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Wahab et al 2010 Transformational of Malaysian's Polytechnic into University College in... - 0 views

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    Proceedings of the 1stUPI International Conference on Technical and Vocational Education and Training Bandung, Indonesia, 10-11 November 2010 570 Transformational of Malaysian's Polytechnic into University College in 2015: Issues and Challenges for Malaysian Technical and Vocational Education Sahul Hamed Abd. Wahab1 , Mohd Amin Zakaria2 , Mohd Ali Jasmi3 Politeknik Johor Bahru 81700 Pasir Gudang Johor Malaysia. sahul@polijb.edu.my, mohd_amin_zakaria@yahoo.com, matali_jasmie@yahoo.com Abstract Malaysian Polytechnic has been operated for almost 41 years. It was established by the Ministry of Education with the help of UNESCO in 1969. The amount of RM24.5 million is used to fund the pioneer of Politeknik Ungku Omar located in Ipoh, Perak from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). At present, Malaysia have developed 27 polytechnic at all over states in engineering, agriculture, commerce, hospitality and design courses with 60,840 students in 2009 to 87,440 students in 2012. The Department of Polytechnic Education is committed to provide quality, efficient and customer-friendly services to the highest level of objectivity, confidentiality, integrity and professionalism. Their main purpose is to breaking boundaries for the creation of transformative and creative learning environment for an innovation-led economy and to be Malaysia's number one provider of innovative human capital through transformational education and training for the global workforce by 2015. The objective of this paper is to analyze the issues related on transformational of conventional polytechnic towards students, lecturers, stakeholders, communities, and workforce and skill development in lifelong learning. In addition, to study new courses aligned with development of new technology and currents trend of employment has take into consideration. Finally, a basic frame work of a new dimension for University College based on technical and vocational training is discussed at the end of this p
izz aty

Teens Favorite Inspirational Movies - 0 views

  • 50/50: Confronting the Inevitable by Ryan.Paine (This teen struggled dramatically with the thought of death)
  •   A Beautiful Mind inspired me to explore the world’s mysteries by Jonesy1106 (“I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible”)
  • A Goofy Movie taught me how to be a better daughter by jklawls (Parents have their kids’ best interests at heart)
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  •   The Blind Side inspired me to take risks for others by haleybopc8 (Don’t take life for granted)
  •     The Blind Side Encouraged Me Never to Give Up by abcdefgh (Don’t let previous failure stop you from achieving your dreams)
  • Cyberbully taught me to use my words wisely, not to harm by tonirene (Help save a life by being kind to the bullied)
  • The message in Cyberbully opened my eyes to the harmful actions of others by delaneysue (Don’t bully anyone—ever)
  •   Every Child is Special made me cry for seeing a smile on a child that I hugged today by Roselle (Children with disabilities deserve to be loved and encouraged)
  • The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain pushed me outside my comfort zone by Hatman (This teen identified strongly with a foreign film’s protagonist)
  • Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by Cassie (Stay in school)
  • Forrest Gump Inspired Me by Jbaeza (Being unique is not a bad thing)
  • The Lorax let me think about how a world would be without trees by Lizzy (We must protect the environment before it breaks down)
  • Mean Girls showed me that happiness and social status are not directly proportional by cossshmo (Popularity is not important)
  • Pay It Forward: The Start of My Passion to Give Back by Kaleilei (It is important to give back to the community—stand up for bullied, donate your time and money, among other things)
  • Pay It Forward showed me how our decisions affect others by otto5 (Think about every decision you make)
  • Pay It Forward made me realize the ultimate impact of a random act of kindness by hflanagan17 (An act of kindness can change the world)
  • The Pursuit of Happyness Encouraged Me to Persevere by sampsoncaitlyn (With determination, you can achieve any goal)
  • Taare Zameen Par taught me the importance of volunteerism by Asmaan (The protagonist’s struggle with learning made this teen more sensitive to others’ needs)
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    "This is the formal summary report from StageofLife.com on Teens and Movies.  Below you'll find our poll results outlining how teens consume movies at the theater and at home along with over 100 of the featured essays from students participating in our monthly national teen writing contest. Knowing teenagers and college students are a prime demographic for the big movie houses, we wanted to find out what films speak to teens and college students. Which movies are the most inspiring?  What movies help make a positive difference in this world? So in April of 2012, we asked 4,885 teens who visited our writing contest page that month to name and write about the one film that made the biggest difference in their life.  Hundreds of teens participated in the writing contest and shared a story about the film that touched or inspired them the most. "
izz aty

Washington Post Social Reader on Facebook - 0 views

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    The allure of America's universities, and the pressure-cooker drive to succeed among Asia's expanding upper class, will continue to propel Asian students into American schools. Many Chinese teenagers applying abroad, Melcher said, are the sort of highly motivated students colleges desire. "Chinese kids are typically great," Melcher said. "They're not at the tailgate parties drinking. They're busting their butts. Failure is not an option." But college application fraud will continue, he said, so long as the risks are low and the rewards are so high. His consultancy suggests interviewing all Chinese students via online video chats, conducting spot tests in English, and hiring a mainland Chinese staffer in the college's home office.
izz aty

Visuals : Facebook and College Admissions | schools.com - 0 views

  • As Facebook has become more and more popular—if it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world—its use in the field of education has expanded, too. In fact, more than 80% of college admissions officers report using Facebook as part of their recruiting process. Are admissions officers really looking at the Facebook profiles of prospective students? And if so, are they making admissions decisions based on these profiles? Below is an infographic that highlights the answers to these questions and more—which might surprise you.
todaynewsb

I will guest post on education, college niche da50 to 90 blog - 0 views

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    I will guest post on education, college niche da50 to 90 blog
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

Elbert Hubbard - Wikiquote - 0 views

  • A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
  • Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth. The intellectual kings of the earth have seldom been college-bred.
  • Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.
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  • He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand. Hubbard, Elbert (1922). Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard. V. Wm. H. Wise & Co./The Roycrofters. p. 237. Often quoted as "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"
  • If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.
  • In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.
  • I AM an Anarchist. All good men are Anarchists. All cultured, kindly men; all gentlemen; all just men are Anarchists. Jesus was an Anarchist.
  • If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.
  • No man who believes in force and violence is an Anarchist. The true Anarchist decries all influences save those of love and reason. Ideas are his only arms.
  • Being an Anarchist I am also a Socialist. Socialism is the antithesis of Anarchy. One is the North Pole of Truth, the other the South
  • The Socialist believes in working for the good of all, while Anarchy is pure Individualism.
  • If there is any better way to teach virtue than by practicing it, I do not know it.
  • Good people are only half as good, and bad people only half as bad, as other people regard them
  • An Anarchist is one who minds his own business. An Anarchist does not believe in sending warships across wide oceans to kill brown men, and lay waste rice fields, and burn the homes of people who are fighting for liberty. An Anarchist does not drive women with babes at their breasts and other women with babes unborn, children and old men into the jungle to be devoured by beasts or fever or fear, or die of hunger, homeless, unhouseled and undone. Destruction, violence, ravages, murder, are perpetrated by statute law. .
  • It is only life and love that give love and life.
  • Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.
  • To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise — and no faculty grows save as it is exercised.
  • Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate — you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion.
  • Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books.
  • A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
  • Making men live in three worlds at once — past, present and future has been the chief harm organized religion has done.
  • The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
  • The way to learn to earn a living is to go at it and earn a living.
  • Woman's inaptitude for reasoning has not prevented her from arriving at truth; nor has man's ability to reason prevented him from floundering in absurdity.
  • Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you'll never be criticized.
  • They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, "There does not seem to be anything to do." The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.
izz aty

Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains - 0 views

  • Since the work was produced by higher education, the words tend to be a little bigger than we normally use. Domains may be thought of as categories. Instructional designers, trainers, and educators often refer to these three categories as KSA (Knowledge [cognitive], Skills [psychomotor], and Attitudes [affective]). This taxonomy of learning behaviors may be thought of as “the goals of the learning process.” That is, after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired a new skill, knowledge, and/or attitude. While the committee produced an elaborate compilation for the cognitive and affective domains, they omitted the psychomotor domain. Their explanation for this oversight was that they have little experience in teaching manual skills within the college level. However, there have been at least three psychomotor models created by other researchers.
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    The Three Types of Learning: A committee of colleges, led by Benjamin Bloom (1956), identified three domains of educational activities: Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge); Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude); Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills). Domains can be thought of as categories. Trainers often refer to these three categories as KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude). This taxonomy of learning behaviors can be thought of as "the goals of the learning process." That is, after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired new skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes.
izz aty

Now There's a WikiLeaks for Colleges - Education - GOOD - 0 views

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    According to the site's "Who We Are" section, they'll accept anonymously submitted "restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance which is in some way connected to higher education, an agency or government body working in partnership with an institution, e.g., a university." That means they want those private emails between professors, copies of shady contracts, secret research, and internal memos. Whistle-blowers can upload their documents through an encryption-free electronic drop box. The site's journalists then turn them into news stories.
izz aty

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
izz aty

Being Poor - Whatever - 0 views

  • Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
  • eing poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.
  • Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
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  • Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
  • Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
  • Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
  • Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
  • Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.
  • Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.
  • Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
  • Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
  • Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
  • Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
  • Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
  • Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
  • Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
  • Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
  • Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
  • Being poor is staying with a man who beats your kids because you can’t afford to keep them out of foster care without his salary.
  • Being poor means making decisions like “is stealing food a sin” outside of an ethics class.
  • Being poor is realizing that heating and eating will probably be mutually exclusive this month.
  • Being poor is discovering that that letter from Duke University, naming you as one of three advanced students in your class invited to test out of HS early into their scholarship program, is just so much firestarter because the $300 it costs to take the test may as well be $3 million.
  • Despair is finally realizing, at nearly 36 and with a barely-afforded AA in English from a community college, just where you could have been by now had you had $300, and what that missed opportunity has truly cost you.
  • Being poor is understanding that the lowest, poorest, starvingest time of the month for anyone on public assistance is exactly when Katrina hit.
  • Being poor is taking a cash advance from the credit card–to pay the credit card minimum bill.
  • Being poor is trying to decide which one of you gets to eat today – the one of you that is pregnant or the one of you that can work.
  • Being poor is a sick, dreadful feeling of your stomach dropping out when the phone rings, because you know it’s a bill collector and you know you’ll pick it up anyway on a one in a million chance someone does want to hire you.
  • Being poor is laying down because it hurts to breathe and you are pregnant, but you can’t afford to go to the hospital.
  • Being poor is crying when $50 bill you didn’t expect gets taken from your paycheck.
  • Being poor means never forgeting that the bills aren’t paid.
  • Growing up poor is spending the rest of your life trying to escape (and never realizing that you have)
  • Being poor means looking at life in such a different way that most people can’t imagine it.
  • Being poor means being grateful that you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
  • Growing up poor means you feel guilty when you escape, because your siblings didn’t.
  • Being poor means saving the plastic containers and jars from yogurt or spaghetti sauce so you can take milk with you to school in your lunch after they lower the income limit for free lunches and your mom makes $3 more than the limit.
  • Being poor is choosing between the lesser of two evils and not realizing it.
  • Being poor is a motivator to never be as poor as your parents.
  • Being poor makes you appreciate everything you’ve earned.
  • Being poor gives you the ability to look at supporting your still poor mother as an honor not a burden.
  • Being poor is worrying that someday you will wake up, find yourself lying beneath a blanket in the back of that station wagon and realizing that your escape and rise was just a dream.
  • Being poor is a month with 28 spaghetti dinners, 2 invitations over to eat, and a day without.
  • Being poor is carrying your fiancee to the hospital to miscarry, then using their phone to call around for someone to take you back home, since there aren’t beds for Medicare patients.
  • Being poor is wondering what sort of fool drops a penny on the ground and doesn’t pick it up.
  • Being poor is wondering what to say when your friends ask you to join them for coffee in the campus coffee shop, and you can’t because you thought you had a couple bucks cash but you must have left it in your coat at home, and so you have to use all the change you dug up from under the seat for gas to get home after classes.
  • Being poor is pretending to any major, religion or career interest to get free pizza on campus.
  • Being poor means dreading getting a Christmas present from the Fireman’s Charity, because you’ll end up on TV and everybody at school will find out.
  • Being poor is wearing the same dress to school every day for four months, then getting “new” clothes from the church for Christmas and changing your clothes three times in one day because you can.
  • Being poor means not being able to take a better job because the shift ends are after the busses stop running, and you don’t feel safe walking the two miles home after dark.
  • Why is is so hard to remember poverty once you get past it, if you get past it? Why is it so hard to empathize with poverty if you have never had it? What the hell is wrong with us?
  • Being poor means learning firsthand the meaning of words like “eviction,” “garnishee,” “repossess,” and “transient motel.”
  • Being poor means paying a premium on food and goods at local stores that jack up prices for being in a poor neighborhood, or simply because they can.
  • Being poor means buying bread at the “day old store” even though it’s a lot older than one day.
  • Being poor means paying high prices for exprired meat at the bodega, because there isn’t a supermarket chain willing to open a store in your neighborhood.
  • Being poor means your 10 cent an hour raise is almost negated by the 25 cent increase in bus fare.
  • Being poor means watching your disabled child get worse and worse because you can’t afford the therapies.
  • Being poor means having your life gone over with a fine tooth comb to see if you’re bad enough to help.
  • Being poor is feeling ashamed when your ‘peers’ slam WalMart, and talk about buying organic, and the horrors of driving gass-guzzling cars, all while wondering why you repeatedly find ways to not join them at $15/plate social dinners.
  • Being poor is avoiding spending time with people you care about, because you don’t want to have to answer “how are you doing?”.
  • Being poor is having your best friend’s mother compliment her for hanging out with you–shows good moral fiber, don’t you know.
  • Being poor is having your mum scrimp and save to get you the latest “in” thing, just as it goes out of style. (But you wear it anyway, so she doesn’t feel bad, and then all the kids at school make fun of you.)
  • Being poor is being the family that everybody knows it’s okay to pick on.
  • Being poor is having your house egged and a firecracker tossed through your front door because some kid thought it was funny.
  • Being poor is losing your special lunch card and seeing the snotty kid across the street find it, chop it up with scissors, and return the pieces to you.
  • Being poor means going to a church school on a Pell grant and trying to get your associate degree in one year, because you know your sibs are close on your tail, and your family has barely enough money to send you.
  • Being poor takes time. Time to wait in line for the reduced-price clinic while gathering all your paperwork, and hoping you have it in order so you won’t be sent home to get one little slip of paperwork. Time to wait in line at the food bank, where people fight to get to the one box of expired Entemann’s first. Time that you spend walking back home or waiting beside your POS car because it broke down for the umpteenth time. Time that you spend at your minimum wage fast food job after hours because you really don’t want to go home, and the manager might just feed you.
  • Being poor means that if you pull yourself up and stop being ‘poor,’ you will still be struggling and behind, because a large chunk of your money will go toward cleaning up all the stopgaps, mistakes, and overcharges you accumulated when you were poor.
  • Being poor is everything gets washed by hand in the bathtub with the smallest amount of dollar-store detergent.
  • Being poor means choosing between a cup of coffee, a newspaper, or a load at the laundrymat. You can’t have all three, or even two of them. ever.
  • Being poor is everything must be mended, pinned, taped, glued or stapled for a little more use.
  • Being poor means two or three jobs, and never enough time, sleep, or money. never.
  • John, thanks for this. This is so spot-on it hurts. And I don’t have to do any of these things any more, but you really don’t ever forget what it’s like to do them.
  • Being poor is really, really pushing your two-year old during potty training, because diapers are really, really expensive.
  • Being poor means that you laugh hysterically when you watch the financial planning segments on the Today Show, because the thought of starting a college fund for your child is so far beyond the pale that if you don’t laugh, you’ll start to cry and you’ll never stop.
  • Being poor means that three years after you’re not poor anymore, you still know exactly what everything costs; you still feel like a dinner at Chili’s or even Wendy’s is a huge splurge; and you still feel like you can’t afford to buy a six dollar belt at Target. And you still buy ramen.
  • Being poor is obviously your fault, even though the biggest, fattest reason you had to file bankruptcy in the first place was because your husband frivolously got cancer while laid off. How silly of him! And then he couldn’t find a new job until he was done with treatment because oddly, employers are shy of hiring bald, vomiting people with IV ports taped into their arms.
  • Being poor is being horrified when you see a very young person from your area with an arm, neck, or hand tattoo, not because corporate America generally bans such things… but because fast-food and retail America does, too.
  • Being poor is being bumped by somebody carrying a Prada tote bag on your way to pick up your paycheck… and instantly realizing, without having to calculate, that in terms of actual cash value, the tote bag is worth far more than the paycheck.
  • Being poor means selling blood plasma and signing up for every medical experiment they’ll let you into, and breezing past the disclaimer form because, really, are you going to give up $100 just because you may be risking injury or death from whatever they’re giving you?
  • - Being poor is spending money you know you don’t have on a candybar because you need something to cheer yourself up enough to get out of bed.
  • Being poor is sleeping everyone to one bed so you’re a little bit warmer.
  • Being poor is having friends who’s parents won’t let them sleep over because you live in that part of town.
  • Being poor is not caring that starchy carbs are bad for you, rice and pasta are cheap, and it’s either that, or nothing at all.
  • Being poor is the lunchlady feeling bad for you so she sneaks you leftovers from after all the classes have eaten, for you to take home for dinner.
  • Being poor is learning to like skim milk because it’s a nickel cheaper than whole.
  • Being poor means your husband is working – when he can get work – at Labor Ready, and you’re at the food bank. Being poor means your husband is sharing his main meal of the day with someone who hasn’t eaten for three days.
  • Being poor is rejoicing the fact you miscarried
  • Being poor is becoming a stripper just to make the rent, and hating yourself for it.
  • Being poor is washing up in public bathrooms and sampling fragrances at the department store so you don’t smell bad.
  • Being poor is sleeping in stairwells.
  • Being poor means mom and dad do not sit and eat dinner with you. They eat after the kids are done with what’s left. Dad’s dinner is wiping clean the bits from the frying pan with a piece of bread.(He still does that out of habit just like grandpa.)
  • Being poor is not having sex because you can’t afford birth control and you’re smart enough to not get pregnant
  • Being poor is rejoicing in the fact that after five years, the color of your expired vehicle tags has cycled back around, and there’s less of a chance of getting pulled over for your 2001 tags.
  • Being poor is counting your food money for the week and knowing you will have to walk the two miles to the grocery with three children under the age of six.
  • Being poor is hearing your daughter tell you twenty years later that she finally realized that ‘Mommy already ate, sweetie’ was a lie.
  • Being poor is not being able to afford to pursue the ex who owes you child support.
  • Being poor is having a judge give him custody because HE isn’t poor.
  • Being broke is making a meal and sitting the kids down at the table, and sipping a glass of watered down powedered milk while they eat.
  • Poor never seems to leave us completely. No matter what we do or have done, we will always be haunted by the tears and shame of poverty. The worst part: even if our kids escape, THEY REMEMBER forever. A legacy we’d rather not give.
  • Being poor is having someone tell you that if you own _____ (A car, a TV, a bed) then you really aren’t poor, & realizing they’re either stupid, or worse off than you
  • Being poor means a 4 hours of commuting for a 6 hour shift.
  • Being poor means putting a beloved pet to sleep because you can’t afford the vet bill.
  • Being formerly poor means that your never-poor spouse resents the hell out of the fact that you still give your mom and siblings money – money that could have gone to “our” family. It means your spouse never quite thinks of your family as her family too because the resentment is there.
  • Being poor is throwing up six times a day because you are pregnant and don’t have health care. Being poor means that you can’t even scrape together enough change to ride the bus to the neonatal clinic, and it’s the middle of summer and too far to walk. Being poor means pondering an abortion because you know everybody around you is equally strapped for cash, you only get one meal a day, and you don’t see that changing in the immediate future. Being poor means after much tears and thought, when you finally decide to have the abortion, you have to borrow the money to get it done. Being poor means that if you’d kept the baby, some rich people would accuse you of abusing the welfare system. Being poor means that by getting the abortion, some rich people accuse you of murder. Being poor means weeks of crying and hating yourself.
  • being poor is mom and dad being humiliated saturday and sunday to pay your failed attempt at the american dream, because first you’re not american, second you are not rich, third you are not america educated, and all those dollar-master slavering world wonderpeople can tell you, making fun, is: born in the wrong country pal, hahaha.
  • being poor is working hard and never had worked enough.
  • Being poor makes you appreciate the value of free napkins, plastic food utensils, matches, condiment packages, plastic bags, or any other giveaway item of use in the home.
  • Being poor means never having leftovers.
  • FYI: Nick Mamatas has a few additions to the list (from an international perspective) here.
  • pictruandtru: you, more than anyone else here, need to read John’s article over and over again, until you get it. It was you he wrote it for. Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
  • Being poor (or having been poor) means you know that if there is a devistating economic crisis, you will know how to survive when those who never were poor are paralized with fear. Being poor is knowing you are strong and resourceful.
  • As a born-and-bred welfare kid raised by TV and cheap supermarket off-brands, I see my mother in many of these statements. She worked so hard to raise herself out of crushing poverty, with little or no useful help from the government or well-meaning “liberals” with social-science degrees that I can only shake my head and wonder how it was I got out of the poverty trap at all. I think I was just lucky. I also happen to be white and male, and I’m reasonably sure in today’s world this is a certain advantage.
  • Being poor means that someone who has never been poor will never really understand what it’s like.
  • Being poor means you no longer have to fill out the forms at the ‘payday loan store’ because they have your information memorized.
  • I joined the military so they would fix my teeth. I brushed everyday. And flossed. But never had dental insurance. Only got cleanings maybe once in my childhood.
  • The point is when something goes wrong, for whatever reason, being poor means your options are limited, and what options you have are often likely to cause you pain.
  • Being poor is not having any margin for error. The problem is that life only rarely lets people get through it without error.
  • When you’re middle-class or well-off, you can absorb a certain amount of the crap life throws at you. When you’re poor, you really can’t.
  • Being poor means understanding that Internet flamewars are a tragic waste of time better used bettering yourself. Use that time and effort to build yourself up rather than tear a stranger down- you’ll feel better afterward.
  • Being poor means being stuck around people who want you to continue to be poor.
  • Being poor means not being able to take advantage of all the really great sales that come along — because they only seem to happen when you don’t have the money in hand.
  • Being poor is having the grocery store checker give you dirty looks and make comments to the next customer about “my tax dollars being wasted” when you use food stamps to buy a day-old cake on sale and a package of birthday candles for your child. Being poor is being overwhelmingly grateful that the next person in line says to the checker, “I can’t think of a better use for my tax dollars than to pay for a poor child to have a birthday, you heartless prick.”
  • I still use tea-bags twice. I won’t eat ramen, because I ate far too much for too long. I consider myself well-off because I have a lot of books and I never skip a meal. I know exactly how much things cost, and shop at two supermarkets because one has cheaper prices on produce and meat, and the other has cheaper canned goods. And I know the usual price of everything I buy on a regular basis, so I know whether the “sale” price is really a good deal. And when it is, I stock up, just in case.
  • I worked for a bank for a while after finishing my bachelor’s degree, and here’s what I learned: Being poor means the bank doesn’t want you as a customer. Being poor means you will pay the highest fees for every service. Being poor means you will pay the highest interest on any loan. On the other hand– Being rich means all service charges will be waived on your accounts, because you’re a preferred customer. Being rich means never waiting in line, because the bank manager greets you when you come in and takes you to a customer service representative who handles your transactions.
  • Being poor is knowing how to sew.
  • Being poor is having a lower Social Security number than your classmates in high school, because you had to get one young to get welfare.
  • Being poor is finding prostitution a valid way to pay the electrical bill, and then lying to your spouse about where the money came from.
  • Being poor is exploding at the old lady who has taken all the 20c bread at the day-old store to feed to the fraggin’ SQUIRRELS.
  • Being less poor is living close enough to work and the store and the library to walk and NOT have to buy gas.
  • Being less poor is 10c for a packet of seeds that produces zucchini in your yard all summer.
  • I tell you this not to display my saintliness, but to put into perspective a conversation I have not infrequently with other members of my profession: ME: …no, I’m really tense about this case. If we lose, Mrs. Smith and her nephew have nowhere to go. She’s on a fixed income. What if I screw up and it costs them their apartment? OTHER LAWYER: Wow. Well, it could be worse. I mean, what if it were a big commercial-litigation case, and you screwed THAT up, and lost twenty million dollars for the client? At least the pro bono cases are over, what, five hundred dollars or something? (Pop Quiz: do you think the Other Lawyers who make such remarks have ever been poor?)
  • Being poor means you don’t count (unless you are pretty).
  • Being poor is never looking down on a man begging for change, mainly because you have seriously considered doing it.
  • Being poor is having the luck and luxury of growing up rich and having no resources whatsoever when you are tossed out of your parents house with no money for “the gay thing” because it’s an embarrasment to daddy and his ilk.
  • Being poor is making the rent and bills by six dollars and not having any left over for grocery shopping that week because that six dollars is for gas to get to work.
  • Being rich to poor means your parents make too damn much for you to get student loans so you have no way of getting any help, whatsoever.
  • Being rich to poor means that you can’t fathom how your family of two that you no longer live with lives in a 5500 square foot house.
  • Being rich to poor is your dad telling you it’s strange you don’t have a car, when you are paying for college on your own and he has just bought your younger, non-gay sibling, a BMW.
  • Being rich to poor is when your father visits your new apartment – the one you’re making it all on your own in – and tells you to move because you’re living “in a ghetto” as he drives home in his Mercedes.
  • Being poor means burning in shame because this is the most you could afford and you spent hours cleaning before he arrived.
  • Being rich to poor is being too ashamed to leave my name on this.
  • And being poor means you will probably be punished because you *did* leave
  • Being poor means teaching yourself to not notice feeling hungry.
  • Being poor means people making fun of your weight and calling you “anorexic” when you’ve been unable to have more than one meal a day.
  • Being poor is knowing you’re always under a microscope: Human Services, Housing Assistance, Social Security…but also, your friends, your family, and strangers who seem to think you’re lazy, unmotivated, or stupid for being in the situation you’re in.
  • Being poor is scraping enough money to go home to your family for Christmas and not having any gifts for them.
  • Being poor is using your stamps to buy pints of milk in glass bottles, then sitting outside of the supermarket, drinking the milk, rinsing out the bottle, and trading it in for a dollar cash so you can afford the co-pay on your prescriptions.
  • Being poor is never being able to afford to see a doctor for monthly cramps so bad they make you miss work; spending month after month for years hoping they just go away; and then finally getting seen and told you’re going to be infertile for the rest of your life, and that you could have avoided this had you come in sooner.
  • Being poor is sitting on a dusty brick sidewalk with a cheap recorder and a Goodwill hat, enduring snotty yuppie tourists, high school boys who make innuendos or say “get a day job”, police officers saying “You’re not doing anything illegal, but…”, and threats of physical violence from drunks, all in the hopes that someone will deign to put a dollar in.
  • Being poor is realizing that you will do just about anything necessary to feed your kids, including giving a blow job to a guy for $10.
  • Fifteen years ago, when I started in at a school, the packed that home room teachers got contained for each kid on opening day: 1 schedule, 1 emergency info form, 1 student handbook, 1 athletic dept. handbook 1 insurance form (AD&D plus emergency med. for school-related activities) and for a class of 20, three or four free/reduced lunch forms. You were supposed to give these to the students who asked for them, and get more if they weren’t enough. No one understood why I threw a hissy fit and made sure that there was one form per kid, just like all the other paperwork. Sometimes things do get slightly better. We now have cafeteria swipe cards, and the free kids and paying kids both just swipe their cards. The difference is that the paying kids have to top off their card balances with cash periodically.
  • Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about a utility bill that is the cost of your rent.
  • Being rich to poor is your father casually talking about half your years wages that he made in a week’s time.
  • Poor is living next to a crack house, being on a first name basis with the local prostitute, having murder weapons tossed in your back yard, and running from gangs.
  • Living in a house that’s literally falling apart. I used to get snow in my bedroom and water during thunderstorms.
  • By Katrina standards, however, my family was rich. We would’ve been able to evacuate. We had credit cards and family that would’ve helped us.
  • America, the land of opportunity, so long as you aren’t poor.
  • Being poor is hoping your bike doesnt break during your one hour cycle to work.
  • Being poor is walking for 3 hours to get to work because your bike broke.
  • Being poor is coming up with a different excuse every day why your not going to lunch (& dont eat any).
  • Being poor is thinking about the man who propositioned you while you were walking home some time back, and wondering just what he wanted to do to you or have you do to him, and how much he might be willing to pay for that.
  • Being poor is eating government commodity white rice with salt and pepper from packets that you kept from the last time you had fast food, and telling yourself that you actually prefer it that way.
  • Being poor is thinking of job benefits not in terms of health care, vacation, or retirement plans, but in terms of leftover or past-expiration-date food.
  • Being poor is being furious at the job interviewer who tells you that they won’t give you the nine-to-five office job because they don’t think that you can “adjust” from scrubbing out toilets on the graveyard shift.
  • Being poor is being furious at the manager of your rooming house for throwing away your bicycle because it was in such bad shape that he thought it had been abandoned there; surely no one would actually ride that thing.
  • Being poor is when people tell you that they think that you’re wasting your time and effort trying to get a better job, and they think that they’re doing you a favor.
  • Having been poor is weeping with joy and gratitude when you can afford an apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom of your own.
  • Having been poor is being amazed when you make it to the next paycheck with ten dollars in your bank account from the last one.
  • Having been poor is reading about thousands of people who used to have the comfortable middle-class existence that you have now, and have suddenly fallen through the cracks just as you once did, and really understanding for the first time what Satchel Paige said: “Don’t look back–something might be gaining on you.”
  • Being poor is not having eyeglasses until age 13 when you have needed them since age 4 and your grasp of the basics, like mathmatics, is without foundation, thereby closing the glorious door of science forever
  • Being poor is at age 14, using your entire first real paycheck to buy clothing for your younger siblings
  • Being poor is from age 14 on walking home three miles in the dark everyday after working after school because your family can’t survive without your paycheck
  • Being poor is making absolutely sure that you serve yourself last at all meals so that the younger kids can get their full share and so that you can be sure that your Mother gets to eat something as well
  • Being poor is watching your Mother die a slow agonizing death from cancer at home because your state doesn’t provide nursing home or hospice care for the indigent patient.
  • Being poor is not being able to escape watching your Mother die for even a minute because you don’t have a TV or a car or the price of a matinee movie ticket. Or money to hire someone to watch the young kids you are now responsible for.
  • Being poor is having, at age 18, to bath and clean your mother like an infant because the cancer has robbed her of her arms
  • Being poor is something you are inside forever.
  • Being poor, is having to share a bed with your three sisters in a house thats covered by tin and hoping it doesnt rain.
  • Being poor is being scared to take out the trash for fear of rats in the alley.
  • Being poor is hoping there’s not another drought so you have food to eat from the farm.
  • Being poor is rushing home so you can do your homework before nightime comes so you dont have to do it by candlelight instead.
  • Being poor is taking 5 years to finish high school because you have to work to pay for your private schooling.
  • Being poor is waking up your four year old at 3:30 in the morning to catch the bus in time to drop her at a seedy daycare, then make it to work on time.
  • Being poor is using your child’s piggy bank of dimes and nickels to pay for the ridiculous gas prices when you finally afford that car.
  • Being poor is walking up to your mom when you’re four, holding a toy and prefacing your request to buy it with “When you have money…”
  • Being poor is when your dinner consists of juice boxes because that’s all there is.
  • Being poor is being beat around by a baby-sitter you keep going to b/c they’re free
  • Being poor means learning by 7 that one meal a day is decent and real hunger doesn’t hit until at least the second day
  • Being poor is people asking you why you bothered to pick up that nickel on the ground
  • Being poor is never being liked by your friends’ parents because they think you must be a bad influence because you’re poor
  • Being poor is being bounced back and forth between different households who don’t really want you because your parents can’t afford to keep you.
  • Being poor means that holidays are no different than any other day: your mom is still working and there’s still no food in the house.
  • this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.
  • this is “being poor in one of the richest countries in the world”, being really poor is exactly like this, only much, much worse. Except perhaps without the status envy. Being really poor is walking 6 hours through the african night to the only hospital carrying your dead child, because you’ve heard the people there can bring the dead back to life. I’m not trumping your moving and honest writing. It just amazes me how humans are never happy, no matter what we have, if others have more.
  • What’s the problem with me saying that there’s a difference between not having funds, and living like white trash? Because you’re ignoring reality in a desperate need to find somebody to step on–oh yes, we may have been poor, but we weren’t white trash, you see. And it’s a very handy way to see oneself as permanently beyond the reach of all those horrors of poverty: People stay poor because they are bad; I am good; therefore I will never be poor again. Your “brush your teeth” comment is a good example of this kind of magical thinking. The notion that people might have dental problems despite being diligent about dental hygiene is not one you can entertain, because that would deflate the whole “poor people deserve it” argument. (And, of course, it all rests on the fallacy that all poor people are adults.) Instead of focusing on self pity and hopelessness, I think it’s a lot better focus on what can be done to fix what’s broken. As somebody who didn’t grow up poor, Brian, let me give you a big suggestion as to one of those things that can be done, and it’s not telling poor people to shut up and work harder. It’s extending the same safety net, social support and benefit of the doubt we give wealthy people that we give to poor people. Believe you me, it’s quite an eye-opener to find out that things you took for granted when you were a kid–you know, like the cops showing up when someone calls 911, or having a functioning lab in your science class–were not available to everyone.
  • Being poor means not having a working stove, good pots and pans or decent food to eat and having to skip a meal or two a day.
  • Being poor means no asthma treatment and gasping for air in Emergency Rooms praying to stay alive where you know youll be getting thousands of dollars in bills you wont be able to pay.
  • Being poor means being looked at with a mixture of disgust and pity by so called “loved ones” who shop for recreation who have endless money to waste.
  • Being poor can lead you to depend on God, because there is no one else that is going to help you. I am a Christian today because of the poverty I faced.
  • Being poor makes you realize what a sick and shallow society we live in.
  • people seem take out of this list what they put into it. You seem to want make this list examples of how people can’t, don’t or won’t help themselves. Interestingly, this is one of the reasons I put this one in the list: Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.
  • being poor means wondering if the lights will come back on
  • Being poor is one meal a day, if that.
  • Being poor is worrying about appendicitis every time you ovulate.
  • Being poor means always the library, never the book store.
  • being poor is feeling all the eyes judging you, measuring you, and coming to the conclusion that you don’t belong; when all you want is to be away in the comfortable place you don’t have.
  • being poor is being exploited by rich people while you smile, not to be fired.
  • being poor is paying a debt to the rich for being born in their world.
  • The problem is people who aren’t poor or who have never been poor often don’t grasp why it’s difficult to escape poverty — you can do everything right in terms of trying to improve your life situation (and there are many people who are poor do), and yet just one thing going wrong can mess the whole thing up.
  •  
    Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
izz aty

Why I Think Weed Sucks | Thought Catalog - 0 views

  • claudinator 3 months ago I smoke weed more than once daily and have for years I have an extremely active and successful job plus anything I have wanted I have achieved I used marijuana as a medicine for my insomnia because I rather not take sleeping pills and I also use marijuana to help me with my anger because I would rather not take pill so all I can say is everyone has there own opinion good or bad and nobody should rub it in other people's faces Flag 2 people liked this. Like Reply Reply Anonymous 1 week ago in reply to claudinator You forgot to mention how it also helps you forget punctuation and spelling.  Flag 2 people liked this. Like Reply
  • REASON WEED SUCKS #1: IT’S A WASTE OF MONEY (NOT APPLICABLE TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA)
  • REASON WEED SUCKS #2: IT MAKES YOU DUMB
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • REASON WEED SUCKS #3: IT MAKES YOU PARANOID AS SHIT
  • REASON WEED SUCKS #4: WEED IS THE ANTI-PRODUCTIVITY DRUG
  • REASON WEED SUCKS #5: YOU GET OBSESSED WITH IT
  •  
    "I used to smoke weed a lot. Throughout my four years of college, I probably smoked weed once a day on average (this average includes, for example, two-week stints of zero smoking as well as month-long binges of heavy consumption, when I'd smoke two to four times a day). My third year of school, I did an exchange program in Holland. The point is, I have been, at times, a total stoner. So, I mean: I get weed. I get it. But I quit smoking awhile ago, and now I think it sucks. Here's why."
izz aty

Democratic Schools | Education Revolution - Alternative Education Resource Organization - 0 views

  • Denmark Bernadotteskolen. Den Internationale Skole i Danmark, Copenhagen Den Demokratiske Skole, Viby Sj Det Frie Gymnasium, Kobenhavn Naestved Fri Skole, Naestved, Rislev Yggdrasil Skolen / Det Sydfynske, Stenstrup
  • France Ecole de la Neuville, Chalmaison La Prairie, Toulouse La Ferme des Enfants, Lablachere Lycee Autogere De Paris, Paris Lycee Experimental, Saint Nazaire
  • United Kingdom Center For Self-Managed Learning, Brighton Kilquhanity Childrens Village, Scotland Park School, Totnes, Devon Room 13, Scotland Sands School, Ashburton, Devon Self-Managed Learning College, Brighton Summerhill School, Leiston, Suffolk
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Sweden SEBOR Friskola, Borlange
  • There is no monolithic definition of democratic education or democratic schools
  • education in which young people have the freedom to organize their daily activities, and in which there is equality and democratic decision-making among young people and adults
  • These schools and programs take many forms and include public and private alternatives and homeschool resource centers
izz aty

Comprehensive school (England and Wales) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • In 1976 the future Labour prime minister James Callaghan gave a speech at Oxford's Ruskin College. He launched what became known as the 'great debate' on the education system. He went on to list the areas he felt needed closest scrutiny: the case for a core curriculum, the validity and use of informal teaching methods, the role of school inspection and the future of the examination system.
  • Comprehensive schools remain the most common type of state secondary school in England, and the only type in Wales. They account for around 90% of pupils, or 64% if one does not count schools with low-level selection.
  • Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, parents have a right to choose which school their child should go to. This concept of "school choice" introduces the idea of competition between state schools, a fundamental change to the original "neighbourhood comprehensive" model, and is partly intended as a means by which schools that are perceived to be inferior are forced either to improve or, if hardly anyone wants to go there, to close down
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  • Government policy is currently[when?] promoting 'specialisation' whereby parents choose a secondary school appropriate for their child's interests and skills. Most initiatives focus on parental choice and information, implementing a pseudo-market incentive to encourage better schools. This logic has underpinned the controversial league tables of school performance.
  • Supporters of comprehensive education argue that it is unacceptable on both moral and practical grounds to select or reject children on the basis of their academic ability
  • comprehensive schools in the UK have allowed millions of children to gain access to further and higher education after the age of 16, and that the previous selective system relegated children who failed the eleven-plus examination to a second-class, inferior education and hence to worse employment prospects.
  • the reality has been a levelling-down of provision and a denial of opportunity to bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who might once have expected to pass the eleven-plus exam and have the advantage of a grammar school education.
  • The most straightforward way for parents to ensure that their children attend what is perceived to be a "good" school now is to buy a house within its catchment area. This, critics claim, has led to de facto selection according to parents' financial means rather than their children's ability at passing exams.
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Use Diigo To Help Write Your Next College Essay or Term Paper - 0 views

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    Since the Internet is a tool that most students use to do research, and since most research papers are based on quotes used from various sources, Diigo provides a way to not only bookmark your sources, but also to manage and access your quotes, notes, and analysis.
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An Ecological Approach to Life: Urie Bronfenbrenner - 0 views

  • We often don't think about people in a historical context: we should. It is from within our contexts that our selves develop.
  • Dr. Bronfenbrenner developed an Ecological Systems theory to human development. It was revolutionary at the time--and in many ways still is. He wrote about about development as something occurring within five systems
  • Micro system: This is the setting in which I live. My family, peers, school, and neighborhood all populate this system. It is within the micro system that I spend most of my life and have most of my direct interactions. It's important to know that within this theory, I am not a passive recipient of experiences in these settings. I actively am involved in creating and deciding the contours of these experiences.
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  • Mesosystem: Refers to relations between microsystems or connections between contexts. This is the in between system. An example is the relation of family experiences to school experiences. If I don't feel safe at home for example, or my humans don't provide me with positive interactions, I'm not likely going to be successful in school. I won't have the skills from home to use and be skillful in school.
  • Exosystem involves the links between a social setting that I don't have an active role in and my immediate context. For example, I'm not directly involved in my human's marathon running. I'm influenced by it because when he's deep into training, I'm left alone more often and go on less walks. The exosystem, in this case marathon training, changes patterns of interaction with me. Involves links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual's immediate context.
  • Macrosystem: Describes the culture in which I live. Cultural contexts include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity.
  • Chronosystem: The final system involves the effect of time and transitions across a lifespan. Marriage, divorce, or the birth of a baby all are transitions in the human world that fall into the chronosystem.
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    "In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help... No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings." - U. Bronfenbrenner
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Inclusive Education In Malaysia Education Essay - 0 views

  • Inclusive education in Malaysia originated from the ‘special education’ agenda as defined in the Education Act 1996 (1998) and its approach is referred to this tradition.
  • These mandates are intended to promote equal rights and access to education for persons with disabilities. The ‘educability’ criterion assumes that there are children who are uneducable within the public school system and thus these children are catered to within community-based rehabilitation (CBR) settings (MOE, 2006). CBR programmes are government-initiated, centre-based programmes at the community level aimed to provide education that emphasises therapy and rehabilitation to children with learning disabilities (Kuno, 2007). CBR programmes are quite detached from the mainstream school system. However, in practice, the division between both provisions is less definite, and students who should benefit from them become victims of bureaucratic procedures (Adnan & Hafiz, 2001).
  • Malaysia embarked on the first stage when the first school for the blind was opened in 1929, followed by a school for the deaf very much later in 1954
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  • These schools were initiated under the programs of the Ministry of Social Welfare with the help of religious missionaries. Malaysia entered its second stage when professional preparation programs for special education were formally established by the Ministry of Education in 1961. Lacking its own expertise and technology, Malaysia entered its third stage when it began importing knowledge and expertise by sending its education professionals abroad for research degrees and in-service attachments in special needs education in the 1980s and 1990s, and attempting to customize what was learned to its national conditions. Malaysia’s participation in international workshops and activities of the UN and UNESCO and subsequent reforms as reflected in the Education Act (1998) describes the active development of policy and changes in practices during this period. In 1993, the first preservice teacher preparation leading to a Bachelor of Education degree program in special needs education was initiated in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The program was developed alongside a collaborative project in curriculum development with three universities in the United Kingdom, namely, the Universities of Manchester, Birmingham and Cambridge (Jelas, 1996; 1999).
  • The terms ‘special needs’ introduced in the Education Act 1996 (1998) are defined as follows: “Pupils with special needs’ means pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities” And ‘inclusive education’ is introduced as part of the continuum of services available for children with special needs: “Special education programme” means – A programme which is provided in special schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment; An integrated programme in general schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities; and An inclusive education programme for pupils with special needs and who are able to attend normal classes together with normal pupils” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 341)
  • However, the eligibility for special education placement is based on the ‘educability’ of children as assessed by a team of professionals. This is documented in the Act, which states: “(1) For government and government-aided schools, pupils with special needs who are educable are eligible to attend the special education programme except for the following pupils: physically handicapped pupils with the mental ability to learn like normal pupils; and pupils with multiple disabilities or with profound physical handicap or severe mental retardation. A pupil with special needs is educable if he is able to manage himself without help and is confirmed by a panel consisting of a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD, as capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 342) The eligibility dilemma
  • While the current public policy for children with special educational needs, particularly those categories of children classified as experiencing ‘learning disabilities’ have access to regular schools as stated in the Act, the ‘educability’ criteria contradicts the goals of providing equal education opportunities as stipulated in the United Nation’s Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993), The Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Biwako Millenium Framework for Action (UNESCAP, 2002).
  • Foreign experts are initially relied upon to provide the knowledge and to encourage its development prior to the emergence of a profession within a country. The first professionals to provide services are usually trained abroad. The second stage followed this first stage, in which colleges and universities established programs and departments to teach the discipline and prepare the professionals. The second stage leads to the third stage, in which colleges and universities import developed from abroad to achieve standards that characterised the discipline in more developed nations. During this stage, the concepts, theories and models of implementation found in the more developed countries are taught, applied and tested; some of which may transfer more successfully than others.
  • Before special programmes were available, students with special needs were described by their characteristics and by the instructional challenges they presented to teachers. When the education system began to respond to the needs of each emerging group of special needs students, services were established and eligibility criteria determined. From that point on, a child was identified (for school and placement purposes) as having or experiencing a ‘special educational need’ and if he or she is “able to manage him or herself without help” (Education Act 1996, 1998), the child will be eligible for a given programme or service. This process was repeated as each new group of special needs students emerged – for example, children with visual and hearing impairments in the 1960s, children with mild intellectual in the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and children with dyslexia.
  • in the Education Act 1996 (1998) that the perspectives of professionals (“a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD” p. 342) have the most power in determining the way children are categorised and whether these children are “capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998)
  • policy makers and professionals continue to see special schools and classes as well as categories as having an important place in provisions. Responses at the Ministerial level revealed an emphasis on diversity and acceptance of human characteristics as problematic and that learning difficulties are technical problems that require specialised discipline knowledge that cannot be dealt with in the “normal classes with normal children” (Education Act 1996, 1998 p. 341).
  • The National Report on the development of education states: Inclusion in Malaysia subscribed to the concept of placing SEN students into mainstream classes to be educated alongside their peers, either with or without additional support, and within the present school system. This concept of IE (inclusive education) might not be in line with the ideal concept based on “acceptance, belonging and about providing school settings in which all disadvantaged children can be valued equally and be provided with equal educational opportunities … (MOE, 2004, p. 28),
  • Even though inclusive education was implemented at the policy level more than 10 years ago and school participation has rapidly increased quantitatively, Malaysia is far from reaching its goal of providing “a responsive education path for every child and youth with SEN” (MOE, 2004)
  • The emphasis on the ability “to cope with mainstream learning” seemed consistent with the integration models that came about in the 1980s. Integration models mainly focused on placing students with mild disabilities, identified and “diagnosed” as having special needs in mainstream schools. In such models, students must adapt to the norms, expectations, styles, routines and practices of the education system instead of the education system adapting to the learner (UNESCO, 2008). The integrated programme is the dominant format for delivering services to special needs students in Malaysia, then and now.
  • Once placed, few special education students returned to the regular education class on full-time basis. Although the special classroom and special schools continued as options, integrated programmes (placement in regular classrooms) for students with visual and hearing impairments are available with support from the resource teacher
  • Historically, the disenchantment of many special educators and the concern of the efficacy of the prevailing approach (Ainscow, 1994; Meyen & Skrtic, 1995; Sorrells, Rieth & Sindelar, 2004; Stainback & Stainback, 1992) raised questions about how best to assure a quality and equitable education for students with disabilities and spawned the push for a more inclusive approach to special education programming. While these reforms were mandated in the United Nations Declarations and UNESCO’s Framework of Actions on special needs education of which Malaysia’s policy on inclusive education subscribes to, the focus on diagnosis, prescription, and intervention continued to be central to determining eligibility and making placement decisions. Thus, although special education practices had changed, the grounding assumptions of human pathology and organisational rationality (Biklen, 2000; Oliver, 1996; Skrtic, 1991) have not been critically examined. In this context, special education is used to maintain and legitimise exclusion of students with disabilities within a school culture and system characterised by competition and selection (Skrtic, 1995; Corbett, 1999; Slee, 2001; Kearney & Kane, 2006).
  • While the philosophical basis of including SEN students into mainstream schools is accepted as a policy, the continued legitimization of paradigms that exclude SEN students is also acknowledged by rationalising between the “ideal” and the “not-so-ideal” concept of inclusive education. This ambivalence is reinforced by the following statements: Prior to inclusion, especially in the early part of their formal education, SEN students are equipped with relevant basic skills and knowledge to enable them to cope with mainstream learning. Only those who are diagnosed capable to cope with mainstream learning would be included fully or partially. (MOE, 2004, p. 29)
  • In principle, Malaysia is committed to providing education for all with the implementation of compulsory education in 2003 as evident by a high participation rate of 98.49 per cent (MOE, 2004). This statement of intent towards compulsory education for all which was an amendment of the Education Act 1996, however, did not include children with disabilities
  • The radical perspective that leads to a reconceptualisation of special educational needs have been well documented for the past twenty years (Barton, 1988; Lipsky & Gartner, 1989; Ainscow, 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994; Clark et. al., 1998; Donoghue, 2003) and critiques argued and showed evidence how the education system creates rather than remediate disabilities (Skrtic, 1991; Corbett, 1999; Vlachou, 2004; Carrington & Robinson, 2006). The new perspective on special educational needs is based on the view that the way forward must be to reform schools in ways that will make them respond positively to pupil diversity, seeing individual differences as something to be nurtured. But, as cautioned by Ainscow (1994): This kind of approach is only possible in schools where there exist a respect for individuality and a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports problem-solving. Such cultures are likely to facilitate the learning of all pupils and, alongside them, the professional learning of all teachers. Ultimately, therefore, this line of argument makes the case that increasing equity is the key to improvements in schooling for all. (Ainscow, 1994, p12)
  • Education in Malaysia is driven largely by an examination–oriented system characterised by curriculum rigidity and rote learning rather than critical and independent thinking. Like schools in Singapore and Hong Kong (Poon-McBrayer, 2004), school leadership are in great pressure to compete for the best examination results in terms of the percentages of passes and the number of A’s acquired by students in public school examinations
  • The culture of elitism compels parents to prepare their children to be accepted into high ranking or fully residential schools which usually achieve high scores in examination results.
  • Although the ‘intertwining of the standards and inclusion agenda’ can lead to positive consequences (Ainscow et al, 2006), the emphasis on the preparation and drill for the public examinations therefore, left little or no time for teachers to accommodate individual learning needs of students in general. Media reports on schools’ and students’ performance intensify competition and further marginalise SEN students, who, to a large extent are not expected to compete. Competing priorities make it more difficult for schools to fully include children with SEN.
  • Continued advancement of special needs education in Malaysia will require bifocal perspectives. One focus has an international perspective and requires Malaysians’ awareness of the international body of literature and trends in practice that enables them to take advantage of the knowledge and experience gained by those in other countries. Malaysia may also profit especially from knowledge provided by its Asian neighbours namely Japan, India and China, or other countries that seems to be struggling with many of the same issues.
  • effective special needs education services require awareness of social and educational traditions, social philosophies that manifest in schooling and school culture and ways of resolving conflict that may be unique to one country and the impact these qualities have on general and special needs education services (Peters, 2003).
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Issues A to Z - Education Week - 0 views

shared by izz aty on 04 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • These pages contain brief but thorough, research-based background essays on important education issues in America today. Each page includes links to research citations, to definitions of related education terms, and to relevant stories from the Education Week and Teacher Magazine archives. You'll also find links to pertinent reports, Web sites, and organizations.
  • A Nation at Risk Accountability Achievement Gap Adequate Yearly Progress After-School Programs Alternative Teacher Certification Assessment Character Education Charter Schools Choice Class Size College Access Comprehensive School Reform Desegregation Distance Learning Dropouts English-Language Learners High School Reform Home Schooling Leadership Low-Performing Schools No Child Left Behind Parent Involvement
  • Prekindergarten Private Schooling Privatization of Public Education Professional Development Reading Religion in Schools Rural Education School Construction School Finance School-to-Work Social Promotion Special Education Standards Student Health Student Mobility Teacher Quality Technology in Education Title I Tracking Violence and Safety Vouchers Year-Round Schooling
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You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It - Christina Hoff Sommers... - 0 views

  • In April 2012, following the celebration of International Women's Day, the Swedes formally introduced the genderless pronoun "hen" to be used in place of he and she (han and hon).
  • Egalia, a new state-sponsored pre-school in Stockholm, is dedicated to the total obliteration of the male and female distinction. There are no boys and girls at Egalia—just "friends" and "buddies."
  • Classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White have been replaced by tales of two male giraffes who parent abandoned crocodile eggs. The Swedish Green Party would like Egalia to be the norm: It has suggested placing gender watchdogs in all of the nation's preschools. "Egalia gives [children] a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be," says one excited teacher.
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  • Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a genetic condition that results when the female fetus is subjected to unusually large quantities of male hormones—adrenal androgens. Girls with CAH tend to prefer trucks, cars, and construction sets over dolls and play tea sets
  • Androgyny advocates like our Swedish friends have heard such stories many times, and they have an answer. They acknowledge that sex differences have at least some foundation in biology, but they insist that culture can intensify or diminish their power and effect.
  • Hunter College psychologist Virginia Valian, a strong proponent of Swedish-style re-genderization, wrote in the book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, "We do not accept biology as destiny ... We vaccinate, we inoculate, we medicate... I propose we adopt the same attitude toward biological sex differences."
  • As one Swedish mother, Tanja Bergkvist, told the Associated Press, "Different gender roles aren't problematic as long as they are equally valued." Gender neutrality is not a necessary condition for equality. Men and women can be different—but equal. And for most human beings, the differences are a vital source for meaning and happiness. Since when is uniformity a democratic ideal?
  • To succeed, the Swedish parents, teachers and authorities are going to have to police—incessantly—boys' powerful attraction to large-group rough-and-tumble play and girls' affinity for intimate theatrical play
  • Boys' imaginative play involves a lot of conflict and imaginary violence; girls' play, on the other hand, seems to be much gentler and more peaceful. But as Paley looked more carefully, she noticed that the girls' fantasies were just as exciting and intense as the boys—though different. There were full of conflict, pesky characters and imaginary power struggles.
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