An explaning why I am interested in becoming a nurse Essay

An explaning why I am interested in becoming a nurse - Essay Example Consequently nursing provides personal satisfaction by giving me an opportunity to make real differences in the lives of people everyday. Another important reason why I’m interested in nursing as a career is that nurses experience daily challenges some of which are interesting, unique and rewarding. In this regard, becoming a nurse will not only provide me with invaluable vast opportunities of life learning experiences. I also find personal satisfaction and growth in nursing as it provides me with knowledge and new experiences that help me to contribute more to the community. One of my goals for pursing nursing is to achieve Career mobility. Nursing will provide me with an opportunity to continue with my career in many directions because nursing offers the needed flexibility and individuals can choose to work with children, adults, schools and public health institutions among others (DeWit, 964). Currently there are virtually unlimited opportunities in nursing particularly for people who would like to continue learning new things in their fields of interest. With the rapidly improving healthcare technology and a constantly growing population, nurses are able to work in a variety of diverse working environments and settings such as in home cares, healthcare clinics and hospitals. My specific career goal however is to work as children doctor. Job security is another important consideration that made me to choose nursing. This is because there is a significant shortage of nurses nationwide and I will not need to worry about finding a fulfilling career option once I complete my studies. Nursing also offers the much needed scheduling flexibility to individuals who have other commitments to attend to. For example, as a nurse I will be able to combine a real career with the other personal or family demands by working in part time basis or shifts. On the other hand, I believe pursing nursing career will translate into competitive benefits and higher salaries in

Dentistry Annotated Bibliography Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Dentistry - Annotated Bibliography Example People were determined as eligible on basis of their dental examination as well as history. Participants were also randomized into two groups into two arms in a design called parallel double blinded. Fifty eight partakers were randomized to study the DHA supplementation. Out of the 55 people who participated 27 of them had been randomly assigned to DHA. The rates of reaction for DHA +ASA were 79%. The data collected was managed using an electronic data capture platform and an analysis done using SAS 9.3. The 3 months randomized trial of using 2000 mg DHA with 81-mg ASA showed a significant improvement on periodontitis. The results clearly showed that DHA supplementation with low ASA dosage is effective in treating periodontitis. Additionally, it is safe and cheap. The article has different tables and graphs and statistics enhanced the validity and reliability of the results. The strengths of the study included verified adherence, consistency in outcomes and control procedures which w ere predominant throughout the study. On the other hand, the weaknesses included lack of proper limitation of measurement. The target audience in this study was medical experts and people suffering from periodontitis. The purpose of the study was to provide another option for treating periodontitis .The study will assist a lot of people in reducing their expenses in treating periodontitis which was previously treated using application of antibiotics and mechanical cleaning. Naqvi, A.Z., Hasturk, H., Mu, L., Phillips, R.S., Davis, R.B., Halem, S†¦ Mukamal, K.J. (2014). Docosahexaenoic Acid and Periodontitis in Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Dental Research, 93(8),

Comparison of Maslows and Herzbergs Theories

Comparison of Maslows and Herzbergs Theories In the modern era, it is essential to have a successful business that is able to compete with other companies, not only in all its departments but also all employees should perform good co-ordination in order to achieve the companys goals and create international competitiveness. Therefore, how to motivate employees should be a real concern to the leader/manager. What is motivation? Krech, Crutchfied and Ballachey states that: â€Å"Motivation is concerned with why people choose a particular course of action in preference to others, and why they continue a chosen course of action, often over a long period, and in the face of difficulties and problems†. In other words, motivation at work has been playing an essential role in a company in terms of trying to encourage people to work more productively and effectively and in a dependable, loyal manner (Bunchanan and Huczynski. 1985). In organizational behaviour, there are two main motivational theories, content theories and process theories. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast two content theories; Maslows hierarchy of needs and Herzbergs two-factor theories. I have chosen these theories because they are well-respected and both Maslow and Herzberg are viewed as forerunners in motivational theories; I am going to compare and contrast these theories and then analyse how managers could apply thes e theories effectively in the modern workplace. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) is viewed as the father of human psychology by creating his first hierarchy of needs in 1943. He believed that people have nine innate needs or motives in their lives at all times which are: 1. Biological requirements e.g. the basic need for survival such as sunlight, food, air, water, sleep, sexual expressions; 2. Safety; the need for security, protection, comfort, shelter, freedom from the fear and threat from the environment; 3. Affiliation, the need for love and relationships; 4. Esteem, the need for recognition, attention, strength and self-esteem; 5. Knowing and understanding, the need for curiosity and exploring; 6. Aesthetics, needs for order and beauty; 7. Transcendence; 8. Freedom of enquiry and expression; 9. Self-actualization, needs for the development of our full potential.( A.Huczynski and A.bunchanan. 2007). Maslows model of motivation is depicted as a five-step hierarchy of human needs in the form of a triangle â€Å"as we can see in the g raph below†. The lower-order needs or deficiency needs in other word are belongingness, safety and physiological needs. The higher-order needs are esteem needs and self-actualisation. If the lower-order needs are not satisfied, we cannot move on to any of the higher levels (Robin Fincham and Peter Rhodes). While Maslow is known as father of human psychology, Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000) is known as the â€Å"Father of Job Enrichment† with his well-known work, the two-factor theory which was written in 1943. Herzbergs theory is called the two-factor theory because the theory is two sets of incidents; one is about achievement, promotion, recognition, autonomy, personal growth and responsibility which Herzberg named motivators. The other set involved salary, job security, working condition, company policy and interpersonal relations with supervisors and peers called hygiene factors (Robin Fincham and Peter Rhodes). There are several similarities between Maslow and Herzbergs theories. It is noticeable that Herzberg wrote his two-factor theory about twenty-three years after Maslows hierarchy of needs. This is proof that Herzbergs theory was written almost based on Maslows theory. We can see that motivator factors and hygiene factors in Herzbergs theory are a collection of higher and lower order needs respectively in Maslows theory. Lower order needs such as needs for friendship, job security, water, food, etc. could be seen as hygiene factors. Similarly, needs for recognition, promotion, responsibility, etc. could be seen as motivators of Herzbergs two-factor theory (Fincham and Rhodes. 2005). From this evidence, we can infer that both Maslow and Herzberg had the same point of view about which factors were important and needed for people to be motivated in work as well as all other aspects of general life. Due to this we can say that Herzberg used Maslows theory as the basis for his Two Factor Th eory and merely changed Maslows hierarchy to suit his own beliefs and make the theory more applicable to a work environment. DIFFERENCES: Although Maslow and Herzbergs theories are both content theories and very similar, there are some differences. One is the fact that Maslows theory applies to life in general whereas Herzberg geared his specifically towards the work environment and how to motivate employees rather than people in general (Montana and Charnov, 2008). Further evidence is that Herzberg wrote his theory based on interviews with 200 employees while Maslows hierarchy was written with 3,000 unemployed people involved e.g. college students (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005). For the reason that Herzbergs theory is merely focused and relevant to the workplace therefore the theory is more suitable and recommended for managers to use to motivate their employees. However, this theory has now become slightly incorrect; the reason is people can be satisfied and motivated by all the aspects of life not only at work. As mentioned at the beginning, Herzbergs theory states that motivation is divided into two dimensional (e.g. Motivators and hygiene); each dimensional is consisted of different factors (Thompson, 1996). While, Maslow separated motivation into five different levels of needs. This can be understood that Maslow took into account Herzbergs hygiene factors and other factors not associated with work such as food, shelter and social needs. MANAGERS: As mentioned early, there are five distinct levels of need on Maslows hierarchy of need and each level must be satisfied in order before moving on to higher levers. Thus, how might managers apply this theory in the workplace? Firstly, the lowest order- Physiological needs of Maslows hierarchy have to be satisfied (e.g. needs for foods, shelter, etc.) by paying employees decent salary. After the first order has been satisfied, employees are motivated to work toward to the next level e.g. Safety or security needs. To be able to fulfil this level, employees should be given health insurance or guaranteed with their job for instant, contract. Managers could create a good relationship between them and their staffs or between each staff, team and group for examples, managers might have one-to-one talk with their staffs if necessary, correct them if there is any problems or praise them in person when they have done well; this might make the staffs feel valued and are motivated to work harder and productively. However, not every people in the same levels are motivated in the same way. Reference List â€Å"motivation is concerned† Krech, D., Crutchfield, R. S. and Ballachey, E.L (1962). Cited in Mullins, L., 1993, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 3rd edition Pitman Publishing, 443. â€Å"motivation is an organisational context is a social process† (Bunchana, D. And Huczynski, A., 1985 Organizational Behaviour, Prentice- Hall international p.62) â€Å"what needs people attempt to satisfy and the needs which motivate† ( Motivating others, David P. Thompson, p.9) â€Å"argues that we have nine innate needs† (Organizational Behaviour, 6th Edition, Andrzej A. Huczynski and Davia A. Bunchana, 2007, pg 242) â€Å"If the lower- orders needs† (Robin Fincham. Peter Rhodes, pg 195) â€Å"Herzberg took a somewhat different approach† ( Management- Patrick J.Montana and Bruce H.Charnov, Fourth Edition, pg 239) Further evidence is that Herzberg wrote his theory based on interviews with 200 employees while Maslows hierarchy was written with 3,000 unemployed people involved e.g. college students (Fincham and Rhodes, 2005) â€Å"two-dimensional† David Thompson, 1996, pg 13. Motivating Others.

Taekwondo :: essays research papers

Do you know what Taekwondo is? Do you know how Taekwondo benefits the practitioner? Do you know Taekwondo is also considered a sport and is an event in many major competitions? When these questions are asked, the majority of the people who answer do not know the correct answers or the complete answer. Although many people do not know much about Taekwondo, there are hundreds of thousands of people worldwide getting involved. Taekwondo is the world's fastest growing martial art, with currently over fifty million practitioners and growing everyday. The majority of the practitioners who get involved do so to learn self-defense. Not only do the practitioners learn self-defense, but they also learn many helpful things and receive the benefits that Taekwondo has to offer. Also, Taekwondo has become a sporting event in many major sporting competitions. But mainly, Taekwondo provides people with sporting and self-defending ability and gives that person an edge in daily life, with its merits a s a martial art sport of self-discipline.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First of all, Taekwondo teaches the practitioner self-defense, which can be used for a lifetime. Many of the self-defense techniques taught stimulate many real life situations so the person would know what to do when caught in a similar situation. Also, because not everything can be taught for all situations that arise, many basic techniques, rules, methods, and concepts are taught and emphasized. On the other hand, self-defense practice includes doing everyday drills, forms, and sparring. Self-defense training does not always have to be 100 percent self-defense training. Although, you really do not get instruction on self-defense when doing drills, forms, or sparring, those practices are just another way of learning self-defense and improving your skill of self-defense. Basically, all the instruction concepts, techniques, and rules of Taekwondo teach a person self defense in one way or another.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Second of all, Taekwondo is classified as a sport along as being a martial art. Because Taekwondo is classified as a sport, Taekwondo is sometimes referred to as a martial art sport. There are many reasons why Taekwondo has become a sport. A few reasons are because the popularity that Taekwondo has received is overwhelming, the organized athletic competition (similar to boxing), and the push to consider Taekwondo as a sporting event by many practitioners, masters, instructors, and officials of organizations worldwide. Many athletic competitions are starting to or already have included Taekwondo as an official event.

Human Inheritance Essay

Ethical dilemmas are constantly confronting healthcare professionals, which is difficult to deal with as there is no correct solution. These are also known as moral dilemmas as they are situations where there is more than two choices to make and none of the choices is certain to work and can cause complications. An example of this would be ‘You are a patient and are too sick to speak for yourself. You are concerned about who will make medical decisions on your behalf, and whether your wishes will be followed. You wonder, â€Å"What if they disagree about what I would want, or what would be best for me? ’. Another example of this would be with the economic downturn that you may not be able to afford the funds for food and need to feed your family but the only way in doing this is to steal or let your family starve. These dilemmas are impossible because each person thinks differently and has a different feeling towards it. There are ethical dilemmas surrounding IVF and in fertility. Infertility is a genetic problem that affects women; it is not the woman’s fault. With IVF the NHS only gives each woman one free cycle and after that she has to fund it herself. An ethical dilemma with IVF is the possible wrong that is done to the infertile couple or the expected child by the physician. The success of IVF depends on the number of embryos transferred to the woman’s uterus. Because the chance of survival of an embryo in IVF is small the more transfers made the greater the chance of the woman becoming pregnant, it also increases the risk of multiple pregnancies. IVF is not allowed by the Catholic Church because it separates the unitive and the procreative aspects of marriage. To separate the unitive and the procreative aspects of marriage is a mortal sin. In addition the sperm donor commits a mortal sin in order to harvest the sperm which is needed for IVF. Although one human life may be created through the IVF technique, many surplus foetuses, (unborn babies), are destroyed through this process. Other surplus unborn babies are left frozen in the laboratories where they were manufactured as though they were not human beings, but simply consumer goods. They were not created in love through the marriage act as God intends. Multiple births also create danger to the health and well-being of the child. Premature birth and low weight when born are also issues with this, also studies that have been undertaken spina bifida is at a higher risk with children made from IVF. Also the hormones that are taken by the female in order to become pregnant are always at risk of having problems or abnormalities to the unborn child. Aminiocentesis is another ethical dilemma, during the process if abnormalities are found the mother is offered the chance to terminate her pregnancy. The ethical issues surrounding amniocentesis are seen as centring on 4 focal points. First is the policy of the diagnostic treatment centre. Here, 2 questions arise: Is the client involved in a high-risk pregnancy? And, if a positive diagnosis is made, will the parents’ consent to an abortion? Second is the role of the genetic counsellor, which is seen as supportive rather than leading. He should assist the prospective parents in reaching a decision to undergo amniocentesis and possible abortion that is mutually acceptable. The prospective parents, the third focal point, may face the question of deciding what is normal. The clients must also realize the terrible strains that are put on a marriage into which a severely defective child has been born. The fourth focal point is public policy. While amniocentesis may appear to threaten some values held important in our society, the author regards the procedure as an interim solution on the road to an understanding of and ability to treat genetic defects. Contraception is another ethical dilemma as birth control operates before pregnancy begins, and until the sperm fertilises the egg there is nothing that is going to suffer loss and so the issue is very different from the case of abortion. And since the egg and sperm would cease to exist whether fertilisation takes place or not, they can’t be said to suffer loss, either. Non-religious arguments about birth control are therefore concerned only with the rights of the parents and with the consequences for those parents and for society in general. The issue of possibly killing a person, and of the rights of the mother versus the rights of the foetus, which dominate the topic of abortion, do not arise. Some people think it’s wrong as it is wrong to interfere with the natural order of the universe. People in certain religions also see it as wrong because of the fact that it is like abortion as some birth control techniques can operate by preventing the implantation and development of a fertilized egg. Those opposed to such methods say that this amounts to an abortion, and that if abortion is wrong then those forms of contraception must also be wrong. http://brendakaren. wordpress. com/2009/04/15/some-moral-and-ethical-issues-concerning-ivf-techniques/ http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/4418247 Contraception!!! http://www. bbc. co. uk/ethics/contraception/contraception_abortion. shtml

Coca-Cola Essay

If we told you that Coca-Cola had operating units in 50 countries around the world, you probably would not be surprised. If we told you that Coca-Cola had been in business for almost 125 years, you probably would not be surprised. So, you tell us †¦ how many different beverages does Coca-Cola produce? 100? 500? 2, 000? Are you surprised yet? Worldwide, Coca-Cola produces an amazing 2, 800 different beverages. When an organization is that big, has that sort of worldwide presence, and boasts what is perhaps the most well-known brand ever, you can bet that a multitude of IT systems are constantly churning in the background, not only keeping the organization running, but also keeping it running ahead of the competition. To support internal collaboration efforts, Coke created something it calls its Common Innovation Framework, a Web-based system that combines project management capabilities with business intelligence. Using the Innovation Framework, anyone from any of the operating units worldwide can search for, find, and apply concepts, strategies, development successes, and marketing approaches that have been used elsewhere in the organization. For example, when introducing Georgia teas in Australia, the Coke people Down Under can research what marketing strategies worked well in related countries such as New Zealand. As Jean-Michel Ares, Coke CIO, explains if, â€Å"Once you have aggregated the pipeline of innovation, the object is to assess and prioritize the best allocation of resources in the organization. Beyond internal employees, Coke is reaching out with new and innovative IT steps. Recently, it rolled out a new line of software services based on hundreds of business processes to its extended family of bottlers. These software services each perform a specific common business function and run within SAP’s ERP software and are delivered by Coke’s IBM hosted date centers. The goal is to create a standardized business and technology platform across all Coke bottlers, most of which are independent franchises. (There are some partly owned by Coke) If Coke and its bottlers are speaking the same language, so to speak, and using the same technology, then supply chain management applications will be the more efficiently streamlined. Standardized in their case equates to saving money by reducing expenses associated with supply chain activities. And even beyond its extended family to bottlers, Coke is using technology to create loyalty and engage more with its customers. Its award winning Web site, My Coke Rewards at www.mycokerewards.com, is the second most popular consumer packaged-goods site, behind only www.kraftfoods.com. My Coke Rewards attracts some 300,000 visitors per day. Offering everything from magazine subscriptions to electronics as prizes (just look under your bottle cap). My Coke Rewards has reconnected Coke with its loyal drinkers. The site has teamed with pop culture crazes such as American Idol, soccer, and auto racing to bring even more consumers into the fold. You can even find Coke-labeled songs through iTunes. Questions: 1.Describe the various IT-enabled initiatives discussed in this case study and categorize them as either above-the-line, below-the-line, or some combination of the two. 2.Why is standardization so important in supply chain management? Coke is developing its own set of software services for bottlers to use. Do you think Coke charges the bottlers for these software services? Why or why not? 3.Describe two different forms of e-collaboration in this case study. For each, articulate the benefits to Coke. 4.How is My Coke Rewards an example of a switching cost? How can a switching cost not have a monetary penalty associated with it. 5.Referring to the diagram below, what do you believe to be Coke’s overall organizational structure? Why? How does Coke’s use of technology support your decision? 6.What sort of business intelligence could Coke gather from its My Coke Rewards Web-site? How could it use this information for customer relationship management activities?

Having a Job in High School Has More Benefits Than Just a Paycheck

Having a Job in High School Has More Benefits Than Just a Paycheck SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Having a job used to be a rite of passage for high school students. They’d put in some hours during the school year and over the summer and often be able to pay for most of their college expenses with the money they earned.However, as today’s current high schoolers are facing piles of homework, pressure to excel on sports teams and clubs, and tuition costs that no entry-level job could ever cover, many people are rethinking the concept of high schoolers working. Are there still benefits to having a job in high school?Yes. There are many reasons for a high school student today to have a job, and those benefits extend far beyond just a paycheck. Having a job in high school can not only be a great experience in and of itself, it can also set you up to get even better jobs in college and beyond.In this article, I use my experience of working as a teenager to go over the key benefits of having a high school job. I also end by giving tips on the best jobs for high school students. My High School Work Experience When I was 14 years old, my mother told me that I needed to get a job in order to pay for college. Happy with my sporadic babysitting work, I resisted and told my mother that, no matter what job I got, I’d never be able to pay for college on a high school worker’s salary. To prove my point, I even got a calculator and showed her it’d take several years of full-time work on a minimum wage salary to cover college costs. My mother dismissed those arguments and told me that there were plenty of other reasons why I should get a job beyond just the paycheck. So I found myself applying for and eventually accepting a job as a swim instructor and lifeguard at my town’s local pool.I ended up working at the pool through all four years of high school and eventually was promoted to a manager position. In the summer, I’d teach swim lessons in the morning and lifeguard in the afternoon, and during the school year I’d teach swim lessons weekend mornings and supervise the office occasional weekday evenings. Not everything about the job was great, and there were times I hated jumping in the pool on cold mornings and trying to convince cranky kids to follow my instructions, but overall, like my mother said, I got many benefits from the job beyond just the paycheck (although having spending money of my own was definitely nice). At my job, I made lots of new friends, more than I had made in high school actually. I also gained numerous skills including CPR training and office experience.Additionally, I was also able to use my work experience (as well as my experience as a manager) to stand out from other job applicants in college and get a paid research job as a freshman in college. Having a job in high school gave me work experience, independence, and a better idea of the type of career I wanted, and many other high school students can benefit from having a job.Even if the job doesn’t pay well, or relate to your future career, or seem all that fun, there are still tons of benefits to having a high school job, and we’ll go over them in this article. The 6 Key Benefits of High School Jobs There are numerous benefits to getting a job in high school, some of which are obvious and others less so. This section covers six of the main benefits you can expect to get from having a job as a high school student. #1: You’ll Earn Money The most obvious benefit to getting a job in high school is that you’ll be making money. Now, since you’re starting at the bottom rung of the ladder, this likely won’t be a ton of money. When I first started working, I made the princely sum of $5.25 an hour (before taxes), and that’s not going to make anyone rich. However, even the salaries of low-paying jobs begin to add up over time, and since you’re in high school, your expenses are very low or non-existent. That means you can put all that money towards whatever you want, like a college fund or new clothes or attending concerts, instead of having to pay bills and students loans. My parents recommended that I put half my paychecks in my savings account, so I did that and used the other half to buy an expensive guitar that I could have never have afforded without my job.And even if your high school job is an unpaid internship or volunteer work, not to worry. There are plenty of other benefits of a high school job, which we discuss below. #2: You’ll Learn New Skills No matter what your first job is, even if it seems incredibly easy and/or incredibly boring, you’re guaranteed to pick up skills you didn’t have before.These skills can include anything from learning how to work a cash register, to building customer service skills, to figuring out the trick to balancing all those restaurant dishes on your arms at once. The skills you learn may not be that interesting to you, and they may not be anything close to the skills you need for your future career, but it never hurts to gain new knowledge. It may end up being interesting or useful to you down the line. At my job, I learned how to teach different swimming strokes, how to administer CPR, and a host of first-aid skills. These are all pretty helpful to know, however; I didn’t end up using most of them in my future jobs. The main skill that was useful for other jobs I had down the line was learning how to use a pretty obscure computer program to track pool visitor numbers. It was clunky and annoying to learn, but, years later, I applied to an internship that also used the same program, and my future boss told me that having that random skill helped me beat out the competition and get the job. So don’t knock any of the skills your job teaches you because they may come in handy someday. #3: You’ll Gain Work Experience In addition to learning new skills, your high school job will help you gain valuable work experience. Everyone goes through a learning curve when they first begin working as they learn how to manage their time effectively, how to interact with coworkers, how to make sure they get to work on time, etc. No matter what other strengths you have, you’re going to be a pretty bad employee until you figure those basic work skills out. This is why a lot of employers are hesitant to hire someone who’s never worked before, even if they have great grades and otherwise seem like they could be an excellent worker. A few months after I started working, my job had a mandatory meeting one night that every employee had to go to. However, I didn’t go because, for some reason, I didn’t believe it was really mandatory or important for me to attend that meeting. Afterwards, I got a stern talking to from my boss and it was embarrassing, but it’s better to make those mistakes early on, when the stakes are low and your boss is more likely to be understanding. By college, with four years of work experience under my belt, I definitely wasn’t making those beginner mistakes during my research job. So, even if your high school work experience only amounts to flipping burgers for a summer at your local fast food joint, that can still give you a huge leg up over people with no work experience when you apply to jobs in college and later on. If you start learning the skills to being a good employee in high school, you’ll set yourself up to be an outstanding employee later on down the line. So make your mistakes now instead of later (but don’t make the same mistake I did because that was pretty dumb of me). #4: You’ll Learn More About What Kind of Career You Want As a high school student, you’ve likely spent a lot of time thinking about the type of career you want to have, even if you haven’t come to any firm conclusions about what you want to do. Thinking about and researching different types of jobs is great, but the best way to figure out what you want to do is to actually try different jobs out. Now, your high school job likely isn’t the job you want to get after you finish school, but it’s still a great way to get a taste of the working world and figure out which things you enjoy in a job and which you don’t. When I was a teenager, I was pretty sure I was going to be a scientific researcher and possibly a professor. That career had nothing to do with my high school job of teaching swim lessons and being a lifeguard. However, I was able to use my high school work experience to get a better idea of what kind of job I would enjoy. One of the best ways to do this was to think about what I liked and what I didn’t like about my high school job. Things I liked included being around people, being active and outside, and working with kids. Things I disliked included knowing I was responsible for the safety of everyone in the pool, giving kids low marks on their swimming tests, and dealing with parents who were angry their child didn’t pass to the next swim level. None of this radically changed my career goals, but it did encourage me to consider having a job that let me do more than just sit at a desk or in a lab, and it made me think more critically about being a professor, where I’d regularly have to give out low grades and speak with unhappy students and parents. #5: You’ll Meet New People Unless your high school job involves sorting old moss specimens in a warehouse by yourself (a job I also once had), you’ll meet lots of new people at work.Your coworkers will likely be people you wouldn’t have met otherwise, which is a great way to expand your social circle beyond your high school friends and learn more about different types of people. Many workplaces that employ high school students have a lot of similarly-aged people working there who often develop a strong camaraderie, which means your new coworkers could end up being some of your best friends. However, there’s also the possibility that you won’t like someone you work with, whether this is your boss, customers you need to help, or that one coworker who steals everyone else’s lunch. And even though that’s not as fun as being friends with everyone you work with, it’ll help prepare you for the many times in the future you have to work with or interact with someone you’re not crazy about. #6: You’ll Gain Independence One of the most important benefits of teenager jobs is that you’ll achieve a degree of independence you likely haven’t experienced before.As a high school student, you’ve probably lived your entire life with your parents and been under their rules or your school’s rules when you’re in class. At a job, you’re deemed responsible enough to manage your own duties, and you’ll have fewer restrictions than you likely do at home or school. As an employee, you’re not just a student or a kid; you’re a full-fledged member of the team who’s considered smart enough to handle some responsibility. Your teacher won’t be there to tell you to stop talking and pay attention, and your mom won’t be there to remind you to clean up after yourself. You’ll be responsible for taking care of all your job duties yourself. Some people worry that teenagers who have jobs give up their childhood too soon and take on too much responsibility, but in my experience and the experience of my friends who worked as teenagers, I never found this to be true.My job, even when I worked full-time in the summer, still gave me plenty of time to socialize and have fun, and I was proud to feel more â€Å"grown up† and know I was trusted by my boss to do my job well. Succeeding at a job and earning moneyall on your owncan help you gain a lot of independence and self-confidence, and it’s a great way to help prepare you for college and the future when your responsibilities and independence will only increase. What Are the Best Jobs for Teens? Sometimes high school students and their parents worry about what the â€Å"best† job for a teenager to have is or if the job they’re thinking about taking is good enough.The truth is that most teenager jobs are about the same prestige-wise. Working as a waitress is no better or worse than working in customer service or at a summer camp. Each of those jobs can provide the benefits we discussed in this article. No one is expecting a high schooler to get a job as an investment banker or astrophysicist, so don’t worry about a job that doesn’t seem like it’s â€Å"good enough.† Many rich and successful people starting out flipping burgers or folding clothes at their local mall. Ditto to people concerned about getting a job in high school that matches the career they want to have. If you can find a job as a high school student that’s in the field you eventually want to work in, that’s great, but be aware most high schoolers take jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with their career paths. That’s OK since your career goals are likely to change between high school and when you actually begin working full-time. The most important thing is just to get a job so you can get the work experience, new skills and added sense of responsibility. It’s OK if you don’t think the pay is that great or the job isn't something you’re really interested in. My first job paid very little and had nothing to do with my career goals, but I still got a lot out of it. If possible, I’d recommend an â€Å"official† job as opposed to under the table work like nannying since the former gives you more experience with common workplace tasks like clocking in and out, attending meetings, and working with managers and coworkers. These are all things you’ll probably need to know for future jobs, so it’s good to start getting used to them now.Workplaces known for treating young and new workers well are also a good bet. Finally, when you’re looking at jobs, make sure they’re convenient for you to get to and will work with your schedule. You don’t want to take a job only to find out a few weeks later that it conflicts with a sport or club you're in. Conclusion: The Benefits of High School Jobs Having a job is not for every high school student; many teenagers these days already have jam-packed schedules between school and sports and clubs. As a junior in high school, I had to cut back on my job hours during the school year because I was feeling overwhelmed with homework.However, for many high school students, there are numerous benefits to be gained by having a job. Not only will high school jobs give you a way to earn some money, meet new people, and gain some more responsibility, you can use your teenager jobs to get yourself a better job in college since can prove to employers you’ve already succeeded at one job. Some people wonder what the best jobs for teens are, but the truth is that any job with a decent boss, fair pay, and work that isn’t too miserable can get you all the benefits we discussed in this article. The most important step is just to go out there and find yourself a job. What's Next? Looking for job ideas?We've written a guide onthe eight best jobs for teensas well as steps to take to find the best job for you. Thinking about getting an internship?We've got you covered! Check out our step-by-step guide to getting an internship for teens for everything you need to know to land a top-notch internship. Looking to save your hard-earned earnings from your high school job? Check out our guides to saving money on the SAT and ACT. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Free Essays on Microsoft Timeline

October 1997 – In October of 1997, the Justice Department sued the Microsoft Corporation, alleging the software maker required computer manufacturers to ship Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser on PCs loaded with Windows 95. Attorney General Janet Reno also asks a federal court to impose penalties of $1 million per day.In December of that same year, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to stop, at least temporarily, requiring manufacturers who sell Windows 95 to install Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Microsoft appealed. In May of 1998, regulators from the Justice Department and 20 states launch one of the biggest antitrust assaults of the century, accusing Microsoft of using its dominance in computer software to drive competitors out of business. The filing comes after negotiations between the government and Microsoft officials break down Nov. 5, 1999 - U.S. District Court judge finds that Microsoft holds monopoly power in the market for PC operating systems, and the company's actions harmed consumers. Nov. 19, 1999 - District Court judge appoints federal appeals judge, Richard Posner, to serve as a mediator to handle the negotiations between Microsoft and the government. April 1, 2000 - Judge Posner announces the end of negotiations between Microsoft and the government after four fruitless months of talks, setting the stage for a verdict by Judge Jackson. April 3, 2000 - Judge Jackson rules Microsoft violated the nation's antitrust laws by using its monopoly power in personal computer operating systems to stifle competition. April 28, 2000 - The Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general ask Judge Jackson to split Microsoft into two separate companies: one devoted to the Windows operating system, and the second to Microsoft's other businesses, including popular software applications such as Microsoft Office. Sept. 26, 2000 - In a victory ... Free Essays on Microsoft Timeline Free Essays on Microsoft Timeline October 1997 – In October of 1997, the Justice Department sued the Microsoft Corporation, alleging the software maker required computer manufacturers to ship Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser on PCs loaded with Windows 95. Attorney General Janet Reno also asks a federal court to impose penalties of $1 million per day.In December of that same year, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to stop, at least temporarily, requiring manufacturers who sell Windows 95 to install Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Microsoft appealed. In May of 1998, regulators from the Justice Department and 20 states launch one of the biggest antitrust assaults of the century, accusing Microsoft of using its dominance in computer software to drive competitors out of business. The filing comes after negotiations between the government and Microsoft officials break down Nov. 5, 1999 - U.S. District Court judge finds that Microsoft holds monopoly power in the market for PC operating systems, and the company's actions harmed consumers. Nov. 19, 1999 - District Court judge appoints federal appeals judge, Richard Posner, to serve as a mediator to handle the negotiations between Microsoft and the government. April 1, 2000 - Judge Posner announces the end of negotiations between Microsoft and the government after four fruitless months of talks, setting the stage for a verdict by Judge Jackson. April 3, 2000 - Judge Jackson rules Microsoft violated the nation's antitrust laws by using its monopoly power in personal computer operating systems to stifle competition. April 28, 2000 - The Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general ask Judge Jackson to split Microsoft into two separate companies: one devoted to the Windows operating system, and the second to Microsoft's other businesses, including popular software applications such as Microsoft Office. Sept. 26, 2000 - In a victory ...

How Fart Lighting Works

How Fart Lighting Works Did you know you can light farts on fire and that the color of the flame will depend on your personal biochemistry? Heres a look at how fart lighting works, the chemicals responsible, and how to light farts safely. Why Are Farts Flammable? Farts (the informal name for flatus or flatulence) result from normal bacteria in the digestive tract breaking down food into simpler chemical compounds. Everyone hosts their own personal colony of bacteria, so the gas signature you produce is your own unique flammable aroma. The color of the flame depends on personal biochemistry. Gases in Farts Although the exact chemical composition  of farts varies from one person to the next, there are six common gases: carbon dioxidehydrogenhydrogen sulfidemethanenitrogenoxygen Hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and methane are flammable gases that will produce a flame when exposed to an ignition source, such as a match or lighter. With the energy from the ignition, the flammable gases react with oxygen from air and flatus to produce oxides and water.  The smell of farts results from hydrogen sulfide as well as indole, skatole, short-chain fatty acids, and volatile amines. Colored Fart Flames Hydrogen is the most abundant gas in most farts, so most flatus burns with a yellow to orange flame. However, if you are a member of the population that produces flatulence high in methane, you may yield a blue flame. This is relatively uncommon, so producing the blue angel or blue dart is considered a sort of special talent in certain circles. In order for the flame to be blue, the concentration of methane needs to be high. Eating foods high in sulfur (e.g., broccoli, cabbage, kale)  may enrich methane content in flatulence. However, this only matters if you already host the right bacteria. The gases depend more on the species of bacteria than on the foods you eat, although diet certainly impacts the quantity of flatus that is produced and stored in the rectum.  The only way to change the color of your farts, as far as I know, is to switch out the bacteria in your gut for a new set. To some extent, this occurs naturally over time. Illness or exposure to certain antibiotics can wipe out the bacteria, allowing others to colonize. How To Light a Fart on Fire (Safely) Okay, so lighting gas on fire is not an inherently safe project since the flammable gas is released from inside your body, but if you are curious about the color of flame your fart produces or just feel like igniting flatus because its funny, there are some tips that will help protect you and the person lighting the fart: Wear clothing. Not only does this protect onlookers from seeing body parts they may not wish to view, but it protects delicate skin from burns. Assuming you fart forcefully, plenty of gas will make it through the barrier to produce a display. Natural fibers (e.g., cotton, silk, wool) are less likely to catch fire or melt than synthetic fibers (e.g., nylon, polyester).If possible, light the fart with a long-handled match or lighter. This reduces the chance of burning ones hand.Not that they would, but dont let people get up close and personal viewing the project. Protect eyes and faces (and noses).Just in case something goes wrong, be prepared to put out a fire. Smother a fire by dropping and rolling or covering the affected area/object with a nonflammable material. Water works to extinguish fart fires.Its really not advisable to light farts when intoxicated. This applies to all fire projects. Youre less likely to be thinking clearly and your ability to react to an emergency may be im paired. Your friends will upload embarrassing videos and text pictures to everyone on the planet. You know the drill. People do get burned lighting farts, so by no means is this practice encouraged. Sources Ohge, H; Furne, JK; Springfield, J; Sueda, T; Madoff, RD; Levitt, MD (November 7, 2003). The effect of antibiotics and bismuth on fecal hydrogen sulfide and sulfate-reducing bacteria in the rat. FEMS Microbiology Letters. 228 (1): 137–4 2. doi:10.1016/s0378-1097(03)00748-1Suarez, F; Furne, J; Springfield, J; Levitt, M (May 1997). Insights into human colonic physiology obtained from the study of flatus composition. American Journal of Physiology. 272 (5 Pt 1): G1028–33. PMID 9176210Tangerman, Albert (2009). Measurement and biological significance of the volatile sulfur compounds hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol and dimethyl sulfide in various biological matrices. Journal of Chromatography B. 877 (28): 3366–3377. doi:10.1016/j.jchromb.2009.05.026

Is market efficient testing of Hong Kong stock market Essay

Is market efficient testing of Hong Kong stock market - Essay Example Several tests could be used to test for market efficiency. The most common tests are for market anomalies such as the January, Day-of-the-Week, and Size Effects. Another is to prove that any of the assumptions of EMH is not true; for example, that there is a way of predicting stock prices so that those who are able to do so can earn above normal market returns. Practitioners of finance and economics who have studied stock market behaviour have proposed several hypotheses, one of which is the so-called Overreaction Hypothesis (ORH). ORH originated from the field of applied psychology and is a statement of behavioural prediction that people tend to overreact to dramatic news and events, regardless of whether these events are positive or negative. On the other side and related to this hypothesis is its opposite: underreaction, a phenomenon that can also be considered. ORH provides a way of making decisions to buy and sell stocks, because if it is true, then some investors can earn above market returns by buying underperforming stocks and selling overperforming stocks, taking advantage of over- or under-reaction of other investors. The Hongkong economy has been identified as the one with the freest and, in the absence of artificial market barriers that cause inefficiency, therefore the most efficient financial markets, as it was given the highest Index of Economic Freedom1 (Heritage, 2006). This paper attempts to prove this by investigating whether the ORH phenomena exist in the Hongkong Stock Exchange (HKSE). 3. Investigate presence of ORH in HKSE for the period 1 April 1997 to 31 March 2007 using the methodology of Fung (1999) which is similar to DeBondt and Thaler (1985) but using the geometric mean, instead of the arithmetic mean, to reduce error caused by bid-ask spread as pointed out by Conrad and Kaul (1993). Fama (1970) popularised the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH) which states that stock prices reflect all available

Motivational Methods Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Motivational Methods Paper - Essay Example Process theories are equity and objective-setting methods that provide guidance and insight on how employees make decisions to work hard or not, depending on their personal preferences. An administrator should understand that workers should feel safe in their working environments, particularly when modifications like downsizing are required (Buchbinder & Shanks, 2012). In such a situation, most workers tend to quit their jobs or put less effort when performing their duties. An administrator is obligated to remove this alleged negative imbalance. For motivational purposes, workers should be guided to have a relaxed mind and understand that the downsizing process will affect every individual. Visible rewards will be provided to boost the morale of employees. The approach will improve the quality of their work. According to expectancy theory, the drive to work is based on the association between expectation and valance. Managers should understand that employees are motivated by accomplishing set objectives and retaining visible rewards to boost their valances (Lombardi & Schermerhorn, 2007). Consequently, it is necessary to create a relationship between efforts, performance, and results that workers value. Administrators can also employ stakeholder mapping when downsizing their departments. It involves the identification of those responsible for bringing change. Every worker should be informed about the external contributors to this modification (Zelman, McCue & Glick, 2009). For instance, a registration department can have two financial analysts. One may be dealing with in-patients and the other outpatients. However, it would be appropriate for a manager reduce the number of financial analysts to one since they perform similar tasks. A severance pay and other benefits should be offered to the employee affected by downsizing. Process theories, expectancy theory and stakeholder mapping are fundamental theories that managers

GIS benefiting an organization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

GIS benefiting an organization - Research Paper Example cause of the nature of the environment of their operation, firms in the private sector are less forthcoming with information regarding the technological systems they employ. This is because they fear competition from other firms. Many companies believe that sharing their technological information may lose competitive advantage that puts them in a good position of competing as compared to their competitors. This paper offers a case study of how companies have integrated GIS technology with the aim of improving their business strategies and decision-making processes. GIS is usually utilized by various industries such as real estate, marketing, transportation/logistics, insurance, and financial services. First and foremost, it is noteworthy to provide a description of the infrastructure of the GIS and how these components interact in business setting (Pick, 2008). There are four major GIS components namely: Hardware, Software, Dada, Procedure and People. Hardware is the component essential for collecting, storing, and producing geographic information such as servers, printers, personal computers among other peripheral devices. The technological transformation has helped many organizations implement GIS to help them access more information in an accurate manner. Software is the operating system utilized by organizations, imaging, data management, and other components essential for data collection and analysis. This software is usually user-friendly to ensure that many people do not have difficulty learning about how to use some specific functions. Data is simply a collection of facts stored in what is referred to as database. It can either be spatial or tabular; however, depending on the form of data, it offers different benefits to an organization. Procedures are the techniques or approaches used in GIS to manipulate or analyze spatial data in improving business decision-making processes. Lastly, people must be trained to handle software, hardware and data stored

Much of Volume 1 of Jane Eyre is predominately concerned with a Essay

Much of Volume 1 of Jane Eyre is predominately concerned with a child's sense of injustice. Do you think Jane's sense of injustice is justified Illustrate your answer by using textual examples - Essay Example She is an orphan left behind homeless at the death of both her parents when her mother’s brother Reed takes her in. He adores his sister’s daughter and on his death bed makes his wife promise that she would always look after Jane. Mrs Reed agrees, however, the promise is not fulfilled in the way it was meant to be. The Reeds live at Gateshead and here is where Jane spends the first ten years of her life at. Considering the fact that she is an orphan with only the Reeds as her known, living relatives and no one else, it would be thought that she would be treated like family, in such a way that she would not feel alone with the absence of her parents. Yet this is not the case. Jane is made to feel inferior at Gateshead repeatedly, she ‘is constantly differentiated, excluded (†¦) leaves her as an outsider to the Reed family’ (Peters 20). She is not treated like a family member, in fact, even worse than that. ‘Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room (†¦) Me, she had dispensed from joining the group’ (Bronte 3). This may be due to the various reasons regarding her lack of social status, her father being a poor minister; a passionate personality which was not quite the thing at that time; and plain looks, quite the opposite of what the Reed children were, Georgiana in particular as she says in the book that she is ‘humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed’ (Bronte 3). Even the servants believe that Jane’s station in life is below theirs since she is not, in all actuality, a part of the family. She has ‘no money’ (Bronte 7) nor does she do any work to earn her keep for living there. She is often lectured on even by the servants regarding how she should behave in front of her benefactor and how, if it has not been for her generous spirit, Jane would have been sent ‘to the

In what ways does Islam encourage submission (To God) Essay

In what ways does Islam encourage submission (To God) - Essay Example Muslims do not use symbols in the way other religions do, but where a symbol is needed, a star and crescent moon is the one most often used (Penny 1999). According to Murata and Chittick (2006), â€Å"submission to god†, in the Islamic view, has four basic connotations. In the broadest sense, it refers to the fact that every living creature submits to God by being His handiwork; thus no choice is involved. In the next three senses, men have the option whether or not to follow. In the second sense, islam means obedience to God’s guidance as brought by the prophets, in the third where Islam is used as a proper noun, it denotes compliance to the guidance of God as stated in the Qur’an, and in the last and narrowest sense, it means observing the Five Pillars in general and the Shariah in particular (Murata & Chittick, 2006). The Five Pillars of Islam The five pillarsof Islam are not real pillars, but are doctrines that supports the religion (Penny, 1999). They are th e core beliefs that shape Muslim thought, deed, and society.   A Muslim who fulfills the Five Pillars of Islam, remains in the faith of Islam, and sincerely repents of his sins, will make it to paradise (carm.org 2010). However, if he performs the Five Pillars but does not remain in the faith, he will not be saved. 1. Shahadah. The first pillar demands acceptance of the most important thing that Muslims believe in. It means â€Å"there is no other God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.† These are the words first taught to a baby, or are spoken last by a dying Muslim. They are uttered upon waking up in the morning, before going to sleep at night, and in every prayer. 2. Salah. The second pillar is the name for the obligatory prayers that are performed five times a day, and a direct link between the worshipper and God. Followers pray in the morning, three times during the day, and at night. They break off from any activity and face in the direction of Makkah whe n the time for prayer comes. Muslims do not necessarily have to be in a mosque, but must come to a clean place to pray. 3. Zakah. The third pillar upholds giving to the poor and needy. An important principle of Islam is that everything belongs to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. Muslims are expected to give about 2.5 percent of the amount they have left after all basic necessities are acquired. They believe that this is a part of their duty to Allah and their fellow Muslims, and that being tight-fisted is immoral. 4. Sawm. The fourth pillar stipulates fasting—abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations with their spouses. This is practiced every year in the month of Ramadan. It is mainly a method of self-purification and self-restraint. By cutting oneself from worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person focuses on his or her purpose in life by constantly being aware of the presence of God. 5. Haji. The fifth pillar promotes pilgrimage to Makkah, the holy city. Every Muslim who is physically and financially able is expected to visit Makkah at least once in their life. The annual hajj begins in the twelfth month of the Islamic year. Pilgrims wear special clothes: simple garments that strip away distinctions of class and culture, so that all stand equal before God. Shari’ah: The Islamic Religious Laws The term shari’ah is an Arabic expression for â€Å"track†

1.Was the British Empire a force for good Essay

1.Was the British Empire a force for good - Essay Example nostalgia for a more civilized and benign Greater Britain through television programs, such as, This Sceptred Isle and Empire’s Children, while print critics openly condemn it as a blood-stained autocracy (Brendon, 2007). Historian Lawrence James argues, ‘ploughing a familiar furrow,’ but we should always be proud of the Empire that established stability, progress, and beneficial institutions in colonies. In this research paper, I tried to define British Empire’s role as good or bad and conclude that it was neither good nor bad, but complicated. One must argue that why there is controversy about it. Mainly, vast range of British Empire and its lasting impact epitomizes a period in which all of the non-Europeans were dominated by Europeans. Another reason for controversy about Empire is its vastness that defies simple summary, and therefore, perspectives on it also vary outrageously. It is possible for Empire’s admirers or opponents to pick some examples in order to prove that British rule, by and large, was good or bad, and its legacies as beneficent or demonic. Some assert that it was an engine of modernization, while others believe that it was a vehicle of exploitation (Jackson, 2013, p.4). As decolonization of European Empires precipitated in the 1960s, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that, â€Å"†¦It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affection of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions† (cited in Jackson, 2013, p.4) while Niall Ferguson ar gues that British Empire was better than the other empires from the same period. The record of British Empire is not untarnished by any means, but it gave us global trade and the rule of law (cited in Jackson, 2013, p.4). In an effort to explore Empire’s credits, one may lead to the idea that British Empire was a liberal empire. It was established on the principals classically enunciated by Edmund Burke, who asserted that colonial government was a

In what ways does Islam encourage submission (To God) Essay

In what ways does Islam encourage submission (To God) - Essay Example Muslims do not use symbols in the way other religions do, but where a symbol is needed, a star and crescent moon is the one most often used (Penny 1999). According to Murata and Chittick (2006), â€Å"submission to god†, in the Islamic view, has four basic connotations. In the broadest sense, it refers to the fact that every living creature submits to God by being His handiwork; thus no choice is involved. In the next three senses, men have the option whether or not to follow. In the second sense, islam means obedience to God’s guidance as brought by the prophets, in the third where Islam is used as a proper noun, it denotes compliance to the guidance of God as stated in the Qur’an, and in the last and narrowest sense, it means observing the Five Pillars in general and the Shariah in particular (Murata & Chittick, 2006). The Five Pillars of Islam The five pillarsof Islam are not real pillars, but are doctrines that supports the religion (Penny, 1999). They are th e core beliefs that shape Muslim thought, deed, and society.   A Muslim who fulfills the Five Pillars of Islam, remains in the faith of Islam, and sincerely repents of his sins, will make it to paradise (carm.org 2010). However, if he performs the Five Pillars but does not remain in the faith, he will not be saved. 1. Shahadah. The first pillar demands acceptance of the most important thing that Muslims believe in. It means â€Å"there is no other God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.† These are the words first taught to a baby, or are spoken last by a dying Muslim. They are uttered upon waking up in the morning, before going to sleep at night, and in every prayer. 2. Salah. The second pillar is the name for the obligatory prayers that are performed five times a day, and a direct link between the worshipper and God. Followers pray in the morning, three times during the day, and at night. They break off from any activity and face in the direction of Makkah whe n the time for prayer comes. Muslims do not necessarily have to be in a mosque, but must come to a clean place to pray. 3. Zakah. The third pillar upholds giving to the poor and needy. An important principle of Islam is that everything belongs to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. Muslims are expected to give about 2.5 percent of the amount they have left after all basic necessities are acquired. They believe that this is a part of their duty to Allah and their fellow Muslims, and that being tight-fisted is immoral. 4. Sawm. The fourth pillar stipulates fasting—abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations with their spouses. This is practiced every year in the month of Ramadan. It is mainly a method of self-purification and self-restraint. By cutting oneself from worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person focuses on his or her purpose in life by constantly being aware of the presence of God. 5. Haji. The fifth pillar promotes pilgrimage to Makkah, the holy city. Every Muslim who is physically and financially able is expected to visit Makkah at least once in their life. The annual hajj begins in the twelfth month of the Islamic year. Pilgrims wear special clothes: simple garments that strip away distinctions of class and culture, so that all stand equal before God. Shari’ah: The Islamic Religious Laws The term shari’ah is an Arabic expression for â€Å"track†

Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820 Essay Example for Free

Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820 Essay James Fenimore Cooper (Photo courtesy Library of Congress) The hard-fought American Revolution against Britain (1775-1783) was the first modern war of liberation against a colonial power. The triumph of American independence seemed to many at the time a divine sign that America and her people were destined for greatness. Military victory fanned nationalistic hopes for a great new literature. Yet with the exception of outstanding political writing, few works of note appeared during or soon after the Revolution. American books were harshly reviewed in England. Americans were painfully aware of their excessive dependence on English literary models. The search for a native literature became a national obsession. As one American magazine editor wrote, around 1816, Dependence is a state of degradation fraught with disgrace, and to be dependent on a foreign mind for what we can ourselves produce is to add to the crime of indolence the weakness of stupidity. Cultural revolutions, unlike military revolutions, cannot be successfully imposed but must grow from the soil of shared experience. Revolutions are expressions of the heart of the people; they grow gradually out of new sensibilities and wealth of experience. It would take 50 years of accumulated history for America to earn its cultural independence and to produce the first great generation of American writers: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Americas literary independence was slowed by a lingering identification with England, an excessive imitation of English or classical literary models, and difficult economic and political conditions that hampered publishing. Revolutionary writers, despite their genuine patriotism, were of necessity self-conscious, and they could never find roots in their American sensibilities. Colonial writers of the revolutionary generation had been born English, had grown to maturity as English citizens, and had cultivated English modes of thought and English fashions in dress and behavior. Their parents and grandparents were English (or European), as were all their friends. Added to this, American awareness of literary fashion still lagged behind the English, and this time lag intensified American imitation. Fifty years after their fame in England, English neoclassic writers such as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson were still eagerly imitated in America. Moreover, the heady challenges of building a new nation attracted talented and educated people to politics, law, and diplomacy. These pursuits brought honor, glory, and financial security. Writing, on the other hand, did not pay. Early American writers, now separated from England, effectively had no modern publishers, no audience, and no adequate legal protection. Editorial assistance, distribution, and publicity were rudimentary. Until 1825, most American authors paid printers to publish their work. Obviously only the leisured and independently wealthy, like Washington Irving and the New York Knickerbocker group, or the group of Connecticut poets known as the Hartford Wits, could afford to indulge their interest in writing. The exception, Benjamin Franklin, though from a poor family, was a printer by trade and could publish his own work. Charles Brockden Brown was more typical. The author of several interesting Gothic romances, Brown was the first American author to attempt to live from his writing. But his short life ended in poverty. The lack of an audience was another problem. The small cultivated audience in America wanted well-known European authors, partly out of the exaggerated respect with which former colonies regarded their previous rulers. This preference for English works was not entirely unreasonable, considering the inferiority of American output, but it worsened the situation by depriving American authors of an audience. Only journalism offered financial remuneration, but the mass audience wanted light, undemanding verse and short topical essays not long or experimental work. The absence of adequate copyright laws was perhaps the clearest cause of literary stagnation. American printers pirating English best-sellers understandably were unwilling to pay an American author for unknown material. The unauthorized reprinting of foreign books was originally seen as a service to the colonies as well as a source of profit for printers like Franklin, who reprinted works of the classics and great European books to educate the American public. Printers everywhere in America followed his lead. There are notorious examples of pirating. Matthew Carey, an important American publisher, paid a London agent a sort of literary spy to send copies of unbound pages, or even proofs, to him in fast ships that could sail to America in a month. Careys men would sail out to meet the incoming ships in the harbor and speed the pirated books  into print using typesetters who divided the book into sections and worked in shifts around the clock. Such a pirated English book could be reprinted in a day and placed on the shelves for sale in American bookstores almost as fast as in England. Because imported authorized editions were more expensive and could not compete with pirated ones, the copyright situation damaged foreign authors such as Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, along with American authors. But at least the foreign authors had already been paid by their original publishers and were already well known. Americans such as James Fenimore Cooper not only failed to receive adequate payment, but they had to suffer seeing their works pirated under their noses. Coopers first successful book, The Spy (1821), was pirated by four different printers within a month of its appearance. Ironically, the copyright law of 1790, which allowed pirating, was nationalistic in intent. Drafted by Noah Webster, the great lexicographer who later compiled an American dictionary, the law protected only the work of American authors; it was felt that English writers should look out for themselves. Bad as the law was, none of the early publishers were willing to have it changed because it proved profitable for them. Piracy starved the first generation of revolutionary American writers; not surprisingly, the generation after them produced even less work of merit. The high point of piracy, in 1815, corresponds with the low point of American writing. Nevertheless, the cheap and plentiful supply of pirated foreign books and classics in the first 50 years of the new country did educate Americans, including the first great writers, who began to make their appearance around 1825. THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish philosopher David Hume called Americas first great man of letters, embodied the Enlightenment ideal of humane rationality. Practical yet idealistic, hard-working and enormously successful, Franklin recorded his early life in his famous Autobiography. Writer, printer, publisher, scientist, philanthropist, and diplomat, he was the most famous and respected private figure of his time. He was the first great self-made man in America, a poor democrat born in an aristocratic age that his fine example helped to liberalize. Franklin was a second-generation immigrant. His Puritan father, a chandler (candle-maker), came to Boston, Massachusetts, from England in 1683. In many ways Franklins life illustrates the impact of the Enlightenment on a gifted individual. Self-educated but well-read in John Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, Joseph Addison, and other Enlightenment writers, Franklin learned from them to apply reason to his own life and to break with tradition in particular the old-fashioned Puritan tradition when it threatened to smother his ideals. While a youth, Franklin taught himself languages, read widely, and practiced writing for the public. When he moved from Boston to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Franklin already had the kind of education associated with the upper classes. He also had the Puritan capacity for hard, careful work, constant self-scrutiny, and the desire to better himself. These qualities steadily propelled him to wealth, respectability, and honor. Never selfish, Franklin tried to help other ordinary people become successful by sharing his insights and initiating a characteristically American genre the self-help book. Franklins Poor Richards Almanack, begun in 1732 and published for many years, made Franklin prosperous and well-known throughout the colonies. In this annual book of useful encouragement, advice, and factual information, amusing characters such as old Father Abraham and Poor Richard exhort the reader in pithy, memorable sayings. In The Way to Wealth, which originally appeared in the Almanack, Father Abraham, a plain clean old Man, with white Locks, quotes Poor Richard at length. A Word to the Wise is enough, he says. God helps them that help themselves. Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Poor Richard is a psychologist (Industry pays Debts, while Despair encreaseth them), and he always counsels hard work (Diligence is the Mother of Good Luck). Do not be lazy, he advises, for One To-day is worth two tomorrow. Sometimes he creates anecdotes to illustrate his points: A little Neglect may breed great Mischief. For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail. Franklin was a genius at compressing a moral point: What maintains one Vice, would bring up two Children. A small leak will sink a great Ship. Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them. Franklins Autobiography is, in part, another self-help book. Written to advise his son, it covers only the early years. The most famous section describes his scientific scheme of self- improvement. Franklin lists 13 virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. He elaborates on each with a maxim; for example, the temperance maxim is Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to Elevation. A pragmatic scientist, Franklin put the idea of perfectibility to the test, using himself as the experimental subject. To establish good habits, Franklin invented a reusable calendrical record book in which he worked on one virtue each week, recording each lapse with a black spot. His theory prefigures psychological behaviorism, while his systematic method of notation anticipates modern behavior modification. The project of self-improvement blends the Enlightenment belief in perfectibility with the Puritan habit of moral self-scrutiny. Franklin saw early that writing could best advance his ideas, and he therefore deliberately perfected his supple prose style, not as an end in itself but as a tool. Write with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar, he advised. A scientist, he followed the Royal (scientific) Societys 1667 advice to use a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions, clear senses, a native easiness, bringing all things as near the mathematical plainness as they can. Despite his prosperity and fame, Franklin never lost his democratic sensibility, and he was an important figure at the 1787 convention at which the U. S. Constitution was drafted. In his later years, he was president of an antislavery association. One of his last efforts was to promote universal public education. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (1735-1813) Another Enlightenment figure is Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, whose Letters from an American Farmer (1782) gave Europeans a glowing idea of opportunities for peace, wealth, and pride in America. Neither an American nor a farmer, but a French aristocrat who owned a plantation outside New York City before the Revolution, Crevecoeur enthusiastically praised the colonies for their industry, tolerance, and growing prosperity in 12 letters that depict America as an agrarian paradise a vision that would inspire Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many other writers up to the present. Crevecoeur was the earliest European to develop a considered view of America and the new American character. The first to exploit the melting pot image of America, in a famous passage he asks: What then is the American, this new man? He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause changes in the world. THE POLITICAL PAMPHLET: Thomas Paine (1737-1809) The passion of Revolutionary literature is found in pamphlets, the most popular form of political literature of the day. Over 2,000 pamphlets were published during the Revolution. The pamphlets thrilled patriots and threatened loyalists; they filled the role of drama, as they were often read aloud in public to excite audiences. American soldiers read them aloud in their camps; British Loyalists threw them into public bonfires. Thomas Paines pamphlet Common Sense sold over 100,000 copies in the first three months of its publication. It is still rousing today. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind, Paine wrote, voicing the idea of American exceptionalism still strong in the United States that in some fundamental sense, since America is a democratic experiment and a country theoretically open to all immigrants, the fate of America foreshadows the fate of humanity at large. Political writings in a democracy had to be clear to appeal to the voters. And to have informed voters, universal education was promoted by many of the founding fathers. One indication of the vigorous, if simple, literary life was the proliferation of newspapers. More newspapers were read in America during the Revolution than anywhere else in the world. Immigration also mandated a simple style. Clarity was vital to a newcomer, for whom English might be a second language. Thomas Jeffersons original draft of the Declaration of Independence is clear and logical, but his committees modifications made it even simpler. The Federalist Papers, written in support of the Constitution, are also lucid, logical arguments, suitable for debate in a democratic nation. NEOCLASSISM: EPIC, MOCK EPIC, AND SATIRE Unfortunately, literary writing was not as simple and direct as political writing. When trying to write poetry, most educated authors stumbled into the pitfall of elegant neoclassicism. The epic, in particular, exercised a fatal attraction. American literary patriots felt sure that the great American Revolution naturally would find expression in the epic a long, dramatic narrative poem in elevated language, celebrating the feats of a legendary hero. Many writers tried but none succeeded. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), one of the group of writers known as the Hartford Wits, is an example. Dwight, who eventually became the president of Yale University, based his epic, The Conquest of Canaan (1785), on the Biblical story of Joshuas struggle to enter the Promised Land. Dwight cast General Washington, commander of the American army and later the first president of the United States, as Joshua in his allegory and borrowed the couplet form that Alexander Pope used to translate Homer. Dwights epic was as boring as it was ambitious. English critics demolished it; even Dwights friends, such as John Trumbull (1750-1831), remained unenthusiastic. So much thunder and lightning raged in the melodramatic battle scenes that Trumbull proposed that the epic be provided with lightning rods. Not surprisingly, satirical poetry fared much better than serious verse. The mock epic genre encouraged American poets to use their natural voices and did not lure them into a bog of pretentious and predictable patriotic sentiments and faceless conventional poetic epithets out of the Greek poet Homer and the Roman poet Virgil by way of the English poets. In mock epics like John Trumbulls good-humored MFingal (1776-82), stylized emotions and conventional turns of phrase are ammunition for good satire, and the bombastic oratory of the revolution is itself ridiculed. Modeled on the British poet Samuel Butlers Hudibras, the mock epic derides a Tory, MFingal. It is often pithy, as when noting of condemned criminals facing hanging: No man eer felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law. MFingal went into over 30 editions, was reprinted for a half-century, and was appreciated in England as well as America. Satire appealed to Revolutionary audiences partly because it contained social comment and criticism, and political topics and social problems were the main subjects of the day. The first American comedy to be performed, The Contrast (produced 1787) by Royall Tyler (1757-1826), humorously contrasts Colonel Manly, an American officer, with Dimple, who imitates English fashions. Naturally, Dimple is made to look ridiculous. The play introduces the first Yankee character, Jonathan. Another satirical work, the novel Modern Chivalry, published by Hugh Henry Brackenridge in installments from 1792 to 1815, memorably lampoons the excesses of the age. Brackenridge (1748- 1816), a Scottish immigrant raised on the American frontier, based his huge, picaresque novel on Don Quixote; it describes the misadventures of Captain Farrago and his stupid, brutal, yet appealingly human, servant Teague ORegan. POET OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: Philip Freneau (1752-1832). One poet, Philip Freneau, incorporated the new stirrings of European Romanticism and escaped the imitativeness and vague universality of the Hartford Wits. The key to both his success and his failure was his passionately democratic spirit combined with an inflexible temper. The Hartford Wits, all of them undoubted patriots, reflected the general cultural conservatism of the educated classes. Freneau set himself against this holdover of old Tory attitudes, complaining of the writings of an aristocratic, speculating faction at Hartford, in favor of monarchy and titular distinctions. Although Freneau received a fine education and was as well acquainted with the classics as any Hartford Wit, he embraced liberal and democratic causes. From a Huguenot (radical French Protestant) background, Freneau fought as a militiaman during the Revolutionary War. In 1780, he was captured and imprisoned in two British ships, where he almost died before his family managed to get him released. His poem The British Prison Ship is a bitter condemnation of the cruelties of the British, who wished to stain the world with gore. This piece and other revolutionary works, including Eutaw Springs, American Liberty, A Political Litany, A Midnight Consultation, and George the Thirds Soliloquy, brought him fame as the Poet of the American Revolution. Freneau edited a number of journals during his life, always mindful of the great cause of democracy. When Thomas Jefferson helped him establish the militant, anti-Federalist National Gazette in 1791, Freneau became the first powerful, crusading newspaper editor in America, and the literary predecessor of William Cullen Bryant, William Lloyd Garrison, and H.L. Mencken. As a poet and editor, Freneau adhered to his democratic ideals. His popular poems, published in newspapers for the average reader, regularly celebrated American subjects. The Virtue of Tobacco concerns the indigenous plant, a mainstay of the southern economy, while The Jug of Rum celebrates the alcoholic drink of the West Indies, a crucial commodity of early American trade and a major New World export. Common American characters lived in The Pilot of Hatteras, as well as in poems about quack doctors and bombastic evangelists. Freneau commanded a natural and colloquial style appropriate to a genuine democracy, but he could also rise to refined neoclassic lyricism in often-anthologized works such as The Wild Honeysuckle (1786), which evokes a sweet-smelling native shrub. Not until the American Renaissance that began in the 1820s would American poetry surpass the heights that Freneau had scaled 40 years earlier. Additional groundwork for later literary achievement was laid during the early years. Nationalism inspired publications in many fields, leading to a new appreciation of things American. Noah Webster (1758-1843) devised an American Dictionary, as well as an important reader and speller for the schools. His Spelling Book sold more than 100 million copies over the years. Updated Websters dictionaries are still standard today. The American Geography, by Jedidiah Morse, another landmark reference work, promoted knowledge of the vast and expanding American land itself. Some of the most interesting if nonliterary writings of the period are the journals of frontiersmen and explorers such as Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and  Zebulon Pike (1779-1813), who wrote accounts of expeditions across the Louisiana Territory, the vast portion of the North American continent that Thomas Jefferson purchased from Napoleon in 1803. WRITERS OF FICTION. The first important fiction writers widely recognized today, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper, used American subjects, historical perspectives, themes of change, and nostalgic tones. They wrote in many prose genres, initiated new forms, and found new ways to make a living through literature. With them, American literature began to be read and appreciated in the United States and abroad. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) Already mentioned as the first professional American writer, Charles Brockden Brown was inspired by the English writers Mrs. Radcliffe and English William Godwin. (Radcliffe was known for her terrifying Gothic novels; a novelist and social reformer, Godwin was the father of Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein and married English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. ) Driven by poverty, Brown hastily penned four haunting novels in two years: Wieland (1798), Arthur Mervyn (1799), Ormond (1799), and Edgar Huntley (1799). In them, he developed the genre of American Gothic. The Gothic novel was a popular genre of the day featuring exotic and wild settings, disturbing psychological depth, and much suspense. Trappings included ruined castles or abbeys, ghosts, mysterious secrets, threatening figures, and solitary maidens who survive by their wits and spiritual strength. At their best, such novels offer tremendous suspense and hints of magic, along with profound explorations of the human soul in extremity. Critics suggest that Browns Gothic sensibility expresses deep anxieties about the inadequate social institutions of the new nation. Brown used distinctively American settings. A man of ideas, he dramatized scientific theories, developed a personal theory of fiction, and championed high literary standards despite personal poverty. Though flawed, his works are darkly powerful. Increasingly, he is seen as the precursor of romantic writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. He expresses subconscious fears that the outwardly optimistic Enlightenment period drove underground. Washington Irving (1789-1859). The youngest of 11 children born to a well-to-do New York merchant family, Washington Irving became a cultural and diplomatic ambassador to Europe, like Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Despite his talent, he probably would not have become a full-time professional writer, given the lack of financial rewards, if a series of fortuitous incidents had not thrust writing as a profession upon him. Through friends, he was able to publish his Sketch Book (1819-1820) simultaneously in England and America, obtaining copyrights and payment in both countries. The Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Irvings pseudonym) contains his two best remembered stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sketch aptly describes Irvings delicate, elegant, yet seemingly casual style, and crayon suggests his ability as a colorist or creator of rich, nuanced tones and emotional effects. In the Sketch Book, Irving transforms the Catskill Mountains along the Hudson River north of New York City into a fabulous, magical region. American readers gratefully accepted Irvings imagined history of the Catskills, despite the fact (unknown to them) that he had adapted his stories from a German source. Irving gave America something it badly needed in the brash, materialistic early years: an imaginative way of relating to the new land. No writer was as successful as Irving at humanizing the land, endowing it with a name and a face and a set of legends. The story of Rip Van Winkle, who slept for 20 years, waking to find the colonies had become independent, eventually became folklore. It was adapted for the stage, went into the oral tradition, and was gradually accepted as authentic American legend by generations of Americans. Irving discovered and helped satisfy the raw new nations sense of history. His numerous works may be seen as his devoted attempts to build the new nations soul by recreating history and giving it living, breathing, imaginative life. For subjects, he chose the most dramatic aspects of American history: the discovery of the New World, the first president and national hero, and the westward exploration. His earliest work was a sparkling, satirical History of New York (1809) under the Dutch, ostensibly written by Diedrich Knickerbocker (hence the name of Irvings friends and New York writers of the day, the Knickerbocker School). James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) James Fenimore Cooper, like Irving, evoked a sense of the past and gave it a local habitation and a name. In Cooper, though, one finds the powerful myth of a golden age and the poignance of its loss. While Irving and other American writers before and after him scoured Europe in search of its legends, castles, and great themes, Cooper grasped the essential myth of America: that it was timeless, like the wilderness. American history was a trespass on the eternal; European history in America was a reenactment of the fall in the Garden of Eden. The cyclical realm of nature was glimpsed only in the act of destroying it: The wilderness disappeared in front of American eyes, vanishing before the oncoming pioneers like a mirage. This is Coopers basic tragic vision of the ironic destruction of the wilderness, the new Eden that had attracted the colonists in the first place. Personal experience enabled Cooper to write vividly of the transformation of the wilderness and of other subjects such as the sea and the clash of peoples from different cultures. The son of a Quaker family, he grew up on his fathers remote estate at Otsego Lake (now Cooperstown) in central New York State. Although this area was relatively peaceful during Coopers boyhood, it had once been the scene of an Indian massacre. Young Fenimore Cooper grew up in an almost feudal environment. His father, Judge Cooper, was a landowner and leader. Cooper saw frontiersmen and Indians at Otsego Lake as a boy; in later life, bold white settlers intruded on his land. Natty Bumppo, Coopers renowned literary character, embodies his vision of the frontiersman as a gentleman, a Jeffersonian natural aristocrat. Early in 1823, in The Pioneers, Cooper had begun to discover Bumppo. Natty is the first famous frontiersman in American literature and the literary forerunner of countless cowboy and backwoods heroes. He is the idealized, upright individualist who is better than the society he protects. Poor and isolated, yet pure, he is a touchstone for ethical values and prefigures Herman Melvilles Billy Budd and Mark Twains Huck Finn. Based in part on the real life of American pioneer Daniel Boone who was a Quaker like Cooper Natty Bumppo, an outstanding woodsman like Boone, was a peaceful man adopted by an Indian tribe. Both Boone and the fictional Bumppo loved nature and freedom. They constantly kept moving west to escape the oncoming settlers they had guided into the wilderness, and they became legends in their own lifetimes. Natty is also chaste, high-minded, and deeply spiritual: He is the Christian knight of medieval romances transposed to the virgin forest and rocky soil of America. The unifying thread of the five novels collectively known as the Leather-Stocking Tales is the life of Natty Bumppo. Coopers finest achievement, they constitute a vast prose epic with the North American continent as setting, Indian tribes as characters, and great wars and westward migration as social background. The novels bring to life frontier America from 1740 to 1804. Coopers novels portray the successive waves of the frontier settlement: the original wilderness inhabited by Indians; the arrival of the first whites as scouts, soldiers, traders, and frontiersmen; the coming of the poor, rough settler families; and the final arrival of the middle class, bringing the first professionals the judge, the physician, and the banker. Each incoming wave displaced the earlier: Whites displaced the Indians, who retreated westward; the civilized middle classes who erected schools, churches, and jails displaced the lower-class individualistic frontier folk, who moved further west, in turn displacing the Indians who had preceded them. Cooper evokes the endless, inevitable wave of settlers, seeing not only the gains but the losses. Coopers novels reveal a deep tension between the lone individual and society, nature and culture, spirituality and organized religion. In Cooper, the natural world and the Indian are fundamentally good as is the highly civilized realm associated with his most cultured characters. Intermediate characters are often suspect, especially greedy, poor white settlers who are too uneducated or unrefined to appreciate nature or culture. Like Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster, Herman Melville, and other sensitive observers of widely varied cultures interacting with each other, Cooper was a cultural relativist. He understood that no culture had a monopoly on virtue or refinement. Cooper accepted the American condition while Irving did not. Irving addressed the American setting as a European might have by importing and adapting European legends, culture, and history. Cooper took the process a step farther. He created American settings and new, distinctively American characters and themes. He was the first to sound the recurring tragic note in American fiction. WOMEN AND MINORITIES Although the colonial period produced several women writers of note, the revolutionary era did not further the work of women and minorities, despite the many schools, magazines, newspapers, and literary clubs that were springing up. Colonial women such as Anne Bradstreet, Anne Hutchinson, Ann Cotton, and Sarah Kemble Knight exerted considerable social and literary influence in spite of primitive conditions and dangers; of the 18 women who came to America on the ship Mayflower in 1620, only four survived the first year. When every able-bodied person counted and conditions were fluid, innate talent could find expression. But as cultural institutions became formalized in the new republic, women and minorities gradually were excluded from them. Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) Given the hardships of life in early America, it is ironic that some of the best poetry of the period was written by an exceptional slave woman. The first African-American author of importance in the United States, Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa and brought to Boston, Massachusetts, when she was about seven, where she was purchased by the pious and wealthy tailor John Wheatley to be a companion for his wife. The Wheatleys recognized Philliss remarkable inte.

Recognition of Types of Abuse and Neglect

Recognition of Types of Abuse and Neglect Current guidelines and safeguarding concerns Recognition of types of abuse and neglect. My setting is committed to promoting awareness of child abuse issues throughout its training and learning programmes for adults. They are committed to empowering young children, through its early childhood curriculum, promoting their right to be strong, resilient and listened to. The Staff have undertaken relevant and up to date safeguarding and child protection training through induction and specific safeguarding training as required by the London Borough of Islington. Training for all staff is updated every three years as required and every two years for the designated officer. Agency staff, volunteers and students are also briefed on their roles and responsibilities during their induction to the setting which covers how to identify signs and symptoms of abuse and how to share their concerns with the designated safeguarding person (Bennett Court Playgroup). Bennett Court playgroup are committed to safeguard and protect children. Children have the right to freedom from abuse and harm. They work with children, parents/carers and the community to ensure the rights and safety of children and to give them the very best start in life. Bennett Courts Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy is based on the London Child Protection and Safeguarding Children Procedures (LSCB 2013) and in line with Islington councils Early Years Safeguarding and Child protection procedures and Guidance (2011) along with the Working Together to Safeguard Children (DCSF 2013). Children with Special educational needs are welcomed and supported to make a smooth transition to the setting by discussing how they can best meet their needs, gain the appropriate support and services before starting the setting   (Bennett Court Playgroup). Please see (Appendix 2) for current procedures meeting the Safeguarding Children and child protection requirements. Whistleblowing is when a member of staff, in any line of work provides information of improper and unacceptable behaviour within a setting against an employee, other working professionals or a member of the public. An example of improper or unacceptable behaviour may be when someone is discriminating, bullying or harassing their colleagues and/or others. Within legislations whistleblowing is known as The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. This act is to safeguard employees that may be experiencing types of prejudice, disadvantages or harm during their employment or they may be disregarded by their employer if they have disclosed information in obedience to the legislation (Brookes, 2015). My setting believes that children and parents are entitled to expect courtesy and prompt, careful attention to their needs and wishes. they welcome suggestions on how to improve the setting, will give prompt and serious attention to any concerns about how the setting is run (Bennett Court Playgroup). Any concerns of bad practice should be managed appropriately before whistleblowing is needed. When staff are made to feel openly comfortable raising concerns about bad practice within the setting during staff meetings and under constant supervision, this will allow bad practices to be revised and modified before any types for cause of concern will result in harm towards a child and/or member of staff/public. Any member of staff involved in whistleblowing within the setting holds the responsibility to be able to indicate the bad practice, be able to record and report factual information of the incident to required parties for e.g. your manager or agencies like Ofsted and childrens social services, keeping copies of all relevant information shared between agencies and ensuring to follow the settings procedures for complaints, please see (Appendix 3) for my settings complaints procedures. Practitioners must follow the whistleblowing procedure whether or not they will be treated differen tly or become involved in conflict with other colleagues. Staff who may come across bad practice and choose to ignore this can result in implicating the individuals in the bad practice. Dealing with bad practice should be risen within the early stages to obstruct any further escalations (Small wonders child care, no date). Early Years Practitioners have a duty to the safeguarding, protection and welfare of children when left in their care by parents/carers. My setting commits to developing and maintaining a culture of openness and honesty when working in partnerships with parents/carers to ensure the best interests of children and their families are met. An EYP must be able to identify signs and symptoms of abuse whilst children are in their care, they must be knowledgeable to diversity, promote equality of opportunity between children through various activities and in planning that will support the safety, welfare and protection of children for e.g. motivating and teaching children different ways to keep safe for e.g. when taking children out on trips teach them to stay together and how to cross the road correctly, to be able to express themselves openly and to be confident sharing their concerns. If a child ever discloses any form of abuse made towards them, an EYP must not interfere whilst the child is talking, make notes of facts only and not interpretations of what was said, also if a child asks them to keep this to themselves, they must explain in a gentle way for the child to understand that they must tell someone in order to keep this child safe, that the child has done the right thing, it is not not their fault and they are in no trouble. EYPs have a statutory responsibility to notify agencies if they have reason to believe that any childs safety and welfare are of any cause for concern (Bateman, 2013). When dealing with confidentiality all suspicions and investigations must be kept in an individual file in a locked cupboard or files on a PC with a secure password and shared only with those who require access to it. In my setting any information is shared under the guidance of Islingtons Safeguarding Children Board and follows the legislation, Data Protection Act (1998). All practitioners must follow their settings confidentiality policy and procedures to ensure that they are aware of what can be kept confidential and what causes for concerns need to be reported and how. In my setting we have a designated safeguarding person and also someone who acts in her absence, I have been made fully aware of who and where to report any concerns I may have. Practitioners must never share information about children out of the setting or to unnecessary parties   (Bennett Court Playgroup). When working with others for the safeguarding, protection and welfare of children, this can benefit them in many ways. For e.g. as an EYP there may be some things you may not be able to help a child with, possibly SEN or disclosures of harm or abuse, so you must be able to report and refer a child to the right services that best suits their needs. Some services that may work together to safeguard children can be childrens social services, health services, schools, psychologists, GPs, local police, the UNCRC etc. also working in partnership with parents supports the safeguarding of children, unless this will put the child at risk or further harm. Working in partnership also allows services to pinpoint any issues within the family and help resolve these issues in the best possible way, conducting constructive meetings to expand and assess each individual child. Where children may have certain health problems it is important to gain information and learn about how to handle any conditio n at any point and also be aware of who to contact when needed, for e.g. you may need to report certain symptoms to the childs parents/carers, GPs or health specialists   (Bennett Court Playgroup). Practitioners must be aware that the abuse of children may occur in different forms, the four categories of abuse are physical, emotional, sexual and neglect. Bullying is also a form of abuse, as like female Genital Mutilation, the impact of domestic violence (DV) including Honour based violence which comes across all cultures and communities. Practitioners must be mindful that these forms of abuse can fall into one or more of the above categories and are often taken to great lengths to be disguised. This may include refusing freedom or contact with others, taken out off or forced to leave the country. Children that may be suffering from physical, emotional or sexual abuse may be experiencing neglect and this may be demonstrated through direct or indirect disclosures or through their behaviours within the setting. Practitioners must be able to recognise the signs, symptoms, indicators and behaviours that may cause concern, for example the child may unexpectedly become quiet, tearful, withdrawn or aggressive. Notable changes in a childs appearance e.g. loss of weight without a medical explanation, eating problems, for instance, overeating or loss of appetite, unexplained bruising or marks or signs of neglect, some signs of neglect may be when a child is wearing inappropriate clothing for the weather or clothes that are too big/small, a child may not have appropriate lunch to eat if provided by parents/carers, or they have not been washed, had their hair combed properly or untreated lice.   A child may show changes during their play, they may disengage from other children they may also hurt or be cruel to other children, a child may be knowledgeable to adult sexual behaviour, or they may participate in sexual play which is unsuitable for the childrens age   (Bennett Court Playgroup). In my setting where there is a concern about a childs welfare or wellbeing, or a concern that a child may be in need of protection, this should be recorded using the Islingtons concerns tracking form and then passed on and discussed with one of the designated child protection officers for action (or if unobtainable seek advice from Islingtons Childrens Social Care Team). The records placed must include the actual disclosure or concern, date, time and the name of the person who has recorded the concern and stored in the childs personal file in a secure cupboard. All staff and also volunteers are made aware to report any concerns immediately to the designated member of staff,   all concerns will be discussed with parents/carers unless this will put the child in further risks of harm or abuse, records of concerns, emails, notes or phone conversations and actions are noted and confidentially stored in a secure place. In my setting when we have concerns about a childs welfare we need to focus on, the needs of the child, their physical and emotional welfare, be sensitive, taking into account individual familys circumstances and discuss this with one of the designated members of staff. If it is suspected that a child is in immediate risk of ham or abuse this must be reported as soon as possible to the police and/or childrens social services (Bennett Court Playgroup). Appendix 1 LegalFramework- Legislations for the safeguarding, protection and welfare of children in my setting. Primary Legislation Children Act (1989) Protection of Children Act (1999) Data Protection Act (1998) The Children Act (Every Child Matters) (2004) Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006) Help Children to Achieve More (2010) The Early Years Statutory Framework (2014) Secondary Legislation Sexual Offences Act (2003) Criminal Justice and Court Services Act (2000) Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000) Equalities Act (2010) Data Protection Act (1998) Further Guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (revised HMG 2013) What to do if youre Worried a Child is Being Abused (HMG 2006) Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (DoH 2000) The Common Assessment Framework (2006) Statutory guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 (HMG 2007) Information Sharing: Practitioners Guide (HMG 2006) Other useful publications: Child Protection Record (2007)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (Bennett Court Playgroup) Appendix 2 Current procedures to Safeguarding Children and child protection requirements in my setting. We carry out the following procedures to ensure we meet the Safeguarding Children and child protection requirements, we do this by Recognising that all children have the right to freedom from abuse and harm. Promoting joint working with parents in the interests of childrens welfare and well being. Ensuring all our staff and volunteers are carefully selected and vetted ensuring that they carefully selected through the CRB and DBS recruitment process, have the relevant qualifications and experience and accept responsibility for helping to prevent the abuse of children in their care. We have a named designated safeguarding   officer who takes specific responsibility for young childrens and young peoples protection, safety and well-being. There is also a second designated safeguarding officer who acts in her absence. Supporting all staff to in bringing their concerns to the attention of the Designated member of staff, so they can be considered and acted upon if necessary. Responding quickly and appropriately to all suspicions or allegations of abuse. Providing parents /carers, children /young people with the opportunity to voice any concerns they may have. Adopting positive behaviour management procedure and strategies which are non-violent and do not impose humiliation or bias attitudes. Reviewing the effectiveness of the organisations child protection policies and procedures yearly (unless something proved to be ineffective). Working with external agencies, for example childrens social care team, police and   health visitors, to ensure as far as possible young children/ people are protected Not tolerating bullying. Incidents of bullying will be investigated and treated seriously and action will be taken in partnership with parents. Children are supported to form positive relationships and refrain from harming each other through anti-bullying practice (Bennett Court Playgroup). Appendix 3 Complaints procedures in my setting. All settings are required to keep a summary log of all complaints that reach stage two or beyond. This is to be made available to parents as well as to Ofsted inspectors. Stage 1 Any parent who has a concern about an aspect of the settings provision talks over, first of all, his/her concerns with the setting leader. Most complaints should be resolved amicably and informally at this stage. Stage 2 If this does not have a satisfactory outcome, or if the problem recurs, the parent moves to this stage of the procedure by putting the concerns or complaint in writing to the setting leader and the owner or chair of the management committee. For parents who are not comfortable with making written complaints, there is a template form for recording complaints in the above-mentioned publication; the form may be completed with the person in charge and signed by the parent. The setting stores written complaints from parents in the childs personal file. However, if the complaint involves a detailed investigation, the setting leader may wish to store all information relating to the investigation in a separate file designated for this complaint. When the investigation into the complaint is completed, the setting leader or manager meets with the parent to discuss the outcome. Parents must be informed of the outcome of the investigation within 28 days of making the complaint. When the complaint is resolved at this stage, the summative points are logged in the Complaints Summary Record. Stage 3 If the parent is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation, he or she requests a meeting with the setting leader and the owner/chair of the management committee. The parent should have a friend or partner present if required and the leader should have the support of the chairperson of the management committee, or the proprietor/senior manager, present. An agreed written record of the discussion is made as well as any decision or action to take as a result. All of the parties present at the meeting sign the record and receive a copy of it. This signed record signifies that the procedure has concluded. When the complaint is resolved at this stage, the summative points are logged in the Complaints Summary Record. Stage 4 If at the stage three meeting the parent and setting cannot reach agreement, an external mediator is invited to help to settle the complaint. This person should be acceptable to both parties, listen to both sides and offer advice.   A mediator has no legal powers but can help to define the problem, review the action so far and suggest further ways in which it might be resolved. Staff or volunteers within the Pre-school Learning Alliance are appropriate persons to be invited to act as mediators. The mediator keeps all discussions confidential. S/he can hold separate meetings with the setting personnel (setting leader and owner/chair of the management committee) and the parent, if this is decided to be helpful. The mediator keeps an agreed written record of any meetings that are held and of any advice s/he gives. Stage 5 When the mediator has concluded her/his investigations, a final meeting between the parent, the setting leader and the owner/chair of the management committee is held. The purpose of this meeting is to reach a decision on the action to be taken to deal with the complaint. The mediators advice is used to reach this conclusion. The mediator is present at the meeting if all parties think this will help a decision to be reached. A record of this meeting, including the decision on the action to be taken, is made.   Everyone present at the meeting signs the record and receives a copy of it.   This signed record signifies that the procedure has concluded. The role of the Office for Standards in Education, Early Years Directorate (Ofsted) and the Local Safeguarding Children Board Parents may approach Ofsted directly at any stage of this complaints procedure. In addition, where there seems to be a possible breach of the settings registration requirements, it is essential to involve Ofsted as the registering and inspection body with a duty to ensure the Welfare Requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage are adhered to. If a child appears to be at risk, our setting follows the procedures of the Local Safeguarding Children Board in our local authority. In these cases, both the parent and setting are informed and the setting leader works with Ofsted or the Local Safeguarding Children Board to ensure a proper investigation of the complaint, followed by appropriate action. Records A record of complaints against our setting and/or the children and/or the adults working in our setting is kept, including the date, the circumstances of the complaint and how the complaint was managed. The outcome of all complaints is recorded in the Summary Complaints Record which is available for parents and Ofsted inspectors on request. (Bennett Court Playgroup)