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"Our youngsters respond keenly, and usually responsibly, when given a big say in the things that affect them. For instance, a couple of years ago, when we needed to appoint pastoral care staff, we decided to ask the children what qualities such a staff member should have. After lively discussion they came up with: calm (not wind us up); confident (not scared of us); firm but fair (able to deal with things when they happen and not put it off till later); able to listen well (to hear what it is we really have to say); able to help us sort out problems and learn for ourselves (give us help with options, not tell us what to do); able to treat us as individuals (not seeing all behaviours as the same); able, most of all, to treat us in the way you yourself would want to be treated. These requirements now appear in every job vacancy we advertise, whatever the position."

"The PowerPoint presentation BMJ 2007; 335 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38994.480845.DE (Published 20 December 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;335:1292 Article Related content Read responses (3) Article metrics David Isaacs, senior staff specialist1, Stephen Isaacs, consultant2, Dominic Fitzgerald, senior staff specialist3 Author Affiliations davidi@chw.edu.au The main purpose of a PowerPoint presentation is entertainment. Intellectual content is an unwarranted distraction. In preparing a PowerPoint presentation, aesthetics should transcend substance. The background colour scheme and logo for your slides should be selected for maximum emetogenic potential. The first inverse ridicule rule of PowerPoint presentation states: "The more lines of writing that can be coerced onto a slide and the smaller the font, the lower the risk of anyone criticising any data which has accidentally been included." The second rule states: "The number of slides you can show in your allotted time is inversely proportional to the number of awkward questions which can be asked at the end." PowerPoint has superseded the carousel era, when presentations were severely limited by the number of slots in the slide carousel and the risk of dropping the lot seconds before your talk. Plagiarism laws do not apply to PowerPoint, so cartoons of marginal relevance but high entertainment value can be downloaded and shown at suitable intervals to maintain audience mirth while minimising critical capacity. Research has shown that the ideal cartoon:data ratio is 5:1. The seasoned PowerPoint artist or PowerPointilliste has refined the presentation into a son-et-lumiere extravaganza, in which scattered dots and luminescent clumps of meaningless datasets hurtle on to the screen from all points of the compass, to the strident strains of Handel's Fireworks Music, building inexorably to a Fantasia-style Sorcerer's Apprentice climax. This fulfils an important s

"I choose the term "conviviality" to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society's members. "

Meaning-making, in all its various aspects, is not only a prime motivating force in human life but also in teaching and learning. We search for personal meanings in our life experiences, which enables us to develop inner capabilities to become self-empowered, self-determining authors of our own life stories. In short, meaning-making expands human consciousness and MCE-MCL extends this explorative and explanatory domain. As students become engaged in a diverse set of personally and socially meaningful activities, they learn to assess what they learned with responsibility to self, to others, and to the local and world communities. Thus, MCE-MCL is holistic, dialogic, and experiential in nature, collaborative and transformative in process and purpose.

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"The liberalism of the 1930s and 1940s was shaped by the Great Depression, and the response was, in many respects, communitarian: the strengthening of unions, the provision of jobs and government benefits to the poor and unemployed and the creation of a safety net to provide a modicum of security. The left has, in part, shifted focus, with more stress on the values of self-expression and self-fulfillment, on individual liberation from the constraints of traditional morality, especially sexual morality - what my colleague Ross Douthat calls "The Liberalism of Adult Autonomy" or "the morality of rights." Economic liberalism - despite progress on the minimum wage - has lost salience. Instead of communitarian principles, the contemporary progressive movement - despite its advocacy of local issues like community policing - has produced a counterpart to conservative advocacy of free markets: the advocacy of personal freedom. "

""Eat Pray and Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert: "Instructions for Freedom" 1. Life's metaphors are God's instructions. 2. You have just climbed up and above the roof.  There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go. 3. The day is ending.  It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go. 4. Your wish for resolution was a prayer.  Your being here is God's response. Let go, and watch the stars come out - on the outside and on the inside. 5. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go. 6. With all your heart, forgive him, FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go. 7. Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go. 8. Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night. Let go. 9. When the karma of a relationship is done, only live remains.  It's safe.  Let go. 10. When the past has passed from you at last, let go.  Then climb down and begin the rest of your life.  With great joy."

"It's a moment of peril as well as one of opportunity. I keep thinking of a phrase from Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": reception in a state of distraction. Benjamin associated this phrase with the loss of the possibility for a contemplative response to works of art. He connected that loss to the evaporation of "aura," the trace of art's religious origins that he claimed is destroyed by the reproduction of unique and stationary objects as ubiquitous, portable photographs. Distracted reception strikes me as an unavoidable consequence of the conditions under which today's poetry is produced and consumed-the general conditions of our wired lives as well as specific conditions of publication, distribution and so forth. It doesn't bode well for my commitment to poetry as a contemplative genre that I've actually been thinking of the Showcase as a chance to get up to speed with current poetry."

"A new vocabulary emerged, allowing users to evade admissions of racism. It still holds fast after all these years. The vocabulary list includes these: law and order. War on drugs. Model minority. Reverse discrimination. Race-neutral. Welfare queen. Handout. Tough on crime. Personal responsibility. Black-on-black crime. Achievement gap. No excuses. Race card. Colorblind. Post-racial. Illegal immigrant. Obamacare. War on Cops. Blue Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. Entitlements. Voter fraud. Economic anxiety."