Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists

Illustration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (James R. Osgood and Company, 1878), courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org Have you ever met someone who seemed to accept everyone just as they are? Have you ever felt that way yourself?  When I read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I found this acceptance in the main character, Hester Prynne. The Scarlet Letter is about a Puritan woman named Hester Prynne who commits adultery and is scorned and ousted by her society. The book follows Hester’s life and the community around her, which includes her “illegitimate” daughter Pearl; her legal husband, Roger Chillingworth; the father of Pearl, who happens to be the local Puritan minister, Arthur Dimmesdale; and the local Puritan community. Hawthorne paints the Puritan community to highlight how extremely judgmental it was. When the community finds out about Hester’s “crime”, they kick her out and scorn her and her daughter’s existence. However, Hester accepts her fate and continues to treat her community with respect. She accepts the scarlet “A”  that her community required her to wear to signify her adultery, and turns it into something beautiful, both literally through her embroidery and figuratively through her acceptance of her past behavior. Hester exudes acceptance, both in her fate and the way that she treats the people around her–presenting a model that is especially relevant today when many tend toward othering–the separation of yourself from a certain group of people and calling them different. Acceptance is particularly significant in my life as a middle schooler because in middle school children tend to stop accepting people as much and start judging who they are and what they want to be. I realize that I become judgmental when I see people on their phones constantly. Because my family values being present in the moment and trying not to focus on phones and computers, when I see someone on their phone my instinct causes me to judge them. I have to resist this reaction because it creates distance between myself and other people and focuses on the negative. When I look past this difference, I can focus on getting to know them as an individual. Everyone knows that you should accept people who are different and just accept people in general. Hester’s acceptance goes beyond that.  She puts aside her community’s judgement and approaches them with open arms and forgiveness.  August Pullman in Wonder by R. J. Palacio, also expresses this bottomless kindness. Mr. Tushman, August’s principal,  sums up this world view: “Always be a little kinder than necessary.”  In middle school, perhaps we need to not only focus on accepting others who are different from us but also forgiving those who judge us. Are there ways that you are judged by your peers? Are there ways you convince yourself to accept others in the face of feeling judgmental? Are there times you have reached across perceived  differences and have connected with someone you didn’t expect to? I’d love to hear from you–please leave a comment below.

Photo via Creative Commons by Ramesh NG Have you ever wondered why you feel happy, sad or angry? I’m here to explain these phenomenons with a bit of science and fun. Before we begin, you’ll need a basic knowledge of something, namely diffusion. Let me explain this a bit. If you’ve ever had a tea party, you’ll know the conversation scenario goes something like this: Host: “Good day, Sir/Ma’am. Would you like some tea?” Guest: “Yes, please.” Host: “And how many lumps of sugar would you like?” Guest: “Seven, please.” Please do NOT go pouring seven lumps of sugar into your tea. This is merely an example. Anyway, the point is, the guest goes pouring their sugar into their cup of tea. The sugar cube, as you may realize, has a large amount of particles in a relatively confined space, or high concentration. The tea, however, does not have sugar in it, so there is a low concentration of sugar particles in the tea. Therefore, the sugar’s particles will spread out from their high concentration into the low concentration in diffusion or what we call dissolving. The molecules don’t shrink or change; they just spread out. So today we’ll use this to learn about the properties of certain specialized molecules rarely heard about: the Feelings Molecules. There are a few main types of those molecules: Happiness molecules: Happiness molecules can be gained in a variety of ways (fun time with friends, etc.), but the point is that happiness diffuses! If one is very happy, they want to spread the happiness to others. However, the molecules in this case do not need to spread out on contact, and can travel in many complicated ways. Unlike regular molecules, Happiness molecules can travel through people’s Thought passages, and actually try to do so. You may think that “Hey, then how come you don’t get less happy if your molecules diffuse to other people?”. Well, this is because after a certain point, a balance of happiness molecules is reached between the both of you, and then they start passing back and forth between you both, so you do not keep losing them. Anger molecules: Anger tries to diffuse very fast. If you’re angry, you may feel like hitting or punching something and diffusing the anger you feel. This is especially why you shouldn’t stand near someone while you’re angry. 🙂 Fright molecules: More fright molecules means more fear. Fear, however, does NOT diffuse throughout others, and just stays confined to your body. The only way to get rid of fright molecules is to overpower them with some one of the other types mentioned. Now, really, the “overpowering” is just diffusion of other molecules into the area of the fright molecules. Complicated, right? Tension molecules: These molecules are from anxiety, nervousness, etc. For example, an oral report will most probably increase your tension because the number of tension molecules increases. Tension molecules usually do diffuse. You can spread anxiety to others and make them nervous, but you may feel better if their happiness molecules pass to you! These are the main properties of the four Feelings molecules. You may wonder about molecules like sadness molecules as well, but they really don’t exist. Sadness is caused by a lack of happiness molecules from the regular healthy amount. A regular decline of the happiness molecules can lead to depression, so that’s why they should always be kept up. I hope you enjoyed reading! Here’s your “professor,” signing out!