Dana Hall Essay Example for Free

Dana Hall Essay Develop an action plan, taking into consideration the organizational context and current understanding of the issues. In this assignment, you are asked to stretch your thinking a bit, by designing a preliminary action plan based on your analysis of the Dana Hall case. Instructions 1. Review the action research you have completed thus far on the Dana Hall case. 2. Design a preliminary action plan for addressing the issue at Dana Hall. Use the Action Research Template (in the Resources below) to guide the development of your action plan. Your plan should: o Emphasize the problem definition stage (Stage 1 of the ARPP), including the generation of alternative courses of action. o Align with the problem definition. o Include analysis of the Dana Hall situation and the organizational context of the problem. o Establish alternatives and your choice for a course of action. 3. Present you analysis of the problem and your preliminary action plan. Choose one of the following two options.

Reading and its Effects on Development Essay -- Early Childhood Develo

Reading and its Effects on Development Over the years the attention focused on children from birth to three years has increased dramatically. Actually, it was in the 1970’s that researchers began to believe that reading to infants would help to stimulate their growth and development. Up to the decade of the 1970’s many people believed that infants lacked any intellectual abilities. Some people also believed that an infant’s hearing and vision were not operative in the first few months of life. But, over the years studies have proven otherwise. The first three years of life have been proven to be the most critical years in a child’s development. One area looked at by researchers and teachers are is how reading to infants and toddlers affects their development. Researchers and child development specialists advocate that parents begin reading to their children, even from birth, because it helps the child’s brain to develop more quickly and aids in the development of language skills. Brain development is very crucial in the first three years of life. Experts now say it’s the first three years of a child’s life that may hold the key to the future (Phillips, 1998). Infants are born with about one hundred billion brain cells, and when the child is not stimulated the brain cells die off. The critical period of brain development is within the first six months of life; the sensitive period of brain development includes birth to three years of age (Murray, n.d). At three months the brain has the potential to distinguish several hundred spoken sounds. Over the next few months the brain organizes itself to recognize only the sounds it hears (Phillips, 1998). This shows that if a child is not exposed to literature and other ... ...We Make a Difference? Pediatrics. Retrieved April 22, 2003, from http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0950/4_105/62023007/print.jhtml Maxcey, M.(1998, April 29). Reading to Children Stimulates Early Brain Development. Retrieved April 20, 2003, from http://www.agnews.tamu.edu/stories/CFAM/Apr2998a.htm Murray, B. (n.d). Understanding brain development and early learning: New research better inform the ‘nature vs. nurture’ issue. FACSNET. Retrieved April 23, 2003, from http://www.facsnet.org/tools.sci_tech/biotek/eliot.php Phillips, A. (1998, April 27). Baby’s brain: First three years of life may hold the key to child’s future. Courier. Retrieved April 22, 2003, from http://www.wcfcourier.com/life98/980426first.html Porter, P. (2003, April 6). Early Brain Development. Retrieved April 20, 2003, from http://www.educarer.com/brain.htm

Human Physical Appearance and Women Essay

Throughout these moments in time, the term beauty has slipped out of control and become something utterly dissimilar. The significance of beauty has developed into something so unappealing, so unpleasant, so repugnant, that even now society is coming to the apprehension that the way they are portraying the description of beauty is erroneous. Over time, ‘beauty’ has evolved to something rather peripheral. Being beautiful is turning into an undesirable act, that most girls will go into extremes, just to get a sense of feeling ‘beautiful. ’ Although beauty is now considered something by which your looks will define, during Greek times â€Å"beauty was a virtue: a kind of excellence. Person’s then were assumed to be what we now have to call – lamely, enviously – whole persons. If it did occur to the Greeks to distinguish between a person’s â€Å"inside† and â€Å"outside†, they expected that inner beauty would be matched by beauty of the other kind† (313, Sontag). Nevertheless, there was once a time where beauty was interpreted or described as something internal, unlike now, beauty goes more towards the looks. â€Å"Beautiful† people have lots going on for them. They are more confident, make more money, and get promoted faster than their â€Å"less attractive† colleagues. But for the career – driven women, beauty is a no-win situation; the public wants you to be attractive, but, at the same time, not so beautiful that it is off-putting. People might say that looks shouldn’t matter, but in the real world, they do. Women try so hard to look their best, and at the same time, feel their best. Women struggle a lot in trying to â€Å"fit in† to what society sees as being beautiful. Women nowadays alter their body parts, faces, and their diets in order to feel satisfied with themselves. A universal obsession that girls have been approaching with is that that they must be required to look a certain way to be thought of as pretty. Girls look up to celebrities and models and see how skinny, scrawny, almost skeletal, and undernourished they are and they get this idea that they must look like that in order to be noticed. A widespread trend that has been going around has been that of the name anorexia and bulimia. Starving yourself, or eating excessively and then purging – girls see it as something they must do in order to feel good about themselves. They glimpse these famous figures with their collarbones showing, thigh gaps, small waists, and they get this state of mind that they must achieve that to feel beautiful. Society and mass media are barraging women with images that portray what is considered to be the â€Å"ideal body. † Such standards of beauty are almost completely unattainable for most women; a majority of the models displayed on television and in advertisements are well below what is considered healthy body weight. Mass media’s use of such unrealistic models sends an implicit message that in order for a woman to be considered beautiful, she must be unhealthy. And this is what beauty is defined as in our time. Body image is a complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual’s perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance. Females of all ages seem to be so vulnerable in this area, starting off in their pre-teen years, going along throughout their existence. Body dissatisfaction is something that goes through most women or young girls at some point in their lives. Females have been found to experience dissatisfaction with physical appearance at a much higher rate than males, and women of all ages and sizes display body image disturbance. Concern over weight and appearance related issues often surfaces in a woman’s early life. Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating patterns have been found to be an especially prevalent issue in adolescent and college females. Body image becomes a major issue as females go through puberty; girls in mid-adolescence frequently report being dissatisfied with weight, fearing further weight gain, and being preoccupied with weight loss. This is a problem that we are now facing, and because of this many girls are suffering and going through difficult times, juts to feel good about themselves. The 20th century has seen a huge upsurge in the importance placed by Western society on physical beauty, particularly for women. The fashion, cosmetics and plastic surgery industries have thrived on 20th century preoccupation with physical appearance. It is a preoccupation that affects women in every sphere, whether they choose to pander to it or not. Definitions of beauty in the 20th century, when referring to human physical  beauty, are nearly always constructed in terms of outward appearance and sexual attractiveness. Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered â€Å"attractive. † Images in advertisements, television, and music usually portray the â€Å"ideal woman† as tall, white, and thin, with a â€Å"tubular† body, and blonde hair. This representation that is being portrayed has been a vast difficulty that girls are coming across of. They don’t feel beautiful, thus altering their ways of eating and the way they look very drastically in order to fit in. Only a very small percentage of women in Western countries meet the criteria the media uses to define â€Å"beautiful†; yet so many women are repeatedly exposed to media images that send the message that a woman is not acceptable and attractive if she does not match society’s â€Å"ultra-thin† standard of beauty. In recent years, women’s body sizes have grown larger, while societal standards of body shape have become much thinner. This discrepancy has made it increasingly difficult for most women to achieve the current sociocultural â€Å"ideal. † Such a standard of perfection is unrealistic and even dangerous. Many of the models shown on television, advertisements, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. Research has repeatedly shown that constant exposure to thin models fosters body image concerns and disordered eating in many females. Almost all forms of the media contain unrealistic images, and the negative effects of such idealistic portrayals have been demonstrated in numerous studies. The mass media’s depiction of women portrays a standard of beauty that is unrealistic and unattainable for a majority of women in society. Models shown in all forms of popular media are often under what is considered healthy body weight, which sends a powerful message that women must sacrifice their health to be considered attractive by societal standards. The negative effects of ultra-thin media images of women have been well documented; research has shown that females who are repeatedly exposed to and internalize the thin ideal are at greater risk to develop body image disturbance and eating pathology. Although it is clear that the media influences the way women view themselves, it is unclear how this process takes place. The social comparison theory, cultivation theory, and self-schema theory can be used to examine how media images of women come to affect the way women feel about their bodies and physical appearance. These perspectives also give some explanation for why some women show resilience to the negative effects of the media, while others are dramatically impacted. Nevertheless, beauty has become something rather disturbing and unwell. The image of beauty has been portrayed onto something so popularized that mostly all women around the world are being affected by it. Women are changing their ways and changing themselves to feel as if they fit in to what society expects of it. Beauty is still evolving, and is changing throughout the time, not for the better but for the worst.

Passed vs. Past How to Choose the Right Word

The words passed and past both come from the verb to pass. Originally, in fact, they were the same word—but thats  no longer true. Over time, their uses diverged, and the two words are now far from interchangeable, despite how similar they may seem. Passed and past are also homophones, words that are pronounced the same but differ in  meaning and spelling.   How to Use Passed The word passed means to move on, move ahead, take place, go beyond, go across, decline, win approval, or complete successfully. Passed is both the past and past participle form of the verb pass. It can function either as a transitive verb, meaning it takes a direct object, or an intransitive verb, which does not take a direct object. How to Use Past Past usually means belonging to a former time or beyond a time or place. Past has many functions. It can be a noun (meaning a previous time), an adjective (meaning ago), and a preposition (meaning beyond). Past can also be an adverb, which is a part of speech  (or  word class) thats primarily used to  modify  a  verb,  adjective, or  other adverbs. Examples Differentiating between passed and past allows us to either talk about the past (or previous time) more precisely or to use a verb, passed, indicating some kind of movement. Consider the following examples to deepen your understanding of the distinction between the two terms:   The past two weeks have been hard for Sally. She has not passed any of her exams. In the first sentence, past serves as an adjective, modifying the word weeks. By contrast, in the second sentence, passed is used as the past participle form of the verb pass.When she walked past me, I told her to forget the past and look toward the future. These sentences show how flexible the word past can be. In the first sentence, past functions as an adverb, modifying the verb walked, meaning that she walked beyond me. In the second sentence, past is a noun, meaning a previous time.Passed can also serve as the simple past tense of the verb pass, as in this example: We passed several children having fun on the playground.Past can be an adjective, modifying a person or idea, as in, Our past president spoke until past 10 p.m. In the first sentence, past is an adjective modifying president, while in the second sentence, past modifies the time, 10 p.m. How to Remember the Difference   Remember that passed describes an action, while  past  describes a time or space. There are a few memory tricks to help you determine which word is correct. The word past describes a previous space or time, so remember that the last two letters of past are s and t standing for space or time. When it comes to recognizing when to use the word passed, Spellzone suggests that you imagine two people with names beginning with s  passing something to each other:  Sarah passed  Sally the salt. Spellzone also suggests putting your sentence into the present tense. If the word ‘pass’ (or ‘passes’) works in the new sentence it means you need to use  passed, says Spellzone.  So you might have: Sarah passed the salt to Sue. Putting the sentence into the present tense would yield: Sarah passes the salt to Sue. You could never say, Sarah past the salt to Sue. Idiom Alerts Sometimes, passed or past is used as an idiom, a set expression of two or more  words  that means something other than the  literal  meanings  of its individual words. Pass(ed) away: The phrasal verb pass(ed) away  is a euphemism for die or died, as in this example: Thousands attended his funeral after George passed away. Pass(ed) the hat (around): The idiom pass(ed) the hat (around) means to collect donations of money from a group of people. This sentence uses the idiom as such: At the community meeting, we passed the hat around to raise funds for the new church. Pass(ed) out: The phrasal verb pass(ed) out means to faint or lose consciousness. These sentences make the point: He was so inebriated that he passed out in the park after drinking all night.He ran a 10-mile marathon and then passed out due to exhaustion at the finish line.She had a slight heart murmur and passed out because of it.After her daughter and son-in-law announced they were having a baby, the mother passed out from joy.As he placed the engagement ring on her finger, she passed out from shock.The accident was so bad that as she passed by, she passed out. Note how the last sentence uses both the idiom passed out as well as the verb  passed by meaning to move beyond or to walk past. Past your prime: The expression past ones prime means no longer in good health or no longer as good at something as one used to be. These examples show some uses of the phrase: The professor was once capable and respected, but by the 1990s he was past his prime.Many star athletes stay in the game too long—well after they are past their prime. Sources Brians, Paul. Washington State University.  Common Errors in English Usage and More Han Feitzu d 233 BCE Legalist Views on Good Government Comments, brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/30/passed-past/.Football in the USA, homepage.smc.edu/quizzes/cheney_joyce/PassedorPast.html.Voice:  Active and Passive, webapps.towson.edu/ows/past.htm.