Education Information

How to Lift Students’ Math a Grade Level

May 5, 2022 Comments Off

Many of us might have experienced the trauma that our kids go through trying to learn math, to the extent that they start to hate it! Most of us at some stage shunned math because we did not understand it. Fortunately, this need not happen nowadays.
A child usually performs well in math in the earlier grades. When he is in Year 5, he starts to find math not so cool. He would often come home with homework that would require parents’ assistance. Parents are finding it harder and harder to help as the ways that children are taught are different from the ways they were taught. Schools teach differently nowadays, as methodologies have changed over the years. This does not help the child who has to face the teacher the next day.
The reason why children do not understand math is because of gaps in their learning. For example, lessons might have not been fully understood. As time pass, math becomes more and more confusing; because the knowledge gained is not enough to sustain further understanding.
How can this be remedied? The solution is to go back and relearn the lessons. There are many ways to help a child. One of them is tutoring. A tutor discovers the strengths and weaknesses of the student by testing him on various topics. He schedules a study plan to cover the problem areas by going back to the basics, and slowly work his way up to the class level.
Private tutoring can be expensive though; especially, if the student has lagged too far behind. An alternative could be learning centers. Some of those centers specialize in both math and English and operate after school hours. They are reasonably priced and they do a good job. Their strength lies in the amount of repetitive worksheets they give the student on a continuous basis, that help consolidate knowledge gained. The only downside is the chore of driving the kids to and from the centers. For those who prefer, there are online courses that can deliver the same results. The added advantage is that parents can learn concepts and lessons — or at least understand them enough — to be able to get more involved with their children education anytime that suits them.
A study program needs to be laid out which would cover the areas that need addressing first. They can then progressively apply the knowledge gained to other related areas of math. Students might understand some concepts better than others. It is best to start with what they understand first, and consolidate their knowledge in those areas in order to build confidence. Once they feel comfortable, to slowly progress to more advance lessons, until all the topics are fully mastered. Then, proceed to the next topic and repeat the process. Slowly the student will start to understand math facts that were never understood, and would be more and more motivated to learn. It gets easier and easier as the knowledge gaps are slowly filled.
The curriculum could take anywhere between six to nine months, depending on the amount of help needed, as it varies from child to child. Experience has proven that within five to six months after starting a revision program, students not only understand math better, but are among the top performers in class.

Why Would Anyone Pay to Go to a Lecture?

December 1, 2021 Comments Off

For well over one hundred years, the lecture method of instruction has been taking a severe beating. Critics pointed to auditorium style lecture halls all over the world, filled with students in varying stages of boredom, with some even fast asleep.
Educational theorists attack the method as failing to prepare students for living in the modern world, even as far back as the time of John Dewey and others at the turn of the twentieth century.
Now, here we are in the twenty-first century and the lecture method is receiving even more body blows. Once again, we read in the popular literature how traditional education is failing to produce learners with the skills necessary for surviving and thriving in the twenty-first century. What people like Dewey suspected – that the kind of passive involvement inherent in the lecture method was not conducive to learning – is now the subject of rigorous scientific research.
Computerized imaging technology has paved the way for researchers to look at what goes on in the brain and how it learns. Although there are those who would argue their findings are not conclusive, the clear indication is the brain requires active involvement to learn.
Considering this history and contemporary research on the subject, why would any human being anywhere in the world pay perfectly good money to attend lecture presentations?
Think about that for a moment and you will realize there are experts everywhere who show up in auditoriums across the globe to share their knowledge in a lecture-style presentation, and people often pay exorbitant amounts for the privilege of listening.
Why do they go? And why are they not bored when they get there?
The principal reason is relevance. They see the topic of the lecture as relevant to an immediate need in their own lives and in many cases as a potential solution. As an example, consider a lecture presented by one of the world’s most successful investors on successful strategies for investing in the share market.
It is likely you will find many people in the audience in the age range of 18 – 21. Nor will you find many attendees who are already retired and in their 70’s and beyond. What you will find are people with money to invest right now looking for advice on where to put it.
The better presentations include graphics and time for interaction between the expert and the audience, usually in the form of question and answer sessions. However, no matter how you dress it up, the basic nature of the presentation is still a lecture from expert to novice.
You can find examples of presentations like this in many fields of interest, from health maintenance to dog training. The successful presenters in each field share the common bond of providing information their audience sees as relevant to their lives.
Educational theory is a wonderful thing, but in actual real-world practice, it is a fact that some content seems to have no immediate relevance to the students involved. What is an instructor to do?
First, recognize the formidable power relevance has and then look for relevance – even if it is future-oriented rather than immediate – in your own content. In almost all cases, it is there and as the one more knowledgeable about the content, you are in a better position to find it than are your students. Once you have your own reasons, share them with your students, and ask them whether they see the potential relevance you see.

Your Green Hair Looks Terrible

September 8, 2021 Comments Off

If someone tells you that your green hair looks terrible, you may shrug your shoulders and say that YOU don’t have green hair, you must be blind and they must be blind. But if the same one is saying that your smile looks fake-this is another matter. A slight odour of anger might come up after all who is he, to say such a thing?
Lies are lies and usually don’t make any difference to any of us unless they impact on our livelihood or respectability. The opposite is the case with truth. Truth hurts and makes us angry. Who wants to see or admit that our behavior is pretentious, the heart full of fear and the mind dumb?
However, anger can be a tool for change when we feel the full force of it and accept it as a gift to see where our physical and emotional wounds lie. Look at small children and how beautiful their anger is; we don’t judge or condemn them because a minute later they are full of love and joy.
The same can also happen with us if we turn the torch of awareness from the person who has offended us back to ourselves where the problem lies. Not only will we be more authentic with all our other feelings but more importantly we can see the power in anger and the lesson to be learned.
Any lover of truth will include his or her anger on the journey, accepting and even welcoming it as another chance of finding out about one’s deeper reality. In all relationships, whether in love partnerships or otherwise, anger is always present where there are illusions, expectations and dreams.
The thing is do we need to be more aware of the part we play in these relationships and do we need to be more aware of what hurts us and why?
Sam

Self-Healing Is Energy Healing

January 20, 2021 Comments Off

Self-healing begins with the mind, which can generate energy to accomplish the task of healing. Self-healing is energy healing.
According to the laws of physics, there is energy in everything, and everything gives out invisible energy, including the sun, the moon, and the human body. As a matter of fact, everything is some form of energy, which is either positive or negative. For example, your thinking, too, involves energy, without which the mind cannot function. If you “think” you can heal yourself, your mind sends out positive energy to your body for self-healing.
According to Chinese medicine, your body is composed of energy, and, therefore, your body will respond positively or negatively to other energies within and also around you in the living world. In other words, everything within you and around you is all inter-connected through energy.
Energy healing began in China more than 5,000 years ago. At that time, some soldiers who received minor wounds inflicted on their bodies soon discovered that their physical pains and ailments had miraculously disappeared, and that led to the discovery of energy healing. The ancient Chinese physicians began to believe that there was an energy system in the human body, within which there was energy communication between different cells and organs. For centuries, the Chinese have believed that “qi” (the internal life energy) is responsible for transmitting energy information within the body. Accordingly, the smooth flow or stagnation of “qi” accounts for health or sickness.
Your life is a journey through which you make many choices – some good ones and also some ones — that build your health or the illnesses that are part of your experiences in this lifetime. Life has a purpose with a unique destiny for each individual. Therefore, it is important that you know yourself, and self-healing is “knowing the self” as a part of your destiny. Sometimes and somewhere along the journey of life, you may hit rock bottom and begin to despair. You may even ask the frequently-asked question: “Why me?” But that may be a time of self-awakening for you. You may begin to question how you may have found yourself in that difficult and despondent situation. True self-awakening will make you take a different path — a detour from that journey you have been prodding along.Taking a different path creates the energy for healing.
Your self-awakening can be physical, such as a change of diet or taking up an exercise regimen. Your self-wakening can be emotional or spiritual, such as self-awakening to the power of love. For example, through the self-healing power of meditation, you may be awakened to a new awareness of reality, a new consciousness of who you really are and what your priorities in life are. Self-awakening may give you the intention to heal, precipitating in changes that will ultimately heal not just the body but also the mind. Your very intention to heal is healing energy for the body and the mind.
If you know yourself, you will empower yourself with knowledge to heal yourself, and that empowerment generates energy healing. If you know yourself, you will make more right choices, than wrong ones, regarding your health. In making those choices, you are creating energy healing to bring about self-healing.
Unfortunately, many of us place the responsibility of healing on our doctors. We readily relinquish our own responsibility to know ourselves to bring about self-healing. As a result, we remain sick and unhealed. Dr. Felix Marti-Ibanez, M.D., hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “Only by knowing the healthy man can we cure him….. To be a doctor, then, means much more than to dispense pills or to patch up torn flesh and shattered mind.” What Dr. Marti-Ibanez meant was that you need to know yourself in order to be healed, because nobody knows your health better than yourself. Only you yourself can create that energy healing.
Self-healing begins with knowing yourself through self-awakening. Knowing yourself will empower you with knowledge for self-healing. The very process of empowerment generates energy healing.
Copyright (c) 2011 Stephen Lau

Character Education is Easier Than You Think

November 6, 2020 Comments Off

Character education is being executed in schools and other not for profit organizations across the US. Character education allows the individual student to achieve personal success and also develop into a strong person at the same time.
Developing character can begin with the help of a product or course that teaches the parent that is not familiar with character education. These products help aid the children gain several good traits instead of just one or two throughout life.
Mom and dad are very busy people. These programs help shortcut the time it takes to learn how to teach character education to their son or daughter.
A child really needs to learn character education hands on. In other words, it is not just taught directly but also indirectly with children being encouraged to think through situations and respond in an appropriate way.
Children can be taught to regulate their emotions and respond maturely to frustrating or stressful situations. They are also taught communication strategies that help them to become empowered and resilient individuals. Children must feel engaged if they are going to learn anything from any of the character education programs.
A child will learn more if they are taught in a positive approach. Look for a program that is simple in nature by itself without trying to make things more difficult than necessary.
A solid program helps build a child’s confidence by showing them how to set and reach certain goals. Many small wins are much more important to a kid than focusing on one big unseemingly impossible goal. A program needs to be kept simple and promote imagination and action for the child. As they achieve small successes, kids are more likely to believe they can achieve greater ones.
Their possibilities expand and they become more confident.
Praise is a powerful aspect of character education. When children are praised for their efforts and achievements, they are encouraged to continue making an effort. Praise for even small wins can spur a child on to persevere through difficult tasks and teach them that mastery is achieved slowly.
A lot of people focus on the social responsibility aspects of character education such as respect for others, civic responsibilities, and honesty but it really involves a lot more than that.
The strength of character children need to develop in order to live happy, fulfilled and successful adult lives is drawn from the experiences of their lives and how skilled they are at interpreting and responding to other people, situations and problems. These experiences are not just something kids have to respond to reactively, but can be created proactively through the decisions they make.
When children learn to imagine what they want to be, or do, or have and then set achievable goals, they learn to proactively create their experiences. Kids who have this ability tend to be more resilient, self-regulated and optimistic than those who don’t.
Character education programs in schools may or may not focus on these aspects of personal development, but parents should certainly look for programs that do so. The benefits to your children now and into the future are worth the investment.

The Garden of Eden – How to Enter Back Into Paradise

February 13, 2020 Comments Off

Adam and Eve began life in true paradise, a different state of mind, and therefore, a different state of being. God’s creation of the world was enjoyable for Him, it was not laborious. God wanted the same for Adam as the Bible states, “And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Gen 2:15)
There were two important trees in the garden: The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam to eat freely of the tree of life, however, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a test of obedience. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2:16)
There was a serpent whom also lived in the garden, a very sly and subtle creature. The serpent beguiled the woman to eat of the tree which God commanded them not to, as he was cunning in his words. The woman knew she was not to partake of the tree, but the serpent stated, “Thou shalt not surely die” and “Ye shall see as gods”, and she saw that the tree was indeed, “pleasant to the eyes”, bearing fruit to make one wise. The serpent was an evil spirit that made her doubt God’s words, and doubt she did. She took of the tree and shared with Adam. Their eyes were opened and they did see differently, but not the way the serpent had claimed.
Adam and his wife hid, for they suddenly saw things (and themselves) in a different way and felt ashamed. They also felt shame because they did something they knew they were told not to do. But it did not hurt God, it only hurt themselves; for they had opened a door to death. This was the fall of mankind in the beginning of time, as the name Adam translates to mankind.
They were cast out of the garden and they were no longer worthy or capable of living in the garden. God said they will now labor in pain, no joy, like a slave to the earth. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen 3:17-19)
The garden of Eden was kept lit by a flaming sword, so that it may be possible to return back to it some day. “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” (Gen 3:24)
Adam and Eve seemed to be test subjects, with their decision and ultimately their curse, deciding the fate of the generations to follow. They indeed failed by disobeying God’s command, and in a way the world still suffers to this day. Jesus, however, was considered the “second Adam.” He came to Earth to die for our sins, the sins that were brought forth by the first Adam. However, Jesus showed a life of good and giving was possible, and set an example for others to follow. He began a new way of life.
Access to the tree of life is based upon a proper relationship with God, which is why Adam could not remain there after being disobedient. It is a fairly simple concept: tree of life results in life abundantly; tree of knowledge of good and evil results in death, as we see from Adam and Eve. My belief is that living the right life will get you back to the garden, back to a mindset and of peace and life. Life means the absence of sickness, shame, disease, guilt, and ultimately, death.
The Bible says Jesus died for our sins, so that we would not have to any longer. So, is there harm in believing we do not have to physically die? Can we live a life like Jesus, and ultimately conquer death, just as he had? The right and proper mindset, and living the right life, can equal everlasting life to who we are: here and now.
The way to life is lit for those who are looking. Learn what not to do from Adam’s example, and you will see you cannot truly live a good life by knowing both “good” and “evil”. Do good, receive good and do bad, receive bad – it’s ultimately karma.
Life can be whatever you make it to be, you have the power control it. But if you desire the ultimate journey, and the way back into a beautiful paradise like the garden of Eden, then you must be on the right (or righteous) path.

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