Sunday, 8 June 2014
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian
traffic between the Sydney
central business district (CBD) and the North Shore.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, also known as the
'Coathanger'. It was opened on March 19th 1932 after six years of construction.
This beautiful body is made of steel, and amazing fact is that it contains 6
million hand driven pins. The surface area that requires painting is equal to
about the surface area of 60 sports fields.
Sydney Harbour Bridge is the world's largest, but not longest,
steel arch bridge, and, in its gorgeous Harbour location, has become a famous
international symbol of Australia.
Its total length including approach spans is 1149 metres and
its arch span is 503 metres. The top of the arch is 134 metres above sea level
and the clearance for shipping under the deck is a spacious 49 metres. The
total steelwork weighs 52,800 tonnes, including 39,000 tonnes in the arch. The
49 metre wide deck makes Sydney Harbour Bridge the widest Longspan Bridge in
the world.
The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic image of Sydney,
and Australia.
Diversity in Sydney
When you walk around different suburbs in Sydney even before
its beautiful nature and buildings, you would notice a wide range of
nationalities among people who are passing you; Chines, Indian, Islanders,
Arabs, African, European, Vietnamese, Aboriginals, South America, and a lot of
different faces that you cannot even guess their nationality. And this scene is
one of the most beautiful aspects of Sydney.
Successively this diversity has impacted on social reality
and it mostly manifested in diversity of shops and restaurant. In a single
street you can see at least three different nationalities between shops. It
means you never get bored you always can face to a shop that you have not
expected.
Five minds, a suggestion for understanding
For using the power of mind for full
understanding and performance in the best way, Gardner suggests a
categorization system which classifies different functions of mind.
These are disciplined mind, synthesizing mind, creating mind, respectful
mind, and ethical mind.
Disciplined mind: in this definition, a
person can accomplish mastery in a specific discipline, such as mathematics,
art, history, or music. As Gardner explains, this mastery must be in a way that
he or she can use the so called discipline for solving the problems in other
areas. All disciplines have their own way of investigating and the disciplined
mind can use this specific way of investigating for discovery in other
areas.
Synthesizing mind: this mind is the one
which can recognize what the important information truly is and what
information is wrong. This mind can review a large body of information
(Gardner, 2004).
Creating mind: this mind can think about
new questions and new answers, and it can discover new knowledge. For the best
result, cultivating the creating mind must begin from childhood, and then the
manner of education for the creative mind must be allowing risk-taking by the
student (Gardner, 2004).
Respectful mind: respectful mind is the one
that helps individuals to understand others and to perceive their situation and
can understand a common cause for working together (Gardner, 2004). It helps
students to understand the different conditions of a variety of human beings.
In this way they can understand the reason of each decision that people make
(Perkins, 1993).
Ethical mind: this mind is the one which
helps people to accomplish their roles in society as best as they can, a moral
and ethical manner (Gardner, 2004).
Reference:
—Gardner,
H. (2004). The unschooled mind: why even the best
students in the best schools do not understand. New
York: Basic Books.
Understanding Based on Gardner's theory
“Understanding as the capacity (knowledge,
skills, concepts, facts) learned in one context, usually the school context,
and used in a new context in a place where you haven’t been forewarned that you
should make use of that knowledge” (Gardner, 2004, n. p.).
In order to realize if students have
understood something or not, the teacher can provide a situation that students
have never seen before. In this way students need to apply what they have
learnt in this new situation (Brandt, 1993).
One of the phrases that can explain
“understanding” in Gardner’s view is “performance perspective”. It means the
ability of perform a subject in different ways of thought demanding, for
example: give an explanation, gather evidence, make instance, generalize,
pertain concepts, analogies, express in a new way, and etc. (Perkins, 1993).
If students do not exercise their
knowledge, sooner or later they will forget all the information that they
accumulated at school (Gardner, 2004). Also he (2004) emphasizes that just in
general performance teacher can be sure about students’ understanding.
References:
—Brandt,
R. (1993, April). On teaching for understanding: a conversation with Howard
Gardner. Educational Leadership, 50(7), 4-7.
—Gardner,
H. (2004). The unschooled mind: why even the best
students in the best schools do not understand. New
York: Basic Books.
—Perkins,
D. (1993). Teaching For Understanding.
Washington , DC: American Federation of Teachers.
A Brief Overview of Progressive Education
During most of the twentieth
century, the term "progressive education" has been used to describe
ideas and practices that aim to make schools more effective agencies of a
democratic society. Although there are numerous differences of style and emphasis
among progressive educators, they share the conviction that democracy means
active participation by all citizens in social, political and economic
decisions that will affect their lives. The education of engaged citizens,
according to this perspective, involves two essential elements: (1). Respect for diversity,
meaning that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities,
interests, ideas, needs, and cultural identity, and (2). the development of critical, socially engaged
intelligence, which enables individuals to understand and
participate effectively in the affairs of their community in a collaborative
effort to achieve a common good. These elements of progressive education have
been termed "child-centered"
and "social
reconstructionist" approaches, and while in extreme forms they have
sometimes been separated, in the thought of John Dewey and other major
theorists they are seen as being necessarily related to each other.
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