#educate

Reusable Produce Bags

I sit in an empty room of my alma mater. Listening to the soft shuffling of tired feet. Parents late to see son or daughter. Some working after learnings complete. The town of education, a city in the day And slowly life ebbs off of its street Pert students itching to get away Curt to grab paper and stretch feet. I listen to the ghosts of my learning. Invisible hands, to answer deaf questions…

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It comes to a close, The year that I oppose While knowledge grows From your throws Every lie shows Yet no one knows. No one even cares.

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Had a lovely reminder that Calanthe is very much A Puppy ™️

We went out to a local Bass Pro for PA training, had a fabulous day, rode and elevator for the first time, ignored her first drive by pet from a child(with a treat in front of her face, but I will take it), and ignored another dog training outside as we left.

And today I found my phone charger chewed on by vicious little puppy teeth because she was unsupervised for a few minutes.

Still over all a very good girl

Image representing our confusion when a lady with THREE BARKING CHIHUAHUAS tried to tell us Target stores are pet friendly today while we were out training.

Calanthe handled getting surprised by hooligan dogs yelling at her very well. Guess our first fake SD encounter is under our belt as a team now.

If you can’t control your dog, get it trained *clap clap*

If you can’t control your dog, get it trained *clap clap*

Whether on the leash or not, if your dog acts like a lout,

If you can’t control your dog, get it trained

*clap clap*

Just some of the titles I’ve read recently by black authors that I found incredibly informative and moving. I have studied (and personally love) the work of Jesmyn Ward, and also recommend Citizen by Claudia Rankine (not pictured above). Citizen is a great text that looks at microaggression and the experiences of black people witthin the United States through poetry. I also recently ordered ‘The New Jim Crow’ by Michelle Alexander and am constantly working to educate and inform myself of both my own privelige and the racism that persists in today’s society - so if you have any other book recommendations, please leave them in the comments! Let’s work together to share resources, books and knowledge to educate ourselves to try and resolve this problem, because Black Lives Matter.

The National Science Foundation has awarded grants of $4.8 million to several prominent research universities to advance the use of Big Data in the schools. Benjamin Herold writes in Education Week: “The National Science Foundation earlier this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a coalition of prominent research universities aiming to build a massive repository for storing, sharing, and analyzing the information students generate when using digital learning tools. “The project, dubbed “LearnSphere,” highlights the continued optimism that “big” educational data might be used to dramatically transform K-12 schooling. “It also raises new questions in the highly charged debate over student-data privacy. http://goo.gl/aYVRsp

Maggots, drug smuggling, sex with inmates. As if the news were not already bad enough, shocking new allegations of a murder-for-hire plot are emerging from Michigan as the media digs deeper into that state’s failed outsourcing of prison services. In 2013, Governor Rick Snyder invited the Philadelphia- based for-profit company Aramark to take over food services in the state’s prisons. The action was a 180-degree change in course, as the administration previously rejected all such bids on the grounds that none of the proposals would save the state money. The $570,000 Aramark spent on lobbying surely helped the company persuade the administration to change its mind. http://goo.gl/Q9lX59

“This latest yet unidentified St. Louis police executioner claimed that he followed Myers and his friends because he felt that the teens were acting suspiciously.” Ten minutes earlier he had taken the turkey sandwich Berhe Beyet made him and cradled it away from his friend’s playful snatching. Then stood breaking off a piece that he shared with another friend. By now, his mother has seen this tape of him standing in silhouette, and watched his peaceful chewing. On his way out the door he gives yet another friend a bite of what he did not know was his last supper, walking off into a night every parent in America cannot begin to imagine. A night every black person in America knows is coming and that the next one coming could be them—might as well be them—every time they imagine the high caliber bullet shattering his cheek bone, eye socket, aorta the medical examiner identified as the cause of death. http://goo.gl/XxJR1p

Mass surveillance of the internet by intelligence agencies is “corrosive of online privacy” and threatens to undermine international law, according to a report to the United Nations general assembly. The critical study by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, released on Wednesday is a response to revelations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden about the extent of monitoring carried out by GCHQ in the UK and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US. Emmerson’s study poses a direct challenge to the claims of both governments that their bulk surveillance programs, which the barrister finds endanger the privacy of “literally every internet user,” are proportionate to the terrorist threat and robustly constrained by law. To combat the danger, Emmerson endorses the ability of Internet users to mount legal challenges to bulk surveillance. http://goo.gl/usDwXV

Upon taking a closer look, how free are we? Do we indeed enjoy all the freedoms most are proud of? Let’s start with democracy, a process in which we freely choose between different candidates to represent us in various forms of government. The US political structure is monopolized by the two party system, Republican and Democrat. This applies on the state and federal level. Blue or red, those are our choices every time there is an election. The two party system itself is a restriction on choice rather than freedom of choice. You can go to a supermarket and have your choice between tons of cereal brands, shampoo, soap, juice, napkins, etc. So why are we restricted when it comes to representation? The billions of dollars in lobbyist money that is poured into politics leads to monopolizing the system in favor of two parties. There are no outside lobbyists that promote one cereal brand over another, but all our politicians are paid for by lobbyists. http://goo.gl/ok9mcw

Maru Mora-Villalpando lives in fear of deportation. As a community organizer for #Not1More Deportation and an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, her fears are not unfounded. Her nephew was deported in 2008; her cousin was deported in 2010 and she has seen countless other families separated. “I expect that to happen to me as well,” she said. Mora-Villalpando says her 17-year-old daughter constantly worries that she will be deported, particularly because of her activism, which forces her to travel frequently. “We have to be in constant touch. This is how I protect her and lessen her stress that her mother can be taken at any moment,” she told Truthout. Research shows this kind of fear can be profoundly detrimental for children. The study “The Children Left Behind: The Impact of Parental Deportation on Mental Health” notes the crucial role of parent-child relationships in social skills, emotion regulation and self-concept development. http://goo.gl/KZZu9i