Education
Great minds lead to great solutions. Our education section features solutions and innovations directed at strengthening educational systems around the world.
Understanding whiteness: The first step to ending racial discrimination
The Optimist Daily is first and foremost a platform dedicated to solutions and the people behind them. But this week it has become more blatant than ever that there is a problem in our country in dire need of a solution—and this time it is us who need to be the ones coming up with the Read More...
How teachers can revitalize themselves after this difficult school year
As the school year comes to a close, many educators are realizing that it’s hard to find focus and stay passionate in times of disaster and uncertainty. The speed of school closures and the rapid move to distance learning allowed little time for proper planning and training. Educators weren’t Read More...
MIT just elected its first-ever black woman as student body president
As is the case with many of the issues that The Optimist Daily covers, solving issues like racial or gender inequality is not something that happens overnight. Progress comes in the form of small steps from around the world, which form a big impact altogether. One hugely positive development Read More...
How the Baltimore Museum of Art is stepping up to support local artists
The art world, which relies on galleries for survival, is taking a hard hit during the pandemic, but one museum is doing its part to keep local artists and galleries afloat. The Baltimore Museum of Art is using $100,000 diverted from its spring speaker series to give back to the local art Read More...
Engineers create UV-light machine that decontaminates 600 N95 masks an hour
During the coronavirus pandemic, the Optimist Daily has been dedicated to sharing solutions and the stories of human ingenuity behind them. Most recently, we wrote about an all-girl robotics team in Afghanistan that is working quickly to make ventilators using old car parts. Today, we bring you a Read More...
Crayola releases more diverse “Colors of the World” crayon line
Racial bias is ingrained in many of our everyday products. Items ranging from band-aids to facial recognition software were not developed with the full range of the world’s racial diversity in mind. When Crayola Crayons first released their “flesh tint” in 1903, it only applied to a narrow Read More...
Capturing isolation: This is the best of COVID-19 lockdown photography
With billions of people subjected to some level of stay-at-home order over the past couple of months, the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered one of the most profound shared global experiences humanity has ever seen. That’s why photography social network Agora called out to its diverse community to Read More...
Nonprofit raises $8m to pay off debt for grads with low-income backgrounds
It goes without saying, getting a college degree in the US is a costly pursuit, and for youth from low-income families the prospect of student debt after graduation is incredibly disconcerting. Thankfully, a nonprofit has made it its mission to ease the financial burden of debt for students and Read More...
Pledge completed: UC Berkeley has now fully divested from fossil fuels
The University of California announced Tuesday that it has fully divested from all fossil fuels, making it the nation’s largest educational institution to do so as campaigns to fight climate change through investment strategies proliferate at campuses across the country. The UC milestone capped Read More...
This viral COVID-19 bedtime story inspires children and parents alike
How do you explain a pandemic to young children? COVID-19 has not only thrown all facets of regular life into a free fall, but it can be especially difficult to even explain to children given its unprecedented nature. How do you tell a child what the future holds when adults aren’t even Read More...