Students bent on fighting racism and encouraging cultural diversity

A group of students in Nova Scotia bring the fight against racism to their school by encouraging people to embrace cultural diversity organizing a mini-United Nations. (Truro Daily News)

Trumpeter to Help New Orleans Libraries

Jazz trumpeter Irvin Mayfield has traveled the world playing for audiences in smoky bars and buttoned-up concert halls, and he knows the sounds, tastes and sights of this city are unlike those anywhere else. So, he says, the city's library system should be just as unique.

Mayfield intends to unveil a plan Tuesday for a multimillion-dollar library system that reflects the city's identity. It would start with a jazz-themed branch housing early recordings and reviews. (MSN)

Teacher's encouraging words helped failing student to dean's list

One conversation with one teacher changed a woman's opinion of herself and brought success to her schoolwork and life. (OC Register)

"The Teacher Who Couldn't Read" Becomes Literacy Activist

John Corcoran had 35 years of education behind him, including a bachelor's degree, and many graduate and professional-level classes. He had worked with at-risk youth as a classroom teacher. He'd taught a wide range of subjects, including social studies, English grammar, and world history, always holding a textbook at his side. But in all his years as a teacher, he never once cracked the spine of any of his books. (Gimundo; video at 10News)

Youth Work to Raise More Than $100,000 for Famine

More than 200 teenagers this weekend built cardboard houses on muddy ground, where they slept the night so they could begin to understand poverty and famine. In the past four years, their church, St. John's Episcopal Church, has raised more money than any worldwide for hunger-relief. (Charlotte Observer)

School Lunches Get Leafy in Los Angeles

Across the country, only one-third of children between the ages of 2 and 19 eat the recommended three to five servings of vegetables per day, and only a quarter eat enough fruit. As a result, many schools are trying to teach better eating habits. Marx says kids love salad bars; it's the adults who are often skeptical. (NPR)

Empathy Lessons from Babies

It's just Nolan Winecka's second time teaching a class of fifth graders at Emerald Park Elementary School in this Seattle suburb, and it shows as he stares nervously at the two dozen kids surrounding him.

Nolan is 6 months old and hasn't had any formal pedagogical training. But to the group that put him in the classroom, he has everything he needs to help teach children an unconventional subject. A Canadian nonprofit group, Roots of Empathy, is now bringing to the U.S. a decade-old program designed to reduce bullying by exposing classrooms to "empathy babies" for a whole school year. (Wall Street Journal)

High-poverty -- AND high-achieving: Pinewood Elementary's unorthodox methods yield outstanding pass rates

What's going on at Pinewood Elementary? More than 80 percent of children in this south Charlotte school live in poverty, yet they're passing state tests at rates that leave other schools in the dust.

Principal Nancy Guzman calls her strategies simple, if sometimes controversial. (Charlotte Observer)

Waiter's flawless service is rewarded

A full scholarship to a $34,000-a-year private college for a waiter? Now that's a tip.

Two years ago, Marvin Burchall was working the lunch shift at a luxury beachside hotel in his native Bermuda when he waited on an administrator from Endicott College, just north of Boston. To him, Lynn Bak was just another customer, another tourist visiting the island getaway. But Burchall's service was impeccable, and his attentiveness and amiable manner caught Bak's eye. (Boston Globe)

Observant Teacher Likely Saves Student's Life

A Florida kindergarten teacher is credited with saving a student's life after she noticed the 5-year-old girl wasn't making eye contact and walked with a wobble. The teacher suggested the girl see a neurologist, who found a golf-ball sized tumor at the base of Sophie's brain.

Street kids get lessons in life at surf school

South African surfer Gary Kleynhans started free surfing classes for the street kids in his beach town. "Seven years later, he can boast of a generation of black, underprivileged kids who have not only learned to ride waves, but also picked up some important life skills – discipline, respect, and punctuality – along the way." (CS Monitor)

An Astronomy Book the Blind Can Appreciate

Telescopes have captured astonishing images of far-away galaxies and other cosmic mysteries. Now, a new book called Touch the Invisible Sky is helping everyone appreciate those pictures, even people who can't see. (NPR)

Fostering Success After Foster Care: Boy Turns Bad Experience into Inspiring Program

For youth “aging out” of the foster care system at age 18, thrust out on their own, homelessness or crime can be a consequence of efforts to support themselves. Now, a service in Milwaukee gives young adults the guidance, financial assistance, and occasional “kick in the butt” needed to move their lives forward in a positive direction. (Good News Network)

Free days offered at French national museums

Many national museums in France, including the venerable Louvre in Paris, will be offering free admission in the coming months. 18 museums will be participating in an experiment to get the public to experience high culture, the country's Culture Ministry announced. (CBC)

Kid-friendly Sweden aims to better record with parenting classes

Already considered one of the best countries for raising children, Sweden aims to better its record by offering even more classes to help mums and dads improve their parenting skills.

The Scandinavian country now gives all parents of newborns the opportunity to attend classes and discussion groups to ease them into their new role. But the state is bent on expanding its free-for-all education to parents of older children as well. (AFP)

Free online materials could save schools billions

Since March, Dixon Deutsch and his students have been quietly experimenting with a little website that could one day rock the foundation of how schools do business.

A K-2 teacher at Achievement First Bushwick Elementary Charter School in Brooklyn, N.Y., Deutsch, 28, has been using Free-Reading.net, a reading instruction program that allows him to download, copy and share lessons with colleagues. (USA Today)

7 year old girl saves family from fire

Vallejo firefighters are calling a 7-year old girl a hero for saving her whole family.

A fire broke out at about 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, in a house where Tamara Groves and her three children were sleeping. The smoke finally woke 7-year-old Kelby Yelder, who was sleeping in her top bunk. She knew what to do, but it sure wasn't easy. (ABC7 News)

India starts putting its street children in schools

Eleven-year-old Anurag never went to school because he had to scavenge through Delhi's bins, dumps and gutters in search of sellable trash each day before spending his nights sleeping on the street.

Now, thanks to India's biggest effort yet to educate every last child, he has a smart blue uniform and has started going to a mainstream state school in the Indian capital -- something he had once considered a luxury for destitute children like himself. (Reuters)

Milwaukee man, 87, completes university studies after 50 years

As the saying goes - you are never too old to learn. Just ask Clarence Garrett.

A 50-year gap in his higher education didn't stop Garrett. (CBC)

Mobilizing a Kingdom of Women

In a country with a shocking rate of HIV/AIDS, the women of Swaziland live a life with no rights, no say and no hope – until now. Siphiwe Hlophe is on a mission to mobilize the women of her country and give them a future. (CARP)