Monthly Archives: March 2017

The American poet William Stafford was often asked by friends, readers, students and colleagues: When did you become a poet? The response he regularly offered was: The question isnt when I became a poet; the question is when other people stopped.

Stafford was articulating what many poets believe: that the roots of poetry (rhythm, form, sound) go far back both personally and culturally to the crib and to the fire in front of the cave.

No surprise, then, that children delight in the pleasures of lullabies, nursery rhymes, chants and jingles. They bounce, clap, dance responding in ways that involve their whole bodies. Yet as they get older, their delight in poetry often fades. Their pleasure in language and form lessens. In Staffords words, they stop being poets.

How have schools been part of this evolution, and what can they do to bring back delight?

Historically, poetry has played an important role in the curriculum of U.S. schools. Early American textbooks such as The New England Primer and the McGuffey Readers taught children to read with a combination of poetry and prose. In this way, poetry was used to teach morals, patriotism and nationalism, along with subject areas like geography and mathematics.

In 19th- and early 20th-century classrooms, schoolroom poetry was memorized and performed as a way to promote citizenship, to create a shared sense of community, to develop an American identity and to assist with language acquisition particularly among immigrants. Because they were meant to be learned by heart, the poems taught usually rhymed, had regular meter and used language that was easy to understand, remember and repeat.

This ease of form and content was not, however, matched by historical accuracy. Writers sometimes rewrote history into poems that celebrated American values. Take, for example, Paul Reveres Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1860. The narrative is compelling for memorization and performance, and portrays an admirable version of American heroism; however, it contains little documented historical truth.

Learned by heart and shared with an audience, these poetic retellings of Americas past had significant cultural impact: Both the performer and those listening internalized a story that promoted a specific version of nationalism.

In the mid-20th century, it became less important for schools to make citizens or teach English language through memorized lines. Instead, poetry in schools separated into two strands: serious poetry and verse. Serious poetry was studied; it was officially sanctioned, used to teach literary elements like iambic pentameter, rhymed couplets, metaphor and alliteration. Verse, on the other hand, was unsanctioned playful, irreverent and sometimes offensive. It was embraced by children for the sake of pleasure and delight.

By the late 20th century, classrooms and curricula began to value the sciences over literary expression and information and technology over art. The study of any poetry serious or not became marginalized, seldom occurring except in AP courses preparing students for college literature study.

Though the late 20th century saw a decline in the study of poetry in schools, recent decades have seen an upsurge in poetry that is more relevant and more accessible to young people.

For instance, if in the past, schoolchildren learned poems written almost exclusively by white men glorifying a sanitized version of American history, recently students have begun to read poems by poets who represent racial, ethnic, cultural or religious diversity as part of their heritage. This represents a major development in the world of poetry for children.

Poets in recent years have introduced English-speaking children to a range of cross-cultural poetic forms: Japanese haiku, Korean sijo and the Middle Eastern ghazal. Poets have published collections of poetry (often multilingual) from around the world, conveying the experiences of culturally diverse national and international groups.

As well, children have access to poetry by groups that have historically been marginalized and silenced in American schools: Native Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, Pacific Islanders, Asian-Americans and African-Americans, as well as LGBTQ poets, poets with disabilities and poets from a range of religious backgrounds.

Many young people are also writing poems themselves both inside and outside the classroom. There are a number of recent collections of poetry that contain the voices of young writers: Things I Have to Tell You: Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls, Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from WritersCorp, When The Rain Sings: Poems By Young Native Americans, Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young People and The Palm of my Heart: Poems by African American Children. These collections are often used in classrooms to teach poetry as a vehicle for self expression.

In addition to writing poetry in their classes, todays young writers are appearing on numerous poetry websites and are circulating poems their own and those of others through social media.

The most exciting development in the world of poetry for young people is in the arena of performance. There is a widespread renewed interest in spoken poetry for and by young people. Its growth is signaled by the emergence of hip-hop, rap, poetry slams and spoken-word poetry events.

The roots of poetry are in speaking and listening. Poetry events for young people once again allow students to perform for an audience those poems they have committed to memory and learned by heart. If, in the past, poems were memorized as a way to indoctrinate students into a way of being American, todays young poets are using their words and voices to express their own cultural and political convictions and commitments.

As a poet, educator and scholar, I am heartened by the current reinvigoration of the field. In myriad forms by diverse writers in a variety of venues, poems for children are happening.

Young people are growing their own voices, falling in love with words, writing and performing their own poems.

In and out of schools, they are reclaiming the poet selves that Stafford believes they were born with through a powerful and continuing relationship with the rhythms, forms and sounds that are poems.

Original post:

Making poetry their own: The evolution of poetry education - The Conversation US

Terry Sexton Segerberg 10:27 a.m. ET March 20, 2017

Terry Sexton Segerberg(Photo: Provided)

Terry Sexton Segerberg is the chief executive officer of Cincinnati-based Mesa Industries.

As a young woman, I worked for a major fine china manufacturer. At first, I wanted to be valued as both a person and a woman. I took great pride when I accomplished something that was unusual for a woman. Over time my attitude or perhaps my approach changed. I no longer wanted to have my gender a part of my strategic thinking. I wanted to be judged for what I contributed. When I walked the production floor it was no longer important to me to be viewed as a female. I had earned my place.

Now when I hear the word feminist I cringe. I feel a huge disconnect. I was a feminist. I wasnt angry or aggressive. I simply chose to prove to each person and challenge that as a woman I was capable. Yes, I took on roles and challenges that women didnt traditionally do. I was one of the first women to be allowed to join the Rotary club and later one of the first female club presidents. Yes, it was hard sometimes to be the only woman in meetings. Sometimes men walked out of meetings because I was there. But I was determined to prove the doubters wrong through the quality of my work. I never used anger. I never asked for an opportunity that I wasnt qualified for.

There were quite a few inappropriate remarks and efforts to minimalize me. Oddly, some of the loudest offending voices were women. Some were hyper critical of me and often resisted sharing information with me because I was a female manager in a male role. Nonetheless at 20 years old, if someone attempted to disrespect me, I stood my ground. Privately I shook but never where I could be seen. Big girls dont cry.

Some young women today have changed the dialog. They have lost their direction. They are angry because they think womens equal rights are essentially non-existent. I say the issue has become more complex as sexual harassment and maternity leave became unforeseen factors. I agree that altering the workplace to accommodate for these issues is a challenge that must be addressed. Nonetheless, we arent owed anything simply because we are female. It is incredibly easier because of women like my mother and me. Where we faced opportunities completely blocked to us; these same opportunities today are nothing special.

Those angry voices want to change the rules. They feel that they must play like the boys. I have seen an increase in crudeness in language and behavior from women. In doing this they quit being women.

The female perspective is different from the male. We all know this. By dampening that voice because a woman feels like she needs to behave like a man, she has devalued her contributions. And far worse, she has devalued herself.

Proof of the value of the female perspective are the vast opportunities for women today. Just slightly over half of American workers are women. Almost 52 percenthold professional-level jobs. While they dont hold an equally impressive number of upper echelon positions that number is improving. Change happens best through evolution, not revolution.

Men are used to having working spouses. Therefore; they are more accepting of working side by side with female co-workers. Daycares are plentiful. Companies have begun to realize the importance of offering benefit programs that support families as a huge plus in attracting top talent.

Yes, there are still disparities. As a female CEO in a male-dominated industry, I am often the only woman at professional events. Yes, there is strong evidence that women dont get paid at the same rate for the same job. Yes, it is amazingly challenging to be both a mother and a full-time employee.

And yet we have made progress at becoming equals in every aspect of life. Our mere presence as a majority in the workforce has required the rules to change.

So perhaps, I have come full circle. Today I am proud to be a woman who has accomplished things other women havent. I have seen the world change. Is it perfect and equal? No. But because of how far we have come, the rest of the path is clear.

Going forward women can set the agenda. We can take the topic of reproductive issues out of the discussions. We are far more than a pair of ovaries. It is up to each of us to set our reproductive rights. Not politicians and not our employers. We are smart, educated people who can contribute highly intuitive and valuable skills and talent to todays workforce. We must not be distracted by those angry voices but rather encouraged by those have succeeded. Candace McGraw CEO of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. Shakila Ahmad President of the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati. These are accomplished women!

Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/2mHTPzZ

See the article here:

Change happens best through evolution, not revolution - Cincinnati.com

Strategic planning, maps to future features, and other long-term structured thoughts are great ways to set clear goals and visions on what is our future product. However, planning too much might take away from free-thinking associated with the natural evolution of our product. So, what is the right intersection of planning and evolution?

Technologically, we are right at the tipping point of another burst in scientific advancements; AI, the internet of things (IoT), and the integration of biology with electronic circuitry are just three examples of advancements that might surpass Moore's law of technological advancements. However, until these are fully implemented into our daily lives, we continue to suffer from a limitation on Moore's law. Since we have seen the growth of the computer age, it seems that our latest inventions are mostly gradual improvements of how we pre-form tasks and what technology we use to pre-form it. Fin-tech firms especially have only suggested new improved methods of pre-forming human tasks. Such technologies as RPA, P2P payments and insurance, and Robo Advising are great for incremental advancements but have yet to come up with a revolutionary product.

In my opinion, this stasis is mainly due to the mundane nature of our financial world. Not since the invention of the first derivative instrument in old agricultural weighted France has any real meaningful financial advancement occurred. Money being transferred from one place to another, new loan types, and globalization have advanced our financial systems, but they basically still pre-form the same tasks and move funds from one entity to another.

So, should we plan or not? Should we trust that the future will raise new ideas from customer feedback, or should we plan to what we think the market needs? In my opinion, it should be a combination of both. The creation of a long-term vision is crucial for the advancement of a product, but should be balanced with allowing our Eco-System to define an evolutionary path for our plan goals. This method will allow our brilliant employees to vet all proposed paths to our truePTS solution, even those that were not thought of at first.

See the rest here:

The Intersection of My Big Plans and Evolution - Finextra (blog)

March 20, 2017 by Lori Dajose A side view of the lamprey gut, showing many large serotonergic neurons (green) sitting on the side of the gut. These gut neurons are matured and developed. Credit: Bronner laboratory

Lamprey are slimy, parasitic eel-like fish, one of only two existing species of vertebrates that have no jaw. While many would be repulsed by these creatures, lamprey are exciting to biologists because they are so primitive, retaining many characteristics similar to their ancient ancestors and thus offering answers to some of life's biggest evolutionary questions. Now, by studying the lamprey, Caltech researchers have discovered an unexpected mechanism for the evolution of the neurons of the peripheral nervous systemnerves outside of the brain and spinal cord.

The work was done in the laboratory of Marianne Bronner, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology at Caltech, and appears in a paper in the March 20 online issue of Nature.

For over a decade, the Bronner group has studied lamprey because of the unique insights they offer into the evolution of vertebrates, and particularly the evolution of new structures like jaws. Her laboratory at Caltech maintains one of the very few laboratory populations of lamprey in the world.

Bronner was especially interested in how the lamprey compares with other vertebrates in the evolution of its gut neurons. These neurons control the movement of muscles for digestion and manage other aspects of gut physiology, such as secretion and water balance.

"We were interested in the origins of lamprey gut neurons because in other vertebrates they arise from a particular embryonic cell type, called neural crest cells," says Stephen Green, postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering and co-first author on the paper. "We knew that lamprey have many kinds of neural crest cells, but we knew little about which cells give rise to gut neurons."

Neural crest cells are a type of stem cell; during vertebrate embryonic development, they eventually differentiate into specialized cells such as those that make facial skeleton cells or those that create pigment cells. In particular, a population called vagal neural crest cells are known to become the gut neurons. But Bronner and her team noticed that while mature lamprey have gut neurons like other vertebrates, lamprey embryos lack these vagal cells.

"Adult lamprey have gut neurons, but we were unable to find the vagal precursor cells," says Bronner. "So, where do the gut neurons come from?"

To find out, the team drew inspiration from studies of mice that, due to a mutation, lack vagal neural crest cells. The mice do, however, have a small number of gut neurons from an unexpected sourcecells called Schwann cell precursors (SCPs). SCPs exist along nerves that run from the spine to various parts of the body. These cells are known to develop into Schwann cells, which form a protective barrier around the nerves.

Bronner and her team fluorescently tagged these cells in lamprey embryos and found that, during development, the cells migrated from the spine toward the gut. Sure enough, some of these SCPs developed into gut neurons.

"Our findings suggest that gut neurons in ancient vertebrates may have come predominantly from SCPs, and that these original gut neurons were later outnumbered by neurons that arose from vagal neural crest cells," says Green. "Lamprey have relatively simple guts, with no looping and few total neurons. We speculate that vagal neural crest cells might be essential for the more complicated guts of higher vertebrates like mice and humans."

The paper is titled "Ancient evolutionary origin of vertebrate enteric neurons from trunk-derived neural crest."

Explore further: Possible link to evolutionary development of the neural crest found in sea squirt tadpole

More information: Stephen A. Green et al, Ancient evolutionary origin of vertebrate enteric neurons from trunk-derived neural crest, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature21679

(Phys.org)A team of researchers affiliated with New York and Dalhousie Universities, in the U.S. and Canada respectively, has found a possible intermediate cell type that might help understand the evolutionary process ...

A discovery, several years in the making, by a University at Buffalo research team has proven that adult skin cells can be converted into neural crest cells (a type of stem cell) without any genetic modification, and that ...

Fish, unlike humans, can regenerate nerve connections and recover normal mobility following an injury to their spinal cord. Now, University of Missouri researchers have discovered how the sea lamprey, an eel-like fish, regrows ...

When our noses pick up a scent, whether the aroma of a sweet rose or the sweat of a stranger at the gym, two types of sensory neurons are at work in sensing that odor or pheromone. These sensory neurons are particularly interesting ...

Neuroscientists of the universities of Cologne and Montreal have discovered neural mechanisms that control the termination of locomotion. In a study, which was published in the journal Cell Reports, they have identified 'stop ...

Caltech scientists have converted cells of the lower-body region into facial tissue that makes cartilage, in new experiments using bird embryos. The researchers discovered a "gene circuit," composed of just three genes, that ...

Pop quiz: Are crocodiles more closely related to lizards or to birds? The answer may surprise you. Although traditional taxonomy classifies birds separately, they are actually closely related to crocodilians, sharing such ...

A promising vaccine target for the most deadly type of malaria has had its molecular structure solved by Institute researchers, helping in the quest to develop new antimalarial therapies.

New research supports the creation of more marine reserves in the world's oceans because, the authors say, fish can evolve to be more cautious and stay away from fishing nets.

A species of unicellular ciliate has found a special trick to make use of the cellular machinery in seemingly impossible ways. Researchers at the University of Bern have for the first time described a mechanism in detail ...

Trees and other plants, from towering redwoods to diminutive daisies, are nature's hydraulic pumps. They are constantly pulling water up from their roots to the topmost leaves, and pumping sugars produced by their leaves ...

A 20-year demographic study of a large chimpanzee community in Uganda's Kibale National Park has revealed that, under the right ecological conditions, our close primate relatives can lead surprisingly long lives in the wild.

Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank

Display comments: newest first

They are considered a delicacy on the west coast of Finland. They are smoked and eaten whole. People from the rest of Finland find this gross.

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

More here:

Parasitic fish offer evolutionary insights - Phys.Org