by Varun Singh | 7 Jun 2021 | Educators' Catalog, Environment, La Jolla Country Day School, Student Posts, World, Youth Voices
As arid San Diego struggles to ensure adequate water supplies, the city can look to Cape Town and Lima for examples of how to dodge disaster. Water drops from a spout at a water purification facility in San Diego, California, 8 May 2015. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) San...
News Decoder encourages students to look beyond their immediate surroundings and to connect the dots around the globe. Varun Singh, a resident of San Diego in California and a student at La Jolla Country Day School, turned to Cape Town, South Africa and Lima, Peru for examples of how his city could manage its water crisis. The next generation of leaders will need to be adept at finding global solutions to problems besetting our societies, and Singh sets an example.
Exercise: Ask your students to identify a problem in their local community and to find examples of how a community in another country tackled the same challenge.
by Elisabeth Wachtel | 4 Jun 2021 | Educators' Catalog, News Decoder Updates, Transylvania College
They’ve worked with News Decoder for a year. Now students at a school in Romania have launched a magazine — a first in their city. The cover of the second edition of “Transylvania Insights” Inspired by their work with News Decoder, students at...
Ioan Pristavu and Octavian-Anton Ghisa, students at Transylvania College in Romania, launched a school magazine that offers a platform for fellow students to examine meaty issues ranging from the impact of COVID-19 on stock markets to racism in the UK’s royal family. Their initiative illustrates the impact that News Decoder seeks to have on students at our partner schools, who work with our experienced correspondents on the world’s most pressing issues.
Exercise: Ask your students to list issues they would want to explore in a school magazine and how they would report on them.
by Nelson Graves | 1 Jun 2021 | Education, News Decoder alumni, News Decoder Updates, Personal Reflections, School Year Abroad
Elisabeth Wachtel learned a second language, made friends and lifted her chances of college admission by studying abroad for a year of high school. Why would a teenager pick up stakes and leave friends and family behind for a year to study in an unfamiliar, foreign...
by Nelson Graves | 27 May 2021 | Americas, Health and Wellness, Hewitt, News Decoder Updates, Podcasts, Students in the Spotlight, Youth Voices
In a series of articles and a global webinar, students at the Hewitt School in New York have drawn lessons from COVID-19 that point to a better future. Students from the Hewitt School and the African Leadership Academy during their April webinar on how COVID-19 has...
by Stacy Shyaka | 26 May 2021 | Art, Human Rights, Personal Reflections, Student Posts, Westover School, Youth Voices
I come from Rwanda, where Black children are not hated for the color of their skin. My photos capture innocence and an age of purity. (All photos by Stacy Shyaka) In my country, Black children are able to hold on to their innocence because they live in a place where...
by Maya Barr | 19 May 2021 | Americas, Educators' Catalog, Health and Wellness, Hewitt, Human Rights, Science, Student Posts, Youth Voices
More people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. than in any other nation. Will the suffering breathe new life into efforts to reform a flawed system? Protesters in support of a single-payer healthcare system, New York City, 24 July 2017 (EPA/JUSTIN LANE) This is the...
The U.S. healthcare system is complicated. But that did not deter Maya Barr of The Hewitt School from examining the system’s shortcomings, which have been exposed during COVID-19. For her research, Barr dug into data from the Census Bureau, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pew Research Center and Johns Hopkins, as well as reports by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Hospital Association. Barr weighs the pros and cons regarding a single-payer system in her balanced, forward-looking report.
by Clarice Gillian Achola | 18 May 2021 | African Leadership Academy, Educators' Catalog, Health and Wellness, Personal Reflections, Student Posts, Youth Voices
Mocked for my dark skin, I long loathed myself and yearned for a lighter complexion. But now I fight colourism and defend diversity. “Leaning away from un-African beauty standards,” by Alana Muchemi, August 2020. The author is in the yellow shirt....
Adolescence is a time of self-discovery, and Clarice Gillian Achola of the African Leadership Academy finds that the discrimination she has faced since her days on the playground plagues large numbers of girls and women with dark skin. With detail and sensitivity, the author gives shape to the abstract notion of colourism, then moves from the first to the third person pronoun as she extends her personal battle to a broader campaign to save others from bigotry.
by Aerin Atinsky | 17 May 2021 | Americas, Health and Wellness, Hewitt, Human Rights, Student Posts, Youth Voices
New York City is fighting COVID-19 and setting an example for revamping America’s criminal justice system by releasing some inmates to hotels. Protesters calling for the early release of inmates from New York jails, New York, 23 April 2020 (EPA-EFE/JUSTIN LANE)...
by Hanna Rahman | 14 May 2021 | Americas, Health and Wellness, Hewitt, Podcasts, Science, Student Posts, Youth Voices
New York City was hit hard by COVID-19, which exposed health and social inequities. But Dr. Graham Barr says there are useful lessons for the future. News Decoder · What COVID-19 tells us about the U.S. healthcare system This is the third of five articles by students...
by Nelson Graves | 12 May 2021 | Contests, News Decoder Updates, Thacher School, Westover School
Students at Thacher and Westover schools took five of eight awards in News Decoder’s latest Storytelling Contest, won by Christina MacCorkle. The winners of News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest, clockwise from upper left: Li Keira Yin, Christina...
