School kids

For fourth-grader Leah Rainey, the school day now begins with what her teacher calls an “emotional check-in.” “It’s great to see you. How are you feeling?” chirps a cheery voice on her laptop screen. It asks her to click an emoji matching her state of mind: Happy. Sad. Worried. Angry. Frustrated. Calm. Silly. Tired. Depending on the answer, Leah, 9, gets advice from a cartoon avatar on managing her mood and a few more questions: Have you eaten breakfast? Are you hurt or sick? Is everything OK at home? Is someone at school being unkind? Today, Leah chooses “silly,” but says she struggled with sadness during online learning. At Lakewood Elementary School, all 420 students will start their days the same way this year. The rural Kentucky school is one of thousands across the country using the technology to screen students’ state of mind and alert teachers to anyone struggling. In some ways, this year’s back-to-school season will restore a degree of pre-pandemic normalcy: Most … [Read more...] about New Reports Talk About Whether Schools Are Doing Enough To Help With The Mental Health of Youths

Kim Byung-yeon The author is a professor of economics and head of the Institute for Future Strategy, Seoul National University. South Korea is looking at two ticking bombs — one is North Korean nuclear programs and the other is the low birthrate. South Korea’s viability hinges on its ability to remove the bombs before they blow up. Resolving the North Korean nuclear threat is not entirely an impossibility. There is a government office devoted to North Korean issues. But a solution to the demographic danger has not been found. There is no government office overseeing the affair, either. The government earmarked 43 trillion won ($33 billion) in budgetary spending last year alone to address low birthrates. From 2006, the cumulative spending exceeds 200 trillion won. But the total fertility rate fell to 0.81 last year from 1.48 in 2000. Without reversing the trend in birthrates, South Korea would entirely lose vitality. Innovation would become difficult and the growth rate in the … [Read more...] about Three keys to a higher birthrate

This has been a strange year for popular music. In the winter, a chaotically catchy cha-cha medley from a Disney movie took the title of No. 1 song in the world. Then a 37-year-old anthem from one of music’s great oddballs, Kate Bush, did the same . Right now, another singular tune is making a surprising climb up the charts, though this time the hit also represents a familiar occurrence: the breakout moment for a promising talent. The artist is Steve Lacy, a 24-year-old guitarist and singer from Compton, California. The song is “ Bad Habit ,” which simultaneously sounds like something the Beach Boys might have demoed in the ’60s, Prince might have covered in the ’80s, and college rock radio might have played in the ’90s—yet it probably could have blown up only today. Lacy has had buzz in the music industry for a while now . After becoming a music nerd in childhood thanks to the video game Guitar Hero, he joined the soon-to-be-Grammy-nominated R&B group The Internet when … [Read more...] about Gen Z Has Found Its Guitar Hero

Much of the music that defined my early-2000s adolescence was written before I could walk. Listening to CD-Rs filled with songs that had been ripped from the internet, my friends and I warbled to the Pixies’ 1988 oddity “Where Is My Mind?,” moped to Tears for Fears’ 1982 dirge “Mad World” (and its 2001 cover by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews), and mewled to various versions of Leonard Cohen’s 1984 masterpiece “Hallelujah.” These songs had entered our teenage consciousness because they’d been featured in mind-blowing contemporary movies: Fight Club , Donnie Darko , and, of course, Shrek . Today, visual media remain a portal between young listeners and older artists. Thanks to its placement in the new season of the Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things , Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “ Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) ” has again become a global sensation. Pop radio stations are slotting Bush’s operatic trills between Harry Styles’s mumbles and Lizzo’s flute tooting. … [Read more...] about The Kate Bush Resurgence Is a Reminder That We Can Have Nice Things