Discussion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 159

Discussion - Essay Example In terms of my situation for consideration in class, educational leaders employing inspirational power in their management agenda achieve better results as compared to those employing coercive power in their leadership. The theory relevant to this scenario is Jean-Jacques Rousseau postulation that the practice of edification ought to endorse and hearten learners creativeness and ingenuity (Rebore, 2013). As further outlined by Rebore (2013), this postulation was based on the notion of independence and citizenship. The kind of power employed in educational leadership therefore will determine the level of performance. For instance, Rebore (2013) points out that individuals in educational leadership positions should shun away from coercive power and should only be used when all other forms of power have failed to achieve the intended results. Inspirational power, on the other hand, is based on motivation and encouragement (Rebore, 2013) thus school districts are likely to achieve better outcomes both in and outside the school district. In summary, the situation I am bringing to class for consideration relates to the forms of power that can be employed by school districts to help achieve high levels of performance. The theory relevant to this scenario is Jean-Jacques Rousseau supposition that edification approaches must hearten ingenuity among

The Socio-cultural Impact of Media Freedom in Pakistan and Its Term Paper

The Socio-cultural Impact of Media Freedom in Pakistan and Its Implications for Public Expression and Information Accessibility - Term Paper Example e then allowed to participate in proper elections this time in 1988 but the transition to democracy has been a continuous struggle between the military and civilian organisations. In short, where some democratic practices have been permitted, they have usually been partial, controlled and incomplete under the rule of the military (Zaidi, N.d.) or else manipulated under the occasional civilian rule. The pattern that emerges from this brief historical overview is that the degree of democracy has been generally (though not steadily) increasing in Pakistan over the past few decades. It has been a difficult process of political development however, as Pakistan has had to struggle with all the associated problems since its independence from British rule in 1947, such as â€Å"identity, legitimacy, integration, penetration, participation and distribution† (Bahadur, 1998: 14). Still, one essential element for implementing a true democratic framework only came about at the start of the present 21st century. That element is media freedom. Previous transitions to democracy lacked the degree of freedom of the media that is present today The importance of media freedom Media freedom allows the citizens to be better informed and therefore become involved in important issues or even challenge the government when necessary in order to ensure a healthy democracy. With the increasing complexity of modern society, it is necessary more than ever for ordinary citizens to be able to express themselves on public matters and access information that concerns them and which they have a right to know about. As Dahr Jamail (2006) said, â€Å"Since an informed citizenry is the basis for a healthy democracy, independent, non-corporate media are more crucial today than ever before†. Although these... From the report it is clear that media freedom allows the citizens to be better informed and therefore become involved in important issues or even challenge the government when necessary in order to ensure a healthy democracy. With the increasing complexity of modern society, it is necessary more than ever for ordinary citizens to be able to express themselves on public matters and access information that concerns them and which they have a right to know about. As the essay stresses media freedom is a recent phenomenon in Pakistan’s history. With the freeing of the media in Pakistan, the media landscape is very different now compared to how it was in the past. Previously, in the 1990s there were only a limited number of private operators, i.e. in addition to the state media. The power wielded by the state controlled media was evident, for example, when General Zia-ul-Haqq mandated a massive media campaign to discredit the popular civilian leader Zulfiiqar Ali Bhutto who was later executed. During Zia’s era, the power of the judiciary too was restricted. The media has had to struggle to maintain its freedom. There have been a number of both verbal and physical attacks on some private media offices and personnel by the government. There have also been periods of intense political pressure and during which bans have been imposed discussed further on. The vulnerability of the media in creating â€Å"an opportunity for the systema tic, sustained, and nationwide use of new media platforms† showed during this time.

The Story of an immigrants life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Story of an immigrants life - Essay Example The reasons why people change the place of their living are very different. In some cases it is connected with financial problems, in others with various types of segregation and so forth. The most important thing is that change of the familiar atmosphere may bring the person to the change of all his values and purposes. The aim of this work is to analyze the cultural event connected with the history of my family and include the detailed reflection on how this story affected the sense of my identity. My story starts with the city of Bangladesh, which declared its independence in December 16, 1971. The new country faced constant contradictions between the official authorities and the ambitious struggle to move forward and achieve the success. In 1995, my uncle Ahmadur Rahman moved to the USA with his family in order to provide his children with the better life conditions. His family would have never left Bangladesh, if they knew about all troubles outside the city.

Transgender and feminism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Transgender and feminism - Essay Example That said, one notices that diversity indicates strength, not weaknesses. Despite polarization and fragmentation, no force can nullify inclusive coalition politics (Connell, 2012). This paper will talk about transgender, with transgender feminists being marginalized from the mainstream of the womens movement. It will then explain relationship between transgender and feminism. Transgender individuals have been subject to extended scrutiny. Feminist literature is among the examination of these individuals. These literatures are the first to expose the antagonistic relationship between feminism and transgender individuals (Riley, 2015). A study by Butler (2010), defined transgender as ‘those who gender identity, expression, or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth (Butler, 2010, pp 2). Every time the transgender feminists, who had been previously silenced, begin to speak out, some feminists begin to rethink on what they stand for or who they represent. In many cases, the idea of rethinking by feminists leads to the painful realization of their biases. However, in the end, the feminists would have widened their perspectives and constituency (Butler, 2010). Studies indicate that, feminists movements that have expanded their views are encouraging transgender individuals to take part in the feminist revolut ion (Connell, 2012; Riley, 2015). This expands the scope of their movement. The feminism movement formed by transgender individuals is called transfeminism as noted in the study by Koyama (2001). In the past, trans-men have contributed significantly to feminism than trans-women. Experts believe that is important for more trans-women to participate in feminism movements in order to increase the chance of liberating the women (Koyama, 2001). Many people think that transfeminism is in place to take over the existing feminist institutions. However, this is not possible because

Assess the Changing Politics of Environmentalism in Chinese Civil Essay - 1

Assess the Changing Politics of Environmentalism in Chinese Civil Society - Essay Example Thus, in the hopes of assessing the changing politics of environmentalism in the Chinese civic culture, this essay briefly narrates the history of environmentalism in the country and how it changed overtime. In addition, the essay presents examples of online environmental initiatives, their hard line activities, and the corresponding impact of these internet-facilitated activities on civil society. The Chinese people have once more proven to the world their innovative prowess with the onslaught of online green social movements. Rapid development in technology has assisted the wake of environmentalism among the Chinese. â€Å"Environmental activism in China critically diverges from the popular image of social movements as ‘masses of people taking to the streets and erecting barricades’ (Peter ho and Edmonds 216). The country has wakened up to the alarming needs to protect its environment as a measure to prevent possible calamities and widespread communicable diseases with a view to minimize the operation costs in the administration of the country. In the past, Mao introduced a revolutionary industrialization program in which he insisted falling trees and leveling the surface of the land in order to support the growth of industry in China. The depletion of environmental balance in the country was constituted mainly by Mao’s policies as per the references of many a historian in the world. For instance, the agricultural policies like ‘close plating of seedlings, deep planting, the double- blade plow, peculiar fertilization techniques’ were of negative impacts on the environment (Shapiro 76). In addition, Mao’s political line was rather utopian as he considered nature his most prolific enemy to be conquered. He associated a ‘mass culture’ in China with which he formulated his policies and executed the destruction of forests. It has to be observed that

The Heart of a Teacher Essay Example for Free

The Heart of a Teacher Essay As I leaned on my headboard, I found myself heading towards the enjoyment of reading this article about how the real teacher teaches with his/her heart in the classroom. And so I started reflecting on what kind of a teacher I am. Teaching at first has not come in my wildest dream but since the family whom I came from cannot afford to send me to exclusive schools or well-known universities where I can pursue my career (fine arts which I wish to pursue), there’s no way out but to take up the course of education. I fear the fact of entering this path because in the first place, it’s not my first choice and it’s none of my choices. I think I had only the nerve to enroll since my mom is also a teacher. It was funny to recall when my professor in the graduate school, Dr. Irapta, asked who among us had experienced role playing as a teacher at home during our childhood, pretending that it was a real classroom scenario. I wasn’t sure how would I answer that question since the real thing is that I hadn’t. But years went on and I started and learned to love what teaching has to offer me. And I think that I already possess what this article is trying to imply, the heart of a teacher. With this, I do agree with the statement that quotes â€Å"We became teachers for reasons of the heart, animated by a passion for some subject and for helping people to learn. † It is very evident on us who consider teaching as a vocation wherein we put our heart not only to the occupation itself but to the student-learners and the subject as well. Sometimes we’re carried by the fact that we create harmonious relationship with this community of teachers, students and subject. We’re driven by some objectives, not only for the salary but our mission and passion to help the innocent ones to get them out of their shells and discover the reality of unbelievable ideas and concepts in this world. But, we cannot deny the fact that many of us lose heart as the years of teaching go by for so many reasons. The question becomes: How can we develop and sustain, in ourselves and each other, the heart for good teaching? Good teaching requires courage – the courage to explore one’s ignorance as well as insight, to yield some control in order to empower the group, to evoke other people’s lives as well as reveal one’s own. This means overcoming fears that block good teaching and learning. When our fears as teachers mingle and multiply with the fears inside our students, teaching and learning become mechanical, manipulative, and lifeless. Some tend to be distracted with the external forces around them; some were disillusioned with the factors and techniques for reclaiming their hearts and for keeping each heart open. When we lose our heart, we need an understanding of our condition that will liberate us from this condition. We need to keep our hearts open to students so that we can make teacher and students and subjects be interwoven into the fabric of community that learning and living require. We, teachers must try to connect ourselves, as well as our subjects to students so that we can create good rapport and learning environment. There must be an inner dialogue of reflection. â€Å"Seldom, I ask the â€Å"who† question–who is the self that teaches? How does the quality of my selfhood form–or deform–the way I relate to my students, my subject, my colleagues, and my world? How can educational institutions sustain and deepen the selfhood from which good teaching comes? † In relation to this, we need to recover the heart to teach by reclaiming our relationship with the teacher within. Listening to the voice within is somewhat easy to do and in fact, helped me to simply reflect on what I have done in a day’s work. The same thing as putting my heart while reading this article and finding solitude and silence just to cope up with the question in me, â€Å"How can I develop the capacity to stand my ground in the midst of the complex forces of both the classroom and my own life? † We must reclaim our relationship with the teacher within. A teacher who invites me to honor my true self-not my ego or expectations or image or role, but the self I am. The voice of the inward teacher reminds me of my potentials and limits as I negotiate the force field of my life. What we teach will never â€Å"take† unless it connects with the inward, living core of our students’ lives, with our students’ inward teachers. We can only speak to the teacher within our students when we are speaking with the teacher within ourselves. How does one attend to the voice of the teacher within? Some particular methods are solitude and silence; meditative reading and walking in the woods, keeping a journal, finding a friend who will simply listen. I merely propose that we need to learn as many ways as we can of â€Å"talking to ourselves. † However, conversation with my peers feels like being at ease, trusted and able to trust and above all, it helps me cultivate a sense of identity and integrity that allows me to feel at home wherever I am. I experienced sometime in my own teaching when I lose touch with my inner teacher and my own authority. During those times, I tried to regain it by wielding the threat of grades but when the voice within authorized me to teach, authority comes as I reclaim my identity and integrity, as I remember my selfhood and my sense of vocation. When the teachers struggle to survive from losing their heart, I guess it would also be practical to have some fun and techniques that ordinary teachers can use in everyday class. The same thing with my experience, I use different techniques, much practical techniques, such as motivating the students and getting their attention to focus on the subject, which will result to staying alive of the students inside the classroom. It is also a daily scenario in our faculty room where they argue about what to do with the students. Some questions their own limits and potentials when it comes to dealing with the relation between the subject and students’ lives. I won’t forget when my co-teacher told me how he was envious about my strategies and techniques on classroom management and on my way of teaching; how do I make my class in order and teach with my heart while during his class with the same set of students, he fails to control the discipline and fails to earn full respect of the whole class which must be evident on their way of interaction. While listening to his clamors, I was thinking of the best techniques I could offer him, but, to my surprise, it came to the point that he was planning to quit teaching. I don’t know why he had that thought of giving up until I read this article. I realized that he has lost his heart and he must be able to understand his condition so that he can avoid himself from truly losing it and recover from it instead. This teacher must talk with the teacher within him and find out how to overcome this condition. As I go on reading the article, I found the statement that says, â€Å"The institutions in which they work are the heart’s worst enemy,† which is indeed correct. Some leaders operate with a deep, unexamined insecurity about their own identity. These leaders create institutional settings which deprive others of their identity as a way of dealing with the unexamined fears in the leaders themselves. Institutions continually try to diminish the human heart to consolidate their own power, then, the individual self of a teacher is left with a discouraging choice. In the end, the teacher will be distant from the institution or will maintain external vigilance against institutional invasion. Teachers have leadership capabilities waiting to be unlocked and engaged for the good of the schools. But if the teachers in some schools or institutions will not be given chance to grow not only professionally but also inwardly, there’s a tendency that the teacher might withdraw from teaching. The question is, â€Å"how can the institution educate students if they fail to support the teachers’ inner life? † We must create enough spaces and trusting relationships within the teachers’ workplace. With this, we may be given opportunities to grow inwardly as teachers and we can be able to tell our own struggles and joys as teachers so that healing can happen within us – not only for our sake but our teaching and students as well. With this, we can bring back our hearts to teaching and reclaim our identity and integrity in teaching.

Thomas Cook PESTEL Analysis

Thomas Cook PESTEL Analysis This report is going to analyse and evaluate the strategic fit of Thomas Cook plc and its critical success factors using analytical tools. The PESTEL Analysis is used to evaluate conditions in the Travel and Tourism market environment and how these conditions affect Thomas Cook plc and its competitors now and in the future. A porters five forces analysis will also be used to determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of the travel and tourism industry. Introduction Thomas Cook Travel Company was first started by its namesake in June of 1841 and has since become the worlds most recognisable name in the travel industry. The merger of Thomas Cook AG and My Travel Group plc on June 19th of 2007 produced Thomas Cook plc, making Thomas Cook the second largest leisure travel group in the UK behind TUI Travel plc its major competitor. Thomas Cook specialises in providing a wide range of package holidays to destinations. (Thomascook.com) INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS (Task A) PESTEL ANALYSIS The PESTEL frame work categorises environmental influences into six main types which are political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal (see appendix A). The PESTEL framework helps managers understand the key drivers of change and also the differential impact of these external influences and drivers on the industry, markets and individual organisations. (Johnson, Gerry, 2005). Political factors According to CIPD, coalition governments spending cuts are going to result in 0.7million job losses in the public sector. The travel and tourism industry is in the public sector; therefore their employees are faced with fears of redundancy. Announcement of redundancies will invariably have an adverse impact on morale, motivation and productivity of remaining employees. The negative effects can be reduced by sensitive handling of redundant employees and those remaining and to be as honest as possible with the remaining staff to gain back their trust and confidence. (cipd.co.uk) Economic factors are of concern to travel and tourism, because they may influence demand, costs, prices and profits. Package holidays are an income elastic business, as income decreases or rises; it can have a significant effect on the demand. Therefore looking ahead, public sector cuts are likely to have a major consequence on the travel and tourism industry. Social Factors Redundancies and other government cuts will potentially result in limited disposable income for consumers. According to Mintel, some 12% of consumers are spending nothing on non-essentials, with 35% describing themselves as very cautious, 30% as quite cautious, and only 5% as not at all cautious. This is because of the decrease in disposable income. If income decreases, then spending will become more cautious, especially on income elastic items such as package holidays, therefore reducing profit  margins for the travel industry. With all the package holidays in the UK, supply will remain very high as demand decreases forcing companies to reduce their prices. The spending cuts will mean that business executives will have to cut their budgets and most likely use low-cost travel planes such as Easy Jet and Rynair. Video conferencing is improving all the time, and the price has fallen to zero using online systems such as yahoo messenger, business may be forced to use this method to communicate to reduce their costs. This going to affect the travel industry a lot, executives provide business anytime of the year whilst holidays are seasonal. This will reduce customers. If classy seats are either vacant or earning less revenue, this means less departures or soaring economy class fares. Companies will also be forced to provide bargains for leisure travelers willing to upgrade to business class. Technological Factors The most powerful example technology is the emergence and improvement of the internet, which led to reduced costs and increased operational efficiency within the tourism agencies and airports. Because the internet is becoming better every day, its causing intimacy between tour operators and clients and improving contentment for both parties. Aside the internet, other major technologies that support the continuous growth of the tourism industry are those implemented by transportation, which is becoming safer, quicker and more pleasing. The technological implementations within tourism operations have led to changes in working behaviour and will also result an increase of demand for labour force, implying as such that educational institutions place more emphasis on teaching tourism. Environmental Factors Protecting the environment is one of the most talked about and sensitive matters today, making environmental responsibility part of the factors that determine a tour operators success. According to global warming 2020, aviation which ferries hundreds of thousands of tourists across the globe is of great concern to those seeking to protect the environment. A major concern for the industry is  greenhouse  gas  emissions and their implication for climate change. Aviation produces at least two percent of emissions. One way the aviation industry is working on this problem is by rolling out newer planes that have fuel efficient engines which means less carbon emissions. However not all airlines especially in the poorer countries can afford buying new aircraft. PORTERS FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS Porters five forces analysis (see appendix B) was developed to as a way of assessing the attractiveness of different industries. The five forces constitute an industrys structure. (Johnson, Gerry, 2008) Threats of substitutes The lack of disposable income and the effect of coalition government spending cuts are likely to change consumer spending habits, as a result with a significant shift in demand from luxury goods to inferior goods which are much more affordable, consumers are likely to shift to local and cheaper holidays and may choose to use trains (eurostar) or their cars to local holidays. Terrorism has affected the mentality of travellers and has made travelling more difficult and uncomfortable. People have to think about security issues from when they start packing to when they reach their destination, this will convince more travellers to use trains or holiday locally. This is however a moderate threat because customers usually prefer airlines because they are much quicker. Competitive Rivalry The Travel and tourism industry occupies a big segment of the business market and therefore provides many opportunities for tour operators; however its a very competitive industry. To be successful a package holiday company needs to discover the best fit between their individual skills, competencies and resources and external market characteristics to make sure that they stay on top of their game. Brand recognition and strength also determine the success of a company against its competitors, especially if times are tough in the economy. Negotiating powers of buyers Demand in package holiday industry is extremely elastic; this means that buyers will not just accept a given price by a package holiday company. Customers will use any information sources available to them such as the internet to look for better and exclusive deals available around, and with so many package holidays available in the UK, they are likely to find one and use a different company. As discussed above about the effect of economy on the travel industry, the powers of buyers are that they have a huge influence on the setting of prices in accordance with the prices which are around in the market. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS Critical success factors are used to identify key factors that a business needs to focus on to ensure that their business is successful. To survive and prosper, all industry participants must use an emergent strategy. Emergent strategy is a way of action that develops over time in an industry without a specific mission, goals or long-term plans. Emergent approaches should be thoroughly analysed in the context of an increasingly active, highly competitive and global business market. Influential external forces mentioned in the PESTEL analysis are pushing companies to reduce costs, improve processes and identify new opportunities for growth and an emergent strategy will help companies cope with these factors. An emergent approach leads to more creative and responsive strategy making which is well suited to the hyper-competitive and unpredictable environments such as the package holiday industry. It is more suited to instigating positive, transformational organisational change such as diversification or restructuring. It also has the added benefit of helping to reduce resistance to change as it allows time to build employee support while the strategy is taking shape. (powerfulwords.co.uk)