Author Archives: juliamahfouz

Our new book, Profound Living: Essays, Images, and Poetry is now published. It has essays from yours truly, co-authors Kelly Anderson and Davin Carr-Chellman, and Vincent J Fortunato; and beautiful images by Vincent, Antonia Cardella, and Marc Christensen. The cover was designed by Heather Barrett. It was such a pleasure to work with these folks […]Continue reading “Our New Book – Profound Living: Essays, Images, and Poetry — The Profound Bartender”

For many years now, my life’s calendar revolves around the three seasons: fall semester, spring semester and the summer. The Fall semester starts when everything is still green, full, warm, blooming. Slowly the leaves begin to turn yellow, then orange, then red or gold. The air is soothing with the sense of abundance, beckoning the […]Continue reading “Three Seasons — Katerina Bodovski Writings”

For the past week or so, I’ve woken up at 7 a.m. to the opening chords of Hamilton (no surprise there, if you’ve read some of my other blog posts recently). My new morning routine goes something like this: dance along to Hamilton before turning off the alarm and turning on my laptop to write. […]Continue reading “Finding the Write Time — sherinaspeaks”

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog:
This post is a scholarly analysis of the funding of Common Core: Who put up the money, who benefitted. The paper (which can be downloaded here) was written by three scholars at Pennsylvania State University: Mindy L. Kornhaber, Nikolaus J. Barkauskas, and Kelly M. Griffith. They track where…

by Bryan Mann and Julia Mahfouz A revolution in Education has thoroughly transformed human society over just a century and a half. Along with a few other major global phenomena, such as large-scale capitalism and representation democracy, schooling whole populations for ever more years changes both individuals and the institutions at the core of society.Continue reading “Schooling’s Impact on Women’s Health”

Originally posted on The Effects of Education:
Haram Jeon and Bryan Mann presented their paper (with Julia Mahfouz and David P. Baker) titled “Women’s Empowerment, Educational Attainment, and Contraceptive Use in Latin American/Caribbean Countries” at the 2015 Population Association of America (PAA) research conference in San Diego, California.  The team demonstrated that educational attainment has an…

Lebanese Children at School in 1930 According to Mintz, childhood is far from being stable, timeless, and universal category of life; it is more of a historical invention whose meaning and social force have changed over time. This is also the case when we are to compare American childhood to other cultures. The reality ofContinue reading “The Lebanese Childhood”

 Play as Emotional Symbolizing  Engel, “Peeking Through the Mirror” (2003, 153-166) Engel extends Vygotsky’s view of children’s symbolic play to focus on narratives that act as boundaries between secret and known. Vygotsky states that make-believe play is socially and culturally determined. Playing the roles of real life characters (for example, a mother or a doctor)Continue reading “Reflections on Play as Emotional Symbolizing”

” Of the three lives Aristotle speaks of, the life of action, the life of contemplation, but we lack the other, contemplation. That, I thought, is why ours is a violent city.”         ~ John Donne Introduction:   According to Aristotle, a culture can be judged based on how it pursues three lives: theContinue reading “Social Learning, Online Virtual Environment, and Discussion Forums: Technological Tools Fostering Aristotle’s Good Society”