International Education News

CLE: Continuing Legal Education For Paralegals

You may have heard of CLE, but are not sure of what it is or why it is important.  It is not difficult to find the answers to everything you need to know on this subject.  For a paralegal and, for that matter, anyone in the legal profession. Continuing Legal Education is indeed important!  Whether or not you are actually required to earn CLE credit on a regular basis due to such factors as it being a requirement for the job that you hold, mandatory where you reside, or based on a term of your certification, Continuing Legal Education should be considered essential for every paralegal, even when it is not required.

The main purpose of Continuing Legal Education is not so much to gain more education in general, but to keep your knowledge and information updated on a regular basis.  In turn, the main reason for this is for the paralegal to always be as current as possible regarding all of the important aspects of the legal field.  As most people who have any part in the legal field are well aware, there are frequent changes in many aspects of the field, and it is essential to stay current in order to do one’s job effectively.

There are a number of ways in which you can earn your CLE credits.  If you wish, you can take classes at a college or university in your location.  Most good schools offer these classes.  However, if your job or other everyday responsibilities make time a factor for you, you can easily earn your CLE credits even within your time limitations.  Many paralegal associations and groups that you can easily find online offer you the option of taking the classes or seminars.  When you elect to earn your credits through this online method, you will find that it is not difficult at all to fit it into your busy schedule.

In addition to providing you with the most up-to-date relevant information, CLE will also give you the opportunity to brush up on your basic knowledge and skills.  Especially in the instance of skills which you do not use on a consistent basis, this is a good way of ensuring that you do not fall behind in things that you need to know how to do.  For example, even if you do not use a specific office program on a regular basis, it is important to keep your skills polished for when you will need to use it.

Whether earning CLE credit is required for you to continue in your job or not, everything that you will learn from these classes or seminars make Continuing Legal Education a very relevant part of a paralegal’s work life.

Both in terms of keeping your basic skills in ready shape and being current with the frequent changes in the legal field, Continuing Legal Education is well worth the time and effort that you will put into it.  It is by far the best way for a practicing paralegal to be the most effective at his or her job.

The fastest growing diagnosis within the disability of Pervasive Developmental Disorders is Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder are from all socioeconomic groups, as well as cultural, racial, and ethnic populations. More students with Autism Spectrum Disorder will be found in every community and neighborhood due to the increased identification of the disorder. Estimated annual cost of educating and caring for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder is to be around 90 billion dollars according to the Autism Society of America. Early diagnosis and intervention is a key factor in reducing treatment costs by two-thirds.

There are five related developmental disorders placed under the umbrella category of Pervasive Developmental Disorders. They include:

1.Autism Spectrum Disorder
2.Asperger’s Syndrome
3.Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
4.Rett’s
5.Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified

Specific Aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorder

•Autism Spectrum Disorder affects the neurodevelopment system. The results are distinct learning and behavior characteristics
•Autism Spectrum Disorder has an underlying biological/genetic cause that produces organic and/or physical changes during brain development. This results in atypical cognitive and social development and behaviors
•Autism Spectrum Disorder affects individuals uniquely
•Autism Spectrum Disorder does not result from poor parenting
•Autism Spectrum Disorder affects the individual’s ability to integrate sensory information and regulate their emotions

There are five deficit areas to consider as diagnostic criteria for identifying individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder, they are:

1.Communication
2.Socialization/Social skills
3.Restricted interests
4.Sensory integration
5.Behavior

Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder exhibit varying degrees of difficulties in these five areas.

Recent research shows students with Autism Spectrum Disorder exhibit the same early symptoms that include:

•Lack of eye contact
•Lack of joint attention (attention to the same item or topic as another person)
•Atypical sensory/motor processing

Goals and Objectives for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The general education teacher must ensure that students with Autism Spectrum Disorder have goals and objectives designed to promote the development of independent living, academic skills, and appropriate social behaviors and skills.

It is essential that these goals be introduced early and addressed annually in the individualized education program. If these goals are not addressed until the child reaches secondary school, there is a higher potential for many students with Autism Spectrum Disorder leaving school not able to live independently, succeed academically or be gainfully employed.

In order to help provide a smooth transition to a post-high school setting, the responsibilities of the IEP (individualized education program) team may include:

•Developing goals and short-term objectives that promote self-monitoring and independent living skills

Secondary individualized education program teams have the responsibility to identify the long-term supports these students will require for academic, economic and social independence. They must ensure students with Autism Spectrum Disorder have long-term goals that specify the need for explicit instruction in the essential social skills necessary for all post-secondary academic, social, and/or vocational settings. Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder must be given multiple opportunities in a variety of social, academic, and vocational contexts to practice these skills.

Of highest priority is ensuring that students with Autism Spectrum Disorder acquire the essential social and daily living skills they need for a responsible integration into the community.

Transition Goals and Objectives of the Individualized Education Program team may include:

•Providing students with Autism Spectrum Disorder vocational and career exploration
•Experiences to assist them with learning which careers or college majors can accommodate their uneven academic and/or social development while at the same time utilizing their unique abilities and interests
•Opportunities to acquire vocational and/or work-related behaviors and skills required for successful employment and/or educational settings

Source: The Autism Society of America

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Distance Learning Education Online Needs a Dictator

Education Online: I know that it is politically incorrect to suggest that you should work to pass your exams because it discriminates against lazy layabouts. But…

Conventional Education for the Lazy
If you are at a politically incorrect school the teachers will be the dictators. They’ll lay down the rules about what homework you must do and when it must be presented. They’ll keep an eye out for any learning difficulties that you have and try to help you.

You will be spoon-fed. If you are very clever you will sit in the classroom and learn without any effort, just because there is nothing else to do so you might as well listen to the teacher. The teachers won’t let you wander away to do something more interesting. They are dictators!

My son couldn’t understand why his school reports always said “could do better” when he was top of the class. He never did any work, so his success was really the success of his dictatorial teachers.

My Distance Learning Home Schooling
My father set aside a room in the house for our distance learning. There was all I needed there for study and no distractions. I had to sit in that room till the job was done.

Boredom is many times worse for me than work, even though I am very lazy, so I read all the textbooks from cover to cover and invented a good way to memorise vocabulary that allowed me to learn languages with very little effort. I was an ideal candidate for home schooling and distance learning.

That was my whole aim in life – to do as little work as possible with as little boredom as possible. Because my father was a dictator I got into the way of doing everything as soon as possible, so that my father would let me have time to myself when I had finished.

In other words I became my own dictator forbidding myself to procrastinate. Without a dictator your home schooling, distance learning, education online – call it what you will, will fail because you never get around to it.

Education Online Needs Dictators
Someone is going to have to be a dictator. If you are a parent with children homeschooling online you will have to be the dictator. If you are a student using distance learning guess what…there isn’t anybody else to be the dictator so you’ll have to be your own strict disciplinarian.

You’ll have to rule yourself with a rod of iron.

Keep Yourself Motivated for Education Online
Fine – if you don’t have a dictator what is to prevent you failing to put in your projects on time? Nothing. So find the fun in the work. There is always enough fun in any job for some misguided individuals to do it as a hobby.

There is a forum associated with most online education. Become the “answers person”. Whenever another student has a problem you answer the question before the lecturer gets round to it.

Oh yes, it does mean that you’re going to have to work hard to get the answer before anybody else does, but remember that the others will probably be procrastinating, and the teachers will have finished their 9 to 5 day and won’t reply till tomorrow, so you won’t have much competition. I revel in the thanks that come my way when I help another student’s education online.

Some studies will still need you to be your own dictator. I used to do one hour a day practicing the harmonium and one hour each day practicing the violin.

I was fortunate because my Father was a dictator. If I hadn’t done my practice towards the end of the day he would interrupt whatever I was doing and order me off to do my practice. This politically incorrect procedure made me determined not to be caught out again. So I completed my practice before I started doing what I really wanted to do. Later on I had got so much into the habit of doing my practice as early as possible that I could be my own dictator.

What if there isn’t a dictator?
Then don’t consider education online. You will fail if you keep putting off your study. You need a dictator to keep you going even if you are your own dictator. There must be no compromise or distractions.

My boss once congratulated me because I was continuing to write a computer program while the partitions in the office were being torn down and new wiring and equipment installed. The noise was horrendous and people had to keep going round me and my computer. My experience with distance education had taught me to keep at the job ignoring all distractions. You’ll have to do the same to benefit from education online.

The Sweetener to Education Online
If you are your own dictator you can do the projects with the related study in a fraction of the time that a conventional course would take. So you can enjoy yourself for the rest of the time, or if you are a real glutton for punishment, you can take two distance learning courses at once and get twice the satisfaction when you succeed.

Someone invented a tape recorder that would record a lecturer speaking at 50 words per minute and play it back at 500 words per minute without sounding high and squeaky. They found that our brains can handle the 500 words per minute better because our thoughts don’t wander off after distractions. So if you can read at 500 words per minute perhaps you can do ten home schooling courses at once?! I feel tired just thinking about it.

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With the daily challenges posed by economic difficulty and other threats, governments in developing countries are working very hard to ensure that their educational institutions continue to provide a standard of education that can make its citizens at part with the educated people in more economically sound countries. To a certain extent, these Third World countries have succeeded in their crusade for quality education. The problem is that a good education comes with a price and it is often a price that many people in Third World countries are not able to pay. So, although quality education is available, it is still unreachable for a large segment of a developing country’s population.

Certainly, it is impressive to see that developing countries have educational institutions that are world-class and which offer education that can rival that provided by wealthier nations around the world. There is a clear recognition of the role that education plays in overcoming hardship and poverty. However elusive it may be, a good education is still viewed as the best way to a better life.

Among the developing countries that have superb educational systems are such “emerging markets” as Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, much of South America and several of the Persian Gulf Arab States.

Obviously, the poorest of the poor in these countries will have a hard time getting into the best schools in their vicinity. Of course, there are always scholarship programs available but these are few. Besides, people at the lowest spectrum of the economic scale are more concerned with more pressing issues related to their mere survival such as where to find food and money for clothing and shelter. After these basic needs are met, that is the only time that parents can really focus on their children’s schooling. In fact, studies indicate that once their basic economic needs are met, the first priority of most poor families is how to send their children to a good school.

India recently launched EDUSAT, an educational program aimed at giving quality education to even its poorest citizens. Among the group’s first initiatives is the development of a $100 laptop which the government hopes to distribute by 2007 to public schools all over the country.