Posted on by Laura Lee

A Fascinating BBC Article about Adolescence

teens        The BBC has a number of my most liked websites, and here is an example why.  In a recent article BBC How Teen Years Shape Our Personalities by psychologist and father of twins Christian Jarrett, we learn about current research about the young, which includes, as Jarrett writes:

…long-term studies show that the traits that appear in our teenage years are predictive of a wide range of outcomes in life, including academic success and risk of unemployment.

As an educator, I am interested in learning more.  Jarrett doesn’t write about the teen years just to share knowledge, but also hopes that (from the article) …learning more about the forces that shape teenagers’ personalities, we can potentially intervene and help set them on a healthier, more successful path.

For me, learning that… Another study uncovered a link between self-confidence at school and positive personality development is intriguing.  Are students confident at school because they have more positive personality development, or do they become more positive in their development because they are confident at school?  I wonder.

If you are interested in learning more about topics like this, the BBC does offer to send you their top six “can’t miss” stories each week by signing up here: BBC’s 6 “can’t miss” stories.

I know I am looking forward to reading these top 6 stories each Friday.

What about you? Do you have some favorite news sites?

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Some (not so?) random thoughts

thinking    A kinder atmosphere in my world with the teachers out for summer.  It’s just nice to know good people are out there. And I know such good teacher colleagues and friends.

*~*~*~

I would have returned the email, even between terms.  Yes, I judge her for not replying.  Yes, I know she wasn’t being paid to check emails between terms.

But I would have. And I always did.

Because of being like that, so hyper-vigilant, I will never relax.  I have never relaxed.  Always on.  Retirement would kill me.

*~*~*~

Some people are multi-talented in music and art and writing.  It’s amazing.  It’s great to see.

 

*~*~*~

I wish I’d thanked my parents for moving us from a middle-class existence in a high-crime area to a poor existence in a much safer one.  I never thanked them, but rather blamed them for making us poor by moving.  I am ashamed I didn’t appreciate how much better a safe life would be for all of us, and especially for someone as sensitive as I am.  I am decades too late for they have died, but I wish I could tell them: “Thank you for this sacrifice.”

*~*~*~

One of the joys of being a highly sensitive person is that I can find great joy in simple beauties, actions, sounds, smells, sights. To me, nothing is simple, and I am grateful for all beauty of person or nature.

Because I am off-the-chart highly sensitive, I also find life to be greatly complicated and difficult at times, exhausting often.

A gift and a curse, but I don’t know how to be otherwise.

Someone laughed at me chuckling over ducks recently, but that’s all right.  It was delightful to hear them quacking and see them flying overhead on an otherwise cool and quiet spring afternoon.

That’s me, sometimes flying, often quacking. Never graceful, but often feeling grace.

*~*~*~

This aging is a hoot.  I remember things so clearly that turn out to be decades ago.

 

*~*~*~

Kindness matters.  I would advise against ambition over compassion.  In the long run, if we are human, we need each other more than another thing.  Yes, that’s a privileged point of view, for many struggle to survive, and I’ve been there.  When I was struggling so hard just to keep a roof over my head, I was all ambition.

But after survival, and during survival, I do believe compassion is paramount.

 

*~*~*~

What’s with so few people reading poetry? Language is so magical and poetry the most possessed!

*~*~*

I like the free photo/ image I found from pexels.com more than anything I have created.  Talk about evocative!

*~*~*~

In my dreams, I can paint.  And sing.  And dance.  Also in my dreams, I awaken and realize I cannot do any of those.

*~*~*~

Just some random (or not) thoughts on a lovely quiet and cool late spring evening before the riot of summer heat sets in.

Laura Lee

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Palette Poetry, a good poetry site (mini review)

palette      Poets, another good site for reading poetry and for celebrating poetry is Palette Poetry.    Palette states its mission is:

…to uplift and engage emerging and established poets in our larger community.

The world is eager for poets. In 2016, more people spent their hard earned money on poetry books than any other year on record. When times are dark, the world always turns to poets for empathy, for answers, for words, bucking and new.

Palette Poetry is here to paint our small part of the world with truth through poetry, as hopeful and eviscerating as truth can be.

Palette sponsors contests, publishes poetry, promotes fun with and improvement of poetry.   I love Palette’s lack of pretension, as shown by these words:

Our goal is to simply find and publish the best poetry we can, no matter its roots in craft.

If you love to read and or write poetry, this would be a great site to visit.  If you hope to be published there, the editors note that they publish only the best poetry, so be sure to submit only your best.

Their site is inviting and exciting.  Why not visit Palette Poetry?

Posted on by Laura Lee

An Accidental Troll Hunt

35076989_10155572027678499_6537897654326657024_n          I went in search of flowers today, but had a flat tire and could not make it to the Chicago Botanic Garden in time.  Tire fixed, headed to the Morton Arboretum for a quick woodland walk, and found a troll.  There are six altogether, and I saw one.

The Morton Arboretum (look here for more details and more pictures) is sponsoring a “troll hunt” over next year.  Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo (see Thomas Dambo Sculptures) and his team build trolls around the Arboretum using “reclaimed” wood only, wood from trees downed by storms, etc.

I have to wonder WHERE these huge wooden sculptures will go after the summer of 2019.  I cannot imagine anyone having a home large enough for them! Will they go to a new forest?  Where will they go?

These are a few photos I was able to take before the rain started.

Always fun to find a troll.

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Poetry is making a comeback? NPR discusses the NEA study

 

gray scale photography of typewriter        As I wrote earlier and as this article declares, “In half a decade, the number of U.S. adults who are reading poetry has nearly doubled.” Read all about it on the NPR (National Public Radio) site, where they quote from the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) study here: Poetry is making a comeback

If a comeback, not even 12% of Americans reading poetry is a paltry figure to me.  How can poetry not be a part of so many lives? And do we even have 12% of Americans buying/ supporting poets and poetry?

I’m not sure about that.  I’d love to see America support its poets and truly embrace poetry, but we have a long way to go.

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

The Fen, late spring–and what’s a fen?

Who walks in the fen when it’s raining? The Big Guy and I do. Peaceful. Beautiful. Today is cloudy, so the leaves are not in a riot of sunshine, but they are lovely.  The raindrops glowed on the leaves, hard to see from cell phone photos.

Nonetheless, the fen is an interesting and often  lovely walk.

 

What is a fen? Definition of fen

While a wetland, a fen is not a bog, swamp, or marsh.  So what is a fen?

It is an unusual wetland; The US Dept. of agriculture defines a fen as:

Fens are a type of wetland. Wetlands are ecosystems where the water table is at or near the ground surface for most of the growing season on most years, and as a consequence, the substrate is poorly aerated, and inundation or saturation last long enough that the dominant plants are those that can exist in wet and reducing conditions. The long duration anaerobic conditions limit the decomposition of plant roots, leaves, and stems and over time this organic matter accumulates to form peat soil. Wetlands include the margins of streams and rivers, and the shores of lakes. There are several types of wetlands: swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens.

 

Furthermore, there are a number of types of fens, and described here: Types of Fens. Furthermore, there are both rich fens and poor fens.  Scientists are beginning to determine the age of fens, and since peat accumulates slowly, fens are being determined to be thousands of years old, as discussed here: Age of fens

 

In our many years of walking here, we know the fen as the place of interesting plants.

wildflowers, trees, riverbed near the fen
raindrops on grass
wildflower, fen
grasses gone to seed–love the purple red color
tree reflections in the river nearby

 

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

I (accidentally) grew up on a prairie (sort of)

Sand prairie at The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.                 I accidentally grew up with a few acres of rare Midwestern prairie behind our home.  When we moved from Chicago, my parents bought a house not yet built, in a neighborhood with streets not yet paved.  At first, we had sticks in mud with street names painted on them.  The area was filled with former soldiers using their benefits to buy their first home in that unknown place called the suburbs. The lure was land, open spaces, less crime, better schools, and a chance at the so-called American Dream.

Before we moved, neighbors had nearly burned us out of our apartment with cooking while drunk, had left their used needles in the common ways, and gangs were eyeing my now teen aged elder brother.

My parents were terrified of what would happen to my teen brother at first, then the rest of us.

So they headed west, to a suburb mostly mud and dreams at that time.

And a surprise behind the house? The few acres of prairie remained, with a small swamp at one end.  We didn’t know it at the time, but two towns were suing for the right to build on this land.  Each town felt these precious acres were part of their town, and the lawsuit went on for a dozen years.

But during those years, we had this piece of prairie heaven to ourselves; it was a place for children to safely play and explore.  We grew to believe that butterflies lived everywhere and were plentiful, that wildflowers would forever grow, that the summer days would never end as we played, made up stories (okay, that was me), and explored.

But to me, I was a bit afraid of the swamp up close, for the stories were becoming our childhood myths: witches lived there. Children–and even airplanes!–disappeared in the swamp.

So I spent a lot of time watching the prairie sunsets from my own backyard, often standing on a rickety picnic table to catch the very last rays of sun.  I was drawn to this beauty, drawn to the sky, the sun, the miracle of the ending of daylight.

I had no camera back then to capture a sunset, as I was just a child myself and cameras were something professionals had at weddings or older family members had for special days.

As to the swamp? I’ll write more about my love/ hate relationship with that magical place another time.

When I drive through the flat lands of the Midwest now, I often think of how boring all this flatness is–no variety.  But then I remember the magic of sunsets on a prairie.

These are not my photographs, (these are photos in the public domain) but they do capture something of what I remember: the beauty of wide open land that led to the miracle of a sunset.  Every day.

Sand prairie at The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

 

 

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Another fun site for learners, Thoughtco.com

Website      As promised, I’ll keep sharing sites I find interesting. Thoughtco.com

asserts its goal as lifelong learning, and that is why I like it.  If you subscribe to posts, each day you receive some interesting tidbit of information, ranging from science to homework, Monet to gas gauges. (I kid you not–how to fix gas gauges!)

I have no idea who told me about this site, but I like learning something new every day.

Why not give it a try?  And do you have any sites you like for learning something new every day?

Laura Lee

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

ChicagoReader.com article on CPS scandals

pexels-photo-459846     I felt sick reading this article: Chicago public schools scandals

Behind the scandal are kids, living, breathing kids in schools.   Heartbreaking that kids are denied needed special ed. services and that all are denied clean schools.  Oh, let’s not forget the safety aspect of sexual abuse scandals!  Are we creating a generation of traumatized youth from our schools, when schools should be a safe place?

Read more if you can stomach it.  If I feel sick just reading this, what is happening to the students, faculty, and staff that work in these schools?

Posted on by Laura Lee

Part 3–Literacy can be the Bridge: in Praise of Public Libraries

cropped-be-creative-creative-creativity-256514      Getting to there from here? How does one change careers while still paying the bills?  This was a true dilemma for me, for there was no trust fund, no rainy day forgotten account, no family to turn to once I quit my job in business.

This is a nice problem to have, and I know that.  It reeks of privilege, and I know that.  Yet I was a healthy adult with so much energy, and I knew I wanted a different type of life than working in an office.  I did not turn to drink, but I turned to sadness.  I turned to tension. Those are not healthy.

Since I loved to read and write, I turned to the public library and was amazed to find the library had become a hub of activity.  The library was not a quiet place as I remembered it, but a place of reading groups, tutoring, computer training, and so much more–in addition to having quiet places for reading and studying.

I wonder if librarians know they have helped to improve the lives of many?  For that is what I saw daily as people looked for jobs, learned a new skill, found positive activities for themselves and their family.

I found the world of book discussion groups, and never looked back. Like-minded reading lovers–what a joy!

And more–the library was looking for literacy tutors and I wanted to become a teacher.  Would I dare to take that risk, even while I was so very sad in my everyday world?  It almost seemed too difficult to risk change and then have the change not work out.

Would I take the risk and make changes?

More to follow.