Another day of social distancing, another newsletter. Keep on sending me those emails, links and memes. If you missed a prior newsletter, you can find it here. And continuous thanks for staying home, staying safe, washing hands and masking up!
Alright, gang, back to links galore! Let’s start with the parenting stuff, today focusing on school-from-home. In case you missed it, last week Common Sense Media launched Wide Open School, an incredible platform designed to help both parents and teachers optimize distance learning. And this week, Common Sense also released results of a survey looking at virtual school ditch rates. Spoiler alert: almost half of all kids have skipped online school. It’s worth reading Anya Kamenetz’s piece to understand why… they’re not necessarily choosing to miss it.
Another great educational resource, forwarded by a friend this week, is TeachAids. This site aims to solve health issues both by disseminating information to maximize prevention and by innovating solutions while engaging countries around the world. You (and your kids) can learn anything you ever wanted to know about concussions, HIV/AIDS, and now COVID-19. Absolutely check it out.
There’s lots of nontraditional education happening in homes across the country, too. Looking for an awesome project aimed at taking hand washing to the next level? Submit your family’s design to the Rube Goldberg soap video challenge.
Still inside the house but not exactly on the topic of education… if you want step-by-step advice about how to best handle groceries and food delivery, I love this video by Dr. Jeff VanWingen.
Most of us are home (A LOT) and many people are reporting longer stretches of sleep each night. Anyone else having vivid – even downright weird – dreams these days? This Vox article about wild quarantine dreams explains the biology behind dreaming and why it goes a little haywire during times of stress.
Now for life outside of the home, where masks are the thing of the moment. While there’s much debate about the effectiveness of a simple cotton mask or face covering, the esteemed British Medical Journal weighed in yesterday strongly in favor of the move. The BMJ’s bottom line: “As with parachutes for jumping out of aeroplanes, it is time to act without waiting for randomized controlled trial evidence. Masks are simple, cheap, and potentially effective. We believe that… they could have a substantial impact on transmission with a relatively small impact on social and economic life.”
