Personal Ethics Essay

When faced with a decision which requires an ethical framework, my usual pattern of decision making follows a pattern of reflection and introspection. The introspective element is both cerebral, that is: based in a rational analysis of the issue or matter at hand, and also intuitive, of which is to some degree an assessment of the emotional components of the decision at hand. However, intuitive introspection, at least in my opinion, transcends the boundaries of rationality as we understand it, and it even transcends our understanding of emotional responses, so intuition, although critical to my own decision making process is a slightly difficult aspect to illuminate. I once read the following paradigm somewhere. The origin of the paradigm is lost to my present memory, but the paradigm was this: whenever you are faced with a truly perplexing â€Å"yes or no† or â€Å"do or don’t† or â€Å"either or† decision, and you really can’t seem to make up your mind, flip a coin and assign â€Å"heads† to one outcome, and â€Å"tails† to the other. Now, when the result of the coin flip is shown, assess your feeling about the result and you will see what you wanted to do all along. In other words, say your choice is between going to a movie or playing a video game with your friends online. You can’t make up your mind which would be abetter choice, so you flip the coin, assigning â€Å"heads† to going to the movie, and â€Å"tails† to playing video games, vowing to abide by the result. Now, let’s assume the result of the coin flip is â€Å"tails† — staying home to play video games — and you feel excited, pleased and happy right away without thinking. Then staying in is what you wanted all along. If the coin-flip result of â€Å"tails† — staying home to play video games — made you want to flip the coin again for a different result, then you would know the same thing, that what you actually wanted to do was stay home and not go out to the movie. That is not to say that I make my decisions, trivial or profound, based on a coin flip! What I am driving at is that we often have intuitive feelings that lurk below the level of our rational consciousness and we can access this intuition in some cases when making decisions. As someone who has little faith in absolute ethical systems, or in a morality which is based on abstract philosophy, I like to include my own feelings, as well as my rational understanding of ethical concepts when I am faced with decisions. The underlying principles which inform the way I live my life are also drawn from the aforementioned notion of intuition or deep-introspection. For example, if I refuse a certain job offer, or even the offer of friendship on specific occasions this may have less to do with something which could be expressed in a linear fashion: the job was too demeaning, or that person had the wrong hair-style or hobby, but with something that might be more difficult to articulate clearly, but which is much more crucial than any superficial notions that might be viewed by some as important gauges or cues. In short, I don’t have any kind of â€Å"maxim† or concrete set of principles — edicts, I believe they are called — but rather a sense of personal disposition and emotional bearing. For example, I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings; viscerally: I just do not like to witness their pain so I avoid doing so when I can manage it. On the other hand, I take a rather dim view of altruism or the notion of helping people or giving them charity. I feel awkward placing myself in a position where I am apt to start pitying or feeling sorry for people; I myself dislike being pitied or felt sorry for, so I guess I assume it is the same for others. I tend to adopt the pursuit of happiness and personal joy (not to be confused with hedonism) as key aspects of my world view. That is, I am, at heart, an optimist who dislikes â€Å"whining† and cynicism and the pursuit of superficial self-gratification at the expense of others. That certainly does not mean that I advocate â€Å"selflessness† — whatever that term may indicate as a way of life, but rather, that I view joy, success, and fulfillment at least to some degree to be communal in nature. It is necessary that all acknowledge that everyone is a part of the human experience, no matter who or what they are. there are no exceptions. In my work, I try very hard to be both competent and respectful of those who I work with and for — but I often find it difficult to refrain from voicing my opinions, especially when I believe there is a possibility that my input may be helpful. I realize that work is a primary form of self-expression and self-fulfillment in life. My idea is that most people either love their jobs and derive a large part of their self-identity and worldly power through their jobs, or they hate their jobs and are constricted, limited, and oppressed by them. So, to my mind, it is crucial that you endeavor as much as possible to find a job that puts you in the former rather than the latter category because so much of life keys off of one’s work. One thing that I am convinced about is that everyone should bring the same emotional involvement and enthusiasm to their jobs as they very often bring to their hobbies, just as I believe most people should try to bring the same level of integrity and competence to their personal relationships as is usually required by their jobs. Obviously, I would not advocate the pursuit of money as a reliable indicator of whether or not a job is the right or wrong job. It is much more important that a job facilitate one’s sense of self-esteem and emotional security than whether or not the financial rewards are above and beyond â€Å"fair. † That said, a fair salary is always indicated because without it, maintaining self-respect and self-esteem is made more difficult. While there is no single â€Å"litmus test† for whether or not one’s work is the right work for them, the emotional and intuitive aspects of decision making can help as much in assessing a job’s strengths and weaknesses as a cold rational evaluation of the facts.

Leadership Styles and Theories Discussion

Leadership Styles and Theories Erica Hunter Faculty: Sherry Knight NUR 415 Leadership and Management in Nursing March 18th, 2013 The student name indicated on this title page signifies that the author has read and understands the IWU Honesty Policy as outlined in the Student Handbook and IWU Catalog. Affixing this statement to the title page certifies that no cheating or dishonest use of information has occurred in completing this assignment. The work submitted is original work specific for this course.If cheating and/or plagiarism are discovered in this paper, it is acknowledged that the university policy will be followed, and may result in dismissal of the student from Indiana Wesleyan University. Leadership Styles and Theories Leaders in healthcare and in business follow a leadership style to manage their employees. The Leadership styles vary from two factor theory, expectancy theory, and OB modification to transactional theory and transformational theory.The two factor theory is where the organization considers salary, status, and security to promote job satisfaction (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 10). Expectancy theory is where the organization believes an individual perceived needs influence their behavior thus affecting their work performance (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 10). OB modification is where the leader uses positive reinforcement to motivate followers to repeat constructive behaviors in the workplace (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 11).The two main theories I want to focus on are transactional and transformational theories. A transformational leader is one who promotes teamwork among the staff, encourages positive self-esteem, motivates staff to function at high levels of performance and empowers staff to become more involved in the development and implementation of policies and procedures (Atkinson Smith, 2011, p. 44-50). This leadership style is readily received by employees. This type of leadership was practiced when I worked in endoscopy at Miami Valley Hospital.The team leader Kandi encouraged the staff with positive affirmations. She would take the time to teach new policies and give an opportunity for the staff to ask questions about the change. Kandi followed up on quality issues and if an error was found she used it as an opportunity to learn for the employee in a non-punitive manner. Transactional leadership is when employees adopt the traditional view of the â€Å"boss† image (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 39). The superior makes the decisions with little or no input from the subordinates.This leadership style makes employees feel powerless and worthless to help with change. Hopefully this leadership style is used less within organizations. Leadership Styles and Theories References Atkinson Smith, M. (2011, September). Are you a transformational leader. Magnetic Pull, 42(9), 44-50. http://dx. doi. org/10. 1097/01. NUMA. 0000403279. 04379. 6a Yoder-Wise, P. (2011). Core Concepts. In P. Yoder-Wise (Ed. ), Leading and Managing in Nursing (5th ed. , pp. 5-6). St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier Mosby.

Religion as a Tool of Control Essay

â€Å"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people† (Marx 260). This statement implies that religion is a powerful concept that encourages people to accept their conditions instead of revolting against their plight. Indeed in the wrong hands, it can be perverted to justify countless atrocities and so be used as a tool of oppression. In her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a dystopian society, a fictional republic called Gilead, whose rulers use the power of religion to validate their terrifying personal agenda. She satirizes the political system that uses faith to validate its mandate, and justify its more questionable laws. Clearly the use of religion for political purposes is one of the central themes of the novel; Atwood takes a set of fundamentalist religious beliefs followed by certain fringe elements in contemporary society and takes them to their logical end to highlight their true despotic nature. In Gilead, politics and religion go hand in hand. The Sons of Jacob use religion and psychological tactics to control the masses and bend them to their will. Consequently the republic makes extensive use of religious terminologies for example domestic servants are called â€Å"Marthas† referring to a domestic character in the bible, the soldiers are called â€Å"Angels† while the local police are the â€Å"Guardians of the Faith†. The ruling government officials are called the â€Å"Commanders of the Faithful†. Even the names of shopping stores have biblical references like All Flesh, Milk and Honey, Loaves and Fishes. The purpose of this extensive use of biblical language is to deceive the people of Gilead into believing that their rulers enact the will of God Himself. Moreover the government only adopts certain aspects of Christianity while it shuns those that it finds inconvenient. For example Aunt Lydia, a teacher to the handmaids, says â€Å"I’ve learned to do without a lot of things, you get too attached to this material world and forget spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek. † (Atwood 110) at this point in the novel Offred notes that Aunt Lydia says nothing about inheriting the Earth. Thus the republic used religious justification to demand docile behavior from the handmaids. Therefore religion is used as a powerful political tool in Gilead. Women play a very limited role in Gilead’s society; biblical allusions are used to weaken their status. A Commander makes the following speech at the women’s prayvaganza. â€Å"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. â€Å"(273) Therefore, by drawing an interpretation from a single biblical story the role of women is limited to reproduction. Moreover, in order to prevent the women from getting libertarian, secular ideas mass censorship takes place in Gilead. The country is cut off from the outside world as it does not even allow international television to be broadcasted; Offred notes this while watching the television â€Å"Serena clicks the channel changer. Waves, colored zigzags, a garble of sound: it is the Montreal Satellite Station being blocked. â€Å"(101) Furthermore all books deemed heretical by the republic are burned and women are not allowed to read at all, the bible is kept under lock and key so that the Commanders can read out only those parts that are prescribed by the government. Offred’s commander reads out the following passage from the bible on the day of the monthly ceremony â€Å"Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear fruit upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. â€Å"(112) This biblical tale, narrated in the novel by the Commander, forms the basis of the concept of a handmaid which is why it is given special significance in Gilead and it is also another one of the archaic stories from the bible that are used to enforce highly questionable obligations on women. Thus the women of Gilead are subjugated by a warped version of Christianity. Religion is supposed to emancipate man. But The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a society in which it is used to shackle people, to brainwash them, to force them to conform to a lifestyle permitted by their government. Margaret Atwood compares the people living in Gilead’s repressive society to rats trapped in a maze, she points out â€Å"A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere as long as it stays in the maze†(363). In fact those that rebel to the established norms are dealt with harshly; they are punished at a seudo-religious ceremony called the Particicution, where they are lynched to death by a mob of women for false crimes they did not commit. Regarding this, the dissident handmaid, Ofglen remarks â€Å"He wasn’t a rapist at all, he was a political. He was one of ours. â€Å"(350) What this entails is that the society in the novel is highly autocratic and it does not allow the freedom of expression, in fact it uses fear to control its citizens and induce thei r piety, as Offred notes â€Å"We must look good from a distance: picturesque, like Dutch milkmaids on a wallpaper frieze. Soothing to the eye, the eyes, the Eyes, for that’s who this show is for. We’re off to the Prayvaganza to demonstrate how obedient and pious we are. † (266) This highlights the peoples’ inherent paranoia, the fear of being found unfaithful, that has been slowly cultivated into their hearts and minds. Truly the establishment defiles the true spirit of religion by going against its very essence: the spiritual liberation of mankind. The use of religion for political purposes is one of the central themes of the novel; Atwood takes a set of religious beliefs followed by certain fringe elements in contemporary society and takes them to their logical end to highlight their true despotic nature. In conclusion, Margaret Atwood portrays a horrifying alternate reality in which religious fundamentalists dominate and religion comes to dictate every aspect of human life. The topic of religion carries a lot of significance in the novel; in fact the novel serves as a warning against the extremist views held by many modern think tanks.

Personal Financial Plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Personal Financial Plan - Assignment Example The main advantage of the plan is that it encourages investment culture. The disadvantage is lack of flexibility on the side of the employee. The employees have no option of investing in other areas apart from the pre-tax and post-tax basis. The following is a description of Amgen retirement plan description: 401(K) retirement and saving plan Provide a core contribution of 5% as well as a company matching contribution of 100% of staff contributions up to a 5% of eligible pay. Professional, customized financial advisory services to help staff make informed investing decisions specific to their retirement planning strategy at no cost to staff members. The main advantage of the plan is that it provides free investing decisions to employees to allow them to make well-informed investing decisions. The disadvantage of the plan is that some employees may not be eligible thus blocking them out of the plan. The plan gives staff an opportunity to buy Amgen stock at a discount. The plan encoura ges and facilitates employees’ to invest in securities. On the contrary, it may not be flexible enough to facilitate employees’ diverse investment options. Retirement medical saving account Provides staff an opportunity to save for eligible health care expenses after retirement. The main advantage of the plan is that it hedges employees’ medical expenses after retiring. On the other hand, the disadvantage may arise in case the employee does not want to subscribe the plan in case of the existence of another medical plan.

Finance and Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Finance and Accounting - Essay Example A survey conducted by International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) revealed that out of 500 corporations, around 94% of the companies used derivative tool and they efficiently succeeded in hedging risks (International Derivatives and Swaps Association, 2009). It is seemingly clear that derivatives have economic and financial benefits for business which means they have resulted in making global financial markets safer. However, with the emergence of derivatives for financial speculations has brought this instrument under heavy criticism for making financial sector more risky and has been criticised for financial crisis. So, derivative have some benefits and risks too. The first most advantage of derivatives is the restructuring of risks by which movement in assets prices, interest rates and default of creditor can be hedged. They help in speculating the movement in the value of assets when they do not even own the assets. Secondly derivatives allows businesses to accomplish in controlling the external factors efficiently. Derivative instrument has been criticised for being used only for speculations. Derivatives contracts reduce the risk of one party while increases risk of the underlying assets for other party; this allows both parties to speculate the value of the principal assets irrespective of the fact parties are interested in the contract or not. Derivative instruments have efficient and effective economic and financial advantages which are required for the development of businesses and trade to hedge risks but it depends on the usage of this instrument which can pretence risks. Derivatives were criticised for lack of transparency in the OTC derivatives market under which standings of firms, their movement in asset prices and interest rates are not adequately transparent to the regulatory authorities and to other business companies (Financial Services Authority and HM Treasury, 2009). Sometimes business firms in the market are unaware of the mar ket standings of other companies which adds to more risks as monitoring of risks is weak and unwillingness for trade and hence the market liquidity may reduce. Derivatives contracts are affected by both operational risks and systematic risks. It is argued that operational risks can be improved by physical clearance of underlying assets and by addressing valuation differences. (Managed Funds Association, 2009) On the other hand systematic risks are caused by default of major stakeholders of derivatives market. It is usually referred to as â€Å"domino effect† (Investment Management Association, 2011). Derivatives of credit default swaps have the ultimate vulnerability to risks because they are more problematic in assess the value of underlying assets. Former Chairman of Federal Reserve, USA stated in a conference that â€Å"Although the benefits and costs of derivatives remain the subject of spirited debate, the performance of the economy and the financial system in recent ye ars suggests that those benefits have materially exceeded the costs† (Greenspan, 2003). (Part-2) Hedge funds are targeted to generate higher absolute returns for different type of investments. Hedge funds use highly advanced strategies for investment which comprise leveraged, short, long, and derivative positions designed for sophisticated investors. As hedge funds targets for higher returns that makes them more volatile and riskier besides profit compensate the risks at the end (SHORTMAN, 2010). Hedge funds are more liberal with respect to regulations and regulatory framework which makes them more flexible to use dynamic, vigorous and vibrant investment strategies with the combination of long, short and derivatives

Miniscule-Pro-Vision Phone Projector Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6250 words

Miniscule-Pro-Vision Phone Projector - Essay Example There will mainly be two product segments. The first and most strategic product segment will be the one aimed at manufacturers of phone handsets where the projectors are tiny Pico projector chips. The second entail complete phone projectors which are conveniently smaller in size, and easily integrated into a number of specific smartphones that have iOS, Android and RIM operating systems. These products will be built on RGB (Red Green Blue) laser projection technology ad will have the capability of forming high quality images projected on a surface: that is 35 lumen, 13 inch full colour images with WVGA (820 * 480 pixel) resolution, and using an infrared sensing technology be able to project interactive images that are responsive to touch. The Target markets: the company’s phone projector targets two key customers: end-user consumer aged between 20-44 years of age earning an income of ? 40,000 and above per year and delight in media sharing and content consumption in newer enla rged ways. The second and most important and strategic target market for the company will be the mobile handset manufacturers who constantly redefine their gadgets through innovative features that are fun, convenient and revolutionary. Market Research: 84% of the consumer respondents would like to own a phone with a projector, and 63% of them would be willing to pay a higher price for the phone, and a standard market price for the phone projector. 67% of phone manufacturers were experimenting with the embedded phone projector technology; they were though taking it slow observing end user consumer behaviour towards the gadgets and towards the already released Samsung galaxy with an in-built phone projector. 47% of them thought that while the phone projector technologies were a revolutionary technology, consumers had not yet found solid imperative uses for such projections as most only focused media sharing. They though all agreed that highly responsive touch enabled phone projectors would certainly find a lot more uses, and consumers would be highly responsive towards such phones than phones which only projected images and videos. It is projected that by 2015, the projector phones that will have been sold will be more than 20 million units. Projected sales: Profits in the first second and third years of operations are projected to be ?895,000, ?1,051,000, and ?1,350,000 respectively. This is in view of the high cost of initially promoting the product. Closing Summary: in conclusion, the product is found to be viable and profitable Table of contents Slogan †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦4 Mission Statement†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢ € ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦4 Environmental Scanning †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦6 SWOT Analysis †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.6 PESTLE Analysis †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.8 Marketing Research †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 11 Segmentation ...............................†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â ‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..16 Demographics †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..17 Targeting †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.19 Positioning †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦

Discuss the concept of sustainable development and discuss its Essay

Discuss the concept of sustainable development and discuss its analytical relevance to the development prospects of developing countries - Essay Example inition has two essential concepts the first one being concept of needs which especially covers the needs of the world’s poor that needs to be prioritized. Secondly, the definition presents the idea of limitations in terms of resources which is as a result of technologies and social structures which strains the ability of the environment to satisfy present and future needs of human populations (Ciegis, Ramanauskiene and Martinkus 2009). Based on the definition by Brundtland report, it is apparent that human beings are faced with many possibilities for the satisfaction of needs. These possibilities might have different meanings depending on how the available alternatives are conceived either based on production and consumption, or various social and environmental functions. Pierantoni (2004) note that these possibilities that human populations deal with can be associated with the different types of capital that include human, economic, ecologic, and social capital which are all essential variables in the understanding of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development has in its core the needs of human beings as opposed to those of other species, animals or ecosystems. On limitations, sustainable development establishes only boundaries and not absolute limitations but restrains, that applies to the present environmental resources and their capacity to absorb the effects of human activity. Consequently, the concept of sustainable development should be perceived as an equitable and balanced development. This basically means that for development to be consistent over a long period, it should take into account the interests of different groups of people within a given generation and among different generations and do so concurrently in three major related areas of economic, environmental, and social (Soubbotina 2004). In the context of developing countries, the essence sustainable development calls for the dramatic reduction of poverty and hunger in

Diversity at work - organisational politics to employees Essay

Diversity at work - organisational politics to employees - Essay Example As the case study shows, Isobela intelligently participates in the organizational politics at TopNotch and eventually gets a promotion after the retirement of James, their CEO. Alternatively, participating in organizational politics can have adverse effects on the careers of various individuals as happened to Alexis and George in the case study under consideration. The main issue that Alexis, George and Chetan are facing is their participation in organizational politics in an effort of seeing their efforts at the organization recognized and in turn get promotions. Their participation takes place when Alexis discovers that a former minister in New Zealand plans on hosting celebrations for his seventieth birthday. Alexis sees this as an opportunity of advancing her own agenda through playing politics to assist the company in achieving their objective of attracting latent clients while strengthening their status (Schermerhorn, Osborne, Uhl-Bien & Hunt, 2011). Alexis relies on rumors tha t are circulating within the organization concerning their relationship with their competitors. This enables her to obtain vital information concerning their organization of the various parties they have contracted (Martin, 2005). On the other hand, the company’s CEO also utilizes organizational politics in eliminating his competition in the attainment of contracts. He is able to threaten the management of ExcelEvent with the possibility of cutting ties with their major catering organization that is run by his relative. It is this move that enables him to eliminate part of their competition leaving one company vying for the same contract as his company (Sievers, Long & Lawrence, 2006). This therefore implies that the organizational politics utilized by the CEO of TopNotch were beneficial for his company (Case Study 2, 2012). Isobella is also perceived to have begun the steady rise in her career through the use of organizational politics. She reportedly manages to get the prom otions through having dinners with the company’s CEO and her family’s background. Isobella is said to be incompetent and leaves most of her duties to her assistant, a Mr. George. She utilizes the time she would have been performing beneficial duties for the company in blackmailing, gossiping and making negative reports concerning her subordinates to the CEO. This strategy enables her to propel her career to levels which other employees within her company only dream about. She additionally utilizes threats to damage the image of her subordinates who have not been complying with the organizations regulations (Champoux, 2010). For instance, she utilizes the pictures she had taken of George dating a colleague since the company has strict regulations concerning the relationships that exist between their workers. The types of organizational politics that are utilized by Isobella are meant to help her in pursuing her self-interests through the promotions she will get (Daft & Willmott, 2010). Alexis on the other hand uses her skills of negotiating directly with officials from other organizations in the pursuit of excellence for the company (Samuel, 2005). She uses her influence through positive organizational politics that would greatly have helped the company in achieving their desired objectives (Schermerhorn, Osborne,

Philosophy and Government Exercise Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Philosophy and Government Exercise - Essay Example They turned the study of philosophy which was the study of heavens to the study of human things. According to Socrates, human nature was the question of how best a person should live while Aristotle argued that using one’s reasoning is the best way to live. He emphasized that the best life suited to human nature involved reasoning. Humans interact in quite a number of ways as evident in different scenarios these includes, culture where by they live in large social groups. They usually interact for exchange of ideas, self expression and in organizations made up of huge cooperation’s and competing farms. Development of technology also changes the way humans relate in the sense that, in the past, we visited post offices to post birthday cards, Christmas and New Year letters to our beloved. Now that has changed to another simpler level where we just need to send an e-mail while still at home and that is all. In addition to that, we can meet our friends on their twitter and face book and get in touch instead of making arrangements on how to check on them which consumes most of out time and resources. Taking all these into account, we can brutally say that development of advanced technology has a positive effect on humans. Politics, government, language in use, Human beings should live harmoniously. They should have social, cultural, economic and political affiliations that unify them. The economic activities should allow them to get resources that they require and give out resources that they have in plenty. The social and cultural relations amongst human being should allow people to appreciate the differences in all groups of people. There should be exchange of culture through intermarriages, initiation and other rites of passage. The political interaction involves having a government that provides equality amongst all human beings. The powers vested in the government

Project part 4 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Project part 4 - Research Paper Example It is not that bad because during summer, there is usually a heavy rainfall which helps us to grow our crops as it provides enough water for them. We still do the traditional farming despite the advances of machines in agriculture. We plant wheat, maize, potatoes and soybeans. We also consume them because it enables us to save money and sell our surplus in the market. Our village is just small but we have a good sense of community. Although technology has already spread to the rest of China, we still manage to have those traditional good old fun of having tea and good conversation. I start the day early. I usually woke up at 5 in the morning where my wife prepares me food. She also cooks something extra for me to eat for lunch. My children wakes up a little later and prepare for school. After breakfast, I immediately go to the farm either to till the land or plant some crop. Depending on the day of the week, my wife usually go to the grocery during Mondays to buy foods, supplies for the children and buy items for the house .Since I make a living as a farmer, she does not have to buy much from the grocery as many of the items that we eat is already grown in the farm. She just usually shops for meat, some grocery items for the house and kids for the rest of the week. During the rest of the week, she keeps our house tidy and makes sure that our children are well taken cared off. She also does much of the academic tutoring to the children. In the farm, the seeds have to be planted and the land has to be tilled to make sure that I have a good harvest for me to provide my family. Also, I have to check that there no pests destroying my crops especially when harvest time is near. Good harvest is getting tougher to attain because I have to worry about a lot of things. This climate change has really an effect on farming as the weather is now harder to predict. It is no longer the same as before where heavy rains are expected during summer that gives us good harvests. Tod ay, there are times that it does not rain during summer and it is cut shorter for the longer winter. It is bad because it affects my harvest and I do not have a big land to till which is my only source of income. I usually go home at 5 in the afternoon just after the children has arrived from school. After resting for just half an hour, I usually spend time with them and my wife. Afterwhich, we usually have an early dinner to talk about what happened in school and also an opportunity to bond with the family. When we are done and the children are about to attend to their homework, my wife and I entertain ourselves with our modest television set in the house and watch our favorite show. China has already fully opened itself that we are now able to watch foreign syndicated TV shows. The children are already growing up and I am afraid that they may not get a good job in the future because jobs are getting scarce in China. I do not want them to end up as a farmer like me because life as a farmer can be difficult and it no longer that profitable. African Parent My name is Jumoke and I am from South Africa. I am an Afrikaner, a black man and a head of a family of five. My wife and our three children live in a modest house in Cape Town, the capital of South Africa. Life has changed for us black people for the better since the dismantling of apartheid. It took several decades for us to really live equally with the whites but now we are already equal on all aspects. I am working in the

Elizbeth Bishop Personal Response Intro Essay Example for Free

Elizbeth Bishop Personal Response Intro Essay The poetry of Elizabeth Bishop appeals to me because she writes about things which are relevant, in a remarkably vivid and vital way. Bishops misfortune in life has inspired her to write distressing poems in which she describes to us the loss she suffered at an early stage in her childhood. She also tells us about her deepest and darkest moments in life. Out of Bishops troubled life, her poetry was born. Bishop has a painters eye and she vividly describes the world around her. She has a keen eye for detail and this is shown in the descriptive language in her poetry. Her strong sense of imagery draws the reader into her poetry. The themes exploded in Bishops poetry have universal appeal. What makes Bishops poetry particularly appealing is her ability to make ordinary everyday objects seem fascinating. Through Bishops poetry we see how close observation leads the poet to have several moments of awareness where she experiences several epiphanies. These moments of awareness are highly dramatic but extremely interesting. The poems ‘Sestina’, ‘First Death In Novia Scotia’, ‘Filling Station’, ‘The Fish, The Armadillo and ‘The Prodigal’ all demonstrate various issues such as nature and childhood memories. What appealed to me most about Bishop’s poetry was her use of striking and powerful imagery. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Fish for its unusual imagery and detailed description. I was drawn into the poem immediately as she says, I caught a tremendous fish. She describes the fish as ‘battered’, ‘venerable’ and ‘homely. Bishop then goes on to compare the fish to everyday domestic items. His brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper. I found this statement particularly appealing as it evoked a sense of homely familiarity in me.

Thirteen Reasons Why-Jay Asher Essay Example for Free

Thirteen Reasons Why-Jay Asher Essay Clay Jensen returns from school one day to find an obscure looking box outside leaning on his porch door with his name on the box. Clay was sceptic of the box, although he still opened it, to his own discovery it was 7 double sided cassette tapes recorded by his classmate and crush, Hannah Baker. Hannah two weeks earlier had committed suicide. On tape is the thirteen reasons why Hannah had ended her life so soon. Clay had wondered why he got these tapes from Hannah; unknowingly he was one of the thirteen reasons why. While I read The Thirteen Reasons Why Hannah committed suicide I felt as if in a way I was Clay Jensen, I always wondered why and when will Hannah bring â€Å"us† up. Every cassette tape was a new story and another reason why. Some reasons were little things a lot of girls go through in high school, others were situations girls or guys should not be put through at any point during their life. Although all the cassettes fit together like a puzzle in the end I love the mystery of not knowing what was next, the book made me always want to know more. After reading this book on my own I would strongly recommend it to teenage girls. The mystery, comedy and adventure brought me from smiling to tears within a turn a page. In the modern world that we live in today teens commit suicide often over break up to be bullied, teens don’t know how to handle some situations. Hannah gave up on her life because she did not know how to help herself, she tried asking for help then she lost hope in herself and made everything worse. The book The Thirteen Reasons Why shows that people will miss you when you are gone, no matter what you think you know someone will always miss you.

Legal Defenses in Criminal Law

Legal Defenses in Criminal Law In criminal law, offenses are clearly defined. Some require a proof of the criminal act and others require proof of intent to commit the crime. Under the law; individuals may have performed illegal acts but still not be found guilty of a criminal violation because of a legally recognized justification for the actions or because legally they were not responsible for their actions (Neubauer Fradella, 2010, p. 48-49). Legal defenses in criminal law come from the way crime is defined. There are numerous defenses that are seen in criminal cases. Self-defense is the most commonly seen legal defense. Others include duress or compulsion, infancy or immaturity, mental impairment or insanity, and necessity. To be held responsible for a crime, a person must understand the nature and consequences of his or her unlawful actions. Under certain circumstances, a person who commits a crime lacks the legal capacity to be held responsible for the act. Defenses based on justifications rely on a claim t hat the accused party did take certain action now being labeled criminal but had no other choice in order to minimize their own losses or those of someone else. A justification defense deems conduct that is otherwise criminal to be socially acceptable and non-punishable under the specific circumstances of the case. Justification focuses on the nature of the conduct under the circumstances. Excuse defenses focus on the defendants moral culpability. An excuse defense recognizes that the defendant has caused some social harm but should not be blamed or punished for such harm. Justification and excuse defenses apply to all crimes. Some defenses, however, pertain to just one or a few crimes. For example, legal impossibility is a common law defense to the crime of attempt. Justification, excuse, and offense-modification defenses all relate to the defendants culpability or to the wrongfulness of conduct. There is a difference between justification defense and an excusable defense. Self-def ense and necessity are justifiable reasons and duress and insanity are excusable reasons. Self-Defense The general rule is that a person is privileged to use force as reasonably appears necessary to defend himself or herself against an apparent threat of unlawful and immediate violence from another (Pollock, 2009, p. 90). The general rule is that a person is privileged to use force when a person reasonably believes that it is necessary to defend oneself or another against the immediate threat of danger or use of unlawful force. However, a person must use no more force than appears reasonably necessary in the circumstances. Force likely to cause death or great bodily harm is justified in self-defense only if a person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. In thinking about a self-defense case, attorneys need to consider police use-of-force training and standards. Attorneys will need to know a moderate amount of technical information about firearms, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, blood splatter evidence and crime scene reconstruction in or der to review and challenge the prosecutors experts (Steele, 2003, p. 659). Attorneys investigate eyewitness memory and how the client, the deceased and any innocent bystanders were affected by the stress of the incident. If the act was committed in self-defense, then the crime is not punishable. The right to protect oneself, family, and home is recognized by the common law. Model Penal Code shows that use of force is justifiable when it is used to protect and prevent against harm. To prove self-defense, one must show proof that there was a reasonableness of fear of physical harm to oneself or another and reason to perceive an imminent danger. The amount of force used must be reasonable and related to the threat and he or she who is claiming self defense cannot be the cause of the incident. Duress In criminal law, duress is a defense to a crime if the defendant was pressured or compelled to commit the crime by another. If there was a threat of serious imminent harm to the defendant or others and no reasonable escape available, then duress or compulsion can be claimed if the crime is of a lesser magnitude than the harm threatened. The common law recognized duress as a defense for crimes but not murder. Nowadays, Under the Model Code, the defense of duress is not established simply by the fact that the defendant was coerced; he must have been coerced in circumstances under which a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would likewise have been unable to resist (Pollack, 2009, p. 83). Compulsion refers to the forcible persuasion to an act. It also means the act of forceful and uncontrollable impulse to do something in the state of being persuaded. Duress or compulsion can take many forms other then physical force. It can be threats used under the heads of obedience to ord ers, martial pressure, and necessity. Duress excuses criminal behavior where the defendant shows that the acts were the product of threats inducing a reasonable fear of immediate death or serious bodily injury (Pollack, 2009, p. 83). Committing a crime because of fear of immediate danger allows state laws to excuse the criminal conduct. Duress excuses criminal culpability only if the defendant is in imminent fear of bodily harm by another with no escape and the crime cannot be any serious personal violent crime, such as homicide. To be cleared by reason of duress, the defendant must not have also been reckless in putting themselves in harms way. Although not universally recognized, woman will use the defense of battered woman syndrome. This is to say that that assailant, typically female, becomes helpless because of constant abuse and is forced to commit crime because they fear there is no escape. Infancy Infancy and immaturity is a legal defense and has been seen in criminal cases. Infancy means the state or period of being a minor and is a lack of legal capacity to be held responsible for a crime due to the age of the perpetrator. Infancy, in this case, means only that the child does not have the capacity to determine right and wrong, the age of infancy is set by case law or statute (Pollack, 2009, p. 70). The legal defense of infancy is a form of defense known as an excuse so that defendants falling within the definition of an infant are excluded from criminal liability for their actions, if at the time they have not reached an age of criminal responsibility. According to the common law, a child under the age of seven is clearly not responsible for their actions even if the child confessed to the act. A child between the ages of seven and fourteen is still considered infant and is not responsible but some cases can be overturned. The Model Penal Code establishes that any individual under the age of sixteen is to be tried in juvenile court but any individual older than sixteen but younger than eighteen at the time of the incident can be tried in adult criminal court if the juvenile courts wave jurisdiction. The exact age at which a person is no longer considered a juvenile, and can this be prosecuted as an adult, differs from state to state (Neubauer Fradella, 2010, p. 49). Most of the state courts that have addressed the issue have declared that the infancy defense is inapplicable to juvenile court prosecutions because it was intended to guard children from the harshness of the adult penal system and therefore has no relevance to a rehabilitation-oriented juvenile court system. In the criminal law, each state will consider the nature of its own society and the available evidence of the age at which antisocial behavior begins to manifest itself. Juvenile delinquency is a form of immaturity and a childs criminal violations. Common crimes include theft, burglar y, sale or possession of drugs, and criminal damage and vandalism to property. Insanity Insanity is a legal defense where a defendant claims to have been under mental impairment during the time of the crime. It is a legal term and refers to any mental illness that meets the legal threshold for incapacity. Defendants claiming insanity plead that they are not to be held responsible for their actions. In common law, courts held that if the defendant had no understanding or memory to know what he was doing was wrong, he was like an infant or world beast and, therefore, not culpable (Pollack, 2009, p. 73). Daniel MNaghten was a woodworker who believed he was the target of a conspiracy involving the pope and British Prime Minister Robert Peel. In 1843, MNaghten traveled to 10 Downing Street to ambush Peel, but mistakenly shot and killed Peels secretary. During the ensuing trial, several psychiatrists testified MNaghten was delusional. A jury agreed, declaring him not guilty by reason of insanity. This was the first case seen with the defense of insanity. To determine pure ins anity of a defendant, certain rules are followed such as MNaghtens Rules and a right and wrong test is administered because insanity is an affirmative defense. To establish criminal incapacity under this test, a defendant must introduce at least some evidence to show that, as a result of his mental condition, he did not know the nature and quality of his act or did not know that the act was wrong (Pollack, 2009, p. 75). The defendant must show burden of proof and competency to stand trial. In some cases, when the defendant is not declared legally insane, diminished capacity defenses are used such as premenstrual syndrome, post partum depression syndrome, intoxication, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and battered woman syndrome. Necessity Similar to duress, necessity is a defense used when the pressure that makes the defendant commit the crime comes from an outside source. In this case, the factors that affect the defendant come from the physical forces of nature instead of another human being. Necessity is sometimes referred to as the Choice of Evils. The evil sought to be avoided must be greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense (Pollack, 2009, p. 87). Necessity excuses criminal conduct when it is done only to avoid an even greater harm. If one believes that they or another is about to suffer significant bodily harm and there is no other reasonable legal alternative to engaging in the criminal conduct, then one may claim this legal defense and not be held responsible. For example, if you are being chased and enter a random home without permission to seek shelter and contact the police, then it is excusable and you will not be charged with trespassing although you did not have permissio n. But here, your actions would probably be excused as being done out of necessity. Necessity is another legal defense that must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence. An example is the possession of marijuana as a medical necessity. The defense of necessity excuses criminal actions taken in response to exigent circumstances, and is based on the premise that illegal action should not be punished if it was undertaken to prevent a greater harm. The test for necessity requires that the defendant faced with a choice of evils choose the lesser evil; it does not require that the evil perceived must be illegal under the law. (Graybiel, 1994). Conclusion Justifications and excuses represent exceptions to those generally applicable prohibitory norms, precluding conviction and punishment in certain defined circumstances even where an actor has engaged in prohibited conduct or caused a prohibited result. A justification centers on the external, objective circumstances that surround an otherwise criminal act and seeks to determine whether, on balance, the act has benefited (or at least not harmed) society. In contrast, an excuse generally focuses upon an actors individual characteristics and subjective mental state and aims to determine whether he can justly be held accountable.

Salem Power Plant :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Salem Harbor power plant is a serious threat to the public health – and it may only get worse. There is a severe concern about toxic air emissions from the prior waste disposal practices. That is why Bush’s energy plan doesn’t quite work? In the Salem Evening News it says that, â€Å"The Bush plan only pays lip service to the threat of global warming, the greatest environmental danger of our time.† (Kert Davies) The Bush plan may of solved the threat of global warming, but in reality Pollution from oil- and coal-burning power plants kills more people in Massachusetts every year than homicides and drunken driving combined. Why should the public be harmed every time they decide to take a jog around the block? People are dying each year due to the Salem Harbor power plant. â€Å"The activists planted crosses to symbolize the deaths caused by the mining and burning of coal made, making the point that the Bush plan is over reliant on coal, a dirty energy source.† (Davies) Not only does the Salem Harbor power plant kill people each year but other plants such as; â€Å"Brayton Point in Somerset; Canal Station in Sandwich; Mystic Station in Everett; Mt. Tom Station in Holyoke; and Somerset Station in Somerset† (Davies) kill people too. The real factor that kills the people is the coal. It may not seem it but â€Å"coal kills the people who mine it, and when corporate polluters burn it – coal destroys our air, and shortens lives.† (Davies) So should the general public be harmed everyday when they decide to go for a jog in the morning? What can be done to prevent coal from being used? There are enough new gas-fired power plants under construction to supply nearly half of New England’s peak demand. â€Å"Two new gas pipelines are now operational, adding enough natural gas supply to New England to power all the new plants currently being built.† (Davies) We don’t get our power from a particular power plant, but from the web of power plants and transmission lines across the region called the â€Å"grid.† â€Å"These new plants will come on line over the next one to two years, to compete against the old, dirty units to supply our electric power.† (Davies) So using the gas pipelines is one way to cut down on the coal. How about another way? In fact there

Samuel Huntingtons The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Worl

Abstract Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order defines eight major civilizations on the basis of religion. This division of global powers can be used to prove that the Western civilization will never completely dominate the global media. While Western thought tends to lead to a more representative form of government, and consequently a more libertarian or social responsibility-based media, the other belief systems of the global powers tend to lead to more authoritarian government and media formats. This difference creates constant conflict between the global powers, thus disabling any one civilization from subjugating the others. Issue Paper In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel Huntington asserts the idea that the end of the Cold War marked the beginning of a realignment of global powers. Huntington believes these powers, or civilizations, can be distinguished by religion, and he divides the post-Cold War world into eight major civilizations: Sinic/Confucian; Japanese; Hindu; Islamic; Orthodox; Western; Latin American; and possibly African (45-47). This division of power among religion is the basis for the argument against complete Anglo-dominance of a "global media." The vast differences among the various civilizations' treatment of the media will prove too great for even the transnational corporations to overcome. To take Huntington's theory one step further, the religious differences among these civilizations will be at the heart of the inability of the Western (Anglo-dominated) world to exert total power over the rest of the world. Huntington is careful to separate each religion, excepting Japanese, Latin American and African, from any particul... ...ations of the Moscow Patriarchate, "The Russian Orthodox Church Today." 1996. Grice, Corey. "Russia, Latin America installing fiber-optic networks." CNET News.com. February 3, 2000. Hickerson, Delvin and Trevor Kirkland, The Geography of Confucianism. May 17, 1999. Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Infobeat / AP. "Japan publishers pressured to tone down descriptions." November 11, 1999. Newsday / AP. "Japan Crown Prince attacks press." February 23, 2000. Sprunger, Meredith. The Urantia Book -- On-line Reference Edition. 2000. The New York Times / AP. "Algeria detains photographer." April 03, 2000. The Washington Post. "War reports limited on Russian TV." October 11, 1999. Yahoo / Reuters. "Afghanistan art gallery reopens, but portraits banned." February 22, 2000.

Welfare and Social Responsibility :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Welfare and Social Responsibility    Welfare. Read that word to yourself and ask what popular images surround it. The first thing is probably women and children. This one is correct, because 97% of AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the federal "welfare" program) is made up of women and children. Young women? Not really-the average age of a mother receiving welfare is 29, and only 7.6% are under the age of 20. Is she black? Maybe, because the composition of the welfare roles is about the same percentage black and white. More kids than she can count? The average welfare family has 2.9 members. That means a single mom would have 1.9 children (fewer than the national average). Forever "dependent?"-the average length of a stay on welfare is 22 months. We certainly think that they don't work. Without bringing up the question of why raising children is not considered work, the average AFDC benefit plus food stamps still is only 69% of the poverty line. Women on welfare are constantly working to make up that differ ence. Do we think of welfare as expensive? AFDC represents just over 1% of the national budget. If welfare is not about young women having lots of babies and living their life off the generosity of the state, and if it's a minuscule part of the federal budget, why have Republicans chosen it as their pilot issue? Why, when our Federal Reserve is raising interest rates and attempting to maintain an unemployment rate of 6.2%, and when a job at minimum wage would still leave a mother with two children 23% below the poverty line, is entrance into the paid workforce being pushed as the panacea for poverty? If we are serious about getting people to work we need relevant training programs, child care provisions, and efforts at job creation. These at least were discussed in the Clinton plan, if the plan was in many other ways as punitive and insubstantial as the Republican plan. The Republican ideology is particularly insidious because it shifts the entire frame of debate from the structural to the moral. It implies, even states, that if those people would just clean up their morals and stop being so lazy that they could have a place in the American Dream. Today welfare moms are understood to be the symbol for all that is morally wrong with America.

The effect of motivation on behavior

In everyday conversation, the question â€Å"What motivated you to do that?† is a way of asking, â€Å"What caused your behavior?   Why did you act that way?†Ã‚   To psychologists, a motivation is a need or desire that serves to energize behavior and to direct it toward a goal.   Psychologists consider motivation as a hypothetical concept.   Hence, they infer motivation from behaviors observe.But in a broader sense, motivation pertains to the purpose for responding.   The term comes from the Latin verb movere, which means, â€Å"to move,† and it is what causes movement (behavior) that concerns this paper.   The idea of movement is reflected in such commonsense ideas about motivation as something that gets us going, keep us moving, and helps us get jobs done.   Conversely, a person is not motivated when s/he cannot seem to get out of bed or off the sofa (Pintrich, 2001).Despite these commonly held ideas, definitions of motivation are numerous and varie d, and there is much disagreement over the precise nature of motivation.   Motivation has been conceived of in such varied terms as involving inner forces, enduring traits, behavioral responses tom stimuli, and sets of beliefs and affects (Schunk, D.H. 2003).Although motivation has many facets, psychologists have been especially concerned with those influences that energize and direct responses.   Simply stated, motivation determines how strong a behavior will be and the form it will take.   Moreover, much of what is known about motivational processes comes from research on how people respond to the difficulties, problems, failures, and setbacks encountered as individuals pursue goals over time.  Ã‚   Various theories contend that motivation underlies much human behavior (Weiner, 2005).Psychologists have different theoretical perspectives on motivation.   At present, there are four motivational strategies that are influential on how psychologists have understood  motivat ion, namely, flow theory, stress and coping theory, and intrinsic and extrinsic theory.Flow theoryCsikszentmihalyi (2005) studied individuals who engaged in intrinsically motivating activities and found that their experiences reflected complete involvement with the activities. This involvement, is known as the flow theory, and is defined as â€Å"the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement† (Csikszentmihalyi, 2005).According to Csikszentmihalyi, the flow is very much related to other human motives and has shown that the dimensions in this two-by-two classification are closed-versus open-system goals and intra- versus interindividual processes.   Closed goals are those that determined by genetics (needs, hunger, thirst, safety, optimal activation) or socialization; open goals develop as a result of experience and cannot be explained by pre-existing factors.   Interindividual processes are social in nature, whereas intraindividual processes refer to the person.   Flow is a personal process and reflects open systemic goals (Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 2003).Moreover, individuals experiencing flow are so intensely involved with a task that they may lose awareness of time and space.   They also seek a flow experience for itself rather than for anticipated rewards.   Although flow can be experienced with any activity, it is more likely to occur with activities that allow for free expression and creativity such as games, play, and art.   De Charm’s origin state shares many elements with flow.   In extreme form, individuals forsake a traditional lifestyle and most contingent material rewards to engage in activities that provide flow (de Charms, 1996).There are a number of researches on the flow theory.   These researches have proven that despite being nebulous, the flow theory makes intuitive sense.   Csikszentmihalyi (2002)  describes a research study in which the Experience Sampling Method was emplo yed.   Adults carried beepers that sounded several times a week, at which time subjects rated themselves on two dependent variables:   Affect (comprising items â€Å"happy,† â€Å"cheerful,† â€Å"sociable†) and activation (comprising â€Å"active,† â€Å"alert,† â€Å"strong†).Subjects also judged their situation for challenges present and skills available.   The amount of time individuals judged themselves to be in flow (defined as challenges and skills present and equal to one another) was related positively to affect and activation (Csikszentmihalyi,2002).Mayers (reported in Csikszentmihalyi, 2002) had high school students’ rate school subjects and activities on challenge and skill.   Favorite activities fell into the flow are (challenge= skill): TV and music listening (low on each); friends (moderate); and arts, such as drama or ballet, and sports (high on each).   Skills were judged to exceed challenges in humanities a nd social sciences, resulting in boredom.   Challenges were rated as exceeding skills in mathematics and the sciences, resulting in anxiety.Other research compared the flow experiences of three groups of adolescents.   One group attended a select public school in Italy, a second group attended a typical suburban high school near Chicago, and a third group comprised talented math students from a top Chicago public school.   Students used the Experience sampling Method.   The Italian teens reported more flow experiences than U.S. teens, especially those talented in math.   Among the U.S. teens, those attending the typical school reported the most amounts of boredom (skills exceed challenges) and anxiety (challenges exceed skills).Interestingly, the talented group scored significantly lower than the other two samples in apathy, defined as skills and challenges in sync but below average (e.g., watching TV, listening to music).   In sum, experiences are comparable for average and above average students across cultures, whereas for talented U.S. teens, flow and apathy are rarer and boredom and anxiety are common (.Csikszentmihalyi, 1995)These researches implied that motivation affects the behavior of people.   The flow theory concluded that there is a state of equilibrium between the amount of challenge in activities and an individual’s capabilities.   People feel bored when their perceived skills exceed their opportunities for using them; they become anxious when they believe that challenges exceed capabilities.   Flow can vary intensity, with the critical variable being the ratio of challenge to skill.   The portrayed relations presumably hold for peak as well as everyday experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003).Intrinsic and Extrinsic theory Deci & Ryan believes that intrinsic and extrinsic motivational forces govern behavior.   Extrinsic forces are preprogrammed biologically (e.g., food, sleep) or derive from the reward structure in whic h the individual is socialized (money, prestige).   Intrinsic forces grow out of the individual’s belief that a given outcome is worth striving for (Deci & Ryan, 2001).Deci and his colleagues (Rigby, Deci, Patrick, & Ryan, 2002) have recently conceptualized motivation along both intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions.   Intrinsic motivation concerns activities that are autotelic – engaged in for their own sake – which by definition are self-determined.   Extrinsic motivation involves a progression from behaviors that originally were extrinsically motivated but became internalized and now are self-determined.   The first level includes what Deci and his colleagues call external regulation.   In their research, they cited the example that students initially may not want to work on math but do to obtain teacher rewards and avoid punishment.There is very little self-determination in this situation.   At the next level of extrinsic motivation, students may en gage in a task (e.g., study for an exam).   Deci and his colleagues call this introjected regulation because the source of motivation is internal (feelings of â€Å"should,† â€Å"ought,† guilt) to the person but not self-determined since these feelings seem to be controlling the person.   The third level is called identified regulation and here individuals engage in the activity because it is personally important to them.The example they cited is that, a student may study hours for a test in order to get good grades to be accepted into college.   This behavior represents the student’s own goal, although the goal has more utility value (Wigfield & Eccles, 2002) than intrinsic value such as learning.   The final level of extrinsic is integrated regulation, whereby individuals can integrate various internal and external sources of information into their own self-schema and engage in behavior because of its importance to their sense of self.This final level is still instrumental, rather than autotelic as in intrinsic motivation, but integrated regulation does represent a form of self- determination and autonomy.   As such, both intrinsic motivation and integrated regulation will result in more cognitive engagement and learning than external or introjected regulation (Rigby et al., 2002).Deci and his colleagues` (Rigby et al., 2002) position is thought –provoking, has generated much research, and has important implications for the field.   Many points in the self-determination model are not clearly specified, but researchers increasingly are conducting studies that are adding to the understanding of how this theory explains how behavior changes through motivation.Stress and Coping Theory Richard Lazarus` stress and coping theory was developed from his several research on stress and its effects to humans, and it emphasizes psychological variables, namely, the cognitive processes of perception and thought.   Lazarus   (197 6, 1982, 1996) argues that it is neither the process (e.g. stressor) nor the response that best defines motivation.   Rather, it is the individual’s perception and appraisal of the situation that is a significant determinant of whether or not motivation will be experienced.   He cited that an individual may enjoy public speaking, whereas another individual finds it terrifying.   According to Lazarus, events in and of themselves do not produce motivation; it is the individual’s appraisal of the event that creates the motivation (Lazarus, 2001).Lazarus` theory of motivation states that when an individual is confronted with challenge, primary appraisal occurs.   During primary appraisal the individual attempts to determine how the event will affect her or his behavior.   Some events are perceived as positive and beneficial and thus are likely to create a motivation.   However, other events are viewed negatively and thus are perceived as harmful or threatening such as stress.   This appraisal of the event also generates different coping emotions such as fear, anger, or excitement (Lazarus, 1995).The next stage, secondary appraisal, involves determining whether one’s coping capacities are sufficient to meet the demands of a potentially harmful event.   An important part of this stage is a review and analysis of the response alternatives available to the individual.   This secondary appraisal can also lead to the acquisition of new coping responses (Lazarus, 2002).Although the two models of stress and coping theory of motivation are quite different, they are not necessarily antagonistic.   It is easy to see how a biological system to cope with stress would have obvious evolutionary advantages in enhancing survival.   Yet the nature of the human cerebral cortex allows for decisional process in dealing with stress, rather than autonomic biological reactions that are characteristic of lower organisms.   A synthesis of this t heory provides for an immediate, probably nonspecific, preparation for dealing with stressors; it is followed by an intelligent appraisal of the situation that may redirect the physiological reactions and institute motivation.  Ã‚   It is because humans have behavioral options, even though they may not always make intelligent decisions in dealing with stressors (Lazarus, 2001).In conclusion, motivation is an important quality that affects all behavior because the different theories presented have proven that it can influence both learning of new behaviors and performance of previously learned behaviors.   Behavior is related in a reciprocal fashion to motivation because how one behaves can be changed through one’s subsequent task motivation.ReferencesCsikszentmihalyi, M. (2002).   Emergent motivation and the evolution of the self.   In D.A.Kleiber & M.L. Maehr (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement (Vol. 4, pp. 93-98).   Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Csikszentmih alyi, M. (2003). Intrinsic rewards and emergent motivation.   In M.R. Lepper &D. Greene (Eds.), The hidden costs of reward:   New perspectives on the psychology of  human motivation (pp. 205-206).   Hillsdale, NY:Erlbaum.Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rathunde, K. (2003).   The measurement of flow in everyday life:   Toward a theory of emergent motivation.   In J.E. Jacobs 9Ed.), Nebraska symposium on  Ã‚  motivation 1992 (Vol. 40, pp. 57-97).   Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2005).   Toward a psychology of optimal experience.   In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology   (Vol. 3, pp. 13-16).   Beverly Hills,  CA:Sage.Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2005).   Beyond boredom and anxiety.   San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.  de Charms, R. (1996).   Enhancing motivation.   New York: Irvington.   Deci, E.L. (1995). Intrinsic motivation.   New York: Plenum.  Deci, E.L. (2000). The psychology of self-determination.   Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.  Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2001).   Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human  behavior.   New York: Plenum.Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2002).   The support of autonomy and the control of behavior.   Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1024-1027.Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2003). A motivational approach to self: Integration in personality.   In R.A. Dienstbier (Ed.) Nebraska symposium on motivation 1990(Vol. 38, pp.237-238.  Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press. Lazarus, R.S. (1996).   Psychological stress and the coping process.   New York: McGraw-Hill.  Ã‚  Lazarus, R.S. (1995).   Thoughts on the relation between emotion and cognition.   AmericanPsychologist, 37, 109-111.Lazarus, R.S. (2001).   Emotion and adaptation.   Oxford: Oxford University Press.Lazarus, R.S. (2002).   Little hassles can be hazardous to your health. Psychology Today,  pp.82-85.Pintrich, P.R. (2001).   Current issues and new directions in motivational theory and research.   Ã‚  Educational Psychologist, 26,199-201.Rigby et al., (2002).   Beyond the intrinsic –extrinsic dichotomy: Self-determination and  learning.   Motivation and Emotion, 16, 165-167.  Rigby, Deci, Patrick, & Ryan, (2002).   Beyond the intrinsic –extrinsic dichotomy: Self-determination and learning.   Motivation and Emotion, 16, 165-167.Schunk, D.H. (2003).   Goal difficulty and attainment information:   Effects on children’sAchievement behavior.   Human Learning, 2, 107-117.Weiner, B. (2005).   Human motivation.   New York: Springer-Verlag.Wigfield, A. & Eccles, J. (2002).   Expectancy-value theory of motivation: A developmental perspective.   Educational Psychology Review, 6, 49-52.

Overcoming the Odds

Overcoming the Odds In life there will always be obstacles that are placed before us. Some will be easy and others will be difficult. I could remember a few incidents that made me think I would not be able to overcome certain roadblocks to achieve my goals. It was the summer of 2009; we had just got back home from Antigua & Barbuda of the sixth CVC Basketball Classic tournament. My high school coach had received a letter of acceptance to Word of Life Traditional School in Wichita, Kansas awarding me a full scholarship to play basketball for their school.At that time my mother was unemployed and we were not receiving help from other family members. The only thing that was going through my mind was saying, â€Å"Yes, I’ve got a school abroad to better myself and make my mother proud. † When I was looking at my mother’s face as she read the letter; it was full of happiness and stress at the same time. The ticket to Kansas was around eight hundred to one thousand dol lars, school was opening in less than three weeks, and we did not have a dollar for my ticket or living expenses.My mother and I had asked family members, friends, and private companies. It has been three weeks and we only had received five hundred dollars. All I could do is cry realizing I can’t go. As my mom witnessed my pain and frustration, she held me and said â€Å"God knows best and everything happens on his time, not ours. He wouldn’t bring us this far to fail. † The first week of school had passed and things was still looking bleak. That Friday morning I was shooting on the basketball court trying to clear my head.This guy saw me and asked me why I was not in school I told him about my situation. The man pulled out his wallet and gave me his card and told me to stop by his office that afternoon. Later that day I went to his office and he handed me a check for one thousand dollars. He said, â€Å"always work hard and follow your dreams and you will alwa ys have support,† I got up and thanked him for giving me an opportunity to pursue my dreams, believing in me, and how I will forever be grateful for his kindness.Once I left the office, I ran all the way home with tears in my eyes and out of breath to show my mom the check. She dropped to her knees and said, â€Å"Thank you Lord I know you would make it come through for my baby. † That weekend I spent packing my bags to leave on Tuesday morning. My mother sat down with me and told me that she wasn’t going to take this journey with me, she was frighten because I was only fifteen, and I have never been anywhere out of the country without her. The thought of now having to go to a strange state where I do not know anyone.She had second thoughts about me going. I said to her it cannot be that hard to do this and I am covered in the blood of Jesus. When Tuesday came it was that time to say goodbye, my mother started crying I held her and told her it will be ok even tho ugh I was scared yet I had to embrace it also trying to hold back the tears. All in all some things might seem impossible for you; as long as you stick with it, you will be successful. Going through this has truly made me stronger person physically, mentally, and it also has helped me grow to be more mature.

Children Don’t Need To Learn More Languages Essay

With technology progress advances communication between foreign countries. Nowadays everybody has to know english, because it’s some kind of international language. And it’s recommended to know some other languages: french, german, chineese as example. But our children don’t need to learn more languages in the future. Why? We will find the answer from the text below. Some people say: â€Å"_Those who know many languages live as many lives as the languages they know_†. It’s obvious that it’s silly to argue with this statement. It’s really necessary, because language is the soul of intellect. But people are very slothful. And we know, that progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things. Nowadays we have electronic dictionaries in our smartphones, some of them have voice recognition. Who could imagine that ten years ago? And who can imagine, what will we have in ten years? I will try. Everybody has installed dictionary in his gadget: phone, PC, Tablet PC, even in clocks. And this dictionary can translate all languages, even unimportant, like languages of small african villages. All the devices have voice recognition, so you don’t need type text. And they can translate not only words, but phrases, sentences and even texts. But people learn languages, because you don’t use dictionary while having conversation. Though in other 10 years mankind will get rid of this problem. Everybody will have small ear-device, which will translate all the words, all the languages, all the accents. People will just hear some echo of people, and the main thing – they will hear the translation instantly. Nowadays such devises are used on international meetings, political conventions. But they are far from perfect, there are  still little mistakes, so programmers need some time to do ideal ear-translator. There are a lot of words, which have several meanings. As example phrasal verbs: â€Å"call†, â€Å"run†. Or such words like ‘break†, â€Å"like†. How computer will distinguish such words? Computers become better and better, their power and capacity increases every day. Nowadays computers can analyse information and change it’s own algorithm. In the near future such computers will be open to general use. And computer will see, what words people use, and use the most appropriate words. Somebody can say, that computer is just a programm, script. And you must have intellect and mind to translate languages, that computer will never replace human. But who could imagine robots, playing the piano and violin? Who could imagine planes without pilots and cars without drivers? Artificial Intelligence becomes more intelligent, more smart. So electronic dictionaries are really possible to supplant interpreters. However US author Elbert Hubbard said: _†One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man†_, that’s why there will be several linguistic scientists who will translate books, but all the world will use digital translators. But there is another scenario of world evolution. Nowadays all international political meetings are held in english, a lot of computer programms are written in english. There are several companies in Moscow and some other big russian cities, where all the stuff speaks on english. New generation use english more and more often. Sometimes it seems, that they know english better, than russian. So, english becomes international language. In this way, do we need other languages? Of course, people will speak their native language, and english will be the secondary one, for international communication. It will be enough to have a good command of just two languages (three or four in some countries like Austria). So we can draw a conclusion: thanks to technological progress we and our children have no need to learn more languages in the future. We will learn  only two languages, our native and international one. Everything else computers will assume.

Engaging & Supporting Students in Learning Essay

Many algebra teachers find student engagement as one of the most difficult challenges in teaching the subject. This is primarily because popular culture has constructed the idea of mathematics in general as a difficult and disinteresting subject and algebra specifically to be one of the most difficult and disinteresting of them all. However, my experience with teaching the subject has helped me select appropriate instructional strategies that can engage all students and encourage their participation. Furthermore, I have come to modify many of these strategies to suit my own classroom needs and in some occasions have even developed my own. Perhaps one of the best ways to engage students who can be assumed to have a certain fear of the subject is make sure that the lessons are not delivered too quickly. For this purpose, I employ the 5+1 instructional strategy when delivering subject content. In this strategy, subject content is delivered at only 5 minutes at a time. Each of the 5-minute time frames are followed with a 1 minute period for students to reflect and ask questions (Rowan, 2007). Then the lesson proceeds to the next 5-minute interval. It is important that there is sufficient planning on the part of the teacher before every lesson because the lesson partition in each of the 5-minute intervals must be so that the lesson should not be kept hanging. For example, in teaching about operations on signed numbers, the 5-minute period should not encompass two operations. In fact, addition and subtraction of signed numbers in themselves should consist of two 5-minute intervals each. During the 1-minute time for reflection, I have found that students tend to ask some very important questions that are confusing them. If not for those 1-minute breaks, students may end up making mistakes on the first sets of graded drills because of the lack of opportunity to clarify matters. The 1-minute breaks allows every student the opportunity to speak out instead of boring them with 30-minute blocks with no one but the teacher talking. This method thus engages all of the students to participate in the lesson. Another strategy that I have found to engage all of the students are drills. Drills are short written exercises usually composed of no more than 10 items that students are asked to accomplish at the end of each lesson. To speed up the administration of drills, I have them photocopied before class begins and just hand them out at the appropriate time. Having drills at the end of every lesson allows students to test for themselves whether or not they understand the subject matter. Students are asked to exchange papers at the end of the time allotted for the drill and then students are called at random to give their answers on the board. Students who were not called to give the answers are called to check if the answers given by their classmates are correct and to suggest possible corrections. The engagement of students through this strategy is two-fold. First, the entire class accomplishes the drill and second, students are called to either answer or critique the answers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Several topics in algebra are very appropriate for connecting to real-world situations. These topics should be recognized and their potentials should be exploited in order to get maximum student attention. One such topic is the addition and subtraction of signed numbers. In introducing the content, the teacher can use the â€Å"money analogy† to represent positive and negative numbers. Positive numbers represent â€Å"money on hand† while negative numbers represent â€Å"money owed† and each operation as a financial transaction. This makes it much easier to explain why -4 + 5 = 1 by saying that you owe someone $4 and then you have $5 to pay with so you have $1 left after the transaction. This method relies less on the traditional rules when it comes to adding and subtracting signed numbers and forwards a more practical approach that students can connect better with. Another opportunity to introduce connections between the lesson and the real-world is problem solving. Word problems can be described as consisting of two parts, the subject content and the flavor text. The subject content is the lesson that the problem aims to teach while the flavor text is the context of the word problem itself. It is highly important that the teacher selects flavor text that are appropriate to the learners. Word problems can be about recent baseball games or current media interests or popular games. These applications show the student that algebra can really be found even in the things that interest them the most.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   High school students are usually very socially active. At their developmental stage, strategies employed on them should address their inherent need to socialize. Thus, the paired problem solving approach where one person thinks aloud in solving the problem while the other listens and provides feedback (Rowan, 2007) is developmentally appropriate. Of course, it is best to assign students who are performing less effectively in class as the ones who think aloud so that they will actually engage the problem while the listener should be the ones who are performing better in class so that they can guide their partners to the right answer. Another developmentally appropriate strategy is the Phillips 66 where students are grouped into 6 members and are given 6 minutes to solve a particularly difficult task (Rowan, 2007). Each group is given a different problem and all of the members should understand the solution because the teacher can question any one of them when they present their result. This ensures that there would be sufficient interaction within groups. Part 2 – Assessing Student Learning (1 Page)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Before the start of the course and usually on the first day of class, a diagnostic examination is given to the class so that each member can be assessed for the prerequisite competencies to an algebra course. This examination basically includes the four fundamental operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers), fractions, decimals, and simple, non-algebraic problem solving. After the administration of the examination, the papers are evaluated and key competencies that are lacking are noted. The students are each given private assessments of their performance in the preliminary diagnostic exam which include suggestions on how they can tackle any deficiencies that were found. If a student is found to be extremely deficient in the appropriate competencies, their parents should be informed so that they can be a part of taking appropriate action. This assessment tool guides the teacher to be certain that the class is prepared to take a course in algebra.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   During the instruction, drills are given at the end of each lesson in order to reinforce what has just been taught and ensure that the students were able to understand. These assessments are short and only test one particular part of the entire instruction. At the end of the instruction, a summative test is given to ensure that the students were able to absorb the different parts of the lesson into a collective whole. The summative test will compose of the various subtopics and will comprehensively measure students’ performance and intrinsically, the effectiveness of the instruction. Parts of the summative test on content that are needed for the next lesson would also serve as a diagnostic test. All assessments should be properly time-framed according to type and difficulty. Part 4 – Making Subject Matter Comprehension to Students (1 Page) I have modified the guided practice strategy for it to become a scaffolding strategy that is most suitable for algebra. This modification takes into consideration that changing the given of an algebraic problem does not change the approach in solving that problem. In this modified scaffolding strategy, each student is given one of 5 different items that only vary slightly in their given numbers. A sixth similar problem is displayed by the teacher on the board. The teacher shows the students how to solve the problem while the students apply the method used by the teacher to their own individual problems. Each problem’s answer is already given to each respective student so that the students would know if they were able to obtain the correct answer. Another scaffolding strategy that can be used is guided questioning for erroneous examples. In this strategy, the teacher presents erroneous solutions in class and then asks guided questions that would help the class determine the things that are wrong with the solution or sometimes with the problem itself. The teacher should prepare various items and as the strategy progresses, it should take less and less guided questions for students to figure out what are wrong with the problems and solutions given. An important concept in algebra is transpositions. What I believe to be a common mistake in teaching this particular concept is beginning with how we can simply move expressions from one side of the equal sign to the other and change their signs. While this is correct, it is insensitive to the underlying principle of transpositions which should first be elaborated upon. Hence, it is best to start with a non-algebraic example of equality and show how adding or subtracting a certain quantity from both sides of the equal sign still results in an equality. From this, the concept can be abstracted to apply to equalities with algebraic expressions. Only after this has been established should the â€Å"short-cut† of just moving expressions and changing signs be introduced. Another concept that is essential to algebra is that of irrational numbers. The best strategy for teaching this concept is contrasting it with rational numbers which is a concept that students are more familiar with. The teacher can show that all rational numbers can be formed by a fraction where both numerator and denominator are integers while irrational numbers could not be. This establishes the clear-cut difference between the two and gives irrational numbers its own definition. Part 8 – Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for all Students Motivation and comprehension are primary considerations in planning instruction and designing learning experiences. Students for the course are expected to be in their adolescence where the developmental focus tends to be more on the social aspect. Hence, opportunities for social interaction with classmates should be made available in the design of learning experiences. The teacher should avoid reclusive activities that constrict socialization because that would further reinforce the idea that a math subject is generally disinteresting. There should be fun, kinesthetic activities provided every now and then in order to encourage student engagement and participation. Integration of popular culture in planning instruction should also be considered as this makes students feel that the subject is very much related to their daily lives.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   While there are a variety of teaching strategies available for every lesson, it is very important that the teacher is able to select the appropriate strategy for the appropriate lessons. For teaching mixture word problems, action projects can serve as a very effective strategy. Teachers can provide students with harmless, multicolored liquids that they can form into mixtures. The teacher can them present a problem without presenting the algebraic technique to solve it and them ask the students to solve the problem using their mixtures. This strategy will allow the students to visualize the problem and appreciate the algebraic solution better. Another strategy which is most suitable for teaching about the number line is an action game. In this particular game, a long line with numbers from +10 to -10 is placed on the floor. A student is asked to stand on a particular number (say -5). Then, the teacher asks a question beginning with that number (say -5 + 3) and the student jumps to the resulting answer on the number line. Another student gets called afterwards to do the same thing and the previous student takes a seat and gets a chance to ask the question instead of the teacher. The cycle continues until everyone has had a turn. Lastly, abstracting is still one of the best methods to teach several concepts in algebra. Abstracting involves starting from actual examples and then building up to a definition of the concept that can encompass all possible examples. Part 10 – Creating and Maintaining Effective Learning Environments (1 Page) The appropriate setup of the actual classroom environment is important in making sure that learning can be facilitated efficiently, effectively, and safely. Visuals are very important in an algebra class. Therefore, there should be sufficient lighting in the classroom. Insufficient lighting may lead students to be disinterested because they cannot see lessons presented on the board clearly or it may damage their eyesight if they concentrated despite the difficulty. Since students can be easily distracted, it is best if the classroom is a closed environment with all windows shaded so that student attention can be better contained. LCD projectors are not necessary for daily instruction and should only be used when presenting audio-visual clips that may be of some important connection to the lesson. Actual content should be given verbally with support from writing on the board. Student textbooks and other required materials should be with them on their seats before the start of the class to avoid any unnecessary, time-consuming periods of getting them during the lesson. Student discipline is a primary concern but disciplinary policies should not be very strict. It is understandable that some discussion may occur during the lesson and so long as these are kept brief and at a minimal volume, the teacher should not take offense. A routine of answering drills after every part of the lesson should be inculcated in the students. Drills let students practice learned concepts so that they will be used to answering them by the time summative tests are given. Everyone should be given a chance to participate. A random system for calling on students can be established by using name cards submitted by students. In theory, the random system should give everyone a chance to participate over time although the teacher should include provisions on how to call those who have not yet been called after a certain period. These cards ay also be used to keep records of student evaluations from graded recitations. Part 12 – Developing as a Professional Educator (1 Page) Interaction with parents is essential to student development. After administering diagnostic examinations, I make it a point to contact the parents of students who were not able to perform adequately enough to say that they are prepared fro the class. This is done so that the parents can take appropriate action and give their child more attention. Upon parent’s request, I provide regular updates for them on their children through email. This is to ensure that they are being kept up-to-date with their child’s performance. During summer breaks, I would like to help organize community projects such as tutorials for incoming freshmen to get them ready for what to expect in high school.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I intend to grow professionally by pursuing a post-graduate degree and formally engaging into my research interests. I realize also that joining and being active in professional organizations is also a great avenue for professional development and academic research. I would like to be able to conduct researches on student difficulties in learning specific lessons in algebra. In my experience, I have noticed that a majority of students have difficulty with regard to the â€Å"trial and error† nature of factoring. I have tried to remedy this problem by presenting a more grounded method to factoring algebraic expressions and found that it is effective in my classroom. I would like to conduct research that can formally determine whether or not this method is more effective than the traditional methods currently available. I hope to be able to establish that this method is indeed more effective and suggest its adaptation to the current school system. I believe that an accomplished educator is one who does not only teach well but also broadens the scope of knowledge in the field he or she is teaching through relevant research. References Rowan, K. (2007). Instructional Strategies. Retrieved May 21, 2008 from: http://glossary.plasmalink.com/glossary.html