TakingOnTheGiant.com

A 12-year-old schoolgirl has been accepted into Mensa after discovering she is brainier than both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Olivia Manning, from Liverpool, managed to get a whopping score in an IQ test of 162 - well above the 100 average.

Her score is not only two points better than genius German physicist Einstein and Professor Stephen Hawking, but puts her in the top one per cent of intelligent people in the world.

Screw The Hollywood Definition Of Beauty — We’re Changing That One Selfie At A Time

by StudentNation | The Nation

Philadelphia students greet Governor Corbett. — Photo via PCAPS

[This post, edited by Youngist's James Cersonsky (@cersonsky), first appeared on The Nation, and has been republished here with permission. ]

Last spring, The Nation launched its biweekly student movement dispatch. As part of the StudentNation blog, each dispatch hosts ten first-person updates on student and youth organizing in the United States—from established student unions to emerging national networks, to ad hoc campaigns that don’t yet have a name. For an archive of earlier editions, check out the New Year’s dispatch.

1. As Strike Waters Heat Up, Portland Students Walk Out

In early January, the Portland Student Union held three days of action in support of the Portland Association of Teachers in its current contract negotiations. Jefferson and Wilson High School students walked out, while Cleveland High School student union members held three days of speakouts. Overall, more than 300 students participated in the days of action. On January 13, the demonstrations culminated in a school board rallywith 500 students, parents and workers. At the board meeting, the PDXSU presented “The Schools Portland Students Demand,” a set of priorities that students see as vital to their education.

—Portland Student Union

2. After Months of Student Pressure, Obama Acts on Title IX

Ed Act Now, the movement for better federal enforcement of Title IX, was thrilled by President Obama’s January 22 announcement of a new task force to combat campus sexual violence. After garnering public support through a protest and online petition, student organizers met with White House officials in July to discuss their ideas. Ed Act Now is encouraged to see many of its proposals—including stricter enforcement of existing laws and greater federal transparency—included in a public memo outlining the task force’s plans. Activists are now working to ensure that the task force calls on a diversity of survivor voices—crossing lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, type of educational institution and form of violence suffered—to inform the White House’s investigations.

—Ed Act Now

Goethe (via londonflaneur)

What have you done to replenish your creativity this year? 

It is an unusual school in an unusual location and is run by an unusual teacher.

Rajesh Kumar is a shopkeeper by profession but spends hours every morning teaching around 80 children from the poorest of the poor in India’s capital.

The 43-year-old visited the construction of the Delhi transit station a few years ago and was disturbed by the sight of  many children playing at the site instead of attending school.

When he questioned the parents working at the sites they all said there were no schools in the vicinity and no one cared.

Consequently, his open-air class room was born - between pillars and beneath the tracks of the Delhi transit system, known as the Metro.

Every few minutes a train passes above, the children unperturbed by its sounds.

There are no chairs or tables and the children sit on rolls of polystyrene foam placed on the rubble.

Three rectangular patches of wall are painted black and used as a blackboard.

Anonymous donors have contributed cardigans, books, shoes and stationery for the children, as their parents cannot afford them.