year.
Mexico understands the plight of Central Americans who seek asylum from government repression of the poor, gang violence, and soldiers, like those who murdered San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and four nuns in 1980 and the environmental activist, Berta Caceres, in Honduras in 2016. Besides fleeing violence, migrants also risk the long, hot and dangerous journey north when they are displaced by mining activities and when coffee and other crop prices drop or when a lack of rainfall, heat, and a plague of insects reduce crop yields. (Also see the earlier post, "How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents A Pound?")
Since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became Mexico's President in December, 2018, his humanitarian welcome has cut into the estimated $2.5 billion organized crime was used to pocketing for trafficking migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. As requested by Washington, D.C. migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. now remain in Mexico until close to their court dates.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Why Kids Need Positive Relationships with Adults
Adult-child bonding achieves results. "Skin," the live action short film that won an Academy Award last month, featured a father proudly training his son to master a gun and hate black people. Through a plot twist and a bit of Hollywood magic, the father's skin turns black. His son shoots and kills him.
Research by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child also found a lack of adult-child bonding in abusive environments and those with uncaring adults leads to kids with no motivation to learn, to explore, or to try new things. In a negative situation, kids can become fixated on fear, avoiding punishment, and the immediate danger of failure.
When children lack positive experiences with adults, they are apt to resist pressure to do things in a particular way, such as form cursive letters according to a prescribed method. Even guiding some children through mindfulness by requiring them to close eyes, sit up straight, and conform to other unnecessary procedures can undermine the positive benefits of mindfulness.
Teachers need to realize not all kids come into a room with a background of adult-child relationships that make them ready to answer an adult's question, volunteer an opinion, or ask for more information. A teacher needs to find ways to help students succeed, to feel a task is not impossible. It helps to lead into discussions with phrases like "I notice" and "I wonder." In other words, teachers need to give the impression all ideas are welcome and all subjects are worth exploring.
My mother was a math teacher who always tried to figure out what students were doing when they arrived at the wrong answer. She learned there were lots of things you could do with a column of numbers. "That's interesting," she would say, "I never thought of that." No matter how "crazy" a student's manipulation of numbers was, she'd caution other students not to laugh before they listened to and understood a classmate's reasoning.
Not every student is going to be good or poor at the same subject. Unless all kids begin to develop positive face-to-face interactions with adults, they may shut down and stop learning before they hit their strides. This goes for gifted and talented kids also. When an eight-year-old British boy, with Egyptian parents, perfect pitch, a knack for coding, and a sense of humor, told an international education conference, "(G)etting a few spelling words or facts wrong is not the end of the world," teachers needed to avoid taking offense. He also felt free to suggest learning to type on a keyboard saved trees and was more important in the digital age than learning cursive.
Research by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child also found a lack of adult-child bonding in abusive environments and those with uncaring adults leads to kids with no motivation to learn, to explore, or to try new things. In a negative situation, kids can become fixated on fear, avoiding punishment, and the immediate danger of failure.
When children lack positive experiences with adults, they are apt to resist pressure to do things in a particular way, such as form cursive letters according to a prescribed method. Even guiding some children through mindfulness by requiring them to close eyes, sit up straight, and conform to other unnecessary procedures can undermine the positive benefits of mindfulness.
Teachers need to realize not all kids come into a room with a background of adult-child relationships that make them ready to answer an adult's question, volunteer an opinion, or ask for more information. A teacher needs to find ways to help students succeed, to feel a task is not impossible. It helps to lead into discussions with phrases like "I notice" and "I wonder." In other words, teachers need to give the impression all ideas are welcome and all subjects are worth exploring.
My mother was a math teacher who always tried to figure out what students were doing when they arrived at the wrong answer. She learned there were lots of things you could do with a column of numbers. "That's interesting," she would say, "I never thought of that." No matter how "crazy" a student's manipulation of numbers was, she'd caution other students not to laugh before they listened to and understood a classmate's reasoning.
Not every student is going to be good or poor at the same subject. Unless all kids begin to develop positive face-to-face interactions with adults, they may shut down and stop learning before they hit their strides. This goes for gifted and talented kids also. When an eight-year-old British boy, with Egyptian parents, perfect pitch, a knack for coding, and a sense of humor, told an international education conference, "(G)etting a few spelling words or facts wrong is not the end of the world," teachers needed to avoid taking offense. He also felt free to suggest learning to type on a keyboard saved trees and was more important in the digital age than learning cursive.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball Madness
Now that he's an ex-President, Barack Obama welcomes his extra time to fill out March Madness brackets for the annual basketball tournament pitting 68 top U.S. college teams against each other. Former University of Pennsylvania stars welcome the chance to reminisce about years back when they were on an Ivy League basketball team that reached the Final Four. They remind each other how they were the tough recruits from the New York public leagues who recognized the teammate potential of a lanky lad from a Connecticut prep school.
March Madness also brings players to welcoming neighborhood basketball courts. The short Shark Tank entrepreneur, Daymon John, reports how he, by being the one who brought the ball, always was welcome to play in pick-up games. Surprisingly, North Korea's short President, Kim Jong-un, is a basketball fan who probably would welcome an invitation to a March Madness game.
There's even a semi-professional basketball team in Tibet, China. Willard "Bill" Johnson, a former MIT basketball coach and professional player in Iceland, Australia, and Cape Verde, coaches a team made up of nomad sheep and yak herders and Buddhist monks who were prepared to play in the Norlha Basketball Invitational in Gannan, part of China's Gansu province. Unfortunately, Beijing canceled the tournament, because local police voiced security concerns about controlling a large gathering of people during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
One of Johnson's players, 6-foot, one-inch Dugya Bum was a school drop out who didn't quit smoking until basketball changed his life. His home now displays a framed photo of LeBron James. Basketball also transformed the difficult lives of Norlha's nomad women who became interested in trying new things, like yoga and meeting together to chat, once they too had a team.
The Olympic Creed claims "The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part." Around the world, in playgrounds and gyms everywhere, the most important thing may be getting to know each other by taking part in sports.
March Madness also brings players to welcoming neighborhood basketball courts. The short Shark Tank entrepreneur, Daymon John, reports how he, by being the one who brought the ball, always was welcome to play in pick-up games. Surprisingly, North Korea's short President, Kim Jong-un, is a basketball fan who probably would welcome an invitation to a March Madness game.
There's even a semi-professional basketball team in Tibet, China. Willard "Bill" Johnson, a former MIT basketball coach and professional player in Iceland, Australia, and Cape Verde, coaches a team made up of nomad sheep and yak herders and Buddhist monks who were prepared to play in the Norlha Basketball Invitational in Gannan, part of China's Gansu province. Unfortunately, Beijing canceled the tournament, because local police voiced security concerns about controlling a large gathering of people during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
One of Johnson's players, 6-foot, one-inch Dugya Bum was a school drop out who didn't quit smoking until basketball changed his life. His home now displays a framed photo of LeBron James. Basketball also transformed the difficult lives of Norlha's nomad women who became interested in trying new things, like yoga and meeting together to chat, once they too had a team.
The Olympic Creed claims "The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part." Around the world, in playgrounds and gyms everywhere, the most important thing may be getting to know each other by taking part in sports.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Add Fashion to Protest Passions
When protests blocked roads and polluted life with gas-filled burning tires in 2012 Lebanon, the Bokja (pronounced "bubjeh") textile house countered by rolling out a photographic display of tires covered with its elaborately embroidered fabrics.
President Trump's red cap was followed by women donning knitted pink "Pussyhats" when they marched to protest his claim about where he could grab any woman.
Black gowns worn at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards announced women were finished playing amateur sex object roles for Hollywood's powerful moguls.
To demonstrate their increasing numbers and rightful place in Congress, women lawmakers joined males at the 2019 State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. wearing white outfits like those suffragettes used to call attention to their cause.
What fashions might help call attention to the need to address climate change and other problems?
To concoct the bugs intense heat could spawn and other dramatic protest examples, look to the Mummers who parade in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, "Miss Universe" costumes, and the beaded creations strutting in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades.
President Trump's red cap was followed by women donning knitted pink "Pussyhats" when they marched to protest his claim about where he could grab any woman.
Black gowns worn at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards announced women were finished playing amateur sex object roles for Hollywood's powerful moguls.
To demonstrate their increasing numbers and rightful place in Congress, women lawmakers joined males at the 2019 State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. wearing white outfits like those suffragettes used to call attention to their cause.
What fashions might help call attention to the need to address climate change and other problems?
To concoct the bugs intense heat could spawn and other dramatic protest examples, look to the Mummers who parade in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, "Miss Universe" costumes, and the beaded creations strutting in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades.
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