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Grace's diary of discovery

Tag: Inspirations

If the world were 100 People

If the world were 100 People

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

 

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InspirationsPeople
Making a difference

Making a difference

March 11, 2016March 10, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I was talking to a friend about the people that made a real difference for me while I was in undergrad. They weren’t the tutors but the support staff;

The security guy Dom, who knew everyones names, a few sentences in their language and would spot when you weren’t feeling great or hadn’t been in the studio for a while.

The technicians Abi and Bim. Abi would give you a tutorial when you wanted to make something but weren’t sure (he saved so many projects). He’d help you design something so beautiful and ingenious, then you’d take it to Bim to look at how you could actually make it. He’d simplify it.

They were the people that gave people hope and put smiles on their faces everyday, and they didn’t need to get recognition to do that.

You can make a difference whatever your role :).

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Fashion; a platform to express yourself

Fashion; a platform to express yourself

March 6, 2016March 3, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

kinfolk_vol19_camilletanoh-1

“Fashion is very important to me; it’s a platform for me to express myself. My clothes need to represent what I want to say before I actually speak, as fashion is the only way I can defend myself before I open my mouth. Paris is so judgmental and conservative—especially when you’re black—so clothes were the tool I could use to get people’s attention, to be seen as cool and to get my chance. Here in France, I’m part of the first generation born to African immigrants. We don’t have a lot of black lawyers or black doctors yet, so having a black designer doing things you don’t expect is unusual. As a black shoe designer, I’ve got a purpose: I need to show what’s possible. I’m trying to push the culture forward and break boundaries.” Camille Tanoh, interview with Kinfolk

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Glasgow, I love this city!

Glasgow, I love this city!

March 4, 2016March 4, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

AIMG_7914s a relatively recent graduate taking the self employed path I absolutely love living in Glasgow. Coming from London with it’s hectic pace and extremely ambitious citizens Glasgow has been a refreshing, eye opening change. Here’s why I love this city.

Glasgow’s a “nursery for ideas, people, careers” as my friend says, and I would add it’s a nursery for conversations. With very little money you can get your idea started up, there’s space to test it, enough of a mass of people to get traction and no rush for it to succeed. 

There is a DIY spirit that is entrenched in this city. The Glasgow Effect (the cities unexplained poor health and low life expectancy disparities) and the Glasgow Miracle (the cities booming creative industry) makes for an interesting juxtaposition. It’s a beautiful breeding ground for creative solutions. I have never met so many socially conscious people as in Glasgow!

Support is accessible here. It’s a small enough city where the networks are close, everyone seems to know someone who knows someone. It’s small enough to bump into people randomly. You can strike up a random conversation that lead to great collaborations.

 

Living costs are low, so you can have a great lifestyle with relatively little income. This frees up more time to work on passion projects. If you want to start a business, there are enough empty spaces for creative use of space. There are so many projects turning Glasgows empty sites into community hubs, like the Stalled Spaces initiative.

Lastly I love this city because of it’s pace. It’s big enough that there is a lot happening but small enough that it’s not overwhelming (you can actually see the outskirts of the city!) Unlike London where change is rapid, streets change in a matter of months here change is slow enough to be appreciated. Finnieston now one of Glasgow’s trendiest areas has been up and coming for more than a decade!

As a freelance creative Glasgow is a nursery for ideas, people and conversations. I love this city 🙂

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100 years of beauty playlist

100 years of beauty playlist

February 6, 2016January 21, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Could watch this all day! 100 years of beauty around the world.

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What is Finlands education system doing right?

What is Finlands education system doing right?

January 31, 2016January 18, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Inspiring article by Jodi Grant on After School Alliance about Finlands world leading education system. It goes against the standard idea of what education should be. They focus on the importance of play, choicem there are no private schools, tough teacher selection process and little testing. And they have one of the best education systems in the world. Amazing!

finnishschoolkids_600px


 

What is Finland Really Doing Right?

By Jodi Grant

This post was co-written by our Excutive Director Jodi Grant and STEM Policy Director Anita Krishnamurthi.

Last month we were delighted to be invited to attend a breakfast at the Finnish Embassy featuring Dr. Pali Sahlberg, the director of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Roberto Rodriguez, special assistant to the president on education.  Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss moderated the panel.

Finland has been receiving a flurry of attention from education stakeholders and reformers for consistently standing out as one of the strongest school systems in the world.   We were eager to hear what the Finns thought was the key to their success.

Dr. Sahlberg began by saying that Finland never set out to be the best, they just wanted to improve and do better by their children.  This benchmark comes from a philosophically different place than the international competition that drives most of our debate on this issue.  He proceeded to describe the other social issues Finland has worked on to ensure children and youth have a fair shot: their child poverty rate is 4 percent, compared to 22 percent in the United States; they are ranked first in child health and well-being while the United States is ranked 29th; and, their income inequality is also much lower.  He also stressed that equity played a major role in their re-think—they determined that the notion of private schools where people can opt out of the system and private funding of education is not compatible with an equitable system.  Consequently, there are no privately funded schools in Finland.  Finland also boasts an incredibly selective teacher recruitment and training process.  Only 5 percent of applicants are selected for a master’s program in education, which is required to become a teacher.

As the U.S. debates how long our school days should be, Finland offers a sobering example of why that cannot be the only solution.  Children in Finland do not start school until they are 7 because the Finns believe that learning to play is extremely important—it teaches children how to get along with each other, to pay attention and focus, and to be imaginative—all qualities they think are essential to child and youth development.  The country has one of the shortest school days around, teachers give minimal homework and testing is rare. They strongly believe that you test a small sample of schools to see how well a model is working and you ask the teachers to assess how the students are doing.  One of the points Dr. Sahlberg made that really resonated was “Accountability is what is left when responsibility is taken away.”

The Finns strongly believe that children need to have opportunities outside of school and academics to develop into healthy, well-adjusted adults.  Seventy percent of their students participate in activities run by NGOs that offer sports, music, art and other enrichment activities (and he expressed grave concern that this number was not higher!).  They fully believe that these activities have merit on their own and should be separate from the school day—he actually mentioned the words “youth development” several times!  Sadly, in the United States less than 20 percent of our children are in afterschool programs, and youth development is not valued as highly as it is in Finland.  Afterschool programs are under constant pressure to demonstrate how they impact academic success of students.

Dr. Sahlberg spoke at length about the difference between Finland’s approach and that of the Global Education Reform Movement, which he abbreviates to “GERM.”

Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) FINLAND
Competition Collaboration
Standardization Individualization
School Choice Equity—all schools receive public funding and legislation forces them to collaborate. They don’t compete against one another
Test-Based Accountability Trust-Based Professionalism
Dr. Sahlberg stressed that the U.S. and many other countries are “infected” by the GERM model while Finland has moved to eradicate the GERMs.  He gave us five lessons that he thought the United States could learn from Finland:
  1. More collaboration, less competition
  2. More trust-based responsibility—less test-based accountability
  3. More pedagogy, less technology
  4. More equity, less privatization
  5. More professionalism, less social experimentation
The description of the Department of Education’s signature reform, Race to the Top, that followed Dr. Sahlberg’s presentation strikingly illustrated how GERM-ridden we are, with a focus on high-stakes testing and steep penalties for schools and teachers whose students do not perform well on these tests.  Afterschool programs are not immune, as they are often only considered valid if they can improve test scorers rather than being evaluated on a host of measures that show growth of the whole child.  Sadly there was no real dialogue about the presentations and how we might incorporate the best practices of the holistic Finnish model into our education reform efforts.

We left the breakfast feeling both elated and depressed.  Finland shows what is possible—they set out to improve a failing system and have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.  There are clearly lessons from Finland that support all the great things our afterschool programs are providing to American students in the hours after school.  There are clearly lessons learned from Finland that can help us demonstrate the value of the informal nature of the afterschool space.  There are clearly multiple ways to measure our students’ success that do not rely on test scores.  But there are also clearly some big barriers and challenges ahead and for now none of the real lessons from Finland are in policy maker’s textbooks.

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ChildrenEducationFinlandinnovationInspirationsSocial InnovationYoung people
Should

Should

January 24, 2016January 15, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Should is not an active word

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Inspirations
The Happy Show

The Happy Show

January 23, 2016January 15, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

​Filling the Institute of Contemporary Art’s (ICA) entire second-floor galleries and ramp, and activating the in-between spaces of the museum, The Happy Show offers visitors the experience of walking into Stefan Sagmeister’s mind as he attempts to increase his happiness via mediation, cognitive therapy, and mood-altering pharmaceuticals.

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100 ways to uncomplicate your life

100 ways to uncomplicate your life

January 20, 2016January 15, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I rediscovered this whilst sorting out my stuff over the Christmas break. Such true advice!

From Bella Mumma

US-WEATHER-NYC

Here are 100 ways to uncomplicate your life… 

1. Don’t try to read other people’s minds

2.Get up 30 minutes earlier so that you don’t rush/get a ticket while driving too fast/have to explain why you’re late/get fired

3. Get 8 hours of sleep per night so that you think more clearly

4. Stick to your budget

5. Start saving and investing every week, no matter how little you can spare

6. Balance your checkbook

7. Don’t try to be friends with everyone. Cultivate closer relationships with fewer people.

8. Don’t try to do business with everyone. Identify your target client and take very good care of them.

9. Before getting angry, ask yourself if it will really matter in 20 years

10. Focus on being a good person, not on pleasing others

11. Stay home this Saturday, and finish off that nagging chore that you need to finish

12. Kiss and make up

13. Make a weekly menu, and shop for only those items at the market

14. Ask your grandparents the best way to uncomplicate life, and try it for a month

15. Fill up your gas tank when it’s half full

16. Don’t drink alcohol when you’re tired, sad or mad

17. Pay your bills on time

18. Get an annual physical examination

19. Say “I love you” to your significant other and to your children. Studies show that more marriages last, and fewer kids use drugs, when these words are spoken every day.

20. For just one day, imagine everyone’s intentions are good because most people’s are

21. Give away clothes that haven’t been worn in two years

22. Throw out clothes that are in disrepair, and can’t be mended

23. When you have a conflict with someone, talk it out. Don’t let it turn into more than it is.

24. Know what your priorities are in life, and act as if they are your priorities

25. Tell the truth

26. Don’t cheat

27. Don’t steal

28. If you’re holding on to a ridiculous grudge, let it go

29. Clean your house weekly, so that it doesn’t become too large a chore

30. Do your best at work, or at school

31. Don’t eat when you aren’t hungry

32. Eat when you are hungry

33. Be yourself

34. Say no unapologetically

35. Cook simple meals

36. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses

37. Pay off your car before buying a new one

38. Organise your desk at the office

39. Change your smoke alarm batteries when the clocks spring forward, and again when they fall back

40. Organise your important paperwork

41. Take only half the clothes that you planned to take with you on holiday

42. Help your children with their homework every night, and have an open dialogue with their teachers

43. Have white sheets and white towels in children’s rooms/bathrooms, because they’re easily bleached

44. Spend your time with nice people

45. Avoid drama

46. Don’t text or talk on the phone while driving

47. Turn off the television/video games/computer; they’re time consumers

48. Don’t engage in office politics

49. Refuse to gossip, or talk behind other people’s backs

50. Do the dishes right after dinner

51. Never go to sleep angry

52. Ask nicely for what you need and want

53. Walk 10,000 steps per day to help your heart

54. Do 20 push-ups before speaking in anger

55. Leave work at work

56. Don’t befriend anyone that isn’t trustworthy

57. Don’t envy others

58. Have your oil changed

59. Take vitamin C BEFORE you catch a cold

60. Don’t work more than 8 hours per day

61. Weed your garden weekly

62. Wash your car weekly

63. Have a spring cleaning month every year, and do one room at a time

64. You don’t need to be best friends with work colleagues, but build respectful partnerships

65. Don’t drink and drive

66. Don’t look for reasons to be angry or sad, look for reasons to be happy. You’ll always be able to find plenty of each.

67. Be friendly with your neighbours

68. Return emails and phone messages promptly

69. Schedule in free time

70. Don’t procrastinate

71. Do what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it

72. Be more flexible when you’re able to be

73. Forgive and forget. End of story.

74. Break the consumerism habit…put a three month moratorium in place on buying anything not deemed a necessity

75. Start your diet on September 1, rather than January 1, so that you won’t also have holiday pounds to lose

76. Take care of any health issues or concerns

77. Have your tires rotated

78. Have your brakes checked

79. Have your eyes checked

80. Don’t let your imagination run away with you

81. Let go of perfection in others

82. Let go of perfection in yourself

83. Don’t try to help those that refuse to help themselves

84. Find a way to reduce your commute to work

85. Have an alloted amount of worry time per day/week, that you strictly abide by

86. Drink more water

87. Eat more salmon

88. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill

89. Wear your hair in a classic, easy to care for style

90. Finish what you start

91. Wear classic clothes and shoes that never go out of style

92. Create a daily routine

>93. Have a 1, 5, 10 and 20 year plan for your financial and life goals

94. Slow down

95. Eat out less often

96. When you ask your husband which outfit looks best, thank him for his answer and wear the one he liked rather than focusing on why he didn’t like the other one

97. Allow your children to grow up

98. Clean out your garage, and donate anything that hasn’t been used in the past year

99. Stretch every day

100. If a relationship is over, let it go

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InspirationsPersonal growth
Brian Eno John Peel lecture

Brian Eno John Peel lecture

January 5, 2016January 4, 2016 by Hello ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Notes from Brian Eno John Peel Lecture

The way I work is not to set a goal and reach for it but what i do anyway and how I can make use of it

Exploring the idea of the arts as an economics entity

  1. Is art only a luxury?
  2. Is there a way you can create a situation in which the arts flourish?

Rethink how we talk about culture. What are we doing when we make & consume art

Definition- Culture the creative arts. Art is everything that you don’t have to do. Essential need we do with interest, highly and carefully stylised.

What is it for? 

Children start world building very young. Empathy comes from imagination, humans can imagine whole worlds.

Children learn through play adults play through art.

Culture- collective conversation

Senius talent of a community

Genius talent of individual

ecosystems, richly interconnected, co dependent, no hierachy

New ideas articulated by individuals but generated by community

Altruism generosity towards the future

We’re moving from scarcity and economics of scarcity and competition to an era of abundance and co-operation. What are we going to do? We’re going through change faster than ever before.  resynchronise with each other, adventurous mind games about different things. Share resources. Altruism, writers like William MacKaskell. Constantly remoulding ourselves. We work out our actions in relation to everybody else. Art and Culture is central to this.

dancing in the street barbara ehrenreich

 

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