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Word + Quiz: totem

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Word + Quiz: totem

1. emblem consisting of an object such as an animal or plant; serves as the symbol of a family or clan (especially among American Indians)

2. something that stands as an emblem or an honored symbol

3. a clan or family identified by their kinship to a common totemic object

_________

The word totem has appeared in 54 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 26 in “Japan’s Skateboarders Roll, Warily, Out of the Shadows” by John Branch:

Over the decades, like so many other anti-authority movements, skateboarding leaked into the mainstream. Skateboards — a mode of transportation, an instrument of art, a totem of defiance — now glide across American sidewalks, plazas and streets. These days, skateboarding style, fashion and culture have morphed into beacons for masses looking for calculated rebelliousness.

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Do You Have More Good Habits Than Bad?

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Do You Have More Good Habits Than Bad?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

What healthy habits do you have? Think about your day, beginning when you wake up. What do you do regularly that is good for your physical, mental or spiritual health? How did you acquire these healthy habits?

What habits do you wish you had? Have you ever set out to build a new habit — and failed? What do you think it takes to make good, healthy habits? Willpower? Incentives? A buddy?

In “How to Build Healthy Habits,” Tara Parker-Pope writes about research on forming good, healthy habits. The article begins:

We’re all creatures of habit. We tend to wake up at the same time each day, brush our teeth, have morning coffee and commute to work, following the same patterns every day.

So why is it so hard to form new healthy habits?

Behavioral scientists who study habit formation say that many of us try to create healthy habits the wrong way. We make bold resolutions to start exercising or lose weight, for example, without taking the steps needed to set ourselves up for success.

Ms. Parker-Pope presents several research-backed tips for forming new healthy habits. Here are excerpts from three:

Stack your habits. The best way to form a new habit is to tie it to an existing habit, experts say. Look for patterns in your day and think about how you can use existing habits to create new, positive ones.

For many of us, our morning routine is our strongest routine, so that’s a great place to stack on a new habit. A morning cup of coffee, for example, can create a great opportunity to start a new one-minute meditation practice. Or, while you are brushing your teeth, you might choose to do squats or stand on one foot to practice balance.

Start small. B.J. Fogg, a Stanford University researcher and author of the book “Tiny Habits,” notes that big behavior changes require a high level of motivation that often can’t be sustained. He suggests starting with tiny habits to make the new habit as easy as possible in the beginning. Taking a daily short walk, for example, could be the beginning of an exercise habit. Or, putting an apple in your bag every day could lead to better eating habits.

Do it every day. British researchers studied how people form habits in the real world, asking participants to choose a simple habit they wanted to form, like drinking water at lunch or taking a walk before dinner. The study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, showed that the amount of time it took for the task to become automatic — a habit — ranged from 18 to 254 days. The median time was 66 days!

The lesson is that habits take a long time to create, but they form faster when we do them more often, so start with something reasonable that is really easy to do. You are more likely to stick with an exercise habit if you do some small exercise — jumping jacks, a yoga pose, a brisk walk — every day, rather than trying to get to the gym three days a week. Once the daily exercise becomes a habit, you can explore new, more intense forms of exercise.

Reward yourself. Rewards are an important part of habit formation. When we brush our teeth, the reward is immediate — a minty fresh mouth. But some rewards — like weight loss or the physical changes from exercise — take longer to show up. That’s why it helps to build in some immediate rewards to help you form the habit. Listening to audiobooks while running, for example, or watching a favorite cooking show on the treadmill can help reinforce an exercise habit. Or plan an exercise date so the reward is time with a friend.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • Do you have more good habits than bad? Tell us about some of your best and worst habits, and how you acquired them. How do they affect your life, in and out of school?

  • The article says that many of us try to create healthy habits the wrong way. How good are you at building new, healthy habits? Have you ever made bold resolutions without “taking the steps needed to set ourselves up for success”?

  • Which tips for building positive habits from the article do you find most useful and why? Which do you think would be hardest for you to successfully practice? Are there other tips you would recommend?

  • Have you ever successfully broken a bad habit? If yes, how were you able to accomplish it? What advice would you give others who might wish to discard the same bad habit?

  • What habits do you wish you had? Why? Is there one single habit you would most like to build or break? Does reading the article motivate you to try now? What tips and strategies would you employ to optimize your chances for success?

If you are inspired by the article, take the Times Healthy-Habits Well Challenge, a 28-day plan to nourish your body, mind and spirit, one daily challenge at a time.

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: ‘With Weinstein Conviction, Jury Delivers a Verdict on #MeToo’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘With Weinstein Conviction, Jury Delivers a Verdict on #MeToo’

6. Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center said that the verdict provided hope that we can “have a criminal justice system that reflects the reality of sexual violence.” What does Ms. Graves mean by that? What does Mr. Weinstein’s case reveal about sexual violence?

Following the verdict, The New York Times asked some of Mr. Weinstein’s accusers, legal experts and stakeholders in the #MeToo movement for their reactions. Those responses are compiled in the article “‘Finally’: Ashley Judd and Other Weinstein Accusers Respond to Verdict.” Here are excerpts:

Ashley Judd was the first actress to publicly accuse Mr. Weinstein of sexual misconduct.

The story of #MeToo, of what the movement is about, is that men no longer have tacit permission to use their power or prestige to sexually access girls’ and women’s bodies. Their power and position cannot be used in secret or in the open to exploit asymmetry of power. There will be consequences in the courtroom, in employment and in society. …

… I would love for Harvey to have a restorative justice process in which he could come emotionally to terms with his wrongs. The criminal justice system is a distant second to a more humane kind of process. This is what he has created for himself: prison, lack of remorse, lack of accountability. The man is going to prison for sex crimes.

Fatima Goss Graves is the president of the National Women’s Law Center.

What defense attorneys do is create a narrative that only one type of person could experience sexual violence, and that there is only one type of response. They discount behaviors that are actually really typical in an effort to blame victims. This moment we are in is an opportunity to disrupt the story of a typical survivor, and to disrupt the story of a typical response.

Chanel Miller wrote a memoir, “Know My Name,” about her experience as the victim in a high-profile sexual assault case.

Today we locked one man in one cell. We made progress because survivors keep speaking. Still, this was a case where many others looked away for decades. It was not just power that made him untouchable, people did. We cannot be afforded the neatness of closure. We should confront the question on our collective conscience: The next time you are aware of violence, will you be silent or speak?

Zelda Perkins is a former Miramax assistant who was the first woman to break a nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Weinstein.

Harvey going down for five years, 10 years, is not the end of this. This does not solve the problem. We can’t all just turn our eyes back to normal life and think everything is OK.

The fight absolutely doesn’t stop here. I think Harvey has become the ogre and the figurehead of this awful situation, but he is not the only one. And I think we have to remember that #MeToo was not about Harvey Weinstein. Tarana Burke did not start #MeToo because of Weinstein.

#MeToo has not been finished by him going to jail. And I hope this is the beginning of judges and juries understanding and taking the nuances of abuses of power more seriously.

If you have more time, read the entire article. Then, engage in a Big Paper discussion in response to the questions: What is your reaction to the Harvey Weinstein verdict? Do you think the verdict will change how sexual harassment and assault are viewed and prosecuted? How do you think this will shift how teenagers talk about consent, sex and harassment? What do you think the verdict means for the #MeToo movement at large?

Inside a Book

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Inside a Book

What do you think this image is saying? How does it relate to or comment on society or the world today? Can you relate to it personally? What is your opinion of its message?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related book review to find out what it means.

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

Fake Ice

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Fake Ice

What story does this video inspire for you? Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem from the perspective of one of the skaters or the spectator who is filming them.

Or, tell us about a memory from your own life that this video makes you think of.

Post it in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.

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: flamboyant

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Word + Quiz: flamboyant

adjective: marked by ostentation and often colorful display

noun: showy tropical tree or shrub native to Madagascar; widely planted in tropical regions for its immense racemes of scarlet and orange flowers; sometimes placed in genus Poinciana

_________

The word flamboyant has appeared in 209 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 29 in “Kobe Bryant’s Many Moves to the Net” by Guy Trebay:

“As a young player, Kobe was predominantly donning more casual wear, active pieces, baggy sweatsuits and Michael Jordan Bulls jerseys,’’ said Jamaal Richards, whose Instagram account MoreThanStats is a mother lode of images documenting the transformation of athletes into fashion leaders. “As he grew as a player, a superstar and celebrity, he turned more toward sartorial elegance and sleek bespoke suiting. It was a natural progression for him since he always had that professional mind-state, that mamba mentality.”

Off court as well as on, Mr. Bryant was precise rather than flamboyant, cerebral, reading the public situations in which he increasingly found himself — from magazine photo shoots to red carpets — for their utility to him over the long term.

_________

We Document Life’s Milestones. How Should We Document Death?

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We Document Life’s Milestones. How Should We Document Death?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Has someone close to you ever died? Are you comfortable talking about death with your family and friends? Do you ever post, or see others post, about death on social media?

In “The iPhone at the Deathbed,” Penelope Green writes about families who are trying to find meaningful ways to honor the deaths of their loved ones:

A mechanic, Mr. Alexander had loved motorcycles, though his health and finances had kept him from being a regular rider. After he was properly adorned, and “looking pretty badass,” as his sister Tawnya Musser said, his siblings and their mother gathered around him, and a brother-in-law took a family photo using his smartphone.

“We couldn’t think of a time when all of us had been together with Mom,” Ms. Musser, 34, said. “So we had the conversation. Did Mom want a photo with all seven of her children and was it morbid that one of them was dead?”

There ended up being several photographs. They are startling and beautiful. Mr. Alexander looks peaceful and regal. The siblings have shared them among themselves, but the images don’t live on social media, as many contemporary death photos do.

In a collision of technology and culture, of new habits and very old ones, we are beginning to photograph our dead again.

For families like Mr. Alexander’s who are choosing home funerals and following natural death practices — D.I.Y. affairs that eschew the services of conventional funeral parlors — photography is an extension and celebration of that choice.

Family members are sitting with kin in hospice, or taking them home from hospitals, and continuing to care for them after they die, often washing their bodies and then adorning them, as Mr. Alexander’s family did, with favorite clothes, flowers, cards, books and other totems. They are sending their dead off as their grandparents used to, and recording the event and its aftermath with their smartphones.

Ms. Green writes that photographing death is not something new:

“In one sense it’s surprising because we’ve been so disconnected from death in the last century or so,” said Bess Lovejoy, the author of “Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses,” published in 2013, of the resurgence of home death photography. Ms. Lovejoy is also a member of the Order of the Good Death, an organization of funeral professionals, artists and scholars that prepare a culture generally in denial about death.

“But we are returning to the older ways,” she went on, “a movement backward that some say began in the ’70s, with the back-to-nature movement and midwifery and natural births. The natural death movement is part of that. And these photos are unsurprising, too, because we carry our smartphones all the time, and it’s almost like if there isn’t a photo it didn’t happen. Now everyone is a photographer.”

Modern photography was born in 1839, when Louis Daguerre refined a process for capturing an image on silver-plated copper. For decades, one of the most common uses of this new technology was the post-mortem photo: an artfully composed image, taken by a professional photographer, of dead family members in all manner of poses. Dead children in the laps of their parents, often with their eyes painted open; dead adults dressed in their finest clothes; even dead parents holding their living children; or entire families, wiped out by diseases like cholera, typhoid or diphtheria, nestled together in bed.

The article looks at the role of social media in allowing individuals to own the narrative of their illness or death:

Cancer patients and others with terminal illnesses have long used photos and videos to bear witness to their suffering and make visible that which is considered off limits — on blogs, Twitter and now TikTok — and have encouraged family members and friends to do so on their behalf when they are no longer able to, pushing visual and emotional boundaries well beyond what may be considered comfortable.

As in the Victorian era, post-mortem photographs of children have a terrible urgency and mission. Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep is an organization of volunteer photographers who make “remembrance portraits” of babies, often of the child in their parent’s arms, to assist in the grieving process.

Oliver Wasow, a photographer, recalled the agonizing images a friend shared last summer of her son’s death to cancer at age 8 on Instagram and Facebook, documenting her child’s devastating decline, and then her own grief.

It was shattering to see — “You couldn’t ‘like’ the photos,” Mr. Wasow said — but he recognized the value it had for his friend. Some people, he noted, say the difference between analog photography and digital photography is that digital photography is a kind of activity, versus analog photographs, which are documents.

“When you throw in social media, it becomes a record of a process rather than a record of a person. Yet the purpose remains the same whether it’s the 19th century or the 21st,” Mr. Wasow said. “It’s about documenting the transition from a physical body to a memory.”

Students, read the article, then tell us:

  • How do you think death should be documented? Some of us may be familiar with funerals or memorial services, but the article also discusses photographing, posting on social media, painting portraits, as well as dressing and adorning the dead. Do any of these practices resonate with your own beliefs or rituals around death? Do any of the practices make you feel uncomfortable? Why or why not?

  • What is your reaction to the Death Positive movement? Why do you think there is mystery, fear and taboo around death? How do you think that death can be demystified?

  • How does your family regard death and mourning? Are the people in your life comfortable thinking and talking about death? What are the traditions specific to your family related to death and mourning? Are there specific religious or spiritual practices you engage in? Or, are there secular rituals that are important for your own mourning or healing process?

  • Do you know how your family’s traditions, celebrations or ceremonies of death have changed from generation to generation? What was your reaction to learning that people in the 1800s would photograph the dead? How do you think our relationship to death will evolve over the next 50 or 100 years?

  • The article refers to, “ … the now common experience of seeing emoji applied to tragic events.” If you were to see photographs of death and mourning posted on social media, how would you interact with, and respond to, it? Ms. Green asks, “Do you choose the weeping smiley face or just hit ‘like’?” If a friend tells you that someone close to them has died, do you feel comfortable responding? Is it easier to respond in person or on social media?

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: ‘800,000 Syrians Have Fled in Three Months. This Is What It Looks Like.’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘800,000 Syrians Have Fled in Three Months. This Is What It Looks Like.’

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.

Featured Article: “800,000 Syrians Have Fled in Three Months. This Is What It Looks Like.”

The Syrian government, backed by Russian forces, has accelerated its monthslong offensive to seize control of Idlib, the last province held by the opposition. Facing heavy bombardment of towns and villages, more than 800,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled their homes since December, joining the largest exodus of Syria’s civil war since it began nine years ago.

The exodus is the largest of a war that has displaced 13 million people and taken hundreds of thousands of lives, and ranks among the largest in recent history, second only to the flight of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar in 2017.

Turkey, already host to more than three million Syrian refugees, has closed its border with Syria since 2015 to prevent a further influx. That has left the displaced people of Idlib trapped between advancing Syrian and Russian troops and the Turkish border.

In this lesson, you will use a Times interactive to learn more about the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Then you will consider how best to inform the public.

(For more background information on the Syrian civil war, you can read articles here and here or watch this video.)

What do you know about refugees?

Today, 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home; 41.3 million are displaced within their own country and nearly 25.9 million are refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.

A total of 5.6 million Syrians are refugees and 6.6 million more are displaced inside the country. Syria accounts for the world’s largest number of forcibly displaced people.

Before reading, consider the following question: What might force you and your family to abandon your home?

  • What challenges would you face in finding safety?

  • What would you take with you?

  • How would it affect you physically and emotionally?

If you are in a classroom setting, share and discuss your writing with a partner.

Read the featured article, then answer the following questions:

1. How long has Syria been at civil war? Why is Idlib at the center of current fighting?

2. What has caused the latest exodus of people? How has the Turkish government’s decision to close its border with Syria affected Syrians trying to escape the fighting?

3. Why have many Syrians taken refuge in Idlib? How many times have Abu Muhammad and his family fled their home during the civil war?

4. What challenges have Syrians faced in escaping the attacks on Idlib? Describe some of the physical and emotional journeys they have taken.

5. Describe the conditions in the camps and temporary housing many displaced Syrians live in.

6. The article ends:

Europe, Turkey, Lebanon — everyone wants the refugee crisis to go away, and for Syrians to return to Syria.

But that country is so destroyed, its economy so ruined, that people may be living as refugees for years.

Can Syrians ever go home?

What is your reaction to the statement? Do you think Syrians will ever be able to return home — physically, emotionally?

7. Compare your answers from the warm-up activity with what you have learned in the article. How did the article change your understanding of displaced people and refugees? Which statement or image stands out for you as particularly affecting or meaningful? Explain why.

8. If you were to explain what is happening in Syria to someone who knows nothing about the crisis, what would be the three most important things for them to understand?

Choose one or both of the following questions to respond to in writing.

1) Analyze and respond to a photo or video.

Look at the photos and videos featured in the article: What do you notice about them? What questions do they raise? What story do they tell about the crisis in Syria and its displaced people and refugees? Which photo or video do you find most interesting, surprising or memorable?

Choose one image and write about how it illustrates the challenges, courage and resilience of the Syrian refugees.

2) Help inform others about the displacement and refugee crisis.

In the Opinion essay “We Are Left to Face Death Alone,” Waad al Kateab, a filmmaker, writes:

In the past week I have met officials from the House of Representatives and the Senate. In each meeting, I have just minutes to explain what is happening in Idlib. I tell them everything, and it feels like nothing. I don’t believe it will change anything. The Syrian people have been abandoned. Some politicians and U.N. officials tell me they hope for an end to the violence. Others tell me they can do nothing.

We are left to face death alone.

Over the past nine years, we Syrians have been killed in every way possible: by barrel bombs, shelling, guns, chemical weapons, torture, starvation.

But I believe the hardest way to be killed is in silence, so I keep telling our stories. It is my duty, my responsibility as a woman who survived. This is the fate of those who have escaped: to endlessly retell our own stories and tell the stories of others still in Syria.

How can we break the silence and apathy about the humanitarian crisis in Syria? How can we bring greater awareness about what is happening in Syria to the world?

Here are two creative ways you can do this from your classroom:

  • You might use the statistics from this article or your own research to create a “by the numbers” infographic to show the scale and impact of the refugee crisis in Syria — or throughout the world. For example, you might include the number of displaced people or refugees in the past three months, or from the entire Syrian civil war. You don’t need to include every statistic, just those you think are most important.

  • Or you can create a public service announcement using still photographs from this article, or your own research, along with text, statistics and music. You might consider storyboarding your public service announcement, and if you have time, record, edit and share it with your class and your school. Scholastic provides some useful tips and a sample P.S.A. storyboard.

Alligators in the Sewers

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Alligators in the Sewers

The alligators that supposedly infest New York City’s sewer system may be the city’s most entrenched urban myth. And the tales are “sort of true,” a recent New York Times article reports:

The city rescues several alligators a year, typically former pets that have been abandoned after having outgrown their cute phase.

With every new sighting, the legend gets another boost.

What myths and legends circulate around your hometown or school? How did they start? As far as you know, is there any truth to them? Do you believe them? Have you, personally, ever seen any evidence of these tall tales?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to find out more about the alligators in New York City’s sewers.

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

GUEST POST: Teaching Golf To Young Kids And Its Benefits To Mental Health

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GUEST POST: Teaching Golf To Young Kids And Its Benefits To Mental Health

Jordan Fuller is a golf mentor and coach who loves to teach young children and novice golfers the benefits of the game and how to be a better golfer. He also owns a golf publication site, https://www.golfinfluence.com, where he shares tips about golf and how to improve the game.

Golf may have the antiquated reputation of being suited only for retired businessmen in Florida, but the game is growing as a sport that positively impacts the physical health of senior adults and improves the mental health of participants of all ages.

For young children, sports can give kids their first taste of social interaction, discipline, and dedication. Although we know the stereotype of parents that push their child too hard to get the college scholarship, in reality, most adults want their kids to participate in sports to receive the social education that sports can provide including the social connection to improved mental health.

In a study on participation in school sport for adolescence, the doctors found the “involvement in school sport during adolescence was a statistically significant predictor of lower depression symptoms, lower perceived stress, and higher self-rated mental health in young adulthood.” (1)

With golf, children can experience an array of behavioral situations that force them to deal with their reactions and overcome their fear and possible anger by taking their time to discover the best way to attack the upcoming hole and post a low score.

Analytical Thinking

Before every shot on the course, a golfer must factor in certain elements such as the wind, the lie of the golf ball, and the club they need, before they take the shot. With each incoming factor, the golfer must take that information and alter their approach to the upcoming swing.

Take, for example, the simple act of putting. For non-golfers, their experience may consist of a few trips to the local putt-putt facility where the carpet is laid on top of concrete and the player hopes to avoid missing the clown’s mouth, but real golf is far more complicated.

When a golfer looks a putt over, they have to factor in the slope of the green, whether they are hitting uphill or downhill and finally if the wind could blow the ball just a hair offline. Taking into account all three of those possible factors, the golfer then must judge the strength they need for the putt.

For a child that hasn’t played the game as much as a seasoned adult, those first few hundred putts are a wild adventure. But as they grow more experienced with the finer elements of putting, they begin to look at the putt more analytically and take into account all of the elements that could push the golf ball away from its intended target line.

In a study on mental imagery and beginning golfers completed in 2005, the authors found that “beginners’ approach shot performance improved most in the group combining physical practice and mental imagery when compared with the group just physically practicing the approach shot.” (2)

Resilience

Golf also provides a gigantic playground of negative feedback that forces the child to rely on their resilience to continue the round. One of the best things that sports can provide a child is an obstacle. Whether that be a physical impediment, like a water hazard or bunker on a golf course, or an emotional obstacle, such as missing a short putt, the child must regroup, analytically approach the shot and execute their game plan.

In the Mental Health & Prevention article, “Effect of playing golf on children’s mental health,”  the author, Carolin Schulze, writes, “the construct of resilience can be understood as a factor for healthy development: those who manifest high resilience experience more positive emotions and can improve both their self-esteem and psychological adaptation reaction.” (3)

One of the big things that Schulze discovered in her study is that the lack of time pressure on the individual, allows the child to focus on the shot at hand and not succumb to anxiety or the lingering effects of a past error on the course.

A child trained in golf can expect to score highly on the resilience scale, a formula psychologists use to determine the effect of negative feedback on the individual.

Fighting Depression

It may seem fairly obvious, but one of the most beneficial ways that golf can help children is by getting them outside and into the sun. From a physiological standpoint, safe sunlight exposure can boost natural Vitamin D levels in golfers. Vitamin D deficiencies can cause fatigue, depression, loss of bone density and the weakening of the immune system. (4)

Studies that have focused on sun exposure have shown that individuals who stay indoors or work at night have trouble with several health markers such as metabolism, the strength of their immune system, and their overall weight.

Another reason to get children outside and into activities, like golf, is that it breaks their dependency on electronic devices such as video games and cellphones. Overuse of electronic devices for children can contribute to disrupted attention spans and diminished learning abilities, two factors that are extremely important when playing golf.

Conclusion

When children are given the time to study and learn the game of golf, they benefit in a variety of ways such as a reduction of anxiety and depression, a boost in their resistance ability to overcome negative situations and they vastly improve their analytical thinking.

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