Early School Leavers Essay Example for Free

Early School Leavers Essay Why do student dropout of school? Do you know why students drop out of school? Nowadays students usually drop out of school, to get a career. More than before job seekers are looking for people who have finished high school (at least). The fact that students drop out of school is caused for different reasons. There are three main causes why students drop out of school: they cant afford tuition, they prefer to work, and they fail the course. Family problems are one cause. If parents are divorced, no-one may be taking responsibility for the child. If parents are uneducated, there may be little encouragement to do homework or to stay in school. Financial factors are also important. Some students want to work in order to support their families. In contrast, others may have family businesses and not see any benefit in obtaining a high school certificates. Perhaps the main reason why students drop out is for academic reasons. For many students, school is stifling and boring. The curriculum does not challenge them or grab their attention and they are unable to be creative. Others have learning difficulties that need specialist help. New Zealand has the second-worst drop-out rate in the developed world. It shows that 26. 9 per cent of New Zealanders aged 15 to 19 are not in education. More than a quarter of Kiwi teenagers quit school early. Many students fail to complete their basic schooling. This can cause serious problems for the individual, their families and the country. In this opinion, I will examine the reasons why students leave school early, and suggest some possible solutions. I both agree and disagree with the reasons presented here. The paper said one of the main reasons is that students drop out because they PERCEIVE that classes are boring. The truth is that many classes ARE extremely dull, due to poor lesson-planning and unmotivated, apathetic teachers. Demonizing the students’ perception of the classes is nothing more than a tactful yet deceptive approach at the internal shortcomings of the educational bureaucracy. Instead of engaging work and active intellectual discussion/debate, students are forced to jump through the hoops of pointless busy work and futile self-help/self-awareness assignments such as this one. Student disinterest and apathy are products of a stagnant and stifling environment. Dropout rates, I personally believe, would be exponentially lowered if educators took a less bureaucratic approach at student achievement. You can’t have a successful one size fits all plan that will actually end up working. The theories of Dr. Howard Gardner attest to this by outlining the many different ways that people can think. Standards written by left-brain officials cannot work for predominantly right-brain students. For years in this school system my creativity and viewpoints have improve in some classes, but for the most part have been stifled by teachers not willing to either put forth the effort necessary to facilitate such individuality or that are simply opposed to any unorthodox thinking or changes in practice. In an environment where the students are not the â€Å"customers† and when individuality is squelched in the name of following senseless, regimented practices, the students are done a great disservice. I am committed to graduate ONLY because I know that I must do so to get anywhere in life. I am frustrated, dissatisfied, and stifled by MANY of the practices employed in many classes I have this year and have had in the past within the school system. Many who read what I have written here will look down on my views, because they will [see] them as â€Å"rocking the boat,† something that I believe it is safe to say is frowned upon here as a general rule. There is a quote by John Locke that says, â€Å"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common. There is such logic in this and the sad thing is that my ideas (in this respect) are neither new nor radical, only despised because they require energetic commitment to be put into practice. It saddens me deeply that the school boasts of a forward-thinking, cutting-edge, technologically-cantered, example-setting school system, when in reality these claims are only partially true. Money is NOT the issue. I am so fed up with the excuse of lack of funding bein g used to excuse time-wasting, needless activities! An engaging, entertaining, worthwhile class can be executed with nothing more than a committed instructor and engaged students . I am not referring to some ideal, yet non-existent classroom setting. My PHYSICS class this year has been absolutely enthralling EVEN THOUGH some of the required, yet frustrating practices have been implemented in her class on a regular basis. At the end of the day, those who come to school with a genuine DESIRE to take something away from the experience do so; and those who have no drive do not do so, REGARDLESSS of the implementation of the practices put into place in hopes of improving student achievement. The problem with these types of measures is that they focus solely on boosting TEST SCORES. THIS IS NOT THE PROPER APPROACH! (Standardized tests are 9 times out of 10 are a very poor representation of student UNDERSTANDING. Simple memorization is not adequate education! I can memorize scores of random information and then ace a test over it, but all that proves is that I have a good memory. Memory is of importance, there is no doubt of this, but equally, it is NOT the main goal. A deep understanding of the material is vastly more instrumental in the students gaining REAL-WORLD understanding. It is no wonder to me why so many graduates/dropouts here go into construction/metalworking, etc. These are the only classes many individuals find worthwhile because they are the few classes offered that provide hands-on experience that guarantee understanding through practice, not simple words. I guarantee you I can read an instructional book on how to do just about ANYTHING, and then write extensively on how to do it, but that writing is no proof whatsoever that I actually understand how to perform said task or that I am physically capable of doing the activity in a real-world setting. I have a lot more that I could say but basically all I’m trying to get across is that the entire focus in this school is wrong and that is one of the main reasons for teenage dropouts here. As can be seen, there is no one solution to the problem of school drop-outs. Educational authorities, parents and schools need to work closely together to find the reason for each student’s decision to leave school, and to try to do as much as possible to encourage them to stay in the system.

The Power of Music Essay -- Music Art

â€Å"Music is the universal language of mankind† (Longfellow, thinkexist.com). When most people think about music they think of it as a subtle art. It is something that most people take for granted in their lives. It is fun to sing along to a song in the car, or to dance along at a party, etc... It is also a background noise in movies, or parties, or a variety of other places. Most people never stop and think about the transformative power that music can have on them. It should be made clear though that music does indeed have a transformative power. When a person is feeling depressed an upbeat song can lift their spirits up. The same is true for the opposite effect as well. If someone is feeling up, a sad and morose song can bring them back down. This is just a small part of the power that music has over our lives though. As the quote points out, music is a universal language. It is something that people of all ages, religions, genders, and ethnicity can understand and enjoy. This is what truly makes music a powerful force in our world. What happens though when authors choose to put this power in their writing, though? What kind of similar messages and questions about music are raised in pieces from The Romantic Period and the Modern Era? While there may not seem like there is much in common from two eras hundreds of years apart, there are indeed some similar themes in the poems and stories from these two time frames. The most prominent of these themes is the theme of change, and how you can achieve it through music. It is not something that can be obtained by merely being around music. It is something that can only happen when you truly listen to the music around you. First, let us listen to the Romantic Period and the pieces w... ...tions. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. . Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. . Wordsworth, William. "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2A. Boston: Longman. 2006. 390-394. Print. Joyce, James. "The Dead." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Twentieth Century and Beyond. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2C. Boston: Longman. 2006. 2229-2256. Print. Coleridge, Samuel. "Dejection: An Ode." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2A. Boston: Longman. 2006. 606-611. Print. The Power of Music Essay -- Music Art â€Å"Music is the universal language of mankind† (Longfellow, thinkexist.com). When most people think about music they think of it as a subtle art. It is something that most people take for granted in their lives. It is fun to sing along to a song in the car, or to dance along at a party, etc... It is also a background noise in movies, or parties, or a variety of other places. Most people never stop and think about the transformative power that music can have on them. It should be made clear though that music does indeed have a transformative power. When a person is feeling depressed an upbeat song can lift their spirits up. The same is true for the opposite effect as well. If someone is feeling up, a sad and morose song can bring them back down. This is just a small part of the power that music has over our lives though. As the quote points out, music is a universal language. It is something that people of all ages, religions, genders, and ethnicity can understand and enjoy. This is what truly makes music a powerful force in our world. What happens though when authors choose to put this power in their writing, though? What kind of similar messages and questions about music are raised in pieces from The Romantic Period and the Modern Era? While there may not seem like there is much in common from two eras hundreds of years apart, there are indeed some similar themes in the poems and stories from these two time frames. The most prominent of these themes is the theme of change, and how you can achieve it through music. It is not something that can be obtained by merely being around music. It is something that can only happen when you truly listen to the music around you. First, let us listen to the Romantic Period and the pieces w... ...tions. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. . Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. . Wordsworth, William. "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2A. Boston: Longman. 2006. 390-394. Print. Joyce, James. "The Dead." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Twentieth Century and Beyond. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2C. Boston: Longman. 2006. 2229-2256. Print. Coleridge, Samuel. "Dejection: An Ode." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. By David Damrosch and Kevin Dettmar. Vol. 2A. Boston: Longman. 2006. 606-611. Print.

Judicial Activism Essay

It is perhaps unsurprising that the liberal court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren from 1953 to 1969 invalidated federal, state and local laws at almost twice the rate of the Roberts court. But the more conservative court that followed, led by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1969 to 1986, was even more activist, striking down laws in almost 9 percent of its cases, compared with just over 7 percent in the Warren court and just 4 percent in the Roberts court. The court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist from 1986 to 2005 was also more activist than the current one, at 6.4 percent. In a new book, â€Å"Terms of Engagement,† Clark M. Neily III of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian group, calculated that the Supreme Court struck down just 103 of the 15,817 laws enacted by Congress in the half-century ending in 2002. â€Å"It is implausible,† he wrote, â€Å"to suppose the federal government hits the constitutional strike zone 99.5 percent of the time.† Mr. Neily urged the Supreme Court to be more active but rejected the phrase â€Å"judicial activism.† After the Supreme Court argument in the case in the spring of 2012, with things looking grim for the fate of his law, Mr. Obama tried to shift the terms of the discussion back to activism. â€Å"I’d just remind conservative commentators,† he said, â€Å"that for years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.† Three months after Mr. Obama’s remarks, Chief Justice Roberts broke with his usual conservative allies and voted with the court’s four liberals to uphold the law. In a joint dissent, the four conservatives said the majority was wrong to portray its ruling as â€Å"judicial modesty† when â€Å"it amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching.† In a recent essay, â€Å"Why We Need More Judicial Activism,† Suzanna Sherry, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, said the Supreme Court had erred more often in sustaining laws than in striking them down. â€Å"Too much of a good thing can be bad,† she wrote, â€Å"and democracy is no exception.† The article’s central claim is based upon political science research showing that the Roberts Court has been more likely to reach â€Å"conservative† decisions than its predecessors. Liptak reports: In its first five years, the Roberts court issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time. And  in the term ending a year ago, the rate rose to 65 percent, the highest number in any year since at least 1953. The recent shift to the right is modest. And the court’s decisions have hardly been uniformly conservative. The justices have, for instance, limited the use of the death penalty and rejected broad claims of executive power in the government’s efforts to combat terrorism. But scholars who look at overall trends rather than individual decisions say that widely accepted political science data tell an unmistakable story about a notably conservative court. This distinction is important because the data presented by Liptak suggests that the Roberts Court is such a â€Å"conservative minimalist† court. Indeed, it appears to be the most restrained – or least â€Å"activist† (if â€Å"activism† is defined as willingness to overturn federal statutes or prior precedents) – Court since World War II. According to the data presented with the article in this chart, the Warren, Burger and Rehnquist Courts overturned precedents at an average rate of 2.7, 2.8 and 2.4 per term, respectively. The Roberts Court, on the other hand, has only overturned an average of 1.6 precedents per term. The record on striking down laws shows a similar pattern. The Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist Courts struck down an average of 7.9, 12.5, and 8.2 laws per term, whereas the Roberts Court has only invalidated an average of 3 laws per term. Liptak acknowledges this data at the close of his article, but downplays it with his description: â€Å"The Roberts court is finding laws unconstitutional and reversing precedent — two measures of activism — no more often than earlier courts.† So, while the majority of the Roberts Court’s decisions are â€Å"conservative,† the data Liptak summarizes does not appear to have resulted in a more â€Å"conservative† legal regime, as the Roberts Court has done relatively little to change the law (at least thus far) compared to its predecessors. This is important, because it effectively refutes claims that there is anything particularly radical or â€Å"activist† about the Roberts Court, even if one accepts that it is notably â€Å"conservative.† There is no evidence as yet that the Roberts Court is as willing to challenge federal power as the Court was under Burger (National League of Cities v. Usery) or Rehnquist (Lopez, Morrison, Boerne). There are exceptions, such as some of the Court’s Miranda decisions – which have certainly made the law less protective of criminal suspects and defendants – and Citizens United, but these exceptions are balanced by aggressive liberal opinions in areas like executive power and the death penalty. In sum, even if most of the Roberts Court’s decisions are â€Å"conservative† a substantive analysis of the Roberts Court’s decisions does not reveal a significant rightward shift in the law.

Merchant of Venice Essay The True Nature of Venetian...

The idea of mercy is important in The Merchant of Venice because it provides a focus for the contrast between Venetian Christian society and the alien invader, represented by Shylock. Mercy occupies a central position in the trial scene (IV.i.), where the power struggle between aristocratic Venetian society and the threatening force Shylock comes to a climax. My thesis is that the contrast between (and equation of) mercy and revenge in the trial scene reveals the true nature of Venetian society as insecure , hypocritical and vengeful. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Mercy is clearly of greatest importance to the Christians in this text. It is only mentioned in the trial scene by two†¦show more content†¦Shylock demands his bond with no other justification than a lodgd hate, and a certain loathing / I bear Antonio (IV.i.60-61). He tries to justify taking a pound of Antonios flesh by appealing to the Venetians sense of ownership, equating it to their slaves--The pound of flesh which I demand of him / Is dearly bought, tis mine and I will have it (IV.i.99-100). Shylocks use of strange language and images (lines 44-58) makes him appear uncivilized in contrast with the Christians talk of gentleness and mercy. Portias speech on mercy brings in the aspect of power, painting a grandiose picture to tempt Shylock to believe he can share this power by being merciful (and thus accepting Christian values)-- It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes, Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. IV.i.183-185 Shylocks reply - My deeds upon my head! I crave the law (IV.i.202) - makes him appear totally without mercy, at least superficially. However, we know that Shylock has little reason to trust Christian Venetian society because he has been abused and reviled by Antonio and others. It seems more likely that by being merciful, he would be accepting their value system and be taking the first step towards assimilation within ChristianShow MoreRelatedZen and the Art of William Shakespeare Essay2389 Words   |  10 PagesZen and the Art of Shakespeare      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Like all Buddhism, Zen is a means by which one can achieve Buddha-consciousness, or in effect total-consciousness. Total-consciousness means being aware of the true self and its role in regard to the infinite cosmos of all existence. This awareness allows one insight into or perhaps understanding of the Tao, the essential singularity to which all things belong. Understanding the Tao, for Taoists and Zen Buddhists alike, is the equivalent of Nirvana