Bridging Academic and Career Competencies Essay Example for Free

Bridging Academic and Career Competencies Essay The university learning goals are essential skills that hiring managers look for when reviewing applications. Knowing how to incorporate the learning goals into your career competencies can help you in the application and career-search process. Fill in the following table with 100-word summaries of how each university learning goal can help you with career preparedness. University learning goal How each goal prepares you for success in the workplace Professional Competence and Values Professional Competence and Values prepares me for success in the workplace by giving me the classes that I need to be successful in a future career and my personal life. The university providing these courses, which give the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful, is helpful to me since I am not being put into classes that I have nothing to do with my career field. This goal also encourages lifelong learning, which encourages me to take more classes once I graduate from my current program and strive to learn more when I enter my career field post-graduation. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Critical thinking and Problem Solving prepares me for success in the workplace by giving me the skills to be better with how I think about and address problems. While in the workplace, this will help me and has helped me so far to take my thoughts from just a yes or no answer, to answers that I have reflected on more. This goal will also help give me the skills to come up with a more reasoned and detailed solution when solving a problem. With that knowledge, I can explain to my employer the solution I chose for a problem and why I chose it. Communication Communication helps me prepare for success in the workplace by giving me the knowledge I need to be a better formal communicator. Learning how to better use grammar, punctuation, and tone in how I write will help when I need to  send memos to colleagues in my career field. Having that information will help me better communicate to them professionally, and not how I would talk to my friends on a daily basis. Communication will also help with how I present my ideas to others, so that they are easy to understand and respectful of colleagues both in the tone and words that I use. Information Utilization Information Utilization helps me prepare for success in the workplace by helping me to improve my research skills and how I use the information that I find. Having classes where I have to locate answers using the research skills that I already have, causes me to better refine what I am already doing so that when I enter a career field, I will not need assistance if I am looking for information that I may need. This goal also will help me to use the proper information, so that whatever I am working on can be right the first time and negate the need to have to go back and research again. Collaboration Collaboration helps me prepare for success in the workplace by allowing me to work in groups with other students on projects. Collaborating will give the ability to hear and see things from multiple points of view that I do not possess, something that will help me when I get to a career. Collaboration will help me with the ability to trust team members, and not be quick to judge or try to do things on my own, as in my chosen career field, that is not something I will be able to do, and will have to work with others on solutions.

Urban Parks Essay -- New Urban Landscape

Like most Americans, I expect to find in every city, every town, even in every village in the country, an outdoor recreation area or what is usually called a park; and I am seldom disappointed. No matter how new and unfinished a town may be, or however old and poor, I know that it will contain, wedged in among the crowded blocks of buildings, a rectangular space with grass and trees and meandering paths and perhaps a bandstand or a flagpole. --John B. Jackson, â€Å"The Past and Future Park† in Denatured Visions    Urban parks are defined in their comparative and contrastive relationships to the urban environments surrounding them. Although frequently conceptualized as natural landscapes, the physical and social uses of parks give proof to their inherently cultural â€Å"nature.† For the purpose of this paper, I will use the term â€Å"culture† to refer to human implemented social objects and actions; nature, then, as a written word and a concept circulated in culture, becomes a cultural construction. The idea of â€Å"nature† or â€Å"natural,† I will attempt to argue, refers to a certain set of cultural concepts as constructed through a discourse that is centered away from humans and characterized by irrationality, purity, and vitality. Differently stated, nature functions as a cultural construct of anti-culture, providing an escape from the confines of culture in the sense of civilization, but does not entirely evade the conceptual framework inherent to the social, discursive formation of human ideas. This intermingling relationship between nature and culture is well illustrated in the example of urban parks. Parks are constructed as natural environments but literally and figuratively constructed by human cultural proc... ...el, B. and Cecil D. Elliott. Designing America: Creating Urban Identity. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994. Groth, Paul. â€Å"Vernacular Parks.† Wrede and Adams 135-137. Jackson, John B. â€Å"The Past and Future Park.† Wrede and Adams 129-134 Peck, Robert McCraken. â€Å"The Museum that Never Was.† Natural History July 1994: 62-7. Platt, Rutherford H. â€Å"Conclusion† in The Ecological City, Rutherford H. Platt, Rowan A. Rowntree and Pamela C. Muick, eds. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. Schultz, Stanley K. Constructing Urban Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Schuyler, David. The New Urban Landscape. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Wrede, Stuart and William Howard Adams, eds. Denatured Visions: Landscape and Culture in the Twentieth Century. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1991.

El Dorado

El Dorado: The Legend and the Myth Your Name Here School Name Professor John Doe Whether it is just a place of legend that once existed and has disappeared into history or a myth fabricated by European explorers looking for riches, El Dorado has always been a source of mystery to historians and explorers from around the globe. In the search for their â€Å"El Dorado†, the European explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would stop at nothing to obtain the untold wealth and notoriety that would come with a successful expedition. Along with the wealth that few found, European explorers were able to successfully rape, pillage and destroy an entire continents native population’s way of live in just a few decades. El Dorado, whether is actually exists, or not, has contributed to mans madness in the search for wealth, conquest and paradise in the new world. El Dorado is defined as being a place of legend, a place thought to be found somewhere within the South American continent. It is a place that is believed to be rich in gold and precious stones (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1988). The term â€Å"El dorado† was originally derived from the Spanish â€Å"el dorado† which means â€Å"golden one. † Many legends surround this story and the origin of El Dorado. â€Å"The Gilded Man† (Bandelier, 1893) – el hombre dorado – which through the generations has been shortened to the current version of El Dorado, is the story of a South American Indian tribe that once lived and flourished in what is now the mountainous table lands of Bogota. Legend has it that this was the name of the chief of the Musica (Wikipedia, 2011) tribe in South America. The story states that the members of this chief’s tribe, during tribal ceremonies, would sprinkle his body with gold dust, which, after the ceremony, would be removed by the king diving into Lake Guatavita. In the years prior to the arrival of the Spanish explorers the Guatativa Indians had been defeated and subjugated in tribal warfare by a neighboring tribe around 1490-1500, and the new chief of this region had put an end to the ceremony of El Dorado. With the arrival of the Spaniards to this region of South America around 1525, the gilded man had already become a myth to the local native tribes. In the Cibao mountains of South America, in the year 1501, while panning for gold in a small stream, a native woman found a single gold nugget that was described as being as large as a â€Å"loaf of bread† or the size of a â€Å"suckling pig† (Bacci, 2007). The weight of this nugget was estimated at 16 kilograms or 35. 2 pounds. In today’s market, with today’s price of gold at $1,475. 00 per ounce, the weight of this single nugget would be worth approximately $662,000. 00. This nugget was so valuable in proving the mass of wealth available in the new world that it was placed on display for the colonists and guarded until it could be shown to the king and queen of Spain. While the native girl that originally found this great nugget was probably given nothing for her find, the two Spaniards in charge of the local expedition were rewarded with devotional objects, dishes and urns that were taken, or stolen, from temples and palaces from throughout the country. The total amount of this reward was measured to the â€Å"height that a man stands with his hand outstretched† (Bacci, 2007). In July of 1529, the new Governor of Venezuela, a German, Ambrosius Dalfinger became the first European to follow-up on and actually search for the origin of â€Å"the gilded man. † Dalfinger and approximately 300 men set forth on a campaign of conquest in search of two items – gold and slaves. His exploits of devastation and plunder would become an object of revulsion to even the Spaniards of his day. In 1530, in the Ambrosia valley, the local natives handed Dalfinger his second defeat in battle. With his forces severely depleted, he finally retreated back to Coro, Venezuela. With all of the effort that Dalfinger put forth to bring death and destruction to the tribal areas in his search for riches and conquest, he only found 70,000 pesos (approx. 6,000 dollars) worth of riches, of which 30,000 along with its escort, never made it out of the forests (Bandelier, 1893). In the 1530s, during the later days of the Dalfinger expedition, another Spaniard, Diego Ordaz and his crew also experienced failure (Winsor, 1886). However, Ordaz and his expeditionary crew did not fail for its inability to find riches; it failed because of internal strife that resulted in a mutiny. During this mutiny one of Ordaz’s lieutenants, Martinez, was also expelled from the expedition for misconduct. After his return to Porto Rico eight months later, he told a tale of becoming lost and wandering in the forest until being captured by natives that blind folded him and escorted him for a considerable distance to a great city called Manoa. He described the city, and taking a day and a night to traverse to reach the palace where he became the guest of the emperor Inga. Lieutenant Martinez according to the author was the first to apply the name El Dorado to the city of Manoa. This story though later proved to be fictional, is the one that would 60 years later be shown to Sir Walter Raleigh, on a manuscript, by the Governor of Trinidad. One of the more famous and historically documented stories about the search for El Dorado is the expedition undertaken by the Spanish explorers Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro in 1541. Their expedition, while it did include the search for wealth, also had the task of searching for land suitable colonization by European immigrants. The immigrants faced many hardships, almost from the beginning. The party endured torrential rain, cold, earthquakes and even a volcano. This expedition was another of many launched by European explorers in search of gold and riches that was doomed to fail. What Pizarro did find was another item that was highly sought after by few explorers: cinnamon, a spice derived from the bark of a tree. By the time of this discovery Pizzaro’s company, which started out with 500 Spaniards, 100 mounted on horses, and close to 4,000 natives, had been reduced to a small portion of their original size. Many of the original party had died from disease, starvation, drowning and violent conflicts with many of the native tribes that they had encountered. The majority of the natives they had originally started with, because of the brutality of the masters, had quietly slipped away while in the jungles or during the night while the Spaniards slept. They were close to starvation, and the expedition’s horses, dogs and other domesticated animals they had started out with had already been eaten. The remaining expedition members were reduced to eating whatever they could find in the surrounding forest; this diet consisted of roots, leaves, grasses, frog, toads, snakes lizards and whatever scarce wildlife they could find. Pizarro decided it was time to cut his losses and return to the native kingdom of Quito. He then challenged his men to build a â€Å"brigantine,† a small two masted ship, to be used to navigate the many rivers and waterways for the return trip home. The task of this ship building was something his party was ill equipped for. For iron they had to use the shoes of their dead horses, to seal the crevices between the planks they used glue derived from the local trees and for rope material they used the clothing of the native helpers and their own shirts. After journeying for 16 months, Zarate, a historian on the expedition, wrote â€Å"The whole party from general to private, was almost entirely naked, as, from almost continual rain storms which they had been exposed and the other hardships of the journey, their clothes were all rotten and torn to rags, and they were reduced to covering themselves with the skins of beasts. Their swords were all without scabbards and almost destroyed with rust. † (Zahm, 1917). According to Bacci, (2007) the conquest of the new world and the speed in which it was explored and settled was a surprise to the entire world, to include the conquistadors. The exploration of the continent, subjugation of the local populace and the beginning of colonization by tens of thousands of Europeans took around 50 years to complete. Author M. B. Synge (2007) wrote of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the next European explorer of any note and his attempt to try and locate El Dorado. Raleigh, an Englishman, had recently failed in an attempt to establish a colony on the North American continent, in what is now Virginia. With Raleigh looking to get back into the good graces of his queen, his thoughts were of gold and fame, he had heard the rumors of the Golden city of Manoa, what the Spanish referred to as El Dorado, a mythical city of golden temples filled with furniture and adornments of gold. In 1595, he left England with five ships bound for South America. Upon reaching the mouth of the Orinoco River, in what is now Guiana, he discovered that he could not effectively navigate the river with his deep-hulled ocean going ships. His only option was to hire a local guide, Ferdinand, and set out with one hundred of his men, rowing against the current in small boats. During this expedition, Raleigh described the way the natives along the river lived, (they were cannibals), the abundance of fruits on the Guiana shores and the terrible strain that he and his crew were under both physically and mentally as they strove to succeed in their quest. After weeks of battling scorching heat and unrelenting river currents, Raleigh decided it was time to turn back. He never did find the city of Manoa but instead returned to England, to his Queen, telling tales of a country unspoiled, yet to be torn apart by others in search of gold and yet to be conquered by the Christian faith. The Queen was not impressed. The tales of his expedition and further conquest into South America were received coldly by the Queen. In 1617, twenty-two years after his first attempt, Raleigh was again granted permission by the Queen to attempt a second expedition into Guiana. Over the centuries, the term El Dorado has come to represent many things: A legend of a lost city and the mythology of a place that probably never existed. But to the people of today, it has come to represent two things: A place where wealth can be rapidly obtained and a fool’s errand, out of reach and unobtainable. In 1848, Edgar Allan Poe wrote his poem El Dorado (Poe, 1849). He writes of a gallant knight’s quest to find El Dorado. I found the last two stanzas to be the most meaningful. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow — â€Å"Shadow,† said he, â€Å"Where can it be — This land of El Dorado? † â€Å"Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly rides,† The shade replied — â€Å"If you seek for El Dorado. â€Å" As the knight lie dying, he see’s a spirit, probably a hallucination, that tells him El Dorado, will be over the next mountain and down into the next valley. It will always be over the mountain and into the next valley. It is a mythical place that is unobtainable; you will never find El Dorado. Heart of Darkness (Conrad, 1893), is another fictional tale of another group of explorers searching for riches in a land that has yet to be conquered. This time the story does not take place in South America, but in Africa. In his novel, Conrad tells a story of an ill-fated expedition into the unexplored territories of the African continent. It is basically the same tale of the trials and trouble that faced explorers three centuries earlier in South America. They went into unknown lands seeking riches and fame only to be faced with their own reality and deaths. The author tells a story of men that are bored with the ordinary life and seek adventure where they have no business being. He talks about the riches found and lost, along with other illegitimate profits that men can gain at the cost of another’s way of life. Marlow, one of the characters in Conrad’s story, says something that I believe to be a statement that shows the state of mind of the explorers and people of this era. Marlow said â€Å"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves; it is not a pretty thing when you look into it to much†. This story continues to show that the European and North American explorers of the 19th century have changed very little from their predecessors of the 15th thru the 18th centuries. They continue to go, usually where they do not belong, at great cost of life and property, and usually very little profit. Although these explorers have opened many doors for civilization, they have also, in their greed, destroyed another’s way of life during their search for glory. The Oak Island Treasure News, BlogSpot on the internet operated by Keith Ranville (2010) has another spin on the legend of El Dorado. Ranville who is thought of as a modern day treasure hunter and researcher from Vancouver, British Columbia, has many credits for deciphering ancient symbols and artifacts that has led him to several historical finds. What I found most interesting about Ranville was his own theory of what really happened to El Dorado. Ranville's theory about the lost city of gold, is that the native populations of the Incan Empire believed that they had, in their greed, been cursed by their gods and that the European explorers had been sent to destroy anyone that possessed gold of the gods. In their fear, the natives, directed by their holy men or shamans, stripped their cities of gold and returned it to the rivers and mines were it had been found. My belief is that El Dorado, whether it ever actually existed, or not, it has open many doors for modern civilization to exist. With out the explorers of the past 500 years, we would never have reached the levels of modernization that we currently have. While much good has come from all of this exploration, much unnecessary death and destruction of many people and their way of life were just brushed aside and destroyed. Many of the great tribes of both the North and South American continents have been lost forever. Those that still exist are just remnants of their ancestors, living on mostly government mandated lands and their ancient way of life forever gone. I feel that mankind has lost much more han it has gained in his search for wealth, conquest and paradise in the new world – as in his search for El Dorado. Bacci, L. B. (2007). El Dorado in the marshes. Massachusetts: Polity Press. Bandelier, A. F. (1893). The gilded man. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Conrad, J. (1893). Heart of darkness. New York: Columbia University Press. Poe, E. A. (1849). El Dorado: Poetry and tales. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. Ranville, K. (March 11, 2010). Oak Island treasure News. Retrieved March 26, 2011 from http://oakislandtreasurenewsarchives. logspot. com/2010/03/inca-treasure-thesis Synge, M. B. (2007). Explorers in South America, A book of discovery. North Carolina: Yesterday’s Classics. Webster’s new world dictionary. (3rd ed. ). (1988). New York: Simon and Schuster. W. Winsor, J. (1886). Narrative and critical history of America: Spanish explorations in America. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Wikipedia. ( November 2011). Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/El_Dorado Zahm, J. A. (1917). The quest for el Dorado. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

Managing Employee Performance Essay

In the article under review, Hoogenboezem and Hoogenboezem (2005) discuss the introduction of performance measurement in the Dutch Police service since 2002. This phenomenon followed radical changes in Dutch political organization largely precipitated by the rise of politician Pim Fortuyn who had government performance on top of his political agenda. The Dutch government, like most of its Western counterparts had been cited for underperformance with regards to public service delivery. The government had frequently shifted this blame on non-performance of its civil servants. This was taken as a key political agenda in the run up to the 2002 elections in the Netherlands. Fortuyn’s argument was that government had refused to exercise control by holding public sector managers accountable and setting targets for them. The authors examine the Dutch political system. Traditionally, the system has thrived on consensus building. This had affected efficiency in performance within the public sector which gave rise to a ‘’political attention for performance measurement’’ (2005:571). They also investigate the collapse of the Dutch pillars of society, the nature of policing and the community policing approach in the Netherlands and conclude that performance measurement will eventually become ineffective as a performance enhancing instrument. This they ascribe to the fact that the whole process of targeting in the Dutch Police administration does not have a firm philosophical base. It is based on loose arguments of a loud politician and an electorate that wanted change at all cost. Importing management practices like performance targeting from the private sector to the public sector comes with complexities (Adcroft and Willis, 2005). This is manifest in the struggle to cope with t argets by the Dutch Police. Effect of Targets on Performance Measurement The consequence of the political waves in the Netherlands in 2002 was the setting of quantitative law enforcement targets for political heads of the Police force. Specific figures for the number of suspects to be prosecuted for public violence and juvenile crime, for example were set. It appears to me that the targets are the result of undue political pressure rather than a carefully thought through system of performance management. Performance management systems are implemented to produce tangible results for organizations based on their mission statement and strategic objectives. Performance measurement is only one component of a performance management system. There is no indication, at least from the journal article, that the due processes for establishing a performance management process, namely prerequisites, planning, execution, assessment, review and renewal/recontracting (Agunis, 2009:32) are followed in the Dutch Police example. The effect is the general cynicism towards tar geting by the Police and the public. Again, employees react differently to performance measurement. This requires that organizations must be able to predict employee reaction to targets and factor these reactions into the management process (Selden and Sowa, 2011). Feedback from the parties involved in the Dutch Police targeting differs hugely. Whilst one group (senior management) appear enthused about the targets, another group (the operational policemen) are aggrieved. This suggests lack of consultation of all stakeholders which is a key component to successful performance management; especially in the setting of targets and measurement criteria. The essence of policing is to make society safer. Any ‘’†¦system that will not make the Netherlands safer†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Hoogenboezem and Hoogenboezem, 2005:573) is doomed to fail ab initio. Such a system lacks strategic congruence and becomes a public relations gimmick. This is the position expressed by some in Police leadership. However another group are inspired about getting more money ((Hoogenboezem and Hoogenboezem, 2005:573). The ‘’more money’’ factor will tend to obscure an impartial assessment of the scheme. This is also the case with Police chiefs expressing some support for targeting, with targets linked to reward in their case. Policemen at the operational level have problems with the targets because they make their jobs a routine; leaving them with few choices in the maintenance of law and order. The exercise of discretion appears to be of intrinsic value to the operational policeman. Where targets have placed a strict regiment on the use of discretion the intrinsic motivation in being a Policeman gets lost. An unmotivated Policeman could be a danger to society. Although officers in lower and middle management appear inspired about targets and their alignment to rewards, this is not necessarily a motivator for performance. Job enrichment and job enlargement have been recognised as essential motivators in the not-for-profit organizations (Selden and Sowa, 2011) and the Dutch politicians must recognise this. Any perception of unfairness in the Performance management system could lead to decreased employee commitment (Aguinis, 2009) and eventually undermine the whole system. In this regard the conclusion of the authors that the performance measurement in the Netherlands Police is a mixture of cynicism and a public relations ritual of signing contracts is validated. This is largely the result of it being a knee jerk reaction not involving employees in the determination of the entire process. Employee involvement helps translate targets into operational language that is understood by all participants in the process (Chamberlain, 2011) and bought into. Employee buy-in is essential for the success of every performance management system. Worst still is the fact that the new requirements of the Dutch Policeman under the present circumstance has not come with any training package. It is also not evident that systems of recruitment and selection have been amended to reflect the expected outcome in view of the radical changes in nature of the job. Conclusion In my opinion performance of Policemen should not be measured against outcomes. It should be exhibited in various agreed behaviours and programmes. Take the example of Washington State in the US where pperformance data indicated an increase in motorcycle accidents. Several Agencies like the Department of Licensing, Washington State Patrol, Traffic Safety Commission and the Department of Transportation, worked together to provide more education for motorcycle operators and manufacturers as well as stricter licensing. These measures (programs and behaviours) resulted in fewer accidents (http://www.agacgfm.org/research/downloads/CPAGNo23.pdf). The case for quantifying performance outcomes for the public sector does not have much merit in my opinion. References Aguinis, H. (2009) Performance management. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Chamberlain, L (2011). ‘Does your performance management need a tune-up?’ Strategic Finance. November. pp.18-20. Available at: http://content.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/pdf27_28/pdf/2011/5Y6/01Nov11/67179179.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=67179179&S=R&D=buh&EbscoContent=dGJyMNLe80SeprY4wtvhOLCmr0mep69Ssam4SrWWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMOzprkmvqLJPuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA . Accessed on: 7 December 2011) Hoogenboezem, J. A., & Hoogenboezem, D. (2005) ‘Coping with targets: performance measurement in The Netherlands police’, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 54 (7), pp. 568–578. http://sfx7.exlibrisgroup.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/lpu?title=International+Journal+of+Productivity+and+Performance+Management&volume=54&issue=7&spage=568&date=2005&issn=&eissn Seldon, S., & Sowa, JE (2010) ‘Performance management and appraisal in human service organizations: management and staff perspectives.’ Public Personnel Management. 40(3), pp. 251-262. Available at: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=8b3e34b3-2e4c-4ffe-bcb5-f57ceb9d50f7%40sessionmgr113&vid=4&hid=120 (Accessed on: 7 December 2011) Adcroft, A., & Willis, R., (2005) ‘The (un)intended outcome of public sector performance measurement’ International Journal of Public Sector Management, 18(5) pp. 386-400. DOI 10.1108/09513550510608859. Available at: http://www.alternativeminds.co.uk/AA4.pdf. (Accessed on: 28 December 2011)

a world out of time essays

a world out of time essays A vermin is a terrible thing to think of yourself. A bug is a slimy, stinky, and disgusting creature that eeks its way through life. In the novel, the Metamorphosis, the main character Gregor finds himself changed into a vermin one ungrateful morning. I find this irrational occurrence hard to believe. Gregor never changed into a bug physically but mentally is another story. Lets say that a person was to wake up one morning changed into a bug. Would that make any sense in our society? The logical way to look at it is to say he was changed mentally into a bug. For example, Gregor states in the book, Dont stay in bed being useless and I hope I dont miss the train to work. Would a human being transformed into a bug be worried about his job? Boil it down to the facts, and you can logically see that Gregor couldnt have changed into a bug, but he most certainly could have felt like a bug. The author of the book, Franz Kafka, had his share of problems with his father; the issues seem to match identically with Gregors problems in the Metamorphosis. It is an odd coincidence that drills the question; does the author project himself through the book? The answer to that question is yes. Once again, look at this issue logically; it would make perfectly good sense to write out your problems in a story to tell the world without really saying so. Why didnt Kafka just flat out say it was himself who was insane and suffering from a deep-seated destructive urge against the mother image (pg.157 of Franz Kafkas Metamorphosis as Death and Resurrection Fantasy by Peter Dow Webster)? All the problems he was feeling brought such insecurity that Gregor transformed into a bug; a mask that he wears in order to cover the true meaning. To understand the whole cover-up with the bug is to have common sense. Logic is what all human being have with...

Teaching, Reading and Writing for Students Who are Deaf and Hard of Case Study

Teaching, Reading and Writing for Students Who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) - Case Study Example According to Cornish (2011, p.20), high numbers of children in remote areas develop hearing loss, with some having no eardrums. It is however certain that children with hearing loss perform poorly academically. The basics of learning in kindergarten involve repeating what the teacher has said, however, for DHH students, this mission is close to impossible. The author adds that these children have a high chance of dropping out in school as they feel stupid, therefore developing behavioral problems, and hence at risk of being arrested or imprisoned. Nevertheless, there exist several forms of languages and communication used by deaf or hard hearing students. Forms of Communication Used by Instructors and DHH Students Teaching, Reading and Writing fluency American Sign Language (ASL) is a widely used language among the deaf in United States of America and in Canada; this sign language relies mostly on English. ASL is regarded as the first language for the deaf or hard of hearing students ; whereby, these students are expected to acquire this sign language first. It is a visual English language that has no written components, and involves symbolic terms; therefore, students must be capable of translating texts into an understandable format (White, 2011, p.21). It is considered an easier first language since it is mostly used at an early age for those born with DHH. Manually Encoded English is another communication system used by those with DHH; this system represents words in English sentences by signs from the American Sign Language. Cued speech use mouth movement to differentiate the sounds of the spoken language from one another, with an aim... This paper stresses that DHH students experience social difficulties especially around their hearing peers, however, when these two groups of students participated in similar activities, the level of interaction increased. Family involvement in DHH student’s social lives can influence the social outcomes, since parents act like coaches for their children. Therefore, they are able to discuss challenging issues that are facing their children, thus encouraging them to developing social interactions with their peers. This report makes a conclusion that there is limited research on oral reading fluency of DHH students; nevertheless, measures to improve reading skills for these particular students should be implemented. This research proves that DHH students continue to drag behind compared to their hearing peers academically. However, with the involvement of parents, DHH students are able to achieve confidence. Therefore, parents of such students should take the first step towards learning sign language in order to be effective in communication, hence capable of motivating their children. DHH students are affected by the challenge of achievements academically; however, graphic novels among other learning approaches have proved to be efficient in communicating to DHH students. Students who are deaf or hard of hearing may encounter challenging issues that they cannot address because of the nature of their disability.

The curse of the super bug, have journalists created a scare story or Essay

The curse of the super bug, have journalists created a scare story or is there a special difficulty in preventing infections by Staphylococcus Aureus and Clostr - Essay Example Methcillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium Difficile have both been dubbed as superbugs one after the other, but differ in their media exposure. Issues on the first have been reported to be blown out of proportion2 while the importance of the second had not caught much public awareness.3 In terms of public safety, however, attempts to inform or educate the public underscore all the more the need to evaluate sources of information and education before they are believed, in light of the public scare that media have created about them. MRSA has been reported by media as a potentially killer ‘superbug’ which common antibiotics have not stemmed. For the 10 year period from 1995 through 2005 of newspaper coverage of MRSA that researchers4 analyzed, MRSA reporting came around with the notion of you-or-me to blame. Guardian5 summarized the MRSA hospital superbug story thus- A bloke with no microbiology qualifications in unaccredited garden shed â€Å"laboratory† finds MRSA on swabs given to him by undercover tabloid journalists for their â€Å"dirty hospital scandal† stories, but proper labs cannot find MRSA in the same places that this â€Å"leading MRSA expert Dr Chris Malyszewicz† (with his unaccredited American correspondence course PhD) has, and proper microbiologists have very good reasons for believing that the methods of this â€Å"expert† (who incidentally sells a range of anti-MRSA products) could not distinguish between harmless skin bacteria and MRSA6 It is noted that the blame centered on why it spreads – the lack of cleanliness in hospitals – and not on its origin.7 As a result, the National Health Service is seen as mismanaged. Nevertheless, in the Hansard files8 it is the credibility of source that is put into question: the tabloid, Evening Standard, covering the story, including the â€Å"expert† who is considered as the source of the tests - Lord Warner replied: â€Å"I entirely agree with you about the laboratory