OmanObserver_30-06-13

SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013
Lessons at home and homework at school
WHEN April Burton explains the intricacies of
French grammar to her American classroom,
the students are at home, in front of their
computer or smartphone.
As for the homework, they will do it the following
day, at school, thanks to the "lipped" classrooms approach
made possible thanks to new technologies that
are transforming education.
Burton, who teaches at Francis Howell Central High
School in Cottleville, Missouri, decided last year to use
the approach made popular in the United States since
the Khan Academy began offering thousands of lessons
and exercises online.
"We really have to change the way things used to be
done," said Burton, a Southeast Missouri State University
graduate in French education who has 14 years of
teaching experience.
"There were so many things I wanted to do with my
students but didn't have the time, so many days I was
spending lecturing."
"Madame" Burton, as she is known by students, now
explains grammar rules or vocabulary in a ive-minute
video to be watched at home. Students do exercises in
class.
"It allows us to have more work class time where
I'm not standing in front of them, where they can work
in groups on projects," Burton said.
"It allows me to walk around the room and to talk to
every student on a daily basis... see if they have questions.
I actually feel that I know my students better because
I'm not standing in front of them lecturing."
Burton had to learn new skills quickly, like building
a website, using a new type of PowerPoint presentation
and tweaking software.
In a video explaining how to conjugate the verb pouvoir
("can"), students can hear her voice, see her pencil
writing words, connecting them, underlining them. In
one for demonstrative adjectives, she added drawings
and photographs.
"Basically you talk through the PowerPoint that in
a traditional classroom I would have shown in front of
the class," Burton explained.
At home, students watching videos on their computer,
tablet or smartphone can listen to the lesson as
Say goodbye to monsoon hair woes
RAINDROPS are lovely to
look at, but stepping out
when it's pouring may not
be the best idea for your hair.
Rainwater may spoil your
locks and make them look
rough and greasy. But fret
not!
Beauty experts Ishika
Taneja and Blossom Kochchar
suggest use of good
serums and conditioners to
keep your hair nourished
and hydrated during monsoon.
Always use a hair protective
styling mousse before
styling your hair, says Taneja.
"It will protect your mane
from excess heat from the
dryers, straighteners and
curling tong. One can also use
an anti-humidity ine spray as it helps ix and keep your hairstyle in
place for long hours. Use shine spray in the end as it provides additional
sheen to your hair," she added. Kochchar says home-made
hair care remedies can be handy too. Sharing some, she said:
Add two tablespoons of curd (or more depending on your hair
length) to gram lour (besan). Add little olive oil. Apply it to your
hair and leave it for 15 to 20 minutes. Wash it later.
You can also use mixture of water and vinegar as an after-shampoo
serum to help calm your hair down.
Prepare a mixture of one banana and one tablespoon honey. Put
in your hair for 15 minutes and then wash it off. It helps make hair
soft and smooth.— IANS
Malnutrition must take political centre-stage: Experts
INDIA needs to bring the malnutrition
debate on the political centre-stage,
experts noted at the India launch of
the Lancet 2013 series on maternal and
child nutrition.
Economic growth is not relected in
the indicators for malnutrition in the
country, Srinath Reddy, President of the
Public Health Foundation of India told
reporters.
Reddy advocated nutrition-speciic
interventions, and community-led initiatives.
Purnima Menon, senior research fellow
at the Washington-based International
Food Policy Research Institute,
pointed to the huge lack of research on
nutrition in India, and the problem with
data-gathering on the subject: "The last
family health survey was in 2005. There
is a very big research lacuna in India,"
she said.
The new Lancet series says that 3.1
million children younger than ive years
die every year across the world from
under-nutrition, which is a staggering 45
per cent of total child deaths in 2011.
Most children with stunted growth
(69 million) are in south central Asia.
The series outlines ten key nutritionspeciic
interventions that, if scaled up to
90 per cent in 34 high nutrition-burden
countries, could reduce the global prevalence
of stunting and wasting by 20 per
cent and 60 per cent respectively.
many times as necessary and at his or her own pace
while taking notes.
And students can address any questions they had
about the videos to the teacher in class the next day.
"In theory, we should have told students a long time
ago to take their books home, read a chapter and do exercises
in school," said Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, founder
of market research irm Noosphere.
"If this had worked, practically speaking, we would
have done that a long time ago. Video is much easier."
Increasingly sophisticated tablets, media players
and smartphones can host thousands of applications
However, several nutrition experts
and members of the Indian Academy
of Paediatrics, the largest association
of paediatricians in India, have warned
that the new set of papers on malnutrition
published in Lancet, "should not be
allowed to become an opportunity for
commercial exploitation of malnutrition".
"The call for engaging with the "pri-
and images now available for teachers and students,
products of both e-learning and brick and mortar institutions.
New technologies have "changed education in ways
that the Industrial Revolution changed society from an
agrarian one," said National Education Association senior
policy analyst Mike Kaspar.
"That may be philosophical, but new technologies
are changing culture overall: the way we think about
the school day, the need for 'brick and mortar' schools,
the use of a hard copy materials versus e-books and
other e-resources like videos, games." — AFP
Which children will grow out of asthma?
A
GENE scorecard may one day help
predict which youngsters are likely
to grow out of childhood asthma and
which will have the disease in adulthood, a
study said.
Asthma is one of the commonest disorders
among children in developed countries
and is spreading fast in emerging
economies.
Roughly half of children with asthma
will emerge from it by the time they become
young adults — but until now, noone
knows how to determine who will be
the lucky ones.
The new research, published in The Lancet
Respiratory Medicine Journal, marks a
irst step towards a predictive test.
Researchers in the United States put together
a risk score derived from 15 genetic
variants that are closely associated with
asthma.
They tested this model on data from
a highly-regarded, long-running study in
New Zealand, in which 880 people have
been tracked for health since their birth 40
years ago.
Those whose DNA carried most risk
variants were more than a third likelier to
develop asthma earlier in life and to have
asthma that persisted into adulthood than
those at low genetic risk.
A higher score also meant they were
likelier to be prone to asthma-related allergic
reactions and impaired lung function.
They were also likelier to miss school or
work than counterparts with a lower genetic
risk.
vate sector" and unregulated marketing
of commercial foods for preventing
malnutrition in children raises serious
concerns. The inherent conlict of interest
will ensure that commercial considerations
override sustainable nutritional
goals," said a joint statement issued by
leading nutrition experts and paediatricians.
Sanitation has major effect on mal-
The test is an initial foray into a complex
disease believed to have environmental
and genetic factors, and for which more
risk variants are likely to emerge.
It could unlock better understanding of
the biology of asthma, notably how pollution
and genes interact.
But it would have to be reined and widened
to make it useable in routine medical
practice.
"As additional risk genes are discovered,
the value of genetic assessments is likely to
improve. But our predictions are not suficiently
sensitive or speciic to support their
use in routine clinical practice," said study
leader Daniel Belsky from Duke University,
at Durham, North Carolina. — AFP
nutrition: Singling out malnutrition as
India’s central developmental problem,
Rural Development Minister Jairam
Ramesh said sanitation was one aspect
of the nutrition debate which has been
neglected in the country.
“You have rapid economic growth on
the one hand and better health indicators,
better education indicators, better
indicators on water supply but you don’t
have them relected in nutrition indicators,”
Ramesh said.
India, he said, was on a very sticky
rate of malnutrition, which was neither
going up nor down.
The minister said in his view the single
most signiicant nutrition-sensitive
information that the country had neglected
was sanitation.
“There is a link between malnutrition
and sanitation. Sanitation has profound
implications on malnutrition but we
have not laid much stress on sanitation.
It has not been brought into the national
agenda though nutrition is brought,” he
said.
He added that sanitation should be
given a central place. “We should make
sure that in 10 years, we should be free
from open defecation.”
“I found the distinction that can be
made between nutrition at speciic interventions
and nutrition sensitive intervention
a useful way of looking at this
problem,” he said. — IANS
SPOTLIGHT
Majid Al Suleimany
www.majidall.com
31
A question of payments!
I PROPOSE that we abandon our relations entirely. I
shall lose nothing by it, for my own emotional tie with
you has long been a thin thread — the lingering effects
of past disappointments.
— Letter from Dr Freud to discipline Jung in association
with relationships breakup in 1913.
I
HAVE been watching now with increasing alarm the
situation vis-à-vis due payments to people: customers,
clients and others — and sadly from even wellestablished
and supposed to be high proile places, to
the extent that the situation just stinks of malaise and
decadence! It is so pathetic, disheartening and disappointing
that words can no longer describe the situation
anymore.
A long time ago when the rumours were spreading
that our consultancy was closing down we saw the
true picture of people and what they really were 'when
the issue of money' came in, and they showed us their
true colours that they were hiding so long as the situation
was rosy and good and business was still going their
way!
You may not believe this but in a way we have to be
contended with the Arab expression: 'From evil came
great tidings' or as the Brits say: 'There is a rainbow after
the rains'. It is a matter of shock and dismay how nasty
people can turn when money issues come in! There are
no borders and all the red lines are crossed, quite easily
too!
In one of the situations that the East Africans call
carving your face kuchonga uso, a good friend of mine
took me to one VIP business man with a lot of companies
under him! He is surrounded by expatriate managers in
his family business. We were at his place one day — me
and my lady assistant.
We were put in the waiting room and asked politely
if we wanted any soft drinks, tea or coffee? My assistant
as usual just asked for a glass of water which she hardly
drank but that is a different story. The parting remark of
the attendant was 'boss and family' were having dinner
and with my usual foot-in-my-mouth style I started joking
'Why did the boss did not invite us for dinner, especially
as he knew we were coming? The poor attendant
idgeted quite intensively not used to such cracks and
what to answer instead! Anyway, this great expatriate
assistant came out with him after the dinner and hopefully
there were vegetarian food there too or the person
was not observing anymore!
The person from the beginning was against 'helping
us out' though he had admitted years later that he could
if he really had wanted! I reiterated to him that it was
God's mysterious ways of working because that is how I
had ended and moved to writing and became an author
of eight books, columnist and writer instead — something
that I had always aspired to and wanted as a kid
but knew my 'father would have killed me' metaphorically
speaking if he knew what was in the mind of his
son then! For the rest of my life what he said to me I can
never forget though forgiven: Why should I help you? Tomorrow
you will live in a posh area, drive a big posh car
and what will I get in return? You will be mocking and
making fun of me?
Some years later, I never learn my lesson, a friend took
me to his ofice for 'inding me a job to pay off my bills'
and as soon as I had entered and here the appointment
was made in advance, he picked up the phone and was
telling the person at end of the other line “He is here now
he is looking for a job but I will not help him!” I guess he
was so excited to 'ix me' that he did not know what he
was really doing or the evil side of him got better of him!
What hurt me more is not his words but knowing whom
he was talking with at the other end. Though I too have
forgiven — the wound will never heal — and it is best to
leave these things to God only!
We are again talking of SMEs! But SMEs cannot stand
late and delayed business payments, especially when it
comes to postdated cheques! PDC — even the guys that
do not speak any English know what it means! Including
delayed car instalments payments. Again it is Ramadhan
and great offers are coming up but the person who was
expecting his payments and did not receive them in time
is exposed and in great danger of losing his personal
freedom, movement and liberty if he has taken a car on
instalments and he did not get paid in time!
The delay in some especially public places can go over
six to nine months but the PDCs cannot wait that long.
Like I had said in my last week article The Land Rover
story we have great ideas but lousy implementation systems!
Unless these things really change on the grounds
we can all be given a copy of Animal Farm by George Orwell
as standard business manual to read and keep!
When I was working in my last company there was
a standard regulation that suppliers and invoices must
be settled within 40 days and it was implemented in the
system as a follow-up and counter check in the systems
to follow. Yet in some of the places, even public places,
you get excuses like 'we are very busy but we will pay!
Or the more annoying ones: the person in charge is away
— for whatever reason — and we will follow-up when
he returns! Does this mean that if the person is away
no payments gets done? Why not recruit more Omanis?
There are a lot of Omanis qualiied out there still looking
for jobs or for changes and better prospects!
The sad and tragic part is that if payments are due to
them are delayed, especially the expatriates, get hit most!
No wonder they prefer expatriates to these jobs but even
they are now resisting because the situation has simply
gone overboard and no one is accepting this anymore!
I always believe this it is far easier to destroy and one
smart aleck can destroy all the good work done by many
for many years!
What more can I say now? Take Care!