The debate about the state of free speech on American college campuses is deeply polarized. On one side, some commentators caricature students as “snowflakes” in search of a “safe space” from which they can “cancel” their own classmates. On the other side are those who claim that the students’ supposed aversion to discussing controversial topics is a chimera invented by Fox News or insist that those who demand the right to express disapproved views have fallen foul of a healthy “consequence culture.”As someone who has taught hundreds of students and given dozens of guest lectures over the past decade, I know that the reality is more complicated. In my experience of teaching, including at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, the overwhelming...
A stepped, centralized seating area appears, in one form or another, in most malls built in the 1980s. Sometimes there’s a fountain. Sometimes there are plants. Sometimes there is a sculpture. If the mall is multilevel, skylights illuminate the space from above. Escalators traveling between floors make for easy, surreptitious people-watching. Is my friend hanging out at the mall? Is my crush? This is the atrium, the most important interior space of the mall for the adolescent both architecturally and psychologically. The earliest indoor shopping malls, with their I-shaped, bowling-alley forms, had no centralized place where groups could gather, nor much need for one. But by the early 1970s, and the advent of more complexly laid-out malls in T-, X-,...
Working from home has become a standard for many throughout, and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it’s in a home office, the occasional work-from-home day, or even working from coffee shops, many people have had to learn and discover the best ways to function in a work-from home environment. While in many ways it can be more convenient and contribute to a balancing of work and life, working from home also comes with its challenges, especially for parents. Staying productive is crucial to any work-from-home employee, and doing so as a parent can be difficult. Here are five productivity hacks for parents working from home. 1. Know Your Schedule The unexpected is one of the easiest ways for parents, and...
These simple ice decorations are very easy to make, look fantastic and provide lots of learning opportunities. Young children will enjoy feeling the ice ( let it melt a little first ) and trying to melt it by dropping warm water on top. Droppers or pipettes are good to use for sprinkling water on ice and also help improve fine motor skills. Older children can try hanging the decorations in different areas outdoors to see where they melt the fastest. Another idea is to try to stop the ice melting by building a shelter for one of the ice cubes or wrapping it in a material that will reflect heat from the sun or insulate the ice from the sun’s...
Death may be inevitable, but in a movie, it can come as one hell of a surprise. It's often the moment in which the story turns on a dime, changing its emotional tenor or throwing what we thought we understood into disarray. In science fiction, it's also an easy way of upping the stakes and making sure we understand that no one's safe. That doesn't mean it always works the way the creators intended.A well-delivered shock to the plot can uplift the entire movie, using our broken comfort zone to focus us on the remaining cast and their actions and turning the rest of the film into a thrill ride. However, a badly executed surprise can sink the whole show....
