Books have a strange kind of magic that makes you forget you’re learning. Particularly when it comes to science, a subject that, if you let it, can come across as clinical and icy on paper, few authors have ever managed to accomplish that. Joanna Cole refused to allow it. Her name is rarely mentioned when discussing the legends of children’s literature, despite the fact that she spent decades making the universe seem like the most thrilling place a child could possibly visit. Bruce Degen created the illustrations for Joanna Cole’s book The Magic School Bus. According to reports, the two…
Author: Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers is a Senior Editor at worldomep.org and a dedicated advocate for early childhood education whose work begins — and ends — with a simple belief: that the earliest years of a child's life matter more than almost anything else we can invest in. Based at a local school, Kelsey works daily alongside the children and families whose experiences inform everything she writes. She doesn't observe early education from a distance. She is inside it — in the classrooms, on the playgrounds, in the conversations between teachers and parents that shape how young children understand the world around them. That proximity gives her writing a warmth and specificity that purely policy-driven commentary rarely achieves. Through her writing at worldomep.org, Kelsey brings that same energy to readers — making the case, clearly and consistently, that early childhood education deserves far more attention than it typically receives. Kelsey shares her personal opinions on: https://x.com/Butterflyboule
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When you drive through Port Gibson, Mississippi on a calm weekday morning, you’ll notice that the town moves slowly and deliberately, just like small Southern towns that have learned to slow down. At the heart of everything is the courthouse. Old trees are covered in Spanish moss. The Blue Waves’ home school, Port Gibson High School, was founded in 1924 and is still standing. It is located on Old Highway 18 in unincorporated Claiborne County and is the only high school that most children in this area will ever know. At first glance, the numbers are depressing. At Port Gibson…
It was supposed to be an easy Friday afternoon. the final day of classes prior to Memorial Day weekend. With their backpacks bouncing, children leave Grand Prairie Elementary School on Caton Farm Road in Joliet, Illinois, feeling the particular relief of summer at last. Nobody anticipated that something was already underway a few miles away; without a single phone call, the outcome could have been drastically different. The Will County Sheriff’s Office reports that a relative found a young person carrying a gun while he was en route to carry out a shooting at Grand Prairie Elementary. That family member…
In institutions that don’t have to yell, a certain kind of pride develops gradually over decades. Located in the center of New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School exudes a calm confidence. When you walk through its hallways or speak with the families who have sent generation after generation through its doors, it becomes evident that this place has significance, even though it doesn’t always make national headlines like some Ivy-adjacent programs do.The school began as a two-year medical science program at Rutgers University in 1962. Its eventual development into one of the most comprehensive medical schools…
A certain type of school doesn’t make a big announcement about itself. No ostentatious advertising campaigns, no viral social media presence based on faked success. South Kingstown High School is located at 215 Columbia Street in Wakefield, Rhode Island. It’s the kind of place that takes some time to fully comprehend. The school already stands out from the majority of American high schools because it was founded in 1880. It most likely began after the Columbia Building, which stood at the intersection of Main Street and Woodruff Avenue, was destroyed in an afternoon fire on April 10, 1880. Rowland G.…
The stiff rental gowns, the gymnasiums that smell slightly of industrial cleaner and old bleachers, and the principal mispronouncing at least three of the names as they are read aloud into a microphone have all contributed to the unique emotional texture of graduation season. Most people don’t feel this ceremony; they just endure it. Every now and then, something occurs that causes everyone in the room to lose their sense of location. Seniors from the Class of 2026 entered what they thought was a typical end-of-year celebration at Country Day School in San Rafael de Alajuela, Costa Rica. Instead, they…
The majority of people who have sat in a business school classroom are familiar with the type of frustration that develops there. The ideas are sound. The case studies are reliable. However, something is lost somewhere between the classroom and the real world, and graduates who have studied entrepreneurship but never tried it land their first jobs. Forge Greensboro and North Carolina A&T State University are making a direct effort to address that. The partnership, which was announced in April 2026, links the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics with Forge Greensboro, a community makerspace that sits between…
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a document in 1989 that outlines 40 specific rights that every child on the planet has, including the right to life, access to healthcare, education, protection from abuse, and participation in decisions that impact them. It is the most extensively ratified human rights agreement in recorded history. It has been signed by every member state of the UN. That is, everyone but the United States. It’s difficult to ignore how that fact has aged. The United States did not simply abstain from participation in the negotiations of the Convention on the Rights of the…
A grocery company did something most people wouldn’t expect a grocery company to do on Sunday night in Houston during an awards ceremony that somehow felt more like a real celebration than a corporate obligation. In addition to giving $480,000 to educators, including teachers, counselors, principals, and school boards, H-E-B invited Emmy Award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, who is best known for her role as a kindergarten teacher on “Abbott Elementary,” to give the keynote address. The optics were intentional and effective. However, it was worth watching the people who were being honored. The San Antonio region produced three of…
At most academic award ceremonies, there is a part where the handshakes, applause, and pictures outside a conference room seem a bit staged. However, something slightly different appeared to be taking place when Aisling Burke stood to accept the OMEP Ireland Early Childhood Student of the Year Award at Dublin City University. The Minister of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman, was present. Furthermore, he wasn’t there out of duty. He was present because, according to the judging panel, Burke’s dissertation research, which examined how early childhood educators provide parenting support in Irish care settings, produced work “written…