Monday, January 17, 2011

NEELA AND M.L.K.

-- Forwarded Message
> From: Sturza Sheryl
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:42:22 -0600
> To: Neela Chandraraj , Neela
> Chandraraj
> Subject: Neela and MLK
>
> Dear Chandraraj Family,
>
> You should be so proud of Neela. When discussing Martin Luther King Jr
> this morning, Neela very eloquently described both his efforts and
> strengths. She also explained the story of Rosa Parks for our class.
> Joanna and I always so impressed with her depth of knowledge and
> ability to put it into words. She is one sophisticated little girl.
> Although she still maintains the innocence and joy of a six year old!
> I hope she loves school as much as we love having her here.
>
> Have a wonderful weekend.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Miss Sturza
> 847-251-6754 x6217
> sturzas@wilmette39.org

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Teens with a mission?

90 Teens Pregnant at Memphis High School

Better late than never: A Memphis high school is desperately trying to reduce teen pregnancies among its students after realizing 90 of its 800 students, or about 11 percent, are currently pregnant. Ninety percent of the students at Frayser High School qualify for free lunches, and students feel like the pregnancies are an epidemic. "When we would come back from summer break, there would be a thousand people pregnant," said a 2004 graduate. "We were like what's going on. There were a whole lot of bellies." Local authorities are planning a massive advertising campaign encouraging girls to say no, or at least to use protection if they have sex. The Memphis schools superintended added that older men from outside the city see teenage girls as easy prey, and are contributing to the problem.

Read it at New York Daily News

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Tolstoy on Shakespeare

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: “King Lear,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet” and “Macbeth,” not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and doubted as to whether I was senseless in feeling works regarded as the summit of perfection by the whole of the civilized world to be trivial and positively bad, or whether the significance which this civilized world attributes to the works of Shakespeare was itself senseless.