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Nelson Mandela on education

"I learned that courage was not
the absence of fear, but
the triumph over it.

The brave man is not he
who does not feel afraid, but
he who conquers that fear."

Thank you for teaching us so much! 

 

Our Greatest Fear

by Marianne Williamson

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

 

Posted by Rosevita Warda in Uncategorized. | 4 Comments |

Three proud spelling bee champions

Jenna Stafford, a long time supporter, sent us the following lines:

I just wanted you to know that my triplet boys came in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in their school spelling bee today out of nearly 100 spellers!

I give all the credit to your LearnThat program.  We had to work [on getting the lists we want activated] but once we got it going they learned the 400+ words quickly. 

All three now go on to compete in the County Spelling Bee in February with a chance to go to the State Bee and then on to the Scripps National Bee.  The boys plan to use your program to prepare for the County Bee.  Thanks!

 

Update from 2/8/2014:

Fantastic news!  The triplets did great at the County Spelling Bee today.  John David won and Chaz came in 2nd!   

Ready for the state spelling bee!

They went 19 rounds (the last 10 just the two of them) before Chaz missed “sauve” (I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose to end the thing!  Lol) and John David spelled omnipotent correctly for the win. 

There were about 100 spellers in the bee.  (For some reason, the first 75 words in the bee were from a list that the students were not told to study, so Treyson got out in the first round on the very difficult word “dodecahedron”... but he had not studied it).   Anyway…  John David goes on the Arkansas State Spelling bee on March 1st.  

Thanks again so much for all your help through this process!  So proud of the triplets and so thankful for LearnThat!  

Posted by Rosevita Warda in our members, spelling bee. | Leave a comment |

Over the years, Google has helped LearnThat Foundation tremendously through its Google grant program. From its Google Ad grant to free use of Google apps and other offers, we have always been extremely grateful for the support.

While most US nonprofits qualify, many struggle -- either to successfully complete the application process (yes, there are multiple pit falls!) or to make the Adwords system work for them. Of the $10,000 given to each nonprofit per month, most use less than $300, overwhelmed by the requirements of setting up a high quality campaign.

After helping numerous nonprofits on an informal basis and to make optimal use of our team's skills, we launched a nonprofit consulting agency, BigHeartCloud (BHC).

We're certified Google Adwords partners and offer a unique concept to nonprofits:

Our package requires just one low fee if we succeed in securing the Google Ad grant, and no fees at all if we fail. Included in the low fee is a 90 minute webinar tailed to the needs of nonprofits starting out with Adwords, and up to an hour of personal consultation time. If you're a nonprofit or know of one that would benefit of receiving this amazing monthly advertising allowance, please recommend us!
Posted by Rosevita Warda in Uncategorized. | 1 Comment |

Over 1 of 10 adults are illiterate. 2/3 of them are women.
In celebration of International Literacy Day 2013, a new UNESCO infographic illustrates the problem:

Infographic Unesco International Literacy Day

What can be done to improve these numbers? Please join our new Vocabulary Junction communities, and work with us on closing the vocabulary divide.

We look forward to exchanging ideas and expertise!

Posted by Rosevita Warda in education, English, literacy, self-development. | 2 Comments |

Someone sent this to me. Enjoy:

Pablo Picasso's Girl Reading at a TableDate a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or if she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

by Rosemarie Urquico

Posted by Rosevita Warda in fun with English, our members, self-development, your brain. | 2 Comments |

Words, words, words“If you want to be rich, you have to have a rich man’s vocabulary. Words can make you rich, or can make you poor.”

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the popular book Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Posted by Rosevita Warda in education, English, learn English, LearnThatWord, vocabulary, your brain and tagged . | Leave a comment |

Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington state, Randy Dorn:

"We've seen the numbers: A child [that comes] from a wealthy family has about a 3,600 words vocabulary. From a working family, it's about 1,800. And from a welfare family or home it's about 800 words. That's the facts. [...] We have to move from there."

Watch this video recording of Randy Dorn's live plaidoyer

Posted by Rosevita Warda in Uncategorized. | Leave a comment |

At LearnThatWord, members can gain much more than knowledge. 
Congratulations to this year's prize winners!

Ticket #35924 won the first prize, a dream vacation at the Playa Viva beach resort in Mexico. 
Follow up winners were ticket #36707, 34379, 34909, and 31076, who won 10-year memberships to LearnThatWord!

All winners have been contacted by email to make further arrangements.
Starting today, new tickets will count towards the next drawing in 2014.

Good luck!

 

Posted by Rosevita Warda in Uncategorized. | Leave a comment |

The history of the spelling beeWith this year's finals around the corner (Thursday, 5/30, 8 pm EST), here some history of the spelling bee.

The good ol' spelling bee, it seems, is an American tradition older than even American independence.
According to this article by Merriam-Webster, Benjamin Franklin recommended a similar contest already 1750.

Connecticut school’s tradition in 1795 was to have the bad spellers clean the schoolhouse while the good spellers went out to play. 
Spelling bees then evolved into social entertainment, their geeky appeal going in and out of fashion over the years.

Please keep your fingers crossed for all LearnThatWord members trying out in Washington, D.C. right now!

Click here to learn some trivia about why the spelling bee is dominated by kids of Indian/South Asian decent.

Posted by Rosevita Warda in fun with English, history, spelling bee. | Leave a comment |

Snigdha Nandipati, Spelling Bee Champ Over the last few decades, Indian Americans have been outshining other ethnicities at the National Spelling Bee.

Why is a population that makes up roughly 1% of the US population so heavily represented at the event?
Why were 10 champions in the last 14 contests of Indian American/South Asian descent?
There must be more to this than chance.

Unlikely that there is such as a thing as a spelling bee gene, so this is not about racial stereotypes.

Here are a few things that contribute to the strong presence of Indian/South Asian students at the event:

1 -  The American school system and culture has a conflicted relationship with memory-based learning.
Indian culture values academic achievement highly and values memorization as well, as a building block of higher-level knowledge.
This, by the way, is also the reason why Indian Americans are not only dominating the Spelling Bee, but also produce much more than their statistical share of doctors, engineers and executives.

2 -  Indian Americans/South Asians maintain tightly knit family and social communities, and place a paramount value within their community on academic performance. Social expectations around academic performance tend to be much higher than in other demographic groups.
Academic success therefore has a big social pay-off.

3 -  Last but not least, the success at Spelling Bees is fostered by various initiatives that exclusively support Indian American/South Asian students. NorthSouth Foundation and the South Asian Spelling Bee are both set up to support the Indian American/South Asian community of aspiring champions.
It's great to win the first prize at the Scripps National Spelling Bee by competing with 10 million students for over $40,000 in prizes. There is certainly more incentive to dedicate the thousands of hours of intense study needed knowing that you can also apply these skills at the South Asian Spelling Bee, where you compete with just a few thousand other kids for a $10,000 first prize.
These additional events also build friendships and mutual support within the Indian American speller community.

Posted by Rosevita Warda in spelling bee. | 5 Comments |
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