中美大对比:在哪儿幸福更容易?

在中国涌现"出国热"的那几年,我们的父辈以及我们都在向往着国外的福利、教育和生活环境。有时候梦见自己身处国外都会是一件乐事,值得人们茶余饭后聊上半天。长大以后,随着国外的YouTube、Twitter和国内各类视频网站以及微博客的兴起,我们越来越多地了解到国外也有贫民窟、国外也有经济危机和失业、国外也有腐败和民主上的不完善,而更可怕的是,国外还有允许携带私人枪支的国民……出国,真的有那么好吗?在这篇文章里,一个地地道道的纽约人将向你叙述一个他自己总结出的结论:在中国,要幸福,并不需要太多。     

Impressions of disadvantage: II-Monitoring and assisting the student at risk

Two studies on monitoring and assisting students at risk are presented against a contemporary perspective in higher education: that of monitoring and developing the quality of student learning. A basis for risk categorisation at an individual level is outlined, and the effects of an intervention aimed at students at risk are evaluated in two contrasting settings. At risk in the present study represents, in conceptual terms, a relatively extreme set of learning behaviours.The first study approximates an ideal set of circumstances in which an individual-level intervention for students conceptually at risk is described. The second study reflects the uncompromising reality of a large first-year service course, in which a reduced form of the same intervention was pragmatically attempted. In both interventions the emphasis was on assisting students to engage manifestations of their own self-reported, contextualised study behaviour. This was the starting point of a developmental and reflective programme in which students were not taught study skills, but were rather assisted to develop deeper contextual perceptions, metalearning awareness, and internal locus.The targeted students in these studies, and the basic nature of the intervention employed, differ considerably from those used in other intervention studies. The first study produced positive results, while the second study did not. An overall conclusion is that, while interventions of the type described can assist students to develop their learning potential, they can only do so in carefully managed circumstances that are sensitive to individual students' learning problems and the discipline-specific context in which these occur.     

Interstimulus interval determines whether ethanol produces conditioned place preference or aversion in mice

DBA/2J mice were exposed to a distinctive floor stimulus (CS+) and ethanol (2 g/kg) in a place conditioning paradigm. A different floor stimulus (CS?) was presented with saline. Mice injected just before or 30 min before CS exposure (Groups 0, ?30) showed conditioned place preference, whereas mice injected right after exposure to the CS (Group 5) displayed place aversion (Experiment 1). None of the other groups (?120, ?60, 15, 60) showed place conditioning. Handling and saline injection given just before or after CS exposure were unable to produce place conditioning (Experiment 2). However, there was a positive relationship between ethanol concentration (10% vs. 20%) and test performance, suggesting that peritoneal irritation influences place conditioning (Experiment 3). Overall, these findings support the suggestion that intraperitoneal injection of ethanol produces an initial short-duration aversive effect that is followed by a longer lasting positive motivational effect.     

Oral History and Teachers’ Professional Practice: a wartime turning point?

This exploratory article has a two‐fold aim. In the first place, it seeks to investigate changing patterns of teacher‐pupil relationships in the twentieth century through the lens of the professional lives and pedagogical practices of classroom teachers themselves. Such an investigation is engaged through the application of oral history methods. An unexpected result of a succession of oral history interviews has been the identification, by former teachers themselves, of wartime evacuation as a significant turning point in the development of teacher‐pupil relationships. The second aim of the article is to relate the findings of oral history interviews to those which emerge from documentary and secondary sources. In this way, the particular strengths of oral history methods for the investigation of past pedagogical practice are assessed.     

The erasure of reinstated fear

Three experiments investigated the reinstatement of fear to a previously conditioned and extinguished CS as a result of separate presentation of the original US. That reinstatement was found to be sharply attenuated by nonreinforcement of a second fear elicitor between presentations of the US and testing of the CS. This “erasure” of reinstatement depended upon the fear-eliciting power of the intervening stimulus and, under some circumstances, was essentially complete. Moreover, erasure reduced not only the response to the CS but also the extinction it underwent as a result of subsequent nonreinforcement. It is argued that neither the conditioning of background stimuli nor stimulus generalization among explicit CSs provides an adequate account of these reinstatement and erasure results. Rather, they are interpreted in terms of the construction and destruction of a nonassociative representation of the US during conditioning, extinction, reinstatement, and erasure. In that context, some inferences can be made about the rules governing these nonassociative changes and the ways in which they interact with modifications in associations.     

Becoming Poetry Teachers: Studying Poems Through Choral Reading

Abstract

The poet, Seamus Heaney, argues that transformations for both teachers and students may be engendered through recognising the connections and distinctions between the language of poetry and the language of everyday life. This article explores some of the ways in which choral reading of poetry, using multiple voices like musical instruments, may change student teachers’ perceptions of poetry. Five small groups of Secondary English student teachers on an initial teacher education Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course constructed choral readings, each group working with a different poem. During the session, they wrote journal entries about how creating the readings and listening to other people led them to think differently about studying poetry with students in the classroom as future secondary English teachers. Several months later, a small voluntary group met to recollect the session and consider more critically the potential of choral reading as one possible approach to teaching poetry.     

Progress report on the development of child abuse prevention, identification, and treatment systems in Eastern Europe

PROBLEM: After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, it became apparent that there was little recognition of the problems of child abuse and neglect, professionally, legally, or societally. There were no effective systems or laws in place to deal with these problems. METHOD: Beginning in 1995 the Children's Mental Health Alliance, in conjunction with the Open Society Institute began conducting trainings in Eastern Europe [Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 39 (2000) 660]. Originally 18 countries from the Baltics to the Balkans participated. A program was elaborated which would proceed in several stages: (1) training mental health professionals to deal with child abuse and neglect (CAN); (2) teaching multidisciplinary team work and fostering the development of multidisciplinary NGOs focused on CAN; (3) promoting the self-sufficiency of these NGO's which would then facilitate social and legal reform and increase public awareness of the problem. Specific methods included multi-national trainings, assignment of mentors to the developing teams who maintained weekly contact with the teams and made yearly site visits to their countries, and overseeing project grants from OSI. RESULTS: NGO's had been established and registered in 11 countries, many establishing a network of programs within their countries. By 2000, over 3800 mental health professional had been trained, either directly by the program or by the trainees of the program. By the end of 2000, over 17,000 other professionals (lawyers, police, judges, educators, other physicians, etc.) had been trained by the network. CONCLUSION: While more work needs to be in this region, the teams in 11 countries have made solid starts.