Rita F Pierson: How A Teacher Encouraged Her Students With An 'F'

Teaching and learning should bring joy. How powerful would our world be if we had kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had a champion? Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. Is this job tough? You betcha. Oh God, you betcha. But it is not impossible. We can do this. We're educators. We're born to make a difference.

Empathy

Kraftwerk in Singapore

Liz Aggiss & Anarchic Dance

"Shut Up & Listen!"

Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! "When most well-intentioned aid workers hear of a problem they think they can fix, they go to work. This, Ernesto Sirolli suggests, is naïve. In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you're trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit. His advice on what works will help any entrepreneur."

How to Green Deserts & Reverse Climate Change

Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change. Published on Mar 4, 2013. "Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert."

Past Present

"For nomads the notion of past and future is perhaps subservient to the experience of elsewhere. Something that has gone or is awaited is hidden elsewhere in another place... For the Cro-Magnon space is a metaphysical arena of continually intermittent appearance and disappearance." John Berger, "Past Present" The Guardian, Saturday 12 October 2002.

The Age of Stupid

"Launched at a Guinness World Recording-winning solar-powered premiere in London's Leicester Square, the film was released in cinemas worldwide, topped the UK box office (by screen average), became one of the most talked-about films of 2009... 

 Multi-award-winning documentary director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and Oscar-winning producer John Battsek (One Day In September, Restrepo) pioneered the now ubiquitous "crowd-funding" model to finance the film, and then spent four years following seven real people's stories to be interweaved with Pete Postlethwaite's fictional character: an Indian entrepreneur struggling to start a new low-cost airline, a Shell employee in New Orleans who rescued more than 100 people during Hurricane Katrina, an 82-year-old French mountain guide watching his beloved glaciers melt, two Iraqi refugee children searching for their elder brother, a young woman living in desperate poverty in Nigeria's richest oil area and a windfarm developer in Britain battling the NIMBYs who don't want his turbines to spoil their view.
 
The Age of Stupid led to the formation of the 10:10 carbon reduction campaign which now operates in 45 countries (www.1010global.org). Recognising the film's unique contribution to independent filmmaking, the Huffington Post said that it "represents the future of film, film culture and film distribution and marketing". http://www.spannerfilms.net/

TEDxSingapore - Ginny Phang - Love, Breathe, Just Doula

The Price of Milk

Slavery Footprint

http://slaveryfootprint.org/survey/

SNITCH | Lock it Down America!

"SNITCH explores the consequences of Federal Mandatory Minimum drug laws and the use of confidential drug informants. Becoming one of the 2.2 million people behind bars is easier than you think.  

Go to www.TakePart.com/SNITCH to learn more and take action by signing the petition."

Sweatshop the Game

http://www.playsweatshop.com/ 

"Channel 4 was eager to create a game that challenged young people to think about the origin of the clothes we buy. Our solution was a strategy game that casts the player in the role of a clothing factory’s middle management. The player is responsible for hiring and firing workers, ensuring that orders are completed in time and balancing the needs of demanding clients with worker welfare." 

http://www.littleloud.com/work/sweatshop/

The Art of Asking

"To ask without shame... I think when we really see each other, we want to help each other..."

FOOD FIGHT

'Earth Amplified feat. Stic.Man of Dead Prez. Food Fight is the story of a kid who lives in a world where the food at the local corner store is killing his neighborhood -- literally.' 

SHARE IT? FREE CURRICULUM, & SONG DOWNLOAD
BUY Earth Amplified Album
SUPPORT the Movement for thriving communities by getting this into schools and donating to SoS Juice.

"Midway" by Chris Jordan

"On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean. 

For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth. Like the albatross, we first-world humans find ourselves lacking the ability to discern anymore what is nourishing from what is toxic to our lives and our spirits. Choked to death on our waste, the mythical albatross calls upon us to recognize that our greatest challenge lies not out there, but in here." - Chris Jordan, Seattle, February 2011

"Specifically what my work is about visualising and facing the invisible truths of our time..." - Chris Jordan

Recent Purchases: Vegan Books

Tatau

"The pain in tattooing is a form of control rather than of relinquishing control. It sits alongside the way she wants to control her access to memory through these devices. One advantage of bodily decorations is that she can look at them any time and be reminded of who she is and what she has done." 'The Comfort of Things' by Daniel Miller

Currently Reading...

"Eating Animals"

Jonathon Safran Foer, author of "Eating Animals" on Ellen.