by Kirsten McHugh
April Round-Up: Top Five Articles
Here in the Northeast US, the trees are budding, and we are thankfully beginning to shake off the harsh winter weather. Along with a bit of additional sunlight each day, we at The Good Project have been staying energized with some great reads.
We hope you find the following resources and articles helpful.
Without further ado, here are our “top five” picks for the month of April.
The Right Question Institute has recently released new remote resources for teaching their “Question Formulation Technique.” If you aren’t familiar with their work, the Right Question Institute’s mission is “to make democracy work better by teaching a strategy that allows anyone, no matter their educational, income, or literacy level, to learn to ask better questions and participate more effectively in decisions that affect them.” They have pulled together tools, guides, templates, and webinars for easy access in building this method into coursework.
Workers in nearly every domain have faced enormous challenges in adapting to the pandemic, but teachers have had a particularly rough go of it. NPR’s Kavitha Cardoza explores the effect that chronic stress is having on teachers and, in turn, their students.
In his latest piece, Craig Lambert of The Harvard Gazette features the work of Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. In the article, Wallace describes some of the most poignant moments of his career—from moderating the first of the 2020 presidential debates to interviewing Vladimir Putin. Wallace, Lambert argues, does not hide his political views, though he is decidedly non-partisan when it comes to which candidates he chooses to support.
There are no “rules” in journalism regarding whether or not a reporter should reveal their own beliefs. Some, like Wallace, choose to be transparent in their views. On the flip side, the argument can be made for “disinterestedness” in the profession.
Annie Lowrey of The Atlantic examines the label “low-skill” in her article “Low-Skill Workers Aren’t a Problem to Be Fixed.” Lowrey argues that the term unfairly belittles large swaths of the essential American workforce.
This month, we witnessed the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. For resources and support regarding how to discuss these kinds of issues in learning groups, we turn to Facing History and Ourselves. Check out new resources that provide guidance about introducing the trial to students and helping them to understand the processes of the American justice system.