VOLAR combina servicio comunitario, cultura española.

Hay muchas oportunidades para que los estudiantes se comuniquen con sus comunidades en el campus de NC State. Voluntarios Ahora en Raleigh, o VOLAR, es una de esas oportunidades para aquellos que desean ayudar a la comunidad de habla hispana de Raleigh. El programa se ejecuta a través del Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras y Literatura. Deborah Kane, profesora principal de lengua y literatura españolas, es la directora de VOLAR.

"Comenzamos como una iniciativa del Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras aquí en el Estado de Carolina del Norte para reunir a estudiantes de español en un cierto nivel de competencia con oportunidades de servicio a la comunidad donde pueden interactuar con hablantes nativos de español", dijo Kane.

VOLAR realiza dos tipos diferentes de servicio comunitario: oportunidades de un semestre y oportunidades de servicio de una sola vez.

"Una categoría son los compromisos de un semestre, donde los estudiantes van una vez a la semana. Hacen un turno regular, tal vez una hora a la semana todas las semanas o dos horas cada dos semanas", dijo Kane. "Depende de la organización. El otro es eventos únicos, por lo que pueden ir y trabajar tres horas en un sábado ... Dentro de esas dos categorías, en los compromisos del semestre tenemos una asociación con el Consulado de México".

Sus programas de alcance comunitario tienen un alcance diverso dentro de la comunidad de habla hispana de Raleigh, ayudando en varios programas en el Triángulo.

"Tenemos la Clínica de Puertas Abiertas de los Ministerios Urbanos, que es una clínica de salud gratuita para residentes de bajos ingresos de Raleigh", dijo Kane. "Entonces, no todos sus pacientes hablan español, pero sí muchos. Los estudiantes irán allí y trabajarán en la recepción y cuando las personas entren, los registren y se aseguren de que tengan una cita. Harán llamadas telefónicas a confirmar las citas; podrían hacer la entrevista inicial con los pacientes para establecer que son elegibles para recibir atención médica gratuita o reducida ".

Si bien no existen pautas estrictas para unirse a VOLAR, sí piden cierto nivel de competencia en español para ayudar con el trabajo voluntario en su comunidad.

"Así que nuestros requisitos son que deban estar en español 202 o superior o tener el mismo nivel de competencia", dijo Kane. "Ese curso es solo una manera fácil de saber más o menos dónde están con el idioma, pero si es alguien que es orador nativo o nativo o han vivido [hablado el idioma] y no tienen necesariamente los cursos, damos la bienvenida a su participación ".

Kane sugiere que cualquier persona que desee unirse debe asistir a sus reuniones al comienzo de cada semestre.

"Simplemente tenemos una gran reunión al comienzo de cada semestre, y ahí es donde organizamos todas las diferentes actividades que se ofrecen ese semestre y los estudiantes pueden inscribirse", dijo Kane. "Tendremos orientaciones por lo general para esas asociaciones de un semestre, hay algo de capacitación y cosas por el estilo".

Emily Sands, profesora de lengua y literatura españolas, es asistente de VOLAR. Sands cree que unirse a VOLAR ayuda a reforzar la aptitud de un estudiante para aprender español y su deseo de hacerlo.

"Recibo comentarios de los estudiantes que la exposición les da más confianza en el uso del idioma y están expuestos a más áreas en las que se puede usar", dijo Sands. "Si las organizaciones con las que ya trabajamos u otras organizaciones pueden ver esa relación positiva, entonces podrían generar más oportunidades o podrían encontrar más formas en las que podamos involucrar a los estudiantes en las cosas".

VOLAR es una oportunidad para comprender mejor la cultura de habla hispana, aprender español y ver los efectos que el mundo real y las decisiones tienen en esa comunidad.

"Pero de lo que no se dan cuenta a menudo son los otros beneficios secundarios, la exposición cultural, como ir al Consulado de México y ser el único no mexicano que hay por la hora que estás allí", dijo Kane.

What's New At The 2019 South Beach Wine And Food Festival?

A defining feature of the last century was that most jobs were relatively clear cut (banker, electrician, teacher, etc). In our own time, however, people increasingly have careers that are underscored by a theme. In this respect, Sam Seidel is most certainly a 21st century kind of guy.

After splitting his time between studying at Brown University and teaching inmates at a nearby prison, Seidel has worked on everything from building the Student Experience Lab at the Business Innovation Factory to writing and publishing his first book Hip Hop Genius: Remixing Public Education. He now serves as the Director of K12 Strategy + Research at the Stanford D.School. At the root of all his endeavors is his fervent belief that if we can address the structural flaws in the way we educate people, we can also mitigate a lot of our other biggest problems.

To advance his mission, Seidel is notoriously willing to experiment with whatever tools, practices, and disciplines he encounters. I recently had the chance to sit down and talk with him about both the deeply entrenched problems and unparalleled opportunities involved in the adventure of reshaping modern education. If you’re involved in a business that ever requires that you attack seemingly intractable problems, pay close attention.

Michael Schein: The Stanford D.School is not the first place that comes to mind when I think about education. What made you join them?

Sam Seidel: The D.School is best known for teaching design thinking and helping build creative confidence in all kinds of different fields. While design thinking has been applied to products including everything from the Apple mouse to better toothbrushes, it can also be used to rethink schools and social systems. There are some serious structural problems with education and so the D.School seemed like the right place to tackle these problems creatively. My colleagues and I believe that applying the design thinking approach can be used to make real progress in improving education in quite a few different ways.

The Truth About Fat by Anthony Warner review – what the Angry Chef hates

I never quite knew what the word "sophistry" meant, until I read this book. I had a vague idea that it was something to do with making a false argument. But I looked the word up and saw that this wasn't quite right. Sophistry means the clever use of arguments that seem true. In Chaucer's time, it used to mean cunning, or craft. The original ancient Greek sophists were people, according to Plato, who were virtuoso athletes of words. Above all, sophists are plausible. That's what makes them so dangerous.

This is what came to mind reading the latest screed by Anthony Warner, who worked for many years at Premier Foods, one of the biggest food companies in Britain, which manufactures Mr Kipling cakes, Angel Delight desserts and Batchelors Super Noodles, among many other branded processed foods. Ten years ago, the Belfast Telegraph described Warner as TV presenter Loyd Grossman's "Italian development chef" because Warner was the person who helped Grossman develop his own-brand pasta sauces. But that was before Warner transmogrified into "The Angry Chef", the name of an expletive-ridden blog that he started writing in 2016 "exposing lies, pretension and stupidity in the world of food". He could have called himself "The Angry Consultant to the Food Industry" but it wouldn't have had quite the same ring.

To begin with, many in food writing circles considered Warner a breath of fresh air. I was one of them, going so far as to write a blurb for the book, welcoming it as a "bracing and funny tirade against the nonsense and harm done by food fads". I liked the way he skewered the quackery of alkaline diets and the absurd overuse of coconut oil and other so-called superfoods. I knew that Warner worked for the food industry, but I didn't feel that this had an undue impact on his arguments. Maybe there was an element of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" in my liking for Warner's writing. Over the course of my life, too many people close to me have developed eating disorders and when Warner attacked the restrictive rules and "nutribollocks" of the clean eating trend, his anger seemed righteous.

Batavia High Spanish teacher soothes anxiety, mixes culture

Learning anything new can be discouraging and frustrating -- or sometimes downright intimidating.

Especially if there's a chance your peers' eyes and ears will all bear direct witness to your gaffe.

Carissa Blough, a 20-year Spanish teacher at Batavia High School, is acutely aware of this and shows her students a poster above her desk that reads: "un LUGAR SEGURO para hacer errores."

Translated from Spanish, it means "A safe place to make mistakes," and it is Blough's way of helping muffle some of the anxiety students may feel when pronouncing a new word or forming a sentence and setting the tone for learning a new language, while incorporating cultural elements as well.

"It's totally natural in life to make mistakes. It's what you do with it. That's how you're going to learn," said Blough, 45, who lives with her husband, Ed, and four daughters in the South suburb of Beverly.

"I have such wonderful kids here. I don't think I'd be coming here if I didn't love my job, or Batavia in general," she added.

Blough's mom and aunt were both teachers, and she knew in elementary school that would be her career path.

As a student at Downers Grove South High School, learning language came easy to her and her interest was piqued in a high school Spanish class.

"I didn't know what I wanted to teach until I took Spanish in high school. They made learning really fun," Blough recalled.

Part of the fun is inspiring students to get out of their comfort zones and be free from judgment. After all, an expert in one field began as a novice.

"The challenge is getting them to be willing to speak out loud in class," Blough said, noting she wants pupils to get over that fear of making a mistake in pronouncing a word or a grammatical mistake in a sentence.

"Everyone's in the same boat. Everyone is trying it for the first time.

Blough's energy, approach and dedication have earned her the respect and praise of her peers.

"Carissa is a committed teacher that truly embodies our district mission of 'Always Learning. Always Growing,'" said Batavia High School Principal Dr. JoAnne Smith.

"She is always trying to become the best teacher and teacher leader through professional development and learning from her peers. Our students and staff are so lucky to have her at BHS."

Memorizing verbs and learning to roll one's tongue -- a necessary skill to pronounce some words -- are just part of Blough's curriculum.

She tries to introduce students to cultural aspects of Spain, Mexico and other areas of Central and South America.

For example, students on Nov. 2 decorated small skulls made of sugar as part of the Mexican celebration of Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, which honors the memory of deceased loved ones.

"We do try to teach a lot of culture too, to widen their perspective," said Blough, who has plastic molds she uses to make the skulls herself. "I try to make it fun."

Most students have smartphones, and every pupil at Batavia High School is issued a Chromebook laptop computer. Blough has students use the free language learning app called Duolingo to supplement their lessons, often listening to audio of another speaker rather than just Blough.

"We use technology to enhance what we're learning," Blough said.

Blough and her colleagues are in the midst of revisiting the Spanish curriculum and deciding what to update.

In early November, it was a trip to Bolingbrook High School to observe classes there and discuss afterward.

"We have a very collaborative department. I think that helps because we're relatively small compared to an English department, where you could have 20 teachers," Blough said.