Making Children Hate Reading Essay

Making children hate reading is a book by John Halt. It shows the way he teached and his opinion of others and the method he used to help the children with their literacy skills. In John Halt’s book there are some methods he used that I don’t agree with and some that I do agree with. I will give detailed accounts of both teaching methods I agree with and one’s I don’t agree with the I will let you decide whether you agree with his teaching or not. In the beginning John Halt tells us that he never gave one of his students the opportunity to say what they really thought about a book or magazine. The children persuaded him to tell him what he wants to hear, so that when he asks them a question they can answer it and receive approval. He also gives the students tests about the books and vocabulary lists which they have to learn, also that if they came across a word they didn’t know to look it up in the dictionary and not to bother him. His nephew was given a book to read which in john halts opinion was bad book. Then the teacher proceeded to make sure they children under stood every single word and the meaning of sed words. John agreed with this method and used it on his own students. John halt began to question some of the teaching methods. With regards to looking up words you do not know in the dictionary, he was beginning to think twice. He had never looked up a word that he didn’t know in the dictionary he merely continued reading hard books and eventually gathered the meanings of the words he did not understand. As John taught a verity of age groups in the same mental area he started to develop theories about why students reading and writing suffer. His theory, Teachers. Or specifically English teachers. When a student is forced to read aloud it makes them nervous. They then stumble when reading and sometimes forget how to pronounce a word. Then the students start to laugh and the teacher makes them feel embarrassed. If this happens a few times then that person is put of reading and will sometimes refuse altogether to read out loud. For example when I was five years old I started school, and I was really happy, I couldn’t wait. When I got to English I was put in an advanced class because my vocabulary was extremely good for my age. I was told to read and I read well, until I came across a word that I didn’t know how to say it and all the other kids in the classroom started laughing at me. That made me feel really bad and at such a vulnerable age having that humiliation changed everything about school life for me. Ever since then I do not like reading aloud it makes me nervous. I can read aloud when im on my own but when it comes to speaking in front of people it really puts be back. Even now I steel have difficulty with speaking aloud an example of this is this year in English. We were told to talk about a character from the play Macbeth. To explain what their role in the play was. We were to sit in front of the class. I had planned out a really good piece of work but everyone else did something different and I’m used to being told of if I do something different so I jumped the notes and tried to make it up as I went along. Alas this did not work my nerves got the better of me and I got a lousy grade. This story show that it can happen only one time and it can change everything to do with speaking. John Halt realized this and tried to change it. He tried having the students that were nervous read aloud more often but sadly this did not work either. He was stumped. Then BAM. It hit him. If he lets the students read books that they want to read then maybe this will help then and guess what. It did. The holidays were coming up and John decided to try something new. Something that no other English teacher has done before. He told his students to read as many books as they wanted and he would not be testing them on it. So just enjoy reading books. He also said that if you don’t like a book red the first forty pages to give the writer a chance to get his story going and then If you don’t like the characters and you don’t care what happens to them put the book down and find a book you do want to read. He had found a way to help students come over their fear of reading aloud but the students still suffered from writing. Not being able to write what they were thinking down. John Halt devised a way to deal with this too. He had a new class and decided now was the right time to try out his theory. He split his class into groups and told them to write about anything they wanted as long as it wasn’t just the same word over and over again for the whole page. This worked very well. All the students including the not so bright students to come up with incredible stories. Their favorite stories were written by one of their class mates who had been writing a lot of his stories about things that happened to John Halt, they all found them very amazing and humorous stories. One day he decided to give them a topic to write about instead, and of course they all wined until they found out what they were going to write about. They were all enthusiastic that they would be writing about the day the school burnt down. John then heard about a professor had come up with another idea, which he decided to bring to hi classroom. He told his students that they were to write about anything non stop for twenty minuets, and if they got stuck keep writing the sentence before until an idea comes to you. This of course was a genus idea and it did indeed help students with their writing and although John Halt did not know it at the time, all the students handwriting and their spelling had improved just by helping them think for themselves. If you agree with the harsh way of teaching with all the x-raying books and what not and telling them to look it up in the dictionary so that they don’t bother you then I have a piece of advice for you. DON’T BECOME A TEACHER!!! If you agree with the kind helpful way of teaching good on you. Its people like you that make are country great. You picked the right side to be on, because all you old folk who still believe in the harsh stuff, be warned we are coming to get you. It’s your chouse of course, just letting you know what will happen if you pick the dark side. MWA HA HA HA HA.

Color Marking Assignment

Motherhood: Ma, since Steinbeck first described her is a goddess woman in the book. In this chapter, the motherhood is displayed by Ma. As she has to say good bye to Tom, the child for whom she has shown the most affection, she is sorrowful. â€Å"I wanna touch ya again, Tom. †¦ I wanna remember, even if it’s on’y my fingers that remember. You got to go away, Tom. † And she also gave him 7 dollars. 7 dollars, at that time in such a terrible environment, 7 dollars is huge number, she gave to Tom, because she‘s worry about him. You take the money†¦You got no right to cause me pain†. John Steinbeck is using this motherhood to praise the great love mother has been giving to their children. Even in the worst condition, even in the bad situation, they still willing to love their children and love them more than love anyone else. Tom’s thinking: Maybe reader has sensed the change in Tom’s character. His soul and spirit is growing sinc e the capture of Casy. Here, Steinbeck writes out the thought of Tom during that period to inform reader what Tom is thinking is all about Casy. He is thinking about all what Casy said. â€Å"But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember –all of it. † He also realize what Casy said that â€Å"a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one. † Tom’s thinking also helps to foreshadowing the decision Tom made which is to continue what Casy had done later in the chapter. Tom’s decision: Here, in the cave, Tom told Ma his decision. He plans to continue and hopefully finished the work that Casy started. Tom wants to organize a strike to bring out the fair wage. John Steinbeck use Tom’s decision finally complete his character portraying for Tom since Tom is at his closest point to being self actualized. And at this point Steinbeck also helps reader to find out how a soul has been growing during the harsh time and suggests that Tom is one of the million people who has gone through these and realized the â€Å"a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big soul†. Description: Steinbeck uses a lot detail description in this chapter. As Ma setting out ot find Tom â€Å"The movement stopped, and after a long moment †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ that it might have been a stump. Here, Steinbeck helps reader understand that after Tom killed two cops and Casy’s death, Tom is living like a rabbit. Tom is hiding and staying along so that he can think and decide to continue what Casy had started. Then Steinbeck also use detail description â€Å" Her reaching hand found his head in the blackness and her fingers moved down to his nose, and then over his left cheek. † This shows reader the love Ma has giving to Tom, the greatness of mothers’ love which Steinbeck intend to express.

Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 11

Strategic Management - Essay Example These, along with many other factors combine to form a strategic plan for a business (Carroll 1993). This further is usually divided into three parts namely the corporate level, the business level and the operational level strategy. Where corporate level strategy is the overall goal or plan of the organization, the business level is a little narrow and focuses on how each will compete within a particular market and lastly the third one is how different units of the business will achieve the business level strategy. For example, a local caterer will have a corporate strategy which will be providing catering services for different occasions, whereas the business level strategy will be to provide special and custom edited services to the various clients and finally for this purpose the operational level strategy will include the training of workforce to provide high quality service and chef training to adjust food according to the client’s individual requirements (Barry 1998). After we have understood what exactly business strategy is, we can now move on to discuss what strategic management in meticulous does. In simple words, strategic management includes the decisions and plans related to the strategies working within an organization. It is a series of steps that form a never ending cycle. In simple words one thing follows the other and is an ongoing process. A strategy is very important because it makes sure that the organization is able to achieve its short term and long term goals and satisfy the various stakeholders. Therefore it is of utmost importance that these strategies are planned and regulated in the best possible way so as to have the result up to the desired mark (Stonehouse 2004). But before this cycle starts off it is very important that the goals of the company are clearly recognized and defined. Apart from the goal there is a mission

Career Path Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Career Path Analysis - Essay Example All the adjectives are then inserted into a four panelled grid called Johari Window, which represents the person. The four panes represent the following: The Joharis Window represents that every person is mysterious and there is more to a person than meets the eye. There are things that a person knows about himself, a person does not know about himself, others know about him and others do not know about him. It helps people deal with their negative qualities in a good way. It also helps in building trust by sharing. In my case, I can use my analysis by the Johari’s Window in a number of scenarios. The open area is best for communication and relations with others. By the expansion of my open area, I am aware of who I am and the others are as well. That enables me and my subject to communicate on the same level and we get each other. In case I am interacting with a new member in the team, the unknown area of the Window is large, as he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. In case of a person I already know, the open area is larger and the unknown area is relatively

Markets and Division of Labor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Markets and Division of Labor - Essay Example This paper illustrates that social cohesion and division of labour market are the two aspects that have come under association that dates back to several decades. From the olden times to the modern times, the ideas and notion about the market and division of labor whether encourage or discourage has come under numerous discussions and various opinions. Social cohesion comes under classification when the people within a society work in collaboration with each other for a common goal that includes the people coming from cultural diversity. Besides, dedication, acquaintance, and creation of a community are the pivotal aspects that form the social cohesion. Here the people have a shared approach as a single unit surrounded by a committed system, so that the strategies and guiding principles incorporating the economic, social, health and educational assist and support to the society and its members. While the other aspect of the report exhibit the division of labour, which is no new conce pt as it has its origination back to late eighteen century. Although various thinkers and philosophers considered it as a significant principle, but history reveals the fact that Adam Smith was one of the initial people who made an effort to undertake a theory of it. However, this phenomenon in the contemporary time of today has come under vast development that everybody is very much aware of this trend. The division of the labour refers to the area of interest that defines the productive output of the labor that aids in improving the economical growth. This comes under implementation from breaking the bigger activities into smaller chunks that the labor can perform as his expertise that can increase his productivity (Zupi and Puertas, 2010). Historical and authentic substantiation indicates that the few countries of European region initiated an experiment with a core purpose to make its economy liberated from other aspects of life including the social and political control that adm inistered the economic conditions, in order to free the socially rooted markets that subsisted for a very long time. Therefore, the development of the free market came into institution by splitting up the markets that has the origins on social factors. As consequence, a new type of economy came into emergence that did not considered the impacts on society and modified and transformed value of several components including the goods price and labor (Wood, 1984). The Adam’s idea of division of labour articulates that the larger jobs must be divided and break down into small components that can come under relation to the specialized workforce. This makes each worker and labour a proficient and specialist for the areas of production, and hence the efficiency and output of the labour boosts. Nevertheless, this idea of division of labour also hoards quite a few resources including capital and time, as the labours being an expert in a particular component would not have to make excha nge tasks and responsibilities. However, this also leads to an unanticipated issue that the propensity increases that a worker may become ignorant and disappointed from the work because the technological advancements would lead and induce the individuals to perform mundane and repetitious tasks (Reisman, 1976). Smith also states that in order to have a productive labour, they must be assigned the tasks that best fit their capabilities and abilities. This is for the reason that this assignment of labour according to their expertise would lead them to produce substantial and surplus products that can come under reinvestment into the production process. Adam Smith also has a leading concern towards the origins of the value, which has come under recognition in two different forms: use value and exchange value, and concluded that labour is the primary source of value (Reisman, 1976). The data and records provide clear evidences that the division of

Sensory Perceptions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 15

Sensory Perceptions - Essay Example Placing ones hand on fire, the sense of feel will detect the temperature and pass the information to the brain, which perceives it as hot. This causes immediate withdrawal of the hand, preventing injury. Likewise, after placing food in the mouth, the tongue’s sense of taste will detect and send a message of the food’s taste to the brain, which will perceive it as either pleasant tasting and palatable or not. One can then proceed to eat or not. Taking an example of how to cross the road, the sense of sight helps in judging distance or depth. Through the eyes, the sense of sight of an oncoming vehicle is sent to the brain, which then determines whether it is far enough for safe crossing or too close to let it pass, keeping one out of risk of being hit.   Factors that contribute to the accuracy of sensory information include repeatability and memory (Turnbull et al, 1995). In the example of placing ones hand on fire, the sense of simply seeing does not perceive it as hot. However, continuously placing the hand on fire and finding it to be hot conditions the brain to memorize that fire is always hot, and touching eventually becomes unnecessary for the brain to perceive the fire as hot. There is also the use of tried and accepted methodologies that comply with the principles of the scientific community (Turnbull et al, 1995). With regards to sensory perceptions, nature may be viewed as a person’s natural instincts and genetic structure (Tierney et al, 1995). Nurture can be termed as the environmental factors that influence and shape a person’s behavior. They include teaching and parenting styles and one’s social, cultural and economic background. Both nature and nurture have an impact on an individual’s sensory perception. Studies have shown that, in a nurturing environment, children gain knowledge of objects through their experiences with their mothers (Tierney et

Supply Chain Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Supply Chain Management - Essay Example Consumers always desired to get newer stocks and also other modified and sophisticated inventories which they considered would help meet the value of their expenses. Further the consumers also are found to order for getting the repeat stocks owing to the quality advantage obtained from such. However the present practice followed by the company in regards to stocking of the inventory created a problem for the consumers for they failed to get the right stock ordered for and also failed to regain the reorders made. The huge pile of unwanted and unsold inventories added to the problem for which the right and effective stock failed to be procured rightly and stocked for being delivered to the consumers. This problem of overstocking also led the company encounter huge losses and also blocked a large part of the working capital. This capital thus blocked could have been used by the company in other productive purposes. Thus the company not only suffers from lack of proper revenues emanating from the sales of inventories but also large numbers of complaints lodged in by the different customers for not getting the proper stocks required for. This fact in turn is found to hamper the goodwill of the firm and led the company counter a failure in the competitive business market. Moreover the presence of large number of unused and unsold stocks in the warehouse makes matters worse for specifically identifying those stocks which lead to the menace. Thus having large stocks spread around 30,000 stock keeping units create large number of problems for the warehouse manager to rightly identify and reduce the number of such odd stocks. Hence the management of Champion Electric thinks it feasible enough to reduce the inventory level so as to help in the effective management of the right and productive stock for the business concern to sale and gain considerable profit. Thus the management of the concern was found to be concerned in management of the stock levels of the firm in a sm art manner so as to help enhance the productivity climate of the organization. Hence this effective management of the stock level would help the company in firstly assessing the productive stock level and secondly in meeting the needs of the consumers in an effective manner. It would thereby save the concern in times of emergency when it required procuring products from external markets with additional amounts so as to meet customer requirements (Case, 232). A.2. President Campos of Champion Electric also was found concerned regarding the piling up of the stock levels in the warehouse leading to locking of considerable amount of financial investments rendered for such purpose. These unused levels of stocks in the concern not only made the management feel wary but also led to rise in the event of consumer dissatisfaction. Thus the president desired the effective management of such stock levels which would help the concern to enhance the level of service it required to deliver to the consumers by catering to their demands effectively (Case, 232). Thus Barb Patterson in order to abide by the order of the president was required to fulfill certain salient steps. Firstly Barb is required to identify such stocks which have been piled up in the warehouse for six months through the use of stock codes or labels in the computer. Secondly Barb is require

Experiences - Life's a school Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Experiences - Life's a school - Essay Example At this point, my true learning experience had started. As a result of this, I began to go paintballing regularly. I went so often that the workers at the course knew my name. At this stage, I was 13 years old and needed to find some employment in order to make some extra money for myself. I took a week-long training course in how to be a paintball referee. I learned how to fill up nitro tanks and handle irritated customers. The one thing that concerned me as a referee was if someone took their mask off while they were on the field. I was constantly watching players who though that their eye would win against a paintball. In fact, this happened several times. Quite often, the person who did this would apologize and promise not to do it again. Despite this, there was always someone who thought that they were too cool for everyone else. Inevitably, these kinds of people were ejected from the facility and given a time-out. It wasn’t just the offending individual who had to leave; the whole group had to go out. It was my responsibility to ensure that a group of people would enjoy themselves enough to want to come back. However, I also had to act like a professional. The month I spent there taught me more than I ever

Human resources - performance management Research Proposal

Human resources - performance management - Research Proposal Example This paper tries to explore if it is possible to implement the system effectively at the workplace. The main generations which would be considered in this context are the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. The generation born between 1943 and 1960 are referred to as Baby Boomers, while those born between 1961 and 1980 are better known as Generation X while people born after 1980 are called Generation Y. The motivation behind this project to highlight on the importance of different performance management practices for the different generations. Critical Literature Today multiple generations are found to be employed at the place of work. However, in a manufacturing oriented economy, they are found to be distinguished from one another through organizational stratification and structural scenery of that economy. The older or senior employees are found to be working in the head offices holding the commanding positions, while the middle aged employees are found to be holding positions requiring high skills mainly belonging to the management cadre. The youngest, greenest who are considered to be most strong physically are found to hold the factory floors and accounted for the sales representatives, junior accountants, assistant managers etc. One of the major outcomes of this accidental blending of different generations is creativity. People belonging to different generations are likely to bring up different thoughts and yield new ideas for solving problems and creating future opportunities. (Zemke & Raines & Filipczak, 1999, p.10). The study would r eflect the some of the fundamental differences between the different generations in terms of their work habits, work ethics and career views and values. According to a research conducted by Raines (2007), the rich combination of different generations in organizations has called for changes in the recruitment and performance management strategies by employers. The results show that competition for talents have been escalating as there are more generations who have been working side by side. It is seen that the oldest members belonging to the generation of Baby boomers have been coming close to their age of retirement. However, this is also true that their performance and productivity is not the same as the Gen X and Gen Y. That is why they different performance evaluation practices. However, the ageing generation is also required in the organizations as they are rich talents and their knowledge is of high worth in the organizations (Raines, 2007, p.1). Recently a survey conducted by Next Step, which was led by Jenifer Vessels (1998), on four different generations in organizations aged between 20 years and 60 years belonging to both government agencies and private companies. The results showed that 72.3% of the respondents had been

Information Systems Technology Essay Example for Free

Information Systems Technology Essay Computer engineers are responsible for analyzing, designing and building software applications in an IT firm concerned with developing application software’s for various businesses. Once the primary analysis is done by the system analyst the coding phase is prepared by the software engineers where they have enough programming experience to bring the design model into a running system. They are responsible to get the logical design in paper to implement into a physical working system. They use their programming ability to design the business modules. They are usually concerned with the development of the system and taking care of the user interfaces, business rules implementation and the design methodologies which are required by any business employing information systems. They are also responsible for selecting the right programming tool for designing the user interface and enveloping the functionalities of the concerned tool in framing the business policies. Role of software tester: Software testers work in collaboration with the software engineers to eliminate the bugs in the software. They are primarily concerned with testing the software for checking the software for fulfilling the requirements and checking whether the software runs successfully with the requirements fulfilled. This is mainly concerned with validation and verification of the software. They prepare test cases to test the software for boundary checks, limit checks, data type checks, calculations of business processes and many others. They create and maintain reports to keep track of the systems reports and account of the defects which are found in the process. The classification of the defects is the next step. The defects are either corrected by the software tester or are forwarded to the software engineers to be corrected and submit again for errors. They are usually concerned with elimination of anomalies which are quite a hindrance in the business environment and pose a great threat to data and security. References /Bibliography See: http://getaccess. westone. wa. gov. au/careers/ profiles/data/OCC247. asp See: http://www. bls. gov/oco/ocos267. htm

Learning Outcome Peg Feeding Nursing Essay

Learning Outcome Peg Feeding Nursing Essay In this reflective essay I am going to discuss a learning outcome in which I have become competent to practice. To reflect on my learning outcome I am going to use Gibbs reflective model (1988). The Gibbs reflective model is a well known and used model in reflective practice. It consists six steps which I will describe step by step as my essay will progress. In the nursing care process it is a responsibility of a nurse to provide holistic care to the patient who is under our care. Our focus is to enable them to cope, prevent, solve or alleviate the problem from which they are suffering and not able to carry out their normal life. Our aim is to help and teach patients how to meet their daily needs in other ways. The learning outcome I have chosen to reflect is PEG feeding which is an alternative way to provide nutrition to a patient who is not able to obtain nutrition through the mouth. The first step of Gibbs reflective cycle is a description of the event. One service user in my placement area whom I will call Mrs. P to maintain her confidentiality (NMC 2008) is suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, a condition in which as the condition progresses patient losses abilities i.e. Swallowing, speech, maintaining balance, eye movement. As a result of this condition she developed dysphagia and it was not possible to maintain her nutrition via oral intake. Thus, multidisciplinary team and family decided to place her on PEG feeding. PEG tube is more appropriate than nasogastric tube for long term feeding as it avoids delays in feeding and discomfort associated with displacement (National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care 2006). During my placement one of the nurses asks me to go and give her water through the PEG tube. Although I did it before in my country I was familiar with it but I didnt practice for a long time and as I have seen the condition of Mrs. P. I wasnt confident to carry out the task. I discussed it with my mentor and we decide that I can take it as a learning outcome during my training to make myself competent with PEG feeding skill. As I am going into the second stage of Gibbs reflective model (1988) in which I will discuss about my thoughts and feelings. When the nurse asked me to give the water via PEG tube, at first I was feeling myself stupid to ask for help thinking that what impression I will make on that nurse. This feeling came into my mind as a result of a thought that I am a registered nurse in my country so I should know this. But I lost my confidence when I went in Mrs.Ps room and observed her condition i.e. Slurring speech, problem with balance, mobility problem and pain in her neck. So I decide to ask the nurse to perform the task and I also observed it. While she was giving her feed, I found that she was coughing a lot and wasnt comfortable. Which I thought was due to her position and the nurse explained me and justify my thought that it is because of her condition. I was not satisfied with her explanations and as a supervised practice nurse I wasnt able to oppose her. I decide to read more about the PEG feeding and discussed it with my mentor. The third stage of the Gibbs model (1988) of reflection is an evaluation which requires the practitioner to consider the good and bad things about the event. The patient should be positioned where the patient can sit up as much as possible in a supported midline position (Dougherty and lister 2008) while giving PEG feeding. The nurse who gave feeding didnt correct Mrs. Ps position as she was in a semi upright position. Furthermore, before starting and at the end of the feeding, she didnt clean the tip of the tube. The tip of the tube should be cleaned daily with water and a small brush (Loser et al.2005). However, the good practice I observed that nurse informed the procedure to Mrs. P which is important according to the NMC (2008) to make her understand the procedure and give her consent. In addition, to avoid tube adhering to the stoma skin rotate it 360 degree (Bumpers et al, 2003). The other important thing my mentor discussed with me was administration of medication through the PEG tube. According to BAPEN (2003a), never add medication directly to the eternal feed to avoid interaction between medicine and feed and flush the tube after administration to avoid tube blockage. During the discussion about PEG feeding with my mentor I found that other things to consider with PEG feedings are management of the tube, patient position and checks to carry out before feed and it is very important to avoid complications. In my placement area only Mrs. P has got PEG tube. So my mentor discussed with me that there are many indications for PEG tube insertion according to the patients conditions so it is important to learn about the specific needs of that patient before performing the procedure. She discussed some scenario cases with me to understand more about it. This helped me to understand different aspects of the PEG tube The next stage of the Gibbs reflective cycle (1988) is an analysis of the event where reflector has to make sense of the event. I will analyze it by exploring the skill and looking into the evidence. The PEG feeding is a method of giving nutrients to maintain an optimal nutritional support (National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care 2006). Clinical trials have proven that there are very rare complications with PEG tubes, such as leakage (Riera et al. 2002). Through evaluation of this event I have been competent to give PEG feeding and care of the tube. The reasons for Mrs. Ps coughing explained by the nurse was from her daily experience working with her which could be right but what I found from the references was different and evidence based. So I learned from experience and through experience (Burnard 2002). It has boosted my confidence to challenge others views regarding my practice. According to stage five of Gibbs model (1988), I conclude from that every nurse does not find the same evidence based reasons for the problem but if I am practicing safe and based on evidence then my practice is safe. In the future I will make sure that I am confident and competent to perform the task and have evidence based explanation of the situations. From this particular learning outcome I have learned about a PEG feeding procedure and the care of the PEG tube The last stage of Gibbs reflective model (1988) is the action plan. My action plan for the future practice is to read more references and literatures regarding PEG feeding. There will be many different conditions regarding PEG tube in my future practice so it is necessary for me to look for more information on this particular subject to make myself excel. I also request my mentor to book me for a study day to learn more about this skill.

The Present Builds Upon the Past :: history

The Present Builds Upon the Past The world is far from perfect. However, through the years, it has improved in many ways. If I went back in time and changed the tiniest thing in history, it is possible for my life to be completely different today. If you don't believe me, read on because I've got hard proof. It's depressing to know there was a time when "blacks" and "whites" were seperated simply because of the color of their skin. We have moved forward, then stumbed backwards, but slowly we started building and here we are year 2001, where everyone, despite your race, have equal rights. I realize pejudice is still alive today, but you have to admit, things have improved. During the late 1800's "Jim Crow" laws or "Black Codes" were made offical. This law legally seperated "blacks" and "whites" in every day life. It was ridiculous, immature, and just flat out unreasonable. They used seperate public waiting rooms, restaurants, theaters, public parks, schools, hospitals, just to name the basics. We have every single abolitionists, civil rights activists, and all the other freedom-fighters who stuck up for their rights. You wouldn't believe how much one person can accomplish. It wasn't too long ago when women were denied some of the rights that men had, such as voting. People believed that women were better fit cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children at home, rather than going out to earn money. They also believed that men had a higher ability of learning than women, which was why their education was limited. In order to get all the rights women have today, it took much time, effort, and most of all, courage. Many brave women organized protests demanding for equal rights. It was a slow process but every little effort added up, and today, women can even run for President of the United States. Who knows? Many if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be writing this report, or be able to write at all. A more recent example in which we can more personally relate to, is the World Trade Center tragedy. The fact that we needed a tradegy to bring America togeather is sad, but at least we are here for each other when we really need each other. I know living thirteen years isn't much at all, but in that time, I have never seen America more united than in the last few weeks.

Research on Marijuana Essay -- Papers Argumentative Weed Essays

Research on Marijuana Everyone believes Marijuana is a gateway drug. However, some people think it is not because they believe they will not use anything else. If we do not fide some form of way to get rid of this drug or if we make it legal our future generations will suffer. As of now our brains get affected. A solution would be to find away to get rid of this drug and not to make it legal. Marijuana has been around for centuries now and it still grows in use. People say it is good for the body because it helps the body fight of disease and many other things like pain. Marijuana is a very powerful drug and it is believed that it is a gateway drug. This simply means that once your tolerance is so high you will look towards other drugs so that you can get the same feeling as when you first started using marijuana. I know that there is no evidence of such a thing happening but I do believe this is the drug that helps you look toward other drugs. I?ve heard of stories in my high school that kids have tried other drugs because of this one drug they started with. ...

Native American Heritage Essay

I have re-read this book in a relatively new edition. It is a mixture of Kiowa myths, family stories, history sketches, and personal experiences. For me it evokes a sense of community unknown in modern U. S. society. It also conveys, however dimly to the modern scientific mind, a deep sense of a peoples’ experience of the sacred where that term is entirely outside of modern theology and is steeped in the land and the memory of a people. It one opens ones mind and emotions the book can connect in a powerful way. However, a modern can never penetrate to the full depth of Kiowa sensibility. This was harshly expressed in an art object in the IAIA in Santa Fe, New Mexico some years ago. The object included the words: â€Å"Just because you stick a feather in your hat doen’t make you a Indian. † of another edition It seems enough to alert the reader this book exists, in case anybody is tired of consumer infatuation. These 90 page wonders full of meditation and forethought. It has to be his best, meaning simplest, clearest, but it is probably anthropology too. It ought to be read before or after viewing his http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=rbqzm6†¦ but to take it on its own it is about the alien and the unknown as feet in old age and death, that is to say that even though he calls himself Rock Tree Boy he i†¦ moreIt seems enough to alert the reader this book exists, in case anybody is tired of consumer infatuation. These 90 page wonders full of meditation and forethought. It has to be his best, meaning simplest, clearest, but it is probably anthropology too. It ought to be read before or after viewing his http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=rbqzm6†¦ but to take it on its own it is about the alien and the unknown as feet in old age and death, that is to say that even though he calls himself Rock Tree Boy he is A Man Without Fantasy. That’s the difference between being a bear and wearing a Jordan t-shirt with Hanes underwear. Nobody is Jordaned or Meadow Lark Lemoned from a laying on of their hands, but bear will move you. Dress in any of these masks or be naked as yourself as He Who Wears Only His Name. Either you stand naked in The Name or you hide in a mask. Groups function as masks to prevent nakedness, as if there were something other than The Name to stand in, but for the human there isn’t. It might be the landscape and the racial memory of landscape that â€Å"my parents and grandparents knew† (Schubnell, Conversations, 46). â€Å"I feel deeply about the landscape and I mean that literally. I think it is important for a person to come to terms with landscape. I think that’s important; it is a means to knowing oneself† (45). So it comes down to the meaning of landscape too, but this is intellectualized. The real question is, what is the meaning of wilderness? Superficial Existence in the Modern World Much of this is foreign today, Bear, landscape, even ancestry have been substituted with identities of no purpose to examine. The annihilation of the traditional in tribal societies and every assimilated subgroup is a negative. Assimilation is never good, although to say it that bald is offensive. This is also the point in that First Convocation of Indian Scholars (Ed.by Rupert Costo, 1970). In answering Hopi Charles Loloma about how to assume the traditional identity Momaday says, â€Å"I think that each of us who realizes that the native traditional values are important has a great obligation to convince the young of that, who may be wavering with alternatives†¦ [of] the dominant society which is destroying the world in which it lives† (9). â€Å"It’s really up to the older people†(10) to identify â€Å"the danger of superficial existence in the modern world† (10). To counter superficial existence he says â€Å"they have a primary obligation to tell their children and grandchildren about the traditional world, and try to show them by example and tell them explicitly that there is an option available to them, and that they’re damn fools if they don’t avail themselves of it† (10). Acculturation Thus acculturation is â€Å"a kind of one-way process in which the Indian ceases to be an Indian and becomes white man† (10). It is broader than that too, the PA German ceased to be himself and became an English-American. Acculturation to the modern translated means to steal the birth rite identity of the traditional, its language and customs and make the native a mascot of the modern. There is a continual excavation of the Caucasoid in every subgroup that assimilates, whether Pennsylvania German, Hispanic, black, Indian. The anthropologists should excavate themselves to give them something to do, since they otherwise are the inventors and stalking horse for the modern against the traditional, looking for power by stealing it. Modern here is not the pejorative it seems if the native takes his tradition into it to return what is stolen, or as Momaday says, that â€Å"it is good to go into the enemy’s camp† (12). Steal his horses! But he has stolen the children! Pull Out the Light Poles That said, it remains to learn tradition from the elder. In the face of radical destruction this takes more than effort, it takes surrender. Without surrender the traditional dies. Take your pick, you can think like Katie Couric and all the like spokespersons for the modern on Charlie Rose, or like grandfather. Momaday says it is a duty to teach the young. He addresses the elder’s reluctance: â€Å"I wonder if you have any idea of why they shut up at a certain point like that, why they won’t talk to you† (15)? Charles Loloma, the Hopi, had said that when the power company installed electric poles by force â€Å"the people came out and pulled the poles all back out. These people didn’t want the electricity'†(15). This is symbolic of the whole transmission of culture of the modern against the traditional. When the enemy enters the native camp it is called deliverance, but is really theft of the child. It is destruction of the tradition, which is obvious when white missionaries go to New Guinea but apparently not when the Internet sells social network. You have to live it, not be curious of it. Fight Against Electricity! Ben Barney, a Navajo, says he had a grandfather who taught him until the age of eight, but when he died he couldn’t find a replacement. Another says, â€Å"my grandfather died, and he was one of the last men in the village who knew the whole ritual cycle of songs. He died without letting me or my father, or any of us record any of it. I think he felt that this thing that he had was too precious to just give out, and have it exposed to someone whom he never knew well. And he’d rather die with it than have that happen to it. It seems to me he was saying, you’re not going to to live it. You’re one of these people that’s fighting for the electricity. (I am not, in fact)† (17). So the ticket to the traditional, the universal (! ) is that you have to live it, not be curious of it. Surrender to the traditional! If you will not surrender, and the elders have any pride, they take it to the grave in sorrow. But it is not to be studied by post docs. It is to be lived. How many young think their elders outweigh the modern? Lifeway That you have to live it goes a long way toward knowing both wilderness and identity. Living is not an intellectual function. â€Å"But he was saying, you’re one of these people who are fighting for this. My people never had electricity. We never lived that way. And if I give you my lifeway, if I tell you my lifeway, you’re going to sit and laugh at me, because you’re laughing anyhow just by your behavior† (17). Only among the remnants of American tribes does anyone dare thus to challenge the modern. Other subgroups embrace it like a drug. The life way is an iPhone. The elders won’t speak to this, â€Å"naturally they are not going to tell you. I mean, they can’t. I can see why he felt there is no way to communicate experience; the essence of it, the reality of it. I believe he was saying: I could give you words, and you could put them down, but that wouldn’t mean the same thing† (17). Is this reality versus the virtual? The track of a bear versus a video game? These things are important if you want to have anything left on the earth that isn’t homogeneous and interchangeable. Like babies. Everything said here of the American tribes transfers to every family and subculture. 2. Momaday avoids the satiric in his work, but it is a satiric haunt like a ghost river in every meadow, grove and stream the summer nights after the predators came. Then a foam appeared at the exit pipes of plants along the upper Allegheny. It is hard enough to name Bear and Wilderness when those subsequent masks upon masks cover up naked being. Surrender. Stand up and strip, confess, then kneel! Wilderness trees, canyons, streams and things under and in them, screeches in the night, wheat, bear, porcupine are symbols to show what they are standing for, something else, life mirrors that open doors and close the way we live. Only the sun has escaped our dominion. The sun escaped the nano tales that seine the atmosphere in a net, to take earth away. How To Know and Recognize the Alien These image masks are the ultimate reality that deny we are predators or aliens. If you want to know the alien go and be one. Sit in the Mogollon. Do you belong? Find a bear. Is he your friend? People wander out all the time, light fires to be found, but the ones that aren’t found bone up. Coyote Wound Dresser had a talk with Walt Whitman, Wound Dresser, but things did not turn out well for Whitman. The alien cannot be modeled, but it is knowable if Unknown. I’m going to tell you what it is. Talking to the Unknown we try to understand synergies of it in the anthropology of Edward Dorn http://osnapper. typepad. com/snappersj†¦ He says the alien is a crucifying self-consciousness of doubt at the root of his own being when he sees the Shoshone. Does he, Dorn, belong? His doubts serve against the Unknown. They are a mirror of loss and lack. The filth on the chair that gets on his pants is an image of it†¦ â€Å" I had a great desire to be off, to not take any more, or give any more†¦for I will say it, at the risk of blunder: It is impossible for myself and my people to offer themselves in any but the standard senses† (14). At least he knows of the surrender, that you have to live it. In some freak of Methodism he wants to wash this old man’s feet to tame him, this 102 year old who stands for all of Idaho, Utah, Nevada and the Great Basin before electricity, † a volume of Yaa-Aaa-Aaa† (14). â€Å"I was aware of the presumption of my thinking he would be relieved or made happy by having his feet washed† (13). Now Here is the Alien: If you want to confront the Unknown you must to do it in the feet of your old age and death. If we want to confront the Unknown we must to do it in the feet of our old age and death. â€Å"The place was intensely neglected, I gradually saw, and not just filthy as it looked to be at first glance. It was simply the remains of a life† (12). The comfort of the Unknown in Dorn’s account is that there are two that serve each other in it, but we don’t know why. One Unknown is the wife, ust like all our mothers and wives, who â€Å"should have died, by the rules of our biology, thirty years ago. But it was evident that she would stay on, the weaker of the two, until he smelled the summary message in his nostrils, then she would be free† (12). Is death that freedom? The alien doesn’t think in known terms, but makes Dorn harbor such thoughts as, â€Å"this man and woman were the most profoundly beautiful ancestors I’ve witnessed go before me’ (12,13). â€Å"He is the spirit that lies at the bottom, where we have our feet. The feet which step between the domains, the visible sign, the real evidence of the coming event†¦ where this man’s low, incantatory verbs spill down across the plateau and basin† (13)†¦not more Indian than man, still as much the flower as the fruit. â€Å" Wash his feet! Wash his hands, heart and head! Lay in the dust like a penitent Barry Lopez, close to the flagellate, and weep for the human lost. This Shoshone’s name is Willie Dorsey. We don’t get his real name, Alien. â€Å"I saw, the heat, the vociferous mosquitoes in the building’s shade, the slightly moist filth at the back door. † Alien old age and death look like â€Å"very old animals [that] have such coats over the eyes, a privacy impenetrable from the outside† (11). Cataracts, the blind, the lame, the sick, the living I know treated by some Doctor of the Alien. She operates her office practically as a charity, complete with science, intuition and healing to the â€Å"grim weight of bad condition, not especially outlined, more heavy with despair than one could possibly arrange with rubble† (11). This is not Ed Dorn. He is a spectator. This Doctor holds the hand, cuts the hair, absorbs the breast, the tear, weeping and praying within, but praising and thanking for the chance that comes out of the â€Å"wooden clapboard structures† (10) of lives that they could be so treated and revived. So that’s the alien, it’s human and knowable even if Unknown. Poetry Analysis Sherman Alexie is Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian. Alexie wrote a poem called â€Å"The Reservation Cab Driver†. The title contributes to understand the poem and understand who the cab driver was. In this poem, Alexie uses a symbolism he also uses some metaphor, irony and imagery. By examining the life portrayal in the reservation, the poem’s casual diction, the magic appearance of Crazy Horse, I will show how Alexie’s critique of the status of Indians on the reservation. The life in the reservation was hard. When anyone wanted to get out of the reservation the only choice the reservation had was hiring the cab driver who drives a ’65 Malibu with no windshield. The description of this cab driver car is an example of Imagery taking place you can see the car all beat up with no windshield. This particular cab driver waits outside the breakaway bar. He charges his costumers a beer a mile with no exception. This cab driver is not looking for money. The other people have to get this cab to take them places especially during the powwow. Also in stanza 8 during powwow, some imagery takes place. The imagery you see is people paying him with quilts, beads and fry bread and firewood. Imagery in this section is important because you can see what’s going on. In this stanza the imagery is very clear that it seems as if you are there in person watching everything. Also in stanza 7 you see use of metaphor also irony but the cab driver did not understand Seymour because the cab driver answers â€Å"Ain’t no pony, it’s a car†. Alexie shows us how hard it is for the reservation to have to take the cab and pay in a form that you do not see in other places of America. Alexie shows us an example of two different economies. Within the same country but how life in the reservation is completely different to the rest of the life outside the reservation. The reservation has many problems like having only one cab driver who charges a beer and a cigarette a mile. Another problem†¦ â€Å"The Man to Send Rain Clouds† The theme of Leslie Marmon Silko’s The Man to Send Rain Clouds revolves around the idea of maintaining your culture in the opposition of the â€Å"religious right. † Leon is faced with strong opposition about his tribe’s rituals in regard to the burying of one of their dead. That opposition comes from the Christian priest and his ideas of what is sacred. Cultures around the world embrace death in different ways. Some mourn and fear death; others accept it and find hope when the time comes. Unfortunately not all of those cultures are able to be open to the idea that they could be wrong, or that different methods could lead to the same ends. The Christian church of coarse has a history of killing, burning, and condemning things that disagree with their ideologies. Even today we see extremists in many religions that fight wars over their beliefs. In this story a man had to fight with himself regarding the decision. He has to wrestle with the pleas of the priest and the idea that his culture taught him regarding death. He believed as his tribe did that the ritual would bring rain and new life to the crops. The battle between cultures moves on when the priest is actually asked to be a part of the ritual and bless the body. At this point the priest enters his own battle with the things that he was taught and the opposition that he faces. He had to decide what would be the Christian thing to do. When all these battle are over both men learn a little about each other’s world as the wind starts to come in, it is a wind of change. They wait to see if the storm will come to begin the circle of life anew. The Man to Send Rain Clouds Readers Reaction This was quite an interesting story. There were three sections to the story which broke the story in three different times in one day. The characters were all very nonchalant except for the priest who showed some emotion when he found out that old Teofilo died. The story kept our interest, however, it did not lead a very clear trail to the end, and there was no real climax where we felt there was a good peak. The story needs to be read more than once to really be appreciated. Plot Summary One ? Teofilo is at the sheep camp in the arroyo when he rests in the shade under a cotton tree and dies. ? After Teofilo missing for a few days, Leon and Ken come looking for him and find that he â€Å"had been dead for a day or more, and the sheep had wandered and scattered up and down the arroyo. † ? They gather the sheep and then come back to wrap Teofilo up in a red blanket. ? They paint his face with different colors and ask him to send them rain. ? On Leon and Ken’s way back into pueblow (town) they see Father Paul, who asked if they found their missing grandfather yet, and they tell him where they found him, but not that he’s dead. â€Å"Good Morning, father. We were just out to the sheep camp. Everything is o. k. now. † Two ? Louise and Teresa are waiting for them to get back with any news about Teofilo. ? Leon tells the girls that they found Teofilo died near â€Å"a cottonwood tree in the big arroyo near sheep camp. † ? Leon and Ken carry in red blanket with teofilo’s body, dress him in new clothes to be buried in. ? After a quiet lunch, Ken went to see when the gravediggers could have the grave ready, â€Å"I think it can be ready before dark. † ? Neighbors and clans people come by their house to console Teofilo’s family and leave food for the gravediggers. Three ? After the funeral, Louise tells her brother Leon that she wants the priest to sprinkle â€Å"holy water for grandpa. So he won’t be thirsty. † ? Leon gets in the truck†¦ Burial Rituals of Native American Culture At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people. Leslie Marmon Silko’s story entitled The Man to Send Rain Clouds describes a funeral service carried out by a Native American Pueblo family. Though many perceive the funeral service narrated in this story to be lacking in emotion and also lacking respect for the passing of their loved one, it portrays a ceremony that is quite common for the Native American communities. There is also a hint of conflict occurring between the characters in the story that are carrying out their traditions while including an outside religious figure in the ceremony. The death of an old man sets the stage for this story and tells of the way his family goes about preparing him for his journey into the afterlife. A feather is tied into the old man’s hair, his face was painted with blue, yellow, green and white paint, pinches of corn meal and pollen were tossed into the wind and finally his body was wrapped in a red blanket prior to being transported. According to Releasing the Spirit: A Lesson in Native American Funeral Rituals by Gary F. Santillanes, â€Å"Pueblo Indians care for their own dead with no funeral director involved. The family will take the deceased, usually in their truck, back to the home of the deceased and place him or her on the floor facing east to west, on a native blanket. Depending on the deceased’s stature in the tribe, his face may be painted in the traditional nature. A powdery substance is placed†¦ AK English 217 – Reading Journal (The Way To Rainy Mountain) Scott Momaday uses nature to dictate the passage of life. He personifies the landscape as a person, he says the there is ‘perfect in the mountains but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. ’ To me, this tells me the mountains have a feeling of openness, but it is the home of many – not just humans. The mountain holds importance to the Kiowa’s because it is pure wilderness. The landscape that is described helps the reader recognize what the Kiowa’s were thinking upon reaching rainy mountain. The beautiful sights of the land made the Kiowa’s recognize a new passage of life. Their curiosity of the land’s landscape created legends in their tribe. The legends helped them escape through the wilderness by becoming part of it – through kinsmen in the sky and a boy turned into a bear at Devil’s Tower. Momaday describes the curiosity of the wilderness throughout the landscape. In order to build the larger idea of the tribe, the curiosity makes the landscape act as a character. The writer, Scott Momaday, describes the grandmother through details of her life. My favorite line was at the end when he wrote, â€Å"There, we it ought to be at the end of a long and legendary way, was my grandmother’sgrave. † This line sums up her entire life in a single sentence. She lived a long life and saw many things, her life was filled of legends that the tribe created. She had a reverence for the sun because she saw the Sun Dances when she was younger. In 1887, the grandmother was at the last sun dance; she bore a vision of deicide without any bitterness. At an old age, she began praying frequently. Momaday could not understand what she was saying but describes the tone of her voice as ‘sad in sound, some merest hesitation upon the syllables of sorrow. ’ No matter what the language, people inherently understand the sounds of sadness. It really brought the grandmother to life. Then finally, at the end, he†¦ Many Americans today believe that all students –no matter what race or ethnicity- have an easy path with our education and that all students are able to get a higher education without any problems. Yet this belief is not true for all students. However it’s a whole different story for the working class students. The working class student that goes for a higher education in life, in search for a better life and, a brighter future are faced with many obstacles and challenges on their path to achieve their goals and dreams. The working class students are put with many different challenges. As they the working class students goes forward with their education, there maybe people that will try to put them down in many forms. But you should know that you will survive and at the end you be a stronger, prepare student with the tools to overcome any obstacles in life. In the article â€Å"Indian Education† by Sherman Alexie, we read how being working class students we have obstacles to overcome. Some of this obstacles come from the people we less expected just like the example in Alexie Sherman Article â€Å"Indian Education†, how his own second grade teacher Miss Betty Towle try to put him down as many times as possible. She the teacher tries to put him down for being Indian, and for having working class parents. The Teacher Miss. Betty seems to not care for Alexie at all. The teacher ask Alexie to give a letter to his parents in which she ask for his parents to come to school so that they could have a conversation on what she calls his bad behavior in class. The teacher seems to not want to talk about his bad behavior. Instead, she wanted to insult Alexie in front of his parents by calling him Indian without any compassion or respect. â€Å"Indians, indians, indians, she said it without capitalization, she called me Indian, indian, Indian† (p. 1). Base on this citation we see that the teacher was trying to put him down for being Indian and for having parents that weren’t educated. By†¦

Dr. Victor Frankenstein †The True Monster Essay

The worst kind of monster there is in this world is the kind that totally dismisses the power of love and does everything to destroy believe in this great and wonderful virtue. In Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ where Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates a creature from the parts of various corpses and gives it live, the matter of love becomes a central element and this love is what clearly distinguishes the human from the true monster. Mary Shelley’s â€Å"Frankenstein† explores the two levels of love and these two levels are what set apart Dr.Victor Frankenstein as the true monster from the creature that he created because albeit the monstrous external appearance of Frankenstein’s creation, the creature proves more capable of love than its creator. The novel begins with a letter written by Robert Walton to his sister where he describes witnessing a huge creature in the arctic pursued by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. â€Å"Walton records Frankenstein’s narrative, while Frankenstein in turn relays the monster’s narrative, so that there are layers of reality expressed through different characters’ points of view. † (Johnson) From this initial glimpse of the ‘so-called’ monster, the novel unfolds to eventually show that the true monster in the novel is in fact the doctor and not his creation. Apart from the expectations of readers, the creature of Dr. Victor Frankenstein eventually evolves into an individual who can think logically, prove to be more articulate, and more importantly, more capable of love compared to its creator. This alone is evidence that between the two characters who drive the novel, the creature is in fact the one that is presented as the symbol of intrinsic emotions apart from the superficiality that Dr. Frankenstein portrays. In exploring the personality of Dr. Frankenstein in the novel, his monstrosity inevitably emerges. For instance, in the lines, â€Å"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. † (Shelley, Ch. 4) the doctor proves to possess a distorted perception of the world at large. Here, he looks at the world as a place of darkness which needs his scientific prowess as it moves into the light. Aside from the fact that this puts too much weight on his shoulders, this quote also shows his conceit and bloated ego. These lines validate the doctor’s obsession with life and death and how he has the power to control it; only a few levels short of wanting to rule the world as is common with all villains. These lines also express the intentions of the doctor when he creates his ‘so-called’ monster. In this context, the doctor seeks to penetrate natural laws not in the interest of the evolution of science or the welfare of the public but because he would simply want to exercise his assumed power over natural laws. This, in effect, presents the doctor as a mad scientist who is guided by values that are way beyond the values of someone sincerely concerned with the plight of humanity. This initial presentation of Victor sets the tone for the audience and gives them a glimpse of what is to come. With the intentions and personality of this doctor exposed in the way he is characterized, one can easily see that the novel will definitely take a twist that would have the monster gaining the upper hand in terms of sanity and morality. This is validated by another quote from the doctor that states, â€Å"A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. † (Shelley, Ch. 4) where the doctor very clearly expresses his dark intentions which is to want to have other natures ‘owe their being’ to his work. Here, one sees that the doctor seems to be suffering from a God-complex which to most is the delusion of being someone who can create life and hence, derive power from this ability. Victor, therefore, becomes an individual of thwarted beliefs and one who does not respect the established laws of the universe; of course, the consequences of this are later expressed in the way his monster turns out to be. In comparison to the doctor, the monster as it has already been created presents or manifests critical thought and a deeper and more logical perception of things as opposed to how its master perceives it. This initially sets the stage for a diametrical opposition between the personalities of these two characters. The monster first begins to question his existence, hence, the line, â€Å"â€Å"God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours†¦. † (Shelley, p. 154) Here, the monster demonstrates an understanding of natural laws in recognition of God as the creator of man and the circumstance by which man was created as being ‘after his own image’. In looking at his image, the monster concludes that his is a ‘filthy type’ of the image of his creator, Victor Frankenstein. In effect, the monster is now question how a creation can be a substandard version of its creator’s when natural law dictates that the creature has to be ‘beautiful and alluring’ like its creator. There is a deep philosophical insight in this statement by the monster which challenges the humanity of the doctor himself. The mere fact that the monster perceives itself as a ‘filthy’ version of the creator implies that the creator may in fact be human on the outside but a monster on the inside because if the matter of the likeness of God is applied to this supposition, man is created not in the physical likeness of God but in His spiritual likeness. The monster therefore, is an external reflection of the internal nature of the doctor. However, despite this superficial image, the monster develops its own volition and evolves into a thinking-feeling individual who is not restrained or enslaved by the distorted values of its creator. So, the monster begins to recognize this fact and is initially bound to its creator, hence, the lines, â€Å"â€Å"I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator, and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? † (Shelley, p. 165) The monster, in these lines expresses two values – the first, being his recognition of the importance of the acquisition of life as a basis for respect, and second, the recognition of the worth of the person who had given it life. For a monster, these realizations are quite distant, but in the case of Frankenstein’s monster, such realizations seemed to come naturally which all the more validates the clear and discriminating thought process of the creature. Another insight that could be derived from these lines is the presence of a deeper emotion than respect – love. The monster, upon referring to the doctor as its ‘father’ gives a deeper dimension to this statement because the word ‘father’ is different from creator; the word ‘father’ is not just a recognition of creation or pro-creation for that matter, but also a recognition of the nurturing nature of the individual. The monster, therefore, by referring to the doctor as ‘father’, is aware of the fact that whoever created it also had the task of nurturing it whether physically or emotionally. In another instance, one sees how the monster acquires its savage nature only as a reflection of the savage nature of the creator. This is seen in the lines, â€Å"â€Å"I am malicious because I am miserable†¦. You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? † (Shelley, p. 173) Here one sees that the reason why the monster had developed a hatred for man was because the creator had exercised a certain degree of hostility toward the monster. While in natural circumstances this may simply be construed as cruelty, in this particular instance, the monster is able to perceive the reasons for the hostility and manifest it in its own existence. Therefore, the monster is not savage; instead, it had become savage in response to the hostility of its creator. It will also be recalled from the novel that in the desperation of the monster for social acceptance it implored the doctor to create for it a wife, hence, the lines â€Å"â€Å"I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me, but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. † (Shelley, p. 171) Now, in connection to this particular incident, the doctor did create another monster out of scrap female body parts and introduced it to the first monster as its wife, however, the more horrible thing in this particular instance is the fact that the doctor destroys the female monster and angers the male. In the earlier lines, one can easily glean that the male monster had perceived its appearance to be the reason for its isolation and hence, demonstrated it’s human nature which is in fact beyond the human nature of the doctor who is consumed by his own power and takes away from the male monster the only opportunity at acceptance and love. The incident where the monster kills the wife of Victor on the night of their wedding therefore becomes immaterial to whether the monster has human qualities or not, in fact, it validates its humanness as it demonstrates a significant response to the feeling of remorse and hatred for the inhumanity that was committed upon it by the doctor; and so, this particular incident changes the monsters point of view completely, but it should not be denied that this change of perception is not because of the volition of the monster but as a result of the savage and insensitive actions of Victor, its creator. So, the monster then states, â€Å"â€Å"[T]he human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union†¦. [I]f I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear†¦. † (Shelley, p. 173) Now, if one was to peruse this line as it is without considering the underlying circumstances, it would seem that the monster had become irrational and wild, but with the perusal of underlying circumstance, the monster becomes very logical in its responses. â€Å"It is therefore, plausibly suggested, that the Monster can be seen as a metaphor for the destructive power of unleashed passion. â€Å" (Pearce) This basically shows that the creature is not really the monster in the novel as demonstrated by its insights and responses, and the real monster is the doctor, who, apart from being obsessed with the power of being able to create life, relegates his creation as a monstrosity and totally dismisses the possibility that this creation also has the same degree of emotions and logical thought that he has as its creator. â€Å"Dr. Frankenstein continually underestimates the being’s malice and power. † (Thripp) This is the deadening mistake of Victor and this is what makes the distinction clear between him and his creation. Both seek love, as is shown in Victor’s desire for his wife and the monster’s need for a partner, but it is the way these two men act on the love that had been acquire that sets each other apart. Victor takes this love as if it is natural and ordinary, while the monster perceives it as something that is of great value because of his physical inadequacies; Victor, therefore, becomes more savage than the monster in this aspect, hence, â€Å"the secret is not that he created a monster; the secret is that he is the monster. This intensifies his guilt and seclusion, adds weight to his terrible illness and remorse,† (Thripp) It will be seen towards the end of the story that Victor grows insane and pursues the monster until they finally meet in the arctic. Here, the doctor dies and the creature mourns the loss of its master. This, again, is an expression of humanity, because the monster, despite being victim to the hostility and insensitivity of its creator still felt a certain degree of indebtedness and love for Victor, whom the monster fully recognized and respected to be its sole source of life. The monster, in these final scenes in the novel, validates its humanity over the humanity of the doctor by ignoring all past evils of its master and transcending hostile emotions to recognize the supremacy of love and compassion. In validation of this compassion of the monster, he says, ‘†I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. † (Shelley) Here one sees that when said by a physically horrible creature these words might seem to be a threat but if the humanity of the creature is superimposed against the reasons for the creature’s existence, then a perfect and complete humanity emerges. â€Å"All the references to monstrousness are metaphors for Victor’s black heart, and that Shelley has created a work of art that is truly Romantic; the entire novel miserable and revolutionary, a battle of light versus dark, good versus evil, all wrapped up in one self-contradictory character. † (Thripp) In conclusion, it is not really the ability of the doctor to create life that is the meat and the matter in this novel; instead it is the conflict of morality that arises from his creation of life. While some argue that this novel alludes to the duality of the personality of Dr. Frankenstein, analyzing the novel deeper would tell one that over and above the dramatic circumstances in the tale, the author offers deep and surprising insights into the nature of humanity. The monster as a symbol of unbounded humanity succeeds in the author’s intention of relegating the real human, Dr. Frankenstein into a domain where readers might question his integrity as a human and as a sane individual. The saner element therefore becomes the monster and the doctor becomes a representation of the dark and savage nature of man which is only expressed in exaggeration in the monster only to highlight or reflect the evil and savageness that dwells in the heart of the true monster, Dr. Frankenstein. Finally, one has the line, â€Å"I may die; but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. † (Shelley, Ch. 20) which seals the fate of the monster as one who is more human than its creator. This line expresses one other aspect of humanity that determines how one survives and that is the absence of fear. Victor Frankenstein, in the way he is portrayed in the novel did not fear dabbling with the laws of nature, but upon setting eyes on his creation began to fear what he saw. In effect, the doctor had developed not a fear for the unknown and what should be feared but a fear for his own reflection as portrayed in the monster. He feared the horrors that he saw of himself in the monster. The monster was a mirror of the darkness that pervaded his soul and the misplaced feat that manifested itself in his desire to create life despite traditional values that tell him to do otherwise. So, based on the textual evidence presented in the novel it is quite clear that while numerous philosophical implications can be attached to the text, Victor Frankenstein actually emerges as the monster over and above the superficial monstrosity of his creation. The monster therefore, proves to be more human than its creator in more aspects than one and proves its humanity in the end by showing a sincere and exceptionally deep sense of compassion and logical emotion. ? Works Cited Johnson, Diane. â€Å"Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein . † Greenman Review. N. p. , 2008. Web. 15 Aug. 2010. . Pearce, Joseph. â€Å"The Misunderstood Monster. † Ignatius Critical Editions. N. p. , 2008. Web. 15 Aug. 2010. . Shelley, Mary W. â€Å"Frankenstein. † N. p. , n. d. Web. 15 Aug. 2010. . Thripp, Richard. â€Å"Victor Frankenstein: Trodden Hero or Veiled Villain?. † Scholarly Essays. N. p. , 2008. Web. 15 Aug. 2010.

Systematic Approach of World Wide Web

Getting your course onto the World Wide Web (WWW) is best done using a systematic approach. There are a number of steps that need to be taken prior to starting any of the actual web work. Meetings should be held with various groups within your institution. Once the actual coursework is begun, there are some essential components and some optional components. There are specific skills and talents that you either need to acquire or you need to access. Each web-based course is unique, but they often have many components in common. Some are essential, others may be optional. Resources can be found on your campus, from the many web companies and from the web itself. World Wide Web, WWW, Distance Education, HTML, Web-Based Instruction The number of degree credit courses available on the World Wide Web (WWW) has increased at the same astonishing rate as other activities on the WWW. There are some specific steps that can be taken that will help to transport the professor from the idea stage to the delivery of a course over the WWW. Also, just like any other educational technology, web-based instruction works better for some situations than others. Web-based instruction is useful when you want to create a virtual environment which is not easily or, perhaps, safely accessible. An example is sending learners to a virtual nuclear lab or on a â€Å"virtual tour† of the Louver in Paris. Web-based instruction it allows learners to gain knowledge and skill more effectively than traditional methods. Simply transferring material such as lecture notes to the web is not using the technology to its best advantage. Lengthy text such as lecture notes are, in fact, best printed because most learners experience eye strain and sensory disinterest reading long passages of text on a screen. Some specific situations tend to lend themselves to web-based instruction. You want to encourage communication through conferencing. Through internet conferencing learners may participate in discussions or group work with one another with or without the participation of the instructor. Role plays, simulations of historical events and debates are also examples of how learning can be facilitated through the conferencing option. You want learners to use â€Å"source documents† to complete assignments such as conducting an analysis or designing a project. These source documents may not be readily available to learners or perhaps, based on the assignment, will not be equally significant to all the learners. For example, you may ask learners to research and analyze issues pertaining to Canadian elections. To complete the assignment, various learners may access archived information such as newspaper and journal articles which specifically relate to their particular interest or point of view. One example is a site operated by the University of Victoria (http://web.uvic.ca/history robinson/index.html) which contains letters, maps, biographies and newspaper articles about the murder of William Robinson committed on Saltspring Island in 1868. The information at the site allows learners and the public to pursue their research as they please and to access original documents which are not generally available. Individuals are free to interpret the meaning of the documents and reach their own conclusions. You want to provide maximum flexibility to allow learners to undertake learning and research in the order which best suits them. Because the web allows learners to â€Å"move around† at will, they do not need to follow a structured hierarchy. Generally learners need and want some direction but the web allows a more flexible approach. You want learners to pool data and/or analysis to find patterns and trends or to undertake further study. For a starting point and to keep us on track in this paper, I will discuss degree credit courses delivered by the University of New Brunswick. I will assume that for your case there is ready WWW web access for the professor as well as web access for students. Again, for consistency, I expect my students to have at least Netscape 3 (or its equivalent), their own internet service provider (ISP), and the skills necessary to access the WWW. These are my starting points – but most concepts discussed will transfer across institutional lines. There a number of things that you should do before you begin to do any coding, contracting or late night computer hacking. There are meetings to setup, there is paper work to be done and decisions to be made. Then, and only then, do you get to â€Å"play† with the computer. I would advise that you consider the following meetings as part of your endeavors. They will help you set the ground rules, help you avoid some of the mine-fields, and start you off on a working relationship with groups that can be either wonderful allies or formidable combatants, and hopefully help keep you on track as you work towards a finished product. 6.2.1 Your initial meeting with your own department I feel it is imperative for any relationship you and your delivering agency (Department of Extension, Continuing Education or â€Å"University of the World†) to start with a good relationship with your own department. In this meeting you may need to get the approval of the supervisors of your department to be able to deliver in something other than the traditional face to face, on campus mode. Those in authority may have to guarantee the academic support for some period after the first start of delivery of the course (at UNB, the period is three years). At the University of New Brunswick, instructors delivering courses through the Department of Extension are recommended by the faculties. This is something you might also wish to discuss with your own department at this time. It is often assumed that the person(s) developing a course will be the one(s) that wish to teach the course and the one(s) that the faculty will appoint to teach the course. This is not always the case. You should also discuss possible sources of help for the development of your course. There are times when stipend relief may be available from various sources. There may also be funds available from other agencies. 6.2.2 Your first meeting with your delivering agency Having gained the approval of your faculty, you should next meet with your delivering agency. In this meeting, you should discuss the ways that they can help you in the development of your course. They may also share with you what they know about possible funding sources. As Web-based learning is different from regular face-to-face lecture learning, they will want you to make use of good instructional design methodologies. This is often an area where they can help. Here are some items you may wish to discuss at that meeting: a. possible methods of web-based delivery for your course, b. method of payment to the instructor, c. ancillary support materials and their delivery to the students, d. how the materials, assignments, marks and communications flow between parties g. on-going checkpoint meetings with your delivering agency. At regularly scheduled intervals, you should meet with your delivering agency as they will wish to monitor the development of the course. Your delivering agency should be checking with you to: * keep abreast of your time lines. They need this to be able to best market your course and to see that it receives the coverage it deserves, * ensure the consistency of an Academia â€Å"look and feel† * ensure the consistency of any standards for web-based courseware development (for an example, please see http://www.unb.ca/home/webinfo/guide.html) * keep abreast of your needs and successes. These meetings are intended to insure the standards and formats consistent with the delivery of your institute's courses, and should in no way be an attempt to interfere with your teaching. There is an ongoing debate as to whether one should do all or some of the web work oneself, or if the work should be jobbed out. I enjoy working with the web, I have instructional design training and have been involved in courseware development for quite a few years and so, as long as I have more time than financial resources, I will do the work myself. There are many very good professional agencies that can be contracted to produce courseware for you. These agencies can be contracted to do a wide range of the jobs necessary to complete any type of web-based application. There are probably agencies within your institution who specialize in instructional design and courseware development. These units should be consulted. For certain areas of the development that you do yourself, you will need some specific skills. You will need to be very familiar with these or will need access to people who are and can do these aspects of the job for you. 7.1.1.1 HyperText Markup Language – HTML Stands for HyperText Markup Language, and on a scale of one to ten, learning the basics of HTML is about a three. The web is a great resource (see the Resource list below), and there are a plethora of good books on the subject. I keep the most current version of Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay near my computer. As with all aspects of the WWW, the print support is changing constantly, but the most recent edition is usually the best. Again, there a large number of excellent resources and my favorite is Jerry Kemp's The Instructional Design Process (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). It is however, out of print, and this is one case where I do think the next edition was not as good as the first. Another good choice is, Robert Branch's Common Instructional Design Practices Employed by Secondary School Teachers, Educational Technology, 34, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1995). The more familiar you become with HTML, the more you will be able to enhance your course's web site. This can be a good thing, and it can also be not so good. Adding components and extra â€Å"bells and whistles† to your web site should be done as a conscious choice to support your educational objectives and not just because the â€Å"bells and whistles† are there. Stands for Common Gateway Interface and is the coding that allows the information collected from forms on webs sites to be manipulated. This can be as simple as allowing students to send specific assignments to you, or can be as elaborate as on-line registration. Every Web-delivered course will have a number of components. These will vary depending upon your needs, your style and the degree of interactivity in the course. There are some components that should be part of your site, in order to make the course appealing to your customer. I feel that some components of a web-based course are essential and others are optional. These can be divided into static and dynamic. These components change very little. They can be put on your web site and only updated as needed. This will often come directly from your University calendar. This can be as informal or as formal as you like. What kind of first impression do you wish to make? How much do you wish to add? Do you wish to link to your own personal Web site (if you have one)? Again, this can often come from your university calendar. It is always a good point to specify any particular computing hardware, software or skills that will be required for students to be able to take your course. Here is a nice place to put a scanned cover of the text – along with the ISBN, the publisher and all of the information needed for your potential students to acquire this text. Here is a good place to put a link to your institute's bookstore – assuming it has a web site. This is where you put as much information as you can about how students can reach you. Will you have office hours? Virtual office hours? Can they reach you via Email? How do they reach each other? Is there a listserv, a secure server? Students all seem to want to know what they have to do to get a mark. This is a good place to tell them about assignments, quizzes, mid-terms and finals, and any other expectations you have of them. These components may change often. They might be updated, or supplemented once a week or every few days. This gets used much more in the first part of the class. As the class gets â€Å"into it† this seems to be used less frequently. These can be placed on the web site before the class begins for all assignments, or can become readable at given times or as new assignments are given. These are the actual components of the web site that allow interactivity in the course. The real power of the WWW is global communication. And this is what makes web-based courses so exciting. Your course's communications may include any number of the following: These use standard Email to allow all members of the class to send and receive messages from any other member of the class, including the instructor. Messages are automatically sent to all of the individual's personal Email addresses. These are places where people can interact. Student-to-student, student-to-teacher and teacher-to-student or teacher to the entire class. These are sections on the web that students go to and are able to read messages and participate in on-line, asynchronous ‘conversations.' 7.2.1.2.6 Interactive ‘real time' two-way audio or video There are numerous pieces of software available now that allow desktop two-way video and audio. These tend to require very high bandwidth, and because they are ‘real-time' they require the participating parties to all be on the web at the same time. This is a place where your marking scheme can be listed. It is also a place where you can post marks or assignments in (if you have a secure server that only your class can access). As each week progresses, or just prior to each week's work, students may need to have the equivalent of lecture notes to supplement what is covered in the text book, or what has been assigned on the web. Some web software will allow you to put the all the notes on the web site – and as certain dates arrive, students then have access to the notes. These may be essential, depending upon your requirements. These may be as sound files (.WAV or .AU), audio streaming (Real Audio, Soundstream, Shockwave) or MIDI files. These may be as animated .GIFs, QuickTime, Shockwave or Java applications. 7.2.2.3 Quizzes, especially â€Å"self-correcting† quizzes These may be as part of a web educational software (WebCT) or can be developed by yourself or your institution. These may be as included as text pages or may be referenced to other sites. This is one area where copyright can really come into play. The cost of clearing copyright on a set of Harvard business case studies can be out of the question. These may be as QuickTime © video or may be done with the new Real Video that allows real-time video streaming. These will allow you to maintain and provide access to databases over the web. These may be as simple as step-by-step instructions for any topic with branching provided to additional sites. They can also be we intelligent tutorials with on-line interactive testing. An â€Å"open server† will allow anyone, anywhere on the web to access your information. A â€Å"secure server† will only allow persons with some type of authorization code to access your information. (This list does not constitute an endorsement on anyone's part. These resources are a jumping off points to help you get your course on the web.) Please do not overlook the many resources on your own campus. This site has links to courses, resources, helper sites that aid you in choosing which type and format of media to use, sites that check your HTML for errors or idiosyncrasies, and much more. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/resources.html 8.2 Conferences, on-line or face-to-face NAWeb '98 – The Virtual Campus (October 3-6, 1998). This international conference is in its fourth year. It is intended solely for those developing courseware for delivery on the WWW or for those delivering courseware over the WWW. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/naweb98/ 8.3 Books, listservs and associations Badrul Khan's Web-Based Instruction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1997) is quite good. I host the WWWDEV listserv. This listserv hosts the NAWeb conferences, and has 1400 members from around the world – developing for delivery over the WWW or actually delivering courseware over the WWW. The DEOSNEWS listserv is involved in all aspects of distance education. You can join that one by sending this message DEOS-L is a service provided to the Distance Education community by The American Center for the Study of Distance Education, The Pennsylvania State University. Opinions expressed are those of DEOS-L subscribers, and do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, product, or service by ACSDE or Penn State. The Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) can often help The Association for Media and Technology in Education – Canada (AMTEC) is another favorite of mine. Use every and any resource you can. Join groups for support, and support others in similar projects. This is a rapidly emerging field, and it is evolving and growing just as fast as it is emerging. Here is where you add ideas you pick up at the conference. This site has links to courses, resources, helper sites that aid you in choosing which type and format of media to use, sites that check your HTML for errors or idiosyncrasies, and much more. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/resources.html 8.2 Conferences, on-line or face-to-face NAWeb '98 – The Virtual Campus (October 3-6, 1998). This international conference is in its fourth year. It is intended solely for those developing courseware for delivery on the WWW or for those delivering courseware over the WWW. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/naweb98/ 8.3 Books, listservs and associations Badrul Khan's Web-Based Instruction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1997) is quite good. I host the WWWDEV listserv. This listserv hosts the NAWeb conferences, and has 1400 members from around the world – developing for delivery over the WWW or actually delivering courseware over the WWW. The DEOSNEWS listserv is involved in all aspects of distance education. You can join that one by sending this message DEOS-L is a service provided to the Distance Education community by The American Center for the Study of Distance Education, The Pennsylvania State University. Opinions expressed are those of DEOS-L subscribers, and do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, product, or service by ACSDE or Penn State. The Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) can often help The Association for Media and Technology in Education – Canada (AMTEC) is another favorite of mine. Use every and any resource you can. Join groups for support, and support others in similar projects. This is a rapidly emerging field, and it is evolving and growing just as fast as it is emerging. Here is where you add ideas you pick up at the conference.