Monday, October 13, 2014

The Right Way to Help Your Kids with Homework

This is quite a conundrum for parents across the country, and perhaps it’s something that you’ve struggled with too. You watch your child struggling to solve a math problem or to complete an essay, and maybe you wish you could make things a little easier. Of course, the struggle is part of the learning process; but there are indeed ways to guide and support your child as they learn.

As you might expect, there are right ways and wrong ways to go about this. Offer too much “assistance” and you’ll essentially be doing your child’s homework for him. Back off too far, and your child can feel alone and helpless. Fortunately, many teachers have offered advice on the right ways to help your children with their homework.

Talk to Teachers

Get to know your child’s teachers, and ask about the best ways to contact them if you have questions or concerns. Your kid’s teacher can offer tremendous insight and advice on homework help, and they’ll likely be thrilled to see a parent getting so involved.

Maintained Monitoring

Myriad homework assignments can start to stress your kid out. You can ease some of that stress by staying aware of current and ongoing assignments. Read over each assignment and put it on a calendar that your child has access to. Know when large projects are due and help your child plan out their work. By clearly laying out each assignment, you can take a lot of the stress out of homework.

Schedule, Schedule, Schedule

Few things are quite so helpful to a child as routine. For tasks like homework, the best thing you can do is to schedule a regular time each day for your child to work on school projects. Set up a spot that is free of distractions (i.e. TV, video games, toys, or noisy siblings), and provide the supplies and resources needed. If possible, it’s great if you can set up a work station complete with a computer where your child can get his or her work done each day.

Positive Reinforcement

Encourage your child whenever a task is completed successfully. A little bit of praise goes a long way, and with each word of encouragement, you’ll see your child blossom.

Sit on Your Hands

Finally, a big no-no. As tempting as it might be, you have to avoid taking over for your child. While they might be happy to avoid the work, it will ultimately discourage them and leave them feeling that their work just isn’t ever good enough.

It takes a lot of work to raise and educate kids, but when parents and teachers work together, great things can happen.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The Cultural Effects on the Process of Translation

Translation is the process of rendering one language understandable to those who speak another. Along the way that process will invariably require that two sets of language, cultures and traditions are blended to make one understandable to another. The implications of this are that the professional translator is faced with the difficulty of how to treat the cultures that are inherent in the process and the differences that are implicit in the verbiage which is available to them.

The cultural implications for the translation of business or even personal text can take several forms. There may not be lexical content which is available for use. The syntax that is available to describe various habits in a given culture may be nonexistent. This means that the translator much be familiar enough with the culture of the target language to determine where to sacrifice cultural differences for the good of the overall translation process.

The translation of any given text requires that the culture must be considered and any problems pinpointed before the translation begins. Taking any problems or cultural changes into account and deciding on a solution to the translation issue that seems to be the most appropriate for any given case must be done in order to keep that solution consistent through the documents or letters which are translated.

What exactly is culture? If you check the dictionary, it will define it as anything from the language and arts of a given people, all the way down to the bacteria and microbes in a culture. The best description might be one that is given by Newmark--"the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression." A culture may not mean a single group of people who speak a given language. Every group, every country, even very localized parts of the country have linguistics that are particular to their culture. These nuances make a vast difference in the kind of translation that must be done and the words which are used to portray a given action or method.

One perfect example of this is the unique difference between UK English and United States English. In the United Kingdom, the word "brilliant" is often used to mean wonderful or exciting-- as in the case of "Your dress is just brilliant.". In the United States that same word is used to mean very bright or very illuminated and it is not frequently used to express excitement. Another and perhaps better example of this is the different French cultures which exist. In Canadian French the word email is translated as Courriel, while in the European French the word most commonly used is email. Those are very nominal differences but not all differences are so. In Europe, the word gosses is used to describe children, while in Canada that term translates as a vulgarity.

This explains better than any other reason how mistakes can be made and how imperative that it is to ensure that the translator or translation company that you use for your business and professional translations is well versed in both language and culture. Local culture can wreak havoc on a good translation. It can render the business less than credible and create a laughingstock of the company who offers the product with just a few slips in speech.

Ensuring that the text which is provided for your product documentation or your legal documents is correct both linguistically as well as culturally is necessary in order to ensure the credibility of your business and your products.


Contributed by my friend at flstranslation.com.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Geek at it Again

Geek just can't help himself when it comes to attacking the Huntsville City Schools, Dr. Wardynski, adn anything or anybody else that get's in his path. This guy creates more collateral damage than all the soldiers in Huntsville. The probelm in hsi facts are always a mess and he makes stuff up.

"Have you heard how wonderful the Huntsville City Schools district is doing lately? I’m sure you have. After all Dr. Wardynski has been touting his successes as often as possible of late. And he’s been joined by the members of the board of education like David Blair and Jennie Robinson who are running for other offices this fall."

The reality is the schools district is really doing ok. Little to now debt, etc,

"Maybe you heard about the pep rally that the superintendent and school board threw for themselves on March 18th. If you were a district employee, you certainly heard about it. Every district employee received the following email encouraging them to attend this celebration.

Come on, it's a little support.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

College Scholarship Opportunities



Keep up with the latest and greatest scholarship opportunities for your student(s). Click on the link below to access the scholarship web page:
The scholarship page is updated periodically as new scholarship opportunities are identified.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

It Truly Valuable to Use Computers During the Education of Very Young Children?

These days, virtual every child has access to some sort of computer either at home or at school. Currently, in many schools, the goal is to expose children to computers as early as possible although some parents do not agree with this approach. Due to different socioeconomic and geopolitical structures in the home, it is difficult to make blanket assessment about what age a child should have his or her first exposure to computers. Concerns exist that young children who end up being exposed to tablets, iPhones, and computers and are not properly supervised might end up suffering from harm based on how they use the computer systems. Since no one can go back and time to correct problematic behavior, it is necessary to properly teach young ones how to use computers in the right way from the start. That said, young ones who know how to use computers gain many significant advantages. They learn more about the world, can stay up to date on current events, and are able to expand their learning horizons. There is one major drawback present and this would be the notion that young children end up becoming too reliant on computers and end up suffering in other areas of education such as math and literature. They also begin to falter with basic math and reading skills. The concern that arises is whether or not the computer skills gained automatically leads to a lack of interest in other areas of study the child deems tedious or overly time consuming. A selection of research notes that uncontrolled use of a computer by very younger children can be harmful, although computing is certainly becoming a major facet of the future since most of what we do is computer controlled, both children and adults must maintain working knowledge of computers and how to use them.

The key to enhancing the well being of the young one while also ensuring they understand the basics of computing while also realizing --if we are to take serious studies and statistics, a child must never be overexposed to computers and they should always be properly supervised in their use of computers are part of their education.

The responsibilities today are on the shoulders of both educators and parents to make sure a child who is learning with a computer is supervised well and all computer learning is also balanced with other forms of learning to make sure the child can be productive in other educational and life environments.

Friday, October 18, 2013

About The Elk River Treatment Program

Information I found out about the Elk River Treatment Program is below. I also researched and foudn good reviews about the program.



Wilderness programs use the outdoors as a tool to help troubled teens. Many wilderness programs involve trekking, meaning that they move and set up a new base camp every day. Elk River Treatment Programs focuses on academics as well as therapy as their main components toward recovery.

Student goals are supported by a relationship with a staff of highly trained adults. Students participate in individualized and group therapy. They also work on a rigorous academic curriculum. Students are given all needed equipment for the completion of the program. Each student receives the standard outdoor gear such as appropriate clothing and footwear, sleeping bag, rain gear, and hat. When the student departs the equipment belongs to them.

ERTP believes that parents are a vital part of our Treatment Team. Parents work in close cooperation with the Treatment Team in order to fully understand the progress that their teen is making while at ERTP and will receive a weekly update on the progress that their child is making.