BEIJING — Ivanka Trump is fast becoming a cult
figure for many in China, her popularity spiking so much there is
already an online fan club dedicated to "Goddess Ivanka" with thousands
of followers.
The boost in the first daughter's appeal has
been such that her Chinese lawyers are currently filing several
trademark applications in her name in a bid to stop hundreds of copycat
Chinese companies cashing-in on her brand.
The applications in China have involved a
bewildering array of products, from jewelry and underwear, to mattresses
and formula milk powder — all filed in the name "Ivanka Trump" or
similar sounding names since her father became U.S. president...
Breathing buddies: Students lie down on the floor with a favorite
stuffed animal on their chests. They slowly breathe in and out, watching
the animal rise and fall. This helps students calm down when they are
upset and gives them a strategy to implement when they feel themselves
getting worked up.
Teachers keep “meta boxes” in their classrooms full of fidget toys
students can use to help them pay attention when they feel like they
need to move.
When transitioning between subjects or recess, teachers often play
calming music and let only five kids in at a time to limit the chaos.
Many elementary school teachers have had the experience of asking a
question, seeing many hands in the air, but then calling on a student
who says he forgot. That could be a working memory problem. Some
Carlisle teachers are proactively addressing this by letting those kids
record their thoughts on paper or a device so they can contribute when
they’re called on.
Carlisle was an early adopter of Wexler’s Activate program, too. The
iPad lessons focus on typical working memory games that require
students to remember the order of things, progressively getting harder
as the game develops. The physical games reinforce the online learning
with social interactions that help embed the memories in movement. Mass
ball is one game that requires students to throw a ball in a specific
sequence. Students have to juggle paying attention to the order and
catching the ball.
Carlisle teachers also have students do a lot of balancing games,
which help with executive functioning. Teachers might ask students to
walk on a line balancing bean bags on their heads or to do the same walk
on tiptoe. Teachers also use relay races to get kids moving, since
exercise alone helps with executive functioning.
Adults have an attention span of about 12 minutes with a fully
developed executive functioning system, so it’s no wonder kids can’t
focus without a break. “It cannot be overemphasized that all of us need
to be thinking about taking information in smaller chunks,” said Malinda
Mikesell, the reading supervisor for the Carlisle Area School District.
She said kids need an opportunity to do something with the information
on their own before having the chance to reset for the next chunk of
information...
Here are two stories of misbehavior at schools. In the first, students became noisy in the cafeteria and grabbed a bathroom pass from an employee's pocket. In the second, teachers celebrated the last day of school by saturating curtains, walls, upholstered furniture and carpet in the teachers lounge with soda and desserts that were left over from parties in their classrooms. Too many adults in schools confuse authority with power. They think whoever has power gets to do whatever they want. Quite a few teachers and administrators are as desperately in need of lessons in respect as the worst-behaved students.
Horton Elementary School in southeastern San Diego has come
under fire for disciplining students for misbehavior by forcing them to
hold a plank position on a hot blacktop surface, which the ACLU said
amounts to corporal punishment.
An incident occurred in October
when a ruckus erupted in the cafeteria after a student reportedly took a
bathroom pass from an employee’s pocket. The school replaced open
recess for fourth- and fifth-graders with structured exercising,
including the plank or push-up position.
Some of the students’ parents were banned from campus for 14 days
under threat of prosecution after they complained to the principal...
San Diego Unified disagrees that corporal punishment
was used, rather Horton “modified open recess” for the students for
three days “as a result of unruly behavior displayed by students during
the lunch period on Oct. 14,” district spokeswoman Shari Winet said in a
written statement...
The rowdy lunchtime
incident prompted staff to summon the principal, Staci Dent, who
arrived at the cafeteria to find some students pounding on their desks
or tables...
According to the ACLU
and parent complaints filed with the district, students were “forced to
get into a push-up or ‘plank’ position, and hold the pose for a
significant period of time, potentially as long as several minutes.”
Some developed blisters on their hands after they “were forced to hold
their hands against the scalding hot blacktop” or face time in juvenile
hall, according to the principal’s threats, the ACLU said in its letter
to Marten.
...The
principal sent “stay away” letters to at least four parents informing
them they were banned from campus for 14 days under a provision in the
Penal Code. The letters threatened the parents with arrest and
prosecution should they “enter onto district property in the future and
should they cause disturbance or disruption....Read more here.
Story Two--Food Fight at Castle Park Elementary
by Maura Larkins
Dec. 11, 2016
There was a huge food fight at Castle Park Elementary School when I was a
teacher there.
The walls, furniture and carpet of the teachers lounge
were saturated with sodas and cake on the last day of classes. It took
the custodians over a week to clean it, and another week for it to dry.
There were absolutely no consequences for any of the immature, negligent
teachers who made the mess. (No students were involved.)
The next year
one of the teachers returned to the lounge on the last day of school
wearing a raincoat. She was planning to do a repeat performance, but no
one else was interested.
The teacher in the raincoat (I'll call her "R" for raincoat) had a habit of becoming enraged when students weren't
suspended when she demanded it. She and her "family" (I kid you not;
that's what her clique of teachers called themselves) controlled the principal and the
district administration.
"R" also caused huge legal bills for the
district and was finally transferred out as part of the
"Castle Park Five" when the district tried to retake control of the
school from the rogue teachers.
Ironically, David Loy, chief counsel for the San Diego ACLU, went out of his way to cover-up everything that happened at Castle Park Elementary. He went out of his way to undermine my First Amendment rights in this law suit. I suspect that some wealthy ACLU donor (someone like Irwin Jacobs) gives large donations to the ACLU and in return asks the San Diego ACLU to foster his pet projects, one of which is to increase the arbitrary power of school administrators. Irwin Jacobs is my top suspect because he has spent huge amounts of money trying to mold schools to fit his vision, which even included packing the SDUSD board with unelected board members.
I think the adults at Horton Elementary
would have been more successful at encouraging kids to value
self-control if they involved the kids in some highly organized but fun
physical activities.
Tax deductions and rebates are at the heart of President-elect Donald Trump’s child care policy proposal, writes EdSource, a plan that would offer the most help to high-income families, some help to middle-income taxpayers and not much help at all to low-income parents.
“The plan very much tilts towards high-income families who need the least help,” said Elaine Maag, senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
There’s widespread agreement among education experts that access to quality, early education programs can pay dividends for students in school later in life. There’s also widespread agreement among parents that costs can prohibit families from taking advantage.
In August, San Diego Unified announced – to much fanfare – that it was launching a “game changing” Preschool for All initiative. Despite its catchy title, however, that initiative amounted to letting parents pay up to $1,060 for a full day preschool spot. In other words, San Diego Unified’s initiative gave high-income parents an affordable preschool option, but did little for middle- and low-income parents who couldn’t afford what San Diego Unified is charging.
In that way, San Diego Unified’s Preschool for All initiative isn’t so different than Trump’s proposal.
