Same-Sex Marriage Essay Example for Free

Same-Sex Marriage Essay It is unbelievable that the United States of America, the land of the free, still has laws that ban the marriage of homosexual couples. Many states within the United States have been debating over this issue for years. Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage in May of 2004. As of November 7, 2012, eight more states made gay marriage legal in the United States. â€Å"I saw with so many of the gay couples, they were so devoted to another. I saw so much love. When this hearing was over, I was a changed person in regard to this issue. I felt that I understood what same-sex couples were looking for† (Kach). Homosexuality occurs in over 450 species. Homophobia only exists in one. Which seems unnatural now? When it comes down to it, we are all people with emotions and feelings regardless of our sexual orientation. We should give homosexuals the right to have marriage without putting labels on it, like a â€Å"civil union† or â€Å"gay marriage†. Legalizing homosexual marriage will stop discrimination, won’t have a negative impact on heterosexual marriages, and will not cause others to ask for outrageous requests to be legal. A marriage is between a spouse and a spouse not a gender and a gender. To deny homosexuals the right to get married is like the United States going back to the times of segregation. As our founding fathers stated in the Declaration of Independence, â€Å"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.† (Declaration of Independence). If a man’s happiness is to be with another man that he loves, who are we to say it is wrong? Many think that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry because they cannot produce children. However, if having children were to be the case of getting married, why are infertile couples allowed to get married and stay together or why do some couples just not have children at all? Getting married means much more than just having children. It takes devotion and true love for a couple to get married. Not giving homosexuals the right to get married is a form of discrimination and gives people the mindset that it is perfectly fine to bully people that are different from them. Every day I went into school I knew that something new was going to happen. Goodness knows how many times I put a knife to my wrist (Daniel Shepphard). Is it fine for a 13 year old boy to cut himself for being the way he is? No one should feel so out of place and be so bullied that they would want to harm themselves or try to end their life. Almost two-thirds of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) students are scared to go to school because they are bullied. School is a place to learn and be the best that you can be, not a place to battle and stand up for a right that â€Å"straight† people are just given. If we make laws that make homosexual marriage legal, more people will realize that it is not okay to bully someone because of their sexual preference. If the laws of our country stand up for somet hing, so will the people of the country. There is the argument that homosexual marriage does not follow the idea of â€Å"traditional marriages.† In reality, there really are not â€Å"traditional† marriages anymore. In ancient time, traditional marriage consisted of polygamy, communal child-rearing, use of concubines and mistresses, and commonality of prostitution. How can we say that an attraction between two people of the same gender is considered a sin, when all of the things listed about are considered as part of â€Å"traditional† marriage. Marriage in the United States is a dynamic institution and has gone through many changes. Women now have rights in a marriage and there are interracial marriages. Why is it that Kim Kardashian’s marriage that lasted for about 72 days is legal, but Neil Patrick Harris, who has been with his partner for more than 11 years, is still fighting for his right to get married to someone who he has been truly devoted to? It is unfair that â€Å"straight† pe ople take marriage as an advantage, and are getting divorced left and right, while homosexuals would do anything to have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Some people believe that gay marriage is a â€Å"slippery slope†. They say that if people want homosexuals to have marriage rights, then soon people will be asking for polygamous, incestuous, bestial, and other nontraditional rights. â€Å"If we legalize gay marriage, why not polygamy?† (Savage). First of all, marriage requires consent, and animals, children, and people in comas, can’t give consent. As for polygamy, in many parts of the world today, it is completely okay to have more than one spouse. Also, there is a lot of cheating in relationships and marriages in the United States. Marriage and homosexual marriage is the same thing, except for the gender of the spouses. With gay marriage not legal, there are already so many cases of rape. Are we to ban and blame heterosexual marriage for that? No. Homosexual marriage has no negative impact on society. If someone does not want a gay marriage, they are not forced to get one. Making it legal will teach society to not discriminate others that are different than us, which is a very positive impact on our world. The ban of homosexual marriage should be lifted off of the 41 states that have not yet made it legal. It is time for our nation to accept each other despite our differences. Homosexuals do not protest against heterosexual marriages, and they understand why some are against them, but if others do not agree with gay marriage, they are not forced to get one. Gay marriage is now very widely accepted in the United States. 41% of people strongly favor gay marriage. In the past two decades, public support for gay marriage has increased 1% annually. â€Å"Everyone has people in their lives that are gay, lesbian or transgender or bisexual. They may not want to admit it, but I guarantee they know somebody† (King). Gay marriage should be legalized and labels like gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, etc., should be taken off because in the end, we are all just people.

Skills And Competencies To Be A Change Leader Management Essay

Skills And Competencies To Be A Change Leader Management Essay For the past two decades, the amount of significant change that the organizations faced in order to survive has tremendously increased, and many of the researchers argued that this situation will continue and demand more of future leaders (Wren Dulewicz, 2005; Senge et al., 2002). Leadership is such a crucial component for undergoing these changes, and identifying the key components of leadership is important for the success of these transformation efforts (Beer Nohria, 2000). Kotter (1996) considered that, leadership is the key to creating and sustaining the successful organization, because it helps the organization to shape its future and sustain its growth. To succeed consistently, good leaders need to be skilled not just in evaluating people but also in evaluating the abilities and disabilities of their firm as a whole. In addition, leadership competencies are also essential to lead the change processes in an effective way (Christensen Overdorf, 2000). According to Sanchez et al., (1996), leadership competencies have a cognitive aspect, with regard to knowledge and skills the leader possesses, and an action aspect that enables a leader to deploy their competencies in a coordinated manner. Leaders competencies and skills will influence the actions, structures and processes that enhance the change and it further strengthen the effectiveness in implementing change (Gilley et al., 2009). This essay will critically analyse whether anyone can adapt these leadership skills and competencies which is necessary to be a successful change leader. The analysis will be done based on the references of academic research that has been already conducted in this field. Necessary Skills and Competencies to be a change leader Leadership is different from management; leadership complements management but it does not replace it. Because management is about coping with complexity but the leadership is about coping with change (Kotter, 1990). The leadership-skill requirements will vary based on the leaders positions and their levels. The most important skills where the leaders need to be possessed are cognitive skills, business skills, strategic skills and interpersonal skills. Across all the leadership levels cognitive skills are founded to be more important. In addition, interpersonal skills are required for a leader in greater degree than business or strategic skills (Sparks Gentry, 2008). For example) during the group work on simulation game, the leaders of the successful teams had contributed a great part by understanding the views of the team members and through the organization of team meeting. This helped the team to bring out fruitful ideas and plans uniquely and also it helped the group leaders to emphasize their cognitive and interpersonal skills effectively. Compared to other skills, the significance of business and strategic skills is more required for the leaders in managerial level (Sparks Gentry, 2008). Possessing these leadership skills in change management has been linked to bringing about effective and successful organization change. Although, some of the factors are considered as the barriers for the success of the change, they are lack of understanding of change implementation techniques and the inability to alter ones leadership style or organization functions (Bossidy Charan, 2002; Gilley, 2005). The other barriers identified by the analysis include the inability of the leaders to motivate others to change, poor communication skills, and failure to reward or recognize the individuals who make the effort to change (Kotter, 1996). Hence the ability to understand and manage the change processes is valued as a necessary capability of change leaders. Many of the scholars defined this ability as a social intelligence skill, which is the ability to understand ones own and others feelings, behaviours and thoughts in interpersonal situations and to respond appropriately, which includ es emotional ability (Burke, 2002). Finally, leaders thoughts and skills are manifested through the actions of implementing change across the organization. In this stage, the leaders need to be aware about avoiding coordination issues when the different functional groups in an organization work on a common task. Because lack of coordination will raise conflicts in implementing change and it reduce its success (Kuhl et al., 2005). For example, while working for the multi-product task, the lack of coordination across the leaders from different departments affected the implementation of change. There were lot of conflicts aroused in allocating the budget across each department of the organization and hence it led to the ineffective change implementation. As per Zaccaro (2002), effective leadership requires social reasoning skills to understand, judge and diagnose social situations accurately, and relational competencies to respond to the change and manage them successfully. Since change implementation involves the understanding of multiple level of people (i.e., individual, group and organizational), social-emotional competency is regarded to have a direct impact on the capacity to lead change. It acts as a greater predictor of leading change than managing complexity. Social-emotional competency includes observing the employees views, providing constructive feedback, encouraging the cooperation among team members, maintaining effective interpersonal relationships with others and treating others with respect regardless of their position or rank (Mathew, 2009). For example) while working for the simulation game, in some of the groups, there was a long debate happened among the team members about the implementation of change strategies with different views and hence conflicts aroused. The leaders of those teams were also failed to maintain cooperation within the team. This led them to choose inappropriate change strategies and directed towards failure to reach their target. But while enquiring the teams who reached the target, I came to knew that the team leader had delegated the roles to each team members based on their knowledge about the game and by providing constructive feedback on their views. This helped them to maintain a good cooperation within the team without giving the ways for any conflicts and also it provided a way to reach their target within the time limit and budget. Within a change specific context Higgs and Rowland (2000, 2001) indicated a cluster of change leadership competencies associated with coaching and developing others. In addition Giglio et al. (1998) also emphasized the importance of leaders coaching role in the change process. Because a good leader should motivate their employees in order to make them aware of the change process. This will be done by providing appropriate coaching to them. According to Hudson (1999), coaching skills enable leaders to approach situations from new perspectives and to question the status quo. Moreover, the leaders who coach their employees can enhance their renewal capacity and resilience, which has significant influence on organizational success. Finally and more importantly it allows others to make and learn from mistakes. Huq (2006) argued that the leadership competencies can help to create the six sigma cadre in an organization. He argued that the personal and corporate competencies play a vital role in creating this six sigma cadre. Personal competencies include the technical knowledge and charisma of the leader. Whilst the corporate competencies include the combinations of skills and knowledge or experience that enable a leader to implement the change program successfully. But the available evidence shows that, even the experienced leaders were deviated from these competencies in some circumstances. The most recent examples of sudden corporate implosions (Enron, Lehman Brothers) have apparently raised concerns about the nature and influence of bad leadership. Higgs (2009) have identified that the causes of this leadership failure were due to combination of personal flaws and performance shortfalls. While exploring this concept, he also identified a range of causal factors for these implosions which are skill deficiencies, being insensitive to others, betraying trust, arrogance and being overly ambitious. He argued that the personal flaws were more vital than skill deficiencies as drivers of derailment.

Nelly in Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights Essay -- Emily Bronte Wuther

Nelly in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights In a novel where everything is turned upside down and every character plays a role they probably shouldn’t, Nelly Dean’s role is the most ambiguous. As both Lockwood’s and the reader’s narrator, Nelly plays the role of the storyteller. Yet at the same time, Nelly is also a character in the story that she tells, occupying a vast array of roles. As a character within her own tale, Nelly attempts to manipulate the actions of her fellow characters. The best way for the reader to understand both Nelly’s role in the novel and her manipulative actions is to see Nelly as being representative of the author. Authors occupy roles that are similarly as ambiguous as Nelly’s role, acting as both writers of and characters in their own stories, often unwittingly writing aspects of themselves into a large variety of roles within their own novels. Furthermore, Nelly’s manipulative actions and biases are analogous to an author’s exertions to move the narrative in accordance with her artistic vision. The multiplicity and ambiguity of Nelly’s roles as well as Nelly’s clearly manipulative maneuvers to alter the plot ultimately implicate Nelly in the meta-fictional role of representing the author. Nelly’s role in Wuthering Heights is inherently ambiguous because she occupies a vast array of roles throughout the course of the narrative. Who she is and what niche she fills depends on the characters with whom she interacts and on the situations in which she is immersed, resulting in great ambiguity over Nelly’s exact role in the novel. This lack of clarity arises before Nelly’s narrative even begins. When we first encounter Nelly, we know that she is the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange. ... ...other, or a matchmaker; she is all four at the same time. This multiplicity in roles, as well as her exertions to manipulate her fellow characters, implicates Nelly in the role of the author, who both occupies the role of all of her characters and manipulates those characters to act as she wishes them to. As a reader, it is easy to dismiss Nelly as merely being a means to an end. It is because of Nelly that we are allowed the opportunity to hear the story of Wuthering Heights, but the narrative certainly does not revolve around her, and nor should it. The author herself should never occupy more space than her story. Yet by performing a meta-analysis on Nelly’s role, we can see the importance of not simply dismissing such a character, because her presence says just as much about the turbulences of passion for love as it does about the passion for a writer’s art.

The Limits of Language in Heart of Darkness Essay -- Literary Analysis

The Limits of Language in Heart of Darkness From the very beginning of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad traps us in a complex play of language, where eloquence is little more than a tool to obscure horrific moral shortcomings. Hazy, absurd descriptions, frame narratives, and a surreal sense of Saussurean structural linguistics create distance from an ever-elusive center, to show that language is incapable of adequately or directly revealing truth. Understanding instead occurs in the margins and along the edges of the narrative; the meaning of a story â€Å"is not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze† (105). The title of the novel is itself misleading, because Conrad purposely leads us around understanding rather than directly to its heart, always hinting at something that, it seems, cannot be expressed. En route to â€Å"the biggest...most blank† space on the map of his youth, Marlow muses: â€Å"My isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion† (108, 114). He repeats words until they are nothing but sounds, polysyllabic mouthfuls devoid of real meaning: â€Å"palpable,† â€Å"inestimable,† â€Å"inscrutable,† â€Å"impenetrable.† Thick layers of images accumulate until all senses are enshrouded in mist, darkness, and distance. And yet, even in the face of the Unknowable, there is still an adamantly declared sense of understanding, however elusive or inadequat e it may be. Marlow recalls that his experience in the Congo, for example, â€Å"seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me — and into ... ...ose of the earth,† according to the Saussurean linguistic theory that Conrad seems to support. â€Å"There was nothing either above or below him,† Marlow observes, â€Å"and I knew it... I †¦ did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air.† In his essay, â€Å"The Failure of the Imagination,† James Guetti writes that in Heart of Darkness, language has meaning â€Å"in terms of the exterior of experience — the coast of a wilderness, the surface of a river, a man's appearance and his voice — and the meaning can exist as a reality so long as one remains ignorant, deliberately or otherwise, of all that lies beyond these exteriors, of what language cannot penetrate. For with the intimation that there is something beyond verbal, and indeed, intellectual capacities, comes the realization that language is fiction† (SOURCE). Perhaps this is the ultimate horror.

Whats Power Worth? :: essays research papers fc

What’s Power Worth?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When we think about air pollution and its sources we generally call to mind the things we see and smell daily. We recall the stench of diesel fumes, the plumes of automobile exhaust, or maybe the belching smoke from factories. Instead of these common culprits, maybe we should instead think about the light switch, the computer, the television, or maybe our air conditioners. We use these items everyday without a thought to the possible ramifications. These familiar household items contribute more to air pollution in our community than all of the aforementioned polluters combined. Their use requires electricity and that electricity is provided by power plants.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Electricity producing power plants are the largest source of air pollution nationwide (Izaak). More than half of the nation’s power plants produce their electricity by burning coal. These coal-fired plants in particular are responsible for the majority of the most dangerous pollutants emitted by the electric power industry. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), coal-fired plants generate, â€Å"96 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 93 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, 88 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, and 99 percent of the mercury emissions† emitted by the entire power industry (sierraclub).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The power industry’s emissions result in ozone smog, reduced visibility conditions, and acid rain. Additionally, their released mercury is toxic and is absorbed by humans through the consumption of fish. â€Å"More than 70 percent of fish advisories issued [are] for mercury contamination† (sierra club). Mercury can have devastating health consequences for children and women of childbearing age. According to the American Lung Association, â€Å"Children are the most susceptible to the detrimental effects posed by air pollutants [†¦]. In Virginia, 1,256,936 children live within 30 miles of a power plant† (Clear). These close-in areas feel the greatest health impacts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The environmental and human health hazards produced by coal-fired power plants are not a new revelation. The Government recognized decades ago the serious impact of all fossil fuel burning industries. Finally, in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed. Later that same year Congress passed the Clean Air Act with the intention of significantly reducing airborne pollutants. According to Federal officials, in the past 35 years â€Å"emissions of pollutants have dropped 51 percent nationwide† (Springston). Unfortunately, when the Clean Air Act was created, a loophole was included that â€Å"grand fathered† the electric industry. Pre-existing plants were exempted because Congress believed that their useful life was only 30 to 40 years.

Learning via observation

Abravanel and Gingold (1985) conducted a study on learning specifically on deferred imitation and immediate imitation. Its review of previous studies conducted on learning revealed that a child at the second year of life shows evidence of deferred imitation, which is imitation of modeled behavior after an interval where other events have intervened between modeling and reproduction of behavior. Classes of object/action combinations used in the current study were taken from the study by McCall, Parke and Kavanaugh (as qtd by Abravanel & Gingold, 1985). The current study however further classified these classes of actions with objects into three: simple/single actions, reiterative actions and sequentially coordinated actions.Simple/single actions required demonstration of one behavior. Tasks measuring this were the Barrels where the child had to reveal contents of the large barrel by separating it into halves, and the Doll and crown, where the child has to put the crown on the bald-hea ded wooden doll. Reiterative actions were simple actions that had to be repeated several times. Tasks for this include the Spacemen, where the child is expected to produce vertical column of five spacemen toys in a feet-to-head order, the Blocks, where the child had to stack the cube block, disc block and pyramid block in that order, and Screwtoy, where the child had to turn the screwnut counterclockwise until it is free of the screw. Sequentially coordinated action tasks require two or more actions that differ from each other but have to be performed in some specific order.Tasks for this include the Cylinder and doll, where the child has to insert a drumstick into a cylinder and push the doll out to let it fall into the table, and the Xylophone, where the child was expected to lose one tube from the base of the xylophone and strike each of the other two metallic pieces.The study was conducted to children aged 12 months (12 ~ 13 months), and 18 months (18 ~ 19 months). There were 42 girls and 40 boys aged 12 months and 45 girls and 40 boys aged 18 months. These children were randomly grouped into two: the treatment group, where children were able to see a model perform a task, and the control group, where the children did not have models to imitate from. Having a control group was hoped to take into account the children’s familiarity to the materials, task and examiner.Both groups follow four phases in every task: 1) Pre-test, where the child was presented with all of the materials for the task and allowed to handle them for 60 seconds. 2) Modeling followed where the treatment groups saw the target actions modeled twice, while the control group did not see any models but allowed to handle the materials for another 10 seconds. Each child had to accumulate four tasks from the seven possible tasks. The child then had an interpolated interval of 10 minutes, where he/she was free to do anything. This time gap was necessary to emphasize on the deferred imitat ion. 3) Post-test followed, where the child was presented with the materials of a task he/she had taken previously and targeted or expected actions had to be demonstrated within 60 seconds.Responses were recorded and the next materials of second, third and fourth tasks were presented separately. 4) Immediate imitation follows right after post-test when it is clear that the child have not achieved the targeted actions of a particular task. The experimenter models again the targeted action and the child was given 60 seconds to reproduce the action. The third step looked into the deferred imitation while the fourth step looked into immediate imitation.Scores were ranged from zero, where the child did nothing but look at the materials, to six, where the child successfully reproduced the targeted actions. However, scoring was reclassified were score zero to four was rescored as zero and score five to six were rescored as one. Data was analyzed using three-factor analyses of variance (Age X Sex X Treatment Condition). The study seeks to answer whether performance of the three classes of actions (i.e., simple/singe, reiterative and sequential coordinated) in deferential imitation and immediate imitation were the same for 12-month old and 18-month old children and treatment and control groups. The researcher hypothesizes that the 12-months old children would succeed in deferred imitation of simple/single actions and the 18-months old children would succeed in both reiterative and sequentially coordinated tasks.Analysis on the deferred imitation found that in performing simple/single action and reiterative action tasks, the 18-months old produced the targeted actions significantly higher than the 12-month olds. In performing sequentially coordinated tasks, the 18-months old had greater number of targeted actions over the 12-months old on Cylinder and doll task, but equally on the Xylophone task. The treatment group had greater number of targeted actions over the contro l group in performing simple/single action tasks, in performing the two of the reiterative action tasks: Spacemen and Screwtoy   (but not the Blocks), as well as the Cylinder and doll tasks (but not the xylophone task) of the sequentially coordinated tasks. Interaction effect of age and treatment condition in performing the three classes of action tasks showed that the 18-months old had greater modeling effect. Further, there was no difference between girls and boys in the number of actions tasks successfully performed.Immediate imitation was done for children who have not successfully accomplished the tasks on the third phase. More children from the control group were subjected to this analysis understandably because they had no models to imitate and learn from on how to achieve successfully the tasks subjected to them. Immediate imitation and deferred imitation were not analyzed as scoring for both sets were different. Analysis of immediate imitation data revealed that 18-year o ld had greater number of targeted actions over the 12-months old children. Less than 50% of the 12-month old children passed the tasks compared to more than 50% of the 18-month olds passed the tasks. More than 50% of the 18-month olds however find Spacemen and screwtoy tasks difficult to perform in immediate imitation.Approximate deferred imitation was further done where the reiterative and sequentially coordinated actions considered lower forms of imitations and where such forms somehow were equivalent to simple/single action level. The 18-month old children significantly had higher performance in post-tests reiterative tasks and Cylinder and doll task of the sequentially coordinated actions. Interaction between age and treatment conditions showed that at 18-months, treatment group achieved the Spaceman task, screwtoy task, Cylinder and doll task, but not on block task and xylophone tasks. At 12 months, treatment group achieved Spacemen task and Xylophone task but not the Screwtoy, Blocks, Cylinder and doll tasks.The study concluded that there are developmental differences achieved in learning between ages 12-months and 18-months, through imitation, whether through immediate or delayed information. The hypotheses of the research were not supported by the results as only few of the 12-month olds demonstrated complete deferred imitation on simple/single actions and less than 50% of the 18-month olds were fully successful with the three action tasks. It further concluded that the children’s performance in both deferred imitation and immediate imitation were the same by comparing treatment and control groups for immediate imitation analysis. The research further confirmed the study conducted by McCall et all. that 18-months old have internalized action sequences and means-ends relations although the current research acknowledged that spatial and serial properties of actions were difficult for these children. The researcher explained about the children†™s possible difficulty of recalling order for the Blocks task. It finally concludes that imitative ability is a developmental phase by the start of the second year of a child and fluency to make observational learning and deferred imitation during the second year.Analysis on the ArticleThe use of a control group in the study was not necessary. McCall et al, whom the researchers referred to in their study, did not employ control group. The researchers themselves have recognized that imitation and observation learning were facts of human functioning. Thus, learning the tasks as demonstrated by reproducing the targeted actions were better when somebody models how the task was to be accomplished than when children were left to find out for themselves how to accomplish the task.The analysis done on deferred imitation for the control group was subjecting the children in a problem-solving task by their own rather than learning via observation. The employ of control group sidetracked the researcher from the objective of establishing learning through observation in this group, precisely because the subjects in this group did not use observation in learning the tasks. All the control group did was to establish that indeed the use of models significantly facilitated accomplishment of the tasks. This was rather not necessary as previous researches have already established this.The use of control group in the analysis has rather made confusing interpretations and conclusions on the study. Such was done when the researcher made a conclusion on the immediate imitation by comparing the control and the treatment group that deferred imitation had no particular advantage over immediate imitation (p. 621, paragraph 2). This was rather an erroneous conclusion since control group cannot represent immediate imitation nor deferred imitation in any way. The researchers themselves have acknowledged that immediate imitation and deferred imitation cannot be analyzed because of the diff erential scoring used by the two sets of data but a conclusions made was to infer on this.The representational materials used in this study were carefully selected so that the objects give the platform by which actions (i.e, simple/single, reiterative, sequential coordinated) can be elicited. When disparity in the results existed for reiterative tasks (i.e., Spacemen, blocks and screwtoy) and sequential coordinated tasks (Cylinder and doll, and xylophone), the researchers have attributed this to difficulty in recall (p. 621, paragraph 1) for the Block task and spontaneous performance (p. 620, paragraph 1) for Xylophone task.The Block task was a measure for reiterative action and which was to be accomplished by the child by stacking the cube block, disc block and pyramid block on each other on that specific order. The child, in this task, was not however required only to do a simple action repeated more than once (i.e., reiterative) but also required to demonstrate memory recall on h ow the order of the blocks should be. This requirement was different from the other reiterative tasks (i.e., Spacemen and Screwtoy) where the targeted action was essentially repetitive ones and did not require some recall of order of how things should be arranged, which was the case for the Block task.This additional requirement for Block task made it in disparity of results with the other reiterative tasks. Block task, in order to elicit only one requirement, which is to demonstrate singular repetitive action, should have used same-shaped blocks. This takes away the requirement for a recall of certain order of blocks, which was rather not a concern of this particular study. It is therefore suggested that the Block task be modified by using the same-shaped blocks or this is taken out all together as there were already two reiterative actions tasks, which were Spacemen and Screwtoy tasks.The disparity in the results of sequential coordinated action tasks, which are the Cylinder and d oll task and Xylophone task, was attributed to spontaneous performance. The Xylophone task involved removing one tube loosely attached to the base of the xylophone and striking each of the other two metallic pieces. The researcher’s explanation on spontaneous performance of the Xylophone task implies on the novelty of the task. Making the task as novel as possible was necessary in order to seclude memory recall on possible actions done outside the experiment. If the child have already played xylophone, his/her demonstration of the task may have been a direct recall of how he played a similar toy.A recall on actions outside the experiment would mean lack of control of extraneous variable. To keep extraneous variable to enter into the experiment, the tasks formulated should be novel as possible for the children. Spontaneous performance on Xylophone task as demonstrated by the control group was evidence to this (p. 620, paragraph 1). This explanation by the researcher was rather acceptable, but it should have been suggested that Xylophone task was removed as a measure for sequential coordinated action task in the future study, and suggested to be replaced by another task.Analysis on approximate deferred imitation was not necessary nor called for in the study. The study implied only on differential imitation and immediate imitation to answer the research question. Analysis done on this only confused interpretations and results relative to this were not incorporated nor integrated in the discussions or in the conclusions. The results derived from this analysis were like a free agent that was left to float, without particular beginning, that is, it was not part of the research question, or an end, since it was not integrated in the conclusions. Such kind of analysis should have been left out.Essentially, the research has done well in proving that the children in the second year of their life were advancing in their learning through imitation, whether deferred or immediate. It contributed to the theoretical base for developmental psychology by establishing that imitative ability starts at the second year of a child’s life and continues to develop as the child advances in age towards the end of its second year. The finding that modeling contributes to learning was not novel but was rather reiteratively established from previous studies and researches (p. 614, paragraph 1).If a replicate of the study has to be done, the use of control group, which is not to employ models, is suggested to be deleted. The use of Block task should utilize same-shaped blocks (i.e., three cubes or three discs or three pyramids). The Xylophone task should also be replaced by another sequential coordinated action that requires a novel task or introduces a novel material. Suggested tasks would be: Doll and little umbrella, where the targeted action is for the child to place the plastic doll in a sitting position on a table, to open a little umbrella and to place the umbrella beside the doll.This task required three sequential actions: placing doll  ® opening umbrella  ® placing umbrella. Doll on bucket, where the targeted action is for the child to position the bucket upside down and to put a plastic doll on a sitting position on the bucket. This task required three sequential actions: positioning the bucket  ® placing the doll. The principle is therefore clear, that the task should be novel as possible and requiring at least two different actions done in some particular order.ReferencesAbravanel, E. & Gingold, H. (1985). Learning via observation during the second year of life. Developmental Psychology, 21 (4), 614-623.

Night World : Huntress Chapter 5

The boy's light hair was longish, falling over his forehead in disarray. He had a nice face, serious, but with an unexpected dimple in his chin that gave him a slightly mischievous look. His body was nicely muscled but compact; standing, Jez knew, he'd be no taller than she. There was a large bump coming up on his forehead, just under the falling hair. The ghoul had probably slammed him against something. Jez jumped up and got a blue plastic cup full of water from her nightstand. She grabbed a clean T-shirt from the floor and dipped it into the water, then she gently brushed back the hair from the boy's forehead. It was silky under her fingers. Even softer than she would have thought. Jez kept her face expressionless and began to wipe his face with the damp cloth. He didn't stir. Jez's heart, which was already thumping distinctly, speeded up. She took a deep breath and kept wiping. Finally, although it probably didn't have anything to do with the water, the boy's dark eyelashes moved. He coughed, breathed, blinked, and looked at her. Relief spread through Jez. â€Å"Don't try to sit up yet.† â€Å"That's what they all say,† he agreed, and sat up. He put a hand to his head and groaned. Jez steadied him. â€Å"I'm fine,† he said. â€Å"Just tell the room to stop moving.† He looked around the room, bunked again and suddenly seemed to focus. He grabbed her arm, his eyes wide. â€Å"Something followed me-â€Å" â€Å"A ghoul. It's dead.† He let out his breath. Then he smiled wryly. â€Å"You saved my life.† â€Å"And I don't even charge,† Jez said, embarrassed. â€Å"No, I mean it.† His smile faded and he looked straight at her. â€Å"Thank you.† Jez could feel heat trying to rise to her face, and she had a hard time holding his gaze. His eyes were gray and so intense-fathomless. Her skin was tingling. She looked away and said evenly, â€Å"We should get you to a hospital. You might have a concussion.† â€Å"No. I'm okay. Let me just see if I can stand up.† When she opened her mouth to protest, he added, â€Å"Jez, you don't know why I'm here. It can't wait.† He was right; Jez had been so intent on getting him conscious that she hadn't even wondered what he was doing here. She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. She helped him up, and let go of his arm when she saw he could stand without falling over. â€Å"See, I'm fine.† He took a few steps, then made a circuit of the room, loosening his muscles. Jez watched him narrowly, ready to grab him if he fell. But he walked steadily except for a slight limp. And that wasn't from his encounter with the ghoul tonight, Jez knew. He'd had the limp from childhood, from when the werewolves took his family. How he'd been able to get over that and join Circle Daybreak, Jez would never know. He'd lost his parents almost as young as she had. He'd lost his two sisters and his brother, too. His entire family had been on a camping trip atLake Tahoe , when in the middle of the night they'd been attacked by a pack of werewolves. Renegade ‘wolves, hunting illegally because Night World law wouldn't let them kill as often as they liked. Just like Jez's old gang. The ‘wolves had ripped through theDavis family's tents and killed the humans, one, two, three. Easy as that. The only one they left alive was seven-year-old Hugh, because he was too little to have much meat on his body. They had just settled down to eat the hearts and livers of their victims, when suddenly the one too little to be worth eating was dashing at them with a homemade torch constructed of kerosene-soaked underwear wrapped around a stick. He was also waving a silver cross on a chain the werewolves had torn from his sister's neck. Two things werewolves don't like: silver and fire. The little boy was attacking with both. The ‘wolves decided to kill him. Slowly. They almost did it. They managed to chew one of his legs almost off before a park ranger arrived, attracted by the spreading fire from the dropped torch. The ranger had a gun, and the fire was getting out of control. The ‘wolves left. Hugh almost died of blood loss on the way to the hospital. But he was a tough kid. And a very smart one. He didn't even try to explain to anybody what he'd been doing with the silver necklace. He knew they would never believe him if he said he'd suddenly remembered a bunch of past lives, including one where he'd seen a werewolf killed. Hugh Davis was an Old Soul. And a wakened Old Soul, which was even more rare. It scared Jez a little. He was human and she was from the Night World, but she didn't pretend to understand the magic that brought some humans back again and again, reincarnating them in new bodies. Letting them remember all their past lifetimes, making them smarter and more clearheaded every time they were born. In Hugh's case, also gentler every time. In spite of the attack on his family, when he got out of the hospital the first thing he did was try to find some Night People. He knew they weren't all bad. He knew some of them would help him stop the werewolves from hurting anyone else. Fortunately, the first people he found were from Circle Daybreak. Circles were witch organizations, but Circle Daybreak was for humans and vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves, too. It was an underground society, as secret within the Night World as the Night World was secret within the human world. It went against the most basic tenets of Night World law: that humans were not to be told about the Night World, and that Night People shouldn't fall in love with humans. Circle Daybreak was fighting to unite everybody, to stop the killings, and to bring peace between the races. Jez wished them luck. She suddenly realized that Hugh had stopped walking and was looking at her. She blinked and focused, furious with herself for her slip in concentration. As a huntress-of vampires or anything else-you stayed alert all the time, or you were dead. â€Å"You were miles away,† Hugh said softly. His gray eyes were calm but intense as always. That look Old Souls get when they're reading you, Jez thought. She said, â€Å"Sorry. Um, do you want some ice for that bump?† â€Å"No, I like it. I'm thinking of getting one on the other side, to match.† He sat on the bed, serious again. â€Å"Really, I've got some stuff to explain to you, and it's going to take a while.† Jez didn't sit. â€Å"Hugh, I think you need it. And I need to take a shower or my aunt will get suspicious about what I'm doing in here for so long. Besides, the smell is driving me crazy.† Although she couldn't use her vampire powers without bringing on the bloodlust, her senses were still much more acute than a human's. â€Å"Eau de Ghoul? And I was just starting to enjoy it.† Hugh nodded at her, switching from gentle humor to gentle gravity as always. â€Å"You need to do what will keep your cover here. I shouldn't be so impatient.† Jez took the fastest shower of her life, then dressed in clean clothes she'd brought to the bathroom. As she returned carrying a glassful of ice from the kitchen and a washcloth, she saw that Claire's bedroom door was ajar and Claire was watching her narrowly. Jez raised the glass in a mock toast, and slipped into her own bedroom. â€Å"Here.† She made an ice pack and handed it to Hugh. He accepted it docilely. â€Å"Now, what is it that's so urgent? And how come you're so popular with ghouls all of a sudden?† Instead of answering, Hugh looked into a middle distance. He was bracing himself for something. Finally he lowered the ice pack and looked straight at her. â€Å"You know I care about you. If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do. And if anything happened because of me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He shook his head. Jez told her heart to get down where it belonged. It was pounding in her throat, choking her. She kept her voice flat as she said, â€Å"Thanks.† Something like hurt flashed in his eyes and was gone instantly. â€Å"You don't think I mean it.† Jez still spoke flatly, in a clipped, hurried voice. She wasn't good at talking about emotional stuff. â€Å"Hugh, look. You were my first human friend. When I came to live here, nobody at Circle Daybreak would have anything to do with me. I don't blame them-not after the things my gang did to humans. But it was hard because they wouldn't even talk to me, much less trust me, and they wouldn't believe I wanted to help them. And then you showed up that day after school. And you did talk to me-â€Å" â€Å"And I did trust you,† Hugh said. â€Å"And I still do.† He looked distant again. â€Å"I thought you were the saddest person I'd ever seen, and the most beautiful-and the bravest. I knew you wouldn't betray Circle Daybreak.† And that's why I love you, Jez thought before she could stop herself. It was easier to live with if she didn't put it into words. Because it was hopeless, of course. You couldn't hang on to an Old Soul. Nobody could-not unless they were one of those tiny fraction of people who were soulmates. Wakened Old Souls were too†¦ old. They knew too much, had seen too much to get attached to any one person. Much less a person who was tainted with vampire blood. So all she said was â€Å"I know. That's why I work with Circle Daybreak. Because you convinced them I wasn't some kind of spy for the Night World. I owe you, Hugh. And-I believe you care about me.† Because you care about everybody, she added silently. Hugh nodded, but he didn't look any happier. â€Å"It's about something dangerous. Something I don't want to ask you to do.† He dug into his jeans pocket and came up with a thick packet of what looked like folded newspaper articles. He held it out to her. Jez took it, frowned, then paged through the first few articles. Headlines jumped out at her. â€Å"‘Four-year old dies in coyote attack.' ‘Record heatwave in Midwest; hundreds hospitalized.' ‘Mother confesses: I killed my babies.' ‘Mystery virus erupts in eastern U.S.: Scientists baffled.'† There were lots more, but she didn't look at them. She looked at Hugh, her eyebrows drawn together. â€Å"Thanks for sharing this. Am I supposed to fight the coyote or the virus?† His lips smiled, but his eyes were bottomless and frighteningly sad. â€Å"Nobody can fight what's happening-at least not in the ordinary way. And all that's just the beginning.† â€Å"Of what?† She loved Hugh, but sometimes she wanted to strangle him. Old Souls loved being mysterious. â€Å"Have you noticed the weather lately? It's either floods or droughts. Record cold days in winter, record heat in the summer. Record number of hurricanes and tornadoes. Record snowfall and hail. It just gets weirder and weirder every year.† â€Å"Well-sure.† Jez shrugged. â€Å"They talk about it on TV all the time. But it doesn't mean any-â€Å" â€Å"And the earth's being disturbed, too. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. Last year four dormant volcanoes erupted and there were dozens of major quakes.† Jez narrowed her eyes. â€Å"Okay†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"And there's another weird thing, even though it's not as obvious. You have to kind of dig a little to get to the statistics. There's been an increase in animal attacks all over the world. All kinds of animals.† He tapped the pile of newspaper articles. â€Å"This coyote attack-a couple of years ago you never heard about coyotes killing kids. Just like you never heard of mountain lions attacking adults. But now it's happening, and it's happening everywhere.† Prickles of unease were going up Jez's arms. It was true, what Hugh was saying. Not that she'd paid much attention to the human news when she was a vampire-but it did seem as if animal attacks were getting more frequent. â€Å"A bunch of elephants stomped their trainers last year,† she said slowly. â€Å"Dog attacks are up four hundred percent,† Hugh said. â€Å"According to the California state police. In New Mexico there's an epidemic of rabid bats. In Florida they've had seven tourists killed by alligators since last January-and believe me, that information was hard to find. Nobody wanted to report it† â€Å"I bet.† â€Å"Then there are the insects. We're seeing more and more people get attacked by them. Killer bees. Fire ants. Tiger mosquitoes-and, no, I'm not joking. They're for real, and they carry dengue fever, a really nasty disease.† â€Å"Hugh†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Which brings me to diseases. You have to have noticed that. There are new diseases popping up all over. Ebola. Mad cow disease. That flesh-eating bacteria. Hanta viruses. Lassa. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. You bleed from your ears and nose and mouth and into the whites of your eyes-â€Å" Jez opened her mouth to say â€Å"Hugh† again, but he was racing on, his chest rising and falling quickly, his gray eyes almost feverish. â€Å"And they're resistant to antibiotics the same way that the insects are resistant to pesticides. They're all mutating. Changing. Getting stronger and more deadly. And-â€Å" â€Å"Hugh.† She got it in while he took a breath. â€Å"-there's a hole in the ozone.† He looked at her. â€Å"What?† â€Å"What does it all mean?† It means that things are changing. Spiraling out of control. Heading for†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He stopped and looked at her. â€Å"Jez, it's not those things themselves that are the problem. It's what's behind them.† â€Å"And what is behind them?† Hugh said simply, â€Å"The Old Powers are rising.† Chills swept over Jez. The Old Powers. The Ancient Magic that had controlled the universe in the old days of the Night World. No one could see or know the Old Powers; they were forces of nature, not people. And they had been sleeping like giant dragons for thousands of years ever since humans had gained control of the world. If they were waking up again now†¦ If magic was coming back again, everything would change. â€Å"It shows in different weird ways,† Hugh went on. â€Å"Night People are getting more powerful. Lots of them have noticed it. And they say the soulmate principle is back.† The soulmate principle. The idea that for every person there was one destined soulmate, one true love, and that the two souls were bound for eternity. Jez lifted her shoulders and dropped them without meeting Hugh's eyes. â€Å"Yeah, I heard. Don't believe it, though.† â€Å"I've seen it,† Hugh said, and for a moment Jez's heart stopped. Then it started again as he continued, â€Å"In other people, I mean. I've seen people our age who found their soulmate, and it's really true; you can see it in their eyes. The Old Powers really are rising, Jez†¦ for good and for evil. That's what's behind all these other changes.† Jez sat very still. â€Å"And so what happens if they keep rising?† â€Å"What happens is†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Hugh paused and then looked at her. â€Å"It means a time of darkness is coming,† he said simply. â€Å"A time-?† â€Å"Of serious darkness. The worst. We're talking the end of the world, here.† Jez could feel gooseflesh on the back of her neck, where her wet hair touched her skin. She might have been tempted to laugh if it were anybody else telling her this. But it was Hugh, and he wasn't joking. She had no desire to laugh. â€Å"But then it's all over,† she said. â€Å"There's nothing we can do. How can anybody stop the end of the world?† â€Å"Well.† He ran a quick hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. â€Å"That's why I'm here. Because I'm hoping you can.†