Κυριακή 21 Δεκεμβρίου 2008

Attention and focusing at schools.

From a letter to an educator:
Alan Anderson & Radar

Although I am a kindergarten through fifth grade music teacher, my deepest concern about my students lies primarily in the realm of attention and focusing. Over the course of 13 years of teaching, I have come in contact with hundreds upon hundreds of lesson plans, interventions and other tactics intended to increase learning on the part of my students, but I can't help but notice that the basic ground (that's missing) of all of these activities is ability to focus. A child who cannot focus has little or no chance of hearing or seeing what the teacher is doing, regardless of how brilliant it might be. So I consider attention and focusing to be at the tabula rasa of all attempts at education.

I have made numerous attempts at increasing my students' pure attention, but it wasn't until last year that I could honestly say that something worked.

I began to study karate last year with a martial arts master, Kyoshi Michael Coleman. In my classes I noticed that the more experienced students would often place their fists on their crossed legs while listening to the teacher. The fists were placed upright on the knees with the thumb pressed down -- the way politicians point at their audience with their thumb, rather than their first finger. I asked my wife who had been studying for a year, what the meaning of this was. She said that it was a way for students to show respect and one-pointedness in listening to the teacher.

In addition, I watched how my teacher would get the attention of children studying martial arts by standing in front of them, palms together, and then say, "Ichike" ("Attention" in Japanese). Upon saying this word, teacher and student would clap twice and the children would sit down. Between this and the fists on the knees, I thought that there was some great lurking potential here.

So this is what I put together:

When my students came into class, I asked them if they knew what "radar" meant. I then discussed the revolving radar mechanism that they might have seen at airports and what it did. Then I told them that they have their own radar, and asked them what that might be. Once we had established that their radar existed primarily in their eyes and ears, I let them know about this "special" secret that martial arts students knew, called "samurai pose" or "warrior pose". I taught them that this pose with hands on knees---with eyes, ears all pointing at the teacher---helped the samurai to stay alive in battle by listening and watching every word and movement of their teacher. If samurais didn't focus perfectly on their teacher's instructions, they could lose their lives.

This was all very interesting to my students, and they were perfectly willing to learn how to stand with palms together, and clap twice in unison upon hearing the word, "Ichike", immediately followed by sitting down silently with their hands and bodies in "samurai posture".

I would do this in the beginning of class, and then, throughout the 30 minute classes. I would notice a student or two who remained in this posture, looking sharply and penetratingly at me, and I would compliment how they had such good "radar"---which always resulted in more students sitting up straight and focusing on me in this manner. And now, when I see some mild chaos brewing in the classroom, I comment, "I'm not getting much attention. I need to see some radar!" Voila! 80% of the students go directly to the posture, with straight backs and eyes looking right at me. They look great and I gain a moment of stillness from which I can reel us all in and get back on track.

What I see happening, is that I have successfully identified wakefulness for the student, and having identified it, the students are now able to invoke is for themselves. It's not theoretical; it is kinesthetic, and it has now been placed in their repertoire of behaviors. They have gained an experiential knowledge of a very subtle state of consciousness. So now, even though it often takes a lot of reminding, we are finally able to share the meaning of the words, focus and attention, and we get alot more done.

Τρίτη 9 Δεκεμβρίου 2008

Democracy?

"Η Δημοκρατία μας αυτοκαταστρέφεται διότι κατεχράσθη το δικαίωμα της
ελευθερίας και της ισότητας, διότι έμαθε τους πολίτες να θεωρούν την
αυθάδεια ως δικαίωμα, την παρανομία ως ελευθερία, την αναίδεια του λόγου
ως ισότητα και την αναρχία ως ευδαιμονία."
Ισοκράτης (436 π.Χ-338 π.Χ.)

Κυριακή 7 Δεκεμβρίου 2008

Η ευτυχία είναι μεταδοτική...!


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Happiness is contagious, researchers reported on Thursday.
The same team that demonstrated obesity and smoking spread in networks has shown that the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy.
And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness, they reported in the British Medical Journal.
"What we are dealing with is an emotional stampede," Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in a telephone interview.

Christakis and James Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, have been using data from 4,700 children of volunteers in the Framingham Heart Study, a giant health study begun in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1948.
They have been analyzing a trove of facts from tracking sheets dating back to 1971, following births, marriages, death, and divorces. Volunteers also listed contact information for their closest friends, co-workers, and neighbors.
They assessed happiness using a simple, four-question test.
"People are asked how often during the past week, one, I enjoyed life, two, I was happy, three, I felt hopeful about the future, and four, I felt that I was just as good as other people," Fowler said.
The 60 percent of people who scored highly on all four questions were rated as happy, while the rest were designated unhappy.
CONNECTIONS EQUAL HAPPINESS
People with the most social connections -- friends, spouses, neighbors, relatives -- were also the happiest, the data showed. "Each additional happy person makes you happier," Christakis said.
"Imagine that I am connected to you and you are connected to others and others are connected to still others. It is this fabric of humanity, like an American patch quilt."
Each person sits on a different-colored patch. "Imagine that these patches are happy and unhappy patches. Your happiness depends on what is going on in the patch around you," Christakis said.
"It is not just happy people connecting with happy people, which they do. Above and beyond, there is this contagious process going on."
And happiness is more contagious than unhappiness, they discovered.
"If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent," Fowler said. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling, if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent," he added.
A happy third-degree friend -- the friend or a friend of a friend -- increases a person's chances of being happy by 6 percent.
"But every extra unhappy friend increases the likelihood that you'll be unhappy by 7 percent," Fowler said.
The finding is interesting but it is useful, too Fowler said.
"Among other benefits, happiness has been shown to have an important effect on reduced mortality, pain reduction, and improved cardiac function. So better understanding of how happiness spreads can help us learn how to promote a healthier society," he said.
The study also fits in with other data that suggested -- in 1984 -- that having $5,000 extra increased a person's chances of becoming happier by about 2 percent.
"A happy friend is worth about $20,000," Christakis said.
His team also is examining the spread of depression, loneliness, and drinking behavior.
(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Jackie Frank)

Σάββατο 1 Νοεμβρίου 2008

Η ελληνική υπό διωγμό...

Η ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΓΛΩΣΣΑ υπό διωγμό...!!!

Την απλοποίηση της ελληνικής γραφής ζητά ο κύπριος ευρωβουλευτής Μάριος Ματσάκης, με σχετική εισήγηση που υπέβαλε προς τον υπουργό Παιδείας της Κύπρου Ανδρέα Δημητρίου. Την πρόταση του κοινοποίησε και στους Έλληνες ευρωβουλευτές. Ο κ. Ματσάκης προτείνει στον Κύπριο υπουργό τη σύσταση μιας ολιγομελούς επιτροπής γλωσσολόγων, οι οποίοι θα μπορούσαν, εμπεριστατωμένα να ενδιατρίψουν επί του θέματος και να δώσουν μια επιστημονικά έγκυρη πρόταση για τον εκμοντερνισμό/απλοποίηση της Ελληνικής γραφής.
Στην επιστολή του ο Κύπριος ευρωβουλευτής παραθέτει ως "τροφή για σκέψη" τα εξής:
1. Να καταργηθούν τα γράμματα 'η' και 'υ' και να αντικατασταθούν από το γράμμα 'ι'.
2. Να καταργηθεί το γράμμα 'ω' και να αντικατασταθεί από το γράμμα 'ο'.
3. Να καταργηθούν οι εξής συνδυασμοί γραμμάτων και να αντικατασταθούνως εξής: 'αι'---> 'ε', 'ει'--->'ι', 'οι--->ι', 'υι'--->ι','αυ'--->'αβ', 'ευ'--->'εβ'
4. Να καταργηθεί η χρήση του 'γγ' και να αντικατασταθεί από το 'γκ'.
5. Να καταργηθεί το τελικό γράμμα 'ς' και να αντικατασταθεί από το γράμμα 'σ'.

Ως αποτέλεσμα των ανωτέρω αλλαγών, αναφέρει ο .ευρωβουλευτής, το Ελληνικό αλφάβητο θα έχει μόνο 21γράμματα (α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, κ,λ, μ, ν , ξ , ο , π, ρ, σ, τ, φ, χ, ψ) και ένα μόνο δίψηφο (το 'ου'). Ο κ. Ματσάκης υποστηρίζει ότι η απλοποίηση της Ελληνικής γραφής καθίσταται αναγκαία μέσα στα πλαίσια μιας τάσης ενωτικής πορείας των γλωσσών στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση. Επιπλέον, μια τέτοια αλλαγή θα καταστήσει την Ελληνική γραφή πιο απλή και πολύ πιο εύχρηστη. Ιδιαίτερα όσον αφορά την χρήση ηλεκτρονικού υπολογιστή και σε σχέση με μεγάλο αριθμό ατόμων που έχουν διάφορες μορφές δυσλεξίας (!!!)

Υπενθυμίζεται πως, δια μέσου των αιώνων, η Ελληνική γλώσσα ήδη έχει 'χάσει' τρία σημαντικά γράμματα (τα: δίγαμμα, κώφ & τσαδδαί) ενώ πρόσφατα, με αφορμή πάλι τους Η/Υ, αναμορφώθηκε και αποψιλώθηκε. Ωστόσο, αυτό δεν φαίνεται να βοήθησε καθόλου στη βελτίωση της δυσλεξίας των νεοελλήνων ή/και εκείνων που το λεξιλόγιό τους περιορίζεται στις 150-200 λέξεις...


Προωθήστε το email αυτό για την ενημέρωση του κόσμου σχετικά με αυτή την δόλια νέα επίθεση, που γίνεται με πρόσχημα τον δήθεν εκσυγχρονισμό της (ήδη επικίνδυνα ρημαγμένης) γλώσσας μας! --------------

Υ.Γ. 1: Σύμφωνα με μία άποψη, που λέγεται ότι διατυπώθηκε από τον Χένρι Κισσιγκερ: "Ο Ελληνικός λαός είναι δυσκολοκυβέρνητος και γι' αυτό πρέπει να τον πλήξουμε βαθιά στις πολιτισμικές του ρίζες. Τότε ίσως συνετισθεί. Εννοώ, δηλ., να πλήξουμε τη γλώσσα, τη θρησκεία, τα πνευματικά και ιστορικά του αποθέματα, ώστε να εξουδετερώσουμε κάθε δυνατότητά του να αναπτυχθεί και να διακριθεί. Για να μη μας παρενοχλεί στα Βαλκάνια, στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο, στη Μέση Ανατολή και σε όλη αυτή τη νευραλγική περιοχή μεγάλης στρατηγικής σημασίας για μας, για την πολιτική των ΗΠΑ".

Υ.Γ. 2: Θα ήθελα να προσθέσω και τα εξής: Ας τολμήσει κάποιος ξένος να προτείνει σε Γάλλο να εξαλείψει τους τρεις τόνους, ή να γράψει το beaucoup ως bocou, ή το couteau ως couto. Aς τολμήσει να προτείνει σε ένα Άγγλο να γράψει αντί thought - thot, αντί wrought - rot, ή σε ένα Γερμανό να γράψει αντί Gemutsbeschaffenheit - Gemutsbesafenheit , ή αντί Erbschleicher - Erbsleiher και θα δούμε τι θα γίνει !!

Παρασκευή 29 Αυγούστου 2008

Νέα Εποχή

Τρέχουμε και δεν προλαβαίνουμε. Όλα ξεκινάν πιο νωρίς αυτή τη σχολική χρονιά...
Σιδεροκέφαλοι οι νεοδιόριστοι...