Improve Your Communication Skills
Gentry or Servant? Which Would You Choose To Be? – Written By You
You will all know what a ‘servant’ is, I am sure  – Perhaps your Mum says that sometimes when you ask her to do too much for you ‘Do you think I am your servant?’ 🙂
Do you know we mean when we say ‘the gentry’? According to this websiteÂ
The gentry were the people who were knights, squires, gentlemen and gentlewoman whose fortunes were great that they did not have to work with their hands for a living. Their numbers grew rapidly and became the most important class during Elizabethan time. They could start as a knight and through generations and marriages, they could gradually build a wealth and title. Most of the important people of this time came from this class.
Back in Tudor times (between 1485 and 1603), a person couldn’t choose to be born into the gentry. Today groups of people all over the world get together to reenact various periods of history, including the Tudor period.
Alison has been on both sides of the gentry/servant divide and tells us all about reenactments, making your own clothes and living like a Tudor girl, at least for a weekend.Â
What is Separation of Powers?
Have you ever heard this term and wondered what is the separation of powers exactly, and why is it so important? If so, then read on because we are going to explain it!
Brandon Mowinkel / Unsplash
Separation of powers isn’t a new idea – in fact, even the Ancient Greeks had a version of this political system, as did the Romans. There are variations in place across the world.
Each country has a slightly different setup, so we’ll use the United States to explain the concept.
What is the Separation of Powers?
The idea behind it is to have a system in place that prevents one person or group from having all the power over an entire country. If you think back to the days when countries were ruled by a king or queen, who made decisions that affected the lives of everyone who lived in their kingdom – sometimes that went well, but often it didn’t. Instead of one person having all the power, a democracy splits the power between different people or groups of people.
When you think of the person who runs the country, you probably think of the President. The President represents the EXECUTIVE branch of the government.
In the USA, that means that the President executes the instructions of Congress, signs Executive Orders, selects judges to be approved by Congress, and is in charge of the armed forces (the navy, army and airforce).
By the way – don’t get confused by the word ‘execute’, which can mean ‘to put to death, to murder’ but can also mean ‘to carry out, to accomplish’. The President carries out the instructions from Congress, he doesn’t kill them all!
A World at School – Education for Everyone
We are lucky in the western world. We are entitled to a free education until the age of 18. You might not always feel like going to school, but you are able to learn about loads of different topics, which will help you find a job when you are older. Not only that, but school can be great fun too – we bet you have a favourite subject, that you love to learn about.
A lot of children across the world don’t have this opportunity. Sometimes it is because the children are too poor to be able to afford to go to school, and there is no way they can pay for uniform, travel and schoolbooks. Sometimes it is because the government doesn’t provide free education where they live. Sometimes it is simply because they are girls. You might have seen the story of the girls in Nigeria who have been kidnapped, because they wanted to go to school – we are all hoping very much that they are soon home with their families. Now more than ever, it is vital to ensure children can go to school safely.
Picture Perfect – How to Take Great Photos
Instagram, flickr, tumblr, facebook, twitter. You can’t help but feel bombarded with different photo uploading websites.
We’re being showered with photos: fancy food delicately arranged on a plate; inanely grinning friends tagged in a variety of locations; sunsets from all over the world.
What makes a photo a good photo? Â This guide will help turn your everyday snaps into something a bit more special.
Good Relationships – Healthy Relationships – Tips for Kids
Relationships are hard at any age. Remember that we don’t just talk about relationships when we mean a boyfriend or a girlfriend – it’s about how you get on with your parents, your friends and other people important to you.
There are certain basic ideas that are important to developing good relationships; you master these and life suddenly becomes a lot less stressful! Alice Hoyle has some ideas that may help you have better relationships with the people in your life.
Communication
Image by Robert Collins on Unsplash
Communication is the most important aspect of any relationship. Sharing things with people in your life is important. We do this mostly by speaking and listening. It is important to share how you feel about things and to listen and try to understand how others feel about things (this is called empathy).
How good are you at both talking AND listening? If you favour doing only one of them in a relationship then this isn’t as balanced as it could be- you probably need to work on doing both and so should the other person.
Also sometimes people might say something but their body language (how someone uses their body or their facial expression) maybe saying something different. Take some time to consider what is your body language saying when you talk? What is their body language saying? Do you make eye contact when you talk?
A key to successful communication is to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements- eg. “I feel sad when you call me silly” is better than “You calling me silly makes me sad” because the second one can put the person on the defensive straight away and the conversation can go badly after that.