The Education Systems of Lt, the Uk and the Usa. Pre-School and Pre-Primary Education Essay Example for Free

The Education Systems of Lt, the Uk and the Usa. Pre-School and Pre-Primary Education Essay Pre-school and pre-primary education in Lithuania, in the United Kingdom and in the USA have several things in common.. First, both education systems are available in three countries and also pre-school education is not compulsory. There are public and private pre-schools in three countries. Public pre-schools are those which are run by the government. Private pre-schools are those which are run by private organizations, for which parents have to pay fees. Many private pre-schools have a high reputation and parents send their children there so that they will have advantages later in life. There are nursery schools for children from the age of 1 to 3 years in Lithuania. Children from the age of 3 till 6 attend a kindergarten. The number of children in nursery schools is approximately 10 children and approximately 15 children in a kindergarten, whereas the number of children in the USA and in Great Britain is approximately 2-3 little children or 4-5 bigger children plus nursery-governor’s help. Another difference is about security in pre-school institutions. People who come in a kindergarten or nursery school are not registered. By contrast, people who come in a nursery school or a kindergarten are strictly registered in the USA and in Great Britain. Your driving licence or passport is taken and you get permission to be in a pre-school institution. The kindergartens and nursery schools in Lithuania also differs in their cost compared to cost of these pre-schools institutions in the United Kingdom and in the Usa because it is cheaper to let your children to Lithuanian kindergarten than to American or English kindergarten. Differently from Lithuania children under 5 receive pre-school education in Great Britain. Some go to playgroups several times a week and take part in structured play (play with some educational purpose) with other children of the same age. Others go to a nursery school or to the nursery department or kindergarten of a school. Children attend day nurseries until they are 6 months old the same as in Lithuania. Day nurseries take care of children activity, self-expression, security. Nursery-governors take care of children education and upbringing. The emphasis is on group work, creative activity and guided play. Day nurseries are divided into private and community. Fees in the communities are not so big as in the day nurseries. Some of the community nurseries give parents discounts according to their financial position. The working time is very different in day nurseries of Great Britain, for example, local authority pre-schools work until 15 a. m. The other pre-school institutions work from 7 till 19. All kindergartens work all year except public holidays in Great Britain meanwhile not all kindergartens work all year in Lithuania. In the same way, children attend nursery schools, day care or pre-school from an early age in the USA. Children are taught, trained in the nursery schools and in the kindergartens. Nursery-governors play with children. There are some requirements in order that your child would be inducted to kindergarten, for example, it is required children to be toilet trained and your child is not ready for the potty, they may not let him or her attend a kindergarten, but children are not required to be toilet trained in Lithuania. In the USA parents may also have to pay high fees for late pickups and end up having to stay home with their child if the pre-school says she or he is too sick to be there. Another difference is that parents can freely choose which nursery school or kindergarten their child is going to attend in Lithuania, but in the USA all children should go to nursery school or kindergarten according to their living place because there are brought under districts. All children go according to district which he or she belongs to. If parents think that their district’s nursery school or kindergarten is not as good as it should be, parents must change the living place in order that their children could go to a better pre-school institution. Pre-primary education content is similar in three countries. There a wide variety of fun activities – including singing, dancing, arts and crafts, storytelling, free play, and both indoor and outdoor games and projects – designed to teach children different skills. Cildren may also learn some academic basics such as counting and the alphabet. Children in Lithuania start to attend pre-primary institution at the age of 6, but if parents want and their child is grown enough pre-primary institution can be attend at the age of 5, while the majority of children start to attend pre-primary preparation lessons at the age of 2-5 in the United Kingdom. Also the government’s programme which is named â€Å"sureStart† gives the possibility to all children from the age of 3 to 4 to get pre-primary lessons free of charge in a kindergarten. Differently from Lithuania children at the age of 6 start to attend a school in the USA. Taking everything into account, I can note that pre-school and pre-primary education has several things in common in The United Kingdom, in the USA, and in the Lithuania, but on the other hand there are a lot of differencies.

The Issue Of Sport :: essays research papers

The Issue of Sport The material I have studied for the Issue of Sport has helped me understand more about living in our contemporary world. The film and the screenplay "Strictly Ballroom" along with newspaper articles and the television documentary on Sport made me understand why sport is important in our society. Sport involves many things such as competition, dirty tactics, personal achievement and sport officials. Firstly, whenever there is sport, there is competition. There is competition for all levels of sport. Some people thive on competition while others are just testing their own limitations. Competition is both good and bad for our society; it brings out the best and the worst in people. If there is competition it makes people strive harder to do the best they can. But it can also lead to dirty tactics, drugs or violence. In the screenplay "Strictly Ballroom", dirty tactics were used due to the competitive pressure. At the State Final Championship Scott and Liz were blocked by Ken Railings and Pam Short. It was also unfair competition, Barry Fife (The Dance Ferderation President) was being dishonest. Wayne overheard Barry setting it up so that Scott didn't win the Pan Pacific Grand Prix. The Sport weekly magazine article " Shirley knows her tables" printed on 14th May, 1996 dicusses her determination and preparation for the competition in the 2000 Olympics game. Every game have different levels of competion and also the bigger the prizes, the more competitive. Shirley trains very hard and knows it is very competitive at the Olympics. Secondly people can personal achievement from sport. Sportspersons are satisfied that is they have performed to their expectations. Personal achievement is doing the best you can or setting up goals and fulfilling them by winning. It helps to lift the spirits and the motivation of a person's mind. Family support is also important to a person's success. In "Strictly Ballroom", Scott and Fran achieved some goals such as the time Fran asked Scott to dance with her and he eventually agreed. They showed their individuality and are very determined non- conformists. They dance for the enjoyment of it. Both of them have the same dreams. But Scott's personal achievement is different from Fran's. He grew up expecting to win the Pan Pacifics. Fran and Scott fulfilled their ambition and are satisfied by merely being able to dance their own steps. The newspaper article "Straight into the record books" from The Sydney Morning Herald published on 6th Febrary 1996 demonstrated personal achievement of Tammy van Wisse, the first person to swim Bass Strait. Her individuality and

Nature vs. Nurture in Language Development

What is Language? Language is a tool we have been using to understand and develop our thinking. We have been: Learning about the thinking of others by reading Expressing our own thinking through writing Exchanging ideas with others by speaking and listening Thought and language can contribute to clear, effective thinking and communication. Language is a system of symbols for thinking and communicating. At 5 years of age human is expected to have; Articulated speech, Vocabulary of more than 6000 words and Observe grammar rules.An Average speaker is expected to have; 150 words per minute, 20,000 and 40,000 alternatives and error rates below 0. 1%. There are two theories concerning Nature or Rationalism in Language and these are the Nativism and Child Talk model of Chapman et al. (1992). In the child talk theory the child’s needs will enable him to formulate speech based on his past experiences. Nature or rationalist theory is based on the following study by prominent people in h uman history: 1. PLATO knowledge and understanding: * innate * biological * genetically * common nature . Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) Ideas existed within human beings prior to experience. * God * ability of the environment and the mind to influence and initiate behavior * reflex action (unintended behaviors) 3. Kant (1724-1804) â€Å"A priori† knowledge as illustrated below. 4. CHOMSKY The Nativist Perspective: Human beings are born with an innate capacity for language. Universal Grammar * An innate property of the human mind * Growth of language is analogous to the development of a bodily organ * Abstract that it could not be learned at allPrinciples of UG: 1. Language is innate 2. Our brains contain a dedicated special-purpose learning device that has evolved for language alone. * domain specificity, autonomy or modularity Nurture states that knowledge originates in the environment and comes in through the senses. This theory is called Empiricism defines as the imp ortance of sensory experience as the basis of all knowledge. Empiricism is otherwise known as the doctrine that says sense experience is the only source of knowledge, a belief that experience alone is the source of all knowledge.Empiricism is essentially a theory of knowledge which asserts that all knowledge is derived from sense experience. It rejects the notion that the mind is furnished with a range of concepts or ideas prior to experience. Three principal British philosophers who are associated with empiricism are John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753), and David Hume (1711-76). in philosophy, a doctrine that affirms that all knowledge is based on experience, and denies the possibility of spontaneous ideas or a priori thought. Empiricism (greek from empirical, latin experientia – the experience) is generally regarded as being at the heart of the modern scientific method, that our theories should be based on our observations of the world rather than on intuit ion or faith; that is, empirical research and a posteriori inductive reasoning rather than purely deductive logic. Other basis of empiricism are: 1. ARISTOTLE * Truth and knowledge to be found outside of ourselves by using our senses. 2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) * Emile: the hero learns about life through his experiences in life 3.John Dewey (1859 – 1952) * Structured experience matters and disciplinary modes of inquiry could allow the development of the mind. 4. Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949) STIMULUS – RESPONSE * people learned through a trial-and-error approach * mental connections are formed through positive responses to particular stimuli * learning was based on an association between sense impressions and an impulse to action * structure the environment to ensure certain stimuli that would ‘produce’ learning 5. Psychologist B. F.Skinner (behaviorism or associationism) 3 needs for language formation: * time * opportunity * com puting power Skinner further explains that learning is the production of desired behaviors without any influence of mental processes. Programmed learning is positive reinforcement for â€Å"correct† responses Let us now bridge the gap between nature and nurture. Learning is a developmental cognitive process, human create/construct knowledge. There are three theories involved in this process; constructivism, progressivism and language acquisition theory.We will discuss first constructivism , the following diagrams will show us. Diagram 1: Psychologist Jean Piaget proposed two kind of interaction: * Simple interactions: putting together * Emergentism: adding more to what was put together The first box shows simple interaction while the second box shows emergentism. Diagram 2 shows us how the brain is constructed with interaction to the environment. Diagram 2: Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) states that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions.The zone of proximal development (ZPD)learn subjects best just beyond their range of existing experience with assistance from the teacher or another peer to bridge the distance from what they know or can do independently and what they can know or do with assistance (Schunk, 1996) â€Å"scaffolding† that help students learn in systematic ways. This is illustrated further illustrated in diagram 3. To Piaget there are three element involved in interaction the structured environment, the senses and the brain. Vygotsky added one more element nother human being that makes now the elements of interaction four namely structured environment, the senses, another human being and the brain. Diagram 3: Second theory in bridging the gap is Progressivism which emphases on both experience and thinking or reflection as a basis for learning explore, discover, construct, and create. Emergentist (Tomasello & Call, 1997) said that there is something innate in the human brain that makes language poss ible, something that we do with a large and complex brain that evolved to serve the many complex goals of human society and culture.A new machine built out of old parts, reconstructed from those parts by every human child. ( contrast to domain specificity ). Diagram 4 will show us people cannot create something from nothing. People can create but from something already there. The picture on the left is the nurtured face while the picture on the right is the natural face. Diagram 4: LAD THEORY ( Language Acquisition Device ) Chomsky regards linguistics as a subfield of psychology, more especially the cognitive psychology.The Language Acquisition Device: Chomsky argues that language is so complex that it is almost incredible that it can be acquired by a child in so short a time. He further says that a child is born with some innate mental capacity which helps the child to process all the language which he hears. This is called the quot;Language Acquisition Devicequot; (LAD). Chomsky a nd his followers claim that language is governed by rules, and is not a haphazard thing, as Skinner and his followers would claim. We must remember that when Chomsky talks about rules, he means the unconscious rules in a child's mind.A child constructs his own mental grammar which is a part of his cognitive framework. These rules enable him to produce grammatical sentences in his own language. Chomsky does not mean that child can describe these rules explicitly. For instance, a four or five year old child can produce a sentence like, I have taken meal, he can do that because he has a ‘mental grammar' which enables him to form correct present perfect structures and also to use such structures in the right or appropriate situation. Language learning Input Mental grammar Is an (own rules) Innate ability LADGrammatical Output sentencesChomsky suggests that the learner of any language has an inbuilt learning capacity for language that enables each learner to construct a kind of per sonal theory or set of rules about the language based on very limited exposure to language. John Watson / Behaviorism A branch of psychology that bases its observations and conclusions on definable and measurable behavior and on experimental methods, rather than on concept of ;quot;mind. â€Å" Behaviorism is a psychological theory first put forth by John Watson (1925), and then expounded upon by BF Skinner.Attempting to answer the question of human behavior, proponents of this theory essentially hold that all human behavior is learned from one's surrounding context and environment. Diagram 5 shows the imitation process * Children start out as clean slates and language learning is process of getting linguistic habits printed on these slates * Language Acquisition is a process of experience * Language is a ‘conditioned behavior’: the stimulus response process * Stimulus – Response, Feedback – Reinforcement Diagram 5:SUMMARY Rationalism ( Bloomfield & Noam Chomsky ) states the nativist or innateness where children must be born with an innate capacity for language development. Children are born with an innate propensity for language acquisition, and that this ability makes the task of learning a first language easier than it would otherwise be. The human brain is ready naturally for language in the sense when children are exposed to speech, certain general principles for discovering or structuring language automatically begin to operate.Constructivism ( Jean Piaget ) proponent of cognitive theory which introduced that language Acquisition must be viewed within the context of a child’s intellectual development. Linguistic structures will emerge only if there is an already established cognitive foundation. The earliest period of language learning (up to 18 months), relating to the development of what Piaget called ‘sensory motor’ intelligence, in which children construct a mental picture of a world of objects that hav e independent existence.During the later part of this period, children develop a sense of object permanence and will begin to search for the objects that they have seen hidden. This is further emphasized by Vygotsky in his socio-cultural approach to knowledge. Another theory by C. A. Ferguson (1977) known as the Input Theory claiming that parents do not talk to their children in the same way as they talk to other adults and seem to be capable of adapting their language to give the child maximum opportunity to interact and learn. REFERENCES:Pinel, JJ (2011) Biopsychology; Eighth Edition, Allyn& Bacon. Nature versus nurture – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurturePowell, K. (n. d. ). Nature vs Nurture – How heredity and environment shape who we are. Retrieved from http://genealogy. about. com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture. htmPowell, K. (). Nature vs Nurture – how heredity and environment shape who we are. Retrieved from http://genealogy. about. com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture_2. htm

Happiness Helpful Or Harmful - 1230 Words

Happiness: Helpful or harmful? In today’s society, we are relentlessly bombarded with annoying phrases like â€Å"things aren’t so bad† or â€Å"look on the bright side of life†. (Inside Out Review, 2015). Our brains are wired to think that the optimal level of happiness is achieved when we refuse to think negatively. However, adopting this type of attitude can result in just the opposite of happiness. Having a sense of optimism, especially on a good day almost feels like bliss. However, on a bad day, pushing away any insignificant hint of sadness you may be feeling can put you at an ultimate low. I compare this to the story told by James Baldwin entitled, â€Å"Sonny’s Blues†. The author uses a close family member to convey the damaging†¦show more content†¦Their relentless positivity reaches a point where it is irritating. This type of thinking results in a distorted sense of reality, as it causes us to over exaggerating our abilities This condition can be referred to as the optimism bias and 80% of humans have it. â€Å"It s our tendency to overestimate our likelihood of experiencing good events in our lives and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing bad events. So we underestimate our likelihood of suffering from cancer, being in a car accident. We overestimate our longevity, our career prospects. In short, we re more optimistic than realistic, but we are oblivious to the fact.†( Tali Sharot, 2012) The choice of choosing optimism over realism it can sometimes lead to an unfeasible expectation that can never possibly be met. When we set these expectations for ourselves or others, we feel disappointed when these expectations are unsatisfied. We become more likely to pursue unrealistic expectations which exceed our skill level. We then have the issue of our high ideals, goals, and expectations being unequivocal to our current talent or skill level. The key is not to push away thoughts of negativity, but to use them to our advantage. In order to use your optimism to your advantage you have to find a way to not be on either side of the scale. A equal balance of optimism and realism will be your best aid to achieving your goals. In her speech, Tari Shallot uses a cartoon of several penguins and a large