Adams County, North Dakota Records
Adams County, North Dakota (Map It) was created on April 17, 1907 from Hettinger County. The county was named in honor of John Quincy Adams, a railroad agent and cousin of the former president who was instrumental in having the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway built through North Dakota..
Adams County is bordered by Hettinger County (north), Grant County (northeast), Sioux County (east), Perkins County, South Dakota (south), Harding County, South Dakota (southwest), Bowman County (west), Slope County.
Adams County Cities and Towns include Bucyrus, Haynes, Hettinger, Reeder.
Adams County Townships include Beisigl, Bucyrus, Chandler, Clermont, Darling Springs, Duck Creek, Gilstrap, Hettinger, Lightning Creek, Maine, Orange, Reeder, Scott, South Fork, Taylor Butte, Wolf Butte. A Map of Adams County, North Dakota contains detailed information about roads and boundaries, these maps may include rural communities, churches, and cemeteries.
Adams County, North Dakota Courthouse Records
Adams County, ND Courthouse
The Clerk's Office DOES NOT DO RESEARCH. Most staff will assist people in finding the materials, but it is up to the individual to do the research.
The following dates indicates what vital, land, probate, and court records are in Adams county. The date listed for each record is usually the earliest registration filed. The date does not indicate that there are alot records for that year and does not mean that all such events were actually filed with the clerk. Some records have been transferred to the State Archives and Historical Research Library.
- Adams County Register of Deeds / Recorder has Land Records from 1907. The County Register of Deeds / Recorder keeps a record of each patent, deed, mortgage, bill of sale and any document related to these transactions, insuring a permanent record of property ownership; Copies of divorce records.
- Adams County Clerk of Courts has Marriage Records from 1907, Probate Records from 1907 and Court Records from 1907. The County Clerk of Courts responsibilities include issuing Marriage Licenses and filing of Civil, Probate, Small Claims, Criminal Cases and Child Support Court Documents.
Adams County, North Dakota Census Records
- Learn More: State of North Dakota Census Records
- U.S. Federal Population Schedules: 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940
- U.S. Indian Census Records: 1885-1940, Eastern Cherokee - 1908-1910
- Territorial and State Censuses: 1885, 1915, 1925
- U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules: None
- Selected U.S. Federal Census Agriculture Schedules: None
- Selected U.S. Federal Census Industry Schedules: None
- Union Veterans Schedules: None
Adams County, North Dakota Vital Records
- Learn More: State of North Dakota Vital Records
- Birth Records: from 1870 to present. The years 1870 to 1920 are incomplete.
- Marriage Records: from June 1958 to present
- Death Records: from 1893 to present. Years from 1894 to 1920 are incomplete.
- Locations: North Dakota Division of Vital Records
- Vital Records Online: USAVital or Social Security Death Index
- Vital Records by Mail: Birth Certificate or Death Certificate Applications.
- In Person: ND Department of Health, Division of Vital Records, 600 East Boulevard Avenue, Dept. 301, Bismarck, ND 58505-0200
Adams County, North Dakota Resources
- Dakota Buttes Historical Society, c/o Ceil Anne Clement, P.O. Box 1273, Hettinger, ND 58639, 701-567-4218
- Adams County, North Dakota Message Boards
Adams County, North Dakota External Links
- Historical Newspapers from North Dakota (1879–1923)
- Adams County, North Dakota Books - Amazon
- Adams Co., North Dakota - FindaGrave
- Adams County, North Dakota Links - Cyndi's List
- Adams Co. NDGenweb
- Adams County, North Dakota Ancestry Database Collections
- Adams County, North Dakota Military Records


Last week, The Cube hosted Robotics in the classroom, a professional development workshop for educators, facilitated by Peter Kellett. Peter provided a hands-on look at how LEGO Education EV3 robotics can be used in the curriculum, with a focus on FIRST® LEGO® League and other FIRST® programs.
As an educator in the field of classroom ICT, Peter discussed unit development, structure and assessment techniques using his robotics program at Grace Lutheran College as a case study.
Peter is a regional partner for FIRST® in Queensland and currently directs the FIRST® LEGO® League Brisbane Bayside tournament. Throughout the evening, Peter shared suggested approaches for teams competing in this year’s FIRST® LEGO® League ‘Trash Trek’ challenge.
Peter also discussed direct links between FIRST® LEGO® League and the Australian Curriculum and reviewed how the competition can be incorporated into lesson planning. You can view FIRST® LEGO® League curriculum links here. Thanks to the Robotics@QUT Caboolture team for compiling and sharing this great resource.
And a final thanks to Peter for facilitating a fantastic and informative evening!
For further information on FIRST® LEGO® League visit the FIRST® LEGO® website.


Women at War in Ukrainian Conflict
(1) Female fighters have been active members of both warring sides since the outbreak of the conflict. Women participating in the eastern Ukrainian conflict represent all walks of life and have different reasons to take up arms.
Above: A Ukrainian servicewoman stands in Horlivka, September 18, 2014.
(2) As of 2013, almost 10,000 women have completed military service in Ukraine’s Armed Forces as contract soldiers, with more than 1,600 positioned as officers.
Above: A Ukrainian servicewoman Stella, 33, poses for a picture in the village of Schastya, near the eastern Ukrainian town of Luhansk, September 26, 2014.
(3) A lot of DPR and LPR female freedom fighters are now seeking to retaliate after losing relatives in the conflict.
Above: A woman fighting for the self-proclaimed DPR, poses with her weapon in Donetsk, September 10, 2014.
(4) Some women are medical attendants or cooks, but others fight shoulder to shoulder with men.
Above: Members of Rus batallion’s female division during shooting drills.
(5) After undergoing military training, they join units, even serving in artillery sections.
Above: A DPR female soldier at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Horlivka.
(6) The freedom fighters remark that female soldiers are disciplined and surprisingly brave, calling them “true women”.
Above: A woman fighting on the side of the self-proclaimed DPR, Donetsk, September 8, 2014.
(7) A lot of women were forced to remain with their elderly parents who could not evacuate because of poor health and old age. Consequently their daughters decided to take up arms.
Above: A woman fighting for the self-proclaimed DPR in the town of Nizhnaya Krynka, eastern Ukraine, September 23, 2014.
(8) Some admit they are more fearful of sitting at home and enduring shelling than fighting an enemy face to face.
Above: A woman fighting on the side of the self-proclaimed DPR in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, September 17, 2014.
(9) Women claim the freedom fighters treat them as equals.
Above: A woman fighting for the self-proclaimed LPR in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, September 14, 2014.
(10) Before the outbreak of the conflict Irina was a croupier and never imagined herself waging a war. Now, her life is at stake…
Above: Irina, nicknamed Gaika, former croupier, turned to the artillery specialist at the DPR Army, Makiivka, eastern Ukraine, October 6, 2014.
(11) “So many people including children and women died on our side. I want no more ceasefire.”
Above: Alla, nicknamed Ryzhaya (the Red-haired), a independence fighter, poses during an interview in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, October 5, 2014.
(12) War turns everyone into a soldier. It is not surprising to see yesterday’s housewife in a bulletproof vest and helmet, holding a semi-automatic gun.
Above: Ukrainian servicewoman Nadie, 36, stands at the military camp in the village of Luhanska (near the town of Luhansk), eastern Ukraine September 24, 2014.
(13) Anyway, women are women, and a handgun often neighbors a make-up set on their tables.
Above: Irina, a petrol station employee, is now a member of a reconnaissance team of freedom fighters in the town of Makiivka, eastern Ukraine, October 6, 2014.
(14) Warring women say that they lack respect toward men who dodge fighting.
Above: A female freedom fighter gets ready to take position near the International Airport during fighting with Ukrainian government forces in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, October 4, 2014.
THANKS TO RIANOVOSTI!


Barentsburg is situated at the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between Norway and the North Pole with strategic access in the Barents Sea to vital sea lanes linking Russia, Western Europe and North America. As sea ice vanishes and the Arctic Ocean grows ever more accessible, Svalbard’s geopolitical value has soared. Due to climate change and record-low levels of ice, a ship was able to navigate the Arctic Ocean north of Russia for the very first time during wintertime this year.
The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 gave the previously unclaimed islands to Norway but allowed any country to perform mining and other economic activity. The Russian state-owned Trust Arktikugol has been mining coal here since 1932, and during the Cold War Barentsburg was a veritable hotbed of activity as the Russians attempted to expand their zone of control over the islands. A total of 570 people (mostly Ukranians) now live in the settlement of Barentsburg and the Russian company Arktikugol has since the early 1930s extracted coal on the archipelago. The mine closed in 2006 after concerns over an underground fire breaking out, but resumed production in late 2010. Barentsburg’s 480-meter-deep, high-sulfur coal mine produces elevated levels of methane gas. Several deadly explosions and fires have occurred over the years.
Emissions from burning coal for heat and energy fuel global warming, making coal the single greatest threat to our climate. Coal mining is also a source of methane, a very potent global warming gas.
On the hillside above Barentsburg is a five-pointed star and the Communist-era slogan Миру Мир/Miru Mir, or "Peace to the World”. Barentsburg in its heyday “embodied the Soviet ideal,” everything was free for the workers, there was full employment and no hierarchy. The mines on Svalbard were used as exhibition pieces for socialism.


In today's lesson, the students learn to find equivalent fractions. This aligns with 4.NF.A1 because the students will explain why a fraction a/b is equivalent to a fraction (n × a)/(n × b) by using visual fraction models, with attention to how the number and size of the parts differ even though the two fractions themselves are the same size.
To begin the lesson, I give each student a piece of white paper and two crayons. These materials are used to help the students discover the meaning of equivalent fractions. I also have a piece of paper and two crayons. First, I direct the students to fold the piece of paper in half. I fold my paper to give the students a visual of which direction to fold the paper. I want all of the papers the same so that the students will clearly see the equivalent fractions. I explain to students that fractions are equal pieces, so we must line the paper up evenly to have the same size pieces. The students open the paper. I ask, "How many pieces do you see?" The students respond that there are two pieces. I let them know that this is the denonimator, which is the bottom number of the fraction. (The students should be familiar with the terms denominator and numerator from 3rd grade. I just review it to refresh their memories.) Next, I direct the students to color the top half of the paper with one of their crayons. I color the top part of my paper along with the students. I feel that is is important for teachers to model for the students. I ask, "How many pieces are shaded?" The students respond one. "What fraction of the paper is shaded?" The students respond one-half. I instruct the students to write the fraction 1/2 at the bottom of the paper. Upon completing this, the students fold the paper into fourths. On the back of the paper, the students shade two of the pieces with the other crayon. (Make sure the students are shading the top section of the paper - this should be on the opposite side of the paper were they shaded the one half.) I ask, "What fraction is shaded?" The students respond 2/4.
Our lesson for today is equivalent fractions. I direct the students to look at the two fractions. I ask, "What do you notice about the 1/2 and 2/4?" I give the students a few minutes to think about this. "Share your thoughts with your neighbor." I walk around to listen in on what the students are saying to their neighbors. Some responses I hear: I notice that both of them look like 1/2, and I notice that they both look like 2/4 on both sides. I share these responses with the whole class and ask "who is right?" The majority knew that both were correct. If we are talking about equivalent fractions, somebody tell me, based upon what we just did, "What is an equivalent fraction?" The student that I call on shares with the class that equivalent fractions are two fractions that are even. I ask the class is "even" the correct word to use. Another student corrects this by saying "equal" is the correct word.
I let the students know that today we will find equivalent fractions using models and objects.
After the opening activity, I bring the class back together as a whole to discuss equivalent fractions. I let the students know that today, we learn how to create equivalent fractions. This aligns with 4.NF.A1 because the students explain why a fraction a/b is equivalent to a fraction (n × a)/(n × b) by using visual fraction models. The students use multiplication and division to find equivalent fractions. The fraction strips are used to give a visual of the equivalent fractions.
Before discussing Equivalent Fractions.pptx, I wanted to clear up a misconception that I heard while walking around the room to listen to the students discuss the two shaded fractions. (I addressed this misconception with the two students immediately, but I wanted to bring it before the whole class because I want to make sure that there are no other students with the same misconception.)
When discussing the shaded fractions, I heard two students say that one side shaded was the whole (the side with the shaded 1/2) and the other side is half of the whole (the side with the shaded 2/4). I wanted to clear that up before we got any further into the lesson. My question to those two students was, "How is that a whole when you shaded it from part of something?" I wanted them to understand the concept of what a fraction actually means. "It is a part of a whole."
I explain to the class that the sheet of paper is the "whole." A fraction is a part of a whole. If you have a pizza, the pizza is the whole. The slices would be a fraction of the whole pizza.
When you are dealing with fractions, if you are trying to figure out if they are equivalent, they must have the same whole. (I hold up a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 copy paper and a piece of 9 x 12 construction paper.) I can't use these two pieces of paper to shade 1/2 and 2/4 because the construction paper is larger than the copy paper. That is not the same whole. The 1/2 on the construction paper is larger than the 1/2 on the copy paper. (I demonstrate by folding the construction paper and comparing it with 1/2 of the copy paper.) This gives the students a conceptual understanding that we must use the same whole when finding equivalent fractions.
On the Smart board, I show the students fraction strips of 1/2 and 2/4. The students see from the fraction strips that these two fractions are equivalent. (This is another visual for the students to see that 1/2 and 2/4 are equivalent.) Beneath those two fractions, I have 6 fraction boxes. I ask, "How many would we have to shade to equal 1/2 and 2/4?" I call on a student and she says that we shade three boxes. I shade the boxes for the students to see. "Are they equivalent?" They all say yes. "What is this fraction?" The majority of the students yell out 3/6. However, I heard someone say 6/3. "The bottom number, which is the denominator, is always the total number of pieces," I explain again to help this student understand the denominator.
If we look at 1/2, 2/4, and 3/6, we should be able to notice something. The students notice the pattern with the fractions. One student says that the top number is counting up 1, 2, and 3. Another student notices that the denominator is counting up by 2's. "If this pattern continues, what would be the next equivalent fraction?" I give the students a minute to think about this question. One of my students who tries to hide behind other students when working in groups, raised his hand to answer the question. "The top number is 4 and the bottom number is 8." I probe further by asking, "What is the name of that fraction?" He says 4 over 8. Another student added, 'It is four eighths." I explain to the students that we can also find equivalent fractions by using multiplication or division. If my fraction is 1/2, I can find an equivalent fraction by multiplying the top number and the bottom number by the same number. You can use any number other than 1. "Who can tell me why we can't use the number 1 to multiply or divide?" I was proud that the students remembered their property of one, which says that any number multiplied by 1 equals that same number. If I pick the number 2, then I multiply 1 x 2 = 2 and 2 x 2 = 4. This shows you that 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4. When you do this, you must make sure you use the same number for the numerator and denominator. (The students will see the connection between multiplying to find equivalent fractions and get a visual of this when they use fraction strips for their hands-on activity.)
I reinforce to the students that in equivalent fractions, we must refer to the same whole. If you have 1/2 of something, I have 2/4, and another person has 3/6, we all have the same amount if we are talking about the same whole. "You can't have a large pizza and I have a small pizza, and we say we have the same amount if I have 2/4 and you have 1/2. That is not going to be true because you are going to have more than me if you have a large pizza and I have a small pizza. My 2/4 will be smaller than your 1/2. It has to be the same size and the same shape.
I give the students practice on this skill by letting them work together. I find that collaborative learning is vital to the success of students. Students learn from each other by justifying their answers and critiquing the reasoning of others.
For this activity, I put the students in pairs. I give each pair an activity sheet and fraction strips. The students must work together to find equivalent fractions using fraction strips (MP5). The students must use the fraction strips to show the equivalent fractions. Also, the students use multiplication or division to find equivalent fractions. By the end of the lesson, each student should know how to multiply or divide to find equivalent fractions. The fraction strips should be used as a resource to check their answers. For example, if they say 1/2 and 2/4 are equivalent, they should show this by placing the fraction strips to show that they are equivalent.
The students are guided to the conceptual understanding through questioning by their classmates, as well as by me. The students communicate with each other and must agree upon the answer to the problem. Because the students must agree upon the answer, this will take discussion, critiquing, and justifying of answers by both students. As the pairs discuss the problem, they must be precise in their communication within their groups using the appropriate math terminology for this skill. As I walk around, I am listening for the students to use "talk" that will lead to the answer. I am holding the students accountable for their own learning.
As they work, I monitor and assess their progression of understanding through questioning.
1. Can you multiply the numerator and denominator by different numbers?
2. Do the fraction strips show that the fractions are equivalent?
3. What number should you not use when multiplying or dividing to find equivalent fractions?
4. Explain how you came up with your answer.
As I walked around the classroom, I heard the students communicate with each other about the assignment. I hear the classroom chatter and constant discussion among the students. Before Common Core, I thought that a quiet class working out of the book was the ideal class. Now, I am amazed at some of the conversation going on in the classroom between the students.
Any groups that finish the assignment early, can go to the computer to practice the skill at the following site until we are ready for the whole group sharing: http://www.softschools.com/math/fractions/equivalent_fractions/games/
Each pair was able to find some equivalent fractions using multiplication or division. I noticed that finding equivalent fractions with multiplication was easier for the students than division. Some students (who still do not know their multiplication facts) were having a hard time finding a number that could divide evenly into the numerator and denominator. The fraction strips helped the students determine if the fraction they found was actually equivalent or not.
To close the lesson, I have one or two students share their answers. This gives those students who still do not understand another opportunity to learn it. I like to use my document camera to show the students' work during this time. Some students do not understand what is being said, but understand clearly when the work is put up for them to see.
I feel that by closing each of my lessons by having students share their work is very important to the success of the lesson. Students need to see good work samples, as well as work that may have incorrect information. More than one student may have had the same misconception. During the closing of the lesson, all misconceptions that were spotted during the group activity will be addressed whole class.
To assess how well the students learned the skill, I give them an Exit Ticket to complete before leaving my classroom. On the Smartboard, I write the fraction 2/10.
The students use their own paper to find an equivalent fraction for 2/10. I collect the papers as the students exit my classroom to go to their next class.
Out of 26 students in my homeroom class, 17 students were able to give me an equivalent fraction. The remaining 9 students struggled with the concept. I will work with the 9 struggling students in small group the next day while the other students are completing their "Do Now" assignment at the beginning of class.


This is the story of the manuscript that was, until 12:30 PM this afternoon, known as Boston Public Library MS f Med. 203. It is a late fourteenth-century collection of statutes governing a Venetian confraternity, a type of manuscript known as a “mariegola.” Today, it was formally returned to the Republic of Italy by the United States Government.
At the outset, I want to thank Lyle Humphrey (North Carolina Museum of Art) for sharing her own work on the mariegola with me and for a very congenial and productive collaboration on this project over the last several years. (n.b. portions of this post appeared in print in the December 2012 Newsletter of the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies)
First, some background. In Renaissance Venice, confraternities and workmen’s guilds played a fundamental role in religious, social and civic life. These groups promoted religious life but were independent of the church and offered an alternative form of service for church members who did not want to commit themselves to the strict behaviors of monastic or convent life. Perhaps the most celebrated incarnation of the Venetian confraternity was the scuola dei battuti (literally the gathering “of the beaten”), whose organizing principle was to atone for the sins of humanity by engaging in periodic, public self-flagellation. These lay societies celebrated religious feasts, funerals, and other special days by putting on white hooded processional robes and marching through the streets of Venice scourging themselves.
The Scuola della Valverde, also known as the Scuola di Santa Maria della Misericordia, was one such organization. Founded in 1308 on Valverde, an island on the north shore of Venice, the original fourteenth-century church and meetinghouse were replaced in the fifteenth century and updated again in the seventeenth, such that only remnants of the original buildings survive today. Some of the medieval artwork from the compound survives as well, such as the fifteenth-century tympanum that stood above the door to the confraternity house and is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (above).
In this sculptured relief, the Blessed Virgin Mary stands, the infant Jesus on her chest, metaphorically sheltering a group of confraternity brethren beneath her outstretched cloak. The Virgin is their protectress and intercessor. Behind her is the Tree of Jesse, a symbolic representation of the family tree tracing Jesus’ descent from King David (Jesse’s son) in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that the messiah would come from the line of Jesse.
Although artwork such as the tympanum reminded the brothers of the spiritual foundations of the confraternity, like any organization, the Scuola needed earthly rules and regulations in order to run smoothly. The book laying out the rules of a confraternity such as this was called a mariegola, a word whose origin is not entirely understood but that may be a conflation of “Mary” and “regola” (rules). Mariegole texts and decoration have much to tell us about the spiritual, moral, aesthetic, and professional concerns of confraternity members, who represented a large, diverse segment of the Venetian populace. Handwritten in the local vernacular – that is, the 14th-century Venetian dialect of Italian – and lavishly illuminated, mariegola manuscripts were treasured by their patrons.
As part of my work cataloguing the more than 250 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts belonging to the Boston Public Library back in 2010-2012, I encountered a beautifully illuminated fourteenth-century manuscript that had been tentatively identified as a mariegola used by the Scuola della misericordia on Valverde, although there was no physical evidence to confirm this identification. At the time, it was known as manuscript f Med. 203. The manuscript comprises three sections that may or may not have been originally bound together: the original late fourteenth-century mariegola; additions up to the year 1505; and a blank register intended as a place for the brethren to sign their names.
The first section is of greatest interest. Most of the twenty-six illuminated initials in this section contain busts of saints, priests, or confraternity members, who are sometimes shown gazing toward and pointing to the statute they illustrate. Some contain images that refer directly to the rules that they introduce, such as the one on folio 8v (at right) of a Saint holding a votive candle that illustrates the chapter governing the use of candles in confraternity ritual.
The initial on folio 6, a hooded man holding a small sack, illustrates the chapter governing the storage of the confraternity’s gold and other treasure. On folio 20v, a brother delivers a small sack to an invalid, demonstrating the requirement that brothers should bring aid to the sick. The most fascinating initials, however, are those on folios 7v and 32v (at left) that illustrate not the chapter they accompany but the general commandment of self-mortification. Each brother wears the traditional white robe of the battuti with an opening in the back exposing flesh that is already bloodied from the scourge.
Most mariegole are not illustrated so thoroughly. But they do all have one thing in common: every known mariegola began with an elaborate, full-page painting related to the philosophy and work of the confraternity. There is no elaborately gilt full-page frontispiece in the BPL mariegola. The dark shadows on the verso of the blank flyleaf (below left) are mirror-image offsets of gold leaf, proving that there once was a frontispiece that has since gone missing. Frontispieces such as this are often removed from mariegole manuscripts to be sold as works of art in their own right, and there are many such frontispieces to be found in galleries, museums, and private collections around the world. In 1905, a mariegola frontispiece said to be from the Valverde scuola was reproduced by Pompeo Molmenti in his book, La storia di Venezia nella vita privata; there can be no doubt that it is the missing frontispiece:
Not only are the offsets on the Boston Public Library flyleaf a perfect match for the gold in the miniature, but the icongraphy of the Virgin Mary in the initial is identical to the imagery in the Scuola’s later tympanum (above). In addition, the missing frontispiece names the Scuola and gives the date of the manuscript in Roman numerals in a cartouche at the top: MCCCLXXXXII. This discovery confirmed that the BPL manuscript was without doubt a mariegola from the Valverde scuola written in 1392.
When dealing with medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, one rule to keep in mind is that scribes almost always arranged their sheets of parchment such that the often dark, yellowish “hair side” of the parchment faced the corresponding side of the next sheet, as opposed to facing the lighter, smoother “flesh side.” This aesthetic consideration, designed to create a consistently-colored and –textured opening across facing pages, is a very useful feature for studying manuscripts, because when one opens a book and sees hair side facing flesh side, it can be assumed that something is amiss, and that a leaf has been added or is missing.
As it was configured when I first encountered it, the BPL mariegola was full of hair-side-facing-flesh-side openings. In addition, many leaves had gilt offsets that did not match their facing pages. Looking closely, however, it was possible to identify pairs of illuminated leaves and their matching offsets that were separated by as many as twenty-five leaves. Even so, there remained several leaves without a matching facing leaf. Not only was the manuscript misbound, but it was also incomplete.
Combining the process of matching offsets with other codicological evidence, I was able to reconstruct much of the original order of the leaves. But with limited Italian language skills, and certainly no training in fourteenth-century Venetian, I was unable to re-sequence leaves that had no gilt initials and had reached a dead end. As it turns out, as I was working on the codicological puzzle that is the BPL mariegola, a scholar named Lyle Humphrey was solving its textual mysteries as part of her doctoral dissertation. In a marathon brainstorming phone conversation one night, we managed, by combining my codicological data with her textual clues, to completely reconstruct the mariegola’s original codicological structure. By the time we were done, we calculated that, in addition to the missing frontispiece, there were eleven leaves still unaccounted for. That explains the BPL leaves that had no offset – they were originally facing leaves that were now missing. Four of those missing leaves formerly belonged to the Toledo Museum of Art (with thanks to Scott Gwara for their identification) and have since been repatriated; another was sold at Christie’s Auction House and then by London dealer Sam Fogg in 1994 and remains untraced.
As thrilling as those discoveries were, the four Toledo leaves revealed yet another issue to be resolved. The rubrics in the BPL manuscript include chapter titles only, but no chapter numbers. The Toledo leaves, on the other hand, do include chapter numbers, numbers that have been scraped away from the BPL leaves. Examination of the scraped sections under ultraviolet light revealed that the perpetrator of this abuse not only took a blade to the ink, he actually used some kind of cleanser to completely remove every trace of the original chapter numbers, making the erasures impossible to read.
All was not lost, however. Additional ultraviolet exposure led to the discovery of seventeenth-century foliation in the extreme upper right corner of each leaf, now written over by modern pencil but partially legible. The numbers were legible enough, in fact, to allow us to confirm that our proposed reconstruction was correct:
Original quire structure, giving current (i.e. misbound) folio numbers and incorporating the missing leaves, those formerly belonging to the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA), and one sold by Sam Fogg (now untraced)
After all this, we knew quite a lot about this manuscript. We knew it was written in 1392 at the Venetian Scuola de Santa Maria della Misericordia di Valverde; we knew it originally had an elaborate illuminated frontispiece; we knew the original order of the pages and had identified some of the missing leaves. Others of the missing leaves were reproduced in part in a publication of 1886, so at least we had some record of them. But we still hadn’t answered one of the most important and interesting questions one can ask about a pre-modern European manuscript in an American collection: how did it get there? How did this manuscript get from 14th-century Venice to 21st-Century Boston?
Let’s start at the beginning. We know that the manuscript was written in Venice for the use of the confraternity, in 1392. We also know that it was used continuously by the brothers until at least 1505, because section 2 includes entries up to that date. Soon after the final entry was made in 1505, the manuscript probably fell out of use to be replaced by one of the later surviving mariegolas. The brothers kept it as a treasured relic until Napoleon ordered the dissolution of all such religious organizations in 1803, at which point the confraternity’s books and manuscripts were transferred to the Archivio di Stato in Venice.
Two English-speaking scholars published descriptions of the manuscript in the nineteenth century, having studied it at the Archive: Edward Cheney wrote about the manuscript in 1867, and described the binding as “the original dark calf, ornamented with brass clasps and knobs.” Travel-writer John Ruskin, in a letter of 1877, described the initials as “of no great artistic merit; but fairly good, and of unusual interest in giving for the initial letter of every rule, a picture of the due performance of it.”
In 1879, the manuscript went on permanent display in the Archive’s Queen Margerita Hall. It was described in the catalogue of 1880 as a “Mariegola of the Scuola di S. Maria di Valverde della Misericordia; parchment codex from the fourteenth century.” The catalogue goes on to describe the missing frontispiece: “The first page is illustrated with prophets and other saints surrounding the image of Christ bound to a column with brothers bowing before him. A large initial shows the Virgin with the infant upon her chest, sheltering a group of brothers beneath her mantel. The 42 chapters are illustrated with figures of saints, people and animals; original binding of brown calf with brass.”
We’ve just learned several rather important facts. In 1880, the manuscript still had its frontispiece. In 1867 and again in 1880, the binding of the manuscript was described as the original binding of brown calfskin over wooden boards with brass cornerpieces, probably dating from the early sixteenth century, shortly after the final additions were made to the manuscript. Unfortunately, that isn’t what the binding looked like when I studied the manuscript back in 2012. Instead, it was bound in heavily-worn modern blue silk over pasteboard. These nineteenth-century descriptions tell us that the manuscript was in its original binding, with its frontispiece intact, until at least 1880.
The mariegola, in its original binding and sequence, continued to live in its exhibit case until World War II. In the late 1940s, the Archive’s exhibit was taken down for safekeeping, at which point several manuscripts – including the mariegola – disappeared. In the 1950s, a list of missing items was compiled and sent to the local police. The thieves were captured and incarcerated. But by then, the trail had grown cold and the manuscripts were presumed lost.
We simply don’t know for sure what happened next. What is clear is that when the manuscript resurfaced in the 1950s in the United States, the frontispiece was gone (having disappeared before 1905, when it was published as a detached single leaf); at least eleven leaves were missing; and the manuscript had been removed from its original binding, the leaves mis-ordered with the chapter numbers erased to hide the fact, and the remnant rebound in blue silk-covered boards. I can only speculate that this work was done by an unscrupulous bookdealer trying to hide the manuscript’s origins or at the very least to disguise the fact that the frontispiece and many other leaves were missing. In this woe-begotten state, the manuscript may have next come into the hands of a collector named Mieczyslaw Zagajski, whose bookplate is affixed inside the front cover.
Mieczyslaw Zagajski was a Warsaw industrialist and well-known collector of art and Judaica in Poland. Born in 1895, he began amassing his collection in the 1920s while still a student. Eventually he housed his massive collection of silver, textiles, books, manuscripts and paintings, in six rooms of his Warsaw house. After relocating to England in 1939 to join the Polish government in exile, he emigrated to New York in 1940 as a consul for the exiled Polish government. Zagajski’s collection in Warsaw was looted by the Nazis in his absence, so, like so many refugees, he started over in America. He Americanized his name to “Michael Zagayski” and began to rebuild his collection. It is during this period, in post-war New York, that Zagayski may have acquired the remnants of the Mariegola. Why would Zagayski, a reknowned collector of the finest Judaica, have been interested in a manuscript that had nothing Judaic about it? It could be that the colorful, gilt initials appealed to Zagayski’s aesthetic sensibilities, but without knowing the marketing tactics employed by our anonymous and unscrupulous bookdealer in offering the book to Zagayski, we can’t know for sure. We also don’t know exactly when and how the book left his ownership. Zagayski auctioned a large part of his rebuilt collection at Sotheby’s in 1964, but this manuscript was not among the offerings. It’s even possible that he never owned the manuscript at all, and that the bookplate was added by a bookdealer to provide a legitimate provenance. The only thing we DO know for certain is that the book passed through the hands of New York bookdealer Philip Duschnes (whom we have met before because of his business associations with Otto Ege) in 1955, when it was purchased in good faith by the Boston Public Library.
By the time it was acquired by the Boston Public Library, no one knew it had been stolen from the Archivio di Stato, only that it might have originated at the Scuola on Valverde. And so it remained safely ensconced at the Library for more than fifty years, under the shelf mark MS f Med. 203.
Fast forward to 2012. After conducting my research and consulting with Lyle Humphrey, I knew we could prove that this was indeed one of the manuscripts that had gone missing from the Venetian Archivio di Stato in the late 1940s. I reported my findings to the Keeper of Manuscripts at the Boston Public Library, who immediately reached out to the Italian government with an offer to repatriate the manuscript. But repatriation, even when voluntary, is a complicated business, involving lawyers and treaties and multiple government agencies on both sides. After a lengthy and mandatory investigation by the United States Department of Homeland Security, an investigation to which I contributed as a consultant, the manuscript – along with several other items (including BPL MS pb Med. 147, a detached frontispiece from a different mariegola) – was returned to the Italian government in a repatriation ceremony that took place at the Boston Public Library on April 19, 2017.
The repatriation was a formal, choreographed affair (photos below), with speeches by a representative of the Italian government, the acting District Attorney, the regional head of Homeland Security (which oversees such investigations), Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and the Boston Public Library’s Head of Special Collections, Beth Prindle. Official Certificates of Transfer were signed by officials of both countries, hands were shaken, and photos were taken. It is a bittersweet moment for those who have cared for this manuscript during the decades it spent in Boston, and also bittersweet for me, since I spent several years studying and handling and cataloguing this beautiful and fascinating book. It’s always hard to say goodbye to an old friend, but I’m proud to have a played a small part in sending this manuscript home.
The Repatriation ceremony (hover over or click each image for captions)
Cecchetti, B. La vita dei veneziani nel 1300 (Venice, 1885–1886. Reprint, Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1980), pp. 132–133, and tav. III figs. 5, 7; tav. IV figs. 10–13, 16–19, 21–24.
Cheney, E. “Remarks on the Illuminated Official Manuscripts of the Venetian Republic” in Philobiblon Society Miscellanies XI (1867–68), pp. 14-17.
Humphrey, Lyle. “The Illumination of Confraternity and Guild Statutes in Venice, ca. 1260-1500: Mariegola Production, Iconography, and Use,” Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Fine Arts, 2007, pp. 268-274 (“The 1392 Mariegola of the Scuola della Valverde”); Appendix A, pp. 290-298 (“Reconstruction of the 1392 Mariegola of the Scuola della Valverde); Appendix B, pp. 443-454, cat. 24.1-3; and plates 24.1, 24.2, 24.3a-q, 201, and 202.
Humphrey, Lyle. “The Lost 1392 Mariegola della Scuola di Santa Maria della Misericordia o della Valverde, Rediscovered,” in F. Toniolo and G. Toscano, eds., Miniatura. Lo sguardo e la parola (Studi in onore di Giordana Mariani Canova) (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 2012), 163-169.
Humphrey, Lyle. La miniatura per le scuole e le arti veneziane: Mariegole dal 1260 al 1500, Collana di studi e ricerche sulla Cultura Popolare Veneta realizzata su iniziativa della Regione del Veneto (Costabissara, 2015), cat. 23.1-3.
Molmenti, Pompeo G., La storia di Venezia nella vita privata: Dalle origini alla caduta della Repubblica. 4th ed. 3 vols. Bergamo: Ed. Istituto Italiano di Arti Grafiche, 1905–1908.
Van Akin, B., Christmas Story: John Ruskin’s Venetian letters of 1876-1877 (Wilmington, 1990), p. 237 ff.


The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, universally known as the United Kingdom, or the UK or Britain, is a sovereign state on the northwestern coastline of Continental Europe and consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It is a developed country and the world’s first industrialized country. The UK has the 6th biggest economy in the world with an estimated GDP of $2.23 trillion in 2007. It holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a Member State of the European Union, member of the G8, OECD, WTO, and Commonwealth of Nations.
The 3 most historic events that formed what is now UK are the Acts of Union 1707 (merging of Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland), Act of Union 1800 (merging of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland), and Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 (separation of southern Ireland to become Republic of Ireland thus United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). The United Kingdom takes the form of a constitutional monarchy in which the Monarch (Queen Elizabeth II) acts as head of state and the Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) acts as head of government. The UK Parliament is made up of the House of Commons (Lower House) and House of Lords (Upper House).
English remains the predominant language with 4 other Celtic languages – Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, and Cornish. Christianity is the main religion followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism. In most international competitions, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are represented by separate teams. Major and favorite sports in UK include association football, rugby football, cricket, tennis, and gulf which all originated in UK. The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare is regarded by the world as the greatest dramatist of all time.


Percheron Breed Description
|Height||15.2 to 17 hands high.|
|Weight||Percherons can be 1540 to 1985 pounds (700 to 900 kg), and the average is 1750 pounds (800 kg).|
|Colour||Percherons are gray or black, with a fine coat.|
|Head and Neck||The head is fine, with a broad, square forehead. The profile is straight. The ears are long and fine. The eyes are prominent and alert. The flat nose exhibits wide, open nostrils. The neck is long and arched, with a thick mane.|
|Shoulders||The shoulders are sloping, and the withers are prominent.|
|Body||The chest is broad and deep, with a prominent sternum. The back is straight and short. There is a lot of depth through the girth, and the ribs are well-sprung. The hindquarters are powerful, sloped and unusually long for a draft breed.|
|Hindquarters||The hindquarters are superbly muscular. Sometimes there is a flattening at the croup.|
|Limbs||The legs are clean and sound. The forearms are powerful and prominent. The thighs are muscular and clean. The knees and hocks are large. The fetlock joints are small and strong. The hoofs are good and strong, made up of hard, blue horn and of medium size. There is as little feather as possible.|
Percheron Breed History
The Percheron is a magnificent specimen of horse, and it originated in an area of France called Le Perche. The breed developed from the local heavy Flemish horses and the Oriental horses left by the Moors after their defeat in 732 A.D. More infusions of Oriental blood were made when the French Crusaders returned from the first crusade in 1099, bringing with them Arabian horses. In the 18th century, the Royal Stud at Le Pin made Arabian stallions available to breeders of Percheron horses in an effort to improve the breed.
The Percheron possesses courage, strength, good and sound limbs, and longevity. The breed has served as a carriage and farm horse. It has also been used as a war horse, and an artillery horse. From 1880 to 1920, the Percheron enjoyed world-wide renown. It was exported to North America, South America, and Britain and was used as a working horse, and as a genetic influence on other heavy breeds. By the end of the 1800s, breeders were more interested in a heavy draft horse than a carriage horse, and so the Percheron evolved into a larger, heavyweight animal.
Despite their great size, Percherons are active, showy and easy movers. Their stride is not as choppy as that of other heavy horses. Its action is stylish, long, free and comparatively low.


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Woodwood1 (wŏŏd),USA pronunciation n.
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timber or lumber.
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a grove or forest: They picnicked in the woods.
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out of danger and recovering.
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open an office.
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Tilestile (tīl),USA pronunciation n., v., tiled, til•ing.
- a thin slab or bent piece of baked clay, sometimes painted or glazed, used for various purposes, as to form one of the units of a roof covering, floor, or revetment.
- any of various similar slabs or pieces, as of linoleum, stone, rubber, or metal.
- tiles collectively.
- a pottery tube or pipe used for draining land.
- Also called hollow tile. any of various hollow or cellular units of burnt clay or other materials, as gypsum or cinder concrete, for building walls, partitions, floors, and roofs, or for fireproofing steelwork or the like.
- a stiff hat or high silk hat.
- to cover with or as with tiles.
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There are many good reasons to bring folk arts into a classroom. They can help students think critically about what they know, and what remains outside formal histories. They can show how powerful alternative knowledge is actively transmitted within diverse communities (that is, how people know, teach, and remember that which they can't or shouldn't commit to paper because of their own social situation - but which they must commit to memory.) Folk arts can teach respect for diverse communities' points of views, and for diverse arts and humanities. And yet, the classroom is an artificial site for presenting folk arts. In the classroom, folk arts are pulled away from the richly textured contexts in which they usually occur. This process often skews folk arts so they become something else entirely - perhaps useful, but not the same. What follows is intended as a tool for teachers who want to consider (and cope with) what happens to folklore - and, even more importantly, what can happen to people - when folklore is (inadvertently or not) wrenched out of context and presented in a classroom.
How does one know what is missing, different, about folk arts presented in the classroom, either by a visiting artist or students and their families? Common sense tells us that folk arts are usually performed in front of audiences who know something about the art form, who speak the language, who have some sense of the history of the tradition, who can judge what makes the current performer different from those who have gone before, and who - if it is an interactive or humorous form, will get the jokes, shout back when appropriate, boo and hiss. In a classroom, we can assume no such knowledge base - and little possibility of customary interaction.
It is easy to underestimate what happens when folklore is "extracted" from its community setting and inserted into the alien structure of the classroom. Perhaps most interesting, much of the sting and danger of folk arts becomes invisible, or dulled, when these arts are performed in a classroom context. And yet, some of the most powerful potential for teaching may reside exactly in the uncomfortable and dangerous areas, the places where folk arts reveal conflict, deep feelings.
How can a teacher bring folk arts into the classroom without sacrificing all of the power of these traditions - yet with sensitivity to how some of that power and danger may impact on students?
First, we shouldn't underestimate folk arts. Stereotypes about folklore dismiss these traditions as being non-threatening, the stuff of "old wives" and children. Ignore the stereotypes that trivialize. Instead, assume that folk arts are complex and powerful symbolic forms, many-layered expressions - serious and even dangerous stuff, and make it your business to understand where the danger lays. (It may be useful to recall that some people in this society pay therapists to listen to folklore - to family stories. In the therapeutic setting, it is understood that such stories may be powerful social and personal dynamite, deeply embedded in a complex past, not easily plumbed.)
Second, look for where there is disagreement in a single community about folk arts. Folk arts are not universally beloved. Not everyone in a single community shares, knows about, or likes the same folk traditions. For one thing, no group of people is entirely homogenous - people sharing a common ethnicity or history still differ in terms of age, class, gender, political beliefs, aesthetics, region, and much else. Such diversity ensures that in any community people have widely different attitudes toward particular folk arts. In many communities, folk artists are specialists of a sort, and their particular skills are neither universally known nor universally respected. For example, people educated in the French colonial-based school system of Cambodia were often brought up to believe that some folk art forms were downright lower-class, disreputable, and rude. In many communities, young people go through long periods when they find the folk traditions of their parent's generation confining, embarrassing, or of little value. In some immigrant and refugee communities, there are often great breaks separating the generations - with elders skilled in languages and traditions that are not valued in the United States, and dependent upon young people for their "American" understandings.
There are politics and perspectives to all folk arts (like any kind of art) and it is important to understand them - especially when dealing with young people struggling to make sense of their own relationship to their families and the wider world. Look for differences of opinion about folk arts, and educate yourselves about why people differ.
Third, every folk art has its own (not always chronicled) art history, with its own masters, aesthetics, and periods of growth, change and decline. It is often assumed that folk arts are enduring, ageless, ancient, and timeless (another way of de-fusing them). Instead, Cambodian classical dance, as presented by local artist Chamroeun Yin is not the same as classical dance as it would have been practiced in Cambodia before war, famine and resettlement. Changes in this and other folk art forms reflect history, economics, aesthetic preferences, current styles, and individual creativity (and always have). Though connected to ancient traditions, these arts are not (and never have been) pure or unchanging. And they always have meanings and functions - often complicated, sometimes contradictory - for people in the present.
Fourth, carefully examine the structure of assignments, and the nature of relationships - relationships between teachers and students, and between students and their own family histories and traditions. Commonly, in an effort to honor diversity, students are asked to tell life stories, to show and tell their customs, or to share or recreate a cultural festival. Fundamentally, these projects are worth doing. But it is important to evaluate the worth and pitfalls of such assignments, separating out what works from what puts children at stress, under scrutiny, further marginalized from their classmates - in short, what backfires? In what follows, we use some of the possible pitfalls of each type of assignment to frame questions for discussion - and we share some ideas from experienced teachers about ways to make such assignments work.
Telling life stories - Students are asked to report on personal and family history. Questions: How may such an assignment unintentionally force a performance? What are the risks (and the stakes) of such forced performances? Does it "cheapen" the experience of immigrant students by turning their often traumatic experiences into either something valuable as a commodity (information exchanged for a grade or for acceptance from the teacher) or something exotic (further isolating and even objectifying the student)? Ideas: Such assignments have to begin in trust, in trusting relationships. Kids may not tell you what they don't want to, but they may still suffer from the pressure. They may also try to tell you what they think you (or their peers) want to hear: allow and facilitate their own control over their stories. Give kids room: invite them to "make up" a story, or to tell someone else's story, allow them to use indirect framing mechanisms, and to rewrite and retell. Allow privacy for writing, so that kids don't have to share.
Show and tell about your customs - Students who practice traditions at home that aren't part of white, Christian American culture are asked to display or report on those customs or holidays. Questions: Does this really provide "equal time" and equal respect? Aside from the fact that this gives such students extra responsibility (e.g. having to do a report on the meaning of Passover while Christian kids are not expected to do a report on the meaning of Easter), it also further marks some students as "different" or "other," and has the tendency to stigmatize even despite the teacher's best intentions or stated goal of making the child feel "special." Are kids competent to present complex information about holidays or are they being pushed past their level of knowledge? (They are after all, not the main producers of these events, and often their education and socialization is partly the focus in community-based versions of these events). What are the implications of pushing kids to be the "authority" on cultural traditions? Ideas: Collectivize the process: give kids choices (silence or sharing, or not). Encourage acts of responsibility and power: allow kids to own and control the process but make questioning a part of their responsibility. What about attention to customs that hurt: to racism, sexism? How can discussion feature differences within any "culture"? How can attention to customs open into discussion of the many cultures in which any of us are simultaneously members (i.e. we share some custom and culture with others of our own gender, age, class, politics)? What we mean by "us" and by "them" is porous, constantly shifting, dependent on who is doing the categorizing and why. Explore what we don't know about participation in customs: can you seem to do a custom you are expected to do, while resisting?
Do your own festival - Students and sometimes families are asked to "put on" some or all the elements of a traditional holiday, in the school. Questions: Does this safely compartmentalize culture as entertainment, as public display separate from religion and removed from the sacred cycle? Festival and ritual in their "natural" contexts tend literally to bring many people together as communities, allow many different meanings of festival to emerge, and thus avoid a single, simple "meaning." Artificial "displayed" festivals generalize about the meaning of ritual and tradition for all involved, and depict it as spectacle not as participation. And what can children and youth, who seldom have roles as "ritual specialists" in ritual and festival, be expected to convey? Is there the danger (as above) of pushing them beyond their level of competence? Ideas: Expressions (festivals, arts) have different meanings when there are different compositions of the classroom and school - i.e. whether one, twenty, or the majority of kids are from similar cultural backgrounds. Ask kids to describe different viewpoints on (for example) a birthday, or on various coming of age traditions. Create an imaginary collective, non-exploitative festival. Use a photo of a "typical" "American" Christian wedding and ask kids what they can deduce from the photo. Why do they know these things? What assumptions are they making? What don't you know/can't you know from looking at the picture? (Are people happy? Was someone forced into the ritual? Does it have the same meaning to all? Do they "believe" it? Is it a first/will it be a last wedding? Are they all Christian? etc.)
Effectively, these assignments are various ways of looking at difference, and that raises a final challenge worth commenting upon. How do we craft assignments that do not inevitably lead us to one of two conclusions: either "...and underneath we're all the same" or "we have differences but we're all part of the great American melting pot/patchwork quilt"? How do we develop sophisticated means of representing folk culture in ways that broaden the range of understanding of traditional forms, while not overlooking the immediacy of violence, racist incidents and hate crimes that show the basic need for even the first steps in culturally sensitive education? And, if we look at cultures in ways that emphasize their validity and beauty, how do we deal with the less attractive aspects, such as, for example, women's narrowly defined roles in patriarchal cultures? How do we encourage presentations about culture which depicts culture, not as fixed and given, but as constantly changing, fluid, and subject to multiple interpretations based on shifting perspectives?
There are different categories for sameness and difference - each carries connotations. Often, the only things kids are offered for self-identification are things that are "old-world," "traditional." Explore here-and-now issues and arts as points of identification. When youth feel (or are made to feel) that "they don't know about their own culture," we are missing a chance to understand what their culture is: a complex mix of influences, expressions, responses, knowledge, language.
If you invite folk artists into your classroom or school, you will need to develop different tools for presenting them. No "recipes" for successful multicultural projects exist: classroom situations, power balances and dynamics vary, teachers have widely varying styles and maintain a range of different relationships with students, students come to class with widely different histories and personalities. Here, we emphasize the need for care and caution. Our aim is to consider how we can develop tools for multicultural teaching that do not inadvertently request (or exact) a price from students. We are interested in providing avenues for self-expression that are constructive and possible. Our intention is not to frighten you away from such endeavors, or to suggest that it is impossible to "ever get things right," but to encourage and facilitate the kind of hard discussion necessary to developing non-exploitative, critically valid, multicultural curricula with integrity, validity and guts.
Debora Kodish and William Westerman
Philadelphia Folklore Project


Has your head ever been filled with one single thought, or a string of thoughts, that just keep repeating… and repeating… and repeating themselves?
The process of continuously thinking about the same thoughts, which tend to be sad or dark, is called rumination.
A habit of rumination can be dangerous to your mental health, as it can prolong or intensify depression as well as impair your ability to think and process emotions. It may also cause you to feel isolated and can, in reality, push people away.
WHAT CAUSES RUMINATING?
People ruminate for a variety of reasons. According to the American Psychological Association, some common reasons for rumination include:
- belief that by ruminating, you will gain insight into your life or a problem
- having a history of emotional or physical trauma
- facing ongoing stressors that can’t be controlled
Ruminating is also common in people who possess certain personality characteristics, which include perfectionism, neuroticism, and an excessive focus on one’s relationships with others.
You might have a tendency to overvalue your relationships with others so much that you will make large personal sacrifices to maintain your relationships, even if they’re not working for you.
Once you get stuck in a ruminating thought cycle, it can be hard to get out of it. If you do enter a cycle of such thoughts, it’s important to stop them as quickly as possible to prevent them from becoming more intense.
So, what can you do to stop these obsessive thoughts from running through your mind?
Here are 5 tips to try when you begin to experience the same thought, or set of thoughts, swirling around your head:
Question your thoughts
We often ruminate when we think we’ve made a major mistake or when something traumatic has happened to us that we feel responsible for.
If you start ruminating on a troubling thought, try putting your repetitive thought in perspective.
Thinking more about how your troubling thought might not be accurate may help you stop ruminating because you realize the thought makes little sense.
Meditating can reduce rumination because it involves clearing your mind to arrive at an emotionally calm state.
When you find yourself with a repeating loop of thoughts in your mind, seek out a quiet space. Sit down, breathe deeply, and focus on nothing but breathing.
Understand your triggers
Each time you find yourself ruminating, make a mental note of the situation you’re in. This includes where you are, what time of day it is, who’s around you (if anyone), and what you’ve been doing that day.
Developing ways to avoid or manage these triggers can reduce your rumination.
When you realize you’re starting to ruminate, finding a distraction can break your thought cycle. Look around you, quickly choose something else to do, and don’t give it a second thought. Consider:
- calling a friend or family member
- doing chores around your house
- watching a movie
- drawing a picture
- reading a book
- walking around your neighborhood
If your ruminating thoughts are taking over your life, you may want to consider therapy. A therapist can help you identify why you’re ruminating and how to address the problems at their core.
If you are a ruminator, it’s important to know some tips that may help you to stop your thought cycle in its tracks before it spirals out of control.
It’s also important to be proactive and take steps to prevent yourself from ruminating in the first place.
With awareness and some lifestyle changes, it’s possible to free yourself from ruminating thoughts. If you find that you’re unable to use these tips to help your rumination, you should consider contacting a mental health professional for assistance.


The National Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Committee (NDPPC) proposal was submitted to the Federal Cabinet in November 1988. On January 20th 1989, the Disaster Office was established on St. Kitts under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Following the ravages of Hurricane Hugo in September 1989, the Nevis Disaster Management Office was established in January 1991 under the Ministry of Home Affairs with the late Llewellyn Newton as Director.
Legislation outlining the roles and functions of Disaster Management, (No. 5 of 1998) were passed following the devastation inflicted on St. Kitts and Nevis by Hurricanes Luis and Marilyn in 1995. This Act (No. 5 of 1998) provides for the effective management and control of disasters, related or incidental matters and Community mobilization through district committees. The name of the Nevis Disaster Management Office was modified in 2005 to reflect the Nevis Disaster Management Department (NDMD).
This department now falls under the purview of the Premiers’ Ministry in the Nevis Island Administration. It is responsible for preparedness, management, mitigation, coordination, control, recovery and rehabilitation in times of emergencies or disasters.


Friday 9 December 2011
by Ken Paterson
When we were deciding on the contents for ‘A Handbook of Spoken Grammar’ (follow the links ‘Titles’ and ‘Language Practice’ on the DELTA website for details) we were fairly sure we wanted to include some spoken English ‘lexical bundles’. These are strings of words that corpus research has shown are particularly frequent in conversation. See the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English for a series of examples.
We thought we would take a look at bundles with the verb ‘know’, which often top the frequency lists. The three word bundle ‘I don’t know’ is very common, but can be used in almost too many contexts. Five word bundles with ‘know’ (e.g. ‘I don’t know what to’) seemed too restrictive. So we settled for a four word bundle pattern that we thought might be productive for learners:
‘I don’t know what/when/where/which/who/why/how…’
When I first started teaching I would almost certainly have thought that the break in this pattern should come after the word ‘know’, and probably taught it as ‘know + a wh- clause’. Now I think it is equally as useful to let learners work with the chunks ‘I don’t know what…’ or ‘I don’t know how…’, particularly in spoken English activities.
In the book, we offer an explanation of these chunks with ‘know’, some natural dialogues and some practice. But you might like to try a simple activity in class yourselves:
Write all seven four-word chunks (‘I don’t know what …’, ‘I don’t know when … etc.) in a random order on the whiteboard. Then get your students into pairs or threes. Ask them to talk about a holiday they might take in the near future (or any other subject you like!). The only condition is that they try to include some of these chunks in their conversation. Monitor the groups, and if you hear some good examples, ask the students to rehearse and repeat these to the class.
Let me know how it works. Next time, we’ll look at the ‘vague’ use of ‘thing’.
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Teaching Online is essential reading for any teacher interested in online teaching and course delivery. It deals comprehensively with both the tools and the techniques necessary for online language instruction.
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The Business English Teacher
From the multi-award-winning DELTA TEACHER DEVELOPMENT SERIES. The Business English Teacher is a book not only for teachers who are thinking of making a career move into the field of business English teaching but also for those who would like to increase their skills and develop their potential.
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The Book of Pronunciation
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DIGITAL PLAY - 2012 ELTONS WINNER IN INNOVATION IN TEACHER RESOURCES! Digital Play is a pioneering book on the use of computer games in language teaching. Authors Kyle and Graham are experts in teaching with technology and training teachers in innovative classroom practice.
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Ravinder Tulsiani Learning Development Specialist on Developing with colleagues:
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Helen Beesley on Managing Change:
Declan, This title will be available in October, as will...
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declan scully on Managing Change:
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Speech Therapy on Marjorie Rosenberg talks about ‘Spotlight on Learning Styles’:
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See the intro to this series for more information. This is a homework assignment commenting on our reading for this week and one of the websites we visited.
Digital History Chapter 1: Exploring the History Web
One of the major debates about history websites seems to be paid versus free access. This relates to the ongoing debate about the quality of any internet sources. One assumes that professional sites would be higher-quality, but the History Channel and National Geographic may or may not provide reliable infomation. Let’s not forget about Ancient Aliens, or the Mermaids mockumentary brouhaha on the Discovery Channel. As the book points out, these kinds of sites are designed to support particular TV shows on the networks. Even strict documentaries are aired primarily to bring in viewers, not to present accurate information, even if that’s a secondary goal. The sites are designed to supplement shows or advertise for them, not to be comprehensive studies of particular topics.
On the other hand, amateurs tend to focus on a topic they’re passionate about and compile a lot of information on that topic, rather than maintaining systematic archives of sources, educational materials for particular grades, or whatever. Then you have the paid history websites maintained by reputable and academic sources, which probably have the most trustworthy information, but the average person isn’t going to pay that fee when there’s free information elsewhere. It seems to me there are only a few options: Either make most of the information free and establish the academic pages as vital on the web, or stop complaining when people don’t use them and end up with inaccurate information. Museums seem to be doing the best job of this right now, putting collections and some interpretation online for free.
Chapter 1 talked about directories, and the basically hopeless task of manually creating a directory to all the history sites on the web. Google gets WAY more use than the Yahoo web directory, and why wouldn’t it? Isn’t it kind of snooty to try to wrangle the internet that way? Google, or another search engine, is a more fluid way to find exactly what you’re looking for. At the same time, a directory would be so useful!
www.besthistorysites.net is one of the directories mentioned in the chapter. It looks reputable, claiming to be “an award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1200 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more,” created by former teachers focusing on integrating technology into teaching. It has a professional design and the topically-sorted resource lists are easy to navigate. Many of the links are to museum websites, but a lot of them are also centered around TV specials. The types of links vary depending on the topic. Still, this would be a great resource for finding multimedia and secondary sources, with a few primary sources.
The main failing I see with directory sites like this is just that they’re limited to the resources a human has catalogued, and you’re limited to that cataloguing system. You have to start with a general idea and see what you can find listed for that topic, while a search engine allows you to look for something in particular.
All this stuff opens a big can of worms. Can you trust a site that was created to support a TV show? Would people trust academics, even if they did make peer-reviewed journals and other sites free? Paying a fee is one indicator that a site is legit, would that go away without the fee? Do academics even want muggles on their sites or care about providing accurate information to the public? Are amateur historians doing what academics OUGHT to be doing? Is there any point in trying to create a directory of websites on any topic, much less history?