[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Buddah"]
[/caption]~Buddah
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
4.29.2011
Get wise...
As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Buddah"][/caption]
~Buddah
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Buddah"]
[/caption]~Buddah
6.16.2010
5.27.2010
Teaching with a Bad Accent!!!
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2010/05/24/am.gutierrez.az.accents.cnn
Now THIS grinds my gears!!! How "un-American" is this? Here are a more than a few annoyances within this...
1. The Federal and State government are the ones that grant/deny and even mandate the criteria for teaching licenses. Regardless of "accent" these people obviously met and/or exceeded the criteria mandated so how is it that $40-$100k later in student debt, hundreds of credit hours, and the drive/passion to service humanity still enable the government to contend the aforementioned based on the merit of "accents"?
2. How is an ethnic accent any different than a regional one? What do you think the teachers in New York sound like versus those in Wisconsin versus those in Alabama?! So regional accents are ok but not ethnic ones ? - sounds racial to me! How many "American" born people do not have or use the "Kings" english? Better yet, how many of those people actually occupy seats on the committee that conspired this conundrum to begin with?!
3. Another sad postulation of discrimination, handled down and contradicted by the culture that made up the bloody rule to begin with. I wonder if the AZ State Superintendent was a person of color if this would even be an issue - hmmm :)
4. Man, the AZDoE must have plenty of time, money and such a PERFECT educational system that they can now focus on dialect and accents!
With what Texas is trying to do about what "American History" and its curriculum, what AZ is trying to do about immigration and its DoE standards, its REALLY makes you wonder what do "they" think American should be and look like. Its clear, nothing brown or with an accent!
I wish I had the time and funds to hire all of my teachers and staff from 38 different countries to help teach and show the diversification is beyond important. Maybe the next school...
Now THIS grinds my gears!!! How "un-American" is this? Here are a more than a few annoyances within this...
1. The Federal and State government are the ones that grant/deny and even mandate the criteria for teaching licenses. Regardless of "accent" these people obviously met and/or exceeded the criteria mandated so how is it that $40-$100k later in student debt, hundreds of credit hours, and the drive/passion to service humanity still enable the government to contend the aforementioned based on the merit of "accents"?
2. How is an ethnic accent any different than a regional one? What do you think the teachers in New York sound like versus those in Wisconsin versus those in Alabama?! So regional accents are ok but not ethnic ones ? - sounds racial to me! How many "American" born people do not have or use the "Kings" english? Better yet, how many of those people actually occupy seats on the committee that conspired this conundrum to begin with?!
3. Another sad postulation of discrimination, handled down and contradicted by the culture that made up the bloody rule to begin with. I wonder if the AZ State Superintendent was a person of color if this would even be an issue - hmmm :)
4. Man, the AZDoE must have plenty of time, money and such a PERFECT educational system that they can now focus on dialect and accents!
With what Texas is trying to do about what "American History" and its curriculum, what AZ is trying to do about immigration and its DoE standards, its REALLY makes you wonder what do "they" think American should be and look like. Its clear, nothing brown or with an accent!
I wish I had the time and funds to hire all of my teachers and staff from 38 different countries to help teach and show the diversification is beyond important. Maybe the next school...
5.18.2010
4.27.2010
1.23.2010
Education:
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
1.06.2010
American Education - A Cheat?
Outsourcing is a dirty little word among many Americans. When companies use cheap labor overseas to make products or perform services it often means those jobs are lost in the United States.
Next up on the outsourcing list? Take a deep breath and read on. America is outsourcing its brains.
According to the Center for Academic Integrity, in the last school year nearly a third of the faculty at its 360 college and high school member institutions reported students downloading term papers, reports or essays written by someone else from online sites known as paper mills.
We counted more than 250 sites selling papers online, so CNN'S Carol Costello went online to buy a term paper from one of them. She asked for a "Premium Quality" paper on Jayson Blair, the former reporter fired by the New York Times for making up stories. Three, double-spaced pages with 5 references (the references added to the cost), totaled $80.97.
The company said it would take a few days.
Watch: Students outsource homework
Costello talked to one writer from an Asian country, who wished to remain anonymous. He says, based on his experience, more than 90% of online term paper buying comes from the United States. "There's a huge demand for academic papers in the United States," he told her. "It's unethical, but you know I come from a Third World country. It's good pay. The temptation was really great."
Much of the time it's an English speaking writer from another country who is writing those term papers. DomainTools tracks Internet traffic to Web sites by nation. Essaywriters.net is one of the most established sites soliciting writers to write these papers. DomainTools says most of the visitors to essaywriters.net are non-Americans.
You can read more of the article here. I don't blame ANYONE that works for those companies and continues to write papers for people that pay for them!
So the biggest question remains: how to fix this? Well here are few of MY suggestions:
1. Teachers need understand that with classic literary works and assignments (Charles Dickens, Nacht etc..) that they have to be creative in what the assignment is. I mean seriously, how many different ways can one make a book report on Willi Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Be creative and extrapolate different items from that work and tie into a skill needed for todays world.
2. Make the students simply write IN class - duh! If it were me, I would make my writing assignments short (to fit in a 45 minute block) and make the topic at the start of class - boom! Besides, what is the true point and relevance in making student write long papers and essays anyway? Its not needed into days world
3. Again I think teachers need to stop being lazy and be more creative with lessons - PERIOD. Stop blaming other and third world countries.
Next up on the outsourcing list? Take a deep breath and read on. America is outsourcing its brains.
According to the Center for Academic Integrity, in the last school year nearly a third of the faculty at its 360 college and high school member institutions reported students downloading term papers, reports or essays written by someone else from online sites known as paper mills.
We counted more than 250 sites selling papers online, so CNN'S Carol Costello went online to buy a term paper from one of them. She asked for a "Premium Quality" paper on Jayson Blair, the former reporter fired by the New York Times for making up stories. Three, double-spaced pages with 5 references (the references added to the cost), totaled $80.97.
The company said it would take a few days.
Watch: Students outsource homework
Costello talked to one writer from an Asian country, who wished to remain anonymous. He says, based on his experience, more than 90% of online term paper buying comes from the United States. "There's a huge demand for academic papers in the United States," he told her. "It's unethical, but you know I come from a Third World country. It's good pay. The temptation was really great."
Much of the time it's an English speaking writer from another country who is writing those term papers. DomainTools tracks Internet traffic to Web sites by nation. Essaywriters.net is one of the most established sites soliciting writers to write these papers. DomainTools says most of the visitors to essaywriters.net are non-Americans.
You can read more of the article here. I don't blame ANYONE that works for those companies and continues to write papers for people that pay for them!
So the biggest question remains: how to fix this? Well here are few of MY suggestions:
1. Teachers need understand that with classic literary works and assignments (Charles Dickens, Nacht etc..) that they have to be creative in what the assignment is. I mean seriously, how many different ways can one make a book report on Willi Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Be creative and extrapolate different items from that work and tie into a skill needed for todays world.
2. Make the students simply write IN class - duh! If it were me, I would make my writing assignments short (to fit in a 45 minute block) and make the topic at the start of class - boom! Besides, what is the true point and relevance in making student write long papers and essays anyway? Its not needed into days world
3. Again I think teachers need to stop being lazy and be more creative with lessons - PERIOD. Stop blaming other and third world countries.
4.07.2009
Life is a teacher too!
No written word, no spoken plea
Can teach our youth what they should be
Nor all the books on all the shelves
It's what the teachers are themselves
-John Wooden
Ingenious fodder! In essence, life IS the best teacher. Institutional education will only get you so far. Its limited, biased, skewed and manipulated around the traditions it serves. The rest of your education is provided by life, wisdom, and those that give forward in a manner conducive to the succession of previous generations.
Can teach our youth what they should be
Nor all the books on all the shelves
It's what the teachers are themselves
-John Wooden
Ingenious fodder! In essence, life IS the best teacher. Institutional education will only get you so far. Its limited, biased, skewed and manipulated around the traditions it serves. The rest of your education is provided by life, wisdom, and those that give forward in a manner conducive to the succession of previous generations.
10.19.2008
Inemuri
[caption id="attachment_240" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Inemuri"]
This is the Japanese art - or gift - of ‘inemuri.’ In the most sleep-deprived nation on Earth, the Japanese talent for falling asleep anywhere - on trains, in elevators, during meetings - is both necessary, and admired. In Japan’s workaholic culture, falling asleep out of exhaustion is a testament to hard-work: only slackers get a full night’s sleep.
There are still rules. Try to keep upright - no lounging. And inemuri is particularly encouraged for the folks on the lowest and highest ends of the totem pole - middle managers miss out. But beyond that, Japan doesn’t observe the same sleep taboo that exists in much of the Western world. As long as it doesn’t ‘endanger the social situation,’ a power nap is hardly ever out of the question.
And, yes: people fake it. But even when Japanese workers are genuinely sleep, they still seem to maintain their composure: somehow, no commuter ever seems to sleep through their stop.
I always did say, if we all just took a nap the world might be a better place!
This is the Japanese art - or gift - of ‘inemuri.’ In the most sleep-deprived nation on Earth, the Japanese talent for falling asleep anywhere - on trains, in elevators, during meetings - is both necessary, and admired. In Japan’s workaholic culture, falling asleep out of exhaustion is a testament to hard-work: only slackers get a full night’s sleep.
There are still rules. Try to keep upright - no lounging. And inemuri is particularly encouraged for the folks on the lowest and highest ends of the totem pole - middle managers miss out. But beyond that, Japan doesn’t observe the same sleep taboo that exists in much of the Western world. As long as it doesn’t ‘endanger the social situation,’ a power nap is hardly ever out of the question.
And, yes: people fake it. But even when Japanese workers are genuinely sleep, they still seem to maintain their composure: somehow, no commuter ever seems to sleep through their stop.
I always did say, if we all just took a nap the world might be a better place!
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