Attention Lego nuts. If your child is really crazy about Lego, imagine living in a town of 6,000 which is home to the Lego dynasty. Imagine going to a school where virtually everything is made out of plastic building bricks. Well, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansens is making that dream a reality.
The Danish town of Billund will soon host a Lego school. Opening this summer, the venture has received mixed reactions from parents concerned about its experimental nature.
"I worry about using my children as guinea pigs," said one parent in an article in the Guardian. "They're trying to do something quite different, so there are bound to be teething problems."
The subsidized school, for three to seven year olds, will combine the international baccalaureate (IB) with the Danish school system and of course the focus on creativity and 'free play.' Apparently half of admissions will be Danish students, the other half international.
School supporters believe the learning equation will prove a huge success.
"Allowing time for creativity, play and getting into a state of flow is at the centre of Lego's philosophy and we'll be experimenting with this and other ideas in the timetabling," said British headmaster Richard Matthews. "But we also have a responsibility—the children's education comes first and sometimes the old methods will be the best."
But sceptics maintain that the child-centred model often results in chaos, with children lacking a sense of purpose.
In any case this big kid would love to visit... Sound good?
To most men of the world, this headline might well read like a rhetorical question. At least it might to Chris Mower, who likened his wife's failing to put out to a "cruel and unusual punishment." Notwithstanding that Ms Mower rejected her partner's advances following a miscarriage, months turned into years. Moth grew, and a whole series of unfortunate events befell Mr Mower.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, not having sex with his wife felt tantamount to saying "you don't love me." He got depressed, and packed on pounds. Can sex—or lack thereof—really be the pivotal source of a man's self-worth?
“He became grumpy," reads the article in WSJ, "gained weight and stopped wanting to come home at night. ‘For me to feel good about myself, I needed her to have sex with me,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I thought she didn't love me.’”
Harvard social psychologist Justin Lehmiller takes it one further. "For some men, sex may be their primary way of communicating and expressing intimacy. Taking away sex 'takes away their primary emotional outlet.'"
Marriage therapist and author of Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel says, "He is experiencing emotional deprivation."
Along the way Mower got a little obsessed, charting every strike-out and home run with statistical accuracy.
So in other words when you deny your man sex, what you are doing is essentially inflicting emotional torture. What do you think of them apples?
Who’s got their hands down your kid’s pockets? OK, so likely not an image you feel comfortable with. Me, neither. Yet a new campaign by the French non-profit association Innocence En Danger (Innocence In Danger) has just gone there. The ads depict both a male and female being groped by a hand in the place where the phone was kept.
"Sexual predators can hide in your child’s smartphone," goes the tagline. As campaigns go, this one seems pretty shocking. But then, some shock value is necessary when it comes to public awareness, non?
According to an article in the Huffington Post, the French organization is working in “29 countries to bring awareness of protecting children from sexual abuse.” The ad, designed by advertising agency Herezie in Paris, sought to draw attention to the sexual predators potentially hiding in your kid’s mobile phone.
Little Warriors, a similar charity here in Canada, has a similar aim. It found that one in three girls and one in six boys “will experience an unwanted sexual act before their 18th birthday.” And that the overwhelming majority (95 per cent) of perps know their victims.
Do you think such campaigns are an effective tool or simply shock tactic?
Printer-friendly version