Importance of Education;
Education is not all about studying and getting good marks. It is really a means to discover new things which we don't know about and increase our knowledge.
An educated person has the ability to differentiate between right and wrong or good and evil. It is the foremost responsibility of a society to educate its citizens.
Focus should be on women’s education because the knowledge and empowerment of one woman can bring about a change in a family and even the society as a whole. It is the uneducated and illiterate people who think women are not entitled to education.
A person becomes perfect with education as he is not only gaining something from it, but also contributing to the growth of a Nation.
We must realize the importance of education. We must aim to ensure that each citizen of our nation is educated and independent.
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Preschools: Embarking on a Journey of Learning
Preschools can play a huge impact on the mental, physical, and social development of a child. While most parents might consider preschool a choice, fact is that preschool can introduce and prepare children for road of literacy that lies ahead. Please take a moment to read this article.
One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.
-Chinese proverb
President Obama's "Preschool for All" proposal calls for directing funding for low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds through the public schools. Many advocates are encouraging the administration to maintain the positive features of the current mixed delivery system. A recent New York Times article, "Private Preschools See More Public Funds as Classes Grow," shared some interesting points about a mixed delivery system:
"Starting this fall, under an expansion led by [Chicago] Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the number of Catholic schools in the city receiving taxpayer money for preschool will nearly double. Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools, and a variety of community-based nonprofit organizations that conduct preschool classes.
"According to the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, about one-third of students enrolled in state-financed preschool programs attend classes conducted outside the public schools. In some states, the proportion is much higher: in New Jersey, close to 60 percent of students in publicly financed preschool are enrolled in private, nonprofit, or Head Start centers, and in Florida, about 84 percent of 4-year-olds in state-financed prekindergarten attend classes run by private, faith-based, or family centers....
“'High-quality pre-K can happen in church basements, community centers, or within the Y.M.C.A., as long as the standards are there,' said Lisa Guernsey, the director of early education at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit policy institute....
"Frequently overcrowded public schools do not always have the space to add preschool classrooms. And many preschool classes — particularly those that serve low-income working families — are embedded in broader day care centers that operate longer days than a typical public school."
-Chinese proverb
President Obama's "Preschool for All" proposal calls for directing funding for low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds through the public schools. Many advocates are encouraging the administration to maintain the positive features of the current mixed delivery system. A recent New York Times article, "Private Preschools See More Public Funds as Classes Grow," shared some interesting points about a mixed delivery system:
"Starting this fall, under an expansion led by [Chicago] Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the number of Catholic schools in the city receiving taxpayer money for preschool will nearly double. Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools, and a variety of community-based nonprofit organizations that conduct preschool classes.
"According to the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, about one-third of students enrolled in state-financed preschool programs attend classes conducted outside the public schools. In some states, the proportion is much higher: in New Jersey, close to 60 percent of students in publicly financed preschool are enrolled in private, nonprofit, or Head Start centers, and in Florida, about 84 percent of 4-year-olds in state-financed prekindergarten attend classes run by private, faith-based, or family centers....
“'High-quality pre-K can happen in church basements, community centers, or within the Y.M.C.A., as long as the standards are there,' said Lisa Guernsey, the director of early education at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit policy institute....
"Frequently overcrowded public schools do not always have the space to add preschool classrooms. And many preschool classes — particularly those that serve low-income working families — are embedded in broader day care centers that operate longer days than a typical public school."
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Struggle for Equality
"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together."-Goethe
As we in the North America celebrate July as a month of Independence, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the wisdom of Lilian Katz in her book, Intellectual Emergencies: Some Reflections on Mothering and Teaching:
"I think the great struggle of our time - and no doubt for generations to come - is the struggle for equality. But we might ask: equality of what? People are not equally tall or musical or mathematical or athletic or beautiful; but they are equally human! They are equally human in the sense that they all have hopes, and dreams, and wishes and fantasies and aspirations and fears and doubts. They all want to be treated with respect and dignity and want to feel loved by someone. In these ways it seems to me, all of the world's people have much more in common than they have apart!"
-United4Literacy
As we in the North America celebrate July as a month of Independence, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the wisdom of Lilian Katz in her book, Intellectual Emergencies: Some Reflections on Mothering and Teaching:
"I think the great struggle of our time - and no doubt for generations to come - is the struggle for equality. But we might ask: equality of what? People are not equally tall or musical or mathematical or athletic or beautiful; but they are equally human! They are equally human in the sense that they all have hopes, and dreams, and wishes and fantasies and aspirations and fears and doubts. They all want to be treated with respect and dignity and want to feel loved by someone. In these ways it seems to me, all of the world's people have much more in common than they have apart!"
-United4Literacy
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Worldwide Reach: United4Literacy Reaches Wide Audience Around the World!
Over the past 8 months United4Literacy has operated our blog as a means of communicating to a wide audience all over the world to spread our message of how important literacy is to society, countries and people. We regularly posted interesting articles and views from our authors in India and from our team in Canada. On this day we achieved a milestone for our blog. Today, exactly 1000 people have seen, read and been touched by our blog. We are very proud that this wide audience that we have been able to reach has come from all over the world. Our blog has been seen in 20 countries including: Canada, United States, Russia, Germany, India, United Kingdom, Poland, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Malaysia, Japan, Ukraine, Finland, Argentina, and Bangladesh. We thank all the people who read our blog and we hope that we have motivated you to take action against illiteracy. United4Literacy is committed to spread the light of literacy and we hope that we can reach more and more people and take bigger strides to educate children worldwide in the future.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Like us on Facebook!
Hello Friends!
United 4 Literacy.org is our serious effort to empower the forgotten and helpless children through education around the world. In order to reach out as many people as possible. We are looking to switch from our current Facebook profile, to our Facebook page, making it easier to share and post stories and events! Please 'like' the page below! :)
United 4 Literacy.org
CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE OF OUR WORLD - I hear this in North America so many times. A cliché that is overused completely. But what about so many countries around the world where there are children, but with no future, the forgotten and helpless without education. An education is not just a requirem...
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Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Ideas in Action- United4Literacy Supports Students
Hello Friends,
-United4Literacy
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Ecological Identity of Children
Another major part of the development and learning of children comes from nature. Nature provides an invaluable experience and lessons that children will remember their whole lives. Please take time to read the following article:
"Let the beauty we love be what we do".-Rumi
In her newest book, The Goodness of Rain: Developing an Ecological identity in Young Children, Ann Pelo offers this charge:
"We teach children to write and to read and to navigate mathematical systems so that they can access the world of ideas and questions and intellectual exchange. We teach children how to behave with other people so that they can grow joyful and nourishing relationships. We teach children history, so that they know where they come from, and we teach them art, so that they can imagine what might be, and we teach them science so that they understand the intricate workings of the physical world. This teaching honors and strengthens children's innate social, intellectual and cultural, and aesthetic identities, identities that we value as a society. We don't leave their development to happenstance or luck. Just so, we must nurture children's intrinsic ecological identities with intention and action.
"This is our work as parents, caregivers, teachers: to invite children to braid their identities together with the place where they live by calling their attention to the air, the sky, the cracks in the sidewalk where the earth bursts out of its cement cage.
"When we live this way with children, we align ourselves with the instinct to know the place where we live. Inviting children to know their home ground is our way home, as well."
-Source "Exchange Everyday"
"Let the beauty we love be what we do".-Rumi
In her newest book, The Goodness of Rain: Developing an Ecological identity in Young Children, Ann Pelo offers this charge:
"We teach children to write and to read and to navigate mathematical systems so that they can access the world of ideas and questions and intellectual exchange. We teach children how to behave with other people so that they can grow joyful and nourishing relationships. We teach children history, so that they know where they come from, and we teach them art, so that they can imagine what might be, and we teach them science so that they understand the intricate workings of the physical world. This teaching honors and strengthens children's innate social, intellectual and cultural, and aesthetic identities, identities that we value as a society. We don't leave their development to happenstance or luck. Just so, we must nurture children's intrinsic ecological identities with intention and action.
"This is our work as parents, caregivers, teachers: to invite children to braid their identities together with the place where they live by calling their attention to the air, the sky, the cracks in the sidewalk where the earth bursts out of its cement cage.
"When we live this way with children, we align ourselves with the instinct to know the place where we live. Inviting children to know their home ground is our way home, as well."
-Source "Exchange Everyday"
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Visual-Spatial Skills
"No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky"-Llewelyn Powys
"Children who are more traditional auditory-sequential thinkers learn step-by-step, follow a logical progression from beginning to end, are good listeners, are rapid processors, and think in words. Children with strong visual-spatial skills often think in pictures and images. They are keen observers, learn holistically, and need more time to process information."
This is the observation of Dana Miller in her article, "A 'Rich Diet' for Learning: A Multi-Sensory Approach That Nourishes All Children," in the new Exchange Essential, The Power of Nature to Nurture. She continues...
"Visual-spatial skills relate to how individuals perceive, interpret, and act on the visual stimuli in their environment. These skills provide information about the environment around us and guide us as we move through that environment....
"Children have many opportunities to develop and hone their visual-spatial skills through building, purposeful movement, and daily hands-on experiences with nature. Through close observation of children, we have learned that children’s visual-spatial work is a language that provides them with opportunities to:
- communicate their knowledge about the world as they view it.
- develop and demonstrate their skills.
- convey, process, and learn to manage their emotions."
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Achievement Gap
The same problem exists globally. Whether it be in India or the United States we must strive to help students cross the achievement gap! Please take the time to read and consider the following article...
"The head thinks, the hands labor, but it's the heart that laughs" -Liz Curtis Higgs
For decades, educators have raised concerns about the achievement gap — the large divergence in learning achievement between low-income and higher-income students in the United States. With secondary schools increasing reliance on the Internet for teaching and communicating with students, there is a new factor contributing to the achievement gap — the digital divide. In Education Week (January 20, 2013), Helen Brunner reported these trends:
"Access to the Internet has become a need-to-have — not just a nice-to-have — when it comes to student success.... About 70 percent of teens said that the Internet had been their primary source for a recent school project, and at least 65 percent had gone online to complete their homework. Teachers routinely assign homework that requires Internet use to complete, and about half of American schools expect to adopt e-textbooks in the next two to three years...."
"Even if students have reliable Internet access at school, many become digitally disconnected when they leave. This is especially true for those who live in rural or low-income communities, and it makes their homework harder to complete.... The lack of access particularly impacts minorities. Only 55 percent of African-American and 57 percent of Hispanic households are able to access the Internet from home, and only 50 percent of residents in rural areas have high-speed Internet, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce."
"Without access to the Internet, students can't take advantage of the numerous innovative tools that have democratized learning...."
United4Literacy
"The head thinks, the hands labor, but it's the heart that laughs" -Liz Curtis Higgs
For decades, educators have raised concerns about the achievement gap — the large divergence in learning achievement between low-income and higher-income students in the United States. With secondary schools increasing reliance on the Internet for teaching and communicating with students, there is a new factor contributing to the achievement gap — the digital divide. In Education Week (January 20, 2013), Helen Brunner reported these trends:
"Access to the Internet has become a need-to-have — not just a nice-to-have — when it comes to student success.... About 70 percent of teens said that the Internet had been their primary source for a recent school project, and at least 65 percent had gone online to complete their homework. Teachers routinely assign homework that requires Internet use to complete, and about half of American schools expect to adopt e-textbooks in the next two to three years...."
"Even if students have reliable Internet access at school, many become digitally disconnected when they leave. This is especially true for those who live in rural or low-income communities, and it makes their homework harder to complete.... The lack of access particularly impacts minorities. Only 55 percent of African-American and 57 percent of Hispanic households are able to access the Internet from home, and only 50 percent of residents in rural areas have high-speed Internet, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce."
"Without access to the Internet, students can't take advantage of the numerous innovative tools that have democratized learning...."
United4Literacy
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Poll Results- What You Think!
For the past month, we had a poll to survey the effectiveness of our organization. To do this we asked our viewers to answer if united4literacy had motivated them to take action against illiteracy. We now have the results for this poll. We thank all the participants and are proud that all of you reported that united4literacy had in some way motivated you to take action. This means our first poll had a 100% positive result. If united4literacy has motivated you to take action, then you have motivated us to continue in our efforts. We will continue to unite for literacy and be on the lookout for more posts, comments, opinions and polls as we strive to accomplish the dream of global literacy. Thanks to all our viewers from over 13 different countries and we hope you continue to support our common goals of literacy!
-United4Literacy
-United4Literacy
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Where there is a will there is a way....
This photo is so motivating at many levels......
we have so many children around the world who has potential and willingness to learn and study, let's we all reach out as much as we can and help them to achieve their right to learn and be in school.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Protect the Rights of Children!
Anti Child Labour day may be over today, but let us never cease our efforts to protect the rights of children. Only literacy can help someone achieve their rights, so lets make it the supreme right!
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Worldwide Anti Child Labour Day!
Today, on anti-child labor day let us all do our part to end child labor and initiate child literacy!
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