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Not All Heroes Wear Capes
These innovators, scientists, creative thinkers and just regular people all played a pivotal role in helping me live my best life. Ralph Braun Wheelchair van pioneer Ralph William Braun (December 18, 1940 – February 8, 2013) was the founder and CEO of the Braun Corporation. He is also known as the “Father of the Mobility Movement” at BraunAbility. Braun was born and raised in Winamac, Indiana. When he was six years old, doctors diagnosed him with muscular dystrophy. He started using a wheelchair at the age of 14. At the age of 15, he created a motorized wagon with his father to help him get around. Five years later,…
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Held Back: Inside a Lost School Year
Thompson converted her daughters’ bedroom into a teaching space. Credit:Cydni Elledge, special to ProPublica Elledge, special to ProPublica Teacher Ashlee Thompson had a lot to worry about this year: A deadly virus. A poor district under threat by the state. And now, a new mandate for her students: Learn to read or flunk the third grade. Editor’s note: ProPublica obtained parents’ consent to feature their children in this story. Ashlee Thompson turned on her camera. At the other end of the screen one morning last September was a third grader she’d never taught. To assess his reading, Thompson showed the boy a string of letters. S B C He made a…
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Chivalry is not about opening doors, but protecting society’s most vulnerable from attack
March 23, 2021 8.32am EDT Author Jennifer Wollock Professor of English, Texas A&M University Modern society is in dispute over the value of chivalry. Chivalry originally referred to the medieval knight’s code of honor but today references a range of – usually male – behaviors, from courtesy to overprotectiveness. Some see it as the mindset of elite warriors, glorifying violence and demeaning women. Others see it as necessary and desirable to protect groups under attack. As a historian of literature who studies chivalry, I stand with the latter group. Rather than fostering misogynistic attitudes or overprotective behaviors that insult women, chivalry has been a liberating force from ancient times onward. Across many cultures it arises to…
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Understanding others’ feelings: what is empathy and why do we need it?
January 8, 2017 2.22pm EST Author Pascal MolenberghsSenior Lecturer in Social Neuroscience, Monash University Disclosure statement Pascal Molenberghs receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award: DE130100120) and Heart Foundation (Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship: 1000458). Partners This is the introductory essay in our series on understanding others’ feelings. In it we will examine empathy, including what it is, whether our doctors need more of it, and when too much may not be a good thing. Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network. There…
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The Federal Government Gave Billions to America’s Schools for COVID-19 Relief. Where Did the Money Go?
The Education Department’s limited tracking of $190 billion in pandemic support funds sent to schools has left officials in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students. After the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the federal government provided about $190 billion in aid to help them reopen and respond to the effects of the pandemic. In the year and a half since millions of children were sent home, the Education Department has done only limited tracking of how the money has been spent. That has left officials in Washington largely in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students, especially those whose…
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American Amnesia
I happen to love “today”. Little Orphan Annie sang about tomorrow, but I’m a “today” fan. Big time. We only get it once. You see, today is one unique day in all the days that will ever be. And according to actuarial tables, I don’t have many left. I want today to be peaceful, tranquil, and filled with joy. But you know, folks, I find this polarized, divisive country we live in to be incredibly annoying and distracting. I’m constantly amazed at the length people go to find fault, hate, and spew venom. All this poison attempts to invade my “today”, and although I’m pretty good at keeping it at…
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The psychology of roller coasters
BY RICHARD STEPHENS, SENIOR LECTURER IN PSYCHOLOGY, KEELE UNIVERSITY Can differences in brain chemistry explain the sensation seeking behaviour seen in theme parks? Roller coasters may seem like a very modern type of entertainment – constantly getting bigger, faster and scarier thanks to advances in technology. But they actually date back to the mid-1800s. Gravity-propelled railways built to transport coal from up in the mountains down to the town in Pennsylvania, US, were hired out at weekends by fare-paying passengers riding purely for the fun of it. Today theme parks are big business. But with queues occasionally as long as eight hours for an average ride of under two minutes – not to mention reports of…
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The Lost Year: What the Pandemic Cost Teenagers
by Alec MacGillis, photography by Celeste Sloman ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents. And there are the astonishingly deluxe high school football stadiums. This is,…
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A ‘daunting, dark and difficult’ time: How a Brooklyn school moved forward after losing its leader to COVID
Alex Zimmerman, Chalkbeat New York Mar 12, 2021 7:30am EST High school student Etienne Musole remembered one of his first interactions with principal Dez-Ann Romain. She asked point blank whether he wanted to graduate. It was a high stakes question at a place like Brooklyn Democracy Academy, an alternative high school in Brownsville serving students who have struggled at traditional schools and are at risk of dropping out. After the 19-year-old Musole said yes, Romain never let up. “Every day she sees you from that point on, she’s going to be on you,” Musole said. For many students at the school, Romain was the first educator they felt they could trust,…
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A Writer’s Guide to Writing and Working with People with Disabilities
NOV 11, 2018 BY DALE HARRIS One out of every five Americans is currently living with some form of a disability. This means that the chances are high that you know, work with, or even teach a disabled person. Perhaps you’re writing about a person with a disability, maybe you’re tutoring a disabled student, or maybe you’re interested in hiring a person with a disability. You want to make sure that you’ve done your part to make the environment as safe and accessible as is possible. But if you’re new to working with people with disabilities, it can be tough to know where and how to start. Keep on reading this post to…
