Nursing Care for Domestic Violence during Pregnancy Research Paper

Nursing Care for Domestic Violence during Pregnancy - Research Paper Example Introduction Domestic violence is an important social issue, but also plays a huge role in the health of the expectant mother and her child. There is a number of ways that nurses can assess and deal with domestic violence. A pregnant woman who has been victim of domestic violence needs to be treated with confidence, care, and confidentiality, particularly because domestic violence can have a number of unfortunate physical and mental effects on the victim. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between domestic violence and pregnancy, and the impact that battering can have on the expectant mother, both physical and mental. It will also explore how the nurse should deal with cases of domestic violence, including the assessment and care of these women, as well as what to expect from physical and mental examination of these patients. A final section will cover how I, as a future nurse, plan to address the issue in a clinical setting taking into account all the informati on covered within this paper. Provide an Overview of Domestic Violence as it Relates to Pregnancy Estimating the number of women that are affected by violence during pregnancy is extremely difficult for a number of reasons, but estimates place it from anywhere between 0.9% and 20.1%. Statistics also suggest that it is most prevalent in women earning under $20,000 a year (Jasinski). The women who are most likely to experience this type of violence have a history of victimization, so taking a history of the patient may help to clarify whether domestic abuse has occurred. There are a huge number of problems which are associated with domestic violence and pregnancy, both for the mother and the unborn child. For the baby, these include premature birth, low birth weight and foetal trauma. These may be compounded by the effects on the mother, which may be psychological and cause maternal behaviour changes, or physical causing health changes (Jasinski). Nursing Care Considerations Related t o Domestic Violence Assessment Considering the important consequences of domestic violence for the mother and the baby, there has been some debate about whether healthcare professionals should screen for domestic violence as the norm (O’Reilly, Beale and Gillies). This is based on findings that areas in which screening is present have a higher identification rate, and therefore it could be possible to prevent some of the problems associated with domestic violence in pregnancy. It also suggests that a nurse should consider the possibility of domestic violence during pregnancy, as the health of the mother and the child are paramount to nursing care. Discuss the Impact of Battering to the Individual Client, Newborn and the Family The impact of battering varies from individual to individual, although there are almost certainly physical, psychological, or a mixture of both effects on the women involved. It also affects the new born and the family of the victim. The woman’s mental health is likely to be affected. She is likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and a number of other disorders (Nasreen, Kabir, Forsell and Edhborg). This can lead to problems for the child, as the woman may be unable to care for herself or the new born. If the violence is aimed towards the womb of the victim, then there may be direct damage to the baby or premature birth (Devries et al.). Low

CSI and the Post Modern Body Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

CSI and the Post Modern Body - Assignment Example Therefore, it may not be fully dependable for the development of forensic science, as it seems more fictional. The CSI emphasizes more on the role of forensic science, including the relationships of DNA while undertaking investigations, while attaching less significance to the role of informers or even the detectives’ work (Harrington, 2007). The foundation of CSI is based on the fact that the identity given by the DNA tests undertaken is indisputable and accurately points to the suspect, regardless of the fact that the body could be mutilated. Most significant is the fact that it is impossible to accurately determine the actual gender of the victim, without the application of science. Therefore, the case of identity of the suspect becomes a puzzle to solve, up until the forensic science is applied, which identifies the suspect as a man, who has been living as a woman conducting surgeries and killing the victims (Harrington, 2007). The strength of the argument presented here is the fact that science is the undisputable basis of presenting an accurate identity of the individuals involved in crime. This is because; through forensic science, where the DNA of the suspects involved can be traced, then the real identity of those involved can be unquestionably noted (Harrington, 2007). Considering that through transsexual surgeries, the gender of an individual can be changed, then, it makes the investigations through detectives more complicated. This is because, while the investigation could point to the suspect of the crime from a certain gender, then tracing them would be difficult since they can change that. However, through forensic science, the real identity will always remain, as the DNA of an individual can never be changed (Harrington, 2007). Thus, the argument presents science as the basis of providing society with the unbiased truth of identity. The role of the detectives,

Solution Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Solution Paper - Essay Example Expectant women are advised to avoid any drugs not prescribed to protect the unborn child (Kozlowski, Henningfield & Brigham, 2001). Tobacco smoking is addictive with users being unable to quit. Tobacco contains many harmful chemicals that enter the mother’s bloodstream. The nutrients are passed from mother to child through the placenta. The harmful chemicals pass to the child through the placenta that may cause cancer. The mother’s blood also provides oxygen to the unborn child. Excessive smoking by the mother cuts off the child’s oxygen supply. Low oxygen supply may result to malformation of child, stillbirth or premature delivery. Women should avoid tobacco to ensure increase the chances of giving birth to healthy children. Chemicals in tobacco may also be passed to the newborn child through breast milk or secondary smoking. Educating women on the harmful effect of cigarettes is important to improve on infant mortality. Information should be provided to women at a young age to ensure that they make informed decisions when choosing cigarettes. For addicted women, the user can use remedies to overcome nicotine addiction. It is difficult to quit smoking due to the addictive nature of the drug. The nicotine problem can be countered using nicotine patches. Women who are addicted to tobacco can use the nicotine patches to reduce the withdrawal effects. Nicotine patches are effective over a long time despite their slow mode of action. Gum and lozenges can also be used to reduce the harmful effects of nicotine. Gum and lozenges are fast acting but the user should reduce their use over time (Kozlowski, Henningfield & Brigham, 2001). Behaviour modification therapy will help reduce the problem of nicotine addiction. The user talks to other addicts or a counselor on ways to reduce dependency on nicotine. Behaviour modification therapy may be accompanied by medication prescribed to reduce the effects on nicotine on the user. The user should

General Engineering Principles and Systems Theory

General Engineering Principles and Systems Theory Engineering and Socio-technical Philosophies Developing information systems is a creative effort which requires insight and judgement skills. There are two common approaches which are ‘Engineering’ and ‘Socio-technical’ used in systems development. Each of these approaches is explained below and a summary of the comparison is given afterwards. Engineering has been significant in creating a fundamental approach for development of information systems and with a driving concern of developing a complex technical system. Inefficiencies in systems development process often results into problematic technical systems, attempts to improve on the situation have drawn majorly on general engineering principles and systems theory. Systems engineering, which emphasizes studying total systems without their isolated components and systems analysis are rooted in the systems theory, they proceed to achieve a task systematically and produce the best system (Avgerou Cornford 1993). They are said to be corresponding to the traditional life cycle which has often been criticized not to be appropriate when dealing with unclear requirements but systems analysis has developed to lay more emphasis on efforts for examining the problem area and agreeing on requirements for a satisfactory system as opposed to an optimal solution (ibid). The engineering approach has grown stronger over time taking the form of different specialized disciplines, the best known to be software engineering. The aim of software engineering is to change semi-structured development practices to a systematic process which is effective, controllable and able to improve software quality. Despite its significance, applicability to IS development has been limited because a fully formal process of development as it depicts has been seen by most to be impractical or undesirable for IS development. It has been said to be impractical because of lack of formal theories to describe organisational behaviour and ‘formal models to capture the richness of the application domains’ (Avgerou Cornford 1993:146). Several efforts have been made to include methods which support human creativity and user participation, some of these are use of DFDs and Prototyping. Overall, though software engineering has responded to the requirements of human aspect of systems development, ‘its perspective is still that of the efficient development of a technical product’ (Avgerou Cornford 1993:147). Some other forms of the engineering approach which are aimed at improving certain aspects of system development are Knowledge engineering and Human-computer interaction†¦their approach is still that of engineering a technical system (Avgerou Cornford 1993). Socio-technical, as another approach to system development, has been defined by Coakes (2002:5) as ‘ †¦ [exploring] the relationships and interrelationships between the social and technical parts of any system’ and is controlled by social change and human communication theories (Avgerou Cornford 1993). It sees IS development process as an intervention to improve communication between people and how tasks are carried out in an organisation. As opposed to Engineering, IS is seen as involving people and not isolated technical constructs (Tatnall 2003; Avgerou Cornford 1993). Its goal is to develop a system with which people can carry out their tasks effectively and achieve satisfaction and personal development (Avgerou Cornford 1993). Laudon and Laudon (2006:28) mention that: In a socio-technical perspective, the performance of a system is optimized when both the technology and the organisation mutually adjust to one another until a satisfactory fit is obtained. The socio-technical approach in IS development expresses a combination of practical, ethical and theoretical concerns. The main practical concern being that IT-based systems often fail to bring the required benefits even though they are well designed due to the fact that ‘the social dynamics of [an] organisation †¦ may override the intended performance of the technical system’ (Avgerou Cornford 1993: 151). This approach seeks to address issues such as resistance to change towards a new IS in organisations by focusing on the human requirements and social dynamics all through the process of development. The ethical concern is of the notion that workers should also gain from the benefits the new technology provides in their workplace in order to promote work environment that is satisfactory (Avgerou Cornford 1993; Coakes 2003). Some of the most widely known demonstrations of this approach are Participation and Job design. It is suggested that not only should users be the source of requirements specification but also deeply involved in the process of development and ‘achieving effective participation has proved a non- trivial matter in practice†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Avgerou Cornford 1993:154). Land and Hirschheim (1983:155) identify different categories of users who might be affected by a new system directly or indirectly and also differentiate between two participation types which are ‘participation in decision making about the project’ and ‘participation in the actual analysis and design’. The first could be consultative only while the second might be consultative, representative or consensus (ibid.). As mentioned earlier, there are difficulties to having user participation (Cavaye 1995) but should only serve as obstacles to overcome and not arguments in opposition to wider invol vement in IS development (Avgerou Cornford 1993). Job design, another form of this approach, ‘leads the development process towards restructuring the work environment where a new information system would be used and aimed at providing satisfactory work conditions for the employees’ (Avgerou Cornford 1993). Mumford and Weir (1979) contribute to this aspect by introducing the ETHICS methodology. Having discussed each of these, a summary of the comparison is drawn (figure 1.0). It is necessary to point out the implications of these approaches on the whole process of IS development as they are used as a basis for systems development. Engineering as a hard systems approach, has dominated in computer systems development and results into a system that is technically perfect but faced with resistance from the users and could be ignored eventually (Platt Warwick 1995). This is due to certain assumptions this approach makes (Curtis Graham 2008) such as: Engineering perspective applies in all case and solutions should be mathematically/logically based. Attention to the social or organisational aspects of the system not essential. Emphasis on linear problem solving. An example is the case of Wessex Area Health (Clarke Lehaney 2000). On the otherhand, the socio-technical approach helps to consider both the social and technical aspects of a system (Laudon Laudon 2006), arguing that ‘the social and technical systems†¦cannot be designed independently of each other’ (Curtis Graham 2005:581) so with its emphasis on user participation, user acceptance can be achieved thereby resulting into a success (Avison Fitzgerald 2003; Coakes 2003), for example, as proved by the case of Bill payment system (Fisher 2003), the failure and later success of London Ambulance service (Clarke Lehaney 2000; Grant et al 2010). Avison and Fitzgerald (1995) also claim that participation might result in resentment from either analysts or users. Information Systems Development Methodology It is defined as ‘a collection of procedures, tools, and documentation aids which will help the systems developers in their efforts to implement a new information system’ (Avison Fitzgerald 2003:20). There are many methodologies, some of which are ETHICS, SSM, DSDM and they differ from one another mostly in terms of objectives. The Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) will be considered in this essay. Philosophical root SSM was introduced by Peter CheckLand with the contributions of other researchers in Lancaster University. They started an action research programme by using hard systems engineering as a framework in unsuitable circumstances whereby problems were not clearly defined but this attempt failed so SSM was introduced as an alternative (Checkland Scholes 1990). The failure led to the rethink of the rudiments of systems thinking (ibid.) and a deep analysis of the basic assumptions behind this and systems development (Fitzgerald et al 2002). It was put forward that ‘systems thinking takes seriously the idea of a whole entity which may exhibit properties as a single whole (‘emergent properties’)’ and there are two complementary traditions within it namely the ‘hard’ tradition which takes the world as systemic and the ‘soft’ tradition that ‘creates the process of enquiry as a system’ (Checkland Scholes 1990:25). Based on this, Checkland and Scholes (1990:25) refer to SSM as: a systemic process of enquiry which also happens to make use of systems model. It thus subsumes the hard approach, which is a special case of it, one arising when there is local agreement on some system to be engineered. They also claim that to have a better understanding of this, the word ‘holon’ should be used surrendering the word ‘system’ to everyday language and avoiding its use as a technical term. SSM uses a specific type of holon which they referred to as Human activity system(HAS), a set of activities that are connected in order to make a purposeful whole, created to meet the core system image requirement(ibid.). The HAS recognizes the importance of people in organisations due to the fact that it is necessary to include people in order to understand the real world (Avison Fitzgerald 2003). Therefore, this methodology is regarded as a soft systems approach which Avison and Fitzgerald (2003) claim that is the most appropriate for understanding difficult problem situations such as those in organisations. SSM really focuses on looking into the organisational issues and ill-structured problems and then suggestion of solutions which may or may not be computer-based (Skid more Eva 2004). Suitability As mentioned earlier, SSM is capable of examining and understanding the complex problem situations of an organisation, for example, its use in Shell and an Acute hospital (Checkland poulter 2006) using a range of techniques as shown in the seven-stage model(Fig 1.1.0 and fig 1.1.1), this makes it suitable to examine the existing issues in AIC limited, a property management company in Nigeria. Though, the methodology does not explain methods for implementing suggested solutions especially those involving a computerised system but it is suggested that it could be used as a front end in SD process then proceed to use a more technical approach which emphasizes design, development and implementation (Avison Fitzgerald 2003; Platt Warwick 1995). Based on this limitation, some others raised the idea of linking SSM to existing structured methodologies and came up with suggestions (Stowel 1985; Prior 1990; Sawyer 1991; Gregory Merali 1992; Miles 1992; Savage Minger 1993), further concern s raised are that should it take the form of grafting SSM to SSD methods or embedding SSD methods in SSM (Miles 1988)? Miles (1988) argues that the grafting method could cause the benefits of the SSM to be lost for instance, SSM obviously supports user involvement from the onset (Mingers 1995). Obviously, SSM has its notable advantages which makes it suitable for the case of AIC but definitely not without its weaknesses. Researches on the use of SSM in practice has been conducted (Mingers Taylor 1992; Brocklesby 1995), some findings in these and the literature generally are as follows: Advantages SSM helps to structure complex problem situations in an organized manner with the aid of specific techniques which makes it a thorough tool to use in cluttered problems (Platt Warwick 1995; Mingers Taylor 1992). The entire cycle of SSM is based on learning and supports user involvement (Mingers 1995). Its approach is holistic by focusing on wholes rather than reductionist (Brocklesby 1995; Camarinha-Matos Afsarmanesh 2008; Mingers Taylor 1992). It guides the user to look for a solution which is more than technical (Skidmore Eva 2004). Disadvantages The processes involved in SSM does not recommend a method of encouraging broad participation especially when it extends towards taking action though it recognizes participation (Jackson 2003; Khosrow-Pour 2009). SSM does not include methods for designing and implementing solution (Avison Fitzgerald 2003; Mingers 1995). The actual way of deriving information and data models from the activities is considered as ‘ad hoc’ due to lack of systematic means of determining information needed(Mingers 1995). SSM only works well with few people involved (Bell Morse 2003), though this favours the case of AIC but it could be time-consuming (Mingers Taylor 1992; Keenan Bustard 2009; Sutherland Morieux 1991) and demands high level of commitment which is usually not easy to achieve (Brocklesby 1995). The Organisation (AIC) AIC is a well recognized company specializing in management of properties. It has 3 branches located in Nigeria, one of them serves as the head office and each of the branches has an operations manager and the owner is the Managing Director of the company. Each branch has 8 to 10 Property agents and 1 or 2 accountants working under the supervision of the operations manager. The property agents act as an intermediary between property owners and seekers so they are responsible for allocating owners properties to seekers and management generally. Data about properties, owners and seekers are presently kept on paper files and each branch has one or two PCs. This business area is fast growing and the company wants to boost their efficiency in customer service delivery. The Managing Director of the company also felt the need for expansion. Some employees think there is need to improve on information handling especially due to the dissatisfaction of some customers (owners) with the mode of operation while some are less concerned and just wish for an increase in salaries. The MD has given his full support for a relevant and quick solution to be implemented in less than a year. Therefore, as an IS analyst, the situation will be further expressed and analysed using different modelling techniques suggested by Heeks and Morgan (2010a) and Heeks and Morgan (2010b). Problem/opportunity: The problem is the ineffective means of keeping records while the opportunity is the need for expansion. Stakeholder analysis Clients: Operations managers, Property owners and Property seekers Actors: Property agents, Accountants Sponsor: Managing director Owner: Branches, Operations managers Champion: Managing director, Operations managers, Property agents Others: IS analyst Problem Statement: An ineffective means of information handling due to paper-based approach. Project Rationale: To support the business expansion and remove all hindrances. Constraints: Environmental Prediction: The system is likely to last long because there are more supporters and expand its coverage if successful. Initial Statement: A system that eliminates the identified possible hindrance to the intended business expansion and supports the company desire to improve service delivery. CATWOE Checklist Root Definition: A system owned by the Managing Director and used by Operations Managers and Property Agents, which maintains proper record that helps in finding available properties for property seekers. The system to function under the financial constraints of the company and achievable in less than a year to assist the planned business expansion. Project Assessment Feasibility: Risk Assessment: This project, being a small one, is not prone to so many risks but a very obvious one that needs enough attention is the lack of IS experience in the organisation history. Others are Management Support and User commitment, the absence of these could result into loss of user acceptance and IS failure eventually. Project priorities: This is the only major project under consideration and crucial to the progress of the company. Analysis of the current system (Rich Picture) Note: A property seeker can purchase or rent a property or do both. Requirements for a solution It is advisable to operate the system within a network other than independently so there is need to set up a network. More PCs are required. Users need to be given adequate training.

Lord of the Flies :: essays research papers

By comparing and contrasting the characters of Jack and Ralph it allows the reader to fully understand their characters and how each develops throughout the novel. Once this has been achieved the reason the rivalry occurs becomes evident and the novel’s most important qualities and themes emerge from these two characters. It is then that we are able to see why Ralph and Jack’s friendship can never develop into anything but rivalry. Throughout the novel we see that Ralph and Jack share similar qualities, but there is a great difference in the way they use these attributes to benefit both themselves and others. Ralph uses his power to create a democracy, where each person has the right to voice their opinions and ideas. â€Å"I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking...and he won’t be interrupted.† The conch becomes a symbol of the right of a speaker to a fair hearing. While Jack uses his authority to produce a fascist, hostile environment where he controls the doings of his tribe. â€Å"Tomorrow we shall hunt† and â€Å"He said we weren’t to let you in.† Whilst both characters have the chance to exercise their power, both do so in a disparate way, with Ralph aiming to benefit the group as a whole, and Jack himself profiting from his actions. Ralph and Jack begin the novel with similar beliefs, both wanting to implement rules. â€Å"I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them.† Ralph concentrates on being rescued and Jack goes along with this taking on the responsibility that he and his choir will mind the fire. â€Å"We’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going-†, but while Ralph remains focused on being rescued, Jack’s newfound interest in hunting leads him to forget about rescue. â€Å"Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was. ‘Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first-.† As the story evolves, so to do Ralph and Jack’s different opinions. The pressure on Ralph and Jack’s different ideas peak when Jack forgets about his responsibilities in order to hunt. When Ralph tells Jack a ship had passed, and Jack had let the fire go out, because he had been hunting, all Jack can say is â€Å"You should have seen the blood!† Now Jack is faced with two choices. â€Å"There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense.

REsearch Paper on Bike Safety Essay

A. â€Å"The loss of 630 lives in bicycle crashes in 2009, just under two people every day of the year in the U.S., is a terrible toll† (â€Å"Bicycle Crash Facts†), states the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. B. Due to the lack of education in bike safety, Elementary Schools in the U.S. do not provide, children are more likely to be involved in traffic accidents, have an increased risk of death, and the rate of people riding bikes is rapidly decreasing. II. Body Paragraph Children are not informed properly about the different traffic signs, the importance of a helmet and other topics, which are fundamental for a person to be able to ride a bike. III. Body Paragraph In addition, Teachers and parents should encourage their children and students to ride their bikes more frequently, what could prevent them from obesity and pollution. IV. Body Paragraph Besides the positive change the use of a bicycle can have on a human body and even mind as they relax on their way, they help reduce pollution, as they do not create any carbon emissions. V. Conclusion A. Clearly, elementary schools in the United States of America do not satisfy the deficit of the bicycling information in the education system in order to prevent their students from eventual traffic accidents, perhaps even death and to encourage the next generation to use their bicycles more frequently. B. Summarize Body Paragraphs C. Saving 630 lives of sons and daughters in a year should not be a topic to discuss, but to be set immediately in action and support the greatest invention a human ever made, the bicycle. A Ride to a Better World â€Å"The loss of 630 lives in bicycle crashes in 2009, just under two people every day of the year in the U.S., is a terrible toll† (â€Å"Bicycle Crash Facts†), states the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Nowadays people live ignorantly with the idea of bicycling being too dangerous, forgetting that it is a healthy, alternative and effective form of transportation that provides a fascinating way of exercising. Not only do bicyclists have to be educated, but also every user of a public vehicle has to be informed about bike safety; every vehicle user has to be aware of bikes exactly as they are for other vehicles. In order for a cyclist to be safe, car drivers and motorcyclists have to treat cyclists as a vehicle exactly as they are. Due to the lack of education in bike safety, Elementary Schools in the U.S. do not provide, children are more likely to be involved in traffic accidents, have an increased risk of death, and the rate of people riding bikes is rapidly decreasing. Children are not informed properly about the different traffic signs, the importance of a helmet and other topics, which are fundamental for a person to be able to ride a bike. John Pucher, a professor of urban planning, has been conducting much research on transport policies, transport systems, and specially bicycling behavior in Europe, Canada, and the USA. Considered an expert on the topic planning and public policy, he informed; â€Å"Freiburg, Germany reported the largest increase in bicycling, almost doubling the bicycle share of trips from 15% in 1982 to 27% in 2007. These data suggest that it may be difficult to increase bicycling beyond already high levels† (Putcher, John). Without a doubt, the reason for the increase in bicycling in this country is education. In Germany, children in 4th grade have to obligatory take a license test for bicycles. Basically, it is the same as a driver’s license; for a month children are taught by their teachers about traffic signs and how to react in different traffic situations. After the theoretical lessons, they bring their already inspected bikes to school and start with practical lessons, riding on miniature traffic lines and obeying traffic signs previously installed. To make the situation seem more formal, children nervously take the theoretical and practical test, supervised by two police officers. Enthusiastically, every child wants to impress their parents by riding as good as they can. Tzirath Perez, a thirteen-year old girl, describes her experience in fourth grade: â€Å"Thanks to the bicycle lessons I had in Germany, now, when I ride my bike with my friends, I feel more secure, confident and I am glad I already know most of the traffic signs† (Perez). Because of the early encouragement for children, they are more willing to use their bikes and are prepared to ride through traffic safely on their way to their destination. By wearing a helmet and knowing exactly how to behave on the street when riding their bikes to school, German children help to reduce their parent’s car use because these young cyclists can travel safely without an automobile. Because these children ride their bikes to school in the morning they save their parents from the stress of hurrying to get ready in the morning for school and from spending time stuck in car congestions trying to get to school. Due to the bike lanes, which the U.S government has introduced to the streets, it is safer for children to ride their bikes and they will arrive faster at their destination. After school, when children ride home they relax their body and mind, enjoying the beautiful nature and breathing fresh air. While riding their bicycles between school and home, children have a little bit of time for themselves to calm down by forgetting about the stressful school and agitated parents. Jennifer Dill, a professor at the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning, states in her research paper: â€Å"An extensive and rapidly growing literature suggests the need to facilitate bicycling through appropriate infrastructure (such as bike paths and bike parking), traffic calming, training and education programs, and other supportive measures† (Dill, Jennifer). Obviously, the key word to this entire issue is education; schools are forming the values of the next era of humanity. If the following generation is not capable of understanding simple traffic signs, how to drive safely nor the daily impact the use of a car is having on our planet, they are slowly taking steps toward a world full of ignorant people, who will fail in their attempt to make our planet a better place. Surprisingly, teachers sometimes do not take their jobs as educators seriously and do not see the bike topic as an important factor in our society. America could experience a decrease in traffic accidents, where children are involved, not by reducing cyclists, but by educating properly America’s youth. In addition, Teachers and parents should encourage their children and students to ride their bikes more frequently, what could prevent them from obesity and pollution. â€Å"Obesity and physical inactivity among younger people is a major issue we have to tackle and biking has proved a very popular after-school activity with the youngsters† (Milford, Lynne), noticed Chris French, a senior public health specialist at NHS North East Essex, about the biking-program he has done in various schools as an extracurricular activity. Indeed, Chris French is setting a fabulous role model for us to follow, but our final goal is to incorporate bicycle education in our official education system, so it is obligatory for every single child who goes to a public school. In this way we can encourage them to do more exercising and learn from an early age on most of the important traffic signs to be better prepared when they have to do their license test in the future. If parents cannot afford to pay their children some kind of extracurricular activity outside from school, bicycling is a cheap alternative way that can be extremely pleasant for children in every age and adults in its various forms of use, such as â€Å"†¦mountain bicycling, racing bicycling, touring bicycling or BMX biking† (Baxamusa, Batul); fortunately, the numerous diversity of using a bicycle can appeal to all kinds of different people. Also, the excessively use of videogame is harming the next generation, because they entertain themselves for hours by not moving any body part, but their fingers making the burning of calories almost impossible. Besides the violence of this inadequate videogames reflects on the children, which start being disrespectful towards their parents and not obeying their restrictions. The routine would become eventually a vicious cycle, because the children keep disobeying their parents and playing more videogames. Although â€Å"33 percent of children and teens are obese in the United States† (Stein, Cherie), the majority of parents lamentably do not distinguish nor accept the overweight of their own children; due to the discriminating society we live in. A combination of lack of physical activity, genetic factors and unhealthy eating patterns is the major cause of obesity in children, enforced by their unwillingness to do exercise and outside-playing activities. Fortunately, two of these causes, physical activity and eating patterns, can be controlled closely by educators and parents, if they have a strong initiative toward their children. Children are easy to manipulate; if a parent or a teacher enthusiastically encouraged children to ride their bikes at least once a week and combined it with a healthy diet, the number of obese young people in the United States could easily be reduced. Also, bicycling cannot only decrease heart and lung diseases, but also asthma and overweight related diseases. Not only are the children in danger of healthy risks, but also in danger to the exposure of peers bullying them for their overweight. Eventually this type of harassment can lead to lower self-esteem and even mental harm. If a person has the tool to prevent and solve a serious problem with horrible consequences, this person should not waste a minute more on thinking this problem through, but solve it instantly. Most children in the United States have enough money to buy a videogame console, thus they should have enough money to buy at least a second-hand bicycle, making the issue of missing money irrelevant. Riding their bicycles to school, and in general as a common way of transportation, would surely prevent them from serious health problems and from loosing their self-esteem because of bullying by some of their peers. Besides the positive change the use of a bicycle can have on a human body and even mind as they relax on their way, they help reduce pollution, as they do not create any carbon emissions. â€Å"Based on the mechanical energy used †¦ the bicycle is roughly 10 times more efficient [than a car]† (Lawyer, David). David Lawyer has been studying for several years how much energy a vehicle of transportation needs and how much pollution it causes. Worthwhile, he calculated from the energy to produce a car and a bicycle, to the pollution they cause in a total and general view. Undoubtedly, the comparison turned out, as expected, to be favoring the bicycles, but now official by showing all his research to the public in his website. Providentially, SanFrancisco was performing a massive plan to improve the bicycle-conditions in this enormous, populated, urban city. Conscious officials wanted to create more bike parking, bike lanes and other cycling incentives, but one man, Rob Anderson, stopped the whole process by arguing â€Å"By eliminating some car parking spaces and traffic lanes to make room for more cyclists, the biking plan would create more traffic jams and more pollution† (Dvorak, Phred), and he demanded an environmental impact study before anything could be continued. Lamentably, a Californian superior court judge agreed with him, and so by stopped all pro-cycling activities until the study was done. Obviously, his argument did not have a certain point, because â€Å"a bicycle does not have any carbon emissions† (Forester, John), thus a bicycle is not harming the environment in any way and if a solution to pollution really existed, it would be to limit the car use instead of the bike use. Furthermore, every cyclist stands for one less car on the road and is amiably helping to â€Å"reduce approximately 31.37 pounds of carbon dioxide† (McNamara, Melissa), which will not pollute our atmosphere. The whole juristic issue took two years plus two years of studying the environmental impact, thus San Francisco had to wait until 2010 for the whole process to start where it had left. It is incredible how an insignificant individual could harm a whole city and part of the solution to a worldwide problem in such an arrogant manner. Instead of questioning the benefits of cycling, responsible citizen should consider all the consequences and detriments the excessively use of automobiles has been having on our atmosphere for the last couple of decades. Easily, a person can contribute to prevent the humanity of catastrophic after-effects, but teachers and parents could emphasize more the importance of a change in our society by improving the education on their students and children. Altruistic, individually contribution is required to make a significant change on the issues of global warming, acid rain, ozone thinning and other negative effects of air pollution, which the destructive impact of cars has been having in our world. Clearly, elementary schools in the United States of America do not satisfy the deficit of the bicycling information in the education system in order to prevent their students from eventual traffic accidents, perhaps even death and to encourage the next generation to use their bicycles more frequently. Instead of reducing bicyclers by persuading them bicycling is too dangerous, the American education system should rather implement rules and signs of bicycling to their students. Higher self-esteem and better health, mentally and physically, could be important benefits in children’s live in result of bicycling. An enormous change in our atmosphere and living customs would happen if the present and next cohort of humans learned to appreciate the extraordinary activity of cycling. Saving 630 lives of sons and daughters in a year should not be a topic to discuss, but to be set immediately in action and support the greatest invention a human ever made, the bicycle. Works Cited Baxamusa, Batul N. â€Å"Ride You Weight off.† Easy Health and Living Oct. 2008: 31-32. Print. â€Å"Bicycle Crash Facts.† Bicyclinginfo.org. University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, and Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. Dill, Jennifer. â€Å"Editorial Board.† Preventive Medicine 37.1 (2003): 24-25. Print. Dvorak, Phred. â€Å"San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?† Wall Street Journal (2008): A1. Print. Forester, John. Bicycle Transportation. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1983. Print. McNamara, Melissa. â€Å"Air Pollution Facts – CBS Evening News – CBS News.† Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment and World News – CBS News. 31 Jan. 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. . Milford, Lynne. â€Å"Bike Plan to Tackle Childhood Obesity.† The Daily Gazette. 12 May 2009. Print. Lawyer, David S. â€Å"Compare to an Automobile.† Bicycle Energy. L.A. Free Net, July 2010. Web Perez, Tzirath. Personal interview. 09 Dec. 2010. Putcher, John. â€Å"Infrastructure, Programs, and Policies to Increase Bicycling: An International Review.† Rev. of Increasing Bicycling Policies. Mar. 2010: 15-17. Print. Stein, Cherie. Your Child: A Recipe for Healthy Happy Children. Burleigh, Qld.: Zeus Publications, 2008. 16. Print.

Gerald graff pop culture in academics Essay

In Gerald Graff’s â€Å"Hidden Intellectualism,† Graff argues that schools should encourage students to think critically, read, and write about areas of personal interest such as cars, fashion, or music but as long as they do so in an intellectually way. I happen to agree with Graff and his perspective for many different reasons. I personally believe that students should be giving the opportunity to engage intellectually with pop cultural topics that interest them and get to apply their â€Å"street smarts† to their academic work. Teenagers can also relate to what’s going on in their own lives with the pop culture world. Sometimes it’s hard for teenagers to understand a certain topic but if teachers can explain it to them in a way that they can understand using pop culture, teachers should be allowed to do so. Pop culture should be allowed in the classroom as long as it’s used in an educational way and can help students learning. Graff talks a lot about â€Å"street smarts† in his essay. We all know someone who is â€Å"street smart† but they just don’t do to well in school and are unable to do well in academics. Some people may feel that it’s a waste of intelligence and knowing so much about life isn’t going to help you academically. Graff feels that it’s not those students fault and those students can be helped. He states that â€Å"What doesn’t occur to us, though, is that schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good Gonzalez 2 academic work† (pg. 380). Meaning schools and colleges should be held accountable for not being able to help those street smart teenagers and help turn their knowledge of life into academic work. Teachers should help these students learn how to understand the academics their teaching them with examples of the street smart knowledge they already obtain. Personally, I feel that street smarts beat out book smarts in today’s world. Street smarts is something that’s real knowledge to me and can help someone in the future unlike book smarts where everything feels unreal. Graff’s speaks of his own experience in school and how he felt he was the typical teenage anti-intellectual. All throughout high school Graff hated reading and books. The only thing he truly cared for was sports, and the only reading he did was reading sports magazines. Graff says â€Å"I have recently come to think, however, that my preference for sports over schoolwork was not anti- intellectualism so much as intellectualism by other means† (pg. 382). What Graff is saying here is just because he had rather choose sports over schoolwork doesn’t make him unintelligent it makes him smart but in a different way. I can personally agree with Graff. I’m not very interested in academic work but I grew up watching sports. Sports are full of challenging debates, arguments, analysis, and statistics. You can debate which team is better so why not use that same tactic but a different topic. I remember being in class not doing my work and talking about football or basketball. If a teacher was to explain reading or writing to me with using sports as an example I probably would’ve understood what they were saying and succeed in school. Have teenagers analysis sports topic and have them relate to them and see if they agree or disagree with that sport topic. Schools should create debates or arguments that teenagers can relate to. It will get teens to feel more involved and they might actually engage in the Gonzalez 3 conversation. We should be able to incorporate sport topics in school because not many students find educational topics very understanding or interesting. Teachers can easily use sports as a topic in every classroom discussion. Music in pop culture today has such a big influence on students. Everyone listens to at least some type of music any chance of the day they get. One of the main influences is hip hop music. Hip hop is all over the radios and you can find it in at least the majority of student’s phone players, iPod, or even CDs. Music has a huge influence on myself, personally. Music helps me concentrate and even helps me learn academic material better. It even helps my mind grow and develop better. Music actually improves communication between the right and left sides of the brain, allowing you to gain better comprehension and memorization skills which develop your brain to a higher level. Music has so much to do with metaphors and understanding lyrics and truly understanding the meaning of a song. It even helps to improve reading and comprehensive skills. Take Tupac Shakur for instance, his rap music has such meaningful metaphors which should be used in the classroom because they can truly help teenagers understand the meaning of a metaphor and students will actually be interested in the topic. Music is such a complex language that even incorporates mathematics, science, history, physical education,  ­coordination, and even mental ability. Most teenagers find hip hop artist like Tupac interesting because they can relate to Tupac’s music about daily life struggles about gangs, drugs and growing up in the â€Å"ghetto†. Since teenagers go through these struggles we should help give them something to relate to so they can know the real world isn’t perfect and a lot of people can be going through the same struggles as you. Gonzalez 4 Most people will disagree with the fact that schools should allow pop culture influences in education. That schools are made for learning academics and nothing else, like pop culture, should influence anything not academic. An argument could be that pop culture is a bad influence and can send the wrong message to teenagers. For instance that sports can send the message of promoting violence and that teenagers should stick to their own personal friends and not communicate with other groups of people. It can cause tension in the classrooms over debates because not everyone has the same opinion about a certain team. Or the simple fact that not everyone is interested in sports or have knowledge of sports and they don’t want teenagers to feel as if they don’t fit in. A lot of people will have negative comments about music in education and academics. Most will argue that music send the wrong message to teens. Some can even say rap music like Tupac exploits women and uses vulgar language. It promotes violence and criminal like activity. Which in some rap music and even Tupac’s music is true. He uses extreme vulgar language and talks about the â€Å"thug life†. It even includes sexual conduct in his rapping. Some can even say hip hop music period is distracting and if we promote music in schools. Like this, it will promote teenagers to get the wrong idea about school and education. That teens will go out and join a gang, become sexually active, and do criminal like activity. Even though some teenagers have a hard life and can relate to this music we should not remind them of their personal life’s and keep everything strictly academic. In conclusion, you can see that there is a positive and negative to having pop culture in today’s education. I personally feel that there should be a connection to education which Gonzalez 5 teenagers like I should be able to be interested in as long as it’s educational. Not everyone will have the same opinion as Graff and I so there should be an option to be able to take classes which you can use pop culture in your learning process or if you want to keep it strictly educational you should be able to as well. Either way pop culture is huge to teenagers today. Everything from music, fashion, sports, TV and celebrities. Teenager’s world revolves around pop culture and if we want to keep teens interested in learning we should find ways, like using pop culture, to keep them interested. Works Cited Graff, Gerald. â€Å"Hidden Intellectualism. † They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Eds. Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. , 2012. 380-87. Print.