Creating Play Atmosphere and Time for Children in Chinese Kindergarten: Difficulties and Reflection

Schools’ busy situation is far away from its Greek root “Scholé” that means leisure time compared with political duty and war at that era which is also similar in ancient China. From the leisure point of view, school should be relax and free for young children in kindergarten. This means that play should take the most time on the schedule. Unfortunately, Political class skillfully disseminating serious competition among nations to deliver anxiety on young generations’ education to the public,which makes parents and school system highly valued formal learning much more than play. Chinese kindergarten may be have the longest formal learning time due to its history emphasis on learning from the model. Endure hardship as the basic habit from the younger children for the nature of life is full of hardship in Chinese philosophy. These underpinned ideas encounter great challenges from the Western early childhood education which puts more emphasis on play. Play is conceived as children’s life itself, in which integrated learning can happen and is much more suitable and abundant for young children than formal learning. Although Chinese Educational Ministry promulgated kindergarten work regulation and educational guideline to make play as the basic activity in 1996 and 2001,there are still lots of factors that impede kindergartens implement play in practice. Lack of free time in kindergarten both on schedule and in fact is the obvious sign. This paper wants to reflect those factors in cultural perspective and try to use variety meanings of time especially subjective time to analysis the practice on reconstructing kindergartens’ play atmosphere and time, and the findings on creating different inter-subjective time for young children.     

The placebo and the therapeutic uses of faith

The holistic movement in modern medicine has raised questions concerning the very character of the religion-medicine dialogue. A truly mutual interaction between theology and medicine must require of the theologian a serious interest in and understanding of medicine if the notion of the body-mind unity is to be taken seriously from the point of view of pastoral care. This paper suggests that this discussion may be enriched by a theological analysis of the placebo, which has lately been the subject of controversy within medical circles. Finally, it is suggested that the value of the placebo reposes in its serving as a symbol of the dynamics of faith in medical care.     

Ingroup and outgroup inferences: when ingroup bias overwhelms outcome bias

Two experiments investigated conditions under which participants drew outcome-biased inferences about ingroups and outgroups. Participants read about ingroup and outgroup targets whose success or failure was influenced by an arbitrary decision rule. In Experiment 1, ingroup and outgroup members experienced two inconsistent outcomes (first success and then failure, or vice versa) despite almost identical performances. After reading about the first performance participants made outcome-biased inferences, but when the role of the decision rule became obvious inferences became group-serving. That is, outcomes continued to influence inferences when they cast the ingroup in a positive light (as when initial failure was followed by success) but failed to affect inferences when they were detrimental to the ingroup (as when initial success was qualified by later failure). In contrast, inferences about outgroups were outcome-biased when failure followed success, but not when success followed failure. The results of Experiment 2 showed that outcome biases influenced inferences when decision rules produced outcomes that promoted the ingroup but not when they produced outcomes that hurt the ingroup. No such benefit occurred for outgroups. The results confirm the impact of motivational concerns such as ingroup bias on the occurrence of outcome biases in inferences. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Specific Role of cGMP in Hippocampal LTP

Previous results have suggested that cGMP is involved in hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), perhaps as the presynaptic effector of a retrograde messenger. However, other studies have failed to replicate some of those results, making the role of cGMP uncertain. We therefore reexamined this question and identified several variables that can affect the contribution of cGMP. First, brief perfusion with 8-Br–cGMP before weak tetanic stimulation produced long-lasting potentiation in the CA1 region of hippocampal slices, but more prolonged perfusion with 8-Br–cGMP before the tetanus did not produce long-lasting potentiation. Second, the activity-dependent long-lasting potentiation by cGMP analogs was reduced when NMDA receptors were completely blocked, indicating that NMDA receptor activation contributes to, but is not required for, the potentiation. The amount of reduction of the potentiation differed with different protocols, and in some cases could be complete. Third, LTP produced by strong tetanic stimulation in the stratum radiatum of CA1 (which expresses eNOS) was blocked by inhibitors of soluble guanylyl cyclase or cGMP-dependent protein kinase, but LTP in the stratum oriens (which does not express eNOS) was not. The results of these experiments should help to explain some of the discrepant findings from previous studies, and, in addition, may provide insights into the mechanisms and functional role of the cGMP-dependent component of LTP.     

出声阅读和默读之间的差异

阅读有两种基本模式：默读和出声阅读。文章从三个方面总结了两种阅读模式差异的研究成果：(1)不同阅读模式下阅读的行为差异; (2)不同阅读模式下阅读的认知机制差异; (3)不同阅读模式下阅读的脑机制差异。在此基础上, 文章提出了未来研究需要解决的问题：(1)出声阅读向默读转变的具体阶段; (2)两种阅读模式发展过程中眼动行为的差异; (3)语音和背景音乐对两种阅读模式下阅读的影响; (4)两种阅读模式下儿童的脑机制差异等。     

Remembering: A tribute to Liston Mills

Thank you, Liston, for who you are and for what you have given so many for so long.     

Family therapy and communion

There has been a shift of healing authority in our culture from priestly practitioners to scientific and medical practitioners. As part of this change the care and healing of stressed or broken families is now seen as the responsibility of the family therapist. A consequence of this has been some role confusion on the part of the clergy and therapists. A comparison of the symbolic complex of belief and value systems used in MacGregor's team-family method of family therapy and Joseph Haroutunian's theology of the church shows four striking similarities. The implications of these similarities for the continued confusion or clarity of the roles of priest and therapist are noted.Rev. Fitchett is Chaplain-Supervisor and Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Health, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1753 West Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612.