After the iPhone and the iPad, the iZone is a different kind of design experiment.
It’s New York’s attempt to reinvent an inner-city school.
The iZone project – or Innovation Zone – is challenging state schools in New York City to rip up the rule book.
If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business. Skills like sales, networking, creativity and comfort with failure.
No business in America ”” and therefore no job creation ”” happens without someone buying something. But most students learn nothing about sales in college; they are more likely to take a course on why sales (and capitalism) are evil.
Moreover, very few start-ups get off the ground without a wide, vibrant network of advisers and mentors, potential customers and clients, quality vendors and valuable talent to employ. You don’t learn how to network crouched over a desk studying for multiple-choice exams. You learn it outside the classroom, talking to fellow human beings face-to-face.
After [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan’s visit there was some back and forth between the Obama administration and Oregon City on how the money should be spent. But ultimately, the Department of Education said it should be given to teachers as direct bonuses. It also said it wanted to restrict the funds to schools with lots of low-income students, which would have excluded half of Oregon City’s schools.
Oregon City wanted to put the money into a shared fund, possibly for teachers’ continuing education.
Nancy Noice, president of the Oregon City teachers union, said one solution the feds proposed was that employees hand their bonuses back to the district. But Noice says that didn’t seem workable.
Here’s a pop quiz: What foods are best to eat before a high-stakes test? When is the best time to review the toughest material? A growing body of research on the best study techniques offers some answers.
Chiefly, testing yourself repeatedly before an exam teaches the brain to retrieve and apply knowledge from memory. The method is more effective than re-reading a textbook, says Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. If you are facing a test on the digestive system, he says, practice explaining how it works from start to finish, rather than studying a list of its parts….
…today the Diocese of Christchurch issued a statement saying it is considering all options for all of its churches, buildings and other facilities following the recent quakes.
“This is a challenging and complex process and extensive consultation is required with a range of stakeholders along with the need to commission expert analysis and technical reports,” said Bishop Victoria Matthew.
“With all sites, including the Christchurch Cathedral in the central city, safety is the first priority.
“A final decision won’t be made until all of the information and reports are received by the various church entities and the options and ramifications considered.
I was on Wall Street two weeks ago, and I’ve been in Silicon Valley this past week. What a contrast! While Wall Street is being rattled by a social revolution, Silicon Valley is being by transformed by another technology revolution – one that is taking the world from connected to hyperconnected and individuals from empowered to superempowered. It is the biggest leap forward in the IT revolution since the mainframe computer was replaced by desktops and the Web. It is going to change everything about how companies and societies operate.
The latest phase in the IT revolution is being driven by the convergence of social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga – with the proliferation of cheap wireless connectivity and Web-enabled smartphones and “the cloud” – those enormous server farms that hold and constantly update thousands of software applications, which are then downloaded (as if from a cloud) by users on their smartphones, making them into incredibly powerful devices that can perform myriad tasks.
One of the extraordinary features of us human beings is how deep the desire for fairness goes. Parents often hear a cry from their children “It’s not fair”. Parents sometimes reply “Well life isn’t fair”. Indeed it is not. But the point is that we feel it ought to be, and that we ought to try to make it as fair as possible. If a child at school is being punished unfairly, others in the class will protest. If someone is getting away with a wrong, we feel they ought to be caught and admonished. Those childhood feelings are no different from the moral realm we inhabit as adults. However unjust life is, we sense an obligation to do what we can to make it more just, and that includes bringing home to criminals and tyrants the terrible consequences of their deeds….
The great cry running through the Hebrew scriptures is that this world is grossly unjust but that that God will reveal a true justice at the end-so when, when, will God act in that way to put right all that is wrong? Jews, Christians and Muslims have never lost that hope of an ultimate justice.
The 14th crisis summit in 21 months starts with a meeting of all 27 European Union leaders at 6 p.m. The real business gets under way at 7:15 p.m. when chiefs of the 10 non-euro nations depart, leaving the rest to hash out a strategy that they already say requires more work.
The cancellation of a finance ministers’ meeting to precede the summit underscored the holes in the plan. The finance chiefs will now meet at an as-yet undetermined time after the summit to complete its main elements, including safeguarding banks and writing down Greek debt, according to an EU official.
Global exasperation with Europe’s response is deepening, with politicians from Australia to North America prodding the euro area to get ahead of the crisis before it infects the world economy.
Eight years of property litigation involving the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has ended, but most parishes that broke from the Episcopal Church still face negotiations over their buildings.
After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week denied an appeal from the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, which had argued that it owned the property, the Anglican decided diocese it will not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, spokesman David Trautman said.
“This whole string of litigation is ended, is done,” he said.
On several occasions, I have suggested that the day when we would begin our new life as a Catholic congregation was in sight, only for there to be another delay. And no doubt many of you share my frustration in seeing other groups board the Barque of Peter ahead of us. But I can assure you that at this point, every indication suggests we do not have much longer to wait. As I announced from the pulpit recently, Mount Calvary is about to enter into mediation with the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland under the guidance of Judge Joseph Kaplan. This very positive development promises to result in a final property settlement in short order.
Another encouraging sign of progress is that those who attend the… [Episcopal] service in our All Souls Chapel at 9 o’clock Sunday mornings have been informed that this service will be coming to an end this month. They will need to find another church home should they wish to remain Episcopalians. Mount Calvary has permitted this service as a gesture of goodwill, but the Diocese of Maryland has determined that it can no longer be justified for the very small number of people who attend. This, I believe, is a tacit acknowledgement that in the near future, only the Catholic Mass will be celebrated at Mount Calvary”¦
Despite their lack of understanding and interest in the world around them, these emerging adults, Smith and his collaborators insist, are not unintelligent. Rather, the authors argue, no one has taught them to ask questions about morality or to think about what is important in life. Smith and his coauthors blame, at least in part, “the tolerance-promoting, multiculturalist educational project” for some of these problems. In the effort to make the next generation more accepting of other people and other views, they have made the generation accepting of everyone and every view.
Six out of ten respondents, according to the authors, “said that morality is a personal choice, entirely a matter of individual decision.” To the extent that they can, the respondents “completely avoid making any strong moral claims themselves, as well as avoiding criticizing the moral views of others.”
When they do want to criticize something on a moral basis, emerging adults don’t even have the language at their disposal to do so.
Emily Hatcher, 26, is working overtime to find a job.
She keeps a strict schedule. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday she spends six to eight hours applying for jobs. The other days of the week, she sharpens her skills by taking computer classes online and networking.
The college graduate with a degree in early childhood education works as a babysitter and a substitute schoolteacher….
[She]…is [also] part of a job-networking group that meets at…[Roswell United Methodist Church] every other Monday.
She had never before made a phone call in her life. Wow. Watch it all–KSH.
Among the findings in this particular evaluation was that only 11 of the 35 cyber security weaknesses identified in a 2010 review had been fully corrected by the 2011 look-see.
O Sovereign Lord, who didst bring thy servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also, we beseech thee, a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
O Lord, who hast brought us through the darkness of night to the light of the morning, and who by thy Holy Spirit dost illumine the darkness of ignorance and sin: We beseech thee, of thy loving-kindness, to pour thy holy light into our souls; that we may ever be devoted to thee, by whose wisdom we were created, by whose mercy we were redeemed, and by whose providence we are governed; to the honour and glory of thy great name.
Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in Babylonia, in the house of the archives where the documents were stored. And in Ecbat’ana, the capital which is in the province of Media, a scroll was found on which this was written: “A record. In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are brought; its height shall be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits, with three courses of great stones and one course of timber; let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnez’zar took out of the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple which is in Jerusalem, each to its place; you shall put them in the house of God.”
–Ezra 6:1-5
Partial official results from Tunisia suggest victory for the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, in the first democratic elections prompted by the Arab Spring uprisings.
The electoral commission said Ennahda was well ahead in the vote for a new assembly that will write a constitution and appoint a caretaker government.
In another political aftershock from the summer’s rare East Coast earthquake, a bid by the mayor of Washington to secure federal aid for the damaged Washington National Cathedral is drawing criticism from those who say it runs counter to separation of church and state.
Mayor Vincent C. Gray is seeking $15 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for repairs to the cathedral, which was seriously damaged in the 5.8 temblor Aug. 23.
But Joseph L. Conn, director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, blogged on the organization’s website, “Asking the taxpayers to pick up the tab sets a very bad precedent and jeopardizes a critically important edifice that protects us all: the wall of separation between church and state.”
Within hours of the death of Steve Jobs earlier this month, impromptu memorials began to appear at Apple stores around the world. Well-wishers brought candles, flowers and apples (with bites taken from them), and they covered windowpanes with handwritten Post-It notes. Inventive and colorful, such outpourings are this generation’s way of memorializing public figures like Princess Diana and Alexander McQueen.
But creativity in sending off the dead is nothing new. Human beings are seemingly hardwired to use public rituals to mark such moments. We bury our loved ones in the ground. We burn them in fire. In some cultures, we leave corpses as carrion, inviting the birds to pick the bones dry. In others, we hang the dead in trees or stow them in caves. In naval circles, we consign them to the ocean.
Financial turmoil in global markets continues to play havoc with the value of the U.S. dollar, but technology continues to make the transfer of donor dollars to missionaries quicker and easier.
American missionary income in China has dropped 25 percent in recent years because of the dollar’s decline against the Chinese yuan, said a missionary leader who requested anonymity. “In 24 years of missionary ministry, I have never seen things as tough as they are now.”
“It’s a complaint we hear almost every day,” says Bill Bray of Christian Aid Mission, which supports indigenous missionaries in 122 nations. “They need more money because of the exchange rate.”
More than a week after welcoming anti-corporate protesters onto its grounds, London’s historic St. Paul’s Cathedral now wants them to go away because their presence is costing too much money.
Asking the demonstrators to leave peacefully after nine days of occupying a makeshift tent city in the churchyard, St. Paul’s dean, the Rev. Graeme Knowles, said “we have done this with a very heavy heart.”
A dozen people sat in a circle in a small meeting room beside the darkened sanctuary of St. Barnabas Church on Hikes Lane on a recent weekday morning, practicing new readings that will mark the biggest and most controversial overhaul of Roman Catholic liturgy in decades next month.
They gave a test run to a revised version of the confession of sins. They softly struck their chests with their fists as they read the repentance for sins committed through “my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.”
Many hadn’t made that gesture in nearly half a century, when they had used the Latin phrase, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Since the Mass began to be recited in English, that clause, and the chest-striking, had been dropped from the confession of sin.
Mormonism is not something I could accept as a faith — you will never get the Catholic out of me, even if I attend an Episcopal church in Georgetown.
Mormons believe in the salvation story that makes Christianity a separate faith, not merely a separate sect, from Judaism. However, Mormons also believe mortals possess the potential for divinity — to live a life like God in the hereafter — if they live a truly just life here on earth.
The potential for our own divinity sounds farfetched and cult-like to rigid and inflexible Christians, such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry supporter Rev. Robert Jeffress, but no more so than did the divinity of Christ and the Christian salvation story to First Century Jews or their Roman rulers. What is more important is what Mormons believe and teach to their children about what God expects from each of us in our relationships with our fellow human beings — or what it takes to live a good life.
The first morning of Council brought three distinctive yet interwoven narratives from the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies and the Chief Operating Officer. Each made important statements about how the work of Executive Council relates to the larger narratives of the life of the Church. There were moments of conflict as values held passionately by the three speakers were openly expressed. There were admonitions to find Jesus among the poor, to honor the hard work and witness of the whole people of the Church in all orders, to express how we carry out God’s mission in the shaping of a budget.
The experience of conflict in church meetings where budgetary discussions and vision are mixed together often make us wary of even trying to connect the dots, of weaving a whole story from the threads. Rich insights by committed leadership, accompanied by a common commitment to hear one another out, resulted in the beginnings of new stronger cloth.
In 2009, General Convention closed with a strong emphasis on mission, mission, mission. . . . God is calling the church to meet Jesus in the marginalized ”“ the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the lost. Weave, weave, weave . . . Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her opening remarks challenged Council to regard budgets as moral documents. The 76th General Convention’s adoption of the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion as mission priorities are the threads that are woven through all the parts of The Episcopal Church’s budget.
(Via email–KSH).
Resolution offered by The Vestry of Christ Church, Greenville
Christ Church City Greenville
An Invitation to ConversationWHEREAS: God’s very essence and nature is revealed to us in the community of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, “Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of persons;” and
WHEREAS: Jesus Christ himself entered into fully human community by calling faithful disciples and by promising he would be with us to the end of the ages, and
WHEREAS: we, as Episcopalians, affirm St. Paul’s teaching in our Baptismal liturgy that “[t]here is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” and
WHEREAS: any injury endured or experienced by a member of our community of the church as the Body of Christ affects the whole Body of Christ, and
WHEREAS: the Diocese of South Carolina formerly encompassed the territory and parishes that now comprise the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, such that the communicants of the two dioceses are significantly interrelated and bound by faith, fellowship and family, Therefore be it
RESOLVED: that we, the people of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, gathered together at the 89th Diocesan Convention in a spirit of unity and reconciliation, invite The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church and The Right Reverend Mark Lawrence, Bishop of South Carolina to come together in person at a mutually convenient time and place in order to strengthen the bonds of our community; and be it further
RESOLVED: that The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Right Reverend Mark Lawrence engage in healing conversation regarding the ongoing tensions between The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina; and be it further
RESOLVED: that The Right Reverend Andrew Waldo, Bishop of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina hand deliver a copy of this resolution to The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori and The Right Reverend Mark Lawrence with our warm regards and collective prayers.
I take exception to Marilyn Gibson’s letter, “Placing Mormon faith” (Forum, Oct. 20), when she claims that Episcopalians “don’t think Mormons are Christian.” While I applaud her ability to back up her research using the trusted source Wikipedia, I urge her to broaden her research before asserting that my religion does not consider our Latter-day Saint brothers and sisters to be Christian.
Read it all.