How Positive Thinking Helps

The world is full of evil. Ever since the world began, the dark side have already existed. It can be the devil in the garden of Eden, the disasters that the pre-historic animals in the Ice Age experienced or the brutality during the Dark Ages. These are all negative entities in the world. All the more now in the highly advanced modern world. The world is full of evil more than ever. We need positive thinking to overcome it.

The Need to Focus on What is Important

The evil around the world has made us worry about the present and the future. It has taken our attention from making the most of the present where it should be. Worrying about future and even the present is not helpful. There is a difference between worrying and caring for. You do not need to worry about the future to feel okay. What you need to do is to care for it. Not worrying does not mean that you do not care for the future.

On the other hand, worrying can cripple you. It will make you paranoid. And paranoia brings about adverse effects on the thinker and what he does. But if you have positive thinking, you will not worry about your future. You will care for it. You will think of it with a positive outlook. In the process, you will be able to move on towards the future with confidence and actual capability.

The Dream to be Happy

Happiness is still the ultimate goal of human life in this highly advanced modern world. You are still entitled to be happy. You still have the right and freedom to seek happiness. Without positive thinking, you will not think of becoming happy anymore. In the process, you are depriving yourself of this ultimate fulfilment as a human being. In other words, positive thinking helps you to stay human and sane in this maddening modern world.

Doing What Needs to be Done

Further, it is positive thinking that eventually enables us people to be happy, stay happy, set more goals to be happy and actually do what needs to be done to do so. Positive thinking will not be complete and its rationale will not be achieved if we are not able to achieve its goal which is to be happy. We should do what needs to be done to achieve our goals and be truly happy. Positive thinking enables us to do so. It is positive thinking that actually enables us to act and do what we need to do in life. Because of the many and big discouragements in life, without positive thinking, we are paralysed.

How Teachers Spend Their Time When They Are Not Teaching

 Work is generally associated with the work place. We usually think that as soon as a worker leaves company premises, working also ends. This is what most parents and pupils or students see with teachers. Classes end as early as 3:00pm and that is the time most people know that the work of the teacher ends. That is the time when we see they end their teaching work. But what do they do afterwards when they are not teaching? How do they spend their time when they are not teaching?

The Amount of Time Not Teaching

The work of a teacher is usually equated to teaching. Many people think that the life of a teacher is like that of a pupil. That means that teachers also have the time “working” time and free time as that of pupils. In other words, many people think that when pupils are off from school or on long vacations, teachers are also. Workers and employees in other sectors usually envy teachers because of these long holidays and “guaranteed free” weekends because we think “no classes, no work.”

Not Teaching But Still Working

On the average, employees and workers in the UK work 37 hours every week. That is close to a conclusive estimate of the work they do because almost all of them do tasks in and for their jobs only during office hours or working time. But this does not apply to teachers. The nature of their work requires them to do some more work after classes. That is what we do not usually see. And if we add the time being consumed in doing these, it will total 48 hours because they need to prepare lessons before teaching in classes. During the school term, teachers work for as long as 56 hours in a week.

Working When Others Are Not

Further, our idea is that teachers do not have work when there are no classes. That means we think that they are also on vacation when students have no classes, on vacation and school is closed. This, added to the holidays that all working people have, totals to 65 days for the whole year. Other employees or workers only have around 28. However, teachers still do work during student vacations and holidays.

Credit and Compensation

As mentioned, most of us do not know that teachers still do tasks for their job after teaching in the classroom. And they agree. They believe, think or know that many people do not know or even just notice that they put in more hours and effort than can be seen in the classroom and the school. Eight in every 10 teachers who were respondents of a survey paid for by TES Connect say that they think the tasks they need to do outside the classroom and beyond class time are not noticed by employers, parents and pupils. Moreover, performing these incidental tasks during night time and weekends affects the health and personal lives of teachers as human beings. Again, they need to rest and enjoy too just like other human beings. When these are not met, the body and mind will suffer.

Comparison

To give us a better and larger view of how teachers fare among other professionals with regards to logging in official and unofficial time for their work, here is a list of the Top 10 Hard-Working Professions derived by TES Connect in its studies.

1. Production Managers and Directors of Mining and Energy Firms – 49.6 (hours per week)

2. Teache
   rs – 48.3

3. Advertising and PR Directors – 42.2

4. Financial Institution Managers and Directors – 40.9

5. IT Engineers – 39.0

6. Chief Executive Officers and Solicitors – 38.5

7. Medical Practitioners – 38.4

8. HR Managers and Directors – 38

9. Barristers and Judges – 36

10. Accountants – 35.6

Time and Effort

The extension of the working time of the teachers cannot be disregarded. As human beings, they are also entitled to rest or relaxation and recreation. If the employees and workers in other sectors do not need to work after daily working time and in the weekends, teachers should also be afforded the same right. They are not only deprived of time to rest and relax. In the process, they are also being subjected to more health hazards.

The Time Spent When Not Teaching

So how do teachers spend their time when they are not teaching? They prepare to teach. They prepare lesson materials and process the output that they and their students produce. It is not only getting ready for the next school day or week. It is also about assessing the performance of their students and their own. They need to check papers, record scores and compute grades. These are what teachers do during the time when they are not teaching.

Solutions

Yes, the government should highly considering raising the salaries of teachers. Better yet, adjusting the total working time of the teachers must be done. Teachers should be given time to do the “non-teaching” aspect of their job during school working time. For example, they should be given a teaching load of half of a day so that they will still have time during working days to prepare for lessons, check papers and other tasks and do not need to do it during the night and weekends when they should be resting, relaxing, enjoying or do their other roles like being parents to their own children.

What Makes a Good Book Title

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is what we often hear. It means that we should not be deceived by the looks, face, clothes or appearance of people. It comes from a parallelism in books. Some people, in the past and even in the present, dismiss a book because it does not look interesting. It is about the cover of the book. Part of the cover of the book is the title. And, nevertheless, we as readers can judge a book by – not its cover – but by its title.

In the first place, publishers can judge a book by its title. The title can delay the publishing of a book. Some publishers even work with the authors to have the title revised if necessary. The title is an important part or even aspect of a book. It is its name. And unlike people, titles can be easily changed if not for the process of changing it. The title is also an important part and aspect of the marketing of the book. This is exactly the reason why publishers and authors need to come up with the best title that they can for a given book. They know that readers can either be attracted or uninterested in a book because of its title.

As titles are given the necessary importance by authors and publishers, readers can now really judge a book by its title. You can choose a book to read by considering their titles. You can simply choose the book with an interesting title. Authors, writers, editors and publishers have made sure that books are represented well by its titles. Now, the chances of reading an interesting and high quality material based on the title is higher now. So, aspiring writers also need to develop the skill and art of making titles. You can even try to be a writer and make your own titles.

Here are some techniques that many authors use in making the titles of their books. You can practise them too if you have started writing your own novel or dreams to do so. You can also use these as a reader in choosing what to read.

Preparation

Calm down. Relax. Think when your brain and body is not tired. It can be early in the morning or anytime when you wake up and may have already eaten breakfast or taken a bath. You may
also try working out the title even if you are tired or pressured. These are the times you can utilise the different forces around you and within you.

Representative of the Story

Base the title of your book on its overall description, outline or summary. It can be about the main character, the main location, the time settings involved whether flashback, major or minor or a mix of these. It can also be the main event of the story. Base your title on your favourite line from the book. Identify the keywords in those lines. Use their synonyms if they are more attractive or more interesting. However, there are instances in which the title may not be immediately or necessarily be representative of the story like for mysteries, surprise ending stories or those with a twist.

 

Avoid dull titles. They should be catchy and has a recall factor. See to it that the title you give to your story or book should not be misleading of its genre. It should be appropriate for it. You cannot give your science fiction story “Horror in the Twilight.” Use catchy words, figures of speech, alliteration, action words, mystery, conflicts, popular expressions, play of words, words with hidden or double meaning or the name of the compelling character in your story. You can also use possessives like “Voldrof’s Other Plan.”