The Nontraditional College Student by Libby Hancock - Save Money and Time and Still Earn Your Degree

Are you, or anyone among your family and friends, interested in pursuing a college degree, but don't because of cost, time constraints, or resistance to spending additional time in the classroom? If so, then the new book, "The Nontraditional College Student," by Libby Hancock, will prove beneficial.

Hancock, 23, is a Cleveland, Ohio-based author, who completed a four-year Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications in three years, graduated with a high GPA and honors; and spent less than $15,000 on the entire process.

Home-schooled, Hancock dispels common perceptions of attending classes in pajamas and a lack of socialization. She completed the Ohio requirements for high school graduation, passed the ACT with a good score; and pursued a college degree. Her parents told her she would need to finance her own advanced education.

Hancock used two non-accredited institutions to assist her in earning her degree-College Plus and Verity:

College Plus. This institution helps students discover or confirm their career path. Its attributes include class planning, study resource recommendations, and an assigned coach (mentor). The entire program is Internet-based.

Verity. While similar to College Plus, Verity has its differences, including emphasis on discipleship and spiritual growth. It also offers on-campus learning near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.

CLEP (College Level Examination Program) exams, DSST (DANTES Subject Standardized Tests) and TECEP (Thomas Edison State College Examination Program) allowed Hancock to study on her own; and then take corresponding tests. She describes the process how to convert successful testing into college credit.

CLEP. Currently a way to test out of 33 college classes offered by College Board (the same company that created and administers the famous college readiness ACT tests). All CLEP tests are computer-based and last 90 minutes.

DSST. The military originally designed this testing for military personnel and it now accommodates the general public too. DSST is an acronym for DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (where DANTES stands for the United States Department of Defense's Defense Activity for nontraditional Education Support program. It currently offers 37 courses.

TECEP. Its testing is combination of multiple choice questions and essays. Hancock describes it as one of the more challenging ways to earn college credit because the website doesn't offer a detailed breakdown of topics (as do CLEP and DSST).

"One key to receiving great grades in school is discovering your learning style, and then sticking with it," Hancock says.

Reading textbooks, taking notes and tests can make for a classic case of burnout. Hancock offers tips to help diffuse the monotony of studying, including:

    Plan the use of your time.
    Organize your work area to help organize your brain.
    Mark up your books. If you rent your textbooks, consider taking notes on your computer, print them out and then color-code them for easy reference.

"Being motivated to stay focused on the task at hand and to work hard and fast was not a skill I was born with," Hancock says. She had to learn to set achievable goals. "Self-motivation takes work. It won't simply "happen" overnight."

The American Council on Education (ACE) recognizes most free, online Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) courses. If emergency response aligns with your career goals, Hancock describes the process for converting their completed courses of college credit (fee-based).

ALEKS (Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces) focuses on mathematical studies and is another method to obtain college credit, which Hancock describes.

Hancock endorses doing an internship during college. She emphasizes the importance of logging all of your accomplishments and keeping records for the work you produce for your portfolio.

She herself received an unsolicited invitation via email, to do an eleven-week internship at NASA Glenn Research Center in the Community and Media Relations office.

Hancock enrolled at Thomas Edison State College (TESC) because of their flexible transfer credit policy. She took classes online and learned via online discussion boards, written assignments and final essays or tests. TESC also grants credit for prior learning, showcased by their Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), which features 84 classes in 31 different subjects. She graduated on campus in downtown Trenton New Jersey in October 2011.

"The Nontraditional College Student" is a concise, informative, and inspiring read. Hancock teaches you how to earn a college degree for less money and time. Even if you choose not to pursue your whole degree in nontraditional ways, you're bound to find tips to help customize your advanced learning.

How to Really Enjoy a Good Book

I am an incredibly slow reader, and for me finishing a book of an average kind of length can take anywhere between one to three months. This is something that many of my friends and family are surprised to learn, mostly because I'm such an avid reader and because I write incredibly quickly. So what's going on then?

The thing is, that when I read a novel I like to do it properly and to feel fully immersed in the book. Too many people I see reading a book on the tube, dipping in and out of the narrative while chatting to their friends or asking people for the time, and too often I see people really just skim reading the content without actually taking it in.

When I read I like to word out every line in my head in the imagined spoken voice that I think that person would have, and I like to imagine it all in detail. I read every line, and I sound out every comma and every italicised section to sound the way I think it should and to add or remove emphasis accordingly.

And to do all this I also like to set the scene perfectly first so that it's ideally conducive to being able to really bask in what I'm reading. Here is how I do it...

Sorting Everything Out

First of all, before I sit down to read I like to make sure that I have no pressing concerns weighing on my mind and potentially preventing me from fully enjoying the experience. As such then I will run around quickly to finish any pressing chores and I'll tidy up the space around me to be clean and organized and to give me space to breathe. Only once I've set aside myself some 'bubble time' with no potential stressors, I then turn off my hone and sit down to read.

The Perfect Lighting

The perfect reading lighting is a tricky thing to accomplish. On the one hand it's got to be a dim enough light that I feel cosy, but meanwhile it mustn't be so dim that it causes eye strain. This means then that it should be a kind of mellow glow that relaxes me but still enables me to focus.

Comfort

I also like to make sure that wherever I'm sitting is super comfortable. There's nothing quite like reading in bed, but then at the same time a comfortable couch or even a bean bag can be just as good, so long as it's easy to recline.

That said I do also have another place I like to read - coffee shops. Though they aren't silent the background chatter and clinking of mugs can often add a little atmosphere to the experience and make me feel almost like I'm in a novel myself. The mysterious stranger in the corner, buried in his book...

Tea

Finally I must make myself a cup of tea. Being a serious caffeine addict, when I drink caffeine I tend to feel all the tension leave my body and it's a great way for me to unwind and make any moment better.

Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School ~ Book Review

roviding my kids with a quality education is one of my highest priorities so I was thrilled to read Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School. The authors, founder and CEO of the Success Academy Charter Schools, Eva Moskowitz, and literacy expert, Arin Lavinia, were determined to do something about the miseducated and undereducated. They took a school where the kids were not on track to graduate and turned it into a top school that offers children a stellar education. It's a worthwhile read that explains how they raised the educational bar and turned things around.

Teaching is a calling, it is not just a vocation. To excel and be a quality educator one must have a true love for teaching. I am fortunate that my kids attend an excellent elementary school. Most of the teachers are excellent and the level of parent involvement is extremely high. Some say it's very competitive but that doesn't bother me. I would rather my kids attend a school where there is healthy competition than a school where they have what the authors refer to in the book as a "pretty good is good enough" attitude.

Why do we treat the teaching profession differently in this country and what can be done about low teacher morale? There are flaws in our education system that desperately need to be addressed. Many problems come from the unions so they are doing themselves a disservice. One of the biggest problems is that we can't get rid of bad teachers. Job security and tenure hurt the profession. Seniority cannot be the only reason to keep teachers employed. It should work just as any other job: get promoted when you deserve it and get pink slipped when you're not giving students your best.

Many policies are made at the governmental level by people who do not understand education and brain based research so policies are put into place by those who don't keep up with new research or take into consideration what is developmentally appropriate for child development. People often have a personal agenda and will vote for what benefits them not necessarily what is best for the teachers and the students.

Like any field, teachers can be competitive. They want to be treated as professionals but unless they teach at a private school, they belong to a publicly managed institution. Those who are content with mediocrity don't want public employees to excel or the bar will be raised too high and make the mediocre look bad. As they say in the book, "don't be afraid of competition. It's what made America great and what may yet save American education."

Mission Possible gives practical and detailed advice on how they turned an under performing school in Harlem into a top school that is comparable with elite private schools and public schools for gifted students. Their approach is inspiring and workable, not intimidating. However, it is a daunting task. It takes commitment, focus and determination to turn a school around and make such improvements. One of the key components to their success is huge parent involvement and placing focus on the adult's performance. Moskowitz and Lavinia stress that success depends on the commitment level of the teachers and the parents.

Every child deserves a good education. If your child's school is not at the level it should be and you want to make it a success, this book is a must read.

The Problem With Attempting to Teach Individual Students Using Multiple Intelligent Theory

Going through school, I always got good grades, perhaps because I had a decent memory. Still, I reject the notion that rote memorization is the best way to teach young people the facts of life, or teach them how to of think, a skill which is needed in everything they do, whereas the information they garner from a particular class or subject may never be used, or only in certain areas of the human endeavor, or perhaps at their job. I would like to discuss with you the importance of teaching kids to think.

Now then, for this article I'd like to recommend a very good book that I'd like you to read, so we can have an adequate dialogue in the future. This is a book that I do personally own, and I found it rather intriguing, but I also have some comments and some concerns. The name of the book is;

"So Each May Learn - Integrating Learning Style an Multiple Intelligences" by Harvey F. Silver, Richard W. Strong, and Matthew J. Perini, published by the ASCD - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria VA, 2000, 124 pages, ISBN: 0-87120-387-1.

The book suggests rightfully that different kids think in different ways, and therefore if we are to teach all the kids we need to cover many different ways of teaching, so every child can get it. Because kids have specific intelligences, as per Howard Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences Theory" the book also suggests when teaching math for instance that a teacher uses visuals, sounds, word problems, along with the equations. In this way kids that think differently, can still learn how to do the math problems without feeling stupid, or deciding that math is too difficult of a subject rather than learning how to do a certain type of mathematical problem.

That makes sense right? Sure it does, however, maybe it makes sense to teach every child how to think using all the different methods, therefore when they go into a math class they understand the logical method of thinking, or when they go into a music class they understand that. When they go to physical education, they are learning those types of intelligences, do you see my point? If we concentrate on teaching kids how to think, and all the different ways of thinking, then we don't have to worry about the kids and their style of thinking when they go and learn any particular subject.

All they really have to do is start thinking a different way which corresponds with that classwork. Indeed, I hope all this make sense to you, but again if it doesn't I suggest that you go read that book, perhaps e-mail me so we can have a dialogue, or discuss this topic with your friends and fellow teachers. Please consider all this and think on it.

A New Beginning: A Training Book on Home Based Care for Children With HIV/AIDS by Dr P Manorama MD

1. Introduction:

The stigma attached to the HIV epidemic is more dangerous than the epidemic itself. Especially, innocent women who inherit the pandemic from their husbands and the innocent children who inherit from parents are condemned by the society for no fault of theirs. They are not allowed to live a normal life like others. Children with HIV infection are not given admission in schools. In India there are about 84,000 children less than 15 years of age living with HIV. There are a few N.G.Os who have taken up their cause and help them in leading a normal life.

Dr P.Manorama is a well qualified and experienced social worker who is a pioneer in the field of HIV intervention. She established Community Health Education Society (C H E S) in Chennai and has adopted more than 500 children who have inherited HIV from their parents. (some of them are no more now). She is training several medicos and non-medicos on how to provide community and home based care to Children. For this purpose, she has written and released the book "A New Beginning" which is first of its kind in Tamilnadu. This book has helped many individuals and agencies alike in broadening their understanding to plan and also to execute with perfection comprehensive programmes for intervention with children affected and infected with HIV/AIDS.

The author of this article got a formal training with famous Christian Medical College, Vellore in this field and later was guided by Dr P.Manorama to get his PhD in alternative medicines (Psychological Counselling) and he is glad to submit the following article for information of readers. It is hoped that readers will get first hand information of this pandemic and ways and means to treat the children with HIV/AIDS.

2. Essentials of Home-based Care:

WHO defines home based care as a provision of health services by formal and informal caregivers in the home in order to promote, restore and maintain a person's maximum level of comfort, function and health including care towards a dignified death. It can be classified into preventive, promotive, therapeutic, rehabilitative, long term maintained and palliative care categories.

The goal of Community Home Based Care is to provide hope through comprehensive care, helping patients and families maintain their interdependence and have the best quality of life.

It should also reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with the disease by providing emotional, physical and nursing care. It will also be the most cost effective model.

3. What are the formalities to be observed by the health/social workers while visiting homes of HIV/AIDS affected/infected children?

'Infected' means the children who are infected with HIV whereas 'affected' means people around them say, parents are infected, by virtue of which, lives of children are affected. Likewise, HIV children means only infected with HIV whereas AIDS means somewhat advanced stage of infection wherein other opportunistic infections have spread over the child.

The things to be done by Health workers while visiting home:

1. General enquiry about the health of the family is to be made and relevant medical records are to be organised.
2. Specific enquiry about health of children to be made, look for any possible weight loss. The nutrition should be taken care of by giving needed tablets and simple food.
3. To verify whether any ART (Anti Retro Viral Treatment) treatment is given to the children with visit to ART centres.
4. Environmental issues are to be attended. Stigma issues are to be discussed freely.
5. CD4 counts are to be verified at regular intervals.
6. Education should be taken care of.
7. They should reach children by freely mixing and playing with them.

Thus the primary need of health workers attending to the children is empathy and understanding of issues related to children.

Medical Care Taken to Homes:

HIV/AIDS is a chronic disease and needs prolonged lifelong care. Many a time, children with HIV may fall sick and need hospitalization. Also it may need continued treatment at home.

Children with HIV live for long years, when they receive good nutrition, care and treatment. It is very unfortunate that some children develop AIDS and have premature death for want of proper care and treatment. Hence, social workers visiting children at home need to understand the growth and development and possible basic care is to be given at home setting. Hence the basic need for a social worker in this field is identification and management of opportunistic infections (OI) and ART and also the terminal care. The pathetic aspect in this field is that the worker should be aware of even cremation arrangements when an AIDS affected children dies because people may refuse to undertake that work also because of the stigma.

5. Certain Common Infections and methods to handle them:

Common fever: The child should inhale fresh air. The skin is to be wiped with wet cloths all over the body till the temperature reduces to normal. If the child has high fever above 38.5 C paracetomol tablet is to be given.

Diarrhoea: Lot of fluids like rice water with salt, tender coconut water, butter milk, dhal water, rice kanji, soup, tea and fresh fruit juice are to be given. Older children may be given easily digestible food like idly, banana etc.

Common respiratory disorders like sinusitis and pneumonia:

Caregiver should clear the congested nose using a cotton cloth moistened in clean salt water. They should be given warm water at regular intervals. The head position should be raised with more pillows to help avoiding breathing problems. For babies who need feeding, it is better to give frequent feeding in small quantities.

Oral Thrush:

This is a symptom of fungal infection and a hallmark of HIV/AIDS. Children cannot eat and drink properly. They will have difficulty in swallowing. Oral cavity will show the plaques if white semi solid materials.

Gargling with salt water will help easing the throat. Clean mouths four times a day with soft cotton swabs. Cold food and drinks may be given. Spicy foods and citrus fruits are to be avoided. Soups and yogurt are good. Gentian violet solution may be given 3 or 4 times a day. If there is no improvement, a qualified doctor is to be consulted immediately.

Skin problems:

Skin problems arise because of bacterial, viral and fungal infections and scabies. The symptoms are itching, pustules and rash. The following basic treatments are recommended:
Daily bathing, the skin is to be smoothened using calamine lotion, coconut oil, soaps and lotions will reduce itching. Baby's bottom is to be exposed to free air (as against using nappies). Potassium permanganate solution is a good antiseptic for soaking infected soars.

Bed Soars:

Bed sours are caused when children are bed ridden. Caregivers should encourage getting out of bed often. Their position is to be changed once in two hours. Bed also is to be changed at regular intervals. Medical guidance should be taken before giving local anaesthetics for pain relief.

6. A R T (Anti Retro Viral Treatment)

(History of ART and other details about the treatment are reserved for a future article. In this article, we shall deal with only the topic of ART to paediatric patients by the caretakers and its follow up)

1. Parents are to be counselled before starting ART to their child. Medicines, once started cannot be stopped unless the child develops enough resistance. Parents are to be counselled about the cost involved (in case of private hospitals) and the results of ART, that it is no permanent cure for AIDS but improves the immune system helping the children to lead a dignified life and improve the life expectancy.

2.Paediatric syrups and Fixed Dose Combination are available free of cost at ART centres of Government hospitals.

3. CD4 is the best measurement for assessing immune deficiency and should be used in conjunction with clinical assessment. It helps to decide when ART should be started. Children up to 6 years of age have high CD4 count because of high lymphocytes. CD4 automatically drops to normal values when the reach the age of 6.

4.The persons registered for care and treatment at ART centres should have their clinical stage of HIV. The initiation of ART is based on the clinical stage and the CD4 count. The lack of CD 4 count should not delay the initiation of ART if the patient is clinically eligible. But, however the result of CD4 should be obtained as early as possible. That is why CD4 count testing is also free all over the country.

5. Finally, drug adherence should be evaluated with utmost care.
Involvement of children in treatment preparation is to be ascertained.
Half-hearted attempts to initiate therapy should be avoided.

CONCLUSION:

We had been seeing certain important aspects of paediatric HIV/AIDS care by caretakers as instructed by Dr P.Manorama in her book on this subject. AIDS pandemic is no more a dreaded disease or the caretakers are to worry about possible infection. The stigma and discrimination is much reduced because of the tireless workers like Dr P.Manorama and her volunteers.

This article is a humble attempt as a tribute to the great work rendered by them.

If the readers get clarifications about paediatric AIDS and they offer to volunteer their services to the innocent children who suffer for no fault of theirs, the aim of this article is fulfilled.

Let me complete this article by paying respects to thousands of social workers and caretakers who work in this field as volunteers against odds.

Dr B.Sathyanarayanan (65) is an experienced administrator, teacher, writer and social worker. He is M.Sc(Physics) from Annamalai University. He studied Psychology and Philosophy as two additional subjects for graduation. He worked as a PHYSICS LECTURER for 2 years (1969-1971). Later, he had to take up a bank job and continued Physics and Philosophy research privately. At the age of 50, he got voluntary retirement from banking service to devote more time for social,educational and research activities. In 2005, he took up Physics teaching once again and is continuously teaching for the past 8 years as a regular professor of Physics.

He continued his interest in Psychology and got his PhD in Psychological counselling in 2000 and is counselling on HIV/AIDS matters under the able guidance of Dr P.Manorama. He also conducted several intervention programmes in HIV/AIDS in collaboration with her. He attended several National seminars on treatments to HIV/Aids He is a well known writer in English in fiction and article writing. His writing is recognised internationally by listing in the directory of World Philosophers, Bowling Green State University, U.S.A.