Personal Education Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Educational’

Article by Sara

Education is one of the most important elements in any culture in the world. It involves norms, values, laws, customs, rituals, ceremonies, social bonds, etc. so as to teach the every individual of the society in a most elegant and graceful manner. As a matter of fact, education is of two types: The Formal Education, and The Informal Education. Today education has become of the essence for all us immensely. The fact of the matter is that a lot of social and cultural evils have been nowadays prevailing due to the lack of education in our society such as ignorance, terrorism, poverty, male dominancy, extremism, violence against women, child labour, ethnicity, and so on.

That is why it is the education which unites every individual of the society in a well organized manner. From redundancy to poverty, from extremism to terrorism, and from gender discrimination to women exploitation, education removes every other evil from the society immediately. That is why a lot of nonpolitical and non-profitable voluntary organizations are launching some of the powerful and long lasting educational development projects with the aid of donor agencies worldwide proactively. The most important news is that these NGOs are heavily putting into action certificate folders so as to promote their social, economic, humanitarian, and educational development campaigns worldwide effectively.

Basically the non-profit organizations are nowadays making use of printed certificate folders in a way to promote their fundraising campaigns worldwide successfully. That is why these NGOs are in need of these corporate identity folders in order to promote their educational development campaigns worldwide proactively. This way, they are putting into action several types of folders for their organizational purposes worldwide such as print certificate folders, file folders, presentation folders, business folders, pocket folders, a4 document folders, and many more. Add to that, they are making use of some other types of marketing products internationally for example door hangers, vinyl and bumper stickers, packaging boxes, posters, banners, and so on.

Today literacy rate is not up to the mark in many regions of the world such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, Iraq, Senegal, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Nepal, Mali, and the list goes on. Therefore we must need to promote education worldwide immensely. This way, several types of nonpolitical and non-profitable voluntary organizations are putting their best efforts so as to prop up education and awareness among the people of the society worldwide. In order to accomplish their educational development projects, they are now bound to collect a lot of funds and charities from different regions of the world. Importantly they have to use folders printing so as to successfully conduct their seminars, conferences, and meetings regarding the educational concerns globally.

Certificate folders are very practical and useful for the students and university researchers in a way to deliver their crucial class presentations and seminars in front of the people successfully. Add to that, they are helpful products especially for research associates, economists, and policy markers at all. Further you can put you essential letters inside their pockets intact for long time. Online folder printing company offers custom certificate folder printing to its client worldwide along with multiple incentives including free unlimited design revisions, free lamination, and free shipment.

Article by Dr. Maulik

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Having arrived at the close of the first quarter of the new school year and having completed fall conferences, I find there is not even the briefest pause in the frenzied push to bring all students to my states specified level of reading achievement as evidenced by a specified range of scores on my districts specified assessment. This frenzy continues on as though all children develop neurologically at a specified rate, as though all children mature physically and emotionally at a specified rate, as though their homes, environments, diets, bedtimes, exercise, and life stressors all align with a specified uniformity. It would appear as though a specified time is spent, each evening, reading or being read to by all children in all homes, regardless of all the diversity of cultural and family norms today. Even more ludicrous, it would appear that all time spent by all children in front of all forms of electronic toys and devices, including television and play-stations, is specified including content and duration of time.

The momentum of this frenzy is being maintained and fueled, at least in my world, under the umbrella of the RTI process (Response to Intervention) a procedure of progress monitoring come of age with the passage of IDEA 2004. The constant assessment and data analysis that accompanies this progress monitoring under this RTI paradigm shift is wearing me out, and my peers as well. I find myself caught in a quandary of when and how to carry out formal and informal assessment of benchmarks and progress monitoring during the instructional day. This data, once collected, must be analyzed aside from the demands and rigors of delivering good instruction and mandated curriculum which extend long beyond a reasonable workday. In addition, the reporting and regurgitating of this data takes place before or after the workday with the preparation thereof taking place outside of the workday as well. Those of us who are caught up in this new paradigm know that all these intrusive added variables come at a sacrifice of our energies, time, and our abilities to deliver good instruction and to give the best of ourselves as educators to our students. It has not been specified to us as yet, however, just how to achieve these impossible demands and be good at what we are suppose to be doing, which is to teach to the ends that children learn!

I am discovering, however, that there are some very talented individuals who are very aware of the struggles of educators, like me, desperately trying to make sense of all of this frenzied madness. One such individual is Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education under the first president Bush and a nationally recognized scholar and historian of education. Ms. Ravitch has reversed her stance on issues such as standardized testing, school choice and the No Child Left Behind Act as noted in an article posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 5, 2010, authored by Maureen Downey a longtime reporter for the AJC, http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/03/05/diane-ravitch-education-has-become-search-and-destroy-mission-and-teachers-are-the-targets/. These individuals are also intensely dedicated to the education and the well being of our nations youth as well.

So, as I take this moment to pause at the close of this first quarter of the new school year, this article and the voices it represents, gives me hope in knowing that there are others out there working to make sense of this madness and moving forward toward rational resolutions as well.

http://www.truth-for-education.com/2010/11/01/educational-insanity-compounded/

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Article by Alexia

Educational, vocational, and school counselors provide individuals and groups with career, personal, social and educational counseling. School counselors assist students of all levels, from elementary school to postsecondary education. They advocate for students and work with other individuals and organizations to promote the academic, career, personal, and social development of children and youth. School counselors help students evaluate their abilities, interests, talents, and personalities to develop realistic academic and career goals. Counselors use interviews, counseling sessions, interest and aptitude assessment tests, and other methods to evaluate and advise students. They also operate career information centers and career education programs. Often, counselors work with students who have academic and social development problems or other special needs. Counsellors have a unique opportunity to create a rewarding career helping others gain a higher level of fulfillment in their lives. As an Institute-trained counsellor, you will undertake an enjoyable journey of self-discovery as you achieve satisfaction in assisting others attain emotional wellbeing. Becoming a qualified counsellor with an Institute course is the ideal way to gain employment as a counsellor; establish your own counselling practice; develop exceptional skills to assist in your current employment; or simply for personal insight and development.This course is designed to prepare students to become school counsellors while also qualifying as a teacher in one area of the secondary-school curriculum. To this end, all candidates undertake coursework and professional experiences in school counselling and one of the curriculum areas listed on the prerequisites page. This foundation course provides an introduction to all aspects of the counseling profession. History, roles, organizational structures, ethical standards, legal issues and credentialing are included. Public policy processes that focus on the role of the professional counselor with an introduction to advocacy for the profession and clients are included. The importance of professional development and participation in counseling professional organizations and exploration of the role of the counselor as a member of a multidisciplinary team is emphasized. A class project that focuses on a professional aspect of the counseling profession is a culminating activity of this course. The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the major theories of counseling including behavioral, humanistic, social learning, psychoanalytic, and cognitive. Approaches, principles, and procedures of counseling and consultation will be introduced including individual and systems perspectives consistent with relevant research. Interviewing, active listening, communication, problem analysis, and motivation are introduced in this course. Topics include: issues of confidentiality, relationship building, evaluation of outcomes, and referral strategies. Skills are practiced in laboratory exercises. This course emphasizes the use of specific diagnostic psychological tests in a variety of domains. Specific psychological and educational tests used by counselors in educational settings are examined and students have the opportunity to use assessments. Individual and group achievement, curriculum based assessment, and vocational assessments, including the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) are a focus. Other tests administered by psychologists are reviewed so that school counselors may understand and interpret results to parents, teachers, and students to inform educational interventions, advising, and placement decisions.

There are many millions of people who buy and use educational media products for their children and even their infants.  I wonder if the parents stop to think about how this honestly affects their children both good and bad.  The American Pediatric Association (APA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) agree that educational media can be beneficial to children when used in the proper context.  I fully agree with the idea, the problem is that many parents don’t follow the recommendations of groups such as the APA and AAP.  Either these parents believe that the advertisers who make these products know more about the development of children than the groups of people who have PhD’s and study how these things affect children, or they would just rather use educational media as a sort of baby-sitter because it makes them feel better about putting infants in front of a television if what they are putting them in front of is at least educational.  This is what I disagree with, programming our children to occupy themselves by sitting in front of television sets all day long.  Let’s get our children out from in front of the television sets and computers and let them learn and explore with their bodies and minds instead of watching someone else on a screen.
Guidelines written by the APA and the AAP suggest no television for children under the age of two.  They state that between birth and two years, children learn best from interaction with a parent or other caregiver rather than media sources.  Alissa Quart stated in her article Extreme Parenting that Charles Nelson, a professor at Harvard Medical School and permanent scholar of the infant brain, said “There is no proof of the value of the early-enrichment toys and videos in terms of brain science.”  In other words, there is no proof that these toys and videos will actually teach a child any better or any differently than they would have learned that same information from actual interaction with other human beings.  According to Quart, “in one study by a University of Massachusetts researcher, a sample group of infants learned to use a puppet from a live teacher, while another group studied a video.  The group who had a teacher learned to use the puppet almost immediately, but the video-watchers had to view the instruction six times before they learned the same skill.”  According to this study, infants learn better from interaction with other people than what they do from educational media which supports the claims of Charles Nelson.  Also, along the same lines as this idea, is that Thompson, Ross, and Yoshikawa from the group Zero to Three state that in their research they have found that when the adults in children’s lives make the viewing experience an interactive one, the children benefit more from it.  In other words, if we are going to have our young children watching TV or videos then we should share the experience with them to make it a more fulfilling and enriching one.  One way to do this would be to remind them of something that was watched together when it is seen somewhere aside from the video or TV program, or remind them while watching the video or program of the same thing seen elsewhere.
Every parent wants to give his or her children all the opportunities in the world.  All these early-enrichment companies know this and they try to use it to their advantage as much as possible.  They do this by playing on parents fears that many learning opportunities are time-limited to the first three years of life.  They speak of things like infant brain-cell death and limited brain plasticity.  As Quart says, “what they don’t tell us is that scientists have proven that the brain maintains at least some amount of plasticity throughout ones life.  They also don’t tell parents that according to many professionals; like Charles Zorn a neuropsychological education specialist; intelligence, knowledge, and ability to learn are not measured by brain cell counts.  Every time we learn something we are killing brain cells to create a pathway, cell death is how our nervous systems refine their circuits.  Therefore, reducing or preventing infant brain cell death is counter productive, contrary to what the educational media companies would have people believe.”  In other words, we have to kill brain cells to actually learn, that is just the way it works, and companies that tell us that we are not doing right by our children for letting their brain cells die off are just trying to play on parental fears to get more money.
These claims the co9mpanies have made, although proven scientifically inaccurate, have become popular belief and are enough to make any parent, especially new ones, nervous.  To gain an accurate perspective, one needs to separate themselves from popular ideas such as “brain plasticity”, “crucial stages”, and “imprinting”, since some of these only apply to learned activities that are experience-expectant (bound by crucial periods in an child’s life) and not to activities that are experience-dependant (not bound by any period), to look at the scientific side and take a look into history at some of the most intelligent people.  According to the article ”Was Einstein’s Brain Different” by the Center for History of Physics, Einstein himself didn’t speak until he was three and was still hesitant to speak at the age of 9.  Maybe there was a mild form of autism or maybe he was just shy, but either way, his parents feared that he was below average intelligence because of this.  This is a statistic that should prove to us that we need not push our children.  Einstein’s parents were wrong, and maybe we are too.  Yet, there is a company that has named their product after Einstein expecting us to believe that Einstein was in fact showing his extreme intelligence as early as infancy.  If we were in fact raising Baby Einstein’s as this product’s name suggests, then we wouldn’t be pushing our infants to do so much so early, we would have a world full of “late bloomers”.

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