All without leaving her living room. Born with a chronic heart disorder that weakened her immune system and made attending school risky, Lexie, 9, was tutored at her home in Sumter for years. But this spring, her family began experimenting with an alternative — a camera-and-Internet-enabled robot that swivels around the classroom and streams two-way video between her school and house. “She immediately loved the robot,” her mother, Cristi Kinder, said, of the device, called a VGo, which Lexie controls from her home computer. Lexie dressed up the robot, which is about the height of her third-grade classmates, in pink ribbons and a tutu, and she renamed it Princess VGo. A small but quickly growing number of chronically ill students — at least 50 across the country — now attend school virtually with what are called “remote presence robots.” The technology is still expensive (a VGo costs $6,000, in addition to $1,200 a year for maintenance and other costs) and imperfect (when the robot loses its Internet connection, it goes lifeless and must be pushed). And despite the fantasies of Lexie’s classmates — “I want a robot so I can stay in bed all day,” one 8-year-old said — such robots are mostly last resorts for children restricted to their houses or hospital rooms. As Web-based video becomes more prominent as a teaching tool, special education advocates say these robots are valuable alternatives to tutoring. About 23,000 students across the country are homebound or hospitalized each school year. They might not otherwise interact with classmates or could fall farther behind academically, advocates say. “Soon, these robots should be the price of an inexpensive laptop,” said Maja Mataric, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California, who studies how robots help children with learning disabilities. “They should make access to education much easier for students who are convalescing.” Dr. Mataric’s research focuses on using robots to teach social cues to children with autism. Children adapt far more quickly to the technology than adults and treat the machine like another classmate, she says. During a fire drill at one Texas school, students were so worried about the VGo that they insisted on escorting it out of the building to safety. The VGo is four feet tall, weighs 18 pounds and is shaped like a white chess pawn, with a video screen on its face. Lexie controls its movement with her computer mouse. Video of the classroom at Alice Drive Elementary School appears on her computer screen, and video of her face appears on the robot’s display screen. The robot and Lexie’s computer support two-way voice communication, and Lexie can flash her VGo’s lights to get the teacher’s attention. Since 2007, VGo, based in Nashua, N.H., has been selling the robots to company executives who want to keep an eye on employees while traveling and to doctors, who use it to “visit” patients at different hospitals. Two years ago, it realized schools might be a new market. The first classroom model was sold to a school in Knox City, Tex., to be used by a child with an immune deficiency. The company’s big break came during this year’s Super Bowl. Verizon, which provides the LTE wireless connection for the robot, ran a commercial about a student using VGo. Before the ad, VGo had sold about 10 robots to schools. Since then, they have sold about 40. Most robots are bought with state or local money marked for disabled students, but at some schools, parents have held fund-raising events or bought the robot themselves. In Huntsville, Tex., education officials bought five VGos last year and are planning for five more next year. They named the program Morgan’s Angels after a student with cancer who missed school for six months but was able to attend remotely with the robot’s help. For students like Connor Flanagan, 14, of Tyngsborough, Mass., the main benefit has been social interaction. He does not go to school because of a rare lung condition, but he has stayed in touch with friends while awaiting a transplant. “He walks down the hallway kind of like everybody else,” said his mother, Jennifer Flanagan. “The kids — aside the fact that it was a robot — they treated him like Connor. He’d roll through the room, and you’d hear ‘Hey, Connor. Hi, Connor.’ ” Parents have raised privacy concerns about children using cameras in class. But Ned Semonite, the company’s vice president for marketing and product management, said it was no different from a smartphone or Web camera. The greatest logistical challenge is maintaining an Internet connection. Lori Gearhart, of Colesburg, Iowa, said her grandson, Aidan Bailey, 9, was able to use the robot after his lung collapsed last year. His science class was studying insects, and Aidan kept a cocoon in his hospital room. He would show classmates videos of its transformation into a butterfly. But other times, she said, the robot, which was bought through a community fund-raising effort for Aidan, could not receive enough of a wireless signal. “It ends up where the classmates have to carry the robot down the hall,” she said. In Sumter, Shawn Hagerty, the director of special education programs for the school district, bought a robot after seeing Verizon’s commercial. The teachers set aside a day when students could meet and play with the robot. Lexie’s robot has its own desk and charging station against a wall. Ivey Smith, her teacher, said the children had embraced the idea of having a robot in the class and screamed with excitement every time it turned on. “I was concerned they would be distracted,” she said. “But within a couple days, they acted like it had always been here. They feel special that there’s a robot in their class.” On a recent day, Ms. Smith’s class was learning about synonyms. She asked every student to think of a word with the same meaning as the word “glassy.” A moment later, the robot’s pink and green lights blinked, and the class shouted, “Lexie!” “My word is ‘shiny,’ ” she said through the video screen. “Yes, very good,” the teacher replied. “Good answer.” Between classes, Lexie guides the robot down the hallway. At day’s end, she rolls it to a charging station. On the way out of class, one child, Hazel Grace Kolb, waved goodbye to the machine. “See you tomorrow, robot,” she said.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The Learning Network Blog: What Are You Listening to?
Chad Batka for The New York Times Thomas Bangalter, left, and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the French duo known as Daft Punk. Go to related article »
Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.If Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” is already starting to seem like the “song of summer” to you, you’re not alone. The group’s new album is also No. 1 on the Billboard charts, while the rap duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis extends its run with the top single.
What are you listening to these days? Why?
In “Daft Punk Holds On at No. 1,” the ArtsBeat blog reports:
Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” (Daft Life/Columbia), featuring the hit single “Get Lucky,” had 93,000 sales in its second week out, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That is a 73 percent drop from its opening week, but it was enough keep the album on top, beating out a handful of new releases.
Alice in Chains’ new release, “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” (Capitol) — the grunge-era group’s second album since reuniting with a new singer, William DuVall — opened at No. 2 with 61,000 sales. John Fogerty’s “Wrote a Song for Everyone” (Vanguard), featuring Creedence Clearwater Revival and other of his songs recorded with stars like Kid Rock, Keith Urban and Jennifer Hudson, sold 51,000 copies to open at No. 3. Also this week, the British group Little Mix bows at No. 4 with 50,000 sales of “DNA” (Syco/Columbia).
On the singles chart, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Can’t Hold Us” stays at No. 1 for a fifth week, with 184,000 downloads and five million streams in the United States on services like Spotify and YouTube. Earlier this year, the group’s “Thrift Shop” spent six weeks as the top single.
Students: Tell us …
What are you listening to right now? Do you find your playlist changes with the seasons?If so, what do you think of the concept of a “song of summer“? What songs do you associate with previous summers? What do you think will be this summer’s song?How much do you tend to follow pop music? Are your favorite songs ones everyone knows, or more obscure music?If you want to find new music, you might try the new “Press Play” music blog. What songs there do you like? Why?Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.
Teachers: We have a related lesson plan, “Puttin’ On the Hits”
G.O.P. Bill on Schools Would Set Fewer Rules
Coming two days after Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate education committee, released a 1,150-page education bill, the bill by Mr. Alexander, who is the ranking Republican on the committee, will compete with it. The Alexander bill is described in its introduction as restoring “freedom to parents, teachers, principals, governors and local communities so that they can improve their local public schools.” At less than one-fifth the length of Mr. Harkin’s bill, Mr. Alexander’s legislation would allow states to devise curriculum standards, tests, school rating systems and consequences for schools that fail to meet state goals with far fewer guidelines than are included in the Harkin bill. Both bills would amend the half-century-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act that governs public schools receiving federal money to support the most vulnerable students. “What they are really saying is they don’t trust parents and they don’t trust classroom teachers and states to care about and help educate their children, and they want someone in Washington do it for them,” Mr. Alexander said of Democrats in a telephone interview. “I just completely reject that.” Congress has repeatedly failed to revise No Child Left Behind, which has been up for reauthorization since 2007. Starting last year, the Obama administration began granting waivers to relieve states from the law’s requirement that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Under that provision, a majority of schools in the country were at risk of violating the law. Mr. Alexander’s bill continues the current law’s requirement of testing students in reading and math in third through eighth grades and once in high school. All schools must report the scores and show how different racial groups, students with disabilities, those learning the English language and poor students perform on the tests. The bill would require states to set standards that would allow students to be ready for college or a job “without the need for remediation.” Neither Mr. Harkin’s nor Mr. Alexander’s bill mandates the content of academic standards. Mr. Alexander’s bill also does not prescribe what should be included in a state’s annual goals for student performance on tests; Mr. Harkin’s bill sets more guidelines. The Alexander bill encourages, but would not require, states to set up teacher evaluation systems. It also does not mandate any turnaround measures for schools that fail to meet state goals, although it does list options including closing a school, replacing the principal or offering higher pay to recruit new teachers. Mr. Alexander said he wanted to include a provision allowing parents to take public money and put it toward any public school or accredited private school of their choice. He said that he and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky would be introducing an amendment to the bill once it reached the Senate floor to give vouchers to families to use federal dollars to attend private schools. Some who had seen parts of the bill said that leaving all decisions to states and local school districts and allowing them to set goals could disadvantage students who already start school behind. “The pressures from local superintendents and Realtors and everybody else to just make schools look good are overwhelming,” said Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a nonprofit group that works to close achievement gaps for racial minorities and poor children. “And it is very hard to maintain a real focus, especially on the kids that have been behind.” Others who had not yet seen the bill but were aware of Mr. Alexander’s preferences said that the law was meant to set conditions for receiving federal money. “Nobody is forcing a state to take this money,” said Charles Barone, policy director for Democrats for Education Reform, a group that pushes for test-based teacher evaluations and has battled teachers’ unions. “If they are not willing to do this they should just be honest about it and live without the money.””
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
The Learning Network Blog: Student Opinion | Would You Want a Bike Share Program for Your Community?
Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.New York City is in the second week of its bike share program, joining other major cities like Boston, London and Mexico City.
Would you want a bike share program for your community?
In the article “Out for a First Spin: City’s Bike Share Program Begins,” Matt Flegenheimer writes about last week’s kickoff for bike sharing in New York.
By midafternoon, the passing flickers of blue were already ubiquitous — negotiating light taxi traffic in the West Village, hurtling through the protected lanes of Midtown, drifting toward the Brooklyn waterfront.
For the first time, under cooperatively clear skies, New Yorkers sat astride the city’s first new wide-scale public transportation in more than 75 years: a fleet of 6,000 bicycles, part of a system known as Citi Bike, scattered across more than 300 stations in Manhattan below 59th Street and parts of Brooklyn.
There were kinks in the system’s early hours. A bike was swiped on Sunday as crews worked at the last minute to fill the stations. A mail delivery snag left as many as 200 members without access to the system. Some tourists dipped credit cards in vain for minutes, unaware that the program was initially open only to annual subscribers.
But Monday’s riders were, by definition, an eager and forgiving cross section: founding members who registered for a yearly pass for $95, allowing them to ride between stations for as long as 45 minutes with no added charge.
Students: Tell us …
Would you want a bike share program for your community? Why?How safe is biking in your neighborhood?Do you think more people would bike to work or the store if bikes were somehow shared?Can you imagine sharing more things with strangers besides bikes, like college textbooks, a prom dress or even a car?Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.
Some Say Spelling of a Winning Word Wasn’t Kosher
Or so say mavens of Yiddish about the winning word, knaidel, in the widely televised Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. Knaidel is the matzo ball or dumpling that Jewish cooks put in chicken soup. But somebody may have gotten farblondjet, or gone astray, the Yiddish experts say. The preferred spelling has historically been kneydl, according to transliterated Yiddish orthography decided upon by linguists at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the organization based in Manhattan recognized by many Yiddish speakers as the authority on all things Yiddish. The spelling contest, however, relies not on YIVO linguists but on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, and that is what contestants cram with, said a bee spokesman, Chris Kemper. Officials at Merriam-Webster, the dictionary’s publisher, defended their choice of spelling as the most common variant of the word from a language that, problematically, is written in the Hebrew, not Roman, alphabet. “Bubbes in Boca Raton are using the word knaidel when they mail in their recipes’' to The Tampa Bay Time, said Kory Stamper, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Mass. The dictionary itself says the English word is based on the Yiddish word for dumpling: “kneydel, from Middle High German knödel.” If nothing else, the dispute is a window into the cultural stews that languages like Yiddish, not to mention English, become as people migrate and assimilate. The word was spelled on Thursday — correctly, according to contest officials — by Arvind V. Mahankali, 13, an eighth grader from Bayside, Queens, who is a son of immigrants from southern India and New York City’s first national champion since 1997. He has never eaten an actual knaidel. (It is pronounced KNEYD-l.) While many people think of Yiddish as a seat-of-the-pants patois, it is in fact a finely structured language with grammar, usage and spelling rules, said Samuel Norich, publisher of The Jewish Daily Forward’s English and Yiddish editions, and director of YIVO from 1980 to 1992. While most languages were formalized by national governments and their sanctioned language academies, Yiddish had no country and so relied on organizations like YIVO, which is the Yiddish acronym for Yiddish Scientific Institute and was based before World War II in what is now Vilnius, Lithuania. Experts like YIVO’s Max Weinreich and his son, Uriel, who compiled a Yiddish-English dictionary, set clear guidelines about how the language should be transliterated into English — though in that famously disputatious Jewish world those instructions were not always appreciated or obeyed. For instance, rather than the “ch” in words like chutzpah and challah, the YIVO wordsmiths preferred “kh” because the “ch” could lead someone to a softer pronunciation, as in choice or chicken. YIVO uses the “kh” in words like khutspe (chutzpah), but most Yiddish speakers prefer the more popular variants. “The argument is whether we make things comprehensible to the public or insist on the purity of the language,” said Anita Norich, a professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan, who in the close-knit world of secular Yiddish speakers also happens to be Samuel Norich’s sister. She noted wryly that her efforts to slip the YIVO spelling of the writer Sholem Aleichem’s last name — Aleykhem — past publishers have always failed. In the United States, the experts have gradually relented on the spelling of words like Hanukkah, which they would prefer to spell Khanike. Even Leo Rosten’s “The New Joys of Yiddish,” whose earlier edition is used by many as an authority on spelling Yiddish words commonly used in America, throws its hands up in surrender: “The proper transliteration of this festival’s name remains one of the great mysteries of modern Jewish life,” it says. The book spells knaidel in YIVO fashion as kneydl though it says that the late author himself preferred knaydl. The Second Avenue Deli, in Midtown, which has printed T-shirts and wallpaper with the Yiddish names of some of its signature foods, spells the dumpling yet another way, as kneidel, said the owner, Jack Lebewohl. On its menu, it avoids conflicts by calling the dumpling a matzo ball. “There’s no real spelling of the word, so who determines how a word is spelled?” said Mr. Lebewohl, whose parents spoke Yiddish in their hometown outside of Lvov, in what was then southeastern Poland. On Friday in the Bronx, a great knaidel debate was in full swing during lunch at the Riverdale Y Senior Center, where many of the 60 diners had already heard about the young spelling whiz from Queens. As they munched on brisket and kasha varnishkes, most everyone agreed on pronunciation, but there was wide discussion on how to spell it, how to make it and who makes the best one. “K-n-a-d-e-l,” said Gloria Birnbaum, 83, whose first language was Yiddish. She teaches a class at the center in “mamalushen,” the mother tongue of Yiddish, to seniors who want to better understand “the things you heard your mother say.” “I wouldn’t have spelled it with an ‘i,’ ” she added. But Aaron Goldman, a former accountant and sales manager in a blue baseball cap, jumped to his feet and banged on the table as plastic ware bounced. “That would be ‘knawdle,’ not knaidle!” he said. May Schechter, 90, told Claire Okrend, who is in her 80s, that she did not learn the word until she came to America from Romania in 1938. But, she said, she did not think any of the variants were wrong. “You can spell it any way you want,” she said. “As long as it’s understood,” Ms. Okrend agreed. Mr. Norich expressed a note of frustration that knaidel was spelled that way in a nationally televised contest. “Since the whole world seems to have heard about this spelling as the one that won Arvind Mahankali the national spelling bee, it has gone that much further to becoming recognized and accepted as the standard spelling,” he wrote in an e-mail. “That’s how it works.” Spelling it knaidel, experts said, could lead to pronouncing it KNY-del, which would be wrong, or maybe just informal, since Jews in some parts of Poland did pronounce it that way. Arvind, who attends Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School 74 in Bayside, is no rebellious word-changer. Starting in the fourth grade, he said, he began memorizing words that his father had collected from the dictionary and, when he started winning spelling bees, browsing the dictionary himself for uncommon words. He researched their derivations and language of origins as a way of better implanting the correct spelling in his mind. Arvind has always had a knack for languages, and in addition to English speaks Telugu, a southern Indi tongue, Spanish and some Hindi. This year was his fourth trip to the national contest; he finished third in 2011 and 2012. Although he has never tasted a knaidel or a kneidl, he will soon. He said his seventh-grade science teacher, Carol Lipton, had promised to bring one to school on Monday.
Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting, and Susan Beachy contributed research.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 6, 2013
Because of an editing error, an article and a picture caption on Saturday about the debate over the proper spelling of “knaidel,” the word a Queens boy spelled correctly to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, gave an outdated location, in some editions, for the Second Avenue Deli, which serves the dumplings but spells them “kneidels.” It is in Midtown East, not the East Village. The article also included a quotation that gave an outdated name for a newspaper where a dictionary editor said that some people send their knaidel recipes. It is The Tampa Bay Times, no longer The St. Petersburg Times.
The Learning Network Blog: Word of the Day | ecologist
: a biologist who studies the relation between organisms and their environment
The word ecologist has appeared in 141 New York Times articles in the past year, including on May 28 in “Mapping the Great Indoors” by Peter Andrey Smith:
Here’s an undeniable fact: We are an indoor species. We spend close to 90 percent of our lives in drywalled caves. Yet traditionally, ecologists ventured outdoors to observe nature’s biodiversity, in the Amazon jungles, the hot springs of Yellowstone or the subglacial lakes of Antarctica. (“When you train as an ecologist, you imagine yourself tromping around in the forest,” Dr. Fierer said. “You don’t imagine yourself swabbing a toilet seat.”)
But as humdrum as a home might first appear, it is a veritable wonderland. Ecology does not stop at the front door; a home to you is also home to an incredible array of wildlife.
The Word of the Day and its definitions have been provided by Vocabulary.com and the Visual Thesaurus.
Learn more about the word “ecologist” and see usage examples across a range of subjects on the Vocabulary dictionary.
Click on the word below to map it and hear it pronounced:
The Learning Network Blog: Found Poem Favorite | ‘Architects’
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times MoMA expects to have the building demolished by the end of this year. Go to related article »This poem, one of 12 winners of our fourth annual Found Poem Student Contest, was written by Alison, 23, from Boston. The poem comes from the article “12-Year-Old Building at MoMA Is Doomed”.
Check back every day through June 12 to read the work of another winner.
Architects
As children, we borrowed feelings of loss
as we envisioned that new, vacant parcel
of Manhattan skyline, towers demolished.
We built stories of that place, the lives,
ambitious in the heights of our preservation.
12 years later, school completed, we start out.
We finance our hopes with thoughtful work
and solid looking facades. We are a generation
keeping with history. We are a temporary time
and a temporary space, but we are still being.
Want to read all the winning poems since this contest began in 2010? Visit our Found Poem Favorite collection.
And don’t forget our Summer Reading Contest, which begins June 14.
The Learning Network Blog: News Quiz | June 6, 2013
The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content.Teachers can use or adapt our lessons across subject areas and levels. Students can respond to our Opinion questions, take our News Quizzes, learn the Word of the Day, try our Test Yourself questions, complete a Fill-In or read our Poetry Pairings.Join the conversation by commenting on any post. We'd love to hear what you think!
The Learning Network Blog: Test Yourself | Editing Practice, June 7, 2013
The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content.Teachers can use or adapt our lessons across subject areas and levels. Students can respond to our Opinion questions, take our News Quizzes, learn the Word of the Day, try our Test Yourself questions, complete a Fill-In or read our Poetry Pairings.Join the conversation by commenting on any post. We'd love to hear what you think!
Monday, June 10, 2013
Watchdog Halts Action on Researchers
The federal Office for Human Research Protections announced on Wednesday that it would suspend action against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which it said in March did not adequately inform parents about the risks to their premature infants of enrollment in a large research trial. In a letter dated Tuesday, the watchdog office still maintained that researchers had not properly informed parents, and that it could still require that the university and 22 other trial sites, which include many of the country’s top research universities, take corrective action. But it also acknowledged that federal guidelines about a researcher’s obligations needed to be clarified and issued. On the office’s Web site, the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced that a public meeting to debate such guidelines was forthcoming. The timing of the letter coincided with the publication on the Web site of The New England Journal of Medicine of an opinion article by leaders of the National Institutes of Health that took issue with the agency’s initial condemnation of the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial, widely known as Support. Both the agency and the N.I.H. are branches of Health and Human Services. The Journal also published a letter, signed by 46 doctors and scholars, that criticized the office’s initial action as overreaching and having a potentially chilling effect on essential research. At the center of the uproar, which has engendered commentary from scientists, is whether researchers needed to disclose to parents the risks of a randomized trial of higher and lower oxygen levels administered to premature infants. The levels of oxygen concentration given to the infants were within the range of 85 percent to 95 percent, the standard treatment recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Researchers wanted to pinpoint more precisely the level at which the risks of eye damage or neurological damage, or even death, were abated. There were risks to the infants at either end of the narrow band. The results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2010, showed that lowering the oxygen levels led to greater mortality rates than expected. But as the office wrote, “Some physicians, recognizing the particular concerns about risks near the low (85 percent) and high (95 percent) ends of that range, might choose to avoid one or both of those regions.” Dr. Joel E. Frader, a pediatrician and professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern, who signed the letter in The Journal, felt that the office initially did overreach, but also that the researchers did not properly inform parents of all risks. Because there was a band of oxygen saturation levels, he said, there was no clear standard of care for these infants, only an “acceptable range.” And parents should have been told that, he said. “It’s the obligation of investigators to say, ‘Here’s the debate, here’s how we’re trying to answer the question, and that involves the possibility that there is an additional risk with being a research subject,’ ” he said. He applauded the effort to clarify guidelines for disclosure, even in standard-of-care trials. Researchers should not shy away from fully informing subjects, he said. “There is no empirical evidence that transparency and clarity decreases participation in clinical research,” he said.
House Republican Introduces Education Bill
The bill was the third to emerge from Congress in three days, following both Democratic and Republican versions in the Senate this week. Mr. Kline, Republican of Minnesota, said he was “reducing the federal footprint” and had eliminated 70 programs previously financed under the law, which is an amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Mr. Kline’s bill would remove all but the most basic requirements for states receiving federal money under programs intended to support schools and students from racial minorities and poor families as well as those learning English and students with disabilities. Under Mr. Kline’s bill, states would continue to administer standardized tests in reading and math from third through eighth grade, and once in high school. And like the Senate versions, Mr. Kline’s bill adds science tests three times between third grade and the end of high school. Schools would have to report test scores and show how different groups — including racial minorities, the disabled and the poor — perform on the tests. But states would have complete freedom to decide what should be on the tests and how to rate schools based on student scores. The bill says that states must set academic standards but provides very little guidance beyond that. In a reference to the Common Core, standards for what children should learn in math and reading from kindergarten through high school that have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia, Mr. Kline said in a call with reporters that states were free to continue with those standards. But, he said, “what I object to and continue to object to is the federal department virtually coercing states into it” by requiring “college- and career-ready” standards to qualify for grants and waivers releasing states from the most onerous conditions of No Child Left Behind, which mandated that all students reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014. The bill requires states to administer teacher evaluations, but Mr. Kline said states would have “an enormous amount of latitude on what that system would look like.” In a statement, Representative George Miller of California, and the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, said that Mr. Kline’s bill “turns the clock back decades on student achievement, equity and accountability in American public education. Our children, teachers and schools deserve more than ideology when it comes to fixing our nation’s education law.” Mr. Kline said he was determined to move the bill out of the Education Committee this month.
The Choice Blog: Tip Sheet | A Family’s Lessons From the College Tour
Beth KissileffI never went on a college tour when I was a teenager. My parents wanted me to attend the college where my father was employed; it would have been tuition-free for me, and so they weren’t eager to encourage other explorations.
Before I left on a recent college trip with my daughter I had believed these college visits yet another unnecessary aspect of the lives of privileged children. I thought the college tour was yet another accoutrement without value in itself, but only as something to brag about.
However, while with my oldest child, Tova, on a four-day, six-campus jaunt, I came to appreciate that one can’t know what one wants until one sees it.
I love to browse physical stores. When a book’s title catches my eye, I peruse the table of contents and see who the author thanks in his acknowledgements. This, I then realize, is what I must read next.
The book wouldn’t have occurred to me at all until I saw it. When I am in a store, I can pick up an object, try on a piece of clothing to check the color, the feel of the fabric, and most importantly the fit.
That seems to be the most overused word in the college search process: fit. But the college tour, my daughter and I have found, is a helpful way to try the campus out for size.
This is our advice to parents and students embarking on the college tour.
If you only have time for either a tour or an info session, opt for the tour. The same material is generally covered and you don’t have to sit for an hour in an auditorium on a beautiful spring day.
There are things one learns on these tours that one might not realize ahead of time. One urban college did not guarantee housing for all four years. As a result, many of the students live in off-campus apartments and join sororities and fraternities, creating a sense of fragmentation on an already large campus. One campus had bicycles everywhere because it is so sprawled out that it isn’t really accessible just to walk.
Find a way to meet with a smaller group of students informally. For us, it was at the Hillel, the Jewish student center, but any type of interest group can be accessed.
E-mail students from your high school at this college or look online for the clubs or student groups that interest you and see if you can schedule time to speak with them on campus. Most students are excited about their school and eager to share with newbies. And if they don’t have good things to say or don’t have time for you, that should say something about the culture of the school.
This is the essence of the title of a recent book by a college admissions professional and parent, and the mantra of my daughter and her college guidance counselor.
I agree, I am not going to college. However, I am footing the bill and do have a say in this.
While each student’s experience is unique and a student is free to do as he or she chooses, the culture of a place has an influence, for positive or negative, encouraging some things, rewarding others.
One tour began with a visit to the stadium, while others barely mentioned big-time sports. At one campus, the norm is to switch majors two or three times; at another, the admissions representatives asked the students on tour what they would be studying and seemed to expect them to have an answer.
Here are some questions we asked during our visits:
On the classroom experience:
What is the percentage of classes that enroll more than 20 students?What percentage of classes are taught by tenured professors, non-tenured professors, and graduate student teaching assistants?Are professors happy and do they want to be there?Do students love their classes, or do they see them as a necessary evil to meet their requirements?What are the most common majors?If a student’s interests shift, will she still be able to study what she wants?What kind of academic and social support system is in place?How much opportunity is there for undergraduates to do research?On the campus environment and surrounding areas:
How is the college connected to the city or town it is in?Do students interact with locals?How do students dress and act? Do they seem happy?What do students do on weekends?When driving, our GPS battery ran out but we had printed out Mapquest directions and managed to arrive at our first tour on time.
Having a backup plan also applies to the college search: When applying to college, don’t think there is one place and only one where you will be happy. Go on the tour to think about the things you want in a college and apply to a variety of institutions that can give you those things.
Remember that college is a first step, not an endpoint. No matter who you are, or what you do in college, you will be starting from the beginning when you go to work. Have a sense of humor and humility about the whole process. This is only the first step in your career; what you do with it is up to you.
Beth Kissileff has taught at Carleton, Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges, and the Universities of Minnesota and Pittsburgh. Ms. Kissileff’s daughter, Tova Perlman, contributed to this piece and is a graduating senior at The Ellis School in Pittsburgh. Ms. Perlman plans to attend Brandeis University after a gap year in Israel.
The Learning Network Blog: Word of the Day | nicety
1. conformity with some aesthetic standard of correctness or propriety
2. a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude
The word nicety has appeared in two New York Times articles in the past year, including on Sunday in the Book Review “Don’t Be Disgusting” by Judith Martin:
In Renaissance Europe, Italy was Etiquette Central, attracting all the fascination and ridicule that go with that honor.
English readers in the early 17th century assumed Tom Coryate, a professional jester turned travel writer, was joking when he reported that Italians did not attack their food with hands and hunting knives as did normal people, even normal royalty. Those finicky Italians wielded forks, a nicety that did not become common in the rest of Europe for another two centuries.
The Word of the Day and its definitions have been provided by Vocabulary.com and the Visual Thesaurus.
Learn more about the word “nicety” and see usage examples across a range of subjects on the Vocabulary dictionary.
Click on the word below to map it and hear it pronounced:
The Learning Network Blog: 6 Q's About the News | National Security Agency Maintains Vast Database of Americans' Phone Records
Read the article to answer basic news questions.
7:25 a.m. | Updated
In the article “U.S. Confirms That It Gathers Online Data Overseas,” Charlie Savage, Edward Wyatt and Peter Baker write about the disclosure that the federal government appears to have been secretly obtaining data from the largest Internet companies for nearly six years.
WHO has been compiling a huge database of calling logs of Americans’ domestic communications, as well as information on foreigners overseas from the nation’s largest Internet companies, for at least six years?
WHY has this agency been compiling these records?
WHY have some responded to news of the programs with alarm?
WHEN did this government surveillance program begin?
WHAT is the Prism program?
WHAT information do these programs seem to collect, warehouse and analyze?
WHERE was this news first reported?
HOW, according to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, can the Prism information not be used?
HOW did the Obama administration and some members of Congress defend the program?
HOW do you feel about this news?
HOW does this raise new questions about the tradeoffs between security and civil liberties?
Related: Our Resources for Teaching the Constitution and a 2001 lesson plan, “For the Sake of Security.”
The Texas Tribune: University of Texas System Prepares for Its Newest Member
“I’m calling it U.T.-T.B.D. That’s the stage we’re at,” said Robert S. Nelsen, the president of the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, using the abbreviation for “to be determined.” But the matter is not entirely a mystery. The institution, which will open once its accreditation has been secured, will be a part of the University of Texas System and is expected to start out with 28,000 students, making it among the county’s largest institutions serving primarily Hispanic students. It will have a medical school, which, like the rest of the university, will have locations throughout the Valley. The system’s plans include physical presences in Brownsville, Edinburg, Harlingen and McAllen. But first, Gov. Rick Perry must sign Senate Bill 24, by State Senator Juan Hinojosa, Democrat of McAllen. That would give the go-ahead to the University of Texas Board of Regents to abolish the University of Texas at Brownsville and U.T.-Pan American and combine their resources to create the new institution. “This is not about merging the two universities,” said Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., Democrat of Brownsville. “It is about creating a new one. We have an incredible opportunity now to become one valley and one region.” The university’s academic offerings will largely be located on the existing Brownsville and Edinburg campuses, both of which are expected to grow. And S.B. 24 requires that the first two years of the medical school’s classes be primarily offered in Hidalgo County, where facilities will have to be built, and that the second two years be primarily offered at what is currently the Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen. Administrative offices will be distributed throughout the region, with the primary headquarters likely to be located in McAllen. In December, Francisco G. Cigarroa, the University of Texas System’s chancellor, revealed his plan to replace the two smaller universities with a single larger institution. The design included a full-fledged medical school as part of the university. Such a combination was virtually unheard of in Texas until recently, when the University of Texas at Austin announced plans to build its own medical school. The proposal needed the support of at least two-thirds of state lawmakers, which would allow the new university to access the Permanent University Fund, a major source of revenue that only certain institutions can tap. The two existing Valley universities were the only two U.T. System institutions ineligible for the fund’s proceeds, a major impediment to their growth. With the proposal getting the required support from lawmakers during the 83rd legislative session, it awaits the signature of Mr. Perry, who has signaled his support. After the bill passed through both chambers, he issued a statement, calling it “a historic moment.” After the governor signs S.B. 24, Dr. Cigarroa said, “the real work begins.” The chancellor anticipates it will take 12 to 18 months to get the plan for the university laid out, reviewed and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The system is working to determine how quickly the regents can allocate money from the Permanent University Fund to new buildings and faculty recruitment efforts. The new medical school is expected to graduate its first class in 2018. “We’re going to start moving fairly fast, but not overly fast where we don’t get the input that’s necessary to make a university great,” Dr. Cigarroa said. Faculty members from the two universities have begun holding informal meetings, said Elizabeth Heise, the president of U.T.-Brownsville’s faculty senate. “There’s a lot of anticipation of something new, and people are excited,” she said. Recently, rather than designing a new university, much of the work at U.T.-Brownsville has been dismantling an old one. For the last two decades, the university has operated with Texas Southmost College, a two-year school, as a single entity. That partnership recently unraveled. The completion of the split will come no later than 2015, so the university is in the process of vacating the property owned by Texas Southmost College.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 7, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the name given to U.T.-Pan American teams. They are the Broncs, not the Broncos.
Gotham: Closing of Holy Spirit School Leaves Teachers Adrift
I sat last week in a hilly playground off University Avenue in the Bronx with Eloise Pescador Martinez, 58, and Richard DeZonie, 61. They have taught for three decades each at Holy Spirit School, down the street. “Long ago I came to the realization,” Mr. DeZonie said, “that I love that look in a child’s eye when you’ve reached him.” Ms. Martinez nodded, emphatic. “I love it!” she said. “We’re family, generation after generation of family.” Their family is being torn asunder. In a few weeks, the Archdiocese of New York will shutter their school, 1 of 25 to close this year. Their children will be dispersed. A few veteran teachers will find toeholds in a shrinking Roman Catholic system. Many will be cut adrift, middle-aged wayfarers in a bad market. For their decades of modestly paid work, the diocese offers this parsimonious going-away gift: Teachers can choose a $5,000 severance check or six months of health coverage. Not both. So which will it be? Ms. Martinez’s daughter has asthma — she’ll opt for insurance. Mr. DeZonie’s wife teaches at Holy Spirit as well; he’ll take the insurance and she’ll take the money. “Man, it’s not much after three decades, no it really isn’t,” he said. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan projects a jovial official face of Catholicism in this city. He can crack a joke with practiced timing. At the recent conclave in Rome, where bishops and cardinals paraded about in glorious raiment, he was regarded as quite the comer. Back home, the Catholic Church and the archdiocese give the appearance of an empire sunk in financial despondency. Church attendance and school enrollment has tumbled for decades. Some of the financial problems are owing to the church’s own lies and omissions around the sexual abuse scandals involving priests. Cardinal Dolan and his school superintendent, who declined to comment, twice cut the system close to the bone in recent years, eliminating nearly 60 schools. They have sold off and leased real estate, raising many millions of dollars. The superintendent, Timothy J. McNiff, said recently that the diocesan schools were stable. There’s a survivor’s comfort to be had in that. But you wonder what becomes of those who have turned to the beacon that has been Holy Spirit, an elementary school that sits atop the bony spine of the Morris Heights neighborhood. Generational waves of immigrants, Italians and Irish, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Mexicans and Ghanaians, have come through its doors. The tuition at Holy Spirit is a pittance compared with a Dalton or a Brearley. And the archdiocese deserves credit for subsidizing these costs. But for a Ghanaian immigrant working two jobs and pulling down $25,000 a year, that tuition looms as a mountainous sum. Any talk of subsidy, however, must include the teachers. A parochial school veteran with 20 years of service and a master’s degree makes $60,000; that’s a touch above the starting pay for a public-school teacher. Nor are parochial school pensions remotely comparable to those of public-school teachers. That’s O.K., sort of. Ms. Martinez, who first spoke to me one evening after choir practice, talked easily of their mission. But this is a city grown more expensive by the week, and the gap between the wealthy few and the middle-class many who scrape by gets wider. Ms. Martinez is divorced and has twice dipped into her small retirement savings for her daughter’s tuition. She sprints paycheck to paycheck. “I always said I didn’t get into this for the money,” she said. “I guess I was right.” Sacrifices are easiest when shared. No one likes to think of themselves as naïve. Last time, the archdiocese said it had set aside $7.4 million for a “teacher transition plan.” That was sophistry. The diocese spent $600,000 on severance the last time it closed schools. It appears to have counted its payments into unemployment insurance to pad that package. “I’ve told my landlord I’m facing a layoff,” Ms. Martinez said. “I want to know: Where’s that Catholic mission we have lived with all of our lives?” We walked back down University Boulevard toward the Romanesque tower of the school. We passed children, who smiled, waved and shouted out her name. “I try to separate my faith from the institution,” she said slowly. “My faith now? It’s those children.”
E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 6, 2013
The Gotham column on Tuesday, about teachers at Holy Spirit School, which is being closed at the end of the school year, misstated the name of a street near the elementary school in the Bronx. It is University Avenue (also known as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), not University Boulevard.Sunday, June 9, 2013
The Learning Network: Teachers, What Are Your Thoughts on the Common Core Standards?
Michael Appleton for The New York Times A parent of a student at the Earth School in Manhattan wore a button protesting standardized testing based on the new Common Core standards. Go to related article »The work of this blog is to suggest ideas for teaching and learning with The New York Times. We don’t do original reporting, and we don’t offer opinions on education issues. Instead, like teachers everywhere, we strive to facilitate discussion on issues of the day rather than imparting our own points of view.
But as we have experimented with the new Common Core Standards over the last two years, we have also been aware of how politically charged their implementation has become.
For some, it’s not so much the standards as the inevitable related standardized testing that is the issue. Many, from Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers to the National Council of Teachers of English to the New York Times editorial page, have recently called for caution on testing until teachers and students have a chance to adjust to the new requirements.
For others, the standards themselves are the problem.
The Republican National Committee rejects them on federalist grounds. Others dislike them because of the way they have been adopted and implemented. Still others say that we need less standardization, not more, or that national standards are beside the point when bigger issues of inequality are the real issue. Many simply see them as part of a troubling wave of change around the direction of education policy in the United States in general.
Common Core defenders, however, say the standards are powerful and much-needed — as a way to help students compete in a global economy, and as a way “replace the mediocre patchwork of learning standards” that predates them.
We thought we’d both explain how this blog is approaching the Common Core and ask you about your own experiences and opinions as we plan for the next school year. Please join the conversation below.
What We’ve Done on the Blog So Far, and Why
One of the first things teachers noticed about the Common Core Standards was the fact that they require significantly more nonfiction, or “informational text,” across the curriculum.
Since the C.C.S.S. definition of “informational text” includes pretty much everything The Times publishes, we saw this as an opportunity to help teachers use Times articles, essays, infographics, videos and photographs alongside literature and other classroom materials to make connections between academic content, students’ lives and the world at large.
Of course, making those connections has been the chief focus of The Learning Network for our entire 14-year history, so this wasn’t a departure for us.
Standards or no standards, our work is to make the newspaper accessible for learners. It’s why the liveliest part of the blog has always been the daily Student Opinion question, and why we run features like our new photojournalism activity and our summer reading contest.
But to help teachers understand how what we do works for the Common Core, we also aligned our lesson plans this year both to the McREL Standards we’ve always used and to the new C.C.S.S.– a task that wasn’t hard given that we’ve occasionally been accused of overstuffing our lessons with so many complex activities and questions that some of them could serve as graduate seminars. Next year we may well add the new science standards to the mix.
But because the shift to more nonfiction is the subject of much controversy, this fall we also published a lesson plan inviting students to examine the standards themselves, and discuss the question “What should children read?”
Perhaps the most obviously C.C.S.S.-aligned experiment we did this year was our Friday “Common Core Practice” series, in which we collaborated with two teachers and their freshman humanities classes to post three standards-based writing prompts drawn from each week’s Times.
Their students have just created a video that sums up better than we ever could the benefits of reading the newspaper regularly.
For these teachers and students and for us, however, the focus on the Common Core was just a lens through which to see the work we would have done anyway. Yes, the prompts addressed the argumentative, informative and narrative writing the standards highlight, but the exercise was much more about the serendipity of discovery a reader can have paging through The Times, and about creating a culture of lifelong learning.
As the two teachers — Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross — say: “We’ve used newspapers in the classroom before the Common Core, and we’ll continue to use them if the Common Core disappears. Reading and writing with The Times works no matter what standards you’re following.”
We suspect that’s how many of you feel about what and how you teach, too. Several teachers have told us they will tweak the good work they’ve always done in order to address the standards more directly, but, like Mr. Olsen and Mrs. Gross, they already have a solid sense of what works with their own students.
This summer we’ll be thinking about where we should go with the standards for 2013-14 ourselves, and your thoughts will help. We hope you’ll weigh in.
Questions for You
We know that the answers to these questions are not simple, but please post briefly below in response to as many as you like:
What have been your experiences so far with the Common Core?How prepared do you think you, your students and your school are to begin addressing them during the next school year? What do you think of the standards themselves?What are your thoughts on how they have been implemented so far?How do you feel about what this blog has been doing around the C.C.S.S. so far? What else could we be doing? How can we help you?Thank you, and happy summer.
The Learning Network Blog: Teenagers in The Times | May, 2013
Cliff Owen/Associated Press Arvind V. Mahankali, of Queens, is New York City’s first national spelling champion since 1997. Go to related article » Spelling Bee champs, tech wizards, guerrilla filmmakers and Broadway stars: welcome to another edition of our monthly round-up of the latest articles and multimedia features published on NYTimes.com about young people.
You can use the collection for teaching and learning or, this summer, as a handy spot to find interesting articles for our summer reading contest.
Look for the next installment in the series on July 5.
World | U.S. | Health | Sports | Technology | Arts | Education
17 Days in Darkness, a Cry of ‘Save Me,’ and Joy and Bangladesh Survivor Leaves Hospital With Job
Reshma Begum, who survived for 17 days in the rubble of a collapsed garment factory, fielded many job offers before accepting work at the Westin Hotel in Dhaka.
Where Is Home for a Third-Culture Kid?
These children of expatriates call many places home, pausing a little too long on the fundamental question: “Where are you from?”
A Youthful Corps Whose Esprit Comes From Hustle
Since he was 6, Mujeeb has sold cheap wares in Kabul, Afghanistan, to Westerners who have grown so accustomed to seeing him over the past 12 years that they often leave him gifts and goods for free. At 18, he is the dean of the hawker corps.
A Lost Generation: Young Syrian Refugees Struggle to Survive
More than half the 500,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan are under 18. “They can’t see beyond, frankly, the next day,” an aid worker said.
Out of Egypt’s Chaos, Musical Rebellion
Young musicians have created a new genre of youth-driven, socially conscious music and forced it on the Egyptian soundscape.
Boy Scouts End Longtime Ban on Openly Gay Youths
The Boy Scouts of America on May 23 ended its longstanding policy of forbidding openly gay youths to participate in its activities, a step its chief executive called “compassionate, caring and kind.”
Queens Boy, 13, Wins Scripps Spelling Bee With ‘Knaidel’ and Some Say the Spelling of a Winning Word Just Wasn’t Kosher
The fourth trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee was the charm for Arvind V. Mahankali, 13, from Bayside, Queens. Arvind, an eighth grader at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School, won the nationally televised contest by spelling “knaidel,” a Yiddish term of German origin meaning “dumpling.”
Naval Academy Is Shaken by Student’s Report of Rape by Athletes
As midshipmen were graduating from the Naval Academy, Navy investigators were conducting an investigation into reports that several football players had serially raped a female midshipman at an off-campus party last year.
Another Chance for Mone’t
The end of the road is a yellow brick house in East New York, Brooklyn, that was once a rectory. Mone’t arrived there on Dec. 28 with a bad attitude and four years of baggage.
Young Americans Lead Trend to Less Driving
Younger people are less likely to drive — or even to have driver’s licenses — than past generations for whom driving was a birthright and the open road a symbol of freedom.
Oregon Youth Is Accused of Plotting School Attack
Law enforcement officials in Oregon say they have disrupted a plot by a student to set off explosives at his high school in what one official described as a “video-game style of killing people” reminiscent of the Columbine High School massacre.
Kicked Off Their Flight, Students Turn to Internet
After a group of Brooklyn students refused to sit down and shut off their cellphones, the AirTran crew ordered them and their chaperones off the plane, prompting the teenagers to turn to social media in vigorous dissent.
A New Way to Care for Young Brains
In the last three years, dozens of youth concussion clinics have opened in nearly 35 states.
Hidden Threats to Young Athletes
The No. 1 killer of young athletes is sudden cardiac arrest, typically brought on by a pre-existing, detectable condition that could have been treated.
Technology
Before Tumblr, Founder Made Mom Proud. He Quit School.
David Karp never finished high school or enrolled in college. Instead, he played a significant role in several technology start-ups before founding Tumblr.
The Apprentices of a Digital Age
Jasmine Gao, who is 19, just wasn’t the classroom type. So instead of languishing in college, she dropped out after her freshman year. A year later, Ms. Gao holds the title of data strategist at Bitly, the URL-shortening service based in New York.
Cyberparenting and the Risk of T.M.I.
It may be a timeless curse of parenthood to know simultaneously too much about one’s teenager and yet never access the information one actually wants. But the unruly morass of today’s social media and cellphone-infested landscape seems to have made both aspects of the curse worse.
Following in His Parents’ Very Fast Footsteps
The Burrells are the first family of sprinting in the United States and possess rare versatility as sprinters and jumpers. Cameron, 18, a senior at Ridge Point High School southwest of Houston, has run the nation’s top scholastic time this season in the 100, a wind-aided 10.07 seconds at the Texas Relays.
A Whistle, a Punch, and a Soccer Referee Is Dead
A little more than a week after a 17-year-old soccer player punched a recreation-league referee in the head in suburban Salt Lake City, the referee is dead, the player faces charges, and youth sports are left with questions about the seeming rise in severity of assaults on officials.
En Garde, All the Time
For Adrienne Jarocki, 17, an international fencing champion from Middle Village, Queens, Sundays are only partly a day of rest.
Autistic Twins Are Hoping for Calm Races After the Trauma of Boston
Alex and Jamie Schneider run seemingly on instinct, saying nothing and drifting into a cone of concentration. They are autistic 22-year-old identical twins from Long Island whose passion is to run for miles at a time.
Griner Says She Is Part of Mission to Help All Live in Truth
“I never felt the need to publicly announce I was “out,” writes the W.N.B.A. player Brittney Griner.
Changing Sex, and Changing Teams
Not so long ago, Toni Bias dreamed of playing in the W.N.B.A. But after starring on the girls’ junior varsity basketball team as a high school freshman, Toni came out as transgender last summer, began going by the name Tony and started transitioning to male.
Sport Gains Hoofhold on a Scholastic Level
The United States Polo Association has developed strategies to make polo more accessible to high school and college students without their having to make a major investment.
It’s Just Another Hurdle for Blind Athletes
Holding a fiberglass pole, Aria Ottmueller bent and touched the runway to locate her starting mark. A coach helped position her front foot. The foam vaulting pit at her high school appeared only as a blue smudge. The crossbar was invisible to her.
In the Name of a Legacy
Tim Corbin coaches Carl Yastrzemski’s grandson Mike, a senior right fielder for Vanderbilt.
Former Ski Racer Developed Swing That Sounds as Good as It Looks
The Austrian teenager Marina Stuetz’s path to the L.P.G.A. Tour did not go through an American college program, Golf Channel’s “Big Break” or the Ladies European Tour. She arrived like a snowstorm in spring, catching everyone by surprise.
Top 16-Year-Old Runner Has a Long To-Do List
A sophomore at Charlotte’s Ardrey Kell High School, Alana Hadley is 5 feet 5 inches and 110 pounds, with a resting heart rate of 50 beats a minute and a preference for pink and purple T-shirts.
Broadway Babies
With nine shows featuring child actors, Broadway stages are teeming with little ones right now, and the business of tending to them is booming.
The Hollywood Fast Life of Stalker Sarah
One afternoon this winter, Sarah M., better known as “Stalker Sarah,” was sitting in the back of an In-N-Out Burger fidgeting with her iPhone and plotting how to get her picture taken with Harry Styles, the rakishly handsome frontman of the English boy band One Direction, or one of his bandmates.
A New Jackson in Front of the Lens
Michael Jackson’s oldest son, Prince, has become a teenager about town.
Such a Doll
Mostly in their teens and early 20s, a group of girls are pioneers in a movement that gained traction in Eastern Europe last year in which they try to achieve perfection as “the most-realistic-ever human Barbie doll.”
Clips from “Yuck” – Battle of the Salads from Maxwell Project on Vimeo.
The Michael Moore of the Grade-School Lunchroom
Guerrilla filmmakers often face crackdowns by the powers that be, and Zachary Maxwell is no exception.
His hidden-camera documentary was almost derailed last year when he was caught filming without permission by a fearsome enforcer – the lunchroom monitor in his school cafeteria.
With Students as Backdrop, Obama Warns of Doubling of Loan Rates
College students, freshly relieved of pressure from term papers and final exams, served as a backdrop for President Obama as he warned of another impending fiscal deadline: student loan interest rates are set to double in 30 days under current law.
Reports of Cheating at Barnard College Cause a Stir
Revelations about shared quiz answers, unearned grades and even bribes in a Barnard course.
On a College Waiting List? Sending Cookies Isn’t Going to Help
For most applicants to selective colleges, the letters that arrived by April 1 brought an end to months of anxious wondering. But for some small fraction of those students, the tension is only now reaching its apex.
In Thailand’s Schools, Vestiges of Military Rule
At a public school in an industrial Bangkok suburb, teachers wield bamboo canes and reprimand students for long hair, ordering it sheared on the spot.
College Essays That Stand Out From the Crowd
What these four writers have in common is an appetite for risk.
A Team Approach to Get Students College Ready
Blue Engine recruits and places recent college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools.
Go to full series »
Learn about teaching with “Teenagers in The Times” »
The Learning Network Blog: Poetry Pairing | 'The Gulf, 1987'
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times In Ortley Beach, NJ, many homes still await repairs, including those owned by half the guests at Kathie and Jim Watson’s party on Sunday. Go to related article »We mark the last Poetry Pairing of the school year with “The Gulf, 1987? by Deborah Paredez and the article “New Summer for Shore Residents, but Not as Before” by Peter Applebome.
After reading the poem and article, tell us what you think — or suggest other Times content that could be matched with the poem instead.
Deborah Paredez, a performer, theater scholar and award-winning poet, is the co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latino poets. She is also an associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to writing poetry, Ms. Paredez has written about the singer Selena, the film “Real Women Have Curves” and the show “Ugly Betty.”
The Gulf, 1987
By Deborah Paredez
The day upturned, flooded with sunlight, not
a single cloud. I squint into the glare,
cautious even then of bright emptiness.
We sit under shade, Tía Lucia
showing me how white folks dine, the high life.
I am about to try my first oyster,
Tía spending her winnings from the slots
on a whole dozen, the glistening valves
wet and private as a cheek’s other side,
broken open before us. Don’t be shy.
Take it all in at once. Flesh and sea grit,
sweet meat and brine, a taste I must acquire.
In every split shell, the coast’s silhouette:
bodies floating in what was once their home.
In “New Summer for Shore Residents, but Not as Before,” Peter Applebome writes about the Jersey Shore at the start of its first post-Hurricane Sandy summer season:
ORTLEY BEACH, N.J. — In any other year, Uncle Mike said, it is the Kickoff Classic, the first weekend of the summer when seasonal and year-round residents roam Fourth Avenue like amiable vagrants who have just emerged from hibernation, stopping in to say hi, hanging out on one another’s porches, strolling the Boardwalk, checking out the beach.
The adults make their pilgrimage to Joey Harrison’s Surf Club for liquid refreshment and sightseeing. Children head for the arcade games and miniature golf at Barnacle Bill’s.
But on this first Memorial Day Weekend since Hurricane Sandy, the kickoff began more like the squibbed variety, the weather gloomy and crowds thin. The pilgrimage had to be to one of the bars in Seaside Heights because the Surf Club is still a beachfront ruin, hoping to return next summer. The giant fiberglass Barnacle Bill lies on its back awaiting resurrection when the golf course is repaired, perhaps by July 4. The Ortley Boardwalk is not back yet. There is not much beach.
Still, seven months after Hurricane Sandy tore Fourth Avenue and much of the Jersey Shore to shreds, Ortley and the rest of the shore are caught somewhere between awe at what has been accomplished and frustration at what has not, contemplating a recovery that probably has years to go.
… On one lot there is nothing but a beached fishing boat. Next to it is a mountain of rubble where a house once stood. Some houses tilt at unnatural angles awaiting demolition; others sit forlorn and deserted like Walker Evans Depression-era portraits.
About 20 houses stood before the storm. Now only three are habitable — three and a half if you count half of the two-family beach house Uncle Mike, a contractor and the bard of Fourth Avenue, is rebuilding with his cousin Pete Rizzuto.
“You look out our back door, and there’s devastation all around. It still looks like a bomb hit it,” said Mr. Rizzuto, speaking by telephone from his office in Cedar Knolls, N.J. “The house isn’t done, so I don’t have a reason to go right now. I don’t really want to see it.”
Still, he and Uncle Mike, whose real name is Mike Pedano, hope to be back by July 4. And Mr. Pedano figures things could be a lot worse. “We’re blessed,” he said. “I’m not frustrated at all. I always said that this was going to take three to five years, and I’m still sticking to that.”
“The Gulf, 1987? appeared in the September 2012 issue of Poetry.
Visit this page to find out more about our collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, and to read ideas for using any week’s pairing for teaching and learning.
The Learning Network Blog: 6 Q's About the News | Spike in Graffiti in National Parks
Joshua Lott for The New York Times Graffiti on a cactus last week in Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Many of the giant cactuses are 150 years old. Go to related article »Read the article to answer basic news questions.In the article “As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show-Offs,” Felicity Barringer writes about the recent spike in graffiti in national parks.
WHO is Steve Bolyard?
WHERE is Saguaro National Park?
WHAT did Mr. Bolyard find on saguaros there?
WHAT are some other national parks that are dealing with more vandalism?
WHY do officials think social media is playing a role in the increase in vandalism in United States parks?
HOW was one offender, Trenton Ganey, caught by the authorities?
HOW did park officials catch the vandals who chopped up cactuses when Saguaro was hit again last month?
WHEN have you visited a national park?
Related: Our Student Opinion question “How Much Time Do You Spend in Nature?” and our 6 Q’s “At National Parks, Tech + Tourists = Trouble“
Obama Promises Internet Upgrade for U.S. Schools
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — President Obama visited an innovative middle school in central North Carolina on Thursday to demonstrate the Internet-based education programs that he is proposing to make available nationwide. Speaking to an audience of excited teenagers in a steamy gymnasium, Mr. Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to expand an existing program to provide discounted high-speed Internet service to schools and libraries, even if it meant increasing the fees that for years had been added to consumers’ phone bills. He said the initiative could lead to better technology at 99 percent of schools in five years. “There’s no reason why we can’t replicate the success you’ve found here,” Mr. Obama said to the students’ cheers. “And for those of you who follow politics in Washington, here’s the best news — none of this requires an act of Congress.” To further applause, he added, “We can and we will get started right away.” Mr. Obama was joined by his education secretary, Arne Duncan, whose department would work with the F.C.C. to revamp the initiative, known as the Schools and Libraries program or E-rate, to provide local schools with Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, among the fastest commercially available. With the federal money that Mr. Obama proposes to redirect for this purpose, schools also could pay for wireless networks throughout their buildings and campuses. The president singled out Mooresville for its program, which not only upgraded technology but also provided a computer to each student and extra training for teachers. School performance has improved in turn. Mr. Duncan, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to North Carolina, said that he had learned of the innovations in Mooresville, a town near Charlotte, because the local school superintendent was a friend. Mr. Duncan said the school quit purchasing textbooks several years ago to pay for the technology. Mr. Obama, he added, wants to “shine a spotlight on best practices and try to take them to scale.” To pay for a similar technology expansion throughout the United States, the administration wants to improve the efficiency of the current program, and for telephone customers to pay up to $5 a year extra, or about 40 cents monthly, on their bills. The Schools and Libraries program is part of the Universal Service Fund, an $8.7 billion program that distributes money for several purposes. Nearly half the money goes to a program that has long subsidized telephone and Internet service to rural or remote areas. About $2.2 billion goes to Schools and Libraries, a similar amount supports phone service to low-income consumers, and $200 million pays for telephone and Internet service to health care professionals in rural areas. As an independent agency, the F.C.C. does not answer directly to the president, but he nominates the agency’s chairman. Any changes to the program’s structure would have to go through a rule-making procedure and be approved by a majority of the commission’s members. Currently there are three members; two seats are vacant. The program assesses the fees on phone companies, but they typically pass the cost to consumers. The tax is roughly 15 percent on the long-distance portion of phone bills, resulting in a monthly assessment of a few dollars on the average combined home and mobile phone plan. Schools and libraries that qualify for E-rate support receive discounts of 20 to 90 percent on services and equipment, depending on the household income levels of students and whether the school is in an urban or rural area. Administration officials say that while the E-rate program, established in 1996, provides low-cost Internet connections to community institutions, the speed of those services is rarely different from those that home subscribers can receive, about 20 megabits per second. That is fast enough for the average home consumer to stream video, but if dozens of classrooms are trying to view video or listen to digital audio files at the same time, a school’s network will operate much more slowly. Officials say they also expect private companies to expand their offerings of devices and products like electronic textbooks in response to the expanded program.
Jackie Calmes reported from Mooresville, N.C., and Edward Wyatt from Washington.
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