[MUSIC PLAYING] “I love American optimism.” “They have a pretty nice flag.” “Are you joking?” – [GASPS] “What?” “That is actually shocking.” “That’s nothing you would ever see in Britain. That would cause, you know, riots.” In the U.S., a large drink in McDonald’s is 77% bigger than in Europe. That’s disgusting.” “Wow.” “Wah. [CHUCKLES] “It’s diabetes to go.” “Many common U.S. food ingredients are banned in the E.U. Whoa.” “Adzo — what.” “Azodicarbon—” “Azodicar — — bonamide?” “Banned in Europe because it may cause cancer.” “Mm, cancer brownies.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “It’s so cute.” “We have a baby.” “Yes.” “How long do you get for parental leave in your country?” “The mother gets 410 days.” “The fathers as well. There’s a paternal leave that is, I think, it’s about nine weeks.” “O.K., the number of paid days of maternity leave guaranteed by law in the U.S. Let’s see.” [NEEDLE SCRATCH] “Wow.” “It’s nothing.” “Oh, my.” “Like, I was right. It’s literally like, you want to have a kid? Well, you’re on your own now.” “Well, you de-incentivize people from having kids like that.” “You de-incentivize poor people from having kids, because if you’re rich, you can obviously — afford it.” “Yeah.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “You are graduated.” “Oh, thank you.” “These are the annual fees at major U.S. universities.” “Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.I.T., $51,832.” “For a year?” “A year?” “I mean, honestly, that is a bit disgusting from a first-world nation.” “I mean, I pay 18 euros per semester.” “Yeah.” “In Denmark, it’s free.” [CHUCKLES] [MUSIC PLAYING] [SIREN] “A woman’s leg got stuck in the gap between the train and the platform. She begged no one call an ambulance. It’s $3,000, she wailed. I can’t afford that.” “Coming from the Bulgaria, which is the poorest E.U. member state, I’ve never heard about this.” “In 2015, medical bills led to 1 million adults declaring bankruptcy.” – [SIGHS] “My dad is diabetic. And he gets really good care in Belgium. And we don’t pay a penny to it. It’s completely free.” “But what surprises me is that people are not rioting on the streets, to be honest.” “I know.” “Oh, my god.” “That conversation.” “This is a toy AR-15.” “An AR-15-style rifle was used in the San Bernardino shooting that killed 14 people.” “The Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 49 people.” “In the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people. Hm.” “Mm.” “Washington, D.C., actually banned handguns. But the ban was overturned in 2008 by the U.S. Supreme Court.” “Whoa, overturned. So somebody had the —” “Somebody thought, yes —” ” — common sense to ban this. And then they were like, do you know what? No.” “No, we need guns.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Americans are incredibly friendly and hospitable.” “I wish we could be that sort of happy and optimistic about the future.” “And the influence has been huge, like, and still today.” “Whether it’s food, or music, or fashion, or art, film.” “The younger generation in America has definitely given me hope about —” “Yeah.” ” — the future of America.” “And everyone secretly has an American dream. So—” “Yeah.” “I mean, you know, we can still all resubscribe to that.” “In Germany, we don’t wave flags.”
What Students Are Saying About Reparations, What They Want to Learn in School, and Individuality
I believe this image is trying to say that we should focus on ourselves. We are the only ones who matter. We should not be worried about what everyone else is doing or what everyone else thinks. Your biggest priority should be yourself above anyone else. You should still be there for people, but you still need to find a way to put yourself first at times.
— Alexis Lopez, Glenbard West Hs Glen Ellyn, IL
To me this picture embodies something I feel very strongly about. The top two words, ‘EVERYONE’ and ‘NO ONE’, are crossed out leaving the bottom word, ‘YOU’, circled. Thinking solely about the needs of others isn’t healthy for a person. People who seek to please every possible person will come across every possible conflict of interest. The greatest being their own, if they ever find the courage to seek what they want instead of what others do.
This image shows individuality. Finding yourself in the midst of millions following the crowd. There are two black lines marking out “Everyone” and “No one.” From my interpretation, this means you shouldn’t strive to be like everyone else nor should you go out of your way to be like no one else. For example, don’t dye your hair a certain color just because everyone else is, but also don’t dye your hair an unpopular color you don’t even like just so you can be seen as different or “opposing the system.” Just be you. Do what you like without influence from anyone else or pressure to do the opposite from everyone.
— Eliana D, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC
This photo is very intriguing to me. The fact that it’s written in what looks like Sharpie makes me think of how you can’t change who you truly are. It’s written on a napkin, which makes me wonder if it means that you are allowed to make mistakes, since napkins are what clean up people’s mistakes and messes.
— Rachel Maston, Hoggard High School – Wilmington, NC
“This is something that my generation needs to focus on more.”
I see this photo and I think of acting for yourself, and not caring about other people’s opinions. I truly believe this is something that my generation needs to focus on more. In this day and age, it is hard to think for ourselves. Social media is constantly influencing us to do things that we most likely would not do without. I’m guilty of this also. When I go out, I take photos with my friends for the specific reason of posting them on Instagram for other people to see. If I didn’t have social media, I know that I wouldn’t care if I looked good in a photo or even taking photos, but I do, because that’s what technology has “trained” me to do.
— Ava O’Nan, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC
After reading the article I saw that it was referring to this generations desire to be like everyone else and conform to the “trends.” Everyone falls into this trap of invalidation where we base our self worth on the number of likes our post gets or how many compliments we get on our outfit in a day. The thing is most of the time, the version of ourself we dress for or post for is a subcategory of trends that we put ourselves into the “e-boys/girls” the “VSCO girls” “Horse girls” “preppy kids” etc etc and we call this our personality. But our true style and true self can’t be locked down into one category of style, personality, or aura.
— Ethan, Pinkey, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC
I used to care so much about what others thought about me to the point where I would change myself around so many different people that when I was alone, I couldn’t even remember who I really was anymore. I lost my outgoing, loud, creative, and goofy self that made me who I was. I became a girl that would curse to fit in or wear clothes that I didn’t even like. I became lost in the crowd of “everyone.”
2019 in Pictures
The slide show above includes just a few of the photos from The Times’s annual “Year in Pictures.” Take a look at them, or view the whole collection, then tell us:
Which images stand out to you and why? Which ones do you think best represent 2019? Are there any events that you think are missing?
If you were to make a “Year in Pictures” of your own life, which moments would you include?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to see what Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, has to say about this year’s selections.
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: scintilla
scintilla sin-ˈti-lə noun
1. a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
2. a sparkling glittering particle
_________
The word scintilla has appeared in 14 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on June 19 in “After 3 World Cup Games, England Sees Itself With a Few More to Run” by Rory Smith:
Stanway is perfectly happy to say that she hopes the other teams to have made it to the last 16 “fear” England. She would be delighted to think that none of them “want to play us.” There is no regret, not even a scintilla, that beating Japan on Wednesday night in Nice means that England — should it survive the last 16 and a quarterfinal — will find either the United States or France in its path in the semifinals. (Japan, inventive and bright without ever suggesting the presence of a cutting edge, finished second in Group D, and will now theoretically have an easier road to the final.) This is an England that believes in itself.
_________
How Will You Remember the 2010s?
Find all our Student Opinion questions here.
The decade is coming to an end. (Although some people believe it won’t end until Dec. 31, 2020.)
What cultural themes, trends, people or moments defined the 2010s? Beyoncé? Fortnite? Binge-watching Netflix? Prequels, sequels and spinoffs?
In “33 Ways to Remember the 2010s,” New York Times writers look back at what we watched, heard, read, liked and shared over the past 10 years. Here are excepts from five of the reflections:
33. In “Spandex ruled everything around us,” Kyle Buchanan writes:
We were so young in 2012, and asked for so little. Remember that summer, when “The Avengers” wowed us by putting six superheroes onscreen? Only six! And one of them was Hawkeye! But still we were gobsmacked, and it was good.
Seven years later, in its orgiastic finale, “Avengers: Endgame” unleashed over two dozen superheroes — admittedly, one of them was still Hawkeye — and while pleasure centers were hit to the tune of a worldwide gross that approached $3 billion, it couldn’t help but feel familiar. As the decade went on, we had become supersaturated with superheroics. …
Old-school auteurs like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola may decry the comic-book stranglehold on our pop-cultural conversation, but don’t expect that grip to loosen anytime soon. It’s the superheroes’ world now. We’re just being saved in it.
32. In “Gay culture owned America and lost its snap,” Wesley Morris writes:
Let’s see. “Moonlight” won the Oscar for best picture in 2017, the year after “Carol” was a six-time nominee. “Will & Grace” came back and another batch of “Queer Eye” got hatched. Who can say why, but they’re here. Get used to it. Frank Ocean happened. So, at last, did Brandi Carlile. Billy Porter became the first openly gay man to win the best actor Emmy for his exclamatory work on “Pose.” Michael Douglas played Liberace and Matt Damon played his partner in lamé. Basketball players came out. So did football players and a professional wrestler. Not that many but still. And the best show on TV, in any format, was “Orange Is the New Black.” A rockudrama about Elton John made a ton of money. One about Freddie Mercury made a ton more.
It’s been, as they say, a decade.
19. In “#MeToo changed everything,” Robin Pogrebin writes:
Now that #MeToo is a household term, it is hard to remember that the global movement originated with a civil rights activist from the Bronx named Tarana Burke, who started using the phrase (sans hash tag) on MySpace in 2006 to raise awareness about sexual violence. But the #MeToo movement truly took off in 2017, after the actress Alyssa Milano urged women in a tweet to share their experiences of sexual misconduct by the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
It’s touched off a wholesale rethinking of behavior in the workplace and a reckoning that continues to leave a trail of alleged miscreants in its wake. Many of the dominoes have fallen in the cultural world, including the comedian Louis C.K., the music mogul Russell Simmons and the longtime steward of New York City Ballet, Peter Martins.
7. In “YouTube changed the definition of fame,” Taylor Lorenz writes:
In 2010 YouTube was just 5 years old. It was just one year earlier that a YouTube star hit the one million subscriber mark for the first time, when the concept of being a full-time YouTuber still seemed outrageous. How many people could really make a living by uploading videos of themselves to the internet!? Turns out, millions.
A decade ago, the vast majority of people watched YouTube videos on desktop (an iPhone app didn’t arrive until 2012, and now is the main platform). Today, YouTube serves more than two billion monthly users. PewDiePie, the platform’s most subscribed-to creator, boasts more than 102 million subscribers and the app has birthed an entirely new era of stars that have redefined what it means to be a celebrity.
5. In “Fortnite became the future of gaming,” Jason M. Bailey writes:
Fortnite: Battle Royale is chock-full of characters in zany outfits, performing meme-able dances in a virtual world where winning over online viewers is often as attractive as winning the game itself. That makes Fortnite an exuberant avatar for what video games can be in an always-connected age: communal experiences rather than solitary adventures.
On the surface, Fortnite is a third-person shooter in which 100 players fight (or build or hide) to survive in “Hunger Games”-like fashion. But it is also a social network, a concert venue and a professional e-sport.
Online streamers entertain their legion of fans, and professional athletes celebrate with the game’s dances, which were often appropriated from pop culture.
Students, scroll through the 33 pieces and choose ONE to read in its entirety. Then tell us:
How will you remember the 2010s? What cultural themes, trends, people or moments stand out to you and why?
Which of the 33 reflections did you pick to read and why? What did you find most interesting, surprising or provocative? How did it change your understanding of the last 10 years?
What do you think of the 33 cultural topics The Times chose to best remember the 2010s? What can you tell about the decade from the range of reflections? What cultural topics, if any, do you think were missing from the article?
On the whole, do you think of the 2010s as a culturally vibrant or dull decade? How do you think people will remember the past decade 10, 50 or 100 years from now? Which aspects of the culture do you think people will still be enjoying in 2120?
What are your predictions for the next decade? Which trends, themes or people will dominate the cultural landscape over the next 10 years?
Please Note: Do you have strong opinions about books, music, dance or TV shows? Are you a theater buff or a gamer? If so, you’re in luck. We invite you to play critic and write an original review for our Fifth Annual Student Review Contest, which runs from Nov. 7 to Dec. 17, 2019.
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.
Most Popular Enterprise Courses of 2019
Kelly Murphy, Enterprise Content Strategist
As digital transformation continues to change the way we work, enterprise learners increasingly seek out content to build literacy in data and technology. Throughout 2019, Enterprise learners consumed data science courses at varying levels–from the layperson-friendly What is Data Science? course by IBM to The Data Scientist’s Toolbox from Johns Hopkins University, designed for practitioners. The same trend held for technical skills, with Python for Everybody claiming the most enterprise learners of 2019, and the more advanced Neural Networks and Deep Learning coming in right behind it.
Yet enterprise leaders have also reported a parallel need for “human skills”, the soft skills and leadership skills of the modern workplace that are becoming increasingly more important in a digital world. Learners sought out communication courses such as Write Professional Emails in English from Georgia Institute of Technology as well as courses focused on personal development and efficiency, including Work Smarter, Not Harder from UC Irvine and Learning How to Learn.
We expect 2020 to bring the same dual need for technical and “human” skills as organizations realize the importance of communication, critical thinking, and adaptability in a globally connected, rapidly changing world.
Most Popular Enterprise Courses of 2019
**The 4 courses of the Python for Everybody Specialization all landed in the top 10. This includes Getting Started with Python (#1 course overall), Python Data Structures,Introduction to Data Science in Python and Using Python to Access Web Data. Getting Started with Python is both the number 1 course and representative of the full Specialization.
Driving Measurable Skills Development with Coursera for Business
By Shwetabh Mittal, Director, Product Management
2019 was an unprecedented year for Coursera for Business. With advancing technology and globalization reshaping the future of work, skills development has become a mandate among institutions. Organizations wanting to compete in the changing economy look to Coursera to develop the skills of the future. This year, we grew that network to 2,000 organizations worldwide. We drove data-literacy and digital transformation for Fortune 500 companies like Novartis and Exelon and partnered with governments in the Middle East and Latin America to upskill workforces on a national scale.
As our global network scaled, so did our enterprise product. Our goal is to equip customers with a product experience that drives impact through measurable skills development across their organization. This year, we rolled out new features to empower our customers to better build, manage, and measure learning programs. We built data-driven tools to measure ROI, made our learning solution easy to integrate, and above all, created an engaging learner experience.
Measuring skills development
Capturing outcomes is necessary for any successful learning program. We developed the Skills Development Dashboards to provide customers with skills-based metrics that measure learning outcomes in more detail than before. Using these dashboards, customers can report on powerful insights such as learner proficiency by top skills, hours to skills mastery, and skills mastery over time. They can also benchmark their skills profile against industry peers to gain an understanding of their competitive positioning. These dashboards run off of our Skills Graph and a variant of the Elo chess algorithm, and are based on anonymized learning and assessment performance data from Coursera’s vast learner and content base.
Integrated learning programs
Our new features support integrated learning programs that are easy to deploy and manage. This year, we introduced new contract options that offer flexibility in allocating and managing licenses across various departments, teams, and roles.
We’ve also upped the integration capabilities of our enterprise product within an organizations’ existing systems. There is now seamless LMS integration for the top four LMS providers and, on top of that, we can build a custom integration with a company’s homegrown LMS using our business APIs. This makes for smoother learner, curriculum, and progress management.
A learner-first experience
Setting the learner up for success is the most powerful way to drive impact. We released new features to help learners reach their goals and meet them where they are. Our new calendar sync feature, for example, sets course deadlines in a learner’s own calendar so that learning is seamlessly a part of their routine. Learning also doesn’t have to stop at the office door. With Coursera in the car, learners can continue learning on the go, whether it’s on the daily commute or enroute to a power lunch.
We also expanded the range of learning options available through our enterprise platforms. With Novartis as the first customer, we are now offering top master’s degrees on Coursera through our enterprise platform. This enables more diverse skills development pathways, allowing enterprise learners to select from individual courses to gain basic skills proficiency, Specializations for more intermediate proficiency, and master’s programs to achieve advanced proficiency.
Coursera for Business drives measurable skills development by delivering a product experience that enables customers to execute seamlessly on learning programs. Looking ahead, we will continue to build a product experience that offers granular skills insights, seamless enterprise integrations, and advanced learner communication tools.
For more information about the Coursera for Business offering, visit coursera.org/business.
Coursera for Business provides a world-class learning platform for companies that need to upskill, reskill, and deepskill their talent. With topics ranging from digital transformation and data science to software development and leadership, over 2,000 companies trust the Coursera for Business enterprise platform to transform their talent.
Subway Balloons
What story does this image inspire for you?
Tell us about a memory from your own life that this picture makes you think of — or use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by what you see.
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn the story behind this colorful image.
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: efficacy
efficacy ˈe-fi-kə-sē noun
: capacity or power to produce a desired effect
_________
The word efficacy has appeared in 141 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 11 in “Using an Asthma Inhaler Correctly” by Perri Klass, M.D.:
Dr. Francine M. Ducharme, a professor of pediatrics and social and preventive medicine at the University of Montreal, has studied the efficacy and safety of asthma management. When a treatment of known efficacy doesn’t work for a child, she said, the four major reasons are inadequate technique, suboptimal adherence to the regimen, other coexisting medical issues, or environmental triggers (for example, maybe the child is profoundly allergic to the cat).
Problems with technique and adherence are the main ones. It’s not enough to observe the child once, she said. “We need to recheck the technique, children are very creative.” Often, they use the correct technique the first time through, then find ways of getting around it. “Whenever a medication doesn’t work or have efficacy, before you think about stepping up medications, you need to review those four criteria.”
_________
How Do You Think American Education Could Be Improved?
Find all our Student Opinion questions here.
In “Teachers and Other Readers Sound Off on International Exam Results,” Derrick Bryson Taylor writes about the recent results of the Program for International Student Assessment:
The test, which is given every three years, measures a 15-year-old student’s reading, mathematics and science literacy, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Results showed that, over all, Americans who took the test scored slightly above students from peer nations in reading.
However, American students scored below the middle of the pack in math, and nearly one-fifth of the students who took the test scored so low it seemed some had not mastered the reading skills of someone far younger. American students’ results in reading and math have also been stagnant since 2000, and the achievement gap in reading between high- and low-performing students is widening.
What is your reaction to these results? Would you have predicted that American students would score lower in math and reading than students in other countries, such as Poland, Ireland and Singapore? Do these scores raise any questions for you? Do you have any thoughts about why students in the United States might have scored this way? Do you have suggestions for how American education could be improved?
The Times asked readers to weigh in on American students’ PISA test scores. Here is a sampling of reader comments, which have been edited and condensed:
Too much technology?
Julie Boesky, a former teacher who now works as a literacy specialist in New York, said that technology had negatively affected children’s vocabulary development, even in privileged socioeconomic circles. Instead of observing or engaging with adults in conversation, toddlers and babies are often staring at moving pictures on a tablet or mobile devices, she said.
The vocabulary deficit widens in school as reading becomes more challenging. It also leads to poor performances on standardized testing, during which students are expected to answer complex questions with an elevated vocabulary. More test preparation isn’t the answer, Ms. Boesky said on Tuesday. “It’s actually understanding the language that so often is a barrier,” she said.
A former teacher, Elizabeth, from Portland, Maine, said she noticed a change in students around the year 2000. Students were impatient to get answers, had a shorter attention span and were resistant to working through problems, she said.
“My conclusion: technology is not always our friend,” she wrote. “The newly arrived laptops in our schools were as much a distraction from learning as a tool for learning.”
Raise teacher pay
Mary, from Baltimore, said that if teachers were better paid, “we would raise and draw more and better qualified people into teaching.” Professional athletes and actors earn more money and respect than teachers and other public servants, she added.
That sentiment was shared by Andy M., from Nashville, who said that teachers’ salaries should be competitive with other high-status professions, and that higher pay would attract a more “qualified applicant pool” from top-tier universities.
Build stronger safety nets
Jules Cooper, a retired teacher who lives in Kings Valley, Ore., said the country should do more to support families’ overall well-being. If parents have access to affordable health care and day care, for example, they would be less stressed and better able to focus on their child’s development.
“Students’ basic needs have to be met before they can achieve in school,” she said.
Sam, from Cleveland, said that not enough attention was focused on students’ home environment. “If the value of education is not stressed in the home, throwing money at the problem will not help,” he said.
At least one other person said the foundation for improving test scores could be found in quality preschools, many years before a student had to take the PISA. “If a child starts first grade from a position of disadvantage, it’s very hard to catch up,” Dot, from Miami, wrote.
Some readers focused on the uneven funding of schools as the root of the issue, while others believe that standardized testing is the problem:
Standardized testing is doing a disservice to students, said Lea Wolf, an entrepreneur who is active in the San Diego school system, where her daughter is a student. Instead of inspiring a love for learning or developing critical thinking skills, multiple-choice tests force students to memorize vast amounts of information, she said.
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Do you agree with any of the opinions in the article about why American students’ test scores haven’t been improving? Which ones, and why?
Are you ever frustrated about what you are expected to learn in school? What about how you are taught and the expectations your teachers and school have of you? Are there resources that you wish you had in school that you think would allow you to learn more effectively?
Which of the proposed solutions in the article do you think would help you to learn better? What do you think about standardized testing, technology in the classroom and parent support? Do you think these things can help students to do well in school? Why or why not? Do you have any other ideas about what would improve education in America?
Think of a class, either current or from the past, in which you felt you were supported to do your best. What about that class made learning easy or accessible for you? Were there textbooks, interactive lessons, videos, field trips or even a particular teaching style that helped you to learn?
Have you ever struggled in a class or subject? What made that class difficult? Did you have access to any resources that helped you to do better? Are there forms of support that you wish you had?
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.
