China Between The Fall Of The Kmt And Mao Tse-tungs Death :: essays research papers

China Between The Fall Of The KMT and Mao Tse-Tung's Death The time from 1949-1976 was a time of transition for China. Many social and economic changes occurred through this period. When the Kuomintang government collapsed and Mao Tse-Tung assumed control, this marked the beginning of massive reformation for what would become the People's Republic. With Mao Tse-Tung's rule came governmental reform which led to social betterment. His first years of rule included careful development and reorganization backed by Soviet support. The landlord class was wiped out with the nationwide land reform and the land was divided among the peasantry. Equality prevailed for women and attacks where made on official corruption. Efforts were made to improve sanitation and literacy among the people. These changes generated patriotism during China's involvement in the Korean War. While social reforms proved to be beneficial to China, attempts for industrial and agricultural growth were not as successful. From 1953-57 industrial production was expanded and agriculture was collectivized. But disappointing agricultural production led to the frenzied Great Leap Forward of 1958-60. This program, initiated by Mao, was designed to step up industrial production to a level with Britain and create a truly communal society without Russia's aid; all in the course of 15 years. The project was a failure and Liu Shao-Ch'i temporarily took over Mao's position as head of state. When differences between party leaders arose, and Mao Tse-Tung began feeling that the revolution was exhausted, he launched the Cultural Revolution of 1966-69. This was intended to stir up the conservative government/military and add more revolutionary elements, ridding the nation of the 'four olds': old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. These revolutions often turned into violent acts. When stability was restored, foreign relations was

Learning theories Essay

Learning and development theories are conceptual frameworks that are looked at how information is absorbed, processed and retained during learning. Through using different learning theories you are able to teach children in the classroom and develop and strengthen them as a person not only intellectually but socially as well. Theories provide information that can help teachers influence children’s learning by providing developmentally appropriate practice. In practice theories help to improve, enable, inform, provide for and explain, but too many theories can create a very confusing picture. Neuroscientists believed that the genes we are born with determine the structure of our brains and that with the fixed structure determines the way we develop and interact with the world. However it has since been proven that it’s not the case at all and that we are only born with the framework and what we put inside this framework is completed over time and completely our own choosing. Carol Dweck, who is widely known as one of the worlds leading researchers in the field of personality, social psychology and developmental psychology, believes that everyone has a growth or fixed mind-set. She believed that if you have a fixed mindset you would only achieve what you think you are good at. People with a fixed mindset are usually ‘smart’ but won’t challenge themselves anymore if they think they may fail at something. Where as with a growth mindset they will challenge themselves and stretch their brains and achieve goals they at first found challenging. â€Å"So children with the fixed mindset want to make sure they succeed. Smart people should succeed. But for children with the growth mindset, success is about stretching themselves. It’s about becoming smarter† (Dweck, 2012:17). During placement I witnessed and followed the learning theories of Carol Dweck. Growth mind-set was widely used in the Year 2 classes and children were thinking about and developing their own learning. There was a display on the wall where each child had written their own learning challenge down on how they were going to grow their own brains. These were displayed at the front of the class where the children could read them everyday. I found this to be very inspiring as the children set their own learning challenge and reflected on this quite often to see how they were developing towards their own learning challenge. They had a challenge mountain and when a child was progressing towards their learning challenge they would climb the mountain. The children completing this were only six and seven years old. The challenges might of only been something as small as ‘learn to write smaller’ or ‘use finger spaces’ but these were challenges that they needed to develop in order to help them progress with their own learning challenges. â€Å"People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. † (Dweck, 2012:21) Children in the year two classes could make the choice of challenging work or work they knew they would find easy. The children responded well to this by wanting to complete the more challenging work and you would hear them say they wanted to ‘grow their brains’. This was really pleasing to see as you could see children who wanted to learn and wanted to grow their own mindset. The children were more positive about their own learning and really enjoyed challenging themselves in order to grow their own brains. There were the children however that didn’t think they needed to challenge themselves as they already thought they were smart enough and knew everything. These children really didn’t like it when they were wrong and really saw themselves  as a failure to the point they would get upset. This really reflected what Carol Dweck had said about fixed mindsets and how they see themselves as failures unlike growth mindset where they would just learn from it and see it as a challenge of how they can improve their work next time. This is something the children would do at the end of each lesson. They would write themselves a challenge at the bottom of their work of how they would improve their work next time. â€Å"Entity theorists (fixed mindset) are performance and achievement oriented, and so they personalise failure, blaming their own lack of ability. In future, their mindsets say, avoid any situation in which you might fail, as you will no longer look clever. They will therefore become risk-adverse in their learning, choosing options which are easily attainable so that they can continue to define themselves as clever. Failure undermines motivation for these students and achievement-related praise will only reinforce this self view. † (Robins, 2012:55). In subjects the fixed mindset children had seen previous failure, you would see them become much quieter and fade into the back ground unlike lessons they would know they achieve more in. The difference between the fixed and growth mindset children was that the growth mindset children would throughout any lesson thrive to learn and challenge themselves even if they did make mistakes. They would be the ones answering questions even if they were unsure of the answer and challenging the teacher with their own challenging questions. The fixed mindset children would only answer questions they definitely knew the answer too. At the end of each lesson children would mark their own work using the success criteria they had created as a class, and then set themselves a challenge to help to  improve the work they had completed. This is something that has been inspired by the work of Shirley Clarke and her formative assessment work. The work of Shirley Clarke and Carol Dweck both work well together in the classroom and go hand In hand with the development of children and their own growth mindset. With the influence of Shirley Clarke and assessing your own work and then with Carol Dweck and thinking about how you could improve and grow your brain by improving the work you have completed. These two theories really reflected the overall work that the children had completed and the results were really inspiring to see. For some children they found this easy to set themselves a challenge, but for some they found it quite difficult as they would think their work doesn’t need improving. This is when you could see the fixed mindset children in the class. The children who already thought they were smart enough. The only down fall I found with the children writing their own challenges for their work was that they never got to act upon this challenge that they had set themselves all the time. The work would be completed but then never reviewed for improving this with the challenge they had set  themselves. One thing I did when I was teaching a lesson and I got them to write their own challenges was I got them to relook at their work and review the challenge they had written down at the start of the next lesson. This then really got the children to stretch their brains as they were actively improving their own work. The growth mindset is something I would take forward with my teaching career as I find it very inspiring that children are able to set their own challenges In order to grow their own brains. Doing this right and inspiring the children to think with the growth  mindset can really help children to develop more than they thought they could. I wish this was something that I had been introduced to in primary school as I may of challenged myself more and wouldn’t of not completed work I found to be too ‘hard’ for myself to complete. Going forward I set myself the challenge of reading and researching this theory more and going forward onto my next placement think of ways I could slowly introduce this when I am teaching a class and see if the results really do reflect how I feel this theory does work. Behaviourism is another theory that is widely used with in primary schools day in and  day out. Behaviourism (which is also known as stimulus-response) is based upon the simple notion of a relationship between a stimulus and a response, which is why behaviourist theories are often referred to as stimulus-response theories. Behaviour can be controlled with rewards and sanctions, rules or expectations and the role of the teacher and their own behaviour. Behaviourist experts such as Bruner, Skinner and Pavlov all have different theories of controlling behaviour and these have been used within a classroom environment. â€Å"In Pavlov’s famous experiments, when a bell rang, dogs salivated. Your pupils almost do the same. When the bell rings they instinctively pack up and try to leave the classroom, leading to the classic teachers’ phrase â€Å"the bell is for me and not for you† (TES (2014) Pavlov was born1849; his primary interests were the study of physiology and natural sciences. Pavlov used routine and using a bell with dogs to train them when it was time for their dinner. With this the dogs in time learned to salivate at the sound of the bell without even having to see the food in front of them. This is the same within a school environment to a certain degree. Children are taught that the whistle or bell  used in the play ground in the morning is the start of school. That each bell after that is a different time of day such as break time, dinner time, afternoon break or the end of school. You would have the children in year 2 asking you if it was 10. 40am yet. This is because even though they couldn’t tell the time properly they knew that at 10. 40am it was break time as this was something they had been told by the teacher. Children are taught routine of a the school week by using a diagram displayed as they come into the class in the younger classes, to the children in older classes knowing the school day by remembering. For example they might know that on a Monday that they start with the register, then its assembly, phonics, etc. With this children know the routine of the day and week. The only thing with this is that when the routine changes the children can become confused. During the week they had their Christmas rehearsals the children really couldn’t understand why they were not completing their normal subjects of phonics or literacy etc. Skinner was born1904 and was influenced by the work of Pavlov. He took what Pavlov used and influenced the use of rewards and sanctions to reinforce positive behaviour. â€Å"Skinner maintained that rewards and punishments control the majority of human behaviours, and that the principles of operant conditioning can explain all human learning† (Pritchard,2014). In the class of year two, they would be rewarded with their names on the smiley board if they were well behaved. You could see the children eager to get their names on the smiley board as after three ticks would result in the children having a visit to the head teacher. This was positive in the sense the children knew that with good behaviour and hard work they would be rewarded. The use of stickers is only a small  thing to an adult, but to children they are really happy to receive one for good behaviour and will show everyone who will look what they have received. I could also see the negative to this as well. The use of the smiley and grumpy board wasn’t always used to the best advantage. Some children would display the same behaviour as someone who had previously got their name on the board but then wouldn’t be rewarded the same way. For some children this then lacked the incentive to behave in the way they should and would become less interested. Rewards and sanctions need to be consistent in order to have the impact a teacher wants to  manage the behaviour and learning within the classroom. After seeing this on the first six weeks of placement I decided I needed to change the way in which I managed the behaviour of the children on my return for the last two weeks. â€Å"Skinner argued that if pupils were consistently praised (positive reinforcement) for learning or behaving in a certain way; they would behave in the same way again, thus creating ‘conditions which are optimal for producing the changes called learning’ and allowing the teacher to influence the behaviour of pupils at will without resorting to punishment†. (Robins, 2012:22) There was a seminar on behaviour management in the gap between placements and we were shown a video of an outstanding teacher displaying different positive techniques for controlling behaviour. He would praise good behaviour and also reinforce expectations if they were not being followed. I found this very inspiring as the teacher himself had a positive influence on the children and their behaviour not only towards him, but throughout taught lessons. I actually stole some of the techniques he had displayed and made them my own. When returning to placement I was given the challenge of teaching the other year  two class, which had a lot of lower ability and fixed mindset children in. I had a range of rewards and sanctions to help me manage the behaviour of the children. Buttons in the jar was a huge success as children really responded to the idea of a team effort and filling the jar up with buttons as a class rather than just an individual reward. Rewards need to have value to children otherwise there really is no point in them trying to achieve something they don’t really want. I asked the children what it was they would like to receive as a reward at the end of the two weeks. This was a  much better response and throughout the two weeks the children really worked together to collect the buttons in the jar. With this I wasn’t only rewarding the best in the class but also the children who had tried their hardest or had worked well with their talk partners. At the end of each lesson I would then reward these children with a raffle ticket. The more raffle tickets they collected the better the chance they had of winning a prize. This gave the element of chance to the children, meaning that even if you only had one raffle ticket you was still in with a shot of winning the prize. This  really got the children involved and throughout the two weeks the improvement in the behaviour had dramatically changed. The children would respond to me much quicker when I wanted them to look and listen to me and the way they worked together changed as well. They would really praise each other and if someone won a raffle ticket you would hear the rest of the class praising that child for their reward. Using these techniques really helped me to be seen as a teacher statues on placement and this is something I would moving forward really concentrate on, whether it’s on my next placement or in my teaching career. Behaviourism is something that has really helped teachers control and manages the class in which they are teaching. With the use of rewards and sanctions and positive reinforcement it is very clear to see that children will respond better and the learning will improve as children are much more positive towards their own learning. Following on from this I would like to set me the targets of researching and observing theories used within the classroom. This will not only ‘grow my brain’ on learning theories but will also strengthen me as a teacher going forward into my teaching career. I will have a better understanding of the learning styles of children and be better able to tackle the challenges teachers face everyday. Bibliography TES: Pedagogy: using theories in the classroom (2013) http://newteachers. tes. co. uk/news/pedagogy-using-theories-classroom/23183 (assessed April 2014) Gill, R (2012) Praise, motivation, and the child, Rout ledge. Dweck, S (2012) Mindset, Robinson. Pritchhard, A (2014) Ways of learning, Learning theories and learning styles in the CLASSROOM. 3RD EDITION, ROUT LEDGE. Doherty and Hughes (2009) Child Development Theory and Practice 0-11, Pearson Education LTD.

Elderly Homelessness Essay

Although the elderly are homeless for all sorts of reasons, there are some common causes of homelessness for everyone. The causes of elderly homelessness are mostly financial. The most common cause of homelessness is income. The elderly retire and do not make the same income as they did while working. Because their income is low, they receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to live off of. However, SSI is usually very low and not even above the poverty line. The maximum SSI monthly benefit in Washington D. C. s $850 for an individual, which is well below the poverty line (NLIHC, 2007). These monthly benefits have to be used to pay bills, buy food, and pay for housing. SSI benefits do not last very long because they are so small and the cost of housing usually diminishes the benefit before it can go any further. The cost of housing is the second most common cause of homelessness among the elderly. It is hard to find affordable housing in many areas, especially in busy cities. The cost of a one bedroom apartment in Washington D. C. was $1,134 (NLIHC, 2007). Many of the elderly have a hard time paying for housing because SSI will only pay housing if the cost is thirty percent of their SSI benefit. Many of the elderly who are having issues paying for the cost of housing can apply for section 8 vouchers, but there is an ironic twist to this option. In order to receive section 8 vouchers to avoid homelessness, the person applying has to already be homeless. Once the person is homeless, it will be very difficult to apply for section 8 because they don’t have a permanent address or a way to keep in contact with any agencies. Some of the other causes of elderly homelessness include physical and mental health. The problem with the health of the elderly is that most of them have some sort of illness that prevents them from being able to take care of themselves and their home. The elderly are more likely to experience a disruption in their ability to care or provide for themselves and their homes because they are not physically or mentally able to. Their health causes them to stop working and ultimately leads to receiving the low SSI benefits, like a vicious circle. One of the causes of homelessness is the lack of social support from family and friends. Many elderly people become homes because they do not have anyone to help them, whether financially or emotionally. They do not ask for help because their family and friends may also be having financial issues and do not have space in their home for the elderly person to live with them. Because of this many elderly people feel like a burden and are too ashamed to ask their friends and family for help and they are left to fend for themselves, which leads to homelessness. The last common cause of elderly homelessness is the â€Å"knowledge deficit† that exists about available services. Many elderly people admit that they do not know which programs and services are available to them and which they are eligible for. Sometimes there are services and support that they are eligible for that they are unaware of and they feel like there is nothing they can do. This usually leads to becoming homeless because they ran out of time to apply for services and get help to prevent homelessness. Many of the elderly people who are homeless did not think they were eligible for services and many other elderly people were unaware of services that might be available to them. This is a huge problem because the elderly do not have the information they need to prevent being homeless and they are not receiving the support and services that they are eligible for. These elderly people are falling into situations that they don’t know how to get out of.

Love vs. Sex

Many people pair love along side of sex, thinking the two go hand in hand, when in reality, they don’t. Sex is an action out of lust, the fact that people can have casual hook ups, with no attachments illustrates this. Love is a deep emotion between two people, this leads to commitment, usually marriage, and sex, but a different kind, one that is purely an act of love. By combining the two in a literary work, it detracts from the aesthetic quality of it, undermining the message behind the poem, making it no longer about love, but lust.The poem â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† is a perfect example of how placing love and sex together in a poem takes away from the work, leaving the reader less impacted by the poem as a whole. Love is an amazing emotion, something that no one can quite understand, and that never changes. Love has always been a large part of the human culture, something that will always be relevant, even in years to come. The need to be someone’s â€Å"on e and only†, what they live for from day to day, to have someone care about you that much is priceless.It is the need to be desired, and taken care of, that drives people to find love. You find someone with common interests, and you talk, you go out on a few dates, and then it happens– you begin to fall for that person, completely in love. Love leads to commitment, and then marriage, something that is so sacred, you promise to â€Å"love and cherish† that one person â€Å"’til death do you part†, never leaving their side, hurting when they hurt, joyous when they are joyous.An example of this from â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† is found in the beginning of the poem, â€Å"for, Lady you deserve this state, nor would I love at lower rate†, this is stated after the narrator tells a young lady about how beautiful, and wonderful she is, trying to sweep her away with loving words, attempting to make her fall in love with him. Once you have this s ort of love, you can link sex with it, but only then. Sex is an act of love that has been reserved for a husband and wife, the marriage bed, this act of sex is not of lust, but out of pure feeling and trust for the other person.By you giving your body to someone, you are showing them that you are also giving them your heart, proving your love to them, in the greatest way possible. Without love, sex is nothing but an action, being caught up in the moment, taking advantage of an opportunity that has been placed before you. In the next stanza of â€Å"To His Coy Mistress†, Marvell states this â€Å"that long preserved virginity, and your quaint honor turn to dust, and into ashes all my lust. † Here, the narrator revels his true intentions, seeking only a one night stand, persuading the young lady to seize the opportunity, and spend the night with him.Sex is thought of so casually now a days, hardly having any meaning behind it anymore, with that being said, you can have s ex with anyone you choose to, obviously having no romantic emotions for the other person. Hooking up with someone after a night at the bar cannot be compared to the interaction between people who have been together for years, working on building their relationship and an emotional connection. To be able to take something so pure and sacred and make it apart of an interaction with a stranger takes away from the meaning of love and sex, you can no longer pair the two together.For an author to link sex and love together in a poem, story, or essay is undermining the meaning and value of love, and the role it plays in sex. Marvell begins the poem wooing the young lady, â€Å"an hundred years should go to praise, thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze, two hundred to adore each breast, but thirty thousand to the rest† such romantic words that hint at love. Then the idea of love is washed away with lines like â€Å"the grave’s a fine and private place, but none, I think, do th ere embrace†, making the narrator’s true intentions of sex known.By mixing love, and sex together, the poem’s meaning loses its impact, no longer being romantic, but only a well planned pick up line. â€Å"Let us roll all our strength, and all our sweetness, up into one ball and tear our pleasure with rough strife, thorough the iron gates of life† solidifies the narrator’s true intentions, separating love from sex. â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† clearly shows that love and sex cannot be linked together in literary works without undermining the principle of love and taking away from the message the author is trying to convey.

Joan of Arc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Joan of Arc - Essay Example (Lowell 28) From this time onward she received regular visitations from the archangel, and from Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who told her that her purpose was simply to help France. For several years she did not speak of the visions. It was only when they became more specific about what they wanted her to do that she was required to speak in order to establish her mission. From this is it obvious that her visions were not simply a method of attention-seeking, as she was in no hurry to reveal their existence until it was absolutely necessary. She lived with the voices for several years without acting upon what they told her, and was reluctant to speak of them at all. (Lowell 30) Perhaps this modesty was one way in which her authority became believable. One of the reasons Joan of Arc has become a legendary figure is that, as a French peasant girl she was able to gain the backing of the French king, and command the respect and obedience of an entire army. In 1428 the voices began to give her more specific instructions, and as a result she eventually gained an audience with Charles VII of France. (Hodges 2000) At this time, the influence of Charles VII had been steadily weakening, and this perhaps was a major factor in his decision to trust in her. Even if this is true, it is still impressive that she was able to command such influence over the French army. It is said that the Commanders of the army "supported her mostly because she was willing to aggressively fight the English, unlike the lethargic and distracted Royal Court". (Williamson 2003) Perhaps she was, initially, so firmly supported partially by default rather than due to any particular faith in her. Joan's main focus was the spiritual life of the army, and she may have bee n more a source of inspiration than of military tactics. (Williamson 2003) There are a number of cited instances where Joan herself appeared to have knowledge of events that had not yet occurred, or simply knowledge that she should have had no way of knowing. There are so many such stories that they have become part of an enduring legend that strengthens the image of Joan of Arc as divinely inspired. The fact that she was canonized after death only serves to enhance this image. The first such stories are about the incidents which enabled her to gain an audience with the Charles VII. She first went to Lord Robert de Baudricot, a garrison commander stationed near her village of Domremy, to request an escort to the king. Having previously sent her away twice, he fulfilled her third request after she accurately predicted a French defeat at Rouvray near Orleans. Next, she gained an audience with Charles VII, and he began to take her seriously after she related to him the details of a private prayer he had made several months earlier, in which he had asked God t o aid his cause. (Williamson 2003) There are many such incidents in history - Joan of Arc is said to have predicted numerous battles in which she took part, including that outside of Paris where she herself was wounded. (Williamson 2003) In matters of faith it is impossible to determine truth. One either believes, or does not. Because of this, one can say that truth is not the important factor in faith - what is relevant is the belief. In

Africa Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Africa - Article Example Because of this attacks and wars on the three states, thousands of people evacuated and left their home for their safety. It is very sad to know that million miles away from us, there have been a lot of killings happening and a lot people here didn’t even knew it happened. The attack in Teludi caused hundreds of lives killed. I feel the fear of the people who left their homes to survive. The children left school, and the parents left their work. It is very depressing to know that these families can no longer enjoy the peaceful lives they’ve lived before because of the attacks. They have left their homes and everything they invested unwillingly to make sure that they will be safe. They have been affected by the political clashes of their state. They had no choice but to leave everything behind to be able to ensure that they will not be affected by the attacks anymore. I cannot stop but hope that the war will soon be over for these families to be able to go back to their normal

Toxicant Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Toxicant - Research Paper Example With such a profile, one would expect that there would be no intake of the metal in humans. However, the metal that is a common pollutant in soil, water and air is exposed to humans through these agents as well as food and consumer products (Kacew & Lee, 2013). The greatest exposure occurs through breathing it in or swallowing. Exposure through the air is mainly as a result of motor vehicle exhaust resulting from the use of leaded gasoline (Who. int, 2014). The exhaust avails the lead in air, which is then taken into the body through breathing. Then there are the industrial sources such as lead manufacturing and recycling industries as well as smelters that result in the release of the metal into the air in the process of workings (National Research Council (U.S.), 2013). At home lead paints act as the main source of exposure through the air. The paint chips from the walls or movable objects, creating lead dust. Naturally, lead occurs in small amounts in source water. However, the use of lead plumbing materials has made the metal available in drinking water in large amounts. The pipes leach the metal slowly into the water. Depending on the temperature, acidity and standing time on the water, large concentrations of lead may result from the plumbing with the low detectability of the metal making it prone to consumption (Who.int, 2014). The high cost of removing the old piping propagates this method of exposure. However, the contamination and therefore exposure to lead through water may be the result of secondary pollution of water by industrial effluents (National Research Council (U.S.), 2013). Exposure through foods results from the consumption of foods handled using lead based containers. Lead cans and ceramics provide chippings that are consumed with the food. The presence of lead in the body may be detected by studying blood cells using a microscope for changes or using X-rays with the metal appearing as dense