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Word + Quiz: sedulous

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Word + Quiz: sedulous

: marked by care and persistent effort

The word sedulous has appeared in one article on NYTimes.com in the past year, on Nov. 12 in the book review “For Lydia Davis, Language Is Character” by Brian Dillon:

… She recommends unstinting regard for language and sedulous habits of self-revision; then she throws in, like an afterthought, an extra moral dimension: “Work on your character.”

Perhaps for Davis language, or a painstaking attitude to language, is character. It’s a matter first of judgment, then of invention. In an essay on “Revising One Sentence,” she describes the fixes, cuts and inclusions required to compose this poised sentence: “She walks around the house balancing on the balls of her feet, sometimes whistling and singing, sometimes talking to herself, sometimes stopping dead in a fencing position.” (A sentence, by the way, that Davis may never even use in a story — it exists for its own sake as a notebook flourish.) In “A Note on the Word ‘Gubernatorial,’” which Davis contributed to the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, she enjoys the word’s sound, “incorporating two voiced plosives and the word ‘goober.’” More important: Knowing why “gubernatorial” conceals its “softer, silkier, cousin, ‘govern,’” means that you, fretful thesaurus user, will deploy these and other words with more lively precision from now on. Abstract words, Davis tells her students, almost always conceal a real thing, such as a herd, a seed, a rodent, a goat. “Know what that concrete thing is.”

How Are You Staying Healthy and Fit?

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How Are You Staying Healthy and Fit?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

In “Tears and Disbelief as Coronavirus Cancels Youth Sports,” Joe Drape and David W. Chen write:

Little League baseball has shut down. Youth lacrosse and soccer clubs have suspended their seasons. Travel teams across all sports have been grounded. The coronavirus pandemic has done what generations of overbearing parents and coaches have failed to do: send millions of boys and girls to the sideline.

The impact of the emerging health crisis was felt immediately at the high school level as state championships in basketball, ice hockey and wrestling were canceled from Montana to New Jersey.

Hearts were broken. Tears were shed.

At the youth level, an indefinite pause in practices, games and tournaments promises to upset the rhythms of countless families and deal a significant blow to the youth sports economy.

Does this account resonate with your own experience? How has the coronavirus affected your sports and fitness activities and routines? What are you doing to stay fit in a time of social distancing? Are you struggling to find ways to be physically active each day?

Anna Goldfarb provides practical advice in “You Can Take Care of Yourself in Coronavirus Quarantine or Isolation, Starting Right Now.”

“Trying to preserve some sense of normalcy is really important for people’s well-being,” said Dr. Russell G. Buhr, a pulmonologist at U.C.L.A. Health. Maintaining a routine, he said, like getting up and getting dressed and doing what you usually do, can positively affect mental health.

“And good mental health promotes good physical health,” he added.

But there’s more to do. Dani Johnson, a physical therapist at the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, encourages people who are staying home to get creative. “Every little bit of movement counts,” she said. “So when we’re confined to our home, move, move, move.”

You don’t need fancy equipment or a lot of time; you just need to weave exercise into your schedule.

Here are four practical suggestions from the article for maintaining your physical and mental health:

Right now, start bringing movement into tiny moments

Next time you watch a TV show, get up and do some squats during the commercials, Ms. Johnson said. Do heel raises when you’re washing dishes. Do side lunges when you’re throwing clothes in the dryer.

Knock out some push-ups when you’re waiting for a pot of water to boil. Dancing is also a great way to move your body. Turn on some music and boogie.

The article continues:

Get your heart rate up, multiple times a day

“Stairs can be your cardiovascular best friend,” Ms. Johnson said. If you have access to stairs in your home or apartment, going up and down those stairs is a great way to get your blood pumping.

For a great full-body home workout, you can do an entire circuit sequence for up to 30 to 45 minutes. If you are working movement into your daily tasks, she also suggests creating more activity while doing things you already need to get done. For example, if you’re carrying laundry upstairs, take an extra lap or two up and down the stairs to work in extra steps. “Every little bit counts toward a healthier you,” Ms. Johnson said.

Dr. I-Min Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, recommends simple fitness exercises like marching in place, doing jumping jacks or jogging in place with high knees.

Get out and walk, even for just 15 minutes

“As long as the public health practitioners haven’t suggested a total lockdown, as long as you’re able to maintain a reasonable amount of distance and you’re being good about hand hygiene and especially if you’re staying completely home if you’re having any signs of illness, then getting outside for a walk is good,” Dr. Buhr said. “It clears your mind, and it keeps you active.”

Everyone should all aim for 150 minutes of physical activity every week, he said, but the amount of time you walk each day can vary. What counts is that you’re moving your body.

Many people want to keep fit, but have concerns about what is safe and what is not. In “Exercising During Coronavirus: Can I Jog? Is That Water Fountain Safe?” Gretchen Reynolds answers questions about staying in shape during the pandemic. Here are excerpts from four:

If I live in a community that is under a shelter-in-place order, can I run or walk outside?

This answer is easy: yes. The San Francisco County health department’s order, which is likely to be a model for similar announcements, says that people may leave their homes “to engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with social distancing requirements as defined in this section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running.” So, as long as you remain six feet away from other people (not counting those in your household), you can exercise outside.

Can I use drinking fountains along my route?

“We don’t have any data about how long the virus remains infectious on water fountains,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University. “But, given their proximity to other people’s mouths and noses, I would say you should not.”

If I am running the prescribed six feet behind someone on the path and they cough, will I jog right through their germs?

The science about how long the novel virus remains in the air is still unsettled. (You can read about a new study of that issue here.) But it is conceivable that droplets containing the virus could linger long enough for you to breathe them in, Dr. Iwasaki says, if you closely follow someone who is ill and the wind does not disperse the germs first. This precise scenario remains unlikely but not impossible, so look for the “least-crowded paths” available, she says, and perhaps swerve aside if someone coughs or spits ahead of you.

Should I take my shoes off before going in the house?

“This is a good rule of thumb,” says Saskia Popescu, a senior infection-prevention epidemiologist at HonorHealth in Arizona. No one knows if the coronavirus sticks to shoes, she says, “but they carry a lot of gunk in general, so leave them at the door.”

Additionally, The Times also offers free workouts. The Scientific 7-Minute Workout is here and its six-minute variations here. And if you have a jump rope and reasonable coordination, you might try this half-hour routine.

Students, read ONE of the articles above in its entirety, then tell us:

  • How has the coronavirus affected your physical routines and activities? Do you participate in youth sports? If so, how did you react to the news that they had been canceled?

  • How important to you is being physically active and fit? Dr. Russell G. Buhr says that maintaining a routine can positively affect mental health. Do you agree? What are the benefits to regular physical activity in your own life?

  • What are you doing to stay fit in a time of social distancing? Dancing? Stretching? Using a fitness app? How successful are your new routines?

  • Are you struggling to find ways to keep physically active each day? Which of the recommended physical activities described in the articles will work best for you? Do you have any exercise hacks to recommend to others?

  • What questions do you still have about exercise and the coronavirus?

Students 13 and older 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.

Lesson of the Day: ‘Welcome to the Virosphere’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘Welcome to the Virosphere’

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.

Featured Article: “Welcome to the Virosphere” by Carl Zimmer

SARS-CoV-2, also known as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, was isolated and identified by Chinese virologists in January. However, it is only one of 6,828 named species of virus, among thousands, or even trillions, that have yet to be named.

In this lesson you will learn about the history of identifying viruses and how virologists identify and classify viruses today. Then you will participate in a citizen scientist project that involves identifying the different stages of a virus.

What do you know about the structure and transmission of the coronavirus?

Look at the images below from left to right. The first image shows the coronavirus and the second image illustrates what happens as the virus enters a vulnerable cell.

Can you label the rest of the images? Here are some key words you will need to use: viral RNA, viral protein and viral copies.

Hint: The fifth image illustrates a close-up version of the fourth image.

Once you have labeled the images to the best of your ability, check your answers using the original article, “How Coronavirus Hijacks Your Cells.”

As you read the featured article, apply your knowledge of the coronavirus to understand and visualize how other viruses can be identified.

Read the article, then answer the following questions:

1. How do virologists search for new viruses? How do today’s approaches differ from earlier methods of researching viruses?

2. What does the research of Matthew Sullivan, a virologist at Ohio State University, demonstrate about the diversity of viruses in the sea?

3. How did Chinese researchers and virologists isolate and identify the virus that causes Covid-19 earlier this year? How did the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses name the virus?

4. How do viruses infect and affect humans compared to other species?

5. Why is it so hard for virologists to classify viruses?

6. Why did Jens H. Kuhn, the lead virologist at the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, and his colleagues create the “megataxonomy”? How have other researchers responded to his creation?

Now that you know about the process that virologists undertake to identify and classify viruses, you are going to participate in a citizen scientist project to identify the stages of a virus.

Diamond Light Source is the United Kingdom’s national synchrotron. The synchrotron produces bright light that scientists can use to study anything from fossils to jet engines to viruses and vaccines. In 2019, Diamond Light Source began a virus factory and enlisted the participation of the public, as citizen scientists. The first stage of this research is complete; however, you can still participate in the work of citizen scientists to study reoviruses.

According to Diamond Light Source’s Science Scribbler:

Reoviruses belong to a large family of viruses that infect a wide range of animals and plants. Some members of the family cause widespread disease, notably Rotaviruses, which are responsible for serious gastroenteritis. In contrast, reoviruses themselves, whilst they pervasively infect humans, do not typically produce symptoms, indeed they are being trialled as possible anti-cancer agents, since they specifically replicate in many cancer cells activated for division. They are therefore a good starting point to try to understand the life-cycle of this family of viruses.

Now you will identify and classify the four stages of the virus, following the instructions provided. Once you have completed several tasks, you can look at some of the other biology and science-related citizen scientist projects on Zooniverse and try another.

Weekly News Quiz for Students: Congressional Emergency Relief, Joe Biden, Tom Brady

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Weekly News Quiz for Students: Congressional Emergency Relief, Joe Biden, Tom Brady

All of the major leagues in the United States, plus golf, tennis and other sports, have shut down because of the spread of the coronavirus. The top soccer and rugby leagues have done the same in Europe. Just about all sports in China and Japan have been idle for weeks. But the continued, despite fears over the outbreak.

What’s the difference between social distancing and self-isolation?

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What’s the difference between social distancing and self-isolation?

For the latest advice on how to respond to the coronavirus, please consult the World Health Organization or take guidance from your local government health organisation.

Social distancing and isolation measures are being stepped up around the world in an attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), distancing and isolating yourself from others is an extremely important and proven way of helping to stop yourself and others catching the virus. 

But what exactly is social distancing, how does it differ to self-isolation, and what does WHO recommend that we all should be doing as a bare minimum? 

Social distancing

Social distancing is a measure designed to limit and restrict your face-to-face interactions with other people. If fewer people come into physical contact with each other, the chance of people sharing and perpetuating the spread of the disease.

Who should be social distancing?

At this time, everyone should be making efforts to reduce their social contact with others and implement social distancing measures in their lives. 

If followed, the measures will help to slow the spread of the disease which will reduce the pressure on health services overwhelmed by patients suffering from the symptoms of coronavirus.

How do I practice social distancing?

  • In line with WHO’s advice, you should only leave your home for essential reasons:
    • Buying food or medical supplies.
    • Caring for a vulnerable person.
    • Going to essential work.
    • Taking some form of exercise.
  • You should not socialise with anyone outside of the people in your home, whether in a large or small group, at home or in public.
  • Do not have people over to your home and do not socialise with friends or family at their homes. Keep in touch using remote technology like video calls or texting.
  • Work from home unless working from home is impossible in your role or you are a key worker, eg a nurse or teacher.
  • If you do have to go out, stay at least three steps (two metres or six feet) away from anyone else.
  • Make sure you wash your hands frequently and thoroughly for at least 20 seconds. When you return home from anywhere, you must wash your hands.

Self-isolation 

Self-isolation is a measure designed for anyone with symptoms of the coronavirus or who is confirmed to have the coronavirus. It means staying at home in one room and not leaving your home for any reason.

Social isolation is the most effective way of halting the spread of the virus.

Who should be self-isolating?

Following advice from Public Health England, anyone who has symptoms of the coronavirus should be self-isolating at home for seven days.

If you live with someone who is showing symptoms of the coronavirus, you must also self-isolate for 14 days, even if you are not showing any symptoms. 

This is because the virus has a 14 day incubation period so you may be carrying coronavirus without yet showing symptoms. The 14 day period begins from the day the person showing symptoms first became ill. 

If you do become ill in this 14 day isolation period, you must start a new 7 day isolation period. This means you could be self-isolating for up to 21 days.

How do I self-isolate?

  • Do not leave the house. Do not go to work, do not go to supermarkets, and do not go out into public areas.
  • Order food supplies online or ask people to help deliver food or medical supplies to you.
  • Avoid having visitors in your home. If anyone delivers supplies, make sure they leave them outside of your door and that you do not come into contact with the person delivering items.
  • If you live with people, try to contain yourself to one well-ventilated room if possible. Keep three steps (two metres or six feet) from anyone else in your home at any time. If you live with vulnerable people, try to move them out of your home to stay with friends or family if possible.
  • If you feel well and need to exercise, stay well away from others, at least adhering to the six feet away rule.
  • Sleep alone if you are able to.
  • Make sure everyone in your home is washing their hands regularly for at least 20 seconds at a time and disinfecting any shared areas. Dispose of any waste eg tissues in a double bag and keep away from other household waste for at least 72 hours to avoid contamination. 

Social distancing and self-isolation are extreme measures which are dramatically affecting how most people live their lives.

Though it is challenging, it is the only way we can collectively attempt to slow the coronavirus outbreak. The more people who comply with these regulations, the sooner our lives will return to normal.

If you’d like to learn more about the coronavirus outbreak and its impact around the world, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has created a completely free online course, COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus, for anyone who’d like to know more.

If you’re a healthcare professional, St George’s University of London has created a course, Managing COVID-19 in General Practice, designed to support front-line clinicians to keep their primary care practice running safely.

Or, if you’d like to explore courses to learn new things and distract yourself during this difficult time, take a look at our courses for keeping busy during isolation and check out our blog on ways to stay cultural whilst isolating at home.

Coursera Together: Free online learning during COVID-19

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Coursera Together: Free online learning during COVID-19

Coursera Together: Free online learning & community resources during COVID-19

As each of us navigate the impact of COVID-19 on our lives, we hope that you can find comfort in the strength of the Coursera community. Know that you’re not alone, and we’re here to help in any way that we can. 

During this time, we remain as passionate as ever about helping you learn, grow, and connect with learners and educators around the world. Both here and on our social media channels we’ll continue sharing uplifting stories, new ways to learn, and courses we think you’ll love. 

To help our community during this critical time, we’re launching new, free resources, as well as surfacing interesting course collections, community discussions, and expert interviews. We’ll continue to update this list with new resources as we have them—stay tuned!

Free Courses | Course Collections | Community Discussions | Expert Interviews

Learn something new with a free course

Starting today, we’re making a selection of courses completely free for anyone, anywhere so it’s easier to keep learning. To get started, click a link below—your free discount will be applied at checkout. We’re planning to make this offer available through May 31, 2020, with more details available in the links below.

Explore a new interest, career, or hobby with one of these collections

There are also hundreds of other opportunities to learn everything from storytelling to how the universe was formed! Uncover a new favorite course in one of these popular collections. Many of these courses are free to audit – or you can choose to pay to access additional quizzes, projects, and a shareable Certificate when you complete.  

Share advice and discover resources in the Coursera Community

The Coursera Community is a great place to connect with learners around the world to share advice, ask questions, and find inspiration. We’ve collected a few of the conversations that our community is using to navigate this critical time together: 

  • If you have questions regarding the outbreak, you can find additional resources from world-renowned public health experts in Coursera’s partner community. 
  • If you or someone you know is learning online for the first time: You can share these 8 tips from our Teaching & Learning team. 
  • If you’re looking for ways to keep learning with your kids: Connect with parents around the world and exchange favorite resources. 
  • If, like Coursera, you and your team are shifting to remote work: You can join others in our community to discuss strategies and share advice. 
  • If you’re looking for advice about moving in-person learning online: You can reference these best practices from our Teaching & Learning team. 

Get up to speed on a new topic with an expert

From motivational tips to help you achieve your goals to discussions on how to decide which programming language to learn, we’ve been talking with experts in the field to get the latest research and best advice. 

Explore one of our recent conversations to see if it sparks a new idea, a new perspective, a new question, or a new interest. Find all of our 20 minute conversations here or jump into some of our favorites below:

Now more than ever, we are grateful to our global community of educators and learners who continue to support and learn from each other. We invite you to share your questions, ideas, and comments with the community and hope that Coursera can serve you and those you love during these difficult times. We’re in this together and we’ll get through this together. 

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Q1 Coursera for Business Quarterly Product Release

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Q1 Coursera for Business Quarterly Product Release

By Shwetabh Mittal

We’re excited to share our newest features as part of our Q1 product release.  These features provide you with valuable data and insights to assess the performance of your learning program and the program management tools to engage with your learners at scale. These features include: 

  • A redesigned homepage that displays your learning program’s performance at a glance, with clear data and insights to make program management even more actionable.
  •  A universal learners list that provides you with the ability to view and manage learners across your different learning programs (instead of having only a single program view) and more advanced learner management capabilities such as filtering learners by learning activity.
  • Learner communications tools that give you the flexibility to reach out to your learners with tailored messaging—a pat on the back for a job well done or a quick nudge to start learning.

Just this past week, our Product Management team hosted a webinar to talk through these new features, as well as our 2020 roadmap, complete with even more exciting updates set to release later this year. You can tune in to the webinar on-demand here. 

Without further ado, let’s dive right in! 

With the new admin homepage, you can evaluate the overall performance of your learning program with a single glance, identify which areas of your learner funnel need attention and take action on them right away. 

The summary tab gives you a high-level view of your learning program as well as your organization’s skills development journey, including enrollments, learning hours, and the number of lessons taken.  

The usage overview section surfaces critical data points, such as invitations sent, learners joined, and learner enrollment. This information provides you with a snapshot of the leaky bucket in your learner funnel to drive learner participation. And lastly, below each stage in the learner funnel are quick action buttons you can use to take the needed measures. 

With the Universal Learners List functionality, you have a comprehensive view of learners across your different programs. You can also filter your member list to view the cohorts you need to see, using our various preset filters. 

For example, these filters include learners who were invited but never joined, or learners who joined but have yet to enroll. Once you’ve identified the learner population, the Universal Learners List will then give you the ability to send a bulk email and a collective reminder to start learning. You can also take other bulk actions, such as downloading the list as a CSV file or removing learners from the program.

The Learner Communication Tools allow you to send targeted communications to the different cohorts of learners in your programs, with preset messages tailored to the group of learners you are trying to reach. For example, you can select the population of learners who joined the program but never enrolled in a course. Once selected, a pre-populated message will appear explicitly intended for that audience. Note, you can also customize your communications as you see fit for your learners, or start from a blank canvas entirely.  And to make your messages even more engaging, we’ve added an audience-specific call-to-action button to every email, giving recipients the ability to take the needed action seamlessly and with minimal friction. 

Through these tools, we hope to give you the insights and capabilities you need to enhance your learning programs, deliver strong learning outcomes, and engage with your learners at scale. Be sure to watch our webinar replay for additional information on all these new features. Happy learning!

 

Trapped Inside

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Trapped Inside

Tell us about a moment from your own life that this illustration makes you think of — or use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by it.

Post it in the comments, then read the related article to find out what this image all about.

Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan. You can find all our Picture Prompts in this column.

Word + Quiz: steamroller

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Word + Quiz: steamroller

noun: vehicle equipped with heavy wide smooth rollers for compacting roads and pavements

noun: a massive inexorable force that seems to crush everything in its way

verb: bring to a specified state by overwhelming force or pressure

verb: overwhelm by using great force

_________

The word steamroller has appeared in 10 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 15 in “Is a 400% Rent Increase the Future of Coney Island?” by Aaron Randle:

Dianna Carlin should be finishing the book she is writing about the joys of owning the Lola Star boutique, a “really tiny, magical little shop” on the Coney Island boardwalk, for the past 19 years.

Instead, Ms. Carlin has been anxious and fearful since her landlord weeks ago offered her a new lease — with a 400 percent rent increase. “I’m wondering if I should start ordering ‘going out of business’ signs,” she said.

… And now, facing the steamroller of gentrification, even Coney Island’s quirky circus sideshow could be forced to confront an uncertain future.

“They’re trying to turn the People’s Playground into the playground for the wealthy,” Ms. Carlin said.

_________

Should Public Preschool Be a Right for All Children?

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Should Public Preschool Be a Right for All Children?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

In “Public School Is a Child’s Right. Should Preschool Be Also?” Claire Cain Miller begins the article with a question:

In the United States, the chance that a child attends a high-quality preschool — which research has shown sets them on a more successful life path — often depends on whether the parents can afford it. But what if government-funded care and education of children started soon after birth?

What do you think? Is it the government’s responsibility to provide free preschool for all children? Or should universal public school begin at age 5, in kindergarten, the way it currently does in most states?

Is public preschool available in your area, or do parents have to pay for it?

The author writes about proposals for government-funded early childhood education put forward by Democratic presidential candidates:

It hasn’t always been the norm in parts of the United States that public school started at age 5. The first kindergartens, in the late 1800s, started at age 3. Several states and cities already offer universal pre-K, starting at age 3 or 4, including Oklahoma, New York City and Washington, D.C. In Washington, the vast majority of children attend preschool, and 86 percent of them finish ready for kindergarten, as measured by their cognition skills.

But over all, Americans have resisted universal care and education for the youngest children. One reason has been political resistance to a large new taxpayer-financed government program. Another has been the belief held by some that young children should be home with a parent, and that it’s not the government’s role to intervene during this period.

Yet three major things have changed. A significant amount of research has shown that high-quality care and education are important for young children’s development, and that low-income children have significantly less access to these programs. Second, most parents work, including 65 percent of mothers of children under 6 — and women’s work force participation increases when there is public preschool. Finally, the private market for child care isn’t working well: Families are struggling to afford rising child care costs, yet teachers are underpaid.

The article looks at the differences between “means-tested” programs, which are based on family income and need, and universal education:

For early learning in particular, researchers say, universal options have educational benefits that means-tested programs like Head Start do not. Achievement gaps between rich and poor children are evident by kindergarten, and classrooms with children from various economic backgrounds have been found to improve children’s learning, particularly for lower-income children.

On his campaign website, Senator Sanders cited this as a reason for his plan: “Our means-tested system has created racially and economically segregated child care and pre-K in this country.”

A recent study of 5,100 4-year-olds from 33 states, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, compared those who attended universal pre-K (available to everyone); targeted pre-K (available to families below a certain income); and no pre-K. Universal programs had much larger effects on children’s academic performance and kindergarten readiness than targeted programs, and this was especially true for low-income children. The study ruled out various explanations, like spending per student and children’s alternative care arrangements.

Ms. Cain Miller also compares approaches and beliefs about early childhood education in different countries:

In countries where early childhood programs are offered to everyone, it has become the default option, said Gabriele Fain, director of the early childhood practice at the American Institutes for Research. (These countries also tend to have very long parental leaves, so many children do not need outside care until they are toddlers.)

“It’s just inherent in how they think about early childhood education,” she said. “It’s really baked into these countries in a much more cultural way than it is here in the United States, with our pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality.”

France and the Nordic countries spend 1.2 percent to 1.8 percent of gross domestic product on early childhood care and education. The United States spends 0.4 percent. In much of Europe, it is considered a child’s legal right, no matter the family’s income or background, which helps protect government funding for it, according to a report co-written by Ms. Fain.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • Do you believe there should be a universal system of public preschool, available to all children in the United States? Why or why not?

  • What is your reaction to the proposals put forward by different Democratic presidential candidates for universal preschool? What do you think about the already-existing early childhood education models in European countries? Do you think there are advantages and disadvantages to offering publicly funded preschool?

  • How has your school’s diversity, or lack of diversity, affected your own learning experience? Do you think it is important for teenagers to be around people of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds? What about for younger children?

  • What are your earliest memories of learning and going to school? Did you go to a preschool or day care center, or did you stay at home with family members?

Students 13 and older 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.

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