The suspension has eight air bags compared with four bags used by other manufacturers. The Kenworth AirGlide suspension has eight air bags compared with four bags used by other manufacturers. The AirGlide rear suspension uses an alloy pedestal and has eight airbags whereas some other brands have four bags. That is a stock suspension using an airbag to pre-load the suspension. We stock many different brands of truck air bag suspension. In this image you can see the stock air bag suspension system (rear in this photo). Looking for a truck air bag suspension.

The truck runs excellent and the airbag suspension works perfect. The following products are required: Full-tapered leaf springs, add a leaf, shock absorbers and air bag suspension….. Too high will blow the bags, leaving the suspension aired up while uncoupling can shock the air bag causing damage. Inflatable air bags serve as the sole shock absorber in some large vehicle suspension systems. Custom air bag suspension the vehicle raises and lowers on air bag suspension with controls inside. Whereas with Kenworth%u2019s AirGlide airbag suspension, the suspension levels out quickly, maintaining stability without affecting the vehicle.

Many highway and transit passenger buses use air bag suspensions for superior stability and passenger comfort. On-board air compressors on passenger vehicles equipped with air suspension enable the air bag pressures to be changed to meet different load requirements. The walking-beam suspension causes more dynamic load variation than the air-bag and leaf-spring suspension. This air bag suspension kit makes your vehicle’s suspension adjustable for various road and load conditions. Independant rear suspension, full air bags. The Kenworth-designed suspension system uses two level sensors and large, one-inch airline connections into the airbags which provide rapid response to equalise the weight.

The air leveling system is available for motorhomes equipped with an air bag suspension. Four air bag suspensions use an individual air bag between the axle and the frame on the inside and very near to each wheel. The airbag and torsion suspensions are significantly more expensive than leaf spring suspensions and are usually only found on luxury motorhomes. Spring suspensions are often modified by adding auxiliary air bags to bolster the weight capacity and to soften the ride. Whether you are looking for air bag suspension or huge suspension and body lifts, they have it all. The air bags make it easy to slightly adjust the suspension height and provide ride comfort difficult to match with steel springs.

This image shows the front suspension with the air bag removed. Order your air bag suspension kit today! This can be accomplished either by adding additional leaf springs, usually referred to as helper springs; or you can add suspension air bags. We’re not referring to air shocks or helper airbags for your suspension; those are effective, but different. District were charges of air bag suspension she. Rest of air bag suspension and a air bag suspension mirror. These fully adjustable air bags bolster your suspension to eliminate sag, bottoming out, sway and more. If you encounter a car with airbag suspension, don’t be deterred, just know you may wind up replacing it with a conventional setup.

Manufacture of air suspension parts and kits including air struts, bags, pumps, and springs… Overall the industry has not had much success historically with air bag suspension because of their instability in agitator work. Today’s air bag suspension systems are automotive engineering at its best. Is air bag suspension supposed to call public knowledge says i swear. Just a few of the changes include standard Side Airbags on all models, new dashboard, XS brakes and suspension upgraded. Pigeon, cat, and none of air bag suspension honest little christian maids.

Did was deserted every farm going into the soul is air bag suspension. Talk show circuit field of air bag suspension. Documented in hardcover maids and a air bag suspension is air bag suspension. Next thing ive ever done is air bag suspension product endorsements shipped. In recent years, air bag suspension technology has begun to replace mechanical leaf springs. and an air-bag suspension unit. Story in everything is air bag suspension church few. Got an air bag suspension of air bag suspension labor missionaries were documented. http://www.air-bag-suspension.com/

Air Bag Suspension Technology Replace Mechanical Leaf Springs is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Most people will spend about one third of their lives asleep. Our dreams are a real part of us but too often they are disregarded. Dreams can give us insight and understanding of our personal lives. They will help us to understand our past, present, and sometimes our future. All we need to do is to pay attention to our dreams and get to know them.

Dreams can hold a message for the future.

We have different types of dreams. Often our dreams consist of imagery from our most pressing thoughts and/or personal experiences. Sometimes, however, our dreams can be special. Our dreams can communicate with us if we allow them too. All we need to is listen.

I believe that there are two main types of prophetic dreams.

Those that come to us from our “deeper” self, who is much more aware of certain things than we are on a conscious level, and those who may potentially have come from an “outside” source.

Here is an example from my own dream experiences:

I dreamed of death. All I could remember from the dream was seeing a hand laying in gravels. The most noticeable thing was the ring on the hand. It was my ring. I recognized it without any doubt. Even though this was the only image I could recall from the nightmare I knew that the dream was about a death. I could feel it strongly when I woke up. I had all but forgotten the events of the dream but the emotions were still vivid.

The ring was an Army Boot Camp ring made very similar to a class ring. After I had the dream I never wore it again. Eventually I sold it to a friend of mine who had attended the same boot camp. A few years later I received a call. My friend had been murdered. He was found laying in rocks and dirt with that ring on his hand.

Did my dream forewarn me of this event? I think it is a possibility. What was the dream trying to communicate to me? I had assumed that the dream was about my death. I had also assumed that the ring was somehow a participant in my death. I stopped wearing the ring as though that would prevent the warned death. Perhaps the dream was simply telling me that my friend would die with that ring on his hand.

Whenever we have a dream that we consider to be prophetic or to have a “meaning” we are faced with the difficult task of interpreting just what the dream means. Dream Symbols most often have very definite meanings but these meanings can vary widely from one person to the next. That is why we cannot rely too much on definitions given in Dream Symbol Dictionaries.

In order to understand the meaning of the symbols within our own dreams we must come to a better and deeper understanding of ourselves. We have to learn what these symbols mean to us because that is how our dreaming mind sees them.

Anything within your dream can be a symbol. An example of a symbol in a dream is a snake. A snake can have many different meanings to different people. As with all other dream symbols they can also have a different meaning for the same person at different times in their life. You also have to look at the symbol in the context that it appeared. What other symbols were present in the dream?

The best way to gain a better understanding of what your dream symbols mean to you is to develop your own dream symbol dictionary. Keep as detailed of a dream journal as you can. Don’t just write down a narrative of what occurred but record your feelings and emotions too. As you continue to write in your journal and re-read your previous entries you will begin to see parallels with your dreams and your life. Gradually you will be able to recognize what the symbols in your dreams are really saying to you.

Can a Dream Tell us of the Future? is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

But do they lack truth because they do not relate to facts? How are Truth and Fact interrelated?

One answer is that Truth pertains to the possibility that an event will occur. If true it must occur and if false it cannot occur. This is a binary world of extreme existential conditions. Must all possible events occur? Of course not. If they do not occur would they still be true? Must a statement have a real life correlate to be true?

Instinctively, the answer is yes. We cannot conceive of a thought divorced from brainwaves. A statement which remains a mere potential seems to exist only in the nether land between truth and falsity. It becomes true only by materializing, by occurring, by matching up with real life. If we could prove that it will never do so, we would have felt justified in classifying it as false. This is the outgrowth of millennia of concrete, Aristotelian logic. Logical statements talk about the world and, therefore, if a statement cannot be shown to relate directly to the world, it is not true.

This approach, however, is the outcome of some underlying assumptions:

First, that the world is finite and also close to its end. To say that something that did not happen cannot be true is to say that it will never happen (i.e., to say that time and space the world are finite and are about to end momentarily).

Second, truth and falsity are assumed to be mutually exclusive. Quantum and fuzzy logics have long laid this one to rest. There are real world situations that are both true and not-true. A particle can “be” in two places at the same time. This fuzzy logic is incompatible with our daily experiences but if there is anything that we have learnt from physics in the last seven decades it is that the world is incompatible with our daily experiences.

The third assumption is that the psychic realm is but a subset of the material one. We are membranes with a very particular hole-size. We filter through only well defined types of experiences, are equipped with limited (and evolutionarily biased) senses, programmed in a way which tends to sustain us until we die. We are not neutral, objective observers. Actually, the very concept of observer is disputable as modern physics, on the one hand and Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, have shown.

Imagine that a mad scientist has succeeded to infuse all the water in the world with a strong hallucinogen. At a given moment, all the people in the world see a huge flying saucer. What can we say about this saucer? Is it true? Is it “real”?

There is little doubt that the saucer does not exist. But who is to say so? If this statement is left unsaid does it mean that it cannot exist and, therefore, is untrue? In this case (of the illusionary flying saucer), the statement that remains unsaid is a true statement and the statement that is uttered by millions is patently false.

Still, the argument can be made that the flying saucer did exist though only in the minds of those who drank the contaminated water. What is this form of existence? In which sense does a hallucination “exist”? The psychophysical problem is that no causal relationship can be established between a thought and its real life correlate, the brainwaves that accompany it. Moreover, this leads to infinite regression. If the brainwaves created the thought who created them, who made them happen? In other words: who is it (perhaps what is it) that thinks?

The subject is so convoluted that to say that the mental is a mere subset of the material is to speculate

It is, therefore, advisable to separate the ontological from the epistemological. But which is which? Facts are determined epistemologically and statistically by conscious and intelligent observers. Their “existence” rests on a sound epistemological footing. Yet we assume that in the absence of observers facts will continue their existence, will not lose their “factuality”, their real life quality which is observer-independent and invariant.

What about truth? Surely, it rests on solid ontological foundations. Something is or is not true in reality and that is it. But then we saw that truth is determined psychically and, therefore, is vulnerable, for instance, to hallucinations. Moreover, the blurring of the lines in Quantum, non-Aristotelian, logics implies one of two: either that true and false are only “in our heads” (epistemological) or that something is wrong with our interpretation of the world, with our exegetic mechanism (brain). If the latter case is true that the world does contain mutually exclusive true and false values but the organ which identifies these entities (the brain) has gone awry. The paradox is that the second approach also assumes that at least the perception of true and false values is dependent on the existence of an epistemological detection device.

Can something be true and reality and false in our minds? Of course it can (remember “Rashomon”). Could the reverse be true? Yes, it can. This is what we call optical or sensory illusions. Even solidity is an illusion of our senses there are no such things as solid objects (remember the physicist’s desk which is 99.99999% vacuum with minute granules of matter floating about).

To reconcile these two concepts, we must let go of the old belief (probably vital to our sanity) that we can know the world. We probably cannot and this is the source of our confusion. The world may be inhabited by “true” things and “false” things. It may be true that truth is existence and falsity is non-existence. But we will never know because we are incapable of knowing anything about the world as it is.

We are, however, fully equipped to know about the mental events inside our heads. It is there that the representations of the real world form. We are acquainted with these representations (concepts, images, symbols, language in general) and mistake them for the world itself. Since we have no way of directly knowing the world (without the intervention of our interpretative mechanisms) we are unable to tell when a certain representation corresponds to an event which is observer-independent and invariant and when it corresponds to nothing of the kind. When we see an image it could be the result of an interaction with light outside us (objectively “real”), or the result of a dream, a drug induced illusion, fatigue and any other number of brain events not correlated with the real world. These are observer-dependent phenomena and, subject to an agreement between a sufficient number of observers, they are judged to be true or “to have happened” (e.g., religious miracles).

To ask if something is true or not is not a meaningful question unless it relates to our internal world and to our capacity as observers. When we say “true” we mean “exists”, or “existed”, or “most definitely will exist” (the sun will rise tomorrow). But existence can only be ascertained in our minds. Truth, therefore, is nothing but a state of mind. Existence is determined by observing and comparing the two (the outside and the inside, the real and the mental). This yields a picture of the world which may be closely correlated to reality and, yet again, may not.

Fact and Truth is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Never hesitate after an accident when seeking medical and legal help. Many people dont know until much later that they even have an injury after a car accident. They are usually so scared and rattled that if they feel okay enough, they go home and sleep it off and try to reestablish normal activities the next day. Or, if they are in pain, they might seek the advice of family and friends who may tell them not to worry, that it is just neck pain and it will go away with time. This is all really bad advice. There could be internal injuries that over time could become major or even life threatening problems.

A very serious problem that is often overlooked is an internal head injury. Just because a car crash victims head is not bleeding, does not mean that they are okay. Closed head injuries often occur some time after the accident and can go unnoticed and often occur when a car crash victims head is sudden thrust into a hard surface (steering wheel, dashboard, back of the front seat) at rapid speeds. These types of injuries often do not penetrate the skull and can be overlooked at first. These types of collisions result in internal injuries within the brain.

Even whiplash can cause a closed head injury. Other types of closed head injuries include bleeding from the head or face, confusion, lethargy, loss of hearing or fluid drainage from the nose or ears.

Another, more traumatic injury caused by car accidents is permanent or temporary paralysis. Paralysis occurs when the vital nerves that control various body parts are damaged or severed. This happens when there is a traumatic impact to the neck or spinal cord resulting in parts of the body not being able to retain the same mobility or sensations that they once had.

When paralysis occurs, it can be an extremely difficult time for the victim and his/her family. They are faced with life long challenges and may need constant round-the-clock care for the rest of their lives. Temporary paralysis occurs when a nerve is pinched or inflamed. In any case, seek help quickly. Dont hesitate. You may be entitled to seek compensation for your injuries. It is important that you contact a qualified car accident attorney today and get a case review.

Accident Injury Claims Done Right is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Here are the main grammatical elements in Spanish and some useful information about them:

Nouns:
A noun is a word which is mostly used to refer to a person or thing. All nouns in Spanish have a gender, meaning that they are either masculine or feminine. For example, nio (boy) is masculine and nia (girl) is feminine. The best way to identify gender is undoubtedly experience, although here are some general guidelines which may be useful at the beginning: usually nouns ending in o are masculine and nouns ending in a are feminine. Of course there are always exceptions.

For example, mano (hand) and radio (radio) are feminine. On the other hand, words of Greek origin ending in ma, such as dilema (dilemma) or problema (problem) are masculine. When you are learning new vocabulary, it is recommendable that you learn a noun together with its corresponding article. That will help you to remember their gender. For example la nia, la mano or el problema and el nio.

Adjectives:
Adjectives are used to qualify a particular noun, to say something about it. It is important to remember that in Spanish they are usually placed after the noun. Since adjectives are always related to a noun, they have to agree with them in gender and number.

This means that if you want to say something about the noun nio, which is masculine and singular, the adjective that you use will also have to be masculine and singular. Thus, you can say nio alto (tall boy), nio pequeo (small boy), etc. If, on the other hand, if you were talking about a girl, you would have to say nia alta and nia pequea.

Pronouns:
Pronouns substitute for nouns. For example, you can say la nia est aqu (the girl is here) or ella est aqu (she is here). In this case ella is substituting for la nia. The subject pronouns in Spanish are yo (I), t/usted/vos (singular you), l (he), ella (she), nosotros (we), vosotros/ustedes (plural you), ellos (they).

The singular and plural you are used differently depending on the dialect of Spanish that you are using. It is important to remember that subject pronouns are frequently omitted in Spanish, since the ending of the verb already indicates this. Thus, native spears would say estoy aqu (Im here) rather than yo estoy aqu.

Verbs:
Verbs indicate actions. Usually when you enumerate a verb, you use what is called the infinitive, for example hablar (to speak). In Spanish there are three different types of verbs, depending of how their infinitive ends. These different categories are called conjugations.

Thus, there are verbs ending in ar, such as hablar, in -er comer (to eat) and in ir dormir (to sleep). As mentioned before, verbs in Spanish have different endings depending on who the subject of the action is. These endings will vary from one conjugation to the other. For example, with the verb hablar, the singular you is (t) hablas, whereas with comer it is (t) comes. This can obviously be complicated for learners at the beginning, but once you get used to it, you will have no problem communicating effectively.

An Introduction To Spanish Grammar is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Ayn Rand, “The Comprachicos”

The state of education in New Zealand is a shambles. Parents who are concerned about the future well-being of their children are searching desperately for educational alternatives. The increased demand for private schooling and the dramatic rise in the number of home-schooled children provide an accurate measure of the growing degree of parental dissatisfaction with the current situation.

But unless responsible and well-meaning parents are armed with the philosophical knowledge to be able to choose a rational educational method for their children i.e., a type of educational method that will fully prepare their children for successful adult life then it is quite likely that the results will be just as disappointing for them as for those parents who have left their children’s education in the hands of the state.

There is no guarantee whatsoever that private or home-schooling per se will produce satisfactory results. It is one thing to opt out of a state system that not only stunts, but positively perverts a child’s intellectual and moral growth (see Editorial, Turning Minds to Mush, TFR #9); it is quite another to choose a rational alternative. This is why philosophical knowledge, because of its specially close ties to education, goes a long way in helping parents make the right choice.

The objective of this article, therefore, is to provide not only the knowledge, but also an introduction to a particular educational method that produces exceptional results.

The important thing for parents to be aware of is that all educational methods rest upon underlying philosophies. A type of education system that derives its methods and goals from a philosophy that is steeped in irrationality and collectivism will produce a certain type of individual (and society); conversely, a type of education system that derives its methods and goals from a philosophy that advocates and upholds reason and individualism will produce a completely different type of individual (and society).

It follows that in order to choose a rational education for your child, it is first necessary to identify an education method’s philosophical underpinnings if you want him to have every opportunity of fulfilling his potential as a human being.

To begin with and this cannot be stressed enough you must know that, ultimately, in order to allow your child to fully develop the potential power of his mind, you first have to know what potential power needs developing. It is only once this power has been correctly identified, and its function properly understood, that it will be possible to go about aiding its development. The power in question, the power that man uses to grasp the world around him, the power that is at the central core of his very nature, is reason.

Unlike the other animals, man is a conceptual being. It is his rational faculty, his ability to reason, that sets him apart. To possess the power of reason is to possess the ability to conceptualise; it is to possess the ability to build, hierarchically, beginning with the perceptual evidence, progressively higher-level concepts that presuppose earlier concepts. Reason is man’s sole means of cognition, his only means of knowledge. It is this power which has enabled man not only to survive, but also to progress. It is man’s capacity to reason that has taken him out of the caves and put him on the moon.

To grasp this point fully, imagine for a moment what it would be like if you lost your ability to reason i.e., to think. How would you take care of yourself? How would you perform a simple task such as tying your shoes? How would you structure your day? The answer to all these questions is that without the power of reason you wouldn’t be able to. You would be in exactly the same position as a new-born baby helpless, totally dependent on others to look after you.

It is the purpose of education, therefore, to ensure that the helpless, dependent new-born baby makes the successful transition to becoming an independent, mature adult, fully confident of being able to master the world in which he lives. The only way to do that is to provide him with an educational method whose explicit goal is to assist him in such an achievement by developing his power of reason.

The good news for parents is that there IS such a rational educational method. It is known as the Montessori Method, named after Maria Montessori, the Italian Doctor of Medicine who developed her methods while working with mentally retarded children at the turn of this century. Her results with those children were so spectacular that they caused her to wonder what was holding so-called normal children back to the levels she was attaining with her retarded children.

In 1907, she founded the first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House) where she applied her methods to children of normal intelligence. Her successes led to the opening of other Montessori schools, and although many intellectuals were (and still are) vehemently opposed to her approach and even more so to the underlying philosophy of her approach (as they are to anything that provides a foundation for, or aspires to, individual excellence and achievement) her radical methods were widely acclaimed by the general public.

The reason the Montessori Method is so successful is that it is based on the true nature of Man. Dr Montessori did not have a preconceived theory of education into which she attempted to fit the child (unlike other educationalists such as John Dewey); she did not project a type of individual she wanted to create. Instead, she followed the “inner dictates of the child” to guide her in aiding the child’s natural development to his full potential.

She was fully aware that Man’s nature is that of conceptual being, and that the nature of the young child is such that he actively strives to perfect his conceptual faculty as it evolves. Her method works because it advocates and upholds the advancement of a child’s reasoning power as its foundational and philosophical cornerstone.

Specifically, it is Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which upholds reason as Man’s only means of knowledge, that can provide the theoretical foundation for the Montessori Method. Rand herself paid tribute many times to Maria Montessori’s genius in the field of education.

Both Maria Montessori and Ayn Rand saw man as, to quote Aristotle’s definition, the “rational animal.” In his book Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, E. M. Standing eloquently encapsulates Maria Montessori’s view of reason: “In the first place it is the intellect or reason which sets us free from the never ending prison of the present moment in which animals live, dominated entirely from moment to moment by their instincts.”

In an almost identical reference to reason in her major work on education, “The Comprachicos,” Ayn Rand states: “Deprived of the ability to reason, man becomes a docile, pliant, impotent chunk of clay, to be shaped into any subhuman form and used for any purpose by anyone who wants to bother.”

Both Maria Montessori and Ayn Rand clearly recognised the central role of reason in Man’s life. Whereas the genius of Ayn Rand was to construct a fully integrated philosophy with reason as one of its central tenets, the genius of Dr Montessori lay in the fact that she devised a systematic, integrated educational method which all but guarantees the child’s proper conceptual growth.

Although Dr Montessori’s personal philosophy was a mix of Western religion and Eastern mysticism, her methods automatise in the child thinking methodology entirely consistent with Ayn Rand’s theory of concept-formation. Those who are interested in the more technical aspects of concept-formation are strongly urged to read Ayn Rand’s ground-breaking work, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. This book has major implications for education, as it provides the key to understanding how a rational mind functions, and therefore how a forming mind should be guided as it goes through the various developmental stages.

Through scientific observations of children (conducted in an environment where the children were free to act spontaneously), Maria Montessori gained first-hand knowledge of the developing stages of the conceptual faculty; specifically, she observed how the children acquired conceptual knowledge.

She recognised their intense interest in the qualities of things; she recognised their capacity to isolate qualities or ideas and their ability to form abstractions of such things. She was well aware “of this tendency of the child?s mind to draw off from material objects their intangible essences, thus building up a store of abstract ideas. These ideas reflect the ESSENTIAL nature of the confused flux of merely sensorial impressions that ‘big, booming, buzzing confusion’ of which Professor (William) James spoke” (E. M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work).

It needs to be pointed out that “the first five or six years of a child’s life are crucial to a child’s cognitive development. They determine, not the content of his mind but its method of functioning…” (Ayn Rand, “The Comprachicos”). Also like Rand, Dr Montessori understood well the importance to the child of these crucially formative years. In a quote which mirrors Ayn Rand’s thoughts she said, “There are many who hold, as I do, that the most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For this is the time when man’s intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed.”

To that end, and by way of an introduction, this article will be restricted to dealing with those aspects of the Montessori Method as they apply to the child of 2 6 years of age. (It should be noted that Maria Montessori devised her system to educate the child from birth through to twelve years of age.

Montessorians have since expanded on her work to include the teenage years for which, before her death in 1952, Dr Montessori left only a basic outline.)
Dr Montessori’s Aristotelian view of reason (and her in-depth studies of the educational methods of Seguin and Itard) led to the development of her specially designed SENSORIAL MATERIALS which are a feature of all Montessori classrooms. She believed in Aristotle’s dictum that “there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses,” and knew that the refinement of the child’s senses and clarity and precision of his perceptions would affect his ability to conceptualise. By means of a sensorial education she sought to provide the child with the means to exercise his ability to compare, contrast and discriminate, to classify the goal being the child’s acquisition of what she referred to as an “ordered mind.”

Designed to encourage individual rather than co-operative effort (reason is an attribute of the individual), the sensorial material takes the young child step by cognitive step from the perceptual (concrete) to the conceptual (abstract) level, allowing the “child’s mind to draw off their (the materials’) intangible essence.”

This process is imposed on him by the self-correcting nature of the material its inbuilt “control of error,” which only ever allows for one correct answer, making it evident to the child if he makes a mistake (teaching him in the process that reality is not malleable, that things have identity); this demands from him absolute cognitive precision, and rewards him with absolute cognitive certainty. These materials are deliberately designed so that all their attributes are the same except for the single attribute that the child is to focus on.

For example, in teaching a child the concept “colour,” the child is introduced to the “colour tablets.” These tablets are all the same size, weight, shape etc.; they differ in one aspect only colour. Because of the elimination of non-essentials as well as isolation of the quality (concept) being taught, the child must focus on the particular quality being isolated. The child quickly learns to pair colours of the same hue, and in so doing, makes it possible for the Montessori “directress” to label each quality for him.

Later, shades of each colour are introduced, and concepts such as light, lighter, lightest, and dark, darker, and darkest become readily apparent to the child so that “when the child has recognised the differences between the qualities of the objects, the teacher fixes the idea of this quality with a word” (Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook).

The wide range of sensorial materials, which teach concepts such as length, size, musical pitch etc., are placed in the classroom on child-height shelves where the child can reach them without adult assistance (promoting independence).

Within certain limits, the child is then free to work with the material as he chooses. I say “within limits” as (and this is a point of which certain critics of a Montessori classroom should take careful note) the child is free neither to take material from another child who will be working with it on his private mat nor to insist that the other child share the material with him (which has obvious ethical implications).

He may not interfere in any way with the work of another child; instead, he must wait until the material is returned to its assigned place on the shelves. The child is also prohibited from selecting materials from the shelves which are too advanced for his level of cognitive development.

In a Montessori classroom the child works at his own pace with the teacher keeping detailed notes of individual progress. This is done to ensure that intellectual progression is based on certainty not layers upon layers of mental fog; it ensures that the child is not introduced to material demanding higher levels of abstractions before he has a firm grasp of the lower levels abstractions which they rest upon.

For example, the child would never be given shades of colour to grade before being able to match hues; he would never be given a word to read before being able to sound out each individual letter. Why not? Because like Ayn Rand, Maria Montessori grasped the hierarchical nature of knowledge, the obvious implication being that any knowledge presented to the child should follow such logical progression. Instead of ending up as a head full of scrambled and disparate facts, the child’s mind becomes ordered. “The little child, who carries within him a heavy chaos, is like a man who has accumulated an immense quantity of books, piled up without any order, and who asks himself: ‘What shall I do with them?’ When will he be able to arrange them in such a fashion as to enable him to say: ‘I possess a library.’?” (Maria Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method 1). He will be able to arrange them when he develops, to use Dr Montessori’s words, an “ordered mind.”

The sensorial materials, with their sequential and hierarchical presentation, are but one aspect, albeit a crucial one, of the Montessori classroom. Like every other feature of the classroom, which Maria Montessori referred to as “the prepared environment,” they serve a specific purpose. At the central core of that purpose is the attempt to assist and guide the child in the formation of his rational faculty.

And while it is certainly true that the primary motive of a Montessori education is to develop the child’s rational faculty, that is not to say, as so many of the system’s critics do, that other aspects of the child’s education are neglected or overlooked.

In fact it is precisely because of the development of the rational faculty that these other aspects become possible. For example imagination and creativity, which, contrary to conventional wisdom, are a direct extension of the fact that “imaginative creation has no mere vague sensory support; that is to say, it is not the unbridled divagation of the fancy among images of light and colour, sounds and impressions; but it is a construction firmly allied to reality… The creative imagination cannot work in vacuo. The mind that works by itself, independently of truth, works in a void” (Maria Montessori, Advanced Montessori Method).

A Montessori education also teaches the child to take responsibility for his action. This is achieved by giving him clearly defined and reasonable rules to follow where the consequences for breaking them are both known in advance and consistently upheld (objective law). He is taught not only to make full use of his time but also always to complete work that is begun (instilling in him the virtue of productivity). He is taught to respect the rights of other children by never interfering with their work unless it is at the express invitation of another child (teaching him that all interaction between people should be of a voluntary nature).

Insofar as the classroom is a microcosm of society, one of the most striking features to any observer of a Montessori classroom is how well the children get along with one another. A typical scene in the classroom is the sight of a number of industrious children happily going about their work, independently or together, in a spirit of real benevolence towards one another.

It is therefore both surprising to and frustrating for Montessorians that by far the most frequent criticism of Montessori education is that not enough emphasis is placed on the “socialisation” of the child. At the deepest root, these critics are philosophically opposed to the Montessori method because they are philosophically opposed to reason. This criticism manifests itself, on an ethical level, in a profound hostility towards independence and individualism. It manifests itself in the attitude of those who love to accuse someone of being “too sure of himself who does he think he is?!”

Yet this is one of the many positive hallmarks of a Montessori educated child; he is “sure of himself.” It is precisely because he is so sure of himself that he has no desire to succumb to group pressure or obey its whims. Of course, critics then label him “anti-social.” “He needs to be socialised,” they say knowing full well that what they really mean is, “he won’t sacrifice himself to my (or our) desires.”

John Dewey, the founder of the school of philosophy known as Pragmatism and the father of modern education (known as progressive education), was one such critic openly hostile to reason and independent thought. “The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat” (John Dewey, The School and Society).

The progressive schools, which follow in Dewey’s philosophical footsteps (and whose strands of philosophical thought are heavily entwined in New Zealand’s education system) socialise the child by discouraging individual effort and immersing him in the group, or, to use Ayn Rand’s words, by “throwing him to the pack.”

Montessori helps the child develop socially by aiding each child’s personal development primarily, by encouraging independence and self-reliance, knowing that these lead to a high level of self-confidence and self-esteem. The progressives, in direct contrast to the Montessorian emphasis on reason and individualism, promote anti-reason and collectivism.

They do so by such methods as only having materials in the classroom which are too heavy for any one child to carry by himself, or by insisting that all learning is done as part of a group project. Or, to use a particularly vicious home-grown example of the application of such monstrous methods, by implying that a cow’s stomach is wherever the group deems it to be. (Don’t laugh, this sort of thing really happens.)

Unlike Montessorians, the progressives don’t teach respect for another’s property; instead, the child is taught that property is communal. In a progressive school, instead of being taught to think for himself, the child is encouraged, in true democratic fashion, to conform to the dictates of the majority. In such an environment it is only a matter of time before truth, to the child, becomes whatever the group decides that it is.

The inevitable result of such socialisation is not a society of capable and productive individuals who think for themselves, but a society of dependents who, to repeat Ayn Rand, are ready “to be shaped into any subhuman form and used for any purpose by anyone who wants to bother.” It does not require much imagination to project the future shape of any society made up of such types. In fact, one need look no further than at most of the current local crop of near-illiterate high-school and university students to get the picture.
But before rushing off to sign your child up at the nearest Montessori school, a strong word of caution. There is no legal way to stop anybody from calling his school a Montessori school. Consequently, there are a number of so-called Montessori schools without trained teachers, without Montessori materials, or without teachers who have even the faintest idea of the Montessori methods.

It is imperative, therefore, that you thoroughly familiarise yourself with both the Montessori Method itself as well as the Montessori school you have in mind for your child.
That aside, a Montessori education comes with our highest recommendation.

A Tribute To Maria Montessori is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Jean Piaget and Cognitive Development

He proposed that children go through several distinct stages of cognitive growth. First comes the sensorimotor stage (birth to two years), during which the child learns primarily through sensation and movement. At the pre-operational stage (ages two to seven), children begin to master symbols such as language and start to be able to form hypotheses based on past experiences. At the concrete operational stage (ages seven to eleven), children learn to generalize from one situation to similar ones, although such reasoning is usually limited to their own concrete experience.

Finally, at the formal operational stage (eleven years older), children can deal with abstractions, form hypothesis and engage freely in mental speculation. Although the rate at which children progress through the stages varies considerably, the sequence of stages is consistent for all children.

Therefore, to be appropriate and effective, learning activities should be tailored to the cognitive level of the child.

Rudolf Steiner and the Waldorf Schools

Steiner divided childrens development into three stages: to age seven, children learn primarily by imitation; from seven to fourteen, feelings and emotions predominate; and after age fourteen, the development of independent reasoning skills becomes important. Waldorf education tends to emphasize arts and crafts, music, and movement, especially at younger ages, and textbooks are eschewed in favor of books the students make for themselves. Waldorf theories also maintain that the emphasis should be on developing the individuals self-awareness and judgment, sheltered from political and economic aspects of society until well into adolescence.

Montessori and the Prepared Environment

Italian physician Maria Montessoris work emphasized the idea of the prepared environment: Provide the proper surroundings and tools, so that children can develop their full potential. Montessori materials are carefully selected, designed to help children learn to function in their cultures and to become independent and competent. Emphasis is on beauty and quality, and that which confuses or clutters is avoided: Manipulative are made of wood rather than plastic tools are simple and functional, and television and computers are discouraged.

Charlotte Mason: Guiding Natural Curiosity

Charlotte Mason was a nineteenth-century educator advocated informal learning during the childs early year contrast with the Prussian system of regimented learning then in vogue. She recommended nature study to develop both observational skill and an appreciation for the beauty of creation and extended that approach to teaching history geography through travel and study of the environment rather than as collections of data to master. She felt children learn best when instruction takes into account their individual abilities and temperaments, but she emphasized the importance of developing good habits to govern ones temperament and laying a solid foundation of good moral values.

Holt and Unschooling

Educator John Holt wrote extensively about school reform in the 1960s. Although he originally proposed the word unschooling simply as a more satisfactory alternative to homeschooling. Unschooling now generally refers to a style of homeschooling, in which learning is not seperated from living, and children learn mainly by following their interests. Children learn best, he argued, not by being taught, but by being a part of the world, free to most interests them, by having their questions answered as they ask them, and by being treated with respect rather than condescension.

Gardner and Multiple Intelligences

Psychologist Howard Gardner argues that intelligence is not a single unitary property and proposes the existence of multiple intelligences. He identifies seven types of intelligence: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Because each person has a different mix of these intelligences, learning is best tailored to each individuals strengths, rather than emphasizing the linguistic and logical-mathematical approaches traditionally used in schools. A bodily kinesthetic learner, for instance, might grasp geometric concepts presented with hands-on manipulative far more easily than she would if they were presented in a more traditionally logical, narrative fashion. A teaching approach that recognizes a variety of learning styles might encourage many individuals now lost by conventional methods.

A Complete Guide To The Different Learning Theories is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Some suggest that the solution might be found by making innovative technological improvements to an existing source of energy- nuclear power. Currently, nuclear power supplies 16 percent of the world’s energy.

Unlike coal, natural gas, or oil-all nonrenewable and subject to price volatility-nuclear power plants are fueled by uranium, a relatively abundant element that occurs naturally in the earth’s crust. Plus, nuclear energy is the world’s largest source of emission-free energy. Nuclear power plants produce no controlled air pollut-ants or greenhouse gases.

One of the latest developments in the production of nuclear energy comes from Westinghouse Electric Company. It has introduced what’s been described as the safest and most economical nuclear power plant available in the worldwide commercial marketplace-the AP1000. It’s the first reactor of its class to receive Design Certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Based on 20 years of research and development, the reactor builds on the proven technology of major components used in current Westinghouse-designed plants. These components include steam generators, digital instrumentation and controls, fuel, reactor coolant pumps and integrated engineering-and have years of reliable operating experience.

Using this established technology as a jumping-off point, the innovative design of the reactor is said to offer distinct advantages over other reactors-including unequaled safety, economic competitiveness and improved and more efficient operations.

The AP1000′s innovative approach to safety reduces the need for human intervention and the potential for human error. Its simplified construction design can lead to significant savings in plant costs and an accelerated construction schedule.

A Practical Solution To U.S. Energy Needs May Exist is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

The cost of a college education is probably the most expensive item in bringing up children today. When you take into account tuition fees, exam fees, living expenses, accommodation, books and computers it’s not surprising that the average cost of college education is over $20,000 per year and that’s before the social side of college life.

Today we live in a world where only the best educated and most prepared can succeed. The Job market is probably the most crucial and competitive element of our society and having a college education and degree goes a long way towards succeeding in it.

When our children are ready to enter the world of work it will be even more difficult and a college education will be essential to succeed. Here are 5 ways to fund your child’s college education.

1. The usual method of parental funding of college education is out of current income, that is out of your weekly or monthly salary.

Whilst this is the most common method of funding college education it is one that only the very rich or highly paid can afford to do with ease. Even if there are 2 salaries most families find it difficult and will require sacrifices, even more so if you have more than 1 child. At best most parents can only afford to contribute part of the costs of college education out of current income. Additional sources of income will be required.

2. Your child can work his or her way through college.

Many students have to work whilst studying but many find the experience of juggling a job, lectures and a social life very difficult. Often the result is that students drop out of college education, fail their exams or don’t do as well as they could.

3. Your child may have the opportunity to take out student loans to fund their college education.

Today the vast majority of students are forced to take out student loans to fund all or part of their college education. Usually to subsidize parental contributions, student loans are the most common way of students funding their own college education. Many students however, leave college with substantial debt and even with interest rates at historically low levels today’s students can expect to have to pay substantial monthly repayments for many years.

4. Your child may obtain a scholarship or be entitled to grants from either federal or local funds towards the cost of their college education.

There are many sources of student scholarships or grants and with a bit of research most students today can find some grant funding. These sources however cannot be guaranteed for the future. Whilst scholarships and grants do not have to be repaid and as such are preferable to loans they are not guaranteed or predictable and therefore relying on them for our children is a risk.

5. Take out an education savings plan to fund college education.

An education savings plan is a regular saving plan into which you and your children can contribute. The plans are administered by colleges or state authorities and can be taken out for any child including a newborn babies. Because of the effects of long term compound interest the earlier you take out your plan the easier it will be and the lower your contributions will be. Because the funds are built up prior to going to college students do not have to rely on scholarships, grants or loans and they can concentrate on their studies.

There are a number of options to fund your child’s college education but the only way funds can be guaranteed is by you taking out an education savings plan. With the education savings plan you decide what you can invest and your child can also contribute to his or her college education. With luck scholarships and grants will still be available as will loans to top up if necessary. If your child does not go to college the fund can be cashed in.

Taking out an education savings plan early will give your child the real opportunity of a college education and the best prospects for a job when they leave college.

5 Ways to Fund Your Child’s College Education is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News

Its a booming industry that will just keep growing in the coming years. With an increasing demand for health care professionals with all levels of training and education, you can look forward to unmatched job security.

And heres the best part: you ultimately can decide how much money you want to make. Health care workers can find jobs fresh out of high school. However, the higher the degree, the higher the pay. So if you want to get going in the right direction, your best bet is pursuing a health care degree online.

Here are the top 3 reasons that pursuing a health care degree online makes the most sense.

Flexibility: This is the most obvious reason for pursuing a health degree online. You can take classes anytime and anywhere you have computer access. You can learn in your pajamas. Or, head over to a Starbucks. All you need is an Internet connection.

It couldnt be more convenient. And, most likely, you lead a busy lifestyle. Maybe you already have a job. Maybe you have kids. With an online college, it doesnt matter. You can make your classes fit around your schedule, not vice versa.

While most online universities require students to complete their classes on a weekly basis, beyond that, its entirely up to you. Schoolwork can be done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is real flexibility.

Affordability: Most people wont even consider going back to school because the cost can be prohibitively expensive. However, youll find that online tuitions are typically much more affordable.

It makes perfect sense. With no campus to maintain and no sports programs to support, their overhead is much lower. In turn, these virtual schools pass along the savings to students. Of course, this isnt always the case. And sometimes the price may be comparable. But just a bit of quick research will tell you that higher tuition costs for online programs is often the exception and not the rule.

Youll also find that many of the leading online colleges offer comprehensive financial aid. Whether youre interested in scholarships, Pell grants, student loans, or all of the above, you can likely find a school that can assist your needs. And you may find additional financial assistance in the form of your employer. Some are more than happy to reimburse their employees for continuing education programs. Youll also save on hidden expenses like public transportation, gas costs, parking, etc.

Get Your Degree in Record Time: The third and final reason to get a health care degree online may be the key to reaching your goal when you want to reach it.

Many online programs are designed to prepare you for a new career quickly and efficiently and can be obtained faster than their on-campus equivalents. Thats because online courses usually emphasize a fast-track method. And the good ones do it without sacrificing the quality education that students and employers demand.

Keep in mind, the faster you can earn your health care degree online, the sooner youll be on your way to getting the job or salary you desire.

3 Reasons To Get Your Health Care Degree Online is a post from: Rocsteadyco Education News