Favorites

Favorite Writer: John Green: John Green is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was the 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award, a 2009 Edgar Award winner, and has twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than 55 languages and over 24 million copies are in print.

Favorite Female Singer: Taylor Swift: Pop country superstar Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania. It was Swift’s second album, Fearless, that launched her into super stardom and made her a phenomenon. Over half a million copies of Fearless sold in its first week. The album was the top-selling album of 2009 and has sold 10 million copies worldwide. Tickets for the Fearless tour were hard to get. The shows sold out in minutes, another sign of Taylor Swift’s growing popularity and fame.

Favorite Male Singer: Ed Sheeran: Ed Sheeran was born on February 17, 1991, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. When he was young, he began playing guitar, showing early promise as a musical talent. When he was 11, Sheeran met singer-songwriter Damien Rice backstage at one of Rice’s shows, and the young musician found added inspiration. As the story goes, Rice told Sheeran to write his own music, and Sheeran set out the next day to do just that. It wasn’t long before Sheeran was recording CDs and selling them, and he soon put together his first official EP, The Orange Room. With that accomplishment and his abiding ambition driving him, at only 14 years of age, Sheeran headed to London for the summer. Thinking he could find gigs in the big city, Sheeran left home with his guitar and a backpack full of clothes, and his musical career took flight.

Favorite Band: Owl City: Owl City is the musical brainchild of Adam Young, who launched the project in 2007 while living at his parents' home in Owatonna, Minnesota. Troubled by insomnia, Young began spending his evenings in the household basement, where a computer and several instruments provided a diversion from his sleeping patterns. He eventually combined those diversions into a blend of electronica and emo-pop, using little more than his computer and various keyboards to record the material. Songs were uploaded to MySpace upon completion, and Young began attracting a surprising amount of attention on the networking site.

My Philosophy of Teaching

Teaching is the most powerful weapon a person can use to change the world. It’s the most honorable job you can choose if you were an adventures’ seeker, a dreams’ catcher, and a love giver. Teaching has changed over the years. It’s always on progress, matching all the learners’ ages, and all the learners’ interests. Teaching nowadays is no more about grades, nor about memorizing the information. It had become student central where the whole importance is given to the student himself, whether he understood the lesson explained, he’s feeling comfortable in the class, or he’s having all the conditions he needs to learn the information the teachers are aiming to teach. (Practicum I)

Furthermore, teaching, and teaching English especially, is now related to students’ personalities, attitudes, interests, and of course each student psychology. Teaching English consists from us to make efforts bigger than any efforts made in teaching other subjects, where the English teachers should teach their students practically four main tasks within the bigger title “English”. They should teach them grammar, writing, reading, and speaking. And each of these tasks represents a subject by itself, which makes the English teachers the most teacher to interact with their students, and therefore, they must play the role of the mother, the sister, the friend, and of course the role of the teacher. (Practicum I)

From my own point of view, the methods we’re using at class must first of all respect the fact that technology had become our students’ best friend, therefore we must introduce technology to our class, second of all, all English teachers must work on their students’ self esteem and their accents, therefore we must introduce in our class as much speaking activities as we can, and as much native language as possible through movies and songs and maybe shows… however, the relationship between the students and the teacher must be built with love, respect, and care, but teacher must know where to play the role of the friend, the role of the mother, and  the role of the teacher, and sometimes the role of the severe teacher.

Firstly, as we all noticed technology has invented our world widely, controlling everything we do, in our everyday’s life. And of course as we all know teaching and learning are the oxygen of our progress in this world, so technology have also its effects on teaching, especially teaching English, which is something all the teachers should pay attention, and something I, myself, believe that should be one of my major methods in teaching English,  because students of these days are so interested in technology, just like we were their ages interested in baby dolls. You can never find a kid nowadays who doesn’t own an Ipad, Ipod,

Mobile phone, lap top, or at least who doesn’t have an Instagram or Facebook account. So we as teachers should teach them how to make using technology beneficial rather than just using it for fun, by inventing technology in our classes. This way we are mixing something students love and have passion for, with something (Which is learning) they think they hate, for they have never experienced the right methods in learning. So by this, we are making the teaching and learning a mix of fun and knowledge that permit the students to benefit and improve while having fun. And finally, we find a way of making our students enjoy learning language. (Practicum I)

Furthermore, one of the main methods I’m going to use in teaching my students English language, is working on their accents by letting them watch non translated movies at least twice a month, plus teaching them vocabularies and expressions, and enrich their imagination, by letting them listen to different kinds of songs, and memorize them. These two ways are the main ways that helped me enter the world of English language. By letting them watch non subtitled movies and listen to English songs, I’m teaching them indirectly the perfect accent they must learn by listening to native speakers, plus teaching them how to understand the meaning from the context as a whole, without going back to the translation, and at the same time I’m making them enjoy learning rather than learning unwillingly. Plus, this way, I am making of the listening skill a real skill to be learnt, not just a skill that we only test our students with.

However, these activities must be preceded with talking activities, whether making summaries of the movies and tell it to the whole class, or making debates between the students, because one of the major problem I’ve faced in learning English was my accent firstly, and my lack of confidence secondly, that also affected my way of talking English. By making them practice the English language in front of their classmates, I’m helping them build their self confidence and their personalities, and not to be afraid of practicing English language and making mistakes.

Moreover, the most important thing that every teacher should respect and work on is the relationship between the teacher and the students, where every teacher should forget, every once and awhile, that they’re more knowledgeable than their students and forget the fact that they’re the teachers and the kids are the students, and they have control over them. Every English teacher should deal with their students as if they were their children needing love, tender, and care. However, they must know when to limit this relationship to a more severe relationship.

From my experience in teaching this second semester at OMEC I noticed that, contrary to what I wrote in Practicum I, teachers can’t treat their students always as their friends, because students don’t know that there is time for fun and there is time for real hard work and studying.

A last point that I discovered from my experience as a teacher is that practical is so much different than written plans. When I put lesson plans for my teaching lessons, I gave each activity the time I thought it will take. However, it took me sometimes much more time to achieve it, and some other times so much less time to achieve it. Plus, the thought that your lesson is going to flow easily is so much wrong, because so much situations and difficulties will take place and face you while trying to explain whatever lesson you’re planning to explain.

"While Reading Questions"

This Post is related to the "WebQuest Lesson" we made (With Sarah EL Hage). The next questions are "While Reading Questions", Which the students are going to access through my blog and answer them. Moreover, these questions include a link attached to them, which helps the students answer them, again through online accesses. 

"While reading, answer the following questions:

VII) Through clicking on the attached link, find out the meanings of difficult words. 

VIII) Using the internet, find out the meanings of the internet slang language which cannot be found in the dictionaries.

You can do so through simply "Googling" these expressions." 



If you ever had the time or wanted to check the "WebQuest Lesson", the following link will give you the chance to do, and it will be my pleasure!
Link for the "WebQuest Lesson": https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wtrM8QSLnQ6HwnJ6TyV4z5Nr-ZAjJfuU  

Webinar: “Encouraging physical activities in preschoolers”

First of all, webinars are live web-based videos conferences that use the internet to connect the ones hosting the webinars with all the people that have access to such web from all over the world.The webinar I attend, which is titled “Encouraging physical activities in preschoolers”, is the first webinar I’ve ever attended.The professor presenting this webinar made it clear to us that we, as adults, are scared of children to get hurt when moving, playing... However, the truth is that if playing, moving, or doing any activity is not safe, it is the fault of the adults.He told us and showed us the different techniques that can help us as teachers or adults to guide the students locomotor movement and physical activities. Dr.  Steve Sanders defined for us the meanings of: "Walk, Run, Jump, Leap, Hop..." and he pointed to us the importance of travelling, more than just moving but also as a physical activity that strengthen both physical and mental muscles. He talked especially about the importance of travelling skills, chase, flee, and dodge.Dr. Steve highlighted several tag games, as: "Name tag, Tunnel tag, High 5 tag, High 10 tag, Fist tag". He talked in details and clearly about these tag games and about their rules, and he even showed us one way to play this game. After Dr. Steve described clearly "Jumping and Landing", "Walking", "Marching", "Running"... he talked about the importance of cues in order to practice locomotor skills, which are short phrases or words that focus learner on the critical elements of the skill to be practiced. Cued help the children to do the skill better. However, he said that we should focus on one cue at a time. He also gave samples of cues, as dodging cues, cues for chasing... Finally, Dr. Steve put several points to follow in presenting locomotor activities to young children:-Practice every day.-Set boundaries.-Demonstrate the cues for each skill.-Place children in a variety of situations so they can practice in different contexts.

Book Criticism

                                             Book Criticism

Book’s name: Sea Star.
Authors: Nisreen Sinjab, Thomas Royko.
Editor: Sami Jalbout.
Cover: Charbel Mattar.
Reader Consultants: Makram Haddad, Sam Najjar, Maurice Haddad.

To be a teacher is to be a guider, a monitor, an assessor, a designer… and a lot more roles are included under the bigger term “Teacher”. However, the teacher is not alone in accomplishing these duties; there are the authentic materials which can help him/her a lot, the internet from which he/she can search plenty of methods techniques, ideas… which he/she can use in teaching the students. But, one of the most common and effective assistants which all teachers in any domain can benefit from, is the textbook, which can play the role of the guider, the designer, and even the assessor. However, textbooks don’t always succeed in doing this mission. Even if it seems an easy task that any teacher can achieve, to choose the right book, is a very hard task that requires asking many questions before trusting one single book in your journey as a teacher.

One of the English textbooks, that teachers of grade eleventh use, is called “Sea Star”, and is divided to two parts: Part A, and Part B.
Regarding some elements and building on some questions every teacher should ask, I am going to evaluate and criticize this book in order to find out if it meets the students’ needs and the teacher’s goals. The questions that need to be asked about every book’s effectiveness can be overwhelming, but once we find the answers of some specific questions about this book, we will be rewarded by having the awareness whether we should or should not adopt this book between our hands (Sea Star).

            I will start with the first question: Goals of the course: Will this textbook help to accomplish your course goals? Or in other words, are this book’s goals are clearly set?
This book have a table of contents in which each unit’s title is written and each text in the unit is written under the goal that it serves, for example, in the first unit, where the theme is “Human values”, there are six texts under the six main general titles or goals: Reading strategy, reading and writing integrated, reading and speaking integrated, listening strategy, think twice before…, and inspirational article.
However, these general goals aren’t enough in a textbook, because they are so general and wide. Going deeper through the first lesson, we notice that there are two activities before reading, then six questions while reading, and then four after reading. And at the end, there is a critical reading section where the students answer and discuss with their partners six open-ended questions that provoke their opinions. In the second lesson, where the reading and writing are integrated together, there are six during reading comprehension questions, and then there are six writing tasks after reading. As for the part where the general goals are reading and speaking integrated together, there are three speaking tasks after reading. Under the listening strategy part, there are two main activities before listening, then two while listening, and then three activities after listening.
Think twice before… part is a part under which the students are asked to search online a certain topic (Precisely a topic related to the subject of the unit they are taking, which is in this example “Human values”) and find some specific information, then they are asked to apply this new knowledge in their country and compared to their country’s beliefs, which is in other words related to their lives, what makes of the materials more interested, reliable, suitable ones for the students. After that, the students are asked to prepare a presentation of their findings and share it with the class, which helps them practice their speaking skills.
This part (Think twice before…) helps students to practice their speaking skills, but above all, practice their skills in doing researches, which is something they are going to do and need a lot in their upcoming years.
At the end of every single lesson (Text), there is a “Glossary” part in which the hard vocabularies that the students will encounter in the text are defined and explained.
Finally, under the inspirational article, the students read an inspirational story of some public figure. In this unit, the inspirational article is about “Desmand Tutu”. The person that the inspirational story is about must be related to the topic of the unit of course.

This book’s activities meet the students’ goals which serve the four skills equally, where each unit constitutes of six parts, and each part serves one or two skills integrated together. However, the problem is in the book rhythm. This textbook is so monotonic and follows one single rhythm, where each unit is constituted of six parts and each part is the same as the one in the previous unit. The only thing that is changing is the topic of the lesson, and therefore the topic or object of the questions is changing, however, still is the same type of questions and activities in every unit. This will definitely reflect negatively, especially that this book is directed to teenagers who can easily get bored, and therefore, can easily lose their focus and attention.

I asked my brother (Abbess), who is studying in this book about this issue; he told me that they really got bored, even though they really love and enjoy the topics of the lessons (Which will discuss later). He said that they always predict what the teacher will ask them or do for them as an activity, and their predictions are always right, even if they don’t look in the book, because they have already taken the same type of activities and questions in the previous unit. They are always waiting for the surprising element that will take them out of their boredom, but this element never comes.
Even though, you cannot design a book with one hundred percent different elements, questions, activities… in it, but you can always add something new with each new unit or lesson that will make your students enjoy what they are doing and wait for the next new surprising element in the next unit, and therefore, build an intrinsic purpose in them that will make them love learning and the course. Each book must have continuously surprising elements which will break its monotony.

A second element or question to be searched for in a text book is the topics discussed in it. Does it fit the students’ backgrounds? (Age, educational background, native language and culture, and motivation or purpose for learning English)
I loved this book’s topics, so did my brother. He told me that mostly the only thing that keeps them focused in any lesson and interested in the materials is the topic of the text and the theme in general. Some examples of this textbook’s lessons are: Zidane’s Head-Butt, Sally, The star ducks, Who is worrying about?, Movie services, Athenian democracy…
The students at this age (15 years old) become interested in more mature but at the same time youthful topics. So regarding their ages, these book’s topics are perfect for them.
Now regarding their native language and culture, this book is also respecting and taking into consideration the students’ native culture, where, for example, “Athenian democracy” has a photo of a woman wearing the Hijab and raising her inked finger against the camera, which is a scene that could be seen in the students’ native culture but never seen in any other cultures (Foreign cultures). This makes the students more familiar, comfortable, and interested with the story and the book as a whole. Moreover, there is an inspirational article talking about Ziad El Rahbani, who is a Lebanese public figure.
What makes of this book an interesting and relevant book for the students is the fact that it is designed for their culture particularly. The publisher of this book is “World Heritage Publisher Ltd”, which preserves our Lebanese heritage in particular and teaches the students our culture and to respect our civilization. This makes the topics of the lessons relevant to the students and interested, and it relates the lessons to the students’ lives, and therefore, this makes the students more comfortable with the materials they are taking, and makes them more convinced and satisfied, which will make the learning enjoyable and fun.   

A third element that every English textbook must have is whether it serves all the four skills equally: Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. Which is something found in this book as we noticed from the first element where the table of contents shows the four skills and we noticed how each lesson serves a skill and sometimes two skills together. However, the responsibility here is on the teacher him/herself. My brother told me that his teacher doesn’t follow the book’s tasks in listening; instead he gives them the audio typed to read and then reflect on it. So, in this case, the listening task is becoming a reading task, which causes the lack of the listening skill in students.

A fourth element that we must make sure if this book includes and we must pay attention to is the general content, as whether the book comprises extra materials (CD, Answer key…) in addition to the textbook.
This book comprises two parts of textbook (Part A and B), a reinforcer, Audio CD, and an answer key (The teacher’s guide).
These are all extra elements that enrich the textbook and make it easier to use and more creative and flexible to teach our students with. The audio CD helps our students acquire the perfect native English accent, which they will need in their futures, whether in a job or a travel or even to simply communicate. The answer key is something the teacher can always get back to whenever he/she is not sure about her answer, but it isn’t necessary to take its answers as they are. It guides the teacher and helps him/her make sure of their answers and sometimes benefit from the answers inside it to enrich theirs.

            The previous element brings us to the teacher’s guide element, which can be: Methodological guidance, alternative and supplementary exercises, suitability for nonnative-speaking teacher, and answer keys. As we already mentioned, the teacher’s guide in this book is an answer key. So all the activities and questions in the book have an answer key that teachers can resort to whenever needed. It helps structure your answers in a more suitable and right way, and helps the teacher notice anything that he/she might have missed. I couldn’t get the answer key; however, any answer key should be used in a limited and organized way, so the teaching process don’t miss its purposes and its goals. The teacher after all must be his/her own guider, getting some help or support from the extra materials.

            Regarding the approaches used in this book, we can easily and clearly notice that the approaches used are mainly the communicative language learning approach (CLT), as activities are mostly communicative and in each lesson there is at least one group work activity that is built on communication between the students, and there are a plenty of speaking activities that demand of the students to use their language through natural and planned communication, both integrated.
Another approach that’s usually used in English textbooks is task-based language teaching (TBLT), where the students are asked to perform many tasks with educational purposes, and it focuses on the use of authentic language in meaningful tasks while performing the target language. Such tasks can include conducting an interview, or visiting a doctor for a purpose…
Unfortunately, this book includes no task-based language teaching (TBLT), which makes it a poor book in activities. TBLT is a must in nowadays if you were to teach the students the right English language that they might need and use naturally in any situations or for any life purpose. This approach helps the students acquire the natural English language and the native accent, plus it helps them build their confidence in speaking the English language. So if this approach was missing, for sure there is a side of the English language that students must acquire, that will be missing, and therefore, the learning process will lack some of its important factors and will not be fully achieved.

            The book’s vocabularies are another element to pay attention to. In this book, the vocabularies are perfectly suitable to the age of fourteen or fifteen years old. It includes hard vocabularies but at the same time understandable, so somehow it includes challengeable vocabularies. However, there are some hard words that are defined in the “Glossary” part in every lesson, at the end of it. So regarding teaching new vocabularies, this book serves exactly the needs of the students and the suitable level of language that they can understand from one side and is challengeable and can add to their repertoire of vocabularies and helps them in using the right accurate language from another side.

            Regarding the activities in this book, there is variety of activities that includes different types of activities comprising controlled activities and more free activities. And the activities are structured and communicated in a clear, direct, and understandable way for both students and teacher, which helps them perform it and benefit from it while enjoying it.
However, these activities lack the motivator that encourages the students to work and perform, and therefore, active the students’ participation. As I already mentioned in the first point, the book lacks the surprising and motivating element that makes the students enjoy learning and want more activities to do. Instead, these activities are so limited to the class and to papers and pencils only. It doesn’t require from students to be engaged physically and emotionally in the activities, but these activities are more fixed ones, which make of these book’s activities insufficient ones that don’t comprise every language skill component. However, there are no grammar activities in this book, and when I asked my brother about the grammar, he told me that the tenth grade don’t take grammar anymore. But, he told me that when performing any other tasks, the teacher gives them grammar instructions, and control their language.

Another factor that usually slips of the teacher’s attention is the sequence of the lessons, whether the lessons are sequenced from the easiest to the hardest, or the opposite, or they follow no sequence. This book is sequenced from the easiest to the hardest lesson, and when I asked my brother what is the sequence that the teacher follows, he told me that he sticks to the book’s sequence, so they take the lessons as they are organized in the book.

Regarding the format of the book, this book is somehow attractive to particularly this age of students. The layout of the book, even though isn’t colorful, but it comprises all the lessons’ covers which includes the picture of a woman wearing the Hijab, fat people working out, poor people working, two girls hugging each other… as we know teenagers are very energetic and sensitive, so such pictures will surely attract them and grab their attention, especially the picture of poor people because students this age are very revolutionary and start to notice the injustice in the world, and it is our responsibility and our choice to either encourage them to walk this revolutionary road and strengthen their interests and ideas by teaching them suitable and related topics, or we can make them forget this revolutionary spirit and convince them to care and be interested in other less important ideas, and therefore bury their creativity, energy, and encouragement. This book serves of course the first choice, which encourages them and provides them with the cover of the book that grabs this age’s attention and makes them unconsciously open the book and start reading it without even thinking twice about it. Moreover, the title “Sea Star” is another factor that grabs the students’ attention. It is so creative, which is another trait of teenager’s traits. Moreover, the font size is also a factor that might affect the students’ motivation to read and be engaged in the textbook. The font size is not so big nor too small, unlike the font size of younger ages. The tenth grade is the first grade where officially the students become older learners where they must learn the language in a more formal way, and must be prepared to their coming academic years. That’s why the size of the font is a more formal regular size of 12, and the colors aren’t so bright, where the questions are written in blue, and the sub questions (More detailed questions under the big questions) are written in black. So the book’s colors and font are more formal and suitable to this age, preparing the students to their next stage of their lives, adulthood.  

A last point to talk about is whether the book has any visual aids with it, or extra books as resource books for students… unfortunately, this book has no extra materials or available aids that help in the teaching and learning process. It is another weakness point in this book that affects its role negatively, because it limits the process of teaching and learning, and doesn’t allow for students’ creativity. Plus, instead of investing in these materials and benefit from them, the book wasted some extra important materials and therefore, deprived the students from variety of experiences that could have helped them.

As a conclusion, this book is somehow a good book with good materials, however, it lacks a lot of more materials and factors that students need to accomplish their learning process. The book needs more materials and aids, and it lacks the different types of languages (British and American) it has only the American language. The book also needs more natural and authentic use of the language. It needs more tasks to practice the language through them. Therefore, it needs to include the task-based language teaching, in order to practice the language in more authentic situations.

References:

1-      The “Methods” course book titled “Teaching by Principles, an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy”, written by “H. Douglas Brown”.

2-      Miekley, J. (2005). ESL Textbook Evaluation Checklist. http://www.readingmatrix.com/reading_projects/miekley/project.pdf

3-      Mukundan, J. (2012). Evaluative Criteria of an English Language Textbook Evaluation Checklist. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vahid_Nimehchisalem/publication/259620754_Evaluative_Criteria_of_an_English_Language_Textbook_Evaluation_Checklist/links/0deec52ceb87057894000000/Evaluative-Criteria-of-an-English-Language-Textbook-Evaluation-Checklist.pdf   

Philosophy

                                                       Philosophy Research

The society is composed of many individuals, and when the ideas of each individual change, the society will for sure change as well. According to Maciver social change is a process, which influences and changes human life in different directions. Change is the law of human life and society. The function of education in this case is to maintain this progressive change.

Education is a process that can happen in both faces “the narrower” as well as in “the wider”. Old people used to collect facts and information about nature for survival. This is nothing but education, even if some people might look at it as superstitions or lies. In the wider face of the concept of education, education is acquisition of experience throughout life, which brings changes in the life and behavior of humans. One of the primary functions of education is to be an accelerator and facilitator of the changes.

According to the different east and west cultures, philosophies differed in their points of view, as each culture believed in a different perspective of education. But more than that, philosophies differed in their ways of education, in the methods they have used, and of course the aims of education they have planned to achieve. It cannot be denied that different places have their own different culture and backgrounds.
While western philosophies encourage the rational thinking and don’t really care about their norms and culture, eastern philosophies relate everything in education to religion and believe that culture and norms are more important than the education itself and these norms must be protected and maintained as rules of life, plus, they believe that education and knowledge can be attained if we followed our norms and protected them.

One of the western philosophies is pragmatism. Pragmatism believes that the meaning and value of ideas could be found only in the practical results of these ideas. One of its biggest questions was: “how schools participate in social change?” John Dewey was a leading proponent of the pragmatism, and in one of his essays called “Education and Social Change”, he suggested that one must support the idea of changes and accept changes if he wants progressivism in his society, and moreover, he said that education reflects, generates, and guides this social change, and therefore, the progress. However, He said that there might be confusion on the direction that our schools might lead our society to, that’s what made him some rules that schools and educators must follow in order to lead a positive beneficial change in our society. He stated that schools and educators must:

1-      Continue to influence society without exploring how or why.

2-      Employ a scientific method of teaching and learning that corresponds with the cultural forces that cause social change.

3-      Take a conservative approach and make schools a force of maintaining old order and rejecting any new forces that steer society away from this old social order.

So as we notice, western philosophies are with the social changes and push towards change, however, at the same time, western philosophies maintain the good norms and cultures of the old days, maintaining by this a balance between education and social changes.

In general, a Western philosophy of education comprises two schools, which are traditional and modern. It has its roots in Athens, Rome and Judeo-Christianity, whereas Eastern philosophy is derived from Islam, Confucianism, Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism. By looking at Eastern and Western countries, both countries have distinct differences in their ways of developing and shaping an individual, in terms of skills and attitudes. Thus, different cultures will have different philosophies, which results in different ways of doing things, especially in educating the next generation.

Comparing both schools of thought, it can be concluded that western philosophies prefer the active learning that has to do mainly with experiencing in everything, while the eastern philosophies prefer passive learning. Western philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates encouraged rational thinking, whereas, the eastern philosophers mainly prefer the knowledge to be directly coming from the teachings of religion, such as Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Taoism.

Students of the western education philosophy are active learners in the classroom, where the teaching and learning process is not teacher-centered but more student-centered classroom. It encourages the students to be active in giving and sharing the ideas, which maximizes their role as students. For instance, students are very much encouraged to think and voice their views whenever they need to. This gives the students the chance to participate not only during class time, but also out of the classroom.

Moreover, the students are also given the opportunity to express their ability and talent by analyzing and solving problems on their own, doing research on their own… According to Thornton (1995), “the problem solving process becomes one of the basic requirements for children for their critical mental development”. So as we can notice, the education development in the west includes thinking skills, problem solving and communication skills which have been integrated in the western philosophy itself.

On the other hand, the teaching and learning process in the eastern education philosophy stresses the major outcomes from the teachers. It means that teachers are the main responsible for the class effectiveness. They prepare and plan all the activities for the students in all the domains. So, the students are not responsible to do anything, but all the materials are ready and given to them by the teachers. They are mainly responsible of receiving the input given from their teachers, and they are not even trained or encouraged to voice out their own points of view or perspectives. According to Rohaty (1999), “one of the reasons why the teachers sometimes don’t implement various innovative teaching strategies is due to the excessive attention on theory rather than on practical sense.”

In my own point of view, I believe in our life, our planet, our world, everything is related to everything. Anything you do today is going to reflect on what is going to happen a hundred years from today. Anything you do in any domain is going to reflect in all the sides of your life. So is the case between education and all sides of life. Education has impacted, and is still impacting the life in all its sides. However, the different sides of life reflect on the education as well. It’s a correlation between the two sides: Education and life, with all of its sides. However, the question that we should ask in this situation is whether education should reflect on our social life and change it, or should it help us maintain our social life as it is?
Right since the ancient times, education has reflected on the social life negatively and positively, and so did the social life on education. As we already saw, the eastern and western worlds encourage development and change, as they encourage education and knowledge. Now, I am going to present my point of view toward this conflict, and only my point of view, and I am going to support my point of view with evidence from real life and from different philosophies.
We all know that in ancient times, education was very intimately connected to religion and the social values of the day, but during the recent centuries, the scope of education is merely connected to religion and social values, and some educated peoples nowadays consider religious people as ignoramuses, and they even think that religions are nothing but superstitions.
At the same time, comes another side of people, who thinks that education is exactly the opposite of religion, and they even think that education is something harmful and is going to take us to the darkness because it drives us away from God.
But which opinion is the right one? Which opinion should rule our lives?

NO ONE! Education is for our good, so is religion! Religion elevates us and organizes our life in all its sides if applied in the right way, as God told us to. As for education, it is also something much related to religion. God created us with brains and mental abilities to use in order to develop and be educated and improve ourselves. So education and religion complete each other when used in the right way.
However, the problem doesn’t lie here; the problem is how are we going to use education in a beneficial way? Education can be harmful only if used in the wrong way, and that’s the problem in our society. We always miss the old days, when we were less knowledgeable, and education wasn’t as important as in our days. But actually, deep down inside us, we don’t miss the old days because education wasn’t that important, but we miss the old days because we are using the education in the wrong way in our present days.
Education is a powerful weapon that we should take advantages of to use it in a way that will develop and change our life, social life, and culture, but at the same time to maintain the good sides of our society and culture. People in our east world are taking what’s bad from education and educational evolution from the west, and are adding it to our culture and society. In benefiting from education, we are being so superficial. We see west cultured people doing a certain haircut, and we eventually want this haircut. We see western people wearing indecent clothes, and we eventually copycat them. We want to use education only to explore the west society superficially and imitate them.
What I am trying to say is that we should always make a balance in our life in everything. We should always take the golden mean as our law of life. In other words, we should seek education and knowledge, but at the same time we should never ever disconnect it with religion, especially as all religions encouraged us to seek knowledge and always chase education.  

Al Qura’an Al Kareem: “Iqra’ bi’ismi rabbika allazi khalaq.” (Surat Al Alaq)
The bible: “Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.” (Proverbs)

These two verses are evidence from the Qura’an and the bible, which prove that education is so important in our life and that God wants us and encourages us to seek knowledge.
However, education and development are directly related to each other, so should we develop and change as well?

As a conclusion, development is more than economic growth; it encompasses economic, social, cultural and political dimensions. Development aims for improving the human beings and the life of each individual on the basis of their education, work, effort, and their will and aim to develop and be knowledgeable and educated in their lives, societies, and surroundings. Education has a multidimensional impact on communities, and it is one of the building blocks for the development that we are talking about and we are all aiming towards it. Furthermore, education is the main instruments and means that gives equal opportunities and chances, and promotes higher income levels amongst the entire population. However, if used in the right balanced way.
Our today’s biggest challenge is to know how to use education in a beneficial way that will, at the same time, protect our norms and values. We cannot separate between education and cultural life and norms. We cannot choose one single side. We must walk with the two weapons in our hands keeping us balanced, and each one’s protecting the other. Try to follow the golden mean in your life, in everything, not in just this limited topic. It will always guide your path in life.

References:

1-                        N. Amante. Philosophy of eduation.

https://www.scribd.com/document/235360541/Western-Versus-Eastern-Philosophy-of-Education  

2-                        J. Bhumireddy. (2015). Impact of Education on Society.

https://blog.school-time.co/impact-education-society/  

3-                        M. Danish Khan. (2015). Importance of Education by Islamic perspective. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-education-islamic-perspective-danish-khan  

4-                        The holy bible online.

https://www.biblestudytools.com/proverbs/20-15.html  

5-                        Positive and Negative effects of education. http://positivenegativeeffects.com/education

6-                        S. Kumar, S. Gulati, S. Ahmad. Lesson 2: Introduction to philosophical, psychological and sociological bases of education. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1146/1167f80224e937ae5d5231320f729a29681a.pdf

7-                        J. Daniels. (2008). Education and social change. http://faculty.fordham.edu/kpking/classes/uege5102-pres-and-newmedia/John-DeweyEd-and-Social-Change-by-Jen-Dainels.pdf

8-                         A. Hassan, N. Jamaludin, J. Sulaiman, and R. Baki. Western and Eastern educational philosophies https://ivc.instructure.com/files/6886/download?download_frd=1&verifier 

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Learning Disabilities – ADHD

            Each and every classroom is unique in its own way, as teachers if we run to any classroom we will encounter a variety of students, in other words, fast and slow learners, learners that have different interests. Also, we might have students that have learning disabilities. However, we must keep in mind that these students are as special and smart as their other classroom mates, the only problem is that we deal with them without being aware of the disability that causes them to be incapable to control themselves. Through this paper we will be highlighting the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) and show teachers how enjoyable it can be to teach such students if we are aware of the different strategies we can utilize with these special students.

Definition:
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD – ADHD) is defined as inattention and impulsivity combined with hyperactivity. But if we think about it all children sometimes show that they can't concentrate in the class, are restless and are super hyperactive as well as they do things without thinking of the consequences behind it. But what differentiate these students from ADHD students is that they commit these behaviors to the extreme and far more than the children of their same age. This disorder has four times more chances to affect boys than girls. 

Each one of these three types is mainly identified by the symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention.

1- Inattentive type: When the main symptoms are inattention, distraction, and disorganization, the type is usually called inattentive.

2- Hyperactive/impulsive type: When the main symptoms are hyperactivity and impulsiveness, the type is usually called hyperactive/impulsive.

3- Combined type: As its name signifies, the third type has some symptoms from each of the other two types.
Characteristics:

Students that have ADHD struggle with:

-          Sitting still

-          Staying in their seats

-          Following directions

-          Concentrating

-          Staying focused on a certain task for a long period of time

-          Tasks that require high level of thinking

-          Playing quietly

-          Writing things down and using a neat and proper handwriting

-          Controlling themselves

-          Speaking in appropriate times

-          Waiting their turn

-          Saying the right things

-          Remembering things

-          Taking time with and/or completing their work

A child with ADHD will show these symptoms in more than one setting. They most likely will end up showing these signs in school as well as their homes.

Causes of ADHD:

Some people think that an ADHD child's behavior is caused by a lack of discipline, a chaotic family life, or even too much TV.
In fact, research suggests that ADHD stems from genetic disorder.
However, some environmental factors may influence the severity of the disease, but such factors do not give rise to the disease by themselves. Some of these factors are:

1-Environmental Agents:

Studies have shown a relationship between the use of cigarettes and alcohol during pregnancy and the risk for ADHD. In addition, another environmental agent that can affect the fetus as well as the newly born kid is to live in old buildings that lead still exists in the plumbing as well as the lead in the paint.

2- Brain injury:

"Brain injury that results from a serious blow to the head, a brain tumor, a stroke, or disease can cause problems with inattention and poor regulation of motor activity and impulse." says Leavitt.

So, because people that suffered from Brain injury has shown some signs of ADHD they associate it with the disease, however only a small amount of kids with ADHD  have suffered from a traumatic brain injury.  

Food additives and Sugar:

Researches have shown that kids that have ADHD and consume food with mixture of some artificial food colors and the preservative "sodium Benzoate" have more chances to increase the symptoms of ADHD, in other words, they tend to feel super hyperactive during the day.

Genetics:

Researches have proven that the main principle behind ADHD, is genetics, in other words, it runs in the family. Smith affirms that "It may be one of the most heritable psychiatric disorders". Studies indicate that 25% of the close relatives in the families of ADHD children also have ADHD.

Researches continue to study and trying to find the genes responsible for ADHD. A new study done at Cardiff University in Wales found that children with ADHD, are more likely to have missing or duplicated segments of DNA.

Solutions:

 We, as teachers, must be more than educators to our ADHD students; we must be more like their parents, their guiders, coaches and facilitators in their learning journey. We must understand them and take into considerations how they feel, and try and put ourselves in their shoes. It isn’t an easy task to do, but we must follow certain strategies in dealing with students struggling from ADHD, and treat them in a special way that fit their needs emotionally and academically. The following points are approaches that we can as teachers follow to help engaging our ADHD students in the class and bring the best out of them:

1-      They learn best with hands-on activities

2-      Seat the students away from any distractions, such as doors and windows. Seat them in the front row, closely to the eyes of the teacher.

3-      Classroom rules should be clear and reviewed in a regular basis with the students. These rules should be also present in a written form and placed at the eye level of the students.

4-      Give instructions and break them into small chunks so they can understand it. Repeat them whenever necessary.

5-      Give them immediate and direct feedback on their work. In this way, they will feel proud of themselves and would want to seek more knowledge.

6-      Make them aware of the consequences behind their actions.

7-      Ignore negative behaviors that aren’t disruptive to the whole class.

8-       Let them move throughout the session. For example: ask them to write something on the board, erase it…

9-      When talking with an ADHD student, try to place your hand on his shoulder or arm, in this way he has more chances to concentrate on what you are telling him.

10-  Allow the student to hold something tactile, such as a "koosh ball", for him to manipulate and move his hands. Thus, he has more chances to focus.

11-  Allow him/her to chew gum in order to release energy and stay focused.

12-  Work on the most complex material early in the day.

13-  Provide them with shorter exams instead of long ones.

14-  Test them with the tasks they do best in, such as oral, written, listening task etc…. In this way, we will allow them to experience success.

15-  Provide them with time to organize their materials and as they leave home remind them of what they need to take with them.

16-   Provide them with extra time to submit their assignments and quizzes.

17-  When giving them assignments, let them choose what they want to do. Thus, they will be more committed to do it.

18-  Incorporate technology in your session whenever appropriate. Let them use the Microsoft word, in this way they will keep their fingers busy.

19-  Vary your routine. Thus, they won't feel bored

20-  Be an enthusiastic teacher and show them how enjoyable learning can be.

21-  Keep eye contact with them. Thus, they will feel appreciated and more concentrated.

22-   Provide them with visual aids to grab their attention and make your class look vivid.

           

To conclude, students with ADHD have proven that they can be creative; flexible, enthusiastic about learning and are packed with energy to learn just as long as they are given the resources they need to thrive.