A hotel receptionist tried to extinguish a fire set during a demonstration in Barcelona Wednesday. Students held nationwide protests against education spending cuts. Some demonstrators said police responded with truncheons and rubber bullets.
Feb. 10:
A high school graduate who escaped from North Korea cries during a graduation ceremony at Hangyeore Middle and High School in Anseong, South Korea. The school was built to educate North Korean teenage defectors.
(Photo: Lee Jae-Won, Reuters)
A teacher gave a mathematics lesson to her students, who aren’t pictured, as a child sat below a blackboard and another slept on a desk at a refugee camp in the town of Ruili, Yunnan Province, China.
Anele Ramphomana cried as he gave his mother, unseen, a thumbs-up as he started school at the Thembile Primary School in Krugersdorp, South Africa.
Thousands of young people desperate to study—and their parents—pushed their way to the gates of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa Tuesday, where some 11,000 people were expected to vie for as few as 800 spots. One woman died in the crush.
A refugee child, bottom center, sat with his sister while attending her school in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad.
This photo has shocked China, by highlighting the plight of the 58 million children left behind in rural villages by their working parents.
Read the story: http://tinyurl.com/842dmvg
Got Dyslexia? Learn Klingon
Two days in a row, we have posts related to Star Trek. It’s not intentional, mind you, although I will not deny that I have a penchant for all things Star Trek. It just so happens that while browsing the Internet today, I came across an article describing how a guy with dyslexia improved his condition by studying Klingon.
Yes, Klingon is a language of the fictional Star Trek race. But yes, it is also a real language spoken on Earth today. The warrior race has aroused a wide variety of emotions from viewers and readers, but there is no doubt that the Klingons are very much a part of the franchise. In fact, it is safe to go as far as to say that Star Trek will not be the same without the Klingons.
The Klingon sub-culture has even expanded into real life, much like other elements of science fiction and fantasy. The language used in The Motion Picture was devised by James Doohan, who we may know better as Montgomery Scott. For the movie, The Search for Spock, the language was created by Marc Okrand, still based on the original words that Doohan made up. From there, the inevitable happened. There is now a working language called Klingon, which some humans actually speak.
All that is not so remarkable at this point, with several languages from fiction transcending books and movies. What is remarkable, however, is how Klingon supposedly helped a British guy named Jonathan Brown deal with dyslexia. He spent 12 years of his life learning the language, although the intent was quite different. He did not set out to learn Klingon thinking it would help him with his condition. He just wanted to learn the language. For that, he has become the expert that he is now. He even is the lead linguist for a project by EuroTalk – a CD series for the Klingon language.
Jonathan says that in his quest to master the Klingon language, he discovered certain things about dyslexia and the specific issues he had faced all his life. For example, he has always had problems remembering names, but this never happened with the Klingon language. He soon discovered that the reason was that his brain was storing names in English and Klingon in different areas. How cool is that?
While the thought of learning Klingon is awesome (I tried a couple of times but didn’t have the determination to go through with it), wouldn’t it also be great if learning another “Earthian” language helped dyslexics?
Demonstrators rallying for education reform carried large stones as they clashed with police in Santiago, Chile, Thursday. Police responded with water cannons and tear gas.
High school girls joke and dance to music during a hip hop dance competition held at a private high school in Swaziland. While some Swazis can afford private education, two thirds of Swazis live below the poverty line.
