Case Study Essay

Why is it important to get the patient’s assessment of health care quality? Does the patient have the expertise to judge the health care he or she receives? The patient is the customer. If the patient â€Å"perceives† that the health care received is inadequate, then he or she may go elsewhere the next time these services are needed. Although patients may not have the expertise to judge some aspects of 2 health care, they can judge appearances of competence, improvements in the way they feel, how they are treated, the cleanliness and comfort of the environment, and timely responses to service requests. . How might a hospital measure quality? Measuring quality in a service setting such as a hospital can sometimes be dif? cult. One obvious way is to keep track of the number of patient complaints—or even lawsuits. Some other measures that could be used include, but are not limited to, the following:  ¦ Average time for nurses to respond to a patients’ call  ¦ Average time spent by patients in intensive care  ¦ Average recovery time after surgery  ¦ Average condition of patients upon discharge  ¦ Change in patient condition between admission and discharge  ¦ Number patients per staff member 3. Using the steps in the table in the case discuss how each might apply to FCGH. To answer this question, one must remember that the product provided by FCGH is health care. However, it must also be remembered that the hospital’s staff (nurses, physicians, lab technicians, etc. ) are the suppliers of that service. Thus, quality of service will depend a great deal on the staff—their motivation, attention to details, morale, level of caring, etc. Quality to the Customer:  ¦ Is conformance of the service provided compared to established quality standards? Is quality of the hospital’s health are service compared with that of competitors? Quality Costs:  ¦ Have the costs of quality been measured and have possible areas for cost savings been identi? ed? Design Review:  ¦ Do procedures exist to review patient treatment for quality? Are these procedures being carried out? Product Quali? cation:  ¦ Have procedures been established and followed to qualify new treatme nts before they are used on patients? Product Liability:  ¦ Has each treatment been scrutinized regarding safety and are appropriate records kept? Does a written plan exist for dealing with major problems regarding patient? Process Capability:  ¦ Has the effectiveness and risk of each treatment been measured, and is that information used in selecting treatments? Incoming Inspection:  ¦ Is incoming material inspected? Are staff members evaluated before being hired? Are records of these evaluations kept? Supplier Quality:  ¦ Are suppliers and staff members made aware of their quality responsibilities? Are records kept on nonconformance? Process Control:  ¦ Has the hospital developed policies for controlling treatments and lab tests? Have employees been trained to follow these policies? Inspection and Test Planning: Do inspection and test plans exist for all services provided and are records maintained on the results? Are all test procedures and equipment regularly checked for accuracy? Quality Performance Indicators:  ¦ Are quality performance indicators regularly published throughout the hospital and made available to employees? Employee Involvement Program:  ¦ Are employees involved in quali ty improvement through some process such as quality circles? Multifunctional Quality Improvement Team:  ¦ Has a quality improvement team covering all functional areas been established to monitor quality work and to work o improve it? Quality Business Plan:  ¦ Has quality been integrated into the hospital’s business plan—and from there into the overall strategic plan? 4. How can the value of a human life be included in the cost of quality control? Placing a cost on a human life is, of course, dif? cult. However, even companies that manufacture goods must deal with this if there is the possibility that a defective product could result in death. In a hospital setting death is always a possibility due to unforeseen complications or adverse drug reactions. The best approach for FCGH may be to follow whatever policies and rocedures will produce the least chance of patient death. 5. There are certain parallels between the evaluation of health care quality and educational quality. How are customer surveys used to evaluate the quality of teaching at your institutions? How are the results used? Are any other measures available to assess educational quality? What improvements would you suggest to the current system? Teaching evaluations are the â€Å"customer surveys† of education. They are used by faculty and administrators to improve curriculum and teaching methods, to evaluate faculty performance, and to bestow teaching awards. There is general agreement, however, that student evaluations of teaching are insuf? cient assessments of education quality in and of themselves. Students may give high marks to teachers based on personality, lax administration of the class, or the level of dif? – culty of the course (easy grades). Further, how can students (who are just learning) judge whether the appropriate material is being taught? On the other hand, the student perceptions should not be ignored. A professor who is very knowledgeable about a subject, but who cannot communicate that knowledge is of little use to the educational process. Therefore, in assessing educational quality, multiple measures of performance should be used, including:  ¦ Teaching evaluations completed by students  ¦ Peer evaluations by faculty  ¦ Surveys of employers  ¦ Surveys of alumni  ¦ Ranking of departmental performance by other deans or industry  ¦ Placement data  ¦ Overall student evaluations based on assessments of total curriculum, rather than individual courses or teachers. QUALITY CLEANERS This case can be used to address several issues and objectives:  ¦ All employees throughout the process must be involved.  ¦ Employees must be accountable for the quality of their work. In service organizations, determining the attributes that de- ?ne quality service, and the corresponding question of how to measure quality can be dif? cult, but must be done,  ¦ The student should have suf? cient understanding of SPC to determine when, where, and how it should be applied.  ¦ Small increases in prevention and appraisal cost wi ll result in large decreases in total cost of quality.  ¦ Records are kept to maintain accountability of the employee to determine bonuses, additional training required, or possible dismissal. Another problem area identi? ed would include quipment (cleaning machine, presses) not functioning properly. These records would also indicate areas where future improvements should be directed. Given below are some points that should be included in the case analysis. 1. Inspections should occur throughout the process with each worker checking his or her work and previous activities also. The astute students will also recognize the capability of using the customer as an inspector. When the garment(s) is brought into the store, the customer should be asked if there are any spots or stains that may require special attention, repairs eeded, special requests, etc. Getting this information from the customer will greatly increase the probability that the service provided meets the customer’s expectations. The counter person and the marker should be checking the garments closely for foreign objects, rather than leaving this for the cleaner, because this has the greatest potential dam age in terms of dollars and dissatis? ed customers. A load ruined by an ink pen would impact 10–20 customers and cost several thousand dollars in claims. 2. Allow for some student creativity. Possibilities would include he counter person, marker, and assembler initialing the ticket at a designated point. The cleaners and pressers could use special shaped (circle, square, triangle, etc. ) punches to punch the identi? cation tag pinned in the garment. Another option would be for the cleaners and pressers to use small plastic tags (as sometimes seen on bakery items) placed on the hanger. Whatever the solution, it should achieve the objective of accountability and require limited time and supplies cost. 3. The additional workload must be tracked over time. Time consumed must be matched with the number of complaints.

By Motivating people highest degree of involvement can be achieved Essay

Introduction Why do people do the things they do? How can I get people to do what ought to be done? How can I motivate people to opt for safety measures? What are they going to think about these measures? How can we change the attitude of people towards safety? Questions along these lines are amongst those that management has to be ready when it comes to changing the behavior of people towards safety. These challenges faced by the management can be overcome by the number of strategies adapted. There are two ways in which the workers can be motivated for safety of self, others and equipment (a) by rewarding them when the safety strategies are put into practice (b) and also best through by self-direction, self-control and disciplinary application. Text Indifferent Attitude Towards Safety We need to motivate workers towards safety so as to avoid and minimize accidents in the industry. The term accident can be defined as an event that results in unintended harm or damage it is a very unpleasant experience where losses can occur. In an industry it is usually a result of a contact with a source of energy (kinetic, chemical, electrical, radiation etc). In terms of damage, an accident could result in property damage such as fire, breakage, distortion etc. Why do these accidents occur there can be lot of reasons for that some of them are mentioned below: – Lack of Knowledge – The worker was not trained properly on a particular job, or he may not have had experience, skill to handle the job there was lack of orientation. The initial instructions given to him would not have been sufficient. Inadequate Leadership And/Or Supervision – His work was not supervised properly there was not adequate performance management and evaluation. The delegation of work was improper. There was no proper communication of policies, procedure and objectives. Inadequate communication of safety and health data. Communication Gap Between The Various Departments – All the departments are not co-operative and would not share their information with each other even if they need to work in close co-operation. Favoritism – There may be favoritism, which leads to demotion of some employees, which is highly de motivating and leads to indifferent attitude towards safety. Poor working conditions – In adequate lighting, lack of availability of safety devices and personal equipments, not a clean working environment, will not help employees to carry out work in the most safest manner. Here is when safety comes into picture it is defined as freedom from accidents or the condition of being safe from pain, injury or loss. It includes both preventing accidents and keeping losses to the minimum when accidents occur. Safety education and training is the only way we can prevent accidents and safeguard our employees the company from making huge looses due to accidents. Developing Safe Attitude For the development of safe attitude, there should be a high degree of participation by all employees and the management should be able to sustain their interest by providing them information about the various affects of an accident, consequences by the help of the following: * Posters – Should be located in places which are prone to accidents like near the equipments, corridors, areas where there are chemicals or big machineries to promote a theme or call attention to a problem, and changed at least monthly. * Handouts – Can be used in conjunction with monthly poster theme as reinforcement. Usually included in payroll envelope or can be mailed to the employee’s house. * In-House Newsletters – A separate section can be devoted to inform employees of current and future safety methods in a very informal way, messages by top management, achievement toward goals and ideas that worked. These are some items that will be of interest. * Suggestions – Employees should be encouraged to submit written ideas and suggestions. Providing a box where they can deposit these, gives them the feeling of having a direct line to management. * Group Safety Meetings – Are generally most effective when they involve top management, are planned to promote or train, and are of short duration (up to 1/2 hour). * Individual Safety Contacts – Usually performed by the employee’s supervisor on a scheduled basis, weekly to monthly, with one topic as the basis of discussion (5 to 15 minutes). * Safety Contests, Quizzes & Campaigns, etc. – These can be designed to reward individuals or groups. The best results are achieved when everyone is involved and many types of activities interface to promote the campaign or contest. Programs that show an interest from top management, through the supervisors, to the hourly employees, help to create the spirit of cooperation. Effective communication is a motivational tool. When top management knows and participates in the program, it communicates to all employees that safety is a company effort. Programs should be planned using a systematic approach aimed at the factors that are most influential to the affected employees. This will be much more effective than a hit-or-miss technique. Motivating For Safe Attitude When workers do not pay attention or are not interested (lack of proper attitude) managements answers are likely to be found in the realm of morale and motivation. The management knows that the employees have the know-how and are physically and mentally capable of doing the work correctly, conscientiously and safely – motivating these employees is a practical approach. So there to maintain interest, management has to see that the employees benefit directly. Interest will be aroused by activities that will appeal to them personally. However, everyone is not motivated by the same incentive. Therefore, activities that encompass several motivating factors will gain more overall participation. The key motivating factors are: Self -Preservation – Protection of oneself from harm or destruction is the most important motivational factors. The fear of injury can lead to safety and the management should sustain interest in this by highlighting the consequence of injury by videos, presentations, posters discussions and lectures. Personal and Material Gain – Monetary gain or getting a reward for their achievement appeals to a lot of people so the management should reward their achievements for outstanding safety performances. Like in a Oil Drilling Company if a particular rig does not have any accident for 1yr then all the employees of the rig get a certificate and a safety bonus. Loyalty – If a person is loyal towards the organization then he would have a greater interest in preventing the company from occurring losses. He would make it point to thoroughly understand the safety rules and implement it wherever possible because he feels the companies loss is his loss. Responsibility – The sense of responsibility of an employee will lead to active participation in safety measures. Like if a person would like to do a voluntary service by becoming a Loss Prevention team leader for a specific group so as to keep them updated with the latest in safety. Conformity – Fear of being different will be able to motivate a person to follow the policies, procedures of the safety measures. Violation of these methods would lead to serious consequence so therefore conformity would be a better choice and also prevent humiliation amongst other employees. Rivalry – Desire to compete in many people is a way of achieving things this can be used by management as an adequate tool of promoting safety measure by conducting contest on safety. Leadership – If a person has the traits of leadership then being a leader and training other people on safety issues could motivate him. Like giving presentations on using the different devices and equipments in the factories and this should be encouraged by the management by providing incentives to the leader. All these factors will help in achieving highest degree of involvement of the workers in the safety measure and help the organization to achieve its goal in a safest possible manner. Conclusion Safety has to be taken seriously in the industry. Now days industries are putting lot of emphasis on safety training and implementation as they know safety implementation and effectiveness is worth against the injury caused. If the behavior of the employees has to change for this the management has to change their attitude and motivate employees for taking up safety measure and using them. Although motivation is not a magic wand it takes knowledge, understanding, problem solving, empathy, interaction, patience and perseverance. But if used can work wonders.

The Importance of Time in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.Dalloway

Modern English novel Theme: â€Å"The importance of time in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway† As human beings, we are unique in our awareness of death. â€Å"We know that we will die, and that knowledge invades our consciousness†¦it will not let us rest until we have found ways, through rituals and stories, theologies and philosophies, either to make sense of death, or, failing that, to make sense of ourselves in the face of death. † Attaching significance to life events is a human reaction to the sense of â€Å"meaninglessness† in the world.Fearing our ultimate annihilation, we form belief systems to reassure us in the face of death. Religion provides us with elaborate rituals at times of death and faith assists believers in mourning and coping with the loss of loved ones. So without a religious foundation, where does one find solace in the face of so much pain? This is the struggle for Virginia Woolf, a self-proclaimed atheist whose life was shadowed by death from an early age. In the years between 18953 (when she was thirteen) and 1904 she lost her mother, her sister, and her father.Less than a decade later, Europe was consumed by war, and public mourning became a part of her life. â€Å"Grieving started very early in Virginia’s life, which might be one reason why her writing offers us such a forceful riposte that it should, or could, be brought to an end. † Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories profoundly changed the way we think about the mind and its subconscious workings. His work greatly influenced the way people understood mental illness and other social deviations. This is especially true during the time that Virginia Woolf was writing these novels, when his books were widely read.In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud presents the struggle between Eros (the drive for erotic love) and Thanatos (the appetite for death) as the forces that dominate human decision-making and action. He feared that without healthy outlets for our own sexual appetites, humanity would fall to war and violence, as Thanatos wins the battle. Virginia Woolf is a perfect example of how this struggle exists in the human psyche. Her early sexual invasions damaged her sexual drive later in life. She was often cold towards her husband, unable to feel any passion for him.Her desire for death, then, may have been stronger, which would explain her preoccupation with it. Attempting suicide twice, and finally succeeding in 1941, Woolf was acutely aware of the shadow in her life. She, like Septimus the poet in Mrs. Dalloway, condemned herself to death. Responses to death are an important theme in Woolf’s literature. Mourning is a natural and necessary reaction to loss. In our minds, we must put the dead to rest, even if they still exist in our memories. Freud had much to say about this subject in Mourning and Melancholia.He wrote that it might be a response to losing a loved one, as experienced by the c haracters in these novels. It may also be a response to a threatened ideal (country, freedom, family) that may be experienced in time of war. We must, therefore, take into account that Woolf, at the time of writing these two novels, had lived through one World War. After World War I there was much sorrow in Europe. Public mourning, as mentioned, is done on a larger scale, and includes despair, overall uncertainty, and confusion.The Great War had shaken the world, leaving the survivors confused and uncertain as to how to heal the wounds and mourn for so many losses. Writing in the 1920s, Woolf was keenly aware of the mood in Europe, time for public mourning had now passed, and life continued, though radically and forever altered. The war had great impact on her writing, and on her vision of the world. â€Å"The war had taught him [Smith]. It was sublime. He had gone through the whole show, friendship, European War, death†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Death was an ever present shadow in Woolfâ€℠¢s life, but insight could illuminate aspects of life that would have otherwise been overlooked.Without religious security, the author (like the rest of us) struggled to deal with loss. Main part With the publication of  Mrs. Dalloway  (Woolf, 1996) in 1925, the modernist writer and critic Virginia Woolf released one of her most celebrated novels upon the literary world. Examining ‘an ordinary mind on an ordinary day’ (Woolf, 1948, p 189) Woolf explores the fragmentary self through ‘streams of consciousness’, whereby interior monologues are used to tell the story through the minds of the principal characters. Told through the medium of mniscient narration, this story about two people who never meet has no resolution and the characters remain where they started, locked in their own heads, in a constant state of flux. As a contemporary study of post-war Britain, however,  Mrs Dalloway  mirrors the fragmentation that was taking place within her own cul ture and society, and provides a â€Å"delicate rendering of those aspects of consciousness in which she felt that the truth of human experience really lay. † A number of themes and motifs are explored, but this essay will consider the representation of time within the novel.For Woolf, time is a device with which she not only sets the pace of the novel, but with which she also controls her characters, setting and plot. It is also used to question ‘reality’ and the effect of that on the individual characters within the story as they journey through their day. As these different modes are uncovered, psychological time will be revealed and its impact on the main characters of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith will be examined. Although Woolf has rejected the linear narrative favoured by her precursors, in what she described as a queer yet masterful design, she does achieve a certain linearity.The thoughts and memories of Clarissa Dalloway, despite darting backwards and forwards through time, move towards a definite point in the future – her party. Septimus Warren Smith, on the other hand, is stuck in a time loop, living in a past that he cannot escape until the moment of his death. Mrs Dalloway  bears the hallmarks of a modernist text with its striking and experimental use of form and language. Woolf accelerates and decelerates time by way of the thoughts and emotions of her characters.The speed at which individual paragraphs move convey the emotional response of the character to the situation; when time slows, the sentences are long and languorous, but when the mood changes the sentences shrink to short declarative ones. The kinetic mode is the tempo or speed at which the character experiences a situation and the opening of  Mrs Dalloway  demonstrates how Woolf accelerates time to a fever pitch to convey the energy and restless vitality of the two Clarissa’s: Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.Fo r Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning – fresh as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air.How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of couse, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she was then) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Mrs Dalloway  is set on a single day in the middle of June, 1923, in London’s West End. The time and place are fragmented by Woolf repeatedly plunging her heroine back in time to the summer at Bourton when she was a girl of 18. Hermione Lee cont ends that â€Å"the past is not in contrast with the present but involved with it†.This passage sets the scene for the dual themes of liberation and loss which are outworked through Clarissa’s rites of passage. Woolf cleverly parallels two important times of Clarissa’s life – her entry into womanhood and her descent into middle age – and establishes a link between chronological time and time of life: In the space of half a page, Woolf sets the scene for her two landscapes – a country house in late Victorian England, and a town house in Georgian Westminster. The late 1880s, when Clarissa was a girl of 18, was â€Å"a time of serenity and security, the age of house parties and long weekends in the country†.The Industrial Revolution had, by this time, transformed the social landscape, and capitalists and manufacturers had amassed great fortunes, shifting money and power to the middle classes. Social class no longer depended upon heritage ; indeed Clarissa’s own social heritage is never clearly defined. Born into an age of reform – Gladstone had passed the Married Woman’s Property Act and Engels had just published the second volume of Marx’s  Das Kapital  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ at 18, Clarissa has an enquiring mind, and despite her apparent naivety, she is questioning and absorbs the different thoughts and ideas that mark the age.Despite her naivety, the eighteen-year-old Clarissa is a vibrant young woman who is full of fun. She loves poetry and has aspirations of falling in love with a man who will value her for the opinions imbued in her by Sally Seton. Her bursting open the French windows and plunging at Bourton is a metaphor for her rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood, and she embraces the change, despite â€Å"feeling†¦that something awful was about to happen. †Ã‚   Life at Bourton was sheltered and Clarissa was protected from the decay of Victorian values; the boundaries set by her father and aging aunt, far from being restricting, allowed her a sense of freedom.Bourton and her youth therefore represent a time of liberation for Clarissa. The present mode of time is one of uncertainty, where Clarissa’s understanding of ’reality’ has been fragmented by the first world war, and where Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin – under whom her husband, Richard, serves – has been in power for just three weeks; the third British Prime Minister in a year. At 52 years old, Clarissa’s plunge into middle age is an ironic affair and the reader is given a sense that it is not the lark that she declares it to be but is rather a time for reflecting on the past.Although she still has a questioning mind, she has lost her voice, and this is symbolised by Woolf’s use of interior monologue. Her home in Westminster, where her bed is narrow and â€Å"the sheets†¦tight stretched in a broad white band from side to side† theref ore represents a time of loss. As a young woman Clarissa had been avidly pursued by Peter Walsh whose marriage proposals she rejected on account of his stifling her. Marriage to Richard was meant to have given her some independence, yet the middle-aged Clarissa is like a caged bird, repeatedly depicted as having â€Å"a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-green. This day is significant to her in that it represents her breaking out of that cage, her ‘coming of age’, and by buying the flowers herself she is asserting her independence and re-gaining control of her life. Despite the ordinariness of her day, Clarissa (in contrast to the feeling she experienced as she plunged through the windows at Bourton) feels that something important is about to happen to her and she receives the morning â€Å"fresh as if issued to children on a beach. † The mature Clarissa has become compliant and her spirit and idealism have been tamed, her passion for life and love qu enched.This attitude reflects the spirit of the modernist age where there is a national lack of confidence in God, in government and in authority following the slaughter at the Somme. Clarissa’s party is her opportunity to unmask her real self to the world. However, she wastes the opportunity by indulging in superficial conversation with people who do not matter to her. This suggests that the real Clarissa has been left behind at Bourton; that the young woman plunging through the squeaky French windows, filled with burgeoning hopes for the future, is the real Clarissa Dalloway.The only time we glimpse her as a mature woman is when she briefly speaks with Peter and Sally at her party. The most obvious representation of time in  Mrs Dalloway  is ‘clock time’. Various clocks are present throughout the novel, including Big Ben, St Margaret’s and an unnamed ‘other’ who is always late. How the character experiences clock time†¦is rendered b y Virginia Woolf as a sensory stimulus which may divert the stream of thought, summon memory, or change an emotional mood, as do the chimes of Big Ben and St Margaret’s throughout Mrs Dalloway.Thus clock time is metamorphosed into feeling and enters consciousness as one more aspect of duration. Accurate to within one second per day, its importance in the novel can be in no doubt. It makes its first appearance early on in the novel as Clarissa leaves her Westminster home. Jill Morris asserts that: When Big Ben strikes, those who hear are lifted out of their absorption in daily living to be reminded of this moment out of all the rest. This is demonstrated by Clarissa who, in the middle of ruminating about her life as she waits to cross the road, becomes suddenly aware of: â€Å"a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense†¦before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. † Not only do we anticipate the sound of Big Ben, but when â€Å"we hear the sound†¦we have a visual picture of it in our imaginations as well†.The musical warning is the ‘Westminster chime’ – originally the ‘Cambridge chime’ – that plays out before the hour ‘irrevocably’ strikes. Composed in 1859 by William Crotch, it is based on a phrase from Handel’s aria â€Å"I know that my Redeemer Liveth†. The irrevocability of the hour refers to the passing of time and its ephemerality. Once an hour has been spent there is no reclaiming it. This is linked with Clarissa’s obsession with death – that each tick of the clock brings her closer to her eventual demise – and foreshadows her relationship with her double, Septimus.Just as Big Ben strikes at significant moments in the book, so St Margaret’s languishes: Ah, said St Margaret’s, like a hostess who comes into her drawing-room on the very stroke of the hour and finds her guests there already. I am not late. No, it is precisely half-past eleven, she says. Yet, though she is perfectly right, her voice, being the voice of the hostess, is reluctant to inflict its individuality. Some grief for the past holds it back; some concern for the present.It is half-past eleven, she says, and the sound of St Margaret’s glides into the recesses of the heart and buries itself in ring after ring of sound, like something alive which wants to confide itself, to disperse itself, to be, with a tremor of delight, at rest – like Clarissa herself†¦It is Clarissa herself, he thought, with a deep emotion, and an extraordinarily clear, yet puzzling, recollection of her, as if this bell had come into the room years ago, where they sat at some moment of great intimacy, and had gone from one to the other and had left, like a bee with honey, laden with the moment.The bells of St Margaret’s â⠂¬â€œ the parish church of the House of Commons – symbolise, to Peter Walsh, Clarissa. At Bourton he had condescendingly prophesied that â€Å"she had the makings of the perfect hostess†, and, indeed, Clarissa spends the entire novel preparing for her party. That evening he observes her â€Å"at her worse – effusive, insincere† as she welcomes her guests. The gulf of time has brought out the worst in Peter and he is still bitter about Clarissa’s rejection of him, despising her life with Richard.These feelings are forgotten, however, once St Margaret’s begins to strike, and he is filled with deep emotion for her. The other clock is unidentifiable, a shambolic stranger following on the heels of the eminent Big Ben and elegant St Margaret’s: †¦The clock which always struck two minutes after Big Ben, came shuffling in with its lap full of odds and ends, which it dumped down as if Big Ben were all very well with his majesty laying dow n the law, so solemn, so just†¦.Woolf wrote of  Mrs Dalloway  that â€Å"the mad part tries me so much, makes my mind squirt so badly that I can hardly face spending the next weeks at it†. One way that she deals with this trial is in her treatment of the late clock. It sounds â€Å"volubly, troublously†¦beaten up† reflecting the state of mind of the neurasthenic Septimus who â€Å"talks aloud, answering people, arguing, laughing, crying, getting very excited†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The ‘otherness’ of this clock defines its strangeness, with its perpetual lateness and shuffling eccentricities being used as a metaphor for insanity, and therefore, for Septimus.Just as Clarissa and Septimus never meet neither do Big Ben and the ‘other’ clock – they are out of synch and their relationship is notable only for the difference between them. As Clarissa Dalloway spends the day preparing for her party, so Septimus Warren Smith spends it prepa ring to die. There are allusions to his impending suicide and time of his death throughout the novel, and even his name – which means ‘seventh’ or ‘seventh time’ – implies that the prophetic relationship between the man and his death is controlled by time.This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next†¦Dante the same†¦ In his insanity, Septimus likens himself to Dante who travelled through the three realms of the dead during Holy Week in the spring of 1300. The seventh (Septimus) circle of ‘the violent’ is divided into three rings, the middle ring being for suicides who have been turned into rough and knotted trees on which the harpies build their nests.His affinity with trees throughout the novel suggests that they have become anthropomorphic to Septimus and he looks forward to the time when he will become one himse lf. Cutting one down is, he considers, equivalent to committing murder, an action that will be judged by God. Septimus’s contemplation of suicide is therefore a consideration of timelessness and eternity. He can condone the taking of his own life because he views it as an opportunity to take control of his destiny, to move into a realm of timelessness where there is no death: A sparrow perched on the railing opposite chirped.Septimus, Septimus, four or five times over and went on drawing its notes out, to sing freshly and piercingly in Greek words how there is no crime and, joined by another sparrow, they sang in voices prolonged and piercing in Greek words, from trees in the meadow of life beyond a river where the dead walk, how there is no death. Septimus’s transition from time to timelessness is finally accomplished when, in a moment of insane panic, he plunges out of his window and onto Mrs Filmer’s railings. For Rezia this symbolises a plunge into widowhood and the beginning of a new time of her life.Woolf understood that the most dramatic way of entering a character’s consciousness is through time, as it is intimately connected with the ‘moment of being’ and the way that the character understands it emotionally. Entering Rezia’s consciousness in this way and rendering time in emotional duration rather than clock time intensifies its impact and heightens the response of the reader. In clock time, the span of that moment of being is measurable in hours, minutes and seconds, but when experienced emotionally the past and future become entwined with the present and make up the ‘now’.It seemed to her as she drank the sweet stuff that she was opening long windows, stepping out into some garden. But where? The clock was striking – one, two, three: how sensible the sound was; compared with all this thumping and whispering; like Septimus himself. She was falling asleep. But the clock went on strik ing, four, five, six, and Mrs Filmer waving her apron (they wouldn’t bring the body in here, would they? ) seemed part of that garden; or a flag. She had once seen a flag slowly rippling out from a mast when she stayed with her aunt at Venice. Men killed in battle were thus saluted, and Septimus had been through the War.Of her memories, most were happy. For Rezia, then, time slows right down at the moment of Septimus’s suicide and it has a dream-like quality that mirrors her shock and grief. The sound of the clock striking six fixes her into the present, but her sedated mind wanders through fragmented images of a garden, a flag she had once seen when on holiday, the War. In her response to grief, real time is suspended, yet she is still aware that Septimus is dead, and she worries that his body might be brought into her bedroom. Instead, it is, figuratively, brought to Mrs Dalloway’s party by the Bradshaws.Clarissa’s response to the news is to imagine how it felt, that moment of being that was Septimus’s death: Always her body went through it, when she was told, first suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; through him, blundering, bruising, went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud, in his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it. Just as Septimus had imagined himself as Dante travelling through hell, so too does Clarissa have apocalyptic imaginings which are stirred by the news.Her dress flames and her body burns as, in her imagination, she journeys into the eternal flames. The thud that she imagines in Septimus’s brain mirrors the ticking of a clock and measures out his last moments on earth. The image has a profound psychological affect on Clarissa who suddenly recognizes that she is like him – that he is her double. Her moment of epiphany enables her to both appreciate her life and lose the fear of death that has impeded her for so long. As Big Ben strikes for the last time in the book, the identification between Clarissa and Septimus is complete: She felt somehow very like him – the young man who killed himself.She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Mrs Dalloway  is an exploration of the human condition through the medium of time. Using a fragmented discourse that reflects the changing society that was post World War 1 Britain, Virginia Woolf involves the past with the present and suggests that time exists in different forms. In the external world it is ordered chronologically and she uses it to portray a vivid impression of London society life in the 1920s.Its passing is marked by the great clocks of Westminster and the leaden circles of Big Ben are a constant reminder to Clarissa of the pulse of life itself. Kinetic time and clock time are therefore inext ricably linked. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the suggestion that time also exists in the internal world as a ‘moment of being’, which Woolf develops through the medium of interior monologue. The principle characters – Clarissa, Peter, Septimus and Rezia – are defined by their response to time, and, as the novel draws to a close, there is an awareness of the past and present converging.This creates an impression in the reader that they are reading a news report or a ‘fly on the wall’ documentary. Conclusion To sum up. Woolf suggests that  time  exists  in  different forms. It exists  in  the  external world, but also—and perhaps more importantly—in  our  internal world. Her description of  the  loud and rushing civilization suggests that we push ahead  in  the  name  of  progress, without fully appreciating  the  moment. Through  the  character  of  Clarissa, Woolf challenges  the  usual definition  of  success.Perhaps we need not leave some magnificent gift behind  in  the  form  of  a building or a concrete art piece. Instead, maybe it is  how  we live our lives and our appreciation for  the  present that are truly more powerful and eternal. The  small gifts we  offer others, like bringing people together through a party, can touch people differently than a monument. Virginia Woolf’s message about  time  should be heeded. Our rush to leave a dramatic mark  in  the  world leads to further destruction. Tension abounds  in  our modern world as we create technology to  increase our efficiency.Our civilization tends to see scientific and monumental achievements as  the  most valid measures  of  an  individual’s success. However,  in  the  process, our communities disintegrate. More and more people complain  of  feeling alienated. The  evidence surrounds us. The  internal  ti me  that allows us to slow down and be  involved with people finds itself dominated by external societal  time. Some might find Clarissa  Dalloway’s gift to  the  world to be trivial. However, we need  individuals with  the  ability to pull people together—people with  the ability to create community where it no longer exists.

MHE503 Survey of Emergency and Disaster Mgt Module 5 SLP Essay

MHE503 Survey of Emergency and Disaster Mgt Module 5 SLP - Essay Example In 1642, a Chinese rebel army shattered the Kaifeng dikes of the Yellow River resulting to deaths by inundation of some 370,000 denizens (Xu et al,1995,p.87). In November 13, 1970, a tidal wave accompanying a cyclone in today's Bangladesh snuffed out 500,000 lives (Young,1985,p.66). Lately, during the World Trade Center attacks by Al Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, more than 30,000 people perished as the whole world watched in abject horror via their televisions (Craighead,2009,p.84). Man has learned to react systematically to these disasters. All that man must do is to prepare beforehand for the time when these arrive to wreak havoc on humanity, to respond to emergencies that spawn great distress and to establish recovery measures so that losses will be mitigated and alleviated. Humanity must particularly brace itself for dire, disastrous effects that global warming may at any time inflict on peoples' lives. Man has learned to institute and organize an Incident Command System. system that manages an expeditious and efficient response to all emergency incidents which response is flexible, multi-jurisdictional and complex and involving the coordination and orchestration of the functions and energies of state, federal and local responders. This also entails the utilization of a competent on-scene tool for the management of such response where the first persons or agencies to respond take control of the situation and adopt a standard, integrated organizational framework until an Incident Commander or any higher ranking responder takes over the command and control of the emergency scene (Hogar & Burstein,2007,p.143). Answer to Question 1 The Key Features of an Incident Command System or ICS: First, there is a legally delegated Incident Commander or IC who has absolute authority for directing all operations at the incident scene. The IC also has the power to appoint and delegate his or her responsibilities to alter egos who are most likely heads of government agencies. In the assigned Philippine scenario, the President is the IC and the appointing power on the basis of Section 17, Article VII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The agencies in charge of responding to calamities and

How intersectional identities can transform intersectional Dissertation

How intersectional identities can transform intersectional disadvantage into public appreciation through sports - Dissertation Example It is argued that there is a public romance with sports in which black athletes such as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Pele together with homosexual Carl Lewis have challenged stereotypical attitudes toward homosexuals and racial minorities.4 In other words, there are opportunities for minorities in sports to penetrate intersectional boundaries and to not only gain acceptance, but to also be admired. This research study will demonstrate the opportunities according competitive sports for transcending intersectional boundaries by reference to South Africa’s Rugby League. South Africa, a country that has transitioned from apartheid to democracy in the late 20th century provides an example of both extremes: oppression and equality in sports. This study will therefore be divided into four parts. The first part of this study defines intersectionalities and provides an analysis of sports generally. The second part of this paper provides an intersectional analysis of sports in South Africa’s Rugby league during apartheid. The third part of this study conducts an intersectional analysis of sports in post-Apartheid South Africa’s Rugby League. The final part of the paper analyses intersectionalities in sports today. Part I: Introduction Davis defines intersectionality as: †¦the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of diffiference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power.5 The term intersectionality was introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 as a means of providing more profound insight into the experiences of non-white women. Crenshaw felt that feminist studies did not adequately address the special circumstances that women of diverse racial minorities experienced. Crenshaw argued that there was a need to demonstrate how both gender and race interacted to inform the experiences of women of colour.6 Today, intersectionali ty theory is understood as a means of analyzing the intersection between gender, race, class and ethnicity and how these interactions are manifested in community settings, institutions and the daily lives on individuals and their interactions with others.7 Essentially, intersectionality takes the postion that different social entities are made up of different identities. For example black people are comprised of black heterosexuals, black homosexuals and my other identities. Intersectionality theory argues that the different status identities of members of a social group will correspond with the extent to which the individual will likely be discriminated against.8 Over the last ten or so years there has been an intensifying growth in intersectional analyses as a result of an appreciation for the realization that identities are multidimensional and are constantly changing and formed by â€Å"power† through â€Å"additional categories as social class, sexuality, and

Twitter (Marketing) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Twitter (Marketing) - Essay Example Twitter’s marketing strategy includesboth short-term and long-term activities in a formulation of market-oriented strategies. The main goal of Twitter is to increase the membership all over the world tosupport reach for its advertising clients.    The Twitter Social Media Company has many services such as self-service ads, tweets, user-sharing photos that are used by individuals as businesses alike.iii Today, Twitter has more than 500 million members, of which 284 million members are considered active users. In terms of the number of users, Twitter is far behind Facebook, its closest competitor.iv As Twitter is introducing new services and improving its Internet reach over the last few years, itsmarket position is improving.v In the last three quarters what year, the revenue generation of Twitter is increasing with the fast user growth. However, although the revenue is growing at a fast pace, the amount of users has slowed in comparison to Facebook. For the first time in history, the company has posted revenue of more than one billion dollars.vii The firm uses various types of advertising and marketing mediums to enhance the reach of the product and services that are connected to the Internet. Twitter uses all mediums in an effort to increase the members such as email, search engines, back links to websites.  This popular website also uses many mediums such as TV, movies,  etc.  as a part of advertising  strategy. Twitter is also an important part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization strategy. One of the main advantages of this service is that the signing up of the account is free and the site offers free publicity for the members, whether it is the company page or an individual.  They can offer a free link to the customers by clicking on a short link offered by the company. In exchange, the site also gets free advertising in every medium. This paragraph is not clear. What is the mix of advertising that they use to

Business Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Business Project - Essay Example For this the Generations Clothing aimed to produce good quality products. In addition to the quality of the product they give importance to the simplicity and smart looking to the product. From the market surveys conducted by the business as a part of their business planning it is found that a major part of the customers are always like these types of products. From the market research, it is found that Sydney is a best market for the casual clothing. There are various market advantages that are available in Sydney market such as lower government regulations, low rate of taxes etc. By establishing stores in Sydney the Generations Clothing can The ultimate goal of the company is to create a brand image of high quality product of low price. A brand image of high quality at low price is always helpful to capture the market in the competitive market. The products should also be imaged as simply designed product. This type of brand image is helpful to attract the customers. By adopting strict cost control techniques in all levels of production and marketing process the company aimed to produce quality products at low cost. 5. Once mature create a unique sub brand to prevent risks: the mature and declining products must be replaced by new ones. In the present market environment most of the branded products are facing decline in growth rate and profit rate after they attain the maturity stage. The reason behind this phenomenon is the lack of further improvement in product quality and design. The Generations Clothing Company forecast this crucial risk and to overcome this risk they take care and prepare to present a unique sub-brand at the maturing stage of the existing product. This will be helpful for avoiding the risks related to the existing branded product. The proposed sub brand must be unique and entirely different from existing product of the company. The logo of this product should be

The Role of Marriage in Persuasion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Role of Marriage in Persuasion - Essay Example Austen was reared during the Victorian era and the role and status of women were extremely limited and stagnant. For example, women could not vote, they typically received an inferior education to their male counterparts and were limited to domestic occupations (Williams, 5). This is the context in which Persuasion was developed highlighting the prominent position that women have only two good choices in society - to get married or become a governess (Parkinson, 24). Though Austen acknowledges that marriage helps prevent loneliness and isolation, she also examines the failures of society’s perceptions of marriage which may create an intellectual isolation for women. This isolation that she recognizes, as Samuel Burchell tells us, is that â€Å"Jane Austen’s characters start in the primary condition of loneliness, pass through the difficulties of establishing the proper communication with others, and reach fulfillment in the symbolic union of marriage† (Burchell 1 49). Marriage is about many things in the Victorian society but it is rarely about love. For example, Anne's countenance is recognized by Captain Benwick in chapter 11 of Persuasion as it is he who found her "engaging mildness of her countenance, and gentleness of her manner" (Austen, 95) enough to instantly feel at ease; her brother-in-laws family, the Musgrove's, who claimed "We do wish that Charles had married Anne instead." (Austen, 84); and even the unacquainted cousin Mr. Elliot too had an instant attraction to Anne as he passed her during their stay in Lyme. Austen portrays Anne as essentially the epitome of goodness and kindness, but who isn't a very resistant person. She would more often than not succumb to the desires and needs to those around her in order to aid another or to keep the peace, as shown in chapter 4 when she allows Sir Walter and Lady Russell to dispel any notions of marriage to Captain Wentworth. It is this nature that is a desirable characteristic of a wom an and a wife. Wentworth's entire character is full of conservative resistance. The main resistance Wentworth tries to overcome is his desire for Anne and the entire story is based on his resistance to requesting her hand in marriage again. Early in the story, there is the sense of monotony about the standard way of life as Austen uses repetition in here writing to persuade the reader of that sense of boredom. For thirteen years had she been doing the honors, and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining rooms in the country. (Austen, 6-7) As the passage continues, there is a sense then of the repetition as we see the same thing happening for a span of over 13 years. What Austen wants the reader to see is how things will never change unless something drastic happens. As long as they follow the same routine, they can fake being happy. Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighborhood afforded; and thirteen springs have shewn their blossoms, as she traveled up to London with her father, for a few weeks annual enjoyment of the great world. (Austen, 6-7) What is interesting about this passage is that Austen tends to avoid discussing the central character at the start of the novel and in this case, is the early pages center on the vanity of her father as well as his contempt for those beneath him.  Ã‚  

Art Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Art Education - Essay Example Dancing is another form of art which emphasizes on the movement of the body in rhythm to the music. Dancing is used for expression of emotions, energy release, and being joyful of the movement itself. Riitta Pasanen Willberg introduces somatic choreography approach in relating the ideas of dancers with their choreographers on performances. Her aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of the exercises on the dancers in order to assess if the goals of the choreography were attained. Somatic practices are intended to raise kinesthetic awareness and to listen to one’s physical sensations, unlike just focusing on the visual view, imitation, and repetition of movements. Theatre Arts is a form of art wherein the actions of the body particularly facial expressions and human voices are used by performers in interpreting and creating drama in a story. It uses several elements like the architecture, lighting, stage craft, and sound design. John William Sommers argues that theatre can stimulate changes in art, a belief that is contradictory to U.S. Cornerstone Theatre Company Artistic Director Bill Rauch’s idea that one cannot predict art changes. He introduces the term Applied Drama which involves an application of direct experiences to create changes. In his study, he concludes that change is possible through the creation of situations in which people will experience favorable conditions where changes in values, knowledge, and attitudes can happen. Visual Arts is another form of art which focuses on presentations that are seen and appreciated by the naked eye. These presentations are in the form of paintings, sculptures, collages, etc. Terrence McCraw discusses about the distinction of arts from crafts. He provides one instance that explains the distinction. It was during the Reformation where embroidery became popular with more focus on the different designs. McCraw cites that the embroidery production created shared features with arts and crafts which made them similar. However according to him, the connotations of crafts in the modern period are still present in the embroidery works that were produced domestically which makes the point above confusing. III. RECOMMENDATION For music, the studies on musical therapy and the effects of music on the human brain function are significant topics that can be discussed and expounded in art education. For dancing, the study of somatics is also an interesting mechanism for effective body movement and coordination. In theatre arts the notion of Applied Drama is an essential tool for art change for versatility. Lastly, the distinction of arts from crafts is a good topic for debate when understanding the nature of art and its disciplines.

Legal DISCUSS unit 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Legal DISCUSS unit 6 - Essay Example This tea house business would be a good example of a business that could have a â€Å"no tattoo† policy since the waitresses tattoo seemed to make the customers uncomfortable; however, this needed to be a stated policy prior to the waitress getting a tattoo in order for her dismissal from her job to be legal. In this example, so much attention paid to her boyfriend is irrelevant. The reason she got a tattoo and her outside influences are irrelevant. Her boyfriend hanging around her work place is relevant enough to be included on her evaluation, which it was, but it really has nothing to do with the discrimination she encountered due to her tattoo nor did it have any bearing on her dismissal from her job. It is important to include as many details as possible when writing up legal cases and taking notes and then later evaluate what is relevant and what is not. In this case, the meeting notes were written to include all the details, which is as it should be, but when determining the facts of the case, the issues with her boyfriend are not relevant and if the case were to proceed to court, these facts would not need to be

Introducing Sheltered Instruction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Introducing Sheltered Instruction - Essay Example According to the research carried out by National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, (2002), it is known that each year proportion of non- English speaking students is increasing at more rate than actual number. And many states are not up to that level to deliver language and other services that these immigrant students actually need. As per the work by Moss & Puma (1995), Ruiz-de-Velasco (2000) & Fix and Waggoner (1999), these students have less grades and high dropout rate as compared to US-born students in spite of having high attendance rate. It is evident from these studies that most schools are not satisfying the requirement of educating linguistically and culturally diverse students. To achieve high levels of educational standards and accommodate the requirement of 'No Child Left Behind Act (2001)', federal and state governments expect all students to have adjusted national and state assessments. English learners enter U.S schools with wide range of language profi ciencies and subject matter knowledge, based on their background, socioeconomic status, age of arrival and personal experiences. To succeed students with varieties of criteria the teacher development, program design, curriculum and materials, and instructional and assessment practices should be modified. This paper will address especially strategies for improving teacher development and instructional practices. Many standards have been ... High-stake test has been adopted in many states as result of 'No Child Left Behind Act (2001)'. This was benefited to English learning students as teachers and schools concentrated on overall progress, including LEP students, so as to reach benchmarks laid. In spite of these many adaptation, students exit before they become proficient in academic English due to several reasons. First reason is being standardized test designed for US born students, EL students at beginning level found it difficult to meet criteria as they can not read, write or speak English fluently. Thus program failed to confirm that EL students learn academic content primarily, with learning English. Second reason for failure of high-stack tests was lack of certified ESL and bilingual teachers. To compensate this shortage, principals started hiring less-qualified teachers, using substitutes, canceling courses, increasing class size, or asking teachers to teach outside their field of preparation. The Sheltered Instruction Approach and SIOP model The growth in numbers of students learning English as an additional language and the shortage of qualified ESL and bilingual teachers raised the need of sheltered content instruction approach. "sheltered instruction is an approach that can extend the time students have for getting language support services while giving them a jump-start on the content subjects they will need for graduation" (Echevarria, 2004, p.10). It is not a set of instruction techniques need to added or replaced by teacher's original techniques, but an approach that complements those methods and strategies. Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model has been designed for flexibility and confirmed with wide range of classroom

Dog Training Essay Example for Free

Dog Training Essay Training dogs has become my personal hobby for the past __ years. While I do not gain any financial benefit from this activity, I am able to derive entertainment and satisfaction from it. In fact, it has allowed me to gain additional information about dogs, grow emotionally, and increase my patience, respect, and compassion. First, my exposure to dogs enabled me to learn more about the canine species and their behavior. Dogs have specific characteristics that vary based on their breed. For example, the temper of a Golden Retriever is different from a Lhassa Aphso with the latter being relatively upbeat than the former. Second, I was able to grow emotionally and become more considerate of others. Dogs are one of the most affectionate animals both towards other dogs and human beings. It is the faithful and loyal nature of dogs that I find very moving and exceptional, to a certain extent. As I become immersed with them every day, I am able to enhance my ability of expressing my own feelings and become appreciative of others. Lastly, I became more patient, respectful, and compassionate. Training dogs requires a great deal of patience especially when the dog refuses to cooperate. However, I learned to devise strategies that would increase my patience by infusing respect and compassion in my work. I reminded myself that I have to respect the limitations of others and become more compassionate with individual differences. Indeed, dog training, as a personal hobby, benefited me in more ways than one. It taught me values that are essential for everyday living, such as respect, patience, compassion, emotional growth. To top all of these, I gained valuable information through an entertaining and fulfilling way.

Comparison The Lovely Bones and The Liars Club

Comparison The Lovely Bones and The Liars Club In this term paper I will compare two books that I really liked: The lovely bones and The liars club. I decided to write about them, because I believe that both stories are very similar and very well written. I also think that the authors of these books are admirable women who have struggled with life, society and family. For this reason, I consider important to compare the two books. I will start to write about the lovely bones. At the beginning, I did not want to finish reading the book, because it is a hard story that talks about the raping of a little girl. Therefore, I felt so angry and frustrating. But then I understood that I had to continue reading the book if I wanted to know the meaning of it. The point of view of the lovely bones is first person and it is narrated by Susie Salmon, the girl that was horribly raped and murdered by her neighbor. The entire story is about the grief that the Salmon family is experimenting after Susies death. However, there was a member of the family who suffered the most: Susies father, Jack Salmon. This man loved her daughter so much that when he knew that she was killed, life became a hell for him. As a result, his marriage was very affected and his wife cheated on him. I found a quote that explains the relationship between Susie and her father: His own father had taught him how to build ships in bottles. They were something my mother, sister, and brother couldnt care less about. It was something I adored. The den was full of them. He would call me in whenever he was ready (Sebold, Alice p, 45) Unlike her siblings, Susie enjoyed her fathers hobby. This man loved to build ships in bottles, because his father taught him how to do them. So, he shared this hobby with their children, but the only one who liked and care about it was Susie because she had a very strong relationship with her father. Therefore, when she passed away his father Jack wanted to die. On the other hand, Mary Karr in her book The liars club showed that her relationship with her father was very special and unique. For example, she mentioned that he used to be a very lovely father with her and her sister and that even though he was many years in the war, when he came back home he always wanted to spend time with his family. However, Marys father did not have a good relationship with the rest of the family, because his mother in law did not like him and as a result, his marriage was falling apart. This quote explains the situation he was living: Mother threatened divorce a lot of times, and Daddys response to it was usually a kind of patient eye-rolling. He never spoke of divorce as a n option. If I asked him worried questions about a particularly nasty fight, hed just say I shouldnt talk bad about my mother, as if even suggesting they might split up insulted her somehow (Karr, Mary pa, 35) As we can see, Marys father did not want to get divorce maybe because he wanted to be with her two children. Moreover, he said to Mary that even though he had conflicts with his wife, she had to love her mother no matter what. I think this man showed that he was a good husband and a good father since he always asked Mary to respect her mother. This case is very similar to the conflict that Susies parents had in the book The lovely bones. As we know, when Susie died, all the family struggled with the fact that she was not longer with them. Each of them faced Susies death differently. The father, for example, was obsessed to find the killer, the sister Lindsay did not want to talk about it, the brother was very innocent to realize that her sister had passed away and the mother decided to cheat on her husband to relieve the pain. I said before that Susies father and Marys were similar because both men were married with women whot, from my point of view, did not care about their children . Marys mother cared only about herself. She just wanted to have fun and get another husband that is why she went on a trip with his Latin-American boyfriend and left her children. Susies mother did the same thing when she decided to move to another state in order to be alone and deal with her daughters death. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIBLINGS I believe that in the two books that I decided to compare, the relationship between siblings is one of the most important topics. In this part of my term paper, I will compare Susies relationship with her brother and sister and Mary Karr relationship with her sister Lecia. Susie Salmon had one brother called Buckley and one sister called Lindsay. The tree of them were very closed and cared very much about each other. There is a quote in the book The lovely bones where Susie says that once she saved her brothers life. a three-year-old Buckley had swallowed it. Buckley was choking, his body bucking, and I carried him with Nate trailing into the garage, where my fathers precious Mustang sat. I put Buckley in the back and grabbed and grabbed the keys from the unused terra-cotta pots where my father hid them. I sped all the way to the hospital. if the hadnt been there, the doctor later told my mother you would have lost your little boy (Sebold, Alice p, 93,94) As the quote explains, Susie saved her brother because she loved him very much. She also had the courage to do it since many people would not dare to do what Susie did. Susie loved Buckley so much that she did not think about anything but to safe her little brother. Later in the book, this strong connection is demonstrated when in one of the chapters, Buckley said to his dad that Susie touched his cheek and that he felt that Susie was seeing them from heaven. Susie also got along well with her sister Lindsay. Both girls enjoyed being together, not only because they were sisters but also because they were the same age. As a result, when Lindsay knew that her sister was dead, she did not want to talk about this tragic event to anybody. For me, it is very understandable the way that Lindsay felt. Some people like her deal with death by being quite and reserved. Some others share their feelings in order to release their pain. But what really cares is to remember the people who we love. Now, the author of The liars club also had a good relationship with her sister Lecia. These two girls suffered a lot not only because they had many problems in their home, but also because they have an alcoholic mother and a hysterical grandmother. I found a quote that explains their relationship: Lecia and I both behaved like savages at any opportunity. When she was only twelve, Lecia could beat the dogshit out of any neighbor boy up to the age of fifteen. For my part, I can remember standing behind the drainage ditch in our yard cussing Carol Sharp for bloodying my nose (Karr, Mary pa, 40) In this quote, Mary Karr explains that she used to play pranks with her sister and that thought she had problems in home, she tried to forget them by playing with Lecia. From my point of view, it is very difficult to live you life normally when you know that your family is hurting each other. For this reason, I admired Mary Karr very much, because she tried to forget all her problems. Unfortunately, when you are a child, all these family conflicts affect you and the only thing that you can do about it is to move on with your life just as Mary Karr did. On the other hand, I also believe that she was conscious about her family problems, but she could not do anything about it. I can not imagine what it feels like to live with a family that is full of traumas and that does not care about you. For example, Mary Karrs grand mother was a bitter woman who did not love their grand children and who lived in the past. That is why Mary Karr did not suffer when her grand mother passed away. Inste ad, she felt relieved and free. Susie Salmon also had a special grand mother, but unlike Marys she was a good person who loved their grand children very much. This woman was an alcoholic but she took cared of their grand children while her daughter Abigail decided to move to another state. These two women were so different, but as any human being they have many flaws. Now, in the next pages of my paper I will talk about the role of the mothers in the two books The lovely bones and The liars club THE ROLE OF A MOTHER IN A FAMILY It is well known that a mother represents many important things in a family. She is the one who takes care of her children, because she has a protective instinct that a father does not have. For this reason, it is unbelievable for me to understand why Susies mother abandoned their children in order to forget her dead daughter. I can understand that it is very painful to lose your daughter, but by abandoning your other children you are not going to resolve anything. Now, I also comprehend that as human beings we need to have our space, because is our right. But when you have a family like Susies mother you also have to think about them. Another thing that also surprised me was that Susies mother cheated on her husband. Even now I can not understand what she did that. There is a very good quote that explains Abigails attitude according to Susies point of view: Len kissed her forehead hard and closed his eyes. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. She whispered in his ear. I knew what was happening. Her rage, her loss, her despair. The whole life lost tumbling out in an arc on that roof, clogging up her being. She needed Len to drive the dead daughter out (Sebold, Alice p, 152) This woman desired to forget her daughters death by cheating on her husband. She thought that her pain was going to disappear if she transferred all his sorrow in another person, but I think that is not the correct way to resolve our problems. She could have gone to a therapist or talking to her husband about Susies death. Infidelity is something that I can not comprehend. Unfortunately, Abigails infidelity did not bring Susie back. Instead, this deception caused Abigail more pain and more remorse to her life. At the end of the book, we know that Abigail returned with her family because Jack had a heart attack, but we never knew if she stayed again with them or if she decided to be brave enough in order to tell her husband that she had cheated on him with Len Fenerman. In the book The liars club Mary Karr explained that her mother was always worried about herself, just exactly like Susies mother. You might think that I am judging these women very hard, but I just can not understand why they behaved that way with their children. I mean, when you decide to have children is because you know that you have to take care of them, yet there are some mothers that do the opposite thing. Mary Karrs mother for example, tried to be a good mother, but I feel that she had a very hard background that did not allow her to live her life peacefully. Even Mary Karr recognized that when she finished her book, it was very hard for her mother to read it. At the same time, Mary said that she was very supportive when the book was done. Another thing that it was hard to assimilate for Mary and her sister Lecia was to live with their stepfather Hector. He constantly had arguments with Marys mother and they did not have a good relationship. There is a quote that explains this situation: Other nights were occupied with Mother and Hector fighting. The litany of his innate low-lifedness got seared into skull during this time. Hector was a pussy, was her main gripe. Also, he lacked gainful employment, which meant Mother accused him of sponging off her all the time. As this quote explains, Marys stepfather did not support his wife economically. Therefore, Marys mother argued with him and had many conflicts. Plus, he was an alcoholic who was worried more about drinking than about taking care of his wife, his house and his stepdaughters. When I think about the problems that Mary had to deal with, I really felt sorry for her. She was only a child when her parents got divorce and when he had to accept a new father figure. I can see Marys life like a quest. During her childhood, she lived so many bad things that made her stronger, but at the same time made her more vulnerable. In order to conclude this term paper in the next to pages, I will talk about the most difficult topic in both books: raping. The reason why I decided to write about it at the end, was because I want to reflect about how raping can change your life. TWO GIRLS WHO LOST THEIR INNOCENCE The books that I decided to compare in this term paper talk about a very hard topic: raping. In the lovely bones, the main character Susie Salmon was horribly raped and killed by her neighbor Mr. Harvey. This story is fiction, but the author of it was raped in real life. For that reason, she wrote this book. As we know, Susie Salmon was a fourteen year old girl who had a normal life and who wanted to fell in love for the first time. Unfortunately, all of her dreams were destroyed by a disgusting and despicable man named Mr. Harvey. He took away Susies innocence when he raped her. After this, he decided to kill her so she could not accuse him of anything. But Susie was not dead in a one hundred percent, because her spirit went to heaven. She saw her family and her killer from there. She saw all the pain that Mr. Harvey had caused after he killed her. But she also saw that her family got over her death and moved on. Here is a quote in which Susie explains her raping: Mr. Harvey made me lie still underneath him and listen to the beating of his heart and the beating of mine. How mine skipped like a rabbit, and how thudded, a hammer against cloth. We lay there with our bodies touching, and, as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. (Sebold, Alice p, 14) The only thing that I can say about this quote is that I can not imagine what this girl felt in that moment. For me, it is very difficult to understand how these criminals can exist. I mean, this man took advantage of a child who was not big or strong enough to defend herself. Killing a person is horrible, but killing a kid who is weak and innocent is the most despicable act in the world. From my point of view, Mr. Harvey was a scum of the earth who did not deserve to be alive, because she also killed other children. All of them were girls that had a life, dreams and hopes for the future. But this killer ruined their lives and left sorrow in their families. Finally, in the book The Liars club Mary Karr narrates that she was raped, when she was a little girl. This event changed her life and her perspective about the world. The quote says: He pulled me off my shorts and underwear and threw them in the corner in a ball, over where I knew there could be spiders. He pushed down his pants and put my hand on his thing, which was unlike any of the boys joke about hot dogs and garden hoses. It was hard as wood and felt big around and felt big around as my arm. He wrapped both my hands around it, and showed me how to slide them up and down (Karr, Mary p, 66) When I read this fragment of the book, I really felt so angry and frustrated. I can to imagine the desperation that Mary Karr experimented. She as Alice Sebold experienced how it felt to be raped and humiliated by a man. But at the same time this horrible experience made them successful and brave. So, my conclusion for this term paper is the following: every person forms his character based on his personal experiences. As a consequence, in life we can follow two paths: the one that is related with hate, vengeance and sadness and the one that is connected with love, success and hopes. I believe that the authors of the books that I compared followed the second path, because they decided to heal their emotional wounds in order to move on. That is a lesson that all human beings should learn. Nobody said that life is easy. Nobody said that life is pink color. However, god made us strong to achieve any objective that we have. He made us intelligent to understand that life is something that is full of bad and good moments. For this reason, these two authors, Alice Sebold and Mary Karr succeed when they decided to tell their stories to the world. They had a lot of pain in their lives, but they also decided to cure their traumas to move on and have a good life.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder :: Narcissism Essays

There are two types of Narcissistic Personality Disorders. The individual whose surroundings supports his or her ego, and demands that he or she present their selfish behavior will develop to be a kind of an exhibitionistic narcissist. These types of person thinks that they are superior to others, but at the same time his or her personal feelings are ignored. To make his or her feelings of satisfaction, to come back, the person will attempt to make the environment support his or her enormous claims of superiority and perfection. On the other hand, if the environment feels threatened by the person's ego it will attempt to suppress the person from expressing him or herself. These kinds of persons learn to keep the ego hidden from others, and they will growth to be a closet narcissist. The closet narcissist will only reveal his or her feelings of fulfillment when he or she is convinced that such revelations will be safe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Is our negative leveling of narcissism a defense against a demanding call of the soul to be loved?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   By denying our narcissistic tendencies and by labeling this part of our dark side as negative, we our only repressing the growth that our soul desires.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The more we push narcissism away from us by disowning it, the more self consumed we actually become. In my own life, self-love was one of the greatest and most valuable lessons learned through very difficult circumstances. I discovered that the importance of self-acceptance must first be established first from the inside our self if I was ever to sincerely receive love from another. Our potential does not create our attitude, but our attitude creates our potential. I think that when people change their perception of self, then their lives will for sure change as well.

Pre Revolutionary Mentality :: essays research papers

US History I Test   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The people represented in the picture, are pulling off King George III symbolizes how Americans felt right before the start of the revolutionary war. I believe this picture is in the beginning or middle part of 1775. The people of America were mad, were so, fed up with the British government that they will start a war in order to break away from them. These feelings didn’t just come about all of a sudden though, England set themselves up for this the moment they set up colonies that were three thousand miles away. When James the II was kicked out beneath his crown in 1688 his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange became joint sovereigns. This led several of the colonies into small revolts of their own. Not battles where people were killed, but battles of overcoming oppression. this gave the colonies hope, even though the â€Å"imperial grip† around the colonies would be getting tighter. In the years between 1730 and 1740, there was a period of a religious â€Å"awakening† this brought about new ideas and new faith in God. The old Puritan ways didn’t fade out but new beliefs came about with new religious options. This gave people a chance to start over with their religious faith. People listened to great preachers like Charles Wesley, who founded Methodism, George Whitfield, and a Congregationalist named Jonathan Edwards. The Great Awaking was an awaking of religious beliefs and spirits, another movement, later labeled the â€Å"enlightenment† was an awakening of learning. Great improvements in science and technologies were coming out of Europe. Great thinkers were writing and challenging the norm. They brought up ideas of leaving England and questioned the Authority of the crown. Soon after things get rolling in America, Britain leaves the colonies alone. This period known as salutary neglect leaves the American people thinking about possible independence away from England. Before 1763 the only laws that were in place were the navigation acts, which made sure the colonies only traded with England, and were loosely enforced. In 1763 the proclamation of 1763 drew a line on the Appalachian Mountains that forbid settlers from traveling west of the mountains. The Indians were excited about this, it would stop the invasion of their lands and the battles they fought to protect it. It eventually failed as settlers moved into the Ohio valley anyways.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This was a changing point for the colonies, it was the first time they had really been restricted, but it would not be the last.

Casse Study Essay -- essays research papers

Team Case Study My team is comprised of a group of individuals specialized in relating to people in the automobile industry, mainly car dealers. Our team’s goal is to work with dealers and to help them understand how to effectively sell vehicles, sight unseen, to internet buyers. These are buyers that will never even see the vehicle or step on the dealer’s lot. We have to teach the dealer how to market and relate to a customer well enough to convince them to buy a car that they will never touch, taste, smell, see, or test drive. In the growing age of internet fraud this task becomes difficult, we now have to teach them how to make a customer trust them enough to send money to them, without ever meeting them. The Purpose, and long term goal, of this project is to drive the amount of listings of vehicles for sales on the site in a way that will help us meet our yearly goals of high growth. In 2003 during study of sales team environments, Amy Dewey, the director of agency and association marketing for The American College said, "Different personalities come out in any type of team," she says. "You want to be as efficient and effective as possible, but there's going to be that social dimension that may prevent something from being as effective as it can be." This was proven to be true to me when a member of the team had signed an account in a territory that belonged to another team member. This had happened to be an account that had been a previous customer of the account owner in a different region. The dealership contact had moved to a dealership in this other territory, which did not belong to the account owner, and wanted to start a new account, and deal with the same representative he had been dealing with for years. The members whose region it was transferred the account to them since it was their area, without notifying the account owner of what she was doing. The account owner found out and transferred the account back while she was not in the office, but mentioned it out loud to the rest of the team. A new member of this team, that had over heard the account owner complaining, went to the member that owned the region and exaggerated the story. This impacted the team in the fact that there were now some hurt feelings between these two team members that had worked togeth... ...oid conflict before it happens. When there is conflict, being an anchor member of the team, I have come up with many creative solutions to our office conflict. I believe almost all conflict stems from bad communication. In 2002 Eric Abrahamson felt, â€Å"Team conflict can arise from differences between team members in terms of power, values, and attitudes. It tends to arise when resources are scarce, the team situation is ambiguous, members have different goals, and the tasks assigned have some connection.† References 1. â€Å"Different personalities come out in any type of team," she says. "You want to be as efficient and effective as possible, but there's going to be that social dimension that may prevent something from being as effective as it can be." Author: Barry Higgins Publication: National Underwriter. (Life & health/financial services ed.). Erlanger: Sep 8, 2003. Vol. 107, Iss. 36; pg. 12 2. â€Å"Team conflict can arise from differences between team members in terms of power, values, and attitudes. It tends to arise when resources are scarce, the team situation is ambiguous, members have different goals, and the tasks assigned have some connection.† Casse Study Essay -- essays research papers Team Case Study My team is comprised of a group of individuals specialized in relating to people in the automobile industry, mainly car dealers. Our team’s goal is to work with dealers and to help them understand how to effectively sell vehicles, sight unseen, to internet buyers. These are buyers that will never even see the vehicle or step on the dealer’s lot. We have to teach the dealer how to market and relate to a customer well enough to convince them to buy a car that they will never touch, taste, smell, see, or test drive. In the growing age of internet fraud this task becomes difficult, we now have to teach them how to make a customer trust them enough to send money to them, without ever meeting them. The Purpose, and long term goal, of this project is to drive the amount of listings of vehicles for sales on the site in a way that will help us meet our yearly goals of high growth. In 2003 during study of sales team environments, Amy Dewey, the director of agency and association marketing for The American College said, "Different personalities come out in any type of team," she says. "You want to be as efficient and effective as possible, but there's going to be that social dimension that may prevent something from being as effective as it can be." This was proven to be true to me when a member of the team had signed an account in a territory that belonged to another team member. This had happened to be an account that had been a previous customer of the account owner in a different region. The dealership contact had moved to a dealership in this other territory, which did not belong to the account owner, and wanted to start a new account, and deal with the same representative he had been dealing with for years. The members whose region it was transferred the account to them since it was their area, without notifying the account owner of what she was doing. The account owner found out and transferred the account back while she was not in the office, but mentioned it out loud to the rest of the team. A new member of this team, that had over heard the account owner complaining, went to the member that owned the region and exaggerated the story. This impacted the team in the fact that there were now some hurt feelings between these two team members that had worked togeth... ...oid conflict before it happens. When there is conflict, being an anchor member of the team, I have come up with many creative solutions to our office conflict. I believe almost all conflict stems from bad communication. In 2002 Eric Abrahamson felt, â€Å"Team conflict can arise from differences between team members in terms of power, values, and attitudes. It tends to arise when resources are scarce, the team situation is ambiguous, members have different goals, and the tasks assigned have some connection.† References 1. â€Å"Different personalities come out in any type of team," she says. "You want to be as efficient and effective as possible, but there's going to be that social dimension that may prevent something from being as effective as it can be." Author: Barry Higgins Publication: National Underwriter. (Life & health/financial services ed.). Erlanger: Sep 8, 2003. Vol. 107, Iss. 36; pg. 12 2. â€Å"Team conflict can arise from differences between team members in terms of power, values, and attitudes. It tends to arise when resources are scarce, the team situation is ambiguous, members have different goals, and the tasks assigned have some connection.†

Cultural impact of Macdonalds Essay

McDonald is more than a restaurant; it had known to be a prominent symbol of American standard in fast food industries. And for this company to penetrate the Arab market where they’re a huge gap in cultures, it must have to do some necessary adjustments. Even though McDonald have a strong value of its name as a brand, it wont be easy to for a foreign company to gain the confidence of a country with a strong different believe and well established culture. You see not the all restaurant could sell their products in Middle East because of this situation. It is this culture of Middle East people that had set standard and limitation of what to eat and not. Arab people are very strict when it comes to this matter and everything should be according to their laws and religion. The concept of selling product exclusively for a particular region is an effective way to reach out their potential market. For example, the introduction of Mcarabia sandwich in the Middle East. There are two versions of this sandwich, the McArabia Grilled Chicken and Grilled Kofta, which is both, prepared only using ingredients that are acceptable with the Arab Religion. This is very important part of reaching out the Arab market. Just by naming it as â€Å"McArabia† makes the Arab people feel how they are being valued by McDonald restaurant. It reflects the sincere commitments of McDonalds to reach out the market of the gulf regions. Thus, it gained a warm acceptance with Arab market and it has shown with record of successful sales of the company. With the success of McDonald, it brought out a new interest to its Arab Market. It taught its customers how they could they could enjoy American products and still stick with their culture. However, this leads to into some modernization, which I believe is now acceptable with Arab leaders. For as long as there religion is always on top of consideration, changes are welcome to Arab market. Maybe this is the reason why there’s a lot establishment and products being produce in accordance with the â€Å"hajal† standard.a

Difficult Teachers: Recent Development on how they can be dealt with

Competition as a factor plays an important role in shaping up nearly all sectors in the present operational environment. Competition is rife in all sectors and education is swimming within these tides. Success of the teaching staff is largely guided by results and having even two ineffective teachers could lead to a bad name to a principal and his administration (Brock, & Grady, 2003). Inefficiency of the teaching staff can lead to loss of accountability and even place a school at risk of losing its reputation or failing to develop any.Like in the result oriented business world the ability of the teaching staff to set standards of peak performance or be close to the top performers is important in ensuring that parents and hard working teachers remain motivated and always seeks the best for students. Such levels of motivation are bound to trickle down to students and the result may be improvement in the levels of performance and development of a culture of success (Hopkins, 2009).It i s thus upon administrators especially principals and head of department to ensure they develop creative, humane, supportive, tough and timely approaches to deal with teachers who are not performing for one reason or the other. This is further complicated if the teachers being referred to are difficult to deal with. Appreciation of the Problem In practical teaching, many principals confess of having dealt with difficult teachers in more than one occasion. It is generally believed that each institution has what can be referred to as troubled teacher (Hopkins, 2009).The fact that the teachers are difficult to deal with must not be assumed to be directly correlated to their performance. In some cases the best teachers can prove to be hard to deal with which presents a larger problem considering the impact they could have on a school if they were to quit or their problem addressed badly. It is generally true that troubled, exhausted and even confused teachers have multiple negative impac ts on morale and school environment.Such troubled teachers have the ability to single handedly break the team spirit that is critical to staff success which results in fragmentation that is a breeding ground to failure in issues relating to school improvement initiatives. Difficult teachers have been termed by some researchers as a proverbial elephant in the staff. All in the staff are often aware of the existence of such a character but none is willing to confront for the fear of losing or what most refer to as being ‘trampled'.Many low performing and even high performing (based on result) institutions are overrun by such teachers who appear to be operating within their own code. It has been observed that some principals are even scared of such troubled teachers and though they are aware of their existence they do little to address the situation (Wilmore, 2007). The reality is that ignoring the existence of such teacher does little to address the situation which is let to man ifest within the teaching environment and with time the negative effects may even be observed in the levels of performance that can be attained by a staff (Brock, & Grady, 2003).Failure in performance may not only result to the ousting of a principal but also affect the lives of students who may have had better futures had it not been for the failure of the administrators in addressing difficult teachers. Principals must be appreciative of the fact that their roles as leaders is worth the risk because the goals seek more than material gain or advancement. This should also involve appreciation of the fact that the lives of the people within the school community and even outside the school community thus the society is dependent on the school system to provide meaning and purpose.This appreciation must be reinforced by personal assessment of the administrators to determine if they have the ability to effectively handle difficult teachers. Principals as managers and leaders have the ro le to ensure that the school community is motivated by dealing with the challenges to high levels of motivation and ensuring that impediment or threats to achievement of educational goals are addressed (Brock, & Grady, 2003). Administrators have the ability to misjudge a straight or good teacher for a trouble maker. This is especially true for administrators who are still getting the feel of being in a new environment.Depending on the existing administration for support is cited as a possible avenue to ensuring that new administrators get a feel of the environment and therefore develop objective assessment of the staff including their own ability to effectively manage the challenges presented by the environment they are in (Wilmore, 2007). Difficult teachers can come in hordes or could be unique in a staff that is highly cooperative. Even in a dysfunctional school community, there are teachers who are considered difficult. Researchers have come up with values that they view as being important in dealing with difficult teacher in varied conditions.The values that must be inherent of administrators can be developed and play a role in ensuring that difficult teachers are dealt with in both functional and dysfunctional environments. Assertive administration is cited as one of the critical success factors in dealing with difficult teachers. The term difficult in difficult teachers is not out of their knowledge of martial arts or spiritual ability rather is assertiveness that manifests negatively. The level of assertiveness that such teachers display has been cited by some as being manifested in difficult to deal with but successful teachers in class.Disregard for the existing systems and rule on a regular basis that defines difficult teachers is a manifestation of a negatively developed assertive nature (Brock, & Grady, 2003). It is only an assertive administrator that can effectively manage such a teacher and even reform his ways into those accepted within the est ablished systems. Character building is an important quality that administrators should possess if they are to effectively deal with difficult teachers. Character building is the ability to mould the perception and thereafter actions of a teacher in a manner that leads to their entry or fit into an existing set of values.Character affects perception and therefore actions and should thus be developed in a manner that is positive if the actions are to lead to generation of value to both students and other teaching staff (Wilmore, 2007). Many researchers have come up with findings that blame the behavior of difficult teacher on the nature of their cognition. Such difficult teachers display their negative character irrespective of the nature of administration thus addressing the character issues appear to be the best approach to dealing with difficult teachers.Communication is considered one of the important tools that managers and leaders have in ensuring that goals are transmitted thr ough out a system and people are motivated towards achieving set goals. Under constrained teaching environment, teachers may take on repulsive behavior to gaining the attention of the administration to issues that may be affecting their efficiency in teaching. While a negative teaching environment is not a precondition for difficult teachers it is a possible cause of negative teachers (Wilmore, 2007).Communication is an avenue through which the nature of difficult teachers can be discerned and it is only from this understanding that suitable intervention measures should be developed. Administrators must study and personalize the art of affective communication if difficult teachers are not to arise from a teaching environment and to also ensure a proper understanding of the negative teaching behavior. Developing a positive school culture has come up as one of the critical success factors in reducing the prevalence of difficult teaching.Poorly performing schools have been recorded as being a breeding ground for difficult teachers (Whitaker, 2002). A poor school culture develops a negative picture of what is expected of a teacher and develops a breeding ground for negative perception and energy that could result in difficult teachers. Some researchers have tried to develop a theory in a bid of have a clear image of difficult teacher formulation in an environment which postulate that a negative culture direct the otherwise positive energy that could have been channeled into positive development to poor interaction with students and other members of staff (Wilmore, 2007).The role of developing a positive culture has been studied in business and involves interaction with positive people and promotion of positive norms and values. The role of managers and leaders is prominent in this phase and could be the defining factor between failure and success. Contribution of the administrators to teaching and addressing issues that teachers and students are faced with plays a n important role in ensuring that administrators are appreciated as part of the school systems.By contributing to issues relating to staff development administrators are placed in a position where they can effectively monitor events within their environment (Whitaker, 2002). This is in line with proactive approaches to issues where reporting systems are a formal or documentation systems and not an avenue through which leaders gain insight of problems. By actively contributing to the school community and being at the fore in addressing issues, administrators are put in a position where they can be effective in ensuring overall school development.Conducting assertive interventions and timeliness are the other important values that administrators must display to be able to effectively manage difficult teachers. It is generally believed that the most effective way to deal with students is addressing the teachers. A school in its basic definition takes on a hierarchical structure was the teachers act as a bridge between students and the administration (Whitaker, 2002). Assertive intervention systems are important in ensuring that other teachers whom are often aware of the existence of a problem become informed of strategies that are being taken to address them.Timeliness is a value that is of critical importance in minimizing the negative effects of difficult teachers in a school community. Procrastination has been cited as one of the avenues through which administrators let negative effects of difficult teachers affect existing systems with negative repercussion (Whitaker, 2002). Addressing procrastination is therefore a critical success factor and can only be attained if timeliness as a factor is ingrained within systems seeking solutions. Manifestation of Difficult TeachingThe ability to identify problematic teacher is important in ensuring that the effect that he has on other members of the teachings staff are mitigated. Difficult teachers come in different for ms according to a recent survey that seeks to develop a clear understanding of difficult teachers (Whitaker, 2002). Understanding the exact manifestation of difficult behavior in teachers and interaction with other staff members and administration is important in devising strategy that can be used in dealing with threats that they pose.Complaining and negative teachers have been cited as the most difficult to deal with. It is advisable that such teachers be directly and confidentially addressed (Waterman, & Waterman, 2006). Ensuring that teachers are aware of the effects that their behavior has on existing system and achievement of the educational goals and presenting a platform for them to raise issues that may be affecting them in a confidential manner is important in ensuring the interventions do not manifest negatively. Research shows that some principals however choose to ignore the negative comments from difficult teachers.Though success of the interaction in such a case is de pendent on the degree with which the administrators can focus on positive staff members, ignoring the negative staff members is misplaced and could be counter-productive. Stating expectations and offering assistance have for a long time been considered vital steps in dealing with difficult teacher; however, the change in environment and the need for leaders and managers to be proactively involved in day to day running of their systems has led to increased requirement on administrators (Whitaker, 2002).Noise makers and anarchist are considered the second most common characteristic of difficult teachers. Directly addressing their behavior groups is considered the first step to addressing issues they may be faced with. Stating what is expected of them including policies, behavior and expectation while monitoring progress are also considered success factors (McEwan, 2005). Research shows that if the initial intervention framework fails in developing observable change in the teachers pla cing them on an improvement plan is considered the next phase by many.In most cases, the intervention system for these behavior group end with a teacher being asked to leave a faculty after all measures fail in developing positive behavior change. Difficult teachers can also be defined by high propensity to gossip. While gossip may be considered a form of communication in any social setting if it continues to grow it could prove difficult for administrators to replace it with the truth. A factor that is widely appreciated as being a stumbling block to effectively addressing issues that an organization is faced with is gossip which affects the level of efficiency that can be attained in communication.Administrators must ensure that such members of staff are made aware of the negative effects that gossip could have to the attainment of school goals. Most leadership experts point to the fact that openly showing disgust and disapproval of gossip could lead to positive results (McEwan, 2 005). Institutions that are aware of the negative effects that continual gossips has on communication efficiency have in the past asked difficult teachers to consider leaving a faculty if they could not deal with their love for gossiping.Backstabbers are another problem group where the direct approach is cited as being most effective. In fact a more direct approach than in all other cases has to be used in confronting culprits with questions on the why, what, where and when regarding a case. Depending on the magnitude of a case the intervention systems may either involve letting the culprit be aware of the fact that his actions have been brought into light and citing insubordination which may also involve restating expectation of behavior and initiation of an improvement plan (McEwan, 2005).Research shows that most principals are aware of the existence of such backstabber but consider their actions less influential on attainment of goals. Backstabbing is viewed by principals as diff ering opinions rather than lack of appreciation of the input of other members. This is a negative perception that is reflective of the differences that exist between practice and research. Discussion There appears to be a wide appreciation of the extent of difficult teachers. Researchers have tried to dissect the problem from different dimensions to ensure that its emergence, manifestation and even approaches to its management are well understood.Behavior development; nature of experiences that a teacher has undergone; the nature of the operational environment and objectives of the teachers are factors cited as being vital in defining the extent and effect of difficult teachers. There is no doubt on the effects that such teachers could have on the levels of morale and even attainment of administrative goals. One of the most important developments in recent research is an effort to develop a clear understanding of the different behavior groups and how each group can be addressed.Dire ct measures and restatement of the vision have been stated as being vital in ensuring effective management of different cases. The role of the administrators and the critical success values are applicable in the measures that have been developed for different behavior groups. It is apparent that there is little that can be done by researchers to address individual cases however administrators can pick from the general guidelines that have been developed to come up with measures in management and leadership that can ensure difficult teachers are dealt with in a manner that leads to professional development.Critical review of success factors and steps involved in mitigating and addressing specific behavior problems points to the fact that effective leadership and management are important in identification and address of difficult teachers as a key problem in achievement of schooling goals. The art and science aspect of management have to be reinforced with appreciation of the potentia l effect that problem teachers have on attainment of a school's objectives and facilitation of communication and transmission of positive values in attaining efficiency.There is no doubt on the role played by innovation, creativity, skills, experience, coordination and overall strategic management in ensuring difficult teachers are managed and their effects addressed. Conclusion Difficult teachers have the potential of disrupt learning and lead to loss of morale in the teaching staff. Understanding the teachers which involve ensuring high levels of interaction with them and application of strategic management principles in addressing the challenge they present have widely been discussed by researchers.There however appears to be a gap between research and practice in that some principals and administrators despite the effects that difficult teachers have on attainment of school goals ignore their existence. Researches on how this appreciation can be developed are lacking and are one of the key areas that have to be addressed if the current state of research is to be helpful to practicing administrators. Little has been done with regards to difficult administrators who may in fact pose a greater threat to attainment of schooling goals.A further understanding of the cause of difficult behaviors among teachers must be developed to create a good platform for administrators to base their interventions. In a nutshell, the current researches provide a suitable platform for definition of strategic directions that can be taken in addressing difficult teachers; it is however upon administrators and the entire school community to develop specific approaches that are relevant to their cases which differ different owing to different values and expectations that characterize schools.