Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin says his doctors have concluded that a hit to the chest caused his heart to stop after a tackle during a game in Cincinnati in early January.

The rare condition — called commotio cordis — occurs when a severe blow to the chest causes the heart to quiver and stop pumping blood efficiently, leading to sudden cardiac arrest.

Hamlin, 25, was administered CPR on the field and hospitalized for more than a week. On Tuesday, Bills general manager Brandon Beane said Hamlin was cleared to play after meeting with a third and final specialist last week. Hamlin told reporters later that the doctors all agreed his cardiac arrest was due to commotio cordis. None of his doctors were present to speak to the media.

It’s an extremely rare consequence of a blow of the right type and intensity “at exactly the wrong time in the heartbeat,” said Dr. Gordon F. Tomaselli, dean of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

“These are several extraordinary things that must all happen at exactly the same, wrong time in a 20-40 millisecond window,” as the lower chambers of the heart are preparing to contract, the former president of the American Heart Association said in a statement released by the group on Tuesday. “Collapse occurs within seconds.”

The condition occurs mostly in boys and young men playing sports, and usually involves a blow to the left chest with a hard round object, like a baseball or a hockey puck, according to the heart group.

Hamlin’s collapse was seen by a national television audience during a Monday night game in Cincinnati on Jan. 2.

“If there is some greater good that can come from his commotio cordis event, it is that as many people as possible are now aware of how important it is to provide urgent care for all cardiac emergencies,” Nancy Brown, CEO of the heart group, said in the statement.

More than 365,000 people in the U.S. have sudden cardiac arrests outside of the hospital each year, according to group. Survival depends on quick CPR and shocking the heart back into a normal rhythm.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama State University is partnering on a new project to make free mental health resources more widely available to students at historically Black colleges and universities.

The “She Care Wellness Pods” will give students access to therapy sessions, workshops, yoga and quiet spaces. Actress Taraji P. Henson’s Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation is partnering with the Kate Spade Foundation to place the pods on HBCU campuses. Alabama State is the first to participate in the program.

Henson visited Montgomery on Friday for the opening of the pods. She said she grew when “women were expected to store the pain and struggles of inequities and disparities.”

“We believed that mental health was a commodity for the rich and those who didn’t look like us,” Henson said. “We are grateful for this partnership with Kate Spade New York. Together, we are changing the narrative and charting a new course for women who are experiencing the ‘Strong Black Woman Syndrome.’”

Henson said the foundations are trying to make resources more available and eradicate the stigma around mental health issues in the Black community. She said mental health challenges are a significant factor in why students drop out of college.

Henson told WAKA-TV that her foundation grew out of her desire to give back and her own family’s struggles.

The She Care Wellness Pods program aims to reach more than 25,000 Black women on HBCU campuses. The program plans to also offer wellness pods for men and members of the LBGTQ+ community.

The post Taraji P. Henson partners with HBCUs on mental wellness appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

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Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) recently announced the spring lineup of its annual event series Downtown Brooklyn Presents, and judging by how jam packed it is with fun, free programming you definitely will not want to miss out.

Downtown Brooklyn Presents celebrates the people and the places of one of the nation’s fastest growing downtowns, and the spring launch is only the start of an exciting season.

Kicking off the season is a series complementing The Plaza’s interactive public artwork COMMON GROUND, which gives way to Earth Day events, ping pong happy hours, zumba classes, and more.

This year, Downtown Brooklyn will also host several events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip hop, Pride Month, and Juneteenth, from their version of hip hop karaoke to commemorative performances and activities.

See Downtown Brooklyn Presents’ schedule below:

COMMON GROUND Performances 

Pratt Institute’s fashion department closes the installation with JUNIOR THESIS – a fashion performance featuring selected works from year-end collections.

• Saturday, April 22, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Downtown Brooklyn Car-Free Earth Day

An exciting and earth-friendly activation on the plaza at Albee Square. Albee Square West will also be closed to traffic all day, so bring your yoga mats, bikes, scooters, and roller skates and enjoy a car-free street!

• Saturday, April 22, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Willoughby Walks 

For two consecutive weeks, lounge in lawn chairs and revel in a car-free streets! Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and DOT close the streets and transform them with art, music, exercise classes, and fun activities — all free and open to the public!

• Thursday, April 27, 2 p.m. – 8 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 3, 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Albee Square Happy Hours: Check the Rhime

In honor of Hip Hop 50, channel your favorite MC and spit the verses that have kept you in love with the genre for five decades. Vibe curator, Dot Ichiro provides the beats.

• Thursdays, May 4-25, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m.

BAMkids SpringFest 

A day of free musical performances, interactive activities, and showcases of local talent, celebrating the spirit of spring and themes related to environmental advocacy and care. Co-curated by the BAMkids Parent Advisory Circle.

• Saturday, May 6, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Ping Pong Happy Hours  

DJ Mike Doelo and The Push are back for another series of ping pong match ups. The series is free to the public.

• Tuesdays, May 9-30 & June 6-20, 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Zumba with Dodge YMCA  

Natarsha McQueen’s beloved Zumba series returns. Devoted fans and new recruits sweat it out each Wednesday to choreographed dance moves set to lively beats.

• Wednesdays, May 10, 17, 31 & June 7, 14, 21, 28, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.

BKLYN Kids Indoor/Outdoor Block Party  

Brooklyn Bridge Parents brings block party fun to Downtown Brooklyn at both City Point and Albee Square with free, fun activities for families with kids ages 1 to 10.

• Saturday, May 20, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

BAM DanceAfrica Outdoor Bazaar  

The nation’s largest festival of African and African American dance, music, and culture is back with this beloved annual event.

• May 27-29, Times TBD

Lunchtimes @ Brooklyn Commons Park 

Thursdays in June are filled with lively lunchtime entertainment.

• Thursdays, June 1-29, 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.

Bare Feet Downtown Brooklyn 

Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi returns for another cultural journey through music and dance. Seasoned pros and first-time dancers are all welcome to join on The Plaza’s dance floor for fun and exciting moves.

• Thursdays, June 1-22, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Juneteenth Weekend 

651 ARTS presents the 651 ARTS’ Third Annual Juneteenth Celebration, a commemoration of African American emancipation featuring performances and activities.

• Saturday, June 17, Time TBD

Brooklyn Poetry Slam 

This monthly, popular event is celebrating six years and hosts and cultivates an incredible evening of poetry and community, supported by beats from DJ Jive Poetic.

• Tuesday, Jun 27, 6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Check out the full calendar of events here.

“We are excited to announce a 2023 spring calendar that will give Brooklynites ways to come out and enjoy our public spaces,” said Regina Myer, President of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “Downtown Brooklyn Presents transforms the neighborhood with a vibrant calendar of events and having residents and visitors join us for fun, fitness, and entertainment outside.”

The post Downtown Brooklyn Just Announced Their Jam-Packed Lineup For The Spring Season appeared first on Secret NYC.

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Move over “Dick and Jane.” A different approach to teaching kids how to read is on the rise.

For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. The battle has reached into homes via commercials for Hooked on Phonics materials and through shoebox dioramas assigned by teachers seeking to instill a love of literature.

But momentum has shifted lately in favor of the “science of reading.” The term refers to decades of research in fields including brain science that point to effective strategies for teaching kids to read.

The science of reading is especially crucial for struggling readers, but school curricula and programs that train teachers have been slow to embrace it. The approach began to catch on before schools went online in spring 2020. But a push to teach all students this way has intensified as schools look for ways to regain ground lost during the pandemic — and as parents of kids who can’t read demand swift change.

OK, CLASS. TIME FOR A HISTORY LESSON.

One historical approach to teaching reading was known as “whole language.” (Close cousins of this approach are “whole word” and “look-say.”) It focused on learning entire words, placing the emphasis on meaning. A famous example is the “Dick and Jane” series, which, like many modern-day books for early readers, repeated words frequently so students could memorize them.

The other approach involved phonics, with supporters arguing students need detailed instruction on the building blocks of reading. That meant lots of time on letter sounds and how to combine them into words.

In 2000, a government-formed National Reading Panel released the findings of its exhaustive examination of the research. It declared phonics instruction was crucial to teaching young readers, along with several related concepts.

Whole language had lost.

What emerged, though, was an informal truce that came to be known as “balanced literacy” and borrowed from both approaches. The goal: Get kids into books they found enjoyable as quickly as possible.

But in practice, phonics elements often got short shrift, said Michael Kamil, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

“It wasn’t a true compromise,” said Kamil, who had sat on the national reading panel. The approach often led to students learning how to guess words, instead of how to sound them out.

Now, as schools look to address low reading scores, phonics and other elements of the science of reading are getting fresh attention, fueled in part by a series of stories and podcasts by APM Reports. Textbook makers are adding more phonics, and schools have dumped some popular programs that lacked that approach.

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE OF READING?

While the phrase doesn’t have a universal definition, it refers broadly to research in a variety of fields that relates to how a child’s brain learns to read. Neuroscientists, for instance, have used MRIs to study the brains of struggling readers.

In practice, this science calls for schools to focus on the building blocks of words. Kindergartners might play rhyming games and clap out the individual syllables in a word to learn to manipulate sounds. Experts call this phonemic awareness.

Students later will learn explicitly how to make letter sounds and blend letters. To make sure students aren’t just guessing at words, teachers might ask them to sound out so-called nonsense words, like “nant” or “zim.”

Gone is rote memorization of word spellings. Instead, students learn the elements that make up a word. In a lesson using the word “unhappy,” students would learn how the prefix “un-” changed the meaning of the base word.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

For some kids, reading happens almost magically. Bedtime stories and perhaps a little “Sesame Street” are enough.

But 30% to 40% of kids will need the more explicit instruction that is part of the science of reading, said Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Other kids fall somewhere in between. “They’re going to learn to read,” said Shanahan, also one of the members of the 2000 panel and the former director of reading for Chicago Public Schools. “They’re just not going to read as well as they could be or should be.”

Complicating the situation, colleges of education often have stuck with balanced literacy despite concerns about its effectiveness. That means teachers graduate with little background on research-backed instructional methods.

The upshot: Parents often pick up the slack, paying for tutors or workbooks when their children struggle, Shanahan said. Extra help can be costly, contributing to racial and income-based disparities.

As a result, a growing number of NAACP chapters are pushing for wider adoption of the science of reading, describing literacy as a civil rights issue.

WHAT IS DYSLEXIA’S ROLE IN THE READING DEBATE?

Parents of children with dyslexia have led the push to use the science of reading. For them, the issue has special urgency. Kids with dyslexia can learn to read, but they need systematic instruction. When the wrong approach is used, they often flounder.

“I can’t even tell you how many screaming fits we had,” recalled Sheila Salmond, whose youngest child has dyslexia. “My daughter would come home and say, ‘Mom, I’m not learning.’ And then it became, ‘Mom, I’m stupid.’”

Salmond found herself testifying before Missouri lawmakers, taking a graduate class so she could tutor her daughter and eventually moving her from a suburban Kansas City district to a parochial school. She now is making progress.

WHAT IS CHANGING?

Just a decade ago, it was rare for a state to have laws that mentioned dyslexia or the science of reading.

Now every state has passed some form of legislation. The laws variously define what dyslexia is, require that students are screened for reading problems and mandate that teachers are trained in the most effective strategies, said Mary Wennersten, of the International Dyslexia Association.

States often look to duplicate what has happened in Mississippi, which has credited reading gains to a curriculum revamp that started a decade ago. The multi-million dollar effort includes training teachers on the science of reading.

The changes have put some curriculum programs in the crosshairs.

Some Colorado districts, for instance, have ditched instructional materials that didn’t pass muster under a state law that requires schools to use scientifically based reading programs. New York City, whose mayor often talks about his personal struggle with dyslexia, is making changes in its schools as well.

WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE OF READING MEAN FOR PARENTS?

Should they be researching the tenets of the science of reading? Do they need to help their children form letters out of Play-Doh? What about drilling their kids on nonsense words? Flashcards?

Only if they want to, said Amelia Malone, director of research and innovation at the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

What parents must do, she said, is read to their kids. Otherwise, she recommends helping teachers when they ask for it and pushing for evidence-based practices in their children’s schools.

“Parents can be part of the solution,” she said, “if we educate them on why this is kind of the movement we need.”

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The post An end to the reading wars? More US schools embrace phonics appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Harlem Bespoke:  Another clean up day with Friends of St. Nicholas Park and local volunteers to help out for a monthly cleanup.  Mark those calendars and pitch in to help beautify one of uptown’s beloved parks.

* This article was originally published here

Harlem Bespoke:  So the average in Manhattan rent for a non-doorman studio is a whopping $2,944 a month but those living uptown can save over thousands each year since deals are starting to happen as of late. In the past 24 hours,  a prewar, a no-fee, one bedroom with additional office space at 2492 Adam Clayton Poweell by West 145th Street in Central Harlem has just been listed for $2,400 a month and is a rent stabilized unit!  This renovated apartment has a brand new kitchen and is a third floor walk-up situation.   Express trains are also about a 5 minute walk in either direction on 145th Street with Jackie Robinson Park also nearby.  More details and contact information on Streeteasy: LINK


HarlemBespoke.com 2023

* This article was originally published here