Congratulations are in order for you, Michele Bachmann, for being the first woman to win an Iowa straw poll. Another glass ceiling shatters. Respect.
Read the rest of the piece at Vanity Fair…
ADVICE FOR MICHELE BACHMANN
Upstairs, Downstairs, Hols Edition: As London’s Youth Revolt, the Ruling Class Goes Abroad
Here’s my latest piece from VF.
“Like many of the Upper Class He liked the Sound of Broken Glass.” —Hilaire Belloc
Isn’t it inconvenient how urban calamities tend to occur when our leaders are out of town?
Read more at the website…
US & THEM: In Praise of Deepalaya
Deepalaya is an Indian group that underwrites education, specifically for children of the slums. While we were in Delhi we took Molly and Alice to a Deepalaya school. It was a lovely gentle, happy place, filled with solemn rows of boys and girls working hard in the morning sun. Quoting from its website, ” A quarter of a million of Delhi’s children, living in slums or on the streets, do not go to school.” For $200 a year you can sponsor a child to go to one of these schools. The child you sponsor will stay in touch with you, and you will get a copy of his or her report card. Education in India is free, but children have to pay for their (mandatory) uniform as well as supplies, putting school out of the reach of so many. Your $200 a year covers those costs. In addition you – and more importantly, your children – can raise money for other things the schools need. Vans, computers, books and so on. If you go to their website you’ll get a good sense of their energy and activities and you can make a donation. I really recommend it as a way your children can get involved and help the less fortunate.
MATH & SCIENCE GO TO INDIA
I’ve recently been writing about how Molly and Alice have a completely different math and science education to mine. Theirs is so much more sophisticated, and so much more connected to the real world. On our recent trip to India this couldn’t have been more evident. For starters, Alice passed the boring time on long car journeys by counting cows. (She got to 1048 by the end of the trip FYI.) Well that’s simple enough. Even I counted as a child – though I doubt I had to the staying power to get to such a high number without losing track.
Where their knowledge took off was in looking at design.
They saw everything from basic symmetry…
to tessellations…
…Polygons
…
and 3D trompe-l’œil.
Geometry was everywhere. But so was the concept of experimentation.
From flowers
…To precious stones…
to marble
and mirrors.
…
They could look and (many times) touch.
They each had a camera and could photograph and make their own visual designs from the designs they saw. In this way it was an inspiring trip. Yet as an educational experience it was not entirely dissimilar from what they do at school. The math, science and design curriculum of today is all about experiencing and experimenting first hand. Different materials and methods are constantly being introduced to our children.
My girls went to India and had the trip of a lifetime.
And I loved seeing the country through their eyes.
