admin – Page 16 – Froebel Decade

Body Language

An instructional video on using body language effectively.

Presented by Stanford graduate students Matt Levy, Colin Bailie, Jeong Joon Ha, and Jennifer Rosenfeld.

Making Body Language Your Superpower

Created as an exemplary final project in Lecturer JD Schramm’s Strategic Communication course in March 2014.

Body language – both the speaker’s and the audience’s – is a powerful form of communication that is difficult to master, especially if the speaker is nervous. This video will teach you how to use your body language effectively, even if you are nervous. This video will also show you how to read the audience’s body language and what you should do when they look bored or disconnected from the presentation.

Use these tools to enhance your nonverbal communication abilities and better connect with your audiences.

Harmony

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales sends an inspiring message about how we can change the course of environmental destruction by living in harmony with Nature.

In an adaptation of his adult book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World for young readers, The Prince shares how many years of research have led him to a series of holistic solutions for change. He encourages global citizens of all ages to search for a harmonious balance with Nature in order to solve the greatest crisis in modern history, the survival of our planet.

H R H Prince of Wales

Charles: The Heart of a King

The future of the British monarchy concerns Catherine Mayer, although she is an American by birth.

51jJU9vNKAL

Towards the end of this exhaustive yet entertaining biography she tackles the politics of the succession, arguing from the law of unintended consequences, and the nature of constitutional reform, to the conclusion that for all his inconsistencies and contradictions, Charles is, if not the best man for the job of head of state, certainly the most highly qualified.

Mayer reaches this position by a slow and circular path, as if she were perambulating the landscaped garden of one of the many country properties the prince flits between. Often she sits down under a gazebo to ponder weighty issues, and is joined there by one or other of her interviewees – among them the prince himself.

Mayer’s book has reignited – some controversy: is Charles too “political” to be a constitutional monarch? Will he give up his obsessive beneficence when he seats himself on the Stone of Scone? And can he square his seemingly heterodox religious beliefs with his status as head of the Anglican Communion? Mayer is a shrewd enough surveyor of the British scene not to be fooled by such deceptively rational bends.

The building of Poundbury and his attack on architectural modernism in general, is motivated by an underlying the notion that humans divorce themselves from the structures of the natural world at their peril, set out in his own 2010 book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World.

a lifelong republican, warms to the heir to the throne, and asks: is he the king we deserve?

Source: Will Self reviews Charles: The Heart of a King by Catherine Mayer

Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World

A practical guide to what we have lost in the modern world, why we have lost it and how easily it is to rediscover. Harmony is a blueprint for a more balanced, sustainable world that the human race must create to survive. For more than 30 years His Royal Highness Prince Charles The Prince of Wales has been at the forefront of a growing ecological movement. Originally treated with scepticism, many of his ideas are now widely accepted and gaining increasing impact and influence. His work has sought to meet a huge range of modern challenges, from urbanisation to deforestation. In every case, however, the philosophy that is the foundation of his work has always been the same, but has always been unspoken, until now. For the first time, Prince Charles, with the help of his two leading advisors, has brought together his vast knowledge and experience to set out this philosophy – a philosophy that is as robust as it is practical. In Harmony, Prince Charles looks at different aspects of our modern world to demonstrate how many of the challenges seen in areas as diverse as architecture, farming and medicine can be traced to how we have abandoned a classical sense of balance and proportion.

Design

Intimate Triangle: Architecture of Crystals, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Froebel Kindergarten

Motivated by Frank Lloyd Wright’s credit to the early childhood influence of Froebel Kindergarten on his architectural design, Rubin illuminates the evolution of the Froebel Kindergarten and the intriguing connections to some of the greatest talents in the arts and sciences of the twentieth century.

In his autobiography, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote about the significance of playing with these blocks designed by Friedrich Froebel.

“For several years I sat at the little Kindergarten table and played with the cube, the sphere and the triangle. These smooth wooden maple blocks . . . All are in my fingers to this day”

This book is for anyone interested in early childhood education or the creative forces behind the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Froebel Kindergarten by Jeanne Spielman Rubin

New Math

New Math was a brief dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools during the 1960s.

Tom Lehrer wrote a satirical song named “New Math” around the process of subtracting 173 from 342 in decimal and octal.

The song is in the style of a lecture about the general concept of subtraction in arbitrary number systems, illustrated by two simple calculations, and highlights the emphasis on insight and abstract concepts of the New Math approach.

Lehrer’s explanation of the two calculations is entirely correct, but presented in such a way (at rapid speed, with minimal visual aids, and with snide remarks thrown in) as to make it difficult for most audience members to follow the rather simple calculations being performed.

Source: The full ‘New Math’ song by Tom Lehrer animated

unboxing

The unboxing video craze began with videos about unpacking of new high tech consumer products and slowly examining all the elements of the product, from the inner and outer wrappings to the actual product itself.

“You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.” — Jonathan Ives, Apple designer

The craze spread into the world of fashion and toys for children. Once the trend took off unboxing videos were created by companies for their own products.

The thrill of getting something new is exciting, as anyone who has ever watched children at a birthday party knows. It is not all about receiving the toy, they really enjoy watching their friends opening their presents.

Friedrich Froebel understood how children enjoy the anticipation unboxing gifts, when he designed play gifts in wooden boxes.

Wetlands

Restored wetlands along the north side the Latrobe River near Sale in Gippsland, Australia are bursting with birdlife and sprouting new native vegetation.

r888476_8891968 — Freckled ducks in flight

Fauna ecologists have been delighted by the discovery of growling grass frogs and green and golden bell frogs.

r888621_8895442 — Green and golden bell frog

Five years ago the paddocks at the historic Swing Bridge were a barren dust bowl. Bad seasons, bad management and bad luck had turned a spectacular mix of land and water into a barren, featureless plain where only the strongest river red gums battled through those years. Clear waterways, tangled with debris from storms, deteriorated to swamp.

The Swing Bridge, on the Latrobe River south of Sale, carried the road to the south, while giving large lakes vessels access into the Port of Sale.

The Swing Bridge is now preserved as an historically important structure, while traffic crosses on a new bridge a little upstream.

Truth

truth

“One great law dominates in nature and thought. Between two things or two ideas relatively different there always exists a third which unites the two others in itself, and is found between them with a certain equilibrium.”

Froebel gave himself to the search for an intermediary form between the ball and the cube.

denkmal_froebel_spielgaben — Froebel second gift.

Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon, and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, its sequel Through the Looking Glass. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy.

In 1862 Charles Dodgson, a shy Oxford mathematician with a stammer, created a story about a little girl tumbling down a rabbit hole. Thus began the immortal adventures of Alice, perhaps the most popular heroine in English literature.

Aristotle

Greek archaeologists believe they have discovered the lost tomb of Aristotle, the greatest philosopher in history, who became the tutor of Alexander the Great at the court of ancient Macedonia.

Kostas Sismanidis said he was almost sure that a 2,400 year-old domed vault he unearthed in ancient Stagira was the burial place of the man credited with formalising logic.

“The architecture and location of the tomb, close to Stagira’s ancient square and with panoramic views, supported the belief that it was the philosopher’s final resting place.”

Two literary sources suggest that the people of Stagira, the birthplace of the philosopher in 384 BC, transferred his ashes from Chalcis on the island of Euboea (Chalkida on Evia today) where he is known to have died in 322 BC.

The vault has a square marble floor dating from Hellenistic times and an altar outside. Coins dated to Alexander the Great and ceramics from royal pottery were also found.

An aerial view of the dig site. — An aerial view of the dig site at Stagira in the Greek region of Macedonia, the birthplace of the philosopher in 384 BC

Aristotle was a pupil of Plato. He travelled around the Aegean and Asia Minor before returning to Athens where he founded his own school, the Lyceum, in 335 BC.

Source: Is this Greek hilltop the 2,400 year old burial place of Aristotle?