“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. ​​​​​​

“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.

“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.

“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.

“Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

In working on the show, Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R. Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse children in that way.

In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of child development is actually derived from some of the leading 20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for almost half a century.

for example, healthy people outlining the tasks they need to do that day might be something like 

- class - work - homework

if a healthy person is having a low energy day, maybe it becomes 

- make breakfast - go to class - class - go to work - work - come home from work - work on an essay - do 2 readings 

a depressed person, on a high energy day will probably see that same day as 

- make breakfast - eat breakfast - take meds - shower - get dressed - walk to bus - take bus … etc

a depressed person, on a low energy day will see that same day as

- wake up - get out of bed - walk to bathroom - use bathroom - stand back up - walk to kitchen - open fridge - take out juice - set on counter - go to cabinet - reach up arm - take down glass - unscrew lid of juice carton - pour juice - drink the juice - finish the juice …etc

the sort of chronic exhaustion manifests in how each ‘task’ takes a certain amount of energy and when you have depression, what begins to take that amount of energy- and thus, cognitively count as a ‘task’- are smaller and smaller subdivisions of what other people consider tasks. 

And the more ‘tasks’ you do, the less energy you have, and the smaller the subdivisions must be to take equivalent amounts of energy. And the longer that “to do” list of tasks is, the more exhausting and overwhelming and hopeless it feels, which creates a feedback loop of dysfunction.

So say our depressed person on a low energy day gets all the way to finishing their glass of juice. They’ve actually gotten through a lot of tasks! They’ve tried really hard. 

But to a healthy person, even on a low energy day, that probably looks like not having done anything- not having gotten through any tasks. And when our depressed person is surrounded by healthy people, they will likely internalize that they haven’t done anything, and further that they can’t complete any tasks no matter how hard they try. And that feeds worthlessness and suicidal ideation 

That, I think, is why it’s so important to encourage your depressed and chronically low-energy friends when they accomplish tasks, even if they’re operating at a level of subdivision that you don’t recognize. It is an accomplishment to get water and actually drink it for some folks. It is an accomplishment to get to class or to work. 

The implication is that giving and investing time and energy and resources in others is, more often than not, somehow a miscalculation or a thoughtless action that puts me at a disadvantage in the race toward my goals. The truth contradicts such a statement.

My actions are very calculated. If I give money to someone that may or may not spend it in a way that I agree with, I am doing so with the knowledge that what that person needs is not paternalism, but community and resources. I am doing that with the knowledge that I may not, at that moment be capable of providing those things. I am doing it with the knowledge that bootstrap philosophy is also mythology. I am doing it with the knowledge that getting by day to day on next to nothing erodes the mind and the body. I am doing it with the knowledge that every little thing counts.

I do it with full knowledge and experience telling me that people take kindness for granted, that they take kindness for weakness, that they take my kindness for their own advantage. I am also doing it with full knowledge and experience telling me that this too is a survival tactic. I am doing it with the knowledge that being displaced, addicted, unpleasant, or unstable are not things that are solved by manners or good feelings or cops or prisons. These things are managed, fought, and defeated by having all of our needs meet. So yes, my kindness is calculated. My kindness has never been a mistake. Yes, I have planned, and researched and debated with myself about what is to be done.

Investing in the people around me, even the strangers, is simply the cost of living, and the very real cost of community building. It’s the cost of freely, or not, walking the earth as a person - that by nature - needs the other. To try to not live life at the cost of another is an investment in a world that is entirely possible, but unrealized.

Black student: [unintelligible—and then]  …and then throwing everything away beneath it because it doesn’t pertain to you. I’m sorry —

White teacher: —you know what, I’m sorry -I’m sorry…

Black student: —No, no, no…I let you talk -I let you talk, you’re gonna let me talk.

[Other students gasps]

White student: Go ahead. Finish.

Black student: I’m sorry that this is the way that it is. You’re right, it is fucked up. But white people control everything…and that’s not fair. And when anybody, any other minority tries to say anything about it or change it, we’re complaining or we’re ungrateful or all this other stuff because we still have this or that. But then you say something about ‘Oh, I don’t want—there’s too many Latinos and there’s too many—’

White teacher: I didn’t say that—

[Various students disagree]

White teacher: I said I want to control the border!

Black student: You said you don’t want this to turn into a Latin country because there’ll be too many 

White teacher: I did not say that.

[Various students disagree]

Student 2: You said you want to preserve the American culture.

Black student: There is no American culture. American culture is EVERYTHING.

[Various students agree]

Random: Mayonnaise!

[Students laugh]

Black student: And because you are white and so closed-minded, you refuse to accept that, you refuse to accept—

White teacher: Don’t tell me I’m closed-minded—

Black student: Everything you’ve said to me is closed-minded.

White teacher: Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m closed-minded.

Black student: You don’t need to agree—I -I’ve had conversations with people that don’t agree with me, but if they at least listen and try to accept—you’re not accepting the truth.

White teacher: Why do I have to accept what you think is right?

Black student: You need to accept the truth! Not what I think is right, what is actually happening right—

White teacher: Well, let me tell you what I think. You said white people have been in control of everything….who is the president of the United States right now?!

Students: A black man!

*Various sounds of incredulity*

Black student: WITH A WHITE CONGRESS! WITH A WHITE SENATE! WITH WHITE EVERYTHING ELSE! HE DOESN’T HAVE THE CONTROL OF EVERYTHING!

Random: GO OFF 

Other Random: GO OFF–

*The class is in an uproar*

Random student: YOU ARE SO PRIVILEGED THAT YOU JUST DON’T SEE IT!

White teacher: Do we have to yell?!

A black, female, lgbt city counselor was shot dead in Rio last night.

A black, female, lgbt city counselor that came from a poor neighborhood and used her position to defend all those causes was shot dead in Rio last night.

They fired 9 times towards her car. They hit her in the head more than once. 

A city counselor was shot dead in Rio last night, with more than one gunshot to her head. Her driver too, shot in the back. 

A city counselor that had just created a way to investigate on the military intervention in Rio last week - a city counselor that had just unveiled yet more cases of police violence - was assassinated in Rio last night.

Such as these thousands of dead starfish and other sea animals on the beaches of the UK:

Excerpt:

March certainly came in like a lion in the UK and Ireland, as “the Beast from the East” brought freezing temperatures, up to 20 inches of snowfall and travel disruptions to the British Isles.

But what was disruptive for the region’s human inhabitants was deadly for its marine life. Hundreds of thousands of lobsters, starfish, crabs and other creatures washed up dead or dying on beaches on the UK’s eastern coast, Buzzfeed News reported Monday.

“There are places where you are ankle-deep, or calf-deep, in animals,” Yorkshire Wildlife Trust worker Bex Lyman said.