ROR Magazine Fall 2022

PUBLISHER

Thomas Schenck, President Dartmouth Associates

EDITOR Rhodora O

COVER & CREATIVE DIRECTION Hagan Schenck

ART DIRECTION Rhodora O

PROOFREADING

Jessey Mills APPROACH US: Website: www.dartmouthassociates.com

Facebook: RORMagazine LinkedIn: DartmouthAssociates

CONTRIBUTE/ COLLABORATE: rhodora.jabs@yahoo.com

ADVERTISE: dartmouthassociates@gmail.com

SUBSCRIBE: rormagazine.com

THE ROR PHILOSOPHY: Interventional Playbook ROR Podcast

Disclaimer:

ROR Magazine will not be held liable for any contents of the magazine attributed to a particular contributor/ creator. This applies to advertisements. The contributor will be liable for any copyright claims. Details behind the back cover.

Publication in the magazine does not imply endorsement by anyone connected to the ROR Magazine, or Dartmouth Associates, with the views and opinions expressed in the published material.

Copyrights:

No part of this magazine may be copied, reused or redistributed in any form. This copyright notice does not apply to images noted as Stock Photos or credited to photographers/ sources placing their work for royalty-free re-use on Unsplash, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons and other Stock websites.

See detailed TERMS & CONDITIONS at the backend of the magazine.

Print Edition to be announced soon.

Meet the Team

Meet the Team

Founder/CEO/President/Publisher

Founder/CEO/President/Publisher

Founder/CEO/President/Publisher

Dartmouth Associates and ROR Magazine, A Division of Schenck Enterprises Corporation

Dartmouth Associates and ROR Magazine, A Division of Schenck Enterprises Corporation

Dartmouth

Associates and ROR Magazine, A Division of Schenck Enterprises Corporation

Tom founded Schenck Enterprises Corporation in 2020 and creat ed Dartmouth Associates as a global consulting, training and pro motional company that empowers independent schools and col leges. Other than issuing the ROR Magazine, the first of its kind lifestyle publication for Admissions Professionals, there are plenty of well-established offerings by the company. Our flagship product is ROR, The Results Oriented Recruiting System™, the world’s first sales Training Curriculum curated exclusively for Admission Pro fessionals. We also develop national technology summits and pro motional podcasts, giving key admissions leaders precious airtime. Additionally, Tom has pioneered the concept of “Dynamic Brand Enthusiasm” that introduces best-in class vendors to schools and colleges.

Tom founded Schenck Enterprises Corporation in 2020 and created Dartmouth Associates as a global consulting, training and promotional company that empowers independent schools and colleges. Other than issuing the ROR Magazine, the first of its kind lifestyle publication for Admissions Professionals, there are plenty of well-established offerings by the company. Our flagship product is ROR, The Results Oriented Recruiting System world’s first sales Training Curriculum curated exclusively for Admission Professionals. We also develop national technology summits and promotional podcasts, giving key admissions leaders precious airtime. Additionally, Tom has pioneered the concept of “Dynamic Brand Enthusiasm” that introduces best-in class

Tom founded Schenck Enterprises Corporation in 2020 and created Dartmouth Associates as a global consulting, training and promotional company that empowers independent schools and colleges. Other than issuing the ROR Magazine, the first of its kind lifestyle publication for Admissions Professionals, there are plenty of well-established offerings by the company. Our flagship product is ROR, The Results Oriented Recruiting System world’s first sales Training Curriculum curated exclusively for Admission Professionals. We also develop national technology summits and promotional podcasts, giving key admissions leaders precious airtime. Additionally, Tom has pioneered the concept of “Dynamic Brand Enthusiasm” that introduces best-in class vendors to schools and colleges.

For 25 years, previously, Thomas held leadership positions such as Head of School, and Director of Admissions, Development, and Placement. He was a also founding trustee for Sisu Academy, a tuition-free school that promoted entrepreneurship to underpriv ileged students. He established Villain Crusher Marketing helping early-stage entrepreneurs find venture capital. While providing his various services, Thomas attained Presidents Club status and the top 1% national sales position for Yellow Book Media. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State Univer sity and a master’s degree in Utopian Philosophy from Dartmouth College. As the first actor to portray Spider-Man for Marvel Comics in New York City, he has highly developed skills for vanquishing evil!

For 25 years, previously, Thomas held leadership positions such as Head of School, and Director of Admissions, Development, and Placement. He was a also founding trustee for Sisu Academy, a tuition-free school that promoted entrepreneurship to underprivileged students. He established Villain Crusher Marketing helping early-stage entrepreneurs find venture capital. While providing his various services, Thomas attained Presidents Club status and the top 1% national sales position for Yellow Book Media. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and a master’s degree in Utopian Philosophy from Dartmouth College. As the first actor to portray Spider-Man for Marvel Comics in New York City, he has highly developed skills for vanquishing evil!

Thomas Schenck

Sadat Jabeen aka Rhodora O

CHIEF EDITOR & DIRECTOR

After her M.Sc. in Psychology, Rhodora was in the middle of postgraduate studies in Educational Psychology, when she had to settle for a freelance career for the sake of her family. She helps fiction and nonfiction authors through most of the stages of self-publishing, mentors manuscripts, and lays out final drafts in attractive book formats. She has helped many entre preneurs, non-profit projects, self-help gurus, and self-publishing authors and poets translate their visions on page. Rhodora is a writer herself and dabbles in short stories, poetry, screenplays and essays exploring the interface of technology and society.

As a POC, at-home mom, Rhodora envisions the ROR Magazine as a spring board for highlighting challenges, obstacles and achievements of indepen dent schools admission professionals, while creating a flagship reading mix of lifestyle and culture.

Ceci Guzman

ASSISSTANT TO THE CEO

Like the rest of the team, Ceci brings an entrepreneurial approach and eclectic and dynamic mix of talents and passions to the job. Being in credibly organized (she even loves color coding for fun), her chief role is to essentially help organize Mr. Schenck’s professional life to make sure that his time is best spent on 10,000 ft tasks and out of the weeds, as he manage the company’s explosive growth. Additionally, she will work on special projects as they are needed.

Meet the Team

Besides her role at Dartmouth Associates, Ceci stays focused in the gym with her powerlifting routines. She loves anything outdoors and never turns down a new place to hike. She continues to challenge herself by learning coding in her spare time. One fun fact about her is that when she was little she wanted to race for Nascar and that passion remains as she tries to keep her muscle car under 100 mph.

Founder/CEO/President/Publisher

Dartmouth Associates and ROR Magazine, A Division of Schenck Enterprises Corporation

Tom founded Schenck Enterprises Corporation in 2020 and created Dartmouth Associates as a global consulting, training and promotional company that empowers independent schools and colleges. Other than issuing the ROR Magazine, the first of its kind lifestyle publication for Admissions Professionals, there are plenty

Digital Admen, Inc. is a full service Internet marketing agency that was founded in 2015 by Anton Siler, who is a rising star in the digital marketing industry. Anton was personally groomed by one of the world’s leading online

a more holistic approach to digital marketing.

Anton Siler

Hagan Schenck

VICE PRESIDENT AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

FOR WORLD BRANDING

He supervises all critical brand visual and content aesthetics for both ROR Publications as well as the universe of Schenck Enterprises including Dartmouth Associates Family of Services, such as ROR Training, ROR Con sulting and ROR Promotions. He also reviews and stabilizes the aesthetic consistency of websites, social media, and all collateral promotional cam paigns.

A New York trained artist and entrepreneur, he has contributed his tal ents to a broad range of creative and business endeavors including The Aware Wolf Collective, a branding and promotional agency, as well as de veloping a motivational and fitness system that promotes the All I Know Is Go training system.

Chiranjeeve Dutt

CHIEF PRODUCT AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

A digital marketing expert, Chiranjeev oversees all areas of Schenck Enterprises global technology, strategy, marketing campaigns, prod uct development, including product management, UX design and en gineering. He brings extensive experience in building direct to con sumer platforms and associated products and services for the digital economy.

Previously, his company, Dutt Media, designed dynamic marketing campaigns, consistently increasing client online revenue. He holds a BBA and MBA in Marketing and Finance.

Trey Pray

DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL MEDIA AND OUTREACH

Trey manages the production of the ROR Magazine aligned podcast, the Admissions Entrepreneur, A Day in the Life, across all audio and visual platforms. He has created a ground-breaking podcasting system allowing our admission professionals to be featured in sound and print around the world.

Previously he founded Hype Music Network in 2013 with the start of his first podcast “The G-List Show.” Trey set out to give musicians and up & coming creatives and entrepreneurs an opportunity to share their talent globally, all the while creating high-quality content.

As a head of school and successful educator with over 30 years of experience, one of my greatest joys was feeling the renaissance of fall. In most places the leaves change, there will be new students and faculty members on campus for the first time, innovative programs would be enacted and the thrill of new things to come would rise as returning students arrived with their suitcases and parents in tow. Most other professionals don’t have this rebirth moment... we do! As ROR Magazine unveils our second-year fall edition, we have so much to be grateful. Our team has the chance to bring you writings that will enhance your personal and professional lives as you once again improve the lives of your students. We all have so much to be grateful for!

So as we embark on our new fall adventure… let’s take stock in the blessings we have today, right in front of us. Not tomorrow but today, as that is really all that we can count on, and to appreciate those people in our lives. That said, as tactile human beings, we appreciate the human experience…hearing a laugh, seeing a smile, receiving an in-person compliment from another. One of the greatest human experiences between two people is a hug…a physical connection. Children do it naturally…they put their whole body into it. But as we grow older we become too reticent to really lean in to our hugs.

About three years ago I was reminded of the importance of real hugs, not the weird, sideways “bro hugs” but a body to body embrace. I was at a conference walking from vendor to vendor and I was chatting with a gentleman. After a few words he said, “Can I give you a hug?” and I said: “Sure… I am from a big family; we hugged all the time.” So he gave me a great, full hug. Lonnie remains a friend of mine to this day. He is a multifaceted artist who is writing a column on art for our magazine, and he will be a collaborator on a new magazine project, Red Chalk, that exalts innovative artists across the world.

Lastly, let’s also keep in mind that we desire to be loved, but specifically being told that we are loved. So next time you are with someone you love…look them in the eyes and say, “I love you.”

The throw away line, “love ya” does not cut it. I am proud to say that my wife started our family culture of saying ‘I love you,’ hugging, and kissing each other throughout the day. To this day, our sons, 6’3” and 6’2,” will grab Nancy or me and give us a big hug and kiss as they tell us they love us…it is a legacy they will bring to their families as well.

Again, thank you for being a part of the ROR Family as readers, contributors, and advertisers. We welcome your input on all levels that will make us an even more dynamic publication. On behalf of our team, we wish you safe travels throughout your life as you give hugs and love along the way!

Thomas Schenck

Edi ialtor

As we observe the passing march of Time, it is difficult to escape the feelings that once a war starts -- a war on a country, a war on a civil right, a war on a democracy, it just never seems to end. The work of the observer is to protest, educated, aspire, prepare, and propel towards the swing of the pendulum to the other side. To peace, to tolerance, to autonomy of nations, and to disseminaation of everyone’s culture in a respectful manner, without coercion, discrimination and neglect.

At the ROR Magazine, we do this work by inviting stories from the other side.

American author Cindy recounts the history of the Wounded Knee Memorial Site, a place that was finally returned to the Native American tribes to whom it should have always belonged, after decades of struggle.

We place the passing of Queen Elixabeth II in perspective, by inviting Irish author David Brerty to related Ireland’s story since before and during the Queen’s time. He gives an admirably fair assessment of the history and the late Queen’s personal role in it. Similarly, Pakistani art writer Mahvish Aslam overviews historic objects that represent the heritage of the colonies of the British Empire. Every object is a lesson of colonial usurpation and subjugation of a foregin soveriegn’s nation.

It is our firm belief that celebration of the pinnacle of one culture cannot come at the cost of brushing aside of voices and faces who bore the brunt of that culture’s successes.

We continue our custom of valuing the traditional with the novel and forward as always. Andrew Colquhoun from GMETAone elucidates with great clarity exactly how the metaverse, a special internet experience relying on tools creating virtual reality and augmented reality, whill play a role in the future of education and work. The article proves a good complement to David Brearty’s piece on the post-pandemic trends in education. Our departments ROR Scoop and ROR Researchwatch support Brearty’s writing with news and research findings from home and abroad showing how educational institutes around the world are integrating e-learning methodologies in traditional education systems.

Megan Pugliese writes rousingly on her gardening adventures this fall with an eye on the coming spring. Dr. Tutul enlightens us about the key principles and advantages of a keto diet, leaving us a wholesome weekly plan for good measure. We continue to celebrate diversity and universality in art and thought by including original artistic expressions from Pakistan, and craftful cartoon commentary from Venzuela and Algeria. Kim Pinnelli returns with a treasure trove of useful information for our patrons preparing to invest their savings in useful and meaningful ways. ROR Season captures the colors of autumn from around the world and even from space!

There is so much to showcase and celebrate among the peoples and heritages of the world, that we remain in awe of what we are unable to cover each issue. The endeavor continues.

Rhodora O

6th November, 2022.

Our Contributers

has a background in Gender and develop ment studies as well as a bachelor’s in psychol ogy. She is a seasoned freelancer in research and essay writing, and offers her services on Fiverr @ cindy_essay.

CindyAndrew Colquhoun

is part of a global team who bring cryptocurrency and metaverse projects to life. Lately, he has been heading up Gmeta One: a vast metaverse project encompassing real estate, gaming, NFT’s through forming a bridge to other metaverse projects. Andrew provides high quality marketing and instructional videos, in ad dition to content and presenting for the project.

Dr. Tutul

is a graduated doctor and has been working as a nutri tionist in Fiverr marketplace and outside as well for 8 long years. She has received starred reviews in customiz ing various meal plans on client’s demand and writing keto books.

Rosemary Sanchez

has had a lifetime love affair with Larimar gemstones. Her family history is tied to the discovery of the gemstone’s mines in Dominican Republic. She makes and sells her own jewelry using the stones and now her daughter is carrying the torch forward.

Kim Pinnelli

has been a professional financial writer for over 15 years, and has appeared in many industry leading financial media outlets. Kim has a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Chica go and loves helping people make sense out of their personal finances.

David McBrearty

is a historical researcher, palaeographer and author who has taught early modern history and manuscript studies at third level. He has published widely and edit ed early modern manuscript material for publication for several academic presses and government bodies. His interests largely lie in modern European and American history, with an emphasis on state structures and polit ical theory. He is based in Ireland.

Megan Pugliese

is a Software Developer by day. She moonlights as a content writer in her spare time. Special interests include reading, gemology and lapidary work, jew elry fabrication, and video games. If given a choice, she would reincarnate as a dinosaur.

Mehvish Aslam

Mahvish received her M.A. in Linguistics from Allama Iqbal University in 2012. Since then she has been a consistent writer on a variety of topics ranging from gender dis crimination to modern and ancient art and culture. You can find her on Fiverr @meh vishaslam

‘Ornamental Iron’, by Gilbert Sackerman, watercolour, 1936. Public Domain. Rather Good Art; via Henry Rothwell on Twitter.

Gary Lee Todd

a professor of History at Sias International University in Xinzheng, Henan, China, since 2005. He teaches British and American His tory classes to Chinese students and Chi nese History to International students. He also teaches an occasional elective course in Ancient World History and gives regular lectures on Ancient Mesoamerica. He has a Ph.D. in History (American & Chinese) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Gary indexes his collection of over 162,000 photos at worldhistorypics.weebly.com. The photos were taken mainly at museums and historic sites. All photos are posted at full resolution without any stock photo wa termarks and may be used by anybody for any sort of educational purposes without charge.

Luis González

is a 34 year old cartoonist from Venezuela. Through his drawings he has been able to cope with the deep problems of living there. He has loved drawing cartoons since he can remember and he really likes what he does. Luis is a prowrestling fan and also specializes in wrestling cartoons. Professionally, he is an expert in editorial, po litical, fanart, vector design, and comics.

Tiffour Ismail

is a 29-years-old artist from Algeria. He graduated from the Higher School of Arts in 2018, specializing in graphic design. He works as a freelancer. You can check out his work on Instagram @ismail_comix and @ismail_dzillustratin. He also sells NFT art on OpenSea and promotes it on his Twit ter @ismail_tifour

Mahnoor Nadeem

is doing a Bachelors in Com puter Science and loves to practice her art every week. She has been painting with acrylics and watercolors for the past two years. She aspires to take up gauche and oil as well and is learning Arabic cal ligraphy to expand her skills. You can check out her work on Instagram @estetik.noor

Milagros Nieto Moreno

is a Venezuelan cartoonist who lives in Ar gentina. For many years, she has worked as an illustrator in several local newspapers cre ating satirical cartoons.

Mahrukh Nadeem

is doing a Bachelors in Computer Sci ence. She started exploring her art with acrylics and also loves to work with oils, pastels, and water colors. She is excited to discover her art in gauche medium. She aspires to use her skills in starting her own business. Find her artwork on Instagram @kolorvalley.

Hina Afreen

has an M.Sc. in Psychology which she recently supplemented with a post-graduate diploma in Autism and Behavior Science. She works with the Durham Catholic School Board as an educator. With her active field place ment with Lake Ridge Community Health Services Thunder Bay, ON in Canada, she has ample opportunity to utilize her Applied Behavior Analy sis and Intense Behavior Intervention skillset. Other than that, she also holds an acumen and passion for landscape and cityscape photography.

Alfred Derks

is a freelance photographer who prides in only taking pictures he loves. He avails a lot of his work for free on various phtosharing platforms includ ing Pixabay and Flickr. He also enjoys digital photography with all its possi bilities. He is based in Bedgburg-Hau, Kleve, Germany.

Dr. David Elliott

is an Associate Professor in Microbial Economy at the University of Derby. He did his PhD in Microbiology and is a Chartered Biologist and a Fellow of the Higher Ed ucation Academy. He loves exploring nature and tech nology especially close-up. He believes there are hidden vistas everywhere, you just need to look. For his photog raphy, he mostly uses Micro 43 including Panasonic GX1 and Olympus 60mm macro. Editing done in Lightroom; he tries to keep a realistic ap pearance.

Rene Rauschenberger

is a photographer based in Argeliers, France. She is not only a great photographer, but she also com bines digital techniques to create great and unique effects in her photos. She has availed some of her work on Pixabay. Her unique photography is consis tently in use by major blogs and websites around the world such as Psychology Today.

Peter Hermann

loves to explore urban landscapes, architecture, and abandoned places through his camera lens. He generously shares his work on several prominent platforms such as Pixabay, Unsplash, and Insta gram. His repertoire of stills is huge, breathtaking, and aweinspiring.

Featured Artists

Sunset

Silhouettes

BY RENE RAUSCHENBERGER

Official Movie Posters.

Left. Netflix.

Opposite. PBS. Holocaust Painting, P. 25, by Ovidiuswiki, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0

DOWNFALL: The Case Against Boeing

Rory Kennedy

wanted to document the story of two Boeing plane crashes, one in Jakarta, Malaysia in 2018, and the other, in only five months, in the Ethiopian Airlines. Both planes that crashed were 737 Max Boeings, a recently refurbished 737 model. After both accidents, the Boeing company avoided accepting responsibility and blamed the pilot mistakes.

This is what caught Kennedy’s attention and she decided to bring to life the real-life story of the subsequent investigations and discov ery of the company’s failures. The surprising thing about these crashes was not just that the planes were Boeing. Their flight patterns were also similar, and both crashes happened right after taking off, together taking nearly 400 lives of passengers and crew.

What stands out to Rory is the crash inves tigation report that came out after the Jakar ta incident. Both the US Federal Aviation In vestigation (FAA) and Boeing knew that 737 Max had 15 times higher chances of a crash in its lifetime. Given the number of planes ap proved to fly and their flight frequencies, this amounts to a fatal crash every two years.

The report basically proved that both the company and the authority had criminally pri oritized business over safety of the travellers.

This insipred Rory to stick with the story to unearth every falsehood, recklessness, and ir responsibility that led to the crashes.

While the FAA failed to take action, many countries grounded the 737 Max after the sec ond catastrophe. This at last prompted an indepth government investigation into Boeing’s responsibility for the crash. Investigators found that a repositioning of a newer, higher-per forming engine on the wings was to blame. An automated Maneuvering Characteristics Aug mentation System (MCAS) was developed to adjust flight paths to the position and weight of the new engine. The MCAS caused the nose of the plant to dive towards the earth after take-off, something that pilots desperately tried to control and failed in both crashes.

In its bid to avoid any loss of profits, Boeing failed to inform, let alone train, airlines of the MCAS and its shortcomings. The pilots could have turned it off, but they were not aware of the existence and operation of its system and no one taught them how to switch it off. In letting these planes fly under such condi tions, Boeing was banking that nothing would happen while it fixed the shortcomings of the MCAS.

The movie is a reminder of corporate decisions falling on the side of profits and the loss of trust in high-risk transportation.

The U.S. and The Holocaust

Ken Burns

is a veteran, 69-year-old documentarian of American iconography who has chosen to examine the Holocaust with an unusu al angle. He wants to answer the question: how did the US officials and people react to the events of the holocaust while they were still unfolding in Nazi Germany before WWII. The premise of the documenta ry seems to be: while the Americans were of course not complicit in Hitler’s atrocities, their reactions and attitudes at the time were laced with a shocking level of racism and anti-semitism.

The documentary premiered in a 3-epi sode on PBS. Burns choses to begin with Anne Frank and her family in 1934 when they were planning to escape to America, only to learn that the US immigration system had no intention of processing their paperwork. From there, Burns first explores the lengthy history of anti-immigrant fears and prevalent anti-semitism of this country.

Burns reminds the US that their own homegrown, rampant racism was a ma jor source of inspiration for Hitler and his followers. It was the US Jim Crow laws in the South that Hitler’s Nazi advisers con sidered worthy of emulating in their Semi tism-free society.

Next, the spotlight falls on the now de rided Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. The act made sure that immigration visa approvals matched racial origins of the existing US

Exclusion of people, and shutting them out, has been as American as apple pie.

Historian, PETER HAYES

population and banned entry to all nationalities not represented in the US population. This began a wave of Anti-Asian racism and a diminished rate of approvals for Southern and Eastern Eu ropeans. A focal point of the movie is the turning away of M. S. St.Louis at the port of Miami in 1939, containing Jewish refugees from Nazi atroc ities.

New Yorker critic, James McAuley, points out a flaw in the movie — that of skipping the self-serv ing usurping of the Holocaust stories in America after the war. He cites Rachel Auerbach, a sur vivor of the Warsaw ghetto and historian of evi dences of Nazi persecution:

“The mass murder, the murder of mil lions of Jews by the Germans, is a fact that speaks for itself. It is very dan gerous to add to this subject interpretations or analyses.”

“A handsketched illustration by artist: Willard Fleming. Artwork: ”Boeing P-12s Over Rockwell Field, San Diego - 1929 (95th Pursuit Squadron)”. US Air Force Art Collection. Released to Public Domain. Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files via PICRYL.

Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Photos of Victims, Jerusalem, Israel. Photo released into the Public Domain by Gary Todd on Flickr.

PR EP

ARIANAPOLIS

At Marianapolis Preparatory School, our mission is to educate students in the Catholic tradition of academic excellence with a commitment to an active faith in God and a dedication to building character with content, compassion, and integrity.

The school, founded in 1926, has been a long-time fixture of New England independent school education. Yet, the current global health crisis is a timely test for whether an institution’s mission can meet the needs of students in an unprecedented historical moment.

So what are we doing to meet those needs?

Our academic excellence is all about innovation. The school had a ten-year history of virtual education before students ever needed to pivot online. Our combination of infrastructure and experience was invaluable to sustain scholastic rigor, regardless of location. The current need is flexibility; in-person learning is prioritized and preferred, but online work may be necessary for some to ensure health and safety on campus. Marianapolis classrooms are outfitted with Clear Touch Boards that allows instructors to teach directly to students in the room, as well as to any classmates who may need to log in from home for the day. Similarly, our online platform allows students to view and submit assignments, preview when assessments will occur, and stay connected with our faculty outside of classroom hours.

Marianapolis Preparatory School

Grades 9-12, PG Day, 5-Day Boarding, 7-Day Boarding

www.marianapolis.org (860) 923-9245 admission@marianapolis.org

26 Chase Road, Thompson, CT 06277

Dedication to building character with content, compassion, and integrity remains central to our operations and community life. Character growth occurs as a result of open discourse, with supportive adults helping to contextualize priorities and outcomes for each student. The extracurricular program has also remained active, with interscholastic sports competing throughout the year. The social/emotional benefits of physical engagement are endless. The focus for our extracurricular educators is growth, resilience, and teamwork, as this extension of the traditional classroom fosters countless learning opportunities. In each context, we stay hands-on in our approach to student development.

Finally, our commitment to an active faith in God is central to helping students understand the scope of – and approach to overcoming - challenges. While not all of our students are Catholic, our community approach is wholly values-based. Our students are taught to defend the lives and dignity of all people, seek common humanity, and advocate for both individual rights and the common good. The School holds the philosophy that there is no greater responsibility than to recognize our role in caring for ourselves, our community, and our world.

It is through this principled approach and innovative pedagogy that we are helping students at Marianapolis tackle the obstacles of the twenty-first century. As we approach our centennial anniversary as a school, we sincerely hope your student will consider joining us.

BY DR TUTUL

GOING

IS IT FOR YOU?

KETOGENIC DIETS minimizes the carbohydrates from a diet and rely exclusively on high fat food groups. They shift the metabolism of the body away from processing sugars and insulin to fat and ketones. This metabolic state is called ketosis, and your body becomes great at burning fat for energy.

TYPES OF KETOGENIC DIETS

Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD)

In the standard diet, carbohydrates are at a minimum in every meal (only 10%). This will mean that carbs will only make 20-50gm of your daily food intake. This diet constitutes mostly fatty food sources (70%) with proteins only at 20%.

Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD)

In the cyclical mode, your diet will have some carbs flexibility. You will follow a strict ketogenic diet (SKD) for five days a week. For the other two days, you are allowed to vary your food with higher carbo hydrates content. This mode is ideal for most beginners since it can be difficult to wean off carbs completely and it takes time getting used to the inevitable ketosis during the SKD days.

Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD)

The targeted format allows you to add carbohydrates to your meal on any day you are working out or otherwise engaging in strenuous physical activity. All other days, you will stay on the stricter SKD. The only thing you need to take care of would be your total calorie intake. Reduce the fats so that your daily calorie amount does not go over your limit. Both Cyclical and Targeted formats are the pre ferred strategies for athletes and bodybuilders.

High Protein Ketogenic Diet

This diet increases the protein amount up to 35% while reducing the fats to 60% and leaving the carbs even lower at a 5%. This ketogen ic pattern is almost as well-researched as the standard version and is perfect for people who want or need more protein in their life.

Go for high-protein, low carbs veggies.

Fruits, not sugary snacks, are perfect for the lowcarb part of your diet.

Despite some myths and controversies, the keto diet has proven safe for most people. There are three conditions however where you will either need medical supervision or need to stay away from keto altogehter:

High Blood Pressure

Detailed clinical trials and research reviews have shown that keto diets are actual the best natural method to lower blood pressure. There is even a chance that your blood pressure may become completely normal. However, if you are on high blood pressure medications, that’s when you will need supervision with this diet. The combination of a low carb/high fat diet with BP lowering medications can lower your blood pressure to an unhealthy extreme. This effect has been known to reach in days even though it takes some people months or even a whole year. Staying in touch with your doctor, taking immediate action at symptoms of low blood pressure, and acting on the prescribed adjustment of medicine dosages to account for dietary effects will keep you fine.

Diabetes

Much like the case of high blood pressure, a low carbs ketogenic diet seems to be a natural remedy that can reverse type 2 diabetes and remarkably control your blood sugar in case of type 1 diabetes. The only caveat is that once you have modified your diet, you will also need a significant dosage reduction in both your diabetes medication and your insulin doses (whichever the case maybe for you). And of course, these changes can only be made in the supervision of your diabetes specialist. Frequent blood sugar level checks at home are also mandatory in order to stay on top and avoid the risk of a sudden and risky drop in your blood sugar level.

Breastfeeding

In most cases, a low carb diet is considered safe and even healthy for breastfeeding moth ers. You are still getting all the necessary nutritions for you and your baby while also lower ing the escess weight you have acquired during pregnancy. However, the recommendation is to keep the carbs on the low, but not extremely low. Based on research on the risks from strictly low carbs diet to breastfeeding mothers, a liberal low amount of 50 grams of carbo hydrates daily is reasonable. This major risk you are avoiding this way is ketoacidosis. It in volves an overproduction of ketone bodies which threatnes heatlhy functioning of the body. There are at least 10 recorded cases of breastfeeding women who nearly died as a result of ketoacidosis, and all 10 women were on extremely low-carbs diets while breastfeeding. The mechanism of how and why ketoacidosis happens is poorly understood for both this and other rare cases where it has happened.

SOME KETO PRECAUTIONS

PROVEN BENEFITS

Decades of peer-reviewed research has left no doubt that a ketogenic diet is an effective weight-loss therapy. Not only that, it outperforms low-fat diets which do not cut down on carbohydrates.

As noted above, the nutrient composition of ketogenic diets helps lower high blood pressure and is an effective and natural means of diabetic control. It also helps cut done on your triglyceride levels, safeguarding you against cardiovascular complications.

There is some evidence that keto diets may slow down tumor growth. Cur rent research is exploring their effectiveness in cancers, as a reuslt.

Strong research evi dence exists that ketogenetic diets can significantly reduce seizures in children, and some adults, who are resistent to tradi tional epilepsy treatment.

Some research has suggest the diet being effective with brain injuries, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diesease, but more evidence is needed to establish a pattern.

A R S

Ordinarily, glucose is used for energy creation.

Excessive

ENERGY MOLECULE

WHAT HAPPENS IN KETOSIS

When glucose is sparse, fats are broken down to create energy.

and persistent glucose levels in the blood cause permanent changes in metabolism re sulting in cardiometabloic disease manifesting as diabetes, heart disease, & Alzheimer’s.

Lipolysis - using extra fats - becomes a habit; while avoiding high glucose levels.

A KETOGENIC BREAKFAST

grilled

August Macke’s Türkisches Café (1914) Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Original Illustration by Luis Gonzales. Punchline by Maguire.

“As it turns out, the bourgeoisie were able to weaponize the pastry.”

BY DAVID MCBREARTY

PANDEMIC WAY

a looking ahead

As with so many other aspects of our lives, the Covid-19 Pandemic completely up-ended our education models in 2020. In the space of just a few weeks students and teachers went from physical participantion in a classroom to sitting in front of their comput ers. Traditional end of year exams were dispensed with, and continuous assessment or open-book exams were adopted. In many countries this continued right through 2021 and even into early 2022. Of course, we can’t expect the new strategies evolved during the pandemic to stay in its entirety, as the world gradually recovers. Far too much hap pens in the physical classroom beyond core learning and assessment for that to be ad visable. However, a great many changes will no doubt be adopted permanently. We take a look at these changes and the pitfalls involved in navigating the old-world edu cation with the new.

L e a r n in g Is HereToStay

E

Of all the innovations during the pandem ic era, e-learning activites continue to be used most extensively specially in secondary and tertiary education. Not only are public and private schools more inclined to embed e-learning technqiues even after a return to the in-person format, higher education instiu tions have also found several reasons to em brace it. Meanwhile, private, indie modes of adult education such as online diplomas and courses have seen exponential growth in the last two years.

Reasons for adoption at the tertiary level are manifold. Benefits include cost-effectiveness, time-saving, easier access, and superior customization to personal preferences and other life choices. A matching growth in the online

education options, in both the variety of courses and the sheer amount of offer ings, has also hepled. One example is the Stride Online Tutoring Service which has successfully parlayed the pandemic con ditions into an efficient operation with strong returns. Their company stock is now identified as a bullish investment op portunity by stock market analysts due to this performance.

A survey by the University of Potomac finds that 70% students find online class es better than a traditional classroom. Even before the pandemic, Forbes report ed that 70% of academic leaders in the USA believed that online education was equal, if not better, than traditional. Sta tistics compiled by ElearningIndustry.com show that students reported higher reten tion, got better grades, and finished their courses faster after shifting to the online mode. Reduction in carbon emissions and more efficient returns from training and technology were added benefits.

Distance Learning Broadens the Horizons of Education

But what about elementary, middle and high-school sectors, which are either conjoined to public education policies of their regions or subject to the decisions of private school boards?

Before, the pandemic effectively foisted e-learning onto schools and teachers when they were entirely unprepared to adopt them. That is no longer the case today. Many educational companies who offer software and pro grammes in this field are emerging with ever better products to use. As a result, the student of 2030 will take a form of blended learning for granted, one in which teachers increasingly direct them towards elements of their subjects which are online through their laptops or tab lets.

Going forward, teachers and education systems have a headstart in training and application. Software companies have risen to the challenge and many schools have already established vir tual classes along-side the in-person system. The biggest challenge then is on the technology and equipment side, both for schools, and students and parents at home. The expectation of acquir ing and linking up devices at home to a proper online learning environment is relatively new for families. This caveat can prove to be an obstacle especially in public school systems where families often depend on schools for key resources.

Indeed, a wide range of Learning Management Services such as Blackboard, Moodle and Canvas have been in use long before the Pandemic hit by both the high-school and secondary education teaching forces. At the university level, the crisis has simply sped the process of integrating them fully into university education up, with options of providing lectures digitally, whether recorded or through communications platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

This also signals the proliferation of long-distance courses multiplying the benefits of greater access and affordabilty. Especially, the additional option for some single year add-on degrees and qualifications is very attractive for students looking to branching out or further specialize in their fields after return to their regular lives. Indeed, a wide range of Learning Management Services such as Blackboard, Moodle and Canvas have been in use long before the Pandemic hit by both the high-school and secondary education teaching forces.

On the following pages, we encourage education lead ers and school systems to take inspiration from virtual schooling and online learn ing news in K-12 from around the world. We also spotlight essential research into exist ing and potential future ex periences of virtual, digital, hybrid, and distance learning models.

Deborah Cockerham, at University of North Texas, drew the above conclusions after a quantiative analysis of survey responses of 21 students of online high schooling during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She found that, for these students, life satisfaction and self-esteem were not affected before and after the pandemic. However, the significant change was a decrease in positive affect along with an in crease in negative affect. Students identified increased distractibility and sudden loss of physical interaction with friends as major contributions to changes in their emotions.

For his graduate research, Robert Jones studied 157 young adults across Ireland and Canada by recruiting them through social media and online recruitment websites. To his surprise, he found that the number of hours spent online and in-person was not predictive of loneliness in multiple linear regression analysis. In fact, he found greater influence from demographic details such as gender, country of residence and living situation on the UCLA measure of loneliness. For e.g., all participants staying with their families during the pandemic (data collection phase) did remark ably well on UCLA.

Ian Kingsbury of the Empire Center for Public Policy, NY, USA. decided that the best way to gauge school adaptation to online mode was to compare them with already operating virtual schools. Virtual schools outdid regular schools who had shifted online in every way. Children of color (excepting Asians) were the only demographic who also benefited remark ably after a shift from regular to online mode.

Kingsbury suggests that all states should ex pand access to virtual schools as it has an advantage in hybrid instruction.

“[I]nvolving the students in conversations and seeking student input into the learning design can build stronger and more engaging learning experiences. Student voices will provide essential feedback for designing effective learning environments after the pandemic.”

“[O]ther factors, such as age and country, are better predictors for loneliness occurring rather than the number of hours spent either with in-person or online schooling.”

“[V]irtual schools dramatically outperformed brick and mortar schools when it comes to promoting active learning, communicating effectively, managing a classroom, and providing high-quality instruction.”

Digital Oil Painting of Magdalen College, University of Oxford by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. Flickr; BY NC 2.0

India’s First Online School Launches Industry Mentorship Programs

India, SEP 2022: K School is India’s first 100% online school that is fully accredited with its education board. The school is now teaming up with experts from various industries to ar range mentorship programs to its students. This will also help the school transition towards offering a more personalized education to its students, said CEO Sharad Bhatia.

- via Hindustan Times

Participatory Online and Home Learning Alternative (POHA) launches in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

UNICEF’S GIGA NFT INITIATIVE HELPS SCHOOLS’ CONNECTIVITY

SEP, 2022: UNICEF’s collabora tion with the GIGA network last year was meant to bring schools around the world on the map of in ternet connectivity. GIGA has been working to map the whole world’s schools through satellite images, and to record their connectivity status. This year, GIGA has con ducted a special NFTs auction to fundraise in its bid to connect offthe-grid schools around the world. The NFTs were especially created to reflect the connectivity distri bution among the schools around the world. This will help the buyers track how the fundraising cam paign for the school they chose is faring.

- via Coin Telegraph

Pakistan, SEP 2022: The Elementary & Secondary Education Foundation (ESEF) is a public private education effort founded under an ordinance from the Govt. of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to take education access to kids who are not enrolled in traditional schooling systems. POHA is the next step in its Education Sup port Scheme to reach students who reside in areas where no other schools exist.

- via The News

Hamtramck Public Schools launches Virtual Learning Institute (VLI)

USA, SEP 2022: The school serves Hamtramck and Wayne County areas outside Detroit. Powered by Pearson, the courses on offer are rigorous and advanced, equaiting the quality of education to in-person schools in the area. Additional courses in STEM have also been included, while electives have been broadened to include more offerings in technology, business, and healthcare. Enrollment in VLI still keeps open access to dual-enrollment college courses, extracurricular activities and sports at HPS. Support from counselors and other staff from their regular in-person school also remains available.

- via The Arab American News

Online Education Market Set to Show 12.3% Annual Growth Rate in the Next Decade

USA, SEP 2022: A recent market research report has project ed a high CAPR after an increased demand for various online education platforms and smart technology applications in educational process, since hte start of the pandemic state side. Corporations set to benefit from the increase in market activity include industry leaders such as Aptara Inc., Docebo, Edukasyon.ph, Excelsoft Technologies Pvt Ltd., Simplileran Solutions, McGraw Hill Education, MPS Interactive Systems Limited, Adobe Corporation, Blackboard Inc., Edmodo, Edu Comp Solutions, Zeus Systems Pvt. Ltd., BYJU’s, Pearson PLC, and Edx, Inc.

- via Accesswire

Virtual Convention Celebrates Gameschooling

SEP 2022: Outschool, on online learning platform, threw its first gaming convention. The focus was on students and gamers coming to gether to create and explore new, fun ways to learn, using the tools from the gaming world. The orga nizers invited kids of various ages to engage in $1 sessions and find out that gaming opportunities to learn go beyond Minecraft and Roblox.

- via The 74

Online Schooling Trend Creates a Way to Continue Learning During Catastrophes

USA, SEP 2022: When Jackson, Missis sippi was hit with a problem in its pub lic water system, schools simply shifted online to keep students safely home. Previously, when catastrophes used to hit a region, schools would simply close and schooling would stay disrupted for weeks. At most there would be attempts to move students to other buildings. However, according to Gary Henry, head of the University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human De velopment, remote learning through online schooling will always be a first choice. Safe, fast, and convenient, the switch will mean that, even when cities suffer damage due to weather or other disasters, even temporarily displaced students can stay connected and keep learning. Last April, Mora, New Mexico, was another city where schools went on line after evacuations due to a wildfire. - via Voice of America

Immunocompromised Students Ignored in Shuffle of Return to Online Classes

CANADA, SEP 2022: At least 81 students at the University of Ottawa struggled to get decent online courses that matched their academic requirements, after in-person classes restarted this year. The uni versity’s Center for Disabled Students lamented the “lacking of care” and of “ethical response” in arrang ing online options for students who still cannot risk exposure to COVID due to pre-existing diseases of immunity.

- via CBC News.

“The Lads Build a Head Mural by the duo called The London Police at the Wynwood Walls outdoor art museum in Miami, Florida.” Shared by Terence Faircloth on Flickr. CC BY NC ND 2.0

BY MAHNOOR NADEEM & MAHRUKH NADEEM

ArtTwin

This Page. “Reflection” (top) and “Beyond” by Manhoor. Facing Page. “Evening Serinity” by Mahrukh.

“Kai Obasi” Inspired by the hit Turkish drama, Ertagul. Mahrukh Nadeem

“Infinite Voyage” Mahnoor Nadeem

REMEMBERING

BY CINDY

Wounded Knee Memorial Site, South Dakota.

Photo by Adam Singer. Flickr. CC BY ND 2.0

A Gruesome Piece of History

Burial of the dead at the Battle of Wounded Knee, S.D. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

After years of failed efforts, the Wounded Knee National Memo rial Landmark in South Dakota has just been returned to the two Native American tribes: Oglala and Cheyenne River Lakota. This piece of land has a gruesome and shameful history, being the site of the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre, on December 29, 1990.

Lakota tribes had spent years prior suffering through seizures of their lands by the US govern ment and relentless hunting of the Great Plains bison herds to near-extinction. Bison meat was a staple of all the Plains Indians. Earlier promises to restore lands and resources to the tribes were being ignored.

In 1890. Nanissáanah, the Ghost Dance movement, started in response to these injustices. Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, saw the vision of the return of the Messiah as a Native American. This inspired the Lakota tribes to device the Ghost Dance, “performed as a shuffle in silence to a slow, single drumbeat,” while wearing special shirts (see page 57). Their belief was that the return of their ancestral spir its incited by the Dance will help drive away their troubles and return their lands and peace from the white conquerers.

Not suprisingly, the US settlers were alarmed when they saw the performance of this dance. They incorrectly assumed that this was a prepa ration of an armed attack on them and warned the local military. The military attempt to impris on major Indian leaders to quell the movement resulted in the shooting of Sitting Bull, who re sided at the Standing Rock reservation, at the hand of policeman Red Tomahawk.

Fearful of further consequences, hundreds of members of Hunkpapa band (to which Sitting Bull belonged) fled to the leadership of Chief

Spotted Elk, later be known as Big Foot, at the Cheyenne Indian Reservation. With his Minicon jou band and the 38 Hunkpapa refugees, Spot ted Elk started the slow trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The purpose was to find shelter with Oglala Lakota’s most influential leader, Red Cloud.

Unfortunately, they were stopped in their way by the 7th Cavalry who ordered them into an encampment and surrounded them by mountain guns. Against the advice of John Shangreau, half-Lakota scout and interpreter, a removal of Lakota rivals was enforced the next day. Black Coyote, who was deaf and could not hear the or ders, was manhandled and his gun was acciden tally discharged. This proved to be the trigger to this brutal massacre that followed.

The encampment had 250 men and 150 wom en and children. The first round of closed range firing from the machine guns decimated half the Indian men through death or injury before they had a chance to shoot in defense. It is said that the military officers lost complete control over their soldiers.

Gate to Wounded Knee Massacre Burial Site, SD. Wikimedia Commons.

CC BY SA 3.0

They hunted down and murdered all the re maining Indians, including the sick chief Spot ted Elk, and the women and children running away to save their lives Those who succeeded in escaping on horses were chased across the prairies for miles. All of this took one hour. Military casaulties numbered only 25, most ly the result of their own friendly fire. Indian survivors, of the original 350, are only known to be 50. Later pictures were taken of soldiers dumping the slaughtered tribesmen into col lective graves. Some soldiers proudly lined the machine guns and stood behind them for pho toshoots.

Military historians have made it clear that the Ghost Dance movement was never associ ated with hostility from the Lakota tribes. The Wounded Knee Massacre is a perfect example of the efforts put in place by westward expan sion manifestos that sought to acquire plots of land. It is the case of indigenous people, who resisted strongly and were not met with kindness. It marked a time of forced American assimilation to white culture by breaking any kind of resistance and preventing reservation life.

In 1973, this shameful history caught the at tention of the public eye after occupation of the Wounded Knee site by members of the American Indian Movement. They were trying to bring attention to the ongoing corruption in handling the affairs of the Native peoples. The aftermath of this Second Wounded Knee began a long and rightful attempt by Lakota tribes to reobtain this sacred site and acquire its management.

Top. Miniconjou, Lakota Sioux Chief Spotted Elk lies dead after the mas sacre of Wounded Knee, 1890. Northwest Photo Co., Chadron, Neb. via Wikiwand. Public Domain.

Right. A specimen of the special shirt the Ghost Dancers wore. Wikimedia Commons.

Facing. Brothers, (left to right) White Lance, Joseph Horn Cloud, and Dew ey Beard, Wounded Knee survivors; Miniconjou Lakota. Nebraska History Archive. via Wikiwand. Public Domain.

Top Left Facing. Flag of the Amer ican Indian Movement which occu pied the Memorial Site in 1973 and wanted it back in Native Indian possession.

The Wounded Knee National Memorial Landmark is the site of the original mas sacre. Back in the 1920s, Clive and Agnes Gildersleeves. built and ran the Wounded Knee Trading Post near the site. Agnes was an Ojibwa woman and the trading post was a general store serving the entire Wounded Knee district. Lakota families and descen dants of Bull Bears, Red Clouds, Black Elks, Little Wound and the American Horse often visited the burial site on the land to remem ber the victims of the great massacre. The Gildersleeves purchased arts and crafts from visiting tradesmen and artists, and sold them to tourists.

The American Indian Move ment and other local Lakotan protestors occupied the site in 1973. This was a follow-up to ob scene plans of private business interests from nearby Rapid City, South Dakota. They were plan ning to commercialize the site and the execution would have re sulted into the desecration of the remains of the massacre victims at the original burial site.

The local city council has nearly convinced the Geldersleeves to sell the property, but the angry protestors destroyed the trading post and the vil lage homes nearby.

Some time after the destruction, James Czywczynski, who was already interested in the prop erty, bought the land at a pittance ($20,000) from the bank that foreclosed the property. He and his family subsequently ran the site and os tensibly benefited from it..

Members of the Oglala Sioux tribe decided that the only way to end the desecration of the site by way of commercialization and exploitation was to purchase it back for their peoples. They sent a delegation in the late 1970s to Pres ident Gerald Ford in a bid to raise attention and funds for their cause.

Sadly, neither Ford nor any congressman, including representa tives from South Da kota, met with them and the delegation re turned disappointed.

Several attempts have been made over the years to buy this land back. These included misguided and half-hearted attempts, once by Johnny Depp in some sought redemption for de picting the quintessential Native character, Tonoto in the flop movie Lone Rang er. In 2016, Czywczynski was asking for an insane amount in millions, to successfully dissuade any attempts.

After his death in 2019, Czywczynski’s wife at last agreed for a far lesser price and the sale happened early in September, this year, by the Oglala Sioux tribal coun cil.

According to India Country Today, “the Oglala Sioux tribe will pay $255,000 and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe will pay $245,000 for the site, and agree to petition the U.S. Department of the Interior to take the land into trust on behalf of both tribes. The title to the land will be held in the name of the Oglala Sioux tribe.”

Now, at last, the piece of land can be kept as a memorial landmark by its rightful owners, who can celebrate their culture, religion, traditions, and identity. Regard less of how long it took to get the land back, it is nothing short of a long-awaited victory.

A Hard-Won Battle

Wounded Knee Cemetry, South Dakota.

Photo by Adam Singer. Flickr. CC BY ND 2.0

The Ghost dance of the Sioux Indians.

Illustration by Amedee For estier.

The Illustrated London News, 1891 Jan. 3, p. 15-16.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. No known restrictions on pub lication.

A 1973 art poster by American Indian Movement. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. No known copyrights restrictions.

A 1973 poster by American Indian Movement. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. No known copyrights restrictions.

“Prevent a 2nd mas sacre at Wounded Knee: Show your soli darity with the Indian nations.”

The Ghost dance of the Sioux Indians. Illustration by Amedee For estier.

The Illustrated London News, 1891 Jan. 3, p. 15-16. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. No known restrictions on publication.

the gemstone A LEGACY OF FAMILY LOVE AND ENDURING BEAUTY

BY ROSEMARY SANCHEZ

Larimar workshop at the Larimar Museum and Shop, Dominican Republic.

Photo by Government of Danilo Medina. Flickr, CC BY NC ND 2.0

Larimar enthusiast, Rosemary Sanchez, shares her intricate history with the famous Larimar gemstones that are only found in Dominican Republic.

Author photo as well as all other photos on pages 72-74 supplied by the author.

Photo by Ahd Photography. Flickr, CC BY NC 2.0

I found out about Larimar when I was 11. I used to bring home rocks to make bracelets. My mother asked me to stop bringing in rocks and told me that my grandfather used to collect rocks and plants that were worthless. Actually, my grandfather finally discovered the Larimar gemstone mine in 1916. He brought it to the at tention of the government, but they did noth ing with it until later on, a missionary came across it again and named the stone, Larimar, after his daughter.

I’m 65 years old and I’ve had the pleasure to

craft it into many forms of beautiful jewelry. So many people have loved the stone. It’s beautiful color looks like the sky and it is equally beautiful with silver or gold. As a gemstone, it is known as a calming stone. Larimar is also a healing stone that will help release stored negative en ergy and allow positive energy to flow through. It works on the throat chakra to help facilitate clear communication. It also works on the heart chakra to aid in the release of emotional pain. It will also help encourage forgiveness and restore balance and stability for a happier existence.

I have even created settings for celebrities, including Leonard Nimoy, the well-known Dr Spock of Star Trek fame.

The legacy of the Larimar Mine allowed me to travel to meet people and make friends around the world. I have enjoyed watching my granddaughters who are encouraged to follow in the jewelry business as well as my daughter. They will keep the story alive and that’s some thing that has brought me lots of joy over the years.

My daughter recently opened a 5,200 square ft location in Corona, California, where she sells Larimar. Her name is Tamara Sedlack. I am so proud that my daughter has followed in the family profession of crafting Larimar Jewelry. Her husband, Adam is the CEO and president of UFC. They are also in the gym business.

People can also visit me in person, at the beach on the Mission Beach boardwalk in San Diego every weekend.

Rosemary Sanchez Instagram #Larimarskybluegems 619-559-1800

Tamara Sedlack

Manifested Lab-Offering classes in sterling silver design, art, ceramics and more.

The Shops at Dos Lagos 2790 Cabot Dr suite #115 Corona CA 92883 951-317-3744

“Flora Gems” McGregor Bros. Co. 1922 Yearbook. New York Botanical Garden, LuEs ther T. Mertz Library; Public Domain via Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Icon decorated with pearls and gemstones, Robert Wan Pearl Museum. Universal Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Since our launch in 1991, LewerMark Student Insurance’s guid ing principle has been ’Do the right thing’. Thirty years later, and with the second and third generations of Lewer family leadership now at the helm, this principle continues to drive us. We administer health insurance for international students because we believe those students and their institutions need bet ter options—options that do right by the schools and stu dents. We listen to our clients, adapt to their changing needs (and the changing times), and ultimately, help them protect the dreams and goals of our nation’s international student body. Similar to the K-12 schools we partner with, our level of service and care is holistic.

Client Advocacy

The cornerstone of LewerMark's commitment to student care is our Client Advocacy Team. No matter the benefits we offer, if the student can’t un derstand or access their bene fits easily or can’t get questions answered or provider billing problems resolved, we haven’t brought the student any value. That’s why our team is avail able by phone or web chat to provide solutions. They make claims processing and payment, billing and enrollment, and pro gram management a breeze for you, for your international office, and for your students.

Credit (all on spread): LewerMark Insurance

“We have been working with LewerMark for more than seven years,” said Kim Fiala, Assistant to Head of School and Registrar at Thomas Jefferson School. “The team is always professional, friendly, and helpful. Annual renewals are simple and easy to complete. The claims folks are always helpful and quick to resolve any issues that crop up. We really value their partnership.”

Simply put, we know you already have more than enough on your plate, so it’s our pleasure to handle the insurance administration duties for you. Speaking of insurance administration, have you ever tried to explain American health insurance to anyone? It’s confusing! The jargon can be intimidating, especially when it directly impacts both the student’s health and wallet. This is why our Client Advocacy Team hosts orientations for students and families. We’ll help navi gate the complexities of the US healthcare system and even have a little fun while we’re at it—because we all know the topic of health insurance can be tedious.

Trusted Basics

Our approach is to cover all the expected basics by providing a robust PPO network and low out-of-pocket cost immunizations, annual health checkups, sports physicals and coverage, and tuber culosis testing, to name a few. “We’ve yet to find a company that can match LewerMark’s product and customer service,” said Gay Bennett, High School Vice Principal, and International Program Di rector at Linfield Christian School. “Truly, the personalized website, knowledgeable staff, and immediate response to questions set Lew erMark

Photo

erMark apart from all the others. They are consistently outstanding and provide peace of mind to families that the medical needs of students will be met.”

Beyond Basics

Like we said earlier, we want to build bet ter options for students — using the global benchmark for features and design. That’s why we don’t stop at the basics. We go be yond the expected coverages to provide care that is directly applicable to the needs of international students.

For example, LewerMark offers Interscholastic sports coverage. We know students in your schools like playing sports, — that it leads to a sense of community and builds character. So whether they hit it off with the tennis team or decide to kick it with the soccer team, we have the coverage that’s just right for them. They will be able to access care from anywhere, because we’ve brought telemedicine to international student care. We’ve partnered with Teladoc, the global leader in virtual care. They pro vide both general medical and complex care by web, phone, or mobile app. It is a convenient and affordable option that al lows students to talk to a doctor who can diagnose, recommend treatment, and pre scribe medication. But we didn’t stop there.

Adapting to Current Needs

Even further beyond the basics, we are constantly adapting to meet new needs. We listen to our clients and students, and explore new options and opportunities to provide a product that students will actu ally use.

After two years of quarantining, masking, and vaccinating, the coronavirus still hasn’t gone away. But we’re taking the panic out of pandemic with a little common sense. COVID-19 treatment is covered under the LewerMark plan and medically necessary diagnostic testing is covered at no charge to your students.

The pandemic has also accelerated the concerning trend of emotional well-being among students, espe cially international students. Our plan offers outpatient and inpatient mental coverage if prevention and inter vention methods at your school are not meeting your student’s needs.

We believe our commitment to meeting the unique and changing needs of international students is why we hear such positive comments from our clients, like this one from Joelle Williams, International Student Pro gram Advisor at Grand Rapids Christian Schools: "The strong desire for both rigorous insurance coverage for our students and efficient and professional customer service—for both our students and us as program ad ministrators—led us to LewerMark Student Insurance. From the very beginning of our involvement with Lew erMark we have been truly impressed by their knowl edge of the needs associated with working for students in the secondary education market, their attention to details, their quick responses to our questions, and their genu ine desire to see students well cared for. Our switch to Lewer Mark has so far been an excel lent move!”

HOW WE

FAILED

Photo by David Elliott Dusty Diamantina dry river channel Diamantina National Park, Australia. Flickr; CC BY 2.0

How Does A River Die?

The exceptional dryness and drought conditions this year have lead to a remarkable drying up of water res ervoirs around the world. It’s not just rivers that are drying, it’s lakes and other reservoirs which feed the rivers.

Rivers drying up to a 100% is a big deal. It means the river has experi enced such a slow or drastic loss of flowing water, that it has ended up disconnected from groundwater. The dryness could be temporary or per manent.

Rivers in several countries are expe riencing water loss processes through drying up in the last decade at a far greater speed than is natural. This suggests that geological conse quence of climate change are are responsible. The reasons is consistent ly low water-fall combined with this year’s drought on several continents. This scenario of rivers running on low water levels has also resulted to loss of water levels in reservoirs being replenished by the rivers. Even great er harm to the world’s water supply is imminent in the next decades unless actions like planting trees and curb ing carbon emissions are performed at a massive scale.

Centa River, near Albenga, Italy. Photo by Giancarlo Gallo; Pixabay License.

The most dramatic result of the climate change this year has been the increase in the frequency of heat-waves across the globe that have broken multiple records, according to Daniel Swan, a climate scientist at the Unversity of California.

The planet’s mountain ranges are getting far less snow in excessive heat. That means less water in warmer seasons to flow into the rivers and lakes. For instance, the disappearance of glaciers in the Alps has surprised sceintists across the world and could be a precusor for more dryness next year.

When decreased snowfall dwindles the river’s flow, the billowing heat vaporizes the water in narrow and shallow riverbeds, especially in absence of rainfall, thus compounding the problem.

rising heat-waves

urban imprint

The engineering marvels of our world designed to facilitate urban life have contributed significantly to both droughts and flash floods by affecting the capacity of ground to absorb water. As a specialist in river deposits, Catherine E. Russel writes: in the conversation.com

“Engineering measures limit their ability to make natural changes such as flooding or forging a new course. Urban rivers may be encased in concrete and their flow somewhat straightened, while drains in paved cityscapes rush water to rivers without it needing to drain slowly through soil.”

Cracked riverbed in Sri Lanka. Photo by S. Landersz; Biodi versity International. Flickr, CC BY NC ND 2.0

Flood damage in Southern Pakistan, 2010. Photo by DVIDS, US DOD. Flickr; CC BY 2.0

The overall affect of enginering imped iments to the natural course of rivers, includ ing damming and de forestaion, is two-fold: in a drought, the river bed dries up at a much faster rate. On the other hand, heavy rains or flooding leads to flash floods, since water is not seeping into the ground at its nor mal rates. This explains both the cracking beds of major rivers, reser voirs and lakes around the world, as well as the extreme flooding on the plains of Pakistan, this year.

droughts

Cattle herd walks home along dry riv er bed in Tete Prov ince, Mozambique.

by Stevie Mann for ILRI. Wiki media Commons.

The UN reports both frequency and duration of droughts has increased by a third since 2000 alone. Drought has been extreme in Europe this year with Italy facing its worst in 70 years. It is af fecting crop growth and cattle farming. Increased salinity in water is also affecting aquatic life. The Horn of Africa is also facing its worst drought sea son in 40 years, severely exacerbating the already existing famine in many countries. Land restoration is the only solution, the UN says.

Visiting an irrigation waterway at Golinga, Northern Ghana, to see possibilities for ILSSI’s irrigated fodder project, 2014. Photo by the In ternational Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Flickr; CC BY NC ND 2.0

flow diversions

To sustain the needs of a hungry world, a huge amount of freshwater is diverted every year to irrigate crops. The persistent necessity to divert the flow of rivers through damming, irrigation waterways, and other activities depletes the regions’ aquifiers, the water reservoirs supporting the rivers and lakes. Other effects are increased evaporation of surface water and disturbed rainfall patterns thousands of miles away.

Photo

El Niño and La Niña

El Nino and La Nina re fer to a disrupted pattern in the trade winds in the Pacific Ocean from South America towards Asia. When these winds weaken due to the mentioned weather phenom enon, colder and drier cli mates result on the American side, but the effect on Asia is increased flooding. This is what we have seen happening throughout the year. Forecasts are predicting that the current La Nina will continue for a third year into 2023. This doesn’t bode well for the future of already drying rivers around the world.

Fisstøylsåni in Rysstad, Norway. Photo by Jarle Refsnes. Flickr; CC BY ND 2.0

Top Left. 84% of the Upper Colorado River watershed is currently experiencing extreme to exceptional [purple dark and light purple shades]. Graph adapted from US Drought Monitor, University of Nebraska. Right. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured part of the Rhine River near Co logne –showing the stark difference between August 2021 and August 2022.

Difference between wet and dry conditions, Nile River. Interactive image at Worldview, NASA.

LENA, RUSSIA

MURRAY, MURRUMBIDGEE, AUSTRALIA

A map of the world’s biggest drying rivers

Put together by Rhodora O

SNAKE, MISSISSIPI, COLORADO, MOBILE, USA

RIO GRANDE, MEXICO

AMAZON, UPPER S. AMERICA

PARAGAUY, PARANA, PARAGAUY

RHINE, GERMANY

LOIRE, FRANCE

GUADIANA, SPAIN

ODER, POLAND PO, ITALY

NIGER RIVER, WEST AFRICA

TUNCA, TURKEY

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN 91

URAL, EAST EUROPE

INDUS, PAKISTAN

DANUBE, CROSSCONTINENTAL ADYAR, NARMADA, SHARAVATI, INDIA

LENA, RUSSIA MEKONG, SOUTH/ EAST ASIA MURRAY, MURRUMBIDGEE, AUSTRALIA

Heat-waves and drought have taken their toll over Danube and Rhine, both major transport channels across Europe. The riv ers have been impassable many times, with lowest levels recorded in recent histo ry. Sunken ships and relics from WWII have been re vealed due to the drying of Danube in Serbia.

In Columbia, a section of the Amazon used to reach tree trunks above shoulder of an average man. Now, the riverbed is completely dried, the BBC reported in March, this year.

A geosciences study at the University of Brazil reveals that the barrage of drought and the consequent shrinking of the river is affecting the resil ience and productiv ity of the rainforest. The loss of its capaci ty to absorb CO2 and produce O2 multiplies every drought cycle.

amazon mekong

danube

Mekong of Southeast Asia is in its fourth year of drought. Sever upstream damming in China and Laos has has added to the low water levels in the wet season, yielding very low harvests and threatening the lives of 70 million people. Droughts are drive by El Niño and climate change.

A record-breaking drought in China has caused at least 66 rivers includ ing parts of one of the world’s longest, Yangtze, to completely dry up. China has lost significant amounts of its hy dropower as a result. Shipping routes are blocked and drinking water quan tities are limited for China’s southwest region.

colorado

An increasing area of the world’s longest river, Nile, is turning into a desert. A recent study by engineering and climate experts warns only worsening droughts in its near future. Scien tists are worried Ethiopia’s 5B dam and Sudan’s Nile Canal, both flow diverting projects ,will only further dry up the wetlands and shrink the river.

nile

Both Colorado and Rio Grande rivers in southern USA have exhibited the stark, baked and cracking, dry riverbeds, a result of years of irrigation, deforestation, and cli mate change. “There is no more water in the pipes,” and water supplies of nearby re gions is in severe crisis.

yangtze

A research team led by WWF found in 2019 that only 37% of combined 7.5 million miles of the world’s longest 246 rivers remain free-flowing, and mostly in the remote stretches in the Arctic, Amazon and

A view of the Rhine River, Koblenz, Germany by Alfred Derks. Pixabay License.

The sun sets on a drying Rio Crande, New Mexico, USA.

Photo by Rene Rauschenberger; Pixabay License

Clark Dry Lake, Borrego Springs, California. Photo by David Kingham. Flickr; CC BY NC ND 2.0

DISCLAIMER:

All profiles have been borrowed or put together from the professionals’ official online presence.

For the past twenty years Martin has been involved in the international education sector leading and promoting K-12 both in private and public high schools in Can ada and the UK. He feels deep comfort knowing that his work adds diversity to the school population enabling students become global thinkers, team players, and problem solvers in changing environments.

Martin acquired his B.A. in Business Administration from the Unversity Hernandarias, Paraguay, and a Masters in Marketing Management from CEPADE - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. Martin started his career as the found er and director of a private English language school, Instituto de Ingles Americano, in Eldorado, Argentina. After 13 years, he moved to Canada where he served as admissions and marketing director and then executive director in Bodwell High School and CET Vancouver be fore coming on board the management team at Brookes Westshore.

According to his colleages, Martin’s “knowledge and experience in the International Education Industry is a perfect combination to build a great professional who is constantly striving to achieve the best. He is a great partner to work with, excellent public speaking and very talented in marketing and sales.”

MARTIN STAFFOLANI

Executive Recruitment Director, Brookes Westshore School, Vancouver Island, BC

People who work in the admissions world are special individuals and we are delighted to introduce you to some of your colleagues. Reach out to them so we can all learn from each other!

DIBYENDU BOSE

Senior Director of Admissions & Financial Aid, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Telangana

Dibyendu Bose is currently the Senior Director of Admissions & Financial Aid at Indian School of Business (ISB). His marketing portfolio includes the flagship MBA and EMBA equivalent pro grammes (PGP suite) as well as Advanced Management programmes (AMP suite) @ISB. Dibyendu also heads the Office of Alumni Engagement and is responsible for integrating the 13500+ global alumni community through different School initiatives. He also worked in the Dean’s Office where he focused on driving different strategic initiatives.

Dibyendu is an MIT Sloan Fellow and ISB alumnus. Before joining the leadership team of ISB, he has worked in India, United Kingdom and USA primarily in the corporate sector and also had an entrepreneurial stint while in the Boston ecosystem before coming on board the management team at Brookes Westshore.

DAVID OMIH Executive Director, Teen Challenge Nigeria, Jos, Plateau State

David Omih is a Nigerian from Delta State. He has had his own share of addiction while in the USA. Introduced to marijuana in college, he went on to smoke crack and cocaine, and spent all his money just to sustain his addiction.

He gave his life to Christ in September 10, 1999. Came[sic] in contact with Teen Challenge Mil waukee, Wisconsin where he completed his first four months, then moved to Pennsylvania for the second phase of the program where he graduated in September, 2000. He then served as an intern at Teen Challenge Michigan, returned to New Orleans just before ‘Hurricane Katrina’.

David later went and graduated from Teen Challenge Ministry Institute (TCMI) in 2007, there after went back to Milwaukee as Program’s Education Coordinator, and after a year later went to work Pastor Don Wilkerson in Brooklyn as Intake Coordinator. David is now a Pastor and lives in Jos city of Plateau State with his family.

Today he runs the Nigeria chapter of Teen Challenge to provide youth, adults and families with an effective and comprehensive Christian faith-based solution to life-controlling drug and alcohol problems in order to become productive members of society. Teen Challenge Nigeria seeks to produce graduates who function responsibly and productively in society, and who have healthy relationships in the work place, family, church and community.

NAYDIA BONNER

Associate Director of Admissions, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

Naydia has been working in the field of education for over 10 years and has been working in admis sions for over six years. The most rewarding aspect of her work is having the opportunity to provide students with the resources and information need ed to have a successful start and experience at Dickinson. As a regional counselor, Naydia’s goal is to continue to build Dickinson’s growing campus community by providing a space in which students from various backgrounds can know they belong at Dickinson and have the opportunities to share and learn from and with each other.

Before joining Dickinson, Naydia served as En rollment Events Coordinator and Admissions Counselor in Central Penn College and Millersville University of Pennsylvania, respectively. She has a Bachelors in Speech Communication / Public Rela tions from Millersville and she also has specialized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training.

Amelie’s enthusiasm for the world of sports and exercise led her to the German Sport University in Cologne, where she graduated with a BA in Sports Management and Communications.

After working for a sport-sponsoring compa ny in media evaluation, interning at a German Bundesliga (football league) soccer team in management and marketing and a Division-1 college sports department in Pennsylvania, she found my way back to school—at GSB.

Now, supporting GSB’s students and community on their educational journey, she is pleased to have found such a strong, caring community. At GSB for four years, she’s been able to wear many hats, including administrative assistant, sports coordinator, and director of admissions.

Angie McCullough joined the ASIJ community in 2018 as a speech-language pathologist. She worked for two years in our elementary school before joining the Admissions team. Angie has been practicing speech ther apy in schools for over 12 years in three countries. She has a BS in Communication Sciences and Disorders, an MA in Speech-Language Pathology, and holds her Administrator’s License which she earned in 2017 from George Fox University. Angie’s husband, Jake also works at ASIJ as a design and technology teacher. They have two sons who attend ASIJ and one daughter who attends university in the United States.

ANGIE MCCULLOUGH

Director of Admissions, The American School in Japan, Chofu-shi, Tokyo

AMELIE GOLDMAN

Director of Admissions and Community Liaison, German School Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY

NISHMA J. SHRESTHA Admissions Officer, Brighton College, Australian School of Accounting, & QIBA, Australia

Nishma works in overseas admissions of Australian private insitutes from Khatman du, Nepal. Her job is to aid the local Country Manager for these insitutes in recruiting local students and helping them choose their careers. Nishma received her B.A. in Humanities and Science from Nepal Mega College. She has since been working as Application Officer in various international recruiting services. She started her full time occupation at the three secondary education institutes in Australia at the start of this year.

NICKY SAKPOBA Director of Admissions and Cofounder & Director, Panoba, Nottingham, UK

Nicky was educated at an independent girls’ day school in West London, and continued on to study for her Bachelor’s degree in European Languages at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Nicky’s career started in the luxury hotel industry, where she spent the initial 10 years of her career in management roles in a number of London’s most prestigious five-star hotels. She went on to spend the following 12 years of her career in senior marketing roles within the London commercial property sector. As a mother of two teenage children, Nicky has been through the school search and selection process herself from prep schools through to sixth form, and co-founding Panoba in 2014 was a natural extension of her per sonal experiences. Nicky has a passion for offering overseas families sound and honest advice, together with a handholding service to navigate the complexities of the UK education system and the school admissions process. Recognising that each child is unique, a bespoke approach is taken to each family Panoba works with, ensuring that the final choice of school is centred around an understanding of the student and what will suit them best. Nicky lives in North London with her family and runs the Panoba UK office.

City tram turning on to Bay Street, downtown Toronto, Oct 8th 2022. Original photo by Hina Afreen for the ROR Magazine.

autu m n al

The river Die Wupper in autumnal glory, North Rhine-Westphalia Germany. Photo by Peter Hermann. Pixabay License.

c o lo r s

Facing. Top. A painted view of the courtyard architecture of the

Bottom. Interior of the mosque’s roof.

Mohammad Ali Pasha mosque near the Nile, Cairo, Egypt.

mosque.

Vector representation of the hieroglyphic murals on the walls of the pyramids in Egypt depicting scenes from Pharoan life. Stock Photo.

Hieroglyphics etched on the exterior of a pyramid, Cairo, Egypt. By Peggy Choucair; Pixabay License.

Four Trees (1917), oil in canvas, by Egon Schiele. Public Domain.

Albert Looking Elk (a.k.a Albert Martinez) (1888-1941)Taos Pueblo. Public Domain.

Autumn Leaves with Black Berries. Louise Clarkson Whitelock 1865-1928 Pblic Domain, Boston Public Library, via PICRYL.

Black Spruce in Autumn (1915), oil sketch on wooden panel, Tom Thompson. Public Domain.

Tribal art in street walls of Bhubaneswar. Photo by Sailesh Patnaik. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY SA 4.0

There is no autumn in Antarctica. Volcano erupting from misleadingly named Mount Terror, Antarctica. NASA Earth Observatory.

“Staring into Ian’s Eye”

Landstat 8--OLI Model Photo by NASA, SEP 28, 2022. NASA Earth Observatory.

Webb Reveals New Details in Pillars of Creation

Elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constel lation, nearly 7000 lightyears away from Earth.

NASA Images, Webb Telescope.

Pilbara, NW Australia.

NASA ID: PIA25122

The Pilbara in northwestern Australia exposes some of the oldest rocks on Earth, over 3.6 billion years old. The iron-rich rocks formed before the presence of atmospheric oxygen, and life itself. Found upon these rocks are 3.45 billion-year-old fossil stromatolites, colonies of microbial cyanobacteria. The image is a composite of ASTER bands 4-2-1 displayed in RGB. The image was acquired October 12, 2004, covers an area of 49.1 by 55.2 km, and is located at 22.8 degrees south, 117.6 degrees east.

Secondary Creator Credit: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

Welcome To The Meta Verse

and

-

HOW CAN IT IMPACT EDUCATION?

by

GMETA ONE HEAD

OF

DESIGN ANDREW COLQUHOUN

Unless you have been living on a desert island for the past two years; you cannot have failed to notice the increasing buzz sur rounding Web 3.0, NFT’s and the Metaverse. But getting past the hype: what will the reality be? What lasting impact will it have on our lives, our work and on the edu cation of the next generation?

For most people, the word “metaverse” came into our lives when Mark Zuckerberg placed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp under the collective umbrella brand “Meta” in 2021 and started creating his vision of the metaverse. The reality is that many other visionary organizations had already been creating the foundations for the metaverse for many years.

The idea for a metaverse has been around since Neal Stephenson published his novel Snow Crash in 1992, both envisoning the metaverse and coining the word. It first be came a reality when Second Life opened their doors in 2003. In Second Life, people could live an alternate existence as a char acter of their choice and buy land, property, cars etc., using their internal currency; Linden Dollars. In spite of having 64 million registered members, Second Life today has only 1 million active.

Put simply, the world wasn’t ready for that paradigm shift back then. There are many factors why now is the right time for a metaverse, however.

The word is already out.

Zuckerberg has certainly increased awareness massively in the Metaverse idea. Thus far this hasn’t been reflected on his balance sheet. However, it certainly has created hype about the whole concept.

Kids are way ahead of us.

Many of the games being played by Gen Z are immersive and each set in their own digital universe. Games like Fortnite, Rob lox and Minecraft have acquainted players with the idea of creating their own avatar, then clothing and equipping it with items purchased using a currency native to the game.

One of the biggest reasons, however, that has brought us to the brink of accepting the upcoming integration of the metaverse in my life is no doubt the following.

The Pandemic

The global pandemic got the entire world used to the idea of working and interact ing with others online, without ever leaving home. Indeed, many businesses have since shelved their expensive bricks and mortar premises and allowed their staff to work from home; only showing up for meetings in a virtual office. The metaverse allows them to do this much more effectively than any zoom conference ever could.

These factors have led Citibank to predict that, “The metaverse economy could be an $8 trillion to $13 trillion total addressable market by 2030.”

All of the major brands we know and love are now flocking to get a piece of the ac tion: from fashion, sports, banking, retail, beauty, travel and hospitality sectors, to name a few. The metaverse is already hav ing a profound effect on the way people will access music, art, film and literature. NFT art is fetching eye-watering prices and changing the lives of many struggling artists and musicians. Rapper Travis Scott’s concert in Fortnite attracted no fewer than 45.8 million viewers and he didn’t have to leave home to achieve this!

Scan the QR code to review GMeta.one’s services.

By

CC BY NC SA 2.0

Minecraft Tree Fort shared by Peter Kemmer on Flickr.

“Activism in Second Life.” Screen capture of an activism even at Capitol Hill inside the virtual life game Second Life.

Josephine Dorado; Flickr CC BY NC SA 2.0

The hype this time is well-deserved and not just a pop culture moment. Both the technologies and applications attached to the metaverse have now evolved to a point where it is poised to play a key role in the future of education. Beyond education, it integrates the fun, creative, and passionate aspects of life and extends well into careers.

Education

Distance learning, once an option, became a necessity during the pandemic, and this has led to many educational institutions looking to the metaverse to facilitate this now and in the future. The metaverse facilitates an im mersive campus life, where students can en ter the virtual campus or university to learn, explore, and socialize. In this digital envi ronment, for example, people can delve into different learning pods, visit libraries and breakout rooms, meet coaches and counsel lors, and hang out with peers. The metaverse provides opportunities to experiment using real-world scenarios and high-pressure situ ations, where you can make errors without repercussions.

Visualization & Storytelling

These are two features of a metaverse learning experience. For example: Imag ine students could visit Ancient Rome and sample the atmosphere. Or, they could walk around their town, but in a different period in time. The possibilities are mind blowing!

Safety

One of the main benefits the metaverse offers is a safe space to train future professionals. For exam ple, today, a medical student trains hands on with implements, software and cadavers following an initial two years in a classroom environment. They could, however, be taking part in surgical procedures at a much earlier stage using VR, trained remotely in the metaverse by their tutor, placing them way ahead of the current curve.

Speed

According to research conducted by PwC, employees in VR-enabled cours es learned four times faster than in the classroom environment. Immer sion and interactivity help students to grasp concepts much more quickly. As the experience is immersive and fun, they are less likely to get distracted, placing them a step ahead.

Gamification

Combining entertainment and learn ing increases student participation. In addition, adding a competitive ele ment encourages pupils to complete tasks on time. Greater participation: is another advantage. Students who nor mally feel anxiety “putting their hands up” through fear of failure or being mocked are far less likely to do so if they participating in a virtual environ ment.

Facing. Top left. “Shuffling through the Metaverse”

By Steve Jurvetson; Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Metaversities

It’s not just the obvious, elite universities of the US. Oth er institutions such as More house College, University of Maryland GC, the University of Kansas School of Nursing, New Mexico State University, South Dakota State Univer sity, Florida A&M Universi ty, West Virginia University, Southwestern Oregon Com munity College and Califor nia State have joined them in creating their own metaverse campuses. They join a global list of thousands in embracing this opportunity to increase their student roster without geographical limitations.

Careers

The metaverse has already created hundreds of new career roles. As more and more metaverse related companies appear, they bring millions of new jobs. From market ing, software engineering, 3D modelling, game creation to CEO’s Of Metaverse, there is now a brand new industry bringing with it a multitude of opportunities. Schools are now incorporating these skills into their curriculums to address these requirements. In spite of these already great strides, educators have only scratched the surface in finding ways to utilize the power of metaverse education.

The next decade will defi nitely see the biggest revolu tion in the education sector ever and change the way our children learn forever!

Financial Aid Folder Review Program

David Lazo, Director of Admissions & Financial Aid, Woodside Priory School (CA)

Outsource to Mission Enrollment’s

The ROR Personal Finance

By KIM PINELLI

SETTING UP AN INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO

If you’ve already built your emergency fund and your credit card debt is under control, you’re ready to consider an investment portfolio.

Investing helps you grow your money and reach your financial goals.

In this column, we discuss the steps to start your investment portfolio.

For example, short-term goals might be to buy a house or car, and long-term goals almost always include retirement. Other examples include vacation, home loan, children’s weddings, or starting your own business.

Consider all your goals and the timeline to complete them, as this will help determine the right investments.

FINANCIAL ADVISOR ROBOADVISOR SELFADVICE

A robo-advisor is an algorithm that uses your risk tolerance, goals, and available capital to cre ate a diversified portfolio. It considers the average return of each investment and allocates your capital toward it based on your risk tolerance. Typically, the advisor will first gather detailed information from you regarding your assets, existing capital, and investment goals etc. Then, it will automatically choose stocks and other portfolio options. Robo-advising fees are typically less than traditional options, with a small percent per year per $1000 in investments being the usual pattern.

You can also keep a portion of your capital to handle yourself, especially if you want to leverage your investment and put it into real estate. There are ample free guides directing you on how to choose investments and calculate risk. There are also several online platforms which let you join for a subscription fee and keep you in the know-how of attractive investment options and the health of your country’s stock market. .

Of course, you can also decide to go with a traditional financial advisor option. Today, many banks provide some kind of free, beginning consultation through phone, online chat, or other platform. For a lengthier or more formal consultation, your advisor will charge you by the hour.

BROKE -RAGE

RETIREMENT

EDUCATION KIDS FUNDS

Going back to your goals, consider if one is retirement. If so, put some of your capital in a retire ment account to get the tax advantages. IRA contributions are before-tax, and the earnings are tax-deferred. This allows your earnings to grow faster without losing money to tax liabilities. When you take the money out in your retirement, you will only be taxed per your yearly income then. If you withdraw before your country’s designated withdrawal-during-retirement age, you pay a penalty plus your current, likely higher tax rate.

Consider splitting your savings down the middle, investing half in retirement and the other in taxable investments that you can withdraw whenever you want. Some countries offer tax free saving accounts where you can grow your income without having to worry about being taxed at your current rate. Some countries offer special taxation benefits for children’s accounts, such as the RESP account in Canada. In that account, for instance, the designated children can withdraw funds when they are of age and enrolled in an institution. They only get taxed as a student, which is a bare minimum.

If you are planning for higher education, your country may have further benefits available in an education-centered investment account.

Research all the details, restrictions, and pros and cons of the various savings and investment accounts on offer in your country. You may well decide to open and keep more than one type of account and grow money in all through judicious investments.

Do you want to choose investments yourself or prefer an automated system that does it for you? It’s okay to want both too.

Have you considered which type of investment account you want? Choose from available options that align with your goals.

Every investor has a different way of investing. The key is to diversify your portfolio. In other words, don’t put all your money into one investment. For example, where does that leave you if you took your $10,000 and put it in stocks and the stock market crashed?

DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIOS

This is an investment in companies. You become a partial owner, and if the com pany does well and the stock value increases, you earn money. But, of course, there’s always the chance the com pany won’t perform well, and you’ll lose money.

STOCKS BONDS

These investments are more conservative and balance out the riskiness of stocks. Bonds are loans to a government agency or sometimes a cor poration (but those are risk ier). Government bonds are mostly risk-free but have a lower rate of return.

REAL ESTATE

Diversifying with real estate is a good hedge against inflation. But you don’t have to buy a house or property to invest in real estate. Instead, you can invest in crowdfunding or real estate investment trusts, which are shares of a real estate company that invests in commercial real estate. You earn a portion of the profits based on your investment and don’t have to worry about managing the real estate.

Always keep a portion of it liquid no matter how much mon ey you invest. Stocks are liquid because you can cash them in if needed. Other liquid options are also useful:

CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT

You’ll earn a higher interest rate than a savings account, and if you only tie your funds up in a short-term CD that you keep re newing, you can access your funds if needed, but they still grow.

MONEY MARKET ACCOUNTS

This is like a high-yield savings account. They pay higher interest rates, and you can access the funds whenever needed.

HIGH YIELD SAVINGS ACCOUNT

This is an online savings account that pays a higher APY than a brick-and-mor tar bank but provides access to your funds when needed.

Make informed decisions about which investment types and which specific investment options you are going to buy.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

Building the perfect portfolio takes time and practice. When you start, take it slow, diversify your investments, and consider using a robo-advisor for at least a portion of your funds. Watch your investments carefully and reallocate if things don’t go the way you planned.

Barrels of Money, oil on canvas painting by Victor Dubreuil, c. 1897. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Under the intentional direction of our Head of School, William Grant, Lake Tahoe Preparatory School has greatly increased its emphasis on providing high quality music and arts instruction. Students of all ability levels have the opportunity to take a wide variety of classes in these areas. Music classes include music ensemble, chorus, digital music, instrument performance, and songwriting. Comprehensive art classes include ceramics, 3D art, AP Art, studio art and a wide variety of visual arts including drawing, painting and sculpture. Additionally, returning this year are classes in Jewelry Design, Art History, and Film Appreciation.

Students not only have the opportunity to learn art skills, but to also perform and showcase their projects. Whether it is during monthly musical performances or a year end art show and sale, students are able to share their accomplishments with others. Over the last few years, several students have been accepted into and are attending programs at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Under the direction of our Director of Visual Arts, we are fortunate to have three highly talented teachers in our Arts department. Sarah Hetu is the Director of Visual Arts at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School. She has been involved in Art Education for nearly a decade. Ever since she was able to hold a pencil she has been immersed in art, and has been a visual artist her entire life. Although her favorite mediums are painting and drawing, she enjoys teaching Ceramics the most.

Sarah’s true love of art came when she was in high school as she discovered her love of oil painting and figure drawing with her high school art teacher. She was so inspired by him, she chose to teach high school art herself! Sarah has a Bachelor of Science in Art Education and takes a unique and successful approach to teaching art in her classroom. Classes that she teaches include many visual art electives, such as Digital Art, Ceramics, Studio Art 1-3, and AP Studio Art: 2D.

After a three year hiatus, famed Jewelry Design Teacher and snowboarder extraordinaire Barry Jones is back at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School! He is excited to return and bring his Master of Fine Art skills to teaching Jewelry Design, Film and Digital Photography and Art History.

Barry has over 25 years teaching experience at the college preparatory boarding school and college level. He was a Master level Instructor for three Outward Bound Schools, has been a Wilderness Instructor for numerous Wilderness programs and teacher in Therapeutic boarding schools. An American Mountain Guides Advanced level Instructor in rock and ice and a private mountaineering guide for over 20 years, he has led student and client trips all over the United States and around the globe. During the winter months, Barry loves taking students out to local ski resorts to share his passion for Alpine snowboard carving. When it's not snowing, you can find him out riding his road bike, training for his next great cycling century road race.

Arts Instruction at Lake Tahoe Prep

Elspeth Collard is in her first year as the Music Teacher at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School, where she teaches Music Ensemble, Music Technology and Introduction to an Instrument of the students’ choice. From a very young age, she has played several instruments and began writing songs as a teenager. This love of music led her to get her undergraduate degree in Music at the University of Cambridge, before moving to the United States to get her Master’s degree in Musical Theater Writing from New York University.

When she’s not teaching, she stays very involved in music. As an accomplished songwriter, her album, Little Love Notes from Collard and Rosenblatt, can be found on all major streaming services. She has also performed many concerts and shows around New York.

From the bottom up clockwise: Sarah Hetu, Winter Formal, Barry Jones’ jewelry making and skiing activities.

Facing: Elspeth Collard.

Photos by Lake Tahoe Prep:

The global movement towards Web 3.0 and the Metaverse is well underway. Businesses, Banks, Institutions and even Governments are all establishing their presence.

Schools and Colleges are already teaching some of the skills necessary for the advent of Web 3.0, and many of the top universities have already added virtual metaverse campuses.

GmetaOne will guide you towards understanding and establishing a presence in the Metaverse. We are a full service organization, with Metaverse Education at our core and we’ll help you to understand the “how” as well as the “why”. Here are just some of the services we can offer:

The End of an Era

BY RHODORA O

BY

“Queen Elizabeth II of ficial portrait for 1959 tour.” Library and Ar chives Canada via Flickr.

CC

2.0 Facing. “Elizabeth II Fu neral Procession from Westminster Abbey.” By Katie Chan. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY SA 4.0

Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the British Throne in 1952 and became the head of the Brit ish Empire. Today there is no doubt that the British Empire, like all other European colonies around the world, were a regime maintained with violence, atrocious crimes, and a brutal subjugation of the native people in all colonies. In addition to that, the British Empire had a huge role in maintaining the institution of slavery and robbing millions of African natives of their lives and freedoms to serve as free labor in agriculture and farming across North America.

The Queen inherited the Empire at a time when powerful movements of independence were breaking their home countries free from the Commonwealth. Her reign oversaw a lot of this decolonization and ended the mechanisms of slavery. And yet, without doubt, in a bid to retain its iron-hand on the remaining colonies, violent action, such as the brutal crushing of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, happened during her reign. At her death, on 8 SEP 2022, it is no surprise that while she is celebrated for being one of the longest-reigning monarchs in history, she is also remembered and vilified for the crimes that were committed in her name.

“The fourteen British Overseas Territories” Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1. Territory and colonies held by 1945 2. Dominions 3. Colonies of Dominions 4. Areas lost by 1920 5. Protectorates and Princely States (in India) 6. Areas lost by 1705 (En gland only) 7. Sphere of influence

An anachronous map of the British Empire (showing its many forms of control).

Insignias of King Charles I of England, dated 1649. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

When the Queen died in September, there wasn’t just an outpouring of grief and ex pressions of reverence and mourning from inside and outside of the country. Many peo ple around the world, especially colored people who have typically been at the receiving end of the colonial era, also recalled the injustices and the aggressions. According to history experts, such as Caroline Elkins, who traced British records to investigate direct chains of influence in cruel acts of subjugation on the colonies, the British empire was never an exception to the rule that all empires are violent.

Elkins’ research indicates that the highest ranking British officials in various colonies covered up their atrocities through secret documentation and blatant lies to fool both the British parliament and the Queen. The chain of documentation stops well before reaching those two epitomes of British governance. Which means that there is no evi dence that the Queen ever had a personal role in any of the atrocities committed either close to home, in Ireland, or abroad.

However, as Brooke Newman, another doctorate scholar on the subject reasons, the Queen will never attain a universally beloved status, because she did remain tight-lipped and apparently unsupportive, whenever aggressions and crimes did come to light. Such was the case in Ireland’s Bloody Sunday, the Mau Mau uprising, the history of slave trading and more.

Therefore, while we celeberate the Elizabethan era and her dignified, assured, and, in may ways, a calming presence by virtue of her consistency, we must allow an under standing and appreciation of those who have more complicated feelings in the matter.

A backside view of the Windsor Castle. Elizabeth II was buried inside the St. George’s Chapel in the Castle.

Photo by Michael Kleinsasser. Pixabay License.

“Imperial Federation, map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire in 1886” Colomb, J. C. R. (John Charles Ready). No known copyright restrictions; via Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

Ireland and the Queen: a complicated history

None of the controversies that the Queen and British Governments have been involved in during the reign of Elizabeth II are as con tested as developments in Northern Ireland since the 1960s.

Our favorite writer at ROR, DAVID MCBREARTY, who hails from Ireland, writes a fairly objective overview.

Irish countryside, Dublin.

Photo by Sean Griffin. Pixabay License; Facing. Top Right. A satellite image of Ireland with su perimposed outline to show the part of Northern Ireland under British control. Facing. Bottom left. Michael Collins (Love of Ireland), 1922, Oil on canvas by Sir John Lavery. Public Domain, via The Irish Times.

AN ANCIENT INVOLVEMENT

When Elizabeth II ascended to the throne in 1952, Britain had been involved in Ireland for nearly 800 years. Beginning in the 1170s, colonial adventurers from Wales and England had travelled across the Irish Sea and conquered parts of the island country for the English crown. Much of the south, west and north of Ire land remained under the control of several doz en independent Irish lordships. It was not until the seventeenth century that these were finally reduced fully to British rule through conquest and colonization.

For instance, tens of thousands of Scottish Presbyterians moved across the North Channel from Scotland to Ulster to avail of land grants from the British government. Until then Ulster had remained the most intractably Irish part of Ireland. Soon, however, it turned the most British. So much that when the powerfuly, Irish na tionalist movement emerged in the nineteenth century, the people of Ulster, now largely British Protestants, decided to remain s part of the United Kingdom. This culminated with the Irish Revolution during the WWI in 1921 and Northern Ireland was created out of the counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Londonderry, now officially a part of UK.

The remaining 26 Irish counties gradually moved to independence from Britain in the ear ly 1920s under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, well before Elizabeth II be came the ruling monrach of Northern Ireland.

TROUBLES BREWING

Roman Catholics of Irish descent still made up well over 30% of the population of Northern Ire land. These were effectively persecuted by the

Protestant Unionist government in Belfast who implemented a form of religious apartheid. In the 1960s, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the Catholics of Northern Ireland began agitating for greater rights. The government in Belfast responded by increasingly persecuting Roman Catholics, segregating them into distinct neighbourhoods and attacking their socio-economic rights. It was the beginning of a period known as the Troubles, but which was effectively a low-level civil war within Northern Ireland.

It should be noted here that Queen Elizabeth had very little control over any of this. Much of policy for North ern Ireland was decided by a Unionist government in Belfast, while even in London policy towards Northern Ire land was determined by the govern ment of the day. The monarchy by the 1960s had very little say in what did or did not occur in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Thus, in assessing Queen Elizabeth II’s response to the

Troubles there we need to examine more her symbolic reactions and gestures.

The Troubles lasted for nearly thirty years, through the late 1960s until the fi nal initiation of the Peace Process with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. During that time there was constant low-level con flict, with Unionist and Nationalist terror ist groups acting on behalf of both sides, notably the Unionists Ulster Defence As sociation or UDA, and the Nationalist Irish Republican Army or IRA.

While these engaged in regular attacks, murders and bombing campaigns, two in dividual events stand out from all of this. The first was Bloody Sunday on the 30th of January 1972 when British soldiers sta tioned in Derry, the second largest city in Northern Ireland, massacred 14 unarmed civilians and injured over a dozen more who were peacefully protesting against the ongoing persecution of Roman Catho lics in Northern Ireland.

The second was the Hunger Strikes, when Irish Republican prisoners in the Maze Prison in Belfast in the late 1970s and early 1980s engaged in hunger strikes to protest the ongoing apartheid in North ern Ireland and the failure of the Belfast government to recognise them as political prisoners. Eventually ten men died before the Hunger Strikes ended in 1981.

We can get a sense of Elizabeth II’s at titude towards the Troubles and Northern Ireland in general by assessing her re sponse to Bloody Sunday and the Hunger Strikes. In both instances the crown took a non-interventionist approach to these two hugely controversial episodes in Northern Ireland’s history.

This must be looked at from the perspec tive of the British government. In the 1970s and 1980s it was perceived that Britain was fighting a war against terrorist groups in Northern Ireland led by the IRA. Indeed the IRA tried to kill both the Prime Min ister Margaret Thatcher and the Queen herself in the 1980s, very nearly doing so in Thatcher’s case. We also can’t forget the death of Lord Mountbatten, assassinated in 1979 by a volunteer for the IRA, Thomas McMahon.

In such a scenario it was not deemed fea sible for the Queen, who as we have seen spent most of her life as a symbolic head of state, rather than a ruler of any kind, to take a line towards the Northern Irish troubles which differed from the British government. Thus, although Queen Eliz abeth visited Northern Ireland numerous times in the 1960s and 1970s and again from the 1990s onwards she never de nounced the actions of the Northern Irish government or the British army which led to Bloody Sunday or the Hunger Strikes. However, this is not to suggest that the Queen’s role in Ireland has not been pro ductive in more recent times. Beginning in the 1980s the peace process was initiat ed there with the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and brought to fruition with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The IRA and other major Nationalist and Union ist groups agreed to lay down their arms. Protestants and Roman Catholics agreed to share power henceforth in a devolved government.

As the Troubles gave way to this Peace Process the role of Queen Elizabeth be came significant in promoting peace and reconciliation between the various commu nities in Northern Ireland and improving relations with the government of the Re public of Ireland in Dublin. Most notable in this respect was her state visit to the Republic in mid-May 2011, the first state visit by a British monarch to the Republic of Ireland since 1911. This act was then re ciprocated by the Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, when he visited Britain in 2014.

Acts like these have done much to pro mote good relations between Ireland and the UK and to continue the Peace Process in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, Queen Elizabeth II’s role in Northern Ireland needs to be looked at in context. As the Troubles intensified in the 1960s and 1970s the crown became a focus of anti-British sentiment in Ireland, both north and south of the border.

But the fact remains that the monarchy had little to do with the tensions in North ern Ireland.

The Troubles were largely the creation of the Protestant commu nity in the north of Ireland who wanted to monopolise political, economic and social power in the six counties. Many will justifiably look back at the failure of the crown in denouncing atrocities such as Bloody Sunday and that reflects poorly on the Queen’s reign. Ul timately, however, her efforts to promote peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland were substantial and worthy of praise.

“Bloody Sunday The People’s Gallery • Derry • Londonderry” A photo of commemori al art shared by Sonse on Flickr; CC BY SA 2.0

Bottom. A recent capture of Queen Elizabeth II during the Bidens’ official state visit last year. Released into the Public Domain as a US Government work by the White House on Flickr.

Top. “25th commemoration of 1981 Irish hunger strike in Donegal: Bobby Sands, (aged 27), Francis Hughes (aged 25) , Raymond McCreesh, (aged 24), Patsy O’Hara (aged 23), Joe McDonnell (aged 30), Martin Hurson (aged 29), Kevin Lynch (aged 25), Kieran Doherty (aged 25), Thomas McElvee (aged 23), Michael Devine (aged 27).”

By Patrice, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Facing. Top. Fractal pattern of green clover leaf; the symbol of Irish nationality.

By Babara A Lane. Pixabay License.

Facing. Bottom. “Bloody Sunday anniversary, Oxford Street 1979. The Troops Out Movement organised annual demonstrations every January to mark the anniversary of the events in Derry in 1972 when Britsh soldiers killed 14 Catholic demon strators. These demonstrations through the West End often met with violence from the police but on this occasion there were groups of National Front and British Movement people all along the route of the march, and every now and again they’d rush forward and attack us. As the demonstrators dispersed a man wearing a Troops Out badge was cornered by fascists at Tottenham Court Road Tube station and beaten unconscious. Unusually for the police they arrested 39 fascists during the day.”

By Alan Denney; Flickr, CC BY NC SA 2.0

Imperial Pilfering

According to Geoffrey Robertson, a leading human rights lawyer, possess es “pilfered cultural propert,” taken from “subjugated peoples.” In his book Who Owns History? Robertson has made a strong case for the return of all stolen heritage from the “raped” lands of China, Southeast Asia and Af rica. He argues that while the British Empire and other colonist countries cannot go back and undo the harms done. But the only decent way to navigate their ancestors’ crimes is to re turn every artefact of historic art to the people it belongs. Indeed, many countries have asked back for their treasures and have made several un successful attempts to gain their cul tural and intellectual heritage back to their lands.

As we review the legacy of the re cently deceased Queen Elizabeth, the matter of native colonial artefacts shameless looted, sometimes with vi olent strategies, is an undeniable part

of that legacy. Almost none of the “crown jewels” are the British’s own. Other than that, the Royal family has several artefacts in person al possession. Last year, much hue and cry was raised when the public discovered that the royal palaces of Great Britain were excempt from the 2017 Cultural Property Act.

Dan Hicks, a professor of contem porary archaeology at the Oxford University, writes in his book on the British Museums, that cultural justice demands a careful navigation of the return of loots, whether it was di rectly looted by the empire, or end ed up gifted to the royal family after originally being looted by some third party.

MAHVISH ASLAM tells us about some of the notable pieces under cultural theft by the British Museum. -- Editor.

___ Geoffrey Robertson, Human Rights Laywer

The trustees of the British Museum have become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display.

THE BENIN BRONZES

The Kingdom of Benin, now Nigeria, has several thousand bronze statues dating to the 13th century. In 1897, the Brit ish Empire dispatched troops to punish Benin insurgents who fought imperial rule. The Empire's forces raided and ravaged Benin, ending the kingdom. More than 900 an tique artefacts from the Benin kingdom are currently in the British Museum’s “contested objects” collection. Since 1960, Nigeria has sought the bronzes’ repatriation. The British Museum has agreed to loan Nigeria the Benin Bronzes but not to return them.

Hoa Hakananai’a

This lone moai statue in London was once housed in the ceremonial hamlet of Orongo on Rapa Nui, often known as Easter Island. Its actual age is unclear, although it is commonly assumed to have been constructed between 1000 and 1600. Because it was kidnapped from the island by Brit ish explorers in 1868, natives gave it the name "Hoa Hakananai'a," which means "lost or stolen buddy." Carvings on the back of the moai portray the island's birdman cult and other ceremonial features of Easter Island's mysterious history. The British frigate HMS Topaze, led by Richard Powell, took Hoa Hakananai'a without permission in 1868 and gave it to Queen Victoria.

Photo by Son of Groucho; Flickr; CC BY 2.0

Photo by Snapshooter46, Flickr; CC BY NC SA 2.0

THE ROSETTA STONE

A close-up of the stone, shared by Moorina on Flickr;

CC BY 2.0

The Rosetta Stone is one of the most world-renown relics of the ancient world and a land mark in the development of language in human civilzation. Originally inscribed in 196 BC, it contains a letter of thanks by priests in Memphis, then capital of Egypt, to King Ptolemy V, the Macedonian King who ruled the country then. In 1822, French linguist Champollion deciphered the inscriptions, thus successfully cracking the hieroglyphic code, and opening up the era of Egyptian studies.

It was Napolean Bonaparte who removed the stone from Egypt. When the British de feated him in 1815, they took the stone, and today, it is at the center of the repatriation contoversy. Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass has been consistently highlighting the illegal theft and possession of the stone. The stone is a centerpiece of Egyptian identity and it is only Egypt’s right to possess and display it, he says. So far, the Museum has only agreed for a showing of the artefact in a special exhibition held in Egypt.

AMARAVATI MARBLES

The Amaravati Marbles come from the Andra Pardesh state in India. They were part of Ama ravati Stupa, a Buddhist monument built thousands of years ago. In 1858, when the East India Company was dissolving, some of the loose marbles from the original site were shipped to London as part of the haul from Sir Walter Elliott’s collection who was an colonial archeologist working in India.

Much of the relief work on the marbles is devoted to illustrated scenes from the rich crowded stories of the early lives of the Buddha. The stories come from Jatakas, a considerable body of ancient Indian literature on Buddha’s previous incarnations. The marbles are a rich depiction of life and heritage from thousands of years ago and a cornerstone of ancient Indian sculpture. The museum is in possession of sculptures and inscriptions confiscated from the sacred site.

The Indian government has successfully taken plenty of its stolen artefacts from various coun tries where they had been illegally shipped during colonial times. The Amaravati Marbles, how ever, are still in England. Indian historians, archaeologists, and religious scholars are putting pressure on their Prime Minister Modi to arrange for the return of these relics back home.

Marble slabs from various levels of Parthenon’s architec ture are also among historic loot that has ended up in the British Museum. Greece has been trying to repossess them, as yet to no avail.

Photo by Sandy John Hood. Pixabay License.

A specimen of the Amarvati Marbles in a museum in Dehli, India, similar to the one in the British Museum. Photo by Soham Banarjee. Flickr; CC BY 2.0

Stock Photo.

“Dominical Republic, Taino Museum - 11.26.2020 - Cemi or zemi (ancestral spirits) collection of Taino - indige nous people of Hispaniola island (Dominican Republic). Ancient sculptural objects.” Birdman & Boinayel statuses in the British Museum are also crafted in culturally similar styles and are from the same category as these sculptures.

BIRDMAN & BOINAYEL

Bottom. A display of the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum. Center. The Gweagal Shield in the British Museum. Both via Wikimedia Commons.

These are two small wooden statues, similar to those shown on the left, from the prehistoric Taino people of Jamaica. They were considered to be masterful in woodcraft and they created figuries of their gods and deities.

These two figurines were taken from a cave in the Carpen ter’s Mountain in an area known today as Manchester. The British Museum acquired these at the turn of the 19th cen tury. Today, these are only two of the 137 objects of cultural and historical sifnificance to Jamaicans which were stolen and under possession of the museum. In 2019, Jamaica’s Portfolio Minister, Oliver Grange, joined the long list of of ficials and scholars from around the world asking for the return of their piece of hstory from the British Museum. No return has been made to date.

The shield belonged to Gweagal warrior Cooman. When Captain James Cook first landed in Australia in an expendition more than 200 years ago, the warrior used this bark shield in a bid to stop the invasion. Cook shot Cooman and seized his shield and spears, all later transported to England.

When Rodney Kelly, a descendant of Cooman rec ognized the shield in an exhibit held in Australia, he launched a campaign for the return of the shield and spears back to his Aboriginal homeland. In response, the British Museum conducted a controversial inves tigation in a bid to prove that Kelly’s claimed ties to Cooman were disputable. He is fully supported today by the local Aboriginal land council, who say that Kel ly’s demand is rightful since the items belong to the original tribe, regardless of specific lines of descen dence.

Gweagal Shield

Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal

A lion hunting scene from one of the bronze band in the Britism Museum’s collection. Photo by Mohmmd Abd on Wikimedia Com mons. CC BY SA 4.0

This collection of bronze bands is a re lief-work depiction of lion hunting scenes re trived from the palace of King Ashurnasirpal II in the anceint city of Nimrud (north of today’s Iraq). It was an Assyrian tradition later revived by King Ashurbanipal, situated in the neighboring city of Nineveh. In original text records of Assyri ah, the king claims he rid his city of wild lions harrassing local herds men by attacking their cattle.

Iraqi Assyriologist, Hormuzd Rassam, ex cavated the forgotten reliefs from the ruins of the king’s North Pal ace, and transported them for safekeeping to the British Museum. American poet William Carlos William was so inspired by the reliefs on a visit in the early 1920s, that he devoted a few stanzas of his Long March Poem to the brave lion hunting scenes. Read the lines on page 171.

the summer palace loot

In a bid to expand their empires, the British and the French collaborated in a raid on China’s Qing dynasty in 1856. The war culminated in October 1860 in the burnding down of the Summer Palace of Beijing. It was the main residence of Qianlong, the Emperor of China. Lord Elgin, the British High Commis sioner to China, order the raid and the sub sequent plunder of its treasures after an advance envoy representing the Anglo-French mission had been tortured by the Chinese.

In Chinese, the palace was called Yuanmingyuan, translated as Gardens of Perfect

Brightness. Altogether, there were three large gardens spread on 860 acres and con tained hundreds of structures, halls, pavillions, temples, galleries, lakes, bridges, and buildings.

Today the British Museum proudly displays a number of treasures looted from the burning gardens and buildings. The Chinese government has begun an investigation of several renown museums of the world, in cluding the British Museum, in an attempt to retrace and repatriate the looted treasures of Yuanmingyuan.

ARKUN DRUM

The drum originates from West Virginia. It ended up in Virginia, USA, through the slave trades of the 19th century. The word Akan denotes an ethnic West African group which exists today most prominently in Ghana. It is a wood en drum, bound by vegetation fi bre and deerskin.

Sir Hans Sloane purchased this drum in 1753. It was his collection that subsequently served as the basis for founding the British Mu seum.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons under the GNU Free Documentation Licsense.

Carved by renown Yoruba artist Olowe of Ise, the panels show a British Administrator en tering Ogoga’s palace, at the turn of the 20th century. The British had colonized the area towards the end of the 19th century. English administrators working with local rulers was one of the methods to keep the region under British control, a system named “Indirect Rule” in 1912. Interpretations of the relief work show subscription to native religious beliefs which were outlawed by the British. It depicts local resistance to the forced bipartisan rule arrangement through dignified posture of the Yoruban king, contrasting with the more humble expressions of the British entourage on the right side.

A view of the Yoruba Palace Door in the British Museum. Via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY SA 4.0

YORUBA PALACE DOOR

Partly survived ruins of the Old Summer Palace, Beijing, China. Wikimedia Commons.

CC BY SA 3.0

“Historic drawing by the British in the 19th Century. Thomas Allom.” Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

“The Diversion of an Assyrian King.” Oil on canvas, 1878, by Frederick Arthur Bridgman. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

III

See! Ashur-ban-i-pal, the archer king, on horse-back, in blue and yellow enamel! with drawn bow--facing lions standing on their hind legs, fangs bared! his shafts bristling in their necks!

Sacred bulls--dragons in embossed brickwork marching--in four tiers-along the sacred way to Nebuchadnezzar's throne hall! They shine in the sun, they that have been marching-marching under the dust of ten thousand dirt years.

Now-they are coming into bloom again! See them! marching still, bared by the storms from my calender --winds that blow back the sand! winds that enfilade dirt! winds that by strange craft have whipt up a black army that by pick and shovel bare a procession to the god, Marduk!

Natives cursing and digging for pay unearth dragons with upright tails and sacred bulls alternately-in four tiers-lining the way to an old altar! Natives digging at old walls-digging me warmth--digging me sweet loneliness high enamelled walls.

Excerpt from William Carlos William’s “Long Poem March.” Public Domain via PoetandPoem.com.

“Green Wutong-Tree Academy.”

“Bitong shuyuan An island featuring an academy and several religious shrines.” Both Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“In 1744, the Qianlong Emperor commissioned a set of forty paintings from two court artists, Shen Yuan and Tangdai, and a calligrapher, Wang Youdun.”

“Twenty-four out of the forty garden scenes depicted in paintings were lost in the destruction of 1860.”

Below. “Hongci yonghu A more elaborate shrine, containing the portraits and tablets of previous emperors.”

Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace was also one of the places that was mercilessly looted. The looters were the British East India Company who sent several treasures from the loot into the possession of the British Museum, to this day on display.

Illustration. d. 1792, with Yale Center for British Art. Public Domain via Look and Learn: History Picture Archive.

What’s Happening, ROR?

2022 NAIS People of Color Conference

30 NOV - 3 DEC 2022

San Antonio, TX, USA

NAIS “calls us together after the pandemic’s twoyear disruption to connect with one another and the source of our highest personal and professional at tributes and aspirations. Grounded in purpose, this motif also heralds the emergent, determined action needed to reverse the loss of civil and human rights that threatens democracy and harms those who ex perience identity-based discrimination.”

CASE-NAIS Independent Schools Conference

29-31 JAN 2023 New York, USA

“Join hundreds of colleagues in New York City and address these critical areas:

Innovation and institutional sustainability

How can schools continue to build a culture of philanthropy despite high inflation and recession fears?

Data and research in philanthropy

How can schools use data and benchmarking to un derpin strategic and fundraising efforts?

Team and workforce development

How can schools boost employee morale and attract top talent?

Future of Education Tech nology Conference

23-26 JAN, 2023 | New Orle ans, LA, USA

FETC will feature industry experts and leaders, a robust and unrivaled agenda, and an expansive Expo Hall showcasing the latest solutions. It’s the place for en tire education teams to come together and learn the latest on ed tech, build a community of dedicated peers, and gain ideas to achieve classroom, school and districtwide technology goals.

2023

NAIS Annual Confer ence

23-24 FEB 2023

Las Vegas, NV, USA

“The theme will be Cultivating Community.”

With competition for students at indepen dent schools continuing to increase as demo graphics change, now is the perfect time to learn how to use internal and external data to stay relevant and meet enrollment targets. Through case studies and lively conversa tions, learn how to use data to build your re cruitment funnel, enhance your application screening processes, and improve retention and re-enrollment.

The 9th World Congress on

Special

Needs

Education

(WCSNE-2022) | 14-16 NOV, 2022 | Venue: Virtual

“The aim of WCSNE is to provide an opportunity for academicians and profession als from various educational and Industrial sectors with cross-disciplinary interests to bridge the knowledge gap, promote research esteem and the evolution of special needs in education. The WCSNE-2022 invites speakers to share their knowledge on issues or subject matters in special needs education that encompass conceptual analysis, case stud ies, design implementation and performance evaluation. Submissions are accepted in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.”

28 NOV - 02 DEC, 2023 | Tokyo, Japan

IAFOR’s unique global platform facilitates discussion around specific subject areas, with the goal of generating new knowledge and understanding, forging and expanding new international, intercul tural and interdisciplinary research networks and partnerships.

International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning in the Digital Age 01-02 DEC, 2022

“The theme for 2022 is “Quality Assurance and Academic Integ rity in the Digital space” The conference will focus on “Consider all aspects of teaching and learning from initial curriculum design, through to improving engagement, assessment and feedback.”

Durban, South Africa

20-23 MAR, 2023

Virtual Summit

“Learning 3.0 Empowering and Enabling Education -across 4 live days and 8 dynamic stages, 400+ speakers and tens of thousands of educators will be coming together. Underpinning the design of The World Education Sum mit are 7 high impact themes – those areas highlighted by school leaders and research as the most important to address and unpack:

Leadership | Insight to Impact | Teaching. Learning | Assessment & Cirriculum } Equity, Div eristy & Inclusion | Human Potential (SEL, Wellbeing, talent development) | Future of Learning

What’s Happening, ROR?

The terraced Princes’ Garden on the Marienberg Fortress, Wurzburg, Germany.

Photo by Peter Hermann. Pixabay License.

Falling Into An

Established Garden

By Megan Pugliese

Moving into a new home in November last year, I was excited to see what springtime would re veal in our new yard and gardens. The home and property seemed well-cared for in the pho tos, appointments, and inspection. In the back yard there was a lovely gazebo draped with wisteria vines. There was quaint sheds that looked like mini play houses, and a cozy cottage bench framed with more wisteria. Through the winter months, my partner and I would have animated conversations about where our vegetable gar den would go and how we would plan our outdoor housewarming party.

Come springtime, we were hit with a hard dose of reality when a series of sump pump failures decimated our basement and stored posses sions. During the weeks it took to dry the area and tear down the damage, we were lucky to uncover multiple foundation cracks and broken floor joists that could otherwise have ended in disaster. While working through the many repairs, my partner would discover the long wiste ria whips growing through the foundation that would set the tone for the following months.

Whilst mitigating indoor disasters, we strug gled not only with simple landscape mainte nance, but future garden planning, as well. Which flowers do we want in this garden plot? Which areas get sun and which get shade, and how does this coincide with the bulbs we want to plant? How do we lay out plants by bloom time?

To start out the season, I waged war on the un kempt wisteria selling-point-turned-nightmare. Evidently, the process the previous homeowner boasted as “training” was, in reality, just him al lowing an invasive vine to grow wild over a metal gazebo frame. Instead of growing the plant from one or two central vines, he intertwined over ten primary whips through and around the framework. A nest of wild vine webs covered the top, with several pieces too weak to survive the cold winter.

Luckily, after several aggressive trimmings, it offered a beautiful color show and, while more manageable now, it will take several years to retrain and tame. I spent another week ripping out a planter bed so overgrown with English ivy that it was taking over parts of the yard. Anoth-

er garden was filled with spider grass that is proving to be almost impossible to eradicate, but it obviously doesn’t know how persistent I can be.

Essentially, through the previous homeown er’s shortsightedness, I quickly learned and re-learned a lot about gardening. Thanks to a plant identification app on my phone and a lot of research, I can now identify climbing nightshade and bindweed. I have found and tasted wild grapes [spoiler: they are very bitter]. In dian strawberries are also very dry and not so tasty. I have carefully disposed of pokeweed after watching it grow impressively large; and I learned, through up-close-and-personal experience, the difference between Virginia creeper and poison ivy.

Not all experiences have been quite so unfortunate. A few pleasant surprises along the way have included a few gorgeously scented peony bushes and—surprise, another vine—an established clematis with huge purple blooms. My trusty phone identification app also stopped me from discarding a trio of weigela bushes that will bring loads of pink spring blooms af ter they recover from this year’s rejuvenation trim.

The best surprise of all, our crabapple tree, burst to life after a desperately needed spring trim, producing fruit almost the size of a true apple. A quick aside for any new owners of fruit trees or those entertaining the idea, and I can not say this enough times for all to hear: Pick Up. Your Apples. As They Fall. The neighbors across the street delighted in the late sum mer show I put on for them each morning as I gingerly hopscotched and twisted on tip-toe through the Wasp Field of Terror to retrieve edible specimen.

The bulk of the early season was less about enjoying the gardening experience and more about (quite literally) clawing my way out of the weeds. Taking a more simple approach to summer planting, I opted for a few well-placed petunias in the front garden. We divided some hostas underneath the trees as groundcover and picked up a few bleeding hearts for a vi brant pick-me-up in the shadier areas.

A few weeks later, we discovered a few deli ciously free sunflowers that emerged from the detritus underneath the bird feeder. We enjoyed the blooms for several months, but with each week getting ominously closer to the first cold snap of fall, the questions started rolling

Wisteria growing on the side wall of a house.

Photo by Thomas Didgeman. Pixabay License.

in again. Are we going to plant bulbs? Where? How many do we need? Knowing it was time to get serious, I spent sever al hours filling, deleting, and refilling my cart with exotic fall-planted bulbs online. I looked at the price in my cart and decided to sleep on it. Then, I repeated this process several more times.

I have yet to buy my covet ed pink daffodils and fringed double tulips. My dinnerplate dahlias and orienpet lilies are softly calling out to me, but I can’t bring myself to hit sub mit. Instead, the theme of the season is to work with what we have. This past weekend, my partner and I removed even more (yes, more) ornamental grass from the lawn. For those nonethewise, zebra grass roots are abhorrently strong. Even weightlifting enthusiasts would be exhausted after a grueling session of digging and pulling. We then divided our day lily plants with plans to fill the empty space.

Finding an insane amount of bulbs, we now have a mirrored pair of daylily gardens fram ing the driveway, each of which circles a large pot for seasonal annuals. Afterwards came more digging, as we decided to move the peonies to the front of the house as our early spring show stopper. We were also pleased to find that these plants had grown larger than we antici pated, allowing us to split them across more area for a nicer spread.

Our final moments of fall prep will hopefully be more laid back. We’ve dethatched and seeded the lawn and given the plants a nice long drink to pre pare for the colder months. My partner and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that our plans were too grand, and we need to step back and enjoy what we have for now.

Next year will include fin ishing our vegetable garden planters, eradicating several areas of the yard with more unwanted wisteria, and build ing raised boxes to house and control flowering vines of our choice. For now, we’ll just sit back, sip some hot chocolate, and enjoy the sweater weather that fall brings.

Samuel Harrison House and Garden (1936) by Meyer Gold baum. Original from The National Gallery of Art. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Elgin Botanical Gardens (1936) by Tabea Hosier. Original from The National Gallery of Art. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. Public Domain.

Marvao Castle on top of cliff with Alto Alentejo landscape in Portugal. Medieval Moorish fort or fortress and box hedge garden. Stock Photo.

“Twitter Flutters” Original cartoon commissioned by the ROR Magazine. Artisti Tiffour Ismail.

Original cartoon commissioned by the ROR Magazine. Artist Milagros Nieto Moreno.

“Thank you, so much for your kindness, Doctor.”

“Move out of my way, ye’ ol’ rice-eating hag!!#$!!”

ascade Academy began with a dream of treating adolescent girls suffering with severe anxiety. Adolescent girls are three times more likely to experience anxiety than boys. This need presented an opportunity to serve students and families across the country. As with most dreams, there were many obstacles to overcome to keep hope alive. It took three years to make the dream a reality.

Cascade Academy was founded by John & Carol Probst, Caleb Cottle and Brad Gerrard in January 2020. With dynamic leadership forging the way, each partner has worked hard on their mission to help students and families to embrace life with courage and joy.

Having worked many years in the behavioral health industry, Caleb saw a need to serve adolescent girls with severe anxiety and began his search for the perfect location and the ideal team. Uninterested in a facility with an “institutional” feel, he began a search for something that felt like “home.” Through a series of fortunate events, he was led to John and Carol Probst, respected entrepreneurs and community members in Midway, Utah. They were interested

nine bedrooms, ten bathrooms, two kitchens and plenty of office space, it was the “home” he had been searching for. Rather than sell their beautiful home, John and Carol offered it as part of a partnership agreement and Cascade Academy was born. Situated in the scenic Wasatch Back just outside of Park City, Cascade Academy is the perfect environment to promote healing for students and their families.

With the location established, Brad Gerrard, a well-respected and seasoned expert in the behavioral health field, was recruited and completed the ownership team, filling the role as Executive Director. Shortly thereafter Bekah Schuler joined the team as Clinical Director and quickly became specialized and knowledgeable in the treatment of adolescent anxiety. With over thirty years of experience in education, Jacki Burnham fills the demanding role as Academic Director, creating personalized education plans for each student. As the Admissions Director, LeaKae Roberts walks parents through the difficult process of placing their daughter in treatment. Porter Roe acting as Program Director makes certain that the needs of students and their families are met throughout the duration of treatment.

Looking ahead…

We head into the New Year, determined to serve as the defining platform for our com munity, and to be the mouthpiece of our achievements and challenges.

Today leadership must keep the whole cara van together and raise the flag of overlooked voices, languages, and cultural tapestry. Lead ership means achieving goals with responsi bility for our influence on the society, world and the planet.

At ROR we instigate this new model of lead ership and hope to inspire our circle to it.

More Participant Schools!

More quality International Sponsors, Inves tors, and Contributors!

200k reads! 15+ Sponsors! Digital Edition on Issue! Paperback copies coming soon!

Ad Submission Guidelines

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Image Sources: Purchase and download high resolution photos from online stock photo sources and use them in your ad. Or, hire your own photographer for original, high-res photos. The ideal image resolution is at least 1500 pixels or higher for every photo that will cover at least 8.5 x 5.5 inch area on the mag azine page. Images pulled from the internet will be of poor quality and could have hidden copyright infringements for which we won’t be liable.

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Submit Larger Text Blocks as a Companion Essay: If you insist on hoving a large piece of text as part of your sponsorship package, feel free to submit it separately as a .docx file and we will include it as an introduction to your school/service. Submit additional photos to go with the piece, conforming to above guidelines, with accurately labelled titles. Include captions after the body of the text, clearly linked to titles of submitted photos.

Book Ads: Thomas Schenck. 717 538-6000. dartmouthassociates@gmail.com Contributions: Editor. rhodora.jabs@yahoo.com

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