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The World Series of the Apocalypse?
October 27, 2016 By Chris Lamb In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world. Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct.…
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MS, mood swings and waterproof mascara
Waterproof mascara has become my valuable ally against MS mood swings. When my eyes begin to water out of anger or frustration, waterproof mascara keeps me from looking like a raccoon. Wearing it allows for a quicker recovery when life with MS becomes overwhelming. The littlest things can irritate me now. Last week, just the sight of our cluttered kitchen table drove me over the edge. My husband and son ran for cover as I hurled random papers and half-filled water bottles into the trash. Although our kitchen table really looked like it belonged on an episode of Hoarders, I still hate that I got so upset over the mess.…
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MS: It’s a box of chocolates you don’t want to share
Kim Zolotar August 18, 2008 Special to the Los Angeles Times A friend recently asked me what it felt like to have multiple sclerosis. We were sitting at the park watching our kids play, and we would have looked like any other suburban moms except for my silver walker covered with Spider-man stickers stationed nearby. I did not immediately answer her question. How could I possibly explain how it feels to have a potentially disabling, progressive and incurable neurological disease? It has been 13 years since my doctor told me I have MS, but the answer to my friend’s question changes every day, sometimes every hour. My MS experience reminds…
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Shoe Envy
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5 ways schools have shifted in 5 years since COVID-19
The U.S. educational landscape has been drastically transformed since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered school campuses five years ago. Access to high-quality teachers and curriculum developed by teachers is shrinking, for example. Likewise, there has been a loss of emotional support for students and a decline in the school use of technology and social media. As education scholars focused on literacy practices in schools, we’ve identified five ways we believe the COVID-19 pandemic – and the rapid shift to remote learning and back – has transformed education:The U.S. educational landscape has been drastically transformed since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered school campuses five years ago. Access to high-quality teachers and curriculum developed by teachers is shrinking, for example. Likewise, there has been a loss of…
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The social benefits of psychological generosity
Linda R. Tropp May 21, 2025 How much do you engage with others when you’re out in public? Lots of people don’t actually engage with others much at all. Think of commuters on public transportation staring down at their phones with earbuds firmly in place. As a professor of social psychology, I see similar trends on my university campus, where students often put on their headphones and start checking their phones before leaving the lecture hall on the way to their next class. Curating daily experiences in these ways may appeal to your personal interests, but it also limits opportunities for social connection. Humans are social beings: We desire to feel connected to others,…
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Marion Joseph’s literacy crusade for teaching
phonics in California is paying off Dan Walters March 19, 2023 Sometimes – not often, but sometimes – one person can have a life-changing impact on the wellbeing of millions of people. Marion Joseph, who died nearly a year ago at age 95, was one of those people. She impacted millions of California schoolchildren present and future who struggle with reading comprehension, the vital skill that underlies all of education. The pandemic underscored that too many of California’s elementary school students lack effective reading ability. EdSource noted that, prior to the pandemic, fewer than 50% of the state’s third-graders were reading at the expected level for their age. Three years later, after students…
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March 13, 2020 or The Day Everything Changed
John A Casey Jr April 3, 2020 We knew that week that something big was on the horizon. Faculty had been told earlier in the week to prepare for the possibility of class cancellations and the need to teach from home. We knew that things were going to be different, but no one could appreciate just how much our lives would change. The week before my wife and I had met her mother and step father for dinner out in Rosemont. She’d be leaving for a month in Spain the next day. I had misgivings. I told my wife “Are they really sure they want to travel. This coronavirus seems…
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Can learning cursive help kids read better?
Some policymakers think it’s worth a try Shawn Datchuk May 6, 2025 Recently, my 8-year-old son received a birthday card from his grandmother. He opened the card, looked at it and said, “I can’t read cursive yet.” Then he handed it to me to read. If you have a child in the Philadelphia School District, chances are they have not been taught how to read or write cursive either. But cursive handwriting is making a comeback of sorts for K-8 students in the United States. Several states in recent years passed legislation mandating instruction in cursive handwriting, including California, Iowa and Oklahoma. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are considering similar legislation, as are other states. I’m an associate professor of…
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‘Number sense’ is one of the building blocks of math
By Holly Korbey February 19, 2025 The building blocks of math that students need to excel — but aren’t always getting ATLANTA — Students gathered around a bright blue number board in Melissa Williams’ kindergarten class at the Westminster School, gazing at the bank of 100 blank squares, organized in rows and columns of 10. Their assignment was to pick a numbered tile and figure out where it should go on the board. The task seems simple, but Williams’ goal was to bolster students’ “number sense” — a difficult-to-define skill, but one that is nevertheless essential for more advanced mathematics. One student with a “42” tile carefully counted the…
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Do you know the Ten Cannots?
Lawrence W. Reed “That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.” There’s a lot of valuable and timeless wisdom in that one sentence! Its author was William J. H. Boetcker, who died at 89 in 1962. Born in Germany, he emigrated to America as a young man, became an ordained Presbyterian minister, and gained a national reputation as a superb public speaker. He also said, famously, “A man is judged by the company he keeps, and a company is judged by the men it keeps,…
