Category Archives: School

Martial Arts School: Ways To Pick The Best One

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If you are considering a martial arts class, it’s important that you pick one that’s right for your needs and personality. The same holds true if you wish to sign your kid up for a self defense class. Nowadays, you can find many different types of martial arts being taught and each school has its own mood. Here are a number of the criteria you must use when choosing a self defense school.

You must figure out the reasons you want to attend a martial arts class. Is your principal objective to be involved in a tradition, study self defense or health and fitness? If your main intention is self-defense, you need to find a school that focuses on that. Several schools pay more attention to preserving traditional martial arts, whether it is a particular form of Karate, Kung Fur or another kind of self defense. Asian culture, for example language, traditions and other characteristics are taught at a few of the schools. Nonetheless, schools that mostly focus on self defense might bestow a lot of traditional things, such as only teaching methods and moves that are helpful and having uniforms.

Observing a class just before you join is possible at most dojos. Many will go a step further, and allow you to take one or more complimentary classes. This could let you see if this is something you think you’d be able to do regularly. Usually it takes several years of practice to get proficient in a martial art form, so you don’t want to invest your time and money in a school where you don’t feel comfortable. If needed, check out every school in your area prior to making your decision. You may even want to read up on the different budo arts, or do some research online to learn more about each one.

Considering that martial arts are so popular today, you can find a dojo in lots of communities. Because you have numerous schools to decide among, this is wise. Yet, the not so good part of this is that trained defense skills have become pretty commercialized. A lot of schools, at times called “McDojos”, are put in place to get as many students as possible without paying a lot of attention to quality. This is exactly why you need to do some research and find out something about a school before signing up. Some aggressive indicators include them persuading you to sign a very long written contract straight away or telling you that you will get a black belt by a certain date. Martial arts trainers must make a living like other people, but you don’t want to go to a school that is only there to take your hard earned dollars.

With numerous martial arts schools to choose from, you ought to do some shopping around before selecting one. You ought to be able to make the best decision after learning about the things we have discussed in this article. You need to search for a school that actually cares about the individual development, plus the comfort of the students. You ought to additionally search for one that will go well with your personality and cause you to reach your goals.

The Results of Home Schooling vs Public Schools

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One of the very first questions that most parents ask about home schooling is whether it actually works. They are only too well aware of the fact that the public schools have problems, but really wonder whether they can do any better. One natural response for some parents is to try a little harder to see if they can afford private schooling but, even if this were possible, are the private schools faring any better than the public schools?

The simple fact of the matter is that there are many, quality studies which show that, on average, home schooling produces superior students. To an extent of course this is understandable as parents clearly have an effect on education no matter which route they take. A parent who is genuinely interested in the education of his or her children will help to motivate them, producing better results.

But there is certainly more to it that this and there are many cases, in a great enough variety of situations, to take even this into account and still come to the conclusion that home schooling produces better results.

Even the Unites States Department of Education agrees. In one study which they sponsored themselves home schooled students produced exceptionally high test scores. The median scores in every grade were far higher than those of public schools and even higher than those of private school students. The average home schooled student in grades one through four was a grade level above that of public school peers and, by the time home schooled students reached the equivalent of the 8th grade, they were as much as four years ahead of students attending public school.

As if this were not enough, costs were also lower. On average, government schools spent $6,500 per student each year and private schools spent $3,500. By contrast, parents undertaking home schooling spent about $550 per student each year. This figure for home schooling does not of course take into account the time spent by parents on home schooling for which a public school teacher would be paid.

The public school system as we know it today evolved during the second half of the 19th century as one state after another made school attendance compulsory. Perhaps the most interesting question however, and one which rarely seems to be asked, is why, if public schooling offered such superior value, it was necessary for the states to make it compulsory and to force parents to put their children into the public school system.

It could be, and sometimes is, argue that this was due to the ignorance of rural parents who did not see the value of education. However, it is interesting to note that adult illiteracy rates in 1840 Massachusetts were a low 2% and that, by 1995, this figure had risen to 19%, in spite of apparently enormous advances in the intervening years. In 1840 libraries were rare and today they are everywhere as books are both relatively inexpensive and easy to trade.

Today over a million children are home schooled in the United States and thousands of home schooled students have attended colleges and universities, including many of the most prestigious and difficult to get into.

Whatever your own thoughts about home schooling vs public schooling there is no doubt that the results clearly show the advantage of home schooling.