That one thing you need to know

Work - life balance 

 

The 4 hour work week; the reality is not everyone is craving for this kind of week.

We are not craving the idea of doing nothing, we are craving the idea of being happy and free, enjoying life with our family, friends and doing the things we enjoy. We have two options to make this a reality; we could dream about what we want and dream what could be; or we could go and pursue our dreams.
 
 
The reality is a true dream never comes to us head on it creeps and it whispers, we have to really think about what dream we are pursuing because the reality is not many of us can describe what we really want, for it’s harder than you think.

However, you could start with this truth: a life should be focused around what makes us happy, what makes us smile and love to the end of our time. The reality is we must focus on the little things to achieve success, to achieve the happiness we crave. This cannot be put any better than by David L. Weatherford in his poem Slow Dance.

What we all need to read

Slow Dance, by David L. Weatherford

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,

or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight,

or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,

time is short, the music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,

when you ask “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,

with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,

time is short, the music won’t last.

Ever told your child, we’ll do it tomorrow,

and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,

’cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,

time is short, the music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,

you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

it’s like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn’t a race, so take it slower,

hear the music before your song is over.

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Educating Colchester with science

The school with the best performance in A-levels and other academic qualifications was Colchester Royal Grammar School (this was a statistic taken from an article produced within the Telegraph). This is a fantastic piece of data for Britain’s oldest recorded town.

Is our education system preparing our pupils?

Education needs to always be improved; it is a valuable asset to have and future generations need to be able to learn from older generations so that mistakes can be prevented from happening again, this is the learning process. However there is a sense of questioning involved when thinking about what our pupils are being taught in schools; are academic subjects important? Should more focus be emphasised on maintaining organisation and communication? These are certainly questions worth thinking about.

Science and thinking

At this current day and age we are still learning and will always be learning. We need to learn about the world, how things work and what we can do to improve our own existence, this is where science comes in; the question: ‘Why do we need science?’

Science is defined as:

‘The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment’.

Now that is a mouthful and quite boring; it is not a true reflection on how science should be taught.

All pupils require a sense of awe and engagement for them to be able to learn, recall and never forget. If there is a subject that allows this, it would be science. The possibilities are endless and there is a sense of holding back within the education system at the moment. It is always great to hear about improving schools; however, more can be done.

It is true that we are improving as a community and a country, but if anyone is teaching or being taught using the simple phrase ‘Anyone, Anyone’,   then well it’s easy to see why some pupils hate classes:

What we should be aiming at is taking an understanding from this teachers philosophy as a science teacher but as well as a man who loves teaching, loves his son and loves life, when he has got other reasons to go in the opposite direction.

If one had to summarise what science and education is and why it is important (this applies for all academic subjects) then Mr Wright is a true inspiration.

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RAF C-17 Cargo plane packed with aid relief heading for the Philippines

An RAF cargo plan with aid relief is on its way to the Philippines to help with the devastated country. The C-17 cargo plane is huge; with medical supplies and heavy duty vehicles (two JCB diggers, two land rovers and a forklift truck) on board. The plane is expected to land in the Philippines within the next 24 hours. The country is in turmoil and it needs all the help possible. Every little bit of help provided by the world is a step closer to getting the country back on its feet and running again. The British Prime minister has announced that the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS  Illustrious has been sent there.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has mentioned that its charity appeal has raised to about £23 million and the government has given more than £20 million in aid. Unfortunately most of the aid is not reaching all the people, at least 600, 000 people have been displaced during the event and as the Interior secretory Mar Roxas  stated: "In a situation like this, nothing is fast enough". As the support given by most of the world is fantastic the reality is there are still thousands of people who are struggling to survive.  

The UN humanitarian chief Baroness Amos has said " I think we are extremely distressed that this is day six and we have not managed to reach everyone."

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Travel around around the world-Philippines

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TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD-MALTA

Who has a dream of traveling around the world?

If you do you should most defiantly carry on reading. I have only recently started to gain a taste for travel, visiting places such as Malta, Scotland the Philippines and many more in which both were fantastic. However there is still a sense of just packing up everything I am used to in this life and leaving with nothing more than a backpack. The experience of just thinking of it is really exciting and yet slight scary, but I believe it’s time to take the leap; there is so much to see in this world and so much little time.

The land of miracles

Malta’s Rotunda of Mosta, inside was beautiful, with a similar type of layout to the whispering gallery in St Pauls Cathedral in London; however, there is a huge miracle which the people of this little town have not forgotten. On April 9th 1942, during a WWII air raid, a bomb fell among a mass of people of around 150, the bomb came straight through the roof and did not detonate. The people saw it as a miracle of God and to this day the people of the town of Mosta have kept the bomb (of course it is deactivated) and it attracts people from far and wide to go see the little miracle in this beautiful yet amazing church.

Oh the deep blue sea

Within Malta, one of the places that must be experienced is the ‘Blue Grotto’, the water is so blue, the caves are magnificent and the sun just completes it. What adds to the experience are the fantastic tour guides, they add a sense of real realisation and they complete the day. It almost makes you envious of the locals as this is what they have to experience every day; I am almost tempted to call it utopia.

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University, is it worth it?

Interestingly university means "to bring unity in diversity". Today the amount of people going to uni is staggering, how much is a degree actually worth anymore?

There are thousands of people out there who cannot find work who have a degree. In order to have a chance of getting hired by a desirable company most would either carry on with education to attain a level where they are significantly more qualified than most of the competition; or to rely on connections via others.

In today's society, it is not what you know but who you know.

With fees here in the UK reaching up to £9,000+ a year, is it really worth the time? some may argue it is, I suppose it depends upon the degree being take; however, the major area in question is how a degree is actually worth?

An interesting article published by the guardian covers the issue. It has underlined hard work as being the resulting conclusion into how much a degree is actually worth.

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Science relating to life and achievement

Question to think of:

Do are brunches blossom when we leave education?

Science lesson have changed a lot in the past 10 years or so, with changing curricula and new advancing ideas in science pupils are always benefiting from the knowledge taken from science lessons. The question that has to be answered is:

Are science lessons preparing pupils for their life ahead? Can the knowledge they learn from their science be brought forward to create generation of scientists with new adventurous ideas.

K., Ross in his book teaching secondary science mentioned “Children learn about heat and temperature, atoms and molecules, fair testing and Bunsen burners, but do not build them into everyday understanding. At best they have a scientific system that is good enough to pass examinations, but after harvesting the crops, the land is bare, the ideas are lost and everyday life is unaffected”.

Some pupils just want to get their result and not think about pursuing science as a career or even putting forward the knowledge they have learnt to everyday life. Why would they when the things taught in science are based upon knowledge from books and not life experience (however this is changing; slowly  Pupils are being taught for exams and not for the “greater picture”. This leads on to the matter of raising achievements, pupils want to do well they want to succeed but they just cannot and some will not relate to things that they think is a waste of time. Science that is directly related to a pupil’s everyday life may encourage performance and maybe helping to raise achievement.

Reference: Keith Ross and co, Teaching secondary science constructing meaning and developing understanding; 2010.

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Who is considered to be educated?

Target the heart first and then you have the mind.

Trying to understand the best way to educate the next generation would always be a challenge, if we had already discovered how to do this we would have no problems, but it is clear to see that there are still problems in in our worldly education systems.

How important would you say knowledge is?

Some consider it vital.

‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest’ Benjamin Franklin

I found this to be a very interesting video and it speaks truth to some extent; one thing is for sure, do not be afraid to speak out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI

We are living in a very hypocritical world, preachers who preach charity but yet drive around in cars worth thousands, to their homes with over 10 rooms; oh the irony. Is this what an 'educated' world has to offer?

For now let’s just come to this conclusion, when we look at education, as educated people we should be the ones listening first, so that we can come to a steady reasoning to help those who need to be correctly educated.

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