Youth Incorporated – Henry McDowell
“We are all different when we learn something new or out of the ordinary because it often depends on our social background and the skills that we have since our childhood years. Learning a foreign language may sound like a great challenge to most people, yet the trick is to dive into a linguistic environment and make sure that you also learn the cultural or mental factors. ” (more)
Moms – Megan Glosson
“Technology is changing nearly every aspect of our lives, but it’s really impacting the workforce. With automation and other new innovations, traditional blue collar jobs are largely becoming something of the past. However, our children don’t need to worry, because there is a new category of careers emerging: new collar jobs.” (more)
KQED News Mind/Shift – Jena Brooker
“Doug Worthen guided his small class of ninth graders at Middlesex School through an exercise designed to focus their attention. On his screen, he saw the students sitting outside or at desks and lounging across their beds as they joined their weekly mindfulness class online. One by one the students clicked off their cameras, each square became a white and gray icon and Worthen began the meditation.” (more)
Ed Source – Karen D’Souza
“Christine Whalen has a spirited 5-year-old who started kindergarten in the fall. It’s not going well. Ella gets so bored on Zoom that she quickly squirms, wiggles and tries to flee. One day when Whalen left the room for a moment, she came back to find her little girl lying on the ground, sticking her leg so high in the air that all the teacher could see was her tiny foot. Another day, Ella snuck out of the room entirely, leaving a Cookie Monster stuffed animal in her seat to fool the teacher.” (more)
E-School News – Jessica Messier
“Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) assistant professor of computer science Jacob Whitehill is collaborating with colleagues at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU Boulder) to explore how artificially intelligent (AI) teaching agents might help encourage more meaningful collaboration among students in school classrooms.” (more)
Forbes – Nina Shapiro
“New York City public schools, the largest public school system in the country, closed this week, under orders by Mayor Bill de Blasio. As the early stages of the winter coronavirus surge begin to hit New York, rising from 1% to 3% test positivity rate, more than 700,000 of the over 1 million students who had been attending school are being sent home for remote learning for the foreseeable future. The mayor’s initial decree to open schools just weeks ago was considered a bold one, as New York had been last spring’s national epicenter of coronavirus infections, combined with the challenge of managing ongoing smaller outbreaks in a wide range of New York City neighborhoods. The second largest school system, in Los Angeles, never fully opened, but has and continues to have limited students with high needs attending school in-person throughout the city.” (more)
Moms – Larissa Marulli
“The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in September-November 1621, and we’re sure you have a visual in your mind of what you think it looked like. The Pilgrims wore black outfits, large belt buckles, and funny looking top hats. The Indigenous people living on the land where the Pilgrims made their homestead were called Indians by mistake. They wore simple brown clothes and wore headbands with feathers, and braided their hair.” (more)
NPR – Malaka Gharib and Cory Turner
“Kids, this comic is for you. You’ve been living through this pandemic for months, and you might be feeling sad, frustrated or upset. But there are lots of different ways to deal with your worries – and make yourself feel better. Here are some tips and advice to help you through.” (more)
E-School News – Dr. Liz Crawford Brooke
“Spring 2020 was a real learning period for schools that had never used remote learning before. Call it a baptism by fire, if you will, but seemingly overnight, nearly every institution nationwide had to make a quick shift to online instruction. The approaches varied by geography and by the schools themselves. Some districts missed their own deadlines for getting everyone enabled and connected in the spring, while others didn’t even have phone numbers for their parents.” (more)
The Christian Science Monitor – Mark Sheehan
“For more than a year, Debbie and Scott Stauffer contemplated selling their home in northern California’s Bay Area and moving their family out of state. Life was too hectic and too expensive. Then came the pandemic, and schools switched to remote learning. Though the charter school their three sons attended was better prepared than most for online lessons, the boys found it more difficult to focus on their studies than they had in the classroom.” (more)
