Ruby from the “Max & Ruby†show that is. For those who’ve never seen the show, which is based on the books written by Rosemary Wells, and made by Canadian Nelvana (shown on Noggin and Nickelodeon channel) – Max and Ruby are (bunny) siblings, Max is supposed to be about three years old, and Ruby, [...]
NTs or the Neurotypical
In her comment to my post “Why are white lies considered ‘politeness’?â€, Debra mentions “the NT world.†Responding to her comment, I wrote in the post scriptum “I doubt that anyone visiting my site would not know what NT, mentioned by Debra, means — but just in case — NT is short for ‘neurotypical’ or, [...]
Citizen's Briefing Book at change.gov
I think this is fairly new — it was published on President-Elect’s Blog today at 12:47 pm EST — The incoming president and his administration are inviting ideas and submissions to the Citizen’s Briefing Book. The site promises “The best rated ideas will rise to the top — and be gathered into a Citizen’s Briefing [...]
Why are white lies considered "politeness"?
I’ve lived in this country for nearly twenty years but I still can’t figure out why Americans consider as polite inserting little white lies pretending they care into conversations with people they really don’t give a damn about. I’m talking about saying things like “We really have to keep in touch” to a coworker moving [...]
Labeling kids
Way back in December a Washington Post article “Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label†caught my eye and I’ve been planning to write about that. (“Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label: Implications Concern Some School Parents†by Daniel de Vise, December 16, 2008) Of course this is old news by now, and covered widely by various blogs, including, naturally, [...]
Parenting Special Needs Children and Work
Boston Globe ran recently a two-article series by Maggie Jackson about working parents who have children with special needs. The first article, “A parental juggling job: Workplace stigmas add to struggles of people with disabled children” was published on December 14, 2008. The follow-up, “Bosses responding to special needs”, appeared on December 28, 2008. Jackson [...]
Mad Scientist for a Child
At the suggestion of an excellent librarian working in the children’s section at our local library my son has been reading the Franny K. Stein Mad Scientist series, by Jim Benton. He generally reads to himself but asked me to read to him a bit at bedtime so I did. When we came across the [...]
IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) – U.S. Department of Education Web Site
As the U.S. Department of Education web site titled “Building the Legacy: IDEA 2004†(http://idea.ed.gov/) says – “The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation.†The original law, titled the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. Then in 1990 the [...]
Nestle caving in (and removing artificial coloring) … but only in Australia (and Britain)
The Age – Business News, World News and Breaking News in Australia reports in an article “Smarties to lose a little of their lustre†by Kelly Burke (December 20, 2008) that apparently Nestle Australia has caved in, and despite years of insisting that artificial coloring in candy and other food products is safe, has decided [...]
Gifted and Special Education in Texas
Going over the news I’ve bookmarked a while ago I found a brief story from FortBendNow.com “FBISD Gifted and Talented Academy Students Connect with Real World,†by John Pope that talked about gifted students “learning about the nutritional perspectives of various cultural food items, including those representative of the Latino, Indian and Asian cultures.†FBISC [...]