Group items tagged

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Classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White have been replaced by tales of two male giraffes who parent abandoned crocodile eggs.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.

left represents the past

right represents the future

The ideal adult margins, based on graphology, would be to have the left margin a little wider than the right margin. This would be a healthy left/right balance, meaning you have a healthy relation to the past & future. 

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

Alcohol is a depressant, but caffeine, cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy are stimulants. Marijuana is not really classified as either because it has a mix of effects. Depressant does not mean it causes depression, it means that it slows down certain metabolic processes. For marijuana this is primarily manifested by muscle relaxation and lowered blood pressure, or basically the relaxed or drowsy feeling most people experience when on this drug. Stimulant is basically the opposite, it stimulates certain metabolic processes. This is why people who are on cocaine or meth or ecstasy are generally energized, and addicts are frequently very thin because stimulants suppress the appetite and speed up metabolism. Some people who smoke marijuana have almost the opposite effect than most people - they get very anxious. It causes increased heart rate (and low blood pressure, that was intentional in case you are questioning that), and that can make people feel anxiety. That effect is considered a stimulant effect.

All stimulants and depressants alter brain function, usually temporarily but if abused or overused can cause a permanent change in brain function. Stimulants are more known for causing permanent chemical imbalances when abused, even permanent psychosis (hallucinations, or general misperception of reality). Many people have the misperception that prescribed stimulants (amphetamines like Ritalin, Adderal, Focalin, etc.) are completely safe because of their use as a pharmaceutical. While they are safe if used as prescribed, they still have potential to cause the same side effects as illegal stimulants if they are taken more than prescribed or in different ways (like snorting, or breaking a capsule, or injecting).

The other problem with lumping marijuana into these categories is that unlike most of them, marijuana is not chemically addictive. Drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine cause a chemical change in the brain which causes a chemical addiction in addition to a physical addiction. Though many will try to tell you that it is chemically addictive, they are really mistaking physical addiction for chemical addiction. If it makes you feel good, you want to keep feeling that way so you keep doing the drug. Chemical addiction includes severe withdrawal symptoms with abrupt discontinuation of the drug. While there are some withdrawal symptoms associated with it's use, they are usually restricted to people who smoke a lot for a long time, and the symptoms are not medically dangerous. If a cocaine addict were to stop abruptly, that person risks death from withdrawal symptoms if not properly taken care of. A more practical explanation would be: you don't see very many people lose their job, house, family, and belongings because of pot, but that situation is frequent among cocaine or meth addicts. The other complication of marijuana is that there is a legitimate medical use for it, while cocaine, meth, ecstasy, and alcohol have no medical use. Just in case someone tries to argue this, cocaine and heroin used to be used in hospitals about a century ago, but are no longer used because the health risks of their use far outweigh the benefits.

The morning ceremony began with a speech from our Chancellor, Her Royal Highness (HRH) The Princess Royal, who warmly congratulated our graduates on their achievements: “I acknowledge that your journey in getting to this point has been far from easy and I know that for all of you, it represents a long and sustained commitment to a programme of study.” The Princess Royal continued: “Some of you have had to remain in full-time work while studying; others have had family or dependents to look after. And we must not forget those of you who have had to study completely by yourselves, with little or no tutored support. I know that our students invariably always complete their study programmes against the pressures of juggling a family and career and it is for this reason that I, on behalf of all those at the University of London, am particularly proud to see you all here today ready to graduate.”

A number of representatives from our supporting institutions also attended the reception, including Dr John Cribbin, School Secretary & Registrar for HKU SPACE

Also in attendance at the Chancellor’s reception was Julie Noone, Head of Kaplan Business School, who spoke of her pride at meeting HRH

First I explain something about the findings they reported. After the participant had completed the task, he immediately fell asleep. That has to be in past perfect/past.

Then I comment on the researchers' findings in the report. The researchers are quick to conclude that it was the task that caused the participant's exhaustion. What the researchers fail to address is that the participant had run a marathon earlier that day. Here I use the present tense to talk about what is in the report and I still use past perfect/past to talk about the events in their experiment.

"client" is used as a more formal setting because many people believe the word holds more weight (importance) than the word, "customer," which is considered more informal. The phrase "snob-factor" essentially means that the word has more meaning to certain people because it makes them feel more important.

However, I use the services of a law firm to assist me in writing a will. In that sense, I am a client of the lawyer / law firm. If my law firm were to simply call me a customer (which essentially, I am), I would be offended.

I think in your case, where your company sells both products and services, you would not go wrong to consider everyone as your "clients." It is more widely accepted (again, that "snob-factor" thing) in corporate business to consider those individuals who purchase your goods and services as clients.

I may be biased, but it seems to me that older teachers have vastly better stories and, usually, teaching strategies, than younger ones. Technologies will come and go, but a good teacher will make an impression forever. In short, don’t let your age be a reason not to pursue a career, or hire someone, as an ESL instructor. Schools are hungry for good dedicated teachers, and in my mind, an older candidate who has a true calling and depth of experience would be an asset to any school!

Helping Verbs!  Helping Verbs!  There are 23.... Am, is are!  Was and were!  Being, been, and be! Have, has, had!  Do, does, did!  Shall, should, will, and would! There are 5 more helping verbs:  may, might, must, can, and could! 

even if one were to believe that the sanctity of the courts is so fragile that a punitively deterrent punishment is required for the flinging of footwear, it is impossible to ignore the incongruous disparity in the punishments meted out to these two men for crimes of such vastly different seriousness.

Much has been said about the judge’s unbelievable comment when sentencing Noor Afizal. Apparently being a national bowler with a bright future is enough to let you escape jail time for rape.

what is this “bright future” the judge is thinking about? The man is a child rapist; he confessed to it. He should not be allowed to represent the country in anything at all.

A definition tells us what a word means and how it's used in our own time. An etymology tells us where a word came from (often, but not always, from another language) and what it used to mean.

The word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymon, which means "the true sense of a word." But in fact the original meaning of a word is often different from its contemporary definition. The meanings of many words have changed over time, and older senses of a word may grow uncommon or disappear entirely from everyday use. Disaster, for instance, no longer means the "evil influence of a star or planet," just as consider no longer means "to observe the stars."

New words have entered (and continue to enter) the English language in many different ways. Here are some of the most common ways.

Huzzaz (26) is about discovery and curation of videos -- it's an easy way to collect, sort, and take notes on your playlists, from both YouTube and Vimeo. If you love gathering videos on themes, you'll find this tool very powerful. Or, have your students curate playlists on choice topics! See an example (27).

Similar to Zaption, teacher-founded eduCanon (23) allows you to supplement a chosen video with all manner of add-ons to make it more interactive, from "reflective pauses" to audio clips to multiple-choice questions. You can also track responses with this tool. See an example (24).

VideoNot.es (20) is an app that allows you to take live time-coded notes on any video, and skip around by clicking on those notes -- and even better, it's integrated with Google Drive so saving and syncing your notes is simple. You have to install it to see this example (21).

. I have found no evidence that Americans don't get irony. It's one of those cultural myths, like, "The British are reserved." I don't know why people think this. We've invaded every country we've encountered.

I knew that Americans get irony when I came across that legislation No Child Left Behind. Because whoever thought of that title gets irony, don't they, because -- (Laughter) (Applause) — because it's leaving millions of children behind. Now I can see that's not a very attractive name for legislation: Millions of Children Left Behind. I can see that. What's the plan? Well, we propose to leave millions of children behind, and here's how it's going to work. 2:04 And it's working beautifully. In some parts of the country, 60 percent of kids drop out of high school. In the Native American communities, it's 80 percent of kids. If we halved that number, one estimate is it would create a net gain to the U.S. economy over 10 years of nearly a trillion dollars. From an economic point of view, this is good math, isn't it, that we should do this? It actually costs an enormous amount to mop up the damage from the dropout crisis.

the difference between the task and achievement senses of verbs. You know, you can be engaged in the activity of something, but not really be achieving it, like dieting. It's a very good example, you know. There he is. He's dieting. Is he losing any weight? Not really. Teaching is a word like that. You can say, "There's Deborah, she's in room 34, she's teaching." But if nobody's learning anything, she may be engaged in the task of teaching but not actually fulfilling it.

Therealhatman I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again.

Jmperson The last thing I saw was my alarm clock flashing 12:07 before she pushed her long rotting nails through my chest, her other hand muffling my screams. I sat bolt upright, relieved it was only a dream, but as I saw my alarm clock read 12:06, I heard my closet door creak open.

Miami_Metro Growing up with cats and dogs, I got used to the sounds of scratching at my door while I slept. Now that I live alone, it is much more unsettling.

During the British colonial era, schools used English as the medium of instruction. This continued after independence in 1957 and many English teachers either came from the United Kingdom or were trained there. "In the 1960s, one of the books read and discussed in English classes by sixteen-year-olds was George Orwell's "Animal Farm", recalled Andrew Yip, 60, a shopkeeper in Ipoh, Perak. In 1970, the Malaysian government began requiring all state-funded schools to use Malay to teach, to build nationalism; though English remained a compulsory subject. Many English teachers were phased out. Over the years, students' academic performances declined.

In the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment, an international benchmark on students' performance in reading, science and mathematics, Malaysian students were in the bottom third among 74 countries. By contrast, 15-year-old students in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea appeared to have the equivalent of another three or more years of schooling compared to Malaysian students.

To compensate, middle-class parents are increasingly sending their children for tuition, or to private schools, as they lose confidence in the quality of education in national schools.

away from the classroom, stupidity and smartness are really only relative to what it is one actually needs to know. Because, yes, Gemma hasn’t much of a grip on Ukraine – neither have I, but I’m a damn good bluffer – and neither can she nail the spelling of Barack Obama without making it sound like a delicious vitamin C drink. But as a beautician, Gemma is one of those girls I am constantly giving money hand over fist to.Gemma has a skill. Gemma will most probably have a thorough understanding of Shellac nail procedures and skin exfoliation. She’ll probably know how to remove excess upper-lip hair, push back cuticles and spray a Fantasy tan without missing elbows or staining knees. So, yes, Gemma seemingly can’t spell Barack Obama. But she will always be in employment.

We deride the differently skilled and slap down the not quite as sharp, but the country’s cogs turn via the energies of people not quite as bookish as you.

Gemma’s slight confusion that Obama is a high-level influencer in British politics – no Westminster pundit in the land would quibble at this suggestion. Also, her worry about provoking Russia and her fear of war aren’t silly in the slightest, they’re absolutely bang on the money

I’m not trying to ‘train’ him to have good manners, but if I want something from him, I always say ‘please’, and when he gives me something, I always say ‘thank you’. When he is older, he will automatically do those things too.”

trying to ‘train’ children to be polite can be counter-productive, especially if we begin when they are too young to do it naturally

The Philippines, where English is also spoken as a national language, was excluded from the 60 countries and regions whose English skills were measured by international education company EF Education First for the 2013 English Proficiency Index.

Some Asian countries, in particular Indonesia and Vietnam, have transformed their English proficiency over the six-year period. China has also improved, although less dramatically. Japan and South Korea, despite enormous private investment, have declined slightly.

11. Malaysia

Special education features instruction and interven-tions designed to meet the individual needs of each child with a disability. Through special education, the United States has developed instructional curricula and programs for teaching core competencies to chil-dren with disabilities.