Teachers is the new black

Source: The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com ()

GRANDVILLE — Amber Stevens hopes for a career in
fashion design, but the 15-year-old turned her talents to
jewelry this month.

The result? The first-place prize in a contest that
challenged students to design an original piece of jewelry.

“It’s a simple ring, but it has three intertwined
circles woven into the ring,” Amber, a sophomore at
Grandville High School, said of the drawing judges tapped as
the best among 39 entrants.

Sponsored by Fred Meyer Jewelers at RiverTown Crossings mall
for students at Grandville, the contest was the culmination
of a six-week class on jewelry design. Spring Lake resident
Dave Kittsmiller, who makes his living designing and
repairing jewelry for Meyer and other jewelers, led the
class.

Amber will get to sculpt her design in wax and then have it
cast in sterling silver. And she can keep the finished
product.

Kittsmiller said he has organized similar classes at Grand
Haven High School, but this was the first time he had
offered it at Grandville.

Victoria Smits, an art and English teacher at Grandville
High School, worked with Kittsmiller to develop and teach
the jewelry design class to her 13 honors art students.
Smits said she likes offering her students exposure to
different areas of art design.

“I made jewelry myself in college,” Smits said.
“It’s an exciting experience for the kids to learn
something different in a new area of sculpture — to see how
different it is than what they’ve done so far.”

Smits said in addition to her 13 honors art students,
students throughout Grandville High School were invited to
enter their ring designs in the contest. She said 26
students not enrolled in her honors art class submitted
their designs, which were judged last week at the store.

Quinton Zamarripa, 17, a senior at the high school, took
first place among students outside Smits’ honors
class. Quinton said his ring design featured two,
intertwined capital F’s and his …

Source: AFP ()

Egyptian oriental dancers take a class

Source: NZ Herald Wellington Metro ()

Graham McCready at his Strathmore home after bringing a private prosecution against Trevor Mallard. Photo / Anthony Phelps

Graham McCready is a name that until five weeks ago would hardly have registered in the public consciousness.

A name Trevor Mallard must be wishing he had never heard.

It was McCready who took a private prosecution against Mallard over the October parliamentary punch-up with Tau Henare.

To prove a point.

Not that McCready hasn’t previously proved points. His middle name is Edward but could just as well be “litigation”.

Rewind to 1962. A young McCready tops his seventh-form chemistry class. He and his teacher don’t see eye to eye. The teacher, an ex-All Black selector, mutters things about McCready being gay.

He awards the class prize to someone else. McCready’s end of year speech is on freedom of speech. It is banned by the principal and he is told to write another one. He does, but tears it up in front of assembly and reads the banned one.

He has never forgotten his treatment at the school. Today, he says, he would have sued his teacher and the school board “down to their socks”.

He continued to rebel, and in 1965 took part in his first act of civil disobedience. An engineer with the RNZAF, he was forced, like his fellow airmen, to queue outside the mess each day at 6am to wait for it to open an hour later.

Made mess representative, he flung open the doors and there was a stampede. For the first time “people got a hot breakfast, not cold food or toast like cardboard”.

He received a warning. He did it a second time and was dismissed as mess representative.

During his time in the Air Force he, like Mallard, got into a punch-up. McCready says he asked a drunk pawing a woman “respectfully to desist”. He didn’t, McCready broke the man’s jaw and was later with assault. He was convicted and discharged. The drunk was convicted of assault on a female.

And …

Source: Hartford Courant ()

ANDOVER - State police divers from New York and Connecticut searched the bottom of Andover Lake Thursday looking for bullets to match those used in a 24-year-old homicide in which an active East Hartford police officer and a former Hartford school teacher are the suspects.

Divers cut holes in the thick ice and ran a metal detector along the bottom hoping to find .22 caliber bullets that would match the four bullets used to murder former Andover resident Richard O’Brien on either Oct. 21 or 22, 1983.

O’Brien’s body was dumped in some brush long I-95 in Mamaroneck, NY. He had been shot four times at very close range in the back of the head with a special two-shot Ruger pistol that used .22 caliber bullets.

The police investigation at the time focused on O’Brien’s roommates in a cottage on Lakeview Drive on Andover Lake – Michael O. Fowich, an East Hartford police officer then and now and Jonathan Childress.

On Thursday, state police placed yellow tape around the cottage they had lived in and were searching the lake behind the cottage. Sources familiar with the case said that Fowich and Childress used to shoot bullets into the lake for fun and police were hoping to recover one 24 years later. Police have been at the scene for the past three days, and a diver was seen waist deep in the icy water Thursday. Police declined to comment on what if anything they recovered in their search.

The Courant first wrote about the O’Brien murder as part of a series of “cold cases” in 2000. At that time, New York state police acknowledged they were reopening the investigation, but sources said within the last few months, the case has started to heat up again and New York detectives have visited Connecticut several times culminating with the lake search.

It is unclear if the renewed investigation will lead to of the case. Both Fowich and Childress denied any involvement in their former roommate’s murder when …

Source: Houston Chronicle ()

BEIJING
— The students at Yangfangdian school are doing their homework for the Olympics.

A replica of a Mediterranean-style orchard recalls ancient Olympia and dominates a corner of the school’s courtyard. Inside, pupils bone up on Germany, the country they’ve been assigned to support when the Beijing Games open Aug. 8.

"The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part and not just to win," said 9-year-old Chen Jiayu, the red scarf of the Young Pioneers, the communist youth organization, tied around her neck. "The other players and opponents are also our friends."

Hosting the Olympics is a source of immense national pride in China, reaching deep into the schools where values like friendship, fair competition and excellence are taught alongside patriotism and loyalty to China’s one-party political system.

Students point proudly as they walk through the school’s version of a Greek arbor, with plastic grapes overhead. Named the "Olympic Corridor," it’s a gallery filled with Greek curios and Olympic posters, some of which were displayed in a Moscow hotel where Beijing was awarded the games in 2001.

Played prominently is a photo of Premier Zhou Enlai with the 1971 U.S. table tennis team, which ushered in the era of "pingpong diplomacy."

"We’ve had events here like a mock Olympics in which every class represents one country," said 12-year-old Zheng Hanyu. "The school intercom always broadcasts programs about the history of the Olympics and about Chinese and foreign athletes who won medals."

Yangfangdian is one of about 200 schools in Beijing charged with welcoming foreign teams when they arrive next summer, even cheering for them against Chinese athletes and raising their national flags at ceremonies.

Down the road in west Cui Wei school has drawn Pakistan. In northeastern Beijing, the Huajiadi school is supporting Asian archrival …

Source: BBC News ()

Head teacher Hugh Bellamy has pleaded for new classrooms

Pupils at a North Yorkshire school are having to take lessons in its corridor because it is so overcrowded.

The George Pindar Community Sports College in Scarborough was built to accommodate 400 children but now has almost 900 students.

Head teacher Hugh Bellamy said: “We have become extremely cramped.”

Despite giving up his own office for lessons and converting the staff room to a classroom, art students are being taught in the school corridor.

Art teacher Linda Birch said: “It is very, very difficult. It is cold, it is draughty and you cannot leave the work out because it needs to be moved at the end of the day for the school to use the corridor.”

Spending priorities

Mr Bellamy said: “Another corridor has been boxed in to form offices for the PE staff because we have run out of office space.

“The school has been expanding piecemeal over the years, but over the last four years we have gained another 150 students.”

He said changes in the curriculum to provide vocational training had meant a change of use for some classrooms to accommodate courses such as hairdressing and construction.

The government announced its three-year capital spending programme in October and North Yorkshire County Council is now planning its spending priorities.

George Pindar school is hoping it will benefit from those considerations currently taking place the local education authority’s headquarters in Northallerton.

“For Christmas, George Pindar would love six new classrooms,” said Mr Bellamy.

Source: BBC News ()

Trainee teacher Joanna Parrish was killed in 1990

The father of a British student who was murdered in France in 1990 claims puncture wounds on her arm show she was the victim of a known serial killer.

No one has been tried for the death of trainee teacher Joanna Parrish, 21, from Gloucestershire, found floating in the River Yonne, Burgundy, in 1990.

Roger Parrish of Newnham-on-Severn, says evidence shows she was abused by self-confessed killer Michel Fourniret.

Miss Parrish was found with two trademark pin-pricks on her upper arm.

Teaching English

It is believed the so-called Beast of the Ardennes tried to inject air into the veins of victims to hasten their deaths.

Mr Parrish, 63, said: “Why it has taken 17 years to compile this evidence I do not know.

“All I feel increasingly sure of is that Fourniret is her killer.

“It is just one more piece of circumstantial evidence but, when you add it all up, it is overwhelmingly obvious.”

Fourniret, 63, has admitted raping and murdering a number of young girls in France and Belgium.

Miss Parrish was teaching English at a school in Auxerre, during a year out from Leeds University, when she disappeared in May 1990.

When her body was discovered, she had been raped, beaten and strangled.

In November 2006, French prosecutor Nachbar ruled Fourniret would not stand trial for her murder despite admitting he was Miss Parrish’s “most likely” killer.

Source: Charlotte Observer ()

ASHEVILLE, N.C. –With mild weather promised, Harold Laflin will be sleeping soundly this week. But that may soon change.

When it snows, Laflin, director of transportation for Buncombe County schools, often gets awakened before 4:30 a.m.

An employee within Buncombe County Schools’ transportation department comes to work at 4 a.m. every day during the winter months. He checks with the weather services, department of transportation, emergency systems and the sheriff’s department. If there are any signs of a problem, he calls Laflin.

Through western North Carolina, school districts are revisiting inclement weather plans and gearing up for possible snow days. At least four western North Carolina school districts have already closed or instituted a two-hour delay in the school day because of bad weather.

“If he gives me a call, he has been instructed to call me no later than 4:30 but to call me immediately if he knows there’s a problem,” Laflin said.

“We get folks out, at least one person in each school district. Plus, I will be on the road.”

On snowy days, the associate superintendent and five to six mechanics travel to the worst parts of Buncombe County schools’ six districts. It’s their job to make a recommendation to the superintendent, who will be out of bed and out on the roads as well, about whether schools should be closed or go on a two-hour delay.

The superintendent must make a decision by 5:30 a.m., before buses go out, and in time to notify parents and staff. The school district pays close attention to the weather forecast and tries to close school before a big storm hits. Usually, freezing or frozen precipitation on the roads is what causes a closure.

“If it’s snowing in Jackson County, we will determine how fast the snow is moving and when we think that snow will arrive here,” said Dodson, superintendent of Buncombe County schools.

In the past five years, the school district has closed school …

Source: Monsters and Critics.com ()

People News
Cat Deeley’s personal motivator

Dec 15, 2007, 13:30 GMT

Cat Deeley has hired a personal trainer to get her motivated.The British TV presenter, who moved to the US earlier this year when she was chosen to host ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, admits she hasn’t followed in the footsteps of many Los Angeles residents by becoming exercise-obsessed.She said: “I’ve got a yoga teacher who comes to my house and gives me lessons. It’s the only way to get me motivated!”Cat will be spending Christmas without her family this year, but says she has figured out a perfect way to buy presents.She added: “My family is in the UK, so I order presents online. It’s fantastic.”The 31-year-old beauty recently revealed she feels under pressure too look good, because she doesn’t want to give her TV show a bad name by appearing in public unkempt.Cat said: “I’m very aware that I am paid a certain amount of money not only to read the lines, but to look a certain way and to have guys outside my house taking pictures. The TV company is actually buying a bit of my life, too.”(C) BANG Media

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Source: ReliefWeb (press release) ()

By Chris Herlinger, Church World Service
KABUL, Afghanistan- Asking whether humanitarian assistance by international agencies like Church World Service is making a difference cannot be separated from a larger question: what is the role of such groups in a country where there is a U.S.and NATO military presence?
The answers supplied by both Afghans themselves and by international aid workers cannot be boiled down simply.
On the one hand, Afghans — with harsh memories of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistanduring the 1980s — are understandably uncomfortable with the idea of foreign troops once again in their country.
At the same time, some Afghans — at least those who loath the Taliban — say a sizable portion of the country supports the presence of U.S. and NATO troops as a temporary necessity because such troops are offering, the argument goes, the only real security presence.
Yet the same Afghans also speak with alarm about U.S.troops breaking Afghan cultural decorum — entering homes without a clear invitation to do so is a particular and oft-repeated taboo — and there is also shaking of heads when the stories of civilian deaths by U.S.and NATO aerial bombings are repeated.
One humanitarian worker with wide experience in the region said he believes the U.S.and NATO military presence has introduced new pain and sufferings to one of the world’s poorest countries, worsening what he calls the most complex man-made disaster today.
Afghanistan, he said, has become just one example where "the international community, without understanding the context and history, has once again gone wrong."
And yet, there is clear support for continued international assistance in helping rebuild Afghanistan– and it is here that the work of CWS and other agencies is clearly welcome. This is particularly the case when meeting Afghans in their 40s and 50s like Naseer Ah who remember an era in the 1960s and 1970s when most of the Americans in Afghanistanwere …