Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Influence of Books on Children's Music Education

Using the well-known fact that music education raises a child's IQ by up to 40 percent, we can now consider how books and reading in general can help our "musical" children.
Presently, mankind, having achieved enormous strides in the field of technology, continues to invent new means of receiving and distributing information almost daily. Radios, TVs, computers, and the Internet are now a normal way of life. Do you know that all information received doubles every year and a half due to the general acceleration of technology?
These days, we and our children do not need to go to the bookstores and libraries. We can easily find the book we are looking for on the Internet. Moreover, if we have no time to sit and read, we can record the audio version of the book and listen to it while driving, walking, or doing any other activity that doesn't require much reflection. There are also video books. Certainly, these adaptable gadgets are very convenient and we should be grateful to people who invent things to make our lives easier and help us save precious time.
Our children, looking at us, try to copy the things we do. Receiving news in the "easier" version, for example from the TV, the new generation began to read less. On one hand it is normal. But if you want your child to play music without losing interest, he has to read a lot. While reading, a child increases his vocabulary and intelligence. Your imagination automatically "turns on" when you read something exciting.
Have you ever read books in which the author describes what his protagonists see around them? For example, dark-blue skies; dewdrops on a blade of grass; dense, white fog the colour of milk above the river in the early morning, etc. Some people omit such descriptive passages in books so as not to miss a string of events, action, adventure, and learn what happens next.
Every single small detail is important for our children during reading. Just after birth, a child is like a white, blank, pure sheet of paper. The person he grows up to be will depend on the information, knowledge, skills, and abilities that we, as adults, will teach and give him. Even the child's personality and habits are literary copied from the behavior of other people. And again, books play the huge role in this. The contents of the books are imperceptibly recorded and stored somewhere deep in human subconscious.
You might agree, but you might also wonder what this has to do with music education. I will ask you another question. Have you ever heard a piece of music that has deeply touched you? This piece can amuse you, make you pensive and even make you cry...
It happens because two very important moments coincided. First, the composer, who wrote the music, managed to convey with absolute precision not only his mood during the creation of this piece, but also a picture that he had in his mind. And second, the person, who played the piece, had these images available in a databank in his brain.
A child, who doesn't read much, can not open and express the beauty of a musical piece only because he memorizes the notes. There is a unique, direct connection between reading and the expression of feelings.
If you pay attention to people who read a lot, you will notice that their speech is more beautiful and rich in comparison with those who don't read much. The same is true for a child. The more he reads, the better his understanding of social surroundings and the easier it is for him to understand emotions and feelings and to express them in a musical piece.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Format For Writing a Newspaper Article

You basically have two choices when you want to become a news article writer. It's either you write for broadsheet or for tabloids. If you want to focus on more serious issues, broadsheets will suit your best. Here's how you can write articles for them:
1. Choose your stories wisely. As you're writing for broadsheets, that means that you're serving people with higher level of education. Your articles will most likely to be read by politicians, businessmen, and young professionals. As such, you need to be very careful when choosing your stories. Your audience generally does not care about local news and police reports. They'd rather spend their precious time reading stories about the government, the economy, sports, and news from around the globe.
2. Research your stories thoroughly. Your audience expects to get complete information and nothing less. So, research your stories thoroughly and make sure that you do not leave any stone unturned. Make time to interview all people who have something to say about your story. Then, verify the information you have gathered and make sure that they are all based on facts.
3. Use captivating headlines. Get your audience to read your news articles by using compelling headlines. Using as few words as possible, tell your readers what your article is all about. Whenever possible, use terms that can evoke action or those that can push the emotional hot buttons of your target audience.
4. Use the inverted pyramid technique. Give your readers the most valuable information that they're looking for on your first paragraph. Doing this will help you make sure that you'll still be able to educate or inform these people even if they choose not to read your articles until the end due to time constraints.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Online Education May Be Your Only Remaining Option

More and more folks are turning to online education these days and the reason is simple, and one only needs to look at the news headlines concerning education; "Universities cutting staff," and raising fees. Tuition increases by 15% to prevent state budget shortfalls. "Community Colleges Deleting Classes," and causing havoc with transfer units as students trying to fulfill their schedules to graduate on time cannot get the classes they need. Meanwhile, classes are thus, filling up as there are fewer classes available.
What options does anyone have?
Well, Online Education may just be your only remaining viable option. Seriously, things are getting pretty bad out there. Worse, many of the students that went to four-year Universities graduated with advanced degrees, only to find a job market that was not interested in their skills, knowledge or resume. Now all they have is a diploma and a load of student loan debt, which is accruing interest.
So, what is the alternative? About the only realistic opportunity for schooling is to go with online education and study at your own pace, but as fast as you can, so that you can get yourself ready for this rapidly coming economic expansion period. It surely makes sense to have that online degree in hand and have all that knowledge to back you up as you go job hunting, while all these large companies are trying to re-hire and ramp up their operations.
These days you can get an online education in just about anything, any subject or topic. So, isn't it about time you looked into propelling you future in this way? Please consider all this.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Education Crisis

Take a moment and think about that. One Hundred Fifty Million Dollars in one city, Chicago, and it barely made a dent. No matter what newspaper you read, TV news that you watch or radio talk show you listen to, the conclusion is always the same, "Spending more money on a broken system will not fix the problem, it will only make it bigger".
Interestingly enough most school districts in the United States offer more "Special Education" programs for students each year than the year before with very little improvement on the academic advancement of the students that these programs were created for.
 
The public school crisis in the United States has become much like the nursery rhyme entitled, "Humpty Dumpty". By adding a little twist, the ending could go like this, "All the legislators and all the tax money could not put the public school system together again". However, the problem does not end when a student leaves high school. Many states have had to establish programs to teach high school graduates basic educational and social skills to enable them to be assimilated into the work force. 
 
So what is the problem? Why is the public school system failing? There are several answers to these questions, but I want to address one issue that can have a great impact on the public school crisis, parenting. Parents must become responsible for their children. The public school system was established to help educate children not to be responsible for children.
 
One of the greatest mishaps that have happened in the United States especially among the "boomer" generation is the thought that more money makes for good family life. Their certainly is nothing wrong with parents pursuing a better life for themselves and their children, but money will never take the place of a parent devoting daily time interacting with their children. It is never too late to shut down the excessive television viewing or turn off the excessive video gaming and spend time interacting one on one with your children.
 
According to an October 1 2007, CBS News report, researchers found that children who watched more than two hours of television per day from age 2 1/2 until age 5 1/2 were more likely to develop sleep attention, have fewer social skills and develop aggressive behavior problems than those who watched less. The report also reveals that parents need to monitor their children's television use, especially during the early childhood years.To combat this problem parents must adjusting their children's play and free time with less TV and more parent child interaction.
Numerous studies reveal that the greatest impact upon a child's development happens between infancy and age 6. This means that when parent invest their time through daily interaction with their children between these ages, they will be providing them with the ability to successfully grow and learn. When you think about it, what parents are actually doing during this phase of a child's life is preparing them to become successful and productive adults.
 
What greater legacy than to see your little boy or girl become an adult more successful and more productive than you and to see them invest quality time into their children because of you. As more parents participate in the daily lives of their children, they will receive a far greater return on their investment than they will from their 401k plan
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