TED Community » Maria Alexandra Radu

More About Me

I'm passionate about

art, animals and multicultural environments, also about ways to improve oneself.

An idea worth spreading

Never give up on your ideas that you are truly passionate about, sooner or later an opportunity will arise and will allow you to follow through with your dreams. You just need to work hard and keep trying, that is what I did and I now can say that hard work, perseverance and creativity will always get you where you want to.

Talk to me about

management, interesting projects concerning education, poverty and leadership, competitions and practice stages or international experiences.

People don't know that I'm good at

painting and drawing because I only do it as a hobby and for my personal pleasure.

Comments

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• A reply on Conversation: How do we get students to adopt specific classroom procedures without the use of negative consequences (punishment) or rewards?

  Aug 3 2012: Well from my point of view this would be great, although by the end of the term I think it would be a bit too big to carry around, but as the students do not have the option to organize the materials differently I think you could let them personalize their binders or make them think it's their idea. Why not begin with a session of brainstorming with them and try to lead them on the right way to understand how it is better to organize their materials and they themselves come up with your solution. Of course, it won't be exactly like you describe it but what matters is that they will accept the idea as one of their own and embrace it.
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  A comment on Conversation: How do we get students to adopt specific classroom procedures without the use of negative consequences (punishment) or rewards?

  Aug 1 2012: As a student, I like to be organized but that's just in my nature because i discovered some years ago that if you stay organized you do half the work in half the time. They need to realize this as well and why not make time to explain the alternative systems to yours and if indeed yours is better than they will undoubtedly embrace it. As well, are you sure that the system you use is appealing to them? As middle school students are still children and can be easily motivated to adopt a certain system, you cannot expect the same response as from high school or university students. Also, maybe think of a system to run along the organizational one so they understand how your way of doing things makes it easier for them to learn. Or better yet, get past students of yours that used your system to come and talk to them and explained how it made it easier for them, and how your current students should approach the learning process.
  
  It would really help if you gave more details about the system as I don't know if I should think about a set of rules for learning or weekly assessments of their work or how they organize their homework and lessons.
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  A comment on Conversation: The importance of anger.

  Jun 27 2012: I think that constructive anger is not much of a feeling of fury but of a feeling that you want to change so you can overcome the thing that makes you hateful in the first place. That constructive anger helps us change ourselves and progress because we want to replace that feeling with a positive one, such as being proud of our achievement. I don't think that people like being angry or want to be, it just happens when we are surrounded of so much sadness, injustice and inequality, that is why they use this anger to drive their feelings into doing something constructive and changing the status quo.
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  A reply on Conversation: How do you think we can motivate young people to perceived and purposeful studying?

  Jun 27 2012: Me? I am Romanian, but Li Jinlei I think is Chinese judging by her name.
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  A reply on Conversation: How do you think we can motivate young people to perceived and purposeful studying?

  Jun 27 2012: I know, this is the same problem in my country, since communism collapsed the number of students that could access higher education increased a lot, for example, in the past there were 100 places to study engineering in the whole country, whereas today there are like 10000 and this means the quality of education drops the number of graduates increases and the jobs remain the same. Also, I don't find it bad to work a job that you are over skilled for, after all you need to survive and if you are good at what you do you will have the chance to work your way up. I think that even agriculture is a good area to invest in and work in but you need money to start your own business so it is a little hard to do as a graduate, however, students nowadays find it shameful and want to have glamorous jobs in big cities which is regrettable.
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  A comment on Conversation: How do you think we can motivate young people to perceived and purposeful studying?

  Jun 24 2012: I think that the main problem nowadays is that children don't see education as something that really helps them in life and just see it as something that they have to do. Some decades ago, not all countries could or would offer their students the possibility of going to university, and those that did had to study hard but also were rewarded with a well-paid job and a respected position in society.
  I think this is the main issue that need to be resolved, children have to understand that education is what can make you overcome your condition, of course if you want to overcome it which is again something that needs shifting in their mentality. I often see my friends that have no concern regarding their future, they just live for the moment and usually wake up to the real life too late to actually choose a right path, ending up disappointed with their lives and wishing they studied more or took the right decisions at the right time.
  I think education should only be mandatory to those who want to study and want to improve their and other's lives, because all the funding that goes into supporting free education will be redirected to other areas and we will only support the people that want and deserve it. Free education, and by free I mean with unrestricted access not just referring to finances, is also good and bad, but I think that university studies should only be accessible to those that have a genuine interest and not to students that just go into higher education to get a piece of paper called diploma. Moreover, colleges and secondary schools should have technical and labour related profiles so that skilled workers in areas that are needed can come into work right after finishing them, to practice the skills they have acquired and not go into further education so all the nations become a population of educated unemployed people because the jobs are not destined for highly skilled individuals.