China’s Mao Zedong and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu also had brutal childhoods, with consequences that, in Mao’s case killed 35 million people, and in Ceaucescu’s case, forced women to have unwanted children, Miller pointed out. We can add others: the members of Myanmar’s junta who have murdered millions, mostly Rohingya as well as other minority groups; the Chinese leadership that is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in prison camps….the list goes on,  

Stalin was also brutalized by his father when he was a child, she pointed out. Stalin was an only child. Like Hitler he was the first child to survive after three siblings who had died in infancy. His irascible father was almost always drunk and laid into his son from an early age. Despite the fame and power he later achieved, Stalin suffered throughout his life from a persecution mania that drove him to order the killing of millions of innocent people. Just as the infant Stalin lived in fear of sudden death at the hands of his unpredictable father, so the adult Stalin lived in fear even of his closest associates. But now he had the power to fend off those fears by humiliating others

This was Hitler’s OWN PERSONAL BRAND OF MANIA. And it is traceable to the insecurity of his existence in his own family, the insecurity of a child constantly living under the threat of violence and humiliation. Later millions were to forfeit their lives so that this child – now a childless adult – could avenge himself by unconsciously projecting the grim scenario of his childhood onto the political stage.

what’s also evident is what he didn’t seem to get: appropriate attachment—the strong and requisite bond between a parent and a child that leads to a healthy life and without which children can die or be damaged.

The reality is that Ukraine didn’t attack Russia, had no plans to attack Russia, and why would it? Russia’s military is 10 times larger AND they have nuclear weapons. It’s clear that Putin has created his own reality about the situation, one that isn’t shared by people who operate in facts. Besides, his actions cannot be justified merely because he believes his reality. He’s a damaged person who needs to stop what he’s doing before he shatters the lives of millions more.

How Vladimir Putin’s childhood is affecting us all

This model is the most flexible and open-ended of the four; your goal as an instructor is not to design a full-fledged semester of material, activities, and assessments. Rather, your goal is to work with your class to design and become a learning community, working collaboratively and individually towards your determined learning goals. For this to work you should have: a set of possible/preferred learning objectives for your classa library of course materials, preferably with as much as possible in digital formata suggested list of digital tools and technologies that you’re comfortable from with a list of possible assignment/project/assessment ideas that are related to your learning objectivesa willingness to experiment and invite your students into the teaching & learning process. At the onset of class you will need to facilitate a conversation among you and your students about how the class will unfold. This can be done in small groups f2f, via an online communication tool, or in a hybrid mix of both. As a community you should plan on addressing the following: what are our objectives as a learning community? what kind of work could we engage in to meet these objectives? what physical/virtual spaces would we like to work in? how/when do we want to meet in these spaces?how do we want to measure (assess) if an objective has been met?what rules and policies should govern our work? how will we work virtually and respect everyone’s boundaries and personal situations? how will we work f2f and respect public health recommendations and personal situations? You will probably need to spend at least the first 1-2 weeks answering these questions together and then designing a plan for your course. Make sure you and your students talk through various complications: what if the university’s policies about meeting f2f change? what if classes are forced to move entirely virtual/remote? what someone (students or professor!) gets sick?

The idea behind ACE is that we elevate three characteristics that are clear, context sensitive, values driven and mission aligned, and we use them to plan assignment-, course- and institution-level responses to COVID-19 in the areas of our university that are connected to teaching and learning.

Buy local, shrink the distance food travels, save the planet.