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izz aty

Independent school (United Kingdom) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...endent_school_(United_Kingdom)

independent school english education england united kingdom private school state school schooling ESTEkiv

shared by izz aty on 12 May 14 - No Cached
  • History
  • Edward Thring of Uppingham School introduced major reforms, focusing on the importance of the individual and competition, as well as the need for a "total curriculum" with academia, music, sport and drama being central to education
  • The Independent Schools Council say that UK independent schools receive approximately £100m tax relief due to charitable status whilst returning £300m of fee assistance in public benefit and relieving the maintained sector (state schools) of £2bn of costs
  • ...70 more annotations...
  • They were schools for the gentlemanly elite of Victorian politics, armed forces and colonial government. Often successful businessmen would send their sons to a public school as a mark of participation in the elite
  • the public school system influenced the school systems of the British Empire, and recognisably "public" schools can be found in many Commonwealth countries
  • The Direct Grant Grammar Schools (Cessation of Grant) Regulations 1975 required these schools to choose between full state funding as comprehensive schools and full independence
  • Until 1975 there had been a group of 179 academically selective schools drawing on both private and state funding, the direct grant grammar schools
  • Both these trends were reversed during the 1980s, and the share of the independent schools reached 7.5 percent by 1991
  • 119 of these schools became independent.
  • share of the independent sector fell from a little under 8 percent in 1964 to reach a low of 5.7 percent in 1978
  • changes since 1990 have been less dramatic, participation falling to 6.9 percent by 1996 before increasing very slightly after 2000 to reach 7.2 percent, as seen at present.
  • England
  • As of 2011[update] there were more than 2,600 independent schools in the UK educating some 628,000 children, comprising over 6.5 percent of UK children, and more than 18 percent of pupils over the age of 16
  • According to a study by Ryan & Sibetia,[7] "the proportion of pupils attending independent schools in England is currently 7.2 percent (considering full-time pupils only)".
  • Most independent schools, particularly the larger and older institutions, have charitable status
  • Most public schools developed significantly during the 18th and 19th centuries, and came to play an important role in the development of the Victorian social elite
  • Independent schools, like state grammar schools, are free to select their pupils, subject to general legislation against discrimination
  • Selection
  • principal forms of selection are financial, in that the pupil's family must be able to pay the school fees, and academic, with many administering their own entrance exams - some also require that the prospective student undergo an interview, and credit may also be given for musical, sporting or other talent
  • Nowadays most schools pay little regard to family connections, apart from siblings currently at the school.
  • Only a small minority of parents can afford school fees averaging over £23,000 per annum for boarding pupils and £11,000 for day pupils, with additional costs for uniform, equipment and extra-curricular facilities.[2][12]
  • Scholarships and means-tested bursaries to assist the education of the less well-off are usually awarded by a process which combines academic and other criteria.[13][14]
  • generally academically selective, using the competitive Common Entrance Examination at ages 11–13
  • Schools often offer scholarships to attract abler pupils (which improves their average results)
  • Poorly-performing pupils may be required to leave,
  • Conditions
  • generally characterised by more individual teaching
  • much better pupil-teacher ratios at around 9:1;[16]
  • more time for organised sports and extra-curricular activities
  • longer teaching hours (sometimes including Saturday morning teaching) and homework, though shorter terms
  • a broader education than that prescribed by the national curriculum, to which state school education is in practice limited.
  • Educational achievement is generally very good
  • As boarding schools are fully responsible for their pupils throughout term-time, pastoral care is an essential part of independent education, and many independent schools teach their own distinctive ethos, including social aspirations, manners and accents, associated with their own school traditions
  • Most offer sporting, musical, dramatic and art facilities, sometimes at extra charges, although often with the benefit of generations of past investment
  • more emphasis on traditional academic subjects
  • Independent school pupils are four times more likely to attain an A* at GCSE than their non-selective state sector counterparts and twice as likely to attain an A grade at A-level
  • Some schools specialise in particular strengths, whether academic, vocational or artistic, although this is not as common as it is in the State sector.
  • A much higher proportion go to university
  • set their own discipline regime
  • In England and Wales there are no requirements for teaching staff to have Qualified Teacher Status or to be registered with the General Teaching Council
  • impact of independent schools on the British economy
  • 2014 a report from Oxford Economics highlighted the impact that independent schools have on the British economy
  • independent schools support an £11.7 billion contribution to gross value added (GVA) in Britain. This represents the share of GDP that is supported by independent schools
  • Independent schools support 275,700 jobs across Britain, around 1.0% of all in employment in Britain
  • the report quantified the savings to the taxpayer derived from c.620,000 British pupils at independent schools choosing not to take up the place at a state school to which they are entitled. This results in an annual saving to the taxpayer of £3.9 billion, the equivalent of building more than 590 new free schools each year
  • the report highlighted the additional value to Britain’s GDP that results from the higher educational performance achieved by pupils at independent schools
  • many of the best-known public schools are extremely expensive, and many have entry criteria geared towards those who have been at private "feeder" preparatory-schools or privately tutored
  • the achievement of pupils at independent schools in Britain results in an estimated additional annual contribution to GDP of £1.3 billion.
  • Criticisms
  • often criticised for being elitist
  • often seen as outside the spirit of the state system
  • the treatment of the state sector as homogeneous in nature is difficult to support
  • Although grammar schools are rare, some of them are highly selective and state funded boarding schools require substantial fees
  • Even traditional comprehensive schools may be effectively selective because only wealthier families can afford to live in their catchment area
  • may be argued that the gap in performance between state schools is much larger than that between the better state and grammar schools and the independent sector
  • Smithers and Robinson's 2010 Sutton Trust commissioned study of social variation in comprehensive schools (excluding grammar schools) notes that "The 2,679 state comprehensive schools in England are highly socially segregated: the least deprived comprehensive in the country has 1 in 25 (4.2 percent) of pupils with parents on income benefits compared with over 16 times as many (68.6 percent) in the most deprived comprehensive"
  • Every 2.3 pupils at an independent school supports one person in employment in Britain
  • large number (c. one third[citation needed]) of independent schools provide assistance with fees
  • The Thatcher government introduced the Assisted Places Scheme in England and Wales in 1980, whereby the state paid the school fees for those pupils capable of gaining a place but unable to afford the fees
    • izz aty
      izz aty on 12 May 14
       
      1980 Assisted Places Scheme: financial aid
  • The scheme was terminated by the Labour government in 1997, and since then the private sector has moved to increase its own means-tested bursaries.
  • Some parents complain that their rights and their children’s are compromised by vague and one-sided contracts which allow Heads to use discretionary powers unfairly, such as in expulsion on non-disciplinary matters. They believe independent schools have not embraced the principles of natural justice as adopted by the state sector, and private law as applied to Higher Education
  • Nowadays, independent school pupils have "the highest rates of achieving grades A or B in A-level maths and sciences" compared to grammar, specialist and mainstream state school
  • pupils at independent schools account for a disproportionate number of the total number of A-levels in maths and sciences.
  • In 2006, pupils at fee-paying schools made up 43 percent of those selected for places at Oxford University and 38 percent of those granted places at Cambridge University (although such pupils represent only 18 percent of the 16 years old plus school population)
  • A major area of debate in recent years has centred around the continuing charitable status of independent schools, which allows them not to charge VAT on school fees. Following the enactment of the Charities Bill, which was passed by the House of Lords in November 2006, charitable status is based on an organisation providing a "public benefit" as judged by the Charity Commission.[23]
  • "ceteris paribus, academic performance at university is better the more advantaged is the student's home background".
  • In 2002, Jeremy Smith and Robin Naylor
  • they also observed that a student educated at an independent school was on average 6 percent less likely to receive a first or an upper second class degree than a student from the same social class background, of the same gender, who had achieved the same A-level score at a state school
  • The same study found wide variations between independent school, suggesting that students from a few of them were in fact significantly more likely to obtain the better degrees than state students of the same gender and class background having the same A-level score
  • Richard Partington at Cambridge University[29] showed that A-level performance is "overwhelmingly" the best predictor for exam performance in the earlier years ("Part I") of the undergraduate degree at Cambridge
  • A study commissioned by the Sutton Trust[30] and published in 2010 focussed mainly on the possible use of U.S.-style SAT tests as a way of detecting a candidate's academic potential. Its findings confirmed those of the Smith & Naylor study in that it found that privately educated pupils who, despite their educational advantages, have only secured a poor A-level score, and who therefore attend less selective universities, do less well than state educated degree candidates with the same low A-level attainment
  • Independent sector schools regularly dominate the top of the A-level league tables, and their students are more likely to apply to the most selective universities; as a result independent sector students are particularly well represented at these institutions, and therefore only the very ablest of them are likely to secure the best degrees.
  • In 2013 the Higher Education Funding Council for England published a study [31] noting, amongst other things, that a greater percentage of students who had attended an independent school prior to university achieved a first or upper second class degree compared with students from state schools
izz aty

Using Pictures for Lessons | Junk Mail Catalogs: A Treasure-Trove for Language Teachers - 0 views

www.njcu.edu/...schwartz.html

pictures images ideas lessons activities writing speaking grammar resources reference using language learning education learning language

shared by izz aty on 15 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Teachers can easily use junk mail catalogs to create a picture file and then design lessons based on the pictures. This article briefly explains the benefits of using pictures, offers some suggestions for using pictures from junk mail catalogs, and describes three lesson plans
  • Pictures are a great incentive for language production and can be used in many ways in the classroom. "Specifically, pictures contribute to: interest and motivation; a sense of the context of the language; a specific reference point or stimulus" (Wright 19)
  • The lesson plans discussed below are for speaking, grammar, and writing activities
  • izz aty on 15 Aug 11
     
    Focus on Speaking/Writing:          This is for students at beginning and intermediate levels. The objective is to practice asking and answering questions. Each student needs one picture. (Pictures of people from various ethnic, economic, age, and gender groups are particular]y useful. Fashion catalogs are good sources of such pictures.) The procedure is as follows: First, as a class, have the students generate a list of interview questions. Write them on the board. Then distribute the pictures to the students. Tell them they will become the person in their picture. The students must create a biography for that person. Give the students time to think. Next, divide the students into pairs. Tell them to take turns interviewing each other, using the questions generated earlier. Students should give answers based on the identities they created for the person in their picture. As a follow-up, students can write a one-paragraph biography of their person. Focus on Grammar: This works well with intermediate-level students. The objective is to practice using comparatives and superlatives. The materials needed are sets of pictures--one set per student--which show similar objects; e.g.,a set that shows different kinds of shoes, a set that shows different kinds of hats, or watches, or cars, etc. The directions for the activity are: Give one set of pictures to each student. Tell students they should use comparatives and superlatives (which have been taught prior to doing this activity) to describe the objects in their pictures. They should write as many sentences as possible. When students have finished writing, they should form small groups and read their sentences to each other. 'They should check for errors, both spoken and written, and discuss whether they agree or disagree with the statements made about the objects in the pictures. This activity also lends itself to a discussion of culture--for example, if the pictures present items of clothing, teachers can
izz aty

Breaking News English ESL Lesson on Facebook and MySpace - 0 views

www.breakingnewsenglish.com/...071108-facebook_myspace.html

facebook myspace social networking social media advertisement advertising marketing privacy lesson plan reading listening writing speaking esl english language learning language web2.0 education learning teaching

shared by izz aty on 08 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 08 Sep 11
     
    Facebook and MySpace start 'hyper-targeting' The world of advertising is set to change as social networking sites open up their pages to advertisers. The sites Facebook and MySpace are now seemingly locked in a battle to win over advertisers by offering them exclusive access to visitors' pages on their websites. Both sites will allow companies to place targeted adverts based on the information their users have provided in their profile. There is a huge amount of data for advertisers to aim at, including geographical details, hobbies, employment, likes and dislikes and a whole world more. This opens up enormous potential for advertisers for what is now being called 'hyper-targeting'. The sites have calmed fears that private information might be used. MySpace has assured its users that only data they choose to be made public will be available to advertisers. The social networking sites have hundreds of millions of users, half of whom logon to their personal pages on a daily basis. The sites allow people to connect with others across the globe and are now an important part of people's lives. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described how his new ads would work: "It's no longer just about messages that are broadcast by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends," he said. Zuckerberg described how advertisers will also use Facebook to advertise: "The core of every user's experience on Facebook is their page and that's where businesses are going to start as well," he explained. He added: "The first thing businesses can do is design a page to craft the exact experience they want people to see." Companies such as Coca Cola, Microsoft and Sony have already signed up.
izz aty

Rafeef Ziadeh - We Teach Life, Sir! - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

causes palestine israel children people media tv mass media poetry poem literature life teach education language english rafeef ziadeh patience bombs weapon

shared by izz aty on 11 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 11 Mar 12
     
    Today, my body was a TV'd massacre. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response. And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions. But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don't you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children? Pause. I look inside of me for strength to be patient but patience is not at the tip of my tongue as the bombs drop over Gaza. Patience has just escaped me. Pause. Smile. We teach life, sir. Rafeef, remember to smile. Pause. We teach life, sir. We Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky. We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies. We teach life, sir. But today, my body was a TV'd massacre made to fit into sound-bites and word limits. And just give us a story, a human story. You see, this is not political. We just want to tell people about you and your people so give us a human story. Don't mention that word "apartheid" and "occupation". This is not political. You have to help me as a journalist to help you tell your story which is not a political story. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre. How about you give us a story of a woman in Gaza who needs medication? How about you? Do you have enough bone-broken limbs to cover the sun? Hand me over your dead and give me the list of their names in one thousand two hundred word limits. Today, my body was a TV'd massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits and move those that are desensitized to terrorist blood. But they felt sorry. They felt sorry for the cattle over Gaza. So, I give them UN resolutions and statistics and we condemn and we deplore and we reject. And these are not two equal sides: occupier and occupied. And a hundred dead, two hundred dead, and a thousand de
izz aty

BBC News - How blind Victorians campaigned for inclusive education - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...blogs-ouch-29327232

english education english special ed dissertationZ

shared by izz aty on 08 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Over the past 30 years there has been a greater effort, backed up by law, to integrate disabled children into mainstream education. But in the Victorian era they often attended educational institutions supported through philanthropic fundraising.
  • To encourage donations, schools emphasised the "miseries" of sensory deprivation.
  • Unhappy about these negative representations of disabled people, an un-named "intellectual blind man" of the era said: "I assure you it is not blindness, but its consequences, which we feel most painfully, and those consequences are often laid on us most heavily by the people who are loudest in their expressions of pity."
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  • The names of these early activists are all but forgotten today. However, their views on the importance of including, rather than segregating, blind and deaf children, and their powerful advocacy that they should be heard and given appropriate rights, make their views seem strikingly modern.
  • "Special education" emerged in Britain and Europe during the second half of the 18th Century. Thomas Braidwood established a school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh in 1764, which moved to Hackney in London in 1783 due to increased demand for places.
  • first school for blind pupils opened in Liverpool in 1791
  • London's School for the Indigent Blind, founded at St George's Fields Southwark in 1799, was by the 1860s educating 160 boys and girls in reading, writing and "useful" trades, intended to provide for their future employment.
  • 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the state subsidised school fees for some pupils so that attendance did not push families into poverty - education was neither free nor compulsory until later in the century
  • Charitable schools were founded primarily as residential institutions intended to provide protection, board, lodging and education to their pupils. Yet the practice of shutting away "blind, deaf and dumb" children in so-called "exile schools" was opposed by an increasingly vocal group of activists in the mid 19th Century.
  • institutions "immured" their pupils, treating them like prisoners. They were degrading and they perpetuated "pauperism"
  • The campaigners noted that inclusion promised to benefit all society, not just the deaf and blind themselves.
  • Organisations such as the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, founded by Elizabeth Gilbert in 1854, established workshops for blind handicraftsmen so that workers received better prices for their products than for those produced in institutions.
  • Whilst the association encouraged basket making, some campaigners claimed that these traditional trades were symbolic of a system that failed to recognise people's potential or range of talents.
  • Biography of the Blind, written in 1820 by James Wilson, a self-taught blind man who wrote the book "with a view of rescuing my fellow sufferers from the neglect and obscurity in which many of them are involved."
  • Charities were not always appreciated. Activists claimed that too much of the money donated to the dedicated charities went on buildings and non-disabled staff, rather than on the welfare of the blind pupils themselves. Many of them imposed social and moral restrictions on who could apply for assistance. Some campaigners argued that it would be better if the donated money was paid directly to blind people themselves, to enable them to live in their own homes and support their families.
  • The education of blind and deaf children in specialist institutions remained the norm until recent years. Far greater effort now goes into integrating disabled children into mainstream schools, and has been backed up by new laws. But integration is not the same as inclusion, and even in 2014 campaigners are still arguing that there is further to go before disabled children are fully included in schools. They say there needs to be greater recognition that they have a right to an education and should be given support in ordinary classes, not in special units.
izz aty

Wifehood and Motherhood are Not the Only Ways to Paradise - 0 views

www.suhaibwebb.com/...-not-the-only-ways-to-paradise

motherhood parenthood parenting marriage relationship love religion islam muslimah education society sexism wife family

shared by izz aty on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • The Prophet (saw) makes it clear that his Sunnah is to marry, and that women and men are to be supporters of one another, and that following this Sunnah is better than not following it. At the same time, the examples of Asiyah and Maryam and others, show that although there is an ideal of a Muslim family that we should all try to emulate, we are not defined by that family alone. The root of worship is a relationship with Allah (swt). All other relationships should ideally stem from this one. It may sometimes be the case that a person did not marry for one reason or another. This makes them no less in fulfilling their purpose of creation – to worship Allah.
  • Adam was created to worship Allah, but his ROLE was to be the father of all mankind. Does this result in a MANDATE that all men must be fathers to fulfill their purpose? No. There are numerous examples of great scholars from the history of the Ummah, such as Imam an-Nawawi, al-Zamakshari, Bishr al-Hafi, and even Ibn Taymiyyah – who never married and never had children. Are they less in fulfilling their purpose? No – rather they are cornerstones of the scholarship of the Ummah.
  • Eve was created to worship Allah, but her ROLE was to be a companion to Adam. Does this result in a MANDATE that all women must be wives? No. It is the Sunnah to marry and for this reason it is the best example to strive for. But we should not make it such that unmarried women (or men) are somehow less than any one else. Their reward is with Allah if they fulfill their purpose of worshipping him.
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  • The purpose was to validate single sisters who want to get married and have children [but that's not happening for whatever reason] and let them know that there are other roles even a Mother of the Believers had played without having the blessing of kids.
  • “Notwithstanding the issue of whether or not `A’isha was on the correct side (the consensus is that she wasn’t), the prominent role she played shows that the earliest of Muslim women —a wife of the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself— thought it conceivable that a woman could take such a leadership role over a group of Muslims. At no time did she strive to be head of state and actually took a role deferring to Talha and al-Zubayr. Yet, to one of the pioneers and masters of Qur’anic exegesis, a woman could take a leading role in the affairs of the Muslims.”
  • izz aty on 31 May 12
     
    Why, as a general community, are we not putting the same pressure on women to encourage them to continue to seek Islamic knowledge? Higher education? To make objectives in their lives which will carry over and aid them in their future familial lives, if such is what is meant for them? Perhaps it's because we're obsessed with the idea that women need to get married and become mothers and that if they don't, they have not reached true success.
izz aty

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

fiqhofsocial.media/-publicizing-their-sins-online

islam social media

shared by izz aty on 10 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • “The internet is a reflection of our society and that mirror is going to be reflecting what we see. If we do not like what we see in that mirror the problem is not to fix the mirror, we have to fix society.” Vint Cerf, one of the ‘fathers of the internet’
  • Islamically, there are two hadith of the Prophet (s) that govern the publicizing of sins.
  • Principle 1: Don’t Publicize Your Own Sins
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  • Principle 2: Don’t Publicize the Sins of Others
  • Privacy Settings Are Not a Veil
  • Who Do You Follow? It’s really awkward when you meet a brother at the masjid who is married with kids, follow him on Instagram, and then see that while he posts normal pictures, he is following 200 swimsuit models on Instagram.
  • Unseen Consequences In the book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, the author makes a point about how teens consider their public spaces private. In other words, if they’re posting goofy photos with their friends and leaving comments, they can’t fathom why a random adult who has nothing to do with them would view it. While logically that may be true, it’s just not the case. The internet is forever.
  • Your profile is not limited to just a Facebook page. Your profile encompasses the sum of what you post, people you follow, and pages you’ve liked. Two questions that are great points of introspection: Would I be ok with how my social profiles look if I were to suddenly pass away? Would I be comfortable with my profile if I was “friends” with the Prophet (saw) online? Or if he was to see my Snapchat story history?
  • go out of your way to cut off even the smallest of doubts about your behavior.
  • Societal Pressure
  • Embarrassing Others
  • Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you do not know (24:19).
  • We have a natural curiosity to find out what others are up to, but it is part our faith to leave this alone. There is a story about the Prophet Musa (as). During a drought, he went out to the desert with 70,000 people and supplicated for rain. Nothing happened. Musa was expecting the supplication to be answered, and then Allah (swt) revealed to him that among them is a person who has been challenging Allah with sins for the past 40 years, and to call out on that person to repent because the rain is withheld due to him. So Musa called out to the people for this sinner to repent. The sinner looked around and saw no one coming forward, and he realized this was about him. He did not want to go forward and expose himself. So he put his head down and said, “My Lord I have disobeyed You for 40 years and You have always given me respite. I come to you in obedience so accept it from me.” He had barely finished this supplication when a cloud appeared overhead and rain started pouring down. Musa then called out to Allah confused – no one came forward, yet the rain was sent down. Allah (swt) told him, “O Musa, I did not expose him when he was disobeying Me, then do you expect Me to expose him while he is obedient to Me?”
  • A Muslim is a Muslim’s brother: he does not wrong him or abandon him. If anyone cares for his brother’s need, Allah will care for his need; if anyone removes a Muslim’s anxiety, Allah will remove from him, on account of it, one of the anxieties of the Day of resurrection; and if anyone conceals a Muslim’s fault, Allah will conceal his fault on the Day of resurrection (Abu Dawud).
  • “Oh you who have believed with their tongues yet faith has not entered their hearts! Do not back-bite the Muslims, and do not seek to discover their faults, for whoever seeks after their faults, Allah will seek his faults. And if Allah seeks after someone’s faults, He will expose him even (what he committed) in his home.”
  • Every one of my followers will be forgiven except those who expose (openly) their wrongdoings. An example of this is that of a man who commits a sin at night which Allah has covered for him, and in the morning, he would say (to people): “I committed such and such sin last night,’ while Allah had kept it a secret. During the night Allah has covered it up but in the morning he tears up the cover (sitr) provided by Allah Himself (Bukhari and Muslim).
  • The meaning of this Name is that Allah (swt) is aware of our sins, and yet He covers them up. He does not allow our embarrassing actions to become known to others. He protects us by keeping our faults from becoming public. He keeps even our largest sins hidden from those closest to us.
  • He is Al-Sitteer, and He covers your sins, asks you to repent, and He loves that you cover the sins of others
  • O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well being in this life and the next. O Allah, I ask You for pardon and well-being in my religious and worldly affairs, and my family and my wealth. O Allah, veil [sitr] my weaknesses and set at ease my dismay. O Allah, preserve me from the front and from behind and on my right and on my left and from above, and I take refuge with You lest I be swallowed up by the earth.
izz aty

Vocabulary-Lesson Plans and Activities | ESL Voices - 0 views

esl-voices.com/...vocabulary

academic academic word list vocabulary corpus esol word frequency words english language learning lesson plan resources esl teaching learning

shared by izz aty on 21 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Guessing Meanings From Context Learners who can guess the meanings of words from context are able to read and decipher words independently, outside of class and are prepared for the vocabulary included in standardized tests such as the TOEFL. Linguist Paul Nation suggests teaching students the following procedure for guessing the meaning of words in context. 1. Look at the unknown word and identify its part of speech. For example, is it a noun, verb, or adjective? 2. Next, look at the sentence containing the unknown word. If the word is a noun, what adjectives describe it? If it is a verb, then what nouns go with it? 3. Study the relationship between the sentence containing the unknown word and the other sentences. Are there cues like conjunctions (because, but, if)?  Are there any adverbs (however)? The possible types of relationships are cause and effect, contrasts, and summary . 4. Try to guess the meaning of the word. 5. Use an English-English dictionary to see if you were correct. New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary by Paul Nation.
  • Using  Graphic  Organizers Another effective strategy for teaching the meanings of words is the use of graphic organizers. There are literally dozens of styles, and each has its unique purpose. One example would be a vocabulary map for analyzing new words and their associations: On the board draw a circle or a square and write the word: Draw a circle next to it and place the part of speech Draw another for a synonym Draw one for antonym Underneath draw a square for a sentence using the word, another square for a picture representing the word, and another square for the definition of the word. Have students work in groups on one of these charts and then share their work with the class. Find more ideas for graphic organizers at Graphic Organizers Enchanted Learning.
  • Antonyms, Synonyms and Homophones Whenever students encounter a new word, they should record it into their vocabulary notebooks (see introduction) and add not only the meaning but as many associations as possible, including antonyms, synonyms, and homophones related to the word. Antonyms are words that mean the opposite of each other. Example: The antonym of long is short. Synonyms are words that have similar meanings. Example: Some synonyms for long are lengthy and elongated. Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently. Examples: new, knew Homographs (or homonyms) are words that are spelled the same but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. Examples: wind (noun, air current) and wind (verb, operate by turning a key or handle). Not all words have homophones or homographs. Additional Sources: Online Thesaurus Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms
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  • Breaking Down Compound Words A compound word is a word made up of two other words. An effective method for understanding the meaning of a compound word is to break the compound word down into its components. Examples: drugstore (a store that sells drugs), lifeboat (a boat that preserves life)
  • Affixes: Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes Students can also learn the meanings of words by breaking them down into their roots and affixes. The root is the base word; the affix can be a prefix placed before the root or a suffix placed after the root. Some roots can appear alone, as well as with affixes; others appear only with affixes. Examples: port = to carry prefix ex = out, out of ex + port = export, to carry something out of an area im = in, into im + port = import, to carry something into an area suffix able = to be able transport + able = portable, able to be carried ex + port + able = something that can be carried out of an area Additional Sources: Wikipedia List of PrefixesMichigan Proficiency Exams-List of Prefixes Michigan Proficiency Exams-List of SuffixesList of Suffixes (UK) Wikipedia List of Latin words with English derivatives (Latin roots) Online Etymology Dictionary
  • Idioms and Phrasal Verbs Students need to master idioms and phrasal verbs if they are to feel at home in English. Idioms (idiomatic expressions) An idiom is a phrase or an expression with a special meaning that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its words. For example, to fly off the handle means to lose one’s temper or to get angry. You can find more idioms at http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/ Phrasal verbs A phrasal verb usually consists of a verb and a preposition, that together have a special meaning. For example, put off means to postpone. Sometimes a phrasal verb may consist of three parts. E.g., put up with means to tolerate. Note: Some phrasal verbs can be also be considered idioms (like put up with) when the meaning of the individual words is different from the meaning of the sum of its parts. You can find more phrasal verbs at http://www.learn-english-today.com/phrasal-verbs/phrasal-verb-list.htm Terminology  the technical vocabulary of a particular area. Terminology or jargon are words used to identify the technical vocabulary of a particular area or subject. For example, stethoscope, and blood pressure cuff, are terms used in the field of medicine. Word Games and Crossword Puzzles In addition to teaching your students strategies for dealing with learning new vocabulary, provide your students with vocabulary games and puzzles so they can practice. There are several great vocabulary games and puzzles in the word games area. ESL Voices Word Games
  • izz aty on 21 Feb 12
     
    When it comes to teaching vocabulary, one challenge is knowing which words and phrases to teach. There are several areas that should always be included in vocabulary instruction. In addition to single words, idioms: (time on my hands, getting cold feet) and phrasal verbs (get in, go out).  It's especially important for students to learn idioms, phrasal verbs, because there's no logical way to figure out their meaning from the individual words. Also keep in mind that reading is a channel for new vocabulary growth, so always include vocabulary exercises whenever you assign new reading material. It's also a good idea to have students keep a vocabulary notebook. The notebook could be organized into sections for words from novels, selected readings, or news articles, as well as vocabulary they've encountered at random. However the vocabulary books are organized, make sure everyone has the same plan. In this section there are several good strategies you can use for teaching vocabulary. There are also activities you can try with your students to increase their knowledge of English vocabulary.
izz aty

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory | Talk Video | TED.com - 0 views

www.ted.com/...transcript

memory brain pain health suffering tedtalk experience remember psychology social science

shared by izz aty on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • cognitive traps. This applies to laypeople thinking about their own happiness, and it applies to scholars thinking about happiness, because it turns out we're just as messed up as anybody else is
  • cognitive traps. This applies to laypeople thinking about their own happiness, and it applies to scholars thinking about happiness, because it turns out we're just as messed up as anybody else is.
  • There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present, is capable of re-living the past, but basically it has only the present.
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • The second trap is a confusion between experience and memory; basically, it's between being happy in your life, and being happy about your life or happy with your life. And those are two very different concepts, and they're both lumped in the notion of happiness.
  • he third is the focusing illusion, and it's the unfortunate fact that we can't think about any circumstance that affects well-being without distorting its importance. I mean, this is a real cognitive trap. There's just no way of getting it right.
  • They counted for nothing because he was left with a memory; the memory was ruined, and the memory was all that he had gotten to keep.
  • What this is telling us, really, is that we might be thinking of ourselves and of other people in terms of two selves.
  • The first of these traps is a reluctance to admit complexity. It turns out that the word "happiness" is just not a useful word anymore, because we apply it to too many different things
  • then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score, and maintains the story of our life, and it's the one that the doctor approaches in asking the question, "How have you been feeling lately?" or "How was your trip to Albania?" or something like that.
  • What defines a story? And that is true of the stories that memory delivers for us, and it's also true of the stories that we make up. What defines a story are changes, significant moments and endings. Endings are very, very important and, in this case, the ending dominated.
  • the remembering self is a storyteller.
  • "How much did these patients think they suffered?" And here is a surprise. The surprise is that Patient A had a much worse memory of the colonoscopy than Patient B.
  • The stories of the colonoscopies were different, and because a very critical part of the story is how it ends. And neither of these stories is very inspiring or great -- but one of them is this distinct ... (Laughter) but one of them is distinctly worse than the other.
  • And the one that is worse is the one where pain was at its peak at the very end; it's a bad story. How do we know that? Because we asked these people after their colonoscopy, and much later, too, "How bad was the whole thing, in total?" And it was much worse for A than for B, in memory.
  • Those are two very different entities, the experiencing self and the remembering self, and getting confused between them is part of the mess about the notion of happiness.
  • From the point of view of the experiencing self, if you have a vacation, and the second week is just as good as the first, then the two-week vacation is twice as good as the one-week vacation. That's not the way it works at all for the remembering self. For the remembering self, a two-week vacation is barely better than the one-week vacation because there are no new memories added. You have not changed the story. And in this way, time is actually the critical variable that distinguishes a remembering self from an experiencing self; time has very little impact on the story.
  • We actually don't choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences.
  • when we think about the future, we don't think of our future normally as experiences. We think of our future as anticipated memories.
  • basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn't need.
  • we go on vacations, to a very large extent, in the service of our remembering self
  • Why do we put so much weight on memory relative to the weight that we put on experiences?
  • there is a conflict between your two selves, and you need to think about how to adjudicate that conflict, and it's actually not at all obvious, because if you think in terms of time, then you get one answer, and if you think in terms of memories, you might get another answer. Why do we pick the vacations we do is a problem that confronts us with a choice between the two selves.
  • The distinction between the happiness of the experiencing self and the satisfaction of the remembering self has been recognized in recent years, and there are now efforts to measure the two separately.
  • now we are capable of getting a pretty good idea of the happiness of the experiencing self over time. If you ask for the happiness of the remembering self, it's a completely different thing. This is not about how happily a person lives. It is about how satisfied or pleased the person is when that person thinks about her life. Very different notion. Anyone who doesn't distinguish those notions is going to mess up the study of happiness, and I belong to a crowd of students of well-being, who've been messing up the study of happiness for a long time in precisely this way.
  • You can know how satisfied somebody is with their life, and that really doesn't teach you much about how happily they're living their life, and vice versa.
  • What that means is if you met somebody, and you were told, "Oh his father is six feet tall," how much would you know about his height? Well, you would know something about his height, but there's a lot of uncertainty. You have that much uncertainty. If I tell you that somebody ranked their life eight on a scale of ten, you have a lot of uncertainty about how happy they are with their experiencing self. So the correlation is low.
  • if you want to maximize the happiness of the two selves, you are going to end up doing very different things.
  • it turns out that climate is not very important to the experiencing self and it's not even very important to the reflective self that decides how happy people are
  • their experiencing self is not going to get happier. We know that. But one thing will happen: They will think they are happier, because, when they think about it, they'll be reminded of how horrible the weather was in Ohio, and they will feel they made the right decision.
  • When we looked at how feelings, vary with income. And it turns out that, below an income of 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans
  • 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat
  • money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery, and we can measure that misery very, very clearly.
  • n terms of the other self, the remembering self, you get a different story. The more money you earn, the more satisfied you are. That does not hold for emotions.
  • people are going to debate whether they want to study experience happiness, or whether they want to study life evaluation, so we need to have that debate fairly soon.
  • How to enhance happiness goes very different ways depending on how you think, and whether you think of the remembering self or you think of the experiencing self.
  • CA: Well, it seems to me that this issue will -- or at least should be -- the most interesting policy discussion to track over the next few years. Thank you so much for inventing behavioral economics.
izz aty

Lesson Plans: Using pictures - 0 views

teachers.net/...1479.html

pictures images ideas lessons activities writing grammar vocab education learning resources teaching reference language learning language english

shared by izz aty on 15 Aug 11 - Cached
  • save every picture from every magazine, calendar, and newspaper. I have my student aide cut them out and then I laminate them. I sort them into big manila envelopes into 1. people 2. animals 3.landscape scenes 4. single objects 5. situational scenes in whichpeople may be talking or laughing or crying..... (can't think of the others). Then I use them for EVERYTHING.
  • Materials Required: pictures cut from calendars, magazines, newspapers
  • izz aty on 15 Aug 11
     
    1. Kids get into groups and are given a stack of pictures into which I have put pictures from each of the above category. I usually put around 15-20 in each stack. When we do nouns.... I will place big signs on the board with "common" "proper" "abstract" "concrete" "plural" and any others we are studying. Their group has to go through their stack and find one to correspond with each topic AND they have to have a justification for each. 2. When I do prepositions, I give each student a situation picture and have them list as many preps. as they can find in each picture. I give a prize for the most found. 3. When we study characterization, I give each student one picture from the "people" envelope and have them write a brief character sketch based on what they perceive. 4. When I do verbs, I will give each row ONE picture. I tell the students in the first seat of each row to take out one piece of paper. When I say "GO", the first person looks at his picture and comes up with one action verb. Then very quickly writes it down and passes it back. The next person has to write down another action verb and pass it back to the next. It just keeps going. The person in the back runs the picture up to the front person. I usually start another picture back as soon as the first person passes it to the next. In about 4-5 minutes, I stop and the row with the most and the most accurate verb list gets a prize or pig points. 5. When we do short stories, I give each person an envelope in which I have put 2-3 people (characters), 1 place picture (setting) and 1 picture from the situational. After we have discussed the "elements",they begin to write their own short story based on what they have in front of them. 6. When I teach a vocabulary word that is a little more difficult, I always go to my stack to find one that illustrates it. For example, I found a perfect picture of a clear blue lake with not one ripple to show them "placid". They never forgot that word. 7.
izz aty

Short Stories for ESL Learners | The Wedding - 0 views

www.rong-chang.com/...s127.htm

resources teaching learning language learning language english esl short story materials lesson

shared by izz aty on 27 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 27 Sep 11
     
    It was a strange day-Thursday-for a wedding. Who ever heard of a Thursday wedding? "Well," Harlan explained to everyone, "the Thursday event is going to cost me half of what Friday, Saturday, or Sunday would cost me. And a 50-percent discount is a lot of money, believe me." Everyone believed him. Harlan knew how to count his pennies. The early evening event was at Cowfish, a popular restaurant and meeting place on campus. Nevin and Janelle arrived at 5 p.m. for pictures, but the photographer had been delayed on the freeway because someone had jumped off an overpass. So they decided to take a stroll on campus. Walking westward, they soon found a fish pond. About a dozen small turtles were swimming in the eastern end of the pond. As Janelle kneeled at water's edge, all the turtles swam toward her. A couple of them climbed out of the water and onto the footpath. They wanted food, but a sign advised visitors not to feed the fish or turtles. So she apologized to the turtles-not that she had any turtle food anyway, she added. Nevin and Janelle took pictures of themselves and the turtles. They walked back to Cowfish just before the ceremony was to begin. Some of the preacher's words were unclear because of static on the portable microphone. After the preacher pronounced Harlan and Ellen husband and wife, guests clapped and cheered. The photographer, who had gotten "some great pictures" of the fallen body, busily took pictures of the bride and groom, the preacher, the parents, and the guests. After their meal, Nevin and Janelle said good night to the newly married couple. This was the fourth marriage for Harlan, so everyone was hoping it would be his last. Then Nevin and Janelle walked out to their car, holding hands and talking about what would be the same and what would be different at their own wedding. That is, if they didn't decide to just drive to Las Vegas for a quick marriage, with Elvis performing at their ceremony. "That way, our only
izz aty

Being Poor - Whatever - 0 views

whatever.scalzi.com/...being-poor

poverty society culture community politics economy finances education reference

shared by izz aty on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • ...205 more annotations...
  • 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.
  • izz aty on 25 Jan 13
     
    Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
izz aty

Let teachers teach - 0 views

thestar.com.my/...story.asp

education school schooling learning malaysia teachers teaching

shared by izz aty on 21 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • After so many years, even your spirit can get a little dull and the zeal you may have once had to bring out the potential you recognised in your students, slowly slips away, submerged by all the other urgent, but not nearly as important duties.
  • Things that jabbed, that even pierced or hurt at one time may have become so familiar that you couldn’t imagine it any other way. It is a little like going for a wax job or a foot massage. At first it hurts and then your body slowly gets accustomed and you feel numb to the pressure.
  • There are undoubtedly places where teachers have to take on a whole gamut of non- teaching duties simply because there is no one else to do these things. If teachers don’t patch up the cracks no one else will. If teachers don’t control the information communication paraphernalia no one else will. If teachers don’t manage student data, records or payments, again no one else will. So we are basically left with no choice. Should that even be, we sometimes wonder.
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  • Yes, I have a dream. That one day teachers will be allowed to fulfil the purpose of their calling. To facilitate the impartation of knowledge, skills and experience. To mould young minds. To educate. To teach.
  • izz aty on 21 Feb 12
     
    How do teachers who are constantly called to fix technical glitches or spend all their non-teaching periods keeping a record of furniture, writing receipts or updating student data, be able to plan and prepare new pedagogical strategies, classroom activities or even upgrade their personal professional development? How does one find the time and more importantly the energy to meet students, counsel if needed, advise, coach, train, or mentor when the greater part of the time is spent on these "other" duties? This definitely is not anything new. For decades teachers have been crying out to anyone who was willing to listen about workload that was not related to their profession, and about the unnecessary filling of forms, the preparing of redundant and overlapping files.
izz aty

Raising a Polite Child | Parenting With Love - 0 views

www.parenting-with-love.com/raising-a-polite-child

parenting parenthood family children education behaviorism learning society lifestyle

shared by izz aty on 15 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • 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.”
  • Do as I say or do as I do?
  • trying to ‘train’ children to be polite can be counter-productive, especially if we begin when they are too young to do it naturally
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  • if we treat children with politeness and respect, and if they see us treating each other the same way, they will imitate us as they grow. They watch everything we say and do, and are learning, “Oh, so that’s how people are supposed to do it”!
  • “Said without feeling, these can be empty words. How often do we say thank you to the person at the supermarket checkout, without even thinking. It has simply become a habit. Rather we should teach children how to show genuine appreciation to people who give or share something with them. We can help them do this in age-appropriate ways right from the beginning, especially if we understand that young children show their feelings in non-verbal ways”.
  • each child shows their appreciation spontaneously in their own unique way
  • Positive non-verbal behaviours young children use to show appreciation: A smile A nod Direct eye contact Playfulness A physical touch they initiate Excited behaviour A shout of joy Skipping or jumping up and down
  • we should allow children to communicate their appreciation spontaneously. As they grow older and watch how we show appreciation to them and to other people, including words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, doing the same will come naturally
  • Though prompting children to be polite can be counter-productive, we can facilitate them showing appreciation by involving them when we are being polite or friendly to someone. “Lets go and wave goodbye to Granny”, doesn’t put the child on the spot like, “Say goodbye to Granny now”.
  • If we make it fun, the child will probably enjoy participating.
  • Rather than formal words like “Thank you, we had a lovely time”, he encouraged each child to share something they had done with the aunt or uncle at the beach-house, and draw a picture of it to show appreciation of something that was shared and enjoyed.
  • parents who prompt their children to say things they consider polite, are really feeling anxious. They see their children as an extension of themselves and want their children to act as they would, in case another other adult assumes they are not raising them with good manners. Thinking fast, I looked at the dad, smiled at him, and said, “Don’t worry. Big people find it easy to speak to little people, but little people find it hard to speak to big people”. He looked visibly relieved that I didn’t see him as a bad father.
  • Teaching children good manners begins with us showing them respect.
  • izz aty on 15 Dec 13
     
    "Every parent wants to have polite, respectful children with good manners. Fortunately nature is on our side. Children learn by copying what we do and love to do everything 'just like mommy and daddy do', as it makes them feel they are being 'big'."
izz aty

How Television Has Changed | Reading Comprehension Text - 0 views

www.rhlschool.com/read6n8.htm

printables esl education writing resources teaching reference language learning language english vocabulary spelling

shared by izz aty on 16 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 16 Aug 11
     
    Can also use this as a dictoglass (read everything) + comprehension (give out the text with gaps) combo activity. It's good to test their listening skills as well as help with their vocab. Use self-correction so that they can pay close attention to their own writing. The text: "You really have to get very old before you realize you're old. I'm in my middle fifties and I don't feel old yet. However, sometimes I look back at my childhood and __1__ things to the way life is for __2__ kids. Some things have certainly changed. One area of change is television. Some changes have been improvements. Some changes, on the other hand, have been __3__. When I started school, most people didn't have a television; TV was just beginning to get __4__. My father decided to go all out and buy a 16 inch black and white Motorola set. I still remember watching the Lone Ranger save people from the __5__ guys on that awesome electronic machine. That was exciting! Now, __6__ have larger pictures in full color. The pictures are clearer and the sound is much more realistic. The new high definition sets are made to rival __7__ screens. The variety and quantity of programming has __8__ greatly. There are hundreds of channels and more shows than one person could ever watch. There are many fine entertainment and educational __9__. There's also a lot of garbage, stuff that most parents don't want their kids exposed to. Overall, we have more choices, and that is good. I wonder what __10__ will be like when today's kids are my age."
izz aty

How to Write about Autism (or any other group, for that matter) | The Autism Anthropolo... - 0 views

theautismanthropologist.wordpress.com/...ny-other-group-for-that-matter

autism ASD definition writing

shared by izz aty on 13 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • how (not) to write about autism (or any other group, for that matter)
  • Quite often, the mechanisms of degradation to do with ‘help’ are infinitely more subtle. This doesn’t excuse us from our obligation to be mindful of them.  The goal should be to balance, as much as possible, the unequal power relations between those in a position of privilege and those in a position of need. How is that done? By acknowledging that those who are disadvantaged, disenabled or marginalized have their own idea of who they are, what led to the position they’re in, and most importantly – what should be done about it.
  • quite often, ‘help’ is merely used as a means of earning influence or respect, or just as a way to make money. I’m not saying that profiting from helping others is necessarily immoral, mind you. I am saying that it’s not necessarily unselfish. The details – e.g. who’s helping whom and in what way – matter.
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  • There are many political and social implications to ‘help’ that we should constantly be mindful of as well. When someone in a position of power – political, financial, social, whatever – decides to help someone disadvantaged, the inequality between them, the same inequality that led to their respective positions in the first place, is both strengthened and made painfully visible.
  • when offering our help, even to those who seem to greatly need it, we need to be conscious of how we use the power that we just won over them.
  • Every group of people has differences of opinion among its members. These might be subtle differences, or they may be huge and insurmountable. It’s easy to mistakenly think that if you heard one perspective, or indeed ten perspectives, then you know the whole story, but that is never the case
  • Forcing one’s own idea of what another person or group of people need is not help. It is arrogance and audacity
  • Autism Speaks is actually a terrible source for information about autism, for various reasons, but in order to know that, one still has to do some amount of research. He would only then learn that quoting it as “the leading organization advocating for people on the autism spectrum” is so grossly inadequate as to invalidate all his further claims almost instantly
  • Never assume the group you’re writing about is homogenous
  • You want to help people? Help them on their own terms
  • If you’re going to write about a large population, you must assume that such differences exist, and – this is crucial – you must actively seek out these differences. Don’t stop researching until you find a controversy, and then try and determine how deep rooted and widespread it is.
  • His attack is based on the premise that his critics represent a small few, an insignificant minority; that they were driven to criticise him under a false pretence (namely that his article was poorly sourced; an accusation that was a) absolutely true, and b) not even the main issue); and therefore can be – if not completely ignored – swiftly brushed aside. Let us look beyond his arrogance and unshakable self-conviction. Here’s the important thing: You don’t get to choose who represents the group you’re writing about. You’ve come across members of the group who feel you’re completely wrong in everything you say about them? They’re probably right. If you couldn’t anticipate their angered reaction, you’re obviously just not sufficiently familiar with the field to write about it.
  • Do not take liberties in defining the people you write about
  • When a person with Asperger’s identifies as an Aspie, he or she is making a conscious choice – a political choice – to adopt the label of Asperger’s in a very particular way.  To raise certain connotations. To emphasize some aspects of their neurology; indeed of their being. It’s not up to us NTs to impose this label on everyone with an AS diagnosis. This is a discourse from which we are more or less excluded, and for good reasons. Similar (though different) examples exist in more or less every other minority group.
  • “enough with this political correctness already! I should be allowed to call people what I want”. No you shouldn’t. And if you don’t understand why, you haven’t done your research, and you shouldn’t be writing about this group of people in the first place.
  • it’s been my experience that by far more people are offended by “person with autism”, than by “autistic person”. This is because the former implies that autism is something external to the person, while the latter implies that autism is an important part of who that person is. There is no consensus in this matter; but I’ve been given the impression that while some find “autistic” distasteful, few are offended by it. However, a great many people find “person with autism” extremely offensive, and I’ve been repeatedly told this was, in most cases, preferable. See, for example here and here
  • Do not mention prevention or cure for autism as desirable technologies
  • regardless of whether autism is seen as a disability or not, it is nearly always experienced by autistic people as an inseparable part of their very being, of who they are. To say autism should be prevented, is telling them you wish they had never been born. To hope for an autism cure, is telling them you would have chosen to have them killed and replaced by someone else entirely – if only you had the technology to do so. It is categorically hurtful, insulting, immoral and cruel. So… Just don’t do it.
izz aty

"We're the future - YOUR future." | Psychopomp - 0 views

psychopompblog.wordpress.com/...were-the-future-your-future

people society london sociology crime democracy young people youth youth issues uk protest riot demonstration politics government law illegal education economy employment

shared by izz aty on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 17 Feb 12
     
    Riots in London have everyone talking today, although violence and disorder have been going for days according to reports. Causes and motivations are still unclear, and as with most crises they will probably remain so until after the fact. Whatever the reasons, youth in London and increasingly across England are tossing aside any sense of citizenship they might have had in favour of selfish, violent behaviour against a society which, judging from the quotes that are emerging, they perceive as having abandoned them. Why is this spreading so far and so fast? Riots of this magnitude erupt when people are pushed to their limits, unhappy with a government which has betrayed them or does not represent them. We applaud when people demonstrate their desire for democracy with this kind of passion, and comdemn police who silence them. In London, however, the police seem to be determinedly holding to their responsibility not to hurt citizens - and in pro-democracy protests, rioters do not upload photos with themselves and the commercial goods they have managed to steal.
izz aty

Main - Opinion - Erna Mahyuni - The language that divides us @ Wed Nov 16 2011 - 0 views

www.themalaysianinsider.com/...the-language-that-divides-us

education malaysia children life development maths science maths and science PPSMI english esol

shared by izz aty on 16 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 16 Nov 11
     
    Teaching science and maths in English was a bad idea from the start. Let's be honest here; - half our teaching force, especially in the rural areas, can barely speak English, much less teach in it. If poor English standards don't matter, then why do our politicians send their children abroad for studies? There is a simple fix to our horrible public education system: Force all members of parliament and state assembly representatives to send their children to public schools and universities. Make it a condition of office - if a politician is elected, then his or her children must be enrolled locally or face a punitive fine for each year spent abroad. Right now the politicians in power don't care because they don't have to worry about their children's future. Malaysian parents have to worry not just about the rising cost of education but slipping standards.
izz aty

Why private schools are better than state - Parentdish UK - 0 views

www.parentdish.co.uk/...-schools-are-better-than-state

english education england education ESTEkiv united kingdom private school independent school

shared by izz aty on 12 May 14 - No Cached
  • beautiful buildings, steeped in history, the acres of immaculate grounds, the committed teachers, the exam results, the range of extra-curricula activities
  • Or maybe I'd simply prefer my children to mix with other children and parents whose speech is not punctuated with 'innit'.
  • I've taught in independent and state schools.
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  • Not all teachers in state schools are work-shy; some are brilliant. But there are too many teachers who are not
  • In the last 10 years, only 17 out of 400,000 teachers in state schools were dismissed due to incompetence
  • In the state school, once-a-term staff meetings were something to get through as quickly as possible.
  • Parents thought nothing of looking me right in the eye at parents' evenings and reminding me that they were paying a lot of money for their child's education, so they expected results. I felt personally accountable. Do parents dare to tell a teacher in a state school that their taxes are paying their salaries, so shape up?
  • class size. I've taught classes with 15 pupils and classes with 35. Children in smaller classes feel more confident about contributing, and I had more time for them. I knew the name of every pupil in the school; I felt part of a close knit community and so did they.
  • Independent schools can't allow any child to slip through the net. At the weekly staff meeting we discussed each year group, flagging up any pupil who was struggling and an action-plan was devised. My department also had a weekly meeting where pupils were discussed.
  • Autonomy and accountability, that's what makes the independent system successful. Bad teachers just go.
  • Do independent schools simply hot-house children to get them through exams? Yes, and why not? But extra-curricular activities in independent schools are there to help children flourish, whether they are academically gifted or not.
  • Everyone connected with independent education expects success - the teachers, parents and children. There is no embarrassment about applying to Oxbridge or any Top Ten university, it's the norm. I accept that not all state schools have low expectations, but too many have an 'us and them' attitude towards top universities.
  • As an only child, I wanted my son to start in the prep system and carry on making friends for life
  • it gives parents power to provide the best for their children; you are the customer.
  • Until the state system is run on those lines, giving parents power, attracting the very best teachers with salaries and working conditions to match, then money will always buy better education and no one should feel guilty if they choose to buy it.
  • It could be deduced that we live in a society where your chance of success is determined before birth and that there is little reason to compete in 'the race of life' since some people are starting that race 150 yards in front and the top positions in our society are largely predetermined.
  • The trick is to find a school where the kids (and their parents) are committed to learning. Such schools do not have to be private, and the teachers in both private or state schools are generally excellent.
  • The grammar schools and the private schools are roughly comparable in academic performance. They outperform the comprehensives, for the simple reason for this is that the kids ending up in the comprehensives tend to be the ones who failed the 11+ examinations (i.e. their parents did not get them private tutoring, etc.).
  • The most stuck up children come out of private school.
  • This is the third time she has been back to private education and we feel we have much more of a say, as we are employing them to do a service and feel much more involved in her education.
izz aty

Learning Disabilities (LD) | Center for Parent Information and Resources - 0 views

www.parentcenterhub.org/...ld

LD identification LD dissertationZ

shared by izz aty on 30 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Learning disability is a general term that describes specific kinds of learning problems. A learning disability can cause a person to have trouble learning and using certain skills. The skills most often affected are: reading, writing, listening, speaking, reasoning, and doing math. “Learning disabilities” is not the only term used to describe these difficulties. Others include: dyslexia—which refers to difficulties in reading; dysgraphia—which refers to difficulties in writing; and dyscalcula—which refers to difficulties in math.
  • there are certain clues. We’ve listed a few below. Most relate to elementary school tasks, because learning disabilities tend to be identified in elementary school.
  • school focuses on the very things that may be difficult for the child—reading, writing, math, listening, speaking, reasoning
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • IDEA’s Definition of “Specific Learning Disability”
  • instead of using a severe discrepancy approach to determining LD, school systems may provide the student with a research-based intervention and keep close track of the student’s performance. Analyzing the student’s response to that intervention (RTI) may then be considered by school districts in the process of identifying that a child has a learning disability.
  • There are also other aspects required when evaluating children for LD. These include observing the student in his or her learning environment (including the regular education setting) to document academic performance and behavior in the areas of difficulty.
  • Once a child is evaluated and found eligible for special education and related services, school staff and parents meet and develop what is known as an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. This document is very important in the educational life of a child with learning disabilities. It describes the child’s needs and the services that the public school system will provide free of charge to address those needs.
  • Supports or changes in the classroom (called accommodations) help most students with LD. Common accommodations are listed in the “Tips for Teachers” section below. Accessible instructional materials (AIM) are among the most helpful to students whose LD affects their ability to read and process printed language. Thanks to IDEA 2004, there are numerous places to turn now for AIMs. We’ve listed one central source in the “Resources Especially for Teachers” section.
  • Assistive technology can also help many students work around their learning disabilities. Assistive technology can range from “low-tech” equipment such as tape recorders to “high-tech” tools such as reading machines (which read books aloud) and voice recognition systems (which allow the student to “write” by talking to the computer). To learn more about AT for students who have learning disabilities, visit LD Online’s Technology section, at: http://www.ldonline.org/indepth/technology
  • izz aty on 30 Sep 14
     
    "Supports or changes in the classroom (called accommodations) help most students with LD. Common accommodations are listed in the "Tips for Teachers" section below. Accessible instructional materials (AIM) are among the most helpful to students whose LD affects their ability to read and process printed language. Thanks to IDEA 2004, there are numerous places to turn now for AIMs. We've listed one central source in the "Resources Especially for Teachers" section. Assistive technology can also help many students work around their learning disabilities. Assistive technology can range from "low-tech" equipment such as tape recorders to "high-tech" tools such as reading machines (which read books aloud) and voice recognition systems (which allow the student to "write" by talking to the computer). To learn more about AT for students who have learning disabilities, visit LD Online's Technology section, at: http://www.ldonline.org/indepth/technology"
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