Week 5: Say NO to CHILD ABUSE!

“Don’t ever tell. It will be our secret.”

“No one would believe you.”

“If you tell your parents will hate you. They’ll know it was your fault.”

“Don’t you want to be my special friend anymore?”

“You do want me to go to jail, do you?”

“I’ll kill your parents if you tell.”

“I’ll buy/give you what you want.”

NOTE:Do not be deceived! The lines above are the common tactics of child molesters. Innocence of a child makes them easily believe those kinds of people.

A CRIME AT HOME. This child abuse issue usually starts at home. As a parent, we do have to take care of our children by giving them your own time, you prevent your child from being a victim.

          A parent who lacks time and attention to their children opens the door for abusers. Why? Because those people would only seek easy targets. If we are not aware of our child’s activities, we are letting them fall in the cliff.

The fact: God sees them. (Job 34:22)

The best gift. The best thing that we could ever give to our child is to make their young years to be healthy and enjoyable. To prevent an emotional scar tendency into our child, we should educate them about sex, even at the very early age.

          Me as a mom, I taught my baby James that he shouldn’t be kissed in his lips by everyone. We taught him that some of his body parts are private and sensitive. I told him to firmly say “NO!” to someone who want to take an advantage of him. He’s just three years old but he does know how to defend himself in a way he can. Don’t underestimate children’s capacity, that there are things in the world that they don’t have to know. Being equipped with the right knowledge will give bigger benefits to our children. An open communication is a must, we must let our child to be more open to us, and don’t ever hesitate to tackle them this issue, by doing so we prevent this kind of chaos.

Break the cycle. As a student we do have a great responsibility regarding this issue. We do all have a loved one whom we wanted to protect from being abuse. So if we know someone who is being abuse we can report it from the authorities. It must be stopped. Save them before its too late.

Week 4: A crime in disguise

Piracy, literary theft, illegal borrowing, stealing and copyright infringement, whatever you want to call it, still plagiarism is plagiarism. ‘Plagiarizer’ or ‘plagiarist’ are the term used to define a person who copied someone else’s work (intellectual property) and claimed it as his own by the fact that he didn’t give any appropriate acknowledgement or citation to the original owner. This kind of act can be considered now as an unstoppable malady of lazy students.

http://www.scribendi.com/images/cms/2009-10/Plagiarism_And_Its_Repercussions_photo_FINALIZED.jpg

Stealing is a crime. Plagiarism is a form of stealing. Secretly taking something you don’t own is an act of stealing. This does not limit itself to concrete objects only but to abstract forms as well as concepts and ideas. 

EPHESIANS 4:28 “Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him do hard work, doing with his hands what is good work, that he may have something to distribute to someone in need.” -NWT

This Bible verse in Ephesians 4:28 encourage us to plagiarize no more. God hates stealing including plagiarism. We don’t want God to hate us, right? We do want to live up with a clean conscience; if we plagiarize we don’t deceive people but ourselves.

STUDENTS AND PLAGIARISM:

One of the widely used types of plagiarism is the ‘copy and paste’, wherein a student copies a work without even changing anything. Others are word switch plagiarism, style plagiarism, metaphor plagiarism, idea plagiarism and self-plagiarism.

As the school/university gets aware, they impose school policies to prevent the students to plagiarize. Last week, lyceum held a seminar for plagiarism awareness, and is planning to do more activities with the scope of this issue.

A responsible Lycean. Lyceum of the Philippines University-Laguna is a school of home and values. The institution creates students who are not only academically excelling but are also globally competitive professionals with wholesome attitudes and values. (Inspired by LPU-L’s mission and vision)

WHAT STUDENTS MUST KNOW?

Borrow and quote. Citation is a must! It is not an issue if you will include someone’s work except if you will not give credits to the owner of that work. To borrow and to quote is really simple and easy and what we must remember is that they always go together. Giving credits to yourself of what is imitated won’t bring any happiness to you; for sure you will carry it inside of you (if you are not sued for plagiarism and if nobody knows you did it).

Isn’t it really good to read, hear and see your original work? No doubt, this scenario is the priceless fruit ever of a hard work, and also the original creator will be overwhelmed if you will cite his work and will give the right appropriation for him.

Trust your thoughts. Everybody wants to be heard and so am I. Don’t fear being original, it won’t make you less a person but the opposite. All of our opinions and views are important unlike before, hello! We’re in a free country let’s exercise our freedom and be heard!

Sources:

Synonyms of plagiarism: http://thesaurus.com/browse/plagiarism

Types of plagiarism: http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/types-of-plagiarism-10739.html

Bible verses: http://watchtower.org/e/bible/index.htm

Mission and vision of the Lyceum of the Philippines University-Laguna:          
http://www.lpl.edu.ph/visionmission.php#focus

Week 3: Long weekend syndrome

Short-term memory. For every long weekend, there would always be a long task to do. And this is what students usually forget during their out-of-school days. The common scenario would always be ‘the student is cramming at the very last minute.’

          At one point, we all need an escape for all the stresses that we face. Yes, it is not an issue how you will enjoy your time for leisure and recreation but still if you are responsible enough, the wisest thing to do is finish first the things that would affect your future.   

Movie fever. In ordinary school days, students don’t have much time to watch movies (including me!). We, students love movie marathon whenever we have free time. Some also prefers to watch series, but regardless of what a student would want to watch one thing for sure is that there will be a whole bunch of snacks. (Traditionally it’s a must have. Hmmm.. I smell corns popping).

The Biggest gainer. . As of my experiences, whenever I’m at home I always end up eating something. Nothing beats ‘lutong bahay’ of our very own ‘nanays’, right? (For me this is an unchanging reality). Honestly, I don’t enjoy eating in fast food chains because my moms’ dishes are way greater in taste than of those expensive meals. That’s why we always end up gaining a pound or maybe more. But since I’m conscious now with what I eat, love handles are not welcome in my tummy anymore. J

Bed ridden. During the long weekend students don’t mind staying up late and waking up late. The result? We stay in bed more often as is if they have built-in magnets. Actually this issue is not a big deal for me but we must know (the students) that we also have responsibilities as a part of a family. Doing simple things like the household chores will benefit us a lot because the more responsibilities a person have, the more mature he will become. In other words, hard work is a sign of maturity.

                     Out-of-school days are mostly defined as the students’ lazy days. Of course, we do want to have a good image and prove them wrong. In reality, this treats are given to challenge us in a way. What challenge could it be? It is about how a teenager would make the best decisions out of these days.  

Did You Know???

The jar of life

“If we don’t put all the larger stones in the jar first (next is the sand), we will never be able to fit all of them later."

In other words – make room for what is most important first, those are your stones. Other things can then be fitted around the stones.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DQIvaO_5WM0J:bengtwendel.com/the-jar-of-life-stones-pebbles-and-sand/+pebbles+and+sand+time+management&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph