freemexy's blog
Committees at our school have standardized forms that detail committee definition, history and operation. Now all major event committees have a compass included in their forms to encourage Sustainable Thinking in all planning and decision making.
We have integrated the compass tool into our curriculum at every grade level (K through 12). During the academic year of 2011-2012 almost all grade level teachers were presented with how to implement compass in at least one unit per grade level. It was hoped that we could use the compass directly to promote Sustainable Thinking around content within the units. In the MYP, we have asked our Community and Service (C & S) groups to use the compass tool to devise their action plans. For the past two academic years this has been very successful, and we anticipate students (and their advisors) will continue using compass in their planning.
We currently have two Sustainable Thinking student groups called Eco-Revolution (one each in elementary and secondary) that aim to monitor sustainability efforts across the school. Students gather and publish data, propose new ideas, and liaise with community members on and off campus to encourage Sustainable Thinking. Eco-Revolution will use the compass to look for gaps in services and actions throughout the school year (for example, do we need to revisit Nature because not enough recycling is being done, do we need different fundraisers because there are too many bake sales in Economy, etc.). Eco-Revolution will also ensure that all service groups in both schools are contributing in some way to our annual Community Farmers Market (held in the last week of school).
Our first annual Community Farmers Market in 2012 was a fantastic opportunity to showcase our efforts toward sustainable actions and thinking, not only during the event itself, but also throughout the planning and coordination process. Initial planning happened within a faculty committee with input from Eco-Revolution in the secondary school. During Earth Day 2012 the entire student body from grades 9 through 12 was involved in planning efforts. The event planning group used compass to decide whether we had enough representation from Nature, Economy, Society, and Well-being, as well as connections between those areas. By the end of Earth Day, we had great enthusiasm built up, event planners and advertisers, builders of stalls, and had solicited thirteen C & S groups to contribute something to the market as well. While it is extremely difficult to find organic foods in our part of China, we did have open-range/drug free hotdogs and hamburgers, whole grain breads from a local bakery, local vegetable sellers and one truly organic vegetable seller. We had flash mobs, open-mics, awareness stalls, games and more! It was one of our most successful events of the year.
The school is recognized for its dedication to academic excellence and for providing well-developed sports, arts, service and cultural learning programs. Our caring, passionate and award-winning faculty deliver a comprehensive American curriculum and pioneer programs that guide individual students toward life success— no matter how they define it.
Life Success Starts with Concordia
Whether they are the youngest learners or soon-to-be graduates, Concordia students apply their learning to real-life challenges. Employing an applied-learning approach in purpose-built learning spaces, our passionate and talented teachers create and deliver authentic learning experiences that engage students and impact their lives forever.
“Concordia has some of the most caring and qualified teachers I have ever met. They set high standards for their students but also dedicate a lot of time to helping students succeed.” – Concordia Class of 2013 graduate
Start Your Journey in a Nurturing Environment
Rather than simply focusing on the development of a student’s intellect, we strive to develop the whole student in a unique global perspective. Encouraging fair play, good character and a heart for service is an important aspect of our holistic approach to education. And we believe a child’s education is a team effort among the parents, the student and the school. All parties work together to prepare students for their future.
“Our family loves Concordia dearly… in particular, my daughter. She receives great support, love and care from teachers and staff to excel in her education as well as help her grow into a good person. I’m confident she will maintain the core values Concordia helped her develop.” –Concordia parent, Thailand
Embrace Community at Concordia
Through a culture of involvement and interaction, our families connect. The diverse community, representing nearly thirty different nationalities, is proud to call Concordia home. The school, grounded in Christian values, is welcoming and supportive, allowing students and families to successfully transition to their new environment.
“We were worried about moving half a world away from our family and friends. But we felt welcomed and from day one. The boys have met and interacted with kids from all over the world. I had no idea the ease with which you can make new friends and establish a support system here in Shanghai.” -Concordia parent, USA
Concordia International School Shanghai—providing academic excellence, unlikely opportunity, and vibrant community that lays the foundation for the entire family’s success.
Focusing on Education
Every year, all five participating countries welcome 20 college leaders from China. The delegation, usually composed of college presidents and vice presidents, is given the opportunity to learn new concepts and witness diverse practices. The project encourages innovation in Chinese vocational colleges, while exploring effective international cooperation. The emphasis on the creation of focus groups allows a small number to conduct research in specific interests, train in key areas of reform and develop the field of senior vocational education.
“I like playing because it’s good fun and it’s all about teamwork,” said the Beijing youngster, who like his hero, Lionel Messi, plays up front.Nurturing young football players is becoming big business in China, where teaching the sport will soon be compulsory on the national curriculum. President Xi Jinping has said he aims to make his country a football powerhouse and wants 20,000 schools to have pitches and other facilities by 2017. Although China’s national women’s team reached the quarter-finals of this year’s World Cup in Japan, the men’s team have failed to reach World Cup finals since 2002 and are again struggling in the qualifying stages. Officials and observers have blamed the country’s lack of international success on poor funding and infrastructure at the grass-roots level. However, slowly but surely, investment from European football clubs and retired international players in after-school academies is helping to rectify the situation. Ronaldo, who helped Brazil win two World Cups before retiring in 2011, recently announced plans to open branches of his football academy in Beijing, Shanghai and Mianyang in western Sichuan province.
We’ve brought the Ronaldo Academy to China to help the country in its dream to become a football powerhouse,” he said during a promotional event in Beijing last month. “We’ve just started the project but in a few years I’m sure it will produce good players.”
According to the academy’s official website, setting up a school requires an initial investment of about £43,800. “Our business model consists of introducing academies inside public and private schools,” said the project manager, Paulo Swerts. “Average fees are between £80 and £120 a month.”
Many European clubs, including Chelsea and Liverpool, have also launched similar ventures in recent years. Traditionally, China’s sports sector has been under tight government control, which has limited private investment. Yet the country is now encouraging companies, including those based overseas, to get more involved.
“China needs the expertise of … foreign clubs if it is to become a truly great footballing nation,” said Romain Yao, vice-president of Oceans Sports and Entertainment, an advertising and marketing agency.
With the infrastructure starting to take shape, experts have forecast that the sports industry will be one of China’s fastest-growing industries in the next few years and will generate huge revenues.
“By 2025, the Chinese government aims to create a sports industry worth more than £530 billion, which would account for 1 per cent of its GDP,” said Professor Simon Chadwick of the University of Salford.
Then they sang the school song in English before heading off to class in brick-facade buildings modeled on a British prep school.
For most Chinese students, attending a school like this remains unthinkable. But international schools from abroad are booming here thanks to growing demand from parents who are seeking different pathways for their children to attend college overseas, and who can increasingly afford more options. Top prep schools from around the world are opening campuses in the country, often charging higher fees than their flagships and catering to students who want to go to university in the West.
Attending Haileybury costs up to $28,000 a year. But Haileybury, which opened the Chinese version of its century-old Australian prep school three years ago, nearly doubled its enrollment this year and is considering opening a second campus in China.
Getting into China’s best public high schools can be monumentally difficult, but regardless of whether their child has the academic chops, many parents are opting to pay for what they see as a less stressful and more enriching experience at an international school.
“What they really care about is the happiness of their children,” said Wang Dan, an education professor at the University of Hong Kong. “Their future return on the student’s education is one concern, but equally important is the concern for the learning process.”
The International School Consultancy, which monitors school trends worldwide, says the demand among Chinese for English-language schools like Haileybury is “insatiable.” More than 150,000 Chinese students are currently enrolled in international schools, according to the consultancy, which says the number of Chinese who can afford to pay seemingly stratospheric fees for those schools — even if it’s just a small percentage of the country’s population — will continue to grow, absent a dramatic downturn in China’s economy.
China’s top public high schools are intensely competitive and often criticized as excessively test-driven. Before their teenage years, children study long hours for entrance exams, often with high-priced private tutors. And at the end of high school, students take the notoriously difficult Chinese college entrance exam, the Gaokao, where a bad score can relegate a good student to a lesser university.
A massive government-ordered expansion of higher education over the last decade has produced many marginal colleges whose degrees count for little. That makes an overseas education even more attractive.
Western prep schools in China advertise a smoother pathway to university overseas, with teaching that emphasizes critical thinking over memorization and classes based on the International Baccalaureate program or others recognized abroad.
Once limited mainly to foreign children, international schools have been allowed during the last two decades to open campuses for Chinese students jointly with local companies. And while the Chinese government has sought to tighten its ideological control over textbooks and limit perceived Western influences, the international schools offer a valuable infusion of new teaching methods and options for China’s middle class.
That opening has brought in some of the world’s biggest brand names, joining long-established international schools in Beijing and Shanghai. Britain’s Dulwich College now runs schools for Chinese students in the eastern city of Suzhou and the southern city of Zhuhai; Britain’s Hurtwood House operates in association with a school in eastern Ningbo.
William Vanbergen, managing director of the Shanghai school consulting firm BE Education, predicts many more Western schools will enter China in the coming years. Some schools are already struggling to maintain their enrollment, but for most, China presents a “fantastic opportunity” to build a global profile, he said.
“Chinese parents are very smart,” Vanbergen said. “They demand the very best, and it’s going to become quite clear which operations are good and which are not.”
Haileybury established its first program in China in 2001. Nick Dwyer, the school CEO, said the school’s executives had long been seeking a local company with which to partner on its own campus.
“It’s a tough ask for any student to go as a foreign student to another country,” Dwyer said. “Here, we are offering the Australian product tailored in such a way that the Chinese students are at the center of the project, not off to one side.”
Eventually, the school reached a deal with a state-owned development company to build a tree-lined campus between Beijing and the port city of Tianjin, featuring a towering administration building with two turrets that’s a replica of London’s Eton College prep school.
The campus anchors a development of high-rise residential towers and single-family homes. Haileybury leases the campus and charges higher tuition in China than in Australia.
Dwyer described the school as Australian in its traditions, presented “in Chinese dress.” Teachers give lessons in both English and Chinese, and events like its opening ceremony are adaptations of Australian assemblies. Hallways are marked as “English-speaking zones.” The school offers a modified version of the standard Chinese curriculum until high school levels, and then classes based on Australia’s Victoria Certificate of Education.
But Srikanth Gowda, a resident of Nallur village, Theerthahalli taluk of Shivamogga district decided to use a unique ploy to deal with the menace and many other farmers in the Malnad region are now following suit.
He painted stripes on his pet labrador, Bulbul, to make him look like a tiger. He said he only used the best hair colour available for the purpose.
In fact, he remembered that his father told him how monkeys were scared of tigers and always maintained a distance from them. With a 53 acre plantation, it was next to impossible to manage the monkey menace any other way for the farmer.
With his pet resembling a tiger, he says the monkeys, who have good eyesight, now stay away from his huge farm. He claimed that the monkeys have no food in the forests as most of the fruit-bearing trees have all vanished and hence they need to depend on raiding farms.
There is this peculiar phenomenon with the Chinese construction machinery industry. Quoting leaders in the business, “starving your competitors, exhausting yourself and trap your customers”, essentially cuts everyone’s throat, low quality and homogeneous competition. Price of Chinese wheel loader is under a third that of similar machine from Caterpillar USA .This impresses upon people a negative reputation of low cost-low quality. A consequence of ineptitude in Chinese design manufacture.
Chenggong Heavy Industry Co.,ltd on the other hand is capable of designs that fulfill EU and US standards, with precision production ability on par with that of Japan. We will be the first to break out of this vicious cycle. By adhering to international design standards, and perseverance in multi-fictionalization of construction machinery. We realize our mission of producing highly reliable and durable machinery. We shal be the benchmark in a new economy. We shall continue to benefit our Chinese customers, while also becoming a game changer to world’s perception on Chinese construction machinery.
We believe market demand is the ultimate reason for the existence of a company. It is the Company’s mission to resolve their customer’s problems using technology. Thus it is the responsibility of the company to translate their contributing to the prosperity of the society at large.
Stakeholders, such as investors,employees,suppliers,distributors,banks and many more, profoundly affects the formation of a company’s character and the future it eyes.Harmony,mutual respect and mutual benefit are building blocks to an ideal work atmosphere, only achievable through ubiquity and upholding of credit in its many forms.
Companies are economic members of society. They should respect the social rules, or as we all call it, the big family’s rules. And strive to be outstanding members of this community. For all it’s creative endeavors, the company must remain legal, moral and adhere to other universally positive values.
Capital is only a resource. The intentions of its holder determine the final fate of the capital. To engage in activities that maximizes benefit for its stakeholders is what capital should achieve.The survival of a company depends on the industrial environment within which it is located. Competition never looks to be uniform. But we recognize success as the reward for taking a right path.
UK’s Online Harms White Paper casts a cloud on free speech
The UK
government has introduced a new regulatory framework that seeks to push
companies with online platforms to regulate “harmful” material posted
on their websites.
The Online Harms White Paper is determined to make the UK “the safest place in the world to go online,” but it fails to adequately consider the fundamental rights of online users in the process.
What is the white paper proposing?
The 102-page white
paper, jointly published by the Home Office and the Department for
Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, proposes that “harmful content” on
online platforms is the responsibility of the hosting company to take
down, or else face hefty penalties and fines. In other words, Facebook
will be held responsible for your status update.
The mandatory content rules will be enforced by a yet-to-be-defined independent regulator, who will have the power to issue fines, block access to noncompliant sites, and even hold a company’s senior management liable for allowing “harmful” content on its platform.
Vague definitions of key terms
While the paper describes at length the various “reasonable steps”
companies would be required to take, it does a poor job of describing
what is actually meant by “harmful content.”
The proposal lists a table of online harms the government wants regulated.
Table of Online Harms
Of particular concern is harmful content, such as trolling and cyberbullying, that is not illegal in the UK, even if it may be unwanted.
As Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, told the Daily Mail, “We’re talking about banning content that the government won’t make illegal—it won’t legislate to ban it, but it wants companies to do so.
“They’re saying, ‘We don’t like Facebook, so we’re going to give Facebook more power to regulate our content more,’ it’s a terrible irony.”
There is also ample room for the government to expand the scope of what it considers to be harmful, regardless of that content’s legality, and it can seemingly do so without any meaningful resistance. The independent regulator put in charge will “set out steps that should be taken” to “tackle cyberbullying,” but this process is not explored at all.
To top off all this uncertainty, legal-yet-harmful content would be restricted online but remain legal to publish offline. There is no explanation as to how this might be applied.
One thing seems clear, however: The fuzziness of the language in the white paper leaves this legislation ripe for online censorship and abuse.
No discussion of fundamental rights for online users
The proposal fails to properly discuss protections of fundamental freedoms of expression and due process.
To be fair, the paper lists freedom of expression as a core value, and it requires the independent regulator to “take particular care not to infringe privacy or freedom of expression.” But in spite of the apparent value placed on free expression, the paper does not attempt to explore how the regulator should protect it.
There is also no discussion about due process or any acknowledgment of problems that could arise from the proposal.
Sweeping regulation affects platforms of all sizes
Lastly, the proposal puts all companies that “enable or facilitate
users to share or discover user-generated content” responsible for the
content on their platforms, including start-ups, small-and-medium
enterprises, and even charitable organizations.
To avoid being penalized, companies will likely introduce proactive measures, such as upload filters to prevent “harmful content” on sites.
Draconian as they are, filters are a luxury only the biggest companies can afford. And without the means to adequately police harmful content, the extra costs that smaller companies must bear to build highly regulated platforms is discouraging enough to stifle the growth of future online platforms.
White paper in consultation stage—have your say
The
white paper is the first stage in making the proposals a legal reality.
The UK government says it will seek advice from “legal, regulatory,
technical, online safety and law enforcement experts” until July 1,
2019.
If the government wants to increase online safety, it may do so at the peril of fundamental freedoms that are barely mentioned in the paper. And this may be deliberate, as UK-based digital campaign organization Open Rights Watch warns:
“Governments both repressive and democratic are likely to use the policy and regulatory model that emerge from this process as a blueprint for more widespread internet censorship.”
If you want to respond to the Online Harms White Paper with your view, you can respond to it through this link or with this email.
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Why do I need a VPN?
A VPN is a clever bit of software that masks the IP address of any device you install it on.
In simple terms: When you use a VPN, it looks like you’re connecting to the internet from somewhere else.
It doesn’t matter if it’s iPhone or Android, Mac or PC: You can use a VPN on anything that connects to the internet, either by installing software on the device or using a VPN router. It’s that simple.
For a more technical explanation of what’s going on, ExpressVPN has a fantastic and comprehensive guide here.
But this blog is all about busting the nerd jargon and focusing on what a VPN actually does for you. Things like this:
1. Get stuff cheaper with a VPN
A VPN lets you shop around to get the best deal. Rather than being
limited to your local market, you get access to the global market.
Did you know the same product or service can cost two entirely different prices in two different places?
For example, a flight might cost $400 in America, but only $100 in Germany. It makes sense to buy it from Germany then, right? With a VPN, you can! Boom.
2. Access more online content
Have you ever seen those
messages on YouTube that say, “The uploader has not made this content
available in your country”? If you use a VPN, you won’t have to see this
anymore. You’ll be able to view YouTube from any country you want with
just with a few mouse clicks.
It’s not limited to YouTube, though. All online media providers cater their content to different locations. What’s available in one place won’t always be there in another. When you use a VPN, you get more content!
The internet might also come with government restrictions, such as the ability to access adult entertainment or gambling sites, social media, and even international news sources. But if you connect with a VPN, you can decide what you want to watch.
3. Watch all the sports from everywhere
Sports
are brilliant, but, as with TV, Broadcasters show them with an eye on
the local market. But in this world of transient living, we might find
ourselves in places that don’t show the games we want to see.
Want to watch Manchester United in Bangkok? No Problem. Looking for the Super Bowl anywhere other than the U.S.? Easy. There is no sport you can’t watch with a VPN.
4. Better gaming when you connect with a VPN
These days, gamers are everyone, and we can all play anyone,
anytime—it’s pretty damn amazing. Just so long as we have a robust
enough internet connection, that is. And therein lies the problem.
ISPs can throttle connections if bandwidth usage is considered too high, leaving a nasty lag or a spotty connection.
But we are human and magnificent. And we created VPN software that offers fast, uninterrupted gameplay. Anywhere.
5. Keep your connection private
This a big one. An unsecured connection means someone could be reading everything you say and watching everything you do.
Many search engines harvest your data and log all your online activity. This collected data is then used to target ads at you, or worse, sold to the highest bidder.
A trustworthy VPN will secure and encrypt your internet, locking it away from prying and malevolent eyes.
Do I need a VPN at home? Yes!
Websites track your location from your IP address, so if you change
your IP address, you can manipulate the system and appear to be in
places you are not. But it’s not just a benefit at home: A VPN can be
especially useful when traveling.
In short, a VPN makes the internet better.
A
VPN lets everyone experience the full internet. And while some people
seem to want more walls, ExpressVPN is in the business of bringing them
down.
When comes to unblock websites,
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Why encryption is vital in free societies
In 2011, the United
Nations declared internet access a universal human right. That was a
necessary step forward for digital freedom, but it’s far from
sufficient—it needs to add encryption to the list.
Even in free societies with ample access to the World Wide Web, the freedom to use the internet means nothing if we don’t have privacy. And privacy means nothing if we don’t have encryption. That chain of logic isn’t obvious to everyone, so let’s break it down in reverse:
Why is encryption necessary for privacy?
Most people will imagine encryption as a padlock. When you send an
encrypted message over the internet, its contents are “locked” to
everyone but the recipient who holds the only key. “That’s nice,” you
might say. “But what if someone breaks the lock without the key? What if
someone has a blowtorch?”
And that’s where the metaphor breaks down. With physical locks, there’s always a way to pick them, saw them, or melt them open. And if a lock is robust enough to resist all but the most motivated (and well-financed) lock-pickers, then the lock itself is probably too expensive for the general public.
Encryption,
however, is not a physical lock—it is software. Once written, it costs
virtually nothing to maintain and distribute. That’s important because
the more things we encrypt, the stronger our online privacy. If only the
sensitive information is encrypted, encryption becomes a signal to
surveillance organizations that the information inside is worth
monitoring!
But more important, unlike physical locks, encryption is
protected by the laws of mathematics, which are unbreakable in the
purest sense possible. The standard encryption algorithm RSA, for
example, is based on factoring or solving a multiplication problem in
reverse.
It’s easy to multiply two prime numbers to get a substantial number (hundreds of digits long), but you’d need a supercomputer and more than a few lifetimes to waste if you wanted to figure out which two numbers you started with.
Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.
— Edward Snowden
That makes encryption the only practical tool we have to keep data private even if it is intercepted. Like Edward Snowden said, “Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.”
Why is privacy necessary for freedom?
“Okay,” you might be saying at this point, “I can see why criminals
would need privacy. But I have nothing to hide. The NSA isn’t interested
in my chocolate chip cookie recipes.” Perhaps not. But the issue is
less about the information gained by those who spy on us, and more about
what it does to us.
Surveillance changes us. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon; people behave differently when they know they are being watched, and usually not for the better. Observation impairs performance, damages trust, and encourages conformity in those being observed.
It doesn’t matter whether you have any skeletons in your closet; just the fact that your closet is open for scrutiny limits your decisions about how you dress, walk, talk, and interact with other people.
That’s an especially tragic consequence for societies that purport to be “free.” Neil Richards, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, sums it up beautifully:
When we are watched, tracked and monitored, we act differently. There’s an increasing body of evidence that internet surveillance stops us from reading unpopular or controversial ideas. Remember that our most cherished ideas—that people should control the government, that heretics should not be burned at the stake and that all people are equal—were once unpopular and controversial ideas. A free society should not fear dangerous ideas, and does not need complete intellectual surveillance. Existing forms of surveillance and policing are enough.
— Neil Richards
A step in the right direction
With the growing need for encryption in a free society, it’s no
surprise that the U.N. has taken a special interest. In a 2015 report
from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, special
rapporteur David Kaye said:
Encryption and anonymity, and the security concepts behind them provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age. Such security may be essential for the exercise of other rights, including economic rights, privacy, due process, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the right to life and bodily integrity.
— David Kaye
That’s a firm step toward progress, but the report did make an allowance for “court-ordered decryption” on a “case-by-case basis” (the equivalent of giving the TSA a universal key to your luggage). Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have spoken out against similar legislation in the U.S., despite officials at the highest levels remaining “sympathetic” to law enforcement.
Let’s hope the U.N. continues to be sympathetic to the link between encryption and freedom itself.
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