Why Should We Teach Shakespeare English Language Essay

Why Should We Teach Shakespeare English Language Essay The writings of Shakespeare play an important part of the heritage of the English literature which sends us the moral obligation to teach Shakespeare. Constructed by critical approach, the narrow, elitist hierarchy of texts written by Shakespeare, which was considered as the apex as a touchstone of excellence to protest to match inferior productions, are now a remote view, quite different from the great variety and richness of human experience in the arts. However, personal sense of works should be encouraged to communicate with many people by sharing celebration, accessing to tradition of communal dramatic experience, not as the key to ivory tower. Language of Shakespeare contains not only specific historical and cultural context, but also introduces all kinds of linguistic development by widening the way of seeing and thinking. Besides, our language, concept, and perception can be enriched by coping with his language. As a teaching aid, Shakespeares innovative use of vocabulary helps show children how to use the language they are born with better than a bland textbook, even when used without this aim in mind. Children should be encouraged to access to Shakespeare, and since parents seem to be too lazy to read to their children any more, it must be the place of school to offer this education. His dramatic and lyric poetry speaks powerfully and directly to the belief of the essential poetry in education. The idea that good poetry is deep, rich, obscure, and complex is sometimes promoted by textual analysis. Readers of Shakespeares poetry will find depth in simplicity, wisdom, or tragic mode. Dr. Johnson (1765) considers Shakespeare as a poet of Nature who filled his plays with practical axioms and domestic wisdom by his universal sympathies. Shakespeare treated his characters in action a depth and various insights that can sharpen our self-knowledge and knowledge of human condition which bring us context to test out our potential for good or ill in private reflection when discussing with others. In the field of drama and theatre, scripts of Shakespeares plays provide us full range of practical activity, workshop improvisation and mime which is based on different moments or themes to full-scale public performance. Students from primary school onwards can experience through the formal and narrative structures, as well as the language of plays and poetry of Shakespeare. From this, deeper understanding his texts can be raised higher to each level. The texts in Shakespeares works are open to explore the way in which apparently settled notions of kingship, order, harmony, nobility, and social class and gender are threatened by unresolved forces. Difficulties and challenges in teaching Shakespeare are the opportunities. Shakespeare is the cultural treasure not only of England but also the world. An education in England cannot ignore the vast cultural wealth of our country. For too long England have lost pride in its national icons and allowed nationalists to reclaim them as their own. Keeping control of the powerful icons such as Shakespeare is a tool for integration. Shakespeare has enlightened the lives of the people of this country for 500 years, and for good reason. His poetry and drama represent the pinnacle of the English language, and influences the way we speak today. It is a beautiful body of work, ranging from comedy to tragedy, murder to hatred, treating difficult subjects brilliantly. If we are to remain proud of the history of this country, we cannot ignore the contribution made by this one man to our culture, and wider European culture. Shakespeare made his name here, but has been read by an audience far beyond the reaches of this sceptred isle (Shakespeare: Richard II, 2.i). Shakespeare is also the cultural integration. Many people are worried about an upcoming generation of immigrants that do not identify themselves as British, while living in Britain and paying taxes to the British government. Culture is a key tool in integration; if you can share a cultural identity, you can share other values and bring the wider community together. Teaching Shakespeare, a bastion of British culture, in schools to this end is far better than forcing citizenship ceremonies and oaths of allegiance on children. It is not forceful, but creates a sense that they are part of a country with a long and proud history, willing to integrate new communities into its growth. Shakespeare was way ahead of his time. Many of his characters and situations are modern day and relate to us. Also, his plays and poetry show us things about ourselves that other pieces of literature often cant. The mastermind himself has invented a whole new phase of the English language. To this date, we all use words which directly or indirectly have their origins in Shakespeares works. Also, many movies are being made on his works which has further generated an interest in the Bard. They are even applicable to todays 21st century. There are still Macbeths, Othello, Julius Caesars and others in the society. Its just that their lifestyle has become more advanced, more tech-savvy and dressed differently. Its just that their lifestyle has become more advanced, more tech-savvy and dressed differently. Shakespeare is a pro at deciphering the human emotions and the working of the mind. One can also see his works from a psychological point of view and identify with some of the characters . It might also give an insight to the students who are learning about it and give a better view of the real world as opposed to seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. II. Recent Shakespeare teaching in schools Generally, teaching and learning in schools have been transformed radically during the last twenty-five years. Learning process is now emphasized within different contexts, oral, as well as valuable written outcomes, active modes of learning, such as: role-play, group discussion, and independent learning). The development of media studies encourages extending the range of linguistic and visual experiences. Literature, in this stream, is no longer perceived as the central study in English, but one of a range of possibilities. Not only competing for time with other literature, Shakespeare also fights with the role of English as a support subject across the curriculum. Shakespeare studies in schools have got many fruitful developments, in which there are two significant ones: the growth of practical drama work through workshop and Theatre-in-Education, and plain text examinations. The pioneers of the first fruit are Henry Caldwell Cook (1917) and Beacock (1943) who established the mummery in Perse School, Cambridge, and were seminal influences on teaching through drama. It was not until in the late 1960s when the growth of educational drama introduced Shakespeare into the teaching in state schools with possible way of grouping students into 4 or 5 member resident companies who are responsible a certain part given by teacher to discuss and perform before evaluation of the whole class. Plain text examinations are given particularly to O level by providing the text in the examination room shifting students to respond by using their own words. III. Teaching Shakespeare in England With many young people, Shakespeare play is just a story with fixed values to be learned, rather than the dramatically dynamic, emotionally shifting and unstable play text which it really is. There are still many classes where students sit at their desks experience by reading through a Shakespeare play. Nothing startling, but a few right ingredients were there with enthusiastic teaching, playing the text, and seeing a performance. Many people leaving school along with the thinking of the most unbelievable and unutterable rubbish to ever hear about Shakespeares plays. Ted Wragg, one of the most well-respected and well-loved educationalists of Britain agreed that there was nothing but doing Shakespeare, rather than reading if someone wants to let children access the power of Shakespeares words. 1. Pre-national Curriculum Beginning of the twentieth century sees the secondary education becoming compulsory and English taking its prestige value from the Classics. Along this, attitudes to Shakespeare were very much influenced by nationalist pride. William Shakespeare, whose timeless characters and portrayed universal values in his plays define our humanity, was reversed as the greatest poet of all time. Shakespeare, in the post enlightenment age when art was considered as the human surrogate for religion (Peter Widdowson, 1981), was like the apex of high culture which was the target for Victorian belief of a better person if exposing to it. Richard Adams (1985), despite decrying the static of Shakespeare, comments that most students still respect Shakespeare although they get bored to tears by reading incomprehensive words if his plays. In the first half of twentieth century, Shakespeares plays were read around class only, which was the main topic for the influential critics such as: AC Bradleys character -based criticism, LC Knights journal Scrunity, and critics like Tillyard, Wilson Knight and Leavis whose concepts of an ordered Elizabethan world helped transmit clear cultural values in Shakespeares plays to us. This tradition of criticism the liberal humanist took the plays in the view of literature rather than drama and influenced a long life in secondary schools. However, on the other side, different views on seeing the plays as the performance texts also existed. Founded in 1906, The English Association suggested in its first pamphlet publications The Teaching of Shakespeare in Schools how to study Shakespeares plays: It is desirable that all the Shakespeare chosen for study should be read aloud in class. The living voice will often give a clue to the meaning, and reading aloud is the only way of ensuring knowledge of the metre. In a class of beginners the teacher must take a liberal share of the reading, but the pupils should be brought into play. They can be cast for some of the parts; the forum scene in Julius Caesar comes one step nearer the dramatic if the teacher is Anthony and the other parts are distributed and the class transformed into a Roman mob shouting for the will. Many writers on Shakespeare education agreed that it was so dangerous for opening textbooks before students in classrooms but forgetting what drama really meant. This pamphlet also recommended good practice by acting out scenes and seeing performance of the play occasionally. Henry Caldwell Cook (1917) strongly encouraged the case for a theatrical approach to the study of Shakespeare. Under the influence of the liberal humanist tradition in teaching, the trend for drama-based teaching of texts was still calling. A.K Hudson (1954) confirmed the important role of active approaches to teaching Shakespeare in his book Shakespeare and the Classroom for The Society for Teachers of English. He wrote in the introduction of this book: The unsuccessful methods [of teaching Shakespeare] normally display two features: they are non-dramatic and they reflect a tendency to regard school children as textual scholars in embryo. The present book recognises frankly the difficulties which the modern pupil finds in dealing with Shakespeare. It has been written in the belief that the plays can be made intelligible and interesting only if the teaching remains stage-centred. The writer suggests practical advice and ideas on how to work with the plays with 11-18 years old. He believes in the benefits from his ways to students when learning Shakespeare. Government, in this time, also had innovative opinions on teaching Shakespeare, which is illustrated by its document named The Newbolt Report (entitled The Teaching English in England) published in 1921. The report, besides remaining the traditional view of regarding Shakespeare as the greatest English writer, focused on the need for English to be enjoyable and encouraged the use of drama for improving the imagination and empathy. School curriculum in this time is the secret garden where schools decide themselves on how much and what about Shakespeare to teach. Frank Whitehead (1966) and J.W. Patrick Creber (1965) introduced a more pragmatic view on Shakespeare in their two books influential in the teaching of English in the mid 1960s. Despite keeping the point of view of Shakespeare as greatest English wri ter, they see that Shakespeare was really difficult for the majority of students, and wonder the suitability of the study of Shakespeare for young teenagers. Jan Kott (1965) concludes that the attitudes to Shakespeare academic and theatrical world were undergone the revolution. Moreover, universities and theatres ignored the traditional, reverential view of Shakespeares plays. 2. The 1980s In the mid 1980s, independent schools and higher ability streams were the province of Shakespeare studies which, despite of having lost favor with general rank and files of teachers in England, became very much the norm with its performance consciousness. Neil King (1985) suggested that Shakespeare should not be taught below Year 9 because the language is too high and difficult to attempt. He chose Macbeth and Henry V instead of the full of violence and hatred in Romeo and Juliet to deal with thirteen-year-old students. John F Andrews writes in the Teaching Shakespeare a special edition produced by American Shakespeare Quarterly in 1984: A decade ago performance-oriented pedagogy was relatively unfamiliar among Shakespeareans and was anything but universally accepted as the wave of the future. Now it is difficult to find a dissenting voice: virtually everybody acknowledges the need to approach Shakespeares plays as dramatic rather than literary works. The only real question seems to be just how to put the new consensus into practice. Also in this edition, Kenneth Muir, in his essay Teaching Shakespeare: the wrong way or the right, affirms that the most effective and only legitimate way to study Shakespeares plays in schools is to turn the lessons into a rehearsal. Late 1980s and early 1990s sees the clash of view over the position of Shakespeare in education between the left wing cultural materialist academics and the right wing guardians of cultural heritage. 1980s was the period of critical theories which opened up academic Shakespeare study. The Feminist and Cultural Materialist got the most influential on Shakespeare teaching. Bardolatry, which had built up around Shakespeare at seemed to be out of time and a repository of universal truth, was strongly attacked by Cultural Materialism. In 1980s, context to the plays in textbooks dealing with Shakespeare were increasingly adapted. Besides, educationalists who were already working with such ideas were provided a theoretical underpinning by the academics. Opposite the awareness of cultural, historical and other contextual influences which is embedded as part of examination requirements along with the awareness of literary heritage of these days, summer 1993 came what the Observer called The Battle of the Bard which saw John Major, at his Party Conference, railed against 500 academics who had written a letter protesting against the Governments policies on literature teaching in which the introduction of Shakespeare was compulsory at Key Stage 3. While the academics view of the policies was like an ill-thought-through elitist imposition of a death white man, it was, with the party members, the chance for moral fibre of all right-minded inhabitants of this sceptred isle to be strengthened. Meanwhile, teachers shrugged and tried to get on with their daily teaching tasks. Luckily, in the stream of this chaos, Dr Rex Gibson, the English greatest Shakespearean educationalist, was building an oasis of sense for some teachers with quiet achieving great success of his invaluable research in project Shakespeare in schools started in 1986. Gibsons team, working from the Cambridge Institute of Education, produced a termly the newsletter named Shakespeare and Schools which is as a support for the teaching of Shakespeare, containing quotes, articles, information, and writings by teachers on their direct experiences with Shakespeare in Primary and Secondary schools. Gibson introduced his fruitful result by using active and flexible approaches to the plays to involve every student of any age to appreciate Shakespeare: In total, our research reveals an encouraging picture. Teachers increasingly report success as they employ a variety of methods, at the heart of which is social collaborative, imaginative, re-creative activities. Such methods deepen and enhance students informed personal responses. First appeared in 1991, Gibsons school editions of plays provides a wealth of practical ideas facing with each page of text. They soon became popular in every English stock-cupboard and the compulsory study of Shakespeare in Key Stage 3. Moreover, his book, Teaching Shakespeare (1998) became the favorite of many new and experienced teachers alike. In the early 1990s, Royal Society of Arts (RSA) project also conveyed the same spirit of how to make Shakespeare accessible in the origin to all age groups from 5 upwards by using well prepared, exciting, and enjoyable teaching and learning approaches. The project, in the echo of Gibsons work, tried to counter the idea of Shakespeare as a bogeyman whose works are so difficult, irrelevant, and inaccessible. RSA introduced a more practical, fun approach to replace the scholarly one, which allows teachers and students to develop skills, knowledge and sharing ideas. In the same purpose, Shakespeare and Schools project, the work of Royal Shakesp eare Company (RSC), National Theatre, and Globe education departments, involved enormously the development of teaching and learning Shakespeare with new approaches. 3. The National Curriculum From 1976, the quality of state education and a great deal of discussion about the curriculum were questioned but most ideas were still theoretical and generalized. Despite broadly mentioned in Curriculum Matter 1, a document of Department of Education and Science, published in 1984, there was still unclear way of how much, which work(s) of Shakespeare, which age of students to teach Shakespeare. Having initiated plans for National Curriculum (NC) of predecessor, Keith Joseph, Kenneth Baker, as Secretary of State for Education in May 1986, was determined to change and create specific requirements for all school children. He got his goal and opened the door of opportunity in 1987 by tying up all the details for NC. He clearly believed that Shakespeare should be a compulsory author to study for having cultural and intellectual cachet. Nigel Lawson, in an interview with The Guardian, in September 1983, summed that Shakespeare was a Tory without any doubt. Shakespeare, in the view of Tor ies, is as the bastion of British culture and values, a stable enduring symbol of Englishness in a shifting world. In September 1992, the Conservative view was stated clearly by John Patten, then Education Secretary: It is essential that pupils are encouraged to develop an understanding and appreciation of our countrys literary heritage. Studying the works of Shakespeare is central to that development. That is why the study of Shakespeare is an explicit requirement of the National Curriculum. This point of view alienated many teachers and academics who did not support the compulsory Shakespeare study. They still questioned the values about class and women in the writings of this white man, and denied students access to a man who is generally regarded as the worlds greatest playwright but simply reverse snobbery. From autumn 1989, the National Curriculum was introduced progressively. It begins with unspecific state that pupils should learn some of Shakespeares works. Besides, a new battle of the Bard began in September 1990 when SATs, a kind of Scholastic Assessment Test, were first embarked to Year 7 students on the English NC program. The Cox Report, English for Ages 5-16, in 1989, mentioned the implication of drama-based methods for teaching Shakespeare: In particular, every pupil should be given at least some experience of the plays or poetry of Shakespeare. Whether this is through the study, viewing or performance of whole plays or of selected poems or scenes should be entirely at the discretion of the teacher. The report continued on the comment of Gibsons Shakespeare and Schools project that secondary students received wide range of abilities to find Shakespeare meaningful, accessible and enjoyable from the project which also replaced traditional methods of reading desk-bound students by exciting, enjoyable approaches. The place of Shakespeare in NC is also validated in this report: Many teachers believe that Shakespeares work conveys universal values, and that his language expresses rich and subtle meanings beyond that of any other English writer. Other teachers point out that evaluations of Shakespeare have varied from one historical period to the next and they argue that pupils should be encouraged to think critically about his status in the canon. But almost everyone agrees that his work should be represented in a National Curriculum. Shakespeares plays are so rich that in every age they can produce fresh meanings and even those who deny his universality agree on his cultural importance. In 1995, as the information in the Dearing Report, a new slimmed-down version of NC was given to schools, which stated that at least two Shakespeare plays should be taught during the Key Stage 3 and 4. 4. The SATs Early 1990s, Shakespeare was added on Paper 2 of the Key Stage 3 SATs examinations, which went along with the fact that all Year 9 students had to study 3 plays of Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and A Midsummers Night Dream. The questions in exam were traditionally literary, based on the set scenes of the plays. Students were required to answers the questions as well as writing their response in 1 hour 15 minutes. Both reading and writing skills were required. However, the questions were still in the form that regards an audience member as a reader rather than a witness at a place. For example, the question relating to Act 1 Scene 3 of Julius Caesar: At this point in the play do you support the conspirators? Or the question relating to Act 1 Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet: How are moods of excitement, romance and danger created during the scene? How do they affect the audiences feelings about Romeo and Juliet at this point in the play? A better question that allows students to give more interpretive response is the one relating to Act 3 Scene 1 of A Midsummers Night Dream: If you were directing the scene, what would you tell the actors to help them bring out the comedy? However, this paper was boycotted by the majority of schools in the trend of boycott the English Key Stage 3 SATs because teachers and students felt that the paper was so quick to be adequately prepared. In 1995, the first year of national tests for all Year 9 students, SATs were deigned to be as inoffensive although the format was the same. The questions tried to put students into characters behavior in the set scene or characters place, and then asked students to writes a letter or diary as that character. In the next years, most questions were largely character-based. 2003 sees another battle when the ideas of Estelle Morris vetoing a QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) recommendation of reducing the test to 45 minutes and checking reading skill only. The set plays were Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Henry V, each of which was put in a separate paper within two questions to be answered in 1 hour and 15 minutes. This new version also got so many complaints the QCA had to do a survey of teachers on how to change the paper into the best way. Because of having not enough time to change, 2004 version got the same format of paper and the problems were compounded further. The negative stress factor caused by SATs was highlighted in the Report on KS3 English Review of Service Delivery failure 2003-2004 to QCA Board. 30/09/04 that the test results of school-level key stage 3 had significant impact on school with the potential affect on teachers careers. 2005s Paper 2 was also considered as a disaster. Shakespeare in 2005, 2006 was assessed by student s who would answer one question which possessed 18% of the total English papers. The question based on the set play and required 45 minutes to respond. Since 2009, following the public consultation, only two plays Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest have been chosen as the set texts for SATs. For Key Stage 3, the NAA suggests four plays Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, A Midsummers Night Dream, and Julius Caesar should be on a rolling program of plays. 5. Key Stage 4 Exams In 1960s and 1970s, Shakespeare was the unique compulsory author in the old O-Level English Literature syllabus which required the study of three texts: A Shakespeare play, a novel and some poetry. It was free for the boards to choose texts from any period, although in practice, the texts were in the trend of drawing from Great Tradition. Differently, 1980s came the boards withdrawing away from the Great Tradition and compulsory Shakespeare. O-Level texts no longer insert plays or poetry. Therefore, students could escape from plays or poetry all together, and left school without having studied Shakespeare at all. The three genres: poetry, prose and drama were recovered by the introduction of GCSE supplanting the O-Level and CSE syllabuses for first examination in 1988, but the study of Shakespeare was placed in the discretion of the teacher. Some schools chose coursework with 100% mark or took chance to do some interesting assignments on Shakespeare. However, when adding both Shakespeare and a modern text, for example Forsyths Gregorys Girl, while most teachers were trying to convey the lessons in mixed-ability groups, many opted not to bother Shakespeare. In 1994, Shakespeare returned the only compulsory author on the Literature syllabuses when the Key Stage 4 program of study which was set out in the 1991 National Curriculum, came into force. In 1995, the exam boards required the texts be compared and contrasted, and be shown social and historical contexts, which became the hints for teachers to set discussions the relevance between texts social and historical contexts and today ones. Since 1999, GCSE English Language has required the study of a Shakespeare play to meet the requirement of NC that a play should be studied at Key Stage 4. Regardless the ability, for the first time, all students had to study a Shakespeare play for their important 16+ exam in English. Shakespeares works are still the industry standard of literature, teaching Shakespeare in England has been innovative to update and create new approaches for a wider and deeper view on his social, historical contexts and humanity. Teachers and students play important keys to make Shakespeare lifelong.

Epic of Beowulf Essay - The Author/Poet of Beowulf -- Epic Beowulf ess

The Author/Poet of Beowulf      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Little is known about the poet who wrote Beowulf; we have only what information we can deduce from logically reasoning from whatever evidence scholars find in the poem itself.    First of all, consistency of style suggests that the poem was written by one person only (Thompson 14). There is no appreciable variation from uniform linguistic and metrical characteristics. Antithesis is a strong feature of the style:â€Å"This tendency to antithesis, frequently verging on paradox, and the constant play of irony are but stylistic manifestations of those movements of the poet’s thought which shape the very stuff of the poem† (Blomfield 58). There is the reference to the burning of Heorot woven into the description of its first glories, and the prediction of family strife while yet all is well in Hrothgar’s court. The writer’s style includes depth and vibrancy, and â€Å"a high degree of abstraction and formalism† (Blomfield 64). There are many digressions in the poem: â€Å"the poet’s digressive, revaluative style† (Tripp 64). The author is omniscient: â€Å"The poet reserves the right to say what people are thinking † (Shippey 39).    Secondly, the employment of several conventional poetic devices suggests that the author was an educated person. Beowulf is distinguished primarily by its heavy use of   allliteration, or the repetition of the initial sounds of words. The Old English poet would â€Å"tie† the two half-lines together by their stressed alliteration (Chickering 4). Each line of poetry ideally contains four principal stresses, two on each side of a strong medial caesura, or pause. â€Å"At least one of the two stressed swords in the first half-line, and usually both of them, begin with the same sound as... ...raki, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.    Shippey, T.A.. â€Å"The World of the Poem.† In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.    Tharaud, Barry. â€Å"Anglo-Saxon Language and Traditions in Beowulf.† In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.    Thompson, Stephen P. â€Å"The Beowulf poet and His World.† In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.    Tripp, Raymond P. â€Å"Digressive Revaluation(s).† In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.    Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000   

The Root of the Economic Crisis is Moral Crisis Essay -- Business Ethi

The foreclosure crisis is not actually a crisis, but a consequence of greed, policies, and immoral choices. The increasing rate of foreclosures and decreasing value of homes is inevitable. Bailing out banks or borrowers to help them reform loans and mortgage rates will only provide temporary relief. The crisis exists on a larger scale. Greed has overcome society increasing personal and public debt. The government is only making matters worse by bailing out lenders and borrowers whom are guided by their desires for superficial wealth. Policies passed by men and women with the selfish motive of authority, power, and preservation; men and women who have lost sight of their family, neighbor, and the well-being of society. J. Krishnamurti writes, â€Å"Society is the relationship between people- the relationship between one person and another, between one family and another, between one group and another, and between the individual and the group. Human relationship is soc iety† (1963). We no longer look out for our neighbor, we fear opening our door to strangers, and run from situations that do not satisfy our selfish desires. The foreclosure crisis is therefore a matter of thought. Our thoughts have clouded our needs with wants, our faith with fears, and our empathy with envy. To solve the foreclosure crisis we must regress to the simplest way of life, encouraging relationships that build a community, and discourage the desire to cling to materials, such as homes we cannot afford. We have all become Lumpenproletariat, according to Karl Marx, this defines us as â€Å"criminals, vagabonds, beggars; who have no stake in the economy and therefore sell their labor to the highest bidder† (Wikipedia, 2009). The institutions, gove... ...wth. Look at the entrepreneurs creating jobs. Look at the officials upholding the law without corruption. Look at the homeowner working diligently to pay his bills. Look at the contributing taxpayers. Look at the volunteers. Look at the employers treating their workers fairly. Look at the people living in peace. Reward this! Reward good deeds! Laws must be upheld and wrongful deeds given zero-tolerance. Personal consequence is how we develop coping skills, patients, and understanding. Reward only those who contribute to the well being of our society, our family, and human relationships. This will give individuals a sense of ownership within their communities, responsibility of the outcomes, and the freedom to create, grow, and prosper. When each of us has the freedom to accomplish our ambitions in good faith without tyranny, society will prosper.

Lebanon’s Social Problems Essay

Lebanon is a very beautiful country and an important destination for tourism. Lebanon or as the bible called it once â€Å"The land of milk and honey†. Beirut is the capital of the country and it’s also nicknamed â€Å"Paris of the East†. Famous people are originally half Lebanese such as the well known Columbian artist â€Å"Shakira†. There are five countries which surround Lebanon which are: Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus & Palestine (Israel). Several problems started to appear in Lebanon. In 1943-1948 after France got out from Lebanon the Christians took the balance of power in the country while Muslims haven’t much of a power back then, this caused some tensions between those two. The tension reached its limit in 1975 when a radical Christian group attacked a bus full of Palestinians and killed them. After this incident, some vengeful attacks were made as a respond for the Christians actions which led to more hate and no trust at all between Muslims and the other group. After seven years, exactly in 1985 The Israeli army invaded Beirut to remove the Palestinians Liberation Organization as they said. All those wars and conflicts and wars in the city and in the country in general led to very serious and sad results. Between 150-200 thousand people were killed while 300 thousand were wounded, that goes for the human cost but as for the economic cost was very heavy and it actually was paralyzed for many years which stroke hard to the whole country. The peace has finally come in 1989 which put off the furious flames of war. In the recent days, Lebanon began to recover from that savagery conflict which led to nothing but destruction and sadness. People came back to their homes after they left it because of the war. The buildings which were affected by the conflict are restored by the help of some other countries. The most important thing that tourism is finally revived and people now can enjoy everything in Beirut after the horror the city lived in the past several years. Tourists can relax and enjoy Skiing on the mountains, taking sunbath on the beach and also swim in the blue sea.

Candide by Voltaire Essay

1) What is the relationship between Candide’s adventures and Pangloss’s teachings? In Candide, we see lives filled with struggles and tragedy. Although Candide witnessed and fell victim to worldly evils of cruelty and suffering, he maintained his optimistic views through much of the novel. Candide picked up this idea of optimism through Pangloss’s teachings. Although he did not see any good reasons to disbelieve Pangloss’s teachings while living in the Baron’s castle, once in the outside world, Candide experiences many tragic events that make him, and the reader, question the philosophy of optimism. Candide’s adventures, starting when he is kicked out of the Barons castle, clearly represented an imperfect world, full of atrocities that contradicted Pangloss’s teachings. The events that break apart Pangloss’s teachings begin almost immediately when Candide is thrown in the streets to live on his own. He runs into recruiting officers of the King of Bulgars. They have him toast to the health of their king, but then beat Candide severely and put irons on his legs. Luckily though, the king comes by and tells them to spare Candide since he is innocent. Soon after that, Candide witnesses an awful, bloody battle between two armies. This horrible spectacle shows us how hateful and violent people are in this world. Later, he finds a beggar who turns out to be Pangloss. Pangloss shares some of the horrible things he had been put through and that Candide’s one and only love had been raped and her entire family had been murdered when the Baron’s castle had been taken over. Once with Pangloss, he has many new adventures. While out at sea with Pangloss and Jacques, a violent storm occurred and destroyed their ship. Many innocent passengers are killed including Jacques, who died saving a sailor. The innocent passengers’ deaths disprove Pangloss’ theory since it appeared the bad that came out of the shipwreck led to nothing good for them; instead, only brought them to their deaths. When the sailor, Pangloss, and Candide get into Lisbon, an earthquake destroys most of the city. A  tidal wave also crushes ships in the port. In an effort to prevent another earthquake, wise men take ridiculous actions against the slightest wrongdoing. Candide and Pangloss end up getting arrested. Pangloss is hanged and Candide is beaten badly. The ridiculous actions taken place prove to be futile when another earthquake erupts the next day. All of the bad that came from the first earthquake provided no good. Pangloss had been hung for no reason and Jacques, a good man, had died from the storm out at sea. The reader is left wondering how these horrible events could result in a greater good. Candide finds that God might have spared one place on earth, El Dorado. He finds this seemingly perfect city, yet does not want to stay because is still in love with Cunegonde. The king gives him and Cacambo a few sheep and some gold. This portion of the story brings a little light, yet the whole world cannot be like El Dorado, and people who do live in perfect worlds cannot even appreciate it because they have nothing to compare the high points against. Since life is always perfect, they live in lethargic boredom and cannot truly appreciate how well off they truly are. We also see times of happiness and good fortune that restore Candide’s faith in optimism throughout the book. Such periods include when we find Pangloss survived, and the points in the book when Candide and Cunegonde get to be together, even for short amounts of time. Towards the end of the story, Candide begins to question Pangloss’ philosophy more and more. Although we find events that support optimism, we find more counterexamples. Although Pangloss and the Barons son are found alive, they tell Candide their escapes from death, and the tortures they had been put through afterwards. Soon after they free Pangloss and the Baron’s son from slavery, the men go and find Cunegonde, the woman Candide had been searching to live with and love for his entire life. When they do find her, she is extremely ugly and Candide no longer wants to marry her. Although he is no longer attracted to her, he is a man of his word and feels he must do his duty to take care of her and love her. Now, he is stuck with a woman he no longer lusts over. Candide has finally found what he had been sacrificing for all of his life to find, yet is not satisfied with what he has acquired  for his hard work. Throughout the entire story of Candide, we are bombarded with horrendous events that happened to an individual to disprove Pangloss’s teachings. Candide’s adventures encountered such atrocities as murder, rape, slavery, and prostitution. The bad events that occur in Candide, help show that the world is not perfect, and that not everything happens for the greater good in the end. Candide’s adventures, great in number, show us how bad others lives turned out as well as their friends and families lives were hurt as well, such as the old woman. In the end, Candide finally realizes that optimism is not a flawless philosophy, and that the idea of working hard and enjoying life is better than waiting around for the good you think will happen. Candide’s adventures helped to contradict optimism and ultimately changed Candide’s beliefs from optimism to a realization of reality. Candide begins to live a simple life, working hard to avoid boredom, vice, and pov erty.

A Leadership Profile of American Project Managers Essay

Although the needs and demands of clients have always been the highest priority for any project manager, increasing global competition, ever heightening client expectations, and the magnitude of the projects impact on a firm’s bottom line has begun to place greater emphasis on the skills necessary to successfully lead today’s project teams. Historically, strong technical skills and knowledge of the industry would have been the key selection criteria. It was, in many cases, simply assumed that men and women who possessed these qualities would lead the project to a successful completion. Today’s complex project environments require even greater skills at leadership than ever before. â€Å"Cookie-cutter† formula-based management was probably never correct, but in today’s environment it will inevitably lead to disaster. Performance expectations for quality, cost effectiveness, timely delivery, and a host of other client measures are ratcheted-up a notch each year. In the highly competitive arena in which most projects operate, be they external or internal, the requirement to produce results that exceed client expectations has become the norm. As one respondent shared, â€Å"I have not worked on a project in the past five years that was not viewed by the client as being ‘fast track;† The stakes are high, and getting higher. The days when cost overruns and delayed completion were common are history. So are the projects where technical personnel were once allowed to â€Å"experiment† until they got it right. With the managerial practices of outsourcing, downsizing, total quality management and continuous improvement becoming even more prevalent in our organizational environment, it can be expected that project managers are experiencing increased performance pressures. Internal project managers are possibly just as vulnerable to not having their contracts renewed as external consultants and contractors. Recent Literature Jeffrey Pinto and Om Kharbanda shed light on this problem in two journal articles published in Business Horizons, â€Å"Lessons for an accidental profession† (1995) and â€Å"How to fail in project management† (1996). These authors emphasize the increased need for projectmanagers. Increasingly technically complex products and processes, vastly shortened time-to-market windows, and the need for cross-functional expertise make project management an important and powerful tool in the hands of organizations that understand its use† (Pinto & Kharbanda, 1995). In their follow-up article, â€Å"How to fail in project management,† the authors write a stinging criticism of the practices that combine to produce project failures (Pinto & Kharbanda, 1996). Karen Ayas (1996) takes a broader brash to the whole issue through what she describes as a â€Å"project network structure. The design of the system should â€Å"stress the synergies between organizational strategy, structure, culture and systems to allow organizations to build and expand learning capacity. † The application of â€Å"process management view† to project management was reported recently in Harvard Business Review. The study of leading companies such as AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and Raychem over an eight-year time span led the author to report that, â€Å"managers can benefit by applying a process management approach to their product development process. Companies can create an aggregate plan that allows them to assign practices to theirprojects with an estimate of needed resources †¦ managers can eliminate congestion and long hours by evening out workloads† (Alder, Mandelbaum, Nguyen, & Schwerer, 1996). (See also Jungen & Wowalczyk, 1995. ) Bob Lewis (Info World, 1996) sets forth the five keys that he believes differentiate successful projects from the others: scope control; regular, concrete, reasonable results; weekly status meetings; team buy-in to the plan; and walking around. Project management is considered a vital tool for the implementation of business process reengineering. â€Å"Project management allows organizations to break things down into simple processes and assign these activities and modules to individuals. This approach helps organizations identify existing built-in dependencies among processes †¦ A multidimensional forum for enterprisewide visibility is essential and will lead to significant productivity and cost savings. †¦ Project management is the organizational ‘glue’ that binds together dispersed, high accountable teams throughout the organization. Teams will seek and demand a framework to ensure their success under the new rules of rapidly changing intensely competitive markets. Project management provides the framework, encourages dispersed leadership and provides visibility of effort to stakeholders throughout the organization† (King 1996). Clearly, project managers are being viewed as pivotal leaders in the introduction and implementation of both operational and behavioral managerial changes. Are project managers viewing their roles and responsibilities in the same light as the authors of leading journal articles? What do practicing project managers believe are the critical characteristics necessary to be effective? On the other hand, what factors contribute to producing ineffective project managers? On the operational side, what do they see as the primary causes of projects that fail to meet budgetary and time constraints? What do they see as the most effective project management â€Å"tools,† and the extent to which these â€Å"tools† contribute to the success of a project? Finally, how powerful is â€Å"the leadership factor† in the success of a project and what are the specific characteristics and behaviors of leaders that will have a positive influence on organizational effectiveness in the next decade? The authors found no research that specifically addressed these questions nor reported results obtained directly from project managers. Research Instrument Design The research instrument was compressed of both open-ended and forced-answer questions. In addition, the respondents were asked their agreement or valuation of several statements through the application of a traditional five-point Likert scale ranging from a high of 5 to low of 1. The completed instrument was then pretested by 12 project managers and executives in a number of firms. All suggestions were incorporated into the final research instrument. The research instrument was then mailed to a selected sample of 100 senior-level project managers who, it was assumed, would possess a wealth of experience regarding the issues being studied. The authors received 76 usable responses to the research instrument from the mailing of 100. The extremely high response rate was due in part to an aggressive premailing and postmailing telephone campaign. The respondents were all relatively senior project managers with a minimum of 10 years experience in projectmanagement. All of the project managers surveyed were employed in large architectural and engineering consulting companies. Research Results and Discussion What Are the Characteristics of Effective Project Managers? The following results (presented in Table 1) were obtained from an open-ended question that asked respondents to list, in rank order, the characteristic that they believed was essential for effectiveness. Possibly the most interesting aspect of the project manager’s responses to this question was the fact that technical competence was the third highest rated characteristic. Eight of the nine characteristics were managerial in nature, reflecting a basic understanding that effectiveness is directly related to the ability of theproject manager to lead and manage more than simply possess exceptional technical skills. This finding is consistent with the academic literature, but is more powerful when drawn from open-end responses of experienced practicing project managers. What Factors Contribute to Ineffectiveness Among Project Managers? In order to examine the question of effectiveness in a different light, the project managerswere then asked, via open-ended questions, the specific nature of personal flaws of project managers that directly contribute to ineffectiveness, as well as the organizational factors that produced the same results. The intent of these questions was to identify how both personal flaws and organizational factors contributed to producing an ineffective project manager. To a large degree the personal flaws are a reverse image of the characteristics of ffective project managers from Table 1. There seems to be a good deal of internal consistency among the respondents (see Table 2). The organizational factors that contribute to becoming an ineffectiveproject manager are equally relevant, but not surprising. Lack of upper-management commitment and support is a well-documented source of project problems. Theproject management literature has addressed each of the organizational barriers to effectiveness and it is again reinforcing to discover that the responses document that practicing project managers’ perceptions fully support the literature. The past few decades have not seen the elimination of these classic sources of organizational ineffectiveness, although their negative impact on project performance has been known for some time. Resistance to change and a reactive approach to environmental turbulence are signs of a firm struggling with adjusting to new competitive conditions. Traditional reward systems are generally not well suited toproject management. Traditional reward systems tend to have very little direct linkage between the performance criteria of a project and compensation. With competition being very intense in some sectors, some projects are priced and sold at dangerously thin multipliers with little opportunity to show a significantly positive return. When the realistic expectations for the project are not considered in the compensation plan, it can be expected that dissatisfaction with the compensation or reward systems are bound to be voiced. Project managers know that under difficult competitive conditions, jobs are taken to keep the staff utilized and the expected profit margin is possibly at breakeven. It is often just as difficult to manage a project with no expected profit than one with above average profit expectations. In addition, reward systems seldom reflect the nature and varying degrees of difficulty of the task and often focus solely on the final profit numbers. Failure to develop a reward system that reflects the specific nature of the project can create potential long-term conflicts. Consider how new market entry is normally achieved: the firm â€Å"buys† a project. The firm intentionally bids a project below what established competitors minimum bid to get the work and, hopefully, enter a new market successfully. Logic would suggest that a firm would want one of its best project managers to lead such a project to ensure success. But if the projectaffords no opportunity to earn a performance bonus based on project profitability who would volunteer to â€Å"take on† a known loser? In too many cases, organizational insensitivity to the negative realties created by poor organizational practices and policies are not understood or simply ignored. The result of these negative practices and policies is the eventual erosion of a potentially high-quality professional staff. The lack of upper management support and commitment results in a complete breakdown of trust and respect. One of the sure killers of motivation is when project managers become conditioned to being abandoned by their management at the first sign of client conflict. As one project manager described the situation: â€Å"it’s like discovering that your management is sitting on the client side of the table at every meeting, and that you are left alone to defend every decision. † It doesn’t take too many such experiences beforeproject managers modify their style of management to protect themselves. Under these conditions one is not likely to find that the project team is performing to the maximum potential. What Are the Primary Reasons That Projects Experience Budgetary and Timely Completion Problems? Table 3 reports the respondents’ reasons for why projects run into budgetary and timing problems. The most frequent responses reflect both organizational and managerial problems. As an example, â€Å"failure to utilize the toolsavailable to manage a project to completion in a timely fashion and within budget† was the most frequent response. Poor leadership on the part of the projectmanager† was the second most frequently reported cause of problems. â€Å"Lack of effective interorganizational communication† and a â€Å"lack of timely decisions and corrective action† were also reported. The only external factor mentioned by the respondents was â€Å"the client’s failure to respond in a timely fashion. † Almost everyproject manager has dealt with clients who seemed unable or unwilling to make timely decisions yet retained their expectations that the project would be completed on time and within budget. It seems that managing the client is an art that only experience can teach. This need to learn the diplomacy of client management becomes increasingly important as a client-oriented strategy is recognized as essential to survival. What Are the Project Management â€Å"Tools† Most Often Used and How Effective Are They? Managing the project requires the skillful application of projectmanagement tools that are designed to assist the project team complete the project on time, within budget, and to the satisfaction of the client. Table 4 reports the responses from experienced project managers regarding the extent to which they use eight recognized project management tools and the extent to which the tools contribute to the success of a project. As you would expect, the two highest rated tools (actually tying for first) were the project schedule and theproject budget. Irrespective of project size or complexity, these project tools were rated highest in use and first and second in terms of contribution to the success of the project. Of the eight project management tools that the respondents were asked to evaluate, none were reported to be of no value. Some of the more detailed tools were used less often and consequently may have been perceived as less valuable to project success. Despite the discussion in the projectmanagement literature regarding the need to increase the degree of accuracy in the determination of the percentage of project completion, the â€Å"earned value reporting tool, was rated the least used and correspondingly reported to have made the least contribution to the success of a project. The top five projectmanagement tools most often reported as used (project schedule, project budget, project cost system, project execution plan, and client communication log) were also rated as making the greatest contribution to the success of the project. Clearb; more effective project managers exercise managerial discipline in the consistent application of what they have found to be the most valuable project management tools for achieving success. What Are the â€Å"Other† Factors That Contribute to the Success of a Project? In addition to the direct managerial actions that project managers can take through the implementation of project management tools, project managers focus on their managerial and leadership skills as controlling sources of influence that contribute to the successful completion of projects. Table 5 reports the source of influence on successful completion of a project as reported by the project managers surveyed. As expected, â€Å"the decision made by the client† was the strongest influence, with â€Å"responding to the changing client request† second. The third source of influence on the successful completion of a project is the â€Å"desire to excel,† reflecting the strong positive personal motivation of project managers to make every project they lead a success. â€Å"The decision made by the project team† and â€Å"the pressures from inside the project† were the next highest rated sources of influence reflecting the need for the project manager to focus on the leadership of the project team. Equally interesting are the lowest rated sources of influence on the success of aproject. Respondents give little or no credence to â€Å"luck† or â€Å"external politics† as barriers to success. How Critical Is the â€Å"Leadership Factor† to Project Success? Given the many factors that can directly or indirectly influence the success of a project, do projectmanagers believe that there is one overriding factor that contributes to whether a project will be a success or a failure? In fact, the answer is yes. When asked to weigh the percentage of success or failure of a project that can be contributed directly to the pressure of either positive or negative leadership the responses were powerfully revealing (see Table 6). Positive leadership contributes almost 76% to the success of a project. Consider what this response means. Variation in projectsuccess can be contributed to the leadership displayed on the project by 76%. Equally meaningful is the second statistic: negative or poor leadership contributes 67% to the failure of projects. Clearly, firms that fail to train and reinforce the need for project managers to practice positive leadership seem to run an unacceptable risk. In a recent interview with five vice presidents of major engineering consulting firms, a question was posed regarding the number of projects in the past five years that failed due to a lack of technical competence on the part of the project manager or the project team. In what was estimated by them to be more than 1,000 projects, both large and small, the executives could recount only 10 failures due to lack of technical competence. Yet, when you ask most company executives what the most critical criteria for promotion to project manager is, technical competence generally leads the list of responses. Possibly what is absent is the recognition that technical competence must be supported by persons who are capable of managing a project and providing positive leadership to the team. All the evidence of recent research supports the idea that successful projects are led by individuals who possess a blend of technical and management knowledge, but beyond both, leadership skills. Sensitivity to the client’s needs, the composition of the project team, the strategic importance of the project to the firm, and the technical requirements of the project reflect themselves in a continuous stream of communication and personal interactions that serve to reveal the true nature of theproject manager. Project managers were asked to rate 50 characteristics or behaviors that they believed, based on their experience, would have a positive influence on organizational effectiveness in the next decade. Tables 7 and 8 highlight the highest and lowest rated characteristics and behaviors and reveal some very interesting findings. The highest rated characteristics and behaviors build a profile of an individual that most of us would wish to work for. The profile reveals a leader who recognizes that it is absolutely essential to build aproject team, reinforce positive behavior, communicate, demonstrate trust and respect, develop team members and empower them to perform and set goals while remaining flexible to respond to the inevitable changes. Important by their absence from the â€Å"golden dozen† are characteristics and behaviors such as technical expertise, individualistic, effective organizational politician, or detail oriented. The profession has moved beyond the mind-set that the best-qualified individual to promote to the project manager’s position is the best technical person or some flashy politically savvy character with the â€Å"right contacts. † Table 8 reports the characteristics and behaviors that practicing and experienced project managers rated as the 12 least important characteristics for the achievement of organizational effectiveness. Some of these responses were a surprise to the researchers while others were not. Project managers rated â€Å"strategic thinker† very low. This may be explained by the fact that many project managers are totally operations-oriented and become involved only when the job is sold. In terms of preparation for promotion into the firm’s executive ranks this shortcoming could be costly. Yet, this lack of recognition of the need for the practice of strategic thinking may explain the managerial practices of some firms who employ project managers.

Reality Television and the Youth Essay

Reality television has evolved over the past sixty years. They have gone from clean practical jokes to a portrayal of an American family to how to party, lie and deceive. The more the focus is on partying, drugs, sex, vulgarerness, the more our young people will portray these traits. There needs to be more focus on good wholesome clean fun, which keeps the youth safe and healthy. The way to change the way our society is headed is to stop the programing that is hurting all of us. Reality shows of today teaches the youth that it’s alright to disobey their parents, its alright to party, do drugs, have sex with multiple people, get pregnant, and that the guys that don’t have to stay around or take care of the situation they helped put the girl in. The cause and effects of today’s reality shows far outweigh the advantages they have. It’s hard to believe that reality shows have been around for almost sixty years. The very first reality show was produced and aired in 1954, the show is Candid Camera. It was innocent practical jokes on unsuspecting strangers on the streets. The reactions were funny and the jokes were tasteful and clean. The next show is where our reality shows stem from. Its was produced and aired in 1973. An American Family, only had twelve episodes and during this time there were two reasons it became infamous. The two reasons were the demanded divorce from wife Pat and that their son Lance came out and openly announced he was gay, he was the first openly gay person. This is where our reality television stems from. An American Family show really opened up the airways for the nastiness that is called reality television. ttp://usatoday30. usatoday. com/life/columnist/popcandy/2003-01-08-candy. htm Reality television is on just about every channel now days, there is no way to get away from some type of reality show. The main type of reality show is one that is based on nakedness, deceitfulness, and selfishness. These shows teach our young girls that they need to look a certain way, act mean, and do whatever they can to get as many guys as possible. There are so many diets out to keep all women thinking they all need to be skinny like the models or actresses. There are many different types of women, and there is no way we can all be a size 2. Women and girls do not need to be mean to one another; we can all get along and be friends. There is nothing wrong with being with one man. It’s actually healthier to have less sexual partners that to sleep with every man possible. Reality shows teach guys that it’s alright to have sex with as many women as possible to show how masculine they are. They teach guys/men that it’s alright to treat women like a fast food meal, once they are done with them, they can just throw them away. Reality shows do not show how a man should treat a woman with respect, and kindness. Gentlemen are hard to find these days, because the men of the house is either not there or don’t care what his son is doing. It’s nice to see a young man hold the door open for women of all ages. http://healthland. time. com/2011/10/18/what-reality-tv-teaches-teen-girls/ Children are like little dry sponges, the cleaner, good, interesting fun water you put in them that’s the type of person they will be. But if you pump them full of nasty and filthy water that’s the kind of person they will be. I want to have a society of clean, mature, and independent teens with morals and standards. As parents we take care of our children when they are toddlers, but as soon as they are in their adolescents parents start to drift away from the kids, most of the time kids are pushed away and they end up watching whatever they can find. Reality television shows are a biggest part of the way young people act the way they do, but quite a few of the cartoons that are on the airways are just as bad as the reality shows. Here’s want needs to happen, is parents need to change before the children can change. There needs to be more reality shows with morals, standards, and how to have respect for those around us. We need to get away from all this junk that is on the air now. If we had some better shows on the air and show how families should be, our country would be able to turn around. I think there should be a class that teaches respect and morals, instead of sex education, teach the girls to respect themselves and the guys to respect the girls as well as themselves. There would be less and less unwanted teen pregnancies. It would also make for a better home life and easier relationships between parents and kids. These classes should be mandatory for the kids and if parents have any problems with that, than they to need to be able to sit in on a class or two. As mentioned before, this is the type of programing that most of the young people that are still impressionable watch, not to mention the parents. If you are a parent and you have young kids in your home the last thing you should want to do is let them watch these type shows. We have to change something and it needs to start at home. Family’s need to change the way they watch TV, because we need to make the right choices for our kids and give them a good, clean, moral start. If they chose to watch these type shows later in life it was their choice. We need to talk to our kids about true reality and what will happen if they make certain choices. If they chose to have sex then there is a high possibility that they will get pregnant or get someone pregnant. Tell them that there is nothing 100% other than not doing it. Plus it shows that they respect themselves, and if the other person respects them than everything will be as it should be. Our kids have known from the time they were little and they started asking questions we told them the truth that they could understand at that age. Now that they are teens we answer as we would an adult. They have to right to know the truth and the whole truth. We don’t believe you are helping them if you hold stuff back that will help them make the right decisions. If it’s alright to disobey your parents, or to lie, cheat, steal, have big parties, drink and use drugs, have sex and get pregnant, and have guys just want you for what you look like and not what you think, than we don’t need to change anything, but if you don’t believe all of that then we need to change what it is our children and even ourselves watch. The only way we can change all of this is to make changes in our homes first, then in our schools, because if we change these first the media will change afterward, because they will not have the ratings to keep all that junk on the air. I believe if we would change than everything else would change, but we have to start with ourselves and our children. Then work with the school systems. Once we get these areas in control then we can work with what kind of shows we get to watch, but to make it all work we have to be willing to get out of the thinking you have your life and I have mine. That is one reason our country is in the shape it’s in. The more we work close to home the more it will spread for the good of everybody work with the school systems. Once we get these areas in control then we can work with what kind of shows we get to watch, but to make it all work we have to be willing to get out of the thinking you have your life and I have mine. That is one reason our country is in the shape it’s in. The more we work close to home the more it will spread for the good of everybody.