When Amy Wagner was told she had stage 3C ovarian cancer, the news sent shock waves throughout her family. Despite the terminal diagnosis, Wagner remained incredibly positive, going by her motto: Dum vivimus vivamus or, “While we live, let us live.”
In the spirit of making the most of her days, Wagner’s daughter, Lauren Keppel, decided to surprise her mother by organizing a flash mob to show her how much she’s loved. The entire routine and Wagner’s reaction can be seen below. As the description with the video reads, “Amy has been an indelible force in the lives of so many people; as we all bare witness to her pain, I wanted to find a way to remind her how surrounded she is by support. ”
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As Today.com reports, when Keppel sent out an email to her friends and family soliciting dancers, replies came pouring in. A total of 50 people — from Utah, to Indiana, to California — agreed to travel to Wheaton, Illinois on May 10 (the day before her Wagner’s birthday) to surprise her with a choreographed dance to “The Best of My Love” by the Emotions.
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The incredible gesture left Wagner speechless. “It is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me,” she told Today. “I just love them all so much. I am really, really blessed.”
How did they pull it off? After Keppel and a friend sent each person a video of the routine, each dancer was responsible for practicing the dance at home.
The effort was all worth it, as Keppel said, “The impact she has had on the people in her life is tremendous and I wanted to be able to show her that in a cumulative, grander way.”
Category: Moving America Forward
What Can Former Gang Members Teach Psychology Students?
On the first day of class, gunshots alarmingly rang out in the hallway of the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute (PCITI) in Los Angeles, where former gang members sit alongside grad students working toward their doctorates in psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Executive director Aquil Basheer soon arrived to tell the students that he had fired harmless blanks as an experiential learning technique to get the students to pay attention to their own reactions and those of others in the face of violence.
Why the seemingly extreme teaching method? It’s a way to make violence prevention lessons more authentic and more helpful in case the soon-to-be-doctors some day find themselves in truly dangerous situations.
Basheer knows what he’s talking about. After all, he was once a gang member himself. After leaving the criminal lifestyle behind, he began PCITI in 2002 to give firefighters, psychologists, and other professionals standard techniques to apply toward violence intervention. In the past, the people who live in violent neighborhoods usually wouldn’t talk to the psychologists who tried to launch violence prevention programs — but they’ll talk to Basheer.
Former gang members come to his classes to talk about what situations spark violence and the best ways to diffuse tensions. They teach the doctorate students how to control rumors, restrain people safely, hold candlelight vigils for victims of violence without prompting more shootings, help bystanders, and perform CPR.
The former gang member instructors even teach the students what body language is acceptable in poor communities. Nikko Deloney, one of the streetwise teachers, told Melissa Pandika of Ozy Magazine, “You need to know if you have a holier-than-thou look in a place where people are hopeless.”
Once the program participants have a basic understanding about how to intervene in or prevent violent situations, the teachers take them out on the streets of Los Angeles for tours of “hotspots.”
Deloney says one of the most important lessons is to observe and listen more than they preach. “We call it grandstanding for no one. ‘I have all the answers in my book.’ If you show up without your book and a little communication and integrity … you can actually help somebody.”
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Watch How This Boy With Autism Renders His Class Speechless
Like any other kid on the planet, Jake is just a boy who wants friends. Unfortunately, his differences (he has autism) make him a walking target to bullies at school.
But one day during gym class, Jake did one of the most powerful things that few would have the same courage to do: He spoke up.
In the moving video from UpWorthy, Jake delivers a message that’s exactly what his classmates needed to hear.
“I don’t think you guys see me for me. I just think you guys see me as a big target,” Jake says as his eyes well with tears. “I want to try to be your friend but you don’t try to be mine…and that really makes me feel bad that you don’t really want to know me.”
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Jake’s message is an invitation for us all to talk about bullying, as any child across the country could be in the same situation as he, whether their families know about it or not. In fact, 3.2 million students in the U.S. are victims of bullying each year, and if things aren’t handled correctly, bullying can turn tragic, as demonstrated in the 2011 documentary Bully, which followed the lives of five kids who faced bullying on a daily basis. The film particularly focused on 11-year-old Ty Smalley and 17-year-old Tyler Long, who took their own lives because they were fed up with bullying.
Happily, Jake, who’s now a junior in high school, told UpWorthy that things are getting much better at school.
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“Bullying has had a big impact on my life, but since the movie I’ve made a lot of friends. Recently, I have joined my high school football team! At first I thought they would all be complete jerks, but actually they are pretty cool guys and have helped me through a lot of situations — they stand up for me!”
“For other kids with autism, if you’re getting bullied, try and tell them to stop and not give a reaction — if that doesn’t work, go to an adult. It might seem hard cause we can’t handle stress as well as other kids, but you will get through it and you’ll be awesome — actually you already are!”
Who’s our new hero? Clearly, it’s Jake.
ALSO: This Anti-Bullying Video Teaches Us the Power of Two Simple Words
The Two-Wheeler to the Rescue
Jim Turner sees the world through bicycle-shaped lenses.
He’s a two-time Motorcross National Champion who left an engineering job at Ford Motor Company to found the Boulder, Colorado-based company Optibike (which designs and manufactures electric bikes), and he’s the author of a book — The Electric Bike Book — which is about bikes (naturally).
So it’s not really a surprise that in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy struck the East Cost, Turner began thinking about how electric bikes might be useful for recovery efforts.
Inspiration kicked into high gear (pun intended!) when the Colorado floods of September 2013 stranded Turner and his family. The roads to his community were washed out, and the only way to get out or bring supplies in was on foot or by bike. (Or by unicycle, as one goofy video demonstrated.)
Turner decided to turn his early ideas into a learning experience for the industrial design students at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. (David Klein, a friend of Turner’s, is a professor there.) Turner challenged students in Klein’s class to design prototypes for a Bicycle Emergency Response Trailer (or BERT). The contest had a few parameters: The trailer had to be light enough that an Optibike could pull it, it needed to run on solar power, and it had to be narrow enough to fit on a small trail.
Students came up with designs that included solar panels for charging cellphones when a community’s power is out, emergency lights, water filters, fold-out tents, and drawers for medical supplies. One team’s BERT folded out into a table that emergency crews could use for a staging area, while another doubled as a stretcher.
Turner told Jason Blevins of the Denver Post, “It reminds me of the beginning of Optibike. This is something that hasn’t been done before. There’s so much room to be creative.” He said of the student designs, “Every one of them, I see something I like.”
So in a few years, when disaster-stranded people are in need of rescue, don’t be surprised if a fleet of electric bicycles and emergency trailers are their saviors.
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These Coaches Make Recess Work for Kids
Recess can be chaos.
As a result, disciplinary problems can lead schools to reduce playground outings significantly — if not eradicate them altogether. Just look at Seattle, where a new report from KUOW found that schools serving the poorest students might offer 15 minutes of outdoor play a day. And that’s if the kids are lucky.
The adults say it’s just too much trouble to let the children play on their own. But that’s backwards, experts say.
Nationally, almost 18 percent of kids ages six to 11 years old are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Factor in adolescents, and the number of overweight or obese kids rises above one third. Physical activity during recess can help combat this. And adding to the importance of recess are studies that have found it can improve academic performance.
“Those students are the ones we also know have higher rates of obesity, and for whom academic achievement in school is even more important,” pediatrician Paula Lozano told the Seattle station, speaking about kids from low-income areas.
Across the county in the Bronx, New York, the group Asphalt Green may have a solution — turn recess into structured exercise time. Don’t call it physical education, like the dreaded gym class. This is supposed to be all fun and games, just with a very serious mission.
The nonprofit works with some 27,000 kids and can squeeze fitness fun into any hallway or corridor, a big plus for city schools often strained for space, organizers told the station. “Any space you give us, we can be active in,” says Arlen Zamula, the program’s Associate Director of the Recess Enhancement Program.
Asphalt Green’s programs may not look like the free-for-all tag games of yore, but organizers say they’re helping kids have fun while practicing fitness — and hopefully learning a truly life-long physical lesson in the process.
A Little Birdie Told Us That a Tech Giant is Building a Nest to Help the Poor
As we’ve said, income inequality in America is perhaps nowhere more evident than in San Francisco, where a renewed tech boom has dropped the unemployment rate to 4.8 percent, compared to the 6.3 percent national rate. Meanwhile, median rents have skyrocketed to a 40 percent share of the median income, leaving the one in five Bay Area residents who live in poverty sometimes literally out in the cold.
The stark differences between the lives of the tech-employed-haves and the have-nots have led some frustrated people to stage protests near the shuttle buses that ferry workers to Google and other tech companies. In contrast, however, is the action from one of the giants in social media.
Twitter has announced it’s going to reach out to the homeless and low-income families in the Tenderloin, the long-impoverished neighborhood near its headquarters. The company plans to collaborate with Compass Family Services (CFS), a nonprofit serving 3,500 homeless families, to create and run a family learning center called the Twitter Neighborhood Nest, which is projected to open in the summer of 2015. Company executives have pledged to chip in more than $1 million to the project.
The center will provide low-income people with access to computers, Wi-Fi, and other resources; volunteers from Twitter will teach technology classes to homeless families. Erica Kisch, executive director of CFS told Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle, “This will be a major breakthrough for our families. To make it in the world today, just to make it through school, you need these skills.”
Twitter’s new nest certainly has the potential of helping low-income residents of San Francisco cross the digital divide. But we have a hunch that to be successful, they might need to use more than 140 characters.
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From Farm to Cafeteria Table: These Students Are Growing Their Own Food
If you surveyed teens as to what their favorite food is, chances are, the hamburger would be in the top three. But while many young people can’t get enough of the patty sandwiched between two buns (possibly slathered in special sauce?), they probably don’t give any thought to how those ingredients are grown and raised.
A unique program in the small town of Hagerstown, Indiana (population 1,769) is changing that, while at the same time, saving the district money. As the New York Times reports, students at the local junior-senior high school are enrolled in a very hands-on agricultural science class that teaches them how to raise their own livestock and crops. Eventually, these items will be harvested and processed and be served in the school’s very own cafeteria.
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As the Times notes, the classes are combating two big problems in the community: A decline of local farmers, as well as decreased school funding and budget cuts in the wake of the Great Recession. Turns out, the pork, beef, chicken, fruits and vegetables being grown right on the campus farm is expected to save the school a lot of money — at least $2,000 annually in cafeteria costs. Additionally, the Times reports that that the campus-raised beef is replacing 5,000 pounds of hamburger patties that the district was purchasing at $3.30 per pound.
Significantly, in a town where one of the two listed local groceries is a place called Gas America, this program is encouraging healthier diets, local agriculture, and sustainable farming practices. Garrett Blevins, a junior at the school, told the Times he’s now considering a career in agriculture thanks to the program. “There are kids out there who would never experience agriculture until they join these programs,” he said. “Once they do, it will open up a whole new world.”
Could Making Salaries Public End the Gender Pay Gap?
Journalism circles are abuzz with speculation about why the first woman to take arguably the most prominent role in the industry was, by all accounts, fired with little fanfare last Wednesday for her two-and-a-half years of service.
One of the possible reasons provided for this unexpected dismissal: Jill Abramson may have asked too many questions about pay parity. But one writer has a possible solution to this troubling situation facing females — more salary transparency.
The oft-studied gender pay gap has become a touchstone in the modern workplace. As more women graduate college and demand job parity, they want (and deserve) equal pay, too. It’s not just a philosophical debate, but one that impacts families, poverty rates, and a host of socio-economic issues.
More: Ask the Experts: The Pay Gap Explained
Experts have suggested that flexible work schedules and pay scales that depend on output — not hours logged at a desk — could rewrite the pay equity debate. Publicizing salaries also has the potential to change salary inequalities. As the Quartz column notes, staying mum on salary information helps employers, not employees. “Making pay more transparent won’t close the gap on its own, but it puts a burden on companies to at least explain any disparity, and begin to resolve them,” writer Max Nisen notes.
Some firms have started posting salary information on the web. And the salaries of most government employees are public record. The Gray Lady may not be that agile, nor so inclined. But as the fallout from a story that turned a glass ceiling into a glass cliff continues, perhaps it’s time to revisit our assumptions about who knows what when it comes to salary equality.
Get Schooled on How to Earn a Computer Science Education for Free
What can you do if you want to study computer science in college, but don’t have $50,000 lying around for tuition?
As LifeHacker reports, thanks to app developer aGupieWare, anyone with access to the Internet can take computer science classes from the likes of MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and other elite institutions. The best part? All of this top-notch education is free. (Yes, you read that right. Free!)
aGupieWare says that their bachelors-level curriculum is cobbled together from numerous available online computer science courses and video lectures from top universities across the country — from Harvard’s Intro to Computer Science to Stanford University’s Programing Paradigms. There are even electives from (California-based) International Technical University’s iPhone App Development series and University of California, Berkeley’s Artificial Intelligence courses.
Granted, you won’t be sitting in an actual classroom or receiving a degree from the institutions, but you can do this on your own time — and even while wearing your pajamas, if you like. Plus, you’ll also be walking away with a load of knowledge, not to mention, be free of debt.
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The program not only works for high school grads who can’t afford college but aspire to be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerburg (both of whom never actually finished college and are doing just fine), but it also makes sense for working adults looking to gain another set of skills for the workplace or even those interested in a career change.
Not interested in computer science? As Lifehacker notes, this program is just one of many subject matters available at our fingertips. Dubbed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), there are numerous courses that allow anyone — from high school grads to working adults — to seek a better life through higher education simply by logging online.
With the skyrocketing costs of tuition (not to mention our country’s enormous student loan bubble), the idea of a free education and even tuition-free colleges have the potential to change the face of the education industry. And while you can’t receive an actual bachelor’s degree yet, by the looks of things, you might soon be able to.
People Laughed and Stared at Becca. Now Hear Her Side of the Story.
It’s safe to say that people who have a mental illness have to put up with a lot more than just their diagnosis.
Before Becca Calla was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pervasive Mental Disorder, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and Tourette’s Syndrome (which is a neurological disorder) at age 16, she faced a constant onslaught of staring, teasing and verbal abuse. As if that wasn’t hard enough for a young girl, she also had to manage moving from shelter to shelter — and even faced homelessness at one point.
However, since her official diagnoses, she’s been able to receive the help and treatment that she needs. As you can see in her video submission below for Change the View 2014 (a contest that invites Ontario youth to submit short videos that help normalize mental health issues), not only does she cope with her disorders, the happy-go-lucky teen completely owns them.
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“I’ve been playing violin for 10 years. There are so many things I never thought I’d be able to play that I can now play in my sleep,” Becca says as she seriously shreds her violin. “Now, I know how to release my energy in a healthy way instead of getting angry all the time.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, mental disorders — ranging from mood to eating disorders — are extremely common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older (one in four) and just over 20 percent (or one in five) children suffer from a seriously debilitating mental disorder — whether currently or at some point during their life.
Despite mental illness afflicting such a large segment of the population, broader society doesn’t always accept these individuals, who are often plagued by stigma as well as discrimination.
But treatment, awareness, and education can make a big difference. As Becca says, “Ask anyone that knows me now. I’m the happiest girl because I know I’m getting the right support and help I need.”