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Word + Quiz: cerulean

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Word + Quiz: cerulean

adjective: deep blue like the color of a clear October sky

noun: a light shade of blue

_________

The word cerulean has appeared in 34 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Nov. 14 in “A Guide to Milos, a Greek Island With Fewer Crowds and More Beaches” by Michaela Trimble:

Set on the northern shore of the island near the village of Agia, this otherworldly swimming beach is known for its white volcanic diatomite and pumice cliffs, which have been carved into pillars and ravines by centuries of waves whipped up by the northerly Meltemi winds. Visitors can sunbathe on the undulating formations and take refreshing dips in rock pools and the bay’s narrow canal. The bravest head for the highest cliffs to take turns plunging into the cerulean waters of the Aegean below. According to local lore, pirates once sought refuge on the beach and hid their treasure in tunnels hand-carved at the base of the rocks.

_________

Are You Able to Be Your Whole Self at School?

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Are You Able to Be Your Whole Self at School?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Does your school try hard to make students from different backgrounds feel welcome and included?

Do your teachers provide space for students to thoughtfully tackle complex issues related to race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality?

Do you feel that you’re able to bring your whole self to school?

In “Bringing a New Vibe to the Classroom,” Kerry Hannon writes about teachers across the country who are trying to honor the diversity of their students’ identities:

At the forefront are teachers like Christopher Emdin, 40, a science educator and the author of “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too.” He has been a leader in the #HipHopEd initiative, which integrates urban youth culture with learning. The Science Genius program, for example, uses hip-hop music and rhymes in teaching science.

Mr. Emdin — who said he did not like school growing up — co-founded an initiative in 2012 with the rapper GZA to use hip-hop to teach science in 10 New York City public schools. It is about “remixing education,” he said.

Today, he advises educators on ways to incorporate these techniques into their classrooms. “Writing these raps, poems over beats, is a way of giving students’ voice,” he said.

Louis Tavares, 17, a senior at Brooklyn Prep, said hip-hop motivated him to learn. “Before hip-hop, I would go to school and not really look forward to learning,” he said. But now with hip-hop, he said, “It brings a certain type of vibe to the classroom.”

Teaching Tolerance, the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has produced social justice teaching standards that many teachers are using, from kindergarten through high school, to guide curriculum development.

“We are beginning to address race and racism explicitly in the classroom,” said Lecia Brooks, a former teacher and a member of the senior leadership team of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “We are letting go of the false notion that it is too heavy, too much for children to talk about it head on.”

The article features several other teachers who are doing similar work:

Another powerhouse behind the transformation of teaching is the National Council of Teachers of English, with more than 25,000 members and subscribers worldwide. Lorena Germán, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, is the chair of the council’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English.

Ms. Germán, who came to the United States as a child, teaches at the Headwaters School in Austin, Tex. She said she experienced classroom racism as a child in Lawrence, Mass. “They wanted to bring us into a classroom that required us to dismiss our way of being in order to assimilate — as if ours had no value,” she said.

She rebelled. “I was a menace,” she said. “My chemistry teacher, for instance, would not speak to me or respond when I raised my hand.”

Today, after nearly two decades as an educator, she practices “activism every day in the classroom,” she said. “This is not about politics. This is about working toward social justice. I am constantly asking myself how I can model that thoughtfully in my classroom.”

Ms. Germán’s ninth-grade students, for example, study graffiti and debate questions such as: Is it vandalism? Where does it come from? What does it mean? What does it contribute to society? Does it count as text? Is there a message there?

The students read Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese,” a graphic novel that centers on issues of conformity, issues of identity, particularly around race, she explained. “The discussions get pretty heavy.”

“My students are really engaged with the content,” Ms. Germán said. “Over and over, they comment on how modern it is. What they are saying is that it’s very relevant to their lives.”

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • Are you reading texts in school that are written by authors from diverse backgrounds and who represent different perspectives? Do you see your own identity represented in the content you’re studying in school?

  • Do your teachers provide space in class for students to speak openly about issues related to culture, identity and differences? Do you feel comfortable speaking about these topics in school?

  • One student, Louis Tavares, says that using hip-hop in the classroom “brings a certain type of vibe to the classroom.” What does vibe or atmosphere mean to you? Do you think that teachers should try to create a vibe in their classroom? Can it help students learn more and perform better in school? Do you think that the atmosphere of classes can make them more relevant or meaningful to students in general — and to you as a learner?

  • Christopher Emdin, a science educator and author, says, “Writing these raps, poems over beats, is a way of giving students’ voice.” Do you feel your teachers let you express your voice through your projects and assignments? In what ways?

  • In general, do you feel engaged by what you are studying in school? Do your classes feel relevant to your life? Please share.

  • In the comments section of the article, Times readers expressed a range of opinions about the teaching strategies and approaches shared in the article. Choose one comment and respond to it here. Do you agree or disagree with the comment, and 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: ‘Same Goal, Different Playbook: Why Russia Would Support Trump and Sanders’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘Same Goal, Different Playbook: Why Russia Would Support Trump and Sanders’

[music] This is a story about a guy and a term he likes to think he invented. “Really, the word — I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake.’ I guess other people use it, perhaps, over the years. But I’ve never noticed it.” It’s only been around for a few years. But you’re probably as sick of it as we are. Well, the thing is, fake news is actually really old. It’s just that, once, it went by a very different name. [ding] [non-English speech] Because really, this story is about a virus, a virus created decades ago by a government to slowly and methodically destroy its enemies — [water sloshing] — from the inside. But it’s not a biological virus. It’s more like a political one. And chances are, you’ve already been infected. [music] If you don’t know who to trust anymore, this might be the thing that’s making you feel that way. If you feel exhausted by the news, this could be why. And if you’re sick of it all and you just want to stop caring, then we really need to talk. Ready? [music] O.K., so to start, let’s go back to July, 1983 and all the way over here: New Delhi, India. This is when a remarkable story appears in a newspaper called “The Patriot.” It claims the H.I.V. virus was secretly created by U.S. government scientists as a weapon to kill African-Americans and gay people. It even names a facility, Fort Detrick in Maryland, where the virus was supposed to have been concocted. It’s a crazy allegation printed in a small newspaper — no big deal, right? But fast forward just a couple of years, and look what’s happening. The story is spreading all over Africa. The scientific report’s even published by two East German biologists who say they can prove AIDS is made in the U.S.A. All these articles are from just a few months at the end of 1986. And then, somehow, it ends up here. [drums beating] “A Soviet military publication claims the virus that causes AIDS leaked from a U.S. Army laboratory conducting experiments in biological warfare.” That’s Dan Rather reading a fake news story to millions of unwitting Americans on national TV. But don’t be too hard on Dan. This was one of the greatest cons ever carried out on the global scale. And we’re going to show you how it was pulled off. [music] But first, let me introduce you to a few authentic grifters. Stashed away on some old videotapes, we found interviews with a bunch of ex-spies. This guy, Ladislav Bittman. This guy, Stanislav Levchenko, and this guy, Yuri Bezmenov. They all worked for the KGB during the Cold War before defecting to the U.S. And it’s thanks to them that we know so much about one of the KGB’s most secretive departments. “Only about 15% of time, money and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85 percent is a slow process, which we call either ideological subversion or active measures, [speaking Russian] in the language of the KGB.” So “active measures,” it’s a euphemism for, well, bullshit — but not just any bullshit, the most strategic, masterful, toxic bullshit you could possibly imagine, made with one goal. “To change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that, despite of their abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.” “Within the KGB is a department that specializes in planting false stories and forged documents.” We know it was run from Department A right at the top of the KGB. And it had a multimillion-dollar budget. “At least 15,000 people, who, in the Soviet Union and outside of the Soviet Union, are involved in that kind of actions on a regular, daily basis.” You heard that right — 15,000 people. That’s more than the entire staff at the State Department after 9/11. Now these days, KGB defectors who are still breathing are a little hard to come by. But we tracked down one to a small town in Massachusetts. “Well, my original name was Ladislav Bittman.” These days, he goes by Larry Martin. He’s 87 years old. “It’s a collage — “ He likes to paint. “ — with Putin. And he was boasting about his riches.” And of course, he has a girlfriend down in Florida. “Hello!” “Hello, hello. I am still busy.” But back in the day, he was a director at one of the most legendary active measures outposts reporting to Moscow. And when it comes to bullshit, Larry’s done it all. His first ever con — “It was an operation to establish a whorehouse in Germany.” That was to catch politicians in compromising situations. And once, he even planted a treasure chest of Nazi papers at the bottom of a lake. “Now original Nazi documents.” That was to stir up anti-German sentiments. Larry’s expertise, though, was a special kind of bullshit, something called — “Disinformation. Basically, it means deliberately distorted information that is secretly leaked into the communication process in order to deceive and manipulate.” [dinging] All right. Just to avoid any confusion, let’s pause here quickly to unpack all these different flavors of bullshit. Now at the top, you’ve got your active measures, right? These are basically any kind of covert operations against another country short of starting a war. This includes forgeries and even kidnappings. But disinformation was the heart and soul of it for the KGB. You might be thinking, that’s just a fancy word for propaganda. But it’s not. Propaganda tries to convince us to believe something. Disinformation is a highly organized attempt to deceive us into believing it. Today, everyone calls this fake news. But that’s become such a loaded term — no thanks to this guy — that it’s basically useless. Anyway, we’ll get on to him later. All right, [dinging] let’s get back to it. Disinformation — it was such a big deal that every KGB agent was required to spend 25 percent of their time coming up with ideas for false stories. And in a year-end review — yes, KGB agents had year-end reviews, too — every agent was evaluated on — “How many proposals for disinformation operations he submitted.” “You’ve gotten to be fairly good at this when you were Czech intelligence, didn’t you?” “Unfortunately, I have to admit, yes.” Just how good were these guys? Well, that rumor that the C.I.A. shot J.F.K., the story about how the C.I.A. tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II, and the one about rich Americans buying poor kids from Latin America to harvest their organs — but as the first cases of AIDS spread fear around the world, the KGB saw an opportunity for their biggest con yet. [clicking] All right, so let’s go back to 1983. And we’re going to show you what really happened here. So remember this story started with an article in The Patriot newspaper? “‘AIDS, the deadly mysterious disease which has caused havoc in the U.S. is believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons.’ There’s the crux of the crap.” It’s time you met Kathleen Bailey and Todd Leventhal. They were part of a U.S. government team that first pieced this story together back in the ’80s. [ding] “This is just the perfect example of a very effective disinformation campaign.” Well, almost perfect. There are some obvious grammar mistakes here, which tip off experts like Kathleen. Like, in English we’d say flu virus, not the virus flu. “So it’s written by a non-native English speaker. And it probably was written by a Russian-language speaker.” “They said, oh, the Indian newspaper, The Patriot — which we knew the KGB used this as an English language newspaper as a way to get stories out.” This was a classic Soviet tactic. Oleg Kalugin is another ex-KGB agent we found. He told us, they’d always try and place the story — “ — in a third-world country — ” — somewhere like — “ — say, in India, Thailand — ” — where journalists could be easily tricked or bribed. “So that gave the story acceptability when nobody was searching about the origin.” [music] The KGB let this story go quiet for a couple of years after India. But with AIDS still making scary headlines in ’85, they revived it, this time in a prominent Moscow newspaper. And the source for this story? You guessed it. [ding] It’s brilliant, really. They’ve repeated the story but concealed their hand, distancing themselves from the lie they started. So we’re now into 1986. And the KGB want to add gravitas to this lie. So they look around for a scientist, a human face, someone who could back up the lie with data. And no joke — this is the dude they found. This is Dr. Jakob Segal. Remember I said the reports had two authors? Well, here comes the co-author now. It’s his wife, Lilli. Believe it or not, these two wrote that report that claim to have evidence AIDS was created in a U.S. government lab. “This scientific gobbledygook — and you know, read this stuff, and who can understand it? But it purports to be proof.” The thing is, it worked. The KGB made sure the Segal report was read by journalists all over Africa. And they kept on pushing it until it went, well, viral. [ding] It’s appeared in 200 reports in 80 countries. Even The Daily Express in London runs with it. And finally, on March 30, 1987, the KGB hits the jackpot. “A Soviet military publication [echoing] claims the virus that causes AIDS leaked.” This campaign had a KGB code name. They called it, Operation Infection. “Good afternoon. I would like to begin the introduction to this report by stating that the U.S. image abroad is damaged. And U.S. foreign policy is complicated by disinformation. Wow. Huh. That’s a half a lifetime ago. This was handed out at a demonstration. I was so angry that they accused the United States of creating the AIDS virus, because I knew how effective that was going to be as a tool against us. And it angered me deeply. And it empowered me. It motivated me. It fired me up. I was pissed.” [music] Operation Infection, one of the most audacious and successful fake news stories ever created — and for America, the impact was toxic. “Foreign governments actually believed that the U.S. was creating this biological warfare agent. For them to think that damages their view of the United States not only as a culture, but it taints all of our policies. It’s in the back of their minds every time they discuss anything with us.” Now with so much at stake, you might be wondering what the U.S. response to this was. Well, you’re watching it. “The primary origin of disinformation about the United States abroad is the Soviet Union.” Kathleen and Todd were both part of something called the Active Measures Working Group. Nicknamed Truth Squads, it was a team that tracked and tried to expose Soviet disinformation. “Everybody was working part time on the issue.” “It was not funded lavishly.” “We all sat around a table once every week or two. And those who could volunteer their time to come in did.” Yup, that’s right. In the face of thousands of KGB agents with a multimillion-dollar budget, we had some part-time workers propping up poster boards on C-SPAN. “I see that it wasn’t very well attended. And I remember that now that I see this. But it did have an impact.” They didn’t have the budget or the time. But they were motivated by truth and did what they could, responding to the fire hose of falsehoods, calling them out, one lie at a time. “So they were working at this day, after day, after day. I think we were kept busy just knocking these things down.” But repeated exposure didn’t just lead to a couple of article corrections. Kathleen’s report exposing and debunking Operation Infection made its way right to the top of the Kremlin into the hands of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev himself. Secretary of State George Shultz was in the room when Gorby read it. “And you’re spreading all this bum dope about AIDS and the United States pushing it. And I said, come on. So we had a good, heated exchange. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” And days later, Gorbachev did the unthinkable. He bowed to pressure, apologized to President Ronald Reagan, and promised to stop spreading the fake AIDS story. “When we in the Active Measures Working Group heard about Gorbachev having read the reports — that’s cool. That is really cool. He couldn’t deny what we put in the report. And he didn’t deny it.” “Yet, it was the military who prevented the hard-line coup from succeeding.” “And then came the year 1989, 1990, when the Communist regime collapsed. Nobody believed that the Russians would continue using this weapon in future.” “Our government’s view was, problem solved.” As the Soviet Union was collapsing, Todd wrote this final report for Congress, a warning that would fall on deaf ears. “The formidable Soviet active measures and disinformation apparatus, which has manipulated world opinion for decades, has disintegrated. But many large fragments of their apparatus continue to exist and function, for the most part now under Russian, rather than Soviet sponsorship.” Don’t forget. KGB agents spent 25% of their time creating disinformation. And that was true of the entire agency during the Cold War, including a young agent from St. Petersburg who enrolled into the KGB in 1975 and who would one day go on to greater things. [music]

In Memoriam

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In Memoriam

On Feb. 24, a public memorial for Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was held at the Staples Center. The event hosted around 20,000 guests, including celebrities, athletes and fans who bought a limited number of tickets.

Did you follow any of the coverage from the event? How did you feel about the many ways that Bryant and his daughter were memorialized?

In what ways have you paid tribute to people you know who have died, whether they were a public figure or someone close to you? How do you hope to be remembered by others when you die?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article about how Bryant and Gianna have been immortalized in hundreds of murals around Los Angeles.

How Much Do You Know About Montenegro?

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How Much Do You Know About Montenegro?

Can you find Montenegro on a map? What else do you know about this European nation with about 600,000 people?

How Do You Decide What News to Believe, What to Question and What to Dismiss?

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How Do You Decide What News to Believe, What to Question and What to Dismiss?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Knowing what’s going on in one’s community, country and the world is important. But with so many different ways to get information about current events — from social media sites like Facebook and Snapchat, TV channels like NBC and Fox News, newspapers like The New York Times and your local paper, not to mention from friends and family — it’s hard not to be bombarded with a fire hose of information. How do you decide what to believe, what to question and what to just plain ignore?

Do you have confidence in your ability to distinguish between fact and opinion? What about between reliable journalism and fake news? Do you think of yourself as a savvy news consumer?

In “These Students Are Learning About Fake News and How to Spot It,” Alina Tugend writes about news literacy instruction in schools:

The students sit at desks in groups of four, watching videos about the recent bush fires in Australia. One shows an apocalyptic landscape in flames, the other a tourist paradise, with assurances that much of the continent is safe.

Instead of dismissing both as fake news, the eighth graders know what questions to ask to tease out the nuances: Who put out the videos? What does each source have to gain? How big is Australia? Could both videos be true?

It is no wonder these students at Herbert S. Eisenberg Intermediate School 303 in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn approach their task with such sophistication. They have been studying news literacy since sixth grade in one of the only schools in the country to make the subject part of an English language arts curriculum that all students must take for an hour a week for three years.

News, or media, literacy — how to critically understand, analyze and evaluate online content, images and stories — is not new. But it has taken on urgency in the last few years as accusations of fake news and the reality of disinformation permeate the internet and people — especially young ones — spend hours and hours a day looking at screens.

“Media literacy is the literacy of the 21st century,” said a recent report by the nonprofit group Media Literacy Now.

The article points out the dangers of believing — or doubting — everything one reads or simply not having the skills or the desire to verify information:

Research has shown that an inability to judge content leads to two equally unfortunate outcomes: People believe everything that suits their preconceived notions, or they cynically disbelieve everything. Either way leads to a polarized and disengaged citizenry.

Other recent research suggests that while so-called digital natives — preteens and teenagers — are technically savvy, most of them fail when it comes to assessing the veracity of news articles and images.

“If they were on a highway, it would be equivalent to not knowing you should stop at a stop sign. That’s really the state of ignorance we’re dealing with,” said Sam Wineburg, a professor of education at Stanford University and executive director of the Stanford History Education Group, a research and development consortium.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • Does the example of the class that watched the video about wildfires in Australia remind you of anything you have experienced in school? Do your teachers ever ask you to evaluate sources and determine reliability?

  • The article mentions research suggesting that young people “fail when it comes to assessing the veracity of news articles and images.” Do you think you’re good at spotting fake news? What about your friends? How do you decide what to believe, what to question and what to dismiss?

  • In the article, Maria Carnesi says, “This generation is very disillusioned by news — everything is fake news.” To what degree do you agree with her observation? Have you seen this attitude among your peers? Does this ever reflect your own thinking?

  • Ms. Carnesi also says, “News literacy is really empowering for young people.” Do you think building news literacy skills is important for students? Should it be taught in school? Do you agree that learning these skills is “empowering?” 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: ‘How Technology Is Changing the Future of Higher Education’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘How Technology Is Changing the Future of Higher Education’

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.

Featured Article: “How Technology Is Changing the Future of Higher Education” by Jon Marcus.

Labs across the country are testing artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations that could improve learning and lower costs for Generation Z and beyond.

In this lesson, you will learn how they are trying to solve problems in higher education with solutions that sound straight out of a science-fiction novel. Then, you’ll come up with creative ideas of your own for improving your schooling experience.

Imagine you have the opportunity to join a team of innovators to shape the future of education. Your job is to dream up what school could look like in five, 10 or 50 years from now.

To do this, you’ll follow the process of design thinking:

Step 1: Empathize. What do students need? Make a list of all the things that help young people learn and set them up for success. And try to think beyond your own needs. What could be helpful for people of all backgrounds, places and abilities?

Step 2: Define. Next, you’ll have to define the problems in the current system that might prevent students from being successful in school. These might have to do with the structure of school. For example, some students might have a hard time just getting to the building every day or learning in a classroom with 30 other students. Or, you might identify problems with the curriculum, expectations or anything else. Make a list of at least three that you think are important.

Now, you’ll read an article about how one organization is trying to come up with creative solutions for how to solve problems like these in higher education.

Read the article, then answer the following questions:

1. What is the Sandbox ColLABorative? How does it imagine the future of education?

2. What does the current structure of higher education look like? Why do innovators see a need to disrupt that system?

3. William Zemp, chief strategy and innovation officer at Southern New Hampshire University, says one of the most important things the Sandbox ColLABorative does is “disprove and dismantle ideas.” What does he mean by this? Why do you think it’s so important to the work?

4. What problem does the “college by subscription” model aim to solve? How does the proposed model address this problem?

5. How might a virtual teaching assistant improve students’ educational experiences? What gaps in the current system is it trying to fill?

6. What are the issues with traditional academic transcripts? How is the “interoperable learning record” trying to address them?

7. Which of the innovations mentioned in the article are most intriguing to you? Why? Could you see potential challenges with adopting any of them?

Now that you’ve read about some of the ways innovators are trying to solve problems in higher education, you’ll continue the process of design thinking to come up with some of your own:

Step 3: Ideate. This is the fun part. What creative, out-of-the-box solutions can you come up with to solve the problems you identified at the beginning of this lesson? What would your ideal schooling experience look like? How could you restructure the school day, reimagine the curriculum or use virtual reality, artificial intelligence or even technology that hasn’t been invented yet to improve education? Brainstorm a list of as many ideas as you can think of, no matter how impossible they may seem.

Steps 4-5: Prototype and Test. If you have time, you might imagine how you could produce a scaled-down version of one of these ideas. What steps would you take to test it out with real students? How might your proposal make education better for everyone? What potential challenges might you encounter when putting it into effect?

Word + Quiz: falsetto

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Word + Quiz: falsetto

noun: a male singing voice with artificially high tones in an upper register

adjective: artificially high; above the normal voice range

_________

The word falsetto has appeared in 38 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Aug. 28 in the theater review “‘Kids in the Hall,’ Rehashed for Adults in a Theater” by Alexis Soloski:

There are tough houses, there are friendly houses and there are houses so freakishly primed for laughter that they actively guffaw at the turn-off-your-cellphone message. This was the house that greeted Kevin McDonald at the second performance of “Kevin McDonald: Alive on 42nd Street,” a solo show with what we’ll generously call music.

…. Backed by the unflappable guitarist John Wlaysewski (“I’m not the coolest guy in the world,” Mr. McDonald admits, “I’m not even the coolest guy onstage”), Mr. McDonald brays songs, with occasional reliance on a lyrics sheet, and spins stories, most of which relate to the early years of “Kids.” Then, Mr. McDonald was wild-eyed and wild-haired, ready to hurl himself into a role at maximum velocity. These days, the hair has beat a retreat and he mostly keeps to the speed limit. The eyes are still wild, though, and that voice — a high-pitched rasp that rises to a smoke-alarm falsetto — has endured. His maniacal, goofball energy sometimes flashes through.

_________

Word + Quiz: pillory

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Word + Quiz: pillory

noun: a wooden instrument of punishment on a post with holes for the wrists and neck; offenders were locked in and so exposed to public scorn

verb: expose to ridicule or public scorn

verb: punish by putting in a pillory

verb: criticize harshly or violently

_________

The word pillory has appeared in eight articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on April 17 in “Let He Who Is Without Yeezys Cast the First Stone” by Rick Rojas:

The pastors were among those included on an Instagram account that recently popped up called “PreachersNSneakers,” where men and women of God are shown wearing footwear that could cost more than a month’s rent for many of their followers. Before long, each post was clogged with hundreds of comments.

“Pass the collection plate,” one person wrote, “daddy needs a new pair of shoes.”

…. The pastors have contributed little to the conversation. They have talked about it privately and reached out to the person behind the account, who said he was told by the pastors that shoes and clothes are often given to them. Others on Instagram defended them, arguing that the account aimed to sow discord and pillory the pastors.

_________

How Would You Design Your Ideal Museum?

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How Would You Design Your Ideal Museum?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

What has been your most memorable visit to a museum, good or bad? What type of museum was it and where was it located? What makes this experience stand out in your mind? A particular exhibit, activity or performance? How did you feel being there? What, if anything, would have made it better?

In “Grown-Up Art at a Children’s Museum, but It’s Still Playtime,” Laurel Graeber writes about her visit to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan:

On a recent visit to an exhibition, I broke what is usually a museum’s most immutable rule. I touched the art.

No shocked guards stopped me or shooed away the many smaller patrons who were doing the same. Granted, this was the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. But unlike many displays for the young, this one, “Inside Art,” features work by 11 adults whose résumés include the Jewish Museum, El Museo del Barrio and the Whitney.

The show lets visitors encounter art “not as a child sort of pretending to be an adult,” said Leslie Bushara, the museum’s deputy director of education and exhibitions, but “running around like a child.”

Run around they do. Joiri Minaya’s “Spandex Installation #6 (Labyrinth)” invites the curious into a vibrantly printed fabric maze. “Up & Around,” a cluster of large cylinders suspended vertically by the duo Yeju & Chat, beckons museumgoers to stand inside each tube and experience bursts of color and pattern. Adrienne Elise Tarver’s “Fera Septa” is a beguiling mesh canopy resembling tropical leaves.

Ms. Graeber describes how visitors are invited to interact with the artwork and the artists:

The work gets “well loved,” Ms. Bushara said, which means that its creators have to live near enough to repair damage. But the museum also chose local artists so they could lead public programs. A multicultural group, they have been charged with forming a neighborhood within the museum, not just as demographers would define it, but as Mister Rogers would have, too.

That means “not just artwork you can crawl through,” Mr. Rios said, “but you’re making art in the same space, we’re having dialogue in the same space, and eventually we’ll start to have performances.” Borinquen Gallo’s “Be(e) Sanctuary,” an artificial hive built of plastic debris, is itself a neighborhood project, made with fellow Bronx residents.

Visitors to “Inside Art” have stations to make their own work and can collaborate with three other artists who have studios within the space. Dionis Ortiz, who describes his work as centered on “light and how we create it,” will enlist families in an installation that includes light bulbs they paint to express their identities. Nancy Saleme and Patricia Cazorla, an aunt-and-niece team, will work with children on “The Shape of My Food,” a sculptural installation connected not only to the joy of eating but also, Ms. Cazorla said, to subjects like land use and migrants’ rights.

Mr. Rios wanted children to be exposed to the participating artists’ philosophies and activism. For the exhibition labels, the artists “were challenged to write about their work as if they were explaining it to a 5-year-old,” he said. The museum added questions: “When have you felt left out?” “What do you find beautiful?”

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • What is your reaction to reading about the “Inside Art” exhibit? Would you be interested in visiting the museum? Why or why not? What parts would you be most interested in experiencing?

  • What do you think makes a good museum? What kinds of experiences do you seek when you go to one? What allows you to connect with the exhibits?

  • What do you think should be the purpose of museums? To entertain, inform or persuade? How do you think museums should relate to the neighborhood or community they’re in? What about the artists, historians or scientists whose work they feature?

  • In “Is This the World’s Most Accessible Museum?”, Alex Marshall visits a museum exhibit in England that was designed to be accessible to able-bodied and disabled people alike, with features like video screens at the perfect height for wheelchair users, visible exits for people with anxiety, a range of audio and visual guides, and exhibits people can touch.

    What kinds of design elements have you seen that benefit all visitors? Are there things that you think museums could do to be more accessible to people with disabilities, children and people who speak other languages?

  • With all this in mind, how would you design your ideal museum if you had unlimited time and money? Where would it be located? What kind of museum would it be and what would make it unique? Who would you want to visit? How would you have visitors interact with the exhibits and what could you do to make them accessible to everyone? What rules would be in place, if any? Over all, what kind of experience would you want people to have there?

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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