10 Facts about Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a celebration honoring the mothers of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the months of March or May. 

In the Dominican Republic, Mother's Day is a family celebration, where we recognize the love, service, and devotion of our mothers by giving them gifts, cards, flowers & bouquets, food, among others. Schools make special celebrations and sing along to our famous Mother's Day Anthem.

Here are 10 fun facts about Mother’s Day you might not really know:  

1. The Dominican Republic is the only country in Latin America that has dedicated an anthem to Mothers.

2- Mother’s day is remounted back to Ancient Greece.

3- Mother's day is the most popular day of the year for eating out.

4- The person who founded Mother’s Day in America was called Anna Jarvis.

5- In the UK thirty thousand cards are sent during Mother’s Day 

6- The first Mother’s Day in the whole world was celebrated in the ’70s.

7- The tradition that is more associated with Mothering Sunday is the Simnel Cake.

8- Carnations are the flowers that are typically associated with Mother's Day.

9- In the United Kingdom and Ireland the Mothering Sunday is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent. In our country, it takes place on the last Sunday of May.

10- Mother’s Day is celebrated in 46 countries around the world.

Mothers are great and, in my opinion, they deserve more than just one special day because they protect us, even if we don’t know how to do it, and are always looking after us, making sure we have everything we need and that we do what we must ('boches' included).

Happy Mother's Day 2021!

Written by Carlos Graveley

5th Grader

What makes of TikTok so addictive?

Whether we like it or not, we all have heard of TikTok, a Chinese short video app where you can make and also watch short videos. Wikipedia defines it as "a video-sharing social networking service." It is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. The social media platform is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from 15 seconds to one minute. Conclusion: It’s like a vine, but less exciting, and way more engaging.

This app has been around since 2016 but became really popular during quarantine time. In fact, according to Medium.com, TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform in the world! Each month TikTok has around 800 MILLION active users. Its mission, as it claims, aims to “...capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and precious life moments, directly from the mobile phone. TikTok enables everyone to be a creator, and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos.”

Passion and creativity are a big part of the app's success, followed by immense boredom during quarantine time, but TikTok is truly addictive, and we are here to try to explain to you why.

People are so addicted to TikTok because of its videos of random things people like. For example, if a cooking video appears on your feed page, and you watch it, and you mark it as "liked" TikTok is programmed to keep you watching cooking videos. Now that the app knows you like that kind of content, it will bombard you with it... for HOURS! This model of engagement for users is called recommendation algorithm and they use it to provide accurate content that fits the historic behaviors of its users. In short, if you watched the same TikTok as others, you are likely to be recommended the videos they have watched.

Additionally, there is also this option called FYP (for you page). This is where videos that you may like appear. This page can save from all the different types of content: comedy, cooking, dance, inspirational quotes, fan pages, etc. 

This is fun, but a little scary. 

Usually, social media gives you some sort of choice in what you watch. Take YouTube, for example. The app recommends videos using an engagement algorithm, however, you always have some sort of choice in what you are watching. This does not happen with TikTok. TikTok simply recommends you nonstop sets of 15-second videos that you NEVER chose to watch. 

This has been a huge success for users because it is pretty easy for anyone to go viral in Tiktok, but you're not recognized as a celebrity, you're recognized as an influencer. For example, a young girl started Tik Tok around the age of 15, she went Viral and now she has more than 100M+ followers at the age of 16 and is on the World Records Book. 

Also, TikTok is a way for celebrities and artists to make their songs go viral, cause people create dances or trends with their songs, so they will be stuck in your head, and you will search them up.

In conclusion, TikTok offers users a sense of connection, distant engagement, and the ability to be anonymous and expressive with a stream of constantly relevant information. This is a total recipe for addiction. We recommend that even if you like the content and enjoy spending hours watching endless video streaming, you limit your time as a user in order to avoid addictive behaviors and find other ways to express yourself and connect to others that do not just include a screen. 

TickTock influencers and why should you follow them:

This is a list of TikTokers that you should totally check out!

1. @elisalley If you are a Disney fan, make sure to watch him because he does really good Disney theories.

2.  @butchhartman  This is the creator of the show Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom a truly, true classic from Nickelodeon. He also draws and teaches how to draw anime on his TickTock account.

3. @disney You should totally watch this one since it’s the actual Disney TickTock account and it’s super fun.

4.  @chemtecherphil This one is cool for scientific minds. He makes really cool experiments that you can do at home.

5. @disneyparks you should watch because it shows the inside world of Disney Parks - I personally recommend you to watch it- it is super fun!

                               Written by Avril Velez     &     Jose Emilio Ariza                                    

                                                       

Inspirational Quotes That Motivate Me

Have you ever read a phrase that really struck you and changed your perspective on things? Inspirational quotes are phrases that motivate people to do something or change the way they act or feel about a certain situation. Usually, quotes help people see the world from a different perspective. They are very famous because probably someone famous said them first, and they are just a sentence, so they are useful since (let's be honest here) this generation doesn't like to read a lot.

These are 3 quotes that inspire me and this is why.

1- “ The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” - Dolly Parton- 

Dolly Parton is an author, singer, actress, and more. What she meant by saying this is that if you want good things to happen you can't avoid the bad ones, in this quote she used rainbows as a good symbol and rain as the bad one. I get motivated or inspired by this quote because it makes me feel that even when situations that I don’t enjoy happen, I can still look at them and find something positive.

2- “Winners are not people who never fail but people who never quit.” - Edwin Louis Cole- 

Edwin Louis Cole was a preacher whose words have inspired many people. What he means is pretty clear but I’m still going to explain it. We all think people who win are perfect, but let me tell you something: NOBODY,  not a single body on this Earth is perfect and this preacher is trying to explain that. He says that people who win fail lots of times, but they never give up. That is why they are true winners.

3- “If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.” -Maya Angelou-

Maya Angelou was a famous poet. What she meant here was that every time we try to be “normal”  we never realize how great we actually are. This quote helps me get up and be my true self instead of someone else. We are all amazing just the way you are and we need to start noticing this.

There you have it! I gave you three wonderful quotes to get inspired by today. Which are YOUR favorite quotes? How do they inspire you to be a better person, or face difficulties? Share your quotes in the comments!

Written by Maria Alejandra Vasquez

5th Grader

Meet an author: Marcio Veloz Maggiolo

Marcio Veloz Maggiolo (1936-2021) Photo Source: Wikipedia

Marcio Veloz Maggiolo was a Dominican writer, archaeologist, poet, essayist, narrator, journalist, and anthropologist. He was born on August 13, 1936, in the city of Santo Domingo. Maggiolo was a writer and the director of the National Dominican Museum. He died at the age of 84, on April 10th, 2021. His death was caused by COVID-19.

Why was he so important?

Maggiolo was important because he was one the most complete Dominican writers of all times. He wrote more than fifteen books. Some of them are: “La mosca soldado”, “Ritos de cabaret” and “El buen ladrón”.

Maggiolo wrote different genres such as poems, stories, essays, and novels. His books were translated in different languages, like German, Italian, French and English.

How did people react to the news of his death? 

Some people regretted his loss. Others wrote articles about how it felt like having Maggiolo in their lives. After his death, the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, decreed April 12, 2021, as National Mourning. This means that from now on is a day marked in the calendar to commemorate or celebrate a special person.

“May my work continue to be positive for this country, but may it be the works, not the man." 

- Marcio Veloz Maggiolo. 

By Alana García

6th Grader

"The Vegan Teacher" gets banned, and we can all learn about it

"That Vegan Teacher" or Miss Kadie is a famous vegan TikTok creator who strongly encourages people to become vegan, almost forcibly; she takes anyone- and I mean absolutely anyone!- and tries to make them vegan. She has done a lot of videos, but I’m gonna share the facts about her.

One of the people she came after was Tommyinnit, a young streamer, he made a video on TikTok about him saying that he was at college surrounded by women. Miss Kadie decided it was necessary to tell him to follow another vegan teacher so that she could help him find a “nice vegan girlfriend”. Many fans got mad at her for trying to encourage him into something he didn’t want. Someone asked him about what he thought of the vegan teacher, he said that he didn’t know who she was, but that he hated vegans (which he probably meant as a joke since his videos are mostly about comedy). 

Another person she attacked was actually a friend of Tommy, George or GeorgeNotFound, a streamer. He did a small video on TikTok saying that he wanted likes -nothing really related to animals or veganism or anything like that-, but Miss Kadie felt the need to answer his video too by saying that he shouldn’t ask for likes before he stops paying for the “torture and murder” of innocent animals, he did not respond this video since he couldn’t care less about a teacher trying to make him vegan. After a while she dueted George again, on a video that he did about him putting apples into apple juice, which was a joke (lol), in this video the situation was better since she was not offending him or trying to make him vegan, but it was still pretty cringing and unnecessary for her to duet it nodding and putting texts saying “Miss Kadie supporting GeorgeNotFound” or “A+, great presentation”, and as always, he did not care and didn’t answer her.

One of the people she has tried to encourage or try to get more people to hate them is Gordon Ramsay, a British chef known for insults and meat. She didn’t put much effort into this since she only took a song she already made and changed the name “McDonalds” to “Gordon Ramsay” and put a little part in the end. He saw the video and answered it calling her a vegan donut, which she did not appreciate, so she responded to him by “explaining” to him why animals are not food and food is only something that you pick up from the ground or a tree; A few days later she made another video of saying that he laughs at animal rights activists, which he does not, he defended himself from her because she was trying to go after a person who cooks meat almost every day, which isn’t the smartest option.

The last person I’m gonna talk about today is Charli D’Amelio. If you don’t know who she is, you probably don’t even know what TikTok is. She is the most famous TikToker, she does dance videos and other stuff I can’t really focus on. She did a video of her dancing to a song, nothing out of the ordinary, you might be wondering what this has to do with animals or veganism, it doesn’t. It just simply doesn’t; Miss Kadie didn’t even do anything that involved her, she just downloaded her video and put some text on it saying “Ever wonder how many BILLIONS of lives Charlie could help save if she became vegan and her fans followed?”, and some other texts and stickers about veganism, Charli didn’t answer this because I’m sure she has way more important things in her life since she has about 108 million followers on TikTok.

Now I’ll talk about some other things she did that didn’t involve anyone in specific. One of the worst things she could’ve ever done (and she did) was to offend the lgbtq+ community. it’s just wrong and I don’t need to explain why. She called them selfish because they thought coming out as part of the lgbtq+ community was more important than coming out as vegan because vegan is about other living things like animals and not just yourself. This post was just never meant to exist or even the thought of it since it was way more selfish of her to say that it’s more special to come out as vegan, and her reason why it’s “selfish” it’s because it’s only about yourself and according to her, coming out as vegan is harder than coming out as a member of the lgbtq+ community.

She also got caught eating meat in a McDonalds, it is not verified at all, and if someone were to ask her, she’d say no even if it is the truth. Last thing I’ll talk about is how she forced her dog, Bella, to become vegan, dogs need more proteins than just vegetables and fruits, even if some can adapt, most of them need a healthy balanced diet that dog food and meat can provide, dogs also come from wolves which are carnivorous, of course in some circumstances wolves will eat vegetables or fruit and even grass, but if they only eat that they would probably die within months, the reason they don’t is instinct, and I’m sure wild dogs won’t prefer a vegan diet than a balanced meat diet.

She got banned on Tuesday, February 23 for swearing a lot and trying to show animals being murdered, and complained that TikTok wouldn’t let her share it even though she violated TikTok’s guidelines and terms of service. She offended many people and that is mostly because they answered her whenever she was dueting them or talking about them, in my opinion, I say that she should’ve been banned sooner so some events never happened. She mainly got banned because of other people reporting her (reasonably).

In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with being vegan, but what is wrong is trying to force people into being vegan and especially animals who need meat to survive. If you’re vegan, then good for you! You are awesome! If you’re a member of the lgbtq+ community then good for you! You’re also awesome! If you’re none, then good for you, you’re awesome too!

The lesson of the day: If you are an advocate of something, try to respect other people who disagree with you. Like John Wooden once said, "We can agree to disagree, but we don't need to be disagreeable."

By Vera Toca

6th Grader

Gender Stereotypes

Stereotypes are a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. There are a lot of gender stereotypes that are wrong. Honestly, they are probably all just wrong because it doesn’t matter if you're female or male, what matters is that you do what you like and NEVER EVER  do what other people think that you should do. That is bad, you do what you think is right or what you like just what makes you happy! Your happiness is what matters.

To name a simple example, there are a lot of stereotypes about girls and sports.  Girls CAN play sports. Have you seen Alex Morgan? She is a Professional Soccer Player. She is really good at what she does and she doesn't give attention to the negative things people say. I restate in different words Girls CAN play soccer. For those girls out there that want to play sports and they say that you can’t. GO! Prove those people wrong. Believe in yourself, you can do it, it doesn’t matter the stereotypes they make. Just go.

Another example is related to a male chauvinist, but common idea: People say that boys can't cook or that they can’t help in the house because women should do that. INCORRECT. Boys CAN cook and they CAN help in the house. It’s worrisome to me that sometimes moms need help and boys don't help them just because of these stereotypes or just to be cool. If you help around the house or even cook your mom will be so grateful (trust me) and you’ll see how much cooler you’ll be when you grow up knowing these things.

At last, I am happy to tell you that you should NOT listen to stereotypes that are gender-related, or that are negative to you, or what you wanna do. I previously named some frequent examples, but there are many, many more! I'll just name a few:

• Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks
• Boys should like blue and green, girls red and pink
• Girls are better at reading and boys are better at math
• Girls should be well behaved, boys are expected to act out.
• Girls are too emotional and boys should not be allowed to express their emotions openly
• Boys should engage in sports and refrain from more creative pursuits, those are for girls
• Boys and men are expected to use violence and aggression to prove their manliness, A boy that doesn't use violence or aggression is an understandable target for bullying.

These there are some examples of gender stereotypes. This is why we need to be ourselves and let others be themselves too. It is time to revise these negative ideas of what's for girls and for boys and start moving to a more inclusive and respectful society, where we can all be our own beautiful selves.  

By: Montserrat Correa Acosta

5th Grader