I recently read an article in the New York Times about plagiarism and how students nowadays are becoming more and more clueless as to what constitutes infringement of other people’s intellectual property. If it is posted on the Internet, it must be in public domain right? No.
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Education
Go Green song
These are the lyrics of a new song that I wrote for a Go Green Festival I’ll be performing at in November.
Go Green
by Harvey Heilbrun
©2009
Chorus
We must Go Green and work to save our planet
Think about the things we do that can affect us all
We must Go Green and try to change our actions
Save the earth, improve our lives and stand up tall.
When leaving rooms turn off the lights, conserve electric power
Turn off TVs, and pull out plugs that you’re not using now
Fix all those leaks, don’t let them drip and take a shorter shower
It’s not so hard to save this earth if you know how.
Chorus
The great outdoors is calling us; there is a good solution.
Take a walk or ride your bike, don’t always use the car.
Don’t litter, or waste paper, keep noise down, stop pollution
By planting trees and growing plants we will go far.
Chorus
Reduce the waste you make each day, Reuse what you don’t throw out
Recycle what you can so we can help the world revive
Each little thing we do each day helps build a good tomorrow
So do your best, it all adds up, help us survive.
Chorus
Click here to hear Go Green
Go Green by Harvey Heilbrun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Let it snow
I enjoy snow. I feel for all those people that live in the southern climes that don’t get the opportunity to see and play with snow. But then I assume that all those people feel for me not having the opportunity to enjoy warm weather all of the time and what that brings. When I was young we had our own built in snow slope right outside my apartment building. If you got a good dumping of snow there was a walkway between the hill next to our house and the little park that was there also that was perfect for sledding. Here’s a picture of my dad and me sledding down at the end of that runway. If you were really good and got up enough speed, you could make it all the way out to the street and hope no cars were coming. In this picture, we did make it to the street.
Personal Safety
I’ve been an advocate for teaching Personal Safety in schools for most of my teaching career. In the district that I worked in, I had little success. Other than when an unknown car stops children on the road, does it get discussed in class. At that point a memo goes out to staff and parents from the district describing the incident and reminding parents that it will be/was discussed in school as part of their regular Personal Safety discussions. Other than brief discussions in class at that moment, nothing else is done. I’ve been out of the classroom for 2 years now, but do not think that much has changed.
Linguistic peeves
Throughout the years I taught, there were a number of misuses of the English language that would drive me crazy. Each instance has been used so frequently that they have become an accepted part of our speech.
Positive Thoughts
I searched the Internet recently to find research on positive thinking. All I used as keywords was “Positive thoughts” research. As expected I was referred to a large number of sites, all of which stated the same thing. Your physical and mental well-being is directly affected by thinking positively. I was not surprised. All the research shows that if you continue to think more negatively, you will feel more negative. Negative emotional feelings can have a cumulative effect on your body over time. In one study published in the American Psychologist it was concluded that “words can have the same effect as drugs: thinking optimistically can change your whole biology”.
Continue reading Positive Thoughts…