Best Solicitor Services is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

COUNTRY OF MANY PEOPLES
This country,,, (The authors raised their kids in the United States but they believe that their experience can be useful for people in other non-spanish-speaking countries.) This country is made up of people from all over the world. We or our parents came from Latin countries. We now live here. We function in two different worlds, the American world and the world of our parents. All of us live in these two different worlds in different ways. Some of us were born in the countries our parents came from; others of us were born here. This makes a difference in how and how much we live in our two worlds.

COUNTRY OF MANY LANGUAGES
The one thing that is most important in our parents’ world is their language which is also ours in different ways. The Spanish language of our parents is an issue to all of us every day. We may be proud to speak it well. We may be ashamed at not speaking it well. Some of us may have gone through periods of trying not to speak it because we wanted to speak English better. We may only speak it when we come across someone who needs help in understanding English. We may only remember some sayings of our grandparents or children’s songs taught to us by our parents.

You may want to review (or study it for the first time) your Spanish. We could only find one reference for you. It is expensive and is a textbook, not too appealing but complete. Take a look at Nuevos Mundos, Spanish for Native Speakers 2nd Edition, Workbook : Curso de espanol para estudiantes bilingues”

F. Bruce Robinson, assistant director in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ division of education programs asks “How does America preserve this important resource of people who are proficient in other languages? Instead of trying to depress the knowledge these students come to school with, we ought to be trying to build on it.” (Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 2, 1994, page A15)

OUR CHILDREN AND OUR LANGUAGE
We all want our children to speak the language of their heritage. We discount the opinions of those who say that it is better to forget Spanish and to concentrate on speaking English well. These people are just wrong. It does not hurt your English to speak another language; it helps. Spanish is particularly useful to children in their learning English vocabulary. Just today I taught my daughter the difference between vowels and consonants. Knowing Spanish really helped with the idea of the consonants. I told her that the consonants have no voice; they can only be pronounced with the vowels. The con-sonants suenan con the vowels.

But although most of us agree that it is a good thing for our kids to speak Spanish, most kids in the US whose parents were born in Latin American countries do not speak Spanish well.

Even if both parents speak Spanish at home, quite often the kids answer their parents in English. Look around at your Latin friends and relatives and you will see that most give up on teaching their kids to speak Spanish. Chicano and Puerto Rican families seem to have a little better luck than Latinos from other countries with keeping Spanish alive in their barrios but even their younger generation is losing fluency in Spanish.

However, parents who want their children to speak Spanish can go against the current and set the stage for their children to grow up speaking Spanish. It is not easy. Most families fail in their resolve but it can be done. This report will give some hints on how to improve your chances.

REASONS FOR OUR CHILDREN TO SPEAK SPANISH
There are many reasons why it is good for the kids to speak your language. One obvious reason is the advantage that it might be for them in the job market. As long as we live in a world with shrunken distances and growing international trade, someone has to be able to talk with people from other countries.

Professor Francisco X. Alarcn of the University of California at Davis says that “now that we are moving toward a global economy, it’s O.K. to be bilingual in the U.S.” (Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb.2, 1994, page A15)

Another good reason for you to work at your children’s learning to speak Spanish is because it will make you proud to hear the compliments of your friends and countrymen because your children are able to speak your language. You grow in prestige as a person who values your roots.

Your children will also be able to speak with their relatives thanks to improved phone service which is entering the most remote villages of our countries. Direct dialing from the United States is economical enough to be able call a few times a year. The thrill of being able to talk to their uncles, aunts, and cousins will get the kids interested in keeping up their language.

They will be speaking to their relatives not only by phone but will be able to visit them. The experience of knowing another culture will put them ahead of their classmates who have no ties to their roots.

Another reason to encourage our children to speak Spanish can be gotten from the history of a previous group of Latin immigrants to the United States, the Italians.

“Some social critics were aware of the consequences of sudden assimilation. Mary McDowell, a social worker, wrote en 1904:

‘The contempt for the experiences and languages of their parents which foreign children sometimes exhibit… is doubtless due in part to the overestimation which the school places upon speaking English. This cutting into his family loyalty takes away one of the most conspicuous and valuable traits of the Italian child.’ She attributed the lawlessness of some of the immigrant children to their disrespect for their parents and therefore for all authority.”

(La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, Mangione and Morreale, p. 222)

Finally, the ability to speak another language can be a great boost to a child’s self esteem. If the child’s parents make it clear that they are proud of their language and of their people, the child will feel closer to his parents and to their heritage, customs, and most importantly to their values.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO SPEAK SPANISH
Start early. Try to speak only Spanish to the child. If only one parent speaks Spanish well, that person should always speak Spanish with the child. Do not be afraid of “confusing” the child. Children can identify with different speakers of different languages as they grow up.

1. Read simple stories and fairy tales to the child in Spanish. if you can’t find children’s literature in Spanish, then make your own translations as you go along. It is not necessary that the translation be perfect. Make up your own stories. It is important for your child to have the memories of hearing nursery rhymes in Spanish.

2. Leave your radio tuned de Spanish language stations. Linguists place a great deal of importance on “passive listening” as part of learning a language, especially for young children.

3. In most areas there is a Spanish language TV station. Put on the Saturday morning cartoons in Spanish.

4. Teach simple nursery rhymes and simple songs to your child. If you don’t remember them or if you were not taught any from your parents’ traditions, look for them in garage sales, college bookstores, or your local library. Do you remember el patito or pinpn? Look for songs in Spanish.

5. Rent videos in Spanish. They are beginning to be available – and not only in cities with a big Spanish-speaking population!

6. Use proverbs and dichos in Spanish. Some expressions that you would say in English are just as legitimate proverbs in Spanish. Get your child used to hearing them in Spanish. You can do this even if you don’t speak Spanish well. For example, say mejor tarde que nunca instead of “better late than never”. Little by little, poco a poco, you’ll feel at home with more uniquely Latin expressions. They have something of the culture wrapped up in them. They are stubbornly different from Anglo Saxon proverbs.

7. Get used to saying menos mal in place of “just as well”. The English expression is “better than nothing”; in many Southamerican countries, the equivalent expression is peor es nada. Find proverbs.

8. Don’t correct their Spanish when they speak. Don’t interrupt the flow of their conversation. Don’t make their speaking Spanish to be another homework assignment. It should be something special, even something “secret” in your family. Kids like the mystery and intrigue of having something special of their own. Their speaking Spanish should be a joyful, non-threatening experience. If they make mistakes in their grammar, correct their errors by using the same expression correctly a few minutes after. Don’t come right back at them with the correct form or they will begin to feel conscious of their expression and choke off their freedom of expression.

9. Get a good syllabary to teach them the value of the letters and how to read in Spanish. If your child’s first language is Spanish teach them to read Spanish before they learn English. You will be doing them a big favor. They will learn to sound out the regular spelling of Spanish which will be a good base on which to learn how to read in English. You will get the same results as those who spend money on expensive Phonics programs.

10. The best way to get your children to grow in Spanish is to send them to spend some time with relatives or friends where they will only speak and hear Spanish. This works best at around 7 years old when children play easily with one another and when Spanish will just come naturally even to the child who has very little exposure to the language. Another good age for a child to be exposed to a Spanish speaking environment is at around 12 years old. At this age, the child has greater mental development and can observe customs and situations in which certain expressions are used. At twelve years old most kids are still pre-adolescents and are not hampered by the embarrassment, self consciousness, and “feeling different” which hold back teenagers from learning a language or customs different from their own.

Use any of the above methods but start! Your efforts will communciate to your children the importance that you give to Spanish even if these efforts are not always completely successful.

1994 F.GERACE

How To Get Your Kids To Speak Your Language is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

For the uninitiated, a regular polygon is a closed figure with equal length sides and equal angles. A pentagon with three centimetre sides and 108 degree angles is a regular pentagon. Regular polygons are the figures that are most commonly used to represent each family of polygons.

To experience the most success with this method, it is recommended that you use a full circle protractor. A half circle protractor will work just fine except the procedure changes slightly. The basic procedure for the full circle protractor is to place the protractor on a piece of paper, make a bunch of dots, and join the dots. The trick is dividing the 360 degrees of the circle by the number of vertices in the regular polygon, and making dots at the resulting interval. In a hexagon, for example, there are six vertices, so divide 360 degrees by six to get sixty degrees. Starting at zero degrees, make a mark every sixty degrees around the full circle protractor; there will be dots at 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 degrees. Join the dots, and voila; you have a perfect regular hexagon. With a half circle protractor, it is necessary to establish a center point first, so when you rotate the protractor to complete the dots on the other side, it can be lined up properly with the zero point and the center point.

The really nice thing about using a 360 degree circle to construct regular polygons is that it works for all of the regular polygons that one would encounter in an elementary or primary school. This is because 360 is divisible by 24 different numbers including 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 12. To construct an equilateral triangle, for example, first divide 360 by three to get 120. Make dots at 0, 120, and 240, join the dots, and enjoy a perfectly drawn equilateral triangle. Squares are constructed by marking dots at 90 degree intervals, pentagons at 72 degree intervals, octagons at 45 degree intervals, nonagons at 40 degree intervals, decagons at 36 degree intervals, and dodecagons at 30 degree intervals. “But what about a heptagon?” you may ask. Even numbers that don’t divide evenly into 360 can be approximated using this method. For example, a heptagon (seven sided polygon) can be approximated quite well using 51 degree intervals. It will be hard to tell with the naked eye that you were one or two degrees off.

One limitation of this method is that there is only one size of circle available, so all of the polygons come out quite large. With a little ingenuity, this limitation can be overcome. One simple solution is to cut out a circle of paper and place it on top of the round protractor. Any paper circle smaller than the round protractor can be used. Make the dots around the edge of the paper circle lining them up with the scale on the protractor. The paper circle becomes an intermediate protractor that can be used just as the regular protractor, but it will make a smaller polygon.

Another limitation is that your students might not be at the point where they can divide or find multiples of large numbers. In this case, you could tell your students at which numbers to make the dots, or create paper protractors with just the intervals marked on them for each polygon.

This is the quickest and most efficient method I have seen for constructing regular polygons. It takes little time to teach and little time to learn, and it makes the construction of regular polygons a simple and painless activity for students. And if you need a bit of a challenge, try the 180 sided polygon with two degree intervals. I’ll bet you never guessed you could make one of those so easily!

Can You Draw a Perfect Hexagon? is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

One of the drawbacks of homeschooling, however, is the concern that your child is not surrounded by peers in the same way that he or she would be in a public school system. Also, as a homeschooling parent, you are dealing with lots of pressure – the quality of your child’s education rests entirely on you, after all – and are probably dealing with many questions of your own. One good way to address this is to make a point of getting together with other homeschooling parents.

By meeting on a regular basis with other homeschooling parents, you do a service to both you and your child. You will be able to exchange ideas and teaching techniques with other parents. Most importantly, though, you child will get a chance to interact with some of his or her peers. Children at a young age can be very impressionable and concerned with being different. All every child usually wants to do is fit in.

It’s important when homeschooling your child that you acknowledge the fact that not everybody does it. This fact can’t be kept hidden from your child, and at some point he or she will realize that lots of other kids go to school. That’s why meeting up with other homeschooling parents can be valuable for your child, because they will see that they are not the only ones. The child’s fear of not being “normal” will be eased by seeing and interacting with the other children.

There are many different ways you can get together with other homeschooling parents. One of the best ones is to incorporate it into the children’s education. Keep in regular touch with other parents, and if you find yourselves studying the same subjects at the same time, suggest an appropriate field trip – in this way you can replicate the public and private school experience of combining your children’s educational and social time.

Another good idea is to suggest a group project to be conducted with another family. If another parent is also teaching a biology unit, for example, you could suggest a that the children work on planting a garden together on your property. When studying zoology, a trip to the zoo would be enjoyable and educational for both you and your children when conducted with another family.

By keeping in regular touch with other homeschooling parents you will do a service for your child’s education and social development. By exchanging ideas with other homeschooling parents you can learn new teaching strategies, and at the same time your will be teaching your children that they are not alone, and not at all strange.

Getting Together With Other Homeschooling Parents is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

Academic studies have shown that a company who operates directly with social responsibility are likely to do better in business than those that dont.

A 1997 DePaul University study found that companies with a defined corporate commitment to ethical principles do better financially (based on annual sales/revenues) than companies that don’t.

Corporate Social Responsibility is still voluntary, yet as more people are becoming aware, they are interested in only purchasing products and supplies with firms that are actively practicing CSR.

The unfortunate thing is that a large percentage of firms believe that to integrate their business with CSR in mind would be too costly. However, this is a misconception.

Being aware of how we are affecting the environment, such as using too much water, leaving lights on, leaving windows open, not recycling or using un-recycled materials infact costs firms more than if they were to practice corporate social responsibility.

CSR is not a legal requirement; however it does have its benefits.

Taking responsibility on a company level for the environment shows credibility and can help a companys reputation and build trust with their customers. Although this should not be the main reason for social responsibility, these are the benefits that are being put forward to firms who are not yet environmentally friendly.

To give an example of how CSR can affect a business, if a large company was looking around for a firm, who sells stationary to be their sole provider, yet they were only interested in recycled products, then immediately, all those that dont offer recycled products have missed out on a potentially big client.

CSR gives a positive image to potential clients which considering business relationships. Social responsibility shows that you are aware of the changes in the environment and are taking positive steps to helping the economy.

CSR is not only something that businesses should be taking onboard for their customers, but also for their employees. Human rights and CRS go hand in hand.

All employees have the right to work in a safe and friendly environment. Managers and directors should take responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees. People have no desire to work in an environment that creates risk.

A recent study by the Cherenson Group showed that 78% of employees would rather work for an ethical and reputable company than receive a higher salary.

Creating a safe working environment attracts employees and increases productivity as taking responsibility for the environment encourages credibility and trust amongst staff.

Intigrating Corporate Social Responsibility into your business life helps your business, productivity and image as well as leaving your competitors behind who are not currently practicing CSR.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

An adult learning program is ideal for any adult with restrictions on their time due to professional or family obligations. It enables the student to continue their education in a formal atmosphere, getting all the advantages of traditional college courses. However, learning at Benedictine University is done at an accelerated pace and at more convenient times. This will allow the working adult to fit in classes after work and on the weekends and allow the stay at home parent to study during times the children do not need to be taken back and forth to school.

The classes at Benedictine University for adult learning are designed for adults who have not yet completed their bachelors degree. Therefore, the class sizes are smaller and comprised of peers with similar situations. To enroll in the program, each student must be at least twenty four years old and have at least two years work experience. This can be a much more comfortable environment for adults who have life and work experience already. Often sitting in class with students much younger than you are can be uncomfortable. Also, because of life experience, many of the topics covered you may already be knowledgeable on. Sitting through tedious work you are already familiar with can be frustrating and lead to a lack of drive. However, learning among your peers will be motivational.

The flexibility of adult learning at Benedictine University allows the student to plan their course schedule according to their existing time commitments. Because the reality is that sometimes these commitments change, you can design the courses each time to coincide with your personal and professional life. You may also take stop outs if your schedule becomes especially hectic. The modules, or classes, have a staggered year round schedule to accommodate all needs. You may start a module at the time that is convenient for you. You may also design your work load for as many or as few classes as you can handle at one time.

Benedictine University has decreased fees for adult learning to make obtaining a degree more affordable. There is also tuition assistance available from the financial aid center. Benedictine University has a proven record of academic excellence and continues this by developing programs for the needs of all their students. By designing an adult learning curriculum they are able to accommodate the unique scheduling requirements of adults with time restrictions due to personal or professional obligations. No longer does completing a bachelors degree have to be a daunting task. Using the flexibility the adult learning program affords, you can get a solid education without sacrificing existing responsibilities.

Benedictine University Tops Out As America’s Best Online College is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

Tips To Choose The Best Arts Culinary School (ACS):

Few basic tips an individual needs to follow are as mentioned below:

1.Accreditation by government bodies: This is the foremost and crucial step while selecting the best ACS. Check out the schools accreditation.

2.Level of Courses: Individuals need to decide whether they want to take admission for short duration courses, diploma, certification courses or degree.

3.Peers ratings: Check from the graduated friends about the teaching standards and overall quality of the particular ACS.

4.Affiliations with companies: An individual needs to see if the school provides any placements after completion of the courses. Some schools have their hotels, so student need not have to search for job.

5.Strength of the students: Select the school having ample amount of international students. It enables them to get acquainted with diverse groups, which is useful in hospitality learning.

6.Competency of Teachers: Teachers in the school need to be competent with strong experience levels. They help in creating better students.

7.Other facilities: Check the accommodation, transportation, meals, free internet and other facilities.

8.Location: The culinary school needs to be located at ideal place. It has to be readily accessible and free from any health concerns.

9.Practical Training: The best ACS is the one which provides hands on training in popular restaurants. It also helps the students to earn a stipend during their vacation break.

10.Education costs: Check the fees structure of culinary school. Compare the fees with other ACS and choose the best arts culinary school.

Importance of Choosing the Right Culinary School:

There are various culinary schools located across various places in the world who claim that they are the best. An individual can directly visit the school or can surf the federal websites that rank and provide the accreditation to the arts culinary schools. But choosing the right school becomes really difficult. Hence, a student needs to adhere to certain guidelines before choosing the best ACS.

How to Find the Best Culinary Arts School (ACS)?

1.Verify the specialization field: An individual planning to take admission to any ACS need to first determine the area of interest. The ACS offer various training options. By identifying the field of specialization, an individual can determine the ideal school as per the needs. Research about the various cooking school and determine their key niche area.

2.Categorize the various ACS: After discovering about the peculiarities of each school, an individual needs to set criteria of his own. Judge everything from accreditation to career placements, internships to degrees offered, fees structure to faculty members. Besides these, also remain aware of the mission, ideology, academic records, and reliability of the programs of the specific ACS.

3.Pay a personal visit to the school: This will help an individual in getting a genuine view of the ACS. Interact with the enrolled students, observe the teachings and develop an impression, subsequent to which take the final decision.

10 Tips On Choosing The Best Arts Culinary School is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

Wind energy is one option when it comes to renewable power. Large spinning turbines harvest the movement of the air, and the energy is transferred into an electricity generator for usage in any application. While it’s not available everywhere, wind energy represents one of the fastest sectors of growth when it comes to alternative power sources, and it is consequently one of the most widely used alternative sources. As a matter of fact, since the year 2000, the number of wind turbines present in the United States has more than doubled!

Solar power is another significant source of renewable energy. Solar cells known as photovoltaics are placed on sun-catching areas such as the roof of a house. These cells turn light energy into electricity, and enough electric panels can provide power for an entire home, leaving you independent of the energy companies altogether.

Geothermal energy represents a source of energy that is not commonly discussed. Heat from underneath the earth’s surface is harvested as steam, which helps to spin a turbine much in the way of wind power. The spinning motion is sent to an electricity generator, and the power can be used in any modern application.

Low impact hydropower represents another significant source of renewable energy. Incorporating the use of a turbine, hydropower is created in streams and rivers which produce enough of a force to properly spin the turbines. Many aspects of hydropower need to be approved to ensure that the turbines do not significantly effect wildlife that may be living in the area where the energy is being harvested. Most hydropower sources do not dam a river up; they operate with the river in free-flow as to minimize the effect on the environment.

While these sources may not be easy to come by, your conscience can be unburdened regarding the climate crisis by switching to one of these environmentally friendly sources of energy. Do your part in helping to change our planet for the better!

Clean Sources Of Energy To Avoid Contributing To Global Warming is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

This article will give a few explanations why they use a strategy that makes them miserable, how that process works, and if this describes you, why you might want to change. It will also describe what you’ll have to sacrifice if you no longer want to be miserable.

Also, if the benefits of being miserable are enough you’ll learn how to continue to make choices and decisions that contribute to your misery.

The Benefits of Misery.

It’s hard to believe that there are benefits to feeling bad but the fact is that there are. Some of these benefits include:

* Uniqueness. If you are suffering you at least can see yourself as special and even persecuted.

* Righteousness. If you are miserable because of something outside of your control you can hold it up as a banner and proclaim that you must be right to have such an enemy.

* Blame. As long as your misery can be something external to you then you can blame it for all your problems. This releases the burden of self-reflection and change.

* Familiarity. Sometimes misery is the only thing that seems familiar. Getting rid of it would mean launching yourself is a completely unfamiliar territory and might mean new things about yourself that you had never considered before.

* Misery is easy. There are very few people who go through life and are naturally happy. Those that are have found a strategy that works for them often after a lot of effort. It takes some work to change ones thinking process.

How to make decisions that make you feel miserable.

* Ask a series of miserable questions of yourself like
“What could go wrong about today?”
“What do I have to feel guilty about?”
“Why do bad things always happen to me?”
“Why am I feeling so terrible?”

* Make vague and unreasonable expectations and goals.
By making a goal or expectation unreasonable you’ll make it impossible to achieve. By making them vague you’ll never know exactly if you achieve them and you’ll always be able to say “No, that’s not what I meant.”

* Think the worst first.
For any event that occurs you have a million ways of thinking about it. Go for the worst possible interpretation. For example, if you walk into a store and teenagers are outside laughing and smoking cigarettes they are probably laughing at you.

* Cling to past hurts.
Progress can be easily inhibited when you use past hurt of slow you down. These can take the form of lingering on why your life has been so terrible or even by saying We’ve never done it that way before. Why start now?

Why you might want to stop feeling miserable.

* Without a doubt misery is the number one cause of suicide. If you want to live you want to get rid of your misery.

* You will have more power (much, much more) and control over your life if you stop all the misery producing processes and take responsibility for your life.

How to stop making miserable decisions.

* Set reasonable goals using the S.M.A.R.T. goals process. If you don’t know what this is do a google search.

* Know when your emotions are trying to influence away from your goals and work to keep your focus.

* Agree to take responsibility for your life and especially for your emotions. This is very hard work but very rewarding.

What you will have to give up when you stop making miserable decisions.

* You will have to give up on the belief that your suffering makes you unique. The fact is suffering is ordinary and boring to most people. We’ve all experienced it and there is little you can say about your suffering that will make us think of you for very long. What is exceptional and unique is someone who makes no excuses for their life and decides to excel and feel joy AS A CHOICE.

* You will have to give up blame. This means blaming anyone or anything. It means even giving up blaming yourself.

* You will have to give up on fear and timidity. Only boldness and audacity can overcome a longstanding habit of misery.

Final note.

While all of this may seem vary callus and cold it’s important to point out that this is not an essay by which you should judge other people but only yourself. Bad things do happen to good people and it’s a good idea to help them when you can. On the other hand, if you find someone who is persistently and habitually miserable it’s generally a good idea to keep your distance from them lest they infect you with their misery and, beleive me, they can do that more easily than you think.

How to Make Miserable Decisions is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com

Education

Education about the political process is crucial towards an understanding on how policy becomes law. Most of us know that at the National level of the United States, we have a President, a Vice President and staff that are supposed to work towards protecting the public interest. There are three governing branches in our democratic system; Executive (the President and staff), Judicial (Supreme Court) and the Legislative (Congress-the decision-makers on legislation/law). It is the legislative branch that will be the focus of this article. Education on the political processes of government will bring about the second most important thing you can do to make your voice heard on the potential passage of laws that will affect you.

Awareness

How did that law get passed and why didnt you know about it? It would be negligent not to mention that some proposed bills are worded and designed to confuse or hide the actual intent of the bill. Often, bills are routed through the House of Representatives and the Senate with the intention of sneaking the bill through towards being passed in an effort to keep it from gaining significant attention. Your education and awareness of policy will train you to read bills from a critical perspective. Every bill or proposed piece of legislation is available for reading by the public (both on the National and Local levels). Becoming aware of what a bill really intends to change and what its purposes are is up to you to critically analyze. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves and become aware. It is only then that we can take action.

Take Action

Lets talk about one example of a bill being proposed at the National level. Senate Bill, SA1379 has been introduced to require “certain dietary supplement manufacturers to report certain serious adverse events”. What does this REALLY say? What does this bill actually intend to do? What is its purpose? Education and awareness will take you into the text of this bill with knowledge and a critical eye. Then you can make an informed and responsible decision.

Becoming an advocate on any policy issue requires determination and passion. After education and analysis of any particular piece of legislation we can decide to accept the bill or reject it. If you accept or agree that a proposed bill should be enacted and made law you can sit back and let it run its due course. If, however, you reject a policy and find it unfair, objectionable or unjust, its time to take action.

Policy advocates take action in several ways. They can be individuals or groups. They either attempt to improve existing policy, establish new policy or make attempts to defeat existing policy. They act. No matter the effort, if you want to change laws, you will need some tips on how to create the change you wish to see implemented.

To become effective change advocates we must first understand that changing policy can often be extremely challenging and difficult work. You may encounter opposition at every turn. You may find very few others that support your position or values. On the other hand, there may be many people that want to join in your effort to change a policy or law. If you are truly passionate about an issue and believe it needs to be changed, the rewards of your efforts could be many. The most important thing to remember is that it takes only one person to start the process for change but you will need support. Lets talk about how you can begin.

After educating yourself on the actual bill you wish to challenge, having some general knowledge of how a bill becomes law will become just as important. The best place to begin is in understanding your own state/local legislative process.

* Find out who your senator and representatives are in your voting district

* Visit your state capitol.

* Spend a day at the capitol and watch the senate as they vote on proposed bills.

* Make an appointment to meet with your legislators, senator or representative to discuss your opposition or concern around a bill

* Never doubt your power as a voter

* Many states set up specific days for roundtables, discussions. Presentations around specific bills or issues. Find your passion, a bill that interests you and join in on the open forums.

Taking a day to familiarize yourself with the legislative process will guide you on how to effectively advocate for the bill or policy you want changed. Simply put, it will show you how things are done. It will arm you with the information you need to challenge what you believe to be right. There are other ways to safeguard your rights when it comes to policy.

* Keep your legislators addresses, emails, and phone numbers handy and communicate with them on a regular basis. Just a note: Some are saying that e-mail is becoming less effective. Legislators and public servants receive many e-mails on a daily basis; yours could get lost, ignored or easily overlooked in the avalanche.

* Look up your states legislative web page. A wealth of information is available there and most are user friendly. This resource is an educational tool loaded with what bills are currently being introduced in that legislative session, how to contact your representatives, the status on all bills currently being considered as well as some older ones from past sessions to name just a few.

While this is not an exhaustive and complete list of things you can do, it is a beginning. Becoming educated on the ways of law and rule making, staying aware of those bills that could affect you or your loved ones and taking action will insure you that you tried to do something. Sometimes all of the advocacy and action in the universe wont change policy but wouldnt it be fulfilling to know that you took some part in trying to effect a change? You took part in something you believe. You could, without knowing how huge the impact was going to be, have helped millions of your fellow Americans or state citizens. Take the time to know whats going on in the political process. It is your right to protect yourself from policy that could harm. Its our obligation to help others not to be harmed as well.

Becoming A Policy Advocate: How To Make Your Voice Heard On Laws That Effect You is a post from: Reference Education Center | Studioart-x.com