#international Teaching Diploma
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teacherstrainingcourse · 2 years ago
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makemycitybreak · 2 years ago
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I love TOK we're just spending all of class looking at optical illusions
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hagueapostilleservicesblog · 2 months ago
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How to Get Your Degree Apostille with Hague Apostille Services
How to Get Your Degree Apostille: A Simple Guide Planning to teach or work abroad? One common requirement for visas and job applications is to have your degree or diploma apostilled. An apostille certifies your document’s authenticity, ensuring it is recognized internationally. If you’re scratching your head thinking, “What is an apostille?”—don’t worry, we’re here to explain! At Hague…
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gutenbergpr-blog · 8 months ago
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Integrating Teaching and Learning Program at CIS
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teacherstraininguae · 9 months ago
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teachertrainingindia · 11 months ago
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i-successacademy · 1 year ago
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Importance of Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for  Health and Social Care
In today's world, there is a growing demand for strong leadership in healthcare, a need that has become more pronounced than ever. The significance of effective leadership in this field cannot be overstated. As healthcare systems navigate through complex challenges and changes, having leaders who can guide, innovate, and make informed decisions is crucial. Effective leadership ensures that healthcare organizations can provide high-quality and responsive services to meet the diverse needs of individuals and communities. Therefore, recognizing and prioritizing the importance of leadership in healthcare is paramount to building resilient and efficient healthcare systems.
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Embarking on the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Health and Social Care is a strategic move for individuals aspiring to take on managerial roles within the dynamic health and social care sector, specifically in adult-supported living. This course, approved by TQUK, catalyzes the development of the knowledge and skills essential for effective leadership in the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare. The primary goal of this qualification is to empower managers and leaders to navigate and innovate in response to the changing environment within the sector. As the healthcare landscape presents both challenges and opportunities, achieving this diploma equips learners with the capacity to not only meet but also thrive in the face of these dynamics.
For individuals eyeing the role of a Registered Manager for a supported living agency or contemplating the establishment of their own supported living service, undertaking this qualification is imperative. It not only opens doors to managerial opportunities but also ensures compliance with CQC requirements, a crucial element in securing the coveted title of Registered Manager. The course delivery adopts an online format, providing participants with the flexibility to engage with the material at their own pace. A clear and comprehensive workbook accompanies the online modules, acting as a reliable companion in the journey to absorb and apply the necessary knowledge.
Engagement is further enhanced through an online forum where learners can connect with peers and tutors, fostering a collaborative space for sharing ideas and seeking guidance. This interactive element adds a valuable dimension to the learning experience, creating a sense of community among individuals pursuing leadership roles in adult-supported living. To enrich the learning journey, online tutorial sessions are conducted by experts in the field. These sessions offer participants the opportunity to delve deeper into specific topics, seek clarification on complex concepts, and benefit from the practical wisdom shared by seasoned professionals.
In conclusion, the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Health and Social Care is a pivotal step for those aspiring to lead in the dynamic adult-supported living sector. Approved by TQUK, this course empowers leaders to navigate change and innovation. Crucially, it fulfils CQC requirements for aspiring Registered Managers, making it indispensable for those aiming to establish or manage supported living services. With flexible online delivery, comprehensive workbooks, and interactive forums, this qualification ensures a well-rounded and collaborative learning experience, setting the stage for effective healthcare leadership.
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snipersfucker · 2 years ago
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As someone new to transformer fics, I'd love a fic where Mirage and the reader learn what the others name for body parts are (hand/servo, etc.) And obviously Mirage uses it as an opportunity to put the moves on the reader.
yall are so creative with these i legit opened my mouth when i read that...... such a good idea omg lets go (im so deep in that shit i legit remember most robot names for these body parts without having to look em up lmao)
"That's a chassis."
You let out a sigh as Mirage pointed at another part of his metal body. You knew you wouldn't be able to remember all these ridiculously strange names, but still wanted to be a good student, especially because you asked him to teach you.
"Mine's a bit bigger than the ones your little boys have."
And there it was. His constant bragging, showing-off, comments that indicated he was damn aware he was better than humans.
You raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him, not having to look up that much because he was sitting on his... aft. Or something.
"Helm, face plate, optics, pedes, tank..." He kept pointing at random body parts of his, naming them as fast as he could just to get to the most interesting ones he could use to finally rizz you up.
"'m surprised you don't have a diploma for being the best teacher ever, Mirage," you muttered under your breath shamelessly, sarcasm dripping from your tongue as you stood there with your arms crossed on your chest.
He liked the way you said his name, even if it wasn't in a particularly nice tone.
"No speaking unless you're being spoken to, miss," he reprimanded you like a strict teacher would, using his best Optimus Prime voice. Then, before you could talk back, he extended his left arm, putting it right in front of your face. He made a fist but allowed his middle finger to stay up, "What's this called?" he asked you, even though you haven't gone through this particular body part yet.
"Flipping someone off, sir," you answered in an overly eager, sweet tone, as if you were trying to sound like the teacher's pet.
You calling him sir made his spark skip a beat or two.
"Wrong." He lowered his hand and placed it on his metal thigh with a soft clang. He shook his helm in fake disappointment, letting out a long sigh. "It's a digit. And what do we do with digits?" he continued in a teacher's voice, making a specific motion with his servo to encourage you to answer his question, even though he automatically did so in his mind.
We put them inside disobedient girls.
"We flip people off, sir," you responded in a fake innocent, childish tone, straightening your back and smiling widely as if waiting for praise for giving him a good answer. It made you cringe internally but you also thought it was funny so the choice whether to continue talking like that or just leave was easy to make.
He snorted at your words, shaking his head in amusement once more as he brought his servo to your body and flicked your arm gently with his two digits.
"That's what we do with 'em."
"Oh, fuck off." You smacked his servo before he could pull it away from you. Even though you could barely feel the flick of his robot fingers, you still massaged your arm, hoping it'd make him feel at least a little bit bad, and he'd stop bullying you.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" He raised his optical ridge at your words, not being able to fight back a teasing smirk forming on his lips.
You could kiss me with that mouth.
As soon as the thought appeared in his mind, he immediately got rid of it, not letting it distract him.
"Tibulen, cadulen..." he began naming other body parts, and there was no way in hell you'd be able to remember those. "Glossa..." He stuck his metal tongue out, pointing at it lazily with his index digit.
A question popped up in your head, "You got saliva?"
For the first time, you were actually curious about something, expecting an actual, truthful response, but instead you got what Mirage was best at. Sarcasm.
"Oh, yeah, our saliva's made out of corrosive acid actually. Cool stuff." He shrugged nonchalantly as if what he just said was nothing. "Want me to spit on you so you can get the drill?" he asked overly casually, already slightly leaning in your direction.
He was having so much fun...
You grimaced at his question, even though you knew he was most likely joking. Most likely.
"Pass," you murmured under your breath.
"...But there are other ways you could... feel it."
His time to shine has come which he was very much aware of.
His unnecessarily mysterious tone made you snort quietly, an eyebrow involuntarily raised as you asked him with amusement dancing on your tongue, "Care to share?"
He tilted his head with a very, very sly smirk on his lips, which partly gave you an answer to your question. The realisation almost made your face drop but you contained yourself, and just rolled your eyes at his silent offer, pretending not to notice the heat spreading across your own cheeks.
"No."
"I didn't say anything," he responded in an amused, innocent tone, raising his servos in a defensive gesture.
"Yeah, but your eyes said a lot," you argued, the sudden shift in your confidence making you unable to find the situation as funny as before.
He made an unbelievable amount of butterflies awaken and fly around in your stomach, and as pleasant as it felt, you couldn't show him that.
"Optics," he corrected you immediately, playful superiority in his tone coming back just in time to crush you once more. He leaned in, making the gap between your faces a lot smaller than before. "And I'm pretty sure you're just imaginin' things," he added teasingly, the smirk almost challenging you.
His plan was working.
"Am I?" You tilted your head slightly to the left, your gaze never leaving his blue optics.
The intensity of your eye contact made him back off just a bit, before he shook his head in both amusement and surprise at the sudden comeback of your confidence.
"We're not done yet," he just said, which may have sounded like a warning but you felt like he was talking about something else than this game you were both playing. "I didn't show you everything," he explained, even though this lesson about his anatomy was the smallest thing occupying his mind at the moment.
You refrained yourself from frowning, feeling pretty sure that he'd already named every single body part of his possible, but you didn't want him to notice how little attention you were actually paying. So you just nodded, getting ready to hear more of that very interesting stuff.
"...Ever seen a metal dick?"
Your jaw almost dropped when your brain registered his shameless question. You couldn't even say anything to that, just unsurely shaking your head to show him that you, in fact, have never seen a metal dick.
And you thought he was about to offer to present one to you just now, but he just let out an amused noise. "Too bad."
And with these words, he transformed into a silver Porsche and drove past you towards the exit of the garage, leaving you confused, breathless, and wanting something more...
might make a part 2 for this with smut if you want
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leonardcohenofficial · 2 months ago
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Hi Maddie! Are you willing to talk a little about your PhD journey? All I know is you write a really big paper but I imagine it involves more than that
absolutely! the requirements of a phd will definitely range depending on both your field and subject of your research, but typically involve taking courses that allow you to gain general but high level knowledge of the area on the whole, passing some type of qualifying exam that shows you’re prepared to complete your dissertation, and then writing the dissertation itself, all in a process that can take between typically three years (this seems very short but is fairly common outside of the USA) to a decade. in my program people typically graduated in five or six years; i myself took six years to finish everything up
for my program i took classes in a wide variety of areas, most of which were not directly related to what i wrote about for my dissertation, but all of which were extremely beneficial in 1) learning in areas outside of what i do, 2) helping me feel more prepared when teaching those subjects as part of my TA duties, and 3) allowing me to develop deeper critical and theoretical knowledge that helped me with writing the dissertation itself. i was also really happy that i was able to take classes outside of the theatre department (in the music and literature departments; though the lit class i took was a film class lol), which made total sense given my research is so interdisciplinary. the biggest thing i learned about my research throughout my time is that i very much live in the performance studies world (vs. theatre or drama) which is helpful framing given i write and teach about such a wide range of performance and media forms. my dissertation was much more a performance studies/musicology/american studies project than a Theatre™️ project, but i had a committee that really encouraged me to think across multiple disciplines with my work (and i also got to teach both theatre and film classes, which is pretty cool)
i also really appreciate that my program also gave us so much experience teaching! i taught every single quarter and many summers during grad school, which (while exhausting) not only gave me a ton of practice to build up my own pedagogical approach but made my CV pretty competitive as an early career scholar when applying to jobs. i don’t think i would have gotten multiple tenure-track interviews while still finishing my dissertation had i not had so much teaching experience (as instructor of record!) on there. i also am really grateful that my department also really cares about encouraging phds’ practice within and beyond the department, so i was able to dramaturg and/or direct ten shows within my department on top of a ton of outside gigs at the major LORT houses in town (which was also a really big deal)
the actual dissertation writing process sucks. it’s exhausting and thankless and even if you have a really amazing committee (like i did <3) it is extremely stressful and i do not know ANYONE who has reported a smooth and easy dissertation writing process LOL; however i had really good people on my side (friends, family, colleagues in the department and in arts and humanities in general at school, my faculty, my coworkers at the record shop, etc.) who were so supportive and my biggest champions as i was taking on this massive project. it was a lot but in all honestly even though it took so long, it was not the most difficult academic work i’ve ever had to do (that badge of dishonor goes to the horrendous process of getting my international baccalaureate diploma, which was so awful it led me to go to hippie college with no grades no tests and no majors LMFAO). i am super proud of my dissertation—if anyone wants to read it i’d be happy to send the link!—and even though there are plenty of sections i’ll rework for when i submit it to academic presses for publication, i am really pleased with the work i did and i think that it provides new and (imho) exciting scholarship about topics that i find really meaningful (many of which i’ve loved since i was a kid)
all of this to say, if people have phd, grad school, research, or otherwise related questions or want to chat, please hit me up! always happy to talk about this stuff / offer my very humble advice about any stage of the process <3
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uwmspeccoll · 1 year ago
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Staff Pick!
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Anni Albers (1899-1994) is held in high regard as one of the most paramount textile designers of the 20th century. Albers attended the Bauhaus in 1922 and begrudgingly participated in the weaving workshop as it was the only one available to women at that time. By 1931, Albers had received a diploma for innovative work and stepped into the role as head of the weaving workshop, a rare occurrence for a woman at the school. When the Bauhaus closed in 1933, Albers accepted an invitation to teach at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College. She stayed on as an assistant professor at Black Mountain College until 1949 where she was known for her experimental approaches to materials and processes.  
Albers broke new ground within the world of weaving and graphic design, taking printmaking techniques into uncharted territory. In 1949 she was the first textile designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and spent the remainder of her life making and showing art. Despite her prolific artmaking, Albers left behind very little evidence of her working process aside from one unassuming notebook dating to the latter part of her life.  
Anni Albers: Notebook 1970-1980 is a delightful glimpse into the mind of Albers. A facsimile of her simple composition notebook, the publication is replete with spontaneous works and preliminary ideas sketched out in pencil and occasionally red ink. Most works are dated, and a few have titles corresponding to subsequent prints and printed textiles. This is the only known notebook of Albers and a joyous wellspring of inspiration for any textile artist or designer.  
Anni Albers: Notebook 1970-1980 was published in 2017 by David Zwirner Books out of New York. 
View more staff picks.
-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 
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persistentplums · 2 months ago
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U should infodump some of your Triana thoughts 👂👂🙏
Currently laying on my bed, on my stomach kicking my feet and twirling my hair. Thank you for the ask!!!
Also everyone please feel free to send Vbros asks it’ll take me a minute but I’ll always answer!
Triana to me is mixed i haven’t pinned down what mix but for now wasian. Although mixed middle eastern is also in my head the problem is I want to be specific but i can’t pull from anywhere specific right now.
I think if we got her New York look I flip around the thought of her going full goth stereotype (I really love the idea of her going trad goth black dress with jewelry) which would be cool but also a part of me would think it would be SICK if she shaved her head and had this buzz look leaning a mix of punk and goth. (More British inspo not in a racist white way)
She has magic jewelry, rings and necklaces, I think she gets into insect taxidermy which also influences the type of jewelry she has, I think she has a cool beetle broach that moves around and has magic! I think it would be cool!
I think she gets into Mind magic. And I mean this completely separately from telepathy, anything to do with the mind since it was Orpheus that messed with it. She becomes unintentionally fixed on making her mind a place that can’t be messed with. Her mom, dad and stepdad teach her a lot but Master and her click super well and she tells him what she wants to learn.
I think her relationship to Master is very very silly. Master has a LG slider so he can text her type of silly. I think now that she does magic they can gossip really it’s just Master telling her stuff she shouldn’t know but still fun stuff.
Triana is someone who is fun to be around and genuinely a nice kid, so it makes sense wherever she goes she gains friends. She doesn’t get along with Dermontt bc Dermontt is a little shit to be fair but I would also like to think if she met Sirena it would be rocky also.
Sirena is cool, there’s no doubt about it, but I think Sirena impatience which can turn into actions that hurt people+the want of a bottom line wouldn’t gel with Triana. Since VB hasn’t really developed any of the girls they’ve made with any moment of failure/hardship I have to use the CRUMBS given in the show.
Triana not outright telling Dean the day she moved out she is not into him then trying to put an idea in his head instead speaks to a quality of not wanting to get caught/rocking the boat. At first I thought it was classic rebellious kid lying to parent but I realize also in part of the writers under developing her, she shies away from parts of her self, hiding them to keep her life uncomplicated and moving. Funny enough a trait very much like her dad, both are different versions of the peacekeeper.
I think Triana big thing is she needs to be able to be herself even the parts that people think is bad. It’s not like the parts of her are a big deal if someone doesn’t like them. She isn’t worried about that, it’s the idea she needs to keep the peace. Fuck the peace girl let that shit fly.
Triana is very similar to Hank in the sense of she isn’t overtly hiding things but by doing so means things internally can be hidden to others. I think Triana is slippery in that sense, good at half truths, good poker face, strong values she believes in, a very loyal friend.
If I was to tie her into the main gang this is how I would’ve done it:
The limbo mind world is her training space, like Luke in Dagoba. She-with Master “teachings”-is figuring out how to control what she has and how to use it regarding the mind since at this point she can do magic but she’s basically trying to get her “diploma”in the mind. She’s going through all that and finds not just one Hank but multiple Hanks and goes “hm! That’s….not usual a thing that happens.��� She does a dream call to Hank and they meet again.
They have a chat, catching up and getting semi personal, she ends up in New York to talk to her dad and gets swept in some adventure the boys are in and meets everyone else. I think the moment she clicks with the Mind is waking the remaining guys back, fully now in tune with her goal but she still needs to figure out what to do with it!
Extra stuff about Triana I personally hc:
Her and Sirena go out together first as a “get to know you” thing but it becomes tradition
Triana knows how to play drums, definitely could’ve been on Shallow Gravy
Triana is low-key trying to set Dean and Jared up by the most subtle comments ever bc interacting with Dean is like trying not to scare a deer still after all these years to her
Her jewelry range from basic rings to bug themed broaches all having a specific magical element (for my dnd ppl out there think magical items with charges or when you imbue an item with a spell) I think she gives them to her friends
Jared and Triana have mixed feeling only because she is trying very hard to respect his journey of being into Dean and vice versa but also she cannot stop going “this is gay.”
She has a gf, she’s bisexual at least, but in my heart lesbian. I love the idea of her gf being a powerful magical being that someone else thought of! Or
She watch romantic movies with Hank bc he’s the only one who appreciates them. Despite Dermontt constantly complaining about watching “chick flicks” Dermontt is also there
Dermontt and Triana beef so often that Dermontt ends up being like her shit head younger brother in the way they argue. And Dermontt doesn’t confirm or deny just says she needs SOMEONE or she’ll fall into only child disease. They aren’t nice to each other at all but they do have each other backs
Triana has the same weirdo mean streak as her dad sometimes but doesn’t take many things seriously so she really is doing stuff just to fuck with people bc she finds it funny. Example: Orpheus trying to get an arch and smacking the shit out of monarch then putting his feet on fire vs Triana doing that to Dermontt just because on a Sunday. Orpheus has a means to an end Triana just doing it for the love of the game
Speaking of, Triana is more inclined to be Guild only she doesn’t give a shit, she rides the new wave in the VB world of middle men. Not heroes not villains just kinda doing their own thing. I do think she has many Guild friends
Speaking of middle men, she is a headache to OSI/Protags/Arches bc she isn’t affiliated officially and doesn’t want to be. She is now accustomed to doing so much paperwork and this is a regular topic of contention for her and Orpheus. It’s not serious contention more like when there’s nothing happening he starts asking which annoys her bc in actuality she doesn’t know who she wants to be (jumpstarts her hanging out with Hank and Dean again)
Thats all I got for now! Tanks for the ask and for waiting!
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teacherstrainingcourse · 9 months ago
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apokryptein · 3 months ago
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studyblr/langblr intro post
name: rina pronouns: she/her age: 19 programme: sociology languages: irish (a1), tagalog (native)
✧・゚ currently studying gaeilge as my boyfriend is irish and i'd really like to gossip with him when i go back to my home country, and i'm taking the opportunity to learn a language with a native speaker i'm familiar with <3
✧・゚ i currently study at a university in tokyo as an international student with a full ride <3 and my programme at focuses on sustainability (environmental and social) and international relations, as well as japanese culture and society
✧・゚ i am not currently studying japanese despite not being able to speak it well as i don't intend on staying here but i am fairly decent at picking it up by ear from friends as it's a very phonetic language
✧・゚ after graduating, i'm thinking of doing a diploma in legal studies at king's inns to qualify for the barrister-in-law degree OR a master's degree in social policy, public administration and policy, or urban planning !
✧・゚despite being a native tagalog speaker i wouldn't say i'm incredibly fluent with it so i'm working on my vocabulary and academic study of it so i can better teach it to my boyfriend and my future kids because fuck god forbid i have little tagalog illiterate wasian babies ...
✧・゚ i am a die-hard humanities student and i also really love books and writing! i loveeee writing poetry. my final for sociolinguistics is a paper on gender and class in normal people (novel)
✧・゚ also i really love got/hotd but mainly hotd <3 very in love with rhaenyra and targ-coded alicent, also a massive fan of the world lore
✧・゚some other fun facts: i'm a professional illustrator, and i also really enjoy rock-climbing (bouldering) and inline road, speed, and freestyle skating !!
in any case feel free to dm me at any time about anything whether it's hotd/got, uni, learning irish and tagalog, or anything else under the sun xoxo
tags: #rinaposting for any posts i make, #rina revises for study, #the irish love me for irish, #its more fun in the philippines for tagalog
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dreamyshifts · 2 months ago
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Yuuei Academy of Advanced Heroics | Pro Hero Pop Star
*Under construction. Ideas welcome.
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UA Academy for Advanced Heroics is Japan's premier institution for hero education, offering both undergraduate and graduate programs in heroics and related fields.
The academy features the following below.
- State-of-the-art training facilities
- Combat simulation rooms
- Disaster response centers
- Medical training wings
- Distinguished faculty of pro heroes
- Active heroes teaching specialized courses
- Industry experts providing real-world insights
- Comprehensive curriculum structure
- Theory and practical application balance
- Focus on field experience
- Emphasis on ethical hero work
The Advanced Heroics program is a rigorous 5-year course that combines intensive classroom learning with extensive field training, and guarantees students graduate with a high school diploma and associates degree. Students work closely with established agencies while completing their studies, ensuring they graduate with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience.
The academy maintains strong partnerships with hero agencies worldwide, facilitating international training opportunities and exchange programs for students showing exceptional promise.
Core Requirements (60 credits)
Hero Studies Foundation (9 credits)
- Advanced Combat Training
- Quirk Theory and Applications
- Emergency Response Systems
- Hero Law and Ethics
- International Hero Law
Specialized Training (20 credits)
- Crisis Management & Leadership
- Crisis Response Training
- Advanced Rescue Operations
- Psychological First Aid
- Emergency Medical Response for Heroes
- Advanced Stealth and Reconnaissance
Field Experience (20 credits)
- Agency Internships
- Supervised Patrol Hours
- Public Relations and Media Management
- Media Relations & Public Speaking
- Agency Management & Leadership
Research and Development (9 credits)
- Advanced Quirk Analysis
- Hero Strategy Development
- Quirk Enhancement & Control
- Hero Psychology and Counseling
Graduation Requirements
- Maintain minimum 3.0 GPA
- Complete 1000 supervised field hours
- Pass Hero License Advanced Certification
- Complete Field Case Project demonstrating mastery of hero skills
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International Hero Law - Class Session Example
Topic: Cross-Border Hero Operations
Professor begins with a real-world case study of the Moscow Mall incident where heroes from 5 different countries had to coordinate rescue efforts
Key points covered:
- Jurisdiction protocols when crossing international borders during emergencies
- Required documentation and emergency clearance procedures
- Chain of command in multinational hero operations
- Legal liability and insurance considerations
Practical Exercise: Students split into teams representing different countries' hero agencies to simulate coordinating a response to a natural disaster affecting multiple nations.
Homework Assignment: Draft a proper cross-border operation request form and outline the step-by-step protocol for emergency hero deployment to a neighboring country.
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gutenbergpr-blog · 2 years ago
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The Canadian International School has a remarkable ability to draw in and provide assistance to educators hailing from various corners of the globe. Our dedicated faculty members, representing not only India but also diverse nations worldwide, actively collaborate and endeavor to cultivate a sense of collective effectiveness. This includes their involvement in enhancing the teaching and learning experiences at CIS.
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justforbooks · 4 months ago
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Fethullah Gülen
Imam who sponsored dialogue between Christians and Muslims but was accused of terrorism by the president of Turkey
In 1962, a 21-year-old imam, Fethullah Gülen, arrived in the southern Turkish port of Iskenderun to finish his military service. He also gave sermons in the town’s main mosque. This was the heyday of secular Turkey, and he quickly ran into difficulties from a secularist commanding officer who, seeing his sermons as a threat to the republic, ordered that he should be detained for two weeks.
Another officer, however, had a different approach. Spotting that the young soldier was highly intelligent and well-read in Islamic religious texts, but with almost no formal education inside the conventional school system, he recommended that Gülen should start reading western literary classics as well. The young recruit began to read, and enjoy, Dante, Camus and Dostoevsky, eventually developing a taste even for the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
This was perhaps the moment when the career pursued by Gülen, who has died aged 83, began to deviate sharply from that of most Turkish imams. In the next six decades he became internationally famous, feted especially in the US, while writing about 50 books, sponsoring dialogue between Christians and Muslims, and heading a global religious brotherhood with a great number of schools in five continents and a vast international business network. However, this trajectory would end in mortal conflict with the Turkish state, with Gülen accused of terrorism by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and tens of thousands of his followers in jail, stripped of assets or in exile.
To his admirers, including US members of Congress and Christian theologians, Gülen remained a virtual saint, a Muslim cleric on friendly terms with the western world. In Turkey, among many Turks other than his own following, Gülen was a deeply sinister figure whose efforts to capture the state culminated in 2016 in a botched military coup in which more than 200 people died.
One of eight children, Gülen was born in the village of Korucuk in north-eastern Turkey at a time of severe wartime hardship. His father, Ramiz, was a village imam connnected with the conservative Naqshbandi Sufi brotherhood, while his mother, Refia, combined raising livestock and a family with teaching Qur’an classes for girls.
Gülen had only three years of formal primary schooling. However he knew parts of the Qur’an by heart at the age of four and the whole of it when he was eight. At 13 he became a pupil for five years at an underground theological school at the Kurşunlu mosque in Erzurum. In his mid-teens he joined a new brotherhood, the Nurcus, who supported the adoption of western science while vehemently opposing the republic founded by Kemal Atatürk and its westernising reforms. Gülen worked with the Nurcus until he set up his own brotherhood in the early 1970s.
In 1959, Gülen received his icazetname (Islamic studies diploma) as a preacher, making him an official of Turkey’s presidency of religious affairs, a state Sunni organisation, which posted him to a mosque in Edirne. He remained a government imam until 1981. His powerful emotional sermons quickly won him a wide reputation, and he was known as “the weeping imam”. His followers wept with him. He began organising teaching and discussion meetings, usually before prayers. These marked the first beginnings of his global movement.
Around 1966, Gülen was transferred to a mosque in Izmir on the Aegean, and it was there that his career took flight. In 1971 he suffered a severe setback when the military threw out Turkey’s civilian government and he was arrested and imprisoned for seven months. By the mid-70s, though, Gülen had become a well-known lecturer as well as preacher, travelling across the country to talk on topics such as the gift of prophecy, the Qur’an and science, and Darwinism.
Nevertheless, he learned to live discreetly and to disguise his actions. Even though he publicly supported Turkey’s 1980 military coup because it crushed communism and opened the way to religious education, he lived under cover for six years because some in the pro-military establishment saw him as an Islamist.
“You could say I was protected by high friends in Ankara,” he told the Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand in 1998. After a tipoff during a pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Turkey by hiring a smuggler to take him over the mountains, minefields and barbed wire of the Syrian border. Another time he was detained and taken to a military barracks, to be released only after then prime minister Turgut Özal held a midnight cabinet meeting about the case.
Gülen’s teachings extracted universal values from Islam, accepted their commonalities with those of other cultures and religions, and promoted the study of western science. His genius lay in doing so without being so specific as to offend pious Muslim values. “I tried to show the way. It’s as if a crystal broke into little pieces, scattered left and right. I’m trying to bring this society’s pieces back together again, to provide education, and as much as I can, to advise people to serve what I believe in,” he said.
His rise was assisted by the steady growth in the numbers of Turkish students studying in Islamic vocational schools, partly as a result of moves by the military after the 1980 coup to stem the growth of leftist movements by encouraging religious education. In towns across Turkey, businessmen joined the brotherhood, prayed with it, and paid up to a fifth of their income to it, apparently in return for a promise that they would never be allowed to fail commercially.
The movement was eventually a founding influence on more than 1,000 schools in Turkey and abroad as well as several universities of its own. Some had high academic standards and were especially popular in under-served countries in Africa and Central Asia. For a time they were even standard-bearers of expanding Turkish commercial and cultural influence. However, the Gülenist movement is also suspected of using the schools as a means to recruit high-performing new members.
The way in which these various activities were organised and financed remained very mysterious. Though there seem to have been “imams” in charge of different parts of Turkey and “abis” (big brothers) issuing strict orders at the local level, no hierarchy or plan was ever revealed. Gülen himself claimed that he had only set up a few model institutions, which were copied and spread spontaneously. The Gülenist movement has long preferred to call itself “Hizmet”, or service.
Gülen lived modestly as a celibate cleric beside a teaching centre and mosque. He maintained that the Prophet Muhammad had come to him in a dream and told him not to marry. By the 90s his health was failing because of diabetes and heart problems, but he had become an internationally leading figure in Islamic-Christian dialogue, even meeting Pope John Paul II in 1998.
In March 1999, he received a tip-off, apparently from sources within the government of Bülent Ecevit, that the security forces and the country’s intelligence services were about to arrest him, and he escaped in haste to the US. In Turkey the military put him on trial in his absence.
The most damning piece of evidence produced by the security services was a clandestine video of Gülen telling his followers to capture state power by waiting and “moving within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres”. The accusations against him did not prevent Gülen from being given a green card to reside in the US, in 2002.
At the end of that year, Turkey’s Islamists finally took power in Turkey and Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) formed a strong government. Gülen stayed in the US, despite sharing much of the AKP’s religious-nationalist world view and repeated invitations to return to Turkey. He declined to do so even after the court charges against him collapsed.
Meanwhile the influence of his followers grew steadily. The Gülenists had very few ministers in AKP cabinets, but they increasingly dominated the police, the ministry of justice, parts of the foreign ministry, and many government agencies, as well as much of the press. Their main obstacle was the army, until then supremely powerful in Turkey.
In 2008 prosecutors from Gülen’s movement began a series of arrests against army officers, journalists and others, on what proved eventually to be completely bogus terrorism and conspiracy charges, relying on faked evidence. By 2011, the crackdown had forced into submission the old military elite, long dominant as the country’s self-appointed guardians of Atatürk’s secularist legacy.
In 2012 Gülenist prosecutors attempted to question the head of the security services over secret truce talks with Turkey’s Kurdish terrorists. The incident rang alarm bells in the government, and in 2013 relations between the ruling AKP and Gülen and his followers turned into undisguised conflict. In a bid to impede Erdoğan’s government in December that year, Gülenist prosecutors ordered two rounds of arrests of figures close to ministers on corruption charges.
Erdoğan and Gülen were locked in a power struggle, but by the end of 2014 the government had broken the power of the movement in the police and the judiciary. Many senior Gülenist officials began fleeing abroad and Gülen’s press and media empire came under pressure.
One institution where the Gülenists retained secret supporters was the armed forces. This is why Erdoğan’s government blamed Gülen’s movement for the bloody but curiously clumsy attempt at a military takeover on 15 July 2016. Gülen denied the accusations against him, claiming that Erdoğan set up the coup as a false flag event in order to seize sole control of the country.
Whatever the real cause, Erdoğan has ruled supreme since then. The Gülenist movement has never recovered. Gülenists were purged throughout the country. Even in villages, followers were detained, lost jobs, saw property confiscated, suffered discrimination from state institutions or were ostracised. Ankara moved sharply to seize control of or close down as many of the Gülenist schools as possible.
The Turkish government issued a “red” international arrest warrant for Gülen and made numerous attempts to have him extradited to Turkey, but all were rejected by the US authorities. Though stateless, he continued to live in Pennsylvania.
He is survived by some of his seven siblings, and many nephews and nieces.
🔔 Mohammed Fethullah Gülen, religious leader, born 27 April 1941; died 20 October 2024
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