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Israeli Arab Intellectual and Poet on Illiteracy in the Arab World, "Backward-Looking" Islam, and the Complex of Arab Secularists In an interview with the Jerusalem weekly Kol Hair on the occasion of the publication of his first book of poetry in Hebrew, Salman Masalha, an Israeli Arab intellectual and poet, speaks of what he sees as the problem of illiteracy, and thus thought, in the Arab world, of the fixation with the past in the Arab world, of the importance of educating women, and of the role of doubting and asking questions in the development of society and culture. Masalha,...

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Idle Thoughts On The Road To Understanding Here are a few random thoughts that might help you to figure out the world in which we are currently living: The U.S. dollar is backed up by nothing and is convertible to nothing. It is a medium of exchange, and compared with the Euro, the currency of the European Union, it has lost 30 percent of its value since 2001. This is bad news for those of us whose investments, savings and life insurance are denominated in dollars. These dollars are exchangeable for less and less in goods and services. If the...

Teaching History: Fact Or Fiction? by Phyllis Schlafly Posted Aug 1, 2003 In rare moments when Congress isn’t preoccupied with the war, taxes or prescription drugs, Congress is worrying that American students don’t know any American history. Congress is right to worry because this is true, but it doesn’t follow that the federal government is capable of remedying the problem. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, reported that less than half of high school seniors demonstrate even a basic grasp of history. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, in a report called Losing...

Educators are worried by a general decline in reading skills among Israeli youth, and blame a teaching method imported from the U.S. Is the remedy a back-to-basics approach? Y. a 16-year-old girl from Jerusalem, was sent to see Dr. Nurit Elhanan-Peled, a psychologist and literacy expert, for some remedial help after the school system determined that she had great difficulty reading. Y., who came to Israel from the former Soviet Union, was referred to Elhanan-Peled after her teachers noticed, for example, that she didn't immediately catch on that the word malta'i refers to someone from Malta or that the word...

2 Men Face Multiple Charges Two transients face charges of opening fire on a uniformed Albuquerque police officer stopped in his squad car at a South Broadway traffic light. (January 3) Officer Kevin Kees was not hit in the Wednesday afternoon shooting and helped chase down the suspects before they could get away. Martin Perez, 25, and Ismael Perea, 27, remained at the Bernalillo County Detention Center on Thursday after failing to post bail... ... The passenger of the car stuck his hand out the window and pointed a small silver handgun at Kees and fired several shots... ..."We can't...

Migratory profile In order to have an idea of the universe of people who would be beneficiaries, it would be necessary to see that in the socioeconomic profile one detects that although an important percentage of women has adhered to the migratory current, most of the migrantes are men of 23 to 34 years of age, with levels of primary education, and who come mainly from the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Guanajuato and Oaxaca, according to the National Council of Population (Conapo).

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (Reuters) - High school students who graduate without passing literacy tests will receive special diplomas that say their reading skills aren't up to scratch, officials from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia said on Wednesday. The "buyer beware" diplomas for the Atlantic province are part of a new learning program that includes regular reading tests for several grades. They aim to encourage literacy in a province which lags the rest of Canada in nationwide tests. "We are responding to the concerns of parents, students and teachers," said Nova Scotia Education Minister Jane Purves. The new plan will...

Illiteracy can be a disability: judge Inability to read shouldn't prevent citizenship: ruling Janice Tibbetts Southam News OTTAWA - A judge has declared that illiteracy can be a mental disability and it should not prevent a Somali woman from becoming a Canadian citizen, even though she cannot learn either official language or answer basic questions about the country. Justice Michael Kelen, of the Federal Court of Canada, has ordered a citizenship judge to reconsider Faduma Hassan's eight-year quest to become a Canadian, taking into account evidence that the 55-year-old Toronto woman has shown a "medical inability" to learn a new...