Motivation in the workforce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Motivation in the workforce - Essay Example A strong corporate culture is the key for a corporation to attain success in its operation. "Company culture is based on shared values and workplace norms (e.g., innovation, risk-taking) not necessarily personality likenesses. Company cultures pervade the entire organization, not just certain departments or levels of employees."(Rao, 2003). Corporate culture is the underlying element inside a corporation. A strong corporate culture enables a company to deal with challenges effectively especially on its expansion worldwide. A strong corporate culture is characterized by cohesiveness and cooperation. It is of known fact that companies are not run by only one man. Companies are driven by groups of men with the goal of achieving success. It is important to achieve this state of order because companies really do need cohesiveness and teamwork in facing different challenges. Cohesiveness will bring the companies to have a smooth operation that is essential in attaining success. Every membe r is vital and plays a role of significance in the quest to have corporate success in every corporation around the world. "Culture has a vital and measurable impact on the organization's ability to deliver on its strategy. Thus culture is central for a successful operation and to long-term effectiveness of the company" (Gupta, 2007). BARRIERS IN MAKING A STRONG CORPORATE CULTURE In building a strong corporate culture which is tantamount to success is not an easy task. There are also barriers that must be overcome in order for an organization to have a strong corporate culture and succeed in its business endeavor. There are things that can be detrimental to building a strong corporate culture. "During the early 1900s, leadership was by fear and threats, forcing people to follow orders. This is man's natural instinct. This led to the policy of abuse which produced undesirable results" (http://www.motivation-tools.com/workplace). Man always has the tendency to be superior and being on top seems to have a strong feeling of superiority over others. Basically, a very autocratic leadership does not result to a strong corporate culture. A leadership that is abusive does not appeal to the heart of his employees. It may result to rebellion that sometimes manifested in non-cooperation. At times, autocratic leadership results in misbehaviors by leaders or managers. Some leaders take advantage of being a leader and tend to do sexual advances towards his employees. Some taking advantage is manifested in insulting employees even there is no apparent reason in doing so. A culture of immorality then plagues an organization and it is then in opposite direction of building a strong corporate culture because it creates a culture of destructive laziness. Destructive laziness is manifested in lack of interest in job activities because of perceived moral disintegration of leadership. MOTIVATION Motivation is a term we often hear which we generally associate with behavior. Most likely, we experience

Risk Management Within General Motors Company Essay Example for Free

Risk Management Within General Motors Company Essay This research looks at the General Motors Company and what led to company failure and filing of bankruptcy in 2009. The American automotive industry was poorly managed for years and was almost eliminated when the economy crashed in 2008. Without the help of the U. S. government, General Motors and Chrysler would not have been able to survive. How did GM, as the number one auto manufacturer and seller, go from being at the top to almost ceasing to exist? This kind of financial mess usually takes years of poor decisions and does not happen to a large company overnight. To come to my conclusion I analyzed four books written by people with inside knowledge of the company, as well as magazine articles and a couple of online websites. As a result of my research, I believe that the problems that GM faced stemmed from poor risk management. Rick Wagonner, former CEO, made several poor business decisions that did not take into account any future risks or market changes. A new management team and a fresh perspective were able to turn the company around and put them back at the top of the automotive industry. Risk Management within the General Motors Company General Motors has been in business since 1908 and currently employs 202,000 people in 157 countries world-wide. It is a well-known fact that GM took government bailout money and filed bankruptcy in 2009. How did one of the largest companies in the world fall to needing financial assistance and declaring bankruptcy? One of the largest issues within the company was the lack of risk management practiced by leadership. How did the company then bounce back from declaring bankruptcy to being the auto manufacturer who sold the most cars world-wide in 2011 (Rosevear, 2012)? It is quite a project to overhaul a company, and the end result was more than likely helped by good project management. There were several smaller projects involved in the large project of overhauling the company, including marketing projects, new car model development, forming risk management plans and paying back the government loans to name a few. Problems within the Company The issues that caused GM to lose their money did not happen overnight; years of poor business decisions led them to where the company stood in 2008. Several executives were very short-sighted in their decision making; they failed to set long-range goals and objectives which are important for successful strategic project management. In 1970, GM and the United Auto Workers (UAW) entered a new contract after a sixty seven day strike over wages. The most notable change with the new contract is that it allowed employees to retire after thirty years with the company with a full pension after the age of 57. At the time their full pension was $500 a month, but with inflation and wage increases, this number was much higher more than three decades later. They believed that early retirements would create new jobs for young people entering the workforce. Another strike occurred in 1973. This one resulted in a contract change that employees had the right to retire at any age with full benefits after thirty years working with the company ( Ingrassia, 2010). Men and women were now able to take full retirement at as early as the age of 48. Union members who decided to retire early would also receive extra pension pay until they were able to draw from Social Security. By 2003, GM had over 460,000 retirees and spouses, which outnumbered current employees almost three to one. All of these were collecting pension and healthcare, and the UAW members were still just as well off. The 1970s was the decade that undid GM; it set the stage for the financial hardships that the company would face with the downturn of the economy in future decades (Lutz, 2011). Another large money eater for the Detroit automotive companies was the union job banks, which were created as part of the 1984 labor contract. The goal for the program was to be a temporary option for laid off workers so that they could be retained for new positions when they opened; it was a sense of job security. Naturally, employees first went on unemployment when being laid-off. The UAW contract then required GM to give additional payments that would guarantee an employee 95% of their prior wages for forty eight weeks. Once this time period was over, an employee would enter a job bank. Here they would stay, while being paid, until their old plant reopened or a job became available at a factory within a fifty mile radius. Because nearby positions rarely opened, people would remain in the job banks for years. The requirements for staying in the job bank included volunteer work for company approved rganizations and programs. Or, employees could punch in at their empty building and pass the time by watching television, reading the newspaper, sitting on a computer, or playing Scrabble. The only stipulations were that they had to punch out to use the bathroom or go on their lunch break, and they could not sleep or play cards. Eventually, this program was costing GM an estimated $1 billion a year to compensate their employees who were not even working (Vlasic, 2011). In 2000, Rick Wagoner was promoted to the position of CEO of GM. He immediately instituted several changes throughout the company. He flew to Italy in March of that year to negotiate with Fiat because GM needed their diesel engine technology for their GM Europe divisions. GM obtained 20% of Fiat Automobile by paying Fiat $2. 5 Billion in GM stock (Ingrassia, 2010). In December of the same year, Wagoner announced that GM would be closing their 103 year old Oldsmobile division. This was a wise move since Oldsmobile sales had fallen almost 75% in the fifteen years leading up to this point. Wagoner hired John Devine, the former financial officer of Ford, to be GM’s new CFO, and in August of 2001 he hired Bob Lutz, who had redesigned Chrysler’s product line in the 1990s. To help the economy and sales after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Wagoner offered interest-free financing on every GM vehicle. Naturally, people flocked to the dealership showrooms to take advantage of this deal. Because of this, GM’s factories remained open, and money flowed to parts suppliers, dealerships, and ad agencies. Wagoner received praise from media throughout the country. However, an internal audit in mid-2001 showed that the company was not in as good of shape as the general public was led to believe. The analysis decided that GM had too many brands, too many dealers, too many factories, and too many workers. The report recommended that GM make cutbacks while times were good, but when this was presented to Wagoner he made a poor business decision and ignored the findings. In 2004, National Geographic magazine wrote an article titled â€Å"The End of Cheap Oil. † When Wagoner saw this, he once again ignored the facts. He was under the assumption that profits from SUVs and pickup trucks would continue to be strong- they probably would have if gas had stayed under $2 a gallon like it was in 2003 and 2004. Wagoner made several poor business decisions during his tenure as CEO of GM which led to the company needing help from the outside. In 2005, Jerry York was hired to analyze what was going wrong with the General Motors Company. He gave several ideas to get GM out of the financial crisis that they were in. At the time, GM still had enough cash to turn around the company. York suggested that the company well off Saab and Hummer. He also recommended cutting GM’s annual dividend in half to one dollar a share instead of two (Lutz, 2011). GM also could have cut the pay of their board members, senior executives, and mangers, and could have worked with the UAW to cut the healthcare costs that GM was paying to workers. On January 26, 2006, the board of directors heeded Yorks warnings and cut the dividends in half, cut executive pay, and eliminated several upper level bonuses. They also elected York onto the board. Another gentleman, Steve Girsky, did a six month analysis of the company in 2006. He estimated that out of the 107 vehicles in GM’s lineup that were produced in North America, 71 of them were unprofitable (Vlasic, 2011). Girsky suggested that GM spend their money on fewer but better products, cut production capacity and employees, be accountable for their goals, and acknowledge that GM was in serious trouble. This last suggestion would not be heeded for a couple more years. GM executives were not ready to admit that they were in over their heads. Heading into 2008, GM as a company was optimistic about the upcoming year. Many new vehicles were being produced or were being considered, and the new Chevy Malibu was named North American Car of the Year, GM’s second in a row since the Saturn Aura won in 2007 (Lutz, 2011). The company had quite a bit of debt, but this did not worry the executives. The first quarter of 2008 brought the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, followed by the financial crisis, failures from banks, and many home foreclosures. These episodes took hundreds of billions of dollars out of the U. S. economy instantly. By July, GM was making layoffs, suspending its dividends, and eliminating health benefits for retired managers and executives over the age of sixty five. In the second quarter of 2008, GM reported $15. 5 billion in losses ($181,000 a minute). With the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers Holding Firm came a standstill in automotive sales. Lehman Brothers was the fourth largest investment bank in the U. S. at the time, and when the financial giant declared bankruptcy, the public began to fear for their own finances and worry about the financial situation of the whole country. This is also when banks began to implement more strict policies about who they loaned money to and on what terms. The public was afraid to buy cars, and bankers were afraid to give loans. GM approached Ford asking for a merger, but Ford was not interested; they were the only automaker in Detroit that was still treading water. GM then approached Chrysler about a merger, but the deal never took place. By November, just after the presidential election, General Motors and Chrysler both admitted that they would run out of money by the end of the year (Ingrassia, 2010). A business tradition that hurt the company for years was that GM had cars in the U. S and Europe that looked alike on the outside, but shared nothing on the inside- causing high production costs. Several foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, and Audis all have only one headquarters, as well as one engineering and design staff; their vehicles are the same across the world no matter where they are purchased. GM expanded overseas before WWII and through the years acquired the auto companies of Vauxhall in the UK, Opel, and Holden in Australia. Having these manufacturing facilities made it possible for GM to product cars in several different countries. For a long time, this factor was an advantage to GM; brands stayed close to their target markets and the cards that Europe demanded were very different from the cars that American desired (Lutz, 2011). Beginning in the 1980’s, several other car brands were quickly being recognized throughout the world. Federal fuel economy regulations came into the picture, which caused the size of U. S. cars to decrease and they began to look like cars throughout the rest of the world. By this point in time, it easily cost $700 million to engineer a new car design; GM found it hard to create a lineup of competitive vehicles within a reasonable amount of money. The company also lacked innovation in their products. The company was moving quickly, but the competition was far ahead of GM in terms of innovation, especially in the area of fuel economy. The General Motors Company had several poor project management habits in place. When Jerry York joined the board of directors, he was firm with Wagoner. He believed that the CEO worked for the board, and the board represented the shareholders, who owned the company. He too believed that GM was a poorly managed company (Vlasic, 2011). The top management was only concerned about making money, and the board of directors was too afraid of failure. There seemed to be very little (or no) risk management; all of the predictions that Rick Wagoner and the company made about future customer demand were based on the assumption that gas prices would stay at one dollar a gallon indefinitely (Vlasic, 2011). The executives and board of directors were also afraid of aggravating the UAW, which led to billions of dollars of wasted money, overpaying workers and paying for employees who were not even working. GM at one time was the largest company in America; they did not know how to effectively minimize their costs when the economy took a nosedive, nor did they conserve resources for the chance that anything bad would happen to the American economy. Responses to Company Problems The first task on the agenda was finding money to keep the company running. The auto industry needed to ask Congress for money, but it was a tricky time because the country was just about to shift presidents. Neither president (Bush or Obama) wanted to deal with the car companies on their tenure. The Big Three combined were asking for $25 billion of government loans. The CEOs flew into D. C. on their private company jets and then proceeded to be humiliated by the politicians. Eventually, GM and Chrysler were given $14 billion in emergency loans. In order for the companies to receive this money, they have to cut their debt by two-thirds by convincing bondholders to take a stock-for-debt swap. The UAW would have to take stock in GM and Chrysler instead of cash for half that the auto companies owed the VEBA (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association) trusts, and the union would also have to immediately level their wages with those of the Japanese automotive plants that were in America- including their benefits. This last requirement was the breaking point for the UAW; they refused and argued that the UAW had already given enough to the auto companies in the last few years. Instead, within days President Bush gave $17. 4 billion from the $700 bank rescue package to keep the companies running for three months (Ingrassia, 2010). Bush’s requirement was that the companies needed to submit â€Å"viability plans† on February 17th, which would describe what the companies planned to do to return to being profitable. When President Obama took the office, he created the Automotive Task Force to investigate the American automotive industry and to suggest changes to be made. The task force decided that GM was a company that knew how to build great cars but did not have the necessary ability to market them. In early 2009, plans were drawn up to eliminate Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saab from GM’s lineup, for a future emphasis on Chevrolet and Cadillac). In April of 2009, GM made the announcement that they would exchange $27 billion of unsecured debt for GM stock. This was how they chose to try to drop the 90% of their debt that the Automotive Task Force was requiring, in hopes to avoid bankruptcy. This did not go as planned, as GM stock was at a low price and did not appeal to their investors. Because of this, the last option was for the government to buy the remaining stock. The government gave $30 million and now owned 60% of GM’s stock (Ingrassia, 2010).

Health and Safety in Health and Social Care

Health and Safety in Health and Social Care Introduction The employees as well as the other sections of an organization have to face various types of safety and health issues. The more risk of safety and health issues will decrease the confidence and the efficiency of the workers and it will decline the reputation of a certain organization. It is practicable to apply suitable safety and health policy for the organization. It should be done after considering all the relevant facts. Those factors can be understood by performing a through observation and study. The safe and secure environment should be maintained fro the employees and it is the duty of the management to take necessary steps to implement it LO-01: Implementation of health and safety legislation the social and health care center 1.1: The establishment of health and safety needs in a work place: The health and safety policy of a work place plays a major role in the organization. Poor health and safety policy of an organization will be a negative effect on the individuals, organizations and finally the society. A great attention should be paid to this subject in a social care work place where the risks of safety and health issues are very common. The effects of the issues related to health and safety can be smaller or critical. They can affect in many ways and the effects can be sufferings, injury or the death, psychological issues, financial issues, reduced productivity and low confidence. This situation leads to the destruction of the social image of the organization. Sometimes the safety related issue can be harming the development and the maintenance the business of that organization. This can be very serious when it is related to a social welfare institute. In certain cases the management has to suffer from severe financial losses. The employees must have the ability to work in a very protective and friendly environment. The relaxation can make great changes in the functioning of the organization. The organization wants to keep the employees in a good condition with performing their duties in a very relaxed manner. The well being of the employee is very essential for the employer to get the maximum benefit (Garcarz, W., 2005). The health and safety measures should be according to the expectations of the organization and they should not harm the progress of the organization. The application of suitable policy and marinating it can be a very important part of the organization and it will improve the commercial aspect of the organization 1.2 Impact of the health and safety needs on the employees and the practitioners: The management should be aware of the situation of the employees. The employees who do not perform in accordance to set guideline will face lot of problems. The employees should be trained in various types of activities related to the organization, the communication or getting correct idea about certain issues. All the problems of the formation can be reported and the other can get a clear idea about the issues and it helps the employer to get the maximum service of the employees as well as to minimize the health and safety related issues in the types of the situations and implementations. The following can be used to keep the communication regarding the health and safety issues in the organization (Fisher, A.,2005). These can be employed to inform the employees as well as it will be very useful in getting feedback of the employees as well as the customers and the practitioners of the institute. Health and Safety website of the organization Employees and modes of communication. Online employee health and safety introduction projects Employees information publications Safety manuals and Safe Work Procedures Instruction manuals and other literature. These sources can be employed according to the requirement as well as the affordability of the organization. The future improvements of the policy and other remedies can be possible if those problems are properly recorded. The management or the other responsible parties can make necessary alterations to the policy. The issues of the organization should be carefully assessed by the, these reports can be possible with the following methods. Workplace accident inspection reports Accident and incident report Health and injury and other issues management report Report of the injured workers compensation Audits of the health and safety aspect 1.3 Monitoring and review of health and safety strategies: The management is the decision making body of the organization so they are responsible fro each and every decision of the organization. The management or the employer has to perform a great task in maintaining a satisfactory standard in the health and safety condition of the entire organization (Fisher, A., 2005). The health and safety should be applied to each and every individual who is associated with the organization. He has to manage each and every aspect of the organization so that he can pay more attention to the health and well fare of the people of the organization. The management has to plan a risk free environment for the employees from various components of the place of work. Providing information, instruction, training and supervision regarding safety and health of employees The management or the employer makes the employee aware of the safety and health of the place of work. The management can offer the employees with welfare and other facilities. Preventing risks to other people at the place of work including, for example, visitors, customers, suppliers and sales representatives The employer should prevent others from falling into trouble The employer or the manger must have some remedial plans or solutions for the emergency. LO-02 Impact of health and safety requirements on customers and the work of practitioners 2.1 The effect of the risk assessment on the planning of organizational and individual decisions It is a fact that the workers who are employed in the health care sector of any country have to perform a variety of duties. Sometimes they have to perform risky and hard duties. There is the risk of contamination as well as exposing themselves to the danger. So it is a must to understand the situations that they have to face. As many of the workers are performing multitasks in the hospital, they are more vulnerable to hardships (Moonie. N.,2000). There will be danger in various activities that they perform, such as handling the patients, cleaning the place transporting and handling the medical instruments. The risks that the employee has to face can be divided into 5 types Biological risks- This is one of the most common situation. The getting exposed to several diseases and getting negative effects or getting the diseases This is one of the prominent issues a management has to answer in the process of making new changes to the system. Chemical risks. Chemicals which are used to treat cancers and other critical issues can be understood as one of the health and safety issue Physical risks– Ionization and radiation are good examples. The employees who are used to assign to handle those machines and chemicals are to be paid. such as Ergonomic risks,- the danger of getting injuries and harmed. This can be resulted in mostly handling patients. For example, patient handling Psychosocial risks– this is another r types of health and safety issue in handling violence and shift work 2.2 Analyzing the priorities of health and safety strategies: The reporting of the health and safety issues in the organization is a very important part. The relevant incident should be reported to the management in the perfect manner and the feedback can be successfully applied by the management and other policy makers to make more practicable policy in health and safety needs ain an organization. The management can get several advantages of these reports to the welfare of the organization; he can use the collected knowledge and experience in order to do several activities fro the well fare of the company Employees as well as the community (HSSCU, 2010). As the employer wanted to make the health and safety legislations more effective it should be implemented with proper planning after the identification of various connected facts. The proposed plans and ideas should be able to match the structure of the organization. It can be done in the following manner Care planning There are several types and modes of implementing policies for the organization. Most of the organizations try to create the policy while offering the maximum benefit to the employees. The wellbeing and the satisfaction of the employees are taken into the consideration. Dilemmas and challenges It is not an easy task to introduce an effective safety policy into an organization. There will be lots of dilemmas and also challenges to the management. So the policy should be considered very carefully after taking all the parties into the consideration, Own practice- The implementation of the policies can be vary from organization to organization. So the process of implementation legislation should be done according to the culture and environment of the area. Monitoring and revising. The procedures and updates should be monitored and the observations can be applied to the development of the policy. An organization can get good examples from the previous threats and drawbacks Creating a healthy and safety working environment- a safe and healthy environment can be made for various levels or categories of the employees. The management can use training programs and workshops in order to get more feedback. 2.3 Application of the safety and health policy into the place of work The management should pay a great attention to ensure the employees’ awareness of the health and safety issues. The employees should be aware of the possible dangers that they have to face as well as the customers and practitioners have to face. The process should be started with a basic level of cleanliness. They should be properly educated with proper handling of chemicals and the same keeping the environment in the perfect manner (Garcarz, W.,2005). They should be trained to dispose the garbage in the perfect manner. In that way the management will get the ability to reduce most of the health hazards in the place of work. LO-03 Monitoring and reviewing of health and safety policy: 3.1 Situation of the safety and health strategies in the place of work: There should be facilities to monitor the protective and preventive measures. This step will be useful to assess the practicability of the policy which is introduced to the organization. This should be done continuously as it can offer the best idea after certain period. The assessment should be checked over and over in order to find the most suitable version or the policy. The implementation of health and safety policy in a place of work can be very useful to all the relevant parties. The employees can get the benefit of having the freedom to work as they wish and they can perform according to the requirements of the organization without getting into trouble or putting others into trouble. The second party is the management (CIS, 2010). They can maintain the functions of the organization in a very smooth and they will be to gain more profits. 3.2 Effectiveness of the safety and health strategies: The customers and the practitioners are too getting many advantages the place of work will be a very interesting place for the employees as well as the employers. The management puts his attention on the employees, practitioners as well as the visitors to the organization. When concerning the safety and the well being of the employee, the employer should pay his attention on following. The employer must keep his duty of making a satisfactory working area for the employee. There are several duties of the employer. As there are more positive changes many customers will visit the place and the future of the organization will be very successful. 3.3 The individual contribution to the implementation: The practitioners will be able to offer their respective service in the best manner; it will be a great advantage for the business. The management should try to apply various types of strategies in order to select the most suitable one. It may take time but the final result will be very important to the organization. The each and every member of the organization should pay his or her contribution in the process of understanding and the implementation of the health and safety policy. They should take part in those training and awareness programs and should be getting themselves well educated. It is a very easy and successful task if the employees and other relevant parties are ready to move forward. 4.0 Conclusion: The health and safety plays a prominent role in an organization. It is the duty of the management to implement a suitable policy and it should offer the positive changes to the organization. In a social care organization, more attention must be paid for the health and safety factor as the employees are more vulnerable to various types of diseases as well as accidents. The policy should be changed according to the requirements of the individuals as well as the requirement of the time. This can be done by careful evaluation of the process ( Moonie. N., 2000).. The measurements of the safety and health can be utilized by the management in order to find the negative as well as positive features of the existing policy. It can be updated or changed after careful assessment. 5.0 References: AHS. (2010).Strategic Plan for Workplace Health and Safety.Available: www.albertahealthservices.cahttp. Last accessed 10/5/2014 CIS. (2010).Assessment. Com. Health and Safety in an Adult Social Care Set.Available: Fisher, A. (2005).Health and Social Care. London: Oxpord-Henemann. Garcarz, W (2005).Statutory and Mandatory Training in Health and Social Care: A Toolkit for Good Practice. -: Radcliff publishing-oxon. -. https://:www.cis-assessment.co.uk. Last accessed 10/5/2014. HSSCU,. (2007).Health Services – Information about workplace health and .Available: http//www.hse.gov.uk. Last accessed 9/05/2014. HSSCU,. (2007).Health Services – Information about workplace health and .Available: http//www.hse.gov.uk. Last accessed 10/05/2014. Moonie. N (2000).Advanced Health and Social Care. London : Oxford: Heinemann. Contribute to the developmence of healthynt and maintena. Available: http//www.ocr.org.uk. Last accessed 9/5/2014. http//www.osha.europa.eu. Last accessed 11/5/2014.

Ignorance Concerning Child Abuse Essay -- Violence Against Children

It is said that our children are our most precious resource. They should be protected and allowed to grow up with out being mistreated. Child abuse is a disturbing problem in our country. Most people don't think about child abuse. They just go about their everyday lives doing nothing to combat this issue. They choose to ignore that the problem exists because it is too ugly to look at. It is easier to not do anything if you don't see it in your own life. Therefore, it appears that those people who try to make a positive impact have in someway come in contact with abuse themselves. For this reason child abuse still exists and will probably always exist. The way to stop the abuse is to educate our society about this issue. In recent years we have progressed a great deal in the awareness of this problem. A few decades ago it was not mentioned at all in the media and rarely at home. The subject was taboo and only brought to light in the most extreme cases. Parents using corporal punishment was more common in those days and therefore true abuse was harder to detect. Now many instances are reported on the news and in other media. We are saturated with the reality of violence by TV shows, movies, ads, books, and other art forms. Children's faces are on milk cartons and billboards designed to raise the public's awareness. Most people, such as teachers and parents, know the basic signs to look for in an abused child. It seems that we have come a long way in the battle against child about. However, there are still many problems we must still overcome. Most people don't know that even when a case is reported there is still a high chance that nothing will be done to protect the child. The psychological abuse which chi... ...use, we can help stop what is happening to children everyday. With hope, we will be able to use this new information to prevent the dilemma from getting worse. Our country vitality relies on youth. To ensure this vitality and movement forward, and our society must be educated and simply take a stand to protect children from abuse. Bibliography: 1. www.infoseek.com a. Searched for child abuse, child abuse articles, and child abuse prevention A. www.yesican.org/articles 1. Invisible Scars by Dr. Stacy Becker 2. When Children Tell and No One Listens by Sherry A. Quirk 3. The Link between Child Abuse and Domestic Violence written for Child Protection Leader B. www.naplesnew.com 1. Child abuse Deaths Go Unpunished, by Associated Press C. www.prevent-abuse-now.com 1. Adult-Child Sex: Is It Abuse or Misuse? by Nancy Faulkner, Ph.D.

Discuss Yeats’ changing attitude to ‘Romantic Ireland’

It is one of the dualities in Yeats' work that a poet renowned for the universal forlorn love lyric should be so inextricably bound to the particular identity, struggle and destiny of the Irish nation. However, on closer examination, Yeats' poetic style proves that seeming paradox is easily explained when the true nature of Yeats' idealism is taken into account. This essay shall argue the apparent political revolutionary commitment seen in the 1910's was something of an aberration, in a transitional period of his career. To locate this transition, it is necessary to start at the beginning and end of his life, and work inwards, tracing the changing portrayal of Ireland in his verse. The early Yeats was part of a strong Romantic tradition. Its liking for the emotional authenticity of folk-lore found a ready place in Yeats' work, as he exploited the rich Irish mythological tradition: his long narrative works all date from this first stage. The first collection uses the ballad form frequently, and the simplicity of poems like ‘To An Isle in the Water' – â€Å"shy one, shy one/ shy one of my heart / she moves in the firelight† – recalls traditional Irish poetry. Perhaps archetypal of Yeats' early romantic pieces is ‘To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time'. His treatment of Ireland and formal technique come together under the auspices of traditional Romanticism: he is unapologetic about drawing from â€Å"Old Eire and the ancient ways.† The poem is populated by mythic and shadowy figures from Ireland's Gaelic past: the warrior-king Cuchulain, a druid, and Fergus, sometime King of Ulster. Despite coming from an Irish Protestant family, Yeats still paints Ireland as a Celtic idyll, and evokes it using traditional Romantic imagery – stars, the sea, woodlands, flowers. The use of the rose as a motif throughout his early work is indebted not only to the Order of the Golden Dawn, but to Blake in particular. Both shared a mystical tendency beyond Christianity echoed by Yeats' own wish to be a seer-poet in the Irish tradition: the keeper of the narrative of identity. Formally and technically, it shows the clear legacy of Romanticism too. The opening line, in solid iambic pentameter, runs as a stylized invocation – a common technique of traditional lyrical verse. The repetitions echo prayer, further intensifying the spiritual dimension of the piece. The vocabulary, whilst not necessarily archaic, is certainly that of traditional poetic diction: â€Å"thine†, â€Å"whereof†, â€Å"boughs.† There is a similar stylization in the syntax – â€Å"I would, before my time to go† – and personification of â€Å"eternal beauty wandering on her way.† This phase of his poetry, known as the ‘Celtic twilight' period, is rich in similar poems; their keynote being Irish themes and myth married to Romantic style and concerns such as unrequited love, heroism and mystical union with nature. Other pieces which use Irish mythology are â€Å"The Hosting of the Sidhe', ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus', but the idea of a Celtic idyll (derived from the Romantic's radical reshaping of pastoral idealism) runs throughout. This early work is a strong contrast to his final collections, some three or four decades later. It is impossible to characterise such an extensive body of poetry with few examples, but the progression is distinctive. His cultural frame of reference seems far wider, drawing on such diverse sources as: â€Å"a Quattrocento painter's throng / A thoughtless image of Mantegna's thought†[1] to the famous symbolism of Byzantium, representing imaginative unity and the highest form of culture. Formally, the uniform elegiac tone of the early verse (broken only by simple ballads and refrains) is replaced by much greater variety. Yeats' background in theatre comes through in many pieces relying on the dialogue form. There are also the unique and iconoclastic ‘Crazy Jane' poems, as well as series of lyrics and fragments of a few lines. The tone is far less stylised and less self-consciously Romantic: ‘Crazy Jane' represent the apex of a far more open and natural diction. The portrayal of Ireland in these poems mirrors the new progression in style. ‘Under Ben Bulben' sees Yeats' rather desperately asking young writers to â€Å"learn your trade† and â€Å"cast your mind on other days.† This strikes a more resigned tone than the early ‘To Ireland In The Coming Times' where Yeats affirmed: â€Å"I cast my heart into my rhymes† and evoked â€Å"faeries, dancing under the moon / A druid land, a druid tune!† ‘Parnell's Funeral' is not so much resigned, as starkly cynical, with Yeats stating: â€Å"all that was sung / all that was said in Ireland is a lie / bred out of the contagion of the throng.† It is an attitude shared in the acerbic ‘The Great Day' and also ‘Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen' which describes the â€Å"traffic in mockery†: â€Å"We, who seven years ago Talked of honour and truth, Shriek with pleasure if we show The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth† The poems in The Tower and The Winding Stair, particularly, portray melancholy despair which sees Yeats retreating, whether it be to the symbolic Byzantium, or his own watchtower at Coole Park. The everyday chaos of Ireland is left behind as Yeats surrenders to reflection. Yet this also marks a continuation between the two periods; in the figure of a solitary, reflective artist: â€Å"a man in his own secret meditation / is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made† (‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.') We see, too, that Yeats had lost none of his gift for the lyric.Note the solemn mysticism of â€Å"wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood† (‘Her Vision In The Wood') or the powerful spiritual aphorism in ‘Under Ben Bulben': â€Å"Many times man lives and dies / Between his two eternities.† This continuity, although at odds with the progressions already noted, helps to explain them. It is the vital thread running through his transitional phase, unifying both early and late Yeats, and provokes fresh inquiry into the so-called ‘political' poems. Yeats was always a Romantic in the Keatsian or Tennysonian reflective strain, rather than the radical political side. Hid poetry nearly always came imbued with myth, ‘otherness': he proceeded from the Late Romantic period to form a kind of Romantic Modernism more characteristic of American poets such as Hart Crane. His interest in dream symbolism and automatic writing also placed him with the impressionistic side of Modernism (eg.Surrealism) rather than the harsher or more violent wings (imagism, futurism etc.) Yeats' myth-making and political romanticism is lucidly apparent if the use of legend in the ‘Celtic twilight' phase is put under closer scrutiny. Without placing too much store on biographical details, Celticism (in the hands of Yeats and others) was double-edged. Although it did support national identity and culture, it was also reinforcing imperial stereotyping of the Celts as irrational, feminine and emotional. By using the ancient myth of Ireland, Yeats was implicitly denying that Ireland had a present; by glorifying the peasantry and the oppressed, he was implicitly affirming that Ireland's place was as a subjugated nation. This paradox has been noted in a general sense by Edward Said: â€Å"to accept nativism is to accept the consequences of imperialism too willingly, to accept the very radical, religious and political divisions imposed on places like Ireland.†[2] Yeats' is not a radical revolutionary idealism, but an imaginative idealism: running along metaphysical and mythopoetic lines; not historical or political ones. If this tendency – the tendency to escape into myth – is noted, the later pieces seem less removed from his early career. Yeats peppers his verse with references to former poets, and explicitly assumes the Romantic mantle for himself: â€Å"Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it, Before that brief gleam of its life be gone.† (‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen') He revels in the symbol of the winding stair to mythologise the poet's ascent to meditate on the turbulence of the world below. Whereas before Ireland's enchanted past was the myth, now Ireland is yoked to greater schemes. The civil war representing the violence and disillusion of existence to be set against the spiritual purity of the poet in his tower. The events in Ireland are chained to Yeats' elaborate visions of cyclical history set out in ‘The Second Coming' and ‘The Gyres.' The â€Å"violence upon the roads† (Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen† and the â€Å"rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop† (‘Meditations in Time of Civil War') are local analogues for the universal â€Å"blood-dimmed tide† of ‘The Second Coming'. Yeats still does celebrate Ireland – it would be fallacy to suggest that the violence of the Civil War sickened his idealism so much he could never face Ireland again with anything but cynicism. However, his engagement was often wary, sometimes ironical – the drinking song of ‘ Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites.' Neither can it be ignored that he occasionally refashioned his old Celtic schemes, most famously in ‘Under Ben Bulben' although even here it becomes a segment of a wider schema: â€Å"gyres run on / when that greater dream had gone.† It is particularly interesting, although perhaps not surprising, that Yeats took the events of the civil war and immediately mythologised them. As mentioned above, the black-and-tan conflict becomes an antithetical tension in his meditative poems, or is encompassed into some larger historical cycle. In various pieces, the heroes of Irish independence take their historical place neatly alongside Wolfe Tone and the Celtic warriors. Even before the fate of the Irish Free State had been decided, Yeats had abstracted the civil war and the contemporary crisis into history and myth. It seems that in his poetry, Ireland had to be romantic. Which helps to explain exactly why Yeats had a seemingly ‘political' phase. Essentially, for a brief period, the reality of Ireland suddenly became equal to the romantic ideal – a struggle for an ideal and a dream, a forging of identity, a moment of historical crisis, death and beauty side by side. Yeats suddenly found that, for a moment, romantic Ireland seemed to be tentatively existent. It must be noted that the ‘political' phase coincided beautifully with the technical and stylistic transition. It would be mere speculation to try to delineate some kind of causal relationship, but it is clear that by 1914 Yeats was searching for some kind of new poetic idiom. His patchy excursions into Imagist style verse in The Green Helmet show he was dissatisfied with simply creating carbon-copy Keatsian Celtic lyrics. It was also about this time that the first dialogue poems began to appear. Emotionally, the tone of the poetry is dejected too. Yeats â€Å"grew weary of the sun† and suggests he might have â€Å"been content to live† in ‘Words'. ‘No Second Troy'rebukes Gonne: â€Å"she filled my days / with misery†, whilst the downbeat ‘Lines written in Dejection' sees him with â€Å"nothing but the embittered sun.† It is seemingly with the Civil War that Yeats found a way to harness his Romanticism to both modern Ireland and to Modernism itself. The period was one of great variety in style and theme. Culminations of his wistful melancholia appear as late as The Wild Swans of Coole (notably the title poem.) Yet they lie side by side with dubious Modernist outings like ‘The Balloon of the Mind' and more successful sparse and clean verse like (perhaps supremely) ‘Easter 1916.' Poems like ‘The Phases of the Moon' and ‘Ego Dominus Tuus' anticipate Yeats' later metaphysical and philosophical bent. And he was still glorifying the Irish peasantry in pieces like ‘The Fisherman.' As Bloom points out â€Å"the two years from late 1915 to late 1917 were the most important of Yeats' imaginative life.†[3] Surely no accident then, that such a time frame was identical to the opening of the Irish hostilities. A longer transitional period (Responsibilities to Michael Robartes) interlocks uncannily with the end of the Home Rule, the Easter Rising and the course of the Irish Civil War. Thus it appears the Ireland's revolution either spurred Yeats' poetic career on to new ground, or he exploited it to facilitate the transition. In ‘September 1913†², disillusioned by the philistine and listless middle classes (symbolised by the â€Å"greasy till†), is among the strongest glorification of the Irish revolutionary tradition: â€Å"they were of a different kind, The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind, But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman's rope was spun, And what, God help us, could they save?† The second in the triptych of Yeats' war poems (the other was Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen), was ‘Easter 1916', where Yeats even questions the viability of art to encapsulate the glory of the revolutionaries: â€Å"no, no, not night but death.† This is quite a reversal for an artist who is fiercely aware of the myth-making possibility of poetry, and the importance of the narrative bardic tradition to Irish identity. Yeats is quick to contrast the everyday â€Å"polite meaningless words† and the bourgeois world of â€Å"eighteenth century houses† with the sacrifice and honour of the 1916 rebels: â€Å"We know their dreams, enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse – MacDonaugh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse.† Yet even here, perhaps at the very apex of his political phase, there is doubt – â€Å"too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart† and foreboding of an destructive, irreversible change: â€Å"changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born.† These two separate images remind us that Yeats was an imaginative (and not political) idealist, and evoke two of his emblematic concerns: stasis, and the dying moment. Both his traditional and Modernist Romanticism are rooted in an intense awareness of time and history. The ‘Celtic twilight' poems, with their exploration of myth, unrequited love, and sorrow, sensualise and unify the tension between the Romantic polarity of eternity and transience; compare with Blake's ‘Auguries of Innocence' or Shelley's ‘To A Skylark.' Whilst never fully leaving the shadow of the Romantics – consider â€Å"I meditate upon a swallow's flight† from ‘Coole Park, 1929' – he also engaged with the Modernist crisis of temporality. The Modernist project to obliterate time has an ally of sorts in Yeats. One might consider the ‘out of time' reflections of the tower poems, the instant of rape enlarged into ‘Leda and the Swan', the a-temporal juxtaposition of historical figures in ‘The Statues', and of course the apocalyptic visions of ‘The Second Coming' and ‘The Gyres.' Note, too, the vast amount of material Yeats wrote on the experiences of aging and death. It is this obsession with time that reveals Yeats' true image of Ireland. Ireland, for him at least, had to be romantic Ireland, otherwise it something to be rejected as inferior – philistine, crude, brutal – and inimical to the soul of an imaginative artist. The Ireland of Yeats' verse was always an Ireland of the past, an Ireland passing away, with one eye on the eternities of legend and history. The images of Ireland changed repeatedly yet the undertow of myth remained the same. For a brief period around ‘Easter 1916†² – a time that fortuitously coincided with and perhaps enabled Yeats' technical transition – the reality of present Ireland was seemingly equal to its mythic past. It is ironic that Yeats' most relevant and political poem was also his greatest act of myth-making. What was really â€Å"changed, changed utterly† was not the history of Ireland, but Yeats' imaginative landscape. Ireland, once again, faded to romantic legend, and was dead and gone. Yeats slotted Pearse as heir to Cuchulain in his mythic schema, and continued his intrinsically timeless and subjective quest, fusing Modernism, Romanticism – and Ireland – into his own poetic idiom.

Dual Enrollment in High School and College

Dual Enrollment in High School and College The term dual enrolled simply refers to enrolling in two programs at once. This term is often used to describe programs designed for high school students. In these programs, students can begin working on a college degree while still enrolled in high school. Dual enrollment programs can vary from state to state. The names may include titles such as dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and joint enrollment.   In most cases, high school students in good academic standing have the opportunity to take college courses at a local college, technical college, or university. Students work with their high school guidance counselors to determine eligibility and decide which courses are right for them. Typically, students must meet eligibility requirements to enroll in a college program, and those requirements may include SAT or ACT scores. Specific requirements will vary, just as entry requirements vary among universities and technical colleges. There are advantages and disadvantages to enrolling in a program like this. Advantages to Dual Enrollment You can get a jump start on your college plans. By earning college credit while still in high school, you may be able to reduce the time and money youll spend in college.In many cases, a portion of the dual college/high school course tuition is paid for by the state or the local school board.The dual enrollment courses are sometimes offered right in your high school. This enables students to become familiar with the workload of a college course in the comfort of a familiar setting.Some colleges offer dual enrollment via the Internet. Disadvantages to Dual Enrollment It is important to look into the hidden costs and risks you may face once youve entered a dual enrollment program. Here are a few reasons why you should proceed with caution: Students may receive a textbook allowance, but others may have to pay for any textbooks. The cost of college books can be daunting. For instance, a college-level science book can cost more than one hundred dollars. You may want to research the cost of textbooks before you sign up for a specific course.If college courses are offered only on the actual college campus, the student will be responsible for travel to and from the campus. Consider the cost of transportation. You have to factor travel time into your time management considerations. Your tests can be more challenging, and you may suddenly have less time to study for them!College courses are rigorous, and students can get in over their heads sometimes. College professors expect increased maturity and responsibility from their students. Be prepared! By signing up for college courses before you’re ready, you may end up with poor grades- and those will stay on your college record forever.  Bad grades can wreck your colleg e plans. After you sign up for a college course and you start to feel like youre slipping behind, there are only two ways out: withdraw from the course or finish the course with a grade. Remember that your ultimate dream college will see both of these when you apply. Failing grades can make you ineligible for your dream college. Withdrawing from a course could make you ineligible to graduate from high school on time! Many college scholarships are designed for freshmen. If you take too many college courses while youre in high school, you could make yourself ineligible for some scholarships.Whenever you sign up for college credit courses, you are officially beginning your college career. That means you will establish an official record wherever you take courses, and you will have to provide college transcripts of those courses whenever you enter a new college- for the rest of your life. Whenever you change colleges, you will need to provide transcripts to a new college. If youre interested in a program like this, you should meet with your high school guidance counselor to discuss your career goals.