Everyone is Talking
About Donovan Livingston, a Harvard student who gave a moving speech at his graduation ceremony from the School of Education.
Why do I care?
The speech currently has over 4 million views since Wednesday because of it’s remarks on education, race and the potential for all students.
Tell me more.
Donovan is a poet, so he did what poets do and addressed his peers, teachers and alumni with a spoken-word poem about education at his graduation ceremony from Harvard’s school of Education. It touched on racism, it’s role in education and how it drives him as an educator. He moved into encouraging educators to see the individual student, not just a group of test scores.
“To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.”
He goes on to say:
“I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.”
Check out the full text of his speech HERE.
That’s What She Said
Do you count yourself as a person who hates math? Are you transferring that belief onto your kids? This author believes many of us are unwittingly transferring our disdain to our kids and we should knock it off. She states in part:
“We are perpetuating damaging myths by telling ourselves a few untruths: math is inherently hard, only geniuses understand it, we never liked math in the first place and nobody needs math anyway.”
Her argument is that we are building an unnecessary anxiety in our kids through our established belief system, which then sets our kids up for failure rather than allowing them to grow into their individual abilities. And, there are studies that back them up.
If you aren’t great at math, modeling perseverance, according to this author is better than the ‘I hate math’ mantra. So, fake it until your kids make it folks.
Why Didn’t We Think of That?
Summer is on the horizon which means beach days, camping, and having fun simply being outdoors getting filthy are on the horizon. That’s what childhood is all about, right? But, let’s not bring that into the car as we head home, M’kay? Enter, the RinseKit. It’s a portable heated shower that you can fill in 30 seconds from any hose and then heat with the attached rechargeable battery.
We don’t know about you, but when the zombie apocalypse comes, we may be carrying this along with our bow and arrow. We can’t hang like Daryl and go without some kind of washing from time to time. Priorities.
Trending DIY
Science at home is all kinds of awesome, and with summer coming we know you’ll need an arsenal of easy, but wow-worthy ideas to keep your kids busy and engaged. We found two fantastic options for your little scientists:
Crystal Egg Geodes
Egg Geodes is our new ‘must-try’ with the kids. It’s can be done as an experimental process, so it’s perfect for your older elementary kids. It’s a process that takes several days, so keep that in mind. Using sea salt, borax , kosher salt along with some food coloring, you can experiment with which substance forms ‘crystals’ on the eggs the best. You’ll start to notice the salt crystals developing after one day, but the best results are up to five days later. Martha Stewart has another recipe to grow egg crystals which involves additional ingredients if you want to get even fancier.
Milk Paint
Magic Milk Paint from Modern Parents Messy Kids involves gathering only a few simple ingredients, most of which you likely have around your home: milk, food coloring, hand soap and a toothpick.
Pour milk into a dish (whole milk works the best) then place various drops of color all around the area of the dish in preparation for creating a rainbow of colors. Take your toothpick and dip it into the hand soap and then dip it into the milk and begin swirling. The soap, color, and milk together create swirls of color that your kids will love to see unfold in front of their eyes. Once they are done, you can move onto painting with their new ‘paint’ to wrap up the activity. Follow the author’s advice by using a paper towel ‘canvas’ on a cookie sheet. Easy-peasy and cheap too! You know you want to pin this.
Parting Thoughts
“At the core, none of us were meant to be common, were born to be comets, darting across space and time — leaving our mark as we crash into everything.” – Donovan Livingston
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