Listening to the Dalai Lama

I had the honour and privilege to attend a talk given by the Dalai Lama last Saturday at the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal. I was struck by his relaxed presence, his ease of talking to a crowd of 15,000 people and his playful attitude. Yet his message was powerful.

Some of the things he said that resonated with me included:

ü That we are all born with the same potential.

ü A more compassionate mind sustains the body’s immune system.

ü Too much anger affects the immune system.

ü When the mind is not settled, i.e. too much emotion stirred up then it is hard to think.

ü An experiment done with monkeys showed that those that were separated from their mothers were always in a bad mood and fought a lot.

ü A presentation at a seminar pointed out that people who used words like me, I, mine a lot were at higher risk of heart attack.

ü The most important factor for friendship is internal beauty not external beauty.

ü We are social beings and need a force to bring us together- that force is compassion.

ü The real cause of loneliness is anger, suspicion and distrust.

ü One element of compassion is recognizing that every one has an equal right to a happy life.

ü Real test of compassion is when you can extend it to an enemy.

He outlined the levels of compassion and talked about ways to extend this to all levels- individual, community, national and global. One day he was wondering about what is this global economic crisis about and he asked his friends to explain it to him. What he understood from them was that it was about greed and speculation.

It was indeed a special experience for me to be in that crowd and listen to the Dalai Lama talk so serenely about such an emotional topic. But the best part was that it was like hearing someone confirm my own thoughts and philosophies. All through the event I was being reminded of the values with which I promised to live my own life and convinced that I was on the right path.

Online Class

I have a new online class at LVS Online-
Understanding and Helping the Special Needs Child.

New session is starting soon.
Registration for the November 2009 session is open at LVS Online ~ Where Learning Is Fun!
For more information, go to http://lvsonline.com/update

Remember that returning students receive a 20% discount!

Receive a $5 voucher for EACH new student you refer to LVS! Advise referrals
to mention your name and email address in their registration form!
http://www.lvsonline.com/refer.shtml

Instructor-led classes begin October 31st. There is limited seating
So head on over to LVS Online to enroll now!
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/

One school at a time

My mind is always churning up new ventures; even the ones I have going at the time I feel the need to review or at least keep them fresh. My new venture I am going to call One-school-at-a-time. This is inspired by the project I have been carrying out at one particular school and which I now want to develop into an on-going process and also to take it to all other schools- one at a time.

For the past 7 months I conducted a Social and Emotional Learning programme at a primary school here in Trinidad and I have been very pleased with the success. The two most crucial successes were that the entire school got involved and that they persisted with the programme for the two terms and are willing to continue. Also very heartening was the fact that the parents jumped on board with a day long workshop.
Here is an excerpt from the report of this first phase:

At the start of the programme teachers admitted that they knew very little about Social and Emotional Learning. The awareness of SEL as a crucial part of teaching and learning had certainly increased through the programme. At the end of the 2-day workshop teachers felt confident about their own understanding of SEL and were looking forward to implementing the basic lessons in the classroom.

The feedback sessions indicated that the students were responding positively and eagerly to the lessons. The students were developing good listening skills and were responding in more appropriate ways to situations in the classroom. Some students also reported improved relationships with their siblings at home. This contributed to the release of some of the pressure on the teachers to listen constantly to students, to address their emotional needs and to deal with behaviour issues.

An important aspect of the programme was building support among the teachers. They also learned to use the supportive listening skills to maintain their own emotional well-being throughout the programme. They too indicated improvements in their relationships and interacting with others outside of the school setting.

I have also started a project at a pre-school. We have only done a parents' workshop so far but we have outlined the sessions for teachers and parents for the upcoming school year.

I WILL fulfill my goal of incorporating Social and Emotional Learning into all schools in the Caribbean even if I do it one school at a time.

Plagirism- should we blame the internet?

Sometimes I think the advances in technology are making us run around in circles. It is almost as if we are getting ahead of ourselves and can't seem to control the spiralling. In the effort to make things more and more advanced and high-tech we are creating more problems than we can solve with the very technology. Cutting and pasting is the order of the day for some.

Plagiarism is one of those things. It used to be that finding information in a text book or encyclopedia or at the library was a good and useful thing. Then as technology made it possible to make more and more information available on the internet there had to be laws developed to protect this information and the writer's rights. But it is increasingly difficult to protect something that is published on the internet. Despite the 'fair use' clauses it is almost impossible to stop someone from repeating what they read on the internet, no matter the source.

The necessity for plagiarism detecting programmes became a reality. But even these programmes have their limits and must be used with care. To me just about everything is written in just about every way on the internet now, so that anything that is run through one of these programmes will come up as already quoted on the internet.

Not only universities , but newspapers and other print avenues are challenged by plagiarism and how to manage it. Students and writers are being encouraged to make sure and put everything that they are quoting in the proper quotation marks. What other solutions can there be?Where will this, like all other technology problem, end?

Read an article on plagiarism at Cheating has always been around