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Happy Easter 🐣

Photo says everything about each of them. 😂

Missing family and friends in Japan - photo from Easter 5 years ago in Osaka. Big huge hugs 🤗 to all. ...

Good reminder, for me too. 💪

Thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed @thetruthprescriptionpodcast! ...

I changed my profile photo to be a bit more joyous and celebratory. 🤩It’s spring 🌸, many are getting vaccinated, and I want to spread some hope.🤞

Much of my optimism lately comes from #Genz — especially of late, they have been educating me on all the ills we have created that they are passionately righting.

This photo is from my launch of World Class 📚in the late summer of 2019. Thank you @luiszepedaphoto! @marcyblum !!! ♥️

I finished my manuscript 📑 for World Class in September of 2018 and after a few rounds of edits and recording the audiobook 🎙, it was released in late summer of 2019. The paperback was released in late 2020. It was a full 3-year project to research and write. That’s not including the 4 years prior during which I was ruminating and writing 2 previous drafts that I proudly trashed. 😅 #perseverance 🤦🏻‍♀️

Thank you to each and every person who made #worldclassbook a success. I am forever indebted. ♥️ ...

Big faces. 😂 Big smiles? I’ll take it. 😅 Happy sunny Sunday from NYC.🍎

Desperately turning the page on this past year. (And more helpful education news 🗞 coming this week! ☺️) ...

Hiding out in the Asian Art Galleries 🎑 at The Met. Bliss. 😌 #escape #peace

Having been an Asian Studies major, it brings me back (26 years 😅) but also reminds me that while so much has changed, we have not — even through this past year🎢. Meaning, the themes of joy and hardship depicted in these masterpieces —spanning over 600 years — are pervasive throughout history.🦕

Man’s living in harmony✌️with and then destructing and falling victim to nature. 🏔 Women breaking free from their traditional and expected gender roles. ⚖️ Levity and personification in swinging monkeys 🐵 and actors portrayed as turtles 🐢 like tabloid gossip.

Please let’s be better at supporting the arts. 🙏 Art is a source of expression that helps each of us and our kids make sense of the world 🌎 and ourselves within it — especially important now. #therapeutic #humanity #culture

(PS... I’m not sleeping! Just reading about the latest installation. 😂 ) ...

Me and my doggo celebrating blue skies and longer days in gorgeous NYC. ✌️ #turnthepage #goodvibes

(He’s 🐶smiling, modestly. Really! 😂) ...

The only news 🗞 here may be that the exclusivity and privilege ⚠️ has gotten worse. The piece is deliciously voyeuristic 🔭 and details an absolute injustice ⚖️ — education inequity. It’s social reproduction theory 🍼 about which I posted yesterday. Yes, the squeekiest & wealthiest 🤑 wheel gets the attention. Is it right? No. Is it THE way in a nation that practices individualism & capitalism? Yes. Is the system broken? 1000% yes.

That said, let’s discuss solutions: 🙋🏻‍♀️

🧐INVESTMENT: Recruit the best and brightest into the teaching profession, retain them, and prioritize their career paths and professional development. ALL nations with thriving students and schools systems do this. Teaching is a respected and EXCLUSIVE profession. It’s as difficult to become a teacher as it is to become a lawyer or a doctor in countries like China and Japan. About 20% acceptance rate. Also, we must prioritize Ed funding.
🧐TRANSFERS: As part of their career development, move our strongest teachers to our weakest and most disadvantaged schools. Teachers are moved every 2-3 years in Japan.
🧐EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: It starts very early. By high school, it’s often too late, especially in diverse nations. In most nations, compulsory education is only through middle school. Meaning, students are expected to be contributing members of society by age 15.
🧐HIGH EXPECTATIONS: We must always have high expectations for each and every child and eliminate bias.
🧐ACCESSIBILITY: The “best” school should be the public (or easily accessible private) one closest to you, like in Finland. This is education equity.
🧐WHOLE CHILD: This means all hands on deck. Everyone in the community, holistic curricula, and social supports. Students cannot learn when they attend school hungry or come from challenging circumstances.
🧐FAMILY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP: The fundamental game-changer. Crystal clear communication and trust.
🧐PUBLIC GOOD: The acceptance that offering quality education for all is for the betterment of greater society and that it’s not a zero sum game. ...

TGIF! Wait... what? It’s already Friday? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Enjoy the weekend and let the spring begin! 🌞

Love you, Beautiful Boy @clavel_charles and Beautiful Girl! 🤗 ...

You know 🧠 your kids better than anyone. So, no matter their age, work with them to figure out what they need to feel safe and empowered academically, socially, emotionally moving forward. 💪As schools reopen for in-person instruction, everyone’s experiences will differ, including ours. So, it’s important to assess and adapt regularly. ⚖️ Also, as new policies are instituted — at all levels — and new realities set in, be aware of where reform can and should take place.🎢

Let me know your experiences. More than ever, it’s important that we support one another as we continue to build our communities. ✌️

For relevant, regular education news, please follow my (daily) posts on IG stories.

Thank you @educationweek for the article that inspired this post. ...

KEY: How can we be sustainable teaching the way we do? 🔑 When we rely heavily on Student-Centered Learning (SCL) as a teaching method (like in the USA 🇺🇸), it harms our social and environmental sustainability efforts. Typically, in nations with “liberal market economies,”individualism reigns over efforts spearheaded by institutions. 🤝

An ensuing study should be on the correlation between this type of pedagogical practice with social supports offered, by economy. 📈

The purpose of this study is to examine how we can affect change on global issues 🌎 based on teachings in the classroom. ✏️📚

Abstract:
“While discussions surrounding education for sustainable development (ESD) are diverse, most scholars and policy makers view student-centered learning (SCL) as axiomatic. In contrast, we argue that promoting SCL potentially stymies educational contributions to sustainability by extending a culturally specific belief in ontological individualism. We first highlight that countries committed to SCL tend to be dominated by ontological individualism and then show that these same countries score lower on a range of social and environmental sustainability indices. Moreover, countries where the belief in ontological individualism reigns tend to be liberal market economies, an institutional arrangement largely ineffective or even detrimental to social and environmental sustainability. In raising these issues, we seek less to provide a definitive account of the key relationships than to catalyze a deeper conversation about how to reimagine the taken-for-granted logics of education as the sustainability imperative looms.”

For relevant, regular education news and my take, please follow my (daily) posts on IG stories. ☺️

Thank you for this stellar research #jeremyrappleye @iveta.silova #hikarukomatsu ...

On International Women’s Day ✌️(and everyday), I think of our boys and men and how I am raising my own, pictured here. ☀️

In the US, and many other nations, women’s contributions are unsupported. ⚖️

So, today is an opportunity to educate for change. 🧠 Especially our sons. 💛

Let’s please not let our children reproduce our systemic inequalities. 🥺🙏 ...

Chilling 😎 on a Saturday morning. 🐾

🤗 Wishing you a most relaxing weekend. 💛🥰

(This is the new member of our family. 🐶 We rescued him in the late fall. Very sweet guy. We may be smothering him with too much attention! 😅) ...