Arson and youth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Arson and youth - Essay Example Towards the end I would like to point out some of the interventions related to the topic. Arson is a serious crime since it destroys property, kills and injures people and creates unrest in the neighborhoods. Arson is the leading cause of fire in the United States. Approximately 28% of all fires are attributed to arson (Arson in the United States, 1997). According to the statistics provided by the FBI youth arson cases account for almost half of all those who are arrested for arson. These statistics have remained the same for the ninth consecutive year (Focus Adolescent Services, 2000). In 2003 approximately 51% of those arrested for arson were youth under the age of 18. Approximately one third were under fifteen and three percent were under ten years of age. Several studies have been carried out to find out the relationship between youth and arson. It is quite common among children to show interest in playing with fire. For many children this interest in fire play leads them to the act of arson. This behavior can become a habit which makes it a criminal activity (Focus Adolescent Services, 2000). Approximately 60% of the inmates of California Correctional Facility reported arson activities in their youth. Often the age group was under ten years and the first targets were trash cans (Arson in the United States, 1997). Although most of the children do not start fire with malicious intention still the economic and human damage it causes is devastating. It has been estimated that the youth arson is responsible for 300 deaths and 2000 injuries annually and approximately $300 million property damage and approximately 400,000 incidents annually. Juveniles can be arrested for the act of arson. However several factors are considered before arresting a child for arson. These include the age of the child, his history in relation to fire setting and the intention behind fire setting. Although the

International Investments SLP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

International Investments SLP - Essay Example So after deliberating at the list of funds in Yahoo! Finance, I decided to spend approximately $95,000 for seven select funds which I deem will give me financial glory. The table below shows the name of the fund, its ticker, the number of shares I decided to buy, the recent share price and the total investment money needed. Table 1 lists my selected funds namely, VUG, QQEW, SPYG, RPX, EMT, VFINX, and SCHW which selected according to James Gardner’s core principle in investing – best growth stocks. In any type of investment, it is absolutely important to determine what kind of investor you are and of course what sort of investor do you aim to be. For this instance I can say that I am the type of investor who does not wish to trade each and every single day like a full time job. So long term growth is the best type of investment style that suits me. The ETFs VUG, QQEW, SPYG, and RPX are in the large growth category and I have allotted a considerable number of shares in them. VUG and SPYG have only 250 shares each because they have relatively higher share prices compared to the others. RPX and EMT have 400 shares each because they’re basically cheaper. I have allotted a solid 1000 shares in QQEW because of my big confidence in the NASDAQ-100 and in the even greater potential of the in ternational technology industry. The fifth on the list is EMT, which is a compendium of the â€Å"largest publicly-traded mining companies involved in industrial and precious metals exploration, extraction and production within the emerging world.† EMT plays a significant role in the mining industry, so I placed 400 shares to it. The two last items in my list are VFINX and SCHW. VFINX does not fail to be included at the top performing index fund; however it has an expensive share price so I just allocated 100 shares for it. SCHW is also one of the frequent top performers and it is relatively cheap so 350 shares were

Developing Reading Habits in Students

Developing Reading Habits in Students Nowadays, most students are less keen on developing their reading habits. Still, to be able to stand on the same ground as other leading countries, this habit should be instilled on the students. Many parties especially the government and teachers are concerned with the students declining reading habits. However, parents are unaware of this problem or choose to turn a blind eye towards it. Parents choose to leave this problem for teachers to handle. The government, teachers, parents and students have their own views on this matter and in this essay I will state and discuss their views so that I can decide for myself who is responsible on how Malaysia could enrich students reading habit. After approximately 11 years in formal education, majority of Malaysian students are able to read efficiently after finishing their secondary education. However, even equipped with literacy skills particularly reading skills, the reading habits of students are still at an unsatisfactory level. The Sunday Star newspaper (8th August, 1999:p2) reports that the poor reading habits among Malaysians was common knowledge but, in true Malaysian fashion, it took an official survey to jolt the education sector that something had to be done fast. There has been a debate on who is responsible for these students who are lacking in reading. Many parties are blaming parents on this matter as they lack the time to teach their children the basics of reading. They are prioritizing more on their career and making money rather than their childrens education. The government is very much concern on this matter. Based on the statistics issued by the National Statistics Department during the year 2002, Malaysian students only read two books a year. Studies in the past have shown that the exam-oriented educational system in Malaysia promotes routine learning and that there needs to be a standard shift in how we view education and about the way we teach (Chitravellu, 1997). The Education Minster, Datuk Najib Tun Razak, has frequently commented in the local media that most students read only to pass exams and do not read for pleasure. He has been instrumental in implementing many projects aimed at improving students reading ability in the country. Reading skills are important throughout our lifespan, particularly as we respond to new demands and changes in jobs and reading for pleasure or recreational has been found to improve reading comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling and grammatical development (Krashen, 1993). The positive an d rewarding effects of recreational reading have been demonstrated in numerous studies (Burgess, 1994; Krashen, 1984, 1993). In other words, it is important that Malaysia must aim to re-evaluate the present education system, not to reverse it or simply oscillate forward and backward within the same unchanging parameters, without ever conducting a critical evaluation of where, how, and why things went wrong. The government must therefore set up an educational re-evaluation or reform program or a national enquiry committee to look seriously into the Malaysian education and develop a set of realistic, practical, and forward-looking ideas for improving the national education system in accordance with the requirements and ideals of Vision 2020. However, the more immediate task is to prepare the future human resource of the nation with the ability and intellectual skills to adapt to the expansion of the Malaysian economy and its globalization. Parents are the most influential people in the life of a child; students normally model the behaviours and attitudes of their parents after constantly observing them since they were in diapers. Logically, if the parents have positive attitudes the child will mimic and model after them. It goes the same if the parents have negative attitudes and behaviours. If the parents themselves do not make reading as a daily activity, they should not expect their child to cultivate reading as a daily activity. In this context, parents should be good role models to the students by including reading as one of their daily activities (Clark, 2007). Other than that, parents should allocate a small percentage of their monthly earnings to purchase books and suitable reading materials for their children. They should also designate a small section in the house specifically for reading. This allows their children to always have a place to read. If the child is still an infant or a toddler, allocate some pe rsonal time with and read a story book together. By the time child is starting his or her formal education, he or she will associate reading with not only for exams but also for pleasure. Parents also can bring their child to the local library and allow them to read books which discuss the topics of their interest. If the child is fond of cars then allow him to read a book regarding the anatomy of a car. By doing so, the child is reading for pleasure and personal interest. This can translate into good academic performance and personal development in the future. Other than parents, the school which is the primary educational institution of the society also has a crucial role to play in improving students reading habits. The school library is one of the usual facilities found in a public school. However, it is not fully utilised by the students. Students will seldom go and read at the school library unless it is for some special reading programme which is conducted once or twice a week by the school. This may be due to the schools library lacking certain attractive factors. The school should allocate some money to ameliorate the facilities of the schools library. Computers should be provided to enable the students to utilise the internet for research and also to locate online reading materials. Air-conditioners should be installed and quality chairs as well as tables should be provided in order to create a conducive reading ambience. The books available should be of variety of genre and topics to capture the many interests of the students. Th e school engender book publishing companies such as McGraw-Hill and Dawama in order to purchase suitable reading materials for the library. The elected student librarians and the teacher-in-charge should make an effort to promote the books available in the library to the student body. Most of the time students have no interest to go to the school library due to the absence of awareness regarding the books available there which may attract their interest (Clark, 2010). Lastly, the only people that can improve the students reading habit are the students themselves. It is futile to assist the students in improving their reading habits if they themselves have no intention of doing so. The student should be aware that reading is one of the primary key to success in the modern world. In our information-saturated globe, knowledge is constantly being updated and upgraded wherein previous information would deem obsolete or impractical. Moreover, with the advent and evolution of the internet, information can be transmitted throughout the whole world in the blink of an eye. Therefore, it is imperative for students to make reading as a pleasurable and continuing habit if he or she wants to stay abreast with the world and have the competitive edge. Students should realise that they will have to read continuously even after finishing their formal education. The knowledge that the students studied when they were sitting for their exams may have undergone signifi cant changes in the next five or ten years. In order to keep abreast with current development, students must read relevant publications. If the students do not hone this habit, they will not have the initiative to constantly read not only to improve their career standing but also for personal development in order to become a better and useful citizen. There are many reasons for the deplorable reading habits of Malaysian students either due to parental, school-related or personal habits. Even so, they are innumerable numbers of ways to improve the current reading habits of students. This requires the amalgamation of the efforts of many authoritative bodies such as the school and the government. Readings is one of the most essential language abilities. I am not implying that the other language skills are of lower standard but much of the knowledge within the society is disseminated through writing. For me, personally, even after just finishing school I still allocate some time to read books concerning my area of interest such as linguistics and novels. I read such books not for passing an exam later on but for reading itself. In conclusion, even though students are still passing exams, their reading habit is not continuous. Reading for pleasure is a far cry for Malaysian students as they are more exams oriented. Both the government and teachers have valid arguments to argue. Parents are the first teachers to children. However, parents fail to nurture their children in this habit while they are young. Thus, resulting in the situation we are nowadays. In my opinion, based on the current reading habit of the Malaysian students, Malaysia has a long way to go before it can compete with a reading and successful society such as Japan.

Essay examples --

The mobility paradigm proposed by John Urry (2000) brought a significant shift into the way of researching in social sciences. According to BÃ ¼scher and Urry (2009: 100), this shift allows theorize the social from the perspective of economic, social and political practices, ideologies and infrastructures. These, as reported by authors (2009: 100), engage the mobility of people, things and information. However, this radical shift in theory goes hand in hand with an inevitable need of new methods to gather sociological knowledge. We can see this need on the example of cycling as a practice of mobility. As Spinney and Brown (2009: 132) stated, the dissatisfaction with such a small range of methods that could help to explain various aspects of cycling has been rising lately. Thus, how to research on this practice of mobility to gain as much sociological knowledge as possible? The answer might be hidden within developing methodologies of sociology with emphasis on visual and sensory app roach. In this essay I will demonstrate how might be cycling investigated with the assistance of new methods that include video. Firstly, the mobility paradigm will be briefly introduced and connected with the realm of cycling. Subsequently, I will show in which ways can be video used for researching. Ultimately, the most important part of this paper will be dedicated to practice shown on examples of two different but in many ways similar investigations. The mobility paradigm, turn from analysing society to analysing mobility, was pioneered by John Urry (2000) in his book Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. The author (2000, 2007) laid the foundations of mobility paradigm and proposed a shift from research on society to ... ...nvestigation. These are participatory video, videography and video elicitation. Accordingly, on an example of video use in sociological research practice we have demonstrated benefits and tried to find drawbacks of this methodology. When researching on cycling, we might encounter various obstacles. For instance, the terrain will not let the researcher to follow the participant and conduct uninterrupted interview in real time. By using of mobile video camera enables to experience and understand various practices (In our case cycling.) that would not be possible to approach and brings a new perspective into contemporary research. Moreover, use of representations allows researchers to produce knowledges that are hard to describe with language. Finally, we can clearly see from our evidence that video bridges the gap between the embodiment of practice and the language.

Parenting Styles

Authoritarian and permissive parenting styles differ in their own way, but at the end style is all the same. Some parents think that the style of parenting have a big effect on the way a child grows up. Authoritarian parenting style is based on extremely strict disciplinary rules, imposed on the children with minimum amount of freedom in when the parents stress their own choices or opinions. Permissive parenting style is accepting and affirmative of the child but makes few demands for responsibility or conduct. Despite the difference of the styles, parents still have the same goals. Parents still discipline; punish; share love, affection, and development; and guide their children. All parents have some structure of discipline. Most parents make rules and expect for the child to abide by them. Discipline is just a set of rule that parents set to help children learn appropriate behaviors and make good choices. To go along with discipline parents also organization a punishment to match every rule that the child disobeys. Parents punish their children to teach them lessons. While permissive parents may talk to or take something away from the child to punish them, the authoritarian parent may yell or shout at the child and give a harsh punishment. The child will still learn right from wrong with the punishment. All children want parents to love them, show them affection, and help them develop. Parents seek it as their requirement to make sure that their children are loved and cared for at all times. Some may show their love and affection in different ways but it all always there. The need for helping the child develop into a productive individual plays an important role in parenting. Affection and love makes the child happy, making the child feel comfortable to be around their parents. Authoritarian parents may not show the child any affection, while permissive parents show affection all the time. Whether the child knows the affection is there or not it is still there. Finally, all children seek guidance from there parents. Guidance is advice or counseling that lead someone to a particular direction. Not all parents give correct guidance, but the child is guided off their parents actions and behavior. Atuhoritarian parents give their children guidance in a fussy type of manner, while permissive parents care calm and walk their children through the guidance steps. Most of the time authoritarian parents see that their children seek guidance from othere perople that they feel loved from. Parents all give their children the same type of treatment its all in a different manner. Regardless of the manner of the same goals are reached. Parents still discipline; punish; share love, affection, and development; and guide their children. Some may have harsh or pleasant discipline rulles to follow, with either harsh or pleasant punishmnets as consequiences. Permissive and authoritarian parenting styles are similar in many ways.

Nuclear Forces, Policies, and Weapons

The Federation of American Scientists has created the â€Å"Nuclear Forces† website, which contains interesting information on nuclear topics. Probably, the aim of creating such website was in making people aware of nuclear policies and nuclear threats in the world. Accessing the website means accessing the information and links to nuclear guides of several countries (Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, etc.). It is crucial to pay attention to the website sources and resources, when its content is analyzed. The website provides the links to the two summary tables – nuclear weapons capabilities and special weapons capabilities. Objectively, it is rather difficult and problematic for the non-specialist to analyze the table of nuclear weapons capabilities. These difficulties are connected with the complex structure of the table. Simultaneously, the summary of the special weapons capabilities provides comprehensive information about the countries, which possess and can utilize the weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological, etc.). The table seems to lack any relevant or peer reviewed references, this is why it can hardly be used as the source of professional research. The website also provides the links to the Nuclear Notebook (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Nuclear Facts and Figures, etc. The information found on this website can become a starting point of any research in the area of nuclear forces, policies, or weapons. Its data can become a valuable source of information, but professional researchers should approach it very critically. This does not mean that the information is misleading. One may recommend including peer-reviewed publications into the website content. This will add professionalism to the website in general. Information on the website is organized so that it should be easily accessed and read. However, some links are outdated and require being either updated or deleted at all. In the world where nuclear technologies are updated daily, the content of such websites also requires regular reviews. Otherwise, this information will lose its relevance and utility. References Federation of American Scientists. Nuclear forces guide. Retrieved 07 January 2008 from http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/                                                      

Childhood Reveled essays

Childhood Reveled essays Childhood Revealed takes us into the hearts and minds of children who live with a specific challenge in their cognitive, psychological, or physical aspect of their life. For these children, drawing, and writing about their drawings, are ways of finding solutions or communicating with anyone that will listen. Remarkably, their resilient natures lead them to correct what is wrong, fix what is broken, and heal what is scarred. Their desire to triumph, their instinct to dream is their most telling, most disarming quality. As an abused girl of eleven writes of her drawing: This picture is bright and shows that I feel happier and am progressing. The flower with the brown middle shows that I still feel angry. I have courage inside and know that I can do much better in life. Children shouldnt feel that it is always their fault. It is estimated that 12 percent of American children endure mental health problem, yet less than one-fifth receive treatment. Childhood revealed has been created by the New York University Child Study Center, which is dedicated to advancing research and clinical care for children. For this book, The Center invited child and adolescent clinicians and teachers nationwide to submit artwork made by children from ages four to eighteen. A select jury of scholars, artists, and educators made the final selection of more than one hundred artworks of the New York University Child Study Center to bring awareness and understanding to the issues of child and adolescent mental health including: depression, eating and anxiety disorders, psychosis, ADHD, autism, abuse, and divorce. Depression is a rare disorder for children under the age of twelve, affecting only 1 to 2 percent of children five to eleven years of age. By the time children hit puberty, an estimated 8 percent of young people twelve to eighteen (nearly twice as many girls as boys) suffer from major depression disorder. Depression in ch...