Urgent Press Release: Continued killings of teachers in Pakistan

March 30, 2013

Contact: Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary, fred.vanleeuwen@ei-ie.org

Education International – representing 400 education unions in 173

countries with a total membership of 30 million teachers – is deeply

concerned about the recent attacks on teachers in Pakistan. The

assassination of a teacher of an all-girls school in the Khyber tribal

district on 25 March and the murder of the principal of the Baldia Town

school in Karachi earlier today (30 March), which are believed to be the

responsibility of a Taliban terrorist sect that opposes the education of

girls, has caused outrage among the teaching profession worldwide.

“We will not ever be intimidated by extremists, not in Pakistan and not

anywhere else where we are fighting to accomplish the right to education

of all children, girls and boys,” says Fred van Leeuwen, General

Secretary of Education International. “But we expect our communities

to stand up and support teachers when they are so brutally prevented

from implementing that right for their students.”

Worldwide, 32 million girls are still denied the right to education today.

This week’s attacks on teachers and schools are a stark reminder to the

world of the persistence of threats, intimidation, arson attacks and

sometimes even murder that are the weapons used in a war against

girls’ opportunity. Education International has urged the national

government of Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to trial

and to make every possible effort to ensure the safety and security of the

country’s educators and students.

Education International has lodged a formal complaint against these

acts of violence with the appropriate international agencies, including the

International Labour Organization in Geneva and UNESCO in Paris. The

organisation has welcomed the support of UN Secretary-General, Mr

Ban Ki-moon, and the UN Special Envoy on Global Education, Mr

Gordon Brown, who have already strongly condemned the acts of

violence.

In memory of the assassinated teachers Education International will

establish a special Scholarship Fund to promote girls’ education and

assist teachers and students victimised for their advocacy of girls’

education. The Fund will be officially launched at a ceremonial meeting

to be held in Pakistan in the coming weeks.

Education International is the voice of teachers and other education employees across the globe. A federation of about 400 associations and unions in more than 170 countries and territories, it represents 30 million educators in education institutions from early childhood to university.

EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL
5, Boulevard du Roi Albert II
B-1210 Bruxelles
Belgium
Phone: +32-2-224.0611
Fax: +32-2-224.0606
http://www.ei-ie.org

Mindfulness at school reduces (likelihood of) depression-related symptoms in adolescents

Secondary school students who follow an in-class mindfulness programme report reduced indications of depression, anxiety and stress up to six months later. Moreover, these students were less likely to develop pronounced depression-like symptoms. The study, conducted by Professor Filip Raes (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven), is the first to examine mindfulness in a large sample of adolescents in a school-based setting.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation therapy focused on exercising ‘attentiveness’. Depression is often rooted in a downward spiral of negative feelings and worries. Once a person learns to more quickly recognise these feelings and thoughts, he or she can intervene before depression sinks in.

While mindfulness has already been widely tested and applied in patients with depression, this is the first time the method has been studied in a large group of adolescents in a school-based setting, using a randomised controlled design. The study was carried out at five middle schools in Flanders, Belgium. About 400 students between the ages of 13 and 20 took part. The students were divided into a test group and a control group. The test group received mindfulness training, and the control group received no training. Before the study, both groups completed a questionnaire with questions indicative of depression, stress or anxiety symptoms. Both groups completed the questionnaire again directly after the training, and then a third time six months later.

Before the start of the training, both the test group (21%) and the control group (24%) had a similar percentage of students reporting evidence of depression. After the mindfulness training, that number was significantly lower in the test group: 15% versus 27% in the control group. This difference persisted six months after the training: 16% of the test group versus 31% of the control group reported evidence of depression. The results suggest that mindfulness can lead to a decrease in symptoms associated with depression and, moreover, that it protects against the later development of depression-like symptoms.

The full study can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0202-1.

The study was carried out in cooperation with the Belgian not-for-profit Mindfulness and with support from the Go for Happiness Foundation.      

Contact: Professor Filip Raes, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, tel: +32 (0)16 32 58 92 or +32 (0)494 07 11 00, e-mail: filip.raes@ppw.kuleuven.be

Le dernier numéro de la newsletter d'EDHEC Management

Ce numéro « Spécial Entreprises Familiales » vous permettra de découvrir les dernières actualités de l'EDHEC Family Business Center, et en particulier le 1er «Family Business Trip » organisé sur le Campus de l'EDHEC à Singapour en avril prochain. 

Newsletter EDHEC Management : [ consulter ] 

A propos de l'EDHEC Family Business Center
Créé en 2012 par le Groupe EDHEC et des membres fondateurs et associés parmi lesquels des familles (famille Mulliez et Mage-Invest [famille Michelin) et de grandes entreprises (la Caisse d'Epargne Nord France Europe, Roquette, Deloitte, Somfy Groupe, Oddo & Cie, BIC et Clinitex), le Centre a pour principale mission de soutenir la croissance des entreprises familiales en développant des travaux de recherche quantitative sur le thème de la qualité managériale dans les entreprises familiales, des programmes de formation adaptés à leurs besoins et des événements dédiés à l'échange et au partage des connaissances. 

Pour en savoir plus, rendez vous sur notre site internet: www.edhec-family-business.fr

EDHEC BUSINESS SCHOOL 18 rue du 4 septembre 75002 PARIS - France

_______________________

Lille-Nice-Paris-London-Singapore

www.edhec-executive.fr

Professors of Practice bring heart of business to the lecture theatre

Venture capitalist John Lyon says being a “seasoned entrepreneur” means his move to Warwick Business School to become a Professor of Practice is the perfect fit.

Lyon is one of three top businessmen brought in to hand over their considerable experience to the next generation of business leaders being produced at WBS.

As well as Lyon, Jon Rushman has joined the school from Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, while David Elmes takes up his new role after more than 20 years working in the energy industry.

The trio have been appointed Professors of Practice and will be bringing their intimate knowledge of business and industry straight to the lecture theatre.

Lyon originally qualified as a clinical biochemist before becoming a chartered accountant and then a venture capitalist, investing in start-ups and new innovations, something he has kept doing as a business angel alongside his long and varied career.

He will maintain his business interests while working part-time at the school, which he feels is ideal.

“Being part-time allows me to chair boards and to be involved on the forefront of entrepreneurial business,” said Lyon. “I have a lot of experience of large corporate companies. I was global vice president at Covance, one of the biggest clinical research organisations in the world. I had staff in most continents, so I really understood cultural differences and how they were a barrier to doing business. It was fascinating, I managed people who managed people who managed people, or you could say I managed politics. It gave me a great insight into American management techniques.”

Lyon left Covance to help set up Photopharmica, developing drugs to fight cancer and infections. Having worked for venture capital firm and now a business angel, Lyon has helped a myriad of small and medium-sized companies.

“I can compare and contrast SMEs and large corporations,” said Lyon, who is doing a Phd at WBS. “I am a seasoned entrepreneur and I come from an industry where failure is endemic. In the pharmaceutical industry only one in 10,000 drugs make it from the lab bench into a prescription medicine used by doctors.

“I have invested in lots of companies and heard thousands of pitches. Becoming a Professor of Practice means I can give something back. I sense Warwick is different from other business schools, it is very innovative and forward-thinking. They are constantly looking for relevance and that signifies a core attribute of a good leading business school.”

Rushman comes to WBS with 14 years’ experience of managing assets and financial instruments for BlackRock and is now showing students how it is done in the City.

“I am going to give them hands on experience of things they would not experience anywhere other than in the work place,” said Rushman. “On their CV they will have things that typically only really successful new hires at places like Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley get to do.”

Elmes is Head of the Global Energy Group at WBS. After working at BP, he worked across the energy industry as vice president with the Energy, Utilities & Chemicals team of CapGemini and then was vice president and director at Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield services company. He brings an intimate knowledge of the the special challenges facing the energy sector to Warwick’s Global Energy MBA.

“The future energy industry is going to be very different,” said Elmes. “It needs a new generation of leadership who have a very broad understanding the opportunities and challenges ahead as they will have to make some pretty big decisions about where their companies go. We provide understanding from a management perspective on how they can make those decisions well, for both their own career and their firm’s future.”

Warwick Business School, located in central England, is the largest department of the University of Warwick and the UK's fastest rising business school according the Financial Times. WBS is triple accredited by the leading global business education associations and was the first in the UK to attain this accreditation. Offering the full portfolio of business education courses, from undergraduate through to MBAs, and with a strong Doctoral Programme, WBS is the complete business school.  Students at WBS currently number around 6,500, and come from 125 countries.  Just under half of faculty are non-UK, or have worked abroad.  WBS Dean, Professor Mark P Taylor, is among the most highly-cited scholars in the world and was previously Managing Director at BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager.

http://www.wbs.ac.uk/

RSC, University of Warwick and OUP partner to launch pioneering resource Teaching Shakespeare worldwide

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Warwick Business School (part of the University of Warwick) have announced a new partnership with Oxford University Press to distribute Teaching Shakespeare worldwide.

Teaching Shakespeare is an online professional development resource that enables teachers to improve student understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays. With more than 100 films featuring modelled lessons and interviews with leading RSC directors, practitioners and academics, it provides teachers with the essential skills and knowledge to develop active, drama-based approaches to teaching Shakespeare in their classrooms.

Encouraging students to actively explore Shakespeare’s plays has already brought the text to life for thousands of youngsters in the UK. The new partnership with OUP will mean that even greater numbers – initially in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, as well as International Schools around the world – will be able to access these approaches.

Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director of Education at the RSC, said: “We are delighted that Teaching Shakespeare is going global. Through our work with thousands of students and teachers each year we see first-hand the transformative effect that an active approach to teaching Shakespeare can have. Our collaboration with Warwick Business School has meant that the RSC’s rehearsal-room inspired teaching approaches are available online to educators wherever they are in the world. The partnership with OUP means that we can draw on their wealth of experience of bringing high quality resources into schools internationally”.

Warwick Business School Professor Jonothan Neelands added: "We are proud to be working with Oxford University Press in a new partnership which means our cutting edge online professional development programme can now reach more teachers across the world.” 

Kate Harris, Managing Director of Oxford Education, said: “Oxford University Press believes passionately in bringing innovative and authoritative educational resources to as wide an audience as possible, so we are thrilled to be working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Warwick Business School in presenting Teaching Shakespeare to Teachers of English around the world.”

Teaching Shakespeare is one of the finalists for the  2013 Bett Awards in the ICT Tools for Learning and Teaching category and the winners will be announced at Bett later today (Wednesday January 30).

For more information visit the Teaching Shakespeare website at www.teachingshakespeare.ac.uk.

Making The Most Of Your Creative R&D Time

BY PATRICIA ABURDENE| OCTOBER 3, 2012

Corporations take time for R&D. Shouldn't you?

In an economy based on idea generation, it is up to you to keep your greatest assets--your awareness and creativity--nourished, fine-tuned, and ready at hand. The problems of a complex, dynamic, and rapidly shifting world are rarely resolved with analysis alone. Instead, leaders need fresh ideas.

To supply them, you must invest in your personal creativity.

How, you might ask, does a person do that? Let’s draw an analogy from how corporations create new products. Just as they budget for the systematic, in-house pursuit of knowledge found via Research and Development, individuals need a similar strategy. I call it "Creative R&D."

To stay "fit" for creativity, you need time for reflection and renewal. Dancers and athletes stretch. Singers perform their scales. Musicians practice their instrument. Today, we’re all creators--and creativity requires regular practice.

Whether you’re a marketing diva, software engineer, real estate broker, entrepreneur, or team leader, the personal practice of Creative R&D will help your discover practical, fresh solutions, in the phases of mindful reflection, quiet transition time, and a way to harvest your insights.

Reflection

Some scientists grumble that in an overly commercial world, there’s too much emphasis on applied science and not enough on pure science. But even when there’s a lot of pressure for results, it may be impossible to generate them without the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

Similarly, creativity requires the "pure science" of being present to yourself, through contemplative practices like meditation, yoga, or t’ai chi. Alternatively, you could take ten or fifteen minutes each day to sit quietly with your morning coffee, walk in nature, or let yourself breathe. It might be tempting to zero in on a specific business issue now, but try to resist the urge and stay in the moment. Trust that you will reap the reward of fresh insight very soon.

As we apply ourselves to this discipline, we gradually develop the capacity "be in the present moment." Living in the present renews your spirit, lifts your heart, and nurtures creativity. Your time given to the now, whether spent walking in nature or sitting in silence, is its own self-validating reward--pure science for the soul.

Transition

You can also extend the afterglow of your now time by gently emerging from this deeper state into a quiet zone that is not yet flush with day-to-day tasks. This is a rich and fertile space in which you can capture the insights you gained in silence or to clearly articulate your desires. You might also simply take some extra time to appreciate the joy or peace you have just experienced. In this quiet zone, you may find yourself breathing more easily and feeling relaxed. And be careful to notice any key words or images that come to you at this point.

You might discover, as I have, that this transition zone is essential to your creative practice, because it strengthens the link between your creative source and your everyday thoughts. Now's the time to recall any creative issues that require new insights. But do so gently. Encourage them to emerge and flow. Soon you'll collect them all.

Meditation offers a long list of wonderful benefits, but it poses one curious problem, at least for me: practitioners are not encouraged to take notes.

When I’m in a meditative state, I find myself experiencing creative breakthroughs and fantastic ideas, but recalling those gems afterwards is difficult at best. One thing I’ve learned over decades is that the ideas that appear during contemplation can vanish in an instant. So I bridge this gap by pausing to carefully collect and appreciate those precious insights.

Harvest

I usually journal after meditating. Pen in hand, I sit in silence, reflect, look out the window, brainstorm--and write. Journaling enhances your creative practice by supporting you to gather and apply your reflections. From the notes in your journal, you might draft your first book, compile a brilliant marketing plan, or sketch a technological breakthrough.

A journaling practice nurtures your unique inner voice. One of the best ways to enhance your journaling experience is by designing questions in advance to ask yourself in order to stimulate your creative flow. They can be general, like "How are things going for me at work right now?" or more specific like, "How can I get my colleagues to share information on the new project?" Asking yourself questions deftly addresses the most common fear people tend to have about journaling: what if I have nothing to say?

When journaling you’re following in the footsteps of humanity’s most creative geniuses-- both Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison were aficionados of the craft. Leonardo filled seven thousand pages with jokes, reflections, sketches, inventions, and financial records, while Edison jotted down words, pictures, and diagrams, filling 2,500 notebooks, according to Michael Gelb, author of How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and Innovate Like Edison.

Creative R&D lifts you above day-to-day responsibilities, restores your energy, and sharpens your creative skills so that you’re poised to engage challenging problems. A creativity practice helps to unravel complexity, provides a platform to experience inspiration in your profession, and allows to complete difficult tasks with grace.

The world yearns for fresh approaches. Those can only come from inventive individuals accessing--and nurturing--their creative power.

Patricia Aburdene is a leading social forecaster and co-author of the number one bestseller Megatrends 2000. She serves as an ambassador for the Conscious Capitalism Institute and is on the advisory board of Satori Capital, a social equity firm. This piece is based on "The Wealth of Creativity," a chapter from her most recent book, Conscious Money.

[Image: Flickr user Puntxote]

Nashville’s Own QuaverMusic.com™

"Making Big Waves In Music Education”

Nashville – June 27, 2012 - When you think of Music Row you normally think of artists, songwriters, and #1 hits.  Now add music education to the list.  Nashville-based company, QuaverMusic.com™, has quickly made an impact on music classrooms in virtually every state by developing cutting-edge technology resources for teachers and students. Their program is already being used by tens of thousands of K-8^th grade students across the country, yet the company only launched a little over a year ago. To date Quaver’s School Program is in 43 states and 5 countries including Cypress-Fairbanks ISD in Texas for all 52 elementary schools in their district and a recent purchase by Bradley County Schools, Cleveland, TN for their full district.

Quaver and co-creator Graham Hepburn

“When I taught music classes a few years ago, I realized there weren’t many good teaching resources available for music teachers,” says Graham Hepburn, co-creator of the program.  “They were often out-dated, incomplete, or just plain boring.  And of all subjects, music should never be boring!”

“So we developed a powerful suite of online resources,” states owner and co-creator David Mastran, “including an interactive website at QuaverMusic.com that students and teachers can use to create their own music, from the classroom or home.”  Teachers have access to additional online tools, including hundreds of Interactive WhiteBoard activities, online Teacher Guides, and the ability to issue and turn in class assignments directly through the website, with built-in student assessment tools.  iPad apps are in the works and will begin rolling out this fall.

All of these resources integrate a series of short, TV-quality video episodes led by the main character, Quaver, played by Graham Hepburn.  Quaver is a whimsical music shop owner that leads students through a different musical concept in each episode.  Quaver’s World is part Bill Nye the Science Guy, Beakman, and Monty Python rolled into one, and has quickly generated a loyal following among teachers and students alike, based on the enthusiastic comments posted on the company’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/QuaverMusic).

As Leslie Lloyd of Warren Co, KY declares “…my students LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Quaver” and her statement is being heralded across the country by teachers utilizing Quaver’s Program in their music lessons. Houston, TX’s Willbern Elementary Music Teacher Penelope Campbell exclaims, “They are learning so much faster and retaining concepts longer because of Quaver; I almost feel like I'mtricking my reluctant learners into learning when they think they're just having fun!” In Nashville, TN Eakin Elementary music teacher, Rita Black introduced the Quaver School Program™ to her students this year and said,  “…it was like opening brains and pouring in excitement for learning musical concepts…”

“Quaver brings music alive for them (students) and all of the students seem to be enjoying music more now than they ever have,” denotes Lucille Mozzillo of Edward J Arthur Elementary in Athens, NY. 

In Marietta, GA, 30-year Music Teacher veteran Liz Carroll states, “I want to let you know that the Quaver Music program is the best thing that has come out for music ed in a long, long time!” Donna Berg of Delvan, WI agrees, “For music teachers out there who are looking for textbooks – STOP right there. You will be SO much better served by purchasing the Quaver products. The time has come to use the technology we have in our classrooms and in our students homes – and spend our classroom dollars on 21st century learning tools like these.”

Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music™ has already been recognized with notable awards, including the Parents’ Choice® Gold Award, and a 2011 KIDS PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARD fromCreative Child Magazine’s Awards Program.

“Nashville is known worldwide for its musical community, so it only makes sense that a cutting-edge music education program be created right here in Music City,” shares series Producer, Steve Gilreath.  It helps to have a talented community to draw from in order to pull off a musical and media-rich program like QuaverMusic.com™.  The DVD series alone features a cast of over 400, including many local young actors, professional musicians, dancers, and puppeteers.  

Located on Music Row, QuaverMusic.com™ has a growing full-time staff of almost 40 professionals including, graphic artists, animators, audio engineers, video production specialists, AS 3 Flash programmers, content managers and a sales/marketing team.

For more information please visit QuaverMusic.com/Preview or play for free on their website at QuaverMusic.com.