#made by teachers and because most of them are deprived of opportunities to participate in competitions

[thewhizzyhead]

do i regret doing well enough in 7th grade that i ended up being transferred to the first section in 8th grade? NOPE cause where else would i encounter overworked students that still want to produce outputs worthy of grammy and tony awards while still managing to carry the entire school's reputation when it comes to winning every single competition available WHILE still managing to somehow perfectly replicate the vocals and choreography of kpop songs thus turning everyone and ESPECIALLY THE STRAIGHT BOYS into kpop stans while also being sent to the principal's office multiple times for tweets ranting about schoom policies and managing to escape unscathed because the school cannot afford to punish any of them because that would be equivalent to self-sabotage. am i resentful of the stress the first-section-treatment gave me and the rest of my classmates due to forced adherence to unhealthy academic quotas which then strengthened the already rampant social hierarchy obsession present in the section which made my 8th grade experience a living hell? ABSOLUTELY-

[scripttorture]

Can a parent who is a torturer teach his child to become a torturer since childhood, but not teaching it as torture, but the techniques involved, and well, violence and abuse. Is it normal that the child is not being abused himself?? Or would such a parent torture their child if they wanted the child to grow up to become a torturer and take their place one day.

Torturers ‘teach’ on the job. I’m not sure if it would be possible for them to teach these techniques without exposing someone to violence.

 And even if it was that isn’t what they do.

 They bring the people they want to ‘teach’ into the cells with them. They have potential-torturers witnessing torture (and encourage them to participate) from the first day.

 And here’s the thing: this makes sense. It makes sense because torture is functionally simple and because it applies social pressure to the potential-torturer. It makes it harder for them to refuse to torture and implies that they will be at risk of violence if they do.

 The scenario you���re suggesting fundamentally misunderstands torture and torturers. You’re assuming that this stuff is more complex then it is and that torturers are more patient, thoughtful and restrained then they are.

 All of those are common misconceptions that feed into torture apologia.

 It’s OK to be wrong. The important thing now is the next decision you make; where you go from here.

 Child torturers are rare. And while I have heard of cases where children were abusers or torturers I’ve never heard of a case where a parent tried to encourage their biological child to become a torturer.

 There’s quite a lot to unpack and explain there so bear with me while I break this down.

 Child torturers are rare because generally children are not put in positions of authority, and the torturer being in a position of authority is an essential part of the legal definition of torture. Children are not (usually) allowed to become police officers, soldiers, doctors, civil servants, teachers or any of the other professions torturers are drawn from.

 There are ethical reasons for that but there are also practical reasons for it. Children do not make good soldiers. They are typically weaker then adults, have more complex nutritional needs, have shorter attention spans, cope less well with sleep deprivation and are not as good at performing repetitive tasks without fault.

 They are harder to train as soldiers, less physically able to act as soldiers and harder to keep at a base standard of health in a warzone.

 I am not saying children are incapable of torture: I am saying that they are not given the opportunity.

 The cases that I’m aware of involving child torturers are uniformly child soldiers. Usually those children are kidnapped and enslaved. They are not the biological (or adopted) children of the other torturers.

 Sometimes these children are deliberately drawn from despised minority groups. For instance the Daesh use of kidnapped Yezidi boys on suicide missions was part of a wider campaign of genocide.

 Sometimes these children are encouraged to take part in torture as part of strategy to make these children feel like they can’t return home. They’re made to participate in violent criminal acts then told that they will never be forgiven by their society. This is part of how these groups coerce cooperation from their victims.

 So child torturers are rare and the children who are usually in a position where they could be classed as torturers are generally not valued by the groups using them.

 This makes me think that a valued, blood-related child would be less likely to be used as a torturer.

 There’s also the question of why a torturer would want their child to follow in their footsteps.

 Because torturers generally do not enjoy what they do. They report finding the experience distressing and exhausting.

 Some of them frame it as ‘necessary’ and genuinely seem to believe they were doing something helpful. (This is not true, torture does not work). Some of them frame it as a punishment their victims ‘deserved’. Some of them don’t really seem to have much justification at all, everyone else was doing it so they did too.

 But as a general rule torturers don’t report having a positive view of their own job. The typical relationship is more complex.

 They have an inflated sense of their own importance and the importance of their job. They often depict themselves as the ‘only ones doing the real work’ and talk/act as though they’re the most important part of the organisation they’re in.

 But they also report feeling consistently under-valued and overlooked by their organisations. They consistently describe a hugely stressful, pressurised working environment and an atmosphere of continued, unhealthy competition with everyone else.

 Torturers do not take enjoyment in their work. They report finding it physically exhausting, extremely stressful and the development of mental health problems associated with torture.

 They often feel as though they’re at risk of violence from their colleagues and superiors. And they’re not wrong. Looking over modern historical records of regimes like Soviet Russia show that torturers were regularly purged by the state. And the fracturing effect they have on organisations is sometimes enough for them to be attacked by other members of their organisation.

 When this doesn’t happen they burn out. They reach a point where their mental and physical health problems become so severe they can’t even pretend to do the job they were hired for. And then they’re dropped, or ‘encouraged’ to quit.

 They struggle to find any employment. Because by that point they typically have really severe mental illnesses and no useful skills. Plus the general aura of asshole that comes with an inflated sense of self importance and a tendency to lash out at anyone who doesn’t feed that ego. A lot of them end up dependant on other people.

 Basically- I don’t think any torturer would want someone they value to become a torturer.

 Even when torturers see their ‘work’ as essential they don’t see it as a good job. They’re acutely aware of the dangers and the toll it takes on them.

 If this character actually cares for their child at all they’d probably discourage them from being a torturer.

 I think that leaves two broad questions: ‘Do torturers abuse their families?’ and ‘Are torturers typically torture survivors themselves?’

 And neither of those questions have clear answers because of the lack of research on torturers.

 There are reports of torturers who abused their families. But there are so few reports by mental health professionals on torturers that it really is impossible to say if this is a trend. And there are also reports of torturers who never abused their families. Familial abuse by torturers could be in line with familial abuse in the general population.

 There is no evidence to suggest torturers are any more or less likely to abuse their families then anyone else.

 The second question is more complicated because of the assumptions underlying it: people who ask this generally seem to assume that someone who is tortured goes on to become a torturer and…. That isn’t exactly what we see these people reporting.

 Yes some torturers are also torture survivors. Because a lot of them are soldiers and sometimes captured soldiers are tortured.

The pattern I tend to see reported (this is anecdotal because of the lack of research on torturers-) is torturers getting captured after they’ve been torturers for a while. Either by their own side or an opposing side in the context of a conflict. Then they’re tortured.

 Or their area is invaded by an opposing side, they flee the conflict and get targeted with… exactly the same stuff everyone else fleeing the same situation is targeted with.

 The child soldiers I described earlier in the ask seem to be particularly vulnerable to torture and other ill treatment.

 We don’t have a way to measure how many torturers have also been tortured. By which I mean, no one has really done enough research to answer that question.

 The vast majority of torture survivors will never go on to become torturers, because they won’t be put in a position of authority. Mentally ill people are systematically barred from positions of authority in most places. And torture survivors seem to be particularly vulnerable to unemployment.

 So I think torture survivors are unlikely to be put in a position where they could become torturers.

 But, yes torturers are sometimes put in a position where they might become torture victims. We don’t know how often this happens. My impression is that it’s no where near the majority, may be not even a particularly significant minority (though it seems to be more common in some specific areas/circumstances then others).

 Wrapping up: I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a torturer also be a torture survivor in this sort of narrative. I think that’s an incredibly complicated thing to try and handle and I don’t think you’ve got the knowledge base to do it justice yet. I also don’t think it adds anything to the characters as you’ve described them.

 There is no ‘safe’ way to expose someone to torture. Torturers do not try to protect the people they ‘train’, they throw them in at the deep end and encourage them to participate almost straight away.

 But torturers also don’t necessarily see their jobs as ‘good jobs’. They don’t describe it as a legacy they want to pass on.

 Why is it important that this child is actively taught? Could they be exposed to or witness torture in another context? Is it even important that the torturer is their parent? Using another influential adult character would allow the child to keep a more-or-less positive relationship with their parent. And it could make the conflict between child and parent about ‘You allowed this torturer access to me and they showed me awful, traumatising things’ rather then ‘You exposed me to traumatising things and you hurt me’.

 Does familial abuse add to this narrative? Because I’d argue that exposing a child to torture is abusive and it creates another layer of complexity. On top of torture, and the peculiar mindset of torturers, and the mental health problems torture causes in survivors, torturers and witnesses.

 Think about those questions. Go back to the sources page. Read O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Read Alleg’s The Question.

 And consider whether these elements actually help you to tell the story.

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[connectingthediaspora]

Tonight we assemble here to pay tribute to one of the most remarkable men of our time.

Dr Du Bois was not only an intellectual giant exploring the frontiers of knowledge, he was in the first place a teacher. He would have wanted his life to teach us something about our tasks of emancipation.

One idea he insistently taught was that black people have been kept in oppression and deprivation by a poisonous fog of lies that depicted them as inferior, born deficient, and deservedly doomed to servitude to the grave. So assiduously has this poison been injected into the mind of America that its disease has infected not only whites but many Negroes. So long as the lie was believed the brutality and criminality of conduct toward the Negro was easy for the conscience to bear. The twisted logic ran: if the black man was inferior he was not oppressed — his place in society was appropriate to his meager talent and intellect.

Dr Du Bois recognized that the keystone in the arch of oppression was the myth of inferiority and he dedicated his brilliant talents to demolish it.

There could scarcely be a more suitable person for such a monumental task. First of all he was himself unsurpassed as an intellect and he was a Negro. But beyond this he was passionately proud to be black and finally he had not only genius and pride but he had the indomitable fighting spirit of the valiant.

To pursue his mission, Dr Du Bois gave up the substantial privileges a highly educated Negro enjoyed living in the North. Though he held degrees from Harvard and the University of Berlin, though he had more academic credentials than most Americans, black or white, he moved South where a majority of Negroes then lived. He deliberately chose to share their daily abuse and humiliation. He could have offered himself to the white rulers and exacted substantial tribute for selling his genius. There were few like him, Negro or white. He could have amassed riches and honors and lived in material splendor and applause from the powerful and important men of his time. Instead, he lived part of his creative life in the South — most of it in modest means and some of it in poverty and he died in exile, praised sparingly and in many circles ignored.

But he was an exile only to the land of his birth. He died at home in Africa among his cherished ancestors and he was ignored by a pathetically ignorant America but not by history.

History cannot ignore W. E. B. Du Bois. Because history has to reflect truth and Dr Du Bois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded discloses the great dimensions of the man.

Yet he had more than a void to fill. He had to deal with the army of white propagandists — the myth-makers of Negro history. Dr Du Bois took them all on in battle. It would be impossible to sketch the whole range of his intellectual contributions. Back in the nineteenth century he laid out a program of a hundred years of study of problems affecting American Negroes and worked tirelessly to implement it.

Long before sociology was a science he was pioneering in the field of social study of Negro life and completed works on health, education, employment, urban conditions, and religion. This was at a time when scientific inquiry of Negro life was so unbelievably neglected that only a single university in the entire nation had such a program and it was funded with $5,000 for a year’s work.

Against such odds Dr Du Bois produced two enduring classics before the twentieth century. His Suppression of the African Slave Trade written in 1896 is Volume I in the Harvard Historical Studies. His study, The Philadelphia Negro, completed in 1899, is still used today. Illustrating the painstaking quality of his scientific method, to do this work Dr Du Bois personally visited and interviewed five thousand people.

He soon realized that studies would never adequately be pursued nor changes realized without the mass involvement of Negroes. The scholar then became an organizer and with others founded the NAACP. At the same time he became aware that the expansion of imperialism was a threat to the emergence of Africa.

He recognized the importance of the bonds between American Negroes and the land of their ancestors and he extended his activities to African affairs. After World War I he called Pan-African Congresses in 1919, 1921, and 1923, alarming imperialists in all countries and disconcerting Negro moderates in America who were afraid of this restless, militant, black genius.

Returning to the United States from abroad he found his pioneering agitation for Negro studies was bearing fruit and a beginning was made to broaden Negro higher education. He threw himself into the task of raising the intellectual level of this work. Much later in 1940 he participated in the establishment of the first Negro scholarly publication, Phylon. At the same time he stimulated Negro colleges to collaborate through annual conferences to increase their effectiveness and elevate the quality of their academic studies.

But these activities, enough to be the life work for ten men, were far from the sum of his achievements. In the six years between 1935 and 1941 he produced the monumental seven-hundred-page volume on Black Reconstruction in America, and at the same time writing many articles and essays. Black Reconstruction was six years in writing but was thirty-three years in preparation. On its publication, one critic said: “It crowns the long, unselfish, and brilliant career of Dr. Du Bois. It is comparable in clarity, originality, and importance to the Beards’ Rise of American Civilization.” The New York Times said, “It is beyond question the most painstaking and thorough study ever made of the Negroes’ part in Reconstruction,” and the New York Herald Tribune proclaimed it “a solid history of the period, an economic treatise, a philosophical discussion, a poem, a work of art all rolled into one.”

To understand why his study of the Reconstruction was a monumental achievement it is necessary to see it in context. White historians had for a century crudely distorted the Negro’s role in the Reconstruction years. It was a conscious and deliberate manipulation of history and the stakes were high. The Reconstruction was a period in which black men had a small measure of freedom of action. If, as white historians tell it, Negroes wallowed in corruption, opportunism, displayed spectacular stupidity, were wanton, evil, and ignorant, their case was made. They would have proved that freedom was dangerous in the hands of inferior beings. One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stunted with myths.

Dr Du Bois confronted this powerful structure of historical distortion and dismantled it. He virtually, before anyone else and more than anyone else, demolished the lies about Negroes in their most important and creative period of history. The truths he revealed are not yet the property of all Americans but they have been recorded and arm us for our contemporary battles.

In Black Reconstruction Dr Du Bois dealt with the almost universally accepted concept that civilization virtually collapsed in the South during Reconstruction because Negroes had a measure of political power. Dr Du Bois marshaled irrefutable evidence that far from collapsing, the Southern economy was recovering in these years. Within five years the cotton crop had been restored and in the succeeding five years had exceeded prewar levels. At the same time other economic activity had ascended so rapidly the rebirth of the South was almost completed.

Beyond this he restored to light the most luminous achievement of the Reconstruction — it brought free public education into existence not only for the benefit of the Negro but it opened school doors to the poor whites. He documented the substantial body of legislation that was socially so useful it was retained into the twentieth century even though the Negroes who helped to write it were brutally disenfranchised and driven from political life. He revealed that far from being the tragic era white historians described, it was the only period in which democracy existed in the South. This stunning fact was the reason the history books had to lie because to tell the truth would have acknowledged the Negroes’ capacity to govern and fitness to build a finer nation in a creative relationship with poor whites.

With the completion of his book Black Reconstruction, despite its towering contributions, despite his advanced age, Dr Du Bois was still not ready to accept a deserved rest in peaceful retirement. His dedication to freedom drove him on as relentlessly in his seventies as it did in his twenties. He had already encompassed three careers. Beginning as a pioneer sociologist he had become an activist to further mass organization. The activist had then transformed himself into a historian. By the middle of the twentieth century when imperialism and war arose once more to imperil humanity he became a peace leader. He served as chairman of the Peace Information Bureau and like the Rev. William Sloane Coffin and Dr Benjamin Spock of today he found himself indicted by the government and harried by reactionaries. Undaunted by obstacles and repression, with his characteristic fortitude he fought on. Finally in 1961, with Ghana’s independence established, an opportunity opened to begin the writing of an African Encyclopedia and in his ninety-third year he emigrated to Ghana to begin new intellectual labors. In 1963 death finally came to this most remarkable man.

It is axiomatic that he will be remembered for his scholarly contributions and organizational attainments. These monuments are imperishable. But there were human qualities less immediately visible that are no less imperishable.

Dr Du Bois was a man possessed of priceless dedication to his people. The vast accumulation of achievement and public recognition were not for him pathways to personal affluence and a diffusion of identity. Whatever else he was, with his multitude of careers and professional titles, he was first and always a black man. He used his richness of talent as a trust for his people. He saw that Negroes were robbed of so many things decisive to their existence that the theft of their history seemed only a small part of their losses. But Dr Du Bois knew that to lose one’s history is to lose one’s self-understanding and with it the roots for pride. This drove him to become a historian of Negro life and the combination of his unique zeal and intellect rescued for all of us a heritage whose loss would have profoundly impoverished us.

Dr Du Bois the man needs to be remembered today when despair is all too prevalent. In the years he lived and fought there was far more justification for frustration and hopelessness and yet his faith in his people never wavered. His love and faith in Negroes permeate every sentence of his writings and every act of his life. Without these deeply rooted emotions his work would have been arid and abstract. With them his deeds were a passionate storm that swept the filth of falsehood from the pages of established history.

He symbolized in his being his pride in the black man. He did not apologize for being black and because of it, handicapped. Instead he attacked the oppressor for the crime of stunting black men. He confronted the establishment as a model of militant manhood and integrity. He defied them and though they heaped venom and scorn on him his powerful voice was never stilled.

And yet, with all his pride and spirit he did not make a mystique out of blackness. He was proud of his people, not because their color endowed them with some vague greatness but because their concrete achievements in struggle had advanced humanity and he saw and loved progressive humanity in all its hues, black, white, yellow, red, and brown.

Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force. It was never possible to know where the scholar Du Bois ended and the organizer Du Bois began. The two qualities in him were a single unified force.

This lifestyle of Dr Du Bois is the most important quality this generation of Negroes needs to emulate. The educated Negro who is not really part of us, and the angry militant who fails to organize us, have nothing in common with Dr Du Bois. He exemplified black power in achievement and he organized black power in action. It was no abstract slogan to him.

We cannot talk of Dr Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the English-speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Seán O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a communist. Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.

In closing it would be well to remind white America of its debt to Dr Du Bois. When they corrupted Negro history they distorted American history because Negroes are too big a part of the building of this nation to be written out of it without destroying scientific history. White America, drenched with lies about Negroes, has lived too long in a fog of ignorance. Dr Du Bois gave them a gift of truth for which they should eternally be indebted to him.

Negroes have heavy tasks today. We were partially liberated and then re-enslaved. We have to fight again on old battlefields but our confidence is greater, our vision is clearer, and our ultimate victory surer because of the contributions a militant, passionate black giant left behind him.

Dr Du Bois has left us but he has not died. The spirit of freedom is not buried in the grave of the valiant. He will be with us when we go to Washington in April to demand our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We have to go to Washington because they have declared an armistice in the war on poverty while squandering billions to expand a senseless, cruel, unjust war in Vietnam. We will go there, we will demand to be heard, and we will stay until the administration responds. If this means forcible repression of our movement, we will confront it, for we have done this before. If this means scorn or ridicule, we will embrace it for that is what America’s poor now receive. If it means jail we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are imprisoned by exploitation and discrimination.

Dr Du Bois would be in the front ranks of the peace movement today. He would readily see the parallel between American support of the corrupt and despised Thieu-Ky regime and Northern support to the Southern Slavemasters in 1876. The CIA scarcely exaggerates, indeed it is surprisingly honest, when it calculates for Congress that the war in Vietnam can persist for a hundred years. People deprived of their freedom do not give up — Negroes have been fighting more than a hundred years and even if the date of full emancipation is uncertain, what is explicitly certain is that the struggle for it will endure.

In conclusion let me say that Dr Du Bois’s greatest virtue was his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice. Today we are still challenged to be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every man can have food and material necessities for his body, culture and education for his mind, freedom and human dignity for his spirit. Let us be dissatisfied until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing of a dark past and every family will have a decent sanitary house in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are revitalized. Let us be dissatisfied until brotherhood is no longer a meaningless word at the end of a prayer but the first order of business on every legislative agenda. Let us be dissatisfied until our brother of the Third World — Asia, Africa, and Latin America — will no longer be the victim of imperialist exploitation, but will be lifted from the long night of poverty, illiteracy, and disease. Let us be dissatisfied until this pending cosmic elegy will be transformed into a creative psalm of peace and “justice will roll down like waters from a mighty stream.”

[willspoemsforliving]

SUICIDE:  Is it a Sickness or a Choice?

SUICIDE:  IS IT A SICKNESS OR A CHOICE? June 2018 As so often happens, with our attention spans constantly shrinking, the media competition requires we be drawn into every event that occurs during any given day.  The consequences of this have been discussed at length elsewhere, and are well known – though we appear to be doing absolutely nothing to correct this growing threat to any continuity in our society.  I mention the media as it brought to our collective attention - like it or not -  the suicide this week of two relatively engaging, but frankly minor celebrities.  Two suicides in this group doesn’t really merit the “Breaking News” headline.  In fact, an argument could be made that it is vulgar and a sign of disrespect for the concerned individuals that such a fuss was made about it.  But since no one seems to care much about discretion or propriety anymore, the issue that does deserve our attention and which relates to both these individuals, is not so much them, but their suicide. Suicide has been rejected in most Judeo-Christian-Islamic cultures as a sin, essentially taking from God the life he gave us, without his permission.  In many pre-Christian, indigenous cultures, ritual suicide was widely viewed as a generous act designed to either placate an angry god or ensure his benevolence going forward.  A prized citizen would be called upon to sacrifice their lives for the collective good.  So, it would be an error to start from the premise that suicide has always been something to be avoided by all cultures.   There are other instances when individuals find themselves in situations where they are left with a choice – to save themselves or others.  Military heroes have committed a form of suicide and are honored for it.  Parents can find themselves in situations where they say, and may indeed execute, on their willingness to give their lives for that of their children or spouse.  Religious martyrs are another example, interestingly elevated to sainthood by the very institution which forbids sacrificing oneself – unless the sacrifice is designed to benefit the sanctioning institution.   So, it becomes obvious that once again, our penchant for oversimplification has resurfaced.  It is quite possible that our societal aversion to suicide may reflect our endemic narcissism, and the culture of self-gratification which has replaced any notion of self-sacrifice, manifesting itself in an exaggerated sense of self-worth along with a similarly exaggerated sense of fragility.   Governments usually  disapprove of suicide, as it does abortion and euthanasia., some even going so far as to view contraception as somehow contravening God’s law.  In my view, governments want order, and suicide is the ultimate rebellion of a citizen.  It also reflects poorly on the statistical record of an administration if suicides are on the rise. Interestingly, to better control the population, and any penchant a segment may have for suicide – often due to external circumstances related to diverse forms of hopelessness – the issue has been medicalized.  And once this has been accomplished, suicide becomes a form of preventable disease, treatable with different forms of behavioral and pharmaceutical therapies.  Lost in this wave of official good intentions, is the very reason why an individual has arrived at a state of despair such that leaving this world appears to be a more attractive option than remaining in it.  Even if explored, it is done superficially for questions of cost, collaboration and demand.   Of course, there are serious interests at stake here, including careers, huge sums of public and private money, institutions, insurance companies, social services, prevention services, philanthropic organizations, researchers, public health officials, and the list goes on.  Their goal is, of course, to provide assistance.  But as often happens in this area, the goal becomes as much the development of the institution as the assistance they may provide. In my early days as a psychotherapist, I had a patient who was referred to me by a neurologist for chronic depression.  She was a school teacher, in her fifties, born in harsh and rural circumstances, with an extremely cold and terrifying father who banished all forms of affection, tenderness, warmth from her life.  Education allowed her to escape her family, and she became a primary school teacher in a small city not far from where she grew up.  She had become a lesbian – not surprising given the forbidding nature of the men she was exposed to – though an immature, quite naïve and idealistic one.  Central to her problem was the face that all forms of pleasure had been excised from her life, and though she missed closeness, joy, connection, and could talk about their absence, she was incapable of forming any mature relationship.   When I first met her, the friendship she had shared with a fellow teacher over a number of years had come to an end, as my patient wasn’t able to step out of her impossible fantasy of unrequited love, and into some form of reality where a  reciprocal friendship could develop. I saw her for about two years, and she was a reliable participant – at least in terms of keeping her appointments.  But beyond that, all forms of constructive thought were simply not available to her.  And though we discussed this at length, and she was fully aware of the problem, her identity had become so entwined with a self-image based on poverty, frustration, absence of pleasure, unrequited love, that for her to change, her entire life story would have to be rewritten.  Her early life experience had become her destiny, a self-fulfilling prophesy from which she simply could not free herself.  To do so would erase her identity, her sense of self as all suffering, deserving of nothing.  And the prospect of that was more frightening than any other. She was self-aware enough to realize this, and pragmatic enough to see that at her age, with her attitude, experience, and almost happily failing health, there were to be no second acts for her.  What she believed from the start was now manifest, opening the door to the next step.  The question then became what were they?  Since continuing to suffer as a reason for her existence was achieved, it appeared on an exit could offer her to affirmation and freedom life had denied her. Why, you might wonder, continue?  I felt at the time that I was a source of fresh air for her, and that it kept her going.  And as long as she continued to come, I believed that she had not yet eliminated all options for herself.  Rather abruptly, she disappeared.  I became concerned, tried calling her, all to no avail.   After a short while, I contacted the neurologist who had referred her to me, who was also my friend, to alert him to the situation, and ask his opinion as to the opportunity of alerting the police to this possible suicide.  His attitude was more detached, more rational than mine.   In essence, he said that she was never going to change, that the purpose of her life had been set, and it was to be perennially unhappy.  She knew this too.  So, from his perspective, and he articulated it in unmistakable terms, if she was so inclined, and had no further desire to endure her existence, then suicide might be, in fact, the best solution. I was taken aback by this, caught up in the collective mindset that all suicides must be prevented – but never questioned how valid this assumption was. For her to kill herself would be a failure of mine - or so I thought at the time.  But the real failure was not to see what she was really doing -  tying off loose ends, getting ready for her exit - on her terms..   Other authors have raised this issue in more depth than I will do here, and some have come to a similar conclusion as my neurologist friend.   There may indeed come a time in a person’s life when hope can cannot be renewed, when continuing becomes the irrational choice, if we manage to see things from their perspective.  Our own fear of death gets in the way of understanding that for those for whom life is more a burden than a source of any form of pleasure, our fear is no longer theirs.   The obvious question then becomes, by right can our blindness to their true suffering empower us to deprive them of what has always been missing, but can be found in that final moment of affirmation?   As we know, most first attempts are calls for help.  But for those who choose a definitive, infallable answer, should we not consider their point of view as being at least, if not more, valid than our own. Of course help should be offered whenever asked for.  And prevention can be most effective in children and adolescents whose character is insufficiently formed  to withstand external events which may be overwhelming for a time.  But there are others whose very life set them on a course where they never had a chance to find their place in this world.  Where every effort met with defeat (or so it seemed to them), and where for reasons clear to any who care to really acknowledge the suffering, the struggle these people endure for years with little to no respite is indeed heroic in the same way as military heroes choosing their own end to save others, martyrs who die for a greater purpose, saints who give their lives for God - the list is long.   There comes a time for these people when all strength fails them, when the prospect of another day in their lives is unbearable, and putting an end to their lives at the time, the place and in the manner they chose, can be completely liberating.   The problem comes from the outside, where because we fear our own death, we think we are protecting our own by forcing others to live.  The medical profession has embraced the mental health perspective, where every life should be saved, no matter the cost, not to society, but to the individual.  It can be, for the concerned individual, worse than a life sentence in prison, for at least there, they would know where they belong.  You can prop them up, solve all their practical problems, and still, their sense of self is so closely tied to defeat, that suicide can become the only salvation. Are these people sick?  Should they be obligated to be medicated so that whatever life force they may still have is suppressed so the strength required to end their lives with some dignity is taken from them.  And the final statement whereby they decide where, how and when they will leave what, for them, has always been a vail of tears is denied. I have published a book recently, available on Amazon.com, addressing this issue from the perspective of a very personal experience with a young man  I tried to help.  If you want to see exactly what I mean, under which circumstances someone can reach a point where either madness or suicide will rescue them from their daily hell, you might want to read it.  * In closing, Think about some of the arbitrary positions societies have taken in its own self interest.  Consider the suffering, often in silence, some individuals are called upon  to endure, and through no fault of their own.  Feel their plight, a condition where they have struggled all their lives, to no avail, and finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Is if really for others to define an individual’s right to finally claim their own dignity, freedom, and ability to choose? Should we go so far, be so consequential, as to offer these people an infallible, humane way to leave this world?  I’m not sure, for to do so, would institutionalize the decision, impose evaluations, consultations, regulations, and a burdensome administrative process which would remove all dignity and respect from the process.  Just look at what we are doing with abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood in some states.   Is there an easy answer?  In a sense, yes.  Help whenever requested, whenever needed, and not just in the moment.  Rare is a brief push sufficient, and to set someone already on the way down to a new failure is beyond cruel.  But I don’t believe it is either humane or even right to stigmatize what may be a final act, and not as desperate as we portray it, of self-affirmation.  Insofar as no one chooses one’s own destiny, if the cards one has drawn offer only a losing hand, how is it unreasonable or some  sign of mental illness (debunked by the latest statistics which suggest that 54% of suicides have no record of any mental health issue, though rejected by the prevention community as misleading), to realize, being in full possession of one’s means, that it's time to pick up one's chips and leave the game?  For good.

*THE LEFTOVERS OF GOD'S ANGER - The Chris Chronicles https://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=leftovers+of+God%27s+Anger

[goldenbearlyaging]

Our first interviewee is Professor Youngmin Kwon. He is a professor of Korean program at UC Berkeley and a former dean of the College of Humanities in Seoul National University.

Q. What was your childhood like?

I grew up in a small village in the countryside of South Korea. There was no electricity, so I had to study under a lantern. However, since I was surrounded by the sea and the mountain, I became friends with mother nature. Such an environment gifted me with affection and sensitivity towards the nature around me. I was able to name all the flowers and distinguish birds by their singing voice unlike kids from the cities.

In addition, I grew up in a multi-generation household. Thus, our family was very strict on assigning chores to each family member, and it was important for everyone to complete their roles. Growing up with grandparents, parents, and many siblings taught me how to be responsible from a very young age. Also, I loved reading so much that my mother always told me to put down the book.

Q. Can you tell us about your unique highschool experience?

When I was about to go to highschool, my family had a financial crisis. Every morning, I had to walk 5 miles to the train station and take 40-minutes-long train ride to school. So it was a total of 5-hour commute everyday. Although I was top of my class, I was so exhausted that I wanted to drop out after a year. So I wrote a letter to my homeroom teacher, explaining my difficult situation. My homeroom teacher was touched by my letter and read it out loud in front of all teachers, including the principal of the school.

Later, the principal said that he had asked someone to help me continue studying. It turned out that he had asked the bank manager of our town to take me in as a resident tutor for his 14-year-old son. So I moved into his house and was able to attend school comfortably, helping his son study.

Everyone can overcome their hardships in their own way, but I was able to overcome mine only because people around me were willing to help me.

Q. What do you think is the biggest difference between yourself now and your 20-year-old self?

When I was in my 20s, I never thought I would become a professor. Since I loved reading books and writing stories, I thought I would become an author. Instead, I ended up becoming a person who teaches authors’ pieces, but there are not many people who achieve all of their goals. I think everyone has their own unfulfilled dreams in their hearts.

Q. If you could give advice to your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

I moved to Seoul for the first time to go to college, and my only goal back then was to survive. I was a poor country bumpkin, and had to work to pay my own tuition. Thus, I was only determined to not be swept away from Seoul.

If I had been daring enough to say “I don’t need to be part of this dirty Seoul-life,” I could have been more resistant to what was going on in that era or to the unfair oppressions that were happening to individuals. (Editor’s Note: There were intense student protests on campus against the dictatorial government during the late 1960s to 1970s in Korea.)

Instead, I looked down and acted as if such protests were irrelevant to me, since I was worried that I would be expelled from school. I sometimes did participate in the protests and was arrested along with my friends, but I never actively led protests. I wish I could have been one of the many inspiring students who lived with a sense of mission and were guarded with strong ideology.

Q. What do you think is the difference between the older generation and the younger generation?

I think the parenting style differs in the current generation. Especially in Korea, parents nowadays are overprotective of their children. Although their children have the ability to do certain things by themselves, the parents want to interfere, meddle, and will not let their children solve problems by themselves. I think this makes it difficult for the younger generation to think, choose and decide independently.

In Seoul National University, where I thought for over 30 years, there was even a saying that parents do class enrollments for the students. I think parents should let their children decide first, and let them overcome their mistakes by themselves. I think depriving children of their opportunities to fail makes them stumble after they graduate from college, when they have to design their lives independently.

Q. What was the most important life lesson you have learned throughout your life?

Knowing yourself is most important. It is very important to know where you are, what you can do, what you like, what your goals and limitations are. If you do not know yourself, it is impossible for others to know you. It is important to figure out what you want to do in your life, instead of following what your parents want you to do.

Q. When was the happiest moment in your life?

The happiest moment in my life was when my family lived very happily and harmoniously despite being poor. During that time, I was in junior high. I still had the innocence of childhood, and truly enjoyed learning everything at school. I studied a lot, read a lot, and spent joyful times with my family.

Q. Can you tell us about what you did after you retired from Seoul National University?

When I had to retire from Seoul National University, where I taught literature for more than 30 years, Korean society had started to devalue humanities more and more. I had students who got doctoral degrees in humanities, but were unable to get a job.  

So I decided to persuade the public that the humanities are valuable and essential to human life. Thus, I created a talk series called “Literature Concert,” in which I went all around Korea to give talks on Korean books and poems to the public. It was also broadcasted on TV. I donated all the payment to the welfare foundation for people with disabilities.

I gave talks to people in small villages who did not even know what literature was, or elderly people who have not even gone to middle school. This made me realize that everyone has a desire to learn. As the talk series gained popularity, more and more communities requested me to give talks, and I ended up having shingles because I was so tired.

After that, Berkeley asked me to come as a visiting professor, so I decided to contribute by bringing Korean studies to Berkeley. As a result, now I have an opportunity to talk to Berkeley students like you.

Q. Do you have any episodes associated with “Literature Concert”?

Once I was on a subway in Korea, and someone in front of me kept glancing at me, and said “I saw you on TV! Aren’t you a literature professor?” Then everyone in the subway began staring at me. Even a barber in my town recognized me and asked, “Aren’t you the professor that was on TV?” Then everyone at the barber shop began staring at me. I was so embarrassed that I could not even open my eyes until my cuts were done.

Also, my granddaughter always tells me, “Grandpa, why do you only give talks on things that I cannot understand?” I think it is ironic that I can't teach anything to my granddaughter whom I love the most. haha.

Q. What do you think of aging?

Getting old means that you get to have more experiences. You can accumulate many thoughts, since you have done so much in your life. Therefore, I think people should not regard the elderly’s words as outdated, but as valuable thoughts that they have cultivated from their own experiences throughout their lives.

Q. What would you like to say to people who are about your age?

Since nowadays, the average life expectancy is up to mid 80s, I think it’s a loss that Korean society forces people to retire mostly when they are in their 50s. As a result, I think we should independently find something we can do. It does not have to be great things at all. We all have something we are specialized for our lifetimes. It is important to find little things we can do and keep interacting with society. It might be difficult to be satisfied with current achievements if you compare yourself to your younger self, but it is important to find value in small things.

Q. What is your plan for the future?

My official lectures end this semester, and I plan to lecture only one semester each in 2021 and 2022. After that, I plan on going back to Korea. Then, if I have more energy left, I plan to continue giving “Literature Concert.” All I can do is to talk about the books I read and authors and poets that I have met. Really, this is the only thing I can do.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

Cover Photo Credit Brooke Smart The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Sheryl Sandberg: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss After my husband’s death, I set out to learn everything I could about how kids persevere through adversity. By SHERYL SANDBERGAPRIL 24, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they were not alone. In the fog of those early and brutal weeks and months, I tried to use the guidance she had given me. My biggest fear was that my children’s happiness would be destroyed by our devastating loss. I needed to know what, if anything, I could do to get them through this. I also started talking with my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor who studies how people find motivation and meaning. Together, we set out to learn everything we could about how kids persevere through adversity. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story As parents, teachers and caregivers, we all want to raise resilient kids — to develop their strength so they can overcome obstacles big and small. Resilience leads to better health, greater happiness and more success. The good news is that resilience isn’t a fixed personality trait; we’re not born with a set amount of it. Resilience is a muscle we can help kids build. And every kid faces challenges. Some stumbles are part of growing up. Forgetting lines in a school play. Failing a test. Losing a big game. Seeing a friendship unravel. Other hardships are far more severe. Two out of 10 children in the United States live in poverty. More than 2.5 million kids have a parent in jail, and many endure serious illness, neglect, abuse or homelessness. We know that the trauma from experiences like these can last a lifetime; extreme harm and deprivation can impede a child’s intellectual, social, emotional and academic progress. As a society, we owe all our children safety, support, opportunity and help finding a way forward. We can start by showing children that they matter. Sociologists define “mattering” as the belief that other people notice you, care about you and rely on you. It’s the answer to a vital question that all children ask about their place in the world starting as toddlers, and continuing into and beyond adolescence: Do I make a difference to others? When the answer is no, kids feel rejected and alone. They become more prone to self-destructive (“Hurting myself isn’t a big deal, since I don’t count anyway”) and antisocial behaviors (“I might be doing something bad, but at least I’ve got your attention”). Others withdraw. Not long ago, a friend picked up her son from a summer day camp and found him beaming with pride that he’d finished the robot he’d spent two days building. The next morning, he returned to find his robot had been destroyed: Bullies had taken only his apart — and then told him that he was worthless. After that day, his mother watched him sink into a spiral of anxiety and depression. Even when he went back to school in the fall, she recalled, “he’d put on his hoodie and sit in the back, in his own world.” Adolescents who feel that they matter are less likely to suffer from depression, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. They’re less likely to lash out at their families and engage in rebellious, illegal and harmful behaviors. Once they reach college, they have better mental health. Opinion Today Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY As parents, we sometimes feel helpless because it’s impossible to solve our children’s problems. In those situations, we can still provide support by “companioning” — walking alongside them and listening. Adam told me about evidence-based programs at Arizona State University that help families cope with parental loss and divorce. These programs teach parents to create and maintain warm and strong relationships, communicate openly with children, use effective discipline, avoid depression and help their children develop coping skills and strategies. When families participate in these programs for 10 to 12 sessions, over the next six years children have fewer mental-health and substance-abuse problems, higher grades and better biological stress responses. One afternoon, I sat down with my kids to write out “family rules” to remind us of the coping mechanisms we would need. We wrote together that it’s O.K. to be sad and to take a break from any activity to cry. It’s O.K. to be happy and laugh. It’s O.K. to be angry and jealous of friends and cousins who still have fathers. It’s O.K. to say to anyone that we do not want to talk about it now. And it’s always O.K. to ask for help. The poster we made that day — with the rules written by my kids in colored markers — still hangs in our hall so we can look at it every day. It reminds us that our feelings matter and that we are not alone. Dave and I had a tradition at the dinner table with our kids in which each of us would share the best and worst moments of our day. Giving children undivided attention — something we all know is important but often fail to do — is another of the key steps toward building their resilience. My children and I have continued this tradition, and now we also share something that makes us feel grateful to remind ourselves that even after loss, there is still so much to appreciate in life. For my friend’s son whose robot was destroyed, a turning point came when one of his former teachers got in touch to see how he was doing and started spending time with him every week. She encouraged him to reach out to other kids and make friends, then followed up, reinforcing each step he took. She cared. He mattered. When a new kid started at the school, the teacher encouraged them to get together, and the friendship took. “It made such a difference for a teacher to take an interest in him and a friend to bond with him,” his mom said. “It was like the sun came out in our house.” ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Since my children were so young when they lost their father, I am afraid that their memories of him will fade, and this breaks my heart all over again. Adam and I also learned that talking about the past can build resilience. When children grow up with a strong understanding of their family’s history — where their grandparents grew up, what their parents’ childhoods were like — they have better coping skills and a stronger sense of mattering and belonging. Jamie Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, has found that expressing painful memories can be uncomfortable in the moment, but improves mental and even physical health over time. To keep Dave’s memory alive, I asked dozens of his closest family members, friends and colleagues to capture their stories about him on video. I also taped my children sharing their own memories, so that as they grow up, they will know which are truly theirs. This past Thanksgiving my daughter was distraught, and when I got her to open up, she told me, “I’m forgetting Daddy because I haven’t seen him for so long.” We watched the video of her talking about him, and it gave her some comfort. Talking openly about memories — not just positive ones, but difficult ones, too — can help kids make sense of their past and rise to future challenges. It’s especially powerful to share stories about how the family sticks together through good times and bad, which allows kids to feel that they are connected to something larger than themselves. Studies show that giving all members of the family a chance to tell their version builds self-esteem, particularly for girls. And making sure to integrate different perspectives into a coherent story builds a sense of control, particularly for boys. 117 COMMENTS A friend of mine who lost his mother when he was young told me that over time, she no longer seemed real. People were either afraid to mention her or spoke of her in idealized terms. My hope is to hold on to Dave as he really was: loving, generous, brilliant, funny and also pretty clumsy. He would spill things constantly yet was always somehow shocked when he did. Now, when emotions are running high in our house, but my son stays calm, I tell him, “You are just like your daddy.” When my daughter stands up for a classmate who is getting picked on, I say, “Just like your daddy.” And when either of them knocks a glass over, I say it, too. Sheryl Sandberg is the author, with Adam Grant, of “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” from which this essay is adapted. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 24, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss. Today's Paper|Subscribe Continue reading the main story

[themiraproject]

In Conversation With : Project Rato Baltin

1.  What is Beartsy and how did it begin?

Be artsy is a non-profit organisation developing creativity projects with the aim of providing different experiences and training opportunities to communities which would otherwise not be able to access them. We do not aim to only teach art just for the sake of art itself, but we also intend to provide communities with the tools to improve communication and effect the changes within they deem necessary. In a nutshell, we wish to empower local communities through art with a special emphasis on women. Hence, our current emphasis on the topic of menstruation and hygienic care through the Chhaupadi project in Nepal.

It all began towards the end of 2014, when co-founder Clara GO’s Creativity Photo Project – the embryo of what would eventually become be artsy – was first set up and has, since then, been bringing participatory photography workshops to several Asian countries.

 After two years and many experiences, Clara suggested to a group of people who were already collaborating with her or who wanted to work on like-minded projects to create more steady collaborations and join energies. We came to realise that we not only needed a legal framework – in order to grow and develop our projects more appropriately -, but also that there was a gap within the third sector we were attempting to fill – that is: reaching out to communities through artistic expression. Reaching out, above all, to women all over the world, because they tend to simultaneously be the ones pulling their weight behind communities and the ones more overlooked by NGOs.

To sum up, artsy is a group of people with different artistic backgrounds, who have come together to create cooperation projects aimed at minorities and communities at risk of exclusion.

2. Could you elaborate about your project Rato Batlin?

Project Rato Baltin is a project focused on the topic of menstruation in West Nepal. In this area the practice of Chhaupadi is particularly harsh on girls and women. Chhau means menstruation and padi means a woman. According to this practice, girls are considered to be impure while they’re menstruating and are deprived from their most basic needs for a period of 7 to 10 days.

Our aim is bringing hygienic, menstrual and sex education to them, and will introduce menstrual cups - which were donated by our strategic partner Ruby Cup.  There are several reasons why we decided to name it the Red Bucket Project (Rato Baltin in Nepalese).

First, because red is a relevant colour in Nepal: it is used very frequently, even in its flag, and is one of the colours most favoured by girls and women. Secondly, because red is a colour which is related to menstruation for obvious reasons.

And finally, because we will hand the girls undergoing training a kit that will be contained in a bucket – hence, the red bucket. Said kit will consist of the bucket itself –  which will serve the purposes of containing the rest of the items when not in use, be a means for the girls to carry water to wash themselves and use at the latrine, and also where they can boil water to sterilise the cups once a month -; a menstrual cup; a towel; and a bar of soap.

 We will complement the distribution and implementation of menstrual cups in the area with the help of participative photography: this will allow the girls themselves to spot what could be improved while they are menstruating (through participatory needs assessment).

The workshops will be held by local women and young girls from every community, with the help of local Nurses and volunteers who will give detailed instructions to participants on the use of the menstrual cup and on the menstrual and hygienic educational part of the program.

The final Photo Exhibition will take place in the middle of the village involving the whole community. Another aspect we will work on is the adaptation of latrines in schools to make them girl-friendly. This will involve getting them to have water and a latch on the door, so they can wash and change comfortably.

Besides workshops, and in order to achieve a long-term impact, there will be an in-school nurse visiting approximately once per month, when the girls will be asked about their experiences with the menstrual cup and their questions or needs. We already count with a network of local doctors and teachers willing to help us with both training and the implementation of the menstrual cup. They will be the first ones to use the cups, so they will serve as an example to the girls and will also be better geared towards answering any queries during the training and follow-up.

This project will be implemented in several stages in order to both expand the number of girls and women reached and be able to follow up on the focus groups. We intend to eventually have trained enough local nurses and women so that they can, in turn, do the training and follow-up and continue the project on their own.

The idea and long term goal is to mitigate the negative effects of Chhaupadi.

3. Why did you choose to work in Nepal?

As mentioned above, Clara GO has been offering her Creativity photo Project for the past two years in several Asian countries. Last year she did so in Nepal,including the far West. There, she experienced the living conditions in the area first-hand and eventually found out about the practice of Chhaupadi. This made a profound impact on her, as did on the rest of us when she relayed it. We considered this issue was pressing enough for us to take action and help improve the living conditions of women and girls in the area.

4. What are your current plans for Rato Batlin?

 Rato Baltin is a recently created project, and we are currently in the process of raising funds at http://www.migranodearena.org/en/challenge/13821/higiene-menstrual-en-nepal---chhaupadi---rato-baltin/ (English version when scrolling down), or through direct donations, online shop sales and photography exhibitions (these are only in Spain for now).

From February to April or May (the Nepalese government recently changed the dates of school holidays and we are adapting to the new schedule) the first stage of implementation is going to take place. Our starting point will be 2 VDC (municipalities) in Achcham and Kalikot. These will be our pilot projects and the focal points from which we will keep implementing and expanding the project. We will start with 4 or 5 focus groups of around 20-25 girls, who will take part in the photography projects and be handed the kit mentioned above. They will also receive training by local nurses on how to use the menstrual cup and appropriate hygienic measures. Simultaneously, sex-ed lessons will be taught in schools, aimed at both male and female students, in order to dispel myhts around menstruation.

From there, local nurses will periodically follow up on the girls using the cups, in order to assist them with any problems or doubts they may have, and report to us to allow us to spot whether we need to rectify any parts of our training.

Members of be artsy will go back to the area every 4 to 6 months (the access there is difficult and during certain parts of the year cannot be accessed at all, so there are windows of time where we can actually be on the ground depending on the weather). The following stages will be both in order to follow up on the girls already using the kit and to introduce it and offer the workshops to more girls.

5. What challenges have you faced so far?

First of all, raising funds and getting exposure, which is an ongoing process.

Moreover, organising a project involving a considerable number of people as we are doing, can be difficult in a culture where schedules are relative. For instance, we found out that 2 months before the end of the school year, exam dates are not yet set, and the government just recently changed the starting date of holiday season.

The area we are working at is isolated to the point that people from other areas of Nepal don’t know much about it. We could not even find a driver who would take us by jeep to the area from Kathmandu - which would have been a lot more convenient, since we are carrying a lot of material and a team of people. Since this was not possible, the team will travel by bus from Kathmandu (a journey lasting between 16 and 20 hours) and then take another bus to the area the project will be implemented (and additional 18 hour-trip).

Lastly, people in Nepal are used to international NGOs having money and giving away stuff, which means we have been approached by local NGOs which, rather than taking an interest in the project, expect us to fund them.

6. Do you think cross-cultural issues or working in a different culture away from yours has helped or been an obstacle?

It can be both. Different languages and cultural practices can be a source for misunderstandings, but they are also enormously enriching and, if done respectfully and with an open disposition, it can be a huge and beautiful learning experience for both sides. Our intention in this matter is to be respectful of local cultures and beliefs. We ideally intend not to show our cultural perspective, but attempt to widen theirs by showing local people how various cultures deal with similar issues differently without imposing one particular view.

7. What are the clearest challenges faced by women globally, according to you?

 This is a huge topic. I would say reaching equality is the one that pretty much would sum it up. Violence against women - whether sexual, physical or verbal - is spread pretty much everywhere. The scale and intensity of it may vary from country to country, but it still exists regardless. The fact that women’s bodies and their right to decide on them freely are still being questioned and even prevented by law. Control on reproduction and menstrual health. Access to education and financial resources. The right of gay, queer and trans women to even exist and be respected. The fact that women belonging to minorities suffer exponentially from any women-related problems. The list is endless.

8. Menstruation is a tabooed topic especially in South Asia. How do you get past the taboo?

We had the immense privilege of being introduced to Western Nepal by Dr Keshav Bhattarai (who unfortunately died prematurely of a heart attack last autumn, right when we were in the midst of planning the project). He helped Clara during her first trip to the area and voiced his full backing to our project. He was very concerned about life conditions of women in the whole area of West and Mid-Nepal. Even though he passed away, we have the backing of a whole network of friends and acquaintances of both Dr Keshav and Clara, who are equally interested in improving women’s lives. These include doctors, nurses, health volunteers, teachers and journalists of all castes.

Thus, a relevant part of the community is already involved, and we hope to be able to involve everyone else thanks to our educational program and participatory photography workshops.

Our aim is to explain menstruation - what it is, why it happens, how do we deal with it - as clearly as possible to both boys and girls. We believe information is key and, by offering it, we might be able to help normalise menstruation and dispel the myths surrounding it. The photography workshops -which are only going to be attended by girls - are also a way to get them to reflect on it and consider their experiences with menstruation. Our intention in doing so is to generate a process of reflection within the community in order for them to consider whether there are any aspects of their practice that may be improved. We do not aim at confrontation, since we believe this would generate rejection and we do not believe it is our place as foreigners to question their culture. We intend to provide hygienic and safety measures that help the girls improve their quality of life and hope that, with time, the community itself will eventually find ways to allow the practice to mutate so it stops being a traumatic and dangerous experience for girls and women.

Alba Miquel is the CFO and a Founding Member for BeArtsy and works with Project Rato Baltin.

Scherezade Siobhan is an Indo-Rroma hack scribbler, community catalyst and social scientist who created and curates The Mira Project as a global, cross-cultural dialogue on gender, street harassment, violence and women’s mental health. 

[libertariantaoist]

Cosmopolitanism is under assault from across the political spectrum, both in the United States and abroad. Just yesterday President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, alt-right leader and self-described economic nationalist Steve Bannon, told the Conservative Political Action Conference that “the center core of what we believe [is] that we’re a nation with an economy, not an economy in some global marketplace with open borders, but we’re a nation with a culture and a reason for being,” This is a false alternative of course, but Bannon’s preference for nationalist tribalism is revealing.

The rejection of cosmopolitanism is bad for liberty, peace, and prosperity because they all go hand in hand. The link between liberty and cosmopolitanism is more than conceptual. Of course freedom includes the freedom of individuals to associate peacefully with anyone anywhere of their choosing, which in turn generates peaceful interdependence and prosperity. But the link is also existential: rising generations, no matter what they have been taught by their elders, naturally will be curious about other people and their ways of living, their cultures. They naturally will question what has been presented to them as sacred (even if “secular”) tradition. This will inevitably lead to cultural and material exchanges and hence further social evolution. The “ideal” of a culture insulated from change is a chimera, especially these days; it would be unachievable even if it were desirable — which it most assuredly is not. Even totalitarian states struggle in vain to shut out “subversive” foreign influences, as the old Soviet Union demonstrated.

We may not go so far as Aristophanes and say that “Whirl is king,” but unforeseen change is inevitable and also reasonably assimilable in normal circumstances. In a freed society most change occurs at the margin — the world does not start afresh each day — because no central authority has the power to make society-wide decisions. But with freedom, the cumulative effect of change is dramatic and largely benign.

Original cosmopolitan liberalism, what we call libertarianism today, embodies this fact of life. It embraces it with gusto. Liberty and the prosperity it produces enable us to grapple with — and indeed relish — the uncertain future that, being the product of human action but not human design, spontaneously unfolds before us. Serendipity happens. We can therefore view liberalism as occupying the ground between conservatism/traditionalism and rationalism/Jacobinism.

As F. A. Hayek wrote in “Why I Am Not a Conservative”: “As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead.”

Hayek’s openness to change may seem in conflict with the apparent conservatism of The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and his final book, The Fatal Conceit (1988). (The fatal conceit lies in believing that our principles of moral conduct were originally the product of reason rather than of spontaneous social evolution as people grappled with reality in search of better lives.) But no actual conflict in Hayek exists. (“Why I Am Not a Conservative” is the postscript to The Constitution of Liberty.) In the absence of good cause to depart from traditional practices, one tends to accept those practices because, among other reasons, their longevity may be an evidence of their value. (Longevity is no guarantee of this.) The case for such “conservative” deference dates back at least to Aristotle. (See Roderick Long’s discussion of the importance of endoxa, “the credible opinions handed down” [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy], in his Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand. Long’s essay suggests that cultural innovation reasonably begins with defeasible received wisdom as opposed to wholesale rejection of it.) But the good sense in defaulting to credible opinions provides no case for freezing traditions in place, for this would imply an unjustifiable hubris regarding the current state of our knowledge. After all, today’s traditions were once new: how do we know there aren’t hitherto undiscovered better ways to accomplish our ultimate objective, namely, the flourishing of individuals in society? Why would we want to deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn of such knowledge? And on what grounds do we assume that anything worth knowing is to be found within our national borders? Hence liberal cosmopolitanism, from the Greek suggesting “citizen of the world.” (I’m reminded of Adam Smith’s observation that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.”)

Apparent efforts to romanticize tradition and cultural preservation (aka stagnation) have a way of teaching a different lesson. Think of the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on the Yiddish stories by Sholem Aleichem. The protagonist, Tevye the dairyman, opens the show by celebrating the tradition that has enabled him and his neighbors (and their forebears) to keep “our balance for many years.” As he explains, “Because of our tradition, everyone here knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” (At the same time he confesses: “You may ask, ‘How did this tradition get started?’ I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.”) At sundown on the Sabbath, Tevye and his wife pray that God will keep their five daughters “from the strangers’ ways.”

Yet almost immediately the traditional structure that Tevye believes he can’t survive without begins to crumble at the margin, and he is powerless to prevent it. When he agrees to marry off his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to the much older butcher, as arranged by the village matchmaker, she begs her father not to force her to go through with the marriage. A year earlier she and her childhood friend, now the village tailor, had secretly agreed to wed as soon as he could afford a sewing machine. (Aside: when the tailor Motel Kamzoil gets his sewing machine he boasts that from now on clothes will be made quickly and perfectly — no more handmade things.There’s an economic lesson in that for another day.) Now under pressure from the matchmaker, Tzeitel asks her father for permission to marry the man she loves. Tevye at first is furious at her impertinence, but when he looks in his daughter’s eyes as she stands by her beloved, he can’t help but relent. His daughter’s happiness outranks tradition. (Before this scene we saw Tevye celebrating the marriage agreement with the butcher by participating in a Russian dance with Russian gentiles in the local tavern, indulging, it would seem, in the strangers’ ways.)

Tzeitel’s break with tradition is only the beginning. Tevye’s second daughter, Hodel, then falls in love with Perchik, a poor young radical teacher from Kiev, the big, strange, distant city. This was the same young visitor whom villagers had denounced as a “radical” for saying that girls should be educated and for dancing with a female (Hodel) at Tzeitel’s wedding. The “attack” on tradition kicks up a notch when Hodel and Perchik decide to marry: they do not ask Tevye for his permission — only for his blessing. He is scandalized at this further blow to the structure, but in one of his trademark dialogues with God, Tevye acknowledges that “our ways also once were new” — a subversive thought for one who wishes to keep his children from the strangers’ ways. Again he relents and gives his blessing (and his permission), explaining to his wife, “It’s a new world, Golde,” one in which people marry for love. He then alarms his wife, whom he had met only on their wedding day, by asking, “Golde, do you love me?” Tevye is clearly warming up to the new world.

But Tevye finally draws the line when his third daughter, Chava, marries a young Russian she has fallen in love with. As he is packing to move his family out of their shetl, Anatevka (from which the tsar has expelled the Jews), he relays his blessing to Chava and her new husband. It is noteworthy that Tevye, like Sholem Aleichem himself, moves to “New York, America” not Palestine. (Tevye’s brother had previously moved to Chicago.)

So even insular little Anatevka could not shield itself from change and the outside world. Was Sholem Aleichem a subversive? If so, many people seem to have missed it. But how can you celebrate traditionalism while showing the virtually inevitable erosion of particular traditions at the hands of the young and free seeking only to be happy? There’s a lesson here for all of us, especially those who seek to “make America great again.”

Whirl is king, despite one’s wishes and efforts. Of course this does not mean that all change is good, but attempting to prevent all change in order to prevent bad change is and futile and self-defeating. Moreover, change that one person sees as bad another person may see as good. People should be free to shield themselves against change they do not like, but coercive power must be kept out of the picture.

The history of original liberalism overflows with acknowledgments that openness to change, which is the essence of cosmopolitanism, is vital to flourishing. The free and competitive marketplace of ideas, like the market for goods and services, was championed by early liberals precisely because it was the way to dispel ignorance not just in how we think but in how we live. Thus they showed an appropriate humility — a recognition of the limits of knowledge — in their praise for the free marketplace of ideas.

John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859) is well-known in this regard, so I’ll limit myself to one quotation:

“That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men’s modes of action, not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.” (Emphasis added.)

To take an earlier example from across the Channel, Charles Dunoyer, a pioneering French radical liberal and one of the originators of class analysis (which Marx explicitly borrowed and distorted), criticized the socialism of Henri de Saint-Simon precisely because it failed to recognize the value of the competitive marketplace of ideas. Dunoyer wrote in 1827 that the Saint-Simonians’ “complaints against what they call the critical system, that is to say, against a general and permanent state of examination, of debate, of competition, attacks society in its most active principle of life, in its most efficacious means of development.” They don’t want to “leav[e] society to itself,” letting it develop “by the free competition of individual efforts.” Yet they contradict themselves by conceding that “free discussion is necessary” sometimes. But if that’s true, Dunoyer asked, what can be the case against freedom?

Dunoyer continued:

“Is there, in the course of centuries, a single instant where society does not tend, in a multitude of ways, to modify its ideas, to change its manner of existence? To accuse liberty of what remains of confusion in moral and social doctrines is to see evil in the remedy, and to complain precisely of what tends to make the confusion cease.”

Thus he concluded that “the error of the organic school [Saint-Simonians] is the belief that liberty is only a provisional utility…. It is … in the nature of things that liberty of examination will be perpetually necessary. Society which lives chiefly by action, acts, at each instant, according to the notions that it possesses, but, to act better and better, it needs to work constantly to perfect its knowledge, and it is only able to succeed by means of liberty: research, inquiry, examination, discussion, controversy, such is its natural state, and such it will always be, even when its knowledge has acquired the greatest certainty and understanding.”

In pursuit of this life-enhancing knowledge the political program based on liberal cosmopolitanism — libertarianism — centers on unconditional free trade and freedom of movement, that is, open borders for people, capital, producer goods, and consumer goods. This program represents not merely an adherence to an abstraction, liberty. Rather it embodies the understanding that the flourishing of flesh-and-blood individual human beings, like the division of labor, is limited by the extent of society and that therefore the boundaries of society should be expanded through peaceful voluntary exchange to include the entire world. Trump’s and Bannon’s nationalist, tribalist program is thus exposed as a threat to human flourishing.

[robinsoncenter]

[Qsc_asuw] SPRING! Newsletter Week 8

Welcome to Week 8!      <3 

QTBIPOC Artist Spotlight of the Week: 

     Peo Mitchie

Employable Femme WOC Animator, Illustrator, and Zine      Artist. 

The Queer      & Trans People of Color Alliance (QTPOCA) will      be meeting this Friday, location TBD!

LAVISH      QTPOC Art Showcase      (Tuesday, May 21, 2019) 6:30 PM -      9 PM @ Ethnic Cultural Theater      3931 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, Washington 98105     

Lavish           is a multi-arts showcase opportunity centering Queer and Trans           People of Color (QTPoC). We will provide a platform for UW students           to receive mentorship (by way of building a sustained relationship           with a teaching artist) and community building among QTPoCs and           artists on campus and in the greater Seattle community.

      There           are many ways to participate in the showcase. Opportunities include           (but are not limited to): emcees/MC, deejays/DJ, performance           artists, fine artists, spoken word, poetry, musicians, dramaturge,           stage managers, community organizers, and more.

      The           showcase is student-driven and its final form will be created           organically among the participating artists. Lavish centers artists           who identify as QTPoC. White allies/accomplices are also welcome to           participate. Artists of any experience level are enthusiastically           invited to participate in this low stakes/high support experience.     

Please consider filling out the following form if you are      interested in participating at Lavish: https://forms.gle/dq7TMqV8YQAfvtu2A            We will host an Informational Session on May 3, 2019, 3:00PM at the Q      Center (HUB 315). Note: Prospective performers may submit their      application using this form or in person at the informational session.            Questions? Please contact Juan Franco or Jaimée Marsh @ the Q Center: qcenter@uw.edu or      206-897-1430.            Accessibility      Information:       

The           Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Theatre is near landmarks such as           Alder Hall and Lander Hall

      For           a map, search HUB on the campus maps: www.washington.edu/map

      The           ECC’s front entrance is wheelchair accessible. There is an elevator           in the building

      There           are universal, all-gender bathrooms in the building, as well as           gender binary bathrooms with multiple stalls.

      The           ECT is not kept scent-free, but we ask that you do not wear           scented/fragranced products (e.g. perfume, hair products) or           essential oils to/in the event in order to make the space accessible           to those with chemical injury or multiple chemical sensitivity.

      University           District Metro Bus Routes can be found here: metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus/neighborhoods/university_district.html 

From      Palestine to Mexico, All the Walls Have Got to Go!       (Monday, May 20,      2019) 7 PM - 9 PM @ Southside Commons      3518 S Edmunds St, Seattle, Washington 98118            These days, the headlines are filled with Trump's proposal for a border      wall, news about brutal family separation policies and baby jails at the      border, police murdering Black people in the US, Islamophobic attacks,      accusations that Congresswoman Omar is "anti-semitic" because      of her criticism of US foreign policy in Israel, and anti-boycott      legislation at the federal and state levels. How are all these things      connected? What does it mean to build a powerful movement for change that      connects these issues and wins change that actually reduces the harms of      systems of policing, imprisonment, border enforcement, and colonial      dispossession? Join us for a conversation between Maru Mora Villalpando      and Nada Elia     

Maru           is the community organizer at the forefront of work aiming to close           the Northwest Detention Center. She has been targeted by the Trump           administration for deportation based on her activism and works to           build a radical, visionary, border and prison abolitionist migrant           justice grassroots movement in our region and nationally. Nada Elia           is a diaspora Palestinian writer, organizer, and teacher who was one           of the first activists to work to expose how US law enforcement           trains with the Israeli military and to build coalitional feminist           work to oppose it. Maru and Nada will be talking about the           overlapping and interconnected law enforcement technologies being           used to target migrants to the US, US communities of color, and           Palestinians, and exploring how we build internationalist anti-law           enforcement and anti-military resistance. This event aims to           strengthen all our imaginations and strategies for building safety           through solidarity, not law enforcement.     

- Image by Catherina Horan, on      Instagram at @fernfemmeart.            ACCESSIBILITY      INFORMATION:     

Southside           commons is wheelchair accessible and has two parking spots for           people with disabilities.

      Scent-free           soaps will be provided in the bathrooms and we are currently working           to find out what is usually used in the space and to what degree it           leaves chemicals and fragrances in the space.

      Gender           neutral bathrooms are available.

      The           light rail to the Mount Baker stop, and several busses, stop nearby.

      If           you have any questions about accessibility please email ashleen.obrien@gmail.com.           

My Own Precious Life: A Poetry as Therapy Workshop

 (Tuesday, May      21, 2019) 6:30 - 8 PM @ The Hillman City Collaboratory      5623 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, Washington 98118     

This           90-minute workshop is open to anyone living with a mental health           condition. Explore your recovery by responding to poetry with           writing or art. Writing is not only calming but is often an           adventure of discovery. Come adventure with us! Any level of writing           experience is welcome. Refreshments will be provided.

      About           the instructor: Naomi has a Master’s in Counseling and has worked in           community mental health as a clinical intake specialist as well as a           peer support specialist. One of her greatest joys is getting to           companion people in poetry as therapy.

      Workshop           is free but space is limited; please email katie@namiseattle.org           or call 206-789-7722 to reserve your spot.

Education of      Queer History      (Tuesday, May      21, 2019) 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM @ Kane      Hall            Matthew Riemer, co-creator of Instagram's @lgbt_history and co-author of      "We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of      Queer Liberation", uses imagery and anecdotes culled from years of      research to draw connections between the struggles and triumphs of the      queer past and present with an eye toward a more liberated future. Come      learn about this more from Matthew himself May 21st in Kane 120!

Voices for Nicaragua

 (Wednesday, May      22, 2019) 5:30 PM - 7 PM @ Grieg Garden      Seattle, Washington 98195     

Join           us on May 22nd for an evening of poetry, dance, painting and more!           This is a space for students to share their voices through art and           raise awareness of the political prisoners in Nicaragua who are           deprived of this right.

      We           will also be celebrating Mother's Day by writing cards to send to           mothers in Nicaragua who have been affected by these tragic           events. 

      Please           contact us if you are interested in sharing your art at this event!

Away from the White      Gaze: A Workshop for Anti-Racist Activists of Color      (Thursday, May      23, 2019) 3 PM - 5 PM @  El Centro De La Raza      2524 16th Avenue South Room 311, Seattle, Washington 98144     

Capacity            is limited. Priority for NPARC members. Questions about membership?            Contact membership@nparcseattle.org.

       Please            note that this workshop is for black, indigenous, and people of            color (BIPOC) only. White allies, thank you for understanding the            need for this BIPOC only space, a rare but needed space in our            society (and especially in Seattle's non-profit sector). For white            folks that have questions, please contact education@nparcseattle.org.    

DARK AT      DUSK - The Final Suicide      (Friday, May 24,      2019) 7 PM - 9PM @ Gay City: Seattle's LGBTQ Center      517 E Pike St, Seattle, Washington 98122            Nic Masangkay Presents...      DARK AT DUSK - The Final Suicide     

After           a medication overdose, our protagonist lays unconscious at a Seattle           hospital. Piecing together their past via music, film, and spoken           word poetry, we retrace what led Them to suicide - perhaps They           aren’t the true killer. Find out if They live to tell Their own           story: May 2019. 

Cast and Team:      Brian is Ze      Falon Sierra      Guayaba      Moonyeka      Lourdez Velasco      Son the Rhemic      Queerbigan      Vanna Zaragoza      Zora Seboulisa     

Help           compensate this talented team at http://www.patreon.com/nicmasangkay.

      More           information on the album and show at http://www.nicmasangkay.com/dark-at-dusk.

      Project           made possible in part by Jack Straw Cultural Center's Artist           Support Program.  

ACCESSIBILITY      INFORMATION:     

The           Calamus Auditorium at Gay City is ADA accessible & minimally           scented. 

      There           are two single-stall all-gender restrooms.     

There will be scent free soap in      the restrooms. More info: gaycity.org/access  

Celebration of Our      Nations      (Saturday, May      25, 2019) 10 AM - 6 PM @ wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ -      Intellectual House     

Come           join us to celebrate our indigeneity with cultural dancing,           stickgame, amazing food, language learning, and various indigenous           arts & crafts.     

If you are interested in      volunteering, teaching, sharing knowledge or have any questions feel free      to email us at fnuw@uw.edu.       

Food:           First Nations is pleased to offer an Elder's brunch, complimentary           dinner, and snacks to fuel our community celebration.

      Arts           & Crafts: We will have various workshops including weaving (bear           grass braids/cedar mats), beading (brick stitch earrings and mirror           earrings). These stations are designed for all abilities, whether           they have no experience or are experts.

      There           will also be a kids table where children can draw on formline design           coloring sheets, play with pony beads, and learn basic weaving           techniques.

      Language           Tables & Workshops: Learn Lushootseed phrases and how to do a proper           land acknowledgment. We will also be playing Lushootseed bingo and           giving out small prizes to those who remember the most           words/phrases.

      Stickgame:           Learn how to play stick game with us, there will be opportunities to           learn some new songs and win prizes. So please come out and take           advantage of the chance to play a traditional strategy game.     

(NO MONETARY GAMBLING, MATERIALS      GAME ONLY)

Cultural           Dancing: As for the dance portion we will be having powwow style           dancing along with intertribal and various cultural dances for the           whole community to take part in. We will also be having our Miss and           Jr Miss First Nations royalty contest.  

ACCESSIBILITY      INFORMATION:   

The           Intellectual House is wheelchair accessible into the building and           Gathering Hall, there is accessible parking right next to the           building. For accommodations, please contact the Disability Services           Office at 206-543-6450, or dso@u.washington.edu.

Ringside Revolutionary      Poets at Folklife      (Saturday, May      25, 2019) 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM @ Cornish Playhouse At Seattle Center      201 Mercer St, Seattle, Washington 98109

Catch           the Ringside Revolutionary Poets, Dj Rise and your hosts Momma Nikki and Nikkita "KO" Oliver at           the annual Northwest Folklife           Festival!

ASC goes to PRIDE ASIA      FEST 2019      (Sunday, May 26,      2019) 11:30 AM - 6 PM     

Join           the Asian Student Commission as we celebrate the wonderful           intersections of being LGBTQIA+ and Asian! Feel free to bring along           friends or come alone, everyone will be welcomed!

      We           will be gathering at the HUB Main Entrance at 11:30am and light           railing down to the International District together (Please bring           your Husky ID or some form of payment). People are also welcome to           meet us at the event! Feel free to join in or exit at any point of           the event :)    

If you have any questions feel free      to message our page or contact Erica (ASC Political Intern)!            Visit the Official PRIDE ASIA FEST event page for the event schedule and      more info! https://www.facebook.com/events/398070087671345/       

FASA sa UW      presents: Filipino Night 2019      (Saturday, May      25, 2019) 5 - 9 PM @ Kane Hall      1410 NE Campus Parkway, Seattle, Washington 98105            WHAT IS FILIPINO NIGHT?      

Filipino           Night is FASA sa UW's annual flagship event and cultural show. It is           a show directed and produced by students, for the greater Seattle           and UW community. Bringing in an audience of over 600 people each           year, Filipino Night showcases Filipinx/Filipinx American narratives           and culture through artistic expression.     

Doors open: 5:00 PM      Show begins: 6:00 PM            EVENTBRITE LINK TO BUY TICKETS : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/filipino-night-2019-identity-defyned-tickets-60321084989?fbclid=IwAR29T2xOoPn-keE7SoysXJaz_O5zZhQQhC6wS_pf9Xd-krcRFz8tVuDMpNY            Students: $7      General: $10      @ Door: $15            ACCESSIBILITY      INFORMATION:     

Kane           Hall’s front entrance is wheelchair accessible. Binary bathrooms           with multiple stalls can be found on the second floor.

      Parking           in the garage under Kane Hall is free during the time of this event.    

WHAT IS THIS YEAR'S FILIPINO NIGHT?            

Five           students at UW – Alex, Emmy, Max, Reyna, and Wil – are as different           from each other as could be. When a Filipino American studies class           brings them together, they must work with each other amidst personal           troubles, the challenges of friendship, and family struggles. Will           the five of them be able to learn how to understand each other and,           more importantly, how to understand themselves? Or will their           differences and difficulties prove too great for them to overcome?           Identity Defyned will explore the ever-changing perceptions and           definitions of identity and address a question pondered by many –           “What does it mean to be Filipino?”

     Further questions? Email us at []!

Further questions? Email us at [fasa@uw.edu]!

ASUW SARVA Presents: Love+

 (Thursday, May      30, 2019) 2 PM - 3:30 PM @ ECC Unity Room      3931 Brooklyn      Ave NE, Seattle, Washington 98105

We're           so excited for our last event of the year! SARVA is celebrating           Pride by teaming up with the NW Network to host a Love+ workshop           about consent, boundaries, and healthy relationships in the LGTBQ+           community. Come grab some free glitter, stickers, and temporary           tattoos :)   

ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION:

The           Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center is near landmarks such as           Alder Hall and Lander Hall.

      There           are universal, all-gender bathrooms in the ECC, as well as gender           binary bathrooms with multiple stalls.

      The           ECC is not kept scent-free, but we ask that you do not wear           scented/fragranced products (e.g. perfume, hair products) or           essential oils to/in the event in order to make the space accessible           to those with chemical injury or multiple chemical sensitivity.     

University District Metro Bus Routes can be found here: metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus/neighborhoods/university_district.html

Queer LiberAsian: A      Celebration of Queer Asian Excellence      (Saturday, June      1, 2019) 7-9 PM @ Ethnic Cultural Theater      3931 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, Washington 98105

Tickets at: bit.ly/QueerAsian      $5 for UW students w/ valid ID | $7 General            ALL TICKET PROCEEDS GO TO Official Pride ASIA!    

Queer           LiberAsian is a performing arts showcase of Queer Asian excellence.           Queer visibility and Asian visibility have both reached ground           breaking high points in recent media. However, the excellence of           when Queer and Asian identity intersects has yet to reach the           visibility it deserves. Join me for a night of celebrating Queer           Asian excellence, expression, and liberation!     

SPECIAL GUESTS:      Aleksa Manila      Kylie Mooncakes (Mikey Xi)      Atasha Manila      Dawson Dang      Kince de Vera      Arnaldo Drag Chanteuse      Mika Magbanua      Rylee Raw      Noona      Rowan Ruthless      Andre Menchavez

Transgender &      Gender Diverse Support & Social Group @ U.T.O.P.I.A Seattle       205 E. Meeker St. Kent, Washington 98032     

[trans]           ACTION is           a support/social group for sex workers that is held every first           Wednesday of every month. It is an opportunity that provides sex           workers a safe space to engage in topical discussions relating to           their life and/or work. This gathering is open to transgender and           gender diverse sex workers with current or past experience in the           sex trade.

Upcoming Dates :      

Wed           June 12 (6-8pm)    

Discussions include topics such as:            

*Safety           and self- care

      *Decriminalization           and Destigmatization of sex work

      *Know           your rights training

      *Legal           assistance

      *Employment           & housing 

      [trans]           ACTION promotes and values confidentiality regarding interactions           within the group.  

ACCESSIBILITY      INFORMATION:     

The           undisclosed location has ample parking, all-gender and           ADA-accessible restroom. Come and build community with us! For more           information please email Ara-lei at ara@utopiaseattle.org.

Let’s Talk is a free program that      connects UW students with support from experienced counselors from the      Counseling Center and Hall Health Center without an appointment. Counselors      hold drop-in hours at four sites on campus:     

Mondays, 2-4 PM, Odegaard Library Room 222

      Tuesdays, 2-4 PM, Ethnic Cultural Center Room 306

      Wednesdays, 2-4 PM, Q Center (HUB 315)

      Thursdays, 2-4 PM, Mary Gates Hall Room 134E    

Let’s Talk offers      informal consultation – it is not a substitute for regular therapy,      counseling, or psychiatric care.      To learn      more, visit letstalk.washington.edu.            The HUB’s front entrance is wheelchair accessible and the common area is      to the right of the main desk.      An all-genders restroom can be found at the 3rd floor, down the hallway      from the Q Center. Gender binary bathrooms with multiple stalls can be      found on each floor of the HUB.      The HUB IS not kept scent-free but we ask that you do not wear      scented/fragranced products (e.g. perfume, hair products) or essential      oils to/in the Q Center in order to make the space accessible to those      with chemical injury or multiple chemical sensitivity. 

Thank you for being a part of our community <3       We are so glad that you are here, and we are so glad to get to know      you!       Have questions about the QSC? Just want to get involved? Find our office      hours online at hours.asuw.org.      To hear more from the QSC be sure to like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter & instagram to stay up to date with      all queer and trans related happenings on campus and in Seattle!             With love,       Mehria, Outreach & Engagement Intern. 

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[torentialtribute]

Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos speaks out about his family tragedy

There is heartache behind the exploits that Alfredo Morelos performs in a Rangers sweater. In a revealing, emotional insight, the Colombian striker explained how the death of a younger sister led him to offer a better future for his family.

On Sunday, Morelos will try to become the first Ibrox player in one to reach the goal of 30 goals in a season in which he faces Celtic. His importance for Steven Gerrard is well established.

The motivation that the 22-year-old from his hometown Cerete brought to Glasgow via Helsinki, however, is only partially understood by that outside the inner circle of the player. The essence is how I react to the pain of a tragedy family.

Rangers-attacker Alfredo Morelos promised to take care of his family after the younger sister died

Rangers attacker Alfredo Morelos promised to take care of his family after the younger sister died

<img id = "i- 424a87f5df13fbea "src =" https://ift.tt/2HWuikY "height =" 449 "width =" 634 "alt = "It is something that has driven him in his career, as well as the support of the Rangers fans.]

It is something that has helped him in his career, just like the support of the Rangers fans

Morelos talked about it publicly I am Alfredo, who charts his rise in self-proclaimed poverty in Colombia.

& # 39; My family support It's very unconditional, they always give me that motivation, that love to do better every day, & he said. & # 39; I promised my mother. & # 39;

I promised my mother. I had a sister who died and I also promised her. We have taken some obstacles, we have fallen, and thanks to God, I am smart and have a positive attitude.

& # 39; My little sister was a big motivation for me.

& # 39; And thanks to God, since my sister died, I told my mother one day: & # 39; I told my mother that I would take care of them because they were a very poor family in Colombia, in Cerete. I'm going to take care of you and my entire family. & # 39; Thanks to God we are now doing well. & # 39;

Morelos received a medal from the mayor of Cerete when he was home during the winter break.

The striker remains proud of his roots and likes to go back to the school where he was first

Insisting on the support of his father – Alfredo snr – was & # 39 ; fundamental & # 39 ;, Morelos said: & # 39; My career started in Los Fumigadores in Cerete, a very beautiful school that you raised many children.

There was the teacher, Astolfo, and the president of the club, Vincente Fernandez. They were the ones who gave me the chance to be part of the club, usually Vincente. It has been a super important education for me, they have supported me enormously. They are very close to me and I am grateful.

<img id = "i-c31243fe09d2427b" src = "https://ift.tt/2uyu7o0 -0-image-a-48_1553810374725.jpg "height =" 453 "width =" 634 "alt =" Morelos admits that he is a very emotional player when standing on the field: & # 39; I am very passionate & # 39;

Morelos admits that he is a very emotional player when standing on the field: & # 39; I am very passionate & # 39; "very emotional player when standing on the field: & # 39; I am very passionate & # 39;

I still talk to them, even more to their children.

I also go to the club to see how the children are doing, how the school is progressing. It is something beautiful. & # 39;

That affection for his place of residence is clearly answered. Morelos, which is also included in the film, is one of the most influential artists in the history of the United States.

& # 39; Playing for Colombia was very special & # 39 ;, said Morelos, who also played the lead role. in recent friendly matches against Japan and South Korea.

& # 39; They closed the entire street in the neighborhood, there was a big screen. The neighbors, the children and my family were all there. It was something incredible.

I am very happy with all these people who support me.

& # 39; They always have a good opinion about me and who I am. I am very happy to announce Cerete. I am very proud of my city and also of Colombia.

His father and mother, Martha, went to Morelos in Glasgow.

& # 39; My parents were here, they now know what it is like – the atmosphere here and more so now see it for yourself.

& # 39; They feel proud of their son, because I don't have much love for them either. & # 39;

Morelos always wanted to follow his idol, Lionel Messi, in European football. But his route was less traveled. After acquiring a grounding at Los Fumigadores, Morelos was seen as a teenager by Deportivo Independiente Medellin.

& # 39; They gave me the chance to prove myself there & # 39 ;, he explained.

& # 39; After six months with the Under-20 team, we got a coach, & # 39; Bolillo & Gomez, who was in many important teams, the national team in Colombia and other major teams. He is currently on the national team in Ecuador

& He gave me the opportunity to be in the professional field and that really boosted my sporting career & # 39;

after he took the courageous decision to accept an offer from HJK Helsinki. At the age of 19, Morelos noticed that he was deprived of the family, football, culture and climate with which he had grown up. Not that this stopped him from scoring.

] The attacker has four reds this season cards received, one of which has been withdrawn "class =" blkBorder img-share "/>

The striker received four red cards this season, one of which was subsequently withdrawn

& # 39; I didn't think about it for long & # 39 ;, I remembered. & # 39; The dream of all Colombian players is to come and play in Europe, which was my biggest dream since I started this process as a professional athlete. & # 39;

Morelos hit 46 goals in 62 games for HJK to attract interest from richer competitions Ex-Rangers striker Michael Mols told Sportsmail earlier this week that he had Morelos to Utrecht scouted, but the Dutch club was unable to pay the fee. ”His old employers at Ibrox kw amen to close a £ 1 million deal in the summer of 2017.

& I knew I was coming to a big club, a club with many titles, with a lot of history , & # 39; reflected Morelos. I knew it was a club that had failed. I knew they were in the First Class again and I knew they wanted to win, that they wanted to get back on top, that they wanted to fight, so I came in with that attitude of doing things right.

I came second and well, I got the chance to play and I proved what I could do, my goals. I started to give myself a place here at Rangers and so far it has been excellent. "

Perhaps not everything has been excellent.

He relied on fiery emotions to perform at his best in the field – and he is not about to change his approach.

& # 39; I am a strong player & # 39 ;, said Morelos. & # 39; I also like to compete powerful, strong and powerful.

& # 39 I am a very & # 39; hot & # 39; player when I am on the field I am passionate and I like it When I participate, when I am active and fight with the defense, jump, hold the ball, I would never change the way I am.

& # 39; Since I started, they have called me & # 39; The Buffalo & # 39; – because I hold the ball well, because I was a tough player. held by the nickname and everything I do on the field is therefore.

& I like to play in the air, I like to crash, I like to frustrate the defense. to do.

That attitude, and his productive score, made him a favorite among Ibrox support, who regularly

& # 39; It is my second family & # 39 ;, said Morelos enthusiastic. & # 39; The people here are very dedicated and I feel at ease. I am used to it now, in terms of football, in terms of the climate, the schedule, the people. I want to enjoy all the time I have in Glasgow.

I love Rangers, the fans, the football, what we live every day.

& # 39; I really enjoy it even more when we play at home – the fans, the way they praise us and want us to play every weekend and every day of the week.

& # 39; It really motivates me to know that people love me in an incredible way. I know and I feel it, because every time I score a goal, or every time I go to a mall or eat outside, the love that Rangers fans have for me is great. I am very grateful to them and I thank them. & # 39;

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[travelguy4444]

The Students from the Victor School Return from Guatemala. Here’s the Recap!

Earlier this year, we announced our latest FLYTE partnership, with the Victor School from rural Montana. Our goal was to send a group of its high school students to Guatemala for a week and a half of learning, service, and travel.

Quick side note: If you’re new to this website, FLYTE (Foundation for Learning and Youth Travel Education) is the nonprofit foundation we created just over 3 years ago to send high school classes on educational and service trips overseas. Our mission at FLYTE is to empower students through transformative travel experiences.

We know the power of travel can change you – and so do the teachers we partner with. Unfortunately, lots of schools just don’t have the resources and funding to send classes overseas. That’s where FLYTE comes in. We serve underserved communities around the United States that don’t have the resources to send their students on class trips abroad. So far we have sent entire classes to Mexico, Ecuador, and Cuba.

And with your help, we did it again. We raised over $18,000 to help these students go on their school trip to Guatemala!

The students, the school, the parents, me — we all thank you for being part of this!

In late June, they landed back in Montana, so today I wanted to give you an update on their trip so you know where your help went. (I know, I know. It took a while for this update to happen. I’m a slow writer.)

Remember, Victor School is located in the small rural town of Victor, Montana that serves a total student population of 300 where 100% of the students receive free or reduced-price school lunch. The poverty rate is high in this community and many families struggle to make ends meet. Their teacher Lindsey was excited to partner with us to make sure her students had the opportunity to see a part of the world they’d never gotten to see before.

After three flights and nearly 20 hours of travel, the kids made it to Guatemala. For most, this was their first time leaving the United States, visiting a developing country, being in a place where the culture and language are starkly different than that of their hometown, and for some, it was their first time out of Montana!

FLYTE trips are not just vacations for teens. The itineraries are crafted to include various forms of learning, teaching, adventuring, interacting with local communities, and participating in activities that push themselves out of their comfort zones.

The students spent the first part of their trip in the city of Antigua, where they took Spanish lessons (which brought their language studies from Montana to life) and climbed the Pacaya volcano. That adventure impacted the students and what they thought they were capable of so much that they stopped on their way down and journaled to document their exhilaration and acknowledge themselves for what they had accomplished.

On the shores of Lake Atitlán, they experienced living communally. Part of their service learning took place at the Amigos de Santa Cruz local NGO, where they made authentic Mayan cuisine, learned about vocational training programs, and donated books they collected in Montana for the NGO’s preschool library. They also spent an afternoon connecting, playing soccer and hacky sack with the neighborhood kids.

They spent time volunteering with Konojel, a nonprofit whose mission is to reduce chronic malnutrition and endemic poverty. They helped out at the community center where undernourished children receive healthy meals and educational enrichment.

The trip to Guatemala ultimately changed their perceptions about the world outside the United States (and small-town Montana) — and what they wanted to create with their own life.

As the students reflected on their trip, we heard a few common themes.

The first was the realization that what they heard on the news is not always actually accurate. They now understand how powerful and important it is to see and experience things for yourself. It’s a sad reality that we see on the news is not the whole picture and that all too often if it bleeds, it leads. Just check out what the students had to say about their shift in how they viewed Guatemala once they experienced it first-hand:

“I wasn’t going to go to Guatemala because of all the stuff I heard others saying about it, like that I would be kidnapped, or that it was poor, or that I would get lost. But I’m very happy I did, because that wasn’t true at all,” said Zoe. “I’ve never had people smile at me randomly, but these people in Guatemala did.”

Or as Sam R. said, “A lot of [my] family said Guatemala was a dangerous place and gave it a bad reputation without ever being there, but when I went, everyone was super friendly and I was comfortable.”

And even though these students come from an economically-deprived, more rural part of the United States, traveling overseas made many of them realize how lucky they have it compared to others. This is one of the key things I realized when I went on my first trip overseas. It’s what got me out of my head and made me realize that I had a lot more opportunities that I thought when I was living back at home.

Sam thought that “(being from a family with no money) I had nothing, yet there are places with even less than us. It makes me more grateful for all of the little things we have, like hot water.”

Ellyse couldn’t believe that “little things to us — like school and clean water and toilet paper — are such a privilege and we abuse it” after seeing how rare those were on the trip. “I thought Victor needed a lot of work and that it was rural, but it’s not [that] bad.” Most of the students came back from Guatemala much more grateful teens. They shifted their perspective in a way that had them looking at how many opportunities they actually have, rather than focusing on what they don’t have.

This was also echoed by Sophie, who said, “We realized how much we take for granted, like toilet paper, clean water, and free education.” For Emma, “it made me more grateful for what we have, like good water, garbage/recycling services, etc. I am so lucky to live where I do and I am so grateful for all I have.”

Sam wants to work harder in school “because I now know what kind of opportunity I have.”

Summer observed, “We are so spoiled. We have so much more than some people in Guatemala could even dream of.” Sam S. said, “that although Victor is considered poor by American standards, we still have it very easy.” Madison felt that she had “a personal experience of how the real world works, how different countries are truly so different. It made me appreciate my home so much more.”

The students had other epiphanies as well. Gracie realized that “everyone has their own way of living, and mine is no better than anyone else’s.” Emma said, “It’s easy to forget that there’s so much outside of your little bubble and bigger issues in the world that we don’t see or experience in the U.S.”

Many realized they could push themselves beyond their comfort zone and do things that they never thought they could do.

Sadie “tried many different foods and tried to enjoy things that would normally scare me,” and Emma said “I achieved my goals by putting myself really out of my comfort zone. I learned that even in rough times, I can do what I need to make myself feel better.” Gracie really liked the shared hostels (two thumbs up from me!) even though she had never experienced anything like that before.

This trip inspired them to travel more too!

Zoe wants to go to Hawaii and also possibly back to Guatemala (“and bring my family with me so they can see it’s not dangerous, just adventurous”). Ellyse would like to go to Sydney, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Summer also wants to visit Australia. Julia wants to study abroad in Spain. Audrey wants to go to Greece, Norway, France, Spain, “and so many more countries.” Sam would love to go to Guatemala again to see other areas. Madison has been inspired to travel “everywhere!”

Sophie plans on traveling, and this trip “helped teach me not to have any presumptions about a place I’m going and to just allow myself to learn there.”

These lessons that the students learned are why I created FLYTE — and why it’s so great that so many of you support the mission too.

With the division, lack of understanding, and fear of “the other” that’s permeating our culture today, this is exactly what makes it all worth it. The fundraising, the coordinating of group travel logistics, and the challenges of running a nonprofit — worth it. These students left their comfort zones and had experiences that created a shift in their perspective.

Will this single trip of Guatemala change the world? Maybe, maybe not. But what it does is put these kids on a path toward success, toward growth, and toward thinking bigger! And we never know the ripple effect that occurs once we’ve thrown that first single pebble. By cracking open the door, we allow other things to get through that will only widen it with time.

Thank you again for helping us raise money for the school and making an impact on these teens and the future generation of globally-minded citizens!

***Three final thoughts:

First, if you or someone you know is an educator in an under-resourced school and wants to have an experience like Victor School’s, you can let us know here and we can contact you when applications are open again.

Second, just as it takes a village to raise a child, it took an entire community to send these students to Guatemala. Thank you to all our partners for making it possible for students to experience new cultures and countries and to broaden their worldviews! We are forever grateful to these sponsors:

World Nomads, our travel insurance provider, which donated coverage for all our students and chaperones. A very big thank you to them for helping out and ensuring our students were protected!

MYGHT Travel, which managed all our airline bookings and donated eye masks so the students could get some shut-eye on their flights.

Om the Go, which donated Asana pillows for the entire group. The kids practiced yoga daily and loved that they all had their own personal yoga mats to stretch out and sweat on.

Our team of FLYTE Champion blogger fundraisers, who created their own fundraising pages and helped us fund this trip: Carol (Wayfaring Views), Kristen (Kids Are a Trip), Gabi (Dream of Travel Writing), Anisa (Two Traveling Texans), Nicole (Wandering with a Dromomaniac), Amelia (Passports from the Heart), and Maggie (The World Was Here First).

Path’s Crossing, a travel card game that prompted questions that made the group both laugh hysterically and cry with gratitude. The company donated a game to Victor School and a percentage of all its sales to FLYTE.

Mahadevi Ashram, which housed the group at Lake Atitlán and provided them with daily yoga and meditation at a discounted rate.

Lastly, infinite thanks to our individual donors. We know that there are many worthy organizations out there, and we’re honored that you chose to donate to FLYTE. You made this trip happen and we can’t thank you enough!

The post The Students from the Victor School Return from Guatemala. Here’s the Recap! appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

source https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/victor-school-flyte-recap/

[enzaime-blog]

A Child's Work Is to Play

New Story has been published on https://enzaime.com/childs-work-play/

A Child's Work Is to Play

The playroom of Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Achievements program doesn’t look like a typical child’s playroom. There are no blocks, books, dolls or trucks lining the shelves or scattered about the floor. In fact, the room seems practically devoid of toys, those things that inspire the imaginations of children but it’s not. They’re here, stored neatly in clear plastic bins, one to a container, each labeled with a picture and a word describing its contents.

This room at Achievements has been carefully engineered to be easily navigated by children with autism, whose neurological impairments interfere with their natural ability to play. For most children, playing is a spontaneous act, inspiring a host of social and communication skills that are important to healthy development. Children with autism and other neurologically based disorders, as well as traumatic brain injuries, often have impairments that make it difficult to play in traditional ways. But with therapeutic interventions, support and special environments such as the highly organized playroom at Achievements, play for these children is becoming less work and more fun. Breaking play down into steps

Children with autism disorders have trouble playing because of neurological impairments that interfere with their ability to interact with their environments. These are children who explore their environments in an idiosyncratic fashion, not allowing others to fully participate. They do not play with toys in a conventional way; they must be guided. And that is essentially what Achievements Speech/Language pathologist Emily Tyson is doing when she directs 5-year-old Keith Carter to a small table by the window in the playroom. It is time to play with blocks.

“Shapes” reads the bin on the low table where they sit. Tyson points to the picture beside the word a ball and blocks and she encourages Keith to pick out the triangle block and drop it in the appropriate hole. Not only does she cue him with the picture as she speaks to him, slowly and distinctly, she uses American Sign Language. Though Keith is not hearing impaired, he has difficulty understanding the words he hears; it is as though what he hears is a foreign language that he cannot grasp for his brain does not process language appropriately. But through pictures and signs and a host of therapeutic interventions, Keith and other children like him can develop some capacity for using spoken language.

Much of the therapy that children receive at Achievements is aimed at teaching them how to play, for play requires the very skills that autistic children lack: communication, interaction with peers, the ability to engage in meaningful sequences of activities. Keith may lack the skills to play, but he obviously has the desire. When his teacher produces a big blue pompom, he shakes it, delighting in the motion, and he snaps it in her direction, teasingly, as though he’s going to swipe her with it. He chortles with delight at the prospect. But that is where it stops. In spite of the teacher’s response and her cueing, the gesture is isolated. What seemed an overture, the beginning of a game, is fleeting and never goes beyond an inclination. “Play requires sequencing and social interaction, and Keith doesn’t have the natural ability that unaffected children have for that,” Tyson explains. “So we teach him, step by step.”

The teachers and therapists at Achievements take children like Keith through the motions, and through their repetition, they learn the sequence. Eventually, they generalize it into their everyday interactions. Keith’s grandmother, Diane Armstrong, testifies to that. “Keith has really come out since he came into the program. Before, it was like he was in his own little world. Now he plays – but they’ve made him do it. I remember he used to be afraid to go up a ladder [to a slide]. His teachers made him do it, step by step, and he learned. But he was just never inclined to do it on his own to explore, like other children.”

The staff at Achievements is looking forward to the completion of a new playground, made possible through funding from the Chatlos Foundation and the Goldsmith Family Foundation, that is under construction on Kennedy Krieger’s Greenspring Campus where Achievements is located. “It will enable us to provide children with incredible opportunities to acquire the skills they need to play,” says Tyson. “The playground provides a highly motivating environment to teach language and play skills through movement.” She explains that she will use picture symbols in the classroom that correspond to pictures labeling the equipment outside to plan sequences of activities, such as, “First slide, then swing on the tire, then climb up to the platform.” A picture schedule will allow Keith to organize his play, as he will revert to his compulsive, repetitive movement without it. “For Keith, the slide is just the beginning,” Tyson says. “There’s a whole new playground and world out there for him to explore!” Inspiring motivation, learning through play

Quanir JohnsonYoungsters at Kennedy Krieger’s rehabilitative unit for children and adolescents with brain and spinal cord injuries are, on the other hand, relearning how to play. The purpose of the unit’s Child Life and Therapeutic Recreation Department is to improve or maintain children’s physical, cognitive, emotional and social functioning through recreational activities. A peek into the game closet in the department’s therapeutic playroom conveys the complexity of the challenges that these young patients face. Aggravation, Amnesia, Bonkers! Clue, Memory, Monopoly, Out-Burst! Rage!, Risk, Sorry, Solitaire, Scattergory, Uno, and The Game of Life. In the cases of the children here, the names of these games have literal meaning. A child may engage in a game of Clue, not just for fun, but to help her re-establish the memory and inductive reasoning skills that were lost as a result of a traumatic brain injury.

On this day, 9-year-old Da’Naisha Cox hoots and hollers her way through a rousing game of air hockey with her therapist, Sharon Borshay. Da’Naisha is lithe, possessing of that special gracefulness held by all natural athletes. Da’Naisha was an athlete in the making before the seizures caused by Lennox Gastault Disorder, a form of epilepsy, became severe. According to her grandfather, she walked at 9 months, and he proudly recounts how she rode her bike around the entire perimeter of Fort McHenry Park, without training wheels, when she was only 5. But following a prolonged seizure a month ago, Da’Naisha is now challenged by difficulty with speech and movement. As she sweeps her arm across the board to intercept the puck and keep her opponent from scoring, the motions are inexact, and her commentary through the course of the game slurred beyond recognition. But the desire is there, the desire to play. Caught up in the spirit of competition, she reaches further with her arm than she otherwise would, and her attempts at communication are persistent for after all, she must know who is winning and what’s the score. Da’Naisha has challenges to overcome, and play will be a major tool in the rehabilitative process. “Play is what engages children,” says Borshay. “In this department we use play, games, toys and humor to motivate the kids and keep them learning. Play is how we get kids to cooperate, to take part in their recovery, to go the extra mile.” Creative environment heightens children’s senses

Meanwhile, in a highly specialized setting at Kennedy Krieger affiliate, PACT: Helping Children with Special Needs, play is being taken to a whole new level. In the recently completed multi-sensory playroom, made possible through a grant from the Garth Brooks Foundation, children with a wide variety of neurologically based disorders are given opportunities to experience sensory stimulation that their disabilities would otherwise preclude. Toys and objects specially designed to provide high contrast colored light are perceptible to children with visual impairments. For children with hearing impairments, there are cushions that vibrate with the pulse of music, giving them a means to experience the sound. The special equipment in the multi-sensory room gives the children at PACT tools that enable them to play, and through their play, to develop cognitive skills that might otherwise be unattainable.

The stimuli in the room can be controlled to meet children’s individual needs. For a child who is unable to filter stimuli from the environment, and therefore is prone to becoming too distracted to concentrate and learn, the lighting can be dimmed, soothing music played, and his attention turned to a toy or a game that targets development of specific skills. For a child whose impairments cause sensory deprivation or lowered motivation, the room can be transformed into a highly stimulating environment. On the occasion of 2-year-old Terrance Ridley’s therapy session with his speech/ language pathologist Holly Gardiner, the room takes on the atmosphere of a discothèque.

As Terrance sits in Gardiner’s lap, he watches a floor-to-ceiling Plexiglas column filled with bubbling, colored water, and he is wide-eyed with amazement. Gardiner guides his hand to the big blue button on a switch box she has placed in front of them and presses his hand to the button. The water turns blue! Clearly excited by the effect, Terrence raises his eyes to take in the full length of the bubbling tube, in itself an achievement for this boy who is challenged to use a full range of vision. Terrance’s visual impairment is but one manifestation of the cerebral palsy that his limits range of motion, muscle control and strength, impacting his ability to sit, walk, reach and speak. But over the course of this session, Terrance reaches for and presses the button, sits with less support than he generally requires and uses his right hand, that which is most affected by excessive muscle tone problems and which he seldom favors.

The contrast between light and darkness provided by the bubble column and other apparati in the room provides useful visual opportunities for 3-year-old Quanir Johnson, as well. Quanir is visually impaired and has cerebral palsy and serious cognitive deficits. In the multi-sensory room, Qaunir is held in a supported position by his occupational therapist, Dan Eisner. His speech/language pathologist, Nancy Solomon, is nearby. When presented with long, plastic spaghetti-like strands of light, Quanir holds up his head and his eyes move, tracking them. Solomon is pleased to see him responding to the environment and encourages him to imitate the vowel sounds she makes the beginnings of communication. Not today. Quanir is so relaxed by the experience that he is falling asleep. His therapists are very pleased with his accomplishments and a discussion ensues as to how they can use the room to achieve therapeutic goals of other children in their care.

[feministfocus]

Young Feminists from Los Angeles to Kathikhera are Fighting for Global Menstrual Equity

By Ciarra Davison

The battle for menstrual equity is in full swing in Kathikhera. The village in India is at the center of The Pad Project, a new documentary following the lives of girls and women coming together to make affordable pads—and smash period stigma in the process. (We previously spoke to the film’s director.)

The installation and operation of a pad machine in Kathikhera will allow local women and girls to sustainably produce vital menstrual products—and employ them in the process. In parts of India where many women do not even know what menstruation is, let alone have access to safe and hygienic period products, this machine will also help activists raise awareness about menstrual health and educate entire communities, shifting culture in the process.

Women and girls in Kathikhera aren’t waging this fight alone. The Oakwood School chapter of Girls Learn International, a Feminist Majority Foundation program for middle- and high-school students, has partnered with Action India to help fund the installation and operations of a pad machine there. These young women, ranging in age from 13 to 19, represent the power of rising generations to make a difference. With a clear vision and determination to affect real, sustainable change that will empower girls and women for generations to come, the members of GLI Oakwood can teach us all some valuable lessons in what it truly means to be a global citizen.

Ms. spoke with five members of GLI Oakwood to discuss their involvement with The Pad Project as the film sharing its name heads into a final round of crowdfunding. Emily, 19, attends George Washington University. Claire, 18, attends the University of Pennsylvania. Sophie and Charlotte, 17, and Maggie, 13, go to Oakwood.

What inspired you to become involved in this type of advocacy work? When was the moment you knew you had to do something to help?

Emily: I was inspired to get involved in this type of advocacy work when I realized that so many issues that women and girls face globally go unrecognized by the public. I think that a project like this—one that sheds light on a subject that often gets overlooked—is exactly the type of project that needs to be made. A girl’s education should not come at the cost of her period and the lack of sanitary feminine products that she is able to obtain. This is an issue that can no longer go unrecognized because too many girls are suffering consequences that they do not deserve. We cannot continue to allow girls around the world to be deprived of their human right to an adequate education.

What is one of the most important things you would like people to learn about The Pad Project—or about life for women and girls in India—that you think is often overlooked or not commonly known?

Sophie: I think that because of the scope of the project and the immediate effect it is having on the women in India, we sometimes forget that having access to affordable menstrual products is a problem girls and women face everywhere, including here in LA. Low income families oftentimes face difficulties providing pads and tampons for their daughters and this ends up impacting the girls’ attendance at school or participation in everyday life. This is also a huge issue for homeless women. There is a taboo around menstruation everywhere, and I hope that The Pad Project can help break down the barriers surrounding these slightly more “awkward” conversations.

Do you think the progress you guys have made in all of your efforts would have been possible under the guidance of just any teacher? How do you think having Melissa Berton as your faculty advisor for GLI has influenced all of the work that you have been able to accomplish?

Charlotte: We have all had the daily experience of running into Melissa while she is speed walking to her next class and simultaneously trying to give us information or ask for our opinion on a topic in feminism. Her dedication to and excitement about feminism and social justice is proven daily by her passionate conversations with students, and is one of the main reasons I was so inspired to join GLI.

The progress we’ve made with The Pad Project is due to her passion, and would have been frankly impossible had we been working with someone less determined and excited about the subject. Showing up to every meeting with a bright smile, Melissa allowed us all to interact with her daily as a mentor, a friend, and an inspiration, which are all necessary relationships to have in a team. Melissa is one of my biggest heroes, and I truly believe that our large successes ended up coming together because of her encouragement and efforts!

How has becoming involved in The Pad Project changed your outlook or perspective, or even your life? Has it perhaps influenced what you would like to do as you get older?

Maggie: When I became a part of GLI a year ago I was surrounded by people who inspired me and really impacted the way that I think of the world. Becoming involved in The Pad Project has not only changed my view on inequality, but it has changed my view of the world and the injustice that girls and women are forced to deal with. The most inspiring thing of all was seeing the impact that The Pad Project has had already and the impact that it will continue to make in the lives of girls and women everywhere.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the project for you so far? Why?

Claire: For over five years The Pad Project was an idea that our GLI chapter would throw around at meetings, so to me, the tangibility of the project today is almost impossible to comprehend. Being able to see actual footage of the women in the village operating the pad machine is incredible because it signifies that this project is actually beginning to stimulate change. The most rewarding part of The Pad Project is knowing that the countless hours spent meeting and planning during school lunches, over the weekends, and throughout holiday breaks were worth it. The women working on the machine have expressed excitement about the project because they are encouraged to be ambitious. This grants them the opportunity to take a machine and transform it into both a prospering business and a deeply necessary resource.

The installation of the machine is also sparking the normalization of conversations about menstruation both in India and here in our own community. Many of my peers used to express discomfort whenever I would talk about this project, but recently I have noticed my friends and family opening up to the subject matter and leaning into their discomfort. At first, the majority of the women in India didn’t even know what menstruation was, so the fact that the pad machine is also promoting education and conversation about women’s health is astonishing. This all just goes to show that the purpose of this project is being fulfilled at the highest level.

How do you plan for all of the work you have done to be passed down to younger generations? What do you think is the best way to keep people involved and aware of these issues?

Emily: Even though it can sometimes seem like a daunting project and issue to take on, once you become involved, you don’t want to stop. I am going into my sophomore year of college and have not left this project behind. After becoming aware of a problem this serious—something that so many girls and women have to struggle with frequently—you have to do anything that you can to help.

Click here to support The Pad Project and help tell this story on the big screen. All donations are tax-deductible.

Ciarra Davison is an Editorial Intern at Ms. and an undergrad at UCLA, where she studies English and writes for the Politics section of FEM Newsmagazine. She dedicates her time to standing in solidarity with all oppressed groups and individuals and fighting for equal rights. She also enjoys traveling and dancing while cooking.

This story was reposted from its original post on the Ms. Magazine Blog with permission.

[nhlabornews]

Labor Speaks Out Against Ending DACA

“President Donald Trump’s move to terminate DACA and strip work authorization away from 800,000 productive members of our society is cruel and wrong,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Ending DACA will increase the pool of vulnerable workers in our country and embolden employers to retaliate against working men and women who dare to organize on the job or speak out against abusive working conditions. This indefensible act will make our workplaces less fair and less safe and will undermine our freedom to join together and fight to raise wages and standards.”

“This direct attack on union members and union values only strengthens our resolve to overcome racial divisions and demand changes to a system rigged to benefit the wealthiest and corporations. The eyes of history are upon us. The labor movement will stand with these brave young workers and fight for legislation so that the contributions they make are celebrated, rather than assaulted. We will push for a pathway to citizenship and continue to oppose enforcement policies that discriminate and generate fear in our workplaces and communities. We will not give up the struggle until all working people have rights on the job, regardless of where they were born,” Trumka added.

“President Trump has left 800,000 lives in limbo by rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). We condemn this appalling and counterproductive action,” said United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez. “Donald Trump is scapegoating immigrants who were already vetted by the federal government and who are not a threat to our country. Trump taking DACA away from Dreamers so that he can try to deport them is heartless and immoral.”

“Many Dreamers are farm workers who feed this nation or their sons and daughters. They are also doctors, lawyers, researchers, students—all of them supporting America. This is the only home most of them have known,” Rodriguez added.

“Donald Trump’s announcement today that Deferred Childhood Arrivals Act (DACA) will be terminated in six months barring congressional intervention is an astounding act of political cowardice, and a missed opportunity to make a significant step towards comprehensive immigration reform,” said UNITE HERE International President D. Taylor and General Vice President Maria Elena Durazo in a joint statement. “Donald Trump has passed the buck to Congress on what even he has acknowledged is a humanitarian crisis, because of his lack of political courage. Donald Trump, by failing to perform as a leader, has placed the fates of the 800,000 law abiding, tax-paying immigrant workers with DACA status in the hands of a dysfunctional Congress.”

“Because of Trump’s refusal to show political courage, it is now incumbent upon the American Congress to take immediate action to save DACA. The American hospitality industry relies heavily on DACA and Temporary Protective Status (TPS) workers to run, and the termination of DACA will have serious negative consequences for the tourism industry because of this. Under DACA, 800,000 immigrants have received work authorizations, including many hospitality workers and their families. Through this program, young people have been able to fulfill their dreams to live, work, study, and contribute legally to America without fear of deportation. Elimination of legal worker status will not result in immigrants self-deporting.  It will result in preventing hospitality industry workers from working lawfully and force them into the underground economy of undocumented workers exploited by bad businesses.

“Because of Donald Trump, 800,000 legal workers are now facing loss of their ability to work legally, and face deportation and loss of their families. It is imperative that the Congress act immediately to protect the 800,000 DACA workers whose fate is now in their hands. It is now up to Congress whether these nearly one million immigrants, who contribute to the American economy, live productive and meaningful lives, and attain education and employment at higher levels than natural born Americans, lose their most basic rights to live in a country they were brought to as children. UNITE HERE resoundingly condemns termination of DACA, as well as Trump’s lack of political courage, and will work tirelessly to advocate to the Republican-controlled Congress for justice for DACA workers,” UNITE HERE concluded.

“The young people covered by DACA are woven into our communities—learning in, working in, defending and contributing to the country that is their home,” said Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers. “Offering protection to DACAmented immigrants was done based on the understanding that America is stronger when we value people and create opportunity to achieve the American dream, regardless of demography or geography.”

“President Trump made a promise that he would treat Dreamers with ‘great heart.’ Now, for seemingly political reasons, he is breaking his promise to students, teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers who took him at his word. This is not the America I know—an America that says one thing to its citizens and then does another. Betraying DACA Dreamers is betraying the values of our diverse and welcoming nation. America will not be stronger or more secure when these young people are torn away from the country they love and call their own. America will be diminished—and the toll will be measured by families ripped apart, people cast into the shadows and into poverty, businesses upended, economies weakened and dreams shattered.”

“As children return to school, many carry with them constant, crippling terror and uncertainty because of their immigration status. Children should be free to learn and live without fear. Inhumane immigration policies deprive them of that freedom.”

“The AFT will continue to fight to protect undocumented students, refugees, individuals with temporary protective status, and their families from the threat of deportation. A nation built by immigrants should welcome those in pursuit of the American dream, not pull up the ladder behind us,” Weingarten concluded.

Chris Shelton, President of the Communication Workers of America called the move “cruel and mean-spirited.”

“These young people were brought here by their parents at a very young age. They know no other home than the United States, and have made productive, successful lives here, contributing to their communities and looking to be full participants in our nation.  The United States is their home country.

Democrats and Republicans, including the Republican leadership, have urged the President not to eliminate DACA. It’s now up to Congress to focus on passing legislation to protect these innocent young people. DACA should not be eliminated until Congress passes a replacement,” Shelton concluded.

“The Teamsters are disappointed by this decision, as the union has long supported immigration reform and a path to citizenship for our nation’s ‘dreamers’. These young people are already citizens in every way that matters and deserve to have all of the same rights and opportunities enjoyed by U.S.-born children,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “The Teamsters Union supports comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship.  Today’s action by the Administration makes the need for congressional action all the more urgent. It is time to pass legislation that will ensure the futures of these children and young adults so that they may pursue the American dream as millions of immigrants have done before them.”

“Many of the young people covered by DACA are young professionals, working as teachers, doctors, nurses, and lawyers, who contribute greatly to the American economy,” said Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) President Paul E. Almeida. “By eliminating the DACA program, President Trump is ripping over 800,000 hard-working young people from their communities, jobs, and families. DPE stands with the young professionals and union members affected by the termination of DACA and will work to help these young people stay in the place that they call home.”

“President Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) today is a disgrace. This is not what the United States of America represents, nor is it who we are. This policy is another clear example of White Supremacy strategies and tactics and we denounce it,” said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union Local 226 (Las Vegas). “This action is shameful and completely stains the Republican party. We call on Republican legislators in the Senate and Congress to support young immigrants and work with Democrats to pass a clean, stand-alone DREAM Act. We call on our Las Vegas employers on the Las Vegas Strip and in Downtown Las Vegas to stand with your workforce and to not let this immoral decision pass quietly. ”

“Instead of putting young people on a pathway to citizenship, the administration’s heartless act today forces immigrant children into the shadows of our society based solely on their immigrant status,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Reversing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program renders undocumented people targets for unscrupulous employers, wage theft, and other abuses in the workplace, limits educational opportunities, and weakens the economic well-being of their families, including their citizen spouses, siblings and offspring.  It is also a cruel example of how the current Administration’s advancement of policies that promote racial and ethnic profiling and xenophobia have further emboldened white nationalists, who have a history of contributing to a climate of fear and hate.”

“Even after the departure of Steve Bannon, the Trump Administration continues to signal that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is brimming with white nationalist-fueled policies,” said Jobs With Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta. “Rather than going after greedy CEOs and corporations that depress wages, offshore jobs, fuel economic insecurity, and make workplaces worse, President Trump has decided to scapegoat young immigrants who are working hard, contributing to the U.S. economy, and making a better life for themselves and their families.”

United We Dream is organizing support rallies for Dreamers all across the country.  Click here to find an event near you. 

Below is an infographic from United We Dream of the 5 thinks to know about the end of DACA.

(Featured image from  Not 1 More rally in 2014. Image by the LBJ Foundation FLIKR)

Labor Speaks Out Against Ending DACA was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

[darbiblog-blog]

Stress Education And Reservation

New Post has been published on https://darbi.org/stress-education-and-reservation/

Stress Education And Reservation

forbes education rankings

education best high schools

top private high schools in us

news universities

Stress at individual and social levels; distorts our cognition, affect and conation (perception, feelings, and actions); and leads to amongst many other evils; deterioration of international, national and local education policy and its implementation. The present day non-holistic (sectarian, prejudiced, vindictive, malicious, mercenary, exploitative and malevolent) education (formal, curricular, co-curricular, extracurricular and informal) is a major stressor that though aids in petty pursuits; opposes our blossoming and further perpetuates stress and ill effects in the individual and social life. Let us the review; the present perspective, policy, and practice of education; as seen around.

Even though education is defined in various ways; and often inadequately or incompletely; there has been a general agreement on the fact that education is basically a process of the blossoming of an individual and the society. Hence it included three domains, which are as follows.

The first domain is called AFFECTIVE DOMAIN. This means the state of mind. In simple words, affective domain relates to how we feel. Thus when our mind is full of alertness, attention, enthusiasm, buoyancy, affection, concern, joy, tolerance, self-esteem, mutual respect, mutual trust, commitment, dedication, love, romance, confidence, positive and victorious spirit, we would call it healthy affective domain. In addition; the zeal and concentration needed; in the pursuit of excellence in the intellectual field, tenacity and endurance required; in skillful activities and patience and commitment essential; for internally satisfying and socially beneficial (conscientious) actions constitute affective domain. The purpose of education is to nurture this domain by designing suitable curricula and syllabi.

The second domain of education is called PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN. This implies the ability to appreciate skills and ability to perform physical and mental skills, with speed, accuracy, elegance, ease of performance etc. This may involve appreciation and performance of skills such as surgery, playing a musical instrument, playing basketball or doing carpentry! The purpose of education is to nurture this domain through not only designing suitable curricula, syllabi but also by providing sufficient practical and demonstration classes; with all the necessary equipment.

The third domain is called COGNITIVE DOMAIN. Cognitive domain incorporates accurate perspective, contemplation, correct perception understanding, conceptualization, analysis and recall of fact and problems, ability to evaluate, synthesize, correlate and make decisions, appropriate policies, plans, and expertise in the management, administration, etc.

It is clear that all these domains have three components each viz. Cognition [Perception], affect [Feelings] and donation [Response].

Thus cognitive domain would have intellectual perception, clarity and intellectual expression, an affective domain would include feeling, motivation, and response in an emotional sphere such as poetry; and psychomotor domain would include grasp and internalization of a particular skill, confidence to perform it and actually performing it.

Let us now see, how in spite of these goals; how it has come to be conceived as a process of achieving political, economic, scientific and technological supremacy and thus deteriorated to the present stage; where all the three domains are defective; apart from lacking in the spiritual and productive domains. In short; let us see how it has become a major stressor.

definition of stress

4 major types of stress

how stress affects the body

For this; a brief consideration of the traditional education system in India would prove useful.

Traditional Education System in India in general; ensured that: a] Careers were not selected on the basis of monetary gains, b] Careers were not selected arbitrarily on the basis of idiosyncrasies and whims, c] Some lucrative careers could not be sought after; in preference to the others, d] All careers ensured income and production from the early age, e] All careers ensured that the society was benefited, f] All careers ensured security to all the social groups, g] All the careers ensured intimacy and closeness between young and old in the families. h] All careers ensured ethical education and passage of experience and wisdom; from generation to generation.

These were merits. But it is also true that the traditional system was apparently marked by deprivation of scholastic education on mass scale, apparently unjustifiable availability of education of jobs based on caste, deficient infrastructure for collective scientific and technological efforts, and an element of arbitrary imposition of hierarchy.

The traditional education system has attained the present status of being a major stressor as a result of several stressful factors including the onslaught of the tempting and impressive individualistic doctrines. Thus the transition from traditional system to the present one (whether due to British, American or any other influence, but basically due to individualistic pursuits); has become a major stressor tearing apart the cohesive social fabric of India by failing to preserve and nurture the merits and discard and dispose of the demerits.

As the education shifted from homes, home industries and farms to; nurseries, K.G. schools, schools, colleges, universities, corporate industries, research institutions etc. the transition became viciously poisonous.

Cognition suffered because of: a] a huge number of students, in a single class making following three things almost impossible. These things are i] individual attention ii] dialogue iii] discussions, b] Lack of adequate salary, accountability, incentive and economic security to the teachers taking away the initiative of nurturing cognitive domain c] Increase in alienation with respect to student’s background and aptitude d] Lack of adequate incentive to the students in the form of creativity, production, and learning, service to the family and service to the nation, takes away the motivation required for building up cognitive domain e] Lack of conviction essential to the growth of cognitive domain in the teachers and students because of outdated practical and demonstration classes, lack of interdisciplinary dialogue and in general the irrelevance of education to the realities of day to day life in as much as almost predictable consecutive unemployment at the end! The lack of conviction could be partly due to lack of participation by teachers in decision-making, policy-making, development of curricula, syllabi etc. f] Emphasis on recall and hence rote learning thereby denying free inquiry, reading, questioning etc. thereby directly thwarting the cognitive domain g]] Too many examinations; with irrelevant parameters or criteria of evaluation [besides being unfair in many instances] leading to misguided and in most cases counterproductive efforts thus adversely affecting the cognitive domain h] Competitions where the manipulative skills, callousness, selfishness are given more respect, destroy the enthusiasm of growing in the cognitive domain i] Information explosion affecting cognitive domain by either causing the enormous and unnecessary burden on memory or inferiority complex j] Pressure of interviews causing constant tension and sense of inadequacy, right from the tender age, k] Protracted hours of homework in schools denying the students their legitimate right to enjoy their childhood and make them physically, mentally and intellectually unfit to grow in the cognitive domain l] Irrelevant and unnecessary information loading in lectures in the form of a monologue, leading to suppression of the spontaneity, originality, interest and enthusiasm so much required in cognitive development amongst the students,

Affective domain suffered due to, A] Isolation of the children from their parents and their domestic environment at an early age [Making the parents also equally sad] B] Lack of warm bonds due to huge number, C] Cutthroat individualistic and petty competition, D] Inadequate facilities of sports, trekking, educational tours, recreation and physical development etc E] Alienation from one’s social environment and culture

Psychomotor domain suffered due to A] Almost total lack of opportunities to actually participate in skillful activities such as drawing, painting, sewing, sculpturing, carpentry, knitting, weaving, music, agriculture, horticulture, other handicrafts, various sports, performing arts etc.

It is important to realize that promotion of psychomotor domain is evident but in its caricature form. It has no concrete economic realistic basis. The activities have no economic incentive and no productive element.

Apart from the defects in the three domains; the other two domains viz. spiritual and productive; have not TOTALLY ABSENT in the education.

The spiritual domain that imparts universal perspective and globally beneficial outlook; incorporates inner blossoming of an individual through introspection, heart to heart communication (not merely discussion and arguments), mutual understanding and blossoming of the teachers and students together; through one of a universal practices; viz. NAMASMARAN. Thus the spiritual domain is a key to conquering lust, whims, fancies, pride, arrogance, callousness, contempt, ungratefulness, prejudices, jealousy, hatred, meanness, meekness, beggary, cheating, stealing, treachery and so on; is never made available to the teachers, students and the others; associated with education.

The present education system in India lacks the other important domain viz. the productive domain that empowers the people concerned with education. This prevents a huge section of society such as teachers, students, clerks, servants, sweepers and many others such as education inspectors, from being creative and productive. In addition, it causes colossal loss of space, electricity, construction cost and so on. In addition, because of the typical emphasis on rote learning, it leads to phenomenal waste of “educational material” such as paper, bags, pencils, ball pens etc.

It has to be appreciated that billions of rupees are spent on unproductive or rather counterproductive exercise of construction, decoration, and maintenance of schools and colleges, electricity, and so-called educational material, payment of millions of teachers and other staff members engaged, and exams conducted to test the “capacity and merit of rote learning”. This way we weaken the national economy, jeopardize the developmental activities.

It also causes economic loss to everyone involved in education; while suppressing and starving their all three domains nurtured in productive activity. This is a single most important cause of 1] Reduction in the dignity of labor amongst those who continue to learn, as well as reduction in the income of the concerned families and the nation 2] Lack of education, lack of employment and starvation or criminalization amongst those who are forced to drop out because the poor villagers’ children normally contribute to the earning of the family. 3] Inhuman suffering of those millions of students dropouts, who somehow manage to get into the hell of cheap child labor for subsistence; due to economic reasons.

In short, present day education system harnesses arrogance and diffidence; amongst those who continue to learn. But their spiritual, cognitive, psychomotor, affective and productive domains are defective. Their spiritual blossoming, self-empowerment, creative wisdom, intellectual competence, productive skills, self-sufficiency and even physical health are deficient. Thus we have an increasing number of unproductive criminals and mental wrecks or highly competitive efficient maniacs pursuing petty goals at the cost of others!

For those who are unable to continue the education; the abyss of being child labor, stealing, delinquency, criminals, perverts, beggars is wide open!

The piecemeal approach or facilitation of petty pursuits (under the guise of development and progress) is not only useless but are in fact counterproductive! It leads to a cancerous spread of industries with the uncontrolled production of unnecessary utilities and their maddening marketing. These industries consume energy, fuel and add to disposable waste and pollution. This sickening and stressful atmosphere nurtured by the present education; promotes the growth of terrorism on the one hand, and pretends to act against it (in a counterproductive way) on the other!

Mainstream Education System and the courses and careers in it; revolve around and serve the grossly petty and superficial considerations, motivations and interests and this state of affairs; is strongly protected and strengthened by the elements with similar interests! Hence the present laws, rules, and regulations also promote present education and its ill effects.

Some institutions and individuals, for whom we have great respect, are involved in the holistic approach to education (mainstream, formal, informal, curricular, co-curricular, extracurricular as well as education of physically and mentally challenged children). But these efforts are too feeble to make a difference to our life.

While piecemeal approaches are failing; there is no adequate awareness and promotion of holistic education, which leaves the vicious cycle of stress distorting education and distorted education creating, aggravating and spreading the stress; to continue unabashedly and unabated.

Hence; the ill effects of stress on present education and vice versa; can be eradicated if we understand and propagate the defects in present education and promote holistic education as an international solution. It has to be appreciated that no statesman, no political leader, no policy maker and no administrator can bring about change in an existing system (in democratic set up); unless we evolve a consensus about the changes in the majority of people; whose cooperation is very vital.

In short; the policy of holistic education; demands that every school, college, university etc must become the center of production and service, self-sufficient and must aid in self-sufficiency and blossoming of everyone involved in education and also of the nation.

The students, teachers and others associated with education; must blossom as independent and empowered individuals; spiritually, intellectually, mentally, instinctually, physically and economically.

In practice; every day; approximately 20 % of the time must be spent in production, service etc. 20 % of the time must be spent in physical activities 20 % of the time must be spent in personality (conceptual and spiritual) development and 20 % of the time must be spent in entertainment 20 % of the time must be spent on cognitive domain

20 % of the time must be spent in production, service etc.

1. The productive domain should be an essential ingredient of education System, but no particular job should be enforced. The teachers and others should participate in the productive domain. Production and service can involve community projects such plantation of medicinal herbs, rearing of cows, home flower gardening, production of chalk sticks, carpentry, pottery, cleanliness, crafts, skills, arts and their sale according to the situations. Working physically in different ways and learning is not a burden. It is an opportunity to grow from within. It is an opportunity to develop our self-esteem. It is an opportunity to become self-sufficient.

2. This leads to self-sufficiency in schools. They do not have to depend on heavy fees or federal grants or donations and this way they become accessible to all; rendering the reservations redundant!

3. Through productive domain, the hypokinetic stress, emotional stress of being dependent and intellectual stress of excessive memorizing is averted.

4. Due to the productive domain, the dropping out due to lack of earning (as is common in the case of millions of students in many parts of the world) and then turning into helpless, vulnerable and cheap child labor would come down. 5. Being empowered, the students would not go through the stress of unemployment and turn into helpless, frustrated mental wrecks or criminals.

6. The emphasis on the productive domain (and hence psychomotor and practical aspects) would bring down the necessity and also the capability and possibility to “copy” and associated crimes and corruption in procedures of examinations, certification, providing grants and so on!

The caste based or any other kind of reservation for education, jobs, and promotions; responsible for social divide and strife; in many parts of the world; (especially India) can be rendered redundant and thus; peacefully and advantageously done away with, by consensus!

Most importantly; we have to introduce and incorporate examinations, which examine the actual skill, capacity or performance of the student, rather than his/her ability to repeat or reproducing things and/or copying.

20 % of the time must be spent in physical activities

Physical activities can include pranayama, sports, exercise, trekking, hiking, a variety of physical fitness training programs and methods to avoid monotony and improve efficacy. A variety of sports prevalent in every other part of the world can make the programs more interesting, entertaining thereby promoting global unity.

20 % of the time must be spent in personality (conceptual and spiritual) development and

Personality development includes affective domain, spiritual domain and embodies broadening of perspective through various means such as; NAMASMARAN, by hearing and chanting prayers, poems and songs from different languages and countries thereby promoting global unity, invited guest lectures, seminars, discussions on holistic health, educational tours and visits to places where the student gets exposed to rapid developments in the society such as laboratories, airports, government offices, share market, farms etc.

20 % of the time must be spent in entertainment

Entertainment that enriches the soul; not only should include playing musical instruments, dance, painting, mimicry, singing, story telling, drama, movie etc. but everything that nurtures the affective domain and spiritual domain as well.

20 % of the time must be spent on cognitive domain

Development of cognitive domain can include the teaching of languages, history, geography, mathematics etc with utmost emphasis on interpretation and relevance in day to day life. Thus typical irrelevant questions in the examination of history, languages, mathematics; should be totally done away with. The subject such as economics, psychology, civics, philosophy, logic, sociology etc must include field work and made relevant to the present society.

We must encourage a maximum and daily person to person interaction and dialogue amongst the teachers and students; so that analytical, synthetic, contemplative, decision-making, troubleshooting, and problem-solving capacities are developed optimally.

Let us realize the fact that the vicious cycle of stress distorting education and distorted education causing and multiplying stress e.g. in the form of RESERVATION POLICY and its ILL EFFECTS; in individual and social life; can NOT be managed effectively unless and until; a situation where millions are “imprisoned” in unproductive work and millions are forced into unemployment and inhuman cheap child labor; is eradicated through holistic education policy and its implementation; at international, national and local levels; through the laws, government rules and public awareness, consensus and participation.

The details of practical steps can be developed by interactions amongst the people active in the field of education all over the world. But we all need;

1, Perspective and conviction of Global Unity and global welfare 2. Readiness to accept and introduce physiological insights and principles in the holistic education 3. Readiness and openness to have dialogue with experts in other fields 4. Participation from the society and governments and the media including internet websites, so that holistic education activists all over the world can have a meaningful dialogue and share views, work and experiences and maybe, inspire others! 5. Administrative proficiency and due care and concern for the physical capacities of the children (normal as well as the physically and mentally challenged) and should not be painful and troublesome. 7. The opportunities for psychomotor activities and productive activities; without impositions.8. Every kind of open-mindedness and tolerance amongst teachers and students; so that better international relations can be realized.

united airlines reservations

where are the Indian reservations today

list of Indian reservations by state

[thephilologist-blog]

Games in teaching vocabulary to lower primary school learners of English - Jakub Łopuszański

Lower primary school learners learn by using all available resources from their surrounding environment. Cognitive, interactive abilities have a key role in their learning of English. It is really worth taking this into account and adjust the teaching methods and techniques to their needs.

           Dorota Sikora-Banasik is of the opinion that “despite the diversity of the development of students, it can be assumed that the processes of teaching foreign languages and developing awareness of the multicultural are subjected to limited possibilities to perceptive students largely”[1].

The important limitation may be the lack of reading and writing skills that are acquired gradually, first with a different effect in the kindergarten, and then in a three-year period of education in the primary school. Not without significance are also still little developed learning strategies available to students in this age group, that usually are not experienced in communicating in a foreign language and a personal confrontation with the others. The fact is that at least the first phase of the learning a foreign language process  must be a period without a text.

           In this case a special role should be assigned to the kinesthetic techniques. Introducing them in the learning stage allows to stimulate all the senses of the child. At the same time, these techniques and games, can become an effective way to transfer children to aspects of socio-cultural life, music, nature, etc. while retaining the rank of the objectives set out in the foreign language course. it can be assumed that the games satisfy children's interests and needs (mobility, cognitive, emotional and social) and, at the same time, allows the child to build its self-esteem, receive new experiences, especially in the context of social interaction. D. Sikora-Banasik points out that “the game, however, a variety of fun, intensifies the interactions of the child with the immediate environment. Participation not only stimulates the need for competition, but also it teaches about patience and perseverance”[2]. The evolution of social attitudes, proposed in the concept of intercultural learning, will serve just in such a game, in which achievement is possible only as a result of the collaboration, or as a result of a compromise between the participants of the game. The main purpose of  games for foreign language lessons is to develop vocabulary, structure, efficiency of phonetic, communicative and bringing new cultural context. Their presence in the classroom increases the motivation of students, develops memory, perception and the ability to concentrate. The active participation in games prevents aggression, passivity and persistence, allows learners to relieve tension and stress. Thanks to them, the children learn to compete, but also interact with their peers and work in a team. On the one hand, the verbalization is trained and on the other one it supports the development of the motor skills of students[3].

1.      Board Games

           The primary goal of foreign language teaching is to build communication skills. This is impossible without vocabulary. Learning vocabulary brings students of primary school a possible problem. Board games are attractive form of entertainment and a valid manner for students and their development of lexical resources. While playing, students learn without effort, repeat and perpetuate vocabulary subconsciously. Depending on the needs of children, games can be scheduled for the entire classroom or only a part of it. it is the teacher's role to prepare interesting board games and adapt them to the foreign language level of a particular group of students.

           Sławomir Wiechowski concludes that “board games teach the principles of competition – sooner or later children will face a race to the end. Board games give them the opportunity to prepare for it, what is called fair competition and what the rules should be subjected to”[4]. Board games implant honesty on the occasion of the play with parents, older siblings can indicate that cheating in the game (and similarly in life) is not worth doing it. Board games teach teamwork, this skill develops greatly in team games when children learn the general principles of cooperation and work in a team, learn how to help, and teach that they can have much fun with their peers and the teacher.

           The younger the child is, the learning is perceived as something cool and fun. Through playing, a child not only improves physical ability, but also learns how to count. A board game is an effective escape from boredom for little children. With the usage of interesting games, learners are less bored and they are full of ideas. The approach is also addressed to parents and teachers, who should be involved to promote board games to help children learn about fair play and deploy them in life. Games are an alternative for the computer and the television, a form of leisure activates at home and school. Playing together  creates a special bound among the players. The formed and integration of peer environment allow children to discharge accumulated emotional tension safely. To play, children must learn to cooperate. it is the priceless ability nowadays. Board games are a safe way to practice what is a failure and how to carry it off. The next value of board games is training students' attention span, memory, mute and how to analyze particular situation. These skills, exercised in the form of fun, are the essence for a better functioning of the child at school. it gives children faith that they know, they can and consequently increase their self-esteem and motivation to overcome difficulties.

2. Puzzle Games

           Puzzle games are one of the few activities that for a child will be both enjoyable and useful. Puzzle are kind of entertainment, fun, where the large images are created with small items with a specific shape. Thanks to them children can experience unforgettable moments with the whole family or with peers in the classroom. Children play for pleasure and satisfaction with the possibility to explore something new, what works for their imagination and sensitivity. For years the puzzle occupy high ranking of favourite toys for toddlers and older children.

Children up to 3 years of age are delighted by the foam puzzle pieces, which consist of a few items, and are very safe, because of its large size and a soft construction. Such puzzles are a game, which supports the development of the intelligence of the child, as well as its development of a motor command.

Renata Owińska emphasizes that:

Lower Primary School Learners, who are trying to make a picture (for example the hero of their beloved cartoon), have a sense of something that they create, that it is something magical for them by giving out small effort and suddenly the strewn items formed the image of their favourite characters[5].

Similar themes of integrity also applies to older children. Puzzles raise commitment and at the same time encourage children to perseverance, focus and plan their own activities. it is very important, however, that the level of difficulty of the puzzle pieces fit to age and skills of children. The mistake often made by parents or teachers is to buy a jigsaw puzzle with too many elements, to grow a belief that putting together complicated images of a large number of elements is suitable for children because they seem so simple for adults.

           If children start to stack puzzles more often and early enough, they will learn more quickly about letters and numbers. Fun puzzles prepare children to learn to reading and writing, because they use common steps of organization to processes of observation: the ability to make the operation of visual analysis and synthesis. Stacking puzzles are related directly to the areas responsible for the perception, the ability to differentiate shapes, coordination of analyzers (eyes and hands). This is especially important for children at risk for dyslexia or revealing dysfunction about this profile, which is manifested by the form of: confusion of letters, writing, graphic characters in mirror image, problems with directional orientation (confusion between the right and left pages), disorders of attention span and coordination.

3. Domino

           Domino is a game in which tiles are called as stones. Each tile is divided into two squares, which is the same as normal dice. The most popular version consists of 28 stones: all combinations of numbers from 0 to 6.

           Kuba Libre believes that:

Domino is a game and a form of spending free time cultivated by people of different age. However, it has some special features that make it a game useful in children's education. Personally, I find it worthy to delineate three such qualities: Domino, despite its simplicity, requires strategic thinking, it is a perfect arithmetic exercise and Domino as a game has special social values[6].

           Domino is based on matching identical motifs on two components. This is one of the simplest operations that require mental effort. it teaches the perception and it is a great memory exercise. Simple games can be a natural introduction to more complex games. The set of six domes consists of 28 stones. Thanks to this, all tactical-strategic issues are easy to understand and apply in practice. In domino games, it is easy to control the length of the game. Setting up reasonable time limit prevents young players from boredom. Based on simple rules, dominoes are considered to be an excellent introduction to strategic games and logical thinking. The amount of moves a domino player has at his disposal is relatively small. Very often the learner has only one possibility of movement. Such a decision making process makes the game easier for a young and inexperienced player, but does not deprive him of the opportunity to make right and logical decisions. Domino as every strategy game is based on luck in choosing stones. This limits prevents complex and multi-threaded analysis and prediction of the game's many forward moves. The player adjusts his moves to the current point rather than bounds them into a complicated strategy. A random element makes a novice able to win with an experienced player which favours young learners.

           For many children, practicing simple arithmetic with the help of dominoes is as important as the ability of logical thinking. Playing dominoes requires the ability to add and subtract small numbers. The undoubted advantage of a domino is the ability to play one set of domino games of different rules. Therefore it can be easy to find a game suitable for the number and experience of players. Simple dominoes with a classic finishing style are appropriate to introduce a young player into the world of 28 stones. Numerous variants allow to diversify the game play. Introducing even a small change in the already known game prevents boredom. One of the most interesting ways of playing is the so-called partner domino which is two versus two. it teaches a young player to work with a partner that is a valuable skill in adult life. With the perfect balance of the impact of fate and skill, children are great partners in this game. Young learners are quick to sense that. The element of competition is an important manner of education in domino, students learn how to receive a defeat and how to express joy of victory.

4. Online Games

           According to Irena Adamek, it is “worth to pay attention to the computer's possibilities in the manner of education. it appears in the work of the students in the universal scale”[7]. Computer education has a great future in teaching English. Introducing computer games in education helps children with their reflex and in improving motor functions. Strategy games enhances the ability of logical thinking and prediction of the effects.

           In addition to this, in contrast to the teacher, computers possess unlimited patience and never turn out on students by showing a bad mood or dislike. Ongoing activity of the computer and its friendly attitude produces a positive motivation of the students, a boring lesson turns into an interesting play. The process of education supported by computer also provides the stimulation of situational models, the availability of an individual role and team learning games. The computer not only supports these processes, but also registers the learning effects, indicates difficulties, gives additional explanations. it provides the exercises to perform, simulates processes and difficult situations, presents the problem situations and makes it easier for their solution, and stores achievements in the memory of the students[8].

           Marta Bednarska emphasises that the impact of computer games is based on their content, therefore, a positive impact is observed mainly in the use of educational games, training or therapy. The content of this kind of games is tailored to the purpose to be used in the education[9]. Among the educational proposal programs designed for younger players, are used to learn reading and counting, learning foreign languages, mathematics, and other school subjects. How the game will affect the potential player, depends primarily on the personality of the child, the age, temperament and character traits, the quality of the ties in a family environment and other factors. Many of the authors do not approach the topic of the impact of the games. Scientists are in agreement as to the fact that the blame for the negative impact cannot be only put on technology. It is crucial to know how to use it properly, then the game does not become a source of negative, it is needed to keep the border and moderation in the use of games, and that's the biggest issue leading to addiction, which teachers, children, teenagers or parents face.

5. The Big Kahoot game

           Kahoot![10] is a free platform for creating and conducting interactive quizzes, games and polls. Teacher can use students’ mobile device and plan an interesting lesson. by putting questions, the option of inserting photos or excerpts from YouTube movies is allowed. Kahoot! is an application that shows the cooperation of tablets and computers. Learners have a Kahoot application on their tablets or phones and after entering the game pin number the fun starts. In my opinion, The Big Kahoot game is the biggest organizational challenge for the children because of the fact that not every child can handle operating the Internet. However, to my surprise, while conducting lessons from My Diploma Project, the students handled with the inclusion of a proper website and typing down special PIN code that appeared on the interactive whiteboard quite well. The students confirmed that they had a great time playing Kahoot and would try to play it with their parents at home. This message delighted me greatly because I knew that I had contributed the students’ desire to learn at home. When asked which game of all three lessons was best for them, learners answered chorally that it was Kahoot, although they liked the previous two too.

           It is worth mentioning that the use of  the variants would be applicable in the older classes. Much depends on the preparation of the game and exercise data. Furthermore, it is crucial to involve an important factor that students learn quickly by performing entertaining activities for them. While introducing the  game Kahoot, I managed to make so great impression on the students that they decided to play Kahoot with their parents at home, which made me extremely glad.

           To sum up, I came to conclusion that the exercises with games have expanded the students' knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and cultural aspects. I would like to recommend to  combine the aspects of introducing games, even online with the corresponding visualization and the TPR method frequently. In my opinion, this brings enormous effects as far as teaching Lower Primary School Learners is concerned.  

Opieka merytoryczna: dr Iwona Gryz.

Sources:

[1] D. Sikora-Banasik, Wczesnoszkolne nauczanie języków obcych. Zarys teorii i praktyki, Centralny Ośrodek Doskonalenia Nauczycieli, Warszawa 2009, p. 171.

[2] Ibidem.

[3] Ibidem, p. 172.

[4] www.wiechowski.znadplanszy.pl/2014/09/19/powody-dla-ktorych-warto-grac-w-gry-planszowe-z-dziecmi/, accessed on 2nd January 2017

[5]www.przedszkole64.waw.pl/edukacja_rodzica/publikacje_nauczycieli/puzzle-opracowala_mgr_renata_owinska/, accessed on 10th January 2017.

[6] www.domino6.blox.pl/strony/dziendziecka.html, accessed on 3rd May 2017.

[7] I. Adamek, Podstawy Edukacji Wczesnoszkolnej, Oficyna Wydawnicza Impuls, Kraków 1997, pp. 106 – 107.

[8] Ibidem.

[9]www.badaniagier.pl/oddzialywanie-gier-dzieci, accessed on 15th February 2017.

[10] www.getkahoot.com/, accessed on 20th May 2017.