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What Students Are Saying About: Their Political Views, Self-Care and Travel Memories

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What Students Are Saying About: Their Political Views, Self-Care and Travel Memories

So, in this Student Opinion question, we invited them to read about the things Times employees do to take care of themselves, and then share their own. Here are some of their tips for preserving and improving their mental, physical and emotional health:

Whenever I get stressed out, I draw. I know, I know, it’s a cliché, but it’s what I do. As a high school student, I generally have a stressful life, what with schoolwork, extracurriculars, and spending time with my family. In order to not go insane, I often need to decompress. To do this, I put on some music, grab a pencil, and get drawing. If I didn’t do this, I’d snap. Drawing allows me to escape from all that chaos and just be.

— Lucas Kruger, Hoggard High School, Wilmington, NC

With school, sports, and homework finding time to get good sleep during the week is close to impossible. Taking time to simply just lay down and take a nap is by far one of the most important things for me. 2 hours. That’s all the time I need to re energize myself and feel good again.

Now, don’t get me wrong online shopping helps a lot too but there is no immediate energy boost. I reserve time every weekend possible to just take a nap. The amazing feeling of laying down after a long week and just forgetting all your responsibilities is by far one of the best feelings that one can encounter.

— Kali Hatcher, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Crying, I realized, can be a good way to relieve excessive emotions. This leads me to understand why some people would need to power cry. I then tried it myself a couple of times and got to experience its power, although I rarely do it anymore since there isn’t that much stress in my life if I prioritize.

— Yuwei Hu (Emily), Hinsdale, IL

My idea of self care is simply listening to music at home everyday after school. Being very introverted, school can be extremely exhausting for me and I often find schoolwork to be overwhelming. Taking time to listen to music everyday and relax really helps me deal with the stress and pressure of school. It gives me a break from thinking about homework, grades, and my peers.

— Eliana Donohue, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Everyday after school, I head home, and before even thinking about homework, food, or anything else, I blast music. Nothing will make me feel more at ease than playing a Ben Platt song at full volume and screaming out the words.

— Kayla Young, Bryant, Arkansas

When I was in 9th grade, my dad made me go to some religious classes every weekend and they spent an hour every morning doing yoga. I always thought yoga was just something that moms do but I realized a lot over the past few weeks at yoga. It was calming and it let me release the breath I didn’t know I was holding in. I’m a very extroverted person and I really enjoy being around other people but this was a new experience for me. This was a time spent to myself where I could ponder on my thoughts. I never realized the point of it all but when I noticed that this was the moment just for me I started to feel like I can catch my breath.

— Bhavana Dronamraju, Hinsdale, IL

Free October Wallpaper

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Free October Wallpaper

Our October wallpaper features the Little Rose font.

Included in the free download are two desktop options – one with the calendar and one without the calendar. The others include one wallpaper per device.

Enjoy!

FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.

 

Clowns

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Clowns

The Style section recently pointed out that, right now, clowns are everywhere — on social media, in the movies, on television, and even on fashion runways.

So here’s a challenge: Write the opening paragraph of a story with a clown in it. It can be a true story, or one you make up, and your clown can be creepy and evil, or friendly and fun.

Post your story in the comments, then read the related article if you’d like more clown content.

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

What Are Your Reactions to the Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump?

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What Are Your Reactions to the Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump?

What are your own reactions? Do you understand why this story is dominating the news?

To think about your reactions and opinions, read some different points of view from the Times opinion pages.

The New York Times Editorial Board, a group of opinion journalists separate from the newsroom, writes that “The Trump Impeachment Inquiry Is the Only Option.” Here is how their argument begins:

The peaceful transfer of presidential power through free and fair elections is the crowning glory of American democracy. It concretizes the people’s will, conferring legitimacy, assuring stability. President Trump may have finished second in the popular vote, but he is the legitimate president. In the normal course of events, his mismanagement of the nation’s affairs would be left for the electorate to repudiate, through support of a challenger in a primary race or, failing that, in the general election.

But the course of events is not normal. Mr. Trump campaigned as an iconoclast, but it became clear early in his administration that his disruptiveness was aimed less at bringing fresh thinking to bear on stale policymaking than at assaulting the vital institutions of governance themselves. He has attacked the legitimacy of law enforcement, of intelligence agencies, of Congress and of the courts — of anyone he judges to threaten him politically.

For nearly three years, public-spirited people have debated whether each instance of executive overreach by Mr. Trump and his lieutenants went far enough to require the traumatic recourse of an impeachment inquiry. They have wondered at what point the checks and balances of American governance might have to be restored by means of the most radical check of all.

That point has now been reached.

The American people have learned over the past week that Mr. Trump, during a July phone call, pressed the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Joe Biden, one of his leading political rivals, according to a written summary of the conversation released by the White House. What’s more, Mr. Trump offered the assistance of the Justice Department in that investigation. These facts are not in dispute, which is why some of the president’s die-hard defenders are trying to dismiss the conversation as an inconsequential instance of the president’s bad judgment.

But it was so much more dangerous than that. A president’s use of his power for his own political gain, at the expense of the public interest, is the quintessence of an impeachable offense. It was, in fact, one of the examples the Constitution’s framers deployed to explain what would constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the standard for impeachment.

Have other presidents conducted foreign policy with re-election in mind? Of course. But there is no known precedent for a president pressuring a foreign nation to tear down a political rival.

But an Op-Ed arguing against the impeachment inquiry, by John Yoo, says that “we must avoid doing long-term harm to the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy and protect our nation.” He writes:

The Constitution vests the president with the authority to conduct foreign policy and the responsibility to protect the nation’s security. A president, even one who is possibly engaging in wrongdoing, must have confidence in the confidentiality of his communications or he will be unable to perform his constitutional duties and our international relations will fall victim to government by committee.

He continues that “the founders believed that impeachment should come only as a last resort,” and ends his piece this way:

Democratic presidential candidates are calling for impeachment. But they should realize that they themselves remain the framers’ primary remedy for presidential abuses of power. The Constitution trusts the American people, acting through the ballot box, to render judgment on President Trump. Democrats should trust the framers’ faith in the American people, too.

And in an Op-Ed headlined “Impeachment Is an Act of Desperation,” Christopher Buskirk writes:

Surely Ms. Pelosi must know that there are not 67 votes in the Senate to convict President Trump of anything relating to his phone call with President Zelensky. So it’s just political theater.

… For the Democrats, the political problem is that this is just more Washington psychodrama. And as engaging as that is for people in politics, for the journalists who cover it and for people who are deeply ideological, it is uncharismatic and irrelevant to many voters who, rightly, just want to know what Washington is going to do for them.

Students, read the articles above in full — or take a look at the full interactive opinion feature from which some of them are drawn — then tell us:

  • What are your reactions to the impeachment inquiry — or at least as much as you currently know or understand of it so far? Do you understand why it has dominated news reports since Nancy Pelosi announced it on Sept. 24?

  • How interested are you in this news in general? How much attention have you been paying to the daily flow of updates about it?

  • What questions do you still have about impeachment in general, or about this inquiry in particular?

  • The Times Editorial argues for a “historic rebuke” from Congress to “demonstrate the majesty of representative democracy.” Do you believe that our democracy is at stake in this impeachment inquiry?

  • In your opinion, do any of Mr. Trump’s actions rise to the level of impeachable offenses? If so, which ones and why? If not, why not?

  • Are you sympathetic to any of the arguments you have heard or read against impeaching Mr. Trump? Which and why?

  • This news story will continue to unfold in the days and weeks ahead. What predictions can you make about what may happen? Why?

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: ‘Why Are People Protesting in Hong Kong?’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘Why Are People Protesting in Hong Kong?’

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.

Featured Article: “Why Are People Protesting in Hong Kong?”

The protests that have shaken Hong Kong this summer began with huge demonstrations in early June against an unpopular bill. Since then, the protests have become a broader movement against Beijing’s power in the semiautonomous territory.

In this lesson, students will learn more about the movement in Hong Kong and compare it with others throughout history. Then they will decide: Are protests an effective way to bring about change? Will this one make a meaningful difference?

What comes to mind when you hear the word “protest”? Take a few minutes to jot down all the associations you have with this word.

If you’re stuck, here are a few questions that can help get you thinking:

  • What protests do you know of from history or that have happened recently?

  • Why do people protest? What are their goals?

  • Where do protests happen?

  • What groups often play an important role in protests?

  • What strategies, symbols or objects do protesters use to draw attention to their cause?

  • What images come to mind when you visualize a protest?

  • What thoughts and feelings come up when you think about protests you’ve learned about or those you’ve been involved in yourself?

  • Can protests bring about meaningful change?

Now, take a moment to scroll through the visual timeline below of the protests happening in Hong Kong. Do they look like any of the protests you have learned about or attended yourself? In what ways do they resemble the ideas about protests that you wrote about above? In what ways do they differ?

Note to teacher

If you’re a teacher doing this warm-up in a classroom context, you might conduct the activity as a “Graffiti Board” or “Chalk Talk.” Write “protest” in the center of a whiteboard or large piece of paper and invite students to write their associations on it. Then, discuss as a class what you notice.

Read the article, then answer the following questions:

1. What is the latest news concerning the protests in Hong Kong? Why is this most recent turn of events so significant?

2. Hong Kong and China exist under a policy known as “one country, two systems.” What does that mean? Why has this policy caused tension between the two in recent years?

3. What is the extradition bill and why is it so unpopular among Hong Kong residents?

4. How have the demonstrations unfolded since they began in June? How have protesters’ concerns evolved?

5. What tactics have demonstrators used to bring attention to their cause?

6. What role have the police played in these demonstrations? Why have protesters clashed with them?

7. How has the Hong Kong government responded? How has the Chinese government responded?

8. What do you think will be the outcome of these protests in Hong Kong? Why?

Can protests effect meaningful changes in governments and societies? Do you think the movement in Hong Kong will?

Think about other protest movements that you know from history that have or have not brought about change. How do they compare to the one happening in Hong Kong?

You might compare the Hong Kong protests with one you have learned about in school. Or, choose one from recent history to research. Here are a few examples you might dig into: the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, the anti-apartheid struggle, Tiananmen Square, the Velvet Revolution, Iran’s 1979 revolution or the White Rose resistance.

Then, write about or discuss with your classmates:

  • Was this movement successful? How do you know? What do you think made this protest a success or failure?

  • In what ways is the movement you chose similar to or different from the Hong Kong protests? For example, consider the type of governments they had, the tactics the protesters used, the police response, how well organized they were or even the imagery.

  • How can the movement you chose help you predict what might happen in Hong Kong? Do you think the Hong Kong protests will bring about meaningful change? Why or why not?

  • Over all, do you believe protests are an effective way to make a difference in a society? Explain why you think the way you do.

Note to teachers

If you’re doing this “Going Further” in a classroom context, you might conduct the activity as a “Jigsaw.” Assign or have small groups of students choose one of the protest movements above to explore in depth. Then, invite them to share what they learned with the rest of the class and compare the movements with each other.

Word + Quiz: sotto voce

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Word + Quiz: sotto voce

: in an undertone, or quiet voice

_________

The term sotto voce has appeared in six articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 16 in “Bianca Andreescu Is Rising in the Tennis Rankings Ahead of Schedule” by Christopher Clarey:

The victory over Williams moved her to tears. “Venus is a walking, living, breathing legend,” Andreescu said.

But though the emotions were powerful again on Friday night, beating her tour elders is fast becoming a habit. Andreescu will be ranked in the top 35 on Monday and will break into the top 25 if she defeats Kerber. Instead of merely making it into the French Open draw, she now has a fine chance of being seeded.

“I do believe that I deserve to be here,” she said sotto voce as the interview ended. “But I didn’t expect for it to come so quickly. But I mean, it’s better sooner than later, right? So I can’t complain. It’s just been crazy. I’m so grateful. I never want to take anything for granted. It was so nice to meet you.”

Coursera for Campus: A New Way to Help Universities Everywhere Deliver Job-Relevant Learning

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Coursera for Campus: A New Way to Help Universities Everywhere Deliver Job-Relevant Learning

By Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera

Higher education worldwide is at a historic crossroads. With more than 300 million people entering the workforce in the next 10 years, universities urgently need to augment their capacity to meet the aspirations of a young and growing demographic. Employers rely on universities to provide them with graduates armed with the digital skills needed to drive their businesses in the age of AI and automation. But higher education in many countries finds it difficult to deliver — they are constrained by the capacity of their on-campus programs, lagging curricula, and the challenge of recruiting expert faculty required to launch new programs.

Since our founding, Coursera has worked with 170 of the best universities to expand access to world-class education. We have been fortunate to have partners who recognized the need to invest in digital learning early on as they scaled their programs for learners both on and off campus. Together, we have made a difference to a large problem, but there is so much more to be done. It is time we bring the benefits of our platform to the remaining 99% of 20,000 universities worldwide and help them take a digital leap. 

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Coursera for Campus, a new offering designed to help any university — even those outside of Coursera’s partner ecosystem — to use content on Coursera to deliver job-relevant, multi-disciplinary online learning to its learners. 

Universities will have access to more than 3,600 high-quality courses to enhance their core curricula, offer credit-eligible* and supplemental learning to students, and deliver lifelong learning to their alumni, faculty, and staff. Faculty can use Coursera’s world-class tools to author content, assessments, and hands-on projects. Educators can also improve learner outcomes by tracking skill mastery and growth using Coursera’s powerful learning analytics.

Coursera for Campus gives universities the ability to:

  • Provide current students with job-relevant learning and credentials – 

Universities can integrate Coursera courses into their core curricula as credit-eligible*, blended, and supplemental learning. With world-class content and trend data from Coursera’s large learner base, the platform will offer pre-configured course collections for learners by domain areas (e.g. engineering, business, data science, law, health, arts, design etc.) Universities can directly offer these collections or swap out courses with new ones — either from the broader Coursera catalog or with courses they have authored themselves. Features such as single sign-on, API integration, gradebooks, and plagiarism detection will help universities seamlessly incorporate online learning into their on-campus programs. 

  • Enable faculty to author and scale online programs for free – 

With Coursera’s world-class authoring tools, university faculty can easily experiment and publish private lessons, courses, assessments, and hands-on projects available only to their students and alumni. Faculty will also have access to learning analytics via the Course Progress and Skills Index Dashboards to understand student behavior, skill mastery, and growth. 

  • Deliver lifelong learning to alumni, faculty, and staff – 

According to Deloitte, the half-life of a learned skill is now just five years. With Coursera for Campus, universities can increase alumni engagement by serving their learning needs throughout their career. Coursera for Campus enables faculty and staff to rapidly upskill and catch up on emerging areas. Universities can also use the platform to help incoming students be prepared on day one. 

Coursera for Campus has been launched after extensive pilots in more than 20 university campuses around the world. Check out the experiences of pilot partners like Duke University, University of Illinois, and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, who have been using the offering to serve their on-campus students, faculty, and staff: 

“The market for skills is evolving, and education must evolve with it. To reduce skills gaps and spread opportunity widely, we need to be flexible and adaptive,” said Matthew Rascoff, Associate Vice Provost for Digital Education and Innovation at Duke University. “Coursera for Campus complements our core curriculum, allowing thousands of Duke students to advance their skills for a digital world.

“In today’s rapidly changing landscape, it’s important to create lifelong learning experiences for our students and staff to stay competitive in the workforce,” said Kevin Pitts Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “Coursera for Campus has already proven to be a valuable resource for our on-campus populations, and we look forward to using the program to engage our students beyond degree programs.”

“Recognizing the changing skills needed for the future of work, we wanted to create a multi-disciplinary learning ecosystem that allows students to pursue their passion and learn in-demand skills,” said Ravi Panchanadan, MD & CEO at Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE). “The quality content available on Coursera for Campus has already helped more than 20,000 Manipal students. Manipal Education including Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal — an Institution of Eminence from India, has always been the first to champion new education models and we are excited to see how the program will benefit more universities across the globe.”

Coursera was founded by Stanford Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng seven years ago to give anyone, anywhere access to the world’s best education. With Coursera for Campus, we build on our collaboration with universities globally to prepare the workforce of the future. I’m thrilled to make Coursera for Campus available today to our partner universities as well as to institutions that have not yet experienced the innovation, scale, and impact Coursera has to offer.

For more information, visit www.coursera.org/campus 

*Credit eligibility is determined by credit-granting institution; academic credit from content-creating partner not available.

 

Looking back at the first year’s impact of the Google IT Support Professional Certificate

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Looking back at the first year’s impact of the Google IT Support Professional Certificate

By Leah Belsky, Senior Vice President of Enterprise, Coursera

Technology is changing the world of work, transforming industries, jobs, and the skills that go with them. In today’s economy, open roles often indicate a lack of skilled talent to fill those positions. The IT industry is facing this challenge, with more than 215,000 open IT support roles in the U.S. alone, according to Burning Glass Technologies. That demand isn’t going to slow — the field is projected to grow an additional 10 percent by 2028.

Filling these critical roles starts with enabling anyone, anywhere to acquire IT skills. That is why, in January 2018, Google launched the Google IT Support Professional Certificate on Coursera and today we’re excited to release the results of the impact it has had thus far. The certificate is designed to prepare learners for an entry-level job in IT support in under six months and requires no prior IT experience or degree. Learners also have the opportunity to share their resumes with around 40 top employers, including Walmart, Ricoh, GE Digital, and Google, upon completion of the program.

Though only a short time has passed since launching, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate has quickly become one of the most sought after credentials on the Coursera platform. In the U.S., more than 50,000 learners enrolled in the first year alone. 

What is most inspiring to me, however, is the positive impact the certificate has had on so many people’s lives — from launching successful careers to sparking newfound passions. To measure these learner outcomes, our data science team partnered with Google to produce the Google IT Support Professional Certificate Impact Report. The results are based on data from two optional surveys collected between January 2018 and March 2019. These are some of our key findings: 

The vast majority of learners report positive career outcomes. 84 percent of learners said the program resulted in some positive impact on their careers within six months, such as enhancing skills for a current role, improving their ability to find a new job, getting a raise, or even starting a new business. 

The program attracts learners of diverse backgrounds. The program has reached historically underrepresented learners in technology, with 60 percent identifying as female, Black, Latino, or veteran. And since the program has no prerequisites, it’s accessible for learners of all educational and professional experience levels. 57 percent of learners enrolled don’t have a four-year college degree and 38 percent are in the lowest income tertile, meaning they earn less than $30,000 annually. 

Completion rates are higher when tied to career outcomes. Completion rates for the IT Support Professional Certificate program were 2.5 times higher than completion rates of comparable content on Coursera. One possible explanation is that motivation to complete programs is higher when content is tied to direct career outcomes.

Beyond these tangible results, what sticks with me are the learner stories. Take Chelsea Rucker for example. In early 2018, Chelsea was facing one of the most difficult times in her life while living with her young daughters in a homeless shelter for three months. After taking a job as an office manager at Goodwill, she learned she could earn the Google IT Support Professional Certificate through the organization, where she enrolled and received a scholarship funded by Google.org. Today, Chelsea is a technician at Google’s data center in Clarksville, TN – nearly tripling her previous salary and making a sustainable living to support her daughters. Chelsea’s story is just one of many illustrating the program’s transformational impact.

Now it’s time to build on this impact. At Coursera we’re working to build additional career pathways so that anyone, anywhere can access the skills necessary to succeed in today’s economy. 
View the full report and learn more about Professional Certificates on Coursera.

 

Word + Quiz: telekinesis

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Word + Quiz: telekinesis

: the power to move something by thinking about it without the application of physical force

_________

The word telekinesis has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 8 in the book review “Stephen King Visits an ‘Institute,’ Where the Kids Who Enter Can’t Escape” by Dwight Garner:

“The Institute” is about a brilliant and sensitive boy named Luke who is kidnapped and taken to a compound in the Maine woods where kids with special talents — telekinesis and telepathy — are imprisoned and put to dark geopolitical uses. The other primary character is named Tim. He’s a former cop, down on his luck, a good man in a blue chambray shirt and jeans who could use a break. Maybe they’ll help each other.

Weekly News Quiz For Students: President Trump, Warming Oceans, Spider-Man

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Weekly News Quiz For Students: President Trump, Warming Oceans, Spider-Man

Then on Sept, 30, The Times reported that President Trump pushed the prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

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