Listening to John Steinbeck

I must admit that John Steinbeck is one of my favorite writers. I never thought I would hear a recording of his voice, however. Well, BBC News has a short audio clip from the British Library. Steinbeck talks about writing The Grapes of Wrath in the audio clip.

Teaching Children Disability Awareness

Last year I wrote a children's story with a young disabled child as the central character. I was excited about the prospect of it being published, but as the tradition goes, it was rejected by a children book publisher. In any case I'll continue to work on this story.

More interesting, perhaps, is a disability awareness project highlighted by The Christian Science Monitor in the article Helping Kids Break Stereotypes. The project gives young children the opportunity to learn about the lives of disabled children and adults.

Do You Have Brilliant Ideas at 10:04 PM?

Information in this link might solve the mystery.

Social Skills...That's the Ticket!

Many years ago in a counseling degree program, I learned that people are fired from jobs more for poor social skills and not fitting in than for lack of job skills for the job. In any case, today I came across an article that provided the results of following high schools students for then years after graduation and discovered that "high-school students who had been rated as conscientious and cooperative by their teachers were earning more than classmates who had similar test scores but fewer social skills..."

Well, what if we stressed social skills in addition to reading, writing, and math from the pre-k level upward?

Bullying Reporting Web Site

Huffington Post is reporting on an AP story titled, "School Tip Line Web Site Lets Kids Report Bullies Incognito." The story highlights the work of a Brigham Young University student, who developed School Tip Line, a Web site for students (and parents) to report incidents by children of harassment, theft, and drugs.

According to the article, the Web site works as follows: "School administrators are made aware of any tips either by e-mail or text message, Bergener said. For some schools, students have to create a logon and password to send a tip, but they still remain anonymous, though. But in most cases, schools allow anyone to send a tip with no need to give personal information."

Nearly 50 schools in states other than Utah are using the Web site. I hope this trend grows. I have a problem with people, organizations, cities, states, and countries bullying others. In my mind I think a bully is are really saying: "I'm going to make problems I'm running from yours."

Learning in Depth

Interesting idea, perhaps...

Tuna Kindergarten

Indeed, fish go to school. Here is a video from New Scientist that shows tuna going to "kindergarten."