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Language and power - 0 views

  • Introduction What do the examiners say? What is it all about? Persuasive techniques in language Influential power - advertising Advertising and special lexis Grammar and advertising Semantics and advertising Pragmatics and advertising Discourse structures in advertising Finding more Influential power - politics Political rhetoric Parliamentary language Special lexis in politics The sound bite Influential power - media Lexis and semantics in the media Pragmatics in the media Grammar in the media Structures in media texts Influential power - culture Instrumental power - law The lexicon of law The structures of legal language Advocacy Instrumental power - education Classroom management Instrumental power - business Special lexis in business Buzzwords Forms of address in business Business discourse structures Corporate language Specimen exam questions Example texts with interpretation Printing and copying this guide Maximize
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    This guide is written for students who are following GCE Advanced level (AS and A2) syllabuses in English Language. This resource may also be of general interest to language students on university degree courses, trainee teachers and anyone with a general interest in language science. On this page I use red type for emphasis. Brown type is used where italics would appear in print (in this screen font, italic looks like this, and is unkind on most readers). 
izz aty

Comma splice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • There are several ways to correct a comma splice:
  • Change the comma to a semicolon, dash, or colon:
  • Write the two clauses as two separate sentences:
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  • Use a semicolon plus a conjunctive adverb:
  • Make one clause dependent on the other:
  • Insert a coordinating conjunction following the comma:
  • splices are sometimes acceptable when the clauses are short and alike in form, such as: The gate swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up. The famous sentence I came, I saw, I conquered falls into the same category.
  • often considered acceptable in poetic writing. The editors of the Jerusalem Bible translate Isaiah 11:4 as: His word is a rock that strikes the ruthless, his sentences bring death to the wicked
  • The British author Lynne Truss[9] observes: "so many highly respected writers observe the splice comma that a rather unfair rule emerges on this one: only do it if you're famous." She cites Samuel Beckett, E. M. Forster, and Somerset Maugham. "Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who are not published writers, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done ignorantly by ignorant people, it is awful."
  • Comma splices are considered acceptable by some in passages of spoken (or interior) dialogue, and are sometimes used deliberately to emulate spoken language more closely.
izz aty

Breastfeeding linked to child's intelligence later in life | Fox News - 0 views

  • “Many previous studies have been criticized because any link you might observe between breastfeeding and childhood intelligence could be explained by those other factors,” Belfort told FoxNews.com
  •  At age 3, the children underwent the higher Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a measure of receptive language, or how well a child understands language.
  • for each additional month that a child was breastfed, through a year, their language score was .2 points higher – a statistically significant finding.
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  • at age 7, the same children were assessed using the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, a measure of the child’s IQ. For this test, each additional month that a child was breastfed through a year was correlated with an increase in IQ score by a third of a point – another statistically significant discovery.
  • However, when children took the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning, which specifically tests memory and learning capabilities, the difference between children who were breastfed and those who weren’t was not significant.
  • authors were also interested in exploring whether or not there was a link between a mother’s consumption of fish and the intelligence of children who were breastfed – though they did not find any significant effect there either.
  • Though researchers were able to distinguish a small but clear link between breastfeeding and cognitive development, they remain uncertain as to why breast milk appears to be superior to infant formula.
  • Belfort noted that the study’s findings support national recommendations urging women to breastfeed exclusively through age 6 months and to continue at least partial breastfeeding through 1 year of age.
  • “The cognitive advantage is relatively small so people need to weigh many, many different factors in making this decision.”
  • “Turn off the TV, talk to your baby, read to your baby, play with your baby. Those are really important ways to stimulate baby’s development.”
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    "Belfort and her colleagues gathered data from 1,312 mothers and children in the United States, tracking everything from the mother's frequency of breastfeeding to other factors including the mother's intelligence, the mother and father's education levels, measures of the home environment, the mother's employment and the type of childcare the baby received."
izz aty

Romanticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850
  • Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution,[1] it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature
  • embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography,[3] education[4] and the natural sciences.[5]
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  • effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant
  • The movement validated intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities: both new aesthetic categories
  • r, and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape
  • made spontaneity a desirable characteristic
  • argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities, as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usag
  • Romanticism embraced the exotic, the unfamiliar, and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape
  • elevated folk art and ancient custom to a noble status
  • the events of and ideologies that led to the French Revolution planted the seeds from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment sprouted
  • in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism
  • Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of 'heroic' individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society
  • In order to truly express these feelings, the content of the art must come from the imagination of the artist, with as little interference as possible from "artificial" rules dictating what a work should consist of
  • The importance the Romantics placed on untrammelled feeling is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that "the artist's feeling is his law"
  • vouched for the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art
  • the influence of models from other works would impede the creator's own imagination, so originality was absolutely essential
  • The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own original work through this process of "creation from nothingness", is key to Romanticism, and to be derivative was the worst sin
  • romantic originality.
  • a strong belief and interest in the importance of nature. However this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone
  • In contrast to the usually very social art of the Enlightenment, Romantics were distrustful of the human world, and tended to believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy
  • in literature, "much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves"
  • by the middle of the 18th century "romantic" in English and romantique in French were both in common use as adjectives of praise for natural phenomena such as views and sunsets, in a sense close to modern English usage but without the implied sexual element
  • only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Académie française took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature
  • Romanticism is not easily defined, and the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought
  • Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848"
  • In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different; musical Romanticism, for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–48.[23] However in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlie
  • early period of the Romantic Era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the Napoleonic Wars until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism
  • t was part of the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment, is generally accepted
  • ts relationship to the French Revolution which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions
  • ost Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but a considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views
  • In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the very idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like the melting away of the very notion of objective truth",[27] and hence not only to nationalism, but also fascism and totalitarianism
  • The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice — church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste — is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative
  • An earlier definition comes from Charles Baudelaire: "Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling."
  • The end of the Romantic era is marked in some areas by a new style of Realism, which affected literature, especially the novel and drama, painting, and even music, through Verismo opera
  • movement was led by France, with Balzac and Flaubert in literature and Courbet in painting; Stendhal and Goya were important precursors of Realism in their respective media
  • In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "sensibility" with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and "pure" nature
  • Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were the chief qualities of a poet
  • 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament
  • Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism
  • Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, and Germanic myths
  • The later German Romanticism of, for example, E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann (The Sandman), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff's Das Marmorbild (The Marble Statue), 1819, was darker in its motifs and has gothic elements
  • The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance to folk literature, non-classical mythology and children's literature, above all in Germany
  • The first collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm was published in 1812
  • Unlike the much later work of Hans Christian Andersen, who was publishing his invented tales in Danish from 1835, these German works were at least mainly based on collected folk tales, and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their early editions, though later rewriting some parts
izz aty

Free Schools | National Union of Teachers - NUT - 0 views

  • The NUT opposes free schools. We believe it is wrong that state funding should be given to small groups of individuals to run schools that are unaccountable to their local communities. We believe that free schools undermine:teachers' professional status and their pay and conditions;local authorities’ ability to plan and manage school places;common admissions’ arrangements and fuel social segregation;fair funding for schools – free schools are getting a disproportionate share of capital and revenue funding for schools at a time when education budgets are being cut; anddemocratic local accountability of schools to their communities
  • National Audit Office report on free schools In December 2013 the National Audit Office published a damning report into the free school programme. You can read the NUT’s summary of the findings here.
  • FAQs on Free Schools This is a collection of frequently asked questions on free schools.
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  • Research Shows Primary School Place Shortages Worsen NUT research shows primary school place shortages worsen while resources being wasted on free schools are adding to surplus secondary places – read the full press release
  • The impact of Free Schools on Neighbouring Schools NUT research shows that many free schools will have a negative impact on existing local schools. Read more here.
izz aty

BBC News - Coalition row over school places funding - 0 views

  • 11 May 2014
  • Lib Dem sources say 30,000 local authority places are being lost as money is diverted to new free schools. They said Mr Gove was "ideologically obsessed" about backing free schools.
  • Tory education sources called the Lib Dems "pathetic", saying more school places were being created overall.
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  • David Cameron said free schools were "an excellent innovation" and he would "get on with delivering what matters, which is good schools for our children".
  • Liberal Democrat's deputy leader, Malcolm Bruce, said the budget for free schools was "completely out of control" and accused the education secretary of being "monetarily obsessed".
  • According to sources in Mr Clegg's office, last December Mr Gove overruled the Lib Dem schools minister David Laws to take £400m from the Basic Need Budget for 2015-17. They claim the money was diverted to help cover a projected £800m overspend between 2013 and 2016 in the budget of free schools - a project close to Mr Gove's heart.
  • Free schools can be set up by parents, teachers, charities, businesses, universities, trusts, religious or voluntary groups, but are funded directly by central government. There are currently 174 free schools in England with another 116 approved to open from this September.
  • senior Department for Education officials had raised concerns school places may have to be cut if the Lib Dems' free school meals policy for infant children was implemented.
izz aty

What's the big difference between charter schools and free schools? | Education | The G... - 0 views

  • By comparing students in each charter school with similar students attending a local traditional school, researchers measured the impact that attending each institution had.
  • The 2013 study shows that the effect of school type is largely negligible when looking across students as a whole. But for poor students, especially poor minority ethnic students, charter schools bestowed substantial learning benefits.
  • there is a huge amount of variation across schools and geographical regions. Even if they were, England's policy is not like the American one.
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  • in New Orleans. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the city was notorious for its poorly performing schools, but since then, 88 charters have opened and are considered a lead cause of improved student achievement. What the policy's proponents won't tell you, though, is that charter school proposals in New Orleans are decided upon by the local school district, or they are independently evaluated.
  • In Florida, another frequently quoted "success" story, local districts have complete control over charter school applications.
  • with England, where local authorities are completely cut out of the picture, leading to the opening of free schools in areas with neither enough pupils to fill them nor any land for suitable premises.
  • England's lack of transparency on free schools is an embarrassment. Given that the schools are entirely taxpayer funded, the fact that it took a two-year legal battle before the British Humanist Society was granted access to the names and locations of proposed schools is absurd. A second lengthy struggle concluded last month, when the National Union of Teachers finally secured the release of statutory "impact reports" detailing the knock-on effects of opening each free school
  • While these releases are welcome, it is a shame they arrived only after legal appeals, and the public still has no way of knowing what the new school founders promised in their applications, whether the mandatory consultations with local people were faithfully represented, or why proposals were accepted or rejected – leaving some people questioning whether all applicants have been treated equally.
  • At the hearings, local people are allowed to voice concerns or support for the planned school, obliging the potential founders to listen to the community they will serve
  • Any government writing a policy specifically avoiding this step must be doing so because it believes ordinary people could not possibly add anything to its perfect decision-making
  • That a government can be open about the application process yet still achieve great schools is perfectly demonstrated by Massachusetts and New York. Both have high-scoring charter schools and both require applicants who wish to start a school to face public hearings as part of the application process
  • The impact of charter schools appears to derive from the fact that those that are failing are closed more quickly than failing traditional schools
  • in England, there is no consistent process for closing a failing school or transferring its ownership to another group, with some poor performers forced to "restart", whereas others are left alone
  • The Credo report also admits that many charter schools perform worse than traditional ones
izz aty

BBC News - Free school £21m private contract plan - 0 views

  • But the plans have raised political sensitivities about the boundary between free schools funded by public money and the involvement of the private sector in state education.
  • Free schools are funded from the public education budget - but the schools are run independently.
  • Alicia Rickards-Ottevanger, one of the group of local families supporting the free school plan, said the Swedish firm had been chosen because it seemed closest to the trust's ambitions for the school, regardless of whether they were a profit-making business.
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  • free school was a practical way of addressing the lack of a school for families in the area.
  • "Free schools are funded like all other state-funded schools - on a per pupil basis.
  • "Free schools founders do not and can not make a profit. "State schools and their local authorities have always been able to use companies to help them run services in schools - from human resources, to ordering stationery, to school catering and providing educational advice.
  • the Anti Academies Alliance said the proposals were a "clear signpost of the direction of travel" for the government's education policy. "Privatisation and deregulation, not system-wide school improvement, appear to be the destination."
izz aty

State school - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Education in Malaysia is overseen by two government ministries
  • Ministry of Education for matters up to the secondary level
  • Ministry of Higher Education for tertiary education
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  • education is the responsibility of the federal government, each state has an Education Department to help coordinate educational matters in their respective states
  • By law, primary education is compulsory
  • Education may be obtained from government-sponsored schools, private schools, or through homeschooling
  • Swedish state schools are funded by tax money
  • for both primary and secondary school (Swedish: grundskola), high school (Swedish: gymnasium) and universities
  • There are private schools as well who also receive funding from the government, but they may charge a fee from the parents.
  • Compulsory education starts at seven years of age, with an optional year in förskola (pre-school).
  • Swedish children take national exams at grades 3, 6 and 9.
  • Swedish primary school is split into three parts; Lågstadiet – “the low stage”, which covers grades 1 to 3. This is where you learn the basics of the three main subjects – in Swedish called kärnämnen – Swedish, English and mathematics. It also includes some natural science. Mellanstadiet – “the middle stage”, which covers grades 4 to 6, introduces the children to more detailed subjects. Woodwork and needlework, social and domestic science, and even a second, foreign language in grade 6, a B-språk (B-language). The languages available are usually French, Spanish or German depending on the school. Högstadiet, “the high stage”, is the last stage of the compulsory education, between grades 7 and 9. This is when studies get more in-depth and are taken to an international level.
  • When applying to gymnasium (high schools) or universities, a meritvärde (“meritous point value”) is calculated.
  • They first receive grades in grade 6. The grading system is letter-based, ranging from A-F, where F is the lowest grade and A is the highest.
  • Children not being approved in Swedish, English and mathematics will have to study at a special high school program called the “individual program”. Once they are approved, they may apply to an ordinary high school program. Swedes study at high school for three years, between the ages of 16 and 18
  • In the United Kingdom, the term "state school" refers to government-funded schools which provide education free of charge to pupils. The contrast to this are fee-paying schools, such as "independent (or private) schools" and "public schools".
  • In England and Wales, the term "public school" is often used to refer to fee-paying schools. "Public" is used here in a somewhat archaic sense, meaning that they are open to anyone who can meet the fees
  • Danish School system is supported today by tax-based governmental and municipal funding from day care through primary and secondary education to higher education
  • there are no tuition fees for regular students in public schools and universities.
  • Denmark[edit] Main article: Education in Denmark
  • Danish public primary schools, covering the entire period of compulsory education, are called folkeskoler (literally 'people's schools' or 'public schools'). The Folkeskole consists of a voluntary pre-school class, the 9-year obligatory course and a voluntary 10th year. It thus caters for pupils aged 6 to 17.
  • also possible for parents to send their children to various kinds of private schools. These schools also receive government funding, although they are not public. In addition to this funding, these schools may charge a fee from the parents.
  • France[edit] Main article: Secondary education in France
  • French educational system is highly centralized, organized, and ramified
  • hree stages: primary education (enseignement primaire); secondary education (enseignement secondaire); tertiary or college education (enseignement supérieur)
  • Primary Schooling in France is mandatory as of age 6
  • Many parents start sending their children earlier though, around age 3 as kindergarten classes (maternelle) are usually affiliated to a borough's (commune) primary school. Some even start earlier at age 2 in pré-maternelle or garderie class, which is essentially a daycare facility
  • French secondary education is divided into two schools: the collège for the first four years directly following primary school; the lycée for the next three years
  • baccalauréat (also known as bac) is the end-of-lycée diploma students sit for in order to enter university,
  • comparable to British A-Levels, American SATs, the Irish Leaving Certificate and German Abitur.
  • baccalauréat général which is divided into 3 streams of study, called séries. The série scientifique (S) is concerned with mathematics and natural sciences, the série économique et sociale (ES) with economics and social sciences, and the série littéraire (L) focuses on French and foreign languages and philosophy.
  • Education in Malaysia is overseen by two government ministries: the Ministry of Education for matters up to the secondary level, and the Ministry of Higher Education for tertiary education
  • Malaysia
  • education is the responsibility of the federal government, each state has an Education Department to help coordinate educational matters in their respective states
  • Education may be obtained from government-sponsored schools, private schools, or through homeschooling.
  • By law, primary education is compulsory
  • United Kingdom[edit] See also: State-funded schools (England)
  • In the United Kingdom, the term "state school" refers to government-funded schools which provide education free of charge to pupils. The contrast to this are fee-paying schools, such as "independent (or private) schools" and "public schools".
  • In England and Wales, the term "public school" is often used to refer to fee-paying schools. "Public" is used here in a somewhat archaic sense, meaning that they are open to anyone who can meet the fees, distinguished from religious schools which are open only to members of that religion
  • The National Curriculum is followed in all local authority maintained schools in England, Northern Ireland and Wales
  • he vast majority of state-funded schools are under the control of local councils
  • are referred to in official literature as "maintained schools".
  • exceptions are a minority of secondary schools in England funded directly by central government, known as academies and City Technology Colleges.
  • See Education in England.
  • Some maintained schools are partially funded by religious or other charitable bodies; these are known as voluntary controlled schools, voluntary aided schools or foundation schools.
izz aty

Please consider supporting Autistic people via organizations other than Autis... - 0 views

  • there are better organizations out there to support
  • an organization that has no Autistic representation, and puts the majority of their monies into research initiatives that involve both eugenics and drastic and controversial therapies. 
  • Autism Speaks has no Autistic representation within their organization:
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  • The anti-vaccine sentiments of Autism Speaks’ founders
  • Autism Speaks has a history of supporting dangerous fringe movements that threaten the lives and safety of both the autism community and the general public.
  • Autism Speaks systematically excludes autistic adults from its board of directors, leadership team and other positions of senior leadership. This exclusion has been the subject of numerous discussions with and eventually protests against Autism Speaks, yet the organization persists in its refusal to allow those it purports to serve into positions of meaningful authority within its ranks.
  • Autism Speaks has promoted the Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts facility underDepartment of Justice and FDA investigation for the use of painful electric shock against its students. The Judge Rotenberg Center’s methods have been deemed torture by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (p. 84) and are currently the subject of efforts by the Massachusetts state government and disability rights advocates to shut the facility down. Despite this, Autism Speaks has allowed the Judge Rotenberg Center to recruit new admissions from families seeking resources at their fundraising walks.”(source)
  • Autism Speaks’ fundraising efforts pull money away from local communities, returning very little funds for the critical investments in services and supports needed by autistic people and our families. 
  •  local communities have complained that at a time when state budget cutbacks are making investment in local disability services all the more critical, Autism Speaks fundraisers take money away from needed services in their community.  In addition, while the majority of Autism Speaks’ funding goes towards research dollars, few of those dollars have gone to the areas of most concern to autistic people and our families–services and supports, particularly for autistics reaching adulthood and aging out of the school system
  • Autism Speaks’ advertising depends on offensive and outdated rhetoric of fear and pity, presenting the lives of autistic people as tragic burdens on our families and society.
izz aty

What People Don't Realize About Publicizing Their Sins Online - FiqhOfSocial.Media - 0 views

  • “The internet is a reflection of our society and that mirror is going to be reflecting what we see. If we do not like what we see in that mirror the problem is not to fix the mirror, we have to fix society.” Vint Cerf, one of the ‘fathers of the internet’
  • Islamically, there are two hadith of the Prophet (s) that govern the publicizing of sins.
  • Principle 1: Don’t Publicize Your Own Sins
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  • Principle 2: Don’t Publicize the Sins of Others
  • Privacy Settings Are Not a Veil
  • Who Do You Follow? It’s really awkward when you meet a brother at the masjid who is married with kids, follow him on Instagram, and then see that while he posts normal pictures, he is following 200 swimsuit models on Instagram.
  • Unseen Consequences In the book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, the author makes a point about how teens consider their public spaces private. In other words, if they’re posting goofy photos with their friends and leaving comments, they can’t fathom why a random adult who has nothing to do with them would view it. While logically that may be true, it’s just not the case. The internet is forever.
  • Your profile is not limited to just a Facebook page. Your profile encompasses the sum of what you post, people you follow, and pages you’ve liked. Two questions that are great points of introspection: Would I be ok with how my social profiles look if I were to suddenly pass away? Would I be comfortable with my profile if I was “friends” with the Prophet (saw) online? Or if he was to see my Snapchat story history?
  • go out of your way to cut off even the smallest of doubts about your behavior.
  • Societal Pressure
  • Embarrassing Others
  • Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you do not know (24:19).
  • We have a natural curiosity to find out what others are up to, but it is part our faith to leave this alone. There is a story about the Prophet Musa (as). During a drought, he went out to the desert with 70,000 people and supplicated for rain. Nothing happened. Musa was expecting the supplication to be answered, and then Allah (swt) revealed to him that among them is a person who has been challenging Allah with sins for the past 40 years, and to call out on that person to repent because the rain is withheld due to him. So Musa called out to the people for this sinner to repent. The sinner looked around and saw no one coming forward, and he realized this was about him. He did not want to go forward and expose himself. So he put his head down and said, “My Lord I have disobeyed You for 40 years and You have always given me respite. I come to you in obedience so accept it from me.” He had barely finished this supplication when a cloud appeared overhead and rain started pouring down. Musa then called out to Allah confused – no one came forward, yet the rain was sent down. Allah (swt) told him, “O Musa, I did not expose him when he was disobeying Me, then do you expect Me to expose him while he is obedient to Me?”
  • A Muslim is a Muslim’s brother: he does not wrong him or abandon him. If anyone cares for his brother’s need, Allah will care for his need; if anyone removes a Muslim’s anxiety, Allah will remove from him, on account of it, one of the anxieties of the Day of resurrection; and if anyone conceals a Muslim’s fault, Allah will conceal his fault on the Day of resurrection (Abu Dawud).
  • “Oh you who have believed with their tongues yet faith has not entered their hearts! Do not back-bite the Muslims, and do not seek to discover their faults, for whoever seeks after their faults, Allah will seek his faults. And if Allah seeks after someone’s faults, He will expose him even (what he committed) in his home.”
  • Every one of my followers will be forgiven except those who expose (openly) their wrongdoings. An example of this is that of a man who commits a sin at night which Allah has covered for him, and in the morning, he would say (to people): “I committed such and such sin last night,’ while Allah had kept it a secret. During the night Allah has covered it up but in the morning he tears up the cover (sitr) provided by Allah Himself (Bukhari and Muslim).
  • The meaning of this Name is that Allah (swt) is aware of our sins, and yet He covers them up. He does not allow our embarrassing actions to become known to others. He protects us by keeping our faults from becoming public. He keeps even our largest sins hidden from those closest to us.
  • He is Al-Sitteer, and He covers your sins, asks you to repent, and He loves that you cover the sins of others
  • O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well being in this life and the next. O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well-being in my religious and worldly affairs, and my family and my wealth. O Allah, veil [sitr] my weaknesses and set at ease my dismay. O Allah, preserve me from the front and from behind and on my right and on my left and from above, and I take refuge with You lest I be swallowed up by the earth.
izz aty

Five Habits to Avoid in Fiction Writing | Scribendi.com - 0 views

  • By avoiding these habits, your fiction writing will be greatly improved.
  • 1. Generic verbs and nouns
  • People, places, and things (i.e., nouns) have names, and it's your job to know what they are. Precise nouns work wonders in fiction writing because nouns have connotations or meanings that go beyond their dictionary definitions.
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  • This information could hint at what time of year it is (tulips are pretty scarce in September) and could also tell us something about the character who gives the flowers.
  • There are at least 12 synonyms for the verb to laugh, and each one evokes a specific image. A character could express amusement by cackling, chortling, chuckling, giggling, guffawing, snickering, sniggering, tittering, crowing, whooping, simpering, or smirking
  • Precise verbs contribute greatly to characterization.
  • 2. The exception: He said, she said
  • Reading good dialogue makes readers feel like they're actually listening in on a real conversation. Because of this, it can be very disruptive if the author keeps butting in to tell readers that the speaker intoned or declared or asserted or retorted.
  • It may  seem like using "said" repeatedly in dialogue tags is repetitive, but in fact the little word is so inconspicuous, it just fades into the background—which is exactly what we want when we're trying to listen in on a good conversation. The rare deviation is fine (asked, in particular, seems to be okay once in a while), but if you find yourself using a colorful synonym for every dialogue tag in your manuscript or screenplay, you may be doing more harm than good.
  • Third-person narration can be either limited (an objective narrator tells the story by focusing on a particular character's thoughts and interactions) or omniscient (the narrator sees and hears all)
  • many writers, in a misguided attempt to make their fiction writing descriptive, overuse these words.
  • Carrying a steaming and fragrant mug, she walked angrily and loudly into his office. Why write that, when you could have simply said: Carrying her peppermint tea, she stormed into his office. The second sentence actually gives us more information using fewer words.
  • 3. Adjective/Adverb-a-rhea
  • ...and adverbs that introduce redundancy...
  • ...or contradict the meaning of the verb or adjective they modify.
  • 4. Inconsistent point of view
  • In first-person narration, one character tells the story in his or her own voice (using "I")
  • be especially wary of adjectives that don’t actually convey much
  • No single point of view is better than another, but once you have made a choice, be consistent.
  • there are some great examples of novels that experiment with point of view by switching between narrators. But even in these stories, some kind of predictable pattern is imposed for clarity, such as a change in narrator from one chapter to the next, but not within a chapter.
  • 5. Unnaturally expositional, stilted, or irrelevant dialogue
  • Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound like the way people actually talk
  • Are they talking about the weather? Because if they're talking about the weather, you'd better have a good reason for it.
  • the worst habit a fiction writer can develop is the habit of giving up too easily. Keep writing every day.
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Issues about Outcomes Based Education - 0 views

  • Outcome-based education (OBE) is one of those that is new, even revolutionary, and is now being promoted as the panacea for America's educational woes. This reform has been driven by educators in response to demands for greater accountability by taxpayers and as a vehicle for breaking with traditional ideas about how we teach our children. If implemented, this approach to curriculum development could change our schools more than any other reform proposal in the last thirty years.
  • According to William Spady, a major advocate of this type of reform, three goals drive this new approach to creating school curricula. First, all students can learn and succeed, but not on the same day or in the same way. Second, each success by a student breeds more success. Third, schools control the conditions of success. In other words, students are seen as totally malleable creatures. If we create the right environment, any student can be prepared for any academic or vocational career. The key is to custom fit the schools to each student's learning style and abilities.
  • Outcome-based education will change the focus of schools from the content to the student
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  • The teacher's role in the classroom will become that of a coach. The instructor's goal is to move each child towards pre-determined outcomes rather than attempting to transmit the content of Western civilization to the next generation in a scholarly fashion
  • the focus is no longer on content. Feelings, attitudes, and skills such as learning to work together in groups will become just as important as learning information--some reformers would argue more important.
  • Where traditional curricula focused on the past, reformers argue that outcome-based methods prepare students for the future and for the constant change which is inevitable in our society.
  • Reformers advocating an outcome-based approach to curriculum development point to the logical simplicity of its technique. First, a list of desired outcomes in the form of student behaviors, skills, attitudes, and abilities is created. Second, learning experiences are designed that will allow teachers to coach the students to a mastery level in each outcome. Third, students are tested. Those who fail to achieve mastery receive remediation or retraining until mastery is achieved. Fourth, upon completion of learner outcomes a student graduates.
  • According to William Spady, a reform advocate, outcomes can be written with traditional, transitional, or transformational goals in mind. Spady advocates transformation goals.
  • Traditional outcome-based programs would use the new methodology to teach traditional content areas like math, history, and science
  • Many teachers find this a positive option for challenging the minimal achiever
  • An outcome-based program would prevent such students from graduating or passing to the next grade without reaching a pre-set mastery level of competency.
  • Transformational OBE subordinates course content to key issues, concepts, and processes. Indeed, Spady calls this the "highest evolution of the OBE concept." Central to the idea of transformational reform is the notion of outcomes of significance.
  • Spady supports transformational outcomes because they are future oriented, based on descriptions of future conditions that he feels should serve as starting points for OBE designs
  • little mention is made about specific things that students should know as a result of being in school.
  • The focus is on attitudes and feelings, personal goals, initiative, and vision--in their words, the whole student.
  • It is in devising learner outcomes that one's world view comes into play. Those who see the world in terms of constant change, politically and morally, find a transformation model useful. They view human nature as evolving, changing rather than fixed.
  • Advocates of outcome-based education point with pride to its focus on the student rather than course content. They feel that the key to educational reform is to be found in having students master stated learner outcomes. Critics fear that this is exactly what will happen. Their fear is based on the desire of reformers to educate the whole child. What will happen, they ask, when stated learner outcomes violate the moral or religious views of parents?
  • Under the traditional system of course credits a student could take a sex-ed course, totally disagree with the instruction and yet pass the course by doing acceptable work on the tests presented. Occasion-ally, an instructor might make life difficult for a student who fails to conform, but if the student learns the material that would qualify him or her for a passing grade and credit towards graduation.
  • If transformational outcome-based reformers have their way, this student would not get credit for the course until his or her attitudes, feelings, and behaviors matched the desired goals of the learner outcomes.
  • Another goal requires students to know about and use community health resources. Notice that just knowing that Planned Parenthood has an office in town isn't enough, one must use it.
  • transformational outcome- based reform would be a much more efficient mechanism for changing our children's values and attitudes about issues facing our society
  • the direction these changes often take is in conflict with our Christian faith
  • "Who has authority over our children?"
  • Outcome-based education is an ideologically neutral tool for curricular construction; whether it is more effective than traditional approaches remains to be seen. Unfortunately, because of its student-centered approach, its ability to influence individuals with a politically correct set of doctrines seems to be great. Parents (and all other taxpayers) need to weigh the possible benefits of outcome-based reform with the potential negatives.
  • who will determine the learner outcomes for their schools
  • consideration of what learner outcomes the public wants rather than assuming that educators know what's best for our children. Who will decide what it means to be an educated person, the taxpaying consumer or the providers of education?
  • If students are going to be allowed to proceed through the material at their own rate, what happens to the brighter children? Eventually students will be at many levels, what then? Will added teachers be necessary? Will computer-assisted instruction allow for individual learning speeds? Either option will cost more money. Some reformers offer a scenario where brighter students help tutor slower ones thereby encouraging group responsibility rather than promoting an elite group of learners. Critics feel that a mastery- learning approach will inevitably hold back brighter students.
  • With outcome-based reform, many educators are calling for a broader set of evaluation techniques. But early attempts at grading students based on portfolios of various kinds of works has proved difficult. The Rand Corporation studied Vermont's attempt and found that "rater reliability--the extent to which raters agreed on the quality of a student's work--was low." There is a general dislike of standardized tests among the reformers because it focuses on what the child knows rather than the whole child, but is there a viable substitute? Will students find that it is more important to be politically correct than to know specific facts?
  • whether or not school bureaucracies will allow for such dramatic change? How will the unions respond? Will legislative mandates that are already on the books be removed, or will this new approach simply be laid over the rest, creating a jungle of regulations and red tape?
  • although districts may be given input as to how these outcomes are achieved, local control of the outcomes themselves may be lost.
  • Many parents feel that there is already too much emphasis on global citizenship, radical environmentalism, humanistic views of self-esteem, and human sexuality at the expense of reading, writing, math, and science.
  • education may become more propagandistic rather than academic in nature
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Writing Tips from Masters - 0 views

  •  
    Link to some useful writing tips.
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How I Became an Unfair Teacher - Atlantic Mobile - 0 views

  • But most of all, people remember injustices. False accusations of cheating. Getting singled out randomly for scolding. Points deducted on a cheap technicality. As a teacher myself, I vowed I’d do better, that I’d run a fair classroom where every student got a voice and a straight deal.
  • The asymmetries of the classroom are intense. With each teacher responsible for a hundred students or more, the typical kid occupies a teacher’s thoughts for—at best—a minute or two per day. But each student only has a handful of teachers. Every instructor looms large in her world, wielding power over her days, via class periods; her nights, via homework; and her future, via grades. She spends much of her time thinking about the teacher’s demands, the teacher’s expectations, the teacher’s preferences and inconsistencies.
  • So when a teacher briefly focuses attention on a particular student, it comes with the heat and intensity of a spotlight. A moment the teacher barely remembers might stick with the student for years.
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  • Classroom lessons may slip quickly through students’ fingers, but the classroom experience lingers in memory. Each teacher offers students a different model of authority and justice. We set our own standards of fairness and sometimes fail to honor them. A teacher swings a heavy club, and we can leave big, purple bruises if we’re not careful.
  • My biggest rule is a familiar cliché: Always ask before drawing conclusions. It seems simple, but it's a defense against instinct.
  • My own memories of petty student frustrations should have taught me what a wrecking ball a teacher can be. But they didn’t. The understanding came only after carelessly knocking a few of my own students to the ground, and then working—slowly, purposefully—to help them back up.
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6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism - 0 views

  • Several people posted comments about our story that noted one name was missing from the Nobel roster: Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist who also studied DNA. Her data were critical to Crick and Watson's work. But it turns out that Franklin would not have been eligible for the prize—she had passed away four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the prize, and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously.But even if she had been alive, she may still have been overlooked. Like many women scientists, Franklin was robbed of recognition throughout her career (See her section below for details.)
  • Pulsars are the remnants of massive stars that went supernova. Their very existence demonstrates that these giants didn't blow themselves into oblivion—instead, they left behind small, incredibly dense, rotating stars.Bell Burnell discovered the recurring signals given off by their rotation while analyzing data printed out on three miles of paper from a radio telescope she helped assemble.The finding resulted in a Nobel Prize, but the 1974 award in physics went to Anthony Hewish—Bell Burnell's supervisor—and Martin Ryle, also a radio astronomer at Cambridge University.The snub generated a "wave of sympathy" for Bell Burnell. But in an interview with National Geographic News this month, the astronomer was fairly matter-of-fact.
  • despite the sympathy, and her groundbreaking work, Bell Burnell said she was still subject to the prevailing attitudes toward women in academia.
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  • "[And] it was extremely hard combining family and career," Bell Burnell said, partly because the university where she worked while pregnant had no provisions for maternity leave.
  • Born in 1922 in the Bronx, Esther Lederberg would grow up to lay the groundwork for future discoveries on genetic inheritance in bacteria, gene regulation, and genetic recombination.A microbiologist, she is perhaps best known for discovering a virus that infects bacteria—called the lambda bacteriophage—in 1951, while at the University of Wisconsin.Lederberg, along with her first husband Joshua Lederberg, also developed a way to easily transfer bacterial colonies from one petri dish to another, called replica plating, which enabled the study of antibiotic resistance. The Lederberg method is still in use today.Joshua Lederberg's work on replica plating played a part in his 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, which he shared with George Beadle and Edward Tatum."She deserved credit for the discovery of lambda phage, her work on the F fertility factor, and, especially, replica plating," wrote Stanley Falkow, a retired microbiologist at Stanford University, in an email. But she didn't receive it.
  • Chien-Shiung Wu overturned a law of physics and participated in the development of the atom bomb.Wu was recruited to Columbia University in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project and conducted research on radiation detection and uranium enrichment. She stayed in the United States after the war and became known as one of the best experimental physicists of her time, said Nina Byers, a retired physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.In the mid-1950s, two theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, approached Wu to help disprove the law of parity. The law holds that in quantum mechanics, two physical systems—like atoms—that were mirror images would behave in identical ways.Wu's experiments using cobalt-60, a radioactive form of the cobalt metal, upended this law, which had been accepted for 30 years.This milestone in physics led to a 1957 Nobel Prize for Yang and Lee—but not for Wu, who was left out despite her critical role. "People found [the Nobel decision] outrageous," said Byers.Pnina Abir-Am, a historian of science at Brandeis University, agreed, adding that ethnicity also played a role.
  • Lise Meitner's work in nuclear physics led to the discovery of nuclear fission—the fact that atomic nuclei can split in two. That finding laid the groundwork for the atomic bomb.Her story is a complicated tangle of sexism, politics, and ethnicity.After finishing her doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna, Meitner moved to Berlin in 1907 and started collaborating with chemist Otto Hahn. They maintained their working relationship for more than 30 years.After the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938, Meitner, who was Jewish, made her way to Stockholm, Sweden. She continued to work with Hahn, corresponding and meeting secretly in Copenhagen in November of that year.Although Hahn performed the experiments that produced the evidence supporting the idea of nuclear fission, he was unable to come up with an explanation. Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch, came up with the theory.Hahn published their findings without including Meitner as a co-author, although several accounts say Meitner understood this omission, given the situation in Nazi Germany."That's the start of how Meitner got separated from the credit of discovering nuclear fission," said Lewin Sime, who wrote a biography of Meitner.
  • Rosalind Franklin used x-rays to take a picture of DNA that would change biology.Hers is perhaps one of the most well-known—and shameful—instances of a researcher being robbed of credit, said Lewin Sime.Franklin graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from Cambridge University in 1945, then spent three years at an institute in Paris where she learned x-ray diffraction techniques, or the ability to determine the molecular structures of crystals. (Learn more about her education and qualifications.)She returned to England in 1951 as a research associate in John Randall's laboratory at King's College in London and soon encountered Maurice Wilkins, who was leading his own research group studying the structure of DNA.Franklin and Wilkins worked on separate DNA projects, but by some accounts, Wilkins mistook Franklin's role in Randall's lab as that of an assistant rather than head of her own project.Meanwhile, James Watson and Francis Crick, both at Cambridge University, were also trying to determine the structure of DNA. They communicated with Wilkins, who at some point showed them Franklin's image of DNA—known as Photo 51—without her knowledge.Photo 51 enabled Watson, Crick, and Wilkins to deduce the correct structure for DNA, which they published in a series of articles in the journal Nature in April 1953. Franklin also published in the same issue, providing further details on DNA's structure.Franklin's image of the DNA molecule was key to deciphering its structure, but only Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their work.
  • Nettie Stevens performed studies crucial in determining that an organism's sex was dictated by its chromosomes rather than environmental or other factors.After receiving her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Stevens continued at the college as a researcher studying sex determination.By working on mealworms, she was able to deduce that the males produced sperm with X and Y chromosomes—the sex chromosomes—and that females produced reproductive cells with only X chromosomes. This was evidence supporting the theory that sex determination is directed by an organism's genetics.A fellow researcher, named Edmund Wilson, is said to have done similar work, but came to the same conclusion later than Stevens did.Stevens fell victim to a phenomenon known as the Matilda Effect—the repression or denial of the contributions of female researchers to science.Thomas Hunt Morgan, a prominent geneticist at the time, is often credited with discovering the genetic basis for sex determination, said Pomona College's Hoopes. He was the first to write a genetics textbook, she noted, and he wanted to magnify his contributions."Textbooks have this terrible tendency to choose the same evidence as other textbooks," she added. And so Stevens' name was not associated with the discovery of sex determination.
  • the first wife of Albert Einstein should be in this list. People know so little about her, and I think she deserves to be known. 
  • Vera Rubin, for accurate studies discovering dark matter.
  • How sadly ironic that the very woman who set the stage for the  DNA structure discovery, which in 1994 helped make it possible to genetically test and confirm BRCA carriers like Angelina Jolie and me (with familial cancer holocausts generation, after generation, after generation), did not have access the test that could have saved her life so she could go on with the research she loved and win a Nobel Prize.
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No child left behind: (Relative) equity in Finnish schools -  Inside classroo... - 0 views

  • not only is Finland a top performer in all three subjects tested in PISA, they manage to do so while making schooling equitable.
  • The aim of day-care is to support balanced growth, development and learning as well as promoting the personal well-being of all children, which means that by the time they start formal school at age 7, Finnish children that would have been behind developmentally at age 5 have had the time and the support to catch up. 
  • In Finland, although there is no formal education until age 7, most students attend preschool at 6, and day-care is available to all children under this age. This day-care is provided by the local authority in over 90% of cases, and its cost is dependent on the size and income of the family (bigger families pay less per child, and low income families pay nothing). 
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  • all classes are mixed ability.
  • high expectations of all students, and these are to meet the objectives set out in the national curriculum.
  • These mixed ability classes would be difficult for teachers to handle if it weren't for three things: thorough teacher education - teacher training includes a significant focus on differentiation and how to support students at all levels;small class sizes - the estimated average size is 14.1 (although some research suggests class size doesn't affect student performance); anda well staffed student support system - special teachers that provide in class support and take out small groups are qualified teachers with further qualifications in special education.
  • There are two types of special classes. The type described above is called the E class, and there is one in each year. These classes are smaller than the others, and they have the same teacher for most subjects (who should be a qualified teacher with an extra qualification in special needs, but in practice these are in short supply). Students can move in and out of this class, but in practice they usually stay there for most subjects, occasionally joining another class if they have a strength in a particular area.
  • Those with severe or specific special needs still attend mainstream school, but are in a class of their own somewhere in the district. Each school has its own specialism. This may mean travelling a little while to get there, as only one or two schools will have an autistic class for example. 
  • There isn't really special provision for gifted students
  • brighter students help struggling students in class which enhances their own understanding
  • if students are motivated, you can't stop them learning - gifted students will take the books and teach themselves (one of the teachers who told me this had four degrees but had come from a tiny school in the countryside).
  • Finland has only small differences in performance between schools (a measure closely associated with equality), and most students go to their local schools (to age 15).
  • Selection only happens in two situations: where students are applying to language emersion schools (and the student has to speak the language to a certain level), and where students are applying for a certain class in a school that is the school's specialism, such as Music or Sports (these classes have the same basic curriculum with additional Music or Sports lessons). There are no grammar schools, and very few private schools (and even these have to follow the national curriculum).
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Reading Rockets - Launching young readers! - 0 views

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