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The Industrial Revolution was a period of great innovation and movement that affected the whole world; in one way or another. There were plenty of reason why the revolution emerged in Great Britain, they included steadiness in their social, economic, and political views. Britain worked sedulously especially on their navy, since the country was surrounded by water that played an enormous role on their part.
The ocean helped in varies openings to a world of an endless opportunity both in economic and political sectors. Another important advantage the British had were colonies, which provided limitless supply of raw materials at little to no cost to the British. This way they were able to steadily grow at a faster rate, because of having invented Spinning Jenny and Water Frame.
Spinning Jenny was invented by James Hargreaves, the main reason why it became popular was because the simple mechanics it used, not to mention it was quite economical to use. The Water Frame was invented by Richard Arkwright, it came to existence particularly used for cotton spinning mill. This steady growth could not have been carried out without the steam engine, which was invented by James Watt in 1763, the steam engine made quick and cheap way to transportation in just a couple of hours to days depending on the distance need to be covered.
After hearing all these great ideas and success from this industrial revolution, the children were used badly as labors in factors, and farms. They played a significant role in this revolution to an extent that many of them were injuries operating machinery. Many future countries gained important knowledge from the British revolution that they used some of these tactics in other industrial revolutions.
The location of Great Britain was significantly the most ideal for the flourishing of the first industrial revolution in the world. As a result of Britain being surrounded by water, other neighboring countries were greatly influenced . This statement can be proven valid according to the "Geographic Background and Concepts: The Industrial Revolution." many of the countries around Britain became an industrial center.
This text mentions, " Those regions in which water power was readily available, such as Switzerland and parts of France, Italy, and Scandinavia, also became important industrial centers through the development of hydroelectric power in the second half of the nineteenth century. Europe as a whole also had the advantage of being well endowed with iron ore, sulfur, and salt."(Primohistory) Great Britain wanted to involve the whole Europe so that they would not have any enemies' in their geographical location.
They were a very intelligent, strategy, and promiscuous type of empire in Europe but yet indirectly the opposite in their colonies. The British knew how to rule and how to treat their neighbors and the colonies. I have noticed that when they leave a colony they always try to have peaceful relations with everyone, making them think that they are being nice. Instead they do that to hold good contact for future business deals and project.
A Brief History," Indian had become one of the world's greatest exporters of cotton cloth produced by hand labor."( Spielvogel). India have a very hard working class, but yet were not treated fairly because the British would always look down upon them.
For example, at the decline of Indian's Industry because of the English taking lower prices on raw materials, ultimately higher profits for the English. As mentioned in "Industries in India during 18th and 19th Century.", " The market of the chief Indian exports began to fail and, therefore, Compare took up the supply of raw materials to England at cheaper rates to augment their revenue. By the second half of eighteen century India became a raw material supplier at the rate fixed by the Britishers according to their interests...finished goods produced in European Countries."(Usha Rani,B.Bansal).
This proofs the fact that British used force to get lower rates for their raw materials' via leading to higher returns in their pocket. This document was so interesting it described everything in detail of the high and low times of dealing between Indian and Britishers. For example, English factors was able to pressure Indian factors in Indian in terms of tariff and authority on cotton goods from both manufactures.
This jaw dropping statement is mentioned in "Industries in India during 18th and 19th Century.", " the imposition of a heavy tariff on Indian cotton and cotton goods in England, exemption of duty on British staples imported in India, and raising of duties on Indian goods from time to time...British Parliament for removal of invidious duties which discouraged and repressed Indian industries".."(Usha Rani,B.Bansal). This shows that the Great Britain was not the only country who was the root of the first industrial revolution in the world.
Having raw material was great, but if there were not quicker way of manufacturing or transportation of these good Great Britain would not been able to grow at the rate of growth they originally did. They had made machines like spinning wheel and steam engine, which really embraced the idea of fast or mass production. Spinning Jenny and Water Frame were two useful invention that had boosted the function of the revolution. Spinning Jenny was invented by James Hargreaves, mainly aspect why it became famous was because the simple mechanics it used not to mention it was quite economical to use. Water Frame was invented by Richard Arkwright, it came to existence particular used for cotton spinning mill.
There was another inventor, named Samuel Crompton put forth the idea of both of these machines adding more to a better production of finished goods. This is mentioned in, "The Industrial Revolution", "In 1767, James Hargreaves introduced the spinning jenny, which increased the amount of cotton yarn that could be spun. In 1769, Richard Arkwright introduced the water frame, which produced stronger warp yarn. A decade later in 1779, Samuel Crompton combined the jenny and the water frame into one machine called the mule. The mule could produce 300 times as much yarn as a person on a spinning wheel."(Pearson Education).
The main aspect of the mule to control the weaving process and to be able to use different yarns. This process was explained in "Spinning Mule."The spinning mule gave the spinner great control over the weaving process, many different types of yarn could be produced.” (Bellis). This article demonstrates the simplistic methods utilized during this era, and more importantly the efficiency of the fine machines that changed the world of the revolution.
Out of all these great advantages for Great Britain, during this time children unfortunately suffered the most. In order to survive the parents had to send their children to work no matter what gender or age they were. According to varies sources, if the child was able to do basic chores round the house they are commanded to work. As mentioned in "Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution."," children performed a variety of tasks that were auxiliary to their parents but critical to the family economy.
Since Great Britain was one of the best countries in mass production and expending their business. Countries in all around the world learned from them. As mentioned in Globalization: A Reference Handbook," British power was its transition to an industrial economy. British's lead in the Industrial Revolution gave it a political and economic advantage over other nation-states.
The Industrial Revolution is also the catalyst that gave rise to the modern era of globalization."( Barbara) Another reason why many countries around the world respect Britain was because they realized that oil would be better to be used instead of coal. Oil used much less space to be stored. As mentioned in Globalization: A Reference Handbook," Following coal, oil became the dominant fuel.
The use of oil became widespread when Britain realized that oil was a much more efficient fuel for powering its navy during World War I...spread quickly throughout the British Empire, Europe, and space dimension between nations-states and their colonies"( Barbara). British empire was like a role model for the rest of the revolutions which came after their revolution.
All in all the industrial revolution has played numerous significant roles in the development of the world, especially to surrounding counties. This was make possible be the geographic conditions, such as the accessible water. In addition to having a tremendous amount of positive impacts, it also had a few negatives, which can be seen in regards to child labor.
"Geographic Background and Concepts: The Industrial Revolution." Reading.Www.primohistory.com. Primohistory. Web. Bansal, Usha Rani (Department of History, Banaras Hindu University), and B. B. Bansal. (Department of Engineering, Banaras Hindu University), "Industries in India during 18th and 19th Century."Indian Journal Of History of Science 19.(3) (1984): 215-23. "The Industrial Revolution " The West: Encounters & Transformations, Second Edition. 2nd ed. Pearson Education, The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1850. Web. (chapter summary;20) Bellis, Mary. "Spinning Mule." About.com Inventors. | https://lawaspect.com/industrial-revolution-began-britain/ |
PTE Academic speaking read aloud sample passages
PTE Academic speaking read aloud sample passages.Look at the text below. In 40 seconds, you must read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
1.Power generation is a leading cause of air pollution and the single largest source of U.S. global warming emissions. Coal is the worst offender, a dirty energy source that produces less than half our electricity but nearly 80 percent of all power plant carbon emissions.The good news is that coal is on the decline.
2.There’s a better, cleaner way to meet our energy needs. Renewable energy resources like wind and solar power generate electricity with little or no pollution and global warming emissions—and could reliably and affordably provide up to 40 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, and 80 percent by 2050.
3.The growth of the Industrial Revolution depended on the ability to transport raw materials and finished goods over long distances. There were three main types of transportation that increased during the Industrial Revolution: waterways, roads, and railroads. Transportation was important because people were starting to live in the West.
4.The term “Industrial Revolution” describes the period in which there was a gradual shift of improving the process of manufacturing and distributing goods.But what was the impact of the American Industrial Revolution on society and workers? Even though many new jobs were created and some lives were made easier, there were also problems such as low-wages and pollution.
5.This is highly unlikely to provide the income you need to maintain a comfortable standard of living once you have stopped working.Things to consider include how much you are likely to need to live on in your later years, how long you have to save that amount and what sort of investment vehicles or accounts you should use to achieve your goal.
6.Researchers found that exposure to sunlight is associated with higher levels of spending. Since the sunshine makes us feel more positive, consequently, it also causes us to shop more. Consider this finding your silver lining to less sunlight — the shorter days can lead to increased savings.
PTE Academic speaking read aloud sample passages
MORE PRACTICE LINKS: | https://hotshot24.com/pte-academic-speaking-read-aloud-sample-passages-31.html |
In societies marked by high levels of violence and crime, such as in South Africa, people invest in anything that makes them feel more secure, from burglar bars and panic buttons to high concrete walls and electric fences.
Governments tend to take a hard-line approach, putting more police on the streets and toughening punishments for offenders. However, clamping down on violence and crime affects only its symptoms; focusing on security alone fails to address the causes of violence.
Rather, what is needed is a change of emphasis from security to safety. Security means protection against a known or perceived threat, while safety means to live without that threat or fear.
To create a society where everyone feels safe requires an understanding of safety as a human right and a public good that needs to be protected. The way to achieve this is through a commitment to preventing violence and crime by addressing its root causes.
There is no single reason that explains why people become violent. Social research has shown that violent behaviour in people is influenced by a complex interaction of many factors.
In order to help explain the complex phenomenon of violent behaviour, the World Health Organisation (WHO) uses the ecological model, as seen below. The model differentiates between four levels - individual, relationship, community and society – and factors specific for each level which influences and affects people’s behaviour.
Each of these levels presents certain risk and protective factors, producing mutually reinforcing factors of influence over an individual.
Therefore, the model provides a helpful orientation for the planning of violence prevention measures because it considers the interplay of many factors contributing to violent behaviour, as well as the influence of the environment people live in. It also highlights the importance of the co-ordinated action required on multiple levels in order to prevent violence.
Someone with an aggressive disposition (risk factor on the individual level) is more likely to take a violent stance if he or she has previously experienced violence as a means of conflict resolution at home (risk factor on the relationship level). Likewise, someone living in an urban district with high levels of unemployment and crime, and a lack of leisure activities (risk factors on the community level) is more likely to adopt violent behaviour than with someone who grows up in peaceful surroundings, with more varied and better opportunities.
Understanding and considering risk factors and protective factors is crucial in the prevention of crime and violence, as it can be assumed that the prevention violence can be achieved through a reduction of risk factors and a strengthening of protective factors.
Risk factors are "characteristics, variables, or hazards that, if present for a given individual, make it more likely that this individual, rather than someone selected from the general population, will develop a disorder." The word ‘disorder’ here refers to a tendency toward certain behaviour, such as violence.
The presence of risk factors increases the likelihood of an individual being involved in criminal and violent activity - the more risk factors a person is exposed to at different levels, the higher the probability.
It is important to note that risk factors, which appear at every level of the ecological model, do not cause violence - they give an indication of the likelihood of violent behaviour, however many people with multiple risk factors don’t resort to criminal or violent behaviour. For example, poverty is a risk factor, however most people living in poverty do not resort to violence. All it means is that they are more vulnerable to violence.
"Protective factors are those factors that mediate or moderate the effect of exposure to risk factors, resulting in reduced incidence of problem behaviour."
At the other end of the spectrum are protective factors, which provide a buffer between the presence of risk factors and adoption of delinquent behaviour, thus decreasing the probability that a person will engage in or be victim of violent behaviour. For example, a child growing up in a warm and caring family environment is less likely to resort to violence him- or herself than a child who experiences violence at home.
Protective factors help promote resilience in the face of adversity, and resilient people, or communities, are those who manage to abstain from involvement in crime and violence, despite exposure to risk factors.
Resilience and the impact of protective factors is a growing area of interest and research, producing scientific findings to suggest that the presence of just a few protective factors can minimise the impact of risk factors. Like the risk factors, protective factors can also be listed according to the levels of the ecological model.
At the individual level, factors of biological disposition and personal development are identified.
At the community level, factors deriving from the immediate social environment (such as school, neighbourhood or workplace, where social relations are formed) are identified.
At the society level, overarching factors affecting the whole of society, which contribute to encouraging or inhibiting a creating a climate of violence are identified.
As the different levels of the ecological model suggest, there is no single cause for violence and crime, but rather a multitude of risk factors influence and catalyse violent behaviour in people.
Reducing these risk factors and strengthening protective factors helps prevent crime by addressing its root causes. Therefore, both the reduction of risk factors and the building of protective factors, on all levels, needs to be prioritised as an effective violence prevention approach.
Due to the complex nature of violence, planning of prevention strategies requires a specific, systematic approach when measuring and analysing the problems, causes and risk factors associated with violence.
Such a systemic approach to violence and crime prevention considers perpetrators and their victims as part of a social system. Within this system diverse interactions and interdependencies exist between the different parts of the system and its actors, across different levels.
These social interactions have direct and indirect effects on the people living within the system. Understanding and addressing these effects that promote violent behaviour (i.e. the risk factors) plays a crucial role in planning and implementing violence-prevention measures.
This means that sustainable responses to violence and crime cannot be achieved overnight or by one actor alone. Prevention is most effective if co-ordinated long-term efforts are made by actors across a wide range of sectors – social workers, teachers, police, politicians, the private sector, academia and civil society organisations, just to name a few.
The systemic approach encourages networking and cross-sectoral co-operation among all of these actors, channelling their actions towards the common goal of a safer South Africa for all its citizens.
This approach shifts the perspective from the individual as the “evil” perpetrator to the individual exposed to risk factors who is in need of support, so that he or she can acquire positive values and social skills, and develop a personality resistant to violence and crime.
When developing prevention strategies, it is also important to keep in mind that potential victims and perpetrators are constantly developing over the course of their life.
While we know what the risk and protective factors are for crime and violence, it is important to take note of when in a person’s lifetime they emerge, and to develop interventions that tackle these risk factors and support protective factors at these crucial moments, in an age appropriate way.
Strategies for the prevention of violence and crime need to operate at different levels of the ecological model to sustainably reduce risk factors that promote violence or to strengthen protective factors that help prevent it. Such strategies should aim to discourage the emergence of violence, while also to confronting existing violence.
Measures and activities planned and implemented within prevention strategies can be categorised in a number of different ways.
The level or stage at which the prevention activities begin: before, during or after violent behaviour develops. In this context, one can distinguish between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.
The types of preventive action corresponding to the cause of violence. In this context, one can distinguish between situational, social or institutional prevention measures.
Primary prevention aims to discourage violent behaviour before it develops by identifying the conditions that lead to violence and then changing them. These measures address people who do not yet show signs of violent behaviour and address any risk factors in their lives which may make them more likely to engage in violent behaviour at a later stage.
This stage of prevention aims to prevent the occurrence of violence by addressing the root causes. Examples include public information and awareness-raising campaigns, educational programmes, early-childhood interventions and establishment of policy frameworks.
Secondary prevention focuses on preventing violence from continuing or escalating, by address people who are strongly exposed to risk factors, or who have already demonstrated violent behaviour.
Such measures can focus on limiting the circumstances that favour violent behaviour (such as via urban planning initiatives to improve living standards, offering leisure activities for violent adolescents or providing emergency services); or they can promote the competencies of people (for example by offering counselling services that deal with conflicts within families, and increasing social cohesion).
Tertiary prevention focuses on the provision of long-term care following acts of violence and efforts to prevent relapses by offenders.
Such measures can address perpetrators by, for example, focusing on their rehabilitation and effecting behaviour change while facilitating their reintegration into society; or such measures can address victims by, for example, offering trauma counselling and other health-related services. Tertiary prevention can also support primary and secondary prevention by reducing further perpetration and victimisation.
Situational prevention is related to physical surroundings. It aims to reduce opportunities for violence and crime that arise from environmental factors.
Examples of this include, reclaiming public spaces via participatory urban planning and the provision of public infrastructure and services; or local interventions to improve the safety of individuals and their sense of identification with public spaces. This is also referred to as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED).
Societal prevention includes measures to strengthen social cohesion and reduce people's motivation to resort to violence.
Examples of this include, empowering vulnerable groups (individuals, families and communities) to participate in decision-making processes and supporting them in making their own interests heard; providing life-skills training to the youth via sports or arts-based activities; or providing training for parenting skills and support to parents.
Institutional prevention relates to strategies to reduce violence via changes to the broader policies, legislature and the functioning of institutions that impact on society at a local, provincial or even country level.
Examples of this include, training urban planners within administrations on safety-sensitive planning; strengthening structures for broad participation in local politics; or awareness-raising about civic and political rights and obligations.
For prevention measures to be most effective they must not be isolated events; but rather, they must be part of, or related to, a comprehensive long-term strategy that integrates the efforts of a wide range of relevant actors, combining their strengths and skills.
Ensuring the sustainability of these efforts requires that they promote a change in behaviour in the people receiving the intervention.
Such changes in behaviour can be achieved through direct and indirect influences. One important aspect in this context is the local experience people have in their family, among friends, at school or in their community.
A note on "local experience"
This experience has a direct impact on the attitudes of people – positive or negative. By addressing this local experience, prevention measures can influence the attitudes and mind-sets of people at risk of resorting to violence and crime.
This approach places people’s potential inclination to violence in a context. Changing this context strengthens their resilience to violence and crime. In other words, changing the "local experience" can support and encourage behaviour change towards non-violent behaviour.
This also means that promoting behaviour change in key actors in people’s lives – such as family, peers, teachers or decision-makers – can induce behaviour change in them.
For example, parents may learn through targeted skills trainings how to deal with conflicts without resorting to violence. As a consequence, their children then learn that conflicts can (and should) be solved through non-violent means. Behaviour change therefore can be understood as the culmination of a learning process.
Pollard, J.A., Hawkins, D., and Arthur, M.W. 1999. Risk and protective factors: Are both necessary to understand diverse behavioral outcomes in adolescence? Social Work Research 23(3):145–158. | https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/how-can-we-prevent-violence |
# Community Crime Prevention
Community Crime Prevention relates to interventions designed to bring reform to the social conditions that influence, and encourage, offending in residential communities. Community crime prevention has a main focus on both the social and local institutions found within communities which can influence crime rates, specifically juvenile delinquency.
Community-based crime prevention places a strong emphasis on the importance of peer influence and mentoring in preventing delinquency. The establishment of the Federal Crime Bill in 1994 gave rise to the use of community crime prevention. Community Initiatives such as Communities That Care (CTC), PACT (Pulling America's Communities Together), and Operation Weed and Seed are all examples of effective community initiatives which deemed to be significantly influential in reducing delinquency within residential communities.
After-school programs have also been connected with effectively reducing dleuqneuncy. Interest in utilizing ASPs for delinquency prevention increased dramatically after research reports found that juvenile arrest rates peak between 3:00 and 6:00 PM when youth are most likely to be unsupervised. There are two reasons why after-school programs are critical settings through which to support children’s development. First, health promotion is already a major goal of after-school programs, whose activities promote building social skills. Secondly, after-school programs have been statistically proven to improve children’s psychosocial and academic outcomes, especially low-income children.
## Federal Crime Bill of 1994
The Federal Crime Bill of 1994, often times referred to as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, was signed by President Clinton on September 13, 1994 as a way of shifting towards adapting more "tough on crime" policies while expanding police presence within residential communities through a variety of community policing interventions.
The bill resulted in the following reforms:
Increased the use of federal penalties for certain crimes, while also revealing new offenses punishable by death. Reclassified many offenses as federal crimes, including but not limited to "drive-by" shootings and carjacking. Provided federal funding for law enforcement (state and federal), crime prevention interventions, and the establishment of new state prisons. Increased the overall funding for federal law enforcement, with an enhanced focus towards border patrol security and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
## Comprehensive community initiatives
### Communities That Care
Communities That Care (CTC) is a crime prevention system aimed at diverting youth from delinquent behavior through an enhanced focus and assessment of risk and protective factors. The system was developed by Dr. J. David Hawkins and Dr. Richard F. Catalano. The mission is to underpin strong social bonds with family, school and the community by providing youth with opportunities, valuable skill sets and meaningful recognition. Strong social bonds motivate youth to adopt the healthy standards for behavior. The core of CTC is the social development strategy that identifies and reinforces vital protective factors which steer youth away from delinquency and ultimately promote positive youth development. Through a public health approach, CTC helps communities identify risk factors and the necessary resources to successfully address the underlying issues facing youth throughout the community. CTC has been effective in producing favorable reductions in youth delinquency- specifically alcohol & tobacco use and overall crime & violence.
The 5-phase CTC process uses an early intervention and prevention framework to guide communities towards identifying and understanding their local needs, setting priorities, and implementing tested effective strategies to address those needs.
Get Started - Identify and recruit community stakeholders and vital decision-makers to adhere to the Communities That Care (CTC) process. Get Organized - Planning and decision making for CTC effort within communities are constructed by the community board and other essential governance structures Develop a Profile - A community profile is developed. By compiling data from the CTC Youth Survey, public data, and assessments of existing community resources and strengths, the focus for community intervention is identified. Create a Plan - The Community Board constructs a Community Action Plan used to outline and implement prevention work in the community. Implement and Evaluate - Precise implementation of the Community Action Plan begins
Strategy for Interaction
Opportunities: Provide youth with various developmental opportunities, which encourage participation and drives positive interaction with those reinforcing conventional behavior Skills: Help youth acquire the vital skills needed to be successful Recognition: Provide youth with constant recognition and acknowledgment for their effort, achievements, and overall improvement. Bonding: Acknowledge a young person’s effort and promote positive bonding — a feeling of attachment and commitment to those who provide meaningful recognition. Bonding can occur with staff, teachers, coaches, relatives, etc. Clear Standards for Behavior: Through bonding with prosocial others, youth become motivated to adopt the healthy behaviors of those they have established positive relationships with.
### Pulling America's Communities Together
Pulling America's Communities Together (PACT) is a systematic Federal effort established in 1993 to extend the influence of broad-based and coordinated, locally-designed and implemented anti-violence strategies. The objective of PACT is to ensure Federal agency involvement and influence in producing crime reduction strategies by removing government barriers and motivating the collective formation of partnerships with cities, counties and states. Federal agencies representative of PACT include: the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Through project PACT, the Federal Government strenuously prompts the growth of broad-based, fully coordinated local and Statewide initiatives to ensure community safety and effectively reduce crime. Communities take on the responsibility of crafting appropriate and efficient solutions to address crime and other local issues. The Federal Government assists communities in building partnerships and provides resources and knowledge about anti-violence strategies. This project drove the development of Partnerships Against Violence Network (PAVNET). PAVNET is a computerized system providing essential information on both technical assistance, as well as model programs relating to crime and violence reduction. PAVNET compiles information from more than 30 Federal resource centers including information on funding, technical assistance, and additional information. PAVNET consists of information regarding community violence, youth violence, family violence, substance abuse, and victims.
PACT sites can be found in Atlanta, Denver, Nebraska and Washington D.C. A substantial amount of the work involved at the PACT sites included: juvenile risk assessment, data integration, compilation and analysis, identifying high-risk communities, violent offender tracking, information sharing, and risk and needs assessment.
Project PACT has been recognized for multiple credible achievements, including:
Motivating effective cooperation between multiple agencies worldwide Providing a blueprint in order to collectively draft efficient solutions to crime and violence issues Bringing together diverse jurisdictions and community groups for collaboration towards reform Producing worldwide collective efforts in reducing and preventing crime within local agencies
### Operation Weed and Seed
Operation Weed and Seed was developed in 1991 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Operation Weed and Seed is a multiagency community-minded approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and neighborhood restoration. The strategy was constructed as a way to both reduce crime and other drug-related crimes in selected high-crime neighborhoods as well as provide an overall safe environment for community members. The Weed and Seed strategy brings together federal, state, local crime-fighting agencies, and other essential organizations with the collective goal of "weeding out" violent crime and gang activity while simultaneously seeding in vital social services and economic revitalization.
The Weed and Seed strategy is a two-pronged approach to crime control and prevention: (1) law enforcement agencies and prosecutors cooperate in "weeding out" criminals from the target area, and (2) "seeding" brings prevention, intervention, treatment, and neighborhood revitalization services to the area. The Weed and Seed strategy is a comprehensive response to crime and neighborhood decay, composed of four fundamental principles: collaboration, coordination, community participation, and leveraging resources. The strategy is a multilevel strategic plan centered around four basic components: law enforcement, community policing prevention, intervention and treatment, neighborhood restoration.
The four elements of Weed and Seed:
Suppression Community-Oriented Policing Prevention, Intervention and Treatment Neighborhood Restoration
Suppression
Brings prevention, intervention, treatment, and neighborhood revitalization services to the area.
Community-Oriented Policing
Community policing embraces two key concepts: community engagement and problem solving. Through this model officers establish a cooperative relationship with community residents giving the community a sense of responsibility in solving crime problems
Prevention, Intervention and Treatment
Focuses on collective neighborhood efforts to enforce protective factors while also reducing any possible risks therefore promoting conventional behavior that can lead to positive development
Risk factors: economic deprivation, family management problems, early academic failure
Neighborhood Restoration
Focuses on improving the surrounding economic and social conditions of communities with assistance from federal, state, local, tribal, and other privatesector resources
## Influence of After-School Programs (ASPs) on delinquency
### LA's BEST
LA’s BEST has had a positive impact on the reduction of juvenile delinquency. A study conducted on LA's BEST in 2008 showed that students who took part in LA’s BEST longer than other students committed fewer crimes. A crucial determinant to the effect of LA’s BEST on juvenile crime was youth engagement: the number of years a student attended and how intensely the student was engaged in the program on an ongoing basis. Results indicated that students who participated more intensively in LA’s BEST benefited more and were more likely to refrain from committing crime. By 2005, approximately 87.5% of the control group members and low-engagement LA’s BEST participants had avoided juvenile crime records. In contrast, about 91.4% of medium-engagement and 93.1% of high-engagement LA’s BEST students avoided juvenile crime records.
### Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
A study conducted in 1998 showed that approximately 45% of the youth were shown to be less likely to have started using illegal drugs or alcohol, compared to their counterparts. In addition, they were seen as less likely to get into fights or altercations ( 32% less than that of the control youths), or even skip school (52% fewer days then counterparts, 30% less likely to skip a day of school at all). They were also seen as being more confident about their school performance (increased GPA) as well as interacting better and improving relationships with their family and within the household (lying to their parents 37% less than did control group youths). Additionally, there were some remarkable impacts by race and/or gender. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Crime_Prevention |
The effects of crime can be extremely damaging, both mentally and financially. From loss of income to loss of life, these risks are posed if one fails to secure his business or building is much greater than he can afford to take. This descriptive study aims to determine the crime prevention programs in Baguio City, the strategies of its implementation, the success rate of the crime prevention programs, and the problems encountered in the implementation of the crime prevention programs as of 2012. The identified top ten barangays with the highest crime rates and the 10 barangays with zero crime rates in Baguio City during the second quarter of 2012 by the Baguio City Police Office were considered in the study. The barangays with the highest crime rates were identified as crime prone barangays; they are located in the central business district where there are bars and night spots. Purposive and random samplings were used to determine the 59 informants, 44 civilians and 15 police officers. Out of 44 civilians, 22 are barangay officials and 22 are barangay constituents. Records were also analyzed to supplement data gathered and validate responses of informants. Results show that there were five crime prevention programs observed and implemented. There were five strategies used in the implementation of these programs which were claimed as effective in preventing crimes. Among these strategies, foot patrolling is considered the most effective in preventing crimes by all the barangays. In the implementation of the crime prevention programs in the top 10 crime prone barangays, no unique or other practices are implemented, specifically to address their description as crime prone areas. It was as well noted that these barangays implement visibility and neighborhood watch less frequently. Further, a barangay with zero crime rate implements “oplan sultipak” and is claimed to be effective in crime prevention. There are still problems encountered even if strategies are fully implemented to prevent crimes. These problems are mostly related to resources particularly on funding for barangay tanods and the lack of cooperation among the barangay constituents. | https://rdc.ubaguio.edu/the-crime-prevention-programs-in-baguio-city/ |
Devastating crime stats in Delaware’s largest city have made national headlines, and things are getting worse. That’s why city officials would be wise to consider the research findings of a WilmU doctoral candidate — who also happens to be a former cop.
Wilmington, Delaware’s largest city, has been continually scrutinized in the media for its rising rates of crime and violence and its inability to curtail the problem. Parenting Magazine rated it the most dangerous city in the United States in 2012. Two years later, Motovo.com writers used FBI crime data to rank Wilmington as the most dangerous small city in the country. And who could forget the YouTube video that made national news in October? Two children — who appeared to be no more than 3 — were caught on video fist-fighting as adults cheered them on. Then, adding insult to injury, the Newsweek story came out. Yes, that Newsweek story: the one that labeled Wilmington “Murder Town USA.”
An analysis of violent and property crime data from 1985 (the FBI’s oldest available data) through 2013 (its most recent), revealed that Wilmington has always been slightly above the national average for both violent and property crimes. While the rest of the country has seen a steady reduction in overall crime rates over the past two decades, Wilmington has not. Its crime rate has been steadily rising.
In response to the persistent crime problems in his city, Mayor Dennis P. Williams sought outside counsel to assist in the development of a crime control strategy. By January 2014, about a year after taking office, Williams and Bobby Cummings, then the newly appointed chief of police, announced the plan. They split the city into three policing sectors — northeast, southeast and western — and patrol officers were assigned exclusively to one of the three. In theory, this deployment strategy would assist officers in building relationships with members of their assigned communities, and those relationships would be the first step in building collective efficacy at the neighborhood level and increasing cooperation between police and the community — key factors in reducing crime and violence.
By October 2014, just nine months after the strategy was implemented, Wilmington reported 24 homicides for the year, nearing the 2010 record of 29. As a result, Williams created an additional investigative arm of the Wilmington Police Department that focused on homicides. The unit that was activated on Oct. 20 consisted of four detectives: a supervisor, two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and two retired officers who were responsible for cold case investigations. This investigative unit was added to the sector policing strategy, and the city continued to deploy downtown patrols and leverage the drug, street crime and other specialized units.
By December 2014, two months after the homicide unit was created, Wilmington had its 27th murder, and by mid-December, the 28th murder had rounded out the year — one killing shy of Wilmington’s all-time high set in 2010. The negative media attention and continued rise of violence have many within the community, city administration, law enforcement and state desperate for a solution.
But here’s the catch: A solution can’t be effectively implemented until the problem is understood. What is the cause of crime in Wilmington, and how should this influence the crime control efforts employed by the city? Research might reveal the answer.
The Theories
Research suggests that crime is caused by groups of variables organized into five distinct life domains: self (irritability or low self control); family (poor parenting practices, no or bad marriages); school (negative school experiences, limited education); peers (peer delinquency or criminality); and work (unemployment, bad jobs). The variables within these domains cause crime by increasing the motivations for crime and reducing constraints against it.
When we examine the motivations for crime, we have to be aware of the two concepts that apply: social learning, the factors that entice individuals to commit crime; and strain, those factors that pressure them into crime.
Social learning can be caused inadvertently or deliberately. Take those infamous YouTube kids. As parents and adults watched and cheered them on, they essentially were celebrating violent criminal behavior. The kids learned that crime and violence were appropriate responses in this circumstance. The cheering adults offered positive reinforcement for fighting and the children equated violent, criminal behavior with justified behavior. If the people they love and trust think that violence is acceptable, then it’s acceptable.
The strain concept suggests that crime occurs as a result of the negative treatment by others. Individuals who’ve learned to engage in crime were taught that it was acceptable to respond violently in certain negative situations. So think about those YouTube kids 20 years from now. They’re already motivated to commit crime through social learning. Their environment celebrates criminal behavior and violence, and reinforces the notion that crime is good — or at least appropriate in specific circumstances. They are ill equipped to respond to strain through legal means. So when presented with strain, they respond with violent or criminal behavior that’s become the norm within their subculture. Experts say that when these motivations are high, it’s likely that crime also will be high.
The other side of the equation is the lack of constraints against crime, which are factors that keep individuals from engaging in criminal behavior. Simply put, when constraints are low, crime is high. They can be external, meaning that it’s likely that others will detect criminal behavior and sanction it appropriately. Or they’re internal, so people refrain from crime even when they know they won’t get caught. The legal system can impose external controls; however, research suggests that external controls are more effective when imposed by family and peers who are in better positions to closely monitor behavior and impose consistent, reasonable punishments.
But the police only represent one of many sources, and they aren’t even the most effective. Individuals who buy in to conventional society or have larger stakes in conformity are more likely to refrain from crime because they’re surrounded by people who care. They have more to lose — like their jobs — or to be shunned by people they respect, like teachers, friends or family. They avoid risky behavior to hold on to things that matter.
Internal controls stem from an individual’s belief system. Those with higher internal controls were likely taught and believe that criminal behavior is wrong. Those with lower internal controls were probably taught that it’s good, or at least appropriate sometimes. We can see how social learning processes influence a person’s moral belief system with regard to criminal behavior, which affects one’s internal controls.
But there’s good news.
Band-Aid Fixes or Real Answers?
Wilmington is full of residents who want to make the city better, and there are several community-oriented neighborhoods. Good, hard-working cops who believe that their efforts will make Wilmington safer fortify the Wilmington Police Department. There are coalitions designed to stop recidivism and promote family development. Teams are being assembled to evaluate the city school system.
But the problem with these individual efforts is that they’re focused on one piece of the larger puzzle. The mayor blames the education system; researchers blame the lack of jobs; coalitions blame rising rates of crime on high levels of recidivism and the decay of the family. Individually, they’re all wrong. Collectively, with the proper support and strong leadership, they have a fighting chance.
Good crime control strategies must be founded on established crime theory, not hunches, political sound bites or good intentions. Meetings about meetings and research without action don’t target real solutions. A holistic approach that addresses the deficiencies in each of the life domains (self, family, peers, school, work) simultaneously must be considered.
Making changes at the neighborhood level and motivating community members to take action collectively does little good if programs are not in place to make positive changes in all of the life domains. Research suggests that programs must seek to reduce the motivations for crime and increase the constraints against it, and they have to break the social learning cycle of criminal behavior. Community programs should be implemented, and police actions should be aimed at making positive changes across the intersecting life domains.
In January 2015, a task force was created to investigate the causes of crime in Wilmington and recommend new strategies to combat violence in the city. The success of that task force is yet to be determined. But the research team would be advised to look beyond simple enforcement models and explore the causes within the life domains. The individual efforts by research teams, coalitions and police should be coordinated and centralized — not to mention supported and funded by the city administration.
Wilmington residents need the chance to prove they can do what’s required of them to help the police combat neighborhood crime and violence. But wanting to make a change and having the resources, leadership and funding to do so is the difference between the theoretical and the tangible. You can’t expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don’t have any boots. WU
The Author’s View
In January 2015, Del. Gov. Jack Markell initiated the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission (WPSSC), which cost more than $200,000 in consulting fees. With its March 31 deadline, the commission had just two months to assess and analyze which public safety strategies within Wilmington were most effective, then to offer recommendations. The commission needed to improve coordination of these strategies across local, county, state and federal levels, and ultimately recommended effective, data-driven public safety policies that could rapidly reduce the high rate of violent crime in Wilmington. Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams simultaneously announced the formation of another commission, the Wilmington Department of Police Citizen Advisory Group, and said it would study these same issues and make recommendations to address the root causes of crime and violence in his city.
The Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission
In its 200-page report, the WPSSC noted that Williams was approached to discuss his city-level commission and his perspectives on Wilmington crime, but that he cancelled both meetings, and the study period ended before a third could be arranged. After the report was issued, Williams denied this claim during an interview on local radio station WDEL.
The final report offered two sections dedicated to community policing efforts, though other related community ideas were found in various sections. The majority of the findings addressed needed structural and management changes within the police department, an improved homicide investigation strategy, better use of technology and data-driven enforcement. The report considered several reactive measures to solving crimes, but also discussed valid proactive means, some of which would require further collaboration with other outside consultants and academics experienced in the study of violent crime reduction. The commission’s research team was adamant that Williams’ department contained more than enough staff to be effective, and noted that the Wilmington Police Department had one of the highest cop-to-citizen ratios in the country.
Williams quickly responded by saying he would not implement two WPSSC recommendations: that the police department hire a deputy chief of operations; and that he replace Operation Disrupt’s 22 officers with a nine-person hotspot unit. (Operation Disrupt is part of a three-phase initiative created by Wilmington and New Castle County officials.)
The findings in this report are arguably a good first step in acknowledging the need for structural, procedural and cultural changes within the department and recognizing that the community policing efforts in Wilmington need attention. However, the recommendations lacked detailed, explicit community strategies outside of law enforcement to address the motivations for crime and the constraints against crime within all of the intersecting life domains. The commission, though hired to address the effectiveness of public safety strategies regionally, nationally and within Wilmington, seemed to focus the majority of its efforts on enforcement strategies. While these enforcement strategies may prove to reduce some of the violence in Wilmington and cities like it, they may never be effective until the root causes of crime are proactively mitigated and enforcement is considered one of several parts of an overall holistic public safety initiative. | https://blog.wilmu.edu/news/2015/07/22/the-endless-cycle/ |
As you do your research and create a crime prevention proposal with your literature review, there are a number of factors to keep in mind. These include vocabulary, concept mapping, and effective searching. The three types of crime prevention being studied in your course (primary, secondary, tertiary) are important. Finally, types of sources, evaluating and citing sources, and tools for finding sources of research are critical.
|Types of Sources / Evaluating Sources||Tools for finding sources:|
|Types of Sources|
|Library Catalog|
|Peer review||Ebooks|
|Evaluating Sources||Journal Title Finder|
|Citing Sources||Google Scholar or Google Books|
|Other Guides (See Related Guides)|
|InterLibrary Loan|
Choosing a vocabulary for your research is important. Knowing that database vendors can use different terminologies is critical. Be creative and consider concept mapping your ideas, concepts, and terms to help you explore your topic fully. A few suggestions to start with. You can combine these words with other aspects of your research question or topic:
|Crime Prevention Research or Studies||Crime Prevention Strategies|
|
|
Environmental Design
|Situational Crime Prevention|
|
|
Social Development
|
|
Rehabilitation
|
|
Community Policing
|Crime Prevention History|
|Community Safety||Crime Prevention Partnerships|
When doing your research, concepts from your JUST 320 course related to the different types of crime prevention can and should inform your searching and choice of vocabulary.
|Primary||Secondary||Tertiary|
|Physical Environment||Situational Crime Prevention||Rehabilitation or Treatment|
|Neighborhood Crime Prevention||At Risk People||Restoration of Community or Individuals|
|
|
Schools, speed limits, building design, | https://libguides.consortiumlibrary.org/c.php?g=966662&p=6984172 |
(NC)-During my term as Chair of the National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention, I have a visited cities in the United States, England and Belgium to discuss successful crime reduction strategies with local crime prevention officials. One thing that struck me was how similar their experiences were. In each city there was a serious crime problem, a focussed response and a substantial improvement in both the reality and the perception of safety.
Although there are no "one-size-fits-all" solutions, there are common elements at work, chief among them a willingness to involve the community in a meaningful way. As one Chief of Police observed, "I [used to think] that the police fought crime alone and that the community could only get in the way. Now we've got it right. We understand that in order to prevent crime and keep our community safe, we've got to involve the community as our partner."
Jack Calhoun, President and CEO of the U.S.
Leadership; working together; identifying problems and then attacking them; measuring results; doing business differently; being tough on crime and equally tough on the causes of crime . . . these are the factors that we witness everyday in projects and communities throughout Canada. They produce positive changes here, just as they do in countries around the world.
For details on how Canadian towns and cities are working together to reduce and prevent crime, and how your community can get involved, visit www.crime-prevention.org.
Barbara Hall, is Chair of Canada's National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention. | https://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/3077/family/how_to_reduce_crime_in_your_city.html |
400 South Martin Luther King Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89106
CPTED strategies are ideal for Law Enforcement Officers, Architects, City/Urban/Park Planners, City Managers, City Council Members, Landscape Architects, Security Consultants, Educators or anyone involved in designing neighborhoods, schools, downtowns, buildings, or revitalization efforts. It is an effective way of fighting crime and promoting business.
Cities and Counties throughout the country are adopting CPTED ordinances requiring site plan reviews with crime prevention in mind. Law enforcement officers who are specially trained in CPTED are now working closely with Planners, Architects, City Officials, and Educators to ensure the proper design of structures, schools, and neighborhoods. Participants will learn how the design and use of the environment can control human / criminal behavior and reduce the fear of crime. They will learn crime prevention through natural means. How natural access control and natural surveillance decrease the opportunity for crime.
CPTED Specialized Topics Course Description
2-Day Advanced Specialized Topic CPTED for Houses of Worship:
Houses of Worship (HoWs) are increasingly coming under attack with their members becoming the victims of both non-violent and violent crimes. Frequent news stories highlight the dangers that our religious facilities are facing on a daily basis.
During this course we will apply the principles of CPTED to different types of Houses of Worship (HoWs) to attempt to reduce and mitigate these threats. By examining different types of churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and other buildings, we will determine CPTED strategies and design recommendations that may be applicable to these facilities.
Dangers and Threats Faced by HoWs Today
- A Historical Overview of Crime in HoWs
Lessons Learned from Previous Incidents
- Overview of Recent Events in the News, Case Studies and Evaluating Environmental Design Factors in Previous Incidents
Terrorism and Active Shooter vs. Non-Violent Threats
- Resolving Design Conflicts and Striking the Right Balance
Conducting a HoW CPTED Review
- Applying CPTED Strategies to Blueprints
Evaluating Design for Different Types of Facilities
- Urban, Suburban, Rural, Megachurch, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple
Social Management for HoWs
- Establishing Security Teams and Layering Security Strategies for Effective Crime Prevention
Conducting a HoW CPTED Survey
- Assessment Tools, Definitions, the Matrix and a Virtual CPTED Survey
Multiple Charrettes and Group Exercises
- Each day will include a group exercise such as a HoW blueprint task
Instructor:
Jay Toth is a 35-year veteran of law enforcement, retiring as a Lieutenant with the Volusia County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office. Jay supervised the crime prevention and school resource deputy program and was part of the school security assessment team providing security surveys, reviews, law enforcement services and training to the school district. He regularly provided community education programs to neighborhood watch groups, home-owners associations, students, parents, citizen groups, clubs and associations on topics such as cyber-crime, internet safety, neighborhood watch, frauds, scams, school security, and crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). He completed numerous security and CPTED surveys, inspections and reviews for commercial, residential and educational facilities during his career.
Jay is a member of the Florida Design Out Crime Association and the Florida Crime Prevention Association. He holds his Florida Crime Prevention Practitioner, Florida School Resource Officer Practitioner, and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Practitioner designations through the Office of the Attorney General of Florida’s Florida Crime Prevention Training Institute.
He has been instructing law enforcement topics on a state-wide basis for over 20 years, including crime prevention and school resource officer topics for the Office of the Attorney General of Florida. Jay currently instructs topics on the state, national and international level such as Basic CPTED, Advanced CPTED, CPTED for Schools and CPTED for Houses of Worship for the Florida Office of the Attorney General and the National Institute of Crime Prevention.
Hotels Located Near Las Vegas Metro Police Department:
- Golden Nugget 129 Fremont Street (702) 385-7111 1.2 miles
- The D Casino 301 Fremont Street (702) 388-2400 1.4 miles
- Four Queens 202 Fremont Street (702) 385-4011 1.5 miles
- Palace Station 2411 W. Sahara Avenue (702) 367-2411 2.1 miles
There are many additional hotels in the area; this is a short list supplied by LVMPD. | https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crime-prevention-through-environmental-design-cpted-specialized-topics-november-2020-registration-65221275591 |
What has to go right for a crime wave not to happen?
Great strides can be taken by cities willing to 'tinker around the edges' of policing and policy, says Boalt Hall professor
| 21 February 2007
Remember those unsettling crime forecasts for the 1990s? Leading policy experts and law-enforcement officials cautioned that changing demographics would create a swell in the nation's youth and young-adult populations, resulting in a dangerous crime wave of "super-predators."
Not only didn't that crime wave occur, the opposite happened: According to new research by Franklin Zimring, a Berkeley law professor, the crime rate dropped dramatically during the 1990s, falling 40 percent in cities and states across the country and in all major crime categories from homicides to auto thefts, producing the longest and deepest crime decline in the United States since World War II.
In his new book, The Great American Crime Decline (Oxford University Press, 2007), Zimring points out that while there are no easy, clear explanations for this unexpected drop, the size of the decline provides instructive lessons for policymakers and law-enforcement officials grappling with today's toughest violent-crime problems.
Zimring's research suggests that the nation's crime rate - which has leveled off and remained flat since the year 2000 - could drop further, and that such significant declines in crime can happen without big changes in population and without substantial improvements to the nation's urban environment.
What didn't change - not what did
The case in point is New York City, which seemed locked in a violent-crime epidemic throughout the 1980s. However, from 1991 through 2004, the city's crime rate for serious offenses dropped about 75 percent - almost twice the national average.
"The most remarkable part of this story," Zimring writes in his book, "is not what changed in New York City over the 1990s, but what did not change, which was most of the city of New York. There were clever programs to stop fare avoidance in the subway system, but the subways didn't change, nor did the schools, the streets and surface-transportation systems, the population, or the economy."
Part of the drop came from relatively modest improvements in policing, says Zimring. The New York City Police Department increased its workforce by 35 percent, or 13,000 people - roughly the size of many of the nation's biggest city police departments in 1990. It also engaged in more aggressive policing, such as making stops that were independent of arrests and establishing a misdemeanor-arrest program for drug and other public-order offenses. And it changed its management style, objectives, and techniques, including placing more officers out on patrol.
"Even if only 25 to 50 percent of the total New York [City] drop was police-related, the big news from [there] is that we don't have to change the fundamental condition of modern urban life or the population," says Zimring. "We just have to find the right combination of ingredients in urban design, prevention, and policing, and that may be different for different cities. You just have to tinker at the edges, and you can get amazing results."
Finding that right mix of ingredients could prove to be the hard part, he says, since cities and counties vary in geography, population, rates of handgun ownership, even local crime conditions.
Further, isolating a single factor as the cause for a decline in crime can be elusive. Zimring found multiple possible contributors to the decline - including unprecedented economic gains, favorable demographics (in terms of a drop in the high-risk population of teens to 29-year-olds), and an increase in incarceration - with no single factor playing a dominant role.
Limited tools for data analysis
Much of the great American crime decline could be a cyclical phenomenon, says Zimring, one unrelated to public-policy changes or new approaches to police work. It's difficult to know for certain, in part because the statistical data and analytical methods currently available to isolate the impact on crime trends of police work, incarceration rates, the economy, and other such factors are not strong. It is this lack of strong, reliable, analytical tools, Zimring believes, that caused experts to err in their predictions of a 1990s crime wave.
Still, Zimring contends, while 40 percent of New York City's 75 percent drop in crime reflects the same mix of factors that drove the national crime rate down 40 percent, much of the remaining 35 percent drop is almost certainly due to the three major changes in New York City policing: more police, better management, and more aggressive policing.
In New York City, the total drop has led to 1,600 fewer homicides per year. Even if police changes prevented only 25 percent of the total decline, Zimring points out, that would be more than one life saved every day.
Law-enforcement agencies elsewhere would do well to try a number of targeted policing approaches, tailoring them to their jurisdictions.
"Whatever else is known about crime in America," Zimring writes, "the most important lesson of the 1990s was that major changes in rates of crime can happen without major changes in the social fabric." | https://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/02/21_crime.shtml |
The National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS or Strategy) was launched in 1998. Through the Strategy, PS funds the development and implementation of programs that target specific crime issues in regions and communities across the country.
Communities at Risk: Security Infrastructure Program.
The NCPS also focuses on gathering and disseminating practical knowledge about program effectiveness and implementation to relevant stakeholders.
The Strategy is an integral part of the Government of Canada's plan to prevent and reduce crime by intervening before offences occur.
The evaluation assessed the NCPS's relevance and the performance, taking into account the organizational changes within PS during the time period under review.
This evaluation also examined the extent to which the Strategy meets gender-specific needs.
Total program expenditures covered by this evaluation amounted to $250 million over five years, including $210 million in grants and contributions.
The evaluation covered the period from 2012-13 to 2016-17.
The NCPS remains relevant and there is a continuing need for crime prevention investments and efforts to address risk factors that lead to crime.
The Strategy has adapted to address emerging needs and priorities, including addressing gender issues in funding.
Stakeholder understanding and knowledge of evidence-based crime prevention was enhanced by the NCPS activities, however, a more coherent and timely approach to knowledge dissemination is required.
As crime prevention crosses multiple jurisdictions, collaboration is a critical element for projects success and sustainability. More opportunities for collaboration are needed to enable networking and partnerships and to ensure there is a continued complementarity of efforts.
After departmental realignment in 2014, the NCPS has been jointly managed by two branches. There is evidence that this change has impacted cross-functional communication and coordination (i.e., between policy, research and programs).
The Strategy lapsed over $50M from 2012-13 to 2016-17.
Establish clear processes between the two Branches to plan, coordinate and deliver the NCPS.
Examine mechanisms for improving engagement with provincial and territorial governments, including other government departments, to support crime prevention initiatives.
Implement the existing knowledge dissemination strategy and systematically collect data on the reach and impact of knowledge products. | https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2017-18-smry-vltn-ncps/index-en.aspx |
The Chicago alternative policing strategy came into effect in the year 1993. The strategy initially took place in five police district then moved to include the entire city. The need of this strategy was to revise the way police departments conducted their operation in the entire city. It is a long-term strategy where now police officers do have long-term duties in each of the 279 police units. The entire police squads in the city have training on problem solving techniques based on the steps formulated by CAPS. There are steps that any police officer needs to adhere to based on the strategy the processes are focusing on the victims, focus on the location of crime, attention given on offenders and attention given to problem solving efforts of the squad.
The policing strategy need to be supportive of the entire system in order to ensure city residents get their full services (Braga, 2005). Realization of community policing comes into perspective when the advisory committees and in beat meetings take place. Monthly meetings by the beat first took place in the five police experimental districts and became a regular phenomenon. Police department's advisory teams engaged the population in civic education in order to foster support of CAPS. The strategy in civil education includes the use of videos, brochures, television, radio, festivals, and countrywide rallies. These efforts towards implementation of CAPS aim at promoting public awareness and their participation to the strategy.
In the year 1993, CAPS implementation team composed of outreach workers, members of non-profit organizations and civilians. These teams provide assistance to beat teams and sustain meeting participation. CAPS office also supports court processes, help coordinate city services relating to CAPS, provide attorneys who work on gang and drug issues and conduct violation of code of conduct inspections. In addition, implementing problem-oriented policing into the law enforcement community requires a profound cultural shift amongst police departments. To accomplish this, officers must be convinced of POP's efficacy with data. Additionally, the principles of POP itself require amassing data about patterns of crime in various areas and conditions associated with the facilitation of crime.
However, as the literature review regarding empirical evidence on criminology research indicates, the accepted methodologies used within the discipline are highly contentious and can produce questionable results depending on the model adopted. Clinical experience models have the disadvantage of being anecdotal and relying upon possibly inaccurate folk wisdom while quantitative research results can be subject to logical errors in analysis, such as confusing correlation with causation. Despite its surge in popularity, the program faces dismissal and termed as a popular 'flavor of the month' in terms of its ability to prevent crime. Proponents call it a radical new strategy to improve day-to-day policing.
PROBLEM
Several police departments have implemented Problem-oriented policing (POP) in crime containment programs in a number of major metropolitan police departments in the United States and the United Kingdom. POP uses data-driven metrics to anticipate needed areas of crime prevention and containment. However, POP has been a controversial policy in many areas, and there has been tremendous organizational resistance in some areas to its full implementation. However, Chicago PD has embraced POP and used to cope with a wide variety of specific, crime-related issues.
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Skogan (2006), CAPS awareness grew between the years 1996 to the year 1998. The awareness among the white population has reached a whole high of 80% while it is a belief that the percentage has grown continuously. By the end of the year 2002, 89% of the African-American population was aware of the strategy. The meetings of the team have a 60% percent attendance rate from adults within the city. Educated members of the public are more likely to know the meetings will take place as compared to those with less education. Homeowners and those residents with a long intention of staying in the neighborhoods tend to show interest in attending these meetings.
From observation, the African-American community have consistently attended meetings and participated in implementing CAP strategy as compared to other races. Researchers suggest that there are factors that have a bearing on the sustainability of beat meetings. One of those factors reflects the role of the community in the implementation of CAPS. This relates to the way information flows within the community and the level of encouragement given to the community to attend these meetings. The probability of getting information to the public concerning CAPS relates on the state of the infrastructure, the suitability of the method of transmitting information. The other factor relates to the involvement of activists.
Activists have been attending CAPS meetings on a frequent basis and their participation coupled with their involvement in educating communities boost CAPS meeting attendance. Attendance levels are highest where the needs of CAPS feature most. Attendance levels are high at places where there are poor schools, high level of criminal activities and in places where there is substandard housing. Meeting attendance are highest at places where there are concerns about the rising level of criminal activities, and where is other problems that need administrative attention. Beat meetings provide the community a chance to tender their problems, and through these meetings, communities are able to formulate strategies that help them face the said challenges.
Research further reveals that residents of these districts attend these meetings with the hope of expressing their problems freely, and need protection when they go back to their homes. Low attendance can also reflect concerns placed by people about attending beat meetings. Members of the public in Chicago fear getting involved in beat meeting because of the probability of retaliatory attacks from some elements within the neighborhood. Another reason for low attendance relates to police efforts and to the participation of activists in informing the public about CAPS strategies. Beat meetings provide the community a forum to communicate to the beat teams about their concerns on security, issues on drug circulation, and other problems. Information from beat meetings assists police units arrest drug traffickers; prevent crime from taking place and in designing policy.
However, DAC face frustrations on the way police handle matters discussed in these meetings; the team has found it difficult to translate those missions discussed into enforceable practice. It is not an exception that some of the issues tabled in these meetings need to be handled by a lower authority, but this does not mean that all information is irrelevant. These meetings should encourage public publication, but DAC meetings characteristics is a one-sided approach to information flow. Police seem to be the ultimate players in these meetings, and it seems that they ignore those contributions made by DAC when implementing policing strategies. CAPS evaluation on the quality of meetings provides a variety of details. Based on the observation made in the year 2002, these meetings have improved on a number of dimensions. These dimensions include model agendas, adoption of feasible procedures, Provision of training services for officers and in the distribution of information to the populations (Lipsey, 2006).
CAPS primary objective is to increase the confidence of the public in police operations within its districts. Researches indicate that public confidence opinions in the police improved between the year 1993 and 2000. Changes of opinions in the police have been prevalent a lot among the whites, Latinos, and Among the African-American communities in equal measure. In addition, a person of Chicago is content with their police than they were 10 years ago. From the research, there is an indication that Chicago police have always tried their best by their politeness, fairness and in showing concern for people's problems. People of Chicago believe that people within their neighborhood are receiving better treatment from the police. Over the years, there has been an increase in police responsiveness on the issues this residence face. Police have done dismally on matters concerning their performance, on how they control crime and in maintaining law and order.
Research indicates that, in Chicago, the level of crime rose in the year 1991, and the sharply went on a decline. Between the years, 1991 to 2002 violent crime rates had declined by 49% robbery had declined by 58%, murder by 30% and the property crime by 38%. Like in many other of the countries cities, ability of the police to solve murder related crime had decreased. Drug related shooting had been a crime that proved difficult for the police to counter. Over this period, rates and the battery had a declined by a 45% and 41% margin respectively. In property, related crimes motor- vehicle theft had declined by a 47% margin, and burglary declined by 51%. In comparison with other cities, Chicago had done well in fighting crime. "Decrease in crime in Chicago, was in parallel with other major states in America."
In-depth studies done in 2003 on Latino community on their involvement in policing provide credible information on participation in community policing, in Chicago. What led to this study are the report on… [END OF PREVIEW]
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Cite This Research Proposal:
APA FormatCriminal Justice and Criminology the Chicago Alternative. (2013, July 27). Retrieved June 24, 2019, from https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/criminal-justice-criminology-chicago/6338493
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https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/criminal-justice-criminology-chicago/6338493. | https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/criminal-justice-criminology-chicago/6338493 |
No changes in the burglary rates of the comparison sectors are to be expected, but other confounding variables beyond the control of the researchers might arise during implementation.
The main reason to establish a Neighborhood Watch program is to bring the community together and to allow citizens to take control of their own neighborhoods. Individuals are less likely to offend repetitively when their Burglary prevention program essay childhood is dominated by consistent and caring parenting and troublesome behavior when found school, is met with solutions.
This paper will cover the beginning of the Neighborhood Watch program, its growth up to the present day, and a few of its success stories.
An administrator should be in such events to make sure that the set rules and regulations have been adhered to. If trends of the past ten years continue, arrests of juveniles for violent crimes will double by the year Crime Prevention is an active approach utilizing public awareness and preventive measures to reduce crime.
Post signs alerting would-be robbers of this procedure. Check the layout of your store, eliminating any blind spots that may hide a robbery in progress. People get to crime due to various reasons, some of the reasons includes, revenge, greed, pride, jealousy and anger.
Crime and Violence Prevention Awards. It should be kept in plain view. Decide upon an appropriate research design and identify possible data collection methods including new and existing data 6. Home Office Research Study no.
International Centre for the Prevention of Crime. Rules and regulations should be introduced to govern the events and if one goes against them punishment should be impacted to act as a warning to the others.
What factors predispose children to growing up as delinquents? For the Burglary Prevention Program research, the dependent variable is the burglary rate while the independent variables can consist of time, and the burglary prevention program itself. Journal of Experimental Criminology 2: Criminal Justice Research Methods.
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction.
Figure 1 Steps in conducting a systematic evaluation 1. For some initiatives, particularly where there is a lack of existing evidence, the need to evaluate may influence decisions about the design or implementation of that initiative—such as delivering the project in one area so that observed outcomes can be compared with areas not subject to the intervention.
While the former consider the moment the crime is committed as central, the latter focus on the reality of class struggle; the presence of social, political, and economic inequality; and the impact of social-structural forces in the definition and management of crime.
Developmental crime prevention, in Tilley N edHandbook of crime prevention and community safety. They can help young people in the community learn job-seeking skills and give them jobs, when possible.
Qualitative Research relies on words or testimonies of respondents and not on mathematical data, and so it does not adequately serve the purpose of our research. The following factors were the first six in order of priority as increasing violence: First of all, it should be said that the major goal of the program developed by David Nation and John Arnott is to offer non-custodial option, which could be relevant and acceptable to the judicial system and society, to change the behaviour of offenders, as well as it could potentially change the attitude of the public to offenders and contribute to reparation and crime prevention.
If you arrive home and something looks questionable ex. So for those people who wonder why, they only have to look towards themselves.
Consider running a credit check. They are often well versed in strategies for securing physical improvements such as street lighting or road repairs. The assignment of the control and test groups will be discussed further into this design.
One which should be noted about them is that they affect our quality of life and they may be the beginning of most serious crimes. Homeless people should also be considered. A violent crime is committed every 16 seconds. The divisions should have almost Burglary prevention program essay or similar demographics.
In Colonial times, night watchmen walked the streets of the very first communities in this country. Crime and Justice Bulletin no The concept behind the Watch was essentially the same as the traditional Neighborhood Watch in that it was implemented to empower individuals to take some ownership of the security needs of their environment.
Crimes against businesses are usually crimes of opportunity. Another independent variable that could be manipulated to further validate the research is the size of the police force attending to the sample. The majority of today's K - 12th students quite often are lucky if they have standing room, only to stand in a dilapidated school that was only designed to be in use for 10 years, thirty to forty plus years ago.Crime prevention is a multilevel system of government and public actions aimed at eliminating, weakening or neutralizing the causes and circumstances of crime.
Development of measures to prevent crime and individual crime is the end result and indicator. Social action should be based on the utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
Crime is an injury to society, and the only rational measure of crime is the extent of the injury. Jun 30, · (Results Page 8) View and download burglary essays examples. Also discover topics, titles, outlines, thesis statements, and conclusions for your burglary essay. Crime displacement, which is defined as the relocation of crime from one place, time, target, offense, or tactic to another as a result of some crime prevention initiative, is known to be a misfortunate and unintended effect of crime prevention (Rosenbaum, Lurigio, & Davis, ).
Crime Prevention Programs in Australia the overall conclusion on to what extend has Australia developed an evidence-based crime prevention program out of its available resources and data. the ‘Burglar Beware’ that was developed by the Office of Crime Prevention because of the high rate of residential burglary in Western Australia. | https://bydenys.currclickblog.com/burglary-prevention-program-essay-95571wq.html |
This article originally appeared in the February 2021 Police1 Leadership Briefing. To read the full briefing, visit Data-driven reform | Violence reduction | Tech to fight crime, and add the Leadership Briefing to your subscriptions.
This essay is reprinted with permission from the Violence Reduction Project
The role of the community in policing is once again at the forefront of discussion among community advocates, city leaders and police executives.
Beyond the role of the community in the accountability and oversight of police, communities are also seeking greater input in how police serve, or in some cases “police,” their communities.
With rising rates of homicides in many major cities across the country, the community’s role in crime prevention and reduction is that much more important and just one of many approaches that can be implemented to address these increases.
What matters to community members
Over the last 10 years, I have interviewed hundreds of community members on issues related to community-police relationships and police reform. One such interview highlighted how an officer’s demeanor and actions when interacting with the family of a homicide victim can impact the broader community’s sense of trust and cooperation. This distraught father, whose primary concern was not related to police violence, but rather how the police treated him after his son was discovered as a victim of a homicide.
As the father described it, the apathy and lack of transparency from the officers and detectives who responded to the crime scene broke down any semblance of trust he might have had prior to that day. The actions and behavior of the officers and detectives reflected to him, a department who saw him and his family not as victims, but as the causes of the city’s crime problem. Unfortunately, as I spoke to others within this same community, the impact of this negative interaction carried on for many years and across various community members, some of which shared the same or similar stories.
The value of homicide support groups
Agencies like Richmond, Louisville Metro and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police departments have sought to improve how communities are treated after violent crimes and have implemented Homicide Support Groups.
In these cities, Homicide Support Groups (HSGs) are reflective of how building greater, more substantive, relationships with the community increases trust and thus result in greater community cooperation and increased homicide clearance rates. HSGs are comprised of partners from multiple stakeholders, led by homicide detectives, who engage directly with the families and communities affected by these violent crimes, keeping them apprised of the investigation process, judicial developments, and provide resources and support.
In addition to working toward strengthening relationships with their communities, in some cases, these agencies have also experienced increases in homicide clearance rates. Although research is limited on the impact of this specific approach, it appears to be fruitful and in 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services funded additional research, as well as the development of an implementation guide for other agencies considering HSGs.
Community-specific policing strategies
Communities seeking greater input in how their neighborhoods are policed are also taking greater responsibility in developing crime prevention and reduction strategies.
Community-based groups and organizations, some of which are funded using city funds, grants, and/or donations, are stepping up to improve their neighborhoods by establishing community centers, conducting listening sessions, revitalizing their neighborhoods using crime prevention through environmental design, and directly engaging city and police leaders in developing community-specific policing strategies.
Fort Worth’s LVTRise, Albuquerque’s Community Policing Councils, and the Charleston Area Justice Ministry are just a few examples of community-based organizations that are currently working to improve their communities, increase safety, and address inequities in policing.
No one approach will be the panacea
The above examples are just two innovative approaches to addressing the rise of homicides and violent crime, which in some cases rates have not been experienced in over 20 years.
A comprehensive approach, one that involves many partners, extending beyond policing and criminal justice, such as health, social services, housing and education must also be included in these discussions. Further, no one approach, however innovative, is going to be the panacea for all communities and police agencies.
As is clear when examining the research that has been conducted on police policies, procedures, technologies and strategies, the success of these approaches varies across communities and as their needs change, so must these approaches. | https://www.police1.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/violence-reduction-improving-police-community-relations-is-key-CyYWf4uFrSjYiryf/ |
Another problem that any effort designed to test parent training or early delinquent programs will face is concerns about the ethics of randomly assigning some youth to services and others to none. Regardless of existing evidence, many practitioners hold strong views regarding the benefits of particular interventions and prefer determining who is assigned to the limited slots on the basis of need or potential benefits, rather than random draw. These funding and research design issues are serious problems that will prevent the development of sounder knowledge without much stronger public support.
This brings us to the final Catch-22 of crime prevention efforts. One of the reasons the public may have more faith in imprisonment than early prevention efforts is that the crime-reduction benefits of prevention are more difficult and expensive to document. Yet, most criminologists would argue that there will not be any substantial reduction in crime rates without significant prevention efforts that seriously address the root causes and risk factors that clearly contribute to the development of criminal behavior.
Alexander, J. E, and B. V. Parsons. 1973. "Short Term Behavioral Intervention with Delinquent Families: Impact on Family Process and Recidivism". Journal of Abnormal Psychology 81( 3): 219-225.
Andrews, D. A., Ivan Zinger, R. D. Hoge, James Bonta, Paul Gendreau, and Francis T. Cullen . 1990. "Does Correctional Treatment Work? A Clinically Relevant and Psychologically Informed Meta-Analysis". Criminology 28( 3): 369-404.
Barton, Cole, James E Alexander, Holly Waldron, Charles W. Turner, and Janet Warburton . 1984. General "Treatment Effects of Functional Family Therapy: Three Replications". Amer. Jour. of Family Therapy 13( 3): 16-26.
Blumstein, Alfred, Jacqueline Cohen, Jeffrey A. Roth, and Christy A. Visher, eds. 1986. Criminal Careers and "Career Criminals." National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences series, vol. 2.
Brennan, Patricia A., Sarnoff A. Mednick, and Jan Volavka. 1995. "Biomedical Factors in Crime". In Crime, edited by James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia.
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Pam Kato Klebanov, Fong-Ruey Liaw, and Donna Spiker. 1993. "Enhancing the Development of Low-Birthweight, Premature Infants: Changes in Cognition and Behavior over the First Three Years". Child Development 64:736-53.
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1992. Crime Victimization in the United States, 1991. U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, National Crime Victimization Survey Report, NCJ-139563.
Carnegie Corporation of New York. 1994. "Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of our Youngest Children"." In The Report of the Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children.
Davidson, William S., L. Gottschalk, L. Gensheimer, and J. Mayer. 1984. Interventions with Juvenile Delinquents: A Meta-Analysis of Treatment Efficacy. National Institute of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention publication. | https://www.questia.com/read/95111281/minimizing-harm-a-new-crime-policy-for-modern-america |
This case study, edited by Jaclyn Leaver, is from the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) Stories of Change series and cross-posted from the EGAP website. The project “Building Trust and Improving Police Effectiveness: A Field Experiment in Urban Liberia” is part of EGAP’s Metaketa IV on community policing. Below are excerpts from the case study.
The Challenge
Despite more than a decade of police reform, residents of urban Liberia continue to suffer from regular crime and violence. According to the 2015 Afrobarometer survey, 65 percent of urban Liberians reported that they or someone they knew was a victim of theft in the past year, while 35 percent reported that they or someone they knew was physically assaulted . These figures are considerably higher than those for urban, sub–Saharan Africa overall , and they imply that urban Liberia ranks among sub–Saharan Africa‘s most crime–ridden places to live.
Many observers attribute Liberia‘s high rate of crime to a combination of capacity constraints within the Liberian National Police (LNP) and high unemployment among Monrovia‘s urban poor. While these factors are undoubtedly important contributors, they are difficult to address directly, making them ill– suited for policy intervention. Another factor often attributed to police ineffectiveness in urban Liberia: the reluctance of citizens to cooperate with the police through activities such as crime reporting, information sharing, and evidence provision. According to 2012 survey data, for example, fewer than half of crimes that occur in urban Liberia are actually reported to the police. Among crimes that are reported , officers of the LNP force often have difficulty investigating due to the reluctance of citizens to provide information. As a result, the vast majority of crimes reported to the police do not result in prosecution.
Can police-community meetings and police foot patrols build public trust?
In settings where mistrust of the police is high, as in urban Monrovia, multiple issues prevent those who would otherwise be willing to assist from doing so. According to survey data, most Monrovians lack knowledge about police procedures. In an environment that discourages working with police, the lack of a secure, anonymous mechanism to share information with the police also contributes to a sub–optimal equilibrium. These twin absences make it difficult for the police to prevent crime, reduce misconduct, and build trust. And because under–reporting undermines even well –resourced police, these barriers hinder the effectiveness of ongoing reforms within the police force, preventing them from reaching their full potential.
Research Design
Recognizing the need to build trust, educate citizens about the criminal justice system, and raise awareness about reforms within the LNP, the Inspector General has made community outreach a top priority. Within Monrovia, each of its 10 precincts now hosts a community relations officer whose main responsibility is to lead community outreach activities and handle requests and complaints from community dwellers. Precinct commanders across the country now hold regular meetings with community leaders and direct street–level officers to patrol hotspot neighborhoods on foot.
Motivated by the LNP’s dedication to community policing, forward– orientation, and openness to collaboration, Ben Morse and Lily Tsai at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborated with the LNP’s Community Services Department to standardize the content of outreach activities and evaluate its effectiveness through a randomized controlled trial.
The research team worked with officers from each of Monrovia’s 10 police precincts to identify high– crime communities that would benefit from improved relations with the police. The intervention included three components:
1.) Monthly police–community town– hall meetings
2.) Semi–regular foot patrols where officers interacted directly with citizens to solicit feedback and distribute informational flyers
3.) Problem–oriented policing program in which officers adapted policing strategies based on feedback from citizens
Results
This project examines the impact of community policing on crime, crime reporting, and trust in the police in Monrovia, Liberia. Combining data from a large–scale resident survey with crime reporting data from the LNP, the project found that community policing led to modest but meaningful improvements in perceptions of police intentions and capacity, strengthened social norms against vigilantism, and mobilized communities to participate in the police’s “Watch Forum” initiative by forming and sustaining local security groups. These changes were accompanied by a roughly 40 percent reduction in the incidence of mob violence in treatment communities relative to control communities over a one year period.
270. Number of town hall meetings held across the 45 treatment communities.
40%. Reduced incidence of mob violence by 40 percent.
Despite these improvements, the program did not reduce the overall incident of crime, improve perceptions of security, or increase crime reporting. Specifically, only 13 percent of survey respondents reported seeing police conduct foot patrols in treatment communities. Meanwhile, the number of residents who reported that they had attended a meeting with the police during the intervention period increased by 30 percentage points. These results suggest that town–hall meetings were the driving force behind the intervention’s impacts on the outcomes in this study, rather that police presence (i.e. foot patrols and problem–oriented policing).
Lessons + Impact
Perhaps the most important lesson learned from this study is that police–community meetings can have an impact on changing citizens’ perceptions of the police. In this case, Liberia’s form of community policing is effective at improving community attitudes towards the police, mobilizing support for community watch forums, and reducing incidences of mob violence and support for vigilantism.
While the results are mixed, this research project has impacted the LNP’s community policing policies in a substantive way . The Inspector General of the LNP has not only praised the work being carried out by precincts where these programs have been implemented, but has also decided to base his National Policing Strategy on it. The focus, he has said, will be on a conflict sensitive community policing strategy. His community based approach has already provided a major contribution to a peaceful election process during the fall 2017 elections.
Questions for further consideration
As researchers and practitioners continue to study community policing, here are a few questions for further consideration:
- Can community policing be used effectively by new and reconstituted police forces in contexts in which the legitimacy of the state is challenged?
- What are strategies for reducing insecurity between citizens and the police?
- What factors contribute to insecurity between citizens and the police?
- Does community involvement increase police accountability? | https://mitgovlab.org/results/building-trust-and-improving-effectiveness-lessons-from-liberia/ |
The US Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate against a backdrop of high inflation and concerns about the geopolitical situation stemming from events in Ukraine. While markets have previously taken rate-hike cycles in their stride, this time could be different, as the Fed seems to be more hawkish than initially expected. Investors should actively seek out relative-return opportunities.
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Key takeaways
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What’s happened
At its 15-16 March meeting, the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the federal funds target rate by 25 basis points, bringing the target range to 0.25%-0.50%. This is expected to be the first in a series of hikes that could take short-term interest rates above the neutral rate of 2.4%. (The median “dot plot” projections of participants indicate a fed funds rate of 2.8% by the end of 2023.) The Federal Reserve’s focus is on rising inflation, higher energy prices and a tight labour market as it attempts to keep the US economy from overheating and prevent a de-anchoring of long-term inflation expectations. But the US central bank is taking nothing for granted: it has said it “will be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy ... if risks emerge”.
What it means
The Fed’s monetary policy has been exceptionally accommodative for years and, by not raising rates fast enough to stay ahead of inflation, the Fed has fallen significantly “behind the curve”. Yet this rate-hike cycle is starting amid the most challenging environment of any cycle kick-off since the mid-1980s:
- CPI is at a 40-year high: 7.9% now* vs an average of 2.3% at the start of the six Fed rate-hike cycles since 1986.
- The unemployment rate is at 3.8% now vs 5.7%.
- The output gap is already positive, while it has previously been, on average, negative.
- Today’s long-term real interest rates are at a deeply negative level, compared with positive real rates in all six previous cycles since 1986.
With its inflation-fighting credentials at stake, the Fed has no choice but to embark on a long journey towards a tighter policy stance. Central banks cannot afford to take a lenient stance on inflation – even against the current backdrop of rising geopolitical risks (which, in the Fed’s view, “create additional upward pressure on inflation and weigh on economic activity”), low visibility and slowing economic growth. Moreover, the latest spike in energy and commodity prices represents a supply shock on top of already high inflation rates, and it is likely to weigh on real incomes and dampen economic activity.
When implementing the necessary monetary tightening to tackle upside inflation risks, the Fed aims for a “soft landing” of the US economy. But when looking back at history, the odds for such an outcome appear rather slim. Four of the last five rate-hike cycles in the US were ultimately followed by a recession. Our base-case view, which seems confirmed by the Fed’s 16 March statement, is for a steady tightening of monetary policy by the Fed until broader financial conditions have reached a sufficiently restrictive level to tackle medium-term upside risks to inflation. This process might be disrupted, however, if financial stability or recession risks escalate along the way.
What investors should do
Consider the US and UK over the euro zone
The Fed had done much to prepare market participants for its latest rate decision, which explains the relatively muted equity-market reaction. Indeed, the evolution of the situation in Ukraine is more important for investors’ short-term risk appetite. The longer it takes to find a negotiated solution, the more uncertainty will persist around potential impacts on global inflation through supply-chain disruptions and rising energy and agricultural prices. This also explains why we continue to have a tactical preference for the US and UK over euro-zone equities, despite more attractive valuation levels for the latter. Investors will continue to favour the relatively “safer” US market in US dollars and the commodity-heavy UK market, while the euro zone’s growth and inflation prospects are more negatively impacted by higher energy prices.
Stay wary of the bond markets
Overall, an environment of moderately higher inflation tends to favour equities over bonds, even though inflation rates over 5%-6% historically penalise the equity market. The bond market could remain under pressure as it exhibits some unattractive risk premia, coupled with outflows indicating that investors are starting to question its diversification characteristics. The Fed is set to continue raising its leading interest rates – perhaps even above its neutral rate – while also soon moving to quantitative tightening “at a next meeting”. As such, we expect a further rise at the long end of the US yield curve, even though the immediate reaction should be for a flatter yield curve as the short end reacts more than the longer end. Yields in the euro zone are also set to rise, especially once the situation in Ukraine improves, since the European Central Bank is adhering strictly to its key target of maintaining inflation at 2%.
Adopt a granular view in credit
Do opportunities exist in the credit markets where spreads have widened recently? US high-yield bonds look the most promising area as yield differentials with government bonds have become attractive, especially if one expects only “slowflation” and not stagflation in the US. However, the view of our Multi Asset expert group is that it would take a reduction in volatility to spur us to re-enter the asset class – something we do not expect in the coming weeks. The same is true for emerging-market debt. Here, a granular view is vital: some countries will profit from higher energy prices while others could come under tremendous pressure. This is particularly true for countries already made fragile by the Covid-19 pandemic, thanks to the combination of a higher US dollar and spiking import and commodity prices (especially for agriculture goods) – a volatile mix that could lead to civil unrest.
Prioritise value
From a style perspective, this is certainly a market in which value – especially quality value – should continue to outperform growth. Historically, value has outperformed in environments of rising inflation, while the actual valuation differential strongly favours value versus growth.
Be more active on a relative basis in equities
On equities, our Multi Asset expert group maintains our “neutral minus” view in the short term, whereby we expect markets to move sideways with a risk to the downside. The more hawkish Fed action confirmed this view. We would therefore avoid “buying the dips” for the time being and instead become much more active on a relative basis. In the medium term, we have open questions with regards to the path of equity-market performance. True, markets have typically taken previous rate-hike cycles in their stride. But there have been exceptions, including extended periods when investors were unrewarded for taking market (beta) exposure. We continue to see risks of another such period with broad-based disappointing asset returns explained by:
- A low starting point for nominal/real interest rates and subdued risk premia in several asset classes.
- The risk that the Fed may condone a “reverse portfolio effect” to get prompt traction on broader financial conditions.
- Tightening into slower growth, which raises medium-term stagflation risks.
- Today’s geopolitical volatility causing underestimated, far-reaching economic and financial market repercussions.
US headline CPI is much higher this time around than it has been in previous rate-hike cycles
CPI: current vs average of previous 6 cycles (1986 to 2018)
Source: Bloomberg. Data as at 28 February 2022. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Dates of previous six Fed rate-hike cycles: 16 December 1986 to 04 September 1987; 29 March 1988 to 24 February 1989; 04 February 1994 to 01 February 1995; 30 June 1999 to 16 May 2000; 30 June 2004 to 29 June 2006; 16 December 2015 to 19 December 2018.
Key terms to know
- Behind the curve: term used to describe when central banks do not raise interest rates fast enough to head off inflation.
- CPI (consumer price index): usually refers to headline CPI, also known as headline inflation. This is a key inflation metric for the US and UK, among other regions. Refers to the full hypothetical “basket” of goods and services vs core CPI/core inflation. Because headline inflation is volatile, it is considered not very predictive over the short term.
- Fed funds target rate: the range of short-term interest rate at which banks lend to each other.
- Loose/easy monetary policy: economic shorthand for how central banks expand the supply of money (via low rates, asset purchases and more) to stimulate economic growth. Also known as expansionary or accommodative monetary policy. The inverse of “tight” monetary policy.
- Output gap: a measure of the amount of economic slack that can be absorbed without generating too much inflation.
- Quantitative easing: term used to describe central banks’ purchases of bonds and other securities – a process that is intended to suppress longer-term interest rates by driving up the prices of those securities (yields fall when prices rise). The opposite of quantitative tightening.
- Rate-hike cycle: period of time when the Fed (or other central banks) have raised short-term interest rates, measured from the first hike to the last.
- Real: after inflation is factored in (as in real yields, real growth rate, etc).
- Reverse portfolio effect: orderly upward shift of the entire risk premium curve.
- Risk premia: the four key risk premia for nominal government bonds are the real risk-free rate of return, the real term premium, the expected inflation rate and the inflation risk premium.
- Soft landing: used to describe how central banks raise interest rates just enough to slow economic growth without causing a recession.
- Stagflation: a period of high inflation, slow economic growth and high unemployment. | https://jp.allianzgi.com/ja-jp/home/jp-insights/outlook-and-commentary/202203-active-opportunities-following-fed |
The latest U.S. inflation numbers are out and they show that prices are still increasing. Inflation in the US is outpacing most of the world by nearly 3 percentage points, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. This could be the reason why the US has outpaced the average world rate of inflation over the past decade. However, the bank’s top policy adviser, Oscar Jorda, cautions that it is important not to take too much notice of these figures. Still, the general picture is clear.
Different factors affect the rate of inflation. The CPI is the price index that is used by the government to measure inflation. It is calculated by the Labor Department through a survey of households. It measures the amount spent on services and goods, however, it does not include non-direct spending which makes the CPI less stable. Inflation data should be considered in the context of the overall economy and not in isolation.
The Consumer Price Index, which is a measure of price changes for items and services, is the most commonly used inflation rate in the United States. The index is regularly updated and provides a clear view of how much prices have increased. The index gives the average cost of goods and services that can be useful for planning budgets and planning. Consumers are likely to be concerned about the cost of goods and services. However, it is important to understand why prices are increasing.
Costs of production rise which, in turn, increases prices. This is often referred to as cost-push inflation. It involves rising prices for raw materials like petroleum products and precious metals. It can also involve agricultural products. It is important to remember that when a commodity’s price rises, it also affects the price of the item in question.
It’s not easy to find inflation data. However, there is a way to estimate the cost to purchase items and services throughout an entire year. The real rate of return (CRR) is a better measure of the nominal cost of investment. With that in mind the next time you’re planning to purchase stocks or bonds make sure to use the actual inflation rate of the commodity.
At present the Consumer Price Index is 8.3 percent higher than its year-earlier level. This is the highest annual rate since April 1986. Inflation will continue to rise because rents make up a large part of the CPI basket. Additionally, rising home prices and mortgage rates make it more difficult for a lot of people to purchase an apartment which in turn increases the demand for rental properties. Furthermore, the potential for rail workers impacting the US railway system could result in disruptions in the transportation of goods.
From its near-zero-target rate, the Fed’s short term interest rate has risen this year to 2.25 percent. The central bank has forecast that inflation will increase by only half a percentage percent in the coming year. It’s difficult to tell if this increase will be enough to stop the rising inflation.
Core inflation is a term used to describe volatile food and oil prices, and is around 2 percent. Core inflation is reported on a year over basis by the Federal Reserve. This is what it means when it states that its inflation target of 2 percent is. The core rate has been lower than its target for a lengthy time. However, it has recently begun to rise to a level that is threatening a number of businesses. | https://www.proactive-people.com/us-inflation-graph-history/ |
The Central Bank increased the reference interest rate (it had not been done for two years and it is one of the conditions of the agreement with the IMF), which went to 49% per year for a term of 28 days (equivalent to an effective rate of 61, 8%), and still does not hedge investors against accelerating inflation. In this way, saving and investment continue to deteriorate.
Faced with this reality, the Economic Research Institute (IIE) of the Córdoba Stock Exchange analyzed the performance of different savings alternatives in the last 20 years and incorporated a food option to the more traditional ones of the financial system. The study reached the conclusion that having bought asado in 2002 was the most profitable option for Argentines, above a traditional fixed term, one in UVA, buying dollars or stocks.
traditional fixed terml: It is one of the most widespread savings instruments in the country. An initial deposit of $100 in April 2002 equals $3,800 in interest payments. The key is that to have the same purchasing power that $100 had 20 years ago, today you need almost $12,000. Inflation deteriorated the savings of an investor who opted for the fixed term, who lost 68% in real terms.
Fixed term in UVA: This tool was implemented in 2016. The initial $100 is $4,750 today. Despite exceeding the performance of the traditional fixed term, it lost 60% of its value due to inflation. If the investment in UVA had existed 20 years ago -the Institute considered the Reference Stabilization Coefficient (CER)-, the return would have been $4,362, even less than the combination of fixed term and UVA described above. This situation occurs because the CER replicated the inflation reported by INDEC during its intervention between 2007 and 2015, which was underestimated. In other words, an indicator that was originally created to follow the advance of prices ended up losing 63% compared to real inflation (reestimated based on that of the Provinces and the City of Buenos Aires for the period) of the last 20 years.
Dollar: A saver who bought $100 in dollars in April 2002 would now have almost $3,900 valued at the official exchange rate. Measured at free market value, the amount jumps to $6,700. The calculations show that dollarization won out over traditional savings instruments in pesos, but it also lost out against inflation: in real terms, the free dollar lost 44% of its purchasing power since April 2002. Beyond the distortions of the Argentine economic policy, this situation is explained because the dollar also had inflation in the last 20 years, which was 60.8% accumulated. That is why its purchasing power also deteriorated, although to a lesser extent than the peso.
Shares of stock: These are instruments used by savers willing to assume a higher level of risk. The $100 invested in April 2002 would be equivalent to $22,500 today, based on the evolution of the Merval index that summarizes the behavior of the Argentine stock market. The figure is 90% above inflation. Due to the low level of financial education in Argentina, investment in the capital market is not a very widespread alternative. According to the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), according to a study carried out in 2017, while 73% of Argentines recognize fixed-term deposits as a savings alternative, only 33% do it with shares.
Roast: In the hypothetical case of having bought and frozen $100 worth of roast 20 years ago, equivalent to 23 kilos of meat, today they would be worth $24,000. Despite the fact that the bone-in roast strip is one of the most consumed cuts at the local level and is not exported, the evolution of its price exceeded the performance of the most used savings alternatives in the country.
Consequences of the deterioration of savings
In practice, 12% of Argentines save in foreign currency, 5% do so in fixed terms and less than 1% do so in the capital market. On the other hand, half of Argentines do not save by choice or because their income is not enough.
The loss of purchasing power, the low level of financial education and financial repression policies in conjunction with interest rates below inflation lead to the deterioration of the population’s savings.
In turn, this situation results in fewer financing possibilities, both for consumption and for investment, which has a negative impact on the economy and further limits the potential for growth and development in the future. | https://hitchhike.tv/according-to-the-bcc-the-best-investment-in-the-last-20-years-was-to-freeze-roast-in-the-freezer-channel-c/ |
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire, which makes that amount of wealth a goal for some and almost unattainable for others. In countries that use the short scale number naming system, a billionaire is someone who has at least a thousand times a million dollars, euros or the currency of the given country.
Many national currencies have, or have had at various times, a low unit value, in many cases due to past inflation. It is obviously much easier and less significant to be a millionaire in those currencies, thus a millionaire (in the local currency) in Hong Kong or Taiwan, for example, may be merely averagely wealthy, or perhaps less wealthy than average. A millionaire in Zimbabwe in 2007 could have been extremely poor. Because of this, the United States Dollar (USD) is the most widely used currency standard to compare the wealth of people all over the world. Hence a person must have a net worth of at least one million USD to be recognised as a millionaire anywhere in the world.
As of June 2020, there were estimated to be just over 13 million millionaires or high-net-worth individual (HNWIs) in the world. The United States had the highest number of HNWIs (4,700,000) of any country, while New York City had the most HNWIs (348,000) among cities..
The word was apparently coined in French in 1719 to describe speculators in the Mississippi Bubble who earned millions of livres in weeks before the bubble burst. (The standard French spelling is now millionnaire, though the earliest reference uses a single n.) The earliest attestation in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a letter of Lord Byron of 1816, which mentions it as a French term needed because of the "Lilliputian" value of francs. Earlier English writers also mention the French word, including Sir William Mildmay in 1764. The OED's first print citation is Benjamin Disraeli's 1826 novel Vivian Grey, The anglicisation millionary was used in 1786 by Thomas Jefferson while serving as Minister to France; he wrote: "The poorest labourer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest Millionary".
While statistics regarding financial assets and net worth are presented by household, the term is also often used to describe only the individual who has amassed the assets as millionaire. That is, even though the term statistically refers only to households, common usage is often in reference only to an individual. | http://theinfolist.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=Millionaire |
The most recent U.S. inflation numbers have been released, and they reveal that prices continue to increase. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, inflation in the US is higher than most of the of the world by more than 3 percentage points. This could be the reason why the US has outpaced the world’s average rate of inflation in the past decade. Oscar Jorda (the bank’s senior policy advisor) cautions against interpreting too much into these numbers. But the overall picture is evident.
Inflation rates are determined by various factors. The CPI is the price index used by the government to determine inflation. It is calculated by the Labor Department through a survey of households. It measures spending on goods and services but does not include non-direct expenditure which makes the CPI less stable. This is the reason why inflation data should be viewed in context, rather than in isolation.
The Consumer Price Index, which is a measure of price changes for goods and services is the most widely used inflation rate in the United States. The index is updated every month and shows how much prices have risen. The index provides the average cost of both goods and services which is helpful to budget and plan. If you’re a consumer you’re probably thinking about the price of goods and services but it’s important to know why prices are rising.
The cost of production rises and prices rise. This is sometimes referred to as cost-push inflation. It’s the rise in price of raw materials, including petroleum products or precious metals. It can also involve agricultural products. It is important to note that when prices for a commodity rise, it also affects the price of its product.
It’s not easy to locate inflation data. However, there is a way to estimate how much it will cost to buy goods and services over a year. The real rate of return (CRR), is a better estimation of the nominal annual investment. With that in mind the next time you’re seeking to buy bonds or stocks ensure that you are using the actual inflation rate of the commodity.
Presently the Consumer Price Index is 8.3% above its year-earlier level. This was the highest rate for a year since April 1986. Inflation will continue to increase because rents constitute a large portion of the CPI basket. Inflation is also caused by the rising cost of housing and mortgage rates which make it more difficult to purchase homes. This causes a rise in rental housing demand. Furthermore, the potential for rail workers impacting the US railway system could cause disruptions in the transport of goods.
The Fed’s short-term interest rate has risen to a 2.25 percent rate this year, a significant improvement from the near zero-target rate. The central bank has projected that inflation will increase by only a half point over the next year. It isn’t easy to know the extent to which this increase will be sufficient to control inflation.
Core inflation is a term used to describe volatile food and oil prices and is approximately 2 percent. Core inflation is often reported on a year-over-year basis and is what the Federal Reserve means when it says its inflation target is 2%. The core rate has been below its target for a long period of time. However it is now beginning to rise to a level that is threatening a number of businesses. | https://www.proactive-people.com/us-tax-revenue-inflation-adjusted/ |
What I Wish Everyone Knew About Inflation Definition Economics | inflation definition economics
Inflation definition is one of the most important concepts to be familiar with in all of economics. It is used to describe how inflation affects the value of money. In basic economic language, “inflation” is the increase in goods and services available for purchase by the public with the use of currency in a country. An increase in the total supply of money (including cash) in a country leads to increased purchases and more people are able to obtain and pay for these goods and services. On the other hand, if the government decides to decrease the total supply of money, this leads to less purchasing power and can lead to hyper-inflation, when the value of money declines to an extraordinary degree.
In economic textbooks, inflation is usually defined as a process that is symmetrical regarding the changes in the rate of interest and price of commodities. Inflation essentially involves changes in the general level of prices of goods and services and their prices in various markets. This concept is also used in international trade. Because it is difficult to determine the precise effects of inflation on the economy of a nation, most economists try to define it using general criteria. In simple terms, inflation is considered as a rise in prices of goods and services in a given period of time, or a change in the cost of living through the increase in consumer price index (CPI).
Another term economists use in inflation definition is “hybrid inflation.” A mixture of state-induced inflation and private-sector price increases is allowed in certain circumstances. Examples of hybrid inflation are the level of real estate prices reached by the real estate bubble in the United States during the later years of the 20th century, the rapid growth of oil prices in the United States prior to the Arab Spring uprisings, and the rapid increase of Internet prices over the last decade or so. Theoretically, any change in the rate of inflation at a given point of time should be accompanied by an equal or greater rise in real estate prices. However, because market indicators fail to coincide, the theoretical prediction is sometimes broken.
The main reason why inflation definition is not simple and straightforward is that the level of inflation may differ significantly from one economic region to another. Moreover, changes in market rates or in the level of population satisfaction, which are important in defining inflation can also have unanticipated consequences on inflation rates. For instance, rapid drops in prices of oil and other essential goods can make some individuals feel uncomfortable, while others find comfort in the rise in prices of some imported commodities. All these considerations make it difficult to apply standard inflation definition across economies.
Most economic textbooks describe inflation as the increase in the general price level that is driven by increases in demand (the demand-demand concept) and supply (in the supply-demand concept). Sometimes, the terms “inflation” are used interchangeably, but they are usually used with distinct economic concepts. In the context of macro economics and micro economics, inflation is always noted as an increase in the general price level, whereas in price level theory, inflation is sometimes noted as a decrease in the level of employment and investment, and sometimes as both. For instance, in general terms, the inflation level is defined as the level of total income of the population above the level of real per capita income, i.e., total income times the level of real per capita disposable income. On the other hand, in the price level theory, inflation is measured by the change in the long-term value of the rate of exchange of certain assets and liabilities, for instance, the value of currency denominated in a particular currency against another currency.
The use of inflation definition is important in economics courses because most students are expected to be familiar with this concept in everyday terms. It is also used in economics to describe how changes in aggregate demand, including changes in output and input effects, affect the level of inflation. This is because changes in aggregate demand affect prices directly by changing the relative prices of goods and services against each other. For instance, if output rises by two percent and prices drop by two percent, the supply will increase by two percent, while the output and input changes will determine what price level is appropriate. | https://macro-economic.com/what-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-inflation-definition-economics-inflation-definition-economics/ |
Explanation:
The term reaganomy is a contraction of the words Reagan and economics that is used to describe the economic policy of the US government chaired by Ronald Reagan during most of the 1980s, based on the theories advocated among others by the Nobel Prize in Economics , Milton Friedman, and whose central objective was to give economic prominence to initiative and individual action against the State. The four pillars of this policy were:
1 Reduce the growth of public spending.
2 Reduce the marginal rates of taxes that taxed labor and capital (Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax).
3 Reduce the regulation of economic activity.
4 Control of money supply and reduce inflation.
It remains a matter of debate to what extent this was because of Reagan’s fiscal policies or how much other factors influenced it, such as the anti-inflationary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve directed by Paul Volcker and a dizzying drop in oil prices caused by the supply crisis in the Middle East.
President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policies – Reagan based Reaganomics on the theory of supply-side economics. Reagan's enthusiasm for the free market did not extend to international trade. During his eight-year term, Reagan brought many well-known economists to the Council of Economic Advisers.Colin Dueck teaches history in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. The author of two books on the The author of two books on the evolution of American foreign policy strategy, in this class he led a discussion on President Reagan 's foreign policy. close.They continue, "Council members make actionable commitments aligned with the World Economic Forum International Business Council's Pillars for sustainable value creation—People, Planet, Principles of Governance, and Prosperity—and that advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals." | http://bismilahi.tk/what-term-did-historians-apply-to-reagans-efforts-on-the-economic-front-a-freanomics-b-gippernomics-c-perestroika-d-reaganomics/ |
What Is a Free-For-All?
A free-for-all is an English idiom that is meant to describe some sort of event that has rapidly gotten out of control. This phrase may also be used as a way to describe an especially wild fight between two or more parties. In general, a free-for-all occurs whenever some sort of situation has lost all semblance of order and degenerates into chaos. As a result, all parties involved are able to just force themselves into the fray, which is where the phrase gets its meaning.
There are many idioms used by people as way to interject some color into their everyday speech patterns. Instead of simply using the literal wording to describe some situation, an idiom gives a speaker a way to use figurative language to get his or her point across. As a result, the meanings of these idioms may be far removed from what the words included in them literally say. Many idioms can be used to describe a particularly chaotic situation or fight, and one of the most popular of these occurs when someone calls something a free-for-all.
Perhaps the simplest way to use this phrase is as a means of describing a fight between two or more parties. The meaning of the phrase suggests that it is best used when the fight is a particularly wild one. As an example, someone might say, "Three different gangs met out on the streets that night and engaged in a real free-for-all." In this case, the implication is that this was a disorderly fight marked by confusion and chaos.
This idiomatic expression may also be used for situations that don't necessarily involve a physical fight. Sportswriters often use the term to describe a particularly wild contest between two teams. It can also be used as way to describe an argument or a discussion that is marked by a lack of decorum and civility. In this context, a person might say, "Boy, the way the school board and the parents went at it at that meeting — it was a wild free-for-all."
The meaning of this phrase comes directly from the meaning of the words that are connected by the hyphens. These words imply that anyone involved in a free-for-all can do whatever he or she wants in the middle of the situation to get the job done. It's similar to the expression "every man for himself" in that it suggests that there aren't any rules overriding the situation in question. | https://www.wisegeek.net/what-is-a-free-for-all.htm |
Here’s an interesting note from Reuters, reminding us that the most frightening prospect to siloviki in the Kremlin is not the watered down political opposition, but rather old fashioned inflation. I wonder if Putin’s brand of authoritarian capitalism is still viable when growth falls back below 5%…
Medvedev’s biggest immediate problem could be that economic planners in the government and the Kremlin are at odds over how to respond to these challenges. One camp inside the government, backed by Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich and business lobbies, believes that the government should cut taxes to boost economic growth — a move opposed by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
Kudrin argues the economy, which grew at a rate of 8.1 percent in 2007, is already overheated, a term used by economists to describe growth significantly above the historical trend coupled with high inflation.The overheating may lead to a hard landing, when the economy abruptly stops growing. Neither Putin nor Medvedev have taken sides in the debate, though Putin acknowledged that inflation, which reached 14 percent this month, was a major concern.”I think the big guys do not really want to be bogged down in economic technicalities. They simply want high growth rates, preferably with low inflation,” said Nikolai Kashcheyev, economist at state-owned VTB Bank. | https://robertamsterdam.com/the_problems_of_sustaining_russias_growth/ |
Inflation: Friend Or Foe?
Probably all of us have thought about the rising prices and how much more expensive life has become in contrast to one or two decades before. No, I am not going to rant about how much better everything was back in the day. Today’s topic is inflation. With the current correction that has hit the global stock indices, seemingly every minute, another article is popping up on news pages about why this decline has hit the indices so hard. Most of the articles link the decline to inflation. According to the Bank of America, the word “inflation” was used 800% more in the current quarterly publications in comparison to last year’s quarterly earnings releases – quite inflationary, isn`t it?! But what is behind this term, and what is linked to it? In this article, I want to sketch the fundamentals of inflation broadly. The term describes a lasting increase in the price level of goods and services. This has different causes and the understanding of it is always linked to our own perspective.
In principle, we need to assume that a capitalistic economic order is based on the idea of the free market. This idea posits that the dynamics of demand and supply interact to achieve so-called market equilibrium. Paired with the concept of private property, an intrinsic motivation emerges for each actor within such an economic system to increase monetary means to afford a better standard of living. That means that supply and demand are subject to constant pressure to grow. The supply side, because the producing actors want to sell more, while the demand side needs to grow as consumers want to consume more quantitatively and qualitatively.
Demand-side factors heavily influence the current situation at the capital markets. The leadership of the biggest economy in the world has poured out 3 stimulus payments to its citizens, while the third one alone has had a volume of over $1.3 trillion, which exceeds the GDP of Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Indonesia, respectively. Also other countries paid out stimuli to their citizens or plan on doing so in the near future. In general, it is believed that fiscal measures, such as these payments, will not be saved by the citizens but rather spent and, thus, the money re-enters the economy quickly. As a result, the demand for goods and services increases, while the suppliers of these increase the prices – inflation is the result. Because of the increased income, the investment rate increases, too. Whether the investment comes in the form of increased wages, new machines, software, innovation, or other companies does not matter here. The premise is that more money attracts more money. | https://talkmarkets.com/content/stocks--equities/inflation-friend-or-foe?post=312399 |
What is it about stress and overwhelm?
Understanding the definition of stress and how it can affect you both physically and mentally is your starting point on finding the stress relief that works for you.
So what is the definition of stress? I wish I could give you one easy answer but that’s impossible.
The term stress is used to cover many different causes and affects and can be used in many different circumstances such as it could be used to describe negative feelings caused by a situation such as:
The word stress is used to describe an increase in physical arousal within the body to a particular situation. The body is preparing you to cope with a particular situation, which is essential so that we are able to carry out tasks well.
But it is when this level of arousal carries on for too long or occurs too often, it can affect our autonomic nervous system and this is when it can lead to long term serious illnesses, both physical and mental.
Read more about the answer to the question what is the definition of stress and what is stress anyway.
The definition of stress also includes knowing what sort of stress you are suffering from. Yes thats right there is more to stress than most people know. Even being stressed isn’t straight forward or simple.
In fact there are three main types of stress:
Recognizing you are stressed and what type of stress is in your life is a major step in learning how to manage it. As you can see the definition of stress is not a simple one. | https://www.lifesstressballs.com/definition-of-stress/ |
Here’s another economic situation that entreprenurs need to know about. The term “stagflation” comes from adding two words; “stagnation” and “inflation”.
Stagnation is a state of steadiness or period of no growth while inflation is an economic situation whereby there is a high increase in the prices of commodities in the market.
Stagflation, however implies a state of slow or steady economic growth. It could also mean a state of negative economic growth where an economy is drawing back instead of growing.
Stagflation has a tendency of occurring in developing countries rather than developed countries and it is usually caused by inflation.
Stagflation rarely occurs and is even considered by some as an impossibility. However, history has shown its occurrence back in the 1970s. Stagflation can be said to be the extreme form of inflation and is characterised by high unemployment rate.
CAUSES OF STAGFLATION
Stagflation can be caused by several economic policies as in the case of inflation. One of the causes of stagflation is circulation of high amount of money in the economy. This excess money in circulation drives inflation up and in extreme cases, stagflation.
Another cause of stagflation occurs when there is a huge challenge with supply of basic commodities. When the supply of basic needs like oil or raw materials for food production becomes scarce, prices of these commodities as well as their resulting by-products increases. This hike in prices, if not controlled, eventually result in stagflation.
Furthermore, over taxation by the government on goods, industries and income earners lead to increased prices and less money to spend. As a result, hunger sets in and eventually stagflation follows if not controlled.
Just like I said earlier, stagflation is the extreme case of inflation and therefore the causes of stagflation are the uncontrolled and extreme cases of the causes of inflation.
As an entrepreneur, in as much as stagflation rarely occurs and should not be something you should worry so much about, you also need to be prepared for any economic situation that may come up in your country. When you’re prepared, nothing takes you by surprise. You simply take situations unawares instead of the other way round.
I would invite you to read my article on inflation where I put down certain measures you can take in preparation for a slow or negative economic growth.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. I’ll be waiting! | https://bizmanin.com/stagflation/ |
How will parents be notified in an emergency situation?
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What kind of training does school staff undergo to ensure they are prepared for an emergency situation?
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Who takes part in training?
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What is the difference between Secure (Lockout) and Lockdown?
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Can the SRP be used in conjunction with other safety plans?
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What is ADD?
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What else is the district doing to ensure school buildings are safe and secure?
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I hear the term “secure vestibules” used to describe entrances to most of our campuses. What does that mean? | https://www.georgetownisd.org/Page/20268 |
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Analysing major Irish dramas and the artists and companies that performed them, Modern Irish Theatre provides an engaging and accessible introduction to twentieth-century Irish theatre: its origins, dominant themes, relationship to politics and culture, and influence on theatre movements around the world. By looking at her subject as a performance rather than a literary phenomenon, Trotter captures how Irish theatre has actively reflected and shaped debates about Irish culture and identity among audiences, artists, and critics for over a century. This text provides the reader with discussion and analysis of: Significant playwrights and companies, from Lady Gregory to Brendan Behan to Marina Carr, and from the Abbey Theatre to the Lyric Theatre to Field Day; Major historical events, including the war for Independence, the Troubles, and the social effects of the Celtic Tiger economy; Critical Methodologies: how postcolonial, diaspora, performance, gender, and cultural theories, among others, shed light on Irish theatre’s political and artistic significance, and how it has addressed specific national concerns. Because of its comprehensiveness and originality, Modern Irish Theatre will be of great interest to students and general readers interested in theatre studies, cultural studies, Irish studies, and political performance. | http://litmir.biz/c/id463/p13 |
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Article
Molly Clark Hillard
Victorianism refers to contemporary texts that cede time and space to Victorian ideologies, modes, plots, and problems. In its broadest and most contemporary definition, Victorianism describes any literary, filmic, or cultural text that signals contemporary investment in Victorian literature and culture. Such works can be loosely grouped into three categories: original plots set in the 19th century; retellings of canonical 19th-century texts; and “hybrid” texts—those that oscillate between contemporary and Victorian time frames, for instance, or those that create a new story peopled with characters from Victorian media and/or history, including narrativized stories of authors’ lives. There are persistent modes and themes across these forms, including the networking of science and technology with the human; the detective or mystery story; and the connection between the contemporary Victorian and the gothic mode. While in the 20th century the primary archive was largely white and male, the 21st century has seen the advent of a more intersectional archive and authorship. The topic is often consolidated under the term “neo-Victorian” but is also sometimes referred to as “Victoriana,” “strategic presentism,” and other designations. Specifically under the rubric of “neo-Victorian” the study is sometimes associated with postmodernism itself. Other critical interpretations hold that its organizing principle is neoliberalism and its social corollary, liberal individualism. Yet others connect the subject with cultural studies and its corollaries gender studies, queer studies, and—much more recently—postcolonial or imperial studies. Underlying all of these critical interventions is the notion that the primary affective/aesthetic register of neo-Victorian media is nostalgia and/or belatedness. Nevertheless, critical trends of the 2010s and onward theorize not the continuity but the simultaneity of the 19th and 21st centuries. This suggests exciting implications and directions in contemporary Victorianism, including responses to empire, examinations of global crises, and an expansion of the canon to include media not usually included in considerations of Victorianism.
Article
Lorraine York
Celebrity is the public performance, reception, and discursive interpretation of highly visible individual identities. The field of celebrity studies, which emerged from the study of cinema, has sought to theorize the celebrity phenomenon across numerous cultural sites and products, and for this reason theorists often distinguish the term “celebrity” from the more cinematically specific terms “star” and “stardom.” Theoretical accounts of celebrity have focused on the interactions of fantasy and the everyday, the negotiations of ordinariness and special status within the celebrity persona, the role of psychological drives or needs, the performance of an authenticity effect, and celebrity’s alignment with individualism in the context of commodity capitalism and neoliberal regimes of affect. Questions of celebrity agency and power have attracted special attention, as applied to specific issues of celebrity activism, as well as being more broadly considered in accounts of relations of power such as gender, race, and sexuality. In the 21st century, those analyses of gender, sexuality, and race in the production and consumption of celebrity, as well as theories of celebrity formations and practices in digital culture, have moved to the forefront of the field’s concerns.
Article
Steven Winduo
English is the main language of writing among Indigenous writers of Oceania for a number of reasons. The various textual appropriations and ways in which language of writing and language of the culture have been infused together to produce texts do reveal a dialogic process at work. It is impossible to avoid the linguistic features of written texts as they are constructed in Oceania. Writers in Oceania are free to choose the language of their texts without any interference. In this way, they make readers aware of the cultural truth that these writers are representing in their writings. Metonymy as a poetic device and cultural truth as a thematic in Indigenous writings capture the interests of many of the older and younger generations of Pacific writers. Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. Some of the best poetry published across Oceania by generations of Pacific writers reveals extensive use of metonymy as a device to convey cultural truth. Poetry is written from the intimate knowledge of poets, embedded in the society in which they find inspiration. Bill Ashcroft and coauthors state: “the tropes of the post-colonial text may be fruitfully read as metonymy, language variance itself in such a text is far more profoundly metonym” because nuances in language can represent a whole cultural text. Syntactic fusion is one among different strategies of appropriation in postcolonial writing such as glossing, untranslated words, interlanguage, code-switching, and vernacular transcription.
Article
Ezequiel Saferstein
In a country where literacy rates are among the highest in the region, books are cultural objects cherished by vast sectors of the Argentine population as well as powerful symbolic, cultural, economic, and political artefacts. In particular, books on politics are an indispensable segment in the catalog of any Argentine publishing house. The vertiginous nature of politics and the historical significance of the book in Argentine society are such that the publishing sector has been—and still remains—one of the preferred spaces where symbolic and political power is disputed. Throughout the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century, the publishing market responded to different historical circumstances by producing headlines that sought to engage readers in different ways, helping them make life choices and understand the significance of their own time, as well as forming or reinforcing their opinions. Manufactured from the Left to the Right, books on politics expressed and shaped wills and aspirations, serving as combat weapons and means for the creation of spaces where ideas and political sentiments flourish. There are historical ties between the Argentinean publishing and political spheres, and the publishing process works as a fundamental form of mediation concerning the production and distribution of political ideas. Against the image of the book as an exclusive bridge connecting the authors with the reading public, a sociological and material viewpoint might focus on the publishing world and its protagonists: the ghost editors and agents who play an indispensable and decisive role in the processes whereby a book becomes an entitled cultural, economic, and political intervention—a great factory of ideas, discourses, and products with material and symbolic ramifications that influence public debates and agendas.
Article
Jeanne-Marie Jackson
Though the two fields have rarely been put in conversation, African philosophy and African fiction share a set of foundational concerns. These include the relation of the individual to the community; the significance of culture to unseating exclusively Western universalisms; and the tension between “lived” and a priori claims to truth against a background of political and epistemological decolonization. In addition to this substantive thematic core, both fields have also been shaped by an acute and even anguished degree of self-definitional questioning. What is “African” about African philosophy, or about the African novel? And inversely, what is fundamental to philosophy or the novel as such? Orality has served in both fields as a means of gauging the relative knowledge value afforded experience, on the one hand, and ideas’ formal contestation, on the other. While strong advocates of orality as a distinguishing feature of African intellectual production have extolled its collective dimensions, critics have been wary of its potential for cultural reductiveness and essentialism. Textuality, some argue, is an epistemological orientation that exceeds the literal practice of writing, and need not be viewed as a historical development at odds with African knowledge traditions. A number of influential African philosophers have homed in on the related problem of individualism in an effort to differentiate philosophical from social-scientific claims. This makes African philosophy an ideal interlocutor for African novel studies, which has sought in its own right to reconcile the form’s historical premium on the individual with African social contexts. While countless African novels from the mid-20th century to the early 21st century represent the challenge of negotiating between collective and individual as well as oral and textual elements, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s masterwork Kintu is an exemplary study in how the subgenre of the “philosophical novel” can narrativize the interaction of different African knowledge paradigms. In its staging of an oral, embodied system of knowledge alongside a textualized, meta-epistemological one, it invites the reader’s mutual evaluation of each vis-à-vis the other.
Article
Katherine Little
Pastoral refers to any representation of the countryside or life in the countryside that emphasizes its beautiful and pleasurable aspects. Although the term has come to be used broadly to describe paintings, novels, and popular media, it originated and developed in the poetry of ancient Greece and Rome. Poems about shepherds and cowherds, also called bucolic, first appeared in the Idylls of Theocritus (3rd century bce), and these inspired the Roman poet Virgil to write a set of poems called the Eclogues (c. 42–37 bce). Virgil’s ten poems have been immensely influential. Indeed, pastoral’s long and relatively unbroken European history can be traced to the ongoing popularity of the Eclogues. These poems helped establish the defining elements of the mode: shepherds, who spend much of their time in song and dialogue; the topics of love, loss, and singing itself; a leisurely life; and a natural landscape of endless summer. In the Middle Ages, when Virgil’s eclogues were still read but rarely directly imitated, an explicitly Christian version of pastoral developed; this version was based in the shepherds of the Bible, both the literal shepherds who witnessed Jesus’ birth and the figurative shepherds referred to by Jesus or mentioned in the Psalms. In this biblical or ecclesiastical pastoral, authors used shepherds to discuss priestly duties and the state of the church more generally. Pastoral flourished in the Renaissance, when poets brought together Virgilian and Christian traditions, along with topical concerns about court politics and rural controversies, such as enclosure, to invent a new kind of poetry. During and after the Romantic period, pastoral lost its distinctly shepherdly focus and merged with a broader category of nature writing. As one of several possible approaches to nature, pastoral was reduced to its idealizing and nostalgic qualities, and it was often contrasted with more realistic or scientific representations. From the perspective of the longue durée, pastoral is a capacious category that includes many different attitudes toward rural people and rural life, even the realism of labor and exile. Despite this variety, pastoral is recognizable for the feelings it hopes to generate in its readers about rural life: the delight that the senses take in nature, the sadness at the loss of people and places, and the intense crushes of adolescence.
Article
T. Hugh Crawford
Actor-network theory (ANT) is a methodology developed in the 1980s by scholars working primarily in the sociology of science and technology. It is a novel approach as it attempts to redefine actors not so much as willful or intentional agents but instead as any entity—human or nonhuman—that in some way influences or perturbs the activity of a techno-social system. Most effective when examining limited systems such as ship navigation, electrical network failures, and the like, ANT resists large generalizations and categories, including the very notion of the “social” which, according to actor-network theorists, is never an explanation but instead is that which must be explained. Well into the 21st century, practitioners have both embraced and critiqued ANT, but it remains a useful form of inquiry.
Article
Michael H. Whitworth
Though “literature and science” has denoted many distinct cultural debates and critical practices, the historicist investigation of literary-scientific relations is of particular interest because of its ambivalence toward theorization. Some accounts have suggested that the work of Bruno Latour supplies a necessary theoretical framework. An examination of the history of critical practice demonstrates that many concepts presently attributed to or associated with Latour have been longer established in the field. Early critical work, exemplified by Marjorie Hope Nicolson, tended to focus one-sidedly on the impact of science on literature. Later work, drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts, and on Mary Hesse’s and Max Black’s work on metaphor and analogy in science, identified the scope for a cultural influence on science. It was further bolstered by the “strong program” in the sociology of scientific knowledge, especially the work of Barry Barnes and David Bloor. It found ways of reading scientific texts for the traces of the cultural, and literary texts for traces of science; the method is implicitly modeled on psychoanalysis. Bruno Latour’s accounts of literary inscription, black boxing, and the problem of explanation have precedents in the critical practices of critics in the field of literature and science from the 1980s onward. | https://oxfordre.com/literature/browse?pageSize=10&sort=onlinepubdatedescending&subSite=literature&t=ORE_LIT%3AREFLIT017 |
The human element of our work has never been more important. As Robert Yagelski explains in Writing as a Way of Being (2011), the ideological and social pressures of our institutions put us under increasing pressure to sacrifice our humanity in the interest of efficiency. These problems only grow when we artificially separate self/world and mind/body in our teaching and everyday experiences. Following Yagelski and others, Writing as a Way of Staying Human in a Time that Isn't proposes that intentional acts of writing can awaken us to our interconnectedness and to ways in which we—as individuals and in writing communities—might address the social and environmental challenges of our present and future world. Featuring essays drawn from a range of contexts, including college composition and developmental reading and writing, professional and legal writing, middle school English, dissertation projects, academic conferences, and an online writing group, the collection outlines three ways writing can help us stay human: caring for ourselves and others; honoring the times and spaces of writing; and promoting justice. Each essay describes specific strategies for using writing as a means for staying human in inhuman times. The authors integrate personal stories, descriptions of classroom assignments and activities, and current research in writing studies. Their work shows that writing can contribute to personal, social, and political transformation by nurturing vulnerability, compassion, and empathy among students and instructors alike.
Convergence of ESP with other disciplines
Edited by
Nadezda Stojkovic, University of Niš, Serbia et al.
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180pp. ¦ $58 £41 €47
In designing a successful English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, an ESP lecturer must research the professional setting and in turn analyze, abstract and synthesize its linguistic characteristics. Expert vocabulary, typical syntactic structures, relevant morphological word formation processes, exemplary text organization and both written and spoken stylistics are no longer taught with little functional relevance, instead they are approached from a subject-specific perspective. While designing and/ or compiling teaching and learning material, an ESP lecturer must decide upon the appropriate teaching methodology and pedagogy in order to ensure that the course in its entirety simulates a particular professional situation. Only if the course is successful in this aim, will ESP learners be able to quickly engage in uninhibited communication and improve job performance in their field of work, whether that be in tourism or aviation. Although many professional settings share certain characteristics, they are nevertheless unique and often require different approaches. For this reason, there is little or no ready-made teaching material or methodological approaches when it comes to ESP teaching. A dedicated ESP lecturer caters for those idiosyncrasies doing a minute, multifaceted investigation into the linguistic characteristics of the relevant professional domain. Bringing together a collection of essays, this edited volume reveals the variety, depth, and quality of the ESP research and its convergence across different professional disciplines.
Positioning English for Specific Purposes in an English Language Teaching Context
Ivana Nešić
et al.
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292pp. ¦ $62 £44 €50
With the unrelenting spread of globalization, the English language has been firmly established as the Lingua Franca. Now more than ever, the importance of learning English is paramount within nearly all professional and educational sectors. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has long been accepted as an effective method for teaching English as a foreign language. In recent years, it has experienced an increasing presence in secondary and tertiary education across the globe. This is predominantly due to its learner-centered approach that focuses on developing linguistic competence in the student’s specific discipline, may that be academics, business or tourism, for example. Positioning English for Specific Purposes in an English Language Teaching Context attempts to present and define the relevance and scope of ESP within English Language teaching. From mobile phones as educational tools to the language needs of medical students, the contributors to this volume examine and propose different epistemological and methodological aspects of ESP teaching. Its unique approach to ESP marks this volume out as an important and necessary contribution to existing ESP literature, and one that will be of use to both researchers and practitioners of ESP.
Borders and Beyond: Orient-Occident Crossings in Literature
Edited by
Adam Bednarczyk, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland et al.
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The work presents articles discussing various subjects relating to literary, cultural borders and borderlands as well as their crossings with the Orient and the Occident. A broad, multifaceted scope of the volume draws the attention of readers to the problem of liminal spaces between cultures, genres, codes and languages of literary and artistic communication. The perspective of borderness proposed by orientalists, literary specialists, culture experts provide insights into multi-dimensional and heterogenic subjects and methods of consideration. The authors referring to, inter alia, comparative studies, theory of reception, intertextuality, transculturality of the East and West works touch upon themes such as coexistence, exclusion, crossing or the instability of borders. Also by taking into account identity issues, the interpenetration of various influences between different literatures, poetics and languages, the readers gain a broader context of intercultural dialogue between the Orient and Occident, what allow them to transgress barriers of a purely artistic, literary reception of the book contents. The volume – due to the abundance of proposed topics, its heterogeneous representations and manifold approaches used in analysis, discussion and (re)interpretations – is a debate’s record or a result of an academic reflection rather than a comprehensive monograph.
Forensic Linguistics
Asylum-seekers, Refugees and Immigrants
Edited by
Iman Nick, Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics (GSFL)
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230pp. ¦ $60 £43 €48
According to international statistics, the world is currently undergoing one of the largest refugee catastrophes in modern history. This humanitarian crisis has stimulated the mobilization of countless private and public rescue and relief efforts. Yet, deep-seated concerns over potential breaches of national security and wide-spread fears over uncontrolled mass immigration have prompted many policy-makers to caution against the unregulated entry of foreigners with little or no identity documentation. In an effort to strike a balance between addressing the needs of these two competing sets of concerns, an increasing number of governments have instituted policies and procedures for identity verification. In this multi-authored work, the focus is placed upon the widespread governmental use of language analyses to investigate displaced persons’ registered origins. This dynamic collection of writings provides readers with a thought-provoking, politically-stimulating, intellectually challenging examination of the pitfalls and promise of these practices across differing sociopolitical, legal, linguistic, and geographical contexts. This contextual diversity reflects the unique strength of this reference work. Unlike so many other publications on the market that focus rigidly upon a single vantage point, this work offers a dynamic exploration of the theory and practice of language analysis for governmentally-mandated identification procedures. From the linguistic scholar to the human rights activist, the agency worker to the asylum-seeking applicant, this collection offers a complex and rich cross-section of professional and personal experiences. The multiplicity of perspectives is powerfully complemented by the heterogeneity of disciplines represented in this work. From sociology, psychology, demography, and language policy to linguistics, ethics, international affairs, government and politics, this work will satisfy a wide variety of readers’ scholarly interests and commensurately serves as an excellent reference work for researchers and practitioners as well as a valuable teaching resource for graduate and undergraduate courses. | https://vernonpress.com/index.php/books?&sid=84&page=17 |
When reading a fiction, not only the plot, but also the narrator and the point of view are important to readers in order to understand the story. Stories can be told in a various angle of vision or in one perspective, depending on which person point of view. “A story is said to be from a character’s point of view, or a character is said to be a focal or focalizing character” (Norton, 174). Readers sometimes feel they are overhearing the narrator’s thoughts because they follow along the narrator’s thoughts, actions, and feelings. Both Sonny’s Blues and the Yellow paper use first person narration.
One of the most important elements of a story, whether it’s a Shakespeare play, a science- fiction or a Harlem renaissance story, is the use of characters. Authors use their characters to help assist them in getting their message across the reader. In her short story “Spunk” Zora Neale Hurston uses her characters to help develop the plot line while also showing how dramatic a character can change. With the help of the community members, Joe finally stands up to Spunk, (the towns strong man.) Through this ordeal, Spunk is forever changed for this is the moment that caused him to open up something that fear would take control over.
As people read literature, it can pose many benefits to them by offering help in their lives. One of these benefits is that it warns people about hubris and teaches them to happy with what they have in life. There are some classic writings, such as Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut, and Macbeth, by Shakespeare, which are prime examples of pieces of literature which have subliminal messages warning us to not be over ambitious. Additionally, there are contemporary writings, specifically an article about Trump, by Callum Borchers, which gives us examples of present day people who are being affected by their own ego. When people read others writing, whether it is contemporary or classic literature, they are taught about how it is human nature to always want more than they currently have and the dangers that can arise from not being humble, which helps shape their identity and can be used as a guide throughout life.
It is also an important aspect in a book and its job is to interest readers, construct the story and allow readers to learn from the flawed characters of the story. In The Kite Runner, a literary device that is heavily used to influence the story
One of the roles of literature is to teach us something about ourselves or essentially unveil something about yourself that you did not know was there. The novel The Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an example of teaching us about ourselves and human nature because Marquez writes about different things that happen to us in our everyday life that we do not notice because it could be looked at as second nature. The novel shows different aspects of human nature, there is shared guilt/guilt, Gossip, and human routine these aspects are integral to the story and how the plot advances and possible helps the reader see that they may experience these things also. Shared guilt and guilt are major roles of the novel because it is a part of the reason Santiago was murder. Marquez makes sure every character in the novel feels some type of guilt for Santiago’s murder, even the characters that are not essential to the plot, such as, the mayor and the priest who are there to help the people of their town when something is going wrong but, instead they were worried about domino games and the visit of the bishop to help someone in need.
They help give the plot a meaning and move it along. Characters give a story the problems as well as the resolutions. They are important since they are what the readers identify with in the plot of a short story. The work of the author is to make a character relatable to the readers. This can be achieved by describing their physical appearance, behavioral traits, and interactions with others in the story.
The literary themes allow the author to take a logical examination of racism while the themes expressed through actions of the characters show ways to combat hatred while maintaining peace. These themes prove to be significant in both the story and in everyday
The authors conveyed this through bringing attention to specific details and the decisions of the characters in their writing. Three lessons that were included in both the play and the novel were the overcoming of the stereotypes and bias of characters in The Scarlet Letter, the corruption of not only the ones who govern, but also susceptible to even the common citizens in The Crucible, and the perspective of faith and morality of the characters in the story who determine good versus evil through irony. Both works convey many lessons that can be interpreted in many different ways but are still universal and timeless. The lessons can also be applied to many situations in
Poe believes that stories that dealt with gothic literature needed to have allegories in them to have a second level of meaning in addition to it’s literal meaning. Theses types of elements were popular in this time period because they taught moral lessons and contributed to the dark feeling a person undergoes when finding the true meaning of not only the story, but are able to personally understand the true feeling the author is trying to make individuals feel. In “The Tale and Its Effect”, Poe stated that he used and supported unity of effect to go about discussing the themes he embedded within his stories in order to make the reader to feel a certain way. He believes that they need to be short and sweet so that the author can get all the details to the reader. Poe exclaims that short stories are superior to novels because one is able to sit down and finish it in one-sitting rather than breaking the experience, with the possibility of forgetting important elements.
People have experiences on a day-to-day basis, some small, some large, but they all shape who they are, and in turn affect their values for the good or for the bad. They are best shown through literature, since it allows for realistic life experiences to be created in fictitious worlds. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Abuela Invent the Zero” both demonstrate the protagonist developing more appropriate values from important life experiences. In each of these classic stories, the main characters, Tom and Constancia, both have life experiences that shape them to cherish new things and value ideas that cause them to become more suitable, and rational people.
Just like literature, music tells a story. Songs display thoughts and meaningful words that can help people get through hard times, just like a story can. You can relate yourself to literature and music because the artists and authors can share the same struggles you did. Both authors and artists hide behind their masterpieces, but when you read between the lines you find out their story and their struggle in life. You can always listen to songs and novels when you need advice.
By providing both accounts of this unfortunate historic reality it is easy to show students the realities and emotions that many people endured during the slave trade, while also specifying the details of how and why families were separated. Images are also a great way for students to put a face to a name or picture to an event after reading primary sources that include rich information, names, dates, and events that might be hard to remember without an image to help reinforce the material. Students are provided with a richer interpretation of the historical events for those who read the graphic portion of the novel before the primary sources. It forces students to create their own analysis of what they believed happened, possibly between different sections of the graphic images or behind the scenes of what is not being portrayed in the images. They are then able to refer to the primary source section of the novel to learn the underlying information that is missing in the graphic
The Outsiders All stories have a reason,or a saying commonly introduced throughout the story to capture the thinking and thoughts of the audience. The author puts this in as a theme that will draw in the reader and their thinking throughout. Lots of people enjoy reading literature because it requires them to connect in their own way of thinking and understanding of human nature. Themes are displayed in ways of human nature. In the novel, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, the author uses the plot, setting, and characters to convey the theme.
Dog Star’s Narrator A character without a name may have some hidden character traits. Maybe they would have some secret regrets, such as the narrator in Dog Star written by Arthur Clarke. Although his name is never mentioned, he did express his flawed character traits. He was compassionate, contritely,and introverted.
Understanding and/or Empathy are the most impactful in this story. Atticus is always talking about stepping in someone else's shoes and trying to understand where they come from. Atticus gives the clearest explanation of understanding and empathy when he talks about, climbing in someone's skin and walking around in it. Understanding and empathy are important in my life because instead of judging someone I try to understand things like where they come from, why they’re doing what they are and the things they’re saying. I try and get to know them so I can understand what they’re feeling or experiencing. | https://www.ipl.org/essay/To-Kill-A-Mockingbird-Sympathy-Analysis-FCCMXNBGYT |
Critical Insights: The Hero’s Quest
Great starting point for students seeking an introduction to the theme and the critical discussions surrounding it.
Odysseus, Gilgamesh, even The Hobbitt's' Bilbo - their stories thrill us with their adventure and classic quest themes. Throughout their journeys, they discover amazing new lands, strange and captivating people and beasts, and even, sometimes, a deeper understanding of themselves. Perhaps because of their excitement and clear progression towards a greater good, stories of a hero's quest remain as compelling and classic today as they were in ancient times.
Edited by Bernard Schweizer, Associate Professor of English at Long Island University, and Robert Segal, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen, this volume in the Critical Insights series addresses the theme of the hero's quest in literature through a diverse set of texts and through multiple methodologies. For readers who are studying the theme for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts containing the theme. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Inferno, Gulliver's Travels, Moby Dick, His Dark Materials, and Heart of Darkness.
Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the themes of nature and the environment as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study these timeless themes in greater depth. | https://salempress.com/Critical-Insights-The-Heros-Quest |
It’s all about understanding the deeper meaning of courage, it 's not the physical courage that plays a huge affect on someone, but the mental courage, which can change a personality. The main character Jem, experiences many troubling and disturbing events which all relate to his father, Atticus Finch, because Atticus is defending a Negro in court by the name of Tom Robinson. The time period and setting of this book took during the 1930’s where Negroes were treated harshly in society, and were discriminated against only because of their skin color. All throughout this historical fiction book, To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, includes many literary devices such as characterization, internal conflict and lastly foreshadowing to develop
This problem really helps me come of age understanding it is not right to use violence when defending family. You will have to pay the consequences. The author really used the conflict between Finch and Scout to see that many people use violence to stop people from insulting their family’s honor. In this passage, the literary elements of character, conflict, and motif develop the theme of people often defend their family’s honor through violence. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses an interesting conflict to help find the theme.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a very complex book with multiple different themes presented within it. These themes are shown through the characters in the story and how they react to the situations they were thrown in to. The largest role in the book is actually played by the setting of the story due to it being set in southern Alabama in the 1930s. This makes more troubles and confusion for the characters because of the racist lifestyle most people in this time period lived by. Harper Lee created characters to be blinded by ignorance and show hatred for people proven innocent of misdeed.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it,” said Atticus Finch In To Kill A Mockingbird. This is a story that tells about Scout Finch, his brother Jem, and his father Atticus. The author, Harper Lee’s purpose when writing this book was to inform others how dreadful racism and prejudice was in the south in the 1930s. One of the focuses of this book is the court case of Tom Robinson, which ended up with an innocent man dying because he was black. People in the book also use racist language, and are sexist too.
Yet misconceptions are formed from stereotypes and are incorrect based on truths. Misconceptions are assumptions, or a mistaken belief, a person has because he or she is apart of the group. These misconceptions are not exaggerated and usually have no truths to it. Misconceptions and stereotypes about people also often get falsely confused with prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is a person’s hostile opinion or feeling is based on something they have no knowledge about, thought, or reason behind it.
The other in the civil rights movement as represented in literature in harper lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird The world is created out of oppositions, divisions and separations between the one and the Other. When people collide or meet, in that sense, in the meeting between different cultural backgrounds they tend to define the others by defining themselves. Jacque Derrida puts it in his essay Archive Fever: Freudian Impressions “every Other is every other Other, is altogether Other “(p.77). Alternatively, as Harper lee sets it clearly in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in It” (p.32) It is always relevant to analyse how the One describes, and in that way defines the Other. The definition of this Concept is related to the definition of the One.
All throughout their journey, Jem and Scout are unknowingly encountering symbols throughout the year and a half the story takes place. Harper Lee uses the literary device of symbolism in a multitude of situations to entice readers to not evaluate these instances at face value but to analyze every case critically in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird so that they can see the complete picture.
Most authors write about characters that can be related to by the reader. To make readers able to connect more, the author has to make the character more realistic which means giving a character a flaw. The following books, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Odyssey and Of Mice and Men, are books we focused on this year and they all represented characters with flaws that the readers were able to identify and relate to. Boo Radley, Odysseus and Lennie were characters in the books that have flaws, but have good intentions. To Kill A Mockingbird, is a book that focuses on a town that faces racism.
EXTENDED ESSAY How are African American Characters portrayed in: To Kill A Mockingbird? TUSHAR MANEKLAL CANDIDATE # ENGLISH LITERATURE SUPERVISOR: MR. SHAWN SKINNER DATE: November 2014 WORD COUNT: 3739 Abstract This essay explores the portrayal of African American’s in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. It investigates the depiction of African Americans through the lens of different characters. It is clear that Lee condemns the behavior of white people in the South towards the blacks and urges the reader to look at the plight of the blacks through her two main characters, Scout and Atticus Finch. The character of Scout Finch is rather autobiographical giving us vision into Lee’s own childhood and upbringing.
To understand an individual, it is necessary to place ourselves in their shoes. In the novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, the author addresses the need for human understanding in order to destroy the evils of racial prejudice. Scout, the main character, is the representation of innocence due to being a pure, young girl who views her surroundings with an untainted perspective. She is inclined to consider people’s point of view in order to understand them. She is taught this by her father, Atticus, who risks everything as a lawyer to defend a black man who is accused for a crime that he did not commit. | https://www.ipl.org/essay/Otherness-In-To-Kill-A-Mockingbird-P3ZTQCK6CE86 |
During Experiences of The Color Purple, you will learn about postcolonial theory, advanced linking words and to write an article based on Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple (1982). The main skills that you will improve are reading, adapting to theory, writing and discussing.
You will learn by reading the novel The Color Purple, watching the movie The Color Purple and participate in written discussions. Finally, you will be assessed by writing a 400-800 word article for a fictional online magazine.
Successful students will be able to:
Read, watch and understand The Color Purple in order to retell and compare the narratives using the theory
Write a structurally complex essay using linking words in order to retell, compare and expand, adapted to the essay format as well as precise vocabulary, complex and correct grammar.
Article instructions
Your task is to write an article for publication in the online magazine Experiences of The Color Purple. The purpose of the magazine is to invite writers to expand upon and discuss the themes from the novel and the movie The Color Purple, which illustrate how colonial history, oppression, racism and sexuality contribute to its complex narrative.
In your article, briefly introduce your readers to the story and your theme since they might not be familiar with either. For example, how can violence, gender roles, colonialism, sex, racism influence and shape who the characters become and understand their surroundings? Secondly, choose one of two purposes for your article - retell and expand, or compare and discuss:
· Retell the narrative of The Color Purple and expand upon one theme with your own thoughts or experiences
· Compare the novel and the movie by using quotes and concrete examples from both the novel and the movie
Your article should be written in a formal style suitable for publication in a magazine and contain a title, preamble, body and conclusion. Your text will be assessed on your language and how you make use of the content from the source material.
You have 120 minutes to write your article and your article should be at least 400 but no more than 800 words. You may bring your improved writing exercises to the test as a draft of 200 words. Make sure you have time to check what you have written with regard to appropriateness of language, content and structure.
Purpose, content, and assessment for learning
Purpose:
Colonialism, and post-colonialism which is the study of colonial effects, attempts to understand the past historical events that shaped the politics and cultures of colonilzed countries. Many of these changes are now visible in literature authored in post-colonial times. Not only were borders reshaped, but the way people see themselves existentially and socially.
Colonial theory illustrates the dynamics of how native groups are seen as other, exotic and uncivilised by the colonisers while the colonisers both enforced and birthed European and language supremacy. The literature written in post-colonial cultures create a mix of otherness seen through the English language.
As an English language student, it is this important to understand how global history can be understood through literature and how language has played a part in shaping our world. This level is concerned with the real impact of colonialism in Africa and how these events shaped African-American fiction, history and dialects.
As a group, you discuss your reading experience. Individually you will write an essay with the theme #reacttoTheColorPurple using Digiexam.
Core contents:
Theoretical and complex subject areas, also of a more scientific nature, related to students' education, chosen specialisation area, societal issues and working life ; thoughts, opinions, ideas, experiences and feelings; cultural expressions in modern times and historically, such as literary periods.
Societal issues, cultural, historical, political and social conditions, and also ethical and existential issues in different contexts and parts of the world where English is used.
Contemporary and older literature and other fiction in various genres such as drama.
Texts of different kinds and for different purposes, such as agreements, indepth articles and scientific texts (Skolverket, 2011)
Knowledge requirements
Understanding of spoken and written English, and also the ability to interpret content.
The ability to express oneself and communicate in English in speech and writing.
The ability to adapt language to different purposes, recipients and situations.
The ability to discuss and reflect on living conditions, social issues and cultural features in different contexts and parts of the world where English is used. | https://www.feke.online/english-7/experiences-of-the-color-purple |
The BAOJ Psychology Journal develops psychological research of interest and application for the human condition around the globe. The journal serves as the channel for globally pertinent basic and applied research in systematic psychology. It publishes quality articles on Psychology written by leading psychologists in the world. The magazine covers all aspects of the domain, offering the latest developments in the field.
The journal of BAOJ Psychology acts as a comprehensive guide for professionals and researchers who deal with new developments and track innovative approaches. The periodical publishes articles on all topics of the domain in different formats, including:
- Regular Empirical Articles
- Brief Research Reports
- Meta-analyses
- Literature Reviews
- Case reports and case series
- Clinical images and presentations
It also includes special sections highlighting a specific thematic focus. The prominent goal of this journal of Psychology is to create relevance for a global readership.
The BAOJ Psychology journal publishes articles, which incorporate perspectives from diverse fields of psychology or relevant disciplines of the domain. It is also the handiest resource for those who research the role of social, physical, and cultural contexts in psychological procedures and results. The journal aims to put psychological thoughts together from different areas in the world. It publishes regular empirical articles, as well, providing readers with information on their specific needs.
The aim of the BAOJ Psychology journal is to promote "the developments, representations, and spread of psychology as a basic and applied science regionally, nationally, and internationally. All articles in the journal represent psychology comprehensively as a science and profession. All the published research articles of the journal undergo thorough checks and review to ensure their quality and genuineness. All of them are based on first editor screening, anonymous assessment of the content, and merit. This quality policy makes the journal the most sought-after resource among world-renowned Psychologists, researchers, and readers who want to know all aspects of Psychology. | https://bioaccent.org/psychology.html |
Ever since their first incarnation, Soul 871 has been drawn towards their soul mate who they only know by “S”. With every life, death, and reincarnation – the sole desire of 871 is to find S and spend eternity with them. Every once in a while, 871 arrives on The Ilium – an afterlife that closely resembles Paradise. However, further scrutiny reveals it more of a Purgatory Luxury Cruise. As 871 swims through the ocean of time and space, they bear witness to humanity’s darkest tragedies and highest hopes. Sadly, such sights take a backseat for their single-minded priority: to secure said soulmate and live in the glory of love.
Kawika Guillermo follows up Stamped: An Anti Travel Novel with a deep dive into speculative territory with All Flowers Bloom. It continues to tackle the themes present in Guillermo’s portfolio: a character study of discovering how power and privilege plays a role in character decisions and obtaining desires. Each chapter takes place in myriad episodes of 871’s lives throughout history – recorded or otherwise still yet to come.
At first glance, the novel seems to take several dark turns. They do tackle little known or overlooked aspects in recorded history such as the Filipinx-American war, lives of Roman slaves, and the point of view of Saladin’s army. Each episode almost always ends in that life’s demise or alluding to a bleak finality. The episodes are then broken by a waypoint in the afterlife – “The Ilium” – mostly known as a recap in 871’s progress but also gives the reader insight to the novel’s principal characters such Cryss. Cryss is the deity who oversees the realm and serves as both mentor and foil to 871. Travelling back to this realm every four to six chapters gives the readers an anchor and with Cryss, a guide.
I mentioned that Guillermo really cranks up the speculative territory in this piece, because for fans of historical fiction, the narrative takes us on a wild acid trip to fantastical worlds set in historical reality rather than the realistic narrative expected from historical fiction. Regardless, there are still many facets of historical fiction that its readers can appreciate. The second half of the novel ventures into pure speculative territory as it is set beyond contemporary recorded history. It views the future in a wondrous journey that takes on more Asian lore based on Chinese, South Asian, and Middle Eastern myths. Readers familiar with 1,001 Nights and the Legend of Chung-He would find much to enjoy here.
Chronologically, I appreciate the trajectory or Guillermo’s piece – it is linear despite my personal bias that the soul’s perception of time may differ that of corporeal beings. Another aspect I appreciate is the fluidity of gender 871 experiences in different lives. For the most part, 871 has more female incarnations, though I read their journey from a male perspective. It could be through my cisgender bias that I perceive 871’s obsessive quest as predatory – a byproduct of the social conditioning accepting men as natural aggressors.
As a reader who enjoys literary fiction, I enjoyed Guillermo’s quirky speculative approach. The high fantasy motifs are not jarring and have been eased in organically. The introductions are effective as it starts with a soul in the state of journeying. For me that feels enough of a prompt to allow more fantastical elements, such as an afterlife Mardi Gras on the The Ilium, deities of death and destruction appearing before 871 during his corporeal life, and of course, a dragon. While we as readers are eased in slowly but gradually, by the end of the narrative we enter more and more alien realities only limited by Guillermo’s colorful imagination.
I feel that the socio-political messages in the story are subtle compared to Stamped but its segues are nuanced and supplemental to the main narrative. At the base of it is an epic love story, albeit one-sided and at times toxic. 871 becomes a window and mirror for the readers to view the different facets of history – in all of humanity’s deplorable atrocities, but also in displays of altruism and compassion. It teaches us that we are complicit in the gears of strife and avarice but also capable of much forgiveness and potential for growth.
Guillermo dazzles, delights, and damns the reader to a plethora of corporeal festivities, metaphysical epiphanies, and cautionary tales at the rate of our feverish consumption towards our insatiable desires. All Flowers Bloom is an unapologetic discussion in analyzing the human condition, giving it room to grow and also outlining our many mistakes. It allows us to forgive ourselves and, if we learn from the consequences of such actions, we can transcend our base desires and aspire for something divine.
Vincent Ternida’s pieces have appeared on Ricepaper Magazine, The Ormsby Review, and Rabble. His short story Elevator Lady was long listed for the CBC Short Fiction Prize. The Seven Muses of Harry Salcedo is Ternida’s first novella. He has a collection of short stories in development. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. | https://entropymag.org/all-flowers-bloom-kawika-guillermo/ |
The conclusion from this study states that Fahrenheit 451 provides a plethora of entertainment while giving the readers something to mull around in their minds even long after they have put the book down. Moreover, it can be considered a timeless tale, one that can be relevant as long as humanity holds firm to its ability to think for itself and to embrace the gift of knowledge.
For purposes of this particular story, Foer examines the way in which a young boy, Oskar Schell, attempts to cope with the loss of his father during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. By using different tones for each of the main characters, Foer allows the reader to better to connect to the characters within the story.
As the central focal point of the novel, the little house on Mango Street is something Esperanza wants to escape from. She sees herself as apart from her home and its surrounding culture and squalor. As the novel progresses, Esperanza moves from contempt and wanting to leave this little old house behind, develops her own identity apart from the house, and, finally learns to accept the house, the neighborhood, and her friends as a part of her.
For a long time the Italian society, one of the elitist societies in early Europe criticized the Roman Catholic, which was a major decision maker and an influencer of the political grouping.
The animals are observed to be playing significant role in this story depicting their positive and the negative role played that lays a greater impact on the human characters within the story. In this regard, this book is identified to symbolize the interrelationship amid the human characters and animals.
The concept of femininity or masculinity in china was almost always tied to cultural and economic development across the various regions and also across the different periods. From the traditional image of the bearded warrior and martial arts expert the image steadily changed into that of a more docile scholar as the accepted man figure (Zhongshu et al, 233).
The author of the paper states that rational knowledge gives a different perception of life than does irrational knowledge. Tolstoy claims that in order to understand that life is not evil, one must give up reasoning. According to Camus the value of life as we currently saw it was futile and a deception.
Recommendations 11 References 12 Appendix 13 1. Introduction The development of business activities worldwide is related to a series of significant challenges; indeed, firms that are interested in expanding their operations worldwide have to face a strong competition, a result of the increase of globalization as a social and economic phenomenon.
II. Profile of the Company for Discussion: Mattel Incorporated Mattel, Inc. is headquartered at El Segundo California specializing in the production and selling of toys. It has a market reach to more than 150 countries with 36 offices in different countries and is considered as the world's biggest toy manufacturer in the world.
Written by an acclaimed Haitian writer of affluent and respected descent, Masters of the Dew was originally published in 1944 in French and translated by Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook. The author vividly described the traditional ways of the peasants in the town of Fonds Rouge, the strong faith in Providence, the fate of the black people, and the miseries and pain suffered in a society engulfed by extreme poverty.
It is throbbing to witness the people you have loved for so long being loved by others. The space once filled by you gets filled by the new one. It is very painful… And for that matter I have to be there… never to leave Maxim alone… because with all my heart I loved him.
Though everyone expects a life to take a positive course after marriage, it is not all who accepts the change of phase in their lives. The story mainly focuses on the feelings and disturbances of the protagonist who could not find peace at the homely life she gets to live and wants to explore something more to satisfy her quench for difference.
Susan Van Zanten Gallagher’s “Torture and the Novel: J.M. Coetzee’s ‘Waiting for Barbarians’” central thesis is that Coetzee walks a fine line when depicting torture, trying to give it honesty without glorification, and uses ambiguity and allegory to his advantage in this quest.
The male characters are actively involved in determining and gathering information that could make the motive of the murder clearly point to the criminal. On the contrary, the female characters are placed in the setting as passive players who are just there to get some necessities for the accused, Mrs.
The conclusion from this paper states that the dark side of Hamlet’s personality is a lack of gentleness and consideration. Killing Polonius speaks both of Hamlet’s bravery and lack of consideration as he later gets to know that he has killed the wrong person and still does not repent. Overall, Hamlet is a good person who would not mess up with others until he is really required to do so.
The piercing is dependent on the will, vision and pressure and the needs of the individual (Bressler 65). Reader-oriented criticism is effective in situations where a reader can assign meaning to the text, thus regarded an active reader. This school of literary theory helps people view literature as a performing act whereby each reader has the authority to give birth to his/her own story.
In an attempt to make informed decision, we refer to different scales of ethics including our religious and cultural values, and the theory of ethics. Irrespective of what scale we choose, the issue might remain as such and not ethically justified from all aspects.
The author states that the poem attempts to reveal the way Native Americans have truly lost their cultural heritage, and the speaker’s fear is that her culture may be lost. Therefore, travelling to powwows would enable the speaker to maintain her heritage; thus, she quotes “I can travel to powwows’.
The two books depict fatherhood in various ways. Even so, the authors narrate them in a fascinating manner for the targeted gender and age-group (Montgomery and Watson, 2009, p. 98).
When an epic poem of 700 BC, hits the big screen in the year 1997, the Director will be confronted with a number of limitations. Since The Odyssey is the war movie, the issues are still more challenging for Andrei Konchalovski, director, to take this ancient epic to the screen for a 165-minutes duration movie.
James Joyce in his novel Ulysses uses different characters as the narrators. This is done intentionally with the author in order to idealize a certain version of the author. Joyce also uses this technique since the characters are addressing the audience directly and this appeal and motivates the audience or the readers of the book.
The narrator of this essay aims to tell that the story revolves around the life of its protagonist Tita De La Garza who is a young lady filled with deep passion about whatever she does. However, even her deep passion could not save her from the loneliness and despair that she experiences because it seemed to be her lot in life.
The main themes that are brought to light by the author of the play include aspiration, greed, and murder. The proper use of characterization helps to support these main themes. As one of the main decisions surrounding the play, Shakespeare brings out many factors that influenced him to make his final decisions.
The plot and the characters are based on the socio economic settings of early 19th century in a fictional town named, “Meryton” in Hertfordshire, near London. The book is loved by millions of readers around the world despite the extinct cultural values and norms which are extensively portrayed in the story (Ghent 299).
The first reason is because the reader is given a view of some important issues which Billy has been trying to hide from himself. The second reason is because this scene contains a large number of clues about the way Billy relates to other people at this stage in his life.
“Death of A Salesman” is a play written in 1949 by Arthur Miller, it won several awards including Pulitzer Prize for its themes that revolved around social issues that the population felt was relevant to them at the time including the struggle for acceptance, role of family and social expectations versus the desires of an individual.
Those changes affected not only every family but an office environment and the ways that people are doing business nowadays. Information technologies offer various choices for businesses to increase efficiency of work and lower company’s expenses at the same time.
This paper illustrates that Washington Irving was the first ever American author who became famous abroad in a short span of time. He is known for contribution to short story genre. In the story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, the Dutch community of New York has been described, which is located in a rural valley near the Hudson River.
The most edifying symbols used in the novel are Emily’s house and the strand of hair. Emily’s house just like Emily herself is symbolically used to portray the values, culture and traditions of the southern people, which continue to persist even in the face of civilization.
Hamlet, being the protagonist in this narrative, voices his opinion concerning the responses that are either passionate or meditative. This paper examines the meditative and passionate responses that are exhibited by characters in this narrative. It then goes ahead to discuss what hamlet says about the responses in issue.
It remains relevant even today as is evidenced by the ways in which it has been reworked by contemporary writers and filmmakers. The novel attracts attention for being a work that celebrated the colonial spirit of the English man during the eighteenth century.
This paper helps to discuss one of the most rampant issues in children across the Canadian nation; childhood obesity. Obesity may be characterized as having too much fat within one’s body; this does not mean that a person has put on a lot of weight; instead it only means that a person has excessive body fat in the body which is not burnt properly due to lack of exercise, resulting in an accumulation posing a risk to a person’s health.
In recent times however, postcolonial writers and literary critics have responded to stories and works of authors focusing on dominant cultures via the filters of the twentieth century Western thinker, themselves explicitly antagonist to Western traditions.
Stories were passed by word of mouth. Most of these stories had their thematic contents revolving around certain societal issues. America is one of the nations that have captured the attention of several writers.
Other basic needs such as education and healthcare were also hard to come by. In light of the person she is now, her achievements and failures, one can see a non-mistakable loom of the Jim Crow era in her life even in the present times. The sharecropper status her father held had a number of implications in relation to black families.
Although the treatment of the stories varies, the narratives are similar in their focus on the beauty and strength of human relationships, and the ability of the indomitable human spirit to overcome adversity. Both the tales also explore the fact that blindness need not be physical, but can also be metaphorical.
Utopia The main objective behind making a critical investigation of both these distinguished works includes their laying stress upon humanities and humanism in the fields of learning and education on the one hand, and in respect of administering the affairs of government on the other.
Brocklehurst, managed to become an autonomous lady. In a society where women always became oppressed and their voices could not be heard, the author, Jane Eyre, tried to bring out the plight of women by the use of the character, Bertha Mason. Jane Eyre, by using Bertha Mason, present her own plight and other women through anger, feeling of entrapment and madness.
The word of Mrs. Mitty commenting that her husband is “tensed up again” and that it is “one of your days”, (Thurber) means that the incident happened more than once. Obviously, the man’s daydreaming is affecting his current activities which could suggest how deeply involved he is with his mental activities.
Is it possible to marry the occult and the rational to find out what is real and what is true? The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1901) tries to answer this question, as Sherlock Holmes investigates the contest between the rational and the occult.
There has been immense influence of Freud’s work on the work of Arthur Schnitzler and in shaping his theory on sexuality and subconscious. Freud’s ideas have contributed to Schnitzler’s idea development. Freud and Schnitzler received the same medical training, and have the similar interest in hypnosis and hysteria.
His work comprises to two completely distinct eras of his life. "Raymond Carver excelled at portraying the hardscrabble existence of blue-collar workers frustrated and disillusioned by the false promises of the American dream." (Meyer, 26) The earlier part of his life was spent writing on people whose life is in a frustrated and oppressed state, which is precisely the narration of his own experiences which he encountered because of poverty, consumption of alcohol and disturbed marital state.
Marcellus and Barnado are on guard over the castle, Elsinore, when they see what appears to be the dead King Hamlet. Unsure of themselves, they ask Horatio, an educated man and Prince Hamlets best friend to join them on the watch the next night. When Horatio is told of what they had seen for the prior two nights, he does not believe them.
This may be the scenario in present times when humanity is thriving amidst the principles of democracy and egalitarianism. But the situation was not the same a few centuries ago. Going back in time, to the era of the 19th and 20th century, one might witness the kinds of restrictions and forces which narrowed the vision of the literary artists.
The research is going to determine the relationship between library’s sources of income (partnerships, joint ventures, and organizational sponsorships) which is the independent variable and financial stability which is the dependent or outcome variable, since the Clayton County public library was facing financial deficits which needed to be alleviated.
Mary Shelley portrays education as a vital tool for human development. However, the rush to acquire and apply certain knowledge can cause harm to an individual or the whole society. Shelley’s book is set in the late Eighteenth Century when the industrial revolution was rapidly gaining fame. Advancements in the industrial revolution were mainly facilitated by the knowledge of science and technology.
They were seen as more likely to subject Arab-Americans to additional screening at airports than other airline passengers. Additionally they were more likely to question young Hispanic men on suspicions related to drug involvement than other races or ethnicities.
The researcher says that the story of George and Lennie is the story of the unfortunate people of that period. George and Lennie sincerely believed in their humble dream. They dreamt of owning a piece of land, grow crops, and breed rabbits. Their life, relationship and dreams show the period the story highlights.
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story of the horror genre. The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe is lead by thrill and mystery. He puts forward his thoughts regarding the process of critical thinking that a human being possesses. In the story ‘The tell-tale heart’ he has integrated his views regarding the functioning of the human brain and how the thought processes work together.
Let us find you samples on subject Literature for FREE! | https://studentshare.org/literature/page/177 |
Abstract: This essay suggests that a discussion of Henrik Ibsen and his relationship with cosmopolitanism should start with the redefinition of this controversial concept. After reconsidering cosmopolitanism, I note that Ibsen's relevance to cosmopolitanism can be broken down into three topics: his cosmopolitan ideas and diasporic experience; the cosmopolitan subject matter of his plays and the global significance of his works; and his position in world literature. I analyze his most representative play, Peer Gynt, from a cosmopolitan perspective and argue that Ibsen's cosmopolitan elements find particular embodiment in the different adaptations and productions of his plays in China.
Keywords: cosmopolitanism, Henrik Ibsen, diaspora, Peer Gynt
I. Why Should We Talk about Cosmopolitanism Today?
Although cosmopolitanism became a cutting edge theoretical and intellectual trend in Western academia in the late 1990s, it has a long history, or a sort of "prehistory," dating from antiquity. It is worth revisiting this concept before dealing with Henrik Ibsen's relationship with it and his position in world literature and drama. As an interdisciplinary concept and critical discourse, cosmopolitanism dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, especially that of Diogenes of Sinope and other Stoics. Cosmopolitanism is primarily a political and philosophical concept with a strong ethical core. It tells us that all human beings--regardless of the ethnic groups, countries, or regions with which they are affiliated--belong to a single social community or a sort of "imaginary community." This notion is very close to the current theoretical discourse of globalization, according to which people live in a huge "global village" and share a fundamental set of ethical principles and rights that transcend individual nations or countries.
Literary and cultural studies scholars have long been interested in cosmopolitanism and tried to find its elements in literary works. The late Dutch comparatist and sinologist Douwe Fokkema was among the earliest comparatists in the contemporary era to deal with this topic in conjunction with comparative and world literature. In his response to globalization, he transcends the old-fashioned Eurocentric or Westerncentric view of cosmopolitanism and calls for reconstructing a new cosmopolitanism in a global context. Although globalization often results in cultural homogeneity, he is more concerned with the other pole of globalization in culture: cultural plurality and diversity (Fokkema 1-17).
As a Chinese scholar of comparative and world literature, I deal with the issue of cosmopolitanism chiefly from two perspectives: a literary and critical perspective in general and a Chinese perspective in particular. I believe that world literature is closely related to cosmopolitanism since many literary works are written both for the author's domestic readers and a broader global reading public. Ibsen's works should be viewed as world literature since his plays are mainly written for readers and audiences across different cultures. In this essay, I first offer my own tentative theoretical (re)construction of cosmopolitanism from a global as well as Chinese perspective. I argue that cosmopolitanism can be described as having the following ten characteristics: | https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-481649770/ibsen-and-cosmopolitanism-a-chinese-and-cross-cultural |
Celebrating its 150th anniversary led First Baptist Church of McMinnville, Oregon, into a practice of storytelling and testimony in worship. They learned how stories cross boundaries and time and connect people with God’s big story.
Feature Story | June 26, 2018
Serious Play: Insights from Augustine and Other Friends from the Early Church on Leading Worship and Administering Sacraments
Led by Lester Ruth, this workshop explored insights from Augustine and others in the early church that can break open playful, Scriptural imagination for leading in worship.
Audio | May 09, 2018
Does Church Location Make Any Difference?
Because human beings are embodied creatures, the shape of the material world—in particular, the shape of the built environment—will affect their spiritual lives, both in relation to God and to each other.
Article | October 24, 2017
Why We Need to Know the History of Our Churches
The fact remains that most American Christians remain startlingly ignorant of critical aspects of their church’s history. Learning this history can help us more faithfully know ourselves, love others, and follow Christ.
Article | August 07, 2017
Classics, Ancient and Modern: A Historian's Recommendations for Thoughtful Christian Living
In the fourth century, Christian intellectuals, many of whom were educated in secular contexts, debated fiercely about the role of classical literature and culture in the life of the Church.
Audio | July 06, 2017
Faith Formation and Worship: A Worship Historian's View from the "End of the World"
Worship is a formative practice: through active engagement in liturgy, Christians are formed in a particular understanding of God, of others, and of themselves, and of what it means to live a Christian life in this world.
Video | June 30, 2017
Why the Church Needs History, Especially Now: A Historian's Vision for Equipping the Church
At a time of increasing cultural and political polarization, the North American church faces enormous challenges in embodying the unity of Christ and living out Christ's mission in this time and place.
Audio | June 28, 2017
Medieval Spirituality and Liturgy as a Source for Contemporary Worship
An annotated research guide from the field of history, exploring the relevance of medieval spirituality and liturgy for current worship practices.
Resource Guide | June 26, 2017
Bruce Theron on Decolonizing Worship in South Africa
Imagine singing “In the Bleak Midwinter” during the long hot days of Christmas in South Africa. The Bible is rich enough to include themes and symbols more relevant to living out Christian faith in the Global South.
Conversation | March 16, 2017
Bruce Theron on Word and Worship, a South African lectionary resource
Across cultures and denominations, South African churches are growing in unity—thanks to the nation’s first ecumenical sermon and worship resource written in English.
Conversation | March 16, 2017
Our 95 Theses: Hispanic Perspectives on the Protestant Reformation
After beginning in Wittenberg, the Protestant Reformation surged among marginalized and exiled people. A new book by Latino and Latina Protestants, Catholics and Pentecostals explores that legacy.
Feature Story | November 30, 2016
The Dramatic Story of the National Baptist Hymnal
A History Professor Shows How Historical Case Studies Can Help Us Gain Perspective and Rethink Ministry
Audio | August 24, 2016
Scholars Suggest How to Remember the Reformation
Seven scholars, pastors and musicians discuss how Protestants and Catholics can and should together observe the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017.
Conversation | June 01, 2016
What You Can Learn from Visiting Churches
College and seminary professors offer church observation guides for their students. You can use their insights to learn more when you visit other churches. This process can also help you understand how people experience liturgical practices in your own congregation.
Feature Story | April 13, 2016
Advent Resource Guide
This is a guide to Advent and Christmas worship planning resources from our website and our ministry partners' websites.
Resource Guide | November 01, 2015
Karin Maag on Calvin’s Geneva and the 500th Protestant Reformation Anniversary
Whether you observe Halloween, All Saints’ Day or Reformation Sunday, you probably know that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door on October 31, 1517 and that John Calvin promoted the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland. Here’s why that still matters. | https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/listing.html?search=church&type=tag |
As you're preparing for your time at a writers' conference, take a moment to consider the 5 C's of your Novel Pitch!
Tag: Writing Fiction
The ABDCE’s of Plot Development
Plot grows out of character, and Conflict is the fundamental element of fiction. When considering how our Plots will unfold, we need to remember that readers demand Unity in regards to Plot, a plausible cause-and-effect development. Here are 5 Steps for Plot Development loosely based on Lamott's ABDCE's of Plot.
“Don’t Shove Me in Your Damned Pigeonhole” and other Thoughts on Writing from Ursula K. Le Guin
Five insightful thoughts Ursula K. Le Guin shared on writing.
10 Hero-Character Archetypes
Archetypes are recurring patterns (plot structures, symbols, character types, themes) that occur in mythology, religion, and stories across cultures and time periods. They embody universal meanings and basic human experiences and can evoke unconscious responses in a reader. For writers, archetypes are tools to employ that can deepen a reader's understanding and emotional connection to a character … Continue reading 10 Hero-Character Archetypes
Writing Advice from George R.R. Martin
With #GoT on my mind, I wandered around online a bit to see if Thrones scribe George R.R. Martin had ever published anything specific about writing advice. | https://bydlfernandez.com/tag/writing-fiction/ |
It is impossible to write a book without being armed with a set of essential tools. These are experience, ability, and material. Experience means that no one can write a book if they lack previous experience in writing articles, short stories, and other material. A book is a big project of usually over 50,000 words, and takes a lot of work, sacrifice, and dedication. Ability comes through the experience of having written many words over a lengthy period, and includes the skills of expression, understanding the anatomy and structure of a book, and being able to use sophisticated and advanced reasoning. The material that one puts into a book depends on the topic, subject, and whether it is fiction or non-fiction. In all cases, however, it is impossible to proceed without well-researched and sourced material.
Fiction writing is revolved around a story or stories composed and invented by the writer, intended mainly for entertainment purposes. Although most of it is made up, it requires enough relevance to the human condition to require a vast amount of research. Non-fiction writing is necessarily based on a specific topic, and is usually less story-based. This sector of writing is enormous in its variety. The amalgamation of non-fiction and fiction is narrative non-fiction: the telling of true stories in a way that makes facts and real events seem entertaining.
Steps for Writing a Book
- Carefully examine the premise and background of the topic or subject that you desire to write about. Read a great number of manuals on how to write in your chosen genre—fiction can be divided into the genres of humor, thrillers, romance, urban myth, mystery, among others. Non-fiction categorized as biography, scientific and all other scholarly literature, health, cooking, crafts, travel, among many others.
- Seek and read solidly-written books within the selected genre to guide you, provide specific details and sound advice. It is impossible to write within a genre you have never read.
- Make notes and understand all the special words used in the publishing industry.
- Understand that the publishing industry is one in constant flux, especially since the introduction of eBooks. Taking on writing a book means taking on a constantly shifting perspective and objective.
- If you are writing fiction, study the aspects of character, plot, and settings. Each piece of action must be placed within a scene. Write a summary, a synopsis, and a story plan: you need not stick to them all the time, but they are a necessary guide.
- If you are writing non-fiction, gather an arsenal of facts and make detailed notes, construct a list of points, and expand on each gradually.
- For both fiction and non-fiction, interviewing relevant people to gain more facts and background can be a key process.
- Set aside a generous period of time to draft several different versions of the book: this is certainly not a project that one can undertake in a hurry.
- Try to talk to other authors: they are an invaluable source of knowledge and experience. Conversing with other authors is the ‘next best thing’ to undergoing your own publishing experience.
- Make a list of prospective publishers to approach with the finished manuscript.
- Remember that a book takes several months at least to write, and sometimes a number of years to complete.
Key Points to Consider
- Books are often written in isolation. Be prepared to spend a lot of time alone, writing and editing.
- Always use the accepted manuscript conventions of spacing, font, and size. In the US, Times New Roman in 12pt is generally the norm. Do not double-space digitally-submitted manuscripts.
- It is better to keep to tried and tested themes and formats rather than trying to be too innovative: readers tend to be conservative and often seek works of a similar nature.
- When writing in a collaborative mode with another writer, or ghostwriting for a person with a viable story, discuss your opinions and be flexible and market-driven.
Do and Don’t
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Common Mistakes
- Absence of authenticity. Even though some fiction is based on fantasy or science fiction, it should contain a great deal of relationship to the human condition.
- Attempting to pack too much into a book of about 100,000 words is the sign of an amateur writer. It is better to include a bit more detail in a few less scenes than to over-complicate the plot.
- Hurried passages are risky. Shortened scenes that take space from crucial scenes sometimes work, but only in the hands of an experienced writer.
- Overlooking the importance of conversations between characters. Dialog breaks up blocks of dense writing, lightens the weight of the narrative, and injects reality while pushing the story along.
- It is a mistake to put too much description or narration into fiction or non-fiction. Protagonists must not make long descriptive monologues. They bore the reader.
- Repetitive or stereotypical work—do not imitate the old masters you studied in literature classes at school. Their styles are immediately recognized by avid readers.
- Lack of proficiency in language. Beginning authors do not have enough experience to write long works without showing incompetence. Make sure your language skills are practiced and sharp.
- Not understanding the anatomy of a classic novel or biography. It is essential to keep to the tried and tested formats of books that readers expect, which you can elaborate on with your own original dialog and action.
Need Help? | https://academichelp.net/creative-writing/write-book.html |
“Literature is one of the most interesting and significant Expressions of Humanity.” P.T. Barnum. Literature is also the foundations of teaching Literacy, as it is an “Every-Century Skill”, Teachers in today’s world of standards and standardized tests are extremely busy completing content. Therefore Literature and literacy gets a backseat. Literature expands their mental horizons, builds critical thinking skills, leap into the past, and digs for information. It builds respect and understanding for the various cultures and beliefs. It helps to read and that leads to writing where the students need to filter the information and think about what they write. It addresses humanity and its problems, and it helps them find solutions in literature. Literature and literacy affect human nature as it has a profound effect on all kinds of people through the annals of time.
Literature is a seemingly chaotic cauldron of symbols, characters, themes, syntax, diction, tone, plots and counter plots, where each word has many meanings and the tone brings about the variety in the meaning. The art of thinking is rare and the ability to help the students think creatively and yet systematically is a unique part of literature. The students are taught to think in a structured manner. The systematic eight approach helps them to understand the book, or the story easily, the eight different approaches are: 1. The Historical Approach, 2. The Biographical Approach, 3. The Societal Approach,
- The Archetypical Approach, 5.The Philosophical Approach 6. The Psychological Approach, 7. The Feministic Approach, and the last but definitely NOT the least, 8. The Formalistic approach. These strategies have been used and Lexical reading, enjoyment and understanding have improved, as they learn to think and connect information from across the board. “Time and tide wait for no man,” and yet they both transcend the barriers of time, just like literature. It breaks the walls of culture and address discrimination in an interesting way. It holds up a mirror of reality and the reflection is not always pretty.
Literature has many genres and each is considered an area of specialty. Each has a specific strategy and that is what we are here to share. Literature is found across the board and it is in every field. Hence literature can be taught using these strategies. Some of the genres that literature covers are listed below; Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Novels, Fables, Short stories, Epics,…, Narrative Non- fiction, Essays, Biographies, Autobiography, Speech, Drama, Humor, Science Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Folklore, Historical Fiction, Horror, A Tall Tale, Legend, Mystery, Mythology, Fiction in Verse.
In the short time allotted to us we hope to cover two aspects of literature, namely the teaching of short stories and poetry which also builds reading, speaking, and listening skills while exploring language and vocabulary. Poetry also has the ability to inspire writing, build a love for reading and encourage creative thinking. If time permits we will also demonstrate a few strategies for teaching short stories and poetry.
After following these strategies and a few more specific strategies for each genre we have found that these strategies work and the reading level as well as the interest in literature is going up. They have begun to do better in their standardized tests and have developed positive mania for reading.
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Copyright © 2019 ISC Committee. | https://jurnal.unai.edu/index.php/isc/article/view/1471 |
What Makes a Good Sense of Humor?
The capacity to express or perceive what's funny, humor, is both a source of entertainment and a means of coping with difficult or awkward situations and stressful events. Although it provokes laughter, humor can be serious business. From its most lighthearted forms to its more absurd ones, humor can play an instrumental role in forming social bonds, releasing tension, or attracting a mate. Most important, humor is largely subjective.
A universal theory is that good humor should be unexpected and incongruent; things that don’t belong together should appear funny when put together. However, not everything surprising can be deemed funny. Tripping over a friend’s foot is surprising but decidedly not funny. Another quirk about humor is that the very funny among us are more open to experience, more curious in general, and may even enjoy a higher than average IQ.
There is a dark side to humor, however. When it is hostile, antagonistic, degrading, or displays a sense of superiority, an attempt at humor can divide people rather than bring them closer together. Of course, the shortcomings and imperfections of others—and oneself—have long been fodder for comedians. When exactly a joke "goes too far" and ceases to be funny, and why, is one of many lingering questions about the psychology of humor.
What Makes Something Funny?
There are as many different functions and styles of humor as there are versions of the old joke, "How many ____ does it take to change a light bulb?" There are also as many variations on what comedians will say and do to provoke laughter as there are different types of people who tend to laugh at specific types of jokes.
Sarcasm, for example, is a type of humor that often is hostile in nature and ultimately carries underlying negativity. Comedians who use this strategy include Bill Murray and Sarah Silverman.
Scientists have proposed competing explanations for why some things are funnier than others. The act of violating expectations is central to more than one account of what makes a joke impactful. Culture, age, political orientation, and many other factors play a role in whether a joke falls flat.
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Why It's Important to Have a Sense of Humor
Here are some facts about humor and how it can affect everyday living—from home like to office life.
- Humor can be used to diffuse conflict. A well-timed quip in the middle of a heated argument can relieve tension.
- Laughter may improve the immune system, blood pressure, and blood flow.
- People, especially disengaged employees, laugh less during the work week when compared with the weekend.
- A fun work environment can reduce employee turnover and burnout.
- Humor is a desired trait in leaders.
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Men, Women and Humor
Gender plays a role in what people consider funny. Research indicates that men appreciate dark, aggressive, and satirical humor more than women, on average. Men are also more inclined to like humor that is overtly sexual and shocking (think of Andrew Dice Clay or Sacha Baron Cohen).
Women, meanwhile, may have more appreciation for sentimental comedy and prefer friendly humor, comedians who are relatable, and the ability to tell a good story (Ellen Degeneres, Tina Fey).
Men have long been regarded as the most prolific producers of comedy. However, this may be changing with the growing success of funny women (such as Melissa McCarthy, Ali Wong, and many others). | https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/humor |
When McREL delivers professional development on cooperative learning, we often talk about the tangent topic of ability grouping. The discussion is often fraught with misconceptions and strong opinions. Needless to say, it’s a controversial subject.
Lately an old form of mixed-age ability grouping has been given a closer look by schools and districts that are moving toward standards-based grading. This old form of ability grouping began in four elementary schools in Joplin, Missouri in 1954 and is known as the “Joplin Plan” (Cushenbery, 1967). Essentially, forms of the Joplin Plan include careful diagnosis of each student’s proficiency level in a given subject (reading level, math level, etc.), placement in a mixed age group at similar proficiency levels, and structural changes to the school’s schedule to accommodate teaching multiple levels/groups of different aged students. The big difference between this type of grouping and what most educators think of as ability grouping is that Joplin Plans are not based on homogeneous aptitudes in a given subject at a uniform age or grade. In other words, it does not group all of the 4th grade students “good at math” in one group. It groups students ages 9-11 that are performing at the 4th grade level together.
Now consider the mixing in of standards-based grading. It uses a form of assessment that mixes summative and formative data based on proficiency criterion for standards of what every student is expected to know, and a score is set compared to these benchmarks rather than a ranking compared to a norm. It is fully expected that every child will become proficient in all areas by the end of a period. If they are not, the data will show more precisely which areas are in need of improvement and which areas are at acceptable levels of proficiency. For instance, instead of a “C+” in writing, a student would have a report card with 8 difference areas of writing assessed by rubric score. Combined this with other indicators of proficiency, students can be grouped more effectively into Joplin Plan structures. For instance, learning structures like these have been recently incorporated by Adams County School District 50 in Colorado. (see http://www.sbsadams50.org/content and “Adams 50 skips grades, lets students be pacesetters” at http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11280071.)
I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking that in your experience, ability grouping has not worked and that it hurts those students at the bottom the most. If you are thinking this, you might be right, but dig deeper. Do some searching at http://scholar.google.com and find out more. Think of the psychological dynamics of traditional ability grouping compared to Joplin Plan grouping. The type of ability grouping that many researchers have discounted tends to group same-age students together by aptitude in a given topic. Thus, all of the 4th grade students that are good at math are in a group and all of the 4th grade students struggling with math are in another group. Most of us intuitively know what is going to happen. The teacher will unconsciously have lower expectations for the students in the low group. In general, the students in the low group have poor vocabularies, work habits, and attitudes toward the subject. Thus, intellectual discourse is weak. As students are influenced by their peers, an environment is created in which it becomes “cool” to not work hard, not know what you are doing, and dislike the subject. While the upper level group doesn’t experience the same ill effects, they may become elitist, perfectionist, and intolerant as they compete against the “best and the brightest.”
In a Joplin Plan group, a 9 year old with a keen verbal ability and strong work habits could be in the same class with an 11 year old who struggles. The 11 year old may take example from the 9 year old and improve his/her performance. With varied levels of aptitude, but standardized proficiency levels, intellectual discourse tends to be of a level that promotes critical thinking and improves understanding. Maturity and proficiency level determine your group, not age or aptitude. An 11 year old could be in a 9-11, 10-12, or 11-13 year old’s grouping. All of which are at the same proficiency level. Hence, if a particular 11 year old like’s to tease 9 year olds, he/she can be put in the 11-13 grouping. Assessment is ongoing, so students can be regrouped on a quarterly basis if needed. This allows us to make up lost time for students who are behind in their proficiency.
My own son is in such a grouping. I volunteered in his group just the other day and was impressed with how skillfully the teacher managed to deal with students of different age, but similar proficiency. Still I wonder. This is a complicated topic. Does your school use some form of a Joplin Plan and/or standards-based grading? If so, how does it work in your school? Do you think it improves student achievement for all types of students?
Written by Matt Kuhn. | https://www.mcrel.org/the-tie-between-mixed-age-ability-grouping-and-standardsbased-grading/ |
LEARNING CHALLENGES:
Grade acceleration
There is considerable research on the topic of acceleration. The general consensus seems to be that acceleration is of benefit when the child is clearly able to master material more quickly and at a deeper level than their classmates and demonstrates the emotional maturity and social skills to handle the demands of placement in a higher grade.
Acceleration may be considered when the child’s level of achievement is clearly above the level of his/her classmates. This may be evident to the teacher who observes that the child learns material more rapidly and understands concepts at a deeper level. On standardized tests the child will generally score several levels above the present grade placement in all academic areas. A child who demonstrates such advanced abilities may become bored and consequently is at risk for excessive daydreaming, developing poor study habits or engaging in disruptive behaviour unless efforts are made to ensure that the curriculum presents an appropriate challenge.
When the parent, teacher and school principal have questions as to whether a student might be a candidate for acceleration, the case should be discussed at a case conference or school team meeting. At that time a decision may be made to refer the child for psychological assessment / intervention. A psychological assessment will determine the child’s level of intellectual functioning and academic abilities, and can address questions in the area of emotional maturity and social development.
The key questions to determine if a student will benefit from acceleration are:
- Is child able to master material at a rapid pace relative to age-mates?
- Does child understand concepts at a deeper level than classmates? Does child demonstrate the emotional maturity to handle the demands of an advanced grade?
- Does child demonstrate the social skills required to handle the demands of an advanced grade?
- Are the parent, child and teachers in agreement with an advanced grade placement?
A positive response to these five questions suggests that the child should be accelerated.
Addendum: very young children
There are some situations where great caution must be exercised in considering a request for advanced placement. Very young children have unique learning needs that must be addressed in a manner that acknowledges their need for nurturance and respects their developmental level. Accelerated academic learning in early childhood may force the child to rely on lower level processes such as memorization instead of developing higher level cognitive strategies.
With young children, the individual needs of each child must be addressed within an environment that is appropriate to the child’s interests and abilities. Respected psychologists and educators have cautioned against the dangers of hurrying (Elkind,1986) or hothousing (Siegal, 1987) young children. This type of pressure from educators and parents can rob children of a critical developmental phase. Learning opportunities presented at age three through five play a significant role in forming a foundation for learning that builds on confidence and curiosity.
Addendum: gifted children
Students who may eventually be identified as gifted may be at a significant disadvantage if they are accelerated. When programming for gifted students is offered on a withdrawal basis, a child who has been accelerated will be evaluated and admitted to the program based on age norms. However, the placement will be with other gifted students who are one year older. In this setting, the accelerated child will be comparing his/her reasoning abilities and products to those of older gifted students. This may impact negatively on the child’s self-esteem and result in a discouraged student who does not attain his/her potential in academic areas.
In summary, acceleration may benefit the student who is academically advanced and socially mature. Psychology staff may assist the principal and parent in this process of determining if this is an appropriate option for a particular student. There are significant dangers in accelerating very young children. Students who are likely to be identified as gifted may be at a disadvantage if they are accelerated. | http://www.acposb.on.ca/grade-acceleration |
Writing a short, funny story can be an enjoyable experience. Humor can help defuse tense situations and bring people together with shared laughter, which can be very useful if the story involved is tense or upsetting. Whether you're writing an assignment for school or simply have a wild and funny story you need to tell through a written project, mixing comedy and writing can help you find an outlet for your creative urges. With a short, funny story, you can also express your sense of humor in less time than it might take to write a full-length story or novel.
Steps
Writing Help
Part 1 of 4:
Planning Out Your Story
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1Decide on a setting. Some writers may prefer to plan out the plot before deciding on a setting. However, in comedic writing, humor is often based on situations. Before you start writing out the storyline for your work, it may be helpful to consider where your story might take place and how you can derive humor from that setting.
- Try to be original in choosing your setting. Readers may be turned off if it's a setting they're too familiar with, as it may feel like the story has been recycled.
- Also, keep in mind that a vivid description of your setting will help reader to feel like they are there and this may help to make the story even funnier.
- For short stories, it's best to stick with as few setting changes as possible. Aim to work within just one setting, but don't exceed two.
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2Come up with a plot. A plot is the most important component of any story. Plot is simply what happens in the story, who is involved, and how that series of events unfolds.
- Most compelling stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Across that timeline there is a source of rising tension, a climax (breaking point of the tension), and an unraveling of tension that leads into the ending.
- Think about what the source of tension/drama will be, and try to work that tension into the specific setting you've chosen for the story.
- Consider how the source of tension can work with that setting. Perhaps the setting might heighten the tension, for example, or create a comedic situation by way of contrast with the location where the events unfold.
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3Plan out your characters. Every story needs interesting, realistic characters. A funny story needs interesting, realistic characters who either have funny qualities or who find themselves in funny situations.
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- How you depict the characters may depend on their personalities and circumstances within the story.
- For example, you might depict a bumbling "idiot" character who stumbles into funny situations, or a sarcastic character who thinks he knows it all and realizes that he doesn't know anything about his own circumstances.
- Make sure your characters are realistic and believable. A good character should have feelings/opinions and should be capable of reacting to his or her situation in realistic ways on the page.
- Think about what kinds of characters could make your setting funny, or vice versa. All the elements of your story (setting, plot, and characters) should ideally work together, either by mixing well or by creating funny and unexpected contrasts.
Part 2 of 4:
Incorporating Humor
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1Draw humor from everywhere. As you plan out the humorous aspects of your short, funny story, it may be helpful to pull together things that you find funny from every aspect of your life. It can be personal, political, cultural - whatever you find funny, jot down notes on the story (the actual plot), the situation (what your story is actually about - for example, the dynamics of friendship), and why you find it funny.
- Try keeping a notebook of ideas and inspiration. Write down funny things you see and hear, or any ideas that come to mind.
- Don't be afraid to draw on humorous elements of your own life and your friends' lives.
- Your funny, short story doesn't need to be 100% autobiographical, but incorporating bits and pieces of awkward or funny situations from your own life can bring a sense of personality to your work.
- Keep up on current events. You may not end up writing a story about world news or celebrity gossip, but you may find inspiration or even ways to directly draw plot elements from real events that are culturally relevant.
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2Have your own firm opinions and beliefs. Comedy requires a certain level of honesty on the part of the comedian. The same is true of writing, so it makes sense that you should be honest with yourself as a writer of short, funny stories. Before you sit down to write your story, you should have a firm sense of what you think/believe about the world so that your humorous observations and writing in general can stem from that element of yourself.
- You wouldn't tell a political joke to your friends without taking some stance on the matter, so why try to be unbiased in your written humor?
- Don't be so abrasive that your humor would alienate people who disagree with you, but make sure that you at least know where you stand on certain issues so that you can find the situational humor in them.
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3Look for inspiration. If you're struggling to write a short, funny story, it might be helpful to seek outside inspiration. Inspiration can come in many forms, but the best ways to get inspired for a project like this involve immersing yourself in funny stories (both written and visual).
- Read funny stories. You can find stories by searching online, or by checking at your local library or bookstore.
- Watch funny movies and TV shows. Though it's not the same format as you're working with, you might still get some inspiration.
- As you watch and read things that entertain you, try to analyze the humor.
- Think about why you find certain things funny, consider the ways an author or script writer might have crafted those humorous elements on the page, and look for ways to adapt that style of humor to your own writing.
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4Know how to construct a joke. If you intend to incorporate actual jokes into your writing, you should familiarize yourself with how comedians construct their jokes. You don't need to include jokes, but it's important to do it right if you're going to do it at all. A joke should be unambiguously funny and shouldn't require the reader to dwell on the joke in order to find it funny. Ideally, your joke should elicit laughter as soon as your reader finishes reading it.
- If you intend to deliver a punchline, make sure it goes at the end of the joke. Otherwise it might confuse readers and leave them wondering what the funny part is supposed to be.
- Try putting together a list of two things that go together, then add a third seemingly unrelated thing. This is called the Rule of Threes.
- The third thing you list should be where the humor comes from. It may be funny because the third thing doesn't match the others, or because the third thing highlights some type of truth.
- As an example, you might say something like, "My doctor thinks I'm losing it. He told me his recommendation is to get more fresh air, get more exercise, and stop calling him at 3:00 AM asking what's wrong with me."
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5Use humor sparingly. It may sound strange to suggest that a funny story should use humor sparingly, but too much humor can ruin a story. You don't want to cram the humor down your readers' throats; it should be funny without feeling like a comedic attack.
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- Remember that a funny story should still have a functional plot with realistic characters and dialogue. You can't have a funny story just be joke after joke the whole time.
- Let the humor stem from the setting, characters, and situations, or some combination of them. If you're trying to cram too much humor into a story (even a funny story), it can make your writing feel like a corny gimmick.
Part 3 of 4:
Writing Your Story
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1Establish your story's elements early on. In any story, you'll want to let the reader know who is involved, where the story takes place, and some hint of what the story is all about. This is true of funny stories as well, but with the added element of humor. Don't leave your readers guessing at anything for long, or they may not continue to read your story.
- The beginning of any short story should establish the setting and at least one character.
- Describe where the action is taking place, but try to make that description relevant. Find ways to draw tension and/or humor from the setting as much as possible.
- Think about how and when the humorous elements of your story will unfold, and try to at least hint at them from the onset of the story.
- Remember that a short story's beginning should set something up, whether it's tension, a source of humor within the story, or something that will be vital to the story at a later point.
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2Make things get complicated and funny in the middle. The middle of a story is where things typically get complex. In a short, funny story, the middle should also provide a decent amount of humor, or at least a strong setup for something funny that is yet to come in the story.
- Your story's middle section will probably be the longest. Make your words count by making things get interesting for one or more characters in this section.
- Tension should complicate the lives of your most important characters and form the basic arc of your story.
- Tension often arises from conflict, usually between the protagonist and another person, himself/herself, nature, technology, society, or God/gods/goddesses.
- You may want to incorporate humor that's derived from the tension, or you may choose to deliver humor as a sort of comic relief that accompanies the tension so that it doesn't get too serious.
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3Wrap things up with a short ending. When writing in short form, you won't have a lot of space on the page for long, drawn-out resolutions. Things need to get wrapped up in a timely manner, and the humor should really come through at this point (especially if you used the middle section to build up the humor).
- Tension should unravel fairly quickly. The humor may stem from this unraveling, or it may accompany it along the way.
- Aim to be concise with your ending. Remember that while you're working within the frame of a short, funny story, you may have to trim things down to their essence.
- Try to keep the story's ending a paragraph or so at most, and make sure the reader finds some sense of humor and relief by the last sentence.
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4Create realistic dialogue. Now that you have realistic characters, you'll need to make them speak in realistic ways. A good sign of strong writing is that the readers can hear the dialogue and not think to themselves, "This is a work of fiction."
- Think about the way people talk with one another. Read your written dialogue out loud and ask yourself, "Do people actually say things like that?"
- Good dialogue should push the narrative forward. Avoid being redundant or stating the obvious.
- Strong dialogue shows a lot about each character's personality (including how he/she interacts with and treats other people).
- Don't bog down your dialogue tags (the actions that accompany spoken lines) with details. For example, instead of saying, "'What should we do?' he asked, staring nervously and compulsively at the ground, careful to avoid her eyes," try something simple like, "What should we do?" he asked without lifting his eyes from the ground."
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5Cover your subject completely in a short space. This is one of the most difficult aspects of writing short stories. On the surface, you might think writing a longer form (like a book) would be more difficult than a short story, but a good short story must accomplish the same tasks as a longer book within a short amount of space. Everything needs to come together by the end, and on top of everything else your short, funny story needs elements of humor.
- You may have grand ideas about a subject for your story. However, you need to remember that when you're writing a short, funny story, you're limited on space. Stick to 1 conflict and no more than 2 settings to help keep your story focused and brief.
- Don't leave your idea unexplored or unfulfilled. Make sure your story fully analyzes the subject/idea you write about by the ending.
- You can always trim down nonessential elements and words to make a story shorter.
- You'll know that the idea has been fully explored when you've said (either directly, or indirectly by depiction) everything you need to say about it.
- For example, you'd need a lot of space to adequately cover the complexity of human relationships. But you can capture a moment between two people and write about some aspect of friendship (like forgiving your friends for saying/doing hurtful things) within a short, funny story.
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6Focus on the essentials while you write. It may be difficult to approach writing a short, funny story if you're not familiar with writing shorter works. Whether you choose to condense a longer story or expand a brief one, make sure that you focus on the most important elements of that story as you write it.
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- Some people prefer to write a longer story and then shave it down. This ensures that the story is complete.
- Other writers prefer to start small and expand as needed. This can make brevity more easy to work with and save you the stress of deciding what makes the final cut.
- There's no right or wrong way to craft a short, funny story, so go with whatever feels more comfortable to you.
- Whichever approach you take, make sure your story is complete, your ideas and characters are well-developed, and the humor is delivered in a satisfying way.
Part 4 of 4:
Revising Your Story
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1Set aside your story before revising. The worst thing you can do when you revise a story is to jump into revision immediately after you've finished writing it. You need some time away from the project so that it's not so fresh in your head, and (ideally) so that you're not so attached to every detail of the story.
- Give yourself at least a week or 2 between finishing the story and revising it. If possible, try to give yourself a month to really put some distance between you and your story. No matter what you decide, stick with your revision plan!
- Consider asking a trusted friend or relative to look at the story. Ask him/her to be honest and critical, and emphasize that you want to know what isn't working and why.
- Looking at a story with fresh eyes will help you see more errors that you might have missed. When the story is fresh in your head it's easy to fill in the gaps with what you know, and you may not realize that that information isn't addressed on the page.
- Giving yourself some time before revising will also make it easier to cut things out. You may be in love with a scene, but after setting it aside for a few weeks, you might realize that it isn't as relevant as you thought it was.
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2Remind yourself what you wanted to accomplish. What was the point of your funny story? Were you trying to highlight a real social situation? Address some aspect of human nature? Draw humor from personal situations/experiences? Whatever your intentions, it's a good idea to refresh that intention in your head before you proceed with the revision process.
- By having your original intentions for the story in mind, you'll know what you had hoped to do with the story and will be able to assess whether you accomplished that goal or not.
- Think about whether the tone matches your intentions, as well as the overall events of the story.
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3Clarify anything that's confusing. This is an important part of why you should approach the story after setting it aside for a period. When you've just finished writing a story, you're less likely to catch any issues that might otherwise confuse a reader. However, if you've given yourself some time, you should notice your mistakes.
- Confusion may arise from the content of the story (or lack thereof), or it may result from a missing or poorly executed transition. Transitions should bridge one scene to the next, one chapter to the next, and so on.
- A good transition wraps up the previous scene and gently guides the reader into the new one.
- An example of a transition between two scenes might be something like, "He watched her walk silently into the night until she faded into darkness. The next morning he kept looking towards the horizon, but he knew she'd be halfway home by then."
- You may want to ask a friend to read through your story and look for anything that's confusing or doesn't make sense.
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4Edit your story for mistakes. Editing should be considered a separate step from revision. Revising your story involves rewriting parts as needed and trimming out things that don't work. Editing, on the other hand, mostly involves fixing your line-level mistakes.
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- Look for spelling errors, grammar/syntax errors, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, punctuation errors, and any weak lines of dialogue.
- Use the spellcheck function on your computer, or ask a friend with strong editing skills to take a look at your story.
- Try reading the story out loud. Sometimes hearing a mistake out loud can help you catch it better than just reading it silently on the page.
Community Q&A
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QuestionHow can I write a story ending with the statement "whenever I remember this, I start laughing"?Christopher Taylor, PhDChristopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of EnglishAdjunct Assistant Professor of EnglishExpert AnswerThe story should probably detail a situation that was funny, so try to make the funny part the climax of the story. Build a plot around this funny moment.
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QuestionWhat are some good examples of a short, funny story?Christopher Taylor, PhDChristopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of EnglishAdjunct Assistant Professor of EnglishExpert AnswerTry checking out Margaret Atwood's "There Was Once," Mark Twain's "Luck," or James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."
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QuestionHow can I choose what type of story I want to write?Community AnswerGet 3 jars and a lot of paper. Label each jar: "Setting," "Characters," and "Time." Write a bunch of suggestions for each, then draw randomly from each jar.
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QuestionHow do I know that my story will be funny?Community AnswerYou don't, but the best way to make sure your story makes people laugh is to write about a universal topic that everyone finds funny.
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QuestionWhat is the purpose of writing funny stories?Community AnswerIt's funny, it makes you laugh and fills you with happiness.
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QuestionDo you have any tips for writing an imaginative story for an exam?Community AnswerA good starting point is to try to think of something that happened in your own life that made you laugh, and then create a fictional character who has that experience. Then start thinking of "What if's" -- things that didn't happen in your experience that might have, or things that could never happen in real life but would be interesting if they did, and use those ideas to expand the story.
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Tips
- Don't give up! If you're having a hard time, just stop for a while and then start again.
- Remind yourself that stories are never perfect at first. A writer's job is to deconstruct and perfect her stories.
- Get a close friend to look at it. Make sure you trust your friend and value his opinions, and be sure to ask him about the parts he thinks work well and need revision.
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Warnings
- Never steal another person's work. That includes jokes, as well as pieces of writing.Thanks!
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Things You'll Need
- Paper
- A pencil
- A laptop/computer (optional)
About This Article
In other languages
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 164,268 times.
References
- ↑ http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jul99/writing-comedy-sketches-that-sell-7994
- ↑ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/
- ↑ http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-write-funny-dialogue-what-i-learned-writing-storming/
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/18-tips-for-aspiring-tv-comedy-and-joke-writers
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/18-tips-for-aspiring-tv-comedy-and-joke-writers
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/18-tips-for-aspiring-tv-comedy-and-joke-writers
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/18-tips-for-aspiring-tv-comedy-and-joke-writers
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-mix-humor-into-your-writing
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-mix-humor-into-your-writing
- ↑ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/
- ↑ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/
- ↑ http://storyaday.org/writing-flash-fiction/
- ↑ http://storyaday.org/writing-flash-fiction/
- ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/6-keys-to-revising-your-fiction-2
- ↑ https://thewritingplace.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/revising-a-story-step-by-step/
Reader Success Stories
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NK"I liked the story tips given by you. It helped me a lot. I liked most how to think a title. Thank you!"
Did this article help you? | https://m.wikihow.com/Write-a-Short,-Funny-Story |
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of instruction integrated with OpenCourseWare, the flipped classroom (the experimental group) and the distance education (the control group), on students’ self-regulation and learning outcome, including academic achievement, teacher- student interactions and learning satisfaction. The study utilized a quasi-experimental design, supported by the interviews. Participants were 181 freshmen in physics course who chose either control or experimental group voluntarily. The results showed no significant differences in participants’ overall self-regulation between the control and the experimental groups. However, one of the six factors in self-regulation, the help-seeking construct, of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group. Regarding the learning outcome, the experiment group showed significantly higher academic achievement than the control group. Although there was no significant difference in learning satisfaction and teacher-student interactions, the results showed that the mean values of both groups were greater than 4.5, indicating relatively high values of these two constructs. The results of this study suggest that educators should take learners’ willingness into account when selecting appropriate teaching strategies. In addition, with sufficient teaching resources, educators could consider incorporating a more interactive approach into the flipped classroom by providing positive peer and instructor influences and guidance. Finally, flipped classrooms focus on not only learning outcome but also learning progress. Therefore, educators may assess students’ learning outcome and track their learning progress with learning technologies. Recommendations for future studies related to flipped classroom and OpenCourseWare instructions were also provided. | https://ir.nctu.edu.tw/handle/11536/71761 |
Can an 8 year old stay home alone for an hour?
Kids should never be left alone until they are 8 years old, and kids between the ages 8 -10 shouldn’t be left for more than an hour -and-a-half or during night-time hours. Kids ages 11-13 may be left alone up to three hours but not “late at night.” Per her research, only kids 16 and up may be left unsupervised overnight.
Can a 9 year old stay home alone in Ontario?
There is no law in Ontario that dictates a specific age at which a child can be left unsupervised. When leaving children alone for the first time, parents should speak with them to see if they feel comfortable on their own. Explain to the child where you are going, and specify how long you’ll be gone.
Is it OK to leave an 11 year old alone?
Most experts say that by age 10 or 11, it’s OK to leave a child alone for short periods of time (under an hour) during the day, provided they’re not scared and you think they’re mature enough to handle it. But you may want to wait another year or two before leaving them alone at night.
Is it OK for a 12 year old to stay home alone?
8 to 10 Years – Should not be left alone for more than 1½ hours and only during daylight and early evening hours. 11 to 12 Years – May be left alone for up to 3 hours but not late at night or in circumstances requiring inappropriate responsibility. 13 to 15 Years – May be left unsupervised, but not overnight.
Can my 14 year old babysit siblings?
For most kids, anywhere between 11 and 14 years of age is a good time to start letting them babysit their siblings. Although exactly when they’re ready will depend on a number of factors.
Is it legal to leave a 9 year old alone?
Children between the ages of 9 years and 12 years, based on level of maturity, may be left alone for brief (less than two hours) periods of time; and, children 13 years and older, who are at an adequate level of maturity, may be left alone and may perform the role of babysitter, as authorized by the parent, for up to
At what age can a child stay home alone in Ontario?
However, in two provinces (Manitoba and New Brunswick), the welfare Acts state that a parent cannot leave a child under the age of 12 unattended without making provision for adequate supervision. In Ontario, the statutory limit is 16 years.
Can a 12 year old babysit a 6 year old?
“There’s no set age when kids are ready to babysit. “Most children could probably be left home for varying lengths of time between ages 10 to 12,” she said. “It depends on how long and the maturity level of the child. For some children it may be older.”
At what age can a child walk to school alone in Ontario?
In general, the consensus seems to be that 5-year-olds are too young, 6- and 7-year-olds should walk in a group and that by age 10 most kids are ready.
Is 12 still a kid?
Your son won’t technically be a teenager for another year, but 12 is when the big transitions begin. That’s why kids this age are called preteens or tweens. Their world is getting bigger on every level: physical, mental, emotional and social.
What age can a child babysit siblings overnight?
Children, 16 years of age and older, may be left unattended, to include overnight. Children this age may also babysit younger siblings during this time.
What age can u leave a child home alone in UK?
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ( NSPCC ) says: children under 12 are rarely mature enough to be left alone for a long period of time. children under 16 should not be left alone overnight.
What is the most psychologically damaging thing you can say to a child?
Luke adds that “the most psychologically damaging thing you can say to a child is a lie that they find out later was not true. If this pattern repeats enough times, it will be very psychologically damaging.”
Can a 15 year old babysit a 10 year old?
There’s no legal age a child can babysit – but if you leave your children with someone who’s under 16 you’re still responsible for their wellbeing. You should also think carefully about leaving your child alone with an older brother or sister. If they fall out, you won’t be around to make the peace.
Is leaving a child home alone neglect?
A majority of social workers surveyed believe children should be at least 12 before being left home alone four hours or longer, and they are more likely to consider a home – alone scenario as neglect if a child is injured while left unsupervised. | https://accrabookfest.com/top/question-when-can-kids-stay-home-alone.html |
Description: Today we are going to take a moment to discuss a tremendously important task that all music directors should do at the end of the year. Reflect. End of the Year Reflections for the Music Educator, Part 1, is a post that will address the tasks that music teachers deal with throughout the year. Since this topic could span the length of a book, this topic will be split into multiple blog posts. Reflection contributes to the philosophy, professional development, and maturity of an effective music teacher, no matter what level he or she teaches. In part 1, we will reflect on prominent aspects of being a music teacher. You guessed right. MUSIC.
Music
Without music, music educators would still be essential role models, but the thrill of our profession would lack a sort of passion. Reflecting back over the course of this year I made sure to write down (or at least take a moment) and evaluate my effectiveness in using music as a tool for learning.
Selection
Music is one of the most critical components of having a music ensemble. Without it, a music ensemble would be lacking purpose. A music teacher's ability to carefully select and program a group's music will determine a group's success during a live performance. What is important to you when choosing music?
When deciding what music to consider:
Type of ensemble
Age of ensemble
Experience of group
Strengths/ Weaknesses of players
Instrumentation
Time of year
Amount of time for concert preparation
Contest vs. concert
Instrument quality
Cost of purchasing new music
Learning objectives for music ensemble
Selected music should include a piece that challenges the students beyond what they can currently play successfully. Other pieces should contain some contrast. I typically play a march, overture, a quality modern piece and a fun piece with my concert groups. Publishers that I use include www.jwpepper.com, www.halleonard.com, and www.rowloff.com.
Quality of Music
The quality of music should always be one of the biggest priorities when selecting music. Remember that quality music does not mean it has to be difficult. Varying levels of quality music range from beginning performers to professionals.
Quality music should include:
Appropriate ranges for the level of the performer
Clear melody, countermelody, harmonic and bass lines
Positively engages the performers and audience
Provides a clear musical form or structure
Has teachable elements
Contains stylistic ingredients that are consistent with the genre
Time for Concert Preparation
Time for concert preparation depends on the way you use your class time and how much the students need to develop their skills. Are there enough resources to meet the needs of your students? Are your students quick to learn music or do they need regular repetition? These are all customized considerations required when you have to decide how you are going to use your time with the programmed music.
When planning my class rehearsals, I want my kids playing 80% of the time. This develops their musical skills and limits the off-task talking in the classroom. Also, I want to make sure to include the most mentally challenging material and instruction toward the beginning of class. Since attention spans are somewhat limited, I am sure I change mental focuses every 5-8 minutes with my students.
Always include a warm-up that engages what your students are learning about and make it a point to reinforce previously acquired skills. If I carefully use the remaining time for concert preparation, then I can get a song set of 3 to 4 pieces ready for a concert in a month and a half. For more help with deciding on an effective rehearsal plan be sure to read Habits of a Successful Middle School Band Director. The skills, forms, and recommendation in the book can be transferred to various disciplines and can save a tremendous amount of time and stress for music teachers.
Warm-Ups
Warm-ups provide an opportunity for music teachers to strengthen student fundamentals. These fundamentals should include:
Breathing
Rudiments
Scales
Range
Articulation Variations
Style
Sound Development
Tonguing Techniques
Specialty Techniques
Flexibility
Alternate Fingerings
Solfege
Air Speed Control
and Sight-Reading
Special emphasis should be placed on performing warm-ups with a purpose rather than mindlessly running through them. One way to get students in the right frame of mind is to have them demonstrate their mastered skills in front of a live audience, or record them with an external recorder. Take a moment and reflect on what activities you and your students are engaged in.
This concludes the End of Year Reflections for the Music Educator, Part 1. Be sure to take a moment and reflect on how you prioritize your music programming decisions. You may find you will be working smarter rather than harder if this process. I also want to invite you to subscribe to my blog for all the excellent resources, tips, and tricks that you can use tomorrow in the music classroom. Finally, I encourage you to read all of the great content available at your fingertips on The Music Educator blog. | https://www.themusiceducatorpodcast.com/episodes/season-1/show-notes-season-1-4 |
Growing up, I was fairly certain I knew exactly who (and what) I wanted to be upon reaching the stage of mature adulthood.
No matter my age I was quite certain "mature adulthood" happened at your college commencement ceremony. [Let me assure you, adulthood may have happened, maturity did not.] And it's funny that up until your college commencement ceremony you know EXACTLY what you're going to do with your life, but about the time you sing the National Anthem you break into a cold sweat because you realize you have no idea how you're going to feed yourself or get healthcare.
Up until May 13, 2006 I was on my to Chicago. I was going to work in advertising as a copywriter and I was going to be awesome. I'd dabble in jingles, but not too much because I'm not a musician. I only wavered from this for a short span of time when I thought about going into full-time ministry.
Six years later, I've been to Chicago one time.
One time.
And. I'm not in advertising.
I don't even dabble in jingles!
Does this mean I haven't reached the stage of "mature adulthood"? Or does it mean I'm not who I thought I was going to be? Should I be looking in the mirror and asking, "who are you?"
I can say with a lot of certainty that I've reached a level of maturity that I would consider to be "mature" by most standards. Meaning, maybe I've turned into someone I didn't think I would ever be.
On top of all of this, sometimes I carry fruit in my purse as a snack.
FRUIT.
And that, that scares me more than not ending up in advertising.
That is the one thing that makes me look in the mirror and say, "WHO ARE YOU?" | http://www.lcblogs.com/2012/05/who-are-you.html |
According to Pew Research Center, zoomers, also known as the Gen Z population, will make up 20 percent of the US by the end of 2022; they also coincidentally are the most diverse generational group thus far. However, and maybe related to this, they also present quite the conundrum to understand and pin down, including their take on humor.
Zoomer humor is a struggle for just about anyone outside their generation. And it’s not the generational divide per se that’s perplexing; that’s always existed. It’s more about grasping the meaning of zoomer humor, which is nonsensical, ironic, often un-funny, and changes at rapid pace.
As a mom of both millennial and zoomer kids (I’m a Gen X-er), I often find myself wondering if my children are just being ‘individual’ or if their differences are due to being products of their respective generations. It’s with this in mind that I approached the concept of zoomer humor, actually.
So in the quest to learn more about my own kids, I looked into zoomers as a group; comparing zoomers to other generational groups; and zoomer humor examples as I tried to define zoomer humor overall.
And then I shared how you can use all of this to inform your own interactions with the little zoomers in your life! I hope you find the topic of zoomer humor as interesting as I did in researching it!
Contents
Zoomers- A Brief Overview
So before moving on to zoomer humor, we need to define what’s meant by zoomer, so here’s a brief overview. Then we’ll move to specifics.
Zoomers make up nearly 20 percent of the US population as of 2022 according to Pew Research Center. They were born between years 1997 and 2012, though there’s some wiggle room with those dates plus/minus a couple of years either way. Essentially they’re today’s ‘young people.’
Some Famous Zoomers:
- Indie Pop Singer Billie Eilish, known as much for her ever changing hair color as she is for her brooding song lyrics
- Political/Environmental Activist from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, (in)famous for her rebuke to world leaders while giving a speech in 2019 at the United Nations (Read more about Greta in ‘Who Is Greta Thunberg?‘, now part of the popular ‘Who Is’ children’s book collection series)
- Singer/Actress Zendaya, who started out as just another Disney darling but easily moved into adultish roles in hits Dune and the (Tom Holland) Spiderman franchise
- Jeon Jung-kook, a K-Pop singer from the uber-popular BTS group
- Barron Trump, youngest son of 45th president, President Donald Trump, and his wife, Melania
- Jake Paul, notorious YouTuber and MMA fighter/Pro boxer
- Broadway star, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, who began in a break-out role playing young Simba of The Lion King (Links above indicate an Amazon affiliate)
With each generation known for specific attributes or character traits, stereotypically of course, zoomers have come to be known as socially active; open-minded; concerned; intelligent; well-educated; progressive; and pro-government.
Prior to the pandemic of 2020, zoomers’ future looked economically brighter than their millennial older brothers and sisters. But that’s changed now, just another casualty of Covid-19!
Their socially active/open-mindedness traits are perhaps what put them at odds with older generations, as zoomers lay blame for the world’s problems like pollution, climate change, and overwhelming debt at the feet of boomer grandparents and great-grandparents; Gen X-er parents; and yes, even Millennials who are in some cases just a year or two older.
Other Fun Jokes for Kids articles similar to this one:
- Is Boomer Humor Good for Kids? (Mom Explained)
- When You Wonder Is This Meant To Be Humorous (Explained)
- Comedy And Humor Are Subjective (And That Matters)
Zoomer Defined (AKA Generation Z)
A zoomer, according to Merriam-Webster, became short-hand for the Generation Z population (born around 1997-2012), as recent as 2016. It kind of rolls off the tongue much easier than Gen Z-er. Prior to this connection, it was actually linked to baby boomers, that is, ‘active baby boomers’…zoomers.
zoomer: a person born in the late 1990s or the early 2000s; Generation ZMerriam-Webster
Doesn’t it seem ironic that the word zoomer was linked to the polar opposite generation, baby boomers? But in a way, it only makes sense that boomer grandparents/great-grandparents would give something of themselves (e.g. their name) to their grandchildren ‘zoomers’, right?
Other Names For Zoomers:
- Ipad Babies
- Generation Z
- Tik Tok Generation
- Post-Millennials
- iGeneration
Zoomer Memes
Looking at zoomer memes is a logical way to access zoomer humor. To refresh your memory, or to educate you initially, a meme is an image or captioned video that circulates the internet social media platforms. Typically it includes a picture or interactive graphic with text.
Memes are made in various ways, from selecting your own picture/image and adding text to using one of the myriad of apps specifically for making memes (some popular meme-creating apps are PhotoDirector; Mematic; GATM Meme Generator; and Memedroid). Most meme apps are free but have paid memberships that include upgrades and enhancements for your memes. After creating your meme, you save it to your particular device and share with friends/family on Twitter, Face Book, Instagram, or other.
Each generation trends to certain kinds of memes.
- For instance, our older generation, known as boomers, gravitate to cartoon memes of wrinkly old ladies; cats; and references to the good ol’ days. Common topics include degrading technology, the younger generations, and their spouses!
- Generation X-ers, who are the immediate younger generational step from boomers, tend toward memes of Star Wars characters, The Office, and Minions. Their texts often lampoon the war between boomers and millennials as they take a slacker approach to life’s daily grind, and of course, the merits of growing up in the 80s!
- And then there are the millennials. Besides trending #OkBoomer! memes, millennials like to use memes to express their depression, anxiety, and poverty; and enjoy incorporating images of super heroes like Batman and cartoon characters they grew up with such as SpongeBob SquarePants.
So now this takes us to ‘zoomer memes’ which can be used to inform us on zoomer humor.
Some recent popular memes from zoomers incorporate their concern for activism and international thinking. But also zoomer memes trend to partying, slang, and video games. In reality, it seems it’s hard to decipher zoomer memes because the most popular, trending ones often mean nothing.
Let’s look more in depth at this in the next section.
What is zoomer humor?
Zoomer humor is nonsensical, unpopular, ironic, atypical, ever-changing, and rebellious. For example, if it is so badly unfunny, zoomers will find it funny. If it was funny a long time ago, they’ll likely find it funny now. But once any zoomer humor becomes mainstream, it loses it’s appeal.
In other words, zoomer humor has a lot in common with every generation before it too. All tweens and teens want to stand out from anything dad or grandma liked! Nothing is more ‘unfunny’ than something that makes grandma laugh, to a zoomer, then!
Some Commonalities to Zoomer Humor:
- It’s not popular or mainstream. Once it hits the TV news or dad posts about it on Facebook, it’s no longer funny to zoomers.
- It uses nonsense- so the analogies don’t make sense. Zoomers like to put weird or odd things together for no other reason that because they don’t belong.
- It incorporates their slang terms. And again, if mom or dad understand the slang, they’re not used by zoomers anymore.
- Uniqueness is highly valued. And it’s more and more challenging to be unique given social media and how quickly things circulate around the globe!
- It’s low quality. This just means zoomers find it cool to alter or adjust tech and don’t care that they use low-budget ways to do so. It doesn’t have to look expensive or top-notch for them to enjoy it.
How can parents relate to zoomer humor?
To be honest, parents won’t get zoomer humor and if they did, zoomers wouldn’t find it humorous anymore. So what are parents (or grandparents) to do?
Parents can relate to zoomers through humor by discussion. Don’t try to see the humor but let your zoomers tell you why it’s funny, if they will. The main thing is to not ridicule them about it, or say it’s not funny. Just enjoy the moment you’ve lured your zoomer into talking with you!
For instance, if your zoomer is laughing about something he or she is watching or a meme they found funny, ask them about it. And then just smile. Resist the urge to make any more comments, especially negative or sarcastic ones.
Is zoomer humor okay for kids?
Parents shouldn’t be worried about zoomer humor being appropriate or not, anymore than any other kind of humor. In general, zoomer humor is just fine. Most cases it’s just random silliness that won’t make sense to you.
Like with all social media and entertainment, though, you should be privy to what your kids are exposed to. So don’t be afraid to monitor devices and such, keeping in mind your individual child’s level of maturity, your family expectations, and so on.
Special Note: Mainly you can gauge appropriateness of media and influences of humor by your child’s actions and behavior. If you notice your child behaving inappropriately, disrespectfully, or using a lot of put-downs and sarcasm after engaging in zoomer humor memes and such, then that’s cause for limiting it.
Zoomers Vs. Boomers and Millennials
It’s natural to compare generations. I know I’ve done this with my own kids, being that they’re all 5 years or so apart. As such, there are certain traits that are more associated with one group than another.
Boomers consider themselves hardworking. They’ve worked all their lives, from jobs as teenagers to entering the workforce right after high school, or college graduation for some. They’re solid citizens, being homeowners and voters, and loyal to their jobs until retirement. They’ve also come to known as grumpy, curmudgeons, who spend most of their retirement either golfing or complaining, or both.
Compared to boomers, zoomers have a few things in common. Unlike some other generations, zoomers are also thought as hardworking and committed, just to different things than boomers before them, such as environmental awareness and social change.
When zoomers are compared to millennials there’s as much in common as not. Being that the generations are closer in age, they have a lot of similar interests. Yet, they also look at things differently. Where millennials take a more introspective focus like on their depression and anxiety and a dim look on their future, zoomers also see this dim view but take a proactive approach to change, or so it seems.
Zoomer Humor Punchline
So the zoomer humor punchline is that unless you’re a zoomer, you won’t get their humor. It’s not meant for you to.
Gen Z has a unique approach to what they find funny (just like generations before them) and don’t care for others to understand it. In fact, if others do ‘get’ zoomer humor, then zoomers characteristically won’t find it funny anymore.
For parents, and grandparents, then, it’s best not to try to understand zoomer humor, and certainly don’t try to mimic it! Rather focus on the conversation of your zoomer sharing their humor with you, and enjoy that!
And unless you want to halt this sharing altogether, don’t criticize or complain about what they tell you!
For more from Fun Jokes for Kids, I recommend these related articles next: | https://funjokesforkids.com/a-look-at-zoomer-humor-explained-for-parents/ |
Conclusion: Does a Child or Teen Need Additional Support?
Chapter Three: Address the Immediate Aftermath of Suicide
How to Inform a Young Person of a Death by Suicide
Addressing the immediate aftermath of suicide is particularly challenging. There is a number of strategies you should consider employing when reaching out to a child or teen in the immediate aftermath of a loved one taking his or her life.
Tell the Truth
The first tactic that you need to bear in mind in addressing the immediate aftermath of a suicide is, to tell the truth. With that noted, the explanation of suicide needs to be age appropriate.
In order to be able to honestly communicate with children in an age-appropriate manner about suicide, you need to know the developmental stages of understanding for children. The Child Development Institute has delineated these stages:
- Preschool children mostly see death as temporary, reversible and impersonal. In stories, they read or watch characters will often suddenly rise up alive again after being totally destroyed. It’s not surprising they don’t understand, yet it is appropriate for their age level to think this way.
- Between the ages of five and nine, most children are beginning to see that all living things eventually die and that death is final. They tend to not relate it to themselves and consider the idea that they can escape it. They may associate images with death, such as a skeleton. Some children have nightmares about them.
- From nine through to adolescence, children to begin to understand fully that death is irreversible and that they too will die someday.
Do Not Wait
It might seem like something of a cliché, but you definitely do not want your children to learn about a loved one’s suicide from someone else. In this day and age, with communication being ubiquitous, you need to expect your children learning about a loved one’s suicide in very short speed. Therefore, you must not wait in providing honest, accurate, age-appropriate information about the death of a loved one at his or her own hands.
The information provided to a child needs to be complete, with a focus on being age appropriate. The failure to provide complete information about a loved one’s death by suicide can result in negative consequences for the child that include:
- A child filling in obvious gaps regarding what happened, the child’s own imagination coming up with thoughts even more troubling than what actually occurred.
- A child concluding information is being withheld because he or she somehow bears responsibility for what happened.
Select a Safe Place to Talk
Select a safe, comfortable, familiar place to explain to a child that a loved one has died by suicide. More often than not, this will be a child’s home or the residence of someone else in the family that a child has a connection.
If for some reason a loved one dies in a hospital from taking his or her life, letting a child know of the passing at the medical center is appropriate. However, waiting to explain that the death was the result of suicide can be the advisable course for many children.
Avoid Graphic Details
No need exists to discuss the graphic details of suicide with a child. Indeed, arguably no need exists to discuss graphic details with other adults.
If a child asks how a person took his or her life, making a basic statement about what happened is acceptable. However, a pivot should occur from making a basic statement about means used to a discussion focused on coping with feelings that include:
- Loss
- Sadness
- Confusion
- Anger
Age Specific Recommendations
There are some basic thoughts and tactics that you need to bear in mind when it comes to providing age-appropriate information to a young person about the suicide of a loved one.
Pre-Schooler (Age Three to Five)
Children in this age group generally do not have a firm understanding of the permanent nature of death. Thus, you can expect repeated questions about when the loved one who has committed suicide is “coming back.” The key is to explain simply, calmly, and lovingly that the loved one will not return.
Early Elementary School (Age Six to Eight)
Children in this general age group do have an understanding of the permanence of death. Children in this age group are more prone to somehow blame themselves for the death of a loved one by suicide. Emphasis must consistently be placed upon making it clear to the young person that he or she is in no way at fault for what occurred.
Later Elementary School (Age Nine to 12)
Children in this age group clearly understand the permanence of death. Children between nine and 12 years of age are highly likely to have specific questions about suicide and the circumstances of a loved one’s death in this manner. As discussed previously, the discussion with a child in this age group should be candid and honest. Graphics information about the manner of death is not appropriate, however.
Teens
Generally speaking, when it comes to discussing the suicide of a loved one with a teen, he or she can be approached in a manner similar to an adult, with a few considerations to bear in mind. First, let the teen have his or her space. Don’t pressure a teen to talk about suicide after basic information about the death initially is provided.
Keep in mind that a teen’s primary support system is his or her peers. Thus, make it clear to a teen that you are available to talk to him or her. However, encourage a teen to converse with a friend or even another adult with whom he or she may be comfortable.
Funeral and Related Considerations
There are some other considerations that come into play in the immediate aftermath of the loss of a loved one by suicide. Some of these matters directly involved a child or children related to otherwise associated with the person who took his or her life.
Should Young Person View the Body?
There are a number of factors that come into play when it comes to a young person viewing a body. As a preliminary matter, the manner of death may make a viewing a moot question.
The first consideration when it comes to a young person viewing the deceased individual is the maturity level of the child. The actual age of a child is not always the appropriate guide to ascertaining whether a child should view the remains of a loved one who took his or her life. In the end, a subjective consideration must be made regarding a particular child’s maturity when it comes to viewing a body.
The second consideration is what the child desires to do in this regard. If a child is mature enough to view the remains, a determination must be made as to whether a child wants to do so. No one – child or adult – should ever be forced to view the remains of a deceased person. If a child doesn’t want to view the remains of any deceased person, including an individual who committed suicide, that desire must be honored.
Should Young Person Attend the Funeral?
The question of a child’s maturity level also comes into play when addressing the issue of funeral attendance. As is the case with viewing the remains, a child’s wishes about attending the funeral must also be taken into account. A child, no matter his or her age, should be forced to attend the funeral of a loved one who took his or her life.
When it comes to an older child, particularly a teenager, encouraging the young person to attend the funeral of a suicide victim is acceptable. Pressuring attendance is not.
Keep in mind that a child, particularly a teenager, may be struggling with some very intense emotions in the aftermath of a loved one’s suicide – including anger and even shame. Forcing a child to attend a funeral when facing these emotions can place a young person in an even more troublesome or challenging emotional state. | https://ecobear.co/knowledge-center/immediate-aftermath/ |
Publisher: Davidson Institute
Being a regular classroom teacher can be both an exciting and overwhelming experience. There are so many curriculums to cover, so many standards to meet, and so many things to learn. It can seem as though you’re being stretched in an infinite number of directions. And, the most challenging part generally isn’t the teaching; it is managing student behavior. Without a doubt the most difficult student in your classroom is generally the one who finishes every assignment in less than five minutes and requires constant redirection. We hope you will find these tips helpful.
Tip #1: Familiarize Yourself with the Characteristics of Intellectually Gifted Students
Not all gifted students in your classroom will be identified and even those who are may not always appear to be gifted. As such, it is important that you don’t allow yourself to be distracted by false stereotypes. Gifted students come from all ethnic groups, they are both boys and girls, they live in both rural and urban areas and they aren’t always straight A students. Students who are intellectually gifted demonstrate many characteristics, including: a precocious ability to think abstractly, an extreme need for constant mental stimulation; an ability to learn and process complex information very rapidly; and a need to explore subjects in depth. Students who demonstrate these characteristics learn differently. Thus, they have unique academic needs. Imagine what your behavior and presentation would be like if, as a high school junior, you were told by the school district that you had to go back to third grade. Or, from a more historical perspective, what if you were Mozart and you were told you had to take beginning music classes because of your age. This is often the experience of the gifted child. Some choose to be successful given the constructs of public school and others choose to rebel. Either way, a few simple changes to their academic experience can dramatically improve the quality of their lives — and, mostly likely, yours!
Tip #2: Let Go of “Normal”
In order to be an effective teacher, whether it’s your first year or your 30th, the best thing you can do for yourself is to let go of the idea of “normal.” Offer all students the opportunity to grow from where they are, not from where your teacher training courses say they should be. You will not harm a student by offering him/her opportunities to complete work that is more advanced. Research consistently shows that curriculum based on development and ability is far more effective than curriculum based on age. And, research indicates that giftedness occurs along a continuum. As a teacher, you will likely encounter students who are moderately gifted, highly gifted and, perhaps if you’re lucky, even a few who are profoundly gifted. Strategies that work for one group of gifted students won’t necessarily work for all gifted students. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. You’re in the business of helping students to develop their abilities. Just as athletes are good at athletics, gifted students are good at thinking. We would never dream of holding back a promising athlete, so don’t be afraid to encourage your “thinketes” by providing them with opportunities to soar.
Tip #3: Conduct Informal Assessments
Meeting the needs of gifted students does not need to be an all consuming task. One of the easiest ways to better understand how to provide challenging material is to conduct informal whole class assessments on a regular basis. For example, before beginning any unit, administer the end of the unit test. Students who score above 80 percent should not be forced to “relearn” information they already know. Rather, these students should be given parallel opportunities that are challenging. Consider offering these students the option to complete an independent project on the topic or to substitute another experience that would meet the objectives of the assignment, i.e. taking a college/distance course.
With areas of the curriculum that are sequential, such as mathematics and spelling, how about giving the end of the year test during the first week of school. If you have students who can demonstrate competency at 80 percent or higher, you will save them an entire year of frustration and boredom if you can determine exactly what their ability level is and then offer them curriculum that allows them to move forward. Formal assessments can be extremely helpful, however, they are expensive and there is generally a back log of students waiting to be tested. Conducting informal assessments is a useful and inexpensive tool that will offer a lot of information.
Tip #4: Re-Familiarize Yourself with Piaget & Bloom
There are many developmental theorists and it is likely that you encountered many of them during your teacher preparation course work. When it comes to teaching gifted children, take a few moments to review the work of Jean Piaget and Benjamin Bloom. Jean Piaget offers a helpful description of developmental stages as they relate to learning. Gifted students are often in his “formal operations” stage when their peers are still in his “pre-operational” or “concrete operations” stages. When a child is developmentally advanced he/she has different learning abilities and needs. This is where Bloom’s Taxonomy can be a particularly useful. Students in the “formal operations” developmental stage need learning experiences at the upper end of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Essentially all assignments should offer the student the opportunity to utilize higher level thinking skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation, as defined by Bloom. Search the Internet to learn more about these two important theorists. A couple of websites that may be of interest include:
Piaget’s Stage Theory of Development
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Tip #5: Involve Parents as Resource Locators
Parents of gifted children are often active advocates for their children. If you are not prepared for this, it can be a bit unnerving. The good news is that, at least in my experience, what they want most is to be heard and to encounter someone who is willing to think differently. Offer to collaborate with them, rather than resist them, to work together to see that their child’s needs are met. For example, if they want their child to have more challenging experiences in math, enlist their help in finding better curriculum options. An informal assessment can help them determine the best place to start and then encourage them to explore other options that could be adapted to the classroom. Most parents understand that teachers don’t have the luxury of creating a customized curriculum for every student, but most teachers are willing to make accommodations if parents can do the necessary research. Flexibility and a willingness to think differently can create win-win situations.
Tip #6: Learn About Distance Learning Opportunities
The choices available to teachers and parents in this area have exploded in the past several years. Distance learning opportunities have dramatically increased options for meeting the needs of gifted students. Programs such as Art of Problem Solving math and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Online courses, as well as a myriad of online high school and college courses including online AP classes, are a great way to substitute more challenging curriculum for students who demonstrate proficiency with grade level material. Of course, these classes generally aren’t free, but they are an option that many parents are willing to pay for. Search the free online Davidson Gifted Database to find resources recommended by students, parents and teachers.
Tip #7: Explore Acceleration ~ It’s Free and It Works!
Another option is to allow students to attend classes with other students who are at the same developmental level, rather than with their age peers. If a 9 year old can demonstrate that he is ready to learn algebra, why should he be forced to take fourth-grade math just because he is 9? Same goes for language arts, or science, or social studies or any other area of the curriculum. Many well-meaning teachers worry that a student will run out of things to learn if they are given access to curriculum designated for older students. However, can a person ever truly run out of things to learn? Indeed, if Susie, a third grader, is allowed to learn fifth grade math this year, then fifth grade math isn’t going to be appropriate for Susie when she gets to fifth grade. So, during fifth grade, Susie should have access to seventh grade (or higher!) math — depending upon her needs. What’s wrong with that? Susie is learning at a rate appropriate to her abilities and will continue to do so whether or not we “make” her do third grade worksheets. Why not accommodate her unique learning needs with a bit of flexibility. Susie may just be the one who discovers the cure for cancer or comes up with an alternative fuel source that is more planet-friendly. A student should not have their opportunities limited because of their age, their race or any other factor that is beyond their control. Education should be about creating true learning opportunities for ALL students — including gifted students. If you have a student who is ready for fifth grade work, collaborate with the fifth-grade teacher(s). There are great tools, such as the Iowa Acceleration Scale, that can help determine whether the student should be moved ahead for just a subject or two, or should be grade accelerated.
Another reason that many teachers are afraid to try acceleration is that they are concerned about the student’s level of social maturity. Research has demonstrated time and time again that acceleration is effective for many reasons and that social maturity is rarely an issue. Several studies have shown that social age is correlated with mental age — not chronological age. So, not only is it generally in the student’s best interest academically to accelerate, it is in his/her best social interest as well! The same goes for students in high school. If a student is ready for college work, encourage them to take college courses or to consider an early college entrance program. Indeed the student might need a bit of tutoring to get up to speed and/or may need some extra support initially, particularly with writing and/or organization, however, gifted students learn very quickly and my experience has been that these supports can generally be removed after a reasonable adjustment period.
Tip #8: Learning from the Experiences of Others
Many well-meaning teachers innocently commit the following blunders when they encounter gifted students. Don’t feel bad if you have committed them.
Blunder Number One: Asking Your Gifted Students To Serve As Tutors For Students Who Are Struggling. Gifted children think and learn differently than other students. Asking them to serve as tutors can be a frustrating experience for all parties involved. This should also be remembered when putting together learning teams or group projects. Putting your strongest student with your students who are struggling is likely to be a painful experience for everyone. Imagine developing a cycling team with someone like Lance Armstrong as one member and then selecting other members who have either just learned to ride their bikes or are still relying on training wheels to help them gain their balance. It is unlikely that anyone in this group is going to have a positive experience.
Blunder Number Two: Giving Your Gifted Students More Work When They Finish Early. It is common practice to give students more work if they complete their assignments early. This is counterintuitive if you consider that if the student is completing his/her work in an efficient manner, it is likely that the work is too easy. Let’s once again consider our cyclist. Would you have the cyclist who finished the race first continue to ride, on a stationary bike no less, until all of the other cyclists finished the race? What if that cyclist was given an opportunity to participate in more challenging races or had the opportunity to develop his/her talents in related areas — wouldn’t that be a better use of his/her time?
Blunder Number Three: Only Allowing Gifted Students To Move Ahead When They Complete The Grade/Age Designed Work Assignments With 100% Accuracy. It is important to remember that gifted students think and learn differently and can be extremely rebellious. No one — not adults, not children and especially not gifted children — likes to be bored! Gifted students, thanks to their ability to reason, will purposely choose not do something merely because they “must” do it, particularly if it seems pointless to them. They would rather spend their time thinking or reading than completing worksheets that are too easy. Focus on your students’ strengths, not their shortcomings. Offer them opportunities that are consistent with their abilities — lead them from where they are. Depending how long they have been in the system, it may take them a while to trust you. So, don’t be surprised if there isn’t a miraculous overnight change. Be consistent and positive and remember, you may be the first teacher who has offered them an opportunity to actually learn, rather than regurgitate and they may not know how to handle your responsiveness. Don’t fall in to the trap of saying, “See, I told you he wasn’t gifted, I gave him one tough assignment and he failed.” Gifted students generally haven’t had to work to succeed. Give them time to build their, often atrophied, wings in a safe environment.
Tip #9: Utilize Outside Resources
There is a lot of information in this article, and it is likely you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed! Here is the best news so far . . . you are not alone and you don’t have to come up with all of the answers by yourself. There are several national organizations devoted entirely to assisting gifted young people and the professionals who serve them. The three most notable organizations are the National Association for Gifted Children, University of Iowa’s Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. As a first step, join the Davidson Institute’s free Educator’s Guild. Members have access to electronic mailing lists and a Facebook discussion group to exchange ideas, locate resources and discuss issues with other educators all over the country. The Davidson Institute also provides participants of the Davidson Young Scholars program and their parents, free services as well. In addition to these national organizations, you may also wish to find organizations at the state and local level that focus on meeting the needs of gifted students. It isn’t necessary to turn your world upside down to be an effective teacher of gifted students, you just have to be flexible, knowledgeable, and be willing to try new things. Gifted students cannot fend for themselves and it is up to you to begin the exciting adventure of making a difference to the gifted students in your classroom (if you haven’t already done so)! After all, one person can and does make a difference. | https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/tips-for-teachers-successful-strategies-for-teaching-gifted-learners/ |
What's so funny?
Knock knock, who’s there?
My 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old niece are regular comedians. Most of the time, the things that come out of their little mouths are hilarious (even if they are not trying to be). Lately, however, more often than not, they are consciously trying to get laughs out of just about anyone and everyone they come into contact with. Whether it is a knock-knock joke they heard at school or something they make up on their own, they certainly have a knack for making me giggle.
Of course, once they get a few laughs, it gets them going even more. This is something that can even lead to the involvement of props. Not only does it make their audience smile, having a sense of humor is a good thing as far as a child’s development goes. According to experts, children with a good sense of humor cope better and have a better sense of self-esteem. Humor can also build vocabulary and reading skills.
Somewhere around the age of 5 is typically a transition age regarding humor and learning the mechanics of joke telling. An understanding that jokes have a punch line at the end and that people laugh when you tell one develops. Timing is another key aspect that kids pick up at the ripe old age of 5.
Don’t fret, though, if your youngster tells a joke you don’t think he should necessarily know yet. Chances are he or she doesn’t really “get” the puns of most jokes. This requires a level of understanding of language such as idioms that most 5-year-olds are just beginning to grasp — “piece of cake” or “cross your fingers.”
Children around this age also tend to love physical humor. If they trip on the way into a room and everyone laughs, they will repeat this action over and over again expecting the same response each time. At times, the jokes you hear may not entirely make sense but just keep in mind that it’s the process, not the product that counts. The fact that children want to engage in joke telling is what matters.
Of course, it’s also somewhere around this age when kids learn that saying things they are not supposed to can also be a “joke” if others respond with a gasp or look of shock. For example, using a curse word will most likely cause quite the stir, and draw a reaction even if it’s a negative one. Trying not to overreact and simply explaining there are certain words that should not be used is the best way to go (wait to laugh until they can’t see/hear you). | https://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/story/lifestyle/2014/04/07/what-s-so-funny/17522416007/ |
The personal learning network for educators
I was taking part in a phone conference a while back, a rather dull one, when one of the elementary school principals in the room furtively motioned for me to take a look at one of her young teachers who was also participating in the phone conference. I casually looked over in the teacher’s direction (who I’ll call Jessica because there seem to be so many young Jessica’s out there!), and I saw that she was sitting in her chair, her brightly colored phone in her hands, quickly texting and seriously watching her phone screen while the person on the other end of our phone conference droned on about some trivial point.
There were a dozen people in our room and Jessica, at around twenty-five years of age, was the youngest. I knew she was a fine teacher, because I’ve visited her classroom and I’ve seen her in action. She’s already an educational leader in the district, and she’ll be one of the teachers to whom we’ll turn in the future for more leadership. I noticed she was paying attention to the conversation, because she would nod her head in agreement from time to time as certain points arose, or she might frown and slightly shake her head if she disagreed ― all as her fingers furiously worked their way over her phone’s keyboard. There were a few times she would stop, in mid text, and voice an opinion. Then she would go back to her texting. She texted for well over an hour, sending messages and reading the replies.
Jessica wasn’t being disrespectful; she was just being young, and she was doing what young people do. They text. And multi-task. And don’t see anything wrong with whipping out the latest version of a cell phone in almost any environment, regardless of the professional or social decorum, and firing off a few messages to their connected friends.
As I watched her, I was reminded again of how young our new teachers are (and how old they make me feel!), and that they are often of a different sort (and I thank God they are). They are the digital natives who are seeping into our workforce, entering the classrooms as members of the same tribe as the students they are teaching. The rest of us will spend the rest of our lives catching up with how they use technology, view technology, and adapt to technology.
Jessica brings a new perspective to some of our problems, and we need to hear more from the teachers in her age group. I mentioned Jessica has already assumed a leadership role, one to whom others turn routinely for advice, but it’s a type of informal leadership. She is not an official grade level leader or department head or administrator. She’s a solid educator who is bright and willing to work.
We have moved into an era of constant change in which educators must adapt quickly to the shifting characteristics of our students, and as I think of Jessica I wonder if education will adapt more quickly when people in her age group become older and begin to assume more influential positions. There’s always a bit of a generation gap between our more mature educational leaders and our young teachers, but the advent of technology has reshaped our young teachers’ brains, given them experiences at an early age that many mature educators have never had, and given them an advantage over many of our present leaders in understanding their students. The typical generation gap has become a digital generation gap.
The next decade will be one in which a new turbulence will enter our profession, an era when the young digital natives begin to acquire experience, wisdom, and maturity and begin to assert themselves. As they populate our classrooms and move toward leadership positions, we must find answers to several questions.
• What must our mentor teachers know and be able to do as they work with first-year teachers who have just left universities where they were connected through social media and used technology extensively in their lives?
• Will our mentors give them the freedom they need to bring the digital universe into their classrooms?
• If they are given the opportunity, will these digital natives be courageous enough to apply their intuitive talents and to use technology creatively with their students, or will they retreat into the same teaching practices as their peers and to the practices which were employed with them (or done to them!) when they were students, which are practices often not centered around technology usage?
• Will these digital natives have the technology available to them to use in their teaching, or will their teaching be stymied by their lack of hardware and software in their classrooms?
• What must our informal and formal leaders do to support the digital native leaders (DNL’s) and the transition?
I’ve begun to seek the answers to the last question, to find out what we must do to promote our DNL’s. First, we must recognize that today’s young teachers have some of the same altruistic characteristics as their predecessors: they want to help kids; they want to make their part of the world a better place; and perhaps more than ever, they want to give significant meaning to their lives. These young people will sit in grade level, department, and staff meetings, and they will have some of the same thoughts as the senior members of the group as issues are discussed, but there will be times when their thoughts will naturally travel down a different path shaped by their experiences with technology, especially when the topic pertains to teaching, learning, and assessment in the classroom. When this happens, how will we tap into their ideas?
We must make conscience efforts to find our most creative young teachers and draw them into the conversation. Our youngest teachers will often sit passively out of respect for their mentors and leave the conversation and decision making to them. This has been the model for many decades, but we must now make concerted efforts to invite our young teachers into the inner circle of decision making. If they are not speaking, we should turn to them and ask how they would teach a certain lesson or unit and how they would assess learning. If they offer an idea, we should encourage them to elaborate. We must take them seriously and not be too quick to dismiss their input.
Most importantly, we must give them the freedom to explore and to be unique. Today’s young teachers represent a generation that wants more choices than ever before and has been raised to express its individuality. They don’t always wish to conform, and when they choose their path, we should observe them, support them, and learn from them. They will make mistakes like all of us, especially in a profession as tough as teaching, but they will also carve new trails on which we might follow and might never have found. The experienced teachers can always share their stories of success and failure and then let the young teachers apply them to their own journey. Each year I address the new teachers on their first day of inservice in our district, and I tell them what I consider to be some of the most important words I can say to them: Maybe you will be the one to find a critical breakthrough in how we teach, how students learn, and how we assess them.
There will come a day in the future when our entire teaching ranks will be populated by digital natives, and the entire education establishment will adapt much more rapidly because the entire group will have known rapid change throughout its life. Until we reach this point, we must seek out the Jessica’s, the ones who can bring their digital native traits with them, who can multi-task, offer insight, and grow into DNL’s. The next two decades will be periods in which we must push our young stars to grow. If we are going to have a smooth transition into the era of digital educators, we must give today’s DNL’s platforms from which to lead.
Questions for Reflection and Implementation:
1. What will I do to find the DNL’s?
2. When I find them, how will I support them?
3. How will I provide a platform from which the DNL’s may share and lead?
4. How will I apply their ideas to myself and to the system? | http://edupln.com/profiles/blogs/finding-our-digital-native |
How to Use Humor to Care For Your Health and Cope with Hard Times
As my wife Kelly and I walked into our smoke- and soot-filled home after a wildfire had torched our canyon and burned the backside of our house, we burst out in laughter. “Paul! Did you put the horses like that again?!” my wife asked. We realized that when our neighbors and a firefighter were extinguishing the fire burning our kitchen windows, they were greeted with quite an image. The night before we had evacuated, I was cleaning the kitchen and decided to move the two Swedish “Dala” horse figurines in the windowsill. Like an eighth grader, I made one mount the other. (We live across the street from a horse-boarding ranch, so perhaps I’m easily influenced.) As we surveyed our burned home, this dose of humor was a welcome signal that regardless of the situation, we were going to be ok.
With Covid, elections, racial injustice, natural disasters, and everything else going on, it may feel like this isn’t the time for humor. And it’s true that the gravity of our current struggles is no laughing matter. That being said, while we can’t always laugh at our struggles, we can always laugh through them.
Humor Helps: Here’s the Science
Finding the humor in our everyday lives is good for our health and well-being, and it is a health coping strategy. Over the years, studies have shown that humor and laughter can help to:
- Decrease levels of stress hormone
- Lower blood pressure
- Strengthen the immune system
- Decrease pain
- Decrease Inflammation
So Now What? Here’s How to Incorporate “Humor Habits” Into Your Day-to-Day
You might be thinking: This is great, but I’m just not that funny. If you’re thinking that to yourself… you’re probably right. You might not be that funny, but you are self-aware and/or modest—both of which are crucial to becoming funny.
The great thing is, you don’t have to be naturally funny to get good at using humor. The first step is to train your brain toward a funny focus. Sharpening your “funny focus” by developing humor habits follows Hebbian theory that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Simply, the more you do it, the better you get at it and the research shows that you’ll be able to make more free and abstract associations with humor. It’s about being intentional and not simply hoping for humor, but harnessing it. It’s ok if you aren’t naturally funny. Humor is not a talent. Humor is a habit.
You can develop this humor mindset by incorporating these 8 “Humor Habits” into your life:
- Curate your personal comedy collection.
- Spend some time on social media following and liking as many pages as possible that make you laugh. This way, humor will show up more often in your feeds.
- Have a “Humor Homie” and share funny things back and forth. Even if you don’t have time now to watch that funny video now it’s ok, research shows that even just the anticipation of humor can help to decrease stress .
- Prime the pump for positivity.
- Rather than always listening to work related or news related podcasts, listen to funny podcasts while community or doing work around the house. The Laughable app is great for this. The goal is to learn to experience humor not by chance… but by choice.
- Learn how to laugh.
- I know it sounds weird, but consider this: When you’re watching something funny or find something humorous, are you actually laughing? Several years ago, I realized I wasn’t laughing much and was intellectualizing humor. I would think oh that’s hilarious and would maybe smile, but I would not laugh. I began to fake it. Not a crazy amount, but just a bit. If something made me smile, I might let out an audible “Ha.” If something gave me a light chuckle, I would purposely laugh a little louder and harder. By focusing on letting myself actually laugh, I’ve developed a real laugh. Now I actually “lol” far more often than I used to.
- Create a funny things intervention.
- Write down three funny things every day. Researchers have found that people who write down three things they found humorous or amusing on each day for one week, they were able to increase their overall happiness and decrease depressive symptoms for up to six months. The great thing about this exercise is that you can begin to train your brain to find the humor in things in real time, rather than retrospect.
- Play the “What I Could’ve Said” game.
- If you’re the type of person that always thinks of the funny thing you could have done or said after the moment has passed, that’s ok! Go with it. Come up with various humorous ways you could have handled a situation or found humor in it. The more often you do this, the more quickly your brain will start making these connections. This technique is called “Humorous Reappraisal” and is found to be a helpful coping strategy and build resilience, according to a study from Stanford.
- Take a “Funny 15.”
- Set an alarm to take a break where you watch a funny video. Not only will this keep your brain in “funny focus” training, it will keep you sharper and more productive for the rest of the day. People who take a break and watch a funny video are twice as productive when returning to work as those who took a break with no humor. Of course, if you’re like me, then you may also need to set an alarm to stop watching funny videos and get back to work!
- Keep a “Humor Jar”
- This can be a small container at the house or office with slips of paper nearby. As funny things happen throughout your day, write them down and put them in the jar. At the end of the month, year, whatever, look through your jar and relive the funniest moments,
- Exaggerate and heighten your situation.
- One of the easiest ways improv and stand-up comics create humor is through exaggeration. In fact, exaggeration is used so often, it’s up a million percent this year… ba-dum bum! Well, I tried. Anyway, when experiencing a mildly stressful situation, just heighten it until it becomes ridiculous.
- For example, if you have a flat tire and are waiting for a tow you might text home and say… “Hi honey, I blew a tire and I’ve been waiting for a tow for three hours—but I’ll be home as soon as I can.” Then, why not decrease your stress and your partner’s stress by sending another text and heightening it to a ridiculous level?… “Please tell the kids I love them, wish them luck in college, and text me pictures if they produce grandchildren.”
I’m trying to maintain my funny focus as I write this piece from my 400 sq. foot “Tiny House” on a trailer in Montana where me, my wife, two dogs, and our cat are staying for six months while our house is being restored from the fire damages. Lucky for me, as a guy who stands at 5’4” tall, soaking wet, you just call a tiny house… a house.
This exclusive essay was featured in the October 25, 2020 edition of The Sunday Paper. This essay is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. The views are those of the expert. The Sunday Paper publishes News and Views that Rise Above the Noise and Inspires Hearts and Minds. To get The Sunday Paper delivered to your inbox each Sunday morning for free, click here to subscribe. | https://mariashriver.com/how-to-use-humor-to-care-for-your-health-and-cope-with-hard-times/ |
Dive Brief:
- Language arts and social studies teacher Daniel Bailey writes for Edutopia that teachers should run through some exercises of their own before starting the curriculum mapping process each year.
- Some tasks include having a realistic sense of what students can and cannot handle in terms of grade-level skills and abilities, in addition to knowing what their own school administrators expect from them to focus on during the year.
- Educators should also consider differentiation — what each group of learners may need to succeed — and, finally, be willing to toss everything out should the chosen lesson plans and curriculum not work.
Dive Insight:
Curriculum development is one of the most time-consuming responsibilities for every educator. Creating a classroom learning experience that is engaging while covering the educational needs of all students is a demanding endeavor. In addition to creating effective lessons, teachers must also work closely with curriculum and academic offices at the district level and at their individual school sites to ensure they’re following both district guidelines and state standards.
But checking off those boxes can sometimes stymie a teacher eager to bring out-of-the-box methods and elements into their classroom, whether that’s virtual reality goggles, drones, a specific app that isn’t yet approved, or even an Amazon Echo that may bring up privacy concerns. Educatorswho enjoy playing in the digital sandbox and trying new technologies, however, may actually understand better than their school and district leaders the educational value of bringing these tools into the classroom.
Chief academic officers may in these cases want to be proactive and keep an open door policy. As educators consider new ways to spark students’ learning, those administrators who allow teachers to approach with new ideas during their planning processes may find valuable learning practices they’ve never considered already inside their schools. | https://www.educationdive.com/news/schools-most-innovative-learning-resource-is-teachers/557952/ |
The countrywide "SAFEKIDS" campaign recommends never leaving a child below 12 home alone. The official website of Erie County, Pennsylvania, recommends never leaving a child under 10 home alone. Parents must decide for themselves whether a child can be left home alone, rather than decide strictly by age, according to the U.S. Administration for Children & Families. Parents should consider how safe their neighborhood is when making the decision.
Age of Babysitters
Pennsylvania law doesn't set a minimum age for babysitters, either. Some factors must be considered when selecting a younger babysitter, according to the official website of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Areas to consider include the maturity and level of responsibility the babysitter displays, and the ages and number of the children she's watching and for how long, and whether any of the children in her care have special needs or conditions. A younger babysitter should be able to reach an adult easily in case of an emergency.
Considerations
A parent should consider how mature and responsible a child is before leaving him home alone, even if he's above the age of 12. A child must be mature enough and able to handle being home alone safely. For example, a child of 11 who respects rules and has the maturity to handle calling emergency services if necessary may be safety left home alone for short periods. A child of 13 who doesn't have the same maturity level and often breaks rules may be not able to stay home alone without endangering himself. Regardless of maturity level, a child home alone should have easy access to an adult nearby for help at all times.
Neglect
Because state laws don't set a minimum age, whether a child being left alone constitutes "neglect" depends on the circumstances of the case. If a parent leaves a child home alone who she knows isn't mature or responsible enough to handle the situation, she may be charged with neglect if something happens to the child. The state considers different factors when deciding whether a parent who left a child home alone should be charged with neglect. These factors include previous cases of neglect under similar circumstances, whether a babysitter was involved and how long the children were unsupervised. Neglect may constitute a misdemeanor or felony in Pennsylvania, depending on the case. | https://info.legalzoom.com/legal-age-children-left-alone-pennsylvania-20767.html |
April Fool's Day in the Classroom: 8 Resources for Teachers
I still remember April Fool's Day when I was a fourth grader. A reading comprehension worksheet went out to the class, and in minutes, we were all dumbfounded. The story and questions were incomprehensible, written in complete gibberish. But our teacher went along with the joke. We had a half hour to finish it, and it was going to be worth a substantial amount of points.
I don’t remember how long the gag lasted exactly, but I do remember all of us sitting there, mouths agape, wondering if the assignment was serious. Then, once we’d all thrown our hands up, our teacher let us in on the joke: “April Fool's!”
April Fool's Day is the perfect time to play some light-hearted pranks on your friends, family, and co-workers; and if you’re a teacher, pulling an unexpected fast one on your students can be entertaining -- and memorable -- for everyone. So if you’re looking for ideas for classroom pranks, or you’re hoping to bring a humor lesson into the classroom, these are a few of our favorite April Fool's Day resources and teaching ideas. Plus, we've also added some more general resources for using humor to reach students. First, check out this incredible prank pulled last year:
Do you have other ideas for classroom pranks? What resources are you using to bring April Fool's Day into your class?
- April Fool's Day: A Foolproof Primer on Classroom Laughter: In this Scholastic Teacher post, author and teacher Allie Magnuson takes a look at the importance and benefits of using laughter in the classroom. It’s a great read for educators who have been reluctant to use humor in their classrooms, and offers some simple ways educators can get their students laughing and learning.
- Library of Congress: April Fool's Primary Sources: The Library of Congress (LOC) is a wonderful source of primary sources that can be incorporated in lessons, and this April Fool's themed page features a range of interesting historical sources. Also be sure to check out out the LOC's April 1: On This Day in History and April Fools' Day interactive timeline.
- The Museum of Hoaxes: This is a super-fun resource to share with students. (And thanks to Julie Winterbottom for sharing this with us.) The Museum of Hoaxes features some interactive and interesting April Fool's timelines, a gallery of hoaxes and other fun stuff for students. One compilation that might be particularly engaging for students is "The Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time."
- CNN's April Fool's Day Fast Facts: This is a brief look at some of the interesting trivia related to April Fool's that is perfect for sharing with students. Plus, if you're interested in April Fool's history, check out "No Kidding: We Have No Idea How April Fools' Day Started" from Time.
- Humor in the Classroom: A MiddleWeb Resource Roundup: This resource from MiddleWeb features a wealth of ideas and tips for using humor in middle school classrooms. Included are links to relevant articles, like "Humor as an Instruction Defibrillator," which offers great insights into the types of humor you can use in class. Plus, there are links to articles and other resources that will show you how to use humor in various subjects.
- April Fool's Day Teacher Resources on Pinterest: There are so many Pinterest boards for teachers on April Fool's -- it's impossible to list them all. But there are a few favorites for teachers, including WeAreTeachers' activities list, Rachel Friedrich's board, PediaStaff's useful pins, and Deb Chitwood's great roundup.
- Top 20 April Fool's Pranks for Teachers: The Squarehead Teachers blog put together this list of fun, light-hearted April 1 pranks for teachers. These are mostly low-prep pranks that will help you catch your students off-guard. Also, be sure to check out their post, "(No Prep) April Fool's Day Pranks," for some last-minute ideas.
- Foolproof Fun Lesson Activities for April Fool's Day: This post from BusyTeacher.com features some great ideas for April Fool's Day in the ESL classroom. Although these ideas are ESL-focused, the ideas translate well to any classroom.
Tips, Strategies, and Resources for Using Humor to Engage Students
The research is clear about using humor in the classroom -- humor is an extremely engaging tool. But for educators, it can be a challenge to bring a little levity into lessons. Where should you begin? What types of humor are the most effective? And how exactly is humor best incorporated into lessons? Here are a few articles that provide ideas, tips, and strategies for engaging students with humor.
- Humor in Education Resources, the Association of Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH): The AATH database of humor resources offers tons of useful content and will provide ideas for incorporating humor into many different subjects. In their "Humor and Education" section, you'll find articles that cover a range of topics related to humor in the classroom, as well as a long list of books dedicated to humor in education.
- Tips for Using Humor in the Classroom: Here's a great article from the National Education Association that highlights effective strategies for incorporating humor into your lessons. There are a few examples that teachers have used in their classrooms, as well as a short video Q&A with humor researchers and a teacher who doubles as a stand-up comedian. Also check out How to Effectively Use Humor in the Classroom, another NEA resource that offers great ideas and tips.
- Lesson Plan: Comedy in the Classroom: The New York Times' The Learning Network put together this resource for teachers looking to bring to humor to their lesson plans. There are some great ideas for teaching the history of humor, writing and performing fake The Daily Show-style newscasts, and analyzing political cartoons. There’s something here for teachers of every grade level. | https://www.edutopia.org/blog/april-fools-classroom-ideas-matt-davis |
After a forty-point performance the night before, Greg, a high school basketball star, arrives late for the third time to his economics class. Mr. Stalls says, “Hey Greg, with all the stardom you’re getting on the court, I’m glad to see that your head still fits through the door.” Greg and all the mere mortal students have been signaled, with the use of inoffensive humor, that despite his stardom, the rules apply to him as well.
It is the last time he is late. A tall, long-haired scraggly-looking 16 year old shows up for the third consecutive day without his homework. Instead of writing him up or giving a detention, Ms. Mills pairs him with the most clean-cut, well dressed, smartest female student in the class. For 45 minutes, they work together on his incomplete homework. Not only does the class find this amusing, but the next day his homework is completely done. Thirteen year-old Sean is forever interrupting class discussions or criticizing Mr. Hart’s teaching. After becoming increasingly exasperated, Mr. Hart looks at the bright side. He tries to identify the plusses in having this student in his class. As hard as that is, he comes up with a few. The next time Sean acts in an intrusive way, Mr. Hart is ready. He says, “Sean, I know that God put you in my class to help make me a better teacher. Although sometimes I wish you would just sit back and say nothing, your tough questions push me and lots of your classmates to think harder about what we say.” Sean’s behavior in class became more cooperative almost immediately.
There are many situations of potential conflict that can be defused with humor. Humor in discipline can be used when it is a natural part of the adult’s personality and style, and/or there is a relationship that has been built with a child which allows for off-beat words or actions to be accepted in a non-defensive way. The use of humor which pokes fun at a student, can often be successfully used when the student knows you care about him. Otherwise, such words and actions can be misinterpreted and viewed as a put-down. That creates the possibility of embarrassment and the need that students will have to defend themselves. Most adults who respond to students with a kind of sarcastic humor, both accept and often invite students to respond to them in kind. Sarcastic humor is only one type and is the most risky because of its dependence upon prior relationship and even a student’s disposition that day.
Humor which is based upon affirmation is much safer but must be predicated upon honesty and genuineness in order to be effective. Like Mr. Hart, it requires the adult to identify how the student’s irritating behavior actually contributes positively to the class. For example, a student who mouths off is redefined as “a quick witted young woman whose comments add a welcome touch of humor to the class discussion.” A student who refuses to do work is viewed as “donating his time to fellow students.” Her teacher can now approach and genuinely say, “Martha, I’d prefer to see your work done. But when you don’t do it, I have one less thing to do which gives me more time for teaching and for giving feedback to other students. It is time for me to start noticing that fact more often.” Another student who doesn’t do homework is defined as “having more important things to do.” Without blame, his teacher tells him, “Mark, I hate getting in your way by giving you homework when you no doubt have more important things to do. So you can stay after school and do your homework here. That way, you won’t have to be bothered when you get home.” When reframing is used, the educator acts without frustration. Elements of affirmation are blended with humor which creates a changed and often improved relationship.
Humor is at its safest when adults poke fun at their own imperfections and errors. Statements like, “that’s one of the best mistakes I’ve made today,” show students the value of a mistake and a lightened perspective that can help them learn to be less uptight. I remember an esteemed professor from graduate school who had a habit of chewing her pen while she was lecturing. Sure enough, the day came when she accidentally bit too hard and in the middle of the lecture, blue ink started drooling from her mouth. Upon discovery, this usually serious, dry individual hollered “code blue!!” The class, which had been restraining itself in an effort to be polite, broke into uproarious laughter.
The most nerve-rattling disciplinary moment for most educators is when a student or a group challenges adult authority in the presence of everyone else. These “button-pressing” moments can often be defused by using humor. Sometimes the humor shows strength with uncertainty. When a student attacks with “you can’t make me,” or “this class s—s,” others will usually look intently to gauge the teacher’s response. It is the goal of “saving face,” that leads so many educators into using threats with the student or more often simply removing that student from class. An alternative is to defuse with humor. For example, the teacher might say, “wow – you must be really mad to use that kind of language here. As I look around, many of you have that “what are you going to do to Billy look on your faces. How many are wondering that? Well in case you are, all I can say is that I’m wondering about that too. Until Billy and I can figure out why he needs to use words that we all know are unacceptable and against the rules, there’s no way for me to know what’s best. Billy, you and I will deal with this later. Now it is time for us to get back to _________.”
Humor often requires doing the unexpected. I once had a middle school nurse teacher ask me for comment about whether a certain practice of hers constituted a punishment or was it a consequence? She said that an eighth grade English teacher had a group of boys who engaged in daily choreographed farting. Conventional efforts had essentially failed, especially since this group got a lot of attention from others and were generally considered by peers to be trend setters. The English teacher referred the four boys to the school nurse who had four chairs set up outside her office. She came out the door with rubber gloves on and asked each boy to come in one at a time after she told them that they were here because their teacher and she were concerned about their “inability to control their sphincter muscles.” As each boy entered, she discussed the general principles behind “intestinal gas production and its release.” Their faces were amazing-“they just kept staring at the gloves.” She continues, “part of the discussion revolved around how I would examine a patient with rectal problems – a thought absolutely revolting to most 8th graders. They returned to class and refused to discuss what happened with their friends or each other. No further problems were noted.” A first year female teacher was challenged by a 14 year old boy who aloud said, “what would you do if I said I was going to drop my pants right now!” The teacher paused momentarily and answered, “I’d say hurry up because we’ve got a lot of other things to do. I might even start singing the song Is That All There Is?”
Effective discipline on a daily basis requires attention to a multitude of factors by multi-talented educators. We must not underestimate the power of humor as an effective tool in our arsenal of relationship-developing skills. Gentile and McMillan wrote about humor: “for purposes of inner harmony and peace, no single human phenomenon is as healthy, spontaneous, honest and soothing as laughter. Unfortunately, opportunities for classroom humor may be overlooked by educators, who see it as an inappropriate distraction from the standard curriculum.” Studies and interviews with students consistently rate “sense of humor” as being a very highly regarded characteristic in teachers. And it is increasingly clear that student classroom performance is strongly influenced by relationship with teacher. In fact, humor works best when it is integrated into classroom instruction by making learning an enjoyable, involving experience. Next time you’re developing your weekly lesson plan, be sure to include a component on how you plan to have fun in the classroom. Do at least one thing every day that is fun for you. The humor will begin to flow.
Sales & Marketing Plan Strategies
Design and Implementation of a new Sales & Marketing campaign must be carefully thought through from the beginning. What message do you want to send about your company, products, and services? What are the anticipated results? What is the execution strategy? What is the cost ratio versus expected return?
These are just a few of the questions that run through our minds in the early stages of planning. If your goal is revenue growth and expansion, I believe you need to design, develop, and implement your Sales & Marketing plan on that foundation. Here is some criteria to consider while planning:
o Identify your markets and your profit potential in the selected markets
o Segment your markets by customer, service, etc.
o What type of penetration is desired: existing, new, different, or all of the preceding
o Design a plan to include procedures and controls to monitor and evaluate market penetration by segment
o Determine and build internal and external sales strategies
o Evaluate and plan staff training to generate internal monitoring controls, evaluation processes, and customer education if necessary
o Plan to control revenue growth with product mix, product promotion, and customer pre-qualification
o Evaluate expected sales and then ratio numbers to your sales staff’s current compensation package to see if consideration is needed for additional or different wage incentive programs
o Design controls to evaluate, monitor, and drive the highest level of profit possible
o Determine the type of media and then budget advertising accordingly
o Develop a backup plan in case of immediate campaign disaster
A Viable Alternative to Conventional Education
Statistics show that elementary home schooling is the ideal time to start a home schooling program for a child. Children who enter home schooling during the elementary years are the students that tend to succeed the most. Throughout the course of their home schooling, these children will reach the highest level of academics when compared to the national average. Additionally, students who start young, often find themselves three to four grade levels above that of their public school peers.
On the other hand, high school home schooling can be extremely challenging. By the time a child reaches this level of education, they may be far too advanced in their educational needs to be taught by you. If that is the case, it will be necessary to seek out various resources that are available for home schooling. Online resources that provide both curriculums, and textbooks are available, which will allow a child to learn through the web. Classes can be held in a virtual classroom, students can use a web cam to participate, or they can be simply assessing lecture-based courses online as well.
Before considering a home school option, it is important to insure that the child’s current education is tested. This can be done right online through a series of tests. The tests will access the knowledge of a child, their weaknesses as well as strengths. This can then be used to help choose the right method and curriculum for a child’s needs.
There are many curriculums available for home schooling, and they can focus on the specific needs of the child. In the elementary levels, there is a wide range of course work. While it may be necessary to choose a program that fits with your state’s regulations, programs that are suited to what a child wants to learn should be considered as well. For many, this includes specific studies such as languages or Christian home schooling. It is important to take the time to choose the right home schooling package for you, and your child. This will allow you to learn more about the program, and to insure you know what is included as well as which methods are used for teaching it.
There are disadvantages of home schooling that must be considered. Many parents feel that the purchase of home schooling materials is too expensive. In some cases, the local or state government will help fund the home schooling, though this is not so in all areas. Some feel that the home-schooled child is not getting the social experience that they need to learn to work with other children and to then use later in life. While this is true to a certain level, it can be overcome by encouraging the child to play a sport or to be involved in community activity. Further, home school parents may end up feeling that they are not educated enough to teach their child. This apprehension is unfounded; there is a wide range of teacher resources to tap into, as well as forums. Besides, parents teach their children how to eat, behave, go to bed, it is an instinctive behavior.
Home schooling is an excellent bonding time for you and your child to share learning experiences together. The cons of home schooling do not outweigh the plusses. Elementary is the best time to get started with your child in the home schooling environment. They can reap the rewards of being at home with you, by working on a program designed for their needs and at the pace that they need, and they can find the value of all that home schooling can offer. | http://ebooksfree4u.info/2018/08 |
When schools transitioned to remote learning two years ago, tech took on a new role in educational instruction.
After adjusting to using computers in their lessons daily during the pandemic, some educators have begun to view teaching-related tech in a different light, says Jennifer Hall, educational technology specialist for Atlanta Public Schools.
“The comfort level got a little bit better,” Hall says. “The teachers who were not as tech-savvy had to figure out different ways to do tasks they would normally do with paper and pencil. A lot of teachers are still trying to incorporate those things.”
What Is Pedagogy in Education?
Pedagogy — which Monica Burns, educational technology and curriculum consultant, defines as the approach educators take to get a message across to a group of students — can get a modern assist from technology.
In the past, lessons plans may have centered on traditional techniques and educator-led instruction. The emergence of tech tools, ranging from portable devices to interactive textbook solutions, expanded the ways students can learn about new concepts, says Burns.
“If you’re teaching social studies or science, I don’t know that the content component has changed drastically, but the technological component of that and the knowledge educators have around thoughtfully integrating technology has definitely changed,” Burns says. “That’s influenced the pedagogy.”
Even before the pandemic, tech-focused instruction produced positive outcomes. Forty-one percent of schools felt technology was helping students learn more actively, according to a U.S. Department of Education report, and 33 percent strongly agreed the way it was being used was helping students become more independent and self-directed.
LEARN MORE: How can K–12 educators successfully implement flipped-classroom models?
What Technology Supports Pedagogy in Education?
Certain technologies have been popular classroom choices in recent years, according to Burns, including learning management systems that help distribute resources, such as Microsoft Teams and Google Classroom, and creativity-based solutions like Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education.
“Other tools really take formative assessment routines to the next level,” she says. “There’s an ability to add video and voice and increase participation by giving kids more access to share using tools like Flipgrid.”
Emerging tech also is being used in instruction. Hall recently met with a sixth grade science teacher about students designing a 3D augmented reality model and projecting it in the classroom with a tablet for a lesson on how weather and erosion affect land. She’s also taken students on a virtual field trip.
“They could walk around in their physical space but be viewing Machu Picchu, which was pretty cool,” Hall says. “It’s becoming more common to see that kind of technology, especially in STEM-focused classes.”
Augmented and virtual reality tools can help make visual, hands-on instruction more accessible by eliminating barriers such as the cost of purchasing materials for every student, Hall says.
“Maybe students are going to complete science labs that would otherwise be too expensive or dangerous,” she says. “360-degree virtual reality video allows kids who don’t normally travel to travel. It opens the door to opportunities they might not have had.”
What Are the Advantages of Supporting Pedagogy with Technology?
Technology can help maximize instruction’s impact by offering educators a more dynamic way to present information and directly involve students.
RELATED: Holograms add depth to remote classes and enrich instruction.
“If they’re replicating a task they could have done without the computer, it might not increase engagement,” Burns says. “But if they’re using game-based assessments or video, and students are actually creating content, that’s going to be more engaging than just watching a video and reading articles.”
Incorporating technology kids use outside of the classroom into assignments — such as asking students to discuss a particular character from a book — could help drive engagement even higher, Burns says.
“We might bring in new ways for kids to accomplish that assignment, like creating a podcast where they interview a character, with another student in their class taking on that role,” she says. “It demonstrates their understanding and would be more relevant to the experiences they might have as a consumer of content.”
Tech tools such as cloud-based file-sharing and communication and learning platforms can also help educators offer more personalized, frequent instruction.
“More teachers are seeing the benefits of tech and thinking, ‘I used to have to carry a whole crate of papers home to grade, and now I have access through Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams. I can see students’ work in real time. I don’t have to wait until they’ve finished a paper to analyze it; I can provide feedback and support throughout the writing process,’” Hall says.
Today, there’s no shortage of tech tools that could be used in instruction and pedagogical approaches. However, while bells and whistles may entice educators, items that feature them won’t automatically guarantee student success.
MORE ON STUDENT SUCCESS: Data analytics show ed tech’s impact on learning.
“Technology should be something that adds to your instruction,” Hall says. “Teachers need to think about the task at hand. What do you want your students to be able to do or know?”
Technology, she says, has become much more enmeshed with pedagogy than when she began teaching 25 years ago with a single computer in the classroom. Educators may still be hesitant, though, to use new solutions and devices, even if they feel one might be a good fit for a particular lesson. | https://www.enteredtech.eu/news/support-pedagogy-in-the-classroom-with-educational-technology |
I think that a good starting point for imagining how to plan for English Language Learner integration in a classroom is to consider how the educator sees their students. The philosophies that an educator brings to their teaching will inevitably underpin any planning or implementation of inclusive strategies. One must question then, how do you see your students? In the complex case of ELL students, how do you see them and what roles do you expect them to play in the class?
A cognizant educator should be extremely careful in what language they use to describe their students in terms of their language abilities, and how they challenge them is extremely important. In setting up activities which are ‘low floor, high ceiling’, an educator affords their class the opportunity to engage equitably. I think that educators often get sidetracked by so-called language limitations of ELL students and forget to challenge them. I am sure that most people have experienced this at some level. The tourist who asks for directions in halting English is sometimes treated as though their English abilities are an indication of their overall competence. How would students with lower levels of English feel if they were treated this way every day?
Part of an effective educator’s arsenal must include growth mindset, and their language must reflect this. I believe that the power of ‘not yet’ shouldn’t be underestimated. In the subtlest of ways, a teacher can give ELL students powerful messages of encouragement in a covert way simply by selecting positive language. This is a key theme in Mariana Souto-Manning’s “Honoring and Building on the Rich Literacy Practices of Young Bilingual and Multilingual Learners”. Souto-Manning argues that ELLs have traditionally been thought of in terms of their deficiencies, and not for the cultural and linguistic expertise they bring to a classroom. She stresses the importance of referring to these students as being “emergent bilinguals or multilinguals” instead of low-level English speakers (Souto-Manning, 263).
Another important point in the article is that teachers should try to teach in culturally relevant ways, and use students as cultural resources. I absolutely agree with the idea of making learning culturally relevant; I hope that what is taught in classrooms is as relevant to each group of students as possible. However, I am struggling with the idea of incorporating funds of knowledge into a class from students who may be lacking in confidence. If a student is still learning basic English, it might be a challenge to ask for their expertise on their mother tongue without making them feel singled out and put on the spot. I would like to learn more about how one might go about doing this. | https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachermatt/2017/01/25/how-do-you-see-your-students/ |
This post started with the thesis that good art is complex, which often means has many layers or many interactive parts. Some who agree with this position will talk about how much they enjoy discovering the intricacies of a piece, which increases their appreciation of the work.
Then two things happened: (1) during a conversation with an actor about the difficulties of producing the musical, The Fantasticks, the actor said, “But it has to look simple.” I said, “Yes it does.” What I thought was, “It always should; it should look effortless.” (2) At a juried art show reception that same week, I found myself looking at a stunning black-and-white land/seascape of the Galveston estuary. Another photographer was telling me, “He [the photographer who made the image on the wall] has been moving toward minimalism for a couple of years now.” Minimalism had not figured into my theory concerning complexity as a necessary characteristic of quality art. These incidents taken together caused me to rethink the whole idea, resulting in a new question: If complexity is one of the marks of quality art, then how does one explain Minimalism and similar sorts of work?
The answer came with the realization that the word complexity can have two applications in reference to art. (1) It can be apparent complexity, as in a work with many facets and/or layers and parts that interact on many different levels. This is the sort of complexity you might find in the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dali, or Jackson Pollock. (2) Complex can also be used to describe the process by which art is produced. American filmmakers, for example expend great effort to hide the artifice by which their work is created, opting instead—at least in most cases—for a story that is easily digested by the audience, allowing that audience to concentrate on the characters and the plot without having to be concerned with how difficult it was to create that seamless narrative.
And this second meaning of complex applies to some things we have already mentioned. We will work very hard to make not only The Fantasticks but any play, no matter how complex, look effortless, for much the same reason as the filmmakers. This is true of nearly any performing art; all seek to hide the difficulty of the task by employing the highest levels of expertise. Both performers and those behind the scenes do what they do with an apparent ease that belies the unending planning, training, preparation, and rehearsal.
Even though we think of them differently, visual and plastic arts are much the same. The photographer who made the piece mentioned above did not do so by simply setting up his camera in the grasslands and snapping the picture. If you are familiar with photography, you realize that this image was the result of a great deal of planning, better-than-competent execution, skilled post-processing, and expert printing, all so the result would be precise, clean, and minimal.
Whether it is a Buddhist raked rock garden or Donald Judd’s 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, the creation of such apparently simple things requires enormous imagination, planning, and expertise. But, just as in Hollywood films, the artifice is hidden.
So it turns out that good minimalist art, or any art that appears effortless or visually simple may not be simple at all; nor was it produced easily. The complexity and the effort are just hidden. If you’ve ever tried to this kind of work, you already know: simplicity is an illusion. | http://unnaturallight.com/tag/jackson-pollock/ |
PLAT Journal is an independent architectural journal whose purpose is to stimulate relationships between design, production, and theory. It operates by interweaving professional and academic work into an open and evolving dialogue which progresses from issue to issue. Curating worldwide submissions in two annual issues, PLAT is a projective catalyst for architectural discourse.
PLAT is generously supported by and is edited by students of
Call for Submissions deadline extended to December 15, 2018.
Coming Spring 2019
In today’s chaotic world, simplicity grows virtuous. As an operational directive, simplicity forces the pursuit of the essential, where what matters is retained and what doesn’t is tossed overboard. Simplicity is at once classic and trending; ambitious and naive; utopian and pragmatic. A decade after 2008, the feeling is baked into current trends of austerity, with economic realities influencing aesthetics and ethics within architecture in deep ways. The value of simplicity lies not just in the luxury of a representational project, but more powerfully in methods of practice—in understandings of how architects make decisions in realizing their work. Simplicity in communication matters, as related professionals require information, clients want to know what they’re paying for, and various publics are curious about what architects do. Lately, simplicity is a conceptual survival tactic: A sharable, legible understanding of a piece of architecture, even as image, is needed if it is to endure in our fast-paced, media-soaked environment. PLAT suspects that this conciseness leaves work open for continued engagement, and that simplicity is not the opposite of complexity, but instead exists as its complement: Complexity is built out of simplicities, and vice versa.
On the other hand, simplicity is not what it pretends to be. In architecture, it takes a lot of effort for work to “appear” attractively simple, leading to opaque expressions that seem elementary but in reality are anything but. Further, too much simplicity flattens nuance. In prizing this quality, everything might become a one-liner, a diagram, a headline, an image, an advertisement, a talking point, a tweet—a digestible morsel of content. Architects are synthesizing generalists existing among and between disciplines, a self-definition that positions us as discerning decision makers who navigate complicated situations and processes. There is even real conflict between architecture’s historic triad of values: Firmitas, utilitas, venustas—pick two these days. In its elegant way, simplicity under capitalism quiets conflict and masks violence. Finally, to be simple is to be basic, to prefer the ease of a factoid to the difficulty of wisdom, or even tidy falsehoods to inconvenient truths. Simplicity lies.
To be dumb about it, simplicity isn’t simple. PLAT 8.0 asks: How can contemporary understandings of simplicity further architectures that prize directness without sacrificing subtlety? How is simplicity an ethical concern as well as an aesthetic one? Is there a difference? PLAT wants to hear your complex thoughts on this topic. We are interested in stories of simplicity in practice, present, past, or future; transparency, political and operational; austerity; useful value engineering; humor as a critical tool; the instructional directness of failure; emotions, generally; minimalism; issues of details and assembly, straightforward or otherwise; the fashion precedent of normcore; architectural lifestyles; boring architecture; and much, much more.
Send PLAT your essays, projects, case studies, interviews, oral histories, fictions, drawings, anecdotes, jokes, memes, etc. We welcome submissions from non-architects thinking seriously about architecture. Abstracts of approximately 250 words and images are due December 15, 2018. Complete pieces are welcome, though they should be delivered with an accompanying abstract. For initial submissions, image and video files should be reduced in size to accommodate easy transfer. Materials can be attached or linked. Email submissions and questions to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you. Follow the work at platjournal.com and @platjournal. | https://www.platjournal.com/submissions/ |
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Rustic
Rustic interiors derive their warmth and heart from the sense of history and simplicity they evoke.
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Scandinavian
Simplicity, minimalism and functionality.
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Resort
Homes inspired by different travel destinations.
Cool
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Contemporary
encompass many different styles that are current or en vogue
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Minimalist
Simple, peaceful and orderly. Less is more.
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Industrial
Baring it all takes courage, and modern industrial interior design is about exposing all that lies beneath to achieve raw, edgy style. | http://www.dplanner.com.sg/themes/ |
Whether you’re in the know or have no clue as to what makes design movements like traditional interior design ideas differ from transitional décor, we tasked ourselves to devise the ultimate breakdown of interior design styles.
From Hollywood Regency to everyday coastal glamor, we suggest you bookmark this interior design guide for reference when looking for décor inspiration for your home or next project.
MINIMALIST
One of the most thoroughly modern interior design styles to consider, people often tend to confuse minimalism with a stark coldness and uncomfortable severity – which is hardly the case at all. In fact, there’s even a warmer take on minimal interior design (warm minimalism) that’s full of no-fuss, clean elegance.
Think simplicity, refinement, and a deft hand at sumptuous comfort and functionality. The key here is to keep rooms spare and well-edited with printless fabrications and décor extras that must serve a dual purpose.
When thinking minimal interior design style trends, think of a modern art gallery or museum as a reference with their pulled together approach to filling a space with the barest of essentials that still feature a lively sense of drama either organic or abstract. | https://www.urfeed.online/20-interior-design-styles-that-you-never-know-about/ |
By Bill Ohs – March 12, 2012 –
In the last Journal Entry, I explained that complexity may mask the beauty and refinement of a kitchen feature or elevation. Meaning that the character of the kitchen actually may be made more appealing to the eye because of restraint and purity and the paring down of detail.
Minimalism, at least as originally postulated, emphasizes a hard-edged purity which seems to me too conspicuously austere and denies normal expression of personality. Purist minimalists restrict cabinet colors to whites and shades of grey or specify wood tones from blonds to neutrals. They also widely incorporate metallic surface finishes, especially stainless steel. In this scheme, color is reasoned to be a distraction. The goal seems to be a sort of industrial cleanliness.
(Interestingly, Asian Zen interiors are also decidedly spare, even austere, but make use of bold and conspicuous splashes of color which are intended to captivate the viewer by inducing an off-kilter feeling of surprise and pleasure.)
In “tailored simplicity” the kitchen user’s personality is calmly revealed as an enviable sophistication. One sees the kitchen and is quietly attracted and enchanted by its simplicity and gracious elegance.
Achieving such a result is not effortless and generally requires a balance intention of talent and practice. | http://wmohsshowrooms.com/1653/tailored-simplicity-vs-minimalism/ |
The Art Gallery of NSW has acquired Plate, Pole, Prop 1969-83, a classic 1960s sculpture by the celebrated Minimalist artist Richard Serra (born 1939 USA). This is one of only two works by Serra in Australia. The Prop, Serra’s other work in Australia, is in the National Gallery of Australia.
The principle behind Minimalism was to make art works that rely entirely on the presence of their intrinsic material quality. There is no story and any expression is generated by the viewer engaging with this presence.
Plate, Pole, Prop consists of a massive steel plate propped against the gallery wall by a steel pole. While the work is remarkable for its simplicity, its place in the Minimalist movement is critical to an understanding of the art that has come after it. The complexity of such a work comes with the realisation that the wall and the floor are integral parts of this work, dramatically registering the verticality of the wall and the horizontal plane of the floor. These two vectors define the space we occupy not just in a room but in the world where the horizontal becomes the horizon.
The work emphasises how gravity points vertically downwards to the horizontal of the floor. This opposition is as much a part of the work as the steel itself. The balancing act of this great mass alerts us to the force of gravity and heightens our bodily sensation in the space before it. The viewer is in this way drawn into the completion of the art work the mass of which has to be felt to be understood.
“Our feelings when we stand near a Serra can be very strong,” said Tony Bond, assistant director, curatorial, Art Gallery of New South Wales. “Some critics have called them aggressive objects. However this object is no more aggressive than a leaning boulder or a cliff edge. It is what the observer makes of it that might be construed as aggressive or fearful.”
“If there was one glaring omission in our international contemporary collection, it was the lack of a great Richard Serra work. This is an important work from the classic period of Minimalism and will complement the other significant international works, including works by Sol Le Witt, Donald Judd, Frank Stella and Carl Andre. This is a convincing demonstration of the palpable power of simplicity,” said Edmund Capon, director, Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The Gallery collection of International Contemporary art was begun with funds from the Mervyn Horton Bequest in 1984. This Richard Serra acquisition was made possible through The Art Gallery NSW Foundation and the Ruth Komon Bequest, in memory of Rudy Komon. | https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media-office/agnsw-acquires-richard-serra-sculpture/ |
Returning to simplicity is a popular concept that people take on when life begins to feel too cluttered with artificialities and meaningless muddle or when outside forces, such as hard economic times, or a catastrophic event, pressure us to reevaluate our own priorities and happiness. Music has long followed a pattern of returning to simplicity after periods of increased complexity. Composers, artists and performers purge, renew and re-grow, which inevitably results in increased complexity, which eventually begins the entire cycle again. Often, this cycle is a natural progression that comes with the exhaustion of ideas, but sometimes, the natural flow of things is interrupted purposely by artists who feel disconnected; music is no longer reflecting the way of the world from their perspective, or no longer gives them meaning. This course studies six periods in music when artists dramatically shifted their style and sought out simplicity. We begin with the emergence of opera in 1600, then move through Russian nationalism in the late 19th century, minimalism in the late 1960s, punk in the 1970s, jazz in the 80s and hip hop in the 2000s. We explore whether some of these massive shifts in the history of music can be mirrored to our own need to de-clutter, whether the results were sustainable and influential, and if the audience was somehow elevated by the philosophy behind the changes. This is the search for simplicity in music. | https://courses.newschool.edu/courses/NMUS3424/ |
Returning to simplicity is a popular concept that people take on when life begins to feel too cluttered with artificialities and meaningless muddle or when outside forces, such as hard economic times, or a catastrophic event, pressure us to reevaluate our own priorities and happiness. Music has long followed a pattern of returning to simplicity after periods of increased complexity. Composers, artists and performers purge, renew and re-grow, which inevitably results in increased complexity, which eventually begins the entire cycle again. Often, this cycle is a natural progression that comes with the exhaustion of ideas, but sometimes, the natural flow of things is interrupted purposely by artists who feel disconnected; music is no longer reflecting the way of the world from their perspective, or no longer gives them meaning. This course studies six periods in music when artists dramatically shifted their style and sought out simplicity. We begin with the emergence of opera in 1600, then move through Russian nationalism in the late 19th century, minimalism in the late 1960s, punk in the 1970s, jazz in the 80s and hip hop in the 2000s. We explore whether some of these massive shifts in the history of music can be mirrored to our own need to de-clutter, whether the results were sustainable and influential, and if the audience was somehow elevated by the philosophy behind the changes. This is the search for simplicity in music. | https://courses.newschool.edu/courses/NMUS3424 |
With views right over the beautiful Patrick’s Cathedral and it’s surrounding trees, the exterior vista was used to inform the palette of this city centre apartment. We opened up the separate kitchen and living room to create a large open plan space, and knocked two bedrooms into one to make a large master suite with walk in wardrobe. Asian influences abound throughout the apartment to remind the client of her family. The custom bar is a stand out piece of keepsake furniture in the home, it’s ornateness balanced by the simplicity of the fixtures and fittings in the same room. Dreamy, calm and texture-rich was the brief, and this is evident across the bespoke cabinetry, upholstery and specially sourced tiling. | https://inspace.ie/portfolio/cathedral-view-apartment/ |
Modern versus Contemporary Real Estate in Washington DC
Posted by Andre M Perez on Friday, March 14th, 2014 at 12:03pm.
There’s an ongoing debate when it comes to architectural styles—what’s the difference between modern and contemporary homes? Perhaps the best explanation is that to some extent, it’s a moot point. For the average person browsing real estate listings, as well as those who write the descriptions, the two terms can be synonymous. After all, how many times have you seen them used together, to describe a home?
There are distinctions, however. First, let’s explore the term “modern” home. Modern can mean anything that is current, new or forward-thinking, to some people. In a design sense, however, it comes from the modernist movement which emerged in the early 20th century as a reaction to emerging technology. Modernism was a philosophical movement that touched art, design, literature and lifestyle, with different (and often conflicting) facets and interpretations.
When it comes to modern architecture, the first and most obvious design influence was the tendency to react against earlier, more lavish or complex elements, such as Victorian or Edwardian styles. In other words, modern architecture embraced simplicity and minimalism—from low, flat structures with sharp, straight lines, to curvilinear concepts that suggested motion. In some instances (especially with commercial structures), modern design also made use of the emerging availability of materials such as glass and metal.
There were many styles associated with modernism during this period, including futurism, expressionism and the Arts and Crafts movement which flourished in Europe between 1860 and 1910. It wouldn’t be long before modernism and Arts and Crafts were finding a commonality, fusing into the Prairie School design movement, a distinctly American style led by Frank Lloyd Wright. These homes often featured jutting shelf shapes and sharp angles, but also, at times, incorporated sweeping curves.
Contemporary means “occurring at the same time”, or something that is thought to be in the present. In an architectural sense, it is often associated with the post-World War II era. The melding of contemporary and modern definitions in home styles, has much to do with the fact that modernism never caught on in a mass-market way but instead, became one more element that could be integrated into others. The post war era brought a yearning for solid values and basic designs. In that way, it was similar to the earlier modernist movement that rejected lavish styles.
Contemporary architecture from the 1950’s to the early 1970’s is often associated with simple shapes, low rooflines, large glass windows and sometimes, jutting sections. In other words, an extension of the modernist movement that led to the Prairie School design. A perfect example of contemporary design in Washington Metro is the Hollin Hills neighborhood in Alexandria—a 32-acre housing development constructed over roughly two decades, beginning in 1949. The 450 homes in Hollin Hills are integrated into woodsy settings, and are typified by flat roofs, jutting angles and large window walls.
As for newer homes, the terms modern and contemporary are often combined—describing often pricy homes that embody an innate sense of cool and style, borrowing from the past and adding new, fresh twists. Among the noted names in new contemporary DC-area architecture, are Robert Gurney, David Jameson, Barnes Vanze and Mark McInturff.
To sum up—what is the difference between modern and contemporary architecture? Again, it’s a matter of interpretation but for the most part, they are two complimentary movements that have fused over time and are now, often used synonymously. | http://www.districtpartners.com/blog/modern-versus-contemporary-real-estate-in-washington-dc.html |
As people look at photos on smaller and smaller screens, there has been a growing trend towards taking photos that are more and more minimalist. Especially on platforms like Instagram, minimalism is exploding; it’s everywhere, and it has been for a while now. There are some pros and cons of minimalism, and I have mixed feelings about how common this trend has become, but there’s no denying its popularity. In this article, I’ll cover some of the main reasons you’d want to capture minimalist photos, along with some tips for using this style of photography as effectively as possible.
One of my first recommendations for a photographer who’s learning composition is to hone in on your message.
What do you want the photo to say? Which emotions or thoughts should your viewers have while looking at the photo? And, most importantly, how can you simplify that message and communicate it as effectively as possible?
For a lot of photographers, minimalism is the answer — and it’s not a bad answer at that. If your goal is to depict a pristine sand dune, without any footprints or other distractions, a photo that shows the arc of a single dune against a blue sky could make for a very striking image.
Minimalist photos often have a few characteristics in common with one another. First, their color palettes are not distracting; there are usually only one or two main colors drawing attention, or the photo may be monochromatic. They also tend to have large regions of “negative space” — empty areas in the photo where people’s eyes won’t naturally fall. Finally, the main subjects tend to be small, low in detail, and well-defined, with sharp transitions setting them off from the background.
When I take macro photos, minimalism tends to creep into the final frame, whether I want it to or not. That’s because a lot of these elements are present in the macro world — unified colors, significant negative space (due to the thin depth of field), and very well-defined subjects. Not every macro photo is minimalist, but it’s a good example of a field where this type of image is common.
Still, minimalism can happen in any genre of photography, so long as you’re able to find a lot of negative space. If you want to take minimalist photos, that’s the first thing I would look for — empty areas that you can use as a backdrop for your main subject. If your final photograph includes just one or two subjects against an unobtrusive background, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
People are using phones to find content far more than ever before, and a lot of photographers have changed their styles to suit the new medium.
When you’re looking at a small screen, minimalism works really well. The tiny area of phone screens means that there’s not much room for complex details and areas with a lot of interest; instead, a single subject against a monotone background will stand out much more easily.
On one hand, this is a bit sad, because it’s nothing like the experience of viewing a large print of a detailed landscape close-up. At the same time, people will always be changing, and it makes sense that photographers would adapt accordingly.
If an area of beautiful, complex features in a large print appears as a bunch of chaotic pixels on a two-inch screen, there’s a good argument against photographing beautiful, complex features — or, at least, against posting such photos onto social media. Personally, I do still post my normal, non-minimalist photos on sites like Facebook, but I do so knowing that people won’t get the full impact they otherwise might have.
Think about history’s greatest pieces of art. From Beethoven’s symphonies to Michelangelo’s frescos, almost all of humanity’s best-known works have tremendous levels of complexity.
I don’t mean to compare masterpieces like that to hobbyist photography, but there is an underlying theme: Minimalism only gets you so far. Sure, a minimalist photo may look good on Instagram, but its simplicity makes it difficult to convey much more than you see on the surface.
How many great photos can you remember off the top of your head? Are any of them minimalist? Sure, some amazing photos — say, “Afghan Girl” — are clear and straightforward, but I would shy away from calling them simplistic or minimalist. If they were, it would be very hard for them to have the same deep emotional impact.
I have seen some documentary photo series where one or two photos will be minimalist, and that’s almost always done to convey a single point as clearly as possible. But the sheer lack of information in a minimalist photo makes it difficult to show a more nuanced, intricate perspective on the world. In many cases, that puts a cap on how successful they can be.
With the high numbers of minimalist photos posted to apps like Instagram every day, it’s no wonder that this style of photography is starting to wear out a lot of people. If every other photo is a minimalist shot with the same composition, how can you expect anyone to see it as great, unique art?
Maybe this isn’t a fair point, though, since it’s not minimalism’s fault that it’s getting old — it’s the fact that so many photographers are using it all the time. In that sense, it’s like the Orton Effect; by itself, minimalism isn’t a problem, but when it’s so insanely popular, it’s easy to find it annoying.
If you’re trying to avoid too much minimalism, the easy fix is just to vary things up. Sure, take some simplified photos if they look good for a particular subject — but take normal photos, too. So long as you don’t go out of your way to make a photo as minimalist as possible, and you make room for complexity along the way, you’ll be good.
Even after all that, I actually like minimalism quite a bit. For certain subjects, it conveys the essence of the scene much better than any other style of photography. I’m certainly not going to avoid taking minimalist photos if I see a good one in the future.
It’s also useful if you’re just starting out in photography; minimalism can add a sense of deliberateness that your photos may not have had before, making you think more carefully about composition. In that sense, I recommend that most photographers practice with it and take some successful minimalist photos while they’re starting out. If you want to get good at complex subjects, it helps to master the basics.
At the same time, most of the best photos I’ve seen have a lot of layers to them, providing a greater sense of interest. Overly simplistic photos are like the tune “Happy Birthday” — catchy, often popular, but not of the same emotional depth as a well-written symphony.
As a whole, it can be nice to have minimalism in your toolbox, so long as you don’t overdo it. Minimalism doesn’t work well if you have a lot of information to convey, but it’s great if you’re trying to express a single message as clearly as possible.
Hopefully, the tips in this article gave you a good sense of when minimalism works well and when it doesn’t. What are your thoughts on the matter? If you have any questions or points to make, feel free to let us know in the comments.
Minimalism is all about negative space, and negative space is one of the most crucial tools you have at your disposal to create successful compositions. Unfortunately, a huge number of photographers — including many who are very, very talented — still struggle to compose their photos well. The issue is that it can be a very vague topic, and even the most concrete attempts to explain it (i.e., the rule of thirds, leading lines), don’t go nearly far enough. There’s no perfect answer here, but you can dive much deeper into this subject than typical articles and books tend to go. Specifically, if this happens to be a topic that interests you, I strongly recommend our eBook, “Creative Landscape Photography: Light, Vision, and Composition.” To be frank, eBooks in general don’t have a very good reputation. But my hope is that you’ll give this one a chance and see what it has to offer, since all the information in it is designed specifically to be as accurate and tangible as possible, in a field where accurate and tangible tips can be remarkably difficult to find.
I see pictures like that as art.
I don’t the Photo the Cloud Pattern as Boring. I’ve been driving along sometimes a se a combination of deep blue sky and interestin look Cloud Bank. Unfortunately I didn’t have my Camera and in order to get the perfect Picture would have stop in my Tracks an take the shot in the middle of the highway which isn’t realistic unless your considering a death wish. Which don’t appeal to me.
Really an excellent shot. Stieglitz did some great “art” clouds but the tree makes your shot. Lot of drama between it and the sky.
I don’t think minimalism is any more susceptible to bad photography than anything else. In fact to do it correctly is more of a challenge. It suffers a bit from imitation and replication. But when done right, you can get lost in it as it spins your mind and emotions.
There is an alternative to extreme minimalism for small screens, and that is to capture photographs that offer differing levels of appeal depending on the size of screen.
Recently I took closeup portrait photographs of my 2 month old nephew using 85mm on a crop body, and on a smartphone you get a mesmerizing look at his facial expression. Stunning. On a computer screen, on the other hand, you can tell that the eyes are huge, blisteringly sharp and incredibly beautiful. On the computer screen it’s about the expression AND the eyes, perhaps even more the eyes.
Drunk hadn’t been my thought at the time but that fits.
Best if you write it out first, do your editing/correcting etc, then copy paste etc.
with arthritis developing in my fingers I’m finding pre edits essential because sometimes I get my grammar etc so wrong that the next day I can’t understand myself – or at least what I was thinking!
I understood the essence of your comment with no difficulty at all; and I didn’t think for one moment that an intoxicated person had written it.
Perhaps we should learn to celebrate our errors and our quirks because, without them, it would be impossible for us to be different from others; therefore totally impossible for us to create our unique photography and our other forms of art!
I’m just glad to hear that you weren’t driving drunk in the clouds.
‘ Been lying in a patch of medium high green grass, with the sounds of katytids going on and off around me. For some reason I put headphones on and listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. No matter how much I tried to catch the harmony of the really well played violins, they sounded like noise compared to the insects. Maybe I’ve spent too much time in the wilderness but I’m reminded of the essence of minimalism here.. Thank you for the post Spencer.
Spencer, very interesting and thought-provoking article, as always.
So yes, I guess minimalism is trendy these days.
Good point to prompt photographers to think about what and why they are taking a photo and the to consider the end display type; monitor, smart phone, pad of some sort & etc.
One point that needs to be emphasised however is that minimalism isn’t capturing small subjects or taking a photo when the subject takes up very little space on the LCD screen – remembering that when sent to a small screen, the subject inevitably becomes smaller too. The dragonfly is a fine example, the one of the dragonfly in flight or the falcon/eagle shot aren’t and would get lost when sent to a small device’s screen or monitor.
Minimalism is reducing the subjects’ claim over the frame much more than it being reduced in size. Your shot of the abstract is pretty close to perfect in my mind.
And thank you for making us think once again!
Minimalist Art, including photography is used to define the nature of the space surrounding the subject. A minimalist sculpture is often used to cause us to consider the quality of the space it occupies. In Photography, a frozen, ice covered tree, in a seemingly empty expanse, comments emotionally and physically on the vastness and remoteness of it’s location.
In a similar fashion, considering the small screen world we currently inhabit, minimalist images with very large areas of negative space, coupled with their tiny subject matter, subconsciously enlarge our sense of the screen size, causing us once again to consider the space it occupies, even if subliminally.
Thirdly, an examination of balance, I think needs to be brought into the discussion. Balance in my opinion is the single most neglected element of composition (a deeper discussion of that statement is better suited for another day). In the image of the jellyfish, the weight of the blue negative space would not be balanced but for the rays of light descending from the top right. This breaks the enormous swatch of blue (with regard to the yellow) and balance is achieved! Likewise in the image of the dragonfly, without the branch from the bottom right the image would be unbalanced and fall to the left. The branch not only adds balance, but context and thus story to the warm fading light.
In closing, I think that minimalism, like all styles of Art, can be utilized as successfully as any other provided “The Art Spirit” as Robert Henri would describe, is applied throughout.
Thank you, Duffy! And my apologies to you (and the other commenters) for not responding this past week. I’m back on the grid now, and should be for at least a little while.
I definitely agree with your three points. Balance is such a crucial element of composition, and you’re right that it is particularly visible in minimalist photos. That’s also one reason why I like seeing photographers learn minimalism before applying its principles to more complex subjects. You can’t play Beethoven until you can play Happy Birthday!
minimalism is best printed large so you can get lost in it. If fact much of photography is better large and in many cases looks better than the LCD.
Hi Spencer, very nice presentation. Thank you.
So, how do we handle this revolting development? I guess I need to print them and use the mail system! Seems now I look at my photos, show them to my wife, then turn off the iMac.
It seems to me that minimalist photos work for people when when they only have a moment with to capture the picture’s message. Someone walks by a minimalist piece and a glance is sufficient. People need more time with complex art. A case in point, the the floor I enter my apartment building and across from the elevators hangs a 1889 painting of a dutch village depicted from across a canal. This is a complex painting of brick dwellings, people at the edge of the canal working, boats with people rowing by, tall buildings and towers in the background. When I call of the elevator, I routinely walk four paces over to the painting and study it. The lighting, the detail, the people, the buildings require careful study to appreciate what the painter saw and shares. I’ve performed this ritual study for years and haven’t exhausted the content of the painting. Granted I look at it for about three or four minutes at a time and at extremely close range, after all the painting is about 20×24 inches. Back to my premise, complexity requires time to take all the elements in. So I think it unwise to hang a complex photo where people don’t or can’t stop to study it. Minimalist and, in a sense, impressionist photos work in that environment…as well as small screens as you point out.
I love it, good reminder that I shall go for images like this more often than I do….great job Spencer!
And what you call it when a photo is complete different as minimalist? Now that the trend give a name, but what is the name that go for the totally different style.
Why recapcha???? Did you know how hard they are on small cellphone screens, I hate them, that is the most annoying thing on web, is catcha was annoying enough, recapcha is suicidal.
Damn it already try twice already. And last one was like six set of photos.
Minimalist is more a trend bcuz of product sell, sell photos sell products, sell this sell that. | https://photographylife.com/minimalism-in-photography-the-good-and-bad |
I’ve logged more experience than most with simplicity and the complexity you discover inside simplicity, minimalism and asocial behavior, endurance and landscape.
Here is the truth: I think some deep wisdom inside me (a) sensed the stress, (b) was terrified for me, and (c) gave me something new and hard to focus on in order to prevent me from lapsing into a despair coma — and also to keep me from having a jelly jar of wine in my hand.
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Lawrence Shainberg
Lawrence Shainberg says, “The only durable freedom from pain lies in its absolute acceptance” [“Two Mirrors Facing Each Other,” Dog-Eared Page, August 2018]. This quotation is now written in my journal, on a sticky note on my bathroom mirror, and on a card next to a photograph of my mother, whose death last year I have definitely not accepted. I’m grateful to Shainberg for this important piece of wisdom.
Perhaps the worst part of pain is our fight against it: “I don’t want to have these aches and pains! I don’t want to deal with my past mistakes! I don’t want to live the rest of my life without my mother!”
Maybe instead we need to look at pain as a condition of our existence. | https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/512/two-mirrors-facing-each-other |
Our host this week, Sophie Alves of photographia asks us to consider the subject of Minimalism/Maximalism and suggests we could think of it as Simplicity/Complexity or Sparce/Full. I admit that I love some of the understated/toned down/spare images I have photographed over the years. At the same time, I prize the bright/complex/full photos in my archives.
Light/hue
Above, minimal light and color as the sun sets on a foggy afternoon create a sense of quiet peace. Below, a similar view after sunset, washed in color and dappled light is infused with mystery.
Quantity
Above, a single songbird calling from atop a post on a misty day, creates a sense of solitude. Below, migrating shorebirds flock together filling the beach and sky. All four images presented so far have not been enhanced or filtered. These are the colors the camera caught when I took the photos. | https://lindylecoq.com/2022/06/10/lens-artists-photo-challenge-202-minimalism-maximalism/ |
Not many houses in Mykonos are blessed with unobstructed views of the sun setting over the sacred island of Delos in the Aegean Sea, so when Athens-based architecture practice K-Studio were commissioned to design a holiday home for a young couple in such a serendipitous location, they embraced the opportunity by building a house where “form follows emotion rather than function”. Inspired by the humble complexity of the Cycladic vernacular, the 6-bedroom house unfolds around an outdoors living area that can be used throughout the day in the true spirit of laid-back summer living. At the same time, the use of traditional materials such as lime-wash, stone and wood in combination with an aesthetic of Scandinavian minimalism evokes the island’s heritage through a modern lens.
Hidden entirely from the road, the house was designed to have a minimal impact on the natural landscape enabled through two small whitewashed volumes connected by a chestnut pergola sitting atop a podium built into the hillside with stones dug from the site. This configuration separates the private quarters on the lower level with the communal areas on top, and ensures that both zones have unobstructed views towards the sea. Shaded by the large pergola, the outdoors living area at the heart of the house is flanked by the living room and kitchen volumes whose large openings create a seamless transition between inside and outside. A few steps away, the pool beckons, while the landscaped gardens with the sea looming beyond stretch out below.
The juxtaposition between the rugged texture of the hand-built stone walls, the smooth, round-edged whitewashed volumes and the bamboo-lined, chestnut pergola structure echo the surrounding natural landscape while imbuing the house with a vernacular authenticity without however impinging on its contemporary vibe. The use of natural materials is carried on in the interior, where a minimalist aesthetic of clean lines, frameless doors and trim less details is combined with a subdued palette of lighter and darker timber finishes. While the result could be described as Scandinavian design meets Cycladic simplicity, more than anything else, and irrespective of stylistic references, the unassuming gracefulness of the house’s architecture “encourages mindful connection with family, friends and the freedom to exist peacefully in nature”. | https://www.yatzer.com/villa-mandra-k-studio |
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Abstract: Debugging parallel programs can be a challenging task, especially for the beginners. While parallel debuggers like DDT and TotalView can be extremely useful in tracking down the program statements that are connected to the bugs, often the onus is on the programmers to reason about the logic of the program statements in order to fix the bugs in them. These debuggers may neither be able to precisely indicate the logical errors in the parallel programs nor they may provide information on fixing those errors. Therefore, there is a need for developing tools and educational content on teaching the pitfalls in parallel programming and writing correct code. Such content can help in guiding the beginners in avoiding commonly observed logical errors and in verifying the correctness of their parallel programs. In this paper, we 1) enumerate some of the logical errors that we have seen in the parallel programs that were written by the beginners working with us, and 2) discuss the ways to fix those errors. The documentation on these logical errors can contribute in enhancing the productivity of the beginners, and can potentially help them in their debugging efforts. We have added the code samples containing the logical errors and their solutions in a Github repository so that the others in the community can reproduce the errors on their systems and learn from them. The content presented in this paper may also be useful for those developing high-level tools for detecting and removing logical errors in parallel programs. | https://sc18.supercomputing.org/proceedings/workshops/workshop_pages/ws_eduhpcp112.html |
Over the years, the software industry has undergone many paradigm shifts that sprouted new technologies. A move to distributed architectures like microservices and serverless brought us products like Docker, Kubernetes, AWS Lambda, and Azure Functions. Performance and error monitoring tools evolved to APMs, which have now become full-blown observability platforms. Today we are in the midst of a revolution in debugging live systems.
Debugging in development is pretty much the same as when I was a developer over 20 years ago. Reproduce the error, place breakpoints in your code, and hit F5, F10, and F11 (or some other key combination) to start the debugger and step through your code to understand what went wrong. Not so for production.
Debugging in production has always been vastly different. For one, developers don’t usually have access to their production environments, so they have to try and reproduce errors in their development IDEs, a near-impossible feat in the age of distributed cloud computing. Even if developers were given access to production, they wouldn’t be able to put breakpoints in the code to examine the application state.
All that is changing.
Over the last few years, a new industry segment has emerged that focuses on changing how we debug live applications in production environments to make the process as straightforward as in development. Several pioneering companies have entered this new field aiming to accelerate the resolution of errors in production (which still do and always will occur) without incurring any downgrade to service. As a new field, the industry hasn’t yet settled on a name, so you may have heard about:
- Continuous debugging
- Live debugging
- Modern debugging
- Remote debugging
- Code-level observability
- Autonomous debugging
- Software understandability
Earlier this month, Adam LaGreca from 10K Media hosted a roundtable with some leading players in this emerging field:
Senior Solutions Architect
Co-founder and CTO
CEO
Co-founder and CEO
Business Unit Owner
The rest of this article summarizes the sentiments of these trailblazers in the art of debugging across the SDLC in their responses to Adam’s questions. For the complete recording, scroll down to the end of the article.
Why has live debugging in production become so difficult?
Software has changed in all respects. How it’s developed, how it’s deployed, and even in our expectations from software developers. Monoliths have been replaced by microservices and serverless. Waterfall has been replaced by agile, which then sprouted DevOps. The whole infrastructure is different. A LEMP stack won’t cut it anymore. You now have multiple instances of your software running in different locations, managed by a load balancer at an insane scale.
While we keep doing bigger and greater things with these new software architectures, one of the consequences of this increasing complexity is that it’s extremely difficult for a programmer to understand where in the chain of causality things break down and why. The typical debugging paradigm is several cycles of adding more logs, going through a lengthy CI/CD cycle, and shipping out a patch for debugging.
But developers don’t encounter these issues only in production. Today’s pre-production environments are also so complex that developers cannot recreate them on their local machines. Between large Kubernetes clusters, external dependencies, 3rd party libraries, and APIs, replicating an environment to reproduce a bug is very cumbersome, and fixing bugs is a long and frustrating process for engineers.
And yet, today, we live in an environment of high expectations. Customers demand performance and new functionality delivered frequently; applications must run smoothly 24/7, and maintenance downtime is not acceptable. A slip on any of these parameters immediately affects the business. These high demands place a heavy burden on developers’ shoulders. But when it comes to debugging, the tooling has not kept pace and doesn’t address all these new challenges that developers face. There’s a faulty feedback loop that doesn’t provide developers with enough information.
To compound the problems developers face, software is much more diverse than it was 10 – 15 years ago. Teams choose the best language and platform to develop any particular service, so developers need a much broader base of knowledge and capabilities than before.
As time goes by, applications are not properly maintained. Technical debt creeps in, and teams change until finally, nobody really understands how the application works. Enterprises are hesitant, even scared, to touch legacy code, and it can be daunting to chase down bugs.
The challenges of debugging “the old way”
The first challenge a developer faces when fixing a bug is trying to reproduce it. Sometimes, even the most detailed QA reports don’t provide enough data, and QA engineers find themselves arm-wrestling with developers over the proverbial “It works on my machine.” This kind of development/QA friction, even for pre-production environments, wastes valuable development resources and ultimately results in lower quality code. It’s even worse for bugs in production.
The increased complexity of modern production environments makes it nearly impossible to reproduce production issues in a developer’s local environment. Cloud computing poses many obstacles, and between the growing trend to use feature flags and specialized configuration for different customer environments, it’s even not feasible to recreate the environment where a production error occurred.
The most common production debugging tool in current use is static logging. There’s this built-in, traditional reliance on logs. While logs can provide first-responders with many insights, they’re not a productive tool for fixing production errors. As customer demands push companies to ship versions to production at an ever-increasing pace, there’s the corresponding demand for developer velocity to increase. But to fix bugs quickly, developers need feedback. In development, they get initial feedback from their compilers, then from static code analysis tools, then from their CI/CD pipeline. But when it comes to debugging in production with static logs, the feedback becomes prohibitively painful. Developers never have the logs they need in place and have to go through multiple cycles of log-only builds to get it.
Modern debugging tames logs
Static logging has been commoditized by companies who are making it cheaper, faster, and more robust. But this mindset of “log everything and analyze later” incentivizes engineers to write reams of logs without investing enough thought into what they’re logging. The result is very noisy output, most of which is never viewed or analyzed anyway. When a problem arises, engineers immediately race to their logging tools but are swamped by the over-abundance of logs that don’t provide the right data.
Logging needs to be more ergonomic for developers. The tools should feel familiar like the “GitHubs” of the world, so developers feel comfortable with them. Developers need easy access to the information they need without having to endlessly scroll through a browser window.
Modern debugging tools take a different approach and treat logs dynamically. They empower developers to add logs to live code, when and where they need them, simply and securely. This enables them to capture the data they need without the noise of reams of useless static logs. These tools close the gap between errors in production and the code that caused them providing developers with the data they need to fix those errors.
The magic behind dynamic logging
The magic behind modern debugging tools can be broadly categorized as dynamic instrumentation. This is a technology borrowed from the cybersecurity space that changes applications at runtime. By manipulating byte code, modern debugging tools change live code to output logs anywhere in the application that the developer wants to inspect. Essentially, at the click of a button, developers can get the data they need without adding code, without stopping the application or affecting its performance, and without needing anyone else in the organization.
The front end of these tools is as important as the back end. They use UX patterns and paradigms that developers are familiar with, either integrating directly with popular IDEs or presenting themselves in an IDE-like user interface. The act of adding a dynamic log entry is virtually identical to adding a breakpoint, which developers are so familiar and comfortable with. Indeed, the different terms used to name this feature include non-breaking breakpoints, tracepoints, snapshots, data points, and more.
Modern debugging, observability, and understandability
The concept of observability has been widely embraced, with several companies becoming well-entrenched in the industry. The premise of modern debugging tools is also around observability, but at the code level. Traditional observability tools will show you the state of your machines and maybe even your applications. They may identify a spike or a crash and pinpoint it to a server, cluster, or application instance. But these parameters don’t provide enough data to debug production issues.
You could think of it as the contextual data an engineer wants to see in a JIRA ticket in order to make decisions and solve problems based on line-by-line data such as local variables, method parameters and return values, and stack traces. This data helps the engineer understand exactly what caused that spike or crash, get to the root cause, and fix it quickly.
The difference between traditional observability and code-level observability mirrors the difference between how IT/Ops handle incidents compared to developers. IT/Ops and SREs may be the first responders to alerts on traditional observability platforms, but when they can’t fix an issue and conclude the problem is deeper than a cluster or a machine, there’s the proverbial “throwing over the wall.” However, developers can’t act on those logs, metrics, and traces that the SREs are throwing at them. Developers need debuggers so they can delve deeper. So, there’s this chasm between IT/Ops and developers. As the integration between traditional observability and code-level observability improves, this chasm will be bridged, and collaboration between the teams will improve. But the collaboration extends beyond Dev and Ops. There’s also Dev/QA and even Dev/Dev collaboration. As the different teams intensify their collaborative efforts, development organizations will become more powerful because developers don’t work alone. There’s this fallacy that debugging is a solitary effort; a developer sitting in front of a bright screen in a dark room trying to figure out complex interactions between the moving parts of an application. In reality, putting IT/Ops, Dev, and QA in the same context will help the developers assemble the different pieces of data to solve the issues they’re debugging.
Hurdles to overcome
In spite of the clear benefits this technology brings to software, companies in this space encounter a lot of resistance.
Old-school mindset
In general, people resist change, and that’s no different when it comes to introducing new technology to software organizations. Developers are so used to having to reproduce errors in their local environments and then adding logs to try and understand what caused them. It’s the first course of action when tackling production issues. Even if agents do get installed in production environments, developers have this knee-jerk reaction of,” We don’t have access to production.” However, as the complexities of the cloud make this approach less and less feasible, awareness of the alternatives will grow, and adoption will increase.
Integration with observability platforms
Observability platforms were in a similar situation about ten years ago, but with widespread adoption, they have become the first line of defense for production issues. Modern debugging tools aren’t trying to replace observability platforms (and anyway, no enterprise is going to abandon observability). These are complementary technologies, and modern debuggers will have to play nicely with observability platforms. There are different ways to make these two classes of tools work together. Some approaches focus on keeping the products separate, communicating via APIs; others go for full-fledged integrations. Either way, working together with observability platforms with a smooth and intuitive workflow is a must.
Maturity and security
As an emerging category, companies are very concerned with both the maturity and security of modern debugging tools. They all require installing agents in the customer’s production environment, and fundamentally they are modifying the customer’s code.
The pioneers in this market are well aware of and understand the security concerns, so they build security into their products as a primary feature from the ground up. Modern debuggers offer highly configurable redaction capabilities for personal data. They store and transfer data in compliance with the strictest security requirements, offer fine-grained access control, and audit access to sensitive data.
Resistance is futile
The need is there. The technology is evolving. Resistance is futile. | https://oz-code.com/knowledge-base/pd-resources/pd-whitepapers/where-is-live-debugging-going-in-2021-and-beyond |
The "Debugging Failure" project revolves around the design, implementation, and evaluation of a computer science education workshop aimed at fostering a culture of productive failure practices among elementary and middle school students. In order to learn how students can make the most of productive failure, we are studying how a community of teachers, students, software developers, and researchers understands and shapes its practices around telling stories, assigning fault, and fostering agency during the common experience of encountering bugs in computer code. Our team is implementing cycles of design-based research around four elements of the coding workshop: setting new norms around encountering, interrogating, and practicing expert debugging practices; designing arts-based inquiries into failure and success; leading instructor education workgroups focused on noticing the structure of failure stories and planning discourse-based responses; and building coding software that gives students metadata on their struggles and provides authentic debugging resources. Our data sources stretch across students' ways of participating in coding, their reflections on their coding experiences, and the artifacts they produce along the way. Through micro longitudinal case studies, content analyses, and ethnomethodological conversation analyses, we are making progress understanding how affect, storytelling, play, peer interactions, arts-based reflections, and instructor support carve out a generative debugging culture.
May 13, 2018 | 08:25 p.m.
Thanks for checking out the Debugging Failure project! We would love to hear your thoughts.
Some topics we might discuss: What ideas about failure cross your mind after watching this video? What parts of our approach to teaching debugging could you imagine using in your classroom, including outside of computer science? What questions do you have about our classroom designs and our research methods? Where you would like to see the project go?
I love the focus of this project on building a culture around learning from failure! Can you say more about the aspects of storytelling in your project? What kinds of stories do kids tell about their failures, and how have you seen those stories change as they participate in the program?
I can speak to the art making component of our work. In addition to coding classes, students participated in a visual arts class as part of the project. During the class we focused on how to tell stories of struggle and success through making art. Students made various pieces–--abstract watercolor paintings, narrative story panels, data visualization postcards, code poems (I can speak more about these individually if you are interested)–––and as they made these different kinds of art, they focused on different elements of stories. For example, the abstract watercolor paintings supported students in working through and attending through specific emotional experiences as they related to their coding experiences. Although I can't embed the physical artwork here, one student's explanation of her abstract work is particularly stirring: "This stem, I guess the blue one is fear, and that's why it's in a corner, it's in its own corner, even though it's slowly branching off, it still remains in this corner because it's like scared to integrate with this, and so the gold is creativity and wanting to do better ideas and the black is just attacking it so they're fighting for dominance. While this [gold] one blossoms beautiful ideas and concepts this [black one] is kind of like negative aspect, the limitations and everything. And so these two [gold and black] are kind of connected, but they are different in their own way. Fear is like not being able, fear is like the fear of, like so this [black] one is like the fear of failing and like no, this [blue one] is fear of failing and this [black one] is kind of just into action so it's when this actually branches into this and then that's when it attacks."
As a second example, in the code poem students printed out in-progress code they had been working with and wrote their own poems (often using hashtags) to attend to a very specific experience in debugging.
As we look to redesign for our work this summer we are interested in creating more authentic occasions for storytelling throughout the camp so students have more opportunities to share stories in small and larger groups throughout rather than just in researcher interviews at the end of camp.
...and it is worth noting that the narrative story panel project encouraged students to use a more traditional story structure (beginning, middle, end) to retell their failure experiences.
May 14, 2018 | 12:50 p.m.
As Maggie noted, the art projects have inspired rich, varied, and personal stories about failure that beg for more in-classroom, collaborative reflection. We are just scratching the surface of the potential of art to support creative reflection on failure and success.
Outside of the art space, students also generate micro stories about success and failure at an insatiable rate during coding. These are often brief, co-narrated accounts that nonetheless follow some story structure: a sequence of events that captures something about the internal lifeworld of the student during some problem. In terms of when these stories occur, we are noticing that students announce, dramatize, and propose causes of their bugs when they have the capacity to fix them and when the bug creates an occasion for a joke. The content of these stories varies widely. In their coding journals, students called out a sprawling number of debugging strategies: relying on themselves, asking peers, working with instructors, managing emotion, trying new things, working hard, experimenting, playing, focusing, observing code, comparing to working versions of code, stepping through code, using memory, experimenting with code, implementing creativity, thinking, finding the bug, preparing in advance, making mistakes, and having faith. During coding, students explain undesired outcomes and syntax errors by characterizing their own actions (“I’m doing something so dumb”) and epistemic states (“I don't even know what's wrong”) alongside attributions in multiple external spaces: the computer code (“So you only need like one function name”), the robot they are coding (“Toucan has failed me”), the computer (“The computer’s glitching”), and instructors (“[Your idea] doesn’t work, Bethany!”).
We still have some way to go with this analysis. What IS clear is that storytelling during coding is a somewhat constrained space because students are motivated if not a bit urgent to get the bug fixed -- the stories students tell about how they feel or what they think is causing the bug must fit into that context. The art space, on the other hand, provides a slower route, and one in which "wrong" art is even encouraged. Letting students surface stories in both spaces, listening to what they say, and deciding with students how to support them to approach failure in new ways is what we are after.
Thanks, Maggie and David, for sharing such interesting examples! I love the way kids are talking about their failures and working through their feelings about it. I think your point about the need for both storytelling during debugging and in slower spaces is important. I also find the discussion of their internal and external attributions very interesting. Inspiring work.
Thanks for sharing your work. I am struck by the focus on fixing bugs rather than on designing to avoiding certain bugs. Are they one and the same? To what extent do you integrate the two?
Also, I'd love to hear more about objects for modeling code. What can you tell me about that?
Finally, are you able to follow students from clubs into the classroom to see the impact of their experiences in debugging as it relates to other content / process learning?
Irene, thanks for your interest in the project!
We've thought a lot about your first question. Our current perspective is that students need a good balance between the two. We would consider our coding workshops successful if bugs get fixed; students over time avoid specific (recurring) bugs; students encounter new but tractable (for them) bugs; students, peers, and instructors use debugging strategies strategically; and students drive the debugging process. We see these as characteristics of a generative approach to debugging. I love your question because it points out implicit assumptions we have about the productivity of failure. Seeing a student encounter the same bug again and again over several days without capacity to fix it suggests that the student needs to learn new debugging strategies. On the flip side, seeing a student code smoothly over a few days without running into any bugs whatsoever suggests that the student might be ready for a new coding challenge. It is important for learning communities to empower students to avoid recurring problems in learning while also having capacity to handle new problems. We presented a poster on this topic at AERA 2018 that gives a bit more detail if you're interested.
For your second question, I would like to hand you off to Virginia Flood. Virginia is working on a detailed analysis of an instructor using a cube to help a student debug. I'll ping her offline and see if she can join the thread.
Your third question is something we are not currently pursuing in this grant, but we have seen some early indicators in interviews with students that some kind of transfer to other settings might be happening. This is all anecdotal so far, but we would absolutely like to pursue this topic down the road.
May 17, 2018 | 10:46 p.m.
Hi, Irene. Thanks for your question about how objects can be used to model code. Inspired by Charles Goodwin, one of our strands of analysis involves looking at the fine details of how instructors structure opportunities for students to interact with their code and its output in consequential ways in order to engage students in authentic debugging search strategies and tactics. One way we’ve found instructors do this is by actually taking up physical objects and/or using their bodies to act out the program output at each line and asking the student to evaluate each action as they go. By doing this, students and instructors are co-constructing a debugging strategy sometimes known as ‘hand simulation’ where a programmer reviews code line by line, imagining the expected and/or desired outcome for each statement and then comparing it with the actual outcome. While there’s been a lot of work on the benefits of having students act out their own code line by line with objects and/or their bodies, we know less about how instructors and students can co-construct this process together. We’re trying to better understand what it consists of when they do it together and what affordances it may have for students’ learning debugging. We'll be presenting some of this work this summer at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences in London.
Wonderful topic. I appreciate in particular how you are looking at creating a culture around debugging.
How are you looking at the emotional and cognitive and social aspects of debugging? That sounds like quite a challenge.
May 14, 2018 | 02:44 p.m.
Agree! On both the point of appreciation and the question about emotional, cognitive, and social aspects of debugging.
May 15, 2018 | 09:31 a.m.
I agree too, I think there is definitely a significant component of this that has to do with the emotional quality of students' experiences. I have done some research about students' emotional reactions to programming assignments and found that experiences like frustration can have a long range effect on students' outcomes in a programming class, and I think that a large part of the frustration that can surround doing programming projects comes into play when debugging. So that all being said I'm very interested to hear how you might think about the emotional character of student experiences debugging, or how you might be looking at it as a part of the process of developing debugging skills, particularly for a younger group of students.
May 15, 2018 | 12:53 p.m.
Thanks for your support and for your thoughtful comments. Alex, I'm wondering if you could share the reference to the paper you mentioned above. It sounds very relevant. Debbie and Eric, I'm also curious to hear how you have handled research around these three factors.
First some brief comments on the design of the workshops. One of the goals of our coding workshops is to give students the opportunity to make visible their emotional experiences with coding. We've had large, collaboratively constructed posters where students write emotion-laded hashtags to express how they feel about certain coding experiences. In bringing these affective experiences out of the shadows, we ended up with a representation of the emotional pulse of the classroom. Through their individual artwork, students also create abstract drawings of emotion and they create code poems that present rich detail about emotion. The artwork is then shared during a gallery walk. Moving forward, we are intentionally designing for even more occasions for small-group storytelling about emotion and for teachers to better understand what their students are experiencing emotionally when debugging as a way to inform their pedagogy. Maggie, would you have anything to add here?
Analyzing this data is of course a much taller order. Debbie, I appreciate your nudge to look at emotional, cognitive, and social aspects at once. I can share two analysis threads where we are (sort of) trying this. The first looks at peer-to-peer conversations about refactoring. When refactoring, students take code that works and modify it to make it even better (e.g., fewer lines of code, more elegant abstractions, more communicable code). We are finding that peer conversations surround the choice to refactor. Students have to grapple with whether it's even worth it to refactor, and they weigh the costs and benefits publicly. That's the social component. Because the refactoring experience is then already somewhat collaborative, when students do encounter a bug, they have reason to make their emotional reaction public. Students then comment on each other's affective responses to encountering these bugs. We haven't yet considered the cognitive element of refactoring.
Another context where we're looking at these factors is students' data visualizations about their coding experiences, inspired by the Dear Data project. Here, students pay attention to factors about their coding experience that they find interesting (e.g., what kinds of bugs they hit, how they react emotionally, who they talk with, etc.). The analysis of this data is tractable. We can look at what types of emotions students track, what kinds of debugging strategies they report using, and what kinds of social interactions they notice. Looking at the data challenged our assumptions about what students experienced when debugging. So, our plan for the coming summer is to use these data visualizations as the backbone project of our art space. Students can surface patterns about their experiences with coding, share them, tell stories about specific data points, and hopefully then decide with their peers and the teacher how they want to move their debugging practice forward.
May 15, 2018 | 06:32 p.m.
Nice summary, David, and great questions, Debbie, Eric, and Alex!
Related to the emotional dimension of experience, during instruction students were encouraged to tap back into experiences physically and think about/channel how that experience felt in their bodies while they were making their abstract works of art. This prompting inspired students to do things like "slap" a paintbrush on the watercolor paper or crumble the paper itself to show frustration. Additional examples include students using short, quick strokes with oil pastels to show generally positive/happy feelings or splattering the paint to show excitement. It was interesting to push students to explore how to represent emotions using different elements of art like color, line, and shape. This led students to ask questions like: What kinds of lines would best represent the emotions I'm trying to express? What mix of colors can most precisely represent a feeling? Why did I choose the elements I did? How did the materials guide the creation of my artwork? We have a lot more to learn about how this arts space translates to their coding practice, but so far we see tons of possibilities especially relevant to exploring the emotional dimension of experience.
May 18, 2018 | 11:44 a.m.
Lishinski, A., Yadav, A., & Enbody, R. (2017, August). Students' Emotional Reactions to Programming Projects in Introduction to Programming: Measurement Approach and Influence on Learning Outcomes. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (pp. 30-38). ACM.
May 15, 2018 | 08:56 a.m.
It'll be interesting to see how these workshops cultivate a debugging culture; i'd love to see whether it's a model that works well for the iterative aspect of doing science in general, i.e. that it's a looping, adaptive process (rather than linear) where "not getting it right" is actually part of doing science. How to build positivity behind "negative" results, and how to make those useful foundations to continue building on to understand a topic. Thanks for sharing!
Charles, that's an interesting angle. In some science contexts, the iteration cycles are quite long. It may take a few weeks, months, even years/decades to find out if a hypothesis has panned out. In contrast, bugs in code arise constantly, and though some particularly thorny ones can take days or weeks to debug, that's more of the exception. (I'm thinking of this recent study.) We picked coding as a context for this work in part because of these rapid iteration cycles, the numerous tools available for debugging, and the engrained expectation that bugs are coming whether you're a novice or expert. There are of course also tradeoffs -- it's an emotional grind to cope with that many bugs all the time, especially for a newcomer. I wonder if scientific model-based reasoning would provide a good balance between collecting actual data and iterating quickly with a simulation of that data. I also wonder how often students experience failed inquiries in science, and whether the message that it's okay for a science experiment to fail feels authentic to students.
Fascinating topic - really like the idea of creating a debugging culture in the classroom. In our work with preservice teachers and practicing teachers around computational thinking, the idea that students might get frustrated and give up often emerges as a concern for our participating teachers. Yet they clearly recognize the opportunity that this kind of thinking presents for developing students' persistence when facing challenges. Anything you can share about how what you're learning may inform teacher education and professional development (i.e., how can we support teachers in learning to support students as they work through frustrating/challenging problems)?
Emily, this is such a good question. We've wondered about this as well. Our latest thought is that we need a balance between actually getting problems fixed, fostering deep learning about the subject matter, and teaching students strategies for dealing independently with these problems. Different types of pedagogy are required for each, and each requires different time investments. What we suggest to our instructors is that they find a good balance each day for each student. That is, you can consider taking a quick route to fixing a bug, but then for the next bug, prioritize the student demonstrating that they understand the coding concept in play. Later, you may invite the student to try a new debugging strategy and return even later in the class period to see if they can implement that debugging strategy again. (The order of these could vary.) At the end of the day, instructors would know that student were not unreasonably stranded all class with bugs, they would know that the student learned something about a new coding concept, and they would also know that the student explored a new debugging strategy (and likely experienced a bit of the frustration you mention above). This strikes a balance between ensuring that students make some progress on their projects, learn foundational CS concepts, and start to develop a practice of handling bugs on their own.
May 18, 2018 | 12:32 p.m.
Hi, I loved the video and the approach you are taking! You're clearly presenting coding as a rich and exciting activity, and positioning debugging as something that is simply part of that richness. Honestly, I'm not sure computer science would be as meaningful if we didn't ever have to debug and overcome challenges to create what we want. I am also reminded of Bob Ross' approach to this problem - you probably know it well, but he once said "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents" (my son also has this on a t-shirt).
Anyway, I am wondering if you have looked into the literature on interest development? The title of your project mentions resilience, and I haven't seen discussion of it yet.... Renninger and Hidi (2016) write a lot about the power of promoting interest, and how as interest strengthens (from situational to individual), so does resilience, and willingness to persist through challenge and negative emotions. It's clear you have a strong theoretical framing already for the project (I paused the video on your conjecture maps - awesome!) - there may be helpful ideas in the interest literature in terms of promoting resilience and persistence. Thanks!
May 18, 2018 | 12:50 p.m.
Chad, thanks for your thoughtful comments. The Rob Ross quote is a gem -- I hadn't see it before. And how cool that your son wears this ethos on his sleeve!
Your nudge for us to think carefully about interest is a good one. The students at our workshops elect to spend their weekends/summers coding, but we also know they fall in love with some projects more than others, and I'm sure there's a gradation of interest even within the well-received projects. We'll have to look closely at Renninger & Hidi (2016) and think about how to incorporate this angle.
In order to free up more time for teacher-students conversations during debugging, and to make sure students' bugs are in their ZPDs, we've moved toward self-paced learning. Providing more room for students to pick projects that interest them could complement this approach. We're struck by the designs coming from Northwestern's FUSE project -- perhaps this could offer a template.
Thanks again for your comment. Also wanted to say that I appreciated your CIRCL talk about pedagogical agents a few months back.
May 18, 2018 | 01:12 p.m.
Hi, Chad! I just wanted to quickly drop a note that I love that Bob Ross quote and actually considered citing it for a paper we just submitted. In the paper we talk about how students interacted with art materials in ways that allow them to have a sort of conversation with the materials to figure out the direction they want to take the work. (David, this quote shows up in an earlier draft :)-). I took it out because I couldn't find an appropriate reference! Maybe I can just use the video you shared, Chad - thank you!
May 19, 2018 | 08:52 p.m.
I have to agree that learning debugging is so important for our students. I am happy that you emphasize the debugging capabilities at such an early stage of elementary and middle school. For students to participate in this project, I assume many of them already have good coding experience.
May 21, 2018 | 12:09 p.m.
Hi Michelle, thanks for your comment. We have a range of students in our weekend/summer coding workshops. About 1/3rd of the students have never coded, and the other 2/3rds have some experience with coding. We use differentiated curriculum that gives students the option to self-select their level of difficulty on any given day. We are also working on building a strong peer mentorship culture. But what you suggest is no doubt right -- teaching debugging to newcomers is very different from teaching debugging to students who have some coding experience under their belt.
May 21, 2018 | 05:33 p.m.
Thank you for the selection of debugging books at the beginning. I anticipate that showing these to my college computing students will help them accept debugging as inevitable and necessary. I admire the way you help students express their emotional travel as they wrestle with episodic success and failure. I think grappling with this as a group must reduce impostor syndrome and promote retention. You have provided me with additional tools to use in my class.
May 21, 2018 | 06:14 p.m.
Thanks so much, Diane. Glad to hear that some of our designs might translate to your classroom context. We all really admire how openly and proactively professional coders have approached debugging in their practice. I would be hard-pressed to find another discipline that has designed this many tools, online communities, and processes for dealing just with failure. | https://stemforall2018.videohall.com/presentations/1177 |
… well. For non-technical people, the easiest to understand job description – as in ‚imagine’ what that might be – is the front-end developer.
Apparently this is one of the most sought for job during the past couple of months, as per our CV applications.
Is it fancy?
It is.
Because when you visit a website, the design elements you see were created by a front-end developer.
How gifted must one be to be able to create amazing websites? (not including the templates in this ‘owe-rhetoric question, though).
What technical knowledge must one have to transform information into logical and well-designed and structured websites?
Everything you see on a website – like buttons, links, animations and more -, were created by a front end web developer. Front end developers are in charge of the look and feel of the website. It is the front end developer’s job to take the vision and design concept from the client and implement it through code.
Front-end web development is also known as client-side development.
The challenge associated with front end development is that the tools and techniques used to create the front end of a website change constantly and so the developer needs to constantly be aware of how the field is developing. This is further complicated by the fact that users now use a large variety of devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions, thus forcing the designer to take into consideration these aspects when designing the site. They need to ensure that their site comes up correctly in different browsers (cross-browser), different operating systems (cross-platform) and different devices (cross-device). All these require careful planning on the side of the developer.
What Skills Does One Need to Become a Front End Developer?
As one is developing the website or the application, there will be errors in the code that need fixing. Debugging is the act of identifying those errors (“bugs”) and fixing them. Normally, a frontend software developer is requested to have testing and debugging skills – or the willingness to develop them. Testing is a very important skill to learn, as writing tests for one’s code is a way to ensure that the code is doing what it is supposed to do.
Last but not least, one would need – preferably – problem solving skills, as it is important to learn/ know how to tackle a problem, break it down into smaller manageable pieces and troubleshoot the issue in the web applications.
Would You Like to Apply for a Front–End Developer Career? | https://www.vonconsulting.ro/ro/the-fanciest-job-in-software-engineering-yet-the-most-sought-for/ |
At some point, all of us write some code that breaks or doesn’t work. When you run into an error, you may feel that you don’t know what to do. Don’t worry, this post will help improve your debugging skills.
Debugging is the process of identifying and removing errors in order to make your code run as expected. It is a challenging but fun task that encourages problem-solving, attention to detail, and working in a sequence. It requires practice. Let’s take a look at the debugging tools you can use to fix code errors.
1. Color coding - On BSD online, every code is color-coded. These colors can help you spot errors easily. Take a look at the examples below:
Missing Quotation marks after the word name. This causes the rest of the code to have the wrong colors.
The color theme in Default mode:
It should be like this:
2. The use of the tidy code button - this is located at the bottom left corner of your screen beside the bug button. Tidy code helps you to organize your code. But in order for you to use it, the code must be unlocked.
Here is a gif to guide you
3. Pairing tag - Most HTML tags require a pair: an opening and a closing tag. Remember that the closing tag has a forward slash (/) which indicates the closing tag. (Note:
<img> tag is an example of an exception - it does not require a closing as it is a self-closing tag). Click on the opening or closing tag to see a highlight on its respective pair:
Note: You may not also see the intended output when something is missing in your HTML or CSS tags. Look at the image below:
(HTML:
<div> closing tag is missing) Broken output
Intended output:
(CSS: Incorrect spelling) Broken output
Intended output:
5. Using the debug button
Step 1: Identify the error.
As you click on the bug icon on the bottom left of your screen, which is known as the “Display Code Errors”, it will display errors in your code.
Step 2: Find the error
Check if there are any errors in HTML, CSS, and JS. In your script, having a red “X” sign (red circle) beside the line number means there is something wrong with your code that needs debugging. The image below shows an example of the errors displayed.
Step 3: Analyze the error
Hover over these signs to identify the error/s. Read the error message to understand which part of the code needs to be fixed.
Step 4: Try fixing the error
Step 5: Lastly, after debugging, run your code and see if you get the correct output that you want.
Step 6: For teachers:
If you are not able to resolve errors that you may encounter, you may reach out to our Support Specialists through chat support. | https://community.bsd.education/t/sandbox-debugging-guide-for-teachers-and-students/483 |
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins- not through strength but by perseverance.” – H. Jackson Brown
In those moments that are really hard, where we are challenged the most and feel like giving up, what do we call upon to get through the difficulty? Let’s face it. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged many of us in ways that we might never have imagined. Combine the pandemic with our nation’s ongoing racial reckoning and impact of climate change and it might feel insurmountable. How do we build perseverance personally and in our children to develop the confidence to tackle difficult problems and continue to look for solutions even if things initially seem unsolvable? Perseverance is critical to addressing challenging problems, whether they are one’s own difficulties, or reaching aspirational goals as a community or country.
As one of the qualities identified under “Emotional Intelligence” in Roycemore’s Portrait of a Graduate, the curriculum and student experiences are thoughtfully designed to help students learn to persevere. We value hard work and pushing through obstacles. One of the Lower School’s morning meeting themes is about perseverance. To build a greater understanding of this trait, Ms. Taylor-Pines had the students make card towers. “This was hard for them, but I made them do it for 5 minutes every morning for a week, in order to encourage them to keep going when things are hard,” she shared. Second-grade students engage in engineering and problem solving as part of their simple machines unit. The challenges presented to them are sometimes quite complicated and the students have to persevere as they build new machines.
When one quits, avoids a situation, or cheats rather than works through a difficult challenge, the challenge doesn’t disappear. In fact, we are often presented with the same challenge over and over again in life until we learn the lesson we are meant to learn. Building the skill of perseverance, along with determination and resilience is key to accomplishing many goals in life.
Perseverance has to be learned and then further developed. When one accomplishes a simple goal, one learns that they can be successful and that they have the innate ability to problem solve again at a greater level of difficulty. French teacher, Brynn Leavitt, shares, “I regularly call students’ attention to what they can do now that they couldn’t do 2/4/8 weeks ago, trying to reinforce the value of continuing to make an effort towards our goals.”
Learning perseverance isn’t limited to academic classes. Drama provides great opportunities for students to learn to persevere. As Lizanne Wilson shares, “Wonderful and inspiring art doesn’t happen without hard work. I scaffold assignments to build in exercises in perseverance. Students feel better when they understand that hard work pays huge dividends in art and in learning.” Athletics provides additional opportunities to learn to work through challenges. Roycemore’s no-cut athletic policy fosters teamwork and builds character, including persistence.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Technology published a report on critical success factors of grit, tenacity, and perseverance in the education setting. The report highlighted that students will persist more when they perceive they are treated fairly, with respect, and when they believe adults care for them. Early responses from Roycemore’s recent all-school parent survey indicate that close to 97% of parents agree or strongly agree that each child feels well known by the school and is comfortable being themself. The Department of Education report also promotes project-based learning and design thinking as educational models that foster the skill of perseverance as students engage in challenging problem-solving activities that require “planning, monitoring, feedback, and iteration.” This pedagogical approach is embraced school-wide at Roycemore.
The same Department of Education report on developing perseverance states that students will persist more when there are high expectations. As Roycemore students progress through the academic program eventually to their high school experience, expectations for students increase. “AP Bio/AP Chem students are expected to think at a much higher level and AP-style questions require synthesis of knowledge from multiple topics, analysis of experimental design and data, and increased critical thinking,” states Upper School teacher Shannon Henry. “This is always difficult at the beginning of the year and students often score lower than they are used to on tests but continue to practice and get better at AP questions to perform well on the exam in May.” Likewise, Dr. John Trowbridge relates, “By encouraging a growth mindset in students, we can help them to see the value of persisting in their efforts to solve a problem. We regularly urge them to keep at it. We encourage them to try a new approach.”
As I think about the many challenges that our society is facing, I am comforted in knowing that we are committed to fostering the skill of perseverance through our program at Roycemore so that our students will have the confidence, tenacity, and perseverance to persist and problem solve.
In partnership for the education of your students, | https://roycemoreschool.org/2021/11/01/perseverance/ |
Examples of resilience in students
What are some examples of resilience at school?
This could focus on something academic (such as a challenge to read a certain number of books over the term) or relate to an area a student finds challenging (such as encouraging a shy student to participate in a school performance).
What is a good example of showing resilience?
What are some examples of resilience at work? Weathering a storm, bouncing back from adversity, seeing off challenges with stoicism and grit—these are brief, metaphorical resilience at work examples.
What is an example of being resilient for kids?
Dealing with challenges and still holding your head up. Giving things a go or trying your best. Being strong on the inside. Being able to cope with what life throws at you and shrug it off.
How do you show resilience in your everyday life?
Resilient people tend to maintain a more positive outlook and cope with stress more effectively.
…
Examples of purposes include:
…
Examples of purposes include:
- Building a support system of loved ones.
- Giving a voice to a social movement.
- Leading a healthy lifestyle.
- Learning about different cultures.
- Making art or music.
- Serving your community.
What is a resilient student?
Resilience, in short, is the ability to bounce back from failures or setbacks. It’s the realization that failure is normal and part of the journey to success. It stems from self-compassion.
What does a resilient learner look like?
“children who develop resilience are better able to face disappointment, learn from failure, cope with loss and adapt to change. We recognize resilience in children when we observe their determination, grit, and perseverance to tackle problems and cope with the emotional challenges of school and life.”
What does resilience look like in kids?
Resilience is the ability to bounce back after challenges and tough times. Resilient children can recover from setbacks and get back to living life. Resilience develops when children experience challenges and learn to deal with them positively. Strong relationships are the foundation of children’s resilience.
How do you demonstrate resilience at work?
With that in mind, here are eight steps to start building your resilient foundation:
- Pay attention to your health. People are 3. …
- Focus on your physical well-being. …
- Practice relaxation techniques. …
- Practice reframing threats as challenges. …
- Mind your mindset. …
- Get connected. …
- Practice self-awareness. …
- Watch your stress levels.
How would you describe yourself as resilient?
Being resilient means having the ability to successfully deal with failure and having the strength to persevere in difficult situations. Resilient people are often more likely to take risks, are determined and can motivate those around them. In a working environment, these are great skills to have.
What is student resilience?
Resilience is an individual’s capacity to cope with, adapt to, and recover from situations of adversity. This ability varies from person to person, is influenced by biological, social and environmental factors and can be taught and imbibed through right training and skill development.
What are the 7 resilience skills?
Dr Ginsburg, child paediatrician and human development expert, proposes that there are 7 integral and interrelated components that make up being resilient – competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control.
How does resilience help in school?
Schools can enhance resilience through programs which build posiƟve social norms and generate a sense of connectedness to teachers, peers, and the academic goals of the school. Building Resilience supports schools to foster the learning, resilience and wellbeing of children and young people. | https://virtualpsychcentre.com/examples-of-resilience-in-students/ |
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.” Booker T. Washington
Resilience is what enables children to emerge from challenging experiences with a positive sense of themselves and their futures. In an article from Psychology Today, Marilyn Price Mitchell, Ph D discusses resilience as essential for human thriving, an ability necessary for the development of healthy, adaptable young people.
Children who develop resilience are better able to:
- face disappointment
- learn from failure
- cope with loss
- adapt to change.
We recognize resilience in children when we observe their determination, grit, and perseverance to tackle problems and cope with the emotional challenges of school and life.
The article continues:
Helping Kids Grow from Adversity
Resilience is not a genetic trait. It is derived from the ways children learn to think and act when they are faced with obstacles, large and small. The road to resilience comes first and foremost from children’s supportive relationships with parents, teachers, and other caring adults. These relationships become sources of strength when children work through stressful situations and painful emotions.
When we help young people cultivate an approach to life that views obstacles as a critical part of success, we help them develop resilience.
Many teachers are familiar with Stanford Professor Carol Dweck’s important work with growth mindsets—a way of thinking that helps children connect growth with hard work and perseverance. Educator David Hochheiser wisely reminds us that developing growth mindsets is a paradigm for children’s life success rather than a pedagogical tool to improve grades or short-term goals. Simply put, it’s a way of helping children believe in themselves—often the greatest gift teachers give to their students.
The ability to meet and overcome challenges in ways that maintain or promote well-being plays an essential role in how students learn to achieve academic and personal goals. Resilient young people feel a sense of control over their own destinies. They know they can reach out to others for support when needed, and they readily take initiative to solve problems. Teachers facilitate resilience by helping children think about and consider various paths through adversity. They also help by being resources, encouraging student decision-making, and modeling resilient competencies.
Five Ways to Cultivate Resilience in the Classroom
- Promote self-reflection through literary essays or small group discussions.
Short written essays or small group discussion exercises that focus on heroic literary characters is an excellent way, particularly for younger students, to reflect on resilience and the role it plays in life success. After children have read a book or heard a story that features a heroic character, encourage them to reflect by answering the following questions.
- Who was the hero in this story? Why?
- What challenge or dilemma did the hero overcome?
- What personal strengths did the hero possess? What choices did he/she have to make?
- How did other people support the hero?
- What did the hero learn?
- How do we use the same personal strengths when we overcome obstacles in our own lives?
- Can you share some examples?
- Encourage reflection through personal essays.
Written exercises that focus on sources of personal strength can help middle and high school students learn resilience-building strategies that work best for them. For example, by exploring answers to the following questions, students can become more aware of their strengths and what they look for in supportive relationships with others.
- Write about a person who supported you during a particularly stressful or traumatic time. How did they help you overcome this challenge? What did you learn about yourself?
- Write about a friend you helped support as he/she went through a stressful event. What did you do that most helped your friend? What did you learn about yourself?
- Write about a time in your life when you had to cope with a difficult situation. What helped and hindered you as you overcame this challenge? What learning did you take away that will help you in the future?
- Help children (and their parents) learn from student failures.
In her insightful article, Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail, published in The Atlantic, middle school teacher Jessica Lahey touched on a topic near and dear to every teacher’s heart:How do I teach students to learn and grow through failure and setbacks when their parents are so intent on making them a shining star?The truth is that learning from failure is paramount to becoming a resilient young person. Teachers help when they:
- Create a classroom culture where failure, setbacks, and disappointment are an expected and honored part of learning.
- Establish and reinforce an atmosphere where students are praised for their hard work, perseverance, and grit — not just grades and easy successes.
- Hold students accountable for producing their own work, efforts from which they feel ownership and internal reward.
- Educate and assure parents that supporting kids through failure builds resilience—one of the best developmental outcomes they can give their children.
- Bring discussions about human resilience into the classroom.
Opportunities abound to connect resilience with personal success, achievement, and positive social change. Expand discussions about political leaders, scientists, literary figures, innovators, and inventors beyond what they accomplished to the personal strengths they possessed and the hardships they endured and overcame to reach their goals. Help students learn to see themselves and their own strengths through these success stories.
- Build supportive relationships with students.
Good student-teacher relationships are those where students feel seen, felt, and understood by teachers.
This happens when teachers are attuned to students, when they notice children’s needs for academic and emotional support. These kinds of relationships strengthen resilience. When adults reflect back on teachers who changed their lives, they remember and cherish the teachers who encouraged and supported them through difficult times.
Do you have a teacher who played this role in your own life? What do you remember about them?
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In a life threatening situation or medical emergency, call your doctor or 911.
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Call 800 523-3333 or text the word “MN” to 741741
Just need to talk to someone? | http://adultmentalhealth.org/resilience-learn-to-rebuild-and-grow-from-adversity/ |
Extensions are able to leverage the same debugging benifits Chrome DevTools provides for web pages, but they carry unique behavior properties. Becoming a master extension debugger requires an understanding of these behaviors, how extension components work with each other, and where to corner bugs. This tutorial gives developers a basic understanding of debugging extensions. Locate the Logs how to watch its always sunny in australia If you want to use a different installation of Chrome, you can also set the runtimeExecutable field with a path to the Chrome app. Attach. With "request": "attach", you must launch Chrome with remote debugging enabled in order for the extension to attach to it.
Debugging in Chrome Before writing more complex code, let�s talk about debugging. All modern browsers and most other environments support �debugging� � a special UI in developer tools that makes finding and fixing errors much easier. | http://nextdigest.com/south-australia/how-to-use-javascript-debugger-in-chrome.php |
The following code examples are used in this chapter:
This chapter documents two different topics: debugging Maemo applications and building the Maemo kernel.
Maemo Debugging Guide
Debugging tools are useful for finding and fixing errors in programs, such as segfaults or memory leaks. Mainly gdb and valgrind are discussed. Some further tools can be found at Documentation/devtools/maemo5.
Maemo Kernel Guide
Compiling the kernel is not as difficult as it might sound. This section gives step-by-step instructions on configuring, compiling, and installing a custom Maemo kernel. It also gives an example on building a self-made kernel module.
- This page was last modified on 12 February 2010, at 12:46.
- This page has been accessed 11,072 times. | http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/Maemo_5_Developer_Guide/Kernel_and_Debugging_Guide/Introduction |
The fact of the matter is that web development relies on various technologies that help to streamline the functionality of a web page. There are codes and language tools that are used to ensure that a web page is highly interactive. This means that these are the features that bring a web page to life so that you can use it.
Have you ever wondered how your web pages become interactive? When it comes to building your web pages, there are commands that require them to do what you want them to. There are key technologies that are required to achieve this.
The thing is that they both share many similarities. Yet, for you to know which is the best choice for you, you should know more about what the differences are between the two.
In fact, if you're someone who doesn't have a lot of time on their hands, it's better for you to choose JQuery to help with writing your code, fixing errors on your code, and to help you maneuver through any browser adaptability challenges that you might face.
In summary, both these concepts are still very significant for web development. In fact, it's possible to say that through the advances that have been made on web browser adaptability, these concepts rely on each other to provide the results that you need for your web pages. But, if you want to focus on saving time while writing code for your web pages, it's best to stick to the simplicity of JQuery.
However, you can always alternate between the two when you feel like you've filtered through your debugging time. | https://isotropic.co/javascript-vs-jquery/ |
Lesson 19: Python Debugging
Debugging literally comes from de-bugging which means cleaning the bugs, flaws, errors, issues related to code and software.
Although it can be said that debugging would be best learned through real life practice of fixing errors, there are some basic knowledge and methods that can raise your awareness, save you time and make you a much more efficient debugger as well as coder.
Debugging / Testing is a huge topic in software development but as a beginner-intermediate programmer one usually needs much more primitive debugging skills and knowledge.
N/A
No function will be introduced in this lesson.
Used Where?
- while writing code
- while reusing code
- while developing software
- while doing data science
While doing debugging there are some very practical tips and techniques that can help you:
- Most compilers have sophisticated user feedback that tells you the line of the code where the error takes place. Although mostly accurate, the line of the code can be slightly misleading sometimes so that you might have to investigate +/-1 lines of your code or even a line completely somewhere else.
- Python has a great list of built-in Error list that will tell you the type of the error that’s occuring. You can review our beginner lesson about the Python Error Code Types and Python Error Handling in general here.
Let’s look at some of the basic debugging terminology first:
- Breakpoints: Breakpoints are one of the most important debugging concepts. The logic of breakpoint debugging is very simple and intuitive, you mark a code line with breakpoint(s), then you can execute the code all the way up to that breakpoint and the execution stops at that breakpoint so you can debug the specific lines you doubt or want to look closer.
- Step into: Step into will let you enter inside the specific functions in your code. If you have builtin functions or functions from other libraries and modules, step into will let you go inside them and investigate how they execute line by line during debugging.
- Run current line: Runs only one line.
- Run until the end: Runs the code until the end or until it returns regardless of the breakpoints.
- Stop: Stop the debugging process.
- Set/Clear Breakpoint: Used for setting breakpoints. Depending on the IDE it can be done simply by left clicking next to the line numbers. A red dot appears indicating the line has a set breakpoint. Clicking on it again will remove the breakpoint (Spyder). Some other IDEs might have this option in the menu that appears when you right click on a code line.
Your IDE will usually have buttons similar to these for you to carry out debugging tasks.
This is an example screenshot from Spyder IDE and here are the meanings of the buttons in order:
- Start Debugging
- Run Current Line
- Step Into
- Run until current function returns
- Execute until next breakpoint
- Stop Debugging
Tips
Advanced Concepts: Variable Explorer
1- Another useful component in debugging is the Variable Explorer. It will show the value or values your variables take during the execution of the code and it can be very useful to understand complex executions.
2- If you watch the Variable Explorer during a line by line debugging execution you will also get to see all the different values the variables take rather than their final value at the end of the execution.
3- You can also see if your variables don’t take any value and this by itself can be very helpful to identify an issue with the code. | https://holypython.com/intermediate-python-lessons/lesson-19-python-debugging/ |
After reading Mike Hadlow’s post on his blog titled “Code Rant: Visual Programming - Why it’s a Bad Idea” I feel I need to respond. Mike references block based coding such as the education tool “Scratch” from MIT. He points out three reasons why he thinks block based coding is bad. "1. Textual programming languages obfuscate what is essentially a simple process. 2. Abstraction and decoupling play a small and peripheral part in programming. 3. The tools that have been developed to support programming are unimportant."
What he doesn’t take into account is how we learn to code and think computationally. There is a process of learning how to identify a problem, pull a problem a part, break it down into abstract representational ideas, and build a step by step procedure to solve the problem. These parts can be looked at using a design thinking flow where we continually reconsider what we are doing and if out solution works. As we teach young students how to think computationally it’s helpful to have a system which can give immediate results. Block-based/visual coding is intended for the novice programmer. It’s there to give quick results without concern for syntax. The blocks don’t allow for syntax errors.
I'm guilty of spending hours staring at code and going through debugging steps only to learn I spelled something wrong. When you start with code this sort of bug is enough to made you never want to code again. Perseverance does not happen over night. It's built incrementally. Block-based code allows for quick success of code without the headache.
Coding is very different from math but has similarities in how we grasp the concepts. Teaching coding requires giving the code concept to start. Allowing the student to modify the given code to see what happens. Then tasking the student to create something using the code and any other code or creative tools they can bring in. This iterative education process works best with visual code when there is no concern about syntax errors. The only errors are in how the code is put together.
1. Textual programming languages obfuscate what is essentially a simple process.
2. Abstraction and decoupling play a small and peripheral part in programming.
I firmly disagree with this. When building a realistic game you need to provide gravity. Well, how do you give an accurate representation of gravity? How do you designate where the floor is? How high can your character jump? These are abstract concepts which can be represented by an algorithm. Students can't figure it out unless they explore the abstraction of gravity. Yes things get complex but part of coding is creating efficient code which interacts seamlessly and simply with other code. Gravity can become a function with quick inputs making it fairly universal for each character. Complexity can increase by adding more features but well built functions help to Make sense of it.
3. The tools that have been developed to support programming are unimportant.
The tools that have been developed to support programing are what make it accessible to others. I've programmed in a raw text editor for years. I torture myself so I memorize code functionality. For a novice the tools to support programming are what make the difference. I spend a lot of time playing with Google Apps Script. The intelligent suggesting of options support my exploration and make me more efficient. Google provides suggestions to code; intelligent suggestions. I know my variable is not initialized because of the color signifier. It's a pleasure to program with Google and it's the coding environment which keeps me coding there. I promote Google Apps Script because it's easy to code in.
I will say block based coding can be improved by providing tools to transition from the visual code to a syntactical base. Allow me to pull in the code in visual format. But give me the ability to pull back the visual curtain. Block based code makes it accessible to those that may have previously been intimidated. And let's face it, we can type faster than we can drag in code. once we start getting the hang of it we lean to typing the code.
Non-technical people need to have access to coding. It's up there with learning math, language, science, history and arts. our lives are split between our digital life and our physical life. I can cook and make a basic meal in my physical life. Coding is relative. People need to know how to craft some basic code to help them solve a problem in their digital life.
And just for fun here's a Scratch project I did in 10 minutes to teach about conditionals. | https://blog.claycodes.org/2018/10/VisualProgrammingAResponse.html |
It is crucial that teachers have knowledge of programming, and can write programs that solve the problems posed in GCSE CS.Building on this solid base, this CPD helps teachers to teach others how to become effective programmers. Making use of the latest evidence-based research and practice, participants will develop a toolkit of effective teaching and learning approaches suitable for all students helping them to build resilience self-regulation and independence in the classroom.During this one day course you’ll dive deep into teaching and learning of programming. You’ll learn effective ways of delivering programming in the classroom, using structures such as PRIMM. You’ll also explore how to build resilience amongst students using strategies such as Growth Mindset, how to build resilience through debugging programs and practical teaching strategies, that can be used by students, to build their understanding of programming principles.The course is based on firm evidence and experience, and will guide you to develop an understanding of what works best in the context of your own school.Who is it for?
This course is for secondary teachers of GCSE Computer Science, who are able to write programs to GCSE level. This course is fully funded for participants from maintained schools in England who have successfully completed the GCSE Computer Science Accelerator programme, which includes subject knowledge development in programming.What topics are covered?
- 01 | Effective classroom systems for programming success– during this session you’ll explore practical programming strategies that can be used in the classroom to build student understanding, such as paired programming, peer instruction, Parsons problems etc.
- 02 | Programming Pedagogy – during this session you’ll explore how to teach your students to turn mental models into programs. You’ll also explore how to combat the perceived challenges of programming, using frameworks such as PRIMM and the Matrix Taxonomy.
- 03 | How to build resilience, self-regulation and independence – this session will explore strategies that can be used to build resilience and independence amongst students. You’ll go deep into strategies such as Growth Mindset, cognitive overload, how to use debugging as a way of promoting independence and how to encourage self-regulated learning.
You’ll engage with active learning in groups including direct instruction, hands-on activities and challenge-based learning, led by an experienced facilitator. The course will model teaching approaches that can be taken back to the classroom.How long is the course?
This is a one-day course which consists of five hours of teaching time.This course is delivered as part of the National Centre for Computing Education and forms one part of a set of courses, you may also wish to consider:
- Teaching GCSE Computer Science: improving student engagement
- Teaching GCSE Computer Science: developing knowledge and understanding
- Layer excellent pedagogy on top of your subject knowledge, helping you support improved student outcomes
- Explore programming frameworks and how these can be used to plan effective lessons in computer programming
- Understand how different practical programming activities can be used to develop student knowledge and engagement with programming
- Learn how different strategies can be used to improve student resilience, self-regulation and independence when programming. | https://www.parkhousehub.org/event-details/teaching-gcse-computer-science-pedagogy-for-programming |
Generally responsible for the creation and modification of computer/software programs by converting software design and technical specification into functioning code in appropriate language.
Fixing/Debugging of detected bugs/errors in the system.
Other related task that may be assigned by his/her superior.
This is for full-time position.
Knowledgeable in Databases such as MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle is an advantage. | https://www.freelancer.com/projects/graphic-design/programmer-18477890/ |
Xcode provides a comprehensive set of well-integrated tools to approach the tasks of debugging and analyzing your applications. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use Xcode’s built-in debugger. In Chapter 17, you’ll learn more advanced debugging techniques.
In Xcode, errors, warnings, and analyzer results are collectively called issues. Xcode is constantly compiling and checking your code for issues. Errors are red, warnings are yellow, and static analyzer issues are blue. Like any modern integrated development environment, Xcode flags issues by highlighting them directly in the source code (Figure 9.1) with a corresponding icon in the gutter along the left edge of the Source Editor. In ... | https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-xcode-4/9780132685030/ch09.html |
The main aim of the course is to provide a basic understanding of techniques that cope with errors in programs.
Recurring themes are;
a) the identification of errors,
b) theiranalysis,
c) their removal.
The course also provides an understanding of systematic ways to convince oneself that a program unit really does what it should.The course covers formal and informal methods, testing (terminology, coverage, unittests, a unit test framework), debugging (control, workflow, localisation, tools), formal specifications (pre-/postconditions, invariants), formal verification (logics, tool support).Throughout, the course is concerned with imperative programs in general, and object-oriented programs in particular.
After the course, student have understood - and are able to employ - the methods testing (trying to reveal the presence of errors in a systematic way), debugging (the act ofisolating and fixing errors), and verification (reasoning about programs in order toguarantee correctness).
All these methods only make sense in the presence of a specification of what the program is supposed to do.
Requirements: To be eligible for the course students should have successfully completed 45 hec of an education aiming at a bachelor degree within Computer Science, Software Engineering or equivalent. Within these 45 hec, the student should have successfully completed:
Selection: Selection is based upon the number of credits from previous university studies, maximum 225 credits. | ERROR: type should be string, got "https://utbildning.gu.se/education/courses-and-programmes/course_detail/?feedbackForm=true&returnAddress=http%3A%2F%2Futbildning.gu.se%2Feducation%2Fcourses-and-programmes%2Fcourse_detail%2F%3Fcourseid%3DDIT083&recipientName=Pontus+Sund%E9n&encodedEmail=cG9udHVzLnN1bmRlbkBndS5zZQ==&courseid=DIT083" |
Make Android Application Debugging Easier with STrace
Logcat is a powerful diagnostic tool designed to help developers with debugging errors in their applications. Without it, fixing most of applications would be significantly more difficult. However, it appears that logcat is not the only diagnostic tool available to app developers.
Now, there is an alternative tool ported by XDA Senior Member alireza7991. STrace is a debugging utility to monitor a program’s system calls or signals it receives. Unlike logcat, Strace can be used to monitor a single application, so it’s much easier to find abnormal behavior. This tool can then be used to find causes for crashes or anomalies.
Using STrace is really simple. All you need to do is to push the bin file to /system/bin/ on your device and set the correct permissions with chmod. Then, you can run it from terminal emulator or ADB shell.
If you are interested in a new piece of debugging software, make your way to the utility thread and learn more about STrace. | https://www.xda-developers.com/make-android-application-debugging-easier-with-strace/ |
Over the years I have written quite a lot of code. These are the tips that I wish I had known when I had started out and would have saved me a lot of head scratching and restless nights:
- Create a “to do” list. Always write down your tasks and keep it updated as you work through the problem. Your memory is limited and you can often forget something which may be critical later.
- Always use variables and don’t hardcode. Generally this will make your life easier and it makes the application more flexible.
- Code comments are your friend. Many times I returned to code I have written and never known what a function or piece of code is expected to do. If I had taken some time out to put some comments into the code it would have saved me hours troubleshooting issues.
- Always break a big problem into a series of small problems. Sometimes a big problem can feel daunting and be more difficult than it seems. Break the problem down into smaller blocks and then solve each block one at a time. It’s okay to skip a block and return to a previous block as it may give you clues to fixing the skipped block.
- Errors are not a bad thing they tell you where the problem is. This will help you to solve the error more easily and doesn’t mean you’re a bad programmer. Only be worried when something goes wrong and you don’t get an error message.
- Never reinvent the wheel. It is more than likely someone has faced the same problem as you and it is okay to copy their solution.
- A difficult problem doesn’t mean you’re a failure. There will be times when you face a problem which you find hard to grasp. It is perfectly acceptable to find things difficult.
- Know who to contact in your ogranisation to ask questions. When you have very little information and need more details it is infinitely better when you have a list of go to people for all the applications you will be supporting.
- 99% of your work will never be seen by anyone. Your solution may not necessarily be the most elegant one but try to keep it simple.
- Prototypes do not have to always end up in production. Building things allows us to learn from coding. What you learnt is better than whether it ends up in production. Sometimes it is better to start again than fix problems with some poorly written code.
- Read code of more experienced programmers. When you get passed some code don’t just deploy it. Read it and review it. You might learn something or you might pick up a problem which will save everyone time.
- Don’t stop learning. Programming can change quite rapidly. If you don’t invest in learning new things you might end up encountering it for the first time when you are debugging something in production
Feel free to comment with any additional tips which you may have. | https://parvtheitgeek.com/top-tips-new-programmers/ |
The temptation to sin is something all of us face as Christians, no matter how long we've been following Christ. But there are practical things we can do to grow stronger and smarter in our struggle against sin. Overcoming temptation can be accomplished by sticking to five biblical practices.
Recognize Your Tendency to Sin
James 1:14 explains that we are tempted when we become enticed by our own natural desires. The first step toward overcoming temptation is to recognize the human tendency to be seduced by our own fleshly cravings.
The temptation to sin is a given, so don't be surprised by it. Expect to be tempted daily, and be prepared for it. The apostle Peter reminds us to stay on the lookout:
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8, NIV)
Flee From Temptation
The New Living Translation of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is easy to understand and apply:
But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.
When you come face to face with temptation, look for the way out—the way of escape—that God has promised. Then skedaddle. Flee. Run as fast as you can.
Resist Temptation With the Word of Truth
Hebrews 4:12 says that God's Word is living, active, and powerful. Did you know you can carry a weapon that will make your thoughts obey Jesus Christ?
According to Ephesians 6:17, one of our weapons is the Word of God:
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4–5, NIV)
Jesus overcame the devil's temptations in the wilderness with the Word of God. If it worked for him, it will work for us. And because Jesus was fully human, he is able to identify with our struggles and give us the exact help we need for overcoming temptation.
While it can be helpful to read God's Word when you're being tempted, sometimes that's not practical. Even better is to practice reading the Bible daily so that eventually you have so much of it on the inside, you are ready whenever temptation strikes.
If you are reading the Bible regularly, you will have the full counsel of God at your disposal. You will start to have the mind of Christ. When temptation comes knocking on your door, all you'll have to do is draw your weapon, aim, and fire.
Refocus Your Mind and Heart With Praise
How often have you been tempted to sin when your whole heart was fully concentrated on worshiping the Lord? I'm guessing your answer is never.
Praising God takes our focus off of self and puts it on God. You may not be strong enough to resist temptation on your own, but as you focus on God, he will inhabit your praises. He will give you the strength to resist and walk away from the temptation.
Psalm 147 might be a good place to start:
Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! (Psalm 147:1, NIV)
Repent Quickly When You Fail
In several places, the Bible tells us the best way to resist and overcome temptation is to flee from it (1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Corinthians 10:14; 1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 2:22). Even still, we fall from time to time. When we fail to flee temptation, eventually we will give in and fall.
Having a more realistic view—knowing that at times you will fail—should help you to repent quickly when you do. Failing is not the end of the world, but it is dangerous to persist in your sin.
Going back to the book of James, verse 1:15 explains that sin "when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." Continuing or persisting in sin leads to spiritual death, and often even physical death. That is why it's best to repent quickly when you know you've fallen into sin. | https://www.quankeymbc.org/copy-of-10-ways |
James 4:6, “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Seemingly right after James discusses our adulterous hearts who long for satisfaction and pleasure from this world he says that God gives more grace. This small statement is mind-blowing!! God gives grace upon grace continually HOWEVER He resists the proud. God’s word is consistent in it’s message regarding how God feels and His displeasure of the “the proud”. The book of Proverbs alone has plenty to say about God’s feelings of a prideful spirit. Why? Because a prideful heart can’t openly confess sin or bow in humility and admit they need a Savior. The humble one receives God’s honor, His grace, and will have God as their protector. THEREFORE, (because of this truth), we should:
- Submit to God (which only a humble hearted person can do.) Lay aside the rule of our own hearts and adopt God’s rule as authority.
- Resist the devil. This is a fight; God’s word is clear that this is a spiritual fight that we are engaged in every day. Eph 6:11 states our job-to put on the WHOLE armor of God…to send a warrior out to battle without full equipment would be criminal yet we do it all the time. It’s our job to put it on, all of it, daily. End of story. If we choose not to do that our behavior says a lot about our understanding of God’s word, the devil, and our weakness. Do not ENTERTAIN any portion of his temptations, ever. Those begin in the mind but Jesus said that we will always be given a way out of temptation AND we have the POWER of the Holy Spirit living inside us!! But we have to employ that option.
- And he WILL flee from you. This is a statement. Do A and B will happen. If we are submitting to God and putting on that armor and resisting in a fight like fashion then the devil WILL flee. Our battle has been won. If I look back at all the times I’ve given into sin and temptation it’s because I’ve failed to do one of the above.
BUT, the key is to focus on the humble heart and all that’s provided me if I just step off the first place riser and take my place at the foot of Jesus. | https://bourlandweb.com/2020/06/06/mariannes-notes-a-note-about-pride/ |
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