National Honors Society Essay Essay Example for Free

National Honors Society Essay Essay If I had the power to change three things in my school or community, I would obligate all high school students to take a culture and religion class to educate students about people’s various beliefs and customs. Secondly, I would encourage students to take higher level academic classes instead of just the basics. We would send students into freshmen classrooms to and inform them about the benefits of taking some of the tougher classes. At the the same time we are trying to erase some of the misconceptions about the upper level math and science courses. Finally, I would encourage hosting more community activities. Living in the age of globalization, it is crucial for schools to offer a class that teaches global culture, including as well as the beliefs of various ethnic and religious groups. Offering such a class would be a crucial improvement in our school. We all are aware of the importance of obtaining a good education and the highest degrees in the latest and best technologies. In preparation for that we take the hardest classes in school and try to get into the most illustrious college and learn, but, alas, we forget the most important aspect of life: ______. We always forget that what is even more important than understanding the world in which we live in and how it functions and its sciences, is understanding each other and how we as individuals functions based on our beliefs and culture. In the real word, disagreement arises from the inability to understand someone else’s approach to something, especially if they come from a different background than you. On a bigger scale, disputes between countries due to our lack of understanding of others and their customs can often lead to war. So much unnecessary conflict arises from our ignorance and lack of education we receive from school. Therefore, making such a class mandatory for all students would also indubitably trigger healthy relationships throughout the student body, instead of the stereotypical malice that currently flows around. Secondly, I would encourage the student body to take more challenging courses. In high school, we all think about having fun and making the most of these four years, especially during our senior year. Nonetheless, we fail to realize how valuable our time is in high school. How we spend this time determines what colleges we get entry to, what scholarships you receive, but also our future career. Students often surmise that the higher level math and sciences courses are only for  Ã¢â‚¬Å"nerds† and fail to realize the benefits, including how much money it will save them in college. Therefore, I would like to create a program where students who have taken theses higher level courses go around the school during the two-week period when everyone is choosing courses for the next year and discuss the benefits of taking classes such as AP Calculus, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics. Furthermore, this would also clear up some of the appalling misconceptions created about some of these classes. For instance, during a personal encounter I had with a student who I was helping with math homework, she asked what math class I was in. To which I replied, â€Å"I am taking AP Calculus†. She immediately replied with comments such as, â€Å"Why bother, it’s a waste of time. No one ever use Calculus in the real world except if you’re a rocket scientist.† Obviously, she made an illegitimate claim. I had to explain to her that, in fact, the type of math most applied in any career is calculus, as it helps solve 80% of real-world problems and much more applicable than algebra or trigonometry. Reasons and encounters as such is what motivates me to create such programs so students can benefit from them and make the most out of high school. Finally, I would encourage hosting more community activities. We already have a town square where we celebrate the first Friday of every month with a small carnival. But with our small community size and our extremely diverse population, we could host annual picnics where people bring traditional dishes, stage a mixture of cultural performances, and, overall, just have a good time with each other. This kind of exposure is very beneficial for everyone, especially employees and their colleagues. Not knowing about your colleagues and their entertainment and food preferences could create unnecessary problems. One might accidently comment or reference something that is offensive to their co workers creating a spark that could potentially ignite a fire. There are many changes that can be brought to the community and school that would be very beneficial. But if I had the power to change three things in my school or community, I would obligate all high school students to take a culture and r eligion class, encourage students to take higher level academic classes instead of just the basics, and I would encourage hosting more community activities.

Economics Q & A :: Economics

1) The current recession is the longest since the Great Depression in the 1930's. We are still far from a recovery with unemployment at about 9.7% and weekly new jobless claims at 442,000+. In your view, are we about to grow out of the recession or will it continue? In addition to the unemployment data, support your positions with such economic indicators as: new housing starts, used home sales, GDP growth, etc. The current recession or financial crises began in United States of America and created a domino effect of creating instability in the financial markets the world over; the spark of this recession ignited fire around December 2007. Our current financial crisis is also known as sub-prime mortgage crisis and it occurred because of reckless practices of giving out loans, without backing them with security or collateral. Obviously this credit bubble that had been blown by investment and commercial banks primarily popped when loans started going bad and risky borrowings got exposed. The fall of Lehman Brothers was a major blow as it created a situation of panic. This was also accompanied by a fall in house and share prices. If we look at the latest statistics regarding the overall condition of the economy, there are evident indications of recovery. According to an economic report published in Market Watch (www.marketwatch.com), the US economy has grown at the rate of 5.6% during the last 3 months of 2009. According to the report, during the past year US real GDP had grown by 0.1%. It is said that the increase in this GDP figure should be associated with changes in inventories and not by final sales; in addition, on average the before tax profits have risen by 8% and a modest rise in consumer spending. A rise in business profit also indicates a probable rise in investments and increase in employment in future. Martin Feldstein, the former president and founder of the National Bureau of Economic Research, has predicted that the recession will end in the year 2010. Now coming to some facts, we all know that a rise in spending shows an increase in aggregate demand in an economy signified by a high GDP, this marks the end of recession. The following graph shows the year to year change in new car registration in UK. The graph clearly shows the fall in the % change in registrations in 2008 of around 25% to 35%, especially towards its end.

Abortion in Ancient Times

Procedure of abortion is known since ancient times. The word abortion is came the Latin abortus where â€Å"ab† means â€Å"amiss† and â€Å"oriri† means â€Å"likely to be born, arise†. Along with infanticide it has existed in many societies, both primitive and advanced. The earliest records of an abortive technique go back about 4,600 years to an ancient Chinese work, purportedly the work of Emperor Shen Nung which prescribes the use of mercury to induce an abortion. In ancient ages pessaries or vaginal suppositories were used as an abortifacients.They are generally more effective than oral drugs and included substances such as juice of the wild fig, a â€Å"dairy liquid† ,which caused irritation, soapwort, myrrh, myrtle, lupine, cedar-oil mixed with water, wine, or hot oil. Ancient doctors also suggested smearing on the uterine opening goose fat, mashed leek and celery, rose oils, pine resin, copper scum, boiled honey, sodium carbonate, and even mouse dung. The Egyptian Kahun Papyrus, which dates to 1850 B. C. , recommend crocodile feces either for preventing conception or as an abortifacient.The Ebers Papyrus, which dates to 1550 B. C. , contains several recipes that â€Å"cause a woman to stop pregnancy in the first, second, or third period. † One recipe for a vaginal suppository includes mixed the unripe fruit of Acacia, colocynth, dates, and 6/7 pints of honey and pouring the mixture onto a moistened plant fiber. Modern Arabic women still take colocynth as an abortifacient, though one woman who took 120 grains in a powder died 50 hours later. In Arabic medicine, elephant feces were frequently recommended.Aristotle suggests that the conceptus had a â€Å"soul† after 40 days from conception if a male and 90 if female. In addition there are similar differentiations in the Bible. Later, Aristotle says that the fetus develops gradually and that it is impossible to make a fine judgment. Famous doctors such as Pl iny the Elder, Dioscorides, and Pseudo-Galen mention more â€Å"superstitious† abortifacients, like passage over the root of a cyclamen, the egg of a crow, a snake, or a stone which was bitten by a dog. Ancient physicians also used pessaries, or vaginal suppositories, as abortifacients.They were usually more potent than oral drugs and included substances like the juice of the wild fig, a â€Å"milky liquid† which caused irritation, soapwort, myrrh, myrtle, lupine, cedar-oil mixed with water, wine, or hot oil. Physicians also recommend smearing on the uterine opening goose fat, mashed leek and celery, rose oils, pine resin, copper scum, boiled honey, sodium carbonate, and even mouse dung. In the Middle Ages, abortion was tolerated because there were no laws against it. There were a variety of abortifacients, such as mixture called â€Å"cup of roots† and another known as a â€Å"A Cure for All Kinds of Stomach Aches. However after long time, therapeutic abortion is one of the most controversial subjects in modern society, is evident capable of generating intense passions, that lead to a great number of other social issues. In recent decades, on a global scalethere is increasing pressure for changes in abortion which could lead to a various consequences. A great number of people have the view that abortion is a matter merely between a woman and her attending physician. There is another opinion that ultimately abortion should be granted on request.According to the statistics of UN’s Department of Economic and social Affairs of 2007 year, about 97% of countries around the world allow abortion in the event of an emergency, when women’s life is in explicit threat. There are only 5 countries where abortion is prohibited. These countries are Chile, El Salvador, the Holy See, Malta and Nicaragua. The most strict abortion laws are adopted in developing countries. For example, there are 19% of developing countries that authorize aborti on on account of social and economic issues, 15% that allow it on request.In contrast, there are 78% of developed countries that let abortion for economic and social issues, 67% of them permit it on request. In the vast majority of countries, to have an abortion woman has to pass additional procedural requirements. It could be agreement of parents, the husband or third-party authorization, consultations, waiting period, categories of health providers permitted to perform abortions. However, it is essential to notice that this statistic is not absolutely clear, because not all countries give full information about abortion rate.

Critique Tribal Wisdom Essay - 855 Words

Tribal Wisdom nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;David Maybury Lewis (1992) wonders if we, as Americans, by having systematically chosen to dismiss as odd, weird, and not the right way to live; in our views of foreign tribal cultures, have been hoisted by our own petard. By using his definition of a tribal society (for which there really is no one single way of life): quot;small-scale, pre-industrial societies that live in comparative isolation and manage their affairs without central authority such as the statequot;, (p 6) he questions whether cultural roads industrialized quot;modernquot; societies have chosen have caused the serious social problems we suffer today. We are the modernists, defined by†¦show more content†¦Or if he did, he questioned the ultimate good of those positives or potential hazards. Medical advances, for example, were never mentioned as a positive that could only have come about through modern culture and its credo of achievement. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;I agreed completely, as I mentioned, with his stated ideas. His studies of tribal societies can be broken down to one basic. In modern civilizations, materialism and individuality are the valuables and in the tribal or traditional societies, people are the resources. Peoples relationships with one another and the Earth are the constant he found in primitive groups. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;He found the modern world to idealize individuality, from formal schooling to cultural experience, preaching the idea that personal achievement at any cost is the basis of life and the reward is status. Any human potential toward kindness, generosity, patience, tolerance, cooperation, compassion...are literally undervalued: any job that requires such talents usually has low pay and low prestige.quot; (p. 7). This seems so honest a comparison to me as I study the strong cooperative lifestyles of people who must live as a group in order to survive. These same people have also developed a strong bond with the land that is their economic resource. They have a respect for that which comes from the Earth by means of foraging or hunting. The tribal culture almostShow MoreRelatedPlato s Views On Art And Representation1322 Words   |  6 Pages focusing on the harm caused by writing compared to speech. In Phaedrus, Plato claims that writings are subject to be misunde rstood as the writer will not be able to defend his writing, and these writings only give the appearance of wisdom but is not actually wisdom, because one will not understand what the text means. These texts would be source of amusement rather than knowledge, as only philosophers pursue idea whereas writers just twist up and rearrange words. 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