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In this lesson, students examine the poetry of Amanda Gorman, who was chosen to read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman's poem will complement Biden's message and themes of "unity."

From the bustling streets of Thousand Oaks, California, emerged a star whose brilliance would light up the entertainment world for years to come. Amanda Bynes, a name that resonates with both young and old, has been a beacon of talent, versatility, and resilience. With a career spanning over two decades, she has donned many hats - from a bubbly child artist making her audience laugh to a mature actress delivering powerful performances, and then transitioning into the world of fashion with grace and panache.

"WINTER GARDEN, Fla. - On the wall of a classroom that is home to the West Orange High School TikTok club, large loopy words are scrawled across a whiteboard: "Wanna be TikTok famous? Join TikTok club." It's working. "There's a lot of TikTok-famous kids at our school," said Amanda DiCastro, who is 14 and a freshman. "Probably 20 people have gotten famous off random things." The school is on a quiet palm-tree-lined street in a town just outside Orlando. A hallway by the principal's office is busy with blue plaques honoring the school's A.P. Scholars. Its choir director, Jeffery Redding, won the 2019 Grammy Music Educator Award. Amanda was referring to a different kind of stardom: on TikTok, a social media app where users post short funny videos, usually set to music, that is enjoying a surge in popularity among teenagers around the world and has been downloaded 1.4 billion times, according to SensorTower. "

Recently I read Amanda Ripley's thought provoking book 'The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way' in which through a comparative study of foreign exchange students she reports from the inside on the modern powerhouses of education. Amanda set out to explain why some countries are able to outperform others on PISA scores.

"On October 1st, 2015 the very first class entered our STEM lab/Makerspace and it was truly magical. The kids were engaged, they were learning, exploring and discovering the entire time they were in there. It was the moment we had worked so hard when we created this innovative learning space. It was a long journey that our little Makerspace/STEM lab team took to get there and we learned a lot along the way! The lab was originally Wendy Townlin's (@wtownlin) idea. She wanted to create a dedicated science lab for our school. It evolved into a STEM lab, then (with a little help from twitter) we decided to add in the element of a makerspace. With the support of our awesome principal Kris Martin-Meyer, four of us, Wendy, Amanda Young (@ajyoung53), Claire Simon (@MissSimon246) and I put our heads together, researched, reflected then began building. Here are some things we learned about along the way."

"One of the great things about Netflix is that it has brought thoughtful, compelling documentaries to a much wider audience - something filmmakers could only dream of a decade ago. And with binge-worthy titles like "Amanda Knox" or "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" a click away, you can get a lot of great nonfiction viewing any night of the week. You'll learn a lot more about the world, but don't worry - you'll also be entertained."

"With teenagers sending and receiving an average of 3,276 texts per month in the last quarter of 2010, according to the most recent statistics from the Nielsen Co., it's no wonder that Michael Rich, director of Children's Hospital Boston's Center on Media and Child Health, is starting to see young patients who come in exhausted by being "on call'' or semi-alert all night as they wait for their phones to vibrate or ring with a text."