99 Percent Invisible: Froebel’s Gifts

In the late 1700s, a young man named Freidrich Froebel was on track to become an architect when a friend convinced him to pursue a path toward education instead. And in changing course, Froebel arguably ended up having more influence on the world of architecture and design than any single architect — all because Friedrich Froebel created kindergarten. If you’ve ever looked at a piece of abstract art or Modernist architecture and thought “my kindergartener could have made that,” well, that may be more true than you realize. [...]

Among other things, Froebel realized he wanted kids to go beyond just drawing lines on pages — he wanted them to learn through the physical manipulation of objects. “Pestalozzi was especially busy with breaking down the two dimensional world,” explains Tamar Zinguer, author of Architecture in Play, “but what Froebel did is break down the three dimensional world.” Specifically, Froebel wanted children to play with educational toys, which was a fairly unusual notion in the early 1800s. Yet it was Froebel’s experiences outside of childhood education that would ultimately lead him to determine the shape and function of these toys. [...]

Froebel’s Gifts were meant to be given in a particular order, growing more complex over time and teaching different lessons about shape, structure and perception along the way. A soft knitted ball could be given to a child just six weeks old, followed by a wooden ball and then a cube, illustrating similarities and differences in shapes and materials. Then kids would get a cylinder (which combines elements of both the ball and the cube) and it would blow their little minds. Some objects were pierced by strings or rods so kids could spin them and see how one shapes morphs into another when set into motion. Later came cubes made up of smaller cubes and other hybrids, showing children how parts relate to a whole through deconstruction and reassembly.

read the article or listen to the podcast

The Guardian - Politics Weekly: New politics and the far right

With the traditional two-party system in deadlock over Brexit, new political forces are emerging to challenge the status quo.

The first battleground looks likely to be the European elections next month, where the Independent Group and Nigel Farage’s Brexit party will be slugging it out alongside the usual suspects.

How will the newcomers fare?

Joining Rowena Mason to discuss these issues are Ellie Mae O’Hagan from the Guardian, Katy Balls from the Spectator, and Matthew Goodwin, co-author of National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy.

Also this week: with David Lammy comparing the European Research Group to the Nazis, we take a look at how politics shifted to the right.

listen to the podcast

Aeon: Why mothers of tweens – not babies – are the most depressed

We studied more than 2,200 mostly well-educated mothers with children ranging from infants to adults, and examined multiple aspects of mothers’ personal wellbeing, parenting and perceptions of their children. Our findings show an inverted-V shape in feelings of stress and depression, with mothers of middle-school children (‘tweens’ aged 11 or 12) consistently faring the most poorly, and mothers of infants and adult children doing the best. [...]

Mothers are essentially the ‘first responders’ to children’s distress, and now they must figure out how best to offer comfort and reassurance, as the old ways – hugs, loving words and bedtime stories – no longer work. They also have to walk a very fine line in setting limits. Decisions about what to allow and where to draw the line bring confusion and even fearfulness. We want our children to talk to us about everything and to be supportive, but worry about how to do that without seeming to condone bad or dangerous stuff. Even for confident mothers, it’s a time of second-guessing ourselves, worrying about whether we made the right judgment calls, and feeling guilty about the firm stands that we do take. [...]

A central take-home message from our findings is that the big ‘separation’ from offspring, the one that really hurts, comes not when children leave the nest literally, but when they do this psychologically – in their complex strivings to become grown-ups, in their tweens.

read the article or listen to the podcast

What's So Great About That?: Kondo-Culture: The Fall of the House of 'Stuff'

The recent decline of objects goes beyond decluttering, so why are we suddenly so keen on getting rid of things? And what role do objects play in our increasingly digital world? This essay follows the rise and fall of 'stuff', through art, philosophy and Marie Kondo.

Financial Times: What's wrong with Great Britain?

The FT's chief economics commentator Martin Wolf says the UK is facing six interlocking crises, from stagnant living standards to a lack of political leadership.

Associated Press: United Methodists edge toward breakup over LGBT policies

The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal called the Traditional Plan, which strengthens bans on LGBT-inclusive practices. A majority of U.S.-based delegates opposed that plan and favored LGBT-friendly options, but they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines. [...]

Some churches have raised rainbow flags in a show of LGBT solidarity. Some pastors have vowed to defy the strict rules and continue to allow gay weddings in Methodist churches. Churches are withholding dues payments to the main office in protest, and the UMC’s receipts were down 20 percent in March, according to financial reports posted online. [...]

The UMC’s largest church — the 22,000-member Church of the Resurrection with four locations in the Kansas City area — is among those applying financial pressure. Its lead pastor, Adam Hamilton, says his church is temporarily withholding half of the $2.5 million that it normally would have paid to the UMC’s head office at this stage of the year. [...]

Traditional Plan supporter Mark Tooley, who heads a conservative Christian think tank, predicts that the UMC will split into three denominations — one for centrists, another oriented toward liberal activists and a third representing the global alliance of U.S. conservatives and their allies overseas.

read the article

Vox: Democrats’ impeachment dilemma, explained

Pursuing articles of impeachment against Trump would be politically explosive. Democrats know the Republican-led Senate under Mitch McConnell won’t take the next step after impeachment — a trial in the Senate — and they doubt the public would support them. In March, just 36 percent of voters polled by CNN supported impeachment. That number dropped to 34 percent after the Mueller report’s release, according to a Morning Consult poll released Monday. [...]

On one side, there’s a handful of Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ilhan Omar (MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Al Green (TX), and Steve Cohen (TN), who have been vocal about their belief that Trump is unfit for office. Many of them have signed on to articles of impeachment. On the other side, a number of moderate Democrats believe impeachment is a distraction from issues like infrastructure and health care — the very things that got them to a Democratic majority in the first place. And then there’s a bunch of people in the middle who aren’t ruling out impeachment but want more information before they make a decision. [...]

Even Democrats skeptical of impeachment took notice of the 10 specific episodes in which Mueller investigated Trump for obstruction of justice. Part of Mueller’s reason for not charging Trump himself was clearly the Justice Department’s longstanding practice not to indict a sitting president. Instead, Mueller wrote that Congress gets to decide what happens next. [...]

Even though Trump’s 40 percent public approval rating is extremely low, Pelosi and the majority of her caucus only want to move toward impeachment if there’s something so bad that Republicans can also get on board. They remember when Republicans who impeached President Bill Clinton in the 1990s reaped the political consequences in the 1998 midterms, when they lost seats in the House and made few gains in the Senate. Historians later concluded that backlash against Republicans for Clinton’s impeachment resulted in the GOP’s weak showing in the midterms.

read the article

Politico: 6 takeaways from Ukraine’s presidential vote

It’s not a clean break — these kinds of divisions don't tend to be. But previous candidates have successfully exploited this split: Yanukovych owed his surprise victory in the 2006 parliamentary election to a large degree by playing on the resentment felt by those in the Russian-speaking south and east toward western and central Ukrainians. [...]

But this time, the strategy failed: The electoral map shows green representing support for Zelenskiy — a Russian speaker — stretching across regional and linguistic boundaries. [...]

And Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists are typically an anemic presence at the polls. Ruslan Koshulynsky, a joint candidate from far-right parties, won only 2.2 percent in the first round of this election. [...]

It would be wrong to say the idea of aligning Ukraine with Russia couldn't be revived in the future, or that there are no Moscow-friendly politicians. But the pro-Russian camp at the moment remains weak, divided and without a strong leader.

read the article

IFLScience: You Could Soon Turn Yourself Into Compost In The USA

Washington is looking to become the first state in the US to allow “natural organic reduction”, an alternative burial method that can turn a human body into compost in a matter of weeks. [...]

Recompose, a Seattle-based public-benefit corporation, has been working with lawmakers and scientists in the hopes of providing the service, should the bill make its way into law. Their method of natural organic reduction essentially gives the natural process of decomposition a gentle boost. Bodies are put in a temperature-controlled rotating vessel along with some woodchips, straw, and gases. After the process is completed, a cubic yard of soil per person is left, which loved ones can then take home to grow a tree or a plant from if they so wish. [...]

Recompose, a Seattle-based public-benefit corporation, has been working with lawmakers and scientists in the hopes of providing the service, should the bill make its way into law. Their method of natural organic reduction essentially gives the natural process of decomposition a gentle boost. Bodies are put in a temperature-controlled rotating vessel along with some woodchips, straw, and gases. After the process is completed, a cubic yard of soil per person is left, which loved ones can then take home to grow a tree or a plant from if they so wish.

read the article