Writing a Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Writing a Critique - Essay Example One side of the argument could be weighted well by the way that it is accepted by some individuals that the preachers dont accompany a message of affection or peace, as Jesus taught. They stop themselves in one of the busiest zones of the campus and report as loud as possible that we are all going to hellfire. Despite the fact that the way of the preachers presentation is hostile to numerous and reasons solid reactions, the opportunity of expressing ones interests and beliefs in this nation requires that the speech is protected and well thought on. Numerous students have said they dont feel just as the preachers are expressly badgering or verbally taunting them with their words, while the others say they do. It is likewise genuine that universities are intended to be gateways of differences and to incite thought amongst the growing generations. Campuses are a few students first presentation to the varying perspectives on the planet. It is truly odd that a few Christians want to take after the model of the preacher instead of that of Jesus Christ. They censure sins and caution the students of the advancing judgment while Jesus Christ recuperated individuals, sustained individuals’ nourishment, and taught about Gods love and forgiveness to individuals. (Ruckman) In contrary to the above mentioned points, it can be clearly stated that each individual needs to be tested to consider what the explanation behind our presence on earth is. Forever hangs in a critical position for each individual conceived. Trust and consolation must be advertised. A genuine campus preacher will take a gander at each individual they experience and see a potential zone of service where they have the chance of bringing salvation and trust. They state that it is their obligation and responsibility to preach outside on school grounds in the event that they genuinely aim at focusing

Cultural Differences Between Countries

Cultural Differences Between Countries Abstract Objectives To explore to what extend the cultural differences between countries affect the education of emigrant children and also address the issues related to it. Background The importance of cultural differences is getting more and more in the present age. There exist a number of multi-cultural societies and a lot of people have to work or collaborate across geographical or cultural borders. This phenomenon is also affecting the educational system of countries around the world. The children from a different cultural background have to face a number of issues while studying in a foreign school. Nevertheless, emigrant children have equal rights to study in a school. Education is a fundamental right for children regardless of their cultural background. Methods Literature search was done on Pub Med, Google books, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Questia.com and ZETOC. The key words that were used for searching were emigrant, education, cultural differences, and cultural issues. Selection Criteria Several studies were selected for critical appraisal which has different methodological approaches. The study made use of qualitative, quantitative as well as mixed approaches. A scale was used in the quantitative research study which displayed the critical analysis done by the author. Introduction The world has now turned into a global village. The advances in information technology have made it easier to travel across geographical borders and communicate across time and space. But unfortunately the technological revolution hasnt done anything to facilitate better communication inter-culturally. In order to have an effective collaboration between cultures, efforts must be made to develop common shared meanings. For that purpose, we have to understand the cultural differences among us and share cultural information. Background Globalization has lessened the importance of boundaries between countries. People now travel across borders for job, education, trade, and leisure. The past decade has witnessed an immense increase in the number of emigrants in almost all developed countries. Countries like USA and UK are flooded with emigrants. Majority of them reach here for job assignments and business purposes. The new environment may not be quite welcoming to these people. They may find a number of factors there that hurt their cultural values and beliefs. For this purpose, most of the companies provide cross-cultural training for their expatriate employees. But the effect of these cultural differences on their family members is often neglected. The most affected group among the emigrant population is the children. They often have to face a variety of issues while studying in a new educational system. And they are the most affected by these cultural differences. Adler (1997) proposed that culture, values, attitude and behaviors are interconnected and influence each other in a society. Values are aspects that have a direct or indirect impact on our decisions. Values can be both conscious and unconscious. Values of an individual are affected by his culture. It is through attitudes that a person expresses his values and makes us react in a particular manner. Thus a persons attitude is being revealed indirectly through his actions. Any form of human action can be considered as behavior. Thus the overall culture of a society is affected by the behavior of its people. Hence culture cannot exist without peoples behavior. The education system of each country is different and is influenced by the native culture and norms. Hence the emigrant children will be encountered with certain issues that could happen due to these cultural disparities. The situation of emigrant children into schools and other educational institutions will be depend upon the type of school, duration of attending, evidences for achievement etc. In some countries like Germany, migrant children enroll at a late age and at a lower rate compared to their peers. Another aspect that invites criticism regarding enrolment is the placement of emigrant children in lower than their age-appropriate schools. This situation cannot be avoided in schools where they are no transitory classes. But with this the emigrant kids remain in this situation due to lack of motivation and support for catching up with native kids of same age. Hence these kids end up as low performers with less academic qualifications. They are considered as secondary citizens. Even when this is an issue that needs immediate concern, there is a dearth of research being done in this area. Critical Appraisal There has been many studies done on the cultural issues of emigrants but research on the specific cultural problems affecting the education of emigrant children is limited. Culture itself is very sensitive area. Huijser (2006) defined culture as a groups set of shared norms and values, expressed in the behavior of its group members. According to Schein (1991), culture is the shared norms, values and modes of behavior that characterize a group of individuals. His model views culture at three levels-the visible artifact level, values, and basic underlying assumptions. The first level focuses on the visible aspects of culture like food and clothing. The second level is mainly concerned with the beliefs about what is right and wrong. The third level reflects on the basic beliefs about human nature and its relationship with others. The emigrant life as well as that of expatriates can be related more to the artifact or value levels. A number of writers have applied the culture concept to national cultures and have developed dimensions on which national cultures differ (Trompenaars, 1993) There are six dimensions on the basis of which cultural differences can be analyzed (Adler 1997). These dimensions are: Understanding the nature of people The persons relationship to the external environment The persons relationship to other people The primary mode of activity. Peoples orientation to space The persons temporal orientation. Apart from the above, language and communication skills can also be considered as dimensions to cultural differences (Gudykunst, 1986; Tannen, 1990). An emigrant can be defined as a national who is living in a foreign land on a temporary basis for work reasons (Sayad 2004). The extent to which the cultural beliefs are different from one country to another is known as cultural distance (Kogut Singh, 1988). Thus cultures vary from country to country based upon the dimensions (Brouthers Brouthers 2001). The cultural distance can be challenging for emigrants since they have to adapt to a new different culture (Black Mendenhall, 1992). The work performance, ability to accomplish tasks as well as socialization is being affected by this cultural distance (Stahl Caliguri, 2005). It is always useful to identify and understand the personal characteristics of individuals who could reduce the distance between the emigrant and the natives since the emigrants would get into close ties with these people (Harrison, Shaffer Bhaskar-Shrinivas, 2004). If there is high cultural distance, that means there exists customs and values which are unfamiliar to the emigrant. Gaining experience in different cultural context would help the emigrant to develop a global mindset and can cause an overall transformation of identity (Kohonen 2005; Sanchez, Spector Cooper, 2000). Adapting to a different environment demands the emigrant for self-examining ones own behavior and as the disparity between home and host culture increases, greater the need for self-examination. A sense making process is considered to be behind this event and there also exists a sense of coherence which integrates the personal characteristics with ones own previous experiences (Glanz, William Hoeksema, 2001; Stahl, Miller Tung, 2002). Those individuals who are capable of adapting effectively are considered to be social brokers who could integrate the opinions and suggestions obtained from people with local interpretation schemes or cultural expectations. Those who have migrated to a destination country at a younger age and completed primary and high school are mostly economically powerful as they know the language and are culturally inclined (Chiswick and Miller, 1996). In US studies related to the immigrant children have shown that blacks and Latinos have lesser grades than natives, while a child of second generation born to a native mother also has a higher chance of attaining graduation (Bankston and Zhou, 2002). Educational and societal systems in a country affect the immigrant children in a wide variety of ways (Dronkers and de Heus, (2010)). Educational systems in different countries are organized in different ways. The performance and achievement of emigrant children with respect to education is measured based on standardization, differentiation and the availability of resources in the destination and origin countries (Shavit and Mà ¼ller, 1998; Wà ¶ssmann, 2003; Buchmann and Hannum, 2001). If a countrys educational system is more differentiated taking into account the social characteristics, it is seen that the native students outperform immigrant students in the country (OECD 2007). A study by Ammermà ¼ller (2005) showed that those students who have options to choose different school types have a better chance of performing well. In order to study the effect of characteristics of both origin and destination countries and the educational system in these countries, Levels et al. (2008) took into consideration the political, cultural and economic macro-characteristics. Educational performance of immigrant children is affected by the countries educational system only if the child has received a part of the education in origin country. According to Rumbaut (2004) there is difference in the academic performance of immigrant children who migrated at an early age to the destination country and those who have migrated at a later age. The choice of schools and educational institutions and their differentiation is largely influenced by the choices of parents in case of younger children (Pfeffer 2008). Thus the knowledge of parents in this respect is an important resource. It is also observed that those immigrants who have are of a lower class in the society in terms of education, economy and knowledge of educational ins titutions etc. will choose a lower stream of educational institution for their children. The lack knowledge of the language and culture acts as a base for this to happen. (van de Werfhorst and van Tubergen, 2007). Dronkers, (2010), revealed that the individual cultural and family background of the students influenced the way they performed in the academically. In case of education system migrant students are always at a disadvantage. The scientific performance of students in politically unstable countries is poor. The scientific literacy of immigrants are influenced or in one way affected by the cultural, social and economic characteristics of the origin and destination countries. There exist a large difference in the culture of one country and other, these results in less understanding among the different groups in the country and the immigrant population (Owen, Eisner and McFaul, 1981). Conclusion There are various issues the affect the emigrant children, one of the most important issue concerning them is their education. Numerous studies and researches have been conducted in this regard. Cultural variations in a country affect the educational performance of emigrant children. Religion an important aspect of culture in a origin and destination country also effect the emigrant education (Dronkers Fleishmann (2010). Researches done in Europe to a large extend cover the countries both in Europe as well as outside Europe. Important countries where researches were done are Canada, England, France and the USA. Various scientific studies have been carried out in this aspect based on these countries in Europe. One of the main drawbacks in this kind of a study is that not many countries are included in the study and not all groups of emigrants are taken into consideration. APPENDIX Policy Framework There are many frameworks of policies in the western countries including UK regarding protecting the rights of immigrant population. Discrimination of immigrant people especially children are addressed through various laws formulated in the country. Government has certain policies and rules that help the immigrant population to blend with the culture of the host country; this is to prevent the immigrant children from feeling the discrimination that can affect their educational performance (Portes and Zhou, 1993). Migrant Integration Policy Index(MIPEX), this helps the national governing bodies measure the access the migrants have in politics, labour market and other spheres (Niessen, Huddleston and Citron, 2007). Thus it is noted that the immigrant children perform well academically in a country where the immigrant policies are well established. British Race Relation Act and European Union Council Directives help provide equal treatment for all in the country.

ralph Essay -- essays research papers

Angel In the story â€Å"A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings† by Gabriel Garcia Marquez a man named Pelayo is taking crabs to throw into the sea when returning he finds a man with wings. He then runs to tell his wife of this and in turn they both tell their neighbor who â€Å"knew everything about life and death†(Marquez 84). It was not until the neighbor came that the thought of this man being an angel was even introduced into the story. The thought that this thing was an angel is inconclusive since the only evidence given for this conclusion is that it had wings. The fact of whether or not this creature is an angel is never really stated in the story. From what I gathered from the text I am not sure myself. The part that makes this so hard to believe that this is an angel is that it has no real reason to be there. The only information added in to the story that comes even close to being a viable reason for this to be an â€Å"angel† is that the child of Pelayo is sick and so they think that he is there to take the child from them. When the three had come to the conclusion that he was an angel of death their first reaction was to kill the man. This can be thought of as society’s usual impulse of automatically wanting to destroy the strange or unfamiliar instead of trying to learn from it. Luckily for the man, Pelayo can not bring himself to kill him, this inability to kill the man leads me to believe that Pelayo is the representation of kindness and compassion in this story. This compassi...

Nel Noddings Essay

Noddings went to Montclair State College in New Jersey where she received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics, and moved on to gain her master’s degree in mathematics from Rutgers University, in New Jersey as well. Noddings received a doctorate in educational philosophy from Stanford University where she presently is the Jacks Professor Emeriti of Child Education. Lastly, she received her Ph. D. in 1975 after changing from mathematics and education to a broader field of educational theory and philosophy. She also currently occupies the John W. Porter Chair in Urban Education at Eastern Michigan University. As Noddings makes clear in many of her works, schooling played a central role in her life, and her early experiences with caring teachers contributed to her life long interest in student – teacher relations. She also contributes her professional life as a result of â€Å"various accidents and awareness of opportunity† (Johnson, Reed, 2011). As Noddings states, (1997, cited in Johnson & Reed, 2011) † all of these accidents†¦ involve love, or led to love, and these loves, like bits of colored glass, are the elements from which my life has been composed. Her approach to education begins with the idea that caring is basic to human life. She believes that all people want to be cared for and that the need to be good comes out of the remembered experience of being cared for. Her approach to caring is described as a feminine approach because it is based on the voice of the mother as a nurturer. It is her belief that if women created the educational system and its disciplines, they would have organized the curriculum around the stages of life. Noddings ideally wants the home to be viewed as the primary educator. She feels this is the best form of educating because it is done non-threatening and conversational matter. Critics of Noddings would claim that making the home be viewed as the primary educator, it would force teachers to go beyond what is expected in today’s educational environment. Noddings suggests teachers to involve themselves in all of their student’s lives. She recommends three approaches for teachers to follow: dialogue, practice, and confirmation. In dialogue, the teacher is open to any opinions on any topics. In practice, Noddings would encourage the teacher to involve the class in community service activities. In confirmation, the teacher must speak only positively about a child. Noddings would rather the teacher not give an exam and semester grades, but instead have the student and the teacher work together to create positive evaluations. Nel Noddings wants students to be comfortable enough in the classroom to feel at home. She used her three approaches to create an environment of love, and prevent hate. Her approach also would require teachers to get to know all aspects of their students including their likes and dislikes, wants and needs, and ideas. In doing so, the teachers will be able to create activities that cater to each child individuality and therefore, making learning for interesting. She also wanted the students to learn core subject through experience to make the students want to keep learning. Noddings views about teaching by caring can be useful in that it forces a teacher to really get to know her students, and give them the best possible learning environment. She suggests that children will work hard for people they like and trust. She takes this approach from her own educational experiences. Noddings view about education based on caring suggests that it â€Å"speaks to the existential heart of life- †¦ that draws attention to our passions attitudes, connections, concerns, and experienced responsibilities† (Johnson & Reed, 2011). She believes this approach will eventually create adults capable of caring for themselves and the world we live in. However, the teacher is walking a fine line by doing this. The teacher could nd up becoming too involved in the student’s life, and end up causing more harm then good. She could end up interfering in the family environment instead of helping it. The basic principle to be taken from Noddings is that dialogue is of the utmost importance in a relationship. Without it, a teacher will be unable to establish a bond based on truth, and trust. All of Noddings ideas, once explained make sense and fit very well with the times we live in and the students that we teach, but there needs to be a model to help implement her ideas. As an educator that’s life and professional career was also attributed to the experiences I had in the classroom as a child both positive and negative, I understand her view about how a positive student – teacher relationship is important for the success of what the student is learning. It is my opinion that her beliefs are still an influence on todays learning. I also believe that many teachers unconsciously do practice the beliefs of Noddings. Many times are forced to be more structured in our teachings due to state testing and are unable to be more â€Å"caring† with our teachings.

Cyberspace and War Essay

Reading the highly interesting essay entitled â€Å"Navigating the Cyberspaces of Virtual War† presents to us the reasons why movies like The Terminator movie series are no longer works of fiction as written by an over active imagination. The reality is that science and computer technology have reached that point in the evolution of the systems that both the real and imagined reality of everyday lives, problems, and in this case, world wars, can now seamlessly interact and allow human beings to become active participants in the situations without really posing any physical dangers to the themselves. We have to admit that violence is an inborn characteristic of humans regardless of age, gender, and capability. But, man is afraid of the real repercussions stemming from any act of violence. Nobody in his right mind would put his own life on the line if he can find a way around it. This is the problem that presented itself to the public the day that man found a way to involve themselves in virtual war games. It is true that soldiers must be well trained and versed in handling their weapons and be so familiar with their combat zone that they can patrol the area blindfolded. For the military, the applications of virtual war is endless and a fantastic training tool that limit’s the number of casualties in the field. The problem is that the virtual war games were commercialized and sold to the public for home entertainment. The end result of the virtual gaming world was the desensitizing of mankind. Virtual Reality turned into an actual reality for some wherein nobody ever actually got hurt or died. It redefined violence for the participants and made it seem alright to blow each other up because â€Å"It’s just a game†. However, the developers of such games neglected to consider the psychological effect of the game on an ordinary person. A soldier would eventually have to deal with the reality of his virtual training and deal with actual loss of lives from both friendly and enemy fire. For the common man who merely plays the game and does not need to experience the actual loss, it instead gives him a thrill that sometimes pushes him to emulate the game in a real life setting. Early on, I mentioned that the Terminator movie series has now turned into a reality. This is a truth that can be seen because of the way cyberspace and war have turned battles into situations fought by remote control from the comfort of the soldier’s home base using highly intelligent computer systems that are capable of deciding upon what kind of weapons to use depending upon what their sensors data transmits to the onboard computer. But, what if the onboard computer develops a problem that causes the machine to turn upon its remote operators? What if Artificial Intelligence turns into Real Computer Intelligence? Are we prepared for such repercussions? Our computer developers and scientists have turned computers into almost fully independent machines that can function and decide its own actions in times of war. Good for the soldier because he won’t have to risk his life on the battlefront. Bad news for the rest of us because cyberspace is filled with computer hackers who would love to be able to gain the bragging rights to being that one person who took down a whole satellite system or took virtual / cyberspace enabled control of a real online defense system thereby gaining control of the military fighting machines for his own whims. Cyborgs are not that far off in development either. A perfect fighting machine, no feelings or logic, just a follower designed to eliminate the enemy as per preloaded mission objectives. The question is, how prepared are we to unleash such forces into reality? What safeguards are in place within cyberspace to protect us from the potential disasters cyber wars and technological advancements in cyberspace could bring upon mankind? The internet, online war gaming, television, and newspapers all present us with the realities of war while we are still far removed from the actual situation. I believe that if the world is to know any sort of peace, such virtual technologies should be limited to only military applications and not be allowed for commercial purposes. There is no need to feed the violent tendencies of man. Instead, a separate virtual reality should be developed for the common folk where we can practice solving political tensions through discussion and treaties instead. Leave the virtual fighting to those who are trained to really handle such situations. Cyberspace and war do not have to become any sort of reality for mankind simply because all it will bring about is our own self destruction in both virtual and actual reality.