Does ‘Pascal’s Wager’ Provide a Convincing Argument for Belief in God? Essay

Published in 1670 and named after French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal; the philosophical theory of Pascal’s Wager reasons that to believe in God is a decision made in a time of uncertainty. The Wager also explains that whether or not God exists, we can estimate the outcome; an infinite reward or an infinite punishment. This suggests that the rational choice to live as if God exists is the better of the possible choices; yet, through reason alone, one cannot come to the knowledge of God’s existence. Many people’s beliefs may be in their own interest to hold, thinking, if we plan for the future it will pay off in the long run; or in other cases, we explain why somebody holds a belief by appealing to its causes. This being said, the idea of the Wager is deciding whether or not to believe in God and to consider the expected outcome for each of these options. I think that Pascal’s Wager is supposedly meant to provide reasons which would persuade any rational person that they should believe in God. However, I don’t think it is a valid argument, although it is convincing. The argument of Pascal’s Wager can be used for any God at all, so what happens if you pick the wrong God? Who is to say this God actually rewards belief and punishes those who do not believe? If we supposedly were to pick a god and it does exist, won’t this omniscient god know that we only believe just to be safe? Would our outcome still be an infinite reward, or would we not be rew arded for our fake belief? I don’t think we can be guaranteed any specific outcome, such as an infinite reward or infinite punishment, because if you believed in a god because you wanted to have chance on your side, then the God would know this, and would know that your belief was not real. The belief in God relies on assuming that the god described is real and has those characteristics. The argument of Pascal’s Wager begins with an assumption, and then appeals the same supposition as its conclusion. You have to believe this assumption in order to believe in God and if you do not believe the primary assumption about God already, then the argument should not convince you. Therefore, if there is no God, no afterlife, no continuation and you wasted your time maiming yourself and your kids, eating a restricted diet or giving your time to faking a belief in God, you have missed a lot in the only life you have. The only certain result of Pascal’s Wager is that one will pretend to believe, which is all one can do if they do not really believe. Yet, if there is a god, he would know that you are faking it so you would go to hell anyway. The Wager gives us an option to believe in God in times of uncertainty; suppose your dog who you love dearly lay next to you close to dying, and the vet offers to try a new drug to cure the dog, however, could not guarantee treatment. The drug has a 50-50 chance of saving your adored dog’s life. Would it be sensible to try it, even if it cost a bit of money? Supposing it was free, it would be unreasonable not to try it and reasonable to try it. This is an example understanding the Wager in a time of doubt and uncertainty; to believe in God not because your reason can prove with certainty that it is true that God exists but because your will pursues happiness, and God is your only chance of attaining happiness eternally. In my opinion, the argument of Pascal’s Wager, is not a valid argument, however, it is a convincing one. When you first hear Pascal’s Wager, it sounds good, but in fact, it depends on whether an individual chooses to believe.. Most disbelievers, such as me, question the Wager purely because we know of no persuasive evidence or reasons to believe; maybe proving the argument or showing some good evidence might convince unbelievers. To say it is in someone’s ‘best interest’ to believe in God is completely unsound, especially considering someone cannot sincerely choose to believe in something, just because it is rationally logical to do so. If you said all the right prayers and attended church on a regular basis, that still would not be the same thing as truly believing, any omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God would see straight through that. . I do not think by act of will, that you can force yourself to believe that God exists. This argument is logically invalid, but people are afraid of an infinite punishment, or the final outcome of choosing to believe in god, therefore are easily convinced by rationally unsound arguments.

Malaysian Economics

2 – CAUSES OF INEQUALITY OF INCOME DISTRIBUTION 2. 1 Differences in education During the British rule, each ethnic group also generally experienced different education systems. Most Malays were educated in the government school system located in the rural areas that used the Malay language as the medium of instruction. The Chinese on the other hand sent their children to the Chinese medium schools, which mere established by Chinese voluntary associations.Nevertheless , the elite segment of each ethnic group generally sent their children to the English medium schools located in the urban areas, where the quality of education was far better than the rural Malay-medium school. Furthermore, most secondary and tertiary education was available in the urban areas with English as the medium of instruction. Those who were educated at the English medium schools tended to gain positions in the civil service, commerce, business, and professions. Since most of the Malays were educated in t he rural Malay medium schools, this indirectly limited their upward social mobility. . 2 Differences in skills Since Malay only received the education from government school in rural areas, the skills were limited. Lack of skills and knowledge were the factors of unemployed. This will worsened the situation of poverty and income disparities between the ethnic groups. Sectoral employment of Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera (%) in peninsular Malaysia, 1970. Sector| Bumiputera| Non-Bumiputera| Primary| 67. 6| 32. 4| Secondary| 30. 8| 69. 2| Tertiary| 37. 9| 62. 1| Notes: Primary (agriculture)Secondary (mining, manufacturing, construction, utilities, and transport) Tertiary (wholesale and retail trade, finance, government, and other services) 3. 3 Differences in access to capital A majority of non-malays are usually found to be living in the southern and western states of Malaysia , such as Pulau Penang and Kedah. These states form modern urban sectors and also modern rural sectors which a re playing the important roles in the economic activities. On the other hand, the Malays lived in the northern states of Malaysia, and they are indeed in the traditional rural sector.This imbalanced development had result the imbalance capital gain among the ethnic groups. Wealth Decomposition by Asset Classes in 2007 Asset Classes| Bumiputera| Chinese| Indian| Savings| 567| 2 795| 1 026| Investment Assets| 1 853| 4 629| 2 058| Financial Assets| 2 419| 7 423| 3 083| Real Estate| 70 453| 120 903| 84 146| Wealth| 72 873| 128 326| 87 229| 3. 4 Differences in unemployment pattern The supply of skilled manpower in their own field is the main problem in employment restructuring. Despite the limited success of bumiputera students, the presence of skilled and qualified bumiputera workers and professionals are inadequate.A few factors that contribute to this problem are such like limited accessibility to modern educational facilities and quality educational or even low family income. Bumiput era are mainly attracted to the public sector and lately the bumiputera states the record for having the highest employment rate among malay university graduates. Although the manufacturing sectors display a tremendously high rate or malay labor force, most of them are employed in the lower level or non-manegerial level of occupations.

Placenta Previa

Placenta Previa High Risk Pregnancy Placenta previa occurs when an embryo implants itself in the lower uterus and the developing placenta thereby implants low in the uterus and covers the internal cervical os. The previa can be complete, which involves the placenta covering the internal cervical os completely, or partial, which involves only a portion of the placenta covering the cervical os. The diagnosis is of placenta previa is often made in the second trimester by ultrasonography testing and is monitored for placental migration away from the os which occurs with uterine growth.Placenta previa in the second trimester puts the client at risk for developing vasa previa and thought to be a result of inflammatory atrophic changes to the placenta. In the third trimester, placenta previa is the leading cause of painless bleeding leading to hemorrhage. The bleeding occurs as the placental attachment is disrupted from thinning of the area as the cervix and uterus prepare for labor. Due to the location of the placenta, the uterus is unable to contract to stop the flow of blood from the vessels.When bleeding occurs, Thrombin is released and stimulates uterine contractions, which thereby disrupt the placental attachment from the uterus even more, causing increased bleeding and can eventually lead to hemorrhage (Joy, 2012). The incidence of placenta previa is in approximately one in 200 pregnancies, has a mortality rate of 0. 03%. Common risk factors include previous placenta previa, previous cesarean births, suction curettage for miscarriage, carrying more than one baby, delivery of six or more pregnancies, and tobacco or substance abuse (Perry, Hockenberry, Lowdermilk, & Wilson, 2010).For first time pregnancies, placenta previa occurs in about 1 in 1,500 pregnancies but the risk for women who have had more than five pregnancies increases to about 5 in 100 pregnancies.References: J oy, S. M. (2012, June 5). Placenta Previa. Retrieved September 29, 2012, from Medscape: emedicine. medscape. com/article/262063-overview#a0104 Perry, S. E. , Hockenberry, M. J. , Lowdermilk, D. L. , & Wilson, D. (2010). Maternal Child Nursing Care. Maryland Heights, MO: Elsevier.

Character Above All Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Character Above All - Essay Example Character tends to encompass three important traits, namely; duty, honor and country. With the development of character, there comes the realization of one’s duty towards others and the whole community. I believe that every individual bears a duty to take care of his family and the under-privileged people in his country; for example doing community service or helping out financially challenged family members. Another duty that bears great relevance in my eyes is the duty towards one’s country and to give honor to the things around us. Every individual on the planet is associated with one country that provides him an identity upon his birth; duty and honor towards such a country is no less than a spiritual conduct for one if his character traits and values are in accordance with purity and honesty. If there ever exists a threat against my country, I will consider it as my duty and honor to protect it against all possible evil intentions and respect the individuals who sp end their whole lives in doing the same. Character remains as the foremost essence of one’s reality that results in the extent of realization of one’s duty and honor to his country and other worthy things around him. An individual who does not extend his character traits to include these three aspects cannot be termed to have a worthy

Health Care Reform -SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Health Care Reform -SLP - Essay Example that there is a need to appreciate all that has been achieved in the last five years given that a lot of initiatives have been completed through the help of funds and grants from well wishers and foundations that have seen the need to support community based projects. Some foundations have so far given to different healthcare centers grants to support schemes that they are undertaking. Clearly, many people in the state have been able to benefit from this initiative given that children have gone to schools and have been able to receive treatment despite them not being insured. The main aim of all the initiatives being undertaken by the state is to ensure that more children eligible for enrollment are introduced to this scheme. It is also for the benefit of the state that all people, whether with insurance or not, get treatment at no greater costs (David, 126). Illinois has of late been on an asset-building spree where it has been able to accumulate the required assets to help it trend on with its policies. It has established certain priorities that have since been the key to accounting for the use of all the assets that have been accumulated by the different funding initiatives. The first one is education and training which it was directed towards the achievement of literacy on health education to ensure that people get to know how to safeguard their bodies using possible preventive ways. It also sort to direct its assets towards improvement of healthcare and make sure that it is available to all the citizens without much ado. It is clear that the state is willing to bring everyone on board to ensure that the whole society is free from diseases. It has been noted that implementation of primary care case management would address the accessibility and quality of the healthcare offered. This initiative received much applause given that it wo uld ensure responsive healthcare delivery. It was meant to focus on preventive healthcare and also promote health and primary

Explaining a Concept Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Explaining a Concept Research Paper - Essay Example Spilbury (6) notes that same-sex marriage, which takes place between two people of the same gender, may occur either between two men, who are known as homosexual or gay, or homosexual women, known as lesbians, while heterosexuals are attracted to members of the opposite sex. The scholar also points out that for some; homosexuality is a gradually developing realization, while some say they knew they were homosexual from a young age. Many people find their attraction directed towards a member of the same sex for a while. This is perfectly normal and it doesn’t mean they are homosexual, though sometimes it may. The widespread of same-sex marriage within the United States and indeed over the whole world is rising with its legalization. According to a survey published in The Gay Law report in June 2013, 55 percent of Americans strongly favor or favor gay marriage, 44 percent oppose or strongly oppose gay marriage, 2 percent of the interviewees are unsure and gay marriage support ha s annually increased for the past two decades by 1 percent. The total number of gay couples at the time was 594,391. According to the report, in most cities, 1-4 percent of the population is made up of gay people, with metropolitan areas having the most concentration. In an article published in The Independent in the UK, one in 100 people in the UK are gay or lesbian according to statistics published on sexuality, and more than 480,000 consider themselves gay or lesbian. A recent research by the Associated Press showed that several states in the United States allow same-sex marriage. They include Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Washington and Vermont. The District of Columbia also issues licenses to same-sex couples. Massachusetts was the first to allow same-sex couples to wed. According to the article, same-sex couples have been marrying for almost 9 years within the state. The article reports that The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November 2003 ruled that it was against the constitution to bar same-sex marriages in the state. Same-sex weddings were allowed, starting from May 17, 2004. The research also shows that 30 states, including California, ban same-sex marriages within their constitutions. New Mexico law is however silent on the issue. At least 8 nations globally have legalized same-sex marriage, namely Canada, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and Spain. Religion and Same-sex Marriage There are various attitudes and arguments for or against same-sex marriages, mostly dictated by an individual’s or group’s religious background. According to Grill, Babst, and Pierceson (51), opposition to both same-sex marriage and same-sex relationships is most often defended for religious reasons and that both religion and sexual orientation are regarded, in theory, as private matters. Thus heterosexuality is considered the norm, and those whose practices, beliefs and identitie s diverge from the norm are marginalized, by being prevented from fully participating in public while open about their identities and beliefs. Christianity bases its moral stand on same-sex marriage on the biblical theory that one woman was created for one man, and that is therefore the way nature intended it. In the Islamic religion, same-sex marriages and relationships have got strong prohibitions. Newton notes that in

HY 1110-08F-2, AMERICAN HISTORY I (HY1110-08F-2) Essay - 2

HY 1110-08F-2, AMERICAN HISTORY I (HY1110-08F-2) - Essay Example If the federal government was only going to do things specifically outlined by the Constitution, then it would be a very week governing body. At first, James Madison agreed with Hamilton. But later, he reversed his position and opposed the establishment of a central federal bank. The establishment of the Second Bank of The United States led to the court case Mculloch v. Maryland. The state of Maryland opposed the newly established Second Bank of The United States. They created a special tax that was placed on all out-of-state banks. The only out-of-state bank at the time was The Second Bank of the United States. Chief Justice john Marshall ruled against Maryland. He viewed the special tax as an opposition to the establishment of another federal bank, which is what it actually was. He used the Necessary and Proper Clause to establish the fact that the federal government could establish this bank. Marshall even went to explain that "necessary" didnt mean "absolutely necessary" but proper and appropriate (Gressman 2001). He said that it was linked to the powers of the federal government to set and collect taxes. This clause greatly expands the scope of federal power. Many laws that have been created by the federal government have been justified using this clause. The power to control commerce that the constitution gives the federal government and the Necessary and Proper Clause are often used in conjunction. This occurred during much of FDRs New Deal legislation and in making the transporting of certain items across state boundaries a federal

Convection, Conduction and Radiation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Convection, Conduction and Radiation - Essay Example The energy transferred from one system to another is called the internal energy. Internal energy is, although not in all cases, is proportional to temperature. Essentially, the transfer of energy or heat starts from the system with the higher temperature to the system with the lower temperature. The higher the internal energy of the system, the higher is the temperature of the system. However, there are cases when there are no changes on the temperature of the system even though there was an increment on the internal energy of that system. Such case will be explained later as part of the examples of conduction. There are several ways on how to transfer energy or heat: thermal convection, thermal conduction and thermal radiation or simply called convection, conduction and radiation. These three modes of transfer of energy have different operations going on. This particular study aims to explain heat transfer via the three methods aforementioned. Keywords: conduction, convection, radia tion, internal energy, heat, system HEAT TRANSFERS: CONVECTION, CONDUCTION, AND RADIATION 3 Thermal Convection Thermal convection, also known as convection, is a transfer of heat from one object to another wherein the heat travels in motion through liquids. In Physics, fluids include liquid substances, gases, and some plastic solids. When the temperature of a liquid rises, the liquid becomes lighter or less dense; nevertheless, if the temperature of the liquid decreases, it becomes denser and it relatively falls down. In thermal convection, what happens is that when there is a massive motion by the liquids like gases or liquid substances, it tends to create a circular motion since a solid body, when heated, transfers the energy to the liquid. Convection takes place when the liquid that was heated becomes lighter and therefore rises. When it reaches the top of the circulation, the temperature of the liquid decreases, hence, making it denser which causes it to fall down. The cycle cre ates convection current. Further, free convection takes place when the movements of the fluids are caused to move by the buoyant forces as a result of varying densities brought about by the rapid changed in the temperature. Forced convection, on the other hand, takes place when the fluid gets in contact with the surface of the solid system using outside or external means. There are several examples that will help us clearly understand the principles behind thermal convection. If you happen to observe when you boil pasta or beans, the moment the water (liquid) reaches its boiling point, the beans or the pasta moves up and down and from side to side or it triggers the pasta or the beans to move in random directions. The explanation of this HEAT TRANSFERS: CONVECTION, CONDUCTION, AND RADIATION 4 particular scenario as what have been explained earlier is that, the moment the temperature of the liquid increases, it becomes less dense or lighter causing it to rise above the surface and wh en it reaches the top and it cools down, which means there is a relative decrease on the temperature, it becomes denser and therefore falls down which creates a cycle. The changes on the temperature and the density of the liquid are principal factors causing the rising and falling movement of the pasta and the beans. The portion where

The math behind the Pendulum Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The math behind the Pendulum - Research Paper Example As the period of a pendulum is constant, pendulums were used to regulate the movement of clocks. Until the 1930’s pendulums were the most accurate time keeping devices of the world. In 1583, the Italian scientist Galileo first noted the constancy of a pendulum’s period by comparing the movement of a swinging chandelier in a Pisa cathedral with his pulse rate. He found that the time was not a function of how wide the chandelier swung. As the wind was blowing the chandelier, it was swinging different distances side to side or amplitudes. Galileo found that the pendulum swung more slowly. Over a shorter swing, the chandelier took just as many of his heartbeats to complete a swing with greater amplitude. Galileo made an error in the calculation of the angle of the chandelier. In 1656, the Dutch mathematician and scientist Christian Huygens invented a clock controlled by the motion of a pendulum (Huygens and the Pendulum, Princeton). The accuracy of mechanical clocks improve d in the span of a couple of decades in the early 17th century from plus or minus half an hour per day to one second per day. This quantum increase in accuracy of timing enabled previously unimagined degrees of precision measurement in mechanics, astronomy and other fields of study. Time then for the first time was expressed as an independent variable in the investigation of nature. For example, each of the following could be reliably investigated for the first time: The effect of force on objects over time The distance of fall over time The change of speed over time The radial movements of planets over time The progress of chemical reactions over time All these investigations required that the time could be accurately and reliably measured. Thus the pendulum held a very important place as a time keeping device. Competent time measurement was a requirement for modern science and the pendulum enabled this to happen (Story behind the science, Web). The pendulum played more than a scie ntific and technical role in the formation of the modern world. It also indirectly changed cultures and societies through its impact on navigation. Position on the Earth’s surface is given by latitude and longitude. A traveler sailing across the sea must know the coordinates of his present position as well the coordinates of his destination. Hence the knowledge of position was essential for reliable traveling and trading. Accurate time measurement was long seen as the solution to the problem of longitude determination which had vexed European maritime nations in their efforts to sail beyond Europe’s shores. Treasure fleets from Latin America, trading ships from the Far East were all getting lost and running out of food and water. The pendulum thus played a pivotal role in resolving the longitude problem and thus holds an important place in Physics as well as History. This thesis will focus on the interesting aspects about the period of a pendulum and its mathematical d erivation. According to Hooke’s law, the restoring force of a spring is directly proportional to its displacement. Fig 1: Physical representation of Hooke’s law The above figure shows a spring elongated through a length x. F is the force that wants to drive the spring back to equilibrium. By Hooke’s law, |F| ? |x| F = -kx where k is the spring constant measured in Newton/metre (N/m) Here, the negative sign represents that the direction of F is opposite to that of x. Moving further on, consider the case

Operations Planning and Control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Operations Planning and Control - Essay Example However, demand for organizational products is influenced by many factors as explained by Ahlersten (2008, p. 87). These factors include the price of the products, time of the year, price of other substitute and complementary products, taste and preferences of customers and the income of the population. In addition, demand is determined by the expectations of customers in changes of price and quantities supplied in the market. This however depends on all other factors remaining constant. Dilts (2004, p. 68) asserts that demand must be backed by the purchasing power of the customers and is always related to a specific price and time. Consequently, it is critical for organizations to optimize the supply of products during the peak demand period to ensure that the customers are able to access the services demanded. This is the greatest dilemma facing Holly Farm. The Farm at the beginning of 2007 decided to open its doors for paying visitors to view their Farm. The organization is involv ed in both dairy and arable livestock rearing. To ensure the comfort of their visitors, the company invested its entire savings constructing a 50-space car park and a six park for the 40-seater coaches. Furthermore they invested in constructing a safe area for viewing the milking parlour, purchased special trailers to transport passengers around the farm on guided tours and a children’s recreation playground. Behind the shop, the farm constructed a small facility for making dairy ice cream. Through aggressive advertising and events organized in local schools and organizations; the number of visitors to the Farm has grown steadily and by the end of 2010, the annual number of visitors was over twenty one thousand. There are great variations in the number of visitors during different months of the year and time of the day. Although the allowed visiting hours are from 11.00 am to 6.20 after milking is completed, approximately 90 percent of the visitors in cars and coaches arrive after midday picnic until around 1.30pm and make a tour of the farm in the afternoon. By 3.00 pm about 40 percent would leave the Farm while 60 percent wait to view the milking process and there after visit the shop for ice cream and other products. There are more visitors from April to October while demand is too low outside this period. Moreover, visits are high from Friday to Monday, the demand peaking on Saturdays and Sundays. The period between November and March is usually too cold for tractor rides and the animals have to be kept inside. Gillian who is charged with the responsibility of managing the visitors has initiated an ambitious plan to increase the number of visitors to the Farm by forty percent in 2011. Moreover, a state of the art milking parlour has been launched by the Farm where cows are milked on a slow moving turntable and milking is to last from 3.00 to 6.00 pm. To optimize the number visitors visiting the Farm, Gillian has to determine whether concentrate on i ndividual advertising or promoting visits by coaches during the peak time. In case

What Are You Made of, the Role of Faith in Social Identity Essay Example for Free

What Are You Made of, the Role of Faith in Social Identity Essay What are you made of? This is truly a difficult question to answer if one would really take the time to ponder it. How would you arrive at the conclusion of describing who you are and the things you believe in? What are the things that made you as an individual? Inevitably, there will be several social, spiritual, and political issues that one may have to battle with to arrive at a sound conclusion. Life is complex and that is a certain fact. The complexity life offers for various people with different political affiliations, religious views, and socioeconomic status may be one arena of conflict. How will these differences be reconciled by the government who must develop national consciousness among its citizens? How will the Philippines become united amidst of these cultural differences? It is also the same question for the people, are they willing to compromise their values and beliefs for the unity of the country? These are questions which have no certain answers. For years now, there have been efforts made by the government and educational institutions that are geared towards resolving this conflict. However, it will take time before the country would experience such desired changes. The Philippines is a largely diverse country. Not only is the country multicultural, it is also multilingual. This situation makes it all the more difficult for the educational system to cater to the different needs of each sector. On the national level, the Department of Education has issued memorandums pertaining to ‘generic’ programs addressing these issues. However, the lack of material resources and the lack of interest from stakeholders are the factors responsible for hampering envisioned improvements. While on the community level, there are also initiatives from the teachers themselves who make their own changes and adaptations depending on the needs of their students. By the age of four, most Filipino children go to school to study. They learn about their own identity and the roles as expected from their identity, their being Filipino and duties of citizenship, the community they live in, and certain cultural beliefs and values. All these form the foundation of their beliefs about their identity and the country at large. This ‘indoctrination’ goes on until college. From here we can see that the life of one student is virtually fashioned inside the school. Thus, the school can be said to be a ‘breeding ground’ where various social identities are shaped. And so the question now is, â€Å"How will schools mold Filipino identity? † and at the same time reconcile it with other social identities such as ethnicity and religion without marginalizing cultural or religious beliefs. This process of molding holds much importance for educators because I think that one of the most significant functions of Philippine education is to inculcate Filipino identity and nationalist consciousness. As a teacher, I believe that a person’s religion bears so much importance in how that person thinks and behaves in the social context. It serves as the guiding light or reference point as to which decisions regarding experiences are based. Seeing that the Philippines has several religions, it becomes one social divider in the nation. Believers of certain faith have their own teachings that should be strictly adhered to regarding the political system and cultural beliefs and practices that may sometimes coincide with the rules of the state. For instance, believers of Jehovah’s Witnesses do not pledge the Panatang Makabayan because they believe that they should only place their faith or for that matter, state their allegiance in the god that they serve. Moreover, I believe that religion really matters for the majority of the Filipinos. And this is the root of conflicts, discrimination, and prejudice between Christians and Non-Christians that are manifested in different areas such as the political and economic system. The values certain groups of communities hold are important for them that they desire the next generation to also believe to these values. In addition, cultural practices are also passed on from generation to generation. This process is evident in the articles discussed in class where indigenous peoples argue for a system of education in which traditional knowledge should be included and given more emphasis. More so, the lessons provided by the public education system are starkly different from indigenous knowledge systems and practices. This creates a conflict because the significant values and practices are not learned by the youth of the community. Hence, elders develop apprehension toward the public school system. Although they acknowledge the beneficial effects of having to go to school, what matters most for them is the sustainable development of values and traditional cultural beliefs and practices of their ancestral community. This case is also similar with Islamic education. There is a problem for Muslims in Mindanao pertaining to the choice of schools for their children. For Muslims, spiritual growth in their children’s religious faith is a more important factor in choosing a school. However, Islam is not a subject offered in the public school system. As a conclusion, I think that the belief and value system is the most important factor in the formation of social identities. An individual’s social identity is intimately tied to the religion he is a member of. This also becomes the primary basis for the further development of his social identity. Because of these conflicts, educational institutions have been classified into sectarian and non-sectarian to cater to the different needs of their clients. Parents who are Catholics want their children to study in a Catholic school to ensure that their children would grow up with values they believe in. Furthermore, members of Iglesia Ni Cristo also do the same as well as members of the Christian community. This system is also the same for nationalities. Chinese parents prefer to enroll their children into Chinese schools. Muslim parents prefer to enroll their children to Madrasah. Based on this observation, membership to certain groups or having to identify with a group’s belief and values system becomes one important factor in parents’ decision regarding their children’s education. Thus, educational institutions become an agent in the processes of indoctrination of certain beliefs and practices that may marginalize other religion and cultural practices. Inevitably, they also reproduce existing social structures that up to the present time is unfair for many. Another problem with the present curriculum is its exclusion of local knowledge systems that bears much significance with the country’s indigenous peoples or with a particular group. In my opinion, the curriculum had put too much emphasis on global literacy or keeping at par with international standards. There is nothing wrong with this proposition. The only problem is that local knowledge systems have been marginalized for a long time which should have been a part of the curriculum in the first place. One goal of Philippine education is to mold the ‘Filipino’ identity in its students. If this is the goal, then it also follows that local history and cultural beliefs and practices should be an important part of the curriculum beginning in the elementary. The present curriculum has the Makabayan subject (Sibika at Kultura and Heograpiya, Kasaysayan, Sibika) as one way of teaching students Philippine culture and history. In spite of this, I think some of indigenous knowledge systems and practices are important so it should be included in the national curriculum. The inclusion would make students understand and appreciate more their being ‘Filipino’ and would be exposed to various local histories and cultures. Hence, they would become appreciative of the diversity of Filipino cultures. I also think that the national curriculum is a ‘colonial make-up’ of foreign education. The current system of education here in the Philippines especially the private schools are more inclined to producing students who are equipped with the skills needed for globalization but are alien to their own country. Yes, academic and professional competence in the global village can be beneficial to the country in terms of economic advancement. However, the problem is that there is no balance between what Filipinos truly are as a race and what they need to know as part of a larger global community. As an observation, I think that students nowadays are not rooted in their own culture and history as Filipinos. Most often than not, the kind of students schools produce have a mentality of a foreigner. In school, they learn extensively of a lot of things such as world histories, architecture, literature, famous scientists, etc. Although they study Philippine history and literature, what they learn is, again, the ‘generics’ or the ‘mainstream’ which can be discriminating against indigenous peoples and Muslims history and culture. And this is both a danger and challenge for Philippine society. The government does not want to produce generation of students who are not rooted in the Filipino culture. So they have to adapt to the needs of the different sectors present in Philippine society. For the country, an individual’s rootedness in his own culture is much needed by the country because this is one way of instilling nationalist consciousness. This can be done gradually through shaping of a Filipino identity beginning in the elementary grades. Moreover, this ‘shaping process’ should be meaningfully linked to a person’s religious belief and value system. Because of this, I believe that the end result would be better. When education can establish a meaningful bridge between Filipino identity and a community’s religion, more and more Muslims and indigenous peoples would develop a sense of being a Filipino finally a part of the collective imagining of the nation. In my opinion, the reason for the Muslim’s apprehension toward the public school system and the nation as a whole is that they do not feel the sense of belongingness because the Philippine government has not been responding to their needs and rights to education. Since Islam is a vital part of their lives and unfortunately, the public school system does not offer this as a subject, they prefer to enroll their children in Madrasah that do not develop Muslims’ national consciousness of being a Filipino. Therefore, students who finish from these schools grow up to be Muslims and not Filipino. Likewise, I believe that the national curriculum is not a ‘generic’ or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ process of education. The Department of Education and teachers as well cannot just prescribe a general program of education to students who are socially differentiated with each other. If the Philippines want to envision the Filipino race as having a nationalist consciousness and wanting each and everyone to be part of the collective imagining of the nation, then it is better for the education sector to acknowledge different local languages, ethnic groups, indigenous knowledge system and practices, and religions. I believe that through this acknowledgement and inclusion, indigenous peoples and Muslims would gradually learn and love to be a part of this country. A person’s social identity is so much affected by the socio-cultural milieu. As a teacher, I should be aware of my students’ background so I could help them in strengthening the development of their identity as Filipino, as a member of a religious community, and as a member of a group. All these contribute to the formation of a person’s social identity and not one should be left out. Being to identify with a group and having a sense of belongingness all contribute to an individual’s over-all well-being and the nation’s well-being too.

Policing Essay Example for Free

Policing Essay Policing CRJ 201, Section 511 Frank Serpico Francesco Vincent Serpico was born on April 14, 1936 in Brooklyn, NY. At the age of 18 Serpico enlisted in the United States army and spent two years in Korea. In 1959 Frank Serpico graduated form the police academy and was sworn into the New York City Police Department. From the =Beginning of Serpico’s career in the NYPD he was forced with having to defend his integrity to the police department. While a rookie taking part in field officer training, there was a rape in progress call sent out over the radio. Serpico, wanting to do nothing but help wanted to take the call though it was out of his sector and against his veteran officers advice. Frank later forced to give up his collar despite the fact he apprehended the remaining rape suspects on his own. Being a rookie officer left him susceptible to officers with seniority easily getting over on him. In 1960 Frank became a patrolman in the 81st precinct. He then worked for the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) before he was assigned to being a plain-clothes officer. This is when Frank Serpico’s problems began and he was exposed to department wide police corruption. Police subculture is defined as; shared values and norms and the established patterns of behavior that tend to characterize policing. During Frank’s time police corruption was definitely apart of police subculture. However it was not apart of Frank Serpico’s police subculture. While stationed at the 93rd precinct Serpico was given $300 as a part of the station pay off. Not knowing what to do with the money, and it being his first experience with corruption Frank took the money to his Sargent who in turn pocketed the money for himself. Becoming a snitch is something frowned upon then and now among civilians and law enforcement when it comes to one of your own. It is especially difficult to be a snitch in the police department because there is then no one behind you when in need. Blowing the whistle on fellow officers took a lot of guts and courage, especially when knowing that no one is there to stand behind you, and everyone is against you. On April 25, 1970, a New York Times article was published by David Burnham that would shake up the entire New York City Police Department. With the aid of Frank Serpico and Sargent David Durke, Burnham told the world of the millions of dollars paid to policeman in the New York Police Department by drug dealers, gamblers, and crooked businessmen. Frank also pointed out that despite the obvious corruption both Mayor Lindsay’s administration, and the police department ignored and failed to look into corruption cases repeatedly brought to their attention. This very article and the now public knowledge and outrage forced Mayor Lindsay to form the KNAPP Commission; a five-member panel whose purpose was to investigate corruption among the police department. Once the New York Times article was published, Frank Serpico was officially deemed a snitch. Subjecting himself to the possibility of extreme danger and violence, either at the hands of his own or by criminals when a lack of police back up and support is available. This possibility of danger became reality on February 3, 1971. While working in the vice division out of Brooklyn North, Serpico and 3 others detectives were working a drug sting. Frank was sent into the building and after witnessing the drug buy informed the two other plains clothes officers of were the suspect apartment was located. Serpico, the only officer that knew how to speak Spanish, was prompted to fake as if he wanted to purchase heroin to gain access into the suspects’ apartment. Once the dealer cracked the door Frank tried to force his way in, only able to wedge some of his body into the suspects’ door. Subsequently Serpico was shot at point blank range in his face with a . 22 caliber handgun. Once collapsed on the floor the remaining two officers stepped over him and proceeded with the drug bust instead of helping, they didnt even care enough to send out a cop shot call over the radio. It was a neighbor living on the floor of the shooting that called the ambulance and stayed with Serpico until a squad car arrived to escort him to the hospital. Frank Serpico soon after the shooting began to question the circumstances of the shooting, feeling he was set up to be executed. While in recovery at the hospital Serpico was constantly harassed and faced with wishes of death. Frank recovered, losing hearing in his left ear, and in December of 1971 testified in front of the KNAPP Commission. Ultimately Serpico received what he always wanted, a brass shield and a promotion to detective. Of course there was no customary ceremony when Frank was awarded detective status, he was called and told to pick his badge up from the office. This was one of the many things that displayed the distain the department and city officials had for Frank Serpico. In 1972 after receiving a gold metal of honor, Serpico retired from the New York City Police Department and moved to Switzerland, where he stayed for almost a decade. In 1980 Serpico back to New York City and now lives a quiet life upstate. Frank Serpico was the first and probably most famous New York police officer to report and go as far as to testify on the department wide corruption. He never gave up, never gave in, and always stayed true and loyal to the oath he took when graduating from the police academy in 1959. Hearing the story of Frank Serpico makes me grateful because I know there are truly honest and loyal individuals that hold jobs in the public service field. People like him played major roles in molding what the police department is today. However I do not think I would have followed in Frank Serpico’s footsteps to expose the ugly truth of what was going on in the police department at the time. Being apart of the police subculture, all you have is each other. Once you put on the uniform and strap on that gun and badge no one can protect you from danger but yourself and your fellow officers. Once those other officers distrust you there is no one to have your back when faced with a criminal with intent to harm you. I would remember that when my shift is over I have to go back to my family, I have to live a life outside of my career as a New York City Police Officer. If I could have found a way to not take the payoffs, still do my job to the best of my ability, and not snitch on my fellow officers, that would definitely be the route in which I would take. Frank Serpico could have easily been killed and I don’t think the police department or anything else is more important then my life and the lives of my family. I do respect everything that Frank Serpico did. His integrity and courageousness was unprecedented. Without him the police department that my friends, loved ones, and I interact with daily could very well be much different and much worst. All Frank Serpico wanted to do was be a good, moral person and an honest police officer. He nicely summed up some of his feelings while in front of the KNAPP Commission by saying, â€Å"Through my appearance here today I hope that police officers in the future will not experience the same frustration and anxiety that I was subjected to for the past five years at the hands of my superiors because of my attempt to report corruption We create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer, and not the other way around The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which honest police officers can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. †

Freudian and Jungian Literary Analysis: Under Milk Wood

Freudian and Jungian Literary Analysis: Under Milk Wood Exploration of dreams, symbols and archetypes in Dylan Thomas play for voices Under Milk Wood This paper seeks to assert that Dylan Thomas play Under Milk Wood can be successfully viewed using Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic techniques. It will attempt to not only isolate and highlight many instances of typical psychical symbolism in the work but also what could be thought of as psychoanalytic mechanisms; especially as they relate to Freuds notions of the Dreamwork in his The Interpretation of Dreams (1997) or Jungs archetypes and collective unconscious. By doing this I hope to not only subject Thomas work to a rigorous psychoanalytical exegesis, uncovering hidden personal symbols, structures and images, but also highlight the psychosocial depth of Under Milk Wood; a depth that has hitherto been overlooked by some critics. Through this I hope to assess the notion that Thomas was every bit as influenced by Freud and Jung as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf were a generation before. I will begin, in my Introduction, to give an outline of the importance of Freud and psychoanalysis to post-World War One literature and what Dylan Thomas place within that was; paying particular attention to Thomas own assertions on the importance of psychoanalysis in his work and the ways that it was greeted by the literati of the 1930s and 40s. The first chapter will be dedicated to a discussion of Under Milk Wood and its creation, looking at such areas as plot construction, the structural nature of the piece and its creative aetiology. From here I will go on to discuss the notion of the Freudian dreamwork and its manifestations in Under Milk Wood. The dreamwork, exemplified by such concepts as condensation, displacement and secondary revision, is a central concept in the Freudian cannon and, as such, has become an important interpretive tool for both psychoanalysts and literary critics. It is with this in mind that I shall attempt to isolate instances of all four of the major mechanisms of the dreamwork in Thomas play whilst relating them to the wider issues of poetic creativity and narrative structure. I will also offer a brief discussion of how Jungs interpretation of dreams differed from Freuds before going on to examine how both can be used to inform us of Thomas play. The third chapter will be dedicated to Jungian archetypes. I will isolate and discuss the many instances of archetypal imagery in the play, paying special attention to the way in which they fit in with Thomas over all poetic sense as it is displayed in his use of language, narrative and plot. This chapter will also examine the role of the collective unconscious and relate it to the Modernist technique of the stream of consciousness novel and the works of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. My conclusion will attempt to answer the main hypothesis of this paper, that indeed psychoanalytic techniques and knowledge can be used to understand Dylan Thomass play and also what that says about the playwrights role as a modern day bard. Introduction: â€Å"The Analytic Revelation† Thomas Manns paper â€Å"The Significance of Freud† published in 1936 gives us some indications as to the importance of early psychoanalysis on the literary life of Europe and America: â€Å"The analytic revelation is a revolutionary force. With it a blithe scepticism has come into the world, a mistrust that unmasks all the schemes and subterfuges of our own souls. Once roused and on alert, it cannot be put to sleep again. It infiltrates life, undermines its raw naà ¯vetà ©, takes from it the strain of its own ignorance†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Mann, 1965: 591) As Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane assert in their study Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930 (1991), this â€Å"revolutionary force† was a large constituent of early twentieth century notions of, not only Modernism in literature and the arts but also, what it meant to be a modern man or woman. The early Modernist writers of the inter-war period not only embraced Freud and psychoanalysis as heralding a new paradigm of self-sufficiency and ontological autonomy but also, as a journal entry by Andre Gide exposes, thought themselves part of an existing groundswell of thought that was, above all, quintessentially new: â€Å"Freud†¦Freudianism†¦For the last ten years, or fifteen, I have been indulging in it without knowing.† (Gide, 1967: 349) The connection between psychoanalysis and literature has always been problematic. Freud, himself asserts in the opening paragraphs to his essay â€Å"The Uncanny† (2005) that â€Å"only rarely (does) a psycho-analyst (feel) impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics† (Freud, 2000: 1), however writers, critics and even Freud himself have made extensive use of the interpretive similarities between the two disciplines . Not only are there are a whole host of studies devoted to the use of psychoanalysis in literary criticism but in the Introduction to his novel The White Hotel (1999), D.M. Thomas draws attention to the extraordinarily literary quality of Fr euds case studies; each containing many of the tropes and leitmotifs one would normally associate with a creative work. For Freud, the psychical mechanisms of creative writing and dreaming are in, some senses at least, inextricably linked. Both are based in a tripartite system of ideational fantasy formation consisting of: a current situational issue or concern that provokes the memory of a childhood incident or trauma which, in turn, shapes some future action in the guise of a wish fulfilment. Freud sets out the relationship between this system and literature in his essay â€Å"Creative Writers and Day Dreaming† (Freud, 1986): â€Å"We are perfectly aware that very many imaginative writings are far removed from the model of the naà ¯ve daydream; and yet I cannot suppress the suspicions that even the most extreme deviations from that model could be linked with it through an uninterrupted series of transitional cases.† (Freud, 1986: 150) Freud continues to explain the disparity between the mind of the creative writer and the ordinary day-dreamer, asserting that whereas the latter results in a self-conscious repression of desire (the wishes of the day-dreamer being best left unspoken) the former revels in and promulgates such desire, translated as it is by artistic skill and temperament: â€Å"The writer softens the character of his egoistic day-dreams by altering and disguising it, and he bribes us by the purely formal – that is aesthetic – yield of pleasure which he offers us in the presentation of his phantasies.† (Freud, 1986: 153) This essay, perhaps more than any other work of Freuds, highlights for us the attraction of psychoanalysis to early twentieth century writers. Metaphysically and spiritually sceptical after the mass slaughter of the First World War and the alienation engendered by rise of the industrial paradigm, Freudian theory offered (as testified by Manns essay) a distinctly human, non-metaphysical and wholly scientific explanation for the place of the artist within society. For Freud, the artist was distinct from the rest of the populous but this had a purely psychical aetiology, leaving no imperative for notions of religious or supra-human inspiration. This is undoubtedly some of the attraction of Freudianism for Dylan Thomas who, throughout his letters and early work makes both use and reference to writers and critics that were, themselves, heavily influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis. Francis Scarfe, in the essay â€Å"Dylan Thomas: A Pioneer† (1960) cites Freud as a major influence on the formation of Thomas early poetic voice, derived in the main from his experiences with what Scarfe calls â€Å"Sitwellism† (Scarfe, 1960: 96): â€Å"The dominant points of contact seems to be James Joyce, the Bible and Freud. The personal habits of language and mythology of Dylan Thomas can readily be identified through these three sources.† (Scarfe, 1960: 96) If Joyce lent the young poet some of the lyricism and sense of narrative and the Bible some of the rich cadence and verbal poetics, Freud enabled Thomas to look within his own unconscious and find images and leitmotifs that would find resonance with the rest of humanity as, firstly, personal then increasingly Bardic and archetypal symbols formed the basis of his work. An early poem of Thomas clearly mirrors the hyperbole of Freuds first lectures on psychoanalysis; the poet and the analyst both evoking the image of the journey into an unknown by an antonymous but courageous individual: â€Å"The midnight road, though young man tread unknowking. Harbouring some thought of heaven, or haven hoping. Yields peace and plenty at the end. â€Å" (Thomas, 1990: 119) We can compare this to Freuds famous analogy that is evoked throughout his work: â€Å"The interpretation of dreams is in fact the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious; it is the securest foundation of psycho-analysis and the field in which evey worker must acquire his convictions and seek his training. If I am asked how one can become a psycho-analyst, I reply: â€Å"By studying ones own dreams†Ã¢â‚¬  (Freud, 1957: 60) Interestingly, Thomas himself was reluctant to acknowledge his debt to Freud, choosing instead to suggest a notion that we have already posited here; that Freuds influence is paradigmatic. He says in the collection of interviews â€Å"Notes on the Art of Poetry† (1963) that his writing is influenced by Freud only through the work others , itself a testament to the extent that Freudian theory and, indeed, the whole of psychoanalytic thought has permeated the very fabric of modern literature. Thomas notebooks poems, his earliest poetic statements, are suffused with what we shall see are Freudian images, inspired perhaps not by psychoanalysis itself but by the poets interest in Surrealism and their early antecedents the 18th century Metaphysical poets. Works such as: â€Å"Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 1990: 217) And â€Å"In wasting one drop from the hearts honey cells. One precious drop that, for the moment, quells Desires pain†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 1990: 133) Clearly reflect the artistic tenants set out in Bretons Manifestoes of Surrealism (1972) that sought to combine Freudian concepts of the dreamwork with aesthetic creation . As we shall see in the first chapter of this paper, this delight in the surreal as it relates to the Freudian image remained with Thomas throughout all of his working life and, most certainly, manifests itself in Under Milk Wood. The analytic revelations then, of Freud , have not only influenced those writers such as Breton, Auden and Woolf who are were intimately acquainted with his writing but also writers like Dylan Thomas who, by his own admission, came to psychoanalysis through other creative writers works. This paper, like many others, uses psychoanalytic theory as a methodology with which to uncover latent symbols, patterns and structures within Thomas work. It will not only relate such symbols to the poets own poetic vision but will, through Jungian theory, expand these so that they encompass universal archetypes and concepts such as the collective unconscious that structures the unconscious and, inevitably finds its way into works of a creative nature . Chapter One: â€Å"To Begin at the Beginning† Dylan Thomas play for voices Under Milk Wood began life as a small radio broadcast Quiet Early One Morning (Sinclair, 1975, Jones, 1963) and this short piece is easily recognisable as the genesis for the larger work. There are, for instance, many of the same basic characters – the milkman â€Å"still lost in the clangour and music of Welsh-spoken dreams† (Thomas, 1992), the sea captain, the lonely lady â€Å"Miss May Hughes† and even the tragic-comic Mrs Ogmore Pritchard. There is the same sense of poetic cadence that constantly adds to the somatic quality of the writing, lulling the reader into a musical trance as sibilance and assonance is combined with Thomas particular inner rhythms, such as in this extract: â€Å"The sun lit the sea-town, not as a whole, from topmost down reproving zinc-roofed chapel to empty-but-for-rats-and-whispers grey warehouse on the harbour, but in separate bright pieces.† (Thomas, 1978: 15) The story, recited by Thomas himself in 1944 on the BBC, describes the still sleeping town of New Quay in Cardiganshire (Maud, 1992) and weaves external description with internal monologue as the narrator flits in and out of the dreaming consciousnesses of the towns inhabitants. In the story, each paragraph brings a new image or a new perspective but what we are ultimately presented with is the stream of consciousness of the narrator; in the story, unlike in Under Milk Wood, an impersonal but altogether discernable â€Å"I†: â€Å"Quite early one morning in the winter in Wales, by the sea that was lying down still and green as grass after a night of tar-black howling and rolling, I went out of the house, where I had come to stay for a cold unseasonable holiday†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Thomas, 1978: 15) It is this point, this appearance of the personal pronoun that, as we shall see, makes Quite Early One Morning markedly different to Under Milk Wood. Thomas, however, retains the sense of dreamy absurdity, as images are juxtaposed for comic effect amid the repeated refrain of â€Å"The town was not yet awake†. Under Milk Wood grew out of this humble beginning and is both markedly similar and surprisingly different . Both works reflect, as Derek Stanford (1954) suggests, the cadences, characterisation and plot construction of Joyces Ulysses (1979), being as they are the collective narratives of a whole town in the same time period. Both works, however, are also embryonic, Quite Early One Morning obviously being a blueprint for Under Milk Wood but this also being merely a fragmentary snapshot of a larger planned work that was never finished (Jones, 1986: ix). Under Milk Wood also resembles the cyclical structure of Joyces other great work Finnegans Wake (1992). Thomas play abounds with references to beginnings and commencements; we have, for instance, the famous first lines: â€Å"To begin at the beginning: It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless And bible-black†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Thomas, 2000: 1) That not only evokes the biblical â€Å"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth† (Gen, 1:1) but also the creational sense of Joyces reference to the beginnings of mankind in the opening lines of his novel: â€Å"riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth castle and Environs.† (Joyce, 1992: 3) In Under Milk Wood, the cyclical nature of the day is metonymous with the seasonal nature of the year and this with the life of a human being as Thomas juxtaposes images of beginnings, babies and births with ageing, infirmity and death; as in this passage: â€Å"All over town, babies and old men are cleaned and put into their broken prams and wheeled on to the sunlit cockled cobbles or out into the backyards under the dancing underclothes, and left. A baby cries.† (Thomas, 2000: 27) As we shall see, this notion of the circle, of repeating is important to both Freud and Jung; Freud through his insistence on the importance of the return in notions such as repression and the death drive and Jung, through his concept of the mandala as a recurring symbol. Like Joyce, Thomas displays circles within circles, as the plot and structure of the work as a whole mirrors the framework of the characters lives and psyches. We see this reflected in many of the plays most successful characters, witness for instance the constant iteration of Mrs Ogmore Pritchard, as she repeats her life over and over again with different husbands, only to have them revisit her after their deaths: â€Å"Mr Ogmore, linoleum, retired, and Mr Pritchard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum cleaner and the fume of the polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant, fidgets in her rinsed sleep, wakes in a dream and nudges in the ribs dead Mr Ogmore, dead Mr Pritchard, ghostly on either side.† (Thomas, 2000: 10) The same can be said, of course, for Captain Cat, whose dreams and waking life are characterised not by the dead per se, but by their return as he witnesses the phantasmatic manifestations of either his repression or the collective unconscious (whether one is citing Freud or Jung). The sense, in Under Milk Wood, is that of a blithe acceptance of the passing of time and the knowledge that things return; the sunrise, the Spring and the dead. This is reflected in many of Thomas poems, for instance in the closing lines of â€Å"I See the Boys of Summer†: â€Å"I am the man your father was. We are the sons of flint and pitch. Oh see the poles are kissing as they cross!† (Thomas, 1990: 219) In this, also, as Karl Jay Shapiro asserts in his study In Defense of Ignorance (1960), Thomas work clearly reflects what was a seminal poem for the young poets generation W.B. Yeats â€Å"The Second Coming† (1987) which contains images of both beginnings and circles within circles. In the next chapter I will look at how these aspects of Under Milk Wood can be interpreted through the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung, paying attention specifically to their concepts of dreams and dreaming; again another leitmotif of Thomas play that can be seen to come from Joyces Finnegans Wake. Chapter Two: The Dreamwork, the Symbol and Captain Cat Freud On Dreams As Richard Wollheim suggests, Freuds theories on dreams are the â€Å"most remarkable single element† (Wollheim, 1971: 66) of his psychoanalytical project and Freud himself in his essay â€Å"On Dreams† (1991) stresses the primacy of dream interpretation in his system: â€Å"The transformation of the latent dream-thoughts into the manifest dream-content deserves all out attention, since it is the first instance known to us of psychical material being changed over from one mode of expression to another.† (Freud, 1991: 89) For Freud, dreams serve as symptoms of unconscious repression in the same way as parapraxes (slips of the tongue) and instances of forgetfulness. The content of dreams can, he said, be split into the latent and the manifest; the one providing a shield for the other as the Unconscious gives up its fissures and problems that have been repressed by the Ego during waking hours. Freuds work The Interpretation of Dreams attempts to provide a full scale, largely scientific study of not merely the symbolism of dreams but also their mechanism; a mechanism that he termed the ‘dreamwork. The dreamwork can be thought of as a process (Wollheim, 1971) that transcribes the latent content of dreams into the language of the manifest. Freud is clear in The Interpretation of Dreams that psychoanalysis does not deal with the simple ‘translation of images or primitive notions of symbol exchange that sees dreams as merely scripts that can be easily interpreted using a universal dictionary, although he does acquiesce to the point that some symbols recur on a universal level. Instead, Freud sees dreams as the return of repressed desires and their attendant wishes that find a voice in the psychical economy through a process of disguise. The desire, as Richard Stevens (1983) suggests, â€Å"will be fused with experiences and thoughts from the previous day or even events occurring during the course of the night† (Stevens, 1983: 30). The dreamwork, in the Freudian system, is both the mechanism of disguise and the tool of interpretation because it contains an internal logic that can be used by the analyst to trace the source of repression and, through the process of transference, brought into the conscious and rendered harmless (Freud, 1997). Perhaps the most important concept within The Interpretation of Dreams is the four-fold dreamwork mechanism that can be used, not only in dream interpretation but as we shall see, in the critical appreciation of literature. Freud termed these mechanisms condensation, displacement, representation and secondary revision and before I go to look at how each one fits into Under Milk Wood specifically I would like to, briefly, offer up an explanation as to how each effects the manifest dream-content and ergo the literary image or trope. Condensation This is, perhaps, the most common dream feature and is what gives dreams their sparse, confusing quality. For Freud, dream-thoughts are many and varied, each bombarding the dreamwork simultaneously: â€Å"The dream is meagre, paltry and laconic in comparison with the range and copiousness of the dream-thoughts. The dream, when written down fills half a page; the analysis, which contains the dream-thoughts requires six, eight, twelve times as much space.† (Freud, 1997: 170) Condensation manifests itself as images laden with meaning, as the unconscious overlays and condenses two or more dream-thoughts into one motif. Part of the skill of the analyst according to Freud is the extent that such condensation can be unravelled and successive layers of unconscious meaning and repression peeled back and revealed (Freud, 1965: 313). Whereas Freud was dubious as to the possibility of ever reaching a definitive dream interpretation because of the very nature of condensation, he also asserted that the ways in which dream-thoughts are condensed gives the analyst a clue as to their psychical meaning. Freud cites his own dream of the Botanical Monograph as an example of the way in which different dream-thoughts can be condensed into one dream-image; the latent meaning only becoming apparent when this relationship is exposed . Displacement Displacement refers to the substituting of elements within dreams. Due to the nature of the unconscious, elements and images that have a similar psychical economy invariably end up being displaced, one for the other. In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud characterises displacement as constituting a de-centring of the dream-thoughts: â€Å"We may have noticed that these elements which obtrude themselves in the dream-content as its essential components do not by any means play this same part in the dream-thoughts.† ( Freud, 1997: 190) Displacement, like condensation, arises from the synchronous nature of the unconscious and manifests itself in two ways; firstly, through the substituting of dream-thoughts, so that dreams can appear absurd and illogical and, secondly through shifting meanings – an image may possess one meaning in one nights dream and another on a different night. Melanie Klein, for instance, in her essay â€Å"Psychological Principles of Early Analysis† (1991) offers us some interesting insights into how displacement works in something other than the dream; the child at play. â€Å"My analyses again and again reveal how many different things, dolls for example, can mean in play. Sometimes they stand for the penis, sometimes for the child stolen from the mother, sometimes for the little patient itself etc.† (Klein, 1991: 134) Both condensation and displacement have been used as the basis for theories of Surrealist aesthetics, as Carrouges and Prendergast assert in their study Andre Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism (1974: 192) which uses seemingly disparate images juxtaposed in order to create an illogical, dream-like tableaux. Representation Representation refers to the dreamworks tendency to present feelings, repressions and notions as images and symbols. Unlike many pre-Freudian systems of dream interpretation such symbolisation is centred, to a very large extent, around the dreamers own personal history and psychology. However as I have already stated there are, due to the inter-subjective nature of the psyche, recurring symbols and motifs that can be found in a great many peoples dreams. Richard Stevens in his Freud and Psychoanalysis (1983) mentions just a few of them: â€Å"small boxes, chests, cupboards and ovens correspond to the female organ; also cavities, ships and all kinds of vessels. The actions of climbing ladders, stairs, inclines or flying may be used to symbolise sexual intercourse; having a haircut, tooth pulled or being beheaded, castration.† (Stevens, 1983: 33) Secondary Revision Secondary revision refers to the mental processes that occur after the dreamer awakes and that organises and places the otherwise absurd and disparate images and themes into a, relatively, cohesive narrative. Wollheim points to there being doubt in Freuds later work as to the place of secondary revision within the dreamwork (Wollhein, 1971: 69) but, as a concept, it has been important in many neo-Freudian systems of aesthetics especially, as Charles Altman points out in his essay â€Å"Psychoanalysis and Cinema† (1986: 526), by the French school of film critics who saw it as, not so much an integral part of the dreamwork, but as the main constituent in narrative formation and the audience/film dialectic. Jung On Dreams Dreams play as important a role in the work of Carl Jung as Sigmund Freud (Fordham, 1964) however the former not only sees their place in the psychical economy differently but has, as he explains in Man and his Symbols (1964), created an entirely separate process of interpretation and translation. Jung disagreed with Freuds notion of the dreamwork and his method of free association whereby the analysand recalls a dream and lets their mind wander through the myriad of different unconscious connections only to be unravelled and assessed by the analyst. For Jung, this process is likely to uncover neuroses and repression but is unlikely to uncover them connected with the dream. For Jung, the further away from the central motifs of the dream-image one gets the further away one travels from the locus of their meaning. Therefore, under a Jungian system, dreams consist not of personal motifs of repression returning through the dreamwork but as expressions of either the personal or collective unconscious. The method of extracting the meaning from dreams is centred around the correct reading of such symbols and an evaluation of how they relate to either the dreamers personal or their phyllogenetic background, as Jung himself asserts: â€Å"Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature, they show us unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature.† (Jung, 1989: 55) Jung viewed the waking, conscious perceptions as having a penumbra of associated psychical meanings (Jung, 1964: 28), even the very simplest of actions, for instance seeing or hearing, can involve a gamut of other ideational and experiential relations and it is this that we witness in dreams; the whole of our unconscious unfettered by the ordering, the siphoning and the categorisation of the conscious mind. For Jung, then, the absurd quality of dreams, their surreal nature comes not from intervention of the dreamwork but from the cultural and personal associations attached to perceptions and experiences. Thomas On Dreams Both Freuds and Jungs systems of dream interpretation offer us important critical tools with which to view Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood both in terms of the images and symbols the playwright uses in order to convey the sense of the somatic and the dream-like and his use of surrealism as a semi-comic trope throughout the piece. The play begins in the collective dream of the town. Just like the short story Quite Early One Morning, the audience is taken on a journey through the consciousnesses of the sleeping townsfolk as they dream their separate dreams, shaped (as both Freud and Jung assert) by their individual consciousnesses and personalities. Captain Cat, for example, experiences the return of the repressed guilt he feels towards his long dead shipmates: â€Å"Captain Cat, the retired blind sea-captain, asleep in his bunk in the seashelled, ship-in-bottled, shipshape best cabin of Schooner House dreams of Second Voice: never such seas as any that swamped the decks of the S.S. Kidwelly bellying over bedclothes and jellyfish-slippery sucking him down salt deep into the Davy dark† (Thomas, 2000: 2) Thomas, here, reflects both Freudian and Jungian dream analysis as Captain Cats dreams abound with symbols of his past and are unmistakably suffuse with the characters own visual lexicon, what Jung calls the â€Å"dream language† (Jung, 1986: 33). The same can be said of Dai Bread who dreams of â€Å"harems†, Polly Garter who dreams of â€Å"babies† and even Nogood Boyo who dreams of â€Å"nothing†. However, within the very text of Under Milk Wood we notice each one of the four elements of the Freudian dreamwork. The dense language is a clear instance of condensation: the vital elements of the imagistic leitmotifs are extracted and pile one on top of another, as adjective combines with adjective to form the quintessentially Thomasian poetics, such as here where the playwright draws a finely tuned portrait of Mrs Dai Bread One, the wife of the baker: â€Å"Me, Mrs Dai Bread One, capped and shawled and no old corset, nice to be comfy, nice to be nice, clogging on the cobbles to stir up a neighbour. Oh, Mrs Sarah, can you spare a loaf, love? Dai Bread forgot the bread. Theres a lovely morning! Hows your boils this morning?† (Thomas, 2000: 22) Thomas both describes the sense of a dream here and, through condensation, utilizes its mechanism. Words and phrases are juxtaposed and their meaning condensed in a way that mirrors almost exactly the workings of Freuds dreamwork. We see this reflected many times throughout the narrative of Under Milk Wood, as the author evokes in a linguistic sense what Freud saw in a psychoanalytic sense. We see, for example a clear literary rendering of displacement in the absurd portrait of Cherry Owen as described by the Second Voice: â€Å"Cherry Owen, next door, lifts a tankard to his lips but nothing flows out of it. He shakes the tankard. It turns into a fish. He drinks the fish.† (Thomas, 2000: 13) Here the incongruous image of a fish replaces or displaces the tankard that Cherry Owen drinks from adding to the dreamy quality of the early passages of the play. As a cultural symbol, the fish also mirrors the third of the Freudian mechanisms, representation, whereby a linguistic notion â€Å"He drinks like a fish† is rendered in a quasi-comic symbolic form. Of course, the ultimate use of dreams and dreaming in Under Milk Wood is the plot itself. Both Freud and Jung rely heavily on the concept of the return within their respective dream philosophies (Stevens, 1983; Fordham, 1964) and this is reflected in the very structure of the play that could, after all, be thought of as merely the manifest dream-content of the First Voice, or perhaps even Thomas himself. Like a dream, the text iterates, as we shall see in the next chapter, the same basic images and archetypes; the symbols are at once full of meaning in themselves and signifiers for other things. The First Voice can be seen as the voice of God but also of secondary revision, knitting disparate elements together to form a narrative that can be followed and engaged with. As the characters awake, their lives, as they are described by the First and Second voice, are shown to be no less absurd than the irrationality of their dreams. This is perhaps because the entire play can itself be seen as a dream of the authors in which he creates, as he states in a letter to A.G. Prys Jones, â€Å"a never-never Wales† (Thomas, 1985: 848) that, like its Peter Pan counterpart, is as much a manifest wish of its author as anything else. Chapter Three: The Shadow, T Kelloggs Business Strategy: Success Factors and Barriers Kelloggs Business Strategy: Success Factors and Barriers Introduction: The importance of customers and their value plays a major role and cannot be neglected by the companies in todays business world. The implementation of different new strategies and marketing plans will not help if the companies do not pay attention to the customers. Any companys marketing plan agenda should and will always include customers. Customer focus and retention is a powerful strategic advantage that helps to increase the profitability of the company and to survive in the high competitive environment. The different consumers across the world might lead to varying consumer behaviours which result in identifying varying concepts by decision making units to sell the products. In a company like Kelloggs the purchasing process is dependant on consumer behaviour. The buying pattern of the consumers has an influence on directly related phenomena as well as post marketing phenomena. Kelloggs has seen a downfall in sales in the past decade and still continues to see. There is a huge discussion in the EU market about the food nutrition and labelling and the negative media image produced about the products of the company. The Kelloggs products are criticised by food standard agency (FSA) as red products and junk food. They said that the company is trying to show their products healthier than they actually are. These statements and actions of FSA has not only affected the overall business and its image but also the consumer attitude towards the products. This report talks about how Kelloggs can resolve the issue by using marketing research and customer focused strategy. Company Profile: Kelloggs is the worlds largest cereal maker since 1906 and is located in the United States. Kelloggs products has become a part of the delicious mornings for the people around the world since a century. Its business is operated in two segments: Kelloggs North America and Kelloggs International. 66% of the revenue to the company comes from North America region which consists of the Canada and the United States. The remaining 34% comes from the Kelloggs international market which consists of Europe (20%), Latin America (8%) and Asia Pacific (6%). The products vary from ready-to-eat cereals to convenience foods such as cereal bars, cookies, toaster pastries, crackers, frozen waffles, snacks and veggie foods. Obesity and Health Wellness is the primary concern for people in the world today. Kelloggs has invested on this trend by introducing many health focused products like Kelloggs ®, Pop-Tarts ®, Cheez-It ®, Mini-Wheats ®, Nutri-Grain ®, Rice Krispies ®, Keebler ®, Specia l K ®, Chips Deluxe ®, Famous Amos ®, Morningstar Farm ®, Sandies ®, Eggo ®, Austin ®, Club ®, Murray ®, Kashi ®, Bear Naked ®, Gardenburger ®,All-Bran ®,and Stretch Island ®. The demand for its products came from the continuous advertising since 1906. The main competitors are General foods, Quaker Oats, General Mills and Ralston-Purina. It started out in Battle Creek, Michigan with 44 employees which eventually has grown into a multinational company with 30,000 employees. The manufacturing of its products is taking place in 18 countries and selling them over 180 countries successfully with the implementation of intelligent strategies and leadership. Key Success Factors: The main key factors for Kelloggs Success are it perceived to have a healthy image when compared to other daily breakfasts and snacks like chocolates and crisps. They made the products convenient enough so that they can be carried anywhere easily. They offer a range of cereal bars which are quite useful for people on the morning rush. Few Kelloggs products are really versatile as moms can give them as a snack between breakfast and lunch to their kids. Sodium content in the food is a major issue that the company has to deal with. Kelloggs are trying to develop products with less salt content and including more amount of fruits in the bars and cereals for people with health concerns. They have created a high level of brand awareness in the people which allowed them to win the customer loyalty. They have designed various products since a century for all age groups from childrens to adults. Innovation has influenced Kelloggs market to a greater extent. Introducing new products according to the changing markets and tastes of people from time to time has made Kelloggs to win the customers. They offered the products at a lower price which made an average household to afford, hence retaining the customers at large. Kelloggs market its products itself. It do not manufacture cereals for any other company who sells them under their own brand. All these factors added for the company to run successfully and become the world market leaders in the highly competitive market. Strategy: Kelloggs aim was to be the food company of choice and also make customers understand the importance of a balanced lifestyle which can be achieved by their products. The mission is to drive sustainable growth through the power of the people and brands by better serving the needs of customers, consumers and communities. Based on their vision and mission they crafted their strategy to achieve aims and objectives with the power of position and brand image. Kelloggs targeted various groups of people and deigned the products accordingly to attract their mind sets. Balanced Lifestyle is the broad strategic objective of the company. It implemented these strategies by some tactical plans like supporting the physical activity among all age groups and to sponsor these activities with the use of companies resources, the communication of the balance diet to consumers using the cereal packs, and also introduction of food labelling which would allow consumers to understand the balanced diet content of their products. Kelloggs has introduced the recommended Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) to their packaging labels. This allowed the customer to have a knowledge of the amount of nutrients in take in a serving of Kelloggs food. Their strategy is to attract customers by encouraging them to take part in the swimming programs organised by the company in relationship with the Amateur Swimming association (ASA). Kelloggs has sponsored almost 1.8 million awards every year to the swimmers. This idea of teaming up with ASA has helped the company to reinforce its brand image. It also has started many community programs and breakfast clubs to create awareness of their products in people. By all these activities it shows that the company is trying to create a good CSR image in the industry. Kelloggs believed that if consumers are given proper information about their products, they can retain them. So, they chose various methods to communicate their objectives to the world such as using cartoo n characters, and also through effective advertising. It also distributed nutrition magazines for the employees to make them better understand about the objectives. Solution: In a major business study about Kelloggs, it is seen that their consumers buying behaviour is mostly dependant on the companys focus towards customers and how well they treat them rather than manufacturing, pricing or merchandising of the products. Consumers tend to purchase the products which are more healthy. Hence they want to know all the available information about the products they want to buy or consume. The products information, beliefs, intentions and attitudes of the customers influence the decision process. So Kelloggs has to perform a market research on whether the consumers buy their products based on the label information or not. The visual inspection of the product or the experience of purchasing the product play a major role in the decision making of the consumer. Advertising and promotion of the product might as well have a greater impact on the buying pattern. It is difficult enough to understand the consumer behaviour within the borders of a single country. Underst anding and serving the needs of consumers from different countries can be daunting. The values, behaviours and attitudes of the consumers vary greatly across the world. Kelloggs must design the marketing programs and products according to the peoples needs. For example, in the United Kingdom where most people eat cereal regularly for their breakfast, Kelloggs should try persuading consumers to buy their brand rather than a competitors brand. In France, however where most people prefer croissants and coffee or no breakfast at all, it should advertise to convince people to eat cereal for breakfast and in India, where many consumers eat heavy fried breakfasts and skip meal all together, the company should make attempts to convince the buyers to shift to a lighter, more nutritious breakfast diet. To cover up the damage caused due to the labelling issue by FSA, Kelloggs Should determine the customers needs and convert them into requirements. In order to fulfil them, it should fully understand the current and future needs of the customers, identify the customers, determine their key product characteristics, identify and assess market competition, identify opportunities and weakness, define financial and future competitive advantages, ensure that it has sufficient knowledge about the regulatory requirements, identify the benefits to be achieved from exceeding compliance and also identify their role in the protection of community interests. Kelloggs can start launching some new products aimed at the health conscious consumers. They can start selling them for a lowest price in the market and satisfy them with a good value products for every penny they spend. They can concentrate more on three groups of people like individuals, families and supermarkets who wanted to have a healthy diet. They can focus more on health conscious people from age group from 25-50 by promising them healthy diet with their products. By the introduction of these products in the market they can show the customers that Kelloggs is being paid attention to what they want and how important their health is to the company. They can start collecting information from consumers and people by conducting surveys about what kind of products they are actually looking for and based on that they can prepare them and position them to win the competitive advantage. So the only mantra to attract the customers again and to cover up the loss created by FSA is obsessive customer attention. Even though making health conscious customers happy might affect the short term profits, yet it helps to acquire a loyal customer base which pays off in the future. Making these products available at all consumer stores and super markets at a lower retail price might assist in building up the brand image yet again. Adv ertisements play a crucial role in winning the brand image and loyalty of the customers. If the company tries to create an awareness about the product and the low price buying strategy, it would encourage the consumers to buy them that results in the greater sales of the product. Potential advantages by focusing on customers: Awareness of changing dynamics of the consumer market will definitely help Kelloggs to gain a competitive edge in the cereal industry. The increasing trend of health consciousness and the changing tastes can be known time to time by extensive market research. The feed back from consumers and the surveys conducted will allow the company to learn about their drawbacks and work up on them. It enables the business to minimize price sensitivity, improve profitability, differentiate itself from the competition, improve its image in the eyes of customer, achieve a maximum number of advocates for the company, increases customer satisfaction and retention, enhance its reputation, improve staff morale, ensure products and services are delivered right first time, increase employee satisfaction and retention, encourage employee participation, increase productivity and reduce costs, create a reputation for being caring customer-oriented company, foster internal customer / supply relationships and also bring about continuous improvements to the operation of the company. Barriers to overcome: For Kelloggs to win back its brand and image customer loyalty and becoming customer focused organisation there are some barriers to overcome Internal Focus: Rather than focusing on improving the output measures like revenue, cost and returns, the firm should pay attention to input measures like staff satisfaction and customer experience. Command and Control Culture: A command and control culture in the organisation creates internal conflicts, poor communication and mistrust. This constrains the freedom of building customer relationships and also the exchange of knowledge for better growth of the company. Short Term Approach: The company should not tend to fall back to the product-thinking strategy, instead it should hold on to the customer focus strategy and treat it as a long term initiative which might help acquire customer loyalty and retention to the firm. Inadequate Customer Data: With small volumes of customer data it is difficult to analyse customers behaviour and manage relationships. So, they should always make sure that adequate amount of data is available on the customers to understand the buying behaviour patterns. Understanding the customers: Though the company has gathered enough information, it is sometimes difficult to harness it. So it should try understanding the attitudes and beliefs of the customer. Conclusion: Labelling on food products plays a major role in the decision making process of a consumer. The buying behaviour of consumers is richly embroidered by the labels available on the product. In the Kelloggs case labelling issues created a damage to the company. The best way for Kelloggs to recover from this situation is to use the launch of the new products as a strategic technique to win back the customers it has lost. The glue that hold the organisation together is strong customer focus. It acts as a fuel for an improving the brand image of the company. Every employee should be committed and dedicated towards their work in order to build a customer focused organisation. If Business neglects to create a true customer focus, they need to face huge unnecessary costs for poor service raised due to the active promotion of the customers who are dissatisfied. This might result in investing extensively in marketing and advertising by the company to gain back the customers attention. The life blood of the organisation are the customers who allows the firm to realise their main goals and objectives to survive in the market and also to make a profit. Their behaviour helps the products to attain a recognition and allow them to last for longer periods. Consumer behaviours keep changing from time to time and the best thing the company could do is to develop strategic ways that make the consumers buy the products may it be old or new. So, customer focused strategy is the only thing which keeps the companies alive and growing in this highly changing competitive market.

Howard Gardners MI Essay -- essays research papers

Multiple Intelligence As a teacher it will always be my responsibility to keep up to date on new research done on learning theories. That way I am able to provide a fun and exciting learning environment for my students. After learning about Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences I now realize how important it is to make sure I work hard to include every child into my curriculum. Gardner’s theory is that everyone is able to recognize a student that does scores great on an exam is smart, that does not mean that a student that falls short of doing good on the same test is not as brilliant as the other student. Howard Gardner’s, theory opposes traditional methods that view intelligences as unitary, and perceives intelligence to contain eight domains. Gardner believes there is several different intelligences that each person embodies in certain magnitudes. Having more of a particular intelligence than another will change has each person retain information. As a child growing up in public elementary schools, I was taught from a traditional methods. These methods focused mainly on verbal and mathematical skills. If a student is anyone of the other six proposed intelligences, he or she would most likely do unsatisfactorily in school. Howard Gardner’s eight intelligences are: body/ kinesthetic, naturalist, visual/ spatial, musical/ rhythmic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, verbal/ linguistic, and logical/ mathematical.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Body/ kinesthetic is one of the first intelligences we’ll explore. This kind of learner has the skill to manipulate body motion and manage things with skill. Also the body/ kinesthetic learner obtains great hand eye coordination and has an excellent sense of balance. Interacting with the space around them is the way in which this learner processes information. The body/ kinesthetic learner can be a handful in a classroom, and as a student it may be difficult for this type of person to sit still. A teacher needs to give this student breaks and let them move around. Also, as part of the curriculum a teacher could include activity centers and allow the students to act out stories. The second intelligence is the naturalist student. This student has an understanding of the natural world around them. The naturalist thrives when learning about plants, animals, science. They have an understanding for animals behaviors and needs. ... ...nguist enjoy writing poetry, stories and letters. The traditional curriculum appeals to this learner. They are very good at reading and writing which is already the main method of teaching in most classrooms. A teacher can use a story to introduce a math problem in order to tap into this style of learning. Finally, logical/ mathematical is the proposed eighth intelligence. This style is heavily implemented in the traditional curriculum. This student will be able to do very complex math problems. Children who use logic and math as a primary way of learning will be very obvious in the classroom. This student will ask many questions and loves doing experiments. The logical/ mathematical learner will excel if they are help to place information into categories.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  If a teacher assesses their students at the beginning of the school year, he or she can create lessons to incorporate each student. This will allow children to have fun in school and they will be excited about learning. Recognizing your students learning method will allow the teacher to balance the weaknesses and benefit from strengths. Gardner, H. (1988). Frames of mind. New York: Basic Books.