Variability is the norm in performance, but not in beliefs

Do children have coexisting but contradictory beliefs about things like magic? Some patterns of behavior that seem to reflect contradictory beliefs may stem from children's recognition that their knowledge about events is incomplete and therefore things may occur without them understanding how. In addition, children may hold certain beliefs that are inconsistent with the rest of their knowledge in a way that is very much like the premises of a game of make-believe. These beliefs are recognized to be "not really true" but children act as if they were true under specific circumstances. It is concluded that children do not hold contradictory beliefs except in this special sense.     

Executive functioning and preschoolers' understanding of false beliefs, false photographs, and false signs

Two studies were conducted to investigate the specificity of the relationship between preschoolers' emerging executive functioning skills and false belief understanding. Study 1 ( N =44) showed that 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on an executive functioning task that required selective suppression of actions predicted performance on false belief tasks, but not on false photograph tasks. Study 2 ( N =54) replicated the finding from Study 1 and showed that performance on the executive functioning task also predicted 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on false sign tasks. These findings show that executive functioning is required to reason only about representations that are intended to reflect a true state of affairs. Results are discussed with respect to theories of preschoolers' theory-of-mind development.     

Just for them to understand better: The impact of learning difficulties at university

Abstract

There has been much attention given to the needs of students with learning disabilities in Australian schools in recent years. The needs and experiences of university students with learning disabilities have received less attention. This article reports on the results of a small study of students who identified as having a range of difficulties with learning at one Australian university. Eight students across a range of discipline areas and year levels were asked about the nature of their difficulties, the kinds of adjustments they receive and their effectiveness, and for their suggestions about how these adjustments could be improved. The results pointed to the need for university lecturers to better understand the kinds of learning difficulties experienced by such students. Such an understanding can assist lecturers in knowing how to adjust their teaching and learning practices so these students can more fully participate and be successful in their university studies.     

Living with a disability that others do not understand

Last year, Martyn Rouse organised a project focused on inclusive education for the British Council. As part of the link between the University of Cambridge, the Ministry of Education in Kenya and Kenyatta University, your editor was lucky enough to be invited to visit Kenya. Martyn and I spent much of our time running workshops and attending meetings, but we were also able to visit some schools in far-flung rural areas. I recall walking into one village where a group of school children were walking down the street in an orderly line. When they saw us, their curiosity and excitement overtook them and they started to call out: 'mzungu! mzungu!', which means 'white man'. They laughed and waved and it was an unusual, and rather pleasant, feeling for me to be regarded as something so exotic and rare. But when I met Alex Munyere, at a workshop on inclusive education in Nakuru, I came to see another side to the experience of being perceived as different. Alex has albinism, which means that he has blond hair and white skin and experiences some difficulties with his sight. He is also a member of the Maasai community, who traditionally live under the broad, tropical skies of the heartlands of Kenya. In this article, Alex Munyere recalls his childhood and his life at school. He provides a fascinating first-hand account of the experience of living with a disability. Alex is now a respected professional who works with children with special educational needs in the assessment centre in Kajiado district in Kenya. He is a quiet and dignified man but he is passionately committed to the development of inclusion in his country. These qualities are evident in the thoughtful reflections he provides here on the relationships between specialist provision and the development of an inclusive society. I suggest that Alex's story can be instructive for us all.     

《素问》"生而勿杀、予而勿夺、赏而勿罚"语义辨析

《素问·四气调神大论》是古代医家在“天人相应”观指导下,根据四季气候变化对人体的影响,提出如何顺应四时阴阳变化规律而养生防病的一篇极为重要的文献。正确地译释该文,对继承、发掘前人的学术思想,拓展与丰富养生保健的方法与措施十分重要。但对原文中“生而勿杀、予而勿夺、赏而勿罚”句的语义,自唐、明、清代至今,历代注家见解不一。或言其意指应“顺时待物”;或言其意为“勿伐天时”;或言其意是指人不同的“神志活动”;或言其意仅为春生之气的“形容词”等等。本文从原文的主旨、语言逻辑、语法规律、词义注释、中医理论等方面提出了自己全新的看法。认为“生、予、赏”三句是古人对如何顺应春生之气养生防病的具体要求;并由此提出春季养生防病应重在调肝护肝和顺时序治疗肝病的新观点。     

如何减少使用让外国人看不懂的英文

目前中国人使用英语的广泛性超过了以往,但让外国人都看不懂的中式英语却频频出现,本文从列举种种不规范的英语使用方法出发,分析了问题出现的原因,总结了一些解决此问题的方法,希望能对英语的规范普及有所帮助。     

'If you say to them that they have to use condoms,some of them might use them. It is like drinking alcohol or smoking': An educational intervention with Japanese senior high school students

A four-session educational intervention at the Japanese senior high school level was conducted with 40 15-16-year-old male and female students. The purpose of the intervention was to break the silence pervading sex education at school and to help students question their understanding of sex, risk, contraception and love. Observations, questionnaires from the participants, and tape-recordings of each session were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Sexual slang and euphemisms appear to be a relevant tool to enhance the communication between the teacher and students. Discussions about condom use demystified assumptions of young people as disembodied and desexualised beings. For most of the informants the negotiation of condom use was not a rational issue of individuals engaged in cost-benefit analysis.     

‘You have to understand words … but not read them’: young children becoming readers in a digital age

Given that many young children now enter their early years in education as competent and frequent users of digital technology, this paper examines how this experience influences children's perceptions of reading. Drawing from research conducted with 12 young children (aged 3–6) this paper reports on the ways in which these children were interacting with screen texts and using them to develop strategies to make sense of a whole variety of symbolic representations, including print. It is argued that the medium of computer technology in particular was seen to encourage young children to develop both understandings about texts and the skills needed to read them. This included specific aspects of print awareness as well as a general confidence in handling print. However, this confidence appeared to diminish as the children encountered ‘schooled’ approaches to print literacy. It is therefore concluded that schools need to find ways in which to capitalise on the use of multimedia in order to promote confidence and skills in young readers today.     

教,就要选择学生不会的去教

一位青年教师是这样教学孟子<鱼我所欲章>的字词句的知识的: 课前,布置学生自读课文,要求把预习时在字词句方面遇到的问题抄在笔记本上.是读音方面的,摘抄句子并在词语下面加点;是解释词或短语意义的,摘抄句子并在词语下面加横线;是整句话不懂的,摘抄句子,不用另加标注.抄写时,在笔记本上隔行写,留下一空行作听课笔记用,并要求在句子前面用阿拉伯字标明词句出自课文的第几自然段.     

Rats remember not wisely but too well

Rats were trained in a three-alternative spatial delayed matching-to-sample task in a starburst maze. Samples consisted of rewarded forced choices of one arm, and retention was indicated by rats’ returning to that arm after a 90-sec delay. If a rat made an error on its first choice, it was returned to the start compartment and allowed a second choice. Unlike in previous experiments with this task, all three arms were available during the animals’ second choices. The rats tended to perseverate in their second choices by returning to the arm that they had erroneously visited on their first choice. In Experiment 1, the accuracy of second choices following first-choice errors was below chance during the first block of sessions, when a 90-sec delay intervened between the first choice and the second choice, and at chance during the second block of sessions, when a short (5–6 see) delay intervened between first and second choices. In Experiment 2, long-delay and short-delay sessions were randomly presented to naive subjects. Similar results were obtained. In both experiments, the tendency to repeat the erroneous first choice was greater when long delays separated the two choices than when short delays were used. The results suggest that rats make their first-choice errors because they erroneously encode or remember the location of the sample and that they base their second choices on the same erroneous-memory. The increase in perseveration at long delays implies some kind of rehearsal-like mechanism that slows forgetting of the memory controlling the first choice.     

景似情殊境同感异--陶渊明《游斜川》与苏轼《和陶游斜川》比较阅读

苏轼的和陶诗与陶渊明原诗有总体风格上的相似性。但因两人所处社会环境、人生经历、性格气质等诸多因素的影响,相似之中也有不同。这正是他们作为大诗人的独特风格。通过陶渊明《游斜川》原诗与苏轼和陶诗的比较阅读,我们可以更深入地理解这种独特性。     

Teachers should not only Inform but also Entertain

Teaching is, in many respects, an art. Teachers must strike the right balance between sometimes opposite demands. On the one hand, they should lead students to scientific insights; and on the other hand, their teaching should be attractive. Teachers should not only inform, but also entertain. Experiments and stories can help them to combine these two aspects. Students appreciate both, as they have stated in a series of interviews. This feedback gives some ideas about how to use experiments and stories in order to improve science teaching.