Teaching Philosophy as Education and Evaluation of Thinking Essay

ABSTRACT: Teaching philosophy and critical thinking is one of the main ways to clearly reaffirm the value of human persons and of goodness and freedom. It is not sufficient to propose a philosophical message, but we must teach it systematically (curriculum) with a real synergy between teachers and parents. We must also build a curriculum, which includes an evaluation model based on clear goals and objectives: the intermediate and final evaluation and assessment will enable us to be sure that we have reached our aim. It is also necessary to verify every step, evaluate it and compare it to the criteria (general project, goals, objectives) we put in our mind and use in our teaching. This critical evaluation needs methods and some teaching instruments described herein. The final philosophical education will be much stabler and assure us about our scientific and formative project. I. Teaching Philosophy Philosophical thinking includes an educational dimension, according to the dialogical structure of human thinking. First of all a preliminary question: is philosophy teaching and learning possible? This is the main problem, from Socrates to today: if a science exists and can be transmitted: without any objective and universal philosophical knowing about justice, goodness, truth, man becomes the measure of all things (according to Protagoras; science becomes sensation and human knowing is under subjectivism. But it's possible to get truth by dialogue: then it is also possible teaching and philosophically thinking using argumentation and research of universal ideas, transcending simple and unfounded opinions (CIFUENTES, 1997 #4922). This thesis, from Plato to Kant and German idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) seems the main scient... ...Three Tests of Critical Thinking, in  «Journal of Experimental Education », 29, 2, Dec, 177-182, 1960. RUST V. I., JONES R. S., KAISER H. F., A Factor-Analytic Study of Critical Thinking, in  «The Journal of Educational Research », 55, 6, 252-259, 1962. SMITH B. O., The Improvement of Critical Thinking, in  «Progressive Education », 30, 5, March, 129-134, 1953. WALLEN N. E., HAUBRICH V. F., REID I. E., The Outcomes of Curriculum Modifications Designed to Foster Critical Thinking, in  «The Journal of Educatinal Research », 56, 10 (Jul-Aug), 529-534, 1963. WATSON G., GLASER E. M., Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Harcourt, Brasce and World, New York 1964. WILSON D. G., WAGNER E. E., The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal as a Predictor of Performance in a Critical Thinking Course, in  «Educational and Psychological Measurement », 1319-1322, 1981.

Do the Press Have Too Much Freedom Essay

Freedom of expression has always been emphasized as an essential basis for the democratic functioning of a society. The reasons for this are: the right of an individual to self-fulfillment, which right requires the communication of thought and an attempt which is frustrated if information is suppressed or comment blocked. For this we need press and it has to be free for being unbiased. Newspapers is an important source of information spreads news in an unlimited way. Furthermore, newspapers spread appropriate information to the readers and motivate them to think and to be aware about current events that affect society; additionally they can undermine important people’s public image by spreading biased information. They do so, in order to provide exclusive stories with the objective of selling more. What is more, distortion of information, invasion of privacy and the dissemination of unfounded news are only a part of a long list of felonies that the written media commits in order to be read all over the world. For instance, many artist are victims of newspaper’s harassment and slander on their good names. In this sense, journalists invade actors or actresses’ privacy or invent stories that affect their integrity and self-image with the aim of getting the scoop. Nevertheless, how is it to be a newsman? My understanding of a reporter is that it is their job to report the news. That doesn’t mean anything beyond telling exactly what happened. The opinions and the slants put on the news by every network, cable and broadcast, are not reporting. They are television. They are looking for advertisers and ratings. They are looking for the best story instead of the truth. They are reality TV – scripted shows pretending to be spontaneous. Now, I do understand that a news reporter has to pre-write the story so they are not sitting there grumping trying to find the words. So, do newspapers have too much freedom? This question lead us to think about how powerful newspapers are and their real incidence in our lives. Moreover, how much freedom is too much? All of this needs to be looked into and needs to be answered. In addition, the media needs to be held much more accountable for the way they cover the news. Otherwise, history is going to show that our democracy fell apart because it was taken advantage of.

Comparison of Common Law and Civil Law Essay

COMMON LAW (characteristics)for comparing or contrast purpose Common law systems are mostly found in former british colony and protectorate including US, it is less prescriptive than civil law system,citizens are benefited by enactment and legislation in specific fields.more often are the implied terms usage. 1)represents the law of courts as expressed in judicial decision 2)based on precedents provided by past judicial decisions,no written statues or prescribed texts 3)trial by the jury and the doctrine of the supremacy of the law(originally meant king above law,now means acts of governmentall agencies are subject to scruting in ordinary legal proceedings) 4)everything is permitted which is not prohibited by law 5)binding ,overruling through same court or legislation Judicial precedents derive their force from the doctrine of stare decisions[lat=stand by the decided matter]i.e that the previous decisions of the highest court in the jurisdiction are binding on all other courts in the jurisdiction changing conditions,however soon make most decisions inapplicable except as a basis for analogy, and a court must therefore often look to the judicial experience of the rest of the English speaking world.This gives the system flexibility while general acceptance of cetain authoritative materials provides a degree of stability.Neverthless,in many instances, courts have failed to keep pace with social developments and it has become necessary to enact statues to bring about needed changes.In recent years ,statutes have superseded much of common law,notablyin the fields of commercial administrative and criminal law,typically however in statutory interpretation the courts have recourse to the doctrines of common law. Thus increased legislation is limited but has not ended judicial supremacy. A common law system is generally less prescriptive than a civil law system. A government may therefore wish to enshrine protections of its citizens in specific legislation related to the infrastructure program being contemplated. For example, it may wish to prohibit the service provider from cutting off the water or electricity supply of bad payers. Please go to Legislation and Regulationsections for more information on this. There are few provisions implied into a contract under the common law system – it is therefore important to set out ALL the terms governing the relationship between the parties to a contract in the contract itself. This will often result in a contract being longer than one in a civil law country. CIVIL LAW(CHARACTERISITICS) 1)based on statues and prescribed texts. 2)available in written form, specific codes covering mostly 3)corporate,tax,constitution with basic rights and duties 4)only legislative enactments are binding 5)precedents are to be followed Countries following a civil law system are typically those that were former French, Dutch, German, Spanish or Portuguese colonies or protectorates, including much of Central and South America. Also, most of the Central and Eastern European and East Asian countries follow a civil law structure. The civil law system is a codified system of law. It takes its origins from Roman law. Features of a civil law system include: * There is generally a written constitution based on specific codes (e.g., civil code, codes covering corporate law, administrative law, tax law and constitutional law) enshrining basic rights and duties; administrative law is however usually less codified and administrative court judges tend to behave more like common law judges; * Only legislative enactments are considered binding for all. There is little scope for judge-made law in civil, criminal and commercial courts, although in practice judges tend to follow previous judicial decisions; consitutional and administrative courts can nullify laws and regulations and their decisions in such cases are binding for all. * In some civil law systems, e.g., Germany, writings of legal scholars have significant influence on the courts; * Courts specific to the underlying codes – there are therefore usually separate constitutional court, administrative court and civil court systems that opine on consistency of legislation and administrative acts with and interpret that specific code; * Less freedom of contract – many provisions are implied into the contract by law and parties cannot contract out of certain provisions. A civil law system is generally more prescriptive than a common law system. However, a government will still need to consider whether specific legislation is required to either limit the scope of a certain restriction to allow a successful infrastructure project, or may require specific legislation for a sector. Please go to Legislation and Regulation and â€Å"Organizing Government to think PPP† sections for more information on this. There are a number of provisions implied into a contract under the civil law system – less importance is generally placed on setting out ALL the terms governing the relationship between the parties to a contract in the contract itself as inadequacies or ambiguities can be remedied or resolved by operation of law. This will often result in a contract being shorter than one in a common law country. It is also important to note in the area of infrastructure that certain forms of infrastructure projects are referred to by well-defined legal concepts in civil law jurisdictions. Concessions and Affermage have a definite technical meaning and structure to them that may not be understood or applied in a common law country. Care should be taken, therefore, in applying these terms loosely. This is further considered under Agreements.

Frederick Douglas Essays - Slavery In The United States, Slavery

Frederick Douglas Essays - Slavery In The United States, Slavery Frederick Douglas Casey Connealy History Frederick Douglas The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was written by Frederick Douglass himself. He was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1817. He has, "no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it" (47). He became known as an eloquent speaker for the cause of the abolitionists. Having himself been kept as a slave until he escaped from Maryland in 1838, he was able to deliver very impassioned speeches about the role of the slave holders and the slaves. Many Northerners tried to discredit his tales, but no one was ever able to disprove his statements. Frederick Douglass does offer a biased review of slavery, as he was born into it, yet even in his bias he is able to detect and detail the differences in the slave holders cruelty and that to which he was subjected. From being whipped and humiliated daily, "a very severe whipping for being awkward" (101), to being able to find his own work and save some money, "I was able to command the highest wages given to the most experienced calkers" (134), he is able to give the reader a more true picture of slavery. His poignant speeches raised the ire of many Northerners, yet many still felt the slaves deserved their position in life. Douglass, for his own safety, was urged to travel to England where he stayed and spoke until 1847 when he returned to the U.S. to buy his freedom. At that point, he began to write and distribute an anti-slavery newspaper called "The North Star". Not only did he present news to the slaves, but it was also highly regarded as a good source of information for those opposed to slavery. During the Civil war, Douglass organized two regiments of black soldiers in Massachusetts to fight for the North. Before, during and after the war he continued his quest to free all the slaves. He became known as a fair and righteous man and was appointed as the U.S. Minister of Haiti after holding several government offices. Frederick Douglass has woven many themes into his narrative, all being tied with a common thread of mans inhumanity towards man. Children were uprooted from the arms of their mothers, "before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it" (48) and sold to other slave holders. Brutal whippings occurred for even the smallest imagined offense, "a mere look, word, or motion" (118), women were treated as no better than common concubines and the slaves were forced into living quarters, "on one common bed cold, damp floor" (55) worse than some of the farm animals. The slaves were not allowed even the most meager portion of food, "eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn meal" (54) to last a month. Clothes were scarce and illness was never tolerated. It was unthinkable for the slaves to practice any type of religion, hold any gatherings, become literate to any degree, "unlawful unsafe, to teach a slave to read" (78) or even make the simple decision of when to eat and sleep. One of the themes that the book dealt with is society and its handling of slavery under the guise of Christianity. Those who professed to being the most Christian i.e., the minister who lived next door, was actually the most cruel. Douglass stated adamantly that religion was, "a mere covering for the most horrid of crimes, - justifier of barbarity - sanctifier of hateful fraud, - protection for the slave holder" (117). "Religious slave holders are the worst" (117) because they thought it was their duty to "whip his slaves" (118). While being in the community of religious leaders, Douglass was subjected to the "meanest most cruel" (117) of acts of one human being towards another. The slaves were kept down, belittled and whipped into submission all under the tenets of Christianity. The Rev. Weeden, Rev. Hopkins and Mr. Freeland felt it was not only their right to own slaves, but also their God-given right to take these human beings and turn them into hard workers. The imagined acts of transgression and the punishments mettled

How to Use the Z.TEST Function in Excel

How to Use the Z.TEST Function in Excel Hypothesis tests are one of the major topics in the area of inferential statistics. There are multiple steps to conduct a hypothesis test and many of these require statistical calculations. Statistical software, such as Excel, can be used to perform hypothesis tests. We will see how the Excel function Z.TEST tests hypotheses about an unknown population mean. Conditions and Assumptions We begin by stating the assumptions and conditions for this type of hypothesis test. For inference about the mean we must have the following simple conditions: The sample is a simple random sample.The sample is small in size relative to the population. Typically this means that the population size is more than 20 times the size of the sample.The variable being studied is normally distributed.The population standard deviation is known.The population mean is unknown. All of these conditions are unlikely to be met in practice. However, these simple conditions and the corresponding hypothesis test are sometimes encountered early in a statistics class. After learning the process of a hypothesis test, these conditions are relaxed in order to work in a more realistic setting. Structure of the Hypothesis Test The particular hypothesis test we consider has the following form: State the null and alternative hypotheses.Calculate the test statistic, which is a z-score.Calculate the p-value by using the normal distribution. In this case the p-value is the probability of obtaining at least as extreme as the observed test statistic, assuming the null hypothesis is true.Compare the p-value with the level of significance to determine whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. We see that steps two and three are computationally intensive compared two steps one and four. The Z.TEST function will perform these calculations for us. Z.TEST Function The Z.TEST function does all of the calculations from steps two and three above. It does a majority of the number crunching for our test and returns a p-value. There are three arguments to enter into the function, each of which is separated by a comma. The following explains the three types of arguments for this function. The first argument for this function is an array of sample data. We must enter a range of cells that corresponds to the location of the sample data in our spreadsheet.The second argument is the value of  ÃŽ ¼ that we are testing in our hypotheses. So if our null hypothesis is H0:  ÃŽ ¼ 5, then we would enter a 5 for the second argument.The third argument is the value of the known population standard deviation. Excel treats this as an optional argument Notes and Warnings There are a few things that should be noted about this function: The p-value that is output from the function is one-sided. If we are conducting a two-sided test, then this value must be doubled.The one-sided p-value output from the function assumes that the sample mean is greater than the value of  ÃŽ ¼ we are testing against. If the sample mean is less than the value of the second argument, then we must subtract the output of the function from 1 to get the true p-value of our test.The final argument for the population standard deviation is optional. If this is not entered, then this value is automatically replaced in Excel’s calculations by the sample standard deviation. When this is done, theoretically a t-test should be used instead. Example We suppose that the following data are from a simple random sample of a normally distributed population of unknown mean and standard deviation of 3: 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 8, 10, 12 With a 10% level of significance we wish to test the hypothesis that the sample data are from a population with mean greater than 5. More formally, we have the following hypotheses: H0: ÃŽ ¼ 5Ha:  ÃŽ ¼ 5 We use Z.TEST in Excel to find the p-value for this hypothesis test. Enter the data into a column in Excel. Suppose this is from cell A1 to A9Into another cell enter Z.TEST(A1:A9,5,3)The result is 0.41207.Since our p-value exceeds 10%, we fail to reject the null hypothesis. The Z.TEST function can be used for lower tailed tests and two tailed tests as well. However the result is not as automatic as it was in this case. Please see here for other examples of using this function.

Human rights among the dominican republic and haitian border Research Paper

Human rights among the dominican republic and haitian border - Research Paper Example Immigration has been a common practice within the human cultures where people move from and into other countries on such grounds as search of employment, as refugees or asylum seekers or even for trade. This has been evidenced by the frameworks that have been crafted within government structures of different countries to deal with the feature. Governments acknowledge that there exists immigration into or out of these countries either legally or even illegally and thus the need for regulatory frameworks. However, there are international human rights that influence government decisions surrounding immigration and which are generally accepted within the international context. Nevertheless, every nation has her foreign policies as decisions that point to the future on accounts of other nations as against her internal decisions. By taking interest in the theme of violations of human rights along the borders of these countries, the analysis revolves around understanding the genesis and factors that contribute to the vices. The study intends to put into perspectives the influence of international legislations that govern the rights of the refugees and asylum seekers as well as the internal concerns about the security of the countries due to the influx of refugees and asylum seekers. Moreover, the paper will address the rising concerns of the infringement of the human rights of the immigrants as they are subjected into the compulsory detentions against the provisions of the international human rights frameworks for immigrants.... a) Trade rivalry, differences in cultures, race as well as the skill complexion led to the rise in conflicts along the borders between the nations. b) Population pressure and poverty has been the major cause of Haitian to migrate into Dominican Republic. c) The two governments have been slow to address the violations to human rights. d) International community, through such bodies as the UN and UNHCR are slowly taking up the roe to address the violations in Dominican Republic. Chapter 2: Literature review In an analysis of the increased violation of human rights by the Dominicans towards the Haitians a along the border, Cloud noted that migration of persons from Haiti have been gradual and at alarming rates in the past. Harsh economic times, poverty as well as overpopulation result to too much pressure within the republic of Haiti making the majority of the Haitians to consider crossing over towards the neighboring country of Dominica where the prospects of better living are seen. Th is informs the concerns on social political stability of the country together with the likelihood of population pressure growing in the Dominican Republic. Moreover, the politicians express concern over exhaustion of the local resources through over exploitation by the overpopulation caused by the immigration from Haiti. Mistreatment of the Haitians has therefore been a common thing as informed by racial discrimination and the intention to have the migration into the Dominican Republic discouraged (Cloud, 58-59). Prejudice on racial grounds is a deep-rooted problem within the Dominican Republic where the light-skinned Dominicans perceive the dark skinned Haitians as uncivilized and inferior hence the

Week two questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Week two questions - Essay Example Fats play a number of roles in the human body. Their basic function is protection. This consists of the insulation needed to maintain the body temperature, and providing a cushion to protect the body organs. Fats also encourage the growth and subsequent development, as well as the maintenance of the cell membranes. It is necessary in the digestion of vitamins. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in the body and also a source of calories to help maintain the weight of the body. A meal containing an optimum carbohydrates level may help prevent the body from fat accumulation. Carbohydrates are also influential in the development of the body organs and also the nerve cells, and also in the definition of individual’s biological identity like their blood group. The government should try and promote the eating of healthy foods, without passing their boundaries, since a healthy people are a productive people. It is in the best interest of the government to promote healthy eating. Yes, everything should have set standards. This will be able to prevent unscrupulous producers come up with low quality goods that will be harmful to the general health of the people. The government should ensure laws are in place, to prevent illegal foods that are harmful to the citizens, reach the tables. Supplements like the Folic acid, that is a B vitamin are beneficial as it helps boost the fertility and to prevent birth problems like spina bifida. It also stimulates the development of new cell growth. Tryptophan that works hand in hand with the natural Melatonin that gets created in the brain, to help in the regulation of sleep has side effects like mental changes and also a fast heart