Big city travel has never been more alarming for individuals not used to city travel and unfamiliar with the city in question. It can be daunting traveling to a new destination, but apprehension is more likely to rise to the surface when you look at just how many crimes take place these days. Couple that with the alarming big city travel stories that have been publicized on the Internet and it is little wonder that individuals debate as to whether they really want to experience certain cities for themselves!However, big city travel tips can easily help to put the minds of potential travelers at rest. There are several things that anyone can do to keep themselves safe in the big cities and thus can visit them, see the sights and enjoy some well-earned time away from the stresses and strains of modern life with little hassle. Simply follow the big city travel tips below and you cannot go far wrong!1. Luggage – Only take what you need when you travel and make sure that you have a list of the belongings in your bag. This big city travel tip can save you time if your luggage does get stolen, but will also enable you to find what you need in an emergency. You should never leave your luggage unattended for even a second while traveling in a city. It will most likely either be stolen or tampered with if left unattended for a few seconds so ensure that it remains within your sight and possession at all times.2. Money – Only take one or two credit cards with you on your big city travel trip and ensure that the PIN numbers, if you have them, are not in your possession. Also, when taking money with you, split it up. Divide the cash between pockets in your luggage and areas on your person. For example, keep some of it in your socks, some in a pocket, some in a money belt under your clothing and so on. That way, if anything does happen to you, you will at least have enough money to get back to your hotel. If you are going to a city abroad then take travelers checks with you because they are insured. If you lose them then you can cancel the originals and receive replacements usually within 24 hours.3. Schedule – Vary your schedule from day to day when undertaking big city travel. This may not seem like a big deal to couples and families that are set in their ways, but individuals looking to make a quick buck one way or another undoubtedly target some tourists. If you vary your schedule then it will be almost impossible to predict where you are going to be at any given time and this can keep you safe.4. Clothing – Never wear anything that projects wealth or affluence when undertaking big city travel. This includes jewelry, clothing and any accessories that may point to the fact that you would be a great target for a mugging or robbery. Most tourists wear normal and relatively cheap clothes that blend into the background, and anybody flaunting that guideline is putting him or herself at risk.5. Family – If you and your family split up during big city travel time, make sure that you have a way to get in touch with each other, have arranged a set meeting place and time, and are completely clear on all of these points so that you will be alerted to the fact that anything is wrong straight away. Wherever possible in big city travel, individuals traveling together should stay together. However, the need does sometimes arise. If it does, make sure that you all have the address of the hotel and a map of the city with you at all times.6. Scams – There are always individuals looking to scam people that are strangers to an area, and during the course of big city travels there are many of them about. Only ask trusted sources for directions and advice, never follow the guidance of strangers unless they are affiliated with official bodies and only buy merchandise from official stores. These guidelines may sound like common sense, but many people flaunt them and this can get them into difficulties!
Educational Leaders Must Strive To Increase Resources Available For Their Schools
Contemporary educational leaders function in complex local contexts. They must cope not only with daily challenges within schools but also with problems originating beyond schools, like staffing shortages, problematic school boards, and budgetary constraints. There are some emerging patterns and features of these complex contexts that educational leaders should recognize. Educational leaders face a political terrain marked by contests at all levels over resources and over the direction of public education.
The vitality of the national economy has been linked to the educational system, shifting political focus on public education from issues of equity to issues of student achievement. States have increasingly centralized educational policymaking in order to augment governmental influence on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. With the rise of global economic and educational comparisons, most states have emphasized standards, accountability, and improvement on standardized assessments. Paradoxically, some educational reforms have decentralized public education by increasing site-based fiscal management.
School leaders in this new environment must both respond to state demands and also assume more budget-management authority within their buildings. Meanwhile, other decentralizing measures have given more educational authority to parents by promoting nontraditional publicly funded methods of educational delivery, such as charter schools and vouchers. Political pressures such as these have significantly changed the daily activities of local educational leaders, particularly by involving them intensively in implementing standards and assessments. Leaders at all levels must be aware of current trends in national and state educational policy and must decide when and how they should respond to reforms.
The many connections between education and economics have posed new challenges for educational leaders. As both an economic user and provider, education takes financial resources from the local community at the same time as it provides human resources in the form of students prepared for productive careers. Just as the quality of a school district depends on the district’s wealth, that wealth depends on the quality of the public schools. There is a direct relationship between educational investment and individual earnings. Specifically, it has been found that education at the elementary level provides the greatest rate of return in terms of the ratio of individual earnings to cost of education. This finding argues for greater investment in early education. Understanding these connections, educational leaders must determine which educational services will ensure a positive return on investment for both taxpayers and graduates. Where local economies do not support knowledge-based work, educational investment may indeed generate a negative return. Leaders must endeavor to support education for knowledge-based jobs while encouraging communities to be attractive to industries offering such work. Educational leaders must be aware of the nature of their local economies and of changes in local, national, and global markets. To link schools effectively to local economies, leaders should develop strong relationships with community resource providers, establish partnerships with businesses and universities, and actively participate in policymaking that affects education, remembering the complex interdependence between education and public wealth.
Two important shifts in the nation’s financial terrain in the past 19 years have worked to move the accountability of school leaders from school boards to state governments. First, the growth in state and federal funding for public education constrains leaders to meet governmental conditions for both spending and accountability. Second, state aid has been increasingly linked to equalizing the “adequacy” of spending across districts, which has influenced leaders to use funds for producing better outcomes and for educating students with greater needs, including low-income and disabled children. Complicating these shifts are the widely varying financial situations among jurisdictions. These financial differences have made significant disparities in spending between districts in urban areas and districts in rural areas common. In this dynamic financial context, educational leaders must strive to increase resources available for their schools, accommodate state accountability systems, and seek community support, even as they strive to increase effective use of resources by reducing class size, prepare low-achieving children in preschool programs, and invest in teachers’ professional growth.
Recently, two important accountability issues have received considerable attention. The first has to do with market accountability. Since markets hold service providers accountable, if the market for education choices like charter schools and vouchers grows, leaders may be pressured to spend more time marketing their schools. The second issue has to do with political accountability. State accountability measures force leaders to meet state standards or face public scrutiny and possible penalties. The type of pressure varies among states according to the content, cognitive challenges, and rewards and punishments included in accountability measures. School leaders can respond to accountability pressures originating in state policies by emphasizing test scores, or, preferably, by focusing on generally improving effectiveness teaching and learning. The external measures resulting from political accountability trends can focus a school staff’s efforts, but leaders must mobilize resources to improve instruction for all students while meeting state requirements. And they must meet those demands even as the measures, incentives, and definitions of appropriate learning undergo substantial change.
Public education is expanding in terms of both student numbers and diversity. An increasingly contentious political environment has accompanied the growth in diversity. Immigration is also shaping the demographic picture. For example, many immigrant children need English-language training, and providing that training can strain school systems. Economic changes are also affecting schools, as the number of children who are living in poverty has grown and poverty has become more concentrated in the nation’s cities.
The shift to a knowledge-based economy and demographic changes accompanying the shift challenge the schools that are attempting to serve area economies. Given such demographic challenges, school leaders must create or expand specialized programs and build capacity to serve students with diverse backgrounds and needs. Leaders must also increase supplemental programs for children in poverty and garner public support for such measures from an aging population. Educational leaders must cope with two chief issues in this area: First, they must overcome labor shortages; second, they must maintain a qualified and diverse professional staff. Shortages of qualified teachers and principals will probably grow in the next decade. Rising needs in specialty areas like special, bilingual, and science education exacerbate shortages. Causes of projected shortages include population growth, retirements, career changes,and local turnover. Turnover generally translates into a reduction of instructional quality resulting from loss of experienced staff, especially in cities, where qualified teachers seek better compensation and working conditions elsewhere. In order to address shortages, some jurisdictions have intensified recruiting and retention efforts, offering teachers emergency certification and incentives while recruiting administrators from within teacher ranks and eliminating licensure hurdles. In these efforts, leaders should bear in mind that new staff must be highly qualified. It is critical to avoid creating bifurcated staffs where some are highly qualified while others never acquire appropriate credentials. Leaders must also increase the racial and ethnic diversity of qualified teachers and administrators. An overwhelmingly White teacher and principal corps serves a student population that is about 31% minority (much greater in some areas). More staff diversity could lead to greater understanding of different ways of thinking and acting among both staff and students. This survey of the current context of educational leadership reveals three dominant features. First, the national shift toward work that requires students to have more education has generated demands for greater educational productivity. Second, this shift has caused states to play a much larger role in the funding and regulation of public education. Third, states’ regulatory role has expanded to include accountability measures to ensure instructional compliance and competence. Educational leaders must take heed of these features if they hope to successfully navigate the current educational terrain.
Special Training For Brain Development Of Kids
Many researchers have proven the fact that functioning of brain cells of infants is twice active as adult’s brain. Neurons are the brain cells that connect together and power of neuron have the potential of a PC. Connectivity of neurons decides the smartness or intelligence of individuals. In human, brain development and the learning ability of an individual is 50% in the first four years of age. The nerves of individuals are reduced as they grow up and this is why the 1000 trillion nerves present in an 8 months baby are reduced to 500 trillion as it grows up. A child that has given more opportunities to explore will be much smart.
A majority of children, more than 90% of them use their left brain, but the imperative fact to remember is the right brain must also be utilized. Education system present in almost all the schools is designed to develop or use the left brain. Right brain is never the less significant because it is responsible for creativity, arts, feeling, imagination, visualizing, daydreaming, rhythm, holistic thinking and many others. Hence it is equally important to develop both side of brain. It is also most important to take steps to keep both the brain much active, by keeping them to perform analytically on an equal basis. It is the responsibility of parents to give activities to their children that ensures the involvement of both brain. If both brain used by children it is probable to enhance their learning power and they can also increase their brain power. If brain development programs are offered to children they can make most of the program and develop their skills to give work to both side of brain and remains high in intelligence level. Development of brain in human beings is based on the degree of how much it is used. If it is left unused there are more probabilities for individuals to lose as brain works on the basis of use it or lose it.
To ensure the progressive brain development in children, it is the role of parents to introduce their children with a reputable brain development program. Most of the experts suggest step by step educational program to the children which is systemic and efficient. Nowadays it is very simple to find out a lot of schools which not only gives importance to academic program, but they also boost the creativity of children through their extracurricular activities. It is probable to search internet and get hold of relevant schools that present with a variety of activities to stimulate the brain and encourage the development of children. A total development program to stimulate mental activity of children is also found out in the online sites and parents can try out these activities with their children while they are at home. Getting education from a school that implements total development program is much beneficial. Search for such schools and secure admission to enhance the future of the children and boosts in brain development.