Jobs and Guides for Counseling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Jobs and Guides for Counseling - Essay Example Counselors fail to discharge their duties to full fruition and satisfaction as the average number of students assigned to them nationwide is about 477 to 1. This has resulted in the increasing number of school drop outs due to lack of proper guidance and care; very often younger children are not provided sufficient care. The duties of the counselor vary from preparing students to "start thinking about careers, build communication skills and develop healthy attitudes about themselves and their peers" at the elementary school level to assisting "students with study habits, financial aid, college recommendations, class schedules, transitions between grades and high-stakes tests". At times counselors also have to tackle psychological imbalances and disorders associated with teenage pregnancy and love affairs. It is sad to note that the school budgets very often undermine the significance and role of counselors as they give more priority to other areas like "helping children with disabilities and raising achievement in the poorest schools'. The article thus throws light on the fact that the counselors under the present system are unable to establish personal relationships with the students which is the key factor in the counseling process. The role of counselors can never be undermined as they have the capacity to determine the destiny of the nation by molding the personalities of the prospective citizens. Under favorable conditions, counselors can prove themselves to be reformers who can concentrate on the over all growth of the students and help students to see through peer pressure, family problems and other psychological and mental distractions. For this there should be special funding from the part of the government and there should be ample provisions for counseling in the school bu dgets. Besides, counseling to be effective, the proportion of the number of students per counselor should be reduced so that the counselor can have intimate personal contact and relationship with the students. One of the major objectives of counseling in schools is to enable students to choose the best career that suits their innate taste and talents. For this, students need to be trained well to present themselves confidently while attending job interviews. Personal questions that are not strictly job related often make candidates uncomfortable and the article 'Job Hunting These Questions Are Illegal' considers such questions as illegal as they are 'discriminatory'. According to the author, these illegal questions can vary from family details, sexual preference and marriage status, racial and ethnical origins, health, criminal records to physical disabilities. Students should be guided well to handle these circumstances when they go out of the schools and it is the duty of the counselor to instill a feeling of self esteem in the minds of the learners irrespective of his/her family background, ethnic origin or personal health related limitations. They should be taught that they have equal employment opportunity like all other well to do candidates. Both the articles are closely related as they deal with the importance of counseling. The second article is a continuation of the first as it develops one of the areas that the counselors and the employers need to pay attention when it comes to job hunting and selection of candidates. The articles

Chinese Immigration Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Chinese Immigration - Assignment Example The vast open spaces, the lack of social and class distinctions, the dynamic tempo of our growth, the westward progression, and the mobility of the population promoted the acceptance of the newcomer2. In times of crisis such as wars or economic depressions, the moving equilibrium might be disturbed. Immigrants’ movements created tensions around the presence of the foreigner, but at least until the latter decades of the nineteenth century, these tensions were usually dissolved by accommodation on a new level without restrictive legislation. The American Constitution made the United States the first national state to proclaim the principle that there should be no religious test for office holding. Furthermore, only the President was required by the Constitution to be native-born. The Federal government, as a matter of policy, utilized the principle of religious freedom to stimulate immigration. A guarantee of religious freedom had been included in the ordinance for governing the Northwest Territory, partly in the hope that it would stimulate migration into that region3. Similar to other immigrants, See’s a grandmother and her family occupied a low paid job and low social class position4. She worked at a Chinese underwear factory. It is not surprising that the changes in American society after 1890 affected attitudes toward the immigrant and that a strong movement for the restriction of immigration.

Reflective Assessment on Mathematics and Calculus

Reflective Assessment on Mathematics and Calculus Relearning the calculus, relating it to real-life Mela Aziza Background I have loved doing mathematics since I was in elementary school. However, this feeling changed a little bit when I was at secondary school. My mathematics teacher asked me to memorise many formulas and principles related to advanced topics without knowing when I can use those in my real-life. I thought that an advanced topic was really hard to learn because it was commonly abstract concept. Consequently, a student like me would find difficulties how to make it concrete and connect it to the real world. In addition, my mathematics teacher only encouraged us to study mathematics hard in order to achieve high scores in examinations. She rarely explained about the application of mathematics in our daily life. This situation made me less enjoyed learning mathematics. For example, while I was learning calculus that I assumed as an advanced topic, I did not know when I can use it in my life so that I was not motivated to learn it. At the time, I guessed calculus was useless. Calculus was ju st about patterns, formulas, and calculations without knowing why I needed to learn it. Therefore, this experience has been inspiring me in how I should teach my students in the future. I hoped to explain and show my students about how powerful and useful mathematics can be. Unfortunately, it was really hard to find the connection between mathematics and daily activities, especially for the calculus. My students were questioning when they could use calculus in their life. I became confused and could not give the appropriate answer because I have not known the application of calculus that was relevant to my students life. I taught calculus using the similar method to my previous mathematics teacher, solving any kind of calculus questions from my own textbooks using the formulas or rules. However, I am interested in exploring and developing the usefulness of calculus in daily life because I want to establish answers for my own previous question, when I can use it. Hence, when getting the chance to take the developing subject knowledge course, I was excited to focus on some calculus questions using real-life contexts. Solving calculus problems I started my independent learning by solving the max box problem given by my personal tutor (see Appendix A). This problem about the paper which has side a, then I was instructed to make a box by cutting a square with side x from each of the four corners. I have to find the value of x so that I can make the biggest box. I tried to find the x value for creating the biggest box by doing some algebraic equations and finally, I obtained the pattern for finding the x value. Finding out the answer gave me an opportunity to relate it to the concept of differentiation. It was a new thing for me and when I searched on the internet, found it was popular in teaching and learning mathematics related to the calculus topic. However, I did not know why I found Indonesian mathematics teachers rarely used this practical question while teaching the concept of differentiation. Next, I moved to how to introduce the first principle of differentiation, f'(x), from function f(x). I started by drawing a graph of the function, then formulated gradient of two adjacent points using the gradient of a straight line and limit concept (see Appendix B). Finally, I found that the first derivative equals with the gradients of a point from the function. Then, I tried similar calculations for some different functions, and finally, I established the pattern of the first derivative. While doing this, I was thinking which I should teach first, gradient or differentiation, in order to make students understand where the first derivative comes. Furthermore, a noticeable point for me by solving this problem, I was aware that as a teacher I can teach mathematics through using algorithmic/algebraic/analytic/calculating, visual (image/graph), and inductive (pattern) thinking. For example, when finding the maximum value of the function, I acquired the same answer by using two differe nt methods, graphing and calculating. In addition, I explored how to draw the graph of the first derivatives of different functions by using gradient concept (see Appendix C). I drew both common and uncommon functions. I felt those were interesting and challenging because I could create the graph of the first and the second derivative just by looking at the graph of the original function. However, when I want to find the first derivative function, I have to calculate using an algebraic method. Although I could not get directly what the function of the first derivative f(x) through drawing, I could differentiate when the function reached maximum value, (when f (x) f (x) > 0), and neither maximum nor minimum value (when f (x) = 0), for instance, f(x)= x3-6x2+12x-5 having an inflexion point (see Figure 1). I also tried to find the gradient of uncommon functions such as an absolute function (f(x)=|x|) by plotting the graph manually and checking it using software GSP (The Geometers Sketchpad), then I found that there was a point on the |x|function that cannot be differentiated (non-differentiable point) that was when x = 0, but for other points, those were differentiable (see Figure 2). Furthermore, I explored six common mistakes (Cipra, 2013) that students made in doing calculus related to how they solve some routine problems and understand a concept of finding the area of function by integral concept (see Appendix D). The students mostly just calculated the area using formula without drawing the function so that occasionally they found a negative area. The area will be never negative. The students should know that the area above x-axis will be positive because y-axis values are always positive while the area below x-axis will be negative because of y-axis negative values (Stewart, 2016). Hence, students have to multiply the area of function below x-axis with negative (-) in favour of becoming a positive area. Reflection During this course, I relearned calculus concept by solving some problems. I felt back a sense of doing mathematics when solving the problems both routine and real-life problems. This sense made me excited to find the solutions for every problem that I faced. I became aware that abstract concepts cannot be separated from calculus. Although routine problems are commonly abstract, students will be able to learn the importance of symbol concepts in calculus through solving these problems. I also tried to connect calculus by solving some real-life problems which use real-life contexts and can be imagined as daily experiences (Gravemeijer Doorman, 1999), for instance, the max box problem that can be connected to a manufacturer. After doing some real-life problems, I agree that these problems should be taught in the classroom (Gainsburg, 2008). Teachers are able to use these problems to enhance students motivation and to develop reasoning as well as problem-solving skills of students in l earning mathematics (Karakoà § AlacacÄ ±, 2015). Therefore, the teachers will be able to make mathematics become more meaningful for their students through real-life problems. On the other hand, I think not all real-life problems are practicable for students because the problems do not relate to their life directly. I have done some problems from some websites and a textbook of calculus (SMP, 1973), but not all problems were relevant to a real context and could be solved. I encountered there was a problem when some facts are abandoned in order to make students understand the question easily. A problem which is relevant to one students life may not be relevant for others. Therefore, teachers should check the effectiveness of the problems by asking students first (Burkhardt, 1981), and then they will notice the good problems that can be used in the future. In addition, calculus is advanced knowledge for most students because they find it difficult to concretise so that occasionally it should remain abstract (Wilensky, 1991). Furthermore, teachers need to consider the time when they give the students real-life problems. They cannot give them these problems fo r every meeting because they also should provide opportunities to students for learning all calculus concepts, both concrete and abstract. Thus, most teachers assumed the nature of mathematics topic and the time may become limitations for connecting it to the real-world (Karakoà § AlacacÄ ±, 2015). Teachers can motivate students to think inductively in learning mathematics. They may involve students to find the first derivative pattern by using the gradient of a straight line and limit concept. They should not give a pattern f'(xn) =nxn-1 directly to students when introducing differentiation, but they ask students to establish the first derivative pattern by their own self. In addition, I found that teachers are able to use a slope of zero (f'(x)=0) for figuring out what is the maximum or minimum value of the function quickly. However, teachers also have to ask students to check the graph or the second derivative of the function to find the exact category of the x value (maximum, minimum, or inflexion point). Hence, as a mathematics teacher, I should deem some factors before deciding an effective teaching method that encourages my students to understand calculus concepts easily. I assumed that using technology can make sense of calculus for students. I considered using GSP while teaching to draw a graph of the function and to look closer whether the function can be differentiated for every point. Furthermore, I think that mathematics teachers may be able to explore any kind of calculus questions on websites such ashttps://www.math.ucdavis.edu andhttp://www.dqime.uni-dortmund.de which I assert as resources for finding real-life mathematics problems using the English language. However, teachers who come from non-native-English-speaking countries should be careful in understanding the meaning of the problems because there was a specific English term of mathematics that sounds unfamiliar or synonymous. For instance, I was confused to distinguish between two words that felt to be synonyms like capacity and volume. I firstly thought that those two words had similar meaning, however, capacity related to how much liquid held while volume related to how many material s needed (solid) in the container. Teachers also may adapt examples of the calculus projects and the application of calculus videos that are provided on the internet. Personally, I obtained the new perspective by watching some videos showing activities that teachers did like creating a group project related to the application of calculus. However, teachers should consider about the time because doing a project or watching a video will be time-consuming. Teachers require looking at why students made the mistakes and analysed what they should do to prevent similar mistakes among students. Students solve calculus problems using algorithms involving symbol concepts but they commonly forget to crosscheck the use of the symbol in their works. As a result, they made mistakes in using symbols which are shown in Appendix D. Furthermore, visual thinking is an important skill to abandon mistakes in finding solutions for calculus problems especially to find the area of the function. It happened because they did not draw the graph of the function. Meanwhile, students only will be able to identify the position of the graph either above or below the x-axis when they look the graph directly. Hence, teachers should be more aware that algebraic, symbol, and drawing the graph or visualisation are crucial concepts in learning calculus. Implementation in Indonesia One of the reasons why I wanted to explore the usefulness of mathematics and how to teach it in the classroom is the aim of teaching mathematics in Indonesia. Indonesia has adopted RME (Realistic Mathematics Education) from the Netherlands, and then known as PMRI (Pendidikan Matematika Realistik Indonesia) which correlates to teaching mathematics in real contexts and emphasises the application of mathematics (Sembiring, 2008). However, RME does not mean teachers have to involve the students in real activities but create a meaningful learning activity so that students can imagine it like they do reality (Van den Drijvers, 2014). Even though some previous researchers found that the implementation of PMRI in Indonesia had positive effects on students mathematics achievement (Armanto, 2002; Fauzan, 2002), Indonesia has not made relevant PMRI curriculum materials (Sembiring, 2008). Therefore, Indonesia still needs to develop some resources related to the implementation of PMRI. In addition, Indonesian mathematics teachers ability itself will be a difficulty in implementing teaching mathematics in real contexts. Although one of their concerns is connecting mathematics to the real world in order to encourage students to deal with their daily life problems (Zamroni, 2000), some of them are only able to teach instrumental understanding (Skemp, 1976) in the classroom so that students learn calculus as formulas without realising how they use it. Students just follow teachers instruction; memorising formulas, understanding the examples, and then solving the exercises. Undeniably, students own negative perspectives on mathematics, including the calculus, are due to this fact. Thus, teachers should find ways to improve these students perspectives in order to enhance their understanding and achievement in mathematics. Mathematics teachers can develop realistically applied mathematics in the classroom through the collection of realistic problems (Burkhardt, 1981) that provide an opportunity for students to apply their mathematical skills. Personally, there are some real-life problems that Indonesian teachers can use such as Max box. I am curious what will happen when I and other teachers use this problem before introducing calculus to the students, maybe, we will recognise kinds of methods from the students that we have never imagined before. Furthermore, Indonesian mathematics teachers should explore resources on the internet and use software like GSP in order to stimulate students sense of learning calculus. However, they may encounter further difficulty in using GSP or e-based learning method because not all of them can operate it and not every school has technological equipment as well as internet connection. Another point that Indonesian mathematics teachers should deem is students common mist akes in learning calculus. Teachers should be aware that students have to check their own work to find the mistakes because if they check by themselves, they likely will not repeat the same mistake. Teachers also have to check their students mistakes to analyse the reasons, then reviewing and correcting the misconceptions that student have from the mistakes. Conclusion Despite the fact that it is common that students feel calculus is difficult to be understood, solved and applied, I think there will be some solutions that teachers can do such as giving both realistic and unrealistic problems, using software, and watching application of calculus on videos. Besides these ways being likely to motivate and encourage students to learn calculus, these ways also can stimulate students using it in their real-life. However, teachers have to consider the practical problems for students and keep giving some routine problems to look closer what some misconceptions or mistakes that they made in doing calculus.

Explication of John Donnes The Flea Essay -- essays research papers

On the surface, John Donne’s poem â€Å"The Flea† dramatizes the conflict between two people on the issue of premarital sex, however, under the surface, the poem uses religious imagery to seduce the woman into having sex. The speaker in this poem is a man, who is strategically trying to convince a woman to have premarital sex with him through the conceit based on a flea, however, the coy lady has thus far yielded to his lustful desires. The speaker’s argument has the form of logic, which contradicts to its outrageous content. In the first stanza, the speaker wants his beloved lady to observe a flea and not think of anything else as he delivers his argument. A flea bites the speaker and his beloved causing their blood to mix, which, according to the narrator, is the same as having sex and creating a child. Then, the speaker explains to the woman that this mixing of blood is neither sinful nor shameful, or a loss of the woman’s â€Å"maidenhead.† He also explains that they have conceived a child a through the mixing of blood in the flea. He starts this stanza with a caesura in the middle of the line. For example the first line, â€Å"Mark but this flea, and mark in this,† has a definite pause between the words â€Å"flea† and â€Å"and.† The speaker pauses because he is trying to form some kind logic out of his argument for himself. The oratorical tone of the poem is interwoven throughout all three stanzas with run-on lines, which makes the tempo of the poem se em as if the speaker was not trying to rhyme. Not having a conversational tone in the poem, would take away from some of the intimacy of the words. The reader has to read between the lines and stanzas, because actions take place in the blank spaces between them. We... ...e, lust, marriage, and even conceiving a child at the same level as the importance of a flea, which gives the poem an ironic and satirical tone. This poem showed the pure genius of John Donne. It is intriguing to look at, especially for the religious imagery and form. His analogy of killing a flea and having sex, allow him to simplify his argument, which makes this a work of genius. His word choice, form, and rhythm all coincided with his major theme. I cannot help but to find this poem hilarious, flirtatious, and less serious than his other works because love, lust, marriage, and conceiving children is nowhere in comparison to a flea or killing one. I think Donne knew this, but through his wit he managed to make the correlation. Works Cited Donne, John. â€Å"The Flea.† The Norton Anthology of British Literature. 7th ed. 2000.

Bullying and the Holocaust

Bullying and the Holocaust: Competition versus Cooperation When an animal is faced with starvation it often turns to cannibalism and may attack and kill a weaker animal of the same species. The German Nazis followed this system of competition versus cooperation. The Nazis felt they had no other choice to survive than to kill millions of Jews, Gypsies, and disabled people. After the Holocaust, researchers uncovered many Journals kept by those who were persecuted.Here is a short exert from a fourteen year old girl: â€Å"October 27, 1937: The other girls and I were moved for the sixth time today. This time they moved us to a factory closer to Auschwitz. I'm beginning to fear that I'm at the end and I might die soon. At some points I wish they would go ahead and kill me so I wouldn't have to endure this pain. Through all of this I still don't understand why the Nazis hate us. We never did anything to them. I often wish someone would speak up on our behalf and save us from this terrible life. Looking back on the Holocaust people wonder xactly why no one spoke up and fought for the persecuted for so long during the war. It was like they were all students in school who pretended not to notice when someone was getting bullied so they didn't have to get involved in it. Half of the mass slaughter of the Holocaust was due to bullying by peer pressure. People felt pressured by others to turn in Jews to Nazi officials. They wanted to save themselves and let the Jews be persecuted.As this happened more often no one even thought twice about it and had little regret that they probably Just sent omeone to their death. 2 As a part of the â€Å"Final Solution†, the Nazis did everything possible to exterminate the Jews. Through all of the hateful words, excruciating torture methods, and unreasonable forced labor, the Nazis believed that they threatened their way of life and the world would be better without them. World War II and the Holocaust officially ended on May 8, 1 945, but only about two-thirds of the Jewish population remained.

Book Review on the book Virgin Birth

Gerd Ludemann is the author of a well-known book namely Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus. As mentioned above, this essay basically would present a critical review of this book. The author of this book, Gerd Ludemann works at the University of Gottingen as a Professor of the New Testament. The author of this book has also penned down other master pieces of nearly the same concept such as The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really said and Did, What really happen to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible.The book has been written by this German New Testament scholar as an attempt to put forward the historical realities that lie behind the birth of Jesus, who as said was born to a virgin mother namely Mary and the description of the Holy Family by the evangelists. The book is one of its kinds and in it; the author has gone through all of the previous references that were made to Jesus and his birth along with the Holy Family in the writings presented by the early Church and certain rival sources of the Jews.In the book under consideration, that is Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus, the author has discussed some of the previous stories of Christmas (the birth of Jesus) that are present in the New Testament, reforms the traditions that have been used in them and then moves on to answer or to put forward the main concept of the book, that is the answer to the question of what really happened at the birth of Jesus Christ. The main point of the book is basically to grapple the concept of the birth from a virgin, its validity and the loopholes that are present in the concept while backing it with a number of historical evidences.Critical Review â€Å"It is time to life the veil which—woven from a mixture of dogmatics, piety and fantasy—has lain over the figure of Mary. Mary is better unveiled, because in this way she becomes more credible and mor e human† –Gerd Ludemann As known to all, the Bible states that Jesus was born to a virgin mother who is a very well-known character in history and religion and her name was Mary. A vast number of anti-Christian groups, in order to tarnish the image of the religion and especially that of Virgin Mary have claimed that as Jesus was born out of wed lock he was illegitimate and Mary, as his mother was a sinner.In this book, the author argues that the Christian parable of the virgin birth of Jesus, upholds the formations of stigmatization, refusing the right of women to sexual and cultural freewill. His argument is that, instead of taking Mary acutely as a woman of our time and for that reason also taking seriously women in our time, a vast number of churches these days carry on ignoring the repeatedly destructive consequences of the myth of Mary men and women who believe in it.The author of this book, Gred Ludemann, who is a controversial professor of New Testament at the Un iversity of Gottingen, in Germany, in his book, has challenged the traditional teachings of the church related to Jesus and his mother Mary. The book begins with a brief over view of the Catholic and Protestant doctrines on Mary and then moves on to critically goes through all of the verses of the Bible that refer to Mary such as The Gospel of Matthew, The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, The Gospel of John, The Gospel of Thomas etc.He has done so with the hope of revealing a view of Mary’s thinking which was free of any thoughts or teachings related to the Church. The results presented by the author are very provocative and include a claim by the author stating that due to the fact that Mary gave birth to Jesus out of wedlock, she became the object of a number of lies that were put down to theory and were of great use or served the best interest of the early church, which obviously tarnished her own image and her character as a real human being.The book is rather stagnant. At times, a reader would perhaps loose interest because of the same thing being repeated over and over again. Although he has made a good attempt by going through all of the texts in a chronological order and that too all of them in three different stages. The first stage is the redaction, the second is the tradition, and last but not the least, the third is history. All three of them are linked to each other, but when read for the first time, this point is extremely hard to understand.The author has moved on from topic to topic very quickly which makes it even harder for a first time reader in particular to get what the author is trying to prove. The book somehow starts getting better after reaching page number forty, the second chapter namely â€Å"Mary in the New Testament and in the Christian Sources outside the New Testament: Redaction, Tradition, History†. As stated previously the book begins with a very brief introduction to a number of Catholic and Protesta nt doctrines, but they also have been explained in a way which is rather hard to understand at times.This makes the book seem rather uninteresting to any reader. He has also presented results of all the texts of the previously mentioned doctrines, but after going through nearly half of these results, one is forced to think whether the author is being rather very judgemental adnd if the book is not just a part of his own thoughts. Eventually in the end he has put forward the results of all the catholic and protestant doctrines along with the results of the verses and texts from the Bible, but they also tend to give the idea that the author is very judgemental and is not open to ideas.The worst aspect of the book however remains the fact that the text on its own is rather complicated and needs to be read twice in order to actually understand where the book is heading. A reader of the first time might remain baffled and complexed about what the author is trying to prove until he or she actually reads it in the end. Conclusion In the light of the above disucssion we can hereby culminate that Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus is a well-known book written by Gerd Ludemann who is a scholar of the New Testament at the University of Gottingen.He has penned-down a vast number of master pieces, which are somehow related to each other. In this book, the author has openly challenged the traditional teachings of the church related to Jesus and his mother Mary, who according to the Bible gave birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin. The book improves as it moves on, but it is rather hard to understand right at the beginning owing to the fact that it is rather complicated. Works Cited Ludemenn, Gred. Virgin Birth: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus. United States of America. Trinity Press International. ISBN: 1563382431.