One of the biggest draws to teaching is the growing numbers of students and the shortage of teachers. It seems like the perfect job. You get to work and educate children, have a great schedule including long summers, plus all the benefits of working for the government.

If you love kids then this seems like the perfect job, but everything isn't as rosy as it seems. By the time education majors graduated from college they were confident about their ability to find a job even in this tough economy. Now that idea has dwindled. After several months of looking for teaching jobs many students still can't find one because the economy forced school systems to cut positions.

The shortage that was so obvious a few years ago but has now turned into a surplus of unemployed educators. Not only can they not find jobs as teachers, but many are struggling to even substitute teach.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported since last fall school systems including agencies, schools, and colleges have cut approximately 124,000 jobs.

These cuts have affected teachers at every angle. Many seasoned educators have lost their jobs, while many that were planning on retiring or switching jobs are staying on. Plus, there are individuals that were laid off from other careers that started trying to make it as teachers again or applieed to work as substitutes.  Then there are thousands of graduates trying to find work.

In Texas one school district had over 5,000 applicants and only 322 open positions. Even substitutes almost doubled. So schools currently have 2.5 times as many as it needs even during flu and swine flu season. Because of the tough job market many individuals are trying to become substitute teachers.

It's strange that for years we have been hearing about the teaching shortage that we were going to have along with nursing. Well the economy took a dip and now we have thousands of teachers that are unemployed. Originally experts believed there would be a shortage because baby boomers would be retiring from the classroom and with a strong economy, education wasn't as attractive as it had once been.

The nationwide demand for teachers is decreasing. Out of 61 subjects there were declines in 60. Math was the only subject that positions didn't go down. There was such a shortage of teachers that all math educators remained at their schools unlike other subjects.

Education is no longer a safe guess. Their is no longer a shortage and educators are struggling through the economy just like everyone else. Lilli Lackey is just one example of an unemployed educator looking for work. She remarked at an educator's career fair that "Teaching isn't really the place to go into. A few years ago it seemed like the place to be if you wanted a job."
 

The talk about the Berlin Wall has brought up anger in China. The Berlin Wall came down and it changed the lives of citizens and the world. But remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall now has Chinese citizens scrutinizing the Great Firewall of China. This wall serves as a filtering and surveillance program run by the communist government.

Chinese have faced problems in the past. Facebook was shut down during riots in Xinjiang in July and Twitter is also facing problems along with the fact that iPhones aren't allowed to have their key feature: WiFi. Because of government restrictions the iPhone lacks WiFi and that handicaps the sophisticated phone.

For decades Chinese have had limited access to the news and the outside world. The state keeps a tight lip on events that are happening throughout the country and the world. The Chinese government is also trying to put into place the Green Dam which is a censoring software that blocks popular social media pages.

This whole debacle started when Culture Project Berlin created an online "Berlin Twitter Wall" where German tweeters were asked to share their memories of the fall of the wall 20 years ago and "which walls still need to come down for the world to be a better place?" There was a global response and it involved thousands of comments from China complaining about the Great Firewall.

Chinese citizens found a way around the government firewall blocking Twitter and were able to use proxy servers which made the site into an online protest against censorship. It took Chinese censors two days to finally block the website. Before that time there were between 1,500 and 3,300 comments posted on the page.

Before being blocked, one Chinese Twitterer quoted part of President Reagan's speech to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 "Tear down this wall." In the past twenty years the internet has become the way people worldwide communicate. But it has also widened the gap between the young Chinese and their government.

Since the Berlin Wall, China internalized the collapse of the Wall and communism in Eastern Europe. Along with Tiananmen Square protests the same year. In the last 20 years the government has opened slightly and given more personal freedom. Since then calls for greater democratization have quieted.

However, today's youth are generally more focused on improving their social and financial conditions rather than government restrictions. And the government is now trying to tighten security in the country's internet network. This is a harsh reality for Chinese considering internet access was shut off for months following this summers riots.

But the outrage over Twitter, Facebook, and the proposed Green Dam censoring program is taking Chinas censorship to a new level and Chinese youth are being affected. Officials believe this was an incident that will blow, but China might be forced to make some concessions when it comes to censorship.

Two Italian archaeologists believe they have found the Persian army buried in the Sahara Desert. It's been 2,500 years since the army vanished and archaeologists may have solved the mystery from 525 B.C. Hundreds of bones and skulls along with bronze weapons, a silver bracelet and an earring were recovered.

The army prior to vanishing had been under the direction of Persian King Cambyses II. Cambyses had sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa. Troops were ordered to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun. According to legend the oracle needed to be attacked because he would have predicted the death of King Cambyses.

The army had been walking in the desert for seven days when they reached an oasis. This was the last that the army was ever seen. Legend had it that a strong wind arose and brought vast and deadly columns of sand that enveloped and covered up the troops. Because of the sand the troops completely disappeared. Over the centuries no trace of these warriors was ever found.

Now two top Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni claim they have found sufficient evidence to suggest that the army was swallowed up in a sandstorm. The archaeologists have spent 13 years researching and had been on five expeditions in the desert before finding them.

While on another research project the Castiglioni's saw a large rock formation near the small oasis in Siwa that was unique and stood alone. The rock seemed like a natural shelter so they searched around a little bit and found arrow tips and a bronze dagger that they knew were from Cambyses' time.

In the following years the Castiglioni brothers determined the missing army hadn't taken the caravan route as previously thought. Most archaeologists spent time on that route but the Castiglionis took a different route and it paid off. This route had allowed the army to march undisturbed. Plus the team found desiccated water spots that would have provided enough water for the army to survive along that route.

The archaeologists believe that the sand storm drove the army to seek shelter in different locations. They believe they headed in different directions and that's why 50,000 skeletons have never been found. They have found little pockets of where skeletons remain. Bedouins had found some remains in the past and showed the Castiglionis the bones. The Bedouins even told the Castiglionis about a beautiful Persian sword that they had previously sold to American tourists.

Because of the bones and artifacts, the archaeology team is confident they solved the centuries old mystery of the missing Persian army. They believe that most of the remains are buried in several locations under 16.4 feet of sand. The team reported their findings to the Geological Survey of Egypt and turned over the recovered objects but has yet to hear anything.