Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated is an american sports magazine owned by media conglomerated time warner. this was the brain child of TIME patriarch and sports lover Henry Luce  and was launched in august 16, 1954. After suffering losses for more than a decade, the magazine's fortune turned once Andre Laguerre (chief of life-time bureaus in Paris and London) became it's managing director.
Laguerre's singular coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. it followed by innovations which more than doubled the circulation. Laguerre's innovations included the liberal use of color photos,scouting reports, in depth reporting from writers like Robert Creamer, Tax Maule and Dan Jenkins, regular illustrations featured by artists like Robert Riger, high school football player of the month awards, inserts of sports cards in the center of the magazine and the concept of long story at the end of every issue.
Special marks were made by the photographers Rich Clarkson, Mark Kauffman, Neil Leifer, Walter Looss, Hy Peskin, with the innovations like putting cameras in the goal at a hockey game and behind a glass blackboard at a basketball game.
The magazine's ornateness was further enhanced by the stories of Frank Deford, Pete Rozelle, Woody Hayes, Bear Bryant and Howard Cosell.
The regular segments include:
"Who is got and who is not",a feature on a tear and who is in a slump.
"Inside the NFL, MLB, NBA, college football, college basketball, NASCAR, golf,boxing, horse racing,soccer and tennis"
"Faces in the crowd" honors talented amateur athletes.
"Back page column" highlights the writers and the contributors.
Since its inception, sports illustrated has annually presented the sportsman of the year award to an athlete or a team. Roger Banister won the first sportsman of the year award, and Derek Jeter is the most recent awarded sportsman.
The magazine cover is on the basis of a sports myth known as sports illustrated cover jinx.
Sports Illustrated has launched a number of related publishing ventures,including:
Sports Illustrated kids magazine
Sports Illustrated almanac manuals
SI.com sports news website
Sports Illustrated Australia
Sports Illustrated Canadian edition
Sports Illustrated Presents
Sports Illustrated women magazine
Sports Illustrated on campus magazine
The proliferation of commemorative issues and subscription incentives seemed to some  like an exchange of journalistic integrity for commercial opportunism. Though the most profitable magazine, it became a predictable magazine also, and to some it lacked in sophistication for sometime. Besides in the early issues the subject matter was directed at upper class activities like yachting, polo and safaris, which attracted few.
Yet, having over 23 million readers,and around 3 million subscribers, this weekly magazine was the first one to win the national magazine award for general excellence. The magazine, beyond any doubt remains a predominant sports publication with a consistent weekly circulation which marks an achievement of the level of prominence.

Education - The root of all values

Education is more than just a term which refers to only bookish knowledge taught in schools or colleges. Besides gaining knowledge over different subjects, it is also important for us to know about the different aspects of our life and society, which can be referred to as a kind of education also. An important form of education is value education. It is a term used to name several things and there are much academic controversies surrounding it. It is being widely accepted as the process by which someone transmits values to others, which play an effective role in shaping one's decisions. Value education can take place at home, colleges or any organisations. there are two main approaches to value education. Some say it to be inculcating a set of values which are influenced by societal or religious ethics. Others see it as a type of Socratic dialog where people are gradually brought to their own realization of what is good behavior for themselves and their community.
There are explicit and implicit value education. Explicit value education is associated with those different pedagogies, methods or programs that the educators use in order to create learning experiences for students when it comes to value questions. Implicit value education covers education on aspects of hidden curriculum.
Value education is very much like moral education, where the socio legal religious norms are taught to make people behave responsibly.
Multinational school based value education schemes:
Living Value Education Program- This project of worldwide proportions inspired by the new religious movements called the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University incorporates twelve values (unity, peace, happiness, hope,humility,simplicity, trust,freedom, co-operation,honesty,courage and love).
World Peace Ethics Contest- Based on Buddhist values and supported by Dhammakya Foundation started in1982 in Thailand. Their aim is to bring up the children's ethical development to higher levels.
Character education includes social and emotional learning, life skills education, health education, critical thinking,ethical reasoning,conflict resolution and meditation.
Value education around the world:
Australia- Here the government  funds value education in the schools, with its own publications and fundings of school forums on value education at all levels.
Japan- Promotion of value education was reported in 1988.
Thailand- values are taught with context to Buddhist religious education.
United Kingdom- Here spiritual, moral and cultural development is focussed upon.
The family system in India has a long tradition of imparting value education. But with the progress of modernity and fast changing role of the parents, it is becoming tough for homes to remain a center. Therefore many institutes today conduct various value education programs which throw light upon the rising social problems, thus impart education on the development of the children, young or adults,etc, focusing on areas like happiness, humility, honesty and peace, etc.
Thus, value education is always essential to shape up a person's life and to give him an opportunity of performing himself on the global stage,in an honest,co-operative and peaceful way.

Stages of education system

Education system has come across a long way since it's origin. Present day education is much more structured than the previous eras, when the concept of formal education system was not developed. Education as defined can be the ability to reason, interpret and to put one's potential to a maximum use,thus helping one to make his decisions right and meaningful.
Education in general can be divided into four types:
i) Formal education, which can also be defined as a hierarchically structured and chronologically graded education system. It comprises of primary education, higher education and a full time professional training. It is also referred to as mainstream or traditional system of education.
ii) Adult education, which refers to the system of educating adults. This type of education system follows different forms like, self-directed learning, e-learning, and formal class based learning. These are mainly career based specific courses. Real estate license, medical billing, book keeping, etc are some common courses. Some of these courses are also available online.
iii) Alternative education,which is actually an alternative approach to the mainstream or traditional education. This system is often rooted in several philosophies which are different from formal education.
iv) Special education is applied for the students who require special learning skills and a special way of teaching, which are addressed through special education. This is a system where a child is first identified as one who requires a special way to learn, that is who cannot respond to the formal learning modes. He is then evaluated and on that basis his eligibility is determined and is ultimately subjected to the special type of education. This entire procedure was made with accordance to IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and finally an Individual Education Program was written and the plan had been carried out successfully and effectively.

Formal education can further be divided into four steps.
i) Nursery education or the before school education, it is the basic step of formal learning. It comprises of nursery school and kindergarten. It serves as a first link between home and the beginning of formal education. With the help of interaction and creative playful activities and mainly understanding a child's psychology, he is given education on how to develop basic skills. This serves for children between 3-5 years of age group.
ii) Primary education, also known as elementary education throws light on the first few years of a child after his kindergarten. It includes learning for 6-8 years starting at the age of 5-6 years. The basic age for starting the primary education varies from country to country. Most of the countries have made it compulsory for children to acquire primary education. The main aim of this stage is to pass on to the learners the knowledge in important subjects like mathematics, science, social science, environmental science, etc, apart from imparting basic literacy.
iii) Secondary education is the final stage of school education, which gives the students the transition from an all round primary education to an optional and selective form of studies. Thus the students tend to gather more knowledge and go in to the depths of the special subjects chosen by them.
iv) Higher or tertiary education comprises of undergraduate and postgraduate education along with vocational education. It is not mandatory form of education, but completion of this level opens up innumerable opportunities before the students.
Education, though is not the only mean to determine intelligence of an individual, but it is definitely one of the most important end, the end being success, and it plays an important role in making a person competent and able enough to take decisions and differentiate between his right or wrong.

Education - A social responsibility

Education, in the largest sense, is any act or experience that has a formative effect on mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense education is the process by which the society deliberately transmits its acquired knowledge, skills and values from one generation to the other in order to bring out the potential of an individual.
Literacy: UNESCO defines it as the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create and communicate.
national commission describes it to be acquiring the skills of reading, writing and the ability to apply them to one's day to day lives.
The right to education has been created and recognised by some jurisdictions. Since 1952,Article 2 of the first protocol to the european convention on human rights obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education. the united nations international covenant on economic, social ad cultural rights of 1966 guarantees this right under Article 13.the right of children to free and compulsory education act in 2009, made it compulsory for children of age group 6-14 to go to through primary education. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the operationalisation of this act, for children who had been either dropped out or had never gone to school. as per this act, private educational institutions should reserve 25% seats for the children from the weaker classes of the society. the centre and the states have agreed to share the financial burden in the ratio of 55:45, while the finance commission has given rs.25000 crore to the states for implementing this act. the centre has approved an outlay of  Rs15000 crore for 2010-2011. A sizeable network of rural education had been established by the time gandhigram rural institute was established in india. Women education is given equal importance, as according to the report of thby us department of commerce,the chief reasons to female educatin problem are inadequate school facilities, shortage of female teachers and gender bias. Concerted efforts led to improvement from 15.3% in 1961 to 28.5% in 1981.by 2001,women literacy had exceeded 50% of the overall female population. recently the government has launched saakshar bharat mission for female literacy, which aims to bring down female illiteracy by half of the present level.
Govt. schemes:
National Literacy Mission, formed in 1988, and aims to attain a literacy rate of 75% by 2007. It imparts functional literacy to illiterate in the age group 15-35yrs. Total literacy campaign is the principle strategy for the iradication of illiteracy. continuing educational scheme provides learning continuum to the efforts of the total literacy and post literacy programme.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, was formed in 2001, to ensure all childrenof age group 6-14 attend school and complete 8yrs of schooling within 2010. important component is education guarantee scheme and alternative and innovative education, primarily for children in areas having no formal schools within 1km of radius. it has introduced centrally sponsored district primary education programme in 1994.
Mid-day Meal scheme- Out of the estimated 205 million students from the age group 6-14 by march1, 2002, 82.5% enrolled. the drop out rate in 2002-03 was 34.9%  in primary level and 52.8%in upper primary level.this was introduced in 1995 to attract students to come to school.

Non-Govt efforts:
Asha for education, found by sandeep pandey with its mission to bring about change in socio economic field in india.
Manidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation, founded by Shantha Sinha aims to create a social climate hostile to child labour and  child marriage.

A brief history of Education

The history of education is the history of teaching and learning. Each generation, since the beginning of human evolution and writing, has sought to pass on cultural and social values, traditions, morality, religion and skills to the next generation.The passing on of culture is also known as Enculturation and the learning of social values and behaviours is Socialization. The history of the curricula of such education reflects human history itself, the history of knowledge, beliefs, skills and cultures of humanity.

In pre-literate societies, education was achieved orally and through observation and imitation. The young learned informally from their parents, extended family and grand parents. At later stages of their lives, they received instruction of a more structured and formal nature, imparted by people not necessarily related, in the context of initiation, religion or ritual.

As the customs and knowledge of ancient civilizations became more complex, many skills would have been learned from an experienced person on the job, in animal husbandry, agriculture, fishing, preparation and preservation of food, construction, stone work, metal work, boat building, the making of weapons and defenses, the military skills and many other occupations.

With the development of writing, it became possible for stories, poetry, knowledge, beliefs, and customs to be recorded and passed on more accurately to people out of earshot and to future generations. In many societies, the spread of literacy was slow; orality and illiteracy remained predominant for much of the population for centuries and even millennia. Literacy in preindustrial societies was associated with civil administration, law, long distance trade or commerce, and religion. A formal schooling in literacy was often only available to a small part of the population, either at religious institutions or for the wealthy who could afford to pay for their tutors. The earliest known universities, or places of higher education, started teaching a millennium or more ago.

Universal education of all children in literacy has been a recent development, not occurring in many countries until after 1850 CE. Even today, in some parts of the world, literacy rates are below 60 per cent (for example, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh). Schools, colleges and universities have not been the only methods of formal education and training. Many professions have additional training requirements, and in Europe, from the Middle Ages until recent times, the skills of a trade were not generally learnt in a classroom, but rather by serving an apprenticeship.

Nowadays, formal education consists of systematic instruction, teaching and training by professional teachers. This consists of the application of pedagogy and the development of curricula.

Education - the real need of society

Education like democracy, free markets, freedom of the press, and "universal human rights" is one of those subjects whose virtue is considered self-evident. So is the superiority of the industrially advanced countries in attaining them. Consequently, any package that arrives with one of these magic labels on it, automatically qualifies for the "green channel" at our entry ports. No questions asked. This uncritical acceptance has severely crippled our discussion of all these vital topics. For example in education most of our discussion centers around literacy statistics and the need to have so many graduates, masters, Phd’s, and so many professionals like engineers, doctors, etc. in a given country based on the standards in the industrially advanced countries. The central issue of curriculum, and even more fundamental issue of the purpose of education normally do not attract our attention; they have already been decided by the "advanced’ countries for us and our job is only to follow in their footsteps to achieve their level of progress.