Reaction to Transcendentalism Essay Example for Free

Reaction to Transcendentalism Essay After reading the Transcendentalist works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, I was surprised at my reaction to them. From what I had originally heard, the Transcendentalist works were boring essays. However, after reading them, I discovered that I can relate to many things that Emerson and Thoreau discuss in their papers. Though I liked Emerson more than I liked Thoreau, both of them impressed me with their ability to take such a strong stand on issues that most people can identify with. One Transcendentalist piece that we read was Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This excerpt describes Emersons views on nature and how it affects man. He says that in nature, man becomes like a child and is able to enjoy a perfect exhilaration. When he experiences the calm and peacefulness of nature, Emerson feels as though he has returned to reason and faith and has found his true self. He then goes on to describe how he becomes a transparent eyeball, seeing all but not being seen himself; it is as if he is invisible. After reading this, I was a little confused by his language and strange metaphors. But then I realized that Emerson is right. When we take a hike, or go for a walk, we are experiencing nature the way are meant to experience it. We can go back to our roots and find the perfect way to fit in with our surroundings, to harmonize with the world around us. This excerpt made me think of the peace and calm of a perfectly harmonized world. Another piece we read was Self-Reliance, also by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I also enjoyed reading this piece because it discusses a humans urge to be himself, even when society and civilization try to stop us. He says that without trying no one ever knows what he is truly capable of. If we let the influence of others affect us, we can never really experience our lives the way we were created to. We are also sometimes afraid to express our whole selves, and we are ashamed of that divine idea with each of us represents. I can relate to this quote directly, because I am sometimes ashamed of things in my life that I should be proud of. Emerson brings up conformity and societys constant pressure to fit the mold, but then he says that if we want to be true men (or women), we must be nonconformists. We cannot allow someone to tell us how to act, and we cannot be afraid to be misunderstood, for many people who are famous today were misunderstood during their lives. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this excerpt, because it touched on topics that I seem to experience in my own life and let me know that others have the same problems finding strength in themselves as I do. The next piece to discuss is Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. In this essay, Thoreau lashes out against the American government in response to the Mexican War, which is being fought at that time. He discusses the corruption that the government can undergo, and how it is in fact hindering the people instead of helping them achieve their goals. He asks for a better government which will work for the benefit of the people rather than its own benefit. Thoreau also claims that, in the future, a government may not even be necessary at all, for the people are strong enough to run themselves. I agree with certain parts of Thoreaus ideas, but not all of them. My initial reaction to Civil Disobedience was one of anger for Thoreaus traitorous remarks. However, I have to admit that governments are at many times corrupt and work for themselves rather than for the people. The Transcendentalist authors wrote about their views on life, government, and human nature. After reading some of their work, I am amazed that I could actually relate to some of the ideas they discussed, especially Ralph Waldo Emersons. Although some of the language is hard to understand and the descriptions take some time to comprehend, the essays opened me up to a world where people wrote down exactly how they felt and wanted to use those feelings to make a difference. The Transcendentalists impressed me, which is something I never would have expected.

The No Child Left Behind act of 2001 Essays -- Education, Bush Adminis

The No Child Left Behind act of 2001 Control of the public education system has been left to the State for most of the country’s history, it was not until the 1950’s that the federal government played a role in categorical programs, but the national government refrained from involvement in academics until the 90’s. Three days after taking up his position in office, George Bush announced his plan for the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB) which was a consolidated reform of the 1962 Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA (McGuinn, p. 1). ESEA focused on providing resources for the underprivileged students, whereas the NCLB act focuses on all students in public schools. On January 8, 2002, the No Child Left Behind act was enacted. The law enlarged federal education spending, required states to design and administer proficiency test to all students grades three and up, demanded that States put qualified teachers in every class room, and promised to hold all States accountable for the performance of their public schools (McGuinn, p. 1). The act itself is what was felt to be a solution for the failure of properly educating America’s children. How the act is put in to action, and if it serves its purpose, has depended on the States requirements and statistics. Public education was slowly decreasing in quality, consequently, failing America’s children, and a solution was needed. According to author, and Chair of the K-12 Education Task Force, Chester Finn Jr. â€Å"No Child Left Behind arose from the premise that America's public schools weren't doing well enough and states ought not to be left to their own devices to improve them. So Uncle Sam created a new web of requirements, incentives, and sanctions aimed at boosting school perfo... ...m birth through graduation and beyond† (Carter, 2010). The No Child Left Behind act was created to better public schools and it did. Like most laws, though, an update is necessary to keep up with the times and serve its purpose of aiding the American people. Government programs have a reputation of failing because of the lack of funding, but when the people come together for something as important as education, failure is not an option. America’s future relies on the children of today, so education should remain a priority of this countries government. There will never be an all pleasing solution; the need to complain will exist no matter what is done, but this does not mean the government should step away. The law was a backbone created to support the States and aid in academic success, therefore the law does not need to be negated, just reformed and improved.

Psychology Revision Notes Essay

Participants were divided into four groups which were acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar. Participants were presented with the list a total of 4 times and each time was interrupted to try to prevent rehearsing. They were then presented with a 20-minute interval task and afterwards were asked to recall their list. Semantically dissimilar words were recalled the most telling us that encoding in LTM is semantic. Summary of study on capacity of STM and LTM  Summary of study on duration of STM  Peterson & Peterson-  Showed PPs a list of nonsense trigrams and asked them to count back from 400 in 3 second intervals for a duration ranging from 3 to 18 seconds. Found that duration of STM was 18-30 seconds maximum.  Summary of study on duration of LTM  Bahrick-  400 participants aged between 17 and 74 were tested using different methods including free-recall tests, photo-recognition test, name recognition tests and photo-name matching test. PPs performed less well on free recall tests (30% after 48 years) but were much better in the photo-name test (90% after 60 years). Models of memory  Description of the multi-store model of memory, plus evaluation inc. research  Atkinson & Shiffrin-  Multi-Store Model which consists of three parts – sensory, short term and long term stores. Rehearsal is required in order for information to move across stores and retrieval is needed to access the information. If information is not rehearsed it will decay.  Description of the working memory model, plus evaluation inc. research Baddeley & Hitch-  Working Memory Model which consists of three parts – central executive, phonological loop (store and articulatory control system) and the central executive. Memory in the real world  Knowledge of what Eye Witness Testimony (EWT) is-  The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime. The accuracy of eyewitness recall may be affected during initial encoding, subsequent storage and eventual retrieval.  Loftus & Palmer’s (1974) study on EWT-  Reconstruction of an Automobile Disaster. 9 student PPs per 5 conditions (bumped, contacted, hit, smashed and collided). All watched a video then asked to estimate speed. Smashed the highest (40.8mph) and contacted the lowest (31.8mph). PPs in second part of experiment then asked a leading question about broken glass. 16/50 of the smashed condition PPs said yes in comparison to 7/50 in the hit condition. Knowledge of the factors which affect the accuracy of EWT  anxiety-  Christianson and Hubinette (1993)  Anxiety and EWT – real incidents involving high levels of stress lead to more accurate, detailed and long lasting memories.  Deffenbucher (2004)  Carried out a meta-analysis of 18 studies, looking at the effects if heightened anxiety on accuracy of EWR. It was clear that there was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impacted on the accuracy of EWM. Age-  Parker and Carranza (1989)  Compared the ability of primary school children and college students to correctly identify a target individual following a slide sequence of a mock crime. In the photo identification task, child witnesses has higher rate of choosing ‘somebody’ than adults witnesses, although they were also more likely to make errors of identification than college students.  Weapon focus effect-  Loftus(1987)  In violent crimes, arousal may focus attention on central details e.g. a weapon. Loftus et al identified weapons focus effect. 2 conditions, one involving weapon the other not. Condition 1 (less violent) people was 49% accurate in identifying man. Condition 2 (more violent) people were 33% accurate. Suggests weapon may have distracted them.

Modern Children Behavior Essay

Do Children Get Worse Than They Were in the Ages Past? It is natural tendency for human beings to place the unreachable Eden somewhere in the vague past, when everything had been better: trees greener, sky bluer, people more kind, food tastier, and children politer than they are now. This can be understood in two ways: either the situation in this world really slowly, yet distinctly, deteriorates with every passing year, or it is just the usual longing for the past. And, however alluring the first variant may be for pessimists, it hardly can be so. If we believe in it, we should believe that the happiest people who have ever lived were the cavemen several tens of thousands years ago, who enjoyed all the benefits of the greenest trees, bluest sky, tastiest food and the most polite children in history. Yet, as far as we can know, it was hardly so. Children represent a kind of subspecies of human race; it is hard for a grown-up to understand them and interact with them – and vice versa, at least partially. To say that children grow worse with every generation is to forget what you were when you were a child and what your peers were like. I daresay that for an average grown-up a child is always something highly disagreeable and uncomfortable to deal with, whatever he or she says. Placing ideal children in the past is just a kind of defense reflex of our psyche. And, of course, the upbringing is important. If you compare modern-day businessman, educated in the best schools, with the child of an aristocrat of one hundred years ago, you will find no more differences than between the street urchins of the same two periods of time. Children have always been the same and will stay this way.