Week 41: A Closing Announcement

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Congratulations—we have reached the final few days of the school year! For our last Diversity Download, we simply celebrate the diversity of what we’ve learned this year. We found diversity in far away places like Africa and Europe, but we’ve also discovered that diversity can be found right here in our classrooms whether we are learning about math, literature, social studies, P.E., or art.

Learning to appreciate the diversity around you is like training your mind to become more flexible. And having a flexible, open mind will help you learn and experience more from life.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as your favorite summer vacation spot to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 40: International Indian Treaty Council

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

The loss and suffering of American Indians throughout our nation’s history is a tragic story. You may be surprised and saddened to know that similar stories have played out in all parts of the world. The Aborigines of Australia and the Maori of New Zealand are two well-known examples.

Today we honor the work of the International Indian Treaty Council, which was founded this week in 1974 at a gathering in Standing Rock, South Dakota. Delegates from 98 indigenous nations attended this first meeting and chose the sacred pipe as their symbol, to represent “the common bonds of spirituality, ties to the land and respect for traditional cultures common to all Indigenous Peoples.”

Today, the IITC has close ties to various bodies within the United Nations, and is a voice for the diverse populations of Indigenous Peoples around the world.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Standing Rock, South Dakota to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 39: CNN and News Media

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

A major milestone in the history of television occurred this week 31 years ago, when CNN launched its first newscast out of an Atlanta, Georgia studio. By broadcasting news 24 hours a day (instead of just 30 minutes a night), CNN forced the entire news industry to change.

Today, news has changed even more. Critics charge that there is less emphasis on journalism, and more emphasis on slicing information up into entertaining bits. When you factor in the Internet, the lines between news, opinion, and entertainment become even more blurry.

In an age where there is such a diverse selection of news sources to choose from it’s important for you to develop the critical thinking skills that help you to think for yourself, instead of having others do your thinking for you.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Atlanta, Georgia to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today

Week 38: Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

The Himalayan and Karakorum mountain ranges are so massive that 90 of the world’s 100 highest mountains are found there. This week in 1953, Edmund Hillary (a New Zealander) and Tenzing Norgay (a Sherpa born in Nepal), became the first people to ever climb the highest of them all, Mount Everest.

From the very first attempts to climb Mount Everest in the early 1920’s, Europeans and Sherpas have worked together. Sherpas are an ethnic group that live in the highest mountain regions of Nepal. Mount Everest has always been considered holy to them, and today, all expeditions there begin with ceremonial offerings and prayer for protection.

Today the term “Sherpa” is often used in a generic way to describe any mountain guide in the area, but ethnic Sherpas are rightfully proud of their identity and prefer that people understood the distinction.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Nepal to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 37: Brown vs. Board of Education

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Diversity as we know it would not exist in our schools today were it not for a landmark Supreme Court ruling that was handed down this week in 1954. The case of course was “Brown vs. Board of Education.”

Today, we often hear about how our country has become politically polarized—that on the most difficult issues, we aren’t able to find agreement as we have in the past. Difficult Supreme Court decisions of late have frequently been decided by a 5 to 4 vote.

“Brown vs. Board” was ultimately decided by a 9 to 0 vote—but that unanimous vote didn’t come about easily. There were two justices who were inclined to vote against the ruling. But Chief Justice Earl Warren felt that the issue was so important, a 7 to 2 victory would not be acceptable. Considerable time and effort were exerted (including a re-argument of the case) in order to finally win over the last two votes.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the Supreme Court in Washington, DC to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 36: Nutrition and the Color of Foods

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Being able to calculate your intake of calories, fats, and vitamins is an important part of healthy eating. This would be much more difficult to do were it not for laws requiring nutrition labeling on food products. Those laws took effect 17 years ago this week.

Now fruits and vegetables, they need no labeling. You can be assured that they are healthy. But did you know that the color of a fruit or vegetables acts as a kind of label of its health benefits? That’s what researchers at Tufts University in Boston believe.

According to them, all fruits and vegetables have cancer-fighting qualities. On top of that, RED foods (like tomatoes and watermelon) protect against heart disease. BLUE/PURPLE foods (like blueberries and plums) slow age-related memory loss. GREEN foods (like spinach and broccoli) help preserve eyesight. And YELLOW/ORANGE foods (like carrots and pumpkins) boost the immune system and protect our eyes. Now that’s diversity you can live by!

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as a local farmers market to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 35: Peter Tchaikovsky

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

When most people think of Russia today, they are reminded only of the rise and fall of the Communist empire. This is a shame because Russia’s history dates back a thousand years, and Russian cultural contributions to the rest of the world have been immense. This week we celebrate the cultural heritage of Russia, by commemorating the birth of Peter Tchaikovsky in 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia.

Tchaikovsky composed the music for three of the most famous ballets of all time: Swan Lake, the Sleeping Beauty, and the Nutcracker. His works achieved greatness in part because he composed melodies that perfectly matched the physical movements of the ballet dancers.

Many historians of music view Tchaikovsky’s work as a masterful blend of the musical traditions of Western Europe and Russia. This is a recurring theme across humanity: the creation of works that are beautiful, meaningful, and lasting when different worlds meet.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Votkinsk, Russia to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 34: Harper Lee

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

By the time you graduate from college, it’s quite possible that you will have read “To Kill a Mockingbird” three times or more. This classic American novel is required reading in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country. This week we celebrate the birth of its author, Harper Lee.

Lee has received some of the most prestigious awards for writing “Mockingbird,” including a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But in spite of her potential for fame, Lee has never published another book, nor has she ever given a speech. In a rare letter to Oprah Winfrey that she allowed to be published, however, Lee wrote the following about her love of reading:

“My sisters and brother, much older, read aloud to keep me from pestering them; my mother read me a story every day, usually a children's classic, and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening. Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggily at bedtime.. Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.”

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Monroeville, Alabama to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 33: Martin Luther King

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Letters can have as much power to move people’s souls as poems, songs, and books. One of the most significant letters ever written in American history was written out of a jail cell, this week in 1963. The jail was located in Birmingham, Alabama, and the man who wrote it was Martin Luther King, Jr.

King had been arrested for leading a non-violent protest against the leaders and stores of Birmingham, who supported the segregation of blacks from whites. At the time there were leaders from other churches who supported King’s goals, but criticized him for leading protests, instead of waiting for the court system to resolve the matter. King powerfully argued in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail that “any law that degrades human personality is unjust” and that we have a “moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.. openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

You already know King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Now get to know his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Birmingham, Alabama to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 32: Hip Hop Music

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Students, you may know a lot about Hip Hop music, but how much do you know about Hip Hop history? Let’s take a pop quiz. When and where did hip hop music begin? And who is credited with starting it?

Hip Hop music first appeared in the early 1970’s at large block parties in New York City. The music and dance at these parties were a blend of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Jamaican influences. And the man who pioneered the role of DJ at these parties was hip hop legend DJ Kool Herc, who was born this week in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1955.

Hip Hop’s distinctive rapping element has its origins in West Africa, where singers and poets called “griots” have traveled the area for hundreds of years, preserving the oral traditions of their culture. Griots still play a role today in West African countries like Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as New York City or West Africa to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 31: Art Spiegelman and Maus

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious awards that a journalist or writer can receive. On this week in 1982, the Pulitzer Prize committee made an historic decision—to recognize a comic book as a literary work. Art Spiegelman received a Pulitzer Prize for his comic book series Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.

Part of what makes Maus such an extraordinary work of literature is the manner in which it reveals the power of comics to convey the essence of a story in its own original way—in this case, the horrors and complexities of the Nazi Holocaust. The critical acclaim of Maus helped to shatter preconceived notions about comics, and paved the way for an entire generation of graphic novel artists and their followers, like many of you.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the offices of the Pulitzer Prize to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 30: Jazz

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

Jazz music is one of the few art forms that is genuinely American.  Some of the unique characteristics that help to define Jazz include the rhythmic interaction between the performers, the freedom to improvise, and the way in which the personality of the performer expresses itself through the music and vice-versa.  

Jazz is always associated first with New Orleans, Louisiana.  But believe it or not, the earliest known reference to the word “jazz” came from Portland, Oregon!  During this week in 1912, a sports reporter from the Los Angeles Times wrote about a pitcher from the Portland Beavers baseball team, who said, “I’ve got a new curve this year.  I call it the Jazz ball because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it.”  The name first became associated with the music three years later in Chicago, even though the music itself had been played in New Orleans prior to that.  

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as New Orleans, Louisiana or Portland, Oregon to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today!

Week 29: Persian New Year (Nowruz)

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

This week Persians around the world are celebrating Persian New Year.  Before the new year arrived, Persian families were busy cleaning out their homes.  They also purchased new clothes with which to greet the start of the new year.  During the course of the 12 day-long celebration, Persians will visit family members, especially their family elders.  

Incidentally, it is important to understand that Persians and Arabs are not the same.  Though they are both associated with the religion of Islam, they are ethnically different.  Persians live primarily in Iran and Afghanistan and are of an Indo-European background.  Arabs primarily live in the region stretching from North Africa to Iraq, and are identified as Semitic.  

In short, Persians have their own unique culture, history, and language, and Arabs have theirs as well.  Like all people, they are proud of their respective heritages, so if you ever get confused between the two, just ask them—you’ll probably find that they’re happy to explain.  

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Iran or Afghanistan to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today!

Week 28: Pi

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

Did you know that March 14 is a holiday called “Pi Day”?  No, we’re not celebrating the kind of pies that your grandma makes.  We’re celebrating the kind of pi’s you find in your math class.  In numerical form, March 14 is “Three Fourteen.”  And 3.14 are the first digits in that amazing number called “Pi” that goes on and on forever.  

The first evidence of mankind’s understanding of Pi comes from studying the design of the great pyramids of Ancient Egypt.  Pi represents the relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference.  In other words, no matter how small or large a circle is, its circumference is always 3.14 times as long as its diameter.  Pi, therefore, is a constant, or a number that never changes.  

Like circles, people come in many shapes and sizes, and we have various talents and abilities.  And like Pi, we too share certain constants.  We all need to be loved and respected.  We all want to succeed.  

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the pyramids of Egypt to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today! 

Week 27: the World Wide Web

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  This week, we are celebrating the birthdate of the Internet and more importantly the reason it was born.  The key feature of the Internet is being able to click on a link to access information or documents across a network.  This system, now called the World Wide Web (or “www” for short)  was first proposed this week in 1989, by a British computer scientist named Timothy Berners-Lee. 

Scientists are part of a community, and Berners-Lee wanted to find a better way for scientists to share information with each other so they could assist each other in their research.  In other words, the ideas of sharing and helping were the original basis of the Internet.  The same values of sharing and helping also lie at the core of diversity too.  Make sharing and helping a part of the way you interact with your fellow classmates.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the World Wide Web to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today! 

Week 26: Michelangelo

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place. 

Michelangelo is considered to be among the greatest artists ever produced by Western Civilization.  His most famous work is his portrayal of 50 scenes and figures which he painted across the enormous ceiling surface of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.  He was born this week, in Tuscany, Italy, in 1475. 

Michelangelo lived at a time when apprenticeships were a common form of education and training.  Michelangelo himself began his series of apprenticeships at the age of 13.  At their most basic level, apprenticeships involve learning a skill from an expert. 

In our modern world, apprenticeships have been replaced by schooling.  However, it is still important to honor and appreciate the kind of learning that is transmitted directly from one person to another.  Re-building an engine, knitting blankets, raising horses.  When you take the time to learn specialized skills like these from someone, you are tapping into one of the oldest forms of learning—just like Michelangelo centuries ago. 

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Tuscany, Italy to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today! 

Week 25: The Internment of Japanese-Americans

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  Today we shine a spotlight on a tremendous act of courage during a time of national hysteria. 

This week in 1942, during World War II, President Roosevelt signed a Presidential order that resulted in every Japanese-American citizen living along the West Coast to be forced out of their homes without cause, and relocated into internment camps located in various isolated locations. 

As part of the process a Congressional committee traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle to collect the comments of Americans towards their Japanese-American neighbors.  The public mood everywhere was overwhelmingly anti-Japanese.  But the hearings in Portland stood out because it was the only city without any organized protest against the President's actions.  In fact, only one person stood up to publicly support the Japanese-Americans in front of the committee.  Her name was Azalia Peet from the city of Gresham.  Far beyond appreciating diversity, Ms. Peet risked her life to state the truth when no one wanted to hear it. 

Remember, you don't have to travel as far as Gresham, Oregon to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today! 

Week 24: The Sahara Desert

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

There is no recorded memory of snow ever falling in the Sahara Desert—except for on one occasion, this week in 1979.  The snow storm occurred in Southern Algeria although the snow disappeared within hours. 

Believe it or not, there was a time during the Stone Age when the Sahara was wet, green, and habitable.  Scientists know this because they have uncovered a massive burial ground with the skeletal remains of humans and hundreds of animals including antelopes, giraffes, hippos, turtles, and clams.  The Earth is diverse at any given time, but we can learn from the Sahara Desert that it is also diverse across time as well—things can and will change. 

Remember that this is also true for people as well.  When you appreciate diversity among the people around you, you are also appreciating the fact that people can and do change. 

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the Sahara Desert to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today!

Week 23: The Amazon River Basin

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

We all know that water flows from rivers into the oceans, right?  Well nature always seems to have a way of surprising us.  In a few places around the world, there are times in the year when water flows backwards from the ocean up a river.  The phenomenon is called a tidal bore, and one of the most spectacular tidal bores is occurring right now in Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon river.  Waves reaching up to 12 feet high have been known to flow as far as 7 miles upstream.  

The Amazon River is amazing for many other reasons.  It contains more water than the next ten largest rivers combined.  And ten percent of all known species in the world live in the Amazon Basin Rain Forest.  An ecosystem that enormous has a huge impact on the environmental health of the world.  It’s no wonder that there are so many organizations large and small who are trying to preserve the diversity of life in the Amazon rain forests.  

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the Amazon River to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today! 

Week 22: History of Fractions

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.  

This week we can talk about a milestone that is truly worth celebrating—we are half-way through the school year.  Now what do you think about that?  And by “that” I mean the fraction one-half.  

We often think of cavemen counting rocks or sticks, but those are whole numbers.  So when did fractions first appear in mankind’s history?  The fraction that is familiar to us today with a numerator, horizontal bar, and denominator was first developed by an Arab mathematician from North Africa during the 12th century.  But Egyptians from as early as 1800 B.C. had their own notation for fractions that was based in hieroglyphic pictures.  

Fractions can be tedious, what with common denominators and reducing and all.  But would you honestly prefer a world without fractions?  After all, if we didn’t understand fractions, we’d be thinking that there was still a whole year of school left.  

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as North Africa and Egypt to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today!