Should we Legalize Marijuana Essay Example

Should we Legalize Marijuana Essay Example Should we Legalize Marijuana Essay Should we Legalize Marijuana Essay The history of penalizing oppressive measures to discourage the utilization of drugs is one which presents little support to those who think that the best approach to the problem of the extensive use of marijuana is Draconian legislation. The spread of tobacco smoking during the 16th and 17th centuries was the most theatrical epidemic of drug use in recorded history. The foule weed was adopted by cultures so different literate and nonliterate, for instance that cultural and social determinants must have played an inconsequential role, if any at all, in its spread. In approximately all cases of tobacco use, prohibitions against it failed, whether they were justified on grounds of impairment to health, religion, good taste, or by the threat of inducement to criminal activity. The history of the use of tobacco would appear to point out that social controls are powerless when a society is confronted by an attractive psychoactive substance, even though that substance serves no primary ph ysiological need or conventional interpersonal function.In their initial response to the introduction of tobacco into most societies all through the 16th and 17th centuries, the authorities were in actual fact much more bigoted in their attempts to curb its use than are modern authorities. This is particularly surprising when one thinks that it is modern proof which has demonstrated undoubtedly the health dangers arising from tobacco use. One more very similar instance is provided by the 17th century spread of coffee drinking in the Arab Near East, despite the most extreme penalties, including death. (Mitch Earleywine, 2002).The impotence of lawmaking in restraining the use of psychoactive substances is demonstrated again by fairly recent North African history. When from 1956-1960 the farming of Cannabis sativa was banned in Tunisia and Algeria, vineyards replaced hemp fields, as well as alcohol consumption took the place of cannabis with no resulting improvement in public health. A t the end of the 19th century in Ireland, there was an endeavor to restrain the use of hard liquor through temperance campaigns, heavy taxation, and (attempted) strict enforcement of the tax laws. The campaign was a victory in that the Irish to a great extent reduced their intake of hard liquor; instead, they switched to the substitute ethyl ether, which offered a short-lived intoxication involving a hot all the way down sensation, pursued by thunderous flatus, and, within ten minutes, a high, which could be repeated and which left no menace. The use of ether turned out to be so extensive that in one area of Ulster an eighth of the population were labeled etheromaniacs. The succeeding alarm over the ether epidemic became so immense that the different pressure groups which had promoted the campaign upturned their field, and the Irishman happily returned to other psychoactive substances, remarkably back to his whiskey.In Japan, after World War II, amphetamines turned out to be freely and legally available. Their use started to skyrocket to the point where it was anticipated that 5 million Japanese were habitual users. In reaction to this medicosocio emergency, a highly punitive law was enacted in 1953 against both users and sellers. But whereas the amphetamine problem was considered solved by 1955, the number of narcotic addicts had started to rise gradually. The augment in the use of narcotics turned out to be so alarming that in 1963 a new law, planned to be as severe as the 1953 antiamphetamine legislation, was passed. It solved the heroin problem, however the number of barbiturate users now started to rise, and in actual fact is still rising. Additionally there is now a sharp augment in the practice of solvent inhalation (glue-sniffing). At the present time marijuana is used to a very slight extent in Japan. (Dale Alexander, 2003).Prohibition of alcohol in this country failed for the reason that violations were so frequent, blatant, and extensive through all socioeconomic groups. The public more and more doubted that alcohol was so unwanted, and the cost of and fallout from enforcement became unbearable.The ostensible cause for the general alarm regarding the use of marijuana is the belief that it shows the way to drug abuse, which means that it harms the individual who takes the drug and that he is more probable to impose injury on society generally. Though, irrespective of the legal status of its use, if a drug, when taken in its usual doses, is not biologically detrimental, then from a functional (and a common sense) viewpoint its use cannot constitute drug abuse. The opiates are in actual fact truly drugs of abuse in that the addiction they produce is perpetually harmful to the individual. However, while the mortality rate for such drug abuse possibly from two to ten times that of the non-narcotic-using population, very important statistics in the United States for the year 1965 make known that deaths ensuing from misuse of narcoti cs and further drugs constitute merely 1.5 per 1,000, compared with the figure of 10.7 for alcoholism and its complications. Commonly associated with drug abuse are various disorders, including malnutrition, infection, toxic psychoses, as well as the precipitation of psychoses. Additionally, there are the deep physical and mental changes that may take place upon abrupt withdrawal of drugs of abuse. Drug abuse with opiates is usually associated with crimes against both people and property, even though in actual fact crimes against people are rare; thievery, forgery, and prostitution are the most common. A common crime among drug users is that of peddling drugs to one another; this is the merely one that is common among marijuana users.Besides crime, further types of social damage usually associated with drug abuse comprise automobile accidents, economic losses at all levels, neglect of family and ordinary pursuits and activities, damaged careers, and all that. While it is most likely impossible to estimate the actual cost of drug abuse, for the reason that there are so many factors and variables involved, it appears more than likely that the social cost of abuse of narcotics and other drugs is less than that caused by the extensive addiction to alcohol in this country, where the number of alcoholics is sometimes estimated to be as high as twenty million, although more conservative estimates hover around the five to six million mark. The likelihood that the economic impact of drug abuse of all sorts may be overestimated is supported by the White House Committee on Narcotic and Drug Abuse, which has noted that if the economic aspects alone are considered, there are numerous other problems deserving of a higher priority.   (Erich Goode, 1969).Whereas there can be no question that the use of psychoactive drugs may be harmful to the social fabric, the harm ensuing from the use of marijuana is of a far lower order of magnitude than the harm caused by abuse of narco tics, alcohol, and other drugs. Marijuana itself is not criminogenic; it does not show the way to sexual debauchery; it is not addicting; there is no evidence that it leads to the use of narcotics. It does not, under ordinary situation, cause psychoses, and there is no convincing evidence that it causes personality deterioration. Even regarding automobile driving, although the use of any psychoactive drug must perforce be detrimental to this skill, there exists evidence that marijuana is less so than alcohol. Marijuana use, even over a substantial period of time, does not cause malnutrition or to any known organic illness. There is no evidence that mortality rates are any higher among users than nonusers; actually, relative to other psychoactive drugs, it is remarkably safe.There is, though, a real relationship between crime and cannabis in this country: the criminogenic character of the present laws against the possession, sale, or even the giving away of marijuana; and this compri ses a great irony. The unique nature of this criminogenic effect in the United States is that antimarijuana laws have strengthened and somewhat created the fundamental but complex sociological and legal problems they were ostensibly designed to avoid or eliminate. The laws which prohibit the possession, sale, as well as giving away of cannabis passed by the individual states and the federal government since the mid-1930s have formed a completely new species of criminal, very often an individual who is truly unable to see himself, in any real sense, as engaged in any criminal activity, and whose typical attitude toward the antimarijuana legislation is a combination of scorn, indifference, and frustration. It is not at all unreasonable to presume that a government (or, more predominantly, a special law-enforcement agency of that government) which strikes marijuana users as downright absurd in its tremendously punitive approach to prohibition of marijuana will as well appear ludicrou s in other important respects. (Alan W. Bock, 2000).Until recently, the federal laws made distribution, including gifts of marijuana, punishable by from five to twenty years imprisonment for a first offense, and ten to forty years for a subsequent offense. In addition, there were restrictions on probation and suspended sentences. Accordingly, federal penalties for marijuana violations were, with a few minor exceptions, the same as those for violations of the laws relating to opiates and cocaine. The declared intent of Public Law 91-513, which became law on October 27, 1970, is that of reducing penalties for experimenters and increasing them for pushers. The penalty for simple possession of marijuana is reduced to a prison term of not more than one year and/or a fine of not more than $5,000. The Court can, if it decides, give first offender probation instead of a jail sentence. A second conviction of possession is punishable by up to two years of imprisonment and/or a fine of not mor e than $10,000. The offense of selling marijuana is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years and/or a fine of as much as $15,000. If there is a prior conviction for this offense an offender may be sentenced to ten years in prison and fined as much as $30,000. Additionally, there is a provision, allegedly aimed at professional criminals, which makes it probable to inflict a minimum sentence of ten years and a maximum of life on a person, convicted of a drug offense, who is engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise. (Alex Kreit, 2003)Most state legislation makes distribution, including gifts, punishable as a felony and the felony is often high degree, involving the possibility of a long prison term. Most states define cannabis as a narcotic; the possible punishments for distribution are usually identical with those that apply to the distribution of opiates and cocaine. In fact the degree of permissible punishment for a single small distribution of marijuana is so high in some states that it may approximate those provided for such crimes against person or property as unaggravated robbery, larceny, arson, kidnapping, unaggravated forcible rape, or even, in the state of California, second degree murder.A conservative estimate is that one-third of the California population between the ages of 16 and 29 have committed the very serious crime of using marijuana and thereby exposed themselves to the possibility of arrest, a felony conviction, and imprisonment. And both the percentage and the age-range are rising each year. As it is most unhealthy for a society to turn a large percentage of its young people into felons or even define them as such. The young, occasional user of marijuana may have a good deal of trouble adjusting to the official local and federal police view of him as a criminal liable to the most severe punishments, whether fines, imprisonment, or both, of the state or federal government. It is far from unreasonable to suppose that he will f eel genuine resentment toward what he feels increasingly forced to view as the other side of the law, and that he will see the police less as protectors of rights and property and more as intruders and spies. It is conceivable that this attitude shift might lead to further, more dangerous criminal activity for if one is already branded a criminal and lives under the threat of a heavy jail sentence and/or fines, what essential difference can it possibly make if one commits another crime for which the sentence is less Many young marijuana users employ this particular argument.New social norms are increasingly and dramatically colliding with older statutory proscriptions. The legal institution cannot remain insensitive to these changes without incurring damage to itself. But, of course, courts lack the flexibility and prerogatives to provide solutions to social problems; ultimately it is the legislatures which can experiment, improvise, change direction, and even reverse field when ne cessary. In fact, just because a court has so few alternatives, it exercises great caution: a court may strike down a statute as unconstitutional, but in doing so it may leave a major social problem without an adequate solution. (John P. Hoffmann, 1994).As it becomes increasingly accepted that enforcement of the existing marijuana laws is more costly and dangerous than is use of the drug itself, at least as it is used at present in the United States, enforcement will become increasingly difficult. There is every indication that a great number of people are ignoring these laws now and that even more will be doing so in the future. It is not simply that more people are using marijuana, but larger numbers of people who are older are also smoking it. The number of people breaking these laws even now is so great that if a substantial fraction of them were arrested, the courts would be overwhelmed with the volume. One can predict that it will not be long before it will be a rare jury that does not have among its members at least one who uses marijuana, is convinced of its relative harmlessness, and will find it difficult to be a party to the conviction of someone else who uses the drug. In the absence of any statutory changes, what may happen is that law enforcement officials faced with increasing numbers of violators and shrinking numbers of convictions will arrive at a point where they decide that any efforts to enforce the laws as written are futile and that the only realistic approach to the widespread use of marijuana will be systematically to ignore it.Something of this nature recently happened in the Netherlands, where the government has been moving toward the position that at least in the case of marijuana it is more sensible for a society to live with it than to fight its use. Officially marijuana remains outside the law, but even high law enforcement officials acknowledge that this is so because the Netherlands (like the United States) is party to the Sing le Convention governing traffic in drugs. Compared to the furtiveness and police action associated with drug usage in the United States, the Dutch laissez-faire attitude toward marijuana is striking, and nowhere is it more obvious than in two psychedelically lit, government-subsidized youth clubs, Paradiso and Fantasio, in downtown Amsterdam. In each of these clubs as many as 1,000 young people 16 years old and over can be found on any night, many of them smoking marijuana while pushers openly ply their trade, offering potential customers free samples. The police are fully aware of the activities and transactions that go on inside but make no effort to interfere. The clubs managers and staff are alert to the use and sales of harder drugs and eject those so involved.In view of the present public attitudes toward smoking marijuana in the United States, it seems unlikely that legislatures are going to legalize the use of marijuana in the near future. It is likely, then, that this same type of widespread ignoring of the antimarijuana laws will very shortly come to pass. But the laissezfaire approach is no solution. It is mere transitory accommodation with a number of liabilities. First, one must expect that while such an accommodation may become widespread, it will nonetheless remain capricious. Second, since the present laws will presumably still exist, the user, while he may not be pursued, will still be labeled a criminal; and third, such an approach provides no way of imposing any degree of quality control upon distribution.A more rational approach to the problem of the smoking of marijuana in the United States would include legalization of the use of marijuana, regulation of its distribution, and the development of sound educational programs about it. (Xueyan Zhao, Mark N. Harris, 2004).By legalization is meant the freedom for people above a certain age, say 18, to use marijuana (bhang) of a predetermined potency. The penalties associated with its use, as wit h alcohol, would deal with those circumstances wherein the user endangers the lives or well-being of others, as, for example, in operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Such legalization would immediately put an end to the costs and harmfulness of the present legal approach. It has to be assumed that the legalization of marijuana would result in more widespread use. However, since at the present time the use is increasing explosively, it is at least conceivable that the prevalence of its use will reach roughly the same level sometime in the not too distant future with or without legalization. Furthermore, there is even a possibility that for some groups legalization will mean less use; those young people whose use is largely determined by a need to oppose hypocrisy and the establishment may feel less compelled to smoke pot when it is freely available. And very young people, those for whom its use may be the most harmful, may be more willing to forego its use now with the unders tanding that they will be able to use it when they reach age 18, just as most of them do not surreptitiously and illegally drive automobiles at a younger age perhaps largely because they know that when they reach 16 they will, with certain restrictions, be able to drive legally. This will by no means bring an end to the use of marijuana among high school and junior high school students, but it is more likely to have a dampening than an accelerating effect on use in this age group.In this proposed approach the distribution of marijuana is regulated much as that of alcohol is now. The use of cannabis products is generally less dangerous than the use of either tobacco or alcohol, and the use of marijuana, as it is commonly smoked in this country, is the least harmful of all. The regulations controlling the distribution of cannabis would limit it to marijuana (bhang), of, say, 1.5-percent tetrahydrocannabinol potency. This would do much to insure the continued use of the milder form thr ough smoking, rather than through the ingestion of more powerful forms such as hashish (charas). Just as, with the easy availability of liquors of limited potencies, people do not generally seek out pure ethanol, so it is expected that with the unfettered availability of marijuana, few would seek out hashish. Another important advantage of regulation is that the consumer could be certain not only that he is getting unadulterated marijuana, but also that it is of potency familiar to him. Thus, there would be no danger of marijuana laced with other drugs. The risk of attaining more of a high through autotitration than the user desires or is prepared for would be minimized if the available product were of a more or less uniform, predictable potency. The risk of the kinds of reactions resulting from large amounts of ingested hashish, would be all but impossible under these circumstances.If this type of approach is to have any effectiveness in stemming the push toward the use of hallucin ogens, amphetamines, and narcotics, it must be accompanied by honest educational programs. To date, such approaches have tended to lump marijuana with the hallucinogens or, even more inappropriately, with the true medical narcotics. The law as it presently stands reinforces this when it provides stiffer penalties for the use of marijuana than it does for LSD. Young people who have learned for themselves that marijuana is not very harmful then regrettably tend to treat with skepticism information from the same sources about the dangers of other drugs and are more likely to experiment with them. The present laws put the drug educator in a difficult position. He can discuss honestly the dangers of LSD, amphetamines, and heroin. But when he talks about marijuana, and particularly when he is asked about its dangers relative to those of alcohol, he can either be less than candid and risk losing credibility with regard to the other drugs, or he can acknowledge that except for the risk of g etting caught, there is little reason on the whole to believe that marijuana as it is used now in the United States is more dangerous than alcohol. If he admits this lack of negative evidence regarding marijuana, he risks being accused by the community (or the school authorities) of encouraging the use of marijuana and thereby criminal behavior. If he tells the students candidly of the relative dangers of marijuana, LSD, amphetamines, and heroin, and he tells them what the penalties are for the use of these, he risks being interpreted as mocking the law. When the use of marijuana is legalized, it will be possible for the drug educator to have more credibility among the young people than he now can have.However, if he is to be credible for an audience which seems particularly sensitive to breaches of integrity, he must be scrupulously objective about the material he presents. A case in point is an advertisement sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health which appeared in se veral campus newspapers in November 1969. It showed the picture of a man and bore the title Happy Twenty-First Birthday, Johnny. The ad read, most people take him for about 35. Then came a few paragraphs of a reasonable description of the dangers of using amphetamines, followed by an invitation to write for free drug booklets to the National Institute of Mental Health. On January 6, 1970, two months later, the Harvard Crimson, one of the papers which had published the ad, also published a letter from the man who had posed for the picture, thanking the paper for belatedly recognizing his twenty first birthday: I was touched and proud to find your paper commemorating my twenty-first birthday. . . . I guess it just slipped by nine years ago when it happened, and I was a Junior [at Harvard]. But thats all right, I know how busy you are up there, getting out a paper every day, and all. (Denise B. Kandel, 2002).Not only was he in fact thirty years old, he was made up to look even older in the photograph. Needless to say, the student readers treated the incident with derision, and one wonders how seriously they will now consider the reasonably objective information offered in the advertisement. For that matter, one doubts the credibility as a source of drug information that they will grant to the National Institute of Mental Health. There is some evidence that students will respond rationally to credible sources of objective evidence concerning the dangers of various drugs. And there is every reason to believe that deceitfulness in drug education will in the long run be counterproductive. (Robert W. Winslow, 1972).Most people in the United States, at least today, believe that to legalize the use of marijuana would be to invite national tragedy. Among them are those whose attitudes toward the use of this intoxicant are so emotionally over determined that they would remain unpersuaded by any amount of evidence of its relative harmlessness or by the most compelling ar guments for the sagacity of legalization. Others, who are willing to consider the possibility, believe as they have heard countless times that not enough is known about the drug to make such a change which seems to them precipitous and premature. It is quite true that among the hundreds and hundreds of papers dealing with cannabis, there is relatively little methodologically sound research. Yet out of vast collection of largely unsystematic recordings emerges a very strong impression that no amount of research is likely to prove that cannabis is as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. The very serious dangers of tobacco, particularly to the pulmonary and cardiovascular systems, are becoming increasingly well known. Alcohol, on the other hand, is generally considered to be a serious danger for only a minority of people in this country, namely the alcoholics, who are conservatively estimated to number about 5 to 6 million. Another minority group, the alcohol abstainers, is actually con sidered by most people to be somewhat deviant. We read in the newspapers of how upper-middle-class parents support and even encourage alcohol use among their teenage children, of how a session of Congress began with cocktails, and, more recently of the exchange between Apollo astronauts and a television comedian, well known for his use of alcohol, during which he gleefully exclaimed that he was higher than they. So-called social drinking is as American as apple pie this despite the clearly demonstrated dangers of even this kind of drinking. It is a curious fact that the only socially accepted and used drugs known to cause tissue damage (alcohol and tobacco) are the ones whose use Western society sanctions. It is reasonably well established that cannabis causes no tissue damage.There is no evidence that it leads to any cellular damage to any organ. It does not lead to psychoses de novo, and the evidence that it promotes personality deterioration is quite unconvincing, particularly i n the forms and dosage used in the United States today. Although it is clear that much more must and will be learned about the derivatives of this fascinating psychoactive plant, it is not so clear what specifically needs yet to be learned before we are ready to embark on a more reasoned approach to the social use of marijuana. Given the fact that large segments of any population will use psychoactive drugs and given the psychoactive drugs presently available, marijuana is among the least dangerous. A fortiori, we must consider the enormous harm, obvious and subtle, short-range and long-term, inflicted on the people, particularly the young, who constitute or will soon constitute the formative and critical members of our society by the present punitive, repressive approach to the use of marijuana. And we must consider the damage inflicted on legal and other institutions when young people react to what they see as a confirmation of their view that those institutions are hypocritical a nd inequitable. Indeed, the greatest potential for social harm lies in the scarring of so many young people and the reactive, institutional damages that are direct products of present marijuana laws. Thus to avoid having this harm reach the proportions of a real national disaster within the next decade, there is a need to make the social use of marijuana legal. (Nancy Como-Lesko, Louis H. Primavera, Philip R. Szeszko, 1994).

Motivational theories & Organizational Success Essay

Motivational theories & Organizational Success - Essay Example Using these constructs it is possible to analyze and reduce employee dissonance, adverse work relations and blurring of organizational objectives so as to target improved work environment. Thus this analysis can distinctly exhibit the possible solutions to motivational problems at work place. A person's motivation, job satisfaction and performance will be determined by the strength of his/her needs and expectations and the extent to which they are fulfilled. This paper would look at the possible ways in which various motivational theoretical constructs can be applied to work place situations for attaining organizational success. Understanding of such theoretical constructs by management would help improve policy towards employee response and motivation resulting in better output and achievement of organizational goals. 4 There are several motivational theories that have evolved over the past century and newer ones are still being evolved in rapidly altering organizational contexts. However foundations laid by some old theories have not only survived to this day but such theories continue to provide theoretical support to evolving newer motivational theories. ... Most popular among such old theories are behavioral theories of Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, Elton Mayo and Douglas McGregor. The chief features of these theories needs to be understood before applying thoughts on their practical implementation. 0 1 According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there are five categories of needs viz. (1) physiological, (2) safety, (3) social, (4) esteem, and (5) self-actualization. They form a pyramid structure with the lowest and broadest physiological need at the base. Pyramid structure also illustrates the fact that breadth of needs, as we graduate up the pyramid, gets reduced indicating that the higher order needs get finely tuned and well defined and perhaps are fewer in number as well. In order to have fully satiated and motivated workers, each lower level needs to be satisfied before one can graduate to higher level needs. Maslow made a complementary hypothesis that physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs on satisfaction, ceased to motivate, while the self-actualization needs motivated an individual more and more as they got satisfied. Maslow's premise was that it is the growth choice that propels any individual toward self-actualization - that of individual growth or "filling one's potential."(Maslow, 1954).A worker wise need analysis following Maslow's construct verbatim is a tough task and may even result in manager forgetting main work related goals. However s discerning manager would do well to keep the construct in mind and attain its full understanding and approach all problematic situations with the requisite empathy that this constructs help attain. People are individuals and it is so arduous to meet everyone's needs at their required level. Moreover quite a few of such needs may be sourced

Marketing management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Marketing management - Essay Example This paper outlines the marketing objectives and analyzes the issues surrounding the sale of the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 both share a very competitive market. To remain relevant in the gaming business, FashionStatementX needs to have a gadget that competes favorably with the other participating gadgets. Presently in the market, smartphones and tablets now use multiple core processors and graphic chips at higher speeds than before. Intel now uses chips that contain built-in graphics, longer battery life, and faster speeds. It is clear that every company is using advanced technology to survive the competitive software market. In a competitive market production of a product that beats the other competing product to ensure the survival in the market (McDonald, 2007: pg 45). The first marketing objective is to increase the market share of FashionStatementX by 10% per year for the next two years. Increasing the market share will increase the revenue generated in the end. The mar ket is currently very competitive with new gadgets penetrating the market daily (Lacher et al, 2004: pg 67). With an increase of revenue growth by 20% every year, the company will experience an increased market share in the country of 10% by the end of two years. To facilitate this increase, it is important to ensure that there is an improved online order of the gadgets. This is because a majority if the targeted customers purchase the gadgets online and make payments through PayPal and other online means of payments. An increase online order rate of 85% will see the achievement of the desired revenue growth in the end of two years. The addition of new customer accounts will generate at least $75000 in the end of the two years. With an increased market share of 10%, the company will be the leading gaming software with greater revenues after two years (Zichermann & Linder, 2010: pg 123). Another objective is developing and using new products in the development of more effective gamin g software. The FashionStatementX enjoys the use of modern and different type of technology as compared to its competitors. The use of hand and finger gesture is a unique technology that puts it above its competitors. In an environment of healthy competition, new products will improve FashionStatementX’s market value and expand relevance for the next two years. To better, the performance of FashionStatementX in the market, frequent upgrading, and use of new developed technology is important (Zichermann & Linder, 2010: pg 189). Therefore, the company intends to use 5% of the revenues generated to finance research and development of software that would help in achieving this. In addition, the company will work closely with other software developing companies to come up with new ideas that will improve the company’s performance in the market. The company intends to create a good company and customer relationship that aims at ensuring that the company meets the needs of th e customers. Interactions with the customers will increase since the company will encourage more customers to create accounts with the company. The accounts will create a direct platform in which the customers will interact freely with the company operatives (Bodnar & Cohen, 2011: pg 43). Through these accounts, the customer will share their experiences and to suggest ideas that will make the

High School and Local Elementary School Essay Example for Free

High School and Local Elementary School Essay It feels like just yesterday I was in high school, without cares just making my portfolio. Now, it’s been a couple years since college and I’m trying to adjust to married life. It’s been about a year or so since I got hitched. I’m getting ready to have my first child, Winter. I hope to have another in a few years. I currently teach fifth grade in a local elementary school. It’s an okay job, the pay is alright it will get me through my bills, after a few more years I should be getting a raise. I talk to my parents a lot now, they are very important to me. My husband and I are trying to decide how to raise our child. I believe the most important value my parents taught me was to always be polite to people because you never know who is watching. I hope my child grows up learning that. I am very in love with my husband, we met at school and we had an instant connection. Both my grandmother and grandfather have died, it was very tough but time heals all wounds. My husband and I live in a little house but we are looking to relocate to somewhere a little bigger, for the children. We go to the Catholic church every sunday and are very involved in church life. My hope for the future is that I raise my kids to be fabulous people and never give up. The three most important things that have happened since high school would be, graduating college, getting married, and now having my child. What I miss most about the â€Å"good old days† is just being able to horse around without having to care about bills and work. When I die, I hope everyone remembers me as a nice person who tried her best to do well.

Gender Equity :: Economics

Gender Equity Gender equity is a very important subject matter that teachers must deal with in the classroom. As I taught at RAA middle school some differences begin to stand out between the genders. One thing that popped out at me the most was the maturity level of the two. In saying that I mean the sexual desires of the students at their age. That is important for teachers to see for when we begin to group students together for activity. One instance is that of boxing out in basketball. The skill calls for the one boxing out to push out with their butts against the other player. This at the middle school level is not appropriate for the girls and boys to interact in. Their hormones just a little too much. Another difference I noticed was the desire of guys to be with guys and girls to be with girls. This had nothing to do with attraction but dealt with the misunderstanding of skill level. The men perceive the women to be inferior in sports skills so in their group they want guys. The men seem to rather have the least skilled guy over the best skilled girl. I feel they do this because it would be embarrassing for them to be shown up by a girl. So it is our job, as teachers, to do away with this stereotype, and make both genders understand they can benefit skill wise from mix gender activities. In the elementary level the major difference was the age-old argument that girls nasty and guys nasty. The girls definitely do not want to be paired with guys and vice versa. In elementary it had nothing to do with skill level but everything to do with just the gender. I remember putting a boy with a girl at Buck Lake and it was like I had made a kid eat peas for the first time. So the difference in elementary and middle school is just the reason why the boys don't want to be paired with girls. So in noticing that I feel that yes I was biased at the elementary level and I figure I did that because I really wanted to keep the interest up. I noticed that the one time I paired different genders the productivity of the boy went down. I guess that scared me so I shied away from it, but now looking back maybe I should have paired them up. The students will have to learn one day that the two genders can work together to accomplish a goal and what better time than in elementary.

Negotiation and Conflict Management Final Report Essay

â€Å"It’s time to go to the next level of my career,† I told myself a few months ago. Life and life experiences have put me in the right place at the right time to make my daydream a reality. As a natural born citizen of another country and as a newly-married person, I have a unique perspective as well as a set of obstacles and opportunities on the road ahead as I pursue my Executive MBA while being in transition. GOALS My current short-term goal professionally is to find a job that not only fulfills my current ambition of being technical leader but also a management leader in the IT world, where as my long-term goal is to start my own business (Repurposing and creatively painting old leather products into house decor) along with my life-partner in the next 3-4 years. My personal goal is to again relive my artistic side, paint and be creative and get my spouse involved in the artistic world that I like. I am at a juncture of my career where in both my personal goal of working with my life-partner coincides with my ambition of starting up a new business and apply whatever knowledge I gathered during class. My goal as far as EMBA classes is to actually be able to not only learn Finance and Accounting but actually try to master it is as much as possible because when my goal of opening up my business becomes a reality, I want to make sure I have command over that. NEGOTIATIONS In my previous company, I had the opportunity to be a part of some important negotiations which helped me as well as the project understand the various aspects that we had predominantly neglected at the start of some of these negotiation. One such negotiation was when a rival vendor was trying to sell their new software to our client which they claimed would be doing the same kind of work that we were doing for past few years. When the time came to negotiate the new contract for our project, the clients asked us to come up with a plan as to why they should consider our software v/s the rival vendor’s proposed software. When I tried to analyze the whole negotiation process that we went with the end clients and even though we managed to extend the contract, there were a lot of issues that were not par with the 3D negotiation which are as follows: We didn’t set up the right negotiation  as the right party and right interests were not set up. We never considered the No-De al option. Never paid attention to the six basic interpersonal skills that are essential for negotiation. My short term goal of being a technical as well as managerial leader in IT would require me to be a part of similar negotiations that I mentioned above. Right from extending contracts, to getting funding for maintenance and development of software, getting more business from different set of end clients which might be interested in similar software. Here are some of the important factors that needs to be considered while making these kind of negotiations. My long-term goal of opening my own business with my spouse is something that would require a lot of negotiations that needs to be done be it with the bankers or venture capitalists who might be interested in funding it, real-estate people who might be interested in selling or renting their property and the end clients/customers who would be interested in buying my end products. These are the three key area of people that I have to get involved with in-order to start my business successfully. While dealing with the Bankers/VC, one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we might have issues with one of them, so we need to keep more options and try to find the right new parties who might be interested (right players). With the Real-Estate people, you need to address the Twin tasks, namely, Learn about the true ZOPA and Shape your counterpart’s ZOPA perceptions to your advantage. New customers are more interested in creating and claiming value like discounted cash flows, creating relationships, reputation and being fair. We need to think long term for creating and claiming value as none of the parties should feel that they have been exploited or dealt with unfairly as the reputation would be at stake. All conflict management processes i.e. consensual negotiations, are based on information sharing and learning. In the process of sharing information, a party seeks to alter the knowledge, attitudes, preferences and strategies of its opponents. There are some conflict s that I might have to overcome during my business negotiations that can be summed up as: APPRAISAL As a successful negotiator the six basic interpersonal skills are utmost important but initially when I started negotiating in my previous company, I never paid real attention to some of those skills. The contract extension negotiation example above was finally approved but we had a lot of things that were not correct and that almost cost us the deal. Here are some of the key aspects of that deal: a) My company had this contract for past 9 years without any competition and hence I never expected a rival vendor to just come up with another proposal with the end client. b) I never really dealt with the topic of creating and claiming value as part of the negotiation. c) Had an incomplete/blurry information on the rival vendor and their product hence before proposing the deal, we never dug deep to rectify it. d) Never pressed on the issue of Your Interests / Their Interests. As this was a contract that was being extended every single year, this thing never came to my mind. The reason we got the extension on the contract was due to some of equally compelling strength that as a negotiator we had and they were as follows: a) Our ability to make sure the end clients understand their No-Deal option. Even though we weren’t aware that it was called the No-Deal option, we certainly went that route when we presented our merits in front of them and made sure they understood what they were losing in-case the contract was not extended. b) Even though we didn’t do our homework on the rival contractor, we made sure that we had all our facts and data right once we were in front on the clients. The data showed all the current savings that we were providing to the end clients and this was a major factor that earned us the good point. My Strengths Reasoning The quality and extent of my preparation The better you understand your interests (why you want what you want); and the better you understand the interests of other parties (why they want what they want), the greater the chance you will be able to reach an elegant solution which leaves the parties feeling as if each has achieved the major portion of their goals People walk away thinking they would be pleased to  negotiate again with me A negotiator’s relative strength can be measured by whether people walk away thinking they would be pleased to negotiate again with him/her. If people leave a negotiation with you thinking they never want to see you again, then you are a poor negotiator Good communication to other parties so they understand my top priority A negotiator needs to understand that different issues should be treated as having different priorities in different negotiations. Sometimes the relationship is most important; other times creativity is the measure of how well one negotiates; and it is always true that good communication is a fundamental measure of a negotiator’s strength. A good negotiator makes her/his points clearly understood by other parties. A better negotiator makes understanding other parties her/his top priority. In Moms.com case study, I was Terry Schiller and as my role was to sell the program, I made sure that for my preparation for the case, whether finding the right balance between the no. of re-runs v/s the licensing rate and making sure that this balance would give me as well as other party the max value. I had already calculated this before the negotiation started so that I knew what value would affect me as well as the other party. In Viking Investments case study, I was the person that run Viking investments and even though bankruptcy was the option for the other party, I not only made sure that it won’t happen but provided the other party with 3 different options and gave her the choice to choose which ever suited her bill. I believe in maintaining relationships and making sure that the other party feels the same way, hence when the other party walks away after the negotiation, they would want to do more business with me going forward. In Biopharm-Seltek case study, I repres ented Biopharm and my main goal was to make sure that the other party understood that I was not only interested in their company but was not interested in buying their patent. My Weakness Reasoning Dealing with negative emotions from the other side of the table Are my standards of fairness being violated? Is the common bias operating about my being cooperative and fair while the other party is hostile and competitive?  What rule or assumption that I hold is being violated by the other’s behavior? Controlling your emotions — commanding reasonable authority, managing your temper, etc. Has something been raised that questions what I tell myself I am or hope to be, such as Am I competent? Am I fair? Am I a good person? Knowing when to step away from the negotiation table — and being able to really do it No negotiator wants to enter into a poor agreement. But similarly, every negotiator should want to walk away from an unsatisfactory agreement towards a clearly defined, satisfactory BATNA In Viking Investments case study, there were times I couldn’t control my emotion because as per my own belief I was trying to go all the way out to help the other side not file for bankruptcy but in the middle I thought that I was fighting the battle alone. I was emotionally drained out to make the other understand the consequence of bankruptcy and helping them more than I should as a result of which I questioned my own self whether I am competent enough. This to me is a sign of weakness because I let my emotion take over the negotiation process. In Biopharm-Seltek case study, I was overwhelmed by the negative emotion from the other side as they were not ready to part away with the company without me buying the patent. It was their major walk away reason for them which I was not able to understand as they were being very hostile without being reasonable. I saw a very different take on this which was against my own personality and it was something I couldn’t overcome and need to work upon that. I still have a hard time to understand that you should never accept a proposal that is worse than your BATNA. Hence I couldn’t understand when to step away in case it didn’t work out. In the Moms.com, I didn’t get the proposal that I prepared so confidently before the negotiation started and I couldn’t find the courage to walk away from the table even though I knew the value created was not as much as what I had initially proposed. PLAN Here are the negotiation skills that I plan on improving and dealing with short term as well as my long term goals: 1. Do your research. Clarify your own objectives and make sure you understand what your opposite number wants from the deal. For example, by doing some basic research into a potential supplier, you can work out how valuable your custom is to them. 2. Plan your strategy in writing and decide what approach you will adopt before beginning negotiations. Be clear about the type of deal you want, set clear goals and work out where you will draw the line and walk away from the deal. 3. Ask questions and listen closely to answers. Asking questions will help you understand what your opposite number wants to achieve. You may be able to get them to reveal how flexible they are on certain issues. 4. Decide what is negotiable. Before you start to negotiate, draw up a list of factors that are most important to you. Decide what you are (and aren’t) prepared to compromise on. Key factors might include price, payment terms, volume or delivery dates. The key is to establish your preferred outcome, but remain realistic, because if you’re not prepared to compromise some negotiations won’t last long. 5. Don’t reveal your negotiating position and avoid making unnecessary concessions. If you have to make concessions – look for reciprocation. Concessions should only be made to help you get the things you value. You should also avoid appearing too keen to do a deal. Consider what offer the other party in the negotiations is likely to make and how you’ll respond. 6. Select the best team. Once you’ve decided on your strategy it is essential that you get your negotiating team right. Make sure it has skills in all the required areas and, where necessary, use a specialist to negotiate in areas outside your expertise 7. Drawing up a contract. Once all the points have been negotiated and a deal has been agreed, it’s best t o get a written contract drawn up and signed by both parties. While verbal contracts are legally binding – they are difficult to prove in court. 8. Choose the right time and place for negotiation. Ideally select a time and place where you are not under pressure to close the deal. My plan of being successful in negotiations Mapping the parties I would like to start with private talks with various individual parties  (bankers, customers, etc.) before bringing everyone together for public negotiations, or it may be better to immediately begin negotiation with all stakeholders. When developing the process, it is important to consider the role of third parties, special procedures and specific negotiation systems. This will likely require an understanding of the cultural norms and individual personalities of the parties involved. Further important considerations relevant to the process include how the process is to be determined and how it could be modified. The set up essentially ensures that the scope, sequence and process of a negotiation is consistent with my desired outcome for the negotiation. I need to ensure that the right parties have been involved, in the right sequence, to deal with the right issues that engage the right set of interests, at the right table or tables, at the right time, under the right expectations , facing the right consequences of walking away if there is no deal.

Essay on the downfall of kurtz - 1272 Words

The Downfall of Kurtz Enveloped within Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, Kurtz fails for many reasons and in many ways. Kurtzs failure is especially tragic because he once had the potential for great success. He was an eloquent, powerful, and persuasive speaker who at one point was adored by all the inhabitants of the heart of darkness, the great and mysterious jungle. Everyone from the innocent natives to the administration of his corrupt company was in awe of him. Why then, did someone with such amazing promise fail? nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Even from the beginning, Kurtz was made out to be an icon, an idol. To Marlow, he was the only thing that made sense in the company, on a journey, in a wilderness full of confusion. The†¦show more content†¦The manager was continuously described as nothing more than ordinary, thus it was not shocking to learn of the corruption that he encouraged in the company. Mr. Kurtz was the quot;chief of the inner stationquot; (Conrad, pg. 28). He was quot;in charge of a trading post, a very important one, in the true ivory country.quot; Kurtz sent in quot;as much ivory as all the others put togetherquot; (Conrad, pg. 22). The company described him as the quot;best agent, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the companyquot; (Conrad, pg. 25). Kurtz went to the jungle for many reasons, but mostly to make money to return to Europe and marry his intended. Marlow quot;heard that her engagement with Kurtz had been disapproved by her people. He wasnt rich enough or something.quot; He had given Marlow quot;some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out therequot; (Conrad, pg. 74). He had been driven into the jungle to procure money for the company and for himself and for his life with his intended. Greed is what kept him out there so long and clouded his mind regarding thoughts of nobility. Spending so much time in the savage jungle dehumanized Kurtz. He lost sight of the thin line between goodness and corruption, as did many others before him. Kurtz ended up raiding the country on his frequent ivory expeditions. He had a tendency to become cruel, once even threatening to kill his friend, the Russian. This makes the readerShow MoreRelatedThe Heart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad1255 Words   |  6 Pagesof it. Marlow embarked on a spiritual adventure to the Congo, where he witnesses Kurtz, the man he has come so far to meet is engulfed in greed and has the natives look up to him as a godlike figure. Conrad tells the tale of a mans psychological journey in ones mind as he progresses through the jungle. Marlow’s psychological changes become evident when he approaches the heart of darkness and begins to respect Kurtz for his conniving ways in which he used to hate. Conrad tries to show a connectionRead MoreKurtzs Affect on Other Characters in Heart of Darkness Essay56 8 Words   |  3 Pagesamount of time but have a great affect on the story. Kurtz is one of these characters. Kurtz is introduced towards the end of the story but he has an affect on the action, the theme and the other characters development even when he isn’t present. Kurtz is a power hungry man who achieved his power by getting into the ivory business and using shady techniques. He also befriended the natives in the jungle who basically become his slaves. Kurtz is so well known and put on such a pedestal, that noRead MoreHeart of Darkness on the Flaws of Imperial Authority1024 Words   |  4 Pages(page 72). Conrad’s Kurtz is the embodied ment of this statement.Though Kurtz is described as physically weak man, he is able to maintain an enormous amount of power over the indigenous population because he has some type of understanding of their language and through his communication and cultural skills. He is able to benefit from their appreciation of him as an something unique, new, different. Kurtz has become the labeled Other. However throughout the course of the novel Kurtz becomes the unsuspectingRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Heart Of Darkness1376 Words   |  6 PagesJasmine Ngo Period 4 AP English IV Thesis: In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Heart of Darkness both Kurtz and Dr. Jekyll demonstrate the ambition for a higher calling from society by crossing the boundary of limitations to exercise the impulses that society restricts. Both Kurtz and Dr. Jekyll reject the rules of society to pursue a life of savagery. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll desires to relive his past events that are considered unfit of societyRead More Horror of Horrors Essay1081 Words   |  5 Pagesno law, and, ultimately, redemption. Kurtz and the Ancient Mariner present sin and ambiguous morality in a lawless place. Redemption for the Mariner is given by his penance, while Kurtzs redemption occurs only after his death, through Marlowe. Kurtz, though the things that he does are certainly objectionable, cannot be viewed as a purely evil man. Though he is not entirely good, one â€Å"... cant judge [him] as [one] would an ordinary man ....† (P. 54). Kurtz enters the Congo with only the best ofRead MoreEssay The Bright Side of the Darkness549 Words   |  3 Pagesprogressive. Acknowledging the accomplished helps one to refocus on the problem at hand. In Apocalypse Now, Captain Benjamin Willard is given the task of executing Colonel Walter Kurtz on the basis of insanity. Willard finally meets Kurtz, when he arrives at his compound and he is greeted by â€Å"Kurtz’s children†. After killing Kurtz, Willard finds Kurtz’s manuscript that states â€Å"Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all.† Willard however doesn’t listen to these directions because he realizes that the nativesRead MoreHeros in Heart of Dakness763 Words   |  4 Pagesparticular men stand out; Marlow and Kurtz. Who is the hero; Marlow or Kurtz? Clearly both Marlow and Kurtz are the protagonists of the story; however, protagonist and hero are not always synonymous. Marlow is the hero in the traditional sense of the word, while Kurtz is the more modern hero, often referred to as the anti-hero. Does it really matter the background of a person to determine whether they are a hero or not? Throughout this paper I will prove to you that Kurtz and Marlow both have aspects theRead More Symbols and Symbolism in Conrads Heart of Darkness Essay1488 Words   |  6 Pagesadvancement of themes in the novel.   These themes are revealed not through plot, but instead through the symbolic characters and elements present in the narrative.   Joseph Conrads use of symbolism in his portrayal of the Africans, the Company, and Kurtz in Heart of Darkness illustrates the value of had work and self-restraint.      Ã‚  Ã‚   The format of Heart of Darkness is a narrative of the ship captain Charlie Marlows experiences in the Congo Free State, told to companions on a ship moored atRead MoreAnalysis Of Kurtz s The Russian Harlequin 1349 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"harlequin† is devoted to Kurtz, although Kurtz does not reciprocate these same feeling, and he also learns that Kurtz spends the majority of his time with native Africans, raiding various villages for ivory. The man himself shows up, but is a contrast to the previous description of him; he is ghostly, bony and dying; his voice however, is penetrating and booming, and commands the actions of the natives around him. Moments later, a group of natives gather outside the cabin in which Kurtz has been place intoRead More Kurtzs Last Words Essay641 Words   |  3 PagesHeart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad presents the character of Kurtz as a man who is seen differently by all who know him depending on their individual experiences wit h him. His cousin knew him as a man with great musical talent, others knew him as a great leader, and his â€Å"Intended† fiance knew him as an admirable humanitarian; but all of these knew him to be a remarkable genius. When the narrator, Marlow, first hears of him, he is told that Kurtz is known as a great leader destined to hold high positions