Risk Management Essay -- Business Management

Risk is a commonly used term and its usually liked with bad impacts on our objectives. The Oxford English Dictionary define risk as â€Å" a chance or possibility of danger, loss, injury or other adverse consequences†. There is no agreeable technical definition of risk as it went through many developments. The first stage was the management of threats only then the term is extended to cover the threats and the opportunities which face the organisations. The latest stage which is the management of the threats, opportunities, uncertainties and its sources. Of uncertainty (Ward and Chapmen, 2003). Therefore, Dowie argues to banned use the term â€Å"risk† in the risk management because of its misleading. The definition will be used in this paper is the Australia/New Zealand standard definition which is "The chance of something happening that will have an impact on objectives" (Australia/New Zealand Standard, 1999). The reasons of using this definition are the simplicities and the coverage of the negative and positive effects on objectives. Risk management has been done for thousands of years (Bernstein, 1996). The Risk management term was first introduced in the 1950s by the insurance industry. The first text book published about risk management in 1963 titled Risk management and the Business Enterprise by Robert I. Mehr and Bob Hedges (D’Arcy and Brogan, 2001). Risk management is a integrated process and risk manger need to assist the company’s business process are constant with its strategies, and the what is the relation between risk management and the investment and performance choices (Nocco and Stulz, 2006). Organisations should develop a risk management long term strategies depending on the business environment and shareholders an... ...ment guide 2001. London: White Page. Hodgkinson, R. (2001). Enterprise-wide risk management . Risk management guide 2001, London: White Page. Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO), (2004). Enterprise Risk Management—Integrated Framework. New York: COSO. Beasley, M. Clune, R. And Hermanson, D. (2005), Enterprise risk management: An empirical analysis of factors associated with the extent of implementation. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. 24. pp. 521-531 Kleffner, A., Lee, R., McGannon, B., (2003). The effect of corporate governance on the use of enterprise risk management: evidence from Canada. Risk Management and Insurance Review 6 (1), pp.53–73. Liebenberg, A., Hoyt, R., (2003). The determinants of enterprise risk management: evidence from the appointment of chief risk officers. Risk Management and Insurance Review 6 (1), pp. 37–52.

Fast food †Obesity Essay

Obesity is an epidemic that is sweeping over the United States today. It’s affecting both adults and children. With the increase in fast food availability and a decrease in the time most Americans have to prepare nutritious meals at home, it’s obvious why more people are eating at fast food restaurants. Obesity is a growing problem in the United States and more and more children are being affected. But do uneducated families have the right to put the blame on fast food restaurants for the health issues they could easily prevent? I believe that we are taking it too far by blaming fast food restaurants for obesity and that it is an individual’s responsibility to take the blame. While R. A. Ames â€Å"The Food Isn’t to Blame† and Richard Daynard â€Å"You Want Fries with That? † use different themes of blaming fast companies and individual decisions to underscore the effects of fast of food on America, the Rahul K. Parikh in â€Å"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Fats Kid† picks up the same theme, he blames advertisements for America’s Obesity. In the article, â€Å"Fast Food Isn’t to Blame? † R. A. Ames states that weight difficulties are the responsibility of the individuals and we should not blame the fast food industry or other biological and environmental causes. Human beings are individuals with the freedom to make their own choices. Nobody forces us to eat anything we do not want to. Choosing to eat fast food is all our own decision, and we put ourselves at risk for obesity. Obesity due to excessive consumption of fast food can only be blamed on our own actions. Fast food chains appear everywhere in today’s world. Home delivery of various foods is more accessible than ever before. These are common excuses when overweight people blame fast food industries for their bodies. Before reading these essays, I already had an opinion about fast food in my mind. I believed that if someone was overweight or obese, that it was no one’s fault but their own. In his essay, however â€Å"You Want Fries with That? † Richard Daynard explained why he believes that today’s fast food industry is largely responsible for the dramatic rise in obesity cases in both children and adults of America. Daynard discussed how the fast food industries played a large role in deceiving the public into buying their food. Daynard said that society needs to find a happy medium when dealing with the fast food industry, whether it be through lawsuits or some other action! Daynard also backed up his claim by using supporting statistics surrounding fast food and obesity in America over the years. Ames’s essay on the other hand used no statistics. He based his entire essay on personal opinion. His frequent use of the word â€Å"I† also made the essay less effective. Overall, Richard Daynard had a much more objective argument about fast food than R. A. Ames. Daynard used specific statistics, and facts about the fast food industry, and he kept himself out of the article for the most part. Daynard was very effective in making me believe his argument. Another essay I have compared R. A. Ames is with Rahul K. Parikh’s â€Å"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Fats Kid† . Both of these essays had strong opinions concerning who is to blame regarding obesity in America. The â€Å"Fast Food Isn’t to Blame† was more persuasive I thought because it placed the blame for the obesity problem on the individual person and what he/she put into their bodies not on the fast food industries. According to R. A. Ames, â€Å"Americans tend to drive to Burger King and order a Double Whopper with Cheese with a King size fries instead of driving to a supermarket and pick up some turkey and whole wheat bread† (326). They are obese because they make a choice to eat fast food themselves, not because fast food chains force them to stop by their restaurants to eat their food. Ames went on to say that instead of people taking responsibility for being obese they are blaming the fast food industry. Ames compared obesity to smoking. He made this comparison because both can be deadly and that in the end â€Å"you still have to put the cigarette in your mouth the same way you put a candy bar. After this Ames said that in the â€Å"land of the free† we are able to make our own decisions but with this freedom we as people have to be responsible for our decisions. Rahul Parikh said in his essay that â€Å"Parents need to take charge of what foods they’re buying and how they’re preparing those foods† (1). This statement is suggesting that instead of blaming fast food companies parents should control their children’s food buying habits. They should limit their television hours where they see all those advertisements that attract them to eat fast foods. Rahul said that companies use superstars, action heroes, cartoons to promote their products in the market that attracts people and mainly children’s. Rahul compared child advertisement to obesity and suggested that today children will see 40,000 advertisements in a year. In this huge number of advertisements, two third of those are for junk and fast food. Ames and Rahul were both arguing that it is our individual choices to eat fast food, so we should not blame companies who provide them. In our society, we are always looking for someone or something to blame for our problems. We seem to want to avoid taking responsibility for our actions and their consequences. Overall obesity has nothing to do with the fast food industry and genetics, but rather the choices. People should be encouraged to take personal responsibility for their actions and realize what they put into their mouths, and that how much exercise they do contributes to their health and well-being. When overweight people admit that they cause their own obesity, they can swiftly move away from being obese and recognize a healthy lifestyle. While in R. A. Ames â€Å"The Food Isn’t to Blame† and Richard Daynard â€Å"You Want Fries with That? † use different themes of blaming fast companies and individual decisions to underscore the effects of fast of food on America, One other hand Rahul K. Parikh â€Å" Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Fats Kid† has same theme has R. A. Ames essay, he blamed advertisements for America’s Obesity. I have discussed the Ame’s essay with my friends and family. Most of them are agreed with the essay but there were also some people who were disagreed. I eat very precisely, before eating anything I check calories and fat of the product I am going to eat.

Analogy of Nature vs Nurture

The Human Genome Project, which has attracted its fair share of controversy, set out in the early 1990s to map all 25,000 genes of the human genome (â€Å"About†). The hope was that such discoveries would provide a roadmap to the specific genes which could â€Å"allow us to accurately predict who will develop heart disease, become violent, or become homosexual† (Young). Psychologists, however, have countered this process by pointing out the importance of environmental factors to overall social development. Professor Robert Plomin of the Institute of Psychiatry in London says that â€Å"individual differences in complex traits are due at least as much to environmental influences as they are to genetic influences† (qtd. in Young). This is, in essence, a modern-day battle of nature versus nurture. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the conflict is perfectly encapsulated in the character of the monster; is he inherently evil and bloodthirsty, or did harsh societal treatment force him to be that way? It is an age-old question, still yet to be solved. However, through her writing and characterization it becomes clear that the monster began life as fresh and innocent as a regular newborn baby. He only became a true â€Å"monster† in the archetypal sense after enduring hatred and isolation at the hands of the humans he so longed to be. He is, in effect, nurtured into being the murderer that he becomes. Despite his unnatural birth, Frankenstein's creation still exudes the freshness and naivety of a young child discovering things for the first time. The prime example of this is his discovery of fire: â€Å"I found a fire which had been left by some wandering beggars†¦ in my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain† (Shelley 89). He obviously has no life experiences to guide his actions and spends his first few weeks investigating and trying to understand the world around him, much like a newborn would. He even says that â€Å"no distinct ideas occupied my mind† (Shelley 88). This is not a being born a raving lunatic, his mind awash with murderous thoughts. He is simply a blank slate. Once he begins to distinguish light and sound, he continues his fresh exploration, discovering such things as animals, foliage, and warmth. At one point he wanders into an old man's hut, scaring him off. He doesn't intend to cause the man harm, nor does the reaction his appearance receives cause him any emotional distress or give rise to vengeance. He is not the being that he is by the end of the novel, a clear indication of the influence of social and environmental factors on development. In fact, it is not until he sees the De Lacey family for the first time that he begins to truly grasp basic emotions like happiness and sadness; until that point he had only known physical pain and hunger. The De Laceys are essentially the monster's first nurturers, however unknowing they may be. By observing them he becomes aware of human relationships, human emotions, and even human history. He develops a high level empathy for the family; their trials and tribulations were his, and when their were sad so was he. In a way he is exhibiting a highly pure and limited form of emotional expression and understanding for, much like a very young child or even a pet, his own feelings are greatly influenced by, and reflective of, those around him. Since the family provides the basis for the monster's impression of humans, he originally thinks fairly highly of them. The monster, who had started out taking some of their food for his own survival, stopped doing so when he â€Å"found out that in doing this [he] inflicted pain on the cottagers† (Shelley 96). To make amends he instead gathers firewood for them, and is filled with satisfaction upon knowing that he saved them from even a small amount of hardship. It is from the De Laceys that he first learns of kindness and love, and of the bonds of family and friendship. If he was truly born a monster it is doubtful that he would have any capacity whatsoever for empathy and love. At this point in the novel, though, it's quite apparent that the so-called â€Å"demon† has a interior that belies his frightening exterior appearance. The monster also learns how to read, write, and speak by intently observing the De Laceys. This act of humanization further endears the family to him, and is his major step towards joining human society. Of course this is all thrown out the window when, after meticulously planning on how to reveal his presence to the family, they receive him with less than open arms: Felix violently ejects him from their cottage, while Safie runs away in disgust and Agatha faints upon seeing his form. This is the first of several traumatic experiences with the human race that totally throws the monster's worldview out-of-whack; where before he saw only gentleness and love he soon comes to associate humans with hatred and violence. Next the monster gets shot after saving a girl from drowning in a river. However he still does not respond violently towards either the girl or the attacker; instead he merely wanders off, injured and confused. It would seem that he has yet to become the violent murderer the majority of the story sees him as. At this point, though, he does vow â€Å"eternal hatred and vengeance on all mankind† (Shelley 126), which is a far cry from the admiration he expressed for their race only days before. This is the turning point in the monster's behavior; from here on out his thought process is radically changed. Society and mankind have totally rejected him by this time, and again like a child he takes these insults to heart and responds in a somewhat over-the-top manner. The monster's brutal murder of William, Frankenstein's younger brother, is the first occurrence to truly display any sort of demonic tendencies. By this point, though, his heart and mind have been shaped by nearly two years of life experiences, many of them negative. After all, he lives, apart from observing the De Laceys, in total isolation. He is then deemed a monster by all of society, and cast out. He is even shot for doing a heroic deed. Add on his knowledge of the bloody history of human civilization (which is filled with war and revenge) and his exposure and identification with Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost and it is not entirely surprising to see his mindset so rapidly altered. Of course he goes on to kill many more of Frankenstein's loved ones, and eventually indirectly causes the death of Frankenstein himself, though these heinous crimes are born out of a lack of nurture, not simply just his natural personality. In fact, like many serial killers before and after him, the monster lacks any sort of parental figure. His father, Frankenstein, was so disgusted by him that he ran away and never came back. History has shown us that growing up fatherless can have severe ramifications upon a child's psyche and development. Numerous sociologists and psychologists have come to the conclusion that a fatherless childhood increases the likelihood that said child will turn to a life of crime or depression, and with 70% of long-term prison inmates and 72% of adolescent murderers coming from fatherless homes that assumption appears to be correct (Popenoe). This is a clear endorsement of the importance of nurture over nature in that this environmental change has such a large effect on the future of these children. Many, of course, come to resent and hate the man who walked out on them. This is the case with the monster, whose quest for vengeance against his creator provides the main plot of the novel. The monster falls victim to the numerous environmental forces working against him, from societal isolation to the abandonment of his father. His ultimate personality is filled with rage and anger, though it is not without the kinder traits he picked up from the De Lacey family. He confesses at the end of the novel of his remorse at his crimes: â€Å"No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery can be comparable to mine† (Shelley 203). Two of the most important quotes, though, appear at the end of the novel as well: the monster essentially conveys Shelley's exact point in the nature vs. nurture battle when he says that his â€Å"heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy† (Shelley 202) and that he â€Å"cannot believe that [he is] the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and majesty of goodness† (Shelley 204). Even he recognizes the changes that have taken place inside his own psyche, and he understands that it is his life experiences and environment that is to blame for this. In these final quotes, he also makes it clear that he started out life fresh and new, without a demonic cell in his body, and that his first experiences were those of kindness and joy. It was not until after his mind began to form that he was exposed to the concepts of hatred and vengeance. With the character of Frankenstein's monster, Shelley has created not only one of the most iconic misunderstood villains of literature but also formed an entire thesis on the concept of nature versus nurture in human development. By making the monster a blank slate, and morphing his personality based upon the different cataclysmic events that shape his life, Shelley clearly states her support for the nurture side of the argument. In a way the entire novel could be seen as an argument in defense of the belief that it is the child's environment and form of nurture received (be it good, bad, or non-existent) that provides the basis for their personality and character. Of course genetics does play a role in such areas. People are generally not born serial killers, nor are they born as charitable saints. Parenting plays a huge role in early development, as many professionals have proven, and the monster's lack of a single parent largely attributes to his personality defects. This point, combined with the isolation and hatred that he endured, are the reasons that he turned towards a path of murder and destruction.

Five ways your web writing is annoying your readers - Emphasis

Five ways your web writing is annoying your readers Five ways your web writing is annoying your readers Having a website is a wonderful thing: it allows you to confuse and  frustrate people thousands of miles away without ever having to hear their complaints. This makes it very hard to see what the problems are – and very tempting to pretend that they don’t exist. Your web pages don’t have to be like that. It all comes down to avoiding the five most common web-writing traps. Here’s how. Skip the happy talk Imagine stepping into a lift or elevator and hearing this announcement:  Ã¢â‚¬ËœThank you for entering this building’s lift. We’re pleased you’ve chosen the number one lift provider in this building. To select your desired floor, please use the illuminated buttons.’ Clearly ridiculous – yet a similar thing happens on many web pages:  Ã¢â‚¬ËœThank you for browsing our widgets. We are the market leaders in widgets and are dedicated to producing the best widgets for you. We’ve been making widgets since 1990. To browse our widgets, click on the links below.’ Web usability expert Steve Krug calls this kind of space-filling, meaningless text ‘happy talk’, and recommends a simple test to root it out: read it out loud. If you hear a quiet voice saying in your head ‘blah blah blah’, then it’s happy talk. In this example, the only potentially useful information is ‘To browse our widgets, click on the links below’. But if simple tasks such as browsing your site require instructions, there’s a very good chance that it’s not better phrasing you need, but more intuitive web design. Don’t be afraid of keeping text content to a minimum, if it makes things clearer. An excellent example of this is the Gov.uk site, which won the Design of the Year award in 2013. See the section for drivers as an example. There’s no happy talk or clutter, and all the links are self-explanatory. Answer the golden question Everyone visiting your web pages will have a need. This can range from the highly specific, such as a need to buy a particular product, to a vague need for distraction. You need to work out which of these needs also benefits your organisation, then tailor your website to meet them. This is hard because people can arrive in a bewildering variety of ways. Imagine a large shopping centre with an underground car park, an internal metro station, a bus-stop, a helipad, several pedestrian entrances – and, just for added complication, a few ladders leaning up against windows. Where do you greet the visitors, and how do you establish what they need? Website visitors can come from search engines, social media, reference by a friend, a link from a site, by directly typing the address into their browser after seeing an advert, or just from memory. You have no way of telling where the next one will come from, and no control over which page they see first. This means each page, by itself, needs to answer the golden question of web writing: ‘Am I in the right place?’ Within about five seconds. This is a hard test to pass. Try it for yourself: Get someone who isn’t familiar with your website to look at an important page. Ask them what they think that page is about after a few seconds. There’s a good chance you’ll be surprised by their answer. Go to FiveSecondTest.com (the free version is fine for this) and ask some anonymous people from the internet to do the same thing. If this all sounds too painful, try it on the sites of your competitors or similar organisations. You’ll be surprised at how many of them fail. This can be quite satisfying, but bear in mind that your site probably suffers from some of the same problems. People will tend to stay on your site if they think they’re in the right place – just as you’ll keep searching for what you need in a department store if you think you’re likely to find it. However, you’ll need to make sure they can find it reasonably swiftly, as anyone who’s ever stormed off in an empty-handed huff will attest. Be credible If Google is to be believed, the world is crammed full of ‘world leaders’, hundreds of thousands of them, all leading the world in something or other. A Google search for ‘world leader in the field of’ returns more than five million results. Phrases like this give no information and are not by themselves credible. They only take a few key strokes to type and anyone can claim them – and your readers know it. They will filter it out. This applies most obviously to marketing copy, where a handful of testimonials from satisfied people are worth more than anything, however wondrous, the company claims about itself. But it also applies in a more subtle way to non-marketing claims. For example, if you claim you are ‘always there to help’, then back it up by making your contact details easy to find. Make your headlines work The pressure on headlines is staggering, which makes writing them hard. But it doesn’t have to be, if you follow three rules: They must be informative. They’re the first thing the reader scans, and often the only thing they’ll bother to read, so they need to communicate essentially what the page is about. They need to be concise, to the point and short. And they have to be easy to understand for everyone in your target audience. So think twice before using industry-insider terms that a new customer may not understand. When writing a headline, keep in mind the golden question: ‘Am I in the right place?’ Your headline needs to answer that in as plain a way as possible. Gov.uk does well again here – its section covering areas as diverse as apprenticeships, school applications and university loans is summarised as ‘Education and learning’. It’s short, informative and easy to understand. The body copy (also very short) lets people know the detail. KISS with confidence Keeping it Short and Simple is a fundamental part of all professional writing, and it’s particularly important when you’re writing for the web. On the web, you’re always fighting to hold your audience’s attention (and to keep them away from the back button), so the shorter the sweeter. Also, your visitors will have different levels of English comprehension – some may have lower levels of literacy, including those for whom English is not a first language. Keeping it short and simple will help all the visitors to your site by making it easier to use and understand. This in turn increases trust, and helps your visitors achieve their goals quickly and simply. Bob’s your uncle Apply these five rules to your website, and you’ll soon see your communications becoming leaner, cleaner and more efficient. And while you may not be able to see your website visitors’ blood pressure lowering, you’ll soon start to witness the effects. When they realise they’re able to find what they’re looking for on your website quickly and easily, they’ll trust your organisation to be able to meet their needs with the same efficiency. To find out how to optimise your web writing for search engines, see  A beginner’s guide to keyword research.  For tips on how to keep it short and simple, see Three ways to tame your sentences and the  Power up with the active voice  video.

Human Growth Development Essay Example

Human Growth Development Essay Example Human Growth Development Essay Human Growth Development Essay Erikson believed personality development was an ongoing process affected by social and cultural events in which a state of maturity is aspired to. Stage 1 The infancy stage covers the childs first one and a half years, where primary care givers need to maintain a nurturing environment in order for the child to develop trust. Stage 2 The anal-muscular stage from eighteen months to four years sees the child enter a phase where a level of independence is achieved. Care givers need to generate an environment in which firm but fair boundaries are implemented in order for the child to develop an assurance of own abilities. Stage 3 From the ages of three to six the child enters the genital-locomotor stage were an understanding of right and wrong develops. An even balance of guilt and initiative should produce a child that is aware of its own capabilities and the affects its actions have on others, however, the child that has no clear understanding of right or wrong could be prone to hurting others and would see guilt as being weak. Stage 4 The Latency stage occurs from approximately age 6 to twelve years where social skills are derived from the young persons surroundings. However, during the Latency stage development is affected in a larger degree by external factors such as school friends, teaching staff and the extended family. At this stage the child has to learn how to feel competent. Stage 5 From the ages of approximately 14-20 years the young person enters adolescence where a sense of role identify is developed with the individual understanding who they are and their place in society. Stage 6 Young adulthood is entered between the ages of 20 35 years where intimate relationships are developed with the expectation of giving and receiving love, and where many couples decide to begin a family. Stage 7 As adults enter maturity (ages 35 65 years) they are seen to develop through guiding their own children. Love, at this stage, is given freely to children without the expectation of receiving it back. Investment in future generations is the motivating force in this stage; however an extreme of this Erkison calls Overextension. Stage 8 Adults in this stage are referred to as many different things such as Old Age Pensioners; The Twilights, Senior Citizens; War Babes; Veterans; etc. In different cultures individuals entering this stage are treated with different measures of respect. In some cultures adults in this stage are seen as having achieved wisdom with a sense of well-being and are sought after for their perception and knowledge. In contrast Jean Piaget saw development in terms of attaining balance of intellectual structures. Piaget believed that children are fundamentally different thinkers than adults, being incapable of understanding particular things before achieving certain stages in their development . He also described children as being egocentric. because a young child cannot understand how someone elses point of view may be different from their own.. (Edmonds, V. , 2006). Piagets proposed four major stages of development can vary greatly due to the individuality of the child and cultural influences. The first of Piagets developmental stages, Sensorimotor, occurs between the ages of 0 to 2 years in which the child identifies the difference between self and other objects. This is also the stage where a child learns by touch or as Piaget relates touch tutors vision (Butterworth, G. , Harris M. , 1994, p234). The Preoperational stage from 2 to 7 years identifies the period when language is developed. Between 7 to11 years the child is in the Concrete Operational stage where the ability to think logically in regards to events and objects in the here and now is developed. The Formal Operational stage between 12 to 15 years is when the young develop the ability to solve abstract or hypothetical problems. Piagets theory behind these stages was that logical thinking develops slowly with intellectual development being a gradual evolution. When looking at the different theorists perspectives in relation to Human Growth and Development I feel more drawn to the work of Piagets and Eriksson in their acknowledgement of the impact of social factors upon development. There are many social factors that could affect psychological and social development, these may include the social class that a child is reared in; the level of wealth or poverty within the household or surrounding environment; disability of the child or other family members; the ethnic group to which the child or family belong to; gender of the child; religious observances within the family; or abuse towards the child or within the home environment. A subsequent resulting factor could be the affect of living within a different lifestyle to others in the surrounding environment be it relatives, peers, neighbours etc. This could apply to a child or young person who has been raised in a working class environment whose parents decide to send them to a better school. The child could feel very different from others in the school and may feel inadequate in comparing themselves and their families to those at the better school. The young person may then present with low self-esteem or self-worth. When applying social factors to myself I realise that I can relate strongly to Bowlbys theory of attachment and Ericksons eight stages. Sterns theory of attachment at a early age is very significant, but being the middle child of nine and coming from an era and culture where It takes a whole village to raised a child (old African saying) I found it difficult to subscribe to the non-verbal messages that transfers from the child to its primary carer, especially when everyone and anyone could be that primary career. I am the middle child of nine children, my mother worked as a cleaner in the local hospital and my father was a musician who travelled for months on end, they both came over from St. Kitts to England in the late 50s. By the age of 10 my father immigrated to America promising find a job there and take us over but I never saw him again until the day of my mothers funeral when I was 38. There was only three main rules, Love the Lord, Never fight each other and whomever was the eldest in the house at any given time was the person with the responsibilities. Coming from a working class, area and living in a predominantly white community in a time where discrimination was unacceptable but not against the law, I struggled in stages 3 to 5 of Eriksons model. Being Black, female, young and not knowing of my learning disability had a dramatic impact on my self-esteem, confidence, identity, individualism and acceptance within society but not the community I lived in. Within my community, social circle (which in the beginning was predominantly black) we all shared similar or the same stories, it was where I held on to my identity, self-image, confidence, integrity, and faith. I learnt there were good and bad in all people regardless of their race, faith and social background. We had an elderly English neighbour who looked after her disabled daughter, she constantly had us over for tea, and brought us gifts for no reason. I experience a teacher who knew I was constantly being bullied and attacked in the playground, so made me the milk monitor bringing authority and respect from the other children as they had to collect their milk from me.

Should You Become a Special Education Teacher

Should You Become a Special Education Teacher Are you ready for a very demanding, challenging yet very worthwhile and rewarding career? 10 Questions 1. Do you enjoy working with children with special needs? Are you committed to helping those in need achieve their potential?Some of the types of disabilities youll be working with include: learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance (behavioral, mental FAS etc.), multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism (autism spectrum), combined deafness and blindness, traumatic brain injury, and other health impairments. 2. Do you have the required certification? Certification/licenses to qualify you to teach?Special education certification will differ according to educational jurisdiction. North American Qualification 3. Do you have endless patience?I spent many months working with a child with Cerebral Palsy with the main goal being achieving a yes/no response. After months of working on this, it was achieved and she would raise her hand for yes and shake her head for no. These kinds of things are often just taken for granted, this was a very big learning leap for this child and made the world of difference. It took endless patience. 4. Do you enjoy teaching life skills and basic literacy/numeracy?Basic life skills overview here. 5. Are you comfortable doing the ongoing and what seems like endless paperwork required? IEPs, curricular modifications, referrals, progress reports, committee notes, community liaison forms/notes etc. 6. Do you enjoy assistive technology? There are more and more assistive devices available to students with special needs, you will be on a continuous learning curve to learn about the technologies available to students. 7. Are you comfortable with the inclusive model and teaching in a variety of settings? More and more special educators are supporting special needs student within the regular classroom. Sometimes, teaching in special education could mean having a small class of all life skills students or a class with students with autism. In some cases, there will be a variety of setting from small rooms for withdrawal combined with special and the inclusive classroom. 8. Are you able to handle stress?Some special educators burn out easily due to the additional stress levels caused by heavy workloads, administrative tasks and very difficult to handle students. 9. Are you able to develop good working relationships with a wide range of professionals, community service agents, and families? It is important to be empathetic and very understanding when working with the many individuals involved in the students behalf. The key to success is often a direct result of having exceptional relationships at all levels. You need to feel that you have a very strong ability to work as part of a team in a cooperative and collaborative manner. 10. The Bottom Line: You need to feel very strongly about your ability to impact the future of children with disabilities. If your main personal goal is to have a positive impact and to make a positive difference in the lives of children with disabilities this may well be the profession for you. It takes a special teacher to become a special education teacher.

Austerity Measures of European Governments Essay - 1

Austerity Measures of European Governments - Essay Example As a result, it caused several problems which it was intended to resolve. With political motivations, governments of the Euro zone have developed austerity measures to demonstrate their discipline to their creditors and credit rating agencies. The governments essentially targeted government spending to reduce their budget deficits because they were directly affected by the sovereign debt crisis which made their budget deficits relative to GDP to soar significantly (Traynor and Katie Allen 2010). Therefore, the austerity measures were focused on the government, although it had significant effects on all sectors of the economy in the affected countries. Increase of taxes as part of the austerity measures is also intended for the citizens, businesses and companies of those countries. In this case, the people and businesses in the country were made to pay for the government deficit. This increased the problems of the Euro zone rather than reducing or solving them. In 2010-2011 when the a usterity measures were used, all European countries except Germany experienced an increased in public debt to GDP ratio. For instance, the public debt of Greece increased from 143% in 2010 to 165% in 2011 (Eurostat 2013). This indicates that as the budget deficits declined, the GDP growth was not sufficient to support the rising ratio of debt-to- GDP. The reason why austerity measures failed in the Euro zone is because the problems of sovereign debt crisis after the 2008 financial crisis were not caused by policy choices. Following the 2008 crisis, private sector retrenchment occurred and capital account surpluses increased. However, the austerity measures did not target these sectors. Instead, it aimed at the government; hence becoming counterproductive (Blyth 2013).