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Archive for the ‘education’ Category

Finding your personal style. This is important—a leopard can’t change her spots, apparently as far as interior decorating is concerned. The furniture we choose, the rug we fancy, the colors we crave—all have their roots in specific personality traits. To go against the grain of your personal taste creates a lot of psychological strain. We all have said, “I just couldn’t live with that.” We mean it—we really couldn’t live with some things, and we shouldn’t try.
A test I use for deciding if a certain piece looks good or whether I even like it, is to put the piece in an unexpected place—an antique Chinese vase on the kitchen counter, for instance, and then try to forget I put it there. In the middle of the night, coming down for a peanut butter sandwich, I switch on the light, and in that instant of surprise, I see the object truly. In a flash, I react emotionally to the piece rather than intellectually, and I flash instant love or indifference or hate. It is on this level—of the immediate subconscious reaction that you have to like something. It is a reaction so fast, it doesn’t even seem to be connected to thought I call it the “happy eye.” If something doesn’t give you the happy eye, don’t talk yourself into thinking you like it. I bring up the happy eye because I suspect many mother don’t want to clean up the house because they don’t have anything that they feel strongly enough about to if to see clean.

The MAGIC ROOM is the room we all deserve. Look at the rooms in the home fashion magazines—these are MAGIC ROOMS. We can imagine living some kind of wonderful life in each of them. One room says, “I am glamour, I am fun, I am all white satin and cream for rugs and clear Lucite tables and a single orchid.” Or a
family room says, “I am all masculine leisure—stone fireplace, bear rug, antiqued leather sofas, and oak-paneled walls.” Another room breathes, “I am the nursery, I am innocence and lace and lullabies, a soft tinkle of Brahms on an antique music box. I am love and pink fuzzy blankets and little pillowcases embroidered with ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’.” We’ve all admired rooms like these, so why not have one of your own? Anybody can. Believe me, it’s just a matter of reading on and tackling the problem step by step.

All true scholars, honor students and effective students read much more than their textbooks and other prescribed materials. They are wide readers. They love to read because they love to learn. Not only curious readers but hungry readers. You must be a curious and hungry reader too if you have to be a class topnotch. You cannot depend only on your teacher and your textbook in supplying you with information or knowledge. This is the age of explosive automated knowledge and you re all alone in filling yourself up with knowledge that is exploding and now universally available, most of it for free.

A high IQ usually or largely comes from reading a wide variety of literature. A successful or effective student has a high IQ which everybody envies in class. Reading a lot alone increases your knowledge and IQ a great deal. This is why habitual reading is greatly encouraged among students and expected form those with a desire to rise to the top like you.

A second aspect of children thinking is that the generally pay attention to the concrete rather than abstract aspects of situations. It is easier for them to understand the things they can see-guns, bombs, and other instrument of war, rather than he abstract concept of peace.

A third characteristics of young children thinking is its static nature.Their thinking is often like a series of frames on a movie strip, viewed one at a time. Incompatible ideas about the world can exist side by side because each is a part of a different frame. There is a little appreciation for cause and effect, as children tend to focus on one idea at a time. Children are thus not likely to fully understand what causes or prevents a war or how it relates to their own lives. Issues such as building more warheads in order to assure peace(deterrence) is too complicated a concept to be understood by children.

A poor memory is at the bottom of most failures. This is why the student who can easily memorize is considered bright. While that is not necessarily true, a sharp memory is certainly a big help to any learner.

Are you one of them? You cannot aspire fo top honors with less than a sharp and quick memory. You cannot afford lapses, either. Here are some tips from leading educators who were themselves very effective students during their time:

• preview the main ideas of a book or another material before reading the details;
• connect the ideas to something in your daily life that has meaning to you and let the impression solidify in your mind:
• as you study, try to involve a many parts of your body and as many of your senses as possible. For example, touch something in the study room that pertains to the subject of your study. Or if it is music, listen to the radio or your player. If it is something in nature, go out and look for a plant, fruit , or an animal which explain the information you are studying:
• relax. It is at the time of relaxing that the information processed is actually stored. Relaxing does not mean stopping but the very opposite. Make sure yu relax at regular intervals.

On two separate occasions, I asked  questionnaires to parents of preschoolers, to find out the extent of their discussion on current events with their your children. Most parents felt that their preschoolers could not as yet fully understand such terms as injustice. However, many parents wanted to find out how current events can be discussed with their young children. For our children of today do observe and ask “why”, and we adults must know how to respond to their queries.

First of all, we must understand that children do not think the way we adults think.

The thinking o children from3-7 of age is egocentric in nature. They see the world as revolving around themselves. Therefore, the child’s fear of death is likely to focus on his immediate environment and how he will be affected. When a child of a policeman asks why more policemen are getting shot, he is not interested in the details of the situations( why, how, when) that an adult would normally appreciate. He is more interested in knowing whether his father, a policemen, will be killed too.

When we understand how children think and try to help them cope with the events that happen in the world around them, we are preparing our children for a better future- ina  world they will understand and one they can master.