Rabu, 31 Juli 2013

LEARN TO WRITE ARTICLES AT HOME

If you want to learn to write articles from the comfort of your home, it will not be hard when you take advantage of online resources. You will find many places that are interested in content and it is not hard to use these services to become published. Here are some tips for article writing that you may find helpful.
Take your time and do not get in a hurry. Also, do not expect perfection. Once you proofread something twice, you should have grammatical errors and spelling taken care of. Do not spend a lot of time trying to create the perfect article. When you take too much time you may become tired of writing and you may simply give up.
There is an old saying that a fireman puts out fires. A policeman enforces the law, and a writer writeas. If you want to be a writer you have to sit down and write something each day. It is similar to exercising. You need to exercise your "writing" muscles" so they will become stronger and function better.
Sometimes you feel that your writing skill is not good. But before you start writing, you should understand what kind of article you are planning to write whether it is a journalism article, or a professional article, or a review article, or maybe an article for a blog.
There are lots of types of articles, and each type has their own required writing style, just like different cultures have different customs. That's why, you can not write the blog articles the same way as you expect to write an article for a journal and vice versa..
Whenever you know what type of article you are going to write, keep looking for related articles. It is good to develop your style of writing.
Apply to a few online article writing services. You may not make much money, but you will gain some valuable experience. Make sure to take a few days studying their rules so you can deliver the kind of content that the service is looking for.
To gain writing experience, start a daily blog. You will not have to invest any money. Treat it like a daily column and begin writing about things that interest you.
If you seriously wish to learn to write articles, sit down and begin writing. Start simple with online article publishing services and use them as a teaching aid. Writing every day is very important and if you start a daily blog you will gain new insight into the world of writing. Also, do not over think your articles, as this can cause writer's block.

Article Education Importance of Education in Life


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The following article will describe education about the importance of education who has proven to be a prerequisite for the harmonious functioning of any society.


A teacher at the school says that thinking is education. Think, opened the door to our minds and make us accept the idea of ​​expanding our horizons and learn new things.

But why is it important to learn new things? Why is it important to broaden our horizons? What is the importance of education? The answer to this question lies within us all. We consider education as a desirable commodity. If we see the great man speak, will be felt in the way they talk and think that they put forward. This is a natural reaction to bestow a feeling of awe and respect to them. Therefore, it is very easy to conclude that education leads to success. But that's not all. The importance of education in today's society runs deeper than just success in worldly terms.

Education article about the importance of education

Education releases us from the bondage of our minds and force us to think and question a thing. It makes us aware of our rights in society. Thus giving us the strength to be enslaved, either by thought or action.

Open mind
Education makes us insightful. In fact, there is no better time than to understand this concept. Globalization has turned the world into one big city, there are no restrictions to acquire knowledge. This makes it possible for us to learn about a different culture or events that occur at the end of the world though. All this is possible because of education. Education has broadened our minds, so we are not limited to our country and the particular zone again. We're not stuck in a small world, we have come out of the shell, begin to explore and learn new things about the world. Learn about new things and different cultures not only add to our vocabulary, but also to instill in our human nature. For example if we see that people in some other parts of the world have been trying something new, then we might as well start doing the same thing. Perhaps we have been forced to avoid them before, but education can change our thought process for the better. Because it helps to make us more tolerant and accepting.

Selasa, 30 Juli 2013

Can California high schools ride the wave of online education?

The latest craze making its way through the California public university system is the growing use of online education.
Recently, Gov. Brown budgeted millions of dollars to the California State University system to advance online instruction in lower-level classes. The rationale from the governor has been to increase course offerings to students who need remedial and general education classes to expedite the completion of their bachelor's degree.

Online may be a great option for universities, but transforming California's high schools that service millions every year may present even bigger challenges.

Three challenges need to be addressed if online instruction is to become a sustainable model in California high schools:

Lack of student resources;
Declining school budgets; and
An emerging teacher shortage with the requisite skills.
Students in California public high schools come from a range of income levels and family situations.

According to a recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California Poverty (PICP), poverty has spiked to 16 percent among all California households, and among Latino and African-American populations, a high percentage of whom attend public schools across California, poverty rates are higher (22.8 percent and 22.1 percent, respectively).

The realities of high poverty rates, particularly within large urban districts, may lead to a lack of resources in many households to purchase the basic technology to take advantage of online courses from home.

While many public school families may be struggling from the aftermath of the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, public school districts have had to make tough choices to maintain core programs in the midst of declining enrollment and shrinking budgets.

The Los Angeles Times reported in an April 29 article ("Gov. Brown as Robin Hood"), that many districts across the state have cut their budgets as much as 20 percent at the height of the recession. Despite an increase in tax receipts of $4.5 billion that Gov. Brown promises to give to struggling districts, this will not come close to shoring up budget shortfalls that have pained districts since 2008.

As school districts are still reeling from budget cuts and having to rely on the good graces of political leaders and altruistic voters to receive extra funding, it is unlikely that many school districts will have the funds to purchase the technology that can carry out online instruction in any sustainable way.

As school districts juggle tough budgeting choices - laying off teaching staff, creating crushing working conditions for remaining teachers with increased class sizes - a state report has rung the alarm that California is facing an emerging teacher shortage.

Newly minted, tech-savvy college graduates with the needed skills to bring an aging teacher corps into the 21st century are avoiding the teaching profession all together. The state report points out that the number of teachers earning a credential this year dropped by 12 percent, which is the eighth straight annual decline. The report also cites that increased government oversight and standardized testing are overwhelming young teachers, prompting nearly 30 percent of teachers to quit in the first seven years.

The wave of the future is online instruction, but California public high schools have mounting challenges to ride it out.

Without bold leadership from Sacramento and organized efforts from voters, California public high schools will remain out of sync with the state's college system that continues to add more classes online every year.

The Doctrine of Common Core: Raising public education standards do little in our modern economy

Thomas Jefferson once said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." For a large part of the 20th century, public education has been wedded to economic opportunity and the ideals of a participatory Democracy.  

Common Core, to a large extent, is premised on linking education  to democracy and based on assumptions of a 20th century school to work model. But that is not the world we live in today.

Digital tools have fundamentally transformed the workplace, connecting the most obscure regions into global circulation where capital, labor, information and commodities move more freely across national boundaries. The new economic realities have established a new historical context for industry, work and education challenging the fundamental premise of a national education strategy behind common core.

The data supports the basic premise of common core that our education system is not preparing the American workforce to compete for jobs in a modern, globalized economy. A report recently published by Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance found, "6 percent of U.S. students were found to be performing at the advanced level in Mathematics, a percentage lower than those attained by 30 other countries. Nor is the problem limited to top-performing students. Only 32 percent of 8th graders in the United States are proficient in mathematics, placing the United States 32nd when ranked among the participating international jurisdictions."  

Even more troubling, globalized industry is finding it difficult to find newly minted US High School and college graduates with the request skills they need. The Broad Foundation published excerpts from business studies on their website that echoes, even more so, the thinking behind the common core concluding, " despite sustained unemployment, employers are finding it difficult to hire Americans with the skills their jobs require," And, "many expect this problem to intensify all the while more than 75 percent of employers report that new employees with four-year college degrees lacked "excellent" basic knowledge and applied skills."

To close the impending skills gap, nearly 46 states, at last count, have adopted the doctrine of common core in a move to address this challenge, but a compendium of mounting evidence is pointing to a disturbing trend in the labor market.  Two recent contributions have shined a bright light on the changes taking place in the labor market. Martin Ford, a software engineer and author of the book titled: The Lights at the End of the Tunnel, has written that technology is being adopted by industry so quickly that it is destroying jobs faster than industry can create jobs. This claim is supported by MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson's and coauthor Andrew McAfee   authors of Rage Against the Machine that support Ford's thesis and are quoted in an article that appeared in the MIT Technology Review that, "Productivity is at record levels, innovation has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren't keeping up."  

If you dismiss the thesis that technology is rapidly replacing human labor, there is growing evidence that education is not as big a factor in providing a pathway out of poverty as once believed. The assumptions that underlie common core advance the idea that education a supply of educated workers will lead to greater opportunity across incomes and social strata yet, the most current data contradicts this thinking.

It turns out that the lack of fiscal resources, may play a bigger role in preventing student economic opportunities irrespective of the educational opportunities afforded to a student.  The Hamilton project of the Brookings Institute conducted a study on social mobility and incomes. It concluded that , "While social mobility and economic opportunity are important aspects of the American ethos, the data suggest they are more myth than reality. In fact, a child's family income plays a dominant role in determining his or her future income, and those who start out poor are likely to remain poor."

If we take into account the 2010 census data, that reported the ranks of the poor are swelling, placing 1 out of 6 Americans in poverty, the implications are far-reaching and pose improbable economic hurdles by raising education standards.

Ironically, despite a more impoverished America, job skill preparation and education is becoming more accessible.  The badge system is slowly gaining favor with national leaders to replace the diploma conferring system. Former President Bill Clinton is promoting a new open badge system that verifies skills for industry outside of the traditional public education system. Through online credentialing, students can take tests from home and earn badges that can prove to employers that workers have learned skills picked up outside the traditional education system.  Major universities such as DePaul have already signed on to accept badges for college credit.

Common core is premised on the idea that the diploma will remain as the central evaluation tool for industries to verify that graduates entering the job market are qualified for hire.  But at the end of the day, industries do not want diplomas; they want skills that can meet their demands to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized and technology based economy.  Despite disappointing data of completion rates of online courses, students continue to flock to online learning in droves. The online magazine Campus Technology published that students taking online courses have increased by 96 percent over the last 5 years.

Common core has been marketed to the American public by linking the expansion of economic opportunity to democratic rights through public education therefore, public education should raise its standards and all will be good in the world for future generations. Certainly, we should ask our kids to know more, do more and learn more, but the forces behind common core are not taking into account how significant income is as a factor in rising up the economic ladder, job-eating technology is rapidly entering the modern workplace or how disruptive technology is rendering traditional diploma conferring institutions superfluous.  Simply put, the argument that common core will increase economic opportunity and therefore, expand Democracy is contradicted by the new realities of the modern economy.

Senin, 29 Juli 2013

Globalisation And Primary Education Development In Tanzania: Prospects And Challenges

1. Overview of the Country and Primary Education System:
Tanzania covers 945,000 square kilometres, including approximately 60,000 square kilometres of inland water. The school system is a 2-7-4-2-3+ consisting of pre-primary, primary school, ordinary level secondary education, Advanced level secondary, Technical and Higher Education. Primary School Education is compulsory whereby parents are supposed to take their children to school for enrollment. In the education sector, this goal was translated into the 1974 Universal Primary Education Movement, whose goal was to make primary education universally available, compulsory, and provided free of cost to users to ensure it reached the poorest. By the beginning of the 1980s, each village in Tanzania had a primary school and gross primary school enrollment reached nearly 100 percent, although the quality of education provided was not very high. From 1996 the education sector proceeded through the launch and operation of Primary Education Development Plan - PEDP in 2001 to date.

2. Globalization in Education
In education discipline globalization can mean the same as the above meanings as is concern, but most specifically all the key words directed in education matters. Although literatures for education leadership in Tanzania are inadequate, Komba in EdQual (2006) pointed out that research in various aspects of leadership and management of education, such as the structures and delivery stems of education; financing and alternative sources of support to education; preparation, nurturing and professional development of education leaders; the role of female educational leaders in improvement of educational quality; as will as the link between education and poverty eradication, are deemed necessary in approaching issues of educational quality in any sense and at any level. 6. Globalization of Education and Multiple Theories
The thought of writing this paper was influenced by the multiple theories propounded by Yin Cheng, (2002). He proposed a typology of multiple theories that can be used to conceptualize and practice fostering local knowledge in globalization particularly through globalized education. These theories of fostering local knowledge is proposed to address this key concern, namely as the theory of tree, theory of crystal, theory of birdcage, theory of DNA, theory of fungus, and theory of amoeba. The theory of tree assumes that the process of fostering local knowledge should have its roots in local values and traditions but absorb external useful and relevant resources from the global knowledge system to grow the whole local knowledge system inwards and outwards. According to this theory, the design of curriculum and instruction is to identify the core local needs and values as the fundamental seeds to accumulate those relevant global knowledge and resources for education. The expected educational outcome is to develop a local person who remains a local person with some global knowledge and can act locally and think locally with increasing global techniques. With local seeds to crystallize the global knowledge, there will be no conflict between local needs and the external knowledge to be absorbed and accumulated in the development of local community and individuals.The expected educational outcome is to develop a local person with bounded global outlook, who can act locally with filtered global knowledge. The theory can help to ensure local relevance in globalized education and avoid any loss of local identity and concerns during globalization or international exposure.This theory emphasizes on identifying and transplanting the better key elements from the global knowledge to replace the existing weaker local components in the local developments. In globalizing education, the curriculum design should be very selective to both local and global knowledge with aims to choose the best elements from them. The theory of fungus reflects the mode of fostering local knowledge in globalization. In globalizing education, the design of education activities should aim at digesting the complex global knowledge into appropriate forms that can feed the needs of individuals and their growth. The roots for growth and development are based on the global knowledge instead of local culture or value.This theory considers that fostering local knowledge is only a process to fully use and accumulate global knowledge in the local context. 7.1. The Presidential Commission on Education
In 1981, a Presidential Commission on education was appointed to review the existing system of education and propose necessary changes to be realized by the country towards the year 2000. A vacuum was created while fragmented donor driven projects dominated primary education support. In 1990, the government constituted a National Task Force on education to review the existing education system and recommend a suitable education system for the 21st century.

3. Access to Primary Education
The absolute numbers of new entrants to grade one of primary school cycles have grown steadily since 1970s. This level reflects the shortcomings in primary education provision. 7.3.2. Participation in Primary Education
The regression in the gross and net primary school enrolment ratios; the exceptionally low intake at secondary and vocational levels; and, the general low internal efficiency of the education sector have combined to create a UPE crisis in Tanzania's education system (Education Status Report, 2001). In order to revitalize the whole education system the government established the Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) in this period. Within the ESDP, there two education development plans already in implementation, namely: (a) The Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP); and (b) The Secondary Education Development Plan (SEDP).

The Local Government Reform Programme (LGRP) provided the institutional framework.

4. Education and School Leadership in Tanzania and the Impacts
Education and leadership in primary education sector in Tanzania has passed through various periods as explained in the stages above. In that case school leadership in Tanzania has changed.

5. Prospects and Challenges of School Leadership

The Education and Training sector has not been spared for these challenges. 11. Conclusion
There are five types of local knowledge and wisdom to be pursued in globalized education, including the economic and technical knowledge, human and social knowledge, political knowledge, cultural knowledge, and educational knowledge for the developments of individuals, school institutions, communities, and the society.

About Education

Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, andhabits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of others, but may also be autodidactic. Any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational

Etymology
Etymologically, the word "education" is derived from the Latin ēducātiō ("A breeding, a bringing up, a rearing") from ēdūcō ("I educate, I train") which is related to the homonym ēdūcō ("I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect") from ē- ("from, out of") and dūcō ("I lead, I conduct").

The role of government
A right to education has been created and recognized by some jurisdictions: Since 1952, Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education. It does not however guarantee any particular level of education of any particular quality At the global level, the United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 guarantees this right under Article 13.[4]

Type of education

School children line, in Kerala, India
There are three forms of learning defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): formal education, informal education and non-formal education.

Formal education
Systems of schooling involve institutionalized teaching and learning in relation to a curriculum, which itself is established according to a predetermined purpose of the schools in the system. Schools systems are sometimes also based on religions, giving them different curricula.

Curriculum

Main articles: Curriculum, Curriculum theory, and List of academic disciplines
School children in Durban, South Africa.
In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses and their content offered at a schoolor university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults. A curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to achieve a particular grade or standard.
An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the university–or via some other such method. Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches, and distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples of broad areas of academic disciplines include the natural sciences,mathematics, computer science, social sciences, humanities and applied sciences.[5]
Educational institutions may incorporate fine arts as part of K-12 grade curricula or within majors at colleges and universities as electives. The various types of fine arts are music, dance, and theater.[6]

Preschools
Main article: Preschool education
The term preschool refers to a school for children who are not old enough to attend kindergarten. It is a nursery school.
Preschool education is important because it can give a child the edge in a competitive world and education climate.[citation needed] While children who do not receive the fundamentals during their preschool years will be taught the alphabet, counting, shapes and colors and designs when they begin their formal education they will be behind the children who already possess that knowledge. The true purpose behind kindergarten is "to provide a child-centered, preschool curriculum for three to seven year old children that aimed at unfolding the child's physical, intellectual, and moral nature with balanced emphasis on each of them."[7]

Primary schools
Primary school in open air. Teacher (priest) with class from the outskirts ofBucharest, around 1842.
Primary (or elementary) education consists of the first 5–7 years of formal, structured education. In general, primary education consists of six or eight years of schooling starting at the age of five or six, although this varies between, and sometimes within, countries. Globally, around 89% of primary-age children are enrolled in primary education, and this proportion is rising.[8] Under the Education For All programs driven by UNESCO, most countries have committed to achieving universal enrollment in primary education by 2015, and in many countries, it is compulsory for children to receive primary education. The division between primary and secondary education is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about eleven or twelve years of age. Some education systems have separatemiddle schools, with the transition to the final stage of secondary education taking place at around the age of fourteen. Schools that provide primary education, are mostly referred to asprimary schools. Primary schools in these countries are often subdivided into infant schools and junior school.
In India, compulsory education spans over twelve years, out of which children receive elementary education for 8 years. Elementary schooling consists of five years of primary schooling and 3 years of upper primary schooling. Various states in the republic of India provide 12 years of compulsory school education based on national curriculum framework designed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training.

Secondary schools
Students in a classroom at Samdach Euv High School, Cambodia
In most contemporary educational systems of the world, secondary education comprises the formal education that occurs during adolescence. It is characterized by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive primary education for minors, to the optional, selectivetertiary, "post-secondary", or "higher" education (e.g. university, vocational school) foradults. Depending on the system, schools for this period, or a part of it, may be called secondary or high schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, middle schools, colleges, or vocational schools. The exact meaning of any of these terms varies from one system to another. The exact boundary between primary and secondary education also varies from country to country and even within them, but is generally around the seventh to the tenth year of schooling. Secondary education occurs mainly during the teenage years. In the United States, Canada and Australia primary and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as K-12 education, and in New Zealand Year 1–13 is used. The purpose of secondary education can be to give common knowledge, to prepare for higher education or to train directly in a profession.
The emergence of secondary education in the United States did not happen until 1910, caused by the rise in big businesses and technological advances in factories (for instance, the emergence of electrification), that required skilled workers. In order to meet this new job demand, high schools were created, with a curriculum focused on practical job skills that would better prepare students for white collar or skilled blue collar work. This proved to be beneficial for both employers and employees, for the improvement in human capital caused employees to become more efficient, which lowered costs for the employer, and skilled employees received a higher wage than employees with just primary educational attainment.
In Europe, grammar schools or academies date from as early as the 16th century, in the form of public schools, fee-paying schools, or charitable educational foundations, which themselves have an even longer history.
A violin student receivingmusic education at the Royal Academy of Music, London, 1944.

Special
Main article: Special education
In the past, those who were disabled were often not eligible for public education. Children with disabilities were often educated by physicians or special tutors. These early physicians (people likeItard, Seguin, Howe, Gallaudet) set the foundation for special education today. They focused on individualized instruction and functional skills. Special education was only provided to people with severe disabilities in its early years, but more recently it has been opened to anyone who has experienced difficulty learning.[9]

Minggu, 28 Juli 2013

Top 5 Education Trends in 2013


top, 5, education, trends, in, 2013, So the world didn’t end, and now we’re all excited to pop open the champagne, eat way too much food, and ring in the New Year!

Despite the number 13’s unlucky reputation, we’re all super excited for 2013. Not only internally, where we here at Noodle are working hard to improve our product and give our users a top-of-the-line educational experience, but big changes are also happening externally in the education field.

So we’ve put together a list of the Top five trends in education that we’re most excited to see in 2013.

Happy New Year!

1. Social media will play an even bigger role


Social media has made its way into most sectors, from advertising to sports to the entertainment industry. So naturally, it was bound to become popular in the education field sooner or later. From student-created YouTube videos to SMS marketing to professors creating classroom focused blogs and Facebook pages, both teachers and students will continue to benefit from social media inside the classroom. Although social media has become increasingly popular in the past year or two, in 2013 we’re expecting it to make an even bigger splash in the classroom. 

2. More universities will offer online learning

From free podcasts and online learning tutorials, the internet has made it possible for people to push their educational boundaries and access some of the best resources from the comfort of their own home. Now in addition to paid online classes and degree programs, some universities are even offering free non-credit online courses. Top schools like University of California – Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University are currently offering free courses, and we only expect to see this trend grow in the coming year. Noodle has also jumped on the online learning bandwagon, with a collection of over 450,000 free online learning materials, available to our users anytime, anywhere. 

3. The MOOC trend will carry on

What’s a MOOC you might ask? No it's not a character from Dr. Seuss. It actually stands for “Massive Open Online Course” and has been all the rage in the ed tech sector since the term was coined in 2008. MOOCs are revolutionizing the way students learn, and this trend is making its impact across the globe. These courses are typically free, and only require a computer and, of course, the internet. For the new year, there is even talk that MOOCs will become a mechanism for students to receive official college credit. Currently the MOOC methods reach nearly 200 countries in 44 different languages, and have 4,500 testing centers around the world. 

4. A better job market for college graduates

The recession might not be completely over, but upcoming college graduates can (hopefully) look forward to a less stressful job hunt than their predecessors. According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers said they expect to hire 9.5% more graduates from the class of 2012 than they did from the previous graduating class. And students getting their degree in one of the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), will be especially valuable to employers hiring in the new year. So to the class of 2013, take this as a sign to brush up on your interview skills, update your LinkedIn profile and score your dream job in 2013! 

5. Game-based learning will gain popularity

Who doesn’t love a good game? Game-based learning (GBL) is becoming increasingly popular inside classroom walls, as teachers become more and more familiar with the process and its many benefits. GBL can be anything from learning simulations, to serious games, to using video games in the classroom. It’s understandable that parents might be skeptical (“Video games at school? Seriously?”) But GBL is designed to balance gameplay with subject matter, and help students retain and apply what they’ve learned in the real world. Although it’s still in the early phases, in 2013 we’re sure to see games being used more frequently in the learning process. 

6 Technology Challenges Facing Education

Despite increasingly widespread adoption of technologies in virtually every aspect of K-12 education, significant challenges are preventing widespread effective implementation. According to researchers, though some of those challenges are systemic and some related to the technologies themselves, teachers and education leaders share in the blame as well.

"The NMC Horizon Report: 2013 K-12 Edition," put together by the New Media Consortium as part of the Horizon Project, identifies key emerging issues in education technology using primary and secondary research and input from an advisory board comprising "internationally recognized practitioners and experts" in ed tech. Among those issues are challenges that represent significant constraints on the adoption of technology in education.

In past reports, those challenges have centered largely on reluctance on the part of administrators and teachers, lack of preparation, and lack of support or funding. This year's findings followed largely along those lines as well, though some new challenges were identified as well.

Challenge 1: professional development. Key among all challenges is the lack of adequate, ongoing professional development for teachers who are required to integrate new technologies into their classrooms yet who are unprepared or unable to understand new technologies.

"All too often, when schools mandate the use of a specific technology, teachers are left without the tools (and often skills) to effectively integrate the new capabilities into their teaching methods," according to the report. "The results are that the new investments are underutilized, not used at all, or used in a way that mimics an old process rather than innovating new processes that may be more engaging for students."

Challenge 2: resistance to change. Resistance to technology comes in many forms, but one of the key resistance challenges identified in the report is "comfort with the status quo." According to the researchers, teachers and school leaders often see technological experimentation as outside the scope of their job descriptions.

Challenge 3: MOOCs and other new models for schooling. New in this year's report, new models for teaching and learning are providing "unprecedented competition to traditional models of schooling." In particular, the MOOC (massive open online course) — probably the hottest topic in higher education right now — was identified as being "at the forefront" of discussions about new modes of delivering K-12 education.

"K-12 institutions are latecomers to distance education in most cases, but competition from specialized charter schools and for-profit providers has called attention to the needs of today's students, especially those at risk," according to the report.

Challenge 4: delivering informal learning. Related to challenge 3, rigid lecture-and-test models of learning are failing to challenge students to experiment and engage in informal learning. But, according to the report, opportunities for such informal learning can be found in non-traditional classroom models, such as flipped classrooms, which allow for a blending of formal and informal learning.

Challenge 5: failures of personalized learning. According to the report, there's a gap between the vision of delivering personalized, differentiated instruction and the technologies available to make this possible. So while K-12 teachers seem to see the need for personalized learning, they aren't being given the tools they need to accomplish it, or adequate tools simply don't exist.

Challenge 6: failure to use technology to deliver effective formative assessments. The report noted: "Assessment is an important driver for educational practice and change, and over the last years we have seen a welcome rise in the use of formative assessment in educational practice. However, there is still an assessment gap in how changes in curricula and new skill demands are implemented in education; schools do not always make necessary adjustments in assessment practices as a consequence of these changes. Simple applications of digital media tools, like webcams that allow non-disruptive peer observation, offer considerable promise in giving teachers timely feedback they can use."

Kamis, 25 Juli 2013

Change Agent in Education Collects Critics in Connecticut Town

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Paul G. Vallas, a leader in the effort to shake up American education, has wrestled with unions in Chicago, taken on hurricane-ravaged schools in New Orleans and confronted a crumbling educational system in Haiti.

Now he faces what may be his most vexing challenge yet: Fending off a small but spirited crowd of advocates working to unseat him as superintendent of one of Connecticut’s lowest-performing and highest-poverty school districts.

Bridgeport, a relatively small urban school district with just 21,000 students, is at the center of one of the most contentious educational disputes in the country as Mr. Vallas seeks to salvage his hard-charging agenda amid complaints that he is unqualified for the job.

Parents are upset over his plans to increase the use of student testing. Union officials have denounced his insistence that administrators frequently visit classrooms to evaluate teachers, as well as his history of enthusiastic support for charter schools. And community activists argue that he consistently shuts out dissenting voices.

“We thought we had a good guy,” said Tammy Boyle, a parent leader and mother of two children. “But at each and every turn, he has ignored the wishes and the voices of the people of Bridgeport.”

But Mr. Vallas has his admirers. Leon Woods, 51, an unemployed carpenter, credited a program for struggling students started by Mr. Vallas with helping put his son on track to graduation. “I’ve seen the difference,” Mr. Woods said. “I’ve seen the change.”

Mr. Vallas, who has moved to impose a standardized curriculum and to reorganize central offices in Bridgeport, said he was dismayed by the vitriol. On blogs, which he calls “electronic graffiti,” his critics have called him a racist and compared him to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The school district’s student population is 49 percent Hispanic and 39 percent black.

“There are some gigantic egos in this town,” Mr. Vallas said in an interview. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Mr. Vallas, who makes $234,000 a year, arrived in Bridgeport less than two years ago with a mandate to rattle the status quo in one of Connecticut’s poorest cities. He was appointed by a state-controlled panel, but a court ruling early in his tenure left him reporting to a locally elected school board, with several of its members calling for his ouster.

Now Mr. Vallas, a veteran of big-city education battles, faces the once-unimaginable prospect that he will be driven out of town by summer’s end. A retired judge filed a lawsuit arguing that his lack of an education degree makes him unfit for the office, despite his years of experience running other school districts. Last month, a superior court judge agreed, and now Mr. Vallas has appealed the case to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

The battle in Bridgeport highlights the divisiveness of change in American education. Critics of the existing system are pushing centralized control, weaker teacher tenure protections and expanded charter schools, and some have made installing superintendents with backgrounds outside of education a priority, causing rifts in many districts.

Arne Duncan, the federal education secretary, said the opposition to Mr. Vallas was “beyond ludicrous.” He said too many school districts were afraid of innovation, clinging to “archaic ideas.”

“This, to me, is just another painfully obvious, crystal-clear example of people caught in an old paradigm,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview. “This is the tip of the iceberg.”

Mr. Vallas was hired in late 2011 to much fanfare: a nationally known advocate of change in education, with stints in Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans on his résumé, coming to the aid of a modest school district mired in budget cuts.

But almost immediately, his support began to erode. The state of Connecticut had been overseeing the Bridgeport district, responding to a dire fiscal situation, but two months into Mr. Vallas’s tenure, the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the return of an elected school board.

Parents and community advocates who had long opposed the state’s intervention rejoiced. And the Working Families Party, a liberal coalition based in New York City with outposts in Connecticut, made removing Mr. Vallas its mission.
A memo circulated recently by the Working Families Party criticized Mr. Vallas’s hiring of outside consultants, suggesting he was working to privatize the system. “He abuses local school districts to create profits for his business allies, and implements extreme policies that exacerbate racial and economic inequality in the schools,” the memo stated. Mr. Vallas’s opponents said they worried he would move, as he had in other cities, to demand concessions from teachers in contract negotiations, and to expand charter schools, which the opponents believe would drain money from other public schools.
Mr. Vallas had a vulnerability: despite his decades of experience in schools and a master’s degree in political science, he lacked a degree in education, as required by Connecticut law. The state allowed for an exemption, but Mr. Vallas was required to complete a condensed version of the traditional 13-month certification program over the course of several months. “I didn’t view it cynically and I didn’t complain,” Mr. Vallas said.
But in public, he seemed skeptical of the requirement, at one point arguing, “That is like saying Michael Jordan can’t coach basketball because he doesn’t have teacher certification.” His detractors were outraged by the remark, saying it illustrated his arrogant approach to leadership.
Mr. Vallas completed the course, which involved speaking with a professor a few times and writing six papers. But Carmen L. Lopez, a retired judge and education activist, filed a challenge in April contending that Mr. Vallas’s course work was a sham.
“Bridgeport was viewed as so second-class that it could have an unqualified school superintendent,” Ms. Lopez said in an interview. “They don’t do this in the suburbs.”
The legal case has reignited tensions in Bridgeport. Three Working Families Party members have joined a Democrat on the school board in calling for the city to stop paying Mr. Vallas’s legal fees; a five-member majority, led by the board’s chairman, Kenneth H. Moales Jr., has resisted those demands. “I don’t participate in coups,” said Mr. Moales, a defender of Mr. Vallas.
Last week, parents gathered before a school board meeting to hang posters denouncing Mr. Vallas; as the meeting got under way, board members shouted at and interrupted one another.
“Are you finished with your circus?” Mr. Moales asked a critic of the superintendent, shortly before abruptly adjourning the session.
Mr. Vallas, 60, is a onetime politician who came within two percentage points of defeating Rod R. Blagojevich in a primary for the Illinois governor’s office in 2002. He said he did not know what he would do after Bridgeport, though he ruled out a return to politics. He runs an educational consulting business on the side. His clients have included schools in Illinois and Indiana.
But Mr. Vallas said he was determined to serve as superintendent in Bridgeport for at least one more year, so that he could help the district find a leader who would maintain the changes he has set in motion.
“If I left tomorrow, it’s going to be hard to break those things,” he said, seeming hopeful. But he added, “I never underestimate the capacity of a hostile board to destroy a good thing.”

Education Overhaul Faces a Test of Partisanship

On the day that President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law in early 2002, he flew to a high school in Hamilton, Ohio, the home district of Representative John A. Boehner, a leading Republican supporter of the bill. Later that afternoon, the president appeared in Boston and praised the bill’s Democratic sponsor in the Senate, Edward M. Kennedy.

Nearly a dozen years later, that bipartisanship spirit in federal education policy has evaporated.

The House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill aimed at greatly narrowing the federal role in public education that was expanded under No Child Left Behind. No Democrat voted for the bill, called the Student Success Act, and the Obama administration has threatened to veto it. During the floor debate last week in the House, Representative George Miller of California, the main Democratic supporter of the Bush-era law, labeled the bill the “Letting Students Down Act.”

The acrimony partly reflects the sharp partisanship in Washington these days. But well beyond the Beltway, the debate about education has become far more polarized in the past decade. Strange partnerships have emerged on both sides, as anxiety has grown over the lackluster performance of American students compared with children in other countries.

One group includes business executives, civil rights advocates and even some teachers’ union leaders who say the federal government must hold states and school districts accountable for rigorous standards. The other includes conservatives who want to limit the federal government who have found some common ground with more liberal groups that believe corporate and political interests have hijacked education reform.

“There are odd alliances,” said David M. Steiner, the dean of the School of Education at Hunter College in New York. “And it’s a very deep divide.”

No Child Left Behind required all schools to give students annual reading and mathematics tests in third through eighth grades. The schools are required to publish the results as well as break out the scores of racial minorities, those with disabilities and the poor.

The law requires that all students become proficient in reading and math by 2014. Children attending schools that failed to meet targets along the way to that benchmark are allowed to transfer to other public schools and receive tutoring services, and schools that continue to fail to make progress may face changes in their faculty or could be shut down.

Virtually everyone agrees today that such a goal is unreachable and that No Child needs revising. The problem is that no one can agree on how. Congress has failed repeatedly over the past six years to reauthorize the law, leaving it in place and widely disliked.

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has issued waivers that have so far released 39 states and the District of Columbia from the law’s toughest deadlines.

The Republican bill, which passed last week by a vote of 221 to 207, still requires annual testing and the reporting of scores. But it leaves decisions on how to use the scores up to states and local districts and does not require them to set targets for student achievement or consequences for schools that fail. It also allows states to administer different tests to students with disabilities.

Supporters have hailed the flexibility. “We see the huge diversity around our country and the needs that go from the rural heartland of America to major urban school systems with very different needs and different populations,” said Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, which represents 13,000 superintendents around the country. “One program does not fit all.”

Others worry that students in some states will end up with an inferior education. “There are huge discrepancies across states and districts and cities regarding performance,” said Nikolai Vitti, the superintendent of Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, Fla. Disability advocates — including some Republicans — have also complained that the bill does not offer enough protections to special education students.

Rabu, 24 Juli 2013

Library, Oh Library


INTEREST read so far to be one big problem for the Indonesian nation. Why not, when the Indonesian public interest in reading among the lowest in Asia.

Indonesia only superior over Cambodia and Laos. In fact, the lower the reading habit, ignorance and poverty disease will progress and potentially threaten the existence of the nation. Worse yet, low interest in reading not only occur in the general population, in elementary, junior high, high school, even college students interest in reading was very low. This stands in stark contrast to the conditions in Japan.

Nowadays of course we've seen how advances in science and technology development in Japan. All of that is because the Japanese government to prioritize the needs of the community reading material, especially school children and college students, so it is not surprising that libraries, especially on college campuses Japan, always crowded with students.

Different from the conditions in Indonesia campus library, university library over not only as a storage and display various collections of books and other reference materials. Even more ironic, the campus library is often used as a place for courtship, not a place to read and discuss.

As a student and aspiring scientists, libraries should be the most sought after, especially in finding a reference to making or completing tasks lectures.

Grow Your Reading Interest

Factors that become lonely peyebab library, in addition to declining student interest in reading, as well as the library can not keep up with the times by not meeting the needs of students. To meet the needs of assignments, students often prefer the instant way, ie looking at the internet.

Why the low student interest in reading? According to (Arixs: 2006) there are six factors that cause: (1) learning system in Indonesia has not made a college student should read the book, (2) the number of places of entertainment, games, and TV shows that distracts them from menbaca book, (3) reading culture had never inherited our ancestors, while still dominant culture than the culture said reading, (4) a means to obtain readings like other libraries are still a rare commodity, (5) the uneven spread of reading materials in various walks of life (6) and boost reading is not grown since praperguruan higher education.

Actual library plays an important role for the creation of a culture of reading for students. The library is a bridge to the mastery of science, can provide an important contribution to opening up access to information, as well as providing accurate data for decision reference sources for pengembangkan science. And all of it can only get by reading.

That's why the college library should be designed so that the student and academic community more comfortable there. Libraries must be able to fulfill the thirst of the students who thirst for knowledge in four ways.

First, add the library infrastructure, facilities and networks such as the internet or wi-fi, reproduce discussion space, and improve the reading room. If this can be realized, it will certainly attract the attention of students visit the library.

Second, provide good service, friendly, and welcoming. This is particularly important given the visitors are students educated. So if there is a service of the officers who were poor and unsatisfactory they will protest and certainly less comfortable in using library facilities.

Third, the availability of adequate collection of books. Collection of reading materials (books or literarur) is the most important component to the library. Collection should have minimal library is a must-read for every subject taught and the amount should be sufficient. According to Education Minister Decree 0686/U/1991, every basic subjects and skills courses must be provided two books by the number of copies required at least 10% of the number of students taking the course.

Fourth, create a reading on campus climate. Conducive academic environment will encourage students to be diligent to the library. It can be done, for example by providing lecturers reading assignments for students.

If the library can provide a good service and provide a range of needs required literature, the student will come to the library a lot. Such an environment can not be created alone by the library, but must work with the entire campus community.

Ways To Achieve Millennium Education Development



A significant number of a large majority of school children came from unrecognized schools and children from such schools outperform similar students in government schools in key school subjects.2 Private schools for the poor are counterparts for private schools for the elite. If the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could find ways to invest in private schools, then genuine education could result. 100 million children are still denied the opportunity of going to school. Child labor is common among the third world countries. Putting children into school may not be enough. Education for All: How?The goal is simple: Get the 100 million kids missing an education into school. 11 Assistant teachers could be trained. It will often mean reallocation of resources within the education budget to basic education and away from other levels. 16
A Closer Look: Private and Public Schools
Some of the most disadvantage people on this planet vote with their feet: exit the public schools and move their children in private schools. Why are private schools better than state schools?
Teachers in the private schools are more accountable. Private schools are able to carry quality education better than state schools. The new research found that private schools for the poor exist in the slum areas aiming to help the very disadvantage have access to quality education. The poor subsidized the poorest.Teachers in the public schools cannot be fired mainly because of incompetence. Principals/head teachers are not accountable to the parents if their children are not given adequate education. Should international aids be invested solely to private schools that are performing better and leave the state schools in total collapse? If private education seems to be the hope in achieving education for all, why not privatize all low performing state schools? Public schools can be made better. The government has to be hands on in improving the quality of education of state schools. Standardized tests are also vital in improving schools and student achievements. Take for instance the idea of charter schools. As an alternative to failed public schools and government bureaucracy, local communities in America used public funds to start their own schools. The Education Department's findings showed that in almost every racial, economic and geographic category, fourth graders in traditional public schools outperform fourth graders in charter schools. 20 Every country is committed to develop its education to bring every child into school but most are still struggling with mountainous debts. Since the Dakar meeting, several countries reported their progress in education.

Necessity of Online Education for Older Women


The system of linking students, teachers and learning resources when they are not in the same location is called "distance learning". Earlier, distance learning made effective use of communication technologies like the postal service, and then television programs. However, a huge shift occurred after the advent of the Internet and "online education" was born. This transformed not only the methods of education but also the development and propagation of knowledge and communications between students and teachers. But how did all this effect older women? Technology granted new opportunities for many older women to achieve educational goals and they successfully managed to balance home and education.

Universities now form partnerships with businesses and even each other to compete better, in a greatly expanded worldwide market for students. The growth of online education can be attributed primarily to these reasons -

• You get to choose the class hours according to your discretion.

• Instead of a typical classroom environment, you get to learn in the comfort of your home.

• Since the actual sessions are never crowded, more attention is focused on you.

• Zero conveyance cost. Also you get to choose a class which fits your personal style and budget.

• Since there is to-and-fro involved, you save a lot of time.


According to a survey, more than 2 million students enrolled in online education courses in 2002 alone. If a recent U.S. government document is to be believed, the average age of online students is 34 years old and they are mostly female.

So why do older women pursue continuing education? According to a survey, the main impetuses of women for returning to education are -

• Expansion of their current career

• Enhancement of current salary

• Changing or beginning careers

• Returning to staff position

• Pursuing personal advantages

Among the women surveyed, 20% belonged to the age group of 41 - 50.

The top online colleges offering scholarships in America are -

(i) Liberty University

(ii) Post University

(iii) Kaplan University

(iv) DeVry University

(v) American Inter Continental University

(vi) Grand Canyon University.

The number of older women currently working to complete courses and degrees online represents a social wonder. Awareness of women's problems and measures to help overcome the tribulations are required to raise the success of both older women and online programs.

Although women are the main users, they are grossly underrepresented in high-tech sectors and among university administrators who are currently influential to online learning. Many adult women returning to college classes have to tackle significant hurdles not usually experienced by men. Many women balance career, community and household tasks against their curricular work. They often have serious economic liabilities too. Customarily, they have grappled with these difficulties while also facing inflexible class schedules and educational policies, incompetent childcare, lack of appropriate lodging, and lack of dependable transportation. Online education seeks to solve all this and more.

Using Online Learning to Improve Your Education


Online education has made it easier to get a music degree or nursing degree. Learning online has enabled many people to get a better education. If you know how to surf the Internet, then you have knowledge at your fingertips.

It is no longer necessary to travel long distances and sacrifice work and family in order to expand your skill set and your knowledge. You can get a degree online or in a hybrid arrangement that allows you to do most of your studies on the Internet while you visit a campus for hands-on training. Consider these examples.

Online Paralegal Degree
a bachelor degree in paralegal studies can get you into the legal world without having to acquire training in law. paralegals do most of the research and prepare cases for lawyers. the only thing that a paralegal cannot do is represent clients in court.

thanks to the internet, you can now do much of the class work and reading online. you do not have to lose time traveling to a campus and sitting in a classroom. the internet can bring all the resources you need to study into your home or any where with access to the online world.

online music degree
a music degree is a good example of a course of study that can benefit from a hybrid approach to distance learning. you will need to study theory. there is no need to take that class on a campus. instead, you could easily listen to music samples and evaluate them online.

other classes may require you to play instruments or participate with your instructor in musical performance. by allowing the flexibility which distance learning offers, instructors can adapt courses to meet the needs of students of all kinds. this is especially true for those beginning a second career or simply trying to get a degree that they always wished they had.

nursing degree
some degrees, such as a nursing degree, require a lot of hands-on training. however, even a nursing degree has prerequisites which include a lot of reading and writing. these courses are ideal candidates for distance learning and online education.

eventually, in a course of study that required hands on experience such as a nursing degree, you will need work on campus or at another specified location. that does not mean, though, that the online world has lost all use for you. no matter how much time is spent on campus, the internet is always a valuable resource to have.

even courses which require daily meetings in a classroom can profit from using the technology that makes distance learning possible. students can save money by purchasing electronic textbooks and bringing them to their classes on laptop computers. instructors now have access to any video or audio presentation that they think will be helpful to their classes.

whether you want a paralegal degree, a music degree or a nursing degree, you will find the internet to be helpful. it can offer mountains of valuable information. it can also make it possible for you to enhance your knowledge without having to give up your job.

Selasa, 23 Juli 2013

Benefits of Virtual Schooling


Many people are aware of virtual schooling as an educational alternative. However, they might wonder just what makes it worthy of consideration. As with other forms of education, cyber schooling offers unique benefits. Here are just a few of them to consider:

Individualized Education

Having educational options means families can make the best choices for their children. Each child has unique educational strengths, weakness, needs and preferences, and virtual schooling allows families and educators to address these differences. In many cases, virtual schools allow families and educators to evaluate a student and provide a customized education geared towards helping the student learn and develop. With education individualized to meet his or her needs, a student may be more willing to learn and more likely to excel.

Learning Pace

A student's learning pace can prove a concern in any type of learning environment. In traditional classrooms, it is often important for students to adopt a pace that suits the classroom, so that no one lags behind others and no one gets too far ahead. Adopting an average pace is often important, in such cases, to keeping the flow of learning consistent and preventing students from becoming bored and frustrated. In a cyber school, however, this is typically less of a concern or a non-issue altogether. Because virtual education programs can be adapted to meet student needs, they often allow students to work towards mastery at the pace that is comfortable for them.

Importance of Education in Society

Education, if looked at beyond its conventional boundaries, forms the very essence of all our actions. What we do is what we know and have learned, either through instructions or through observation and assimilation. When we are not making an effort to learn, our mind is always processing new information or trying to analyze the similarities as well as the tiny nuances within the context which makes the topic stand out or seem different. If that is the case then the mind definitely holds the potential to learn more, however, it is us who stop ourselves from expanding the horizons of our knowledge with self-doubt or other social, emotional, or economic constraints.

While most feel that education is a necessity, they tend to use it as a tool for reaching a specific target or personal mark, after which there is no further need to seek greater education. Nonetheless, the importance of education in society is indispensable and cohering, which is why society and knowledge cannot be ever separated into two distinct entities. Let us find out more about the role of education in society and how it affects our lives.

Purpose of Education in Society

Education is Self Empowerment
Receiving a good education helps empower you, thus making you strong enough to look after yourself in any given situation. It keeps you aware of your given surrounding as well as the rules and regulations of the society you're living in. It's only through knowledge that you can be able to question authority for its negligence or discrepancies. It is only then that you can avail your rights as a citizen and seek improvement in the structural functioning of governance and economy. It's only when a citizen is aware about the policies of its government can he be able to support or protest the change. As a whole, people can bring about development only when they know where improvement is necessary for the greater good of mankind. Education helps you understand yourself better, it helps you realize your potential and qualities as a human being. It helps you to tap into latent talent, so that you may be able to sharpen your skills.


Financial Stability and Dignity of Life
Another importance of education is that it helps you gain sufficient academic qualification so that you are able to get suitable employment at a later stage. A decent employment would be combined with hard-earned remuneration or salary through which you can look after your personal expenses. While you earn for yourself, you gradually begin to realize the true worth of money and how hard it is to earn it. You realize the significance of saving for a rainy day and for unforeseeable contingencies. You feel empowered because there is a new sense of worth that develops within you, and you feel the need to be independent and free from any further financial support. You take pride in the fact that you are earning for yourself, and are not obligated to anyone.

Growth in Personal Aspiration
There also comes a phase when the amount you are earning presently will seem inadequate because your aspirations and expectations from yourself would have grown considerably. After this, you will want to change jobs so as to have a higher profile. However, here is when you need to be prepared. A promotion of this figure can occur in two given situations, which are, that either you have the necessary higher academic qualification or a college degree which allows you a safe passage, or that you have amassed enough practical experience which allows you to be a suitable candidate for the employment you seek.

On the Job Efficiency
This is why college education is very important after high school and must not be taken for granted. When faced with the option of choosing between a highly qualified candidate and a not so educated candidate, the employers will most probably go in for the qualified person. The reason being that, a qualified candidate will not require much investment of the employer's time and money. The organization need not teach him or her the tricks of the trade, or the various ways of functioning and performing the tasks of the workplace. On the contrary, a novice / amateur applicant would need to be taught everything from scratch, which many employer's are usually not willing to do. The same applies for people who seek higher education and get advanced diplomas while working. These people are continuously improving their profile and their knowledge base so as to go higher up on the competitive ladder.

Helps Plan Ahead
Those who have amassed enough education, steer the path of development and progress for their country. It is these individuals who go ahead and become teachers, scientists, inventors, welfare activists, soldiers, and politicians who work together to form the very backbone of the society. Without this pool of intellect, the economic and social framework would crumple and fall, paving its way for anarchy, degradation, and violence. While this intricate balance of growth is maintained, there will be a continuous rise in progress in all quarters of life, whether that be personal growth, or development of the nation as an entity. This progress has a very important role to play for the coming generations, which will reap the benefits of our hard work, as they develop it further. At the same time, the negative impact of our actions shall have its collateral damage on the coming generation as well. Which is why we must be exceptionally prudent about the decisions we make and the actions we take in the present.

Job Seeker vs. Job Provider
There will come a time, when you will no longer feel the need to be working as someone's mere employee. You would want to take charge and control over your own life and income. This is when you will decide to become a self-employed individual, who would like to watch his / her own ideas take realistic form. You would prefer being the one offering job opportunities to others and aid in providing income to them. At this stage of entrepreneurship, you may use your own expertise as well as that of other trained and skilled associates. As a team, you will find your business or venture expanding and yielding good results. You may even gain the confidence and insight, which will help you diversify and spread your expertise into other business arenas, which were previously unknown to you, or you were unsure about. This ability, comes with experience and knowledge amassed over the years.

An Idle Mind is The Devil's Workshop
Education and studying regularly, gives people of all age groups something substantial and challenging to do. It helps them think and use their idle hours, doing something productive and worthwhile. Education need not be purely academic and may include reading for leisure or as a passion for literature, philosophy, art, politics, economics, or even scientific research. There is no limit, to all that you can teach yourself, only if you take the interest to learn and grow as an individual. However, those who treat knowledge as trash, eventually find themselves getting absorbed with thoughts of violence, and jealously against those who are better off than themselves. It is people such as these who turn towards drug addiction, unnecessary rebellion, crime, and plain inactivity. Such people lack the self-esteem, that a good education often provides to its followers.

Education plays its continuous role in all spheres of life. The reason being, that if we are aware of the drawbacks of a decision and we know about the possible contingencies and the collateral damage, our consequent actions would be wiser, which would help us to keep danger at bay at all times.

Expectations of Others

                  Gifted students often have a hard time meeting expectation of parents and teachers who think that because they are gifted they should be uniformly gifted.  This is not the case.  In fact, it is not unusual for gifted students to have what is called asynchronous development.  Gifted students might be amazing students in math, yet be merely average in language arts. It is even possible for a gifted student to be below level in a subject. But just because they are gifted the expectations of those around them to excel in everything puts an incredible amount of pressure on students who already feel their difference.

It is important for teachers, parents, and other involved adults to consider that a gifted student might not have all the answers and might, in fact, need a little bit of extra help in some subjects.  It does not change the fact
that they are gifted for them to need extra help in a subject.  This leads to another issue.

Expectations of Self

By the time a student discovers that they learn faster, or easier, or differently than other students they have already been assigned a label.  When that labelis gifted not only are the expectations of the adults set, but often the student has expectation that gifted means that they will not have to work as hard to achieve top grades.

         Self-esteem sometimes suffers in gifted students because of these expectations or assumptions.  In one example, a gifted student who normally did not have to review, or even study for tests hit a concept that wasparticularly difficult for her.  She scored a 70% on a test, far from her normal upper 90s to perfect scores.  She began to think that that one score defined her and her ability to learn.

The student began to think of herself as stupid.  While this seems extreme, considering that she had never scored below a 90% on any test, in nine years of school, the lower score was a harsh blow.  She decided that she hated math, and was no good at it.  Her teachers and parents assured her that one score did not define her, or her ability to learn.  They tried to explain that she was still as gifted as ever, but that she might actually have to study to achieve the higher scores she was accustomed to.  The student believed that having to study for something actually made her less bright.  Her expectations of her own abilities took a hit, and so did her overall self-esteem.

Drive or the Lack of It

Some gifted students are programmed to excel.  It is part of their makeup to strive for the highest scores, and the maximum amount of knowledge accumulation.  These students are driven to finish faster, with better scores, so that they might quickly move on to the next educational achievement.

Other gifted students are programmed to rest on their laurels, so to speak.  These students do not feel the drive to excel, but are content to do nothing and still achieve passing scores.  This is frustrating for students and parents who both see wasted potential.  It is hard for the adults to see why a student with greater potential is willing to coast instead of speed ahead.  Both of these traits occur in gifted students.   It is important to determine which category a gifted student falls into and direct them as needed.

Gifted Students are Special

In many school districts around the country gifted programs are incorporated under the special education department.  At first glance this might seem odd, after all special education is usually thought of as education provided to students who have learning disadvantages.  Giftedness is not a disadvantage, but sometimes requires special handling.  There are many issues that are particularly pronounced in gifted students.

One of these is the issue of maturity.  Gifted students are often capable of work beyond that of their age peers.  However, just because they may be more advanced academically than their age peers does not mean that they are more mature than their age peers.  This sometimes poses a dilemma, should the student be advanced to a higher grade so that they are academically challenged, or should they be kept with their age peers because they might not be ready for social issues they might face when placed with older students.

Some school systems opt for gifted programs that are enrichment programs, offering gifted students grade level work, and providing more opportunities to learn such as music and art classes that are not offered to the general student population.  Other school systems choose accelerated programs, which allow the gifted student to move on to higher grade work sooner.  Both programs have merit, but depending on the gifted student, one program might work better than the other.