Happy Mother's Day, GCP Moms! Whether you will be surrounded by family showering you with love and attention or just spending another Sunday doing all that you do to take care of your family, know that we at GCP are on our feet, giving you a screaming and shouting standing O today. Notwithstanding the "Hallmark holiday" nature of designating [...]
While we at GCP have never been super hyped for the "Hallmark Holiday" aspect of Mother's Day, we certainly believe that mothers should be heralded, and not just on the second Sunday in May. So, we will take this Thoughtful Thursday opportunity to pay tribute to mothers with the poetry of two of our legends, Langston Hughes and Nikki [...]
Last week GCP had the pleasure of attending Eagle Academy Foundation's annual awards breakfast where they celebrate the boys of their Eagle Academy schools and honor people who inspire their boys. The Eagle Academy Foundation supports a network of six all male, grades 6-12 college preparatory schools in challenged urban communities in the five boroughs of Manhattan and Newark. [...]
In celebration of two graduations in May in our household (one son from high school, one from college), today's Thoughtful Thursday presents poems for graduation from some very well known poets: Langston Hughes, Rudyard Kipling and Marge Piercy. These poems focus on dreams, give advice about becoming a man, and contemplate the new beginnings that graduations bring. Share them [...]
By now we have all heard about Jordan Reynolds, the Black high school freshman honor roll student and athlete who was shot and killed by a police officer while leaving a party in a car with his brothers and friends last Saturday night in Balch Springs, Texas. No one in the car was armed, no one had been drinking [...]
Our children are spending a lot of time with screens these days: computers, phones, ipads. Experts suggest that spending too much time looking at screens can lead children to develop computer vision syndrome and eye problems related to overexposure to harmful blue light. What can we do to prevent this? Here are some tips from the American Optometric Association [...]
Happy Earth Day! Here's what you should know about today: What is it? An international celebration of the importance of protecting and bettering the globe. This year, the theme for Earth Day is "Environmental & Climate Literacy." The goal is to make sure that by 2020, students graduating high school are climate and environment literate. When did it start? [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday celebrates Earth Day with poems from three wonderful and accomplished poets: Jane Yolen, Joy Harjo, and Lucille Clifton. In addition to being a celebrated poet, Jane Yolen (b.1939) is a science fiction and fantasy writer, editor and children’s author, whose stories use rhythm and rhyme in conjunction with elements of folklore and fantasy. Critically acclaimed poet [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday celebrates the poet Kevin Young, who is now the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. The Schomburg, located on 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, is a leading research institution focusing exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Its collection includes letters, papers and other [...]
How important is it for our kids from lower-income households to have a Black teacher? Very important, it turns out. A recent study conducted by researchers at American University, U.C. Davis and Johns Hopkins reveals that having just one Black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade reduced low-income Black boys' probability of dropping out of high school by [...]