Dear Morningside Center friends,

We are so glad to be here with you in 2022!

Below, we offer an appreciation activity to begin the year and a new lesson remembering the wise, courageous, and playful Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who passed on December 26. Also see our suggested classroom resources, one year after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Plus, we share with you a new job opening, and lots of good stuff to read. Enjoy!

Morningside Center is looking for a full-time Payroll Specialist to join our business office team. The tasks and responsibilities are many, but the community is supportive and the benefits are generous. Remote or in-person position. Read the full listing.

As the new year begins, this circle activity invites students to appreciate each other, using as inspiration the Zulu greeting Sawubona, which means “We see you.”

U.S. workers are rethinking their relationship to work in the Covid era. Students explore why many Americans are quitting their jobs, or striking for better pay and more respect.

Students learn about and reflect on the life and values of the activist and thinker Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on December 26, 2021. “He loved, he laughed, he cried, he was forgiven, he forgave.”

"From Covid to colonialism, and all their intersections — there is so much for all of us to grieve, and a violent refusal to slow down and do so is at the root of so much harm." By Edgar Villanueva on Medium

"The cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly noted in the people whose lives it has claimed—more than 740,000 in the U.S. alone, and more than 5 million worldwide. But there are the secondary victims, the collateral casualties—the spouses left widowed, the friends left bereft and, perhaps most poignantly, the children left orphaned." By Jeffrey Kluger at Time Magazine

"The scientific evidence is crystal clear: Early experiences literally shape the architecture of the developing brain. This widespread understanding is driving increased public support for universal pre-K to enhance school readiness for all children and level the playing field for kids who face adversity." By Jack P. Shonkoff at Knowable Magazine

A Year After the Capitol Riot, Where Is The U.S. Headed? “We have to embrace our multiethnic and multiracial democracy, and we have to deal with the issue of inequality, because as inequality persists, democracy continues to falter,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman tells Teen Vogue.

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” - Desmond Tutu