Posts
Today I was chatting with a lovely French lady who was having problems with her web page design school teacher. Apparently he talks for 90 minutes non-stop giving the students a confusion of ideas. This young lady told me she sends him detailed emails asking to clear up the confusion but of course there is no reply.
He might well be a nice guy but he certainly is not a teacher. A teacher should have two-way communication with students especially if they are asking questions. A question means "I don't know, help."
If the curriculum is about computers, then a computer should be there, in the class. This gives the student a solid mass to go with the text (or you could call it 'significance') or a label for the item being studied. It is difficult to imagine a medical lesson in a class where the lecturer is talking about doing a by-pass on a patients' heart without a heart or patient being there. It wouldn't make sense. You can't only read text and expect to know how to do something.
This type of teaching seems to be prevalent in schools and colleges probably because the teacher is lazy or is not really in tune with his or her students.
Have you ever asked yourself why students fail and why they fail more than in the previous fifty years?
The learning curse is too steep a gradient, it almost goes vertically up. There is usually a chunk of information missing which belongs on the bottom rung of the subject matter. It is a little like trying to get to the top of the ladder from half-way up. This is basically a total lack of awareness on the teachers part of what really goes on in the students head--or doesn't care.
A question for teachers; "Do your students go around in a daze or do they have a hungry look in their eyes?"
If they are in a daze they have by-passed nomenclature they do not grasp or understand. Just about every student goes past unfamiliar text with knowing about it. The hungry look means they want to find out about it and these students probably use a dictionary. The basics have to be in, in, in before the first rung.
Then you have a happy student who knows the data and can apply it.
Go to this page Teaching Kids
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Family is the backbone of a healthy society
An individual with a sound family life of fun can provide more output in his workplace. His mind is free of tension and hence he can give hundred percent effort to the job that he has taken up.
A happy family life is a result of numerous elements. The most coveted of all is humor. A member of the family with a good sense of humor can lighten up the minds of the other members. The minds of people are drained after the long hectic hours at their workplaces.
When they return home, a funny joke could freshen them up effectively. Jokes and cartoons are a mainstay for many family people during vacations and holidays. The kids in a family essentially dwell on jokes and cartoon. For them a cartoon show of any kind is the best source of entertainment. The elderly in the family also seek entertainment in cartoons and jokes. They also dwell on songs which soothe their minds and hearts and souls.
Laughter is the best medicine to numerous diseases. The elderly and the members of the family who work at corporate firms are the ones who undergo tremendous pressure and are most prone to heart diseases like hypertension etc. Myocardial infarction or which is commonly known as heart attack is very common. People of all ages from 20 to 80 mostly suffer from heart attacks. The reason for heart attacks is tension which causes uneven fluctuations in blood flow resulting in pressure on the arterial walls which causes rupture and hence heart attack.
Laughter has been scientifically proven to soothe the blood flow rate to normal levels. There are laughter clubs where family people are encouraged to laugh at jokes cracked by people. The elderly laugh and enjoy the various notorious activities of the kids. The kids generally love their grandparents and make them laugh. The kids play various games.
Games keep the brains of people active and receptive to the environment. Family people dwell on games as their main leisure time activity during vacations and holidays. There is a lot of competition in every walk of life. When you are a kid you run towards coming first in the class, then you enter the phase where you work and earn a living, here you put up with immense pressure for a single promotion.
Amongst all this pressure and competition games could release the pressure and make the environment light. After jokes and games people can cope up with pressure more effectively.In this era of rat race what people do not realize is that even after winning the race they are still remain rats.
Keeping this face in focus people should not give away to pressure. They should not loose heart due to a single failure. They should consider the fact that failure is the stepping stone to success.
A happy family life is a result of numerous elements. The most coveted of all is humor. A member of the family with a good sense of humor can lighten up the minds of the other members. The minds of people are drained after the long hectic hours at their workplaces.
When they return home, a funny joke could freshen them up effectively. Jokes and cartoons are a mainstay for many family people during vacations and holidays. The kids in a family essentially dwell on jokes and cartoon. For them a cartoon show of any kind is the best source of entertainment. The elderly in the family also seek entertainment in cartoons and jokes. They also dwell on songs which soothe their minds and hearts and souls.
Laughter is the best medicine to numerous diseases. The elderly and the members of the family who work at corporate firms are the ones who undergo tremendous pressure and are most prone to heart diseases like hypertension etc. Myocardial infarction or which is commonly known as heart attack is very common. People of all ages from 20 to 80 mostly suffer from heart attacks. The reason for heart attacks is tension which causes uneven fluctuations in blood flow resulting in pressure on the arterial walls which causes rupture and hence heart attack.
Laughter has been scientifically proven to soothe the blood flow rate to normal levels. There are laughter clubs where family people are encouraged to laugh at jokes cracked by people. The elderly laugh and enjoy the various notorious activities of the kids. The kids generally love their grandparents and make them laugh. The kids play various games.
Games keep the brains of people active and receptive to the environment. Family people dwell on games as their main leisure time activity during vacations and holidays. There is a lot of competition in every walk of life. When you are a kid you run towards coming first in the class, then you enter the phase where you work and earn a living, here you put up with immense pressure for a single promotion.
Amongst all this pressure and competition games could release the pressure and make the environment light. After jokes and games people can cope up with pressure more effectively.In this era of rat race what people do not realize is that even after winning the race they are still remain rats.
Keeping this face in focus people should not give away to pressure. They should not loose heart due to a single failure. They should consider the fact that failure is the stepping stone to success.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Funny Family, Funny Tough Ways
During our young family life, our family must have been the oddest this side of the Maginot Line. Family life ranged from the unusual to being a little bizarre! Some of the latter cannot be published.
Most of these humorous family situations came up shortly after WW2. We lived in London on the wrong side of the tracks because money was tight and food was in short supply. In those days it was rationed so none of us got fat—who could on a diet of potatoes? (or spuds as we used to call them).
In those ancient terraced houses built around 1870 or so...plumbing hadn't been invented as hot water was unheard of. Only freezing water which we had to bath in. The bath was galvanized tin and held about 15 gallons but we used to jump in long before the water got near the top as it was far too cold. I learned later one could get hypothermia when the water temperature didn't exceed 35 degrees and the air temperature was around 36 degrees. We never sat down in the bath, it was much, much too cold.
The actual bath time took 30 seconds as one's limbs ached with freezing water. About once a month we had the luxury of a tepid bath where buckets of water were heated on a fire stove. This tepid water felt like luxury and amazingly you could get a lather going with a bar of Lifebuoy soap! Ma used to say “Have you had a good scrub kids?” Not really Ma, as the water is so filthy how can we possibly get clean?
There were five of us kids which made it a bit tight in the tub—standing room only. The water, being 'hard' left a scum line around the top of the tub and it also formed a ring around our tummies almost as if we were wearing belts!
Then the great day came and Pa discovered a municipal public baths and we hiked off to this wonderful place. I think he “discovered” it after he found some small change in one of his pockets! Surprisingly the boys had their own shower rooms and the girls theirs. I remember it was absolute Heaven showering under really hot water, my first hot shower ever and the day I will never forget!
And our family stayed together still enjoying family life even though we live on different continents!
Most of these humorous family situations came up shortly after WW2. We lived in London on the wrong side of the tracks because money was tight and food was in short supply. In those days it was rationed so none of us got fat—who could on a diet of potatoes? (or spuds as we used to call them).
In those ancient terraced houses built around 1870 or so...plumbing hadn't been invented as hot water was unheard of. Only freezing water which we had to bath in. The bath was galvanized tin and held about 15 gallons but we used to jump in long before the water got near the top as it was far too cold. I learned later one could get hypothermia when the water temperature didn't exceed 35 degrees and the air temperature was around 36 degrees. We never sat down in the bath, it was much, much too cold.
The actual bath time took 30 seconds as one's limbs ached with freezing water. About once a month we had the luxury of a tepid bath where buckets of water were heated on a fire stove. This tepid water felt like luxury and amazingly you could get a lather going with a bar of Lifebuoy soap! Ma used to say “Have you had a good scrub kids?” Not really Ma, as the water is so filthy how can we possibly get clean?
There were five of us kids which made it a bit tight in the tub—standing room only. The water, being 'hard' left a scum line around the top of the tub and it also formed a ring around our tummies almost as if we were wearing belts!
Then the great day came and Pa discovered a municipal public baths and we hiked off to this wonderful place. I think he “discovered” it after he found some small change in one of his pockets! Surprisingly the boys had their own shower rooms and the girls theirs. I remember it was absolute Heaven showering under really hot water, my first hot shower ever and the day I will never forget!
And our family stayed together still enjoying family life even though we live on different continents!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Those Painting Days Gone By
It was with great pleasure to receive your blogging missive on soul-searching together with your expo-nenshall rise in creationism. Yes, I know the painting well of Monet’s of his yachts in lovely watercolour. Really spiffing and a pity such a good copy be hidden behind the armoire.
Yep, I like Felix and his gargantuan painting which was all of 600 feet long and took 15 years to paint! I think this was something to do with a recording (well his anyway) of the 20th century and some of his global meanderings. He was not related to Felix Adamant of the Cruel Sea! "Hey, I thort U was kon-fuwsed!"
The portrait is just fine—and who really cares for a true likeness unless the sitter is paying for it – or to impress one’s fellow artist-dabbers? Yeah, I got down to the bottom rung without showing too much humidity.
I got a question: Did you know on Dec. 8, 1903 or whenever, Samuel Langley's flying machine plopped unpleasantly into the river. Nine days later Wilbur Wright got their "Flyer" off the ground so why did these bike mechanics succeed when a well-known dude failed?
Langley's plans were mostly theoretical and his machine was produced from blueprint and built by others. If you look at the Wright brothers' working notes, you see their outsight and their execution are woven together. By tale and error and over a period of time, they solved problems like wing shape and wing warping—hey, they did not worry about air con then. Along the way they found it necessary to build a wind tunnel and other devices to test the lift and controllability of their ever-changing designs. They were not so dum after all! And you know what? The famous Sopworth came soon after.
Applying the Wright metaphor to our artistic creative process, we can see that success might come with a succession of adjustments in a series of daubs, large or small as you say. If you’ve read "Explaining Creativity by Tom Sawyer or The Science of Human Innovation," he explains that these adjustments need not be world-shaking. One does not necessarily have a sense of revelation. Sawyer, a sigh-kologist at Washington University, uses the Wright brothers' "tinkering" as an example. Indeed, it's the minor nature of changes that leads to creative daubing by artists or otherwise.
To bring this line of thought closer to our easel experience—a progressive process of working from one quasi-experimental work to the next might lead to artistic character but this is doubtful. On this path, errors are inevitable, even vital. Failures become the stepping stones to artistic success. By carefully watching and managing a personal progression, a dibby-dabber (a struggling painter) stealthily finds his muse—or self-amusement.
We‘ve often talked about duab-production as an aid to creativity. With small works in series there is greater freedom to experiment and err. Combinations and variations abound within each small work and within the greater series. A feeling of letting go, of "winging it," brings out our innate inventiveness. Instead of a theoretical blueprint-based slavery, one feels the magic of automatic flow. You sense that huh?
The interest and attention of the creator is held by this process and the results often have a sort of celestial inevitability—the look of natural beauty and persistent magic now that would be worth something to put in front of the armoire.
Those Painting Days, what creativity! I will stick to painting-by-numbers or coloring-in!
Yep, I like Felix and his gargantuan painting which was all of 600 feet long and took 15 years to paint! I think this was something to do with a recording (well his anyway) of the 20th century and some of his global meanderings. He was not related to Felix Adamant of the Cruel Sea! "Hey, I thort U was kon-fuwsed!"
The portrait is just fine—and who really cares for a true likeness unless the sitter is paying for it – or to impress one’s fellow artist-dabbers? Yeah, I got down to the bottom rung without showing too much humidity.
I got a question: Did you know on Dec. 8, 1903 or whenever, Samuel Langley's flying machine plopped unpleasantly into the river. Nine days later Wilbur Wright got their "Flyer" off the ground so why did these bike mechanics succeed when a well-known dude failed?
Langley's plans were mostly theoretical and his machine was produced from blueprint and built by others. If you look at the Wright brothers' working notes, you see their outsight and their execution are woven together. By tale and error and over a period of time, they solved problems like wing shape and wing warping—hey, they did not worry about air con then. Along the way they found it necessary to build a wind tunnel and other devices to test the lift and controllability of their ever-changing designs. They were not so dum after all! And you know what? The famous Sopworth came soon after.
Applying the Wright metaphor to our artistic creative process, we can see that success might come with a succession of adjustments in a series of daubs, large or small as you say. If you’ve read "Explaining Creativity by Tom Sawyer or The Science of Human Innovation," he explains that these adjustments need not be world-shaking. One does not necessarily have a sense of revelation. Sawyer, a sigh-kologist at Washington University, uses the Wright brothers' "tinkering" as an example. Indeed, it's the minor nature of changes that leads to creative daubing by artists or otherwise.
To bring this line of thought closer to our easel experience—a progressive process of working from one quasi-experimental work to the next might lead to artistic character but this is doubtful. On this path, errors are inevitable, even vital. Failures become the stepping stones to artistic success. By carefully watching and managing a personal progression, a dibby-dabber (a struggling painter) stealthily finds his muse—or self-amusement.
We‘ve often talked about duab-production as an aid to creativity. With small works in series there is greater freedom to experiment and err. Combinations and variations abound within each small work and within the greater series. A feeling of letting go, of "winging it," brings out our innate inventiveness. Instead of a theoretical blueprint-based slavery, one feels the magic of automatic flow. You sense that huh?
The interest and attention of the creator is held by this process and the results often have a sort of celestial inevitability—the look of natural beauty and persistent magic now that would be worth something to put in front of the armoire.
Those Painting Days, what creativity! I will stick to painting-by-numbers or coloring-in!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sponsor a Child in Africa
While we know whole towns have been destroyed in Chile - and there is help on the way from many nations, which is great!
However, consider the long term benefits of sponsoring one child's education in Africa through WorldVision and similar organizations.
Your sponsorship of one child with education can affect no less than twenty children and people in the neighborhood. Just a few dollars a month for textbooks, clean water, food, health care and a basic education. Just one child.
If there were 100 people donating a few dollars a month for these basics—it will affect the lives of more than 2,000 people! Imagine what that can do in a small community!
If you become a child sponsor, you become connected to the child; he or she writes to you regularly telling you about progress. You can also sponsor a "HopeChild" who lives in a community affected by AIDS.
The countries of Africa are the most impoverished in the world and we must wake up to assist these children so they can have a future where none exist now for the majority of the African people.
You can contact WorldVision here.
However, consider the long term benefits of sponsoring one child's education in Africa through WorldVision and similar organizations.
Your sponsorship of one child with education can affect no less than twenty children and people in the neighborhood. Just a few dollars a month for textbooks, clean water, food, health care and a basic education. Just one child.
If there were 100 people donating a few dollars a month for these basics—it will affect the lives of more than 2,000 people! Imagine what that can do in a small community!
If you become a child sponsor, you become connected to the child; he or she writes to you regularly telling you about progress. You can also sponsor a "HopeChild" who lives in a community affected by AIDS.
The countries of Africa are the most impoverished in the world and we must wake up to assist these children so they can have a future where none exist now for the majority of the African people.
You can contact WorldVision here.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
A Writing Job
Where can I find a professional writer to write for my article base and web pages? The theme will be about family life, parenting, kids, education, activities and so forth.
The writer has to be creative and well informed about families and how kids behave and interact with their parents, have a firm grasp of the English language and edit their own work and be passionate about writing.
Articles can be about “How To's” for kids, education, toddler activities, best way to handle kids problems, parenting the best way, effective family communication, dangers of kids chat rooms, why kids hate school, education problems and a host of other diverse subjects.
Article and page length about 300+ words with payment $0.02 word. You can communicate to me through the email address below. This will be an on-going writing job.
The writer has to be creative and well informed about families and how kids behave and interact with their parents, have a firm grasp of the English language and edit their own work and be passionate about writing.
Articles can be about “How To's” for kids, education, toddler activities, best way to handle kids problems, parenting the best way, effective family communication, dangers of kids chat rooms, why kids hate school, education problems and a host of other diverse subjects.
Article and page length about 300+ words with payment $0.02 word. You can communicate to me through the email address below. This will be an on-going writing job.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Humor Vs Comedy
Plenty of people tend to draw conclusions between comedy and humor. According to my dictionary these two words do not belong in the "circular" definitions usually found in "dinky" dictionaries (those pocket sized ones which are useless).
Example: Cat = animal; Animal = cat or Comedy = humor = comedy. Obviously these words haven't been well defined by the editors and they are misunderstood or lazy. They do not mean the same at all, check in your bumper dictionary.
You could say good writers create humor while slick comedians do comedy. It is funny in today's world how comedians (the ones who employ good humor writers) rip off celebs, politicians (don't they deserve it) dignitaries, religious figures—or anyone in the limelight.
Check out some of the stars in "American Idol" who have made silly or outrageous comments usually about their competitors (Adam Lambert comes to mind.) They are asking for a broadside from Jay Leno to David Letterman.
There is nothing really new in comedy, it has all been written before. Take for example when Al Franken said "I am not a member of any organized religion, I am a Jew." He heard that joke from a Catholic and substituted Jew for Catholic. And so it goes. How many times have you heard WC Field's "Anyone who hates babies and dogs can't be all bad!" -or variations of this?
So where did this Funny Joke come from?
Example: Cat = animal; Animal = cat or Comedy = humor = comedy. Obviously these words haven't been well defined by the editors and they are misunderstood or lazy. They do not mean the same at all, check in your bumper dictionary.
You could say good writers create humor while slick comedians do comedy. It is funny in today's world how comedians (the ones who employ good humor writers) rip off celebs, politicians (don't they deserve it) dignitaries, religious figures—or anyone in the limelight.
Check out some of the stars in "American Idol" who have made silly or outrageous comments usually about their competitors (Adam Lambert comes to mind.) They are asking for a broadside from Jay Leno to David Letterman.
There is nothing really new in comedy, it has all been written before. Take for example when Al Franken said "I am not a member of any organized religion, I am a Jew." He heard that joke from a Catholic and substituted Jew for Catholic. And so it goes. How many times have you heard WC Field's "Anyone who hates babies and dogs can't be all bad!" -or variations of this?
So where did this Funny Joke come from?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
