Her story

  Have you ever heard about MalalaYousafzai? If no, I'd like to explain why this girl attracts a whole world to her personality. Needless to say, Malala is the smallest peace activist in the world as now she is only 17. 

     She was born in Pakistan in 1997. Her childhood wasn’t peaceful as her country was at civil war. In 2009 Taliban authority started an operation of taking control of the valley, where Malala lived. Vast majority of residents, the military, volunteers and even civilian started to guard territory and tried to stand up for local council. However, all their peace talks, attempts to prevent war and to bring peace were in vain. In March of 2009 Taliban troops captured this small area. Moreover, it was regime of cruelty and violence, which forbade a lot of people rights and no one could live in peace. For instance, girls were banned to attend a school.

       Malala is the only one girl who ensured diverse people in importance of female education.  She wrote a blog for the BBC, where she was telling details of living under occupation. In 2012 Malala was going home by bus, when a gunman boarded the bus, pulled out a weapon and fired three shots. One bullet hit her forehead, another went into her shoulder. She immediately was taken to the hospital. In 2013 she went out from the hospital, launched an educational campaign and published a book about her life. Her hopes of peace, desire to spread a female education caused a sensation in the world. Her personality had a huge effect on the entire mankind. As the result, for her efforts for struggling against the suppression of children she was given a funding and was awarded with Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

    To sum up, Angela Merkel called Malala "the identity of Pakistan". She is the youngest feminist who supports a peace campaign. We should know about deeds of such people and pray for them.

On the move

Dear Victoria,

       How are you today? Is everything ok? I haven't written a letter to you for a long time. I’m so sorry for that and I really miss you. I’d like to tell you a story how I got around from Italy and became an immigrant.

     To begin with, I remember everything even in small details. It was April of 1916 and I was just a little girl. I lived in a small stunning house on the outskirts of Rome with my parents and 3 brothers. This city was unspoilt and full of vibrant inhabitants till World War I, which was declared when I was 10.

     People started migrate to better life in America. My parents, once or twice, were thinking about becoming refugees, as our government couldn’t provide us with asylum. In addition, the problem was with documents as my parents had only valid passports and needed to apply for a visa. After a few days of thinking about getting away from the war we decided to flee from it.

     We took luggage with food and clothes, left our dwelling in remote and moved from my native country. Needless to say, we were sailing on a crowded ferry. We had to dock in the USA in 7 days. Having disembarked in New York we had a visit to an “eye man” in Ellis Island. At that moment, I had a desire to leave that place as a medical examination was the worst part of our journey.

   Then we saw our new apartment in Lower East Side. The house was for 19 families and was overcrowded with different ethnic groups. Through a few days we got accustomed to this cultural diversity and have never stopped to live at peace with them. Moreover, we got acclimatized to new lifestyle, my relatives started working in order to make a living. I also had some chores, cooked a meal for a family, mopped floors and helped my mother looked after my smaller brother.

     Frankly speaking, 30 years passed, we’ve integrated to a new society, but I still have a feel of nostalgia when I remember my childhood in Italy, all that familiar faces which I met in cobbled streets. Now, I have faith that in a near future I'll visit my native country. I hope to see you, my beloved friend.

Best wishes,

Rosalia

News travels fast

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Education matters

     

  Once Oscar Wilde said: “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” I subscribe to this theory because people live while they're studying. In modern society to get an education is not a problem. 

    Mostly everyone has an access to education and can get it not only in a childhood, but also can return to education at any age. However, nowadays we can notice substantial problems in educational system. Honestly think, nevertheless is it a primary education, higher or private education, most of the standards of education are from the old school. For instance, children are taught to be straight A students, so in pursuit of good marks they start have their nose in a book, burn the midnight oil, cram and learn everything by heart. Other becomes a teacher's pet in order to get a place on a Honor Roll. Those who are not such eager beavers, bookworms or just do not have unusual intelligence and mental agility start drop out of school or play truant. It is my firm conviction, modern educational institutions need significant changes. Moreover, such distinguished scholars as Sugata Mitra and Ken Robinson support the idea of new education system and suggest some rough ideas of breaking this problem. 

First of all, Ken Robinson think that a progress in studying depends on curiosity of a child and individual studying. It seems as easy as ABC, if a person is interested in a subject, he cracks a book and hits the book, but if he just force to studying something he will get down, goof off and play hooky. So teachers should encourage curiosity of children, but an idea of individualized teaching is quite provoking. For example, in some subjects are things, which a student can't learn individually and as a result, he lose an opportunity to pass something with flying colours. 

 Secondly, Sugata Mitra's idea of self-organized learning environment, where children can educate themselves by using the Internet seems to be interesting, but it just for first glance. To illustrate, we couldn't rely on cutting-edge technologies, because some students still do not have an access to the web. Therefore, gifted children need real practice in order not to fall behind. 

To summarize, I hope that leading educational authorities will grasp the importance of making new methods of education and do everything in order to change it successfully. Maybe in few years we will see a new generation of students, which will get a degree by using brand-new technologies. Also I'd like to add some ideas how to improve Ukrainian educational system, you can see them in a mindmap below.

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