Here are some things I read this week that made me think. (These are just snippets - click on the title to read the whole thing.)
Why Americans Smile So Much: How immigration and cultural values affect what people do with their faces by Olga with The Atlantic
"And when Wal-Mart opened stores in Germany, the company also had to tweak its chipper ways to better suit the sober local mores, as The New York Times reported in 2006:
Wal-Mart stopped requiring sales clerks to smile at customers—a practice that some male shoppers interpreted as flirting—and scrapped the morning Wal-Mart chant by staff members.
“People found these things strange; Germans just don’t behave that way,” said Hans-Martin Poschmann, the secretary of the Verdi union, which represents 5,000 Wal-Mart employees here."
We spent months bracing and preparing for the death of our daughter. But guess what? We weren’t ready. from Royce via Medium
"On Sunday, April 16, the day Keri officially hit full-term at 37 weeks, suddenly, we were in the two-week window. In two weeks, we’d be prepping to welcome our baby girl into the world, and preparing to say goodbye to her. I planned on sitting down that day to write Eva a letter, like I did before Harrison was born, to give him on his 18th birthday. She’d never read it, but I was going to read it to her. Keri didn’t feel Eva move much that morning, but we both brushed it off and went to lunch. We came home, put Harrison down for a nap, and Keri sat down in her favorite spot and prodded Eva to move. She wouldn’t.
We started to worry. Keri got up, walked around, drank cold water, ate some sugary stuff. She sat back down and waited. Maybe that was something? We decided to go to the hospital.
“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” I said.
Keri erupted into tears and her body shook. I had my answer."
A few of my favorites:
Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School from Anya with NPREd
"In future research, Papageorge hopes to replicate the study and unpack the powerful and long-lasting effects observed. But based on the evidence he already has, he has an immediate policy recommendation. Having just one black teacher in his study made all the difference to students; having two or three didn't increase the effect significantly. Therefore, schools could work to change student groupings so that every black student gets at least one black teacher by the end of elementary school.
"Should we hire more black teachers?" he asks. "Yeah, probably, but it requires more black college graduates ... We could push around rosters tomorrow, change the way we assign kids, and have some effects next school year, not 10 years from now."
A Letter of Apology to a Son Graduating from College from Kristin via Time
"Years ago I read a parenting book that included this advice: When your child does something amazing, do not say, "I am so proud of you." Instead say, "You should feel so proud of yourself." That is a hard habit to break, inserting the parental I and confusing your child's identity with your own. Forgetting that it's not about you. Stepping in when you should be stepping back."
This Is the Worst Way to Clean Before Company Comes Over by Ayn-Monique at Kitchn
"Besides not actually being a cleaning or organizing technique — as I'm just moving the clutter around and not putting it away — my stashing habit, or as Marrero calls it, "The Sweep," means that junk I've tucked away will most likely stay hidden and accumulate.
"Neat does not equal organized," explains Marrero. "Your space may look better, but behind that pretty facade is a nest of delayed decisions and delayed actions. Your clutter is manifested procrastination!"
Design Dilemma: How to do Maximalism from P. Reynolds on HDF
"According to design enthusiasts, 2017 is the year of the maximalist. It is perhaps an appropriate sign of the times, after all, exaggeration and braggadocio seem to rule the day. Or perhaps maximalism reflects a desire to retreat from the bitter acrimony out in the cold, hard cruel world to our own safe, insulated, highly-curated cocoon. Or then again, perhaps the turn toward maximalism is simply a response to years and years of bland beige. Whatever the reason, maximalism is the word of the moment.
How to do it right? There are just a few basic tenets to keep in mind if you are dipping your toe into maximalism for the first time."
One great tip: "Use Color. Explosively bright color is a secret weapon in Maximalism. Feel free to paint walls in vibrant hues, to buy jewel tone furniture, or to otherwise indulge in color where you can."
Source: That's what SHE said: how one family's devastating loss is changing lives, the impact on just one black teacher in a child's life, the ins and outs of maximalist design and more....
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