Student Writing

Student Writing >> An Aging World

The global population is aging: the number of older persons—those aged 60 years or over—has increased substantially in recent years in most countries and regions, with one in eight people worldwide is aged 60 years or over. By 2050, the global population of older persons is projected to more than double its size in 2015, reaching nearly 2.1 billion—one in every five people will be aged 60 years or over.

In order to find the right solutions to help reduce the unnecessary negative changes accompanying aging, It is crucial to distinguish the normal changes accompanying healthy aging from the stereotyped ones and this shall be the aim of the essay.

Physiological: it is now believed that much so called ‘inevitable aging’ is brought on by inactivity and disuse rather than the aging process itself. Many chronic diseases associated with aging are actually preventable or modifiable by, for example, changing lifestyles. The psychology behind physical exercise has to do with improvement of self-image and sense of reward.

Physical confidence tends to decrease with age, old people to perceive their bodies as heavier and broader than they actually were, and physical tasks harder to perform. Distortion of body image, fear of activity, feelings of clumsiness and thus the following reduction in physical activity could create a vicious cycle. Thus, taking actions to act first is important to end the vicious cycle.

Gradually with continuous exercise, external reward will be gradually transformed to internal rewards, while fear of incapacitation and a desire for buoyant health are frequent motives for initiation of activity, continued development may depend on the enjoyment and the satisfaction of mastering new skills, the bettering of one’s own performance, a feeling of well-being and fitness.

Psychological: Cognitive function declines as a result of changes in nervous system. However, not all cognitive abilities decline so dramatically as popular opinion expects them to: measures of vocabulary, information and comprehension often show minimal decline well into the 80s. Considerable amount of individual differences exist in changes of cognitive functioning. Some people maintain the integrity of brain structures very late into old age. The individual differences may indicate some flexibility in these changes.

Being intellectually active thus becomes crucial. The key is to take initiation to start acting, which is also, in most cases, the most difficult to achieve. The reason for this lies in the relationship between psychology and social factors.

It has been shown that young, middle-aged adults, as well as elderly persons, have stereotyped and essentially negative attitudes toward aging and old people, e.g. some judge the elderly to have the fewest friends, and to be the least happy. However, a lot of the stereotypes, such as incapacity to work are not part of normal aging, but are caused by social expectations, which are learned mostly

The underlying attributional errors should be realized and corrected. Firstly, people, both young and old, tend to attribute social changes associated with aging such as retirement with internal factors ( e.g. “I am no longer capable of doing my job.’ ) rather than external factors ( e.g. ‘Government policy that requires me to retire when I reach a certain age.’ ). Furthermore, the wide array of individual differences between old people are very likely to be ignored. In addition, any negative signs associated with aging shown are mostly explained as, as Martin Seligman (1978) had termed, stable and global — quality such as irritability is regarded to be a common feature for all elderly and true across a range of situations. Therefore, in prevention of entering the golden age with a pessimistic attitude, people, both the young and the seniors, should start seeing healthy, nice and intelligent aged people as the representative, not the exceptional, and develop a more critical attitude towards the negative images in the media about aged people.

Social: “Old” social age is indicated by a range of social changes, such as more staving off of retirement, loss of loved ones, less likelihood of contacts with relatives, etc. Given their nature as social changes, they are much more dynamic with time and are influenced and perceived in slightly different ways under different cultural backgrounds.

Although retirement can be a stressful life event, it also means opportunities to escape from dissatisfying work, with the pursuit of a personally independent life. 51 percent of Norwegian workers were actually looking forward to a cessation of employment, for the greater opportunities for leisure activities and a chance to rest. Although retired, many chose to keep working part time, leaving career jobs for transition jobs, e.g. in South Korea, the average worker leaves employment at the age 54 but then engages in part-time or low-wage employment for another 14 years before retiring completely at the age of 68. During leisure activities, the mental stimulation itself may help preserve cognition. Participation in productive or social activities may help sustain a person’s self-concept of usefulness and competence

More old people may hold a high value of autonomy and independence in industrialized and modernized societies and prefer to live on their own. Despite the independence, the importance social support from family and community cannot be ignored. Increased social support is associated with less functional decline, a good social network may be protective against physical decline. Family support also has culture-specific significance to aged people.

However, this support may be threatened by upcoming shift in family structure. People will receive less family care as they have fewer siblings and fewer children. In addition, in many countries younger populations are with higher rates of divorce rates and separation age, meaning that futures generations may face more problems with living without spouses. Also, the number of available caregivers for old people is decreasing. As a result, more attention should be paid into community care to compensate for this.

The author’s name is Ji Wendi or Renee Ji. She is a year 12 student at Shenzhen College of International Education studying AS and AL Psychology and intending to pursue a career as a Psychologist in the future.

The content is an extract of the essay which won top prize in the American Psychological Association TOPSS essay competition entitled ‘The Multi-dimensional Aging: Subtracting the Unnecessary Expectations.’

Photo by Carlos Paes, freeimages.com

Submit an Article >> The EARCOS Journal

We are currently planning the Winter issue with a submission deadline of December 1, 2017. As you can see from our previous issues, we have moved to more of a magazine format with regular features. We invite you to share the great things going on at your school with the other schools in the EARCOS region.

What can be Contributed? Welcome New Member Schools, New School Heads, Principals and Associate members. Faces of EARCOS – Promotions, retirements, honors, etc. Campus Development – New building plans, under construction, just completed. Curriculum Initiatives – New and exciting adoption efforts, and creative teacher ideas. Green and Sustainable – Related to campus development and/or curriculum. Service Learning Projects Action Research Reports - Summaries of approved action research projects Student Art – We will highlight ES art in Fall issue, MS art in Winter issue, and HS art in Spring issue. Student Writing – Original short stories, poetry, scholarly writing. Reading Corner

Student Writing >> Ling and the Wishing Tree Written and Illustrated by Allison Jiang Grade 4, Teda International School

Through ancient China a terrible disease spread. Through mountains and oceans this disease caused many people to die. Year after year the people who died added up to ten thousand people. In all those years many healthy people were also killed to stop the spread of the disease. That plan of killing people was unsuccessful. All those years and still nobody found a way to destroy the disease.

At the same time, a village far away from the city did not catch the disease. The people lived happily. Their ruler, a court musician named Ling, ruled fairly among them. She was respectful and honorable, and that made her a good ruler. Ling had a thin oval face. She had a pair of slant downward eyes that shone like the moon in a pool. She had a pointy nose that was perfectly formed. Her hair was long and black -- soft black and smooth. Her skin was white and smooth. Ling was rich because she was the best musician in China. She mostly wore a long silk dress with little jade ornament on it. She liked to carry a special flute, a fan, and a small special precious amulet passed down from her family ancestors.

Her village was near a river and a forest. In front of her house there was a flower field with a beautiful smell of perfume. The garden was special; it had every kind of flower in the world. On the right there was a river and then a forest where her people went for walks. Behind her house there was a huge field where her workers lived and planted crops. It was a peaceful life. In her house you could hear her puppy Sunlight barking. Birds in the trees singing, such a beautiful sight. In the morning the sun was bright, the air damp and a cool wind blew on your cheek. In the afternoon the heat came out. The water in the river was cool; it was the best time to drink it. In the evening the moon shone brightly, and everybody was off to sleep.

Ling had a big house. On the door step there were two big bronze lions that guarded Ling and her people from dark spirits and robbers. On her house there were three symbols; one was a dragon, pearl, and tortoise. The dragon meant: energy, law, masculinity, good magic, of art of painting. The pearl was a symbol of treasure, and the tortoise meant immortality. When Ling heard about the disease she ordered her workers to build a huge wall around the village, and made a good army to protect her village. The wall she built was magical, it would conceal her village from the disease. For many years that wall worked, but the wall was breaking up after all those years. Finally, one day the wall lost its magic power and turned into a normal wall.

On a stormy Tuesday the story starts. Knock, knock Lings’ door creaked. Ling was having breakfast at her table. She wasn’t in a good mood. She went to open the door. There stood her most honorable man. He came in and said, “The wall broke down my lady. People in our village caught the disease. They are sick, and they need help my lady.” Ling could not believe her ears, she quickly got dressed and went down to her village with her maids and the honorable man. They first visited the fisherman’s hut. He was lying in bed, and his family was so worried. Ling, although a court musician, was also

taught to be a doctor. She took her medicine bag and put her hand over his head. It was burning hot. So hot she used the art of pricking needles in the man’s body and gave him a lot of medicine. That day she visited a lot of people in the village. They were all sick from that disease.

The next day she went to the city to visit the emperor. The emperor said to Ling he knew of only one way to cure the disease. Although many people had looked without success, he would give permission for Ling to find the secret wishing tree of Pensivlla. Ling was glad.

When she got back to the village she asked three other friends to go with her to find the tree. Susan, Bing Qing, and La Chang all said yes. That day they packed their bags and decided to meet at Ling’s house at 8 o’clock. Ling packed her things in a bag. She brought her puppy Sunlight with her and they set off. The forest was warm in the day but dark at night. Ling had to make fire from wood. It was a terrible night. All night long they heard howls. It was the creepiest thing ever. After two days they found a big tree with golden leaves. It was the wishing tree. Resting by some nearby trees were some chests. Ling and her friends opened the chests and each found a bone and a sword. Ling found nothing.

Just then, Bang Bang, the dragon that was guarding the wishing tree returned. Suddenly, there wasn’t only one dragon, there were four. Ling’s friends all had swords to fight with. Ling had no sword and she was so worried that she just pulled out her flute. When she looked carefully at the flute, there were words that said: “I work at the end, blow me.” So, she tried. When she started to blow, the dragon whipped her with its strong tail. She fell to the ground. She just knew that she was fighting the elder dragon, the strongest among all dragons. The pain was a flash, but she got up again. The dragon wiped her out again. Sunlight was furious. He jumped on the dragon, climbed up to his face and used his claws to fight him. Within minutes, the dragon was all covered with blood and could not see. Ling got up and started blowing into her flute. The sound made the elder dragon disappear in a second. She had won.

Her friend Susan had defeated another dragon and was now helping La Chang so Ling went to help Bing Qing. Ling told Bing Qing to strike at the dragon’s back and she would handle the front. She blew a sleeping song on her flute for the young dragon. It fell into a deep sleep. Bing Qing killed the dragon with her sword. Victory!

They went to kneel in front of the wishing tree. They made the wish that the terrible disease would disappear, and it came true.

16th Annual EARCOS Teachers’ Conference 2018

October 27-29,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia “50 Years of

Voices United in Purpose”

Strands

Literacy / Reading Early Childhood Special Needs (SENIA) Modern Languages Media Technology Counselors ESL Technology General Education Childrens’ Authors Child Protection

Place: Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand Preconference: March 28, 2018 Regular: March 29, 2018

For more information If you have any questions, please contact the EARCOS office or email Elaine Repatacodo, ETC Coordinator at lrepatacodo@earcos.org

Phone: +63 (02) 779-5147 | Fax: +63 (49) 511-4694 | Mobile: +63 928-5074876

PRECONFERENCES (March 28) James Delisle — Gifted Education, Special Needs Students Ann Helmus — Neuropsychology (SENIA) Ochan Powell and Kristen Pelletier — What aspects of collaborative teaching models do teaching partners need to consider? Stephen Shore — Special Needs (SENIA) Bonnie Singer — Language and Literacy (SENIA) International Baccalaureate AP Chinese Language and Culture AP English Language and Literature (combined)

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Chip Donohue Technology in Early Childhood Norman Kunc with Emma Van der Klift Disability Rights Community Pernille Ripp Founder of Global Reading Program

SPECIAL PRESENTERS Michael Boll Technology Sheena Cameron Reading Comprehension Strategies James Delisle Gifted Education, Special Needs Students Chip Donahue Technology in Early Childhood Ann Helmus Neuropsychology Sandie Janusch ESL Norman Kunc and Emma Van der Klift Disability Rights Community Lori Langer de Ramirez Modern Language, ESL Dianne McKenzie Librarian, International Baccalaureate Jose Medina Bilingual and ESL Education Kristen Pelletier The Next Frontier: Inclusion Ochan Powell Inclusion and EAL Pernille Ripp Founder of Global Reading Program Stephen Shore Special Needs Bonnie Singer Language and Literacy Logan Smalley TED-Ed Steve Swinburne Author Kathy Walker Early Childhood Fiona Zinn Early Childhood

EARCOS PRACTITIONER PRESENTERS

Katie Day and Stacey Taylor Zander Lyvers Kelsey Long

Librarians Action Research