African American Essay Example for Free

African American Essay James Baldwin once said, â€Å"I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all. † When the subject of race comes up, I feel like that quote is very meaningful. According to class lecture, race is an arbitrary social classification of clearly bounded categories based on skin color which corresponds to no biological reality. To be able to understand race today, a person should have a background on the history of race. According to the American Anthropological Association, by the 1600s, English colonists had established a system of indentured servitude that included both Europeans and Africans. But by the time of Bacon’s Rebellion the status of Africans began to change. Servants who once had an opportunity for freedom following servitude were relegated to a life of permanent slavery in the colonies. Thomas Jefferson was influential in the idea of race with a biological and social hierarchy. He stated that, â€Å"blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. Not only did people begin to base their opinions on Thomas Jefferson’s statement, but when Carolus Linnaeus developed a biological classification system and the German scientist Johann Blumenbach introduced a race-based classification of humans, the concept of race expanded and whites saw themselves as superior. I feel that even though race is so deeply embedded into our lives, and it also appears to be the natural order of things, it is not a useful way to talk about human variation. Skin color alone does not provide any reliable information about at person’s race, culture, or susceptibility to disease. Ryan A. Brown and George J. Armelagos in the review, Apportionment of Racial Diversity, makes a good point by saying, â€Å"A single trait such as skin color will result in a classification system that is easily determined. Add another trait and classification becomes a more difficult task, and there usually are groups that cannot be classified. † For too long people have been basing human variation on a person’s race. Many people are guilty of simply looking at an individual and grouping them by their skin color. The sorting exercise on the PBS website confirms this. When I completed the exercise, the results said that I only had grouped 3 individuals in the right group. I was using appearance and appearance only to classify the individuals. Appearance doesn’t always tell a person about someone’s ancestry of self-identity. It’s hard to make any accurate predictions based on appearance alone. According to the Me, My Race, and I reading on the PBS website, I realized that whites and nonwhites had very different things to say. A Caucasian individual stated, â€Å"race does not affect his life so he doesn’t dwell on it. † It is quite different for nonwhites. An African American male stated that he feels as if people automatically perceive him as a robber. An Asian said she was expected to be good at math and sciences, just because of the way she looked. According to the Why Genes Don’t Count (for Racial Differences in Health) article, Human variation is non-concordant. â€Å"Traits tend to vary independently of other traits. Race classifications vary, therefore, by the traits used in the classification. † For example, a classification based on the sickle cell trait might include equatorial Africans, Greeks, and Turks. Sickle cell is not a â€Å"black† disease. According to AAA, â€Å"Contrary to popular perception, the gene variant that causes sickle cell disease evolved as a result of its surprising upside – malaria resistance. The gene variant for sickle cell disease is related to malaria, not skin color. † There is no possibility for consistency. Because skin color correlates with only a few other phenotype traits such as hair and eye color, it is true that â€Å"race is only skin deep. † Another reason why I would say race is not a useful way to talk about human variation is the reason that human variation is continuous. Alan H. Goodman, PhD says â€Å"there is no clear place to designate where one race begins and another ends. Skin color, for example, slowly changes from place to place. † Whether than using race to talk about human variation, I think there is a better way to talk about groups of humans. I think the better way to talk about groups of humans is based on culture. In lecture we learned how a person’s ethnic group is the emphasis of cultural construction over genes. Ethnicity is a multifactorial concept including, but not limited to cultural constructs, genetic background, ecological specialization, and self-specialization. According to the article Culture, Not Race, Explains Human Diversity, â€Å"races† are imagined by the public and do not actually exist. If you think about it, ethnicity/culture is such a better way to talk about groups of people rather than grouping according to skin color. Skin color is based simply on appearance, whereas ethnicity/culture brings multiple concepts into play. Mark Nathan Cohen says, â€Å"The anthropological concept of culture can be explained best by an analogy with language. Just as language is more than vocabulary, culture is more than, say art and music. † Culture structures our behavior, thoughts, perceptions, values, goals, morals, and cognitive processes. Mr. Cohen makes a good point by stressing that people should stray from their egocentric ways and look more carefully at what other people are doing and try to understand their behavior in context before judgment. A person’s culture shapes many things once thought determined by biology, including sexuality, aggression, perception, and susceptibility to disease. This exercise of exploring on the websites and reading all the outside readings, did reinforce our classroom discussions. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that we talked about a girl from Lau Lagoon, Solomon Islands who had dark skin but was born with blond hair. This example also came up in our outside reading as an example. This emphasized that skin color does not come with a certain set of hair colors. Another way this exercise reinforced our classroom discussion was that the websites and reading both reinforced the concept that race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or gene distinguishes all members of one so-called race from all members of another so-called society. I feel that that was the overall major concept that was learned in both this exercise and classroom lecture. As I was on the PBS website, I came across one of the background reading entitled â€Å"Where Race Lives. † I found this article very interesting because I read that in 1993, â€Å"86% of suburban whites still lived in places with a black population of less than 1%. † This was interesting to me because in 1994 my family moved to what was considered a white suburb. Even though I was only 1 years of age, at the time, my mom told me that we were 1 of the 2 African Americans families living in the neighborhood at the time. We were the only African American family on our street at the time. Today our street has more African American families on it than white families. It is sad to say but as more African American families moved on our street, more white families moved away. All in all, Genes and environments work together to make each person unique. Why just look at a person’s skin color and make judgments, when there is more to a person than their skin color. Characteristics such as skin color, height and susceptibility to disease are determined by complex combinations of genetic traits, environmental factors and cultural experience.

Greed :: essays papers

Greed Greed Greed is a selfish desire for more than one needs or deserves. Greed can make honest men murderers. It has made countries with rich valuable resources into the poorest countries in the world. We are taught it is bad and not to practice it. But consider a world without greed, where everyone is as sharing as Mother Theresa was. The progress of humankind would be at a standstill. Greed has given our society faster travel, better service, more convenience, and most importantly, progress. Greed has created thousands of billionaires and millions of millionaires. But why is greed associated with evil? In their day, most capitalists like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller were depicted as pure evil. Vanderbilt stole from the poor. Rockefeller was a snake. But the name-calling did not come from the consumers; it was the competing businesses that complained. The newspapers expanded on these comments, calling them "robber barons." These are inaccurate terms for these busine ssmen. They were not barons because they all started penniless and they were not robbers because they did not take it from anyone else. Vanderbilt got rich by making travel and shipping faster, cheaper, and more luxurious. He built bigger, faster, and more efficient ships. He served food on his ships, which the customers liked and he lowered his costs. He lowered the New York to Hartford fare from $8 to $1. Rockefeller made his fortunes selling oil. He also lowered his costs, making fuel affordable for the working-class people. The working-class people, who use to go to bed after sunset, could now afford fuel for their lanterns. The people, who worked an average 10-12 hours a day, could now have a private and social life. The consumers were happy, the workers were happy, and they were happy. Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft Corporation is another example of a greedy person. He is the richest man in the world with about $40 billion and he continues to pursue more wealth. Just because he has $40 billion does not mean the rest of the world lost $40 billion, he created more wealth for the rest of the world. His software created new ways of saving time and money and created thousands of new jobs. Bill Gates got rich by persuading people to buy his product. His motive may have been greed, but to achieve that, he had to give us what we wanted. Greed :: essays papers Greed Greed Greed is a selfish desire for more than one needs or deserves. Greed can make honest men murderers. It has made countries with rich valuable resources into the poorest countries in the world. We are taught it is bad and not to practice it. But consider a world without greed, where everyone is as sharing as Mother Theresa was. The progress of humankind would be at a standstill. Greed has given our society faster travel, better service, more convenience, and most importantly, progress. Greed has created thousands of billionaires and millions of millionaires. But why is greed associated with evil? In their day, most capitalists like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller were depicted as pure evil. Vanderbilt stole from the poor. Rockefeller was a snake. But the name-calling did not come from the consumers; it was the competing businesses that complained. The newspapers expanded on these comments, calling them "robber barons." These are inaccurate terms for these busine ssmen. They were not barons because they all started penniless and they were not robbers because they did not take it from anyone else. Vanderbilt got rich by making travel and shipping faster, cheaper, and more luxurious. He built bigger, faster, and more efficient ships. He served food on his ships, which the customers liked and he lowered his costs. He lowered the New York to Hartford fare from $8 to $1. Rockefeller made his fortunes selling oil. He also lowered his costs, making fuel affordable for the working-class people. The working-class people, who use to go to bed after sunset, could now afford fuel for their lanterns. The people, who worked an average 10-12 hours a day, could now have a private and social life. The consumers were happy, the workers were happy, and they were happy. Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft Corporation is another example of a greedy person. He is the richest man in the world with about $40 billion and he continues to pursue more wealth. Just because he has $40 billion does not mean the rest of the world lost $40 billion, he created more wealth for the rest of the world. His software created new ways of saving time and money and created thousands of new jobs. Bill Gates got rich by persuading people to buy his product. His motive may have been greed, but to achieve that, he had to give us what we wanted.

Curriculum Development Essay

1. What is K-12 curriculum? What is the rationale of K-12 curriculum? K- 12 is a designation for the sum of primary and secondary education. It is used in the United States, Canada, Philippines and Australia. It means kindergarten and the twelve years of elementary and secondary education. The kindergarten refers to the 5-year old unit that takes a standardized kinder curriculum. The elementary education refers to primary schooling that involves six or seven years of education and the secondary education refers to high school. The main purpose of K-12 Program is to provide sufficient time for mastery of concepts and skills, develop lifelong learners, and prepare graduates for tertiary education, middle-level skills development, employment, and entrepreneurship. The outcome goals of the K-12 Basic Education Program is to make Philippine education standards to be at balance with international standards, to create more emotionally mature graduates equipped with technical and vocational skills who are better prepared for work, middle level skills development and higher education, to make the educational inputs significantly addressed shortages or gaps, to make the improvement of basic education outcomes broadened and strengthened the stakeholder support, to improve internal efficiency, system of governance in the department and quality of teachers. 2. Essentialists’ point of view of curriculum development? The curriculum is a crucial component of any educational process. It addresses questions such as what students should learn and be able to do, why, how, and how well. In the past, the curriculum was designed merely from the perspective of its cultural transmission functions with its structure consequently reflecting discrete areas of knowledge. According to Kern it is possible to use a six-step approach to curriculum development for Medical Education: 1. Problem identification and general needs assessment The most important step is the first one, the general needs assessment (GNA). The goal of step 1 is to focus the curriculum, by defining the deficits in knowledge, attitude, or skills that currently exist in practitioners and the ideal approach to teaching and learning these objectives. When completed, the GNA makes a strong argument for the need for the curriculum and identifies potential educational research questions. 2. Needs assessment of targeted learners The general needs assessment is applied to targeted learners. What kind of doctor do we want to educate it depends mostly on social needs but it can reflect job opportunities, financial rewards and attitudes acquired during process of studding. Sometimes it is very difficult to make balance between these several needs. Needs can be obtained on different ways. It can be done through study of errors in practice. It is very difficult to design curriculum which will fully meet the needs of society and students 3. Goals and objectives Institution should define overall goals and aims for the curriculum. Specific measurable knowledge, skill/ performance, attitude, and process objectives should be stated for the curriculum. 4. Educational strategies It is necessary to make a plan how to maximize the impact of the curriculum, which content should be included, how content should be organized and with which educational methods, how elements of curriculum should communicate, what kind of educational environment and climate should be developed. Content which is included must provide to student critical thinking. It must be selected and organized on the way to initiate critical approach to facts and development skill of information retrieval. 5. Implementation A plan for implementation, including timelines and resources required, should be created. A plan for faculty development is made to assure consistent implementation. 6. Evaluation and feedback Evaluation of curriculum presents the final stage inside cyclic process of improvement and development of curriculum. 3. Why develop a curriculum? Ever since the term curriculum was added to educators’ vocabularies, it has seemed to convey many things to many people. To some, curriculum has denoted a specific course, while to others it has meant the entire educational environment. Whereas perceptions of the term may vary, it must be recognized that curriculum encompasses more than a simple definition. Curriculum is a key element in the educational process; its scope is extremely broad, and it touches virtually everyone who is involved with teaching and learning. In no other area has greater emphasis been placed upon the development of curricula that are relevant in terms of student and community needs and substantive outcomes. The career and technical and technical curriculum focuses not only on the educational process but also on the tangible results of that process. This is only one of many reasons why the career and technical and technical curriculum is distinctive in relation to other curricular areas and why career and technical education curriculum planners must have a sound understanding of the curriculum development process. 4. What to consider in curriculum development? In planning and developing a curriculum, you should consider the following: 1. Convening a Curriculum Development Committee Such a committee, consisting primarily of teachers who represent the various schools and grade levels in a district, administrators, members of the public and perhaps students, becomes the driving force for curriculum change and the long-term process of implementing the curriculum. It is critical that an effective, knowledgeable and respected chairperson lead such a committee and it includes knowledgeable and committed members who gradually become the district’s de facto â€Å"experts† during the development phases of the process as well as the implementation phases. 2. Identifying Key Issues and Trends in the Specific Content Area The first step in any curriculum development process involves research that reviews recent issues and trends of the discipline, both within the district and across the nation. This research allows a curriculum committee to identify key issues and trends that will support the needs assessment that should be conducted and the philosophy that should be developed. 3. Assessing Needs and Issues Curriculum development should be viewed as a process by which meeting student needs leads to improvement of student learning. Regardless of the theory or model followed, curriculum developers should gather as much information as possible. This information should include the desired outcomes or expectations of a high quality program, the role of assessment, the current status of student achievement and actual program content. The information should also consider the concerns and attitudes of teachers, administrators, parents and students. The data should include samples of assessments, lessons from teachers, assignments, scores on state standardized tests, textbooks currently used, student perception and feedback from parents.

How A Healthy Liver Is Necessary For Survival, And When...

A healthy liver is necessary for survival, and when the threat of liver cancer looms liver transplantation (LT) is an option. The liver is the bodies largest internal organ. It has many important functions including preventing infections, removing bacteria and toxins from the blood, and more. (â€Å"Liver Transplant†, 2012, p.1). Some signs of liver failure are fatigue, loss of appetite, muscle loss, forgetfulness and confusion. The most prevalent sign of liver failure is jaundice, a condition that causes yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes (â€Å"Liver Transplant†, 2012, p.2). Malignancy is the second most common primary diagnoses for needing a liver transplant (Bentley, 2014, p.10). To begin the transplant process, a patient must first get diagnosed. After the diagnosis, there is a waiting time before the transplant can occur. While waiting for a transplant different treatments are available to slow the growth of cancer. Once the transplant is performed ther e are a variety of things to take into consideration to prolong a patient’s life. The transplantation process is very strenuous and complicated. The process encompasses preparation, the operation, and the post operation. The process for receiving a liver transplant incorporates an evaluation and attainment of a liver. A patient must first get a referall from a doctor to a transplant center and be evaluated by a team of doctors. This team includes surgeons, nurses, transplant corrdinators, social workers, and otherShow MoreRelatedCorrelation of Food and Human Survival in Two Cultures1690 Words   |  7 Pagespositive correlation between food and human survival. This brings to mind when a baby is born he or she has to depend on the breast milk of the mother in order to survive. In the same manner all humanity needs food to stay healthy life and strong all the time. 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