Education

I am a 20-year-old guy from Croatia, and I’m a metalhead, gamer, son, boyfriend, brother, grandson and a friend. That pretty much sums me up. So, lately I've been feeling depressed. Several reasons to that. I am about to become a college dropout. My parents literally said they are disappointed in me, because they expected me to be a successful student. This expectation is based on the fact that I passed elementary school and high school without ever opening a book. I mean ever. I have an IQ of 145, think that means I'm in the upper 2% of all people or something. Okay, so I'm intelligent, but I don't have the habit of studying, I don’t know how to study. I’m the first year of college: I failed 4 out of 8 classes. My parents spent $1,000 for me to try again, and now, I haven’t...
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Dear Ministers, As stewards of Europe's future generations, you will be all too aware that as early as the age of 7, children reach a critical juncture, when they are learning the core life skills of reading, writing and basic maths. However, to flourish in tomorrow's digital economy and society, they should also be learning to code. And many, sadly, are not. While it is undeniable that Europe needs more computer scientists and engineers if it is to prosper and compete - the number of unfilled ICT vacancies in Europe is expected to reach 900,000 by 2020 -the ability to code is not a selfish industry ambition. Nor is it just for "geeks" or those destined for a career in ICT. A plethora of interesting, creative jobs all depend on a degree of coding ability. Whether analysing...
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Dear Mr Cameron, Congratulations on winning a second term as our prime minister. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t vote for you. In fact when you got your majority I nearly cried (in the middle of teaching a year 7 Geography lesson- that would have been very awkward). But that’s democracy and I am more than happy to accept the result the people have chosen. The only thing I want to say to you is please, please do not continue to change our education system for the worse. After all I am a lazy teacher who works from 9-3:30 then goes home and doesn’t think about school again until the next morning and obviously I wouldn’t want to be made to work any harder, right? Wrong! Yes I am a teacher but I’m certainly not lazy. What if I told you that I spend every waking minute thinking about my...
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Dear Secretary of State Clinton, I am sure you remember the slogan during your challenger’s campaign, the “fierce urgency of now.” It has been exactly 30 months since the inauguration of President Obama, and we still have a public school system in chaos and shambles. In addition, we have not completed the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and test scores in math and English-Language Arts continue to be the major factor in judging effective schools. However, I know you believe that public education must be so much more than a two-subject curricular dance. All schools for America’s children must have a balanced curriculum, including history, science, world languages, the visual and performing arts with a talented faculty. America’s children are...
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Hello, I'm a 20 year old college student from Croatia. Im 1.85 tall, fit and (according to most girls at college) hot, and like most people, i have my dreams. But first, some backstory I went to college because of the pressure of the society and my family. I have failed 4 out of 8 classes on my first year, and i'm now a year behind the rest of my crew. To be honest, the classes aren't getting any easier. Yesterday, i decided to drop out of college, since i feel like i'm just wasting my time and my parents money. I got instantly pressured by my parents today about my future. "You won't have an easy life, you won't be able to get a good job,you won't have time for yourself". I understand them. But i'm one of people that really can't study. Too lazy and easily distracted. Now i've been...
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Dear Peter Devlin,
 This open letter is to make you aware of incriminating issues that Hard of Hearing and Deaf students have experienced at Fanshawe College. This letter is compiled by a group of Deaf people consisting of past, present and future students of Fanshawe College. We met in February 2015 to discuss our concerns and decided to not ignore these issues any longer. Fanshawe College has failed these Deaf students and deprived them of their fundamental human rights to the education that they paid and came for. The majority of the group who met in February experienced similar barriers, prejudices, unprofessional behaviour by staff, discrimination and negligence by Fanshawe College. The primary purpose of Fanshawe College is to provide an accessible place of learning...
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Dear Mr. Charles Ryan, Director of Arizona Department of Corrections, As a college student at the University of Arizona, I am very concerned with the educational budget cuts, that since 2008 have been reduced by 21.8%. In Arizona we have currently reached the point where our prison spending has exceeded our educational funding. After doing some research as to why this might be the case, I noticed that within the last 10 years the spending, for Correctional Facilities, has increased by 75%. (Online degrees, 2012) Although this may be a beneficial factor, because a reason that prison funding has increased, is due to the rise of the intake of prisoners. As a result this means that more criminals are kept off the streets and will lead to lower crime activity. However, I have taken...
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Dear Board Members Garcia, Flores-Aguilar, and Vladovic: We write to you today to ask for your support. We have counted on it before and you have been there for us in the past. You have been there to push for A-G classes, small schools, decentralizing LAUSD, sending QEIA funds to schools with the greatest need. But now when the need is greatest, you have chosen not to fight for our children and instead you have given in to fear and hopelessness. This budget crisis is enormous, none of us doubt that. It is clearly too large, in fact, to balance by cutting and cutting. We need to find new sources of funds and that means fighting against those who would choose the politically easiest path to balance the budget: taking from the most vulnerable, our children. But instead of leading...
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Dear Mr. Charles Ryan, Director of Arizona Department of Corrections, As a college student at the University of Arizona, I am very concerned with the educational budget cuts, which since 2008 have been reduced by 21.8%. In Arizona we have currently reached the point where our prison spending has exceeded our educational funding. After doing some research as to why this might be the case, I noticed that within the last 10 years the spending, for Correctional Facilities, has increased by 75%. (Online degrees, 2012) Although this may be a beneficial factor, because a reason that prison funding has increased, is due to the rise of the intake of prisoners. As a result this means that more criminals are kept off the streets and will lead to lower crime activity. However, the Arizona...
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Colleagues, Some members of the department have expressed concern about the unholy mix of TA/instructor wages and graduate funding packages in CUPE’s bargaining with the university administration. Some have suggested that CUPE only represents the graduate students in their capacity as paid TA’s or instructors, not as funded graduate students, and that this makes it difficult for faculty members to support the strike. In some cases, our colleagues are only offering observations about the legal “facts”; in other cases, they are expressing a preference. Others, myself included, want to know what other alternative we have given our graduate students. The administration vigorously objects to the idea that CUPE can negotiate the terms of the funding package; but they are not doing so...
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