From high school to the stars…and beyond

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Whether you are an astronaut or an accountant, interpersonal skills are crucial to success. NASA has its mental health guidelines, and local schools try various approaches to fostering good mental health and interpersonal skills. Next fall, Columbia Heights High School is launching a ninth grade leadership academy. The course will teach writing skill development but also draw on material on emotional intelligence, Arthur Costa’s Habits of Mind and Sean Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. At a time when a school success is judged by math and reading scores, this required class is not focused on the traditional content areas. Continue Reading

Baby’s Space takes a big step forward in Minneapolis

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The room is baby friendly. It has carpeted ramps for babies to crawl on and explore. It has lots of toys and a small pit filled with soft, brightly colored balls to roll in. The lower walls are lined with mirrors to gaze at; the upper walls have murals of birds and stars. Most important, there are plenty of adults playing at kid level. Continue Reading

St. Paul special education classes, students work to stay in “power mode”

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Nine students sit in a circle in a classroom in St. Paul’s Murray Junior High and an instructor asks them to articulate how they are feeling. One is irritated, one happy, one bored and one annoyed; the rest do not respond. These students are in what is called a “federal setting three” classroom, a special education designation. These are kids identified with emotional or behavioral problems, learning disabilities, autism or other special ed identifiers. Continue Reading

Minneapolis schools partner with community agencies to help traumatized kids

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A Longfellow Elementary School teacher had given her students an assignment to write about two times they had been hurt. It’s an assignment they often enjoy. They get to write about falling off a bike or a ski hill wipe out.The teacher noticed that one boy who had been doing pretty well in her class wasn’t writing. As she got closer, she saw the boy had tears coming down his face. He had only written one sentence on his paper. Continue Reading

“Galab wanagsan”

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April 16 was “open mosque” night at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center at 504 Cedar Ave., the former home of Bedlam Theatre in the building that houses, at the other end, Palmer’s Bar.At around 5:30 p.m., there was lots of activity around the center as both Somali Muslims and others from the neighborhood filed in for this, the second of two April open houses. The first order of business: remove your shoes and put them on a large rack inside the entrance. To the right of the entryway was a tiled ablution room, an area for ritual foot washing used by those who came for evening prayer. Men and women have separate first-floor prayers rooms. (Prayer, or salat, is one of the five pillars of Islam.) Most open-house visitors continued through the prayer room and up the staircase to the special events space on the second floor. The open houses held at Dar Al Hirjah were co-sponsored by the West Bank Community Coalition. Continue Reading

Bad economy boosts bartering in St. Paul, Minneapolis

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Powderhorn Park resident Rhonda Kist swaps her skills at web design, photography and computer trouble shooting for help with plumbing and those other things “I don’t know how to do and don’t have an interest in doing.”
Kist is a member of the Hour Dollars service exchange. The Hour Dollars program values everyone’s time equally. It has a members-only website that list people’s skills and needs. Members agree to do certain tasks and bank the number of hours they take. They can later spend those hours on what they need. Continue Reading

Family mental health program cuts hurt troubled kids

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Sandy (not her real name) had been sexually abused as a child. Her parents divorced when she was young. She had a very difficult relationship with her mother, whom she described as “sarcastic and disrespectful.” Then at 16, Sandy had a child of her own. “I didn’t know any other way of parenting other than how I was parented,” she said, and those lessons weren’t helpful. “You learn what you live with.”
By her early 20s, Sandy had dropped out of college and was a married mother of four. Continue Reading

World Affairs Challenge launches in Minnesota: Will National Cultural Awareness Day fly?

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Kelsey Larson and five of her classmates at Metcalf Junior High in Burnsville are calling for a National Culture Awareness Day, one day out of the year to reflect on all of the positive things that other cultures have brought to the United States. The World Affairs Challenge is free and open to the public. Saturday’s event will open at Macalester’s Leonard Center, with student presentations at the Olin-Rice Science Building. “A lot of people have negative thoughts towards immigrants,” said Kelsey, a ninth grader. “But what they don’t realize is that we wouldn’t have a lot of the cool things we have in our everyday life if it weren’t for them.”
Kelsey and her classmates will make their pitch Saturday, April 25, during the World Affairs Challenge at Macalester College. Continue Reading

Minneapolis: State of the City and your response

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In Mayor R.T. Rybak’s 2009 State of the City address, he reiterated that public safety was the city’s number one goal, but his speech was about jobs, jobs, jobs. YOUR TURN: TALK BACKTake a minute to give your feedback to Mayor Rybak, to TCDP readers, to anyone who is concerned about the state of the city in Minneapolis. Tell us what’s on your mind, what you think of the mayor’s speech, what you see as priorities, problems and solutions. Add a comment to this article, or send your opinion article to editor@tcdailyplanet.net.• What do you want the leaders of the city’s new economic roundtable to understand about your current work situation?• The city has major roles in providing pubic safety and quality local roads. Can the city and mayor play a major role in job creation?• Is the China trip a good move and do you want the city to follow Austin’s lead and invest in foreign trade offices?• In his speech, the mayor touted the city’s two Workforce Centers. Continue Reading

Prostitution issues in Powderhorn

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In some parts of town, spring and warmer weather means melting snow and thoughts of gardening, and in some parts of town it also means more street prostitutes. This year, the city has electronic billboards warning johns if they get arrested their name and photo will appear on line for all to see. The billboards are running only occasionally, apparently when Clear Channel Communications donates unsold space. The on line listing is also fairly hit-or-miss. On March 25, it showed only one photo of a man convicted of prostitution within the past 12 months, and a few dozen men charged with prostitution during August-October 2008 and March 2009. Continue Reading