holidays+education

I've just read one of the the warmest articles I've ever seen by Carmela Wilkins!
It showed celebrating of the American Thanksgiving in England among the multinational group of students. Carmela who organised an event and held it felt tremendously homesick and was worried weather the holiday can be successful without her family and the traditions they followed at home.
I enjoyed the passion that one could notice reading of their otdinary Thanksgiving morning.The impression of chaos when you imagine all the relatives trying to cook wonderful dishes all together.
Carmela concentrates readers attention to on what the holiday represents showing on the example of her own family. They gether round the table and say what they are thankful for. I'm sure it's also important to know that Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the US which, according to popular history, follows the traditions of the first Pilgrims and Puritans, who were thankful for a good harvest in 1621. 

The fact that on their wonderful dinner there were her friends all over the world with their traditional dishes shows that cooperation can help to overcome homesickness and make any event one of the most memorable in life

 I think that's a real problem for the students to all over the world to feel comfortable while far from home. The article teaches to be positive about it and even highlight the possibility of learning many interesting multicultural things from people living next door.


Questions:
1. Have u ever felt homesick?
2 did you spend any of "family holidays" alone or not with family?was is fun?
3. What did you learn from a foreigner in your life?


http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/27/celebrating-thanksgiving-american-student-abroad

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa
I’ve read the article about problems of people who suffer from anorexia and bulimia.

Traditionally, eating disorders have been viewed as a problem for women, but much less typically for men. However, contemporary research suggests that increasing numbers of men are experiencing eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. As many as 25% of individuals with eating disorders today are male. In addition, some men appear to suffer from muscle dysmorphia, a body distortion problem in which they see themselves as 90-pound weaklings even though they spend hours each day developing muscle at the gym. These men are more likely to experiment with anabolic steroids in order to increase muscle mass.

Anorexia nervosa is characterized by the maintenance of unusually low body weight and a distorted view of the body as obese. Anorexia literally means “loss of appetite.” Anorexia nervosa is dramatic, but rare, affecting about 1% of women and 0.3% of men. Anorexia nervosa is one of the few psychological disorders that can actually kill, with up to 10% of patients eventually dying from the condition. Other symptoms include interruption of normal menstruation, very dry and yellow skin, fine downy hair (lanugo) on the face and other parts of the body, increased sensitivity to cold, and cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems..

Bulimia nervosa is characterized by cycles of binge eating, in which unusually large amounts of food are consumed, and purging through the use of vomiting or laxatives. Bulimia is often followed by feelings of depression, disgust, and a sense of lost control. Bulimia is somewhat more common than anorexia, affecting 1.5% of women and 0.5% of men (Hudson et al., 2007). Binge eating disorder, or binge eating without the other symptoms of bulimia, occurs in about 3.5% of women and 2% of men (Hudson et al., 2007) and is under consideration as a separate category of psychological disorder. 

I think people who suffer from anorexia and bulimia tend to follow his dream - to lose weight or gain it, imitating his star idols. It’s not normal. People should not go to such victims, in order to be similar to people they can see on the TV and magazines. As they say «You shall not make for yourself an idol». You should to accept yourself as you are and love your body and don’t try "rape" it and put at risk.

Questions for my groupmates:

1. Your opinion about this problem.
2. Do you know real people who suffer from these diseases?
3. What advice can you give these people?

Will a bad marriage ruin my health?

An unhappy marriage could break your heart. Is it better to leave a difficult relationship that might make you ill – or to fix it?

Many researchers say that nowadays our health directly depends on our relationships with our partner. So, if we're happy with our lovers our organism also feels good. The study of married couples shows that a greater risk of getting a heart attack is in the stressful marriages. Stress not only increases blood pressure but also messes with your hormones sufficiently to reduce immunity, increase depression and make you fat. All the research suggests is that relationships of any sort have to be happy to make us healthier than single people.

Of course, if you have someone you really appreciate close to you, everything in your life is brighter, you become kinder, you feel something like butterflies inside. So what is it, if it's not the happiness?
I think, good emotions, wich people take from the spouses, always bring a good self-feeling. Even if sometimes there can be misunderstanding between them. It is harder for single people to survive in our world, because they don't receive proper support and protection, sometimes they feel themselves lonely. And without his (her) unique human and love emotions a single person can feel itself not only sad and boring, but can also suffer. There's no doubt that in this case a human psychologically make its health facing a danger.

But what we are to do if we are not alone, but our relationships are too broken to be saved? Here I agree with author's thought: everybody should work on the marriage as in the gym. If we really want to do something to stay healthy as we get older, to save the relationships, we should not press on each other, we should be kind, honest, try to notice good things that our lovers do. That's it because otherwise it can be the death not only of our happy marriage but also us.

For my groupmates. Do you think, the relationships influence on our health? Why? Have you ever felt that affect after the quarrels or some positive moments with your partner or the member of your family? Do you believe, that love is like a gym where you should work hard?

The article is taken from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/30/will-bad-marriage-ruin-my-health

 I’ve just read a very interesting and a little bit funny article by  Natalie Schwartz, who conducts workshops on parent-teacher relationships. It’s about communication of parents and teachers, about some problems. Here we have top 10 things teachers don’t want to hear from parents. I would like to show you some of them.

“You give too much homework!”
I think it`s a very big problem for teachers patience. Most of  the parents have this opinion, they always thinks that their child is too «overworked» with homework.  Author explains, that when parents say this,  their kid gets the message that school is not important. Homework is a time when parents can see what their kids are learning and take an active role in their education. Here I`m agree with the author, because a think that professional teacher knows about homework burden for kids.

Next: «Jane is picking on my daughter. I want her punished!”
Nikki Wilson says all teachers should take bullying seriously, but some parents approach classroom conflicts the wrong way. “A lot of times, both kids are to blame. Parents only hear one side of the story,” says Wilson.  The most popular problem in every school, I think.

“Billy’s homework is not done because...”
Dance class, sports teams, and forgotten backpacks don’t apply,how explains teacher  it Stephen Kelley.
How  says Kelley, who teaches 3rd grade in Washington :
“I just wish that parents would let the kid come in and face the consequences”
 Another funny reason : «I know it’s only open house, but let me tell you about my daughter’s reading skills».
We can see a lots of parent such as « my son the best pupil at the class» or « my Helen has the most beautiful clothes and she so smart, all teachers loves her» Its really disgusting.  How this article says : “Don’t worry about it. You’ll have parent-teacher conferences in a month, anyway».

To sum up, this article was very interesting for me and funny in some moments. It can be necessary information for me, because  I would like to be a teacher in the future and work with children, and..with their parents. In my opinion there are sometimes a lot of  communicztion problems with parents. But if we can solve them, may be, some creative ways or with a little humor, everything is gonna be alright.
 Do you have any interesting stories about "parents vs teachers"?(may be from your own experience)

link: http://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/10682-10-things-teachers-dont-want-to-hear-from-parents

Education

I've read an interesting article about girl's education in African countries which was published in the newspaper " New York Times". The headline of the article is "Bringing Education to African Girls". It is written by Christopher F. Schuetzenov.
The topic of the article is connected with international education. The author  in the article touches upon the problem of girl's education in such country as Zimbabwe.
As we know it's a poor country and families don't have anough money. And also parents think that girls don't have any opportunities to get a good job and because of that they don't want to pay for their education.
A British educator and philanthropist, Ann Cotton founded an organization "Camfed" that has helped millions of young girls in sub-Saharan Africa remain in school.
At the meeting’s opening by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, co-founder and chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation,  Ms. Cotton was awarded the $500,000 prize. Her early experience in Zimbabwe motivated her to found Camfed in 1993. She began to help and support more than 1.2 million students in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Also  “virtuous cycle”was created by the organization trains teachers, mentors and community activists. There they share their own experience and advise about teaching. Also author mentions about Ms. Husain, who founded the organisation, which eliminates the gender gap in primary schools in in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan. Also here saing about evolution of global education and the author show us result of The Qatar Foundation survey, “School in 2030,” 645 education experts  took part n it.
 "Nearly half agreed that by 2030, most of what students learn will come from online, with 73 percent saying the role of the teacher would shift toward a guide and mentor for students and away from the traditional role as the source of knowledge, a role predicted by only 19 percent."
In my opinion it's really good idea to help students from poor countries because many people in such countries don't have any opportunuty to spend money on the education for their children. Everyone has the right to education. Nowadays our future depends on our education.If you don't have it you never can get a goog job.

So, what do you think about it?

The article:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/world/africa/bringing-education-to-african-girls.html?ref=education

UK lung cancer survival rates among worst in Europe

I have read an article which touched upon the world wide issue of the highly spread problem of cancer. The author provided different kinds of statistics, leading generally to the fact that cancer is a global problem.

According to the statistics, in the UK survival rates are worse than in any part of the world, however breast cancer is successfully cured comparing to the whole world percentage. Although the difference between 1999 and 2009 are too small. England is still on the bottom of European and global list.

All around the world cancer survival percentage is still very low, for example North America shows only 15%-19%/ And so according to the professor Michael Coleman people should be more aware of symptoms and diagnosis. It's not just a question of disturbing a doctor.

If such gap in two types of cancer in different countries and in the UK is more or less understandable, then the difference in numbers in acute leukemia among children is terrific :the strikingly low percentage in African countries comparing to nearly 9 from 10 survival in highly developed countries.

Moreover such findings put up a question why this kind of gap exists between different countries though it shouldn't because of highly developing technologies of the 21st century. Claudia Allemani enumerated some causes, at least accessible to be changed in sense of improving health policy and investments in healthcare.

Among different kinds of reasons of cancer development the author distinguished the problems highly spread around the world - obesity. According to separate studies North America and Europe are both leaders of all rates.

And the UK with two third of overweight or even obese adults appeared as one of the leaders of an obesity- related male cancers, together with the Czech Republic, Jordan, Argentina and Malta. Furthermore some studies claimed that more than 100,000 cases could have never happened but for obesity. Such bursting out tendency will certainly touched South and North Africa. If this prevalence is ignored so the situation will get worse concerning not only obesity but cancer spreading as the consequence.

As a matter of fact I was astonished by this article survival rates. I didn't expect cancer being so easily cured, especially breast cancer that I supposed as the most difficult of woman cancers. However such intention in improvement of healthcare showed readiness to increase these brilliant results. And the statistics about leukemia is also surprising. But I don't think Russia can compete with Europe nor America in medication or technology. That's why a lot of different operations and expensive treatments are provided by foreign companies and clinics became a necessity and the only way for hopeless people. And it made me upset because Russia has everything to put into practice: special medical equipment, science laboratories, and of course human resources - practicing doctors and graduated students are ready to assume new methods and increase the level of their knowledge.

By all means I found the problem with a obesity really sharp in our world. Lack of physical exercises and inactive lifestyle, unwillingness to spend some time outside our own flats caused people being overweight. I was surprised that it also appeared as a cause of cancer development. And it certainly made me think of my own lifestyle - that it needed badly to be changed.

1. Do you think Russian people suffer from obesity?
2. Have you ever heard about somebody recovered from cancer?
3. Does the current level of health care in our country and in the world is good enough for the modern 21st century?


http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/uk-lung-cancer-rates-worst-europe-breast-cancer

     I've just read a very specific and rather interesting article by the famous hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds.The article was published in Time magazine on America's upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and it's called "What I'm Thankful For" but it's not really about the holiday. Mr. Reynolds recalls the profound family moment when he decided to have his ear pierced. Before doing such thing Reynolds knew that his father would be furious when he'd found out about it. I really liked Ryan Reynolds' thoughts about it:

 "I was terrified. Not terrified to have a hole punched through my virginal ear, but terrified about the hole that would be punched through my future, when my father found out."

 But still he was eager to pierce his ear. He was the youngest of four brothers so he decided ask them for advice.Of couse they figured out that he's "be dead" by dinner if he'd do so. Even though they didn't really have a good relationship:

"I often felt less like a little brother and more like a moving target."

 they inspired Reynolds to write this article and they are the ones he thanking. To cut the story short, he pierced his ear and when the dinner time came and his father was about to found out, the unexpected happen. All three brothers also got their ears pierced just to save the youngest one from the trouble he was about to get. Reynolds compares this act with Blue Moons which are happen rare. He thanks his brothers for teaching him about rising to the occasion. Just to do the right thing at the right time.
    I think Reynolds' story shows us exactly what he ment by saying this:

  "Actions speak louder than words."

 In my opinion, family is important for every person. In family people stand by each other no matter what. May be sometimes they don't say things like "I love you" but it doesn't mean they don't. I think this article was published on Thanksgiving Day on purpose,because it's a family holiday. Usually families get together, have a great feast and...thank each other and may be in this exact moment became grateful for just having a family.
   I know in our country we don't celebrate Thanksgiving,it's traditionally American holiday. But I think we all have something to be grateful for. So what are YOU thankful for?

The article:  http://time.com/3595466/ryan-reynolds-time-for-thanks/