Latest news with #MotherGoose
CNBC
11-07-2025
- Science
- CNBC
78-year-old who has written over 175 books: My 4 'hard rules' for keeping my brain sharp and quick
At 78 years old, my brain is just as sharp and productive as ever. I've written more than 175 books over the course of my career — on a wide range of topics, including marine biology, job interviews, ancient trees, creativity, baseball, dinosaurs, American history, resume writing, tsunamis, and Mother Goose. I also spent over three decades as a professor and worked with more than 100 schools across North America as a consultant. Even though I'm retired now, I still write books, give presentations, and blog about psychology. My secret to staying sharp is simple: I am constantly curious. Our brain's chemistry changes when we become curious. Curiosity is what sharpens our intellectual powers, and keeps us mentally active well into our golden years. Here are my four hard rules for keeping my brain sharp and quick: There's a common belief that knowledge is the key to success. But growing research suggests that some of the most successful people embrace their own "innate ignorance." They understand that there is much more to learn about the world, but they don't let that impede their progress. If anything, it galvanizes them to do more. Knowing what we don't know can be a powerful mindset shift that sparks growth and creativity. How to do this: Once or twice a week, select a topic you know little about, preferably one unrelated to your job or background. Maybe it's WWII fighter pilots, prehistoric cave paintings, or square-trunked trees. Spend five to 10 minutes learning all you can about that topic. Write down three interesting facts. This is a small but powerful way to exercise your brain. Many of us get trapped in an endless cycle of convergent thinking, or always looking for the "right" answers. But I've spent my entire career as an educator, and I can tell you that most schools trained us to focus on facts ("What is the capital of Pennsylvania?"), rather than creative answers ("Where do you think the capital Pennsylvania be located?"). Divergent questions, or open-ended questions that have multiple answers, encourage deeper thinking and help keep your mind flexible. How to do this: A few times a week, ask yourself "What if...?" questions: Not only are these questions fun, they can also generate a number of responses and paths for exploration. According to researchers at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, experiencing awe can stimulate wonder and curiosity. Some examples can be holding a newborn baby, seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, or watching a kaleidoscope of butterflies dance over an open field. That sense of awe can improve our well-being, contribute to a more positive attitude, and boost curiosity. How to do this: Once or twice a month, go to a place you've never been before. It doesn't have to be somewhere far — maybe a local park or new restaurant. Find something awesome, spend time observing, and record your thoughts. Reading outside our field of expertise may be one of the most significant things we can do to develop our natural curiosity. When we expose ourselves to different ways of thinking through literature, we open up new possibilities for learning. Even after 50 years of teaching, my current reading list includes books not on education, but on marketing strategies, paleontology, growing tomatoes, British narrowboats, island ecology, long distance running, and redwood trees, among many others. How to do this: Visit your local public library and pick at least three books on topics that interest you, but that you've never formally studied or worked in. Read at least one chapter a day. You might be surprised by where your research takes you.
Korea Herald
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
NY Phil's return to Korea brings long-awaited reunions
NY Phil reunites with Zimerman after 30 years and with Korean audiences after 11 years; Zimerman reunites with Salonen after seven years The names New York Philharmonic, conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen and celebrated pianist Krystian Zimerman alone are enough to capture the attention of classical music lovers. But look more closely, and this week's performances reveal something deeper: a series of long-awaited reunions between artists, between orchestra and soloist, and between the ensemble and its Korean audience. From Thursday to Saturday, the New York Philharmonic will take the stage before Korean audiences for the first time in 11 years. Kim Yong-kwan, CEO of Mast Media and the concert series organizer, recalled during a press conference on Wednesday that when considering a potential collaborator for the New York Philharmonic, Zimerman came to mind immediately. In 2009, Zimerman vowed not to perform in the US in protest against American military policies — a pledge he continues to keep. When Kim approached the orchestra about the possibility of working with Zimerman, who last performed with them nearly 30 years ago, their response was one of disbelief: 'too good to be true.' When Kim reached out to Zimerman, the pianist showed immediate interest. Upon learning that Finnish maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen, also a composer and one of the most respected figures in contemporary classical music, would be performing, Zimerman readily agreed. It so happens that the last time Salonen and Zimerman, who have known each other for 40 years, last performed together was in Seoul in 2018, when the Polish pianist performed Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 'The Age of Anxiety ' with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Salonen said Zimerman is an unusual artist who plays a very narrow repertoire in a season. 'He does a huge amount of research. He wants to know not only inside out but also back to front. He wants to know every dimension of the material and refines his interpretation to a point where it almost doesn't feel like an implementation,' Salonen said of Zimerman. On Thursday at Art Center Incheon and Friday at the Seoul Arts Center, the performance opens with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, featuring Zimerman, followed by Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 55 'Eroica.' On Saturday at the Seoul Arts Center, the program shifts to French Impressionists and Romantics, as Salonen leads the orchestra through Ravel's "Mother Goose" Suite, Debussy's 'La Mer' and Berlioz's 'Symphonie Fantastique.' It is a program that combines some of his favorite compositions, pieces that he has been performing a lot lately, the conductor explained. "Mother Goose" Suite is "disturbingly beautiful and there's not one note that is not perfect and there are no superfluous notes," he explained. Born in Finland in 1958, Salonen is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and holds the title of conductor laureate with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London's Philharmonia Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is among a generation of notable Finnish conductors, including familiar names to Korean audiences such as Osmo Vanska, former music director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and Pietari Inkinen, former chief conductor of the KBS Symphony Orchestra. When asked about the possible reason for this phenomenon, he pointed to Finland's strong music education system, in place since the 1970s and 1980s, which has helped nurture musicians in a country with a population of just over 5 million. New York Philharmonic President and CEO Matias Tarnopolsky shared his vision for the orchestra's future, describing it as being at an 'extraordinary moment' — with a new generation of musicians and a newly renovated concert hall at Lincoln Center, David Geffen Hall, which reopened in 2022. 'Most significant of all,' Tarnopolsky added, 'is the beginning of Gustavo Dudamel's tenure as music and artistic director in September 2026. So we have these incredible ingredients that we are very, very excited to combine into the most extraordinary artistic vision.' Founded in 1842 and shaped by towering figures like Mahler and Bernstein, the orchestra now enters a new era under incoming music director Dudamel. Dudamel previously succeeded Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009.
The Herald Scotland
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scottish-Japanese co-production the big winner at 2025 CATS
Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey, an international collaboration between Glasgow-based Vanishing Point and Kanagawa Arts Theatre of Yokohama, Japan (in association with Tramway), was the big winner, picking up four awards. Based on short stories by the acclaimed Japanese writer Haruki Murakamki, Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey won 'Best Design', 'Best Technical' and 'Best Ensemble' awards, with Sandy Grierson, who played the eponymous monkey, receiving an 'Outstanding Performance' award. Sandy Grierson in the Vanishing Point-Kanagawa Arts Theatre co-production of Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic) CATS co-convenor Mark Brown said: 'Scottish theatre has enjoyed a renaissance in the period since the Second World War. 'Internationalism has been a primary driver of that revival and one of the key exponents of that internationalism – over the past 26 years – has been Glasgow-based theatre company Vanishing Point. Their unique form of international theatre as witnessed in Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey sees the integration of multiple languages and cultures in a single show.' Anna Burnside of Corr Blimey! and Across the Arts said: 'Sandy Grierson was an extraordinary monkey, matter of fact and believable while undeniably an animal. 'His physicality was entirely convincing and, working with a skilled puppeteer, his tail added an extra layer of nuance to an already astounding performance. This was something very special.' READ MORE: The supreme award, 'Best Production', went to Hedda Gabler, the second collaboration between Gordon Barr (director), Kathy McKean (writer) and Nicole Cooper (Hedda) for Bard in the Botanics. This award follows the success of their first collaboration, Medea, which won the 'Best Production' award at the 2022 CATS. CATS co-convenor Joyce McMillan said: 'In recent years, Bard in the Botanics have extended their work beyond Shakespeare to embrace other mighty writers and stories; and there is none greater than Henrik Ibsen. 'Last year, they presented his huge and haunting 1891 tragedy in the perfect surroundings of the Kibble Palace, in a thrilling new version by Kathy McKean, and in a production by Gordon Barr with Nicole Cooper as Hedda that fairly took the breath away with its pace and intensity.' Meanwhile, the first 'Outstanding Panto' award was scooped by the Gaiety Theatre, Ayr's Mother Goose. Mother Goose, Ayr Gaiety (Image: Tommy GA-Ken Wan) Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre said: "This was a panto packed with local references, that oozed love and laughter, and which eschewed a shoe-horned wedding to bring a message of hope and reconciliation at the finale. 'Above all, however, this was a panto which dared. Dared to bring in big topical political comedy, dared to acknowledge societal concerns, dared to name-check the venue's panto greats over the years and dared to have Deaf characters in the cast and company using the fact of their deafness to up the physicality for everyone to see.' The second 'Oustanding Performance' award went to Kirsty Findlay for the title role in Beautiful: The Carole King Story at Pitlochry Festival, where 'she embodied the legendary singer songwriter with a depth and maturity that was riveting to watch'. The 'Best Director' award was won by Andrew Panton for A History of Paper (Dundee Rep/Traverse Theatre). Nicole Cooper in the title role in Kathy McKean's version of Hedda Gabler, directed by Gordon Barr at 2024 Bard in the Botanics (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) Douglas Maxwell picked up the 'Best New Play' award for the second year in a row. Following his success with The Sheriff of Kalamaki last year, Maxwell won the 2025 award for So Young (Traverse Theatre, Raw Material and Citizens Theatre). CATS co-convenor Michael Cox said: 'Douglas Maxwell proves again that he is one of Scottish theatre's best playwrights. 'This is underlined by the fact that he's not only won this award back-to-back, but for two very distinctive plays which have only their excellence in common.' Yellow Canary, Tashi Gore's powerful family story of survival during the Nazi Holocaust (produced by Glass Performance), won the 'Best Production For Children and Young People' award, and the Royal Lyceum' s Wild Rose won the 'Best Sound and Music' award. In total, around 140 works created in Scotland in 2024-5 were eligible for the 2025 CATS, of which over 120 were new plays.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘It's so boring': Gen Z parents don't like reading to their kids - and educators are worried
Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: 'Why aren't you reading aloud to your kids?' The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. 'It's so boring,' said one parent. 'I don't have time,' said another. One mother wrote in: 'I don't enjoy reading myself.' Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: 'He's always interrupting,' or 'my son just wants to skip all the pages.' They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: 'I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.' Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child Spencer Russell Parents who struggle to read to their children tend to be younger themselves, according to a recent survey from HarperCollins UK. Fewer than half of gen Z parents called reading to their children 'fun for me', and almost one in three saw reading as 'more of a subject to learn' than something to be enjoyed – significantly more than their gen X counterparts. This mindset undoubtedly trickles down to their kids: the survey also found that only a third of five-to-10 year olds frequently read for fun, compared to over half in 2012. This could be because their parents are less likely to read to them before they turn five: 41% of parents of all ages reported doing so, a steep drop from the 64% in 2012. If parents are reading out loud to their children less, US educators can tell. Russell, who offers courses to teach literacy skills to kids as young as 18 months, regularly gets inquiries from parents of older children – some as old as 14 – who still struggle to crack open a book. There are other tell-tale signs. 'We see children who can sit still and focus for hours on YouTube or Miss Rachel, but when you sit them down with a book, they move, wiggle, or scream and run away,' said Russell, who lives in Houston. Gen Z parents inherited an economy racked by inequity and instability that makes child rearing all the more stressful. The cost of childcare in the US – roughly $11,000 a year on average – has skyrocketed since the 90s. It's no wonder they might be too tired or stressed to read to their kids at night, even if they realize it's important to do so. At the same time, screens are inescapable – notably, gen Z parents were the first generation to grow up with them. 'I don't think we can divorce the role of technology influencing gen Z parents and their kids with the decline in reading out loud,' Russell said. 'Screen time is replacing one-on-one, quality interactions between parent and child.' One of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in Dawna Duff Loads of evidence shows that excessive screen time can harm a child's cognitive, linguistic and social-emotional growth, and doctors recommend that parents limit 'non-educational screen time' for children ages two to five to about one hour per weekday, and three on the weekends. But you try getting a toddler to settle into story time without giving in to her demands to watch Bluey. Most parents see the iPad as a necessary evil. America's so-called 'literacy crises' is well-documented; an Atlantic report from last fall found that many elite college students fail to complete English assignments, as they never had to read a full book in high school. The pandemic wreaked havoc on students' performance in both math and reading, with scores in both subjects dropping to the lowest margin in over 30 years. On TikTok, teachers have taken to posting PSAs urging parents to read to their children with the caption: 'I bet you I can't tell who was breast-fed vs formula-fed, but I can tell you who has grown ups that read to them every night.' Kids who don't get a head start reading at home often have trouble catching up to those who do, says Dawna Duff, an associate professor of speech language pathology at Suny's Binghamton University. 'Books are a really rich source of learning new words, and if kids don't have that experience reading at home, they're likely to come to school knowing less vocabulary – and that makes a big difference in how successful you're going to be throughout school,' she said. But kids don't just learn to read at school. Becky Calzada, president of the American Association of School Librarians, stresses the importance of parents as 'reading role models'. Reading out loud to children not only helps them learn vocabulary, but it builds emotional intelligence, such as the ability to empathize and connect, Caldaza says. According to the HarperCollins report, more than one in five boys aged zero to two are rarely or never read to, while 44% of girls in that age group are read to every day. This comes as boys continue to fall behind girls in school – they are more likely to enter kindergarten behind girls, earn lower GPAs and not graduate high school. Russell acknowledges that books are 'never going to compete with YouTube', and that the pressures of parenthood in 2025 are immense. As one parent told him: 'I just don't have the energy to read to my kid. Me and my wife don't 'have a village', so it's hard to rest.' But there are ways to wean kids away from their phones. 'Just scale it back a little, as much as you can at first.' Related: She compared motherhood in four countries. The US isn't looking good Calzada encourages parents who don't like reading to their children to start slowly. 'You don't have to sit there for 20 minutes to an hour,' she said. 'A two-year-old doesn't have much reading stamina, but you can read them something that has maybe five pages, that's mostly 'the cow says moo, the pink says oink,' and you gradually build up from there.' Nor should parents give up if their children aren't paying full attention during story time. According to Duff, 'you shouldn't feel like you need to read every word on the page, or even any words on the page.' Talking about the book's pictures, or asking kids to tell the story in their own words counts, too. 'We know one of the most helpful ways to read books is by having a conversation with children about what they're interested in,' she added. 'Follow their lead.'
Chicago Tribune
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Of Notoriety: Children's stage show in Munster inspired by bedtime Mother Goose tales
The young minds of children are as impressionable as a mound of clay. Growing up in the farm cornfields of Starke County in the 1970s, our television channels from our TV tower antennae were limited to about 13 total, including PBS and UHF offerings. Reading was the favorite escape of me and my four older siblings, with comic books to passed along novels and young adult fiction works filling our bedrooms and basement bookshelves. Most of all, as mentioned previously, we had our trusted set of 1954 World Book Encyclopedias. As a bonus from the salesman, the encyclopedias came with a set of 1954 Childcraft bound volumes to inspire the imagination with history, culture, nature facts, crafts and hobbies and most of all, nursery rhymes and fairy tales, the latter of which I grew up with Mom, aunts and older siblings reading to me for story time and bedtime. It was these beautifully illustrated and descriptive pages that inspired me to pen a new children's play to bring favorite characters to life with new and old wisdom to guide both young and older minds in this rapidly evolving world surrounding all of us. Theatre at the Center at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster is presenting this week's world stage premiere of 'Modern Mother Goose,' with performances through Saturday, May 24, giving new life to my favorite storybook and nursery rhyme characters along with timeless learning lessons for audiences of all ages. This week, schools from throughout Porter and Lake counties have made the end-of-school-year pilgrimage to come and see the show. I set 'Modern Mother Goose' in Storybook Land with Pierogi Fest favorite Carolyn 'Buscia' Kruszynski stepping into the narrator role as 'Mother Goose,' guiding guests through familiar bedtime stories and fairytales, each presented with a new twist to fit into today's topsy-turvy, fast-paced world. Kruszynski is reunited on stage with Whiting's Pierogi Fest perennial mascot 'Mr. Pierogi' Tony Panek playing Little Boy Blue opposite WJOB 1230 AM radio personalities cast as silly storybook alter egos, including Region Bandstand DJ Dave Innes as The Giant and sports broadcaster Rob Aguirre as The Prince. Joining the fun are Catherine Dilworth as Little Miss Muffet, Caleb Perez as The Cow and Cara Schmitt as Sleepy Princess Prudence. In addition to writing and directing the production, I'm also featured as a stage cameo playing Humpty Dumpty and providing the vocals for the puppet character of the menacing spider. The play runs 55 minutes and showcases a full set and scenery design to transport families and young audiences to a fantasy world where a giant worries about his height, Miss Muffet longs for the latest breakfast cereal brand and kingdom royalty learns it's more important to rule with fairness rather than flaunt the latest 'apple' watch. Tickets are $10 for adults and children and are available online at or call 219-836-3255. Performances are this week each weekday morning at 9:15 and 11:15 a.m. and one final 10 a.m. Saturday weekend performance. In May 2023, Theatre at the Center returned to presenting Theatre for Young Audiences with the original runs of 'Not Your Grandma's Little Red Riding Hood' followed by the holiday show 'The Year Santa Went on a Diet,' the latter which also starred 'Modern Mother Goose' castmates Kruszynski, Innes, Schmitt and Aguirre. Schmitt, who played the title character of Red Riding Hood during the May 2023 play parody run, reads storybooks to her twins at bedtime, especially the 'Harry Potter' series, and said she enjoys the contrast of blending tradition with the silly, fun parody references woven throughout this new play to appeal to both adults and children. 'Every audience is very different,' Schmitt said. 'Both adults and kids can relate to the references from today's use of artificial intelligence to the new pope's favorite region pizza restaurant and the prince being proud of his new six-horse powered ride.' What I've found the most surprising since the performances began on Monday is the sad factor that so many of today's young minds have never heard of Mother Goose or most of these classic storybook tales and nursery rhymes. However, just as what is emphasized in this new play 'Modern Mother Goose,' what was once old can be revisited, reintroduced and cherished anew by minds eager to be engaged.
