Mathway

Street, the collection of short stories by Walter Dean Myers. (From Amazon. Com review) â€Å"Walter Dean Emery's book of interconnected short stories is a sweet and sour mix of the comedy and tragedy of the human condition, played out against the backdrop of the Harlem neighborhood that is centered around 45th Street†¦ Myers frankly discusses the consequences of violence, drive-boys and gang war through his articulate characters, but tempers these episodes with such a love of his fictional community that every character shines wrought with the hope and strength off survivor.Changing his point of view from teen to adult and back again through each vignette, Myers successfully builds a bridge of understanding between adolescents and adults that will help each group better understand the problems of the other. [It] beautifully illustrates the good that can come out of a community that stands together. † Summary: An unnamed narrator tells the story of Monkey, one of the narr ator's friends and a resident of 45th Street. Monkey's bookishness sets him apart from many of his peers, as does his illnesses to interfere with the Tigris gang, which is trying to take over the neighborhood.When Monkey prevents one of the Lady Tigris from attacking his friend Peaches with a knife, the Tigris set out to get revenge. Monkey appears to accept the Tigris' challenge to fight, but when he arrives at the scene he shocks everyone, his friends included, by taking a position of non-violence. Monkey Is injured in the fight and its aftermath, but the narrator discovers that Monkey has done this to prove a point, which teaches the narrator some Important lessons about courage and community.

Piece on “The lake” Essay

My head rested peacefully against the bark of the willow tree, my back floated on a bed of grass and my feet were gliding in the calm water of the lake, occasionally being nibbled by various fish. It was the perfect atmosphere to have a little nap; however I knew that if I fell asleep I would regret getting to admire the lake’s precious beauty on this spectacular day. The sky was as clear as sapphire, the sun was a rosy apricot colour and was surrounded by pillows of clouds and somehow my imagination managed to convince me that there were little angels dancing and prancing above them. The sky looked even more radiant in the lake’s refection; it added a glittery appeal to it, magical. I gazed wondrously towards the other side of the lake where the troop of trees stood, practically hugging each other. I enjoyed watching the giant trees sway with each other as if they were moving towards nature’s music. On my side of the lake, there was a choir of frogs chattering and birds chirping. I sang a little melody too, but the frogs and birds suddenly stopped, they must have disliked my tune. As I was about to rest my eyes a little, nature woke me up. The calming breeze tickled my ear lobes and I could faintly hear it whispering secrets to me. Every time the wind passed by, it left behind a scent of maple and berries so strong that it made my nose twitch. It smelt heavenly organic yet delightfully tasty. When I took a careful look at the lake, it looked similar to a heart shape; just one side was slightly bigger. The colour of the water was like an innocent girl’s eyes, so pure. It was a dark turquoise and if you looked  carefully you could see the luminous scales of various fish. Every now and then a heard of teeny tiny jump fish would be racing across the glowing surface of the lake as if they were being chased by the police. The lake was indescribably beautiful as it was but looking at what was on land around it was just the icing on top of the cake. Flowers bloomed as if they were living the last day of their life; bees flew as if there was no hurry; dears drank water as if there were no predators and birds sang as if they were in a symphony. The wind softly whispers through the trees as I rest on the soft green bed beneath me, peaceful feelings overtake me and my spirits seem to soar from within just like the birds circling above me.

CHAMBLEE v. GRAYCO, INC Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CHAMBLEE v. GRAYCO, INC - Case Study Example Rules Premise liability is concerned with the claims of one party (the tenant) against another party (the owner) on the ground of getting injured in the property. It has been noted that in such cases the injured person can claim against the owner or the controller or the occupier of the property as per the tort law. Consequently, the owner, the controller or the occupier of the property, whoever is responsible to maintain the property, will possess the same liability under the premise liability law. In this case, the law of Georgia will be taken into concern. According to the section 51-3-1 of the Georgia premise liability law, an owner or occupier or controller of any property is liable to perform the duty for keeping the premise safe and free from any sort of physical danger for the people who visit the place. However, this section of the law also states that the occupier or the owner of the property is not an insurer of the safety of the people visiting the property. Furthermore, the invitee or the visitor should also take some extra care so that he/she can avoid unreasonable injuries or harm as mentioned under section 51–11–7 of the premise liability law of Georgia. ... This resulted in serious injuries to the plaintiff, following which she sued the defendant (i.e. the landlord) on the ground that the premise was not safe and it was clearly a case of negligence. As per the plaintiff’s complaints, the owner of the property, i.e. Grayco had not paid adequate attention towards the duty of ensuring a safe premise for the tenants of visitors of the property. On presenting the case to the court, the evidences revealed that Chamblee was entirely responsible for the change in route and also for her damages. Hence, the court’s decision affirmed that Chamblee had not been responsible enough to avoid the accident. The normal route that she uses to take every day was safe enough. Therefore, the responsibility of the landlord is justified by this aspect. Further evidences suggest that Chamblee took that route owing to certain personal reasons which was irrelevant for the case. According to section 51–11–7 of premise law of Georgia, in vitees or tenants will be entirely responsible for any sort of injury caused due to their conduct under the similar circumstances as witnessed in the case of Chamblee v. Grayco, Inc. Furthermore, the law also suggests that invitee(s) will need to be careful about their own well being when entering a property. Contextually, the responsibility of the resident(s) or the owner(s) in maintaining a safe pathway is confined to the regular entrance and exit points. Apparently, this aspect does not support Chamblee in this case. A similar scenario can be illustrated with reference to the case of Bartlett v. Mcdonough Bedding Company. Furthermore, analysis of evidences depicted that the

The Importance of Teaching Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Importance of Teaching - Essay Example The essay "The Importance of Teaching" analyzes the aim of the government of England to improve the education system by setting high-quality standards in the education system. The key objectives for the development of this paper assist in improving teaching and learning in various schools. To reform initial teaching programs and increasing the time of trainees and time spent in education. The teaching programs need to focus on core teaching skills and promote reading and managing of behaviors among students. To advance a national network of teaching schools with different models that lead to training and professionalism of head teachers and teachers. The system focuses on head teachers and promotes excellent teaching through committing to work and supporting other schools. The aim of the network allows various academic institutions to share professionalism and promote education among different teachers and students. To increase the total number of local leaders, that participates in the promotion of education in diverse communities and localities in England. Increasing a total number of individuals that participate in education developments improves decision-making processes and choices of education standards. The number of national teachers promotes enrollment of stud ents as the importance of teaching and education advances in various institutions. To reduce sharply the Bureau tic burden of different schools, duties, guidance and requirements, processes and cutting away unnecessary obligations.

Review of the Management Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Review of the Management Literature - Essay Example There are evidences regarding the differences in the attitudes and interests across these two generations, which would be found throughout the workplace. In today’s world most of the organizations face severe problems. But these problems does not relate to downsizing, foreign competition, change etc. They are having difficulty in handling various generations, which constitute the entire workforce. The generation conflict within the workforce is found to be one of the common problems for most of the organizations. This is not a minor problem and lack of attention in the generation difference would result in reduced efficiencies of the organizations. Thus, a good understanding about the generation differences for strengthening the work relationship between different employees is highly crucial. At first it becomes necessary to understand generation X and generation Y. Generation X: Individuals falling in this category are born in between 1965 to 1980. The people belong to this a ge group work very hard for the betterment of the overall performance of the organization. But at the same time, if better opportunity knocks at their door then they do not hesitate in switching their jobs. The work-life balance is an important factor for this generation. This generation also believes that people would be giving their best output if they are offered the freedom to be innovative and creative in life. People belonging to this particular generation like to explain in details the reason behind any decision making within the organization and they motivate the employees in such manner that they can easily understand all the decisions adapted and have an idea about the reason behind them as well. This generation believes in strengthening of communication within the workplace by means of email. Generation Y: Individuals belonging to this generation are born in between 1981 to 2000. The people belonging to this age group believe that they possess some brilliant ideas and as a result they just want to do give their best (Eisner, 2005; Sujansky, 2004). They believe that the results would follow the performance automatically. They like working in their respective workplaces and enjoy meeting their responsibilities until they get bored out of it. They believe that working from home is equally good like working from office as long as the work is getting completed (Allen, 2004; Johns, 2003). Texting is the best mode of remaining in touch with the generation Y member in the work place. Main problem arising in the work place Generation Y takes more time taking direction for completing their work as compared to Generation X. The Generation Y employees possess a high sense of morality, are sociable and ready to fight for independence. These individuals have high values for their friends and family. These individuals prefer taking intellectual challenges and strive for making differences in themselves (Martin and Tulgan, 2006). They prefer their employers to have such skills, which would help them in their professional development (Brown, 2004). This generation does not get highly motivated by the objective of making good deal of money (Francis-Smith, 2004). They believe in doing meaningful work and want to be appreciated for their performances (Zemke Raines and Filipczak, 2000). Setting personal goals as well as achieving those matters to a great extent to these generation individuals. Moreover,

Niccolo Machiavelli Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Niccolo Machiavelli - Essay Example Machiavelli shows experiences are not merely limited to explanation of similarity but also offers an outlook and to a certain degree predictability of change not only in human conditions but also in circumstances of human life. Therefore, the present and the past remain in nature the only guideline for the occurrence of future events. The essay discusses this statement. Machiavelli statement depicts history as taking on educational role since there are similarities in present, past and future events. For instance, in index funds decision regarding where an entrepreneur can invest is essential. It is difficult to make a wise decision without adequate understanding of the long-term historical risks as well as returns in different indexes. Being able to gain the necessary understanding entails establishing the various indexes available for investment. Through remarkable understanding regarding the prolonged historical risks as well as returns of various indexes, investors are able to comprehend the way to apportion indexes according to their individual risk capability. Naturally, investors are interested in investing on index portfolios, which provide the maximum return rate in the risk level matching the investor’s risk capacity (Hebner 166). Rational prediction in Machiavelli’s statement relies on the existence of proper links that connect predictive claims to input data, which in return provides the justification. The input data can only be available by understanding the past. Machiavelli believes that social conditioning never results in different responses because men are not byproducts of the diverse environments but through historical events that are the same and generate similar response in both present men and men of the past. Through history, Machiavelli manages to show that it elicits sameness that allows creation of universal laws for behavior and explanation (Rigney & Douwe

The Impact of Technologies Innovation on Airlines Travel and Thesis Proposal

The Impact of Technologies Innovation on Airlines Travel and Transportation Business - Thesis Proposal Example s travel and transportation business has become a necessity as these organizations concentrate on getting and retaining the competitive advantage in the market. In the traditional business systems the procurement processes and the collaboration and coordination among business partners are not very strong but with the integration of innovative technologies like IT the better ways and collaboration can be obtained. And for this problem â€Å"the extranets were being gradually used for communicating with partners and to support business-to-business (B2B) relationships† (Dimitrios Buhalis, 2003). The issues of traditional procurement process, inventory management, finance (Dimitrios Buhalis, 2003) forced the organizations to adopt IT with the existing business system. In traditional approaches a very long time period is required to streamline the procurement processes but in case of electronic procurement this problem can be solved within limited time. The benefits of IT and innovative technologies are associated with procurement, product purchase, services and product delivery. Benefits associated with the information systems and ecomme rce are distributed roughly and are more favorable for network leaders (Riggins and Mukhopadhyay 1994). All the industries are trying to reduce the overall expenditure of procurement processes without the awareness of innovative technologies. So there is the need to introduce the benefits of innovative technologies and its integration with the existing systems. Innovative technologies also play a vital role in reduction of costs (Alexander & Young, 1996, Domberger, 1998, Hallikainen, 2003). IT can better help in the maturity of procurement processes in a very less time. IT has deeper impact upon economy (e.g. see Choudhury et al., 1998; Crowston, 1997; Ein-Dor et al., 1997; Pereira and Tavares, 1998; Wang et al., 1996) or cost component and generating revenues for the industry. The ultimate strategic goal behind the implementation of

S XYZ Co. Able to Identify and Exploit Sources of Competitive Dissertation

S XYZ Co. Able to Identify and Exploit Sources of Competitive Advantage to Sustain The Emerging Competition - Dissertation Example Other changes followed the implementation of the first Saudi Insurance company's services, which were evident in the increased awareness of the people in regards to insurance policies, as well as the substantial increased risk in accordance with the introduction of compulsory motor third party liability (BMI, 2011). Other changes included the legislation passed which made health insurance on expatriates and their families mandatory and the increase in oil prices had also been reflected on the citizens of the country's personal incomes in accordance with classes that includes travel insurance (Ansari, 2011). Other insurances include life and property, which was subsequently followed by the increase in house loans, the amplified boost of the insurance market, as reinforced by the registration of more than 15 new insurance companies, thus fortifying the competition within the market. The growth in competition led to enjoining new entrants in the industry, which was supported by the gove rnment's efforts to open the chance for foreign capital to investment in Saudi's insurance sector (Ansari, 2011). 1.1. The Significance of Competitive Advantage among business firms A firm is equipped with competitive advantage when it has the means to edge out rivals when vying for the favour of customers. In that regard, a firm is considered to possess competitive advantage by implementing strategies that produce value that are not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors (De Wit and Meyer, 2005). However, the defined subject of competitive advantage in financial service has a wide existence in the body of literature. The complexity and intangibility focusing on financial service products that include insurance limited the understanding of the average customer in regards to the features and benefits provided by such service. This then implies the complexity of identifying and achieving competitive edge (Barney, 1991). The study of competitive advant age in the field of insurance as an aspect of financial service imposes the process of collecting literature in the context of competitive advantage that is particular to financial service in order to deliberately construct a theoretical model of attributes or features against the perception of the subject of the study, which is the company management to be evaluated. For instance, Delvin (1997a) had made use of a detailed questionnaire, which he had distributed widely among marketing personnel. The context of the questionnaire delved on the strategy employed by relevant senior personnel in UK retail financial services. Delvin (1997a) investigated the factors which managers emphasise when attempting to formulate strategies to add value to service offerings and, hence, achieve competitive advantage in services markets. The study was able to conclude that the features and quality of the core service, inclusive of the price, image and reputation, functional service quality, support ele ments, and location and service recovery are the factors crucial in adding value to service offerings (Delvin, 1998). In comparison to the findings of Delvin's study, it would be noted that in a study conducted by Gronroos (2001) pertaining to service quality, the latter confirmed the importance of the functional quality on the basis of his perspective, as a very vital factor in order to maintain the gap between the expected service and the perceived service

Style of Chinese Negotiation Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Style of Chinese Negotiation - Case Study Example In forming such joint venture arrangements, the challenges the Chinese business negotiations pose is so great that there had been instances that many a number of business deals between China and other western countries including USA had failed because of poor negotiations. As John Graham and Mark Lam (2003) see this is because often "Americans see Chinese negotiators as inefficient, indirect and even dishonest, while the Chinese see American negotiators as aggressive, impersonal and excitable". Differences in the management style and problems in negotiations have deep cultural origins. Despite these hindrances, it is possible to win the negotiations with Chinese businessmen, provided a clear understanding of the social, cultural and economic aspects of the negotiation with Chinese entrepreneurs is evolved. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the intricacies of Chinese negotiations including the cultural background of such negotiations. The paper also deals with the influence of Confucian traits like hierarchy, harmony and faces on communication, characteristics of communication and the Chinese perception of negotiation. Further the paper will also discuss the challenges the Chinese negotiation process poses for managing the international business in China. 2.0 Literature Review: A number of studies had been conducted in the area of business negotiations of the Sino - Western and Sino - American joint venture arrangements. These studies which started around the 1980s have made an in-depth study into the peculiarities of the negotiations of business deals with Chinese government and businessmen. Most important studies have been conducted by Blackman 1997; Chen 1993; Davidson 1987; Deverge 1986; Fang 1999; Frankenstein 1986; Lee and Lo 1988; Pye 1982; Stewart & Keown 1989; Tung 1982. The primary objective of these studies is to bring out an exhaustive narration of the socio-cultural implications of the negotiations with the Chinese and the intricacies thereof. It cannot be said that these studies have completely made the recommendations for the successful negotiation of business deals with the Chinese business empires. An abstract of these studies is detailed in the following sections. 3.0 Role of Culture in Chinese Negotiation: The Chinese culture which is 5000 years old has large influence on their business negotiations. The rural origin of a majority of the people has made them to retain their agrarian values. Social and economic theories attached more importance to the agricultural base rather than commerce and business. Because of the rural base, the human values assumed more prominence in the negotiations than the business profits and gains. John Graham and Mark Lam (2003) say that "Chinese negotiators are more concerned with the means than the end; with the process more than the goal." 'Morality' is the next aspect of culture that greatly affects the Chinese negotiations. Confucianism, which is a 2500 years ancient Chinese philosophical tradition, makes morality the all pervasive factor throughout the negotiation process. For coherence sake, the detailed discussion on 'Confucianism' is included in the section on Chinese Business Culture. The Chinese

Produce a critical interpretation of the geographies represented in a Dissertation

Produce a critical interpretation of the geographies represented in a selected advertisement, set of advertisements, or advertis - Dissertation Example A critical geography of the advertisements reveal that, underneath the moralistic overtones and admittedly positive social messages, there is insidious propaganda and micro-politicking at work designed to advance specific partisan agendas. Having the moral high ground is of unimaginable importance in politics. Being associated with values has been a major success for the Republican party in America: Democrats can win an advantage in the perceptions of being able to handle domestic and economic issues, but the Republicans are associated with a strong moral compass provided overwhelmingly by traditional Christian values. This itself is an immense propaganda success. First of all, as Gallup has pointed out, in fact Republicans and Democrats are often dead-even in public perceptions of their values, and certainly Republican scandals have not helped the party in securing a consistent values victory: The fact that it is a political bromide that Republicans won the values war shows itself h ow good the Republicans have been in terms of presenting a mystique of a values-based party (2006, p. 526-527). â€Å"For example, the persistent claim that President Bush’s re-election was the result of a â€Å"moral values† revolt by Christians has been seriously overblown. After all, Bush actually received more votes (and a higher percentage of votes) from those who said terrorism was the most important issue than he did from those who identified moral values as the key to their electoral behavior† (Wise, 2005). To be clear, then: The commodity these adverts try to sell is values. They try to get voters and Christian viewers to associate themselves with conservative channels, and they are part of a political campaign. Their analysis in terms of critical geography has to be like political advertisements, which are also carefully controlled to be disagreeable to as few people as possible within the selected geography or micro-geography while energizing the base sufficiently. These adverts play well in heartland Republican America, red states away from the coasts. America as a space, both outdoors and indoors, city and country, is represented as a place of uniform and unchanging values; a Christian nation with a strong bedrock of decency. Second, a fact that we will return to, it is simply not the case that evangelicals or people with religious values vote Republican: White evangelicals do. Black evangelicals and devout Latina/o Catholics, as well as Jews and Catholics in general, far more strongly trend Democratic. â€Å"The racial voting gap was especially pronounced among evangelical Christians. This isparticularly important, given the inane pronouncements about how evangelicals were responsible for Bush’s victory. Fact is, only white evangelicals elevate their provincial moral concerns above classical conceptions of self-interest. Black evangelicals — a sizable group to be sure — voted against Bush by margins of a t least four to one, despite often agreeing with conservatives on certain issues like abortion, gay rights or prayer in schools. But white evangelicals and â€Å"born again Christians† voted 78-21 for Bush, a huge increase from the 62 percent average received by the Republican candidate in the two previous Presidential contests† (Wise, 2005). In fact, the race gap is a far bigger gap in terms of predicting votes in American elections than the geographic, gender, and even class gap! Third: Democrats have

Theories Of Leadership Essay Example for Free

Theories Of Leadership Essay Introduction Managers and leaders in any organization are expected to influence the actions of their employees through several channels. Some of these include communicating with staff members, stimulating subordinates to work hard and ensuring that all the resources within the company are allocated well. These expectations can either be met successfully or unsuccessfully. Numerous researchers felt the need to come up with theories that govern successful leadership. One of these theories is known as the contingency theory. An analysis of the contingency theory Fielder (1964) came up with this approach to leadership after realizing that leaders could function well if they changed their styles to suit the situation at hand. This is where the name contingency originates. Fielder conducted several studies of effective and ineffective leaders. Thereafter he concluded that the most successful approach would be to match organizational settings with leadership styles. These two parameters form the basis of the contingency theory of leadership. According to Fiedler, leadership style may be defined as the way leaders and employees interact with one another. One cannot claim that a manager’s leadership style changes from time to time. On the contrary, this is a fixed parameter since every leader has a different personality. The latter term largely affects the nature of the leadership style. Since this trait is important, Fielder came up with a method for categorizing leadership styles. He used the Least Preferred Coworker Scale (LPC). The Scale is applied only to leaders; the latter are asked to rate the person they feel has worked very poorly with them. The scale starts from one to eight and may be a classification of a co-worker from the past or the present depending on which worker was the worst. Examples of personality traits that guide the scaling process include; Unfriendly versus friendly workers Hostile versus supportive Guarded versus open Uncooperative versus cooperative (Fiedler, 1964) All the latter traits are in ascending order with number 1 representing the character trait on the left while number 8 represents the character trait on the right. The LPC   scale’s main purpose is to determine whether a particular form of leadership style is task oriented or people oriented. Leaders who score high marks in the scale favor interpersonal relationships. Consequently, those leaders who rate their co-workers in a negative light may be more interested in the task at hand. This also implies that such leaders have poor interpersonal relationships. However, critics have asserted that such traits may not necessarily be accurate. Some individuals may portray their co-workers in a negative light but still be keen on interpersonal relationships. Fielder (1964) felt that those leaders who managed to match the requirements of the task with a dominant personality trait tended to be more successful.   Dominant personality traits largely determine the approach chosen by leaders i.e. either people oriented or task oriented approach. The LPC scale indicates whether or not a certain individual values interpersonal relationships. In case leaders score highly, then they normally consider interpersonal relationships as a crucial part of implementing tasks. However, those who score low marks in the scale value task completion more than anything else does. Consequently, most of them may not bother creating close relationships with their employees. Fielder (1964) was also concerned with the organizational environment or what is also called the situational variable. According to him, the situational variable can be defined as that aspect within the organization that can allow leaders to exert influence within their team. He divided the situational variables as follows; -Task structure -Position power -Leader to member relationships The leader-member structure is defined as the level of acceptance team players have towards their leader. Task structures may be defined as the level of job specificity among subordinates. Lastly, position power is described as the level of authority attributed to a leader as result of his position within the organization. (Fiedler, 1964) In the Leader-member situation, a leader would be more successful if he establishes strong links between himself and the other people within the organization; this is through trusting and respecting members of his organization. Additionally, successful leaders in the task structure situation are those ones that specify job detail well. Powerful leaders in the position power situation are those ones that exercise their right to fire and hire or to reward individuals within the organization. All the latter three situations create eight leadership styles. These are then divided into two important groups known as the relationship or task oriented leaders. Five of the leadership styles fall under the latter category. Fielder (1964) felt that task oriented approach were more appropriate in disasters or extreme situations. In cases where a fire strikes an organization, then leaders would be more efficient if they applied the task oriented approach. At this time, the issue of position power is not very relevant and neither are the relationships of the co-workers. In extreme cases or in disasters, the individuals who direct tasks most efficiently become the leaders. The opposite is true for leaders who try applying a people oriented approach. This would mean considering what people think and this would eventually delay outcomes. Such cases require only the fastest responses for survival. Task oriented relationships are also important in blue collar jobs. This is because such workers normally require direction and job specificity. Therefore, this leadership approach would be most appropriate. On the other hand, such scenarios may still be characterized by strong leader member relationships. The latter situation can be effected when leaders reward worker well for their efforts. Relationship oriented leadership styles may be more favorable in situations where the organizational environment is highly predictable. Some of the most appropriate environments include research institutes. In such circumstances, subordinates would not like it if their leaders interfered with the nature of their task. Here, it would be more appropriate to work on building relationships with subordinates. It should be noted that Fielder’s theory does not cover all the possible factors affecting leadership. Some leaders may be more effective if they undergo training or gain experience on the job. Such factors have not been accounted for by the contingency theory. Conclusion Overly, Fielder was trying to say that leaders are not just successful or unsuccessful. Leaders can either be effective in certain situations and not all of them. Therefore, all individuals can become leaders if they choose the most appropriate situation to apply their leadership styles. Additionally, it is possible to make a leader more effective by altering the following; position power, task structure and leader member relationships. It should also be noted that Fielder’s scale can be quite appropriate in determining leadership styles. Reference: Fiedler, E. (1964): A Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness; Journal for Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Academic Press 1, 12, 149-190

Bringing Technology To Early Childhood Education

Bringing Technology To Early Childhood Education There have been studies conducted on bringing technology to early childhood education. There has been seen benefits on introducing technology to early education but they were able to see some difficulties and disadvantages in doing so. The researcher is trying to find out the different advantages and disadvantages and see which outweighs, benefits or the shortcomings. The function of technology in early childhood education, birth to age eight, is a contentious matter. Parents and educators are concerned regarding possible benefits or damages to young children. Critics argue that technology in schools wastes time, money, and childhood itself by getting a move on the pace and cutting down on important learning practices (Cordes Miller, 2000; Healy, 1998). Supporters propose that children should have the benefits that modern technologies can offer. Considerate observers are worried that at the same time as exciting and potentially valuable things are occurring with children and computers, we may not be utilizing these tools in the paramount ways, or acquiring the results we expect (Healy, 1998; Kleiman, 2000). The topic is from time to time presented as a simple question: Should my students, my children, make use of computers or not? While this query is valid, the questions are broader and more complicated. Computers are by now in homes and classrooms, and little children are using them. Additional helpful question is what are suitable and important uses of technology with children? Furthermore, given that technology is being used, how can teachers take advantage of the capacity of these tools to improve childrens learning and growth, while keeping away from possible problems? Research proposes suitable and efficient uses of technology in early learning and offers guidance in deciding on the tools and making the environment necessary for profitable technology use. Studies point to how technology can be used to hold up and promote the growth and education of preschool and primary age children. The significant factor is a fair method to technology in learning, with considerate preparation to give for the significant needs of early days. Vygotsky (1978) states that, childrens learning begins long before they attend school and that any learning a child encounters in school always has a previous history. According to the Harvard University Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2007) the quality of a childs early environment and the availability of appropriate experiences at the right stages of development are crucial in determining the strength or weakness of the brains architecture, which, in turn, determines how well he or she will be able to think and to regulate emotions. It is important to get an understanding of the preschool environment about the way the children learn and that the social and intellectual characteristics of teachers and parents have an influence on the children (Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky (1978) further argues that there is a difference in the way preschool and school children learn. Children are born as being inquisitive, energetic, passionate motivated, risk taking, thinking and do the impossible, creative, can see the end product, try over and over again and can learn through mistakes (Peel Prinsloo, 2001: 5). Conezio French (2002) states that many early childhood teachers are hesitant about introducing science in their classrooms, often because of their own unpleasant science education experiences. Statement of the problem: Is it beneficial when technology is injected to children in early education? How does technology, being part of the curriculum, become an improvement in teaching methods? Does technology help children build interest to learning? How does this help the children in being participant in school? Is it the right timing for children aged 6 and below to learn with technology around them? What are its implications in terms of learning? Literature Review Studies show that when computers are located in the classroom, childrens developmental gains from using appropriate software are significantly greater than when they are in a computer lab (Davis Shade, 1999). Reasons cited include: Limited exposure to computers when they are placed in labs The tendency to use drill-and-practice software in labs, while more tool-oriented software is used in classrooms Less collaboration and peer tutoring in lab settings Other studies offer additional support for locating computers in the classroom: Using a computer laboratory pulls children out of their usual setting and takes away other rich options (Bredekamp Rosegrant, 1994) Using a program as whole-group instruction, common in a lab setting, denies the computers power as an individual teaching tool (Bredekamp Rosegrant, 1994) Computers within the classroom enable children to use or not use them as they wish (Davidson Wright, 1994) As detailed in the Social and Emotional Development section, arranging the classroom to allow and encourage conversation around the computers is essential in creating opportunities for student interaction. High-quality pedagogy and rigorous learning aims should direct the option of materials and tools, as well as technology, to be utilized in learning activities (Bredekamp Rosegrant, 1994; Davis Shade, 1999). Whatever materials or tools are best suited to the activity will be used; sometimes computers are the best tool for the job, and sometimes they are not; the secret is knowing the difference (Davis Shade, 1999, p. 237). Computers are powerful tools that, as with other technologies, are most beneficial when used as a natural part of the learning experience. This includes: Integrating computers into the classroom environment Using them as a part of the ongoing curriculum Applying their use to real problems for a real purpose (Davis Shade, 1994) Written language, like oral language, is learned by doing things with words in the real world, using language for a purpose (Novick, 1998). Early childhood classrooms encourage written literacy by providing materials to use in pretend play, and by encouraging children to express themselves in writing (IRA NAEYC, 1998). Studies indicate that word-processing software encourages writing, and leads to increased motivation and improvement in writing skills. Computers and writing programs can be used with preschool aged children to explore written language, and their use can be successfully integrated into process-oriented writing programs as early as first grade or kindergarten (Clements Nastasi, 1993). Such software: Provides critical support, or scaffolding, for young writers, enabling them to perform tasks they could not perform by themselves (Clements Nastasi, 1993) Allows children to compose longer and more complex stories and worry less about mistakes (Davis Shade, 1994) Facilitates positive attitudes toward writing and word processing among children from kindergarten through primary grades (Clements Nastasi, 1993) Encourages students to write more, more effectively, and with greater fluency (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow, 1995) Helps children gain confidence in their writing and increases motivation to write more when using computers than with paper and pencil (Clements Nastasi, 1993) Computers also provide students a private place for practice while learning, without fear of public failure. Especially during the primary grades, when children are expected to acquire an acceptable level of mastery of mathematical content and literacy, the computer can serve as a supportive tool for those children who have more than average difficulty succeeding (Bredekamp Rosegrant, 1994, p. 59). Preschool teachers bring experience with children, knowledge of the limits imposed by the curriculum frameworks and flow of life in kindergartens. They also need to master a number of practices and to be aware of preschool technology experiences and their importance in subsequent school development. They also have to be adaptive learners. One of the teachers role is to gain access to the childrens ideas about technology and to make the right decisions on how they can be developed. The main goal of education should be seen in the development of intellectual and creative abilities of students. Piaget (1929) worked on how childrens ideas develop. Recent studies (Raper et al 1987, Reiss 1993) show that effective teaching and learning depend on childrens existing ideas and subsequent good teaching. So, the way teachers accept and teach technology is very important to young children. New Technologies (NT) provide new opportunities to the teaching and learning process. Researchers (Clements 1994, Shade et al 1990) have shown the gains and the obstacles of the use of technology in education. It is noticeable, that they all agree that technology is a useful tool in the teaching process when it is not misused (Aubrey 1994, Campbell et al. 1992, Shayer et al 1981). As preschool educators become active participants in a technological world, they need training and support to find ways to incorporate technology into their classrooms. So, education on NT to preschool teachers is an important factor of applying technology to childrens classroom. Young children have needs that are real and different from those of older children and adolescents. Children from birth to age eight are learning rapidly, using all of their senses and their entire bodies to take in sensations and experience the world around them. During this period of their lives they learn through their play and exploration across five essential developmental dimensions (Kagan, Moore, Bredekamp, 1995). These dimensions include: Social and Emotional Development. The ability to form and sustain relationships gives meaning to learning experiences. Responsive interactions provide a sense of well-being that enables children to form attachments with others and participate positively in educational activities. Language Development. Language empowers children to participate in both the cognitive and affective parts of the educational program. Experience with written and oral language provides children with the tools to interact with others, and to represent their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Physical Well-Being and Motor Development. A childs health is connected to preparedness for and performance in learning activities. Healthy children are able to focus on and actively engage in experiences crucial to the learning process. Cognition and General Knowledge. Children need opportunities to interact with the people and objects in their environment, and to learn from their surroundings. Experiences and interactions with peers and adults allow children to construct knowledge of patterns, understand relationships between objects or events, and learn ways to solve problems. Approaches Toward Learning. Children can be successful learners in many different ways. By understanding the predispositions and learning styles that influence a childs response to learning opportunities, adults can encourage and increase engagement. Childrens activities and experiences with computers will evolve over time as they grow and develop. Very young children often use computers with help from an adult or older child. As they mature children use computers more independently, and the teachers role moves from guidance toward monitoring and active facilitation. Young children learn through exploration and discovery. If computers are used with children in kindergarten, preschool, or child-care settings, the computer should be one of many activity choices they can explore (Bredekamp Rosegrant, 1994). During choice time, for example, a computer center may be one of several options. Children frequently use computers for short periods, then become interested in another activity. Three- to five-year-olds generally spend about the same amount of time at a computer as they do on other activities such as playing with blocks or drawing. They are more interested and less frustrated when an adult is present, and much of the computer use will be facilitated or mediated by the teacher, which is consistent with best practice at this level (Clements Nastasi, 1993). For this age the value of the computer is in its open-ended use, not in creating a product (Davidson Wright, 1994). The teachers role is to create an environment in which children become aware and explore, and then act to support their exploration and inquiry in many different ways. Software programs for this age group should be limited in number and appropriate for childrens skill level and the intended use. As children become more able to read and write on their own they are not limited to icons and pictures on the screen for understanding. More opportunities for independent use become available with increasing language and literacy skills. For example, simple word processors become important educational tools as children experiment with written language. The teachers role is to set up the environment and activities, matching technology use to the curriculum as well as to the childrens needs and interests. The teacher is less involved in directing the activities, and more involved in monitoring student activities, intervening as necessary to guide and pose questions that encourage thinking. Research Procedure (Methods) The researchers plan to have an evaluation on the students before and after the technology is integrated in the curriculum. The evaluation before introducing technology will help us determine the effect on the performance of the students. The researchers will be asking help from different teachers and well-known specialists on early childhood education. Population and Sample One classroom, which is composed of 30 students, will be the evaluated. The 30 students will be subdivided to different level of thinking and characteristics. This will be enough for the researchers to have an accurate finding and results. Research Design The design of the study is a correlation research since it is intended to determine: first, the relationship of technology to the augmentation of the performance of the students; second, the effectiveness of the incorporating in the curriculum the technology on increasing good competency in terms of grades and performance. It is also a qualitative study for the researchers will be conducting interviews regarding on the attentiveness of the students due to the introduction of technology mixed with their program. Instrumentation and Data Collection The researchers visited the [Insert name of University Library or City Library] for journals, articles and studies needed for the research paper. The researchers gathered time-series data from different physical training institutions to assure of its validity and consistency. The primary data will be gathered using quantitative method, as this is best useful with questionnaires. The use of quantitative method will be appropriate for the research because the results in the questionnaires consist of numerical information, mostly based from the ratings included in the questions. Quantitative methods are used to provide reference to numeric calculations and are often used with questionnaires that have a specific goal and a target to achieve. This is helpful in the research, and its instigation in the process needs to be further culminated so that the problem is solved with efficiency and precision. In gathering data, the researcher would like to clear certain ethical issues that might hinder the processing of data. First, confidentiality will be kept at all costs. As the main reason why questionnaires will be used in the research is for the respondents to feel secure and to be assured that their answers will not be related to who they are. There may be instances wherein the respondent will divulge information that will be detrimental to the company, or to its competitors, depending on the case. Hence, there is a better chance at more responsive respondents if they can be assured of their confidentiality. Second, the Data Protection Act will be followed at all costs. The compliance with the act will be transparently said to the respondents so that they are further assured that anything they say in response to the questions asked them will only be used for the benefit of the research and not in any other practices. It should also be clear to the researcher that any information regarding the respondents cannot be released to anyone who is not immediately connected with the research unless permission from the subject respondent has been secured beforehand. Third, the research must always bear in mind the objectives of the study and never stray away from them. A researcher who has no definite purpose in doing the research is going nowhere and is exerting effort in a research that is not delimited properly and punctually. The purpose of the research is explicitly stated at the beginning of the research and is implied in every step of the realization of the research so as to not delineate the researcher from his goals. Lastly, the researcher must opt to practice objectivity. As the researcher, he is expected to keep an open-minded approach to the topic, keeping from his mind and personal bias in the subject matter or on the people involved. The reason for doing research is to test existing information, validate, prove or disprove existing ideas, or to test the limits of a certain prospect. Given this simple definition, it is clearly seen that in no form is the personal opinions of the researcher expected to hinder in the subject. Any act that might be biased or subjective will hint of the researchs failure to achieve its goals. Planned Method of Analysis The researchers plan to analyze the different test conducted through constant evaluation of the trainers and how they perform. There will be a weekly evaluation in terms of how the training last, and the effect of it to their performance in the field. The performance in the field will be evaluated by the players stamina, body agility, and resistance. Conclusion Technology is an instrument that can offer another way for children to study and add up to their world. Computers can be utilized in expanding suitable ways that are helpful to children, or they can be misrepresented, just as blocks or any other resources can be tainted. And just as pencils do not substitute crayons but rather offer additional methods of expression, computers, or cameras or some other varieties of technology, do not substitute other tools but increase the selection of tools accessible to children to search, generate, and communicate. When used appropriately by skilled teachers, technology can support and extend learning in valuable ways and can increase educational opportunities for children. The key is finding the balance, knowing how to align the elements of a healthy childhood with the unique capabilities offered by technology. Preschool teachers bring experience with children, knowledge of the limits imposed by the curriculum frameworks and flow of life in kindergartens. They also need to master a number of practices and to be aware of preschool technology experiences and their importance in subsequent school development. They also have to be adaptive learners. All teachers found the course very interesting and worked on computers very hard. At the end of the course they learned how to write an essay on a computer and they became comfortable and confident in using computers. The problem they had to face at the beginning of the course was that they were not familiar with computers and NT. For some of them it was their first time to learn how to use a computer. Another problem they had with computers was the linguistic one. Some teachers did not know English very well and others knew foreign languages other than English. So, they had to learn at least the basic English terminology we use for computers before using the Internet. At the end of the course, technology proved for these teachers, as a tool for communication and collaboration amongst them and also a tool for teaching children. Telecommunications and the Internet enabled preschool teachers to obtain information about children in kindergartens from around the world and interacted with distant experts and peers. They collaborated on classroom projects and they learned how to use computers and technology in the future. Pedagogical considerations behind the course have shown that teachers become confident using NT when they practice on them at least once or twice a week. So we can conclude that technology is a powerful tool for professional development.

International Students And Global Education Sociology Essay

International Students And Global Education Sociology Essay There is a widespread recognition and belief that our increasingly interconnected and interdependent global society mandates that students be educated to develop habits of the mind that embrace tolerance, a commitment to cooperation, an appreciation of our common humanity, and a sense of responsibility. The international students are the future leader of tomorrow. Understanding global issues is critical to the students across the global as they endeavor to promote democratic principles and social justice, improve our economic competitiveness, and provide leadership in the future. However, not enough is being done in public schools and classrooms to expose students to global issues. Research shows that most American students lag behind their peers in other countries in their knowledge of world geography, foreign languages, and cultures ( National Geographic-Roper, 2002). Our curriculum must undergo a paradigm shift recognizing that in order to be truly globally competitive; our teache rs must be globally competent. Educating young people to become global citizens will allow them to learn about the interdependence of the worlds systems, believe that solutions to global challenges are attainable, and feel morally compelled to confront global injustices and take responsible action to promote a just, peaceful and sustainable world. If we truly aspire to have a world-class education that connects and recognizes that what we do affects other humans in the world, we must engage with the world. The challenges that face the world today-from global poverty and climate change to financial systems and conflict-require globally-minded solutions (OMeara, 1997). Knowledge of these skills is necessary so that young people can invent a future that appropriately addresses global challenges. These young international students must gain global competence in addressing international issues as well as gaining the ability to work with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. Teaching for global connectedness should be grounded in the personal experiences of the student and her/his community. Teachers must be able to help students to connect global issues with daily life experiences. According to Ryan and Durning (1997) students ought to consider the impact of their daily consumption (and garbage) on the lives of other people and places in the world; the consumption of coffee, newspapers, t-shirts, shoes, car, computer, hamburger, french-fries and cola are traced from their origins through the inequities of the production process to the consequences of waste products. Teachers must approach global education from different perspectives, says Merry Merryfield, associate professor of social studies and global education at The Ohio State University. For example: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦some teachers have the rationale that, in order to compete in a global economy, students need a global perspectivebut others want to make the world a better place in terms of the environment and social justice. Still others want to promote cross-cultural understanding. Each of these is a valid approach, says Merryfield, as long as teachers emphasize multiple perspectives and global interdependence (Rasmussen, 1998, p.2). Teachers also need to have the competences they are trying to teach students. Our college preps do not prepare teachers to be globally competent. Understanding global issues makes teachers more apt to guiding students in the global challenges that face their countries of origin. Given the fragile state of the world and the level of continued destruction, more emphasis should be given to preparing students to become stewards of the earth and participants in democracy for global social justice. Authentic learning occurs when students from diverse cultures meet and work together, especially when they have equal status and collaborative goals that have meaning in their lives (Johnson Johnson, 1992). Global educators find ways to increase their students experiences with people different from themselves through work with international students from local universities, immigrant organizations in the community, service learning projects, exchanges through e-mail or videos, and taking studen ts overseas (Wilson, 1993). In a 10th grade world history, a unit on the Middle East, some teachers may motivate students by presenting exotic images-such as the harem, polygamy, belly dancing, Arab sheiks, and camel races-and may fail to challenge students comments that stereotype all Arabs as supporters of terrorism or all Arab women as having few rights. But Global educators, however, purposefully address stereotypes and challenge the exotic images and misperceptions that students bring with them into the classroom. They develop lessons to replace misinformation with knowledge of the complexity of cultures, cultural conflicts, and global issues. To begin a unit on the Middle East, for example, a global educator asks students to brainstorm what they know about Muslims, Arabs, and the Middle East and then immediately addresses common misperceptions. When students confuse the terms Arab and Muslim, the teacher helps students map where Arabs live and introduces primary sources for st udents to differentiate diverse Arab cultures and the Muslim world (Said, 1997). Said (1993) ideas on how Europeans constructed the Orient can help students recognize the exotic images of the Middle East in popular media, entertainment, and textbooks, and distinguish them from the materials that people of other countries have posted on the Internet and what local Egyptian, Lebanese, and Iranian students say about their lives back home. In developing an appreciation of the complexities within other cultures, students learn to challenge sweeping generalizations, misinformation, and stereotypes. Global Challenges Sustainable development and climate change People all over the world are struggling with problems of a magnitude no other generation has faced. Even in the most affluent nations, millions of people suffer from hunger, homelessness, and unattended health problems. Sach (1995) opines that wars, civil conflicts and invasions take the lives of millions more. Global changes in the climate are creating severe local weather conditions, destroying lives and property. Well intended projects continue to despoil the land, water and air ( Sach, 1995 p.7). Millions of tons of hazardous waste generated by industrialized countries are exported to non-industrialized areas of the world without regard to the health and environment consequences. Jacobson (1991) says that over three billion pounds of pesticides a year are used globally causing human poisonings, harm to fish and wildlife, livestock losses, groundwater contamination, destruction of natural vegetation, and more pests resistant to pesticides (Jacobson et al, 1991, p. 45). Deforestat ion, soil erosion, destruction of habitat, extinction of species, and depletion of aquifers are but a few of the many attacks on our planet. While natural resources are stripped from the earth, new species are genetically engineered by corporations for profitability and monopolized through complex international patent laws with few constraints for releasing them into the environment. According to Shiva (1997) ancient knowledge of plants and animals, and even human genetic material, are stolen from indigenous peoples and used to generate wealth for a few while the cultures which generated the knowledge are decimated. As these examples demonstrate, human rights and environmental issues are clearly intertwined. A country like Kenya is a prime example of not providing an economic infrastructure to meet the subsistence needs of the communities in the northern part of the country and creating man made famine. Countries with hungry people export grains or feed them to livestock for export. Millions of jobs are eliminated by technology or runaway factories as CEO salaries skyrocket. While the United Nations ratified a Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, more than 250 million children are forced into labor (Sanders, 1997). Enormous resources are wasted on the production of guns and weapons of mass destruction as social programs and education funds are drastically reduced. Projects to solve one problem have created other problems. McMichaels (1993) observes that dams, viewed for decades as creating clean energy and providing irrigation, are responsible for destroying the means of subsistence for millions of people who are forced to relocate their homes (McMichaels, 1993 page 36). Alteri ng the natural flow of rivers, these dams flood millions of hectares of arable land, create conditions for water born diseases and prevent fish from spawning. Aquaculture, heralded as the answer to declining fish and shrimp populations, is despoiling the habitat of other species. The primacy of profit maximization over all other values is the core of both social and environmental problems. Nations and nature are being restructured to meet this primary goal, not to meet the needs of ordinary people or to ensure a sustainable environment. The problems created are global, with consequences for many different countries and communities. For example, when U. S. companies move plants and jobs to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor, they leave economic devastation in local U.S. communities and undermine the existing economies in the new locations. At the same time, they take advantage of less stringent environmental policies in other countries that allow them to pollute more freely or to use chemicals banned in the United States. Sometimes, these chemicals return to consumers in the U.S. in the imported products. Global problems necessitate going beyond national borders to embracing the concept of global citizenship. By learning how global issues affec t individual and community lives, how and why decisions are made which affect the planet and life on it and, most importantly, means by which the future can be influenced, global education can prepare students to become socially responsible international citizens. The empowerment of women Empowerment of women has been one of the strongest drivers of social evolution over the past century, and many argue that it is the most efficient strategy for addressing the global challenges in this chapter. Only two countries allowed women to vote at the beginning of the twentieth century; today there is virtually universal suffrage, the average ratio of women legislators worldwide has reached 19.2%, and over 20 countries have women heads of state or government. Patriarchal structures are increasingly challenged, and the movement toward gender equality is irreversible. With an estimated control of over 70% of global consumer spending, women are strongly influencing market preferences. Analysis shows a direct interdependence between countries Gender Gap Index and their Competitiveness Index scores and that Fortune 500 companies with more gender-balanced boards could outperform the others by as much as 50%. Yet the Gender Equity Index 2010 shows that significant differences still remain in economic participation and political empowerment. Gender stereotyping continues to have negative impacts on women around the world, and although progress is being made on closing the gender gap in terms of establishing global and national policies, real improvement will only be achieved when conflicts between written laws and customary and religious laws and practices are eliminated. Environmental disasters, food and financial crises, armed conflicts, and forced displacement further increase vulnerabilities and generate new forms of disadvantages for women and children. Women account for over 40% of the worlds workforce, earn less than 25% of the wages, and represent about 70% of people living in poverty. An OECD survey found that women spend more time on unpaid work than men do worldwide, with the gap ranging from 1 hour per day in Denmark to 5 hours per day in India. FAO estimates that giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17%, or 100-150 million people. Child malnutrition levels are estimated to be 60% above average where women lack the right to land ownership and 85% above average where they have no access to credit. Microcredit institutions reported that by 2010, nearly 82% (about 105 million) of their poorest clients were women. However, many of their businesses are too small to transform their economic status, points out FEMNET. Empowerment of women is highly accelerated by the closing gender gap in education. Most countries are reaching gender parity in primary education, and 50% of university students worldwide are women. Yet regional disparities are high, and UNESCO estimates that women represent about 66% of the 796 million adults who lack basic literacy skills. Although the health gender gap is closing, family planning and maternal health remain critical. Determining the size of the family should be recognized as a basic human right, and more attention should be given to womens health and social support for affordable child care worldwide, including industrial countries, which are facing demographic crises due to low fertility rates. Of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths per year, 99% happen in developing countries, with the highest prevalence in Africa and Asia due to high fertility rates and weak health care systems. Unless providing effective family planning to the 215 million women who lack it is seen as a key component of development, the UN goal to reduce maternal mortality to 120 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015 will not be achieved. Regulations should be enacted and enforced to stop female genital mutilation, which traumatizes about 3 million girls in Africa each year, in addition to the 100-142 million women worldwide affected by it today. While the prevalence of this in Egypt, Guinea, and some parts of Uganda is at over 90%, communities in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even in the EU are also affected. Violence against women is the largest war today, as measured by death and casualties per year. While the proportion of women exposed to physical violence in their lifetime ranges from 12% to 59%, a function of region and culture, sexual assaults remain one of the most underreported crimes worldwide, continuing to be perpetrated with impunity. According to UNODC, 66% of the victims of the $32 billion global industry of human trafficking are women and children. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, has 142 parties and 117 signatories thus far, but it has yet to be adopted and enforced by some key countries. Female vulnerability increases during conflict, when sexual violence is often used as a weapon. Recovery from conflict and disaster should be used as opportunities to rectify inequalities. Nevertheless, women make up only 8% of peace negotiators, and only 25 countries have developed National Action Plans supporting UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on womens protection in conflict and participation in peace processes. Reduce the gap between rich and poor? The world needs a long-term strategic plan for a global partnership between rich and poor. Such a plan should use the strength of free markets and rules based on global ethics to combat poverty. Conventional approaches to poverty reduction (technical assistance and credit) that work in low- and middle-income stable countries do not work in fragile countries, which need stability first. Ethical market economies and systems require improved fair trade, increased economic freedom, a level playing field guaranteed by an honest judicial system with adherence to the rule of law and by governments that provide political stability, a chance to participate in local development decisions, reduced corruption, insured property rights, business incentives to comply with social and environmental goals, a healthy investment climate, and access to land, capital, and information. Direction from central government with relatively free markets is competing with the decentralized, individualized private enterprise for lifting people out of poverty (Hersh and . Paterson, 1994 pages 93-94) An alternative to trying to beat the brain drain is to connect people overseas to the development process back home by a variety of Internet systems. According to UNDP, if the WTO eliminated agricultural export subsidies, developing countries would gain $72 billion per year, according to UNDP. Structural imbalances in world trade have to be corrected to assure fair competition, respect of human rights, and labor and environmental standards, as well as efficient management of the global commons and prevention of monopolies. Chinas monetary policy adjustments could help other countries economic development and access to world markets. International students must be exposed to these issues and offer possible solutions in a project oriented instruction. Also as a resource, the native students from these countries provide a rich understanding of how the issues affect their lives. Australia has set up a recruiting structure that gives international students scholarships with a pledge that these students will work in Australia for five years after graduation before returning to the mother country. Relationships are being developed to foster cooperation and understanding. The case study of such programs would enhance students understanding of international connectedness as international students. They can learn that the human experience is an increasingly globalized phenomenon in which people are constantly being influenced by transnational, cross-cultural, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic interactions. It is therefore important international students begin developing a deeper understanding of the worlds economic, social, a nd political issues.

Stream of Consciousness in Faulkner’s Absolam, Absolam! :: Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Essays

Stream of Consciousness in Faulkner’s Absolam, Absolam! While I was reading Absolam, Absolam! I was reminded once again of Faulkner’s particular writing style of stream of consciousness. The book itself is laid out very confusing having multiple narrators depicting incidents of the past, a recurrent theme of Faulkner’s identifying man’s connection to his past. The first narrator of Absolam, Absolam is Rosa, the sister in law of Thomas Sutpen. She describes Sutpen with so much hatred that he almost takes form of a monster, which is incapable of feelings. Interestingly, Rosa is telling her story to Quentin Compson, the second narrator from The Sound and the Fury, who later as we know commits suicide. At the end of the first chapter, I was left with many pieces of what seem to be the tragic story of Thomas Sutpen, a man who mysteriously shows up in Jefferson, Mississippi buys one hundred acres of land and turns it into a plantation. We also know that he becomes married to Ellen who is twenty-four years older than her you nger sister Rosa. The final image of Sutpen given by Rosa is that some black man kills him on his plantation. Rosa also asks Quentin to come with her to the old Sutpen mansion, because she thinks someone is hiding out there. Continuing with his stream of consciousness technique, Faulkner has Mr. Compson tell the next few chapters through his memories of Thomas Sutpen. Sutpen was in the Cival War with General Compson, and as the stories have been passed down to Mr. Compson, he is passing the story now to Quentin. In Mr. Copsons version, I learned of Sutpens marriage disaster, his immediate family,his illegitimate child with a slave, and a previous marriage to a woman who was 1/8 black, who bears Sutpen a son, which is his dream, but also his downfall. He also explains, how Charles Bon, Sutpen’s abandoned 1/8 negro child comes home with Henry Sutpen from college. Later he is killed by Henry, which is not fully explained yet. I think, that there may be a connection between Sutpen’s hatred of non-whites, and the effects they have on his son, Henry.

The Nature of Aggression (or is it Nurture?) Essay -- Biology Essays R

The Nature of Aggression (or is it Nurture?) Every night on the news there are reports about murders, wars, and rapes. But the news isn't the only place where people encounter violent or aggressive behavior. Driving home from work, people get cut off and cussed at on a daily basis. At school, children fight over who will be the first in the lunch line. On the street, people get pushed out of the way if they are not walking fast enough. The list could go on and on and on. The point is that humans exhibit aggressive behavior on a regular basis. However, does anyone know why people display these behaviors? Why do certain people seem more aggressive? Is there just one thing that controls when and how aggressive someone becomes? These are all questions that researchers have been addressing for many years. In fact there has been quite a debate over what causes people to be aggressive. However, in order to try to understand where aggression may stem from, you must understand how aggression is defined as well as all of the possibilitie s that may cause it. Aggression is an action. It is intended to harm someone. It can be a verbal attack--insults, threats, sarcasm, or attributing nasty motives to them--or a physical punishment or restriction (1). Aggression also seems to be a way of maintaining social order among many species. Animals compete with each other over food, mates, and dwelling spaces, often showing aggression and occurring among virtually all vertebrate species, including humans. However, if aggression is an effective way of maintaining social order, reckless violence appears to be a poor survival mechanism. Nevertheless, this trait has not been wiped out. Since it hasn't disappeared, it is logical that researchers hav... ...e one conclusive answer to why people are aggressive, it doesn't mean that a combination of theories can't be right or that someday, researchers will find the answer. WWW Sources 1) ANGER AND AGGRESSION , Psychological Self-Help Chapter 7 http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap7/ 2)THEORIES OF AGGRESSION http://www.unn.ac.uk/academic/ss/psychology/resource/it/1/HAZ.HTM 3)Aggression http://library.thinkquest.org/26618/gather/database/12/ 4) University of Plymouth Department of Psychology PSY124 Integrative Topics in Psychology: Aggression http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year1/inttopic/aggression.html 5) Features of American Drinking and Violence , WAGUESPACK SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS http://distanceceus.homestead.com/alcohol_abuse.html 6) LARGE-SCALE STUDY LINKS SEROTONIN LEVELS , AGGRESSION (Crime Times) http://www.crime-times.org/98b/w98bp1.htm

Do Inhaled Corticosteroids have a Long- Term Effect on Growth and Bone Density in Children ? :: essays research papers

Research Synthesis Paper According to American Academy of Pediatrics, â€Å"It is estimated that approximately 15 million people in the United States suffer from Asthma. Asthma is the most common chronic illness in children† ( Schlienger 2004). Although inhaled steroids have been established as the preventive treatment of choice, few studies have been conducted to assess the risks of inhaled steroid therapy. Inhaled corticosteroids are absorbed into the systemic circulation, but the extent to which they have adverse effects on bone density and growth is uncertain. The question is important since according to AAOP, â€Å"10% of the American population take an inhaled corticosteroid regularly and may do so for many years† (2005). In the present paper the role that inhaled corticosteriod steroids have on growth and bone density of children is investigated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Current guidelines recommend the use of inhaled corticosteroids for children and adolescents with mild persistent or more severe forms of asthma claiming they are safer then oral steroids. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, â€Å"Inhalation targets corticosteroids directly to the site of airway inflammation with fewer adverse effects compared with oral administration. However, a considerable portion of an inhaled steroid dose is deposited in the oropharynx and subsequently swallowed and absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. Some fraction will be bioavailable to the systemic circulation, thereby potentially increasing the risk of adverse systemic corticosteroid effects† (Napoli, 2001). In the Healthy People 2010 report, the goal concerning respiratory diseases is to â€Å"promote respiratory health through better prevention, detection, treatment, and education†. Effective health management strategies for meeting this goal include: â€Å"controlling factors that trigger asthma, such as upper-respiratory infections, allergens, food or drug allergies, emotional upset, irritants, and exercise; use pharmacologic intervention tailored to the severity of the disease; provide objective monitoring of lung function; and educate patients with asthma to become active participants in their own care† (HP, 2000). This relates to this topic because education is very important in caring for a patient with asthma. The patient should be taught how to use the corticosteriods and possible side effects that can occur. It is also important to teach patients how to reduce the incidence of asthma so the use of corticosteriods might not be needed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Through my research I learned that studies investigating the association between inhaled corticosteroid use and bone-mineral density in adults have given inconsistent results. These studies have been small, the duration of treatment has been short, and most have been confounded by patients' previous use of oral corticosteroids.

Encounters with peope of different cultures

Encounters with people of different cultures in their own countries or communities 2 3 4 5 Coping with the customs of host countries or communities, e. g. rules and courtesies that local people observe and may expect me to observe. Encountering the different customs of people from other cultures, e. g. dress, spec al occasions, etc. Adapting to the rhythm of life in other cultures, e. g. getting used to different meal times etc. Integrating with the customs or behaviour of host countries, e. g. eginning to use forms of greeting that is very different from my own. Encounters with different cultures in the host university Clarifying areas of uncertainty about university arrangements, e. g. describing what I am used to and asking what happens in the other culture. Adapting to other administrative and academic practices, e. g. using unfamiliar procedures to complete a work task. Coping with different formal ties, e. g. learning new ways of showing respect to senior colleagues from other cultures.Relating to fellow students from other cultures, e. g. learning what they like to talk about during breaks. Being aware of issues to be avoided with a different cultural group, e. g. learning what opics seem to be avoided and what the group's views are likely to be about a current political situation. Building bridges between colleagues ot my own culture and those ot a ditterent culture, e. g. sensing that someone of my culture has said the wrong thing and explaining the misunderstanding to both sides.Section 3 A continuing record of intercultural encounters In this section you can record many kinds of intercultural experiences and encounters that you feel have helped you develop your intercultural skills. In each record, describe what happened and how this enabled you to advance your nowledge and understanding of – or attitude to – intercultural ‘events' ( interactions with people from other cultures, etc). Date: 31109/2012 As soon I arrived at the rent ed place, I found out that my flatmates were both Spanish and I feared that I would be left apart due to my level of Spanish,.However, to my surprised they were both very welcoming and even try their best to understand my poor Spanish and were willing to show me around and give me very helpful tips in relation, to transportation, nightlife and food consumption. Place: Pozuelo de Alarcon The suggestions made by flatmates were quite helpful, on the next day I went to rder my student travel card wish made really easier to travel around Madrid. Their travel system is very similar London travel system which actually work base on the zones you have to move around. However, the store was closed from 12 to 14 0'clock as well as every store around.Such thing was very strange to me and as my flatmates explained it is common thing in Spain for stores to be close at such time due to their weather conditions is too hot work there for thy take a break. It is at that point were a have notice that weather conditions have a huge effect on Spain Culture. Place: Groningen University The team work experience with the guys, gave me the opportunity to improve my communication skills, because we could express one's need, wants and opinion without offending the sensitiveness of the other guys.In addition, I believe I strengthen my Teambuilding skills, as I was the person who motivated the others. The members recognised that, and I was the point of communication between the others. From this experience I realised how much I would like to work for the Human Resources, as I believe to be able to maintain group cooperation and support, and to keep a group updated how it is moving forward to the achievement of the goals. Date: 31/10/2012 On 31/10/12 1 had a presentation to be done together with 3 more students. It was me, a Spanish girl, a Romanian guy, and a Dutch guy.The Dutch guy most of the times we had meeting was quite rude with the other guys. He wanted the work to be done, and he was actually the first not to do it. The day of the presentation, I had a small argument with him. The presentation went well, we scored 7. 2. This guy, during the conversation with our coach said that he was the best and that the other guys, us, did not have the competencies to do the presentation. Place: At first, I got really upset and offended, as he should not dear to say these bad things to his team member.Secondly, I believe he should have told us in a private conversation, as all of us were really embarrassed, and we all thought that what he was saying was not actually true. Finally, I spoke with him and he apologised about what happened with the guys and l. I hope he understood that he should not criticise others, when he is the first person who makes mistakes. Date: 03/11/2012 In these days I was reflecting how the Dutch academic semester works so differently trom the English semester. Here, every semester is made trom two periods.In each period there are at least three mo dules to study, therefore exams, reports, group works and presentations to do. At my university, we only have four modules for semester, whilst here there are at least six for each semester. I could see how I improved time management planning and organizational skills. Place: Groningen My skills improved because the amount of work to do was higher than my expectations. In fact, I had to develop goals for my personal achievements, and identify tasks to be accomplished. In addition, I learnt how prioritise tasks and take esponsibilities for the decisions I made.Based on the above please prepare a SWOT analysis of the stage that you believe are at in terms of cross cultural competence; (i. e. strengths and weaknesses) and where you would like to get to by January. What are the opportunities for enhancing your competence and what are the threats which may thwart your endeavours if left untackled? Studying the first semester of the second year in ESIC located in Madrid, Spain enables me to break down barriers as well as communicate and interact with people from different cultures in ways beyond no lecture room or university hall can.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3

Two The Sea Beast The cooling pipes at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant were all fashioned from the finest stainless steel. Before they were installed, they were x-rayed, ultrasounded, and pressure-tested to be sure that they could never break, and after being welded into place, the welds were also x-rayed and tested. The radioactive steam from the core left its heat in the pipes, which leached it off into a seawater cooling pond, where it was safely vented to the Pacific. But Diablo had been built on a breakneck schedule during the energy scare of the seventies. The welders worked double and triple shifts, driven by greed and cocaine, and the inspectors who ran the X-ray machines were on the same schedule. And they missed one. Not a major mistake. Just a tiny leak. Barely noticeable. A minuscule stream of harmless, low-level radiation wafted out with the tide and drifted over the continental shelf, dissipating as it went, until even the most sensitive instruments would have missed it. Yet the le ak didn't go totally undetected. In the deep trench off California, near a submerged volcano where the waters ran to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit and black smokers spewed clouds of mineral soup, a creature was roused from a long slumber. Eyes the size of dinner platters winked out the sediment and sleep of years. It was instinct, sense, and memory: the Sea Beast's brain. It remembered eating the remains of a sunken Russian nuclear submarine: beefy little sailors tenderized by the pressure of the depths and spiced with piquant radioactive marinade. Memory woke the beast, and like a child lured from under the covers on a snowy morning by the smell of bacon frying, it flicked its great tail, broke free from the ocean floor, and began a slow ascent into the current of tasty treats. A current that ran along the shore of Pine Cove. Mavis Mavis tossed back a shot of Bushmills to take the edge off her frustration at not being able to whack anyone with her baseball bat. She wasn't really angry that Molly had bitten a customer. After all, he was a tourist and rated above the mice in the walls only because he carried cash. Maybe the fact that something had actually happened in the Slug would bring in a little business. People would come in to hear the story, and Mavis could stretch, speculate, and dramatize most stories into at least three drinks a tell. Business had been slowing over the last couple of years. People didn't seem to want to bring their problems into a bar. Time was, on any given afternoon, you'd have three or four guys at the bar, pouring down beers as they poured out their hearts, so filled with self-loathing that they'd snap a vertebra to avoid catching their own reflection in the big mirror behind the bar. On a given evening, the stools would be full of people who whined and growled and bitched all night long, pausing only long enough to stagger to the bathroom or to sacrifice a quarter to the jukebox's extensive self-pity selection. Sadness sold a lot of alcohol, and it had been in short supply these last few years. Mavis blamed the booming economy, Val Riordan, and vegetables in the diet for the sadness shortage, and she fought the insidious invaders by running two-for-one happy hours with fatty meat snacks (The whole point of happy hour was to purge happiness, wasn't it?), but all her efforts only served to cut her profits in half. If Pine Cove could no longer produce sadness, she would import some, so she advertised for a Blues singer. The old Black man wore sunglasses, a leather fedora, a tattered black wool suit that was too heavy for the weather, red suspenders over a Hawaiian shirt that sported topless hula girls, and creaky black-on-white wing tips. He set his guitar case on the bar and climbed onto a stool. Mavis eyed him suspiciously and lit a Tarryton 100. She'd been taught as a girl not to trust Black people. â€Å"Name your poison,† she said. He took off his fedora, revealing a gleaming brown baldness that shone like polished walnut. â€Å"You gots some wine?† â€Å"Cheap-shit red or cheap-shit white?† Mavis cocked a hip, gears and machinery clicked. â€Å"Them cheap-shit boys done expanded. Used to be jus' one flavor.† â€Å"Red or white?† â€Å"Whatever sweetest, sweetness.† Mavis slammed a tumbler onto the bar and filled it with yellow liquid from an icy jug in the well. â€Å"That'll be three bucks.† The Black man reached out – thick sharp nails skating the bar surface, long fingers waving like tentacles, searching, the hand like a sea creature caught in a tidal wash – and missed the glass by four inches. Mavis pushed the glass into his hand. â€Å"You blind?† â€Å"No, it be dark in here.† â€Å"Take off your sunglasses, idjit.† â€Å"I can't do that, ma'am. Shades go with the trade.† â€Å"What trade? Don't you try to sell pencils in here. I don't tolerate beggars.† â€Å"I'm a Bluesman, ma'am. I hear ya'll lookin for one.† Mavis looked at the guitar case on the bar, at the Black man in shades, at the long fingernails of his right hand, the short nails and knobby gray calluses on the fingertips of his left, and she said, â€Å"I should have guessed. Do you have any experience?† He laughed, a laugh that started deep down and shook his shoulders on the way up and chugged out of his throat like a steam engine leaving a tunnel. â€Å"Sweetness, I got me more experience than a busload o' hos. Ain't no dust settled a day on Catfish Jefferson since God done first dropped him on this big ol' ball o' dust. That's me, call me Catfish.† He shook hands like a sissy, Mavis thought, just let her have the tips of his fingers. She used to do that before she had her arthritic finger joints replaced. She didn't want any arthritic old Blues singer. â€Å"I'm going to need someone through Christmas. Can you stay that long or would your dust settle?† â€Å"I ‘spose I could slow down a bit. Too cold to go back East.† He looked around the bar, trying to take in the dinge and smoke through his dark glasses, then turned back to her. â€Å"Yeah, I might be able to clear my schedule if† – and here he grinned and Mavis could see a gold tooth there with a musical note cut in it – â€Å"if the money is right,† he said. â€Å"You'll get room and board and a percentage of the bar. You bring 'em in, you'll make money.† He considered, scratched his cheek where white stubble sounded like a toothbrush against sandpaper, and said, â€Å"No, sweetness, you bring 'em in. Once they hear Catfish play, they come back. Now what percentage did you have in mind?† Mavis stroked her chin hair, pulled it straight to its full three inches. â€Å"I'll need to hear you play.† Catfish nodded. â€Å"I can play.† He flipped the latches on his guitar case and pulled out a gleaming National steel body guitar. From his pocket he pulled a cutoff bottleneck and with a twist it fell onto the little finger of his left hand. He played a chord to test tune, pulled the bottleneck from the fifth to the ninth and danced it there, high and wailing. Mavis could smell something like mildew, moss maybe, a change in humidity. She sniffed and looked around. She hadn't been able to smell anything for fifteen years. Catfish grinned. â€Å"The Delta,† he said. He launched into a twelve-bar Blues, playing the bass line with his thumb, squealing the high notes with the slide, rocking back and forth on the bar stool, the light of the neon Coors sign behind the bar playing colors in the reflection of sunglasses and his bald head. The daytime regulars looked up from their drinks, stopped lying for a second, and Slick McCall missed a straight-in eight-ball shot on the quarter table, which he almost never did. And Catfish sang, starting high and haunting, going low and gritty. â€Å"They's a mean ol' woman run a bar out on the Coast. I'm telling you, they's a mean ol' woman run a bar out on the Coast. But when she gets you under the covers, That ol' woman turn your buttered bread to toast.† And then he stopped. â€Å"You're hired,† Mavis said. She pulled the jug of white cheap-shit out of the well and sloshed some into Catfish's glass. â€Å"On the house.† Just then the door opened and a blast of sunlight cut through the dinge and smoke and residual Blues and Vance McNally, the EMT, walked in and set his radio on the bar. â€Å"Guess what?† he said to everyone and no one in particular. â€Å"That pilgrim woman hung herself.† A low mumble passed through the regulars. Catfish put his guitar in its case and picked up his wine. â€Å"Sho' 'nuff a sad day startin early in this little town. Sho' 'nuff.† â€Å"Sho' 'nuff,† said Mavis with a cackle like a stainless-steel hyena. Valerie Riordan Depression has a mortality rate of fifteen percent. Fifteen percent of all patients with major depression will take their own lives. Statistics. Hard numbers in a very squishy science. Fifteen percent. Dead. Val Riordan had been repeating the figures to herself since Theophilus Crowe had called, but it wasn't helping her feel any better about what Bess Leander had done. Val had never lost a patient before. And Bess Leander hadn't really been depressed, had she? Bess didn't fit into the fifteen percent. Val went to the office in the back of her house and pulled Bess Leander's file, then went back to the living room to wait for Constable Crowe. At least it was the local guy, not the county sheriffs. And she could always fall back on patient confidentiality. Truth was, she had no idea why Bess Leander might have hung herself. She had only seen Bess once, and then for only half an hour. Val had made the diagnosis, written the scrip, and collected a check for the full hour session. Bess had called in twice, talked for a few minutes, and Val had sent her a bill for the time rounded to the next quarter hour. Time was money. Val Riordan liked nice things. The doorbell rang, Westminster chimes. Val crossed the living room to the marble foyer. A thin tall figure was refracted through the door's beveled glass panels: Theophilus Crowe. Val had never met him, but she knew of him. Three of his ex-girlfriends were her patients. She opened the door. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a gray shirt with black epaulets that might have been part of a uniform at one time. He was clean-shaven, with long sandy hair tied neatly into a ponytail. A good-looking guy in an Ichabod Crane sort of way. Val guessed he was stoned. His girlfriends had talked about his habits. â€Å"Dr.Riordan,† he said. â€Å"Theo Crowe.† He offered his hand. She shook hands. â€Å"Everyone calls me Val,† she said. â€Å"Nice to meet you. Come in.† She pointed to the living room. â€Å"Nice to meet you too,† Theo said, almost as an afterthought. â€Å"Sorry about the circumstances.† He stood at the edge of the marble foyer, as if afraid to step on the white carpet. She walked past him and sat down on the couch. â€Å"Please,† she said, pointing to one of a set of Hepplewhite chairs. â€Å"Sit.† He sat. â€Å"I'm not exactly sure why I'm here, except that Joseph Leander doesn't seem to know why Bess did it.† â€Å"No note?† Val asked. â€Å"No. Nothing. Joseph went downstairs for breakfast this morning and found her hanging in the dining room.† Val felt her stomach lurch. She had never really formed a mental picture of Bess Leander's death. It had been words on the phone until now. She looked away from Theo, looked around the room for something that would erase the picture. â€Å"I'm sorry,† Theo said. â€Å"This must be hard for you. I'm just wondering if there was anything that Bess might have said in therapy that would give a clue.† Fifteen percent, Val thought. She said, â€Å"Most suicides don't leave a note. By the time they have gone that far into depression, they aren't interested in what happens after their death. They just want the pain to end.† Theo nodded. â€Å"Then Bess was depressed? Joseph said that she appeared to be getting better.† Val cast around her training for an answer. She hadn't really diagnosed Bess Leander, she had just prescribed what she thought would make Bess feel better. She said, â€Å"Diagnosis in psychiatry isn't always that exact, Theo. Bess Leander was a complex case. Without compromising doctor-patient confidentiality, I can tell you that Bess suffered from a borderline case of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. I was treating her for that.† Theo pulled a prescription bottle out of his shirt pocket and looked at the label. â€Å"Zoloft. Isn't that an anti-depressant? I only know because I used to date a woman who was on it.† Right, Val thought. Actually, you used to date at least three women who were on it. She said, â€Å"Zoloft is an SSRI like Prozac. It's prescribed for a number of conditions. With OCD the dosage is higher.† That's it, get clinical. Baffle him with clinical bullshit. Theo shook the bottle. â€Å"Could someone O.D. on it or something? I heard somewhere that people do crazy things sometimes on these drugs.† â€Å"That's not necessarily true. SSRIs like Zoloft are often prescribed to people with major depression. Fifteen percent of all depressed patients commit suicide.† There, she said it. â€Å"Antidepressants are a tool, along with talk therapy, that psychiatrists use to help patients. Sometimes the tools don't work. As with any therapy, a third get better, a third get worse, and a third stay the same. Antidepressants aren't a panacea.† But you treat them like they are, don't you, Val? â€Å"But you said that Bess Leander had OCD, not depression.† â€Å"Constable, have you ever had a stomachache and a runny nose at the same time?† â€Å"So you're saying she was depressed?† â€Å"Yes, she was depressed, as well as having OCD.† â€Å"And it couldn't have been the drugs?† â€Å"To be honest with you, I don't even know if she was taking the drug. Have you counted them?† â€Å"Uh, no.† â€Å"Patients don't always take their medicine. We don't order blood level tests for SSRIs.† â€Å"Right,† Theo said. â€Å"I guess we'll know when they do the autopsy.† Another horrendous picture flashed in Val's mind: Bess Leander on an autopsy table. The viscera of medicine had always been too much for her. She stood. â€Å"I wish I could help you more, but to be honest, Bess Leander never gave me any indication that she was suicidal.† At least that was true. Theo took her cue and stood. â€Å"Well, thank you. I'm sorry to have bothered you. If you think of anything, you know, anything that I can tell Joseph that might make it easier on him†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I'm sorry. That's all I know.† Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. She led him to the door. He turned before leaving. â€Å"One more thing. Molly Michon is one of your patients, isn't she?† â€Å"Yes. Actually, she's a county patient, but I agreed to treat her at a reduced rate because all the county facilities are so far away.† â€Å"You might want to check on her. She attacked a guy at the Head of the Slug this morning.† â€Å"Is she in County?† â€Å"No, I took her home. She calmed down.† â€Å"Thank you, Constable. I'll call her.† â€Å"Well, then. I'll be going.† â€Å"Constable,† she called after him. â€Å"Those pills you have – Zoloft isn't a recreational drug.† Theo stumbled on the steps, then composed himself. â€Å"Right, Doctor, I figured that out when I saw the body hanging in the dining room. I'll try not to eat the evidence.† â€Å"Good-bye,† Val said. She closed the door behind him and burst into tears. Fifteen percent. She had fifteen hundred patients in Pine Cove on some form of antidepressant or another. Fifteen percent would be more than two hundred people dead. She couldn't do that. She wouldn't let an-other of her patients die because of her noninvolvement. If antidepressants wouldn't save them, then maybe she could. Three Theo Theophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse poetry and played a jimbai drum while sitting on a rock by the ocean. He could play sixteen chords on the guitar and knew five Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a dampening buzz any time he had to play a bar chord. He had tried his hand at painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine Cove Little Theater's revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all these endeavors, he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total embarrassment and self-loathing set in. Theo was cursed with an artist's soul but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the means to create. If there was any single thing at which Theo excelled, it was empathy. He always seemed to be able to understand someone's point of view, no matter how singular or farfetched, and in turn could convey it to others with a succinctness and clarity that he seldom found in expressing his own thoughts. He was a born mediator, a peacemaker, and it was this talent, after breaking up numerous fights at the Head of the Slug Saloon, that got Theo elected constable. That and heavy-handed endorsement of Sheriff John Burton. Burton was a hard-line right-wing politico who could spout law and order (accent on order) over brunch with the Rotarians, lunch with the NRA, and dinner with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and wolf down dry banquet chicken like it was manna from the gods every time. He wore expensive suits, a gold Rolex, and drove a pearl-black Eldor-ado that shone like a starry night on wheels (rapt attention and copious coats of carnuba from the grunts in the county motor pool). He had been sheriff of San Junipero County for sixteen years, and in that time the crime rate had dropped steadily until it was the lowest, per capita, of any county in California. His endorsement of Theophilus Crowe, someone with no law enforcement experience, had come as more than somewhat of a surprise to the people of Pine Cove, especially since Theo's opponent was a retired Los Angeles policeman who'd put in a highly decorated five and twenty. What the people of Pine Cove did not know was that Sheriff Burton not only e ndorsed Theo, he had forced him to run in the first place. Theophilus Crowe was a quiet man, and Sheriff John Burton had his reasons for not wanting to hear a peep out of the little North County burg of Pine Cove, so when Theo walked into his little two-room cabin, he wasn't surprised to see a red seven blinking on his answering machine. He punched the button and listened to Burton's assistant insisting that he call right away – seven times. Burton never called the cell phone. Theo had come home to shower and ponder his meeting with Val Riordan. The fact that she had treated at least three of his ex-girlfriends bothered him. He wanted to try and figure out what the women had told her. Obviously, they'd mention that he got high occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. But like any man, it worried him that they might have said something about his sexual performance. For some reason, it didn't bother him nearly as much that Val Riordan think him a loser and a drug fiend as it did that she might think he was bad in the rack. He wanted to ponder the possibilities, think away the paranoia, but instead he dialed the sheriff's private number and was put right through. â€Å"What in the hell is the matter with you, Crowe? You stoned?† â€Å"No more than usual,† Theo said. â€Å"What's the problem?† â€Å"The problem is you removed evidence from a crime scene.† â€Å"I did?† Talking to the sheriff could drain all of Theo's energy instantly. He fell into a beanbag chair that expectorated Styrofoam beads from a failing seam with a sigh. â€Å"What evidence? What scene?† â€Å"The pills, Crowe. The suicide's husband said you took the pills with you. I want them back at the scene in ten minutes. I want my men out of there in half an hour. The M.E. will do the autopsy this afternoon and this case will close by dinnertime, got it? Run-of-the-mill suicide. Obit page only. No news. You understand?† â€Å"I was just checking on her condition with her psychiatrist. See if there were any indications she might be suicidal.† â€Å"Crowe, you must resist the urge to play investigator or pretend that you are a law enforcement officer. The woman hung herself. She was de-pressed and she ended it all. The husband wasn't cheating, there was no money motive, and Mommy and Daddy weren't fighting.† â€Å"They talked to the kids?† â€Å"Of course they talked to the kids. They're detectives. They investigate things. Now get over there and get them out of North County. I'd send them over to get the pills from you, but I wouldn't want them to find your little victory garden, would you?† â€Å"I'm leaving now,† Theo said. â€Å"This is the last I will hear of this,† Burton said. He hung up. Theo hung up the phone, closed his eyes, and turned into a human puddle in the beanbag chair. Forty-one years old and he still lived like a college student. His books were stacked between bricks and boards, his bed pulled out of a sofa, his refrigerator was empty but for a slice of pizza going green, and the grounds around his cabin were overgrown with weeds and brambles. Behind the cabin, in the middle of a nest of blackberry vines, stood his victory garden: ten bushy marijuana plants, sticky with buds that smelled of skunk and spice. Not a day passed that he didn't want to plow them under and sterilize the ground they grew in. And not a day passed that he didn't work his way through the brambles and lovingly harvest the sticky green that would sustain his habit through the day. The researchers said that marijuana was only psychologically addictive. Theo had read all the papers. They only mentioned the night sweats and mental spiders of withdrawal in passing, as if they were no more unpleasant than a tetanus shot. But Theo had tried to quit. He'd wrung out three sets of sheets in one night and paced the cabin looking for distraction until he thought his head might explode, only to give up and suck the piquant smoke from his Sneaky Pete so he could find sleep. The researchers obvi-ously didn't get it, but Sheriff John Burton did. He understood Theo's weakness and held it over him like the proverbial sword. That Burton had his own Achilles' heel and more to lose from its discovery didn't seem to matter. Logically, Theo had him in a standoff. But emotionally, Burton had the upper hand. Theo was always the one to blink. He snatched Sneaky Pete off his orange crate coffee table and headed out the door to return Bess Leander's pills to the scene of the crime. Valerie Dr. Valerie Riordan sat at her desk, looking at the icons of her life: a tiny digital stock ticker that she would surreptitiously glance down at during appointments; a gold Mont Blanc desk set, the pens jutting from the jade base like the antennae of a goldbug; a set of bookends fashioned in the likenesses of Freud and Jung, bracing leather-bound copies of The Psychology of the Unconscious, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), The Interpretation of Dreams, and The Physician's Desk Reference; and a plaster-cast bust of Hippocrates that dispensed Post-it notes from the base. Hippocrates, that wily Greek who turned medicine from magic to science. The author of the famous oath that Val had uttered twenty years ago on that sunny summer day in Ann Arbor when she graduated from med school: â€Å"I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them. I will not give poison to anyone though a sked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan.† The oath had seemed so silly, so antiquated then. What doctor, in their right mind, would give poison to a patient? â€Å"But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art.† It had seemed so obvious and easy then. Now she guarded her life and her art with a custom security system and a Glock 9 mm. stashed in the nightstand. â€Å"I will not use the knife on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.† She'd never had a problem with that part of the oath. She was loathe to use the knife. She'd gone into psychiatry because she couldn't handle the messy parts of medicine. Her father, a surgeon himself, had been only mildly disappointed. At least she was a doctor, of sorts. She'd done her internship and residency in a rehab center where movie stars and rock idols learned to be responsible by making their own beds, while Val distributed Valium like a flight attendant passing out peanuts. One wing of the Sunrise Center was druggies, the other eating disorders. She preferred the eating disorders. â€Å"You haven't lived until you've force-fed minestrone to a supermodel through a tube,† she told her father. â€Å"Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from fornication with woman or man, bond or free.† Well, abstinence from fornication hadn't been a problem, had it? She hadn't had sex since Richard left five years ago. Richard had given her the bust of Hippocrates as a joke, he said, but she'd put it on her desk just the same. She'd given him a statue of Blind Justice wearing a garter belt and fishnets the year before to display at his law office. He'd brought her here to this little village, passing up offers from corporate law firms to follow his dream of being a country lawyer whose daily docket would include disagreements over pig paternity or the odd pension dispute. He wanted to be Atticus Finch, Pudd'nhead Wilson, a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda character who was paid in fresh-baked bread and baskets of avocados. Well, he'd gotten that part; Val's practice had supported them for most of their marriage. She'd be paying him alimony now if they'd actually divorced. Country lawyer indeed. He left her to go to Sacramento to lobby the California Coastal Commission for a consortium of golf course developers. His job was to convince the commission that sea otters and elephant seals would enjoy nothing better than to watch Japanese businessmen slice Titleists into the Pacific and that what nature needed was one long fairway from Santa Barbara to San Francisco (maybe sand traps at the Pismo and Carmel dunes). He carried a pocket watch, for Christ's sake, a gold chain with a jade fob carved into the shape of an endangered brown pelican. He played his front-porch, rocking-chair-wise, country lawyer against their Botany 500 sophistication and pulled down over two hundred grand a year in the bargain. He lived with one of his clerks, an earnest doe-eyed Stanfordite with surfer girl hair and a figure that mocked gravity. Richard had introduced Val to the girl (Ashley, or Brie, or Jordan) and it had been oh-so-adult and oh-so-gracious and later, when Val cal led Richard to clear up a tax matter, she asked, â€Å"So how'd you screen the candidates, Richard? First one to suck-start your Lexus?† â€Å"Maybe we should start thinking about making our separation official,† Richard had said. Val had hung up on him. If she couldn't have a happy marriage, she'd have everything else. Everything. And so had begun her revolving door policy of hustling appointments, prescribing the appropriate meds, and shopping for clothes and antiques. Hippocrates glowered at her from the desk. â€Å"I didn't intentionally do harm,† Val said. â€Å"Not intentionally, you old buggerer. Fifteen percent of all depressives commit suicide, treated or not.† â€Å"Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such things to be holy secrets.† â€Å"Holy secrets or do no harm?† Val asked, envisioning the hanging body of Bess Leander with a shudder. â€Å"Which is it?† Hippocrates sat on his Post-its, saying nothing. Was Bess Leander's death her fault? If she had talked to Bess instead of put her on antidepressants, would that have saved her? It was possible, and it was also possible that if she kept to her policy of a â€Å"pill for every problem,† someone else was going to die. She couldn't risk it. If using talk therapy instead of drugs could save one life, it was worth a try. Val grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial button that connected her to the town's only pharmacy, Pine Cove Drug and Gift. One of the clerks answered. Val asked to speak to Winston Krauss, the pharmacist. Winston was one of her patients. He was fifty-three, unmarried, and eighty pounds overweight. His holy secret, which he shared with Val during a session, was that he had an unnatural sexual fascination with marine mammals, dolphins in particular. He'd confessed that he'd never been able to watch â€Å"Flipper† without getting an erection and that he'd watched so many Jacques Cousteau specials that a French accent made him break into a sweat. He kept an anatomically correct inflatable porpoise, which he violated nightly in his bathtub. Val had cured him of wearing a scuba mask and snorkel around the house, so gradually the red gasket ring around his face had cleared up, but he still did the dolphin nightly and confessed it to her once a month. â€Å"Winston, Val Riordan here. I need a favor.† â€Å"Sure, Dr. Val, you need me to deliver something to Molly? I heard she went off in the Slug this morning.† Gossip surpassed the speed of light in Pine Cove. â€Å"No, Winston, you know that company that carries all the look-alike placebos? We used them in college. I need you to order look-alikes for all the antidepressants I prescribe: Prozac, Zoloft, Serzone, Effexor, the whole bunch, all the dosages. Order in quantity.† â€Å"I don't get it, Val, what for?† Val cleared her throat. â€Å"I want you to fill all of my prescriptions with the placebos.† â€Å"You're kidding.† â€Å"I'm not kidding, Winston. As of today, I don't want a single one of my patients getting the real thing. Not one.† â€Å"Are you doing some sort of experiment? Control group or something?† â€Å"Something like that.† â€Å"And you want me to charge them the normal price?† â€Å"Of course. Our usual arrangement.† Val got a twenty percent kickback from the pharmacy. She was going to be working a lot harder, she deserved to get paid. Winston paused. She could hear him going through the glass door into the back of the pharmacy. Finally he said, â€Å"I can't do that, Val. That's unethical. I could lose my license, go to jail.† Val had really hoped it wouldn't come to this. â€Å"Winston, you'll do it. You'll do it or the Pine Cove Gazette will run a front-page story about you being a fish-fucker.† â€Å"That's illegal. You can't divulge something I told you in therapy.† â€Å"Quit telling me what's illegal, Winston. I'm married to a lawyer.† â€Å"I'd really rather not do this, Val. Can't you send them down to the Thrifty Mart in San Junipero? I could say that I can't get the pills anymore.† â€Å"That wouldn't work, would it, Winston? The people at the Thrifty Mart don't have your little problem.† â€Å"You're going to have some withdrawal reactions. How are you going to explain that?† â€Å"Let me worry about that. I'm quadrupling my sessions. I want to see these people get better, not mask their problems.† â€Å"This is about Bess Leander's suicide, isn't it?† â€Å"I'm not going to lose another one, Winston.† â€Å"Antidepressants don't increase the incidence of suicide or violence. Eli Lilly proved that in court.† â€Å"Yes and O.J. walked. Court is one thing, Winston, the reality of losing a patient is another. I'm taking charge of my practice. Now order the pills. I'm sure the profit margin is going to be quite a bit higher on sugar pills than it is on Prozac.† â€Å"I could go to the Florida Keys. There's a place down there where they let you swim with bottlenose dolphins.† â€Å"You can't go, Winston. You can't miss your therapy sessions. I want to see you at least once a week.† â€Å"You bitch.† â€Å"I'm trying to do the right thing. What day is good for you?† â€Å"I'll call you back.† â€Å"Don't push me, Winston.† â€Å"I have to make this order,† he said. Then, after a second, he said, â€Å"Dr. Val?† â€Å"What?† â€Å"Do I have to go off the Serzone?† â€Å"We'll talk about it in therapy.† She hung up and pulled a Post-it out of Hippocrates' chest. â€Å"Now if I keep this oath, and break it not, may I enjoy honor, in my life and art, among all men for all time; but if I transgress and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.† Does that mean dishonor for all time? she wondered. I'm just trying to do the right thing here. Finally. She made a note to call Winston back and schedule his appointments.