September 2017

Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back. But in our experience at Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona , resilience is much more intricate. At Free Arts, we define resilience as the ability to encounter trauma or disruption, allow that experience to shake you, process and learn from that experience, return to your own sense of identity and belonging, and move forward in a positive direction. This is a lengthy process and how, might you ask, do we get there? We know that art,...

College isn't all fun and games. Loneliness is prevalent, especially for students with high ACEs/

Housing is a person's single most important expense. While a roof over someone's head is something too often taken for granted, a roof and four walls imbue people with a sense of stability, one that allows them to turn their attention to other priorities, like finding a better job or helping their kids with school. And so, when housing is uncertain, or when so much of a paycheck goes to rent that it keeps someone from basic necessities, it's impossible to think about anything else. In this,...

Every fall, college freshmen begin the familiar tradition of establishing friendships with classmates in their dormitories. But little do they realize how much choosing the right friends—notably, ones with empathy —could be beneficial during stressful times, says a new Stanford study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The transition to college can be tumultuous,” said Jamil Zaki , an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford and co-author of the study. “Whom...

Rosa Atkins grew up in a small town in southern Virginia during the civil rights era. She recalls being a young student during those years, and how important her teachers' composure was. "When I think about the horrors of that time," says Atkins, now the superintendent of Charlottesville City Schools, "I remember the smiles of my teachers, their kind words, and how much that reassured me." Atkins has had to call on those memories to prepare for the new school year, which began on Wednesday...

In parts of New Orleans, Michael Ricks is a legendary educator—known for his full girth and even fuller heart. Most people just call him “Big Mike.” For years, Mike’s formal title was academic and behavioral interventionist, although in practice he serves as a combination between disciplinarian, social worker, and friend. [For more of this story, written by Sarah Carr and Mallory Falk, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/the-student-who-broke-my-heart/538551/]

In August 2007, Michael Vick pleaded guilty to the case that jettisoned him from celebrity into notoriety. The Atlantic Falcons quarterback’s dogfighting ring had been exposed in such graphic and shocking detail that his coterie of star defense attorneys panicked, then folded. The person who dug up this hard evidence against Vick—by literally exhuming the bodies of dead fighting dogs and proving they’d been hanged—was Melinda Merck. An ace at forensics, Merck has helped crack cases involving...

In the days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, there were whispers he would do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In anticipation of such a blow to young immigrants nationwide, I put out a call on social media, asking DACA recipients to share their stories with me: What was life like pre-DACA? How did DACA change their personal lives, their families’ lives, their community? What would happen if DACA was taken away? The Obama-era immigration...

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