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Posts by Paul Costello1

Celebrating Women’s History Month

March 1, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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North Carolina Central University Celebrates Women's History Month | North Carolina Central University

Thank you Lorne Epstein for these resources

Women’s History Month is a time to celebrate the contributions and achievements of women throughout history and in contemporary society, while also raising awareness of the challenges they still face, including discrimination, gender-based violence, and unequal access to opportunities and resources.

I invite you to acknowledge the experiences of women and promote gender equality. Women’s History Month inspires us to take action towards creating a more equitable and just world for all women, where they can reach their full potential and live free from discrimination and oppression.

Here is a collection of videos, books, and articles you can share freely with your teams to support their learning journey. There are an infinite number of resources, and these are ones I curated.

Books

Poster

Women’s History Month Celebrating Women of Character, Courage, and Commitment Poster

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Video’s

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Music

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Articles

https://www.lorneepstein.com/

Bathrooms are now some of the most dangerous places in Montgomery schools

February 28, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Nicole Asberry Washington Post Feb 27th 2023

Since Montgomery County’s school year began, students have found shooting threats written on bathroom walls, Percocet residue beside toilets and swastikas drawn in stalls. Students have been caught vaping, fighting, vandalizing equipment and taking drugs in bathrooms.

The bathroom has become one of the least safe places on campus, students in the county say.Some parents say their children now avoid the bathroom altogether, choosing instead to wait until they’re home.

“The kids have figured out that the bathrooms are kind of a place where they can do things where they otherwise wouldn’t do, because that’s where the least adult supervision is,” said Ricky Ribeiro, whose two children and a nephew under his care are enrolled in the Maryland school district.

In January, two Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School students were found drunkand unconscious in a bathroom during first period, according to the school’s student newspaper, The Tattler. Three Richard Montgomery High School students were charged with robbery in January after they robbed several Gaithersburg High School students in a bathroom. Last school year, a student was shot in a bathroom at Magruder High School in Rockville.

School bathrooms have typically been hot spots for student misbehavior, said Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. Students have always used hall passes to stay out of class or smoke in the bathroom. But schools are more worried now as restrooms have become common sites for bullying and violence.

A public school employee sanitizes a sink in a bathroom at a U.S. high school. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)

School districts across the country combating similar problems have started restricting bathroom use. In Virginia, administrators closed some restrooms during the school day at North Stafford High School because of a vaping problem. Texas districts have installed vape sensors to monitor air quality and catch vaping students. Last school year, several schools closed bathrooms because of a TikTok trend that encouraged students to vandalize and steal paper towel dispensers and fire alarms. Last week, a Texas superintendent resigned after a third-grader found his gun in a school bathroom.

Ribeiro said he was displeased last year when his son at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring would frequently tell him that the bathrooms smelled like vape and marijuana. His concern deepened this year after reports of students who overdosed in the school bathrooms. He’s spoken about the problems at a school board meeting, advocating for a systemic approach to the problem similar to the athletic safety plan that was announced after a brawl at a high school football game earlier in the school year.

“I don’t blame them for this happening obviously, because obviously, MCPS is not in control of the individual behavior of students,” Ribeiro, 39, said of the county’s school system. “But I am frustrated that there doesn’t seem to be a systemwide response to the behaviors, particularly as they’ve multiplied in scope and severity.”

The school system — which is Maryland’s largest with roughly 160,600 students — announced a more detailed safety plan Friday, divided into immediate, short-term and long-term actions. In its immediate plans, the system will add more security staff, form a “Safety and Security and Student Well-being Advisory Group,” and host community sessions about ongoing safety issues.

“While this is not the first time there have been concerns around inappropriate behavior, the increase in incidents in our community has escalated the urgency of these issues,” schools spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said ahead of the announcement.

Already, some countyschools now lock certainbathrooms during the day. Aanika Arjumand, a 16-year-old junior at Gaithersburg High School, said she often travels from the first floor of her high school to the third floor to find an unlocked restroom. The girls’ bathrooms that usually are locked, she said, are the ones that have menstrual product dispensers.

“It’s really unfair to a lot of the girls who generally just want to use a space for how it’s intended to be used,” Arjumand said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/26/montgomery-county-schools-bathrooms-dangerous/

Study: 4 Cities in Montgomery County Rank in Top 10 Most Ethnically Diverse in U.S.

February 24, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Michelle McQueen MyMCM

According to a study by Wallet Hub, four of the top 10 most diverse cities in the country are in Montgomery County.

The finance website placed Germantown, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville in its top ten “2023’s Most Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.” list. Germantown ranks number one in the country.

Wallet Hub compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities to calculate an ethnic diversity score for each. Three metrics were scored, including diversity in ethnicity, language, and birthplace.

According to the 2023 findings, Germantown is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville followed at number three, four, and eight respectively.

The top 10 most diverse cities in America were in order Germantown, Md.;  Jersey City, N.J.; Gaithersburg, Md.;  Silver Spring, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Kent, Wash.; Spring Valley, Nev.;  Rockville, Md.; San Jose, Calif.; and Oakland, Calif..

Data used to create this ranking was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The entire report is available, here.

According to a study by Wallet Hub, four of the top 10 most diverse cities in the country are in Montgomery County.

The finance website placed Germantown, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville in its top ten “2023’s Most Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.” list. Germantown ranks number one in the country.

Wallet Hub compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities to calculate an ethnic diversity score for each. Three metrics were scored, including diversity in ethnicity, language, and birthplace.

According to the 2023 findings, Germantown is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville followed at number three, four, and eight respectively.

The top 10 most diverse cities in America were in order Germantown, Md.;  Jersey City, N.J.; Gaithersburg, Md.;  Silver Spring, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Kent, Wash.; Spring Valley, Nev.;  Rockville, Md.; San Jose, Calif.; and Oakland, Calif..

Data used to create this ranking was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The entire report is available, here.

Study: 4 Cities in Montgomery County Rank in Top 10 Most Ethnically Diverse in U.S.

Jimmy Carter’s grace and vulnerability

February 23, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Robin Givhan Washington Post February 22nd 2023

The photographs of President Jimmy Carter during his time in the White House aren’t unlike those of other men who’ve held that office. Mostly they are dignified snapshots of him shaking hands with dignitaries and voters, offering up that big, gleaming expression of geniality that was his signature, walking across a tarmac or delivering a speech. It’s the images of him in his post-presidency that set him apart.

In these later public roles — builder and teacher and husband to his beloved Rosalynn — their very ordinariness makes them extraordinary. They tend to capture a man full of vulnerability.

And at the end of his life, Carter, 98, allowed this vulnerability to have an even more pronounced role in his life story when he announced Saturday that he would enter hospice care. That, too, is extraordinary.

In the modern era, it’s unusual for someone who has soared to great heights to allow himself to be seen once again negotiating life at ground level in all its uncertainty and complexity. The men who have been president depart the White House and return to someplace larger than what they left when they began their journey to the Oval Office. Perhaps that place is a home that is visibly more luxurious, more expensive, more stately. Perhaps it’s merely a mind-set that’s made plain through the company that they now keep; they’re surrounded by the famous and privileged. Perhaps they aim to make amends for history — or even rewrite it.

Carter’s signature and hand prints are in the sidewalk at the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm in Plains, Ga. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

But Carter’s return to Plains, Ga., after his single term in Washington, leaves an indelible memory of modesty and fallibility — even as he continued to achieve great things. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He established the Carter Center in Atlanta. Yet, some of the most enduring images are those of him helping to build homes with Habitat for Humanity. He doesn’t look especially skilled or adept even though he studied engineering. He’s just a white-haired man in a plaid shirt, work gloves and a hard hat helping to raise a frame on a modest house. He’s part of a group rather than separated from it. He’s engaged in the same work as those around him and if they’re in awe of the former president, their fascination is masked by their own attention to their hammer and nails, and their little piece of the project.

Carter was a Sunday school teacher. And while it’s not unusual for a former president to regularly attend church service or find a way to engage in an act of charity to mark Christmas or Thanksgiving, Carter wasn’t simply showing up. He was not merely a congregant. He was actively educating and questioning. He was taking a lead in a conversation about faith, not from a lofty perch in a pulpit, but at eye level. He was engaged in the task of sorting through the gospel and trying to understand it. He was searching.

Carter addresses members and visitors to Maranatha Baptist Church in 2010. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

Now, as the country, and perhaps even the world, considers his life, he is also allowing us an opportunity to consider what it means to die. Not suddenly or violently, but after a long and prosperous life. After a good life. Carter has grasped a whisper of control over his own death by ceding control: to God, to fate, to the inevitable. For anyone who has conquered seemingly impossible hurdles, it must take tremendous strength to make the decision that the time has come to stop struggling and to simply be. In a time when technology promises that most anything is possible, he has allowed himself to be wholly human.

In this age of social media, the famous tell their stories in real time and so it’s not unusual to learn about the ways in which they’re fighting a momentous personal demon or facing down a health struggle. The culture reads a lot about the battles that are won — and the ones that are bravely fought but ultimately lost. But rarely is there an opportunity to consider when a battle is no longer warranted. Rarely are we reminded that sometimes saying “enough” is both powerful and empowering. Rarely are we asked to sit with the specter of death and then accept it. This is a lesson.

As a culture, so much energy is rightfully focused on the ways in which life can be prolonged just a little bit longer, the body rejuvenated if only by a few degrees. The focus is on fixing the physical. The spirit too often is left adrift. Carter reminds us that the spirit requires care and concern, too. He reminds us that sometimes the spirit needs to take precedence.

Hospice care is not a matter of giving up. It’s a decision to shift our efforts from shoring up a body on the verge of the end to providing solace to a soul that’s on the cusp of forever. The choice seems of a piece with the way in which Carter has lived in the aftermath of the presidency. His attentions were focused on ending suffering and enabling peace. He aimed to do those things through his advocacy and his activism on an international scale.

But he also demonstrated what it can mean when one turns those same considerations inward.

Jimmy Carter: The life of the 39th president

The latest: As Jimmy Carter chose to spend his final days in hospice care at home in Plains, Ga., his tiny hometown is bracing to say goodbye. As tributes celebrate his legacy, here’s a look at the life of former president Jimmy Carter.

The un-celebrity president: Jimmy Carter’s simple and modest lifestyle was rare, in sharp contrast to his successors. He declined the corporate board memberships and lucrative speaking engagements and decided that his income would come from writing. He wrote 33 books and has helped renovate 4,300 homes for Habitat for Humanity.

Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter: The Carters were married 76 years, the longest in presidential history. Their love story blossomed in World War II and survived the searing scrutiny of political life. Rosalynn Carter expanded the role of first lady.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/21/jimmy-carters-grace-vulnerability/

The all-volunteer force turns 50 — and faces its worst crisis yet

February 22, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Max Boot Washington Post February 13th 2023

Fifty years ago, in early 1973, with U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War coming to a close, the Nixon administration announced the end of draft call-ups. The armed forces, which had been dependent on conscripts since 1940, had to become an all-volunteer force (AVF) overnight.

America gained — and lost — a great deal in that wrenching transition: We gained a more effective military but opened up a new divide between service personnel and civilians.

Admittedly, it was hard to predict either consequence when the draft ended. By 1973, conscription had caused enormous discontent in U.S. society because so many of the well-off had been able to escape the Vietnam War with occupational or student deferments or bogus medical excuses.

Military leaders feared that few high-quality recruits would join voluntarily — and initially they were right. As recounted by James Kitfield in his book “Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War,” “On standard military aptitude tests between 1977 and 1980, close to half of all the Army’s male recruits scored in the lowest mental category the service allowed. Thirty-eight percent were high school dropouts.” Drug abuse and racial tensions were rife. The all-volunteer force, combined with defense budget cuts, was producing a “hollow Army,” the Army chief of staff warned in 1980.

That changed in the 1980s when patriotism surged and popular culture began to depict the military in a more positive light — we went from “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to “Top Gun” (1986). Congress raised pay and benefits, and the services figured out how to attract recruits with slogans such as “Be All You Can Be.” By 1990, 97 percent of Army recruits were high school graduates and, thanks to mandatory drug testing, the number using illicit drugs plummeted.

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FThe AVF went on to win the 1991 Gulf War and perform capably in a long series of conflicts that followed. The United States often did not achieve its political objectives (as in Afghanistan), but it wasn’t the fault of those doing the fighting. They turned the military into the most admired institution in U.S. society.

Now, however, one retired general told me, “The AVF is facing its most serious crisis since Nixon created it.” All of the services are struggling with recruiting. The crisis has been especially acute in the Army. Last year, it missed its recruiting goals by 15,000 soldiers — an entire division’s worth. That is a particularly ominous development given the growing threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Military analysts point to numerous factors to account for the recruiting shortfall, the biggest being that the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since 1969. There is also widespread obesity and drug use among young people. Only 23 percent of young Americans are eligible to serve, and even fewer are interested in serving. More than two decades after Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two years after the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, war weariness has set in.

Perceived politicization is another issue: While many right-wingers view the armed forces as too “woke,” many progressive Gen Zers view them as too conservative. The Ronald Reagan Institute found that the number of people expressing a great deal of trust and confidence in the military declined from 70 percent in 2017 to 48 percent in 2022.

Those poll numbers reflect a concern among many in the military that the AVF has created a dangerous chasm between the few who serve and the vast majority who don’t. The number of veterans in the population declined from 18 percent in 1980 to about 7 percent in 2018 — and it keeps falling, as the older generation of draftees dies off.

“The AVF has led us to become the best trained, equipped and organized fighting force in global history,” retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO commander, told me. “But we have drifted away from the citizen-soldier model that was such a part of our nation’s history. The AVF has helped to create an essentially professional cadre of warriors. We need to work to ensure that our military remains fully connected to the civilian world, and to educate civilians about the military.”

The easiest way to bridge the civil-military divide would be to reinstate the draft, but there is no support for such a radical step in either the military or the country at large. David S.C. Chu, a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, points out that relying on draftees “creates morale and discipline problems” and is “increasingly inconsistent with a highly technological approach to warfare.” In most countries, conscripts serve only a year or two at most — barely long enough to master complex weapons systems. That’s why most nations, including Russia and China, have been relying more on professional soldiers, as the United States does.

Yet, while we gained a more capable military with the advent of the AVF, we have to recognize that we also lost something important when the draft ended. Mass mobilization during World War II broke down religious, regional and ethnic barriers and paved the way for postwar progress on civil rights and an expansion of the federal government to address problems such as poverty. In the post-draft era, America has become increasingly polarized between “red” and “blue” communities.

That has led to renewed interest in expanding national service programs such as AmeriCorps; President Biden, for example, recently proposed creating a new Civilian Climate Corps. Congress should support such initiatives, but we shouldn’t have extravagant expectations for what they can accomplish. The young people who sign up for voluntary service are so civic-minded already that they are the ones in least need of what these programs teach.

To make a real difference, national service would have to be obligatory. Retired Gen. Charles C. Krulak, a former Marine commandant, told me he favors requiring every high school graduate to put in two years of community service out of state while living on current or former military bases.

He is undoubtedly right that such a program would produce young adults “better prepared to become useful citizens.” But there is no national emergency that would justify such a mobilization and no agreement on how we could usefully employ 12 million people (the number of Americans aged 18 to 20). Public employee unions would be sure to object, the cost would be prohibitive, and many would try to evade the service requirement. Obligatory national service is no more likely, in today’s climate, than a renewal of military conscription.

The likelihood is that the AVF can overcome its current problems with some tweaks such as a new Army program for pre-basic training to condition out-of-shape recruits. Presumably, once the unemployment rate rises, the military’s recruitment woes will ease. Bridging the fissures that divide our society will be much harder to achieve. I wish a national-service mandate were practical and possible, but it’s not. We will have to look elsewhere — for example, to expanded civics education — for solutions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/13/army-draft-volunteer-national-service/

Golden rules for learning for students

February 22, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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from Rehan AllahwalaFounder Social Media Incubator

This is extract from the book, Outwitting the Devil from Napoleon Hill, which i consider the best book for all educators to learn.

Reverse the present system by giving children the privilege of leading in their school work instead of following orthodox rules designed only to impart abstract knowledge. Let instructors serve as students and let the students serve as instructors. 

As far as possible, organize all school work into definite methods through which the student can learn by doing, and direct the class work so that every student engages in some form of practical labor connected with the daily problems of life. 

Ideas are the beginning of all human achievement. Teach all students how to recognize practical ideas that may be of benefit in helping them acquire whatever they demand of life. 

Teach the students how to budget and use time, and above all teach the truth that time is the greatest asset available to human beings and the cheapest. 

Teach the student the basic motives by which all people are influenced and show how to use these motives in acquiring the necessities and the luxuries of life. 

Teach children what to eat, how much to eat, and what is the relationship between proper eating and sound health. 

Teach children the true nature and function of the emotion of sex, and above all, teach them that it can be transmuted into a driving force capable of lifting one to great heights of achievement. 

Teach children to be definite in all things, beginning with the choice of a definite major purpose in life! 

Teach children the nature of and possibilities for good and evil in the principle of habit, using as illustrations with which to dramatize the subject the everyday experiences of children and adults. 

Teach children how habits become fixed through the law of hypnotic rhythm, and influence them to adopt, while in the lower grades, habits that will lead to independent thought! 

Teach children the difference between temporary defeat and failure, and show them how to search for the seed of an equivalent advantage which comes with every defeat. 

Teach children to express their own thoughts fearlessly and to accept or reject, at will, all ideas of others, reserving to themselves, always, the privilege of relying upon their own judgment. 

Teach children to reach decisions promptly and to change them, if at all, slowly and with reluctance, and never without a definite reason. 

Teach children that the human brain is the instrument with which one receives, from the great storehouse of nature, the energy which is specialized into definite thoughts; that the brain does not think, but serves as an instrument for the interpretation of stimuli which cause thought. 

Teach children the value of harmony in their own minds and that this is attainable only through self-control. 

Teach children the nature and the value of self-control. 

Teach children that there is a law of increasing returns which can be and should be put into operation, as a matter of habit, by rendering always more service and better service than is expected of them. 

Teach children the true nature of the Golden Rule, and above all show them that through the operation of this principle, everything they do to and for another they do also to and for themselves. 

Teach children not to have opinions unless they are formed from facts or beliefs which may reasonably be accepted as facts. 

Teach children that cigarettes, liquor, narcotics, and overindulgence in sex destroy the power of will and lead to the habit of drifting. Do not forbid these evils-just explain them. 

Teach children the danger of believing anything merely because their parents, religious instructors, or someone else says it is so. 

Teach children to face facts, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, without resorting to subterfuge or offering alibis. 

Teach children to encourage the use of their sixth sense through which ideas present themselves in their minds from unknown sources, and to examine all such ideas carefully. 

Teach children the full import of the law of compensation as it was interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and show them how the law works in the small, everyday affairs of life. 

Teach children that definiteness of purpose, backed by definite plans persistently and continuously applied, is the most efficacious form of prayer available to human beings. 

Teach children that the space they occupy in the world is measured definitely by the quality and quantity of useful service they render the world. 

Teach children there is no problem which does not have an appropriate solution and that the solution often may be found in the circumstance creating the problem. 

Teach children that their only real limitations are those which they set up or permit others to establish in their own minds. 

Teach them that man can achieve whatever man can conceive and believe 

Teach children that all schoolhouses and all textbooks are elementary implements which may be helpful in the development of their minds, but that the only school of real value is the great University of Life wherein one has the privilege of learning from experience. 

Teach children to be true to themselves at all times and, since they cannot please everybody, therefore to do a good job of pleasing themselves. 

Being Grateful

February 21, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Other Ways to Say “Thank You So Much” and “Thank You Very Much” in Writing | Grammarly

Watch this delightful video music on gratitude.

American teens are unwell because American society is unwell

February 21, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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7 in 10 parents admit to sending sick kids to school, but they have 3 good reasons why - MarketWatch

Kate Woodhouse Washington Post Feb 18th 2023

Kids are unwell. Worse than ever recorded, according to two new reports tracing depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in teens. There is a frantic search for ways to stop kids from hurting. But if we want to make any lasting difference, it is us, the adults, who need an intervention.

Solutions start with compassionate, radical honesty: American kids are unwell because American society is unwell. The systems and social media making teenagers sad, angry and afraid today were shaped in part by adults who grew up sad, angry and afraid themselves.

First, the kids. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data from the first Youth Risk Behavior Survey collected across the United States since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It is devastating. Nearly 1 in 3 high school girls reported in 2021 that they had seriously considered suicide. Teen girls reported the highest ever levels of sexual violence, sadness and hopelessness. Another new study based on pre-pandemic data from Iowa raises alarm about bullying and suicide. Rates of bullying were increasing in the state even in 2018, and researchers at Drake University found some forms of it significantly correlated with feeling sad or hopeless and attempting suicide. This echoes CDC findings that young people who are frequently bullied or who bully others are more likely to think about, attempt or commit suicide.

Data on the teen mental health crisis is useful, but surveys and headlines can be like fireworks that punch fleeting shapes in the sky. An Instagram logo: social media! A surgical mask: the lockdown! We need to discern the flares without being blinded by them. Yes, social media delivers concentrated, addictive stress to developing minds that were held captive by the pandemic. No, logging off TikTok and returning to school will not fix the problem — because each teen’s life ricochets off family, friends and neighbors with struggles of their own in a polity with troubles of its own.

So as not to present a problem without a fix, the CDC says schools can make a profound difference. “Increasing the sense among all students that they are cared for, supported, and belong at school” is one, as is growing access to mental health and substance use prevention services for kids and their families and health education classes to teach teens to manage their boundaries and emotions and to ask for help. These positive practices build resilience.

Before then, though, can we acknowledge the weight this puts on underpaid teachers and part-time counselors and nurses? People who, if they haven’t already burned out, are practicing active-shooter drills, catching students up on 18 months of lost learning and ensuring kids have enough food to concentrate in class. A school’s four walls cannot hold back the trauma of society as well as, perhaps, the personal nightmare waiting for kids at home.

Which brings us to the adults. One in 5 — nearly 53 million people — had a mental illness in 2020, ranging from anxiety to depression to bipolar disorder. Nearly 28 million adults had an alcohol use disorder. As many as 3 in 100 people will have a psychotic episode in their lives. We are running companies and the country, serving time and raising families, and we, too, need a sense that we are cared for, supported and belong.

It can be hard for adults to believe that, especially if our own childhoods suggested otherwise. As kids, 61 percent of adults in the United States experienced abuse or neglect, grew up with poverty, hunger, violence or substance abuse, experienced gender-based discrimination and racism or lost a parent to divorce or death. These stressors contribute to chronic health problems, mental illness and substance misuse down the line.

If not you, then someone you know is doing their best to stitch up those invisible wounds.

Preventing adverse experiences in childhood could reduce the number of adults with depression by as much as 44 percent, according to the CDC. Mourn this number for those whose traumas weren’t prevented and rejoice that there is hope. Here’s more hope: Brains wired by toxic stress, such as the sexual violence that 1 in 10 teen girls are facing today, have the ability to essentially heal when exposed to positive experiences. Good nutrition, adequate sleep, mindfulness practices all help. Adults as well as children have neuroplasticity, and family resilience and connection are positive influences.

A person’s mental health is not an immaculate conception of just one brain, body or life. Teen suicide might drop and anxiety might improve as more school programs are funded and kids limit their screen time. But these will be temporary fixes for this generation and the next unless we stop systemically bullying ourselves and each other and find ways to show collective care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/15/teen-girls-mental-health-suicide/


Don’t fret over antisemitism in schools. We have restorative circles.

February 21, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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My favorite quote about writing — or anything else, for that matter — comes from George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language”: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”

Orwell’s insight was that politicians and institutions use meaningless phrases when they’re trying to obscure the truth, or when they don’t really know what they’re trying to say in the first place.

I can only imagine what Orwell would have made of the nonsensical language of social justice education.

This month, The Post’s Nicole Asbury reported on the latest allegation of antisemitism at Bethesda’s Walt Whitman High School (which happens to be the school my children attend). Apparently, a member of the debate team — a parent-run club at Whitman — accused two leading members of the team of making hateful comments about Jews.

Of course, just because a student reports something as happening doesn’t always mean it actually happened, or that it happened in exactly the way it’s portrayed. But here the allegations, corroborated by at least one other student, were unusually specific.

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According to the student who reported the conversation, the two more senior members of the team suggested that specific Jewish people they named should be lured with challah to the secluded Andaman Islands and burned at the stake, among other things.

Assuming that this is even mostly true, let’s give these teens the benefit of the doubt and stipulate that they’re young, that they probably thought they were being devilishly funny, and that young people saying stupid things is pretty much your average Tuesday.

That said, the incident shook a lot of kids and parents, who found out about it only by reading The Post, and especially debate club members. So you’d expect the school to address it clearly and candidly. Not quite.

School systems have protocols around this kind of thing, and those protocols, as at many universities now, rely heavily on a modern lexicon of incomprehensible blather.

According to a letter from Robert Dodd, the high school’s capable and constantly besieged principal, the Montgomery County school system initially moved to “implement restorative practices” with members of the debate team, through the convening of “restorative circles.” Which sounds like something you’d do at a spa for 300 bucks an hour.

Then, given the uproar at school, the county’s “restorative justice facilitators” decided to pause the restorative circles, so they could meet with students to determine what would be required to make them “further heal and feel safe.”

The letter went on to assure us that the school would “partner with MCPS leaders in equity and well-being” to have “critical discussions.”

I don’t know exactly what a leader in equity and well-being does, but I’d assume it involves a bunch of acronyms and maybe some other restorative shapes, like a triangle or a rhombus.

Meanwhile, while all this was going on, according to the school newspaper, the Black and White, the accused students were suspended from the debate club for a month (during which, I’m told, they missed no actual debate competitions). They offered no heartfelt apologies and have thus far retained their leadership positions on the team. That doesn’t sound so restorative to me.

I’m betting that Dodd, were he not trapped between protocols and parents and the ever-present specter of lawyers, would have condemned the incident more plainly and succinctly, encouraging everyone to move on.

But my point here really isn’t about whatever action the school should take, which is best decided by the principal and parents and which ought to be compassionate. Teenagers make idiotic mistakes, and they should have the right to learn from them.

My point is about language — and specifically the language of the cultural left. You can’t tell students, on one hand, that the words you use matter and have consequences, and then turn around and unleash a meaningless barrage of faux-academic mad-libs to make your case.

If we’re going to take the language of intolerance seriously, and we should, then we also have to take seriously the language we use in response. And, to Orwell’s point, if that language makes no sense to anyone who isn’t steeped in the new lexicon of academia, then it can only be because the people deploying it don’t want us to know what they’re really trying to achieve — or, more precisely, because they really have no idea themselves.

From what I glean, most of the students find all of this jargon to be a waste of their all-too-limited time, and I find it hard to blame them.

We’re supposed to be teaching our children to speak with care and clarity. What we keep demonstrating, instead, is a confounding lack of both.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/16/antisemitism-walt-whitman-high-school-opaque-social-justice-jargon/

Black on Black- Daniel Black

February 21, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Daniel Black – HarperCollins

https://www.c-span.org/video/?525441-1/black-black-resilience-brilliance-america