'Brooklyn castle' trailer. (Youtube)
'Brooklyn Castle' families turn to chess, avoid checkmate by Sandy (+video)
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, parents struggle to help their children cope with the fact that their homes are no longer their castles and the uncertainty each new day brings. Last night some of the stars of the new documentary film "Brooklyn Castle" talked to me by phone while sitting in the green room of "The Daily Show." They reflected on how chess is their anchor for every kind of storm life throws at them.
“Chess is about patience and strategy. That’s what you need to get through any kind of tough time, or challenge in life,” said Pobo Efekoro who was 12 in the film and is now age 16. “We need that now with the challenges we face in this country. In chess, everything you do you need a plan, a series of plans actually. It’s a direct correlation between chess and survival.”
Oh, to be a parent, hearing a teen deliver such an insightful response because a board game helps him organize his mind and analyze what is thrown at him moment to moment!
"Brooklyn Castle" follows the lives of five members of the chess team at Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, a below-the-poverty-line inner-city junior high school that has won more national championships than any other in the nation. In the film, the biggest obstacle arises not from other competitors, but from budget cuts to extracurricular activities at the school. After Sandy hit on Oct. 30, those funding issues will probably be the Grandmaster of all opponents and the thing they are fighting to save, is the very thing empowering them to fight.
In the movie, Pobo then in 7th grade, parented his teammates when they were faced with losing games, funding and hope. It was Pobo who offered life strategies based on the lessons he’d learned playing chess.
Like many parents watching the film, I said a silent prayer that any one of my four sons would be so caring as to sacrifice his own game in the cause of helping others achieve greatness.
His mother, Christiana Inuwere was not surprised by his behavior in the documentary. “Chess made him more mature,” she said. “He always was a soft heart for everybody, but chess made him. It added more to him.”
One student who didn’t make it to the green room, is Patrick Johnston, age 11 in the film, now 15 and living in Neptune, N.J. He was not one of the school’s star players, but became one of my instant favorites as he fought his own nature, using chess as a weapon against ADHD.
The hurricane and following nor’easter this week, plus the failing economy has forced Patrick’s family to change the game repeatedly in order to survive. Chess has been his anchor in a storm-tossed life.
“I won’t lie, it’s been rough for us in a lot of ways. In the storm, the lights went out and stayed out and no sooner did they go on than the snow storm knocked them right out again,” said Lisa Johnston. The family moved from Brooklyn to Neptune just over a year ago when her husband lost his printing job there and was offered one in Jersey. When her husband was laid off from the new job, Patrick’s mom opened a small shop “On Point” in Point Pleasant Beach last year. “I really don’t have much hope that the area around the shop will come back soon enough to help us out,” she said. So far, life has had this family in "check."
Mrs. Johnston discovered chess “helped calm the (ADHD) hamster wheel in Patrick’s brain and got him to focus and find ways around daily problems.” It became her go-to parenting play ever since he first began to play in the 7th grade.
During Sandy, and again in the frozen nor’easter that again knocked-out their electricity, she said, “My house filled-up with kids. Patrick set up the chessboards. It was just soothing, a great comfort, to see this room in candlelight, and all of them so quietly occupied in chess.”
“In a way, the storm was a good thing for my son because no matter where he is there’s always chess as something that’s not only familiar, but something that he can teach others and that gives him confidence,” she said.
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Back in the green room at "The Daily Show in New York," I asked Pobo if, with his prodigious ability to look many moves ahead, he had foreseen sitting and waiting to be interviewed by Jon Stewart. Pobo laughed, “No way in the world! Wow, look where I am! Look where it’s taken all of us. Even for a chess player it’s a lot to take in.”
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.
Rescue dog Albie learns manners from Turn Around Training teacher Michelle Welch in Westwood, Mass., Nov. 6, 2012. (Courtesy of Peter Zheutlin)
Rescue dog: Puppy obedience training classes for dogs and humans
Last Tuesday night was the first night of doggie training school for Albie and, well, for us, too. It felt like the first day of kindergarten, especially when we met the first of Albie’s classmates, a pug named Larry. Seriously.
There are four dogs in the class, all beyond the puppy stage (there’s a separate class for them), and Albie was by far the largest at about 75 pounds. Larry and the other two probably weigh 25 pounds – total. So, Albie looked like the overgrown kid, the goofy one trying hard to fit in and who’s always told to play catcher in pick-up baseball games on the sandlot.
We’d been there about two minutes waiting for class to start when Albie decided to urinate on the floor, something he never does at home.
At first I thought he was nervous, but Michelle, our teacher and the proprietor of Turn Around Training, explained that it happens often. By day, the space is a doggie day care, and for some dogs the scents and the urge to mark territory are overpowering.
Still, I felt like the father of the problem kid.
Once class started, Albie focused on Michelle like a laser as she explained how to teach a dog to obey various commands, a technique that relies heavily on food rewards. But there’s a subtle difference between using treats as rewards versus bribes: The former recognizes requested behavior; the latter induces behavior the dog should do on command but refuses to do until you dangle a food bribe. And we learned not to constantly repeat commands such as “sit” or “lie down” in rapid fire succession: you want the dog to have time to work out what you expect of them.
Seeing is believing, and it was astonishing to watch as Albie, Larry, and the others quickly grasped the concepts. The humans were a little slower to catch on.
Michelle explained that you want your dog to respond to your voice commands, not physical cues, so that, for example, if you come home with your arms filled with groceries and can’t gesture, you want the dog to respond to your voice.
But I repeatedly found myself using small gestures or bowing down when telling Albie to sit, which is a no-no. Maybe a small food reward for the humans would be an effective teaching tool.
We also learned some other interesting things, some quite counter-intuitive. For one, we’ve had Albie’s harness – the one that helps reduce his urge to pull on the leash – on backwards.
Second, when I take Albie for walks we invariably encounter other dogs, and it’s impossible to predict how the interaction will go. Sometimes the dogs just give one another a passing sideways glance. At other times, the dogs strain on their leashes like two long lost lovers rediscovering each other in London after the Blitz. Sometimes there’s aggressive play and at other times some real hostility.
But telling the difference between rough play and a fight, at least to our untrained eyes, can be tough. That’s why there’s a tendency when the dogs begin to get aggressive to tighten up on the leash. Michelle advised the opposite. Loosen up on the leash or let go: It reduces the chances the dogs will fight. Tight restraint tends to escalate aggressive behavior.
There are five more classes to go, by which time I expect to be a very well-trained companion for Albie. But Albie will always be the coolest kid in the class.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.
2012 Elections: Obama appears to have won the Battle for Mom, with 53 percent of the votes cast by mothers, according to exit polls. Here Amy Deming (left) cast her ballot Nov. 6 as her son Max, 4, played with his V-Reader at Pony Express Elementary School in Eagle Mountain, Utah. (The Salt Lake Tribune/AP)
2012 Elections: Did Obama win the Battle for Mom?
Initial results in the Battle For Mom are in. And the winner, exit polls show, is President Barack Obama.
(Sound familiar?)
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Yes, 56 percent of voting mothers cast their ballots in Election 2012 for Obama, according to exit poll numbers reported by Fox News, while 43 percent picked GOP contender Mitt Romney. That’s about the same edge the president had among all female voters, which went 55 percent for Mr. Obama and 44 percent for Mr. Romney.
This, mind you, after a presidential campaign that put motherhood and apple pie even more front-and-center than usual. I mean, we even got the Mommy Wars involved, if you can think way back to some comments Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen made in April about stay-at-home moms.
And remember Ann Romney’s convention speech? Not only did she “salute” and “sing the praises” of moms across America, she talked for quite a while about the trials of Mom – how she works a little harder than Dad, how she’s keeping the home front together, worrying more about kids and parents; how she is just so darned tired. Michelle Obama, for her part, reiterated her role as Mom-in-Chief.
So as the dust settles, the pundits will probably be spending quite a bit of time these next months trying to figure out why.
Both sides of the aisle made a strong effort to court women, and moms in particular. As the Monitor’s Linda Feldmann wrote a few days ago, the group dubbed the “Walmart Moms” – women who shop at Walmart at least once a month and have children aged 18 or younger living at home – became viewed by both parties as a particularly crucial electoral bloc. They represent 27 percent of all registered women voters and 14 percent of the overall electorate. And they tend to swing – for Obama in 2008, for the GOP in 2010 and now ... back to Obama?
The Democrats certainly hope that’s the story. But it’s probably too early to tell for sure. According to those exit poll numbers, married women favored Romney over Obama, 53 percent to 46 percent. As did voters who are married with children. (Forty-five percent for Obama, 54 percent for Romney.)
Dads also buck the overall mom trend, with 53 percent voting for the GOP challenger, and 45 percent voting for the president.
So what does that mean? We’re quite sure we will hear many theories. But perhaps one takeaway is that motherhood in the United States today doesn’t necessarily look like Ann Romney, or any other version of a stay-at-home, married, dinner-cooking matriarch. Winning over Mom, then, does not necessarily mean winning over the married woman with 2.5 (or five) kids. It means a wider view of family, one that typically favors Democrats.
In the run-up to the election, we brought up a number of policy areas that advocacy groups say are important to parents, from maternity leave to child care to the availability of contraception. These issues tend to resonate even more strongly with single parents, and particularly single moms. While child care costs push many families to the economic edge, they push single moms under.
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Advocacy groups will be monitoring Obama's moves on these issues over the next four years. Because – while the current Battle for Mom might be over – we expect that this new, political, version of the Mommy War is far from over.
Take your kids to vote day: Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna (left), votes with his wife, Cindy, and their daughter Hailey, 5, at a voting precinct in Nampa, Idaho Nov. 6. (Adam Eschbach/Idaho Press-Tribune/AP)
Election 2012: It's 'take your kids to vote day' – a bipartisan lesson
It’s take your child to vote day for many parents, myself included, and for us it was a moment of truth when I saw I had failed to teach my child the opposition are people too.
Our son Quin, 8, decided to become a campaign volunteer for President Barack Obama after he watched the now infamous “Big Bird” debate. Today, at the polls he decided his work was not done when he spied his “team” freezing outside the polling place, without donuts or coffee.
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There was the Obama team at a bare card table, two older ladies freezing beside the Romney supporters who stood at a well-appointed, Martha Stewart-like table of plenty. “Mom, what’s with our table,” Quin asked. I promised to investigate when we were finished voting.
After we went in to vote, Quin beside me reading the choices and seeing how the votes are cast electronically, he asked if we could help his "team." We got Dunkin Donuts & coffee.
On the way back to the polling place with the goods, Quin suggested we should share with the opposition “to show we aren’t mad.”
We were about two feet away from the RNC team when Quinn suddenly froze the same way some kids do when faced with a giant costumed figure. “I think I’m suddenly nervous,” he whispered. “They’re the bad guys.”
So I whispered in his ear something I should have been saying loudly all along, “They’re just people. Good people like us. They just disagree, but they’re perfectly good people. Nobody’s a monster just because they disagree with you.”
I had been guilty of either demonizing the opposition in his presence or not counteracting when others did so in his presence. Also, I allow him to play the game ChefVille on my Facebook account and he has seen some pretty mean postings from others whom I have since un-friended.
So, holding tight to my hand and still skeptical, Quin went over to the Romney table and offered them some of the donuts.
The very nice RNC lady: "Oh no thanks, we already have plenty."
Quin, suddenly relieved that she spoke in English and not letters of flame, became his normal self: "Did you share?" The long, long line of waiting voters whooped with laughter.
Nice RNC Lady: "Yes! We did! We shared coffee because those ladies were freezing."
Quin: "Good start. If you change your mind, remember, our donuts are for everybody."”
Hoo boy, this is one Aspergers kid who really has no filter at all. I hustled him away before he engaged in debate. He remembers things and hangs on like a dog with a bone, particularly all the buzz phrases. I have spent many hours trying to correct media impressions and help him discern hype from fact.
After returning home he was telling his older brothers about how he helped me vote. He added reflectively over a mouthful of donut, "I bet their (Team Romney’s) donuts weren't 100% delicious because they leave out 47% of the good stuff."
OK, that was funny.
Later, when I thought he would surely have moved on to another topic, I noticed he was unusually chirpy, humming and singing a tune without knowing the words. I suddenly realized he was singing "Hail to the Chief." I don’t think anybody knows the words so he was singing – “Doo-doo-da-doo. Doo-da, doo-da, doo-da, doo-doo!”
Asked why he was singing POTUS' theme song. He was dumbfounded, "Seriously? I didn't know he had a song. I just really like the tune."
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When I told him I didn’t know if the song had words he took a few minutes before he began to sing, “Hail to the Chief, he’s in charge of all the big stuff. Hail to the Chief and I hope whoever it is likes Ruff Ruffman and WHRO!” That’s our local PBS station.
It’s gonna be a long election night at our house.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.
Media literacy can be taught to preschoolers in simple, age-appropriate ways and connected to real world experiences – no expensive tutoring programs required. (Scott Wallace/The Christian Science Monitor )
Media literacy for preschoolers requires active parent viewing
In today’s media-saturated world, raising media literate children is an increasingly important goal. Our kids need No. 1, to understand how the media work; No.2, to be able to think critically about media content; and No. 3, learn how to create their own media texts – empowering them not just to consume, but also create.
In my previous blog explored my family’s approach to teaching our four-year-old son how the media work – particularly, how commercials work. From an early age, he learned my mantra: “Commercials try to sell us things we don’t need.” This simple concept helps him understand that commercials aren’t neutral or factual. They have an agenda: persuasion. And kids have such an innate sense of justice that the idea of being “tricked” really rankles them!
Although my son will often complain about commercials trying to sell him things he doesn’t need, some days, he has a little fun at my expense. He’ll look at me with a wicked gleam in his eye, a smile playing on his lips, and say, “Mommy. I LIKE commercials.” The little tease!
This always makes me smile, at least inwardly: If he has figured out that he can tease me about liking commercials, he has also figured out what my values are. And knowing what we value as a family is an important part of thinking critically about media content.
A couple of strategies have worked well in helping my four year old develop the ability to think critically about what he sees on screen, which is a fundamental part of being media literate. First, I make sure that we watch things together, and that while we’re viewing, we talk about what’s on screen in ways that draw upon our family’s values.
Second, I find opportunities to talk with him about his favorite shows at other times – like when we’re driving in the car, or having dinner, or chatting before bedtime – when we can have broader conversations, e.g., comparing different movies he likes.
By viewing media together, parents can help their children become media literate. This means that whenever possible, I watch programs with my son, so that I’m present to see and hear his reactions.
But viewing together is not enough; active viewing is key. This means I talk with my son about what we are seeing. I talk back to the screen, share my ideas and concerns with my son, and respond to anything he says, too.
We wind up talking about characters’ behaviors a lot. Lots of kids’ programs focus on bad behaviors. Academic studies show that even prosocial children’s media, like the kind found on PBS that are meant to teach lessons about good behavior, spend way too much time modeling bad behavior. The result: little kids often don’t pick up on the resolution or good behavior that such programs mean to encourage. The exciting and interesting bad behaviors get all the attention.
Because I’m aware of this problem, when my son and I are watching movies or television programs together, I’m quick to point out on-screen behaviors that I don’t like – in a gentle way, of course. I might say, “Thomas should tell Sir Topham Hat the truth!” or “Gee, I don’t like the way the Witch is talking to Rapunzel right now – that’s cruel,” or “Uh-oh, Spike is being really greedy! That’s not nice.”
In the interest of positive reinforcement, I’ll point out good behaviors, too. “That was really kind of Kanta to let the girls take his umbrella,” or “It was so clever how Word Girl figured that out,” or “Rarity is so generous with her friends.”
Sometimes, I’ll phrase my commentary as questions: “Do you think that’s a good idea?” or “What do you think of that?”
What’s great is that the older he gets, the more often he’ll turn to me and offer the kinds of commentary that I model for him. For example, we recently watched "Beauty and the Beast" together for the first time; he’d been asking about it for a while. ”The Beast shouldn’t yell like that,” he told me. “It’s naughty.” Then, later, when Belle appeared in her gold dress for the ballroom scene: “Hey, where did her blue dress go that I like??” (blue is his favorite color.) Whatever his comments are, I like to hear them – and I make sure to give him an answer so he knows I’m listening.
Even though my son is only four, I’ve had some conversations with him about topics or behaviors that are shown across more than one program and movie. Such conversations need to take place while the television is off, so I’ve found it important to pay attention to his interests and his reactions while we’re viewing things together, to gauge what he might like to talk about later.
For example, my son has been interested in the concept of “thieves” since he was about two-and-a-half years old. One day, our family were enjoying a picnic on a park bench in Salem, Mass., when a sneaky seagull stole his sandwich! It just crept up behind us and grabbed it through the slats in the bench. To say we were caught off guard is an understatement.
Our little guy was really upset about losing his sandwich this way, so we encouraged him to shoo the nearby seagulls away by shouting, “Go away, thieves!” He seemed a bit empowered by his ability to fight back.
Now, anytime we are at the beach or another location where seagulls approach, he is vigilant about shooing them away, saying, “You can’t have our food, thieves!” He’s even noticed seagulls creeping up on other families and seems to have made it his personal mission to try to scare encroaching seagulls away. He doesn’t like thieves.
About a year ago, he had an experience with a real thief when my iPhone was stolen while we were running errands in the mall. I wound up spending a couple of hours in the mall’s Apple store, tracking the phone’s whereabouts on their computers (“Find my iPhone” is an amazing application) and giving a police report to an officer who came to meet me. We were actually able to recover it that same night – but that is a story for another day!
In the midst of all the excitement about mommy’s phone being stolen, my son was amazed to learn that people could be thieves, too – not just seagulls.
Oh.
Yes, we said; some people are thieves!
Then came the inevitable, perplexed question: “Why?”
Well, because sometimes, people make bad decisions.
So, between the seagulls and the iPhone theft, thieves have been an occasionally recurring topic of conversation. (Key questions he’s asked have included: “Do thieves live in houses?” and “Do thieves have teeth?”)
And guess what? After becoming enamored of the Disney films "Tangled" and "Aladdin," he realized that Flynn and Aladdin are thieves. Thieves! Uh-oh. He had a hard time making sense of this, since both are really likable characters, and he feels very keenly that stealing is wrong.
So we’ve talked a lot about why Flynn and Aladdin are thieves, and the differences between the two characters. Flynn seems to steal because he’s greedy and thinks it’s fun; in his verse of the “I’ve Got A Dream” song, he sings that his only dream is to be “surrounded by enormous piles of money.” In contrast, Aladdin is a boy without parents who steals food because otherwise, he won’t eat. And he’s not greedy, either: in an early scene in the film, he gives his stolen bread away to littler kids who are also hungry, showing that he is a kind person.
As a result of these conversations, when we’re watching "Tangled," he will sometimes offer his own running commentary. He’ll say things to me like, “Flynn shouldn’t be a thief! That’s too naughty,” or ”Poor Aladdin! He is a thief because he doesn’t have any mommy or daddy or food. He doesn’t want to be a thief.”
In my opinion, being able to identify differences between on-screen characters and their motivations is a form of age-appropriate media literacy. It’s the result of talking and thinking critically about how people are represented, and why characters are shown doing the things they do. I’m glad that my child has a basic understanding that depictions of bad behaviors don’t make those bad behaviors okay, even when the characters engaged in them are fun and exciting.
In other words, media literacy can be developed in simple, age appropriate ways, connected with real world experiences.
My hope is that these conversations are laying important groundwork for the future, making it clear that we discuss and think critically about media content in our family. Considering the content he’ll likely see later in childhood and in adolescence, I think it’s crucial to establish parent-child communication and critical thinking practices as the norm now.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. Rebecca Hains blogs at rebeccahains.wordpress.com.
Fostering media literacy in your preschooler means helping her conceptualize how media is generated. Here, a Fisher-Price SparkArt Easel helps a child to create and interact with media. (Courtesy of Business Wire)
Media literacy for preschoolers: Parenting a savvy viewer
Media literacy is a concept that’s often taught in schools – though not often enough, in my opinion. Being media literate means having the ability to think critically about media content, as well as an understanding of how the media work. It also encompasses knowing how to create media texts yourself.
RELATED: Top 5 parenting tips for media literacy in preschoolers
So, students in middle school who are learning about media literacy might be asked to think about who produced a certain media text (advertisement, movie, television show, etc.) and why. They might be asked to contemplate about whether they agree with the content – with the messages and values it conveys. For example, is an ad or program portraying certain people in stereotypical ways? If so, what problems do they see with that practice? In some programs, they might even be handed a digital video recorder and taught how to edit their footage together on a laptop, to create their own advertisement about something they care about.
Although most research about media literacy focuses on children’s classroom experiences, I believe it’s never too early to begin fostering media literacy. Media literacy can happen at home. Parents can talk with their preschoolers about the media in age-appropriate ways, giving them tools to help them think critically.
Unfortunately, there’s not much research out there on parent-based media literacy – but from speaking with other parents, I know it’s happening in a lot of homes. Now, some families may not think of the conversations they have with their little ones about the media as “media literacy.” It’s not a term that everyone is familiar with, after all. But if you’re talking with your child about what is happening on screen, and why, chances are you’re helping your child become a media literate individual.
My son is four years old. A couple of years ago, we suspended our DirecTV subscription and experimented with using Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other internet-based sources for watching television content on our TV set. The results were great: for a fraction of the cost, we were still able to access 99% of the content we enjoyed.
Because we didn’t miss “regular” television, we canceled our DirecTV subscription altogether and never looked back. (This worked well for us, but I’m sure it’s not for everyone…your mileage may vary!)
As a result, since the age of two, our son has mostly watched programs available on Netflix. Shows like "Sesame Street," "Blues Clues," "The Wonder Pets," "Thomas and Friends," "Dragon Tales," "Dora the Explorer" – they’re all there, and commercial-free. We also watch "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" through Amazon Prime and assorted movies, like "Monsters, Inc," "Tangled," and "My Neighbor Totoro" on DVD.
I appreciate that anything our child views is deliberately selected by or for him. There’s no segueing from one show to the next all afternoon long on a single channel with him suddenly watching something he shouldn’t. (Except that one time he was trying to click on "Bob the Builder" but accidentally turned on "Doctor Who," instead… It took me a minute or two to realize it, and he saw some scary-looking aliens before we could turn off the screen. Oops.)
This also means that the commercials my son has been exposed to have been very limited. He sees the previews on DVDs before he gets to the feature film, and sometimes he sees regular ads on Hulu or YouTube, too.
One day, when he was about three, he complained about a commercial coming on screen instead of whatever it was we were actually trying to watch. I thought for a minute, then used it as an early media literacy moment, saying: “Yeah. Commercials just try to sell us things we don’t need.”
That became my stock explanation for what was happening when commercials came on screen: “This commercial is trying to sell us things we don’t need!” Sometimes, he would echo me in an indignant little voice: “Yeah! We don’t need those things!”
My son is four now, and just this week, he was watching a "Thomas and Friends" DVD in the living room. I’d popped it in the DVD player per his request and went into the kitchen to work on a few things. Next thing I knew, he was calling out to me, really annoyed: “Mom-meeee! This commercial is trying to sell me Bob the Builder. I don’t NEED Bob the Builder!!!”
Score one for mommy!
I love that my preschooler has a basic understanding of how advertisements work. He knows that they exist to sell things. Television ads are not neutral purveyors of information; they have an angle, an agenda. They’re trying to get us to do something–to buy something.
RELATED: Top 5 parenting tips for media literacy in preschoolers
Considering how relentlessly marketers target kids nowadays, it’s really important for kids to be armed with this basic understanding.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. Rebecca Hains blogs at rebeccahains.wordpress.com.
Heidi Klum arriving at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, Sept. 23, 2012. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Heidi Klum: no makeup for charity, 'empowerment.' Really?
Even without makeup, Heidi Klum still looks great.
Feel empowered yet?
You should, according to the new BBC Children in Need “Go BearFaced” campaign.
Yes, the corporate charity of the British Broadcasting Company is encouraging women across the world to ditch their makeup Nov. 9 – just like Heidi! – and instead draw or attach a little paw print symbol on their cheek. This is a “really simple way to raise money for a great cause,” the group says, because women should be able to get sponsors for this “brave” move, the same way they would if they were running a charity race.
Because, you know, it should take about the same effort for a modern woman to leave behind her lipstick for a day as it would be for her to run a marathon. Or at least a 10K.
Anyhow, if you need more inspiration for getting BearFaced, you can go to the BBC Children in Need website, where you can scroll through beautifully-lit photos of female celebrities not wearing makeup. There you will find Ms. Klum, a former Victoria’s Secret Angel, who attests to be “so proud” to be taking part in the campaign because she is a “firm believer of encouraging women’s empowerment.”
Also featured (and gorgeous) is English singer and media personality Louise Redknapp, as well as English television presenter Caroline Flack.
Go girl power!
Or something.
Now, we’re all for girls’ “empowerment” here. And for raising money for needy kids. But I’m having some trouble with this one.
Perhaps it's because I am missing the connection between disadvantaged kids in the UK and beautiful “BearFaced” celebrities, let alone the link between fundraising and everyday women not wearing makeup.
It seems that building a charity campaign around a daring lack of eye-liner is perpetrating just those stereotypes about girls and beauty the group says it is against; it assumes that makeup is so pervasive, and so dear to women, that it would take some real effort – some bravery, even – to appear without it.
And I know, from first hand experience, this does not need to be the case.
I mean, I could raise money every day if someone sponsored me to not wear eye shadow. Start adding bonus funds for the tired-mommy-can’t-find-that-year-old-stick-of-mascara-that-even-the-manufacturer-says-to-throw-away look, and I’m telling you, I’m your spokeswoman.
But even if I’m in the minority on this one – a few months back, the hosts of 'The Talk' also made a splash when they launched their third season with a makeup-free show – you still have an “empowerment” campaign that is focused on physical beauty.
And even if it's in the name of disadvantaged kids, that should probably make us pause.
With or without lipstick.
Remember 'Obamamania?' This year, it's difficult to find a college student who's truly excited about the presidential race – flyers on a bulletin board in the student center at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Ill., Sept. 20, 2012 (Martha Irvine/AP)
Election 2012: We're all candidates for change, especially middle-schoolers
Something really important is missing from the presidential candidates’ discussion of the future: the future. The real future.
That’s especially important for the first-time voters destined to inhabit that future. Some of them go to my school and, though they won’t vote this time around, they already have their eye on presidential politics.
This reaches beyond topics like the national debt, health care system reform, saving the middle-class, and finger-pointing over past, present, and future financial crises – partisan skirmishes that will always be with us, it seems.
But lurking in the background are some underlying issues of longer-range, more granular importance, and this goes to the question of the future my students will vote for and inhabit.
Who will be the first to talk about the fundamental shift in the complexion, balance of education, and talent in the world? Proto-voters can’t always discern what future value their democratic rights and responsibilities will have, but they should. They need to transcend the values being foisted on them by the customary media outlets, and the customary self-serving campaign rhetoric of both political parties.
This is the YouTube/Google/Twitter generation, after all. Yet even the candidates of another generation have Facebook pages. Even my middle-school students are facile at rapidly collecting standings, issue statements, spin and news, and the text of candidate speeches and news conferences. But do they want to? Not when politics seems so old-school, shrill, and negative.
These are the students who are starting to think about voting for a president for the first time. They must also have their eye on how the world will have changed by the time they do so. The candidates don’t seem similarly foresighted. What will my school’s sixth-graders know, and not know, when they commence their post-secondary school lives? When they vote for a president for the first time?
Hindsight could be telling. At the time of the 2008 presidential election, my students and I viewed a YouTube video with some astounding future shock statistics. There were 1.3 million college graduates in the United States, 3.1 million in India (all of whom speak English), and 3.3 million in China. In 2016, the world’s No. 1 English speaking country will be China. How about their 17 million blogs – 35 percent of all their Internet users? “If you’re one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you!” A teacher in Beijing makes $454 a month, a nurse $260. They have more honors students than we have students, and more cell phones than we have people: 301 million. The US is seventh in global network readiness. Denmark is better “wired” than we are. I would not exchange their system for ours. I’m just pointing out a few (outdated) dashboard indicators! But the campaign rhetoric of this year’s election has yet to accommodate or catch up with this analytical mindset.
More future shock: According to the US Department of Labor, 1 in 4 workers have been with their current employer for less than one year; 1 in 2 less than five years. Today’s learners will have 10 to 14 jobs by their 38th birthday. Many of the college majors for these workers didn’t exist 10 years ago. In four years, when the class of 2016 is entering the work force, what will they be working on? According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 – i.e., we're preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, with technologies yet to be invented, to solve problems that aren’t yet problems. In 2010 accessible online data approached a Yottabyte, or 1 trillion terabytes. I wonder what it is now, in the year of iPhone 5.
One issue of the New York Times contains more information than a person in the 18th century would encounter in a lifetime. Each day, 1,400 books are published. New technical information doubles every two years – by 2010, every 72 hours. YouTube serves 100 million videos per day. Last year it served 2.5 billion videos to nearly 20 million unique visitors. Were you a unique visitor? I was. My students were.
At the time of the 2008 presidential election, 70 percent of US four-year-olds had used a computer. It took radio 38 years to reach a market audience of 50 million; television: 13 years; computers: four years. What’s next? The number of Internet devices in 1984 was 1,000; in 1992 it was 1 million; in 2006: 600 million. The first text message was sent in 1991; today, the number exceeds the population of the planet – daily. One out of eight couples married in the US in 2005 met on the Internet.[2]
We’re on a steep learning curve, and an unprecedented trajectory toward the future. And these are all out-dated statistics – changing daily . So what should my school’s social studies curriculum be in the approaching new school/election year!? Has an appropriate high school, much less college, been invented for these future voters I’m watching?
Experts say our future voters need three things: The ability to cope with massive amounts of information, effectiveness at global communications, and self-direction of their own learning and organization. Yup, issues and information are evolving at exponential rates. Which makes the job of citizenship and voting pretty important – because we’re all candidates for change.
That “hopey, changey thing” had better be workin’ for us this time around. If the next president can’t speak to us about these vital signs, and if we don’t demand a shift in the conversation, then we’ll be showing up in the future expecting the past. That isn’t going to work. My 2008 middle school students are voters now.
Todd R. Nelson is head of school at The School in Rose Valley, PA.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q
[2] 21st Century Learning tools for the Classroom (Howie DiBlasi). Search “Did You Know III” on YouTube or Vimeo to see complete presentation, and its numerous updates.
Anti-bullying campaigns approach bullying in schools in a number of ways. Here, students at Columbus North High School participate in a group storytelling exercise on Oct. 5, 2012, during a meeting of Spectrum, an anti-bullying group, in Columbus, Ind. (Joe Harpring/The Republic/AP)
Anti-bullying: Gay agenda, or not, the most vulnerable are losing
At first glance, a national, annual anti-bullying program that took place earlier this week appeared fairly run-of-the-mill. Organized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the “Mix it Up at Lunch Day,” encourages students to sit with someone in the cafeteria with whom they would not normally socialize. It’s a way to build tolerance, organizers say, and thus reduce bullying.
While we might be skeptical about the effectiveness of this sort of anti-bullying effort – and we certainly wonder about the social dynamics that go along with that lunch period – it didn’t strike us as all that different from any other anti-bullying program you might see any day, anywhere, in this bully-crazed country.
Except this time there was a controversy.
Controversy, I might add, that sheds light on one of the more interesting tug-of-wars going on beneath the surface of the national anti-bullying movement.
A news story we ran earlier this week looked at how the Mix It Up at Lunch Day became the target of protests by the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group that sees anti-bullying programs promoting “tolerance” as also promoting an “immoral” and “pro-homosexual lifestyle.”
A month before the Oct. 30 event, the AFA began sending alerts to its supporters and encouraging parents to keep their kids home from school that day. It helped organize a telephone campaign against the schools that had already signed up to participate in the Mix It Up at Lunch Day – an effort effective enough that a number of schools asked to be removed from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of participants. The Associated Press quoted Bryan Fischer, the AFA’s director of issue analysis, as saying the Law Center was covering up the “real agenda” of the anti-bullying lunch program, and that efforts like this were “particularly insidious.”
It might be tempting for more liberal types to brush aside this battle against Mix it Up at Lunch Day and assume the controversy stems from the lonely actions of one, angry right wing organization.
This, however, would be a mistake. The AFA is neither alone in its concerns, nor in its growing opposition to anti-bullying efforts.
A recent report by the left-leaning People For the American Way detailed how a number of conservative, “family values” organizations, from the Family Research Council to the California-based Protect Kids Foundation, are increasing their opposition to anti-bullying campaigns – especially those that specifically address the victimization of kids who are, or who appear to be, gay.
Many take the stance like that of the California-based Protect Kids Foundation: “Since directly promoting homosexual lifestyles to children is too controversial, LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] activists hide their agenda behind the ‘safe schools’ and ‘anti-bullying’ curricula.”
Other groups go even further in that stance, notes a report by the People For the American Way: “These groups smeared and demonized advocacy groups that collaborate with teachers and administrators in developing best practices to combat bullying, warning that anti-bullying groups would encourage everything from 'homosexualizing' youth to anti-Christian persecution to pedophilia.”
Wow. Somebody – besides us – actually criticizing the anti-bullying movement. But from a whole different angle.
Which is not to say it’s an angle that’s come out of nowhere. Over recent years, the mainstream anti-bullying movement has taken the stance that everyone is at risk of being bullied. This is, in large part, an institutional approach that is supposed to take blame away from the victim, to get away from the “well what did he do to provoke it” perspective.
There are some good reasons for that. But there’s also a problem: A lot of research shows that this idea of equality in bullying just isn’t valid.
LGBT students – and those perceived to be LGBT – face far, far more bullying than straight students, according to numerous studies. A 2009 report on school climate by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network found, for instance, that 84.6 percent of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed at school, 40.1 percent reported being physically harassed at school and 18.8 percent reported being physically assaulted at school because of their sexual orientation. These numbers are far higher – double or even triple – what straight students told researchers they experienced.
(A quick side note here: As we’ve discussed in other articles, “harassment” does not equal “bullying,” at least not if you’re going by the standard academic definition of bullying, which includes repeated behavior and a power differential between bully and victim. But these sorts of stats can help describe a school’s general social atmosphere.)
Given the disproportionate impact of bullying on LGBT students, some researchers say that anti-bullying campaigns lose their teeth when they ignore the sexual orientation aspect of student-on-student cruelty. But focusing on that aspect of bullying is a harder sell in many communities – and often less likely to spark the overwhelming, widespread support of parents, politicians, and educators who have been behind the anti-bullying movement.
As the conservative Christian anti-gay groups point out, many anti-bullying curricula address “tolerance” and the need to fight homophobia as part of a more general, and less specific, “safe schools” program. These right-wing groups find this sneaky, and dangerous.
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Others might find it dangerous for a different reason. Get caught up in the hype of the anti-bully movement – where every nasty comment is considered bullying, and where everyone, from TV anchors to bus monitors to high school students, is an equally likely bullying victim – and, all of a sudden, you lose focus on those kids who are most at risk.
Rescue dog Albie snoozes atop the Zheutlin bed, way too cute to scoot from his nest. (Courtesy of the Zheutlin family)
Rescue dog: Albie's leap of faith onto our bed – such a Sleeping Beauty
Sleep, or more precisely a lack of it, has always been a big issue in our household.
When he was born, our older son, Danny, now 21, should have come with a warning label that said “sleep resistant.” As a baby and a toddler he fought off sleep like a hockey goalie furiously fighting off pucks. We bought all the “get your baby to sleep” books and tried all the recommended methods to no avail.
I once suggested we leave the books in his crib to see if he could figure it out himself. After all, nothing else was working.
For several years our younger son, Noah, now 17, wandered into our bedroom every night in his little blue pajamas, the ones with the cow-jumping-over-the moon-print, and crawled into our bed.
In part because of our own exhaustion, and in part because he was so darned cute, we took the path of least resistance. But he was a thrasher who loved burrowing his feet into a sensitive part of my body.
Only in the past few years have we enjoyed relatively restful nights uninterrupted by sleepless or sleepy children. Which is why I am now so conflicted about Albie’s new-found passion for our bed.
Albie is our half-yellow-Lab, half-golden-retriever rescue dog, with us now for close to four months.
When the Labs4Rescue folks paid us a home visit before Albie’s adoption, we were asked if the dog would be allowed on the furniture. To be honest, I don’t know if there was a wrong answer that would have sunk our chances of adopting him, but I was quick to say, “No,” because, well, I’m kind of fussy about such things.
The hair! The dirty paws! The ticks and fleas!
It took Albie a few nights in our home to even venture upstairs. Then, for three months, he slept under our bed in what must have felt like a den to him. One night, without warning, he made a leap of faith, literally and figuratively, onto the bed.
He’s not a small dog; he weighs about 70 pounds and takes up a lot of real estate on our queen-size mattress. And once he’s there, parked atop the covers, you can’t pull the covers over you fully, which makes it hard to sleep. And he’s also prone to twitching when he dreams and enjoying a wee-hours-of-the morning scratch fest.
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Now, one school of thought is that a dog trying to share your bed is a test of Alpha-ness. If you’re permissive, you lose and the dog wins. But this doesn’t seem to be about dominance or control at all.
I have no idea what traumas, if any, lurk in Albie’s past or if he would even remember them. But I just haven’t had the heart to bounce him back to the floor because I think he finds the bed, and our proximity, deeply comforting.
However, there’s another reason I haven’t kicked Albie out of bed yet: when he’s all snuggled up in bed it’s just about the most precious sight I’ve ever seen.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.
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