With the push to expand focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in curricula, there have been worries that the arts will be left behind. The notion of adding the arts into STEM has been floated around, with many educators considering “STEAM” over STEM. In 2012, John Maeda, former president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), announced his initiative, which [...]
I’ve never considered LinkedIn to be within the wide spectrum of social media. It has a visible sense of purpose and credibility that other forms of social media, like Facebook and Instagram, lack. However, as a means for people to publicly interact, LinkedIn works using the same format as these other outlets by allowing users to follow/friend/connect with other users—unless their profile is [...]
I speak one language fluently, and that’s English. I can neither speak nor understand Hebrew, although I can read it. I recognize the occasional Latin vocabulary word, can hold a disjointed conversation in Spanish and know how to communicate the basics in American Sign Language, falling back on finger spelling if necessary. However, I often think how great it would be if I could [...]
Education was very important in my house when I was growing up. My mother went to college and was a first–grade teacher. My father went into the US Navy and then became a machinist, eventually owning his own machine shop. Nevertheless, even though one parent was a college graduate and one was not, there was never any question in our household that my [...]
“Books. People never really stop loving books,” said the Doctor in BBC’s hit show Doctor Who. In this episode, the Doctor and his companion travel hundreds of years into the future to the universe’s biggest library and find that, even in the future, we still love reading and sharing knowledge and ideas. And those people who love libraries and love reading also love [...]
When I think of The Catcher in the Rye, I think of its iconic cover: the yellow font overlaying the merry-go-round horse, the way the red drapes itself over the white background and seems to continue off the page. Similarly, when I think of The Great Gatsby, a face sculpted out of a dark blue sky comes to mind, fireworks lighting up the bottom of [...]
If you’ve ever tried to read one of George R. R. Martin’s books in his Song of Ice and Fire series, then you know it’s going to take some time, as the books are typically over a thousand pages long. Even reading newspaper articles or Facebook updates, let alone full–length novels, can be difficult to fit into a busy schedule. With so many [...]
When my son Gabriel was nearly a year old, I was taking a swim class with him at the YMCA. I was hopeful it would have two benefits: getting us out of the house for a few hours and making some new friends. While we accomplished the first, it turns out that wrestling a baby into a swimsuit, floating around singing “Twinkle Twinkle [...]
In recent years, The Hunger Games’ “girl on fire” has quickly replaced Harry Potter’s “the boy who lived” in popularity. And, let’s not forget, in between these there was Twilight’s “the vampire who sparkled.” While fantasy and teen paranormal romance are still selling books (the Harry Potter books have just been released with new cover designs ) the current trend in novels has [...]
. . . sorry, that’s all I’ve got. No clever rhyme, no pithy ending phrase. I just wanted to applaud families who read together. That means dads who snuggle in to read a bedtime story, moms who make the mall run when the next book in the series hits the shelves and kids who willingly trade electronic pings for the sound of a [...]