Thursday, February 28, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
eLyrics.net
One of the largest song lyrics destination on the net, providing access to more than 700,000 lyrics from around 40,000 artists/bands since 2000. All our content are updated or submitted by our visitors. You can either browse our lyrics database or use our Google powered search engine to find song lyrics with just a small portion of lyrics you remember or heard on the radio or by simply an artist name, song name.
ELV Copyright Office Ltd.
Istanbul / TURKEY
Istanbul / TURKEY
“I’m not even sure why, but I’m drawn to those ghetto, hood sounds.”Harry ‘Baauer‘ Rodrigues
Azealia Banks - Remix Harlem Shake
Azealia Banks - Remix Harlem Shake
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Hip Hop Hall of Fame
| Hip Hop Hall of Fame-Museum |
 |
| TeenLife |
New York
Think of TeenLife NY as a guide for locals. In our listings, you’ll find summer and after-school programs, academic support and tutoring, and community service opportunities with area non-profits. Also, be sure to check out our comprehensive listings of schools, public and independent—even local teen-friendly businesses!Are these student-created math/slavery questions offensive?
New York City educators have learned the hard way that there are some things that just don’t mix -- like using slavery to teach math.
The principal of P.S. 59, a well-thought-of elementary school that draws slavery rom Midtown and the area around the United Nations, told the Daily News that she was “appalled” by the assignment and has ordered sensitivity training for all of the staff.
“One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month (31 days)? Another slave got whipped nine times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month? How many times did the two slaves get whipped together in one month?”
Two teachers at Public School No. 59, 250 E. 57th St., are facing disciplinary action after students were sent home with questions asking them to subtract dead slaves and multiply the number of times a day a slave is whipped.
Two Manhattan teachers are in hot water over an offensive homework lesson that used killing and whipping slaves to teach subtraction and multiplication.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/slave-math-questions-ps-59-fourth-graders-article-1.1270487#ixzz2LhlA4d18
Two Manhattan teachers are in hot water over an offensive homework lesson that used killing and whipping slaves to teach subtraction and multiplication.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/slave-math-questions-ps-59-fourth-graders-article-1.1270487#ixzz2LhlA4d18
Friday, February 22, 2013
Listen to Stories | StoryCorps: “What was the hardest part about me being gone?”
 |
| StoryCorps |
“What was the hardest part about me being gone?”Listen to Stories | StoryCorps
Recorded in Baltimore, MD.
Rowena Gore-Simmons runs a non-profit which helps formerly incarcerated women find housing and adjust to life outside the prison system.
But in 2001, Rowena was just getting out of prison herself. She was a recovering drug addict and had served time for theft.
Her daughter, Kenya, was 4 years old when Rowena was incarcerated, and wanted to ask her mom about her time in prison.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Augmented Reality and the Social Video App Vine; Google Glass
 |
| Google's Glass shaping the future of Glass |
Google Glass may be the most well-known application of the technology, but it's not the most advanced: Scientists are already developing augmented reality contact lenses.
vimeo
Google's Glass Project: Can You Make The Grade?
We’re looking for bold, creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass. We’d love to make everyone an Explorer, but we’re starting off a bit smaller. We’re still in the early stages, and while we can’t promise everything will be perfect, we can promise it will be exciting.
Prisoner's Handwritten Petition Prompts Justices To Weigh Government Immunity
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court's landmark decision requiring the states to provide lawyers for poor people accused of committing crimes.
...the Supreme Court is hearing the case of another defendant who, in the longest of long shots, filed a handwritten petition from prison asking the justices for their help.
Millbrook [Kim Millbrook] claims that he was held down by one guard and forced to perform oral sex on another guard while a third prison guard stood watch. His case was thrown out by the lower courts without ruling on the merits of the allegations. Instead the lower courts dismissed the case on grounds of sovereign immunity — the concept that the government is immune from certain kinds of lawsuits.
...the Supreme Court is hearing the case of another defendant who, in the longest of long shots, filed a handwritten petition from prison asking the justices for their help.
The government initially argued that the court should not take Millbrook's case. It then changed course and alerted the court to an issue Millbrook had not raised, but that lower courts across the country are divided on. The issue is whether federal law waives sovereign immunity and allows lawsuits against the United States for intentional wrongful acts by prison guards acting as law enforcement officials.
Gig Alert: Raul Midon
As a guitarist, Raul Midon is as skilled as they come. As a vocalist he can switch effortlessly between styles. And as a performer he wins consistent rave reviews, many comparing him to another blind artist, Stevie Wonder .
Monday, February 18, 2013
Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog
Earlier this year, our class combined with a PreK class from China and a first grade and second grade class from the USA to make this e-book. In it, each of the classes shared some of their celebrations.
"I have been concerned, though, by some of the ways that I see technology being used. Technology should not just allow us to do things in a more engaging way; it should allow us to do new things that we thought were not possible. It is those new things that are the real value technology provides. It is not enough to USE technology. You must use it well."
"Having access to books does not mean that the students in my classroom will learn to read. I need to make careful pedagogical choices and use those books in a way that will gently and purposefully help those children to become independent readers. Very few children can make this leap themselves. Most need a thoughtful teacher to guide them."
"In the same way, having technology in my classroom does not mean that my students will discover how to use it as a learning tool. I have to carefully select and structure what it is used for so that it becomes truly educational. As with reading books, should not our goal be to develop independent learners? Here are my personal abuse and uselists for the handling of devices in the classroom." Kathy Cassidy
We hope you enjoy reading it as much as the children enjoyed writing it. Just click on the image below to read it.
Celebrate with us!
"Having access to books does not mean that the students in my classroom will learn to read. I need to make careful pedagogical choices and use those books in a way that will gently and purposefully help those children to become independent readers. Very few children can make this leap themselves. Most need a thoughtful teacher to guide them."
"In the same way, having technology in my classroom does not mean that my students will discover how to use it as a learning tool. I have to carefully select and structure what it is used for so that it becomes truly educational. As with reading books, should not our goal be to develop independent learners? Here are my personal abuse and uselists for the handling of devices in the classroom." Kathy Cassidy
"Behind every great man is a great woman"
Christensen believes the cliche -- "Behind every great man is a great woman" -- should be changed to "Behind every great man is a great ego."
Prestige doesn't need glitz. It's the talent that matters.
Read more
Kate Christensen
“The male muse is an unaccountably rare thing in art,” she writes.
You've said that you wrote your first novel in the eighth grade for a boy you liked. "He giggled gratifyingly at each chapter,"
Prestige doesn't need glitz. It's the talent that matters.
Read more
Kate Christensen
“The male muse is an unaccountably rare thing in art,” she writes.
You've said that you wrote your first novel in the eighth grade for a boy you liked. "He giggled gratifyingly at each chapter,"
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist (1979)
This Academy Award-winning documentary short is narrated by Sidney Poitier and traces Paul Robeson's career through his activism and his socially charged performances of his signature song, "Ol' Man River." and Othello.
Robeson On Robeson
Friday, February 15, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior
Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lowerclass individuals.
P a u l K. P i f f
Pairing ethics courses with economics may be beneficial, Piff said.
“It might be as simple as not only stressing individual performance, but the value of cooperation and improving the welfare of others,” he said. “That goes a long way.”
The U.S. is the most economically stratified society in the western world. The Wall Street Journal reported a recent study that the top .01% or 14,000 American families hold 22.2% of the wealth and the bottom 90% or over 133 million families, hold just 4% of the nation's wealth. The U.S. Census Bureau and the World Wealth Report of 2010 both indicated wealth increased for the top 5% of households even during the recession. Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the richest 1% has tripled their cut of America's income pie in one generation. Psychology Today
The level of inequality we allow represents our answer to a "very important question," says Nancy Krieger, of Harvard University, and that is, "what kind of society do we want to live in?"
There are clear disturbing indicators from the research of Piff, Keltner and others, that the dominance of the wealthy, along with their apparent disposition for greed and unethical behavior, will feed the trend of income inequality, at the cost of well being for millions of Americans.
World Wealth Report 2010
P a u l K. P i f f
Institute of Personality and Social Research
Psychology Department
University of California, Berkeley
Psychology Department
University of California, Berkeley
In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.
Pairing ethics courses with economics may be beneficial, Piff said.
“It might be as simple as not only stressing individual performance, but the value of cooperation and improving the welfare of others,” he said. “That goes a long way.”
The U.S. is the most economically stratified society in the western world. The Wall Street Journal reported a recent study that the top .01% or 14,000 American families hold 22.2% of the wealth and the bottom 90% or over 133 million families, hold just 4% of the nation's wealth. The U.S. Census Bureau and the World Wealth Report of 2010 both indicated wealth increased for the top 5% of households even during the recession. Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the richest 1% has tripled their cut of America's income pie in one generation. Psychology Today
There are clear disturbing indicators from the research of Piff, Keltner and others, that the dominance of the wealthy, along with their apparent disposition for greed and unethical behavior, will feed the trend of income inequality, at the cost of well being for millions of Americans.
World Wealth Report 2010
to better understand the key trends that affect high net worth individuals (HNWIs) around the globe.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
“Bumblebee Bat”
| Bumblebee Bat |
In 2007, Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat was identified by the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) project as one of its Top 10 "focal species"
Michael Franti & Spearhead,
“Music is sunshine,” says Michael Franti, one of the most positive and conscious artists in music today. “Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood. Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.”
“Music is something you can’t hold in your hands, smell it, taste it or even see it, yet somehow just coming together and feeling these little vibrations that tickle our eardrums can somehow lift us all up out of our most difficult moments in life to unimaginable heights.”
Musician Michael Franti uses his artistry to Envision a better world
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Cameron Russell: Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model.
TALKS | TEDX
Cameron Russell admits she won “a genetic lottery”: she's tall, pretty and an underwear model. But don't judge her by her looks. In this fearless talk, she takes a wry look at the industry that had her looking highly seductive at barely 16-years-old
Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up. It's out of your control and it's awesome — and it's not a career path.”(Cameron Russell)
Cameron Russell has stomped the runways for Victoria's Secret and Chanel, and has appeared in many magazines. But she is much more than just a pretty face. Full bio »
Cameron runs the blog ArtRoots.info, which is dedicated to covering grassroots public art and political power. She also experiments with creating street art herself. In addition, Cameron is the director of The Big Bad Lab, which creates participatory art that aims to include people in radical demonstrations of positive social change.
Hi. My name is Cameron Russell, and for the last little while I've been a model. Actually, for 10 years. And I feel like there's an uncomfortable tension in the room right now because I should not have worn this dress. (Laughter)
So luckily I brought an outfit change. This is the first outfit change on the TED stage, so you guys are pretty lucky to witness it, I think. If some of the women were really horrified when I came out, you don't have to tell me now, but I'll find out later on Twitter. (Laughter)
I'd also note that I'm quite privileged to be able to transform what you think of me in a very brief 10 seconds. Not everybody gets to do that. These heels are very uncomfortable, so good thing I wasn't going to wear them. The worst part is putting this sweater over my head,because that's when you'll all laugh at me, so don't do anything while it's over my head. All right.
So why did I do that? That was awkward. Well, hopefully not as awkward as that picture.Image is powerful, but also image is superficial. I just totally transformed what you thought of me in six seconds. And in this picture, I had actually never had a boyfriend in real life. I was totally uncomfortable, and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hand in that guy's hair. And of course, barring surgery, or the fake tan that I got two days ago for work, there's very little that we can do to transform how we look, and how we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives.
So today, for me, being fearless means being honest. And I am on this stage because I am a model. I am on this stage because I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry we call that a sexy girl. And I'm going to answer the questions that people always ask me, but with an honest twist.
So the first question is, how do you become a model? And I always just say, "Oh, I was scouted," but that means nothing. The real way that I became a model is I won a genetic lottery, and I am the recipient of a legacy, and maybe you're wondering what is a legacy.Well, for the past few centuries we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we're biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures,and femininity and white skin. And this is a legacy that was built for me, and it's a legacy that I've been cashing out on. And I know there are people in the audience who are skeptical at this point, and maybe there are some fashionistas who are, like, "Wait. Naomi. Tyra. Joan Smalls. Liu Wen." And first, I commend you on your model knowledge. Very impressive. (Laughter) But unfortunately I have to inform you that in 2007, a very inspired NYU Ph.D. student counted all the models on the runway, every single one that was hired,and of the 677 models that were hired, only 27, or less than four percent, were non-white.
The next question people always ask me is, "Can I be a model when I grow up?" And the first answer is, "I don't know, they don't put me in charge of that." But the second answer, and what I really want to say to these little girls is, "Why? You know? You can be anything.You could be the President of the United States, or the inventor of the next Internet, or a ninja cardio-thoracic surgeon poet, which would be awesome, because you'd be the first one." (Laughter) If, after this amazing list, they still are like, "No, no, Cameron, I want to be a model," well then I say, "Be my boss." Because I'm not in charge of anything, and you could be the editor in chief of American Vogue or the CEO of H&M, or the next Steven Meisel. Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up. It's out of your control, and it's awesome, and it's not a career path. I will demonstrate for you now 10 years of accumulated model knowledge, because unlike cardio-thoracic surgeons, it can just be distilled right into -- right now. So if the photographer is right there and the light is right there, like a nice HMI, and the client says, "Cameron, we want a walking shot," well then this leg goes first, nice and long, this arm goes back, this arm goes forward, the head is at three quarters, and you just go back and forth, just do that, and then you look back at your imaginary friends, 300, 400, 500 times. (Laughter) It will look something like this. (Laughter) Hopefully less awkward than that one in the middle. That was, I don't know what happened there.
Unfortunately after you've gone to school, and you have a résumé and you've done a few jobs, you can't say anything anymore, so if you say you want to be the President of the United States, but your résumé reads, "Underwear Model: 10 years," people give you a funny look.
The next question people always ask me is, "Do they retouch all the photos?" And yeah, they pretty much retouch all the photos, but that is only a small component of what's happening. This picture is the very first picture that I ever took, and it's also the very first time that I had worn a bikini, and I didn't even have my period yet. I know we're getting personal, but I was a young girl. This is what I looked like with my grandma just a few months earlier. Here's me on the same day as this shoot. My friend got to come with me.Here's me at a slumber party a few days before I shot French Vogue. Here's me on the soccer team and in V Magazine. And here's me today. And I hope what you're seeing is that these pictures are not pictures of me. They are constructions, and they are constructions by a group of professionals, by hairstylists and makeup artists and photographers and stylists and all of their assistants and pre-production and post-production, and they build this. That's not me.
Okay, so the next question people always ask me is, "Do you get free stuff?" I do have too many 8-inch heels which I never get to wear, except for earlier, but the free stuff that I get is the free stuff that I get in real life, and that's what we don't like to talk about. I grew up in Cambridge, and one time I went into a store and I forgot my money and they gave me the dress for free. When I was a teenager, I was driving with my friend who was an awful driver and she ran a red and of course, we got pulled over, and all it took was a "Sorry, officer,"and we were on our way. And I got these free things because of how I look, not who I am, and there are people paying a cost for how they look and not who they are. I live in New York, and last year, of the 140,000 teenagers that were stopped and frisked, 86 percent of them were black and Latino, and most of them were young men. And there are only 177,000 young black and Latino men in New York, so for them, it's not a question of, "Will I get stopped?" but "How many times will I get stopped? When will I get stopped?" When I was researching this talk, I found out that of the 13-year-old girls in the United States, 53 percent don't like their bodies, and that number goes to 78 percent by the time that they're 17.
So the last question people ask me is, "What is it like to be a model?" And I think the answer that they're looking for is, "If you are a little bit skinnier and you have shinier hair,you will be so happy and fabulous." And when we're backstage, we give an answer that maybe makes it seem like that. We say, "It's really amazing to travel, and it's amazing to get to work with creative, inspired, passionate people." And those things are true, but they're only one half of the story, because the thing that we never say on camera, that I have never said on camera, is, "I am insecure." And I'm insecure because I have to think about what I look like every day. And if you ever are wondering, "If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier?" you just need to meet a group of models, because they have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet.
So when I was writing this talk, I found it very difficult to strike an honest balance, because on the one hand, I felt very uncomfortable to come out here and say, "Look I've received all these benefits from a deck stacked in my favor," and it also felt really uncomfortable to follow that up with, "and it doesn't always make me happy." But mostly it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the biggest beneficiaries.But I'm also happy and honored to be up here and I think that it's great that I got to comebefore 10 or 20 or 30 years had passed and I'd had more agency in my career, because maybe then I wouldn't tell the story of how I got my first job, or maybe I wouldn't tell the story of how I paid for college, which seems so important right now.
If there's a takeaway to this talk, I hope it's that we all feel more comfortable acknowledgingthe power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.
Hi. My name is Cameron Russell, and for the last little while I've been a model. Actually, for 10 years. And I feel like there's an uncomfortable tension in the room right now because I should not have worn this dress. (Laughter)
So luckily I brought an outfit change. This is the first outfit change on the TED stage, so you guys are pretty lucky to witness it, I think. If some of the women were really horrified when I came out, you don't have to tell me now, but I'll find out later on Twitter. (Laughter)
I'd also note that I'm quite privileged to be able to transform what you think of me in a very brief 10 seconds. Not everybody gets to do that. These heels are very uncomfortable, so good thing I wasn't going to wear them. The worst part is putting this sweater over my head,because that's when you'll all laugh at me, so don't do anything while it's over my head. All right.
So why did I do that? That was awkward. Well, hopefully not as awkward as that picture.Image is powerful, but also image is superficial. I just totally transformed what you thought of me in six seconds. And in this picture, I had actually never had a boyfriend in real life. I was totally uncomfortable, and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hand in that guy's hair. And of course, barring surgery, or the fake tan that I got two days ago for work, there's very little that we can do to transform how we look, and how we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives.
So today, for me, being fearless means being honest. And I am on this stage because I am a model. I am on this stage because I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry we call that a sexy girl. And I'm going to answer the questions that people always ask me, but with an honest twist.
So the first question is, how do you become a model? And I always just say, "Oh, I was scouted," but that means nothing. The real way that I became a model is I won a genetic lottery, and I am the recipient of a legacy, and maybe you're wondering what is a legacy.Well, for the past few centuries we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we're biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures,and femininity and white skin. And this is a legacy that was built for me, and it's a legacy that I've been cashing out on. And I know there are people in the audience who are skeptical at this point, and maybe there are some fashionistas who are, like, "Wait. Naomi. Tyra. Joan Smalls. Liu Wen." And first, I commend you on your model knowledge. Very impressive. (Laughter) But unfortunately I have to inform you that in 2007, a very inspired NYU Ph.D. student counted all the models on the runway, every single one that was hired,and of the 677 models that were hired, only 27, or less than four percent, were non-white.
The next question people always ask me is, "Can I be a model when I grow up?" And the first answer is, "I don't know, they don't put me in charge of that." But the second answer, and what I really want to say to these little girls is, "Why? You know? You can be anything.You could be the President of the United States, or the inventor of the next Internet, or a ninja cardio-thoracic surgeon poet, which would be awesome, because you'd be the first one." (Laughter) If, after this amazing list, they still are like, "No, no, Cameron, I want to be a model," well then I say, "Be my boss." Because I'm not in charge of anything, and you could be the editor in chief of American Vogue or the CEO of H&M, or the next Steven Meisel. Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up. It's out of your control, and it's awesome, and it's not a career path. I will demonstrate for you now 10 years of accumulated model knowledge, because unlike cardio-thoracic surgeons, it can just be distilled right into -- right now. So if the photographer is right there and the light is right there, like a nice HMI, and the client says, "Cameron, we want a walking shot," well then this leg goes first, nice and long, this arm goes back, this arm goes forward, the head is at three quarters, and you just go back and forth, just do that, and then you look back at your imaginary friends, 300, 400, 500 times. (Laughter) It will look something like this. (Laughter) Hopefully less awkward than that one in the middle. That was, I don't know what happened there.
Unfortunately after you've gone to school, and you have a résumé and you've done a few jobs, you can't say anything anymore, so if you say you want to be the President of the United States, but your résumé reads, "Underwear Model: 10 years," people give you a funny look.
The next question people always ask me is, "Do they retouch all the photos?" And yeah, they pretty much retouch all the photos, but that is only a small component of what's happening. This picture is the very first picture that I ever took, and it's also the very first time that I had worn a bikini, and I didn't even have my period yet. I know we're getting personal, but I was a young girl. This is what I looked like with my grandma just a few months earlier. Here's me on the same day as this shoot. My friend got to come with me.Here's me at a slumber party a few days before I shot French Vogue. Here's me on the soccer team and in V Magazine. And here's me today. And I hope what you're seeing is that these pictures are not pictures of me. They are constructions, and they are constructions by a group of professionals, by hairstylists and makeup artists and photographers and stylists and all of their assistants and pre-production and post-production, and they build this. That's not me.
Okay, so the next question people always ask me is, "Do you get free stuff?" I do have too many 8-inch heels which I never get to wear, except for earlier, but the free stuff that I get is the free stuff that I get in real life, and that's what we don't like to talk about. I grew up in Cambridge, and one time I went into a store and I forgot my money and they gave me the dress for free. When I was a teenager, I was driving with my friend who was an awful driver and she ran a red and of course, we got pulled over, and all it took was a "Sorry, officer,"and we were on our way. And I got these free things because of how I look, not who I am, and there are people paying a cost for how they look and not who they are. I live in New York, and last year, of the 140,000 teenagers that were stopped and frisked, 86 percent of them were black and Latino, and most of them were young men. And there are only 177,000 young black and Latino men in New York, so for them, it's not a question of, "Will I get stopped?" but "How many times will I get stopped? When will I get stopped?" When I was researching this talk, I found out that of the 13-year-old girls in the United States, 53 percent don't like their bodies, and that number goes to 78 percent by the time that they're 17.
So the last question people ask me is, "What is it like to be a model?" And I think the answer that they're looking for is, "If you are a little bit skinnier and you have shinier hair,you will be so happy and fabulous." And when we're backstage, we give an answer that maybe makes it seem like that. We say, "It's really amazing to travel, and it's amazing to get to work with creative, inspired, passionate people." And those things are true, but they're only one half of the story, because the thing that we never say on camera, that I have never said on camera, is, "I am insecure." And I'm insecure because I have to think about what I look like every day. And if you ever are wondering, "If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier?" you just need to meet a group of models, because they have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet.
So when I was writing this talk, I found it very difficult to strike an honest balance, because on the one hand, I felt very uncomfortable to come out here and say, "Look I've received all these benefits from a deck stacked in my favor," and it also felt really uncomfortable to follow that up with, "and it doesn't always make me happy." But mostly it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the biggest beneficiaries.But I'm also happy and honored to be up here and I think that it's great that I got to comebefore 10 or 20 or 30 years had passed and I'd had more agency in my career, because maybe then I wouldn't tell the story of how I got my first job, or maybe I wouldn't tell the story of how I paid for college, which seems so important right now.
If there's a takeaway to this talk, I hope it's that we all feel more comfortable acknowledgingthe power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.
Rep. Labrador Could Shape House Plan On Immigration
GOP Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho opposes the pathway to citizenship proposed by the president and a bipartisan group of senators. He's also Hispanic and a former immigration lawyer who recently joined the House subcommittee that deals with immigration issues. Steve Inskeep talks to Labrador about the current debate.
Transcript
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Let's explore a key point of debate over changing immigration law. President Obama is pushing to change the status of millions of people in the United States illegally.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We all agree that these men and women should have to earn their way to citizenship. But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship.
(APPLAUSE)
GREENE: After last year's election loss, driven in part by Latino votes, Republicans now acknowledge they need to do something. The question is how much change they're willing to accept.
INSKEEP: And the toughest debate may come in the House of Representatives where the Republicans deliberately put a Latino congressman, Raul Labrador of Idaho, on a committee that is considering immigration. He's a favorite of the Tea Party and an immigration lawyer. Labrador insists he wants immigrants to get a legal status that stops short of citizenship.
REP. RAUL LABRADOR: The people that came here illegally, knowingly, I don't think they should have a path to citizenship. If you knowingly violated our law, you violated our sovereignty, I think we should normalize your status, but we should not give you a pathway to citizenship. Now, there's going to be...
INSKEEP: Normalize meaning you get a visa, you get a green card, you can work. Is that what you mean?
LABRADOR: Not a green card and visa, some sort of, you know, some people are calling it a blue card or a red card. Just something that gives them the ability to be in the United States, to come out of the shadows, to work, to travel, to go back home to their home countries, you know, to visit family, all those things. I think we should treat them with dignity, but we should also be fair to the millions of people that are waiting in line that are trying to do it the right way.
INSKEEP: Let me imagine the most suspicious thing that a Democrat might say about this proposal. You would like people who are here illegally to be legalized and be allowed to work and participate in the economy as they already do, but you don't want to make it too easy for them to become citizens and actually be able to vote.
LABRADOR: That's not the issue. The issue is that the American people are fair people. They believe that we have a broken system that hasn't been working for 20 years. But they also respect their citizenship and they want to make sure that we don't encourage people in the future to come back to the United States. Remember when the last amnesty happened? We were supposed to only take care of three million people.
INSKEEP: This is in the 1980s under President Reagan.
LABRADOR: In the 1986, under President Reagan. And what happened is that instead of fixing the problem for those people, what we did is we all of a sudden opened the floodgates. So people came into the United States illegally, because they said if they did one amnesty they're going to do another one. And if you want citizenship why wait, you know, in line, just go ahead and get into the United States and you're going to be able to be a citizen of the United States. I want to discourage that. I also want to discourage employers who are hiring people illegally, because they know that, number one, in the past they were being punished. Number two, if they were punished it was kind of a slap on the wrist. And number three, it was cheaper for them to hire people that were illegal. So we really need to think about this broadly.
INSKEEP: But let me ask about this question of citizenship and voting, because this does enter into the discussion, and in fact, there are Republicans who will suggest that Democrats just want to legalize a bunch of illegal immigrants so that they can vote for Democrats. Are there people in your party who have the mirror image of that concern, that they want to prevent people from voting if they can?
LABRADOR: You know, I don't think voting should even be part of the question. These are people that violated our laws. Why are we even talking about them having the ability to vote? This is not about politics. In fact, as Republicans, we need to understand that we're not going to get any benefit from fixing the immigration system. I think the Democrats, at this point, because you have the president who is in power, are going to get all the accolades. We just need to do it because it's the right thing to do.
INSKEEP: So your position is not the same as a lot of Democrats on this issue. President Obama has specifically said he wants a pathway to citizenship. It sounds like you are willing to make it possible for people to eventually become citizens but that they should have no special preference. Do you feel you're in a significantly different spot than the president there, or are you just phrasing things a little differently here?
LABRADOR: I hope it's not significantly different, but it might be, because the question that I have for the president and for some Democrats is whether they want a political victory or a policy victory? If they want a political victory they're going to draw a fine red line and they're going to say, either pathway to citizenship or nothing else. They know that the Republicans in the House are not going to be able to vote for that, and then they're going to be able to beat us over the head in 2014 and say look, the Republicans don't like immigrants, which is not true. We want to face this problem in the House of Representatives. We have a large majority of the House of Representatives that wants to do something right now.
INSKEEP: Well, just so I understand the difference here, because Democrats talk about a pathway to citizenship; you talk about giving people normal status then they can apply for citizenship through the normal channels. Do you believe that under your proposal, the vast majority of those 11 or 12 million people - or all of them - would be able to get in the position where they could at least get in line for citizenship, or would that be barred for some people or would some people be forced to return to their home countries?
LABRADOR: No. What would happen is that some people would remain here in whatever the status is that we give them, because not everyone has a job that qualifies for a green card. So, some people would be like any other non-immigrant status. We have, you know, different kinds of workers who come to the United States. They could continue to reapply for their status, but it doesn't mean that they become citizens of the United States. There's no right to become a citizen of the United States. There's a lot of questions, that are being asked by the Republicans, that I think are very valid questions. And the most important one, I believe, is what do we do to make sure that 10 years from now we don't have this same problem?
INSKEEP: Raul Labrador is a Republican congressman from Idaho. Congressman, thanks very much.
LABRADOR: Thank you.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Transcript
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Let's explore a key point of debate over changing immigration law. President Obama is pushing to change the status of millions of people in the United States illegally.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We all agree that these men and women should have to earn their way to citizenship. But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship.
(APPLAUSE)
GREENE: After last year's election loss, driven in part by Latino votes, Republicans now acknowledge they need to do something. The question is how much change they're willing to accept.
INSKEEP: And the toughest debate may come in the House of Representatives where the Republicans deliberately put a Latino congressman, Raul Labrador of Idaho, on a committee that is considering immigration. He's a favorite of the Tea Party and an immigration lawyer. Labrador insists he wants immigrants to get a legal status that stops short of citizenship.
REP. RAUL LABRADOR: The people that came here illegally, knowingly, I don't think they should have a path to citizenship. If you knowingly violated our law, you violated our sovereignty, I think we should normalize your status, but we should not give you a pathway to citizenship. Now, there's going to be...
INSKEEP: Normalize meaning you get a visa, you get a green card, you can work. Is that what you mean?
LABRADOR: Not a green card and visa, some sort of, you know, some people are calling it a blue card or a red card. Just something that gives them the ability to be in the United States, to come out of the shadows, to work, to travel, to go back home to their home countries, you know, to visit family, all those things. I think we should treat them with dignity, but we should also be fair to the millions of people that are waiting in line that are trying to do it the right way.
INSKEEP: Let me imagine the most suspicious thing that a Democrat might say about this proposal. You would like people who are here illegally to be legalized and be allowed to work and participate in the economy as they already do, but you don't want to make it too easy for them to become citizens and actually be able to vote.
LABRADOR: That's not the issue. The issue is that the American people are fair people. They believe that we have a broken system that hasn't been working for 20 years. But they also respect their citizenship and they want to make sure that we don't encourage people in the future to come back to the United States. Remember when the last amnesty happened? We were supposed to only take care of three million people.
INSKEEP: This is in the 1980s under President Reagan.
LABRADOR: In the 1986, under President Reagan. And what happened is that instead of fixing the problem for those people, what we did is we all of a sudden opened the floodgates. So people came into the United States illegally, because they said if they did one amnesty they're going to do another one. And if you want citizenship why wait, you know, in line, just go ahead and get into the United States and you're going to be able to be a citizen of the United States. I want to discourage that. I also want to discourage employers who are hiring people illegally, because they know that, number one, in the past they were being punished. Number two, if they were punished it was kind of a slap on the wrist. And number three, it was cheaper for them to hire people that were illegal. So we really need to think about this broadly.
INSKEEP: But let me ask about this question of citizenship and voting, because this does enter into the discussion, and in fact, there are Republicans who will suggest that Democrats just want to legalize a bunch of illegal immigrants so that they can vote for Democrats. Are there people in your party who have the mirror image of that concern, that they want to prevent people from voting if they can?
LABRADOR: You know, I don't think voting should even be part of the question. These are people that violated our laws. Why are we even talking about them having the ability to vote? This is not about politics. In fact, as Republicans, we need to understand that we're not going to get any benefit from fixing the immigration system. I think the Democrats, at this point, because you have the president who is in power, are going to get all the accolades. We just need to do it because it's the right thing to do.
INSKEEP: So your position is not the same as a lot of Democrats on this issue. President Obama has specifically said he wants a pathway to citizenship. It sounds like you are willing to make it possible for people to eventually become citizens but that they should have no special preference. Do you feel you're in a significantly different spot than the president there, or are you just phrasing things a little differently here?
LABRADOR: I hope it's not significantly different, but it might be, because the question that I have for the president and for some Democrats is whether they want a political victory or a policy victory? If they want a political victory they're going to draw a fine red line and they're going to say, either pathway to citizenship or nothing else. They know that the Republicans in the House are not going to be able to vote for that, and then they're going to be able to beat us over the head in 2014 and say look, the Republicans don't like immigrants, which is not true. We want to face this problem in the House of Representatives. We have a large majority of the House of Representatives that wants to do something right now.
INSKEEP: Well, just so I understand the difference here, because Democrats talk about a pathway to citizenship; you talk about giving people normal status then they can apply for citizenship through the normal channels. Do you believe that under your proposal, the vast majority of those 11 or 12 million people - or all of them - would be able to get in the position where they could at least get in line for citizenship, or would that be barred for some people or would some people be forced to return to their home countries?
LABRADOR: No. What would happen is that some people would remain here in whatever the status is that we give them, because not everyone has a job that qualifies for a green card. So, some people would be like any other non-immigrant status. We have, you know, different kinds of workers who come to the United States. They could continue to reapply for their status, but it doesn't mean that they become citizens of the United States. There's no right to become a citizen of the United States. There's a lot of questions, that are being asked by the Republicans, that I think are very valid questions. And the most important one, I believe, is what do we do to make sure that 10 years from now we don't have this same problem?
INSKEEP: Raul Labrador is a Republican congressman from Idaho. Congressman, thanks very much.
LABRADOR: Thank you.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
The Tents (2012)
"We're selling a dream, not a garment"
Each year, tents in Bryant Park herald New York Fashion Week, whose back story is as fascinating as the couture on the catwalk. Fashion's biggest names share the sometimes shocking, often funny rags-to-riches evolution of the iconic event.
New York's Grimy Garment District Hatches Designers' Dreams
According to a 2012 report published by the Design Trust for Public Space, apparel production is the largest manufacturing division in New York City. It provides 24,000 jobs citywide with about 7,100 of those jobs centered in the Garment District. Within the district alone, those jobs generate $2.1 billion of economic output.
Citywide, the fashion industry employs 173,000 people, generating $10 billion annually.
It's also a business that helps young designers realize their dreams. Daniel Vosovic, who started his women's wear collection in 2010, produces all of his garments in New York City.
Woman Around Town: Teri Agins Knows Fashion
Agin’s career path to the Wall Street Journal began when she was a ninth grader in Kansas City, Kansas. Her journalism teacher, noting her love of clothes, suggested that she write a fashion column for her high school newspaper. “I called my column ‘Teri’s Tips for Fashion Flair.’ Even as a fourteen year-old, I knew I needed a brand, so I had my name printed in lower case letters on the byline.” Agins, continued on her path when, later, as an undergraduate at Wellesley College
Teri Agins, Fashion Journalist, Signs Book Deal For A Fashion Industry Expose
Teri Agins has another fashion book in the works. The author of “The End of Fashion,” (1999) and freelance writer for The Wall Street Journal has just signed a book deal with the Gotham imprint of Penguin books. Her nonfiction book, which is billed as a “behind-the-scenes exposé,” will focus on the rise of fast fashion and celebrity designers in the multibillion fashion industry. The book is scheduled to be published in early 2014.Agins noted that she conducted 140 interviews for her first book, which explored how marketing changed the apparel business. While writing her new book, she plans to continue her freelance career writing for the Journal, Vogue, Town & Country, O, the Oprah Magazine and Essence.
ANDRÉ LEON TALLEY
Each year, tents in Bryant Park herald New York Fashion Week, whose back story is as fascinating as the couture on the catwalk. Fashion's biggest names share the sometimes shocking, often funny rags-to-riches evolution of the iconic event.
New York's Grimy Garment District Hatches Designers' Dreams
According to a 2012 report published by the Design Trust for Public Space, apparel production is the largest manufacturing division in New York City. It provides 24,000 jobs citywide with about 7,100 of those jobs centered in the Garment District. Within the district alone, those jobs generate $2.1 billion of economic output.
Citywide, the fashion industry employs 173,000 people, generating $10 billion annually.
It's also a business that helps young designers realize their dreams. Daniel Vosovic, who started his women's wear collection in 2010, produces all of his garments in New York City.
Woman Around Town: Teri Agins Knows Fashion
Agin’s career path to the Wall Street Journal began when she was a ninth grader in Kansas City, Kansas. Her journalism teacher, noting her love of clothes, suggested that she write a fashion column for her high school newspaper. “I called my column ‘Teri’s Tips for Fashion Flair.’ Even as a fourteen year-old, I knew I needed a brand, so I had my name printed in lower case letters on the byline.” Agins, continued on her path when, later, as an undergraduate at Wellesley College
Teri Agins, Fashion Journalist, Signs Book Deal For A Fashion Industry Expose
Teri Agins has another fashion book in the works. The author of “The End of Fashion,” (1999) and freelance writer for The Wall Street Journal has just signed a book deal with the Gotham imprint of Penguin books. Her nonfiction book, which is billed as a “behind-the-scenes exposé,” will focus on the rise of fast fashion and celebrity designers in the multibillion fashion industry. The book is scheduled to be published in early 2014.Agins noted that she conducted 140 interviews for her first book, which explored how marketing changed the apparel business. While writing her new book, she plans to continue her freelance career writing for the Journal, Vogue, Town & Country, O, the Oprah Magazine and Essence.
ANDRÉ LEON TALLEY
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code
When we first enter primary school, we spend our days creating, painting, building, experimenting creatively with form and shape. But what happens after that first year? Why doesn't the creativity continue? Mitch Resnick, Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten program and LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at MIT Media Lab, is making it his mission to help kids keep the exploration going. He and his team develop new interfaces to help students engage with technology, in a way that encourages them to create and experiment the way we did in kindergarten with paint. Some of Resnick's projects include Scratch, which helps young users learn to code, and the Computer Clubhouse, an international network of creative afterschool programs for underpriveleged students.
Young people today have lots of experience … interacting with new technologies, but a lot less so of creating [or] expressing themselves with new technologies. It's almost as if they can read but not write.” (Mitch Resnick)
“When you learn through coding, [you're] coding to learn. You're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.” — Mitch Resnick
Young people today have lots of experience … interacting with new technologies, but a lot less so of creating [or] expressing themselves with new technologies. It's almost as if they can read but not write.” (Mitch Resnick)
Interact: Scratch program
Homepage: Mitchel Resnick
Website: Lifelong Kindergarten program
Interact: Scratch program
Homepage: Mitchel Resnick
Website: Lifelong Kindergarten program
It was a Saturday afternoon in May, and I suddenly realized that the next day was Mother's Day, and I hadn't gotten anything for my mom, so I started thinking about what should I get my mom for Mother's Day? I thought, why don't I make her an interactive Mother's Day cardusing the Scratch software that I'd been developing with my research group at the MIT Media Lab? We developed it so that people could easily create their own interactive stories and games and animations, and then share their creations with one another. So I thought, this would be an opportunity to use Scratch to make an interactive card for my mom.
Before making my own Mother's Day card, I thought I would take a look at the Scratch website. So over the last several years, kids around the world ages 8 and up, have shared their projects, and I thought, I wonder if, of those three million projects, whether anyone else has thought to put up Mother's Day cards. So in the search box I typed in "Mother's Day,"and I was surprised and delighted to see a list of dozens and dozens of Mother's Day cardsthat showed up on the Scratch website, many of them just in the past 24 hours by procrastinators just like myself. So I started taking a look at them. (Music) I saw one of them that featured a kitten and her mom and wishing her mom a happy Mother's Day. And the creator very considerately offered a replay for her mom. Another one was an interactive project where, when you moved the mouse over the letters of "Happy Mom Day," it reveals a special happy Mother's Day slogan. (Music) In this one, the creator told a narrative about how she had Googled to find out when Mother's Day was happening. (Typing) And then once she found out when Mother's Day was happening, she delivered a special Mother's Day greeting of how much she loved her mom.
So I really enjoyed looking at these projects and interacting with these projects. In fact, I liked it so much that, instead of making my own project, I sent my mom links to about a dozen of these projects. (Laughter) And actually, she reacted exactly the way that I hoped that she would. She wrote back to me and she said, "I'm so proud to have a son that created the software that allowed these kids to make Mother's Day cards for their mothers."
So my mom was happy, and that made me happy, but actually I was even happier for another reason. I was happy because these kids were using Scratch just in the way that we had hoped that they would. As they created their interactive Mother's Day cards, you could see that they were really becoming fluent with new technologies. What do I mean by fluent?I mean that they were able to start expressing themselves and to start expressing their ideas. When you become fluent with language, it means you can write an entry in your journal or tell a joke to someone or write a letter to a friend. And it's similar with new technologies. By writing, be creating these interactive Mother's Day cards, these kids were showing that they were really fluent with new technologies.
Now maybe you won't be so surprised by this, because a lot of times people feel that young people today can do all sorts of things with technology. I mean, all of us have heard young people referred to as "digital natives." But actually I'm sort of skeptical about this term. I'm not so sure we should be thinking of young people as digital natives. When you really look at it, how is it that young people spend most of their time using new technologies? You often see them in situations like this, or like this, and there's no doubt that young people are very comfortable and familiar browsing and chatting and texting and gaming. But that doesn't really make you fluent.
So young people today have lots of experience and lots of familiarity with interacting with new technologies, but a lot less so of creating with new technologies and expressing themselves with new technologies. It's almost as if they can read but not write with new technologies.
And I'm really interested in seeing, how can we help young people become fluent so they can write with new technologies? And that really means that they need to be able to write their own computer programs, or code.
So, increasingly, people are starting to recognize the importance of learning to code. You know, in recent years, there have been hundreds of new organizations and websites that are helping young people learn to code. You look online, you'll see places like Codecademy and events like CoderDojo and sites like Girls Who Code, or Black Girls Code. It seems that everybody is getting into the act. You know, just at the beginning of this year, at the turn of the new year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a New Year's resolution that he was going to learn to code in 2012. A few months later, the country of Estonia decided that all of its first graders should learn to code. And that triggered a debate in the U.K. about whether all the children there should learn to code.
Now, for some of you, when you hear about this, it might seem sort of strange about everybody learning to code. When many people think of coding, they think of it as something that only a very narrow sub-community of people are going to be doing, and they think of coding looking like this. And in fact, if this is what coding is like, it will only be a narrow sub-community of people with special mathematical skills and technological background that can code.
But coding doesn't have to be like this. Let me show you about what it's like to code in Scratch. So in Scratch, to code, you just snap blocks together. In this case, you take a move block, snap it into a stack, and the stacks of blocks control the behaviors of the different characters in your game or your story, in this case controlling the big fish. After you've created your program, you can click on "share," and then share your project with other people, so that they can use the project and start working on the project as well.
So, of course, making a fish game isn't the only thing you can do with Scratch. Of the millions of projects on the Scratch website, there's everything from animated stories to school science projects to anime soap operas to virtual construction kits to recreations of classic video games to political opinion polls to trigonometry tutorials to interactive artwork, and, yes, interactive Mother's Day cards.
So I think there's so many different ways that people can express themselves using this, to be able to take their ideas and share their ideas with the world. And it doesn't just stay on the screen. You can also code to interact with the physical world around you. Here's an example from Hong Kong, where some kids made a game and then built their own physical interface device and had a light sensor, so the light sensor detects the hole in the board, so as they move the physical saw, the light sensor detects the hole and controls the virtual saw on the screen and saws down the tree.
We're going to continue to look at new ways of bringing together the physical world and the virtual world and connecting to the world around us. This is an example from a new version of Scratch that we'll be releasing in the next few months, and we're looking again to be ableto push you in new directions. Here's an example. It uses the webcam. And as I move my hand, I can pop the balloons or I can move the bug. So it's a little bit like Microsoft Kinect,where you interact with gestures in the world. But instead of just playing someone else's game, you get to create the games, and if you see someone else's game, you can just say "see inside," and you can look at the stacks of blocks that control it. So there's a new block that says how much video motion there is, and then, if there's so much video motion, it will then tell the balloon to pop.
The same way that this uses the camera to get information into Scratch, you can also use the microphone. Here's an example of a project using the microphone. So I'm going to let all of you control this game using your voices.
As kids are creating projects like this, they're learning to code, but even more importantly, they're coding to learn. Because as they learn to code, it enables them to learn many other things, opens up many new opportunities for learning. Again, it's useful to make an analogy to reading and writing. When you learn to read and write, it opens up opportunities for you to learn so many other things. When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it's the same thing with coding. If you learn to code, you can code to learn. Now some of the things you can learn are sort of obvious. You learn more about how computers work. But that's just where it starts. When you learn to code, it opens up for you to learn many other things.
Let me show you an example. Here's another project, and I saw this when I was visiting one of the computer clubhouses. These are after-school learning centers that we helped startthat help young people from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. And when I went to one of the clubhouses a couple years ago, I saw a 13-year-old boy who was using our Scratch software to create a game somewhat like this one, and he was very happy with his game and proud of his game, but also he wanted to do more. He wanted to keep score. So this was a game where the big fish eats the little fish,but he wanted to keep score, so that each time the big fish eats the little fish, the score would go up and it would keep track, and he didn't know how to do that. So I showed him. In Scratch, you can create something called a variable. I'll call it score. And that creates some new blocks for you, and also creates a little scoreboard that keeps track of the score, so each time I click on "change score," it increments the score. So I showed this to the clubhouse member -- let's call him Victor -- and Victor, when he saw that this block would let him increment the score, he knew exactly what to do. He took the block and he put it into the program exactly where the big fish eats the little fish. So then, each time the big fish eats the little fish, he will increment the score, and the score will go up by one. And it's in fact working. And he saw this, and he was so excited, he reached his hand out to me,and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And what went through my mind was, how often is it that teachers are thanked by their students for teaching them variables? (Laughter) It doesn't happen in most classrooms, but that's because in most classrooms, when kids learn about variables, they don't know why they're learning it. It's nothing that, really, they can make use of. When you learn ideas like this in Scratch, you can learn it in a way that's really meaningful and motivating for you, that you can understand the reason for learning variables, and we see that kids learn it more deeply and learn it better. Victor had, I'm sure, been taught about variables in schools, but he really didn't -- he wasn't paying attention. Now he had a reason for learning variables. So when you learn through coding, and coding to learn, you're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.
So as kids like Victor are creating projects like this, they're learning important concepts like variables, but that's just the start. As Victor worked on this project and created the scripts,he was also learning about the process of design, how to start with the glimmer of an ideaand turn it into a fully-fledged, functioning project like you see here. So he was learning many different core principles of design, about how to experiment with new ideas, how to take complex ideas and break them down into simpler parts, how to collaborate with other people on your projects, about how to find and fix bugs when things go wrong, how to keep persistent and to persevere in the face of frustrations when things aren't working well. Now those are important skills that aren't just relevant for coding. They're relevant for all sorts of different activities.
Now, who knows if Victor is going to grow up and become a programmer or a professional computer scientist? It's probably not so likely, but regardless of what he does, he'll be able to make use of these design skills that he learned. Regardless of whether he grows up to be a marketing manager or a mechanic or a community organizer, that these ideas are useful for everybody. Again, it's useful to think about this analogy with language. When you become fluent with reading and writing, it's not something that you're doing just to become a professional writer. Very few people become professional writers. But it's useful for everybody to learn how to read and write. Again, the same thing with coding. Most people won't grow up to become professional computer scientists or programmers, but those skills of thinking creatively, reasoning systematically, working collaboratively -- skills you develop when you code in Scratch -- are things that people can use no matter what they're doing in their work lives.
And it's not just about your work life. Coding can also enable you to express your ideas and feelings in your personal life. Let me end with just one more example. So this is an example that came from after I had sent the Mother's Day cards to my mom, she decided that she wanted to learn Scratch. So she made this project for my birthday and sent me a happy birthday Scratch card. Now this project is not going to win any prizes for design, and you can rest assured that my 83-year-old mom is not training to become a professional programmer or computer scientist. But working on this project enabled her to make a connection to someone that she cares about and enabled her to keep on learning new things and continuing to practice her creativity and developing new ways of expressing herself.
So as we take a look and we see that Michael Bloomberg is learning to code, all of the children of Estonia learn to code, even my mom has learned to code, don't you think it's about time that you might be thinking about learning to code? If you're interested in giving it a try, I'd encourage you to go to the Scratch website. It's scratch.mit.edu, and give a try at coding.
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