Designing Schools of the Future
"We are building a state-of-the-art Formula 1 engine in the body of an old, broken-down Buick, and wondering why the car won't go."While pedagogical methods have advanced tremendously in recent decades, the shape of our learning spaces has not. Think: rooms filled with desks in rows all facing front, in an environment directly counter to contemporary progressive learning styles. Seeking to remedy ... posted on Jul 15 2020, 4,134 reads

Big Picture Competition: Celebrating Earth's Diversity
Now in its seventh year, BigPicture encourages photographers from around the world to contribute their work to a competition that both celebrates and illustrates the rich diversity of life on Earth, and inspires action to protect and conserve it through the power of imagery. Take a look at the gallery of stunning images from this year's winners, and learn more about the photographers here.... posted on Jul 14 2020, 18,107 reads

Freedom in Prison: The Story of My Great-Grandfather
Aryae Coopersmith recounts the moving story of his great-grandfather Shmuel, a Talmud scholar who was forced war front in Bosnia-Herzegovinae. When it was discovered he didn't have the makings of a soldier in him, he was given prison guard duty instead. "How was Shmuel, a naive young kid who knew nothing about prisons, going to run a prison full of battle-scarred soldiers? He offered the prisoners... posted on Jul 13 2020, 6,614 reads

Hood Feminism: A Call For Solidarity
"In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger and violence, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of... posted on Jul 12 2020, 3,857 reads

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
In 2002 Thom Bond was a successful environmental engineer, passionate about designing smart buildings that used alternative energy. Then he chanced upon Marshall Rosenberg's landmark book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. "By the time I read Chapter 1, it hit me that I had found what I was looking for...A set of concepts and ideas to be able to move through conflict." Thom realized ins... posted on Jul 11 2020, 8,126 reads

Empathy vs Sympathy
Empathy and sympathy are not just two different approaches to confronting the emotional challenges of others; they are diametrically opposite responses in many important ways. Sympathy places another's problems at a distance from us, places us in a position of superiority, and "drives separation", says the film's narrator, Dr. Bren Brown. Empathy, on the other hand, requires that one internalize t... posted on Jul 10 2020, 4,134 reads

We Have to Talk: A Checklist for Difficult Conversations
"There are dozens of books on the topic of difficult, crucial, challenging, fierce, important conversations. Those times when you know you should talk to someone, but you don't. Maybe you've tried and it went badly. Or maybe you fear that talking will only make the situation worse. Still, you feel stuck, and you'd like to free up that stuck energy for more useful purposes." Judy Ringer is a confli... posted on Jul 09 2020, 27,008 reads

Robin Wall Kimmerer on the Language of Animacy
In the English language, we reserve the pronouns of personhood for humans-- he, she, they--and not for animals, plants, and landscapes. Yet in many of Americas indigenous languages, such barriers are dissolved, and so, too, is the sense of distance between human and nonhuman. Orion editor Helen Whybrow speaks with Robin Wall Kimmerer, a speaker of Potawatomi and an enrolled member in the Citizen B... posted on Jul 08 2020, 5,341 reads

Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong
What really causes addiction -- to everything from cocaine to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthand, as he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions. He started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do -- and if there might be a better way. As he shares in this deeply personal talk, his questions took him around the w... posted on Jul 07 2020, 22,845 reads

World At Dawn
"At dawn, the world rises out of darkness, slowly, sense-grain by grain, as if from sleep. Life becomes visible once again. "When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think anymore," Claude Monet once lamented. More light! Goethe begged from his deathbed. Dawn is the wellspring of more light, the origin of our first to last days as we roll in space, over 6.684 billion of us i... posted on Jul 06 2020, 3,636 reads