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izz aty

Yookoso! Study Japanese language, Kanji; learn about Japanese travel, culture, life, mu... - 0 views

www.yookoso.com

japanese independent learning language learning learning language education

shared by izz aty on 31 May 11 - Cached
  • Are you studying Japanese, thinking of visiting Japan, interested in Japanese culture, people, products, etc.? If so, this site is for you. My name is Jeff Blum and I have been attempting to learn Japanese, off and on, for many years (my progress is very slow). During my studies (both independent and class-based) I have assembled notes summarizing key grammar constructs, word usage nuance, aspects of the language that regularly trip me up, etc. In fact, the name for this site (besides being, well, "welcoming") came from my desire to post my summary notes for the popular Yookoso! textbooks. I have also assembled a huge collection of links to the best sites on the Internet. All of these (well, actually I still haven't posted many of them yet), plus some of my favorite JPOP tunes and their lyrics I share with you here. If you have any feedback to offer, or especially if you want to contribute notes of your own or articles you have written, please do so at jmblum@yookoso.com.
izz aty

Six Word Stories - Teaching Village - 0 views

www.teachingvillage.org/...six-word-stories

teaching language learning language english fun ideas lesson lesson plan education

shared by izz aty on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • The process is simple: Students choose a picture and tell a story in six words. I had so much fun doing the activity myself I decided to use it with both my young learners and my more mature learners. It worked beautifully! Six words doesn’t intimidate anyone, so even my weakest writers enjoyed thinking of their stories. Six words also creates an effective framework for activating some micro-grammar awareness—especially word order in sentences, and the need for pesky little words in English (like BE verbs and articles).
izz aty

Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Resources for Learning SAT Vocabulary - 0 views

www.freetech4teachers.com/...s-to-learn-sat-vocabulary.html

technology resources tools teaching learning study education vocabulary language word english

shared by izz aty on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • Today, all of the sophomores and juniors in my school are taking the PSAT. That got me thinking about some of the many resources designed to help students learn PSAT and SAT vocabulary that I've come across over the last few years. Here are five resources worth checking out.
  • Vocab Ahead is a great service offering hundreds of videos designed to help students learn SAT and ACT vocabulary words.
  • Bubba Brain is a simple site packed with review games for students preparing for the SAT and AP exams.
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  • Vocab Sushi is designed to help students prepare for standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, and more.
  • EduFire is a tutoring service offering live video lessons.
  • Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of flashcards.
izz aty

LiveMocha review & Busuu review | Fluent in 3 months - 0 views

www.fluentin3months.com/busuu-livemocha-review

language learning education language learning independent learning social media blog

shared by izz aty on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • Over the last weeks, I have been attempting to learn German through various different interfaces. Some have been a huge improvement to how I learned previously, some can be helpful in particular ways, and some just aren’t for me at all. This post shares a little of my experience using both Busuu and LiveMocha. The reason I’m reviewing them together is that I find both their advantages and their disadvantages to be very broadly similar, even if the actual systems are very different and present different types of interfaces. I’ll start with how I think these can be useful and then say where I feel they fall short.
izz aty

Top 10 Ways to Manage Teacher Burnout - Combating Teacher Burnout - 0 views

712educators.about.com/...teacher_burnout.htm

education teacher teaching new teacher motivation support burnout school work reference

shared by izz aty on 09 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Every time you think a negative thought reword it in your own mind. Even though this might seem silly, it is the core of internal happiness.
  • create an overall task list that you need to accomplish and store this someplace where you can check it over each week. Then make yourself a daily to-do list that is reasonable and doable. Try to limit yourself to 3-5 tasks that you can accomplish in one day. Then when you mark them off the list you can feel a sense of accomplishment, and you will have something to celebrate.
  • Each time something happens beyond your control, you can just ask for the courage to change the things you can, the strength to accept the things you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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  • While teachers cannot change much of what is thrown at them, they can change their own attitudes towards these challenges.
  • When your workday is done, you need to leave the stresses of it and the rest of your life behind, even if only for fifteen minutes. Relaxation and meditation can rejuvenate the body and the spirit.
  • laughter often is the best medicine. The natural endorphins that are released while laughing help bring us relief from the stresses of the world.
  • Burnout can often be caused by getting caught in a rut. While on the Internet, search for new lessons or materials to help you teach an upcoming topic. Outside of school, find something that you've always wanted to try but haven't done yet.
  • try not to bring home work every night. You might want to consider going into school early so that you can complete your paperwork.
  • everyone needs a good night's sleep to function properly the next day. I know that I personally need at least seven hours to be productive the next day. Figure this number out for yourself and make a date with your bed each night. Your body will thank you!
  • stay away from those who are disgruntled. Instead, find someone who has a positive outlook on life and talk about teaching with them.
  • izz aty on 09 Aug 11
     
    Teaching can be a very stressful job which can sometimes lead to teacher burnout. This article focuses on the top 10 things you can do to combat teacher burnout. 1. Foster Positivity 2. Create Realistic To Do Lists 3. Accept That There Are Things You Cannot Change 4. Learn to Relax 5. Watch a Funny Movie 6. Try Something New 7. Leave Your Teaching at School 8. Get Plenty of Sleep 9. Talk to Someone Positive 10. Celebrate What It Means to Be a Teacher
izz aty

CanTeach: English Language Arts: Writing Prompts/Journal Topics - 0 views

www.canteach.ca/...prompts.html

writing topics ideas references education journal resources language learning english language

shared by izz aty on 18 Aug 11 - Cached
  • izz aty on 18 Aug 11
     
    Writing Prompts/Journal Topics
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

An Ecological Approach to Life: Urie Bronfenbrenner - 0 views

therapydogblog.blogspot.com/...cal-approach-to-life-urie.html

education children life bronfenbrenner sociology psychology ecological development growing positive self-improvement

shared by izz aty on 29 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • We often don't think about people in a historical context: we should. It is from within our contexts that our selves develop.
  • Dr. Bronfenbrenner developed an Ecological Systems theory to human development. It was revolutionary at the time--and in many ways still is. He wrote about about development as something occurring within five systems
  • Micro system: This is the setting in which I live. My family, peers, school, and neighborhood all populate this system. It is within the micro system that I spend most of my life and have most of my direct interactions. It's important to know that within this theory, I am not a passive recipient of experiences in these settings. I actively am involved in creating and deciding the contours of these experiences.
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  • Mesosystem: Refers to relations between microsystems or connections between contexts. This is the in between system. An example is the relation of family experiences to school experiences. If I don't feel safe at home for example, or my humans don't provide me with positive interactions, I'm not likely going to be successful in school. I won't have the skills from home to use and be skillful in school.
  • Exosystem involves the links between a social setting that I don't have an active role in and my immediate context. For example, I'm not directly involved in my human's marathon running. I'm influenced by it because when he's deep into training, I'm left alone more often and go on less walks. The exosystem, in this case marathon training, changes patterns of interaction with me. Involves links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual's immediate context.
  • Macrosystem: Describes the culture in which I live. Cultural contexts include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity.
  • Chronosystem: The final system involves the effect of time and transitions across a lifespan. Marriage, divorce, or the birth of a baby all are transitions in the human world that fall into the chronosystem.
  • izz aty on 29 Oct 11
     
    "In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help... No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings." - U. Bronfenbrenner
izz aty

How I Became an Unfair Teacher - Atlantic Mobile - 0 views

m.theatlantic.com/...371908

teaching education learning school

shared by izz aty on 03 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • But most of all, people remember injustices. False accusations of cheating. Getting singled out randomly for scolding. Points deducted on a cheap technicality. As a teacher myself, I vowed I’d do better, that I’d run a fair classroom where every student got a voice and a straight deal.
  • The asymmetries of the classroom are intense. With each teacher responsible for a hundred students or more, the typical kid occupies a teacher’s thoughts for—at best—a minute or two per day. But each student only has a handful of teachers. Every instructor looms large in her world, wielding power over her days, via class periods; her nights, via homework; and her future, via grades. She spends much of her time thinking about the teacher’s demands, the teacher’s expectations, the teacher’s preferences and inconsistencies.
  • So when a teacher briefly focuses attention on a particular student, it comes with the heat and intensity of a spotlight. A moment the teacher barely remembers might stick with the student for years.
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  • Classroom lessons may slip quickly through students’ fingers, but the classroom experience lingers in memory. Each teacher offers students a different model of authority and justice. We set our own standards of fairness and sometimes fail to honor them. A teacher swings a heavy club, and we can leave big, purple bruises if we’re not careful.
  • My biggest rule is a familiar cliché: Always ask before drawing conclusions. It seems simple, but it's a defense against instinct.
  • My own memories of petty student frustrations should have taught me what a wrecking ball a teacher can be. But they didn’t. The understanding came only after carelessly knocking a few of my own students to the ground, and then working—slowly, purposefully—to help them back up.
izz aty

6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...overlooked-dna-history-science

women science scientific women education research experiment sexism discrimination

shared by izz aty on 01 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Several people posted comments about our story that noted one name was missing from the Nobel roster: Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist who also studied DNA. Her data were critical to Crick and Watson's work. But it turns out that Franklin would not have been eligible for the prize—she had passed away four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the prize, and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously.But even if she had been alive, she may still have been overlooked. Like many women scientists, Franklin was robbed of recognition throughout her career (See her section below for details.)
  • Pulsars are the remnants of massive stars that went supernova. Their very existence demonstrates that these giants didn't blow themselves into oblivion—instead, they left behind small, incredibly dense, rotating stars.Bell Burnell discovered the recurring signals given off by their rotation while analyzing data printed out on three miles of paper from a radio telescope she helped assemble.The finding resulted in a Nobel Prize, but the 1974 award in physics went to Anthony Hewish—Bell Burnell's supervisor—and Martin Ryle, also a radio astronomer at Cambridge University.The snub generated a "wave of sympathy" for Bell Burnell. But in an interview with National Geographic News this month, the astronomer was fairly matter-of-fact.
  • despite the sympathy, and her groundbreaking work, Bell Burnell said she was still subject to the prevailing attitudes toward women in academia.
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  • "[And] it was extremely hard combining family and career," Bell Burnell said, partly because the university where she worked while pregnant had no provisions for maternity leave.
  • Born in 1922 in the Bronx, Esther Lederberg would grow up to lay the groundwork for future discoveries on genetic inheritance in bacteria, gene regulation, and genetic recombination.A microbiologist, she is perhaps best known for discovering a virus that infects bacteria—called the lambda bacteriophage—in 1951, while at the University of Wisconsin.Lederberg, along with her first husband Joshua Lederberg, also developed a way to easily transfer bacterial colonies from one petri dish to another, called replica plating, which enabled the study of antibiotic resistance. The Lederberg method is still in use today.Joshua Lederberg's work on replica plating played a part in his 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, which he shared with George Beadle and Edward Tatum."She deserved credit for the discovery of lambda phage, her work on the F fertility factor, and, especially, replica plating," wrote Stanley Falkow, a retired microbiologist at Stanford University, in an email. But she didn't receive it.
  • Lise Meitner's work in nuclear physics led to the discovery of nuclear fission—the fact that atomic nuclei can split in two. That finding laid the groundwork for the atomic bomb.Her story is a complicated tangle of sexism, politics, and ethnicity.After finishing her doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna, Meitner moved to Berlin in 1907 and started collaborating with chemist Otto Hahn. They maintained their working relationship for more than 30 years.After the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938, Meitner, who was Jewish, made her way to Stockholm, Sweden. She continued to work with Hahn, corresponding and meeting secretly in Copenhagen in November of that year.Although Hahn performed the experiments that produced the evidence supporting the idea of nuclear fission, he was unable to come up with an explanation. Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch, came up with the theory.Hahn published their findings without including Meitner as a co-author, although several accounts say Meitner understood this omission, given the situation in Nazi Germany."That's the start of how Meitner got separated from the credit of discovering nuclear fission," said Lewin Sime, who wrote a biography of Meitner.
  • Chien-Shiung Wu overturned a law of physics and participated in the development of the atom bomb.Wu was recruited to Columbia University in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project and conducted research on radiation detection and uranium enrichment. She stayed in the United States after the war and became known as one of the best experimental physicists of her time, said Nina Byers, a retired physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.In the mid-1950s, two theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, approached Wu to help disprove the law of parity. The law holds that in quantum mechanics, two physical systems—like atoms—that were mirror images would behave in identical ways.Wu's experiments using cobalt-60, a radioactive form of the cobalt metal, upended this law, which had been accepted for 30 years.This milestone in physics led to a 1957 Nobel Prize for Yang and Lee—but not for Wu, who was left out despite her critical role. "People found [the Nobel decision] outrageous," said Byers.Pnina Abir-Am, a historian of science at Brandeis University, agreed, adding that ethnicity also played a role.
  • Rosalind Franklin used x-rays to take a picture of DNA that would change biology.Hers is perhaps one of the most well-known—and shameful—instances of a researcher being robbed of credit, said Lewin Sime.Franklin graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from Cambridge University in 1945, then spent three years at an institute in Paris where she learned x-ray diffraction techniques, or the ability to determine the molecular structures of crystals. (Learn more about her education and qualifications.)She returned to England in 1951 as a research associate in John Randall's laboratory at King's College in London and soon encountered Maurice Wilkins, who was leading his own research group studying the structure of DNA.Franklin and Wilkins worked on separate DNA projects, but by some accounts, Wilkins mistook Franklin's role in Randall's lab as that of an assistant rather than head of her own project.Meanwhile, James Watson and Francis Crick, both at Cambridge University, were also trying to determine the structure of DNA. They communicated with Wilkins, who at some point showed them Franklin's image of DNA—known as Photo 51—without her knowledge.Photo 51 enabled Watson, Crick, and Wilkins to deduce the correct structure for DNA, which they published in a series of articles in the journal Nature in April 1953. Franklin also published in the same issue, providing further details on DNA's structure.Franklin's image of the DNA molecule was key to deciphering its structure, but only Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their work.
  • Nettie Stevens performed studies crucial in determining that an organism's sex was dictated by its chromosomes rather than environmental or other factors.After receiving her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Stevens continued at the college as a researcher studying sex determination.By working on mealworms, she was able to deduce that the males produced sperm with X and Y chromosomes—the sex chromosomes—and that females produced reproductive cells with only X chromosomes. This was evidence supporting the theory that sex determination is directed by an organism's genetics.A fellow researcher, named Edmund Wilson, is said to have done similar work, but came to the same conclusion later than Stevens did.Stevens fell victim to a phenomenon known as the Matilda Effect—the repression or denial of the contributions of female researchers to science.Thomas Hunt Morgan, a prominent geneticist at the time, is often credited with discovering the genetic basis for sex determination, said Pomona College's Hoopes. He was the first to write a genetics textbook, she noted, and he wanted to magnify his contributions."Textbooks have this terrible tendency to choose the same evidence as other textbooks," she added. And so Stevens' name was not associated with the discovery of sex determination.
  • the first wife of Albert Einstein should be in this list. People know so little about her, and I think she deserves to be known. 
  • Vera Rubin, for accurate studies discovering dark matter.
  • How sadly ironic that the very woman who set the stage for the  DNA structure discovery, which in 1994 helped make it possible to genetically test and confirm BRCA carriers like Angelina Jolie and me (with familial cancer holocausts generation, after generation, after generation), did not have access the test that could have saved her life so she could go on with the research she loved and win a Nobel Prize.
izz aty

Adult ADHD: 50 Tips of Management « Dr Hallowell ADHD and mental and cognitiv... - 0 views

www.drhallowell.com/ult-adhd-50-tips-of-management

health ADHD attention psychology 'mental health' brain society social science science medicine

shared by izz aty on 09 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • the single most powerful treatment for ADHD is understanding ADHD in the first place. Read books. Talk with professionals. Talk with other adults who have ADHD. You’ll be able to design your own treatment to fit your own version of ADHD.
  • It is useful for you to have a coach, for some person near you to keep after you, but always with humor. Your coach can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement or remind you to get back to work. Friend, colleague, or therapist (it is possible, but risky for your coach to be your spouse), a coach is someone to stay on you to get things done, exhort you as coaches do, keep tabs on you, and in general be in your corner. A coach can be tremendously helpful in treating ADHD.
  • ADHD adults need lots of encouragement. This is in part due to their having many self-doubts that have accumulated over the years. But it goes beyond that. More than the average person, the ADHD adult withers without encouragement and positively lights up like a Christmas tree when given it. They will often work for another person in a way they won’t work for themselves. This is not “bad”, it just is. It should be recognized and taken advantage of.
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  • it equally if not more important for those around you to understand it–family, job, school, friends. Once they get the concept they will be able to understand you much better and to help you as well.
  • Try to get rid of the negativity that may have infested your system if you have lived for years without knowing what you had was ADHD
  • Listen to feedback from trusted others. Adults (and children, too) with ADHD are notoriously poor self-observers. They use a lot of what can appear to be denial.
  • Consider joining or starting a support group
  • Give up guilt over high-stimulus-seeking behavior. Understand that you are drawn to high stimuli. Try to choose them wisely, rather than brooding over the “bad” ones.
  • Don’t feel chained to conventional careers or conventional ways of coping. Give yourself permission to be yourself. Give up trying to be the person you always thought you should be–the model student or the organized executive, for example–and let yourself be who you are.
  • what you have is a neuropsychiatric condition. It is genetically transmitted. It is caused by biology, by how your brain is wired. It is NOT a disease of the will, nor a moral failing. It is NOT caused by a weakness in character, nor by a failure to mature. It’s cure is not to be found in the power of the will, nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain. ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS. Try as they might, many people with ADHD have great trouble accepting the syndrome as being rooted in biology rather than weakness of character.
  • External structure. Structure is the hallmark of the non-pharmacological treatment of the ADHD child. It can be equally useful with adults. Tedious to set up, once in place structure works like the walls of the bobsled slide, keeping the speedball sled from careening off the track.
  • Make frequent use of: ◦    lists ◦    color-coding ◦    reminders ◦    notes to self ◦    rituals ◦    files
  • Color coding. Mentioned above, color-coding deserves emphasis. Many people with ADHD are visually oriented. Take advantage of this by making things memorable with color: files, memoranda, texts, schedules, etc. Virtually anything in the black and white of type can be made more memorable, arresting, and therefore attention-getting with color.
  • try to make your environment as peppy as you want it to be without letting it boil over.
  • Now that you have the freedom of adulthood, try to set things up so that you will not constantly be reminded of your limitations.
  •  Make deadlines.
  •  Break down large tasks into small ones. Attach deadlines to the small parts. Then, like magic, the large task will get done. This is one of the simplest and most powerful of all structuring devices. Often a large task will feel overwhelming to the person with ADHD. The mere thought of trying to perform the task makes one turn away. On the other hand, if the large task is broken down into small parts, each component may feel quite manageable.
  • Prioritize. Avoid procrastination. When things get busy, the adult ADHD person loses perspective: paying an unpaid parking ticket can feel as pressing as putting out the fire that just got started in the wastebasket. Prioritize. Take a deep breath. Put first things first. Procrastination is one of the hallmarks of adult ADHD. You have to really discipline yourself to watch out for it and avoid it.
  • Accept fear of things going well. Accept edginess when things are too easy, when there’s no conflict. Don’t gum things up just to make them more stimulating.
  •  Notice how and where you work best: in a noisy room, on the train, wrapped in three blankets, listening to music, whatever. Children and adults with ADHD can do their best under rather odd conditions. Let yourself work under whatever conditions are best for you.
  • it is O.K. to do two things at once: carry on a conversation and knit, or take a shower and do your best thinking, or jog and plan a business meeting. Often people with ADHD need to be doing several things at once in order to get anything done at all.
  • Do what you’re good at. Again, if it seems easy, that is O.K. There is no rule that says you can only do what you’re bad at.
  • Leave time between engagements to gather your thoughts. Transitions are difficult for ADHD’ers, and mini-breaks can help ease the transition.
  • Keep a notepad in your car, by your bed, and in your pocketbook or jacket. You never know when a good idea will hit you, or you’ll want to remember something else.
  • Read with a pen in hand, not only for marginal notes or underlining, but for the inevitable cascade of “other” thoughts that will occur to you.
  • Set aside some time in every week for just letting go
  • Recharge your batteries. Related to #30, most adults with ADHD need, on a daily basis, some time to waste without feeling guilty about it. One guilt-free way to conceptualize it is to call it time to recharge your batteries. Take a nap, watch T.V., meditate. Something calm, restful, at ease.
  • Many adults with ADHD have an addictive or compulsive personality such that they are always hooked on something. Try to make this something positive.
  • Understand mood changes and ways to manage these. Know that your moods will change willy-nilly, independent of what’s going on in the external world. Don’t waste your time ferreting out the reason why or looking for someone to blame. Focus rather on learning to tolerate a bad mood, knowing that it will pass, and learning strategies to make it pass sooner. Changing sets, i.e., getting involved with some new activity (preferably interactive) such as a conversation with a friend or a tennis game or reading a book will often help.
  • recognize the following cycle which is very common among adults with ADHD: Something “startles” your psychological system, a change or transition, a disappointment or even a success. The precipitant may be quite trivial. This “startle” is followed by a mini-panic with a sudden loss of perspective, the world being set topsy-turvy. You try to deal with this panic by falling into a mode of obsessing and ruminating over one or another aspect of the situation. This can last for hours, days, even months.
  • Plan scenarios to deal with the inevitable blahs. Have a list of friends to call. Have a few videos that always engross you and get your mind off things. Have ready access to exercise. Have a punching bag or pillow handy if there’s extra angry energy. Rehearse a few pep talks you can give yourself, like, “You’ve been here before. These are the ADHD blues. They will soon pass. You are O.K.”
  • Expect depression after success. People with ADHD commonly complain of feeling depressed, paradoxically, after a big success. This is because the high stimulus of the chase or the challenge or the preparation is over. The deed is done. Win or lose, the adult with ADHD misses the conflict, the high stimulus, and feels depressed.
  •  Use “time-outs” as with children. When you are upset or overstimulated, take a time-out. Go away. Calm down.
  • Learn how to advocate for yourself. Adults with ADHD are so used to being criticized, they are often unnecessarily defensive in putting their own case forward. Learn to get off the defensive.
  • Avoid premature closure of a project, a conflict, a deal, or a conversation. Don’t “cut to the chase” too soon, even though you’re itching to.
  • Try to let the successful moment last and be remembered, become sustaining over time. You’ll have to consciously and deliberately train yourself to do this because you’ll just as soon forget.
  •  Remember that ADHD usually includes a tendency to overfocus or hyperfocus at times. This hyperfocusing can be used constructively or destructively. Be aware of its destructive use: a tendency to obsess or ruminate over some imagined problem without being able to let it go.
  •  Exercise vigorously and regularly. You should schedule this into your life and stick with it. Exercise is positively one of the best treatments for ADHD. It helps work off excess energy and aggression in a positive way, it allows for noise-reduction within the mind, it stimulates the hormonal and neurochemical system in a most therapeutic way, and it soothes and calms the body. When you add all that to the well-known health benefits of exercise, you can see how important exercise is. Make it something fun so you can stick with it over the long haul, i.e., the rest of your life.
  • Learn to joke with yourself and others about your various symptoms, from forgetfulness, to getting lost all the time, to being tactless or impulsive, whatever. If you can be relaxed about it all to have a sense of humor, others will forgive you much more.
  • Make a good choice in a significant other. Obviously this is good advice for anyone. But it is striking how the adult with ADHD can thrive or flounder depending on the choice of mate.
  • Schedule activities with friends. Adhere to these schedules faithfully. It is crucial for you to keep connected to other people.
  • Find and join groups where you are liked, appreciated, understood, enjoyed. Conversely, don’t stay too long where you aren’t understood or appreciated.
  • Pay compliments. Notice other people. In general, get social training, as from your coach.
  • Set social deadlines.
izz aty

Inclusive Education In Malaysia Education Essay - 0 views

www.ukessays.com/...n-malaysia-education-essay.php

malaysia malaysian education inclusive education education

shared by izz aty on 26 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Inclusive education in Malaysia originated from the ‘special education’ agenda as defined in the Education Act 1996 (1998) and its approach is referred to this tradition.
  • These mandates are intended to promote equal rights and access to education for persons with disabilities. The ‘educability’ criterion assumes that there are children who are uneducable within the public school system and thus these children are catered to within community-based rehabilitation (CBR) settings (MOE, 2006). CBR programmes are government-initiated, centre-based programmes at the community level aimed to provide education that emphasises therapy and rehabilitation to children with learning disabilities (Kuno, 2007). CBR programmes are quite detached from the mainstream school system. However, in practice, the division between both provisions is less definite, and students who should benefit from them become victims of bureaucratic procedures (Adnan & Hafiz, 2001).
  • Malaysia embarked on the first stage when the first school for the blind was opened in 1929, followed by a school for the deaf very much later in 1954
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  • These schools were initiated under the programs of the Ministry of Social Welfare with the help of religious missionaries. Malaysia entered its second stage when professional preparation programs for special education were formally established by the Ministry of Education in 1961. Lacking its own expertise and technology, Malaysia entered its third stage when it began importing knowledge and expertise by sending its education professionals abroad for research degrees and in-service attachments in special needs education in the 1980s and 1990s, and attempting to customize what was learned to its national conditions. Malaysia’s participation in international workshops and activities of the UN and UNESCO and subsequent reforms as reflected in the Education Act (1998) describes the active development of policy and changes in practices during this period. In 1993, the first preservice teacher preparation leading to a Bachelor of Education degree program in special needs education was initiated in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The program was developed alongside a collaborative project in curriculum development with three universities in the United Kingdom, namely, the Universities of Manchester, Birmingham and Cambridge (Jelas, 1996; 1999).
  • The terms ‘special needs’ introduced in the Education Act 1996 (1998) are defined as follows: “Pupils with special needs’ means pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities” And ‘inclusive education’ is introduced as part of the continuum of services available for children with special needs: “Special education programme” means – A programme which is provided in special schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment; An integrated programme in general schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities; and An inclusive education programme for pupils with special needs and who are able to attend normal classes together with normal pupils” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 341)
  • However, the eligibility for special education placement is based on the ‘educability’ of children as assessed by a team of professionals. This is documented in the Act, which states: “(1) For government and government-aided schools, pupils with special needs who are educable are eligible to attend the special education programme except for the following pupils: physically handicapped pupils with the mental ability to learn like normal pupils; and pupils with multiple disabilities or with profound physical handicap or severe mental retardation. A pupil with special needs is educable if he is able to manage himself without help and is confirmed by a panel consisting of a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD, as capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 342) The eligibility dilemma
  • While the current public policy for children with special educational needs, particularly those categories of children classified as experiencing ‘learning disabilities’ have access to regular schools as stated in the Act, the ‘educability’ criteria contradicts the goals of providing equal education opportunities as stipulated in the United Nation’s Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993), The Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Biwako Millenium Framework for Action (UNESCAP, 2002).
  • Foreign experts are initially relied upon to provide the knowledge and to encourage its development prior to the emergence of a profession within a country. The first professionals to provide services are usually trained abroad. The second stage followed this first stage, in which colleges and universities established programs and departments to teach the discipline and prepare the professionals. The second stage leads to the third stage, in which colleges and universities import developed from abroad to achieve standards that characterised the discipline in more developed nations. During this stage, the concepts, theories and models of implementation found in the more developed countries are taught, applied and tested; some of which may transfer more successfully than others.
  • Before special programmes were available, students with special needs were described by their characteristics and by the instructional challenges they presented to teachers. When the education system began to respond to the needs of each emerging group of special needs students, services were established and eligibility criteria determined. From that point on, a child was identified (for school and placement purposes) as having or experiencing a ‘special educational need’ and if he or she is “able to manage him or herself without help” (Education Act 1996, 1998), the child will be eligible for a given programme or service. This process was repeated as each new group of special needs students emerged – for example, children with visual and hearing impairments in the 1960s, children with mild intellectual in the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and children with dyslexia.
  • in the Education Act 1996 (1998) that the perspectives of professionals (“a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD” p. 342) have the most power in determining the way children are categorised and whether these children are “capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998)
  • policy makers and professionals continue to see special schools and classes as well as categories as having an important place in provisions. Responses at the Ministerial level revealed an emphasis on diversity and acceptance of human characteristics as problematic and that learning difficulties are technical problems that require specialised discipline knowledge that cannot be dealt with in the “normal classes with normal children” (Education Act 1996, 1998 p. 341).
  • The National Report on the development of education states: Inclusion in Malaysia subscribed to the concept of placing SEN students into mainstream classes to be educated alongside their peers, either with or without additional support, and within the present school system. This concept of IE (inclusive education) might not be in line with the ideal concept based on “acceptance, belonging and about providing school settings in which all disadvantaged children can be valued equally and be provided with equal educational opportunities … (MOE, 2004, p. 28),
  • Even though inclusive education was implemented at the policy level more than 10 years ago and school participation has rapidly increased quantitatively, Malaysia is far from reaching its goal of providing “a responsive education path for every child and youth with SEN” (MOE, 2004)
  • The emphasis on the ability “to cope with mainstream learning” seemed consistent with the integration models that came about in the 1980s. Integration models mainly focused on placing students with mild disabilities, identified and “diagnosed” as having special needs in mainstream schools. In such models, students must adapt to the norms, expectations, styles, routines and practices of the education system instead of the education system adapting to the learner (UNESCO, 2008). The integrated programme is the dominant format for delivering services to special needs students in Malaysia, then and now.
  • Once placed, few special education students returned to the regular education class on full-time basis. Although the special classroom and special schools continued as options, integrated programmes (placement in regular classrooms) for students with visual and hearing impairments are available with support from the resource teacher
  • Historically, the disenchantment of many special educators and the concern of the efficacy of the prevailing approach (Ainscow, 1994; Meyen & Skrtic, 1995; Sorrells, Rieth & Sindelar, 2004; Stainback & Stainback, 1992) raised questions about how best to assure a quality and equitable education for students with disabilities and spawned the push for a more inclusive approach to special education programming. While these reforms were mandated in the United Nations Declarations and UNESCO’s Framework of Actions on special needs education of which Malaysia’s policy on inclusive education subscribes to, the focus on diagnosis, prescription, and intervention continued to be central to determining eligibility and making placement decisions. Thus, although special education practices had changed, the grounding assumptions of human pathology and organisational rationality (Biklen, 2000; Oliver, 1996; Skrtic, 1991) have not been critically examined. In this context, special education is used to maintain and legitimise exclusion of students with disabilities within a school culture and system characterised by competition and selection (Skrtic, 1995; Corbett, 1999; Slee, 2001; Kearney & Kane, 2006).
  • While the philosophical basis of including SEN students into mainstream schools is accepted as a policy, the continued legitimization of paradigms that exclude SEN students is also acknowledged by rationalising between the “ideal” and the “not-so-ideal” concept of inclusive education. This ambivalence is reinforced by the following statements: Prior to inclusion, especially in the early part of their formal education, SEN students are equipped with relevant basic skills and knowledge to enable them to cope with mainstream learning. Only those who are diagnosed capable to cope with mainstream learning would be included fully or partially. (MOE, 2004, p. 29)
  • In principle, Malaysia is committed to providing education for all with the implementation of compulsory education in 2003 as evident by a high participation rate of 98.49 per cent (MOE, 2004). This statement of intent towards compulsory education for all which was an amendment of the Education Act 1996, however, did not include children with disabilities
  • The radical perspective that leads to a reconceptualisation of special educational needs have been well documented for the past twenty years (Barton, 1988; Lipsky & Gartner, 1989; Ainscow, 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994; Clark et. al., 1998; Donoghue, 2003) and critiques argued and showed evidence how the education system creates rather than remediate disabilities (Skrtic, 1991; Corbett, 1999; Vlachou, 2004; Carrington & Robinson, 2006). The new perspective on special educational needs is based on the view that the way forward must be to reform schools in ways that will make them respond positively to pupil diversity, seeing individual differences as something to be nurtured. But, as cautioned by Ainscow (1994): This kind of approach is only possible in schools where there exist a respect for individuality and a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports problem-solving. Such cultures are likely to facilitate the learning of all pupils and, alongside them, the professional learning of all teachers. Ultimately, therefore, this line of argument makes the case that increasing equity is the key to improvements in schooling for all. (Ainscow, 1994, p12)
  • Education in Malaysia is driven largely by an examination–oriented system characterised by curriculum rigidity and rote learning rather than critical and independent thinking. Like schools in Singapore and Hong Kong (Poon-McBrayer, 2004), school leadership are in great pressure to compete for the best examination results in terms of the percentages of passes and the number of A’s acquired by students in public school examinations
  • The culture of elitism compels parents to prepare their children to be accepted into high ranking or fully residential schools which usually achieve high scores in examination results.
  • Although the ‘intertwining of the standards and inclusion agenda’ can lead to positive consequences (Ainscow et al, 2006), the emphasis on the preparation and drill for the public examinations therefore, left little or no time for teachers to accommodate individual learning needs of students in general. Media reports on schools’ and students’ performance intensify competition and further marginalise SEN students, who, to a large extent are not expected to compete. Competing priorities make it more difficult for schools to fully include children with SEN.
  • Continued advancement of special needs education in Malaysia will require bifocal perspectives. One focus has an international perspective and requires Malaysians’ awareness of the international body of literature and trends in practice that enables them to take advantage of the knowledge and experience gained by those in other countries. Malaysia may also profit especially from knowledge provided by its Asian neighbours namely Japan, India and China, or other countries that seems to be struggling with many of the same issues.
  • effective special needs education services require awareness of social and educational traditions, social philosophies that manifest in schooling and school culture and ways of resolving conflict that may be unique to one country and the impact these qualities have on general and special needs education services (Peters, 2003).
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.
  • “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.
  • 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.
  • Do not take liberties in defining the people you write about
  • 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

Center on International Education Benchmarking » Finland Overview - 0 views

www.ncee.org/...finland-overview

finnish special ed finnish education education finland scandinavian education nordic nordic special ed

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  • Right after the Second World War, Finland was largely a land of woodcutters and agriculturalists.  Finland’s education system and student achievement at that time were unremarkable.
  • In the early 1990s, Finland was forced to completely re-think its economic strategy. An overheated economy combined with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major trading partner, to produce a precipitous decline in GDP and an unemployment rate of 20%, higher than in the Great Depression.  Following this cataclysm, Finland applied for entrance into the European Union and began to move away from its traditional export strategies.
  • The government decided to funnel resources into the development of the telecommunications sector, hoping to reinvent Finland as a global telecommunications capital.
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  • By 2003, 22 of every 1000 Finnish workers were involved in the research and development sector, a figure almost three times higher than the OECD average, and more than four times higher than in Finland in 1991.   The Finnish economy had undergone a major transformation.
  • The education system was able to respond to the workforce needs created by the events of the early 90s because of a series of extensive reforms that had begun in 1972, which had changed the face of teaching and learning in Finland.
  • began with creation of a unified comprehensive education structure and national curriculum guidelines.
  • Accompanying the restructuring of schools was a restructuring of teacher education, with responsibility for teacher training moving to Finland’s universities, where Finland’s other most valued professional had long been trained. Other measures were also aimed at improving the quality of the Finnish teaching force. 
  • The Finnish story is not unlike that of Singapore, in that eventual success was the result of a long, slow and rather steady process, not the result of a single development, policy, program or administration.  Each step in the development of the modern Finnish education system built sensibly on those that went before.
  • These reforms and others, described in more detail in other sections on Finland on this site, made Finland’s economic survival in the 1990s possible.
  • if there is a key to the success of the Finnish system, it is the quality of their teachers and the trust that the Finnish people have vested in them.  Some would argue that this, in some sense, makes the Finnish case irrelevant to the decisions to be made by other countries, because they lack the culture in which such a high value is placed on teachers and teaching. 
  • when one examines the specific policies that the Finns have adopted with respect to the recruitment, selection, training, supervision and support of teachers, and the way in which the intense focus on teacher quality is matched to the Finnish approach to accountability, curriculum, instruction and school management, then one begins to see that teacher quality in Finland is not the result of an unmatchable culture, but rather of a specific highly integrated system of policies and structures that other nations can emulate to produce a culture that is no less supportive of teachers and no less likely to result in superior student performance.
  • USEFUL LINKS Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture The Finnish National Board of Education thisisFINLAND: Education & Research Articles World Education Services Education Links – Finland The CIA World Factbook: Finland
  • Every four years, the government prepares a development plan for education and research, using that plan as a vehicle to make sure that the Finnish system is constantly adapting to the changing needs, including the economic needs, of the country.
  • Though Finland’s population is very homogenous (more than 98% are descended from Finnish stock), that is changing and the Finns know that their education system will have to change to adapt to these changing demographics.
  • Lower-skilled work is also being exported to other parts of Europe and a greater proportion of Finnish jobs will require ever-more-sophisticated skills, another factor that is accounted for in Finnish education planning.
  • The government’s stated priorities going forward include reducing class sizes, enhancing remediation and special needs teaching, improving teachers’ working conditions, establishing new opportunities for teachers to develop their professional skills, and overhauling adult education and training
  • it took decades for the Finns to build the system whose fruits they are now enjoying.
  • OECD. (2014). Education at a Glance 2014 – Country Note: Finland.
  • Finnish National Board of Education. (2012). International comparisons of some features of the Finnish education and training system 2011.
  • Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland. (2012). Education and Research 2011-2016: A development plan.
  • OECD. (2011). “The Children Must Play: What the U.S. Could Learn from Finland” in The New Republic. (PDF)
  • Abrams, S. (2011). “Finland: Slow and Steady Reform for Consistently High Results,” in Strong Performers, Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the United States. (PDF)
  • The World Bank. (2006). Policy Development and Reform Principles of Basic and Secondary Education in Finland since 1968. Education Working Paper Series. (PDF)
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What's So Special About Special Education in Finland? - Taught by Finland - 0 views

www.taughtbyfinland.com/...special-education-in-finland

scandinavian education scandinavian special ed finland finnish special ed finnish education inclusive education special education

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  • Up to half of those students who complete their compulsory Finnish education at the age of 16 will have been in special education at some point in their school careers. Just chew on that for a moment. Given this reality, Pasi Sahlberg -- the author of Finnish Lessons -- concludes that special education “is nothing special anymore for students.” (Sahlberg, 2011) When students witness many of their classmates receiving extra support, special education loses its stigma. It’s not just the children who think differently about it. Teachers are more comfortable with the idea of students receiving extra help when they need it.
  • aided by a special education teacher for two hours of lessons each week. Although this teacher constantly has his eyes on students with documented special needs, he’s regularly working with other students in my class.  The special education teacher works flexibly. Sometimes he’s circulating around the classroom, offering help to those who need it. At other times, he’s working with a student one-on-one at a desk in the hallway.
  • my colleague is not a paraprofessional. When I worked at a public school in Massachusetts, paraprofessionals were the ones who most commonly worked with students with special needs in the general classroom.. Oftentimes, these were adults without formal teacher-training. Furthermore, they were paid about half as much as classroom teachers. These two factors seemed to make it difficult for teachers and paraprofessionals to see eye-to-eye and collaborate. Although they were both expected to care for the students in the class, one adult had more professional authority than the other.
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  • It’s a different story with my colleague. He actually has more formal training than me. Finland is famous for its highly selective 5-year teacher-training programs. A master’s degree is required of special education teachers, too.
  • it’s expected that classroom teachers collaborate with special education teachers. Primarily, we discuss ways to better support those students with documented learning needs. These meetings help me to make sure that I’m not letting any of my students fall through the cracks. 
  • we’ve been co-writing individualized learning plans (ILPs) for several of my students
  • In the United States, I worked with many students who had individualized learning plans (IEPs), which are similar to ILPs.
  • Although an American classroom teacher has a role in crafting an IEP, the plan is largely determined by professionals outside of the general classroom (e.g., occupational therapists, speech pathologists, etc.). At my Finnish school, I have more ownership of individualized learning plans since I’m writing them with my special education teacher. This does not mean that other professionals are excluded from the process of crafting this plan. It just means that the classroom teacher (along with the special education teacher) has the responsibility of writing the first draft
  • common at my school for teachers to offer remedial teaching sessions for students who are struggling
  • I'm assisted though a student-welfare team, in-class support, after-school meetings, and remedial teaching sessions offered to my students. I'm experiencing special education that addresses the needs of students and teachers.
izz aty

BBC News - No siblings: A side-effect of China's one-child policy - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...magazine-25035280

china china ed one child policy politics policymaking foreign policy

shared by izz aty on 30 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Chinese families used to have an average of four children each, but life changed radically in 1979, when a law was introduced dictating that most parents could only have one child. Last week, we learned that the policy will now be relaxed, after being enforced across the world's most populous country for more than a generation.
  • "On the township roads, there are slogans written on flamboyant red banners, telling people to have fewer children and raise more pigs,"
  • "Most of my audiences don't realise they have a special identity," he explains, noting that many parents even stopped questioning why they couldn't have more than one child and forgot that things had ever been different.
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  • In 1979, when the policy was first unveiled, the new rules were a major adjustment for those accustomed to large families. But children growing up under the policy were unaware of this. And in the early years, the parents of most new single children came from large families - so instead of siblings the children were able to forge close relationships with cousins.
  • "Every family suddenly had a huge amount of discretionary income to invest in education and also in consumption," Fong explains. The resources that had been spread among several children in past generations were now focused on one child.
  • If my parents had had other children, they would have paid less attention to me, in which case I might have spent more time and energy doing things that interest me. Chinese parents of my parents' generation like to plan life for their children," she explains.
  • as a single child, I have the responsibility to look after my parents. I couldn't leave my city. I need to be with them. This is something I cannot change."
  • "As an only child, I have my parents' love all to myself," she says firmly. "I don't want to share my parents with others."
  • what about Little Emperor Syndrome
  • a number of studies - including many conducted by Chinese researchers - have failed to turn up any nasty personality traits among those who grew up in China's one-child families. There's no real evidence that China's singletons are any different than other children, they argue.
  • University of Melbourne economist Nisvan Erkal. "What we found was that people born after the policy, and who are single children because of the policy are significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk averse and less competitive," he says. "From the surveys, we find they are also more pessimistic and less conscientious."
  • An increasing tendency for people to move home for the sake of a job also makes it more likely single children will grow up without close ties to their grandparents, or even childhood friends, notes the sociologist, Vanessa Fong.
  • Ge and her husband qualify for a second child. However, she knocks down that idea with a quick wave of her hand. A second child would be too expensive, she explains, if she wants to be able to afford a good lifestyle.
  • "It is not that we don't want to raise more children, it is that we cannot create that many opportunities for them. If I cannot create that much opportunity for my children, I think that my children will feel lost in competition against other children," she says.
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