good afternoon,please have a seat
yes,please
thank you
with pleasure
sit down,please
I am writing to you to express our appreciation for your warm hospitality and efforts in arranging the seminar programme for our group of executives from Thailand. The programme was very well designed and was structured exactly as we had hoped. The sessions with you, I would say, were the highlight of the programme. While the introduction helped us greatly to comprehend the structure and framework of the Australian public service and its reform, your executive session was invaluable in clarifying the issues and areas that had been a bit unclear during the week of discussions and observations.
It was extremely valuable for us to have had this opportunity to observe the practice of Australian public service reform, to exchange ideas about our work, and to discuss our problems. This programme has given me new insights into our own situation and approaches to improve our procedures.
I hope that we will be able to keep in contact, and that perhaps we can reciprocate your hospitality in Thailand in the near future.
Thanks for study visit arrangement
Thanks for participating in the seminar
Acknowledgement of the benefits of the study visit
Appreciation for Australian public service management
Yours sincerely,
Structured learning certainly has its place. But if it replaces unmediated engagement with the world, it has a negative effect on a child’s education. Children learn the fragility of flowers by touching their petals. They learn to cooperate by organizing their own games. The computer cannot simulate the physical and emotional nuances of resolving a dispute during kickball, or the creativity of inventing new rhymes to the rhythm of jumping rope. These full-bodied, often deeply heartfelt experiences educate not just the intellect but also the soul of the child. When children are free to practice on their own, they can test their inner perceptions against the world around them, develop the qualities of care, self-discipline, courage, compassion, generosity, and tolerance – and gradually figure out how to be part of both social and biological communities.
It’s true that engaging with others on the playground can be a harrowing experience, too. Children often need to be monitored and, at times, disciplined for acts of cruelty, carelessness, selfishness, even violence. Computers do provide an attractively reliable alternative to the dangers of unsupervised play. But schools too often use computers or other highly structured activities to prevent these problematic qualities of childhood from surfacing – out of fear or a compulsion to force-feed academics. This effectively denies children the practice and feedback they need to develop the skills and dispositions of a mature person. If children do not test the waters of unsupervised social activity, they likely will never be able to swim in the sea of civic responsibility. If they have no opportunities to dig in the soil, discover the spiders, bugs, birds, and plants that populate even the smallest unpaved playgrounds, they will be less likely to explore, appreciate, and protect nature as adults.