Comment: Here’s an article that’s really interesting in today’s world.

Muslim nations need true education

By DR MOHD SANI BADRON

The Muslim world is in need of high quality universities, libraries, resource centres and laboratories.

The solution to present-day Muslim nations’ predicaments lies in a strategic vision aimed at building human development.

To provide a Muslim response to global challenges, we need to build a knowledge society in which real and true knowledge (al-hikmah) is the governing principle of all human activity.

As far as the educational infrastructure is concerned, it is quite obvious that the Muslim world is in need of high quality universities, libraries, resource centres, and laboratories.

Indeed, it is of paramount importance for Islamic states to provide quality lifetime education for all its citizens.

This must address not just the most important lifelong education and higher or tertiary education, but basic education as well as early childhood education, too, in order to properly habituate and capacitate every young person towards genuine learning.

However, in confronting the reality, we must admit that statistics and indicators point to the fact that some Muslim countries have failed to catch up with the Information Age.

The previous problems of illiteracy and poor infrastructure are now compounded with the problems of poor educational info-structure, such as the scant ratio of telephone lines per population and difficult access to digital media like computers and the Internet.

It is very unfortunate if in this digital era the Muslim Community fails to benefit from digital technologies to advance the global opportunities for Islamic education (al-ta’dib).

It might be beneficial to study how, for example, in less than seven years, with a less than US$1mil (RM3.2mil) annual budget, and with only seven paid staff members, Wikipedia has been able to muster the collective intelligence of tens of thousands of volunteers.

It produces the most-visited online reference site that contains more than 9.25 million articles in 253 languages.

In its December 2005 accuracy assessment, Nature magazine found that Wikipedia articles on matters of the natural sciences were almost comparable to those of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

We are living in a period of scientific, technological and digital revolution. For this reason, Muslims must not remain passive bystanders.

This revolution also emphasises the importance of innovation and active research and development (R&D) as the dynamo for social progress.

For the welfare and survival of Islamic nations, this R&D must be harnessed in a socially planned and systematic way.

Muslims must take note that today, every product and service is increasingly based on research. New inventions in turn, increase the productivity of the sciences and its social effects.

Infrastructure aside, Muslims must first and foremost allow themselves to be guided by genuine knowledge capital of the worldview of Islam (ru’yat al-Islam li al-wujud), including its history, its thought and its civilization.

Based upon this core of knowledge capital, Muslims must be able to create and disseminate new knowledge and beneficial sciences.

As there are tremendous developments in the domains of contemporary information and data, there is also a great challenge for Muslim scholars to integrate contemporary intellectual perspectives, present-day knowledge and sciences within the framework of the worldview of Islam.

Islamisation of present-day knowledge and sciences is very important in order to ensure that there is always an equilibrium between two types of knowledge, knowledge of the world and knowledge of the worldview of Islam.

This brings us to a most important matter, that we need willing students, whose enrolment figures must reflect the real needs of the Muslim educational system, as well as erudite scholars (al-rasikhun fi al-’ilm).

It is long overdue for Muslims to support genuine reforms in their educational system. I am referring to a creative attempt to establish a system of education (al-ta’dib) which is able to harness the human capital element towards excellent, all-embracing right action (adab).

Obviously, when we say we must aspire towards a knowledge society in which knowledge is the governing principle of all human activity, it also means that we must rid ourselves of all that is against human dignity.

Muslim leaders must liberate good human capabilities so that every Muslim and individual citizen can positively participate in our system of governance.

What is most important is that we must prepare our people to contribute through their intelligent and meaningful participation as citizens in peaceful cooperation.

Insights Gained Into Arts and Smarts

Findings released this week from three years of studies by neuroscientists and psychologists at seven universities help amplify scientists’ understanding of how training in the arts might contribute to improving the general thinking skills of children and adults.

“We tend to think of the artist, on the one hand, and scientists and mathematicians, on the other, as fundamentally different people,” said Elizabeth S. Spelke, one of the scholars who took part in the research project. “I think the work done here suggests a much closer connection between the cognitive processes that give rise to the arts and the cognitive processes that give rise to the sciences.”

The idea that the arts, and music in particular, could make children smarter in other ways gained currency in the 1990s, after a pair of researchers published a study showing that college students performed better on some mathematical tests after listening to a 10-minute Mozart sonata.

The news led to some widely reported, if fleeting, efforts to promote music learning. Georgia legislators, in fact, even voted to provide parents of newborns with tapes of classical music.

But most neuroscientists viewed such policy moves as premature: The studies never definitively determined whether exposure to music, or other arts, causes changes in the brain that sharpen other kinds of thinking skills. Left unsettled, experts say, is whether the arts make people smarter or whether smart people simply gravitate to the arts.

Burying Myths

In an effort to get at that question in a more comprehensive, systematic way, the Dana Foundation of New York City in 2004 brought together neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists from seven universities to launch a broad program of studies looking at how experience in dance, music, theater, and visual arts might spill over into other areas of learning, and to explore possible mechanisms for those links in the anatomy of the brain— even at the genetic level.

The final report from that $2.1 million effort was unveiled at a March 3 conference at the center’s Washington headquarters.

While the report still doesn’t provide any definitive answers to the arts-makes-you-smarter question, it sounds a final death knell to the myth that students are either right- or left-brained learners, say the scientists involved in the study. It also offers hints on how arts learning might conceivably spill over into other academic domains.

The research team at Stanford University, for instance, studied the development of reading fluency in 49 children between ages 7 and 12. They found that the students who came to the study with more musical training tended to make faster gains in reading fluency than did students with no musical backgrounds.

The researchers also used brain scans and newly developed software technology to study the corpus callosum, the part of the brain linking the left and right hemispheres, as the children grew. They found that the “white matter” pathways responsible for phonological awareness—the ability to pull apart and manipulate the sounds in speech—grew to be more highly developed in the children who were stronger readers than in those with weaker reading skills.

“We think these things all go together,” said Brian Wandell, who led the Stanford study. “Listening carefully to other sounds has long been thought to be important to the development of phonological awareness and reading fluency.”

But until now, few or no longitudinal studies backed up that connection, Mr.Wandell added.

In a finding that surprised them, the Stanford researchers also found preliminary evidence suggesting a link between visual-arts lessons outside of school and children’s skill at math calculations, possibly because both activities involve recognizing patterns.

Paying Attention

In her study, Ms. Spelke, a psychology professor at Harvard University who usually studies the basic understandings that babies bring into the world, attempts to peel back the layers on the “Mozart effect” with three experiments involving children and adults.

She found that middle and high school students who studied music intensively, typically because they were enrolled in special schools for the arts, were better than students with little or no musical training at tasks involving basic geometric skills, but not at tasks involving other kinds of fundamental mathematical systems, such as basic number representation.

Other studies in the mix also suggest a link between music training and skill at manipulating information in both longterm and working memory; between music learning and speaking fluency in second-language learning; and dance and the ability to learn by observing movement.

Training in acting, the study also found, also appears to lead to memory improvement.

One way that arts learning might lead to improved thinking skills, hypothesized Michael Posner, a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon in Eugene and an adjunct psychology professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., might be in motivating students to pay attention.

“We know that if you train attention, then you’ll be more successful at various cognitive tasks,” he added.

Some of the researchers also identified genes that might play a role in predisposing children toward an interest in the arts.

“It’s an important first step, but what we really need are experimental studies with large samples,” said Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College who studies arts learning but was not part of the Dana Consortium. “We can’t conclude anything about causality from correlational studies,” she added.

Interrelationships

Only one of the studies, in fact, involved a randomized study directly related to arts learning. Researchers at the University of Oregon, led by Helen Neville, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, randomly assigned 88 children taking part in the federal Head Start program for disadvantaged preschoolers to a variety of different learning groups.

One group of 26 children met in small groups with teachers for music-related activities. Another group of 19 children received classwide Head Start instruction, while another, similar-sized group got the same instruction in smaller teacher-pupil groups. A fourth group of 23 children received small-group instruction in focusing attention and becoming aware of details.

All the special classes were 40 minutes long and took place four days a week.

Spatial skills and other nonverbal IQ skills did improve in the music students over the course of the eight-week study, but that was also true for the children who got attention training and the Head Start children who worked in small groups. Only the children in the large Head Start class failed to make any progress in those areas.

Those results, the researchers conclude, “may derive from the fact that music training typically involves time being individually tutored, or being in a small group, which may itself increase opportunities for training attention.”

Nonetheless, arts advocates and many of the researchers taking part in the project see the report’s overall findings as important fodder for ongoing efforts to dissuade schools from dropping arts instruction in the face of pressure under the federal No Child Left Behind law to raise students’ test scores in mathematics, reading, and science.

“What we are seeing here is that we have quantitative data that confirm our assumptions about the interrelationships in the way children learn,” said poet Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, at the Dana conference. “And the purpose of education is to realize the full human potential of every child.”

I haven’t posted because I’m trying to die silently from this tooth thing.

Here’s a really interesting new concept. It’s a from National Geographic, and it’s a Green Guide for moms to help keep the home more eco friendly and save money. I’m including the site here, and you can get to the site in the links on the side under National Geographic. It’s a little commercial for my taste, but some may like it.

This is from Food Navigator

Written by Linda Rano

Comment: Just a little joyful note today about something we all take for granted. Interesting if not scary reading.

11-Mar-2008 – Foods with a high glycemic index (GI), such as most white breads, lead to a higher risk of certain health problems, according to researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Early childhood development improves
BY SUZGO KHUNGA
13:45:41 – 03 March 2008

Comment: When you think you have it bad, just think about a place like Malawi.

The concept of early childhood development (ECD) has improved as more Under 5 children have access to good nutrition and education through the establishment of Community Based Child Centers (CBCCs), deputy minister of women and child development Patricia Mwafulirwa said on Thursday.

Mwafulirwa was speaking at the handover of four CBCCs at Chowe in Mangochi built by the communities with financial assistance from the German government and initiated by United Nations organisations FAO, Unicef and World Food Programme (WFP).

The CBCC cater for children aged two to six years where they take part in various activities such as playing with building blocks to promote creativity, reading and playing with soft toys to ensure early learning stimulation.

Mwafulirwa said ECD services had increased in the past 10 years through the establishment of CBCCs from 1 per cent in 1996 to 29.7 per cent in 2007.

“Over the past few years, ECD in Malawi has tended to focus on all children for their survival. Children seek protection from all types of abuse and exploitation and participation in social economic development,” he said.

Mwafulirwa said the project called Protecting and Improving Food and Nutrition Security of Orphans and HIV Affected Children had improved food availability in targeted households and enhanced crop production in the Chowe area.

She however bemoaned the limited access to ECD services for the majority of children more especially those in rural areas and those affected or infected with HIV/Aids.

Through the project, the targeted households were trained on construction of dams for vegetable gardens and were introduced to improved fruit varieties as income generating activity.

However, the CBCCs have not been welcomed wholeheartedly in the Chowe area as narrated by Chief Chowe.

Chowe said many parents were reluctant to send their children to the CBCCs due to high illiteracy levels in the area because the parents don’t understand the importance of it.

For example at Chowe CBCC, over 243 children were registered but daily attendance ranges from 98 to 200 at times.

Because most parents were not aware of the benefits of sending children to the CBCCs, 11 villages are yet to complete construction.

About 12 villages in the Chowe area have 1,815 orphans and vulnerable children who are benefiting from ECD interventions under the project.

Good Housekeeping Tip
Another Ray of Sunshine from Maxine …

Always keep several
get well cards on the mantle…
So if unexpected guests arrive,
They will think you’ve been sick
and unable to clean!

Try using your mouse to scribble on this:

Spring

Spring is creeping up on us, and the children’s behavior is taking long rides down slender tributaries. Some children will travel untraveled waterways and end up in the muck, and some children will look down the inviting waterway and say “NO!” We are grateful to those who say no.

This week we had to dismiss two children for such wrongful behavior, we could no longer handle either one of them. Rarely do we do this, but there are times when the safety of the entire group is at risk, and then it’s a no brainer.

For years we have been the school where children could come and fit in – if they were shy, if they were late bloomers, if they were brilliant, if they were slightly odd, English was a second language, or they had a dormant but serious illness. These were our beautiful angels, and nobody knew a thing except they were Garden School children and were loved.

But outrageous behavior that’s affronting, rude, dangerous and malicious is never tolerated. We’re sorry about the choices these children have made, but their terrible choices must never ruin the day of the other children.

Behavior is something that is modeled by parents. Most negative behaviors comes from watching mom or dad do the following: treat other family members shamefully, curse, be overtly sexual, be rude and demanding in public, have screaming or throwing tantrums, demonstrate selfishness – the demand on the part of the parent that he or she always comes first every time, ignorant about the effects of TV, or be extremely lazy – or rarely exercise helpfulness to do the work that’s required at home. When parents show their lesser sides, children are watching and will often model these behaviors. When they have practiced a few times, the behavior becomes the child’s and there is a slim chance that a teacher is going to change it.

Sullenness, pathetic negativity, disruptive self doubt, and failure are all taught by unloving parents who haven’t a clue nor want one.

On the bright side, industriousness, calm review, self-less-ness, helpfulness, and smarts about what is appropriate for ANYONE to watch on TV will strengthen a child’s model range and help make him the best he can be, which is what most of our parents do. We can tell because most of our children are outstanding little citizens and can accomplish just about anything.

Because most of our parents are excellent examples, we’ve thrown away the age appropriate guides and have thrust our children into activities beyond their years because that is what the children are wanting. “Figure it out,” has become our theme song these last weeks, and you know what? The children are figuring things out for themselves, and it’s wonderful to see. Independence is growing in leaps and bounds and the children are discovering at a furious pace.

Good families and good children are backbone of our school. We thank every single parent for their love and cooperation.

WHAT IS A GRANDPARENT?
(taken from papers written by a class of 8-year-olds)

Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no little children of her own. They like other people’s .

A grandfather is a man grandmother

Grandparents don’t have to do anything except be there when we come to see them. They are so old they shouldn’t play hard or run. It is good if they drive us to the store and have lots of quarters for us .

When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars.

They show us and talk to us about the color of the flowers and also why we shouldn’t ” step on cracks “

They don’t say, “Hurry up !”

Usually grandmothers are fat, but not too fat to tie your shoes.

They wear glasses and funny underwear

They can take their teeth and gums out

Grandparents don’t have to be smart

They have to answer questions like, “why isn’t God married?” and “How come dogs chase cats?”
When they read to us, they don’t skip. They don’t! mind i f we ask for the same story over again ..
Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don’t have television, because they are the only grown ups who like to spend time with us.

They know we should have snack-time before bedtime and they say prayers with us every time, and kiss us even when we’ve acted bad.

A 6 YEAR OLD WAS ASKED WHERE HIS GRANDMA LIVED ”OH,” HE SAID, ”SHE LIVES AT THE AIRPORT, AND WHEN WE WANT HER WE JUST GO GET HER. THEN WHEN WE’RE DONE HAVING HER VISIT, WE TAKE HER BACK TO THE AIRPORT !

Comment: I can relate to that.

Comment: I read this and laughed, but much of it is true. I’ll be 57 this year, and I remember many of these things. I didn’t listen to Tommy Dorcey; I listened to Peter Paul and Mary. I didn’t have a TV until I was 6. We did have penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, my mother invested in the pill and made money; we had frozen foods, a dishwasher, and a dryer, and we had the pens, but weren’t allowed to use them at school. We still did 7th century manuscript with dip pens. My first air conditioner was made in 1936 in an experimental house we lived in. The rest of it’s pretty true, although I still say “Sir” to anyone out there.

I think the big difference is the freedom we had vs the freedom children don’t have today. I had the run of my island and miles beyond as early as four years old. I wasn’t watched because only the very very wealthy watched their kids and they had butlers and maids to do it. I can’t tell you how many times my life was in serious danger as early as 5-6. I was once honked at by a coast guard vessel because my raft was too close to Alcatraz Island. I took rides from tourists because I knew they couldn’t go faster than five miles an hour on the island, and I could always jump out. And how many times did we sit on the open tailgates of station wagons going down the highway? If you got stuck in a crevice under the boardwalk, would anyone ever find you? If that tree you climbed to the top of that overhung the 200 foot cliff, and the branch cracked???? And what about dodging the man-o-war that often floated into the bay? Swimming too long distances was our little way of life. If you suddenly didn’t have any steam, you just turned over and tried to float for a minute until you caught your breath, that or go under. Unfortunately, I discovered early that Miss Judy can’t float. Life was dangerous because we made it that way. We camped out in the center of big sequoia trees, and sometimes there were bears… but the only time I was really hurt was when I fell down the convent steps and broke my finger. The nurse wrapped it in a kotex. Go figure.

It’s still interesting to go back. My husband and Edith are a few years older, they probably remember a lot more fun stuff. But here it is:

How old is Grandma???

Stay with this — the answer is at the end. It will blow you away.

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandmother about current
events.

The grandson asked his grandmother what she thought about the shootings at
schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

The Grandma replied, “Well, let me think a minute, I was born before:

‘ television

‘ penicillin

‘ polio shots

‘ frozen foods

‘ Xerox

‘ contact lenses

‘ Frisbees and

‘ the pill

There were no:

‘ radars

‘ credit cards

‘ laser beams

‘ ball-point pens
Man had not invented:

‘ pantyhose

‘ air conditioners

‘ dishwashers

‘ clothes dryers

‘ and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and

‘ man hadn’t yet walked on the moon

Your Grandfather and I got married first … and then lived together.

Every family had a father and a mother.

Until I was 25, I called every man older than me, “Sir.”
And after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a
title, “Sir.”

We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers,
and group therapy.

Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common
sense.

We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand
up and take responsibility for our actions.

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger
privilege.

We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent.

Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening
breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and
weekends-not purchasing condominiums.

We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters,
yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President’s speeches on
our radios.

And I don’t ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to
Tommy Dorsey.

If you saw anything with ‘Made in Japan” on it, it was junk.

The term ‘making out’ referred to how you did on your school exam.

Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and instant coffee were unheard of.

We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10
cents.

Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a
nickel.

And if you didn’t want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough
stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 .. but who could afford one?

Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

In my day:

‘ “grass” was mowed,

‘ “coke” was a cold drink,

‘ “pot” was something your mother cooked in and

‘ “rock music” was your grandmother’s lullaby.

‘ “Aides” were helpers in the Principal’s office,

‘ ” chip” meant a piece of wood,

‘ “hardware” was found in a hardware store and

‘ “software” wasn’t even a word.

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a
husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us “old and confused” and say
there is a generation gap … and how old do you think I am?

I bet you have this old lady in mind … you are in for a shock!

Read on to see — pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the
same time.

This Woman would be only 58 years old!
>