Childcare & Early Education

What Can Our Schools Learn from the Finns?

This six-minute BBC clip (BBC Finland\'s Education Success) contains some serious gems gained from learning about what makes some country’s education systems outstanding and why America’s schools have been dropping in global rankings. Finland’s children have consistently performed at the top of...

When Holidays Converge – A Teachable Moment

I breathe a sigh of relief today as my children return to school from Spring Break and our routines resume. Before the hectic pace kicks in, though, it’s worth considering the confluence of events that just took place. President Obama’s weekly address to the nation recognized this – “to call on people of all faiths and nonbelievers to remember our shared spirit of humanity.

A Step Forward In Food Safety

Each year approximately 87 million Americans -- 5 million in New York alone -- are made ill by contaminated food. Of those, 371,000 are hospitalized with foodborne illness, and 5,700 die. In 2010 America, this is simply unacceptable. The fact is, our food safety laws have not truly been overhauled...

Bring on the radical homemakers

...At some point, of course, I realized I wasn’t happy. I was trapped. I had money, but not time. It was like being surrounded by food, and dying of thirst. It turns out that there is a way out of this mess. There are people all over this country–both women and men–who have made a conscious decision to value their time more than their money. Against the formidable current of popular culture, they have decided that this may be the only life they will ever have, and they’re going to live it fully.