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Archive for Quotations

Amendments IV-X

 

Amendment IV (4): Search and arrest warrants
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V (5): Rights in criminal cases
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Amendment VI (6): Rights to a fair trial
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII (7): Rights in civil cases
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII (8): Bails, fines, and punishments
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX (9): Rights retained by the people
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X (10): Powers retained by the states and the people
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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Top 10 Reasons to Learn Cursive

Developing an attractive, legible cursive handwriting style certainly has great aesthetic value, but it also has numerous mental, physical, social, and practical benefits.

1. Improved neural connections. Cursive handwriting stimulates the brain in ways that typing cannot. It improves the dynamic interplay of the left and right cerebral hemispheres, helps build neural pathways, and increases mental effectiveness. According to Virginia Berninger, a researcher and professor at the University of Washington, “Pictures of brain activity have illustrated that sequential finger movements used in handwriting activated massive regions of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory. Handwriting differs from typing because it requires executing sequential finger strokes to form a letter, whereas keyboarding only involves touching a key.”

2. Improved ability to read cursive. When individuals cannot read cursive, they are cursively illiterate in their own language. The ability to read cursive is required in many settings.

3. Increased writing speed. The connectivity of a simple cursive style is faster to write than the stop and-start strokes of printing. Speed has been shown to increase attention span during writing. This increases continuity and fluidity in writing, which in turn encourages greater amounts of writing.

4. Improved fine motor skills. “Cursive handwriting naturally develops sensory skills. Through repetition the children begin to understand how much force needs to be applied to the pencil and paper, the positioning of the pencil to paper at the correct angle, and motor planning to form each letter in fluid motion from left to right. This physical and spatial awareness allows them to write, but more importantly, builds the neural foundation of sensory skills needed for a myriad of everyday tasks such as buttoning, fastening, tying shoes, picking up objects, copying words from blackboards, and most importantly, reading.” (Cutting Cursive, The Real Cost. Candace Meyer, CEO, Minds-in-Motion, Inc.)

5. Increased retention. The act of taking notes by hand instead of on a computer encourages a student to process the content and reframe it, which leads to better understanding and retention. Studies indicate that college students remembered information better one week later when they transcribed a paragraph in cursive than when they printed it or used a keyboard.

6. Ease of learning. Printing is more difficult than cursive due to the frequent stop-and-start motion when forming letters. In addition, some printed letters look similar and are easily reversed, like the b and d, which is often confusing to children. Cursive is of particular value to children with learning challenges such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and difficulties with attention.

7. Improved legibility and spelling ability. Cursive requires children to write from left to right so that the letters will join in proper sequence and with proper spacing, making their writing easier to read. It also aids with spelling through muscle memory, as the hand acquires memory of spelling patterns through fluid movements that are used repeatedly. This is the same phenomenon that occurs when pianists learn patterns of hand movements through continued repetition.

8. Increased self-discipline. Cursive handwriting is complex, and is inherently associated with the development of fine-motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Learning cursive prompts children to also develop self-discipline, which is a useful skill in all areas of life.

9. Higher quality signature. Cursive handwriting will improve the attractiveness, legibility, and fluidity of one’s signature.

10. Increased self-respect. The ability to master the skill of writing clearly and fluidly improves the students’ confidence to communicate freely with the written word. Handwriting is a vital life skill.

by Iris Hatfield, author of New American Cursive

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With schools being closed for much of the last year (even though they may have offered remote learning), we all know a lot of students have fallen behind academically. However, what is not clear is exactly how far behind our kids have fallen and in what areas.

The consequences of not knowing could be especially dire for the children in this generation.

We don’t know how much access to remote instruction school-aged children received during the spring and fall of 2020. There is little reason to believe that virtual learning environments were effective for primary school–aged children. The only way to know the extent of harm done to student learning from school closures is to test our students and find out.

But school boards across the state are passing resolutions, sending emails to legislators, and embarking on a path to oppose conducting the Colorado Measures of Academic Success test. This test, required by law, measures student educational growth. It’s a test that didn’t happen last year, and if school superintendents and school districts have their way, it won’t happen this year either.

COVID-19 has been a challenge for everyone; a challenge no one could have foreseen or planned for, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t gauge the damage done from what is now being called the “COVID slide.”

A recent Yale study found “pandemic-related school closures are deepening educational inequality in the United States by severely impairing the academic progress of children from low-income neighborhoods.” The study goes on further to state, “learning gaps created by the crisis will persist.”

The mission for the Colorado Department of Education is “to ensure equity and opportunity for every student, every step of the way.” Their goal is to graduate students with the knowledge, skills and experience needed to be successful. Students, and their parents, deserve to know the impacts of the past year and learn what students are lacking in their education and what instruction and guidance, they need to be successful.  And we all should know how our schools and teachers are performing — not as a punishment for an unforeseen event but as a gut check on how much ground was lost.

Not testing, not measuring a student’s academic growth and progress, and not looking after the students’ educational health is a disservice to these children and amounts to abandonment.

After all, the purpose of a public education is to enrich every child’s life and to help every child reach their full potential even if that means we must help them make up lost ground.

Barbara Kirkmeyer is a Colorado state Senator representing District 23 in Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties.
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451 degrees

Bradbury’s title refers to the auto-ignition point of paper—the temperature at which it will catch fire without being exposed to an external flame. Bradbury asserted that “book-paper” burns at 451 degrees, and it’s true that different kinds of paper have different auto-ignition temperatures

The Pomodoro Technique® Daily/Weekly Process

The Pomodoro Technique book is organised into six incremental goals. The objectives should be achieved in the order in which they are given here:

1. Find out how much effort an activity requires

Ever wonder where all your time goes? Wonder no more: it’s all on the page. Your Pomodoro To-Do sheet is a visual overview of the time you’ve spent on various tasks.


2. Cut down on interruptions

Usually, you can afford to take 25 minutes before calling back a friend or replying to an email. You’ll learn how to handle the inevitable interruption while staying focused on the task at hand.


3. Estimate the effort for activities

Once you’ve gotten the hang of the technique, you’ll be able to accurately predict how many Pomodoros it will take to accomplish tomorrow’s — or next month’s — tasks.


4. Make the Pomodoro more effective

While the contours of the Pomodoro are set, what you do within them can be adjusted to maximize efficiency. One way to make a Pomodoro more effective is to use the first few minutes to review what you’ve done before. Other methods are discussed in the book.


5. Set up a timetable

A timetable sets a limit, motivating you to complete a task within a set period of time. It also delineates your work time from your free time. Creating a clear timetable will allow you to enjoy your time off without worrying that you could be doing more work.


6. Define your own objectives

The Pomodoro Technique is a tool you can use to reach your own objectives. For example, a writer might realize he’s spending too much time revising, and adjust his Pomodoro timetable to allow for more brainstorming time.

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#7-9

Focus on Getting Better, Rather than Being Good — Think about your goals as opportunities to improve, rather than to prove yourself

Be a Realistic Optimist — Visualize how you will make success happen by overcoming obstacles

Don’t Tempt Fate — No one has willpower all the time, so don’t push your luck

Roughly two years ago, I wrote about the “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently,” which became HBR’s most-read piece of content over that time span. It was a list of strategies, based on decades of scientific research, proven effective for setting and reaching challenging goals. I later expanded that post into a short e-book, explaining how you can make each one a habit. But how would readers know if they were doing enough of each “Thing”? (After all, we’re terrible judges of ourselves.) To help answer that question, last spring I created something I called the Nine Things Diagnostics — it’s a free, online set of questionnaires designed to measure your own use of each of the nine things in pursuit of your personal and professional goals.

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The Water Pump Solution

What Were Helen Keller’s First Words?

On April 5, 1887, less than a month after her arrival in Tuscumbia, Anne sought to resolve the confusion her pupil was having between the nouns “mug” and “milk,” which Helen confused with the verb “drink.”

Anne took Helen to the water pump outside and put Helen’s hand under the spout. As the cool water gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other hand the word “w-a-t-e-r” first slowly, then rapidly. Suddenly, the signals had meaning in Helen’s mind. She knew that “water” meant the wonderful cool substance flowing over her hand.

Quickly, she stopped and touched the earth and demanded its letter name and by nightfall she had learned 30 words.

Helen quickly proceeded to master the alphabet, both manual and in raised print for blind readers, and gained facility in reading and writing. In Helen’s handwriting, many round letters look square, but you can easily read everything.

In 1890, when she was just 10, she expressed a desire to learn to speak; Anne took Helen to see Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Boston. Fuller gave Helen 11 lessons, after which Anne taught Helen.

Throughout her life, however, Helen remained dissatisfied with her spoken voice, which was hard to understand.

Helen’s extraordinary abilities and her teacher’s unique skills were noticed by Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain, two giants of American culture. Twain declared, “The two most interesting characters of the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller.”

The closeness of Helen and Anne’s relationship led to accusations that Helen’s ideas were not her own. Famously, at the age of 11, Helen was accused of plagiarism. Both Bell and Twain, who were friends and supporters of Helen and Anne, flew to the defense of both pupil and teacher and mocked their detractors. Read a letter from Mark Twain to Helen lamenting “that ‘plagiarism’ farce.”

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Doing less accomplishes more

When your goals are so spread out into different areas of your life, you simply do not have enough time or energy to reach them all. You halfheartedly accomplish a few, but the momentum doesn’t pick up because you’re not making real progress.

Radical reinvention shocks the system

You change your life one piece at a time. Anything less thrusts you so far from your comfort zone, you start to panic. I call this “adjustment shock.” Anything new — no matter how good — is uncomfortable until it is also familiar. That is why we have to lean into new ambitions slowly, until they become a natural part of our everyday lives.

You’ll figure out what you really care about

Despite what culture would have you believe, you’re not here to be everything. You do not have to master every single aspect of your life, and feeling pressured to even pretend that you want to is robbing you of your energy to affect change where it really matters. Get crystal clear on exactly what you want and what you care enough about — that passion will help motivate you in the months to come.

Your goals need a hint of realism

A list of huge goals that are so far off from where you are right now seems intimidating. Three goals, even if they are big ones, seems more fathomable.

You can always make adjustments

Your 2020 goals might be accomplished by March. That is a totally possible thing to have happen. It’s not that you’re only aspiring to do 3 things total this year, it’s that you’re focusing on these 3 until they are mastered, and you can be onto the next thing.

Growth is not an isolated event

When you improve one part of your life, it tends to touch everything else. When you raise your standards in one way, everything else has to rise to meet it. Growth is interesting in this way: often when we focus completely on changing one thing, we inadvertently create a ripple effect in which we are naturally motivated to change others, too.

Choosing less than a handful of goals for the new decade doesn’t mean you’re diluting your ambition. In fact, quite the opposite. You’re getting focused and crystal clear on what you want to do, and funneling your energy toward creating real, and lasting, impact.

Brianna Wiest

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Benefits of Taking Risks

“The first thing you get is LEARNING. When you ask new questions, when you try new things, when you take constructive risks, you can’t help but learn. The American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments, the better.”

The second benefit of constructive risk is SELF-ESTEEM.  Champion boxer Muhammad Ali spoke about that. He said, “The man who views the world at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” In other words, it’s difficult to have self-esteem if you’re not growing.

The third benefit of constructive risk is CONTENTMENT. As you go through life, you will have millions of choices, and you will have millions of decisions to make. All of those choices and decisions involve some degree of risk, but some risks are not worth taking. Some risks are just plain foolish.

However, there are lots of choices you should make, and lots of risks you should take. If you don’t take those particular risks, you won’t be content. In those cases, it’s risk or regret. You either do it or wish you would have.”

Dr. Alan Zimmerman
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When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

Check the answer on Learning Unlimited Tutoring’s Facebook page

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