International Teachers' Day... and Education...

2014 Nobel for Medicine...

It has fascinated me the larger than life story of Nobel... 

I was though at an early age that he discovered dynamite and made lots of money... But when he witnessed the destruction that it brought and the use of it by Big brother armies to destroy life and win wars... he established the best known HUMANITARIAN prize...for people who benefit humankind... 

Nobel Prize for the brain's GPS discovery

The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to three scientists who discovered the brain's "GPS system".

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was divided, one half awarded to John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".

                             John O'Keefe                        May-Britt Moser                      Edvard I. Moser

                                         Prize share: 1/2                      Prize share: 1/4                           Prize share: 1/4   

The Nobel Prize is the best known humanitarian prize and it brings fame and recognition to the winners…

I hope students and youth recognize it…and learn more about it…and I hope schools, as the foundation of our society, promote it as an example of world humanitarian  vision…

The Nobel prize always progress and change and human achievement...So it is just appropriate to recognize that a new era is downing on us fast... I hope the youth will recognize this and may be more of them will learn about Asian culture and the language of Asia... Chinese and Hindi...

Check the new hotel in China...and get motivated...

The Age of Asia fast downing on us...

A new hotel complex in China... commuting distance to Beijing

Check the elegance and futuristic beauty...

Charming in its simplicity...

·         New eye-catching Sunrise Kempinski Hotel stands nearly 100 meters high

·         Designed to look like a rising sun, hotel exterior is covered in more than 10,000              glass panels

·         Kempinski says it took 24 months to build with help from more than 9,300                        construction workers

·         At night, the hotel is lit up by hydroelectric-powered LED lights.

 ·       

The panels are angled so as the building reflects the sky…

Kempinski Hotel -18075 square meters

in the lap of Yanshan Mountain and Yangi Lake

Peacefully serene...looking boldly into the future..

***

Happy International Teachers' Day...
Education is a topic that has engaged EVERYONE ... Parents, academics and politicians...
It has always been a topic that has brought out the best and the worst among us...
The easy way out is to PUT DOWN teachers for the ills of society... It has been the easy way out to blame the failures of society on the educational system and on the teachers... 
I agree that teachers are not perfect...but the system that has engendered the current failures of society... is Not because of the teachers... 
The social values and the social outlook has to change... The monetary value has brutalized the education system too... Education has become a commodity...and that's why the ills and the failures persist...
As long as our social outlook is based on the use-value and the commodity value of education ...we will fail...
Repeatedly Finland has out performed North America in education... and Finland has emphasized the whole person and has valued the education of the whole person... They have note promoted robots which specialize in a certain field...BUT THEY HAVE EDUCATED THE WHOLE PERSON...
Check what their system is based on...

  In Finland

·        Start schooling at age seven…

·        Minimum homework…Much less than their North American counterparts…

·        One standardized test…in the FINAL year of high school…

·        Early childhood education for ALL children…

·        Funding all schools to serve better special education needs

·        Access to health and well-being for all children…

·        National curriculum that insists school FOCUS on the WHOLE child and not on NARROW ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS…

·        Teachers have time to work together…and not teach in the classroom all day…which allows teachers to work together and learn best-practices from each other…and sharing ideas and practices…

·        Play constitutes a big part of the learning-teaching experience… Students have at least 15 minutes between classes and do not have to rush to the next class and students are not penalized if they are late… This allows time for kids to focus on their individual pursuits…and needs…

·        Primary students have minimum homework so as kids have more time for hobbies and individual friends…when the school day is over…

One affordable and smart step would be to terminate policies and practices that prevent North American teachers from teaching what matters most to their students. 

Redesigning current punitive accountability for schools and abolishing unnecessary standardized tests would remove a big burden from schools and leave teachers with more time to focus on real learning.

The ultimate test for the American education system will be whether it can bring equity to the forefront of education policies. When poverty explains up to half of student achievement, schools must have measures to better cope with the harmful consequences that disadvantaged family backgrounds have on teaching and learning in many schools. Enhancing equity has been one key to success in Finland.

Politics takes over the History Curriculum...

For weeks, hundreds of high-school students staged raucous walkouts against a controversial conservative plan to review the U.S. history curriculum in Jefferson County, Colo., in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The students, worried that the school district would censor history and promote a political agenda, held signs reading "teach us the truth."

Examples of the change...that the Education Board wants to make...

• That slavery in the U.S. ended voluntarily … and that there was no struggle against slavery.... The Board wants to promote "positive" attitude and respect...and civil disobedience and struggle against unjust laws does not promote positive image...and does not teach positive attitudes...  

• All is provided and is well in our country… so no need to teach Civil Liberties and civil rights…

They want to focus on the positive...IS GOOD... but STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES IS GOOD ...

 I guess politics is creeping slowly back into the educational system and that will be a disaster in teaching and learning alike... Politics and Big Brothers-Sisters should stay out of the History books and out of the educational system...

Today is International Teachers' Day... and Big brothers and Sisters should stop their “double talk” and respect the truth... and education...