Studying and working: The busy lives of students with paid employment

 image source: http://www.houseofdecorke.blogspot.com/

Students who work and study seem not to enjoy the best of both. They are able to keep up to their jobs, as receiving a paycheck is always a best feeling one encounters on the days people receive their salaries or wages.  Although most of us loose track in the process and focus on minor jobs more than school.What happened to managing both work and your Studies?

I've come up with ways that students can juggle both:

• Have good time management
• Keep a schedule which assists in organising things effectively
• Getting yourself motivated by means of staying connected with your classmates
• Setting goals and rewarding yourself when you attain them, this sets positive self motivation
• Enjoying the crossover between work and study

Receiving money on the side is never a wrong doing because it contributes to practising responsibility. We find that students who go to work and study at the same time have different reasons for doing so. It might be a way of paying or saving for your education or helping their families (bread winners). Dropping out of school is one of the things that can happen to some students when they have a job. According to Mr Moreno the ESOL counsellor, students who start working are highly rated to quit/drop out of school because they prefer to have money but how much is it and how much more can one earn in sacrificing the route of studying and having a good job,background and experience from studying.

Image source: http://www.psci.unt.edu/

Youth build: youth offered a second chance in education



image source: http://www.melrose.com/







The communities and societies we live in are stuck up in the stereotypical thoughts that label prisoners as convicts that can never transform their lives to better.Do we ever sit down and think of the mistakes and misconducts we have made and be forgiven for and given a second chance.

The public relations practitioner of Prisoners Education Trust have shown that the is a life after release. The Prisoners Education Trust is  a movement that has been established to show us that people behind bars are not the monsters we seem to think they are.It shows us that these people have the abilities to be tomorrow's leaders as well.The trust provides access to broader learning opportunities for prisoners,to enhance their chances of building a better life after release.Hence we find well known known celebrites like Kenny Kunene (South Africa), founder and owner of ZAR empire,a well known South African entertainment business that is doing well.Kenny Kunene was in imprisoned  for fraud but he took the opportunity whilst in prison to educate himself and become a better person which his release took him to the next level.It comes to the question where it shows that reading,studying and learning is for everyone whether be it a prisoner,prostitute and so on. It lies with the person in which route they take.
 Building a better life is always a choose that one encounters, not all prison mates are not willing to change..

Outcomes of having a positive mindset...





Student thinking about her dream home
 and car
http://www.thoughbubble.org/

  

Range Rover supercharged 2012
http://www.range-rover-sport.com/

       



Dream home (LA)
http://www.property.html/

Envying other people's lives is a natural feeling that most of us experience at some point. When we know or bump into someone young, who owns a business/s, luxury house, car or anyhting that is worth a million or more, what comes to mind? Jealousy and intimidiation or inspiration and motivation?

Today we as the youth are court up in the fantasy of fantasising about other young people's lives who have made it into success. The question is what are we doing to reach that point?  In most cases we find that these young people that we look up too whether it be business woman/man, Tv personalities or maybe our cousins,siblings or whoever, had to work really hard to get to where they are in life. One of the factors that contribute to their success is determination, sacrifice and perserverance. Sacrificing our sleep or nightouts for studying, learning or reading isn't the coolest thing one can think of. What we dont think of is the outcomes that one can benefit from this. Have we ever noticed that those students that sacrifice their time to learn,study and read  and we thought they are boring are those in 3 years time we see driving luxury cars and living the luxury lives that we've been longing for.

It shows that we are the one's that choose what and how we want to end. It really isn't a pleasant feeling when one has to do a 3 year course for 5 years while all those that we set in class with have made it in life.

Are we willing to sacrifice our lives for a positive outcome where we will be those that the upcoming generation look up to or are we going to keep on envying other people's lives and keep on hoping?

THE CHOICE DEPENDS ON US..

How parents can intervene: Active campaigns



READING MAKES FRIENDS, BE FRIENDS WITH BOOKS!



The words of Nelson Mandela "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world". During this past week I conducted a survey as well as interviews to parents, to find out how they feel about their childrens education and their commitments to it. An alarming number of 18 out of 20 parents felt that their kidz and teens are not doing well at secondary and tetiary. When I conducted my research , I came across interesting campaigns that are helping parents to intervene in this issue at an early stage.

There are campaigns such as Born to Read, Read to Bond which are taking over, A programme designed to encourage parents to inculcate reading habits in their children at an early age and to promote reading as an activity that bonds a family.

Parents are guided on their child's reading and learning journey even before the child is born. At the libraries, expectant mums or parents of newborns (born from 1 Jan 2007) will receive a package containing a baby journal (which provides parents with spaces to record their child's developmental milestones and also comes with an informational guide on parenting), Audio CD (contains stories, rhymes, poems and instrumental lullabies), height chart (not only providing the height for the child but also recommended reading tips at child’s different development stages) and parenting brochures from Ministry of Community Youth and Sports.

To promote reading as a child-bonding activity for parents with children 0-6 years, care packs are given to expectant parents containing:

• Baby Journal (Journaled milestones & 25-page information guide)
• Baby's First CD (for foetus to enjoy; parents to learn to tell stories, nursery rhymes and lullabies)
• Baby's Height Chart (indicate baby's developmental milestones and appropriate reading)

A nationwide movement to encourage fathers to read to their children on a regular basis was brought to attention. This initiative aimed to increase fathers' involvement in their children's literacy development and to improve the quality of father-child relationships.

A volunteer driven programme, kidsREAD was launched by then DPM Lee Hsien Loong on 23 April 2004. The aim of this nation-wide programme is to reach out to children between the ages of 4 and 8 from the low-income families to promote the love of reading and cultivate good reading habits from young.
Reading Clubs around are establsihed to maintain the eager.

COULD THIS BE THE CATCH...?

Using social and personal preferences to make learning/studying more interesting

Do you ever feel dumb around other people? Are you embarrassed when you don’t know the answer to a question? Do you perhaps panic when lecturers give back test/ exam scripts?

Within this week most of us received our semester test back, which were not looking good at all. As we walked from and to classes, I could hear students justifying themselves by saying “the chapters were too much to study/learn, one can’t know everything or the test was difficult anyway”. I asked myself that how we could have students that get 70-80% whilst others get 30-40 and 50% but we all wrote the same test. Majority of us are guilty, when semester tests/ exams approach us, we tend to learn/study under pressure because we are forced to remember everything form the classes we slept through, refer/read books we never even bought and somehow convince our bodies that sleep isn’t that important at the time.

How can we make learning, reading and studying more fun?

1.      Rap music: using concepts, processes and terms as lyrics of the song we would rap about.
2.      Dance: we could use theory, concepts, processes, and terms as styles, steps and counts as we       would in a dance routine.
3.     Acting:  using the content material of this knowledge area.
4.     Poems:
5.     Singing out the work.

These methods that would appeal to our social and personal preferences would be more interesting. Once the interest has been evoked it wouldn’t be so monstrous for us to open our books.

We could study less, even have a little fun and still do well on our tests and exams through our social and personal preferences.

Experiencing knowledge in another level: Johannesburg City library reopens

The Johannesburg City library reopened on Tuesday (13 March 2012), according to *Daily Maverick* newspaper (16 March 2012).The library was closed since April  2009 and three years later it reopens with
physical and functional changes.It is said to be " a
community asset and learning centre of excellence".

It now incorporates a contemporary style featuring three new stories which are positioned in the centre of the building. It cost about R68 million. Funding of R26 million came from the Camegie Corporation of New York to upgrade and increase the range of library services. The city spent a further R55 million on the project. Changes included the library being able to accomaodate 556 people prior to 225 people before. It has over 1.5 million books with more than 250 000 million members.

The library consists of:

• study and reading spaces
• meeting discussion areas
• Information Technology centres
• Art, films, video gallaries

This contributes to the South Africa's long-term efforts to promote social, economic and educational opportunities that have a positive effect on disadvataged populations.

Could this be adding a greater degree of comfort and interest in spending our time in the library?

Granting equal access to the tools that make knowledge possible

                      

Capacity building: Read, Learn,Study

 Capacity building: Read, Learn,Study

I've discovered and observed something  quite interesting about the youth. It's amazing how we can naturally memorise the words of a song, names of celebrities and gossip but we struggle to learn a subject/ module at school. Why do we learn somethings more easily than others?

Knowledge is key

We have lost interest in the most significant. Pollster Hart showed that students do not position the same value on reading/ learning for fun as do thier parents and teachers.Only 34% of students ranked reading skills as important. This figure is alarming as it has effects that enhance literacy, fluent language, capacity builing, spelling and son on. The dramatic decline in reading starts from the ages 17-23. This has eroded the publics confidence in the education systems.

The youth study when they're forced to, due to circumstances such as assignments, examination pressure, class work etc. Why is this? We tend to think that time spent is not a measure of amount accomlpished. Technological aspects have dominated our socities. Students spend most of  their time using  gadgets such as video games and social networks namely facebook, instant messaging and so on.Some reasons focused on are grade inflation where students know they can get reasonable grades without much studying because they settle for less than A's ( 50% is a pass). Students have full-time jobs because they have to pay for their studies. The are exposed to money from parents and whosoever which results in  spending their time on eating, drinking, shopping and entertainment. The abundance of precrastination vehicles contribute.

Findings/ statistics used by the National  Right to Read foundation states:

•  32% of those who can't read basic material are son and daughters of college graduates
• 85% of deliquent children and 75% of adult prison inmates are illetrate
• The cost of taxpayers of adult literacy is $224 billion a year in wlefare payment, crime , job incompetence, lost taxes and remedial education
• Comapnies loose nearly $40 billion anually because of  illetrate

 Reading and learning campaigns such as Multi-Year Literacy, LITCAM and Born Learning Campaigns emphasise: Succesful  study is often about meeting competing demands and deadlines. Prior knowlegde linked to new material with your past experience will help one read more effectively. This helps in:

1. Locating specific information and difficult ideas 
2. Gaining an overview of something
3. To relax and escape to a novel

My suggestion would be to make sure that we buy novels whereby at the end of raeding the book we exchange/rotate the books with each other. This increases an interest in reading/studying and enhances capacity building. DO WE LEAVE THE FLAME DYING?

LETS BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE HAVING TOMORROW'S LEADERS.