What’s Happening
FALL AT THE FARMERS MARKETS: Local Food and Farm Upcoming
APPALACHIAN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PROGRAM
10/27
Production Techniques for High Tunnels: Seminar 1 – Preparing for Your High Tunnel Operation
11/7
“FreshAir” Cheesemaking: On the Path to Cultured Butter
EDUCATION AND HEALTH Some things to consider
In-person classes, Internet snafus, melancholy hallways: This is what teaching in a pandemic is like: Read one teacher’s 30-day diary, plus responses from readers around the world
The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped everyone’s lives. For teachers, that has meant a new school year full of unknowns and readjustments: As some schools remain 100 percent remote, others are conducting classes in-person or doing a hybrid of both. That’s the case for Nikkina McKnight, who is a teacher of technology career education at Andrew Jackson High School, a public school in Kershaw, S.C.
We asked McKnight, 41, to keep a 30-day diary of what the first month of the school year has been like for her. This is McKnight’s 14th year teaching — but it’s like none other, as she manages partly online and partly in-person teaching. McKnight is also the president of the Palmetto State Teachers Association, as well as the mother of a 5-year-old son, Grayson, and a 10-month-old daughter, Logan. CLICK FOR MORE>
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Do you know of a Health Professional (practicing or retired) or Health Care Organization?
in Citizens Climate Lobby
The pandemic has brought into focus the importance of medical professionals. There must be thousands of CCL’ers who are health professionals, and we need to encourage them to raise their collective voice. While the climate crisis is becoming more widely accepted as a human health crisis among medical professionals, few are aware of the effectiveness of placing a steadily increasing fee on emissions. Our hope is that by building strong support among the medical community, we can leverage that support with medical associations, healthcare systems, and ultimately our legislators.
We currently have about 1000 health professionals who’ve signed on to the Health Professionals’ Climate Declaration with a goal of about 5000 by the November election and we need your help in encouraging health professionals or organizations to sign below.
- Health Professionals’ Climate & Carbon Pricing Declaration
- Health Care Organizations’ Climate & Carbon Pricing Declaration
To learn more:
- Watch this Grasstops Action Team webinar on the Health Outreach effort
- Use this short simple email to send along to volunteers, colleagues, friends or family you think would be interested in joining on. It links to a one-pager handout that gives over all the talking points.
- Have Questions? Contact [email protected]
citizensclimatelobby.org
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Boomers And Other Retirees Are Handling The Pandemic Best; Gen X And Millennials, Not So Much
in Scary Mommy Minute
The other day I was home alone with my three children. All three of them were learning from home, as I was working from home, and I swear to you — it was everything I could do not to run out into the street, abandon my family, and live a Biblical life.
My 13-year-old son was on a break from homework, and watching some YouTuber. I told him that the dude on the video had an irritating voice, and I kid you not, he said “Okay, boomer.” I got pretty offended, but ultimately, it was just an insult to injury, considering how stressed out I was. CLICK FOR MORE>
SUSTAINABILITY: Climate Justice, Citizen Climate Lobby and One Very Hard Read
City of Asheville committee to hold climate justice public input session
The Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment (SACEE) will hold a virtual public meeting at 6 p.m. Oct. 28. The City of Asheville declared a climate emergency when City Council approved and adopted Resolution 20-25 on Jan. 29, as endorsed by SACEE. In declaring this emergency, the City has recognized not only the importance of taking action to reduce the impacts of climate change but also the importance of incorporating social justice into those actions.
As stated by the NAACP: “Environmental injustice, including the proliferation of climate change, has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and low-income communities in the United States and around the world.” CLICK FOR MORE>
GUIDE: How to repair a family rift
by Pam Weintraub In PSYCHE
Healing an estrangement can be deeply rewarding. Acknowledge your role in what happened, then look ahead to brighter days.
Family estrangements are fundamental to the human story, starting the day that God tossed Adam and Eve from the garden. Likewise, in Greek mythology, there’s Electra, who murdered her mother to avenge her father, and Tantalus, who cooked his son and fed him to Olympian gods. The trope continues: just look at the brutal enemies Tywin and Tyrion Lannister, father and son power players in the TV series Game of Thrones. CLICK TO CONTINUE
7 East Coast Escapes for a Socially-Distant Fall Road Trip
in HERE
These seven getaways on the East Coast will help you take the break you need this fall—while still adhering to social distancing guidelines.
EMBRACING THE WILD BEASTS OF THE MIND excerpt from A Brief History of Yoga, by Ramesh Bjonnes
Offered by the Prama Institute
During my monastic training in India the 1980s, I became intimately familiar with Pashupati—the Lord of the Beasts. It happened while I spent time alone as a sadhu, meditating and begging for my food near Pashupatinat, a Shiva temple located in the small town of Deopatan, to the east of Kathmandu.
HISTORY STORIES: Vote-by-Mail Programs Date Back to the Civil War
by JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI in HISTORY
Voting by mail can trace its roots to soldiers voting far from home during the Civil War and World War II. By the late 1800s, some states were extending absentee ballots to civilian voters under certain conditions, but it wasn’t until 2000 that Oregon became the first state to move to an all-mail voting system. Here is everything you need to know about the history of absentee voting and vote by mail.
Letter: Mission nurses’ victory will ripple across the South
by Jim Stokely in Mountain Xpress, Asheville, N C
As a former labor negotiator for Sylvania, I would like to share my thoughts regarding the recent union vote by Mission nurses. Ever since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which defined the playing field for collective bargaining, the conventional wisdom for corporate management has been to do whatever can be done to stretch out the time between (a) the date many of the workers petition for a union and (b) the date all workers vote for or against a union. The thinking is that the initial burst of energy from workers will dissipate and that management has more time to hire anti-union consultants, plan anti-union communications and control the message throughout the union campaign. CLICK TO CONTINUE
IN MEMORY of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) from the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who first rose to national prominence as an ACLU lawyer fighting for equal rights for women, has died at 87 years old.
She began Harvard Law School as a young mother and one of only nine women in her class, and became the architect of a legal strategy to eradicate gender discrimination in the United States. She modeled her approach after that of Thurgood Marshall on race discrimination, planning for a series of cases at the Supreme Court, each precedent paving the way for the next that would further expand rights and protections. In 1993, she joined the court as an associate justice, and over the decades became a cultural icon beloved for her vision and passion in defending the rights of women.
How do we think about the land we live on?
This week we hosted a webinar, “Learning and Teaching about Indigenous Cultures, Languages, and Territories,” with Christine McRae from Native Land Digital. We were excited to learn that close to 900 people registered!
Teaching kids to read during the coronavirus pandemic: 5 questions answered
in THE CONVERSATION
Keisha McIntosh Allen and Kindel Turner Nash research how kids learn to read and prepare future teachers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. They are also raising children of their own. Here, they answer five questions many families and teachers may have about what they are seeing with virtual learning for early childhood education.
1. How do most kids learn to read?
Nash: Long before they enter kindergarten, most kids can “read” the words they encounter in their favorite books or around their home, on street signs and anywhere else they go.
Allen: Establishing routines that involve reading can help, such as reading them books – whether they are printed on paper or accessed through digital devices – and letting them watch others read. For example, my 1-year-old pretends that she can read because she often sees her 6-year-old brother reading. CLICK TO CONTINUE
State-by-state: Network’s Women of the Century marks 100 years since the 19th Amendment
Philana Patterson, USA TODAY
How do you narrow down all the innovative, courageous, creative, trailblazing American women from a state or Washington, D.C. to a list of 10?
