What connections can you make between this film and your own life or experience? Why? Does this film remind you of anything else you’ve read or seen? If so, how and why?
3. An additional challenge | Respond to the essential question at the top of this post: How did the tragic killing of the Trayvon Martin 10 years ago awaken a civil rights movement?
4. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)
5. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
“One of the most important things that came out of this tragedy was the activation of an entire new generation of civil rights leaders.” That was part of what President Barack Obama told The Times when we asked him what the killing of Trayvon Martin, 10 years ago Saturday, meant for the United States, the movement for civil rights and for him personally.
On Feb. 26, 2012, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, spotted Martin in a hoodie walking through a gated townhouse community not far from Orlando.
Suspicious, Zimmerman called 911 and followed Martin. Dispatch told him, “We don’t need you to do that.” There was an encounter between the two before Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest at close range.
Martin was just 17 years old, a boy, and he was where he was supposed to be.
He was unarmed. He was carrying Skittles and a can of iced tea.
There was something about the killing of this particular boy that set it apart from all other killings of Black people, that struck a chord in Black America, that awakened a generation.
Jesse Jackson once called the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy brutally murdered in Mississippi, the Big Bang of the civil rights movement. In the same way, the killing of Trayvon Martin was the Big Bang of the new civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
I feel disappointed that countries who claim to value progression are still using century-old tactics for gaining power and control over independent states. It shows that agreements between countries for peace and civil discussion do not take value over a leader’s own wants and desires, no matter how many disagree with them. This also makes me appreciate American systems such as checks and balances, because even when we had a president instated who currently praises Putin for his decision, he would have never been able to execute such an order on his sole will alone.
I can’t stress this enough, Putin is to blame for the Ukraine crisis, not the Russian people. In fact, many Russians don’t support this war, many protesters have been detained for “disloyalty to the state.” The sad part is that, knowing the horrors subjects dissidents to, these brave protesters will probably never see the light of another day.
Don’t blame ethnic Russians for it, either, because that crosses the line into flat out racism. Putin is a dictator, meaning the populace and military have no say in his decisions. Sadly, America has made this mistake before, detaining those of Japanese descent after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941. The people responsible for this act were emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. The US, which prides itself on its tolerance, was still predisposed to blame the attack on Japanese society as a whole. And after WW2, Americans hated Germans for the horrible crimes of Hitler and the Nazis. But Germans aren’t all anti-semitic Nazis. I myself am half German. Blaming Russians for Putin’s actions is similarly wrong. I have Russian friends who have expressed outright contempt for Vladimir Putin. Does it really make sense to blame an ethnic group for something one of its members did? Would it make sense to label today’s Southerners as slaveholders when said practice is illegal, or as racists when many of them aren’t? No. So do not discriminate against the citizens of Russia and ethnic Russians for Putin’s abhorrent actions.
Honestly these past few days ever since this happened I’ve been feeling ill to my stomach. The idea that Russia is currently in a war with Ukraine because Russia sees Ukraine as a threat is horrible. Hundreds if not thousands are losing their lives everyday. People are losing friends, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers.
This brings me back to two things I’ve read recently in class regarding the “Other”. The first thing is how we react to each other. There are three options, we either isolate ourselves from them, go to war with them, or they could receive them with open arms and try to understand them. In this case Russia declared war on Ukraine and now thousands have to lose their lives over a war that’s going to hold no meaning in the future. The thing is people fail to see both sides of the perspective. Obviously Russia is in fear due to the idea that Ukraine might join NATO. They fear that everyone is out to get them. They fear the extinction of their country. That’s the thing about human nature, we fear everyone that is different to us. We choose to wipe out those who oppose us before they wipe us out first. It’s a sad reality but wars will always be fought as long as there is a different ideology.
I know that most people will tell you that the reason we learn history is so that we do not repeat the same mistakes but this is a prime example of a mistake that is being repeated. I think sometimes it takes a slap in the face for us to realize why we are trying to prevent these mistakes. My generation has never seen anything like this so up close and personal. I think we will be more willing to work in the future to avoid a recurrence of the same issues because we are seeing the devastation that follows.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine comes one of the most important questions our nation has been faced with in decades. Do we support the sovereignty of a country we have no obligation to defend, or do we allow one of our greatest rivals aggressively take over their neighbor without protest? With lives on the line and the distant but ever looming threat of nuclear war, the wrong answer to this question could spell disaster for our nation and the world. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and thus the United States are not required to provide the European nation any assistance whatsoever. There is no clause saying we have to engage in the conflict and further antagonize and increase already high tensions with Russia. But if we sit by, idly observing an unprovoked and wholly unnecessary invasion of a free and independent nation, we are not the shining beacon of the modern world we claim to be. Democracy is under attack, and to be true to our tenets as a nation, we must push back against the tyranny that threatens the Ukrainian people with all we have.
4. After you have posted, read what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting a comment. Use the “Reply” button to address that student directly.
On Wednesday, March 9, teachers from our collaborator, the American Statistical Association, will facilitate this discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time.
5. By Friday morning, March 11, we will reveal more information about the graph, including a free link to the article that includes this graph, at the bottom of this post. We encourage you to post additional comments based on the article, possibly using statistical terms defined in the Stat Nuggets.
Reveal
We’ll post more information here on Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned!
• Learn more about the notice and wonder teaching strategy from this 5-minute video and how and why other teachers are using this strategy from our on-demand webinar.
• Sign up for our free weekly Learning Network newsletter so you never miss a graph. Graphs are always released by the Friday before the Wednesday live-moderation to give teachers time to plan ahead.
• Go to the American Statistical Association K-12 website, which includes teacher statistics resources, Census in the Schools student-generated data, professional development opportunities, and more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and the Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration — or, tell us about a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.
Want more Picture Prompts? Find them all in this column.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
WASHINGTON — President Biden vowed on Tuesday to make President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “pay a price” for invading Ukraine, seeking to rally the world as Moscow’s forces rained down missiles on Ukrainian cities and prepared to lay siege to the capital of Kyiv.
Appearing before a joint session of Congress at a fraught moment in modern history, Mr. Biden called for a united resistance to defend the international order endangered by Russian aggression and warned the oligarchs who bolster Mr. Putin’s regime that he would seize their luxury yachts and private jets.
“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways,” Mr. Biden said. “But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.”
Hailing the heroism of the Ukrainian resistance, Mr. Biden introduced Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, who joined Jill Biden in the first lady’s box holding a small blue-and-white Ukrainian flag. In a show of bipartisan solidarity, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, some of them wearing blue and yellow and many of them waving Ukrainian flags, leapt to their feet in an ovation to her and her country.
While the guns of Europe overshadowed the political disputes at home that have weighed down his presidency, Mr. Biden sought to use his first formal State of the Union address to persuade glum Americans that the country is making impressive progress containing the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy.
He made a fresh pitch for the social spending programs that have been logjammed in Congress, including expanded child care, elder care, prekindergarten education, climate change initiatives and prescription-drug price cuts, without explaining how he planned to overcome the opposition. And he vowed to take action to curb inflation, saying “my top priority is getting prices under control.”
Two years after the pandemic transformed American life, Mr. Biden declared that “we’ve reached a new moment in the fight against Covid-19,” and he generated bipartisan applause by calling for schools to remain open. “Our kids need to be in school,” he said. Yet he warned against complacency and called on lawmakers who have demonstrated unity over Ukraine to put aside their differences at home.
“Let’s use this moment to reset,” he said in the hourlong speech. “So stop looking at Covid as a partisan dividing line. See it for what it is: a God-awful disease. Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies. Let’s start seeing each other for who we are: fellow Americans.”
But the discord of today’s politics erupted in the chamber in ways that would have once been unthinkable. When Mr. Biden talked about immigration reform, Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican from Colorado given to angry spectacle and conspiracies, tried to start a “build the wall” chant but was joined only by a like-minded colleague, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.
For more background and context, students might watch this Times video of President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, from January 2016, and this video of Mr. Trump’s final State of the Union address, in February 2020. And you can follow along via this page for all Times coverage on the State of the Union address.
Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
By Scott Shireman, Global Head of Coursera for Campus
University students today are graduating into a new labor market reshaped by automation and the pandemic that demands new skills. According to the ILO, the global youth employment rate fell by more than twice as much as the rate among adults in 2020. The changing skills landscape is creating workforce opportunities, with 149 million new digital jobs expected to be added to the global economy by 2025. However, employers and students alike feel there is a mismatch between the skills students are graduating with and the skills required in the workplace.
The Campus Skills Report 2022, published today, explores skill trends among student learners across the globe and identifies key steps that higher education institutions can take to better align with industry, improve student employability, and increase student enrollments.
Drawing from Coursera’s 3.8 million registered student learners across 3,700 free and paid campus customers, the Campus Skills Report 2022 measures the skill proficiencies of campus learners for 5 emerging roles, provides skill-to-job pathways for 10 academic disciplines, and highlights learner skill trends for 9 countries. Importantly, while certain students use self-guided online learning to acquire skills on their own, others are guided by curated programs implemented by their higher education institutions in partnership with Coursera.
Our skills trends analysis of students on Cousera reveals the following insights:
The jobs of the future that students want, according to their major
The top jobs by student demand are data scientist, data analyst, software engineer, machine learning engineer, and marketing specialist. For example, in India, roughly 18% of Coursera for Campus students surveyed want to be software engineers, while 15% want to be data scientists.
While students around the world have made some progress in obtaining baseline proficiency in job-relevant skills, the majority have yet to meet the target proficiency needed to transition into these jobs.
Arts and humanities students who aspire to become professors and K-12 teachers are prioritizing communication, research, and writing skills.
Business students express similar levels of interest in data analysis and financial analysis as they do in marketing and consulting. To build data fluency, they are seeking out computer programming and machine learning skills.
Engineering students’ top jobs are software engineer and data scientist, so they are prioritizing core skills like mathematics, statistical programming, and computer programming.
Data scientist is a preferred job for health sciences students, who are acquiring data analysis, data management, and general statistics skills that can help them contribute to healthcare technology.
Social sciences students’ top job choices are researcher, data analyst, and economist. To complement their research skills, they are developing statistical programming and business analysis skills.
The skills that empower students to become software engineers.
The skills students are prioritizing to prepare for jobs in countries around the world
To prepare for jobs in a fast-growing digital economy, students in India are seeking out foundational and emerging digital skills, from C programming to cloud computing.
The majority of students on Coursera in the Philippines are women: a trend that higher education leaders can seize to close gender-based skills gaps in STEM fields.
Students in Egypt gravitate towards technology skills like software architecture, software testing, and software engineering in preparation for launching their own ventures in the country’s growing startup scene.
To thrive in the face of rapid technological change, students in the United States are pairing technology skills with human skills, such as decision making and change management.
A high number of students in Colombia are learning programming, software, and data analysis skills: a promising trend as the country prioritizes technology-driven endeavors.
The top skills that students in India are seeking out.
To compete amid rapid transformation, higher education institutions are increasingly connecting skills-based learning to skills-based hiring and, in doing so, preparing their students to enter high-growth digital jobs.
Naming a programming language is kind of like naming your kid — it’s a personal decision that lots of people will have opinions about, no matter what you decide.
When you’re choosing a programming language to learn, it’s easy to be intimidated or just plain confused by the names. But often a programming language’s name doesn’t have anything to do with its functionality or ease of use. Sometimes, it’s just a name that programmers chose on a whim (looking at you, Java).
That said, knowing some of the fun facts about the history of programming languages can come in handy next time you’re making small talk with another developer or attending a trivia night. Here are the stories of how popular programming languages got named.
Java
Back in 1991, Java creator James Gosling just looked out his office window for inspiration: Why not name it Oak, after an oak tree? Turns out, there were too many potential copyright issues with Oak, so the company Sun Microsystems held a brainstorming session for a new name.
“The goal was a name that sounded revolutionary, lively, dynamic and was easy to spell and remember,” Georges Saab, the vice president of development for Java, told The New York Times. Some of the frontrunners included: Silk, DNA, Lyric, Pepper, NetProsse, Neon, Ruby, WebRunner Language, WebDancer, and WebSpinner. The name Java was derived from Java coffee, hence the coffee cup logo. Plus, the name fit because “programmers drink a lot of java,” Jim Waldo, a Harvard computer scientist who worked at Sun Microsystems, told The Times.
JavaScript
In 1995, Brendan Eich invented JavaScript in just 10 days. At the time, Eich worked at Netscape, and wanted to make an accessible and malleable programming language. People were already familiar with Java, so the name JavaScript wasn’t completely random — but JavaScript has nothing to do with Java. “The name is a total lie,” Eich said in a 2012 interview with Computer. “It’s not really related to Java so much as to a common ancestor C in syntax.”
JavaScript was originally named Mocha, then later renamed to LiveScript, and finally JavaScript.
There was some drama between Java and JavaScript that ended in a licensing agreement, Brandon, a full-stack developer in Brooklyn, told Codecademy. Sun Microsystems, the company behind Java, allowed Netscape to name its language JavaScript in exchange for allowing Java to run inside Netscape’s web browser, he said.
Python
A python snake might be scary, but Python the programming language is not.
The name “was a bit of unwitting marketing genius on my part,” Guido Van Rossum, the Dutch programmer who invented Python in 1991, wrote in a 2016 blog. “I meant to honor the irreverent comedic genius of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and back in 1990 I didn’t think I had much to lose.”
Python is a very approachable language, and a popular choice for beginners. “For someone who is not yet a programmer, who wants to become a programmer, for those people Python is particularly easy to get,” Van Rossumsaid in a 2019 interview for Dropbox.
Ruby
Ruby creator Yukihiro Matsumoto, aka “Matz,” was inspired by the programming language Perl, and wanted to name his language after another gem. But words like “diamond” or “sapphire” were too long to remember and type, so he settled on Ruby or Coral.
“I talked to my friends and Ruby is shorter, and the ruby jewel is more beautiful, so I picked the name Ruby,” Matsumoto, who invented Ruby in 1995, said on an episode of the podcast The Changelog. By coincidence, pearl is the birthstone for the month of June, while ruby is July, so it made sense that Perl’s successor would be named Ruby, he said.
C and C++
C was born out of Bell Labs in the 1970s, and is the brainchild of a computer scientist named Dennis Richie. The name is not exactly creative: C was the followup to a programming language called B.
Then, in 1983, another programmer at Bell Labs named Bjarne Stroustrup came up with C with Classes, which was later renamed C++. Sure, they could’ve named this new language D, but the “++” is a nod to an operator for incrementing a variable in C. So, C++ really means “increment C by 1.”
C#
No, it’s not “C hashtag” or “C pound,” Microsoft’s programming language C# is pronounced “C sharp,” like the musical notation that indicates a higher pitch. According Anders Hejlsberg, who created C# in 2000, C# was almost named COOL, for C-style Object Oriented Language, but that name wasn’t ideal for trademark reasons.
“We wanted to have a reference to the language’s C heritage in the name and finally settled on C#,” Hejlsberg said in a 2009 interview. “Some other candidates I recall were e-C, Safe C, C-square, C-cube, C-prime, C-star, and Cesium… Looking at those now I’m pretty happy with our choice.”
SQL
In the 70s, the data science language SQL was originally called “Square,” and then was changed to Structured English Query Language. “In 1977, because of a trademark issue, the name Sequel was shortened to SQL,” Don Chamberlain, SQL co-creator, wrote in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. But despite the acronym, SQL is typically pronounced “sequel.”
Feeling inspired to learn one of these languages? Take our sorting quiz to figure out which language fits your personality, learning style, and goals. Or you can opt for one of these languages, which experts say you should learn first. And if you’re not sure where to start, you can also check out our Code Foundations Skill Path if you’re not sure where to start.
As Wall Street workers trickle back into their Manhattan offices this summer, they are noticeable for their casual attire. Men are reporting for duty in polo shirts. Women have stepped down from the high heels once considered de rigueur. Ties are nowhere to be found. Even the Lululemon logo has been spotted.
… Although banks haven’t sent out formal memos, their informal message is that returning employees should feel free to dress appropriately for the occasion — and that during a summer with few in-person client meetings, more relaxed attire is permissible. Jeans have even shown up on trading floors, and bankers have a wealth of opportunities to spring a familiar workplace joke: What’s with the tie? Got a job interview?
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the term de rigueur in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how de rigueur can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
According to a recent Times article, a new generation of influencers has discovered D.I.Y., or do-it-yourself, and is using things like spray paint, hot glue and thrift-store finds to spruce up their spaces on a tiny budget.
What D.I.Y. projects have you done, whether to improve your living space, up your fashion game, as a hobby or for any other reason? Was it fun? Successful? What did you learn? And if you’ve never taken on a D.I.Y. project, what would you most like to try?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.
Want more Picture Prompts? Find them all in this column.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
After months of troop buildups, grim warnings of violence and vague assurances of peace, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24. Despite efforts at diplomacy, Russia attacked several major cities, including the capital, Kyiv, resulting in dozens of deaths.
Which of the following facts about Ukraine, Russia and the roots of this war are true? CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY:
