Eleven-year-old Zainab, an Afghan refugee who is learning English, nails the question the moment she hears it. “How many notebooks in the classroom?” her teacher asks. “There is one notebook in the classroom,” she says, her voice halting because of the new language but confident because she knows the answer. “Perfect!” her teacher says. Then the process repeats, with different numbers of notebooks. And pencils. And calendars. All the questions are geared to teach English to a group of children, of different ages, who fled Afghanistan last fall and are looking to normalize their lives. Scenes like this are playing out in Orange County classrooms that are anything but typical. Zainab and two siblings are among some 60 children from Afghanistan temporarily...
Teaching differences to your students is SO important, but finding the right books to do it can be difficult. We should focus on differences all year long even in the special education classroom. Luckily, I have done this hard work for you! Book companions are a fun and engaging way to get students interacting with a text! When I was teaching I had a lot of difficulty finding leveled book companions that would meet the needs of students in my self-contained classroom, so I made my own. Here’s a look inside the best book companions for special education classrooms (St. Patrick’s Day themed!) ((This blog post contains affiliate links for your convenience. You don’t pay any more by clicking my link (and...
Yes we are making progress. Check back in twenty years here though.We have established a research tool we call the mimal cell. This does not make me excited. As a cell gets larger, internal complexity increase as a cube. Most cells are best imagined as a huge city with incessent movement and activity that is somehow purposeful.Now tell me what you can learn by looking small. Not so much is my guess.Start tracking decision paths associated with specific proteins. Can we even map that yet?A Journey to the Center of Our CellsBiologists are discovering the true nature of cells—and learning to build their own.By February 28, 2022Dept. of Science March 7, 2022 IssueJCVI-syn3A, the “minimal cell,” is a base model...
If you were awed by Joe Wright's adaptation of "Anna Karenina," which fuses sumptuous stage artifice with naturalism, you may be curious to see how Wright brings stage musicals to the screen. If so, you need to watch "Cyrano."Edmond Rostand's 1897 play "Cyrano de Bergerac" has been turned into a musical a few times before; the 2019 version, written and directed by Erica Schmidt with music by The National, is just the latest attempt. Still, the plot remains the same: So lovestruck that he's unable to sputter his verses to his childhood friend Roxanne, the poet Cyrano takes advantage of a unique opportunity when Roxanne falls for a handsome soldier named Christian. Cyrano lets Christian use Cyrano's own words to...
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on April 2, 2014. Do you remember what it was like to be an undergraduate? I took a few years off between college and my MLS, but I can still recall the endless “student social events,” the finals-week pampering and “de-stressing” events that my college hosted without fail. The intro-to-the-library session all the first-years received. Basically, the hand-holding. I’m not saying undergrad is a breeze. There’s plenty of work involved, and those degrees are earned. But undergrads enjoy a lot more basic support structures and failsafe measures to keep the clueless from falling through the cracks. Masters and PhD programs, while wonderful, are a whole different deal (especially when you’re online). There are...
