Transformation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Transformation - Essay Example This is the ultimate goal of my program, Teaching Math for a Better America (TMBA).. Math requires mental discipline and order, and teaches us to look beyond the obvious so our minds reach the abstract. Math as a mental exercise helps us understand and appreciate what we cannot see: great ideas such as good and justice, equality and freedom, nothingness and the infinite. Math helps us appreciate music, tempo, and rhythm, aspects of art that reflect order and proportion in life, nature, and the universe. With abstraction and order come the ultimate possibility of grasping the existence of the spiritual and the divine. I want to use math, and teaching math according to the TMBA principles I would develop, as the focal point of a transformational change in my school, in the way we teach and motivate students, and how we look at our work. Math made it easy for the human mind to handle the great calculations that have transformed our knowledge of the universe. It can also be the agent that would help transform America and the world and bring to learning, teaching, and working the spiritual meaning it sorely needs. The graduate course in education has made me realize that, more than ever, teaching is hard work, and not just because of lesson plans, tests, coping with behavioral problems, and the need to counsel students (Glatthorn, 1999). Teaching is hard work because it is the process of forming the human mind and the human spirit. This insight dawned on me as I went through the course on ethics and justice and saw a deeper meaning in what we do. Most teachers do not see beyond the formal side of teaching and education. Many of us seem to have lost the love and appreciation for our calling as teachers that demand from us a life of sacrifice and dedication. Our schools have become knowledge factories that numbly turn out thousands of minds each year with efficiency. But are we effective I doubt it. Our educational system is producing geniuses without hearts, humans without a conscience and a sense of justice and ethics who later on become scientists, politicians, and businessmen, no doubt great men and women all, who enrich our nation's material riches but who in turn take away our humanity and lay the seeds of our civilization's destruction. This has to end, and I hope to contribute my share in this effort. What makes this call for change urgent is the type of students we have: inner city kids, products of broken homes with drug-crazed or single parents that pass on to their offspring the miserable lives they were dealt and against which they never fought back. Sure, there were a few in our community who succeeded out of sheer determination, or luck, but these were more the exception than the rule. I think it is time to turn this around. We have to bring back a sense of the sublime in the lives of our students and our teachers. Our nation was created out of a strong sense of these same values, and if we want to continue being great, we need to regain that sense. Resistance to Change What I am proposing is not merely incremental,

Violence on television influences viewers to become violent Essay

Violence on television influences viewers to become violent - Essay Example Various incidents have been reported on to the media where television viewers have actually learnt negative tactics from it and applied them in real life. One recent link can be connected to the Asian Subcontinent where a twenty five year old scientist shaved off his gardener’s head leaving him bald after the gardener failed to carry out his work properly one day. When the scientist was later questioned about this act, a striking revelation came forward; the previous day he had seen on the news how a robber caught by public was shaved off the hair on his head and stripped off his clothes and made to walk around the streets of the city naked – this was where the scientist had gotten the idea of what to do with his gardener. I have always been a believer of the fact that our unconscious mind gains a lot from its surroundings, despite the fact that whatever is happening around us is acceptable to us or not. Similarly, many a times various television programs are being aired which fail to attract our interest at all. For instance, a documentary on Rape in India might fail to divert out attention towards it but our subconscious mind does pick up a little from the bits we hear of hit (Hamilton). Its human nature to learn from their surroundings and the same stands true for young kids. At that age, their mind are highly vulnerable to what is happening around them, and seeing anything on media can instill the image in their minds that it is right. A similar case was once reported in Nigeria, where a ten year old boy forcefully took off the clothes of one of his class mates. The child was later sent to reformative classes, where he confessed that he carried out the act because he had seen something similar bei ng aired on the television and his parents watching it. Despite the fact that the television has helps us in gaining information about the world alongside keeping us entertained, it can certainly not be