Fifth-grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your ordinary teacher. She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that's all about inspiring children to learn more about their world ... and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone, and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies.Smith is such an awesome teacher, in fact, that she recently received the 2015 Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.It had always been her dream to work with children in urban areas, so when Smith started teaching, she hit the ground running. She had her students making podcasts, and they had in-depth discussions about their readings on a cozy carpet.But in her acceptance speech for her award, she made it clear that it took a turning point in her career before she really got it:"Things changed for me the day when, during a classroom discussion, one of my kids bluntly told me I "couldn't understand because I was a white lady." I had to agree with him. I sat there and tried to speak openly about how I could never fully understand and went home and cried, because my children knew about white privilege before I did. The closest I could ever come was empathy."Smith knew that just acknowledging her white privilege wasn't enough.She wanted to move beyond just empathy and find a way to take some real action that would make a difference for her students.She kept the same innovative and engaging teaching methods, but she totally revamped her curriculum to include works by people who looked like her students. She also carved out more time to discuss issues that her students were facing, such as xenophobia and racism.And that effort? Absolutely worth it.As she said in her acceptance speech:"We studied the works of Sandra Cisneros, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Gary Soto, with the intertwined Spanish language and Latino culture — so fluent and deep in the memories of my kids that I saw light in their eyes I had never seen before."The changes Smith made in her classroom make a whole lot of sense. And they're easy enough for teachers everywhere to make:— They studied the work of historical Latino figures, with some of the original Spanish language included. Many children of color are growing up in bilingual households. In 2007, 55.4 million Americans 5 years of age and older spoke a language other than English at home.— They analyzed the vision of America that great writers of color sought to create. And her students realized that our country still isn't quite living up to its ideals. Despite progress toward racial equality with the end of laws that enforced slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go. Black people still fare worse than white people when it comes to things like wealth, unfair arrests, and health.— They read excerpts from contemporary writers of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes about race. Her students are reading and learning from a diverse group of writers. No small thing when they live in a society that overwhelmingly gives more attention to white male writers (and where the number of employees of color in the newspaper industry stagnates at a paltry 12%).— They read about the Syrian crisis, and many students wrote about journeys across the border in their family history for class. The opportunity particularly struck one student; the assignment touched him so much that he cried. He never had a teacher honor the journey his family made. And he was proud of his heritage for the first time ever. "One child cried," Smith shared, "and told me he never had a teacher who honored the journey his family took to the United States. He told me he was not ashamed anymore, but instead proud of the sacrifice his parents made for him."Opportunities like this will only increase as the number of children from immigrant families is steadily increasing. As of 2013, almost 17.4 million children under 18 have at least one immigrant parent.Smith now identifies not just as an English teacher, but as a social justice teacher.Smith's successful shift in her teaching is an example for teachers everywhere, especially as our schools become increasingly ethnically and racially diverse. About 80% of American teachers are white. But as of last year, the majority of K-12 students in public schools are now children of color.As America's demographics change, we need to work on creating work that reflects the experiences that our students relate to. And a more diverse curriculum isn't just important for students of color. It's vital for everyone.As Smith put it, "We, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids. We are responsible for the future of this country."This article originally appeared on 12.07.15

When blizzards line up to rip through the Northeast, schools close, flights are canceled, and people even board up their houses. Though missions and homeless shelters do what they can to provide safety to those who have no homes to go to, thousands of people still have to weather the cold outside.At Carnegie Mellon University's 2015 Impact-a-Thon, students were challenged to provide a temporary low-cost shelter for homeless people during the winter.One team of students came up with the "Satellite Shelter," an insulated sleeping bag that converts into a tented structure. The students used mylar, a reflective material frequently used in greenhouses and space blankets, and wool blankets to ensure the shelter would keep anyone in it safe from the cold."We wanted to make sure it was super-portable and durable so that it's easy to carry," said student Linh Thi Do, who worked on the project. "We have wheels on it so it's easy to move from place to place." "Satellite Shelter" is a sleeping bag that expands into a tent for housing the homeless https://bit.ly/1t2FsZt\u00a0pic.twitter.com/L7Jdqxy2RU — Inhabitat (@Inhabitat) 1421950827 Solutions like this one are handy in an emergency. Perhaps, however, other cities should take note of the city of New Orleans' success in providing long-term housing solutions for its homeless veterans. The only perfect solution to homelessness is giving people permanent homes to go to at night.This article originally appeared on 01.26.15

When I first heard the term "auramaxxing," and that teenagers, mostly boys, were practicing it by getting into things like mindfulness, presence, and meditation, I thought — "Great!" Young men have a reputation for being angry and far more prone to violence than young girls, so this seemed like a positive development overall, even though the youths gave the trend an annoying name.But as a father to two girls — and as an extremely uncool 37-year-old — I wanted to learn a little bit more about this surprising trend. So I fired up TikTok and got to searching.What is "auramaxxing"?If you're a Millennial or Gen-Xer, you can think of auramaxxing as trying to get as many "cool points" as possible.It's doing things (and not doing other things) in order to cultivate a better aura.Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines aura as a "distinctive atmosphere surrounding a given source," or "an energy field that is held to emanate from a living being." So kids who auramax are trying to have a better energy about them. I can see the appeal.Urban Dictionary calls auramaxxing "The process of maximizing your aura so your presence can be felt before being seen or so that your presence is stronger."In that definition, you can start to see that auramaxxing isn't really about self-actualization or becoming a better person, it's about appearing more powerful and attractive to other people."Auramaxxing is a limb or offshoot on the same tree as rizz. Both rizz and auramaxxing began primarily within audiences of young men, before spreading to culture more broadly," Tom Miner, a social media and trends expert with Gold Miner Media said. "As a sports fan, I started noticing the term 'good aura' popping up in the last couple years to describe an athlete's hot streak (often times an NBA player). Auramaxxing seems to be an adaption of this."I asked my 9-year-old (who's not on TikTok) if she had heard the term aura, if anyone in her 5th grade class was saying it. She said Yes and gave an example. A teammate on her soccer team had missed a shot in practice, she told me, and everyone said "You're losing so many aura points!"So whether or not kids that young are intentionally "auramaxxing," it's clear that the idea has spread far and wide — and even 9-year-olds know and are quantifying the fact that doing something embarrassing makes you look bad.Auramaxxing videos on TikTok don't start off so bad. They're more corny than toxic.The first thing I saw after searching for auramaxxing on TikTok was the account of a young guy named Drew Ford. He's a 24-year-old unshaven, t-shirt wearing guy who inhales spirituality books and doles them out in bite-sized amounts to his followers — and runs a free course called the Subconscious Mastery Challenge.Drew's advice to grow your aura is simple:Be present in the momentStop comparing yourself to othersRead booksBe authenticBe open mindedLearn from failure(And sign up for his email list, of course) @drewxford Auramaxxing 101 #thinkbetter #aura Is he actually qualified to speak on this subject? Probably not.But as much as it makes me cringe as an adult, it's not the worst advice I've ever heard. It's not going to hurt anyone to practice being more aware in the present moment.If this was what auramaxxing was really all about, maybe I could get onboard.From there, you get into the world of jokes and trolling.In the auramaxxing world, there's this idea of aura points that's really prevalent.Doing things that are cool earns you points, doing things that are uncool loses points. Most articles I've read about auramaxxing seem to be really concerned about these points. And I can see why. It sounds like a Black Mirror episode, but when I really started watching videos about aura points, it seemed more like Whose Line Is It Anyway — no one is actually keeping track of their score, and it's mostly for laughs. In fact, there were some videos that seemed to be making fun of the whole trend and idea of aura points — they had me cracking up. Like this one: @dejaunsenpai slight #fypage As I went deeper, auramaxxing started to become heavily gendered toward boys, and it developed a lot of crossover with the incel world.Further into my search, I came across creators who seemed to take aura a lot more seriously. To them, having a strong masculine aura was essential to getting dates and having success in life. This is where you start to learn that to truly maximize your aura (as a man), you need to:Lift weights and pack on muscleTalk less Be more mysteriousGet a better haircut and clothesLearn the truth about "modern females"Yikes. I miss when we were just reading Eckhart Tolle books with the boys!It's not hard to see how this kind of content leads to extremely toxic ideas about masculinity, misogyny, and more. The whole concept that auramaxxing might actually help boys open up and be less angry was going out the window. Here, we're outright encouraging young men to clam up and suppress their vulnerability.It's just Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson in a flashy TikTok package. Now I was started to get a little freaked out. But from there it only got worse.To truly maximize your aura, I learned, you also had to optimize for the physical component of your presence. You had to looksmax, and heightmax, as well.Yes, those are real terms.Looksmaxing is exactly what it sounds like — looking your absolute best. But where I expected to see fashion advice, I saw videos about using supplements and doing eye-stretching exercises to "reduce upper eyelid exposure" and "achieve Hunter Eyes" — which is a narrow, intense eye shape you see in models and famous actors. Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash In addition to diet and exercise, I learned you should also sculpt your jaw with mewing and using weird tools, and you should dunk your face in ice every morning to reduce puffiness.And though it looks like TikTok has cracked down on it, I learned there was a whole genre of looksmaxxing related to "bone-smashing" — or intentionally hitting yourself in the face with heavy objects to reshape your bone structure.There's even a popular app called Umax that scans your face and tells you how hot (or ugly) you are, along with how much potential you have to be hotter if you follow all the looksmaxxing tips.For short guys, there's heightmaxxing content, too — wherein random unqualified teens and twenty-somethings recommend exercises, diets, and supplements to make you grow taller. I saw a lot of videos about "banded sleeping," which is binding yourself in a stretched position overnight.(To be fair, young girls have been under intense pressure to "look their best" forever — but now the expectations have been cranked up to 11 for just about everyone.)It really frightened me how quickly we got from just wanting other people to think we're cool — which every generation of teens that has ever existed has worried about — to "self-improvement" tips that are extremely dangerous.The only thing that gives me solace as a parent is that I don't get the sense most people actually take this stuff seriously. Kids talk about aura with a sense of sarcasm and playfulness, for the most part, and a large majority won't follow the trend all the way to the extremes.And though this all sounds absolutely terrible, it's still easy to find plenty of examples of young people not picking each other apart, but picking each other up."A few months back, we saw Gen Z women posting their embarrassing moments, asking how many aura points they lost with each story," says Sallie Stacker, an associate creative director and emerging trends expert at Edelman. "But instead of being dragged, the community rallied behind them, gifting points for sharing their vulnerability. It seems like what really loses aura points is acting against the nature of who you are."Let's hope that sticks, and the rest fades away quickly – as fads and trends usually do. But if you notice your teen meditating or suddenly getting really into skincare (or buying a jaw-sculpting tool), you might want to double check where they're getting their advice.

Getting far too overblown. The post “You start to look like a jerk”: The solo that made Robert Plant resent Jimmy Page first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Always doing something new. The post “All over the map”: Don Henley on the most eclectic Eagles album first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Slightly less Fab than usual. The post 10 songs Paul McCartney should not have released first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The Man of Steel was also an inspiration offscreen.

Dream Theater will release “Parasomnia” on February 7th. Produced by guitarist John Petrucci, the LP marks the band’s first release with drummer Mike Portnoy since ’09’s “Black Clouds & Silver Linings.” “He (Portnoy) was gone for a long time,” noted keyboardist Jordan Rudess. “When I listen back to the music that we’ve been creating, it’s got his stamp on it.” The set features the track “Night Terror.” Night Terror  “Parasomnia” Tracks: 01. In The Arms Of Morpheus 02. Night Terror 03. A Broken Man 04. Dead Asleep 05. Midnight Messiah 06. Are We Dreaming? 07. Bend The Clock 08. The Shadow Man Incident  Portnoy co-founded Dream Theater in ’85 with guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung but exited the group in ’10. ### The post Dream Theater’s Sixteenth Album Drops In February appeared first on RockinTown.

We warned you. https://t.co/V2RaEmNweV — Catturd ™ (@catturd2) October 9, 2024

from Moonbattery: Everyone agrees that Josef Mengele was a villain. But his crimes are dwarfed by the scale of evil currently taking place in the USA, as revealed by Do No Harm: From January 2019 to December 2023, 13,994 minor patients received gender-transition treatments, with 5,747 undergoing sex-change surgeries and 8,579 getting hormones and puberty blockers, according […]