Though you may be teaching high school, you are not in high school. You are not running for Class President or Prom King. Moreover, as a teacher, you are required to do things that are actually unpopular–such as issuing consequences or giving bad grades. As stated in an earlier article: an effective teacher does not Ms. Congeniality make. Yet, what teacher doesn’t want to have a good relationship with his or her students?

This, the seventh in the series of eight articles on classroom management, focuses on relationship building. Use the strategies below to win your students’ trust and their hearts.

FLATTER THEM. Give specific and sincere compliments. Instead of saying, “You guys did great,” say, “I appreciate the way you sat attentively through the two-hour presentation.”

CONSULT THEM. Get students’ input about movies, field trips, and activities. Make choices, or revise curricula and content, based on their feedback.

WRITE TO THEM. On assignments, point out things your students do well. A positive note on an assignment–no matter what the grade–will give your students a boost of confidence.

WARN THEM. Before a student “gets in trouble,” warn them about the behavior and then help them find ways of avoiding consequences. Setting your students up for success in this way will show them that you have their best interests in mind.

CORRECT THEM. Or, to use the more politically correct term, give them consequences. Though it may seems counter-intuitive, issuing consequences according to your classroom rules will feel predictable and consistent. This will make students feel safe.

REWARD THEM. Just as you can warn them about negative behavior, you should reward students for meeting expectations. An end-of-semester party, a special trip, or a choice of activities is a great way to do this.

Having a positive relationship with your students and managing your classroom effectively are not mutually exclusive. In fact, relationship building is a key part of classroom management. When you use the tips above, you will both build a solid rapport with your students and sure up your classroom management skills.

Trading Forex is a fantastic career or hobby, but unless you are winning consistently then it can be a short lived career or an expensive hobby. The elation of a win is often followed by several losses if you don’t have a serious approach to your money management strategy and control of your emotions. In this article we are going to establish a money management and psychological strategy that will help you win consistently at trading Forex.

First of all let us look at the trade settings themselves. Now this article is not to define a winning strategy; but to show you that even a strategy that only wins 50% of the time can make consistent returns. You may already have a winning strategy but poor money and psychological management.

It is important to aim for a 3:1 risk reward ratio. In simple terms; you need to look for trades that can offer you 3 times the return of the potential loss. If you adopt this approach then you only need to win 50% of the time because your wins out way the losses by 3 times. Once you master this rule you are well on your way to a winning strategy.

Research your trades well and do not jump into the markets without doing your analysis whether that is fundamental or technical. If you can stick to these rules then you are half way to winning the psychological battle as well.

The biggest issue traders face is getting into trades too early because they think they are going to miss the trade or too late because they were scared to pull the trigger. Leaving a trade too early because they believe it is about to turn against them, only to later watch it hit their, would be, take profit level. Or, equally as common, they let the trade run and run expecting more and more profit only to let all the profit get sucked away in a reversal. There is an old saying amongst successful traders “plan your trade and trade your plan. That is exactly what you should do.

Don not let your emotions let you take profit early if that was not your original plan. Make sure you plan for the trade turning before your profit level and have a preset plan to take profit. A solid plan is to take profit if the trade has reached 90% of the target and is showing signs of reversal. If you have your stop loss set correctly from your original analysis do not extend it as you are compromising your 3:1 risk reward ratio. Keeping these rules in min is the first step to winning consistently at Forex trading.

Most veteran trial lawyers will agree that while a case is not always won in jury selection, it can easily be lost there. It is one of the three most critical junctures of any trial (the other two being opening statement and cross-examination of the first witness), yet voir dire usually is relegated to the proverbial back burner, only to be attended to in the waning days–or even hours–just before trial begins.

IF YOU’VE WAITED UNTIL THE WEEKEND BEFORE TRIAL TO PLAN YOUR VOIR DIRE, YOU’VE WAITED TOO LONG

The construction of your jury selection strategy needs to start weeks before your case gets to trial, after you’ve conducted your pre-trial research (you have conducted pre-trial research, haven’t you?) and you are starting to prepare your case-in-chief in earnest. If you find yourself waiting until Saturday or Sunday before trial, jotting some questions down on a pad and then getting up in court on Monday and conducting your voir dire, without the benefit of research-based profiles or of rehearsal, you could well be missing out on the opportunity to educate your jurors and to weed out those most dangerous to you.

THE PURPOSE OF VOIR DIRE IS NOT TO DETERMINE IF JURORS CAN BE FAIR AND IMPARTIAL!

Sorry, but there is no such thing as an impartial juror. Every person who arrives in the courtroom–juror, lawyer, judge, clerk, court reporter, bailiff–brings two things:

1. Life experiences.

2. The attitudes that are a result of those life experiences.

So, the purpose of your questioning is to uncover those attitudes and experiences, get jurors to talk about them, and then send home the folks who have attitudes that are hostile to your case and/or your client.

The Key Purposes of Voir Dire

o Find and dismiss jurors who will be harmful to your case

o Get the themes of your case in front of jurors

o Find out who your jurors are and what they have to say about the issues, so that you have a better idea of how to communicate with them during your case.

Your Goals in Voir Dire

o Get them to talk!

o Get them to talk about your themes

o Get them to talk themselves off the jury, if they are hostile to your case

IF YOU ONLY REMEMBER ONE THING FROM THIS ARTICLE, THIS IS IT

Do you go into trial without practicing your opening statement? Then why not spend time rehearsing the part of the trial when you speak to jurors first? If you don’t practice your voir dire, why not? If you do practice it, do you practice with people in the room? If you practice with people in the room, are these laypeople? If these are laypeople in the room, do you ask them for their feedback? If you ask them for feedback, do you apply it to your jury selection going into trial?

The bottom line is, your voir dire–not your opening statement–is when you make your first impression on the jurors. Make the most of the opportunity. Practice, refine your voir dire.

Have you ever found out that the man you desire to have a relationship with is someone whose heart has been broken before? What do you do in such a situation? How do you penetrate the walls he has built around his heart? This is a practical situation. It often makes girls cry. You know he has all it takes to be a good husband for you so much that you find him attached to your dream of a good and happy home. But because some “girl” has treated him badly and broken his heart, he has decided not to fall in love again.

How do you win and keep the love of a man whose heart has been broken before? How do you find your way into his heart and assure him that you are not a heart breaker? How do you make him believe girls are not the same? And how do you make him feel secure with you? Here is another practice exposed on how to win the love of a heart broken man.

The first step is friendship. Since he is not ready for another love relationship, you can start a relationship on the note of friendship. Don’t just walk up to him and ask him to be your friend, chances are that he’ll see you as another devil coming to break his heart. The easiest way is coming to him through his friends or siblings. These people have sympathized and empathized with him. He believes in them. Seeing you as a friend to a friend, brother or sister means to him that you are not harmful after all, at least as a friend.

When you have succeeded in becoming his friend, try and ask him about his past relationship and empathize with him. Condemn the hurtful acts of his former girlfriend and promote the ideals that would have upheld that relationship. If you have been hurt before, tell him how it happened and tell him how you recovered from it. This is a good way to begin friendship.

Think of the possible means of helping him to recover from the hurtful memories of the former relationship. Get him used to being with a girl again. Invite him out to places you can both talk and have fun.

Call him at intervals and send him text messages from time-to-time just to let him know you appreciate him as a good friend. Don’t forget to buy him gifts on the anniversary of his birthday and other memorable days. Don’t buy him casual gifts but the ones that suggest that he means so much to you and that you love him. With these gestures, you’ll find out that he’s on his way to love again. And before you know it, he’ll complement your efforts and explicitly ask you out.

Once a love relationship begins between both of you, avoid all that happened in his former relationship. This is the major way to catch and keep him.

The 2009-2010 N.B.A. Finals and N.H.L. Stanley Cup Finals are under way. What factors ultimately determine championships? What characteristics might help decide which team will win the ultimate prize? Sports fans might be interested in this article’s sports analytics. Sports organizations and executives might be interested in learning more about our research projects and how we can help teams optimize their chances of winning.

After analyzing the championship games or series of the N.F.L., N.B.A., Major League Baseball and N.H.L., and the major finals in golf and tennis, we identified 50 championships characteristics in our book, “Who Will Win the Big Game? A Psychological and Mathematical Method.” Based on similar research, we focused on several championship characteristics that might help predict the winner of the N.H.L. and N.B.A. Finals.

In this article, we focus on dynamics such as leadership, defense, and consistency. These factors are particularly interesting to this year’s finals – and apply to every major sport we have studied.

Leadership

Leadership, both behind the bench, and on the playing field, have proven to be statistically significant in their relationship to winning championships. Our research has shown that there are certain coaches who have the ability to motivate their teams to greatness. There are more coaches such as the Lakers’ Phil Jackson, and superior records in finals appearance, than a random mathematical model would predict. Phil Jackson is 10-2 in N.B.A. Finals as a coach. Other examples include Red Auerbach, John Wooden, Chuck Knoll, Bobby Bowden, Scotty Bowman, and Al Arbour – all are coaches with well-above.500 records in finals appearances.

Leadership on the court is also key. Over the past 20 years, the team with the better offensive star, measured by points per game has gone 14-6 (70.0%) in N.B.A. Championships. This factor favors the Lakers and Kobe Bryant, with his 27.0 points per game average during the season.

Similarly, hockey teams with better offensive leadership have gone 19-11 (63.3%) in Stanley Cup Finals over the past 30 years, as measured by points scored. This factor favors the Black Hawks, and Patrick Kane (88 points) over the Flyers and Mike Richards (62 points).

Defense

In just about every sport we have studied, defense does truly win championships. Our research has shown this to be true in the Super Bowl as well as the World Series. This maxim proves to be true in the Stanley Cup Finals and N.B.A. Championships as well. Over the past 30 years, the hockey team with the better goalie save percentage has gone 18-11 (62.2%). Over recent years, since the high-scoring period of the mid-80’s to the mid-90’s, hockey defense has been an even stronger dynamic. Teams with the better save percentage have gone:

• 3-0 over the last 4 years (teams had the same save percentage one year),

• 6-1 over the last 8 years,

• and 13-4 over the last 18 years.

This factor favors the Philadelphia Flyers with their.907 save percentage versus the Chicago Black Hawks and their.903 save percentage.

Defense also helps basketball teams win championships. We note that on average, defensive factors are more highly-correlated to winning championships than offensive factors. Over the past 20 years, the team with the better defense, as measured by points against per game, has gone 13-7 (65.0%) in N.B.A. Championships. This factor favors the Celtics (95.6 points against per game) this season. The Lakers gave up 97.0 points per game during the regular season.

Consistency Factors

Another key to winning is consistency. It is interesting that this type of “consistency factor” is typically related to “less exciting heroics” than most sports fans would expect. For example, in baseball, our research shows that batting average is more correlated to winning World Series than home runs.

Similarly, in N.B.A. Finals, field goal percentage is more important than three-point shooting percentage. Over the past 20 years, the team with the better field goal percentage has gone 12-7 (63.2%) in professional basketball championship series. This factor favors the Celtics this year, with their 48.3% FG % versus the Lakers’ 45.7%.

Championship Factors and 2010 Finals

So who will win the Stanley Cup Finals? The #2 seed Black Hawks are heavy favorites over the #7 seeded Flyers (about 2.5-1 favorites), but the Flyers certainly have the leadership on the bench and between the goalposts to make a series of it.

The N.B.A. Finals present an interesting dilemma. The leadership factors point to the Lakers (coaching and star leadership), but the other factors (defense and consistency) favor the Celtics.

Think in the Long Term (for Models)

Buy the car you want – but only after it is at least two years old, and three would be better. By doing this, you automatically save hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime.

When I was 23, I wanted to buy a nice four-door sedan, and I was drawn to the Cadillac STS. The new model had a base price of more $50,000, and with any kind of little extras the sticker was almost $55,000. I was doing very well at a young age, but I wasn’t doing that well to blow 50 grand on a new car.

I was thumbing through my local paper (yes, this was before the Internet changed everything) and saw an ad for a 2½ year old Cadillac STS for $19,500. The car had less than 40,000 miles on it and came with an extended warranty to 90,000 miles. It was gorgeous, shiny and just serviced.

It was an attractive price since the first owner was eating the depreciation.

According to the average car will lose 11 percent of its value the second you roll it off the lot and an additional 15 percent to 20 percent the first year you own it. The second-year depreciation (loss) is another 15 percent, for a loss of at least 45 percent over the first two years.

Depreciation is usually calculated off of the base price, not the extras. This could be the sport package that raises the price $10,000 but only gives you $2,000 back after the first year or two. So it’s quite possible to find beautiful cars with manufacturer warranties still in place and pay 35 percent to 50 percent less than the first owner did when purchased new.

I drove that car for four years, had very few out-of-pocket repairs, and sold it for $3,500.

So what kind of deal could you get today? When I was young, one of the dream cars was a Ferrari Testarossa, and its price was around $200,000. You can buy one now for around $50,000, and most don’t have that many miles on them because they’re babied by the owners.

Think in the Short Term (for Loans)

If you finance your auto purchase, you can save a lot of money by keeping the term to no more than 36 months. This builds equity in the car faster and saves on interest.

This might be difficult because the monthly payment is higher than if you finance over six years, and it’s higher than a monthly lease. If you finance $25,000 at 5 percent interest for three years, your monthly payment will be $749.27, and your total payout will be $26,974. If you extend that loan out to six years, your monthly payment drops to $402.62, but your total payout rises to $28,989. That’s $2,015 more out of your pocket to own the car.

Assuming you buy the car with a small down payment, by financing it for six years, your loan pay-down is going at a much slower pace than the depreciation on the vehicle, creating an “underwater” situation on the car almost from the get-go. During the three-year program, you’re paying down the car faster than it’s depreciating, giving you options if you have to sell the vehicle.

If you truly can’t afford that three-year payment, take out a five-year option and send a little extra every month toward the principal to pay it off sooner.

Leasing a newer model looks attractive because the monthly payment is less, but you might not want to do that. I’ll explain why next post, when I offer several other ways to save loads of money when purchasing an automobile.

Believe it or not you might be better off buying your own car rather than funding your 401k or IRA!

Yukon Solitaire is fun card game, requiring the ability to plan elaborate sequences of long moves. It is quite unusual compared to other solitaire games, because it lets you move stacks of cards when they aren’t in sequence.

It isn’t possible to win every game of Yukon Solitaire, but a good player should be able to win more than 80% of the games they play, if they use the right strategy…

The key to doing well in Yukon Solitaire is to work backwards. Instead of doing any move that is possible, the player should work to expose the uncovered cards.

Starting from the first stack, look at the top exposed card. Then try and find another card that the exposed card could be moved onto, and then try and re-arrange the cards to make the move.

This might be best shown with an example:

Suppose the top exposed card in a column is a red 3. You need to find a black four to play onto. There is only one black four in play right now, and it has a black 6 directly underneath it. So the black 6 needs to be moved… which means that a red seven is needed. Suppose there is a red 7 visible at the bottom of a stack… Then play would proceed like this:

Black 6 onto the Red 7

Red 3 onto the Black 4

And a covered card in the column has now been exposed.

Now usually, the sequence will take longer than that. Sometimes I’ve played out sequences over 10 moves long!

You will find that some columns can not be exposed at this time. Either a card in the sequence is missing, or a card you need is already being used (In the example above, if the black four already had a red three underneath it, then play would be blocked, because there would be nowhere to move the other red three onto).

When that happens, just move onto the next column. I find it helpful to leave my mouse cursor above the column I’m currently analyzing. This helps me to remember which column I am up to, which can be particularly handy if you’ve just been investigating a really long sequence.

If you can’t find any columns that can be exposed, then it’s time to start looking for cards to free that can be moved to the foundation. Are there any cards you can move that would allow you to free an Ace?

If you follow this one tip, you should find that you can quite easily win at least 80% of the Yukon Solitaire games that you play.

Being a winning slot machine player is impossible. All slot machines are specifically designed in order to give the house a long term edge, so the house will always come out ahead if you play long enough. The only real way to counteract the house edge on slot machine games is to play a game with a really big jackpot, bet the max every time you play, and hope that you hit the jackpot. Then when you do hit the really big jackpot, guess what you do next? Stop playing that game.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t play slot machines. In fact, I think slot games, especially the really good ones, are a lot of fun. But you want to keep in the forefront of your mind that mathematically, what you’re doing when you’re playing a slot machine on a long term basis is paying for entertainment. You can calculate how much you’re paying for that entertainment by multiplying the house edge times your average bet times your number of spins per hour.

For example, if you’re playing a slot game with a payout of 95%, then the house edge is 5%. (The casino keeps 5% of every bet you make long term.) And if you’re average bet is $3, then you’re going to pay an average of 15 cents per spin to the house. (5% times $3.) Assuming you’re making 500 spins per hour, that game costs you $75/hour to play, which may or may not be a reasonable price for you entertainment. That depends on your bankroll.

Something else to factor into your calculation is how much the perks and bonuses you’re getting back from the casino are worth. If you’re playing in a land-based casino where you’re getting free drinks while you play, then you can subtract the cost of those drinks from you’re hourly cost. (Or you can add the cost of those drinks to the value of the entertainment you’re receiving–it’s just a matter of perspective.) My recommendation is to drink top-shelf liquor and premium beers in order to maximize the entertainment value you’re receiving. A Heineken can cost $4 a bottle in a nice restaurant. Drink two Heinekens an hour, and you’ve just lowered what it costs you to play each hour from $75 to $68.

Slot clubs also give back a percentage of your losses each hour, so definitely be sure you join the casino’s slot club and ALWAYS use your card to track your play. There’s absolutely no reason not to do this. Casinos also reward their larger slot players with comps like meals, show tickets, and free rooms, which all add up to reduce the amount of money you’re spending each hour that you’re playing on their machine.

So how to be a winning slot machine player? I’d sum it up by saying know how much it’s costing you to play each spin and each hour, take advantage of all the comps and the perks, and go for the big progressive jackpot.

Take 5 is one of the New York lottery games where you can easily win big bucks with just a few investments. It has the best odds of all the lottery draw games. All you have to do is bet on five numbers from 1 to 39. You can bet on your own combination by filling in the corresponding squares on the play card or you can let the QuickPick machine do the selection for you. You can play for a minimum of $1 per game or up to $5 on the 5-game play card.

The winning combination is drawn via live telecast every 11:21 PM on WABC channel 7. Half of the total sales for the day are allocated to the prize money, so the jackpot accumulates until someone hits it. The largest Take 5 jackpot so far was $825,960.00.

Being a game of chance that it is, increasing your chances in winning the Take 5 lottery is pure logic. Avoid selecting all even or odd numbers because they are less likely to get drawn. Mixture of odd and even numbers has approximately 66% chances of occurring. Also mix the high and low numbers, the low being the numbers 1 to 20 and the high, 21 to 39. Having at 3 highs and 2 lows or 3 lows and 2 highs are 64% more likely to be drawn.

It is also not logical to bet on numbers from one number group. It is very unlikely that a draw would have all single digits, teens, 20’s or 30’s. The same goes with multiples like 2 4 6 8 10 or 3 6 9 12 15 and consecutive numbers like 35 36 37 38 39 or 1 2 3 4 5. A combination having the same last digits like 2 12 22 32 has less than 1% of being drawn.

Winning this lottery game would also entail a little research on its history. Knowing the past winning combinations will give you a hint on the best numbers to bet on. It is proven that numbers that appeared on the last 10 games will have 79% of appearing on the next draw. And numbers that rarely appeared within the last 70 games are worth chasing.

To have a higher likelihood of winning, you may also need to do a simple math. Add up your combination, and make sure that the sum is between 70 and 130. 70% of the time, the total for the winning combination is within that range.

The New York Take 5 is just like any lottery. It is a game of chance. And just like any other game, you can always have that chance on your side if you are diligent enough to analyze how it is played. The odd in winning in this game is 1 in 575,757. It may be a tremendous odd for you. But if you were to think about it, it is best odd in any of the other New York lottery games.

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