水曜日更新担当の講師チーム"Zen and the Art of Aptitude"から
今日は講師・Kurt先生の更新です！
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When students come to us for test prep courses, they are naturally concerned with raising their scores, but they tend to forget that these skills will also help them once they are accepted to the school of their choice. In fact, this may be of even greater importance.


When you think about it, the schools and test makers are trying hard to test those skills which are necessary when studying in an English-speaking environment. Reading comprehension is essential for understanding assigned material and for doing research. Speaking skills are equally important in order to participate fully in class, as is the ability to understand lectures and academic conversations. Writing skills are needed for research papers, homework, and exams. And of course, an extensive vocabulary applies to just about every academic situation.


An intensive test prep course can be one of the best ways to quickly improve these skills, and will help ensure top performance.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Kurt先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Desert Skiing】2010.03.24 (Wed)

I went back to the States for a couple of weeks, and got to spend a few days with some old friends--a buddy of mine from high-school, Eric, and his wife Michelle. Like me, Eric and Michelle are dog-lovers, and have two beautiful Wheaten Terriers. One of the things I've missed about living in America is having dogs; it's just too much hassle to have one in Tokyo, and I'm not home enough to take proper care of a dog.

When I lived in the States, I had two dogs of my own--an Australian Shepherd named Elvis, and a mutt named Sparky who was probably some kind of German Shepherd mix--and also helped to find homes for abandoned Australian Shepherds through Aussie Rescue. Aussie Rescue would get news of some abandoned Shepherd in a pound somewhere, and I'd go pick him up, bring him home, and treat him as part of the family until the nice people at Aussie Rescue found him a permanent home. Since I almost always had a third dog in the house, I was able to constantly practice my dog socialization skills. Not just training, like "sit" and "stay," but socialization--teaching the new dog to be calm and friendly with other dogs and unfamiliar people, and to accept his place in the pack.

Fortunately, since Eric and Michelle (especially Michelle) are pretty good about behaving like pack leaders, Winnie and Chewie didn't have any major issues, but when Michelle took us all on their regular walking route, I realized right away that the two dogs just weren't getting enough exercise; they needed longer, more structured walks. It was while I was showing Michelle how to walk Chewie and Winnie--with them following her and not pulling, obeying her commands and staying focused on where she wanted to go rather than doing whatever they liked--that I was reminded of a common logical error to which many students fall prey.

The walking route that we used covered blacktop, grass, and bare ground, switching back and forth periodically. After a few minutes, the dog I was walking would start to understand what I wanted, and walk right next to me without pulling on her leash. But the moment the terrain would change--from grass to asphalt, or from asphalt to dirt--Chewie would immediately try to go back to yanking on the leash and running around me in circles, sniffing the ground. I was ready for it, because I've trained so many dogs, but it's always funny to see.

See, to a dog, learning to walk properly on asphalt is totally different than learning to walk correctly on grass. A dog's mind processes the information as "If we're on grass I have to heel; therefore if we're not on grass I can do whatever I like." You have to re-train the dog--over and over and on every different surface, and even on the same surface when the surroundings change--every time you introduce any new element. As time goes on, the dog learns that "sit" means sit in the kitchen, sit in the living room, sit in the yard, sit at the coffee shop; sit whenever you tell her to sit. But at first it's a challenge, because that simple logical fallacy (called the Fallacy of Unexamined Alternatives--"Kitchen, sit; therefore not kitchen, not sit") is very tempting. And it's not just dogs who fall for it; the fallacy is perhaps the most common one that you'll hear and see in real-life arguments.

The good news is that that simple fallacy, and it's contrapositive (the fallacy of Sufficiency vs. Necessity) is tested all the time on standardized tests! Almost all logical reasoning questions--whether on the LSAT, GRE, GMAT, or SAT--will have at least one, and maybe two wrong answers using those flaws. Once you become comfortable with those flaws, and begin to anticipate them, you'll often be able to eliminate half of your wrong answers, and recognize the correct logical construct when you see it.

So strange but true: the same rule that makes you a better lawyer or doctor will also make you a better dog-trainer! Just understand that it's a mistake we're naturally inclined to make, and overcome it with objective logic, not frustration. Just like your dog responds to calm, assertive energy, your mind will thrive if you treat yourself with understanding and reward your own good behavior, rather than beating yourself up when you miss a question.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Douglas先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Formal Logic Perfect!】2010.02.17 (Wed)

ブログランキングに参加しています。
下記の3つをクリックして、応援していただけると嬉しいです。
▼Please help us increase our blog ranking by clicking below!▼

We thank you for your continued support!

Posted By: Douglas R. Williams on April 14, 2010

We have a phrase in English, "when it rains it pours." This means when something bad happens (like rain) a bunch of bad things happen (like it pouring, pouring means raining really heavily). Or like that bad things always happen together at the same time so as to maximize your emotional distress. Anyway, two pretty major traumatic things just recently happened in my family at basically the same time, and also something very personally trying also happened at the same time. So three pretty big things have happened within the past like... 2 or 3 weeks. Three isn't a very big number in and of itself, but when considering the magnitude of each three, it becomes actually quite a large number. Then, you could add the fact that I'm planning a wedding in another country. This is not meant to be me having my own pity party; I just wanted to paint the picture for you.


So needless to say, I've been kind of stressed lately. I think that normally I'm kind of a stressed person anyway actually. I'm not sure if I give that impression, but I do tend to keep things kind of bottled up. So I want to say two things about this time of stress.


First, I've actually been pretty active in trying to release my stress. In my special class on Thursday I've recently talked about both laughing and crying. They were really interesting topics for me. We learned that laughing actually creates chemicals that fight against and reduce stress chemicals, and that crying just pushes them straight out of your body through your tears. So what have I been doing? I've been trying to laugh more by watching a funny TV show I like. I've also recently read about laughter yoga. It's based on the idea that laughter is majorly beneficial to your body and also that your body doesn't know the difference between real laughter and fake laughter. (Fake laughter still produces those good stress fighting chemicals). This morning in particular was a really rough morning for me. So before I came to work I tried this laughter yoga out for the first time. I felt pretty ridiculous, but my head did seem to feel a little better afterward. And then I've also been much less restraintive about crying if the feeling comes. There are studies that show that people who are less open about crying can have a higher risk heart disease, high blood pressure, the occurrence of ulcers, and so on. I guess I should also mention that I've tried talking about these things with others instead of keeping them bottled up as I normally do.


Second, this time of difficulty for my family has actually brought us a lot closer. It's opened up some communication (not that we were particularly bad at communicating before), and I think us trying to be there for each other really reaffirms the love we share. So while this time has sucked pretty bad, it's also been kind of heartwarming.


You're all really seeing the feminine side of me today... all this talk about crying and heartwarming stuff... I'm making myself gag. So yes, why am I talking about these rather personal things?


Well, I guess I just wanted to share these two things I've been learning. Or three things. First, there are natural ways to reduce stress (alcohol not being one of them, alcohol can actually add to stress chemically). Second, being open about stuff is better than not. I've actually read that the reason male suicide rates are so much higher than female rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) is that women are more open about issues which leads to resolution and lower stress, whereas men have difficulty communicating personal things and never find resolution and their stress only increases. Third, family is really important. More important than work or status or money. I actually don't have a lot of money or status, and I've never put my work above practically anything personal, but I don't think it's something Japan understands.


Basically, everyone experiences times of stress, and if my stress fighting methods can be helpful to anyone then they're worth sharing. Especially the parts about being open and family being important, those are not things I've personally seen a lot of in Japan. Though family being important isn't really a stress fighting method... Of course there are many other ways of dealing with stress, like exercising or meditating, I just thought these might be some of the overlooked ones :)

▼▽▼▼【講師】Amberly先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【the things we say.】2010.03.10 (Wed)

 I recently saw a film entitled 'Beautiful Losers' (2008). It was a very inspiring documentary about people, art, and life in general. The film follows a group of artists, many of them friends since childhood. The film opens with an all-purpose space, a party in progress, with one of the artists' interview recordings set as an audio narrative. The artist explains that here was a place where anyone could go. You didn't need to have talent, or be intelligent; you just needed to have a heart.


This sentiment at the beginning really drew me in, because I felt that my friends in university were very much like this. While it seems such a natural way to be (this is how we all thought when we were children,) I think it's becoming rare in the big cities in which more and more people make their home. It seems that most people and cultures discriminate based on caste, sex, race, skin colour (within the same race,) physical attractiveness, intelligence, fashion, or wealth.


This recurring sentiment of having a heart and keeping it real, staying close to one's roots is further explained by another artist who sums up our childhood as a time of great exploration and creativity. As children we're always playing games, making crafts, drawing pictures and colouring. Unfortunately, at some point a lot of people lose that. They give up such hobbies in pursuit of a career and money. The artist recognizes that he never lost that and, while he and others came close to starving for lack of money, they kept it real and discovered themselves - their identity and a style of expression through their art.


The title of the film itself says a lot about the artists' view of the world, of the 'rat race' most of us are caught up in. I don't think any of them consider themselves 'losers', but they chose that word because that's how others viewed them. The 'winners' were those who would go on to get stable jobs and, more often than not, watch their hobbies and dreams die...


This movie inspired me start living again. To do what I really want to do in life, and not worry about the details. The way of survival will come, and I realize I'd rather be poor, doing what I really want to do, than have money to spend, while not spending my time, my life in happiness.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Sandy先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Shades of Gray (The Perfect Mirror)】2010.02.24 (Wed)

水曜日更新担当の講師チーム"Zen and the Art of Aptitude"から
今日は講師・Kurt先生の更新です！
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few weeks ago I was talking about watching the Winter Olympics, and I was reminded of my own limited experience of winter sports. Basically, this amounted to sledding as a kid and skiing as a young adult (shoveling snow doesn't count as a sport).

My first ski resort was on a mountain called Sierra Blanca, in southern New Mexico. This is a unique ski area; the mountain is part of an Apache reservation and stands like a sentinel overlooking the desert known as the Jornada del Muerta ("Journey of Death" in Spanish). The Apaches own and operate the ski area, and cater largely to people from eastern New Mexico and west Texas. The Texans included large numbers of cowboys skiing in their western style hats and gear, and who left trails of little brown spots - chewing tobacco - under the ski lifts.

At any rate, despite the spots, it was a nice place where we always had a good time. All the trees and snow contrasted remarkably with the desert, and we could easily make the trip in one day. I could see the mountain clearly from White Sands Missile Range, so every winter day I looked forward to getting up there on the weekend. One of these days I'll have to go back to New Mexico and show the wife and kids around. I'll have a lot of stories to tell them!


▼▽▼▼【講師】Kurt先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Winter Olympics 】2010.03.03 (Wed)