History of toilets. And toilet paper!

The charming and animated Lucy Worsley on toilets through the ages. Fascinating! And a bit stomach churning.



You may have to watch this video in YouTube rather than here.

There is a great story on Dr. Worsley in the New  Yorker (abstract). And there are many more travels through history with her on YouTube. The Diet of Henry VIII and The History of Toilet Paper are a couple of great examples.

I was blessed to have a history professor very like Dr. Worsley when I studied in England. Christine Mitchell, too, made history come alive! 

How children learn

"Not every kid needs to go to college." Them's fightin' words! Earlier this work on Midday Mel Levine, a neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina and the author of All Kinds of Minds, said that and many other provocative things.

He believes we should celebrate all kinds of minds. Work on children's strengths, don't continually press them to excel in things they aren't inherently good at or have a passion for. He doesn't say that if you don't like math or you're not good at it you should skip it. But he believes our education system isn't well tailored to the way many kids' brains work. He also rails against memorizing route material.

It's a fascinating, thought-provoking and often funny speech. Makes me want to be a neuroscientist!

Listen to the speech here. Click on "listen to the call-in show, even though it's not a call-in. The speech starts about a minute into it but is supreme awesomeness. He starts out by talking about how most kids don't know what the words in the pledge of allegiance means.

Great tools available at All Kinds of Minds.