Personal Ethics Essay Example for Free

Personal Ethics Essay Personal ethics comes from inside and are influenced by our everyday life and people around us. The directions we obtain as a child helps to form and begin our awareness of ethics. My upbringing memoirs and experiences instilled a well-built belief in family structure and significance of family in general. I was fortunate to be born and brought up in India in a traditional Roman Catholic family. My father was a doctor and he died of heart attack when I was ten years old. My mother was a registered nurse and I have three older brothers and one younger sister. My mother went to the Middle East to work as a nurse and had to leave us in a boarding school. I missed my mother a lot while I was in the boarding school. That was when I decided what I wanted to do. My only ambition was to become a nurse to be with my mother. I always used to watch my parents caring sick people. My parents constantly reminded me to live in Christian faith. They led us by example all the time, providing precious lessons vital to my development. My parents taught me to treat others as we would want them to treat us. I also learned from my parents that every person is important and we should love and respect them. I strive to live by those set of laws, though it is not always easy. My faith also influences my philosophy. I believe in God and God has a plan and purpose for every one of us. This is the basis of my ethical practices. Each individual cultivates different cultural, spiritual and personal values from their own life experiences which add to their worldview and philosophy of nursing in their practice. To me ethics is my own personal belief structure. Knowing our own personal values is critical to every person. My moral compass in nursing offers highest priority for the wellbeing of patients. My moral courage helps me to speak up, stand up for my personal belief and moral values and bring about change in my work place. The persona l and professional values, my relationship and behaviors to others and my morals help me succeed in my personal and professional life. Our conscience acts as a judge for each one of us. We are responsible for our actions. I believe that God is using me as a tool to care for the needy by providing me the knowledge and ability to promote healing. I also believe in the power of prayer. My patients used to tell me I am always smiling. I believe that it is the gift of God and being a nurse is, a calling not just a career. World view is a personal insight about meaning and reality. It helps the person to interprets, through his or her own eyes, a personal belief about the world. My personal worldview is shaped by my Christian religion, origin as an Indian, circumstances, experiences, and education and philosophy. I accept God as the center of the universe. I believe that I am a good mother for my three kids, faithful wife to my husband and an excellent nurse. I also believe in afterlife. I take pride in my profession. My nursing philosophy comes from my desire to care for others. I consider that nursing care is based on c oncrete evidence that is provided within a respectful framework. I always treat my patients the way I wanted to be treated if I am in that situation. Nurses are honored to interact with patients and families at some of the most vulnerable points in their lives. Being considerate of that vulnerability is important. Being respectful of my health care team is also important, as I consider that each of us play a fundamental role in the care of patients and families that we provide. I believe that God is using me as a tool to care for the needy by providing me the knowledge and ability to promote healing. It is essential for the nurses to understand their own selves so that they are able to take care of their patients better. I believe that spirituality plays an important role in the nursing profession. I think that the care of the soul is the beauty of the art of caring in nursing. The values such as integrity, responsibility, trust, reliability, and honesty are some of the personal values, which will determine how we face the world. Reliability and responsibility are very important to ones professional and personal life. Culture is something that a person learns from his family and surroundings, and is not inbuilt in him from birth. My upbringing as a Christian in Southern part of India, active participation in church activities and catholic schooling have helped me to value human dignity and assist me to take right decision in my personal and professional life. Awareness of different rules about how their members coexist with each other and interact with each other. Some cultures believe that discussing death, making a living will can invite death to the person who is ill. Looking at the life in different ways should be respected always (Runzheimer Larsen, 2011). Cultural diversity and differences in personal values can direct our relations with patients, family, and co-workers. Cultural competence is the ability to provide effective care for patients and families and our co- workers who come from different cultures. To understand different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for others viewpoints . Ethical issues occur in everyday practices. An ethical dilemma is described as a type of situation that involves being in between two correct courses of action that leads the person to choose the right move and still be wrong at the same time (Purtillo, 2011). This can cause a lot of distress as it encompasses both ethical conflict and conduct. The ethical decision what we make should respect the patient and family desires, physician’s belief and concepts on life and death in our own view. Many situations arise in the critical care where nurses and doctors are obligated to make ethical decisions in a short period of time. Few years back I came across a situation in our ICU. A 90 year old woman from nursing home got admitted with history of multiple strokes with weakness on her right side, emphysema and difficulty in swallowing. She was demented also. Her admission diagnosis was aspiration pneumonia. She had two children and her son was the health care proxy who was living in C alifornia and he couldn’t come to visit her mother because of some personal situation. Patient’s daughter who was living locally was taking care of her. The daughter wanted to place the feeding tube and treat for every problem. We respected the daughter’s decision. We started her on antibiotics. We placed the feeding tube and and started feeding her. Day by day her respiratory status started deteriorating. The attending physician contacted the patient’s son over the phone and explained the patient’s condition in detail. Apparently, we found out from him that the patient had a living will that stated she did not want any feeding tube or even antibiotics in a situation where her quality of life was poor. Fortunately patient’s son came with her living will and our hospital ethics committee had a talk with her family especially the daughter. Because the patient’s wishes were clearly stated in the living will, she was made comfortable and transferred her to a private room to allow the family to be with her all the time and she died peacefully after one day. In this situation, the daughter wanted to treat her mother even though she knew about her wishes and she did not tell us anything about the patient’s living will. She was acting unrealistic in this situation. The decision was tough for the daughter in this situation. In my view the physician made the right choice to contact her son that put an end to her sufferings. Nurses can make satisfactory solutions to the different ethical problems through creative and knowledge based approach. Each nurse has the responsibility to optimize the caring response and reduce damage to the patient. .â€Å" Nurses are leaders and vigilant advocates for the delivery of dignified and humane care. Nurses actively participate in assessing and assuring the responsible and appropriate use of intervention in order to minimize unwarranted or unwanted treatment and patient suffering† (American Nurses Association, 2001). The significant impact we make in the lives of our patients and their families in their vulnerable situations and the positive encouragement I get from my nurse manager, co-workers, patients and families keeps me moving in my profession. References American Nurses Association (2001). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.sfcc.edu/files/SFCC NursingStudentHandbook Purtilo, R., Doherty, R. (2011). Ethical dimensions in the health professions. (5th ed.). P (5-10) St.Louis, Missouri: Elsevier Saunders. Role of the Registered professional nurse. June 8, 2005. Retrieved on June 6, 2012 from http://www.nysna.org/practice/positions/position6.htm Runzheimer, J., Larsen, L. (2011). Medical ethics for dummies. (p. 113). NJ: WileyPublishing.

Structuralism And Edward Titchener Psychology Essay

Structuralism And Edward Titchener Psychology Essay Edward Titchener was a famous psychologist who was born in Chichester, England in 1867. He studied physiology, classics, and philosophy at Malvern College and Oxford University before pursuing his doctorate degree in clinical psychology at the University of Leipzig (King, Viney, Woody, 2009). While at the University of Leipzig, Titchener studied under Wilhelm Wundt, a psychologist who is known as the father of experimental psychology (Schultz Schultz, 2011). After Titchener completed his doctoral degree in Germany, he attempted to obtain a job in England, but was not successful in doing so. He ended up earning a job at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York as a professor of psychology. At the age of 28, Titchener earned the title of full professor at Cornell (King et al., 2009). While at Cornell, Titchener published eight books, over 60 articles, and translated much of Wundts work into English (Schultz Schultz, 2011). As the head of one of the most rigorous doctoral program in the United States, he supervised over 50 students in the clinical psychology program at Cornell (King et al., 2009). Titcheners first student who graduated was Margaret Floy Washburn, who later became famous for her work in comparative psychology, which is the study of human behavior in relation to animals and other species (King et al., 2009). In a time period when most schools would not accept women into their programs, Titchener had 19 women graduate under his supervision. This was the most of any other male psychologist in his generation (Hergenhahn, 2008). Titchener structured the doctoral program at Cornell based on the German model, which included an intense mixture of lab research and independent work. While his students worked independently, he was heavily involved in helping them out with their research. Titchener was described as having a powerful personality, a strong character, and a paternalistic way with his students (King et al., 2009). Wundt and Titchener both believed in using introspection to discover the mental elements of human experience. Both of these scientists also believed that identifying and classifying sensations and feelings were an essential part of understanding the human experience (Chung Hyland, 2012). However, Titchener felt images were a category of mental elements, and Wundt did not. Both Wundt and Titchener used an experimental approach in their work. However, Wundt believed that psychology cannot only be studied as an experimental science. He felt that psychology should also be studied through historical analyses and naturalistic observation (Chung Hyland, 2012). In addition, Wundt believed that the methods used to study psychology could be utilized to describe social customs, religion, myths, morals, art, law, and language (King et al., 2009). Titcheners view was more rigid in that he only believed that psychology could be studied in the laboratory through evidence-based methods. Another di fference between Titchener and Wundt was that Wundt believed that physical events could be explained by antecedent events, and that higher psychological processes could not be studied in the laboratory (Schultz Schultz, 2011). Titchener only studied psychology through introspection, focusing on internal processes (Hergenhahn, 2008). Titcheners goal for psychology was to make it an accepted science, classified in the same category as physics and chemistry (King et al., 2009). He firmly believed that psychology should be studied in a laboratory, and that studying psychology was no different than studying physics, chemistry, and other hard sciences. Titcheners view on psychology was called Structuralism. He believed that human thoughts, emotions, and behaviors could be charted on a table as elements are on the periodic table. Titcheners view was reductionistic in that he did not feel it was important to understand how the parts of the mind worked together as a whole, but just the individual parts themselves. He felt that if each part could be understood then all one would need to do is to learn how these parts interact to conclude in a thought or behavior. Structuralism had five main goals for psychology; 1) to study it using specific methods, 2) to provide more definitions in the field of psychology, 3) to use it to make assumptions about more general philosophical issues, 4) to make connections between the physical sciences and psychology, and 5) to prove that psychology should be in the same category as the hard sciences. Titchener believed that all science begins with experience, and that without this, there could be no cognition or knowledge. He felt that experiences could have various points of view depending on the person who is experiencing the situation. Titchener believed that the main difference between the accepted physical sciences and psychology was that psychological experience was dependent on human judgment, and the other physical sciences were not dependent on human experience. While Titchener had many goals for psychology, he identified the current problems with psychology, and why it was not an accepted science. Titchener believed that the basic elements of experience needed to be identified and categorized. Next, understanding how each element interacts with another was essential to understanding human experience. Finally, causal relations between experiences needed to be identified. Titchener believed that the method of studying psychology was not different than any other science. While hard scientists used inspection to make many of their observations, Titchener called the observation by psychologists introspection. While many criticized introspection due to its subjective nature, Titchener firmly believed introspection could be objective if individuals were formally trained in the practice. Introspection was a scientific form of observation in Titcheners eyes. According to Titchener, observation is considered scientific if it has three properties; 1) one can isolate the experience, 2) the experience can be varied, and 3) the experience can be repeated. Titchener believed that the senses were the key access points to the mind. One of his specific goals was to identify mental elements connected to each sense. After he identified each element, Titchener wanted to categorize the elements. The three mental elements that Titchener identified were: 1) affections, which were emotions, 2) images, which were ideas, memories, and thoughts, and 3) sensation, which related to perception. He believed that all sensations had four characteristics; 1) quality, which was the main descriptor, 2) intensity, which was the strength or amount, 3) clearness, which was how clearly the sensation could be identified, and 4) duration, which was the duration of the sensation. The mental elements could have more than these four characteristics, but all had these. The only mental element that did not have all four was affections because Titchener did not believe that emotions were distinct or easy to identify. Titchener had a unique view on the mind and body rel ationship. Titchener believed that the mind and body influence each other, but that they were two different views of the same experience. According to him, the mind and body were parallel and never physically interacted, but one could influence the other. Some historians classified Titchener as a psychophysical parallelist, but this was controversial. This may have been thought to be controversial because s true parallelist would never say that the mind and body could influence one another in any way. Another unique aspect to Titcheners opinion on the mind and body relationship was that he did not believe in commonsense interactionism. This was likely due to his empiricist nature that everything had to be objectively studied in a lab setting. Titchener influenced many aspects of psychology that are important today. The first area of psychology that Titchener was interested in was attention. He separated attention into two categories; primary and secondary. Primary attention was passive and involuntary. It was influenced by intense stimuli, and thought to be related to novel and sudden stimuli. According to Titchener, secondary attention was active and voluntary. This involved attention under situations in which one needs to actively concentrate when distractors are in the environment. Titchener felt that this was related to advanced stages of development, and that infants were not capable of secondary attention. Another area of psychology that Titchener was interested in was associations. Titchener wanted to analyze how the mental elements of human experience interact; therefore, understanding associations was important to him. Titchener appreciated how philosophers such as Aristotle, Hobbes, and Bain placed a large emphasis on association. Titchener proposed that all association can be broken down to the law of contiguity. He felt that every law of association involved contiguity. Titchener also believed that emotions do not play an important part in association. Titchener stated, feelings only play a role by virtue of their sensory and imaginal components, and not their affective character (Cite). Titchener thought highly of Ebbinghauss work with nonsense syllables in regard to understanding association, but he felt that Ebbinghaus was missing an important component, intrinsic meaning. Titchener believed that personal impressions and associative processes operate together, and they cannot be separated. Titchener understood that intrinsic processes in humans are impo rtant, and cannot be left out when studying association. A third area of psychology that Titchener studied was meaning. Titchener believed that meaning, from a psychological perspective, had everything to do with context. In his opinion, meaning was a combination of the laws of attention and the laws of the connection of sensations. Titchener believed that everything humans see and experience had a context and a background. He understood that when individuals process things, memories of their past experiences play a large role in how they interpret what they experience. Titchener felt that the context of a situation or object was the psychological equivalent of its actual meaning. Interestingly, he noted that humans frequently had difficulty in identifying their own contexts when doing introspection. Emotion was another area that Titchener was interested in studying. In the area of emotion, Titchener had a problem with the James-Lange theory, which states that humans experience emotions based on how the body behaves. For example, when we see a bear, we run, and then become afraid. There were a number of reasons why Titchener had a problem with this theory. First, he believed it was not a novel theory, in that Descarte and Spinoza discussed physical origins of emotions. Next, Titchener felt that there were specific flaws in this theory. He argued that physical changes in the body may look exactly the same for different emotions. For example, when somebody is crying, it could be tears of joy as opposed to tears of despair. In addition, Titchener felt that bodily sensations were too simple of an explanation for emotions, which are complicated and not easily defined. He wrote in detail about how difficult categorizing emotions was, and stated that most theorists that attempt to understand and classify emotions do it subjectively, and their theories a re not scientific. Toward the end of Titcheners career, he became frustrated with his inability to identify and quantify all of the mental processes in human experience. Instead of having three main elements (Images, sensation, and affections), he proposed that affect was simply a byproduct of sensations images and sensations. Specifically, Titchener believed that affect may have been a form of sensation on a spectrum from pleasant to unpleasant. In addition, he proposed that images may have been a type of sensation. Titchener separated himself from trying to identify and classify all mental processes, and grew to feel that human experience was more abstract and on a spectrum. Titcheners Structuralism eventually was overtaken by behaviorism for a number of reasons. It was hard to defend introspection as an objective, scientific method. It was thought that individuals may not accurately report what they feel and experience. Next, structuralism placed no weight on psychological development, personality, abnormal behavior, learning, individual differences, evolution, and practicality. Behaviorism focused on what could be observed, and the relationship between external events and behavior. This lead to a great understanding in learning, performance, and the origin of behaviors. Most importantly, the methods of behaviorism were practical, quantifiable, measurable, classifying them as credibly scientific. Behaviorists criticized Structuralists for focusing too much on the internal, which cannot be observed. Behaviorists the studied cause and effect of behavior focusing on external events in the environment. This was more practical and effective than methods such as introspection. While Titcheners structuralism was too rigid to survive, it paved an important path in the field of psychology for its future. He was the first to fight a fight that has gone on for years, making psychology classified as a true, empirically-based science. Titchener also touched on areas in psychology that are crucial in the field today such as attention, association, meaning, and emotion. While he was not never able to create a periodic table of the mental elements of experience, his empirically-based methods are used today in many areas of psychology.

How does Shelley present relationships between men and women? Essay

How does Shelley present relationships between men and women? Shelley present relationships between men and women in various ways but they all have an inter-linking message within them. This is that women are dependent on men in the majority of relationships. Shelley uses characters as examples of different relationships; for example Caroline and Alphonse’s relationship is a very loving one. All that Frankenstein says of his parents his good things, for example he says, â€Å"Active spirit of tenderness that animated both,† the majority of descriptions of their relationships is similar to this. Their relationship effectively creates a benchmark with which to compare all the other relationships with. None of the others is anywhere nears as perfect as theirs is described. In comparison to their relationship Walton’s relationship with his sister is significantly less passionate. Walton expresses his love for his sister occasionally, he says, â€Å"I love you very tenderly,† he is however not in touch with the emotional turmoil you would expect his sister to be going through. Emotionally Walton is naive; their relationship is long distance, and it is clearly obvious Walton has no experience in communicating his feelings. Their relationship is an unsure one. The main relationship between Victor and Elizabeth is of great contrast, especially between them. As the novel goes on it is apparent that Victor stands for evil, he is selfish, lets an innocent die and his self-piteous as well as ignorant. Elizabeth on the other hand stands for love, caring and is completely unselfish. They are two complete opposites, but they are supposedly in love. There is huge contrast between them, and their relationship is quite rocky... ...sonality. Again in the way that Shelley has presented the relationships between men and women, she has expressed her feminist opinion on how women are forced to give in to men. This is where the role of the monster comes in, it wants a female for companionship, a woman as an equal. The monster represents the relationship that feminists want; he doesn’t want to dominate a relationship, where the woman has to depend on the man. The way Shelley presents relationships seem very feministic, men are portrayed as selfish and ignorant, while women are portrayed essentially as the heroines, for example Justine. She dies with honor, while Victor is portrayed as self-centered. S well as feminist opinions being expressed, there is a general feeling that relationship will eventually fail and are often painful. Shelley uses relationships to express her opinions.

How to Achieve the American Dream :: Creative Writing Narrative Papers

How to Achieve the American Dream Right now, most of you reading this are twenty somethings with extremely bright futures ahead of you. Many of you were the stars of your high school, if not area, if not state, if not country. Then you got here and things changed. All of a sudden, everything was challenging. From the first moment you got here you were in competition with all the other freshmen for spots in a fraternity, sorority, independent living group, or dorm. You compared SAT scores, compared achievements, and found that they, like you, were amazingly accomplished. Many were National Merit Scholars, AP Scholars, Governor’s School participants, Math Olympiad winners, Science Fair winners, and Scholarship recipients. MIT is the premier science and engineering school in the country if not the world. Within it’s walls, minds have been coached and trained to excel in such diverse areas as film, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, math, physics, economics, management, chemistry, architecture, and aero-space engineering. In Hollywood we are portrayed as the end all be all. In the movie Independence Day the scientist who discovers the secrets of the aliens is an MIT Ph.D. Also an MIT PhD in Physics is portrayed as a scientist in the movie Armageddon. People travel from all parts of the world to walk through our hallways and to hear MIT professors give lectures and to watch students cross at 77 Massachusetts Avenue. So you start school and soon find that the work that is assigned for the most part is busy work. Going to bed at four or five am start to seem like reasonable bedtime hours. In addition to this, you can actually count how many hours you have slept in the last three days on your hands. Suddenly, you don’t see yourself as being lucky for being so privileged as to be attending MIT. Complaining about how much work you have, how little you slept last night, and how much this place â€Å"sucks† seems to pepper all the conversations that you have during the day. Not only that, but the administration knows what it does to students so they have three-day and four-day weekends to let the students let off a little steam. The administration calls these weekends â€Å"long weekends†, whereas the students call them as â€Å"Suicide Weekends† – They are held so that students don’t become over-stressed and commit suicide.

Essay on the Use of Third Person and Innocence of Language in Ake

Use of Third Person and Innocence of Language in Aké The Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka's memoir, Aké, is a story told through the eyes of a child. Many incidents and the dialogues within these incidents are written in a tone which is suggestive of the innocence and actions which would only be performed by someone in a child-like state of mind. Soyinka's masterful use of this tone, and the primary use of first person in story telling combine to form a realistic childhood picture. In the third chapter we find young Wole describing a sort of parade which is passing before the walls of his home compound. This point in time seems to be when Wole first discovers the world beyond his front door. This realization can be likened to the destruction of the geocentric theory in which man comes to the realization that he is not the center of the universe. We see this realization in this quote from page 37: "It became clear then that we in the parsonage were living in a separate town by ourselves, and that Aké was the rest of what I could see." Another example of childlike thinking can be found in the description of a tuba. In the parade there is a man walking with a tuba. Wole makes the association of the bell of the tuba and the bell part of a gramophone. Young Wole says, "Tinu and I had long rejected the story that the music which came from the gramophone was made by a special singing dog locked in the machine. We never saw it fed, so it would have long starved to death. I had not yet found the means of opening up the machine, so the mystery remained" (41). Here we find child-like reasoning at its finest. At the end of Wole's story of his exploration of the world outside of his familial com... ...wo places," (187-188) Wole, along with his comrades, expresses this belief in bad magic. Another example of child-like rationality can be seen in the quick belief in a conspiracy theory seen in this line from page 188: "...they had come to 'spoil the ground' for others!" Child-like actions are found in the notions of justice, also found on page 188, when the children become judge, jury, and executioner of their peers with the line "Someone proposed that we search their luggage...and was vociferously cheered." The writing of a memoir through the eyes of a child can produce a highly entertaining work, as proved by Wole Soyinka. Through the use of third person and the masterful use of the innocence and language of childhood, Soyinka has written a memoir that can make us remember what is was like to see the world through the eyes of a child. Essay on the Use of Third Person and Innocence of Language in Ake Use of Third Person and Innocence of Language in Aké The Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka's memoir, Aké, is a story told through the eyes of a child. Many incidents and the dialogues within these incidents are written in a tone which is suggestive of the innocence and actions which would only be performed by someone in a child-like state of mind. Soyinka's masterful use of this tone, and the primary use of first person in story telling combine to form a realistic childhood picture. In the third chapter we find young Wole describing a sort of parade which is passing before the walls of his home compound. This point in time seems to be when Wole first discovers the world beyond his front door. This realization can be likened to the destruction of the geocentric theory in which man comes to the realization that he is not the center of the universe. We see this realization in this quote from page 37: "It became clear then that we in the parsonage were living in a separate town by ourselves, and that Aké was the rest of what I could see." Another example of childlike thinking can be found in the description of a tuba. In the parade there is a man walking with a tuba. Wole makes the association of the bell of the tuba and the bell part of a gramophone. Young Wole says, "Tinu and I had long rejected the story that the music which came from the gramophone was made by a special singing dog locked in the machine. We never saw it fed, so it would have long starved to death. I had not yet found the means of opening up the machine, so the mystery remained" (41). Here we find child-like reasoning at its finest. At the end of Wole's story of his exploration of the world outside of his familial com... ...wo places," (187-188) Wole, along with his comrades, expresses this belief in bad magic. Another example of child-like rationality can be seen in the quick belief in a conspiracy theory seen in this line from page 188: "...they had come to 'spoil the ground' for others!" Child-like actions are found in the notions of justice, also found on page 188, when the children become judge, jury, and executioner of their peers with the line "Someone proposed that we search their luggage...and was vociferously cheered." The writing of a memoir through the eyes of a child can produce a highly entertaining work, as proved by Wole Soyinka. Through the use of third person and the masterful use of the innocence and language of childhood, Soyinka has written a memoir that can make us remember what is was like to see the world through the eyes of a child.

A Review of American History

The Spanish-American war started with the declaration of war on April 25, 1898 by the United States on Spain following several incidents.These two incidents that prompted US President Mckinley to ask Congress for a declaration of war was the sinking of the American Battleship Maine in Havana harbor with 260 people and the interception of a private letter written by Spanish Minister Dupuy De Lome in Washington describing Mckinley as a â€Å"weak man and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd† (Brinkley, 320).This stirred and fan the American public’s uproar against the Spanish’ brutal occupation of Cuba and many Americans initially supported the war initiative.Meanwhile, during this time in history, a lot of global stirrings were already prompting the other superpowers to â€Å"slice the global cake† with vulnerable continents and countries like Africa and the weak Chinese Empire. The US government has had its taste of â€Å"conquering† so called d ependent people – the American Indians. This experience and the expansionist moves of the other superpowers started the US expansionism tendencies which were further stoked by the so called â€Å"yellow press† or sensationalist journalism.Meanwhile, huge American businesses have also been expanding overseas – beyond American boundaries in search of sources of raw materials, cheap labor and market for its own products.Thus, when the two incidents (Maine and Dupuy’s letter) occurred almost simultaneously, the opportunity to intervene in Cuban affairs presented itself with the overwhelming support of the American public and added pressure from the American business community who has huge investments in Cuba. Soon, the war against Spain reached not only the shores of Cuba but also Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, Guam, and other islands like Hawaii and Alaska.While the sensationalism of the news from Cuba stirred the American Public’s support, it w as in the same manner – through the news wire that American public learned about the brutal annexation of the Philippine islands and the subjugation of its rebellion for freedom initially fought against its Spanish rulers, then later on, with its new colonizers – the US government.No less than the famous American author Mark Twain objected to the colonization of the Philippines knowing that like the Cuban rebels, there was an organized Filipino rebellion against Spain prior to the intrusion of the US government into the Philippine islands.   Mark twain openly pointed out the enormous contradictions between the US claim of â€Å"benevolent† foreign policy and its brutal occupation of the islands.When US involvement became progressively more difficult to justify, and eventually came to be defended on the grounds that the U.S. could not retire from it without suffering â€Å"dishonor† according to then President McKinley, Twain advocated the position that â€Å"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war† (Cushing, 1998).Meanwhile, the war in Cuba was referred to as â€Å"a splendid little war† by Secretary of State John Hay (Brinkley, 320). The war was over in as little as four months.   The actual battlefield casualties on the American’s side were 460 but about 5,200 died of diseases (Brinkley, 320). The joint forces of the Cuban rebels and the American Naval blockade already toppled whatever little resistance the Spanish forces mustered to put up.According to Brinkley’s chronology of events (321), the U.S. troops won four decisive battles within a week.   The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898.   What begun as a war to help the Cubans free themselves from Spain’s brutal government ended up as the US government practically wrangling control over Spain’s former colonies – Cuba, the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico in 1917.At this t ime, many Americans who first supported the efforts against Spain now swayed public opinion against the continuing US expansionism and brutal annexation of other countries.   The true colors and objectives of the US going to war â€Å"to help the Cuban rebels† swiftly shifted not long after the war was declared.

Enid Lee, Incorporating Antiracism Essay

In â€Å"Taking Multicultural, Antiracist Education Seriously,† Barbara Miner interviews Enid Lee, a â€Å"leader in antiracist education† as noted on her website, Enidlee. com. She pushes for the use of the term ‘antiracist’ because the tem currently in use, ‘multicultural’, is too nice, focusing more on food and fun rather than hard issues of racism. Although her interview is inspiring and very necessary, some facets of her presentation seem to swing to far to the militant side to garner widespread acceptance. First, Lee explains that in many schools, European posters, readings, games and activities dominate the landscape. While I believe this is true in some cases, I do not believe it to be true in all cases. Many, many classrooms in which I have learned, observed and taught have been filled with pictures of prominent white, black, Hispanic and Asian authors, researchers, and political leaders. Lee’s multistage approach to antiracist education is clear and organized and sequentially stepped so as not to seem overly forceful. However, her insistent on the use of ‘antiracist’ is a bit harsh in that it assumes that anything not adopted or previous to this new ideology is racist. That is a huge overgeneralization. It also separates people into groups – the antiracists and everyone else, who, by association, must be racist. I do not think that many public school systems, and certainly no private systems, will purchase curricular materials and send teachers and administrators to antiracist workshops because it implies the worst of these people and materials. Lee can simply not make that kind of generalization. She urges the changes to extend beyond the school. Racism is alive and well in the community, but her approach sends the wrong message: â€Å"We have an antiracist plan to change this racist community. That is the message that people will hear. A less forceful message is much preferable to Lee’s approach. Lee is convincing in her devotion to creating antiracist schools. She urges to push for administrative changes and curricular changes, which she admits are financially blockaded by under-funded school districts. She gives an unsubstantiated claim that multicultural, antiracist programs are the most under-funded, when the removal of arts programs in elementary schools has made the national media several times in the last few years. Finally, after admitting the sad lack of money for programs, she launches on her website, a national push for her own conference called â€Å"Putting Equity on the Table† that costs $1450 for two school officials to attend. This is a three day conference and the rate (which is the early bird rate) does not include the hotel fee at the Hampton Inn in downtown Boston. In addition, the recommended reading resource is entitled Education Children of African Ancestry in the United States of America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. If we are truly talking about an antiracist education, why does our primary conference resource only focus on one race? Nobody will fault Enid Lee and others like her for taking on the cause of equity in education. Clearly the past has shown that steps are necessary. However, Lee’s focus on only African-descended children, on an inflammatory name for her type of education (which, oddly, does not appear on her conference registration information), and on her need to charge exorbitant fees for her conference detract from her credibility and are likely to be off-putting for widespread educators.