One of the most challenging problems facing Illinois education is the teacher shortage affecting bilingual educators. Although a statewide issue, most students affected are concentrated in underfunded low income districts attended by large numbers of children of color, many who come from non-English speaking backgrounds. And this is not an issue for Spanish speakers but over 140 other languages as well. To address the shortage, the Illinois State Board of Education has released the report, Teach

In O. Henry's short Christmas story "The Gift of the Magi," a husband and wife each sell a prized possession in order to buy a special gift for the other. But because of what was sold, neither can use the gift that was given. When my son was a teen, he often opened my box of mementos and took out my high school class ring, admiring it for reasons yet unknown to me. This occurred at a time when he began karate lessons, but I couldn't afford to buy a uniform for him. Determined to give him one, I

The recently published Harvard scientific paper suggesting that an alien probe might have passed through our solar system awaken s memories of my own DeKalb County UFO experience in the fall of 1974. A friend and I were exiting a horse barn south of DeKalb when we witnessed an inexplainable object in the sky. Let me clearly state that we hadn’t consumed any perception altering products. We were both immediately afraid of the object that stood still in the sky and changed colors. In time we

We like to blame corporations for many of our issues, including the amount of waste that comes from food. However, isn’t it our responsibility to control the food we buy and what we do with it? A good portion of food wastes comes from things we do every day, especially at home. On average, each American wastes 23 pounds of food each month. The food we waste is mostly made up of either fruits or vegetables. If we were all smarter about food waste, then maybe 1 in 8 residents of Illinois wouldn’t

Few places match the bright ness and buoyancy of an elementary school after the final bell . One father’s daily highlight is picking up his daughter Iris from Todd Elementary in Beloit , where she’s a second grader. Teachers wait with their rowdy charges alongside the school while parents search for their own . To reach the second graders, an often- tardy father must journey through a kingdom of smiling kindergarte ners and fi rst graders . Even the teachers, survivors of another day, seem cheer

I’m writing this perspective on the day of George Herbert Walker Bush’s state funeral. I did not vote for Mr. Bush in either the 1988 or 1992 presidential elections. I can confidently say a generation later that I disagreed with many of his education policies. But I can also confidently say I was ignorant of what drove the man. It’s been in the last 10 years or so that I’ve come to realize just how wrong I was about Mr. Bush both as a person and as a president. I owe much of that education of

Jibo is dead. Who or what is Jibo , you ask? Jibo was a robot. The world’s first family robot. He — and the device was gendered male — was the brain-child of Cynthia Breazeal, a social robotics pioneer from MIT. Like Alexa and Siri, Jibo was designed to be a hands-free digital assistant—answering questions, providing information, and controlling various internet connected devices around the house. But unlike other the digital assistants, Jibo moved. He didn’t walk or roll around, but he could

It was a typical Thanksgiving table with carved turkey, mashed and marshmallow sweet potatoes, salads, cranberry sauce, and apple pie. But new aromas rose from the table – some traditional dishes from Southeast Asia. This all came about when my husband and I were invited to join a pastor, his wife, and young adult son to celebrate the holiday. We were also told that a young woman from Bangladesh, working on her Ph.D. at Northern Illinois University, would also be present. As it turned out, she

Think back to a kindness you bestowed someone -- a really good one. Think of how it made you feel. Okay, now think of a time when you had that feeling going on. Think of how that feeling made what you were doing easier, more fun, more creative, and effortlessly effective. Yes, giving a kindness can put you in that place and ripple more good into the things you do -- more good into your life. Think back again to that kindness you bestowed. It likely put someone else into that place where life got

How often do we hear someone say that they are really busy? Every time I think about my daily to do list, I know that compared to Johann Sebastian Bach , I'm not busy at all. A visit to Leipzig , Germany is a real eye-ope ner on how Bach must be one of the best time management pe ople of all time . In the Bach House Museum , his daily schedule is a lesson on how to juggle multiple responsibilities. Not only did Johann Sebastian have an important position which made him responsible for music in