http://www.mylot.com/w/keywords/education+curriculum.aspx MyLot Discussions About education curriculum en-gb http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1631542.aspx With the upcoming school year I have been contemplating home schooling my daughter, I feel she would benefit more from the one on one attentions but I also don't want to hinder her social skills. I am really put off by the school district where I live and think that my daughter would have a better experience if I taught her myself. They have a program here that they are now encouraging home schooling but I don't know if it would cause her to become withdrawn or resentful. This will be her first year in this new school and I know it will be hard because she doesn't know anyone in this new school. She is a very shy little girl but very outgoing once she gets to know everyone. I am confident that she will make friends but I feel that public school system is not providing the education curriculum that I want and I want to have a more hands on approach in her education. One of my oldest friends gave me information on Home Schooling because he home schools his son and he is a police officer and his son seems to be very well adjusted. He tells me the program is great and his son says he likes it too. I have talked to my daughter about it and we agreed to try it for a year, she is a little hesitant but I am looking forward to it. What are your thoughts? Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:40:12 GMT billionaire5 http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1044340.aspx Recently we hear again in the news the Malacañang's plans of once again turning the medium of instruction used on public elementary and high schools back to English. Such move of course once again sparked opposition from many sides. While Filipinos are undoubtedly losing our edge in English, isn't it more disturbing that such move is once again catering to foreign interests? It just goes to show that the government is once again on the path of producing reliable workers for foreign companies and institutions. Just as the underlying motivation for the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) being implemented is to put emphasis to science, math, english (which is necessary for quality laborers) and downgrade history, filipino and literature, we are once again relegating our own filipino identity to the sidelines in favor of a foreign one. Even now we see people having difficulty composing a filipino paragraph, or people unable to speak a thourough tagalog sentence without an english word. I think it is a big waste of time to convert even classroom discussion beyond English classes to another language. What the government should do is just to improve the English subjects by endorsing more seminars and workshops for both the teachers and students. Tue, 01 May 2007 04:18:01 GMT RookRocks http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/520936.aspx The Jews don't feel they are Jews if they are not persecuted. "I am persecuted, therefore I am" seems to be their motto. The Kaifeng Jews in China were the only exceptions. I had never met a minority person in my extensive travels in China that behaved in a fearful manner showing that they had been oppressed subjects in China. NEVER. By and large I can tell you that Hans have treated the minorities very well -- sometimes even better than they have treated themselves, as in the case of more stringent population control policies for the Hans. That's right, which other nation in the world would officially let their minorities have more kids than themselves even if there were a population control policy in place? Where there weren't any written scripts to begin with, the Han majority had literally been inventing systems of writing for the minority peoples who only had spoken languages. I had never seen or heard anything like that in history or in the other nations I had been to either as a sojourner or stayed for prolonged periods of time. So the way the Chinese had treated the Jews at Kaifeng was not exceptional, and the assimilation process of the Jews there was not a unique phenomenon. Minority peoples become part of a nation only if they are fully accepted as equals not as a matter of policy but as an intrinsic aspect of its national behavioral pattern. No Chinese would ever pick a Jew out of a crowd and say, "He is a Jew, let's trash him." China didn't grow to be a nation of 1.3 billion people for no reason. There are 56 nationalities inside her borders. Do you think any of the other 55 nationalities would join our nation in its consciousness if they feel alienated in any way? Why were there Jewish ghettos in Warsaw and not in China? The siege mentality of the Polish Jews was not accidental. It was a relic from centuries of alienating persecution by the Catholic Church because the Jews were identified as Jesus Christ's murderer. How ridiculous can monotheism be? The Catholic Church did not even allow the Jews to own land. That pushed the Jews into professions that needed money-managing skills instead of leading comfortable lives as landlords in Europe, and that's the historical reason why Jews became such skilled bankers nowadays. Take the Tibetans as another example. These folks have their own traditional calendar and this year their New Year's Day fell on the same day as the Chinese Lunar New Year. The Hans encourage all the nationalities inside China to be self-respecting minorities and so they go out of their way to promote minority cultures. During the past week, if you go to all the Spring Festivals for Chinese New Year celebrations, you will feel the cohesive power of the Chinese nation, and if you were a foreigner new to this feeling of close affinity, he will want to become part of the celebrations. In time, the assimilative process works into one's subconscious, and one becomes a Chinese -- all naturally and without coercion or pre-planned policies. In contrast, look at how the Soviets treated the Afghans from 1979-89 when they occupied the land. When the Russians were in Afghanistan during those years, they forced the elite Afghans to study Russian by sending them back to Moscow. They enforced an education curriculum emphasizing the study of Russian, just like White Americans forced young Native Americans to study and be brought up in English schools in their policy of forced assimilation of the original occupants of the land. What could be crueler than to force one to forget about one's cultural roots? If you had read the French novel about the "Last Lesson" when Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to Germany in 1870, talking about giving French language lessons to kids living in those two hitherto French provinces for the last time, you will understand the feelings. Similar feeling existed amongst many Chinese in Taiwan when the island was ceded to Japan as a result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. To this day the lingering emotions affect the Sino-Japanese relations, and such a colonial educational system was responsible for the mangled personalities of the Taidus whose parents were brought up as Japan loyalists on the island -- they are Chinese but many (such as Lee Tenghui) have Japanese hearts. Coming back to persecution of minority peoples through shepherding them towards abandoning their customs and languages, I would point to the fact that such persecution is counter-productive in the long run. In fact, instead of forcing laowais to learn the Chinese language even though China is presently the engine for global economic growth, the Chinese are flocking to study foreign languages in droves. In time though, after we have ventured outwards to enter the foreign markets just like the foreigners are entering ours, and China's national strength has increased further, many laowais will naturally want to study Chinese. In fact, this has begun to happen already. Never by force or coercion. If they enjoy it, they will do it. Jews were assimilated in China because they were treated as equals due to the intrinsic value system of Chinese culture, not because one culture was better than the other. Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:38:34 GMT andygogo http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/752324.aspx If you happened to cast a cursory glance at Chinese newspapers over the past few months, you might be forgiven for thinking there had been an outbreak of golf-itis. Even in China Daily, the night editor has complained about the headlines teeing off and putting have been cropping up far too often. I didn't have the heart to tell him that a good shot is as pleasing as his own passion, a calligraphy stroke. And a peek at the thousands of blogs would convince you it is a veritable golfing epidemic. Here's the reported "truth" (a lot of newspapers have been more than economical with it; some just stuck to exaggeration): A Shanghai school, reportedly the first in the country, recently introduced golf lessons for its students for 4,800 yuan (US$611) a term. The Shanghai University of Finance and Economics has added golf to its physical-education curriculum. Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:39:18 GMT qwerty008 http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/561236.aspx hello friends do u think sex should be a subject in the education curriculum ? Sun, 07 Jan 2007 05:16:00 GMT harivinod http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/519314.aspx I've noticed since I've been in China that some Christians exploit Chinese education policy as a means to spread Christianity (who would have ever thought that China's own policies would be helping the spread of Christianity?). Anyway, this is how it works. Some Christians offer free English lessons on condition that the textbook used be the Holy Bible. Needledd to say, Chinese of limited financial means and desperate to pass English exams will often taek Christians up on this offer. Now while this alone will not guarantee that that Chinese will Christianise, none can deny that such a practice is still unjust and of course, if nothing else, increases the chances of Christians gaining more converts in an unfair manner by having the tables stacked in their favour. Now in principle, I am in favour of more religious freedom in China just as we see in many other countries. But on the other hand, I also believe in government not assisting, wittingly or otherwise, in the propagation of any faith. From that standpoint, I think it is important for the Chinese government, prior to giving full religious freedom in China, to first look at any policies of its which might in fact be assisting in the propagation of any faith. I believe China's English policy is one of such. I have noticed that many Chinese Christians do in fact speak English better than the average, and it is common for many to have adopted the Christian Faith thanks to their foreing teacher in university. Many foreign teachers are in fact sponsored by Christian organisations likewise. Yet here's the twist. I do not blame the Christians, either foreign or Chinese, in the least. The foreigners have the right to promote their faith (as long as it's outside the classroom, which is usually the case from what I've been able to observe), and Chinese are free to adopt the Faith. Heck, I'm a foreigner myself, and I'd had a few Chinese Christians try to bring me into the Christian fold. No harm done there, though if they're particularly aggressive about it, it can be irritating. So whom do I blame? The Chinese Ministry of Education! If primary and middle schools could choose among a wider range of languages, then English, a language the majority of whose speakers are in fact Christian, would no longer have the monopoly it does now. Imagine, for instance, that students could choose between any of China's minority languages (including Russian, Korean, Uighur, Zhuang, Mongolian, etc.), English, Esperanto, Arabic and Persian. Then we could expect that many of China's foreign teachers would be of many Faiths, with Christianity no longer holding such a monopoly through English. At the moment, I'm working on an English-language moral education curriculum fro children, and one person I was consulting immediately suggested including some quotes from teh Bible. Well, considering that the bible has in fact had quite an impact on English literature, guess what: that person had a point from a cultural standpoint. Many English speakers do in fact get their moral educaiton form the bible jsut as many chinese children do from Di Zi Gui, Lunyu, Daxue, etc. So including Bible quotes to teach moral education in English is in and of itself a reasonable proposition if we should consider it from a cultural context; the problem is that English holds a monopoly on China's foreign language curriculum, thanks to the Ministry of Education. This means that any English-language moral education curriculum that should include Bible quotes would not be taught to a small number of children just to expand their knowledge of English culture and moral conscience, but rather could be taught to such a large number as to allow it to penetrate the fabric of Chinese culture itself. For these reasons, I do beleive that, before teh Chinese government gives full freedom of religion in China, the Ministry of Education must needs change its foreign language policy first, as the two are in fact more closely interlinked than one might expect at first sight. Fri, 29 Dec 2006 09:26:46 GMT andygogo http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/45713.aspx I think the education curriculum in the US advocates more creative thinking than other systems like the UK's, which is more academi<a href="http://www.voipcallmanagers.com" alt="Voip Call Manager" target="_blank">call</a>y driven, more textbook-based. Which do you think is the better system? Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:23:47 GMT leongsce